Good Evening Obsidianites. I post today to bring you some good news and some bad news.

The good news is it is Echo's birthday so to celebrate, we have some bad news...

The bad news is that over the past few years, there's been a growing trend that people seem to disregard the multiple accounts rule. In the past this wasn't a real issue and was dealt with on a person by person basis. Lately there has also been a huge jump in people breaking other rules, or arguing with staff over what a rule means.

So here are a couple changes.

First on the topic of multiple accounts. As of this posting, we have recently ran a check against all logs since January first of this year. Anyone who came up as having accessed multiple accounts since January 1, 2007 and is NOT on the approved multi list with staff, is banned.

Now this is not an all exhaustive or un-changable list. It was gone over by hand to try to account for people who just did account refreshes or things that might have been mistakes. Hopefully we got all of them. If you are not on the staff legal multi list, for instances such as people living in the same house, then your accounts probably got banned and you need to appeal it and get put on the list. Likewise if other people have your account details through you telling them, and they used your account, that could also have been the reason you got banned. In cases like that, the appeal will probably be granted and you will be required to change your email/password to ensure future security.

Before everyone gets in a hissy fit, let me explain what this means for those who are banned:
First off, if you have been banned, you have two options. If you think the banning is faulty, you may run an appeal. What you need for an appeal is to private message GM Echo on the obsidian forums, and send him your account name, your main IP(s) which can be found at whatismyip.com, as well as the reason you think your account might have come up and should be unbanned.

The other is if you know you were multiple accounting and know that if we check the logs on appeal, we'll find evidence of such, is just to make a new account. Almost everyone who is banned because of this multi check is allowed to make a new account and continue playing. If you are one of the people who was on thin ice with staff and are caught, you have different rules for making a new account and getting another chance to play obsidian, and will probably be contacted by staff personally.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this will cause some of you, but this is the only way we could be fair about the enforcement of this rule. These bannings are to deter people who break the rules from doing it again, but not to remove them from the game. Almost Everyone is being given a second chance. Let's play the game right, shall we? It makes it hard to staff when players cheat.

Speaking of cheating, this brings us to our second issue, that of the infamous "Speed Hack". This "cheat" has been around since obsidian started, and staff have known about it since then. What we don't tell players is that we already have ways to detect it. We have an automated system that we turn on every couple months and anyone it detects speed hacking is instantly banned, no gm oversight required. For all those who think it is cool, this is your warning. Turn it off now before you're banned. There is never warning on when the detection will be on or off.

Our third issue is that of the rules. This one is fairly simple. The rules have been updated, and you can find a current up to date copy in the forums.

Please don't blame this all on me, it was a mutual decision of all the upper-level staff members. skee skee.

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I FUKING H4X0RD YOUR MOM'S ASS LAST NIGHT.

Seeing all these people "blocked" i think this will be a very bad thing for the shard, I am a very active player and i only seen msgs ingame about this one hour before this post then ppl were blocked, IMO this does not give people enough notice what so ever to contact staff about 2+ ppl on one ip. This post should of been put on forums atlest 3-4days before these accounts were blocked.
Wouldnt it of been better to take these people to one side and ask them why all these accounts are on there ip? Instead of just "blocking" them. This way just within my family it would of saved 4 accounts being "blocked" even tho staff know full well that there is 2 houses where 2 ppl play, therefore having two accounts from 1 ip. Luckly my account wasnt "blocked" as i was on the "2 accounts list" even tho like i said staff knew 110% these other 4 accounts were 4 diff ppl on 2 ips.
All i can say i hope for is that everyone has patience and doesnt leave altogether over this!
But next time id ask staff to think about players and the way players will see this kinda thing, dont take the easy route and just block them and ask ppl to PM, and please talk to these players ingame/irc/msn/pm them before "blocking" them atleast give them the chance to explain and solve this before the block.
I myself spoke with staff and explained who plays where in my family and it only took a matter of 3-4mins for them to see it wasnt a "multi account" problem, but how long before these people are "unblocked?" i bet its more that 3-4minutes.

If an account is blocked, that means it won't decay right?

I do agree there should have been some more public warning. There were like 3 lines about it in IRC at a time when people who have lives are not on.

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Try not to let your mind wander...It is too small and fragile to be out by itself.

Fisker GM Fisherman
Noah [TLC] GM Lady Charmer
Pheonix PVM mage

How many staff does it take to screw in a light bulb?

One to script it.
One to debug it.
One to place it.
One to take the player pages bitching about it.
One to tell the others that they got it all wrong.

This is pissing me off......why is it that we havent gotten a heads up. You seem to just tooken this into ur own account, and done it by urself. Personally this game is getting more complicated with dealing with gms, then with other players and being PKD. To me getting PKD is less worse then having to deal with Staff that dont give ample warning, or try and talk to us in private. WOW!!!! Its that simple, come and talk to us. Ohhhh wait, thats too complicated for u. I did wat you asked, and PMD Echo......hope it gets resolved in a day. No more no less. If you could have deleted 100 or so accounts in like 5 mins, then Im sure u could resolve this in one day. No telling you that you should fix this in one day, unless you think that torturing ppl is wat makes this game fun.

And if im gonna get screwed for this then im okay with it. WOW!!!! Then Ill bid you farwell, however, if i do not get banned then go and fix the banned ppl. But If i do get banned then I will leave another post of the ppl that really need to give thnx to, and others that I really hated but will mention anyways.

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The blood fuels the soul, as the hunger for blood never ends......

BatZavinam---PvP Warrior
Giovanni---Fisherman/Crafter[Deus Ex Machina]
SteeliX---Blacksmith/Miner/Item ID/Crafter
Goliath---PvM Mage
WolfMother---PvP Mage

So I get unblocked to be re-blocked..? I'm confused..

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R.I.P Will A.K.A Affliction/Bush-Fire/Decayed-Stone - "Stoners live and stoners die. f*** it all, let's go get high"
You should either love me with a passion, or hate me to death..

So erm basically the 3 years I have been here staff plans that oh just because he has logged onto several accounts which his buddies might have left and he wants to preserve lets just ban them altogether. I mean there was not much investigation except oh look same ip! Bam! Banned.
I hardly even came on just to see how people were doing and stuff and I get banned for accessing multiple accounts. I mean the whole point of the no multi-accounting was to avoid conflict between people losing their accounts and shit not getting jacked. What this has done is killed the player community and I certainly have lost most of my hope if not all. Hope something really gets done about this if not then bye bye to all my fellow players. Obsidian has officially been killed!

I find it 100% bullshit that you would run a script to check who's "multi-accounted" when yourselves have clearly pointed our NUMEROUS reasons people are on multi-accounts.. and multi-accounts were even legal at times, so old players could be f***** over if they were refreshing mates accounts..

Or what about people like Gunner Sixx and I who have played at each others houses..? Same goes for Black Magic and all his mates..

I thought we were trying to grow and keep players.. not kick devoted ones.. You guys keep making it harder and harder for people to stay here, then sit around wondering why no ones here..

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R.I.P Will A.K.A Affliction/Bush-Fire/Decayed-Stone - "Stoners live and stoners die. f*** it all, let's go get high"
You should either love me with a passion, or hate me to death..

Wow you all sure do cry a lot. This has happened before a long time ago. funny how obsidian isn't dead if it's the end of the world?

Heck here I just get home from a wonderful opera and everyone's up in arms.
Last i checked it's been publically against the rules to have multiple accounts without registering with staff, so should everyone have already registered? Why should there have even needed to be an announcement in the first place? Admittedly yes, It's nice to get one, but i'm sick of the first thing i'm hearing from the same batch of players is "OMFG they got people in trouble for doing something that's been against the rules for 5+ years, why didn't they warn us first?". People should read the rules.
<sarcasm>
On top of that, people should read, period. I hear all this whining and bemoaning while I'm looking up at the news post where i see two important things. 1 states that you can APPEAL A BAN, GASP AND AMAZEMENT. Meaning people banned for just not registering multiple accounts while living in the same house, or people who have others using their account without them knowing, will probably get unbanned. OMFG How could staff be so unfair?

I see another thing stating that MISTAKES CAN HAPPEN. I think it says that they looked for errors and tried to catch them all but WEREN'T SURE. GASP! You mean staff can make errors and SAY SO in a news post? How unfair of them to admit they can make errors and tell people to alert them if it happens.

Wow this shard sure is going to hell. I mean if staff are saying that it's possible errors could have been made, or if they're saying that people who have been banned wrongly can say so and get unbanned! WOW! Why the heck would people every play on a shard with such unfair and power abusing staff.

</sarcasm>

I'm sorry guys, but I can only take so much of the idiotic bullshit that you people spit out. Seriously. The rule has been in the books for YEARS. You gotta register multis with staff. Almost every thread about it in the forums says people should contact staff. Why is the fact that there was only 3 days of warning even an issue? I say three days because i got a panic'd newbie only a week old messaging me two days ago after seeing an announcement wondering wtf to do, and I assume there was one yesterday as well as the one apparently today.

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Ano hi chikatta makenai koto.
"Give me an inch, and you've given me too much of a head start. "

nicely but duo thank you

Yea Duo nice you do have some points but how do you prove that you have been just refreshing accounts and i have about 5 pc's at my house and each of them changes IP each time the computer is started so how do you suggest I register that? And then after the next time the script is run bam im banned again? So yea... either develop a better way to catch players and we all do know that multi-accounting is a rule but what was the reason behind it? It was to keep people's accounts safe... and avoid an unneccessary argument between players that might have to involve and waste the staff's time. Also to add I have seen players being banned and allowed back for much worse rule breaking than something that doesnt even hurt the shard or community but preserves old player's accounts. You be the judge the staff and BB have the final say its their server anyways...

WTF is all this about a script being run? Ive been told personally by staff that they checked the logs and alot of staff have been working on these one by one for ages.
What harm can be brought by multi account anyway? I mean if someone is fool enough to give there details out then so be it? Why not make the new rule "you can multi account but if u get looted dry and deleted dont cry to staff?"
It would stop all this hassle then if someone is looted all staff say is "its your own fault"

I remember Thassius once stated that those who were multi-accounting were given a choice as to which account they wanted, then jailed or banned the other offending account..

That seems more appropriate otherwise, in all honesty, 75% of this shard will be banned..

It's just strange that 3 years ago almost everyone was sharing their account, yet nothing was done, and now, like 10 people log in friends accounts to refresh, and maybe a handful of people abuse multi-accounts.. yet people are being banned left and right over it..??

I hardly see how banning people and telling them to start again is gunna help the shard grow.. I just think there is better courses of action that could of been taken here, and it seems I'm not alone in this thought..

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R.I.P Will A.K.A Affliction/Bush-Fire/Decayed-Stone - "Stoners live and stoners die. f*** it all, let's go get high"
You should either love me with a passion, or hate me to death..

u cnt say its not bullshit because 3 people that live in my town play so if they come over or i go to there house and play they r band?

i went to sunderland so all those played on that pc is band?

stupid in my opinion get it sorted

this is stupid i live as ross said in the same town as him and trinity and tyran..and echo no's that and both ross and trinity have been to my house and on obs since jan now im band coz my mates come round and play it?