2nd April 2021 11:15AM. I was shocked to see this. I suppose this is a wake-up call that something is lacking with the server and actions need to be taken to improve its status. It really isn't making enough improvements. Personally I vote on royals every single day. I'm guessing it's either the number of votes from players dropped or the population player Legends simply increased a lot.
What is Maple Legends doing differently? My perception is they are more conservative in trying to be more GMS like with low rates, but I'm not sure. Edit: Didn't know about multivote if that's true lol.
Oh they allow multi-vote? So the one-person-one-vote is only a thing here? And why at the beginning of the month?
If you feel server did not do enough for the players, we would appreciate if you can offer suggestions on possible areas of improvement And having more votes doesn't means a server is better, it just means the server have more players The definition of the "best" server is defined by the individuals and we shouldn't influence their decision of choosing Royals based on vote counts, but instead with Royals feature such as godly system Hope this clarifies the situation as I don't not wish end up with the assumption of "Royals is best cause their vote count is high" and neglected the features we are supposed to promote
Like what Dave pointed, I'm pretty sure GTOP ranking is based on the amounts of vote anyway and vote numbers isnt really the best way to determine if a server is popular or a good server anyway because people could be abusing the votes or the server allows multi-voting
I remember I made multiple ranting posts, suggestions and complaints but I guess not all of that reached the staff team. The biggest problem I have with royals is seeing the ban appeals getting processed very slowly/player receiving poor replies or rude replies Also ridiculous rules such as permanent ban for account sharing with siblings, unknown multiple votes in a households or over jokes; while scammers out there running free roam with no investigation going on, and no compensation given back to victims. Although none of these have happened to me, seeing how poorly other players are treated upsets me. However, I understand there's limited resources Royals have, I'm just frustrated nothing is done to improve this over the years. Even if progresses are being made, it's just way too slow. Anyways, I'm making these comments because I care. I've considered playing on other servers but I'm staying because I have hopes that changes will come. Or maybe I'm just silly to think that something will change with false hopes. As for the Top 1 leaderboard, to me, it shows how popular a server is. A popular server means it's attracting a great number of people playing it and it must have some great features that standout among the other servers to be in that Top 1 position. That's what makes Royals special when it was Top 1, but now it's showing that something is different. It is my first time seeing Royals fell from Top 1 after voting for many years, I'm just really shocked
They're processed slowly because the majority of sensitive information is reserved for tenured staff. You have to keep in mind they are volunteers, these aren't paid positions - things are going to get done eventually but patience gets you a long way. I think the ban appeal section serves partly as a public record for bans, its pretty rare to see bans overturned and usually its just the appealer lying about their offences - I've seen many hackers I've reported blatantly lie every time
From what people tell me they're not a vote2win server though. There is apparently no absolute incentive to multi-vote there. On balance I think it's a good opportunity for Royals to reflect upon though because - we already have a rampant volume of vote abusers inflating our vote count - Legends has been a taboo on this forum for unclear reasons even though I think there are many elements of how their staff team/server are run that we can learn from - server rankings on GTOP are an important part of attracting new players But of course the reality is that new players will look at server rankings rather than specific features, because it's sometimes impossible to know until you experiment with the server. As for features that we should be promoting, can I ask how the Royals staff team are doing their part in this? - very little is being visibly done to protect the integrity of this server, and whilst I'm sure there are a lot of backend work, the progress (or lack thereof) we're seeing in anti-hacking, anti-RWT, anti-vote abuse, anti-staff abuse and anti-nepotism is pretty damn bleak. - instead, updates over the years have focussed on continuous nerfs to legitimate players, new and veteran alike - GMs seem to enter a perpetual cycle of burnout and stop being active as soon as a new round of interns come in, can I ask why? All of this is probably for another feedback thread which no one is going to care about because "you're entitled to your own opinion and we're not obliged to respond" but suffice to say I think failure to reflect on why our server popularity is dwindling would be a detriment to Royals as a whole.
(Now that I'm no longer staff, "professionalism" doesn't apply to me) To be frank, ban appealers who receive poor / rude replies deserves it. Most of the time. Common reasons being wasting staff's time or just being a colossal jackass yet expecting staff to be "professional". Believe me when I say that staffs do not need the attitude, not especially when they're doing it for free.
A server with updates and giving what players want vs a server that does constant nerfs. Its something that is bound to happen. Update 71 explains alot. Legends probably have alot less hackers too.
This brings me to another point -- what's the freaking point of Q&A if the admins are just gonna end up doing whatever they want? I think this deserves a new stand-alone feedback thread. Anyone up for it?
As multiple points were made in this post, I will break down each points individually for better clarity 1) Ban Appeals getting processed very slowly - Some Ban Appeals are complicated and not a clear out "he's hacking", RWT cases can take time to confirm, but the GMs or Admins aren't banning the players for fun. Rushed Ban Appeals will only result in careless mistakes, is that what we really want? 2) Player receiving poor replies or rude replies - If you believe some of the Staff did not handle the Ban Appeal replies accordingly, you may list it here or at least give some examples so we may discuss the context as we won't be able to proceed 3) ridiculous rules such as permanent ban for account sharing with siblings - This context is kinda vague, so I need to confirm the scenario 1st, do you mean account sharing should be allowed for family members (siblings etc?) If so, why? 4) unknown multiple votes in a households - The rule about vote abuse is added to prevent players from gaining a large amount of NX and hence the advantage of meso. If you believe multi-votes should be allowed without whitelist, the situation would be a player potentially able to earn at least 4 votes daily (assuming WiFi, phone network and also parents phone). If you have other suggestions to counter this issue, feel free to propose 5) over jokes I assumed you are referring to cases such as vote abuse, RWT or hacking jokes, does that mean such statements should be OK? Supposed if 2 buddies are talking the troublesomeness of grinding a Bishop to 13x or something, and 1 of them joked about "Just buy a Bishop account?" and the other party took it seriously, does that mean the guy who joked about buying account is innocent and shouldn't be banned? 6) Scammers out there running free roam with no investigation going on, and no compensation given back to victims. - The Staff do investigate and ban the scammers once reported, not sure what you mean by no investigation going on, you may correct me if I have misunderstood your point. - Regarding compensation to be given back to victims, Staff are not liable for the losses, and providing compensations for scammed cases will create a loophole of Friend A scam Friend B > Staff ban Friend A, but both players are holding the items. In the situation where you suggest we should delete the scammed content (items/meso) from the Friend A, what do we do if the Friend A passed the scammed items to someone else such as Friend C, do we ban Friend C too? Even if he may not know the items were obtained illegally 7) It is my first time seeing Royals fell from Top 1 after voting for many years - There were multiple times where Royals isn't no.1 due to the vote count reset, so yea. Furthermore, Legends allows multi-votes cause their NX isn't tradable, but ours does. I don't intend to go into details about this as I don't like to assume Royals is best server hence other sucks, all servers have their unique traits. Also, the ranking now
Will break down the following part for easier reply Q1) As for features that we should be promoting, can I ask how the Royals staff team are doing their part in this? - very little is being visibly done to protect the integrity of this server, and whilst I'm sure there are a lot of backend work, the progress (or lack thereof) we're seeing in anti-hacking, anti-RWT, anti-vote abuse, anti-staff abuse, and anti-nepotism is pretty damn bleak. Q1a) anti-hacking - Some of the auto-ban features are activated and helps GMs to determine if a player is hacking, but it isn't pushed out yet as it will still have false bans if not corrected accordingly. Yes, the wait for the auto ban is long. But have we forgotten about the experience of playing Nexon's MS? They tried auto-ban and didn't manage to detect all of the hackings that are possible to do there. This applies to other games as well, how many games would have a foolproof 100% auto-ban with no false bans too? I am not saying Royals shouldn't have an auto-ban, I am saying it takes time to make a good auto-ban, such as 99% accuracy. If a professional game design team at Nexon (an international company) couldn't come up with a good auto-ban, it isn't easy for individual developers as well. GMs have also been using their precious time to help us ban the hackers as much as possible, and also entertain the hacker's silly Ban Appeals Q1b) anti-RWT - I not sure what you mean here, would appreciate further details from you if possible. Staff often investigate players with suspicious amounts of meso or items, including surfing RWT websites (not gonna name them here). Just because we don't see it doesn't mean GMs are not banning RWTers, the Ban Appeals of RWTers are the proof of the GMs doing their work. Q1c) anti-vote abuse - Staff do investigate vote logs and confirm who's vote abusing. If you mean a sure-fire way that can stop the existence of vote abuse, I can think of making NX untradeable, which is part of Royal's charm in my opinion - able to trade NX clothes around. The Staff is open to suggestions if players have ways to combat, or possibly, eliminate vote abuse. Q1d) anti-staff abuse - Not sure how to comment on this as there have been several issues, most notable to me is Charlie and his market-breaking scheme. Only able to comment when more details are given. If there are cases of Staff currently still power abusing, you may submit a report about it. Q1e) anti-nepotism - I assume this means authority such as GMs roles given to players known to the existing Staff. I can only say when new applicants volunteered at the Staff Applicants, the Staff will gather as a group and discuss about the applicants, gather Feedbacks, and finally voting on it. Q2) instead, updates over the years have focussed on continuous nerfs to legitimate players, new and veteran alike - I am unable to comment on this since I only mainly play islander or CPQer (I also don't interfere in Staff's decision when it comes to bossing or high-level areas) Q3) GMs seem to enter a perpetual cycle of burnout and stop being active as soon as a new round of interns come in, can I ask why? - I am also unable to comment on this as I do not wish to make assumptions on their behalf, the GMs will chip in about this if they wish to - I only know some of the ex-Staff left due to needing more time in studies or work, but again, I cannot assume for them, the ex-Staff may comment about this if they wish to
For them, voting is the only way to gain nx to buy untradeable ap reset. They don't have shortcuts like royals to buy a bundle of resets with mesos once they become rich ingame. Accumulating daily vote is their only way to hp wash hence I have seen and heard many players voting on many different accounts in advance, as if they are investing in stocks, so they can later hp wash multiple characters at the same time. We should be rather asking how royals, with more or less the same popluation as our neighbor server, manages to get more votes when that neighbor server "encourages" their players to vote on multiple accounts.
I don’t know if I am allowed to say this here and if I am not I’m deeply sorry. I once read the monthly update note they do, just like our gm blog and, I felt so deeply jealous.
