It's not that we don't play anymore, we just don't play as much. That's not the point of your post, I know. Just clarifying. And because we don't play as much, that's why we had a staff discussion to come to this conclusion. Again, this is the decision that was made. If anyone has suggestions like Matt stated, we are certainly open to them.
How would this be put into practice though? How do you suggest it be enforced and/or how would a player easily be able to prove that a character belongs to somebody already owning a boss map on another channel?
To be honest, I don't see why anyone would need to own more than 1 map at a time in general, whether it be bossing or farming. Would it be reasonable to log MAC addresses, and restrict map ownership to one client per computer? You can't really actively play more than one character at a time anyway. This would also solve some of the complaints on AFK farming. If you really want to farm on a busy map, then you need to make it your priority by moving your map ownership there. Otherwise, give your map to someone who is actually going to be focusing their attention there. Logistically, you just check the current users online if the MAC address being logged in from is currently being used. If it is, the character that just logged in will not be able to obtain map ownership. Otherwise, it is able to.
I think this would A. not be easy to implement, and B. have way too many flaws for it to be worth using. The 2 big issues I see with it are the following: You can bypass it by using 2 computers / laptops, or you can also bypass it by opening a virtual machine with an adjusted mac address. By default virtual machines only use a select few MAC addresses, and thus if 2 or more people use virtual machines that have the same mac address, it means they can't hold any map at all on any character. (This would be a big problem for mac users since they can't really play mapleroyals without a vm atm)
I forgot that VMs use the same MAC address. IP+MAC then maybe? Both this info is sent to the server during the login process, so I think the biggest issue aside from implementation would be if its scalable to the size of the server. Although I think the idea itself really just needs some kind of reasonable implementation. Then you add a "1 Mapowner per person" clause to the T&C and then I think it'd be clear enough that you'd have to make some kind of effort in order to circumvent the system, making it reportable if noticed. Similar to how there are various ways anyone could vote multiple times on a single day. It takes enough effort to do that if you're caught, theres plenty reasonable justification to ban.
Is it possible to adjust the ~mapowner timer on area boss maps to a smaller number like 30 seconds? If you make it tedious enough, people won't do it.
Disclaimer: As I am not currently active, please correct me if anything I say doesn't make any sense in the current game climate. I'm somewhat confused as to why taking map ownership of the same map across multiple channels can't be made bannable and be enforced? Staff are surely able to tell if two characters are owned by the same person - similar to account sharing cases. If this was simply and clearly made to be a bannable offense, then anyone taking two or more channels of the same map (specifically mini boss maps) would be obviously making an effort to do so. If noticed by another player, who has reason to believe that they are the same person, a report could be made that would be followed up by staff. I'm sure I've missed an important point in why this would be hard to implement but I had to ask because I'm just honestly confused. P.S. for the record I agree that one person hogging multiple mini bosses at the same time is a blatant abuse of the mapowner system. (As I'm sure most others do too)
The main way to check what characters a person owns is by checking the IP and MAC addresses of the accounts. As far as I'm aware, checking this is only possible by running a database query. And to my knowledge, the only people who have database access currently are the admins. I advocate for more GMs like Sila to be given read only database access. There's three admins who carry the ban appeals and the character issues and the abuse reports. Tim, Mike, and Dimitri. My personal feelings for these three people aside, I find it unfair that it essentially lies on three people to clear the Awaiting Admin Action tagged character issue threads backlog. I find it unfair that it essentially lies on three people to discover massive exploits like the meso gen and RWTers. I find it unfair that it essentially lies on three people to do these things when you have staff who are willing to do these things. I am not by any means saying that non admins should have write privileges to the database at all. THAT would be bad without extensive screening and training. But what's the harm in read only access? Give staff the tools to investigate more things, including really big things like RWTing which undermines all of us legitimate players' accomplishments and yet is only checked into by virtually one person. I agree with your point A, but I believe this can be addressed by letting GMs have read only database access as I advocate for in my previous paragraph. With your point B, they are valid points but let's look into the magnitude of these loopholes' impact. Yes, you can play Royals on multiple computers But I strongly doubt someone would play Royals on more than three computers at once. Financial constraints, space constraints, and so on make this very impractical. Yes, you can play Royals on multiple virtual machines. But virtual machines take up an enormous amount of CPU. Someone like me with a Mac can only open a single instance of Parallels without severe lag. Someone with a far more advanced computer, especially a desktop, can probably open many virtual machines without significant performance issue. Most likely, the MAC addresses on each virtual machine instance would be different or even spoofed. I don't think it'd be typical for someone to use a VPN on each virtual machine, but let's assume that they do. With even unique IP and MAC addresses per character muling a boss map for a person, you and I both know that's not the only grounds for determining the characters that belong to a person. Sure, it's the easiest and most obvious, but you also have birthdays, emails, and the account IDs themselves to look at. So yes, there is no perfect execution with the one person per boss map rule. But there is no perfect execution of this rule because there is no perfect execution with enforcing the ban evading rule. Flaws in rule implementation should not preclude the rule implementation itself. The point Jackson was making is that you and Matt don't have nor see nor understand the players' perspective. It's like that guy who made the 14 att 3 slot Red Sock and lost the stats in that three day rollback. Despite it being a clear server sided error, staff decided to not refund him. And what's absurd to me is that you said that player could just make it again. No. No you cannot. Luck like that is like hitting the jackpot. That's saying oh, you won the lottery? Well we don't have your ticket number in our database, but it's fine, you can just go win it again. That's ABSURD. I'm making this point because despite how you played Royals a little bit in the past, which I acknowledge is true, you do not understand what it means to play this game as a player now. It is ridiculous to me that I was specifically told by Jeen that I could not hold two Manons with my two bishops at the time I was doing so and that my second bishop's mapowner was invalid. I said this already in my post before, but since you wonder how I know things in staff chat, I thought I should reclarify exactly how I know that particular rule was indeed in effect at that time. One boss map per person. I was specifically told if I tried enforcing the mapowner of my second bishop, it would be bannable under objectionable behavior. I clearly remember this. It's obvious that the rule was in fact changed because it was reinforced by Tim, Mike, and Yan on forums, on the threads linked earlier by another person. It looks like to me that you were uninformed on this rule change and decided an abuse report by referring to the letter of the Terms and Conditions. So it looks like now, suddenly, the rule no longer exists because you said so, despite four staff members saying otherwise. My frustration is that playing staff members, defined as staff members who are also players and are informed about the game climate as Stan puts it, advocate for the players and non-playing staff members, you and Matt, just do not understand. Mikey put it so simply. Look at the likes on that post. A telltale sign of what the playerbase thinks and feels. The players know the game better than you do. That is a fact. How is this NOT toxic to you? How is this NOT a bad thing to you? Hell, the guild Arcady can mule at all twenty channels of Anego and hoard all the Anego so Selma finally gets her 9 int clean Yellow Snowshoes. They could smega S>Anego Map for that matter like the smegas S>Skele map 10m of yesteryear. There's all different sorts of ways to take advantage of ~mapowner. I'm aware, by the way, that the ~mapowner clause of one boss map per person was discussed at the time the Terms and Conditions were being revised. I had that conversation with Mike the night you edited the ksing report guidelines. I forgot what the reasoning was for not including it... That'd be pertinent to discussion. LF>GM Stan again. Spoiler I don't think nor feel that the grievances aired by the players on the feedback forum and aired by the playing staff members on the staff chats are heard or understood. I get it, nostalgia, transitioning to being old Global MapleStory instead of MapleRoyals. Yes, it's your server. It's your money, it's your legal responsibility. I'm not saying the players want x so we must get x at all. But in so many of these threads, non playing admins, particularly John, are ignorant of the REASONS why there should be x feature or x rule. It's like you don't UNDERSTAND. It's like the ~bosshp thread. Everyone makes such nuanced points, detailing exactly why the feature has merit and considering why it does not. But it's like the non playing staff just ignore the MULTIPLE points why the feature is a good thing and cite nostalgia, or ~bosshp technically being a hack that was in the OdinMS source code, etc etc. For all the players who put up valid arguments, with appropriate counterarguments, non playing staff don't even seem to consider all the various reasons why the features are wanted and beneficial and blindly say no, it's not nostalgic, end of discussion. It is sad to see a game I owe so much to make all these little bad decisions that just mar what Royals used to be. One day, this server will shut down. But until then, I want to revel in the nostalgia of Royals decades from now. Because this game changed my life. That's why I'm so invested in its success and the players. And so, I write.
This was by far one of the most detailed and informative posts I've ever read in probably my life. You should consider being a lawyer.
Ah thank you hahaha! I actually was going to go into law school quite recently, but I changed my mind. A more relaxed, quiet life as a paralegal suited me better. All the technical writing and thinking that I love, without the egoism of trial and transitioning from being an associate to a partner of a firm. You made me smile. Thank you!!
Oh wow haha! I'm sure you'd excel either way. I just thought everything you said really reflects what most players want to say, but may are too afraid to speak their minds to the GMs. Since the mapowner system for mini-bosses can now easily be abused, I'm sure people will start abusing. I just feel that more and more people are forced to play the bad guy because they have to stay competitive in order to boss, and that just raises the level of toxicity for the entire community
I recognize that many people do not want to make their own posts in these kinds of threads, due to the time and effort it involves and/or fear, yes. There's a certain hesitancy for players to be bluntly opposed to the top two admins if they have GM aspirations, which I once had yet abandoned long ago. So I'm happy to write these things out if it's some representation of what others think as well. It is unfortunate that ~mapowner is now so easily abused. Groups of people can now control entire bosses or mobs (e.g. Voodoos) or even just one person if they had the computer and system for it. It makes me think of how easy it will be to get a friend or two and just control every single Voodoo map for half a day. Multiple friends in different timezones, all working together to control Voodoos all day in shifts. Raise Heartstopper prices to 1m each. The demand for the item is extremely high, each one lasting only a minute and attackers using them as a standard attack pot when bossing. Two Zaks and two Krexes a day, assuming 30 minutes per run, means they would use roughly 120 Heartstoppers a day. If I can form an oligopoly on the item, since the only viable map where they drop is Voodoos (Psycho Jack Boxes also drop them, but the drop rate is atrocious since Psycho Jacks themselves that spawn do not drop Heartstoppers), I can have the majority of the playerbase at my mercy. For that matter, I could raise the toxicity level even more and attack in a map someone is summon farming in, because the majority of people who summon farm ONLY cast the summon. Casting the summon and the summon's attacking both do not refresh or register ~mapowner. So this means I can steal a bishop's Voodoo map if they were just casting Bahamut merely by casting Heal and hitting a mob. Bam, map is now mine. Then I send ~mapowner and I owned it for 2 seconds. If they stay, then I can report them for ksing. So you see, the ability to abuse ~mapowner is disgusting. I only ever play bishop, so I don't have insight into what the mini boss world is like really, but I think it's obvious how an abuse of this current ~mapowner rule can destroy the server. Exaggeration maybe. If someone does form a Heartstopper cartel, we'll see when such a thing comes to fruition.
I think this is probably quite harsh (but again I've been away so I'm not sure what's really happened) as members of staff who don't really play the server, in my experience, were never arrogant enough to not ask the opinions of the other members of staff that were more knowledgeable about the player-base and game climate. After all, that's a huge of the reason why they were hired in the first place. There's a lot that happens within staff conversations that players will never fully know, even if they happen to chat frequently with specific staff members. I know that there's been a push for a long time for extra clarity and hopefully this has been happening. I would have to be fully active and know that I'm committed to the server before I would even think of applying again. This thread has had quite a few sidetracks so I would suggest that we all wait until a staff member representing the staff as a whole replies to the concerns that have raised. We all want the server to be a nice friendly environment to play in, so I hope this discussion remains calm and productive.
I suggest that non-attacker/mules may have a 3 minute window of holding anego map. Person A: Anego map owner (non-attacker) Person B: Someone who reports. 1. In this 3 minute window, B need to have a both servertime stamp and mapowner stamp. 2. B need to tell A that he has a 3 minute window to have to mapownership, 3. B need to have timestamp for 1st minute, 2nd minute and the 3rd minute. 4. B has the right to ask A to leave map if there's no one attacking for A in that 3 minute window. For example, The report will only work only with screen recording, because the are some loopholes and flaws with screen shots. It encourages players to have screen recording software, eventually helping the server by eliminating bad guys because screen recording is the best evidence of any inappropriate behaviour. EDIT: The reason why 3minutes of time window is suggested is because it will be sufficient for non-attackers to look for friends from BL or guild to kill Anego for them. Players usually take 3 minutes and above to kill Anego. Even if they are able to kill Anego in 2 minutes, their mules can only hold a maximum 1 channel of Anego.
When I was GM we had a couple commands, !accinfo and !charinfo that characters tied to each other through IP and MAC addresses, idk if that's still a thing though. And in certain extenuating circumstances GMs are given read only admits to the database, for example there was a massive hired merchant issue about two years ago that made it so hundreds of people had items eaten by Fredrick. We had people make Character Issues threads detailing what they lost and when and we'd go into the DB to confirm and refund them. But running a query takes time, which leads my to my next point: Looking all that info up to double check for something as simple as ~mapowner takes time that people in game may not have. Even if we had ~gm you'd have to consider response time, time explaining the situation, query lookup time, etc, and hope it's shorter than time to kill. Response time can be over 10 minutes during busier times in the day, which would lead to the ~gm for map ownership obsolete. Sure, you can report on the forums, but if you're losing the anego anyways what does it matter? I don't think this is a good option for the situation. I think something like this is more viable. Yes, it can be very frustrating that some staff members are somewhat disconnected from the rest of the community, but I don't think it should be portrayed as entirely negative as well. There are many situation where a disconnected opinion, one devoid of quick emotional judgement, is highly valuable. They can take a step back and look at different options or opportunities rather than trying to implement new features quickly, which could lead to many other problems in itself. I don't think we should be too quick to judge non playing staff as long as they continue to consider player feedback.
Ah okay, my bad then. I assumed there weren't translations because I couldn't find any after looking around. I've also heard instances of players learning of the T&C second-hand through loose translations from friends.
Yes, and I totally understand your concern with "loose translations", as I myself study translation. I feel so horrified when I see someone going hard with google translator. Such an eyesore f4
