Getting e-mail answered

[Gargath]

Heyas,

I'm posting this here so that people can reply with further ideas or comments so feel free.

When I get a letter that looks like the following, I feel like just trashing it.

d00d im liek maken a clan of assasins that leik wanna
  ki77 people for 700t can u hook me up i gonna need some shit loaded up adn mad and shit can u dew it

Generally I answer most of my mails within a few hours, at the most a day will go by. Some of you make this pretty hard though, heh. When you want an e-mail answered, here are a few hints.

Write the mail with a polite 'flow' to it. Demands will only get you laughed at.  :lol:

Try your best to compose the letter in a somewhat professional manner.

Try to use correct grammar, punctuation, etc. It makes it a TON easier to understand, read, and personally it makes me want to work even harder to meet your needs and desires as a player when I think you are taking it "serious".

Include your account name.

I'm bad with typos and misspellings myself so I force myself to run almost everything through a word processor. It only takes a moment to do.

[Agent_137]

I'm pretty sure in l33t speak, 7 is not L, but T.

[Akaramu]

I'd like to add a note for the immortals.

In my opinion, polite email between immortals and players is about mutual respect. I respect immortals for the loads and work they do to make the game an enjoyable experience for us. In return, I expect to be treated like a reasonable adult person with some respect for the efforts I take to add something to the world with my presence even when it isnt fun to do so, and for sticking to the rules, and assist the immortals in the few ways I can.

Telling a player they cant do something that intrigues them so much they keep thinking about it all the time, something they would enjoy immensely, without reason given why they cant, is not motivating for the player. Giving them no answer whatsoever after repeatedly asking politely and patiently doesnt motivate the player to do what the imm wants them to do even though it currently isnt fun for the player at all, and makes the player wonder what they did to deserve no response of ANY kind. Makes them wonder if the immortal dislikes them, and what they did to be disliked.

I believe even when it isnt possible to give details of any kind for whatever reason, it is possible in the spirit of mutual respect to give SOME kind of answer... like:

'There are reasons I cannot tell you why your suggestion cannot currently be considered. It is not that we dont want to. Please come back in 3 months.

There was one occasion quite some time ago when an immortal wasnt adding me to the clan board for a week after I emailed them twice about my PC being recruited. The immortal couldnt tell me why, but she gave me an answer. It was very helpful, and gave me the feeling I wasnt being ignored on purpose after repeatedly asking, or not added to the board because the imm didnt want me in her clan.

Thank for for that respect, Ixmachina.

To say it again, excluding a player from something they really, REALLY would love to try and have been striving for for weeks without giving them any sort of answer why doesnt motivate them to log in when the game is already currently depressing them for other reasons.

[Anonymous]

I have a much different view on what e-mailing an immortal is...

Its a polite humble request.  There is no mutual respect issue.

Immortals work their asses off for this game, so players can enjoy it.  They receive nothing but usually annoyance and grief for this work, with some bits of joy now and then at seeing something they worked on go well.  I don't think they owe me respect, or explanations to their decisions.  I would like to have both respect and explanations, but I don't feel the immortals are obligated to give it.

Having explanations for decisions would definitely cut down on player frustrations, but if an imm doesn't feel like drafting some explanation in an e-mail, I guess they don't have to.  Sure I'm going to love immortals who do take that extra time to explain, and opt to interact with them more often, but its not a requirement.

The only thing I personally wouldn't tolerate is immortals being blatantly rude or insulting, but I doubt very much that ever happens, and if it ever does you probably caught an immortal on a very bad day.  They're human too.

[spicesmoking kank]

I'm going to disagree with you, Anonymous Kank, if that is your real name.  

While I held your attitude for a long time, I recently came to the conclusion that if about half of the IMMs quit, people would step up to take their place.  But if half of the players quit, the game would seem empty and ghost ridden.

I don't think that players are any less valuable than IMMs.  Compare it to a parent-child relationship.  Although the child has less authority and less priviledges than a parent (and does less work), it would be innacurate to think that the child is of diminished value.  

I don't particularly want the IMMs job...but if they are unhappy in it they should move on to other things.  This post is in no way targeting Gargath or any other specific IMM, just clarifying what I consider to be a highly erroneous point of view.  I'm probably going to repost this elsewhere.

[DustMight]

I'm going to have to agree with SpiceSmoking Kank.  The IMMS are IMMS because they like it and they work their arses off for the players and themselves.

There are many players at this level too - players that like what they do and they work their arses off for the other players and themselves.

Without a doubt the relationship between a good IMM and a good player will be all about mutual respect and love for the game.

The player (as an OOC person) is not below or above the IMM (as an OOC person).  

That being said, players who don't approach an IMM politely or don't respect the depth of game knowledge that an IMM has should get the same response as they would receive if they approached a Linux Kernel Hacker with no respect for his level of knowledge.

:-D

[Solas]

Although there may be instances of an Imm not responding to you for a long period, I feel its best to keep the friendly reminders down to a minimum.  :wink:  ...especialy with applications, (which it seems to me takes alot of time to do). Of course, I would hope that the Imm is doing his best to get an answer to you quickly. I understand it's preatty hard to wait even a day for an answer to an application for a character you really really want to play (went through a couple of these kinds of waiting periods myself  :lol: ), but I've figured the Imm most likely has a good reason.

[Anonymous]

You know another problem poeple have is knowing whether or not the imm got the message or not.  While i don't mind waiting even week or two for a response, knowing whether or not my email was received at all is a whole other story.  

        At my school, once a profesor's email address has recieved the email, it sends an automatic message stating the email has been recieved...something like this would help greatly.

         So far i've been waiting about or over two weeks for a response, don't know if the imm is even getting my emails, doubt it was rude, there were alot thank you and pleases but that imm could feel differently or could be very busy(though i haven't hear they being one the the ones that would be delayed on the GDB). On top of that threads like these make feel guilty to remind them or ask again.  Oh well, no biggy, just a game in the end.

[ashyom]

Sometimes staffs (including myself) won't bother replying to an email if it evokes the response of, "Uh, I have no idea what this is about," (particularly for emails that rambles on and on to no end) or "Doesn't look like it requires an answer," (for the emails that tend to just be informative or has no clear question/point) and I'll usually file it away or let it get lost in the backlog of emails.  I typically try to respond to people to let them know I got it, but I don't always if I don't have the time.

If there's a question or a particular point that needs response, it's best to keep it short and to the point.  Otherwise, it's a gamble on whether you get a reply or not - depending on what's going on in staffers' daily activities.
-Ashyom

[Akaramu]

Sometimes staffs (including myself) won't bother replying to an email if it evokes the response of, "Uh, I have no idea what this is about,"

This could be the case with some european players who tend to stumble over the subtleties of english language sometimes. If I have a very polite business letter in german, and I translate it into english, it might sound grammatically correct but turn out to have a very rude sound to it that wasnt intended at all. The same goes for attempts to get a certain message through, I have at times totally failed to get the point of something (I understood the words but they created a different meaning for me), or failed to express myself in a way that made sense. It made sense to me, but anyone else was confused at best.

I also find it hard to decide what is important and what isnt. Everything I write always seems terribly important to me, but in fact it probably isnt.

As for endless rambling, the following might be helpful:

-Anything that requests a response (question, problem, etc) comes at the very top of the email, other remarks added below so they can be skimmed through and skipped if they are not important.

-If the player is waiting for a response, this should probably be pointed out along with the question or issue.

-If the email is resent after a week or so of waiting, it includes only the actual issue.

[cyberpatrol_735]

If you use outlook, go into tools, and accounts I believe, check the "always require a reciept" or something of that sort, (I'm to lazy to check) When they open it, it asks them if they would like to send the recipt, they can then choose yes or no if they are using outlook/other mail clients.

[dolores]

Sometimes when I'm sending e-mail, I like to give my recipient a hint on what kind of response I'm hoping for ...

Just FYI; no response required.

I don't need an in-depth response, but it'd be great if you could let me know you got this message.

I'd like as much advice and feedback as you can give, so I'm willing to wait until you have time to mull this over.

Just a quick yes or no is plenty.

I'll understand if I what I'm proposing won't work / isn't allowed, but, if that's the case, please let me know where I went wrong with it.

etc.

--Dolores