Why are GM's encouraged to play PWI?

TZoner - Raging Tide · October 2013

The purpose of this thread is to simply discuss and maybe get a better understanding of what GMs actual role and requirement is on the various P{WI servers. I do not in any way dislike or have anything against any GM. It has recently come to my attention that GMs are actually encouraged to play PWI. While this in itself may not be a problem to many people, I would like to first shed some light on why I am asking why they are encouraged to play. To begin with I am not really quite familiar with what a GM is actually required to do. I do not know if they are the ones solely responsible for investigating tickets or if they actually are the ones that make the decisions to ban people. To be honest I am unsure of what a GMs actual requirements in the game are and would love any and all information that can shed some light on the subject. I believe that we as gamers have a right to this information although I may be wrong and I'm sure others may try to disagree. Any links to other threads discussing GMs and their roles will be welcome to shed light on this subject.

My reasoning behind this thread is a little complex and is partially dependent on what a GM is actually responsible for. So i will pose my question based on the assumption that GMs d play a role in the decision to ban people concerning submitted tickets. IF THIS IS THE CASE, I would like to question why they are allowed to play PWI. I am not in any way saying that I do not want them to play but rather asking why. I personally think that this brings up issues with decision making, AGAIN GOING UPON THE ASSUMPTION THAT GMS ARE INVOLVED IN THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS TO BAN PEOPLE. I will explain. We are human. As humans we develop biased opinion, Likes and dislikes for specific people, and are subject to many faults in our judgements based upon these biased opinions. On that note, AGAIN GOING UPON THE ASSUMPTION THAT GMS ARE INVOLVED IN THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS TO BAN PEOPLE, I would like to say that I find it wrong that they are encouraged to play the game based on my previous statements of human error and biased ness (ik that isnt a word). Now any and all personal opinions on this statement are welcome, HOWEVER it should be noted that if GMs are NOT involved in the decision making to ban certain people based on tickets submitted, my entire opinion on whether or not GMs should be allowed to play changes.

Anyone with any helpful legitimate information that can shed light onto this subject is more than welcome. I am simply trying to better understand the role of a GM. I would appreciate that anyone responding to this please keep their answers serious and possibly support them with links to previous discussions of this matter, if any.

WannaBM - Archosaur · October 2013

Didnt know there actually are active GMs on PWI....

As to their general role in games like these: I think their primary role is to support players who have a problem. To know what is going on in the gaming community, to be between the players and understand how they experience the game so that best support can be given for those players. To be a link between players and developers. Pointing out players to be banned is just a small aspect of their job.

Furthermore, yes they are humans and thus not 100% objective. However, that is part of life. Judges are also human and not 100% objective. So are politicians, CEOs or anyone else who makes important decisions in real life. Police officers are often working in a local area so that they have connection with the neighborhood and know whats going on. We are humans, our society is human. In the western culture, we often try to minimize the subjective factor. That is a cultural thing though and not undebatably a good thing. (Dont ask me if its good or bad, i have no answer, just saying it is debatable)

It has a negative effect of not being 100% objective but it also has a positive side that they can better make decisions on an individual basis. While it is good to have an objective set of rules, the human factor also has its role.

TZoner - Raging Tide · October 2013

WannaBM - Archosaur wrote: »

It has a negative effect of not being 100% objective but it also has a positive side that they can better make decisions on an individual basis. While it is good to have an objective set of rules, the human factor also has its role.

I agree that there can be good and bad sides to it as well. I would love it if someone with like personal knowledge of GMs could give us a heads up though as to what exactly they are really required to do. I do realize that asking a GM to maybe post on this thread may be far fetched seeing as how they havent posted much since they said we were getting a special blog post about the STILL PROBLEMATIC issue with the removal of DQ but it would be nice.

Apostasy - Raging Tide · October 2013

Well, one thing I am 99.99% certain GM's are capable of, is "muting" players that really go way too far on WC. I have seen on RT one player specifically, on 2 different occasions with 2 different characters, got muted on both times. I am quite certain that particular player did not just decide in and of their own accord to stop WC'ing like a crazed lunatic. I believe it is a "power" of GM's due to the fact that I have seen GM's 2 or 3 times during the course of 2013. Never seen one ever since February of 2010, then all of a sudden I seen 2-3 times in less than a year. Being I am unaware of any others having that ability in game (Mods work the Forums, otherwise they are just players like the rest of us, I do not believe they can "mute" in game), it must be part of the GM "arsenal".

The "GM" position, in some sense is an extension of "DM" or "Dungeon Master" from back when paper and dice were the RPG medium. The "Dungeon Master" simply played the "Storyteller" or created "Quests" to challenge the Players.

VKnightV - Lost City · October 2013

i wish they did like in pw malaysia server and muted ppl on wc in a weeks time then ppl would stop actin so shieldish.

gm showing can be a good thing

beside if we dont do something stupid there no problem right

also them playing can be a good thing to have a based opinion on what is happeing in pw in general

ovenusarmanio · October 2013

http://www.pwe-inc.com/career

If any of those people logged into game, with a company character, it would have "GM" over their head. Even though what they do is vastly different. In addition, with matters like these, there are probably all kinds of safeguards to ensure that doesn't happen. For example, Elena Kagan, the supreme court justice, has had to recuse herself (remove herself from judging) a ton of cases because she was the former head lawyer for the country. And as such had a very strong bias. This is normal in the cop world too, you aren't allowed to handle a case that involves people too close to you. In fact, in most parts of the US. When you have that kind of decision making going on with someone actively involved with the locals, there are checks and balances for it. Heck, even here. Mods are not allowed to ban forum goers. The GMs make that decision. We can make a request, and then the GMs look into how we handled it. What prior offenses they may have committed that we are not privy too, etc. And then make their decisions based on that. If they do that for the forumers, there is no reason to assume the GMs are allowed to make the decision of who gets banned based on their own personal dislike for silly in-game reasons, and not actual TOS violations. I think that's a bit of a leap, TBH. Having people play the game allows them to know what is normal in the game, what is not. It helps them to understand the game better, and make better decisions. Look at the decision to add g16 gear which was made under frankieraye. The gear can only be had through farming. That's because they knew the community had been requesting as much. They flat out said the purpose of that expansion (which we got first, the only time that has ever happened) is because they listened to customer complaints here. This game has gotten worse with the less GM involvement, not better. Think of Spoons and V4liance, and then think of Frankie. The more involved the gms were, the better they were able to do their job, and the more well received they were in general. Some GM involvement is a good thing. That's one thing I do know.

And yeah there is absolutely a possibility of abuse. But that's what checks and balances are for, and even then stuff will split through the cracks. Not everything is going to have a perfect record. It is impossible. But it seemed to me based on the past, that the more GMs knew about the game and were involved. The better.

Saethos - Raging Tide · October 2013

I can't help but feel as though GMs staying out of the game is a bad idea. We can assume that a GM can play on multiple servers, though as far as I know they mostly stick to just one. If a GM doesn't play the game then they cannot know what the players are going through. Granted there are the forums, but only 5% (Number pulled out of my bum) of people that play the game go to the forums, so the only true way to get the majority opinion is to get in game.

On a few occasions I've seen GMs get on, I've even spoke to a few, such as CranCran and V4liance, who seemed to enjoy talking to us. CranCran was particularly fun, summoning harpy wraith outside west arch, which was amusing.

But back to the main point, I'm fairly certain that GMs have complete access to personal chat logs, as they've been known to find information without needing screenshots. I once got married in game and my reward glitched, forgot to screenshot and submit a ticket. They knew I wasn't lying through my teeth somehow, come to find out they can scan chat logs.

I'm fairly certain that nobody can just ban somebody for no good reason, other GMs can check the chat logs. I'm not saying every single ban is monitored, that would be ridiculous, but there could be random checks. And this is just for the GMs that ban. There's a GM for faction logos and other such graphics, there's a GM for technical support, probably more than one, really. I remember when the r8r psychic weapon would make clients crash, so a GM got on the game to duplicate it and found it to be true.

I feel as though if GMs couldn't play the game that nothing would come out properly. We got t3 Nirvana because the free players wanted to get farmable gear. Then Nirvana became t3/r9+10 or gtfo, so they added Nation Wars to compensate for those that hit Nirvana status late. I have my own beef with people that say Nirvana was a free players instance post-NW, they clearly had no concept of pre-farming gear and the way it effected players that couldn't farm Nirvana yet when t3 happened.

Even some of the skill updates that we got a while back (and will be getting soon) came from GM input from playing the game. The uselessness of damage over time was amped up, the complete failure that was sage HF was made to be decent, hell, they rebalanced sage BM overall as it was.

To put it simply, the day GMs stop playing is the day that the game starts getting updates that are completely game ignorant, making things pretty much useless.

TZoner - Raging Tide · October 2013

Thank you all for your replies and helpful insight into the GMs and their roles. I have actually managed to change my view and agree that GMs playing the game can in fact be a good thing and i am very thankful for all your input. I will ask that this thread now be closed.

ovenusarmanio · October 2013

closed at the request of the op

Why are GM's encouraged to play PWI?

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