Ask the Producers and Administrators

[Adhira]

This thread is for players to ask Producers and Administrators the things they've always wanted to know.

Be warned, just because you've always wanted to know something doesn't mean you will get an answer! We will try and answer what we can, while still preserving things that are ICly sensitive or that might reveal things that other players wish to discover in game.

We will do our best to answer respectfully and honestly, in return we'd love it if you asked your questions in the same light.

We'll keep this thread open for the next few days and invite you to enter into dialogue with us.

[HavokBlue]

Were there gameplay reasons for the closure of Undertuluk or was it just a result of IC events?

[Nyr]

What happened to Undertuluk was the result of IC events.  OOCly, it was intended to be changed and altered.  The work required staff-side to do it fell through.  That had to do with planning several things at once:  the deluge near Tuluk, alteration of hundreds of rooms in and around Tuluk, the introduction of the Arena a couple months prior, and the like.  Also, it had to do with a staffer going on leave that had volunteered to do the most work on it.  When resources are scarce, we make do with what is available!

[Saellyn]

What -was- the shamim l shamim thing that happened a day or so ago?

Why was crafting broken earlier? Attempting to craft earned a "Crafting is temporarily available, try again soon".

[Nyr]

What -was- the shamim l shamim thing that happened a day or so ago?

Part of the randomized sorcerer single-spell code, tied to single locations and times.  If all of the moons are in the sky, you can cast a mysterious spell.  Mon un shamim l shamim.

Why was crafting broken earlier? Attempting to craft earned a "Crafting is temporarily available, try again soon".

I'm afraid you ran into the anti-spam-crafting code.  It went live before it was intended to go live.  On a bright note, you probably weren't spam crafting, but you'll only know once you see your account notes (it will be logged there automatically).

[wizturbo]

I've seen a perceivable, positive difference in both the quantity and quality of work going into the game and into communications with the players from staff over the last couple of months    It feels like something has awoken the sleeper, and I think I like it.  The fact this thread exists is further evidence of it!  

What happened IRL, or in-game that spurred this sudden and delightful change?  Was it long in the making and we're just happening to see the fruits of that labor now, or was it somewhat recent?

[Saellyn]

Ahhhh. What is the definition of spam crafting? Is there a certain number of crafts, or is it defined by the amount of RP put into each craft (emotes/thinks and such beforehand)?

Just curious so I don't go over this limit or someday sit there bored going "craft silk into silky dress" fifty times.


... I'm going to google shamim l shamim and figure out what it really is.

[Nyr]

In seriousness, the shamim thing was a typo from a staffer, and the crafting thing did break.

[Saellyn]

Oh God I thought you were actually serious about an anti spamcraft code LOL!

Okay, here's a good one. What are some of the things you would like to do, now that you've ascended to Producer?

[Adhira]

Wizturbo - I think it's a combination of things. Much of it was long in the making. For instance a lot of the 'new' projects you are seeing in game were things that were planned out over a year ago. They didn't come to fruition for a variety of reasons, including having the staff manpower to see them through.  Now we have people that are super keen to get things going.

For myself, on a personal level, a number of things happened. One was that I took my first real break from the game last year (after 9 years of staffing). I've taken mini breaks over time before, but this time I took off three solid months where I did not still log in and read staff boards, I did not log in to the GDB, and I did not log in to the Game Port. Part of the reason I did this was to assess what I wanted to do with the game. Knowing that I didn't want to be here if I wasn't still committed to Armageddon and working to make it better.

The other was that I had a really tough year this year. It made me reevaluate a lot of things. In the Armageddon equation I thought about - what makes this game fun? For me it's much more fun when I get to play in NPCs, or help with storylines. And so I have been. Big ups to the Storytellers who've been putting up with my overenthusiastic newbness and letting me run around in NPCs with them.

Lastly I will say that this is the first time we've been fully staffed in a couple of years. This last staffing round was excellent, we had a lot of high quality applications, and we had a lot of legends asking about returning. It was really hard to choose who to bring on board. We went with a mix of old and new and have found the atmosphere in staffing land is a lot of fun, there's some positive energy and people are really engaged and wanting to do things.  I'm super hopeful that people will stay around for a while, I hope they are enjoying staffing (you can ask them in the Ask the Storytellers thread!). If we can get them to stick then I predict that you're going to be seeing more and more new and exciting things in the future.  

[Talia]

Big ups to the Storytellers who've been putting up with my overenthusiastic newbness and letting me run around in NPCs with them.

(Running around with Adhira in NPCs has actually been a lot of fun.)

[Nyr]

Okay, here's a good one. What are some of the things you would like to do, now that you've ascended to Producer?

Typically when one becomes a Producer, they are not as directly involved in clan administration and oversight.  Both times so far (I was a Producer for several months in 2012/2013), I have been in the position of doing both tasks.  Something I'd like to do in a general sense is focus just on the Producer task.  However, regardless of the hats we wear in life or in Armageddon, we are often wishing for the ideal situation while knowing the day-to-day is going to bring something less than ideal.  So generally, I'd like to be doing more Producer type things.  Shaping larger projects, giving feedback, and assisting with things that are not necessarily in my area of focus--things like that--without them getting derailed more often than not with the day-to-day.  It will happen, it always does, but I am hoping to get some space. 

So anyway, for now, Adhira and I are sharing the duties of being Allanak's administrator(s), flying directly in the face of this man's wisdom.


Wizturbo:  I think that a lot of it, to me, is the flurry of new staff activity and interest.  Fresh (and fresh but not new) faces looking to do things and get things done?  It's great.  Being fully staffed is fun.  To pre-empt another question, we aren't always fully staffed because people do weird things like have lives that matter apart from this game that is a hobby.  We don't always fill vacancies right away.  Often enough we have waited until we need a handful (two-three) new staffers to fill vacancies, which puts pressure on remaining staffers and increases workload (which in turn may increase the desire to rotate out).  That is a practice that might well need some revision.  The flow of ideas and completed work have both been tremendous and invigorating.  If I go out for a weekend and let folks know I'll be gone, I now come back to more than twenty new posts on proposals, code discussions, and brainstorming on plot ideas related to player stuff that is going on.  It is a feedback loop of fun.  I'm glad you are seeing the effects of it and we hope to involve everyone in it that wants to participate.

[Taven]

I'm just going to go ahead and ask, because the worst that can happen is that I won't know any more then I do now!

In the Muarki-Volcano-Relocation HRPT, there were spies in Tuluk. The PC population never caught them or realized anything was wrong until the deed was done, as we can see from Original Submissions. Nyr also said that if any of the spies were ever brought to interrogation, they'd essentially "lose" and be found out. That's cool, but my question had more to do with the virtual world. Is there a behind the scenes reason that a city full of...Tuluki templars...didn't find the spies?

This question is in no way intended to belittle the players who had those roles! Rather, it's one that just has to do with figuring more out about how we expect the world to be, and what happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this question!

[MeTekillot]

I think the logs implied there was some sort of Manchurian Agent stuff going on there.

[MeTekillot]

But if not that, then well, I have no idea. I could have misread.

[Norcal]

Probably a silly question, yet I am wondering what Producers do. I looked at the help file and the entry is pretty general.  Could you give a brief job description of a Producer?

Cheers.

[HavokBlue]

Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

Whoa. That's a seriously great question.

[Nyr]

I'm just going to go ahead and ask, because the worst that can happen is that I won't know any more then I do now!

In the Muarki-Volcano-Relocation HRPT, there were spies in Tuluk. The PC population never caught them or realized anything was wrong until the deed was done, as we can see from Original Submissions. Nyr also said that if any of the spies were ever brought to interrogation, they'd essentially "lose" and be found out. That's cool, but my question had more to do with the virtual world. Is there a behind the scenes reason that a city full of...Tuluki templars...didn't find the spies?

This question is in no way intended to belittle the players who had those roles! Rather, it's one that just has to do with figuring more out about how we expect the world to be, and what happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this question!

Covered here, here, and here (all in one of the log submission threads).  Also covered here, here, and here.

[Nyr]

Probably a silly question, yet I am wondering what Producers do. I looked at the help file and the entry is pretty general.  Could you give a brief job description of a Producer?

Cheers.

It is pretty general because that can often be the case. 

Producers govern the direction of the game and things in it by consensus.  This means final sign off on projects and proposals and guidance for those things.  There's also a lot of the administrative stuff that is made by Producer final call.  Staff complaints?  Producers handle them.  (If it's about a specific producer, another producer will handle it.)  Player issues and disagreements that have escalated stop at the Producer level as well.

[Nyr]

Why aren't desert elves widely literate, or are any of them literate at all? (In allundean of course).

There are several answers to this; I'll give as many of them as I can.

The lore answer could be any number of things.  Perhaps tribal elders are literate.  Perhaps the elven race itself is illiterate in the language they speak, and the only folks literate in allundean are nobles and templars with a specific focus in learning that written language from their carefully guarded library resources.  Perhaps elven tribes rely more heavily on oral tradition instead of passing things down by written form.  Until such a time as the documentation is more clear on it, one would have to make IC assumptions on that if they were curious about it.

Historically (in an OOC sense) I doubt any PC elf has been literate, but I'm not 100% positive on that.  Literacy for anyone (apart from the groups that do have it) is a subject that has been discussed previously with staff and it has not gone anywhere.

[HavokBlue]

Cool, thanks. I'd always wondered if there was an actual IC reason for it or if it's just one of those things that is because it was never addressed.

[Desertman]

I'm going to ask a few questions just of curiosity since you rarely get this sort of chance.  

1) Do we ever have any plans of making silt skimmers function more like wagons in the sense that you could live on them/store things on them instead of them functioning like mounts with tickets currently?

2) Many many many years ago there was a plotline where a sliver of magick diamond had to be retrieved for a staff ran NPC in the bottom of some ancient dwarven mines. The T'zai Byn unit that my elf was a part of then got hired to do this. The sliver of diamond, when held, would make you lose your mind and start seeing things. The NPC in reference referred to everyone as "Cully". Do you remember this, and what in the world was all of that about? Also, the next RL day, after that sliver of diamond was lost to the void deep in those mines....it reappeared to my PC under a bench in the sparring hall, which of course my elf picked up....because diamond....and it made me lose my mind. Why did it come back? (This may have been close to fifteen years ago, I understand if nobody remembers, but I have always wondered. One of my favorite RPT's.)

3) Why did we decide to kill off all of the halflings? I liked halflings. I want halflings back.

4) Do you foresee wagons being craftable by PC's fully being implemented at any time in the near future?

5) Why did we kill off kanks? A yellow kank stands here. Allofmynostalgia.jpg  

6) If there was one thing you could change about the game if you had unlimited resources, what would it be?

7) In Arm 2.0, I believe there were plans to implement player-ran agriculture to some degree? Are those plans still on the table somewhere for Arm now? (I wanna' be a, farmer, crop grower, twenty inch blades, on my garden hoe'er.) 90's kids know what I'm talking about

8.) I feel like the flooding of the forest etc...was part of a push to "change" the landscape more dramatically and push it towards things that were planned for Arm 2.0. Was that the case and with Arm 2.0 being scrapped, was the forest flooding and landscape change there a sort of, "Well, let's just roll with it now.", situation?

9) Which staffer puts in the most time when it comes to staffing Arm? Come on, step into the lime light, you know who you are.  

10) What is the longest single length of playtime out of a player with no logout breaks or going link dead that you can recall?

11) With the ability to now create our own tribes....Can we create our own desert elf tribes or are they still limited to just the tribes that are currently open/staff supported?

12) Is more widespread literacy in the playerbase a thing the staff is considering/has considered and if so, what is the greatest hurdle to having it implemented? If there are no hurdles, is it just a matter of staff not wanting it in the game currently?

13) There was some work being done at one point to limit the powers of The Way for non-psions to make it less of a universal "Are you online and what's your sdesc."-tool. Is that still in the works somewhere?

14) If you can think of the actions of a single PC that you feel changed the world most dramatically without them being part of a staff-ran plot (in any fashion), who would they have been and what did they do that comes to mind?

15) The banking code. Nyr, you know where I'm going with this. It has been almost a year. Just consider this my reset on the timer.  

[Adhira]

What do Producers do? - A lot of what I do is talk to other staff. Storytellers might come to me with an idea and want to brainstorm it a little. Or they might have questions about how best to approach something, or ask for some guidance in dealing with a situation. Administrators will be asking about higher level changes, if things will fit with the overall direction Producers are looking at right now, and so on. We do a lot of long term planning. We have plans for things we'd like to do in the next 6 months, the next year, the next two. These are story related, building related and policy related. A lot of times things don't stay on track and get delayed due to RL and staff turnover. So one of the things we're discussing right now is the way we recruit and how to tighten that up so we don't have long periods of time where there's only 1 active staff member on a clan group.

I also read through the request tool regularly, that's where a lot of the storyteller brainstorming is going on, where they're talking about the player plots etc. We also do those jobs that no one else really wants to tackle like Account Notes, Special Apps, Player and Staff Complaints. I sponsor projects, right now I have active: Allanak Rooftops, Critter Creation, Tattoo Project, Clay Craftables, Apartment Renovations.  Sponsoring them means I oversee them to make sure they stay on track, that I commit to working with any staff that join those project teams and sign off on anything they build within a week. I also do building for some of them (Rooftops and Apartments are ones I'm actively building on). Finally we also get to worm our way into plotlines, this means I get to help out with animations, echo's and planning.

[Adhira]

Desertman:

1) No. We have no plans for this.

2) You know it sounds vaguely familiar, I'd have to spend some time researching to find out more on it. It was before my time on staff though, most likely it was something that was dreamt up on the day and then someone saw your PC sitting there and decided to fuck with it.

3) Well, first I will point out that we (current Producers) didn't decide to kill off the halflings. That decision was made by the Overlord team. They were wiped out though in reaction to somethings that were happening IC as well as some thought to copyright issues.

4) About 2 years ago we had a large scale project to make a form of wagons craftable. Some storytellers (Talia and Rathustra I think) put in a lot of work building all the components needed to make this happen. We brainstormed what form of wagons could be crafted, and how they could be crafted. Morgenes started working on the wagon crafting skill. There was a code hold up. It got put on the back burner, it's still there. Could it be released in game at any point? Yes. It requires someone with the code savviness to finish up that crafting code.

5) Again, current Producers didn't kill off kanks, this was not our decision. It was however part of the decision making for the implementors or Arm 2. Kanks were a source material issue, and so they were pinpointed as something that had to go.

6) Code base. I'd pay a team of people to put together a code base, with complimentary web tools then move our game over to it. Its so much work to even think about with our current set up and volunteers that I just can't, but I'd love something that was easier for us to work with.

7) I don't remember agriculture plans.

Yes you are correct. Yes the plan is sort of 'let's just roll with it'. We had some other plans in mind for that area. Like the Under Tuluk question it became an issue of resources, which parts of the game to change when, and so on. It could still happen. Things may change there, right now it's not on any of the active project lists.

9) Not me.

10) Memory eludes me.

11) From the helpfile:
You may only create tribal or family roles for humans, dwarves and city elves (desert elves, half-giants and mul tribes/families are not permitted).

12) Yes we've considered it. We've gone back and forth on it. We haven't really decided how we want to go with it, but we would like to see it expanded. We put it on hold because books have issues. We don't want to have more people playing with a code that doesn't save your items properly, or can sometimes crash the game. I believe Nathvaan talked in the player staff meeting about why it's not a simple solution to fix this code, but it is something he has on his radar.

13) I don't recall this project.

14) It's early, I haven't had coffee, need more time on this one.