GM Malpractice, The Hand of Ragnaros, and Meatgrinder

[Pig]

Hello to all players and GMs, I am the owner of the account Meatgrinder (绞肉机).
Today I am here to sincerely apologize for my mistakes. My action of asking a GM for crafting materials was completely wrong, and trying to hide the details and make up excuses afterwards made it even worse. I am sorry to the GM team for all the trouble I have caused, I am sorry to my guildmates who helped me pool all the materials, and I am sorry for bringing negative impact to the server community. I truly feel deep remorse for my actions.
I have already paid the corresponding price for my mistakes: my account has been temporarily suspended for 7 days, all Orange Hammer crafting materials have been fully removed, and I still owe thousands of gold to my guild. I fully accept all of these punishments without any complaint.
But I also want to make it clear: besides this single mistake of asking a GM for a small amount of materials, I have not committed any other rule violations. I have never dual-boxed to farm gold, never engaged in any RMT (real money trading), and never exploited any game bugs to farm materials or gold. Our Orange Eye was a legitimate drop from our guild's second full clear of Molten Core, and all remaining materials were collected little by little by guild members through pooling gold and running dungeons, with no improper acquisition of any kind.
I understand everyone's anger at calling for a permanent ban, but a permanent ban is truly too severe for a first offense like mine. I have been a Warcraft player for over 20 years. Since the server launched, I have stayed up day and night to level up, and to fill roles for our team I have leveled both a Warrior and a Priest myself. Our guild only has 3 tanks in total, and I am one of them. If I am permanently banned, not only will all my own efforts go completely to waste, but our entire guild's Molten Core raid progress will also be severely affected — which would also be unfair to the dozens of other hardworking guild members.
I have deeply realized my mistake. I guarantee that I will never make any similar mistakes again in the future, and will strictly abide by all server rules. I sincerely ask the GM team and all players to give me a chance to correct my mistakes. Please do not permanently ban my account. Thank you everyone.

Meatgrinder, sometimes our actions have consequences. Hindsight is 20/20 right?
There indeed was bias when we had originally issued actions on your account. But after consulting with the community we see that we were too lenient. This isn't about buying gold or RMT or multi-boxing. This is about you destroying the integrity of what we have built and the server many more people than just you call home. It sucks to be perma-banned, I'm sure a lot of people can relate but you jumping between deflecting blame and begging for forgiveness just shows that you don't truly realize the gravity of what you have done to OctoWoW. Not only have you cheated and literally had one of the most coveted items handed to you, but you have also called in to question the integrity of every one of my colleagues. If you truly realized what you did was wrong you wouldn't have reached out to Bushdoctor to return this item to you after it was rightfully deleted. As an involved member of the community it sucks to lose a player, but at the same time you have shown that you don't care about this community or the project we have built, the fact you still call 5 Sulfuron ingots and a handful of arcanite (thousands of gold) a 'handful' of materials shows you don't truly grasp this situation or understand the stance of the community. This wasn't a single blindweed. This is weeks of materials. You illegitimately obtained a server first title and item and I fully stand with the community in the decision that you should permanently lose your character and progress.

At any point during this interaction you could have realized the fault of your ways and deleted the items, but you are only sorry you got caught. You asked us to restore it via a ticket mate.

[Swift]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

[Pig]

when you contact GM and to obtain unfair gains, it seriously impacts the fairness of the game. If Kestrel hadn’t found out, who knows what might have happened? For fairness, I hope all players are given two chances.

To be fair he was given a second chance and the first thing he did was ask for the item back. /shrug

[Heibai]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

[Heibai]

Hello to all players and GMs, I am the owner of the account Meatgrinder (绞肉机).
Today I am here to sincerely apologize for my mistakes. My action of asking a GM for crafting materials was completely wrong, and trying to hide the details and make up excuses afterwards made it even worse. I am sorry to the GM team for all the trouble I have caused, I am sorry to my guildmates who helped me pool all the materials, and I am sorry for bringing negative impact to the server community. I truly feel deep remorse for my actions.
I have already paid the corresponding price for my mistakes: my account has been temporarily suspended for 7 days, all Orange Hammer crafting materials have been fully removed, and I still owe thousands of gold to my guild. I fully accept all of these punishments without any complaint.
But I also want to make it clear: besides this single mistake of asking a GM for a small amount of materials, I have not committed any other rule violations. I have never dual-boxed to farm gold, never engaged in any RMT (real money trading), and never exploited any game bugs to farm materials or gold. Our Orange Eye was a legitimate drop from our guild's second full clear of Molten Core, and all remaining materials were collected little by little by guild members through pooling gold and running dungeons, with no improper acquisition of any kind.
I understand everyone's anger at calling for a permanent ban, but a permanent ban is truly too severe for a first offense like mine. I have been a Warcraft player for over 20 years. Since the server launched, I have stayed up day and night to level up, and to fill roles for our team I have leveled both a Warrior and a Priest myself. Our guild only has 3 tanks in total, and I am one of them. If I am permanently banned, not only will all my own efforts go completely to waste, but our entire guild's Molten Core raid progress will also be severely affected — which would also be unfair to the dozens of other hardworking guild members.
I have deeply realized my mistake. I guarantee that I will never make any similar mistakes again in the future, and will strictly abide by all server rules. I sincerely ask the GM team and all players to give me a chance to correct my mistakes. Please do not permanently ban my account. Thank you everyone.

The PANDA guild supports any disposition made by the GM team regarding this incident, and we sincerely hope the game can keep getting better and better.

[Swift]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

I know this because he contacted us and literally told us it was him lol.

I'm worried how your guild doesn't understand that a series of actions like this can destroy the entire server's reputation. This is a new server that is still building it's identity and integrity. A lot of private servers have been known to have lots of corruption. These guys here have been awesome in their transparency; and their passion for the game and it's players really show.

Having a guild come in and do this on one of the most important items in phase 1 is actually insane. This isn't simply grifing another guild or getting a few honor kills of a friend. This is using a GM who is in your guild to make you one of 2 legendary items. Name me something worse that a guild could do right now?

[Pig]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

This staff member was a liability. One of the first things they did internally was disclose identifying information. Also creating a character with a near identical name to his GM and seeking attention in world chat. Highly doubtful any insider would disclose information about this player, but I assume he would share himself as he has multiple times already.

[Heibai]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

I know this because he contacted us and literally told us it was him lol.

I'm worried how your guild doesn't understand that a series of actions like this can destroy the entire server's reputation. This is a new server that is still building it's identity and integrity. A lot of private servers have been known to have lots of corruption. These guys here have been awesome in their transparency; and their passion for the game and it's players really show.

Having a guild come in and do this on one of the most important items in phase 1 is actually insane. This isn't simply grifing another guild or getting a few honor kills of a friend. This is using a GM who is in your guild to make you one of 2 legendary items. Name me something worse that a guild could do right now?

If he reached out to you personally, then I have no grounds to argue. The fact that he’s still playing only proves his genuine passion for WoW. Anyone who joins PANDA is part of our family, and we will treat him with complete fairness and impartiality. So it’s not strange to see him in-game; his only change is no longer holding GM authority.

[Swift]

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

I know this because he contacted us and literally told us it was him lol.

I'm worried how your guild doesn't understand that a series of actions like this can destroy the entire server's reputation. This is a new server that is still building it's identity and integrity. A lot of private servers have been known to have lots of corruption. These guys here have been awesome in their transparency; and their passion for the game and it's players really show.

Having a guild come in and do this on one of the most important items in phase 1 is actually insane. This isn't simply grifing another guild or getting a few honor kills of a friend. This is using a GM who is in your guild to make you one of 2 legendary items. Name me something worse that a guild could do right now?

If he reached out to you personally, then I have no grounds to argue. The fact that he’s still playing only proves his genuine passion for WoW. Anyone who joins PANDA is part of our family, and we will treat him with complete fairness and impartiality. So it’s not strange to see him in-game; his only change is no longer holding GM authority.

The fact that you are still willing to have him in your guild despite what he did to ruin the server's integrity and your guild's integrity is wild...

Someone who had true passion for WoW would not do what he did. They would work for the item like the rest of us.

[Heibai]

Why is Bushdoctor also allowed to continue to play on the server?

He is on a new character called Millhouse, also still in the PANDA guild.

Why can’t he keep playing out of genuine love for the game now that his GM privileges have been stripped away? Does one single mistake mean they deserve to be shut out of the server forever?
Also, how can you be certain that Millhouse is his alt character? Are you leaking internal server information as an insider?

I know this because he contacted us and literally told us it was him lol.

I'm worried how your guild doesn't understand that a series of actions like this can destroy the entire server's reputation. This is a new server that is still building it's identity and integrity. A lot of private servers have been known to have lots of corruption. These guys here have been awesome in their transparency; and their passion for the game and it's players really show.

Having a guild come in and do this on one of the most important items in phase 1 is actually insane. This isn't simply grifing another guild or getting a few honor kills of a friend. This is using a GM who is in your guild to make you one of 2 legendary items. Name me something worse that a guild could do right now?

First of all, the server’s reputation is built jointly by all players and the GM team, not only by players alone. Secondly, if our guild had taken part in this scheme wholeheartedly, we would never have let this incident get reported in the first place—why would we make no attempt to cover it up? The PANDA guild chose to come forward openly and acknowledge the incident because we play the game with a clear conscience. There are countless cases of abuse and corruption across many private servers; we cannot write off an entire guild and all its members solely because of this single incident, can we?
Moreover, I have to question your wording as a staff member when you claim our guild “used a GM for personal gain”. What concrete proof do you have of a direct collusive link between that former GM and our guild? I believe this judgment comes across as overly hasty and arbitrary.