More GM's, for the better of everyone and the server.

It's already been touched upon but I just want to further point out that finding a trustworthy new staff member is extremely hard, and has nothing to do with open staff applications at the time. If you look at all the applications, you notice that a majority of them are people who have been in the server for less than three months or have long since gone inactive. Of the remaining applications, the admins want to look for someone who has put effort into it, is known as being a trustworthy member of the community, and overall would be a great GM. The set of qualities they're looking for is very rare, and even if someone does have those qualities they have to show it through their app and their interactions with the community. It's not that the admins don't want to hire new staff members, it's just extraordinarily difficult. Especially when you consider that it has not been uncommon in the past for a GM to abuse their power.

 

Is favoritism from the staff necessarily a bad thing though? After all these new GMs will be working with you guys so your opinions are ultimately the deciding factor. That being said however, a candidate that has the full support from the community should be more than qualified to take the job. The GMs are here to help the community and if the community trusts them then shouldn't that be enough to gain the staff's seal of approval? Also the past history of a player shouldn't hold any value in determining whether they become GM or not, similar to how the stupid 12-year-old you shouldn't dictate who you are as a person right now. Taking a quick glance over the recent applicants, there are plenty of good candidates who're capable for the job.

I feel like you guys are scared to take a risk. I don't blame you guys though after all the drama that's happened with Ashlee. But 1 bad apple shouldn't ruin it for the rest.

 

There has been a lot more issues with GM abuse than Ashlee, most of it just doesn't become public. Also just because someone has full community support doesn't mean they'd be necessarily good for the job for various reasons. Maybe they wouldn't be a good fit in a customer service aspect, or they'd be more likely to succumb to favoritism in how they help people, who knows. And honestly, as I said above, there definitely aren't plenty of good candidates; although there is a plenty good candidate.

Regarding ban history, yeah people change all the time, but many countries have laws restricting public office to people who have committed crimes. It's less about trusting the person than it is about public perception. There are people out there who would hold it against the staff if they hired someone with a ban history.

 

The problem is, a person will be different as a player than as a GM. People behave differently in a position of power, so in most cases, their behavior as a player isn't adequate enough to judge how well they'll perform after a promotion. As a personal example, I've known a handful of GM's before their promotion, and while a lot of them have remained largely the same, some have changed in the way they act and they way they treat people.

 

Regardless of who you are as a person, working in any form of customer support will change you; for better or worse.

I used to like people a lot until I worked in the food industry for two years. Having to deal with people in their worst state of mind does that to you.

Also, I went and checked the amount of staff applications and was honestly amused at the amount that were from people who had joined last May and were applying comparatively to anyone from before.

I agree with this. I will also say that I feel like this should be taken by a case-by-case scenario, as I feel like certain bans definitely take over seriousness than others (example being hacking vs being banned for smega) though in the end it's the head of staff who makes this call.

Either way, I'm more for quality GMs rather than quanitity. Sila taught me this as, despite not getting a response to my thread of D/Cing from a Zak run until a day or two later, she was willing to port me into Zak three times in a row (yes, I got fast attack D/C TWICE in the same refund run).

Good times.

 

Unless they were banned for cheating or for some other serious violation, their past history should be void. 90% of the bans handed on this server are over stupid matter and most are committed early on in their career when they were unaware of the consequences of calling someone ugly or defaming a person 3 times (don't tell "they should have known the rules beforehand, it's their fault!" because nobody in their right minds ever read the T&C upon joining what they think is a casual server.)

This should go without saying, of course people will change based on their power, it's completely normal. But for the most part, people will change for the better when given a higher position and even if it's to put up an appearance, so long as the result is there it shouldn't be a problem. And if they're found inadequate, simply remove them. The chances of them causing permanent damage to the server is slim and I'm sure the staff here aren't dumb enough to recruit such person(s).

 

The "I didn't read the T&C excuse" is NEVER acceptable. Now with that said, there is at least one staff member I know of off the top of my head who had been banned for a minor offense. So we do pretty much do what you are stating here. I think it's a case of, don't throw stones at us when you don't know what we are/are not doing

 

The fact that people don't read the T&C until after being banned is a problem in and of itself. This will never change unless we give people warnings before banning them (but I won't get into that.)

 

This sums up some of my thoughts.

This is a big server. With big things come big responsibilities. Heck, I'm not saying this is Apple inc. or whatever, but still, for the sake of the entire server: our approach towards the qualities and level of commitment we require from staff members is not something that should ever be neglected. It is what makes MapleRoyals stand out from any other server.

Strict rules can suck when you don't follow them, but when you do, people get a sense of fairness in their gameplay which ultimately keeps people motivated to play. Favoritism or anything of sorts demotivates people like you wouldn't believe. There's absolutely no reason to play a maplestory private server if people don't feel like they get treated equally. It goes for every game, really. But since we advertise as (/ take pride in the fact that we are) a server with no pay-to-win or spoonfeed aspect whatsoever it automatically becomes the most important thing about this place.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying we don't miss manpower. But, as mentioned before, quality > quantity. I like me some fresh, well-cooked fish. Can't get enough of it. But give me a thousand unprepared, rotten fish and I'll have none of it.

TL; DR We need more fresh, well-prepared fish

 

It is hard to do that i feel because being helpful, nice or caring does not automatically make one a good person or suddenly possess the quality to be a staff member. Although if one possesses those traits would stand a fair chance to be considered as it can be seen as building a sense of belonging for not just those around you but the community too.


Annoucements, Events, Feedback, Support are the common ground for staff members. However most of the problems lies in Support as there are many little sections dedicated for players to post problem that require a higher amount of attention. In this section, Report Abuse and Ban Appeal are the most active and from there we learn that there is a rising amount of players with petty reports and ridiculous ban appeals. What this reflects is that on top of being helpful, nice and caring to the community, you have to be extremely tolerant, level headed in making objective decisions. Upholding the rules and abide to them when given powers are the top priorities but even with those traits, one is just perhaps only scratching the surface. Moreover all of us come from different countries with different timezone, so it is not easy to find that shiny pokemon of your choice with pokerus holding a masterball.


Server lags and disconnects as we all know is something that make players rage, and rage will sometimes make one lose their cool resulting in breaking the rules which can further expand to heated arguments or debates with staff members over the forums which means lesser attention for those with real problems, like bugged skill quests, rewarps and technical issues. There might still becountless of hidden pressures staff members needs to handle. It may seems like fun being a GM but I feel that it is far from truth.


Some pointed out that quality is better than quantity, but quantity itself it also a form of quality. But what I want to say is that this Mapleroyals we play for the nostalgic feelings we missed, this community that we slowly built, many had forgotten that besides staff members, for the better of everyone and the server the players holds a very important role as well. If players are a little more tolerant and not reporting every single person who insults you or when someone comes to your map, start to kill the monsters and you execute ~mapowner and then say "reported", we can put less strains on the staff members, saves their time and at the same time enhancing Royal's already established community. I personally resolved a few ks problems and verbal insults by myself and those players who did that are just people having a hard/bad day you know.


There so many players in this server, but only a handful of staff members, it is obvious that players can influence the well-being of the server to a certain degree. Sometimes I feel that besides having a community black list, there should be a whole main section dedicated to players who help making Royals a better place, or small gestures to appreciate what some Royalers have done for you. Why not call it White list? And as time passes and the list grows bigger, the server would certainly be better. It can also serve as an informal list of personel if the staff members would like to recruit one to their team.


Lastly, since the new source will make it's way here soon, I don't see the need for the staff to recruit as of now if players could do something within our control to make the server better, and I understand that this would take some time but it's the culture that propels people and besides I would prefer the staff to spend more time and attention in the new source to make everything better. We should work together!