Perhaps to make ~GM requests easier to read for GMs, there should be a format that players are asked to follow. Such as a prefix before their message specifying the type. In time, if a developer has spare time on his/her hands and wants to implement filtering server side to organize the messages based on prefix in an orderly manner, they could do so. I do not know how the current system works, but I have heard and know that sometimes GMs will not respond to messages,requests,and reports. But I see GMs telling people to use this command to ask a GM to refund items. Since I'm sure that at least a hundred messages come in a day, having them be a little more organized could help GMs. It should also be suggested to type in summarized format due to space restrictions example (prefix is abuse) Abuse: Botter, ch3@GS2, OldRanger, auto HS. so. prefix, type of issue, location, player involved, information. A standard prefix could be Inquiry. one that is taken with lowest priority whereas a prefix for GM item refunding would be greatest priority, and abuse just below that.
This would actually be nice for the GMs, but there's one flaw in this: There's a character limit of 70 characters when chatting, and a time restriction on the usage of ~gm. Otherwise, it's good, but it's something you can't really enforce without implementing a system of only being able to send a ~gm according to a format. Two more things: 1) I've been a GM for almost two months, and even though the server population was only half as high as it is now back then, the amount of ~gm's was manageable alone (if I didn't have anything else to do) easily. With two GMs online, it'd be even better. I'm pretty sure there's at least one, if not two or three, GMs online at most times of the day so it's really not that hard to keep track for the staff team, thus making this suggestion quite low-priority. 2) This wouldn't be needed if people would think and not just do "~gm Halp pls GM". A short summary of your problem can be limited to 70 characters.
Would be an idea, if we weren't limited to 70 characters as Marty said. I've had to include shorthand just to get a message across. "Server d/ced during pap,canIhave crack refundplz" is what I've had to get across instead of "Server d/ced me during pap, could I have a crack refund please? I have SS"
Don't see why two people are bringing up 70 character limit when I solve that issue here. Much easier to read and process than reading a sentence, don't you think?
Recov for item recovery due to server glitch. Recov: PapRun, D/C, Silachan, crack item refund. Request Type || Location occurred | Type of bug or incident | Player Name | Player's Request
We could create a library of request types and some example reports to give people ideas on what sort of key words to use.
Sounds like much more hassle, imo, to try and learn the different prefixes and what not- for both the GMs and the players. A simple small summary is more than enough, people just need to actually do that. The only time I've had a GM not reply to my ~gm was when there were none online, or they were busy doing something else- such as re-warping a party back into zak after the server lagged out. Usually Tommy is online during the hours where no one else is even awake, at least.
Thanks for your opinion unfortunately it's been a super long time since any of my ~gm 's have been answered.
I wouldn't mind some sort of prefix for some issues. It might weed out the ~GM halp plox, ~GM I'm lagging, or just straight up blank ~gms. And it'd cut down on time spent helping a singlet person, as you often have to ask someone what they need. But, as others have stated, people should already attempt to be as concise as possible in their ~gms. And how would this work? Would a dialog box pop up when you did ~gm and you'd have options to pick a prefix and type your issue? Or would it be built into the ~gm command? Seems like it'd take an awful lot of effort to get working.
I think having them forwarded and stored in an external log, separate from the client would be a better idea. It won't clog up the chatbox and all requests would be consolidated into one area where the GM's can respond and filter as they please.
I'd personally rather not see ~gms categorized or prioritized like this. It would be complicated to implement with minimal gain for anybody. Yes, it would be nice, as Rob says, to weed out the "halp plz" and other non-useful messages, but we'd need a system that works for a wide variety of different possible situations and the issue of prioritizing depending on category strikes me as potentially controversial and possibly flawed. For example, "abuse" could range from someone not paying for their leech to a map dispute at Ghost Ship 2 to hacking to an abusable glitch to someone dumping 1000+ white scrolls in the FM entrance. At the moment, the system for dealing with ~gms is to answer them in the order we get them, although if there are a lot of ~gms, some staff may choose to ignore "halp plz". If an ~gm message gets ignored, it's most likely to be because there isn't currently a gm online, because the gm is doing something else (helping other people, checking the forum etc) or because there are too many messages at once to answer them all, and by the time one person has been helped, the other ~gms may have vanished off the screen thanks to smegas, buddy chat, whisper conversation with the person you're helping, or information you've brought up to check something out. It doesn't matter what priority or category an ~gm message is, if it vanishes off the screen due to other input, it vanishes. When there's been a bunch of inquiries all at once, I've sometimes taken a screenshot of them, but what, IMO at least, would be really helpful would be a command that GMs can use to bring up (for example) the 10 most recent ~gm messages. This would help us to retrieve those messages which have scrolled offscreen thanks to the usual deluge of other stuff.
Hahah I actually have the same problem, I always feel so rude when ~gm helping, because it has to be so short. X-x
Just curious, are the messages sent via ~gm stored in a SQL database where they can be retrieved? I've worked on a similar help system for a different game (not MapleStory) where all messages sent to GMs are stored in a database where it can be retrieved, similar to a ticket system if you will. Each issue is assigned a number and the GM can pull up each issue individually and read it as many times as they want until they dismiss it. Plus, there is a message that appears every 120 seconds to alert the GM about pending requests. I can see this similar system being implemented into MapleRoyals with a few adjustments. But I believe this style of a help system would allow the GMs to view the issue more than once since they probably get spammed out a lot. (Note: I'm assuming that the current system just sends a message once to the GMs and that's it)
Currently messages are being storaged in Java Memory, nothing fancy with databases. Probably because I'm to lazy for doing that, maybe because most issues solve itself after a server restart so there's no need to store them longer. I'm going to make a gm command to retrieve the last x messages now, maybe something I should've done before. Just a note from a GM's point of view, if you use ~gm, don't log off seconds after... Thank you
Not at all. I just meant I could make up a system that would be verified by the admin team then a sticky thread could be made and players would be asked to follow that system if they want to be helped quicker.
