Leawyn II and accusations in general chat

[Max Blackoak]

after Leawyn's accusations in general chat last night I would like to clarify a couple of things:

If you believe you have caught someone afk scripting then you better have some solid proof before you publicly accuse them in general chat. I am not saying that there is no scripting on Siege, I am not naive (although it is not done to the extent we're seeing it on prodo). Nevertheless, we should apply the simple principle of innocent until proven guilty because otherwise this will only result in wild accusations being thrown around which on a shard with only one character per account can quickly ruin people's reputation. It also sheds a rather poor light on the accuser once enough people have been falsely accused.

I do believe that guilds and alliances should be held accountable for the actions of their members - this also goes for the example above. However, I also strongly believe that contacting the leaders privately (icq, personal message on the boards etc.) should be the way to deal with issues like that. If you have proof that one of our members is doing something illegal, then please feel free to contact us and we can look into the issue and deal with it. However, throwing around accusations in general chat without proof will not have the desired effect - quite the opposite.
Of course I am going to put alliance members before anyone outside the alliance - this is a simple matter of trust. I trust the people I at least know superficially more than those who I don't know. And unless I am presented with hard evidence I will always take the side of those people I know when I have their word against someone else's word without any further proof.

In your case Leawyn I sometimes find it hard to trust your judgement. On the one hand you have been presenting rather hard evidence for your claims of people cheating in UO by posting videos or screenshots that show whatever your think is wrong or illegal (problematic term, especially with the ambiguous stance of the devs on many of the respective topics). On the other hand you seem to have a liking for trolling PvP threads or people you suspect are cheating but seem to have no hard evidence. On several occasions you have made general accusations against "all" or "most" PvPers and their alleged use of unofficial third party programs, cheats, scripts etc. etc. for example in PvP threads on stratics. In your eyes everyone using the classic client in PvP seems to be a cheater. In my opinion you have cried "wolf" a couple of times too many.
So please realize that just because you think you know someone is cheating it doesn't proove anything to those actually playing with that person. You might be right, but you also might be wrong. Again the only way to reasonably deal with things like this is to say innocent until proven guilty because otherwise we end up with groundless accusations being thrown around like confetti - and that won't be helping anybody.

This also applies to you as a player. We have given you the benefit of the doubt every time you magically were able to place whatever house in a great location you wanted (Bo's current Luna house, the keep turned castle outside Cove only to name two examples). Instead of crying cheater, scripter or whatever, we simply trust that you are either extremely lucky or know some kind of hidden game mechanics that we simply don't know and that you have more experience with house placing, all of which is the basis of your success.

And it also applies to your guild/alliance: It would be easy to say "GIL is at every idoc in the game, they must be running some illegal scripts to check houses all over the shard" - an accusation Sargatanza threw around which resulted in him leaviing GIL in the end. It would be easy to do but we don't do it because we simply trust that GIL is just smart enough to have every member check certain areas once or twice a week to be aware of falling houses the minute they get condemned and to time the drop windows.

So please give us and our members the same benefit of the doubt. Feel free to kill afk scripters, feel free to collect evidence and present it to the respective guild leaders or whoever might be in charge. But please don't drag people's names through the mud without any solid proof!

One other thing that might help here is the way in which you speak to people. If I were to come to GIL members and say something like: "GIL member X is a cheater and needs to be kicked of your guild or else all of you are cheaters" just how much would you be willing to listen to me and cooperate? I am pretty sure that your reaction would be the same as Bo's or mine last night. You would probably say something along the lines: "Who are you to tell me what to do?". I am pretty sure that English is not your 1st language (it isn't mine either) but still please consider your words carefully or else you will only end up pissing people off.

[Tjalle]

Hail Max.

Interesting points. I´ll address them tomorrow. 

[Tjalle]

Hail again.
Didn´t mean to be this late with a reply but my work free days became work days and yada yada. Sorry for that.
I´ll try and keep it short.

after Leawyn's accusations in general chat last night I would like to clarify a couple of things:

If you believe you have caught someone afk scripting then you better have some solid proof before you publicly accuse them in general chat. I am not saying that there is no scripting on Siege, I am not naive (although it is not done to the extent we're seeing it on prodo). Nevertheless, we should apply the simple principle of innocent until proven guilty because otherwise this will only result in wild accusations being thrown around which on a shard with only one character per account can quickly ruin people's reputation. It also sheds a rather poor light on the accuser once enough people have been falsely accused.

No.
If I find and kill someone afk scripting I´ll announce it as much as I want in GC. I´ll go for that person's throat if I feel like it.
Why? Because I know that he/she knows that I know.
And if only one person believes me then I´m satisfied. But hopefully my word is worth more than that after my actions here during ten+ years on Siege. 
If you think about it, what possible reason would I have to go after this specific person? Why not someone like Bo, Siege or you that actually is a threat to me? Let it sink in...

So yeah, I´ll continue to take shots at him.

I do believe that guilds and alliances should be held accountable for the actions of their members - this also goes for the example above. However, I also strongly believe that contacting the leaders privately (icq, personal message on the boards etc.) should be the way to deal with issues like that. If you have proof that one of our members is doing something illegal, then please feel free to contact us and we can look into the issue and deal with it. However, throwing around accusations in general chat without proof will not have the desired effect - quite the opposite.
Of course I am going to put alliance members before anyone outside the alliance - this is a simple matter of trust. I trust the people I at least know superficially more than those who I don't know. And unless I am presented with hard evidence I will always take the side of those people I know when I have their word against someone else's word without any further proof.

This part I agree with.
I´m sorry for throwing your alliance's name in the mix.

In your case Leawyn I sometimes find it hard to trust your judgement. On the one hand you have been presenting rather hard evidence for your claims of people cheating in UO by posting videos or screenshots that show whatever your think is wrong or illegal (problematic term, especially with the ambiguous stance of the devs on many of the respective topics). On the other hand you seem to have a liking for trolling PvP threads or people you suspect are cheating but seem to have no hard evidence. On several occasions you have made general accusations against "all" or "most" PvPers and their alleged use of unofficial third party programs, cheats, scripts etc. etc. for example in PvP threads on stratics. In your eyes everyone using the classic client in PvP seems to be a cheater. In my opinion you have cried "wolf" a couple of times too many.
So please realize that just because you think you know someone is cheating it doesn't proove anything to those actually playing with that person. You might be right, but you also might be wrong. Again the only way to reasonably deal with things like this is to say innocent until proven guilty because otherwise we end up with groundless accusations being thrown around like confetti - and that won't be helping anybody.

Fair enough. But there´s two things you need to know about me.

1. I don´t act. I react.
And by that I mean that I don´t start accusing someone unless I´ve seen stuff first hand. Either by witnessing something ingame or seeing pics/vids/confessions on other forums.
I target assholes and cheaters. Both ingame and on Stratics.

2. You need to differentiate on specific accusations and general pokings.
When I go after a specific poster on Stratics it´s because I´ve seen the pics/vids they´ve posted on other forums. The reason I can´t present "hard evidence" is because the few times I´ve posted their screenshots on them using illegal programs, Stratics removes them immediately and I get a warning. So my options are very limited over there. So I can see why some of my posts can be view as trolling to someone "on the outside".
As for my general pokings. They don´t mean that I think everyone in PvP cheats. They are however based on what I see on other forums where 7 of 10 pics/vids seems to contain illegal features.

Here´s an example thread:

https://stratics.com/threads/eagle-phoenix.387483/

In this thread I take shots at two posters.

PaithanTheElf who is Paithan in this thread: http://www.hot-guild.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32619&sid=edf63803411e08200a2c912d7b6ca07f
Look at all of his pics and tell me you want his input on PvP related matter on Stratics where the devs read.

Revan123 is Bane321 in this thread: http://www.hot-guild.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28240

This also applies to you as a player. We have given you the benefit of the doubt every time you magically were able to place whatever house in a great location you wanted (Bo's current Luna house, the keep turned castle outside Cove only to name two examples). Instead of crying cheater, scripter or whatever, we simply trust that you are either extremely lucky or know some kind of hidden game mechanics that we simply don't know and that you have more experience with house placing, all of which is the basis of your success.

Yes, I´ve been known to plot down some nice buildings.
One of them is a castle in Trinsic swamp when Ginsu's went IDOC. Not only were I able to place a castle at the first try, I simultaneously also dodged multiple reds spamming area spells and revealers using detect over and over. And at the same time I crossed my fingers not to bump into other stealthers.
Same(ish) scenario in Zento two times. One against KOC and the other against FYOU. I got the spots.
You can decide for yourself if it´s skill/luck or something else...


I respect you, Max. I do. So again, I´m sorry for bringing your alliance into it.
If I come across someone in the future, I´ll PM you.


/Leawyn II