Landlords and GMs

[Winter Thorne 696]

So people have been talking a lot about landlords and GMs lately.  Someone said they had a private conversation with some dev about volunteer GMs.  It's looking like landlords might be being given the responsibility of some sort of Junior GM to make sure their islands stay clean.  Seemed like a good time to say something about GMs.

The GM business in MMOs is way more difficult than anyone thinks, and very likely to end up being a big source of customer complaints.  If you have GMs in a game, you have got to control them very strictly, and be very clear about policy and enforcement.  You can't let everyone just make that up or interpret it as they go along, because the one thing players are looking for with game moderation is fairness.  They may not like all the rules, but if they are applied fairly it keeps the level of dissatisfaction down.

I can't even count how many otherwise decent games were torn to shreds by accusations (many of them true) of GM favoritism of one guild over another, one player over another, uneven punishments for the same offenses, and general player abuse.

Don't get me wrong, I think GMs are necessary in big games.  But you can't half-ass it.  You've got to do it right or not do it at all.   The new claim system offloads some traditional GM duties to player landlords who certainly aren't going to handle player situations evenly across the board, and are free to do their own griefing if they choose to do that.  They don't have a lot of power, though, and their power is localized, so it's possible the players can just get away from the bad ones.  Still....it means bad Junior GMs in the game.

If Grapeshot decides to do anything with volunteers or paid GM staff, I hope they nail down their lists of offenses, actions, and procedures to go along with that.  Turning a bunch of people loose with GM powers and no specific instructions would be worse than useless.

[CazzT 68]

37 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

If Grapeshot decides to do anything with volunteers or paid GM staff, I hope they nail down their lists of offenses, actions, and procedures to go along with that.  Turning a bunch of people loose with GM powers and no specific instructions would be worse than useless.

Just wanted to quote this for emphasis.  As someone who been a GM for a couple games over the years, I can't stress how important it is to have a clear outline of policy.  It doesn't matter if it's a private server or an official server.

[AntonyVW 62]

I second that, having also been a GM elsewhere.

[Percieval 1,067]

I would make Realist the master of GM’s. 

[Meerkat 33]

This all feels like a big social experiment. You could end up with a good king or a bad one. Islands that have good owners, don’t tax more than they need to and encourage good community will have great experiences while no doubt other islands will be owned by big companies  that max out taxes and are non existent or worse, grief players will have terrible experiences.

i guess over time people will eventually migrate to better islands (if they don’t stop playing entirely). 

I think it would be priceless to see an island form a coup, buy a war token and declare war on itself to “evict” the land lord and obliterate every ship and structure they own (in PVP). Either way there needs to be major incentive for land owners to play nice and build community. I’m not sure it’s quite there atm. There doesn’t seem to be consiqences, espically in PvE. You can move out, that’s about it. 

Offloading GM responsibility’s to players will have mixed results, it’s going to be interesting...

[Percieval 1,067]

Just now, Meerkat said:

This all feels like a big social experiment. You could end up with a good king or a bad one. Islands that have good owners, don’t tax more than they need to and encourage good community will have great experiences while no doubt other islands will be owned by big companies  that max out taxes and are non existent or worse, grief players will have terrible experiences.

i guess over time people will eventually migrate to better islands (if they don’t stop playing entirely). 

I think it would be priceless to see an island form a coup, buy a war token and declare war on itself to “evict” the land lord and obliterate every ship and structure they own (in PVP). Either way there needs to be major incentive for land owners to play nice and build community. I’m not sure it’s quite there atm. There doesn’t seem to be consiqences, espically in PvE. You can move out, that’s about it. 

Offloading GM responsibility’s to players will have mixed results, it’s going to be interesting...

I think it will be more about deleting people’s stuff rather than tax itself. I don’t think the devs realise they can’t just make it so 1 person can delete all of your buildings. They need to balance it. But then again; We don’t know how long it will take. Maybe it will take 30 secs for 1 structure to remove; then the owner is gonna have a hard time. 

[madmartigan 38]

So we have unfair taxes and having to pay rent vitamins police eating drinking a massive daily work grind for a place to live this is sounding more like real life here in america then I'm comfortable with.. lol I was under the impression people played games to escape their real lives not mimic them.. But maybe I'm wrong.

Edited March 11, 2019 by madmartigan

[photek 66]

silence!

 

i am captain N! the game master!

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

40 minutes ago, AntonyVW said:

I second that, having also been a GM elsewhere.

I third it, having run an Ark cluster for over a year.

[Meerkat 33]

11 minutes ago, Percieval said:

I think it will be more about deleting people’s stuff rather than tax itself. I don’t think the devs realise they can’t just make it so 1 person can delete all of your buildings. They need to balance it. But then again; We don’t know how long it will take. Maybe it will take 30 secs for 1 structure to remove; then the owner is gonna have a hard time. 

I am imagining a situation where people/companies claim more area than they can use, tax the hell out of it and use that to pay for the upkeep. I think I read that they plan to keep leader boards for land claims. All depends on how they tweak the numbers  

Destroying structures is obviously a big concern, I see this being used more to “move” people that build to close than the landlord rather than general maintenance and cleanup of foundation spam. 

[Vurmis 24]

44 minutes ago, Meerkat said:

Offloading GM responsibility’s to players will have mixed results, it’s going to be interesting...

Let's also not forget the fact that forcing Settlement owners to become defacto-GM's with timed island cleanup duties is not something everyone wants to sign up for in the first place.

 

The irony here, is once a Settlement owner gets tired of having to run all over their island everyday cleaning up pillar spam. They'll realize the solution is to pillar spam their own island to prevent it from happening in the first place ... which prevents anyone from building. Hello square one.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Vurmis

[Talono 434]

Haha this is really cool, granting the island slavers GM tools. 

So if they dont like another player... pew banned !

OMG, what amateur devs.

[Willard 245]

Where exactly did u hear about this nonsense? Im pretty active here, on discord and never hear anything about it.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Willard

[Rainy 5]

So is this how you all plan to treat your tenants?  Remember even a single player company can own their own island.  That being said...why are you all worried about the landlords?  And if you are saying you don't plan on owning your own island...then you have the option of which landlord you want to be around.  Sorry...the things that go thru my mind...

[gadefence 148]

They should make a system similar to patrician 3/4 and port royal, where you buy licenses to islands and then one person owns the island but you can shove them off if you put your mind to it.

Would deal with bad landlords and tenants pretty quickly.

[Winter Thorne 696]

20 minutes ago, Willard said:

Where exactly did u hear about this nonsense? Im pretty active here, on discord and never hear anything about it.

 

13 minutes ago, Rainy said:

So is this how you all plan to treat your tenants?  Remember even a single player company can own their own island.  That being said...why are you all worried about the landlords?  And if you are saying you don't plan on owning your own island...then you have the option of which landlord you want to be around.  Sorry...the things that go thru my mind...

 

I'm not sure who or what either of those comments is addressing.

[Rainy 5]

Mine was in general...everyone seems very up in arms about the landlord deleting their stuff (reasonable thoughts), or not doing anything about someone pillaring them etc.  But...why are we so concerned with landlords when we all have the option to be a landlord?  I think some people might be stuck in the "I don't have a claim now so I'm not getting a claim and I'll be forced to live on someone else's land" mentality.  But if there is a limit...and they have made the determination majority will be able to own their own island...then the bad landlord is...you.

[Winter Thorne 696]

8 minutes ago, Rainy said:

Mine was in general...everyone seems very up in arms about the landlord deleting their stuff (reasonable thoughts), or not doing anything about someone pillaring them etc.  But...why are we so concerned with landlords when we all have the option to be a landlord?  I think some people might be stuck in the "I don't have a claim now so I'm not getting a claim and I'll be forced to live on someone else's land" mentality.  But if there is a limit...and they have made the determination majority will be able to own their own island...then the bad landlord is...you.

Oh..thanks for explaining.  It's because there are even fewer "claims" available after this change than there were before.  Around 500 total, more or less, so we don't all have the option to be a landlord.  On a decently loaded server (depending on how many come back, how many new players, etc.), less than 10% will have the option to be a landlord.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Winter Thorne

[Willard 245]

25 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

 

 

I'm not sure who or what either of those comments is addressing.

To you ofc. I mean that "landowners will be junior GMs" nonsense.

[Rainy 5]

7 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Oh..thanks for explaining.  It's because there are even fewer "claims" available after this change than there were before.  Around 500 total, more or less, so we don't all have the option to be a landlord.  On a decently loaded server (depending on how many come back, how many new players, etc.), less than 10% will have the option to be a landlord.

You're really good at that math stuff...can you give me where those figures came from?  Or point me to the post where you already have them?  I'm trying to explain all of this to people in my company and the way it was posted it seems like a good system.  If you have info that contradicts that I'd like to see it.  Just trying to get all the facts straight

[LifelessGamer 17]

Why would they appoint GMs and not just have an NPC on each island? 

 

 

[Winter Thorne 696]

1 hour ago, Rainy said:

You're really good at that math stuff...can you give me where those figures came from?  Or point me to the post where you already have them?  I'm trying to explain all of this to people in my company and the way it was posted it seems like a good system.  If you have info that contradicts that I'd like to see it.  Just trying to get all the facts straight

There are 143 regular zones, with an average of 3 islands per zone, and one more being added.  143 X 4 = 572.  Some of the bigger companies will take more than one island, so figuring some number around 500 people who will get to claim. (Also recognizing that the claim belongs to the company owner)

[Winter Thorne 696]

1 hour ago, Willard said:

To you ofc. I mean that "landowners will be junior GMs" nonsense.

Well, there was a problem with pillar and foundation spam, and they've outsourced that to the landowners on the claimable islands.  That's why it's "junior GMs".  They don't have a lot of powers, but they do have the power to delete your stuff and thereby make rules you have to follow if you want to have land.

It's not nonsense.  It's just how it is.  If you don't want to have GMs in game to go around handling that stuff, you can try letting some of the players handle it.  I don't think it's a good idea.  Others may disagree.

1 hour ago, LifelessGamer said:

Why would they appoint GMs and not just have an NPC on each island? 

 

 

Because NPCs can't make value judgements?  I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.  

[CazzT 68]

13 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Well, there was a problem with pillar and foundation spam, and they've outsourced that to the landowners on the claimable islands.  That's why it's "junior GMs".  They don't have a lot of powers, but they do have the power to delete your stuff and thereby make rules you have to follow if you want to have land.

I would not classify that as GM.  Quite the contrary, actually.  Most games with claim systems don't allow non-members o build in the claim area at all without permissions of the claim being set to allow it.  This is just giving claim owners more control over their land.  That's not GM level, just a different way to handle he claim feature than other games.

[Willard 245]

18 minutes ago, Winter Thorne said:

Well, there was a problem with pillar and foundation spam, and they've outsourced that to the landowners on the claimable islands.  That's why it's "junior GMs".  They don't have a lot of powers, but they do have the power to delete your stuff and thereby make rules you have to follow if you want to have land.

It's not nonsense.  It's just how it is.  If you don't want to have GMs in game to go around handling that stuff, you can try letting some of the players handle it.  I don't think it's a good idea.  Others may disagree.

Because NPCs can't make value judgements?  I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.  

Landowner can demolish your stuff because it´s his land not because he is a GM.