Work in progress -- New way to submit requests

[Raesanos]

In progress right now (well, its done sans some features and tweaking) is a web page that you would use to submit requests related to your character or account.  The workflow is like this:

1) Sign in using your existing Armageddon username / password
2) Select a request category
3) Select a request type and fill in the given fields
4) Submit it.

Types of requests include description updates, complaints, log submissions for stat increases, and so on.

Advantages to this system include:

* Requests are categorized on our end by what level of staff member can resolve it.  The request will automatically be available to the staff who are able to resolve your request rather than routed through one person in the mud account.  This means faster responses.
* The request form will automatically submit your account name.  It will ask you for all information we need to fulfill the request.  This will reduce back-and-forth emails asking for information that was not provided.  Again, faster responses will ensue.
* Reduced odds that your request is never received or misfiled.
* Staff workload reduced overall, making time for more projects that enhance the game,

What do you think the impact will be on your end?  Do you think this will be easier or harder for you?  Do  you think it will be worth it overall?  What suggestions do you have to make this system work best?

[Lazloth]

What do you think the impact will be on your end?  Do you think this will be easier or harder for you?  Do  you think it will be worth it overall?  What suggestions do you have to make this system work best?

The process will be simplified, accessible and apparent to everyone.

Additionally, it may (here's to hoping) scale to eventually handle spec apps, item submissions, perhaps even character application.

It'd be nice to be able to login to a status-type screen.

edit:  Cool idea.

[Maybe42or54]

Will this work for account note requests also?

I think it will take a little more work on ourside to lighten the work on yours, improving response time.

Will we get emails saying that what we sent was recieved? I never know if anything I sent was recieved until a month later when I don't really need it anymore because I gave up.

[Pale Horse]

Frankly, I can only see how this would be a great advancement .  Many times I've thought to send in a request concerning my character, but I always hesitated for fear of wording the request wrong, or it never reaching a Staff member's eyes, ect.
While the few times that I have requested something i.e adding a scar to my character after a traumatic result, removeing a level of karma since I felt that I was not quite ready for the option, ect, the staff always was relatively quick and always polite and responsive to my emails, this website idea is brilliant.  Quicker and easier to use and send in a request in an orderly manner..I like it.
...The only downside I see is that it might possibly increase the number of requests sent in for review...

[spawnloser]

Raisin, you rock.  That's all I can say.  This would be a wonderful thing, and I can see no problems with it.

[Tamarin]

This will be great.

What about submitting items, both general and custom?

[Larrath]

Beautiful.

I can't wait for this to be implemented so I can start asking for account notes every other week.

[Yokunama]

Kudos.

[Cale_Knight]

I imagine this system is going to increase the amount of requests y'all recieve by several hundred percent simply by virtue of sheer ease of use.

[Folker]

impressive, very nice. At the moment, I cant think of any additional features, I'll think on it some more. But I hurry to express how great the features already mentioned already are.

[Maybe42or54]

Yes it is a great idea, like the new way of making weekly updates so they are easier to put up in the archive. I hope this idea works better then that one.

[Tamarin]

It's in, and a few things have already been submitted.

I poked around through the system and it looks GREAT!  Really, really well done.  I'm exceedingly impressed with whoever put this together.

Cudos to you.

[flurry]

Sounds like it would be very efficient, and I don't see any negatives to it.  Thumbs up.

[Morgenes]

Just a fyi, what has been posted is the Original Submissions Wizard, which is a different beast from what Raesanos originally posted about.  The Original Submissions Wizard allows you to submit Original Submissions for that page on the website.  Raesanos is working on a similar tool for submitting other requests.

[Tamarin]

Are they going to be all tied in together, or will you have to log in from two separate places?

Will this system be extended to apping characters from the web, rather than logging into the game port?

[Morgenes]

The login system is part of the new website that we are working on.  It uses your Armageddon game login as a single sign-on to all the tools.  Once you login you'll be able to access all of the login-based tools.  And yes, a web-based submission of characters is one of the planned add-ons.

[Ghost]

Wow!  That is neat!  You rock guys!

[Raesanos]

If you please, try out the new request tool and offer feedback either by posting here or by emailing me directly.

http://www.armageddon.org/request/

As the tool says...

This tool is currently for evaluation use only. Requests submitted during the evalutation period will not be considered. Please submit all game-related requests to mud@armageddon.org and CC your clan staff if appropriate.

[Raesanos]

Also note that this does not necessarily represent the final version of the tool.  I want to incorporate your feedback into its design to assure ease of use.  Other changes may be made as well.

[Larrath]

First of all, this tool looks utterly wonderful.  I think I would change a few things as far as the categories go.

I can see the tree working like this:

CATEGORY 1: GDB
1) Join a game clan
2) Suggest new group
3) Join a board group (publicity, Helpers, et cetera).
4) Complaints and Appeals (against Twit flag, etc.)
5) General suggestion

Category 2: The Game
A: General
1) Bugs
2) Suggestions
3) Complaint against player
4) Complaint against staff
5) Submissions

B: Character specific
1) Stats modification
2) Skills modification/addition
3) Guild modification
4) Reimbursements
5) Resurrection
6) Description changes

C: Account specific
1) Account notes
2) Email change
3) Password change
4) Transfer absolute value of Karma to Larrath's account.

CATEGORY 3: Website
1) Bugs and Errors
2) Ideas
3) Submissions (documentation and Roleplay tips)
4) Generic request to have a document clarified.


Personally I am much more comfortable using email for my game-related update report emails.  Also, giving log-sending its own category is mostly confusing.


This is totally awesome.  Thanks.

[Delirium]

The 'details' section needs a way to format the text that's put in there so that it doesn't all run together in one messy line, or I can forsee a lot of headaches already.

[Seeker]

Larrath's tree rocks.  This is a great idea.


Seeker

[wizturbo]

Vastly improved over the old e-mail and hope it went to the righ place method.

[Raesanos]

Changed the categories a bit based on feedback.  We now have:

Code Select Expand

Request Category  Request Type  
Account Related Email Change
Account Related Account Notes
Account Related Password Reset
Character Related Reimbursement
Character Related Skill Change
Character Related Description Change
Character Related Stat Change
Character Related Ressurection
Game Related Complaint about a Player
Game Related Submission
Game Related Complaint about the Staff
Game Related Bug / Typo / Idea
General Discussion Board Suggestion or Idea
General Discussion Board Complaint or Appeal
General Discussion Board Join a Clan Forum
Publicity Contact
Publicity Idea
Update Character Update
Web Site Clan Page Access
Web Site Bug / Typo / Idea

Also, we are going to add a Fancy Text Editor Thing so you can have formatting in your requests.

My next step is to adjust the fields that appear for each request type.  There are also changes on the staff back-end tool that need to be done before this goes up.

[House Rising Sun]

Are clan-specific requests on the block for this? Could a clan leader use this to ask for updates, changes, contact with npc leaders, and so on?

Also, can it be set up to retain a text field when you go 'previous'? Losing everything because you had a wrong option selected and went back to change it is always a pain.

[Sanvean]

One advantage of email I was thinking about if that the person sending the email has their own record of it, and knows what was said and what date it was .  Perhaps the tool might have a checkbox which says something like "email a copy of this to me".

[Nao]

love the idea and the categories vcover it pretty well

[flaran]

I just wish this was already out of test mode
:wink:

[amoeba]

I like the ideas and categories, I would just chage the following:

3) Complaint against player  
to
3) Complaint/Compliment against/for player.

and

4) Complaint against staff
to
4) Complaint/Compliment against/for staff.

I mean we do have postive things to say as well I hope.

[EvilRoeSlade]

You might add either quotes or links on game policy as taken from the documentation to each category.  For example, I just submitted a (fake) ressurection request, in that category you could have a snippet explaining the staff's policy on ressurection, why ressurection is considered low priority, etc etc.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I also noticed a possible bug, when I was going through the interface I was frequently randomly redirected to a web-site search result containing every help-file with the word 'Type' in it.  Would have been frusturating if I was doing it for real.

Also, some categories could use some explanation.  In the clan section, I'm not sure what Character Update really means.

[Morgenes]

You've hit on a change we're working on in the new website.  If you double click on words in the new site it'll take you to the help pages for that word.  Stop double clicking in the page and you'll be fine.

[Cale_Knight]

Seeing as how this interface already has the ability to pull certain things from our accounts, why not make it a one-stop shop?

Let us access/send mudmail, check our race/guild options, etc.

[Morgenes]

Access to things for your account (like what Original Submissions you submitted, what requests you've asked for, information about your race/guild options, characters, etc..) is all planned for the new site.

[Cale_Knight]

Sweet.

[Raesanos]

Changed 'Update' category to 'Clan Related' with 'Character Update' and 'Request' types.

Down the line you'll be able to review your past and pending requests.

Added kudos request types.  We will be glad to receive your happy words.

I am going to add blurbs about each category and request type as you go through the tool.

[Tamarin]

Do you actually want us to try submitting test ones for you?

[mansa]

Not all of my characters show up.  ;(

[Tamarin]

Mansa is the only person I know who can wink and frown at the same time.

Only a handful of mine are there too.  Ten or so.

[Raesanos]

Yes, submit all the test requests you'd like in order to provide feedback and find bugs.  They won't be considered or necessarily even read. The database will be cleared before we start using it for real.

It only shows your most recent characters so some people don't get a dropdown menu with 300 items.

[mansa]

Can we get a drop down menu of the last 20 characters, then another menu for 'next 20' and 'previous 20' ?

[EvilRoeSlade]

A compliment to the staff for taking interest in a much overlooked aspect of the game by turning the monstrosity that is staff-player communication into an efficient and easy-to-use interface!

[Raesanos]

Can we get a drop down menu of the last 20 characters, then another menu for 'next 20' and 'previous 20' ?

We could, but would this really be useful?

[EvilRoeSlade]

Finish and cancel seem to do the same thing but be available at different times, unless you intend to make them do something else besides linking to the home page, then perhaps some sort of stream-lining is in order?

Also there doesn't seem to be any way to log out at the time, which could be problematic.

[Tamarin]

My suggestion for apping a desc change:

Have it show you your current descs, and have a separate field for sdesc and mdesc.

[Nao]

I'd like to have a store option added under character related

[SpyGuy]

I'm REALLY liking this, please excuse the moronic nature of all my requests...this is just for evaluation right?  :wink:

One possible bug I saw was that whenever you use an apostrophe it also puts a backslash in the review field.  So for example:

I don't like blah

Will under review show up as:

I don/'t like blah

[mansa]

Can we get a drop down menu of the last 20 characters, then another menu for 'next 20' and 'previous 20' ?

We could, but would this really be useful?

Is it useful to have a list of more than your current character, then?

We have half of them.  Do we need to see any at all beyond the current?

I'd like to be able to read my previous 'bio' and descriptions of my past characters, and the account notes on those characters.

--

I also think that under game related, the first option in the drop down dialog should be 'bug / typo / idea' instead of 'complaint against the staff'

[Raesanos]

I've made some behind the scenes changes to how this works.  If another round of people want to poke at it and report any problems that'd be great.  This is very close to going live if things go smoothly.

Finish and cancel seem to do the same thing but be available at different times, unless you intend to make them do something else besides linking to the home page, then perhaps some sort of stream-lining is in order?

They do the same thing, but the option is open to have them do different things.

My suggestion for apping a desc change:

Have it show you your current descs, and have a separate field for sdesc and mdesc.

Good idea, this won't be in it just yet but it is on my todo.

I'd like to have a store option added under character related

You got it.

One possible bug I saw was that whenever you use an apostrophe it also puts a backslash in the review field.

Fixed.

Is it useful to have a list of more than your current character, then?

We have half of them. Do we need to see any at all beyond the current?

We sometimes get requests related to prior characters, just not very old ones.  To cover all the bases, I've added an "Older Character" option if not all your characters are being shown.

I'd like to be able to read my previous 'bio' and descriptions of my past characters, and the account notes on those characters.

You'll be able to do something like this at some point, but its beyond the scope of this tool.

[Aldiel]

Awesome idea, Raesanos, thanks for all the sweet features you've added!

[mansa]

After sending in a response, the next button doesn't do anything.

[Jherlen]

I'd like it if the tool would go back to step 1 once a request was completed and you click finish, instead of sending us back to the main page. Would be handy if you wanted to make multiple requests at once.

[moab]

I agree.  The last step should bring you back full circle rather than to the main Arm page.

Also, I'm not sure we need to see the finish button while the "next" button is still active, nor the "next" button before "finish."

I would just change their names / function depending on state and remove one of them.

Other than that - looks good.  :-D

[Irulan]

This is great, Raesanos! I would love to see an option to get a confirmation email, just so that I would have some record of what happened (as Sanvean suggested). I definitely think that this will help to smooth communications for requests. Strong work.

-Irulan

[Morgenes]

Note, the Finish button is only active when you have supplied enough information to complete the request (same as with the Original Submission Wizard).  This allows you to hit Finish and skip the Review step (in both Wizards) if you're an impatient SOB.

Morgenes
(developer of the Wizard code we're using)

[James de Monet]

It might not be of that much use right now, but for expandability's sake, it might be nice to see a branch navigation tool thing like we have here on the GDB ie:

Code Select Expand

Armageddon General Discussion Board Forum Index  -> General Discussion

But more like

Code Select Expand

Request Type: Account Related -- Account Notes

with the different menu steps as clickable links back to that menu, just so you don't have to click 'previous' a million times if the tree branches further.

[Morgenes]

You can click on the steps on the left hand side to jump back to that step.

[Raesanos]

For the curious, here is what the back end looks like currently. Praise to Morgenes for the reporting framework that this uses.

[Tamarin]

Very cool!

[Raesanos]

Added an option to have your request emailed to you.

The cancel button now returns you to armageddon.org while finish either finishes you or starts you over if you're already finished.

This tool is now live.  Please provide further feedback and questions in the designated threads.