Trouble in Toontown

[Mickaelhz 4300]

 

Spoiler

i like this song

 

 

"The principle of give & take is simple: if you take from another player then you must give in return. If your roleplay is the equivalent of tossing free bread and clowning on royalty then you’re not really taking anything (unless you’re interrupting official affairs or a genuine story).

But let’s say you are taking something from the other player, for example minas or loot, what then? You don’t pay the other player in items—you provide them with a rich story and character development!

The frequent example that we run into is if your character stops and frisks someone on the road—then following up by killing them would murder any chance for genuine character development. "

-Telanir in Roleplay Quality Standards.

 

The demonization of bandits affecting player to player relationships

 

In just about every time period this server has gone through, bandits have always been commonly labelled as abrasive, insufferable, alongside the most popular portrayal being ‘toxic’. While the past has definitely shown that bandits can act in these ways to an extreme, it is not an accurate portrayal of how things are in recent times. In fact, the current community that bandits often find themselves in are often labelled with utmost hyperbole. Players on the server who have never been banditted before simply believe what they are told about the ‘demons of the road.’ So when they actually encounter said bandits, they take this false information given as fact and actively go against them and in some cases will be toxic themselves. We ask that players start formulating their own opinions, good or bad, so long as they are backed. I will detail various encounters in this post that shows we are not all bad, but instead just trying to do our own roleplay and have fun on the server.

 

The continual demonization of bandits in RP but more so in OOC has led to roleplay scenarios being partially decided by the first interaction. To explain, productive role-play scenarios where perhaps not all the resources are taken, or the character is not killed are now becoming less and less. This is due to the constant demonization and rivalry in OOC causing both bandits and the victim to outrightly go against each other. I therefore suggest a solution to have a productive discussion on how both staff play into these demonizations, the player who propagates them, and the bandits themselves.

 

 

Leading on from that, it is extremely difficult to lead any group of players who are in the slightest interested in doing villianly roleplay. I always try to ensure my player’s safety, telling them everyday that tomorrow people will cooperate with us. That or, the next day nobody will get banned for something that could’ve been easily communicated and resolved. It has been a troublesome task in the past to teach our players to steer away from new players. Not taking everything from their inventories and ensuring good roleplay despite the thorny situation the victim finds themselves in. This is hard to enforce at times, but our group as a collective actively tries to enforce these basic guidelines. Despite attempting all of this, more than half of the time we are treated poorly, disregarded and have toxic comments thrown our way.

 

Most of the time when we encounter newer players, or those plainly having a bad day, we make our best attempts at being lenient with them; sometimes even helping them, or guiding them in the right direction. In spite of the common misconception that we only bandit for pvp or for easy laughs, a good majority of us now strive for role-play. There is no loot to be gained that is worth anything of value at this moment in time, since the cap of vortex lays so low. We bring our armour, our general gear too, and the gear we gain in return is at such a low durability from the fight it is unusable. It is essentially a lose-lose situation, save for the RP gained from said scenario. 

 

I will now list some recent situations in which we’ve had to cope with players treating us poorly with little to no regard. I will do this so that you might get a better understanding of what it means to be a bandit. Explaining how much it takes to play with the lingering thought of uncertainty, including either a ban, or an infraction, from day to day:

 

Scenario 1

 

 

 

 

Orlanth and I decided to go and bandit the roads leading up to Oren, we managed to halt a player by the name of Romboo in which we were instantly greeted with a less than adequate response. To recount further, he replied with a below LOTC standard one line emote without directly taking our halt emotes into account at all. He then proceeded to say “Sike”, thereafter emoting poorly and running away, this was all without a countdown. This action is required as per the rule of Roleplay Combat and CRP. This is cited below:

 

“You may not mechanically run away from roleplay combat without it being possible, and having emoted prior and awaited for a reply from the opposing party. If this breaks out into a chase, you may then run a /countdown. No moving may occur before the countdown is completed.”

 

Regardless of the fact that our players have been banned recently with no communication for minor rule breaks like this, we decided to not act on him breaking the rule listed; we didn’t want him, or anybody in particular to lose their ability to play on the server. We then chased him down, downing him and emoted binding him after. After which, we were greeted with nothing but kind messages, such as:

 

 

As a result of this, the player stated made a modreq. He went about using foul language, directed toward us, which he of course got let off entirely for. But if we would have said it, we would have most likely gotten infractions and maybe even banned; having to write 3-4 appeals after our supposed bans to prove ourselves to be reformed. I then went about lecturing Romboo about the rules regarding running from roleplay before the mod had arrived. We explained the situation after and the mod at hand gave us the clear to continue roleplay, as myself nor Orlanth had not broken any rules. Following that we killed him, as he deserved it after he had made us wait for an extended period of time; providing no roleplay either.

 

Scenario 2

 

 

 

 

https://imgur.com/a/13svaXo

In this next scenario, I sent our newer bandits onto the roads and when they at last found somebody else and halted them, the stated player simply logged out. Not a single bit of hesitation was held, they just logged out. The broken rule is cited below, that being rule 7 from the general combat rules: 

 

“You may not log out, fast-travel, or use your soulstone to escape combat (CRP or PVP) unless you have been disengaged/not been interacted with for 10+ minutes, or when killed if the other side permits it (rather than mechanically dying).”

 

Again, we are not on the server to ruin somebody else's time, which they use to escape to their computer, or to make their lives a misery on the server. When the mod asked what punishment we thought the person deserved, we decided to act with some kindness for the player at hand. If our group would have broken a rule such as this, they would have likely gotten banned for at least two weeks. Regardless, the bandits responded with:

 

 

We are showing our goodwill again here, despite us not even knowing the player at all. We even made sure the player would not receive a ban. Orlanth even went about ensuring the player had some food left in his inventory by the mod, so they had enough to run back to their nation with.

 

Scenario 3

 

For this particular scenario, I am required to give some extra information regarding our group. Whenever relevant, I force every single one of our members to show me their halting emotes prior to heading onto the roads. Why? I want to ensure their roleplay is sufficient and that they do not get banned for poor villainy role-play, this is probably the easiest ban to receive. They put their halting emote in a chat where nobody else could see it, they were also not within a one-hundred block radius of any other player not in the group. I then went about reading the emote, making sure they were entirely sufficient. 

 

This was on the second day of the map, so I wanted to put more emphasis on checking their emotes before they roamed the roads freely. We were hanging out in the discord and I was watching one of my guys stream, they halted two players as their first encounter after I made them write new emotes. The players instantly made a modreq, regarding the copy-pasting emotes, causing an hour of waiting around; providing no role-play. This discussion, being the copy-pasting emote scenario/situation has been up in the air for as long as I can remember; so I asked basket right after he became an admin to make sure.

 

 

As seen in the screenshot above, it is entirely fine so long as you keep them fresh and short. Ensuring they are not to be used again after a singular encounter, but this should have been fine in our situation as the emotes had never been used before in roleplay, or on somebody else. The mod arrived at the scene, he went about checking omni (the tool used to check player logs.)  They saw the emote pop up multiple times since I forced my newer players to show me them first prior to the encounter. And out of nowhere, a completely new bandit was banned for a week for poor villainy. When I personally asked the mod if they had logs and proof of them using it to halt different players, they plainly responded with “yes.”

 

I was watching the stream as if it was my favourite movie, watching with my own eyes as the mod blatantly lied, or skipped steps. My players had never used the emotes stated in a prior role-play situation or encounter, at all. It was plain and simply impossible, due to the players being the very first people they attempted to bandit that day. So, either my eyes deceive me or the Orenian mod is fabricating, or misconstruing evidence. If there is some evidence regarding this case to be handed out, which again plainly proves they used the emote during multiple roleplay encounters with people outside of our group please send them to me. I will be at the ready on discord and I will completely scrap this part of the post.

 

Just to add, if you thought this entire scenario was a pain to my newer bandit players, also add on the fact that the GM made them wait an entire hour before handing out punishments. He did not attempt to resolve the situation, nor did he regard any of the comments made by the bandits at hand. At one point, the bandits and the victim players decided it was finally time to call it quits and go their separate way due to the mod taking so long. Naturally, the GM did not respond to this as he had only said about 4 things during the entire hour. It all ultimately ended with zero communication between the staff and player; one player banned, another given an infraction and the last without anything to his name. To summarise, both parties wanted to end said conflict both in RP and in OOC, yet the mod still pushed for punishment.

 

 

The Final Scenario

 

The last, yet my most favourite scenario. This one led to my first ever ban on this server, which is nothing due to it only being three days. Yet, as for my friend, who was less fortunate and received a ban for an entire eighteen days. Anyway, my group and I decided to go and give Oren a large raid cooldown of two and a half days, instead of the casual spam cooldown of twenty four hours. This would lead to them having a two and a half day grace period, catching them a break from banditry on both their nation and nation road. We headed to the capital of Oren, ready to take whatever they had in their city, or at least make an attempt at taking from them. We ran from the East Fleet to Oren, and on the roads we met a patrol of six Orenians. One of their citizens engaged first in combat with us, in which we called for PVP. The countdown was called, so we could PVP and have it over with. According to the rules we can only have four people there, which we did not know at the time since we believed it was like the map before. This is where there was only a singular region per nation. It is cited below: 

 

“Raid size is dependent on the raid target

*Lairs: 3 player max

*Settlements and non-capital tiles: 4 player max

*Nation capital tiles: 5 player max”

 

Thus, we believed we were on the capital tile, since the large text consisting of “The Holy Orenian Empire” appeared on our screens. The mod who was fighting alongside the Orenians did not mention a single thing regarding the rule breach, they even acknowledged the numbers before starting. After his acknowledgement, he even then corrected the player count to not just four, but five. 

 

 

Regardless, the countdown between the six Orenians and the five bandits was called, for them to at last fight. Yet, before it had ended entirely, the Orenians chose to run. Following the rules, if you run before the countdown has ended entirely, you forfeit your option to fight back and instead have to run and run only. The rule is cited below:

Rule 8 of Mechanics combat/PVP

 

“To start PvP combat before the timer is over is prohibited. If either party starts to run before the timer is finished, they forfeit the ability to fight back and may only attempt to flee to safety instead. “

 

This is the proof of the rule breach:

 

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXm8vq5hdCg

 

 

Instead of following the listed rule, the Orenians decided to fight back anyway. Despite this not mattering in the grand scheme of things, due to them still losing to 2 bandits, it is still a breach of the rules. If we had broken this rule, we would’ve been gone for a month, or severely infracted; forced to write yet another appeal, about how we’re sorry and reformed. We did not pursue any punishment on them as we didn’t want to force some of their key players off of the server, no matter how long the ban would be. Then after all of this, we wrapped up the roleplay, using consequential and impressive emotes, ensuring good roleplay. We had captured the General of Oren afterall, we just wanted to provide some quality roleplay, so I will list the final emote below:

 

 

Everything seemed to be great, we let ErikAzog run off with some potatoes so he could make it back to Providence. Then we all went our separate ways and the group called it a night. In contrast to our display of good-will, I woke up this morning with my DM’s flooded. Four to five of my guys had been banned for breaching raid rules, those people including: the military leader of Norland and the nation leader of Sutica, gone without conversation.

 

This for me personally topped everything, we made sure that up to eight Orenians have remained unbanned over the last couple of days. We’ve done everything in our power to stay as nice as possible, and the second they lose a set of their gear, they take any chance to get some of our people banned. Doing all in their power to combat road banditry through removal of players from the server, rather than dealing with it through military roleplay or growth.

 

 

In conclusion

 

Playing a bandit is just about one of the hardest things to do properly on the server, not due to the roleplay at hand, but due to the constant game of ‘dodgeball with bricks’. We do our utmost to play by the rules, harsh or not, we still try to abide by them. However, when we are only just grasping at the seams of success we always fall short, removed from the server with no communication. I’ll take my three day ban, but I am less happy about my friend wwwdotfreesmiley, who has received a ban of eighteen days. Yes, this is a result of him receiving a previous ban, but in a situation which I will not detail now. Please let this post enlighten you about what we have to do to remain on the server, each time we do something remotely villainous. Even though our leaders wrangle people to play by the rules to such an extent, it always ends up feeling like it's too much effort and too little reward. 

 

I will briefly clarify why us bandits do what we do, and why. It can feel like an excuse sometimes, but we as a collective agree that our role-play enhances the medieval feeling of the server itself. Cities need more guards as a result of our role-play, they inevitably need to bolster their military more for active patrols and whatnot. People also end up plotting their ways to travel on the road: faster ways, safer ways and sometimes they even end up being escorted to reach their desired destination. When nations improve at their safeguarding, patrols and overall road safety it creates a feeling of euphoria for them, at last- the bandits have finally been beaten back; our roads safe! This is due to them having practised and trained, ultimately accomplishing a goal. On our side, it's our goal to have fun with our group, to strengthen it, to provide role-play for ourselves, the opponent and to feel as if our presence is known.

 

Lastly, let this post act as proof  that the give/take mental that lotc is striving towards only causes more problems. You can give whatever you want, help whoever you want, at the end of the day people won't return the favor because they'd rather have you off the server as a player than have you off the roads as a character.

 

Now, I implore you to use this thread as means of discussion, give me your two-cents, I’ll be listening. No clowning around, keep the comments civil pls : ).

Before you post anything, keep in mind that this post is not only about banditting, there is more to unpack here that i'd like insight on.

[louislxix 3198]

Have to agree here, I've been banned twice now as a result of raiding and or banditting. Albeit I could have done some things better, I have never been presented the chance to defend myself and I was more than lenient in my interactions with those who could have been banned. In contrast, when I've been at the other end of the stick I've been banned with zero communication and with little to no regard. I've an example plainly, where I ran into the Wood Elven nation and I approached three players, with means of banditting them but it fell short. I was under the impression they had meta rallied, so I opted to run on a countdown, yet it wasn't enough time for them to react. I should've been infracted here definitely, but the GM at hand didn't have my account banned until much later on with again zero communication. I had never been infracted before so I thought it was harsh, due to the GM not even attempting to communicate with me; I even stayed on my account for an extra fifteen minutes. 

The entire point of the paragraph above is to show that the GMs who have dealt with me do not ever try to resolve the problem at hand, they instead look straight to punishment. Which in my eyes is entirely unfair, we all make mistakes and I'm tired of being infracted so heavily with zero communication when others have gotten off scot-free for the same blunders as me.

[Cheezzy_Garlik 540]

+1 I ain’t got nothin more to say and nuthin less.

[Guzr 2050]

 

25 minutes ago, Mickaelhz said:

Playing a bandit is just about one of the hardest things to do properly on the server,

 

lmfao

 

conflict rules definitely need a rework to be more aggressor-friendly but this sentence is a tad silly

[Orlanth 4667]

Mickaelhz only touched on this briefly but it is ridiculous that Mika got banned from this. Historically Nation Leaders have required hard extremes to get banned. Take for example Architecus who directly told a 16 your child that he would do unspeakable things to him and wasn't ban, or Narthok, for whom I was admittedly not here for, but I've heard it took several racial slurs in the OOC chat to get him banned. Why is the NL of Sutica being banned for a slight break on new rules when it's ultimately a much lighter rule break than the ones listed above?

[Sevastiel 285]

I think the main issue that people have is what I like to call ‘unannounced villainy ’, that being, generally if there is a villain, people like to know that they are there and can avoid them, or if its part of an event, then you are at very least prepared. 
People reaaaally dislike coming across bandits, particularly during these vortex days where you need to grind for just about anything. A little bit ago banditing was so bad, in fact, that a few of my friends mentioned to me about being too scared to even leave Oren at all. I think at this point issues are being caused because people are just flat up fed up with being bandited and loosing the items they’ve worked for, particularly at the start of the map, and the mods hear and reflect those attitudes, and are especially harsh because of it. I know back on Arcas for certain that of the three times I came across bandits, every one was an absolute mess of me trying to be polite and work with them and getting mocked and told to /d40. Some bandits are still like that, and a lot of bandits really are out there just for the minas. Legitimately, there were several that we hunted down and killed, only to see the same person, doing the same crappy emotes, on the same character save with a II after the name. Youll get garbage rp, pushed rules, and a general bad name for all bandits from those sort of people and that sort of thing makes a lasting impression. Again, at this point I think the mods are genuinely too fed up with the BAD bandits to allow good ones, and just want players to stop bawling at them. Although tbh, the lack of communication is something that definitely needs to be looked at.  
 

Now, I’m not going to say your issues are invalid, because they TOTALLY are valid. If you are genuinely trying to rp well and create good conflict, well, Ive had my share of villainy as well, I know and appreciate that, and seriously, respect to you for trying to do villainy properly. These are just my thoughts/explanation, and as always I don't know everything. 

[DAENGIE 514]

Ive seen no bandits.

[ErikAzog 3575]

1 minute ago, DreamInSpace said:

37 minutes ago, Mickaelhz said:

The demonization of bandits affecting player to player relationships

 

I believe that your friends have proven why player bandits are demonized by the community.  

[Mickaelhz 4300]

2 minutes ago, ErikAzog said:

I believe that your friends have proven why player bandits are demonized by the community.  

Bro could u just read the post and disprove my points instead of getting so angry at the 9th line of text that you can't keep yourself from posting a snarky comment, we should be trying to get something resolved as a community instead of encouraging ban wars. 

[Werew0lf 24180]

5 minutes ago, ErikAzog said:

I believe that your friends have proven why player bandits are demonized by the community.  

That’s a good excuse for a staff member to demonise those who are trying to improve banditry and RP quality, isn’t it? 

[argonian 14254]

Banditry, or conflict of any sort really, gets in the way of World of Warcraft Village RP, so naturally every effort is made to drive it off the server. You're only meant to RP with someone on their terms now, so no one ever has to lose or interact with any groups except their own. It's gross, really. Take your circlejerking to Discord. 

 

I don't know why anyone even bothers having guards anymore when the main method of dealing with any attackers is just rule lawyering them instead. 

 

Also just lol @ everyone in this thread(in now deleted posts) yelping about how "bandits r horrible ppl" after being showed documented evidence that you took their good will in leaving your guys off over rules they broke and returned it with hunting for bans over anything you could. Absolutely scummy behaviour. 

 

[Capace 559]

I believe that the primary problem with bandits on every map is the general reputation which is built around them. As Mickaelhz explained, everyone has this whole agreement that bandits are the bane of LotC. While this is often true, there are times when some new groups pop up that like to bandit just because they actually enjoy the rp. There is an equivalent amount of times that new bandit groups pop up and they also just do it for the pvp and harassment because they’ve learned that is at times how reputation is gained on LotC. Calling it good or bad reputation is not exactly a fair statement. They have a bad rep with rpers and a good rep with pvpers or other bandits. I believe that Mickaelz isn’t as bad as many others. I don’t believe anyone is really that bad. But even as they have agreed, bandits have made a bad name for themselves on way or another.

 

One of the primary reasons people are definitely getting upset with bandits and is entirely understandable this map is because we haven’t even made it a full week. Grinding is hard enough and the stress of it is going to work people up. I understand everyone has their own rp and that there shouldn’t be anything which can prevent them from doing it, but be considerate even if it is for some bread. I was starving for like two days.

[Sevastiel 285]

14 minutes ago, DAENGIE said:

Ive seen no bandits.

Shut up and take my upvote. 

[Juststan147 277]

Im going to be honest, every time I encouter bandits on the roads. I had a good time and a nice laugh about it since most bandits I met are just cool guys who try to actually provide quality RP and don't stick with the normal 'minas or die' I think bandits should deserve some more respect for they are too part of this server and this community, how salty some may be about it

[DrakeHaze. 2524]

As the player from scenario 2, my inventory was cleaned out I had no food. Thats a mod fault tho.

Also I'd of preferred a ban. Cheers.