Stephen Teague
Pirate Lord
Hey everyone,
I'm sure you have seen many accusations coming against my name, and TLOPO's name. I will avoid speaking for TLOPO as a group for the most part, and merely speak for myself.
Before I begin explaining anything, I will apologize for where I did mess up. I did leak a screenshot of an individual's chat logs (avoiding naming to abide by the rules) and you can see my apology to the individual in the pastebin/screenshot/whatever medium you saw it in. I am guilty of this, 100%. I apologized to the individual and I apologize to the community as a whole for this error. There is no real excuse for what I did, and I can understand if you do not trust me down the road because of this. The staff was made aware of this a while back from the individual and before that, I told them myself. I can not speak about internal actions but please give the staff time when it comes to disciplinary measures and investigations.
To begin, accusations of me being bribed by an individual with Nitro for a name change are absolutely false. The screenshot used was cherry picked from a guild discord by an individual who did not have context of the guild. The individual who "gifted" Nitro to me did not expect anything in return, and often gifted nitro many guildmates in our guild. For this individual to be dragged in the "mud" is disheartening to me, and the details have been misconstrued. The name change the individual received was approved and then changed.
In addition, players didn’t receive cover from me if they violated the TOS. Reports are consistently reviewed by Senior Moderators to ensure everything looks correct. This is known as our “checks and balances”. Also, individuals who have been let back into this game have been reviewed by our Senior Moderation, much like players terminated in the past for chat infractions. If you believe this decision was made in error, it is encouraged you use the support email as the avenue to forward your concern.
When it comes to utilizing alternate personas, yes, I did use some in the past. I would occasionally use these personas to mess around in game. After reflections long ago, I discontinued use of them.
I caution this community to take everything they see with a grain of salt, there is absolutely some truth in the original post, which I have said above. However, there are many things also taken out of context, and I do believe the OP believes the things they are saying. I can not fault them for their beliefs, and I do not believe they intentionally misconstrued the details. As I said, not all of the details presented are correct.
Regardless, I am here to apologize for what I did wrong, and I sincerely apologize (again) to the community and individuals affected by the errors that I did commit.
Now for TLOPO:
The accusations that TLOPO is a corrupt organization is a very unfair thing to say. These are volunteers who have maintained this game since 2015, with few mistakes. When they do mess up, they admit it. However, to say there is some cover-up is absurd and I plead with everyone to avoid throwing baseless accusations at individuals they do not know. There are numerous checks and balances in our system like I said earlier, and they are consistently reviewed. If you do not wish to believe that, that is your choice. I know my words mean close to nothing for many of you at this time, but in my experience TLOPO has always maintained excellent standards with user security, and moderation. There are rules internally and procedures for what happens when somebody messes up like I did. To find perspective from both parties takes time, that is why you haven’t heard much regarding this whole situation.
Naturally, people will believe others who have commented on various threads recently that they received punishment unfairly. TLOPO is put in a bad position because TLOPO does not speak about players' ban/mute history publicly on the Forums, thus giving them no chance to defend their moderation decisions. I will say, if you have received punishment in this game, there is a very good reason why. Are there mistakes? Absolutely, and we have worked hard to correct those through various avenues such as the support email. As a note, if you believe you were punished improperly, please email our support team.
Finally, several individuals who are merely friends of mine are being thrown into this. To keep it simple, please leave them alone. You can have whatever issue you wish to have with me, but they did nothing wrong. To go after them is witchhunt-esque. I encourage people to avoid hopping on a bandwagon and harassing other individuals, especially when they aren’t involved in this situation to begin with. Ultimately, this is an online game and your words/actions do negatively affect the person behind the screen.
For transparency, I have requested this thread to be locked upon posting it. I want my apology to stand alone so people can see it. This statement was not encouraged by TLOPO’s staff, I decided to write it roughly thirty minutes ago because it is time that I say something regarding this matter. Whatever happens to me, I hope the community moves forward in a positive direction.
-Stephen Teague
I'm sure you have seen many accusations coming against my name, and TLOPO's name. I will avoid speaking for TLOPO as a group for the most part, and merely speak for myself.
Before I begin explaining anything, I will apologize for where I did mess up. I did leak a screenshot of an individual's chat logs (avoiding naming to abide by the rules) and you can see my apology to the individual in the pastebin/screenshot/whatever medium you saw it in. I am guilty of this, 100%. I apologized to the individual and I apologize to the community as a whole for this error. There is no real excuse for what I did, and I can understand if you do not trust me down the road because of this. The staff was made aware of this a while back from the individual and before that, I told them myself. I can not speak about internal actions but please give the staff time when it comes to disciplinary measures and investigations.
To begin, accusations of me being bribed by an individual with Nitro for a name change are absolutely false. The screenshot used was cherry picked from a guild discord by an individual who did not have context of the guild. The individual who "gifted" Nitro to me did not expect anything in return, and often gifted nitro many guildmates in our guild. For this individual to be dragged in the "mud" is disheartening to me, and the details have been misconstrued. The name change the individual received was approved and then changed.
In addition, players didn’t receive cover from me if they violated the TOS. Reports are consistently reviewed by Senior Moderators to ensure everything looks correct. This is known as our “checks and balances”. Also, individuals who have been let back into this game have been reviewed by our Senior Moderation, much like players terminated in the past for chat infractions. If you believe this decision was made in error, it is encouraged you use the support email as the avenue to forward your concern.
When it comes to utilizing alternate personas, yes, I did use some in the past. I would occasionally use these personas to mess around in game. After reflections long ago, I discontinued use of them.
I caution this community to take everything they see with a grain of salt, there is absolutely some truth in the original post, which I have said above. However, there are many things also taken out of context, and I do believe the OP believes the things they are saying. I can not fault them for their beliefs, and I do not believe they intentionally misconstrued the details. As I said, not all of the details presented are correct.
Regardless, I am here to apologize for what I did wrong, and I sincerely apologize (again) to the community and individuals affected by the errors that I did commit.
Now for TLOPO:
The accusations that TLOPO is a corrupt organization is a very unfair thing to say. These are volunteers who have maintained this game since 2015, with few mistakes. When they do mess up, they admit it. However, to say there is some cover-up is absurd and I plead with everyone to avoid throwing baseless accusations at individuals they do not know. There are numerous checks and balances in our system like I said earlier, and they are consistently reviewed. If you do not wish to believe that, that is your choice. I know my words mean close to nothing for many of you at this time, but in my experience TLOPO has always maintained excellent standards with user security, and moderation. There are rules internally and procedures for what happens when somebody messes up like I did. To find perspective from both parties takes time, that is why you haven’t heard much regarding this whole situation.
Naturally, people will believe others who have commented on various threads recently that they received punishment unfairly. TLOPO is put in a bad position because TLOPO does not speak about players' ban/mute history publicly on the Forums, thus giving them no chance to defend their moderation decisions. I will say, if you have received punishment in this game, there is a very good reason why. Are there mistakes? Absolutely, and we have worked hard to correct those through various avenues such as the support email. As a note, if you believe you were punished improperly, please email our support team.
Finally, several individuals who are merely friends of mine are being thrown into this. To keep it simple, please leave them alone. You can have whatever issue you wish to have with me, but they did nothing wrong. To go after them is witchhunt-esque. I encourage people to avoid hopping on a bandwagon and harassing other individuals, especially when they aren’t involved in this situation to begin with. Ultimately, this is an online game and your words/actions do negatively affect the person behind the screen.
For transparency, I have requested this thread to be locked upon posting it. I want my apology to stand alone so people can see it. This statement was not encouraged by TLOPO’s staff, I decided to write it roughly thirty minutes ago because it is time that I say something regarding this matter. Whatever happens to me, I hope the community moves forward in a positive direction.
-Stephen Teague