Trust is a two way Street

[Kryos]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and Mansa's topic on a karma system change gave me the nudge I needed to air out my thoughts.

So, staff have a way of valuing their trust in players, but what about long term players showing their feelings on their staff oversight?  I think it would be extremely valuable to the over all health of the game, as well as the experience for both staff and player if there were some system of giving a staff review.

I would purpose a formalized system.  One possible thought that is once a character dies after a 10 days played period, or even one review granted every 20 days played for live characters, the player is given an opportunity to submit a clan staff review via the request tool.  This could have several categories, and as its attached to your account, I think the flippant responses would be kept to a minimum.

Q:  Why is this valuable?
A:  I've been a Gm and player in muds since . . . oh, 93?  I'm an old dog, and I've seen the fence from both sides.  There's plenty of reasons for people to get frustrated on either end.  With a fair, open review and discourse, I think everyone would do better.  Frustrated people can become unreasonable on both sides, and then everyone loses.  

Q: Oh noes!  If I'm honest, they'll put horrible account notes and nuke my karma!
A:  Hey, that's not even a question.  Anyway.  If someone did that to a honest review, well, there wouldn't be any trust from the player to the staff.  If that's the case, this would expose an underlying problem, wouldn't it?

Q:  Kryos, are you a bitter, angry SoB with a chip on your shoulder?
A:  Why, thank you for that personal inquiry.  In short: no.  I've had many beautiful, heart-moving, heart-pounding, and evocative work done for me, the player, by this game's staff.  But on the other hand, I've had my share of frustrations and sense of being wronged.  I think we all have, if we're being honest with ourselves.  And I'm willing to be the same is true for every staff member.  But hey, they have a way to show it, and we don't.  In short, I'm just purposing something I think will better the game.  People can't know there's a problem until its identified.  And having been a DM/GM many times over in many game formats, I can tell you, if the players aren't talking, you won't know.

Q: Kryos, will you have my babies?
A: No, I'm into guys, sorry.  But seriously, in accordance with staff wishes, lets keep discussion tight and on topic, so something useful can come of this.  Please.

[Cavaticus]

You can do this now. If your "staff review" is positive, use the "staff kudos" function on the request tool. If your "staff review" is negative, use the "staff complaint" function on the request tool.

[Vanth]

You not only can do what Cavaticus suggested, I would recommend doing it. 

While doing MUDmail I've sometimes had the dubious pleasure of reading an email from a player who is very bitter, resentful, and has completely given up on the staff and the game, and so finally decided to leave the game forever* and send off some diatribe of hateful invective about how we all suck and are out to get them personally, and how they wouldn't recommend Armageddon to their worst enemy.

While that can sometimes be helpful feedback, it's usually too late to do much good.  Perhaps if there had been better communication earlier, these negative feelings might have been resolved before they reached the boiling point.

We're not psionicists in RL.

*'forever' generally lasts six months

[Gimfalisette]

You can do this now. If your "staff review" is positive, use the "staff kudos" function on the request tool. If your "staff review" is negative, use the "staff complaint" function on the request tool.

But what if it's some of both? In my relating to / communicating with staffers, I've never had an overall experience that was 100% positive, or 100% negative. I've sent kudos for specific actions or events that staffers have done, and I'll be honest--I have never sent a complaint about staff because I am afraid of the potential consequences for doing so. Note that I am not saying there would be any. I hope there would not be any. But there is so little transparency in the process that I do not have any trust in it; it's not like at my workplace, where I'm notified when a black mark goes on my record, or where I've got usually got some kind of legal protection for speaking up about something really going wrong.

In a staff review, I would want to say: You did A, B, C in a really awesome and inspiring and motivating way, D confused the hell outta me, E could have been communicated much better on your part, F you dropped the ball on, G was a problem because we both screwed up. Etc.

I really can't see myself ever sending a staff complaint unless all I had to say was a complaint, and I also knew that I was 100% in the right, there was no way anyone could think I was wrong, and I had logs or other documentation to back it up, and I had no expectation or need to have an ongoing working relationship with the staffer in question. Even then...I'd be much more likely just to attempt to ignore the problem, because the complaint process is so opaque.

While that can sometimes be helpful feedback, it's usually too late to do much good.  Perhaps if there had been better communication earlier, these negative feelings might have been resolved before they reached the boiling point.

I agree with this. But as a player, with no insight into staff-side process, I struggle with how best to do this.

[Pale Horse]

Why not merge "Staff kudos" and "Staff complaints" into a single entity, entitled "Staff Critique?"

..Other than the fact that "critique" has taken on a generally negative connotation, that is.  We'd probably see a decrease in Staff Kudos...

..Also, I'm sure it's separated like this for the health of our Staff.  Much simpler to just check out the space where they post all the Kudos, then having to slog through a mixture of the two.

[Nyr]

In the case of mixed feedback/criticism/praise, I'd shoot an e-mail to the clan group of such a staffer.  If you have constructive feedback on how things went or how they are going, you can provide it to the correct people.  Anything sent to clan e-mail goes to mud as well automatically, providing an admin+ with the ability to review it as well.

Anytime an account note gets added, we will usually let players know--otherwise, it is a useless system.

How a player complaint works:

You see a problem worthy of complaint.  You send in a complaint.  An admin+ looks at it, researches it based both on your provided complaint information, logs (if necessary), and the person involved.  It gets resolved without necessarily informing you about what was done (it is between staff and the other player at this point).

How a staff complaint works:

You see a problem worthy of complaint.  You send in a complaint.  The way the queue works now, only a producer can resolve complaints.  All staff can see the complaint, and can make the appropriate notes they want to.  After it is all said and done and the complaint has been researched, you'll get a response back after the complaint is resolved, usually with an explanation (unless the complaint is frivolous or silly, in which case it may get noted just so that we have a record of your credibility).

[Vanth]

And by "frivolous or silly" we mean things like:

-Complaining that they didn't get enough notice of an HRPT to attend
-Complaining about an NPC stealing from them when they decided to sleep on a city street
-Submitting a facetious 'complaint' which is really a kudos (but instead of being able to be resolved by any staff member, now needs a Producer's attention)

(all real examples)

[Kryos]

I do not believe staff kudos/complaints is sufficient enough a system.  With a formalized, efficient system that's plugged into the tool, I honestly think a lot of hard to communicate things would be more eloquently expressed with less chance of people feeling bad.  Lets give an example(totally made up, mind you, and brief!):

How was your Communication with the staff:  3/5
Comment:  I received responses to my weekly reports, but some times other questions would go unanswered

How was you ooc support from staff(discussion of ideas, plots, and so on):  5/5
Comment: Always helped cultivate and guide my thoughts on what to do next.

How was your IC support from staff:  1/5
I never once saw a single animation.

Comments(we'll pretend on the three staff who've posted so far):

After playing in the Willy Wonky brigade, I found that Vanth's and my styles really meshed well, we got along great:  the subtle opposition of Bert the Big really proved a lot of fun.  I hope she keeps on rocking the distant but reachable with effort antagonist angle.  But, I had a real hard time getting into synch with cavaticus:  all those six steel sword wielding spiders chopping up my dudes wasn't very fun for me as a player.  I think he should tone down the mulching of people with mobs.  Lastly, I really never had a lot of interactions from Nyr, but what I got from what little we had, he seemed to be doing a good job.


Now, that's totally made up, but, I don't think its really easy, or efficient to do in any current system.  What's more, with sufficient communication here on the GDB, you could tease our questions and ratings that matter a lot to both players and to staff.  Just knowing what those questions are, even, might be really eye opening for a lot of people!

Edit to add:  I also think a system attached to the tool would allow staff to easily access these opinions in a centralized area, and thus, see over time what the opinions of players are, to recognize strengths, weaknesses, and concern area, and see if they are similar, improving, or degrading over time.

[musashi]

I think that the staff kudos and staff complaints are adequate enough for what the OP is talking about doing, folks just needed a bit of awareness raising to make them take the time to type the odd one out every now and then.

I'll be making an effort to send in more feedback in the future.

[Conspiracy Theory]

The thing about complaints about ingame happenings is that I think it's rare that you ever know for sure in Armageddon everything that went on behind the scenes. Let's say you go up and you fight a few gith and for some reason they're wearing obsidian breastplates and one's holding a two-handed sword made out of gold, and he's swinging it around like it's nothing!

Setting the fact that it's an extreme example aside, you might be pissed that you got fucked up by these gith. Why are they in badass armor with a sword made out of metal? Gith aren't supposed to have good armor and weapons! That's not in the docs! That's not consistent with the world! Nyr just did that to kill me because the staff hates me and they're out to get me! Rabble rabble rabble!

You don't know for sure that Lord Templar Hardnose didn't trade his gold sword to that tribe of gith for ancient gith sekrits. You don't know for sure that that gith didn't use that sword to rob a Salarri caravan full of armor. You don't know for certain that those particular gith didn't happen to be some sort of sterile hybrid between gith and dwarves ("gul") created by a sorcerer and waiting for something else to come along and you just happened to stumble into the room. Stuff of that nature that you complain about, or you think is out of place, or whatever, can often be, well... entirely IN place, but for reasons you'll never know. It can even be the work of players. There are often IC explanations that the staff isn't going to give you.

Just keep that in mind, especially when you get killed by something - sometimes, there was a reason, and you'll just never know what it was.

[Kryos]

In my opinion, this system isn't about kudos or complaints.  Its about evaluating your relationship with various clan staff.  Its about talking about how things are handled in correspondence, your expressing your opinions on how they help/hinder your role in the clan, etc.  It just isn't a mesh.  And its likely *not* nearly discussed enough.

[Jenred]

If it doesn't fit into the existing tool, email it to the mud@, CC the clan_imm@, and make it relevant and related to as any many SPECIFICS as possible. If its something you don't want the clann Imm to see, then chances are its negative, and would have already fallen into the complaint portion of the request tool.

From my experience most clann_imms welcome reports. And including their performance would not be perceived as a bad thing.

[Kol]

I honestly do think that that the current system is brilliant, Sorry OP.

I've never used the complaint tool, admitidly, I've never had need too.

I've used the Staff Kudos quite a ew times, and each one was sorted relitively quickly.

I've Sent in updates before with crituqe, and slight concerns to the clan staff I'm dealing with at the time, and Got a response back within a few days usually with a clear explenation as to why things went the way they did.

One thing I've found out while playing here is, while Yes, Often hardass and straight-edge about a LOT of things, Staff I've dealt with are often the first to admit they've made mistakes, and usually apologise pretty quickly.

[tortall]

How a staff complaint works:

You see a problem worthy of complaint.  You send in a complaint.  The way the queue works now, only a producer can resolve complaints.  All staff can see the complaint, and can make the appropriate notes they want to.  After it is all said and done and the complaint has been researched, you'll get a response back after the complaint is resolved, usually with an explanation (unless the complaint is frivolous or silly, in which case it may get noted just so that we have a record of your credibility).

I've had staff at below producer respond to staff complaints before, within the last 2 years.



I think that something that staff and players should realize:

We're not psionicists in RL.

This goes for players and staff alike. Players: staff don't always realize when you're upset. Staff: players do not always realize when you're upset. In general if staff has an issue they'll discuss it, but at times I've had staff tell me I need to fix something, tell me this once, and then two weeks after the first notification, I've done something so horrible that it warrants drastic actions.




There have also been times when I'm not directly had a COMPLAINT, but I disagreed with how a certain imm was handling things. I did not want to send this directly to the imm, because they could take that as me trying to tell them how to do their job. I have to work with this imm still, and I don't want them upset with me. So I sent it in the form of "staff complaint".

I've done this for players too, when something seems off, but I think it's likely just the player didn't understand something, and needs a bit of guidance.


Maybe a third option could be added? "Suggestion"? For both player and staff. It's not a kudos, and it's not a complaint. Just an idea how things could have been/could be done better. This would be something that only Producers and above could do for the staff "suggestions".

[Nyr]

How a staff complaint works:

You see a problem worthy of complaint.  You send in a complaint.  The way the queue works now, only a producer can resolve complaints.  All staff can see the complaint, and can make the appropriate notes they want to.  After it is all said and done and the complaint has been researched, you'll get a response back after the complaint is resolved, usually with an explanation (unless the complaint is frivolous or silly, in which case it may get noted just so that we have a record of your credibility).

I've had staff at below producer respond to staff complaints before, within the last 2 years.

The way the queue works now, only a producer can resolve complaints.

Emphasis mine; this was not previously the case.

[tortall]

Ah, thanks for clarification. :-)

[Sephiroto]

Tortall mentioned that we don't always know when a staff member is upset and vice versa.

I've always been an advocate of a chat interface, perhaps arrangable by appointment with random or specific staff member(s), depending on the situation at hand.  I still feel strongly that a more face-to-face opportunity to communicate on reasonable occasions would help players and staff members understand one anothers' tone during communication and aid in the relationship building process.

Ability to chat in a professinoal environment to a given staff member during a period of communication break-down might seriously aid player-staff relations and get one or both parties on the right track.

[jcarter]

What I'd like to see is some way to make staff complaints/kudos completely anonymous, i.e. something that just gets handled by producers. There's plenty of times where wow, this was really cool, I'm glad this happened. Or I'm surprised at how speedy something is done. The problem is, I don't want to send in a kudos and appear to be a suck-up or give the impression that I'm doing it for some kind of favor, so the most I tend to give is a few words is to my clan imms after my PC dies. I also tend to do the same thing regarding kudos for PCs if both mine and theirs are still alive, although I request that it not be shown to the player.

With complaints, there hasn't really been times when I've felt it's necessary. I can recall a couple of times where I needed to talk to a NPC for a few minutes, or even just get a few lines in a mail to get the go-ahead for a mostly player-driven part of a plot. I never got anything back or any results after a few weeks, which definitely pissed in my cheerios because I wanted to run a RPT and there was a lot of people counting on it. In that case, I didn't say anything because it just seemed better to not rock the boat on things. There's been calls I haven't agreed with; both announcements put out, and things made by my clan imms over the years. In those, I've found it's just better to e-mail in if it's something that I really don't agree with, but there's always that level of trust that needs to be maintained. Trust that staffers know what they're doing, and trust that players are playing their characters correctly and giving them the benefit of a doubt.

Open communication is a huge thing. I love it when I get an e-mail back on status updates for characters that lets me know it was read over, even if it's just a few words saying thanks for the update. I like it when I get an e-mail telling me no, what I didn't do wasn't okay, and I need to adjust my play in the future. I'd much rather get something like that, immediately after it happens, than check my account notes a year or two down the line and see a negative line on there. Negative feedback through e-mail allows me, the player, to immediately identify an issue and fix it. It may also simply be that there's a misunderstanding and it gives me a chance to clear that up. It's a venue that allows for open communication and allows both parties to realize their mistakes.

On the next subject is account notes. I've played for a few years, and I'm usually pretty disappointed every time I see my account notes. Usually it's nothing but a couple of storage notes, a couple of lines explaining why there was a karma boost, and that's it. I really want to see more positive feedback on notes in general, or even just a couple more lines showing that someone is paying attention. Even if it's just something small, such as 'Charactername is a smooth-talker currently employed by Salarr.' I play on and off, and after this last return there were a lot of new staffers I didn't recognize. Please, toss a note or something on my account that lets people know who I am or what I've done, or what I play well and what I need work on.

That's just my attitude. We're all pretty much adults here, let's treat each other like it. I have no issues taking criticism, nor explaining why I do what I do. Keeping everything on one side is only going to serve to foster more bitterness on both sides.

[YellowCactus]

   I've done some good.....I've done some bad.....Okay.....I've done lots of bad things on Armageddon Mud.   

The perspective that folks need to have in this thread is that the people who run Armaggeddon have a lot of ownership in the game.  The players make the game beautiful...but the Immortals are PROBABLY more frustrated by us than we are by them.  Just a guess.

Anyway.  I like this thread.  Everyone is sharing!  Just remember, this is a FREE game that we all build.  If there is an Imm that you don't like, then maybe e-mail the staff and play in another zone?   I don't know...Just know....

Thanks for the Staff for keeping my game up and running!

Thanks for the Players for killing me......over and over and over....

-Yc

[Clearsighted]

Eh. In my personal experience, when it comes to players bitching: some 80% of the time, it's mostly the player's fault and 20% it's mostly the staffs (EDIT: You might be the only person that knows this!). For whatever reason.

And about .01% of the time, you might raise a complaint and have anything good come out of it compared to keeping your fucking mouth shut.

/lessons learned

[Saellyn]

I don't get to interact much with the Staff, although I think one of you folks had something to do with some very interesting uh... things that happened to one of my chars.

But if I DID ever have to send a staff complaint, it would be for behavior like that I had on another MUD I.E. lying, calling somebody a bad RPer to get at them, abuse, ignorance, stupidity, unnecessary hate... and a failure to accept my special app for a muffin item. When/if that ever comes in, I will be the only person in Zalanthas with a muffin.

Derail aside, I'd say the staff here does a fine job compared to certain other MUDs that I played on (I won't mention a certain LOTR-based one that was the source of a lot of tension for me). I've never had a problem with staff here, although my views on some of their policies (the slavery one being prominent) are the same as most of the opposition to the no-slave policy.

Staff trust/player trust keeps the game alive, and keeps it flowing. I think transparency to some degree on the staffs part help players to know staff ARE up there, they DO care that you got eaten by a tembo, but NO they can't resurrect you just because you ran out of stamina and that desert elf ran off with your pack, and you can - and probably should - send them little kudos or complaints saying what you don't like or do like, and what you think Staff can do to fix it. Sometimes you might get "No, you're dumb, stop sending this!" But there's always a chance "Yeah, this is neat!" will come back. And then you can feel warm and fuzzy inside.

In short:  complain, but not excessively. And kudo... but not excessively.

[Potaje]

I have had my issues with staff, and learned many lessons, I fully believe that wording and dialog in emails to/ about staff get that way because the player has no real ground to stand on insuring that things are fair and not staff sided only. It does seem at times that if you do have an issue (or think their is an issue) a staffer or staff as a whole becomes guarded and protective of each other in stead of reaching a mutual understanding between the player and situation. No this is all perspective, and I am not saying that it is intentional, but all it takes is one staff be commented on and redirecting the context of that content before the other staffers, and then a player feels lost in the system. Hence they grow angery and bitter.

Now I feel that staff does a great job for us over all, and hashen to say that the interaction with staff is part of the game, much like being a part of a house or clan. Where is all things roll down hill and the power structure is set that you shall not argue a point or perspective with out repercussions. Thus you adapt to their thinking and desires and not your own ideas. I am not saying it is good or bad, it just is. Its almost like your have to learn to let go of your own egos as a player to get anywhere staff wise in the game. But.. But there is an outlet, and that it the torment of other players. Don't argue with staff, ruin someone elses ingame life.

[Salt Merchant]

I don't know, I think a lot of it gets aired on the GDB. About general game policy and staff decisions, not individual staff members.

I know I haven't held back. See my past posts:

e.g.
. magicker/gemmed bitchfest
. 'a song for the gemmed'
. Bartle player types and the difficulty of positive achievements
. merchant class woes
. etc.

[Saellyn]

Staff doesn't make me angry, I don't make staff angry. I don't agree with the code ruling over RP, and I think any player who knows me at all has seen this at least a hundred billion times where I've had a hard time grasping the fact that I can type run and sprint the last four rooms to the city and be safe again ;_;