Originally Posted by
Aroith
I want to start this reply by saying thank you for reviewing the replays and spending your time on helping to make the game fun and fair for all. I know from running a BF2 server and community for years that at times, volunteering your time and money can be really thankless.
Appreciate your kind words.
I want to clarify that I have 3 people on my friend's list in over 23,000 points of Mafia. Two of those players are Unknown and Gyrlander who I am pretty sure are Moderators of this game. Unknown friended me to invite me to play forum mafia and I have asked a few questions about gameplay and I friended Gyrlander to ask questions specifically about blacklist and how it worked and I have also asked a few other questions of him/her. The 3rd player on my friend's list is NeverUnlucky who friended me to again invite me to play forum mafia. I have never partied with ANYONE playing this game and I have never private messaged any of them to "cheat" with me either.
Appreciate the background -- this isn't so much "Cheating" as it is "Additional Information" for what it's worth, but the offenses are grouped together. Also, we know you to have been a player who has otherwise played clean, filed reports, and not had any other reports filed against you.
Secondly, I find the whole notion of being on the receiving end of this communication as "cheating" to be a bit of a stretch. I spent a lot of time reading this website and directing questions to Unknown and Gyrlander to find out the rules so that I didn't ever break them. I don't see how I was "cheating" by receiving in game, not out of game, information. While I don't deny "going along with NU" as you put it, I get private messaged by a lot of people for a variety of different reasons. During the time frame that I play there are people that recognize me by the name I use and I will get random messages from people that I don't even know saying exactly the same things that NU said to me in PMs. A good example of that is the game where I was MM and I believe it was player #3 that messaged me saying "doc on you whole game" or something very similar but that seems to be left out of the transcript above. I think I replied "thanks!" or something similar. This happens ALL the time and I don't see how I can be blamed for people sharing that information.
Look, it comes down to the following -- based on the three games that we reviewed. It's very clear that you were aware of Never Unlucky feeding you information, and you had come to know that he was doing so reliably given you did not react suspiciously to him doing so. Had there been an instance where you were suspicious of him or he lied to you, then there's not the pattern of concern that we saw here. You went along with him giving you that information and in fact provided him with information of your own in many of the replays. The issue with NU doing it vs. other players is that it seemed to have been a systematic thing and you were aware enough of it that you provided him with role information of your own. Was this as bad as NU precipitating the act in the first place? Definitely not, but ideally, you would have refrained from the behavior altogether. The only reason it's an Watch List x 4 is because you were reported for the same offense three times and punishments escalate.
I in fact go out of my way to report players that break the rules to ensure fair game play for all. I don't have any particular grudge, ulterior motive, or reason for doing so other than the simple fact that they were breaking the rules which are clearly defined here on the website and in game. I guarantee you that you would never find a replay of me breaking any of those rules because I believe in playing a game fairly! The fact that I am being accused of breaking them, cheating, of all things just pours salt in the wound.
Agreed, and we appreciate you submitting reports and helping to keep the game clean. Again, I think you're getting too fixated on the term "Cheating" -- it's more like you had access to Additional Information, which gave you and NU an improper advantage over other people -- i.e. the idea that you could immediately Townread each other based on NU messaging you with his role when you both were Town, and fact that you went along with him when he did so and sent him your role information / night leads, etc.
I still fail to see how I'm the one being found guilty of a crime in which information was freely given to me and that I did not ask for. Would it have made a difference if I had been Triad in the above replays and still used that person's information against them? I don't think so... The whole point of this game is deception and in the case where I was MM, I used the information he freely gave against him ie played my role to the fullest to win and that's what I did. If I was evil every game he PM'd me his role that would be on him, not me. It just happened to be that we were on the same team in the other replays.
You're being found guilty because your conduct clearly demonstrated that you were aware of what NU was doing and you essentially went along with it and not only Townread him, but sent him your information / reads. Again, we're in agreement that your sort of got looped into this by less than your own volition, which is a mitigating factor for sure. A Watch List is essentially being told to be careful in the future -- it's not an indictment that you are a horrible rule-breaker. From the perspective of some of the other players in this game, you had an unfair advantage because of the communication with NU.
Crime: Cheating
Cheating is using methods unintended by the game to discuss a game in action.
Example: Using Skype to plan your plays with other players.
Type:Intentional
Again, it's not exactly Cheating -- it's having Additional Information which gave you an unfair advantage over other players in terms of a verified Town member to start the game. Not suggesting that we go along with popular opinion, but the fact that this was noticed and reported a number of times suggests that it went against the spirit of the game. It's the equivalent of what another player did -- knowing people's names and asking them their Battle.net names when a Disguiser stole someone's identity to verify they had not been disguised or in the old days, asking someone to read their role card to confirm their identity (before role cards were displayed above the screen). It's exploiting the rules in order to gain an advantage over other players.
The above description does not apply to me in the least.
Please advise me on how I can cease a practice which I did not ask to participate in in the future. As I stated above, this happens quite often by generally nice players that just want to offer their help and I don't want to again be held responsible for being on the receiving end of this type of information and be further punished for things that are out of my control.
Honestly, I'd probably suggest that you vary up the in-game name that you use in order to avoid getting wrapped up into this type of deal. I realize that it's not entirely your fault and this was a messy situation, but if you use different names, then there's no way people can know that you, Aroith, blacklist evil / scum roles and therefore, are likely Town. You might also consider varying up your blacklist / prefer list or simply not assuming that everyone who PMs you with their role is someone you should work with. It was the repetitiousness of what happened that was a major factor in you being punished as well. Lastly, you might consider taking such claims with a grain of salt. The fact that it appeared you blindly went along with NU's claims in all three of these games made it look far more like some sort of collaboration.
I had honestly hoped with over 23,000 points earned in this game to not have a spot on my flawless record and one day apply to the Moderator team of this game but as a result of someone else's actions and being found guilty of "cheating" I can see any chance of that going out the window.
This situation was unusually messy and I would doubt that this offense would be held against you if you applied to be a Keeper one day. It was in part a misunderstanding / prompted by another player's actions -- i.e. essentially one offense that spanned a number of games. There's no rule that you need to have a perfect record -- it's one factor that's taken into account. In fact, there are a number of staff members who had offenses against them when they were added to staff. I wouldn't worry about this aspect of things.