Questions about and for Gm's.

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Pellandria
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Questions about and for Gm's.

Post by Pellandria »

The recent topic about gods and background sparked something in my head I was about to post for a long time, got a few questions here and there soo I just shoot.

1.Should Gm's be allowed to change "known" ig facts to serve their own play.

This is something normally entiteled to the magic aspect of the game, the problem we have here is that the staff never said "Yeah magic does ~work~ this and that way, we do not care how you interpret it".
The decissions if rituals or other stuff work nornmally is "Allright ask a gm who likes you and magic can do that", so the problem here is, shouldn't we have some kind of actual guidlines, someone standing up and saying "allright thats how it is done, this is how you can play it".

Let me give you a simple example of magic "missused" by Gm's to obviously annoy players, I encountered the problem myself and heard from another player the same story, Gm's claiming that magical flames destroy physical things like tools, walls, wood and what else not, the problem I see here is that everything in the engine speaks against that.

First of all, magical flames never caused anything to burn, they can't spread wildfire and no matter how often you run trougth it your clothings are not going to burn up, your metallarmor does not melt into your skin..nothing, furthermore magical strong people suffer less damage from a flame than magical untrained people, which means the "automatic" defence of the mind actually causes theflame to weaken and that magic flames burn up the "lifeforce" of people.
On the other side we should allow mages to summon really "burning" flames, if roleplayed. So whats this all about ...simple.. we should have a guidline to magic and than just this magic behaves this or that way, I'm bothered by this ruleless magic, rituals that are based on "I like you" instead of a normal guidline, aswell as magic that is used against players, obviously to normally annoy players, is never a good way to get a stabil view of magic.

Immedeatly following the "bending of known ig facts" I have the following question and my explanation.

2.Should Gm's ignore any given facts about any npc, just to force his rp trougth.

This one is easy to explain, most of the times a Gm takes over an Npc its pretty well done, considering one of their requierments to be Gm's is supposed to be "a good roleplayer" you should suppose most of them can handle it, but I encountered Gm's in Npc's allready that complettly bend any and all npc characteristics.

Just imagen Gm A, who tends to like Group B, now member from group B strolls around Trollsbane, happens to come along an Npc ..Onor for example, now Gm A goes into Onor and suddendly writtes "Ahhh my old friend killor of all the nobbzors its wonderfull to see you again, here my old friend I want to play a little game, just put your hand in my bag and pull out a coin..." Now of course the lovely Killor grabs into the bag and pulls out a goldcoin and goes on his merry way.
Now that same Gm finds his hated OOC enemy Awesomeneus Paladinus in Greenbriar, hops into a Npc and strikes him down with the Warcry "For Pie and Milk!" of course his pushed Gm powers will allow him to simply destroy Awesomeneus.

Now the question is, how far should a Gm be able to change an Npc based on the information that is stored in the cycletext and in its general code, should the gm be allowed to complettly diver from the given role of the Npc or should he keep in tone with the information given?

Now that we got those two questions out of the way I ask you to tap on the back button...yeah alex..Udan and how you all are called tap on it..this is a question just for the Gm's...still there I suppose right..allright I have all night...jup..can just wait here all day and..aww crap anyway..last question and one of my favourite topics ever:
"How usefull is gm complain?"

Now now I allready see your finger moving to the "man thats gonna be another yellow dot"-button, but hold your horses..or muscles..you know what I mean.

First of I want to "analyse" the Gm complain out of my viewpoint and later on explain why I think its just a farce rather than a "usefull" function, of course you can feel free to go any misinformation and inform me what is right so once again ..here we go.

First of all I know that gm complain is done by two people, only those two seem to have acces to the complains a such and only those two know the decissions, maybe even they only know what they have done and not what his partner has done, furthermore one part of those two seems to be on a more or less long term break currently.
The only thing one can do to influence the gm complain is to ask a gm to check on the ones working on the gm complain, but thats just in case a gm complain is not worked on for weeks.

So basicly we have a system that is outside of any controll mechanism, while having two gm close people working on "punishing" gm's...and this is exactly why I think its just a farce rather than a system supposed to keep Gm's clean and fair. Because we have one problem...the ones, who are supposed to punish and correct gm's, are not even interrested to do so, thats like placing Billy Bob in Charge of the sherrif office, he won't hunt down his brother Joe Bob to punish him for the illegal brewed alcohol, unless he didn't get his share.

Atleast this is the feeling I get, I complained twice about different Gm's, I atleast think, because I never got to know the name of the first gm, and while the first complain pointed on the rather poor execution of his job, the gm thougth he needs to diffuse a situation, he did so not with appearing in form of an Npc, but in a much easier way , he simply destroyed any given rp, leaving the Po's in question with absolutly no mood to continue any rp, while I here agree to the part of diffusing an rp, I did not agree on the part how it was done, instead of enchanting an rp and including any monster/creature/random character in the play, the gm simply destroyed the rp for everyone.

The second complain actually included a "punishment" for bad rp against me, after the person( the one working on the complains) heard my story, which made a ton more sense than the gm "acting out his ego"-story, the punishment was pulled back, but I got another punishment for an ooc comment, I send after I was simply clouded with no rp whatsoever. So here we have it, rules are bend till they resemble a slinky, the ones who are punished are the players not the gm's and as soon as you complain about a gm in public your topic is closed faster than anyone can say "Cheese tastes great" with the explanation that you could send a complain to the gm complain...which ~of course~ is simply not working, because those two working there do not waste one thougth of punishing any gm, even after realising that the punishment was handed out wrong they still try to punish the players...so this is why I got a few questions to the ones working on gm complain or gm's in general.

Questions:
1. How many complains where sent to the complain address?
2. How many of those resulted in any "punishing" of a gm?
3. Why was someone taken, who actually never seemed to have the will to actually correct a Gm, a system that is based on a personal
opinion will never work, if someone is not even willing to punish the one he is supposed to "punish".
4. Was there any Gm who received several complains and was actually put under "watch" or is everyone jsut going there merry way and we work after the "If we got noone to complain, we got nothign to judge"-way?
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Post by 1d20 »

*Prepares his extinguisher and eyes the thread cautiously*
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King Udan Trollbane
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Post by King Udan Trollbane »

nice job, you prevented me from making an opinion in this post. :P
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rakust dorenstkzul
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Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

Whenever i see these threads, it always feels like i should try harder.
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

With my awesome power, I will summerise this thread for those who can't be bothered reading all of it:

"Why are Gms allowed to break the background of the story? Why are some GMs corrupt and treat other characters differently and my character never gets anything nice out of it? Why aren't GMs punished properly."

Seriously Pell, we already have few active GMs, you are basically flaming a person who is trying to do their job - basically sacrificing his own time, effort and enjoyment of the game, just so you people can hate him when he actually does something.

GMs are also human, they're meant to be impartial, but they're also human.
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Taiah
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Post by Taiah »

Hadrian_Abela wrote:With my awesome power, I will summerise this thread for those who can't be bothered reading all of it:

"Why are Gms allowed to break the background of the story? Why are some GMs corrupt and treat other characters differently and my character never gets anything nice out of it? Why aren't GMs punished properly."

Seriously Pell, we already have few active GMs, you are basically flaming a person who is trying to do their job - basically sacrificing his own time, effort and enjoyment of the game, just so you people can hate him when he actually does something.

GMs are also human, they're meant to be impartial, but they're also human.

..and volunteers. Llama's are awesome. :wink:
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Cain Freemont
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Post by Cain Freemont »

Hadrian_Abela wrote:With my awesome power, I will summerise this thread for those who can't be bothered reading all of it:

"Why are Gms allowed to break the background of the story? Why are some GMs corrupt and treat other characters differently and my character never gets anything nice out of it? Why aren't GMs punished properly."

Seriously Pell, we already have few active GMs, you are basically flaming a person who is trying to do their job - basically sacrificing his own time, effort and enjoyment of the game, just so you people can hate him when he actually does something.

GMs are also human, they're meant to be impartial, but they're also human.
The term "Game Master" "Game Moderator" and any other variation of "GM" that represents someone who takes charge of a situation when it is called for automatically implies, by its nature, that this/these person or persons is/are selected based on their capacity to appropriately handle situations in a means that is above and beyond the normalcy of the average participant in a game.

Human? Absolutely. But humanity is a poor excuse when the very meaning of being human allows for such a broad variation in behavior, personality, and so on. People who do things wrong in other settings are still wrong and in many cases are adequately handled. If a volunteer at a blood drive offers to help with the transport of donated blood, but loses a bunch of it in transit, do they just get a "well, you are human" statement and a pat on the back for the effort? Or does someone confront them about the fact that they just wasted the time, effort, and eager contributions of other people? This is strictly as an example, of course.
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Post by Faladron »

Ich kann die Fragen nachvollziehen aber durch Disharmonie im Ton wird in diesem Thread wohl keine Musik gemacht werden.

Persönlich zum letzten Punkt eine Frage:

Wurde diese "Bestrafung" vor oder nach der Entscheidung "kreative Strafen" sein zu lassen durchgeführt?
Wenn vor, ist die Sache wohl verjährt weil ja jetzt neue Regeln und Direktiven gelten, wenn nicht war der Einspruch wohl begründet.

Wegen einem meiner Charaktere ist einmal halb Briar abgefackelt weil ein GM meinte das Getreide entzündet sich von selbst wenn man nicht dauernd darauf aufpasst, aber der Vorfall passierte vor dieser Änderung, ist also nurmehr eine nette Annekdote aus der Vergangenheit.

Thread I dub thee

Parliamentary inquiry voiced against the leading party holding absolute majority.

@Haedrian:

Glad you learned to share more sympathy for legal systems and their flaws after our talk. :wink:
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Enwell van Illdoran
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Post by Enwell van Illdoran »

In my time, gms got warned, and put under watch if they were a lot of complains. If the logs would really show something really corrupt they take the throwel of him. They try to keep those things internal though without letting to much slip through. Understandable if u d ask me. I got ripped off my gm status because i couldn't behave on the boards for example. They never told me that but now that im older and look at some things differently i know this was the only reason.
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Djironnyma
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Post by Djironnyma »

Illarion is made by humans for humans (at least mostly). Humans have sympathies and anti-sympathies - learn to life with it and you will enjoy illarion much more. You know, enjoying is what Illarion is about, its a game know international court.

Questions:
1.)What did you want to accomplish with these questions?
2.)Did you know that you have no "right" to be treat fair in illarion or even play it, that it is just a offer you can enjoy or let it be?
3.)Do you know that you not just bring down the motivation of staff-members, even more: every minute GMs / Devs spend for one of your "you hate me all, you favour your self / your homies and you should make anything like i wish"-complainings is lost for Quest, Updates or other more important things (e.g. we wait longer for the VBU in reason of: You)?
4.)Did you have no real life to post such massive blablabla at tuesday half a hour after midnight?
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

I seriously doubt this thread will yield anything constructive, so most constructive post eva now:
1.Should Gm's be allowed to change "known" ig facts to serve their own play.
Yeah. I don't know what you mean by "their own play", but if we e.g. decide that Pennymill has never existed, it is fact. Dictatorship ftw.
2.Should Gm's ignore any given facts about any npc, just to force his rp trougth.
I don't understand the question. GMs can change NPCs. What is "just to force his rp trought"?
1. How many complains where sent to the complain address?
I don't know. GM_complaint works independently.
2. How many of those resulted in any "punishing" of a gm?
It is not the intention of GM_complaint to punish people. What is a punishment, ten whiplashes? Decisions were corrected instead.
3. Why was someone taken, who actually never seemed to have the will to actually correct a Gm, a system that is based on a personal
opinion will never work, if someone is not even willing to punish the one he is supposed to "punish".
One of the most reasonable and neutral persons of the community was chosen. Punishing is not the intention, again.
4. Was there any Gm who received several complains and was actually put under "watch" or is everyone jsut going there merry way and we work after the "If we got noone to complain, we got nothign to judge"-way?
Yes, see above.

Actually, I didn't read all your examples and explainations, sorry. tl;dr, you know. But I took my time to answer your questions and I hope this thread will not slide to the intended flaming and mocking. We can have a serious discussion about everything, but I doubt this is the aim of this thread.

Edit: Dji's counterquestions are perfectly fitting ;-)
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Alexander Knight
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Post by Alexander Knight »

Estralis Seborian wrote:1.Should Gm's be allowed to change "known" ig facts to serve their own play.
Personally i don't think they should be able too, Players cannot change the past so neither should GM's
7. The staff is not better than you, but not worse either

You treat the members of the Illarion staff with the same respect you want to be treated with. No one in the staff adds more or less to the environment of Illarion than you do. They only have different tasks.
2.Should Gm's ignore any given facts about any npc, just to force his rp trougth.
If you mean putting the NPC's in god mode, then no i dont think this should be allowed.
GM's said - "NPC's are people too" Then let them have weaknesses. If a group walked into town they could kill the NPC's.

And I'm not sure about the GM's/Dev's acting mean. As only 1 has really stepped out of line by calling me a D*ck and telling me "I'm going to make Lura a widow" (Saying he's gonna kill my char off).
But other than that 1 time i do think the GM's are doing a good job, some need to lighten up a bit but all in all good work :)

EDIT: This was not a stab at the GM's/Dev's, i just wanted to say how i feel. I know that i can be REALLY annoying and personally i think you guys are awesome :)
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Pellandria
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Post by Pellandria »

@Hadrian: I somehow knew the good old "oh yeah you jsut complain because you don't get somethign" argument is thrown out again and slowly it annoys me, so I will summarize it on the right way.

1. Are we ever getting a clear line of magic and other "known" ig facts, that cannot be thrown over.

2. Are Npc's allowed to suddendly change in every perspectiv, as I said easy example: Onor giving out goldcoins.

3. How usefull is gm Complain.

those are the main questions, nothing else and I'm slowly getting annoying with the "gm's are just humans" argument, as Cain allready explained, they choose themself..more or less, they aren't forced to do it and if they take the responsebility I see forward to do their "freelance" job right, not abuse every possibility given. Of course I only talk about a few gm's here, not all and everyone, but even an ex gm telling me that certaint seers should be punished or that gm favorism is activ and yet always gets denied is ridicoulus and does not build any thrust in the game as such...and than people wonder why we get an uproar everytime something is plunked down on our heads.

@Dji: Now the good old zealot, the one grabbing ripe grapes everywhere..oh man its really ridicoulus how you again and again just stand there and defend gms without thinking twice...but why should you think.....we all know your reason for this quest you are on to defend and honor gm's...

1. The first two questions are merely pointing at a consisting line of illarion, expecially magic is changing every time some new ritual is done*cough* someone suddendly is able to create a zombiebody and getting a normal playchar out of a questchar*cough*, there is no line that says "allright its done this way and only this way" this was not even a shot at the gm's ..or well it was because they are the "deciders" and thus should have to decide what goes and what doesn't, but based on some game logic, not on personal opinion.

2. So everyone owns everyone something...if someone offers his or her work than you better be damm sure to look blindly at any fault he might accidently have done? As cain allready explained, its nice and well that they spend time, money and everything on a game they are not forced to create, but does that mean they can, excuse that word, I'm very well sure that the most Gm's are not counting to this category, behave like "assholes"?

3. Hmm first topic in a few months, one gm answered ..I doubt I have stolen much time from any gm.

4. Actually I do not need to explain my writting habit and this question is simply childish, but if you want to know it, than I might tell you that I wrotte this topic in the evening..got sidetracked forgot about it and posted it later as I saw that tab still in my browser as I was about to shut it down..as you can see the last few questions differ from the rest of the text, I just had to add those.

For estralis I will now write the german explanation, aswell as answering Faladron.

Was Fala angeht, beide von mir beschriebenen Ereignisse fanden bereits vor den Regeländerungen statt, aber in dne neuen Regeln steht ebenfalls nicht beschrieben in welcher Art und Weise ein Gm enstprechend die gegebenen Umstände der "Spiellogik" verändern darf.

@Estra:1. Wie ich beschrieben habe ging es in diesem Fall eher um die Magie und die Entscheidungen wie zum Beispiel etwas bestehendes und durch die Engine untermauertes Spielwissen, einfach durch ein Gm verändert wird, wie Fala wohl auch beschrieben hat, das Getreide plötzlich anfängt zu kokeln, obwohl es das nie vorher getan hat, das selbe nun in rot bei magischen Flammen, niemals zuvor hat ein Gegenständ, ein Werkzeug, eien Wand oder ein Gebäude Schaden von magischen Flammen davongetragen, nun entscheidet allerdings ein Gm, aus welchen Gründen auch immer, das eine magische Flamme zum ersten und letzten mal plötzlich irgendetwas abfackelt, inwieweit sollte es also einem Gm möglich oder erlaubt sein bekannte Ig "Fakten" zu ignorieren und sie für einmalige Gegebenheiten umzuändern?

2. Selbes Beispiel wie in englisch: Onor gibt mittels eines Gm's jemanden eine Goldmünze, selber Gm schlüpft in einen friedlichen Halblingnpc, der vielleicht gar im Zirkeltext beschreibt wie er doch alles liebt, nur um im nächsten Moment mit der Gmkeule einen Krieger umzuhauen.
Inwiefern ist es also Gm's erlaubt die vorhandenen Informationen zu "ignorieren" und schlicht ihre eigene "Note" auf einem Npc zu drücken, hierbei sei nochmal erwähnt das die meisten Gm's durchaus einen realistischen Npc spielen können, siehe z.B. mehrmaliges Ausspielen von Borgate.

3.Bestrafung mag wohl schlicht eine fragwürdige Wortwahl gewesen sein, in diesem Falle sagt es jedoch ein und das selbe aus, wurden Gm's darauf hingewiesen das sie womöglich etwas falsch gemacht haben oder wurden Regeln gebogen, um Gms zu "schützen" und in dem Fall dem Spieler, der sich beschwert hat, auch noch eine reinzuwürgen, weil er es gewagt hat die Vollkommenheit der Gm's in Frage zu stellen?

Wie ich schon erwähnte, es scheint fast so als würden Gm's sich ganz gerne hinter dem "Gm Complain" verstecken, offene Diskussionen im Forum sind unmöglich, da diese immer mit dem Hinweis auf das Beschwerdesystem zugemacht werden, wenn man allerdings genau dieses System in Frage stellen muss, da dort auch kaum eine Diskussion zustande kommt, muss man sich doch fragen welche Nützlichkeit dieses System hat.
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Llama
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Post by Llama »

Pellandria wrote:@Hadrian: I somehow knew the good old "oh yeah you jsut complain because you don't get somethign" argument is thrown out again and slowly it annoys me, so I will summarize it on the right way.

1. Are we ever getting a clear line of magic and other "known" ig facts, that cannot be thrown over.

2. Are Npc's allowed to suddendly change in every perspectiv, as I said easy example: Onor giving out goldcoins.

3. How usefull is gm Complain.

those are the main questions, nothing else and I'm slowly getting annoying with the "gm's are just humans" argument, as Cain allready explained, they choose themself..more or less, they aren't forced to do it and if they take the responsebility I see forward to do their "freelance" job right, not abuse every possibility given. Of course I only talk about a few gm's here, not all and everyone, but even an ex gm telling me that certaint seers should be punished or that gm favorism is activ and yet always gets denied is ridicoulus and does not build any thrust in the game as such...and than people wonder why we get an uproar everytime something is plunked down on our heads.
My main argument is that IF you think a particular GM did something, sort it out by report that particular GM. If you just BASH WIDELY at all the Gms, suggesting that they are all corrupt and the system is broken, all you're doing is alienating the players who have to read that complaint, and killing the amount of belief that the players have in the GMs. Which then leads to more complaints, and less morale.

Also your repetative attacks against the GMs are also getting old. We get it, they make mistakes. But instead find out who did it, and report them. Instead of putting the GMs all in a giant bucket and flaming all of them. There are good GMS, there are not-so-good GMs, there are Gms who are usually good and had a bad day, and then there are GMs who woke up in a mood or felt like rewarding some players.

So again, you have a problem, you don't publically attempt to incite rebellion against GMs, all that does it irritate people, and make the GMs feel more like all their hard work just gives them a load of crap and flak.
-
1. Its a roleplaying game, if you want those facts, start a proposal that we get them, draft a few, and if they're liked they just might get in. Hooray. Just poking at GMs to 'get to work', when you don't want to do it yourself, won't earn you any points.

2. If Onor gave out a gold coin to someone as a 'gift', then that could be a case of GM corruption. Then you report it, they see it , and remedy the situation. I know for a fact that a GM was booted out because of something similar to that.

3. It is useful. They do reply. I used it twice myself. Now if your idea of 'works' involves Gms getting kicked out and publically humiliated, I'm sure you'll be disappointed. The Gms don't even make it public when they ban disobedient players.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

Zu 3: Ja, GM-Entscheidungen wurden mehrmals von GM-Complaint revidiert bzw. es wurde eine alternative Lösung gefunden. Wenn du einen GM-Pranger oder ein Scherbengericht haben möchtest, nun, denkst du, dass dies irgendwelche positiven Auswirkungen hat? Mit den GMs kann man nebenbei auch direkt reden, hier macht der Ton die Musik (so als Tipp).

Zu 1&2: mE kann ein GM das prinzipiell tun, ja. Das ist unter anderem die Aufgabe eines Gamemasters, die Welt mit Leben zu erfüllen, so dass auch mal was unvorhergesehenes passiert. Da kann auch mal ein Dämonenskelett im Cherga-Tempel rumlaufen, obwohl da sonst nur normale Skelette spawnen. Die NPC-Beispiele sind mir zu polemisch, um darauf einzugehen. Sturm im Wasserglas, hmm?

Alles in allem denke ich, dass es wenig konstruktiv ist darüber nachzudenken, was GMs alles gefälligst nicht machen sollen. Es ist die Pflicht der GMs, auch in einer gewissen erzieherischen Weise einzugreifen, wenn sich die Spielweise einiger Spieler zu weit wegbewegt von dem, was angedacht ist.

Ich wage zu behaupten, dass dieser Thread zu absolut nichts führen wird. Dafür ist der angeschlagene Grundton zu negativ, ja, agressiv.
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Alsaya
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Post by Alsaya »

Only because one GM answered your thread, doesn't mean that others don't read it. It took me now roughly half an hour to read through all of it and to think about whether or not I should answer at all. So yes, it takes time away from doing something else. Be it doing something for Illarion or for RL.

As Estralis pointed out, messages that come to us via gm complaint are taken serious but instead of punishing the GM, decisions might be taken back because gm complaint thinks it wasn't fair. None of this is made public just like no misbehavior or 'punishments' of players are made public. People that become GM are mature enough to see if they did wrong and are able to reflect that when someone complaints.

So you see, gm complaint is useful. We point to it when players complain not because we want them to shut up but because we want them to use the appropriate channel. It is in fact not because we think we're godly and don't want to let that image of us tainted. It has something to do with fairness and respect. We do not openly display the wrongdoings of the players and we expect the same respect from our players. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

I can't say much to the others things, I know what things and gm decisions you're referring to of course. They are not random thoughts you had but that's alright. If I remember right you also send in gm complaints and it was decided to be fair. Don't know why you bring it up roughly a year later.

One last thing to the magic system, we know it is not perfect, we say that over and over again. By know there are as many theories around as mage players I suppose, so which one should we take and say "This is the official one, everything else is bullock and can't be done"? Some players will cry and uproar again because they played according to a whole different theory for years now. You see it is difficult and I see no easy solution to it. We could of course say that nothing that is not possible with the engine is just not possible, never ever. Which means mages will just become rune-combinators and nothing more and would probably go against all magic theories there are.

Well, I don't know. I'm not almighty, all-knowing and the like.
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Faladron
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Post by Faladron »

Um die Magie Diskussion mit einem Satz lösen zu wollen, ein Vorschlag (Gordischer Knoten approach):

Differenziert zwischen Runenmagie (die Engine unterstützt ist) und "Ritualmagie" (die RP gestützt und Gm überwacht ist).

Runenmagie kann nur das tun was die Engine unterstützt d.h. runenmagische Flammen werden keine Gebäude abfackeln.

Ritualmagie allerdings kann nicht für jedes Ritual das genau gleiche Ergebnis liefern weil, soweit ich das verstehe man soviele Faktoren beachten kann / muss und soviele unbekannte Variablen drin sind
(Stellung der Monde / Mana Konzentration der Umgebung / Equipment und Eignung des ausführenden Magiers / dessen Mittagessen das er vor 2 Tagen zu sich genommen hat)

Dass es ein WUNDER wäre wenn jedes gleichartige Ritual immer die genau gleichen messbaren Ergebnisse liefern würde.

D.h. Ritual heute erschafft Flammen die Gebäude verzehren, das selbe Ritual morgen aber vllt. nur Kaninchen. Und den "Zufall" darin spielt halt der Gm der das Ritual überwacht.
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Kevin Lightdot
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Post by Kevin Lightdot »

Who cares if npcs suddenly change?
It's not like you had a relationship with an npc is it? D:
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Nitram
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Post by Nitram »

You just never tried out SUCH keywords, Dotty.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Nitram wrote:You just never tried out SUCH keywords, Dotty.
Hey there, Borgate, looking for a good time?
Arrrr!
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Kevin Lightdot
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Post by Kevin Lightdot »

AlexRose wrote:
Nitram wrote:You just never tried out SUCH keywords, Dotty.
Hey there, Borgate, looking for a good time?
Arrrr!
Aahahaha xD
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Aegohl
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Re: Questions about and for Gm's.

Post by Aegohl »

While I can't answer for anything current and I'm entirely unsure of recent history, I figured I would weigh in for a couple of reasons. For one, I like to think that the current integration of the GM staff was largely orchestrated not by myself, but by a group of GM's that included myself, and I had a large part in starting the trend, so while I may not be able to answer what is the case, I think I have some good ground to answer what should be, might be, and also what was, both in this staff and past iterations (even some back before I was a staff member, which I know from second hand accounts, internal archives, what not.

First of all, Pell, I think that your post is a bit emotionally charged and I think that's a mistake on your part. I think that if you relaxed and more carefully chose your words this thread could be something that is more constructive. Anyhow, I digress. I'll answer your questions about GM complaints first:

1. Many complaints have been sent over the years. It would be hard to estimate, because sometimes we would go months with no complaints and other times there would be upwards of two or three in a given month.

2. I think Estralis answered this one well. It's not the intention of the GM complaint staffer to "punish" GM's. In fact, I don't think he has the authority to do that, although one could be punished for getting a GM complaint, I suppose, but how would one go about punishing a GM? I suppose you really mean to say: has a GM been relieved of his authority because of GM complaints? I can't think of a case like that, but I also can't think of a case where there was a GM complaint that would warrant it.

3. It's not based on a person's opinion. You don't understand the process. The GM complaints agent checks his mail and sees there is a complaint. He reads the complaint and then he posts it on the GM board. He investigates the claims in the complaint to see if it's true (by asking the GM who is complained about, asking witnesses, checking logs). He asks the GM why they had done such a thing. The GM staff and the complaints agent together talk about solutions. Often there isn't a solution. Truthfully, most players who send in GM complaints simply do not get what GM complaints are for. The vast majority of GM complaints are outright laughable, but they still get the full attention of any complaint, because correct or not, even if it doesn't belong in the GM complaints mailbox, we're making a game, an online game, an online game with people interacting, and we need people, and people have concerns, and Illarion is in the business (or, well, not the business, so I suppose the hobby) of players' concerns.

As for who is picked. Traditionally it was supposed to be someone who isn't a member of the community at all, but that's far from realistic. A non-member of the community would both not have the right background of information to do the job properly and also wouldn't have the motive or drive to do the job at all. However, the high ups in the staff have done a good job in the past of picking people who are as close to that as is possible and they've picked good people. While I can't say anything that would give away the identity of these people, I will say that for as long as I've been aware of who the GM complaint person is, there's been two different ones. The last one retired some years ago.



4. I don't believe it's any secret (in fact, he's joked about it in the past) that Martin has by far gotten the most GM complaints. Not so much in recent years, where he's become more withdrawn from the community, but back in the days when the staff was more wild west in the way they dealt with things, when I was but a noob myself, Martin's biting sarcasm sent players calling for the waaaaahmbulance in droves. Why do I mention this? Because I think it's an example of exactly where you're not understanding the purpose of all this, Pell. What should we do because Martin offended people in what was back then a closed community? Should we have told Martin "You're fired, Martin, from this project that you helped found, made all the graphics for, did large swaths of the work on, and likely are integral to the continuation of this project! That's what you get for being mean!" That is exactly what Illarion would be doing if they took your view of what GM complaints should be about: they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Surprisingly, I escaped Illarion with only one GM complaint to put up on my mantle. It was just such a case as I described: not really what GM complaints are for. I was mean to a player and he reported me for being ungmly. Well, I wasn't paid to be nice to players. I wasn't paid at all. It wasn't the appropriate thing to do, and yes, I got a severe talking-to for it, but the tongue-lashing wasn't from the gm complaints department. The gm complaints department was left with what it's supposed to do: finding a solution. The solution to being mean is obviously to not be mean. That's why this sort of GM complaint is frivolous. Humans can't be nice all the time. It's human nature.

I think you need to change your perspective on what GM complaints are about. If you have expectations that the staff is going to have a show trial followed by a lynching because of a GM complaint, then you're going to be universally frustrated all of the time.

Now, your other questions:

1. Gm's create the facts ingame, and sometimes the facts are forgotten, or the facts aren't conducive to a good story, or the facts are last week's facts and this is this week, or that fact was written by Japheth and Japheth hasn't been around in years and we just don't know what you're talking about.

Sometimes it's even good that players forgive us and forget a few facts now and again. I remember having some obnoxious players who had been to every quest in five years and now their story is so convoluted by miscellaneous quest-related factoids that we've long forgotten and they expect us to remember that when they show up at our next quest they have the Stone of Sherman's Might, which repels demons and the Blade of Destiny's Wrath which shines a bright red when beholders are approaching, and that they're the secret desciple of a child of Bjolmur who was played by someone who hasn't logged in since 1998.

Note: It's a game. More importantly, it's a game where we build collective stories and that doesn't mean we all tell our stories at eachother. Sometimes we have to accept some inconvenient editing, so that our stories match up. At the end of the day, the GM's are the moderators who have final say on what gets edited.

2. Well, first I want to correct this. The GM isn't rping. You're rping. You are playing a game in which you play a role. The GM isn't going ingame saying "I'm going to play Baron X for fun." The GM is trying to piece together a story and will take on many characters in a given night to do that. To answer your question: sometimes. It's best not to railroad players. It's not fun to be railroaded. However, if a player dashes head first into a plot hole that I'm not prepared to improvise in front of what could be a crowd of 20 players, I'll subtly "nudge" fate back to my favor. And if that doesn't work, I'd probably be less subtle.

Anyhow, I don't think that those above really answer what you're really trying to say, though, but the questions I think are the wrong questions. You're suggesting some GM or another is corrupt and helping out groups they're close to the loss of other groups.

I'm not part of Illarion enough nowadays to say if it's happening, but I can say this: in the past, GM's who came close to doing this sort of thing found that their motives were regularly questioned. There really is no secrets at Illarion. The server sees all, and the staff will discuss things when they sound strange. And sometimes they've been politely asked to refrain from being involved with this or that, and I do mean politely with no amount of sarcasm. The staff is able to discuss those sorts of things.

Edited to add: That's not to say don't look for it. Keep an eye on the staff, sure. They're keeping an eye on you. It's only fair. But don't be too hurried to jump to conclusions, because farther down the line you'll just look like the boy who cried wolf.
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Faladron
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Post by Faladron »

I can still provide the incident I filed that complaint in over aswell as the text of the complaint. (Pm Box is open)
I will say this much and nothing more: The above paragraph is a heavily simplified and twisted understatement.
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Aegohl
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Post by Aegohl »

Fal, get a life.
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Alli Zelos
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Post by Alli Zelos »

I feel sorry for those keyboards... So many words :shock:

But my 2 cents:

GMs are GMs... They control the game, so yeah... what they say, goes.
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Post by nmaguire »

Aegohl wrote:Fal, get a life.
I quite like the FAL, if you use it with stopping power on hardcore game modes then it's literally a 1 bullet kill. And with a semi automatic assault rifle thats pretty damn nice ;)
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Yeah, Life should get a FAL, not the other way round!
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Post by Alexander Knight »

Fals a legend :)
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Post by Damien »

1. Alli summed it up pretty well.

2. If magical fires would technically start wildfires, several mages would have burned all the islands several times already just to annoy other players or to take revenge for their own burned down buildings.
Illarion, the game, would really become a "flame war".
In my opinion, not introducing that option for the sake of the map does not create an excuse for people to abandon all logic.
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Post by Fooser »

One time I sent a complaint about getting too much love from Aegohl, and I am 97% sure that no one looked into it
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