Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Issue: 82   Editor: NyxxieGoneWild


Banned Property Owners Update ryneb
As I'm sure many of you seen while trying to gamble, properties held by banned players are no longer playable. Thanks to Nyxxie I was able to find out the specifics of this new and much needed update.

The biggest change is that banned properties will no longer be held by Moderators anymore. While those properties that were removed from banned players before the change will still remain under control of the Moderators that held them until the ban appeal process is over, any future properties held by banned players will remain that players property for the duration of the ban appeal process.

For those that are unaware, there are two types of bans; permanent and temporary. Depending on the type of ban a player receives will affect what happens to any properties held.

Any player receiving a temporary ban will retain any properties that they were holding before the ban was given. This includes land, casinos, or bullet factories. If a player is holding a casino or bullet factory the max or bullet price will remain the same as what it was when the ban was given, but the properties will still be useable by the community.

For those receiving a permanent ban things are much different. They will still hold onto any properties that they held before the ban, but those properties will become locked. That means casinos can no longer be played on, bullet factories will stop production, an establishment garage can no longer take in new cars, and establishment safe houses can not take in new customers. Any cars already in a garage or players in safe house of a banned players establishment will not be affected until the ban is finalized. If the player does not appeal the ban or the appeal is denied all properties held by that player will automatically be dropped and any garaged cars or players in safe houses will automatically be removed.

This is a great update as it will eliminate one of the biggest sources of what many players claim to be "Moderator corruption." Since banned properties will no longer be held by Moderators that argument can finally be buried.

However we may see some drawbacks to this update as time progresses. Suppose a player is given a temporary ban while they have a large max on their casino and they end up losing their casino because they could not change their max. We all know that ban appeals can take quite some time as the final decision is handled by an Administrator. What if the majority of the bullet factories are held by players awaiting decisions on a permanent ban and the bullet flow significantly slows down? How exactly the Staff will take care of situations such as these is uncertain and only time will tell as they occur.