Novaro & it's name pruning scheme favoring a certain player and how I was banned

Started by Lovely, Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM

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Lovely

Warning: Long post ahead.

For context I had been playing on Novaro since late 2015, early 2016. I saw it grow from a mere 500 players online, then just a little over 1k until today where it's above 4k population at any given time.

As many people have pointed out, this server is great on the outside, but the more you play, the more you start to notice the cracks and how the GM team direct themselves and react depending on the player.
As a casual player, I was never really involved in the WoE scene or actually being close to GM's.

But enough of that I'm here to explain my experience on this server and how it lead to my ban:

Being a long time player on this server it's not hard to get carried away and start making alt characters, especially on a server such as this one that has been online for this long, over 6 years I believe and with middle rates that provide for a suitable and enjoyable leveling experience. nothing too high or low. As I was used to low rates before coming into this server. the leveling and rates was just perfectly to get me up to speed and catch up with other players. ^^

This server used to do yearly prunes after new years maintenance, which were perfect because everyone had an equal chance of getting that specific name they wanted.

Fast forward to the past 2 years, Nova decided to change how it was conducted and started doing ninja maintenances that only a selected handful of people (one if which will be relevant at a later point in my thread and is a bigger name hoarder than me) knew when they were going to take place, and thus diminishing the chance of everyone else getting the chance of getting unique names.

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Time to get straight to the point; the reason of my post comes from my ban after Nova pruned my characters and banned my characters that of which I feel was strongly unwarranted for and I was given a very unfair treatment!

A few days ago I received this rather crude PM from him in-game. Notifying me that he had pruned most of my characters regardless of their level without any previous warning or consideration. (they usually prune chars under level 99 that have been inactive for sometime).


Which shocked me because,
1. There wasn't a written rule anywhere, not on your website, or the wiki nor discord that said how many chars one could have or how many names one could get! and
2. It had never been a problem before! I had been making alts and afking with them for years without any warnings.

And to be honest I didn't realize how many novices I had accumulated over time D:< I never really counted them. It's easy to lose track when you've played on this server for years and you start making alt characters.

I then logged onto the server's forum and saw that he had also sent me a pm there:


Imagine my utter shock when he threatened to ban my accounts for something that has never been a problem before and something that I didn't think was considered serious, because I got those names for my alt chars myself when they were free!!

I then explained him my situation in the same pm shortly:


At this point I was terrified and told him that I'd start to delete the rest of my pruned novices which I did and how I felt it was so unfair for him to prune my lvl 99+ chars that I've put so much effort and care in lvling. chars that I used to log in regularly too. I usually style and dress my chars according to their names.
And told him he could've approached me before and given me a warning instead of just pruning some of my characters right away! All of my lvl 99+ characters were never inactive to warrant being pruned!

So after I deleted all of my novices (except for those few novices with pruned names that were holding my guilds).
I noticed some of my higher level chars were also pruned, and of course I wouldn't go running around with pruned names right? I decided to rename them which weren't that many (but noticed some of my names were already taken by that certain person I mentioned before, the one that's always taking unique names after every pruning maintenance) As I had been leveling some of my chars that were higher level in the previous days that didn't get pruned. And as so, I didn't think much of it. Because I had released all the pruned novices already, and didn't make a single one afterwards.

At this point I felt deflated and slowly started to realize how the server owner doesn't care about the efforts and time of a long time and loyal player like me has put into his server. I decided the best course of action was to take a break from this server.

I still remained logged in until the next day, and after the server had 1 hour long maintenance and came back up, I logged in sometime later.

Shortly I noticed I had been logged out of my chars:


And to my dismay I was greeted with an account banned window =/


I then quickly realized that my characters had been pruned and banned... yes all of them! regardless of their levels and despite having been lvling them up all week long!!

I quickly logged into the server's forum again and saw that Nova had again PM'd me saying all my chars have been pruned and banned. chars that i've had since dating as far as 2016, totally unfair!!


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This is where I'm going to start pointing out how biased and how his blatant gm favoritism and preference he has towards a certain player.

Here we see how he expects expects me to only take a "couple" names back while letting the rest of my chars run around with pruned names.


Aww, cute. You say you weren't able to see the name hoarder taking my names that you "somehow" you took from me but mysteriously she obtained them right after mine were being pruned? Isn't that weird? how can a regular player be getting my names right away that you somehow are "taking" away? could it be that she's working behind the scenes with you, or blatant gm favoritism? and somehow is okay for her to take as many char names as she wants without you batting an eye?

Also fyi, most of my chars didn't get pruned on your first prune that you did to me a few days ago, why? because I was actually leveling them up this month! I was doing gramps with them. I got many of them to over lvl 180+ that didn't warrant being pruned. So that's one of your lies that can be debunked.

Let me provide irrefutable proof for you Nova.

Please note: The following person also know as Enya/Rain has been envious of my character names from the day I met her!
And everyone I've spoken to tells me she's closely in contact with the admins!
Also, she somehow always knows and manages to get the most unique names after every maintenance unopposed, that is until earlier this month where I managed to get some characters for myself during a pruning maintenance that pruned all inactive chars under lvl 175. It must've really struck a nerve somewhere when she saw me leveling them in gramps earlier this month and decided to run to Nova or other GM to do something about it and thus my ousting of the server began:

She was taking my names right after they were pruned despite the fact Nova telling me he's monitoring other name hoarders, how is she in close contact with the GM being a regular player and one of the biggest name hoarders?
All of these were my chars that she stole from me and Nova is blatantly letting her have.

Imagine being this petty and envious of me as to get Nova to prune my chars and get me banned just so she can have them.
This is only a small portion of my character names that you're letting her hoard! why are you being so blatantly biased and favoring her and why isn't she being punished at all?
You tell me you took my longstanding names so others could have a chance, why is it only the same person(Enya) that's getting most of them? you're basically giving all of my names to Enya/Rain and you act like everything is fine. This is daylight robbery.

Below are my original chars, that Nova unfairly took away from me and i logged in regularly to level up or afk with:


She immediately started grabbing my names like a leech after my characters got pruned and banned. It's either she working behind the scenes with Nova or he's telling her the moment my names got pruned.
gm favoritism and biased much?

Why am I being punished and banned when all I ever did was take the time and effort to level up my chars! I earned those chars myself!
Regardless of what you say, my chars didn't warrant being pruned much less banned!
Do you have any idea how much care and effort I put into those chars? it is simply not fair! It's not fair for you to simply to take my char names away to others on a silver plate. when I had to work so hard to get them! Most of my char names went to her and her friends! Not even giving others a chance to get them. You should be ashamed of yourself Nova!



Above we see him claiming how he can't see how can anyone need playing more than 100 chars and playing dumb when I point out how he only caters and listens to a certain few individuals.
It's called having alts, friend. Especially on a server that has been up for so long with rates this high and how fast you can level up with gramps.
Do not try to dictate how I play this game! if I wanted to afk in town or at the main office with my lvl 1, 99 or maxed out char I should've been allowed to do so, without being warranted name prunes. Why are you looking down on me and want to prune my chars for afking in town with, regardless of my characters levels? let me afk in town with as many chars as I want without prunning them.
But you're okay with a single player having more than 50 autotraders on inflating your player count beyond the stars, though right?

The next part is about me finally pointing out the person that's been taking my names. (sorry about the caps, emotions were running high :D) and his refusal to admit that she's taking my names. when it's pretty clear he's giving her my names. completely bias!
He keeps pointing out 1500 despite that I've already deleted all of the novices the previous day which made the majority of them! and how somehow her having close to 400 characters is fine, despite telling me earlier how he doesn't see how anyone would ever need more than 100 chars. can you start notice a pattern now? double standards.


And here's the complete screengrab along with him banning me shortly afterwards from his forums.
Spoiler
[close]

And yet, she's still running on his server, unscathed, why? because GM's are bias and cater towards her.
You complain about how I take some names but yet, this person is the one responsible for taking almost all the unique names after every pruning maintenance and you let her be because she's either a very close friend to you or donates a lot.
If you were completely unbias, you'd also prune her names, no matter their level & give a ban similar to just as in my case.
but knowing you. I don't see that happening. since you clearly have a blatant bias and favor certain players that go unpunished no matter what they do.

While the less outspoken and less favored players such as myself, get the short end of the stick.

You're a biased server owner. through and through.
I guess being friends with the server owner and other GM's has its perks eh? You can have innocent people you don't like being banned if you're close enough to this biased server owner.

Bonus: Discord convo shortly after getting banned from forums.
Spoiler
[close]

Just showing Nova's hypocrisy:


Nova allowed this behavior with it's overzealous monthly prunes until his close friends and favored players complain and proceed to unfairly ban me even though I did delete all of my novices!

I know this won't bring my accounts back but should serve as a warning for anyone out there looking to play this server to be wary for how rampant gm favoritism and bias can be on this server if you get on the wrong side of the GM's or their friends!

I still stand firm and believe my chars didn't deserve this unfair treatment you've given them. And you know it, as it can be seen from you saying sorry multiple times in those screengrabs Nova.
It's not like I was bug abusing or botting, I got all my characters the legit way, just as anyone could've gotten them. But you still decided to punish me unjustly.

Thanks for reading everyone!  /lv

banix


Tokeiburu

Heya,

This is so dumb. After you told us about Enya, her characters were pruned too, just like yours. Calling this bias or unfair is just stupid at this point.

Not to mention you should have been banned the first time around after you made a bunch of character names insulting the staff and the server. I regret fighting over your case to keep you unbanned at that time. As for your current case though, I'm changing my stance and I want it to be reviewed again to decide whether it is made permanent or not (because yes, it is a temporary month ban right now). You have no respect towards our community and I don't see why we should give you another chance as you've clearly not learned anything from this.

Edit: Here are the character names you've hoarded over the years (this is absurd): https://i.imgur.com/ExB1ZkN.png

Lovely

Hi Tokei!
Thanks for replying,

Well that is doubtful.

This must've been in 2018/2019. I apologized for it. The year when my pets died and I was really down.
And aww, while I'm grateful that you fought for my case at that time. I'm going to save you the trouble this time and request a permanent ban on all my accounts if you haven't done so!. I've already asked Nova to ban me when we had our discussion before. I don't plan on going back to your server this time. ^^

LOL I don't even remember most of chars, it must've been over so many years.

While I do respect you, and you seem like a good GM/Developer. There are certain individuals that leave a lot to be desired. Respect is earned not given. Also community=/=GM team.
I admire that you were always active on main/support chat helping others with issues whenever you're on!

throwawayasdf

Yikes! So you took the name NekoilliliManeki? Imagine taking the name of a guy who sends d*ck pics and videos to almost every girl in iRO without their consent. Then messaging me this on Nova (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/252000997520572426/302244936785330176/unknown.png)
I hope you lose your names for impersonating someone, weirdo  /kis

Daifuku.

1500 is a f*** up gigantic number, lol.
but i have to say, back then when i used to play ragnarok regularly i had around 50 alt chars that i made simply for styling reasons. even on the official server back then i had over 20 high priests that had all the same build, just different names and different styles. i wouldn't judge anyone for doing this. i would've just pruned the chars you didn't log into since date XY and left you the ones you're actually using (may it just be to afk sit in town). maybe given a warning that char name hoarding is not really nice for other players but ultimately i wouldn't have banned your chars that you have been actively playing. may it be 25 or 250. just my opinion. but eh, females don't rly have an opinion in ragnarok. we are always on our period apparently.  /hmm

Lovely

@throwawayasdf he requested me to rely that message to you before i myself found out the things he does last year. lol

Catrina

*I agree that this is all shady as hell, BUT-

That list Tokei posted ... That is not "naming" a character anymore, that is just hash-tagging at this point. lol

Novaenthusiast

I hate to say guys, guys Enya, favoritism?? Nooo way man, it CAN'T possibly happen. She's an angel man! Whaaat, this is the first time she's been caught crossing the line! To put it bluntly, yes she is 1000% favored amongst other players aside from the fact that not only is she staff. No, this isn't the first time she's done things that got way for. Just because Nova/Tokei said "It's been corrected" doesn't change anything from past behaviors that they most likely overlooked because it never blew up so they just pushed it under a rug. It's funny because this girl is kind of insane, (not that saving 1500 names isn't either but...) the stuff she did in her previous servers is kind of wack, she always has the tendency to be GM of the servers she's playing for the long hall so she can get her PVM/PVP high/fix up to the next lvl.

tbh stupid that you got banned for holding all those names, if you followed the rules and made them past 100, then everybody else can suck it. Simple as that. One of the greatest advantages of being first on an MMO is having the choice of picking up a name that you want. Obviously, Enya came into the scene way later, tried to be a smartass to get these names pruned as she's so fixated on single-worded names. There's absolutely no reason why you should have lost your character names if they were immune to deletion. Once again, this clearly screams favoritism as the GM's wouldn't even give 2 craps about names and this would only come as a request from somebody who's obsessed about this junk and convinced the admins to look into this bs.

Neffletics

solacero rip

Nithraniel

Quote from: Novaenthusiast on Apr 24, 2021, 07:28 AM
One of the greatest advantages of being first on an MMO is having the choice of picking up a name that you want.

That's exactly the dilemma, you can't pick up the name you want if there is someone hoarding 5 million names since the beginning. One person's freedom ends where another one's begins. It's not difficult to understand with some logic why the pruning system was put in the first place. I noticed also that characters who are past 99 also get pruned eventually (up to a specific level I guess).

I think we're long past the era of people wanting to call themselves xXgamertag2398sasukenarutoXx, most RO players are old enough to want proper names.

Daifuku.

Quote from: Nithraniel on Apr 24, 2021, 09:05 AM
It's not difficult to understand with some logic why the pruning system was put in the first place.
...I think we're long past the era of people wanting to call themselves xXgamertag2398sasukenarutoXx, most RO players are old enough to want proper names.

i too think the system comes with logic. it makes definitely sense to get rid of char names if the char has not been used for a specific amt of time and is below a certain level. it makes 10000% sense.
what however does not make sense to me is how OP is being judged for the way she wants to play the game. if she wants to create 500 chars with 500 different styles and logs into those even if it's just to chat/afk with her friends for 5 mins per char/day then what is so wrong with that? who is anyone to judge her way of playing the game?
again, if her chars would be below 99 and she wouldn't have logged into those within that time frame nova has set (whichever that might be) then i understand completely why those chars were renamed. but that's not the case here.
she put time and effort to level those characters, obtain their headgears, styles them/make their clothes match with their gears, etc.
i have checked her name list and 98% of those are all utterly female character names.

to me, this isn't hoarding. to me this is just a girls thing honestly. my friend used to have 150 dolls, to me they all looked the same but she dressed them all differently and bought accessories for each. her parents threw away those she didn't touch in over 6 months because they were afraid of her getting obsessed with just collecting dolls for the sake of collecting dolls. same s***.

also not going to talk about how a supposedly normal player took her names right after hers were pruned.
but i won't go ahead and judge that said person might just sit 24/7 on her pc trying to claim char names.  /hmm

stareczhory123

The admins of NovaRO are definitely the ones that F***'ed up here.

If you don't want people to hoard names, then simply impose a limit onto how many characters/accounts can each person create/own. Simple as that.

Don't punish players because of your lack of incompetence.

Eluminare

TLDR
Expectations: We will have flying cars in 2021!
Reality: 2021 and people have a butthurt over taking their names of 1.5k characters in Ragnarok Online.

This is a big lol.

But besides this whole stupid drama, I can agree with one thing - it does look suspicious when one player takes the specific names not even 24h after this post was written. Inside info? Doing a favor? Idk but both sides seem to be fcked up.
Eluminare van Rijn - the honest review maker

Ariasqt

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 06:25 AM

This must've been in 2018/2019. I apologized for it. The year when my pets died and I was really down.

So you actually admit being at fault here and use your pet's death as an excuse to misbehave, you are a very nice human being.

I actually never knew you in-game nor do I actually care for this egirl name drama cause who the f*** cares about names except a handful of people like you.

As others pointed out I agree that being one of the first players in a game/server gives the benefits of choosing names as you like but the provenly retarded list Tokei provided is way over the top.

If you wanna have 100 200 300 chars with ACTUAL different styles and for different usage (instance farming etc), sure go for it. But having 1500 low-level uncostumed characters without any use for them but just for the sake of hoarding names is a little unfair for the other thousand(s) of players, no?

You won't be missed in this server.

Additionally, I wanna add that nobody gives a crap about RMS it's just for memes and drama, and... people don't care (except the already banned ones that actually are so delusional and think their opinion matters here). It's just used for its outdated database at this point.

Quote from: stareczhory123 on Apr 24, 2021, 09:52 AM

If you don't want people to hoard names, then simply impose a limit onto how many characters/accounts can each person create/own. Simple as that.


Stop pretending to be less smart than you actually are, they literally warned her several times to not do that and didn't impose a rule because there simply wasn't anybody else who has the same type of mental condition as her. Not to mention the insulting she did to the staff was already enough to get banned anyway.

Anyway, keep it coming people I sincerely enjoy this.

Donuts

Of course it won't be listed in the rules, cause who on earth would expect that a player would hoard 1,500 names??? This is the stupidest complaint I've read ever read.

stareczhory123

Quote from: Eluminare on Apr 24, 2021, 09:57 AM
TLDR
Expectations: We will have flying cars in 2021!
Reality: 2021 and people have a butthurt over taking their names of 1.5k characters in Ragnarok Online.

This is a big lol.

Well she clearly cared and put time into those names, so she has every right to be butthurt about it. Let people play the game how they want to, as long as it's not against the server rules (it this case it wasn't).

Quote from: Ariasqt on Apr 24, 2021, 10:05 AM

Additionally, I wanna add that nobody gives a crap about RMS it's just for memes and drama, and... people don't care (except the already banned ones that actually are so delusional and think their opinion matters here). It's just used for its outdated database at this point.


lol. Why are you getting so worked up defending this if "nobody gives a crap about RMS"? Nvm, i don't care. If you enjoy the drama then sit back and enjoy, no need to s*** on RMS, kid.

To NovaRO: At least buy her dinner first before you f*** her like that.

Ariasqt

Quote from: stareczhory123 on Apr 24, 2021, 10:16 AM
Well she clearly cared and put time into those names, so she has every right to be butthurt about it. Let people play the game how they want to, as long as it's not against the server rules (it this case it wasn't).

She literally was warned to not do it again, personally, by the owner.

Does there need to be a sign near the entrance of Walmart that tells you to not s*** on the floor for you to not do it?

Again stop pretending to not understand the issue you arent that stupid I know it. The reason to "defend" this case is to simply tell OP how stupid she is.

stareczhory123

Quote from: Ariasqt on Apr 24, 2021, 10:21 AM

Does there need to be a sign near the entrance of Walmart that tells you to not s*** on the floor for you to not do it?


Worst analogy I've ever heard. No there doesn't need to be a sign for that you dummy because it's common sense.

Also, she clearly isn't the only one hoarding coz by the looks of it one of your GMs was hoarding names as well (big yikes lmao) - probably why this was brought to attention in the first place.

Kinda ironic ngl.


Ariasqt

Quote from: stareczhory123 on Apr 24, 2021, 10:29 AM
Worst analogy I've ever heard. No there doesn't need to be a sign for that you dummy because it's common sense.

Also, she clearly isn't the only one hoarding coz by the looks of it one of your GMs was hoarding names as well (big yikes lmao) - probably why this was brought to attention in the first place.

Kinda ironic ngl.

And to not reserve 1500 names isn't common sense? Bruh. Also Idk if that player is even a GM or not one random alt account stated they are and you take it as a fact, stop watching Fox news.

And even if; the actual GMs already said that after it was brought to their attention said player also had their names pruned (even if it was "only" ~400 names as opposed to 1.5k) Idk why girls fight over this crap just be uncreative and call it "Name Class 1, 2" etc  /ok

Novaenthusiast

Quote from: Ariasqt on Apr 24, 2021, 10:35 AM
And to not reserve 1500 names isn't common sense? Bruh. Also Idk if that player is even a GM or not one random alt account stated they are and you take it as a fact, stop watching Fox news.

And even if; the actual GMs already said that after it was brought to their attention said player also had their names pruned (even if it was "only" ~400 names as opposed to 1.5k) Idk why girls fight over this crap just be uncreative and call it "Name Class 1, 2" etc  /ok

I can 100% confirm Enya IS a GM, hmmm I can confirm but it's RMS dead forums. So tbh you're better off believing it as everybody else who's from nova can also confirm  /ok

Daze

 Some are missing the point, it's not about whether OP was hoarding, or not. It's how she owned specific names and was banned due to envy from another player. Imagine getting banned for simply playing the game? Every year, the GMs had always announced an upcoming prune to notify everyone that they will have a chance to obtain names that they desire. Did I say everyone? Yes, everyone. However, name pruning has become a monthly, inconsistent instance that nobody really knows until they themselves have their characters pruned. Makes you wonder why GMs stopped notifying their players of an upcoming prune, or that a prune had taken place in their maintenance.

What is wrong about this entire situation is that the owner himself refuses to elaborate on his reasonings on the screenshots above. He pruned the characters, while at the same time a very specific individual was taking the names for themselves. You would think that the names would be around for at least a day. But that was not the case. The names were literally remade in a matter of minutes after the discussion with the owner and OP. If the goal here is to be fair to everyone, why did you not prune others who are in a similar situation? I'm not talking about the OP and the other individual mentioned.

I love the fact that this unwritten rule was never imposed, or brought up before. Like some had mentioned here, if this was such a concern, why is it not in your policies? What about those that make several vendors, instance farmers and whatnot? This is just mvp/market monopoly but in names.. Yet, those farmers aren't regulated. Why? Because that is how they choose to play!

Don't even get me started on some of the statements here, such as another player being pruned aside from OP. I'm going to have to ask for credibility here. I've taken a second to check her characters, guess what? It's not pruned, and for argument sake that it was. It doesn't matter because the GMs do not announce name pruning in their patch notes as of late. She can just rename the characters as if nothing happened. Imagine being so envious of another player, and immediately re-naming your mains to OP's characters as soon as her characters all got pruned. As per another individual on this thread, please keep on barking and continue to tell us that you don't care, and that nobody cares. I love it too, I truly do.

Tokeiburu

Quote from: Daze on Apr 24, 2021, 11:19 AM
Some are missing the point, it's not about whether OP was hoarding, or not. It's how she owned specific names and was banned due to envy from another player. Imagine getting banned for simply playing the game? Every year, the GMs had always announced an upcoming prune to notify everyone that they will have a chance to obtain names that they desire. Did I say everyone? Yes, everyone. However, name pruning has become a monthly, inconsistent instance that nobody really knows until they themselves have their characters pruned. Makes you wonder why GMs stopped notifying their players of an upcoming prune, or that a prune had taken place in their maintenance.

What is wrong about this entire situation is that the owner himself refuses to elaborate on his reasonings on the screenshots above. He pruned the characters, while at the same time a very specific individual was taking the names for themselves. You would think that the names would be around for at least a day. But that was not the case. The names were literally remade in a matter of minutes after the discussion with the owner and OP. If the goal here is to be fair to everyone, why did you not prune others who are in a similar situation? I'm not talking about the OP and the other individual mentioned.

I love the fact that this unwritten rule was never imposed, or brought up before. Like some had mentioned here, if this was such a concern, why is it not in your policies? What about those that make several vendors, instance farmers and whatnot? This is just mvp/market monopoly but in names.. Yet, those farmers aren't regulated. Why? Because that is how they choose to play!

Don't even get me started on some of the statements here, such as another player being pruned aside from OP. I'm going to have to ask for credibility here. I've taken a second to check her characters, guess what? It's not pruned, and for argument sake that it was. It doesn't matter because the GMs do not announce name pruning in their patch notes as of late. She can just rename the characters as if nothing happened. Imagine being so envious of another player, and immediately re-naming your mains to OP's characters as soon as her characters all got pruned. As per another individual on this thread, please keep on barking and continue to tell us that you don't care, and that nobody cares. I love it too, I truly do.

Heya,

Please do not make stuff up. No particular player is warned of a name prune in advance. Name pruning is simply done automatically every maintenance, that's all. We used to do it manually and we often forgot to run the queries, so we automated it instead.

This isn't in the rules because it's a one person type of case that never happened and nobody thought someone would do that. Hoarding those names is done in bad spirit; the player wants to take as many names as possible so that other players can't have them. No it isn't directly against our rules, hence why the player was warned instead of being banned. The reason the player ended up banned is because she immediately retook as many names as possible, clearly missing the point. Also do keep in mind it isn't her first time getting warned for this type of thing. It most likely will be a rule now, though I can't imagine another player ever doing something like that again.

stareczhory123

I'm not going to lie, I like the professionalism of the admins (no sarcasm - i'm genuinely happy to see some composed replies).

However, let's not ignore the giant elephant in the room.

What will you do to the player/GM Enyu? Will this be properly addressed? Will this just be a slap on the wrist and let's forget about it? What are you planning to do? Can players expect justice to be served fairly, if at all?

Tokeiburu

Quote from: stareczhory123 on Apr 24, 2021, 11:56 AM
I'm not going to lie, I like the professionalism of the admins (no sarcasm - i'm genuinely happy to see some composed replies).

However, let's not ignore the giant elephant in the room.

What will you do to the player/GM Enyu? Will this be properly addressed? Will this just be a slap on the wrist and let's forget about it? What are you planning to do? Can players expect justice to be served fairly, if at all?

I'm not familiar enough with what happened there, so I won't comment on that part. Enya is not a GM, though. Once Enya's case is reviewed, you may or may not know about the outcome (as it'll be looked at the next meeting which is not meant for a couple days and I'll probably forget about this thread by then). Her names were already pruned, though, and she'll probably get the same warning as the OP got: stop hoarding names. I don't see why she'd be treated differently on that front. The only difference is that she hopefully won't do it again.

As for her seemingly knowing about that player's prune, I don't have the information to give you.

Edit: I am learning more about what happened there, and if it is approved you will probably get to know as well.

Daze

Quote from: Tokeiburu on Apr 24, 2021, 11:46 AM
Heya,

Please do not make stuff up. No particular player is warned of a name prune in advance. Name pruning is simply done automatically every maintenance, that's all. We used to do it manually and we often forgot to run the queries, so we automated it instead.

This isn't in the rules because it's a one person type of case that never happened and nobody thought someone would do that. Hoarding those names is done in bad spirit; the player wants to take as many names as possible so that other players can't have them. No it isn't directly against our rules, hence why the player was warned instead of being banned. The reason the player ended up banned is because she immediately retook as many names as possible, clearly missing the point. Also do keep in mind it isn't her first time getting warned for this type of thing. It most likely will be a rule now, though I can't imagine another player ever doing something like that again.

Appreciate the response, I speak from experience and while I will take your word for it, I guess it doesn't matter if GM accounts are immune to prunes.

Below are just images of staff notifying the community of a prune, or an upcoming prune:
Spoiler



[close]

I fully encourage you, and the staff to implement the rule. Though, what's the use when Enya had claimed everything already.

OP themselves stated that she had to rename the characters that were 99+
Did the staff expect her to just delete all those characters when they were pruned? Logically, she would have had to re-take some names, no?


Sheeesh

While I do know the admins in NovaRO are biased toward certain players, in this case I think some of their actions are justified as you are hoarding 1500+ names its absolutely ridiculous. I don't blame them for pruning you.

What I don't like is another player taking the pruned names shortly after, showing it is kinda shady. How did she know about it? Why is she allowed to hoard 400 names? Admin said her names have been pruned but I don't believe it, where's the proof? It's been said she's a GM, how can we trust you treated her the same as you did the OP? If there isn't any bias then show that you treated the players the same.

Lovely

Most of you are missing the point here, including you Tokei.

My ban happened after I've clearly already deleted those novices, And ended up with about 400-ish chars above level 99+ which is a similar amount as the other person.

Also noone has ever gotten their chars above lvl 175 pruned after receiving a ban. Mine did. I didn't have much chars above that level, and they still got pruned. Which the mentioned person got to take.

And you keep saying she had her chars pruned? that's not true. don't make false statements Tokei. This can easily be disproven by going into your siggy websystem and trying one of my char names, you'll clearly see she still has those names.

The char below was one of my chars that got pruned. Which she got to take right after mine got pruned.

Spoiler
[close]

Anyway, I'm done here. Perma ban my accounts.

Tokeiburu

Quote from: Daze on Apr 24, 2021, 12:32 PM
Appreciate the response, I speak from experience and while I will take your word for it, I guess it doesn't matter if GM accounts are immune to prunes.

Below are just images of staff notifying the community of a prune, or an upcoming prune:
Spoiler



[close]

I fully encourage you, and the staff to implement the rule. Though, what's the use when Enya had claimed everything already.

OP themselves stated that she had to rename the characters that were 99+
Did the staff expect her to just delete all those characters when they were pruned? Logically, she would have had to re-take some names, no?

Yes, as you can see for yourself, we did use to announce name pruning. We do not do this anymore, though. It is simply done automatically on server reboot (these posts are from 2 years+ ago).

The names Enya claimed will most likely get pruned again (assuming they aren't already, I haven't checked).

As for the OP, the reason why the characters were leveled to 99 is because the pruning condition used to exclude level 99 characters, which is no longer the case. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Renewal and our server rates, but level 99 is not hard to achieve by any means. You can make a level 99 character in a matter of minutes.

Quote from: Sheeesh on Apr 24, 2021, 12:51 PM
While I do know the admins in NovaRO are biased toward certain players, in this case I think some of their actions are justified as you are hoarding 1500+ names its absolutely ridiculous. I don't blame them for pruning you.

What I don't like is another player taking the pruned names shortly after, showing it is kinda shady. How did she know about it? Why is she allowed to hoard 400 names? Admin said her names have been pruned but I don't believe it, where's the proof? It's been said she's a GM, how can we trust you treated her the same as you did the OP? If there isn't any bias then show that you treated the players the same.

Again, please don't make stuff up. No, she's not allowed to hoard 400 names either, obviously. The same rules apply to her just like everyone else.

Tokeiburu

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 12:54 PM
Most of you are missing the point here, including you Tokei.

My ban happened after I've clearly already deleted those novices, And ended up with about 400-ish chars above level 99+ which is a similar amount as the other person.

Also noone has ever gotten their chars above lvl 175 pruned after receiving a ban. Mine did. I didn't have much chars above that level, and they still got pruned. Which the mentioned person got to take.

And you keep saying she had her chars pruned? that's not true. don't make false statements Tokei. This can easily be disproven by going into your siggy websystem and trying one of my char names, you'll clearly see she still has those names.

The char below was one of my chars that got pruned. Which she got to take right after mine got pruned.

Spoiler
[close]

Anyway, I'm done here. Perma ban my accounts.

That is simply inaccurate. The same rules were applied to her characters:
QuoteSET @a:=0;
UPDATE `char` LEFT JOIN `login` ON `login`.`account_id` = `char`.`account_id` SET `char`.`name` = CONCAT('Pruned01',(select @a := @a +1)), `char`.rename = `char`.rename + 1 WHERE `char`.`name` not like 'Placeholder%%' and `char`.`name` not like 'Pruned%%' and `login`.`account_id` != 200 AND `login`.`group_id` < 10 AND `char`.`base_level` < 150 AND `char`.`last_login` < NOW() - INTERVAL 1 WEEK AND `login`.`account_id` IN (...);

Which were any characters below 150 and which hasn't been logged in a week. Fate does not meet these criterias as the character was created at 2021-04-23 01:57:48. Either way, her character name hoarding will be reviewed again.

Lovely

lol? she was in contact with Nova or one of the other GM's when my chars were being pruned, i've already stated that plenty of times that she was taking my char names as Nova was deleting them.

I'm sure it'll be a small slap on her wrist. but okay. bye!

Lai

I tips when handling cases like this....

Next time, if some "lover" wants a special name example Jesus that is taken....


  • Enter database
  • Check the name
  • If player is inactive...just rename it to Jesuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • And tell the "lover" and she can make the Jesus char now ;)

Takes max 5 minutes ~

Special cases, needs special care ~


I doubt anyone has many "lovers", and cases like this happens rarely.

this was not worth a system to "auto prune" or hurt someone's effort to create 1500 chars with unique names.

Big kudos <3
I can't believe someone actually pulled this off, hahaha mad respect :D




Tokeiburu

Quote from: Lai on Apr 24, 2021, 01:53 PM
I tips when handling cases like this....

Next time, if some "lover" wants a special name example Jesus that is taken....


  • Enter database
  • Check the name
  • If player is inactive...just rename it to Jesuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  • And tell the "lover" and she can make the Jesus char now ;)

Takes max 5 minutes ~

Special cases, needs special care ~


I doubt anyone has many "lovers", and cases like this happens rarely.

this was not worth a system to "auto prune" or hurt someone's effort to create 1500 chars with unique names.

Big kudos <3
I can't believe someone actually pulled this off, hahaha mad respect :D

I'd like to clarify the autoprune system was not meant for this player at all, she was simply the one most affected by it. The previous query shown is simply the one which was used for this particular case because she was bypassing the default condition put in place by logging on every single character frequently.

Innomite

*deep breathes* I'm gonna go piecing this together so bare with me.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Being a long time player on this server it's not hard to get carried away and start making alt characters, especially on a server such as this one that has been online for this long, over 6 years I believe and with middle rates that provide for a suitable and enjoyable leveling experience. nothing too high or low. As I was used to low rates before coming into this server. the leveling and rates was just perfectly to get me up to speed and catch up with other players. ^^

This server used to do yearly prunes after new years maintenance, which were perfect because everyone had an equal chance of getting that specific name they wanted.

First of all, you're already trying to justify yourself by setting up a precedence that you are an old player (the rest of this argument will come after). I do agree, however, that the announcements about yearly pruns during maintenance were more public at the beginning.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Fast forward to the past 2 years, Nova decided to change how it was conducted and started doing ninja maintenances that only a selected handful of people (one if which will be relevant at a later point in my thread and is a bigger name hoarder than me) knew when they were going to take place, and thus diminishing the chance of everyone else getting the chance of getting unique names.

I don't know where you're getting this from. Even me, who is a very clueless player, knew BEFOREHAND about the risks of letting your characters below a certain level. It's called communication, you should've asked anyone, or a GM, if maints were going to prune character names since the precedent was already set: level 99 characters getting name pruned more often. It's totally your fault for not paying attention to these. Even if the announcement wasn't as public there wasn't really a feeling of "secrecy" between GMs and players, this sort of mentality is straight up BS that it baffles me how can you even come to such a conclusion. There was no such thing as "ninja" maints, as these are such big deals when done on the server since, you know, patch notes after every maintenance.
Of course this started with level 99, but as time passed they made the requirements harsher because people would keep hoarding tons of names like YOU with your 1500 names. Right now if I'm not wrong, the minimum level to keep a name is 180 if you don't login.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Time to get straight to the point; the reason of my post comes from my ban after Nova pruned my characters and banned my characters that of which I feel was strongly unwarranted for and I was given a very unfair treatment!

A few days ago I received this rather crude PM from him in-game. Notifying me that he had pruned most of my characters regardless of their level without any previous warning or consideration. (they usually prune chars under level 99 that have been inactive for sometime).

You were banned for repeated offenses. You weren't treated unfairly and most certainly you were warned or considered when your 1500 names were going to get pruned. The GMs might be clowns but they do try their best at keeping communication with players. I'm sure some of the claims you make in here are false. The fact that you still think only chars under level 99 are pruned is proof that you lack the communication skills to ask ANYONE if the requirements have been increased. I have a level 170 Ranger that got her name pruned for not logging it in for over 6 months.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Which shocked me because,
1. There wasn't a written rule anywhere, not on your website, or the wiki nor discord that said how many chars one could have or how many names one could get! and
2. It had never been a problem before! I had been making alts and afking with them for years without any warnings.

You literally answered yourself here. The rule wasn't written because it was never a problem before! It had to take two name hoarders to start having this problem because apparently this is such a big deal. Why do you want 1500 names anyways? Do you have identity issues? This is an honest question. It really doesn't feel right that you should take 1500 names, some of which are very suggestive (Orgasmic, Sensuality, Hypersexual [Really?]), for the whole sake of keeping them. It feels like you're taking away something other players have THE RIGHT to have.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
At this point I was terrified and told him that I'd start to delete the rest of my pruned novices which I did and how I felt it was so unfair for him to prune my lvl 99+ chars that I've put so much effort and care in lvling. chars that I used to log in regularly too. I usually style and dress my chars according to their names.
And told him he could've approached me before and given me a warning instead of just pruning some of my characters right away! All of my lvl 99+ characters were never inactive to warrant being pruned!

Please stop using the victim card in here. You're not a victim, you're just a symptom. You're not the only one who's been hoarding names and when you got your little scheme threatened you resorted to these strategies. Again, I am pretty certain the staff had enough tolerance with you. Besides, prunes are done automatically now after each maint. Many people knew about this, how come you didn't?

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
At this point I felt deflated and slowly started to realize how the server owner doesn't care about the efforts and time of a long time and loyal player like me has put into his server. I decided the best course of action was to take a break from this server.

I love this. "I'm an old and loyal player so I deserve some sort of respect and special treatment!!! Please let me take everyone's names as a token of your gratitude for playing YOUR server."


Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Please note: The following person also know as Enya/Rain has been envious of my character names from the day I met her!
And everyone I've spoken to tells me she's closely in contact with the admins!
Also, she somehow always knows and manages to get the most unique names after every maintenance unopposed, that is until earlier this month where I managed to get some characters for myself during a pruning maintenance that pruned all inactive chars under lvl 175. It must've really struck a nerve somewhere when she saw me leveling them in gramps earlier this month and decided to run to Nova or other GM to do something about it and thus my ousting of the server began:

She was taking my names right after they were pruned despite the fact Nova telling me he's monitoring other name hoarders, how is she in close contact with the GM being a regular player and one of the biggest name hoarders?

Have you ever considered the possibility that Enya might have just made reports about low level characters having names and not being logged on for a long time? And since you claim that she wanted those names so bad, she might have just been very patient and waiting for every maint to grab the names after they were pruned. Again, this seems to be your fault, for not levelng your characters above the minimum requirement. Before this prune thingy I asked Nova about one of the names I wanted (Clear) and he said it was used by someone who had not logged in for too long, afterwards I made a report myself. I understand your point but since I was also looking to get this name for so long, I understand Enya as well.

I don't approve of her hoarding names like you do but it just seems to me that she was waiting for every maint to grab names that you failed to take care of.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
You tell me you took my longstanding names so others could have a chance, why is it only the same person(Enya) that's getting most of them? you're basically giving all of my names to Enya/Rain and you act like everything is fine. This is daylight robbery.
She immediately started grabbing my names like a leech after my characters got pruned and banned. It's either she working behind the scenes with Nova or he's telling her the moment my names got pruned.
gm favoritism and biased much?

I really don't think this is favoritism. I think this was just Enya paying attention to each maint so she could grab the names as I said before. It's not robbery. I don't know Enya very well but I really doubt she's out to get you out of envy or something like that. I was also paying attention to maints to grab the names I wanted for myself since those were the names I used for previous servers. I didn't read the full list of 1500 names you had but I'm sure you had some of which I wanted. And I had to pay attention to those maints to finally get the names I WANTED because PEOPLE were hoarding them as if they were some sort of currency. Do you not understand the damage you were doing to this server by hoarding almost literal thousands of names?

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Why am I being punished and banned when all I ever did was take the time and effort to level up my chars! I earned those chars myself!
Regardless of what you say, my chars didn't warrant being pruned much less banned!
Do you have any idea how much care and effort I put into those chars? it is simply not fair! It's not fair for you to simply to take my char names away to others on a silver plate. when I had to work so hard to get them! Most of my char names went to her and her friends! Not even giving others a chance to get them. You should be ashamed of yourself Nova!

Nova is anything but biased, lmao. He's an idiot, a clown and might be short-fused sometimes but he knows what's best for the server, and right now what's best for the server is to have 1500+ freed up names. Since you claimed at the beginning of your topic that you barely got in contact with the staff, and your most important interaction with them was through an offense which was holding tons of names hostage, of course you will think he's biased because you think it's normal to have such an outrageous amount of names under your "ownership".

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Above we see him claiming how he can't see how can anyone need playing more than 100 chars and playing dumb when I point out how he only caters and listens to a certain few individuals.
It's called having alts, friend. Especially on a server that has been up for so long with rates this high and how fast you can level up with gramps.

There's also something called common sense. Nobody is stopping you from making hundreds of alts but when you begin taking names that others might want, especially on a server this old and with such a high amount of players, you have to stop making countless alts and saving up names for yourself at some point. It's decency, it's being not selfish.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
Do not try to dictate how I play this game! if I wanted to afk in town or at the main office with my lvl 1, 99 or maxed out char I should've been allowed to do so, without being warranted name prunes. Why are you looking down on me and want to prune my chars for afking in town with, regardless of my characters levels? let me afk in town with as many chars as I want without prunning them.
But you're okay with a single player having more than 50 autotraders on inflating your player count beyond the stars, though right?

What does afking in town with countless alts have anything to do with autotraders when they have designated spaces to do so while you're allowed to afk literally anywhere? These autotraders automatically disconnect after a week and you have to re-set them up. You're being so selfish you think YOU deserve some sort of special treatment which at this moment I haven't really seen at all from either part in this thread.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
The next part is about me finally pointing out the person that's been taking my names. (sorry about the caps, emotions were running high :D) and his refusal to admit that she's taking my names. when it's pretty clear he's giving her my names. completely bias!
He keeps pointing out 1500 despite that I've already deleted all of the novices the previous day which made the majority of them! and how somehow her having close to 400 characters is fine, despite telling me earlier how he doesn't see how anyone would ever need more than 100 chars. can you start notice a pattern now? double standards.

Double standards is believing that you should have no punishment for doing something as nefarious as taking such an insane amount of names for yourself, thinking you're ENTITLED to them and then making a whole rant about how the staff had enough common sense so strip you out of SOME of them. You could still have a lot of them, but not that many. They had so much patience with you and didn't ban you straight up but you decided to keep on doing whatever you were doing. The staff doesn't ban you out of the blue unless you are doing something incredibly stupid like botting, scamming or cheating. Maybe you should've stopped looking at Enya, who in this situation is really no better than you, and look at yourself, question why do you think saving 1500+ names were that important to you?

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
And yet, she's still running on his server, unscathed, why? because GM's are bias and cater towards her.
You complain about how I take some names but yet, this person is the one responsible for taking almost all the unique names after every pruning maintenance and you let her be because she's either a very close friend to you or donates a lot.

Didn't Tokei say they're gonna review that case? Maybe she doesn't have as many names as you had, which is why it went unnoticed. But I can assure you, there are players everywhere waiting to grab names after each maintenance, myself included.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
If you were completely unbias, you'd also prune her names, no matter their level & give a ban similar to just as in my case.
but knowing you. I don't see that happening. since you clearly have a blatant bias and favor certain players that go unpunished no matter what they do.

Didn't you just say you barely knew the staff? I'm pretty sure one awkward interaction with the staff where clearly you were at the wrong doesn't mean that you know them very well. You're contradicting yourself at this point, and are throwing tantrums like a kid who can't have their way with things.

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
I guess being friends with the server owner and other GM's has its perks eh? You can have innocent people you don't like being banned if you're close enough to this biased server owner.

This is such a delusional statement from players who obviously don't fully understand the special rule in the site that has been in there since the beginning of time. Basically, not having common sense is against the rules, and you broke that one, most important rule. You think you're special, you think you are above the rules and clearly you think you were treated unfairly when you were doing something wrong. You were abusing your rights to have alts and names, there's a limit to everything and you should have understood that from the very beginning.



Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 02:27 AM
I know this won't bring my accounts back but should serve as a warning for anyone out there looking to play this server to be wary for how rampant gm favoritism and bias can be on this server if you get on the wrong side of the GM's or their friends!

I still stand firm and believe my chars didn't deserve this unfair treatment you've given them. And you know it, as it can be seen from you saying sorry multiple times in those screengrabs Nova.
It's not like I was bug abusing or botting, I got all my characters the legit way, just as anyone could've gotten them. But you still decided to punish me unjustly.

Thanks for reading everyone!  /lv

You were banned temporarily, another proof that you didn't read and you thought it was perma, which is why now you play the proud player and ask for a perma ban. All I saw in here was someone who couldn't have their way with the insane hoarding they had and when they were caught, they thew a tantrum. Enya is no better than you at this, as I personally consider having more than 100 names is really dumb.
Your case is completely different from bug abusing or botting, it was outright selfishness and a sort of damage that hurts other players' originality and creativity, and I think that should be punished as well.

Anyways, thanks for showing the problems you have with yourself. I hope you get better soon. I wish you the best. Stay safe.
For the love of Ragnarok Online!

onlyplayer

Okay, I'm not here to personally attack anyone nor the server, but I wanted to leave my two cents on the case.
As reported by Lovely, it looks like another player, named Enya, uses a similar approach of the "name hoarding" (even though it may not be on the same scale of 1.5k chars gosh).
And some here mentioned she is staff (denied by Tokeiburu) or "close to staff".
So far, some questions remain not answered and some proof of actual measures are missing, i.e:

- How did a player know about the availability of the same names within less than 24h? Did he/she report and got an answer like "yo, the names are clear, you can use them mate". That doesnt look like a professional way to handle tickets, but who knows.

-If that other player is accused of hoarding names too, how many "active chars" does that player have? screenshots, proof?

-If he/she is doing the same, why is "similar punishement" being dealt with only after the case went viral?

-Is there proof that corrective measures were taken? And what happens next? After 1 week/1month, Lovely will be out of her names so, eventually Enya can take back the names again? Looks like thats the most likely scenario, a case that was "forgotten" and people move on. That doesnt look like an effective punishment but maybe I'm not the one to judge.

Again, this is not a personal attack. Regards to the staff and hopefully the case is settled

scrollLock

I've never heard of someone hoarding names (hundreds/thousands) in my 15 years of RO experience. This is something new.  /omg

Tokeiburu

As an update, I looked at the dates to verify. The OP got her names pruned roughly at 2021-04-20 12:45:00. The maintenance happened at 2021-04-22-16:14:28. The names were taken by Enya at 2021-04-22 16:16:47. While I initially assumed Enya knew about the prunes, it appears she in fact didn't and I was wrong there. So I wanted to at least clarify this part.

As for the other questions, it'll be handled in a staff meeting in the coming days. I can't tell you what will come out of it as a result until then because I do not know.

Lovely



Look at the date! 2021-04-22 21:09:22, I'm 2 hours ahead of server time, so around 19:09:22 server time, but I probably took this screenshot several minutes later after I had been banned.

She took that same name almost within 5 mins of being pruned! I was using the novaro newsig to track my names as they were being taken!! they turned into lvl 1 novices within 5mins of having my chars being pruned & banned!

which is now this:

Tokeiburu

You are confusing your dates there. You got banned for renaming all your characters back at 2021-04-22 21:09:22 or whatever date. Your character names were initially pruned at 2021-04-20 12:45:00 regardless, that is when the query was ran. You were pruned again after your temporary ban because you just did the same thing. In either case, Enya took the names after the maintenance well past your characters were initially pruned.

Lovely

They were pruned aswell, not just banned.

Doesn't change the fact that she still did it.

Tokeiburu

Quote from: Lovely on Apr 24, 2021, 08:06 PM
They were pruned aswell, not just banned.

Doesn't change the fact that she still did it.
Indeed, it doesn't change the fact that she's been hoarding names too. That is something that we will handle on our end during a staff meeting, not in a RMS drama thread. Your favoritism accusation is what I'm concerned about here and what I take seriously. (I don't give a crap about character name hoarding personally, it's childish and makes me sad this is even a thing).

Lovely

I apologize, I know you're trying to be as impartial as you can be. I was planning on deleting most novices, because I realized I was going overboard with the amount chars I had, and I was going to start deleting them as soon as I had a break from finishing leveling some of my characters during this week.

yC