Server Guide: Server Hunting Tips (on-going)

[Athane]

Server Hunting Tips to Always Remember


1)Lag Issues

Okay assuming you’ve already downloaded the client, got pass the registration process with flying colors exaggeration, and finally goes online. Your first task is to determine how stable the server is.
How to do this? It’s simple-------------- by Walking Around.

Go online and just walk around in towns for at least 5-10 minutes; visit at least three maps or enter portals. Don’t do anything and just walk or sit or chat or walk until you had enough for at least 5 minutes. What for? It’s to determine if the server has lag issues.

Medically speaking Server lag is a definite cause for headache, migraine, cursing, flaming, rage protest, and world war that if not addressed immediately, ultimately results to either an untimely server wipe or server closing.

How to deal with it?

A server that has lag issue is definitely a red flag but you don’t necessarily have to jump out of the boat immediately after experiencing it. Instead, ask the server’s adminastrators about their plan to address the problem. If they answer they’ll change host – (yeah right, heard this a lot of times already), in a nice way, then why not give them another chance? Or it’s also possible the lag is just temporary. Do turn down servers that lag “temporarily everyday”, especially if there are only less than 30 people online – cheap host.

2)Donation Items

Donation is an important factor that many servers can’t live without. Even official servers require “top-up” gimmicks to fund their operation.

For obvious reasons, keep away from servers offering imbalance donations/token of appreciation/rewards/gifts or whatever they like to call it. Not that it’s impossible to win against players who’ve donated, but it can be tough to beat them – as in tough as homer’s head kind of toughness.

Of course, the best private servers to play are those that only offer minimal donation items, much better if they’re consumable [but goodluck]. If a server operates on a “No donation” basis then that’s definitely a jackpot.


3)GM Accounts with Legit Players

Personal Note:

It’s really an issue for me why people who are supposed to be commited to administrative duties have their own “LEGIT ACCOUNTS” for WoE’ing/PVP’ing. And in most cases, MOST as in 90% of the time, this instance often leads to two things; abuse of power and/or corruption. For transparancy reason, GMs or admins should not have legitimate accounts, in my honest, humblest opinion.


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Back to the guide, it’s really hard to tell if a gm with legit account is playing fairly – least worry the admin owner who has his legal character(s), you should worry more on GMs who the admin hired. GMs, no matter how low their levels are, are armed with commands that normal players don’t have. Because of this, executing an abuse without players noticing is very easy for them.

How to deal with this?

It’s definitely a red flag to spot a gm with legitimate accounts playing WoE/PVP; the best way for you to deal with it is by directly addressing your concern to the administrator. Inform your admin about your “future worry” in a polite manner. While this move may not really change anything a lot, it will, however, raise your admins cautiosness to watch closely over his staff.



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As corruption plagues many servers and wrong priorities [money over players] are being observed, finding a reliable, honest, and stable server nowadays is now definitely a real challenge already. Hopefully, with these three tips, you’ll be able to screen-off server bummers from a real server. I’ll update this guide whenever I can. For now, I hope you'll find it useful.

Peace.

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[kochiro]

I saw what you did there.

[Athane]

Did what? o_o please point it out. It's my first time writing a guide.

[DavionFuxa]

3)GM Accounts with Legit Players

Personal Note:

It’s really an issue for me why people who are supposed to be commited to administrative duties have their own “LEGIT ACCOUNTS” for WoE’ing/PVP’ing. And in most cases, MOST as in 90% of the time, this instance often leads to two things; abuse of power and/or corruption. For transparancy reason, GMs or admins should not have legitimate accounts, in my honest, humblest opinion.


-----------

Back to the guide, it’s really hard to tell if a gm with legit account is playing fairly – least worry the admin owner who has his legal character(s), you should worry more on GMs who the admin hired. GMs, no matter how low their levels are, are armed with commands that normal players don’t have. Because of this, executing an abuse without players noticing is very easy for them.

How to deal with this?

It’s definitely a red flag to spot a gm with legitimate accounts playing WoE/PVP; the best way for you to deal with it is by directly addressing your concern to the administrator. Inform your admin about your “future worry” in a polite manner. While this move may not really change anything a lot, it will, however, raise your admins cautiosness to watch closely over his staff.

Probably this would be the most striking point of the guide. I've played on servers where a prominent GM has been playing on the server and taken no notice to it, and played on others where corruption was going on but it had more to do with Administrators abusing @item then anything else.

Some Game Master's will take on the roll and be abusive; though to what extent is dependent on what commands they have. To say a GM could abuse his commands. Not every admin will give his GM's @item or @spawn due to the implications of abuse that may result. Usually GM's will only have commands suited to their specific rolls in game as well.

In reality, the main point you should be making here is concerning Administrators and how they police Game Masters/Act themselves. Most Administrators have logs so they can catch their GM's if they are doing something sketchy if they actively view them or have reason to doubt their Game Masters. The question though is if they do so when relevant, or if they themselves might be doing something corrupt.

As for Game Masters, they may be hired out for different reasons. Some Administrators hire out Game Masters from outside their servers but some prefer to hire players currently in the server. Additionally, some Administrators may bar their Game Masters from playing accounts, bar those Game Masters with more prominent commands that can be abused from playing, or perhaps just let them play but actively police them. The servers they police may be mainstream or niche servers, highly populated or not.

This isn't to say that one shouldn't be caution of a Game Master possibly abusing powers bestowed upon him with his Legit Accounts, but one shouldn't be to concerned either as most GM's are looking out for their servers. Ultimately though, everything really draws from the Administrator so that is really where players should be looking to see if Administrators are doing their job of addressing problems to the server.

[Strudel]

An important factor to keep in mind is the forum, if the forum is active that usually means the community is engaged and cares about the server.
Of course that doesn't apply to all servers but it usually speaks for a good server.

[mqiu]

Well, I don't really mind with GMs having a legit account as long as there is a restriction put by the admin to prevent corrupted acts (e.g. making them can't trade or drop or mail items).
Having a legit account will make the GM stay level headed and actually experience or see the community point of view of things. It's easier to get inputs about how to improve the server this way.