Time for a Vacation

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by Valbrandr
Why do so many feel the needs to take the side of the mods and gms?

Because just as there are those who have had nothing but negative experiences with Mods and GMs, there are those who have had nothing but positive. People tend to choose sides based on their experience first, and only once they reach an understanding of the other side, do those opinions begin to change. I don\'t see why it\'s hard to think that not everyone has a complaint against those with authority, even while the complaints of others may be valid.

For one, every gm or mod should not take offense because we are not outright accusing everyone.  Just a select few who we have left, for the most part, unnamed.

If the complaints are not against the GM/Mod system entirely but against a select few people, there must be a better way of dealing with it. Vague threads achieve very little but eat away at the nerves of all parties. I will have to go with Kiern\'s suggestion of a sub-forum as well. Many forums of successful games have a section where individuals can voice complaints against GM behavior - and this way instead of involving those that are uninvolved, the only parties to attempt to resolve the issues will be the players and GMs/Mods. There are no doubts that players may experience difficulty with resolving issues in-game, and not everyone has access to IRC (or feels it is worth downloading an entire client for a single GM issue). So my vote goes in the subforum direction, if it even means anything. The least we can do is try it out, and go back if it doesn\'t work.

Are there really so many naive people around here that they can deny that some abuse has occured?

I don\'t think anyone here has denied anything, and you probably realize this.

Just count the number of people who have left this community because of it.  Too many in the ten months I have been here.

While we are a closely-knit community for the most part, everyone does not know everyone else. Several who have left the game were not regulars on the forum, or those who were on the forums rarely showed up in-game. So not everyone is familiar with who left and who didn\'t. Occasional goodbye-threads do pop up here and those are the ones that are remembered most clearly. However, I myself am unaware of the numbers you probably have in mind, and I don\'t think you can place much blame in anyone for this ignorance.

And please, to anyone else who is going to post after me, dont say, \"Well you can just leave if you dont like it.\"  Why, because a few would like to complain about it?  Thats what Eiffell was told... If he didnt like the fact that his name was changed... he could just leave and find another community.  That is not fair.  He was just wondering why his name was changed.  Thats it.  He didnt come out and attack anyone, actually he was quite polite.

Very polite, in fact much more polite than the people who posted after him trying to defend his right to his name. He accepted the decision of the GM who renamed him, while others continued to argue for his case. I\'m not stating that we should have no freedom at all to discuss such issues, but if the person to originally start the discussion has pretty much ended that specific issue, I believe there are no further reasons to continue it.

[Phinehas]

By now I can\'t even remember the exact name of the person who started that thread, and if I have to read one more of Phinehas\' exaggerated \"examples\", I\'ll rip my own arm out just to have something to throw at him. (insert winking smiley here)

Ah, my adoring public!


*yawn*

Ok people. This is boring now. Knock it off.

I knew I should have just let this thread be. But no... I had to post, didn\'t I? I had to make a point, didn\'t I? Why is it that I seem to be the only one who can argue without feeling personally involved? I argue for the fun of arguing, as soon as tempers fray, it just gets annoying.

[Induane]

Phinehas is right, once things start getting personal, then the argument cannot progress in a manner that is condusive to finding a solution.  Intelligent discussion of a problem invariably leads to some people getting overly involved and taking certain points personally.

He accepted the decision of the GM who renamed him, while others continued to argue for his case. I\'m not stating that we should have no freedom at all to discuss such issues, but if the person to originally start the discussion has pretty much ended that specific issue, I believe there are no further reasons to continue it.

I do have to take a logical issue with this comment however, as it is flawed.  Simply because the person whose name was changed has accepted it does not mean that the problem no longer exists or that there is no need to discuss it.  This is incorrect, it is simply ignoring the problem because the person complaining about it is no longer vocalizing his/her complaints.  This doesn\'t work.  If someone killed someones husband, they are eventually going to cool down and accept the death, and not really vocalize it anymore.  That doesn\'t mean the law enforcement shouldn\'t still track down this person as they could still be a danger to other people.  

Because just as there are those who have had nothing but negative experiences with Mods and GMs, there are those who have had nothing but positive. People tend to choose sides based on their experience first, and only once they reach an understanding of the other side, do those opinions begin to change. I don\'t see why it\'s hard to think that not everyone has a complaint against those with authority, even while the complaints of others may be valid.

I don\'t think anyone ever stated (/me rescans thread) that everyone takes issue with the current authority.  I may be wrong but I doubt it.

Just to back up what Dem and Karyuu said, if you have any proof of GMs abusing power, please contact other GMs or Devs. We want to stop any such abuses more then even players do, as it gives us more work, and contradicts everything we stand for.

Where is the proper place to report this?  The thread for ingame abuse seems to be directed towards helping the GM\'s find people who are causing problems ingame, not for them to address issues within their own ranks.  Perhaps a new stick could be added under that for such reports, with it being moderated by someone who is not currently a GM, as that would be a conflict of interest.  If people knew where to go when such issues occurred, then they could easily post their issues.  GM\'s, knowing that there is now a small check on their power, might be persuaded to be more impartial and have less temptation to abuse power (Once again this isn\'t directed at EVERY GM/MOD, Just the small percent who may not be acting in the best interests of PS).

[zabeal]

Originally posted by Induane
Where is the proper place to report this?  The thread for ingame abuse seems to be directed towards helping the GM\'s find people who are causing problems ingame, not for them to address issues within their own ranks.  Perhaps a new stick could be added under that for such reports, with it being moderated by someone who is not currently a GM, as that would be a conflict of interest.  If people knew where to go when such issues occurred, then they could easily post their issues.  GM\'s, knowing that there is now a small check on their power, might be persuaded to be more impartial and have less temptation to abuse power (Once again this isn\'t directed at EVERY GM/MOD, Just the small percent who may not be acting in the best interests of PS).

Well, would not an abusive GM be someone ingame causing problems? Keep in mind, not all GMs even read this forum let alone post or read every forum. Moogie is the only person who is both a GM and a moderater here, and infact she falls in the catagory of devs who have offered to help moderate in game. So you could feel free to post comments about GMs here, as long as it was specific- previous threads have been locked because they amounted to saying \"all GMs suck!!\" That isn\'t productive anyway you look at it.

So what can be done? Well, any Dev outranks a GM, so feel free to try and ocontact them anywheres, here on the forum, or thru email. But as I said before, you can trust other GMs to be fair- if I heard of a GM, for example, renaming everyone on the plaza at random, then I would do everything I can to get them removed.

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by Induane
Simply because the person whose name was changed has accepted it does not mean that the problem no longer exists or that there is no need to discuss it.

My point was that I felt there was no need to discuss that specific example, with Eiffell. Of course this is a personal opinion. But using a murder analogy? Murder breaks the law while the naming rules enforce the current \"law.\" And you have to admit the GM who wanted to rename the guy was following rules, since they state that names having anything to do with places (however remote) are to be avoided. So maybe we should concentrate on changing/tweaking the rules more instead of changing GMs.

I don\'t think anyone ever stated (/me rescans thread) that everyone takes issue with the current authority.  I may be wrong but I doubt it.

But I didn\'t state that -everyone- takes issue, either ;) I simply said there are those who do, and those who don\'t.

[Uyaem]

Originally posted by Phinehas

By now I can\'t even remember the exact name of the person who started that thread, and if I have to read one more of Phinehas\' exaggerated \"examples\", I\'ll rip my own arm out just to have something to throw at him. (insert winking smiley here)

Ah, my adoring public!


*yawn*

Ok people. This is boring now. Knock it off.

I knew I should have just let this thread be. But no... I had to post, didn\'t I? I had to make a point, didn\'t I? Why is it that I seem to be the only one who can argue without feeling personally involved? I argue for the fun of arguing, as soon as tempers fray, it just gets annoying.

If with those tempers you were referring to my posting, there are less of those involved than you might think.
If you want to argue, stick to facts. You\'ll notice it keeps people\'s temper down, whether they agree with you or argue against you.

[Wired_Crawler]

Well... before this thread dies, let me put some life to it too
(this post should probably go to \"Wish list\" section, or maybe \"Bugs\" , but i will follow the rule \"better to post in existing thread\" )

What was the topic ?... \"Time for a Vacation\"

[half-seriously]

You are on vacation. You have lots of free time, so You decide to spend considerable amount of it on playing Planeshift.
You have really good time today. You feel, that it is the best roleplaying session You ever had. You are totally immersed in the world of Yliakum.
Suddenly...
...in the middle of most interesting action...
... big, orange (red/pink/yellow/whatever) letters appear, forming the words:
Game Masters
\"Aaaaarrgghh.... noooooo..... He ruined everything.... It is only the game ?!....\"
\"grrrr.....\"
/petition The name of the guild \"Game Masters\" disrupts my roleplaying. Pretty please, make the guild master of this guild change its name.

[/half-seriously]

[seriously]

In my opinion, the term \"game master\" is misused. Let\'s ask wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_master
\"Ah. Yes. This is it. The real meaning of \"Game master\".
\"What\'s this ?\" (/me read the last paragraph)
\"Oh. So this is, what game masters are in MMORPG... Poor, miserable beings...\"

[/seriously]

[half-seriously]

\"Ah... I see. Poor, miserable beings...\"
/you delete the petition
/you turn off guild labels
After short deliberation /you turn off character labels as well
After considering little more /you turn on \"show on mouse\" option
\"Well, it should be good compromise...\"
 
[/half-seriously]

[seriously]

1. Name \"Game Masters\" does not follow naming rules (it is NOT proper fantasy name).
2. PS aims for originality.
3. Most of current \"game masters\" are only to keep an order.
Why not choose other name(s) for game masters guild(s) ? For example \"Peace Keepers\", or \"Yliakum Guards\", or \"Knights of Order\" ... (instead of ranks in \"game masters\" guild)
Usually I keep away from characters with \"Game Masters\" above their head. Why? Probably I can\'t explain it clearly (apart from the reason mentioned above), the cause is hidden somewhere in my sub-consiousness.
The real Game Masters in PS are administrators and developers (and probably most powerfull \"game masters\" ). They posses full control over the world. They decide, whether You can roll 1-sided die for 1, or 3270-sided die for... 1

[/seriously]

Cheers.

[Karyuu]

While GMs are meant to encourage roleplay, they themselves are completely OOC - the reason several of them get away with OOC names (which I personally disagree with). They cannot roleplay while trying to change someone\'s obnoxious name, or OOC guild. They cannot roleplay while they unstick someone from a glitched area, because they are they to insure that the roleplay of players between players goes as smoothly as possible (in theory). They are there to weed out the trouble makers - and roleplay is not something they can engage in while doing so.

Certainly many of them, Platyna especially, have promoted GM-run quests and roleplay sessions, but that is not what they are here to do, really.

Besides, I believe guilds with the titles of Peace Keepers or Yliakum Guards exist already (unless I\'m horribly late and they\'ve disbanded). And \"Game Masters\" is very obvious that they are not regular players and have the ability to rename, delete, or move characters. If they were named with a more roleplay title, it would be confusing for new players.

All in all, GMs are OOC.

[Uyaem]

Originally posted by Karyuu
[...] If they were named with a more roleplay title, it would be confusing for new players.

All in all, GMs are OOC.

This sums it up perfectly. I believe that some time in February this name discussion was already there (internally), and the reasons listed by Karyuu were actually those that are responsible for the decision.

Why at all a GM guild? I\'d like to answer that question before it might get asked:
There was the need for GMs to communicate online as a group. Forming a guild was an easy way to do that without causing the need to change the software.

Adressing a special point:

3. Most of current \"game masters\" are only to keep an order.

At least those with the most time online focus on that. The high level GMs = administrators that you speak of do exist of course, and can usually be \'summoned\' if needed. As (most of) those are the same people who also develop the game, they are naturally not so often on the public server just to \"hang out\".

[Induane]

But using a murder analogy?

You are correct the analogy was not the best, I was just trying to use an extreme example.  A better example would be a police officer abusing his power in one way or another - an authority figure causing problems. I was using flawed logic.

[Phinehas]

Originally posted by Pogopuschel

Originally posted by Phinehas

By now I can\'t even remember the exact name of the person who started that thread, and if I have to read one more of Phinehas\' exaggerated \"examples\", I\'ll rip my own arm out just to have something to throw at him. (insert winking smiley here)

Ah, my adoring public!


*yawn*

Ok people. This is boring now. Knock it off.

I knew I should have just let this thread be. But no... I had to post, didn\'t I? I had to make a point, didn\'t I? Why is it that I seem to be the only one who can argue without feeling personally involved? I argue for the fun of arguing, as soon as tempers fray, it just gets annoying.

If with those tempers you were referring to my posting, there are less of those involved than you might think.
If you want to argue, stick to facts. You\'ll notice it keeps people\'s temper down, whether they agree with you or argue against you.

Nope, wasn\'t talking about you. Run along and play now.

How did this conversation turn into a discussion of the \"guild\" game masters? That\'s just lame, and not the issue at hand anyways. I don\'t think anyone really cares if there\'s a guild or not. If they do, then they have problems.

*sits back to watch the GM\'s aggressively defend themselves against experienced players*

This is getting old. Have we even reached a single helpful solution in this argument, or is everyone still just sticking obstinately to their own point of view?

[Moogie]

Mikewsnc:
You know what I am sorry to have to go here but this is a public thread. It is an open thread. This is a place to talk about anything as long as you dont outright flame,curse, or just stait up be an ---. So I have the right to voice my opinion here. OPINION that seems to be a common voice among many planeshifters.

Sorry, wrong. I\'ll say it again, instead of deleting this thread: Discussions on GM behavour/issues/abuse/etc are not a valid topic of discussion on the forum. Read below.

Karyuu:
If you have complaints against GM behavior and have specific logs to back it up, Acraig has stated many times that he is more than willing to take a look. He has provided an email address in previous threads which you can use to submit the logs. No logs? Stick around until you think you have something of value to show. Otherwise, throwing random complaints into the wind is unfortunately no good.

This has been stated before.