12-17-2003, 07:46 AM
Hi,
If you were banned, I would like to think that you'd give the admins of the site time to respond to your concerns before making a second account and posting here. I am aware that you have asked about this issue via Private Message. That's an appropriate place to discuss such an issue. This thread isn't.
However, I'm not certain why it is that you believe your first account was banned. You'll note that in the post where you created the thread, the word "members" still appears under your name. I didn't see anything in the admin section of the forums that even suggests that the Starops account is banned. Maybe I'm missing something that another admin did, and I am trying to find out about it, but so far there really hasn't been time. In any case, let's keep that aspect of the conversation to private messages.
While many of the members of this site come and go, the position on dupes held by the community has not changed much over the years. The Lurker Lounge evolved out of the classic Diablo strategy community. In those days (at least by the time this site existed), you knew with 100% certainty that a person using a godly plate of the whale was a cheater, even if they did not dupe the item themselves. Now, obsidian rings of the zodiac did drop (very, very rarely). During my time playing Diablo, I saw one drop, but only one. So, it was possible to have one legitimate obs/zod, although not likely. There's very few people that I would have trusted if they'd claimed to have two legit obs/zods, and since none of them did, I didn't trust anyone. Three obs/zods and you knew they were too clueless to have found the legitimately, since they couldn't use all those resists anyway.
So, the belief among the legitimate community at that time was that if it was too good to be true, it probably was. Anything not known to be legit was assumed to be a dupe, and NOT USED. With the release of Diablo II and the "secure" realms, trading became much more popular, and the item "economy" was born. A lot of people who did not dupe or bot themselves turned a blind eye to cheating, since they had no way to tell what was legit, and, after all, they were trading legitimate items for the items received.
It is my opinion, and thankfully that of many here at the Lurker Lounge, that turning a blind eye to this sort of stuff just because the items *might* not be duped ends up supporting duping in the long run. If the botters and dupers couldn't get anything for their items, they wouldn't take the time to make them. I personally don't trade at all with people I don't know, and even then only for items I know they've found. Others don't go quite that far, but do draw the "too good to be true" line somewhere. Common sense tells us that many items are not likely to be legitimate, even if we wish they were. While that may not make more than a few percentage points difference to one's character in game, it does make a difference in that it's providing support to those who intentionally trade in duped items.
I'm not here to debate the merits of either point of view. Suffice it to say, you're not likely to change any minds here. I did want to provide you with some background about why people here are responding the way that they are. Hopefully it's given you (and others) a chance to think about the items that they are using, and whether they really "need" the 160/60. In any case, it's given you an opportunity to find out about who were are and our perspective on things. You can use that information to decide if this is a place where you feel comfortable or not.
One thing I will say is that I appreciate it that you've taken the time to stop back by and read the feedback posted to your thread. Most of the people who come here, create a membership, and immediately post an ad for something never return. So, messages such as yours, posted within minutes of creating an account, are viewed with skepticism at best. They're not necessarily against the rules, but it sure does head into the grey area of the "no spamming" rule. We don't really know you at this point, so it's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you decide that you do want to stick around, and participate in other discussions, future ads probably wouldn't be received so poorly, as long as they were posted only occasionally, were related to the game, and didn't endorse cheating.
I visited your site, and I do have an unrelated comment. I noticed that you were using several of the STSI's in the screenshot section. Now, you do credit the Lurker Lounge, and you do host them on your site (so it's not draining bandwidth), but I am a bit uncomfortable about it for one reason. Most of our screenshots were not taken by Bolty or myself, but were submitted by other members of the community. As with the articles on our site, they give us permission to use the screenshots here, but the shots still belong to their respective "photographers." So, if you wanted to host a particular screenshot on your site, the best thing to do would be to contact the person who took the shot to get permission. Most of the authors can probably be reached through the "email" option of the forums here.
It looks like your site, or at least the Diablo II areas of it, are fairly new. I wish you well in that endeavor. :)
-Griselda
If you were banned, I would like to think that you'd give the admins of the site time to respond to your concerns before making a second account and posting here. I am aware that you have asked about this issue via Private Message. That's an appropriate place to discuss such an issue. This thread isn't.
However, I'm not certain why it is that you believe your first account was banned. You'll note that in the post where you created the thread, the word "members" still appears under your name. I didn't see anything in the admin section of the forums that even suggests that the Starops account is banned. Maybe I'm missing something that another admin did, and I am trying to find out about it, but so far there really hasn't been time. In any case, let's keep that aspect of the conversation to private messages.
While many of the members of this site come and go, the position on dupes held by the community has not changed much over the years. The Lurker Lounge evolved out of the classic Diablo strategy community. In those days (at least by the time this site existed), you knew with 100% certainty that a person using a godly plate of the whale was a cheater, even if they did not dupe the item themselves. Now, obsidian rings of the zodiac did drop (very, very rarely). During my time playing Diablo, I saw one drop, but only one. So, it was possible to have one legitimate obs/zod, although not likely. There's very few people that I would have trusted if they'd claimed to have two legit obs/zods, and since none of them did, I didn't trust anyone. Three obs/zods and you knew they were too clueless to have found the legitimately, since they couldn't use all those resists anyway.
So, the belief among the legitimate community at that time was that if it was too good to be true, it probably was. Anything not known to be legit was assumed to be a dupe, and NOT USED. With the release of Diablo II and the "secure" realms, trading became much more popular, and the item "economy" was born. A lot of people who did not dupe or bot themselves turned a blind eye to cheating, since they had no way to tell what was legit, and, after all, they were trading legitimate items for the items received.
It is my opinion, and thankfully that of many here at the Lurker Lounge, that turning a blind eye to this sort of stuff just because the items *might* not be duped ends up supporting duping in the long run. If the botters and dupers couldn't get anything for their items, they wouldn't take the time to make them. I personally don't trade at all with people I don't know, and even then only for items I know they've found. Others don't go quite that far, but do draw the "too good to be true" line somewhere. Common sense tells us that many items are not likely to be legitimate, even if we wish they were. While that may not make more than a few percentage points difference to one's character in game, it does make a difference in that it's providing support to those who intentionally trade in duped items.
I'm not here to debate the merits of either point of view. Suffice it to say, you're not likely to change any minds here. I did want to provide you with some background about why people here are responding the way that they are. Hopefully it's given you (and others) a chance to think about the items that they are using, and whether they really "need" the 160/60. In any case, it's given you an opportunity to find out about who were are and our perspective on things. You can use that information to decide if this is a place where you feel comfortable or not.
One thing I will say is that I appreciate it that you've taken the time to stop back by and read the feedback posted to your thread. Most of the people who come here, create a membership, and immediately post an ad for something never return. So, messages such as yours, posted within minutes of creating an account, are viewed with skepticism at best. They're not necessarily against the rules, but it sure does head into the grey area of the "no spamming" rule. We don't really know you at this point, so it's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you decide that you do want to stick around, and participate in other discussions, future ads probably wouldn't be received so poorly, as long as they were posted only occasionally, were related to the game, and didn't endorse cheating.
I visited your site, and I do have an unrelated comment. I noticed that you were using several of the STSI's in the screenshot section. Now, you do credit the Lurker Lounge, and you do host them on your site (so it's not draining bandwidth), but I am a bit uncomfortable about it for one reason. Most of our screenshots were not taken by Bolty or myself, but were submitted by other members of the community. As with the articles on our site, they give us permission to use the screenshots here, but the shots still belong to their respective "photographers." So, if you wanted to host a particular screenshot on your site, the best thing to do would be to contact the person who took the shot to get permission. Most of the authors can probably be reached through the "email" option of the forums here.
It looks like your site, or at least the Diablo II areas of it, are fairly new. I wish you well in that endeavor. :)
-Griselda
Why can't we all just get along
--Pete
--Pete