alllow banned players to say goodbye

GM Rikoo wrote: In the event of a banning, however, especially for certain behaviors, getting the player completely removed with not even the slightest mention to the rest of the playerbase is the best deal. I am not going to list example after example, but I think you can imagine where that would be needed, especially in the case of a "victim" being left behind ... a victim who could be attacked, bullied or berated because X player was banned.

definitely not following the logic of this. protecting "snitches" is a function of the devs keeping identities secret, not of keeping a player's departure secret. and forcing other players to wonder if the account is still occupied only harms the polite players and those left to clean up the mess. "abandoned" doesn't stigmatise the account, it's the same legend as a player who leaves intentionally.

From what I have seen, it looks like game ban translates to forumn ban also, but perhaps I am wrong.

As to Rikoo's comment, I do think marking them as abandoned or something similiar would be much better for the players left behind, even if not exactly great. I am sure this is something the devs have considered. But I do want to emphasize that making a player gone with no notification at all that they are even gone is a punishment to all of their friends and alliance mates rather than just the banned person themselves.

Edited by Alcie - 18 Nov 2014 at 01:06

Alcie wrote: My experience with other games is that GMs warn/talk to the player before banning or that they make a temporary suspension instead of, or before, completely banning, so the player at least has a chance to talk to their friends. I don't know if this is usual or not. But also... I assume in most games when you are banned completely your account is deleted. I would guess that is the case for things like facebook also? The weirdness with illy is the account still goes on as usual, just with no human. They used to mark the town--some variation on abandoned--so that players at least knew that the player in question was not coming back.   So we didn't have to assume they had died in real life or end up having to wait for them to return for 3 months. Even letting the banned player press the abandon button if they wanted to would be at least a little better than the way it is now.

My experience with other games is that GMs warn/talk to the player before banning or that they make a temporary suspension instead of, or before, completely banning, so the player at least has a chance to talk to their friends. I don't know if this is usual or not.

But also... I assume in most games when you are banned completely your account is deleted. I would guess that is the case for things like facebook also? The weirdness with illy is the account still goes on as usual, just with no human. They used to mark the town--some variation on abandoned--so that players at least knew that the player in question was not coming back.   So we didn't have to assume they had died in real life or end up having to wait for them to return for 3 months. Even letting the banned player press the abandon button if they wanted to would be at least a little better than the way it is now.

[Note: this is a suggestion I have been considering making for several weeks. Please do not bring up specific examples or things not related to this post.]


My suggestion is to let players who are banned from the game make one last forum post and/or alliance-all email to say goodbye to their friends. Think of it as a last phone call. If the GMs want to moderate this and reject a message for standard rejection reasons such as swearing/severe insults/etc., that is reasonable.

I know that seeing goodbyes or last statements from loved players who were banned for who knows what reason makes the players left behind feel some closure.

Right now the 'normal' situation is that the banned player simply disappears. We do not normally even know if a person is banned, if they suddenly decided they hate all of their illy friends, or if they have gotten into a horrible car crash and can't log on.

I understand the GMs not wanting to break privacy and discuss a banned players circumstances. But why not give the players themselves the (optional) ability to discuss it just once themselves? Or at the very least to say goodbye.

You may not think the banned player has that right anymore. But, again, this is also for the player's left behind.


And even the worst criminal in real life gets one last phone call.


Note: I don't know if a lot of small players get immediately banned. But perhaps if they do there could be a lower limit on time played or size of account. Make them have to have spent a little time to earn their 'illy citizenship'. The somewhat longer playing players are the ones that truly leave sad people behind anyways.   Again, I only make this side-note in case the full suggestion would add too much work for moderating last posts/emails. There are only so many truly established players in the game and most do not get banned, so I do not think this would add much work for the moderators.


Edited by Alcie - 16 Nov 2014 at 23:12