About once or twice a year, some shit boils over, and I'm asked to step in and start up the good 'ol ToxicPlayer Lawnmower™ and take a look at the Swamp Lawn.
Recent events have once again brought me to take a look around and see what kinds of examples need to be made of people.
So, here's this years version of my rant:
Excessive toxicity will not be tolerated. If you do not understand the difference between making fun of someone and engaging in toxic harassment, I suggest you think twice before rolling your face around on the keyboard.
Abuse of exploits will not be tolerated. If you think 'oh, everyone else is abusing this, I can too!' think again. Eventually it'll be discovered, and bans will be handed out like candy on Halloween.
If you're sitting there thinking to yourself "Fuck, is any of this directed at me? Am I going to get in trouble?" that's a good sign to do some additional self reflection.
You do not have the RIGHT to be a part of this community or play on this server. It is a PRIVILEGE. Historically, a lot of leeway is given for interpretation because if where Swamp came from, where its roots are.
But this is NOT the past. Getting comfortable excessively slinging abuse at other players WILL not be tolerated. Those that have been around for a long time will NOT be given extra leeway because 'oh, they're a veteran, they're a staple of the community, we have to give them some slack'. The fuck we do. We have a general staff guideline I'll share with you:
While ban lengths are ultimate at staff discretion, they are encouraged to look at a users ban history when issuing a sentence. The more someone has been banned for breaking the rules, the longer their ban length will be. If someone is deemed to be 'irredeemable' as far as their ability to follow the rules, then eventually, a breaking point will be reached, and that ban becomes permanent.
Now, all of that being said. I'm a shitposter. I get it. That shit is part of the community we've built. But at some point, you the players have to take responsibility for your own actions. If the 1% are ruining it for the 99%... well, that's some pretty fucking simple math for even the dumbest of people.
I'm not asking you to 'be kind' to one another or any of that shit. This is Swamp. We're all shitlords, to a degree, deep down. I'm asking you to exercise good judgement and not engage in behavior that makes being a part of this community a burden for someone just because you don't like them.
When this shit comes up, it's always the same thing. Someone(or several someones) take shit too far, and then act all shocked and surprised when the hammer is brought down on them.
We aren't going to publish a 50 page guideline on what is acceptable behavior. Ultimately, we want you to be able to be free to express yourself, within the limits of what we are allowed, to allow.
It's only a small handful of you that seem to not know when to stop and go 'maybe I shouldn't do that' and that small handful are the ones who will be made examples of, when shit boils over like it has recently.
This concludes my semi-annual rant. You may now resume your regularly scheduled shitposting.
Today is June 19 - National Garfield the Cat Day! He's lazy, and he's sassy, but he's got a heart of gold. Come on Swamp Cinema to celebrate everyone's favorite feline - Garfield!
Today, everyone gets to play as Garfield. Eat other players or roaming Odies to get bigger. Whoever can make the biggest Garfield will get 10 million points, and there will be additional prizes for the runners up. It's a Garfield-eat-Garfield world out there!
Edit: The prizes have been awarded, the winners of the biggest Garfield contest are:
Swamp Servers Community, if you have noticed a change to your points balance please see below -
We have become aware of a new infinite points exploit which has been on the server since March. The exploit, which was the result of two separate checks not running correctly due to a combination of mistakes by multiple developers, is now patched.
Users abusing the exploit to gain millions/billions of points have had their accounts reset and have been banned as a preliminary measure. If you were caught in this ban wave and would like to return to the server, please submit a ban appeal and we will look more closely at how you used the exploit. I understand the temptation to use an exploit like this and I do not intend to leave everyone involved permanently banned.
While some of the exploiters merely used the illegitimate points to buy weapons and things of that nature, others went out of their way to damage the server economy at large by widely distributing these unearned points using commands such as "/bountyall." Fortunately, we have detailed logs of these sort of point transfers and were able to undo most of the damage.
I have updated the points of many of you to remove gifts and bounties that were traced back to the points exploit over the past 3 months. I apologize for the frustration this may cause, but I feel that this is the best way to move forward after what has happened.
This exploit was not disclosed to us by anyone. Had it been, I would have offered a $1000 cash reward, but I only became aware of it when I found it myself. In fact, we even found that three staff members abused the exploit and were aware of it since March. For a staff member to do this is an unforgivable betrayal of their responsibility to act in the best interest of the community. It is because of their intentional concealing of the exploit that it was on the server for so long and ultimately compelled me to roll back these exploited points.
Thank you for your understanding.
Get ready for a whole month of lasagna filled celebrations of everyone's favorite feline - Garfield! Whether he's napping 'til noon or cleaning a spoon, Garfield will always be the king of cartoons. Mark your calendar - Garfield’s birthday lands on June 19!
Don't be shy - SHOW YOUR GARFIELD PRIDE!
GModCEFCodecFix Update (with new system requirements if you're on macOS or Linux):
submit new posters for the server (not all AI slop please) https://swamp.sv/emotes/
Should we increase the health from 100 to 150-200 to make the TTK higher? React to vote
The goal of this is to make the server less annoying for new people