wienersteve

Since I was threatened with a permanent ban, and really was just on the defensive from the first word of my conversation with the GM, I decided not to pursue it at the time since I believed I would still get what I had earned. I of course made a mistake not appealing it immediately, but, to my knowledge, I was one of the only people in this wave of bans that was given the opportunity to talk to a GM at all, and wrongfully assumed that the GM team had most likely talked about this and decided to just take my 2 weeks, get my weapons when i got back, (since i was stacked at cap and my standing remained empty that week) and leave it be.

My Character Wienersteve was suspended for 2 weeks, during the wave of bans for wintrading. I will maintain that I absolutely never wintraded knowingly, or gained any benefit from the supposed wintrading. The screenshot I was included in was the only time I was ever suspicious of the chinese premade that I played with many times, with no evidence of rulebreaking activity. Many rankers can confirm that I was a legitimate and respected ranker in the community for the long duration of my ranking career and was not ever involved in wintrading or any other pvp activity that broke the terms of service. I was stacked with the rest of the bracket 1 rankers, and was sitting at 96% of R14.I got taken to GM Island and suspended only 2 hours before the honor reset. From what I understood reading about other people who were suspended (from the dodger banwave) and some players whose permanent bans were converted to 1 week bans, my rank points should still have been applied. I should have hit High Warlord, and been able to purchase my weapons upon returning, which is most of the reason I did not pursue any further ban appeals or try to get things fixed. That being said, I have no idea what GM I spoke to when they ported me to GM Island as they kept their identity concealed. From the beginning of our conversation I was on the defensive, and it seemed as if I was guilty to him from the moment we started talking. What he ended up asking for was the names of players that I pvped with in that group or he would permanently ban me, with a 2 week suspension (2 hours before the end of a legitimate pvp grind lasting months) being the lesser alternative. This of course put me in a position to be scared to challenge him on anything. I am currently the guild leader of the guild Pantheon, and wield its only Thunderfury from old nostalrius and mostly during this conversation I was more concerned to save my characters at all, rather than ask for more proof. This GM, said that the premade I played with was 100% guilty and I was "involved". I was never shown any proof of this, and in the thread about the wintrading it has been clearly stated that the screenshot I was in was not the only evidence for the bans/suspensions. He seemed to imply that I was involved multiple times in known wintrading, which is completely untrue. Some of the Pvpers were invited many times to the NA/EU premade. During late night NA times (3AM-9AM server) many NA players would happily invite chinese players like Hellopippo, Savoiedecka, Mengxiaoyu, and others to our groups and they would invite some of us to theirs, depending on the time of the night and the pvp weekend. None of us ever suspected any of these "very guilty" pvpers of any elicit pvp activity. It has been brought to my attention that some of the permanent bans were reverted to 1 week bans and at least one of those players recieved R14 on the same week I was suspended. To conclude I believe that preventing a legitimate Ranker from reaching R14 2 hours before the honor reset, without sufficient evidence was a much more severe punishment than a simple 2 week suspension. I changed my life completely for months, keeping up a raid leading schedule, rebuilding the core of my guild, and keeping up with honor caps, often sleeping around 3 hours a day, to achieve something I had dreamed of since before nostalrius shut down. I ask anyone who knows me as a legitimate PvPer and an important member of our servers community to bump this post and help to get a deserved High Warlord rank for somone who had no reason to have it taken away from them. TLDR? R14 was taken from me with only hours left until reset with little or no evidence of malicious pvp activity. reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElysiumProject/comments/5y6xae/wienersteve_a_cautionary_tale/