TC Bulletin and Policy Change 10/18/09

[ymerej]

We jail are petty thieves and put into office our greatest.
Aesop

[azmara]

I agree please pass out the cheese to go with all this whine.

Second point one word "Forgiveness", havent you ever screwed up...unless you personally know the people involved and know what speed hacking is you are in no position to make any judgement.

I trust the devs and support them because anyone that has put blood, sweat, and tears into something will always do what they feel in their heart is right.

[DevDep]

looks like a bunch of people are just pissed off that a cheater got Jedi before them.

[Draeth]

To anyone complaining about Ashur's participation in the explotation team, and the policy regarding warnings/reports:

Please consider for a moment that an exploit is, in fact, a type of bug. Specifically it is a type of bug in the code of a game that allows a user to gain an advantage not within the intended vision of the developers of the game. Exploits, like all other bugs, can be extremely difficult to find, and require documentation and reproducability to fix.
If Kyle says that Ashur was very helpful in the analysis of the speed hack exploit, enough so to make him an official team member, even, I'm willing to accept that information without argument. After all, he has nothing to gain by lying here. It's not like this is his job.

To Ashur:

I'm glad to hear that reports of your behaviour were exaggerated. Also, I kinda figured some of the accusations regarding speed hacking would have something to do with Force Run. XD Do us proud catching and fixing those exploits.



-Draeth.

[Tigerfang]

hackers are not screwing up - they are intentionally damaging the game for others. You dont do it by accident and you dont then grief people. If he came back after 6 months and said sorry - thats a different point.

There has been only days between his ban and his reactivation. Thats the issue right here. Also the dev's u talk about and i quote

"I trust the devs and support them because anyone that has put blood, sweat, and tears into something"

a number of these staff have detagged from the project and some have gone on official leave as of seing this post. BECAUSE they were not involved in this decision and was made unilaterally by people who are friends with storm and the hackers.

That does not make it best for the project, i am all for an anti hacking team or what ever but ashor was not the maker of the hack, he only deleted it and therefore his involvement has nothing to do with skills being used to improve the project. There are plently of people already IN the projects players that are reformed ( for years ) hackers / griefers or what ever who could be called upon to be in this team and do it with respect. They have as much as offered their services to members of staff and they have not been included to this team.

[Tigerfang]

Originally Posted by Draeth

I'm glad to hear that reports of your behaviour were exaggerated. Also, I kinda figured some of the accusations regarding speed hacking would have something to do with Force Run. XD Do us proud catching and fixing those exploits.



-Draeth.

He was caught on fraps intentionally griefing jedi unlockers. Im sorry but you need to actually learn the details before you comment any more

[Malas]

Originally Posted by Tigerfang

He was caught on fraps intentionally griefing jedi unlockers. Im sorry but you need to actually learn the details before you comment any more

Cry more?

[Tigerfang]

Originally Posted by Malas

Cry more?

helps if i care what a mis informed player thinks

[zetlaux]

Originally Posted by Valkyra

Frankly, I don't agree with any of this. At all.

Ok, so why was there no post of any kind made about this in the staff forum for the entire staff to decide upon? It's pretty much just what the higher-ups decided, as I only see them posting in this thread how this is a great idea.

Maybe people don't know this, but a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy is just that. ZERO tolerance. It doesn't mean you can just ban people then go back and say "Oh wait, let's unban these griefing hackers, OH WAIT! Let's give them a staff position to find our exploits! The community will never know."

These are not the kind of people to be given staff privileges to. Sosko, one of the leaders of STORM, crashed the SWGEmu ventrilo several times, harassed members via Ventrilo exploits, then he comes on the IRC and ban evades MANY times, spewing his slander, lies, and rage.

But wait, you guys see fit to not only UNBAN them (which goes against the policy we enstated as a TEAM in the first place), but give them staff positions, since OUR QA TEAM WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH IN FINDING EXPLOITS.

So let me get this straight again.

"I'm Ashur, a retard that loves to flame on the forums, cause a TON of grief in game too and I love hacking! I was banned because of this, but I kissed enough ass to not only get unbanned, but get a staff position too!"

That's EXACTLY how it seems.


There's so much wrong with this.

A. You don't just make such an important decision to those who have higher leverage in the staff.
B. You don't go back on a global policy that we all decided.
C. STORM guild is retarded, full of griefing hackers, EVERYONE KNOWS IT, and you unban them and give them staff positions.


...

This has to be the biggest troll of all time.

Thinking about it like that, given the history of these individuals cited, I have to agree that Valkyra has some legitimate points here. These people do not need to be staff, they need to be on the staff's leash, licking their boots while they sniff out exploits. Only upon finding an exploit do we then give them 1 (and not more than 1) tootsie roll- then we kick them in the kidney and make them keep sniffing. Their forum titles should be "Slave Exploit Sniffers."

[Draeth]

Originally Posted by Tigerfang

He was caught on fraps intentionally griefing jedi unlockers. Im sorry but you need to actually learn the details before you comment any more

Link?

[roodypooh]

Originally Posted by zetlaux

Thinking about it like that, given the history of these individuals cited, I have to agree that Valkyra has some legitimate points here. These people do not need to be staff, they need to be on the staff's leash, licking their boots while they sniff out exploits. Only upon finding an exploit do we then give them 1 (and not more than 1) tootsie roll- then we kick them in the kidney and make them keep sniffing. Their forum titles should be "Slave Exploit Sniffers."

Sadly its pretty clear that they don't give a damn about what anyone says. they pretty much made that clear when they just started unbanning and promoting without any discussion with the rest of the staff.


So much for all that talk from them awhile back that they don't play favorites and treat every member of the community the same.

To all the staff who have come out against these decisions openly in te community or even in private to your fellow staff members you guys have my full support on this.

To the staff who pulled this crap i say i guess the community was right with the playing favorites and letting them <storm> do what they want with no worries about anything happening to them.

i guess treating your fellow community members like **** will eventually lead to staff positions in the future for anyone interested in applying.

[Aeden]

Originally Posted by Kyle

While we still are taking a hardline on exploiting, the staff realizes that during development, there is a need to expose problems before we can enact the Zero-Tolerance policy as needed on a finished server.

With this announcement, we are officially organizing the Exploitation Team as a part of our Quality Assurance team. They will have the sole purpose of uncovering exploits and being a point of contact for community members that do find exploits. More information will be released on this team in the coming weeks.

To clear up a sore subject now that we have all the facts, I would like to address the recent banning of a known exploiting guild. Contrary to public belief and statements made by staff members, no one was able to exploit their way to jedi. The community member in question, Ashur, has in fact been extremely helpful in helping uncover serious Test Center flaws and is part of our Exploitation Team, but due to some communication breakdowns has received an unfair reputation. He did in fact get caught speed hacking, but was immediately cooperative. The subsequent reports are untrue. He was accused of speed hacking publicly, when in fact it was a legitimate use of FR3 which, like many of the jedi skills, are getting there first real tests and many are very bugged and broken. A number of the other members of the guild will continue to stay banned permanently because of their unwillingness to cooperate and immaturity in the matter, but a handful of the mature, and talented members have chosen to leave the Dark Side, and use their powers for good. Please welcome these people and treat them accordingly.

To reiterate the previous post, behavior from the community, and sadly, even staff,will no longer be tolerated when it is designed to undermine the project or community.

Regards,

We know where you are going with this.
I have to admit it is very clever in a way, and that it must feel good to be able to solve two problems by combining them into a solution. -1 x -1 = 1 ....we can do the maths too. I do believe it is brilliant.
But no matter how brilliant the idea, the application is bound to fail.

Of course, anyone with a little common sense will agree with the Devs to say that hack testing must be performed before the SC goes live, and after all this is a Test center and that's what it's here for.

But what most us can't understand though, is why you chose those people to do the job? This "handful of the mature, and talented members" have been allowed back on the server. Fine.(so much for the zero-tolerance policy that the majority of us supported). Now they should sit in a corner, think about what they did and thank Devs everyday for the opportunity they were given. An opportunity they were given several times for some of them.
But there is no reason they should be given a position of authority on the EMU. Nor any responsibilities.
Forget the "catch me if you can" fantasy, as stated before, these people didn't invent anything brilliant nor did anything any other person with very little computer skills could do.
Set up an exploitation team, that's a great idea. We all support this. But don't publicly explain this whole redemption business to us, because no matter the arguments, we won't believe in it.
We don't want asschickens in the SWGemu team. By allowing them in, you're only just insulting the former members of QA.

Maybe I'm a little bold again here. But when SC goes live, you will have to face many fierce debates with the community and there will be bolder people.
Maybe I should keep being more and more impudent as everyday goes by. Who knows, I may end up in the Uprising Prevention Team.

-Hayyah-

*EDIT* +1 for Valkyra and +1 for the "Slave Exploit Sniffers" title.

[Oru]

Originally Posted by Valkyra

Frankly, I don't agree with any of this. At all.

Ok, so why was there no post of any kind made about this in the staff forum for the entire staff to decide upon? It's pretty much just what the higher-ups decided, as I only see them posting in this thread how this is a great idea.

Maybe people don't know this, but a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy is just that. ZERO tolerance. It doesn't mean you can just ban people then go back and say "Oh wait, let's unban these griefing hackers, OH WAIT! Let's give them a staff position to find our exploits! The community will never know."

These are not the kind of people to be given staff privileges to. Sosko, one of the leaders of STORM, crashed the SWGEmu ventrilo several times, harassed members via Ventrilo exploits, then he comes on the IRC and ban evades MANY times, spewing his slander, lies, and rage.

But wait, you guys see fit to not only UNBAN them (which goes against the policy we enstated as a TEAM in the first place), but give them staff positions, since OUR QA TEAM WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH IN FINDING EXPLOITS.

So let me get this straight again.

"I'm Ashur, a retard that loves to flame on the forums, cause a TON of grief in game too and I love hacking! I was banned because of this, but I kissed enough ass to not only get unbanned, but get a staff position too!"

That's EXACTLY how it seems.


There's so much wrong with this.

A. You don't just make such an important decision to those who have higher leverage in the staff.
B. You don't go back on a global policy that we all decided.
C. STORM guild is retarded, full of griefing hackers, EVERYONE KNOWS IT, and you unban them and give them staff positions.


...

This has to be the biggest troll of all time.

I can't speak on behalf of the whole team but when this idea came to my table, i said go with zero-tolerance without any hesitation. Then some of the developers raised their voices, how are we going to find these exploits if we restrict and punish these hackers. On the other hand we must eliminate the system being used for their advantage and provide a good testing environment for all the other players.

So we have adjusted the policy. Was it a rushed decision? Probably. Is there a chance we adjust it even further. Of course! I'am trying to be as open-minded as possible and you should rather come to me directly instead of going to public with complaints like this. The problems raised by many of you here is noted and being considered. It has a valid point, that we should use someone else for the job then the given individuals.

[Aeden]

Originally Posted by Oru

I can't speak on behalf of the whole team but when this idea came to my table, i said go with zero-tolerance without any hesitation. Then some of the developers raised their voices, how are we going to find these exploits if we restrict and punish these hackers. On the other hand we must eliminate the system being used for their advantage and provide a good testing environment for all the other players.

So we have adjusted the policy. Was it a rushed decision? Probably. Is there a chance we adjust it even further. Of course! I'am trying to be as open-minded as possible and you should rather come to me directly instead of going to public with complaints like this. The problems raised by many of you here is noted and being considered. It has a valid point, that we should use someone else for the job then the given individuals.

Amen

[Tigerfang]

Originally Posted by Aeden

Amen

agreed