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Serious Concerns
ChinaCat
Member UncommonPosts: 670
I purchased MO at release and played for the 30-days plus the few extra given for the huge down time for NA customers experienced during that time. I stopped playing due to the lack of server stability and lack of content as well. I’ve been watching the game and a few in my guild continue to play it. What I have been hearing and would appreciate some constructive responses to is as follows:
Just about all the GM’s are actual players in the game and volunteers who many suspect of using GM related powers to the benefit of their game character & guild.
There continue to be many hacks and cheats with many new ones introduced with each patch and an economy that is borked as a result since no corrective measures to delete hacked or duped items appear to have been taken.
There is no evidence of any player remaining banned as names many players know that have been reported hundreds of times by dozens of players continue to be in game and we hear rumors of those who have been banned all being reinstated within days of the ban.
There is no evidence or even statement with regard to what proactive measures SV is taking or what tools it has to detect cheating.
The above is what I’ve been hearing and find it extremely disconcerting. Below is a direct quote from a guild member of mine who like many in my guild played at release.
“I quit the game because I was bitter, of all the hacking, exploiting, duping, bugs etc. It seemed the devs just don't give a damn. (name of player removed) was reported over 50x by us, he was never banned(we had it on fraps) as were a handful of others and we find them roaming around again and continuing to do it. I still can't understand why so many of you still even play the game. I got a clue right away and left asap before giving them more money. So yes I was bitter, so I quit, does that mean that everything I stated should be disregarded just because I was bitter?.
It wasn't just all the bugs and exploits that made me so bitter, it was the feeling that there would be no fix for all the problems and no real consequence for those caught cheating. The Devs seemed to just not give a damn and completely undermine the whole community at the same time playing favorites to certain individuals and guilds, it made me think that perhaps the devs have chars they play in game and are associated with them. That thought alone made it seemingly impossible to have any kind of hope that things would get better.
Our alliance would have had a keep up a long time before any of the other major players, but we were never given the gold they owed us after the price changes to house deeds. It was something like 1500 gold they owned us.
Point is, yes he might be bitter but that doesn't mean he is making things up. Experiencing first hand the way the devs handled things I would say he is on point and telling the truth about everything.”
Please keep this constructive.
Thank you -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Comments
I'll discuss this in the same order you've made.
1.) GM's are hired employees of StarVault - There are not many but they have the majority of powers to affect gameplay. Such as refunding gold and banning players. Counsellors I believe are the volunteers, they have the ability to teleport players but DO NOT have the ability to create ingame gold and items.
2.) Yes there are many cheats for MO available, each patch has managed to 'bork' something up. Reoccurance and introduction of new bugs is very irritating but they're usually hotfixed throughout the week. The economy really isn't THAT bad, prices are not rediculously low (Which would be the case if excessive duping occured and the items remained) the main economical problem still remains with player vendors functionality and availability to the solo player. WTS *** is a bad way to trade.
3.) There are many players perma-banned, we've seen the whine posts on the forums and people know others who are perma banned. Some claim to be innocent others not. It's disturbing to hear people being unbanned simply by revealing how they exploited/hacked after abusing the mechanics. I would believe it's true people do get unbanned several times through doing the above. However a lot of hacking accusations happen in Full loot - PvP games, the warping that sometimes occurs leads people to think person X was hacking. (Hopefully greatly improved this patch due to speed changes) Exploit abuse could mean a temp ban which is why they're back in-game (?)
4.) I don't think it'd be wise to tell us how they're detecting cheating. But it happens.
It's sad to see players leave because of bugs/exploits/hacking accusations but what he said seems a little dramatic.
"Our alliance would have had a keep up a long time before any of the other major players, but we were never given the gold they owed us after the price changes to house deeds. It was something like 1500 gold they owned us."
Continue to harrass the GM's about the owed gold, make sure the house owners are the ones contacting them. It's odd you would be left out when so many other guilds got the refund.
Comments above
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
"INCORRECT INFORMATION. AT LEAST 2 PLAYERS (1 GM and 1 High Councelor) HAVE RECENTLY LEFT THE PROGRAM. THESE 2 PLAYERS WERE GUILDLEADERS IN GAME. THEY DID IN FACT HAVE THE POWER TO BAN PEOPLE AND OTHER GM POWERS."
That was not said. Please provide a link. Other GM powers being? I'm aware they can fly etc.
There have been numerous links provided on these forums over the last week. Also.. feel free to read the Official Forums as well. Better yet.. simply ask in IRC chat now that the cat is out of the bag.
PS: If you disagree with me please provide a link to an official statement from SV denying that players have been performing as fully functional GMs.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The links I read didn't mention their abilities as counsellors. GMs are different to consellors.
The people in question were GM and High Councelor (as I stated above). Yes.. GMs are different from Councelors.. which is what makes this quite bad IMHO. Allowing players (Guildleaders!!!) to be GMs in game.. with GM powers such as the ability to BAN other players.. is a really bad idea. In a FFA..FullLoot...PvP..Sandbox... giving some players GM powers is just asking for trouble.. as the OP listed in his #1 bullet point.
Now that you see the difference.. hopefully you will join the condemnation of such a practice. IMHO having vollunteers UNSTICK folks is one thing. Allowing them to be GMs and ban other players is bad. Do you agree?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
So, SV employee's can't or shouldn't play the game? I will tell you every game has their own employees as "players". Many people at these companies have access to the database. Turning on the GM flag for an account is by no means difficult.
I really fail to see whats relevent about an employee's role in a guild. Does it make someone more prone to power abuse being the guild leader vs. being just an officer? Does it make the power abuse any more or less effective?
There is the potential for bias when a player playing the game is also the moderator of that game. The difference between a player that is a GM in WoW, or Everquest is that they are the GM of a different server than what their characters are on, wheras in MO everyone is on one server.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
If you fail to see the conflict of interest (and uneven playing field) that occurs when a Guildleader is also a GM.. in a FFA-PvP-FullLoot game currently based around Guild vs Guild Territory Control... I don't know what more I can say. The vast majority of the folks reading this will understand impicitly that such a setup is VERY VERY BAD.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
There is no information I am holding back per se. I am no authority regarding MO or do I have "inside" information. I bought this game at release and played it for a month, have my own opinions but software is a moving target and MMO development appears no easy task. There are posts that have been deleted here and on the official forums that led me to ask more questions. it is the information people I've known for a long time gaming that I take to heart and added to remembering how much has been deleted from various forums raises concern.
GM's playing the game isn't really some thing I have an issue with any more than a person owning a gun is an issue to me. It's what people do with the power they have and if/how they are monitored and held responsibile on any level that concerns me.
Many of the issues MO faces are certainly not unique to this game. Many MMO's have issues such as exploits and such especially near release when the dev. team has to make decisions based upon priorities. One fairly common thread among many gamers in any game I can think of is a matter of "trust & confidence" in the developers of a game. DFO is a good example of this. Many players who left DFO have no confidence in its developers AV and then there are folks like me who love DFO and have all the confidence in the world in AV. Same thing is true for MO. Many of its fans have great confidence and trust in SV and many who left do not. The items I've posted about are those types of things where how the dev. team approach it, address it, or sweep it under the rug can make all the difference to a lot of players.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Yea, I was thinking more along the lines of FFA-PVP games that are widly known to have employees participating in them. EVE online for example has a policy for its employees AND volunteers to not reveal they work for CCP when playing. (1 single server)
They do perform audits of employee and volunteer accounts on a random basis after some employees in game were revealed. I imagine those audits can be circumvented with the accessability of trial/alt accounts though.
ANY theoretical employee caught abusing their powers for in game benefits would be terrible news no matter if they are a solo crafter or your guild leader. Obviously it shouldnt happen in any case. But yea, a officer giving his guild lots of resources/information is really much better than a guild leader doing the same. /s
As I stated above, I find it interesting that this behavior (employee gaming) goes on in EVE on a daily basis but nobody pays any attention to it. Suddenly, a few people find out SV does the same thing and its big news for some of the more known haters. Conspiracy!
Actually, think more about it this way. GMs monitor people all the time through being invisible. If the person a GM is monitoring is in a Rival guild or an enemy of their guild, that gives a huge informational advantage to that GM and their guild, especially when it comes down to monitoring things like other players inventory, houses, keeps, anything that is regarded as "secret" can be seen by a GM, who is also another player on the same server.
So even if the GM isn't purposefully going out and breaking rules, there is very much still an unavoidable advantage that they have in the game.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
In fairness I'm following up to share new information from my guild that they did ultimately get their money back.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
This is pretty much what I was saying pre-release. You have to give the players something to fight over, otherwise it's just one big deathmatch. What do players fight for? World domination of course. But the world has to actually be worth fighting over, and right now all you can fight over is empty land with a few resources in it.
I agree it is a very bad idea.
I think this is the first time i have agreed on one of your posts
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
[snip]
The problem is there is nothing to do. Just fight.
If you want to craft, you craft crap to fight with, there is no point on anything other than using Tungsteel or Cronite for everything. There is no crafting for crafters. You are either a blacksmith, and make weapons, or a armoursmith. There is no making tools, or creating clothes, no depth. And the tax system is a joke, and everyone ingame knows it. Because there are so few houses in the game, and the few houses there are, are owned by guilds. So there is no regular house owned by a the "everyman" its just guildshouses.
So much crap, so little quality.
For my knowledge there are two hired GMs, and only one hired mod (Maerlyn), rest are volunteers who I see abuse their power on daily basis in IRC, can't speak for ingame thou. Hacks still exist, and thanks to MOs "no name&shame" policy, you cant even name exploiters, but there are few well known ones who are still around.
Are there any games that do have a "name and shame" policy? It seems that just leads to forum wars over who can do a better job incriminating the other side. Such "name and shame" threads have been deleted from this forum.
I agree that allowing players to be GMs or counselor is not the ideal solution. I wholeheartedly endorse the idea that people should not be GMs on the same server that they play on, just as soon as there are multiple servers. Of course SV plans to expand the game beyond Myrland, so even if the player population increases significantly, there will probably only be a second server if the player base outpaces the expansion of the geography. In the meantime we'll just have to deal with players being GM/counselor with SV supervising their actions (like EVE and CCP)
Has there been any word on a timeframe for them to expand to multiple servers which would aliviate this problem?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Has it been confirmed that any player volunteers actually have GM powers? It sounds like a lot have people on these forums have been conflating "GM" with "Councelor" and "Mod" (forum moderator), which has seemed to cause some confusion.
So, can someone verify that a player can volunteer and get unlimitted GM powers?
They don't currently plan for multiple servers, they plan on each continents servers to be on a different continent in real life. So the next continents servers could be based in America for example.
Unless the popualtion is too great, as Osmunda said. (?)
No a volunteer gets Councelor powers. The so called 'issue' is that GM's (Paid employees) also play the game in guilds.
I think I answered that question in my post...
" Of course SV plans to expand the game beyond Myrland, so even if the player population increases significantly, there will probably only be a second server if the player base outpaces the expansion of the geography. "
NO this is incorrect. The "issue" is that there were (still are?) players who were GMs with full GM powers including the ability to BAN other players. At least 1 GM and 1 High Councelor were also guildleaders in the same game they were moderating.
Edit to clarify: These were PLAYERS and not paid employees. As someone said above.. there are 1-2 paid GMs.. all the rest of the GMs and Councelors are volunteer players.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
ahh, I see... well, that's nothing new in MMO's. Typically, people that work on a game (be they devs or support (GM's) ) start seeing the game less like a game and more like a job. As such, it's pretty rare to see a paid employee take their in-game status/wealth/power seriously enough to risk their career; only players take their in-game stuff seriously enough to figure this kind of risk is likely.