[Leokaiser]

I disagree entirely. People who can't play nice don't deserve to play at all, and even if the community is able to blackball people and prevent them playing the game normally, they can't stop them griefing without making a continuous effort to grief them in return. Championing an ever expanding cycle of douchebag behaviour is not exactly the best way to make the server a better place for all. And guess what? Not everyone wants to have to resort to being a dick in order to force other dicks to GTFO. That isn't anything to do with competition; it's about respect and dignity.

I don't know you personally Abacab, but from what I've read, it doesn't seem like being blackballed has stopped you making a decent effort at screwing people over, so why do you think it will work in other cases?

I can't comment on how matters were resolved on Live back in the day - and it seems to have varied from server to server in any case - but Shards of Dalaya had many competitive guilds and saw its fair share of drama, but rules were strictly enforced and douches quickly found themselves without the ability to grief when they got hit in the face with a banhammer. Relying on a disparate and vast community to police itself might work in some cases, but I would argue that stricter rules and harsher punishments enforced by a small set of GMs united in purpose is more likely to have a greater impact. No, they won't be able to monitor very encounter and ride to the rescue every time someone starts breaking rules, but once it is known that failure to abide by the play nice policy can lead to harsh repercussions, any sensible person would twice about doing so.

The quality of this server is a reflection of the quality of the community, and I highly doubt the developers who have worked so hard on it want it to be known as the place where dicks come to be dicks to other dicks because there's nothing in the rules that says you can't be a dick.