The Lack of Leadership

[Davis]

Mods and azzer alike along with the rules let us know that to submit any rule breaks we should mail id 1 pm azzer on irc or pm azzer on the forums... but what happens when a key component of each of these steps is missing? ofc the part that is missing is azzer... the creator of bushtarion, the soul maintainer and the only person wielding the banhammer. what happens when a free online game has no one to make sure that rules are followed? chaos thats what... and ofc there isnt much chaos going on but if things continue down this road where azzer is absent for months and omnths and when he does decide to make an appearance he simply states why he was missing then goes awol again...

i have seen more cheating going on this round than any in awhile espcially considering the size of the playerbase or lack there of. and some of it is the most blatent obvious cheating ever but nothing happens... not because it wasnt caught, azzer has been told imidiatly on every occasion, but that it was either ignored or never seen since the only person we can show it too is now more a figment of memory...

something needs done, im not here to say what hence this being a gripe not a suggestion. but things need to change for the better before they continue to quickly change for the worse...

-Davis

p.s.
sorry for typos/bad sentance structure this was all typed from my phone while waiting 3 hours in my work parking lot waiting for work to start

 

[Twigley]

He's only been away for a few weeks with a serious illness and i do now beleive he is back, although not fully recovered as i just talked to him.

These kind of posts don't really help - they just create panic within those that cant think and are easily swayed by what is on the forums. (Omg Azzer is dead? Game is dying? Moral = Low)

I'm sure any form of cheating that can be prooved will result in punishment...

But i do see how you are worried for the game, and for that i commend you.

 

[Clunk]

I agree, please at least do some investigating before locking me please, not on just the tiny bit of IRC conversation.

 

[Davis]

but twigley wasnt it you who just in another thread said you had 2 people you "knew" were multiing? and the only reason they hadnt been caught was because you hadnt been able to talk to azzer in awhile because you no longer had his phone #? i mean unless you got said info after you left pb it seems like its been more than a week you havent been able to contact him... and if it takes a phone call to talk to him that is rediculous but seeing as youve talked to him when do those multis you knew get banned? also i shouldnt need to prove it to azzer... thats what we pay him to do... and yes we do pay him with credits didnt he say it was his "job"? i should present an idea/case and he should investigate and maybe he has and if thats the case he should let the person who reported it know that he looked into it and found no proof so they dont sit there thinking the person got away with it...

 

[Azzer]

I first got a very bad bout of swine flu (my temp hit 105, I was pretty severely ill with it), and got a secondary infection after the tamiflu cleared the swine flu up and ended up with a nice lung infection - a good week of coughing up blood from my lungs being so badly damaged with it (or some such), and more antibiotics and doctor visits. I've been laid up ill for most of the time and for a while was pretty much quarantined to my house (was infectious so nobody wanted to come visit me ). Also a few family affairs hit at the same time, unfortunate timing, but these things will happen now and then. I'm sorry I haven't been able to be around to sort things out on Bush or get on with some of the coding I'd like to have got on with, but I'm recovering now (couple of months of coughing while the lungs heal up supposedly, got to take it easy, but am alive!).

I've just gone through all of my mails and investigated every multi report sent to me there. I've done the same for any emailed to me or forum PM'ed to me, though one of them was just a C&P of an IRC chat, without any ID's or IP's present, and I don't know everybody's IRC name (and not everyone has matching IRC names to game/account names), but I've done my best to identify and have a quick look.

To be honest the amount of multi reports I've had while I've been away, compared to the "uproar" on the forums about millions of multis floating around are not in correlation at all. In fact there's more posts on the forums than I had any genuine reports sent to me I think my absence caused people to panic a bit more than usual, so, again, sorry for my absence.

If you feel there's any multi's you are sure about that are not locked, please send me a forum PM (or game mail) asap (tonight ideally so I can check again in the morning before round end), including as many identifiable details/facts as you can (an IRC log paste which only includes IRC nicknames isn't wholesomely helpful if I don't recognise the people involved and know their account details by hand, plus remember there's nothing against the rules for people to joke/lie about having multis in their own private ally chans, it's not proof of anything but I'd certainly look in to any "claims").

Also please remember that there are strict forum rules that accusations and multi reports should not and can not be made public discussion on the forums - it's incredibly unfair on the person being accused if they are innocent, and if they are found not to be innocent they'll be punished with an account lock anyway. Any forum threads discussing or accusing rule breaks will be locked and I'll probably move them over to the hidden mods-only forums (so I still have a record of the accusations etc.) - the correct way to report someone is to contact me, with as much info as possible. A mail saying "I think the rank 1 alliance are cheating" isn't that helpful

 

[Amanala]

Sometimes even Azzer needs to hit sleep mode

 

[alwaysnumb]

why not give mods the rights to block. have it so 2 mods have to agree after reviewing the evidence so no 1 person can wage a vendetta. Then if this is wrong the blocked person can then appeal. But my guess is if you are guilty its pretty darn obvious and multi would know this and prolly keep quiet.

 

[Alcibiades]

i believe the issue with that is that Azzer alone has access to check, verify and ensure that people are not who they say they are and i'm sure he is reluctant to give that power to anyone, even 'trusted' mods.

 

[Dark_Angel]

i believe the issue with that is that Azzer alone has access to check, verify and ensure that people are not who they say they are and i'm sure he is reluctant to give that power to anyone, even 'trusted' mods.

I don't think its a job that requires the attention of more than one person. Yes, Azzer can fall ill and some things may slip the net for X amount of time, but coding a mod interface in-game and indeed training mods to use it properly isn't really worth it when you consider Azzer is fully capable of doing the job himself the vast majority of the time.

 

[Alcibiades]

also pretty reasonable. Although there are some suspicious characters every round who seemingly defy the odds of getting busted despite multiple reports and overly suspicious behaviour.

 

[Davs]

But sadly that's all it is - overly suspicious behaviour. In all fairness to Azzer, he can only act if there is a suitable amount of genuine evidence, and sadly word of mouth isn't evidence. Basically, if you see evidence of "overly suspicious" behaviour then you have to save a copy of the spy report or whatever you used to get that impression. People just don't bother and then turn around to Azzer and say "OMG HE'S/SHE'S HAXZING!!!!" which sadly helps no one.