Another GM?

[oms]

Shiida is da bomb, from what I’ve observed - she’s the only one left that actually cares about this in 24’.

I've learned she lives in France. It'd be nice to have a GM in US - or just be able to reach all time zones in a more timely fashion, can this be accommodated? (Not her fault)

Edited August 16 by oms

[Tetra]

God bless Shiida

[nnorton44]

They tried that, on the forums at least, with disastrous results 🤷‍♂️

[H2k]

Well I for one agree with this. It allows both eastern and gmt players to have a good time. We would need to poll who would be the top persons for those privileges, someone whos done a lot for the community and that is active. This would allow Shida to also not be the only gm around for redeems making it easier for everyone.

[Notawakejake]

i vote @Crank to be the next gm XD to bad he does not want to

 

[Sting1988]

I vote for @Crank hope he becomes a gm knows the game inside and out and is able to answer questions when needed 

[JupiterDeMars]

@SinowNeo617 and @cososo

[RocketTots]

I vote Emewn

[C01D1]

From a GM standpoint having another extremely dedicated GM would be very helpful for sure, mainly just to reduce the load off of Shiida. I personally only play a bit now however I am Ultima until the bitter end.

[CapT kIDD]

MR C -rank    for GM he most Activeplayer and he already has a bunch of improvement Ideas and hes always on American time Zone around for Any questions about PSO extremly new Player Friendly and giving best Advices how to enjoy the game.  @Crank

Edited August 19 by CapT kIDD

[H2k]

Lmao guys this is not a poll. I believe we should reflect in members who are active and do good for the community. There are many players that still play. This is something all  the gms should poll and let the community decide someone that would accomodate US time zones. 2 polls wether we should have an extra gm or not and once we decide that we should hold nominations in a post and tally up the members. Then we should hold a meeting in the lobby, have gms ask em questions like why they think they would be a good choice and how they would better the community we have here. We are coming into election terms in the US. So it would be nice and very interesting. Just food for thought.

[Papipush]

@Crank or @Kotta are the best options for America time zone. They always help new players and love this game as much of us ❤️

[Crank]

I would vote for @RigeL7 if he lived in the US, but he has yet to marry me and move in, feelsbad. Either way another couple of GM's would be nice. Even if @Kotta isn't a GM. He will always be one in my heart. I'd be interested in hearing @R-78 thoughts on having more staff. Maybe if @Larva is awake he could give his thoughts as well. Regardless if the staff have any intention of expanding, it would be nice for them to at least be open with the community with changes they are wanting/willing to make to improve the health of the server.

[Henry Fernandes]

[R-78]

I need to address a couple of points I've seen here and there, because I feel like many of you may be mistaken about what GMs can or cannot do and what having more GMs would exactly imply.

• More mini-events? No. Players can already host mini-events themselves, and if they require more prizes, there are always plenty of players willing to donate their stuff to help out, me included.
• More new features? No. You can have as many "features ideas" as you like, at the end of the day, you're not the one who will actually work on them. It's the task of Developers, and we have only one: Soly.
• More new items? Same.
• Better scheduled events / Green names / XP x5? No. GMs can't do that. I harass Soly/Larva for it everytime. I can load the things only if one of them uploaded the changes server side beforehand.
• More quests? Anyone can learn about Qedit and submit a quest to us. If it is too broken, we will ask you to fix/adjust it, regardless of whether you are a GM or not.
• More help with newbs questions? Anyone can answer questions, and this community does it very well already.
• Helping new players grind or giving basic stuff? Don't need a GM to do that. Everytime I do it, I specifically pick a non GM account because then I can give them legit items that I acquired myself. Generating items to help a newb is not ok.
• Helping players get good at the game? That's not really a GM responsibility. On contrary, There's already been complaints because a GM tried to help one improve. Some people can feel insulted when we tell them how to play the game better.
• Meseta rooms? Not a thing anymore.
• HH more often? HH number should not depend on the number of staff members... If you believe your timezone gets less than others, ask me. I will check and give more if it's found to be true. But don't think getting 5x more GMs would mean 5x more HHs.
• More help with items loss? No. GMs cannot check logs of what happened in your inventory/bank. Everytime you message me to ask for this kind of assistance, I end up bothering Soly myself, because the best I can do is to check what item currently is in your accounts, assuming you provide your GC number. And no GM should take the initiative to "remake an item" without proof of what really happened or the staff approval. It actually happened pretty often that somebody reported about a lost item that was later found in their own bank / lent to a friend.
• More assistance with human mistakes? No. Sadly there are rules we also have to respect. If someone "used OS on HP and lost the stats of OS", then sorry but we can't help. It's up to players to pay attention to that before doing it. If we helped one person with that, we would need to help everyone with that, else it would be totally unfair to the people we don't help. Same with items dropped out of bounds. Even an item reader screenshot can't help...
• Giving opinion / feedback? That's something I always welcome. Nothing prevents you from messaging me with your thoughts. Far better giving constructive input than complaining in the shadows.

 

Honestly, in all the assistance I'm asked for in PMs, if we don't count redeems most of it is either help that anyone could have provided as well (sending link to account recovery page etc...) or me redirecting to Soly because it is a matter I cannot solve alone (forum name change, mysterious item disappearance, rollback requests...)

 

 

Thus the most valid arguments I see for a new staff member are:

 

1) Helping me with redeems as a GM, because yes I obviously can't be on H24 for all countries. And I have to be honest, I am a bit tired of having to keep an eye on forum so often in order not to miss a redeem appointment just because some people can't / refuse to use discord to reach me out.

I wish DTs Redeems could be automated, and have players no longer require GM assistance to add hit or specials since it's a pretty common need on Ultima.

(I actually worked on Gallon's Shop in order to allow adding hit with Photon spheres a while ago, but doing so would make cheating easier so it's not an easy decision. And it's hard to find a fair price when PDs have lost so much of their value because of WOI anyway.)

But you players can make it easier for me too. Make me come only when you have all the items ready, all the DTs required, that you know what you want, and how you want it.

The main source of the time I spend in redeems is not due to the number of redeems, but rather due to

- players who ask for appointment on forum but then go afk as I join in

- players who were too lazy to do the maths to figure they don't have enough DTs for what they ask

- players who are searching for their items after I join in

- players who actually don't have them (yes you need a Christmas present in addition to Naka cards to give name to a new ES weapon)

- players who still haven't decided what to redeem for when they make me come

- players who redeem items one by one

- questions before redeem (don't get me wrong, it is perfectly fine and I'm glad to respond, but prefer asking them before we meet because PSO chat sucks)

- invalid requests (adding free grinders, swapping stats for free, "mag fixes", 3 years old NYC request, impossible ES weapon names...)

- players not confirming trade window (yes I know it's annoying to use trade window, I don't enjoy doing that either, but it is important in case your item somehow disappear, we can recover it)

Some of you are afraid to bother me with redeems. But as long as you don't do one of these things, there is no reason to be!

 

2) Helping with moderation. I have to admit and apologize for being so bad at that.

I would really appreciate having the help of a real Moderator to deal with dramas with zero bias, who's as factual and objective as possible in their judgements, who wouldn't try to punish a player for personal grieves, who is able to take actions even against their own friend if their attitude isn't acceptable.

Beside... every GM here (but one 👀) was first appointed moderator for a period of time before promoted to GM.

 

3) Helping with game development as a Developer. But not sure who can, and if Soly is down.

I feel embarassed bothering him all the time for so many things, powerless that I can't help in any way with bugs such as Ultima Bringer's issue that's been pending for so many years now... We still have so much on Todo list, but Soly has a life.

I personally believe this is where Ultima needs a hand most.

For example, making a "Recon mag" was an idea I had 2 years ago, but there was no one to implement it so that was abandoned.