As far as looking for an "excuse" or a "reason"? Don't you believe in mitagating circumstances? I'm sorry there, friend, but life isn't black and white.
Hatchet
I think you misunderstand. Taking this incident on an individual basis, I could honestly care less what Meister did. Sure, I have my personal opinions about him, but I don't have any deep-seeded need to wail about them, or any belief that they have anything to do with this issue. It's the big picture that is at the root of most people's negativity towards this affair.
And in case you continously missed it, the bigger picture is that many feel that had he been just a player, and not someone who represented a group in commercial matrimony with Funcom, he would have been banned. This is a very sore subject for many 'power' gamers, as I'd say that community has seen a large number of friends, who just so didn't happen to run a website which earns money through ads and a friendly relationship with Funcom through which players are funneled to by the lure of the official Funcom stamp in official Funcom media, banned for absolutely silly and mundane reasons that did not even reach the tepid level of bringing any in-game profit to them.
It reeks of favoritism. I could talk about Amona. I could go in to the mentality held by this community that Anarchy Online started as a game that attracted players like us by shooting for a higher standard in gaming, and taking the commercial risk of breaking from the Everquest model, and then slowly succumbing to the pressures of economics as it has reversed itself and become a pretty Everquest clone.
What I'm trying to say is that the negativity you see isn't, fair or not, based just off this incident. This is just another timber feeding the already existing flames of disgruntlement. Many many things over the last two years has culminated in a large portion of the 'power' gamer playerbase (older, not newer as the younger players approached the game from a more EQ stance) to seem so hateful and crabby.
This latest incident merely cements what was expressed in that other thread that takes several hours with pee breaks to read: Funcom does not understand how to write policies that are conducive to a good community while maintaining a low exploit-harassment enviornment. Instead, they act like a group of teen-agers who just 'wing it' because it's worked in the past.
If you'd like to debate about white and black, I'd be more then happy to.
After all, even shades (plural denoting multiple) of grey have a breaking and starting point between each other resulting in a difference between two 'colors', which is basically all black and white really is.
