Twilight Temple Mod/GM Abuse Update?

orinj

Hi, everyone.

I don't normally involve myself in these types of situations, but after seeing the number of tickets and comments regarding aforesaid situation, I felt it was worth investigating.

I owe a debt of gratitude to PWE's Internal Affairs team, who objectively researched the issue and brought the facts to me.
Here is my interpretation and perspective on what happened.

Guild A and Guild B were involved in a dispute.
Members of Guild B complained that they were being harassed by members of Guild A.
A GM was sent to investigate the claim and took action to resolve the issue.
Within a short period of time, Guild B lodged a second complaint.
The same GM was sent to resolve the matter and they did.
The cycle repeated enough times until the "solution" took the form of a suspension.

Let's talk about the key points above.

Harassment
This is a tricky one. There is binary harassment - either it is or it isn't - defined by any average person's standards.
Then there is subjective harassment, which can either be defined by a law or by personal interpretation.

Here is how I see it:
If Player A has the ability to impede Player B's ability to use or participate in any game feature, I define that as harassment.
If our games had solid collision, and you standing in front of a door prevented other people from getting in/out, I would define that as harassment.
Training a boss mob to a zone outside its natural habitat, thus affecting people's ability to farm or complete quests, this I define as harassment.

Things that do not impede a player's ability to engage in the game's systems and features, while incredibly annoying and/or aggravating, I do not perceive as being harassment.

Is there a line though? Certainly.

When that annoyance/aggravation, though not an impediment, has the ability to truly adversely affect several users' ability to enjoy the game, it might be perceived as harassment.
It is not a numbers game. The number of affected users does play a factor, but it does not define the perception.

An Officer's Job
If a police officer shows up for a domestic disturbance call, he would assess the situation and see if any laws were broken, and then act accordingly.
If no laws were being broken, he might give the parties involved a warning, asking them not to engage in such behavior again - not because it's against the law, and not necessarily because it is aggravating another user - but because it is causing a disturbance, and ultimately taking the officer away from attending to serious crime.

Let me clearly state that I am not trivializing the situation at hand. I am just using this framework as an example.

If the officer informs the "harassing" user - I put "harass" in quotes, as it might not be real harassment - to cease from escalating the situation, it would be in the user's best interest to comply; not because the officer is superior to them in any manner or holds dominion over them, but because it is causing a disturbance that he must investigate, which ultimately pulls him away from serious crime.
If that same officer were to be called to that situation again and saw the "harassing" user committing the same actions, the officer might put that person in a holding cell just so he doesn't have to deal with the same sequence again.

If we continue with this example, it should be noted that the "harassing" user was taken in NOT for violating laws, but failing to comply with the officer's request.

And I think that word is of extreme importance: request.

If no laws are being violated, officers of the law should be requesting cooperation from the individuals vs. forcing them to comply.
No one likes to be forced. We all know that.
However, if the user(s) refuses to cooperate despite the officer's request and the reasons for that aforesaid request, they should be aware that the officer might act according to his interpretation of what is best for the situation.

Communication, Consideration, Empathy, Emotionally-charged Actions
I think communication is crucial.
In reviewing the sequences of events, I feel that communication was sorely lacking. Same goes for consideration and empathy.
I ask that as netizens occupying shared pixels, that we do our best to enjoy our time in this virtual, perfect world (okay, so it isn't perfect, lol) together.
Regardless of virtual space - the passions, connections, and experiences that we share with our fellow netizens are real.
Why waste it in agony and anguish? Time only flows one way through the hourglass. Make every grain count.

Actions by Staff Members
I will stop short of saying that the actions committed by staff members, both volunteer and non, were examples of abuse, misconduct, and favoritism.
Excessive for the situation? Yes.
Could it have been handled better? Certainly, most certainly.

At the same time, I hold no affiliation to the affected guild nor was I the summoned GM to handle the task, so I am emotionally detached to the sequence of events.
If I was emotionally invested - who knows - perhaps it would be my actions that are being brought to question.
Nonetheless, officers of the law, and others wielding deputy badges, should do their best to keep their emotions separate when handling such affairs.

For now, these public servants have been placed on - let's call it, for lack of a better term - "probation".
They will be given coaching so that if any similar events arise in the future, they will handle it more amicably.

A title and badge mean nothing when you cannot properly serve the people.

Perhaps this is not the reply you wanted, but this is all that I have to provide. I feel the discussion has now been exhausted.
Continue to raise your concerns, tactfully (please, lol), and when necessary.

I thank you for your continued time and patience.

Orinj

orinj

I was gonna post the reply as a separate, locked sticky, but I'm not really a forum guy and dunno how to do it, so I'm just gonna ask Dom to do it tomorrow, lol. G'night y'all.

daymond

I think that is a decent reply @orinj
Thank you.

I appreciate your effort here,
and I hope more than anything this is not where that effort ceases.

I have received better customer service in the 1 week of your presence than I have in the last 2 years combined.
The community really just wants to be heard and shown that our staff cares.

Even if there is bad news, it is better than no news.
We want to be kept in the loop, know what is going on, and we want to have confidence that problems are being resolved.

Often our community manager is unresponsive to questions or lets us know that he/she doesn't have the answer but is "looking into it". I can't tell you how many things we're still waiting for someone to look into.

Please, give @domino418 a little more of your time each week so he can do his job. ​​

fyresong

I don't normally post on the forums, I prefer to spend my time in game, however I would like to thank the PWE employees from the CS Desk on up for their efforts in addressing this. I know wading through the data logs took a lot of time and effort, and I hope nothing like this comes up again.

Thank you again for your time and effort, and know that it is appreciated.

darky26

Thank you orinj and the PWE's Internal Affairs team, for your time, for the replies and for informing us!

dagoddominator

Thank you @orinj and @thenamesdomino for taking the time and effort to address us publicly on this and i believe this was the most tactful interaction i have ever witnessed in regards to this game. that is worthy of respect. I think you explained the matter as well as one could reasonably ask for and I think that explanation also explained a reasonable resolution to this matter.

hopefully things like this dont happen again but at least we have some precedence to work off of in terms of what to expect and if you dont realize it your presence here completely alters our perceptions of the company and its efforts, not having to deal with a virtual stonewall in terms of customer service.

while i dont expect you to be trolling the forums, because that is not your job, i would encourage you to do a bit more brainstorming here (or through domino, i dont mean to minimize his role in all of this because like all CMs he is the dedicated "whipping boy" of the community) for ideas and stuff. the discussion about a dedicated pvp server was interesting and there is not much else for us to talk about.

shout out to @arspaulina#4310 as well for the pro mod'ing, please give her a tiger smiley cookie!

jadasia

Thank you. I believe that's what we all needed to know and really nothing more needs to be said. Time to move on........

npc15

@orinj any chance you could send me a message? Not about this issue but need to talk to you about something else​​

blazerboy

Im indifferent not my server

Unknown

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foley3k

orinj wrote: »

Lots of words

Isnt that what the block function is for?
Switch to PvE mode if they are being killed all the time?
If luring a boss somewhere, ok, get people to kill it. It wont spawn for a period of time (time differs from world boss which is easy to kill with a squad(s), and what I call quest bosses, which you should be able to solo at this point in the game), more than enough for people to farm or complete a quest, no?


This is why PWE needs only 2 servers. PvE and PvP. Keep the SJW, safe space cry babies on the PvE server, and all the cool kids that smoke cigarettes on the PvP server.

joecisco

superfedee wrote: »

can any mod unjail me... sylen got emo and put this stupid restrictions ._. @arspaulina#4310

From what I've seen of your posts, I seriously doubt it was because "he got emo". I'm sure it was very justly earned.
I got jailed once. It's only temporary. Two weeks I think.​​

darky26

foley3k wrote: »

This is why PWE needs only 2 servers. PvE and PvP. Keep the SJW, safe space cry babies on the PvE server, and all the cool kids that smoke cigarettes on the PvP server.

Promoting smoking cigarettes as this is the way to be "cool" it's not cool. Not to mention false.
This coming from a smoker btw.

heerohex#3018

foley3k wrote: »

orinj wrote: »

Lots of words

This is why PWE needs only 2 servers. PvE and PvP. Keep the SJW, safe space cry babies on the PvE server, and all the cool kids that smoke cigarettes on the PvP server.

XTW events do not work with out 4 servers.​​

foley3k

darky26 wrote: »

Promoting smoking cigarettes as this is the way to be "cool" it's not cool. Not to mention false.
This coming from a smoker btw.

Never promoted smoking. I just said cool people smoke. James Dean smoked and he was cool, if he were alive today he would be on a PvP server. I could name a bunch of others if you like.
Seems like to me you should be on the PvE server.

heero200 wrote: »

XTW events do not work with out 4 servers.​​

4 servers. 2 PvP, 2 CryBaby PvE ones. 2 time zones for each to close the gap on the time differences. Each person(account) will be given a 1 time only server transfer stone(I would say it IS possible, just not possible for the current staff at PWE cause they wouldn't know how to use a can opener). Never to be seen again, or sold ever in boutique. If you picked the wrong server after this(seems to happen a lot here cause people do not know how to read), well your dumb and should stop playing.