GMs per Population

[Guest]

so im wondering wat do u guys the the GM to player ratio should be?
so i mean like how many GMs for every x number of players should there be?

imo it seems at minimum no matter how many players there are there should be at least 3 GMs... and then from there every 100 - 200 players means 1 more GM i dunno my numbers may seem a lil high but im use to play wiff lots of ppl on a server xD

so wadda u guys think?

[MrrgleCaek]

idk, I guess 3 GMs or so are usually good for a small population server, although with 100-200 people, there would start being a need for more event and police GMs around.
People seem to not like going into a server with a large amount of GMs since it makes them think "well jee, why aren't I a GM yet everyone is?" sorta...thing.....
All in all I guess I'd say every 50 players you should add 1 more GM, but only for small GM positions.

[Acrued]

Agreed, that its 1 GM per 50 players...
Excluding 2 event GM's because they only come on to do Events and not to mediate the crowd.

[Guest]

i have to admit i did over look the event GMs XD

which kinda brings up a new thing.... how many GMs should a server have behind the scene and how many should be publicly active?

[MrrgleCaek]

Gms behind the scene? I dunno, I guess no limit? It really all depends how active they are ingame for me to say how many there should be. As for Event GMs and such, keep a limit, since you don't want 25%+ of your community being composed of your staff ingame @_@.

[Zone]

It really depends.
I think there should be 2 scripters atleast, if the admin knows how, then him too.
Event GMs, at the most ever 3, at first, none, not until there are a good 30 players and then hire 2.
Support GM, just one when you start, once you get up to 50 players, then get another.
Forums, none until it hits 100 players, then 2.
From there, 1 support GM per every 50.
These are just the jobs that would be open, but GMs can do multiple things, like event/support.

[Acrued]

Behind the scenes = Unlimited.
Simply because a server can never get too much help for scripting, hexing clients, compiling GRFs, creating patch updates and the list goes on...
Never is a server too small a task to handle xD

[phranxis]

it depend when the server has too many @ssholes
even if there would be 100 players theres no need for 2 GMs
not even one.

[MrrgleCaek]

Behind the scenes = Unlimited.
Simply because a server can never get too much help for scripting, hexing clients, compiling GRFs, creating patch updates and the list goes on...
Never is a server too small a task to handle xD

Man I'd hate to be the guy who'd be specially assigned to be the grf compiler GM though >;
"so uh, what kind of GM are you? Spriter? Scripter?"
"No wai man, I r a  Grf Compiler GM"
"omg, rly? What do you do?"
"Well when they need me, I compress a grf for the server"
"....really? That's it?"
"...yeah, it is"
Sorry bout that, I just found the thought of a server giving someone a complete new position like that was kinda funny...unless I misunderstood what you meant >_<;. Nevermind, off to school I go D:

[Majora_younglink]

it depend when the server has too many @ssholes
even if there would be 100 players theres no need for 2 GMs
not even one.

There is always need for at least one support GM to answer players questions. Even if it isn't needed very often, a support GM helps a lot especially in sudden occasions if they're competent.

This is all in my opinion though. *shrugs*

[Zone]

Compiling a grf is one of the easiest things you can do, no need for a 'grf specialist'.
If you don't have a GM at 100 players, then you will need someone with some admin or GM capabilities in the case someone is advertising, harassing, threatening, or scamming. That or some really mature players, no one under the maturity level of an adult, and not one who goes and cusses someone out because he was killed in pvp.

[Mewi]

I'd have to say it's really hard to calculate the GMs per player average because some GMs are more active than others...  3-5 GMs for first 100, 5 Gms for 200, 7 GMs, for 300, 9 GMs for 400, 10-12 for 500.   

10-12 Is really the cap you need, as long as the GMs are active, kick any that are to inactive.  But honestly you can run a 1000 average server with 5 GMs pretty effectively.

[Acrued]

Jesus, 10-12 GM's if they all came online at 1 time Prontera would look so crowded with GM's xD
I guess with a population of 500+ from all over the world you'll always need a GM in a certain timezone
to take care of those people... so 4 GMs per 3 timezones and i suppose you have 12 GM's!

but thing is i only see that as a purpose for having that many GM's~
Anyone care to enlighten me if they have more reasons?

[Zone]

Scripters,  Event GMs, Support GMs, Admin, Co-Admin.
You need atleast 2 event GMs, and a decent amount of support GMs because of the 'hacking'/ scamming/ harassment and such reports.
Since people have lives outside RO, like a job, or school, family even. They cannot dedicate themselves 24/7, and multi-lingual/multi-timezone GMs should be needed since English and Pinoy are so different, or Malaysian to German. Then one GM lives in EST, then another in Australia, then another in the UK etc.
See my point?

[Guest]

well u kinda have to admit the only GM's the ppl will see a lot would be the event GM's, Support GM's and the admins


the rest of them you could have hundreds of and ppl would barely see them at all

[Acrued]

True JJJ, But what can you do? most people take the Event GM position because they have limited ragnarok experience/knowledge...
So they can't bothe support and hold events~

[Zone]

Some take the position because people see them and kiss their donkey to get brownie points.

[Aris]

Lol you guys forgot us Rule Enforcer GMs. D:  ...I feel left out. Anyways I would say 9 or so GMs for about 1k+ players.

[Zone]

That would be a support GM.

[asdfqwerty123]

Minimum 1 or 2, maximum 5? (as far as "main" GM's) + Maximum of 5 sub-GM's? 

The real goal of the question is to model a good standardized number of GM's, which isn't a good thing to focus on if you solely count on that to be successful.

The truth is, there is no magic number ratio.  It's all based on GM competence, time, and owner preference.

[NikitaDarkstar]

What I don't get is why you keep mentioning the "Behind the scenes GM's". If you don't work out in public and NEED a GM position, then you shouldn't have one, simple as that. A scripter don't need a GM position, A spriter don't need a GM position, a Mapper don't need a GM position. What they need is a test server to see if things work. Ok at the most the Scripter might need a GM account if the server dosn't have a seperate SQL based test server (and s/he dosn't feel like setting one up on his/her own computer) to test scripts. But then honestly to work efficiently said scripter would need admin access to the server itself to be able to work efficiently with their scripts, and thats extremly rare.

All those behind the scenes jobs are a development team and at the most needs a forum area to themselfs, a forum rank, and if the forum is in need of constant moderating they could also have mod powers. But honestly thats all a developer need.

And in my opinion thats where alot of servers go wrong, they give GM powers to pepole and positions that don't need them. Really the only GM positions needed ingame are Admin (Well not always needed but you can't get away from that one, can you? XD), Player Support and/or Event GM's and Bot-Hunters, and you MIGHT want a head-gm that is pretty much in charge of keeping the Player support, Event GM's and Bot-hunters in check and teach them what they need to know, this would also be the person pepole contact if they've had any problems with any other GM's.

But seriously, a Game Master on a Private Server usually is someone who works with the players, why would someone who works with the game need a Game Master position?

[MrrgleCaek]

No but sometimes a scripter or w.e would need use of @reloadscript,@reloaditemdb, etc.
and for order for them to test how whatever they made works ingame would need a GM level.

[Scars]

Depends on GM activity and inactivity I think, I try to keep my server with GM online as close as to 24/7, and event being host in equal amount for both side of the equator.

[Helrouis]

GMs per population? No. 1 administrator, 2 co-admins, 1 website manager,

then
police/population

[Rehael]

I'm worth a thousand GM's. 

So as to the ration, for ValiantRO, i decided it would be 2 GM's for A hundred player. But that's still to be discussed.

[Helrouis]

I'm worth a thousand GM's. 

So as to the ration, for ValiantRO, i decided it would be 2 GM's for A hundred player. But that's still to be discussed.

That would be so risky.. make sure their commands are limited...

[Thorin]

Yea, for small population 3 GMs, an admin with 2 sub-GMs, is good.....but for larger population more will be needed.

It really all depends on how active the GMs are, because its really great if you can have at least one GM online most of the time. GMs on SocialRO try to keep it like that. We have 2 GMs from Australia and 2 GMs from the US so usually there will be at least one GM online to answer questions, do events, or police/moniter everything.

[Aris]

That would be a support GM.

Support GM and rule enforcer GM are different imo.

[~EXKillA~]

Behind the scenes = Unlimited.
Simply because a server can never get too much help for scripting, hexing clients, compiling GRFs, creating patch updates and the list goes on...
Never is a server too small a task to handle xD

Man I'd hate to be the guy who'd be specially assigned to be the grf compiler GM though >;
"so uh, what kind of GM are you? Spriter? Scripter?"
"No wai man, I r a  Grf Compiler GM"
"omg, rly? What do you do?"
"Well when they need me, I compress a grf for the server"
"....really? That's it?"
"...yeah, it is"
Sorry bout that, I just found the thought of a server giving someone a complete new position like that was kinda funny...unless I misunderstood what you meant >_<;. Nevermind, off to school I go D:

im missing the part
"and why are you a GM then?"

[Orange]

Scripter's - Depending on how good they are, simply enough scripters to get stuff made fast
Forum moderators - Need alot of them imo, delete spam as soon as it hits etc
Maybe 1-2 event GM's regardless of population.
Enough rule enforcing GM's to have atleast 1 on 24/7, to eliminate bots the second they are found etc

Either way, majorly depends how active the GM's are i would prefer having a GM online constantly to deal with any situations before they get out of hand.

[asdfqwerty123]

That would be a support GM.

Support GM and rule enforcer GM are different imo.

They should be doing the same job.
If someone asks a rule enforcement GM a question, they shouldn't ignore, therefore they should act as support.  If a support GM sees someone breaking rules, they become rule enforcement.  You can have interns who act as support but you shouldn't have staff with powers who don't act as support when it is required of them.

[Head Monocle of DOOM]

I don't think of GM hiring as a ratio thing really unless it's not an international type. wish should be maybe 3:50 rate


For instance on ones that have members all over the world for example YmirRO which has members in america even though it's in Austrailia there should be GM's for timezones like a few for when it's daytime in america and a couple for daytime in austrailia and one for every other majorly populated timezone. or something like that

[mickiedeez]

Back when I was the staff on BunnehRO Extreme, it was about fifteen people with staff peak of 4-5 GM's + the already 3 admins lol.  The plus side of this though was we were so active we got straight tens on the GM part

Admins: how ever many there needs to be

Head GM: one of course, to monitor other GM's, help people, maybe script.

Scripter GM's: one or two(behind the scenes)

Support GM: atleast 2, 3 per every 50 population.

Event GM: 2, one for 2 quarters of the day, and one for the other 2.

Police:  and least 4 for a 100 pop server(behind the scenes workers, as in @whogm doesnt affect them, they always are in hide)

[Thorin]

3 Support GMs for every 50 population is way to much, that means over 5% of your population are GMs. LOL It should be a mininum of 3 support GMs going up 1 for every 100 population tops.

[VinLRO]

I think that depends mostly on the activity of the GMs.
If there are some GMs who are 10h online per day, you don't need that many.
Roughly 1 per 100 players i'd say.