I`m Sorry Agri Empires

no no mompy, you`ll reawaken the beast. This is about food!

@Varda, thanks, but that was a long time ago. You`ll see me failing miserable as a miner now.

happened when food jumped back up

hmm weird ??? i tought this topic was bout food... how did it end up in an endless post of guides and admins :(

I love that song, and over the years I have watched your empire. I remember being a young guard just getting established the first time around and I saw an old guard named Africa and thought "dam that guy must know his stuff hes old"!

Varda, funny thing is, when I signed up for this game I was wondering what to use as empire name, and toto was playing on the radio..so you know..Africa..sure why not.

I love you omeg!

<3 you too you little guardian you

Edited by Omegian on 2012-09-07

Hmmm, an interestingly long debate about something that is always a rollercoaster full of suprises. Given somewhat my past collection about this very topic, allow me to shed a little light about something.

This is like a neverending story about the history of guides and admins. It took 3.5 years just to get ship mod powers to admin, and then you have the shift of admins and guides over the years. IF anything, I remember one quote from Mara before he finally had enough was that he rarely trusted 80% of the guides at the time, and he only trusted a select few because he knew they still cared about the game and its integrity. But, that is the past and we move forward.

Bottom line though is, the players of this game will either make or break it. In the overall 8 ish years of this game that I have played and the like 4 ish I served as a guide I constantly would get interesting mail or asked to look into things way above my "power-level", no it’s not over 9000. Believe in the staff chosen as they could continue making things hell or for the better as they continue to do by listening to you, (Sure it might be selective hearing, but we all do that in real life). I doubt many admins/game creators listen to people or at least answer their questions.

Anyhow, to make this short and sweet, this discussion won’t go anywhere but hit old war wounds with the vast history that some players have with this game. Whether the players be on the receiving side or the side that has to give it. Most players know if someone is cheating or abusing a power these days because of such a small player base now. It would be one thing if this game had hundreds of players for transparency, but 43 at this moment the way things are handled have been like this since the games’ fruition and is still continuing its history.

But I am no example or perfect, I’ve made mistakes as a guide I think a few times, I recall some thread around here hating on me, sad thing all of it was true, but I admitted it and took the punishment unlike some. Those that do receive a punishment and move on know that the staff were looking out for the interest of the players. I would assume it is that now as EE has some of the highest moral/integrity I have seen in a gamer in over a decade.

Anyhow, back to just lurking *poof*

Edited by Omegian on 2012-09-07

♪♪♪ I miss the rains down in africa ♪♪♪

thats just plain rude!

Go back to Africa!

I have complete faith in BW.
Listen guys, this game is surviving in the current state solely due to a few people acting as staff. Would it be better another way around with them being independent, sure. Has it ever been that way? No, it has as far as I can remember always been players, alas this discussion has been going on since at least 04.
Let it go. Theres like 100 people (maybe slightly more) playing this great little weird game. Just be happy thats its still here and that 4-5 of those people want to act as guides.

Now back to food prices.

very sorry about the long post.

Being an admin means being hated by people, if your not being accused of something via rumor than your not doing your job right. those in power always must deal with accusations from disgruntled players, and yes they are all magnified by the fact that the staff are players....

sure everyone assumes we have our own agenda but if we were really that sly then anyone whom ever raised finger against us in game, or accused us of something in the forums or what have you would just be gone, but thats far from what happens.

there can be no transparency in what we do. first of all we think all players are entitled to their privacy, even if they`re guilty and know it, the only time we ever break this rule is when a person has done something so widespread that it would be better to explain, and usually a player like that is blacklisted anyhow.

that also leaves punished players who are allowed to continue to play, with the option of lying about why they were punished because usually they don`t want to own up to what really happened to their fed mates so they can lie and just say it`s because i opposed the staff in the game or what have you...and everyone is free to believe what they want. i mean on RT we`re only allowed 21 members in then "staff fed" and most everyone outside our fed is unfriendly towards us safe a few individuals. so it always seems like we`re punishing those with whom we`re at odds with. but no one takes notice when we punish someone inside our own federation, like ChoriChori who some may remember was in our fed til he was punished for cheating. after he was restarted he never logged back in and was eventually kicked from our fed after a few weeks. it`s sad he just couldn`t accept the loss of his empire and return to play with us.

another reason there can be no transparency in our actions is because it would divulged exactly what we are and aren`t capable of doing within the game, and we`re not about to do this because all it would do is create better cheaters, it would allow players to see the loopholes in staff powers and what we can see and can`t see within the game. this is really our only true weapon against would be cheaters. i mean think about it, stephen created GC, and everything dealing with admin powers, and most admin powers have slowly been stitched in and onto. and knowing stephens genus when it comes to coding you could only imagine what kind of a mess admin powers must be....i`ll give you a little example, we used to have the ability to restart empires, we no longer have that ability it`s broken, stephen can`t fix it, it would require him to spend actual time on GC and he would have to recode things. even if he were willing to fix it we would all fill hesitant about having him fix it because usually his fixes either mean removal of something ( like fed voting, or market withdraw) or it means him messing up more things in the process which is probably how our restart button got broken in the first place. so for now we just have to force players who`s punishment is restarting, to restart their own accounts.

there are also logs of every action we take with admin powers, only other admins can see it, but it`s there, no one can edit these logs. and stephen has looked at these logs in the past when a player cries bias to him. that`s why we make sure we have recorded proof of wrong doings prior to taking an action. even if a player were to come to us with screen shotted pms of someone else admitting they have a multi within the game there is nothing we can do about it unless we can find evidence of such with our admin powers. no matter how much we believe it. (this shouldn`t discourage people from reporting strange things though, because it can still help point us in the right direction to find abuse.)

another point you made of having non-player staff checking into things, who said we didn`t have non player staff looking over our shoulders? Badwolf may have title of head admin of GC and UC but that doesn`t mean there are not people above him.
your idea of having a complete non-player senior staff, we have had something similar before. it doesn`t work so well. people who play the game have a better understanding of it.

for instance; i had a hefty argument with a non-player admin once when i was just a guide, i hit someone once with v class, and killed alot of pyth around 40-50 mil pr worth, well due to the v class bug the game let the player keep all the pyth that had been killed by v class. this player then countered me then hit me again. none of which would have happened if their pyth would have stayed dead. i wasn`t really mad at the player...but i tried to get this non player admin to simply remove the pyth that should have died... the admin claimed that no such bug existed and that he simply must have build them all, i told the admin there`s no way he could have build so many in less than a second even with artifacts...and we argued back and forth until i decided it wasn`t worth the trouble.

that`s just one example. it`s hard for someone brand new, and who`s only understanding of the game stems from what they`ve read to understand the ebb and flow that this game has.

another point that has been brought up is that SB is a "staff federation" true there are alot of staff in SB, but alot of us have become close friends by being staff, it`s not as if we were all friends who joined GC and then the staff. i certainly didn`t start out being friends with BW, or really most old CC, in fact up until i became staff i spent most of all my time on GC trying to bring Chronic Conquest and Distemper down.

No we`re not perfect, No we haven`t always made the right choices or decisions, and no there is no way i can give you proof either way that we`re just people with only the best interest of the game at heart. Every player can make up their mind on the current staff, we don`t silence those who question our authority unlike the staff of old, so everyone is free to discuss and interpret our actions for better or for worse. some days i wished we could work behind panes of glass so everyone could see what we do to see their is no malice or selfish wrong doing, today is one of those days. but as i mentioned before. even if we did divulge our ever action to the public there`s no way we could prove it, it would simply be us posting our actions and something like that could be edited or have details left out, would it really make you feel better for you to see something we posted? it would have as much credibility as this post i`m making now. it would be my words, and it would only as much credibility as the player reading it would allow it to have to them.

To be staff is to understand that you are going to shunned by some people and looked upon with mistrust, but you must strive to use this negative energy, cast in your direction, to reinforce your will to become a better staff member, and not become the cheating monsters some would believe you to be.

Edited by EphemeralEternity on 2012-09-07

I have no gripe with the staff. My issue is with the system. As the staff enforce the system it may seem like I have a problem with the staff but I really don`t.
My issue is basically that if the staff particularly BW have ultimate executive authority and act in a way which is not transparently answerable to the community as a whole they must be completely independant agents with no in game interest. The only way that the staff involved in the playing of the game can be viewed as impartial is if they operate in a transparent way and are answerable to the community. The current system means that any action by the staff can be view as a way for the staff to enhanse their in game position.
As a minor example since I`ve been in a position to take part in events they have always happened when BWs current Fed is in a dominant position in the ranks. I could interpret this completly sinically and say that BW deliberately engineers this but I believe the effect is more insideous. I believe the most likely explanation is that in the run up to a big event BW will need to put in a lot of time which is likely to mean he is more active and hence help ensure his Fed controls the ranks. When BW does not have the time to run events he will be less active and there is a lesser chance of his Fed controlling the ranks. This is not something I believe BW deliberately engineers but it means claims that BW engineers the situation are not unreasonable and BWs replies do nothing to desuade anyone from this view. The only way that BWs motives could be cleared would be if he were acting in a totally transparent way, then any claims he engineered the situation would be seen to be unfounded. Unfortunately with the current system BW cannot defend himself and his justifiable annoyance just comes across badly and further exacerbates the situation. I believe the same behindysis could be applied to a whole host of different issues and could explain why BW always appears to be in a bad mood.

fortythree i don`t quite understand what your gripe is with the staff would you mind explaining it for me and everyone else in here?

if you conjure it, it is daedric quality or no?

My enchanted troll stick is bound buddy no can do. And lets be realistic I would never allow you to touch my enchanted stick no matter how bad you want to.

GalacticMercenaries Grabs VardaFadir{DG}`s Troll Bashing stick and hits VardaFadir{DG} in his Squirrel Nuts Dont mess With PistolPete or you get a GM Bashing

*grabs my stick of Troll Bashing +10 and hits pp repeatedly about the face and neck*

VardaFadir gains 153? Xp!
VardaFadir gains a level!