Would it be feasible and/or reasonable to implement limitations to the current whitelist process that restricts voting to 2 ~ 3 members of a single household? I understand that it may not be fair to legitimate players who may actually be sharing a household internet connection amongst a large number of people. But given the recent cases of vote abuse and whitelist fraud, this could be an effective preventative measure. Additionally, the conventional practice/wisdom here has been to err on the side of caution to prevent abuses that negatively affect the majority of the playerbase despite inconveniences to individual players (ex. preemptory bans for suspicions of RWT). Ultimately the whitelist is a service that the staff take time and effort into providing, and it should therefore result in a net good for the server. And maybe legitimate players may have something to gain after all--by learning positive communications skills through coordinating the voting process with their family/friends. Researching this issue, I found an interesting post by the administrator of a different large private server about a year ago: ...A different method to deal with [vote abuse] is some sort of 'Whitelist' where users post their in-real life pictures to prove themselves they are different people, which then allows them to vote multiple times. Besides me believing that's a horrible thing for a user's privacy when playing a Private Server, there [are] also flaws in this system: - One may just call [their] brother/sister for a one time picture even though they don't even play the game - Any staff member having access to those in-real life pictures may do anything they want with it - The above also stands if the place where those pictures are getting posted gets breached into by a hacker Thus, when people approached me with this idea in past to combat vote abuse, I have completely rejected it. I would never want such system in place, since privacy is of huge importance to me. What we always did [here] instead is allow people to vote. If someone was playing together (brother, sister) we allowed them to vote as well, as long they are different people, which we have multiple ways behind the scene to find out[.] Of course we KNEW this is flawed, which is why we try have the least vote2win items as possible. Gachapon Tickets from Cash Shop were horribly nerfed, Cash items could not be traded, and so on. We still had harsh moderation in place in case people try to vote abuse, and banned those users. However, we can admit from here that even those systems had flaws in them. We are not going explain how, but it wasn't perfect. Like I've explained earlier, consistent moderation of Vote Abuse is technically making your server lose legal votes (like I said, allowed by GTOP). So, in my eyes, the rule is bad for the server, for people that don't understand it, for people that get banned for it, and for those that get away with it by not getting banned. Not a positive thing in every single way possible... This particular server has never implemented a whitelist, and as a way of combating vote abuse they have instead gradually removed the economic incentives of voting (ex. removal of Gachapon Tickets from the Cash Shop, removal of ability to trade NX items (aka AP Resets)). Also note that removing the concept of "vote abuse" itself will lead to a total increase of votes for the server, as it is allowed per GTop rules for a single person to vote multiple times for a single server through multiple internet connections. Unfortunately there are plenty of unmentioned drawbacks to this practice as well, especially in terms of its applicability to Royals (ex. disincentivizing voting by removing economic gains, dealing with current players on the whitelist who may no longer be eligible, etc etc etc). But while this is realistically an unfeasible option for Royals, it does give great insight into how we can think creatively about handling abuses while maximizing benefits in our own server. I also recognize that I am basing these opinions on very limited information regarding the whitelist. When I was a poor immigrant boy growing up in New York City, my brother used to beat me up so that he could play MapleStory on the one shitty desktop we had in our house. It most certainly did not teach either of us any positive communications skills, but it sure as hell taught me a lot about grit. All of this is to say, do not abuse your siblings because they will likely never recover from the trauma and resentment thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Strongly disagree with the suggestion to take the financial incentive out of voting. I don't have a white list, and I haven't really seen this rampant abuse that would cause a creation of a thread like this. The benefit of voting is a staple for most players to start off and have a guaranteed income that allows them to get more immersed in the game. I would be more open to this idea if I saw the impact it has on the in game economy or more examples of whitelists being abused, even then I'd be hesitant to immediately remove a universal benefit that helps no matter what stage of the game you're in.
I want to re-emphasize that I am NOT suggesting that we shift the current voting incentives in this server. EDIT: I also want to re-emphasize that I have NOT suggested that there is "rampant abuse" with the whitelist.
Helm INT 30% - 2m Clean 2 dex googles - 17m Glove MATT 30% 7.5m Glove ATT 30% 8m Claw ATT 30 4.5m Sky ski clean 97att 25m King cent clean 79att 6m Dragon Khanjar 17/3 clean 60m I coincidentally checked it yesterday
These are the prices in ch1 fm1. Their economy doesn't go up to billions like ours does. I've also stayed in game for 5 mins just to see what kind of smega's would come around and those also indicated that very very valuable items are just a few mil (definitely below 1b). I haven't done anything more than those 5-10 mins but it really was enough to see the difference in economies is huge. Edit: Am I allowed to post screenshots of some shops? This is not my discussion, I just wanna fill in on information
I think you misunderstand what has been said. Have you read @Rhynhardt's post? He was talking about what the effects are on the economy. I was in that other server by coincidence yesterday and have seen the economy and was offering some examples. Here are the owled prices of the two items you named and which I was talking about;
Essentially 2/3rd's of your post really doesn't say anything, their solution was to limit the financial impact of voting which you do clarify you don't think is a solution but the later tone implies we should look to their solutions as 'creative inspirations'. I guess I'm trying to figure out where this feedback is coming from? I guess you're trying to show flaws of the system but tbh the later two points are kind of silly imo. Discord servers that have adult/mature content will require some type of verification via a drivers license to verify their age (therefore accessibility to areas.) I doubt mapleroyals is saving the pictures, they probably verify it was sent, make a notation and leave it at that. For discord servers, they send it to discord themselves then delete the photos. Yes it's a system you can fraud if you put in the effort but if you're talking about 3 or more people, that is a lot of extra effort. Judging how most of these ban appeals have worked, a big issue is that yeah you can produce the multi-picture with names associated to IGN's, but then they get caught multi clienting, or the other account hasn't been played on at all. And these are typically cases within your suggested range. Even if these individuals are causing massive fraud I haven't really seen a reflection of this in our economy. @Tiffaux Yes, the effects on our economy. I'm not sure how you can rationally post the difference in prices of ranges of scrolls from two different servers without actually putting into context the availability of those scrolls. EDIT: Should clarify, the standard for age verification is for partnered servers.
If people were to exploit the whitelist to vote abuse, I’m sure it would be done with just 2 accounts instead of 3+. It would make it much easier to catch onto if it’s just one person but voting as 3+ separate people. The idea of limiting the whitelist seems like it solves nothing and only hurts bigger households.
