Jan 6, 2016, 8:23 AM

@surreality said:

@Entropy You seem to either not be grasping what's being said, or... something else is going on. Considering how you presented the contents of this thread in the BNW thread, I'm not terribly optimistic about your level of understanding or comprehension, since I haven't seen a single instance of anyone in this thread stating that 'being fair' is impossible, unrealistic, or even an uncommon goal.

In fact, every example you've provided as your methods of ensuring fairness is already standard practice on most games. And you've been informed of this by multiple people at this point.

What seems to be sailing over your head is that even with that being the case, things will not necessarily go smoothly because people may, for whatever reason, not perceive that to be the case, and you'll have to be prepared to contend with this situation when it arises.

That you, yourself, seem to perceive that 'most games are totally unfair due to staff malice and corruption' and whatnot, well, think about it a moment. Again, the things you talk about implementing to ensure fairness are already in place on most games... and you still perceive that the majority of games are unfair.

You, yourself, are an example of the perception problem most of us have been trying to explain to you as something you need to be prepared for, because no matter what you do, you will be on the receiving end of it.

I'm going to steal @Coin's line here, because I agree with it wholeheartedly: "More games is better." DO IT. Just be prepared for the reality of the situation, which is going to include a lot of people insisting you're unreasonable, malicious, corrupt, etc. no matter how ethical or fair or reasonable you actually are.

I've already stated, a couple of times, that I get that. I understand that there will always be players who think that I'm shit, and the game is shit. Again, it comes down to one thing being said and taken to a context that far outweighs what it originally started as. The conversation has focused on the staff side of things because it's focused on the staff side of things. Not because I disregard the player side of things. The main reason for that is because I am here to talk about expectations for potential staff.

I also never said that I perceive that "most" games are unfair, due to this... I've just said that I have seen it a lot. I've seen games where staffer characters are the only characters that have any meaning in the game. I've seen comic based games where people get to squat on high-demand characters just because they're buddies with such and such staff member. One game has a staffer who sits on three iconic, high-demand characters, and doesn't really play them outside of TSing in private. I've seen another game where two staffers essentially rule the game simply by having more alts than the rest of the playerbase altogether. I've seen WoD games where staff pets get all the cool toys and positions, and others are actively shut down. I've seen people get actions taken against them by staff that were clearly unwarranted and disproven by logs, but still went through just because they were initiated by a staff friend.

I feel it's also important to note that most of these things I have seen happen to people that are not me. I've only ever had one issue with staff on a game, personally. I'm not a person with a victim complex. I know there are a lot of people out there like that. I'm just an other-oriented person who doesn't like seeing people get treated like crap. And while I'm fully on board with the statement that most problems with staff and players are the result of oversight or miscommunication, and not from willful and malicious intent.... these examples I've seen are still enough for me to want to provide a game where I can ensure that kind of thing doesn't happen. So... I guess, in that regard, consider me the benevolent dictator.

That actually brings me to the next thing I guess needs clarification. I really just want to make sure that these very extreme things don't happen. The common complaint about not getting this or that is one thing. The common railing against staff unfairness is going to be present. I do understand all of that. I've said this from the get go. But man... I've seen some really just super unjust things go down on games, and I've seen really great players leave as a result of them. If I can be in a position to mitigate even a little of that, then that's where I want to be.

Is that kind of behavior the norm? I can't say, as I don't play a TON of games. I tend to stick with a few genres, and don't really venture outside of those. But I know that this does happen from time to time, and, in the case of the comic games operating right now, there's a certain level of dissatisfaction from the playerbase on a whole across the three biggest ones I know. I just want to provide an alternative.

Can I make everyone happy? Of course not. Can I make everything run smoothly? Nope. Can I say that if one of my staff ever blatantly shows gross favoritism to certain players over others, just because of personal taste, I'll alleviate that person from staff duty? Absolutely.