Policy Questions Thread

The spawn timer thing -- yes. Go nuts.

The quest thing -- it really boils down to whether or not it constitutes (1) selling NO DROP items (2) other specifically prohibited things like getting high level quest flags for a character that can't achieve "actively participating". If those are unbroken, there is no rule against it.
 
So, to clarify:

If a quest involves looting any no drop items you cant pay someone to do it for you.

If a quest reward is a no drop item you cant pay someone to do it for you.

Are both those statements true (even when the no-drop items are mundane things you could easily farm yourself if you put in the time)
 
Raid Wing Claiming

I'd admit to not having read every single post in this thread recently, but I did notice something of a discrepancy in two policy threads.

From: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showpost.php?p=177006&postcount=1 (Policy Questions Thread - Post 1)

Re: Claiming a Raid Zone
Raid Zones are claimed by either 12- in zone (or area, where applicable) or "capable force". The latter must be proved by active clearing - and not just active when the GMs are looking after a petition has been put in. This rule may be modified by specific zone rules (ie Tower of Tarhyl may have multiple modes of clearing to/in a wing from different directions) and GMs may use their best discretion in ruling. (The alternative? Both your raids can sit on their hands for two hours while we nitpick. Yeah, I didn't think you wanted that either.)
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Obviously "capable force" is subjective. However it also mentions of a number of 12 being required.

However, then from: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=17777 (Raid Encounter and 6 Man Content Rules)

Right of Way-

To claim a wing/zone/encounter, you need 6 people present. This claim is invalidated if you have done nothing in the wing/zone/encounter, and continue to do nothing for 30 minutes or more from the time a dispute occurs. A single guild may not lay claim on more than one wing/zone/encounter at a time (i.e. can't have 6 claiming lower thaz water and 6 claiming lower thaz earth at the same time). Abuse of this rule to 'squat' with 6 players while you wait for 2 hours for the rest of your guild to log on will result in jailtime.
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These two policies sound different from a certain point of view, but I believe can also be seen as contradictory. Might an answer be gleaned from our admin overlords?
 
The first quote is outdated policy. I'll fix that.

The "capable force" clause was replaced with the second quote, but having a capable force to do the content you are claiming before the 30 minute post-dispute timer runs out is required. Most of the time, that is shown by results (actually killing things), but a wipe by a force that isn't clearly outclassed by the content they are trying to claim is the gray area. This is a judgment call by the GM handling the dispute, and whether or not the original claim (which is being disputed) has a capable force is the judgment call.
 
Auction "Harassment" policy

Recently people have been spouting off that ever mentioning anything ever, ever, in response to anything said in auction ever is magically considered harassment. I'd like to get some clarification on this rule(rule #9 seen here: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=22395), as it recently spawned a great deal of argument. I had assumed that it meant you couldn't harass people about things, as was already a rule.
An example of what was considered harassment by some was someone auctioning a thing for a price, then someone mentioning that it went for less a previous day.
 
(Here's a response until you can get something more official.)

cpoff said:
Recently people have been spouting off that ever mentioning anything ever, ever, in response to anything said in auction ever is magically considered harassment. I'd like to get some clarification on this rule(rule #9 seen here: http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=22395), as it recently spawned a great deal of argument. I had assumed that it meant you couldn't harass people about things, as was already a rule.
An example of what was considered harassment by some was someone auctioning a thing for a price, then someone mentioning that it went for less a previous day.
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It's usually a pretty simple rule. Refrain from hassling a player selling an item.

If someone wants to auction a Mithril Short Sword for 1500pp, they may do so.
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It doesn't matter if you noticed it went for less a previous day, because they're free to sell the item for their desired price. It's up to the buyer to discern fair trades. Otherwise you're only disrupting public channels.
 
I personally don't find any room for confusion in this rule. A single statement about a price being different at some point seems a far cry from harassment to me, but apparently some people do not see things this way.
The first I heard mention of this rule at all was very recent, but every time I've seen it mentioned it's been in response to singular innocuous comments. Apparently what is considered "harassment" needs spelled out, or people are just going to have to learn the hard way.
 
cpoff said:
A single statement about a price being different at some point
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This tends to be a matter of intent, and in many cases, taking it to public channels is just mean-spirited. At any rate, you want to make sure any staff members reading your comment don't see it as mean-spirited or an attack. Here's a couple of suggestions on how to handle several situations:

(1) Are you wanting to inform the seller of what others are selling that item for? Try doing it privately and politely via a /tell.

(2) Are you trying to dissuade a particular person from buying said item? Use a /tell.

(3) Are *you* selling that item for a lower price? Speak up, and enjoy the spirit of competition, but be prepared to get undercut out of spite.

(4) Do you have a friend selling the item for a lower price? Speak up, but be clear that you're advertising for a friend.

(5) Do you think the person is just price gouging? Say nothing. If all you have is "that's overpriced", then all you have is an attack on their auction.
 
I can agree with all those points except the last one. Not everyone is going to know that price gouging is price gouging for a particular item if they are new or some such.
I basically think this rule should just be done away with since it is already covered by the "No Harassment" rule, and it'll keep people from exploding over an issue which is (somewhat)arbitrarily given special attention.
 
Hey I have another question around this questing business.

What about paying for someone to get me a singular quest flag within a much larger quest.

e.g. Hey, I'm doing x quest with 10 parts. One of them is to kill 100 gnolls and I get flags for them. I dont mind everything else, but I really hate paying gnolls so I will pay you 100k to kill 100 gnolls for me and get the quest flag. The eventual reward for this quest IS a NO DROP item, but you are only paying for a part of it.
 
I was about to start playing again and was going to get some of my friends to join up as well and was wondering if its allowed to hunt using a 12 man raid in nonraid areas? In the past the rules on raid groups was phrased differently and now there isn't anything I could find about it. The plan was to just zerg through warrens -> warpstone -> kaladim etc with the 6 of us dual boxing for half the xp per kill but very little downtime to get the core of our guild leveled up together at once.

Would that be allowed or are preraid areas assumed to be 6man restriction?
 
cpoff said:
I can agree with all those points except the last one. Not everyone is going to know that price gouging is price gouging for a particular item if they are new or some such.
I basically think this rule should just be done away with since it is already covered by the "No Harassment" rule, and it'll keep people from exploding over an issue which is (somewhat)arbitrarily given special attention.
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It was added to the list because it became a problem. That's how the Minor Offenses list works.

Silosobi said:
Hey I have another question around this questing business.

What about paying for someone to get me a singular quest flag within a much larger quest.

e.g. Hey, I'm doing x quest with 10 parts. One of them is to kill 100 gnolls and I get flags for them. I dont mind everything else, but I really hate paying gnolls so I will pay you 100k to kill 100 gnolls for me and get the quest flag. The eventual reward for this quest IS a NO DROP item, but you are only paying for a part of it.
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Now you're just going out of your way to look for a loophole. Stop that, unless you're trying to argue that every form of payment for anything needs to be eradicated since it could somehow be tied to some quest some day. Besides, you should feel bad for trying to pay people to do your quests and exp for you (not just you specifically, a general "you" for whomever to which this line of questioning applies)

bunnyavenger said:
I was about to start playing again and was going to get some of my friends to join up as well and was wondering if its allowed to hunt using a 12 man raid in nonraid areas? In the past the rules on raid groups was phrased differently and now there isn't anything I could find about it. The plan was to just zerg through warrens -> warpstone -> kaladim etc with the 6 of us dual boxing for half the xp per kill but very little downtime to get the core of our guild leveled up together at once.

Would that be allowed or are preraid areas assumed to be 6man restriction?
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Only specified 6man dungeons and 6man content are restricted from taking more than 6 characters. If you want to take a raid of 18 people and do Citadel of the Claw (minus Claw Commander Era`Velu), go ahead. If I remember correctly, <Dragonkin> did that once.
 
If you're going to make paying people to do quests on your character against the rules just make it against the rules. Trying to justify it with another rule about not paying for No Drop items which was very obviously made to prevent raiding guilds from selling raid slots and item loot rights is just silly.

I understand the need for most of these rules and having hard rules that you can just point to and say These Are The Rules is a good thing but I mean if you don't want people to do something just say Hey, New Rule, Don't Pay For Quests instead of hey look at this spiderweb of rules I have tied back to your question.

idk maybe it's just me.
 
I'm really not looking for a loophole...

It was prompted by the fact that I thought I wouldn't be able to log on at the time a certain mob was spawning to kill it and get a flag. If I lose the timer there is no telling when I will catch said mob again. I'd like to be able to pay one of my guildies/friends some $$$ to put in the time killing the mob for me, but I don't want to break any rules.

I agree with cinn and I realize that my question is hard to answer because based on the rules I know it does seem like a bit of a grey area, but I'm pretty paranoid about rules on this server after a couple instances where I was warned i could be banned for x action when I had no clue they would be against rules (one situation I was told it wasn't even a written rule...).

I really don't like that I have to post things like this but since those warnings I've been pretty paranoid about rules.
 
Wouldn't your friend just do this for you as a favor? Isn't that what friends are for? And if you want to 'repay' the favor by being nice and letting him keep loot (not split) from groups or something, because that's what friends do when they know a friend is saving up for a charm/item/tome, you could do that. And you don't have to keep track of time and money and paid up and balance settled because you're friends and you're just doing favors. Wouldn't that be nice?

The general rule in the past has been that if somebody (no matter who) is on your character doing legal things than any benefit your character receives is fine. So, we don't for instance remove exp from a character who gained exp while being boxed by a friend. We wouldn't remove a flag or loot received from a quest in the same way. But if you can manage to avoid the gray areas by *not* paying money for it that would be best.
 
In other words, find a nice friend/guildie to get your kill, then give him that 20k split from the last group you did with him for his charm fund, b/c you're pals, instead of giving him 20k to kill your mob!

In all seriousness though, some grey areas are probably left better off as grey areas, with the active staff on this server a lot of things that have been acceptable by community standards regardless of acceptability levels with individual staff interpretation of the rules, may be better handled on a case-by-case basis with a specific focus on intent of action. Did Solo pay Stever to do his Vah assassinations b/c Stever is a platinumwhoring baddie, or did Solo pay Stever to do his Vah assassinations b/c Solo hates camping the mob/has a job and can't make the timer/etc, and is a red-blooded American superhero who likes to give tangible and person-appropriate thank-you gifts/repayment for services as opposed to "Do this thing I hate for me and I'll uh....I'll owe ya one buddy!"

tl;dr: Puting too many specific instances in writing removes the individual judgement factor, and almost to a one, I have great faith in the individual judgements of our staffers. You also risk the rise of "loop-hole artists." Also Stever really is a platinum-whore, with a heart of gold(pieces) <3
 
Dimmi said:
In other words, find a nice friend/guildie to get your kill, then give him that 20k split from the last group you did with him for his charm fund, b/c you're pals, instead of giving him 20k to kill your mob!

In all seriousness though, some grey areas are probably left better off as grey areas, with the active staff on this server a lot of things that have been acceptable by community standards regardless of acceptability levels with individual staff interpretation of the rules, may be better handled on a case-by-case basis with a specific focus on intent of action. Did Solo pay Stever to do his Vah assassinations b/c Stever is a platinumwhoring baddie, or did Solo pay Stever to do his Vah assassinations b/c Solo hates camping the mob/has a job and can't make the timer/etc, and is a red-blooded American superhero who likes to give tangible and person-appropriate thank-you gifts/repayment for services as opposed to "Do this thing I hate for me and I'll uh....I'll owe ya one buddy!"

tl;dr: Puting too many specific instances in writing removes the individual judgement factor, and almost to a one, I have great faith in the individual judgements of our staffers. You also risk the rise of "loop-hole artists." Also Stever really is a platinum-whore, with a heart of gold(pieces) <3
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How in the world did I get dragged into this :(
 
Well the aforementioned timer was due in the early morning hours when my friends all tend to be sleeping or at work, so to ask someone to help was really quite a burden and I'd love to be able to just say help me out here and ill help you out when your close to your charm but I really am paranoid about the rules.

Here is why...
I made a post about wizard runic 2 and then I went in-game and made a macro that basically suggested someone check out the thread and post their input in hopes that a broader response by the wizard community would prompt change. The name in the /tell I would just change whenever I ran by a random wizard i saw in town or just wizard names i recognised in /who all wiz.

Well I sent this to a staff members wizard alt and the next day they send me a tell saying that I was lucky I wasn't banned because sending tells like that is strictly against the rules "and is basically akin to the spam tells people send out trying to sell platinum for RL $". I asked where the rule was posted and they said it wasn't actually a posted rule because it was so obvious that it was bad.

That left me pretty shocked and confused as I had no concept I was doing anything wrong. I was also warned about being banned for a comment in LP, and that one I knew was dumb but never expected it could have any repercussions.

These situations as well as just the way I understand many rules to work have left me with a lot more concern about where exactly the line is drawn.

Its not at all that I think staff here does a bad job, our staff is absolutely amazing. Better than most pay games I have played, I just feel like there is a very strict by the books policy that might not be so reasonable in every situation.

Sorry to go so far off topic, but I thought some context might help explain why I'm seeming so anal about rules.
 
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