The PAS red alt rule (all PAS should read this please) ...

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The PAS red alt rule (all PAS should read this please) ...

Postby KDSonoma » Fri Jun 06, 2014 2:11 pm

The PAS rule for alt reds ...

A long, long time ago, in an Ultima Online far, far away …

All kidding aside, I noticed that we no longer had the PAS red alt rule prominently displayed on the forums. I don’t know where that faded away, because I was able to find several posts that referred to the rule, but not the long, original post that described what the rule is, and how we got there.

So here we go again. Way back in the second year of UO, PAS formed the Sonoma Alliance with 7 other small guilds. Eventually this Alliance took off and included all 20 of the top guilds in size on Sonoma, plus a few more (we peaked at 27 guilds). We had monthly meetings ingame (when we had to all TYPE hehe since Ventrilo and teamspeak were not used yet), some of them attended by gms (which was pretty cool).

The SA was an alliance of good guys that worked together to add all kinds of fun, and to help the good guys on the shard against the evil pks. *smiles*

At a point where we had 25 active guilds in SA, we were given a conundrum. We had one SA guild that proposed an SA rule that forbid SA guilds members from having red alt characters.

Long story short, we had 12 ingame meetings that lasted 3 hours or more each, another 600-650 posts on forums where guilds debated this proposed rule, and an enormous amount of ingame guild meetings where we asked our members what they thought (PAS had 4 meetings to discuss this).

We had 11 guilds that were adamant about wanting this rule, and 11 guilds adamant about not having this rule, and the other 4 guilds wavered back and forth.

The problems that were pointed out with this rule were impossible to overcome:

How would such a rule be policed? Who and how could anyone be sure that another player had a red alt. One of the PAS mottos at the time was “red=dead”, but PAS was also founded on the principle that we would allow our members to have chars in other guilds, to encourage participation in PAS.

In the end, we just created huge fights. So one day I wrote out the best possible solution that I could think of to address the issue for both sides.
The rule was debated for another 3 meetings ingame, and the gms spent another 200 or more hours in meetings with their guilds and with other gms. The people that wanted the original rule realized if they didn’t vote for this revised rule, they did not have the numbers to get any rule passed.

The people that were against this rule realized that the things they worried about in the original rule were very likely addressed with this revised rule.
The final vote: 24 SA guilds were present, and 24 guilds voted for this rule. Each of the SA guilds (including PAS) was now bound by this rule by being a member of the SA.

Even after the SA dissolved when tram was born (and the need for fel protection was less critical), PAS has had this rule. I will always want PAS to have this rule, because it has worked perfectly all these years, and has helped us avoid with hunts that would have been nonstop if we did not have this rule.

So what’s the rule?

PAS members can do ANYTHING with their red alt characters EXCEPT intentionally, repeatedly, target for grief a PAS or PAS-KVP alliance character, player, or guild.

I have had to invoke this rule exactly 3 times (well, twice, technically the 3rd guy resigned before I could boot him hehe).

Some examples of this rule:

KD makes a red alt and joins a pk guild with an alt red. KD goes with this new guild when they hunt in fel for players to fight or pk. If KD runs across PAS while with this new guild, he helps kill PAS characters. This is OK. Now if KD decides to camp at a PAS members house and try to kill him because he hates the guy, this is a violation. If KD knows where PAS will be going, and keeps going to the locations posted on the PAS calendar where PAS does events, to kill PAS members, this is a violation.

The bottom line: Play an alt red if you want, but be sure you act as a member of that other guild would. Do not use any PAS knowledge (or Ventrilo) to try to grief, harass, etc. PAS or its members or allies. Have fun, but keep those characters distinctly separate. Live your red char life as a red char that doesn’t know PAS would live it.

If you have a complaint about a PAS that you believe broke this rule, please pm me (or whoever the gm is at the time), and tell them your concerns. Let the gm handle it from there. I promise, if the person is breaking this rule, the gm will find out and will act accordingly and stop the action by booting the player or getting the player to stop the actions that violate the rule.

Don’t post your allegations on the forums, let the gm handle it discreetly. Saying it publicly makes it infinitely harder for the gm to find out the truth, because now hundreds of players might be awre of the allegation. It could also ruin someones reputation, which would suck if the allegations were untrue (and this has happened before).

So have fun, play an alt red if you want, but just remember the PAS red alt rule, and don’t break it.

KD
KDSonoma
King of Sonoma
King of Sonoma
 
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Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 4:28 pm
Location: Round Rock, Texas

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