by Winterflaw » Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:49 am
So, there are definitely a couple of things to say here.
1. Accusation is not guilt
Jurisprudence is bloody difficult and humans are no good at it. It's hard enough to get even vaguely right in a court, wih trained professionals. In an on-line forum full of people with no training? forget it. People "prove" what they believe.
Be clear - I'm not offering *any* opinion here about what happened or why; I'm only saying that there has not been, and in this forum there cannot be, any decent jurisprudence. Keep that in mind; don't go overboard on judgement. You've not heard anything or anyone speak in the defence.
2. It's not wrong in and of itself to sell chars or gold; the problem is *deceiving* people that it's not happening when it is
Similarly, if money was being siphoned off from the donation account for the server costs and people were donating without knowing this, it's wrong.
Everything you do with other people has to be voluntary and well-informed, except in self-defence.
The servers can pretty much be run any way at all - *so long as people know the truth and agree to it*. It's the deception which is the problem. You can't say "if you donate it's for server upkeep" and then use the money for something else. You can't say "gold selling is banned" when it's a lie.
3. Shenna made a comment about people having no loyalty, and not being worth a fair play
I think there is a good deal of truth in the lack of loyalty. Most players I guess do not contribute. If the server really went down, they would move on - although they would lose a great deal of time invested in their characters.
However, this is irrelevant; if the players are there, you still have to tell them the truth. If you don't like what they do, then don't offer the server in the first place, or (say) only offer it to people who contribute to the server costs.
Anything else and it can easily become a slippery slope of self-justification for deceiving others. You can't ever decieve, except in self-defence.
4. One question about gold selling...
If gold selling was going on with unofficial support, were there players who bought this gold who were then banned, in the anti-gold selling drives?
Actually, in one sense, this is not unreasonable from the point of view of the buyers - the people buying *knew* there were at risk of being caught and banned. It was an informed choice to buy.
However, the stomach does rather turn at the idea of someone *offering to sell gold*, knowing the risk to the person who was buying. It's like selling cigarettes.
5. So what now?
I'm not actually clear about what's happening to Elysium - is it permanently down? has the money contributed to its upkeep (assuming there is some, and its a meaningful amount) been taken over by Light's Hope? if so, Elysium would seem to be dead - how can they pay for their servers? is Light's Hope the same as Elysium, minus the people who were deceiving players?
The problem with deception of course, from a long term POV, is that it destroys trust. You can't know what else is going on, or what might be done, or what other injusticies might come in the future. Good governance is *VITAL* to long term success. No team or server can do well in the long term without it.