I wasn't sure where to post this, so I put it here.
Where do you draw the line on taking away a subscription? I was looking through the Proelium forums, and I see a lot of people complaining about having their subscriptions taken. They paid for something, and it was taken away from them. Sounds like stealing to me.
In this* particular case, a subscription was taken away because the subscriber pagerbanned the game owner, and a game's adminstrator.
Balzack tried to justify it by saying he warned the person ("So I asked him over AIM to unban Silkwizard or I would take away his subscription. He refused, I did as I said I would, and the rest is history.") but that's like saying "Hey, give me your car or I'll punch you in the face."
I'm just wondering if this is actually allowed. I mean, can I go cancel the subscriptions for my games and keep the money?
--Joe
*Language warning.
ID:186642
 May 27 2005, 4:13 pm
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May 27 2005, 4:18 pm
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ITG Master
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I agree that that is unfair...Its kind of hard to handle, in a case that someone just codes out the benifiets of subscribing..
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Ah, this where lawyers have fun. Except not over $4.00
You see, a subscription to a game is generally a license created via contract. So what are the rules? Look to the contract! If the agreement says “You pay [X] for access to [Y] for [Z] period of time, which may be revoked, without refund, if you do [whatever].” Then guess what? Those are the terms of the agreement. Contract law is fun like that- you get to write your own law! If one party breaches the agreement, damages may be recovered. But what about when the agreement is vague or, worse, hasn’t been specified? That’s where specific state laws kick in. In most states it goes something like this: 1) Did the parties have any agreement? 2) If not, does their behavior indicate an understanding of any terms? 3) If not, does the industry or are have standards or general guidelines for this sort of agreement? 4) If not impose reasonable rules via legal guidelines such as the UCC. Then there is always the issue of warranties and individual consumer protection laws that may govern certain transactions. But even if the agreement is settled, there is also the question of fraud- material misrepresentations reasonably relied upon by one party. This may arise in the context of contract (in an attempt to rescind or revise the agreement), tort, or criminal law. I highly suggest that anyone wishing to regularly take money for anything get familiar with the basics of contract law as well as tax law (Can we say federal income tax?). One thing that has tugged away at me for a while are the potential liabilities a game owner has to be aware of ranging from contractual to criminal. | |
Since I can't remember my durn name and password on that forum, I'll post here.
I have to agree with you Airjoe-- Balzack is being a power hungry large group of censored words. Every time he bans a Proelium player or removes their subscription, his ego increases exponentially. I'm a little surprised SilkWizard is rather on Balzack's side than the community's. This is a major turn-off for Proelium, and I'm beginning to regret ever paying for it, and I feel sorry for those who did also (and I feel even worse for the ones who lost their subscriptions for any reason Balzack considers good enough). | |
V_V That brings back good memories...in my new days of BYOND the first game I played was DWO...
I remember trying to become the king...then when balzack logged out...someone yelled "All Hail King Ball Sack" It was funny at the time..I dunno about now | |
Well, there's this now.
http://silkgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1608 About canceling subscriptions, I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed. I have a lifetime subscription to Proelium too. I made sure to get my money's worth with it too, but I don't think it would be right to use something I paid money for, and then expect a refund when I'm done. It's not exactly a library. :-/ I have a hard time seeing the "give me the car or I'll punch you in the mouth" analogy though. I see it more as paying for access to a nightclub or something. If I get rowdy and the staff has to kick me out, why would I expect to get my money back? Proelium servers can be passworded while public, and in that way he could deny Silk or Balzack or Spiff from joining. Making it a public and open server and then banning them seems different, to me. ~Edit~ I just thought about this, too. Usually, when someone is a big enough of a troublemaker, they simply get banned from games. The purchase of a subscription is not a Get Out of Jail Free card. Proelium's been up for 3 years and no doubt there have been many people who try to push the limit to see how close they can get from being in trouble. So far, the worst that had happened that whole time is just forum bans. Just log into a server. It's pretty easy to find a couple people since the game seems infested with that type of attitude a good deal of the time. Any sane person (in my opinion) would just ban the troublemakers outright, but Silk/Balzack are only going halfway with this via subscription revoking. So why is this treated as a harsher punishment than a ban? In both situations, the person would be out the subscription money. The only difference is that you can still play the game if it gets revoked, whereas if you have to get "hardcode banned" then you're out of luck. | |
I agree with Silk. The Proelium community as a whole is quite a chore to deal with, even if you're just playing the game and not administrating it.
I have to deal with enough idiots with YAGSACG (though there are some really nice players of course), and Proelium must be a million times worse. I really don't blame SilkWizard for applying harsh penalties; in fact, I'd probably do the same in his position. So I think he has every moral right to cancel people's subscriptions. Legal right? I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. =) | |
I don't know why MY name specifically is being thrown around here so much. I just happen to be online far more often then Silkwizard so I do his work for him.
I don't see how my ego has anything to do with this. I work as a member of the Silkgames staff, and one of my many jobs is to add subscribers to the list. I don't willy nilly go into Proelium games and figure out names of people who I'd like to see without a subscription then just execute that. We actually confer about such things...I am merely the person who does community relations most of the time on the forums. This is not Balzack versus the Proelium community. This is the Proelium administration versus the Proelium community. There have been fair warnings all around, they know exactly what they are doing and try to welcome the punishments as martyrs. In fact I've been warned by several people now that I will be BYOND banned. I find that an interesting proposal...since I so often stray onto the BYOND forums, lol, and don't go into any games besides Proelium or DWO, which I am a staff member for :P | |
This is wrong on many levels. A person can block whoever they want whenever they want on their personal pager! This is clearly illegal and should be dealt with using harsh punishment.
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When a player bans the games owner from playing his game then I see a problem. I warned about the problem. I talked to my fellow staff members about the problem. I even did one last warning before I DID something about said problem.
As Sarm said, a ban would make somebodies subscription void as well, so what is the difference between that and merely taking the sub? Regardless of that though, I see no guarantee on subscriptions. Also, money transactions are between the games owner and the subscriber. I suggest a forum mod just delete this topic, as I said earlier it is Proelium players, playing the position of martyr to try to get me and Silkwizard BYOND banned. It's not appropriate to bring this here, but it is being done anyways in hopes that they can get their "revenge." If you honestly take legal action over four dollars then fine. You pay the lawyer fees, and after the trial I will laugh, then I will feel badly for you because you lost and buy you a 4 dollar meal at McDonalds. | |
SuperAntx wrote:
This is wrong on many levels. A person can block whoever they want whenever they want on their personal pager! This is clearly illegal and should be dealt with using harsh punishment. You have no idea what's been happening in the Proelium community over the last two years, do you? The Proelium community has always had a undesirable atmosphere to it due to a portion of it's gamers and their foul language and behaviour. Over time, it got to the point that Silk refused to work on Proelium any further and progress on it stalled for months. Luckily Spiff, a regular of DWO and a good coder, took up the helm of the Proelium ship and has been coding all the recent verisons of Proelium with Silk's consent. At first, Silk and the other admins practiced a hands off approach to the complaints of certain players and their behaviour and abusiveness. After awhile, this took a toll on the community as the people not willing to deal with this high level of immaturity began to leave Proelium. Around this time, Silk realized leaving the problem alone only encouraged such delinquents and was slowly destroying the game and it's community. Over time, he took more stringent and assertive positions on rules yet the delinquents either ignored it or changed briefly before becoming their old selves. About two weeks ago, Silk decided enough was enough and has taken this latest step in which permanent bans will be soon coded, as well as subscriptions being taken as a first warning step to people to shape up or be banned for good. Taking someone's subscription does not prevent a person from playing the game and a ban would basically take away the subscription's benefits so Silk isn't being unfair in my view. If i'm right, game companies declare in their agreement clauses that they can, without consumer acceptance, change the rules and standards at anytime and the consumers are expected to re-arrange themselves to follow these new rules as well as the old ones still in effect. The people who have lost their subscriptions didn't follow the rules, they should be grateful they're still allowed to play. | |
If I pay for something it's mine. You can't make some ridiculous rule saying I can't block a person. A host has the ultimate decision of who can access their server. Sure, banning the owner of the game you play is a stupid thing to do, but it's not abusing or harming anything.
Note: I'm not a subscriber, I'm a third party. | |
SuperAntx wrote:
If I pay for something it's mine. You can't make some ridiculous rule saying I can't block a person. A host has the ultimate decision of who can access their server. Sure, banning the owner of the game you play is a stupid thing to do, but it's not abusing or harming anything. Solid objects that you buy, you own. When you buy something digital, you don't own it. You only have the privilege to use it for how long you paid for and that privilege can be taken away if deemed necessary by the owner of said digital creation. I agree that a host should have the right to block individuals from their server but as you have stated, you're only a third party and probably have not witnessed the ridiculousness/insanity/stupidity (you pick the word) that many of the players reach, after they have been warned many times. On Proelium, hosts as of late have been using the pager ban function to ban people because they have not been playing the way they want them too. Silk has stated, http://silkgames.com/forum/ viewtopic.php?p=13613&highlight=#13613, that custom rules made by hosts is illegal if the server is public. Some examples of bans by hosts of innocent players include: Note: To clarify some of the terms below, i'm going to setup a small key here. Owner = SilkWizard Admin/Mod = Spiff, Balzack, CableMonkey Host = Hoster of server Local admin = Admin appointed by host (In my experiences, alot of these have been corrupt friends of or brown nosers to the host.) 1. Person running away so they can heal at base and not give enemy team a easy point, host/local admin gets upset and bans person. 2. Person running out of resources and running back to base, host/local admin gets upset and bans person. 3. Person kills a weakened opponent who has dealt with many of the person's teammates. Host/local admin gets upset and bans person. 4. Person fires randomly and luckily hits a enemy offscreen, host/local admin gets upset and bans person. 5. Person teams up with 2-3 other teammates to slaughter a enemy, host/local admin gets upset and bans 1-4 of the people who teamed. 6. Person using a class that the host/local admin does not like, host/local admin bans the person. These are just a few examples of the custom rules made by hosts. Since some (the ones losing their subscriptions) of the hosts and local admins won't follow Silk's rules, it has forced him and Balzack to monitor said servers on their behalf. If these servers were to be private and passworded, the hosts could set their custom rules. This guideline has been in place for months prior to the subscription removals but the delinquents have not changed their ways. Although i'm not a full time player, about 75% of the bans I witness are abusive bans by the host to support their custom rules. Only a paltry 25% at best is to get rid of someone who is a troublemaker. | |
It's a safe bet none of these prolieum 'victims' have ever played a p2p MMORPG, and ever either mouthed off to a GM, or known someone who did. Same thing can happen, termination of privledges. Nowhere is there a ToS for prolieum saying you can pay Silk $4 and proceed to act like a complete dick to people because you either a. suck at the game, or b. are retarded. Both A and B apply to a large % of the kids who play prolieum, sadly.
However, there are rules, rules which have existed for a long time, rules that some of these 'victims' (aka retards) have broken, then find themselves being punished. Welcome to the real world, where you don't get away with everything. And Antx, nobody who subscribes to prolieum owns anything that non-subs don't. A Sub gives special perks, which you can, and will lose if you break the rules. If you don't like it, either don't subscribe, or be prepared to lose the sub, and more, if you can't behave. | |
Here's my view on this, people are allowed to BAN whoever they want from accessing THEIR COMPUTER, be it the game's owner or a normal player. If the person paid for something that person should get what he paid for, you guys shouldn't be ripping people off for pager banning you, that's childish.
I suggest Silk start giving refunds, or at least revalidating their subscriptions in whole. | |
I know you like to tell jokes Nadrew, but people, subscribers or not, do not have the right to piss on the rules of game their playing. You play the game, you're accepting the rules. Ignorance is no excuse, period.
Also, a game's creator has ultimate rights over it. You piss off any MMORPG staff member and you'll be gone without a second thought. You make a MUD using Diku, and break a rule (say, charge to play), and your ass will be hunted down by that source's orginal team before you know it. | |
Several people keep annoying me here by saying "You break the rules, you pay the consequences"...
...but exactly what rule did he break? All he was gonna do was ban someone who happened to be the game creator...big deal. The Proelium community may be unfriendly, but half the problem looks like the staff, with their arrogant and power hungry attitudes. Pathetic. Go get a life. | |
Martyn747 wrote:
Several people keep annoying me here by saying "You break the rules, you pay the consequences"... The main rule that is being broken as of late by those losing their subscriptions is them creating custom rules on public servers. SilkWizard, the creator of Proelium, stated here that custom rules on public servers were illegal: http://silkgames.com/forum/ viewtopic.php?p=13613&highlight=#13613 The subscription removal that Airjoe is refering to occured because the host would not allow Silk and his admins to do their job, which was to monitor the server and crack down on host-appointed admins and the host himself if they enforced custom rules, which are illegal (The only reason Silk and his team have been forced to monitor servers now is because the Proelium community won't follow a few very basic rules). The host was preventing the Silk Games team from doing their job so they asked to be unbanned so they could do so. The host refused and so the team punished him, he should be grateful he wasn't banned outright. If these delinquents want to enforce there custom rules while not losing their subscription, they just need to make their server private and passworded. | |
Um, no. He didn't break any rules. He was fed up with Silk's abusive admin in his server, and banned him. That's exactly what I would have done as well. He then went ahead and banned SilkWizard, as a precaution, so the abusive admin couldn't get in through that key either. Very smart.
The mistake was made by Balzack when he took a personal conflict and made it into public scandal. His issue with the subscriber should have had nothing to do with the game, or the player's subscription. But Balzack made it the game's issue by removing the kid's subscription to the game as punishment for "pissing him off". If I were Silk, I'd fire Balzack, refund the subscription, and lay down the law to my admins before I try to extend it beyond them to the players. I mean, dude, you're dealing with busines now, there are policies and regulations, rules and bylaws. You can't treat this as an extenstion of the game, because business is very serious. Why do you think people kill for money? ~X | |
