There are no easy answers nor quick-fixes for this sort of problem - just hard slog and inconvenience all round because some people are idiots and don't read rules or behave themselves. Some don't even care.
We're continuously monitoring the quality of RP and attempting where possible to educate first, ban later. It is not an exact science, and it requires a great deal of staff time and commitment, all of which is voluntarily given, and unpaid - so there are limits to what we can reasonably expect staff to do.
We're aware that the queue is a bone of contention for some people, and there are as many different 'solutions' proposed by people as there are stars in the universe. Opinions are like arseholes... everybody has one (and yes, even a stoma counts).
We are considering our options on a daily basis, while balancing that against developer time - again, devs are fully committed, many of them working ridiculous hours day in day out to get things fixed and develop new things, all without any form of pay, and often in the face of some really toxic criticism by people who seem to think they are owed instant solutions, or red-carpet access to stuff that they then proceed to abuse or break. Not pointing any fingers at anyone on this thread, but it does mean that the devs sometimes have to just hunker down and 'get on with the problems they can solve', rather than holding endless 'focus-groups' to debate about the finer points of what certain players may think is "the only way, and it's only a couple of lines of code, surely?"
In short, we fight the fires we can fight, in the order we can fight them, according to our time, mindset, fatigue, and our copious internal discussions about priority and impact of any change. We don't always get it right - and we almost certainly will not get it 100% right for you, right now, today, pronto... but we do hear the most important concerns and they bubble up to a point where they become more pressing, have merit, and are worthy of being dealt with in turn.
In terms of the ban system, it will not be changing greatly - fair bans do seem to work better than the old 'everything must go to appeal' system, and it reduces the amount of staff time wasted on forum-writing (which some folks do not find as easy as me), and enables some idiots to be converted much more quickly with a friendly word in an ear, or a moment or two of in-game pointers or out-of-game chat, rather than a lofty appeal in public that takes a lot longer, and requires a lot more 'overwatch'.
I am looking at a number of solutions that might reward 'quality' roleplayers with a boost through the queue, but this is not a simple thing to set in motion, and will require a lot of support from staff and others in order to nominate who might be worthy, and who isn't. In time, we may see a system whereby some routinely great players are red-carpeted through the queue, while others who are borderline trolls find themselves waiting in line a lot longer for their chance to prove they are not a total dipshit after all. But as with all things, there will doubtless be much REEEEing and whining by those who have not been lucky enough to get a 'ticket to the party', and who are not fully aware that it's because they're basically not worthy. Those will be some tough conversations, I expect - and this is why the judgement of such things, and the handling of the disputes that will doubtless arise, need careful planning first, before any kind of implementation.
And of course, if it does not meet with approval from the rest of our staff, dev and management teams, or we cannot find people we are 100% agreed on as being 'judgers of quality roleplay', even within our own teams, then this may never happen at all. We shall see.
For now, just deal with it by reporting all instances of shit roleplay (and I mean **really** shit roleplay, not just someone who 'beat you' in an encounter or you don't like - I mean someone who is breaking actual rules). Use the Report-a-Player system on the Forum. Upload video evidence. Use the ID-reveal tool in-game to enable staff to later correlate videos of bad behaviour with a specific timed-session and session-ID, and nail the buggers properly - even if only for that 'first Fair Ban and Chat', or whatever. We will only combat bad players by working together and supporting the staff. Staff are not omniscient, and cannot see everything, every time, 24/7 - they can only react to what they have been informed of, and are able to respond to (at the time, or later in a report), or the things that happen to go off in front of them when they are trying to cover several hundred square miles of territory in which some people are being numpties.
We will continue to gradually increase the expectation upon players to 'give good RP', or they will slowly find themselves shut out - whether by queue access, or a straight ban. But it starts with us - the players - taking an active role, but a quiet one - no threats in-game to upload bodycam, no pretending to be staff yourself, just record what you see, and upload it if bad and needing attention, with as much detail as possible as to ID, and time, and the staff will do the rest as soon as they can get to it.
Then, in time, our queue will be chock full of brilliant RPers, all complaining that they still can't get on... but at least this particular gripe will be behind us.
