Server's recent conditions

[Furmetal]

Notes

 

This thread is made solely for the discussion of the actual conditions of the server and the administration's behavior about it. Do not expect any colorful banner or colorful words, this is serious regarding the server.

 

If you want to comment, please read the final notes.

 

The server's recent conditions

 

The server's actual condition is simply sad, it is a matter of time until another server takes over the first place, the reason is that the responsible people for the server are neglecting it, this is just the beggining of the decline. Most of the PandaWoW's labor and efforts are being focused on a Warlords of Draenor server, which as we all know(and some statistics from Blizzard, and even myself which cancelled my sub after one month on end-game content) is one of the most unsuccessful expansions(since it doesn't add too much, excluding mechanics and the models which are even added to the Mists of Pandaria client) until now, specially their end-game which is where a private server focuses - the end game - thus making it a not so wise project to top it's priority over something that is more succesful.

 

Everyday it is possible for you to see over fifteen hackers(sometimes even two hackers on the same BG), and the system used to prevent the use of illicit programs merely advises the GMs, that are also a problem, since they are not online(to be more precise the only active GM is Talvio a.k.a. Bukarasik), and most players also don't have the initiative or simply stopped caring enough to report a player(not mentioning those toxic or simply ignorant that don't even report accordingly to the rules), some even seek the help of hackers to do their usual BGs. Those "hackers"(they do not have knowledge of coding or anything, so the term used here is lamers which are people that only use a software that bypasses the engine granting them advantages and claim themselves to be hackers) are getting more and more popular, specially because with one Google search you can find that one third party program that allows you to fly and alter your speed at your will. The solution to this problem would be to hire/recruit more GMs, and there are some volunteers, good volunteers out there, but there is the neglection made by the staff(the Head-GM Кукла is the responsible for the recruitment) which can be resumed by the lack of answers, by it's delay with the in-forum contact and the pos-forum contact(if the volunteer is accepted) on skype(there is a two month or higher delay for you to be answered).

 

The server slowly turned into something more and more about economic, and that reminds me of some games that I've played that closed, on which before their unfortunate closure there were the greed thirst of the distributor, increasing prices and launching senseless update, basically the bread and Circus that happened on Rome, basically they give you what you want and you assume that everything is fine. It is not. One of the things that made people donate are the Challenger Mode set transmogs, which are currently bugged and is only transmogrifiable through the use of a third party program(of which I can't mention since it is a violation of the rules 2.28), thus alredy reducing it's income. The more mercenary the distributor(PandaWoW) becomes, the closer to the end we reach, specially because there are little to no developers working on PandaWoW anymore(said on a post by Juster, I can't find it's source).

 

Mine and others' desire to help the server(such as Lanstus, Uraganuu and etc) is great, mine for example is just because PandaWoW is where I spend most of my free-time(which is by the way huge since my job doesn't require much of time invested but thoughts and organization), this persistence is mostly represented with activities such as bug reports, that I doubt that most of them are even taken in consideration(but they are indeed read), mostly because we don't have anyone to work in bug fixing. The most simple and superficial bugs are being fixed, we can see that on the Blog of Changes(made by Bukarasik and participation of Shadrissa), but some bugs are existent and are within the staff's knowledge for over a year, such as the Ring of Frost bug, the spellsteal bug, the Necrotic Strikes ignoring PvP resilience and etc(example of ignored thread without a response of the reason of the closure), which is a clear display of neglection, turning the competitive gameplay(PvP) simply ridiculous, specially because the server is PvP focused(although it indeed possesses a PvE aspect), turning arenas a lot more unfair, the impact is even bigger in the 2v2 bracket which is an alredy unbalanced gameplay(in comparison to the 3v3 bracket).

 

The volunteers that get the job, most of them are treated as lesser than the russians(this does exists, this comes from me, and others that came to be mods for a long time such as Lanstus and Uraganuu), this behavior can be shown in various forms, such as the bonuses received, the priority received from the staff in order to get answers or to get a better rank. Most of those mods also show a really poor job performance, supervisioning only one chat(such as only the [World] chat) and barely logging in(and also they do not attend to player reports, such as if a player is spamming in a chat and if you ask him to please join the chat so he could see it and punish properly, he declines it).

 

Some things that are not bugged simply becomes bugged, from a changelog to another, such as the Challenger Mode transmogs. There were literally no changes regarding the transmogrification system when it got bugged, and while the bug itself is not something really big, it does have an impact on an economic point of view for the server, and that should be of full interest of the staff, unless if we are so close to the edge that we aren't even worth this anymore.

 

I do not intend to give the message that the server is failing, but I do intend to pass the message that if the server keeps up like this, we will lose a lot of players to a rival server when it rises up. The only thing that keeps PandaWoW ahead of most of the other servers is the bug fixes and the amount of players, which most of them can easily be won with time.

 

*Recent message of Juster in response to some thread reminding about some critical reports.

 

Final Notes

In resume, I want to know what all of you think about this. I'd like if we could avoid the flamme. If you want to flamme(offending implicitly or explicitly) please go to another thread(such as this one that lost its purpose). I would like to let any rivalry aside(such as with Chiv or Darsky) which are made purely for fun purposes(since I hold nothing against anyone here, and I had to be really low to do so on a forum from a game made for people to have fun). Make your comment if you wish, explain your point of view and opinion and be clear when you do so. If you have nothing to comment or something vague regarding the formation or pretty much anything unrelevant, don't comment.

 

I'm also not gonna talk about the forums, such as the outdated content on information threads such as this one(which still says that using that using a certain third party program for transmogrifing purposes is bannable, which is not anymore) or the members of the staff(which still counts some people that are no longer mods such as Winwer as part of the staff), or that they delayed our changelog because they were "translating" it, while all that they did was a copy and paste from Google Translate(it had more than a three day delay for something that could've been done in 5 minutes or less).

 

Let's not profane this thread, which took me a while to write and that I would not like to see it wasted.

 

Thanks for you attention, specially if you read it all.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Furmetal

[Deielrion]

I don't think I could possibly agree more..

This server in it's prime went from having at least 5200 on x100 with a 500+ queue each day (not saying that I miss the queue) to getting max 4.5k (from what I've seen) in the recent weeks. This is probably because the amount of people who've realised there is some lack of interest being displayed by the mods. Example is evident by the fact that they don't even update the changelog on the homepage anymore.

International forum threads take longer to get a reply than they should.

Bans are handed out carelessly (sometimes), and punish people from evidence that was taken out of context or on their poor judgement which I've found a lot of the time to be wrong.

This, personally, puts me off applying as a moderator (although I'm still considering applying) since I've been banned twice for a sexual joke once, and also for intervening on a building in a bg.

There is definitely a language barrier between the GMs and every non-russian player.

I rarely ever see a player who's violating rules get punished in-game without a forum report (although gms have said they only punish with forum reports recently, I do think english/world chat needs to be moderated at ALL times (english mod for english chat so there's no misunderstanding of slangs etc)).

 

Although with all this complaining, we mustn't forget to give some credit..

There have been developments in both PvP and PvE although many have gone unnoticed. So in the respect, thank you to the devs.

[Furmetal]

This, personally, puts me off applying as a moderator (although I'm still considering applying) since I've been banned twice for a sexual joke once, and also for intervening on a building in a bg.

 

I myself alredy applied for a job as moderator and/or tester, that was two or three months ago. Until now, I only got muted for obscene speech and anal jokes.

 

I'm a dirty mouth.

 

@Thread

 

You can always come come here and notice that there are always the same kind of hackers(sometimes even the same players) doing the same things over and over...

Edited September 7, 2015 by Furmetal

[uraganuu]

My guess is you'll be banned for criticizing the slow response time of the lead GM.........

[Frostshotz]

Pray there's no Kappa spammers yet.

 

ontopic: we just need more gms + make the anticheat auto dc when you fly over X height in instanced zones

[uraganuu]

Active anti-cheat would need to make the difference between people with lag spikes and hackers. Right now, the passive one detects both. A GM can easily see the difference between them with the use of a command that shows player's ping.

[hfiani]

My guess is you'll be banned for criticizing the slow response time of the lead GM.........

then let's all agree, and let's all get banned, hahaha

 

i also think that a lot of bans should be applied and it is not. there is another server that i was into, that made 1 mistake and it ended up dead. those who were there must know what i mean. sadly 99% of players wait for 1 mistake to leave, and they search for another more stable server (just like i did, and i came here)

 

i think Pandawow is on the edge of a blade now, it needs one poke and it falls.

 

BEWARE PANDAWOW STAFF! seriously, i still prefer MoP over WoD as a lot of people. also i prefer pandawow over wodempire mostly because i saw that old raids are not implemented, and i only care about getting old items for transmog and for mounts, as i hate new designs (from MoP and WoD)

[potatoe]

You are wasting your time, they don't even read the english forums, there are game breaking bugs like absorbs not being reduced by dampening or battle fatigue, fury warrior mastery that doesn't work at all, but yea they only fix the russian bug reports.

The server is so poorly managed, they don't have a priority list of bugs, they fix random bugs and the game breaking ones are there for years.

[pujo2]

Its sad to see PandaWoW in these conditions, and more sad to know that is in exchange of a F****** WoD server.

[Juster]

You are completely wrong in every way.

We have very much fixes and have a separate dev team(different from wod), the only thing you might be right, it's about the low activity of the GMs and moderators, we will soon take new people, or hold a dialogue with the current staff to increase their activity.