FUS RO DAH!

 

Can we stop calling them donors like they're noble or something? They are paying customers. They're not donating from the goodness of their heart, they donate to get upgrades over the average players. The "donation" system is just a business, not a charity.

Donors should have no extra sway in ban appeals -- they paid for a feature and got it, end of story. They didn't pay to be immune to the rules. Add a donation feature called "Allowed to cheat" ($100) if you want that.

 

When i donated i donated because i knew the server needed the money. You do realize that our server owner is not a billionaire duck-farmer, and in fact has a job and needs donation money to run the server? When i joined the server, it was hosted off of a basement computer back in march of 2011. Do you think that this reletivelylag-free server consisting of over 200 active members could possibly be run off of a home computer?

When i donated, i donated because i knew the server needed it. That's why i was the first donator, and that's why i'll donate whenever its needed. I can honestly say the only time in my history of this server i donated for purely-selfish reasons was when i bought Fly. The donators are the people who keep the server running, and the fact of the matter is that, just like the real world, this server isn't perfect. Those who are willing to donate their hard-earned money to support the server, will always be treated a bit differently than those who don't.

 

Are you kidding? I donated cause I love this server. Donation features are just incentives. You don't have to have them. But since I donated so much it's nice to have. Why would you pay to have powers you can have in another server? I can spend the money I donated to open my own server and run that with all those features but because this server is well maintained and fun to play it, I would rather stick my money in this to keep it going and keep it maintained for everyone to enjoy.

Not everyone is out just to get cool upgrades. And the ones who are still know they're donating to better the server. That's their hard earned money going into something they enjoy to have a little more excitement and they keep the server going for you.

What you said was quite selfish to be honest. And donators are not above the rules. Xraying is a bannable offense and is without appeal. I have not seen a single player that has xrayed ever come back to the server. That includes donators.

 

The nobility (or lack thereof, depending on what side you are on) aside, I think that donators should be punished for x-ray, hacking, etc like any other player. However, I doubt that anybody who spent their hard-earned money on this server is going to throw it away for easy diamonds. Besides, if somebody IS dumb enough to hack, we don't want them on the server, donator or otherwise.
-Logo

 

Um @rikari88 just look at the first page of this thread for examples

 

Donators get an extra chance for a very good reason, and that is because they PAID MONEY and when they are banned it's gone so we have a strict system, users have to submit a great appeal directly to andrewkm and it's his decision afterwards.

And usually X-rayers get back after a week tempban, after that it's a month/permaban and after that there is NO chance of appeal.


They are not above the rules neither are they just getting unbanned.
The fact that the last 2 Xrayers got unbanned means nothing, it just means that those two have submitted good appeals to andrewkm.

 

@rosypolly Okay so like kuke said only two. That doesn't make what I said any different except that there is two. Still I'm fairly certain andrewkm is a fair person. And yes like kuke said donators did donate money and are held a little higher in that respect. But cheating is still cheating and should always be handled the way ECC does it. It's only fair to everyone.

Other things I can see mods and andrewkm being lenient about with donators. But it's truly not fair for cheaters to come back unless they have every intention of making face and I'm sure they're under harsh review when they're on.

 

There have been more than two, @rikari88. The two mentioned are only recent. The majority of xrayers who did get unbanned after lengthy appeals to Andrew - and week-long bans - haven't xrayed another time, and most also have not done anything to get themselves banned again. And if they have gotten banned again, it's usually to language or something minor and unrelated.

Donators spend money on the server - It may not seem "fair" that they get more leniency with something written off as very serious, but they did spend a lot of time getting that money. Whether it was real life money or EcoDollars to get a donation feature, they spent a lot of time on it (more than likely, at least). Everyone has the ability to get a donation feature, so in a sense it is fair. If you want to xray, get banned, and then get a small chance of being unbanned, either work hard for your money IRL or in-game like everyone else.

And many xrayers are... very clueless and never read the rules. That even goes for non-xrayers. Donator or not, many people don't read the rules - many more forget the rules. Several of our users are also very young, and haven't developed common sense or aren't used to the rules we have; many other games and servers do things differently.

I personally don't see much of an issue with donor xrayers getting unbanned after a lengthy appeal and a week+ ban time.

 

What about being banned a million times.... And then still being able to come back? Just sayin... Not even for X-ray. Just being banned over and over and over and over again....There should be a limit for those that simply DON'T CARE. Just sayin....

 

I have to agree with Moofink in that some people just do not read the rules, AND the fact that this is a video game and the majority of players are very young. I then have to agree with Mattsirbait in that I scan the forums all day while at work and I am surprised at how often and how many users get unbanned over and over again for breaking the same rule.

I believe in second chances, I believe in teaching people a lesson to hopefully allow all of us to have fun. It does give me some concern though when I see someone get unbanned and told to "read the rules" when it is their 3rd/4th+ time being unbanned.

I would love to see some harsher punishments IN GAME for those that are allowed to come back personally. Get caught xraying, if your appeal is approved you come back as a builder with 0 funds. No keeping what you illegally gained by hacking. If your caught using an autoclicker to advance your mcmmo (see the bans yesterday) then your mcmmo is reset to 0 if your unbanned. If your caught making mob traps then you loose access to the pvp areas (mining/nether) and you can reapply later. If your caught scamming people and are allowed to come back your account is drained to zero (or even negative) to make you repay what you cost someone else. If your banned for spamming and are allowed to come back you lose access to all chat channels for awhile.

Anyways I have no idea if these are possible, I was just throwing out some suggestions. It sometimes seems like these # hour bans or a few day bans have almost no effect on the players. Maybe harsher ingame punishments if they are allowed to come back would keep some people on the right track.

RagMan

 

I have to agree with that one especially. Some people can get away with 24+ hours of training without being caught, but when it comes to money, it's hard to scam someone of 24+ hours worth of money... If I'm not mistaken, this is also possible. One of those users who happened to be banned recently for autoclicking to train has level 300 something unarmed... Probably none of that is legit, and that's a high level. However, I believe some of those other things you said are a bit harsh, even for something like hacking or whatever. Like someone said earlier in this thread, everyone makes mistakes, even if it doesn't happen for a long time, there probably will be one point where somebody gets falsely accused, or a friend got on their account and did it and you lose everything... However, it's hard to get falsely accused for autoclicking, and you are left autoclicking for such long periods of time, it's hard to not catch that your friend made your account do it. (And unlikely.)

More on topic though: Kuke said the first X-ray ban, even if you get accepted, you must wait a week. If it's a second one, it's a month (that gives plenty of time to think about it...) and a third time and you're gone. Donators don't get away with everything, in fact, from my experience, if anything, everyone gets this treatment. (For the most part anyway.) It just so happens that donating is easy now through the means of ecodollars to other players. This makes a lot of users look like huge donators... In fact... Of my own money, I've only donated about 40-60 dollars to the server. The rest was ecodollars to another player.

Donators only really get "special treatment" if it's X-ray, which is hardly special treatment. Every other type of ban is done pretty much the same, most people are just in that "donator" status, so it looks biased. Even if they do get some special treatment, I've hardly noticed it myself, so it's not much of any.


I guess I'm in more of a rant about donator bans than X-ray donator bans... But it seems other people are bringing up other forms of bans now too.

 

Stunned to see a thread about this and it had not been deleted. This is one of those don't ask, don't tell subjects here because you are not going to like the answer or reality of it. Xraying is not legal on any server that I have ever heard of but the majority of players busted say "I didn't know it was illegal, my dog installed it because he has carpal tunnel and can't spend hours looking for rare material in his single player game".

There is a number of factors that play in to people getting unbanned that can't be discussed because it might embolden people. However on top of the bans if a persons inventory, chests, money balance were all wiped for doing it, it might be more incentive to a donator to not do it. That would only apply to donators too because they definately can't play the I don't know the rules card and if you are not a donator you have no chance of being unbanned for it anyway.

To the man that has donated $100 or more and thinks yourself and others in your category should have more leeway, thats exactly why its usually donators that have donated more are usually the ones busted for it. You think because you have reached a high number in your own mind that really the rules shouldn't have to apply to you anymore because you paid for the server by god. In reality your $100 didn't cover the server for a week, let alone entitle you to skate on the painfully few rules it has for life.

I feel bad for mods that put their personal time and energy into catching xrayers, gathering proof and then a week later that shmuck they busted is probably right back on the server, its gotta be demoralizing and maybe accounts for a high staff turnover.