During this appeal investigation I looked at all affected parties; Not just those that have submitted a raid petition. It’s our goal to support every player on this server. While this may be seen as unprecedented in the context of raid disputes, training and overall zone disruption is also a standard component of our Play Nice Policy, which raids rules complement, but do not supersede.
The incident in question took place on November 6th during an Earthquake. Through my investigation I found there were two attempts from a party (not Riot) at communication to Vanquish leadership. One in the form of OOC, the other was a tell to Vanquish leadership. Neither received a response. The tell was a bit shrewd for my taste but it was still an attempt to reach out. We expect everyone to open a line of communication with some kind of composure. There were no other channels opened during the Earthquake event.
While I understand Riot was fact finding at the time, opening that initial line of communication is extremely important to the CSR team. We want to see that guilds are trying to solve these types of issues in the moment, rather than just waiting to proceed to a formal dispute. In a perfect world, the offending party would state they goofed up, take a time out, assist the affected entities in recovering, and then resume. This is the right thing to do and what we expect everyone to do.
While there’s speculation that players were too close and agroing mobs into the ToV entrance, it's in my opinion the quantity of mobs(especially multiple named) shouldn’t be anywhere near ToV entrance. Especially during a quake when there’s already chaos at this location which is generally a staging point for many entities. Whether or not this pull tactic was intended, it not only caused the train, but also could be considered a form of zone disruption for other players attempting to play in the zone.
It is worth calling out that we have not seen Vanquish deny that they were responsible for this train, and I do believe it was accidental, and with no malicious intent.
There has been speculation that entities lost mobs/targets due to this train, but that is a hard thing to completely prove. It is clear that this slowed down everyone involved during an event where every second counts. I do commend Vanquish for making an effort to concede multiple mobs after the fact, and do not believe the conceded mobs fit the crime but I also believe a full week-long raid suspension is too aggressive. That being said, this issue clearly impacted a sizable number of players attempting to enjoy the earthquake. Instead of the full suspension, I will be introducing a more targeted approach that I believe will be more appropriate for this type of event.
Vanquish is raid suspended from North ToV for a week. This is due to the zone the train was in and timing.
This suspension will start at 11:59 PM EST on the 7th of December.
In addition, Vanquish will have a 1 hour time-out the moment the next Earthquake is announced (system message) in game. Vanquish may gather a raid force outside a zone entrance during this time, but they may not enter the zone itself or engage any raid targets. Accidental FTEs on mobs (like Sontalak) or zone ins must be announced in OOC immediately and corrective actions must be taken.
This disciplinary action will start once the North ToV suspension is served.
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