Comments on the rumours surrounding Zizuph/Saya

[Cherek]

So, if you are reading this you probably also know that Saya/Zizuph has been deleted. Considering there has been so many rumours and accusations towards both Zizuph and me/the admin, I think we should try to clear the air. For everyone's sake.

I'll start by answerings some rumours I have heard. Feel free to add more, or ask follow-up questions, and I will try to answer as best as I can.

Rumour: The Genesis admin lets Saya/Zizuph break the rules because he is such a skilled programmer.

Answer: No, we don't. Yes, Zizuph is a very skilled programmer, one of the best we have ever had, and I am grateful for the things he has created for Genesis. However, just like with mortals we try to treat everyone who breaks our rules the same, regardless of who it is.

Zizuph has been warned a couple of times times and Saya has been suspended for relatively _minor_ rule violations. These rule violation have been fairly small, and were mostly related to becoming overly invested in his mortal, a 'crime' a lot of wizard/mortals have been guilty of at some point in their careers. I have tried to look at how we have handled similar situations in the past, and acted in a similar way.

The bigger rule violations listed in the common board post has not been known to us until now, and therefore we have made the decision to delete him now. We, obviously, can only act on things we know and can prove, and until now there has not been anything 'big' we could prove and therefore no reason for deletion or any other additional punishments. Simple as that.

RUMOUR: Saya/Zizuph is cheating and the admin is covering it up.

ANSWER: No, definitely not. Despite many rumours, there is nothing to indicate Zizuph has used his wizard powers for any form of intentional of cheating. Yes, he did use information gained as a wizard in a way that wasn't okay on a few occasions, but he is hardly the first, nor will he be the last to make minor slips like that. We don't insta-delete wizards for this, we warn them and talk to them, and ensure they improve. Which most do. And this is what I did with Zizuph as well, just like I have done with others who have done similar things. Most wizards who make small mistakes aren't scrutinized by the mortal community like Zizuph, though.

RUMOUR: Zizuph is using his position on the AoB team to boost things for his own mortal and nerf things for his enemies.

ANSWER: Zizuph never made any decisions on the AoB team. Arman was the Arch of Balance when Zizuph wizzed, and then he made the calls. Ckrik is the Arch of Balance now, and he makes all the calls now. For bigger things I am involved as well. Some seem to believe Zizuph was part of the admin and made calls about balance, and all sorts of things. Zizuph was never on the admin, he was part of the Arch of balance TEAM, which only means he had a supportive role to the Arch of Balance, but no decision power.

Also, it should be known that the code for most global things are placed under a GIT version control system, making it impossible to "sneak" any changes in. You need to use the GIT system to make changes, meaning Cotillion needs to manually approve everything. And Cotillion is not someone who just approves anything.

So, if you plan to sneak in something big, good luck with that as it needs to be Cherek-approved, Ckrik-approved, and Cotillion-approved.

RUMOUR: But Zizuph has influenced/duped you into doing his bidding!

ANSWER: Well, everything is possible in theory, but I certainly don't feel duped or influenced. I can tell you with certaintly that most of the major changes to the game while Zizuph was on the AoB team originated from me or Ckrik. Obviously Zizuph also had ideas but I don't remember one time where he tried to "force" anything, and he always accepted mine or Ckrik's decisions. Sometimes we liked his ideas, sometimes we didn't. Just like with any wizard who presents ideas.

That said, Zizuph, as the main programmer for the AoB team, obviously had a lot of influence. The person who volunteers to do the work obviously has a lot of influence on the outcome, and that's how it should be. It was never unclear who had final call on decisions, though, and there is nothing Zizuph did - codewise - that I don't approve of.

Now, did Zizuph do things that was bad for some of his mortal's enemies? Or something his mortal might benefit from? Sure, of course he did. He also did stuff that was good for his enemies, and bad his own mortal. Any wizard who works on a lot of stuff will end up doing things that sometimes benefits your mortal and sometimes not. Zizuph took a lot of heat every time he was involved in anything that was good for vampires or bad for the Fire Knives, and I honestly think this was generally undeserved, and everyone seems to have forgotten Ckrik has to sign off on all changes, so, if anyone should be accused of bias it's Ckrik. Oh, and just so you know, I have made TONS of decisions that benfitted my mortal, and tons of decisions that didn't. If you want to go find evidence that I am biased, it's easy, just list the stuff I did that benefitted my mortal, and forget the rest. That'll make me look super-biased too.

No, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Zizuph when it comes to his actual work. I think he did stellar work, was generally easy to work with, and if he had any sort of bias towards specific guilds or players I don't think he let it influence his work. Zizuph did a number of mistakes in other ways but I am quite confident that he did not use his wizard powers to actually cheat or code stuff for himself/friends or against his enemies, and that sort deliberate cheating.

RUMOUR: Cherek lets Zizuph be a guild leader even though it is against wizard rules.

ANSWER: There is no wizard rule saying you can't be a guild leader and a wizard. We do try to avoid that for obvious reasons, but it all depends on the specific situation. If a new wizard is coding a small little area in Khalakhor it may not be such a big deal if they also is a high officer in the Red Dragonarmy. At least not while they create their apprentice project and decide if they want to be a wizard or not. On the other hand, Ckrik, the Arch of Balance, should obviously not be the King of Minas Morgul with his mortal, since that is a big conflict of interest. So, no there is no rule set in stone regarding this, it's about common sense and there is quite a large difference between different types of guild leadership roles and different types of wizards.

Now, as soon as I learned Saya was a coven leader I told her to step down, and she did, since I felt a member of the AoB team should not be a coven leader. Zizuph was also, like all wizards, strictly forbidden to work on a guild where he also has an active mortal. This also included any guilds his coven was in direct conflict with. For a time, that was the Fire Knives guild.

At some point, Saya decided to ignore my request to not be coven leader, and it took quite some time until I learned of this. When I did, I confronted her about it, and she claimed some form of misunderstanding. At the time I was so tired of drama I just let it be, Zizuph was inactive and I just didn't have the energy for it. So, yeah, I let Saya stay coven leader. That's on me. It had nothing to do with Zizuph's programming skills, or giving him special treatment on purpose. There had just been SO much drama between Zizuph and a lot of other players during 2022, and there had been several months of calm, so I simply decided to let it slide in order to not stir up anything new. I just didn't have more fight in me. Those of you who were involved in any of that can probably relate I think. But, yes, I did let him remain a coven leader, but not for the reasons some players seem to think. But I can understand why people would think that too.

RUMOUR: The Genesis admin knowingly let someone who was deleted for cheating in the past be a wizard again.

ANSWER: Yes, Zizuph was a wizard before, and yes he was deleted. While I was not a wizard back then, I can't know for _sure_ about everything that went on, but I do have access to player info files, and there is nothing there that indicates Zizuph was punished for cheating as a wizard. What happened then, and why he left Genesis is not my story to tell. However, before he returned I had a very long talk with Gorboth, who was Keeper then and in the middle of that drama, and Gorboth had since then made peace with Zizuph and felt that he deserved a second chance. I agreed, I too think everyone deserves a second chance, unless they have done some unforgivable super serious thing. Even if Zizuph HAD been deleted for cheating I would likely have given him a second chance. A lot of very successful wizards and respected players have a troubled history, but they changed and became valuable members of our community. I mean, we even gave people who were involved in the copy-game Exodus a second chance, and it turned out quite well.

Of course I knew it was a risk with Zizuph, and that things could go wrong this time as well. These were things me and Zizuph discussed even before he wizzed, and how to prevent issues, since he had such a well-known mortal. It didn't work out despite all attempts to make it work, but It could also have turned out great. It's easy to say 'you should have seen this coming'. Well, hindsight is great, isn't it? I definitely think it was worth a shot at the time, and I still think it was the right call. Had Zizuph been able to focus more on his wizard an less on everything else, I think the end result would have been very good. He got his second chance, but if you ask me, he did not take it. In hindsight, perhaps I should have made him choose between mortal and wizard, but on the other hand, we don't force others to make this choice, so, I did not think that would have been fair either.

The Genesis wizard ranks need good programmers, but MUCH more importantly, we need trustworthy people who stick to the rules. No programming skill in the world will let you stay a wizard if you continuously break the game's rules.

So, there you go. Feel free to ask questions about what I wrote, or about something else that I did not cover.

[gorboth]

Oh, looks like we forgot one ...

RUMOUR: Genesis is lucky to have Cherek as Keeper, and he deserves immense credit for his stewardship and care for the game.

This is no rumour! It is iron-clad fact, my friends.

G.