Beta Forever?

[Violent69]

Hello Reader,



Ive decided to write this thread for the reasons listed.



1) Perpetual Beta?

2) CG's, GM's etc?

3) Donations/Servers?





This is all my personal opinions and curiosity,



1) Beta

The Beta system of this game, I have heard its been in beta for multiple years, thus called a 'perpetual beta', Im wondering if there is any actual release planned or will this be so forever? - Beta is used to define; previews, usability testing, prototypes etc. Will my donating actually make any difference, or is there no planned future release at all?



2) Community Guides, Game Moderators, Specifically.

They're Horrible.. (remember this is opinion) Im fairly sure this thread will gain me some.. haters.. However this is not about love or hate, Its about answers to questions that maybe im not alone in wondering. I shall bring up several points in which i feel things are most definitely not.. Up to scratch.



a) Several times i have witnessed players muted for inappropriate conversation/language, Often without warning. I fail to make sense of this and conclude it is just people with positions abusing their privileges to 'look cool' or 'feel powerful'. The main quote befor this is to 'keep the chat PG', the term PG refers to 'Parental Guidance' which in most countries is a select group of people under the age of 13 (in some places its 12), However in the policies is CLEARLY states that this game is NOT for children.



b.) The use of Capitals is not taken lightly, in many games it often results in bans, mutes and other 'fitting' punishments, However in PWO I have observed some shocking, what seems to be 'Power-Trips' from CG's and often GM's, Kicking players who type a word in capitals.



Example One:

Violent69: Hey man whats up?, i caught a shiny today!

Player1: 'HEY BRO HOW ARE YOU TODAY, I'M HAVING A GREAT DAY!! WANT TO BATTLE ME?!1!1!?! OMFG GZZZZ!!!!!'

Violent69: lol huh dude turn your caps off or youll get a mute.. a Justified Mute.

Community Guide: Player1 has been Muted for 200 seconds

Community Guide: caps



Example Two:

Violent69: Hey man whats up?, i caught a shiny today!

Player2: OMG

Player2: dude thats sick, gz!

Community Guide: Player2 has been Muted for 200 seconds

Community Guide: Don't use caps.



Okay as you can see, in example one the mute would be completely just, there is nothing wrong with it and the CG is doing the job properly, in example two, the CG is out of place.. note the context in which Player2 used his capitals, it is completely different. This doesn't stop them and again i believe its abuse of position or just stupidity.



c) The CG's and GM's have GREATLY influenced me in this game when it comes to donating. Truth be told, i really want to donate some cash to PWO, for both better servers and my lack of shiny pokemon, However i find myself held back.. Would i really put forward my hard earned money for a game which is governed by the most immature 'enforces' i have witnessed in the MMO's ive explored thus-far. I feel like it would be paying a corrupt police officer to work for the greater good of the community which would do more harm than good, Thankfully.. this is not tax and we have a choice, I, regretfully, choose not to donate for these reasons, While i get what i want (not supporting the choice of CG's) I also let myself down by holding my money back which results in less money for the PWO team to pay for better servers and such.

The morale of this is, I think there needs to be ALOT more attention put towards choosing who represents the game, Finding people who do NOT abuse their position and actually take up the job to HELP fellow players and over-all better the game.



d) Staff members getting Rare/Legendary Pokemons is utterly unfair, Every player should have the same opportunities as the other. Fair enough if they are NOT used as an advantage, but they are.. be it in-game NPC's or pokemon battles against other players.



3) Donations and servers

I was wondering about this, as the server stability in this game is.. Hard to be pleased with.. Do the donations honestly go into bettering the servers, or does it pay for the servers monthly fees and with the remainder McDonalds for lunch each day?

Information on this would have an extreme contribution towards the players donating, if its for the right reasons etc.

This being said, a simple solution is to have a 'State of the game' with what is planned to happen and when, how close it is to happening, etc etc. Frequent updates for the player basis.



What the issue is? If its coding, Tell us that. If its lack of money to afford better servers, say it. We need to know these things in order to know what moves to make. Players can come up with ideas and solutions as well, hence suggestions i suppose, but still.. What we really need is some official information on progress/plans, and maybe a new position made for staff whos job is to re-open the server when they crash (covering all time-zones for minimum downtime)



Anyway this is my 2 cents, I hope this game is worth the time and effort because it is good fun, and could be ultimately successful given the correct tweaks.



Violent~



(no time to check over it so w/e about spelling and stuff)

 

[LudwigMaine]

Section 2 Area c "GREATLY" muted

 

[Ryessa]

I am interested to see where this is going to lead. Who exactly is policing the staff? the community has to screenshot this abuse and raise their concern as a whole. I agree with a lot of what you are saying however:

3) Donations and servers

I was wondering about this, as the server stability in this game is.. Hard to be pleased with.. Do the donations honestly go into bettering the servers, or does it pay for the servers monthly fees and with the remainder McDonalds for lunch each day?

Information on this would have an extreme contribution towards the players donating, if its for the right reasons etc.

This being said, a simple solution is to have a 'State of the game' with what is planned to happen and when, how close it is to happening, etc etc. Frequent updates for the player basis.

The servers are slow because of the games code. The lack of quality within the programming, or certain and very specific faults stress the server and even cause it to crash. I think this is something that should be explained somewhere more clearly. Especially on the donation information page.

d) Staff members getting Rare/Legendary Pokemons is utterly unfair, Every player should have the same opportunities as the other. Fair enough if they are NOT used as an advantage, but they are.. be it in-game NPC's or Pokemon battles against other players.

I think this is fair, I mean, if legendary Pokemon are put into the game, the chance of finding one should be like 1/1,000,0000 or something. Some players battle the staff, simply because they know they will be up against such Pokemon. It gives them a challenge.

a) Several times i have witnessed players muted for inappropriate conversation/language, Often without warning. I fail to make sense of this and conclude it is just people with positions abusing their privileges to 'look cool' or 'feel powerful'. The main quote befor this is to 'keep the chat PG', the term PG refers to 'Parental Guidance' which in most countries is a select group of people under the age of 13 (in some places its 12), However in the policies is CLEARLY states that this game is NOT for children.

I personally feel that some form of solution to this would be to provide an 18+ section on the forums that only allows players with set birth date on their profile, access. The warnings would be there and the liability would no longer be on the staff. However, I am not so sure this would be a very friendly place, or what the laws are of the host location.

2) Community Guides, Game Moderators, Specifically.

They're Horrible.. (remember this is opinion) Im fairly sure this thread will gain me some.. haters.. However this is not about love or hate, Its about answers to questions that maybe im not alone in wondering. I shall bring up several points in which i feel things are most definitely not.. Up to scratch.

Be more specific. You gave some in game chat examples. Is this the only area in which you feel they fail?

 

[Mantis]

for the record when we do a mute without warning its because its an excessive amount and im about to murder some retarded player because they dont want to listen when we tell them "caps off" seventeen frickin times. so we initialize a thing called "no warning" which means ANY spam or caps is an instant mute, and we dont warn them for it, if they fail to behave while in no warning then they will get a kick.



also, this topic was practically unneeded because it was basically you complaining that "CGs and GMs are meanie faces"

 

[BRGodEastwood]

uhm, so what exactly was your knock on Game Moderators? all i saw was complaints about CG's (which if you have actual screenshots evidenced of a player being muted 200 seconds for saying OMG, id like to see so we can adjust that CG's habits)



i can understand your complaints of CG's as i personally do not like them staying online to enforce their powers, while neglecting their main role to help players. but i completely disagree with your statement of GM's being horrible.



mad30, adamwest, and myself do our best to keep the game clean for you guys, and whenever someones stuck or is missing a starter or anything of the sort, we are usually there immediately. so please dont direct any hate towards us, because we're probably the main ones dealing with the community and trying to make your gaming experience better.



also, donations dont "fund corrupt officers" or whatever youre getting at, as no one on staff gets paid. the donations go towards server upkeep.



its been said time and time again, the main issue with our server problems are coding. we have improved dramatically in this aspect, as the server barely goes down at times, and we are constantly doing maintenences.



about the legendaries, we arent allowed to battle other players, or trade them. so im not sure how its "not fair"



and i agree, we do need people who rather represent the game and help its players than just hold power to look cool, so if you have any problems with certain selections, pm the said leader of the group. if its a leader you have a problem with, then PM an admin or myself as i have the most experience with recruitment out of our remaining active staff members.



also about the beta, we've had constant setbacks, coupled with a few months of essential non development when nintendo shut us down, a completely overhaul when kyro left, then the zidonuke accident. we arent really the luckiest bunch, and also im not sure there are any pokemon mmos who ever made it out of beta successfully

 

[Ryessa]

[quote name='Mantis' timestamp='1318651824' post='12499']

for the record when we do a mute without warning its because its an excessive amount and im about to murder some retarded player because they dont want to listen when we tell them "caps off" seventeen frickin times. so we initialize a thing called "no warning" which means ANY spam or caps is an instant mute, and we dont warn them for it, if they fail to behave while in no warning then they will get a kick.



also, this topic was practically unneeded because it was basically you complaining that "CGs and GMs are meanie faces"

[/quote]



I feel I am going to be entertained by the flame wars that may arise here, though I mean no offense. And in no way do I intend to start such a war.



You can only speak for your own actions. If a player has a screenshot of someone who was muted for a simple, one time, "OMG" or "LOL" where would your explanation stand? You don't and couldn't possibly witness absolutely every action a staff member may take.



OP's post can seem a little harsh, especially those doing the right thing, but wouldn't naming specific people be worse? If you feel your own actions are justified, then isn't that enough?

 

[Mantis]

nope because in no warning mute i have muted a player for 30 seconds for an OMG as i was really ticked off at the players trying to push our buttons so any and all caps taht were not at the beginning of a sentence were muted for.





plus im the harshest CG ingame <img src="http://www.pokemon-world-online.net/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/MewEyeRoll1.gif" class="bbc_emoticon" alt="" />

 

[Stank]

Also to toss a side note in there, all CGs except maybe the newest round of recruits have always had a 1-3 word exception to the caps rule. so if you were to say OMG duuude i totaly just caught my first SHINY!!! they wouldnt get mutes



Second, I , myself NEvER mute for more than 120 seconds for caps its always either 30-60 seconds depending on the amount. and i have never seen anyone EVER mute someon for saying OMG.



The only time i have ever just muted someone with out warnings is when i have muted the person for the same infraction before Or as Mantis said when there is only one staff member on, we may get to a point where we stop giving warnings because of excessive amounts of spam

 

[Mantis]

also if i may make one extra point here:

^^^ very important stuff remember this forever

 

[Stank]

and just to tack n about he legendaries, if everyone had one they wouldnt be worth anything they wouldnt be special at all

 

[Violent69]

Damn quote button isnt working for me, Well basicly theres some good point in there - which is why this was made.



I should have specified further the issues is more with the CG's than GM's, however in this case i believe GM's would need to be more stict on the CG's as this goes on right in front of them.



Also i find it interesting in Ryessa's post



'I think this is fair, I mean, if legendary Pokemon are put into the game, the chance of finding one should be like 1/1,000,0000 or something. Some players battle the staff, simply because they know they will be up against such Pokemon. It gives them a challenge.'



and then in Bis's post



'about the legendaries, we arent allowed to battle other players, or trade them. so im not sure how its "not fair"'



Its this type of thing im talking about, i dont need screenshots for everyone to know this DOES indeed happen in the game.



I think a poll is in order, but i dont know how to make them.. Anyways this is a good discussion.

 

[wackyracer]

Very interesting post. I may not be staff, but I can answer a few of those questions.



I agree with the CG's/GM's getting out of hand sometimes, but it's not too often, and never happens to me so I can't complain about it really. On a side note: There's one CG I can always count on for being good and not corrupt like you mentioned, Chocobo7 <img src="http://www.pokemon-world-online.net/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/BulbasaurSilly.png" class="bbc_emoticon" alt="" />.



About donations, know that donations always help. Though, I've talked this over with Lee before, and whatever gets donated to the game is not in control for anybody except for ONE person who practically represents PWO, Xan. He does the bills, the server purchasing, whatever, he's the money man in this situation. The problem with Xan is that he is apparently "too busy" to deal with PWO, as many people have told me. He's supposedly making his own game at the moment and is busy with his regular everyday normal activities. The fact that he barely pays attention to PWO does show that he is un-professional, that's true, but there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. All I can ever assume is that whatever money we donate to the game is used for the amount of money for paying the server(s) (web server, game server, whatever server), and the money goes to Xan's bank account for whatever he bothers to use it for. It really annoys me that he doesn't pay much attention to PWO, but as I said before, there is absolutely positively nothing we can do about it. PWO will remain on one server, and be not too efficient. There's one thing that can be said about this, just deal with it.



Now let's move onto the server CODING. From what the developers and GMs tell me, the server is not greatly coded, so the server can practically handle 400-500 people online while barely pulling it off and not crashing. AND to top that, there is no current method coded for hosting multiple servers for PWO as far as I know, which is extremely disappointing, I know, but... what can YOU do about it? Two things: Ignore it and just enjoy what you have, OR apply for a developer spot to help the game out and make it better, which is what I did but Jinji hasn't responded yet :/. If I get the developer spot, one thing that I'll focus on the most is trying to make a multiple-server feature work out.





So to answer your question about the game stability in one vague and short way: The issues are mostly the coding, the money is not an issue. The person behind the money is an issue.



Not trying to offend Xan or anyone, I'm just being honest and blunt. Speaking out what I truly do think about PWO, or at least what I've been influenced to think.

 

[Violent69]

[quote name='Stank' timestamp='1318652783' post='12507']

and just to tack n about he legendaries, if everyone had one they wouldnt be worth anything they wouldnt be special at all

[/quote]



I didn't say to give each player a Legendary pokemon, But simply to have equal opportunities, not based on official positon.

 

[Seth]

Not saying you're entirely wrong, but you're not entirely right.



The GM's and GE's (...pretty much Mad, Bis and Luke) do their job perfectly. They're



The fact that some certain "CGs" (believe me, I use the Quotations loosely) have issues where they believe they're supposed to be right 100% of the time, disregarding even the oxford dictionary to attempt to prove their point and them actually "winning a basic arguement" in the end due to their ability to kick or ban is absolutely ridiculous. The fact that I have a Masters in a certain subject and to have some kid tell me I'm wrong because they googled it and looked at the first result and to shut up or they'll ban me is absolutely repulsive. (I can't single out CG's, unfortunately, there's only a couple that do this in particular). Also, some particular "CGs" who decide that they can bend, or break the rules they "enforce" themselves to gratify their personal cravings for attention or self admiration is the worst part.



It's becoming a problem when new users see Community Guides being cruel to other members and rather strict on them when the rules weren't even there for them to read defeats even the purpose of having a Community Guide if they're far too afraid of getting muted to even approach them.



Example of an incident I witnessed:



User: "I have a problem, can I PM you?" (in process of writing PM)

CG: "No, if you PM me I'll mute you"

User: *Sends PM without realizing that the CG said something else in the chat*

CG: *kick, 1 day temp ban*



Seriously, Just because you have a .gif of a pokeball beside your name doesn't give you the right to completely disregard why you're in said 'position' and be a complete dick.







The muting, and mostly anything else for that matter, isn't a problem for the other "CGs". 200 seconds (3 minutes) not being allowed to type in the IRC chat isn't unreasonable. I mean, come on, it's 3 minutes, not a lifetime or a ban. All kicks I've seen are well deserved or both parties were obviously joking around with each other.





As for the Legendaries, who cares? stop whining. They're essentially just sprites of Pokemon. They aren't allowed to PvP battle (unless amongst themselves), so it evens out.

 

[Stank]

[quote name='Violent69' timestamp='1318652943' post='12510']

I didn't say to give each player a Legendary pokemon, But simply to have equal opportunities, not based on official positon.

[/quote]



well have you ever thought that maybe one day staff might prepair an event that would release a legendary pokemon to a player?



It happened in the past, most of the newer players dont know anything about that but a regular player has a Mewtwo



But it is something we have to have take time and space out because there are only a few legends and several thousand players

 

[Tom210]

this whole thread is tl;dr

BUT i did read half, and i almost laughed honestly, yes pwo is very strict, if it were up to me, you can say anything with all caps if you really want but, im not in charge, also, if all the people here had the same chance as staff to catch legendaries, you wouldnt see 1 non legendary pokemon, it would be harshly abused, and we have donations to keep the computer host, maybe get more, who knows, which is in sweden, the devs and admins actually MAKE the server code, so dont expect it to be the perfect, we are only human, and also about the "beta", we would love to have an official release, but the game has many bugs still and cant handle too many people on it

 

[Stank]

[quote name='SethShadows' timestamp='1318653079' post='12511']

User: "I have a problem, can I PM you?" (in process of writing PM)

CG: "No, if you PM me I'll mute you"

User: *Sends PM without realizing that the CG said something else in the chat*

CG: *kick, 1 day temp ban*

[/quote]



Im sorry seth I have alot of trouble believing this, the mod ban tool is hardly ever used and all uses of this command are logged so i have alot of trouble believing that.



BUT if you do see this happening please take a screen shot and post it on the forums or PM it to a GM or admin so something can be done about it, because IF that happens it is ridiculous

 

[Mantis]

[quote name='SethShadows' timestamp='1318653079' post='12511']

As for the Legendaries, who cares? stop whining. They're essentially just sprites of Pokemon. They aren't allowed to PvP battle (unless amongst themselves), so it evens out.

[/quote]



^ this.



you see when a player becomes staff they are told about 5 million times " do NOT battle trade with or sell to normal players"



now there is a group of staff called "apprentice that do not have a pokeball by their name and all they can do is kick users from a chat. were allowed to battle those so you seeing us battle "normal" players could just be like when i battle Domani, she is an apprentice so we'll frequently battle because we'll both be bored and decide to battle.



to know if someone is an apprentice or not on the "online users" list, uright under the people with[CG] [ART] [J] [GE] [GM] etc by their name will be users like Domani whos names are clearly where they shouldnt be because "D" is way after "-" and all the numbers and then has ABC before it.

 

[BRGodEastwood]

[quote name='Violent69' timestamp='1318652786' post='12508']

Damn quote button isnt working for me, Well basicly theres some good point in there - which is why this was made.



I should have specified further the issues is more with the CG's than GM's, however in this case i believe GM's would need to be more stict on the CG's as this goes on right in front of them.



Also i find it interesting in Ryessa's post



'I think this is fair, I mean, if legendary Pokemon are put into the game, the chance of finding one should be like 1/1,000,0000 or something. Some players battle the staff, simply because they know they will be up against such Pokemon. It gives them a challenge.'



and then in Bis's post



'about the legendaries, we arent allowed to battle other players, or trade them. so im not sure how its "not fair"'



Its this type of thing im talking about, i dont need screenshots for everyone to know this DOES indeed happen in the game.



I think a poll is in order, but i dont know how to make them.. Anyways this is a good discussion.

[/quote]

to be honest, i cannot take a complaint thread seriously if one of the main issue is legendaries. if you want to discuss everything else (donations, staff) thats fine, but leave the legendary discussion for another time. the games not ready for that yet.





and the thing is, we are strict on cg's, but its behind the scenes. also, we need to actually see proof or evidence of wrongdoings by cgs to actually be strict on them. your boss wont randomly start chewing you out unless he has actual evidence of poor behavior.



im all for public expression about how they feel about certain staff actions, but it does no good unless evidence is presented, as well as your idea of a solution.





also, each staff group has a leader, so if a CG is acting out of line, the CG leader is supposed to handle em. Us as GM's, we are one of the more busier groups. we always get people coming to us with problems, or are out hunting players using cheating methods. we cant do everything and watch CG's at the same time, we're not cyborgs. which is why im offended by your statements that GM's are horrible and etc. ive been a pwo staff member since 2009, been busting my butt off for it day in and out, (not currently since im taking a temp break) so i know some of your complaints might be valid, as ive had a hand in several staff members being ousted for not doing their jobs. but if you want us to improve, you need to privately send us evidence of abuse. PRIVATELY.

 

[Seth]

[quote name='Stank' timestamp='1318653481' post='12515']

Im sorry seth I have alot of trouble believing this, the mod ban tool is hardly ever used and all uses of this command are logged so i have alot of trouble believing that.



BUT if you do see this happening please take a screen shot and post it on the forums or PM it to a GM or admin so something can be done about it, because IF that happens it is ridiculous

[/quote]

Well, to be fair about that, I didn't see what the user wrote in the PM as he was angry at the game so rightfully so, I shouldn't have posted that.