The basic issue of any system implimented by devs

i think its a mix of growing pains you and alot of people are having not saying they are right for removing items/cash in some cases like doing flower plush runs it maybe a matter of eliminating the things that cause prices to bomb.

i am really on the fench i can see it both ways. one way does help fix issues but on the other side it hurts others...a solution i think would be to have staff buyout flippers with dirty items (multi obtained) so that the flipper gets his market value of the items doesnt lose a thing but they can then delete the bulk items from the game.

see theres a way to make everyone happy and i think this would help. plus you do remove money from the game to without harming anyone.

if i buy a morphine for 40k flip it for 45k i made 5k staff buy the 45k morphine remove it along with the 40k from the multi they leave my 45k sales money alone but take the 40k from the mulit so they remove multi money and the item but leave my original money plus profit alone.

it can be a mass system buyout as well were it can remove the multi gains and just buyout the appropriate amount from the market from anyone at a set price until everything is even. so multis lose there gains the number of items needed gone are gone nobody loses nothing except multis.

am i saying this right? i just came up with it off the top of my head....which i would think my 3mins of thought is better than the current situation.

thanks.. i never have that problem before so i gots no clue on that. but i suffered for 2hrs not able to login and decided to sleep and just login when i wake up.

Yes I am, you just want to be pedantic about it.

For example, finding somebody who will do it for free is pretty simple: Make a post on the form > Find applicants > Go through applicants > Pick best candidate.

I mean, that's pretty obvious to anybody who isn't you and who liked your post.

But of course, what did I expect from a committtee member? All you guys do is shit on people's opinions and find the most facetious, idiotic and round-about way to be right, which you don't end up being anyway.

Also, which is pretty typical of your attitude, what makes you think I'm not already at Blizzard? Seriously, the level of assumptions you'd have to go through a day, I'm surprised you don't accidentally stop breathing.

No, it's not pedantic, it's that in the REAL world where some of us live, saying things doesn't make them happen, you need a well laid out, legitimate plan and process before implementation. For every one thing you do, you need to balance another thing as it's impossible to do everything at once, or snap your fingers and make something work how you want it.

I mean sure, I could pull off some of what you're suggesting, but I'm not confident YOU are capable of doing so. You don't seem to realize how much time and effort goes into managing a large project. Things don't fix themselves or run perfect willy nilly just because you snapped your fingers and wished it so.



Just as an example of the last one we went over "I'd find someone to do it free" oh okay, you gonna have someone code the game for free too? Free work with professional qualifications grows on trees like magic.

However, if I were in your position I know a CM of a AAA game studio willing to volunteer their time here. So thankfully, I actually would have practical implementation.

I don't understand why people want a community manager. The last one didn't communicate with Ched and it ended in a disaster. It's better that he handles the issues himself as he has the final say anyway.

Don't start with me dude about the real world.

You can believe or disbelieve it if you want to, but I am a professional freelance game developer and have been for 3 years, I have paid and unpaid experience creating, analyzing and fixing game systems and mechanics before they have even been implemented. In-fact, the way that I learned of Torn is because I applied to be a developer on this game, and I did talk to and have a formal interview process with Ched.

I have worked on 4 different indie games *professionally* doing varied work (narrative, mechanics design, level progression system). I have written well over 50 game analyses and critiques. In-fact, my articles appear first under certain medium difficulty KW google searches. I have also advised and consulted many other game projects in an un-paid capacity.

I am also more than happy to prove all this to you in personal messages, as long as you don't divulge my real name.

So yeah, I am well qualified to do everything you just said, I simply didn't do it because (1) I am not doing that kind of work for free, just for a discussion on a thread and (2) because you never asked for it in your original request. You only said "how would you have handled them" not "Give me an exact detailed game design manual, implementation schedule, and possible arising issues".

"Shit man, I'd do it for free. Don't need to replace any funds."

"I'd find a CM that'll work for free"

"I am well qualified to do everything you just said, I simply didn't do it because (1) I am not doing that kind of work for free"

Yeah, okay.gif

Well shit, all you have to do is ask me to prove it. I just think you know you've hit a dead end with your nonsensical responses.

I do love you how pulled my words out of context. See the full thing is "I am not doing that kind of work for free, just for a discussion on a thread ". I would absolutely do it for free if I was a community manager, and if that's part of the job description I agreed to.

Edit: Oh and also, I did mention that I did this work un-paid before that paragraph as well.

Any other smart responses? I think I've got a couple of more posts indulging your irrelevant and pedantic responses.

All I see is Ched gets it in the neck either way. 9 pages of complaints and pointing out the obvious multi's in this thread a few months back. Countless posts of players questioning when Cheds Multi Hunter will be released.

Fast forward to the last 24hrs and now the forum's are rife with complaints and unsub threats screaming how unfair this new Multi Hunter system has been.

2.5yrs of backlog in under 24hrs is going to cause a few genuine errors. And many are having their cases reversed with no doubt many more to go.

Personally I say it's a job well done in nailing the cheating bastards. And kudos to Ched for looking into the masses of bug reports and reversing the genuine victims.

Could have just avoided this whole issue by making it so the system flags the account for review. When you make a mess as a dev, it should be in the places users can't see.

Or he could have done it slower, maybe 1 year at a time.

Or he could tell us something that gives us faith in the valuation system.

But ultimately all that is irrelevant to this thread, except for the last point.

I think its good that Ched is very involved in the process however its a lot of work for him.

By this point in the games life a "mini me" would greatly help him. I'm surprised that over the years he hasn't partnered with anyone in helping running the game.

You're in a pretty weird situation though, as Ched has interviewed you but not hired you. You don't trust him and the devs and you're convinced you can do a better job. Somehow I don't see a bright future for the relationship between the two of you.

Honestly, the truth is that a community manager has a level of detachment that devs/owners do not have.

You just need to look to Payday 2 to see what an owner/devs heavy involvement in the community to see how terrible it can all go.

Not at all, I'm a professional. In Ched's own words he picked the other person over me because their writing clicked with him more. That's absolutely fine with me, writing is absolutely subjective, and Ched preferred the other person's writing, I have no issue with that.

I go through 10 applications a week as part of freelancing, so any form of rejection doesn't bother me anymore.

I didn't say I don't completely trust them or have any faith in them, or else I wouldn't be here. I just think that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. I also never said I can do a better job than them, only that I am qualified to do it, and X is how I would. Whether that X is valid or not can be discussed, but I never, ever said "I know better than them, they're idiots, all their development experience is shit, this whole game should be scrapped" or something to that caliber.

As I said, I hold no grudges against Ched, if I did, I wouldn't be playing this game. I literally made the account in the middle of the application procedure and still kept on playing even after I wasn't hired. Absolutely no skin off my nose really.

Fair enough. I still don't see the need for a community manager though, I think that the game/company are too small for that. It's kinda nice that all players have a chance to communicate with the owner, even if his responses can be a bit edgy and/or cryptic at times.

It's not that small if you think about it. There's what? 18k active players? That's a lot of people, especially in an online game where there's always going to be some form of dev action.

As I said in the post before, a community manager can have a detachment from the game that a dev/owner doesn't. This detachment is valuable because (1) It allows the CM to provide a more objective view of the situation and (2) because a CM naturally insulates a dev/owner from bad decisions.

Putting it another way, every minute Ched spends on the forums replying to stuff, is a minute taken away from development. It might not seem like much, but it adds up over time.

See, this is where your planning sucks. If he set it all up and vetted before letting it go through people woulda bitched and none would have been revered. In this way by doing it transparently the users see the difference between those getting whacked as well as how he handles those that were incorrectly flagged, this builds long term trust in the system.

As a bonus he gets another of his famed drama events on the forums. Ched knew what he was doing it, this was all clearly very methodical based on his style of gameplay. In addition, it's 100% fair.

Hmmm, I'm confused by your definition of transparency. We have a system that automatically finds and feds people without any of the actions taken being seen by a human being. Well, aside from those effected.

Not sure if "not being seen by human eyes" is a form of transparency. Maybe a form of invisibility, but not transparency.

No, either way it's not going to be transparent (whether using your definition or the rest of the world's). With my method, which incidentally is the one most games use, you get less positive hits and just generally less actions that need to be reviewed. You also don't fall under the trap of complacency by being a hammer and seeing nails everywhere.

You don't build long-term trust by having 9 pages of bug reports. This could have gone completely a different way that would have meant way more work for staff, but much more trust in the overall system, which is a core part of keeping an online game alive.

Edit: And this is exactly why people have trust issues with Ched, because he loves drama. And again, things may be methodical, doesn't mean they're right. I'd hate to bring this crap in and even begin to compare the two, but genocide is very methodical in most cases, doesn't mean it's right.

Torn has had paid CMs before, you can trot out a list of people who absolutely hated them and thought they were horribly biased.

Paid or not, that isn't going to stop people from saying you have a bias, or disliking you.

I think this change will be beneficial in the long run but you make a good point. I'm not active on forums, just an average player in the game, but the staff seems to be quite notorious. At least that's the impression they made on an indifferent and neutral fella like me.