Level of discourse on this forum...

[xeloen]

This going to be a long rant, so buckle up! TL;DR - GTFO

I hate the way moderators in this forum are treating the ♥♥♥♥storm surround ACII. After only a few posts in the forum, I was just banned forever for allegedly "Admitting / Advocating Software Piracy". I was not personally advocating anything, but merely reposting info from another site that participated in the recent attacks. While to the people who haven't read what I posted this may sound bad, in the info I reposted there was no call to pirate and no call to attack Ubisoft servers. There was a general phrase, something along the lines "stand up to DRM" and "join us". Moreover, it wasnt even the thrust of what was written there, but more of an apology/explanation for the reasons behind the attacks. Those who have been present in the threads and saw what I posted, can confirm that.

I consider labeling me as in any way advocating piracy to be personally insulting. I own almost 200 games on Steam! and would never advocate pirating games. My community username is the same as it was here, so the mod could've easily checked that. Although I am very much against DRM, I'm not a freetard and consider pirating games to be immoral.

I have went to check forum rules after the ban and I have not violated a single one!!!!! There is a rule against discusing piracy in any way (which I presume would include opposition to it), but I was not discussing that. Neither was the info I reposted.

It is appaling that moderator locks and erases threads by people who in any way object to DRM, including ones with more or less coherent discussions, while threads made by trolls or Ubisoft plants with the level of discourse of "you're an idiot", "no you are" are left to multiply. Threads by worldcitizen777 come to mind (I'm not advocating locking them - they are unintentionally funny".

I think the reason for such behavior is desire not to lose sales on steam. I dont care whether this is coming from Ubisoft or Valve. The bottomline is community is one of the advantages of Valve. If it cannot keep its moderators impartial, then its value is deminished. It is not appropriate to increase the number of sales by manipulating the thrust of discussion on the forums. Every action causes and equal and opposite reaction. I, therefore, will not be buying any games from Steam for the next 3 months in response to the actions by the moderator here.

Btw, don't bother banning this username, as I will not come back to post on these forums.
/end rant

During Reneissance (how apropos ACII), there was a famous painter (dont remember name though) who was famous for capturing the inner nature of people in his portraits. A royal persona, who was a giant deuche, ordered a portrait from him. The painter couldn't refuse the order, but he also couldnt draw the guy the way he saw him, as that would be offensive. Neither did he want to compromise his artistic integrity. The way he resolved the situation is he made the guy's face in the portrait uncharacteristically thoughtfull and intelligent. Everyone who was familiar with the deuche could see the ruse (how apropos R.U.S.E. :). The moral of the story is that when you cannot express your opinion honestly, - do so through irony and sarcasm.

I, for one, am beginning to love the Ubisoft DRM and encourage everyone to shower its glorius features with praise! Could it be that worldcitizen777 has already gotten the idea?

Lock up at your earliest convinience...

[insanefred]

DRM is awesome!
Gawd, I wish there was DRM for my camera gear, then I could prevent someone from stealing it. :D

[Vesper]

KOLRIA

[Dudette]

I wonder what the point of having community forums to discuss games on is, if valid discussions to do with the game are squashed. These forums are not an extension of steams advertising. Its a place for user feedback/opinions both before and after purchasing a game.

And, I don't particularly care if I get banned for speaking my mind. so be it.

[Quint]

cool story OP

[djuara]

It is a problem with forums that use 'volunteer' mods. They're not getting paid to do this job (at least not by Valve) so there is no incentive for them to stay fair and impartial. At least one mod get paid more if AC2 sell more so that is an incentive to be unfair.

[Imp_ulse]

I used to work on the game but no longer, so I have no weight whatsoever in the future direction the franchise will go.

When it comes to AC2, I happen to have finally got all feathers myself not two days ago and found the task quite easy. On my second walkthrough that is, as I remembered some of them. Regardless, the team tried to provide an integration and meaning to the collectibles, which wasn't the case in the first game.

Feathers are as you said simply a completionist's wet dream, and that's the only reason we included them. But we also gave tools like the possibility to track them down in the menu, as well as activating your eagle vision to see them a lot better when roaming around the world. I never had an issue finding them that way, and could collect every feather in each district the moment it was unlocked. I actually started doing that, while also scaling the viewpoints.

In the end, my recommendation to the team however was that the next game should include a way for you to use the factions to find these treasures, at the cost of a percentage of all money collected. Hiring the thieves to locate all feathers and chests and bring them back to you for a fraction of the reward seemed like an easy way out to me for players like you, while not entirely defeating the purpose for collectors.

I have no idea if that will be put in place, but I'd like to see it some day in a game. See if it works :)

Yeah, having the primary moderator for this game forum being an ex ubi/ac2 staffer couldn't possibly be influencing which threads are closed, or who gets banned.

[JoeB]

On the flipside, I do find it very peculiar that any threads which either praised the game or were geared towards some degree of support towards the the DRM's success have 1-2 star ratings (and sometimes include posts that insult any members within) while just about every single topic that bashes the DRM in some shape or form automatically gets 4-5 stars from the community so it is arguable that there are biases from the communty's side as well.

The only threads I've seen being closed were ones that either broke the board rules or had an almost identical discussion elsewhere on the forum. In most cases, the staff member was courteous enough to explain why said thread was being locked.

[kkis]

I believe the message Xeleon is talking about came from the web post that carries the full title "The Official English DDOS Thread". The first part, that was posted on this forum, contains the pro-consumer message and anti-Ubisoft propaganda. The second part was cowardly avoided, it contains detailed instructions how to install DDOS attack tools and join the cause to bring down Ubisoft servers.

My guess is you were banned because moderator knew from where that message came (from the attackers) and its full content (instructions how to perform the attack).

You know, you anti-Ubi guys would have a lot more sympathy if you tried to distance yourself as far away as possible from those DDOS attackers. It is all right to be against draconian DRM, but when you start using the arguments created by the attackers, you have clearly gone out of your mind.

Those immature kids have been butchering gaming experience for paying customers just because they cannot play video games for free. The way things stand now, I'm not surprised in the least that no one is capable of differentiating you from the pirates.

[dorthlous]

On the flipside, I do find it very peculiar that any threads which either praised the game or were geared towards some degree of support towards the the DRM's success have 1-2 star ratings (and sometimes include posts that insult any members within) while just about every single topic that bashes the DRM in some shape or form automatically gets 4-5 stars from the community so it is arguable that there are biases from the communty's side as well.

The only threads I've seen being closed were ones that either broke the board rules or had an almost identical discussion elsewhere on the forum. In most cases, the staff member was courteous enough to explain why said thread was being locked.

Sorry to say, but that's a tad bit orange to apple. One is censorship (at various level) and the other is opinion vote. Yes, people usually do have an opinion. I cannot stand KKK, for one thing. However, they are still allowed to hold rally as long as they do so within the law. The first post imply no "law" was breached and as such, we go into "unlawful censorship" territory.

To be quite frank, I can't say I particularly enjoy seeing a post I've made about EULAs and their legal weight disappear with the thread in which it originated. Nor see the base for another of my reply and argument (7 pages of discussion in an 11 pages one) disappear indiscriminately from a given point to the end, thus leaving my post hanging on nothing.

I am against this DRM, both as a gamer (369 games on Steam alone and counting) and as a game developer. I have mentioned in another thread how deadly this new DRM could be to small game companies. As such, yes, I have a strong negative opinion against anyone who'd claim I am a pirate for being against this DRM. Or for saying that I'd buy that game the moment it'd lose the DRM. Or any such nonsensical things we regularly read on a lot of those threads that stay open. I would not wish them censored, however, not as long as they abide the forum rules at least. But I do believe an equivalent courtesy should be extended to both side ESPECIALLY when the majority of the community is the one getting the beat (judging by threads ratings, at the very least).

[BurtonJ]

We have zero tolerance regarding piracy, similar topics, and discussions about such topics.

It is a direct violation of the forum rules. Evading a forum ban is also a direct violation of the forum rules.

Please be constructive and respectful when posting. Posts/threads that are not constructive may be closed or removed.

Please take this time to read and familiarize yourself with the forum rules (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=351).

Thank you.