We're doing some brainstorming on the staffside about changes to some of our structure and processes. As part of this we thought it might be worthwhile to canvas the playerbase and get your input on a few different areas. We're looking for methods to streamline what we're doing staffside. 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.
So we are taking this next week to solicit your feedback, feel free to throw out those oddball suggestions, sometimes it's those leftfield comments that strike a chord, sometimes it's the tried and true suggestions that we've talked about 100 times before but the timing is finally right - either way we're seeking input for our own brainstorming process so post away.
Nyr has a thread already for one areas that we're looking at - character reports. There are a lot of other things that go into this game that could be looked at. One thing we did recently is turn over the moderation of the GDB to the players, that helped enormously (thanks players!), maybe there are other things we can do like this. Maybe there are things we can do storywise, with our staffing teams etc. These are the things that we have been discussing at the staff level. But why not pool together our collective wisdom while we can?
There's no guarantee that anything will come to fruition, but we will read everything you post. So, thanks in advance!
In the interests of keeping things streamlined, and because we actually do want time to review things on our side, and hopefully make some inroads on changing things up staff side, I'll be locking this thread next Saturday, March 21st.
Could we get an idea about which processes are taking up how much staff time?
I wanted to make this a general question, but I'm particularly interested in how much staff time goes to approving descriptions and backgrounds.
Find a place for digging clay in Allanak.
It was really weird to find out only after character creation that the subguild chosen couldn't be used in the city the character was in.
This would also allow people who need to forage (a google search on 'armageddon merchant' suggested it is necessary for no less than 5 different things for the guild) to do so without breaking city-only clan restrictions. So in a way it would help 2 different things.
Everything I can think of requires code.
For instance, automate description changes, maybe just for people who have at least a point of karma.
I think you're already working on streamlining the app process.
This is a little complicated, but bear with me:
Merchant House Warehouses
More NPCS and more items loaded. More NPCS so that what they have is broken down more so it's easier to find the items you need. So, maybe the Salarri warehouse, an NPC for Shields. An NPC for various knives and swords. An NPC for chopping and bludgeoning weapons. An NPC for armor you wear above the waist. This would require set up, but take a lot of pressure off the imms to load crap every week. That way only special and restricted items would require imm assistance.
In the Kadian warehouse maybe a separate NPC for each color.
Barz - thumbs up!!
Barz wins this thread. I'm usually fantastic at thinking of the little 'quality of life' things like this due to my old job in games design, but I completely didn't consider anything like that!
Publish the "where players found us" data somewhere in some raw form in a purely automated manner. Maybe in some .csv file somewhere on the website.
Then, rather than have a staff member parse it every month, let the players write visualizers, look for trends, and that kind of stuff.
The following would be generalizations. We don't have actual numbers on how much time these processes take in terms of actual staff time spent, so we can make guesses on each one.
Requests, in alphabetical order (skipping the more rare ones):
Account notes -- between 5 - 30 minutes per request. Admin+ only.
Description changes -- 5 minutes, maybe more if there is some discussion on it, but requires an admin+ to do it. Admin+ only.
Ext Subguild / skill bump -- 10-20 minutes, mostly because of math involved. Admin+ only.
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.
Reimbursement -- 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Depends on length of request and whether any discussion is had. ST+.
Special applications -- 10-20 minutes, though this often takes into account multiple staff members and their feedback and suggestions, so it takes comparatively longer for players. Admin+ only.
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+.
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+.
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+.
Role applications -- 5-20 minutes. ST+ resolution.
Player complaints -- 5-30 minutes. Maybe more if we have to do a lot of investigation. Admin+ resolution.
Player kudos -- usually no more than 5 minutes. ST+ resolution.
Staff complaint -- 5-20 minutes. Rarely more than that. Producer resolution.
Original submissions -- At least 20-30 minutes for reading and reviewing, then possibly double that if another staffer needs to approve something related to it. ST+ resolution.
Applications:
about 2 hours spent per week, collectively.
These are just my spitballed estimates.
Thumbs up to Barz for that merchant shop idea (I think. Are we talking general Salarri Shop X or are we talking COMPOUND stores where you have special x gear loaded in so that salarri with the authority can get it for those requesting the gear?)
I like the idea of fleshing out more item descriptions. I've seen some items that are very -loosely- described that could use more filling out (those meaty steaks are a good one). Just for flavor.
More "tasty" tastes. Instead of saying something tastes like fruit, say what sort of fruit it tastes like. A sort of bittersweet flavor, maybe it's tangy, citrusy... I always wanted to know just what a jallal tasted like, or a belshun or whatever. All the stuff that has empty or generic tastes, give it FLAVOR!
10 - 20 minutes on Ext. Subguilds / skill bumps because of the math involved. Is it possible to write some sort of script that could do the math for you? I mean the script might take 30 minutes to do total and could save say 5 to 10 minutes per request. It might be worth the time.
That was mostly a joke. Sorry.
We do have to consider how skill bumps affect character builds. This part is new. Once we've done it a few hundred times we'll probably be more okay with automating it.
Create a new staff role with less time commitment than a Storyteller. The goal of the new positions would be to handle more administrative work that cannot be automated or addressed through process.
Handle stuff like character applications, reimbursement requests, kudos, easy questions, master crafts building but not approving.
I'd recommend the new staff rank be targeted at veteran players who are willing to donate some of their time to help the game, but not to the degree expected of Storyteller. Something in the realm of 5-10 hours a week. Could be a great proving ground for wannabe Storytellers, or a great retirement ground for people who have less free time, but not no free time.
Speaking from experience, I fully agree that automating the process by which GMH merchants/agents can browse and order items would not only make the roll 300% more enjoyable, but make just about every player who's ever ordered something from the merchant houses happy.
I imagine there would be a handful of people who would love to help with things like crafting recipes for all the uncraftable items too.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 14, 2015, 11:15:06 PM
Create a new staff role with less time commitment than a Storyteller. The goal of the new positions would be to handle more administrative work that cannot be automated or addressed through process.
Handle stuff like character applications, reimbursement requests, kudos, easy questions, master crafts building but not approving.
I'd recommend the new staff rank be targeted at veteran players who are willing to donate some of their time to help the game, but not to the degree expected of Storyteller. Something in the realm of 5-10 hours a week. Could be a great proving ground for wannabe Storytellers, or a great retirement ground for people who have less free time, but not no free time.
I like this a great deal, but don't forget to include that management of more positions is time as well. Only if players who took these spots were reliable, long-term people who took very little management, it would save time. Otherwise, the maintenance of the new position and its workload becomes time consuming in itself. Given that I wasn't given access to anything that would ruin sekrits of the game, I'd be inclined to do things like this. I even thought about seeing if I could help with coding, once I get a little deeper into the computer science field. Opening up more player involvement in the health of the game is like...stock options. I think if it can be relied on, it's great.
Quote from: Adhira on March 14, 2015, 10:25:20 PM
We're looking for methods to streamline what we're doing staffside. 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.
This thread is kind of veering a little into "hey you should add this thing for me" or "here is a way for you to do boring things more efficiently" in a couple of places.
To clarify (because Adhira asked me to, because I'm always the person who says this particular thing :) ): We want to spend staff time on things that are not boring, pointless, and routine. We don't want to spend
more staff time on those things. So, some suggestions aren't very helpful, because (for example), we don't want to create a special class of staffers who only do routine things. (Though that's not a bad suggestion for a business, when the business can't just eliminate boring things.) Because the routine things aren't the fun things, and the things that are fun for staff are also the things that are fun for players.
Fun things are things like: Plots, RPTs, animations, bringing the world to life, and projects that improve the world.
It's my personal opinion that we could retain staff better and longer, and do a better job for players, if staff was simply having more fun. So...that's sort of where the focus for the question is. Can you guys help us figure out how to make this entire game more fun for everyone, by reducing or eliminating routine and boring stuff?
Quote from: Talia on March 14, 2015, 11:26:09 PM
Quote from: Adhira on March 14, 2015, 10:25:20 PM
We're looking for methods to streamline what we're doing staffside. 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.
This thread is kind of veering a little into "hey you should add this thing for me" or "here is a way for you to do boring things more efficiently" in a couple of places.
To clarify (because Adhira asked me to, because I'm always the person who says this particular thing :) ): We want to spend staff time on things that are not boring, pointless, and routine. We don't want to spend more staff time on those things. So, some suggestions aren't very helpful, because (for example), we don't want to create a special class of staffers who only do routine things. (Though that's not a bad suggestion for a business, when the business can't just eliminate boring things.) Because the routine things aren't the fun things, and the things that are fun for staff are also the things that are fun for players.
Fun things are things like: Plots, RPTs, animations, bringing the world to life, and projects that improve the world.
It's my personal opinion that we could retain staff better and longer, and do a better job for players, if staff was simply having more fun. So...that's sort of where the focus for the question is. Can you guys help us figure out how to make this entire game more fun for everyone, by reducing or eliminating routine and boring stuff?
What are your least favorite things to do, as a staffer?
With things like character descriptions / description changes, you could just let us do it, then flag the PC, so staff can just peek in to make sure we didn't add the word "penis-face" in too many places in our mdesc.
I'm not sure where else this would apply, but in general you could move the staff role away from creating-the-thing and more to peeking-at-the-created-thing (maybe under the proviso the player is at say 1 karma).
Talia,
Just to play devil's advocate with you on this point, let's say there's no real way to eliminate some of the boring stuff that's out there without negatively impacting the game, or requiring enormous amounts of time building automation solutions. The only solution is to spread out the boring stuff so each staffer is doing less of it in a given week.
A "routine stuff" staff role might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but the key part of my suggestion was that they weren't expected to contribute nearly as much time as a Storyteller. If someone is willing to donate 5 hours a week of boring routine work, because they're retired, an insomniac, or they have a job that affords them a lot of downtime... Why not let them? If there are two or three of these people on staff, and 15 hours a week of routine work is removed from the queue, it could make all the difference. Look at how much amazing stuff has gotten done since the staff roles were all filled out a few months ago? Think how much could get done of those talented/creative-type staffers could focus purely on Storytelling?
With that said, I agree that the low hanging fruit on this is eliminating boring work wherever possible. But in the end, there's going to be some stuff that can't be eliminated.
Account notes: I thought a bit ago it'd be neat to have PCs submit their own account notes, like a CV, with an argument for what they think they've been doing good, and have staff just look at that. AT the very least, you could have PCs put together the basic outline of the account note (the name of the PCs, some basic facts about them) and then staff can just jot notes on that.
It might take some work initially, but I 'd make nearly everything the GMHs sell that players can order craftable. Maybe you won't need
to load stuff if you can just have the players make it.
As for GMH warehouses, make them load with the appropriate amount of items to sell for w/e time period. Then the GMH merchants can
get the items and sell them, and put in the report afterwards instead of having to request beforehand to sell things already
available there at the NPC.
Here is a suggestion..
What if for reimbursement requests an NPC was loaded up in an OOC room that held onto people's coins/items, what have you? Then the GM could load up the items for the PC and the people could collect them when they can.
Good even to have one for when stuff needs to be delivered to a player and staff and said player can't connect maybe?
Maybe even a Stylist PC in an OOC room that automates changing descriptions that have been applied for and approved so that the Admin person can just queue it up, the PC goes in whenever, gets fixed up and everyone moves along pleased as punch?
Stuff like that?
Quote from: WithSprinkles on March 14, 2015, 11:48:13 PM
Here is a suggestion..
What if for reimbursement requests an NPC was loaded up in an OOC room that held onto people's coins/items, what have you? Then the GM could load up the items for the PC and the people could collect them when they can.
Good even to have one for when stuff needs to be delivered to a player and staff and said player can't connect maybe?
Maybe even a Stylist PC in an OOC room that automates changing descriptions that have been applied for and approved so that the Admin person can just queue it up, the PC goes in whenever, gets fixed up and everyone moves along pleased as punch?
Stuff like that?
I like this. A lot.
Quote from: HavokBlue on March 14, 2015, 11:40:18 PM
What are your least favorite things to do, as a staffer?
Some of it is clear-cut Not Fun Stuff, e.g. reimbursement requests. Those are extremely difficult and time-consuming, and often require back-and-forth with the player. (Not the handing off the stuff in game, that's super simple and quick. But gathering the objects together.)
The less clear stuff is stuff that probably can't be eliminated, and that I've volunteered to take on as an Admin, e.g. when a player is causing a problem for one of my Storytellers (or the game), then it's my job to intervene and/or support the ST. That is definitely Not Fun Stuff, and I don't like doing it, but it can't be done away with.
For Storytellers, I want to see them having more fun, doing more animations, running more plots. I want them to feel free to pursue those things, free in a real way...we have some STs who are pretty driven and they like to clean out the request queue and Get Things Done and that's totally admirable! But it gives me the sads when they spend too much time on that stuff.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 14, 2015, 11:41:30 PM
A "routine stuff" staff role might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but the key part of my suggestion was that they weren't expected to contribute nearly as much time as a Storyteller. If someone is willing to donate 5 hours a week of boring routine work, because they're retired, an insomniac, or they have a job that affords them a lot of downtime... Why not let them? If there are two or three of these people on staff, and 15 hours a week of routine work is removed from the queue, it could make all the difference. Look at how much amazing stuff has gotten done since the staff roles were all filled out a few months ago? Think how much could get done of those talented/creative-type staffers could focus purely on Storytelling?
Well, you know, I get you...but if I have a Storyteller who only has 5 hours to spend on game work, then I still want that person to be having fun and actually telling stories within the game. In order to do that, we do need to eliminate routine work and boring stuff if we can. There is no group of players that I look at and think, "Oh, you're less creative and talented than our existing staff, so you could totally fulfill this lesser role." (I know that's not what you meant, but do you get me? :) )
I don't think that any staffer will ever be able to focus 100% on storytelling, because there will always be other stuff that needs to get done--building, documentation, and so forth. But what kinds of solutions can we come up with using the existing tools (codebase, request tool, website) that will eliminate some unnecessary stuff, so we can do even more with the talented staff that we do have?
Quote from: HavokBlue on March 14, 2015, 11:17:57 PM
Speaking from experience, I fully agree that automating the process by which GMH merchants/agents can browse and order items would not only make the roll 300% more enjoyable, but make just about every player who's ever ordered something from the merchant houses happy.
+100
I've always wished there were "builder" roles for Arm like we had for 2.Arm.
I don't have "regular" times that I can devote to the game. This is one of the reasons that I never app for sponsored roles or join clans any longer, but I can devote a large -amount- of time to the game in a few large clumps as week.
I would love doing stuff like entering items in to await higher staff approval, going through the typo queue, approving zero or low karma apps: One and done type things. I just don't have the time to keep up with a load of PCs and shoot correspondence back and forth several times a day to resolve an urgent issue.
Quote from: Talia on March 14, 2015, 11:26:09 PM
It's my personal opinion that we could retain staff better and longer, and do a better job for players, if staff was simply having more fun. So...that's sort of where the focus for the question is. Can you guys help us figure out how to make this entire game more fun for everyone, by reducing or eliminating routine and boring stuff?
From a player's perspective, it seems to me that over the past few years, most of the stuff that -can- be automated, has been. What do you see that is left that does not require a hands-on fix or bureaucratic approval of more than one staffer?
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
Account notes -- between 5 - 30 minutes per request. Admin+ only.
Have account notes entered in a way that staffers will be able to specify information that needs to be redacted at time of entry rather than redacting it later by hand.
Have account notes automatically redact things like the account name/character name of PKers in the log.
Redact less.
Account notes would appear to the reviewing Admin+ with the information that has already been redacted segregated so that what the player will receive appears in a different colored text than that which will be redacted. We have documents like that where I work where some information is viewable on screen, but if you print or try to past it to another document the redacted fields will not transfer. No idea how this is done code-wise, though.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
Description changes -- 5 minutes, maybe more if there is some discussion on it, but requires an admin+ to do it. Admin+ only.
Allow players to enter a new desc via a command similar to tdesc. Staff would be able to approve this or reject it. If it is rejected, the player must try again or ONLY THEN use the request tool for the change request.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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.
I seem to remember the youtube vid about the Arm 2 codebase stating that the coders were working on a web-based building tool. Try to make this work and give players access to it through the request tool, letting them fill in the fields, doing most of the work, then staff only has to make the required changes/tweaks then approve.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
Reimbursement -- 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Depends on length of request and whether any discussion is had. ST+.
Most of time, reimbursements can be handled through a cash replacement (and I believe staff has said that they prefer this.
Make an in-game command to request a cash reimbursement, possibly only to 1+ karma accounts to avoid abuse.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
Special applications -- 10-20 minutes, though this often takes into account multiple staff members and their feedback and suggestions, so it takes comparatively longer for players. Admin+ only.
Good luck. ;)
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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+.
http://www.tidyform.com/weekly-status-report-template.html (http://www.tidyform.com/weekly-status-report-template.html)
I somewhat dislike the following ideas, but have a form for character reports. You can select from two forms: "leader/sponsored roles" and "standard." This make them more consistent and readable from a reviewer's perspective. Be sure to include a section that specifies things that need a staff response before the request is closed.
Can include an additional comment section below for anything that does not fit in the form.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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+.
As suggested before in this thread, have a warehouse that includes all non-special clan-crafted items on separate, themed NPCS.
Give all appropriate players a list of special-order items including the requirements for ordering them. Only these will need staff approval now, and the back and forth trying to find the right thing is eliminated.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
Player kudos -- usually no more than 5 minutes. ST+ resolution.
Include a list of no-nos on the form (I think this exists in the request too already), and Automate it for accounts with X+ Karma.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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+.
Role applications -- 5-20 minutes. ST+ resolution.
Player complaints -- 5-30 minutes. Maybe more if we have to do a lot of investigation. Admin+ resolution.
Staff complaint -- 5-20 minutes. Rarely more than that. Producer resolution.
Original submissions -- At least 20-30 minutes for reading and reviewing, then possibly double that if another staffer needs to approve something related to it. ST+ resolution.
It is what it is.
Just an FYI on account notes - they already redact all the info like other peoples account names etc, the time that it takes is that often there just aren't any notes there. People want a -review- they want to know if they can get karma. And that is where the time comes in. If there are no notes, then we have to go hunting. So for example, if I'm doing the resolving I will ask other staff to comment if they have been staffing that player. So that's a bunch of other folks leaving a note there. If no one does, then I'll spend time going through the players old requests, I'll go into mud mail to see if they have any old emails in there, I'll do a quick board search to look for posts about them. Basically I'll try and find some information that I can use to give them some feedback and do a karma review. That's where the time comes in for their account notes.
Maybe we can do away with reviews! :D
Quote from: wizturbo on March 14, 2015, 11:41:30 PM
Talia,
Just to play devil's advocate with you on this point, let's say there's no real way to eliminate some of the boring stuff that's out there without negatively impacting the game, or requiring enormous amounts of time building automation solutions. The only solution is to spread out the boring stuff so each staffer is doing less of it in a given week.
A "routine stuff" staff role might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but the key part of my suggestion was that they weren't expected to contribute nearly as much time as a Storyteller. If someone is willing to donate 5 hours a week of boring routine work, because they're retired, an insomniac, or they have a job that affords them a lot of downtime... Why not let them? If there are two or three of these people on staff, and 15 hours a week of routine work is removed from the queue, it could make all the difference. Look at how much amazing stuff has gotten done since the staff roles were all filled out a few months ago? Think how much could get done of those talented/creative-type staffers could focus purely on Storytelling?
With that said, I agree that the low hanging fruit on this is eliminating boring work wherever possible. But in the end, there's going to be some stuff that can't be eliminated.
Make the role a stepping stone before storyteller. It would probably help with the high turnover of storytellers.
You would get less access to IC sensitive documentation and weed out the people to whom staffing the game doesn't live up to their expectation.
This is how most jobs work. You have the shitty job and then, if you want it bad enough to stick around, you get the good job.
And again, some of us that are not able/willing to devote the effort to storytelling can still help out in streamlining this game that we all love to be a part of.
Quote from: Adhira on March 15, 2015, 12:21:27 AM
Just an FYI on account notes - they already redact all the info like other peoples account names etc, the time that it takes is that often there just aren't any notes there. People want a -review- they want to know if they can get karma. And that is where the time comes in. If there are no notes, then we have to go hunting. So for example, if I'm doing the resolving I will ask other staff to comment if they have been staffing that player. So that's a bunch of other folks leaving a note there. If no one does, then I'll spend time going through the players old requests, I'll go into mud mail to see if they have any old emails in there, I'll do a quick board search to look for posts about them. Basically I'll try and find some information that I can use to give them some feedback and do a karma review. That's where the time comes in for their account notes.
Maybe we can do away with reviews! :D
I don't think anyone is really happy with the way account notes are handled Before or with reviews. There are periods of over a year or two with no notes on my PCs. Some of my sponsored roles don't even have anything other than the initial setup notes. Has staff ever looked into revamping the way account notes are handled so that more information is there? The way I understand it now, most decisions that could be handled using a "good" set of account notes requires going back through the request tool log to review interactions there or input on the current request by staff who are handling that the players current or past PCs. If they have input to add now about a PC they staffed two years ago, why was it not noted on that Pfile two years ago?
It seems that it would make request that require upper level staff to approve easier, quicker, and more efficient if they had instant access to comments on players and their characters rather than having to solicit for it with each new request. Not to mention all the possible feed back is lost when a staffer leaves.
Yeah - I think the main issue is that account notes don't really fill the need that players want. They don't give a good review, that isn't what they are designed for. They don't provide a good forum for staff to do that. They're a very simple text field in an in game editor, that we read on the screen. Typing too much in there means that we clutter up our screen view when we look at your account info in game, it's horrid. The simple fact with doing account notes right now is there is generally not a lot of information there. Most people have very few notes and will go through character without a single note on that character. As to why there aren't notes - I can't comment as to why people aren't leaving them, only that they have a broad swathe of PCs to cover and ultimately many of them fall through the cracks, or they are commenting only on specific items that they wish to remember for staff side purpose.
I'll add my voice to the crowd suggesting that GMH item orders should be largely automated. Put a bunch more NPCs into warehouses, carrying every non-restricted item that the GMH sells. That would make the merchant role vastly more enjoyable and probably make everyone dealing with merchants much happier too.
Side-note, not much of a suggestion, but I've never requested account notes because I've half-convinced myself they'll be all embarrassing. :P
Quote from: Adhira on March 15, 2015, 12:46:24 AM
Yeah - I think the main issue is that account notes don't really fill the need that players want. They don't give a good review, that isn't what they are designed for. They don't provide a good forum for staff to do that. They're a very simple text field in an in game editor, that we read on the screen. Typing too much in there means that we clutter up our screen view when we look at your account info in game, it's horrid. The simple fact with doing account notes right now is there is generally not a lot of information there. Most people have very few notes and will go through character without a single note on that character. As to why there aren't notes - I can't comment as to why people aren't leaving them, only that they have a broad swathe of PCs to cover and ultimately many of them fall through the cracks, or they are commenting only on specific items that they wish to remember for staff side purpose.
Is there a way, then, to use something similar to the webpage Bio entry system, to write to the pfile? Like an armageddon.org/admin.php page that allows access to the database? Or is that like superduper not a good idea?
I agree with FW that a template for character reports is probably a good idea. I feel like I'm definitely a person who errs on the side of too much information, rather than too little.
Having a fill in template, or really encouraging a bottom line up front format, highlighting things requiring response, would probably help players write better reports, and limit staff investment, as they would only need to read the report detail if the BLUF part wasn't clear.
Even just a few prompt lines, like the spec app request currently has, could probably help streamline things a little.
Quote(Fill in questions with "yes" answers as needed, giving a one sentence synopsis first, where feasible)
Did your character kill anyone?
Did your character make any enemies?
Did your character make any friends?
Did your character accomplish any major goals?
Did anything happen that is likely to cause repercussions later?
Do you need anything (information/help) from us?
Anything else we should know?
Something like that, maybe.
Quote from: HavokBlue on March 14, 2015, 11:17:57 PM
Speaking from experience, I fully agree that automating the process by which GMH merchants/agents can browse and order items would not only make the roll 300% more enjoyable, but make just about every player who's ever ordered something from the merchant houses happy.
I imagine there would be a handful of people who would love to help with things like crafting recipes for all the uncraftable items too.
This is the thing.
And as was suggested elsewhere, make sure that all folks with the need to know, have a full list of inventory available.
Also for approving normal applications, let the playerbase help. They could handle this fine. And there are a lot of us that would be happy to help out with some of the other stuff that is mundane or boring for staffers. I would do it in a heartbeat if I knew it would increase my storytellers direct activity in clan life. Lots of questions could be answered IC instead of submitting a request.
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.
Automate the CGP system so that staff set up is no longer required.
Oh! And move the jail closer to the criminals.
Thanks Adhira and Staff for opening up this feedback discussion specifically on how to lessen work-load, both for players and Staff. The recent Character Report thread Nyr started is a great first step (in my opinion). Offering a Template can really reduce the stress -- Sometimes I sit there trying to come up with more 'topic points' because the report doesn't cover enough ground, then I look at my report and say "Man, that is too long", and spend more time going back and editing stuff out.
Overall, it takes me about 30 minutes to an Hour to write a report -- Something that I enjoy doing to some extent (I'll include IC correspondence if I am playing a PC that can write, or little snippets here and there throughout, or pictures I grep from the internet. The report has to be a little fun, too, not just REPORT REPORT REPORT.) I try to make my reports informative, yet entertaining. I think having a template to go off of will definitely help in that regard, so you aren't trying to invent stuff out of thin air sometimes, when it's late and you know you need to submit a report, but don't have much steam.
That being said, an idea.
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Player Account Notes:
These requests seem to be low priority, but also don't seem to necessarily accomplish what a player wants, and is more administrative/pedantic work for Staff. Staff goes through and edits pinfo's that aren't necessarily relevant to the player, or might be taken out of context (Something that sounds mean when it's just literally a note, that can be easily taken out of context).
The player is intending to have Staff review them as a player -- And to see if they are deserving of more karma based on their play.
What I think might be more fun -- and helpful to both Staff and players -- Is allow players to submit a Karma Review Request, once a year. They must have already been playing for one year in order to unlock the request.
When the request is submitted, the player's account is flagged for actual review -- Not that silly toggle left over from the DIKU Days. It's posted on the IDB, 'watch this player and give some notes (They did this thing really great, that was a good scene), they could use some improvement here (Noticed they crafted non-stop without any emotes or thoughts or motivations behind the character), and basically just a general "Checking up on this Player, their karma, and if they could improve their karma during this review period. A thread could be started for each player account that submits the request, and could be locked when the request period is over (Call it a month).
Some might say -- But when people submit a Karma Review, it would be biased! They would be acting on their best behavior.
Well, good I say. If everyone were acting on their best behavior, because they think they might get karma out of it, we might have an even more enriched RP environment suddenly. The Karma Review is not a guarantee for karma, it is a guarantee for thoughtful feedback, and actual Staff eyes watching over you and your RP, and a more personal chance at receiving Karma.
I will say that over the years that i've received my karma, sometimes it felt totally out of the blue -- Undeserved. Other times, I felt I deserved karma for really well played characters, and didn't even get a head nod. The purpose behind a Karma Review Request would be to clue Staff in that a Player is interested in real feedback, and it might be a more fun exercise for Staff to follow players around, possibly animate for them, and see where the RP Rabbit Hole leads.
As many people know, sometimes you are playing a character and nothing is clicking. You feel a bit more twinky, or just spammy, and your RP just doesn't really click. Othertimes, you are playing a character and it all just makes sense. Every action you do is IC, you are just ON. You might submit a request during these periods, to show Staff your true Maximum potential, which should be a major point behind karma and trust.
By limiting the request to once a year, you eliminate the threat of 'favoritism', or overloading Staff with too many requests of this nature.
I suspect it's a relatively small part of the player base which accounts for the main part of the demand for items on Nyr's list.
Maybe each demand through the request tool could have a point value (different types would have different values). Players only get a certain number of points per month to use up.
A point system could filter out requests people make just because they can and focus them on what actually matters to them.
Account notes- stop handing these out. I can already hear the cries from people wanting to see what you think of them, and the already missing soft tingling feels people get when they see little positive comments. But no. Put in a policy that old account notes are deleted periodically, so people can feel past action are forgotten and they can change. Something like notes from 2 years back or something. And I agree, once a year people can ask for karma review if they've been playing over a year and their karma is two or under. At the end of the day I feel people get more bitter and pissed off at seeing these notes than anything else and sometimes it is for good reason. It has really hurt other games that do this and left people feeling more butt hurt than anything else, and I think ARM is no exception to that, except for the fact that handing out account notes to people comes with more work and effort from staff.
Description changes- If we are talking about PC description changes I think you can trust STs and the players to be able to handle it. Not sure who'd want to go walking around with a typo in their desc or a sentence that doesn't make sense. Might increase complains slightly regarding such descriptions but those would probably be funny to read at least and not any serious harm.
Ext Subguild / skill bump -- I feel that if this could have been automated easily it would have been already, not like anyone on staff or player side hasn't been wishing for that. That is why perhaps coming up with other solutions that can be done using existing code might be worth considering. For example opening up extended subguilds for players with the karma, in the same we can select d-elves, yet still need staff approval to make one. This way we could pick on, and ST could double check that we haven't gone over the three year limit before approving the desc, which really if we are 3+ karma players we should be keeping track of ourselves, otherwise perhaps we shouldn't be 3+ karma players. That way admins would only have to deal with any addition skill bumps and handle applications where the player doesn't have the required karma. Dunno, just feels with more thought there could be a better way that wouldn't lead to any serious abuse.
Item orders- I do like the idea of this being done in-game through NPC, and despite it being a big project it would be worth it. I think even special non-custom orders can be loaded up too periodically, in the same way player pay is handled. Once a timer runs out, the npc loads that once a year item, etc etc.
Character reports- I like the direction its going too.
While I think these small ideas might not free up huge amounts of time, by reducing the amount of admin+ work the overall work of everyone is reduced, since the admin+ can then have more time help in other areas or just enjoy themselves better.
My suspicion is that there's a lot of internal reporting and permission-getting for storytellers when they want to do things. Red tape. Much in the same way leader characters endure through character reports. So you might want to focus on how to cut down not just on time dealing with player paperwork, but cutting down on your own internal communication.
You could make a list of the kinds of plots even newbie storytellers can run without any approval whatsoever. Low level things like raiding camps to be knocked over, wild beasts appearing in unusual places, scam artists hustling people, etc. Make it so that these kinds of plots are always 'ready to go' without any need to get approval in advance.
(As an aside, this could even include running basic plots that give tangible rewards to simple tasks. There's lots of things to 'do' in the game, and rare items to get or discover, which people simply don't pursue because there's no rewards. So, maybe So-and-so Uaptal commands a player to procure 12 kinds of fruit and 50 leaves of a specific tree. Stuff like this would give leaders easier ways to keep their minions busy with non-PK activity. Basic stuff like: Get X of Y item made or acquired, and we'll add Z to your estate, or issue special reward Q.)
(As a further aside, I'd really like to see some low-grade military targets that people could fight over like Haven's buff-giving points or Shadows of Isildur's mini-fort system.)
Also, I agree with barz's suggestion about revamping GMH warehouses. There's no reason why any items but the most extremely exotic need require admin intervention to load.
I don't think plots operate within a vacuum like that, unfortunately. Even the 'smallest' Plot like that can lead to a city-wide series of RPT's before you blink an eye.
I do think having an extra pair of eyes on your project/room approvals/item approvals is great. One might say 'do it later, do it in retrospect', but everyone who has a job knows that if you say 'i'll do it later' you'll probably never get around to it. Having that sort of front-end attention to detail is exactly why ArmageddonMUD stands heads above the rest (in my book, and yours too, you illiterate heathen!)
That being said, Zalanthas has been an unpopulated desolate wasteland for quite some time. While I know this thread is about Staff Overhead and how to keep attention to lightening their workload, I might call in to attention (Hey you asked for random feedback) to what I like to call the Skyrim/Asheron's Call Explorer Syndrome, and the idea of 'quit safe' anywhere.
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People like discovering stuff.
When I played Asheron's Call for the first time, what I loved is that you climbed up a hill after running around in your starting town, and you found...Huh, an abandoned house. Filled with monsters! Oo, i'm going to kill all the monsters, and then live in this house! Lo and behold, I found out I was an idiot, and the monsters of course respawned.
I would go adventuring with my friend (Galdun, who I later ended up playing Armageddon with). We would go hunting and hunting and hunting, just constantly pushing the borders, and log off at 2 am, and decide to log in again at 8 am on a Saturday, and pick up our adventure where it left off.
When people play games like Skyrim or Oblivion, they (or at least I) love making a left turn and finding some abandoned ruin. Some artifact of the Age Before. Some item that boggles the mind and can't be figured out.
I understand that "Quit Safe" is a dangerous thing to hand out wholesale. But if it were tied into a camp-fire, or some sort of flag that could be applied to a room, so people could literally go backpacking and ranging throughout the known world without having to find 'the cave' or 'the bluff' or the one room that is quit safe...Well, I think it would appeal to those people who have that 'Personality Type' that explores the Known World.
It might be a fun side-project for Storytellers to come up with these sort of random encounter places -- And once they're explored, cave in the entrance. That ruin is gone -- The items found, taken. The monsters killed -- Dead, just like your PCs. But random encounter stuff really breathes life into the world, makes the stories more real, and gives a visceral sort of twist to the PC's existence.
What bothers me the most about Armageddon is how static it can feel sometimes. Wandering through the city, seeing the same NPCs, no PC's at the tavern, and nothing going on. If Storytellers could spend more time on animating the world, I would do anything to cut back their administrative tasks.
Quote from: Down Under on March 15, 2015, 04:21:08 AM
.....
People like discovering stuff.
..........
It might be a fun side-project for Storytellers to come up with these sort of random encounter places -- And once they're explored, cave in the entrance. That ruin is gone -- The items found, taken. The monsters killed -- Dead, just like your PCs. But random encounter stuff really breathes life into the world, makes the stories more real, and gives a visceral sort of twist to the PC's existence.
I would love this. So much.
Quote from: Down Under on March 15, 2015, 04:21:08 AM
That being said, Zalanthas has been an unpopulated desolate wasteland for quite some time. While I know this thread is about Staff Overhead and how to keep attention to lightening their workload, I might call in to attention (Hey you asked for random feedback) to what I like to call the Skyrim/Asheron's Call Explorer Syndrome, and the idea of 'quit safe' anywhere.
-----
People like discovering stuff.
When I played Asheron's Call for the first time, what I loved is that you climbed up a hill after running around in your starting town, and you found...Huh, an abandoned house. Filled with monsters! Oo, i'm going to kill all the monsters, and then live in this house! Lo and behold, I found out I was an idiot, and the monsters of course respawned.
I would go adventuring with my friend (Galdun, who I later ended up playing Armageddon with). We would go hunting and hunting and hunting, just constantly pushing the borders, and log off at 2 am, and decide to log in again at 8 am on a Saturday, and pick up our adventure where it left off.
When people play games like Skyrim or Oblivion, they (or at least I) love making a left turn and finding some abandoned ruin. Some artifact of the Age Before. Some item that boggles the mind and can't be figured out.
I understand that "Quit Safe" is a dangerous thing to hand out wholesale. But if it were tied into a camp-fire, or some sort of flag that could be applied to a room, so people could literally go backpacking and ranging throughout the known world without having to find 'the cave' or 'the bluff' or the one room that is quit safe...Well, I think it would appeal to those people who have that 'Personality Type' that explores the Known World.
It might be a fun side-project for Storytellers to come up with these sort of random encounter places -- And once they're explored, cave in the entrance. That ruin is gone -- The items found, taken. The monsters killed -- Dead, just like your PCs. But random encounter stuff really breathes life into the world, makes the stories more real, and gives a visceral sort of twist to the PC's existence.
What bothers me the most about Armageddon is how static it can feel sometimes. Wandering through the city, seeing the same NPCs, no PC's at the tavern, and nothing going on. If Storytellers could spend more time on animating the world, I would do anything to cut back their administrative tasks.
There use to be many more wilderness quit rooms than there are today. Some were destroyed by a in-character plot a few years ago in a plot to do away magicker hidey-holes (which was which made little sense, since it ignored the virtual world and all the additional safe places that it would provide), some had their quit-safe status ret-conned (probably either for the same reason or for the sake of 'player consolidation'). I personally think it was a bad direction to go in for a game that features a "post-apocalyptic desert world." We have one, but we want you to play in the cities, instead! I like playing explorers, but it's just not feasible unless you want to play a solo ranger or gick with movement magick. Otherwise, you are limited in your exploration to what a group can do in one stint (and still have time to get everyone home). The ability to truly set up camp (and have all but the toughest predators be afraid to enter a camp room with a lit fire in it) would rock. Or bring back more quit-safe desert/cave rooms to use as rally points.
Quote from: Talia on March 14, 2015, 11:26:09 PM
It's my personal opinion that we could retain staff better and longer, and do a better job for players, if staff was simply having more fun. So...that's sort of where the focus for the question is. Can you guys help us figure out how to make this entire game more fun for everyone, by reducing or eliminating routine and boring stuff?
You're actually going to pull me out of the woodwork to respond here. Congratulations.
The biggest administrative help I could see is to make a web-UI for building new objects, NPCs, and especially rooms. Wasn't Raesanos already working on something for rooms, years back? Revitalize that project, if you haven't already. Having worked on the wizard-side of DIKU MUDs before, I can't over-state the clunkiness and tedium of building these things inside the game. An absolute must for these web-tools would be the ability to do some simple checks as well, e.g. with NPCs: do they have descriptions? Names? tags for ease of finding? Clans? (which could then reveal a list of standard tags to help the staffer make the NPC easy to find, if you have those) etc. If they have code attached, do they have the necessary bits and bobs for that code to function? Have you messed with the skills? And so on. Extra bonus points if you could not only create, but modify existing entries, and load them in some room or other for you to pick up when you log on.
Limit reimbursement requests. Make it clear that a game crash doesn't need to be fixed in every particular, but only in those things that are truly difficult to impossible to replace, or that without your character may very well die/cease to function. I can't imagine what any reimbursement request would be like that's replacing all the particulars in the Kadian hunters' storage.
Automatically flush anything in the bug/typo/idea queue older than 2 years. At that point, it's very likely either fixed, outdated, or duplicated.
Offer staff R&R time. I imagine some of you guys already take regular breaks from the game. Make that a policy for everyone. (Not that you have to, but you're encouraged to spend a few weeks off every three months or something. Thrash it out, figure out what intervals work for yourselves.) Crucially, allow staff R&R time to be spent playing the game 'guilt-free', i.e. with the explicit expectation that no, you're not intended to do staff work. Yes, this would likely require more staffers to cover the workload. That's not a bad thing.
Yes, that's a lot of work to set up. Yes, I think the staff-side benefit would be worth it, if you don't already have some such thing in place.
Quote from: Tisiphone on March 15, 2015, 08:27:38 AM
You're actually going to pull me out of the woodwork to respond here. Congratulations.
<snip>
Me too, and I agree with a lot of what you said. A web-based building app would be amazing. Raesanos had that for Armageddon 2 iirc and it worked quite well. Wonder what happened to that project? Either that or make a Builder position for staff (also ala Arm 2) so people who don't like futzing with the in game building interface can fob off their projects on those who can tolerate it.
Also, someone mentioned a report template for weekly reports. I can't express how absolutely amazing such a thing would be, for both staff and players, especially if it was mandatory or enforced in some way so everyone had to use the same thing. It'd cut down on processing time staff side, and headaches/stress about oversharing or undersharing player side.
I really like the idea of making all special order Merchant House items craftable in-game.
After this is done, provide a list of recipes on the clan forums for each Merchant House so the House's crafters know what they need to send hunters out for in order to fill orders.
Certain items would only be craftable by certain "levels" of crafters in the House. Starting crafters would have access to only base items (and their recipes). The higher up the ranks you go, the more items you have at your disposal.
Right now most House ranks for crafters have two ranks. "Crafter" and then "Merchant". Cut that into five or so ranks with each new rank giving them access to more in-game House specific crafts they can make and market to other PC's.
Now you have almost eliminated the need for staff assistance on loading Merchant House item orders. You have maintained in-game realism. You have given Hunters in Houses an actual role that is necessary (since some really aren't) so their enjoyment/sense of accomplishment is increased. You have also managed to increase crafter's sense of accomplishment and at the same time further the current efforts of creating more lateral promotions within roles that let people "move up" without pushing them into the glass ceiling.
The only downside? How much work will it be to get it off the ground initially and is it worth it? I have no idea.
Make Talia and Calavera staff GMH exclusively.
And then implement what Barz was talking about..
(http://sportige.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Cleveland-Cavaliers-e1323950922640.jpg)
#oldschoolCalavera
Complete revamp of the roles and responsibilities and privileges of staff.
1. Find people who are suited to tasks that others might not typically enjoy. There -are- people who would love typo fixing and building - have a Senior Builder, someone who is not in charge of any specific clan, but whose primary responsibility is to oversee all aspects of building and text changes (including typo and bug-fixes such as faulty exits, things that builders are usually responsible for creating/handling). They can do other things, but they are primarily the go-to person for all things involving change of game text, and the person all other staffers go to when they are doing game text changes, and need another pair of eyes to ensure quality of the final result.
3. Remove (if you haven't already) the restriction for people to build only within their own assigned zones. Instead, structure the building based on the skill of the builder. Give your best builder the Senior Builder job - he oversees the others, does last-minute touchups OR delegates those last-minute touchups to whoever he trusts to do so. Allow everyone on the building team the privileges involved in saving a zone. The Senior Builder can assign tasks to people he feels are good at building and who enjoy the work, as needed. And builders who are not assigned anything at the moment can volunteer for any pending projects on the builder list, and be trusted to do it (with redundancy via another builder to check for QC, since most builders make typos and sometimes it takes another builder to notice it). If a Kurac storyteller is out in the tablelands watching Kurac PCs doing stuff there, and notices that there's a typo in Tablelands room #4973, then he should be able to fix that typo. Typo fixes should be auto-logged with a from:to, so there's oversight by the system itself to ensure that no one's claiming to fix typos when they're actually making changes they shouldn't be making.
4. If you don't have it already, create redundancy in backups. Every time a staff member saves a zone or an item or any kind of change, the system should be saving a copy of how it was before any changes were made, AND a save of the new incarnation. It's an extra step from the staffer - I can't remember the syntax but it's just a single command to save an area; all areas should be saved immediately prior to a change in the area. This, in addition to any automatic system saves and backups. This should result in a lot of time saved with regards to reimbursements if the game crashes due to "user error".
5. Some people like digging through files looking at peoples' stuff. Hire a staffer who likes that kind of thing, and put them in charge of reimbursements. They can do other stuff too - and other people can do reiimbursements too, but make this his "thing." He's the go-to guy when there are reimbursement requests and the admin is too busy to handle it (or if he's not busy and volunteers to handle it anyway). This person can also be very useful in finding typos and bugs that other staffers might not notice, because other staffers aren't looking through peoples' stuff. He could fix on the fly if he has time, or pass to a "fixer-builder" to do at a later time.
6. Make it so EVERY staffer can change sdescs and mdescs on the fly for PCs. Let them know this is so they can fix typos as they see them, or if they're reported. There's no reason why a player should log in with half his mdesc missing, cut off in the middle of the third sentence, and stay that way for a month. You <send> to the player "Hey your mdesc is missing the last half. What did you want for it to be?" and the player wishes up the answer. You make the change, save the character, it's done. If they don't know or can't remember, add a note to their pfile and make sure their clan staff and an admin is aware that it needs to be done as soon as the player sends a request to fix it. If you typo, you can fix it. ALL staff members should be able to do this, and ALL staff members should be trusted to do this when they run into a character whose descriptions have errors. This will make the game more playable, and it'll free up admin time because they won't have to spend their time dealing with things that anyone -should- be able to do. Having staffed on a diku game before I know it takes seconds to change a sentence in an mdesc. No one should have to wait a month to have it done, unless that's how long it takes for them to be logged in at the same time any available staffer is also logged in.
6a. I don't know if this is possible, but it should be: allow trusted staff members to log PCs into the non-playing part of the game long enough to make any requested desc changes. It'd be a special toggle on the login screen. When the player logs in, he still would log in to the last place the *player* logged his character out of, but the change would be made on the builder port or in the non-playing area (such as a staff member's room). In some game codes this is an easy thing to do. I have no idea if it's doable, or easy, for Arm. If it's doable and not complicated, then yeah I recommend it and encourage it. When it's done, the system would kick a note to the player's e-mail letting them know the change was done, and which staff member did it.
7. Allow all staffers to create their own "plotdriver" NPCs who are NOT part of any clan. These NPCs would be exclusive to those specific staffers. These plotdrivers could be something as mundane as a lost child who needs someone to help them get back to the orphanage, and if they don't get killed, they become part of a mini-quest to find out who their mom is, and she happens to be a Rennik noble. You can do all kinds of stuff with this, and if you start out boringly mundane as just a method of giving an off-peak solo player something interesting to do for a half hour, it could turn into a zone-wide "event" weeks down the line. I had a little kid character in a game once, who I created for this same reason. She ended up in a plotline to roll out a new hunting zone, and was rescued by the citizens who she'd met in the previous weeks. As a result, she ended up being the catalyst for "storytelling time" in her city. She'd go to the public spot during a busy but uneventful time, maybe once every 5-6 weeks, plop herself down on some important person's lap, and demand a story. The next hour would be spent learning about the history of the city, and you'd end up with a dozen people sitting there enraptured by the tales being spun and recreated. You can use devices like this to move plots, but you don't have to. They can get involved in clan stuff if they coordinate with the clan staff (or if clan PCs cause their clans to be involved, which is more organic and more fun for the players), but they don't have to and aren't intended for that purpose.
8. Regarding player reviews - I like that they're available even though I rarely ask for them. Maybe something like this would be helpful:
The first character report that any staffer sees of a character in their clan (or non-clan as the case may be), they are required to "sign off" on it in the pfile. Put in a note that says they ARE that person's staff member, and maybe a line or two of any impressions the staff member had. That line or two would need to be something that can NOT be redacted if the player asks for a review. If the character lives for a RL month or gets involved in some significant plotline before dying earlier than a month, then when they die, someone on their clan (or unclan) staff should add a line in their pfile with final impression. Again - something that the player can see, should he ask for a review.
My reasons for #8 - it would take a lot less research on the admin's part if there was *something* to see in the pfile for every character who has either been involved in something OR has lived for awhile before dying. Even if that something is "I've found nothing of note to comment about this character." Knowing that someone took a moment to check long enough to put a comment down, I think would go a long way to reducing the work on the Admin's side. It also means that players will know NOT to expect any notes about characters who didn't live very long, and didn't get involved in any plotlines. If they happened to get noticed doing something really cool, or really unkosher, they'd see a note about that short-lived uninvolved character. But otherwise, no expectations.
My reasons for all of the above: Not to make MORE work for staff, but rather, to spread out the responsibilities, reducing the tasks that ONLY admin can do. Give staff more coded permissions to do a wider variety of things, and ensure that there are staff members who can do, and have permission to do, and the coded ability to do, things that might not be popular but that they happen to either not mind doing or actually enjoy doing.
For instance: I personally love building and typo fixing. I don't like creating mobs, but I like creating rooms. I also happen to be good at it. I like popping into NPCs from time to time to animate them, but my forte is in non-interactive text changes. So I shouldn't be a clan staff member. I should be on the builder team, and I should be allowed to create a random unimportant nobody special NPC to wander around interacting with characters, as long as I'm not interrupting existing clan plotlines. I could have that tregil who shits on some hunter's boot before the hunter kills him. Or the sneaky warrens brat who steals a long muscular tube from a Byn recruit's pack and waves it around making vulgar gestures with it before getting the shit beat out of him for his efforts. Or the rinthi child who manages to escape the rinth but feels so lost and scared and just wants to go back home. Those are things I'd enjoy doing, if I were on staff. I wouldn't want to be involved in clan stuff, and I shouldn't have to be. I should be allowed to be just a generic storyteller, and builder. I have to assume there are other people who have ideas of what they'd be good at, that they'd like to do, that don't fit into the neat, tight structure Armageddon staff adheres to.
That's why I feel a restructuring might be useful.
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.
If we're supposed to be accounting for clan coin in our weekly reports, can we please just have it automated :( I honestly can't remember why or how much I deposited in the week by the end of it if I'm not writing a note to myself immediately.
Suggested:
deposit/withdraw <amount> <account> <reason>
balance <account> log <1-50>
I'm not sure how it would work in the current implementation of teams, but why not just add one more ST in general who's there simply to support the teams when the smaller stuff need to get done, help run plots, and so on?
Better yet, an extra admin, and keep the same number of ST currently? So long as admin get to help run plots too.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 15, 2015, 04:32:31 AM
Quote from: Down Under on March 15, 2015, 04:21:08 AM
.....
People like discovering stuff.
..........
It might be a fun side-project for Storytellers to come up with these sort of random encounter places -- And once they're explored, cave in the entrance. That ruin is gone -- The items found, taken. The monsters killed -- Dead, just like your PCs. But random encounter stuff really breathes life into the world, makes the stories more real, and gives a visceral sort of twist to the PC's existence.
I would love this. So much.
Yes. Random encounter stuff. Adventure!
Make Storytellers in charge of enhancing the world's atmosphere and emoting random stuff to players AND JUST THAT.
Don't make some storytellers in charge of clans where there's only like 2-3 players who mostly never really need them (I'm thinking d-elves and tribals) but put them in charge of globally enhancing the world by answering wishes for NPC animations or just randomly animating things.
Those same storytellers should also be in charge of flipping around popping beasts and flowers, so that a map that we make five years ago with where the plants will still be good today. Flip where goudras pop once a month or something, do the same with plants and herbs and foraging spots. Reduce or augment the number of gems one can find in one spot at a given time.
I think it's a shame that we have some staff that are in clans where they barely need one while other areas of the game desperately needs more staffing power.
Even if it means giving a little more trusting "power" to storytellers in what they can do, this would be the best publicity you could get, that the world isn't just "static" any more but full of life and goes with the flow.
I know that my "reshuffling" stuff around once a month or so will probably be answered with "You need an admin+ to do changes to a room like this and it takes time" and I totally understand, but why not just have a "monthly staff do-over" day, like on a Saturday, where you shut down the game for a few hours and where all the staff are given enough powers to do changes like that and you all get together, put a few hours into the game and completely changes re-popping spots, obsidian deposits locations, plant and flower locations, etc..?
It would make sooooooooooooooooo much good for the game and keep it fresh.
Since I like the idea so much right now:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49003.msg872665.html#msg872665
This would require a complete restructuring though... so it might be too much of a stretch? But instead of teams organized into GMH, INDIES, SOUTH, NORTH, instead organize each into a political party "X, Y, Z". I feel like this would be easier to generate plots and allow STs more leeway into getting things actually moving along in the game.
[sorry for so many edits:]
I think the problem that comes up is what if like, House Oash moves from one party into the other, does that ST follow the House? I think that would make sense, but I don't know how that would work out logistically if ST's are moving between teams.
Quote from: Semper on March 15, 2015, 12:45:06 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: KankWhisperer on March 15, 2015, 02:56:04 PM
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.
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.
Considering we all can use tdesc, I think its unnecessary too. ST approval should be more than enough.
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.
Quote from: Thunkkin on March 15, 2015, 10:11:10 AM
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"
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. ;D
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.
Quote from: Talia on March 15, 2015, 04:05:29 PM
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 :)
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.
Quote from: Malken on March 15, 2015, 04:31:57 PM
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.
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!
Quote from: nauta on March 15, 2015, 04:36:38 PM
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)
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.
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.
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 .
Quote from: Majikal on March 15, 2015, 04:22:36 PM
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.
*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.
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.
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.)
Quote from: valeria on March 15, 2015, 08:33:09 PM
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.
Not sure if it's been suggested yet but...
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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
>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.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM.
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.
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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....
Quote from: Nyr on March 14, 2015, 11:02:54 PM
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.
Quote from: Taven on March 15, 2015, 08:44:21 PM
Quote from: valeria on March 15, 2015, 08:33:09 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Taven on March 15, 2015, 08:44:21 PM
Quote from: valeria on March 15, 2015, 08:33:09 PM
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.
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.
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.
Curious about the staff conversation and reaction to these ideas. Are you guys finding yourselves reevaluating in unexpected ways?
Quote from: Barzalene on March 16, 2015, 12:29:42 PM
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!
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.
Quote from: Majikal on March 15, 2015, 04:22:36 PM
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. ;D
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 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.
Quote from: nauta on March 16, 2015, 12:24:57 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Semper on March 16, 2015, 04:29:27 PM
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 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.
Quote from: Barsook on March 16, 2015, 05:07:12 PM
Quote from: Semper on March 16, 2015, 04:29:27 PM
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...
Quote from: Norcal on March 15, 2015, 02:00:30 AM
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. Quote
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.
Quote from: Norcal on March 16, 2015, 05:17:32 PM
Quote from: Norcal on March 15, 2015, 02:00:30 AM
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.)
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.
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.
Personally I don't want extended subguilds to become the new subguild, which is what would happen if they were always available.
Quote from: Malken on March 16, 2015, 05:38:28 PM
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.
You may want to read his post again, Tetra.
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.
I don't think the one mastercraft a month each crafter sends in is the thing causing staffers to burnout.
Quote from: HavokBlue on March 16, 2015, 06:13:45 PM
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Patuk on March 16, 2015, 05:58:04 PM
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.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 16, 2015, 07:20:12 PM
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.
If you want both, you special app anyway. Unless everyone wants to play HG master tailors or delf nilazi slipknives, the amount of special apps will lower if that is implemented.
Quote from: Patuk on March 16, 2015, 08:14:23 PM
If you want both, you special app anyway. Unless everyone wants to play HG master tailors or delf nilazi slipknives, the amount of special apps will lower if that is implemented.
So how would karma convert into GCP? Don't staff want to keep main guilds karma restricted, and have players spend GCP for extended subguilds?
Quote from: seidhr on March 16, 2015, 06:34:25 PM
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. :)
Well, to be fair, it seems like most of what takes a lot of time for Staff is related to the fact that you are working with super wonky crazy old code patched up over some other crazy old wonky code.
There used to be a Staff member (who's name started with an R I believe) that was about to integrate most of that stuff to be executed via a web page instead of the mud itself but I think he left before it was completed, so I don't think you need a Valve-like budget to make it work, you just need the right guy/girl for the job (which is probably the tricky part).
Patching up the mud with new code-stuff will probably be harder and harder as the years go by because knowledge of good ol' Diku isn't really being passed on from generation to generation.
Anyway, sorry for the sidenote, but I strongly believe that a huge part of Staff's problem is that you are all dealing with archaic methods but you are all probably aware of that so yeah :-\
Quote from: Tetra on March 16, 2015, 08:20:18 PM
Quote from: Patuk on March 16, 2015, 08:14:23 PM
If you want both, you special app anyway. Unless everyone wants to play HG master tailors or delf nilazi slipknives, the amount of special apps will lower if that is implemented.
So how would karma convert into GCP? Don't staff want to keep main guilds karma restricted, and have players spend GCP for extended subguilds?
You sound like you haven't read what I wrote at all :(
There would be no GCP - My main point is that if I can make 15 whirans in a row because I have the karma for it, and a lot of people do, it's because I'm trusted not to abuse whiranish powers and play properly. If I were to make 15 warrior outdoorsman in a row because I have the karma to do so, how is it worse than me creating 15 whirans in a row?
I wrote that you would only be able to either choose a karma guild or a karma subguild. If you wanted a whiran / slipknife (seriously, only Delirium has the karma for that sort of stuff!), then I would need to special app it.
Quote from: Malken on March 16, 2015, 09:35:08 PM
Quote from: Tetra on March 16, 2015, 08:20:18 PM
Quote from: Patuk on March 16, 2015, 08:14:23 PM
If you want both, you special app anyway. Unless everyone wants to play HG master tailors or delf nilazi slipknives, the amount of special apps will lower if that is implemented.
So how would karma convert into GCP? Don't staff want to keep main guilds karma restricted, and have players spend GCP for extended subguilds?
You sound like you haven't read what I wrote at all :(
There would be no GCP - My main point is that if I can make 15 whirans in a row because I have the karma for it, and a lot of people do, it's because I'm trusted not to abuse whiranish powers and play properly. If I were to make 15 warrior outdoorsman in a row because I have the karma to do so, how is it worse than me creating 15 whirans in a row?
It's not better or worse. Seems like the GCP augments the privileges of karma by allowing you to, once in a while, grab that extended subguild for the karma guild, or for the non-karma guild. I don't know if karma classes can be fairly paralleled to extended subguilds, because karma classes are entirely unique.
Extended subguilds are mirroring regular subguilds, only in that they are much more superior. It doesn't make sense to make it one or the other. We want to _reduce_ requests in the request tool. Why make someone who wants a whiran outdoorsman special app. when they can just implement GCP and subguilds into character creation?
If you code it the way you're asking, then it doesn't really capitalize on the desire to streamline requests.
Quote from: Malken on March 16, 2015, 09:32:41 PM
There used to be a Staff member (who's name started with an R I believe) that was about to integrate most of that stuff to be executed via a web page instead of the mud itself but I think he left before it was completed, so I don't think you need a Valve-like budget to make it work, you just need the right guy/girl for the job (which is probably the tricky part).
Yeah I started walking a marathon this morning when I got out of bed and walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I just didn't 'quite' get there. :P
Being on staff, I don't think tools are that big of a problem. We actually have some pretty decent tools to work on things. Building
can be a pain in the butt, but not always - and our focus isn't really on making the world bigger or redoing all the descriptions in the game for no reason. Ultimately the world is just a sandbox for people to RP in. We're wanting to facilitate that more efficiently, and be able to spend our time on things to help that happen instead of other things. Our toolset itself, I personally would not label that big of a problem, but everyone's got their own opinion.
Maybe extended subguilds should be the new subguilds. They are obviously popular, yet don't seem to have spawned a race of multi-talented supermen overlords to ruin the game.
Quote from: Marauder Moe on March 17, 2015, 10:35:57 AM
Maybe extended subguilds should be the new subguilds. They are obviously popular, yet don't seem to have spawned a race of multi-talented supermen overlords to ruin the game.
+1
Comparing outdoorsman to hunter
Or something like Rogue to thief
It's impossible to compare actually. Once you taste those sweet extended subguilds, it can make the regular sub-guilds feel useless.
A few I don't even know why they exist.
Of course I could go on a small tirade on why I think all the classes need an overhaul.
Quote from: Marauder Moe on March 17, 2015, 10:35:57 AM
Maybe extended subguilds should be the new subguilds. They are obviously popular, yet don't seem to have spawned a race of multi-talented supermen overlords to ruin the game.
I seem to recall that one of the design goals for the base classes was that interdependence would be a thing. Extended subguilds may not completely eliminate interdependence, but they certainly reduce it a lot.
Honestly, I like it the way it is. Everyone can play an extended subguild once in a while, but no one can play them all the time.
Quote from: Narf on March 17, 2015, 11:52:21 AM
Quote from: Marauder Moe on March 17, 2015, 10:35:57 AM
Maybe extended subguilds should be the new subguilds. They are obviously popular, yet don't seem to have spawned a race of multi-talented supermen overlords to ruin the game.
I seem to recall that one of the design goals for the base classes was that interdependence would be a thing. Extended subguilds may not completely eliminate interdependence, but they certainly reduce it a lot.
Honestly, I like it the way it is. Everyone can play an extended subguild once in a while, but no one can play them all the time.
One idea to reduce paperwork (if it's paperwork at all) is to "retroactively" police abuse of the extended subguild system - so let players pick whatever they want within their karma range, and tell them they are only allowed one extended subguild every X months, and if they abuse this, give them a bap on the nose afterwards.
The GCP thing where you spend points which automatically regenerate over time sounded like a good idea for automating it. This was the original intent when the extended subguilds were introduced. I worry that the "bap on the nose" part of the equation would take more time than you imagine, and be somewhat unpleasant for staff to enforce.
I think an automated system is the way to go with this.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 16, 2015, 05:46:35 PM
Personally I don't want extended subguilds to become the new subguild, which is what would happen if they were always available.
If your characters live for at least 4 months they already are.
Okay, this thread is sorta "Just throw any ideas out there and we'll see if we like them or not - Staff".
We don't really need to discuss forever as to why you personally like it or not.
We can move on to the next idea!
I think a lot of it is devolving because, like Adhira said... they want feedback and ideas but they really don't know what they are looking for. So far, the thread could be boiled down to this:
QuoteStaff: Guys, we work hard, and we can't always BE Storytellers. Any ideas to cut workload?
Us: (A bunch of random ideas, code tweaks, examples from real life)
Staff: We're not looking for any of that, because its not applicable or takes too much involvement.
Us: Well what do you work the most on?
Staff: A bunch of random 20minute assignments.
Us: How about you farm out those smaller, tedious assignments to non-world-affecting volunteers?
Staff: We have enough people on staff.
Is that about right? Because other than a couple ideas that really gained traction, it seems like neither side quite understands what the problem at hand is.
That's why it's brainstorming, not engineering.
Quote from: Nathvaan on March 16, 2015, 01:00:35 PM
Quote from: Barzalene on March 16, 2015, 12:29:42 PM
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!
I mean... its not even brainstorming with the people who it affects.
Quote from: Riev on March 17, 2015, 01:30:08 PM
Quote from: Nathvaan on March 16, 2015, 01:00:35 PM
Quote from: Barzalene on March 16, 2015, 12:29:42 PM
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!
I mean... its not even brainstorming with the people who it affects.
;D Funny, cause that's kind of what the Title of the thread is? Why is there this perceived gap between staff and player conversation?
Another idea to lighten Staff work load, is to farm out building projects/NPCs/Backgrounds on the 'Player Collaboration' forum a bit more often.
While it may not seem like Staff needs to do this (they may well be capable of building, both NPCs and Rooms and so forth), I imagine this time stacks up, and detracts from the time that can be spent telling stories and animating.
If, perhaps, more of these projects were farmed out to the player base (of which several seem interested in doing pedantic building projects), then perhaps that would free up some more time?
----
Another idea to find out how things are going with Leadership PC's is to perhaps have an exit interview/series of questions asked of a Player when they store or die. It might help illuminate why X Y Z Nobles store, or GMH Merchant #42, and help Staff fix problem areas very specifically that frustrate Players in those roles.
----
Another idea is to perhaps have Staff rotations more often -- Have Staff oversee an area of the game for the span of a project or two, and then switch. It may have the effect of Staff having less agency with one area or series of PCs, but it also may allow more neutral animations and less territorial carving of niches. I know that before Staff rotations existed, some Staffers watched areas/clans of the game for multiple years at a time. It seems like Staff rotations happen when a Storyteller goes to Legend, or more Storytellers come on board. Maybe it should revolve less around that, and more around project completions, more or less.
Quote from: Riev on March 17, 2015, 01:20:47 PM
I think a lot of it is devolving because, like Adhira said... they want feedback and ideas but they really don't know what they are looking for. So far, the thread could be boiled down to this:
QuoteStaff: Guys, we work hard, and we can't always BE Storytellers. Any ideas to cut workload?
Us: (A bunch of random ideas, code tweaks, examples from real life)
Staff: We're not looking for any of that, because its not applicable or takes too much involvement.
Us: Well what do you work the most on?
Staff: A bunch of random 20minute assignments.
Us: How about you farm out those smaller, tedious assignments to non-world-affecting volunteers?
Staff: We have enough people on staff.
Is that about right? Because other than a couple ideas that really gained traction, it seems like neither side quite understands what the problem at hand is.
No so much, closer to this:
QuoteStaff: Guys, we work hard, and we can't always BE Storytellers. Any ideas to cut workload?
Us: some things that players may just want to see happen that may not actually help, a smaller number of things that would be great if this were not a free game and if we had paid people with real resources, and an equally small number of things that are the diamonds in the rough that provoke thought.
Staff: that stuff is fine if you want to propose it, but please don't get bogged down in what you "want to see happen". Let's aim for things that would help with streamlining or make things better.
For instance:
Find a place for digging clay in Allanak, fleshing out more item descriptions -- these were some of the first suggestions, and this is what we were trying to steer players away from when we chimed in. (Neither of these things actually streamline things, they are just work for some staff member to do at some point. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, it just means it isn't what this thread is aiming for.) There are some ideas that are a bit out there in terms of left-field ideas, and that's fine, we're asking for brainstorming, but they just may not work for a volunteer game. (Like...scheduled chat times, office hours, etc--that might work for an online course you are paying for, but I'm not sure if it would work for meeting with your clan staff. It is thought-provoking, definitely, and it is different, but is it truly "better" for staff in terms of time spent? How can that replace all that goes into reports?) There are also ideas proposed that are actually already implemented, like how reimbursements already work that way. There are also players are asking to do away with policies that do not exist. Like...the massive amount of red tape that doesn't really exist for staff as a whole. Or...that staff can't animate on the fly for a traveling group somewhere even if it's not their clan.
Not a big deal, we are just trying to focus in on things that would be of most benefit. Post as you will.
Quote
Us: Well what do you work the most on?
Staff: here is the list of requests that we work on, though given by time involved per request on average (and not given with additional numbers on how many there are, so something that takes about 20 minutes)
There are areas where the character report changes we're looking at will help tremendously in reducing staff overhead in the request tool. To use an example, if there are 10 Bynners and 10 Bynners report each week, that's about 40 reports per month if everyone reported. Reduce it to the leaders doing weeklies (and more concise ones) and the rest doing monthlies (and more concise ones) and let's say that's 2 leaders reporting weekly, and 8 non-leaders reporting monthly--or 16 total reports. And that's just one clan.
Those are big assumptions, but you'd be surprised who reports that isn't a leader and how often they do so. Saying "what else are you looking for besides reports being changed?" is like saying "so where else can you cut calories apart from the entire chocolate cake you eat every day?" There's a reason we have this thread and then a whole separate one devoted to reports. :)
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Us: How about you farm out those smaller, tedious assignments to non-world-affecting volunteers?
Staff: that's not how we do things.
In this case, since we're asking for your feedback, your brainstorming, and your contributions, it is up to you to provide feedback, brainstorming, and contributions to convince us otherwise. This is the players' sounding board of ideas. We've seen several great ones that have already provoked discussion among staff. If you're wanting direct feedback right now on how we do things and why we wouldn't do X or Y, then yeah, you're going to get how we do things right now (which is to say...we don't have Builders, and we haven't since quite some time before Arm 2 was shut down as a project). This doesn't say anything about what we might be changing, because policy or major changes like that would be handled at a higher level of review before being discussed directly with the playerbase. There's a gap between player and staff conversation because this is
your brainstorming thread. We have our own. Player ideas are going to be different and we realize that, so this is where you can bring them up.
Quote from: Nyr on March 17, 2015, 04:31:25 PM
In this case, since we're asking for your feedback, your brainstorming, and your contributions, it is up to you to provide feedback, brainstorming, and contributions to convince us otherwise. This is the players' sounding board of ideas. We've seen several great ones that have already provoked discussion among staff. If you're wanting direct feedback right now on how we do things and why we wouldn't do X or Y, then yeah, you're going to get how we do things right now (which is to say...we don't have Builders, and we haven't since quite some time before Arm 2 was shut down as a project). This doesn't say anything about what we might be changing, because policy or major changes like that would be handled at a higher level of review before being discussed directly with the playerbase. There's a gap between player and staff conversation because this is your brainstorming thread. We have our own. Player ideas are going to be different and we realize that, so this is where you can bring them up.
Okay, this puts a bit more context to everything and helps me understand what's being asked for.
If it comes down to being more efficient, is it possible to organize things in terms of high, medium, and low priority tasks; a quick organization of what's more important like your gmail inbox. Each staff has an individual inbox of high priority things they must do that day, medium priority is for that week, and low priority stuff is pushed down the line until everyone does it all at once. The lower the priority, the more open it is for everyone in the team to chip in and help complete it.
Then, in order for a staff member to be free just to animate or play around with the world for the day, they just need to complete the high priority stuff for that day. When they have a little more time, they can fill out some of the medium priority things, or if these areas of their list are clear and they don't have to be participating in the game world, they can go help other staff members who may be busier with things on their plate.
Is this how things are already? I have noooo idea how things are staff side; I'm in that boat just throwing things out there.
Maybe for the players to brainstorm more efficiently, staff can become a bit more transparent in the tools and processes that occur behind the scenes? It would probably take a bit more staff time for that, but I think it might improve player/staff trust.
I think during the time of Arm II project, there was a lot of dialogue between staff/players, and more things staff were putting out there. Even if it's not related to flipping the game around, just that kind of transparency into how things are staff-side now and then would be great for me.
1. Outsource the following to characters and players: Room and item creation, description changes, typo correction, and item loading. If you play a Kadian family member, you can write up all those fancy clothing orders, and compile the crafting formulas. If you play a Tor noble, you can load up your special scorpion-emblazoned armor. Yay, reopen Nenyuk to players, and instead of giving them power over all private rooms, allow them to "oversee" the building of new rooms, or redecorate old rooms by re-writing them. Allow requests flagged for certain clans to be sent to players. These are specialized roles that can be held to a higher standard, and their actions can be reviewed and corrected as needed.
2. Use CGP, or create some other OOC currency that gets distributed evenly to purchase staff time. Price all player requests accordingly, or set up an occasional auction to determine reasonable market rates. You want a skill bump for your character? That will be 10 points. You want an extra skill added? 100 points. It's not pay to win, it's a fair division of finite staff resources.
3. Do away with that stupid account notes bullshit. If players demand some kind of judgement for karma, then come up with a mostly unbiased set of criteria. Make those criteria public, and try to do away with as much of the "be trustworthy" and "get noticed" mysticism as possible.
4. I would rather be able to fix typos than submit them and expect someone else to fix them. Me english goot.
Generally? Loosen the reins a bit. The game has seen a giant swell of administration and red tape over the last decade and a half, and I'm not sure the game is much improved for it. I don't mean obscure staff policies, I mean big staff announcement type stuff. The constant moderation of, and reliance on, the discussion boards is stifling. Report this, but don't report too much or too little. You can request this, but only so often. You can't play this role, or do that thing, because that makes more work for the staff. You set up "regular reporting" as the benchmark of a good player, and people are going to send in reports. That's a good problem to have because people are playing how you want them to, you just need to alter your expectations.
Quote from: Semper on March 17, 2015, 05:06:37 PM
Maybe for the players to brainstorm more efficiently, staff can become a bit more transparent in the tools and processes that occur behind the scenes? It would probably take a bit more staff time for that, but I think it might improve player/staff trust.
We have a staff page that manages a lot of stuff. Inside it:
We have the request tool. Players put stuff there. Staff put stuff there too, when it has to do with approval for stuff they've done like building. Approval usually means "I looked at it and it also looks okay, it is good to go now for players to see."
We see character approval stuff in a web tool.
We can see all account notes in a tool.
We can look up all PC info in a tool.
We can look at all bios in a top-level tool.
We have where surveys in a tool.
We have bug/typo/idea management in a tool.
Crafting is also in a tool.
Foraging is in a tool.
History page updates are in a tool.
We have scripting tools. Most stuff is in javascript, some of it is in C. Some really old stuff is in dmpl, but most has been converted.
Shops are in a tool.
Helpfiles are in a tool.
Weekly updates are in a tool.
I guess that's about it for that.
We also have the staff discussion board. Staff put stuff there. There's a board for clan stuff. Staff update it with what clans are doing. There's a proposals board. This is for staff to propose stuff. Things get shot down, approved, or tabled there. We've discussed how that all works somewhere else on the GDB, I'm sure. There's a plotlines board, for ongoing plots or things that have already been approved. There is a kudos thread for kudos. There is a coder board for detailing code changes. There is a scripting board for scripts and questions about them.
So what processes do you think you need to know about in order to be more efficient in brainstorming about how we can be more efficient?
Quote from: Nyr on March 17, 2015, 05:40:30 PM
So what processes do you think you need to know about in order to be more efficient in brainstorming about how we can be more efficient?
Well, if Arm runs like any other process driven work engine, I'd bet that 80% of your workload is covered in 20% of your available tools. So, where does staff feel the biggest amount of pain with regard to administrative duties? That is where the brainstorming should be focused.
On character reports:
1. Make leaders handle some of the minion reports, the bits of the minion reportage that makes sense for the leader to know. Leaders would then decide whether it is important enough to pass on upstairs, sort out duplicates, and so on. Minions can then still report things their leaders shouldn't know (that are important) to staff via their own character report, and staff can still learn about how Runner Todd felt on that mission by peaking at the bio of Runner Todd.
2. Have staff update the clan documentation / thread with some of the answers that they give in reports. This probably is already done, but have it done more often. For instance, I've asked things that are pretty obvious - where this or that is at the compound, what this or that NPC is doing, what some of the workflow is. In general, if the information is out there, we then won't have to ask about it, thus saving you from having to give the same answer to it.
Well in the spirit of brainstorming, hopefully thinking outside the box and steam lining things; lets take a look at one thing everyone is interested in, well at least I am and that is skill bumps and extended guilds.
Players: We want more choices, and not have to train every single time for 10-40 days before becoming decent.
Staff: Sounds good. Here is CGP, along with skill bumps and extended sub-guilds.
Players: We want to see this automated.
Adhira: We do too. :(
While an automated system of the current CGP ideas would be great, what if we were to modify the current skill bumps idea to more easily fit the coded systems that currently exist. First off in my mind skill bumps should only be for mundanes, don't think mages need any help training faster. Secondly instead of the player getting to choose the skill they bump, they instead choose a template that more fits the idea of a established(apprentice)-vertern(journeyman) character. We'll use ranger as an example.
An apprentice ranger would cost 2 CGP, or maybe three depending how generous you are with the skills boosts. Arguable the apprentice ranger could easily be set up as just one bump for every skill. However, to make it more interesting the staff can then ask themselves, what what is an apprentice ranger, what a more established ranger look like? Would they really need to ever practice ride? Probably not. Archery should probably be journeyman at this point. Bandage might be at journeyman or maybe just under. What about other skills? Perceptions skills? Other combat skills? For convenience sake we'll say that dual wielding and two-handed are just under journey man too. As for weapon skills, well if they focused in one weapon its probably a little hirer then apprentice but if they focused on a weapon common to their area its probably just under journeyman. Lets give them that choice. Apprentice blunt weapons ranger; apprentice slashing ranger: apprentice chopping ranger; apprentice piercing ranger.
What about a journeyman ranger? He should probably cost 4 CGP or perhaps even five~. Again whats a journeyman or more veteran ranger look like. Archery mid journeyman, bandage, perceptions skills too. Dual/two-handed aswell. Well his weapon skills would be higher, but again maybe one over all the others, each weapon at apprentice while the others one journeyman perhaps. The choices could be split up again journeyman blunt weapons ranger; journey slashing ranger: journeyman chopping ranger; etc. Maybe instead of higher weapon skills he would have focused on archery, mid apprentice weapons, but higher archery. etc etc. Again template choices instead of individual choices.
Again skill values would be up to you but just to give you an idea of how a skill bump template could work.
After creating skill bump templates for each mundane classes you can open up options in the creations screen, if you have 2 karma, you would get access to apprentice mundanes, and journeyman mundanes. From then on your would have more choices depending on the guild and template. Again these would be three karma individuals and before they can create a character like this they would submit an special app ( if you want to be very sure no one is going beyond a three app limit otherwise trust your story tellers to check). In the same way we have to check to see if there is room in a tribe before we can create a d-elf.
Frankly you can do the same with extended apps too. just make them appear as people reach 2 karma. Again, before creating one, they would need to submit a special app request. The difference is, the staff checking the app would just need to confirm that the player's karma+3 can cover the CGP and that they haven't gone over the three character limit. After that, they can create it, the ST can double check the approval and poof everything is done without requiring more work. This basically works for d-elves.
That means that the only time staff need to get involved with giving access to a template or extended guild to someone, is when the person has less then 2 karma. I believe this will reduce the work greatly for staff while at the same time speed up the process for everyone. The population seems to be slowly growing right now and the reality is that the game is always trying to attract new players, its one of those things that needs to be nipped in the bud one way or another. I don't think anyone wants to see less choices for skill bumps or extended guilds going away, or seeing things eventually being delayed even more due to ever increasing work load. That's why I think this is a good way to maintain the system in a more efficient way WITHOUT needing to code new automated systems. I am not going to say its a copy and paste job but again the code to make this a reality already exists. It is just a matter of adding the new template options to the character selection menus. With this idea sub-guild skills and extended sub-guild skills will not be eligible for bumps of any kind since the templates should focus on main guilds only.This will suck for players wanting to invest four karma for hunt or bandage on rangers, or a specific craft on merchant but I think templates still keep in the spirit of providing a character that you don't have to spend days training before you can jump into the action .
My post may have had a tinge of snark to it, but Nyr, your response actually seems to have gotten everyone in a better track, thanks!
I think I have an idea about what staff is asking for now. Basically, players discuss what's important, what's not, and try to figure out what we're willing to cut out or give slack in so staff can get more time on their hands to animate and drive cooler stuff. Correct?
QuoteAccount notes -- between 5 - 30 minutes per request. Admin+ only.
No/Low Priority. I say we can get rid of this? Or put a limit on once every 6 months.
Description changes -- 5 minutes, maybe more if there is some discussion on it, but requires an admin+ to do it. Admin+ only.
Low priority. Seems like it doesn't take too much time though, and there's a limit for players on once every RL year your character lives, so very infrequent.
Ext Subguild / skill bump -- 10-20 minutes, mostly because of math involved. Admin+ only.
Staff said there's a tool in the making to streamline this more? I'd give it medium priority. Once a week or when the player is available.
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.
Low Priority? It's nice to get a lot of new stuff into the game, but if you consider the greater impact of time spent here or on driving a plot along, perhaps reduce the time needed to get this done by a lot? Either limit the current amount of requests that come through, or put in more people to get this done in a faster process.
Reimbursement -- 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Depends on length of request and whether any discussion is had. ST+.
Medium Priority? Once a week kind of thing. I don't know what kind of requests come through, but I only ever request a reimbursement if it's something I can't replace (like a mount or item costing hundreds/thousands of coins).
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+.
Medium Priority. Rotating wares for shops so staff can be even more hands off on this. Make items a limited commodity, so PCs have to actually do something IG to get these items other than put in an order and wait for weeks for things to process.
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+.
Medium Priority.
Original submissions -- At least 20-30 minutes for reading and reviewing, then possibly double that if another staffer needs to approve something related to it. ST+ resolution.
Low Priority.
Reviewing over the list, I guess there really isn't a high priority thing that I would consider to be something completed that very day, besides general character applications? But those go through so fast already, so I have no problem there.
As a player, I put certain priorities where others may have more importance over, but I think as staff it might be a good idea to just let loose on the reins a bit, and let us players wait around for some things which are deemed too important.
I would much rather see world plots, character animations for driving plots, necessary items needed to be built for a big plot, and such things that impact a wider scale to become high priority, and take a hit on how quickly everything else gets completed.
Here's an idea, why not let players flag their requests priority? Some things might be critical to the player, some things might not be. I know most of my requests aren't time sensitive, but the rare few that are I'm feeling the urge to wish up because it's timely.
Quote from: wizturbo on March 17, 2015, 06:50:07 PM
Here's an idea, why not let players flag their requests priority? Some things might be critical to the player, some things might not be. I know most of my requests aren't time sensitive, but the rare few that are I'm feeling the urge to wish up because it's timely.
That ability has been on emails since 1995. Tell me how many times you've found it useful.
Account notes are already limited to once every six months, I thought?
If we're talking plots: Personally, I would prefer to see more small, one-off world flavor animations that have potential to snowball than plans and a lot of building for large plots.
IMO, the problem with large plots is that they are easy to start and hard to finish, and in addition anything that involves a large amount of PCs in one room will result in spamfest-- this is my experience with RPIs in general, anyway; I can't say I've played Arm that long or been involved in any large scale RPTs yet. Thinking big is great but exhausting, where stringing together small plots and letting the pieces fall into place themselves might be better/easier for anyone in an ST position.
Quote from: bcw81 on March 17, 2015, 06:53:33 PM
Quote from: wizturbo on March 17, 2015, 06:50:07 PM
Here's an idea, why not let players flag their requests priority? Some things might be critical to the player, some things might not be. I know most of my requests aren't time sensitive, but the rare few that are I'm feeling the urge to wish up because it's timely.
That ability has been on emails since 1995. Tell me how many times you've found it useful.
Emails and Work Requests (Regardles of the system) are not the same thing. Of course they aren't useful on emails... everyone has a tendency to read the email, regardless of its priority, and decide on what to do later. When it comes to something so informal, its hard to leave it up to the sender to decide what is important.
Request tool submissions are more like Work Requests. While I see a lot of people setting "low priority" on things, and otherwise defaulting to "medium" priority... maybe it would be interesting to have a weighted list of what is and isn't important.
Semper's idea would work well, if staff could set what they think the weight of individual requests are. Then staff could see the tiers, and decide "I just want to work on low-priority tasks today, I only have an hour or so".
Quote from: aeglaeca on March 17, 2015, 06:59:22 PM
Account notes are already limited to once every six months, I thought?
If we're talking plots: Personally, I would prefer to see more small, one-off world flavor animations that have potential to snowball than plans and a lot of building for large plots.
IMO, the problem with large plots is that they are easy to start and hard to finish, and in addition anything that involves a large amount of PCs in one room will result in spamfest-- this is my experience with RPIs in general, anyway; I can't say I've played Arm that long or been involved in any large scale RPTs yet. Thinking big is great but exhausting, where stringing together small plots and letting the pieces fall into place themselves might be better/easier for anyone in an ST position.
Hmm, you're right on both accounts. I think there's those world-spanning plots, but also those little ones that are just as important, and I didn't mean to discredit those. I'm just saying the staff should spend more time on those plot-line things rather than catering to an individual player's mdesc change or adding yet another 10-line food item.
When my character is immersed in their story and busy doing this-that and dealing with the next big thing, I don't think I would mind having to wait a couple weeks for my description change, or other minor request.
Something relatively easy to do (in the scheme of things) is adjust the prices of really cool things to the high high end of the scale. I have no issue at all with a sword that is blah blah blah ruby and diamonds being 15k. Or a helmet that adds x ac being 5k. I think this would make those things a lot more valuable, and worth dying over.
Yes, a merchant can warp the price, but then whoever comes after him sells it for the price it's actually worth, and then you have to worry about people going what, huh, ur bad merchant. I'd like to see the -actual- worth shift.
Quote from: whitt on March 17, 2015, 06:00:22 PM
Quote from: Nyr on March 17, 2015, 05:40:30 PM
So what processes do you think you need to know about in order to be more efficient in brainstorming about how we can be more efficient?
Well, if Arm runs like any other process driven work engine, I'd bet that 80% of your workload is covered in 20% of your available tools. So, where does staff feel the biggest amount of pain with regard to administrative duties? That is where the brainstorming should be focused.
I created a separate thread (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48999.0.html) slightly before this one covering one of those areas: character reports. They have a purpose, but actual utilization is something that we feel needs to change.
Quote from: nauta on March 17, 2015, 06:10:36 PM
On character reports:
1. Make leaders handle some of the minion reports, the bits of the minion reportage that makes sense for the leader to know. Leaders would then decide whether it is important enough to pass on upstairs, sort out duplicates, and so on. Minions can then still report things their leaders shouldn't know (that are important) to staff via their own character report, and staff can still learn about how Runner Todd felt on that mission by peaking at the bio of Runner Todd.
Leaders already do this, from what I gather, to some extent. The complaints and concerns of their IC underlings filter up to them, and if they feel it is important, it comes to us (one way or another).
Quote
2. Have staff update the clan documentation / thread with some of the answers that they give in reports. This probably is already done, but have it done more often. For instance, I've asked things that are pretty obvious - where this or that is at the compound, what this or that NPC is doing, what some of the workflow is. In general, if the information is out there, we then won't have to ask about it, thus saving you from having to give the same answer to it.
We do this already. If you are in a clan that has not had a clan documentation revamp yet, then that is probably why you cannot find the answers you seek in the documentation.
Quote from: Dresan on March 17, 2015, 06:24:15 PM
Well in the spirit of brainstorming, hopefully thinking outside the box and steam lining things; lets take a look at one thing everyone is interested in, well at least I am and that is skill bumps and extended guilds.
That template idea is neat. I'm not sure if it would be more or equal work to finishing the CGP automated spend/regeneration stuff (or rather, coming up with a replacement that works in the way that it was envisioned), but it's a neat idea. Thanks.
Quote from: Semper on March 17, 2015, 06:43:49 PM
QuoteAccount notes -- between 5 - 30 minutes per request. Admin+ only.
No/Low Priority. I say we can get rid of this? Or put a limit on once every 6 months.
Description changes -- 5 minutes, maybe more if there is some discussion on it, but requires an admin+ to do it. Admin+ only.
Low priority. Seems like it doesn't take too much time though, and there's a limit for players on once every RL year your character lives, so very infrequent.
Ext Subguild / skill bump -- 10-20 minutes, mostly because of math involved. Admin+ only.
Staff said there's a tool in the making to streamline this more? I'd give it medium priority. Once a week or when the player is available.
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.
Low Priority? It's nice to get a lot of new stuff into the game, but if you consider the greater impact of time spent here or on driving a plot along, perhaps reduce the time needed to get this done by a lot? Either limit the current amount of requests that come through, or put in more people to get this done in a faster process.
Reimbursement -- 5 minutes to 20 minutes. Depends on length of request and whether any discussion is had. ST+.
Medium Priority? Once a week kind of thing. I don't know what kind of requests come through, but I only ever request a reimbursement if it's something I can't replace (like a mount or item costing hundreds/thousands of coins).
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+.
Medium Priority. Rotating wares for shops so staff can be even more hands off on this. Make items a limited commodity, so PCs have to actually do something IG to get these items other than put in an order and wait for weeks for things to process.
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+.
Medium Priority.
Original submissions -- At least 20-30 minutes for reading and reviewing, then possibly double that if another staffer needs to approve something related to it. ST+ resolution.
Low Priority.
Reviewing over the list, I guess there really isn't a high priority thing that I would consider to be something completed that very day, besides general character applications? But those go through so fast already, so I have no problem there.
As a player, I put certain priorities where others may have more importance over, but I think as staff it might be a good idea to just let loose on the reins a bit, and let us players wait around for some things which are deemed too important.
I would much rather see world plots, character animations for driving plots, necessary items needed to be built for a big plot, and such things that impact a wider scale to become high priority, and take a hit on how quickly everything else gets completed.
I looked at everything you posted in that post and it is this way already, right down to players not being able to file for account notes every six months and right up to where we have the same priorities you do in terms of what is important to do.
That's... Pretty cool. ;D I think the staff are doing a wonderful job and I hope you guys can get more time to do what you want through all this! I'm also in the group that says maybe hiring another ST to even out the load, and perhaps consider organizing teams not based on location or type of clan but on an agenda (like Rebel and Loyal Factions) and allow players/clans to line up into these divisions all with a somewhat similar goal. Would that perhaps streamline plots and how things are completed?
This just popped into my mind. What about nocturnal animals? So there will be some switch outs or something. Dunno, just a thought. Would make hunting and such more interesting.