Give the people what they want!

[signalSalute]

Why is there more bickering and complaining about issues that have nothing to do with GreaterMud?  Why is it that the moderators concern themselves with issues that have nothing to do with GreaterMud?  Why don't we have a 18/21+ year old minimum age limit requirement to play in the PVP realm?  Even better, why not make another realm for uncensored, adult gameplay?  Why isn't there a daily/weekly list of the bugs being worked on, bugs that have been fixed, and more activity of accomplishing the task of creating GreaterMud the way it should be?  It seems everyones' focus is on the wrong thing, and it appears to be starting from the top and trickling down.  Vitoc, no offense, but I haven't seen any real updates or any real forward progress towards the game from you.  You say you do "so much" but no one really sees the effects.  You are putting more emphasis on controlling and fixing behaviors of players than controlling and fixing behaviors of the game.  It also appears to me that Vitoc has angst and contempt towards quite a few players who slander his name and he is lashing out on a more personal level than should be.  The answers are so simple yet pride seems to get in the way and the moderators feel the need to "put players in their place" for not following arbitrary and ambiguous rules.  Vitoc if you ban/suspend 50% of the players for what they say will that be enough? 60%? 70%?  Banning/suspending is the wrong answer in my eyes.  Work with the players, understand your player base is crude, rude and 25+ years old.  Change the rules/game, not people.  You cannot change how people are. 

?A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.? -Gandhi

Though we pay nothing for this service, we are customers.  Imagine GreaterMud completed with no bugs no problems -- and no PLAYERS!  Remember that please Vitoc.  Lets work together and fix the real issues!

[Gnor]

The entrenchment of the players and development staff has only gradually worsened over the four or five years I've been around here.

It's only going to get worse over time since the players have no real leverage with them.

I've said it for a long time and will say it again:

The only way things would ever drastically change for the better here is if there was a mass exodus of players. Otherwise, they'll always point to their user count as validation for everything they do. There was a time when things like the sysops making Mystics have a 500% table would prevent pretty much everyone from showing up. Times have changed and standards are clearly lower now.

[Torque]

"A customer (also known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration." straight from wiki

You are on welfare and your money is being able to play. Get a job (and get off welfare) or enjoy the game how it's given to you.

Pathetic whining, again.

/thread

[signalSalute]

"A customer (also known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea, obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration." straight from wiki

You are on welfare and your money is being able to play. Get a job (and get off welfare) or enjoy the game how it's given to you.

Pathetic whining, again.

/thread

You have a terrible attitude man.  You need a reality check big time.  It's not pathetic whining, I'm trying to say we all need to work together to fix this game.  Moderators and players actually WORKING TOGETHER and COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY in the forums.  I believe there are a lot of good ideas and players who truly want this game to succeed.  Let's put aside all the petty stuff and get this game right.  But Torque, your attitude is horrid. I mean you are just plain disgusting.  I think you are a cancer to GMUD (and to people around you) .  I hope you don't act like this in real life because I doubt you would have many friends. But what do I know?  I await your smug, oh-so-smarter-than-thou retort....


BTW If I paid to play this game, would things be any different?

[Teferi]

So funny to see Torque acting like this.  He is the biggest serial duper out there.  Don't make us start enumerating his dupes.  Let's just say Dragon and say no more.  He is also a known racist which is funny if you look at his last posts. 

[Torque]

Surprise, Teferi,  one of the banned guys, trying to smear someone. Why are you still on the forums anyway? No need to make yourself look good by lying around. Pun.

Signal if your intention is honestly positive, then don't prance around talking about Vitoc's priorities aren't straight. Give good positive feedback that's in line with your end goal. You can analyze the situation all day long out loud, but be smarter and move forward instead of complain about how things are going.

You said yourself people aren't going to change, so whining about Vitoc not doing what you want is obviously counterintuitive to your opinions.

However,  it's actually Gnor that wins the aforementioned pathetic award by latching on to any type of antithesis to Vitoc by using "yeah i hate him too" prose, even though its being miscontrued.

So yes, more whining indeed.

[Gardner Denver]

Here's a good summary of the problem from a developers point of view.  We opened up the realm and allowed anyone who wanted to come play to do so.  In hind site, this was a mistake.  We should have made the realm private, by invitation only.  So we'll take the blame for that.

We have basically 3 types of users now.

Player 1.  Wants the project to be finished, reports EVERY bug they find, gives us any and all info requested about the bug so we can fix it.  I think we have a total of 4 or 5 of these types of players.

Player 2.  Wants the project to be finished, reports every bug used against them, abuses every bug they know.  We have a slew of these who justify it under "Everyone else is doing it".  These players are the bane of my existence.  They refuse to report or provide details on bugs they are using making it much more difficult for us to find/fix the problems.  These are also the people who cry the loudest about the lack of progress.  They cause me untold amounts of grief in the realm because I'm constantly having to juggle complaints from one half of the realm about bugs that the other half is currently using on them.  This problem becomes compounded by the fact that some of you (you know who you are) just flat out lie about what is and is not happening in the game.  These types of players are going to be slowly but surely weeded out.

Player 3.  Trolls and Griefers.  These are people who are here simply to disrupt as much as possible.  These will no longer be tolerated and banned on site from now on.  There are other mud boards you can go act like that on.

I believe that as we find ourselves with fewer of the type 2 and 3 players and more of the type 1 players that you'll see the development pace begin to pick back up namely because the development team will start to enjoy working on the project again.

[Teferi]

Vitoc,

With all due respect.  Gardner and DeathCow are the wrong colleagues for this venture.  Deep down, I know that you know this.  Kick them to the curb, reset the game and everything will be 100% imo.

[Gnor]

We have basically 3 types of users now.
Player 1.  Wants the project to be finished, reports EVERY bug they find, gives us any and all info requested about the bug so we can fix it.  I think we have a total of 4 or 5 of these types of players.

The vast majority of players are this type when they start here. They are excited and motivated by the possibility of new horizons for their beloved game. They dutifully report everything they notice with nothing but confidence that it will be fixed.

After spending some time here, most of these players will cease to be your Type 1 player. Most of the time, this is due to the realization that nothing or almost nothing that they posted has even been touched. With this realization comes some perusing of the backlog of reported bugs in the forums, at which point the player realizes that there are indeed dozens and dozens of bugs that were reported up to multiple years before which still exist exactly as they were posted those years ago. This is the point where the player stops feeling like it's urgent to post bugs on the forums.

Player 2.  Wants the project to be finished, reports every bug used against them, abuses every bug they know.  We have a slew of these who justify it under "Everyone else is doing it".  These players are the bane of my existence.  They refuse to report or provide details on bugs they are using making it much more difficult for us to find/fix the problems.  These are also the people who cry the loudest about the lack of progress.  They cause me untold amounts of grief in the realm because I'm constantly having to juggle complaints from one half of the realm about bugs that the other half is currently using on them.  This problem becomes compounded by the fact that some of you (you know who you are) just flat out lie about what is and is not happening in the game.  These types of players are going to be slowly but surely weeded out.

After becoming seasoned at playing on Greatermud, some of the Type 1 players phase into this new category. The genesis of this phase usually begins when the player has been legitimately carrying on in the game and has bugs used against them. Once they're killed by someone who took no evil points or take a few surprise rounds, they realize that because of the snail's pace of development, they can either adapt and fight fire with fire or just take it in the rear and wait a long, long time for the bugs to be fixed. Realizing where playing by the rules got them, they usually opt to fight fire with fire.

Player 3.  Trolls and Griefers.  These are people who are here simply to disrupt as much as possible.  These will no longer be tolerated and banned on site from now on.  There are other mud boards you can go act like that on.

This player type is pretty rare. They're only here to try to make as many people feel miserable as possible. Some variants of this player type choose to sit in a safe room and never gain experience in the game, but are very rarely banned or even warned for their behavior. A current example of this variant is Efa, a player who hasn't gained exp in months but shows up every day to bait people with racism.

Others choose to spend their time trying to destroy everyone's fun. An example of this variant is DeathCow. DeathCow has ruined multiple different resets; some bug by abuse, and some by cheating with sysop powers when he still had them. I can't think of another example of this player variant, but DeathCow has never been banned and still enjoys access to privileged information in the developer's forum.

The last variant is what I will refer to as a remote troller. Examples of this variant are people like Torque and Stalker, who don't actually play in the realm at all. They spend most of their time on the forums being as negative as they possibly can and crapping on as many people's posts as they can manage. They don't actually contribute anything to the discussion, but simply try to egg users on to derail post topics. These people don't get banned, and usually don't even get warned. This is because they are generally fanboys who try to curry favor with the staff by kissing their ass and defending them at every turn, which works with the development staff who look the other way and let it continue.

I believe that as we find ourselves with fewer of the type 2 and 3 players and more of the type 1 players that you'll see the development pace begin to pick back up namely because the development team will start to enjoy working on the project again.

I believe that since you not only create the problem player types that you described, but also allow free reign to what you consider (by your own words) to be the worst types of people, your statement just doesn't jive.

[Gardner Denver]

The vast majority of players are this type when they start here. They are excited and motivated by the possibility of new horizons for their beloved game. They dutifully report everything they notice with nothing but confidence that it will be fixed.

After spending some time here, most of these players will cease to be your Type 1 player. Most of the time, this is due to the realization that nothing or almost nothing that they posted has even been touched. With this realization comes some perusing of the backlog of reported bugs in the forums, at which point the player realizes that there are indeed dozens and dozens of bugs that were reported up to multiple years before which still exist exactly as they were posted those years ago. This is the point where the player stops feeling like it's urgent to post bugs on the forums.

If you check the bug report forums and compare it to the number of items in fixed and needs testing, you'll see that your statement is false.  It is true that some bugs do get pushed back a long time after being reported for various reasons though.  Those reasons are not always made public.

After becoming seasoned at playing on Greatermud, some of the Type 1 players phase into this new category. The genesis of this phase usually begins when the player has been legitimately carrying on in the game and has bugs used against them. Once they're killed by someone who took no evil points or take a few surprise rounds, they realize that because of the snail's pace of development, they can either adapt and fight fire with fire or just take it in the rear and wait a long, long time for the bugs to be fixed. Realizing where playing by the rules got them, they usually opt to fight fire with fire.

When players start out a fresh realm playing like this, your argument doesn't hold up. 

This player type is pretty rare. They're only here to try to make as many people feel miserable as possible. Some variants of this player type choose to sit in a safe room and never gain experience in the game, but are very rarely banned or even warned for their behavior. A current example of this variant is Efa, a player who hasn't gained exp in months but shows up every day to bait people with racism.

You're obsessed with Efa.  It's unhealthy.  Just because he baits you doesn't mean you have to bite.  As you are so fond of saying, there is an ignore feature.

Others choose to spend their time trying to destroy everyone's fun. An example of this variant is DeathCow. DeathCow has ruined multiple different resets; some bug by abuse, and some by cheating with sysop powers when he still had them. I can't think of another example of this player variant, but DeathCow has never been banned and still enjoys access to privileged information in the developer's forum.

False and false.  Deathcow has been banned before and he no longer has access to the developers section of the forums. 

The last variant is what I will refer to as a remote troller. Examples of this variant are people like Torque and Stalker, who don't actually play in the realm at all. They spend most of their time on the forums being as negative as they possibly can and crapping on as many people's posts as they can manage. They don't actually contribute anything to the discussion, but simply try to egg users on to derail post topics. These people don't get banned, and usually don't even get warned. This is because they are generally fanboys who try to curry favor with the staff by kissing their ass and defending them at every turn, which works with the development staff who look the other way and let it continue.

I believe that since you not only create the problem player types that you described, but also allow free reign to what you consider (by your own words) to be the worst types of people, your statement just doesn't jive.

Again, falsehoods.  They both play although not 24/7 like some do.  Your assumption on why they are allowed to remain here is wrong as well.

[Gnor]

If you check the bug report forums and compare it to the number of items in fixed and needs testing, you'll see that your statement is false.  It is true that some bugs do get pushed back a long time after being reported for various reasons though.  Those reasons are not always made public.

So you're saying it's false, but then you're saying it's true and I just don't know why?  ::)

When players start out a fresh realm playing like this, your argument doesn't hold up. 

So the same group of people fighting against the other same group of people aren't going to use the same tactics because it's a fresh reset?  ::)

You're obsessed with Efa.  It's unhealthy.  Just because he baits you doesn't mean you have to bite.  As you are so fond of saying, there is an ignore feature.

You're well aware I'm not the only one who has mentioned this. A pretty transparent attempt at redirection.

False and false.  Deathcow has been banned before and he no longer has access to the developers section of the forums. 

If I'm wrong about the banning and current access, then I'm wrong. For quite some time, he enjoyed privileged access to the forums in spite of being probably the single worst game ruiner ever to play on this project. This serves to highlight the notion that this post you made was totally out of touch with reality.

Again, falsehoods.  They both play although not 24/7 like some do.  Your assumption on why they are allowed to remain here is wrong as well.

Yet they remain, and they continue doing exactly what I described in my post: Being your Type 3 player. You wanted to point to my mistake of not knowing they played/how often they played, but you did nothing to address their behavior which you described in your post as the worst type of people on here.

I understand that semantics is basically every card in your hand, but if you'd actually take an honest, dialogical approach to this, it might actually serve to lessen the ridiculous divide between the devs and the players.

Look at the big picture and spirit of my post without assuming I'm only posting this to spite you. I haven't been perfect here and almost nobody has. You and Vitoc are human too(right?).

[Gardner Denver]

I typed up a nice long reply to this but then decided it wasn't worth it and deleted it.  We'll just agree that you don't like the way we do things, and I don't care if you like it or not.

[Vile]

I've asked Vitoc directly several times in these forums what the plan/roadmap is for 1.0, mod10, and have never been given the gratitude of a single response. If you want to be respected as a developer, respecting your users might be a good start.

Many of us are willing to assist in any way we can, but have never been asked to do so apart from Gardner's plee for testing after the resent reset fiasco in PVP. No consultation or discussion ever happens between the devs and the players about ideas, bugs, and options for moving these forward. Rules are arbitrarily enforced causing frustration for everyone.

Getting over this users vs developers mindset might be a good start. If you guys make an effort to involve us (this is what we did, go test it - isn't going to cut it), something constructive might come out of it.

[Gardner Denver]

No consultation or discussion ever happens between the devs and the players about bugs

This used to happen quite often.  Players would often give bad or incorrect advise, we would implement it, and then we would get vilified for doing it.  So we stopped.  I learned that even the most trusted of sources will give wrong information at times and then rather than speak up about it, either sit quietly back and let everyone blast me and/or Vitoc over it, or in some cases they would even join in on the fun.  This is the major reason I no longer ask for user input on fixing a bug nor will I ever do so again.

We sometimes have to make decisions that aren't popular, like skipping over this bug to fix another more pressing bug.  We sometimes get some major problem that takes us awhile to isolate & fix.  Sometimes fixes have to be put in in stages and the result is not immediately clear or apparent to the end users.

We tried to have a minimum op interference realm, the "give them an inch" rule kicked in pretty quick.  We tried a no interference realm with no rules at all.  Nobody liked that.  We set just a few rules, enforce them as best we can, and everyone looses their minds over one suspension.  You say it's inconsistently enforced, but my guide has always been "Did I see it myself" when it comes to things over gossips.  I saw what he said, that's why he got suspended.  Had I not seen it, he would not have been.  When it comes to dealing with bug abusers, that's almost impossible to do.  Users can never provide a capture of the events from the perspective of the person being accused of using a bug so we can see what really happened, and of course every person confronted about using a bug is innocent.  We have far to many players here who like to try to game the rules as it is to see an "enemy" suspended for a few days to simply take someones word about the bug abuse.

It is not our wish to have a Dev vs Player battle brewing but the bottom line is, we are more than a little angry right now.  I can't begin to count the man hours that the development team has invested in this project over the past 5 years, and in my case not only the GreaterMUD work but the work on my own software as well.  To see all of that effort belittled by certain users saying things like "We do nothing, we never fix bugs", etc tends to rub us the wrong way.

We want this project to be completed.  We want people to come here and help with the testing.  We want people to play here and enjoy themselves while they are here.  We want bugs reported so we can fix them.  We realize it is impossible to please everyone.  Users need to also realize that getting to the goal of completing the project may sometimes interfere with your enjoyment of playing here.

This is not a standard mud game and it never will be until such time as V1.0 is complete.

So where does that leave us?  As Gnor said, we are only human.  We're only willing to turn the other cheek so many times.  Personally I'm running out of cheeks to turn.  I'm pretty sure based on Vitocs most recent postings that he has reached that point as well.

[Fermouth]

Reading this whole topic has made me sad.  Gardner makes good points and so does Gnor.  I agree with Gnor.  We all start out this game as a type 1 user.  We then progress to the 3rd phase over time.  I remember when I first started.  I would try to post bugs in forums only to find out, that's already been posted.  Atleast that's what someone would flame about in the posts.  If it's already posted, shouldn't it have been fixed already?  Vitoc is too busy to work on this game, I get that.  He has a life.  Some of us don't, like myself.  Although I do not play anymore, I used to play all the time.  Sure, I've abused lots of bugs, but I've also reported those very same bugs.  And to my dismay, nothing was ever done about it, unless it was abused constantly which would warrant an immediate fix because users would bitch and bitch until it was fixed.  This game is ran on the same philosophy of everyday life.  Nothing in the real world is fixed unless a ton of people bitch about it.  It's that simple. 

I am truly sorry if I offended anyone or came across as a troll or whatever negativity you may have towards myself.  We are all only human at the end of the day. 

Gardner, your reasoning is completely wrong.  If you stop communicating with us, then what?  What if your beliefs of how a bug should be fixed are completely wrong?  Then you have no feedback from the ones who actually play the game.  You do not play, and that is a fact.  You guys sit on your pedastals and judge those who play, but you do not play yourselves.  Walk a mile in someone elses shoes.  Do not judge, for you are not the judge, nor the jury.  And that is that.  Please, take the time to write a big response to delete, and then to say you don't care enough to type it, and say some more stupid crap. 

The problem is communication and lack of progress.  It's that simple.
Thanks in advance for reading.

Your friendly poor prophet,
Will