Relay of PM:
(This PM includes Council members and Ark Admins)
Hi Grim,
Just to bring the others up-to-speed, Whitey noticed that you had crafted a series of mats for yourself using the admin cheat command in Ark. He approached you about it and you apologised saying you were frustrated.
As you know, cheating in any form is pretty much the worst offence one can do in a gaming community as clearly pointed out in our MEMBER STANDARDS (http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?26782-General-Gaming-Standards) and frankly there's no excuse whatever the reason and however much the frustration. The problem now is that we have no way of knowing if you did something similar on The Island map and for me, that has tainted the whole experience.
Given our policy I feel I have no choice and have asked Whitey to remove your access to Ark with immediate effect and you're now permanently banned from our Ark servers.
With regards to the Community/Forum then I'm going to take this to The Council and we'll decide what/if a wider punishment is in order. On that I'll come back to you in due course.
I don't have to tell you that we're very disappointed - doubly so it being from such a long-standing member, former game leader and someone who's been helpful in the past.
I'm away this weekend but otherwise will be on PM/TS should you want to discuss.
PEN
I'm upset to read this but not entirely surprised... there were 1 or 2 things on the previous map that made me scratch my head.
Re the server ban, well unfortunately I don't think there is any way around it. Like you have said in your pm to grimm this sort of conduct is not acceptable.
It is a shame to see the game lose such an active player but it would be worse to let such behaviour go unchecked. I don't think I can say much more on my personal feelings over this for fear of getting overzealous! I am disappointed to say the least.
Edit
Side note for now maybe, but I think we should remove structures and dinos built/ tamed by grimm from the server - and drop the resources gained from the deconstruction. But that is just my initial thought.. open to discussion if anyone disagrees
I can't believe that such a fundamental rule has been broken. This really saddens me.
QuoteSide note for now maybe, but I think we should remove structures and dinos built/ tamed by grimm from the server - and drop the resources gained from the deconstruction. But that is just my initial thought.. open to discussion if anyone disagrees
I have to agree here, and further to what Pen was saying regarding 'taint'. It should be purged.
I can imagine there are people present in the community that can find it "frustrating" trying to keep up with more active players, but by doing this the experience has been ruined for all. There is simply no excuse. How very sad.
Not being as familiar with Ark as most of you I even was starting to notice the sheer speed that Grim and his friends were crafting and building at. Less than a week ago the South Tropical - South Beach was empty of everything but Snooks old shack.
Yesterday I noted there has been enormous levels of stone construction and a jetty out to the island they all share for their animal keep.
Is there a chance that the other guys in the group have benefited from this additional material generation. Does this make them as guilty of cheating as Grim? Gorion did make his frustration known that the island was becoming a very busy place very quickly. My experience so far is people take a few weeks to get their projects to a mature state, not so on South Tropical, 1-2 days tops.
Who else was there building with grim Albert?
Corben was building very quickly opposite Grim and connecting his building to the same island as Grim where they were holding their animals I believe.
Then another chap was right next to Corben. DWI in his name, I think there where 2 DWI clan players working together as I noticed 2 separate names pop up when they logged off a few evenings ago.
Quote from: albert;415186Not being as familiar with Ark as most of you I even was starting to notice the sheer speed that Grim and his friends were crafting and building at. Less than a week ago the South Tropical - South Beach was empty of everything but Snooks old shack.
Yesterday I noted there has been enormous levels of stone construction and a jetty out to the island they all share for their animal keep.
Is there a chance that the other guys in the group have benefited from this additional material generation. Does this make them as guilty of cheating as Grim? Gorion did make his frustration known that the island was becoming a very busy place very quickly. My experience so far is people take a few weeks to get their projects to a mature state, not so on South Tropical, 1-2 days tops.
First, those guys have played a lot of Ark in the past and have been on the server a lot more than most of us over the last couple of weeks. if you notice how quickly I got my metal structures done you will see that it can be done quickly through hard work and without help with free materials. I don't think we can judge them based on what has been found but I'm not daft and they may (probably) have benefited. Does this make them as guilty as Grim? Absolutely not! (not unless they actually knew about it and/or encouraged it).
For sure you're totally correct Whitey. I'm just seeing a pattern in velocity. Only the admins know how many hours a person spends online and can determine if the production of parts matches the time.
Sent from my LG-H962 using Tapatalk
Collectively the DWI guys spend a lot of time online so I'm not sure we can be sure they're implicated knowingly.
We also have no idea if this is a one off or repeated occurrence however from the PMs I've received it appears that people have had suspicions on the last map as well.
Basically the whole thing is a total ball ache and leave a bad taste in the mouth. I'm mightily disappointed and angry about it. It feels like a friend has stolen from me. We all have to grind and it's a major PITA but it's what we do.
I'm away so don't have access to the game over the weekend so I'd be grateful if someone could please log on and lock out Grim's house (press and hold E and make all the doors admin access only). At least then we'll stop any access.
I think we do have to wipe his building and tames (seriously dubious about the 202 Rex he has given he hasn't got scorpion kibble and it's a good few hours tame). I also think someone needs to explain to the DWI guys what's happened and why we're turning up and demolishing his base. I can't imagine him wanting to have that conversation.
Tame-wise he has a Rex, a couple of stegos and a couple of other things in his hut. I think the prefix on them all is [GR].
If someone would be willing to put them all into his house or taming pen and then lock that out I would be grateful. We can then work out what to do.
Obviously any mats etc would be allowed to perish and the sea will wash his footprints from the sand.
Just for the record, from the few logs we've seen he only crafted level-appropriate materials but it's all moot.
Posting here means that all GL's can see this in addition to Ark admins. That was accidental on my part but in retrospect it's not a bad thing as I think they have a right to know.
However I would ask that we keep this in the admin circle for the time being until the Council have had a chance to discuss
I like Grim and there's no denying he has been helpful in the past but from my side of the boat he's been a total Plank. :angry:
Seriously, the amount of resources the DWI guys would need to create their current buildings and the time to tame their Dinos (205 T-Rex and a lvl 150 takes 3 hours with 65 impossible to obtain kibble!) considering they only started building less than a week ago, knowing how much effort my little patch has taken me (3 hours a day for 3 weeks), I find it doubtful that they managed to get the simple stuff in such vast quantities from that island so quickly without Beavers and Doedi's. Take a look at their stuff, I'm sure you'll agree there was outside intervention. There boat is bigger than my house.
If we're willing to ban a respected admin and long term dMw guy how can we even contemplate leaving guys on there that knowingly took ridiculous amounts of resources. For one, I would expect them to start rampaging through the map and destroying other peoples creations as their friend has on most other servers.
I'm pretty hardcore about these things.
Appreciate what you're saying mate but I think we have to look at it like this
1. Grims stuff will be removed including tames
2. The other guys as we have no PROOF will be innocent until proven guilty, we will just have to keep a close eye.
3. If any damage is done by them we can fix that - that's what admin commands are for NOT for personal gain!
(Remember only Admins can deconstruct structures so they can't dismantle your Base)
And if I see those guys online I will speak with them and lock Grims doors etc when I'm home tonight if not done before then.
I've locked Grim's doors, removed all his dino saddles and placed them in a storage box in his house.
He has a few unlocked chests that are full of resources and a lot more that are pin-coded (I cannot find a way to remove the pin).
Thanks OB.
If any admin catches the other 2 guys online can we try to have a chat with them about the whole situation? I think we need to do that.
Please don't do this in text chat on the server though, this is not stuff that the other players need to be reading...
In the mean time Council are discussing what to do next. As Pen said, it's a ball-ache as we've known him for so long, but we have standards to uphold and his actions have ruined the experience of many others, so there must be consequences.
Sadly it's down to proof. Do we know for an absolute certainty that these guys used stolen resources, and do we know for an absolute certainty that if they did use stolen stuff, that they knew where it came from?
If we don't they they have to get a pass.
Guys, please see update in News.
We're sorry but we felt we had little choice but to ban Grim as per our Member Standards.
Looking through the unlocked chests, I'd be VERY surprised is this was a one off. There's 1000's of materials like spark powerder and lines of lockers filled to the brim.
Has anyone seen any of the DWI guys online at all???
We'll go about removing his buildings and dinos as per the above, leaving everything to spoil.
I went to Grim's house, slaughtered the dinosaurs and started to dismantle the chests and house. Feel free to demolish and let perish if you're on.
I have a video of me doing it ..... for no other reason than best practice really to show a. I let it perish and b. what he had. Apart from 1000's of all base materials he had a similar amount of narcs and arrows. Happy to post up if/as required.
The Rex had been renamed [AA] but I killed it as it was originally Grim's tame.
PEN (with a heavy heart).
I'm fairly certain the giga was force tamed on the old server too btw... I think this was a fairly prolific thing, unfortunately. I didn't see any other option you had available to you so am not surprised with the outcome. Disappointed, sure, and for what it's worth I liked the interactions I had with him - but this does not excuse unfair play.. the 'attitude' of the community is one reason I personally stick around (and some of you lot aren't bad company either I suppose), and fair play is an essential part of that IMHO.
Edit
I'm not interested in the video personally, but thanks for getting rid of the stuff.
I have destroyed his structures using admin commands :sad:
Sad indeed. Stupid really...
FWIW I think the only recourse was the ban from servers / forums. I totally support your decision.
This community has been built on fair play and trust. Without it... It's just a pubby server and forum.
NF
I've kept quiet, I was super disappointed with the community giga tame, said I thought it was crazy how he managed to get the amounts of resources etc, but I never once suspected cheating outright, and its really really sucked finding out that he has done/ did do...
I wholely support the actions that the council has taken against the matter.
Thanks for putting the community, rules and guidelines first dudes :D Good work!
+1 You should be commended on your leadership. I don't think anyone really expected this to be as widespread as it was. One of the reasons I like the community so much is because of our core beliefs as a group. You've done the right thing here, and such a long-standing member should've known better.
Thanks chaps and your support is appreciated.
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing what when on with The Island map. However, I'm now building just metal railings and with the amount of work/time that's taking, there's no way it was all legit. That Giga pen alone would have been nigh on impossible in the time frame.
Oh well we live and learn. Some of you had your suspicions on the last map and we would ask that if someone similar crops up again do please PM myself or one of the Council. It will all be dealt with anonymously and discreet checks made. It's not always easy being as admin which is why we don't pay you. :flirty:
Sorry harvested the meat from the T-Rex not knowing that it had been put down. I must have flew by minutes after you slaughtered the animal.
Very sad that it came to this, but completely agree with the councils decision. As a former game leader or admin you have shown a high standard and have been trusted to maintain that standard.
Until the final days of the server my commands were restricted to ghosting dino's out of the foundations after a server update and remote adding people to the tribe. There was no way I could have built that hill fort for the final fun without gifting myself the items, I couldn't even drum up enough stone to expand my base in the end days of the server. But those items were restricted to that community building only and the server was shutting down a few days later.
I think that he probably did tame the Giga on there legitimately, if not exactly in the spirit of the community and the feelings expressed then of being excluded from what was being set up as a community event were echoed amongst us all. I believe the original Giga pen in the centre of the map was legit as well, it was started well before he tamed the Giga and Snokio went out collecting all the cementing paste while grim got metal and it did take a while to build.
Some of the latter building on "The Island" did seem to be too fast for the number of resources required. I know it took me a hell of a long time just to build my metal wall, originally cementing paste and once that became abundant it was metal that was the issue.
But the decision was made on proved admin abuse on "The Centre" map, so we shouldn't assume anything about "The Island" that wasn't backed by solid evidence, despite our feelings of being let down by a trusted peer.
Lib that final building was all for the 'extinction events' and so on, a different matter entirely ofc.
Like you and smilo before you said it's all about proof. Whats done is done and doesn't matter now. We have proof of enough and anything else is just speculation and gets us nowhere.
It's a sad thing but let's put it behind us now and move on to try to help ark keep going within the community.