Players shouldn't allowed to be staff
 

Honestly everyone likes to be staff but I belive that players should not be staff. Many players hold grudges against other players when they are staff just to get them in some sort of trouble, some staff do not even do their job right. I belive that people should be able to have levels made by them but by their own freewill contribution. Not by being staff and warping around saying "LOL WANNA RACE FOOLZ ILL WARP AND WIN LOL LOL" and other stupid things just to abuse their rights, yes their are many staff who do their job well but overall they just should not be staff. Graal should get a nice large team of workers and a nice system so we do not need an events team. We honestly do not need FAQ's, other players can help each other out and that is what the tutorial is for and it can be fun to figure out things on your own. There are many other solutions and ideas that people have but I beleive this is one that I have thought out well, I hope you guys agree and post your opinions.

-Caenon

I agree with you in a way. but then agin if it was all GraalOnline staff it would not be as much fun. just looking at it in a diffrent point of view.

Sure, it would be nice but it isn't financially feasible.

Same as Googi said, youd need alot of people to keep it going.

If you hadn't noticed Coolkid329847, players MADE this game what it is now.

Yeah..
This thread makes me go 'wat?'

Graal is developed by players, in general. If players aren't staff, there won't be any staff. >_>

I know, that's what makes graal....graal.

I disaggre with this, even though more than half the people that are "staff" don't have half a brain cell, and in turn, allow other "less smart" people to become staff. Vicious cycle. Wouldn't fix it though, much better to volenteer people that have experience with the game to work in it. That's how the other big MMOGs do it, and it works fine.


There's just less smart people to choose from here.

Lol I agree with Yen, when I read this thread the first thing I thought of for 5 minutes was "Uh..what".

This is basically you getting mad because someone that doesn't like you got a staff job and abused powers against you. It's happened to people before you, it's gonna happen to people after you, and frankly I think it'd be better if we have people that have played this game develop it rather than people that don't play it.

It's an intresting idea, but it's not feasable (As Googi said).

E:Plus, if you take away the "Play and Develop Graal" aspect of the game, you lose like 50% of your playerbase and what do you have to advertise now? (Assuming Graal does Advertising period), "Come play this game that we took Zeldas tiles for, we've got uh...laggy RPG servers and ghost town PK servers! Yeah that's it!"

So who'd you repeatedly harass to get thrown in jail this time, Caenon?

Hmmm....I disagree, but I see some definite merit too...maybe staff has gone too far.

I mean, lookit the evolution. In The Beginning there was Stefan, and he was staff. Then he appointed a GM, and the GM kept the hackers at bay while Stefan worked. And it was good.
Then the GPs came, for multitudinous were the hackers; and great was the burden of level administration, and so the LAT were made. Then came the FAQ, and the staff tools, and the GC...

Too much power did the Staff Tools grant the FAQ, and many were smote by their own pride. For in the beginning the FAQ had no power nor authority; they had to trust in the speed of their feet and the skill of their swords.

My point is, maybe the FAQ and GC should do without. I know if I ever make a server, it'll be back in the hands of the players. If a player wants to play FAQ, the system should accommodate - they get to party up with as many newbies as choose to sign on, they can set their name to Tour Guide and monitor the position and status of their members. And walk. A lot.

GCs shouldn't have wildcard warp - they can warpring to events, they can warp Willing players into events, any more is dangerous...

The first thing i thought was "This guy is a player, therefore, i hope he is never staff"

So his post makes a good point....in a way.

I hope he got an infraction for this spam. :cry:

Yeah I hope he got one aswell with the amount I have been getting for NOTHING.

Tyhm, make a server.

I agree with you to an extent, some players should not be staff, such as the example you gave as I can imagine it will be true.

The problem today is a decline in standards to becoming staff. The only server I think I have seen that had high standards was Classic, but even that seems to be getting desperate now, especially on the development side of things. I left FAQ because they were allowing new applicants to use walkthroughs as a "guide" to filling their applications in, I don't see the point.

Everyone would love to be staff, but it's not all it's cracked up to be, sure you get some staff boots and have a wizz around for hours, but it soon gets old. I don't understand why people can't just take a step back and just play the game, unless they truely can bring something to that server, rather then wanting a tag and some tools for an advantage over players.

It's a common thing now seeing staff hiring their friends, who in return don't actually do their jobs, just mess around with their rights and then people become too stared to fire them, which is a joke.

I too used to believe a FAQ team was not needed and I know Galdor will agree with you, but until you see how many new people ask questions to get a replies such as "Press ALT+F4" and "**** noob" you don't realise how much it is needed.

I can imagine everyone could use a walkthrough when answering FAQ questions, but it takes a special kind of person to answer every single question they're swarmed with in a polite and friendly way, regardless of how silly the question is - a perfect example of this is Moonie, the ex FAQ Admin of Classic.

Staff that are not needed are those who don't actually do any work, treat players like they're above them, and those that lack maturity as a whole.

Ragnarok?

I think Graal should have paid administrators at some level.

Management for classic worlds, the GM, whoever, but somebody who is being paid not to be a jerk and to keep everybody else in line.

Someone who doesn't ban a player because they believe they're causing a playerworld to crash, when he was clearly telling people what the actual problem was?

Owners/managers just have to watch out for corruption, and globas need to listen to these claims.
The sad thing is, if/when some of the globals tend to be 'corrupt'.
I'd rather players hold these positions, ones who play, are active on the forums, understand business procedures (at least the globals), an understanding of the players, and a good connection with them. There should not be a rift between normal customers and staff or globals, as there is today.

Unix is always complaining about how much Graal costs him already, I don't think he would even consider this :cry:

True. Besides, when I was staff I mostly sat around waiting for something to do; ironically, I care more when I have free reign, and only have free reign when I'm not being paid to Accomplish Something. It's the great paradox of Graal - volunteers are the only ones that care, because they're the ones that would do an indefinite workload for free; paid employees put in their time and go home.

Well, except Stefan, he does everything and then some. Honestly, I've tried coding; no idea how he codes new stuff, supports old stuff, runs a couple worlds, and on top of all that is expected to answer support tickets and break up squabbles. But I digress.

Professional paid staff's tricky. If you pay an artist by the hour, it's amazing how long a commissioned piece takes; it's not a slight against artists, it's a slight against hourly wages for commissioned tasks. But you can't very well pay people a dime for every ticket answered...
...
...actually...
...
...no, horrible idea, they'd wind up generating tickets to "Resolve them satisfactorily". It'd encourage them to get their jobs done, but it's not the big smart answer. Paying FAQs would be even worse.

No, I think it goes back to the FAQ should be player oriented and unofficial - the system exists for all, the system caters to an experienced player helping a group of newbies, all is well in the world. The GP should probably be a global network of hacker catchers - but then, I tend to think scriptwise, and thus figure it's really a scripting problem if anyone can hack a supposedly secure script. Likewise I figure it's a cinch to catch people abusing the rules if the system can catch them at it, but clearly I'm wrong in this. Perhaps a single global individual in charge of security, of posting and enforcing the Global Rules, and sorting out complaints, answering tickets, and generally representing Stefan and Unixmad when they've got better things to do than sort out which local staffer's misbehaving - maybe that'd help, but the duties would need to be clear and numerous.
Level admins...well, we mostly work for the glory of having our work published. Pay us to do something else and we won't have much fun at it. Ultimately no reason for a level admin to have GP-style powers - they got no reason to warp people, if a level malfunctions and warps everyone into a wall that same level, when repaired, can warp everyone out again.
Game Coordinators, heresy though it is, are in the same boat as FAQs. An official title to rally around, perhaps, but an official board or announcement-system is just as good. It should be something that players can do just as easily...though rewards are always going to be tricky, beating your other idling account in a sparring contest oughtn't net you a ticket.
Perhaps rewards should be based on participation, or on general player approval?

I dunno, just my views.

Id love graal to have professionals but o well.

Minoc, he is obviously not the real Ragnarok.

Didn't think he is.

I don't even know if the real Rag got his account back years ago or not after it was "stolen".

hahahahahah awesome

people don't remember one of the biggest reasons graal was successful - the whole "players build everything" concept :cool:

can we start over from just classic yet

I would suggest a few changes.For the longest time server's have been all about keeping their npcs and stuff to their server alone.There has been alot of debate about ownership of thing's made by player's and used on graalonline server's.I would suggest a new server that isnt like normal server's but more of a development server.Here player's from the graal development community would script npc's , make images , gani's or mabey even small area's to be used freely on any graal server.

Of course their will be debate about everyone haveing the same stuff so of course their will be guide line's.The npc script's will be open to any and all server's.Minor changes can be made at the server's request by the development server staff or it can be done by their own people.Images of course may be limited to only a few server's per image as to not take the varity out of the server's.The same will go for gani's.

Level area's may be used on only one or two server's.This server would basically just make and distribute graal related stuff for classic or private server's.The majority of the time will be spent working on basic stuff used on graal server's in different way's of functioning.A request can be put in for work at any time but must be done by either the manager or co/asst manager to insure authentisity.I would spell it better but i cant find my pocket dictonary.

In lamen's term's, to insure the request is for real and not some underling on a server misunderstood the need or how to go about it.Admin's on server's would also be a accetable person to put in a request.The point of this server tho would be good open source graal support.The idea of request being restricted has nothing to do with open source, it has to do with the time wasted on material that wont be used.The real hard part would be to create an awsome team of graal developer's that could get along long enough to get some work done long term .

But on the thought of player's being staff, i think it is mandatory.Your gona have bad people no matter where you go.I know ive delt with many people durring my day's in graal.Ive seen it every where from all type's.Makeing it more selective isnt gona solve it, that just mean's they will come in being good people but over time with too much power they will courpt sooner or later.

"We honestly do not need FAQ's"
What a stupid comment.
"players should not be staff"
Stupid comment x 2

I disagree.

i agree with wazza to an extent

He changed it to "-Caenon".
I wonder why..

Or even better, have no staff at all. The server manager will have his RC/NC/Max Rights and such, no need for anyone else.. use scripts :)

You can script mainly everything a staff does, so away with the staff.

Nah, you always need SOME staff. If just to tell you what scripts are needed while you're asleep.

"Yeah, could you script the system to recognize when everyone on the server dresses up in this patern and starts using these racial epithets?"
"Also, you need to detect when a guild is lining up in a no-weapons area along the exit and have them not be able to block everyone on the server inside."
"Also, someone's got a new trainer that, while it can't hack the serverside scripts, it can make the server think the clientside script of these minigames is saying the player wins every time..."
You'll always need GPs. They're the final word in Runtime Staff.
LATs are primarily compiletime staff. They stand upstream and try to fix things systematically. They need just enough power to test how it's working.
FAQs and GCs should be players. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

There should be a global requirement to be staff :P!

FAQ should just have tags. You might argue with me but without them, nobody can really tell who is an actual FAQ on that server... and it's nice to have some people you've approved of giving out help because you don't want some idiot posing as FAQ giving everyone bad answers, because it brings down the quality of your server.

Events Team people are a different story. This varies from each server depending on how you have events set up. Some servers have events that practically run themselves so there isn't really need for ET. Some servers have events that require someone to run them... so then you really need ET. But either way, Events Team should only have enough power to do their job. Which means being able to warp (to events only) and being able to run the event or possibly give out the prizes.

I always think that making tools for your staff via script and then making logs to go along with those tools is a really good idea. That way if someone abuses ANYTHING you will have logs to prove it.

Logs are very powerful, just the mere knowledge that your actions are being logged makes you less likely to want to abuse your power. There could be strict punishment for abusers as well. Such as bans from the server.

Oh, I disagree that they even deserve tags, and here's why:
FAQ tags requires an FAQ Admin. FAQ Admins can promote whoever they choose, and ignore who they please for whatever reasons they choose, including and especially ones made up on the spot. But then, I think Anyone should be able to serve as an FAQ at any time, not just the ones Specifically Approved.

Perhaps it should be alignment based. Perhaps it should be trust based. Perhaps a script should be added - for every newbie (and ghost?) that thanks their tour guide, that's one more referral, one more credit, one more point towards "This player can be trusted." For every newbie that curses the day they met their tourguide, a point revoked. The only trouble is people making their own newbie accounts...

This becomes far less of a problem if FAQs don't have any actual powers.

If you wanted to use the referral system, we could make it so only players that were a certian level or obtained something that requires a bit more time and would cut-back on people creating accounts just to refer someone.

...that's actually kind of brilliant.

If the newbies have to make it to the end of the first quest before they can thank their tour guide, then the tour guide has to do his job. Even if he's just pushing around his own newbie-account, he's reluctantly showing other newbies the way...and if he's mean to them, they can Minus him at certain points along the route.

Thanks, good amendment there too. I like they can be judged mid way through. Could expand a little bit there with either less points(then at the end) or add little multiple choice comments or something. Records it to a log somewhere, everything is done by complex operations, etc etc... hehe