Old vs. new

[Devosan]

So, I'm opening this DISCUSSION, which implies that this is a normal mature discussion, that does not need to be locked, as it is not a rant, just something I wish to throw out there. Let's have that clear first. Even though I'm fairly certain how it'll end. But we'll see.

Old versus new, regarding staff.. Just trying to point out the pros and the cons of both different situations, as I've seen dramatic changes, regarding this subject. Both positive, and negative.

Old situation:
Before the merges, yes this is something that is involved with the situation, the staff was different.
Pros: The staff was involved with the community, people knew who were staffmembers, respected them, taunted them, and whatsoever more. If someone had a problem, they actually attempted to help, for as far as they could, or the staff rules would let them.
The staff was divided in three major sections: Moderators, GMs, and admins. There were staffmembers online at pretty much all time. Most of these staffmembers were moderators, the chatpolice, as they were more commonly known. They were in charge of helping with most minor issues, such as dealing with simple tickets, that didn't need a GM to be solved, or making sure that the chat wasn't being flooded, there was no racism/discrimination, no swearing, no foreign languages and so on. Since both sides had plenty staffmembers, these rules were enforced throughout the entire day.
If a ticket required a GM, and only moderators were available, a player had to wait. Isn't that a con? NO! Players would be helped by a GM personally. They'd whisper said player, talk their issue through with them, regardless of if the issue could/would be resolved. The staff tried to help for as far as they could, and if they couldn't, they'd still let the player know by whisper. This form of involvement with the community is incredibly pleasant and stimulating for the community. Only in very rare occasions, when a ticket's been open for a longer time, a mail would be sent to the player, replying to their ticket.
Violating the rules had punishments. Clear punishments. Staffmembers had rules with these punishments. Every violation had its own respective and appropriate punishment. People knew who were mods, and when to be extra careful. This isn't necessarily bad, because since most of the time, there were mods online, people had to watch what they were saying all the time. This kept the chat nice and clean.
Cons:Back in the day, we had no developpers at all, other than Heihachi, really. If I recall correctly, that is. But he wasn't really busy with most in-game issues, such as bugged quests etc. That was no problem, most people were still happy regardless.
Tickets sometimes stayed open for a while, because there was no GM available to help. Most issues would still be solved appropriately.
Actually, that was that for the cons.

TL;DR: Staff was warm and caring, trying their very best to help someone out, and did so personally. Chats were kept clean appropriately, and the amount of rulebreakers was low. Pretty much no fixes on existing bugs, but people knew there were no developpers, and that other than the monthly TrinityCore update there would be very few improvements. They were satisfied nonetheless.

New
Pros: There is a great amount of developpers working on the server. Working hard day after day to fix existing bugs. Quest completer gets less quests in it by the weeks, dungeons opening, mobs being fixed with having all their spells working.
On that area, the staff has greatly improved. But then, we already get to the
Cons: What? Already? Hell yes. With one or two exceptions, this staff is as cold-hearted as hell frozen over. The chats are one big fucking mess, Serbian, Turkish, Portuguese, Swahili, Chinese and Krypton, all fucking over. People swearing, insulting, breaking all the fucking rules in the world, dancing on the remains of what once used to be the old staff's carefully set up rules on moderation. Most staffmembers these days are developpers. They barely care about what happens on the server for that matter, all they see is 010100100101001. If they take action it's a fucking GUERILLA BAN/MUTE that the fucking Vietnamese would be jealous of.
Situation: Big spam discussion going on in LookingForGroup. Wrong channel. About 2 sentences/second enter the chatbox, spamming away everything before you can even read it. Then a GM comes in, no tag, nothing. Fucking Guerilla and all, grabbing their beautifully polished bow, they cherish so much and taking aim. Steadily and carefully they write in the chat: "use world please". Within a matter of seconds it's gone. Sucked into a black hole of spamming. And then, they let go their legendary [Arrow of Muting]. BOOM, HEADSHOT. 90 minutes mute. No wait, it was a critical hit. 180 minutes mute. For using the wrong channel. For the first time. How is this announced? Well depends on the situation. Some GMs simply stay hidden in their tree and say nothing. Others just yell out, with a GM tag all of a sudden. You have been muted, you have become the victim of my perfected bowshooting skills!
Situation2: A ticket is open. Seems like we have a problem, Houston. Let's read it. Oh, no it's just fanmail, let's send an automated mail back. AKA Ticket response. The most cold form of dealing with an issue a player is version. Now I personally couldn't give a flying fuck. But I can imagine that a new player, or some players who have been here longer will just think: "wow.. this staff isn't very helpful, I'll not write tickets anymore, they don't have time for it, it seems." Result: Fewer tickets. Staff thinks: "great, look at how few tickets we're getting lately, we must be doing a great job!" WRONG! A ticket response is the least respectful way of rejecting a help request from a person, who may actually be seriously having troubles with his seemingly minor issue. Especially if done the way they are done, usually.
Not only that, the issues aren't even looked into properly, the tickets aren't even READ properly. Issues are misunderstood, because the staff seemingly does not give a shit about what's going on with the playerbase. "we're making improvements to the server by fixing dungeons and quests, the players must be so ridiculously happy with it." WRONG. It's the gaming experience that decides all. And by just ignoring a players problem with ticket responses such as "better luck next time" and nothing else, you're not giving the players a great gaming experience. If you'd leave that ticket open for just 20 minutes longer, or until you find time to actually log in-game, and whisper said player, saying: "I'm sorry this is not an issue we should be helping you with, you'll have to try it again, or continue without finishing what you were intending to do." And now, this is important for you staffmembers, but I definitely hope you are capable of reading that sentence, because writing a sentence like that is SO much more pleasant to get then the four words "better luck next time", which basically translates to "Like I give a fuck about your problem." to the player who receives that ticket response. You have a long, long way to go, when it comes to treating the player base appropriately. You're not the kings and queens of the server, you're here to help the server out, and if you're not, then shame on you, because that should be why you've joined the staff. If you joined for any other reason, you simply disgust me.
Then next issue, staffmembers feel way more important than staffmembers these days. They don't listen to players and their issues, reasoning and discussions they're trying to open. (Don't let this be an example of that). If the staff disagrees with a player's problem, and thinks they're lieing, there's no chance you're right, even if you're right. You guys just avoid problems, walk away from them, even when they're shoved straight into your face, instead of solving the issues at hand. Another example of how you negatively affect the gaming experience.
Such as today, a friend of mine who has played on TW for three years, long before the merges, his account gets hacked, however that was done, doesn't really matter, I don't know either. What matters is the staff's response to his issue. "You traded your account, so we will not help you. Tough luck, kid." Check your bloody forehead. I think it's oozing fucking aids. Nice way to get the loyal players to leave the server!
There is no reasoning with the staff, they're right, no matter what the issue is. "I killed a mob that has a 100% dropchance to drop a quest item, 14 times, he didn't drop the item. I think it may be bugged." Staff response: "you didn't kill the mob."
That's basically what you're doing these days.
Then for the the fixes, great job, I won't deny that. Just a little GIGNORMOUGE issue. Something is NOT fixed if there is "A TRICK" to get it done. PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THE TRICK YOU KNOW OF, DEVELOPPERS. People are NOT going to spend 3 hours on one single quest trying to see if there is a trick to actually complete the quest. Either fucking fix it COMPLETELY or LEAVE it in the QC. I understand you want to get rid of the QC and fix all quests ASAP, but then do it properly.
Other than that, you might want to get more involved with community, all in all, because what seems to be taking place now, is something much less pleasant for you guys. Again, it's great you make all these fixes, but the only thing I see happening is people getting even less satisfied. Something is being fixed, not working perfectly, but still doable, even without "a trick". What happens? People complain, you work hard to fix something, and people start complaining about how it's done. People want more and more and more. They are still not satisfied. Now this might be something that comes from just the players, and that's definitely that the players themselves take a great role in, but still. When there were no fixes, whatsoever, people managed to be satisfied with what they had. Now people just want to have all there could be.
Also, for god's sake. Think of something for Gunship Loot. And I heard RS is as good as fixed, so open it, this isn't retail, we don't need to wait for the last moment to have something opened. The server is patch 3.3.5, of which Ruby Sanctum was a part of. So open it. You're just blocking the server's full possible potential.

TL;DR: Fixes are great, love them, and the server is becoming more and more what it should be by the day, but on your social area, you have more than a lot to work on. Think of it this way: You can only go up from this point on, as you're pretty much on the bottom for that matter. In all aspects. Again, with one or two exceptions left alone. Get rid of the fucking guerilla-ness.

>> INB4 Closed within 2 days
>> INB4 Removed
>> INB4 staffmembers denying this problem
>> INB4 "you fucking conservative idiot, deal with the situation as it is."
>> INB4 "OP is a fag"
>> INB4 "OP can't INB4"

[Justicelight]

After reading this I understood that you should level a hunter "bowshooting" , I agree with you on gunship loot (there is a post about this made by Amorian I guess) and about opening RS, I am okay how it is right now as in staying without RS a bit longer in order to prolong the server lifetime. But yea, something new can be released aka Gunship Loot through an loot chest after you port to Lich King level (this will make players even more desirable to kill PP25HC).

Have fun, JL

[????]

I honestly agree with all of this, and I'm actually glad such initiative was finally taken.

I applaud you - mentally at least. Cheers.

OP was a good guy today.

[ItchyVortex]

I remember back in the days when i played on spermik, seeing GM's talking on world chat and chilling just as if they were normal persons. Not an allmighty ninja who will only show his face to permamutebankick.

I agree with mith in his entire post. Rules here were never clear, some persons do something and get banned, others do exactly the same with even more proof and dont. Then there are retarded rules that arent even announced to the community like queuing 3 times = ban.

Also, im gonna repeat myself until the staff understands this:
Fixing classes, pathing and lvl 80 content in general is by far more important than low level quests. Low level content is already good enough to make players love the server. Lvl 80 content ISNT good enough for some players to think the server is decent.

[Teal Deer]

put on your robe and a wizards hat again gandalf.
become a mod this server deserve.

but yeah. i can agree with you.
there are some bad things going on in here...
like that we dont see banned players anymore.

[ItchyVortex]

"Users browsing this forum: Devosan, ItchyVortex and 0 guests"

MFW staff read this thread and didnt post anything. Lets be happy they didnt lock it.

[Devosan]

put on your robe and a wizards hat again gandalf.
become a mod this server deserve.

I lol'd.
I would love to help out the server again, the way it should be done. I'll redeem my nickname as Muterandra, in no-time, if necessary.
But I doubt the staff would let me join them because of the sarcasm I've been showing towards the staff, lately. The minor rule-breaking I've been doing lately. Why'd I do this? To show that you can do whatever you want, without getting punished, or get a 3 hour mute without warning.
I'd turn this entire way of how the staff is dealing with things around, 900°, simply because 180° won't suffice, and 900° might shake them just that little bit enough to come to senses. But then again, I doubt this could be reached

[Ancestor]

sorri im drunk but no forum no problems

[Blacklustersoldier]

It's not just the staff that is being the problem here, players are also part of the problem, whenever someone gets muted, they simply log another account and keep talking and maybe even keep doing in non english, back on spermik, gms banned people for a week for mute evasion, on bc the same, here people get muted and np, log new account yolo...
people have no respect for the rules, I get insulted from lvl 1 chars because I reported X player for talking in another language, and I don't bother with reporting that because fuck... people are mad cause they got caught "cheating" and it's come to the point where I don't even think reporting people for breaking the rules is a good thing because it will make you look like the villain of the server... OMG STUCK UP, asslicking gms, etc.

Frankly you got more freedom now, and regarding the staff... I haven't seen any OLD tw staff members around to moderate chats or take care of tickets. It's just GC, and BC.... sure they got exams they got stuff to do, no problem I don't blame them... people get bored of the same thing.

but let me ask you this... why do you need gms to constantly hold your hand and tell you to not break the chat rules? why must you act like a spoiled brat in order to get the attention of the GM, simply log IRC like I do and ask for help, idk if I ever got denied request with help for anything ingame when I stumbled upon an issue... and when I say you I mean the person who is doing this, not the OP

new staff may be quick to take harsh decisions.... but people are not being innocent lambs either
maybe if we had a new section on the new website where it would display what warns and bans people have received in the past... maybe you would see why some people get hammered so fast and others are given other chances....

either way I am not gonna take sides here, and I will blame both staff and players for the harsh decisions that are issued when punishing people.

[Belthezar]

Agree with that ticket response issue, even with the forum post I made, Doctor_J just repeated irrelevant stuff as if he hadn't even read any or all of my responses. I had to repeatedly explain myself without end as he never got it, either becauase he didn't read it, or has difficulty comprehending certain english phrases, in which case I wouldn't reccomend for certain roles.
This isn't to start a rivalry between GMs and players, but to make people realize how to handle certain things that they would apparentely seem not to know how to.


Btw Blackluster, the people that need their hand to be held aren't us or Devosan, rather petty ragers and idiots, which will always require someone to monitor them to prevent channels being spammed etc.

[Pausas]

Well, i do agree wth Mith's point of view here, but i gotta say the ticket answers are not as bad as you say there. Yes, I've been getting cold answers in a mailbox, yes, I've reported quests and bugged npcs and got myself a nice cold mail as answer to that, and nothing done about it. But i've actually came across a nice staff member, who I shall not name, that reminded me of the old times on spermik, where the GMs were friendly towards the community, talking around on public channels, having fun with us. It reminded me of the times before I was a GM myself, and i enjoyed the conversation i had with this staff member, and the way my issue was dealt with. The staff needs more people like this.

Now, the issue lies entirely on the interaction between the staff and the community, or the lack of it, in this case. We need actions to be taken, some fun events, spontaneous events held here and there by GMs, with some hide and seek, a GM hidden around giving out clues of where he's, Idk, I leave that part to those that have better ideas than me. At this point, anything would be an improvement.

The second problem is the state of the public chats at this moment. It is one hell of a mess, and needs control. I know, there are not many staff members around to do this. My answer to that? Bring back the moderators, we need those, it has been a while since i've seen any moderator at work, and, tho sometimes not apretiated, it is needed.

Good job with this thread, it was needed, i just hope this goes somewhere and good things come from this

[Devosan]

As for what you pointed out, Blacky, before merges, we used to ban for mute evasion, too. And let me combine that with the next statement you made. TW staff left, pretty much only Kindz/Slar are there from old staff. Which means that those rules being enforced is now MAINLY done by BloodCraft staff. Since as far as I know, only Doctor J is from Spermik, and the aforementioned from TW, no idea who are from GC, but the majority is still BloodCraft. So that's something THEY gave up on.
Old TW staff pretty much left, yeah. Either moved on with their lives, or I can imagine, as was for me the case, was sick of the new staff that stayed the way they were, wouldn't adapt anything other than wearing GM robes, literally, to what TrueWoW had for rules for GMs. What you are used to on BC, is actually a completely messed up system. When I was a mod, before I resigned, I didn't even know what GMs were online myself. All of them were AFKing on IRC, none in-game. And those that were couldn't be tracked, not even by staffmembers themselves. On several occasions I thought I was the only staffmember online, even when there happened to be 2-3 others online, which I couldn't see, as they were hiding. That's not really something that's stimulating helpfulness in the server.
I think we need to go back to somewhat more of the old system. Get either moderators, or more GMs, and let Developpers be Developpers as most of them have proven to not be suited for a role as GM.

[Devosan]

Well, i do agree wth Mith's point of view here, but i gotta say the ticket answers are not as bad as you say there. Yes, I've been getting cold answers in a mailbox, yes, I've reported quests and bugged npcs and got myself a nice cold mail as answer to that, and nothing done about it. But i've actually came across a nice staff member, who I shall not name, that reminded me of the old times on spermik, where the GMs were friendly towards the community, talking around on public channels, having fun with us. It reminded me of the times before I was a GM myself, and i enjoyed the conversation i had with this staff member, and the way my issue was dealt with. The staff needs more people like this.

Now, the issue lies entirely on the interaction between the staff and the community, or the lack of it, in this case. We need actions to be taken, some fun events, spontaneous events held here and there by GMs, with some hide and seek, a GM hidden around giving out clues of where he's, Idk, I leave that part to those that have better ideas than me. At this point, anything would be an improvement.

The second problem is the state of the public chats at this moment. It is one hell of a mess, and needs control. I know, there are not many staff members around to do this. My answer to that? Bring back the moderators, we need those, it has been a while since i've seen any moderator at work, and, tho sometimes not apretiated, it is needed.

Good job with this thread, it was needed, i just hope this goes somewhere and good things come from this

I think you're talking about Dymond. She's one of the few staffmembers that does their job appropriately. Especially compared to the others.

And yes, what you pointed out, is what I mentioned as being involved with the community. As that's something that's completely lacking at this point. And something that can so greatly stimulate the server. Well, you know ofc, Paus. Don't need to be telling you.
Anyways, yeah I hope this gets some results, because this way is just not the right way.

[Blacklustersoldier]

well true fildor, petty ragers and idiots, but they are still players, and those are the ones that need to read this topic and understand it, but from my experience they are also ignorant, so even if we fill out 20 pages with stuff, we won't get them to change... maybe getting a few more GM's or even moderators to keep the players in check may be a good idea... problem is... with all raids happening around the same time zone, gm activity will be LOW around that time simply because they may be attending those raids, and I am not sure a gm will log on his toon to help a lowbie

this is one of the reasons why I once said it, and got turned down by people, everyone staff and players - what I said was... a GM on a server should entirely give up being a player because then he would be more compelled to join in the player activity than doing his job as a GM

the comunity isn't that big, so in theory it shouldn't need that many active staff members to take care of it... but when 50% of the gms log on their play chars to attend a certain raid, 25% are not logged in because various reasons, 20% are afk, you are left with 5% of the GM team to deal with 100 problems...

my best advice is to recruit another 10 people for ingame GM activity, such as solving tickets and moderating chats and see how it goes from there

[Belthezar]

Raids have pauses between bosses, I remember thosuands of times there were mods that were in raids still keeping the chat clean, I don't see the big deal here honestly