Red tape and Willard's pretense of being something it is not.

[Wraygun]

Who doesn't know this: you find yourself on the server, conversing with others, making IC acquaintances, friends, but also enemies. Safe to say, the more you stick around, the more people you gather around you. The more time you invest, the more ideas come to your mind. It is right then and there, when you get to plan your plot. Either with care, or with spontanity. There comes the day, when you carry out the plot however.

"Charles Nitch has been charbanned!", says the notification above your screen. This would be it. This is normally the end of your plot, and satisfied with the results you walk away. Except you don't, because despite the fact that a staff member has indeed overseen your plan and its execution, you get asked to join a Discord group chat because I have a LOOOT of justifying to do for my IC actions. Through OOC means.

So far so good, no complaints from me. Yet, lo and behold, your progress gets undone next day. You're being told, your character remains banned, and you find your entire progress wiped in the faction that you've been whitelisted for an entire eon.

Let's be more specific.

I've been a rank leader here, and last night, I was demoted all the way down to i5 with my character banned. The last part irking me the most, I allocated an entire authorization and time for it. It's frustrating, even if we pretend that the punishment fits the "crime".

Noah Majors, who has garnered a lot of notoriety around the garrison. He has caused enough indirect harm that makes a good portion of the cops to hate him. I decided to take IC matters in my own hands, and deal with this IC issue appropriately by getting him killed.

Bear in mind: Noah Majors is a civilian that was hired as an MCP facilitator, he isn't whitelisted for the MCP faction. Therefore, in my and many people's eyes, he is a Combine-affiliated character.



Majors doesn't fall under any of these, and before carrying this out, I checked with the rules specifically because it doesn't state ANYWHERE that MCP affiliated characters are considered Combine characters. It's utter non-sense to require an entire rogue auth to kill a snitch.

What is also non-sensical is that ICly, Majors has done his absolute best to upset almost every unit he comes into contact with, and it is somehow expected from a rank leaeder to somehow take a liking to him, despite refusing to comply with my orders ICly and being a constant pain the ass to my unit.



As anyone can see, Ultima brings out several points here which actually need some explanation. The first and foremost being: we were asked by @JustDanny in-game if we have PK auths. I told him no, and there is no requirement to write up an entire auth to PK someone if the IC criteria is met.

This should've been argued in a PK appeal, but unbeknownst to me at the time, Noah Majors was unbanned, as if nothing happened. I did PM @Cjtn10 in-game and asked him about it, because I wanted to know if he had one by chance, given the fact that I didn't think of making one. The IC criteria (which I will get to in a bit) matched, and we carried out the execution.

Secondly: the evidence is "INCREDIBLY unreasonable", citing how Majors got PK'd just because he "threatened us with OTA", and "didn't leave my office when I said so". No, those are the things are not why he died. I'm extremely disappointed that I didn't get the chance to explain any of it in a PK appeal and I don't think it's right for him to get unbanned without going through the same proceedures as any other player. But regardless.

Majors has caused indirect harm to a unit of mine, to the point where I was ordered by my higher-ups to cut him a finger. I think it's completely justified to take matters into my own hands, and deal with the problem in my own way, given that some form of harm has occured.


1. I don't need a PK auth to get rid of someone, if the evidence and IC actions add up. They do.
2. It's nowhere defined that I need a rogue auth for a tier five civilian that is affiliated with the MCP.

I can go on and on, but I said everything that needed to be said. My whole conclusion is that there's too much red tape for something as simple as a PK. Willard parades itself as being hardcore, but the moment someone tries to do something it's immediately taken OOC and you're somehow being framed as a rule breaker.

What's even more outrageous, is that the PK manager himself can't be bothered to make an appeal like any normal person and let me argue my case there. It's unjust to frame this as a rule break given that it was neither specified, nor was it "loopholed" as Ultima likes to express it. Not to mention the entire rank and progrerss wipe, where my IC progress was resetted, and subsequently, character getting banned.

​

 

[Neonity]

To everyone deciding to reply with their own interpretations or past things that happened to them, stop it. This thread isn't about you, and won't ever be. I don't understand why people feel the need to reply to threads with things that happened to them over two years ago as if that would be relevant to the complaint in any way. It is not. It only detracts attention from the actual complaint. It's disruptive at best.

But anyway, onto the actual complaint.

Noah Majors' status:

Noah Majors is an MCP Facilitator & the General Secretary.
He's an MCP Facilitator, which as the name suggests, means he works closely within the Ministry of Civil Protection. Noah Majors also appears on the MCP roster. Noah Majors is not on the MCP Whitelist because it would give him access to more features we don't want him to have. For instance, the ability to see CPs on the scoreboard, the ability to use /cp, /massreward, the ability to open all doors and locks and full PDA access.



Here's a snippet from the official Civil Protection guide detailing the role of a Facilitator. In short, you're to report any transgressions from them to MCP Inspectors or Captains. Failing to do so constitutes a rogue action, since you'll be directly going against the faction. As a Rank Leader, you have an OOC restriction that outright disallows you from performing any rogue action, no matter what. Considering he's also the General Secretary of the Loyalist Party, this goes even further than just his Facilitator role.

Even IF you really, really wanted to perform said rogue action, the least you could've done is contact the Civil Protection leads for permission beforehand and to clarify things. I'm sure they would've sought a compromise with you if you communicated. Yet you didn't.

Why the PK was illegal.

Few things, but can be summarized quite easily.

1. You did not write a PK request.
2. You broke Civil Protection faction rules in doing so.

keep in mind all targeted PK's require a valid PK Request to be made before it can be carried out

Here's the quote from the PK policy.

Rank Leaders are not allowed to desert or actively work against the Combine unless it is for self-preservation.

Here's the quote from the CivPro rules disallowing you (Rank Leader, in case you forgot) from going rogue.

. You are not allowed to kill Combine characters (CCA, CP, OTA, CCR) even with an approved PK request. This requires a rogue auth.

Assassinating other Civil Protection units, Conscripts, Overwatch Transhumans, or Combine Civil Administration (non-WL CCA included).

He counts as non-WL CCA here since he's the General Secretary. Civil Protection's faction rules mention how you need explicit permission from the faction leads to do any of the above actions. You did not obtain said permission.

You are not allowed to undertake any of the following actions without explicit authorization from the faction leads.

You failing to even request this authorization is not 'red tape'. It's on you.

You are not allowed to abuse your position to permanently kill citizen characters without an approved PK request (unless guilty of black tier crimes).

Also this, he's considered a Citizen by your own logic, so speaks for itself.

Why no appeal was needed.

1. You did not write a PK request.
2. You broke Civil Protection faction rules in doing so.

It is correct that Alex was not required to write a PK appeal. This was done because we immediately confirmed there was no accepted PK request against him, and any targeted PK requires one. This is in the PK Policy. No PK request = immediate unPK.

This is not bias, this is enforcement of the server's PK policy. We aren't going to make people bother to write an appeal on behalf of your own refusal to write a PK request first. It would've been accepted in five seconds anyway.

Your removal from RL & Command.

This is a decision made by the CivPro faction leads in unison. I know it was not an easy decision to make, and they did deliberate upon it for a while.

The alternative was a removal from the faction. The Civil Protection leads didn't want to go that far, but they would've been justified in doing so. I respect their decision to strip both of you of your command positions until you can regain their trust. It's preferable to a dewhitelist or blacklist.

PK Requests and why we use them.

We require PK requests for any targeted PKs, in order to make them more straight-forward. Instead of potentially arguing for weeks on a PK appeal, the PK managers can view evidence and justifications beforehand and declare whether a PK would be justified before it happens.

It helps avoid situations that lead to massive voids or a large amount of appeals. It also makes appeals themselves a lot easier to deal with since PK managers have the justification ready. We don't intend to change this system for now, because it's proven to work. Unless you don't write one, like what happened here.

Without dragging this on any further:

This complaint is considered closed.

My DMs are open for any further questions.