I will do my best to answer your questions/points:
1) Death penalties last a minimum of four months. The in-game time shifts have been going since before the Zompania draft. Other metaplot elements have been extant for even longer. The point is really that 3-4 months is not a particularly long period of time in this game, or in any ongoing RP.
2) The severity was left up to the discretion of the players as a courtesy, since those involved in the Zompania draft were not warned ahead of time as to the specific long-term effects of the draft, only that there would be something. As such, it would be pretty darn rude to suddenly retract that courtesy without first providing the players a way to have this effect removed, wouldn't it?
3) In regards to the expectation of being told results of a plot in advance, I don't believe that it has ever been the policy of the mod team to spoil metaplot or reveal details before events make it absolutely necessary. This was true, say, when characters were given the option of stealing cultist-related items in Zompania and Pagoda, and is also true for the nightmares. Again, as the nightmares were not voluntary (unlike the thievery in the ruined enclosures) the severity and execution has been left to the players out of courtesy.
no subject
1) Death penalties last a minimum of four months. The in-game time shifts have been going since before the Zompania draft. Other metaplot elements have been extant for even longer. The point is really that 3-4 months is not a particularly long period of time in this game, or in any ongoing RP.
2) The severity was left up to the discretion of the players as a courtesy, since those involved in the Zompania draft were not warned ahead of time as to the specific long-term effects of the draft, only that there would be something. As such, it would be pretty darn rude to suddenly retract that courtesy without first providing the players a way to have this effect removed, wouldn't it?
3) In regards to the expectation of being told results of a plot in advance, I don't believe that it has ever been the policy of the mod team to spoil metaplot or reveal details before events make it absolutely necessary. This was true, say, when characters were given the option of stealing cultist-related items in Zompania and Pagoda, and is also true for the nightmares. Again, as the nightmares were not voluntary (unlike the thievery in the ruined enclosures) the severity and execution has been left to the players out of courtesy.
I hope that clears things up a bit.