Disclaimer: This post has been part written for many weeks. I’ve had a hard time finding the words to express everything I want to say here. It’s not related to any one event in game, or group of people, but is the cumulation of a multitude of events and situations. I don’t promise complete coherency throughout what I write here.
People might be surprised how often I’m contacted by other players asking me to pitch an idea for them on the forums, or contact a staff member about a problem they may have. The reason for that is that more often than not most of the iRO playerbase believe the staff don’t listen to them.
An example of that would be the 5v5 tournament reward hat. When the team I was on found out the hat wasn’t buffed, I replied to them saying they should express their dissatisfaction themselves on the forums/to the staff. I was bluntly told no, that’s pointless, “they only listen to you”.
Score one facepalm from me. I don’t like being expected to relay these things back and forth. And this person knew it too, I completely understand why he said it. “they don’t like me, they don't listen to me and I know you hate doing this.”
“I do hate it, I hate how people accuse me of having GM bias and favouritism when they don’t listen to other players.” was my response.
I was told, “it’s too late to change that now. It’s what you are.”
This is not me being angry at that other player - I get it. I really do get it... I am upset that the staff engineer that sort of response from the playerbase, intentionally or not. It’s ridiculously uncomfortable in a way. Whilst I haven’t minded doing so sometimes, I try to tell people, just express yourselves! Say the things you want to say. They will listen eventually... I think.
This is a side rant and not the point that I want to make, it’s simply setting the scene. Imagine this all of the time, many times. Not just from my guildmates, but other people that I currently or used to play with. Or simply people I’ve befriended over time in RO. This whole culture of “the staff don’t listen” is so deeply embedded throughout the community that nobody really bothers to say anything.
The next part of my post is one that people who are both my guildmates and not part of my guild have thrown around and discussed. For the most part people are annoyed about this and agree something needs to be said. I didn’t want to be the one to do it, but nobody else wants to do this either. I personally don’t like it and I wish someone else would say something but hey.
That... God Item creation quest. Which has consistently bugged and almost never worked as intended (unless I was using it apparently), not being properly implemented hurt the natural competition of the server. Nobody wanted this “quest” or it’s addons. Since it’s implementation I think my group have only not been responsible for two entire seal rolls. I’m really not sure what the purpose of that quest being put in was.
Back in June, someone popped open the seals and headed down there with the intention to make two items at once. They had been “selling” a creation and guaranteeing multiple people that even if the god item creation had competition, they would be able to make their items. How does someone “Guarantee” such a thing?
Well let me explain. The quest was “broken”. Any time I didn’t take part apparently a second item was unable to be made. Turns out there was a really short time limit in which the npc would kick all players out after the god item was created. It’s only a few seconds.
So what happens if two players walk in after the first person creates? Why, they both send a ticket to the GM and three god items get made instead of two.
A brief intermission here from my story to point out that people have been firmly against multiple god item creations. But... unlistened to.
This is nothing personal against the people who wrote in and made this happen. This is questioning the staff’s competence and understanding of the game they are handling. What is the point of having a win condition and a lose condition if everybody wins?
A few weeks ago, my guild did Okolnir. We did it three times... and two of those times we had lag and disconnect issues causing us to fail.
On the third time we took a gamble and started before WoE. WoE began when we were on the final stage. I looked over the NPC dialogue related to Okolnir looking for any clues that if we lost the fort during woe it wouldn’t complete. The dialogue only talks about opening the realm.
We lost our castle between the final mvp dying and us clicking on the NPC. They made us wait two weeks before telling us “no, working as intended.”
I suppose giving out an asprika to a group who endured disconnects at the hands of crappy servers and lag after proving they can do the quest (who started the quest in faith that it wouldn't deny them on the basis of badly described quest conditions) would be far worse than taking the time to check timestamps and seeing who “won” the race into the god item creation lab and putting two Megingjards on the server; not concerned with which one of those players should have one and which should be denied. After all, Okolnir is private business and seals are competed. The only correct action would be to reward the losers in the race.
This is where it starts to get difficult for me as a player. My guildmates, my friends they tell me that the GMs don’t care that they “oopsed” and made a third God item when only two should be made. They believe that it was done on purpose to counterbalance my guild! That alongside the magical “oopses” that have been happening during the entire existence of this quest and the fact that as a group Valhalla were told that our feedback was too biased. You heard that correctly, the staff wanted feedback from people who DIDN’T TAKE PART in the quest. Not people who did it a bunch of times very quickly and said “hey, this is a horrible idea!”. Not to mention the entire quest mechanic means now that should one guild be willing to put in the effort, one that isn’t can pretty much coast along and ride off their work. Harder work than the old version.
Regardless, what I’m saying there is that people believe the GMs are working against groups in game. I’m not saying for one moment that this is actually the case. To be honest if (and that’s a BIG if) it was I wouldn’t be bothered too much. I played on old Chaos, I’ve seen bad things. I don’t care. I can’t say the same for the people I play alongside. They’re less tenacious than I am.
But, that’s only a part of the whole situation. How about these people that have multiple magical MVP cards? People who don’t ...even... play...? Or even god items. It’s not only RMT but duping as well. Many of these people have been reported many times over a huge time span. Nothing happens. These people are chronic, repeat RMTers and dupers. Why is nothing ever done?
It’s great that there is going to be a crackdown on nodelay.... Forgive me for not jumping with optimism right here but you see, certain people have gotten away with it despite repeated reports for years. Whilst others get cracked down on instantly. There’s something to be said for there being a need to be cautious. A mistake was made only recently. I thought it was nodelay too until more research was done. The guy pretty much convinced me through some solid video that he didn’t do anything too much untoward. It’s impossible to reach anyone about it. He’s skyped me asking for help. Not minding the fact that he shouldn’t feel like having to approach another player to fix the situation, nobody is listening anyway!
As a guildleader, I get sent all sorts of files and messages and programs.
“my guild uses this!”
“my friends sent me that!”
RO isn’t so much fun anymore, it’s a mess of those who know how to edit their grf, a plethora of redistributable downloads to get dlls and changing computer timezones to russian. There’s a cheat for everything. Silly community, just play.
I haven’t seen or heard of a single person being banned for autopot. Don’t we think it’s time the community and staff had this talk? Ok sure you can’t stop it. It won’t go away. Either go get people and deter them from using it, or level the playing field. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to get an official autopot up and running. In the mean time the competitive field of the game depends on whether or not you have private server contacts, a personal in guild programmer or just don’t mind fighting uphill.
Personally, I dislike the use of such third party programs. It takes away from what the game is to me. Even RCX is some what annoying. I love the replay feature! But much like RCX, I feel like there needs to be more defined lines on what is and isn’t allowed.
I know a fair few people feel the same and that they can’t express themselves as such, due to community backlash or belief in the GMs apathy and/or bias. Others just throw all such concerns aside and just join in. It is the way RO is now.
On a personal note and ... well I guess this whole rant is sort of personal to me anyway, what really sucks is being slapped around like a community pariah by not only the very people who ask me to help them, but it feels like the staff do it too.
If community members are going to ask for help getting attention raised to certain issues, I wish they would vocalize their concerns personally. Instead of going to one person then crying BIAS BIAS BIAS over that one person. You guys suck you know who you are.
And if the staff are going to act as so indifferently toward glaring issues in the game that the playerbase keep trying to raise, maybe a thank you could be in order for the individuals who take all the flack for it.
Also please fix the gvg rooms on classic and payon pvp. Please make bio3 a viable levelling spot. Just revert it to what it used to be, it worked, people used it. Stop giving us quests that need to be buffed sixteen times before they are usable. Listen to the player base.