How Simutronics Cares for it's Customers.

Let me give you the short version of what has happened, and then you can verify "my" version with ALL the facts listed below. On the 11th I was in a very bad mood and it showed on the boards. As far as I know I had no removals from that night (at least I didn't receive any emails for it). Kraelyst posted about me being hysterical and I snapped out of it.

On the 12th I sat down to post and explain why I had reached the point I had the night before. It was an explaination, combined with numerous complaints. I spent 5 hours writting this post up to be sure it was acceptable for the boards. It was rather quickly removed by Maelona. I didn't have access to my email at the time so I posted ok I guess this wasn't meant to be heard and I'll post it on my own boards. After which I was able to get to my email and saw that Maelona had only removed it and told me what I needed to do for it to be postable. Maelona had mentioned it was an excellent post, she just couldn't allow some examples I used to remain because those examples had been hidden. I removed my post from the boards about not being heard here, and complied with what I need to fix to repost my post. I then reposted it.

Shortly after I reposted it, it was again removed by Pomae. Pomae told me what else I needed to fix for it to remain. I complied and again posted it. AGAIN it was removed, and shortly after the removal I was suspended from the boards. I eventually got an email from Daecir stating I Repeated Violations of Message Board TAC and thus the suspension. I replied asking what TAC's because to my knowledge I haven't had any in at least a month if not longer. I emailed Cecco while waiting for Daecir's response to find out what TAC's I've had. She was very little help, giving me some information, but not exactly what I needed. During my talks with Cecco though she sent me email on my final revised post as being hidden/removed.

Finally I received word from Daecir on the matter, and from what I have gathered HE changed the three removals/hidden posts into TAC's AFTER he suspended me. I had broken no policy, so he fixed it so I had, in order to uphold his suspension. You are more than welcome to go through all these emails and see for yourself. I have been told by Daecir to no longer forward our emails to other staff, because no one will overturn his decision. I just want to show the rest of you what Simutronics is all about. I intend on leaving over this, I am NOT about to pay the kind of money I pay to Simutronics for THIS. I don't want to be remembered as another one of those statistical, "you don't know both sides of the story players", I want you to see for yourself that Simutronics does indeed screw over their players. All I can hope for now, is that this doesn't EVER happen to another player. Thank you for taking the time to read through this. Both my message boards are open for comments on the matter.

Color Key:
Maelona
Cecco
Daecir
Solomon
Pomae
Me
Posts and anything that doesn't fit the other colors.

----- Original Message -----
From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
To: 'Tracy' [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:49 PM
Subject: Hid your post...

…because it quotes posts that have since been hidden. Please repost without including these two:

Category The Thieves (21) Topic The Den: A Place To Talk The Sequel (21) By DR-MAELONA from PLAY.NET On Jun 11, 2002 at 20:19 Subject Re: Simucon News! (1101)

<< And IMO.. if he was given poison 6 weeks ago I think we should have heard from him. >>

Well, you know what they say about opinions.

The part of this thread relating to GM Fial, as the Substance Guru, having been awarded Poison as part of his duties is over.

Maelona

Category The Thieves (21) Topic The Den: A Place To Talk The Sequel (21) By DR-MAELONA from PLAY.NET On Jun 11, 2002 at 20:53 Subject Re: .... more random babble from Pilf (1109)

<< Like the new magic system? :o( >>

That's right. Post idiotically irrelevant one-liners and cause the SGM to walk away from the thread rolling her eyes at the predictability of it all.

Well done.

Bad luck, Pilf - two for two tonight, eh?

Maelona

Thank you!

Claire

Category The Thieves (21)
Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)
By SHADOWWENCH from PLAY.NET (http://eyoni.tripod.com)
On Jun 12, 2002 at 14:24
Message My VERY long complaint. (278)

Here is the complaint/letter I promised this morning. As you can see it took me a LONG time to think out and post as constructively and calmly as possible.

Hello all here is my long winded, years worth of pent up frustration laid out for all to bare witness to. As I said previously please take what you want from this post and add to it, disagree with it or use it word for word to pass along to those in positions to take notice of our concerns. Also please do not take anything I say here as downing on the GM's, I respect and appreciate all they do for us.

I know they work their tails off for us. But somewhere along the lines communication has been screwed up and hard feelings built up. A lot of changes need to come from both the players and the GM's. And something is being overlooked by the GM's. Guild balances. I LOVE the passion the GM's have for their perspective guilds and don't want that hindered in the least. But again GUILD BALANCE, needs to be addressed and I think that will alleviate MANY issues.

There is a TON of negativity on both sides of the fence GM's and players alike. Both the players AND the GM's need to take into concideration the thoughts and feelings of each other. We all need to show each other a lot more respect. And yes I'm just as much at fault as anyone else for feeding into this. The players take more than enough flack from other players without the GM's having to jump on the bandwagon.

I've been around forever. I've watched the guild blossom and wither back and forth. I've seen thing after thing taken from the guild. I've heard in order to get you have to give. I've witness our own Guru lie to us. I've seen and been through a lot right beside all of you and fought for things that don't even matter to myself for the good of the guild. I've watched as long standing broken things within our guild get passed up for other issues. I've watched our own Guru throw a temper tantrum and refuse to address one of our core problems because his first meeting went amuck.

My biggest problem is over half the complaints I lodge don't affect me in the least but do affect someone else in the guild and I take them personally as if they did affect me. And we're such a diversified lot, that's a lot of personal complaints for one individual. I do this because that's what one should do for your guild. It's called unity and support. All this takes a toll on a person.

Now let me dive right into what I think is the core issue and problem. Guild balances. There are none. For whatever reason this is NOT an important issue. Anytime anything dwindles down to a guild versus guild thing it's quickly stopped. Perhaps it's time to look into these guild versus guild issues? This alone causes the most heartache and grief for players and GM's alike. Do you think if the guilds were on a more level playing field most of the recent complaints wouldn't be?

I don't want all guilds to be the same, not in the least. I want more things to be only for certain guilds. But you have to keep in mind this is a skill based game. Each guild should have at the very least an equal amount of skills they can learn which currently isn't the case. Each guilds deserves their own private skill, but currently it's NOT set up equally. Seven out of ten guilds currently have at least easy access and learnablity to five skill sets along with every other skill set out there. Let's bring to light bards for a second. They have even MORE skill sets plus access to every other skill out there. Does anyone else see a HUGE imbalance of TDP distribution?

Five skills practially barred from three guilds definately barred for one guild. Not to mention the fact that magic at least up until recently was pretty easily learned by magic guilds. How many tdp's is that? What are tdp's used for? Stats.... and we all know stats will make or break a character. Locking three guilds out from a whole skill set leaving them drastically at a stat disadvantage doesn't sound very fair to me.

Magic has been a thorn in thieves sides forever as I'm sure traders. There are numerous aspects that need to be looked at here. The tdp issue, the MR, magical defense issue, and the disguise issue, the ability to bypass solid skills with magic. Let's not forget that every guild has a counter ability or skill for our skills. We are left out in the cold again, what defenses do we have to magic? Their counter skills/abilities counter our stealing, hiding and overall stealth in so many ways. We never get ahead, it's a stagnant standstill. And we're continually left out of the loop. These issues have been ignored, unanswered or skirted around. I somewhat take back the bypassing of solid skills with the new global caps as being answered.

I still see and hear no answers to the tdp issue. MR was addressed as by no longer taking into concideration PM and such. But Magical Defenses has yet to be answered. For all I know that does take PM into concideration. The disguise issue, many thieves have brought to light how rune stones were something many of us looked forward to using for our disguise. Do they intend on making it so the actual WAVING and holding of the wand will be hidden so we can "act" like our disguised guild?

Dropping things like spell preparation being hidden and runes being taken away on us with absolutely no warning is sneaky to say the least. Why was it snuck in? Because IMO the GM's KNEW it would cause the reaction it has and would cause them to rethink they're stance on the issue. It's easier just to add it in and say tough cookies.

Next let me rant about the double posting standards and some examples of it. We are expected to respect the GM's and be conciderate of their feelings. Yet I've got plenty of examples of this being a one way street. Let me start by the conspiracy theory that is constantly thrown out at thieves when they bring up a legitimate complaint. That is demoralizing and wrong.

Second let me point out a recent situation with myself. GM's skirt around direct questions to muddy the idea into a belittling match.(If you've had a simular situation when/if you forward this letter please replace it with yours). I went into the magic folders to complain about the logic behind spells being all mental and they can't be 100% mental, for several reasons. First was because I can thump a mage and prevent them from casting. That tells me it's not 100% mental. Second because if it was 100% mental there would be no skill checks to hiding the spell preparation which there is at least for out in the open.

This all tied into my complaint about mages being able to prepare a spell from hiding at current time with absolutely no skill check to seeing them. Instead of Valdrik simply telling me that the skill checks are not in place yet and they are at the bottom of the priority list he completely ignored everything I posted and responded with, "Thanks for letting me know about the thump I'll fix that right away!"

I tried to go back in posts to find his post but couldn't go that far back. But trust me that was not word for word what was said, but essentially what was said. No more, no less. Would it have been so difficult to say skill checks are not in place yet but will be? No I don't think it would have been difficult to say, but instead he antagonized me and completely avoided the issue.

Last but definately not least the current posts by SGM Maelona. I understand that you are upset, you're only human. But is that any reason to publically demoralize a poster? And then to completely ignore a poster when they challenge your demoralization of themselves?

We're all humans and make mistakes. It takes a big person to admit their mistakes, and I've noticed that often goes unanswered by the GM's. Talking down to us like children will only continue to build the anger and frustration. Here are some examples of what I'm referring to.

Category The Thieves (21) Topic The Den: A Place To Talk The Sequel (21) By DR-MAELONA from PLAY.NET On Jun 11, 2002 at 20:19 Subject Re: Simucon News! (1101)

<< And IMO.. if he was given poison 6 weeks ago I think we should have heard from him. >>

Well, you know what they say about opinions.

The part of this thread relating to GM Fial, as the Substance Guru, having been awarded Poison as part of his duties is over.

Maelona

Category The Thieves (21) Topic The Den: A Place To Talk The Sequel (21) By DR-MAELONA from PLAY.NET On Jun 11, 2002 at 20:53 Subject Re: .... more random babble from Pilf (1109)

<< Like the new magic system? :o( >>

That's right. Post idiotically irrelevant one-liners and cause the SGM to walk away from the thread rolling her eyes at the predictability of it all.

Well done.

Bad luck, Pilf - two for two tonight, eh?

Maelona

If you MUST call or insinuate that someone is a butthead or idiot in such a fashion don't do so publically.

Category The Thieves (21) Topic The Den: A Place To Talk The Sequel (21) By DR-MAELONA from PLAY.NET On Jun 10, 2002 at 13:23 Subject Re: More Simucon news:Survival and Lore to be broken up (950)

<< Yes now it teaches mech but when smithing gos live they get grandfathered ranks then they get the same convert mech ranks choice. So they get 2 for one. >>

Which GM said that, Soim? None that you can name, right? Because it wasn't said.

Please try to avoid extrapolating wildly like this and then making posts that purport to be stating the gospel. All of you need to use the proper rule that always applies to situations like this:

Until a GM posts about it, what you've heard is hearsay.

You need to bear in mind that the people who report back from Simucon are OFTEN wrong in their interpretations of what was said (as has been the case several times in this topic alone) and just as often completely wrong about what they're stating as "facts" or reporting as verbatim transcripts of "what the GM said" in the first place.

Until you see it posted by a red accountname, it's not necessarily true.

Maelona

Here is where the admitting your mistakes comes into play. Soim rebutaled these claims of basically being a liar with a post from the Smithing GM himself (for reference purposes post number 973 in the Den folder). I noticed he was completely ignored. Does anyone else see what kind of message these examples sends to posters?

Moving right along to the issue of waiting patiently for the final product. I've been told be patient and wait for things to be done before you flip out. I did just that with the magic rewrite, and where did that get us? Too little too late. Snide comments from players and GM's alike over the issues. It leaves me to wonder had more of us spoke up at the time if things wouldn't be a lot different. After all it's much easier to take into concideration things that you'd never have thought of before hand than to redo everything you just did.

That is my complaint in a VERY large nutshell. If you've taken the time to read through this I appreciate it greatly. If you agree with this, some of this or even disagree with this PLEASE I can't stress enough to follow through and pass what you have to say on to feedback, Solomon and I'll save the last resort of Nova as just that a last resort. Things need to change around here. I'm driving myself mad over all this and probably driving the rest of you insane. GUILD BALANCE needs a SERIOUS look at. Other guilds need to be taken into concideration a lot more often than they are when things are changed.

For the GM's stop pulling the do as I say not as I do thing. And stop trying to silence us with telling us to wait patiently for something to be finished then ignore us after it's finished, leaving us with the thought of had we not waited we'd of been heard. Another quick example to the above would be sniping. We waited somewhat patiently were assured that sniping would not lead to mages attacking stealthy. Look where waiting patiently got us on that one?

Eyoni

P.S. For the love of the gods STOP putting things in backwards!! (G)

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: Hid your post...

Thank you for showing me what I needed to fix. I was a bit miffed because I spent 5 hours sitting here calmly trying to post all that so it was appropriate. I didn't know you removed those posts. But I do hope you keep in mind those posts as examples to the entire thing. I ain't out to bust your chops or anyone elses. I want everyone to see where everyone else is coming from. And I think I explained most of that in my post, there are many reasons for the hostility on all sides and someone needs to step back and say woah this is enough. There are a lot of things as you can see that has built up to the point we're at. There are also other things that I didn't post such as a certain very highly respected and known GM in a private conversation telling me to fuck off. No not Solomon either I'd just tell him to fuck off right back . Anyway I'm going to apologize once again for my actions and nastiness and just HOPE you can see where I'm coming from a bit clearer.

Tracy

----- Original Message ----- From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net] To: 'Tracy' [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:49 PM Subject: Hid your post...

The prior email that you just read as well as my post again. Shorted up for easier reading.

----- Original Message -----
From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
To: wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:57 PM
Subject: FW: Hid your post...

Oh, and just for your reference, as you were typing your long post, I was simultaneously typing a response to Soim about this:

<< Here is where the admitting your mistakes comes into play. Soim rebutaled these claims of basically being a liar with a post from the Smithing GM himself (for reference purposes post number 973 in the Den folder). I noticed he was completely ignored. Does anyone else see what kind of message these examples sends to posters? >>

You know… I guess I want to say to you, for every time you say “GMs should be held to the same standards as we are,” you’re forgetting the other side of the coin. Sometimes I’m going to have a shitty day and not deal with things as well as I should – I’m tired, my boss is being a pain, I’m fed up about something, whatever. Please don’t try to set things up so that you guys can let that spill over into YOUR posts, but I have to be held to some kind of angelic standard whereby I’m never allowed to have a bad moment on the boards and post a post that the Senior Board Monitor comes after me in email for. As you say yourself, I’m human, and I have my limits too.

Claire

-----Original Message-----
From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 12:50 PM
To: 'Tracy' [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Subject: Hid your post...

Everything you JUST read above, these emails include the prior conversation. I'm shortening them for your convinience and quite frankly I'm sick of reading my own post over and over heh. I'll be sure to place a note as to what I'm cutting out.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: Hid your post...

Understood. I think we all had a very bad day yesterday. Generally your posts are very levelheaded. I have seen a few in the past that have been snippy like yesterdays. But overall for the amount you deal with all us buttheads, you do an outstanding job. I used your posts as examples, simply for the fact that they were the most easily located ones. (I tried to find Valdrik's but couldn't go back far enough) You're not the only GM that has a bad day. And bad days are expected. It was just one of many complaints of a list of complaints that have been wearing me down.

My biggest downfall is I feed into the complaints, IM's have been going crazy for me since the magic rewrite. As I explained in my post I feel obligated as a thief to unite and defend the other thieves. Taking on every problem as if it were my own problem. Magic... I don't use it, I don't want it, I don't need it. (G) But it is a problem for many of the thieves. So I stepped up.

I do hope we can get past the hard feelings of the last couple of weeks. I am officially taking a break from the boards and going into reclusion (avoiding most IM's) to enjoy the game. I feel much better getting everything off my chest that was in that post, along with my quick rant on Royce. Once again Claire I'm sorry for being a bitch and a general pain in the ass. I hope you can forgive me. And do know you have all my respect for putting up with myself and others like me as smoothly as you do. Don't let us get to you too bad. Thanks for chatting with me.

Tracy

----- Original Message ----- From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net] To: wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 2:57 PM Subject: FW: Hid your post...

Previous emails plus my post again.

----- Original Message -----
From: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
To: 'Tracy' [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 7:09 PM
Subject: RE: Hid your post...

I think we’ll all get over it. We always do. Just like one big dysfunctional family that is full of disparate personalities who all see things their own way, but who are all bound tightly together by some common love, sometimes we have a go at each other and punch each other in the head before settling down to watch Survivor together, you know? Like you said, a bunch of us just seemed to be ready to have a brawl yesterday, but from what I can tell there aren’t any hard feelings beyond the “I wish you didn’t do that” and “Well, I wish YOU wouldn’t do THAT” kind of stuff.

You made an excellent post and ordinarily I’d be totally fine with you swatting me for those posts I made that were indeed not appropriate. As always, though, once a post has been yanked for inappropriateness (and yes, board monitors take down my posts if I overstep the line, just like anyone else) it doesn’t make sense for the sentiment to be allowed to continue by having other folks quoting it. That was the only reason I asked you to leave out that bit. J

Thank you for taking the time to post a very readable and thoughtful essay. I read right through to the end and I take on board all that you say. I can’t promise you overnight changes – designing and coding for a non-magical Guild takes extra imagination over and above what is needed to code for a Magic guild, for obvious reasons. However, remember where I came from, and know that I’m a non-magic-user at heart. We’ll get you guys into fighting shape before you know it. J

Claire

-----Original Message----- From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 4:38 PM To: GM Maelona Subject: Re: Hid your post...

Again, previous emails and my post.

----- Original Message -----
From: [MOD-POMAE@play.net [mailto:MOD-POMAE@play.net]]
To: [SHADOWWENCH@play.net [mailto:SHADOWWENCH@play.net]]
Cc: [drfeedback@play.net [mailto:drfeedback@play.net]]; [MOD-POMAE@play.net [mailto:MOD-POMAE@play.net]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 11:56 PM
Subject: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Thread Hidden

Dear Account Holder SHADOWWENCH,
RE: Notification of a hidden post
Your post was hidden from the following area of the DragonRealms Message Board:

Category The Thieves (21)
Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)

For your convenience and reference, a copy of the post in question is included below. The problem area in the post is: Staff..especially GameMasters, cannot defend their actions on the boards. Its not allowed so GM Valdrick wouldnt be able to defend himself.

The Post can be reposted if remove reference to staff, and add constructive criticism. You'll notice Feedbacks been copied to, their the best ones to contact in cases where you have a problem with staff.

General Reminder:
Please remember you agree to abide by the Rules for Posting and the Terms of Service each and every time you log into the services. If you need to review these items they can be found on the message boards log in page, and the website log in page, respectively.

Also, please keep in mind that though this is only a notification of removal, continual violations can and will lead to Terms and Conditions Warnings, which may hamper your account status and usage.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me at
Mod-Pomae@play.net [mailto:Mod-Pomae@play.net] or Senior Board Monitor Emony at Dr-Emony@play.net [mailto:Dr-Emony@play.net] or Board Supervisor Cecco at DR-Cecco@play.net [mailto:DR-Cecco@play.net]

A copy of your post is included for your reference, below.

Board Monitor Pomae
DragonRealms Message Boards Monitor

Category The Thieves (21) Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)

Again my post, but this time it was posted with the removals of Maelona's posts as requested.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: MOD-POMAE@play.net [mailto:MOD-POMAE@play.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:59 AM Subject: hey hun.

I can't post. Were my posting privilages revoked? If so can I get a reasoning for it? The last couple days all my posts removed have been simply hidden, no warnings. Thanks in advance.

Eyoni

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: GM Maelona [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:24 PM
Subject: Problem

Hey hun. That post of mine keeps being removed. It was removed again after I removed your posts for having Valdrik's name in it. I then removed that whole example and reposted it. It's been removed again. I keep fixing it as I'm told to. It's been hidden each time I've posted it. No warnings. Now all of a sudden I'm not able to post. Can you please find out what is going on by any chance? I haven't received any emails about a banning from the boards. I haven't had any warnings as far as I know in a long time. If I was banned, I would like to know the reasons so I can correct myself. I would also like to know what they are basing the banning on, since again I don't believe I've been warned in a while. That post I keep reposting I strongly feel is a very good post with a lot of legitimate complaints, and I'm attempting to do everything I'm asked each time to allow for it to be postable. I'm seriously just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong now. Thanks in advance.

Tracy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]
To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:22 AM
Subject: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

Because of your violations of Simutronics' Message Board TAC your ID and all characters attached have been suspended from posting on Simutronics' Message Boards for a period of at least 30 days. This suspension of privileges applies to all accounts that are owned or played by you as well. Using another account to circumvent this suspension will result in that account's board privileges being suspended, as well as the original suspension time being restarted from the day the second account is suspended.

Reason for loss of posting privileges: Repeated Violations of Message Board TAC

I strongly urge you to read our game specific Terms and Conditions file available via our POLICY link. I also urge you to read the Simutronics Terms of Service available in the same area. Additionally, you should read our Message Boards Terms and Conditions via the link located on the board launch page. By violating these policies, you risk not only lockout from this game but from the entire Simutronics service.

If at the end of the suspension period you wish to be allowed access to the Message Boards once more, you can write to Feedback at Lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:Lockout@simutronics.com], stating that you have read and agree to abide by our policies. We will review the situation at that time.

If you have any questions, you may write to me at the above address, and we will do our best to answer you in a timely fashion.

Respectfully,

GM Daecir Simutronics Lockout

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)
GM Daecir
Simutronics Lockout

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: "GM Maelona" [dr-maelona@play.net Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:33 PM
Subject: Fw: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

Nevermind I have been banned. For what violations I still don't understand, but whatever. Thanks.

Tracy

----- Original Message ----- From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:22 AM Subject: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

This is where I had copied Daecir's letter to Maelona.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To:"Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

When was my last warning Daecir? What repeated violations are you referring to? I'd like to see a list of my violations and dates for those violations. Thank you in advance.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message ----- From:"Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:22 AM Subject: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

And this is Daecir's suspension letter to me.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Latham" [ericl@simutronics.com [mailto:ericl@simutronics.com]]
To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]; [feedback@play.net [mailto:feedback@play.net]]; "GM Maelona" [dr-maelona@play.net [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]]

Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 1:47 PM

Subject: Re: a complaint

I appreciate you taking the time to address your concerns.

At 02:28 PM 6/12/2002, Tracy wrote: Hello all here is my long winded, years worth of pent up frustration laid out for all to bare witness to. As I said previously please take what you want from this post and add to it, disagree with it or use it word for word to pass along to those in positions to take notice of our concerns. Also please do not take anything I say here as downing on the GM's, I respect and appreciate all they do for us.

I know they work their tails off for us. But somewhere along the lines communication has been screwed up and hard feelings built up. A lot of changes need to come from both the players and the GM's. And something is being overlooked by the GM's. Guild balances. I LOVE the passion the GM's have for their perspective guilds and don't want that hindered in the least. But again GUILD BALANCE, needs to be addressed and I think that will alleviate MANY issues.

First, the most important thing I think that needs to be cleared up is that guild balance has never been part of the overall design for DragonRealms. It doesn't exist now and was never intended to exist. It's been explained countless times on the boards throughout the history of DragonRealms that this is never taken into consideration and probably never will be. A 20th level thief will never be "balanced" with a 20th level barbarian or a 20th level empath or a 20th level trader because it they were never intended to be balanced.

There is a TON of negativity on both sides of the fence GM's and players alike. Both the players AND the GM's need to take into concideration the thoughts and feelings of each other. We all need to show each other a lot more respect. And yes I'm just as much at fault as anyone else for feeding into this. The players take more than enough flack from other players without the GM's having to jump on the bandwagon.

I've been around forever. I've watched the guild blossom and wither back and forth. I've seen thing after thing taken from the guild. I've heard in order to get you have to give. I've witness our own Guru lie to us. I've seen and been through a lot right beside all of you and fought for things that don't even matter to myself for the good of the guild. I've watched as long standing broken things within our guild get passed up for other issues. I've watched our own Guru throw a temper tantrum and refuse to address one of our core problems because his first meeting went amuck.

My biggest problem is over half the complaints I lodge don't affect me in the least but do affect someone else in the guild and I take them personally as if they did affect me. And we're such a diversified lot, that's a lot of personal complaints for one individual. I do this because that's what one should do for your guild. It's called unity and support. All this takes a toll on a person.

Something I think you need to understand that should, in the long run, make things a lot easier for you. The player base does not need a single "champion" to adopt everyone's problems are taken them on as his/her own. Any time someone attempts to do this, the would-be savior ends up imploding under the pressure and, historically speaking, ends up being removed from the message boards.

The best advise I can offer at this point is let everyone fight their own fights. It's better for everyone.

Now let me dive right into what I think is the core issue and problem. Guild balances. There are none. For whatever reason this is NOT an important issue. Anytime anything dwindles down to a guild versus guild thing it's quickly stopped. Perhaps it's time to look into these guild versus guild issues? This alone causes the most heartache and grief for players and GM's alike. Do you think if the guilds were on a more level playing field most of the recent complaints wouldn't be?

I don't want all guilds to be the same, not in the least. I want more things to be only for certain guilds. But you have to keep in mind this is a skill based game. Each guild should have at the very least an equal amount of skills they can learn which currently isn't the case. Each guilds deserves their own private skill, but currently it's NOT set up equally. Seven out of ten guilds currently have at least easy access and learnablity to five skill sets along with every other skill set out there. Let's bring to light bards for a second. They have even MORE skill sets plus access to every other skill out there. Does anyone else see a HUGE imbalance of TDP distribution?

With this "huge imbalance" in place, how many high level bards do you see flaunting the results?

Five skills practially barred from three guilds definately barred for one guild. Not to mention the fact that magic at least up until recently was pretty easily learned by magic guilds. How many tdp's is that? What are tdp's used for? Stats.... and we all know stats will make or break a character. Locking three guilds out from a whole skill set leaving them drastically at a stat disadvantage doesn't sound very fair to me.

Magic has been a thorn in thieves sides forever as I'm sure traders. There are numerous aspects that need to be looked at here. The tdp issue, the MR, magical defense issue, and the disguise issue, the ability to bypass solid skills with magic. Let's not forget that every guild has a counter ability or skill for our skills. We are left out in the cold again, what defenses do we have to magic? Their counter skills/abilities counter our stealing, hiding and overall stealth in so many ways. We never get ahead, it's a stagnant standstill. And we're continually left out of the loop. These issues have been ignored, unanswered or skirted around. I somewhat take back the bypassing of solid skills with the new global caps as being answered.

I still see and hear no answers to the tdp issue. MR was addressed as by no longer taking into concideration PM and such. But Magical Defenses has yet to be answered. For all I know that does take PM into concideration. The disguise issue, many thieves have brought to light how rune stones were something many of us looked forward to using for our disguise. Do they intend on making it so the actual WAVING and holding of the wand will be hidden so we can "act" like our disguised guild?

Dropping things like spell preparation being hidden and runes being taken away on us with absolutely no warning is sneaky to say the least. Why was it snuck in? Because IMO the GM's KNEW it would cause the reaction it has and would cause them to rethink they're stance on the issue. It's easier just to add it in and say tough cookies.

Nothing was "snuck in" and any claims that it was done so are ludicrous and belong in the "conspiracy theory" pile, plain and simple. I gladly direct you to review the last two+ years of DR and notice that at no time ever in the history of the product has the staff been more up-front and open about what we're doing and why we're doing it. We don't "sneak things in" and pray no one notices. Period.

Next let me rant about the double posting standards and some examples of it. We are expected to respect the GM's and be conciderate of their feelings. Yet I've got plenty of examples of this being a one way street. Let me start by the conspiracy theory that is constantly thrown out at thieves when they bring up a legitimate complaint. That is demoralizing and wrong.

Second let me point out a recent situation with myself. GM's skirt around direct questions to muddy the idea into a belittling match.(If you've had a simular situation when/if you forward this letter please replace it with yours). I went into the magic folders to complain about the logic behind spells being all mental and they can't be 100% mental, for several reasons. First was because I can thump a mage and prevent them from casting. That tells me it's not 100% mental. Second because if it was 100% mental there would be no skill checks to hiding the spell preparation which there is at least for out in the open.

This all tied into my complaint about mages being able to prepare a spell from hiding at current time with absolutely no skill check to seeing them. Instead of Valdrik simply telling me that the skill checks are not in place yet and they are at the bottom of the priority list he completely ignored everything I posted and responded with, "Thanks for letting me know about the thump I'll fix that right away!"

I tried to go back in posts to find his post but couldn't go that far back. But trust me that was not word for word what was said, but essentially what was said. No more, no less. Would it have been so difficult to say skill checks are not in place yet but will be? No I don't think it would have been difficult to say, but instead he antagonized me and completely avoided the issue.

It sounds to me like Valdrik heard your complaint, acknowledged that the messaging was in error, and said it would be fixed to fall in line with the intention of the designers. I see no antagonizing going on at all, rather I see someone (who by their own admission gets worked up over things very easily) getting upset when they thought they had the "ultimate argument" against something and then finding that argument negated when it was pointed out that the assumptions leading you to your theory were based on faulty messaging that needed to be fixed.

It's already been stated that the issues that people have pointed out with spell preparation in hiding are being addressed and that there WILL be changes made. At what point will you accept that fact and stop using it as a rallying cry?

Last but definately not least the current posts by SGM Maelona. I understand that you are upset, you're only human. But is that any reason to publically demoralize a poster? And then to completely ignore a poster when they challenge your demoralization of themselves?

If you MUST call or insinuate that someone is a butthead or idiot in such a fashion don't do so publically.

The same can be said of players posting on our message boards. What purpose do the quoted posts that Maelona replied to serve, other than demoralization and "trolling" for negativity? IMO, there comes a time when we need to identify to the general public that posting in a manner that serves no useful purpose is detrimental. The alternative is simply hiding entire threads, which does happen, but in this case I feel it was warranted to simply point out the specific parts of certain posts that were counter-productive so that everyone could see that it's not effective to simply snipe or troll.

Again, I will stress that in some of the examples you provided, these are posts made by other people. If THEY have issues with the way their responses are handled, YOU need to let THEM bring those issues up. You can't take your own reactions and assume that because YOU personally disagree with the way it was handled, the person in question MUST have been offended as well, therefore you adopt the right to complain about it. Things don't work that way. This also doesn't mean you need to contact them and spur them into complaining. Let everyone handle their own problems in their own manner and I think you'll see that the amount of time you spend stressing over things will be cut down dramatically.

Moving right along to the issue of waiting patiently for the final product. I've been told be patient and wait for things to be done before you flip out. I did just that with the magic rewrite, and where did that get us? Too little too late. Snide comments from players and GM's alike over the issues. It leaves me to wonder had more of us spoke up at the time if things wouldn't be a lot different. After all it's much easier to take into concideration things that you'd never have thought of before hand than to redo everything you just did.

That is my complaint in a VERY large nutshell. If you've taken the time to read through this I appreciate it greatly. If you agree with this, some of this or even disagree with this PLEASE I can't stress enough to follow through and pass what you have to say on to feedback, Solomon and I'll save the last resort of Nova as just that a last resort. Things need to change around here. I'm driving myself mad over all this and probably driving the rest of you insane. GUILD BALANCE needs a SERIOUS look at. Other guilds need to be taken into concideration a lot more often than they are when things are changed.

First, I'll reiterate that there is no such thing as guild balance, so waiting for it to happen will result in a pretty long wait.

Second, I'll remind you of something I mentioned to you many months ago. I report to David Whatley. Nova/Elonka is no longer my supervisor, so anything sent to her is either forwarded back to me, or on to David (who generally sends it back to me to deal with, as he generally does not get involved with the day-to-day issues in the game). David's concerns are with the big picture and he tends to let me deal with the "in-game" matters.

As with any change, there will always be some waves created. Any change is a traumatic experience and a change of this magnitude is bound to cause some ruffled feathers. It's important to remember that we DO spend vast amounts of time taking the results of any change into consideration.

Given the scope of Magic 2.1, I think that the staff has done a pretty darn good job of taking everyone's concerns into consideration and acting accordingly. I'll also repeat that it's not over, so please don't base your opinions on the way things stand now.

For the GM's stop pulling the do as I say not as I do thing. And stop trying to silence us with telling us to wait patiently for something to be finished then ignore us after it's finished, leaving us with the thought of had we not waited we'd of been heard. Another quick example to the above would be sniping. We waited somewhat patiently were assured that sniping would not lead to mages attacking stealthy. Look where waiting patiently got us on that one?

Eyoni

P.S. For the love of the gods STOP putting things in backwards!! (G)

If you stop waiting now, then yes I can see how you'd feel the way you do given the current state of things.

However, are you truly being patient by assuming we're done and getting worked up and, as you say, "driving yourself mad" assuming things will stay the same as they are now? That's not patience, it's impatience to a T.

Solomon

There were a few emails I sent to Solomon addressing his comments above that I'll leave out. They were never responded it. I was just showing his response to my post because it shows him thanking me taking my time to have my concerns addressed.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: dr-cecco@play.net [mailto:dr-cecco@play.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 3:44 PM
Subject: Hello

I need a list of my current TAC's with dates please.

Thank you.
Tracy Pollina account name Shadowwench

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: dr-cecco@play.net [mailto:dr-cecco@play.net] ; drfeedback@simutronics.com [mailto:drfeedback@simutronics.com] ; custserv@simutronics.com [mailto:custserv@simutronics.com] ; Simu-Solomon@play.net [mailto:Simu-Solomon@play.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: Board Suspension

As you saw I posted my complaint. I spent 5 hours sitting here thinking it out calmly so it was acceptable for posting. It was removed and only hidden no warnings by Maelona because her posts were hidden. She told me if I'd remove that I could repost it. I then did as she asked and reposted it. It was then removed and only hidden by Pomae for my example of Valdrik, and told me if I removed that example I could then repost it. He also told me he had forwarded the letter to feedback because that's the best place for it if I have a complaint against any staff. I then removed Valdrik as an example and reposted it.

About half an hour ago my posting privilages were stopped I assume by Daecir since that is who the suspension was from. My post once again has been removed, with NO letter saying why it was removed this time, only the letter of my suspension. As you can see I've done everything I've been asked to keep that post up. None of those removals were warned, they were strictly hidden. Had they been warned I'd of said ok fine my complaint just isn't meant to be heard here and put it on my own message boards. Now I'll attatch below the letter I received from Daecir over the issue and my letter back to him. Let me know if you also need the removal letters from Maelona and Pomae please?

Basically I'm wanting to know why my privilages were suspended. I honestly don't think I've had a "warning" in ages. Any help you can give me on this matter is greatly appreciated.

When was my last warning Daecir? What repeated violations are you referring to? I'd like to see a list of my violations and dates for those violations.

Thank you in advance.

Tracy Pollina ----- Original Message ----- From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:22 AM Subject: ACCOUNTS SHADOWWENCH SPECIES1 -------Suspension of Board Privileges

Daecir's letter followed this.

----- Original Message -----
From: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]]
To: [SHADOWWENCH@play.net [mailto:SHADOWWENCH@play.net]]
Cc: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:20 PM
Subject: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Hello there,

For some reason, the letter I sent you regarding this post didnt make it out. Sorry about that.

So here is the post that should have gone with the letter. Also please find another post pulled on a similar subject.

So on to why the posts were removed.

The Simutronics Message Boards have several objectives, one of which is to provide a way to communicate ideas and open a dialogue on subjects that concern the game and the playing community.

Now your post was about your concern about the game. But it kept leveling the aim at how the GM's and developers had failed the Thieves guild.

The net effect of making your complaint on the Boards in that fashion is that the staff who *do* read there just want to stop reading because all their work is seemingly unappreciated, or not enough to keep people on track.

The Boards are not the place to complain about the way the Development team have implemented or created systems. It is also not the place to point the finger at GM's. They just cannot vindicate themselves adequately on the boards. Therefore we dont allow the pointing of fingers. It isnt fair on anyone. Not the people who read the accusation, nor the GM's about whom the accusation is made.

The only place such accusation may happen is via email to Feedback. Insistent posting only hurts your cause, it doesnt further it.

Please be sure to refer to the Forum Rules and Policies if you require verification. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. If you have further query on this, contact me at DR-Cecco@play.net .

I have included a copy of your post for your review.

Cecco -
DragonRealms Message Boards Supervisor

Category The Thieves (21)

Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)

By SHADOWWENCH from PLAY.NET ([http://eyoni.tripod.com])

On Jun 12, 2002 at 15:48

Subject My very LONG complaint edited. (282)

This is my post that Pomae had removed.

Category The Thieves (21)

Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)

By SHADOWWENCH from PLAY.NET ([http://eyoni.tripod.com])

On Jun 13, 2002 at 08:57

Subject My quickly getting shorter LONG complaint edited AGAIN (309)

Apparently we just can't flat out talk about staff no matter how factual, or legit the complaint may be. So you got a complaint about a staff person remember they don't care and don't want to hear it. This is as vague as this gets without taking too much from MY complaints about current issues. If this one gets pulled, folks the entire unedited version will be on my website for viewing. I was actually HAPPY this morning getting up to play because I was going to stay away from the boards, until I saw that hidden message notification. Enjoy.

The rest was the editing of my post that Pomae had told me to do. As you can see both posts were just removed.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:48 PM
Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Sorry to bother you again. But was this just a removal or was it a warning I'm just seeing in header Notification-Disruptive? I've had it removed/hidden saying if I took out her posts it would be postable. Then I had it removed/hidden by Pomae saying to remove the referrence of Valdrik and then it would be postable. I did that and it's still being removed. What this time do I need to edit out for it to be postable? I'm really trying here to keep this on the boards, I have some very legitimate complaints. As a matter of fact the post itself at least by Maelona was said to have been excellent.

Also can I please have a list of my warnings and dates of those warnings. And an explaination as to why I'm suspended from posting for at least a month? Thank you.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message ----- From: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]] To: [SHADOWWENCH@play.net [mailto:SHADOWWENCH@play.net]] Cc: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:20 PM Subject: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

This is where the previous email was.

----- Original Message -----
From: DRCecco [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]
To: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: Hello

Please find attached, a spreadsheet of your posting history. Hopefully this will give you the information you seek.

Regards
Cecco

----- Original Message ----- From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] To: dr-cecco@play.net [mailto:dr-cecco@play.net] Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 06:44 Subject: Hello

I need a list of my current TAC's with dates please. Thank you.

Tracy Pollina account name Shadowwench

Here is where I received the list of my current removals from 2/20/01 to 6/12/02. This list did not say IF the post was warned or what. But the last half dozen or so posts on the list I knew for a fact were not TAC's because I still had the emails (which you've seen) showing as only notifications.

----- Original Message -----
From: "DRCecco" [DRCecco@hotmail.com To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
Cc: "GM Riel" [DR-Riel@play.net [mailto:DR-Riel@play.net]]; "GM Daecir" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Dear Tracy

I think at this point, you are better off talking with the Lockout department to decide what can be done for the future.

Our Boards just are not made for that kind of discussion. You are always welcome to discuss complaints of this major nature with Feedback, but by posting it to the Boards all it does is raise discontent with people and the Game Masters are driven away from reading because such posting invites trolling and becomes too discouraging. The Development umbrella of responsibility covers all guilds and they are just as concerned for progress in the Thief guild as they are with every other guild.

Eventually, we lose staff, and the impact and loss of those skills takes a long long time to replace, further injuring the cause you are pleading. The very best place to make your complaints of this nature is via email and to Feedback.

Regards
Cecco

- Message Boards Supervisor, DragonRealms.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] To: [DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]] Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 10:48 Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Sorry to bother you again. But was this just a removal or was it a warning I'm just seeing in header Notification-Disruptive? I've had it removed/hidden saying if I took out her posts it would be postable. Then I had it removed/hidden by Pomae saying to remove the referrence of Valdrik and then it would be postable. I did that and it's still being removed. What this time do I need to edit out for it to be postable? I'm really trying here to keep this on the boards, I have some very legitimate complaints. As a matter of fact the post itself at least by Maelona was said to have been excellent.

Also can I please have a list of my warnings and dates of those warnings. And an explaination as to why I'm suspended from posting for at least a month? Thank you.

Tracy Pollina

And here is where her removal letter is with my posts.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: "DRCecco" [DRCecco@hotmail.com [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

That's fine. I just wish someone would have said this before I had to get it hidden so many times. I was continually told to change this or that and it could be reposted, which I did. You say it's not acceptable for reposting that is fine too. Any word on what's up with this suspension? Thank you.

Tracy

----- Original Message ----- From: "DRCecco" [DRCecco@hotmail.com [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]] To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Cc: "GM Riel" [DR-Riel@play.net "GM Daecir" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 8:56 PM Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Dear Tracy

The above letter goes here.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: DRCecco [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 9:50 PM
Subject: board suspension

The list you gave me has been helpful but not helpful. (G) It shows all my HIDDEN posts and I'm sure some are TAC's but which I can't tell. I can give you examples for at least this month of how they are one there, but they are simply hidden, no TAC's issued. Now the problem here is that I was suspended for TAC's. If you can possibly find my list of TAC's that would be greatly appreciated. Now it says on this thing you gave me that a post was removed and deemed out of context on the 9th by Pomae (which was later overturned and returned to the boards). Here is the removal letter I received. This was NOT a TAC.

This is where I post all my emails of removals to show that the list she gave me couldn't have been all warnings.

Now all those posts on the 12th were nothing more than hidden posts as well. The only one I still happen to have the removal letter from is the last one from Pomae, and the two you just sent me.

Dear Account Holder SHADOWWENCH,

RE: Notification of a hidden post

Your post was hidden from the following area of the DragonRealms Message Board:

Category The Thieves (21)

Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)

The posts where here.

The 4 in the Den on the 12th by Maelona I don't have copies to, but I'm pretty certain some of those were from entire thread that she pulled. Again nothing more than hidden.

As for going back any further than the 9th I simply can't. I don't save THAT many emails. (G) Do you have anything that actually shows what are TACed posts and what aren't from the list you gave me? Because as I've shown, the list you gave me are not all TAC's. And since that is the reason I'm suspended from the boards I really need to see something that shows my TAC's. Thanks again.

Tracy

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 10:19 PM
Subject: warnings

Ok from what I've been able to gather from prior BM's. You should have a list that will say if it was a warning, caution, or notice. Warnings being TAC's. That is the list I need. The current list as I showed you in my prior letter tells me nothing. Again you being one of the SBM's I'm still awaiting your explaination for my suspension. Can you show me where Daecir's reason of Repeated Violations of Message Board TAC applies to me? I am pretty positive that I have not received a TAC in a long while. Thank you again.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message -----
From: "DRCecco" [DRCecco@hotmail.com [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]]
To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
Cc: [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 10:54 PM
Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Dear Tracy,

My understanding is that you have been put on read only status for 30 days, based on your posting history. GM Daecir can advise you best about it. I have forwarded a full history including information about Warnings, Cautions and Notificiations to GM Daecir, and hopefully when you discuss this with him, he can give you more detail.

To give you an idea of the data:

3 Warnings
9 Cautions
67 Notifications

Hope this helps.

Regards
Cecco

----- Original Message ----- From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] To: "DRCecco" [DRCecco@hotmail.com [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]] Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 12:03 Subject: Re: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

As you can see, there are no dates on those warnings, but glancing at the list she gave me I suspect that data she gave me was for the time frame I posted. Below this is all prior letters between us.

----- Original Message -----
From: DRCecco [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]
To: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Cc: lockout@simutronics.com[mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: warnings

You are better of consulting with a current team, than with prior BM's. You are far more likely to get up to date information on what can and cant be given to you.

"Again you being one of the SBM's I'm still awaiting your explaination for my suspension. "

Obviously as you are unhappy with the level of information I (an SBM) have given you, perhaps you have another SBM in mind that you would prefer to deal with. Let me know who that might be, and I will gladly hand this over to them. As I mentioned though in my other two letters, it is better to handle this with GM Daecir from here on in.

Regards
Cecco

----- Original Message ----- From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] To: DR-CECCO@play.net [mailto:DR-CECCO@play.net] Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 13:19 Subject: warnings

Again everything you've already read.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: DRCecco [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: warnings

Currently I have no problem with how you are handling this. I'm just trying to get this expedited, because I'm fairly certain this suspension is out of line. And the longer this takes the longer I go with an unwarrented suspension and no compensation for it. I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from. I'll be lucky to get an I'm sorry for the incident I'm sure. Thanks again for your help. If you could just give me the dates for those warnings I'll be set and can proceed from there.

Tracy

----- Original Message ----- From: DRCecco [mailto:DRCecco@hotmail.com] To: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net] Cc: lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com] Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:03 PM Subject: Re: warnings

Again what you've already read.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tracy [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: Feedback Samcras [mailto:dr-samcras@play.net] ; Riel [mailto:dr-riel@play.net]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 9:43 AM
Subject: Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal

Hello. I'm currently serving a 30 day board suspension which I feel is very unwarrented. I've spoke with SBM Cecco over the issue and am even more convinced the lockout is unwarrented. I think Riel has been forwarded Cecco and my conversations, so instead of attatching all those conversations I'll sum it up. If need be I have the emails for viewing.

Let me rewind a second and catch Samcras up to speed. Since the magic rewrite many of the thieves, myself included have been pretty upset with the changes. On the 11th many heated posts were exchanged by players and GM's alike. On the 12th I had calmed down and decided to write up one long general complaint. A complaint that covered everything from the prior day to years worth of complaints. I simply wanted to be heard, and get it all off my chest so I could get back to basics. I spent 5 hours writting the post calmly. I wanted to make sure it was acceptable and even though it was a complaint I was trying to avoid massive amounts of negativity. I felt I successfully did that and posted it.

It was quickly pulled by SGM Maelona. The reasoning was because two or three posts I had used as examples had been hidden and she said if I would remove those it could be reposted. She also mentioned with our exchange of emails that the post was an excellent post. I then removed what she requested and reposted. (I have all emails if you need to see them.)

Shortly after I reposted it was pulled again by BM Pomae. In his removal letter to me he told me I had to remove my referrence of Valdrik for it to be suitable for posting. He also said that he felt that a complaint of such magnitude needed to be sent to feedback at which point he had forwarded the removal to feedback. (THIS is where I think the suspension and confusion came into play.)

I again edited the post removing Valdrik as an example and reposted. Shortly after that the post was removed again, and my posting privilages were suspended. I initially received no notice or warning in the mail as to why the post was removed for a third time. I did receive Daecir's email saying why I was suspended.

His reason for suspension was: Reason for loss of posting privileges: Repeated Violations of Message Board TAC. I quickly replied to his letter with this: When was my last warning Daecir? What repeated violations are you referring to? I'd like to see a list of my violations and dates for those violations. Thank you in advance.

Now let me backtrack a second. I to my knowledge have no received a TAC in quite a while. So his reasoning made absolutely no sense to me. I suspected the true reasoning behind the suspension was my long complaint. Which is fine if that's what it was, but there is no reason to make things up to suspend me. Also let me point out that I honestly tried to do everything I was told to keep that post up. So the continual posting of that post was only because everyone kept telling me what I needed to change to keep the post up. I went above and beyond to make sure that post was acceptable.

Next let me explain why I'm coming to you instead of Daecir over this matter. I've had prior problems with Daecier, and do not feel I'll get a fair hearing from him. Now on to my investigation thus far. I've had several emails with Cecco over the matter (which Riel should have and I can provide). I requested a list of my current warnings, she sent me a list of all my removals. I told her and showed her that the list she gave me was not what I needed. She then sent me a brief of my warnings, cautions and notifications. That was more along the lines of what I needed, but I still needed the dates for at the very least the warnings. I have yet to receive them.

I'm positive that Daecir's reasoning for my suspension is bogus. I haven't had a warning in quite a while. I honestly can not see what I did wrong here that brought about my suspension. The only conclusion I can come up with is I had one extremely bad day which I tried to remedy the following day with an explaination as to my attitude the prior day. Which lead to someone thinking I was still having a bad day, and was just continually reposting my post to be a brat.

Now the problem is that I very much feel that the suspension is unfounded. If it's not unfounded I have no idea what it is that I need to correct for the future. I feel I've done everything correctly and have emails to back this. I'm quite annoyed over the situation because even if it is found to be unwarrented, I will be given no compensation in the matter. And I'll be lucky to receive an apology over the issue. The more people I have to go through to get this resolved, the longer I sit here being unjustly punished. I do hope that we can get this resolved here. I appreciate any and all help you can give me in this matter. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Respectfully,
Tracy Pollina account holder Shadowwench, player of Eyoni

----- Original Message -----
From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]
To: "Tracy (by way of Simutronics Customer Service [custserv@simutronics.com [mailto:custserv@simutronics.com]])" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

Inserted here was my Board Suspension letter, what follows is Daecir's response to that>

If you have a problem with our staff, the appropriate avenue to address the issue is through email to feedback. If you have a complaint about an in-game mechanic or system and wish to constructively address the issue with our development staff, then we welcome that sort of feedback on our message boards.

Your posting behavior was brought to my attention by several members of our staff. Upon review of your recent behavior as well as your account's history of removals/cautions/warnings I have, in consultation with the Senior GameMasters and/or Product Manager for DragonRealms, determined the original posting of "My VERY long complaint" warranted a TAC Warning (your account history has been updated to reflect the change) and that your recent posting behavior necessitates the suspension of your posting privileges. That specific post might very well have been allowed to slide, if it had not been followed with additional posts that were only marginally modified versions of the original content and tone. Once an account has had a suspension of its posting privileges, any subsequent removal or warning may result in their loss.

It is wonderful that you are passionate about our product, however that does not mean you are welcome to make posts that are negative and generally unproductive. Rehashing old complaints repeatedly (especially after they have been addressed) for the purpose of stirring up discontent is unproductive and has a negative effect upon the mood of our message boards, and for this reason posts of that nature are considered to be disruptive and will be removed.

For reasons I am not sure I fully understand you have; publicly disparaged a number of our staff members, attacked the integrity and honesty of staff members, switched to attacking the staff in general when you were informed making disparaging remarks about specific staff members was not permitted, attacked Simutronics hiring practices making a big deal about something that was simply none of your concern, ignored the answers given by our staff, purported there is a conspiracy to ignore player input by our staff simply out of capriciousness, and generally been a force for negativity on our message boards. As you seem to have been infected with the same negativity you were spreading, it is my considered opinion that an enforced break from our message boards would be in your own best interest even if I were not going to suspend your posting privileges.

When a member of our staff reaches the point which you seem to have reached, we instruct them to quit reading the message boards for a while. I strongly urge you to take a break from even reading the message boards during the period of your suspension. It is our experience that such a break significantly improves ones perception of the game, staff and other customers (consequently improving your own gaming experience) while providing the perspective to discuss concerns in a constructive manner avoiding the necessity of an enforced break in the future.

I understand that you believe your posts were constructive in nature and I am sorry it seems we have been unable to adequately explain our point of view to you for you to understand our decision, but the decision has been upheld.

If at the end of the suspension period you wish to be allowed access to the Message Boards once more, you can write to Feedback at Lockout@simutronics.com , stating that you have read and agree to abide by our policies. We will review the situation at that time.

Respectfully,

GM Daecir
Simutronics Lockout

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]; "GM Maelona" [dr-maelona@play.net [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]]; "Riel" [dr-riel@play.net [mailto:dr-riel@play.net]]; [MOD-POMAE@play.net [mailto:MOD-POMAE@play.net]]; "Feedback Samcras" [dr-samcras@play.net [mailto:dr-samcras@play.net]]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

You said:

Upon review of your recent behavior as well as your account's history of removals/cautions/warnings I have, in consultation with the Senior GameMasters and/or Product Manager for DragonRealms, determined the original posting of "My VERY long complaint" warranted a TAC Warning (your account history has been updated to reflect the change) and that your recent posting behavior necessitates the suspension of your posting privileges. That specific post might very well have been allowed to slide, if it had not been followed with additional posts that were only marginally modified versions of the original content and tone.

Ok now let me get this straight. So the original "removal/hidden" I got from Maelona on that post was turned into a TAC? For some reason, I was not informed of this, and if I was, I would have stopped posting. So still thinking and following Maelona's suggestion on what to remove to repost it caused me another TAC. And Pomae's "removal/hidden" email I got with further suggestions on what to change for it to be postable caused me yet another TAC? Does this mean that the rules were changed in the middle of this interaction, causing the suspension of my account?

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message ----- From: [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: "Tracy (by way of Simutronics Customer Service [custserv@simutronics.com [mailto:custserv@simutronics.com]])" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 2:45 PM Subject: Re: Board Suspension

Previous email below this. This next email was a question I forgot to mention in this one so same format. My question and then the above emails below it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: "Feedback Samcras" [dr-samcras@play.net [mailto:dr-samcras@play.net]]; "GM Maelona" [dr-maelona@play.net [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]]; [MOD-POMAE@play.net [mailto:MOD-POMAE@play.net]]; "Riel" [dr-riel@play.net [mailto:dr-riel@play.net]]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 5:18 PM
Subject: Fw: Board Suspension

"Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 4:43 PM Subject: Re: Board Suspension

What you said:

(Upon review of your recent behavior as well as your account's history of removals/cautions/warnings I have, in consultation with the Senior GameMasters and/or Product Manager for DragonRealms, determined the original posting of "My VERY long complaint" warranted a TAC Warning (your account history has been updated to reflect the change) and that your recent posting behavior necessitates the suspension of your posting privileges. That specific post might very well have been allowed to slide, if it had not been followed with additional posts that were only marginally modified versions of the original content and tone.)

Here lies the problem Daecir. AND I have the emails to prove this. No one told me NOT to repost my post. Quite on the contrary, I was told it was an excellent post by Maelona but her posts were removed so I had to remove hers to repost it. I did that. Pomae then removed it for Valdrik's referrence and told me to remove that and I would be allowed to repost it. I did that.

Not once did I break policy. I did exactly what I was told to do each time. No one told me do NOT repost this post. Again, from what I've gathered from Cecco your excuse of repeated TAC violation is a stretch at that for my suspension. I do hope you reconcider this, because I did nothing wrong. I did exactly what I was told to do. No one told me other wise. I was VERY careful about writting that post. Thank you in advance.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message ----- From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: "Tracy (by way of Simutronics Customer Service [custserv@simutronics.com [mailto:custserv@simutronics.com]])" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 2:45 PM Subject: Re: Board Suspension

As I said prior emails go here.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
To: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]]; "Feedback Samcras" [dr-samcras@play.net [mailto:dr-samcras@play.net]]; "GM Maelona" [dr-maelona@play.net [mailto:dr-maelona@play.net]]; "Riel" [dr-riel@play.net [mailto:dr-riel@play.net]]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 5:27 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

One final thing to take note of. Before I had received Maelona's email about what to change in order to repost my post I simply posted that my complaint wasn't meant to be heard here so I'll post it on my own message boards. After I saw I could still post the post, I deleted that post (which I'm pretty certain BM's and GM's can still see deleted posts by players) and reposted. This should at the very least show that I was making an attempt to follow the board rules. But I was told if I changed this or that I could repost it which I did. Thanks again.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message ----- From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com [mailto:lockout@simutronics.com]] To: "Tracy (by way of Simutronics Customer Service [custserv@simutronics.com [mailto:custserv@simutronics.com]])" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]] Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 2:45 PM Subject: Re: Board Suspension

Another comment from the previous email from Daecir. His email was below here.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net [mailto:wencheyoni@earthlink.net]]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

At 05:17 PM 6/16/02 -0500, you wrote:

You said:

Upon review of your recent behavior as well as your account's history of removals/cautions/warnings I have, in consultation with the Senior GameMasters and/or Product Manager for DragonRealms, determined the original posting of "My VERY long complaint" warranted a TAC Warning (your account history has been updated to reflect the change) and that your recent posting behavior necessitates the suspension of your posting privileges. That specific post might very well have been allowed to slide, if it had not been followed with additional posts that were only marginally modified versions of the original content and tone.

Ok now let me get this straight. So the original "removal/hidden" I got from Maelona on that post was turned into a TAC? For some reason, I was not informed of this, and if I was, I would have stopped posting. So still thinking and following Maelona's suggestion on what to remove to repost it caused me another TAC. And Pomae's "removal/hidden" email I got with further suggestions on what to change for it to be postable caused me yet another TAC? Does this mean that the rules were changed in the middle of this interaction, causing the suspension of my account?

Here's where the previous emails were.

You do not need to forward copies of our correspondence to other members of our staff, the matter has been turned over to me and they will not be able to respond to you. Nor are they able to overrule my decisions.

I informed you of the change in the status of your post's removal when the decision was made, I am more than willing to consider any subsequent TAC Warnings from that point on as invalid as you claim you would not have posted the post again had you fully understood how we would view the content and tone of your post. An error was made in suggesting anything less than a total rewrite of the post was going to make it acceptable in content and tone, I apologize to you that you did not immediately receive a TAC Warning followed by a timely notification of that fact.

In an attempt to be sensitive to some of the valid hot-topic concerns of the thief guild both SGM Maelona and BM Pomae were overly generous in allowing you to attempt to correct your post. A poster of your experience, whose account has already had its posting privileges suspended, should have a fair grasp of what is and is not acceptable content for our message boards and I suspect they felt the additional opportunity(s) would encourage you to adjust the tone and content of your post to enable a constructive discussion.

Whether it was the original post, or one of the subsequent posts that earned the warning is irrelevant to the subject of your account's loss of posting privileges. As previously stated, any TAC Warning may result in the loss of your posting privileges.

I hope you take to heart my advice to avoid even reading the message boards during your account's suspension of its posting privileges. I firmly believe you would benefit greatly by taking a break from them.

Respectfully,

GM Daecir
Simutronics Lockout

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

Just a bit more on the subject, because your suspension of my actions is wrong Daecir. And I have all the emails from Cecco on up to prove it. Now you read what Maelona says here and tell me how even my initial post was TACable? Which caused my suspension, which was TACed AFTER my suspension in order for you to uphold your suspension of my account and my husbands. I'm really trying to see here how you had any cause over this post to TAC me. How you can possibly sit there and say that I wrote this post with full intentions of just stirring the pot. In my post I pointed fingers at both players and GM's alike. I gave GM's examples of why myself and many others were so bent. I spent 5 hours calmly writting that. Now please read what Maelona said to me, which tells me there was nothing wrong with that post, you just needed to be able to back your suspension and thus the TAC of that post. Then I'd like to hear your further reasonings for my suspension. And as far as your suggestion of me not reading the boards, and thinking that I'll be "calm" after this very UNJUST suspension you are dillusional. I was VERY calm after getting my complaints getting it off my chest, now I'm more hostile than ever before, because you are flat out wrong and you know it. Pay close attention to the second and third paragraph. You ever stop to think WHY Maelona and Pomae hide the post instead of TACed them? Because they both KNEW that I wasn't being an ass by posting it. They both KNEW I had calmed down from the night before and was just getting it all off my chest, explaining it all. That post was not meant as vendictful or nasty or drastically negative by no means. They both know my posting style and know the difference.

I think we'll all get over it. We always do. Just like one big dysfunctional family that is full of disparate personalities who all see things their own way, but who are all bound tightly together by some common love, sometimes we have a go at each other and >punch each other in the head before settling down to watch Survivor together, you know? Like you said, a bunch of us just >seemed to be ready to have a brawl yesterday, but from what I can tell there aren't any hard feelings beyond the "I wish you didn't do that" and "Well, I wish YOU wouldn't do THAT" kind of stuff.

You made an excellent post and ordinarily I'd be totally fine with you swatting me for those posts I made that were indeed not >appropriate. As always, though, once a post has been yanked for inappropriateness (and yes, board monitors take down my >posts if I overstep the line, just like anyone else) it doesn't make sense for the sentiment to be allowed to continue by having other folks quoting it. That was the only reason I asked you to leave out that bit. J

Thank you for taking the time to post a very readable and thoughtful essay. I read right through to the end and I take on board all >that you say. I can't promise you overnight changes - designing and coding for a non-magical Guild takes extra imagination over >and above what is needed to code for a Magic guild, for obvious reasons. However, remember where I came from, and know that >I'm a non-magic-user at heart. We'll get you guys into fighting shape before you know it. J

Claire

And all that stuff to and from Daecir you've seen before.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com]
To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

All the previous stuff.

I have already apologized for SGM Maelona and BM Pomae's failure to award a TAC Warning for the original post as should have been done as well as failing to adequately explaining the adjustments your post would have to undergo to be acceptable, they erred on the side of being too sensitive to some of the hot-topic issues (for the Thief Guild) broached in your post in the hopes a productive discussion would result. Using that failure as a defense for the original post is simply not productive.

Whether the content and tone of your post was what you intended is not relevant. The post contained attacks upon members of our staff and is in our judgement disruptively negative. It is not the job of our staff to determine your intent or read your mind. I am sorry if you disagree with that interpretation.

If you have complaints about the behavior or actions of our in-game staff, the appropriate place to address those complaints has always been drfeedback@simutronics.com. Lambasting them or their efforts on our message boards is not productive and has a negative effect on the mood of the message boards. For that reason, posts containing that kind of content are considered to be disruptive.

Respectfully,

GM Daecir
Simutronics Lockout

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

Hold up a second Daecir. So SGM Maelona, BM Pomae, AND SBM Cecco are all wrong and you are right? Because EVERY email I got all three times for that post being removed were nothing more than removals, until you got involved. So AFTER my suspension you changed those removals to TAC's. I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. Thanks.

Tracy Pollina

Again all the previous emails.

Finally some responses from someone OTHER than Daecir, too bad they're all trying to cover each other's asses now. Fact remains THREE times the post was simply REMOVED two of the three times I was told what to do to fix the post. Now let's do a head count here SENIOR GM Maelona removed, then BM Pomae removed, then SENIOR BM Cecco simply removed. ALL removals. Until AFTER my suspension.

----- Original Message -----
From: "DragonRealms Feedback" [DRFeedback@simutronics.com]
To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal

At 12:02 PM 6/17/02 -0500, you wrote:

Please go back up to the original email Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal. That is what goes in this spot.

Having read the original post, there is no question that is went well beyond anything the boards are there for. It is almost encyclopedic in its breakdown of things that are not allowed.

First, it names and proceeds to insult staff members by name, that their actions are there to deliberately confuse or mislead the players. When they are not doing that, they are working on things that are not significant. When they are not doing that, they are bashing players on the boards because they aren't doing what they should be doing. At this level alone it should have been pulled and warned.

When the post is not doing that, it is dealing in subjects that have been responded to repeatedly. Guild balance is not an issue, and never will be an issue. A 30th level Barbarian is not a 30th level Moon Mage, is not a 30th level Thief, is not a 30th level Bard is not a 30th level Empath, and never will be. Ever. Skill sets do not equate and never will. These have been responded to repeatedly as you are aware.

When it is not doing that it is making accusations with no evidence or examples that could conceivably back it up.

Black is white, up is down, and GM's actively try to destroy a game so no one will play it.

When the original post was removed, your posting privileges should have been removed with it. They weren't and so this saga continues. First to the "I'm being oppressed!" post. Then the "I can't complain" post, followed by the edited post, which mind you, was requested to be edited because the posts it quoted had been purposely removed.

That was then re-edited to remove named references, and by this point was finally a novella sized post that had all the faults it had before, it just didn't attack anyone by name anymore.

Finally, the post and subsequent posts were removed along with the posting privileges, which was what should have been done after the original post.

The final upshot of this is, in posting in this manner you may very well have done yourself irreparable damage. After this, you will find the majority of the staff sufficiently angered that they will not read posts from you anymore. By making your argument in this fashion, you have basically silenced yourself. The people who would be able to do something are not listening because all you have done with this post is demean them, insult their ethics, and tell them their integrity is a sham.

Given those circumstances, removal from the boards for only 30 days was light and something I think was done because there have been prior problems with Daecir. Had this been brought to the attention of the boards supervisor first, the suspension would most likely be significantly longer.

GameMaster Samcras Tesryl
Feedback, Simutronics Corporation

Never give your password to ANYONE!

(If you are replying to this letter, please be sure to include the full text of your previous correspondence)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
To: "DragonRealms Feedback" [DRFeedback@simutronics.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal

You said:

Had this been brought to the attention of the boards supervisor first, the suspension would most likely be significantly longer.

SENIOR BM Cecco's EMAIL of my post REMOVAL.

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Cc:
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:20 PM
Subject: SHADOWWENCH - Notification - Disruptive

Hello there,

For some reason, the letter I sent you regarding this post didnt make it out. Sorry about that.

So here is the post that should have gone with the letter. Also please find another post pulled on a similar subject.

So on to why the posts were removed.

The Simutronics Message Boards have several objectives, one of which is to provide a way to communicate ideas and open a dialogue on subjects that concern the game and the playing community.

Now your post was about your concern about the game. But it kept leveling the aim at how the GM's and developers had failed the Thieves guild.

The net effect of making your complaint on the Boards in that fashion is that the staff who *do* read there just want to stop reading because all their work is seemingly unappreciated, or not enough to keep people on track.

The Boards are not the place to complain about the way the Development team have implemented or created systems. It is also not the place to point the finger at GM's. They just cannot vindicate themselves adequately on the boards. Therefore we dont allow the pointing of fingers. It isnt fair on anyone. Not the people who read the accusation, nor the GM's about whom the accusation is made.

The only place such accusation may happen is via email to Feedback. Insistent posting only hurts your cause, it doesnt further it.

Please be sure to refer to the Forum Rules and Policies if you require verification. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. If you have further query on this, contact me at DR-Cecco@play.net.

I have included a copy of your post for your review.

Cecco -
DragonRealms Message Boards Supervisor

Category The Thieves (21)
Topic Complaints - Thieves (5)
By SHADOWWENCH from PLAY.NET (http://eyoni.tripod.com)
On Jun 12, 2002 at 15:48
Subject My very LONG complaint edited. (282)

So who's covering who's ass around here? You mean to tell me SENIOR GM Maelona, BM Pomae, AND SENIOR BM Cecco were all WRONG in simply REMOVING my posts? Thanks heh.

Tracy Pollina

----- Original Message -----
From: "DragonRealms Feedback" [DRFeedback@simutronics.com]
To: [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal

And here is where the rest of his letter goes.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Feedback Department" [lockout@simutronics.com]
To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension

At 03:35 PM 6/18/02 -0500, you wrote:

Hold up a second Daecir. So SGM Maelona, BM Pomae, AND SBM Cecco are all wrong and you are right? Because EVERY email I got all three times for that post being removed were nothing more than removals, until you got involved. So AFTER my suspension you changed those removals to TAC's. I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. Thanks.

Tracy Pollina

All the other stuff from our prior conversations that you've already read goes here.

This situation has been addressed in an earlier letter. Just sending acknowledgment that I've received this letter as well.

GM Daecir
Simutronics Feedback

(If replying to this letter, please include the full text of our prior correspondence.)

And so Samcras email concludes the saga. Apparently since they are wrong they are now going to simply ingore the issue any further.

----- Original Message -----
From: "DragonRealms Feedback" [DRFeedback@simutronics.com]
To: "Tracy" [wencheyoni@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: Board Suspension Unwarrented: Appeal

My points as to why Samcras and all the rest of them are wrong was here. See previous email.

I am sorry but the situation has already been reviewed by the boards staff, the senior staff, lockout, the boards manager, the head of customer service, the product manager, and undergone an additional appeal review by myself. The decision regarding this issue stands. Due to the large influx of mails this department receives each day, I cannot continue to afford going back and forth with you on this issue. Therefore I will be unable to respond to any additional letters this department receives from you concerning this. I am sorry, but this matter has been appealed, reviewed, appealed again, and decided on. This matter is closed.

GameMaster Samcras Tesryl
Feedback, Simutronics Corporation

Never give your password to ANYONE!

(If you are replying to this letter, please be sure to include the full text of your previous correspondence)

And I thank you if you bothered to read through all that trash. Bottomline, they suspended me, then went back and changed notifications to warnings several days AFTER my suspension to uphold their suspension. And since they can't argue what they did was wrong, they are now going to sweep the issue under the rug and ignore it. Funny thing though, eventually that pile under the rug will get so large it can't be ignored. If nothing else folks, save all those emails of removals and conversations between yourself and staff. Not that it will do any good, but at least Simutronics can't come back and say, "Keep in mind folks, you're only hearing one side of the story."