Some of you are probably curious about why I left given that I've played emps the way I did for years, I'm going to clarify in this thread. A lot of you probably know already, but that's not going to keep me from making a final statement. Tl;dr at the end for people that suck at reading.

If you do not know who I am because you joined the game after I quit, I spent a bit over two years in the staff team and wrote wiki pages, guides, suggestions and feedback.

Direction
Emps has had a couple of big problems since it came back, and while the problem of endgame content got solved with the addition of new bosses there are plenty of problems left. The economy is in shambles due to the low amount of new players, the lack of attempts to help it with updates and due to the effects of stakers on the market. The amount of trading that goes on would almost force people into ironman mode if it weren't for the grand exchange. The sheer amount of money and items that gets rwted by stakers not only takes away huge amounts of donations but also means those players don't participate in the market regularly. Ironman mode doesn't have this issue, but they don't exactly participate in group content the same way regular players do.

New boss drops are done in a way that creates more powercreep, powercreep harms pvp, pvp shapes a lot of demand for gear and supplies and this is why nothing is worth jack shit anymore. The lack of balance in exp rates is making rs3 an actually bearable alternative for emps. It's becoming more and more of an impossible task to fix these issues in a realistic manner with the current conditions. If there is no major change in game direction it will be what kills emps.

Community
Let's analyze two important aspects of the community. The forums and the staff team.

The forums continue to drop in post and topic activity, not only that but the counting to 10k thread makes up for a significant fraction of the posts nowadays. To top that off, the important sections of the forum (guides, suggestions & feedback) are dying rapidly in activity. This makes it a lot more difficult for a developer to connect with his playerbase. I don't know why nobody is doing anything about it. There seems to be very little motivation from players to improve the state of the game.

The staff team, oh boy where do I start. The way the staff team is set up in terms of recruiting and policy is what has caused the team to be in it's current state. In the past recruiting anyone that stood out in terms of quality worked because we had the playerbase for it, however this is no longer the case. We've had seemingly more random promotions and a lot of staff members that were in the team shorter than I was game admin. And rather than putting effort into creating a new system the standards for new staff members continue to reach new lows. And here I thought promoting Mario all the way to admin just to keep him from breaking the rules was a bit of a weird way to do things. The lack of transparency is also something that makes things very difficult for the staff team. There's a huge barrier of entry to it due to the sheer lack of information on what being a staff member actually entails.

Rules continue to be enforced very little if at all, and you can see it's effects on the community. The topics for rules aren't kept up to date. The issue of the report abuse button not doing anything is still unresolved. Real world trading is more rampant than ever, people really seem to want to liquidate their banks, I wonder why? A botting issue was "solved" by just cutting everyone's supply, just making the bot a bit less profitable. I wonder how easy it would be to become the richest player in the game by creating a few scripts, it's not like staff members can do anything if you just get your bot to reply to them.

The current way the staff team is set up continues to make conditions worse for them. If nothing is done about that there won't be a functional staff team left. You can host events all you want but it's not going to make up for the absense of proper rule enforcement. I won't take shots at any staff members, Martin is ultimately responsible for the team and should be held accountable. Not that I expect that to happen, criticism is met with censorship, demotion or punishment. The only time Thomy interfered was when he was told Martin was checking through staff members personal skype accounts using teamviewer and that this was mandatory else they'd be demoted, this was in 2015 for those of you that joined the staff team more recently.

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Tl;dr:
It's not a single decision or event that made me quit, rather it's certain things that kept happening. The direction that updates are headed in makes the economy suffer, the forums are rapidly dying and the staff team is set up in a way that makes it hard for them to positively affect the community.

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Just like Jp I've found a better alternative to emps in RS3. I don't like that emps is like this, but I'm not adamant about changing that anymore. I've come to terms with it, and in time so will everyone else.

That's all. If this thread gets censored I'll put up the original somewhere so everyone can read it.

Welcome to Emps-World, going to clarify in this thread, enjoy your stay.
If you need any help then feel free to PM a staff member or just ask about it on the Emps-World clan chat.

Even if every one of players from old times wouldn't play - it means for a reason. It's not like it's first and last time people do this, they have needs as well. Also, I agree with what you said. Whatever the solution is, you can always suggest it yourself Charr - nobody's kicking you from forums here.

Eventho what you've said here is 100% correct, i doubt it will change anything so its more like a good 15 mins has been wasted writing it.
Its been like this for ages, the connection between the ' Boss ' and the rest is nowhere to be found,
People has been asking for things for like 3 years already since the start of this game, yet all we did was ' Enjoy what you have or search for something else that suits you " So they did what we actually asked them to do and left, now 3 years later we are asking them to come back eventho none of what they asked for has been done.

You know that I didn't like the way you've done your job, but I believe its time to start bringing some of itit doesn't mean all of it back to life ( For who don't know what I didn't like is that he was so damn strict that I believed its good but not for a game ).


There is still enough time to fix the economy with the help of Thomy ofc, however he refused to do that before I don't know why would he change it now.

The staff team, oh boy where do I start. The way the staff team is set up in terms of recruiting and policy is what has caused the team to be in it's current state. In the past recruiting anyone that stood out in terms of quality worked because we had the playerbase for it, however this is no longer the case. We've had seemingly more random promotions and a lot of staff members that were in the team shorter than I was game admin. And rather than putting effort into creating a new system the standards for new staff members continue to reach new lows. And here I thought promoting Mario all the way to admin just to keep him from breaking the rules was a bit of a weird way to do things. The lack of transparency is also something that makes things very difficult for the staff team. There's a huge barrier of entry to it due to the sheer lack of information on what being a staff member actually entails.

That's what happens when your boss goes missing for like 15 moths.

Even if every one of players from old times wouldn't play - it means for a reason. It's not like it's first and last time people do this, they have needs as well. Also, I agree with what you said. Whatever the solution is, you can always suggest it yourself Charr - nobody's kicking you from forums here.

Oh look, this guy here is the prime example of rules not being enforced like they should be.

Glad you're okay

In other words... "ks amk" all.

Martin is ultimately responsible for the team and should be held accountable. Not that I expect that to happen, criticism is met with censorship, demotion or punishment.

AMEN.

You exactly say what we, old players in particular, feel about the game.

May your RS3 time be glorious!

The economy is in shambles due to the low amount of new players, the lack of attempts to help it with updates and due to the effects of stakers on the market.

The economy was in a bad state at the time you joined the staff team. Thomy missed his chance to clean up a huge mess by using couple bills of spawned cash and my entire bank (30-40b) to buy many items and remove all of them (including my bank) from the game. At this time items were changing their owners left and right because stakers cared only about money or oldschools. Thomy made me clear that it was his server and that my method was unacceptable. As a result of that I quit the game and my bank was rs-es traded, which had the same effect to the economy as spawning items into the game. Kinda funny that Thomy refused to use spawned cash to clean up a mess, which was caused by him in the first place (raised drop rates and then vanished for couple months because of his irl problems) but agreed to use the same method to pay for a trailer.

The sheer amount of money and items that gets rwted by stakers not only takes away huge amounts of donations but also means those players don't participate in the market regularly. Ironman mode doesn't have this issue, but they don't exactly participate in group content the same way regular players do.

I agree that RWT and RS-ES trading was out of control all the time. The funny part is that Thomy knew about them for a long time and he straight up ignored the problem.
Basically any problem related to his server was answered with 'I don't care' back then and if you told him that he was doing a bad job as an owner, you were told that it was his server.
There is a reason why the entire banks of rich stakers do not change the owners as often as they used to. Emps currency is worth nothing anymore (ES-RS: ~100:1 now compared to 10:1 in Emps-Scape). However I also know that there are people waiting for emps money being worth more just to sell their banks again.

It's becoming more and more of an impossible task to fix these issues in a realistic manner with the current conditions. If there is no major change in game direction it will be what kills emps.

You know what I knew ages ago. This game is dead meat. There will be no major changes because as long as there are white knights (the staff team basically) who agree with whatever Thomy is saying and praising him for whatever he is doing, he has no reason to turn back. If one of them does not like Thomy's ideals, he gets ignored and taken care of sooner or later. I do not know how much he spent on advertising recently (or maybe I do), but it was a stupid move to spend any money into promoting a dead server in the first place.

The forums continue to drop in post and topic activity, not only that but the counting to 10k thread makes up for a significant fraction of the posts nowadays. To top that off, the important sections of the forum (guides, suggestions & feedback) are dying rapidly in activity. This makes it a lot more difficult for a developer to connect with his playerbase. I don't know why nobody is doing anything about it. There seems to be very little motivation from players to improve the state of the game.

Nothing is done about it because as long as Thomy has his supporting staff team (which is a reflection of himself), there is no need for other opinions. It is natural that players get demotivated when their efforts improving the server get ignored all the time. Even all the community topics regarding emps updates were rigged in the first place. Thomy presented some of his ideas beforehand and players discussed which of them would get added first. Yes, there were some ideas that got added that were not suggested by Thomy, but I doubt that more cosmetics, pets or untradable items would solve any of the thousand problems this server has. They make it only worse. The only good update this game had was ironman mode, which is also the only reason why this game has more than 50 players sometimes.

Rules continue to be enforced very little if at all, and you can see it's effects on the community. The topics for rules aren't kept up to date. The issue of the report abuse button not doing anything is still unresolved. Real world trading is more rampant than ever, people really seem to want to liquidate their banks, I wonder why? A botting issue was "solved" by just cutting everyone's supply, just making the bot a bit less profitable. I wonder how easy it would be to become the richest player in the game by creating a few scripts, it's not like staff members can do anything if you just get your bot to reply to them.

Rules are only being enforced on those who criticize the server. Wait no, you straight up get punished for critcizing the server because they feel offended even without any rules being broken. This is also the reason why I have to use this account to post this reply xD. Common rulebreakers who say whatever they want do not get punished as long as they do not target staff members. But banning them would also result in the game/shoutbox being even less active. So enduring them is the way to go.


For any of the staff members reading this, just tell Thomy to delete all of accounts please. It will be better for me (so I dont have to deal with this stupid community and owner anymore) and for you (so you can keep spreading your lies to innocent players about how great this server is without any idiot interfering).


Tl;dr:
Bye Charr.

Kinda funny that Thomy refused to use spawned cash to clean up a mess, which was caused by him in the first place (raised drop rates and then vanished for couple months because of his irl problems) but agreed to use the same method to pay for a trailer.

The cash prize for the trailer contest was not spawned, not going to explain why spawning cash to fix a problem is a terrible idea.

You know what I knew ages ago. This game is dead meat. There will be no major changes because as long as there are white knights (the staff team basically) who agree with whatever Thomy is saying and praising him for whatever he is doing, he has no reason to turn back. If one of them does not like Thomy's ideals, he gets ignored and taken care of sooner or later. I do not know how much he spent on advertising recently (or maybe I do), but it was a stupid move to spend any money into promoting a dead server in the first place.

Staff members don't praise everything Thomy implements, there were multiple occasions where staff members shared their feedback on certain updates.

Nothing is done about it because as long as Thomy has his supporting staff team (which is a reflection of himself), there is no need for other opinions. It is natural that players get demotivated when their efforts improving the server get ignored all the time. Even all the community topics regarding emps updates were rigged in the first place. Thomy presented some of his ideas beforehand and players discussed which of them would get added first. Yes, there were some ideas that got added that were not suggested by Thomy, but I doubt that more cosmetics, pets or untradable items would solve any of the thousand problems this server has. They make it only worse. The only good update this game had was ironman mode, which is also the only reason why this game has more than 50 players sometimes.

You seem to have this mindset that only the opinions of the staff team matter to Thomy which isn't true at all. I can promise you that Thomy does listen to the community and he's always open for new suggestions as long as it's reasonable and not something like a server wipe or spawn cash to fix an issue.

Rules are only being enforced on those who criticize the server. Wait no, you straight up get punished for critcizing the server because they feel offended even without any rules being broken. This is also the reason why I have to use this account to post this reply xD. Common rule breakers who say whatever they want do not get punished as long as they do not target staff members. But banning them would also result in the game/shoutbox being even less active. So enduring them is the way to go.

We do not issue punishments unless a rule is broken. Members are entitled to their opinion, we don't issue punishments just because you say you don't like the server as long as you're sharing your opinion in a professional manner and not shouting f*** this and f*** that and being all rude about it. Also, there are no exceptions, if you break a rule you will be held accountable for it.

For any of the staff members reading this, just tell Thomy to delete all of accounts please. It will be better for me (so I dont have to deal with this stupid community and owner anymore) and for you (so you can keep spreading your lies to innocent players about how great this server is without any idiot interfering).

You're not being forced to play our server.


Hi Charr, it's been a pleasure bro o/

@Eddie, your statement about rules being enforced at people giving critizism is false because literally no rules are being enforced. Only exception is if you have a negative opinion on Martin; that gets you demoted.

@Eddie, your statement about rules being enforced at people giving critizism is false because literally no rules are being enforced. Only exception is if you have a negative opinion on Martin; that gets you demoted.

That's what he stated almost. In essence, you disagree with who's in charge - you get slowly pushed down and it's your own responsibility in the end for it. To be honest, I get him and agree with him.

Whatever the solution is, you can always suggest it yourself Charr - nobody's kicking you from forums here.

I'd say the solution is we remove melons from the game.

Glad you're okay

Likewise.

Incoherent arabic gibberish

Man your English has gone down the drain since you left the staff team.

You exactly say what we, old players in particular, feel about the game.

If only you had the ability to state those kind of things yourself.

You know what I knew ages ago.

If only you didn't talk like a flat earther at the time. I would've left much earlier and I would've been maxed on rs3 by now.

We do not issue punishments unless a rule is broken. Members are entitled to their opinion, we don't issue punishments just because you say you don't like the server as long as you're sharing your opinion in a professional manner and not shouting f*** this and f*** that and being all rude about it. Also, there are no exceptions, if you break a rule you will be held accountable for it.

You do not issue punishments unless a rule is broken, evidence is provided and policy allows said punishment. The staff policy lacks in effective punishment. Granted, the way you think of the staff team is influenced by both your rank and how long you've been there. So you aren't being that stupid.

The problem is your lack of a policy to deal with repeat offenders. You can shoutbox ban Mario all you want but he's just going to come back and break the rules over and over. The only reason you don't see Shoaib doing that anymore is because I permanently forum banned him. Can you say you're enforcing your rules if all you're doing is giving out 3 day mutes to people that can't go minutes without flaming? How come y'all couldn't just ban the rune shop bots and had to ruin the rune shop for legit players?

If you enforce the rules how come crusher123 hasn't been banned for the billions of gold he's rwted? Is it that you lack the tools to or does the staff policy not allow you to ban rwters anymore?

You do know the rules topics haven't been updated in ages despite staff policy around those very rules has changed numerous times, right?

I have no personal quarrel with you, I just want to make that clear. It's your choice to represent the team in this topic. At least you responded, though I'd say this was pretty weak.

Not to insult anyone here or anything but maybe the problem is in you guys? Not saying that the kind masters aren't without their flaws but maybe you guys are going in thinking that you're right and aren't open to considering that your suggestions are shite? I mean Charr even got assistance clan chat past the developers and that was a horrible idea but you can't say that Thomy didn't listen.

I also agree that economy is still in a bad place and I don't think that the devs have an idea about how bad it is and the reason behind that is simply because they're looking at the GE watcher without playing the game and that gives them a really bad idea of what the economy is like.
But at the same time, most suggestions to fix the economy were also really bad as they wouldn't have actually done anything to help.

The problem with the staff team IMO is that there's too much staff doing too much for players and it's too easy to get into the staff team while there's no transparency about the standards that those staff members need to meet.

The problem with the devs is that they seem too concerned about what the game looks like at first glance and not caring as much about how fun the gameplay is.

Quote from: Wg on June 11, 2018, 07:34:00 am

Whatever the solution is, you can always suggest it yourself Charr - nobody's kicking you from forums here.

I'd say the solution is we remove melons from the game.

If you think "removing melons" from fruit basket or even banning people around by enforcing rules makes this place more healthy then so be it. Just make sure you will make up for few players loss here and there as player count continues to drop like raindrops through storms and don't whine about it.
As for what Tulrak said, I want to correct you - there is one developer left and that's Thomy. I do not believe there is more dev at the moment.