Give GMs more authority or get more admin/GM staff

I have been reporting hackers/RWT suspicions in report abuse section for quite a long time, and it looks like all the GMs, especially Tim, the only Admin we have on this server, is very busy.

I understand that everyone is busy at this time of the year, and I also know that the whole GM/Admin staff are doing this service voluntarily. I don't mean to kick anyone's butt to expedite the process. Real-life stuff should be their top priority.

However, looking at the speed of how the ban appeals/hacker/RWT suspicion cases are handled, I do feel the need to lessen the load off the GM and Admin's shoulders, especially Tim, who is handling all these cases himself.

what do you guys think?

 

same i am agrree cos i have hella reports that r also unanswered for example last night before i went 2 bed i saw this guy my guild alliance flex he got 0-120 lvl in 2 weeks (lol) which is impossible since my first character took almost 2 months …. and yep i log on this morning he is still there… unbelievable … this game so poop rn i hope game master reads this… f3

 

@KenE sorry to say but that's not really sus, it's very possible to go from lvl 0-120 in 2 weeks especially if they are no-lifeing it by grinding their ass off the whole day or buying leech

 

For RWT reports, its not so much about having the tools, but the knowledge to see if the evidence provided is accurate, for example some dude join for 4months that owns a 30k potential NL, 63wa gears and a perf dps without any mage/bishop is already enough to discuss his/her case in the ban appeal.

At this rate how staff is leaving or going inactive.. and simply a GM group without end game progression knowledge, these tools will not matter to them, at all. Sure, staff might argue you don’t need experience to give a opinion, but you’re dealing with accounts here.

In all honesty, looking only at the RWT department, what we need is a full fledge veteran GM who actually not only went through the progression, knows the mesos/h from leeching & farming, understanding the market value of these gears, but most importantly able to put aside life dedications, sit down, look through the reports and reply to the ban appeals and not leave cases hanging for 3months. Knowing full well if someone is actually making shit up, or actually gotten really “lucky”.
You don’t need admin assistance for some reports, they are very straightforward.
Yet everyone is just shoving it to the admin nowadays.

These GMs is really rare to come by. Tools aint needed, these GMs are.

 

You are over-simplified how the investigation works...I cannot reveal how the investigation works but I can reassure you GMs NEED the tools (luckily GMs did get some upgrades recently as mentioned here)
I don't blame you but the fact that you are devaluing GMs with the false argument of lacking end-game progression knowledge is truly disheartening.

 

Sadly, i do not think i’m devaluing GMs with false arguement with end game knowledge, other than yourself & Tim in the staff team, which you’re a developer and another is admin.

I don’t really see much others which have much end-game progression, or am i mistaken. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this.

Edit : Proving me wrong, and for me to take back my words on regards, its easy.
On another hand you also put up some assurance for trust and for the lack of activity in reports with your brand new shiny tools, which i do think for rwt based, isn’t required.

If i’m wrong and its needed, even with a recent oct/nov upgrade, why haven’t there been replies for rwt cases to keep this in topic.
Is the upgrade not enough?
If so does matt knows about this?

 

Obviously I have no comment on the knowledge base of current GMs. I believe Dasha and Becca have multiple end-game characters, but what do I know about end-game. That being said, if you simply choose not to believe Staff members who are literally telling you to your face that certain tools are necessary to further their work with RWT-related investigations, then I'm not sure what productive conversation there really is to be had. But you are free to believe what you wish to believe. For what it's worth, I can tell you that as a Staff member who has absolutely zero involvement with RWT-related investigations, even I can confirm how critical and important these tools are for the Staff members who actually are actively involved in such work.

On the main topic of lacking manpower to tackle issues with RWT and hacking (and also vote abusing), this is something we have discussed all-too-frequently ourselves. And as far as I understand, this has already been an ongoing conversation since long before I joined Staff over a year ago. The three main solutions we have discussed include recruiting more Interns, promoting more Admins, and providing more tools to other Staff members to assist the Admins with their overburdened workload. Unfortunately, given the access to extremely sensitive data and functions that Admins require for their work, it is not particularly a surprise that there is a bottleneck at the Admin level. I mean, would you trust me to process all of your confidential paypal information to process any issues with RP? Because I wouldn't lmao. However, as was mentioned in the blog, slow but steady effort has been made to provide some of these aforementioned tools to GMs. And as I have alluded to in another thread, we are hoping to recruit more Interns soon to assist in their ongoing work at least for the time being.

On the broader discussion that has arisen recently (as well as recurringly) of the slow progression of improvements to the server, this is also a truth that is not lost on anyone on Staff. This is also an issue that unfortunately has no realistic solution to, based on my opinion and experience. It's why changes that feel so obvious sometimes take literal years to implement. It's also why scalability is impossible, because a bloated team only leads to serious inefficiencies. At the end of the day, there never were, there never is, there never will be, and there never can be enough Staff members to process all of the work needed to address every concern by the community. As someone who has been on the other side of the conversation before, I can certainly understand the frustration. But there comes a point where people also need to accept the reality of the situation that things take time, and a lot of it. And there really is nothing else to do but remain patient. This issue is certainly not unique to this private server, and it's most certainly not unique to this particular gaming community.

And I'm also going to be completely honest with all of you for just a moment. Saying "we needed autoban [insert number] years ago" is unfortunately a useless talking point. And it's not lost on anyone that at this point, it's just a borderline meme-worthy statement used to farm forum likes. As obviously true as that statement may be, and as simply infuriating the ramifications of this statement may be on hardworking players, repeating it over and over again unfortunately isn't going to change anything. Trying to whip the Developers into working harder and harder unfortunately will have no positive effect--and if anything, will only have a negative effect. Because if I was in the position that Karven is having to deal with incessant bombardment of criticism and borderline vitriol by the community that I have seen throughout the years, I would have quit this shit long long ago.

 

i envy no staff member here.
i see a fraction of what you deal with and it makes me feel like im bouncing around in a nightmare.

i have no input but if i were anyone inside there, i wouldn't hire a single soul that plays or knows about this game. definitely NOT interns, and definitely not interns who also play the game. its like hiring students to run a school. just hire people that can roll with spaghetti code and don't give a fuck about being funny or talking to us sickos

 

Sure, If i’m wrong and its needed, even with a recent Oct/Nov upgrade, why haven’t there been replies for rwt cases?
Is the upgrade not enough?
If so does matt knows about this?
You guys have been in the staff family for a year, there shouldn't be any trust issue & abuse right?

Or is the system, "Hey Tim here's a report on X player, can you look into it?"
Because that's how it looks like to me, which I pray isn't the case.

Promoting more admins
Other than ____, is there even suitable candidates?
Promoting more admins to assist Tim & Matt. Now that Tim isn't really around anymore, it's really about time.

Providing more tools.
Tools upgrade
Results: No replies in RWT reports.

Recruiting more interns
How many threads out there to recruit new staff & interns have been created, Is there anything done ever since February?
Wasn't there supposed to be a new template that was discussed in January?
Its almost 2022.
We are hoping to recruit more Interns soon, soon.. yeah, i really wish soon, don't let it be a Pinkbean soonTM thing,

Quoting from January 2 2021 Q&A
Are there any plans to add more (Staff) roles?
Yes. We have discussed recruiting people who are interested in testing bugs, giving game balance advice, and potentially WZ editing. Once we finalise exactly how we want these roles to work alongside our current roles and implement the necessary groundwork, we will be begin the recruitment process.

On this RWT Topic,
Isn’t it a norm for new interns to be restrained with limited tools to avoid GM abusers. Yet like you guys say, its needed. Will they be able to do the job?
I do think they can but seems like I'm wrong. But Josh & Johnny did fine right?
Soo.. with more tools now, what's wrong??

Indeed, never enough staff for all concerns by the community, sure.
For RWT cases, you very well know how many is made, and there are reports that have really in-depth details included without much work & just to verify the truth to it.
Or are all the reports from your player base, also useless without Tim? Welp, its probably all stacked high up now.

Saying we needed autoban is a genuine request.
"meme worthy statement used to farm forum likes." We very well know how much this affects the community & your player base. We know pink bean is delayed due to it as well.
For god sake. Please don't look at auto ban posts as a joke or meme, for every single hacker that is seen flying around, maple island with a bunch of mobs vacced, polizzz just hacking a few hours ago. For a player that invests his youth in this game, It really hurts to see this happening.
This has been the top priority of the server, I don't see this as a joke, and neither should anyone, to top that off, manual RWT ban from reports is now not working?
Simply because Tim is away? Hello?
This is the time to step up, take the initiative to pick up parts of his job.



So what if Karven does one day says quit. Is the team ready for it, are we prepared to see a similar situation like today. Or should we entirely let royals go?
Are we supposed to see loss in efficiency, slower updates, and once again. and this isn't a joke, I mean it. Hackers vacc-ing or heck floating at chnl1 FM? and "Do everything at your own pace".

Everything you guys say, do or not do has quite the effect in the server. Mad as i am, i do not wish to see the server we all love crumble, but i do see several large cracks, here and there.

 

The progress of this server will always be hindered by the ineffective staffing system.

I'm sure this exact thread could've been posted in 2019,2020 and we will probably see it in 2022.

 

@Jooon


@KenE
I have a full-time job, play in a rugby league, and casually got a MM to 140 in 16 days without leech by testing out the new Party EXP % system. It's pretty awesome. Also, last year got my Shadower to 175 in just about 2 weeks during the Xmass event. This mushroom game is easy. Relax.

Well, here we go again. Seen these threads many times, and most people blame GM/Admins. I blame players at this point. I have good friends that are/were GMs so I understand what they do and how much time they dedicate. From my perspective, this game is getting better year by year. It's a private server, not a AAA game. Which hilariously has worse Admins/Devs than Private Servers at times. I tried playing New World during my 8-month Mapleroyals break, boy was that a fucking shit show. Yea Royals made some mistakes on changes and whatnot, it's fine. We move on or they get reverted, lesson learned. Comparatively, other Maple servers are going through WAY worse issues. Just take a step back and let them do their thing. Criticize them all you want, it's not really helping anyone? Maybe it is, I just haven't seen any positive effects of calling people out or forum ranting. I more or less agree with some of the points you state @Jooon, and yea it feels like some things are being slacked on. It's chill though dude, just take a step back and enjoy the mushroom game for what it is. If they fix things, cool. If they don't, ain't shit we can do about it.

About the RWT, I know for a fact that these long-drawn-out "investigations" or "explanations" are mostly just fluff. Several times acquaintances of mine have admitted to RWT to people and got caught trying to buy or sell things, then STILL make a ban appeal with all this "evidence" of making the Mesos legitimately. And I even ask, WHY? Why make an appeal, you GOT CAUGHT. Say your goodbyes and play something else, it's just a game. People then start saying #FreeXXX even knowing what they did and paint Admins as the bad guys. This happens, A LOT. I have faith that Admins know for a fact if someone is RWT at this point. I think I have seen ONE case appealed and it was still super sus because of the community they were in.

Completely agree with this statement. I have even been guilty of it. I would love for you to know that most players really appreciate the work over the past year from you and other GMs. They just don't post on forums at all. The majority of players still love what you all do for the community. Shout-out to Cuddles guild, like 200+ newish players, and they are completely in love with Royals. uwu gang gang.

 

Thank you for clearing this up to me. That's definitely a end-game leveling progression, so i feel at ease at least that field of knowledge is in the team.
If you do like to hear my view on this, open the spoiler, but its very toxic, just ignore it if you don't wanna read about end game, oh and if there's any spoiler tags below from this its probably not wise to read it as well.

Spoiler

Sorry i sugar coated the text above, If you only have that, i'm actually...


Players having 3-4 lvl200 characters far more than common nowadays, its balanced to a point a player can do it in 3-4months EASILY. Both at the same time.
Are those of yours 30k potential LUK/DEX characters?
Perfect weapon is a norm, every other player have at least one, i wonder, do you becca? 23/12/2021

• How many mages have you ever grinded to level200?
  
• Have you even try doing minimally trio auf own your non GM/tespia character?
  I'm not even talking about duo auf which is the meta now.
  
• Do you even know what it takes to wash a 30k NL?

As of the game right now, 35wa CGS = entry level, and you'd probably be rejected by guilds & even some runs on the spot, if you're below that threshold.
55+auf helm / 63wa = start of end game. moving forward in 2022, auf helm will become a norm.
With the skillsets & characters you own now.
Unless with some miraculous cs luck, reaching the first step of end game is x4 lvl180 mages worth of pure grind away if u want the most efficient method as of today.

What you have is not end game.

Also does anyone on the team have the knowledge what it takes to farm/inherit/merge/liquidate/loan one auf helm of it out?
Your admin tools can't even do this because no ___ logs other than B ___.
The amount of time @sparky95 requested for this to be trackable, and logs to be implemented.. till today? Nothing.

The vast knowledge that one gains from having this progression and mentoring players to the 63wa gear end game entry mark easily allows one to identify
whether the report/ban appeal is bullshit, or even immediately tell if the dude that have 1x lvl200 bishop and 1x 150 archmage sharing that he owns 63wa gears is nonsensical or not.
Given gears, merged gears and hiding gears in storage. What do u plan to do?

Thank you, this answers the question and probably with this we can conclude this post, but OP might have more to discuss.
The update is not enough, and staff need to be reliant on Tim.

This is accurate, isn't it? And yes, some reports are heavily fleshed out.

Even though you can do everything more efficiently on regards to the other abuse avenue(s), the main problem mentioned in this thread, "RWT" isn't possible.
Staff is unable to handle rwt reports, and a percentage of the staff has the mindset "absolutely zero involvement with RWT-related investigations".

• Why? Are you guys doing something else that insane difficult and busy to the point you can't help out and have zero involvement? If life is catching up, its about damn time to reshuffle no?

From what i see, there's a lot JQs and GMs event added, is that something to prioritize on?
You guys can add all filler events all you like such as summer dash winter dash. But lets not forget the main story, the road map & your priorities, and not moving forward with the road map is a problem.
If you are a developer, sure. I understand, you're really busy. If your a GM I'm very sure it falls under your job scope to work as a team. Yeah we're volunteers, you can't force it onto them. Yet there are many other volunteers out there who are waiting in line.

Its quite a bad 2021 year compared to the past. Ellin forest was created as a fun content, and nerfed into a dead map. LHC is released with limitations and without its jewel, and GM blogs brim with delays and apologies.

Spoiler

What i felt when i read the november blog. btw december blog hype, merry christmas

• Title = Sorry we missed october blog
• Von = Sorry delay
• Meso guard = Sorry its a bad idea, we revert
• Hp Washing = Still thinking how to implement it
• GM tools = Unsatisfactory results.
• Thanks giving & gm event = 20 Nov, don’t worry guys this whole time we working hard for christmas event.
• More GM events = sigh
• Staff changes = New wiz editors !
• Q&A Sorry guys, delayed.
  
  Wtf.. is it not painful writing these now?

but this 2021 details are completely off topic, It belongs to get it off your chest my bad.

@Matt "I’m assuming Matt knows" Now we can make sure he knows.

Well, looks at these abusers.. throughout the years.
Yet I'm very excited to see the new young peeps that has the fastest learning abilities to join the staff team.

From all your responses. I'd have a few interesting takeaways.
Kenny - I cannot reveal how the investigation works but I can reassure you GMs NEED the tools
Sen - Staff member who has absolutely zero involvement with RWT-related investigations
Becca - The upgrade was not enough to be able to assist in RWT cases

Tools upgrade, sure if you guys insist that needs the tools. I believe is a good time to bring it to light that even the tools have been revamped, its not showing results.

Even though tim's manual banning is no longer around. You guys & Matt still are. all the tools the server has are all present. Its simply not well arranged, or once again. Am i wrong?

• When something is going out of control, the team should immediately try to rectify it no?
• When did this start piling up since October or even earlier?

These is just my speculation, if its true, please help out.
Staff with zero involvement in RWT, and have no intention to participate, In particular you guys with the GM roles, once again please take up the initiative.
I can understand forum mods & dev are busy in their particular field, but I believe no GM should not be looking into the reports that are piled up.

I’ll put this here, Royals staff team need to learn to survive without Tim.

 

Sometimes you don't even need to look into their accounts.
For example, when you see a random night lord dealing 73k crit per line, or 7.5k clean range with mw20 at level 16x. If you ever played that certain class or experienced end game content you will know how ridiculous it is. Sorry to say that but I'm sure that most of the staff has no idea about this. (or you guys just doesn't care about that)

 

Short and simple, we cannot do it, there's a lot emotions in this reply of yours, and I'm thankful for that.
To be honest that's what I think the server need to see, but more importantly, what the admins need to see am i wrong?
"We need the tools" and "We are not given". Very similar to Heros/MM asking for help now huh.

Matt have access to these logs.. or again am i wrong?

What do you even want to look?
Gears, join date, chat log and playtime?
And honestly, these are enough. But it isn't hard for us players who provide the report to you guys that already have these information?
Such as this guy! who joined 10 years ago and scrolled his gears with pink scrolls. (DEC 14 2021 servertime included)
Note forum mod who wants to remove this, I'm not saying his a rwter & permission is granted from the one who SS-ed this.

Indeed, its not yours or any GMs fault. My most sincere apologies for blaming and pointing the finger at you and staff.
But this tools are so important to you guys, and I believe this hits the bullseye point of this post, and maybe we players can give you a hand in voicing out the changes required.
Give GMs more authority or get more admin/GM staff

Thanks for being the only one who really put in effort for making them. Seems like the skills of creating them are much more efficient, but it does take away the time for manual banning. but hey, job well done. So what does other staff (GM) do? Would you'd like to be more transparent on it?

Now once again i question. If GMs are given more tools, can we refresh and restart the process, or should your playerbase give up in assisting in reports entirely.
And if GMs are not given more tools, can you guys have matt put aside an hour or two to assist in these?
Because in all honesty, having all these stacked up is far more concerning, and secondly, this post is not created because of the leaks, but your players are getting discouraged to make further efforts to assist staff.

Edit : You mentioned that everyone in staff wants to help out in RWT. Great, but is that just your opinion, or the team as a whole. From what i speculate, it isn't so much of the case, just by looking at the activity, and theres more players out there waiting for the new template to actually help.

 

wow you got to lvl175 in 2 weeks thats insane did you play like 24hours a day getting leech.

I played 18hours a day for close to 3months after my bar exam during the exp-losion event (1.2x exp coupon and server %exp buff) before I got to lvl200 you are clearly a pro at this game.

Back to rwt question at hand, my question is when will my reports of rwt be answered? Im not neccesarily breathing down the necks of admin/Staff because I know Staffs have their own personal lives to run. But I would appreciate it if theres at least a reply saying that my reports are in some sort of queue whatsoever instead of "thank you for your report" and then nothing for 2-3months.

I play this server because I really enjoy the nostalgia of merching and setting up stores in fm and the brutal truth is that rwters ruin the market and its quite tilting to see prices of stuff go to shit because of vote abusers/rwters.

A lot of my mesos come from buying eqs/scrolls from players who want to clear their inventory and are willing to be lowballed/merch by me. Sadly its getting harder for me to profit this way because vote abusers spoil the market value for these scrolls.

Yeah sure I still do it because it gives me a kick to see I made money doing nothing except putting a scroll in my shop for 24hours but you know what gives me a greater kick? Seeing I made more mesos doing the same exact thing. Please ban those rwting/vote abusing scum ty.

I hope the bottleneck for these reports gets cleared soon. Thank you

 

It's time to take the "you should take a break from Mapling" messages in game a bit seriously.

 

says the guy that got to 175 in 2 weeks

 

LMAO It is so funny because I ss-ed the same guy when I saw his smega. I asked him few questions and thought that he is a rwt-er right away. Couldn't file in any reports tho because I was in Krex at that moment and forgot to save the ss.

I did not mean to stir up any problems or quarrel between GMs and users. My point is that it does look like we need some more GMs or at least another admin - preferrably one with dedication and knowledge about this game - who can look into these things because it looks like Tim is the only one who looks into these and it is very inefficient. I also don't want Tim to bear all the burden himself as well.