Suggest clarifying/modifying petition rules

[Thinkmeats]

GMs don't rez because of lag, but there's a clear difference between Joe Sixpack on a 56k who drops from his group and wants the lost xp versus a group that spends several hours fighting all the way through catacombs only to all at once be dropped by the server with the boss at 19%. It seems entirely within the job description of a GM to recoup cases where it's very clear the server punted everyone, with the "no comp for lag" rule being for those general laggy times, or the occasional Pl, or where the server is just chugging because donations have dried up and there are too many people on. One of those things is not like the other, and the line between "server discs everyone at once" and "server makes it hard for someone on a 56k" is very thick and really clear. Since it's obviously in the best interest of everyone for things to be consistent and clear, I'd propose for a distinction to be made in the rules--allowing specifically for mass lag in cases like these. Say the whole raid gets kicked during a boss fight--a GM rez on a couple of clerics would be nice.

Specifically, I'd suggest the line be put at predictable and non-mass lag. If there was a patch the same day, or the server's been up and down all day, or it's slow in general, or if just one person got dropped so god only knows what happened, that's not something the GMs should reimburse. If, on the other hand, many people are effected by lag that could not reasonably be predicted, why in the world should they be turned down? They did nothing wrong, they're getting fucked for no real reason, and it's not like it happens so often that GMs would be swamped--for every 10 times many people get dropped at once, only 2 of those are during a boss fight--the others are while walking around, or while buffing, or while fighting some dinky trash mob, or between mobs in a group, and so on.

edit: Oh, and if I sound bitter, you bet I am. I've been aware of this problem for some time but nothing motivates a man to posting like getting fucked out of three hours' work.

edit number a lot: streamlined the post, didn't want to clutter the OP with multiple topics at once

edit number i lost count: Hahahaha, I can't believe it's still letting me ninja-edit this.

 

[gtoo]

I know it sucks but honestly, everyone has been screwed over by lag or server hiccups before, and there really isn't anything special about this one except that it was in a bad spot in cata. I think it would be almost impossible to write up an all-encompassing policy for something like this.

 

[Thinkmeats]

I'd edited in the suggestion of "Specifically, I'd suggest the line be put at predictable and non-mass lag. If there was a patch the same day, or the server's been up and down all day, or it's slow in general, or if just one person got dropped so god only knows what happened, that's not something the GMs should reimburse. If, on the other hand, many people are effected by lag that could not reasonably be predicted, why in the world should they be turned down?", I figure that's a pretty clear rule that catches most of what it's supposed to catch and not what it isn't. My apologies if that wasn't in there when you clicked the thread, I did a lot of ninja editin' before I was happy with the post.

 

[Momatose]

everyone's been screwed over by mass ejections atleast once before.. the problem is that you seem to think that because you were doing a boss that you should have priority. anyone who dies should have just as much priority and that's why they won't help.. because helping 200 people who died isn't going to go over well when you're already busy trying to fix the bug that caused it in the first place

 

[Haisei]

I don't think this has anything to do with priority. This is just a suggestion that raids and possibly groups, that are fighting for drawn out periods of time to get to a certain point, only for them all to get disconnected suddenly by the server, die and then just have to leave it there simply because it would take them another 3-4 hours to get back to where they were before, to receive a GM rez.

It is annoying, there is no doubt about it, and there is a clear and concise line between me going insta LD while kiting a puma in Eplague (lol) and a group/raid fighting through a zone for 3+ hours just to die when they had reached their objective due to them all suddenly getting disconnected by the server with no warning whatsoever. It may seem like a whinge but it's not too nice to get to an objective you had set in mind after 4 hours of wading through countless waves of mobs only to get to where you wanted to be and end up dead to something as 'trivial' as a mass disconnection of your entire party/raid.

 

[jedz]

If im not mistaken

As far as i know GM rezzes/help are out of courtesy. And that there will be shades of black and white circumstances where GM's may be most courteous purely at their discretion. I feel this falls into a category where circumstances warrant a kind of GM generosity or at least the slightest compassion. In this situation i don't feel anyone was looking for handouts. The group only wanted a fair chance at their intended target after 3 hours in a very difficult encounter.

I'm sure a GM will post with signifigant reasons for not being cordial or understanding during these gray events, but small acts of generosity go a long way in how you are percieved as a GM. Who knows, you may even gain +1 to respect. And this is not directed towards any GM in particular. There are GM's we will respect as people, and GM's we respect becuase of title.

As an example, recieving an item that poofed on a raid target during a servage outage that i wasn't expecting to be reimbursed. I feel gratious that someone went out of their way to get that item to me. Thank you whoever did that, you unsung hero. :hug:

I would never expect the slightest help in that other game. This game is better.

 

[zodium]

We do this for raid fights and raid fights only (and even then only occasionally), and only because of the amount of people involved and the fact that it's manageable. We are not going to reimburse normal groups, because then we're going to be reimbursing in more instances than we can possibly handle.

Oh, and for the record, this has nothing to do with petitioning rules. It's simply not an issue we're willing to or capable of handling on the scale you want us to.

 

[jedz]

We do this for raid fights and raid fights only (and even then only occasionally), and only because of the amount of people involved and the fact that it's manageable. We are not going to reimburse normal groups, because then we're going to be reimbursing in more instances than we can possibly handle.

Oh, and for the record, this has nothing to do with petitioning rules. It's simply not an issue we're willing to or capable of handling on the scale you want us to.

Fair enough. Could it be modified to include zones that are 1 group only, time consuming, highly difficult encounters? Maybe even during the boss fight only. I know it's not the population scale of a raid, but those zones can simply not be raided. It takes a highly skilled/geared group of players to attempt them. Sort of like a raid compressed into 1 group. I can only think of a couple zones that this applies to, and then only extremely rare occasions that a GM would be called for assistance. It would still be the GM's final decision. It would be nice to have unforseen catastrophic failures in these rare situations not be so black and white.

I don't see this happening again to this particular group unless they get extremely unlucky, so unfortunatley it may be of no help them.

 

[Thinkmeats]

We do this for raid fights and raid fights only (and even then only occasionally), and only because of the amount of people involved and the fact that it's manageable. We are not going to reimburse normal groups, because then we're going to be reimbursing in more instances than we can possibly handle.

Oh, and for the record, this has nothing to do with petitioning rules. It's simply not an issue we're willing to or capable of handling on the scale you want us to.

That'd have to be one hell of a lot of groups wiping deep in zones due to mass server lag--at least one per day for every zone it's possible to be deep in that you can't just invis back to. Instances that fall behind my proposed line can't happen very often because the standard I proposed is quite strict. If the group can reasonably recover on their own, that's one thing, it's a pain but it's expected. However, I'm pretty sure you're counting all times people die due to lag, rather than just those times where they can't recover on their own.

edit: I'd also point out that for most raid zones, the raid could get back on their feet on their own far faster than a group could. In many cases it's simply not even possible for the group to recover.

Fair enough. Could it be modified to include zones that are 1 group only, time consuming, highly difficult encounters? Maybe even during the boss fight only. I know it's not the population scale of a raid, but those zones can simply not be raided. It takes a highly skilled/geared group of players to attempt them. Sort of like a raid compressed into 1 group. I can only think of a couple zones that this applies to, and then only extremely rare occasions that a GM would be called for assistance. It would still be the GM's final decision. It would be nice to have unforseen catastrophic failures in these rare situations not be so black and white.

I don't see this happening again to this particular group unless they get extremely unlucky, so unfortunatley it may be of no help them.

What about one fight away from the boss? Buffing up before the boss fight? Etc. If there was to be a line drawn based on "how hard it is" beyond just judgement, you'd probably have to go with time lost. I'd just stick with the "can the players be reasonably expected to recover on their own?" standard.