That's a stupid rule, I'm sorry, but it is. I would never subscribe to that knowing you have such absurd guidelines in place. You're only asking for trouble here.
Let them. Let them be all obnoxious in their servers. Let them trash their players till they're sick with power. Let them be morons, because you really can't stop them. Instead, provide a dedicated host, or trusted hosts, who will abide by your strict rules. Enforce the rules there, and only there. It will be much easier to handle, and people will have respect for you knowing you provide a safe place to game, but also allow them the freedom to game as they wish.
This will never end nicely, curb the trend now, or face the headaches and discord that awaits you down this path.
~X
Nathandx82 wrote:
Xooxer wrote: They don;t need police, though. That's the problem. The policing of my computer for me. Bite me. It's my computer, I can block you at the protocol level, if I want to. There is nothing you can hold over my head that will make me let you into my computer if I don't want you in it. It's that simple. Mine, not yours. I'd love to see a log of Corn being abused by Silk in a way that caused him to pagerban Silk. Really, I'd love some proof that this isn't eyt another child pulling [profanity is not acceptable on the forum] out of their [rear] because they thought that being allowed to host a game gives them absolute power when it doesn't. If silk would give the kid his sub back, and just code him as banned from the next version, would you still bitch? It would have the same end result. Ban him for what? It wasn't Silk being abusive, it was Balzack. With what I've seen of his attitude on their forums, Im not surprised he was banned. Heck, I would ban him for thinking he could tell me what to do in my server. As for your legal BS, you cannot sue for a value of under $20. If you rent an apartment, you can't call the cops on the landlord for tresspassing. Guess what? Silk's the landlord, Prolieum's the apartment. Um, wrong. It's not legal BS, for one. And you can have the landlord removed from your apartment if you really wanted to. While you are renting it, it is yours. The building belongs to the landlord, but the living space is your own. They can inspect, with notice, or drop by to check, fix, or collect th rent. Any other visitation is not their right. If my landlord came over all drunk, and started a fight with me, I would have his butt in jail, for sure. That's the corratlation you're not seeing. Had the kid actually done somthing wrong, yes, he can be punsihed. But he didn't, infact, he was being harrassed by Balzack. The manager of the building was pissing on the tenent's doormat. I would have banned him too, just as I would have called the cops if my landlord started a fight with me. Taking his money for this is wrong. Edit: For the record, this all takes place after Silk gave warning that people acting in ways much like Corn did, will result in actions taken, much like those against Corn. He reads the forums for the game, he either chose to ignore the post completely or ignore the warnings. Or thought, as I do, that the rule was too stupid to be believable, and felt he had a right (which he does) to protect his property from unwanted tresspassers (which he did). This gives Balzack no right to steal from him. ~X | |
Um, this topic was not started by someone looking to ban you. Who are you? O.o
Airjoe had a valid concern that game owners could steal the subscribers money by removing their subscription for no reason, other than to steal their money. He used Silk as an example only, not trying to get anyone banned. He was just concerned this could get ugly, which it could. ~X | |
Also, if Silk doesn't want people pager banning him from the game, he can bypass the system very easily (it's documented on the forums and the reference). And if he didn't want his in-game systems used against him, he could simply make it impossible. If someone doesn't want someone else paging them they're fully allowed to pager ban them, if that happens to ban the person from their own game that's their fault for warranting a pager ban, not the user's. As I said before Silk can EASILY prevent the game from disallowing him access if he's pager banned by the host, if he really needs to.
Stupid rules get stupid responces. | |
Nadrew, you and everyone else need to do yourselves a favor and realize this wasn't jsut a sudden thing, this person being discussed wasn't doing what they did towards BZ and others simply because he one day decided to not allow the staff of the game on his server.. He has been a problem, and was taking steps to make sure he could freely break rules without people being able to stop him. Do you have any idea of how absurd you sound? The idea of a gae's creator having to go out of their way to beable to acces servers because the players rarely, if ever, show respect for him or the rules. I know for a fact you and your army of easily-ego-cruised FFL GMs would never take [profanity is not acceptable on the forum] like that
And you're right, stupid rules do get stupid responses. I can think of quite a few stupid rules on a certain game you've taken over, and I doubt you give a second thought to the way your GMs behave. Regardless of how 'stupid' a rule is, it's still a rule. You in your position on BYOND should not spit at them, period. What kind of example are you trying to set for people who come here, "if a rule is stupid, ignore it"? That's what you're doing. | |
Nathandx82 wrote:
I know for a fact you and your army of easily-ego-cruised FFL GMs would never take [profanity is not acceptable on the forum] like that You sound pretty egotistical yourself, y'know. That was uncalled for! | |
CyberHound wrote:
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. Game companies? What companies? I didn't know Proelium was made by an official game company, or had any EULA or ToS or anything. When I subscribed, there was a small table on the webpage that listed the game name, the price, the duration, and my wallet. I saw no agreements or rules or anything else that said my subscription could be taken away. | |
Well, I think Balzack made a poor choice of taking my subscripition. I did have one warning, but it was a pagerban of Silk. And i think that I'm allowed to pagerban anyone i would like. Isn't that right? And "FYI" I didn't ban you balzack, one of my admins did.
Cornbread | |
Silk wizard is an idiot. There is a way to over-ride a pager ban from your own game.
world/IsBanned(key,address) ~>Jiskuha | |
So far they have been entirely incorrect. Your statement about not being ables to sue over less the $20 is patently false. In fact, every state in the US has small claims courts designed specifically to handle conflicts involving minor values (state law usually caps the amount you can claim in such a venue) and generally don't even require a lawyer.
Your claim that you can't call the police on a trespassing landlord is also bogus. While property law varies by state, any trespasser can be removed from the premises. Additionally, tenants have a right to quiet enjoyment of their property; it is a function of the possesory right the tenant is exercising. A lease may give the landlord the right of entry in certain circumstances (IE for repairs, certain inspections, etc.) but these are spelled out in the lease agreement. Further, landlords who improperly trespass can suffer liabilities and, depending on state and circumstance, even void the lease at the tenant's option! In this post, you seem to assume that the complainant would bear all legal costs. This isn't entirely true. Depending on the state, Absent an agreement to the contrary, the loser of such a conflict may pay all legal costs. In Texas, for example, I could sue you for the $4.00 fee, any associated economic losses and attorney and legal fees. Thus the $4.00 might turn into $504 instantly. Or more if the suit drags out (attorney fees to have to be ascertainable in the filings, but aren't necessarily fixed). Worse for you, in many states, consumer protection laws may increase liability. Again, using Texas, we have a law called the Deceptive Trade Practices Act that upon a proper showing might allow a trebling of damages (including attorney fees!). That $504 just became $1512. This is why it is crucial for business owners to have at least a basic understanding of the law, which you obviously do not. Actions may potentially rack up liability, and quickly. Without decent business insurance (my games store carried a liability policy of ~$10 million in addition to casualty) it can come straight out of the owner's pocket if they haven't properly incorporated or formed a similar protection. None of these statements ought to be construed as legal advice. You are advised to consult an attorney (other than myself!) for your particular legal questions. | |
If I had a game that charged subscriptions and someone decided to make me mad enough to get banned for it I'd refund whatever part of their subscription is left, otherwise I'm just a common thief. The fact that you even brought FFL up isn't relevant to this topic at all, it doesn't have subscriptions (and never will, because it can't) and the rules in it are setup as such. If I had people paying to play it I'd treat the players that paid with a lot more respect than Silk treats his.
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[Edit]
Texas and Washington (where Balzack and SilkWizard are) both share the same laws in this case. So your advice is quite accurate here. I trust your legal advice more than I would any other lawyer, James. (I trust you more!) [/Edit] I think we should find every person who hasn't gotten a refund or reactivation of their subscription and give them a lession in the law, if enough got together they'd have a pretty solid set of smallclaims cases against SilkWizard (sorry, Ben, but it's not right!) and I'm more than willing to bet they'd win. A forum post is NOT a valid medium for posting your terms and conditions, if there wasn't something that said "If you piss me off I can revoke your subscription without a refund" with other legal documentation when the person SUBSCRIBED (because that's the only time they agree to terms is when they PAY) there's no legal reason why a refund wasn't given. | |
This also brings up the point about donations: Someone donates $200. Then they start messing around and get banned. Then they want the money back, what happens?
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Donations are different, those are 'gifts' to the author. They don't offer anything in return, so there's no legal reason to be paid back, since you didn't pay for anything, you gave a gift.
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That's just how Balzack is and always will be.
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I know nothing about the legalities of taking peoples subscriptions away and such, though I must admit, it sounds a bit weak to me. I can say, however, that after reading through quite a bit of those forums, and seeing the attitudes of those in authority, I won't be subscribing to any Silk Games any time soon.
It's one thing to want to retain control over your creations, even to go so far as to take legal or financial actions to do so. It's entirely another to be consistently rude, immature, and unprofessional while doing so. I think I'll just keep my $4. | |
It'd be a quick case:
Did your actions violate any of the rules of the game? Oh, they did? Get the hell out of my courtroom. I'd like to see the state stature for small claims and sure where you live, because you see, federal courts tend to require a large amount, $75k or so, to be an option, while $20 is the minimum amount a person can sue for. Also, even if you would round up the assholes and rule breakers that have lost their subs and they did try to bring actions against silk, odds are it wouldn't fly, and then they'd be facing a counter-suit by silk to pay for his trip to wherever. P.S. You might be a lawyer, you might not, but when you lose something for breaking a rule, you have no case. If someone is told they cannot have a party at the house they rent, and they do, they have no case when the house's owner throws them out. Also, you're wrong, yet again Nadrew, about a website not being valid for posting rules for a game. You install a game it has the ToS, which I doubt the vast majority of this commuity has ever read for anything, and you'll either find the rules on their website, and/or in an instruction booklet, if that. I know when I pre-ordered guildwars, I had to goto their site to read the rules. That didn'tmake them any less valid, and going by yourcomment, anything any BYOND admin says in the forums is null and void. Like it was said before, you and most others here don't have a clue as to what's going on. You think it's simply that the kid one day decided to ban some 'abusive' people from his game. You're either to clueless, or you're blind, and don't realize the 'abuse' was people enforcing rules that he was basicly saying '[do not post profanity on the forum] you' to. Rules that have existed probably since before his subscription. These people have no legal case. The rules for the game exist, they're as clear as can be (assuming the person reading them isn't an utter retard), andCorn's actions he claims for his reasons of losing his sub was the last of many things he has done. You, jmurph, and almost everyone else who has posted here are ignorant to the entire thing, and only know what Corn's last starw was. While it's really touching and disgusting that you are advocating complete anarchy on BYOND, atleast go learn more about the kid and the things he has done before you comment any further. Edit: To point out to the many ignorant people here, the bottom line: Corn knew the rules, Corn broke the rules, often. Patience with Corn ran out with his last set of actions, Corn got the punishment he knew he'd get. And as for all the legal BS. Silk could very well wait till these kids spend their parent's money to get $4 back, then give them back their subs, thus making the case moot, and it would be thrown out of court instantly. Many of these people will be coded as banned in future versions of the game, so them having a sub won't make any difference whatsoever. It's pathetic to see how many people in the BYOND community advocate chaos and anarchy, but it's pretty easy to see why you go into many games and find them filled with spammers, flamers, and the like (i'm looking at you, 99% of zeta-based games). Never have I seen so many people side with a kid who repeatedly breaks rules. It's sick, and while most of you don't have any clue as to this kid's past actions (which do bear importance to his sub being taken, as he knew it would for his actions), you insist on commenting, trying to look smart, when you know very little, only that Corn is making it look like his only crime was trying to ban admins from his game, I will try to keep in mind how gulliable you people are for future reference. If you want a quick rundown of Corn's action, and that of the others who he has 'robbed' and who have a 'case', read his post in the prolieum forums. | |
Because they're poor, idiots, and generally qualify for the Darwin Awards. Xooxer, you're suppose to be bright, so why don't you try to figure out where banning those who police a game might be a no-no. PRivate servers are one thing, public are another.
I'd love to see a log of Corn being abused by Silk in a way that caused him to pagerban Silk. Really, I'd love some proof that this isn't eyt another child pulling [profanity is not acceptable on the forum] out of their [rear] because they thought that being allowed to host a game gives them absolute power when it doesn't. If silk would give the kid his sub back, and just code him as banned from the next version, would you still bitch? It would have the same end result.
As for your legal BS, you cannot sue for a value of under $20. If you rent an apartment, you can't call the cops on the landlord for tresspassing. Guess what? Silk's the landlord, Prolieum's the apartment.
Edit: For the record, this all takes place after Silk gave warning that people acting in ways much like Corn did, will result in actions taken, much like those against Corn. He reads the forums for the game, he either chose to ignore the post completely or ignore the warnings.