Player retention and you: brainstorming

[Old Kank]

<more stuff>

I'm just waxing philosophical on the nature of authority.  I think that's the basis of most of the player-staff drama.  Whatever the specific scenario, complaint, or involved parties is just incidental.  I suggest that if the staff want to appeal to players who have left because of player-staff drama, they should consider absolving themselves of as much authority as possible.

Let's go back to contributions, red tape, and starter shops for another example:

Regarding contributions: We only really have a hard restriction on mastercrafts. I think players do a lot to step up otherwise. We have builders that are players, and are an immense help in facilitating the building side of staff plans. We have individual clan staff who follow player plots and do building as needed to support them.

I've offered to volunteer multiple times over the past ten years, even provided unsolicited help.  I've been told, "no," "no," and "no, thank you."  My favorite was when I offered to be a helper and was told, "No, sorry, we're not accepting helpers at the moment."  Oh, for fuck's sake, are you serious?  I can't help new players because you guys aren't currently accepting helper applications?  lol.  It seems to me that I can take this one of two ways:  1. The staff doesn't want me, personally, to help, or 2. Staffing is a clusterfuck of red tape and pet projects.  Those are both unappealing options, but I'm at a loss for other explanations.

So, Mordiggian says the red tape isn't that bad (Sorry for picking on you, man, it's nothing personal), and cites the 'rinthi starter shops to prove it (awesome work, by the way).  Here's what I saw, as a player:

1.  September 18, 2010:  Adhira announces starter shops in Tuluk.  She states, "This project has been in the works for a long, long time.   It's been through a number of different people who were working on it. ... A small amount of rooms for what was a decent amount of work for a bunch of people."

2.  Two years later.  September 1, 2012:  Adhira announces starter shops in Allanak.  She states, "This is the result of a great deal of work and I hope you all appreciate the effort as much as I do."

3.  Three weeks shy of three years later.  August 12, 2015:  ArmageddonMUD announces starter shops in the 'rinth.  Big thanks to Mordiggian and Co.  Mordiggian says they made 88 items, some NPCs, and some rooms.  He says, and I quote:  "No ridiculous bureaucracy or red tape or extra work."

It took ten people and over five years to what?  Write ~300 items, rooms, and NPCs?  That's roughly one item/room/NPC per week, or one item/room/NPC per staffer every two months.  And there wasn't red tape or bureaucracy?  Do you understand how that sounds?  I understand, staff have lives, it's a volunteer effort, etc.  I'm not complaining or being critical - really, I'm not - but do you understand how frustrating that is to hear, as a player?  How about as a player who has offered to help, and been told "no?"

[wizturbo]

I don't have anything to add, because Old Kank is absolutely nailing it.  I wish this forum had an upvote button, I'd make 50 accounts and upvote his latest posts 50 times.  And I wouldn't even care if 49 of those accounts got banned for it.

Okay, I lied, I do have something to add.  I've noticed positive changes the last couple of weeks both in-game, and in my OOC communications with staff.  Just because this somewhat negatively leaning thread is still active doesn't mean good things aren't happening, either as a result of it or due to coincidental timing...  Just an open staff kudos to give credit where credit is due.  Please don't let any constructive criticism offered here drag you down.

[Delirium]

I don't have anything to add, because Old Kank is absolutely nailing it.

agreement quotepyramid for truth and justice and the Armageddon way

[BadSkeelz]

I don't have the time or real interest to read back through all the whinging, but Oldkank did you ever apply to be a Staffer during one of the rolecalls?

[Armaddict]

From Mordiggy's post:

2. I asked if anyone was still actively working on it. Turns out the staffers involved were no longer on the team.

3. I asked if anyone had issues with me taking over the project. All clear!

From what I can tell from the example (which does not address the issue, but it made me curious), this seems to be an issue here?  Is this common?  This could just be phrasing, but this makes it sound like projects are by area rather than by staff member, so that rotations and such can mess with things and leave them unfinished.  Does this mean there are projects that are half-finished but lost priority and are now being bumped down the queue?  That some staffers are interested in something, half-do it, then lose interest and it sits there?  Some explanation of how this went about would be nice, because that could be an easy fix for some improvement, at least in expediency.

I'd like to know about that kind of thing, because like Old Kank was off-handedly referring to...I'm pretty certain there are players that would be willing to take some of that workload of things that are sitting waiting to be finished.

[Adhira]

Projects can be by area or by staff member in origination.  Regardless of that the project is usually something that one or two people take on as theirs.

The rinth starter room project was a project that a couple of people were interested in working on and doing so. They left staff, no one else was interested in taking up the project till Mordiggian asked about it.  We don't make people work on things they aren't interested in, we try and let them do projects that they have an affinity for. Similarly while we will set time frames and try and help them get things to completion we let people do their projects at their own pace. Some people work faster than others, so they can have an idea, do the building, whatever else in a week and get their project in. Some people like to take more time or intersperse the work with other things so they may take several weeks to work on a similar project.

[Old Kank]

I don't have the time or real interest to read back through all the whinging, but Oldkank did you ever apply to be a Staffer during one of the rolecalls?

I did a while back.  In 2014, maybe?  That was one of the times when I offered to help, and was told, "no," because I had a negative account note.  That's how I learned I had a negative account note.  I don't know what it says, don't care to read it, and don't want to drag the conversation back around to that subject!

[BadSkeelz]

But you could have asked. Could have had that conversation. Maybe could have had it expunged. And then you could have started contributing like you say you want to.



Instead it's just more of what this thread has been derailed by: entitled whining from people who want to "contribute" and play, but only on their own terms and if they don't get what they want its other peoples' fault.

[Mordiggian]

The staff members working on the starter shop project left the team.

Unfortunately, if there is nobody working on the project, other team members are not always in a position to pick up the slack. Like Taijan mentioned previously, we all have real lives and we all have a finite amount of time to spend on our favorite internet bone sword simulator.

I believe Anaiah was in charge of the Rinth shops in 2010, for example. She left the team, and that didn't happen. In 2012, Italis did some work on them before leaving the team. It's not a case of one person doing one item a week for five years. It's a case of the people who volunteered to undertake the projects no longer participating as staff in any capacity. The first thing I did when I revived the project was enlist players (builders) to get it done in a timely fashion.

I think the 'red tape' argument would hold more weight if it was a case of some administrative process resulting in the delay but that's not really the case.

On the player end of things, I totally get that it seems frustrating and slow, especially if you've offered to help. But let's continue with the starter shop example. Let's say you volunteer and submit 30 different starter items. A staff member still needs to review them for typos or other issues (basic editorial review, I don't think anyone has an issue with this?) and then they still need to be built in-game. Because the game does not exist in a database that can be edited outside of the game, all item/room/NPC building happens in the same text editor we all use to write characters, books, board posts, etc. So while yes, your submission would have handled the creative aspect (which is an admittedly big part of the process) it doesn't handle the technical details and if nobody is available/willing to commit time to the project... it doesn't do any good to have 30 descriptions and nobody building them.

From Mordiggy's post:

2. I asked if anyone was still actively working on it. Turns out the staffers involved were no longer on the team.

3. I asked if anyone had issues with me taking over the project. All clear!

From what I can tell from the example (which does not address the issue, but it made me curious), this seems to be an issue here?  Is this common?  This could just be phrasing, but this makes it sound like projects are by area rather than by staff member, so that rotations and such can mess with things and leave them unfinished.  Does this mean there are projects that are half-finished but lost priority and are now being bumped down the queue?  That some staffers are interested in something, half-do it, then lose interest and it sits there?  Some explanation of how this went about would be nice, because that could be an easy fix for some improvement, at least in expediency.

I'd like to know about that kind of thing, because like Old Kank was off-handedly referring to...I'm pretty certain there are players that would be willing to take some of that workload of things that are sitting waiting to be finished.

When someone wants to start a project, they write a quick post (or lengthy, if they feel it's necessary) and post it on our proposal board. This doesn't really apply to things like dropping in a new clan NPC or adjusting an item or room, but rather real meaty projects etc. Usually that person is the project leader, or project sponsor and they play the role a project leader might in a professional environment, ensuring deadlines are met, ensuring a cohesive vision, etc. Typically, people propose projects in their own staffing areas, but there's not a hard rule about that. The rest of the team has an opportunity to voice concerns, brainstorm ideas, volunteer to join the team for that project, and so on.

Sometimes ideas don't survive this phase. This is not a bad thing. Some ideas just don't cut it, or sometimes the time isn't right. Sometimes the person proposing the idea doesn't have time to commit to see it through, or sometimes they need additional assistance that can't be promised. If a project is greenlit though, it's now up to the people on that project team to see it through. Sometimes that doesn't happen, and yeah, that sucks when turnover kills a project. Steps have been taken to reduce the number of projects that are started and not finished, such as a probation period for new storytellers before they can create their own proposals (though they are free to help with other proposals, or do what I did and cheat by having their admin post a proposal for them ). Sometimes a proposal might get posted but an admin will step in and say "Hey, you've started three other projects and they're not done yet. Maybe finish those before you take on another?" As a rule, we also try to avoid one person leading more than one 'big' project at a time.

With all of this in mind, we can, and often do solicit players for assistance. Our builders have been doing great work and we often ask players in our clans if they'd like to submit descriptions/items/whatever for relevant projects. This can and does expedite processes.

[Patuk]

But you could have asked. Could have had that conversation. Maybe could have had it expunged. And then you could have started contributing like you say you want to.



Instead it's just more of what this thread has been derailed by: entitled whining from people who want to "contribute" and play, but only on their own terms and if they don't get what they want its other peoples' fault.

Q: Have you applied for staff?

A: Yes, but I didn't get it since I have an account note

Q: Ah, entitlement

...

Seriously though?

[nauta]

I've noticed positive changes the last couple of weeks both in-game, and in my OOC communications with staff.

I'd be curious: have any of the suggestions in this thread have been taken up or adopted?  I've heard a lot of staff say that they do that already, and a couple times a staff member said they liked an idea and were tossing it upstairs...  Perhaps a small write-up when staff has time of what suggestions were taken up would be helpful

Also, just for my own sake, I'd like to know what the official staff position is on account notes:

1) do all negative account notes (be they 'account' or 'character') get e-mailed to players?  (This is what Euronymous's post suggests.)  

2) do only negative account notes that are 'account' get e-mailed to players? (This is what seidhr's posts state.)

Thanks!
(And maybe a word or two on the difference between an 'account' and a 'character' note.)

[BadSkeelz]

But you could have asked. Could have had that conversation. Maybe could have had it expunged. And then you could have started contributing like you say you want to.



Instead it's just more of what this thread has been derailed by: entitled whining from people who want to "contribute" and play, but only on their own terms and if they don't get what they want its other peoples' fault.

Q: Have you applied for staff?

A: Yes, but I didn't get it since I have an account note and didn't take any steps to have that looked at, discussed, or maybe even personally grow from the experience. Instead I just moved back into the background until a time when I could step forward and criticize others from a position of zero responsibility.

Q: Ah, entitlement

...

Seriously though?

ftfy

[Delirium]

This is your pointed reminder:

Less snark and meanness. More constructive conversation.

[LauraMars]

Old Kank, the Comm100 chat system we use to talk to new players has a limited number of "slots" available for support personnel.  I agree that if staff don't want you personally to help the game, or have some issue with that idea, they should probably open up a frank discussion with you about that.  Nothing stings quite like wanting to help and being rejected and not knowing the real details as to why.  But just to let you know that there is a coded limitation for how many people can currently be a helper.

Also, to briefly speak up in defense of staff...(*braces for impact*) Players can't code items into the game.  Players can't set up shopkeepers or build crafting recipes or run tests to make sure something isn't going to crash the game or do the million data entry key presses that are necessary in order to bring something to life in Armageddon.  To do that you need to be able to access the staff side of the game, and I have no doubt that the actual, physical act of keying all that stuff in is time consuming. Yeah, players can take care of writing descriptions, and I will admit that is a big part of it.  I've submitted things to the game nearly every time they've been asked for. But I'm sure that that is far from the only part of Making Armageddon.

Maybe the answer is to hire more staffers whose focus is completing projects.  Maybe staff need to reach out to players more if they think they need help.  I don't know, I'm not saying there's no room for improvement there.  But if we see projects like the starter shops take five years to complete, I imagine it's not because nothing is getting done or changing in the game world.  Armageddon is a hobby and a game, and just like absolutely every facet of the game, if you aren't enjoying yourself as a staff member, I don't see any reason why you should have to continue staffing, even if that does mean a project falls by the wayside.  It seems like there are a lot of projects in the pipeline, and I'm sure some of those may fall by the wayside too, or take what seems like a disproportionate amount of time to complete.  But a lot of them won't, and we can enjoy them.

And hey, BadSkeelz. Ease it back.

[Malken]

Please don't let people like BadSkeelz make you abandon that thread, Old Kank. You're bringing in a lot of good points and Staff are obviously reading/thinking about it all.

[seidhr]

Old Kank, the Comm100 chat system we use to talk to new players has a limited number of "slots" available for support personnel.  I agree that if staff don't want you personally to help the game, or have some issue with that idea, they should probably open up a frank discussion with you about that.  Nothing stings quite like wanting to help and being rejected and not knowing the real details as to why.  But just to let you know that there is a coded limitation for how many people can currently be a helper.

Yeah the Helper chat only has a limited number of slots for the version we're using (free or very cheap) - I believe they try to upsell you to a paid version, but we make it work with the free version because we don't really need the bigger and badder version.  If it makes you feel any better, I'm not a helper either!

[Armaddict]

Thanks for the replies, Diggy and Adhira.

Even with the explanation, though, I do tend to agree that when projects are taking more than years, there's some streamlining or delegation that could be done.  I'm one of the players who is actually enjoying the game quite a bit right now (and for the last fifteen years), and my gripes are few.  If you guys don't think that several years for such projects is a little...meh, then that is, in the end, up to you.  I think that's a definite area of relatively easy improvement, staff-side though.  Then again...that's only been certain projects, which I don't know about, so I'm not exactly in the know about it, so take that with a grain of salt.

(Oh, and diggy...good work on getting the player-builders on that project.  I think that's an important thing.  Very important.)

[Molten Heart]

I don't have the time or real interest to read back through all the whinging, but Oldkank did you ever apply to be a Staffer during one of the rolecalls?

I did a while back.  In 2014, maybe?....

You'd be a good addition to staff, IMO.

[Dresan]

I think there is a little misconception here. I think players aren't allowed to code/builds things to the game not so much players can't. The game code is old but we are moving into the age of the internet of things. Everyone can learn to code, and I recommend everyone to look up a programming langauge and try because it looks great on a resume, plenty of help on youtube for even the most clueless of people.

Now, does the staff want random people to handle their code, potentially steal it and make armageddon clones? No and they shouldn't.

However, I still believe smaller coding jobs and other work can and should be easily delegating to the playerbase as we have seen seen by the new builder roles.  I do believe the staff takes on too much for themselves needlessly when they can trust other people to do just as good of a job as they can. I think that many times staff members really just do want to do all the work themselves,solo, but unfortunately RL happen and it just causes burn out. I would love to see more work delegated, especially as Nessalin continues to clean up the old code.

Our newbie helper system is ancient though, I think this is one part we can really do better in. As I mentioned before we should really get an in-game system going to ensure a newbie gets the best experience possible.

[LauraMars]

I think there is a little misconception here. I think players aren't allowed to code/builds things to the game not so much players can't. The game code is old but we are moving into the age of the internet of things. Everyone can learn to code, and I recommend everyone to look up a programming langauge and try because it looks great on a resume, plenty of help on youtube for even the most clueless of people.

That's what I meant...I'm sure everybody who plays Armageddon also has the mental capacity to create items and npcs.  Diku building is dead easy, it isn't even learning a programming language or anything of similar complexity.  It's just that most players won't have access to that, probably because it means also having access to a whole lot of other things that might be considered spoilers.  

What would be super cool is some kind of web-based building tool that players could access like the request tool.  Some simple web form that you could fill in for creating objects, rooms, npcs, with fields for everything relevant.  Imagine being a staffer putting out a call for <whatever>, and then being able to log in to the staff console, approve submissions from players, and have the act of approval be the process that creates the new <whatever> in the actual game itself.

that would be dreamy

SO JUST LET ME DREAM

[Old Kank]

Old Kank, the Comm100 chat system we use to talk to new players has a limited number of "slots" available for support personnel.

That's good to know.  I wish staff had just said that to me at the time.  It's not something I'm burning with resentment over, but it was another "wtf, really?" moment that made me question what's happening in staff-land.  Communication is key, as has been said previously.

On player contributions:
I know building and reviewing and implementing things are a labor-intensive process.  My goal here is not to suggest staff are terrible people for not getting things done in a timely manner.  My suggestion is more along the lines of empowering players, and blurring the lines between staff who have ALL the responsibility, and the players who hungrily line up to the trough.

For example, why is building a limited role?  Why not raise the builder cap from 3 to 30?  Or 300?  If someone has been playing for a few years, and they have a good sense of the setting, why not give them freedom to pursue their own projects?  Why do projects have to be purely the domain of staff?

I'm not suggesting a building free-for-all; implement quality control measures.  But you have all this creative energy that sits unused because players are unwilling or unable to put in the effort to do things via their characters. That's a shame.

Is there a part-time builder role?  I don't want game secrets, I don't want to scour the IDB, I don't want to retire my character.  Give me freedom to work on small projects independently, and seek approval for them once they're finished.  If I don't finish them, it's no harm, no foul.  Put my name in the hat for big projects that aren't likely to affect my character.  Let me fix typos, rather than report them and wait for someone else fix them.

Better still, give me a script template that will let me write a text file that staff members can plug into the game and automatically build items/rooms/NPCs that I've written, to avoid most of the work that Mordiggian referred to.  I've built on MUDs before, and it can be streamlined pretty easily, unless Arm has some odd technical restrictions against that.

This is the age of wikipedia and Minecraft.  Crowd-source some of this stuff.

[BadSkeelz]

I don't trust this community much more than any other online community, so I'm leery of crowdsourcing direct access to "Fix" whatever.

That said, Old Kank, are you aware of the Builder Role? It might be what you're looking for.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49193.0.html

I don't know if they're taking any new ones on at the moment, so you might have to wait, but you should apply next time. And if that account note comes up again, try asking about it. It might be ancient or no longer relevant.

[Narf]

I've noticed positive changes the last couple of weeks both in-game, and in my OOC communications with staff.

I'd be curious: have any of the suggestions in this thread have been taken up or adopted?  I've heard a lot of staff say that they do that already, and a couple times a staff member said they liked an idea and were tossing it upstairs...  Perhaps a small write-up when staff has time of what suggestions were taken up would be helpful

It's probably way too early to get an answer to this. Staff have their own board to discuss things, and I imagine some of the ideas are being discussed there and will be for a while to come.

It's a good question though, I know I'd like to hear the answer. Someone should remember to ask it again in a couple weeks.

[Norcal]

Hold on....

We say that what we really want form staff is animation IC. We also want excitement, plots and such. We also want new stuff..rooms items better code for this or that.

All of that takes people, and it takes people to supervise the people and make sure they don't muck it all up.

Many new staff have been added.  BUILDERS ( I wantz to be one n' I can rights really good.) have been added. I think staff are trying to expand so that they can do all of the above stuff.  Yet realistically folks, a volunteer staff with volunteer admin can only expand so far without adding on more admin positions. It takes experienced folks to do admin, and not only that, to -volunteer- to do admin which is the suckiest part of any organization. I run an INGO and I know about admin.

Many of us want to help. I want to help. Yet it may well be that the help I can offer is not the help most needed. Does there need to be improvement? Yes, and I have a post way up at the top of this stack that outlines things we could do as a community. Yet I have a hard time thinking that there are no restrictions on the staff side, and that it is simply a lack of desire or care that keeps some things from happening.

So give them a break.  Especially Diggity dawg.  be nice to Diggity dawg or I will -get- you and you little dog too.

[Malken]

I don't trust this community much more than any other online community, so I'm leery of crowdsourcing direct access to "Fix" whatever.

There's no need for "direct access".

Here's a simple idea - Staff creates a new webpage with a little web app (easiest thing in the world to code/find) and sometime they post stuff that they need.

Hey guys, we need descs for pair of boots that would fit in the 'rinth.

(players have this little square thingie where they can enter a desc and then they hit Send! and it transfer that desc into a pretty format that Staff have access to - like a web form of sort)

They take the descs they like and use them and they ditch the ones they don't like. Bored players sitting at the Gaj now have something to do, write descs for things Staff need and Staff have something less they need to do, to write descs for 300 objects.

Need a new room? Don't even have to post it on the GDB and ask specific builders for it, just post what you need on that page and let the players do their magic.

We're all winners!