GM Favoritism.

To whom this may concern,

It all started a couple hours ago, when due to server instability me and my friend (and a lot of other players) got disconnected from Krexel. My friend's main survived the crash and remained inside, waiting for GM action, ~gm-ing every 30 minutes.

For the past 4+ hours we have gotten no response all the while trying to contact any GM one way or another.

We thought that no GM was online and were patiently waiting. We even made a forum thread asking for rewarp.

However, the facts have changed now.

It has come to our attention that a GM is online and has in fact rewarped a party back into HT a while back. It happens to be so that either one person or a couple know the GM personally / have them on buddy list on whatever character, and could directly ask them for rewarp help.

Just to be sure that I was not wrong, and a GM did in fact ignore all our messages and decided to help these people instead, I contacted a player in the party who confirmed to me over whisper that his party members recently got a rewarp by the GM in question.

All fine and dandy, but it's been over 4 hours that we've been waiting.

So where is our rewarp? Where is justice in others being favoured?

This is hardly the first time I have seen this happening.

I honestly feel this is inconsistent behaviour on the GM's part. It cannot be that a GM only logs in to help out his friends, and not any other people.

I feel like my complaint is just, and I ask that this be taken seriously, and not be done away with ''Maybe they just happened to not see the ~gm'' or any other reason to justify what is happening, because ...

I would like an honest discussion on this matter (GM Favoritism), and I am inviting everyone who reads this thread and outside to join.

Thanks for reading,

Rarity99.

P.S. I left out all the names/ss involved on purpose.

 

My warp requests for my dced hsmule at krexel got ignored too .
Was 50min ago so i dont know if any gm was online at that time but since the servers were lagging like crazy , i guess someone was.

 

That's very unfortunate. Do you have any specific thoughts on the matter?

 

You need to keep in mind, when you disconnect, odds are, it probably isn't just you. You also need to keep in mind the chat window gets filled with ~gm messages, as well as SMEGAs, and other hacking alerts we have programmed for GMs to see to prompt investigating. Needless to say, all of these messages spam the in game window. On top of that, you have character issue threads which need to be handled as well. Is it at all feasible that the party warped into HT that happened to know a GM as you claim, submitted their claim much earlier than you and the single GM online (based on what you said in your post, I don't know that for a fact, just going off of your word) simply hadn't gotten to you due to the other matters that they had to attend to?

As an aside, I know one of the BIGGEST pet peeves I and many of the other GMs have is when our "friends" (those we may have on our buddy list or talk to on Skype) contact us asking for help without going through the official channels. As a matter of fact, when someone does that to me, I usually ignore their request and tell them to post it on the forums. To me, it is much more of a nuisance to have legit players who can contact me privately that ask for favors/rewarps than those who are in contact with me just to chat.

I hope this post helps to address why you may feel slighted and why it appears there was some sort of favouritism, even though I do not believe that that is the case. If my response is not adequate to you, please send me and/or the other administrators details including screenshots and names and we can look into it further/discuss with the staff member in question.

 

Thank you both for taking the time to read this thread.

Sadly I do not think that the answers given provide any comfort at this point.

@John, I could accept your offer and send you the information that I know of in this particular case, but I want to reach a little bit further than just any report or complaint. I started this topic not just to complain about what happened to me today. I started this topic because this is not the first time this has happened, and because I also have heard others complain about this happening. It simply happens too often, and it should really not. Now you could argue that I should only present what I know of myself directly, but I feel as if others are too scared of the consequences to speak out / ''dont bother'' with it because ''nothing will change anyway''.

I feel like the argument of ''just one GM online'' isn't an argument. If Royals is so undermanned, that things like this happen frequently, the staff should be expanded.

While of course a part of what is happening can be explained by a very spammy chatbox or even a bug, another part simply cannot:

While most are, not every GM is fair. The fact remains that some people receive help from GMs that they personally know while others do not.

What I want with this thread is a discussion on GM conduct, not just a wall to complain about it happening. That's why I'm inviting every and all players to join.

 

I understand what you aim to accomplish, however this thread will eventually turn into posts of "the GMs are doing a great job, shut up and stop complaining" and "Yeah, I remember one time GM Z ignored me but then refunded his friend UNDER THE EXACT SAME CIRCUMSTANCES!" In reality, it accomplishes nothing because it serves as a sounding board, but does not actually provide a way to address the issue.

The best way to handle this (in my opinion) is to make the administrators (and if one of the administrators is involved, message myself and/or Matt) aware of each case as it happens to you so it can be looked into and if we feel the claim is legitimate, address it with that staff member. I'm not quite sure what just making generic posts in a thread will actually achieve. You already have the attention of two administrators.

 

I'm with John and Matt in that I don't see how your vague, public complaint is going to help anything.

I check the last ~gm's when I log in. Anything older than an hour when it comes to re-warp requests, I tend to check if the person/their party are still out there waiting or not, before I move on to the next. After a mass d/c like there was just an hour ago or so, I hop on and try to take care of whatever warps I can based on which I see first in the list of ~gm's. I work oldest to newest, so if you send it again, and again, and again - I'll end up ignoring it on accident because I'm working on others.
This also happens when i'm trying to do character issue thread refunds - if I get more than one or two in a row, a newer request might get missed because I'm handling another one.

Please keep in mind that rewarps are not a right, they're a privilege. We can easily just up and decide one day no more warps, at all, server error or not. Your patience is needed . If you can't be patient enough and realize that us GMs are human too and perfectly capable of making mistakes or accidentally ignoring a warp request or two? Then you should take a step back and realize this is a game, and GMs are volunteers doing this on our own free time.

If there's solid proof of favoritism, then as John and Matt said, bring it privately to their attention.

 

Thanks for taking my claim seriously John. I will consider messaging you privately about the people involved.

The thing is, I do not just want to make this one claim. For me, it is not just about this one GM that would possibly get reprimanded (most likely not). Cause in the end, that's what it is. My word against a gamemaster's word.

What I'm trying to achieve is to start a discussion thread about GM conduct. If that happened to be started because I was unfairly treated, then that's the way it is.

I want to hear what people have to say about how they think a GM should act or what their experience is thus far. And if in the end, people are fine with it, or just say the same thing over and over again -or no one joins the conversation at all-, and we have exhausted all our options, then it can be closed. But right now, I do not feel this conversation is over yet and I would like to hear not just the staff, but also the players.

 

Again, the question is what do you expect/want to hear? I already said you're going to have two sides, one that says the staff is showing favoritism and bringing up examples of it (which I have already given a solution as to how to prevent this favoritism from occurring -- report it to admins), and the other side saying the staff is not showing favoritism at all and bringing up examples of "famous" players being banned, known friends of staff members being banned, things like that.

I really don't know what you are expecting others to post. No matter what, it's going to fall in either of those two categories and the one category we can do something about, I have said multiple times in this thread alone we will take action on. That's why I don't understand why you don't want to produce the evidence that you claim you have. Regardless of it is your one claim, or five different people coming forward with five different claims, all of them would be looked into and action taken if deemed necessary.

 

I personally think John and Matt did a fine job on letting their Staff know that favoritism is not permitted. As some GM's have already said, they can't go through all the ~gm in a timely matter. They're human, they can only do so much with the time they are given. In addition, if they do not respond to you in a timely matter, you can always post a thread about it under 'Character Issues' such as:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/dc-from-krex.60571/#post-319355

Couple years ago, GM's gave out prizes from events with their name tagged on it, I still have couple equips tagged by old GM's that I've acquired from past events. However this is not the case anymore. I've been told that tagging items by GM's are not allowed anymore, because it shows "favoritism". I believe John and Matt, not only have constantly instilled a certain set of behaviors and rules for their Staff and even went beyond to make sure their Staff are professionals at all times.

 

Coming from a player who has become friends with a few GMs on this server, I'd say there's not any real favoritism. I, much like many others, have been rewarped, and also not rewarped whenever server issues occur when others have been rewarped. Additionally, it's also taboo to ask for rewarps through Skype, whispers, and PMs, even if you are friends with GMs, and generally it's ignored and looked down upon if you do that no matter how good of friends you are with them. Everyone goes through the ~gm system no matter who you are.

Also, as mentioned above, sometimes spam (due to the issue Matt mentioned), or spam from other parties spamming multiple ~gms for the same issue can unfortunately cause other people's 1 ~gm to get lost in the alerts. So yes, sometimes it feel frustrating and it can be easy to say there's favoritism (myself included at one point) when others get warped but you don't, but this literally has happened to all of us at some point. There is no one on this server that gets rewarped 100% of the time. And keep in mind that GMs are players like us, too. They're not machines designed to be ready for every ~gm, so naturally people will always be looked over at some point.

 

Rarity!! If you still remember me.. I also used to be in selected. (Annx or xAnn)
This is just my opinion on it... Whether is true or not does not matter but it's pretty logical to me.

There is no real favoritism if that's what you're asking, GMs are friendly against everyone, but of course they do have their own friends. That might look as if some GMs are pulling other players forward and pushing other backwards, but that's really not the case.

During my last zak we did not get a rewarp even though it was server related disconnect + I posted a thread.
I think the reason for that was because there were LOTS of disconnects and those who have almost killed zak / HT get faster help since our zak was not even close to dying.
Later on when the last 2 people in zak dc'ed at like 50% of last body, they got a rewarp and the rest of the members dc'ing before could enter too.
I think this might be the struggle you're happening to have? Seeing other parties get rewarped expect yours?
Krexel does not give more than EXP, so if you don't get a rewarp it won't mean that you'll lose a lot of potential money like zhelms, skillbooks.

Like I said true or not, this is the most logical idea for me.
So whenever we would get an early dc from HT, zak or krex we would never wait for a rewarp because 1) single disconnects, not server related, don't even get a rewarp anymore 2) GMs are busy rewarping the people for who the run is more significant...

Also like they said some people from the same party use @GM which can be confusing or considered spam, I would always advise to post a thread which is easily to view for GMs even if sometimes they don't get the time or whatever else to help.

People are hard to trust for looking for more GMs is really hard

Hope u have a great time in maple tho <3 all the disconnects from bosses just really suck but got to live with it.

 

Let me start off by saying I understand what you're saying. In fact, when I was reading your original post I was probably getting just as annoyed as you are because as John mentioned in his first reply; getting asked to warp from friends on my buddy list / whispers is a huge pet peeve of mine and I think a few others (I'm going to avoid talking for other people though) which is why I go to extra lengths to make sure this doesn't happen.

How I personally avoid this issue as much as I can as a GM:

1. As my buddies will know - if a buddy asks me for warps on a legit character of mine they get un-buddied. My buddy lists on my legit characters are not in place for players to know when a GM is on. I actually take this somewhat personally and get offended that people don't buddy me just to be my friend but that's beside the point. lol.

2. When (unfortunately this happens too much to be an if) a person asks me for warps on my legit they will get -excuse my language- an absolute bollocking from me. To me - when a person asks a GM for warps on their legit it's as if they are expecting better treatment than the rest of the server and I do not tolerate that. I usually ask people why they think they're better and more deserving of help than anyone else (and then they apologise a thousand times because I get kinda mean).

Now, most of the time when I get asked for warps on my legit I am usually busy with my own stuff so I have to say no (otherwise I'd already be on my GM, right?), however, I have also experienced times when friends have asked me to go on my GM and help and I was free to help anyways so I went on and I made sure to tell them that once I have covered all the ~gm's from the past hour I'll be with them.

Now, everything I've said so far and in particular that last point is what you want to happen I'm assuming - no favouritism? I'm hoping that by showing you how I do things you have faith that the GMs are fully aware of what they're doing and take these things into consideration! pls trust us

Apart from alllll that (I'm sorry this is getting long) I'd also like to let you in on a few things that happen when GMs are answering ~gm's. I'm not talking about mistakes, spam, missing messages etc because whilst, yes that happens often, it's been mentioned before.

So here are a few more things to take into consideration when ~gm'ing or waiting on GMs:

1. I sometimes like to go over ~gms by type, especially if I had just come on and am dealing with old ~gm's as opposed to new ones. Meaning; I'll go over all boss runs first (they usually are most urgent) sometimes even going by party size (so yes a HT party would get attention before a krex party because 8 people vs 4), I'll then go help anyone who needs things in game or refunds or whatever. It makes things easier, especially if you're dealing with forum threads for all of these (less likely to forget to mark things done when it's a repetitive process instead of going in and out of different things).

2. GMs will usually answer clearer ~gm's faster. I cannot stress this one enough, honestly. If I get a ~gm that does not explain the issue enough (for example just says 'hi' 'help' 'is anyone on?') I will mostly likely leave it until I'm done with all other ~gm's. This is usually because the mentality of being online on a GM character, going around helping people, is to always get things done quick so you can move on to the next person and when a person does not explain what the issue is in a sentence we assume it is long and leave it to the end to not keep people (who only need a minute of my time each) waiting.

Just going to take the platform (directed at everyone) to say PLEASE PLEASE USE YOUR WORDS.
A good ~gm: Hi, my party dc'd from zakum ch12. Party members: Aly, Aly1, Aly2, Aly3.
A bad ~gm: halp
A good ~gm: Hi, I have a confirmed refund on the forums for 1.3b. Forums name: Aly. Thanks!
A bad ~gm: dc plz warp

Okay yes, sorry for the essay, I thiiiink that covers all I had to say. Have a great day. <3

 

This has happened so many times in the past. Some gms have even logged on and warped themselves into bosses and ignored requests from other players until they were finished. That's just how things work I guess. Sad, but true. Get some friends who are GMs I guess

 

When has it happened? Give me names and provide evidence for your examples.

 

Then you should report it with evidence. It's been mentioned multiple times in this thread, but if you don't feel like providing evidence for these claims, please stop making vague accusations.

Furthermore, I have never been in a boss where a gm rewarps their party and ignores others. Everytime I dc or another gm dc'd, they would apologize and say that they have to take care of everyone before they can resume the boss. And that's the policy I personally have for myself too. If I get on my gm to rewarp my party for a server sided issue, I make sure to take care of everyone else before I get back to mine.

 

From experience, I can say that favoritism does exist on this server. GMs will have in-game friends on their legit accounts. It's just a fact. However, this does not mean that people have access to "GM Hotlines" and can ask their friends for a rewarp, refund, or any other request whenever they want. There are a lot of other factors that are involved. @Aly did a wonderful job of explaining this in her post.

I can also understand why people believe that GMs are much more responsive to their friends, and it is true. You kind of have the ability to talk to them more frequently, but in most cases, it has nothing to do with in-game issues. Personally, I never go on boss runs so I've only ever been rewarped once, but during that time the GM that was with our party refused to rewarp their own character back into the run. In fact they up doing more GM work. The only times I've been able to contact staff members quickly are about issues that has nothing to do with me, but instead about issues that affect the server's stability and bug investigations.

Anyways, I actually feel that being friends with a staff member is more beneficial to them than us. Friends of GMs know not to bother them. For those who are new to the server and have made friends with staff members, they soon find out that it will get them nowhere and while I do notice that sometimes staff members are quicker to respond to their friends, it seems as though they're given more motivation to resolve the rest of the Character Issues threads first. They also have the benefit of knowing when and how certain bugs/exploits occur, but again, this has nothing to do with staff requests in general.

If you do recall instances of where a GM is obviously showing favoritism and have proof, PMing one of the admins will be enough as I am sure the staff take their jobs seriously. Where would MapleRoyals be if it weren't for their work, visible or not?

 

Seeing something like this come up, I can't help but feel obligated as a once active part of the community to come forth for this. There have been 2 or 3 occasions (that I can be for certain of) in which case Sila & Mike's regular characters could be found @ zak. I was zakking with a close crew all times. After mass dc's their [Sila & Mike] gm's could be found online for a brief moment or two then offline again. Numerous parties talked about not getting a request fullfilled or responded to. However once shortly after the gm characters were online then offline, Mike & Sila's legit characters could be "found" in zakum's altar.

Now I don't have SS's or any of that because I didn't mind enough to make a case, get SS's, etc. to post and make it a thing. Plus it was a normal occurrrence of these happenings so it was something pretty knew to just accept and move on.

 

@Moodster : I actually know which time you're talking about, which is literally over a year old as I've not done any of those zak duos since Christmas 2014 - a time when the server was highly unstable. Each snowblower that went off was d/cing the server massively and the lag spikes went on over and over for at least a half hour each.
At the time, Mike wasn't even a GM - and since it was the holidays it was literally only me online for quite a while. Mike (and I'm sure others) could vouch that I actually held off on rewarping my own self in until I had handled the backlog of ~gm's from the warps - anything that cropped up after that was missed because I wasn't going to stay online for an hour to rewarp everyone when I was trying to spend some time with a friend. I warped myself last, and logged out or tabbed out of that client after that.
Actually, come to think of it, I didn't even log out of my GM because I knew the server was unstable and it was likely to happen again.
From the many HT runs I went on around the same time, I did the same thing - I warped everyone before myself/my own party, and either logged out or tried to ask for another gm to come in and handle the rest of the requests that popped up after that.

I don't even feel the need to 'defend' myself - And I'm not, actually. I'm just explaining the situation as it was, since there seems to be ongoing misconception about something that happened quite literally over a year ago.