Staff feedback

[Ivan_]

Certain members of the team find it appropriate to spend their gold in order to rig house competitions. Yes, they are members of the houses as well but as someone who is representing the server and is creating those same competitions for the public, I don't really see how this is even allowed for them.
Those are some examples of staff paying people to resort and earn HPs for a certain house or the most recent one of staff saying how they are ready to spend all gold in order to basically rig the ongoing house competition.
And if someone tells me that anyone could do this, those are staff members with a certain level of responsibility. Not only that they are the ones who create those same competitions, the gold that they have is also earned differently. And after all, it's unfair if anyone does stuff like this because the competitions should be fun, and not something that you pay for.

 

[TallBlondeDude]

ima be real with you chief, as the the person perhaps biggest into LARPing the war on the non-ravens side, this doesnt even bother me in the slightest. I think this makes them the perfect villain for me to have fun rping/organizing the other houses against. at the end of the day they can only buy what people sell. and at the end of the day, buying someone a reset token doesnt make them leave, it only gives the option. while pw has had and still does have some PR issues on topics, this one doesnt look that bad to me.

 

[Llama]

its capitalism who cares they earned the gold so in that way they are just like players if a player went and spent 800k on other people who cares it stimulates the economy so yeah oh well

 

[Ivan_]

Yes lets let staff pay people in order to change the natural flow of things however they like, because it "makes them the villains" and "stimulates economy."
They might as even change the scores directly at this point cuz this is ridiculous. Spawn in some gold, why not, stimulates the economy. Let them pay people to resort, it's not like they're forced.

 

[Deniz]

As I’m in one of those screenshots, I feel it’s a bit important that I provide the context for those screenshots, and the entire situation in general:

Before those messages in the screenshot, I had only retrieved around 7 drachmas that I had given to a random temple- but when I was online, not really doing anything, one of the things I noticed was the fact that every single house was working together to defeat the Ravens- to which I was like, yeah fair play, guess I’ll have to start defending the Ravens- hence the messages. This is all fair. If I stepped down today, I’d still have the same gold, and the same ability to do it - my (or anyone else's) role shouldn’t be the topic.

Now for the rest of the post: Staff members are players too. They’re allowed to do quests (even the ones they make themselves!), participate in tournaments/classes/challenges, and everything else that a player is able to do - in fact, they’re encouraged to do so. They don’t really have anything that gives them an advantage. All of their permissions are strictly for their staffing purposes. If they’re caught using their permissions, they’ll be dealt with accordingly, just like they always have been. This is why saying:

They might as even change the scores directly at this point cuz this is ridiculous. Spawn in some gold, why not, stimulates the economy.

is not really the best analogy to make. We have tools to catch these things, and if a staff member decides to go rogue and do this, we have tools to revert the damages, or simply fix it. All of my gold, for example, was earned legitimately.

I don’t really understand your suggestion though - the majority of your post is focused on staff members, but at the end, you say:

And after all, it's unfair if anyone does stuff like this because the competitions should be fun, and not something that you pay for.

So, are you suggesting that drachmas, and future competition items become untradeable? Or is your post suggesting that staff should not be able to participate in anything player related, such as competitions, tournaments, and more?

If it’s the latter, Potterworld has taken quite a big stance on letting their staff members play the game like regular players: They can reset themselves if they want, and do anything else. This was e.g. shown when they were allowed to participate in tournaments a few years ago (because they weren’t always allowed to do this).

If it’s the former, I wish you good luck, because one of the goals and desires GD had was always to encourage trading and selling items between players, and if they’re finally doing that, I personally think that’s great, and I doubt they’d want to change that stance (which is just my personal opinion…)

I hope that clears up the concerns! I know there are a good handful of others who have a ton of money too (more than me) who isn't in Ravens, so if they want to participate too, they're more than welcome! You can always grind for some gold as well and participate. : - )

 

[Ivan_]

As I’m in one of those screenshots, I feel it’s a bit important that I provide the context for those screenshots, and the entire situation in general:

Before those messages in the screenshot, I had only retrieved around 7 drachmas that I had given to a random temple- but when I was online, not really doing anything, one of the things I noticed was the fact that every single house was working together to defeat the Ravens- to which I was like, yeah fair play, guess I’ll have to start defending the Ravens- hence the messages. This is all fair. If I stepped down today, I’d still have the same gold, and the same ability to do it - my (or anyone else's) role shouldn’t be the topic.

Now for the rest of the post: Staff members are players too. They’re allowed to do quests (even the ones they make themselves!), participate in tournaments/classes/challenges, and everything else that a player is able to do - in fact, they’re encouraged to do so. They don’t really have anything that gives them an advantage. All of their permissions are strictly for their staffing purposes. If they’re caught using their permissions, they’ll be dealt with accordingly, just like they always have been. This is why saying:

is not really the best analogy to make. We have tools to catch these things, and if a staff member decides to go rogue and do this, we have tools to revert the damages, or simply fix it. All of my gold, for example, was earned legitimately.

I don’t really understand your suggestion though - the majority of your post is focused on staff members, but at the end, you say:


So, are you suggesting that drachmas, and future competition items become untradeable? Or is your post suggesting that staff should not be able to participate in anything player related, such as competitions, tournaments, and more?

If it’s the latter, Potterworld has taken quite a big stance on letting their staff members play the game like regular players: They can reset themselves if they want, and do anything else. This was e.g. shown when they were allowed to participate in tournaments a few years ago (because they weren’t always allowed to do this).

If it’s the former, I wish you good luck, because one of the goals and desires GD had was always to encourage trading and selling items between players, and if they’re finally doing that, I personally think that’s great, and I doubt they’d want to change that stance (which is just my personal opinion…)

I hope that clears up the concerns! I know there are a good handful of others who have a ton of money too (more than me) who isn't in Ravens, so if they want to participate too, they're more than welcome! You can always grind for some gold as well and participate. : - )

1. Before the screenshot you said how you spent 30k on buying dranchmas
2. If you stepped down, you gave up on your staff responsibilities and you are not the same
3. Stop spreading the narrative that staff are the same as players - they never were and never will be. I was a builder which is one of the lowest positions on the server that isn't even considered staff and still I got many advantages. Just the fact that you get PPs every month is enough of a advantage.
For your and Jada's case specifically, I know well enough that you didn't make your million thru selling stuff, grinding chests or even doing tournaments.
4. The second comment I made was made for Tall and Llama, and I was being sarcastic. Obviously I don't expect staff to do that lol.
5. I said that anyone shouldn't do this because it's unfair, no matter if you're staff or not, if i recall correctly PW is strongly against pay to win. But the fact that staff are doing this more than players is just sad. You didn't even consider what you represent or the morality behind it, and that's the issue. You're literally promoting this behavior, which is ridiculous. Not everything that isn't against the rules is right Deniz.

This wasn't a suggestion, it's feedback. Staff should participate in events, but this is more than that. This is rigging the event. And nobody should participate in that, especially not staff. Period.

 

[Miss_Strudel]

Hi, to clarify the staff members in question had absolutely zero involvement in creating the house point competition— that was done by the events team. There was certainly no “rigging” of the competition to make a certain house win. I am the events lead and am a Badger (who have no chance of winning this house cup), and the two events members that made the tech for it were a Serpent & Griffin. So at the end of the day Ravens were actually the only ones *without* representation during its creation. I personally believe that this is an issue with my work & regarding competition design, not one of staff abuse. (As a *staff lead* my Potterpoints = 6k gold / month)

I made the decision to have Drachma as a tradeable item so that someone that doesn’t want to spend the time grinding can bypass the progression system. I do this with every progression item because it provides an opportunity for gold to move from older players with massive balances to new players that are happy to grind. This is what is meant when others refer to “stimulating the economy.”

The above was to clear up the misconception that this was done with malicious intent. However, I can understand how using that same item in the house point competition makes it more complicated. While I stand by making progression items tradeable, I certainly see the reasoning for having competition items not be tradeable. I think that if Drachma weren’t the progression item, I would not have it be tradeable (ie like the litter cleaned up in the summer event house point competition). I hear your feedback and will be mindful of it when considering gold influence in competitions in the future.

 

[Ivan_]

Hi, to clarify the staff members in question had absolutely zero involvement in creating the house point competition— that was done by the events team. There was certainly no “rigging” of the competition to make a certain house win. I am the events lead and am a Badger (who have no chance of winning this house cup), and the two events members that made the tech for it were a Serpent & Griffin. So at the end of the day Ravens were actually the only ones *without* representation during its creation. I personally believe that this is an issue with my work & regarding competition design, not one of staff abuse. (As a *staff lead* my Potterpoints = 6k gold / month)

I made the decision to have Drachma as a tradeable item so that someone that doesn’t want to spend the time grinding can bypass the progression system. I do this with every progression item because it provides an opportunity for gold to move from older players with massive balances to new players that are happy to grind. This is what is meant when others refer to “stimulating the economy.”

The above was to clear up the misconception that this was done with malicious intent. However, I can understand how using that same item in the house point competition makes it more complicated. While I stand by making progression items tradeable, I certainly see the reasoning for having competition items not be tradeable. I think that if Drachma weren’t the progression item, I would not have it be tradeable (ie like the litter cleaned up in the summer event house point competition). I hear your feedback and will be mindful of it when considering gold influence in competitions in the future.

Again I wasn't attacking any staff specifically. Some just happened to be in the screenshots. Anyone who feels attacked, well, it just proves my point. Now, how is spending tons of gold to buy something that is supposed to be farmed by house members not a rig? And will we just ignore the other example that is even worse, staff members paying players so they resort to a different house and grind HPs for them?
I never questioned if the currency should be tradable or not, I don't know why you keep bringing that up, because that's not my point.

I believe my point is pretty simple. Just think of this question - Should staff be allowed to use pay to win methods in house competitions?
It's really just that. My answer is no since I don't feel that's right, and since staff represent PW and PW always claimed to be against that, I don't see how any staff could say yes to this.

 

[jake_ft]

I can see where you are coming from, but I would just like to say that gold takes as much effort to 'farm' as drachma, and in trading gold for drachma people have still put effort in to earn those drachma. Also, people are only able to pay to get drachma, because others are willing to sell them.

In addition, anyone can earn and spend gold on drachma. There are also many players who also have a lot of gold and are not staff. As well as this, it is not just staff that can buy drachma, meaning it is equal and therefore just part of the competition. Staff are still players, and we still like to play on the server and contribute to our houses. I think it is a good thing that we are involved in house competitions. We don't have any advantage over anyone else, meaning there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to.

 

[Miss_Strudel]

Ivan, the purpose of my message was to clear up the intention behind the competition design because I am the one responsible for the decisions within it. The reason I discussed the ability to trade Drachma is because if they were a bound item, the entire issue of staff buying Drachma disappears. I did not intend to ignore parts of your concerns, but I am the events lead and can speak to the specific event component because it is the area I have control over. I can make changes to it to try to make players happy, though I do not have that same weight when it comes to general staff rules. The Poltergeists will handle that part. My intention was to recognize that having any sort of "pay to win" elements in an event competition was an error and affirm that it is not something I will release again in a future event. It's not that I fail to understand your point, because I do. But making the competition so that there are zero circumstance that allow for staff members to "pay-to-win" seems to me the most guaranteed way to avoid these sorts of issues.

 

[TallBlondeDude]

ok I’m back.

For those who don’t know I have never afraid to say something against staff when I feel it’s needed, or bring up issues when they occur to me, as @Salmandingo among others can attest to.

now that I’ve established again that I don’t just parrot what staff say

this has been the most fun I’ve had at an event in ages. the stragizing, interhouse plotting, and buying/selling drachmas have given me fun that I haven’t had on pw since qb or stat battle. do you want to know how much I made last march? 110k just from playing star battles. Even an absolute beginner could do that and see similar turnaround. As long as I can remember gold and the house cup have been tied together loosely, from choosing to convert mini game tokens to hp to bribing people to go to tournys as a certain house. But want to know an even crazier fact? A player doing their dailies will get ~1k hp over the course of the cup. At most, 1k hp could be given out per temple (and id expect somewhere closer to 300-500). Basically this: gold talk, but activity talks loader. As long as staff stay within the terms of a regular player (and they do, as deniz described), there really need not be any more restrictions. Look at for example everyone’s favorite miss stroodle - 6k gold a month. That’s about 4 hours grinding gauntlets, and a fraction of that if using chest runs. Compare that to the time spent planning and doing staff stuff vs grinding, and it becomes a bit silly to question it.

anyway on an unrelated note, can you enable qb

Written on my phone so please forgive errors

yeah I’m not proof reading this

 

[Kat Frost]

Hey Ivan!

Most of the staff have already added their opinions and reasons onto this forum, but I just wanted to add in another Student Perspective!

The competition between houses encourages the members of each house to work together, grind, play minigames and of course, take advantage of the trading system that Potterworld sets up so beautifully. If players want to buy and sell their Drachma, then staff have given them the ability to do so, and many are doing it on the server. I actually appreciate this and don't really see a problem with it. Anyone is able to buy Drachma from the players that are selling it, and are using the gold they worked hard to get, and selling the Drachma they worked hard for to sell. This stimulates the Potterworld economy in total and gives students a fun thing to do after they have finished the main quests. I actually think it's brilliant and don't really see it as a "pay to win".

As to the argument of Staff doing this on the server, each staff works very hard for Potterworld for said "privileges", and that has nothing to do with them just wanting their house to win a competition. If people want to switch over houses, they should be able to do so, and students are able to do this as well. I know many students who have more gold than most staff, and are happy to spend it on their house.

I don't see it as a "pay to win" I see it as a "Work together To Win" as I hope you know since Griffins are working very hard together at the moment, (Students AND staff) to do.

 

[Deniz]

This will be my last comment on this thread - I, personally, don't think this is the place to go back and fourth, and I merely commented here to defend myself and provide the missing context (considering the call-out in the screenshots). If you want to continue this conversation, feel free to message me on Discord. I wanted to quickly clarify on the points you mentioned in your response:

1. Before the screenshot you said how you spent 30k on buying dranchmas

Which was 5 minutes before my messages, yeah

2. If you stepped down, you gave up on your staff responsibilities and you are not the same
3. Stop spreading the narrative that staff are the same as players - they never were and never will be. I was a builder which is one of the lowest positions on the server that isn't even considered staff and still I got many advantages. Just the fact that you get PPs every month is enough of a advantage.
For your and Jada's case specifically, I know well enough that you didn't make your million thru selling stuff, grinding chests or even doing tournaments.

This is beyond false. Are you saying that potter points is what gives us the advantage? We, as staff, have to spend countless of hours being staff and fulfilling our responsibilities. This is our limited free time that we're spending on doing staff work, and not actually playing the server - so as a way to thank the us for our hard work, we're paid potter points.

Because we don't have the time to play the game (due to staffing), we're able to trade our potter points for gold, where we can trade 50 PP for 200 Gold. The average payment for a staff role is around 800-1000 PP, per MONTH. This means, if I have two roles (which are very time consuming), I'd be gaining 2000 PP (rounded) which would mean 8000 Gold. We're not staff to get Gold - we're also not getting potter points to get Gold. They're meant to be for store items (hence the terrible trade rate).

If you think we've cheated, then this is not the place to make such accusations (although the majority of leadership knows how I've gotten my Gold, so you can rule that out: There are literal screenshots).

5. I said that anyone shouldn't do this because it's unfair, no matter if you're staff or not, if i recall correctly PW is strongly against pay to win. But the fact that staff are doing this more than players is just sad.

I don't really know what you're basing your "PW is strongly against pay to win" statement from - but you do realize that's about using real money for advantages, right? This is literally simply adhering to the EULA. If not, I'd love to hear where PW has stated that they're strongly against using not-irl money for advantages in a competition.

You didn't even consider what you represent or the morality behind it, and that's the issue.

?

You're literally promoting this behavior, which is ridiculous. Not everything that isn't against the rules is right Deniz.

I think the important distinction here is that it's an issue to you - your post has received no likes so far and the three non-staff who responded did not agree with what you were saying. Does this mean that no one agrees with you? No, of course not - but it does put things in an interesting perspective.

anyway on an unrelated note, can you enable qb

Yes, for 200 drachmas. 😈 Wait- maybe we do have an advantage? 🤔

Spoiler

For those who think this is real, it's a joke

 

[Ivan_]

This will be my last comment on this thread - I, personally, don't think this is the place to go back and fourth, and I merely commented here to defend myself and provide the missing context (considering the call-out in the screenshots). If you want to continue this conversation, feel free to message me on Discord. I wanted to quickly clarify on the points you mentioned in your response:

Which was 5 minutes before my messages, yeah

This is beyond false. Are you saying that potter points is what gives us the advantage? We, as staff, have to spend countless of hours being staff and fulfilling our responsibilities. This is our limited free time that we're spending on doing staff work, and not actually playing the server - so as a way to thank the us for our hard work, we're paid potter points.

Because we don't have the time to play the game (due to staffing), we're able to trade our potter points for gold, where we can trade 50 PP for 200 Gold. The average payment for a staff role is around 800-1000 PP, per MONTH. This means, if I have two roles (which are very time consuming), I'd be gaining 2000 PP (rounded) which would mean 8000 Gold. We're not staff to get Gold - we're also not getting potter points to get Gold. They're meant to be for store items (hence the terrible trade rate).

If you think we've cheated, then this is not the place to make such accusations (although the majority of leadership knows how I've gotten my Gold, so you can rule that out: There are literal screenshots).

I don't really know what you're basing your "PW is strongly against pay to win" statement from - but you do realize that's about using real money for advantages, right? This is literally simply adhering to the EULA. If not, I'd love to hear where PW has stated that they're strongly against using not-irl money for advantages in a competition.

?

I think the important distinction here is that it's an issue to you - your post has received no likes so far and the three non-staff who responded did not agree with what you were saying. Does this mean that no one agrees with you? No, of course not - but it does put things in an interesting perspective.

Yes, for 200 drachmas. 😈 Wait- maybe we do have an advantage? 🤔

Spoiler

For those who think this is real, it's a joke

-First you say you're equal to players and how you earn your gold, but now you say you don't have the time to play due to staffing? So which one is it?
-I never said you cheated your gold, but you didn't get it as any regular player did and you know that.
-pay to win doesn't necessarily mean real money for in game advantages.
-heres an interesting perspective, one of the HS reached to me privately ultimately agreeing with me. They also confirmed that you DO have advantages.
-Nobody talks about paying people to resort, you choose to ignore all the other situations that happened and stick to the one where you feel attacked.
This isn't a place to go back and fourth but I decided to do this publicly because you refused to talk to me since January 10th about another issue of mine. You ignored both another staff messages, my discord PMs and avoided me in game. You even admitted it once in general chat on discord that you did see my messages and ignored them. But now, you replied several times within 24h since this was posted because you feel attacked.

 

[EdenLovesMommy]

This is the funniest post in a while. No way you opped on deniz and Ellie bro

 

[Salmandingo]

as @Salmandingo among others can attest to.

bro I'm innocent I swear

 

[TallBlondeDude]

bro I'm innocent I swear

top ten staff members who handled criticism and improved creating good pr and talked about it.

it was a pretty minor thing anyway

almost as minor as my joy in life without quabbleball

 

[EdenLovesMommy]

Again I wasn't attacking any staff specifically. Some just happened to be in the screenshots. Anyone who feels attacked, well, it just proves my point. Now, how is spending tons of gold to buy something that is supposed to be farmed by house members not a rig? And will we just ignore the other example that is even worse, staff members paying players so they resort to a different house and grind HPs for them?
I never questioned if the currency should be tradable or not, I don't know why you keep bringing that up, because that's not my point.

I believe my point is pretty simple. Just think of this question - Should staff be allowed to use pay to win methods in house competitions?
It's really just that. My answer is no since I don't feel that's right, and since staff represent PW and PW always claimed to be against that, I don't see how any staff could say yes to this.

bro its really not that deep

 

[Llama]

Guys this is clogging my notifications can you stop now

 

[Ivan_]

bro its really not that deep

Eden it really isn't deep. I said it in the same message you quoted. My point is pretty simple. I don't see why you find it necessary to leave irrelevant comments.