Changes to staffing - animation and storytelling: Discussion thread.

[Lizzie]

Suggestion for rotations, since this seems to be a part of the perceived problem (I say perceived, because not everyone feels this is a problem at all):

You got an average of 3 IMMs per clan, currently, give or take a few on the right side of the decimal point. So we'll use that as the example. Adhira, Nyr, Olgaris on clan A, B, and C. Adhira, Niahm, Thistle on clan D, E, and F.

Adhira's on all of these clans, so she'll be the trusty "informations person." She'll do the intitial animations when/as needed, with each of the appropriate other clan IMMs watching whenever they're available to do so. That way, they will see, rather than get an e-mail, exactly how these particular NPCs get animated. How they act, who they're pals with, who they're all business with, etc.

Nyr and Thistle have had the most opportunity to watch, so they become the 2nd-runner animators. Eventually, Adhira stops animating, and lets Nyr and Thistle do all of it, after a little while of observing to make sure they're not twisting these NPCs and making players go HUH?

Time for clan rotation. Adhira is moved on, Nyr and Thistle are now first-runner animators for their clan. Olgaris and Niahm become second, and Senga and Shaloooooooonsh come on board. Nyr and Thistle do their thing for awhile, until Olgaris and Niahm are comfortable doing it without close observation. Then Nyr and Thistle are rotated out, and Senga and Shalo(x74)nsh are second to Olgaris and Niahm.

In this way, there IS continuity. You will always have at the forefront, someone who is -already- familiar with the NPCs and their interactions with the players. There will be overlapping most of the time, because the first and second animators -both- work with the same NPCs, and have learned from each other. Neither is "stuck" being the only one who can handle it, for more than a week or so while the scond is getting used to it. And when one leaves, the other can easily pick up where the first left off, because they've already been doing it for a couple of weeks.

In summary, there needs to be a continual overlapping of NPC animations by staff members, plus the rotation of only -one- staff member in and out of each clan at a time.

[Reiloth]

Shure.

[a strange shadow]

In theory, Lizzie, that's how it should work.

In practice - it doesn't seem to work at all.

[Adhira]

The theories on rotations are nice, the reality of trying to run the administration side of things are a little different. Here's some background on why we rotate, and an explanation of how the current rotation system is intended to work. Warning, this is going to be long.

Staff Duties

Firstly, there is a difference between STs, HLs and OLs. OLs are head admin, they're deciding on the direction of the game, they resolve issues that other staff can't, they make the major game decisions and sign off on the big stuff.

HLs are the adminsitrators of the game, the 'middle management'. HLs may be on a clan but animations and storylines are not their priority. The HL is there to provide the continuity, oversight, guidance, sign off on ST projects and questions. The STs are the ones who make the game great by facilitating stories, and working with the players.

The recent model we have adopted is a group management model. When you have a group, such as the GMH group, you will find one HL and (at the moment) 2 STs. There isn't a lot of 'give' in there for those unexpected situations that force us to look at where staff are placed. So, while this clan group has 3 staff, only 2 are going to be running npcs etc in game, with HLs there as back up for major events, or to pick up the shortfall if a ST goes on a vacation.

Rotations

Rotations can be frustrating for all concerned, but they are a necessary overhead to managing this game.  Staff members come and go, activity drops off, people resign, staff ask for less of a workload, a change in scenery. Other issues come up. Longevity of a staff member on a clan can be good, it can also have it's issues. Staff can become apathetic or overly protective, clans become stagnant and change can be hard to implement. 

Recently Niamh was moved, this was to fill a gap where a clan had one active HL, and one ST who needed to go on a short hiatus, not rotating someone on to that area would have been a disservice. At the same time, we needed to look at where Niamh had come from, this meant we rotated another ST off GMH and put them in that spot. This was necessary to keep clan levels at a bare minimum.  These rotatoins happened sooner that we'd have liked, and is not something we like to do often.

The Current Process

Our current process for rotating staff is based on our group system. One of the intentions of the group system is that we have more 'crossover'. The HL oversees all the clans in their group, read all the emails, builds up a good knowledge base. As far as the STs go each group chooses their own method for running the clans. For example the two groups I oversee, GMH and Southern Noble and Templarate are 'all in' affairs. Everyone gets the emails and works on every clan. Other groups are different, people might be assigned to a specific clan, for example Olgaris take the byn, but once again everyone is in on all the emails so that they know what's happening in the other parts of the group and can step in or give advice as needed.

Our intention with rotating is that the HL remains the same. HL swaps can occur, but the timeframes will be longer between shifts. For clan groups we like to rotate one ST off and leave one of the existing STs behind. This is to help with the continuity issues, and so that the new staff have time to catch up on things while the existing staff covers the workload. With rotations our aim is to keep an ST on a group for at least a year, before they're rotated off. This means we can, if needed, rotate every 6 months, shifting the longest serving ST off and keeping the one that's been there for 6 months.

That's the intended process, as already noted, events often transpire that cause alterations to the plan and staff swaps before they're needed.

At the end of it all I'd like to acknowledge that we staff do not use our time as efficiently as we could. The processes aren't perfect, there are often gaps, and things fall through the cracks. This isn't intentional, we do want to do a good job, but the fact is that we are working with a volunteer staff whose time, focus and energy is theirs to donate as they please. We try to manage this as best we can by putting in place systems and structures to support the game, players and staff. We do review what we are doing, we have made changes where we think things can be better and I see this as a continual process as we try and meet the needs of game, player and staff members.