This is just something to throw out there and wanted to see what kinda feed back the community would give.
My idea is that there should be a spot on the forums for people to be pick for a GM position, so that official servers can have some type of law in place. I know as it stands if someone is breaking or exploiting the game the most we can do is post it up on the forums and (Hope) that it’ll be patched at some point. Until then our base, our work, are effortless until then. Which causes some people to ask “What’s the point in playing? If they’re just gonna cheat and do what they want unchecked?” What if certain people of the community that won’t abuse the power could be in charge in some of the servers. I know the cons to this is that person might let the power go to their heads, and could do some heavy damage. ( They should be monitored by Funcom at some point, or let the community take screen shots of them abusing their power to relieve them on their position). So I believe Funcom could post up rules and regulations that come with this power. having certain people be in charge of servers to check in, not to interfere with the people playing but only to check to ensure no one is exploiting the game. Then take the necessary actions against those players. I know WoW did this, and worked quite alright. Wonder what you guys think of this approach?
I can see why people might think its a bad idea; which is why such position should be given to people with responsibility. Election wouldn’t be from just random players. It’s not a minecraft server where anyone could apply to be one. You have to professional in this kind of job as you are essentially an employee at that point.
I’ve had experiences with messy things happening on the servers; A person ran through an entire beach claiming all the land. All of it. No one could build. This is the kind of situation where an admin could have intervened and sorted the mess.
However, perhaps the solution to such problems is not the lack of leadership on the servers but the support and communication we get when we report such things. If this gets addressed, then I think we would see a big improvement on servers day to day play experience.
The community also has to acknowledge that there is no reason for people to be ■■■■■■■■ and ruin everyone’s play.
Unfortunately, some people just want to watch the world burn. And this is a sandbox game, especially PvP servers. So if they wish to watch the world burn by building over a whole beach, they can. You may not like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an allowed play style.
And here in lies the bigger issue. Funcom does not want to police people’s play, not would they want to police the server police either.
Completely agree with the communication part. I’ve made a few reports of the game breaking exploits I’ve found. One being the Thrall duping. (Which you can easily get about 20+Arch Priest in a few hours and farm medallions from killing the ones that aren’t Arch priest.)
Sadly the community is mostly about getting the upper hand in these type of games by any means. Similar to what you stated with the beach. The servers I’ve noticed the most common issues is people completely blocking off resources/Thralls in PvE. Then in PvP it’s under meshing is a big deal, for people to swim under your base, by passing all your defenses, then blow it up from the inside.
I definitely believe leadership on the Official servers, could be a great start into fixing some of the issues we’re dealing with now. Until the Devs can get the time to fix those bugs. I know it won’t be the greatest fix, but I think it’d be a step in the right direction. Personally I’d like to see people be interview for it, Question and Answer sheet, make sure they have a full understanding on how to use Admin Panel. How to report their finding. What to do in this type of situation, kinda of thing.
Last thing I’ll note is they could always do a test run on a single server of each mode. See how it pans out.
Yeah I can see that being a real issue. If one of the people they selected did decided to go rogue, and destroy a server. I doubt funcom would make any swift action till the after all the damage has been done. They could do a legal document with people that are willing to take the position. Stating that if they do interfere with the game play of their costumers then that person would be held responsible/liable. Meaning possibly getting sued. Which might keep some of the people that would want that position for the power to back out. One thing I’ve noticed about this game it’s truly the community that makes it worthwhile. I believe it’s the community that will save it.
Don’t take this the wrong way but if I joined a private server, the admin would be the be renter. Wouldn’t he also have the chance to abuse his powers for said “Friends” if they didn’t like me? (Already videos onl youtube showing admins on private servers destroying their bases) . I understand the cons, to battle the idea that someone would abuse this power could be perhaps be tied to a legal document the person would have to sign. Therefore if they were to abuse this power they’d be liable to owe the company money. Granted that’d be worse case scenario. I think there’s a lot of devoted fans of the game, that would like to see it thrive. But yeah the biggest issue I do seeing is someone going all gun ho.
Should have made this topic a vote to see what people looking at this board would favor. It would put paid to the suggestion one way or another in a democratic fashion.
Just remove 50% of crap xeons servers from g-portal and take 70 slots i7 servers from OvH in different countries Uk Fr De and 2-3 admins and make ticket support from them
I dont know…I am an active raider with 1k hours and it would feel like if I had “GM” status that if I raided people,they would rally and say I was exploiting then cause issues,for example. Now if someone in an alpha got GM and decided to ban hammer people for just raiding,then there is another problem.
Funcom already provided an option for moderated play – private servers.
If people feel like a particular server admin isn’t fair, they vote with their feet. I know because I’ve done it myself. On one server I was on almost the entire population left after an especially bad series of abuses by the admins. We went and made a new server with admins that were known to be fair – problem solved.
Private servers have the added bonus of being capable of setting different server parameters for different playstyles.
And for those proposing elections and legal documents for official servers… ROTFLOL, Funcom would not want to touch that with a ten foot pole! The possibility of having to take people to court is the last thing that they would want. Remember, this game is played all over the world with thousands of servers – to implement the “legal documents” idea they would need to hire lawyers for every single country that has people playing the game.
When the elected person has to make his real life identity public, everything changes.
With power comes responsibility. AirBnB knows this. Uber knows this. Revolut knows this. Politics knows this.
Having an official subscription server with someone being a paid admin, but with RL name displayed isn’t far fetched in our digital age of freelancing.
A group of subscription servers could fund 1 programmer, who creates a system of individual role-backs to account for catastrophic failure, and several GM’s, who are looking for an entry position into the gaming industry with customer service branch and are willing to have a trainee salary, but aren’t allowed to play on the server or the game itself. Merely log on in shifts, across several servers, so they don"t have a personal stake in any of this.
P.s. Only works for PvE servers…
In PvP there’s simply way too much “humanity” involved for GM’s to handle.
That’s a very good point! in PvP the majority rules, and politics and humanity in general is part of the PvP experience.
Tho on PvE, when the system itself is being used against people that subscribe to it, that’s a different issue entirely. Only a neutral party can help…
I have been thinking long and hard for the longest time about the obilisk blocking issue… Even if one builds no-build zone underground or overhead passages leading to the obilisk into the geometry, people will in turn block that too. Build endless walls of china across of landscape JUST to block every entry way to the obilisk…
The only system that can prevent such is an admin.
Even if a large radius around an obilisk would programmatically turn all buildings public, someone would go into incredible lengths to envelope large radius that as well.
As long as long connected thin walls aren’t programmatically turned public, this will be an issue.
Make the persons real identity public? I doubt any sane person would agree to that given the number of gamers that have proved themselves to be unstable by issuing threats of violence or death and “swatting” people that have angered them by reporting some violent crime at their targets residence or job site.
Yes, i’m sure Jens Eriks or any of the other devs has had that happened to him already…
Sarcasm aside, you have a point though.
Which is probably why Nicole is a Spynosaur. So official GMs can be Rexes, who do not have a stake in the servers and are just doing a job. Problem solved.
I think its quite possible a player become a official server admin, it can be doe with some minor changes in the admin tool:
There should be implemented some kind of in game ticket feature, players could use this tool to report illegal building and harassment to the admins.
Admin players can only demolish structures, they cant spawn anything, they cant spawn resources, mobs, anything. The only real and serious threat on officials are griefers and hate build / blockades.
In case of illegal building these admins should also have a ingame tool to screenshot and report to Funcom for instructions. If Funcom allows intervention the admin would have rights to demolish the blockade/hate building and send a new screenshot report to Funcom. All admin action should be logged so Funcom can make sure they are demolishing the right structures.
In case of harassment admins could also use this tool to report griefers and let Funcom decide their fate with the proof they can provide.
Maybe admins could be allowed a second character, so they can have a ‘normal life’ in the server they choose to play.
With some new tools and roles I think its quite viable have player admins, they would serve as the bridge between Funcom and the community.
