Armageddon Brainstorming - Get it while it's hot/

[Malken]

Since I like the idea so much right now:

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49003.msg872665.html#msg872665

Yeah, going a bit with my idea and yours, I think that Staff needs to re-think their staffing hierarchy. I don't think that assigning staff to clans is really the optimal option there. I think that in a way (and that's my personal belief, mind you) a lot of storytellers probably left because they felt like they were too shackled and tied to their specific area as opposed to what they thought it would be like. I think that they went from having fun as a PC to a super bureaucratic and constraining area of the game that would make France's bureaucracy looks like a childcare.

They need to make the role of a storyteller and admin "fun" as opposed to "volunteers" who sacrifice away their "fun time" to do very tedious stuff that often drives them away.

[KankWhisperer]

Loosen your iron grip on everything and push more of the work and responsibility onto players. It will be less work until we crash and burn then a bit of cleanup.

[nauta]

Loosen your iron grip on everything and push more of the work and responsibility onto players. It will be less work until we crash and burn then a bit of cleanup.

While this could be put a little more diplomatically, I do think that some of the stuff that staff does that constitutes busywork for them could be shifted from "approving beforehand and implementing" to "letting the players do it and then just popping in to check to make sure there wasn't anything egregiously dumb and retroactively fixing/punishing".  Changing mdescs is an example of this, and perhaps there are others.  At least at certain karma levels.  Then again, I'm an optimist, and think we're all here to collaborate in a collective story.

[deskoft]

I never understood the restriction on mdescs, nor the 'one per 10 IG years' cap. I think mdescs should be able to change within reason. People comb their hair differently, they loose limbs, look dirtier, etcetera. I think if you have X karma, you should be able to change your mdesc once per IG year to represent these changes freely? Otherwise, once per IG year. Just an idea. I think the ability of modifying your mdescs makes your character feel alive. If someone goes around changing their eyes color or their hair color or their height, definitely this player shouldn't be above the X karma cap.

[Dresan]

Considering we all can use tdesc, I think its unnecessary too. ST approval should be more than enough.

[Talia]

I notice this persistent kind of belief that there is a lot of "red tape" or some kind of "shackles" that are on Storytellers. Having been a Storyteller until recently, and now working as an Admin to support STs--I have to say this just isn't true. We all do a lot of checking with each other and cross-coordinating, there is a quality control system for putting new stuff into game, and we do work up proposals for plots and projects. But none of that is "red tape" that's meant to stop staffers from getting stuff done or having fun. It's just how grownups on a team who are trying to get stuff done together work.

It's really difficult for me to give examples, because so much of it is IC. I've made proposals that got shot down, and I've made proposals that got modified, and I've made others that didn't get modified much at all. Remember the Ratsucker plot? Italis and I were given the go-ahead to run with that pretty much as-is. I have made proposals that I thought were really big and sort of crazy and still gotten the go-ahead. There's a way to work together as a team, and it requires a lot of trust and dialogue, and that's what we do. I know that the Producers trust me to fulfill my Admin role responsibly, and I trust the Storytellers who work on the southlands clans to fulfill their roles responsibly--which they totally do. (Most of the time they don't really need much input from me, but I know they will ask for it if they need it.) It's not my job to stomp on them, it's my job to support them, and I know the other Admins see their roles in the same way.

(Another example: Recently I suggested to Cavaticus, "Hey, let's do this thing!" and he hated my idea. Like, totally hated it. So I dropped it, because doing shit as Admin just because I can is a bad idea. It works this way all across the "hierarchy" that we have. Which is a hierarchy, but there's a lot of fluidity and communication and sharing.)

We also do put an emphasis on smaller or lower-level plots, especially those that are player-initiated, and RPTs as well. We have had quite a few of these in the southlands in recent months, and the other areas of the game have been doing similar things.

[Riev]

This has been addressed from various angles, but here's my idle thought re: GMH:

Kurac used to have a list of the common goods posted in the clan forum. It included database numbers for most items. Whenever my Kuraci ordered something that didn't have an database item number, I would ask for the item number with my order and add it to the post for future merchants. Staff seemed to appreciate this. It made everyone's life easier and kept certain common but not always ubiquitous items in circulation.

Then the post was deleted. The deletion didn't add flavor to the game. It didn't add mystery. It just added a huge pain in the ass.

I think clan compound merchants with the most common house goods is the best solution, so that orders can be handled entirely by PC merchants and they can get common goods to their customers quickly and seamlessly. It saves EVERYONE time and headache and hassle. Barring that, perhaps a GDB subforum for each GMH that PC merchants would have access to that lists the goods and their item #s. The current GMH item-ordering system is why I will never play a GMH merchant again and it even tarnishes my interest in other GMH roles.

While I'm right there with you, that this was a huge help in GMH clans. However, I think the database numbers, and items that just had sdescs and no history... they didn't help with ordering. If we can get a list of all things that are possible, craftable, that will help. Employ player help to get this monumental task done, and there won't be need for STs to go scrounging around the database finding "the blackened saber" instead of "the black saber"

[Majikal]

Getting rid of all the staff support needed for orders through clans makes the most sense to me. Would remove a ton of workload from kurac/kadius/salarr right off the get go. Barz's idea is awesome and I've always wondered why it was never like this to begin with. Plus, playing an agent/merchant wouldn't be such an ooc pain in the ass. Incorrect orders would no longer be a pain in the ass for both staff and merchant. Nothing is worse than having your pc get shit-talked too and facing ic repercussions because a staff misloaded something or you couldn't sort out what item they actually wanted because you don't even know your house sells a sword or whatever that looks like that. This is an easy fix that would remove a lot of workload I think.

Character applications that are no-karma should be automated for players with 1+ karma. This would cut down some workload and any abuse of this feature would be pretty easy to handle. Nothing will be worse then the dick-tattooed elf that you guys passed through.  

I wish the back and forth between staff/players was more open. A chat room with available staff present, a mumble server, team speak, whatever. So much delayed back and forth via request tool could get fixed up in 3min chatting with your imm on teamspeak. I think this would make the community feel a bit closer and eliminate some strain on the request tool. I've always been bothered by the rift between players/staff that the request tool leaves. I wish you guys felt more like my homie than my boss or pen pal.

[Malken]

We also do put an emphasis on smaller or lower-level plots, especially those that are player-initiated, and RPTs as well. We have had quite a few of these in the southlands in recent months, and the other areas of the game have been doing similar things.

Okay, but Adhira states that -

"We want to be able to put more of our staffing time into doing things that more directly affect the game. To free up our time so that our staff can run storylines, and participate in those plotlines, make the world more dynamic and perhaps even put some spit and polish on some of those neglected spots out there."

If things are working as intended hierarchy-wise, what exactly is it that's taking a lot of time and prevents you from running storylines, plotlines and make the world more dynamic?

You pretty much handle like 90% of the applications the minute they are in (which is awesom! ) So with that said, and if the storytellers really don't have red tape preventing them from what Adhira is speaking about, what exactly is left to cut out to make more time for you guys? (aside from the reports and little desc changes here and there)

I hope I'm not sounding snarky because that's really not the case, just trying to figure out what sort of ideas you guys are looking for

[Malken]

I also think that if you put so much trust in your storytellers and that they are indeed mature (which I believe they are and that you do indeed trust them) then if a bunch of Salarri hunters decide to go out and they wish up and there's no Salarri staff around, then bored tribal dude storyteller should be able to make it fun for these guys and then just write a quick note as to what they did to Salarri staff guy/girl afterward.

I think that storytellers should be able to bounce all over the place with animations and fun "on the spot" stuff, and the Admin just "recruits" from the pool of storytellers for a particular project when they need it.

This way you can delegate your people where they are needed and you leave nobody having their own little fun on the side.

[nauta]

I also think that if you put so much trust in your storytellers and that they are indeed mature (which I believe they are and that you do indeed trust them) then if a bunch of Salarri hunters decide to go out and they wish up and there's no Salarri staff around, then bored tribal dude storyteller should be able to make it fun for these guys and then just write a quick note as to what they did to Salarri staff guy/girl afterward.

I think that storytellers should be able to bounce all over the place with animations and fun "on the spot" stuff, and the Admin just "recruits" from the pool of storytellers for a particular project when they need it.

This way you can delegate your people where they are needed and you leave nobody having their own little fun on the side.

Maybe it's been stated before, but Malken's last few posts make me curious (and perhaps it'd be helpful to state outright): What is the process for a storyteller to animate or tell a story? I'm inferring there are "rules" that state that a storyteller in zone X can't animate in zone Y.  Is that right?  Further, related to Malken's post, is it the case that storytellers are ever sitting around bored? 

Maybe the process has been posted before.

[Adhira]

Don't worry about sounding snarky - a comment I just made in game was "I guess it's hard for our players to understand what we are asking for, when we don't really know ourselves".

What I can say is that we do have a list of things that have come from ideas on the staff brainstorming, and some from this thread, and let's keep the dialogue going, more may come!

[Malken]

Maybe it's been stated before, but Malken's last few posts make me curious (and perhaps it'd be helpful to state outright): What is the process for a storyteller to animate or tell a story? I'm inferring there are "rules" that state that a storyteller in zone X can't animate in zone Y.  Is that right?  Further, related to Malken's post, is it the case that storytellers are ever sitting around bored? 

Er, mind you, I'm probably totally off on that, but it's just stuff I'm "assuming" from having played many years. I'm sure Talia will correct me if I'm wrong!

(the bored part comes from what I assumed to be a big difference in players to overwatch between tribal staff dude and Allanak GMH dude)

[Adhira]

As far as animating rules - storyteller and all staff are welcome to animate and do echo's any time the choose. There aren't any rules about what part of the world they can animate in, there aren't any zone rules etc. You may have heard something, somewhere about zone restrictions, this is a diku code restriction caused by the fact that we have to manually set permissions for each and every zone on a staff member. In the past staff members were only allowed to have the zones for the clans they staffed in. We haven't had this kind of restriction for at least the last two years. If a staff member needs to animate in a zone and they don't have the right privs they just need to ask and I will grant them the privs.

Staff may make themselves any amount of personal NPCs they wish that they can reserve for themselves to animate, or leave in a pool for anyone to animate. An example of this is - a staff member could create a beggar, or a street urchin and leave it on the street for anyone to hop in to, or tag it with their name and use it to harass bynners in a small scale plotline. If they used it to harass bynners the requirement we'd ask there is that they make a note on the idb when they animated so that all staff know what was happening. That way if anything big happened, and they weren't around, we'd know how to react in case we needed to jump in and help out.  Staff can also make NPCs to play in their clans to interact, they might make common crafter, a lower level noble, or merchant, someone to interact at the same level as the players in the clan and just play with the PCs.

Staff are free to log in to any of the soldiers, bartenders, NPCs wandering the streets, mounts, whatever, at any time. If something results from it that might cause some kind of future storyline of plotline we ask that they write it up on the board. This isn't meant to be red tape, it's so that we have continuation. So that we don't drop the ball on you, the players. So that if you go back to that NPC and try and carry on the interaction we have an idea of what's up and can go from there.

The major restriction that we have is on animating the heavy hitting NPCs. We do ask that staff try not to bring out the big gun NPCs too often. At one time we restricted staff from bringing them out at all. We're much more lenient on this now, we ask them to use their good judgment on this. However, we still prefer the Senior Level NPCs don't come down and direct the play and railroad the shots. Instead staff spend more time in like-level NPCs in advisory and adversary capacity.

So to recap - staff can animate whenever they like. They don't have to get permission. They have the privs they need to animate the npcs they want. What they do have to do is keep the rest of the team informed on who they've animated and why so we're all on the same page. We don't staff in isolation, we run our storylines together. We're a staffing team.

[Tetra]

I have always hoped that the state of realm culture would be amenable to change and evolution.

Not on the scale of dramatic social reform overnight, but the capacity as a PC, to shape norms and expectations given the right circumstances and plot development.  Not to say that this isn't possible already, but is there a way to go about this by garnering staff approval of said plot?  Would I keep this in my reports, or make a separate request notifying staff?  It's my impression that plots of that level require some form of sponsorship.

If there were some opportunities for leeway in this regard, I believe players would be more inclined to "move and shake" their own plots, add to the velocity of storyteller plots, and generally make the game a very interesting space to be in.

[Dresan]

This idea might seem harder to do currently since it is really trust that is in short supply.  However, perhaps its time to expand the ranks again. Either have two admins for each area or have a junior admin that can work with or assist the current admin in almost the same capacity as they can, but still have oversight from both producers and the more trusted senior admin.  This will relieve future stress on both the admin who has a lot responsibility, and the producers when one admin seems to burn out, being able to still be able to delegate tasks to someone else.

Ultimately this just basically means you begin promoting story tellers you feel you can trust a bit more frequently instead of waiting for one over worked person to burn out before putting another one in. If you have an amazing team where you can trust everyone, then everyone should get slowly promoted to admin+ status or something similar, instead of leaving all the work and responsibility to one person. Again as others have said, there is too much work at the top, and not enough freedom and delegation and trust at the bottom.

The code of the game is already protected by the coding team. Skill bumps can be handed by senior staff though I think a one day old assassin running around with master backstab would probably be very noticeable at some point if someone does indeed decide to abuse that but arguable not something you'd leave in the hands of someone starting out. Room and area changes as well, something like that already needs producer approval. I can't imagine many things that would utterly break the game at this point or can't be noticed and handled by producers if someone decides to abuse it.

I mean the moment someone becomes a story teller, they have the ability to roll a whiran, train for a bit, get a list of everyone's name and do some damage. I am sure they can cause other forms of damage to characters  if they wished to abuse their powers too. Since that hasn't happened yet,I think a little more trust all around is alright  and even if it does people can be ressed if a real accident happens. Again if something does go wrong, we are all adults here, come out and explain the situation before restoring what was lost, changed or destroyed, and poof we'll all go back to enjoying the game. I doubt it will ever come to this but again this would be the worst case scenario and all but its still not as bad as continuously having good people burn out .

[aeglaeca]

I wish the back and forth between staff/players was more open. A chat room with available staff present, a mumble server, team speak, whatever. So much delayed back and forth via request tool could get fixed up in 3min chatting with your imm on teamspeak. I think this would make the community feel a bit closer and eliminate some strain on the request tool. I've always been bothered by the rift between players/staff that the request tool leaves. I wish you guys felt more like my homie than my boss or pen pal.

This, so much this. I would really prefer to have some sort of scheduled OOC chat time with the relevant imms than slog through character reports, even if it was rarer compared to once a week leader reports. It'd be a nice way to get a more dynamic feel for whatever it is is being done.

On that note, I've played games in the past that used to have the occasional in-game-but-ooc scheduled 'state of the game' chat when it comes to these kinds of discussions. They're probably never as organized as ideas on a forum, but it's worth noting that not everyone reads the GDB. Some sort of in-game announcement that this thread even exists might be a good idea.

[valeria]

*Finish automating CGP so that extended subguilds, skill bumps, and maybe even the simpler special applications no longer have to be handled manually in every case.

*Go to a browser-based, database system of storing rooms and items.  If you want someone for data entry to switch things over, I would enter data so hard in my free time to make this happen.

*As part of that, create the option to give items and rooms flags or tags, consolidate some items, and rewrite descriptions for old and outdated ones.

Thirty shirt-items with the same description and attributes except for color take a lot of time to enter?  Problem solved: there's now a flag for that.  The [color:red|blue|green|yellow] shirt, it now loads properly depending on whatever color silk was put into it.  And putting in This [!color] shirt just repeats the color it has already assigned to the item.  Or loads randomly into the shop.  Longer variations could give subtle features without having to rewrite a bunch of basic silk blouses: The front of this blouse is [lined with silk ruffles|cut into crisp lines|pleated horizontally|whatever else makes sense].  You now have four items for the input price of one.

Rooms now have the opportunity to have variation among features every time the game loads.  Or the ability to add day/night tags into the description without having to write and enter a separate description for each: The bland room is here.  [day: The sun shines brightly on the sand|night: The darkened sands release the day's stored warmth].

*Consider having some volunteers take over the non-character-sensitive aspects of staffing.

You might think that telling stories and interacting with players is the best part about being a storyteller and that no one would want to do the boring parts without that fun, but I can tell you right now that some people (like me) enjoy proofreading and other stunningly boring chores.  I would apply in a hot minute for any staff-ish job that didn't require me to supervise (or should I say put up with the crap of?) other players or give up my leadership roles.  I think player moderators was a good example of a step in this direction.

[Lizzie]

What Valeria said is part of what I was getting at in my post a couple pages back. I can be critical of staff, but in most cases, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. When it comes to room writing, typos, desc changes, anything involving what the players read, I'm all over it.

I wouldn't want to be part of a clan-staff team. I also know I'm not suitable for it, so there's no loss on either end there. But it's a real shame that there aren't staffers who aren't suitable for clan work, but ARE suitable - and interested - in some of what some of the current and previous staff have considered to be grunt work.

Fixing typos is fun. That's why I report them all the time. Even if I'm not the one you would want to do this kind of work, I really think you should consider pulling in someone who wants to do it, who can do it, and who you would want to do it. Since their responsibilities would have nothing to do with clan stuff, or UNclan stuff, or plotlines per se (other than maybe building a new dungeon to stick all the Tulukis in once Allanak destroys the north and takes over), these "sideline" staffers would still be considered regular players, allowed to play whatever characters they have karma for. Maybe they'd earn an extra point of karma for a job well done as a sideline staff, but the real perk would be that they get to help improve the game in a way they have already expressed an interest.  Oversight - make it so the only time they're allowed to shadow a player or <send> to a player, is in response to a typo that they're in the process of fixing. The only other interaction they'd be allowed to have with PCs, while they are "on duty" as a staffer, would be if they're animating boot-shitting tregils or lost kids or whatever else.

[valeria]

In my version, assuming I got the position, I'd get to look at the typo list and then run around the test game fixing typos.  The typo fixes would get put in the game.  I wouldn't have to animate anything ever or deal with players at all.  (Or build things, or whatever else could be done without interactions of any sort.)

[Taven]

In my version, assuming I got the position, I'd get to look at the typo list and then run around the test game fixing typos.  The typo fixes would get put in the game.  I wouldn't have to animate anything ever or deal with players at all.  (Or build things, or whatever else could be done without interactions of any sort.)

I agree with Lizzie, Valeria, and a number of others who have been presenting this idea.

It's not a staff position, but players were trusted with GDB moderation, and that was a huge asset to staff. You could allow select players or enable a new editing-type staff position that allowed for fixing things like typos. You'd have more interest then you think and I suspect it would free up storyteller time to actually tell stories.

[Kol]

Not sure if it's been suggested yet but...

Mastercraft Submissions -- 30 minutes to (at the very least) 1.5 hours.  Lots of review time here.   Some requests take longer that that, especially if there is something special being done, added, or approved that requires more consideration.  The more complex, the higher you have to go up with staff to get it reviewed, so the more time it takes.  On the upside, these are lower priority.  STs and/or Admins usually build, Admins approve.

Not sure how the code works, but would it be possible to have the players with (master) in a craft skill, be able to build items and submit them for submission? This would cut out a lot of the work, and some sort of timer set so only one can be submitted per month, per PC or Craft, however it works. Then all it would take is a quick look over the item before approval. Simple things like a new description for a hammer, ST+ approval. That's a lot of the time cut out there.

For example, Derpra has master-crafting in a few things  and wants to make a new sword, so after an appropiate amount of roleplay creating, collecting and assembling the design and materials , Derpa the 'Byn merchant simply types

Code Select Expand



>Mastercraft

You can master-craft the following categories
Weaponcrafting Bullshit Sarcasm

Mastercraft weaponcrafting

Choose a damage type for your weapon
Slashing Chopping Piercing Bludgeoning

>Slashing

Sdesc: A bone sword

Dropped Dsec: A bone sword lies here

Mdesc A sword of bone has been crafted from a long bone, into an object with which to decapitate muthafuckers.

Worn Desc: A blood-stained executioners sword

~
Item #21345678 has been created
Thank you for your master-craft, you can submit another in 31 days.


All staff have to do now is check over and approve the item. No sure if you could automate the loading of master-craft items into the system and onto NPC's...codes rally not my thing.

That would leave request tool request for the more than item-desc change category, double the strings on a bow, a chained axe that deals slashing, etc. cut down on the building that storytellers have to do, and the approval speeds for master-craft submissions.

.
Character reports -- sometimes as few as 5 minutes, sometimes as much as an hour.  More if the report is long, more if there is back and forth, more if more staff have to be involved in checking it out.  This is a big part of why we want to revise the format and emphasis on reports.  ST+.

A formalized report process as mentioned above? I can see it taking the personal touch out of reports, but if it helps towards increased staff interaction, I can't see many players complaining.

Item orders -- 10-30 minutes.  We have a staff-side project for making this better but it needs to be completed.  I'm taking a look at that one.  ST+.

You said you got this covered, and Barz won the thread so....

Question/request or Question requests -- could be a minute, could take an hour.  Depends on the content.  The former is ST+, the latter is Admin+.

Is there a way you could have helpers help with questions?

Is there a way the MDESC change could be automated and set on a timer? This could run something like the MDESC in character app, and would only come into effect when approved? This seems like a pretty sore point to some players. And having it set to be available once every 10 IG years would ensure players thought twice before adding three breasts and I <3 IsFriday tattoos in lewd places.

[Lizzie]

In my version, assuming I got the position, I'd get to look at the typo list and then run around the test game fixing typos.  The typo fixes would get put in the game.  I wouldn't have to animate anything ever or deal with players at all.  (Or build things, or whatever else could be done without interactions of any sort.)

I agree with Lizzie, Valeria, and a number of others who have been presenting this idea.

It's not a staff position, but players were trusted with GDB moderation, and that was a huge asset to staff. You could allow select players or enable a new editing-type staff position that allowed for fixing things like typos. You'd have more interest then you think and I suspect it would free up storyteller time to actually tell stories.

The reason I include animations, is in case someone -wants- to do one. And I do emphasize the non-clan-based animations. The clan-specific ones should always be left up to clan staff or admin. But how many times have you encountered a closed gate, after "something" has happened on the other side, but that was like 4 RL hours ago and whatever it was, is long gone/dead by now, but no one has told the NPC soldiers it's safe to open the gate yet? Rather than just "force soldier open gate" you could do a little "force soldier say Yes, Citizen, we were just making sure the coast is clear. The Legion is on the job!" and then force soldier open gate.

Or an NPC who ran from "something" and has been stuck in a shop for the past 2 days, even though the "something" was over an hour after it started. You could just force it to move, or you could force it to look over the wares, pretend to be shopping, maybe pimp or brag about how her gown is better than the one for sale that looks exactly like it - and THEN walk out.

These are also "typos" of a sort. Not exactly bugs, just NPCs who need to get moved back into their usual position or reset on their walking script.

OMG and duped "unique-intended" NPCs...Every time I passed one I'd nuke it.  Sometimes, I'll see the same "unique sdesc/mdesc/outfit" NPC duplicated over 11 times. It's not something that can be fixed with the code at present but it just totally bothers the hell out of me and as a "copy-editor-type volunteer" I'd be giddy as a schoolgirl if I could bounce ten of them into the stratosphere.

[Dresan]

You know I know this might be a bit off topic, but I think the staff should consider outsourcing coded jobs to the player-base too. It worked for many big companies like Microsoft after all with various coders writing small chunks of code before someone else puts it all together and makes it work.

You can give instructions about how you want it coded, language used, and any additional details and function. Then put out the task and see who bites. The code can then be taken and  passed on to the coding team where values could be modified, double checked before tested and added to the existing code.

I mean for me personally writing code from scratch feels daunting and pushing myself to get started is hard but modifying and playing around with existing code is much easier and enjoyable for me. And while you probably want to keep values of combat mechanics and other things secret, something more ooc like automated extended-guild systems and skill bump system might be more easily done if some else codes it and just passes it along to trusted staff. Again since you'd could modify any values and keep them secret after receiving the code.

[Delirium]

In my version, assuming I got the position, I'd get to look at the typo list and then run around the test game fixing typos.  The typo fixes would get put in the game.  I wouldn't have to animate anything ever or deal with players at all.  (Or build things, or whatever else could be done without interactions of any sort.)

I agree with Lizzie, Valeria, and a number of others who have been presenting this idea.

It's not a staff position, but players were trusted with GDB moderation, and that was a huge asset to staff. You could allow select players or enable a new editing-type staff position that allowed for fixing things like typos. You'd have more interest then you think and I suspect it would free up storyteller time to actually tell stories.

This is where I say what I always say; if I could build and nothing else, I'd do that in a heartbeat.