Removal of “Hackusation” Rules in our Communities

Starting today we are lifting rules regarding posting media that claims people are cheating/exploiting. We had internal discussion with the team and decided that by doing so, it will lead to a healthier response from players. With the old system, dependent on the platform, “hackusations” could cause infractions on your platform account, which could lead to further action. We wanted to announce this while explaining why the rule was originally in place, its original intention and why we decided to make the change. This is across our discord server, our subreddit, our forums and steam forums.

Why was it like this in the first place?

The original intention of removing such posts and moderating accusations was to protect those who may have been innocent. Mortal Online (and any competitive game) is built on reputation. When someone may post a video of someone they suspect is cheating, it is always possible the video is edited, lacks context, or in many cases, just is factually false. We also understand that players want to play a competitive game in a fair arena, so there are strong feelings involved when you suspect or find out someone is cheating. The intention was to keep our external communities conversations not overcome by players arguing and pointing fingers at each other. This can sometimes lead to harassment which we do not condone.

Why did we decide to make the change?

The short answer is from the player feedback. With what we explained above, our intentions were pure. However, it is clear that the majority feel that it borders censorship and StarVault as a company is trying to hide these issues. As much as we can understand that it may look like that to some, we promise this was never our intention. When a player posts an accusation of cheating (as an example; a video) online, the team does make an effort to investigate it. Whether or not the report comes officially through our reporting channels, or something we as a company sees within our communities, the effort is made to verify if it is true or not.Something that is clear is that StarVault as a company has not conveyed that we are looking at these posts and have not provided updates in cases where we do have updates. We are going to work to try and do this with cases where it makes sense. We may not be able to provide updates with every single case, though we wanted to inform you of our efforts.We think it is important that players feel that they are being heard, and not feeling that we are trying to silence them. This has NEVER been the case or intention. We have wanted to protect innocent players. This change has come from your feedback.

What does this not mean?

With this change we do NOT condone ANY kind of harassment against our players within our communities. We can understand how things can become heated with people fighting for fairplay, but it does not give anyone the right to emotionally harass another person. This change is not a window for this behavior.

Will my “hackusation” infractions be removed?

At StarVault we are always evaluating how we moderate our communities and games and changes are a large part of growing as a service or company. It is inevitable that decisions made in the past won’t serve the future. Rules or infractions caused before recent changes are valid for the time they have happened. So overall, we will not be going through the years of infractions and reversing them all.What we are going to do is remove infractions within the last MONTH from this announcement. Please contact the moderators of our platforms to start this process.

How to report cheating or exploits?

We want to convey that making reports with the tools given to you is the best option to have something investigated. It is much more efficient when reports come through our pipeline and the GMs can look at the issue carefully. Below are some of these actions;

1. You can make a report in game with the “Contact GM” button in the ESC menu.
2. You can make a report at help center here : https://www.mortalonline2.com/help-center/
3. You can contact “Robmo” on Discord through his DMs. He will create an internal ticket for you for GMs to investigate.
4. Contact the Lead Game Master on Discord. (His name is also Discord)

It is our goal to reach out when the ticket is closed internally and we will give an update whether action was taken at all. This is something we have been doing for the last few months. This is much easier done on reddit, discord, forums and steam forums. Reports made in game may not receive feedback at this time.

Future plans for our tools

Lastly, we wanted to give you an update with our in-game tools for support and Game Masters. Our tools have evolved month to month to provide better workflows for our Game Masters. We are planning to overhaul the current GM Ticket system to provide a better experience for both sides. An example, GM interactions and Tickets will be within a separate window and not be attached to the regular chat system. We will provide updates as they come.

Thank you for taking the time to read our announcement and hope this comes as good news to our players.

The StarVault Team