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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => Closed suggestions => Topic started by: Nice_Boat on July 18, 2010, 03:50:35 pm
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This discussion originated on the Polish sub-forum (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=6885.0 (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=6885.0)). Strangely enough, the ideas and reflexions brought up there surprisingly were met with acceptance of virtually everyone involved, with personal feuds and disagreements being cast aside. It made me hope that maybe, if such a level of understanding could be reached here, in the English part, a solution agreeable for everyone could be reached - so I undertook to take it here and start a thread describing our cause.
Now I understand that taking up this issue may cause unnecessary emotions and grief, so I'd like to start with a little disclaimer.
It is not the purpose of this thread to start a witch hunt or, for the matter of the fact declare anyone guilty or seek retribution. What's done is done, the past should be left behind.
It is not the purpose of this thread to start a forum gang war. The way I see it, everyone is going to benefit and the only people that possibly could have anything against this idea have some dirt on their hands.
It is not the puprpose of this thread to start a crusade against the GMs in general. The way I see it, they could benefit greatly from introducing the mechanics I'm about to propose or a functional replacement for them since their credibility would be significantly raised.
After this longish, but necessary introduction I'd like to outline the problem and offer a possible solution.
THE PROBLEM
Basically, the problem is the complete lack of transparency when it comes to GM actions. I'm not talking about their powers in general, but the impossibility of finding out who did what at times. There's also an obvious problem when it comes to the course of action some of these people take which at times is puzzling to say the least.
The first part of the problem is manifested by actions harmful to the players impossible to explain by anything aside from GM intervention. Such actions include spontaneous teleportation, sneak item theft 1 hex away from char, NPCs reacting in ways beyond their AI routine, spawning hostile NPCs, slaps for large ammounts of - AP, players having information they could not possibly have otherwise (for example instantly recognizing a new character as a person's alt) etc. Most of us have seen something like that at least once and while admittedly, it tends be funny at times, some of those actions were clearly unprovoked and made with malicious intent. While some of these actions could be explained by unidentified bugs, the rate of occurence and the sense of purpose prevalent in some situations is enough to make quite a lot of people suspicious and demanding explanation.
Now, I do understand that one can live with that, but along with the almighty GM sneak it opens up a new world of paranoia and fear for the gangs recognized as powerful on this server. The line of reasoning is simple and impossible to rebuff - if there are GMs supporting some players while combating others with silly things like that, how can a player be sure that his faction is not being spied on during TC hours or in their base? This issue is further aggravated by the irrefutable fact that there are screenshots of GMs being on a gang mumble. Yes, there is no solid proof, but there is enough reasonable suspicion and lack of trust to seek a solution.
As to the second part of the problem - some GMs seem to follow an agenda well outside the "official" server rules. They make rules on the fly: "no camping here", "no caravan traps of any kind", "no swearing" (and I do mean swearing, without any racial slurrs involved) are possibly the most common ones. Furthermore, they tend to follow their sympathies and antipathies from the time before they were GMs, with quite a few gangs having their own "angry God"... who happens to be angry even when they don't really sin. Again, it's very hard to present such instances of abuse with reasonable ammount of proof because screenshots are always out of context and can be edited, and in the end it all comes down to GM's word against the player's word.
Last, but not least, there's an Orwellian model of the appeal system at work, not only in the game, but also on IRC. You think a GM did something wrong? Of course you could appeal... to him. Of course if you know who and where to ask and your case is severe enough, you could get your case resolved, but for obvious reasons doing things this way is next to impossible for either new or generally unliked players. Even worse, questioning a GM, even if one has a reasonable point, quite often leads to airstrikes, IRC bans and threadlocks being employed, especially if the said GM is looking like losing the argument. I hope I don't have to explain how such a system is simply wrong and doesn't make the game player-friendly.
And yeah, I know wasteland is harsh, but the point of this thread is that it should be equally harsh to everyone.
THE RESULTS OF HOW THINGS ARE
The issue of the Devs allowing GMs to be malicious to other players without provocation is, I hope, out of the question, so I won't even bring this it under discussion here assuming such actions are strictly prohibited.
In the state of affairs we have, nobody wins aside from the few unidentified egomaniacs and cheaters that caused the emergence of this thread. The consequences of letting them continue carrying on the way they were are as follows:
- the playerbase obviously loses, being deprived of a fair gaming environment;
- the fair GMs lose because they lose respect as a group and people start treating all GMs as enemies, threat etc., avoiding them and making their job harder;
- the Devs lose with the playerbase, risking the failure of their project (nobody enjoys playing rigged games) and losing the most important betatesters (the ones who are aware of this situation and most prone to being upset by it are the ones most experienced a most likely to find bugs).
Furthermore, having such a morally ambiguous opposition between the GMs and players encourages cheating on the part of the players, with two simple psychological mechanisms working for it: "if they are supposed to enforce the law and set the standards and they cheat, why can't I?" and "they cheated me out of X and punished me for no reason, I have to cheat to compensate".
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
I suggest one, or a combination of the following measures to be introduced to change this situation and make GM actions transparent:
1. Makes the logs of GM actions available to all players on a new, separate forum sub-board. Each GM would have his own thread, the logs would appear with a 24 hour lag to avoid leaking any information sensitive to their current work. This sub-board would be impossible to moderate by anyone except the devteam. The logs should be created via a script that'd filter through the general server log to work around the high ammount of micromanagement doing it manually would entice. People could just check any suspicious situations and report any instances of abuse to the devs. The logs would be automatically removed after a sensible preset ammount of time to conserve server space if necessary.
2. Internet poker inspired solution. Make similiar a board, with screenshots instead of logs. The screenshots would be made at random, quite short intervals, unknown to the GMs and uploaded to a relevant section with a timestamp (imaged linked instead of being pasted into the board to make it more streamlined). If there's a suspicion of abuse, the player would check the time and check the relevant screenshots. Screenshots would be automatically removed after a sensible, preset ammount of time to conserve server space.
3. Make a person with a strong sense of justice from outside the GM and player groups responsible for assessing the complaints against GM and/or moderator abuse to avoid the aforementioned people being able to be judges in their own cause.
4. Make an all-inclusive list of actions prohibited to be performed in-game. That means that any actions outside the list are allowed and can not be punished by any GMs.
All of these suggestions except #2 would be quite easy to implement and would in my opinion greatly increase the quality, efficiency and transparency of GM work, as well as giving the community some sort of real control over their behaviour and a good, reliable tool of fighting pathology whenever it shows its ugly head.
CLOSING REMARKS
I strongly urge GMs to respond to this thread without hostility or the usual authoritarian attitude, because none of these suggestions was brought up with hurting you in mind. In fact, I don't see how any reasonable, upright member of the community concerned with the future of this great project have anything against introducing this sort of checks and balances to the GM trade. I'd also like the GMs to refrain from moderating in this thread, as it may and most probably will bring accusations of dishonesty to the table and start a flame - and when dealing with such a serious (and possibly gamebreaking) threat/issue, we should do all in our power to avoid this. There's enough people with moderator powers who are not GMs to keep this one thread civilized. For the same reasons, I urge players who feel hurt by any GM actions to refrain from acting overtly emotional and from pointing fingers or turning this thread into some sort of a lynching party. Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't post instances of GM abuse if you have solid proof, I'm just asking that should you do so, act in a civilized manner.
Finally, should anyone feel threatened by this thread and think it'd be a good idea to close or junk it - it's been authorised by Ghosthack, so I think that filling in a letter of resignation instead would be much simpler and less dramatic.
And once again - do NOT troll or flame here.
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And yeah, I know wasteland is harsh, but the point of this thread is that it should be equally harsh to everyone.
::)
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OK, I will try to restrain myself from my usual hostile and authoritarian attitude...
I like points 3 and 4.
I don't like points 1 and 2, especially 1 because it could give players to much info about methods and time when GMs detect cheats, exploits etc. It wouldn't be good for anyone but cheaters. Also some investigations are longer than 1 day. And I don't really think devs would like to be spammed 100 times / day with "I suspect GM of someting!" from some paranoid players, but I could be wrong... Besides some players might want discretion when talking to a GM on server, not everyone knows IRC, there can be some private info in logs/screens or info concerning other players not intended to be seen by public. At the same time it doesn't prevent at all some possible "abuses" like spying during TC for some team.
As a compromise for log access I think GMs should have access to commands logs of other GMs, so we could control each other. Right now we don't have it. Believe me or not, but I doubt any GM wants abusers and cheaters in the team (I don't think there are any in the moment, but as always, some players know better).
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OK, I will try to restrain myself from my usual hostile and authoritarian attitude...
I like points 3 and 4.
I don't like points 1 and 2, especially 1 because it could give players to much info about methods and time when GMs detect cheats, exploits etc. It wouldn't be good for anyone but cheaters. Also some investigations are longer than 1 day. Besides some players might want discretion when talking to a GM on server, not everyone knows IRC, there can be some private info in logs/screens or info concerning other players not intended to be seen by public, and GMs couldn't talk in game about things which should simply remain secret. At the same time it doesn't prevent at all some possible "abuses" like spying during TC for some team.
As a compromise for log access I think GMs should have access to logs of other GMs, so we could control each other. Right now we don't have it.
Sensitive information, like text typed when communicating with another player could be automatically censored. It's enough to see that communication was made to have some sort of knowledge about what's going on without infringing the privacy of any party involved. If an official investigation is launched, then of course full logs would be used. Same with other sensitive material, if there's anything top secret going on behind the scenes. The "disclosure lag" could be extended to one week to protect your investigations, it doesn't really matter as long as the public has access to what's been going on.
As for spying during TC - of course it doesn't prevent that, but it provides corroborative evidence and makes it look bad for the GM doing that - so yeah, he's standing there all the time when the X gang is fighting and doesn't provide any videos? Probably should look into him a bit.
Of course, allowing you to cross check your activities is still way better than no control at all, so I'd be happy with that, but not entirely satisfied.
Believe me or not, but I doubt any GM wants abusers and cheaters in the team (I don't think there are any in the moment, but as always, some players know better).
It's just an act of faith, and I don't think a system based on acts of faith alone is destined to be efficient or last long. I myself am a man of little faith and I base my views on what I see. And what I see is enough anecdotal evidence floating around to think that something wrong is going on. Basically, we're riding the same boat here ( ;D), with different attitudes. You believe and that's enough for you, I want to know - because without knowing, I can't fully enjoy this game.
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As for spying during TC - of course it doesn't prevent that, but it provides corroborative evidence and makes it look bad for the GM doing that - so yeah, he's standing there all the time when the X gang is fighting and doesn't provide any videos? Probably should look into him a bit.
Spying? I don't know how the others are doing this, but sometimes I just go there to watch it. I don't have reasons "to spy" someone or so. Sometimes it's good just seeing some people fight. ;) Also, no need to video just some random TC battle I watch while eating my lunch, just to have something to watch.
As for the rest: well, I wouldn't mind. It's not that our actions aren't logged already. I wouldn't matter seeing my logs somewhere here, but I doubt it's needed as it will only lead to more unneeded work. It's not just that easy censoring some sensitive information via a script, every log would need to be read/edited by hand everytime and it's tedious.
Besides this, it's not really the players job to overwatch the GMs, others are doing it already.
As I can see this here, @ this "GMs spying for their respective gang at others peoples bases" etc I can't tell. I never was part of a bigger gang and I doubt I will ever be. So I'm not really biased and don't even see a reason to "spy" in TC fights etc, it's not that players couldn't do that too when they are sneaky etc. But - I doubt other GMs are doing this too. As you say for yourself, Nice_Boat, there are no clear evicendences for such actions. Therefore it looks for me like the other ~20 threads we already have: "GM abuse" but with no evidence, just out of general paranoia.
EDIT: Though I like point 4 in your post.
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Spying? I don't know how the others are doing this, but sometimes I just go there to watch it. I don't have reasons "to spy" someone or so. Sometimes it's good just seeing some people fight. ;) Also, no need to video just some random TC battle I watch while eating my lunch, just to have something to watch.
Yeah, but when a GM affiliated with a gang does that it becomes something in a different league... especially if he posts a screenshot with his party on mumble in another thread.
As for the rest: well, I wouldn't mind. It's not that our actions aren't logged already. I wouldn't matter seeing my logs somewhere here, but I doubt it's needed as it will only lead to more unneeded work. It's not just that easy censoring some sensitive information via a script, every log would need to be read/edited by hand everytime and it's tedious.
Besides this, it's not really the players job to overwatch the GMs, others are doing it already.
Well, I know they are. I also know that it's not really that streamlined. Given the fact that it takes a lot of time, I don't think that the devs could and should be bothered with investigating such issues. Players could provide them with evidence, and then they could simply assess the situation. Players are the perfect watchdog simply because their resources when it comes to time are almost infinite compared with what the Devs or GMs have, and they really have a reason to care. I don't see how it can't be the 2238 society's job to overwatch its GM-police anyway. As for censoring sensitive information (in this case dialogue), come on. Is it that hard to have a script replacing the line "player x said hi" with "player x said **"? I don't know what format you're using, but it can't be that hard.
As I can see this here, @ this "GMs spying for their respective gang at others peoples bases" etc I can't tell. I never was part of a bigger gang and I doubt I will ever be. So I'm not really biased and don't even see a reason to "spy" in TC fights etc, it's not that players couldn't do that too when they are sneaky etc. But - I doubt other GMs are doing this too. As you say for yourself, Nice_Boat, there are no clear evicendences for such actions. Therefore it looks for me like the other ~20 threads we already have: "GM abuse" but with no evidence, just out of general paranoia.
Yeah, there is no clear evidence, but there are strong indications that it's happening. Actually, the only reason you didn't ever get hard evidence is because nobody is recording his game 24/7 and once you realise what happened it's already over. It's like this situation I've participated in with Kilgore going to bomb player X on a fresh char. Player X responds with saying "hi Kilgore" (he was lvl 1, starting gear and shit, straight from the first spawn location). Weird stuff, especially since Kilgore was talking Russian. Now, let's assume player X is clairvoyant. But it doesn't stop there. Kilgore goes to another location on the map, I give him armed dynamte by placing it on the ground. I move one hex away so that he could grab it. He tries, but dynamite disappears. It exploded 50 seconds later on the other side of the map. Now, that's a good sneaker, to avoid being noticed by two PCs and stealing something 1 hex away from them.
Of course that's rather silly, but it happened and it really makes me question the notion that all GMs see no reason in spying for a gang. And it certainly makes me way more paranoid than I usually am.
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You should Fraps TC fights like Izual and post them which would give hard evidence. This is all hearsay, we don't know if you are being biased from the past due to bad run-ins with GMs, or if the GMs themselves are acting in poor taste.
I'm sure this is because of when I think rejfyl claimed Cadiliac blew up his gun for swearing, but if a GM did this I'm sure it would've been logged.
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- the playerbase obviously loses, being deprived of a fair gaming environment;
- the fair GMs lose because they lose respect as a group and people start treating all GMs as enemies, threat etc., avoiding them and making their job harder;
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Furthermore, having such a morally ambiguous opposition between the GMs and players encourages cheating on the part of the players, with two simple psychological mechanisms working for it: "if they are supposed to enforce the law and set the standards and they cheat, why can't I?" and "they cheated me out of X and punished me for no reason, I have to cheat to compensate".
-The gaming environment is fair, paranoia only says that is not. While certain things may have happened, this does Not change the overall gameplay, and if someone Does let something like this really bother them, they are dwelling considerably too much upon it.
-GMs will always lose respect as a group, because soon as someone says 'no' to something, they're being a bad booger about it. And the fair GMs will not lose any respect on their own if they do things right, and the players who know them Will know this. Despite my own hostile and often odd view of things, I still have managed to do GMly things without having someone fear-monger about me.
And no, paranoia is not a justifiable excuse to cheating. People will cheat Anyway, whether they feel jilted by a higher power, or not, just because people like to get ahead any possible way.
However, I do agree with Jovanka in wanting the logs available to ourselves, as they are not at present. One reason being to police ourselves, but also because with several people who are making decisions and rules, having access to them would make another GMs work considerably easier in understanding and dealing with situations down the the road which may have been caused by a previous decision.
...Fear-mongering is the name of the game in this thread. And I do not approve, despite what may have prompted its inception.
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-The gaming environment is fair, paranoia only says that is not. While certain things may have happened, this does Not change the overall gameplay, and if someone Does let something like this really bother them, they are dwelling considerably too much upon it.
Oh, but things like destroying a legit caravan trap certainly change the overall gameplay and belong to the mildly-serious cathegory. Also, there was a certain GM who lost his powers because he tended to change the overall gameplay too much. So I hope we'll learn to agree to disagree on this one.
-GMs will always lose respect as a group, because soon as someone says 'no' to something, they're being a bad booger about it. And the fair GMs will not lose any respect on their own if they do things right, and the players who know them Will know this. Despite my own hostile and often odd view of things, I still have managed to do GMly things without having someone fear-monger about me.
You're wrong simply because there's no way of identifying the GM interacting with you at times, so the players can't really identify the ones that do things right and the ones that do things wrong.
And no, paranoia is not a justifiable excuse to cheating. People will cheat Anyway, whether they feel jilted by a higher power, or not, just because people like to get ahead any possible way.
It's not an excuse and I didn't present it as an excuse, but the fact remains it's a psychological enabler.
...Fear-mongering is the name of the game in this thread. And I do not approve, despite what may have prompted its inception.
If all that happens is fear-mongering, than why do you oppose making your activities public? If you don't do anything questionable, than certainly you should have nothing to fear, right? Especially since the information lag basically excludes the possibility of your current operations being jeopardized. Moreover, how can you be so sure about everyone in the GM team being fair, if your knowledge of their activities is very much limited?
And anyway, a system which allows paranoia setting in and nourishes it is bad and should be change. As I've said, there's basically no risk in transparency. Devs don't do secret special ops, they mostly do simple, repetitive work. If there are some procedures concerning cheat detection you'd rather have hidden from public view, they could always be censored from the logs as they're not really relevant to overwatching your actions.
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Devs have the logs, I trust devs enough to be sure they won't let "GM abuse" happened. Also, when I see all the "GM ABUZ" thread and when I see that people who make these thread are wrong 95% of time, I don't think you have to bother with so much work to calm down a bit the paranoia.
In fact I find GMs far too gentle. It's a free game, if they find something reprehensible, it's their work to prevent it, even if it's not write in big letters in game rules. Publish the logs would just make players read every fucking line to find something to bother GM (and GM are humans, they do mistake, so they will find...). It will make them unconfortable and they will do a less effective work. So I don't think it's a so good idea.
"No rules about moderation. Enjoy your ban."
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Just because I don't do anything illegal does not mean I also think that players think they have the right to dig their nose so deeply. I would like to keep things fair, but that does not mean it has to include You in the process. GMs are having to police players. Criminals in real life often cry foul of the police in order to cover their own skins. Letting the players into the knowledge of what we are doing is not something I approve of, but I DO approve and want to be able to police ourselves.
Right now, player says so-and-so did this, can't really do anything, but if we could have those logs, another GM could simply look into it themselves and see what was said/done. The only fear you should have during that would be that every single superior was corrupt and thus everyone covered everyone else. I do not think this is the case, so the open-book policy you want is unneeded and unwarranted.
In the end, it comes down to you trying to give yourself rights to something which you just don't have any right to ask for.
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Devs have the logs, I trust devs enough to be sure they won't let "GM abuse" happened. Also, when I see all the "GM ABUZ" thread and when I see that people who make these thread are wrong 95% of time, I don't think you have to bother with so much work to calm down a bit the paranoia.
Reconite. It happened. The dynamite thing. It happened. The caravan thing. It happened, with screenshots. Yet you still blow the "paranoia" whistle. Okay, I'm paranoid. Actually, quite a lot of people are paranoid right now. Why can't we have a simple script or two and a new official checking the complaints we might fill to quell our paranoia is beyond my understanding.
In fact I find GMs far too gentle. It's a free game, if they find something reprehensible, it's their work to prevent it, even if it's not write in big letters in game rules.
The moment Devs make it the official guideline for GMs I'm stopping playing, and I'm not going to be alone. I'm too old and too busy to be a plaything of a person that prevents or enforces something I'm not even sure exists beyond his or her imagination. I'm just happy even the GMs themselves probably wouldn't support it... at least officially.
Publish the logs would just make players read every fucking line to find something to bother GM (and GM are humans, they do mistake, so they will find...). It will make them unconfortable and they will do a less effective work. So I don't think it's a so good idea.
"No rules about moderation. Enjoy your ban."
It'd actually help if they were people of a character strong enough to withstand this immense pressure. Moreover, you may enjoy rules resemblining dictatorship, but I'd rather have rule of law instead, thank you.
Just because I don't do anything illegal does not mean I also think that players think they have the right to dig their nose so deeply. I would like to keep things fair, but that does not mean it has to include You in the process. GMs are having to police players. Criminals in real life often cry foul of the police in order to cover their own skins. Letting the players into the knowledge of what we are doing is not something I approve of, but I DO approve and want to be able to police ourselves.
In real life, people have a lot of control over their legal system. If they don't, it means they're living in a police state. I don't want to know how your utilities work in great detail and I don't care, but I want to know when were they used, for what reason and against whom. Your vision of good police work seems to be officer Anonymous shooting John Kowalsky to the head for reasons unknown and than saying that little Johnnie was behaving bad. My vision of good police work is officer John Wayne shooting John Kowalsky to the head because he was holding a hostage after escaping arrest imposed by a court with the possibility of appeal and a press officer describing the incident in detail so that the society could know what happened and protest if something wasn't right.
Right now, player says so-and-so did this, can't really do anything, but if we could have those logs, another GM could simply look into it themselves and see what was said/done. The only fear you should have during that would be that every single superior was corrupt and thus everyone covered everyone else. I do not think this is the case, so the open-book policy you want is unneeded and unwarranted.
In the end, it comes down to you trying to give yourself rights to something which you just don't have any right to ask for.
I'm more worried about the "don't bother me" attitude which sadly is pretty common whenever a player asks something complicated of you. And it's not even that your activities are that secret right now, because most big gangs have a good understanding of what you can and what you can't do, so there's no real reason to pretend you're the 2238 equivalent of CIA. Open book policy would solve all issues players could have with your actions. Crosschecking between GMs would be a step forward, but it'd still leave some space for speculation, corruption and human error/laziness.
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Reconite. It happened. The dynamite thing. It happened. The caravan thing. It happened, with screenshots. Yet you still blow the "paranoia" whistle. Okay, I'm paranoid.
First of all we don't know what happened with your dynamite. But I know there are bugs where items seem to disappear until you relog. It's much more probable than some GM watching your every step.
Reconite whatever he did, was fired and there is nothing to comment here.
So there is one more incident you talk about (probably dealing with some trollish caravan) that happened in a span of, how many - 8, 10 months?
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Solution:
This:
1. Makes the logs of GM actions available to all players on a new, separate forum sub-board. Each GM would have his own thread, the logs would appear with a 24 hour lag to avoid leaking any information sensitive to their current work. This sub-board would be impossible to moderate by anyone except the devteam. The logs should be created via a script that'd filter through the general server log to work around the high ammount of micromanagement doing it manually would entice. People could just check any suspicious situations and report any instances of abuse to the devs. The logs would be automatically removed after a sensible preset ammount of time to conserve server space if necessary.
But to make things much more simple, as raw textfiles uploaded/modified SOMEWHERE where everyone can read it.
There is no need to hide whole dialogues when you can just hide who said it (instead of %player_name%, let it be %player_id% - every char has something like that, afaik or something). As soon as someone feels there is an abuse of GMs rights, he'll make few screenshots anyway, so in conjunction with such logs everything would be clear enough and no "secret dialogues" and their authors would be uncovered.
Such logs would be published after 1 or 3 days, I don't think that more would be necessary. Also, it would allow people screaming "ABUSE ABUSE" to calm down and start seeing things normally.
AND this:
3. Make a person with a strong sense of justice from outside the GM and player groups responsible for assessing the complaints against GM and/or moderator abuse to avoid the aforementioned people being able to be judges in their own cause.
One person, but better two, or even three, would be enough. Let's call them XYZ. They don't need any special rights. They just need to know what GMs can do and what they are allowed to do.
So here's the procedure:
1. Player is the witness or the victim of someone with GM rights and the feel of "being a god". He thinks "meh it's ABUSE wtf I need to report it", so he reports what he saw to XYZ. Or he was just bored and read the log with GM actions, then he finds that GM X did nothing but stood in NCR all day and teleported random people to Glow without any reason. He reports it to XYZ (for example, via PM on forum).
2. XYZ reads the log and finds out that the player was wrong and poor GM X was totally innocent. So he replies: "sorry but it was X and all he did was absolutely right". But well, if he also finds out that GM X is a terrible abuser, he should consult it with others XYZ and then decide to report it to devs or not. Well, if there is only one XYZ, then he has to decide to report it or not on his own.
3. He writes a report to one of the devs if there is such a need, resulting from point 2.
Advantages:
+ devs don't get spammed about GM abuse
+ GMs can feel absolutely safe as long as they do their things right
+ players have the option to report wrong GM actions, instead of "PM the GM that banned/jailed/slapped/teleported you", which is in my opinion, ridiculous
+ XYZ isn't able to control GMs on his own
+ wrong GM actions that would be otherwise almost impossible to detect, would be detected and reported much easily
+ GMs would be forced to stop just playing with their powers (slapping, warping, killing NPCs, just spying) when they are only bored and out of other ideas - seriously, there is no need to enable your GM account when all you are planning to do is idling in NCR bazaar
Disadvantages:
- the biggest problem is to choose such a person, because it must be someone who is not a friend (real on just in game) of any active GMs, at the same time being someone who knows game a lot and also knows what GMs can do and what they can't do
- there will be much whining from GMs who are too used to being controlled only a bit
- XYZ would have a lot of work, especially in the beginning - but I don't think it's a big problem
- the possibility that if you choose wrong person, he'll just do nothing (because he's lazy, he doesn't like specific players, he likes specific GMs, he has no time)
In the end, it comes down to you trying to give yourself rights to something which you just don't have any right to ask for.
Hey, but you are not the dev so you don't have any rights to say anything about what one can ask for and what one can't. Also, most GMs keep forgetting that GMs are for players and players aren't their property. Please take 3 mins to read just a bit about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamemaster
Still, I don't see why GMs are so upset about players knowing what they were doing in-game 3 days before.
GMs can observe all that players are doing, at any time, at any place. Why wouldn't players be allowed to know just a bit about what GMs are doing, then?
Also, I can't imagine how knowledge about a GM teleporting to player X and saying "you duallog" and banning him for XX years can improve cheating methods for anyone. Maybe I'm not enough of a cheater myself.
Reconite whatever he did, was fired and there is nothing to comment here.
Of course it is, every time someone is claiming there was NO GM ABUSE ever.
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What if XYZ corrupt too? :>
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First of all we don't know what happened with your dynamite. But I know there are bugs where items seem to disappear until you relog. It's much more probable than some GM watching your every step.
Reconite whatever he did, was fired and there is nothing to comment here.
So there is one more incident you talk about (probably dealing with some trollish caravan) that happened in a span of, how many - 8, 10 months?
Yes, and the same dynamite bug caused player X to know Kilgore's fresh new char was Kilgore. Please.
Yes, he was fired, but the same arguments were used in his defence as the ones employed here.
And you're really missing the point here. It doesn't matter if there were more incidents, or if they were extremely limited. The fact still stands, and is absolutely impossible to rebuke, that your actions whatever they be are lacking any kind of transparency and real outside control, and that the abuse of GM powers is very much possible. This means that it's absolutely necessary to make the situation clear, because it places unnecessary strain on the playerbase.
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In my eyes Abuse was create Izual , He was enter Caravan Near Broken Hills and he ban one man but he was use dual log .. next he was respawn 20 mutant with bazooka / minigun and he say ''everybody here use cheat'' and kill us for nothing ::)
Good Job Nice_Boat ! I still see it in suggestion not in junk ! :o
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What if XYZ corrupt too? :>
Well, it would be up to devs to make a good choice. Also, I didn't say that XYZ has to be one person (only considered such a possibility).
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What if XYZ corrupt too? :>
Then the next thread (like this here) will be opened, to police the policemens policemen, better make some policemens policemens policemens then.
People seem to forget, that GMs aren't robots, they are human. They can make mistakes such as everyone else. They don't share everytime the same opinion over ingame things neither. The only thing threads like these here are creating is general annoyance.
There is imo no need for publishing GM logs - as some people will scavenge these files frequently and will open threads if they find "something suspicious" - the next thread about so called "abuse" will be opened and the next wave of spam kicks in.
Also, in no other MMO GMs actions are published to the public - for a reason.
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nice boat is 100% right, there is no person who can check what gms did and when, i know gms who used to give ammo and stuff for free, skins for free to friends, free events only for gang's members - events where people could use free stuff and ammo while other people have to use their own if they want to practice anything,
free dog's skins for friends used as scouts, checking oppoents lockers, workbenches, alts in bases terminals
and ofcz free army where gm was giving 21 lvl for nothing + ammo + armors
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Then the next thread (like this here) will be opened, to police the policemens policemen, better make some policemens policemens policemens then.
GMs are recruited from the playerbase and as such react to the other players on an emotional level, have their own likes, dislikes, have a sense of belonging to specific player communities and are affiliated with some groups. This XYZ person could be from outside of the community because essentially, he or she would be just an office worker.
People seem to forget, that GMs aren't robots, they are human. They can make mistakes such as everyone else. They don't share everytime the same opinion over ingame things neither. The only thing threads like these here are creating is general annoyance.
No, threads like these are created because of the general annoyance.
There is imo no need for publishing GM logs - as some people will scavenge these files frequently and will open threads if they find "something suspicious" - the next thread about so called "abuse" will be opened and the next wave of spam kicks in.
Also, in no other MMO GMs actions are published to the public - for a reason.
No, they'd follow the procedure and send a complaint, probably using a form supplied by the devteam. Actually, making GM actions transparent and giving us a place to go with complaints and suspicions would reduce threads about abuse to nil.
Also, in no other MMO GMs are acting without supervision and clear rules to follow - for a reason.
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Then the next thread (like this here) will be opened, to police the policemens policemen, better make some policemens policemens policemens then.
That's why I repeated 2 times that it would be up to devs to choose the right person. Also, this choice wouldn't have to be permanent. Moreover, there is no problem if someone reports a GM 2 times MORE than he should, because devs will eventually filter it out anyway. The only problem is if he would cover up his GM friends.
People seem to forget, that GMs aren't robots, they are human. They can make mistakes such as everyone else. They don't share everytime the same opinion over ingame things neither.
That's why I said: "They just need to know what GMs can do and what they are allowed to do. "
If you make a mistake, you can always fix your fault. "Repetitive mistakes" shouldn't be tolerated, or having such GMs would be totally pointless (in my humble opinion, of course).
The only thing threads like these here are creating is general annoyance.
Not more than another "GM abuse" thread closed and junked.
There is imo no need for publishing GM logs - as some people will scavenge these files frequently and will open threads if they find "something suspicious" - the next thread about so called "abuse" will be opened and the next wave of spam kicks in.
Also, in no other MMO GMs actions are published to the public - for a reason.
No no, there is that XYZ person to handle all such stuff and then, all "GM abuse" threads would be closed and junked - with a reason. I thought it's obvious.
Also, comparing FOnline to any other MMO is rather stupid.
Well, I expected such a resistance from our precious Game Masters and I wondered if anything will change. We'll see :)
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...then he finds that GM X did nothing but stood in NCR all day and teleported random people to Glow without any reason.
Yeah you're right. Yesterday my friend was suddenly teleported to "block hex" and he can't come out. This is proof... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU4nrN0jv94
What is it? So gm is bored eh? You don't have what to do?
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Yeah you're right. Yesterday my friend was suddenly teleported to "block hex" and he can't come out. This is proof... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU4nrN0jv94
What is it? So gm is bored eh? You don't have what to do?
It's impossible to teleport players by GM to some world map tile. GM could summon you there in theory, but you would see his/her name on the team list.
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Well, I expected such a resistance from our precious Game Masters and I wondered if anything will change. We'll see :)
What other thing should one expect from a suggestion like this?
Also, there isn't that much of a resistance, I said I wouldn't care about logs in public, others too.
It's just the tedious work which WILL come with something like this.
And yes, you say "just another thread locked" - it's not that we have anything better to do? I don't know what the others think about this, but I don't have a joy when I have to lock a thread or need to delete dozens of spam posts by everytime the same few troublemakers. You can safely assume that people will get tired of reading "abuse abuse" just because someone found a "suspicious" thing in the log, which is actually not a famous "GM abuse". Just look at cerberix' post stating another "abuse" as an example. For me it's ok because Real Life kicked in and I won't have that much time for the game in the next weeks. But I pity the others who have to read all this stuff everyday and everyday again.
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Well, look at Cerberix' post and decide how easier it would be to prove that NO GM was involved in such action if there was a public log of their actions.
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Soon you would start suspecting that some things are not logged or there are some secret "super-gm" accounts outside log system.
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Soon you would start suspecting that some things are not logged or there are some secret "super-gm" accounts outside log system.
No, because suspicions we have against GMs are based on the following facts:
- you're recruited from the player base and you've proven to be biased on numerous occasions
- members of the GM group have been acting outside the rules on numerous occasions (it's disputable how often, but some of them are well documented)
- you generally don't allow any discussion concerning your decisions without outside intervention
As the system we propose would be fully automated, it wouldn't require any work and you couldn't mess with the logs. The devs are outside any suspicion because they've proven time and time again that they're objective and should be trusted. If they do the scripts, there's no reason to complaint.
Furthermore, the transparent, open to public system would mean that a lot of manual work would be saved because:
- the devs wouldn't have to spend the time necessary for investigating the most obvious and atrocious cases of abuse should they occur ever again;
- the public would do all the evidence gathering for them;
- threads about GM abuse wouldn't have to be moderated because there'd be a highly automated procedure outside the forums for handling such issues.
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I've admined a game server for about 2 years and am admininga torrent server for over 5 years now.
No way would anyone outside staff members ever have access to log files.
If you do that, you open your doors wide for cheaters and exploiters as you give them all the information needed on how to prevent detection.
All it will lead to is an endless stream of discussion about GM's and their action, wether right or wrong.
In my personal experience it's the cheaters and exploiters who are shouting the hardest about abuse.
As for the comment someone made about dictatorship:
End your internet access subscription and crawl back under the rock you came underneath from.
Servers are maintained by people who set the rules for their guests. Wether it's a server hosting a game, a forum or whatever other kind of thing.
You may in some occassions have some saying in a few of the rules, at the end of the day you have no saying in most rules. Especially not in the important ones.
That's no different here.
I have no idea what's logged as far as GMs go and what's the underlying sytem, but I think an easy system could be implemented (depending on the database system that is):
Simply log all actions by GMs which cause changes to a player character. Thus leveling, adding items, killing them, etc.
Further more, I'm pretty sure that whoever of the devs is/are responsible for the GMs, check logfiles from time to time.
If they have no time to do so, or there's reason for it to be done more regularly, they should promote the most trusted/experienced/objective GM.
Yes, a GM, as that person knows things from a player's point of view and a GMs point of view.
Not to mention (s)he mostly likely knows the GM and can therefore better assess the situation.
Players should keep in mind that GMs probably have their own private forum(s) to discuss issues, actions taken, actions to be taken, etc.
Especially if it concerns something serious.
As for thieves, bombers, caravan traps, etc. the GMs not liking them simply have to learn to life with them like the rest of us.
As the system we propose would be fully automated, it wouldn't require any work and you couldn't mess with the logs. The devs are outside any suspicion because they've proven time and time again that they're objective and should be trusted. If they do the scripts, there's no reason to complaint.
Sure you can automate part of the process, but the complaining, whining and discussing part is completely human and won't go away.
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You should Fraps TC fights like Izual and post them which would give hard evidence. This is all hearsay, we don't know if you are being biased from the past due to bad run-ins with GMs, or if the GMs themselves are acting in poor taste.
I'm sure this is because of when I think rejfyl claimed Cadiliac blew up his gun for swearing, but if a GM did this I'm sure it would've been logged.
Not every player have 1TB harddrive to record all what he is doing (example I have only 8 GB to record - 5 minutes of game)
It's impossible to teleport players by GM to some world map tile. GM could summon you there in theory, but you would see his/her name on the team list.
He was teleported to empty location he leave that location and he was in this place (under glow)
I don't like points 1 and 2, especially 1 because it could give players to much info about methods and time when GMs detect cheats, exploits etc. It wouldn't be good for anyone but cheaters. Also some investigations are longer than 1 day. And I don't really think devs would like to be spammed 100 times / day with "I suspect GM of someting!" from some paranoid players, but I could be wrong... Besides some players might want discretion when talking to a GM on server, not everyone knows IRC, there can be some private info in logs/screens or info concerning other players not intended to be seen by public. At the same time it doesn't prevent at all some possible "abuses" like spying during TC for some team.
As a compromise for log access I think GMs should have access to commands logs of other GMs, so we could control each other. Right now we don't have it. Believe me or not, but I doubt any GM wants abusers and cheaters in the team (I don't think there are any in the moment, but as always, some players know better).
And one suggestion when you won't show gm's logs just allow players to look on their own logs I thing in players logs you can see what gm do with you (example teleporting etc)
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I've admined a game server for about 2 years and am admininga torrent server for over 5 years now.
Nice, it was just a StarCraft league in my case. I had three people checking my every punitive action and every player could file a complaint against my decision using an on-site form.
No way would anyone outside staff members ever have access to log files.
If you do that, you open your doors wide for cheaters and exploiters as you give them all the information needed on how to prevent detection.
All it will lead to is an endless stream of discussion about GM's and their action, wether right or wrong.
In my personal experience it's the cheaters and exploiters who are shouting the hardest about abuse.
No, why? Sensible censorship when it comes to information that could help cheating wouldn't be shunned upon. And it's not like we don't know shit about what GMs can and can't do. Actually, I could paste a list here and it would probably be pretty close to being complete. As I've said before, it's no CIA secret.
As for the comment someone made about dictatorship:
End your internet access subscription and crawl back under the rock you came underneath from.
Servers are maintained by people who set the rules for their guests. Whether it's a server hosting a game, a forum or whatever other kind of thing.
You may in some occassions have some saying in a few of the rules, at the end of the day you have no saying in most rules. Especially not in the important ones.
That's no different here.
Since you seem to be new to 2238, you probably missed the fact that GMs are not the owners of this server and this thread is endorsed by one of the "creators", whom I asked for permission before even mentioning this subject. Basically, the GMs are here to serve - both the Devs and us. Given the situation, I don't really feel like crawling under any rocks or ending my internet subscription, sorry.
I have no idea what's logged as far as GMs go and what's the underlying sytem, but I think an easy system could be implemented (depending on the database system that is):
Simply log all actions by GMs which cause changes to a player character. Thus leveling, adding items, killing them, etc.
We aren't asking for anything more. To be made public, that is.
Further more, I'm pretty sure that whoever of the devs is/are responsible for the GMs, check logfiles from time to time.
If they have no time to do so, or there's reason for it to be done more regularly, they should promote the most trusted/experienced/objective GM.
Yes, a GM, as that person knows things from a player's point of view and a GMs point of view.
Not to mention (s)he mostly likely knows the GM and can therefore better assess the situation.
The problem is GM activity is not top secret and as far as trusting GMs goes, please reffer to the origins of this thread (yes, entire national sub-board) and the arguments mentioned above.
Players should keep in mind that GMs probably have their own private forum(s) to discuss issues, actions taken, actions to be taken, etc.
Especially if it concerns something serious.
It's actually an IRC channel and I somehow doubt they're preparing a battleplan before GM x decides he's going to slap player y for 9999 AP for no real reason.
As for thieves, bombers, caravan traps, etc. the GMs not liking them simply have to learn to life with them like the rest of us.
And who's gonna check if they are? The Devs? Don't they have better things to do, like, you know, developing the game?
Sure you can automate part of the process, but the complaining, whining and discussing part is completely human and won't go away.
ctrl + v "You should contact XYZ if you have any complaints against GM activities" -> Junk is more efficient than <Pointless Discussion> -> Junk and far less disturbing than "I don't really care" -> Junk.
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No, why? Sensible censorship when it comes to information that could help cheating wouldn't be shunned upon. And it's not like we don't know shit about what GMs can and can't do. Actually, I could paste a list here and it would probably be pretty close to being complete. As I've said before, it's no CIA secret.
If you would know this so good like you are saying, probably 80% of the "GM abuse" threads wouldn't be open in the first place. There is no reason some GM should copy/paste all the commands and stuff in here.
Basically, the GMs are here to serve - both the Devs and us. Given the situation, I don't really feel like crawling under any rocks or ending my internet subscription, sorry.
We are here to help, yep. But that doesn't mean that we are the little "everyones monkeys" for individuals who like to cause trouble over and over again, telling lies or false assumptions on the forum etc. And yes, this is a rule. You may ask the person you got permission opening this thread.
It's actually an IRC channel
Not entirely true.
And who's gonna check if they are? The Devs? Don't they have better things to do, like, you know, developing the game?
Don't you have something better to, like, betatesting the game?
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If you would know this so good like you are saying, probably 80% of the "GM abuse" threads wouldn't be open in the first place. There is no reason some GM should copy/paste all the commands and stuff in here.
Replace the commands with descriptions than. And it's not like those commands are useful if you aren't logged in on GM account.
We are here to help, yep. But that doesn't mean that we are the little "everyones monkeys" for individuals who like to cause trouble over and over again, telling lies or false assumptions on the forum etc. And yes, this is a rule. You may ask the person you got permission opening this thread.
I'm not sure what you're saying, so please be more specific, especially if you're suggesting I'm a liar or I assume something falsely. Moreover, I don't understand what rule are you talking about, please elaborate.
Not entirely true.
Not entirely false either.
Don't you have something better to, like, betatesting the game?
I don't really want to betatest this game without being reasonably assured it's not rigged - and I'm not alone on this one.
Once again - what are you scared of? Revealing top secret GM commands to the public? They don't work on normal accounts. Revealing sensitive information using in game chat? Censor it. If you're so clean and just, why is there such a resistance to having someone outside of your clique watching you with reasonable effectiveness?
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Replace the commands with descriptions than. And it's not like those commands are useful if you aren't logged in on GM account.
Don't have any problems with that. If one of the devs wants that, then for sure we/them are doing such a little "disclaimer". But - again - that is just my opinion. I already said that not everyone in the team shares the same opinion about stuff.
So you have to wait for one of the devs to post here. ;)
I'm not sure what you're saying, so please be more specific, especially if you're suggesting I'm a liar or I assume something falsely. Moreover, I don't understand what rule are you talking about, please elaborate.
Do you see your particular name in that list? No. I was just generally speaking. And that rule is in of our internal rulesets, guidelines you might call it.
I don't really want to betatest this game without being reasonably assured it's not rigged - and I'm not alone on this one.
Rigged? As Jovanka already asked, what particular things happened to you so that you can say this game is rigged?
More then a few people are fully fine with the team members (and no, we don't give a away free stuff ::) ).
If one has positive feelings about something, (s)he doesn't write that much on the forum, but if one thinks he has been harassed by "GM abuse" which is in 90% of the cases just a mistake, (s)he writes that in the forum as negative feedback.
That's just human. Still don't see what is "rigged" here, you are making an elephant out of a mosquito.
Once again - what are you scared of? Revealing top secret GM commands to the public? They don't work on normal accounts. Revealing sensitive information using in game chat? Censor it. If you're so clean and just, why is there such a resistance to having someone outside of your clique watching you with reasonable effectiveness?
I am not scared of, I am just stating my opinion. In fact, I already wrote it several times that I wouldn't matter, I just think it isn't needed.
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Just one thing :
No, threads like these are created because of the general annoyance.
Man, don't speak for everybody please.
I don't care about what GM do in their life or in the game.
If you feel paranoiac maybe you're not so innocent.
Edit : and I must add that we don't need a policy for GM. We play the game for fun, this is not a full-time job.
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Nice, it was just a StarCraft league in my case. I had three people checking my every punitive action and every player could file a complaint against my decision using an on-site form.
In my case it was a Wolfenstein Enemy Territory server (actually several, all from our own clan) with a clan leader who has close ties to the punkbuster crew.
(not giving names here)
Over time we helped to find and acknowledge a few exploits and hacks.
No, why? Sensible censorship when it comes to information that could help cheating wouldn't be shunned upon. And it's not like we don't know shit about what GMs can and can't do. Actually, I could paste a list here and it would probably be pretty close to being complete. As I've said before, it's no CIA secret.
And how will you avoid such information that's good for cheaters from being released?
The only way possible is manual labor.
GMs have information available we don't have access to.
Part of that information will most likely be used to identify possible cheats.
It's not about what they can and can't do, it's about the methods they use to identify cheaters and people abusing exploits.
Since you seem to be new to 2238, you probably missed the fact that GMs are not the owners of this server and this thread is endorsed by one of the "creators", whom I asked for permission before even mentioning this subject. Basically, the GMs are here to serve - both the Devs and us. Given the situation, I don't really feel like crawling under any rocks or ending my internet subscription, sorry.
I indeed have no idea who's the owner, I assumed it was at least 1 or more of the devs.
I also assumed devs made the rules.
There's nothing in my post to suggest I thought GMs are making the rules.
It also doesn't change the fact that we, as players and therefore guests (and beta testers) have no saying about the rules either.
Even worse, we have to keep in mind we are playing on someone else's server and therefore should keep in mind we are guests and act accordingly.
GMs are representing the host and should be respectful to their guests.
We aren't asking for anything more. To be made public, that is.
Your posts gave me a different impression.
The problem is GM activity is not top secret and as far as trusting GMs goes, please reffer to the origins of this thread (yes, entire national sub-board) and the arguments mentioned above.
If it's not top secret it makes one wonder what good releasing logs will do.
I have no idea what you mean with your comment about the Polish national board on this forum, but if I have to keep that origine in mind, I will.
Polish players don't have a good reputation with many none Polish players on this forum, I'm 1 of them.
I have a lot of experience with Polish players on Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and that's not good either.
Over 90% of the Polish players on our servers were banned for cheating.
Combining that with the demand of opening up logs for players, the first think that popped up in my mind is cheaters and exploiters will be thrilled by this.
It's actually an IRC channel and I somehow doubt they're preparing a battleplan before GM x decides he's going to slap player y for 9999 AP for no real reason.
I'm pretty sure there's some form of communciation going on.
Be it on a forum, IRC, or by some kind of player tag.
If not, the entire system wouldn't function and devs would have taken some serious measures by now.
And who's gonna check if they are? The Devs? Don't they have better things to do, like, you know, developing the game?
Like I said earlier, there are ways to log such changes to a players character.
ctrl + v "You should contact XYZ if you have any complaints against GM activities" -> Junk is more efficient than <Pointless Discussion> -> Junk and far less disturbing than "I don't really care" -> Junk.
The whining, etc. stays, wether logs are open or not.
It's not going to change anything on that end.
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With regards to posting logs:
- How does someone know the log isn't edited?
- Cross reference of logs by GMs would be a step up from the current system.
- At the same time however, logs can be circumvented by bad GM by using voice communication (if such GMs exist this is probably what they would do anyway since voice comm leaves no evidence).
For point 2, I don't think it will work because the screenshots are random, and what happens between one screenshot to the next is all speculation. I disagree with point 3 because it doesn't change anything (Solar Surf explained why in his previous post) and creates very demanding work for the liaison . I would add to 4, that it should also include rules for the GMs, so we know what they can and cannot do as well.
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Awful lot of work for a disgruntled minority of players. Instead we'll get complaints of doctored logs.
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Rigged? As Jovanka already asked, what particular things happened to you so that you can say this game is rigged?
Reconite happened. Caravan rapes happened. Other, strange things happened. Not enough? What more do you want if GMs themselves admitted they can't be 100% sure one of their kind is not exploiting here?
More then a few people are fully fine with the team members (and no, we don't give a away free stuff ::) ).
If one has positive feelings about something, (s)he doesn't write that much on the forum, but if one thinks he has been harassed by "GM abuse" which is in 90% of the cases just a mistake, (s)he writes that in the forum as negative feedback.
That's just human. Still don't see what is "rigged" here, you are making an elephant out of a mosquito.
We both know that we can't really assess whether it's a mosquito or an elephant because it's pretty dark here, but one thing is obvious: the motherfucker bites. It's enough to seek a solution.
And how will you avoid such information that's good for cheaters from being released?
The only way possible is manual labor.
GMs have information available we don't have access to.
Part of that information will most likely be used to identify possible cheats.
It's not about what they can and can't do, it's about the methods they use to identify cheaters and people abusing exploits.
...
If it's not top secret it makes one wonder what good releasing logs will do.
The situation here is sort of fucked up. Basically, people here know what the GMs can and can't do, but they have no info on how they're using their powers. On most other game servers, people have plenty of feedback on how they're using their powers, but don't know jack shit about what's happening behind the scenes. The only thing I'm fighting for here is the ability to know three things whenever a GM interacts with a player: who, with whom, what did he do. I don't really care about "how", because I know more than I would care for.
I have no idea what you mean with your comment about the Polish national board on this forum, but if I have to keep that origine in mind, I will.
Polish players don't have a good reputation with many none Polish players on this forum, I'm 1 of them.
I have a lot of experience with Polish players on Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and that's not good either.
Over 90% of the Polish players on our servers were banned for cheating.
Combining that with the demand of opening up logs for players, the first think that popped up in my mind is cheaters and exploiters will be thrilled by this.
Well, if you want to be racist here please keep it to yourself. I don't really want to know about your prejudices. Just FYI, 2 of the GMs are Poles and there's a Pole in the Dev team.
- How does someone know the log isn't edited?
Because it'd be generated via a script and wouldn't allow any human interference aside from the Dev team.
Awful lot of work for a disgruntled minority of players. Instead we'll get complaints of doctored logs.
It's a single script, a new subforum and a new official. Oh, and quite a lot of players feeling it's necessary to implement something like that. And no, we wouldn't get complaints because *see above*.
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Actually, 3 GMs and 2 Devs.
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Part of that information will most likely be used to identify possible cheats.
It's not about what they can and can't do, it's about the methods they use to identify cheaters and people abusing exploits.
Methods used by GMs to detect cheaters and exploiters are well-known already.
I have no idea what you mean with your comment about the Polish national board on this forum, but if I have to keep that origine in mind, I will.
Polish players don't have a good reputation with many none Polish players on this forum, I'm 1 of them.
I have a lot of experience with Polish players on Wolfenstein Enemy Territory and that's not good either.
Over 90% of the Polish players on our servers were banned for cheating.
Yeah, and all people with account's name starting on H are known for spreading only bullshit here.
Seriously, you have just made my day. You forgot to mention that every Pole is a thief.
With regards to posting logs:
- How does someone know the log isn't edited?
- Cross reference of logs by GMs would be a step up from the current system.
- At the same time however, logs can be circumvented by bad GM by using voice communication (if such GMs exist this is probably what they would do anyway since voice comm leaves no evidence).
For point 2, I don't think it will work because the screenshots are random, and what happens between one screenshot to the next is all speculation.
Logs wouldn't be edited because they would be generated by an automated script. The only people that could change logs would be devs and I doubt anyone from devteam would do such a thing. It was said many times in this thread and every now and again another person comes up with "they will edit logs".
Yes, GMs can use voice communication. But it could be useful only for spying opposing PvP factions. Still, there are spies in every big alliance in the game, so in conjunction with appropriate screenshots and that automated log, it would be very easy to prove that a GM is spying for his favorite faction.
I agree that results of point 2 would be too random to be useful.
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1&2 will never happen. People GM for nothing and its a really sucky job already, theres just no way they will be exposed to public judgement ... ever.
3 - If you agree on someone to fulfil the role then I don't see why not. They already have their actions logged and if something genuinely needs looking at it can be flagged up to us (we certainly don't have time to check every accusation, so someone would need to filter the crap out.)
4 - This should be made public somewhere I guess.
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And one suggestion when you won't show gm's logs just allow players to look on their own logs I thing in players logs you can see what gm do with you (example teleporting etc)
How about this?
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1&2 will never happen. People GM for nothing and its a really sucky job already, theres just no way they will be exposed to public judgement ... ever.
3 - If you agree on someone to fulfil the role then I don't see why not. They already have their actions logged and if something genuinely needs looking at it can be flagged up to us (we certainly don't have time to check every accusation, so someone would need to filter the crap out.)
4 - This should be made public somewhere I guess.
How about implementing some feedback everytime a GM interacts with a player? I'm talking basic info, like "you've been done X by Y" etc?
As to #4 - I just hope it happens sometime soon, because the discrepancies are just too large at times and you don't really know what to expect at times.
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How about implementing some feedback everytime a GM interacts with a player? I'm talking basic info, like "you've been done X by Y" etc?
Sounds good, much better and especially easier to do then 1) and 2). ;)
As to #4 - I just hope it happens sometime soon, because the discrepancies are just too large at times and you don't really know what to expect at times.
I agree.
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How about implementing some feedback everytime a GM interacts with a player? I'm talking basic info, like "you've been done X by Y" etc?
Problem is sometimes when you are testing for cheats (mostly bots) you don't want player to have any feedback... But I suppose it could be done somehow, no window blinking etc.
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The situation here is sort of fucked up. Basically, people here know what the GMs can and can't do, but they have no info on how they're using their powers. On most other game servers, people have plenty of feedback on how they're using their powers, but don't know jack shit about what's happening behind the scenes. The only thing I'm fighting for here is the ability to know three things whenever a GM interacts with a player: who, with whom, what did he do. I don't really care about "how", because I know more than I would care for.
People playing other games on others servers can make a good assumption of what GMs can and can't do on those servers.
And on those servers they have not much information about how those powers are used either, perhaps with exception to banned players who might either complain on a forum or be listed as banned somewhere.
It's quite normal you don't know what's happening behind the scenes, simply because you don't have to know.
People don't have plenty of feedback on how GMs are using their powers on most servers. If there's feedback, it's mostly because someone who's behaviour got corrected started a forum thread whining about it and the GM in question tells his/her side of the story.
GMs should always identify themselves when interacting with other players on behalf of their GM role. They should also do so if they step intervene in a situation.
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The only thing I'm fighting for here is the ability to know three things whenever a GM interacts with a player: who, with whom, what did he do. I don't really care about "how", because I know more than I would care for.
Personally I don't want you or anyone else to know when I contacted a GM, whom I have spoken with and what it was about.
Perhaps I just reported a possible cheater, dual logger or fast relogger.
Well, if you want to be racist here please keep it to yourself. I don't really want to know about your prejudices. Just FYI, 2 of the GMs are Poles and there's a Pole in the Dev team.
You're offended?
Why?
Should I have called you a rightwing nationalist for specifically and for no special reason refering to the fact it was posted in the Polish subforum?
I said it before, I say it again, I have no idea why you refered to that fact.
You not explaining it, only feeds the idea it was some kind of nationalistic pride.
I have met Polish people in various foreign countries (foreign for them and me) and they were all nice and friendly people.
Most Polish people I met on the FOnline server are assholes with a serious lack of social skills.
And no, that's not due to a language barrier.
As far Wolfenstein Enemy Territory goes, yes we banned over 90% of Polish players from our severs after we caught them cheating.
We never banned without a reason and we actually discussed every ban preferably before we issued it.
Methods used by GMs to detect cheaters and exploiters are well-known already.Yeah, and all people with account's name starting on H are known for spreading only bullshit here.
Seriously, you have just made my day. You forgot to mention that every Pole is a thief.
You're talking forum or game accounts now cause if it's forum you forgot to mention names starting with the letter K.
If I made your day with that, you have a sad life.
Apparently you're Polish, so you should know best.
And one suggestion when you won't show gm's logs just allow players to look on their own logs I thing in players logs you can see what gm do with you (example teleporting etc)
I missed out on that 1 at first, thanks for mentioning it again.
That indeed is a good feature.
It should come with it's own colour, so it's easier noticed.
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It should come with it's own colour, so it's easier noticed.
What does it mean? I don't understand why looking on my own logs should be in colour o0
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What does it mean? I don't understand why looking on my own logs should be in colour o0
I assumed you also mean it would be visible in the text box on the screen.
Than press F2 for a log.
In the box it would be useful if it has it's own colour. The log file itself is plain text, so no colours there.
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and I on my sugestion I mean just simple program where you can login onto your character log (daily log from server or sth) with this same login/password what is your character
It can be simple implemented ;)
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Well, I never had any trouble with GMs (I mean, nothing that I really matter), since the begining of the beta, I trust them like I trust devs, but, in a concern to be fair, yeah, maybe some "rules" concerning GMs rights should be set to reassure all the paranoids... :P
Ideas 3 et 4 sound good, but where can we find this fair-minded guy ? We will never be agree to choose this guy...
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Well, I never had any trouble with GMs (I mean, nothing that I really matter), since the begining of the beta, I trust them like I trust devs, but, in a concern to be fair, yeah, maybe some "rules" concerning GMs rights should be set to reassure all the paranoids... :P
Ideas 3 et 4 sound good, but where can we find this fair-minded guy ? We will never be agree to choose this guy...
How about me ;D. jking jking.
Btw although I entirely agree we need some rules and ways to get evidence of possibly "abuse" you can't expect someone to monitor GMs literally 24/7, perfectly.... Its just too much work in my mindset.
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it would be very easy to prove that a GM is spying for his favorite faction.
Of course, we're here to help our mates to defeat Rogues. What else ?
I agree we need some new rules about some behaviours that haven't been discussed already, but as I told to my mates when we discussed about this thread, I trust all GMs for their involvement into the game. So far I only saw people complaining about GM abuses who were, in fact, the abusers themselves.
Btw, here is a funny example that just happened when I was reading the thread :
[0:07:20] (Channel) XXX: WHAT A FUCK ARE YOU DOING&&&????
[0:07:45] (Channel) XXX: why you kill fucking remix in redding!!!?
I wasnt even connected and someone came to cry about an abuse. These days, I see people crying about abuse everytime something bad happened to them. It is some sort of mode or what ? I also see more and more people insulting GMs into NCR for free. And they whine when they got jailed after spamming something like I saw just some hours ago : "TheBob suck my dick !"
Hell, continue on this way, and I'll perform my first true bans. Yeah, the only true ban I performed in days was some multiple logger who just ignored the rules about that. We're not your monkeys, and we don't consider you all as ours.
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shangalaer then what are u gonna say about izual events for NA ?
free stuff free ammo free events ? only for choosen ones while other factions hadnt got a chance to do it ...
also not so long ago i was showing u a screenshoot with a guy ( samurai bbs member ) with a dog's skin from half sack scouting other faction's rush,
nice boat used to play with a gm, he knows how much a gm is able to do, if he says that it means that it takes place ....
and again what is this NCR military camp ??? why some people had free stuff ammo and builds?
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shangalaer then what are u gonna say about izual events for NA ?
free stuff free ammo free events ? only for choosen ones while other factions hadnt got a chance to do it ...
also not so long ago i was showing u a screenshoot with a guy ( samurai bbs member ) with a dog's skin from half sack scouting other faction's rush,
nice boat used to play with a gm, he knows how much a gm is able to do, if he says that it means that it takes place ....
and again what is this NCR military camp ??? why some people had free stuff ammo and builds?
You apparently don't know anything about "roleplaying" (for the NCR military camp), nothing about "asking to a nice GM to do a training" (nothing prevent you to organize such a thing, but no, you prefer cry "hey they have a close event, GM ABUZE!!1!". You could cry about the event NAvsDA too, it was close event...). Oh and he have a dog skin! My god, it will help him much for scooting! Like a dog he will be able to use his nose maybe?
Man the point of all of this is to do fun thing which are not like all days things in Fonline, and if you have fun with that, and it don't prevent the fun of other people, what the hell is wrong?
Seriously...
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LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
that's what im talking about, everything is alright as this guy says
gm is checking ur locker, sorry i forgot it's ok he is just RPG
GM is using the same mumble channel with some gang members and obsing a battle at the same time,
oh sorry its only RPG or he just wanna see some action
u know what i wanna do some RPG in modoc, den and other places, i will be a bad player killer, please find me some gm who will give free stuff k?
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shangalaer then what are u gonna say about izual events for NA ?
free stuff free ammo free events ? only for choosen ones while other factions hadnt got a chance to do it ...
also not so long ago i was showing u a screenshoot with a guy ( samurai bbs member ) with a dog's skin from half sack scouting other faction's rush,
nice boat used to play with a gm, he knows how much a gm is able to do, if he says that it means that it takes place ....
Free stuff yes, like in all events. But we don't keep the stuff at the end.
And maybe if Rogues/BBS/Yuras/etc. would not act like jerks they could participate on more events.
It reminds me the event with Wright family in Sierra. Only TTTLA and VSB were accepted to the event. Why ? Because when GMs trieds to gather people before the event, Rogues and other started to shot at everybody.
Don't be hypocrites : if you act like kids then GMs don't like you and if you are able to feel it then you become paranoid.
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"asking to a nice GM to do a training" (nothing prevent you to organize such a thing, but no, you prefer cry "hey they have a close event, GM ABUZE!!1!"
the thing is gms do it only for "friends" if u are not a friend and ask them u will see a middle finger, they help friends, give stuff to friends and nobody can do anything about it,
u know what one of my mates got 3k ammo from a gm, i spoke with lexx and solar and they werent able to say anything about it, he is a gm for free after all, right?
so we have to let them slap people from time to time, kill'em bann 'em nuke'em from time to time, and u know what, some of these gms are players as well, traders, fighters, if i kill him today he will remember my acc tomorrow when i ask him about something, are u really sure hes gonna help me in the same way as if he wasnt a player?
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You apparently don't know anything about "roleplaying" (for the NCR military camp),
I'll repeat what one of my friends said, after another battle with NCR Army out there somewhere:
"OK, that's fine, now I want to role play Enclave patrols, so give me APA mk2 and Vindicator for free :)"
Roleplaying? Fine. But whole crafting system is working well, so why one group of players has to craft all shit for hours and the other gets it for free? Not that I'm bothered by it that much, because well, more loot, the better, but if I was some trader from NCR then I would get seriously pissed off :)
nothing about "asking to a nice GM to do a training
First, you must have a GM friend or a GM that once belonged to your faction, because otherwise no one will make any "training event" for you.
And maybe if Rogues/BBS/Yuras/etc. would not act like jerks they could participate on more events.
Please don't troll. The thing that those mentioned are "bad PKers" is so bad for you? Is the fact that GMs couldn't handle few PKers at the location the event was taking place making someone "jerk"? Yes, maybe Shangalar and Izual don't like "Rogues/BBS/Yuras", as they were their enemies for the last year.
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Free stuff yes, like in all events. But we don't keep the stuff at the end.
And maybe if Rogues/BBS/Yuras/etc. would not act like jerks they could participate on more events.
It reminds me the event with Wright family in Sierra. Only TTTLA and VSB were accepted to the event. Why ? Because when GMs trieds to gather people before the event, Rogues and other started to shot at everybody.
Don't be hypocrites : if you act like kids then GMs don't like you and if you are able to feel it then you become paranoid.
u forgot that Izual was a member of NA, free events only for one side are not right, are they ?
"if you act like kids then GMs don't like you" what does it mean ? he only supposed to look at people and do something when they break rules, its nothing about being freinds or like someone or not, dude its a game and he is a gm GAME MASTER, if i go around killing people it doesnt give him a right to kill me or nuke me or spam 300 mutants just b/c in his mind great NCR or Broken hills that is near is so powerful that supposed to send some soldiers to kill me
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Well guys, we just got a perfect example of a paranoid player, and the proof that make log visible won't really help: this guy will still cry to GM abuse because "he is probably on mumble and spy for this gang" or "He spawn items for his friends!" or "I PK him yesterday so he kick me of the event" or "he have killed me for free!" and "he make event only for his friends!".
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Totally untrue, things like
- spawning items
- kicking out of the event
- making events
would be very likely included in the logs.
So, what's your point?
Well, new people get GM rights every month or so, soon whole game will be about "Hmm we can't do X but wait my buddy has a GM friend, so we'll ask him and he'll make X or Y". All about friends, about which GM likes you, which not (Hey Samira, do you like me? I do like you!). And that sux.
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You know, eBay, almost all GMs are not part of any big gang, they have friends, of course, but they don't favour them, event if they still communicate from time to time, like normal persons.
Concerning events, yeah, some are closed events, in the past, some were only for big faction wars, ( we just made one "training" event, I don't think it really matters, no ?). But most of GM events are public.
Now, back to the topic :
concerning the "rules", I think it should be the devs to be in charge to set those rules, because they can't be suspected to favour, or anything like that.
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Dang, took me too long to write the previous message. This thread here is already alarmingly high in the "trolling/spamming" direction, so it is just in your own interest to behave a bit in here. I don't want to close a thread in which the previous pages were ok, with some good discussions, but then end in the same as everytime.
To make things clear (what has been stated many times before too) :
We can't favor our "friends" ingame. Ofcourse it would be a lie if some GMs would say "No, I don't have friends ingame".
It's just not possible, we would have kicked our sorry asses out of the post in no time. Just example: Some fellow german player I sometimes played with before receiving GM status asked me, to "decorate" his base with some objects. Sure, it's not really gamebreaking, it's just visual etc. But I couldn't do it, because it's not really allowed/unfair to others.
I think I know the other GMs well enough that they won't do that too, same goes for giving away items for free etc.
Of course a little, temporarily not game breaking favor like crazy said, turning one player to a dog etc. isn't that bad (half of the actual GMs don't even have the "power" to do it anyway). Such little things are more made to people who didn't just constantly caused trouble in the forums, the game etc. - jep this is true. We could all be a much better community with lesser twist and rage if some people wouldn't behave like jerks all the time.
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You know, eBay, almost all GMs are not part of any big gang, they have friends, of course, but they don't favour them, event if they still communicate from time to time, like normal persons.
From my point of view:
Izual - was a member of Cajuns for long time as he was a GM, present on their mumble during TC actions, occasionally taking part in the battles with his "normal char" (I don't say he was using his GM powers as he was playing on his normal char, but the fact that as a GM he can easily know the builds, equipment and supplies in enemy bases makes his presence in such battles looking badly - it's a war, after all ;D)
Shangalar - was a member of Cajuns for hmm.. almost year? or more?
TheBob - was a member of Repo Men from the beginning to the end, dunno if he doesn't get angry if I call him my buddy :)
Skejwen - was a member of BBS and one of its founders before he became a GM, then he stopped playing his normal chars, whatever I write here: that he didn't spawn a single item for me, didn't change any skin for any of our chars, didn't help me in any other way - can be discarded by you, as there is no way for me to prove it
Jovanka - a member of Night Dragons before she became a GM, known for fighting PKers always and everywhere. Playing with her normal char, killed plenty of times by our gang, so it's normal she won't say anything good about it
Samira - similar story as that of Jovanka
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We all agree that the problem is in too big GM abilities... Publishing of game logs is not very good idea - it wont prove everything. We have some problems with cheaters I mean - fast re-logs, dual logs, bots - if developers solve this few problems, there is no need to give GM's rights to ban players. A lot of people use FR and DL, and any of GM cant do anything about it, in some cases they catch and jail few noobs like BrowarPL, but they cant catch them all - because its technical impossible. If GM/Dev's cant fully solve the problem of FR and DL - we need to legalize it. No law prohibiting - no banning. Why GM have uber sneak? There is no need to give them this ability, no sneak - no spying during TC. Why all (ok almost all) GM's have abilities to spawn any items, there is no need to give them such power - Nah nah, wee need items as a prize in events - so let the Dev's to spawn some valuable goods, so they known - when, why, how much and for what purpose...
@down Im not whining about spying Im just writing how we can solve it... Less rights - less accusations - less whining.
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The devs are too busy with other more important things, and even if they want to organize some events a little help from GMs to control the crowd is always better. And really, the constant complaining about GMs "spying" during TC is getting on my nerves. Currently I just know about 3 people (including me) who even care to watch these fights sometimes at all.
I for myself do this to just watch as stated before, to punch away some time, to have something to watch while you're eating etc. Others are doing it to learn about how people use the new updates when it comes to TC etc.
All this false accusations are only causing the people helping in the team to less motivation, and that means also less events, less help when players are in need etc. So, as I said, it's just in your own interest to stop complaining about things which aren't true.
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Observing the fights is nothing bad - I think that many players would do that if they have the opportunity.
Still, I don't know why GMs use their uber sneak while watching TC fights. There is absolutely no need to do that. I remember few fights observed by Ghosthack and scypior (if I remember correctly, after introducing new TC) - they just stood there and observed it and nobody gave a shit about it - they even took few hits but who cares? As long as they aren't warping players here and there, blocking doors or some other things like these - no one cares about their presence. Shit starts to hit the fan when they are standing in the middle of the battlefield using their GM accunt and at the same time, they are present on the voice communicator of one side.
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At the beginning I did that too (standing there without sneak) but even the only presence of one GM/dev standing there changes the behaviour of the players. I often had it that people said "hi Solar :) " or such and then they aren't concentrated at the battlefield etc. It's not we are masturbating on our godlike powers when doing this, it's just that we don't want to intefer with the actions going on, not passive, and ofcourse not active.
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I agree that logs of GM actions should be available to other GMs. That way any genuine malfeasance could only be concealed by an all-inclusive conspiracy. The remainder of points#1&2 have already been declared as dead issues by developer decree and so further argument is pointless.
I find it almost inconceivable that someone with no prior contact with, or interest in Fonline:2238 (which would be necessary for true impartiality)would agree to shoulder the amount of work required to properly preform the position proposed in point#3 without getting paid, a lot.
I also have reservations about point#4 for the following reason:
The job the of the GMs, or at least one of their jobs as I understand it, is to keep the game running smoothly and curb behavior which is possible within the mechanics of the game engine but prohibited/strongly discouraged because it detracts from either the environment intended by the developers or the enjoyment of the other players(i.e. Exploits and Griefing).
It is impossible to specifically prohibit every possible exploit because if they were well enough known to be precisely described ahead of time then they would have been fixed already.
It is also impossible to specify every possible action which can constitute griefing, both because of the subjective nature of the offense and because subtle differences of context can radically change the meaning of an action. For example; sneaking into a crowd of people in NCR and blowing your character up for the amusement of knowing people will be upset is clearly griefing, while sneaking into a town which a rival gang is in the process of seizing and blowing your character up in order to soften up the enemy force prior to your faction's big attack can be plausibly justified as a legitimate tactic of battle.
For these reasons (among others) it is necessary for GMs to have a certain degree of discretionary freedom of action, any 'all-inclusive' list as proposed would be necessarily incomplete and would effectively prohibit the GMs from doing their jobs in some circumstances. The list could of course use such terms as 'reasonable' and 'appropriate' in an effort to preserve the capacity for such judgment but wouldn't that just change the nature of complaints to claims that such-and-such a GM used that judgment improperly?
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Who watch the watchman? in devs we trust ;)
GM are human so they may make a mistake (and no one want lynch they for this), but they are human so a bit of control is needed
No way would anyone outside staff members ever have access to log files.
If you do that, you open your doors wide for cheaters and exploiters as you give them all the information needed on how to prevent detection.
I agree then think something different
I support as a compromise for log access I think GMs should have access to commands logs of other GMs, so we could control each other.
I thank the GM for the work they do, and pity them because they lose the better part of the fun of the server
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We all agree that the problem is in too big GM abilities... Publishing of game logs is not very good idea - it wont prove everything. We have some problems with cheaters I mean - fast re-logs, dual logs, bots - if developers solve this few problems, there is no need to give GM's rights to ban players. A lot of people use FR and DL, and any of GM cant do anything about it, in some cases they catch and jail few noobs like BrowarPL, but they cant catch them all - because its technical impossible. If GM/Dev's cant fully solve the problem of FR and DL - we need to legalize it. No law prohibiting - no banning. Why GM have uber sneak? There is no need to give them this ability, no sneak - no spying during TC. Why all (ok almost all) GM's have abilities to spawn any items, there is no need to give them such power - Nah nah, wee need items as a prize in events - so let the Dev's to spawn some valuable goods, so they known - when, why, how much and for what purpose...
@down Im not whining about spying Im just writing how we can solve it... Less rights - less accusations - less whining.
I and many others aren't complaining.
Personally I'm looking at this from a positive point of view meaning I assume GMs won't abuse their powers.
To err is human, so it will occasionally happen but not as frequent and structured as is suggested by some people.
As for GM's powers, I think they have what they need in order to do their jobs properly.
Yes they should be able to (temporarily) ban players, spawn items etc.
You're looking at this at from a player's point of view.
You forget GM's also test stuff like new features, organize events, etc. in which it's useful for them if they're able to spawn items.
We can all think of some (realistic) ways to detect part of the dual logging and fast relogging.
Like you said and I have the same experience as admin, it's impossible to catch all cheaters simply because it's technologically impossible.
Nevertheless you shouldn't legalize dual logging and fast relogging as it will destroy gameplay on the server.
As for TC, I have no experience with that, but personally I would watch it from time to time if I had the opportunity.
As for the accusations of spying for factions thing, I think it's exaggerated.
If you're right, think of this: what's preventing a GM from helping a befriended faction of raiding an opponents base or attacking them during traveling?
Exactly, nothing.
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If you're right, think of this: what's preventing a GM from helping a befriended faction of raiding an opponents base or attacking them during traveling?
Exactly, nothing.
Not exactly nothing. Unlike some other GM misbehaviors mentioned earlier in this thread, this is serious and bears a pretty high risk of being caught in the act. Basically, if someone makes a screenshot of such a group going in, the GM is screwed. Anyway, I remember a GM threatening to raid BBS base like that if we keep our "awful PK attitude" going, so ;D
Ideas 3 et 4 sound good, but where can we find this fair-minded guy ? We will never be agree to choose this guy...
How about #3 being 3 guys from the major alliances? Everyone would be watching everyone else, it'd be both balanced and hard to rig because those people would have conflicting interests. I mean, it sort of hit me - why pretend that people don't have their own prejudices (for example Shangalar here calling everyone disagreeing with lack of GM control abusers) if we could simply use those prejudices to create a better environment?
Also, guys, this thread is not about who did what. Let's work with what we have instead of throwing smack in all directions.
So, let's recapitulate. #1 for the public is out of the question. Nobody cares about #2. #3 and #4 are widely accepted.
Things left to discuss here:
#1 - would access to GM logs for GMs and the three "watchdogs" be disagreeable with anyone?
EDIT, because I forgot:
- whenever a GM performs an action related to a player character, the aforementioned player receives a text message what exactly was changed, who did it and what the effect is.
#3 - would you agree to have 3 watchdogs each from one of the groups of the big three? I don't see how we could choose one and the selection should be balanced to keep things fair, so perhaps someone could offer another criteria if the ones I proposed aren't acceptable?
#4 - mostly everyone agrees it's okay, so should the development of server rules get its separate thread or should it be left to Devs and GMs?
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How about #3 being 3 guys from the major alliances? Everyone would be watching everyone else, it'd be both balanced and hard to rig because those people would have conflicting interests.
So this is what you are aiming for? No way this would ever happen, as 1) no one in the team is really interested in gang issues at all, it just isn't important who is a "leader" of one "big gang". Also, this would lead to ENDLESS discussions, forum would be drownend in an infinite spamming wave. Seriously, if such thing would happen, I wouldn't "waste" my time here anymore, as I would have to click on "delete" every few minutes. Bad idea.
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Skejwen - was a member of BBS and one of its founders before he became a GM, then he stopped playing his normal chars, whatever I write here: that he didn't spawn a single item for me, didn't change any skin for any of our chars, didn't help me in any other way - can be discarded by you, as there is no way for me to prove it
Thanks for saying that. It's the same for us. Izual didnt even spawned a flower for us. When he became GM, he played with us several times with a normal char, acting like a simple solider following the lead. And he finally left the team officially, already to prevent false accusations of taking position in the fight.
And about me : I'm looking the fights, learning to make good videos at the moment. And, yeah, I'm hidden during the fight, but I often appear to congratulate winners of a big fight or so. I'm not for one special gang, I hate everyone except my gang, which is not involved a lot in TC, and doesnt need my help anyway to scoot or whatever, sneak is enough for them. Anyway, every time they ask for fun to me to make an abuse, I just dont care. They wont take profit from me, and afaik, Reddot and VSB for example do know it well already.
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So this is what you are aiming for? No way this would ever happen, as 1) no one in the team is really interested in gang issues at all, it just isn't important who is a "leader" of one "big gang". Also, this would lead to ENDLESS discussions, forum would be drownend in an infinite spamming wave. Seriously, if such thing would happen, I wouldn't "waste" my time here anymore, as I would have to click on "delete" every few minutes. Bad idea.
This is already happening in a much worse way than I proposed because one of the groups is overrepresented. And what do you mean by saying "that's what I'm aiming for"? I'm aiming for a fair environment, with everyone watching everyone else. It's called checks and balances and is widely considered to be a good thing. Also, the thing with the team being uninterested makes me raise my brow a bit - this game revolves around TC, and not a single one of you is interested in the groups that take part? That's a good one, I'll remember it the next time the uninterested Samira bans entire BBS from IRC because one person trolled, or uninterested Izual prepares a training camp for his folks or brings his silly little army to fight us in an unprotected area.
Moreover, I find it quite curious that the only gang-related people who have something against controlling GM actions at all are members of the same group that's overrepresented in the GM crowd. Am I being paranoid again? Let's check some other threads... oooh, it's always the same. Sorry, I'm not.
Also, I find your remark about forum floods being laughable, because (and I don't know how many times I've written it already) the system would be 'suspected abuse' -> send a PM/notification to your watchdog -> watchdog assesess the notification -> watchdog notifies the Devs. Going outside this procedure would be insta-Junk. Absolutely no drama, no discussions etc. And the watchdog can't even abuse anything - if he sends too many bullshit notifications, the Devs can just sack him and appoint someone else.
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The GMs should see each others logs and report to the developers if they find something suspicious. The community is way to immature to do that. Besides I don't see a problem at being at the same voice server with a random faction. If I'd become a GM I'd still hang around with my people because I play with them since months. Which advantage should a GM have in helping another faction? (I don't mean spawning a barrel or other dinky things...) You gain nothing expect the risk to get caught by someone which would cause that the whole community hates you. Why should a GM punish an innocent player who barely gets his 10 hides together? I play this game since 15th August 2009 and I never had problems with a GM or a developer because I just don't do things like suicide bombing, exploiting or cheating. But it's always the same at every game. The punished one never made a mistake. ::)
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Moreover, I find it quite curious that the only gang-related people who have something against controlling GM actions at all are members of the same group that's overrepresented in the GM crowd. Am I being paranoid again? Let's check some other threads... oooh, it's always the same. Sorry, I'm not.
No there is a simple explication :
Rogues/MashForce/Yuras and some others use to act as jerks since the beginning of the game (insults, cheat, bug exploit, etc.).I am currently in BH during TC and instead of waiting and playing, Mash Force team insult people by shouting and treating us as idiots or other things. Maybe it is arrogant but we don't act like this. This is the difference between you and us. We respect people and we respect GMs so maybe they are cool with us and not with you and we defend them because we don't to see idiots like you insulting them or having the last word :)
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No there is a simple explication :
Rogues/MashForce/Yuras and some others use to act as jerks since the beginning of the game (insults, cheat, bug exploit, etc.).I am currently in BH during TC and instead of waiting and playing, Mash Force team insult people by shouting and treating us as idiots or other things. Maybe it is arrogant but we don't act like this. This is the difference between you and us. We respect people and we respect GMs so maybe they are cool with us and not with you and we defend them because we don't to see idiots like you insulting them :)
Is insulting people prohibited? No, racial comments are. As long as there's no n-words flying around GMs have no business there unless the devs say otherwise. Right now I'd like to thank you for proving my point and I hope you don't have anything against each group having a fair representation for a change.
Oh and this:
We respect people
idiots like you
... is absolutely delicious, especially since I'm not logged in atm. So it's ok when you insult people, but it's wrong once someone else does? Somehow, it fits my opinion of you perfectly. Furthermore, this thread would be surprisingly devoid of trolls if you and your kind didn't try to take the discussion to the personal level, so begone already or learn some manners.
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Is insulting people prohibited? No, racial comments are. As long as there's no n-words flying around GMs have no business there unless the devs say otherwise. Right now I'd like to thank you for proving my point and I hope you don't have anything against each group having a fair representation for a change.
It is not prohibited, yes. But if you act like this don't be surprised that nobody like you :)
... is absolutely delicious, especially since I'm not logged in atm.
Maybe you didn't noticed but you are not the entire world, Nice Boat. I know this is hard for you to understand but you are just a player like others. Anyway, in english "you" can mean just you or a group of people
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It is not prohibited, yes. But if you act like this don't be surprised that nobody like you :)
Actually, quite a few people like me, GMs included. Furthermore, I don't think that GMs should follow their personal tastes and sympathies when doing their job. When they log in on their GM account, they should follow the guidelines and treat everyone equally. What you're doing is providing more corroborating evidence that they don't, so once again - thank you for doing that.
Maybe you didn't noticed but you are not the entire world, Nice Boat. I know this is hard for you to understand but you are just a player like others. Anyway, in english "you" can mean just you or a group of people
I know I'm not, what does it have to do with this thread? Oh, and in English (capital letter here) "you" when referring to a group of people means the person you are talking to (in this case me) and the buddies of the aforementioned individual. So yeah, you insulted me for no reason and you keep on trolling.
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Actually, quite a few people like me, GMs included. Furthermore, I don't think that GMs should follow their personal tastes and sympathies when doing their job. When they log in on their GM account, they should follow the guidelines and treat everyone equally. What you're doing is providing more corroborating evidence that they don't, so once again - thank you for doing that.
Yes, GMs ar humans, shame on them.
But words I say are not evidence, or maybe you think my words are God words. I'am flattered :D
What I wanted to point is : you feel paranoiac not because GMs act against you but just because they don't like you. You feel that they don't like you so you become paranoiac. This is not evidence this is psychology.
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Yes, GMs ar humans, shame on them.
But words I say are not evidence, or maybe you think my words are God words. I'am flattered :D
You say that the GMs your group are affiliated with are not impartial, and you are an important member of this group so whatever you say about stuff like that carries quite a heavy weight. Should have kept your mouth shut, now it's too late.
What I wanted to point is : you feel paranoiac not because GMs act against you but just because they don't like you. You feel that they don't like you so you become paranoiac. This is not evidence this is psychology.
No. I feel "paranoiac" because I, along with people known to me, am being harassed by GMs from time to time for no legitimate reason, and I see inexplainable things happening around me on occasions (which suddenly become surprisingly obvious if you consider GM involvement). Personal feelings between me and certain GMs have nothing to do with this, as everything I say here is based on facts. On the other hand you are trying to bring emotions to the table acting as if arguments based on emotions had the same weight as the ones based on facts. They don't. Please stop derailing this thread talking about me, my relationships with other people, my psychological states and who you or your GMs like or dislike, because it's absolutely unneeded and irrelevant.
Right now, 3 issues need to be discussed:
#1 - would access to GM logs for GMs and the three "watchdogs" be disagreeable with anyone?
EDIT, because I forgot:
- whenever a GM performs an action related to a player character, the aforementioned player receives a text message what exactly was changed, who did it and what the effect is.
#3 - would you agree to have 3 watchdogs each from one of the groups of the big three? I don't see how we could choose one and the selection should be balanced to keep things fair, so perhaps someone could offer another criteria if the ones I proposed aren't acceptable?
#4 - mostly everyone agrees it's okay, so should the development of server rules get its separate thread or should it be left to Devs and GMs?
... let's focus on that.
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You say that the GMs your group are affiliated with are not impartial, and you are an important member of this group so whatever you say about stuff like that carries quite a heavy weight. Should have kept your mouth shut, now it's too late.
Nobody is impartial. Maybe they don't like you and they like us. But also they may like other people I don't know in this game.
I have never seen Izual for a month. Shangalar belongs to an ennemy team (TCB) and we fight against this team all day long so I don't know why he would help my team. And you said by yourself that Jovanka doesn't like PKs like your team but.... Jovanka is not from my team. So ?
No. I feel "paranoiac" because I, along with people known to me, am being harassed by GMs from time to time for no legitimate reason, and I see inexplainable things happening around me on occasions (which suddenly become surprisingly obvious if you consider GM involvement). Personal feelings between me and certain GMs have nothing to do with this, as everything I say here is based on facts. On the other hand you are trying to bring emotions to the table acting as if arguments based on emotions had the same weight as the ones based on facts. They don't. Please stop derailing this thread talking about me, my relationships with other people, my psychological states and who you or your GMs like or dislike, because it's absolutely unneeded and irrelevant.
I don't see any fact in this thread, only accusations and emotions ::)
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Nobody is impartial.
Right. The problem starts when people who should be are not even trying. That's why I think that having controllers with different gang backgrounds is going to work in a very reliable, impossible to exploit way - each one of them will be biased in a specific direction, and with three of them everything will be covered and no abuse of GM power will be possible.
I don't see any fact in this thread, only accusations and emotions ::)
Troll harder. This thread would be relevant even if there were no instances of GM abuse at all, because the system as it stands allows it. If you didn't notice, we're trying to reach a consensus here as to what should be done to eliminate such a possibility.
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I admire all of your effort Nice_Boat but to be honest. I am only for 4 or maybe 3 when Fonline will grow large (not expecting it though)
Its a cliche game and I dont see a point of making such sofisticated methods to stalk volunteer GMs. If they were paid, why not.
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Watchdogs? Players from PvP alliances where game rules (if you or your friends forgot - HERE (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=1709.0)) are being abused on almost every step should control if GMs aren't abusing? Sounds like some sort of hillarious joke to me.
Nice Boat, don't forget that not everyone have problems with GMs as most of abuse stories have no proofs of ever happening (your story with dynamite - I am not going belive in it as Trollgore is eyewitness) or they are manipulated by people who are frequently breaking game rules. I already seen many funny situations with players yelling "ABUSE" that made trust GMs more and see no reason to control them.
Just because you are paranoid and few others are yell-a-lot morons I won't agree with any of you propositions to control GMs.
I wouldn't mind list of actions that GMs can or not perform but I think it will be just a tool to entirely remove GMs influence in game word. I personally think it's bad if GMs would be limited by anything. Without GMs interfering into game world it would look only more bland (it's already limited by lack of content). Of course you won't agree with me as you are victim of abuse in non-commercial game that you take very seriously.
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Watchdogs? Players from PvP alliances where game rules (if you or your friends forgot - HERE) are being abused on almost every step should control if GMs aren't abusing? Sounds like some sort of hillarious joke to me.
Player abuse is not the subject here and actually has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Moreover, the Devs must think it's not a hilarious joke if they agreed to appointing me for the function if the community agrees. Now, I'm a man of compromise, so I won't even propose such a thing and I don't think it'd be right, but I think that all the gangs could agree to a solution in which they all have one man inside. And honestly, even if we all were the greatest cheaters in gaming history, having us watch each other would amount to what we all ultimately want - no abuse, no exploits, everything fair and square.
Nice Boat, don't forget that not everyone have problems with GMs as most of abuse stories have no proofs of ever happening (your story with dynamite - I am not going belive in it as Trollgore is eyewitness) or they are manipulated by people who are frequently breaking game rules. I already seen many funny situations with players yelling "ABUSE" that made trust GMs more and see no reason to control them.
Just because you are paranoid and few others are yell-a-lot morons I won't agree with any of you propositions to control GMs.
What more can I say? Even if we assume there's no problem now, it might appear later on in the future. Having mechanics to counter that in place before it happens would be called good planning, no?
I wouldn't mind list of actions that GMs can or not perform but I think it will be just a tool to entirely remove GMs influence in game word.
Easily obtainable. Doesn't matter for the sake of this discussion - and honestly, if you don't know or think it's secret, please stay clear of this thread, thank you.
I personally think it's bad if GMs would be limited by anything. Without GMs interfering into game world it would look only more bland (it's already limited by lack of content). Of course you won't agree with me as you are victim of abuse in non-commercial game that you take very seriously.
I'm not that serious, it's just that I take this game on a competitive level because it doesn't really offer much more after you play it for a while. Many people with a few months of experience feel the same, and sustaining a situation in which GMs can act on a whim without any supervision is ultimately going to scare them away. Saying that it's a non-commercial game changes nothing - being non-commercial doesn't mean it has to be bad and use bad solutions when it comes to this aspect. Furthermore, the Devs don't have anything against this idea - for their own reasons (and I'm quite sure they're well founded) they don't want the logs to be made public, that's all.
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Nice Boat, don't forget that not everyone have problems with GMs as most of abuse stories have no proofs of ever happening (your story with dynamite - I am not going belive in it as Trollgore is eyewitness) or they are manipulated by people who are frequently breaking game rules. I already seen many funny situations with players yelling "ABUSE" that made trust GMs more and see no reason to control them.
Just because you are paranoid and few others are yell-a-lot morons I won't agree with any of you propositions to control GMs.
Well, RedJerk, are most of these situations coming from your friends from RDA, when you're with them on their Mumble? :)
Btw nice trolling for one of the moderators of Polish community subforum. Congrats
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If you keep spamming gang-related stuff and insults which has nothing to do with this thread I lock it.
So, please behave a bit.
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If you keep spamming gang-related stuff and insults which has nothing to do with this thread I lock it.
So, please behave a bit.
How about cleaning it up instead since there's still legit discussion going on? I mean, does a thread have to be locked only because some people wish to ruin it because it disrupts their agenda? There are still a few things that need clarification here, and I think it's better to do it in public than behind the scenes. Please note that the people who recently did the provoking (Pozzo, RJ) didn't really participate in the discussion up to this point. Don't let the trolls win.
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Watching GM is the Dev duty not our.
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So Nice Boat you want to tell me that if I don't post every 10 minutes it means I can't have my own opinion and tell you what I think about your suggestion? That I don't post doesn't mean that I don't read your posts in this topic. Also you are very quick on making this thing going as you want to close this suggestion with final thoughts after 2 days. Very hasty as for so important issue.
When it comes to "Trollgore" it was pretty good mental abbreviation seeing how Kilgore provoked situation with Jovanka (no need to mention his other merits in game, forum and IRC). If you have doubts you can check definition of trolling. Calling me RedJerk was just double insult - nothing more.
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Please note that the people who recently did the provoking (Pozzo, RJ) didn't really participate in the discussion up to this point
Yep maybe I trolled a bit but at the beginning my opinion about the thread was : we don't need a policy for GMs.
I wanted to take the problem from the beginning, pointing that in this kind of community players should not everyday point the finger up to the GMs and think about their own behavior. I Think that in every game the staff is the mirror of the community. I don't know if you really have proofs of what you say but I think that if players are immatures so GMs will act like watchmen and you will always feel paranoiac.
Ok I don't give my opinion about your propositions but I don't care about they and I give my own solution : be mature so the community will be so the GMs will be able to do their real job.
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Player abuse is not the subject here and actually has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Moreover, the Devs must think it's not a hilarious joke if they agreed to appointing me for the function if the community agrees. Now, I'm a man of compromise, so I won't even propose such a thing and I don't think it'd be right, but I think that all the gangs could agree to a solution in which they all have one man inside. And honestly, even if we all were the greatest cheaters in gaming history, having us watch each other would amount to what we all ultimately want - no abuse, no exploits, everything fair and square.
I'm not that serious, it's just that I take this game on a competitive level because it doesn't really offer much more after you play it for a while. Many people with a few months of experience feel the same, and sustaining a situation in which GMs can act on a whim without any supervision is ultimately going to scare them away. Saying that it's a non-commercial game changes nothing - being non-commercial doesn't mean it has to be bad and use bad solutions when it comes to this aspect. Furthermore, the Devs don't have anything against this idea - for their own reasons (and I'm quite sure they're well founded) they don't want the logs to be made public, that's all.
Player abuse and cheating has everything to do with this the moment you suggest such players need to be rewarded with some level of control.
I don't know any game where such bad behavior is rewarded and I don't see any reason it should be done here.
All the gangs agreeing to having someone inside?
You mean only the big gangs, leaving out the smaller gangs and the people not in gangs.
Bad idea as your suggestions will ultimately result in making the game less attractive for new players.
On most servers GM or whatever you call them dealing with daily issues aren't under continious supervision.
In the cases they are, they certainly aren't under the supervision of the people they are supposed to help and supervise.
For some weird reason it doesn't scare people away because players know they are the lowest in the hierarchy on a server.
This game being commercial or not has nothing to do with it.
As for the devs, with whom you apparently already have been talking about this outside this thread, I prefer to hear things from them instead of hearsay from you.
As for continuation of this thread, you yourself are partly responsible for it's degredation.
No offense to you, but you more and more start to sound like a small child crying and stamping it's feet on the ground in order to get what it wants.
As I said above, bad behavior should not be rewarded in anyway.
If there should be a supervisor (which I think there's no need for) it should be someone who's in no way tied to any of the major gangs.
People who have and never had any ties to the major gangs, also have no prejudice towards them and most likely also not towards the GMs coming from them.
Like you, I'm not in for such a (probably ungrateful) job.
I think GMs are doing fine and you blow things out of proportion.
Yep maybe I trolled a bit but at the beginning my opinion about the thread was : we don't need a policy for GMs.
I wanted to take the problem from the beginning, pointing that in this kind of community players should not everyday point the finger up to the GMs and think about their own behavior. I Think that in every game the staff is the mirror of the community. I don't know if you really have proofs of what you say but I think that if players are immatures so GMs will act like watchmen and you will always feel paranoiac.
Ok I don't give my opinion about your propositions but I don't care about they and I give my own solution : be mature so the community will be so the GMs will be able to do their real job.
There's 1 policy which fits us all: behave and respect other people
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When it comes to "Trollgore" it was pretty good mental abbreviation seeing how Kilgore provoked situation with Jovanka (no need to mention his other merits in game, forum and IRC). If you have doubts you can check definition of trolling. Calling me RedJerk was just double insult - nothing more.
Oh please. You use insults - you receive insults. Next time, think 2 times before using it. Now you just try to justify insulting other people with some kind of bs.
Knowing how big a hypocrite you are, it doesn't suprise me much, though.
Well, let's hope that the next time you start insults/flame/trolling, some moderator will junk it soon enough. Still, I can't believe how someone could give such a troll like yourself moderating rights anywhere in this forum.
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I'm still waiting for anything constructive as to the main point of the discussion. If it doesn't appear, I will just assume that nobody minds and do my worst behind the scenes. I may succeed, I may fail - but honestly - is that the way we want things done here? Can't we be a community for a change when it comes to that? All I wanted was a bit of transparency, and yet I get a lot of barking, accusations of cheating and whatnot. Come on people. Nobody is going to be hurt. It's for the good of us all. I can't see how anyone can justify refusing this shit, and nobody did propose any other criteria for the GM controller appointments even though I asked. All we have here right now is stupid criticism and people who ultimately don't have anything to do with the issue trying to act all high and mighty. Why can't we solve it in a mature way?
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Nice Boat your solution will end in a huge war of GM vs Players, people will make accusation for all and nothing. Dev have to watch GM, maybe GM can watch each other. But never player can have the log of GM action, that can't be a option... I don't understand why a dev didn't close this topic already...
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Im playing this game from the beginnig of open beta and my opinion is that GM behavior must be controlled somehow. We can't let situation when one player is abused by GM and there is no chance that he can prove his rights. Screenshots, player logs aren't enough. Im not even sure if someone is checking this kind of reports.
Finally, its unacceptable in my opinion, when topic about some GM abuse is moved to junk by this GM. Is that what you want it? And please don't tell me this kind of situation should be solved by sending PM to this game master;)
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I'm still waiting for anything constructive as to the main point of the discussion. ... All we have here right now is stupid criticism and people who ultimately don't have anything to do with the issue trying to act all high and mighty. Why can't we solve it in a mature way?
I consider a point-by-point examination of the practicality and ultimate impact of your proposals to be trying to "solve it in a mature way".
I also notice that you haven't addressed, or even acknowledged, the concerns I raised. Despite playing this game off and on for over a year now am I one of these "people who ultimately don't have anything to do with the issue trying to act all high and mighty."?
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Nice Boat your solution will end in a huge war of GM vs Players, people will make accusation for all and nothing.
They made accusations (from the very beginning of this open beta), they make accusations and they will make accusations. The more they do it, the less devs care about it. Because, yes, some players overreact and/or just paranoid. All we need is someone between players and devs, who will filter such things and report them to devs if necessary. No one has said about players interfering with GM actions or even punishing them (lol), as this would be ridiculous, yet every now and again someone comes up with "Oh my god they want to decide about GMs" stuff.
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I'm still waiting for anything constructive as to the main point of the discussion. If it doesn't appear, I will just assume that nobody minds and do my worst behind the scenes. I may succeed, I may fail - but honestly - is that the way we want things done here? Can't we be a community for a change when it comes to that? All I wanted was a bit of transparency, and yet I get a lot of barking, accusations of cheating and whatnot. Come on people. Nobody is going to be hurt. It's for the good of us all. I can't see how anyone can justify refusing this shit, and nobody did propose any other criteria for the GM controller appointments even though I asked. All we have here right now is stupid criticism and people who ultimately don't have anything to do with the issue trying to act all high and mighty. Why can't we solve it in a mature way?
So as soon as people disagree with you it's not constructive?
If there's someone in this thread who isn't constructive it's you as you don't respond to arguments made by various people.
If people didn't care, they wouldn't be posting in this thread.
Some people judged you based upon your passed behavior, don't blame them if that doesn't turn out to be good for you.
1 more time: there is not 1 single game in which players have any level of control over GMs and this shouldn't be the first one.
I refuse to believe that there are GMs who are regularly harassing players from certain factions or just players in general.
Either you are paranoid or you have been punished for bad behavior.
Either way it's not a reason for such extreme measures.
I'm pretty sure if devs where under the impression the GMs are doing a bad job, they would have done something about it already.
Coming back to your points 1 more time:
1. Bad idea for a variety of reasons. GM logs should only be available to other GMs and to devs. Add a line to player logs when devs do certain actions to their accounts like teleporting, adding/removing/altering items, skin, etc. If players want to report GM behavior they need to add the logs and in the logs should be a time stamp of the in game time. No time stamp means the thread is moved to junk.
2. As mentioned already, virtually impossible.
3. This suggest there's a large amount of complaints about GM abuse and something is seriously wrong. i doubt that as there would be much more complaints about GM action than there are now. So far I've seen nothing more than a bunch of people whining about things they think happened.
Having 1 person from each major gang be part of this? No way. As I said before, bad behavior, for instance by your gang, should not be rewarded. If this is the path devs want to take, they should take an experienced player who doesn't have ties with GMs and major gangs. I'm sure there are few around. Hopefully 1 of them is willing in case devs want to do this.
4. A clear set of rules is okay, making things outside it unpunishable is an open invitation to using exploits (adding a rule about not using exploits won't change that).
Most important rule: behave and respect other people. If people follow this one up, most of the problems on the server would be gone.
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Small things first.
How about cleaning it up instead since there's still legit discussion going on? I mean, does a thread have to be locked only because some people wish to ruin it because it disrupts their agenda? (...)
As i understand, it's discussion between players and devs, about a group which is between them. Even if most of GMs are moderators here, this thread shouldn't be cleaned by any of them, to avoid river of "censorship" and "tyrany" tears. Every deleted post can be missed by devs, even if arguments are between 20 lines of flame. But it's only my private opinion.
(...) Still, I can't believe how someone could give such a troll like yourself moderating rights anywhere in this forum.
RJ have moderator rights only on polish board and nowhere else... and it is a place for such questions. Once again, check your informations before posting anything.
Back to topic.
How about #3 being 3 guys from the major alliances? Everyone would be watching everyone else, it'd be both balanced and hard to rig because those people would have conflicting interests.
I'd like to know what makes you think that "major alliances" are only part of server that should decide what is good and what is bad in GMs actions? Please, don't feed me with "FOnline is about PEW PEW", i hear it long enough. And current 'Dialogs Competition' is small step to change this wrong thinking. Also, i doubt that PvE players, constantly killed by PvP heroes, will trust in judgement made by people who think of them as crying carebear shit with loot. I don't want to even mention that "major alliances" are first that will forget about "conflicting interests" just to kick some GM.
Second thing, how you want to choose this "major alliances"? And who will be the one to choose? Obviously not GMs. Devs does not track gang wars too, AFAIK. Who left? Gangs? Brave idea, decision will never be made. Poll on forum? It will not work. Maybe some random factions then? "OMG, abooze!"
...that's not a way.
Even if your suggestions are almost good, people who get info about GMs actions should stay like now. We know only few methods that are currently used to control our action (and logs are one of this). This can be expanded in great way, you just need some imagination and free time to write a code. Whatever it will be, it will be working best as long less people know about it. And you hardly find someone who want the game clean of any kind of corruption than devs. But first you must stop repeating that devs doesn't care about anything, and players are only group that worry about this game.
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I'd like to know what makes you think that "major alliances" are only part of server that should decide what is good and what is bad in GMs actions? Please, don't feed me with "FOnline is about PEW PEW", i hear it long enough. And current 'Dialogs Competition' is small step to change this wrong thinking. Also, i doubt that PvE players, constantly killed by PvP heroes, will trust in judgement made by people who think of them as crying carebear shit with loot. I don't want to even mention that "major alliances" are first that will forget about "conflicting interests" just to kick some GM.
Second thing, how you want to choose this "major alliances"? And who will be the one to choose? Obviously not GMs. Devs does not track gang wars too, AFAIK. Who left? Gangs? Brave idea, decision will never be made. Poll on forum? It will not work. Maybe some random factions then? "OMG, abooze!"
...that's not a way.
Even if your suggestions are almost good, people who get info about GMs actions should stay like now. We know only few methods that are currently used to control our action (and logs are one of this). This can be expanded in great way, you just need some imagination and free time to write a code. Whatever it will be, it will be working best as long less people know about it. And you hardly find someone who want the game clean of any kind of corruption than devs. But first you must stop repeating that devs doesn't care about anything, and players are only group that worry about this game.
well, big pvp factions are predators, the end of the food chain, most of the players end up in one of them, the most experienced and best players are members of those factions, we know more about the game than most of u, gms.
"But first you must stop repeating that devs doesn't care about anything,"
well most of the people here are talking about U GMS, in my opinion "wipe" supposed to lose the gm right long time ago u never help, u always pretend you are away, if u come most of the time u harm people more than help them, look at the bottom of ur post
"There is nothing as demotivating as the players" dude stop being a gm, if thats what u belive,
there is another guy Izual but thats a different storry
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u always pretend you are away
Maybe you didn't know, but sometimes people are actually busy?
And if I was Wipe and would receive messages like the last one from you no wonder some people tend to "ignore" such messages.
And the "There is nothing as demotivating as the players" is not Wipe's sentence, it's a quote.
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nice dude u know better what she thinks about it, a brain scanner, can i have one?
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eBay, please, stop this, it's so childish...
Well, if you think GMs have to be overseen (I must say I don't think it's that necessary, but...), instead of a watchdog, maybe there should be a "referring GM" in the GMs team ? Some GM who were not affiliated to any gang, who would "supervise" other GMs. So if any player have any problem with a GM, he would consult this guy. He would have to be compliant, sedate... I don't know if this kind of people exists... :P
I bet some of you woouldn't trust this guy cause he would be a GM though.
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in my opinion "wipe" supposed to lose the gm right long time ago u never help, u always pretend you are away, if u come most of the time u harm people more than help them, look at the bottom of ur post
"There is nothing as demotivating as the players" dude stop being a gm, if thats what u belive,
there is another guy Izual but thats a different storry
When I joined the team I was surprised by the amount of work the GMs do, and amount of things they have to learn, and as a player I would never imagine it's so hard and stressful job.
An individual player can't see even 1% of GM work, if you gathered all players on server they would know maybe about 30% of all GM activities, so what can you say about who is helpful or not here? Obviously YOU don't know what are you talking about AT ALL, sir. And yet you keep talking and judging. You have some scraps of info about GMs, largely based on lies and paranoia, stuff like: (-"JovankaB was exploding us in the Modoc Militia times!" -"I wasn't GM back then" -"Oh, maybe it wasn't you... but someone was bombing us!" - my recent IRC conversation).
And it's definitely not up to you to judge who is useful or not here. Devs and only devs can judge us. You know almost NOTHING and we owe you NOTHING. And especially we don't owe anything to people who make our work 10 times harder by cheating day by day and pretend to be "testers" and who now try to introduce some rule of angry mob. And as a last note: I'm not talking about the person who started this thread, he is an honest player as far as I can tell and has some valid points.
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well most of the people here are talking about U GMS, in my opinion "wipe" supposed to lose the gm right long time ago u never help, u always pretend you are away, if u come most of the time u harm people more than help them, look at the bottom of ur post
Wipe helped us buying a bunker a few days ago by making the ghoul in Necropolis temporarily available (thanks for that).
It might just be you're not on at the right times or you cried wolf one time too often.
I'm wondering how you can be sure who of the GMs is on.
If none are on you get a message saying so.
If 1 or more are on you're either contacted or not.
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Maybe you didn't know, but sometimes people are actually busy?
There is a difference between being busy and being constantly busy. If someone is always busy, he/she should give up this job and someone else should do it.
And the "There is nothing as demotivating as the players" is not Wipe's sentence, it's a quote.
The fact that she has it in signature is quite important, because it reflects her feelings about beta-testers. But what to expect from someone that stated many times that most of beta-testers are completely useless.
As I stated in some thread before, even those beta-testers, who are just so-called exploiters, cheaters and jerks (like pozzo or someone would say), help in developing this game, just by using those exploits/cheats/other stuff. The more they use it, the more important is to fix it. No no, I don't justify cheating in any way - cheating remains cheating and it should be prohibited. What I want to say is that the people you usually blame for searching and using exploits and bugs that can help them, in fact often help you more in developing this game that a casual player who plays just fair and square. Even if they don't report bugs straight away - someone else will report it or GMs/devs will get aware of them. For me, dude who is using 5 instances of Fonline simultaneously, uses fast relogs is most likely to find exploits/bugs than a player that doesn't do it. Though I don't encourage such type of behavior, because it always leads to getting unfair advantage against other players and often destroys what they want to have also from playing - fun.
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The fact that she has it in signature is quite important, because it reflects her feelings about beta-testers. But what to expect from someone that stated many times that most of beta-testers are completely useless.
As you might have seen, more than one GM has such funny sentence to remember players can be asses :)
Being GM, and also dev if we talk about this, is often being harrassed by players who just don't respect them at all. ("gimme a fokin PA, asshole !")
You can see this as a way to externalize, because despite what you all say about GM abuse, in 90% of the situations, we just shut our mouths. But sometimes, players just go too far with provocations. And they reap what they sow.
Anyway, some of the oldest GMs may feel tired, and need a little break. We new GMs are also here for that. End of the bracket.
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So as soon as people disagree with you it's not constructive?
This thread was about X. People Started talking Y. I said it wasn't constructive. Simple logics. Maybe it works different on ET servers, but hey, it's like that everywhere else, so please adapt.
If there's someone in this thread who isn't constructive it's you as you don't respond to arguments made by various people.
If people didn't care, they wouldn't be posting in this thread.
Arguments like...? Because the only arguments against I've seen up to this point are "you're an asshole" and "GMs are always right".
Some people judged you based upon your passed behavior, don't blame them if that doesn't turn out to be good for you.
Oh but I will blame them till the end of the world if their job is supposed to entail treating everyone equally.
1 more time: there is not 1 single game in which players have any level of control over GMs and this shouldn't be the first one.
StarCraft. And I bet there's more. Basically, every competitive game has a system of complaints and appeal. You're lying. Get out.
I refuse to believe that there are GMs who are regularly harassing players from certain factions or just players in general.
Either you are paranoid or you have been punished for bad behavior.
Either way it's not a reason for such extreme measures.
I'm pretty sure if devs where under the impression the GMs are doing a bad job, they would have done something about it already.
I refuse to believe you have a functional brain. Actually, saying that is on equal footing with what you've said when it comes to probability.
Coming back to your points 1 more time:
1. Bad idea for a variety of reasons. GM logs should only be available to other GMs and to devs. Add a line to player logs when devs do certain actions to their accounts like teleporting, adding/removing/altering items, skin, etc. If players want to report GM behavior they need to add the logs and in the logs should be a time stamp of the in game time. No time stamp means the thread is moved to junk.
You seem to be quite slow, so I'll explain. The devs said no to public logs and yes to non-public logs, so we need to choose who is going to read them.
2. As mentioned already, virtually impossible.
About fucking time you noticed, Sherlock. But we're not talking about that right now.
3. This suggest there's a large amount of complaints about GM abuse and something is seriously wrong. i doubt that as there would be much more complaints about GM action than there are now. So far I've seen nothing more than a bunch of people whining about things they think happened.
Having 1 person from each major gang be part of this? No way. As I said before, bad behavior, for instance by your gang, should not be rewarded. If this is the path devs want to take, they should take an experienced player who doesn't have ties with GMs and major gangs. I'm sure there are few around. Hopefully 1 of them is willing in case devs want to do this.
Please elaborate. Because as far as I remember spawning unbiased people is not possible irl. But hey, you seem to be supporting corruption since the beginning, so why do I even bother asking?
4. A clear set of rules is okay, making things outside it unpunishable is an open invitation to using exploits (adding a rule about not using exploits won't change that).
Most important rule: behave and respect other people. If people follow this one up, most of the problems on the server would be gone.
Yes, yes, love and peace and weed and whatnot. Christ. Are you really that naive?
And no, the rules have to be very specific, else there's no point in making them. If an exploit appears that the devs don't want to see used, they can just edit the ruleset.
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As I stated in some thread before, even those beta-testers, who are just so-called exploiters, cheaters and jerks (like pozzo or someone would say), help in developing this game, just by using those exploits/cheats/other stuff. The more they use it, the more important is to fix it.
If they would be helping with developing the game, they would report those exploits and cheats instead of using them till devs are made aware of them.
This thread was about X. People Started talking Y. I said it wasn't constructive. Simple logics. Maybe it works different on ET servers, but hey, it's like that everywhere else, so please adapt.
You haven't been too constructive here either. Even your reply I'm replying too right now shows you have a problem with discussing things.
Arguments like...? Because the only arguments against I've seen up to this point are "you're an asshole" and "GMs are always right".
Most arguments by you fall in the same "you're an asshole" category.
Oh but I will blame them till the end of the world if their job is supposed to entail treating everyone equally.
Except for your word, I haven't seen anything which actually suggest they don't.
StarCraft. And I bet there's more. Basically, every competitive game has a system of complaints and appeal. You're lying. Get out.
A system of complaints and appeal is something different than a system which give players a level of control over GMs.
So it's not me who's lying, it's you.
I refuse to believe you have a functional brain. Actually, saying that is on equal footing with what you've said when it comes to probability.
You seem to be quite slow, so I'll explain. The devs said no to public logs and yes to non-public logs, so we need to choose who is going to read them.
About fucking time you noticed, Sherlock. But we're not talking about that right now.
Nice constructive comments. Keep is going.
As for opening logs to even a few players, enough comments against it have been made.
Please elaborate. Because as far as I remember spawning unbiased people is not possible irl. But hey, you seem to be supporting corruption since the beginning, so why do I even bother asking?
Exactly the reason we shouldn't be picking people from the large factions as they'll most likely be less objective than someone who isn't allied to 1 of them or to GMs.
My whole reason for being against this crap is actually to prevent corruption or if there's any to stop it from spreading.
To put it in words you understand: I have absolutely no faith in giving responsibilities to people who have proven they can't handle them.
If you can't even show some manners in your communications in this thread, how should we expect you to have them if you're given responsibility?
Yes, yes, love and peace and weed and whatnot. Christ. Are you really that naive?
And no, the rules have to be very specific, else there's no point in making them. If an exploit appears that the devs don't want to see used, they can just edit the ruleset.
I think I've shown several times and very clearly I'm not naive enough to think you and the likes of you can handle certain responsibilities.
Specific rules means lots of situations will not be in the rules thus opening the door very wide for exploits.
Editing the ruleset means you're always 1 step behind and it still leaves the door open for exceptions.
Using exploits, cheats and hack should simply be prohibited as it's already.
Something that's normal in competitive games.
No need to explicitely name specific cheats, exploits and hacks.
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You haven't been too constructive here either. Even your reply I'm replying too right now shows you have a problem with discussing things.
Most arguments by you fall in the same "you're an asshole" category.
Except for your word, I haven't seen anything which actually suggest they don't.
So yeah, I pointed out that the system allows for GM abuse, supported it with an undisputable occurrence from the past (Reconite) and said we need watchdogs to prevent this which nobody denied and every and each of my opponents here didn't even take up, but of course that was of the "you're an asshole" category. Keep on trolling.
A system of complaints and appeal is something different than a system which give players a level of control over GMs.
So it's not me who's lying, it's you.
Do I need to quote myself here? Nobody's talking player control anymore since Solar's post.
As for opening logs to even a few players, enough comments against it have been made.
Actually there were none whatsoever except "GMs are always right". Oh, and Solar sort of authorized it.
Exactly the reason we shouldn't be picking people from the large factions as they'll most likely be less objective than someone who isn't allied to 1 of them or to GMs.
That's why we need to pick a few with conflicting interests and sympathies so that they can cover it all. Not like I didn't mention that a few pages ago.
The rest of your post goes more or less like
Herp Derp
... to which I kindly reply with:
Durrrr
Seriously, you keep coming with a pretence of serious discussion, yet you prove again and again you either didn't read the entire thread or disregard the other side's arguments, which makes you a troll, which makes this post probably the last time I replied to you.
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So yeah, I pointed out that the system allows for GM abuse, supported it with an undisputable occurrence from the past (Reconite) and said we need watchdogs to prevent this which nobody denied and every and each of my opponents here didn't even take up, but of course that was of the "you're an asshole" category. Keep on trolling.
Don't accuse others of trolling while you're the biggest throll in this thread.
The situation with Reconite (I assume happened before I started playing) has been solved.
Case closed, move on.
GMs have certain powers, the only way to prevent GMs from abusing them is to remove all GMs.
Sure some measures can be taking to lower the risk of abusive behavior, but completely preventing it is impossible.
Abuse can only be dealt with during or after it occured.
Do I have to quote myself here? Nobody's talking player control anymore since Solar's post.
I might be misunderstanding your posts here, but you're still suggesting it between the lines.
Actually there were none whatsoever except "GMs are always right". Oh, and Solar sort of authorized it.
Arguments have been made, but as I said in an earlier reply, you chose to ignore them instead of discussing them.
That's why we need to pick a few with conflicting interests and sympathies so that they can cover it all. Not like I didn't mention that a few pages ago.
Not like arguments, amongst others by me, against that haven't been made on the same pages
Again, better pick 1 who's above the parties with conflicting interests.
The rest of your posts goes more or less like
... to which I kindly reply with:
Again, very constructive dialog and trolling there by you.
Keep it up.
Seriously, you keep coming with a pretence of serious discussion, yet you prove again and again you either didn't read the entire thread or disregard the other side's arguments, which makes you a troll, which makes this post probably the last time I replied to you.
I did read the entire thread, let it be an example to you.
One more time, YOU are the one disregarding other people's arguments by calling them none constructive.
Even if I would by trolling in this thread, you are outdoing me easily.
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Don't accuse others of trolling while you're the biggest throll in this thread.
The situation with Reconite (I assume happened before I started playing) has been solved.
Case closed, move on.
GMs have certain powers, the only way to prevent GMs from abusing them is to remove all GMs.
Sure some measures can be taking to lower the risk of abusive behavior, but completely preventing it is impossible.
Reaction time was ridiculously long because there's no mechanisms whatsoever in place to detect such misbehaviour... because people like you are protesting against it. Care to explain what exactly is going to hurt you if a few people were checking whether GMs are abusing or not? You'd gain the right to appeal any decision they make and lose nothing. In fact, the community as a whole would only gain from that.
I might be misunderstanding your posts here, but you're still suggesting it between the lines.
No, and once again - the Devs approve of what I proposed when it comes to a single entity overwatching GMs. They disallow general access to logs, that's all.
Arguments have been made, but as I said in an earlier reply, you chose to ignore them instead of discussing them.
So you sure are capable of making a summary of this thread with arguments brought up by either side? It'd be fun to read I bet.
Again, better pick 1 who's above the parties with conflicting interests.
Care to name such a person? Because I've been here for a long time and I honestly can't aside from the Dev-team, which sadly can't and shouldn't be bothered with such issues.
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A system of complaints and appeal is something different than a system which give players a level of control over GMs.
Was such system (which gives players a level of control over GMs) suggested here so far?
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Well - in fact we should abandon GM function as it seems that its not necessary at all :)
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Does anyone even read those back and forth post dissections?
You are a dick
No you're a dick.
You're an even bigger dick
Oh okay I guess I never saw it that way
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I never saw happy end in a discussion where everyone is quoting the other and camping his position.
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Does anyone even read those back and forth post dissections?
If you are not interested, why are you posting? What exactly was your contribution here? And there are still matters to resolve:
#1 - would access to GM logs for GMs and the three "watchdogs" be disagreeable with anyone?
EDIT, because I forgot:
- whenever a GM performs an action related to a player character, the aforementioned player receives a text message what exactly was changed, who did it and what the effect is.
#3 - would you agree to have 3 watchdogs each from one of the groups of the big three? I don't see how we could choose one and the selection should be balanced to keep things fair, so perhaps someone could offer another criteria if the ones I proposed aren't acceptable?
#4 - mostly everyone agrees it's okay, so should the development of server rules get its separate thread or should it be left to Devs and GMs?
... those issues weren't even scratched. Does that mean that everyone agrees?
I hope we'll start discussing these and make progress, with no trolls coming here to wage their little flame wars anymore.
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#1 - would access to GM logs for GMs and the three "watchdogs" be disagreeable with anyone?
The only people accessing GM logs will be certain Devs (Not me). These "watchdogs" would purely be a way to filter out the nonsense complaints (ie 99% of them) and pass on anything that is genuinely a problem to the correct person.
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The only people accessing GM logs will be certain Devs (Not me). These "watchdogs" would purely be a way to filter out the nonsense complaints (ie 99% of them) and pass on anything that is genuinely a problem to the correct person.
Uh, okay. But how could they filter out anything if they didn't have the means of checking anything? By nonsense you mean obvious crap, like "he jinxed me so I don't any critical hits!" or "GM turned a no special encounter mode on for me"? If so, being such a watchdog wouldn't really be a position of much responsibility - one or two guys with different backgrounds would be enough I think.
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Forget about it, Nice Boat. Your struggle for power is bound to fail. As a lot of people told you in this thread, only devs will watch our logs and it's the best way to make sure we are not evil abusers. If they check us regularly (on a daily basis), there is no way we could abuse.
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Forget about it, Nice Boat. Your struggle for power is bound to fail. As a lot of people told you in this thread, only devs will watch our logs and it's the best way to make sure we are not evil abusers. If they check us regularly (on a daily basis), there is no way we could abuse.
... yeah, like you didn't abuse on IRC today ;D I wonder who's gonna "check" that, mr Trollzual... because honestly, I don't need to explain anything to you (somebody did lift my ban, because somebody apparently could and that's all for you), and you banning me for refusing to talk with you is sort of very ho-hum.
Also, I don't really need to "struggle for power" because I have all the power I want. I don't even care who's gonna be on that post if he does his job and bitchslaps queens like you into correct attitude. And let's be honest - if they thoroughly checked you on a daily basis, you wouldn't be a GM for long.
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Also, I don't really need to "struggle for power" because I have all the power I want.
I laughed. Sorry, but AHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH !
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I laughed. Sorry, but AHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH !
;D
...see, when a GM blatantly trolls like that, what one can do?
Did I ever apply for GM? No. Did I ever play to win instead of playing to enjoy the PvP element? No. Now, I come here saying that some people should actually have less power than they currently have, and the most arrogant and abusive GM and his buddies accuse me of plotting to gain power?
Have mercy Shangalar, there are limits to the amounts of irony and hypocrisy this universe can take.
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And let's be honest - if they thoroughly checked you on a daily basis, you wouldn't be a GM for long.
well he wouldnt be a gm in 24 hours
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And I bet you would have been banned from the game already.
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well once i told u about a gm who was giving ammo for free i told u a date + - 1 day, ammount and the nick of the gm what have u done? nothing, the guy is still a gm.
these people kill, teleport, give stuff for free , spy, spam npcs, basically they do whatever they want they cover each other there must be someone looking at them from above
im done
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he probably said the following: Hey, [GM's name] you really should stop giving the edge to thse guys, it unbalances the game, don't let me catch you doing that again, otherwise I'm gonna have to suspend you for an indefinite period.
This I think is a paerfectly reasonable way of warning the GMs, and after all this is a BETA man...
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u know what? if a player breaks the rules, he got jailed or banned for xxx or xxxxxxxxxxxxxx hours,
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so, you can just make a new alt, that's what you people do best anyways
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some crap
im done
more crap
You just don't know when you should stop posting, eh?
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author=HertogJan link=topic=6898.msg60365#msg60365 date=1279622051]
If they would be helping with developing the game, they would report those exploits and cheats instead of using them till devs are made aware of them.
sorry when i interrupt you but can we have an answer to this question? Cause i also thinking the same thing, and i think its an important point.
to the GM thing: all arguments againt "moa control" were said, i think this Thread developing in a way where people insult each other and no longer discuss and bringing their arguments. So "suggestions" make no sense. For me i must say i thing their doin a good job, also when i have some bans preprewipe :D.
sorry for my bad english irts my first post!
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You just don't know when you should stop posting, eh?
It's not crap maybe you quote wrong post but I thing you are just troll here
It was 5k ammo (+1k/-1k I dont remember that so much) of flamethrower mk2 gm spawn it on entrance to redding downtown, this guy what he get shout on mumble to come to redding becouse he can't carry that much, of course we was happy from this but it wasn't fair ;p (that was before wipe)
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I just remeber a time when the cajuns were teleported in our base, the GM tell us he had the approval of dev but when i asked to different dev they tells me that they never eard about this story ...
So maybe more transparency for GM could be good ... really good !
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I think this thread should be locked now, until more crap is said. Players like Ebay should shut up before saying such non sense.
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The points have already been made, so this thread can now safetly be locked, as it has de-railed into a simple flameware more or less, so I'm saving you some energy.