The Mana World Forums

I wasn't personally putting your ability as a GM into question. I was speaking generally and certain things I have witnessed. So my apologies if it was taken that way.

The point I am trying to get across on rule #2 is that plain and simple GM's should not take crap. They should not have to argue with players about their decisions. I do get what you are saying, It shouldn't have to be said about GM's treating players in the same fashion, one would assume when selecting a GM that is a prerequisite.

I could pull countless posts where I saw players attempting to undermine GM's authority or out right insulting them. This should not be tolerate and only opens the door for more people to do so. I can't see how anyone who reads through the forum can deny this is a problem. My suggestion is nip it in the butt now. Once this type of behavior is tolerated it will only get worse.

-PS-

Wrote before your last reply. And I agree with you that is shouldn't have to be a rule but apparently it does.

Amum, GMs exist in this game based on player requests for them to be here. They aren't here to lord over players and they have rules established to ensure they don't abuse players.

Wombat there seems to be a basic concept you fail to grasp. I am new to this game and even I get it. Although I am sure the dev appreciate feedback that may improve the game ultimately they write the rules and the GM's enforce them. It is simple as that. Yet all you seem to want to do is undermine the rules and GM's.

Although I do not have any personal issues with you and would take no pleasure in seeing you banned yet I long for the day when a GM finally puts you in your place and ends your reign of BS.

Hey Amun, what I do is ensure the rules are enforced fairly within the game. While you favor a strict GM imposition on players, I favor the orthodoxy of the rules before the GM system was established and that the GMs adhere to those rules as were created before they existed. This "putting me in my place" attitude misunderstands that I do respect the role of the GM and that some of the strongest arguments I've had with GMs is with those GMs I agree with the most. Our arguments have sometimes taken a character that seems more hyperbolic than what the disagreement has been over. In the end, these arguments/discussions/whatever help to define how the GM role behaves within the game and helps the players act in ways that further a more creative environment that goes beyond the brownnosing you'd expect a player to perform to a GM.

So basically instead of the GM's enforcing the rules you want to be the one enforcing the rules. Instead of a policed environment you want to be almighty Wombat Warlord of the Mana World. Is that what this is all about? You got rejected when handing out GM positions?

Never wanted to be a GM. As for the rest, I'll take it as simple bait not worth responding to. I am not trying to enforce my will, but rather argue in favor of the status quo.

I don't think GMs should be almighty. Well, they sort of are, but they are not supposed be beyond criticism. It's reasonable that they justify their actions as they did before. I shouldn't be banned for disagreeing with a decision and expressing my thoughts (preferably) in a civilized way. That's censorship and dictatorship and it sucks in any kind of world. The "let 'em hunt bots and leave us alone" is dumb. It's like asking a cop to go on writing speeding tickets while people kill each other across the street. The game has bigger problems than bots and GMs are the only ones that have effective means to solve them.

However, a GM does not have that much time to waste. They will never be able to endlessly argue over each and every decision they make nor should they be asked to. I agree that in the past some objections have been rejected with an abrupt "This is not a discussion forum!" and a brief explanation would have been a nicer approach. It also might have degenerated in endless useless discussions at least half of the times. It's in our best interest that GMs spend their time being GMs, not indulging whiners and complainers.

GMs have their own equilibrium and I doubt that anyone can make it better. There will always be extremists to complain. Some of them want (almost) no GMs at all while others expect them to do and to know and to judge everything. Some of them want GM's to be human bot detectors while others want them to be perfect almighty gods. They are all wrong. GMs are and always have been in a middle zone where they should be. Our discussion goal should be to leave aside extremist nonsense and to define that middle zone better.

There is no way I can stop another player from seriously damaging my game experience. We actually need GM help in abuse cases. Ignoring is not a proper solution. An abuser can also say bad things *about* me not only to me. Ignoring him/her will only render me unable to defend myself. It's just like closing my eyes and screaming "you're not there anymore!".

We need a new option from our nice developers. A really useful ignore tool would be "ignore whispers from player". I should be able to chose to defend myself in public or to report abuse while keeping any private channels with the abuser closed. I hope that will be possible some day.

I would also like to propose some rules concerning insults and all language abuse:

1. The GMs will only interfere in public disputes and harassment cases. All complaints for whispered insults will be ignored.
2. The offense can only be punished if it was proved, admitted or witnessed by a GM. For screenshot evidence, at least 3(three) other known players appearing in the picture must confirm that they remember that conversation taking place as reported.
I admit, this is not at all foolproof, but something like this is accepted in real world too. Sugarcorgit's "gross pig" situation could have been framed on a different server. We need real known players from server.themanaworld.org confirming the screenshot for it to be accepted as evidence.
3. If a player offends you in an isolated place, the discussion is considered private. Private issues will not be solved by GMs. If the abuser follows you around harassing and insulting you, it will be considered abuse, but the only way to prove it is whispering to a GM or using @wgm. The GM receiving the call must come asap in invisible mode and try to witness the situation.

Just one small thought:

We cannot completely ignore whispered abuse. We need to pay attention to people pretending to be admins, GMs, the server or whatever.

We cannot completely prove it either. You can still rely on it, but it will only work until next time you guys will need to ban someone with lots of friends. You need real evidence, people. It's really easy to fake any picture containing a private discussion and there is no way to bring witnesses (I can either patiently edit it or I can make my own server, create characters on it with the names of my victims, dress them up as they are on the official server, make them say whatever I wish and take a nice screen shot to prove it. I can also use one of my medium-lvl accounts to claim that Captain Awesome tried to scam me. My main account might even stand a chance to get away with it). Keeping the whispers as evidence can induce 2 kinds of situations: guilty people will cleverly and persistently deny the proof up to the limit of reasonable doubt while some innocents will go down in flames screaming "I didn't do it".

My opinion is that you can safely ban low-level empty-inventory accounts reported for scamming even with very little proof as there is no real interest in framing someone into losing something pretty worthless. Well, to be honest, there is not much you can really do about such people pretending to be GMs, the server, whatever, because if the scammers are known players they make dummy low level accounts and don't give a damn about getting them banned. It's a tight spot alright. IP banning was discussed and it's not a viable solution because of shared connections, campus/office networks, dynamic IPs etc. Erasing/banning/reseting all accounts playing from that IP might also end up in huge injustices.

It gets a bit more complicated when the reported account is someone's main character or mule. Scamming brings up a permanent ban if I'm not mistaken so you can't just go ahead and do it. If you can't do it by respecting rule #2 of my previous list, I suggest that at least one GM should specialize in busting scammers. In order to do that they will create a few accounts and try to become victims of reported (but not proved) scammers and entrap them. I think you should use the GM with the best social skills for this job.

Kill3rZ wrote:There is no way I can stop another player from seriously damaging my game experience. We actually need GM help in abuse cases. Ignoring is not a proper solution. An abuser can also say bad things *about* me not only to me. Ignoring him/her will only render me unable to defend myself. It's just like closing my eyes and screaming "you're not there anymore!".

We need a new option from our nice developers. A really useful ignore tool would be "ignore whispers from player". I should be able to chose to defend myself in public or to report abuse while keeping any private channels with the abuser closed. I hope that will be possible some day.

I think this sounds like a good idea.

Concerning screenshots, we've known for a long time that they are very easy to fake. They are not used as proof of guilt, but they are very useful as clarifications of what is being reported. As for witnesses, we can't really know that they are not the same person or part of a group trying to ban someone innocent, so they should not be used as proof of guilt either.

1. Do not abuse other players (it means insults, swearing etc. directed to a particular person/s)
2. No bots (and by botting I mean ANY AFK activity in game).
3. No spamming/flooding (including trade spam).
4. No begging.
5. Speak English on public chat.
6. RFC 1855.

I made these rules to fit myself, since I was cocky enought that I knew I can find balance between reason and sissy picking up on everyone and be fair. Rule is ruling over those rules (pun it), is common sense, which is something a GM and decent, inteligent people should possess.

Most of persons who received a penalty from current GMs (all of them either not chosen by me or chosen against my will) would never receive it from me, because of simple fact:

Banning people for they say requires skill and empathy.

I made these rules like commandements, but not to turn this community into GM asskissing brainless bunch of idiots who pretends to be more saint than a pope because it is a requirement to:
1. Not be banned.
2. Gain sympathy of those in power.
3. Fullfill crazy idea of political correctness and being children friendly.

And there are no way to make guidance and definitions of levels or abuse, if you don't know what is abuse and what is usual skirmish between people from different cultures, nations, races etc. etc. then you never should be a GM.

Also I never was and I never meant GMs to be nothing else than TWM Inquisition.

Ofcourse I demanded respect (and I do it still), of course I demanded people to be obedient - I spend the time to make the game more enjoyable for you, so if you don't like my personality, go f.u.c.k some goat, thank you.

But I never demanded people to be sissies concerened about "if I get banned if I say that"?

There is a think line between abuse and normal human behaviour - when you simply, sometimes, get pissed off - current GMs can't see that line, and this is their problem, and this disqualifies them from being GMs at all.

Regards.

As for witnesses, we can't really know that they are not the same person or part of a group trying to ban someone innocent, so they should not be used as proof of guilt either.

Yeah, you're right. It needs some complicity (I used the expression "known players" meaning high-level unique users), but it's still possible.

From the lack of comments over the rest of my suggestions I understand that you probably have better ways of finding the truth (perhaps some player talk logs) so I'll stop trying to figure out judgment procedures.

If you still need our suggestions about an eventual rule list update, please tell us exactly what you need.

About language abuse, people should be able to ask for protection if someone just won't stop harassing or publicly assaulting them, but I think we should be able to have a nice angry argument every once in a while. We end up hating each other a lot less if we can express ourselves freely than if we need to repress.

Platyna wrote:Regards.

Amen.

Middle Ground is for the weak!
There must be order!
Strict Discipline!
Accountability!
Punishment!

Heil Hitler!