Rule 11

Wit

Dalayan Adventurer
Is:

Staff Conduct Policy

The staff of Shards of Dalaya is bound by strict policies that forbid favoritism, corruption, and abusing knowledge gained as a GM to further their player characters. The fact that we maintain a clean house also means that we do not enjoy having rumors spread about GMs by people in rivaling guilds or with personal grudges. If you have a problem with a staff member, take it up in private with an Administrator, so that we can investigate and take action if your allegations turn out correct. If you have a problem with an Administrator, take it up with a Woldo or Zoie directly. On the same token any attempts to solicit staff favors in any form are dealt with harshly. This applies both to a staff members staff character and player characters.


From mostly an outside observer's perspective I have to say in my brief time back I have heard a lot of talk about favoritism and corruption among the staff. I'm not posting here to accuse anyone of anything, again this is what it look likes to an old player who just came back after years away:

There is a problem with the staff.

If its a real problem or one of perception is yet to be seen. I think we can all agree that the staff and players of SoD have always had a rather large disconnect, just getting patch notes posted to an accessible place is a new development for this server so I wouldn't exactly describe the staff as open communicators, which is fine, until its not.

Now is a time when I think it's not. Again I'm not calling anyone on the staff corrupt but there is without a doubt a perception of corruption hanging over the server currently and it would take almost zero effort to clear the air IF there is in fact no corruption.

Exhibit A:
Banning(eternal jailing is the same thing lets be real... what was even the point of this soft severed ban? He either broke the rules and gets banned or didn't and can play, why this appeal every 6 months stuff? Is he appealing the ban on the ground of innocence or "I learned my lesson please let me play again"? All that did was make this whole thing very murky. Why is any of that a thing? that aside) a charter that breaks the rules and get's banned is fine, that's how it goes.

But now things get a little messy because our banished player was a guild leader that is maintaining his innocence. This put the guild and somewhat the server at large in contention with the staff, it raises the question: can my charter I've spent YEARS developing and playing be taken away from me for no real reason? Do you think newer players don't hear about this kind of stuff and decide maybe they would rather play on a server that wont arbitrarily ban people? Maybe he deserved it, but maybe he didn't...

So the question is what kind of staff do we have?
A uncorrupted staff with nothing to hide would opt for transparency. You made a post as an "explanation" and said you have proof. People want the proof, so post it. Put this whole issue to rest decisively and show everyone that rule 11 is being enforced just like every other rule(besides the naming policy).

Or ignore / delete this post. It doesn't prove you're corrupt or play favorites, but that is exactly what corruption looks like. Rule 11 says the staff doesn't like nasty rumors floating around and I agree, none of that is good for the server(and neither are those promo videos btw, those made me want to quit playing, those lazy fame grabbers should be deducted fame for driving people away, someone's UI alone was just... I'm getting distracted but shame on you, you know who you are) so why not clear up at least this issue? I think settling this cleanly would be good for the guild left behind and the server as a whole.
 
"This put the guild and somewhat the server at large in contention with the staff,"

"This put some of our guild in contention with the staff" is probably accurate. Even more accurate based on the banning post "giving out unreleased content info". So a very real question is, who did he give info to? And apparently that some how got to the staff. Why not be mad at that person? It would be sad if that person happened to be one of your guild members.

Your worried about losing a character you invested so much time into, yet could also lose that same character if they decided to not host the game anymore.

Best case scenario, he wins his appeal and everyone can continue.
 
I can't think of a single time where 3rd parties were entitled to proof of why someone was jailed/banned.

As far as claims of corruption goes, people have been tin foiling since I started back in 09, most often its started when someone doesn't get their way.

I do agree that there is and can be a disconnect though and lack of communication.
 
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Yeah I'm not sure why a dev leaking strats to a player would be something to jail the player over. Discipline the dev that is leaking the stuff to the player.
 
Yeah I'm not sure why a dev leaking strats to a player would be something to jail the player over. Discipline the dev that is leaking the stuff to the player.
It wasn't just that though, he in turn was leaking info to other players.

Also the exploiting of the aggro bug after already being warned about not using the bug.
 
I really have zero skin in this game but I will say the forever jailing is real weird, ban them or don't. Also I wouldn't be opposed to more openness from the staff that's left, Rymy's good about soliciting for information and updating what he's working on and Supreme craved input on items/encounters frequently. Even Marza who can be particularly cagey sometimes is open to changing stuff if you put a good case on it.

I can't think of a single time where 3rd parties were entitled to know why someone was jailed/banned.

As far as claims of corruption goes, people have been tin foiling since I started back in 09, most often when its started when someone doesn't get their way.

I do agree that there is and can be a disconnect though and lack of communication.

Weren't you in Chaotic Winds?
 
I'd agree that more transparency would be nice. There has definitely been some changes or rulings that seem a little too convenient - but nothing overly blatant. Two pretty active content devs have also seemed to vanish which is a little odd.

I think out of all the examples you could have chosen though, the recent swiftur jailing probably isn't a good one.
 
Yeah I'm not sure why a dev leaking strats to a player would be something to jail the player over. Discipline the dev that is leaking the stuff to the player.
it probably wasn't strat leaks. Devs sometimes interact with players for a better insight on creating future items or encounters etc. Given most of the devs have not played the game in a serious capacity in recent years, sometimes you can only get reliable feedback by discussing certain things with players who have played the game in its current state.
 
I can't think of a single time where 3rd parties were entitled to know why someone was jailed/banned.

As far as claims of corruption goes, people have been tin foiling since I started back in 09, most often when its started when someone doesn't get their way.

I do agree that there is and can be a disconnect though and lack of communication.


Cool, I remember back in 2006 when there was actually a Tin Foil Hat forum here, that's kind of my point, the lack of clear communication causing strain between staff and players has a long history here and I don't see the point of it. Rule 11 wouldn't exist if staff corruption wasn't a real concern. If 3rd parties are not involved why did they make a post of explanation in the first place? Again I'm not blaming anyone or even saying the guy is innocent, I'm just using this as a point of discussion. I just came back to the server and that is one but far from all the complaints about staff corruption and lack of fair play I've heard of and @Jmayzak this is coming from more than one guild, make some friends and jump around discords, people are talking about this stuff... and the simple truth is the banned guy can do nothing to prove he is innocent, the staff can(?) prove guilt, that's why in every modern justice system the burden of proof is on the accuser. If they have proof why not post?


Again I wasn't around for any of this jailing unjailing rejailing nonsense but I think its odd he wasn't banned outright and I'm not going to argue he is innocent and deserves to play, I have no clue if that's true or not. I just found the explanation post a bit lacking and would like more transparency in that and all things. Our server is tiny, banning even 1 player is like 1-2% of the population no to mention any friends/family/guildies that also quit. For a guy that seemed to love playing the game and put a lot of time/effort into it I think it would be nice to understand what he did that makes the game better by permanently removing him from it. I feel like a community of 5 staff and 50 players shouldn't have that many problems communicating, at the end of the day the players want to play and have fun and the staff want to run a nice fun game and develop it further, if that's the case this kind of drama is insane, if that's not the case, why not? Can we fix it? What is the current goal of staff for this server?
 
I personally think transparency is a good blanket statement to address many topics/issues/concerns going on in the game currently. Not here to point fingers at anyone or even discuss things related to corruption or the recent jailings that have happened. Basically I feel like a lot of people have the same questions recently, and as of the last week I feel like we have one dev operating in a very rule-heavy environment. I'll try not using names but I'd be surprised if this was hard to piece together.

I'm just very curious of all other things what the staff titles actually mean anymore, and what people are responsible for. In the last few weeks I've seen three key staff members back out of Shards Discord and some even mentioned they're ultimately done creating content. To say that this was by choice or not is not up to me to determine, but it was very surprising to see some of them leave considering their increasing interest and consistent contributions to the game. Over the course of Rymy's recent activity, I feel like has done a really good job in terms of letting the population know what he's working on, and what he plans on adding to the pot once things start to finish and cool down. Also a big shoutout to Karit who's been extremely helpful since she's returned from her ongoing busy life. I can't really say that about anybody else, and part of that is likely due to the fact that we know nothing about what goes on behind the scenes.

A few months ago in the beginning of April I put in a dev app along with a few other people, which inevitably hasn't even been acknowledge with a simple binary "yes" or "no." Furthermore, I even offered to step away from playing the game as a player for an extended amount of time to eliminate any possibility of accusations of foul play. This all comes full circle, since the person I thought I was submitting this to was in charge of stuff like that. If not him, then who? Why would a server not take advantage of people offering to help? Sure I get the point of protecting the integrity of the server and all of the work that people have funneled into making this game one of the best EQEmus available, but at the very least why not even pick up some active GMs who are available at most hours of the day and just simply not give lua or db access? Or why not have a staff member seek public ideas for a quest, or item, or zone, or anything. Again, something I offered to do. Many people play this game from many different time zones, and having new people sitting waiting on a simple petition that can be easily fixed if someone was around seems deadly. Instead we have quite a few staff that only pop their head in when it's convenient or something involving themselves, throw a rule around, and then vanish again. We've seem to have been putting more time into enforcing dated rules and regulations and other bullshit than we have into actual meaningful content.

It'd just be really nice for the health of the community to know what's going on. It doesn't have to be some elaborate detailed list. Just knowing who people are, what they do, and what their expectations are would go a long way. Population's dwindling, and involvement seems low. If higher-up people are losing interest, I can't see a reason why involving more active staff members is a terrible thing especially with upcoming ideas for promotions and account drives. It's a shitty feeling putting time and work, regardless of how much, into writing a lengthy design document for a dev app only to have it left unread, or a few of us making video promotions that only a few of us will appreciate.
 
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I mean i've been jailed for farming first ruins on a shadowknight like 5 times, something everyones been doing since tier 9 came out so idk man
 
I mean i've been jailed for farming first ruins on a shadowknight like 5 times, something everyones been doing since tier 9 came out so idk man
what exactly are you being banned for here. devs put in mobs to make this more annoying to do in the past so i don't know if this post is a joke or not.
 
I don't have a horse in this race, I mostly just ghost the forums these days. But I did want to point out that practically every person in jail is innocent, just go ask them. Seriously, him saying he is innocent doesn't mean he is. I have never seen the staff provide the concrete proof of anyone's guilt before, but usually a lot of leeway is given before they do so also. So benefit of the doubt for staff here, he probably did what they said.
 
No horse in the race and limited information as well^. If you were around to see the in-game mess the past few months we are trying to discuss you might have more doubt. All we are asking for is more transparency. At least one staff member who has quit thought there was too much policing and restraint on creativity. Due to their professionalism (I can only assume) they didn't make a public fuss about it but it doesn't mean we aren't aware of their position.

If you are punishing one guy for his misdeeds why punish him for both jailings just hours before our main raid nights? Aren't you intentionally screwing over the schedule of the rest of the guild yet talk about stability and integrity. It couldn't be done on any other nights? The guild is dead now and it sucks. It would have died no matter which day of the week you jailed him but there would have been less of a stink when most of the guild wasn't around to see it expecting to attend a raid.

Lately, there have been more issues involving one guild and rule micro management than any other guild-to-guild dramas out there. Even if Woldaff doesn't have any interest in SoD, I feel he is responsible for its integrity and I would love for him to stop by from time to time to get player input as well instead of just staff feedback. And if he does have interest in its well-being he should definitely check in. I can't think of anything over the years that causes more players to break away from SoD than conflicts with staff. It usually kills off guilds.

Who is watching the watchers? eh.
 
No horse in the race and limited information as well^. If you were around to see the in-game mess the past few months we are trying to discuss you might have more doubt. All we are asking for is more transparency. At least one staff member who has quit thought there was too much policing and restraint on creativity. Due to their professionalism (I can only assume) they didn't make a public fuss about it but it doesn't mean we aren't aware of their position.

If you are punishing one guy for his misdeeds why punish him for both jailings just hours before our main raid nights? Aren't you intentionally screwing over the schedule of the rest of the guild yet talk about stability and integrity. It couldn't be done on any other nights? The guild is dead now and it sucks. It would have died no matter which day of the week you jailed him but there would have been less of a stink when most of the guild wasn't around to see it expecting to attend a raid.

Lately, there have been more issues involving one guild and rule micro management than any other guild-to-guild dramas out there. Even if Woldaff doesn't have any interest in SoD, I feel he is responsible for its integrity and I would love for him to stop by from time to time to get player input as well instead of just staff feedback. And if he does have interest in its well-being he should definitely check in. I can't think of anything over the years that causes more players to break away from SoD than conflicts with staff. It usually kills off guilds.

Who is watching the watchers? eh.

What more information do I need? He was caught exploiting a bug before.. in the past people have been banned right away just for that. He was given a slap on the wrist instead. He should have known he would be under a microscope after that. The only thing I don't agree with is the jailing with 6month appeal process, just ban and be done with it, like has happened to all the others in the past.
 
what exactly are you being banned for here. devs put in mobs to make this more annoying to do in the past so i don't know if this post is a joke or not.
I am not joking. I don’t play this game anymore and haven’t for months but in my several year long career of SoD I have been jailed too many times to count for FD farming on sk / monk. And I’ve never seen it happen to any other player farming on those classes
 
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