What makes a good server gone bad?

Started by Alexina, Apr 28, 2009, 02:20 PM

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horo

I think a servers setup largely predetermines the kind of community you will get. Unbalanced donates, high rates/max level etc. attract a lot more bad apples than a setup like, say, HeRo has.

asdfqwerty123

#16
Drama.
Lack of respect for others.
Abuse/Corruption.

Player "tiffs" and drama can quickly become staff drama if the staff is abusive and corrupt.
General lack of respect for others is what causes a lot of drama situations. The community is important, but staff are suppose to set a standard in public relations. You can't change people, but you can set examples. We had a rule about not bad mouthing staff or flaming others (the anti-drama rules), but that if staff were abusing their power to get proof and report it. Problems don't necessarily originate with staff or need to be directly addressed by staff, for the most part it's best if they stay out of drama. Staff get blamed when they set a bad example or don't enforce rules related to community interaction (flaming and such). Not really drama directly unless they get involved in it themselves, which only makes things ten times worse. Staff help mold the community and let people know what is appropriate or not, but they can't change people.

ragnadiktus

~Donators rule the server
~Lots of Bots
~Roaping and the like...
~PPLs dont care about new PPLs...
~GMs rarely OL

~But this is the type of server I would like to play in so...NVM...XD

Cielte

Quote from: ragnadiktus on Apr 30, 2009, 12:36 AM
~Donators rule the server
~Lots of Bots
~Roaping and the like...
~PPLs dont care about new PPLs...
~GMs rarely OL

~But this is the type of server I would like to play in so...NVM...XD

On topic: ^
Off topic: v

Ehhhh? Sorry, 'roaping' isn't in my vocalb.

Loki

What makes a good server turn bad:

Me. That is to say, the players and the GMs. I find that most people have elaborate on this matter so just pointing out my main opinions.
QuoteWhatever floats your boat.

mikka

Thirst for more players and power.
Foreign wild.

Raistlin

All good servers go bad eventually. It's part of life. It's hard to narrow things down to one particular factor.

Someone already made the point of players being an issue, and I personally think all factors aside, the players are probably the biggest factor. 

Joseph Stalin himself was once asked how would he solve problems. His response?

"Simple. Take out zee people. No people, no problems."

Let's imagine for a moment that the server we're talking about was perfect in every single way. As soon as you enter it, chances are, it won't be perfect anymore. All of us would like to think of ourselves as upright paragons of justice ready to make server A, B, or C a better place with our enlightened presence.

To be honest, most of the time, we just join some established clique, and escalate the tensions that are already existing within it. Those tensions are unavoidable, and are indeed a part of the game.

John Locke

Some rates are implicit turning a server bad on mid-long term. Like mid rates full of MVP or Gostring cards. ( raeji, feel etc)

Admin playing and changing WoE times also screws a server. (legacy, etc)
WoE times are sacred, must be decided before server opens and with a clear idea of what part of the world is the server aimed for. Aditional WoE times can be added, but the main must not change.

Admin actitude reflects on server, so if the admin isnt a nice and correct person, the server will follow his example. Not to mention GM friends will act like the forum is their kingdom since they fear no punishment, spam , borderline flaming actitude, etc

IroOpenBeta->SproAlfa->sproGea->NGRO->UltimaRO->FoxRO->Euphro->EvoRO->XatiyaRo->LegacyRO2->EternityRO1->LegacyRO3->FeelRO-> EternityRO3-> European oficial RO

Frost

Quote from: CyberEyes on Apr 28, 2009, 02:30 PM
When corrupt GMs/Admins come in, a bad exploit that ruins the game for others. Server gets auctioned to some immature person who doesn't know what he's doing. Things like that.
Quote from: horo on Apr 29, 2009, 12:30 PM
I think a servers setup largely predetermines the kind of community you will get. Unbalanced donates, high rates/max level etc. attract a lot more bad apples than a setup like, say, HeRo has.
Quote from: Zairik on Apr 29, 2009, 12:44 PM
Drama.
Lack of respect for others.
Abuse/Corruption.
Quote from: ragnadiktus on Apr 30, 2009, 12:36 AM
~Donators rule the server
~Lots of Bots
~Roaping and the like... (wtf is roaping?)
~PPLs dont care about new PPLs...
~GMs rarely OL

~But this is the type of server I would like to play in so...NVM...XD >.>
Quote from: mikka on May 09, 2009, 02:17 AM
Thirst for more players and power.
Quote from: Raistlin on May 09, 2009, 02:58 PM
All good servers go bad eventually. It's part of life. It's hard to narrow things down to one particular factor.

Someone already made the point of players being an issue, and I personally think all factors aside, the players are probably the biggest factor. 

Joseph Stalin himself was once asked how would he solve problems. His response?

"Simple. Take out zee people. No people, no problems."

Let's imagine for a moment that the server we're talking about was perfect in every single way. As soon as you enter it, chances are, it won't be perfect anymore. All of us would like to think of ourselves as upright paragons of justice ready to make server A, B, or C a better place with our enlightened presence.

To be honest, most of the time, we just join some established clique, and escalate the tensions that are already existing within it. Those tensions are unavoidable, and are indeed a part of the game.
(You sound like someone I could debate with for 5 hours lol)


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Couldn't have said it better myself. There are too many things to count that can lead to a corrupted server. So might as well assume the server is already corrupted and try not to let the corruption grow.
Oh look! Something to occupy myself while I leave you alone to your own stupidity!

Orange

#24
When the admin(or GM's) starts whoring for more players - Like giving items in private for reviews, Going with majority rules to please most people, Even if its something that's going to ruin the server for just under half the server, Turning a blind eye to bots simply because they make the server pop seem higher, and so on

Usually when a GM/admin starts doing everything he can to make players stay, The rest get unhappy and leave(Then the ones he spent so much time getting to stay leave) I've left a few servers because the admin has let people who should be banned just keep on playing because it will hurt the pop
:3

Ayu

A server turns bad when it's over your tolerance level on things you personally don't like about a server. There's no clear-cut quantitative guides to when a server is "bad." Most of the time, server is turning bad but to other players in the same server, things are getting better. A good example is a growing population. Some likes the large community to meet more people, and more people will hunt for gears/competition and so shops have more options, but this is bad news for people who like small, tight communities where they want to know everyone else on the server. If you can still tolerate a certain change, server is still good. If you can't, then the server is now "bad."

Jeon

Admins do get money hungry.

I'm a highrate player, personally I want to jump in the game towards PvP instead of spending most of my time leveling and hunting for things that don't want to drop. Some may say that I just want things easily, I agree that I do, but who wouldn't? A player should spend most of his/her time in game learning how to play better not figuring out what items they need to overcome another player.

Sometimes this can be the reason why servers go bad. The staff make it seem too item dependent; meaning having the right items serves a great portion of a battle than having the right skill. Too many servers make it "The longer you player, the better you are" instead of "The harder you play the better you will become". Obviously, the longer a player plays, the more time he/she has to obtain items on a low drop rate. Yet, that's just Lowrate, in which I see is a big waste of time for players.

With high rate anyone can get the item they need, fight me on the same level in a fraction of the time. They don't have to spend countless hours for a item to PvP with someone they cannot beat.

Like I said before, some server go bad because Admins get money hungry, they know players want to be stronger than everyone else. The fastest and easiest way for an Admin to provide this to a player is by giving him/her strong items noone have for a price. This is rinse and repeated a few more times until an admin finally decides he needs to make a new item, so that player can be stronger than everyone else again.

Some Admins stray from that idea and instead make servers more balanced, donation items and custom quest items have the same stats and ofcourse donation items are faster to obtain, but serve no real difference to custom quest items. However an Admin maybe too focused on this idea and make the quest nearly impossible or repetitive to complete. In which a player will soon see no motivation to complete the quest because it just simply takes to long and takes time away from the game.

Another reason could be; Server Rotation. The Staff team is so focused on putting quests and mobs in the way that they forget about rotation. Rotation is the idea of letting players take a break from countless hours of leveling and hunting and play some competitive gaming. Such as PvP or Mini games in which you win items on the side. A cat cant chase a mouse without the mouse, and players wont play without a prize. Staff find it very dangerous to give items to mini-games or PvP matches because it could be exploited. However, this can be avoided in many ways, such as Custom Consumables or Prize BoX where the player opens the box and has a chance on getting an uber item or a custom consumable. Noticing this, Staffs make the assumption that it is dangerous and refuse such a thing. And so on people will get bored in server doing nothing, sure they can finish quests and go hunting but that too is boring and repetitive. So if anything server rotation is a must, you need to keep the players mind stimulated with choices; Capture the Flag, 3v3, 5 Man free for All, and so on.

Having bad players is something every staff should ignore, if anything a player is a player. And you could release some aggression in PvP to release it. Having enemies/bad players give players the will to play and challenge them. Sure the Staff cant please everyone, but they certainly make them understand the issue. Even bad players advertise the server. If anything a bad player should be considered a player before everything. In my perspective a bad player is just someone who doesn't agree, much like saying someone that has their own opinions or the lack of intellect to understand something at a specific level.

"Humans will forever make mistakes, what makes us intelligent is knowing which ones to keep"

horo

Yet the highest level of skill in PvP/WoE you will always find on the really low rate servers. Player skill is quite more important than people make it out to be, and so is being knowledgeable about equipment, rather than just having great gear to begin with but no idea how to utilize it, which describes 95+% of the HR server playerbase.

I think your inability to adopt a server owners point of view causes you to come to a few wrong conclusions, which is a good example why server owners should be wary to listen to their players too much. If the players know better than the server owner, the server is likely no good anyway.

fluidin

The longer you spend in the game,the better you'll become.

Not because you finally get items with low drop rates, but because you manage to acquire knowledge of a large part of game mechanics. Leveling slowly allows you to experience so much more (and learn as a result) than the HR player.
Quote from: Jeon on Jun 04, 2009, 12:02 PM
XileRo is the only HR I know that has a reasonable PvP system. I did watch the RWC like you said, all I see is people spamming the room like every other gang fight there is in RO.

Jeon

#29
Quote from: horo on Jun 03, 2009, 12:14 PM
Yet the highest level of skill in PvP/WoE you will always find on the really low rate servers. Player skill is quite more important than people make it out to be, and so is being knowledgeable about equipment, rather than just having great gear to begin with but no idea how to utilize it, which describes 95+% of the HR server playerbase.

That can be arguable depending on the server. It's obvious that every server is played differently than other servers. Also every server has different items. Sure there maybe a some background that they share, however not being able to utilize the game to it's full extent because of countless hours of hunting and grinding can cause a player to drop everything and move on to another server.

Quote from: fluidin on Jun 03, 2009, 12:25 PM
The longer you spend in the game,the better you'll become.

Not because you finally get items with low drop rates, but because you manage to acquire knowledge of a large part of game mechanics. Leveling slowly allows you to experience so much more (and learn as a result) than the HR player.

I like your opinion however, being repetitive in regards to grinding and poking monster to level is in no way of gaining much experience at all. Sure you know how to kill an AI, to the extent use just point and click because the monster basically does the same thing over and over. I do agree that you learn the games mechanics by leveling, however this can be said on a HR server also. You may not spend the time it takes on a LR, but on a HR you can learn faster.

It's a fact that when you play competitively, you learn more. In PvP, the opponent is not an AI that repeats what it does. Most of player nowadays set up their builds just for PvP. In my knowledge, grinding levels teaches almost nothing at all other than killing AI's and utilizing skills.

On a HR you can all the skills you need in a record week, on a LR you can only do what you can as of now and hope tomorrow you can get the skill point you need to actually use them.

Like I said before; "The harder you play the better you will become" because if a player really wanted to learn something they would learn it with motivation instead of coming across it in due time.

"The longer you player, the better you are", I believe this to be a weak statement because anyone can can poke monsters for hours and not learn a sense of mechanic at all in the server.

I believe the harder you try the better you become. The more motivated you are the better you will become. Some people are forced to level for hours just to catch up; Everyone wants to be max level wouldn't it be great and just get maxed level in a short amount of time to just finally play the game instead of spending hours killing monster while everyone else is having fun?

If you want players to learn the mechanics, don't lower the rates so you can force the players to use the time they have to level to learn the game mechanics. If anything, they have to be motivated and willingly by choice to learn the game mechanics.

That is my opinion, I believe if a player "wants" to play the server they are willing to learn by "choice" and try hard to understand the game mechanics. Instead of playing for hours and hours to come across something they might have no interest in.

"Humans will forever make mistakes, what makes us intelligent is knowing which ones to keep"