Payon Stories has been DEVASTATED by the guild [p2w]

[Xellie]

Can I ask you a question completely unrelated to any of this? Why are you playing a male assassin? I've never understood why people don't just play as their gender. For example when I play an RPG or MMO, I will always pick my own gender for immersion. Is this some type of new-age thing, I don't get it. 

Literally accidentally picked male when signing up in 2002 - I uh didn't even realize it was a male sin until someone asked me in game... cuz the hair.

[Nova]

Literally accidentally picked male when signing up in 2002 - I uh didn't even realize it was a male sin until someone asked me in game... cuz the hair.

That makes sense. Thanks for the piece of Xellie lore.   

[Buckyx]

This is funny. If they are cheating they deserve to be punished hard but you say they are not and you are publicly crying for help. Like cmon. Either improve the skills or dont play servers with super low rates if you cant afford to spend as much effort as some people.

[Devastate]

Hi everyone. I'm Devastate, the WoE GM for Payon Stories. I've been in this role since the first WoE on Payon Stories, and I wanted to clarify some things on this topic.

I don't think the player that posted this plays WoE here. In fact I don't think they actively play on the server right now. Basically it is a silly post, and this particular person is known by our community for their silly antics. But regarding WoE, they don't speak for any guild here.

Also, the discord screenshots in OP are not from our official discord. They are from a discord that we don't moderate and don't support.

We at Payon Stories have strict behavioral rules, especially as it relates to WoE. Trash talk or harassment in game or on the official discord is not allowed and leads to skill mutes during WoE and a loss of play time outside of WoE. My goal is for it to be possible for a casual player to enjoy WoE without having another player go out of their way to make them feel bad verbally. As a result it is actually very rare that I have to issue a mute or a ban related to WoE behavior, and we do not get many support tickets about WoE (I can count them on one hand). Guild leaders also agree to "good sportsmanship" guidelines before they are whitelisted for WoE, and we expect them to help enforce those behavioral guidelines in their guilds. After all, a failure to do so could lead to some holes in their roster.

Unlike OathRO, we don't hesitant to ban and blacklist toxic players that cause repeated headaches for staff. Our server is not funded by donations. Most people on staff are doing well in their professional lives, so money isn't an issue for us. But we are also busy people. Payon Stories is a labor of love for us, and we do it for free. However, that also means we are very protective of our time and energy. Our willingness to work is our most valuable asset, so we do indeed have strict moderation up front, with the goal of keeping staff morale high and moderation workload low.

I am particularly proud of our CM team, which puts quite a bit of effort into investigating players breaking rules on our server such as RMT, dual-clienting, illegal GRF use, and botting. And we don't show any favoritism, long-standing accounts have been banned just because they RMTd once.

Regarding the WoE seasonal points standings, we have many casual guilds that participate. Some players even bring a PVM character to their first few WoEs here. Why do these guilds participate? Because our seasonal points system gives some pretty hefty rewards even to the guilds that are in last place. Some of these players end up really enjoying WoE here, and they warm up to the idea of making a WoE character. So, while it is true that P2W is in the lead, there are still lots of guilds and players that are having fun and getting rewarded for participating regularly.

When I first started here, a complaint that I got was that "WoE felt like a walled garden" back on OathRO. I'd like to think we have designed a WoE platform here that is friendly and accessible to casual players, and also rewarding to them in terms of making progress in the game. We also have a healthy and friendly community that doesn't have much drama.

For some players, that aspect of our community might be boring. Hence this thread.

[betwixtbetween]

Ironically, a notorious guild with a history of members conducting RMT thrives in a server infamous for past admin abuse; a case of like attracts like, perhaps?

[Devastate]

Ironically, a notorious guild with a history of members conducting RMT thrives in a server infamous for past admin abuse; a case of like attracts like, perhaps?

We have a new admin, and all current staff members are new. The community reformed, and we have a different ethos than OathRO in terms of how we manage the community. That's why WoE moderation is pretty heavy.

[iMissDecentServers]

Payon Stories will never be able to fully clear their image or remove the big question mark as no matter if the staff is new or it's another admin. The current admin was part of the old staff and that's enough to always be something questionable. Also there's the main problem with, as long as the server allows that guild to play there, there will always be rumours and people avoiding the server like plague due to the guild's history in every server they played on, including OathRO, which everything went public towards the end.

[Devastate]

Payon Stories will never be able to fully clear their image or remove the big question mark as no matter if the staff is new or it's another admin. The current admin was part of the old staff and that's enough to always be something questionable. Also there's the main problem with, as long as the server allows that guild to play there, there will always be rumours and people avoiding the server like plague due to the guild's history in every server they played on, including OathRO, which everything went public towards the end.

I understand. That's why I wanted to share my insider perspective.

I see the investigations the CM team does, and sometimes help out with them. I see the work we do, the content and balance discussions, future planning, rules adjustments. I see how professionally the staff works, and how we pace ourselves since we are doing it for fun and not as a job (some of our players don't like that part, but it is what it is). Most of us have degrees and apply our knowledge in the areas that we can, with mine being finance and economics. And we focus a lot on player experience and the health of the community. We want it to be a community and server that we also enjoy being a part of and feel good about supporting. It is entirely possible for a WoE player to play here without anyone saying nasty things to them. I don't know how many servers can say that, but we can.

I think it's a unique server and I love it here. Just wanted to share that take care guys.

Edit: one last thing that I think is worth mentioning... our admin, Dastgir, is the person that caught the Oath admin cheating in WoE and confronted him. That led to the oath admin deleting the server. If Dastgir was not ethical and trustworthy then I don't think he would have done that. We have a good admin, an ethical team, and people are having fun

[Herpderp]

Payon Stories will never be able to fully clear their image or remove the big question mark as no matter if the staff is new or it's another admin. The current admin was part of the old staff and that's enough to always be something questionable. Also there's the main problem with, as long as the server allows that guild to play there, there will always be rumours and people avoiding the server like plague due to the guild's history in every server they played on, including OathRO, which everything went public towards the end.

It's not just that they are the successor to a corrupt server that was nuked because the admin had a melty.
It's that they defended his corruption to the death, and tried to shift the blame on the community for "causing" his meltdown in an action that I can only describe as gaslighting. 




They defended him as a poor innocent dindunuffin, right until he backstabbed them too and took all their money. 
Then, all of a sudden, they were shocked and betrayed.  What's the matter Dastgir/Ayami, I thought poor innocent Oathkeeper only acted in self-defense against the evil WoE bullies during a nervous breakdown? Remember that? Remember how that was your story?

[Devastate]

A few clarifying points:

Ayami isn't on staff.

Oath was not good at managing the behavior of players and incentivizing good behavior. He was just too loose with enforcement. He also tried to manage the woe platform directly while covering other responsibilities. So the key changes we've made are 1. Stricter rule and behavior enforcement, especially as it relates to WoE, and 2. A dedicated staff member to handle WoE (that's me).

[betwixtbetween]

Given the history, notorious RMT guild presence, and numerous red flags, I'd steer clear of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the server wont last long.

[Rayeth]

Can I just that say that the amount of desperate people trying to defame this server because they couldn't follow simple basic rules and made their own discord account dedicated to this server so they can thrash talk all they want  is mind boggling. Dude, just enjoy the game and this server doesn't revolve around WOE; majority of people you see in towns are casual players.

[Shuchou]

I honestly never heard of P2W until they joined Oath/Payon so they really most not be that well 'known' if people that are heavily into WoE across multiple servers at one time never heard of them. Plus I just want to add, no matter how hard a servers staff tries there will always be people RMT'ing. I mean look to the official servers of any game alive today.    [By no means deeming RMT is ok, just that you can live, breath, eat, sleep policing RMT and people will still evade your notice.]

Plus Reborn, the one that said he was RMT'ing after OathRO melt down was a hot head that loved to stroke his eggo every chance he got. Even would go on about how he has MVP cards[That were on a 1k rate server] and try playing it off as they are on a 1x server. The man is a sad troll that loves kicking people while they are down when he sees a chance. But heck search the name of the server you play on now with RMT after it and you'll see where you play isn't clean either.

[ForgotMyOldAccount]

Can I just that say that the amount of desperate people trying to defame this server because they couldn't follow simple basic rules and made their own discord account dedicated to this server so they can thrash talk all they want  is mind boggling. Dude, just enjoy the game and this server doesn't revolve around WOE; majority of people you see in towns are casual players.

"Everyone who doesn't like my server must be a banned or disgruntled player, my server is perfect and has no flaws!" -You

This was a common comment of the Admin team on OathRO too, then the server died a few months later. History sure loves to repeat itself.

[Rayeth]

"Everyone who doesn't like my server must be a banned or disgruntled player, my server is perfect and has no flaws!" -You

This was a common comment of the Admin team on OathRO too, then the server died a few months later. History sure loves to repeat itself.

Payon Stories is doing just fine. History loves to repeat itself just like 12974567x server out there. Thats the risk you take not playing the official. I don't know why people take this game so seriously.