GM Malpractice, The Hand of Ragnaros, and Meatgrinder

[Sludi]

ban the 2 ppls who there is evidence against

ppls should NOT receive any punishment if there is no hard evidence they knew something was wrong though

I am new to private servers and if I see a GM handing out loot obviously I am going to assume that is just part of how this works

[Kestrel]

Not that they did not know it was given by a GM, but rather that they did not have malicious intent, or ask for the items. If someone on the street walks up to you and gives you €2,000 euro, I don't think the police should throw you in jail if it turns out to be drug money, its the person who committed the crime that is at fault.

i mean if a GM walks up to you and trades you the Zebra mount you know its wrong.... OR your saying a GM can generate loot on a mob? Zebra drops from a rare mob in Barrens. So either the GM traded the zebra to the player or generated the mount on the mob without the player knowing

The GM did not put the loot on the mob (that is not a power GMs (or devs without a shit ton of custom work) have). I know it sounds crazy to veteran wow players, but many are a bit ignorant of the "norms" and we feel it is the responsibility of GMs to uphold that. It is the responsibility of the players to act respectably and within the bounds we place.

Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." While this is not a defense that is acceptable for GM's who are held to a higher standard, that standard is not one players can be held to.

[Kestrel]

Not that they did not know it was given by a GM, but rather that they did not have malicious intent, or ask for the items. If someone on the street walks up to you and gives you €2,000 euro, I don't think the police should throw you in jail if it turns out to be drug money, its the person who committed the crime that is at fault.

imagine there is only 200euro in the economy and someone gives 2000; can you assume it's forgery ?

I fear you may have lost the plot good sir

[Kestrel]

ban the 2 ppls who there is evidence against

ppls should NOT receive any punishment if there is no hard evidence they knew something was wrong though

I am new to private servers and if I see a GM handing out loot obviously I am going to assume that is just part of how this works

That is how we feel as well, and we know that revealing their in game names would only subject them to judgements that we feel would be unfair and likely ruin the game for them anyways. Of course we know who they are and have flagged their account in case anything else happens, but we don't expect any more issues. And if there ever are we will make it right just as we have with this one <3

[Pig]

I speak for myself and I hope every one of my colleagues when I say the integrity of Vanilla WoW and all the current Vanilla+ experiences is very important to me. This game is very special to me and I'm sure the devs as well otherwise they wouldn't be spending their spare time creating a place for us to all get to spend time with each other.

I have met tons of amazing adventurers while working for this team and it is thanks to these friendships I was made aware of this situation the moment I logged in. We instantly took action. We hear you guys and I hope our final decision makes the community happy. ~Oink!

[Gildark]

I speak for myself and I hope every one of my colleagues when I say the integrity of Vanilla WoW and all the current Vanilla+ experiences is very important to me. This game is very special to me and I'm sure the devs as well otherwise they wouldn't be spending their spare time creating a place for us to all get to spend time with each other.

I have met tons of amazing adventurers while working for this team and it is thanks to these friendships I was made aware of this situation the moment I logged in. We instantly took action. We hear you guys and I hope our final decision makes the community happy. ~Oink!

Oink.

[Heibai]

A Tribute to the GMs and All Players of OctoWow

I am Moli from the Chinese guild Panda, and one of the founding members of Panda Guild.

First of all, regarding the incident involving the Eye of Sargeras, I would like to offer an apology to all players and GMs on behalf of our guild. We accept any penalty the GMs issue to player Meatgrinder. We also consent to the GM team auditing and investigating our guild internally until this whole matter is fully resolved. If this is an individual’s fault, we accept punishment for that individual; if it is a guild-wide issue, we accept collective punishment for the whole guild. We trust the fairness of OctoWow’s administration team.

Secondly, we sincerely apologize once more for the negative impact this incident has brought to the server. World of Warcraft is a timeless classic, a game built through collective effort, farming and progression for all players. We will ensure nothing like this happens again, and invite every player on the server to keep an eye on us and witness our conduct moving forward.

There has been a flood of critical messages targeting Panda Guild in server chat, as well as harassing whispers sent to our guild members. I do not agree with this kind of behavior. I welcome GM oversight during all our raid runs, and we are open to supervision from every player. However, please refrain from malicious rumors and slander against individual players and our guild. We are ready to face this incident head-on, yet we cannot stop ill-intentioned people from using this situation to stir up conflict.

Panda was originally founded because our group faced unfair treatment in the Nebula guild. Back when we were grinding fire resistance gear for MC voluntarily, their guild leader accused us of ninjaing materials. When we suggested prioritizing tank gear for early MC progression, we were accused of ninjaing equipment. How could a team push through MC’s early progression without sufficient fire resistance tank gear? In the end, he kicked all of us out of Nebula and spread lies claiming we had ninjaed loot.

Our values simply did not align, so we founded Panda Guild ourselves. Our original goal was to tackle raids positively alongside like-minded players—until this unfortunate incident occurred, for which we are truly sorry.
Panda Guild welcomes supervision from anyone on OctoWow, whether for 5-man dungeons or 40-man raids. We embrace this scrutiny, as it lets us prove our integrity and skill. We also open our doors to any player who wishes to join Panda; every new recruit will be treated as a core part of our family.

Certain guilds and individuals have slandered and defamed Panda. You may continue to do so if you wish, but I believe time will tell the full truth.

What goes around comes around. World of Warcraft is its own community ecosystem, and let us all work together to nurture a healthy server environment.

Panda (Chinese Guild) Progression Clearances:

Onyxia’s Lair, Molten Core, 10-man Karazhan – all fully cleared.
Like-minded players are warmly invited to apply and join us.

Thank you,

Moli of Panda

[Berdal]

Sorry for what I ll write
But new GM's should pass an IQ test before accepting them

Idk if this is doable, but I gotta say I might actually agree with this one.

[Berdal]

People will always have different opinions. I want to just add I think you all handled and remedied this beautifully and professionally! Especially the community transparency.

[Skybrankm111]

We felt it appropriate given they are also loosing thousands of gold worth of legitimately acquired items along with an extremely rare drop in the Eye of Ragnaros. Internally we felt it should be longer but where worried that was coming from a place of bias given we view this as a failing on our part. I am sure the team would be happy to consider something more if the community is in agreement on how it should be handled. No promises but we will discuss internally about it.

Are you saying that breaking the rules is acceptable as long as you pay enough gold to reduce the penalty? That's quite an interesting idea.
I think this idea could encourage more gold-farming operations to join the server.