Accepted Taliazure's Ban

[Taliazure]

Steam Name: Taliazure
SteamID: STEAM_0:1:67985352

Name of the Admin you were banned by: Ulteriour
How long is the ban for?: 30 days (1 month)
The reason you were banned?: Malisciously utilizing Third person to see the opposing faction past fog limits.
Why do you wish to be unbanned?:

I want to start with the reason for the ban. It is written that I maliciously utilised third person to see past the fog limits; only that is completely untrue.

There was no malice intent when I approached the combine camp; I approached the camp simply to scout in what state it was and to spot if there were any officers on the towers to snipe at us. This can be backed up by the fact that I radioed in to the other rebels, telling them not to attack the camp but only to recon. I was not there to shotcop or cause any malice.



Secondly, seeing past the fog limits, it is unfair to be punished for something out of my hands.

The fog is buggy; the weather mod has been reported numerous times, seen across many events, and in other instances where it's fog mechanic was utilised and shown to be very buggy. Anyone was able to see past the fog limits by simply moving their mouse slightly away from someone; the rendering is longer past a small circle from your crosshair and more to the corners of your screen. Not only that, but if you have any roof above your head, the fog dissipates completely due to how the addon works. It is not my fault that an 18-year-old game has major bugs and limitations.
I cannot help but look towards the forest and have four cops render on the left side of my screen because the addon does not work properly or is the same for everyone. It is not my fault that such happens regardless if one is to go out of their way to do so, because you don't need to go out of your way; you only need to accidentally look away to have the furthest parts of the map render on your pheripics, along with standing under any roof, prop, or map terrain for the fog to disappear completely and render the entire map.



The fog was then removed moments later, upon my being approached by the staff member, which further proves my point that it does not work.

Now one thing to note: this administrator was not on duty and was on their main civil protection character as an observer.

I'd like to know why this staff was not on duty, not displaying an icon on Looc, nor appearing on /psl or the scoreboard and yet on their civil protection unit in observer watching rebels.




Nevertheless, I was approached by this person and told immediately, "If you don't stop using the tree to see past the fog, I'm going to ban you." Those were their words, to which I confusedly responded, "Hah?" They accused me of utilising the tree to see past fog limits, to which I let them know that the fog is bugged and you can see past fog's limits even if you move your crosshair away from where you are looking slightly, and even in first person, it happens.



I then complied with the administrator, went into first person, moved forward while keeping my cross hair on the CPs, and moved as close as possible. I could still see them, to which I asked, "Is this good?" and received no response, for at that moment this same administrator was switching to a combine helicopter to sweep the area... and actively flew at the place where they approached me in observer. They flew directly to that area and stood above it.

Only I was lucky to have already run off to be far from there, and I could see the chopper from very far away at any area in my screen that was not... my centre crosshair because the weather mod does not function properly.





The units who were up there on the roof of the building could see further than anyone down the valley could, due to the mechanics of the fog, for they were looking forward and anything that wasn't on their crosshair was rendered more than it should, and the unit who stood underneath the tower with a prop above them could see everything due to how the weather mod works.



So why am I being banned for something that is out of my reach? It is not my fault that an addon does not function propely, that this map's shades do not function propely, and that there was NO FOG on my screen but instead stuff was being unrendered. I did not have fog on my screen or any smoke, only that anything on my crosshair was not rendered, and anything outside of it was rendered to the fullest.



This does not just apply to me; it applies to others too, as I stated.



And why am I to be banned for utilising third person? When this admin themselves has abused third person, faction leaders have ABUSED third person; rebels, Cps, OTA, admins, and VORTS have abused third person with malicious intent, such as shot copping. And if you do not believe me, then let the following video display several people doing so right before an attack on CPs and OTA.




So how am I to be banned for something that is not bannable or out of my reach and for something that I had no knowledge of being a wrong doing for I have seen countless timesother people do it, staff, gms, fls and etc as I have mentioned and for me only to be banned—not for a week, not for two weeks, but for an entire month— someone who has been banned 0 times and kept a clear record for over a year?




So please explain to me why.
Because i'd like to be unbanned for something that I did not do, for something that I had no control of and for something that is not of malicious nature.




Do you have any picture or video evidence to support your reason?: No

Were there any witnesses who can help in this appeal?: @hound

 

[MazuzaM]

Hello @Taliazure, thank you for making this Admin Report:

I would like to immediately correct you and inform you that I, MazuzaM, am the banning Administrator, Ulterior merely spoke to you in LOOC and informed you to cease such action.

As the banning Administrator I will clear up your ideas and attempt to make you understand why such action was taken after our Private conversation. Once again I will specifiy that the 30 days ban was not issued because of third person abuse, but because of exploiting certain angle that *can* be achieved both in third person and in first person to see other players beyond sight reach.

I have banned you under the following rule:

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- Unintended game mechanics and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

I obviously did not take immediate action upon it and dug a little deeper, looking for anything which could have been indeed a misunderstandings, however both logs and private chats show that you indeed did this on purpose, claiming that it was an intended game mechanic which is obviously not.



After further investigation we also noticed that members of the opposing faction were visible to you given this unfair exploit you decided to abuse, as distance logs specifically show, giving you an unfair advantage against other people, I have read through your history and you do indeed have one with exploits and I have been more lenient as what you have done warrants a 4-12 month ban, but I decided to only give one.

Thank you again for making this report,

MazuzaM.

EDIT:
We obviously tested this exploit before acting upon it, it is specifically stated in the rules that Unintended game mechanics fall under Section 1 3.0, the abuse of the not so well developed fog allowed you to see Officers/Citizens from a large distance while they couldn't given the presence of the fog.

 

[Taliazure]

i'm sorry but that is not my screen. my screen was not showing like that mazuza

 

[Taliazure]

Hello @Taliazure, thank you for making this Admin Report:

I would like to immediately correct you and inform you that I, MazuzaM, am the banning Administrator, Ulterior merely spoke to you in LOOC and informed you to cease such action.

As the banning Administrator I will clear up your ideas and attempt to make you understand why such action was taken after our Private conversation. Once again I will specifiy that the 30 days ban was not issued because of third person abuse, but because of exploiting certain angle that *can* be achieved both in third person and in first person to see other players beyond sight reach.

I have banned you under the following rule:

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- Unintended game mechanics and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

I obviously did not take immediate action upon it and dug a little deeper, looking for anything which could have been indeed a misunderstandings, however both logs and private chats show that you indeed did this on purpose, claiming that it was an intended game mechanic which is obviously not.

View attachment 34161View attachment 34162

After further investigation we also noticed that members of the opposing faction were visible to you given this unfair exploit you decided to abuse, as distance logs specifically show, giving you an unfair advantage against other people, I have read through your history and you do indeed have one with exploits and I have been more lenient as what you have done warrants a 4-12 month ban, but I decided to only give one.

Thank you again for making this report,

MazuzaM.

EDIT:
We obviously tested this exploit before acting upon it, it is specifically stated in the rules that Unintended game mechanics fall under Section 1 3.0, the abuse of the not so well developed fog allowed you to see Officers/Citizens from a large distance while they couldn't given the presence of the fog.View attachment 34163

THERE WAS NO FOG at all on my screen. In fact all I saw was UNRENDERING.
As I specified the weather does not display the same to other players because I had no fog displaying for me I could see clear as day but for some reason anything on my crosshair was unrendering.

 

[Taliazure]

in this picture it shows past a certain point of the map it unrenders for me.
Only that during the time of ulteriour reaching out to me about it, it was far closer but this is exactly what my eyes could see, clear as day but unrendering at a distance near my mouse and anything outside of my crosshair was rendered.

I also have to note that all my settings are on low, ihave shaders off and most of my stormfox settings are turned off for FPS. So it could very well be that, because I did not see any fog or any particles falling. I only knew the sky was red because of a /event made.
But in my POV my surroundings were very clear for me.

 

[MazuzaM]

Thank you for clarifying Talia!

Our perspective might've been different however what you had done still counts as a form of exploit under Section 1 rule 3.0

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- ****Unintended game mechanics**** and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

At last, with your history of exploiting the punishment is more than appropriate.

What you have shown is, if not even worse, exactly the same concept for what I have banned you for.

 

[Taliazure]

Thank you for clarifying Talia!

Our perspective might've been different however what you had done still counts as a form of exploit under Section 1 rule 3.0

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- ****Unintended game mechanics**** and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

At last, with your history of exploiting the punishment is more than appropriate.

What you have shown is, if not even worse, exactly the same concept for what I have banned you for.

But it still not my fault how is it worse that the addon does not work the same for me? What kind if logic is that, the addon doesn't work for me and I can see further therefore i'm banned for it?

How is it exploiting if I had no knowledge that the map was even supposed to look like that, how can you blame me for a problem of a 12 year old game?

My history of exploiting is null because I displayed the evidence to the devs and to kappatalist and yet i was warned for something that gave me no advantage, it was more of disavantage than anything else.

So Please explain to me how it is my fault that my screen is not displayed what is supposed to be displayed, I am compeltely oblivious to that and I am punished for it.

 

[MazuzaM]

But it still not my fault how is it worse that the addon does not work the same for me? What kind if logic is that, the addon doesn't work for me and I can see further therefore i'm banned for it?

How is it exploiting if I had no knowledge that the map was even supposed to look like that, how can you blame me for a problem of a 12 year old game?

My history of exploiting is null because I displayed the evidence to the devs and to kappatalist and yet i was warned for something that gave me no advantage, it was more of disavantage than anything else.

So Please explain to me how it is my fault that my screen is not displayed what is supposed to be displayed, I am compeltely oblivious to that and I am punished for it.

Hello again Talia! This will be my last answer to your concerns;

You have claimed that you were totally clueless of such thing, however you can clearly see in logs that you have told Ultima that you were allowed to do such simply saying that it was a 'Game mechanic', after I had informed you of the ban on the discord you stated once again that you could do such thing by precisely tilting your visual to get rid of the fog, which is obviously a not intended mechanic.

While you did not make the videogame and the latter is rather old this does not excuse your abuse and exploit of the little things that were not taken care of by the mod developers or Garry Newman himself.

Here I quote for one last time Section one rule three:

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- ****Unintended game mechanics**** and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

You can see that the rules do indeed specify that you may not use unintended game mechanics to your own advantage, however that is exactly what you have done and shown in your replies and logs. You are not responsable for what Garry Newman could not fix but you *are* responsable for the abuse of such unintended mechanics for your own benefit.

This was my last reply, unless you have any concrete evidence to prove your innocence I will not offer you a reply.

My kindest regards;

MazuzaM.

 

[Taliazure]

Hello again Talia! This will be my last answer to your concerns;

You have claimed that you were totally clueless of such thing, however you can clearly see in logs that you have told Ultima that you were allowed to do such simply saying that it was a 'Game mechanic', after I had informed you of the ban on the discord you stated once again that you could do such thing by precisely tilting your visual to get rid of the fog, which is obviously a not intended mechanic.

While you did not make the videogame and the latter is rather old this does not excuse your abuse and exploit of the little things that were not taken care of by the mod developers or Garry Newman himself.

Here I quote for one last time Section one rule three:

§-1 3.0 - We don't accept cheating or exploiting to gain an advantage of any type involving:
-- ****Unintended game mechanics**** and third-party software or client modifications. This also extends to methods or loops to generate wealth.

You can see that the rules do indeed specify that you may not use unintended game mechanics to your own advantage, however that is exactly what you have done and shown in your replies and logs. You are not responsable for what Garry Newman could not fix but you *are* responsable for the abuse of such unintended mechanics for your own benefit.

This was my last reply, unless you have any concrete evidence to prove your innocence I will not offer you a reply.

My kindest regards;

MazuzaM.

Of course I said It was a game mehcanic because I was oblivious as to what it should have been. To my point of view everything was clear and for some reason stuff was unrendering at a distance at a MUCH further distance than what your screen displayed. I could see the units just by slightly-- when I said slightly I mean by maybe 7 centimeters from them-- looking away they would render out for me, because that was not intended, there should have been fog to keep me from seeing much further than I should have.

So no it was not on purpose for if I had known, I wouldn't have been staring at Units from a incredible distance when I shouldn't be seeing them. I even approached to resolve the situation and I was still far away and could see them.

SO no I did not abuse these mchanics to my own benefit, because there was NO benefit nor was it for benefit neither for malice and NEITHER on purpose for I had no idea that my screen was this badly in difference.
I know stormfox can appear different for several people but not to such extent.

So you cannot blame me for somethign I did not do on purpose Mazuza, I understand your point fully and yes it wasn't ok, but you have to understand how oblivious I was on that sitaution and the fact that there was no malice behind it and nothing happened, no units were shot, nothing was damaged so for me to be banned for a month for something I just NOW learned was not supposed to be the way it was is far too much!

---

Now knowing that my game was bugged and what I was seeing was not supposed to happen, how can I be blamed and punished for something that is indeed out of my hands, I believed fully that the game as I saw was what was supposed to be, stuff not rendering past a certain point.
But no, it isn't supposed to be like that, there was supposed to be fog and it was supposed to be very close to me and yet my pov was that anything on my crosshair was unrendered but anything slightly outside of my crosshair was rendered.

I had no idea that the world was supposed to be different, even later when we were talking to the bunker people, one of them blamed us for setting free a virus and I asked "we did?" and he responded with "Don't you see the spores bitch?" NO, I didn't actually see the spores because they weren't there for me oocly. I could effectevely see everything bright as day, I look up at the sky and see a blue bright sky and I ask "Is the sky red because of us?" and people answer yes and i'm staring at the sunniest day in willard not a single spore in sight.

Moments later right before we engage civil protection out of the blue my crosshair starts to render everything and i'm left thinking "did they do something, did they remove the fog?".
The entire event it's been sunny for me, so i'msorry for this but this is not my fault, this was a bug and I actually thought it wasnt this bad until mazuza showed me that screenshot, that changes everything!

 

[Neonity]

Now one thing to note: this administrator was not on duty and was on their main civil protection character as an observer.

I'd like to know why this staff was not on duty, not displaying an icon on Looc, nor appearing on /psl or the scoreboard and yet on their civil protection unit in observer watching rebels.

Hi, I'm not handling this appeal at all, I'm leaving that entirely up to the Ban Managers, but I would like to comment on this.

Willard has no such thing as "admin on duty" or whatever. This isn't DarkRP. Staff can turn their badge on/off whenever they'd like, at their own discretion. They're not obligated to turn it off/on, and I won't force them to either and I never have. I personally tend to play with it off, because I don't like people treating me different because they can see my badge.

As for their character, it highly depends. While it's obviously preferred that admins use their admin character for admin stuff, I understand that sometimes they may not have the time to switch characters or they're quickly doing something and then going back IC. That's fine, no big deal. Judging by the way they stayed in GM mode afterward and didn't go IC until later, alongside this situation not even coming up IC, I don't believe there was anything to gain here, and I'll consider them being on their CP character irrelevant to the entire situation.

 

[Kappatalist]

Hey Talia, as usual me and @Fedora will be looking into this appeal.

Before we continue there is one thing I'd like to make clear, you are not to threaten making a staff report in the way you did originally. If you feel that way and would like to, that is absolutely fine and your decision to make, but you are not to try and influence the decision of staff members by threatening to report them. Least of all in a ban appeal. Although I understand that you are frustrated, and that's fine. But keep this in mind.

But continuing on to the actual appeal, I was present in the discussion before your ban and made sure that concrete evidence was collected before Mazuza issued the ban, this included two admins testing out the scenario in which you were banned for. As it stands I can definitely say that the evidence is there and you were in some way abusing (knowingly or not) the lack of fog to see CPs from a distance.

To talk about what constitutes as abuse, if you have to do something like look at a funny angle, as you describe, that is definitely exploiting. Although I think I'm misunderstanding or getting conflicting information about what you did; you mention having to look at an angle as well as calling it a "game mechanic" but by the way you describe it this is an issue that is constant for you? There is never any fog visible in-game or does it only disappear when you look a certain way?

 

[Taliazure]

Hey Talia, as usual me and @Fedora will be looking into this appeal.

Before we continue there is one thing I'd like to make clear, you are not to threaten making a staff report in the way you did originally. If you feel that way and would like to, that is absolutely fine and your decision to make, but you are not to try and influence the decision of staff members by threatening to report them. Least of all in a ban appeal. Although I understand that you are frustrated, and that's fine. But keep this in mind.

But continuing on to the actual appeal, I was present in the discussion before your ban and made sure that concrete evidence was collected before Mazuza issued the ban, this included two admins testing out the scenario in which you were banned for. As it stands I can definitely say that the evidence is there and you were in some way abusing (knowingly or not) the lack of fog to see CPs from a distance.

To talk about what constitutes as abuse, if you have to do something like look at a funny angle, as you describe, that is definitely exploiting. Although I think I'm misunderstanding or getting conflicting information about what you did; you mention having to look at an angle as well as calling it a "game mechanic" but by the way you describe it this is an issue that is constant for you? There is never any fog visible in-game or does it only disappear when you look a certain way?

Not at all, now I understand the full picture, because I thought my POV was everyone's POV and I was thinking that everyone could see a blue sky because maybe it was the map that didn't let stormfox work propely and so everyone had a Slightly different pov. Because I had to ask Liam, nanci and reece for their settings duringthe last valley map in the Expo server due to the factI was lacking any shadows and when I meant any shadows I mean I could see everything bright, there was 0 darkness for me like I had some sort of nightvision that also worked in daylight.

I got it fixed by upping my shadow quality settings and activating HDR.
So I tought that there being NO fog was normal, i thought it was just the unrendering being what was supposed to keep us from seeign across the map even tho it worked like shit because it only affects like my crosshair as you can see in the image above.
Now I understand mazuza and Ulteriour, those cops could not see shit at all because in their POV the world is ending and in mine it's sunshine and rainbows!
And no anything outside the small circle of my crosshair is rendered fully so I didn't even have to tilt my head much, I could see the cops up there and the cop on the tower from pretty far away even from the gas station I could see them.
Earlier before that there was a gargantua trying to sneak up on me, guess whatI saw it and I left. I radio the others rebels telling them there's a gargantua across the second bridge and they tell me "we don't see it" and there I was thinking they were dumb or blind, no shit sherlock all they see is RED and I was telling them where it was over and over thinking they were the stupid ones.
"this is an issue that is constant for you?" It seems to be ever since we changed maps, stormfox of my shaders isn't working, same for the assault on the fortress there was some serious thick fog then out of nowhere it dissipated and i had the same rendering thing happen after I lowered all my settings to manage to play with good FPS.
I struggle a lot with framerate despite having a good computer so i'm forced to have all my settings as low as possible. Tried everything, gmod_mcore_test 1, startup commands...etc always struggling.

 

[Fedora]

hi

what commands do you use to try to up your FPS and what settings do you typically play on?

 

[Taliazure]

hi

what commands do you use to try to up your FPS and what settings do you typically play on?

Gmod_mcore_test 1
I then have textures low
Models medium
Shaders on the lowest
Shadows back to lowest
Antiliasing off
And I can't remember the rest.

OH and on the storm fox client I have cube maps off, shaders off and the slide of fps set to 200 to give me as best fps as possible

Still with all. Of this the most fps j could achieve this entire event was of 52 fps and that was if I was staring away from the main valley.
Otherwise I'm fluctuating aorund 39 44 fps

I woiuld send a screenshot but I'm right now at the airport about to go fly out.

 

[Taliazure]

Add @Hiros to this appeal please. Given he's a dev.

 

[Kappatalist]

Hey Talia, just a quick question before we move on.

So it's been brought up that both in-game and over discord you referred to this differently than what you've described in the appeal, would you be able to explain what you meant here?

 

[Taliazure]

Hey Talia, just a quick question before we move on.

So it's been brought up that both in-game and over discord you referred to this differently than what you've described in the appeal, would you be able to explain what you meant here?

Of course.
It was due to my confusion regarding the reasoning of the ban and the situation.

Let's start with the situation, I was sat behind a tree crouched and utilizing third person to stare at the units from cover, I was not intending to launch an assault or shoot the units, this is backed up by me being alone and the fact I didn't notify anyone of what i was doing till i got questioned by other rebels who arrived to "assist me". They wanted to attack the cp base and I told them not to.

I was then out of the blue approached by someone in looc and threatened with a ban if I didn't stop using the tree to "see past the fog", this was the admin on scene.
Now given my pov that I shared, can understand my confusion, there's no fog for me, all i have is a unrendering circle on my crosshair and even then I ruled it as just stormfox being broken in this map as it was in the last one where we had the issue with R_shadows 0/1, where a admin had to make a [admin]:"XYZ" announcement rearding the command for people to fix their povs yet I didn't use that. I simply turned HDR on and changed some other settings after annoying nanci and other players to help me with my FPS and fixing the issue.

regardless, I explained I was behind the tree stariing at the units from the corner of my monitor because I was watching the entire compound for anyone trying to come out to see what they were up to, I was told not to and I took it as not abusing third person, so I clearly stepped out fro mthe tree and stood out in the open looking up at the units, you can see by the positioning of my next words when I asked: "Is this okay?" and got no response.

I was later then banned ( the day after) and my believing for the ban was due to abusing third person, to see enemy shadows past "fog" limits. I told mazuza I didn't abuse third person and that you could see them in first person, to wich I was told I was found to be abusing "angles", wich infuriated me given that there's not really much I could do, "what was I supposed to do? Ignore them?! Act stupid" was my first thought.


Because if you look at the screenshot i shared along with this poor drawing I made, this was my pov, clear of fog, clear of any obrstruction in my pov other than the minimalistic circle out in the far horizon unrendering stuff it was like there was a orb around it that unrendered stuff. It's why I felt so confused on how I abused this mechanic, how am I supposed not to? If it's something I can see clearly? If I'm just using a mechanic of third person to look around a wide tree to look at CPs? I was utterly confused and furious to my ban.
It was then that it was cleared up when Mazuza shared their pov the photo in wich they have the fog, I understand now why I was banned and without fault, of course someone would immediatly think i was cheating or abusing in some way.

But as I have explained even I was oblivious to the situation given the bug that happened, my screen wasnt displaying what it should have been. I was furious as how I should've been ignoring the units when the fog that was appearing to me was a simple ball of unrenderig wich I figured was everyone's pov.
I even went to fetch a video displaying people using third person due to my confusion on the ban, I thought I was banned for just using third person to look around corners to wich I explaine that was foolish and then moving onto the fact I can't really help but see the units if the stormfox isn't working on this map for people, when in reality...it was just me it wasn't working for.




This all came down to confusion, perhaps this could even have been avoided if I had known what the situation was.

 

[Kappatalist]

We've come to a conclusion on this appeal and decided to deny it. The ban will also be extended just to cover the server downtime.

This is after a very lengthy discussion and I'm satisfied that Mazuza's ban was valid. We've had a developer take a look at your claim about the lack of fog and it's quite likely that this was something you've done by messing around with settings, game files, or anything other. Regardless of which you should have been aware that there was no fog especially when you say yourself that people were having to inform you about it in-game.

In future give more consideration to things like this as it's the second case of something similar happening.

 

[Kappatalist]

Unbanned after further appeal overseen by @Memesky (Late to the party but u already knew, just for the sake of being logged)