As a long time player and someone who has spoken to a lot of people about the state of the game and forum recently, we all came to the same conclusion. The forum is trash and is rarely worth investing time into, and the game requires big changes that need addressing.
Let me start with the forum. Compared to the old forum, this one is dead. Only one section is remotely active and its is the German one and often its just the same trolls trading the usual crappy arguments back and forth, there is no real discussion. Simple threads where players discuss things are closed down, yes they may break some rules but discussion in this game is healthy, especially when it's about controversial topics like game rules. Yes the gms hold the power in the game, that much is evidently clear to the players (usually all enforced by one gm). English sw thread has now been closed for almost a year(atleast) and players have had to resort to other means just to be able to discuss their sieges, yes insults were thrown but I see no reason to block a thread that is one of the main ways to bring the community together.
I think I speak for a lot of players that would love an active forum that is alive and where discussions can be had about all form of topics, I'm sure this thread is closed and/or deleted preety quickly but I hope for the longevity of the game that it remains open so we can discuss the way forward for this game, as currently the spiral it's heading is not great. The gm team is looking quite small now a days with fewer and fewer each day, I wonder why when so many see the way that gms are forced to run this forum where again, discussions are clearly not allowed to be had if slightly controversial.
According to a reliable source, siege rules were enforced for one year before even being published to players, if this is true, this is an absolute outrage when players were asking for clarification for months about what is and is not allowed. Players should be informed what and why they were banned, not left guessing. The tos is very obscure and often the player has no clue the reason for their bans, you can disagree otherwise, but someone was recently banned for cheating and then found out today soloing wb is clearly against the rules, which leads me onto my next point.
What determines unfair advantage? To me using alts in Inis or to solo things is not unfair, if a player is skilled enough to play multiple chars at once that seems like other players issues who need to learn to play. Ofc if they're using scripts or bots it is against the rules but macros? No.
If you want to go against alts fine, but to me the alts that are damaging the game the most are the thousands of daily alts generating billions of gp into the game per day, this in itself ruins the economy far more then ppl soloing wb. Alts are needed to play this game, as f2p or due to lack of players or just for fun, blocking players on an unclear rule is just ridiculous as players don't even receive a warning for it, they can't even guess what unfair advantage is, as you only seem to ban for advantages that don't seem to profit you! I'm sure gms playing have alts they're doing dailies on which as I already explained is hurting the game far more then any other alts, and yet clearly people aren't being banned for this.
So please, for the longevity of the game, let the players discuss controversial topics. Be more open with players who may or may not break rules, let them actually put an appeal in, don't just write them the rule they broke or you think they broke as it does not offer clarity to anyone.
As I said above, I'm sure this thread Is closed or deleted but I hope otherwise as I'm sure a lot of players have their own opinions on it.