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Check out the v.256 - The Dark Ride: Limbo Patch Notes
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Make some players into GMs
I'm so sick of this, make some of us able to ban these bitters and spammers. I will be one on EU maple and be banning every single Mose spammer and every bitter in mu lung. Why you don't employ GMs is beyond me, the game would run better without them I am sure of it!
Comments
And if it's not employees, but volunteers, well, they tried that with the MWLB (Maple Watch Leaf Brigade), and it didn't work out.
What exactly was the maple Watch Brigade, and why did it not work out?
The members were players hand-picked by Nexon to be "GM helpers". They had special accounts, separate from their player accounts. The special accounts had some GM powers, like teleport and invisibility. They did not have the ability to ban other players or affect them in any way (such as teleport elsewhere). They did have the ability to submit reports and videos that would be looked at by real GMs. They also participated in "mini-GM events" of playing Omok and Match-Cards with players.
The program failed for various reasons. From what I understand, people kept losing interest and drifting out, mostly because Nexon failed to do its part: there's nothing more disenheartening for a volunteer than to submit a report and video on a hacker, and have it take another month before they get banned.
The final shutdown reason, however, was breaking NDA. Same as the MLC.
Nexon's announcement: http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=19158
Some specific Watcher introductions:
http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=19676
http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=20579
http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=21785
http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=23171
There were more but they were all just as cringeworthy.
I could not find an official notice of the program's being shut down, sorry.
I place the blame squarely on Nexon's shoulders.
Even if the volunteers picked were unsuitable for their positions, and did their job poorly or broke NDA, it is ultimately Nexon's fault for not selecting them correctly. I refuse to believe that in the entire community there cannot be found a few dozen people who are capable, responsible, and willing to work to help the game.
With the MWLB, as I said, Nexon failed to properly motivate the volunteers to continue working.
With the MLC, from what I saw, Nexon largely ignored all their suggestions, or at best took from them what looked like it would make money (Oz in Marvel), completely ignoring the spirit of the resolution.
In both cases, Nexon did not allocate resources to interacting with the volunteers and using their contribution. It's not too terribly surprising that people lost their drive, and eventually one (or more) got upset enough to break NDA. (Should not happen, of course, even when frustrated. But see previous paragraph about choosing the right people).
Also, not every attempt fails. The Volunteer Forum Moderator position seems to be working out well, for the most part. I believe this is because Nexon has no choice (they certainly aren't going to hire paid moderators, and the CM is overworked as it is), so they are willing to put in some effort to make it work. But with "mini-GMs" or a "game design advisory council" - well, they already have paid people doing that work, kind of. Higher management doesn't really understand what the player volunteers contribute that makes it worth the extra hassle to interface with them.
In my opinion.
a public test server is uneccissary for GMS unless we get frequent unique content which isnt coming from other Maple regions.
How does Nexon manage to find trustworthy employees, then?
How do they manage to find mostly trustworthy VFMs - and get rid of the bad apples without abolishing the entire program?
The people picked for the test server were completely random, so of course there would be plenty of useless or just plain malicious ones there.
But the MWLB and MLC were supposedly hand-picked after a lengthy process, and were still rendered useless and (a few) eventually driven to corruption (or simple carelessness).
I'm actually with Akradian on this one. It does all fall on Nexon. There are trustworthy people around and a lot of them don't get the chance. Whatever system they had in place for choosing people needs to be reworked.
There are test servers on so many MMOs and all of them get used like you said. It's understandable because people want to try out the new content. As for people abusing exploits, that again falls on Nexon for not enforcing and not enforcing nearly fast enough. People will exploit either way and if they know they can get away with it easily they will be more inclined to do it. To say most will do this is wrong though. The problem with the test server is most people don't feel it's worth their time to stick around and do a job for Nexon especially after they've seen all they need to content wise. The solution to this? Add incentive to find and report bugs. I know most people would rather be playing on their mains on the live servers rather than finding bugs on the test server.
The MWLB was brought in at a time when lots of people were young. I mean there's still a lot of young people now but there are also far more vets who have continued to play and are in their 20's. Far more mature and knowledgeable about the game. I think they should bring something like it back without the cringe announcements. Just make it a secret thing. GMs need to actually follow up on the reports and the players chosen need to be chosen far better. There are people who have reported and gotten hundreds of people banned. These are the people you want on the MWLB.
The situation in game right now is beyond disgusting. Botting has never been so widespread. I see so many players botting now. I'm not talking about gold farmers which have been around forever. I'm talking about actual players botting/hacking on their mains. They simply do not give a crap anymore because that's how things have become. You have loads of people using macros, people watching their characters macro, afk macroing and a lot of them are making it all the way to 250 without even being touched. The fact that they even make it past 210 baffles me especially since it's so easy to identify macro botters. I don't know if this laziness, lack of staff or lack of experience on the GMs part since Nexon is never transparent with us anymore. I even said before the V patch more players would be macro botting and they have done absolutely nothing. After a major patch like this you would have wanted the GMs to be out in full force making sure nobody starts botting for nodestones and arcane symbols. Sadly they've all gotten away with it because there's no GMs around at all.
You also have the world record event currently running. There's a hacker/gold farmer that has a world record....still not banned btw. Just shows you how bad the situation is atm. In any other game these players would be banned in no more than 1 day.
They don't need to give GM banning powers, just invis and teleport like they used to. Like I have said and others they need to choose the players better.
Considering I have a full on resume I prepared...Id treat it like a real job, but eh...Nexon doesn't want my help :T Like...Id go through a scrutinous recruiting process with full enthusiasm cuz I want to help...cuz I know what botters look like and where they tend to hide around. (I report them quite often)
You ban all the hackers, then few minutes later there is again full of hackers. You ban them all again and few minute later there is again full of hackers....
So... you really think they are gonna waste their times? No. Their is much more important things to fix like the stability, bugs, and all those things instead of banning hackers when you know that there is gonna be a bunch of new hackers the next day.
They can at least keep the player base legit by banning macro botters. They refuse to do even that. It's not useless too, but the way they currently go about it is. You can do severe damage to gold farmers if you ban their supply accounts which hold billions. It would lose them money and cause a price rise in meso to dollar. Just follow the money. Look at fm right now. I've seen the same guys selling mass elite boss stock for years now. They don't get banned.
Its a waste of time since you will never be able to remove them all once and for all.
Dont get me wrong, i'd love the power to kick out those Advertisers in Free market, Ardentmill and of course towns.
Aswell as kicking the botters.
But theres no way we would, should or could be trusted with that sort of power.
Only takes one mistake for us to screw up and kick/ban a legit player.
Its not fair on Nexon to have to take reponsibilty based on a players actions towards another player like that.
Nexon are the control, thats why staff are GMs and not Players.
Wrong. Gold farmers use hacks. The people macro botting are actual players some of which have invested thousands of dollars into their characters. These players once banned will not continue macro botting and will most likely not come back. They can easily resolve this issue but have done little to nothing.
They'd only have invis and teleport functions...
Giving them banning powers would be stupid.