1. bread
2. Steam Community :: bread
3. Banned rule #6, #9, 1d
4. Lorenzo, 4/27/18 7:29PM
5. I don’t know what I should put here exactly. I’m dumbfounded. I’ve just finally made some time for arma and have played the same way I’ve always played. First of all, I’m sure I’ve never broken any rule in the entire time I’ve played on your servers except minor things like swearing. I’ve been helping players(“free weekend” new players too) yesterday and today, at least what I think is helpful, so I never expected to get banned out of all things. Enough of that, what matters is what I believe caused me to get banned; “talking back to an admin”.
Here’s my perspective of what led up to this; Yesterday and earlier today, I was flying without being in TS, maybe this brought me negative attention even though I believe I had a sufficient reason. I joined TS today in an attempt to avoid distressing between the other pilots. I stayed in TS after hopping out of the jet but muted speakers for a short while and forgot about it. Shortly after, Lorenzo reminds me of the muted speaker restriction which I respond with ~“I’m not piloting anymore” before disconnecting from the TS server. Idk why this would be important to add but it could be possible it increased tension. I don’t exactly remember the time difference between this and the next interaction. Back in game; we complete the side mission and receive a van, I write “dibs on the van”. Accordingly, as you always have to when awarded the prestigious armored sprinter van, I do donuts around the AOFL area, making sure that I don’t get in the way of pilots taxiing/landing(there were none), and end up picking up another player at Fixed Wing, his name is ZiD. I take him to AOFL rewards, again avoiding taxiing/landing planes(again none), where he gets in another van. Then of course we have to do more celebratory donuts and erratic driving. But this time our celebration is marred by the infamous rubber banding of arma - PRIME EXAMPLE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ2kIlpSc18 - and I end up clipping ZiD’s van, blowing us both up. The rest is in the chat log.
That’s my explanation rule #6 ban. For rule #9, I am a NAK Elite member and don’t have to be in a pilot slot to pilot aircraft, among other benefits such as flying without joining TS, and I have always played in a Engineer, Repair Specialist, Medic, Recon Marksman(in that priority) since being invited to NAK Elite. Before NAK Elite, I always joined TS and Played the same Infantry roles as above while not flying.
I was banned for rule #6 but I believe the main reason I was banned was to keep a precedent of not getting away with what appeared to be “talking back” to an admin or questioning an admin’s authority, which I personally believe is a misguided way to admin even though we sometimes feel it’s the only way. There isn’t a correct way to be an admin but I think bans should be always fully deserved and in this case, where there wasn’t reasonable ground to ban me but arguably there’s case for keeping the precedent of admin authority, a kick would have sufficed. I don’t mean to attack Lorenzo by this(the reason it’s a ban appeal and not under misconduct). That’s just my opinion after well over 6000 hours of arma(arma2/arma2 free/arma3) and being an admin for thousands more of those hours as well.
TL;DR:
Rule 6 - Technically I did destroy assets but it was not malicious/intentional and if there is a strict, bureaucratic “must ban” policy I would point to the video displaying typical example of rubberbanding. Also consider the case of when someone crashes a heli while transporting players? Do you ban them as well? You can go back into the chat logs, not only for today and yesterday, and see all my conversations where I mention, to players that I see doing such behavior, “don’t TK or don’t destroy our vehicles because an admin would kick/ban them”.
Rule 9 - As NAK Elite I have no reason to block a pilot slot and play as infantry(could be possible that someone in the TS helped influence Lorenzo to ban me, perhaps for what they though would be a pilot slot or maybe just out of confusion, he sounded stressed earlier too, TS is often chaotic, dealing with people calling the admin adds to that, and all this while trying to play. From my experience, when you are admin’ing, especially the only in-game admin, you have to drop the idea of playing the game).
Explanation for Possible Unlisted Reason: Rule 10 - No punishment was given, no “talking back” or arguing took place, I tried to explain the situation, albeit I evidently had done a poor job but at that time I did not think it was worth writing a comprehensive reply since there is a limit on the length of messages in game chat, along with the rapid messages that wipe player messages… And I had a feeling that Lorenzo would avoid the rcon chat log.
TL;DR: see TL;DR, and read the whole thing, please.
Hello Bread, firstly thank you for taking the time to file a ban appeal, secondly, I do not feel that I am being attacked by you in anyway as we have enjoyed many hours of good play in the past and I am sure in the future.
To the actual incidents at hand, firstly I received complaints from other players of goofing around at the main airfield by yourself driving across the runways during flight ops to which i decided as I did not see it myself, to let slide as no one was adversely affected. With regards to the van incident I asked you to stop to which you did not heed and with my own very eyes saw you and the other player doing the donuts at the base thus (as you call it rubber banding) eventually led to the destruction of not one but two vehicles. You are Nak Elite to which you are entitled to special privileges, these also come with some responsibility and to lead by example for the younger and more inexperienced players of whom look up at the Nak Elite symbol as prestigious These are not the examples we want set and wasting assets are against the rules at the end of the day. The incident would not have happened if a little more thought was put into what you were doing and at the end the vehicles provided are not there to be doing donuts, there are other places that could be done.
I banned you on the merit that when i approached you in private chat on the topic of being on the border line you ignored this warning, that the behavior is not allowed on the server, secondly I asked on various occasions for you to stop talking back in side as everyone would be privy to the dispute and that it would disrupt normal game play for the other players. I gave you one day so that you could step back and take stock of your actions. With regards to rule No 9 that is an error on the system and would be fixed, it should really reflect rule#10 Arguing over punishment (to which you would not have received if you stopped when i asked you to).
Thank you for your reply, Lorenzo.
I’ve given an explanation for rule #10 as I figured it was the main reason behind the ban. I’ve mentioned that a kick would have solidified the admin authority aspect for the other players in the server. I unfortunately have thousands of hours of admin experience and understand these subtleties and I disagree with the ban. I also understand the consequences of overusing bans, especially on regular players who can help new players also become regular players, considering this does happen to be a free weekend and I was enjoying observing the common behavior of new players. Unfortunately I’m unable to make time for another decent stretch of time so this appeal is in vain since it’s only a 24 hour ban.
My actions were not severe enough to warrant a ban, a kick would have done the job. I was not aggressive or insulting toward you, I tried to explain the situation. You’ve mentioned that you didn’t witness the entirety of the event. Rubberbanding is a common latency problem, it’s prevalent in arma. It’s not merely an excuse. The vehicles wouldn’t have blown up if the second vehicle wasn’t occupied by the player. What happens is my client predicts the position of the vehicle while the server hasn’t sent the true position, the server sends the true position which is gets intersected into my vehicle’s collision mesh by and triggers the explosion. Have you seen the helis(on the carrier) explode or get launched on respawn? It’s because the material on the carrier deck is colliding with the heli. It also happens if you place a vehicle on top of another vehicle. It would not have had happened under normal circumstances if the other vehicle was moving at 10km/h and my vehicle moving at 30km/h.
Back to rule #10; I didn’t ignore your warning, I didn’t see it as a warning. I read your message and tried to explain what happened. Regarding rule #10: I could not have argued with a punishment because there was no punishment at that point. I cannot assume every conversation with an admin is going to be misrepresented as “talking back” or arguing. Also, in this case, where there was no punishment to dispute in the first place, don’t you agree that there is nothing wrong with arguing, as long as it’s done respectfully and without disturbing the peace? I was not disrespectful. There was just the precedent of “talking back” to an admin or questioning admin authority. Also the only people that can see private messages are the admins and the player receiving them. There’s nothing wrong with public display of admin interaction anyway, it would not disturb the other players, not more than the normal chat spam of “Regroup”, “* does not meet the server’s network requirement”, “* killed by ", " connected, * disconnected”, and the addon errors. You took my explanation as “talking back” when my intention wasn’t to do so yet I was still insta-banned; personally, something I would reserve for intentional TKers, griefers, and script kiddies - not for someone communicating with an admin in a respectful but resolute manner - but that’s just my informed opinion(from 1k+ hours of arma2/arma2free evo/domi server and ~2k hours arma3 German I&A server) and other people’s admin style/philosophy or experience may fairly disagree.
Of course, I still reject this decision, I feel it was arbitrary and unmerited, and maintain my innocence. However, I do accept that I could’ve not responded and diffused the situation but this is not to be mistaken for regret.
On another note; you have players who are not admins yet over-police other players as if they have malicious intentions or are dangerously oblivious/new to arma. This is not fun when you have someone who tells an admin that you’re doing something wrong when you’ve taken proper precaution and have made necessary judgement calls to do such things. In your opinion what is required to gain merit and how much is required for someone to approve/recommend actions like;
- advising the demolition of abandon helicopters when it makes more sense than to wait for a fuel/repair truck/bobcat that likely never comes
- crossing the airstrip when there is no possibility of obstructing aircraft(whether in an aircraft of land vehicle)
- goofing around in a safe, contained manner(whether to improve player morale or for personal amusement, have to be honest here)
- advise an admin which player is malicious/griefing/trolling(where an admin can justify kicking/banning a player upon seeing an initial offense after the report, even if there might be more to it)
Is it strictly a time thing? Or is there more involved? No offense to Zero, who was the person that reported me in an “out of context” manner and held enough merit with an admin. I am NAK Elite, have been gone for 3 months and still am in top 15 all-time hours played(according to battlemetrics). All my communication from those 350 hours + Zeus server time is logged on the game servers. I would like to know what merit I hold. I’ve seen some other players reasonably make these calls before, with my “stats” is it acceptable for me to make the above judgement calls, accounting for server rules beforehand?
By driving the vehicle in a manner that was not contributing to the mission, your lag allowed those vehicles to be destroyed, making those vehicles unavailable to all of the other players on the server. Your actions did not just affect you, but all of the players that were on the server at the time.
I understand that you feel your actions were not enough to merit a ban, but the Admin online at the time did. You state that the Admins actions were arbitrary and unmerited, but that is not the case at all, our rules are very clear and they were enforced to the letter. The Admin actually gave you more verbal warnings that what is required.
As far as players reporting issues to admins, all players are encouraged to report players to Admins when they violate server rules. It is then up to the Admin to assess the situation and enforce the rules. Lorenzo did not ban you as a result of the player report, though I agree with the player in this case. The ban was due to the aggregate of infractions.
Your hours and the fact that you are NAK elite does not grant you any special merit on the server. All players, no matter their rank or which tags they have, are all treated the same way. Part of the Admin code of conduct states “Do not turn a blind eye to those who break the rules. Treat everyone equally. If an Admin breaks a rule please report it to VileAce or Claws. If a player breaks a rule enforce it.”
I am sorry that you disagree with the rules and the enforcement of the rules, but I have reviewed this issue in detail, and there was no misconduct on the part of anyone other than you.