Hey Everyone,
You're probably wondering why we're not having boss fight and a stream to show off the new Halloween prizes right now. That's because we need to clear the air of all these complaints about staff corruption that have been flying around lately. Every few months these pop up, usually from newer players or people who don't understand how staff works in DBOG. When we inherited DBOG, there was a lot of stigma from the old staff about corruption and favoritism surrounding staff members generating titles and items for their friends, so we have been extremely careful with staff permissions and with squashing these rumors as they pop up. That's what we're going to do again right now, squash some rumors. There is no room or place for corruption or favoritism on my staff. We decide everything openly, as a team, with discussions and votes. Even though I have the final say in everything if I choose to exercise that power, I rarely do, and usually participate in the discussions and votes, and I obey the same rules the rest of the staff do.
If I do something unilaterally, I answer to my staff for it. If I make a decision without their knowledge, I have to answer to them for that. I can't give out titles without the approval of the GM's. I can't give out items without the approval of the entire team. I have definitely had to answer for doing both those things in the past, and it's good that I had to. No one else can give out items. No one else can give out titles. No one else can give out helper rewards. This is why it can sometimes take me a couple of days to get to your ticket, because outside of very rare edge cases, I am the only one who can do those things. We take these precautions to protect you from us, and from any potential staff corruption in the future.
The rules apply to us just as well as you, and sometimes we are flexible when applying those rules. This is the benefit of being a private server, run by fans of the game. We aren't some heartless corporation, we're always going to try to do what's right and help you. We make the rules, so sometimes we can bend them when it's best for the players, like with the account sharing rule. This is the particular rule the latest drama has spawned around, so it's a great example. Yes, it is technically against the rules to share accounts. No, we do not enforce this rule, because a lot of players share accounts, and we would have to hurt the players to enforce it. There is very little upside to enforcing this rule, and a ton of downside, so we don't do it. You can find public statements from me as far back as last year outlining this.
It's a double edged sword though. If someone breaks another rule on one of your accounts, it will likely get banned, and you'll have to appeal to get it unbanned, for example. That said, if someone who is sharing your account steals or deletes your characters, we will try to help. We always have. We've brokered agreements between two people sharing accounts before, and restored deleted characters/items before. We decide these on a case by case basis with staff discussions, and always have. Any staff member can weigh in on the discussion and vote. This is how we have always applied this rule, and this is likely how we always will. This latest one that sparked all this drama is no different. The staff discussed restoration of some characters, I mounted a backup to verify the deleted items, and we restored a portion of the items.
Long story short, we work hard to be transparent and open with you, and to allow you to police us, but I need you guys to keep us in check responsibly. Stirring up witch hunts and mobs with pitchforks when there is no corruption going on just wastes my time with investigations and calming everyone down like this. We absolutely do answer to you guys, and in essence the players are our boss, but I need you to be careful how you use that power. Crying wolf when there's no wolf for 7 weeks in a row just burns out staff with investigations and soaks up our valuable time that we could be using to improve the game. We're volunteers here, and our time, patience, and effort is not an infinite resource. We get burned out, we get tired, we get sad. We're people, just like you, so try to treat us that way when we're dealing with things like account sharing or corruption complaints.
We're not monsters, we're just trying to make a good game and good environment for you guys to have fun with your friends. As always, we love you guys and appreciate everything you do for us. Thank you for letting us make this game for you, and for supporting us. We'll see you at Halloween!
- Verdant