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Chain of command

Started by Kusari · 15/09/2006 · 12:19 AM · 11 replies · 0 reads

K KusariOP

OP 15/09/2006 · 12:19 AM #1

One of the most unique and attractive features of this game is that it`s a work in progress. Players can actually communicate with the developer and provide suggestions and feedback. Right now you can go directly to the top and email stephen with whatever is on your mind. That is fantastic when you have a few hundred or a few thousand players. But when that count approaches 1 million as it is now, helpful comments turn into an overwhelming flood. Even if just 10% of the players on the server sent a message to stephen today, that would still be more than 80,000 messages. Obviously, no one has time to read even a fration of those messages, so even the most brilliant idea or revolutionary suggestion stands a good chance of being lost in all the traffic.

Here is what I propose:
1. Set up a "suggestion box" in the forum. anyone who had an idea or suggestion would post it there for review and discussion by the rest of the players.

2. Gs and A`s would monitor this forum and highlight any thread which they thought were especially usefull or interesting.

3. Every 1-2 weeks, the As would look at the highlighted threads, as well as any others that they decide deserve attention, and select 10 or 15 of these to pass along to stephen by mailing them to an email account specifically designated for this purpose, and whose address is known only to admins and stephen.

4. Within a set period of time ( 3-5 days if possible). Setephen would send a reply back to the As indicating which ideas he would consider implememting, which ones were ok but still needed work, and any that he would not implement due to hardware/software limitations or because they were simply to complicated to be achieved in any reasonable length of time.

By doing this, good ideas could be passed along and evaluated quickly without getting lost in the noise, while those who still wanted to communicate directly would have the public email addersses to use.

E Eternus

19/09/2006 · 03:21 AM #12

hmm so as not to forget we also get hundreds of PMs over the course of the month on UC and GC
We spend time (especially pandy) working on things to help players indirectly (such as guides, Pandy redoing the walkthru and her fed site which has a lot of info mostly collated by her)
We (mostly pandy again) also have to monitor and set up sometimes the DM`s for GC
Then there`s real life that gets in the way, things such as jobs, families and friends and that all important eating and sleeping which all of us have at one point forfeited for the sake of the game or to help someone.
As anyone thats talked to us knows in between all this the remainder of our time is generally left to chat to friends on Msn or IRC, and very rarely for long periods play the game participate in our fed chats go out and attack, as anyone that is in RABIES will know i died acouple weeks ago as a result of being called to catch a cheater and punish them follow it up, make the notes check others involved etc. etc. I`m sure most admins have similar stories
Remember as well we`re just talking about what admin`s do here Guides have their own duties and do their own work. I`m sure i`ve missed something out that lothor might be able to add but maybe now you`ll have a bit of compassion for the volunteers that help out to make the game running with mostly no reward other than other players gratitude and enjoyment

P Pandy

19/09/2006 · 02:01 AM #11

we dont` sit and monitor that section every second of the day if we did we`d fast go mad, we check it every couple of hours and respond then.

admins have these duties just to give you a idea

GC & UC Help center >bugs testing, any bugs posted we must see if we can replicate them in order to explain to stephen how it works precisely and what steps are taken to reproduce it, reason being that no player lists it in enough detail for stephen to replicate it and until its replicated its usually not fixable as cna`t be seen what occurs. that takes hours.
GC & UC Help center >cheating
all reports of cheating to the help center are thoroughly investigated as are those who report cheating which strangely occurs those reporting it are often also doing it. This also takes a great deal of time
GC & UC Help center >validations
validating emails of those who are unable to, first having checked them for multies and if they have multies directing them with instructions that its not permitted.
monitor the silencing thread plus the suspensions thread
monitor chat
monitor questions post in both games and answer them if no guide has already, and correct any which are incorrect so players have correct answers
monitor a channel in irc for stephen as he talks to us admins there instructing us in which items he needs tested immediatly and to pass on information to and from him game related to assist i nbugs testing.

and i`m going to ask eternus and lothor to add to this when they have a moment, luckily i had this partly done for a question prior to this post, so i simply copy pasted, but i know they`d have much more to add, as i have not posted half the stuff we do here

Edited by Pandy on 2006-09-19

P Pandy

19/09/2006 · 01:59 AM #10

there is a Suggestion box, click on Help centre > ask > suggestions
which is where i gathered the collation of gc suggestions from
A`s rarely monitor forum as the forum mods do this for them, those we`ve given special access to do so, shoudl anything be required to view by a admin we are notified by them, otherwise they are permitted to edit (and they screen shot for evidence) any posts that are against forum rules.
Highlighting is a waste of time in my opinion as what we think is relevant may not be anything that you all may be interested in, plus of course all announcements and updates are already listed up ther eon the help centre bar click on those sometimes.
It would be a complete waste of effort to pass anything on to stephen that isn`t in the suggestions posts, which again i point out i collate once a month or so. Its hard enough to get him to answer those, and yet none of you particularly comment on those either with a simple yes or no which would be effective in showing players opinions, instead you ignore them for the most part and don`t add to them
I"m sorry on point 4 have you ever tried to actually send anything to stephen ?, I agree this would be a wonderful thing and in my fantasy it happens all the time, however when i wake up i discover that we have to actually do what we can as admins for the players without any input or help.

though i will admit occasionally if you catch him at the right times you can get some amazing stuff to happen, but you can`t force him with this sort of set up to do anything he doesn`t already do, or to work any faster.

If youv`e ever been employed or are, i strongly suggest going to your boss with a list of how you want him to do things in his role as your boss, and we`ll see how that turns out.
i`ll list in the next post a few of the things that admins do, so you actually see what we do, instead of inventing more work for us, at least in part

Edited by Pandy on 2006-09-19

K KusariOP

18/09/2006 · 08:24 PM #9

Come on Admins, I need to hear what you think on this.

K Kaneda

16/09/2006 · 01:30 AM #8

Yeah, I`d actually rather Stephen stop touching GC.

5 50CENT

15/09/2006 · 07:53 PM #7

yea lol all stephen hears when we talk is blah blah cha cing $$$ blah blah

S ScootsMcGee

15/09/2006 · 05:28 AM #6

Or you could write your suggestion on a piece of paper, throw it into a volcano, and pray to the gods of mexican lowrider gangs to make me a sandwich, cause I`m hungry and Tracy never brought me any sandwiches. Very angry...

U UberPansy

15/09/2006 · 04:50 AM #5

Uhm I can basically guarantee that no where even remotely close to 1 million play this game. 1 million people might have accounts over the whole period of time that both GC and UC have been in existence but I know certainly as far as GC goes that there are like 200 active people at any one time (rounding up lol) so basically I don`t think stephen getting flooded is the problem..... -.-

Stephen is the problem...

K KusariOP

15/09/2006 · 04:25 AM #4

For this to ever happen, we need the Gs and As to get behind this idea. They are they ones who will have to do the additional work and they are also the ones most likely to be able to actually convince stephen to do it.

H HYBRID

15/09/2006 · 01:01 AM #3

i like that idea everyone wins

N N1ght}{B0mb3R

15/09/2006 · 12:48 AM #2

There was a suggestion collection some week ago though done when the turns started to become 30&45 yup. no reply yet though from stephen.

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