Armageddon Brainstorming - Get it while it's hot/

[Patuk]

I don't have much to add to many of the good, bad and crazy-sounding ideas in here per se. That said, storyteller turnover seems ridiculously high from a player perspective, so have you asked all the ST's that are no longer around just what would help? I figure that if anyone should comment, it is them.

[nauta]

On account notes:

I've heard now both staff and players dislike the system that is in place.  This certainly seems like one thing that could be eliminated or changed.  Here's a small suggestion:

o Make it automatic - you gain one karma every X months of IG time (or years, maybe with a scale, e.g., the first after 3 months OF IG TIME, the second after 7, the third after 10, and so on.  (Numbers can be fiddled.)  However, if there is a player complaint against you, you would "miss" that automatic karma, that time around, and have to wait until the next one, and an egregious player complaint would dock your karma.

o Decouple account notes from RP review and outsource RP review to players - Both staff and players can use "player complaints" (perhaps rename it to: player suggestions or RP suggestion) to comment on your RP - with degrees of suggestions coming in the form of "complaint" (which, unless a staff tosses it as silly butthurt, would stall your karma progression, or even remove a karma if egregious) to "worry" to "friendly reminder" or something like that.

[Barzalene]

Curious about the staff conversation and reaction to these ideas. Are you guys finding yourselves reevaluating in unexpected ways?

[Nathvaan]

Curious about the staff conversation and reaction to these ideas. Are you guys finding yourselves reevaluating in unexpected ways?

It's a good question.  While this thread isn't designed to be a staff/player back and forth brainstorming session, I can say we are listening and discussing the situations as a whole.  Naturally, that includes some of the points brought up here.

Keep the ideas coming until the thread closes down.  We love the input!

[mansa]

I just have code ideas about the world:

A)
Have room descriptions be able to modified in a slight 'wiki' like mode, with changes being submitted for final approval.  All potential changes would be published to see the various changes that have happened over the years.   This would allow more people to have more input in the world around them.


B)
Same with items.  Harmonize weapons stats, and have a stock item creation tool.  Have the growth of a character be their skills and strategy, rather than gaining overpowered item xyz.  Have the ability to add new items be simplified and easier.


C)
OOC notes on a pfile, much like bios, where characters can add reports, while inside the game and outside, instead of having to rely on a conversation done in email.



You can consider that Valve software has designed their latest software - Source 2 - to have better "community input" into adding content, and this will always allow the newest games to grow more, when the players can more easily add new things to the game they play.

[Rokal]

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

For the 1+karma thing and automated characters, as someone whos staffed on Rp's before with character apps .. No, it can go bad, and I personally think it's best to leave them in approval by staffers, but--

I can agree with the bolded part especially! I think a more personal interaction with admins or clan staff can do everyone some good, becuase you staffers can hear directly from the players, and the staffer can directly speak to the player - the rift or distance that the request tool leaves  is not really personal, and I think a more personal interaction could be better for the game as a whole.

[i love toilets]

I would like the automatic karma gains system. Just make it, a really long time, and only applicable for the four karma you can gain as someone who's knowledgeable about the racial and cultural aspects of the game.

[Saellyn]

On account notes:

I've heard now both staff and players dislike the system that is in place.  This certainly seems like one thing that could be eliminated or changed.  Here's a small suggestion:

o Make it automatic - you gain one karma every X months of IG time (or years, maybe with a scale, e.g., the first after 3 months OF IG TIME, the second after 7, the third after 10, and so on.  (Numbers can be fiddled.)  However, if there is a player complaint against you, you would "miss" that automatic karma, that time around, and have to wait until the next one, and an egregious player complaint would dock your karma.

o Decouple account notes from RP review and outsource RP review to players - Both staff and players can use "player complaints" (perhaps rename it to: player suggestions or RP suggestion) to comment on your RP - with degrees of suggestions coming in the form of "complaint" (which, unless a staff tosses it as silly butthurt, would stall your karma progression, or even remove a karma if egregious) to "worry" to "friendly reminder" or something like that.

So because someone sends in a complaint (that might be unfounded), I lose out on karma? No thanks.

[Semper]

Why make the karma system automated when the current one works fine? I wasnt able to read prior posts but as long as staff are okay with the current karma process let's just stick with it.

[Barsook]

Why make the karma system automated when the current one works fine? I wasnt able to read prior posts but as long as staff are okay with the current karma process let's just stick with it.

[Tetra]

I personally think the distance from staff/playerbase is necessary.  Mumble or teamspeak is definitely not a good idea at all(and the amount of trolling potential, massive). 

If any of you have ever been in a leadership position in a guild or some RP group with more 20-50 people, you know how stressful and exhausting that can get.  Everyone wants your attention, and you simply can't provide it hands-on, individually to each person, and get your work done at the same time.  It's just not humanly doable.

There is such a thing as being too enmeshed in your community, where boundaries and expectations become a nightmare.

[nauta]

Why make the karma system automated when the current one works fine? I wasnt able to read prior posts but as long as staff are okay with the current karma process let's just stick with it.

I should've been more clear: under the assumption that the current account notes system was something that created a lot of busywork and distracted from storytellers telling stories.  If that's not the case, then, like, yeah!

And the idea also would be that a legitimate player complaint about your RP would stall your karma, not an illegitimate one, e.g., if staff verifies (or even sees) that you have been ignoring the virtual world and things like that.

Maybe that'd generate more work in the end...

[Norcal]

Account notes: Staff seem to hate them, but the whole karma system is linked to them so decouple karma from account notes.

I think that for every ten days played on a PC, there should be a mandatory tete a tete with the persons storyteller.  The results of this meeting could be put into a system that would automatically credit or debit karma based on a set of indicators, once certain levels for each indicator had been attained. The point for longevity could be added for example, after the total days played on an account was 10.

As I wrote a day or so ago, the karma system is tied into something that staff do not like to spend time on. Account notes.
You could still use the same type of system, allowing points for various things, just unhitch it from account notes.  

If character reports for non-leadership PCs are going to become fewer and more minimalist, then that means the information for an account review  will become even more scarce.  What will get in the notes is most likely the negatives.

However if you have this review process like I suggested above then there is more staff-player interaction, karma increases are more relevant to they way someone has been playing recently, not based on notes from years past, and there is a lot more accountability on both sides.

As it stands now, something the players want quite a bit is connected to something that as far as I can tell staff do not like and is very low priority. That right there is a reason to make a change.

[nauta]

Account notes: Staff seem to hate them, but the whole karma system is linked to them so decouple karma from account notes.

I think that for every ten days played on a PC, there should be a mandatory tete a tete with the persons storyteller.  The results of this meeting could be put into a system that would automatically credit or debit karma based on a set of indicators, once certain levels for each indicator had been attained. The point for longevity could be added for example, after the total days played on an account was 10.

As I wrote a day or so ago, the karma system is tied into something that staff do not like to spend time on. Account notes.
You could still use the same type of system, allowing points for various things, just unhitch it from account notes.  

If character reports for non-leadership PCs are going to become fewer and more minimalist, then that means the information for an account review  will become even more scarce.  What will get in the notes is most likely the negatives.

However if you have this review process like I suggested above then there is more staff-player interaction, karma increases are more relevant to they way someone has been playing recently, not based on notes from years past, and there is a lot more accountability on both sides.

As it stands now, something the players want quite a bit is connected to something that as far as I can tell staff do not like and is very low priority. That right there is a reason to make a change.

I like this idea too!  In general, some way to make karma less time-intensive for staff.  Maybe the first four points of karma could be basically automatic, with the remainder being taken care of via Norcal's suggestion (since presumably there's a LOT of people asking for karma 1, and far fewer asking for karma 5.)

[Tetra]

From what I'm hearing, the main idea stems from streamlining backstage work loads to accommodate more healthy involvement in spinning plots, so...Let's break that down.


Expanded responsibilities for junior staff = minimized request tool queue

Less request tool burden = More staff time to storytell

More storytelling = more opportunity for account notes, player observation, and interaction


Seems to be a win-win.

[Malken]

I know that this is probably not going to be a very popular idea Staff-side, but if you guys have that much problem integrating (and automating) extended subguilds to the current code system (I'm going to assume that this is the problem, surely you don't still need to beta all of them many years after they've been implemented?) Why not just make them karma-required and let those who have the karma for it play them as much as they'd like, just like I could (technically speaking) make 10 whirans in a row, I don't see what the problem would be if I made 10 warrior outdoorsmen in a row..

For now, you could make it so that you're only allowed to have either a karma required extended subguild or a karma required class and that would solve the problem until you can automate it, no?

As someone who doesn't like playing 'giker classes, that would also reward me better. I'm not really sure why we're limited to three per years to be honest.

[wizturbo]

Personally I don't want extended subguilds to become the new subguild, which is what would happen if they were always available.

[Tetra]

As someone who doesn't like playing 'giker classes, that would also reward me better. I'm not really sure why we're limited to three per years to be honest.

Because a large majority of the playerbase are veterans, and if you could special app. with impunity it would:
1) Likely add a significant amount of time over an IRL year to process all those requests.
2) Always special apping powerful classes marginalizes the in-game representation of other mundane roles by making them the majority
3) If the extended subguilds were automated, you could roll whiran/powerful subguild over and over.

[Patuk]

You may want to read his post again, Tetra.

[CodeMaster]

This'll probably be an unpopular suggestion, but what about somehow reducing the number of mastercrafts that can come in?  Keep it at one per month, but also require that the character has 'credit' towards making a mastercraft, where he or she accumulates one credit for every IC year survived (happy birthday! You now have 2 mastercraft credits).

As a side effect, this rewards longevity and might inspire players to ICly structure their year around researching a particular mastercraft.  GMH merchants could also get extra credits (maybe two per IC year) to reflect their exposure to better workshops and teachers.

[HavokBlue]

I don't think the one mastercraft a month each crafter sends in is the thing causing staffers to burnout.

[CodeMaster]

I don't think the one mastercraft a month each crafter sends in is the thing causing staffers to burnout.

Poo poo to you too.  To be fair, only staff knows what is causing staffers to burn out.

[seidhr]

I think it would probably be more fruitful to steer the suggestions away from the "big code revamp" ideas, to how we can improve without having to rebuild the mud, etc.  Even what seems like a small code change can be considerably more complicated than one might think.  Suggestions about process stuff is (usually) easier to implement and thus more likely to have an impact.

For example, someone was saying "You should make the mud work like Wikipedia where the community can maintain the rooms/descriptions/etc."  Well - that would be cool and stuff, but it would also be a massive, massive, massive undertaking.  That same person was talking about the video game studio Valve doing this with their new game(s).  According to Wikipedia, Valve has an equity value of 2.5 billion dollars.  That's billion with a b.  Not be self-deprecating, but we are not really on the same playing field.

[wizturbo]

4 pages into the thread, my money is still on expanding staff to include a group of non-plot focused roles.  Builders, administrative, and other non-story driven tasks.  You could even create separate staff tracks.  Coders, builders and admin, and storytelling.

[Tetra]

You may want to read his post again, Tetra.

It was mostly directed to magickers and the limitation on special apps.  I think those restrictions are fine.  I know he meant you could only choose magicker or extended, but that also comes with its own host of dilemmas.  What if you want to play both?  It would be better to find a more permanent solution than a band-aid quick fix.