By now it should be clear that the worst mistake the devs made was to explain their actions.

When they simply could have banned outright, they instead admitted some culpability in a flawed system, and took punitive action to correct the situation. Their error was not in making a flawed system, but in giving the fraudulent players a second chance.

And this is what happens:

• We get page after page of self-serving nonsense- they really were only looking out for the game;

• We get faux indignation at 'unprofessional' treatment- the patent unfairness of imaginary actions;

• We get hairsplitting- I'm not guilty if I told you about it earlier but still took advantage of it;

• We get egotistic posturing masquerading as 'facts'- the people who spent 'months' working hand-in-hand with the developers, all for the greater good (because M2S care about you, Mr. player), admit to defrauding the game and the community, and yet are shocked- indeed, mortally wounded, that we 'unfairly' refuse to believe them

I find it amazing that people who have fraps of every battle, recordings of voice chat, and plenty of chat logs– people who, after every battle, run to the forums to turn their losses into wins, who post whatever snippet of chat they can find– are unable to find a single clear record of these 'months' of 'serious conversation' with the developers.

I also find it amazing that these same children persist in the "but we pointed it out" argument- as if telling the developers that there was a problem somehow gave them the right to exploit that problem when it was not immediately fixed. It doesn't: even if they were able to produce proof of this imaginary discussion, it would in no way absolve them.

The only 'truth' to be found here is that the members of these fraudulent corps have the same profound sense of entitlement as an eight year-old. It's the same brazen selfishness that lets them demand a response when they deserve none. It's the same massive ego that, upon getting said response, attack it as 'unprofessional' and 'unreasonable.'

And somewhere, just like children, they hope that amidst all the words and shouting, we'll lose track of the fundamental point: You did it, you admitted it, and you deserve much more than you got. You should be considering yourselves lucky, but you want to take that reprieve from the executioner's block and turn it into the keys of the kingdom.

-A message to the corps may have saved us from this forum mess, i dunno. But i do prefer that stuff in private at first, then a measured public response to the playerbase instead of knee-jerk instant messages/twitters/forums posts back and forth. I don't necessarily either side is in the right or in the wrong, i just want folks to not handle it this way again on both sides in terms of the communication during and after the event.

Similar to when my co-workers hit "reply all" and send a message that really should only go to one person to the whole office...then everyone else chimes in...annoying.

Good journey.

Rattletrap

We had a (hopefully last) discussion about this on TS, and this is what came out of it.

One of the problems is that what we've had from the devs is an emotional response, not a logical one, or one that is appropriate for community management.

They thought their game had been spoiled by the actions of some players, so their first response was to tell those players off for being naughty, and take away some of their toys. They named corps involved in their blog because they were shocked by previous, completely unfounded, accusations of favouritism and wanted to prove they weren't favouring anyone.

There is some very good advice in this thread on community management, I hope the devs take it next time.

Well... This has all been rather "interesting"... Take a indy company on their first game, mix in people with a LONG history of "evading" the rules, and exploiting what ever they can to their advantage, and one gets a nasty mess such as we have just experienced.  Not to mention that many of those involved are long known prima donna's from a certain other game... ^^

Could the Dev's have handled this better? Of course, but lack of experience and I suspect lack of internal consenus, makes things take more time and also lack the focus that they should have had.  But unlike many game companies, they didn't just perma ban those involved, but took a more measured, even handed approach. Though given some of the hysterics we've seen, I'm betting that they wish they'd have just started laying about with their mighty ban hammer of doom. ^^

In any event, I'm hoping they have learned some useful lessons from this, and can use them for when future situations require that they take action.  Given how these things work, and the people involved, I doubt this will be the last such situation...

Well put Neoxx. +1

I keep trying to get last post ... *crosses fingers*

Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

If you guys really did want it to fade into the background, perhaps you should have persuaded Styx to avoid starting such a self-serving thread, and taking his well-earned lumps instead.