Defibyoulater

Australian Skial God
Contributor
Pay to be Unbanned for perma-banned users.
Skial's long time policy of perpetually keeping a user banned for breaching the max offences or hacking has been a substantial one. The rules are just and always available to all users. The untold thousands have abided by Skial's terms and despite never visiting the forums: know what it means to be perma-banned, and so they are kept from wrongdoing on the servers.

However, we still to this day come across our fair share of belligerent users and hackers. Rightfully mocked for their SINS, some argue - some leave - and some feel great remorse.

Game obstructing users are less common, and of those users there is the niche amount that apologize for or confess to their mistakes. Some have gone as far as begging for acquittal. Perhaps, their wants can split the difference with Skials' needs.

Allowing paying for unbanning: in the slightest helps with player retention, public perception, and money restorage.

The price should be set to ~$55, almost the price of a new game. Throughout the last decade, unruly and banned users are forced to buy another copy of the game. It is not an uncommon practice in the video game industry.

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TL: DR
If some users truly feel remorse as they say they do, they can pay a great monetary fee to be unbanned.

Important Notes / Conditions
- This is not a 'second chance' to unruly users. It is not filling out an appeal to get a free unban/admin's mercy. It is always having to pay a hefty price to be allowed to play on Skial's tf2 servers.
- A user's donations to Skial have no effect on paying the fee. Completely void of all donations, once you are perma-banned, you will then have to pay ~$55 fee for unban.
- An account may only PTBU once. It's really the final final wind for them, and they probably need to straighten out their lives at that point.
- This helps with 'brothersmothers' cases in which a user claims someone else hacked in their living quarters. It is up to the PTBU user to notify that there will be no more hacking amongst their 'cohorts.'
- A PTBU user will always be monitored. Their record on sourcebans will not be stricken.
- Some users will make new accounts to get passed bans anyway, why not filter out those who would pay instead?

The content listed in OP is just for discussions' sake and not final. Any ideas you have or criticism reply below.
I will try to get an admin to add any favorable changes to the OP.
 

Maddo

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
-1, not the right way to go about it. $55 would be seen by some as a charge to have a spree of cheating, it would be seen by others as Skial being a money grabbing operation.
 

uppe-r

Rage-Inducing Forum Troll
Contributor
No. -1
Btw what do you guys think about rewarding reports with, let's say, credits?

Not that I personally feel the need for that, since I just enjoy reporting people and do it cause it's the right thing to do, but maybe it could be seen as a reward for players that simply don't care about reporting anyone. On the other hand, maybe we'd have way more bullshit reports.

Hm
 

Maddo

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
No. -1
Btw what do you guys think about rewarding reports with, let's say, credits?

Not that I personally feel the need for that, since I just enjoy reporting people and do it cause it's the right thing to do, but maybe it could be seen as a reward for players that simply don't care about reporting anyone. On the other hand, maybe we'd have way more bullshit reports.

Hm
haha, 30 reports from different people all at the same time, because someone didn't realise their vote to silence some kid playing dubstep over the mic broke the rules.
 

Dragontamer

TF2 Admin
Contributor
This is in my opinion worse than Newbies idea. Some players probably would troll the servers and by hacking, fakely apologize and get unbanned. However, this probably isn't true for cases like Erina (even got two of her other accounts banned herself, that probably show she's sincere about it) and scott_, who just sounded like he was actually sorry. Not to mention some people can not get that money so it would just be stupid.
Even if you may not see it, one hacker could cause some players to leave because they think "Skial isn't doing their job properly to remove these hackers" meanwhile, if people could get unbanned for paying, most would just hack, pay to get unbanned, and not learn anything at all, also probably causing a decrease in players. The no unban hackers thing Skial has either pisses off people or makes them learn their lesson by having the system this way.
 

Stove™

Positively Inhumane Poster
No. And I beg that this discussion stops popping up.

While some people who hacked may have been sincere with their apologies (such as the ones Dragontamer mentioned), all of the hackers that get banned still need to stay banned no matter what. They don't get second chances. They shouldn't have hacked in the first place.
 

Newbie

Uncharitable Spy
Only reason why it can't be done is because anti cheating programs are so unreliable and slow. Okay if the punishment about hacking can't be changed to something lighter then there should be a change in also advertising hacks. Permaban the advertisers with no chance of appeal aswell that way it will deter others from advertising hacks. And they have even less of an excuse to get a free pass because the very first announcement player gets when they join skial is "Advertising hacks is against the rules even as a joke". Ofc an 11 year old script kiddie will get interested in downloading such a program because some asshat decided to type the notorious spam message.
 

soos

TF2 Admin
i can understand the concept, but if they get banned, they can try for an appeal, if that don't work, try again at a later date and see how that goes. Although practically bribing your way back in might seem like a decent income opportunity, but... its their fault they got their asses kicked to the curb for being a jackass/rule breaker.

-1