Pig demotion

[Mrsneed]

There were multiple instances where he unfortunately showed poor judgement/lack of restraint necessary for the role.

This is the key issue at hand. On a fundamental basis, Pig was given a job with responsibility in an extremely customer-facing role. The discord has a full audit log of every public message Pig has ever sent -- it's quite literally a role where you cannot afford to do something wrong. On this occasion and likely more unknown, Pig could not conduct himself properly for what the role required. That we have this massive spectacle right now perfectly exhibits that he's not a good fit for the role and that the decision to remove him was the correct course of action.

GMs have to be kind, but fair. They are the direct line to the server team and their immediate and most present representatives. For all of the good that Pig said and did, he was often antagonistic, sarcastic, and clearly impartial. The cherry on top is simply that he broke cardinal GM rules and crossed the needed barrier separating staff and player. Regardless of the difference in circumstances, the overarching outcome resulting from this is that Pig is no different than Bushdoctor (I think his name was), and that means he's not healthy for the server in any position with power or responsibility.

And if you think my words are harsh, just remember that Pig is responsible for his own actions and he willingly chose to do the things he did that resulted in this outcome.

Once again, massive respect to Kestrel for transparency and maintaining the project. I can imagine that it was a hard decision, so thank you for following through despite it all.

[Arsarcana]

But honestly, do we really want GM-robots? I think most players appreciate having human GMs who talk, interact and care about the community.

It's only your opinion, most players only care about the speed of ticket processing, not the GM's shitpost.
Imagine your ticket has been pending for two days and all this time you see blue spam in the world about all sorts of bullshit

Sure, that may be only my opinion. But I don't really need to imagine it.
I had a ticket that was pending for two days. I simply asked why, and I got an explanation. Pig was the one who replied.
I haven't made many tickets (maybe around five in total), but three of them were solved within about ten minutes, including some handled by Pig. I don't know whether I was just lucky, but fast ticket processing is one of the reasons I had a positive impression of him.

Maybe you're right about the world chat. I honestly never paid much attention to it.



What I'm wondering is: what comes next?
Ok Pig is out and thats right. One day there will be a new GM. How can anyone be sure they'll be better? They may avoid the same mistakes, but they'll probably make different ones. They could even be worse. We might end up disliking them. Or they might end up disliking us
Wouldn't it be healthier to give feedback and give them a chance to improve, instead of replacing GMs every time they make a serious mistake?

I also don't think we can expect the same standards as from the staff of a major MMO company. If I understand correctly, this isn't a full-time job. It's a group of volunteers spending their free time after work trying to keep the server running and handle our tickets.
Because of that, I don't think the dev team has the luxury of choosing from a pool of perfect professionals. They are mostly community members taking on a role with greater responsibility rather than a professional customer support department.

And on a server this small, I honestly don't think friendship or personal connections can be completely avoided unless a GM never actually plays the game and only logs in to work.

[Dwarfwarrior]

It was the right call, a friendly demeanor doesn’t do enough heavy lifting to make up for poor decision making in such a position.

[Stunt]

Hi, let's go straight to the point
as someone that dislikes "yappers" and usually disables world chat
imho, demoting Pig is the wrong move (obviously without knowing what was internally discussed)

Maybe he yapped a little too much sometimes or even mistakenly presented his own opinions as the ones of the Dev team
but

a GM that likes to talk and interacts with the player base is something that brings back memories
and shouldn't be voided from the community

Ok, he made some wrong decisions, but it's obvious that he is passionate and loves what he is doing
Personally, i prefer a "human" GM with his mistakes, than a "robot" replying "thank u for your patronage" and zero interaction

Apart from that, as a GM, he gonna be criticized for his actions, even if they were 100% justified
The bloodthirsty crowd was asking for his head, but let's not forget, that among those critisizing him are also the salty-jealous players (who were muted by him for example) and found the opportunity to harm his popularity

Don't let the trolls win, GM Pig should learn from his mistakes and should be given a second chance (if he desires it though)
Peace out!

You clearly have no idea how GM's are supposed to conduct themselves. GM's are supposed to be like Ghosts. present but invisible. They should have almost no interaction with the players beyond solving major issues and bugs. The rule of thumb is let players solve their own issues and only step in as a last resort. That includes WORLD CHAT. If there are people using racial slurs, being sexist, homophobic, ect. There are SO MANY options for people to deal with that without GM's stepping in. You have ignore, leaving world chat, and also profanity filter. PIG was essentially a reddit mod. Banning/muting people for things he didn't like, complete lack of professionalism, abuse of powers, chatting nonstop in world chat, and I don't even know the drama behind Levia/Lyric/Chromie ect. but it must've been bad! When a GM uses their power, he is literally a representation of the whole Octowow team. Pig was a total disaster and embarrassment.

[Gother]

Banning/muting people for things he didn't like, complete lack of professionalism, abuse of powers, chatting nonstop in world chat

The amount of times I saw him say something along the lines of “3 mutes handed out, anyone else feel like speaking up? ” is honestly embarrassing for the server. Half the time he was just mad because people started making fun of whatever personal information he decided to overshare that day.

Don’t even get me started on him somehow managing to get his wife a GM account.

The guy was a massive liability for a server that promotes itself as the only secure/anonymous pserver and it doesn’t leave a good impression to see it take so long for him to be dealt with.

[Lavorossa]

This is the dumbest take possible with the Pig situation.

I hope for a GM that is MUTE and ABLE.

Not a constant yapper who powertrips any chance he gets.

Re-evaluate yourself, Tifa.

[Ciggitybutts]

Sadge to see because I liked the guy, only had good interactions personally with them. Quick on the tickets, even when they were just wasting his time.

But he had to seen this coming doing something like that. The position he has requires trust.

Hopefully things go well for the guy. He seemed to be a fairly nice dude. Oink.

[Beckett]

You're shook because you're next. Your discord is a cesspool and Kestrel really needs to decouple from it. Your behavior during the boost ban fiasco, that is insulting upset supporters, baiting them into going on your discord so you could threaten or ban them, calling folks cowards, etc. was disgusting.

Pig was obviously the face of that f up as well, "Customer isn't always right" etc will haunt him to his dying day, but part of the reason that happened was a bunch of GMs were trying to be cool moms and play to the crowd of 1 or 2 world chat loudmouths who became hyperfixated on multiboxers for that hour.

[Zvyrhol]

I missed the drama. What happened?

[Mrsneed]

I missed the drama. What happened?

Condensed

All players have all GMs (and me) on call for all issues that arise. My Forum DMs and Email is open for anyone and all accusations are taken seriously and investigated.

We investigated the server first MC that you are claiming was assisted by Pig, the only thing that happened (and we knew about it and endorsed it before it was done) was killing/fixing a boss that would crash the server once it got to 25% and they crashed the server twice. Loot was distributed fairly according to rolls afterwards despite any inappropriate jokes that may have been made.

Bug abuse is punished equally by me personally anytime it is found. GM's do not issue punishments or resolutions for bug abuse. Igzee was found to be acquiring dreamscales from a mob that many people on the server were also farming. This mob had a bugged skinning table, this was not a blatent case of "bug abuse" and was "exploited" by over a dozen different characters from many different guilds. All dreamscales and gear crafted from all players who got scales this way was removed. This resulted in a large net negative for them as they lost all the mats around that and the only effect was the individuals who did this lost out on lots of time and resources.

There was a bugged rare spawn that was on a 2 minute timer in the last Moonwhisper release. This is not the first time this rare spawn timer issue has come up. Open world rares spawning more frequently than they should is not something that only benefits one guild, anyone can camp an open world rare spawn. Each time this issue has come up we handle it the same we remove the rare from the game until the fix can go out in the next patch. Punishments for players who happen to kill a mob that was spawning too frequently will never happen no matter what guild they are in and you are allowed to camp rare spawns in the open world.

I am unaware of any PvP item bug that allowed for the mass acquisition of Nexus Crystals but am looking into that now. Anytime someone sees a bug/exploit like this is needs to be brought to the GM's attention immediately. If they are worried it is not being handled or addressed like I said above my forum DM's and my email inbox are always open.

As you know Chromie, I am very aware of the issues between you and Crypty and other Levia members around the fountain. Last we talked I made sure to have you contact me if the issues persisted but I have not heard anything sense then so I expect the matter has been resolved. We cannot control what warnings a GM gives to their guild, we can only issue them ourselves I am not sure what you expect.

I figure the previous post by me clears up the situation with pig. I don't see new information here but if I am missing something or further quests arise do let me know.

I agree Panda as a guild got more hate then they deserved after the whole Bushdocta incident, and yes much of that was from members of Levia. Nothing that I was would subject them to mute/bans though (and this was like a month ago, maybe more? time has been funky).

If you see or have evidence of PvP collusion you need to send it to me. This is not something that we take lightly and results in bans as you have seen from the Deja Vu situation. You need to set up OBS immediately if you think these issues are rampant. If you have not yet done that still I can only assume you either do not believe you will actually catch the abuse, or you don't care, either way there is nothing more I can do to help you in these claims.

I have done my own independent sweeps of Levia guild members and found concrete evidence that this is simply not occurring. I personally gathered levia guild member kill logs inside and outside of battlegrounds and compared kill victims to the killer's guild and calculated averages for which players kill players from which guilds. There was no discrepancy between the guild-kill-rates of those inside of the guild Levia to those outside of it. If you claim to see individual instances of this occurring you need to record it and show me. I have done all that I can (over hours of development time) to find evidence to support your claims and found only evidence that you are either mistaken or lying.

I am not sure where this new claim that GM's are giving Levia members world buffs, but there has been (once again) 0 evidence to support this claim. Yes GM's do use their GM tools to help ANY AND ALL GUILDS when there are bugs in a raid. I am personally involved when that happens usually.

For the second time now, no, Pig did not cheat for them to give them loot that they wanted in the server first MC raid this incident has been reviewed so many times that you bringing it up again borders on the type of shit that ICan'tKite has been pushing in this thread. This did not happen. We clearly need to modify our ruleset to include a rule against intentional misinformation.

Making claims that you know are false against another party (and it has been repeatedly documented that you know this) should not be allowed and I will be talking with the team about a new rule to enforce this going forward despite how idiotic it is that it is needed.

The guild Levia isnot playing this game with GM relationships that are too close. Pig is no longer a GM.

The following sound like issues that have no business being in this thread. You can shit talk a guild all you want, and I even agree some of these things are cringe, but I would like this thread to stick to things that I need to deal with not your PSA about people the server should ignore, even if I do agree with it.

The issue with Darkshado sounds like a raid leader issue
Ninja looting is a thing in wow
Gear checks on a normal realm are cringe
World boss control has always been a thing on classic wow and will continue to be until summons are introduced, I have not seen any evidence of these world boss kills being "sold"
People corner markets on the AH in classic
You cannot sit here and tell me/the community that "keeping professions in the guild" is a new or abnormal thing for servers... you can't force people to craft things for others


I do empathize with your situation, you are a player that I genuinely admire for your generosity and you have been with the server for a long time. I understand the dislike of the competitive/sweatier guilds. I apricate all that you do for the community, because you genuinely do make this server a better place in aggregate. That does not change the facts of this situation though.

You have consistently spread rumors and misinformation about this guild. You have come to me a few times with issues and they have been investigated thoroughly and you have been made aware of the results of all of them. This is the first time that one has been a genuine issue, and it was not even brought to me by you, but instead by Valette the GM you claim is in Levia's pocket.

If I had an excuse to put this whole situation to bed and perma ban people involved you can be assured I would do that in a fucking heartbeat. I do not have positive feelings towards any guild, and the more I hear/have to deal with any one guild the less I like them, Levia not excluded.

There has been no abuse beyond what was already shown between Pig and Lyric. Lyric is not expected to know the guidelines of what punishment is appropriate like a GM is, and players are free to message GMs it is the GM's responsibility to maintain an appropriate relationship not the players.

If you have specific questions you are welcome to ask them in follow up comments here. You are not welcome to re-state blatantly false things that have already been addressed above. Ask questions, don't make statements you know are false or have no evidence for.

This is a message for everyone on the server. If you see an issue in game you think is violating rules make a ticket. If you are not satisfied with the ticket resolution, or if you do not trust the GM's to handle the ticket properly, send me a message directly.