Why GM's are not needed

[Hello=)]

huh? Being a GM is not about "having power". The only thing it is is exhausting.

Unfortunately, that's the only way it could work without annoying many users a way too much. As for me, that's a right words for GM. If someone will ever seek for administrative staff for running any kind of server filled by alive users, I can recommend to seek for people like Katze. Then you will (almost) never sorry about staff's actions and have much less headaches in total. It's hard to find such people but it's worth of efforts.

And actually, server staff have to be respected for that silent and successful job. Not for elvated rights or whatever else.

P.S.:As for analogy with police, think about these simple things: have you seen any policemen randomly shooting from their guns and/or using other special things "just because they want"? Or have you seen cops who ride in "pursuit mode" over the roads, ignoring all driving rules ... just to get faster to some local shop?! This is rare to see and normally does not happens, right? There is certain set of rules limiting what police can and when. To prevent some kind of anarchy. Policeman can't stop you "just because dislikes your face". Policeman who fails to obey certain rules or uses granted power to have personal gains or provide unfair gains to his friends, etc could get punished for incorrect usage of granted power (read appropriate laws and regulations of your country, but this mostly the same in many countries in the world). That's how it actually works. Otherwise it could (and would) turn into a complete hell instead.

So I guess, some commands uses and guidelines are good to re-think to reduce amount of these "all GMs suck" (and similar) topics. IMHO, basically GMs should try to do only what really needed to keep game running and usable. And it could annoy players if GM warps via 5 maps during playing the game while usual players have to walk 5 maps. So if GM wants to appear in game and play it, that's fine. But then GM probably should respect other players and ... walk these 5 maps - just as any other player. And so on. In short, players should not see elevated privileges usage unless this can't be avoided.

[Galadriel]

-1 wolf_pack. You really should get your facts together before you click [Submit].

+1 Katze

+1 t3st3r

wolf_pack:
I realize it was a shock to the GMs to be suddenly stripped of rank. I can understand that. But Katze's got a point. I think she's been in-game as a normal player long enough now to hear some of the grievances players have toward some GMs for some ... valid reasons. These players might not have the courage to express themselves prior to this testing time because GMs have @invisible. And, as t3st3r suggested above: this gives some GMs the power to eavesdrop into some very private conversations. And things honestly expressed in such times could cause the wrong GM to get angry with us lowly players.

As I've said in-game: angering a GM means facing the possible risk of losing 70+, 80+ or 90+ levels. That a lot of hard work down the drain. Yes: you can wave the "It's Just A Game" flag in that unfortunate person's face. But enough players feel it's worth harassment from abusive GMs with silence... than abuse with the risk nothing will change by complaining.

This testing time of no GMs isn't meant to be abusive to GMs (though I do find it interesting to see how many GM groupies are eager for the GMs to return). This is a testing time. As such, it's becoming a period where players are thinking: "Wow! this ... this isn't a joke. The GMs are not GMs anymore. I can finally state my opinions freely." This is what the Devs need. Some players are timid enough to remain silent when they feel threatened. So if players are now expressing a common grief, please pause a moment to consider that it might NOT be mindless "GM-bashing". It just may be possible that these expressed feelings have merit.

[InspectorShameless]

[EDIT]

[Amun]

Sadly yes they have returned. =p But removing them in the first place looking back seems to have been pointless. Although I think I know the real reason it was done. The Dev's and GM's were hoping for mad chaos(which didn't happen) Why? So the people who spoke out against gm's to begin with would cry for their return. Than there would be no more complaints about gm's and people would rejoice when they returned. Unfortunately the plan back fired and people realised how little in fact the gm's were needed and moaned and groaned about their return.

It's a good hypothesis I think!

[Jaxad0127]

Sadly yes they have returned. =p But removing them in the first place looking back seems to have been pointless. Although I think I know the real reason it was done. The Dev's and GM's were hoping for mad chaos(which didn't happen) Why? So the people who spoke out against gm's to begin with would cry for their return. Than there would be no more complaints about gm's and people would rejoice when they returned. Unfortunately the plan back fired and people realised how little in fact the gm's were needed and moaned and groaned about their return.

It's a good hypothesis I think!

That wasn't the goal. It was a hoped-for side-effect, though.

The main purpose of the removal was to see where the GMs are really needed, so we could revise the rules appropriately.

[Macias_P]

No, there was no chaos or too much botting during the no-GM period. Some places like the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him, which makes his behavior more a developer problem than GM's problem. When GM's returned, other less-agressive bots (which players could have taken care of easily) were the ones banned.

Maybe GM's should ask themselves why many players don't like the idea of having them to enforce the rules, or why there is a sense of corruption surrounding theim. Slicer may be good example.

[Cotillion]

No, there was no chaos or too much botting during the no-GM period. Some places like the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him, which makes his behavior more a developer problem than GM's problem. When GM's returned, other less-agressive bots (which players could have taken care of easily) were the ones banned.

Maybe GM's should ask themselves why many players don't like the idea of having them to enforce the rules, or why there is a sense of corruption surrounding theim. Slicer may be good example.

I'm sorry, what?? i don't hang out in skull room, but can you please explain "the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him". How do you know that?

[Jaxad0127]

No, there was no chaos or too much botting during the no-GM period. Some places like the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him, which makes his behavior more a developer problem than GM's problem. When GM's returned, other less-agressive bots (which players could have taken care of easily) were the ones banned.

Maybe GM's should ask themselves why many players don't like the idea of having them to enforce the rules, or why there is a sense of corruption surrounding theim. Slicer may be good example.

I'm sorry, what?? i don't hang out in skull room, but can you please explain "the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him". How do you know that?

The details of the incidents are being looked into by the ISPs of the players involved. The incident is not a dev issue as in every case we were able to look into, Slicer found their details on IRC and not through our server.

[Katze]

As far as I know, lamb and kinwa gave their chars to Slicer to play with them.

As for what he did. That might be a problem that cannot really sufficiently be solved by GMs.

[Macias_P]

I'm sorry, what?? i don't hang out in skull room, but can you please explain "the skull room were abused by the slicer-lamb-kinwa bot. Some players even got DOSed by him". How do you know that?

Several players complained, Slicer himself admitted it, even more, he seemed to be proud of it (DOS attacks on other players). Also, that room went unusable for any other player.

As far as I know, lamb and kinwa gave their chars to Slicer to play with them.

lamb and kinwa got their characters leveled up by allowing Slicer to use them. They got benefits by helping slicer to abuse other players. They should lose those levels.

[Katze]

If Slicer weren't that "almighty" the case would be quite clear. It is just possible he might be doing worse things than that out of boredom.

[Macias_P]

Anyway, this slicer thing was just an example. His code is just unimpressive client modifications and kiddie dos attacks. Any botter can say, and he'll be in his right to point it out, "Hey, i got caught just once and was banned, while this other guy has done far worse things and nothing happened to him"

That's why i mentioned this particular case. To explain why players can get the impression that there is a lot of unfairness in the game, and sometimes GM's just increase that impression. Discussing it in more detail is just getting away from the point.

Katze spoke before of getting a more detailed set of rules and punishments, a good idea that will help to rule out the impression that some actions are arbitrary. Another good idea is more detail on GM's logs. I also think that GM's actions should be open to discussion (example: The courhouse "irrelevant" rule just allows GM's to do whatever they want without even being questioned about it, criticism will just be deleted as irrelevant).

As long as players cant't control GM's and their actions, there will be people like me, that won't like the idea of having players with the power to punish other players. The "experiment" showed basically that most players just play the game and respect other players. There was no chaos or massive botting. Law enforcement should be kept to deal with just a few cases most players know about.

[Jaxad0127]

Katze spoke before of getting a more detailed set of rules and punishments, a good idea that will help to rule out the impression that some actions are arbitrary. Another good idea is more detail on GM's logs. I also think that GM's actions should be open to discussion (example: The courhouse "irrelevant" rule just allows GM's to do whatever they want without even being questioned about it, criticism will just be deleted as irrelevant).

That isn't the purpose of the Court House forum. You can complain about GMs in the Player Talk forum.

As long as players cant't control GM's and their actions, there will be people like me, that won't like the idea of having players with the power to punish other players. The "experiment" showed basically that most players just play the game and respect other players. There was no chaos or massive botting. Law enforcement should be kept to deal with just a few cases most players know about.

And that's what they're here for. A revised set of GM guidelines will be posted soon.

[Macias_P]

Macias_P wrote:
Katze spoke before of getting a more detailed set of rules and punishments, a good idea that will help to rule out the impression that some actions are arbitrary. Another good idea is more detail on GM's logs. I also think that GM's actions should be open to discussion (example: The courhouse "irrelevant" rule just allows GM's to do whatever they want without even being questioned about it, criticism will just be deleted as irrelevant).

That isn't the purpose of the Court House forum. You can complain about GMs in the Player Talk quote

A good way to keep the complaints out of context, thus making them really irrelevant by separating them from the specific action. Player talk is general purpose, with lots of thread started, so complaints posted there can be easily ignored.

Macias_P wrote:
As long as players cant't control GM's and their actions, there will be people like me, that won't like the idea of having players with the power to punish other players. The "experiment" showed basically that most players just play the game and respect other players. There was no chaos or massive botting. Law enforcement should be kept to deal with just a few cases most players know about.

And that's what they're here for. A revised set of GM guidelines will be posted soon.

Maybe that's what they're here for, but many of us have the sensation that that's not what they have been doing. I see that you have chosen to ignore the whole control point which is the central part of both paragraphs, and chose two specific sentences. And please, don't say "That's what log's are for". If a player has a complaint about any specific action taken against him, he can do nothing effective about it. Of course there are logs and the forum, but as control mechanisms they insufficient.

I can bring up examples that weren't explained at the log, ulterior protests at forum were just ignored. I really hope GM guidelines get finally posted, and I expect the discussion of those rules to be open.

[Jaxad0127]

As long as players cant't control GM's and their actions, there will be people like me, that won't like the idea of having players with the power to punish other players. The "experiment" showed basically that most players just play the game and respect other players. There was no chaos or massive botting. Law enforcement should be kept to deal with just a few cases most players know about.

And that's what they're here for. A revised set of GM guidelines will be posted soon.

Maybe that's what they're here for, but many of us have the sensation that that's not what they have been doing. I see that you have chosen to ignore the whole control point which is the central part of both paragraphs, and chose two specific sentences. And please, don't say "That's what log's are for". If a player has a complaint about any specific action taken against him, he can do nothing effective about it. Of course there are logs and the forum, but as control mechanisms they insufficient.

I can bring up examples that weren't explained at the log, ulterior protests at forum were just ignored. I really hope GM guidelines get finally posted, and I expect the discussion of those rules to be open.

You said "Law enforcement should be kept to deal with just a few cases most players know about.". And that's what I responded to with my first sentence.

You can respond to GM actions. Just because you often have to do it in a different forum doesn't mean you're prevented from doing so. Do you complain about police actions in a court of law? Or do you talk about it in public forums and write to the people who make the laws? The former is the equivalent of the Court House forum, the latter is more like Player Talk.

Do you yourself tell the police what they should and shouldn't do? Or do you let the powers that be say what they should and shouldn't do? (Assuming you aren't one of the powers that be where you live).

GMs shouldn't work for the whims of players, but enforce the rules as set by the server administration. That role will become more defined and kept to by the GMs. If you don't like the rules, you can go play elsewhere.