Global Force replies to staff in game mail.

Developments on Economy has lead to this suggestion but I see no harm in having it on all servers.

Many players are using alts to load farms on Economy, which is fine so long as they aren't bypassing the alternate account limit.
Many are paying other players to AFK extra farms for them which is a great replacement for the profit shops which died off when croppers started auto selling.

At least one player however is profiting from numerous private farms and there is no way to know if they are doing so legitimately or not.
The income and tax being paid by this player suggests that they are profiting from 5-6 private farms with no evidence of any outgoing payments for the service.
The large negative spikes in the image below represents the tax that this one player (and his alt) is paying which proof enough of the income being received from croppers.



Note. I'm not saying this player has broken any rules as this is technically possible to do this within the rules.

While it can be suspected which accounts are loading the extra farms (no rank, no income, no chat, online 24/7), if there are no logs as to who placed the croppers and they are not contactable in game or forums, it is impossible for staff to investigate to determine if any rules are being broken.

So my suggestion is this: Any in game mail from a staff member must be adequately responded to within 24 hour, else the account's access to the server be suspended until such time as a response is given and accepted via forums account.
Note, this would be a suspension and not a ban, as it might be that a message to the staff member is all that is required. No ban appeal or record of this is necessary. Of course, a ban could still ensue if it is found that rules are broken.

For legitimate players this should not be an issue, we will see the mail should staff ever need mail us, and we can respond. This is not so easy for accounts that are being run from unattended PC's, Console Clients, ChatCraft, etc. all of which can easily be run autonomously via VPN's.

 

Strong support. I agree that any legitimate player will be checking in on their account at least daily. And cheating should be punished.

 

This doesn't seem like much of a suggestion as it is a report thread with the username redacted. Staff can temp ban a player as they deem necessary without your additional input of what constitutes necessary communication.

 

You can believe what you like sky, but I've stated quite clearly that there is no evidence of rules being broken so a ban is not appropriate as you suggest. Temp bans and bans can not/should not be given unless rules are broken.

From the Terms of Service.


I've even stated that this can be done within the rules, so what is it that you think I'm reporting?

It's nothing more than a suggestion to give staff the power to gain the information needed to ensure players are playing by the rules.

 

As a Skyblock player, I can only imagine the major damage this is and will do long term and agree that some ideas should be possibility looked into,

However I disagree with the intrusive method here, unless if the player is doing something outright illegal- being forced to respond to any player including moderators and failing to do resulting in consequences feels a bit off in my opinion (in my own experience ive known players who outright dont engage with people).

I have no alternative ideas on how to go about this...If it has no consequence to the player though and staff are checking in seems fine to me though!

 

I envisage it only being used to contact the non ranked accounts that do nothing other than log in automatically and stand there all day. If they have no forum account and are AFK literally 24/7 there is no way to contact them.
They aren't necessarily doing anything wrong, so they can't be banned but there is no way to know if they are legitimate or not.
There are AFK console clients out there with which an individual can run many alts.

 

I never said otherwise.

You've supplied plenty of circumstantial evidence of rules being broken...
You're also dancing around with words. In what way is "account's access to the server be suspended" different from a temporary ban?

It's pretty obvious that you are reporting on suspicious balance activity of a player(s), possibly indicative of excessive alt account usage.

 

You said it seemed more of a report thread and reports are usually made when a player is breaking the rules.

Not at all. I've said that the data I've shown can stem from legal avenues. Even if I've implied that it warrants investigation.

Bans only occur if rules are broken.
Bans must be appealed or waited out.
Bans must be declared on subsequent ban appeals or staff applications.
A suspension, as proposed, only requires the player to contact the staff member on forums, nothing more.

If this was added to the rules, then a player who didn't comply, could be suspended in line with the current terms and conditions but doesn't need to go through the whole ban appeal process as they haven't been banned.

I'm highlighting suspicious balance activity, yes. But this isn't the report forum Sky.
I'm suggesting another tool for staff to be able to investigate/question players that are logged in but inactive 24/7.
Without this, there is nothing stopping anyone from running extra accounts via various means. They could ignore all correspondence from staff and there is nothing that staff could do about it.

 

This is why I'm calling you out. This isn't the report forum, Drogo.

I'm going to ignore everything else you said and state my peace here:
Staff can currently /mail a player a request they deem reasonable. If the recipient fails to comply with their request, Staff are able to issue a ban for failing to cooperate (as they have done historically). The recipient must follow up with an appeal on the forums to be unbanned. If you are wondering which rule allows staff to do this, try looking under "common sense" .
If the banned player is concerned about the publicity of archived ban appeals, they can request a moderator to make the thread private or to put the content in staff tags.

 

If you want to call me out Sky, then do it where it is appropriate. Go make a report.

I'm well aware of what staff can and do do, Sky.
But what they can't do currently is suspend a player whose action need only be a reply rather than a public ban appeal.

Choosing to ignore everything else is choosing to be ignorant.

 

What if the person does not speak english? A 10 year old that has a different mother tongue than english for example. After your logic, they would be punished for not responding to a mail from a staff member. There is no age restriction for the server. There is no rule that a player has to understand english to play, as far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

A 10 year old isn’t likely to sit idle all day doing nothing but making money for someone else and as such, it’s not likely to be a problem for them.

At any rate, the servers terms do state the following.
“Non-English communication: Skyblock is an English language service. Communication, particularly content viewable by many users, will be conducted in the English language.”

 

Why would you?

 

I guess...I support staff having the ability to do this, but I'm not sure we need as suggestions thread for it?

Like to me, this kinda falls under the "Common Sense" section of the Code of Conduct - if a Staff Member is investigating suspicious activity and says "Hey there, can you confirm your identity by responding to this message when you get a chance?" and you choose to ignore it...there's probably gonna be some repercussions. Spelling out specifically that players must respond to staff sounds about as useful as saying "players must follow rules", imo.

I also think you may be misinterpreting what Sky was getting at. (Or maybe I am - who knows, aside from Sky)
My interpretation of Sky's post wasn't that you were accusing anyone specific of rulebreaking, but more...reporting that you believe rulebreaking is happening and are asking mods to investigate...which I think is a valid way to view this thread. (Not that I don't believe you're genuinely making a suggestion here; just that I perceive your suggestion comes from a place of wanting action taken on this matter)

With all that said, I'll reiterate - support...but I'm not sure we need this to be spelled out? I think mods already have the ability to do this.

 

They do, but if they do, then they also have to deal with a ban appeal and it goes on record as the player having been banned.
That's not really necessary if it's just that someone has ben AFK for a couple days and hasn't known to reply.

 

Your suggestion contains that people that don't speak english could no longer play Skyblock, since they could get punished anytime for not replying to a staff members mail. Sorry but that's bullshit. The rule you mentioned only says that public conversations should be held in english (which is not really the case, I've seen staff members talk in different languages in public chat), but there is no rule that says Skyblockers have to be able to speak english.

 

No it doesn’t.
The requirement for players to converse in English comes from the servers terms.

If a player couldn't respond because they don't speak English, then currently a staff member could technically ban them.

This suggestion would mean that they only need to get in contact with the staff member rather than going through a ban appeal.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this line of thinking. This assumes that staff would be sending mail to everyone and punishing anyone who fails to reply with absolutely no context - but our staff members are human and are generally able to exercise things like judgement and use context to discern between genuine suspicious behavior and simply not speaking English.

This suggestion would simply add another toolkit into the mods belts (if it doesn't exist already).
As an example, mods currently have the ability to ban people; that doesn't mean everyone gets banned.

 

It would be unlikely to actually happen, but it would be possible that a player seems suspicious to a mod, does not reply to the mail because he doesn't understands it, and then gets punished for not replying. This scenario is the reason why I do not support the suggestion.

 

But that can happen now anyway.
This suggestion would actually make it easier for them to get back in game and without having a ban on their record.