[Suggestion] The Politics of Supporter

I recall back in the day, a long time ago, when JustinGuy roamed EMC, he made a news post saying he had banned 10 players for exploiting a glitch, I think it was to do with the End or Ender Pearls. 3 of these were Diamond Supporters. Not only are staff impartial in terms of whether a player is a supporter or not, this policy has been about since EMC began.

I was a "Normal" player for long period "year and a half" of time on Emc. Supporters and non-supporters still respected me as who I was and what I did on Emc. Once I became a Iron supporter nothing really change except me having /map hide. Anyways Supporters & non-supporters are treated the same and going to stay that way.

Every moderator is their own person, and I can not speak for all of them. But I can guarantee you, I have probably banned/tempbanned more supporters than regular players. If anything, a supporter should follow the rules more closely in my eyes, as they have now made an investment to play here, and it should matter more to them.

The colors of people's names in this game are just a perk, they mean very little to me when ever I look at reports. Again, I can not speak for EVERY staff member, but I can say, that I know most of them, and we have talked about things exactly like this. Most would agree with this view. A supporter paying money does not get you leeway. If you find yourself in a position where you think an action like that has come out bias, simply report the staff member involved.

Now, that is just staff.

We can not really control how one player will treat another one because of their supporter status. I do know how hard it is to talk in chat when it is busy if you are not a supporter. Your name is just pushed out their and very few people take note of it. In that respect, I would say yes, that supporters do get a little more 'notice' because of their status. I honestly believe it is more because of name color than anything though. If some action is rude and out right disrespectful, it breaks the rules and you can report it. Dont not report something just because you think 'staff wont do anything because they are supporter'. To be honest, I see this happen more than actual bias or wrongful moderation. A player will not report, because it is a supporter, and they think nothing will happen to them. We can not act on something, that you do not tell us about. 100% of the time, we will miss those.

I kind of know what you mean. When I first joined I did think that being a supporter would get me recognized and well known but I later learnt that wasn't the case. I don't see or know any of this unfairness that you see towards non-supporters.

To gain respect you do not have to be a supporter, you simply have to have a good balance of being active, kind and useful in the community.

The only one that I can remember that we all didn't see eye to eye on was all that mess with PThaggard. I don't quite remember everything but basically he was caught cheating, but instead of permanently banned like all others he was going to get a probation period. Everyone was all "Aww it's ok, just don't do it again." until I logged in and asked you guys why he was getting a slap on the hand when others have done the same and gotten permanently banned. I think after that everyone started agreeing and then I was like "Crap, I started drama." BUT he eventually got perm-banned.

The times I have seen it seem like supporters don't respect free players varies. I've noticed since the map hide for all perk came to be, there are now threads made where people put at the end "This could just be a supporter perk".

When the map hide option came free to everyone: "Oh that's why I became supporter, as a supporter I should get it, now there's no point to support, I pay for that perk, what are you going to give me in place of that perk!?" "If it wasn't for us supporters you free players wouldn't even have a server to play on"

Once a long time ago I had to argue against a supporter who felt high and mighty and said the way to fix everything was to give Free Players a 90 Day limit, after 90 days if they didn't have supporter-ship then they weren't allowed on the server anymore.

It only seems to come up now when Staff try to do something fair for all.

Edit: Holy cow it took me longer than I thought to write this. Lots of staff input.

Well that's pretty powerful Max, I guess you correctly shut me down by posting that. I trust in the mods and believe they would always stay true to their word, but there is no way I, as a player, can guarantee that since I'm not one of them. The entire reputation of the servers rests in the mods, and if some things aren't clear to all of the players then they may not know what they're getting into when they become a supporter, resulting in banned, active supporters members pointing a finger at us, which none of us want. I'm simply trying to prevent this from happening.

Im going to open a the veil a little bit on this. PT was a smooth talking guy. Knew how how to say things to get what he wanted. There were some staff on the other hand, who were very vocal about the 'unfairness' of someone like PT getting unbanned with virtually no punishment at all. This created a very heated discussion among the staff. We had a few who believed he was genuinely sorry, and we had some who believed he was being manipulative to get out of trouble.

This is where the purge system came from. The purge system was designed for people like PT, those who had achieved so much, and been caught doing something wrong. If they REALLY wanted to continue playing after doing something wrong, they had to have a true second chance.

Needless to say, upon learning that he would lose his millions of rupees, the true colors of PT came to light, and he was quickly eradicated from the server. We still have backlash from that event. At the same time some good things have definitely come from it. PT should be the best example of we will do everything in our power to make sure the 'RIGHT' thing happens. Staff discuss everything. PT had a crazy public image. We had players leave because of those events. But, whether or not the kind of person PT was, turned out to be visible or not, did not matter. The staff knew, and we corrected it. PT is definitely a milestone to the staff who were involved. It was time when EMC and its staff sat down and made a really hard decision, together.

I guess I've sort of brought the past into light again, sorry for this trespassing. I thank Ismooch for making it clear that this wasn't something that had never been an issue that was waiting to get some unwanted attention some day. I guess we now have a code to live by from the events with PT. Thanks for bringing it up, it settled my worries.

I have never been a supporter myself, and have always felt newish, but I feel like I'm loved. I never think people underrate me because I'm not a supporter. People can be themselves, no matter what color their name is. And also, wether rainbowchin, 72volt, olaf, alex, are gold, regular or whatever, I will still think of them the same way because it is the content that counts, not the way it looks.

Why be sorry? Jugz's friend was breaking the rules of your community and playing unfairly. Don't be sorry.

We really need to start chronicling EMC drama in sagas or something, this stuff's fascinating

Yes, I will also admit I find it very interesting to go back into old threads and figure out how the days were like... And see things about such important people that I did not even know about.

Everyone gets treated equal. If a supporter or a regular player are breaking the rules they will still get banned. They do not get any special treatment.

yeah.... there has been a few random dramasagas pop up in the past XD

Say someone's friend were to die due to drug overdose. Would you reply the them with, "Don't be sad, he was an idiot for doing drugs"?
Hopefully not. Try being sympathetic, like ICC

Even though I agree with you - there's a big difference between those things.

I think even Mods can get banned for breaking rules.

Mods are, in theory, much more easily banned for breaking rules; they are meant to set an example to the community.

Indeed they are. Though I can not think off hand of any mods or former mods that this has happened to. But you can bet, that every staff member is under much more scrutiny than a regular member. You guys have your rules you must follow, we must be the perfect example of those rules, while at the same time, adhering to an entirely different set of rules.

I view a lot of things, and I know what you mean, FirstJug. But it's not really about what or who the player is ... I personally get treated the same regardless if I support or am a regular member... but when I am using my supporter account people recognize me sooner and respond to me faster, whereas if I use a non-supporter account it's harder for people to read the messages.

If I had to say why people respond to supporters more often, it's actually because of the colour of the chat. If you think about it, the text in game is white ... and their name is white ... it blends right in with the chat - and unless someone is looking for your name in chat, they might look over it (even if they don't mean to). Whereas supporters, like a diamond member, we have blue names in front of the white text - so the name stands out a bit... and people will see it easier in chat when i'm talking.

As for being treated the same or differently ... I've always been treated the same regardless of my rank.