Trust

[Tykanis]

That, Is literally all I needed, and I didn't even write the crafts or have any part in them. I just felt as though said players were wronged in some way, and I am willing to bet that if they were told the same thing or at least had a couple of seconds put forth speaking towards them they wouldn't have felt much the same way rather than receiving some uppity response about it. Thank you Nim, and trust me you don't want me writing descriptions for just about anything, I delve more into the create roomnum, create exit roomnum roomnum parts.

[Tykanis]

Although, Your post makes it seem as though you would rather not receive craft and description donations and rather leave it to staff or become a member yourself. Perhaps that is just me though.

[Nimrod]

Not to mention, Staff saying one thing about something and then another particular staffer. Not going to name names, goes around and does the opposite without a single word towards the player as to why said action was done, and without bothering to spend the two seconds to say whatever happened to correlate to the player.

Yes. I agree. This is a huge issue and one I am working on without doubt. I believe, with all my heart, that the best thing we can do as staff is to communicate and document. This allows us to speak with one voice and make sure we don't contradict one another.

This is the type of thing that happens when administrators shoot from the hip. We've had problems with this in the past, but I hope we get better at avoiding this particular problem.

We have a system in place to document npc actions, actions that rpa's have taken, notes on players, what we've loaded for them and why... Simply put, if something has been done, whether it's an animation or helping out a player, it should be documented. I've worked very hard to make these tools easy to write to and easy to review.

For instance, each of our more important npcs have their own, dedicated, in-game board where we can post important stuff that is going on in that npc's life. This allows us to read all the historical data on that npc, as well as any notes on how to animate the npc, so we can animate them consistently from staff member to staff member, as well as see what deal he may have struck with a character a year ago on some hides. etc.. etc...

Unfortunately use of this system did not continue while I was on summer vacation, so we will have to get in to the swing of using it. I am rather persistent though, so staff will soon comply as they get tired of my continued asking about documentation.

Another thing to help us communicate and keep things straight that we're trying to do is avoiding the use of PM's to talk about issues with players. Instead, we prefer the use of the support system, where all staff members can see the progress of a particular conversation.

So yes, I understand that staff not being in sync is frustrating to you. It is equally frustrating to me as well. It's a huge change in how things have always been done in the past, so getting some to comply is difficult. I gently remind and cajole every time I get a PM or hear about a staffer communicating with a player via PM. It'll take time to get full compliance, but we will get there, and we'll be all better for it.

As a player, you can help by posting your issues to the support system rather than sending a PM on the forums. Feel free to drop a PM to an admin if you just want to nudge them to your ticket, that's fine, as long as you don't go overboard, or send a PM right after you create the ticket.

This system allows us to maintain a fully transparent communication with players (transparent to all staff members anyway).

[edited to remove all the dumb smilies. ]

[Nimrod]

Not surprisingly, I do. :p

I can't help myself...



ROTF. (Not laughing at you, SW, it's just quite humorous to me, in a good way.)

[Tykanis]

Alright, That seems to put a stopper on all of my points. Thank you Nim for going through them and giving thoughtful and detailed responses rather than just shooting something back my way. Good luck working over some of these other people.

[Nimrod]

The point I am attempting to get across however, is why would I or anyone for that matter. Write a craft for something, when either one of two things happen. 1. Only the descriptions are used and said item is used for one person. 2. You send in that craft and then said craft has maybe one or two sentences changed in it and then it gets claimed by someone else who might be viewing the ticket at the time. Totally discrediting you, the actual person who wrote it in the process.

That, Among many, many things is what ruins trust.

I'm going to say a few things you might not like here, Tykanis, but I'm just saying it how it is. I'm going to be as pithy as I can, I don't mean it in a mean-spirited way, just as a way to give you the information as quickly as possible.

Unsolicited craft submissions are difficult to merge in to the system, and like as not, are more work than just writing our own.

'Taking Credit' is a foreign term when it comes to building here. A staffer may say they've written descriptions for something, or built an object, or a craft to the rest of us, but we don't track it. It's a collective effort. We, in no way, try to track who wrote what description for what or who built what.

Taking twenty minutes to write up a craft submission results in significantly more time spent on the craft building and testing for the staff member, if it gets built. That's after the submitted craft has been poured over and discussed among crafting staff.

Please don't get me wrong, we love it when players are motivated enough to submit their work. We just don't have a great way to use it all the time. Especially when it's a craft.

[Tykanis]

Trust me, I take very little personally although I do believe you already responded to this one by responding to a different one.

[Nimrod]

That, Is literally all I needed, and I didn't even write the crafts or have any part in them. I just felt as though said players were wronged in some way, and I am willing to bet that if they were told the same thing or at least had a couple of seconds put forth speaking towards them they wouldn't have felt much the same way rather than receiving some uppity response about it.

I looked up this ticket. The initial craft submission was received on on Feb 16, 2015. There was an internal comment (seen only by staff) on March 1, 2015, and finally a response to the player on May 16, 2015.

I have to assume the uppity response you're referring to is the automated message that's sent out when someone submits a ticket, as Ancalagon's reply on May 16 is very polite.

Here is the May 16 reply from Ancalagon:

Thanks for the request and suggestion! While we're not necessarily looking at adding more bows to the current tier of weaponry, we will take the proposed weapons and crafts into consideration for the next tier of crafting. If you have any further questions, do feel free to ask, but for now, closing this ticket.

Yep... this did take a LONG time for us to get to. Icarus began the surge to tackle the problem with languishing support tickets about six weeks ago or so and staff got through a lot of them. We continue to struggle with the response time and are striving to better our numbers. It's difficult though.

[Tykanis]

Ah the uppity response was something else entirely, I appologize for the confusion there. Sometimes my mind and fingers go into two different places when I type thus ending with me thinking one thing and accidentally typing another out of muscle memory sometimes. Partially why some of my forum threads just look like a blob or randomly put together sentences.

[Tykanis]

As I said previously Nim, Thank you for the responses etc and your willingness to completely go through them rather than give the first thing that came to mind without fully reading what you were responding to.

[cfelch]

That is a huge sig image.

[Tykanis]

I noticed >.>

[Nimrod]

That is a huge sig image.

I seriously dislike sig images... Rishte loves to torment me with hers.

[Rishte]

That is a huge sig image.

I seriously dislike sig images... Rishte loves to torment me with hers.

Galaxy-cat-gif induced seizures are amah-zing.

[Nimrod]

That is a huge sig image.

I seriously dislike sig images... Rishte loves to torment me with hers.

Galaxy-cat-gif induced seizures are amah-zing.

I literally made her change her Basecamp avatar two times. Maybe three!

Cats be like:

[Rishte]

All I am seeing right now is you pleading for galaxy cats every where.

Totes.

[twitchyweasel]

Staff is derailing thread.


(Drunk...)

[Rishte]

Staff is derailing thread.


(Drunk...)

*drops mic*

[twitchyweasel]

Staff is derailing thread.


(Drunk...)

*drops mic*

That's a nice boot.

*is checked*
*bows his head*

[Brian]

I was more curious as to why a player donated craft, donated for the use of human sides benefit was used for one maybe two people and set to nocraft. Unless the only people that can ever make a recurved compound bow...Which I doubt but hey I am not anywhere near a Tolkien Lore expert.

Hi Tykanis; I wanted to take a moment to address this comment from my perspective on things here.

I've written many descriptions for lots of items; primarily in the previous iteration of SoI, but some in this one as well. It's definitely always a thrill to actually see them in the game, and makes the work put into them rewarding, so kudos to your friend that wrote the descriptions. I've made crafts as well and that's very much more difficult as it requires a lot of research into old style manufacturing processes, so major kudos to them on that!

For the limitations on making a recurve bow, this is where things get really interesting. When making my elven character (which I'm almost scared to talk about as it might bring up the favoritism/why was an elf allowed IG thing again ) a huge part of the discussion was around what was the culture of the Mirkwood Elves going to be like, and how would this reflect in the style of their items. I kind of went down the rabbit hole on this one with Frigga (who is an absolutely AMAZING source of information on medieval European cultures. Seriously, we are so lucky to have her design influence on things, you don't even know!) and before I went to work on actually describing the items we did a tonne of discussion on the real world cultural influences and equivalents of the cultures that are IG right now.

When talking about the design of the Mirkwood Elves and the environment that they live; densely forested with a tonne of underbrush, we decided that the traditional "elven" longbow wouldn't make any sense. This is also supported by the texts of LOTR, as when the Fellowship arrives in Lothlorien, a much more ordered forest with a much less dense and wild understory, Legolas is given a longbow by the Galadhrim, which is much larger than the bow he brought from home. We also talked about the way that the Elves lived in the forest; they aren't the masters of advanced craftsmanship like the Noldor are, but we decided that what they did make would be perfectly suited to their environment. That's where we decided to go with a recurved bow; smaller, far more maneuverable in dense conditions than a longbow would be, but with great range and stopping power for its size. The elves would have access to all of the materials needed for the bows, the sinew, horn, and wood. It made sense to us as what they would develop for optimal use in their environment.

Contrasting this to the men of Laketown, this is a longbow culture. Just look at Bard the Bowman; his bow is described in The Hobbit during the attack of Smaug: "Now he shot with a great yew bow, till all his arrows but one were spent." There is further description of the type of bows that the men on the western side of Mirkwood use as well, given by the great Eagles:

"The Lord of the Eagles would not take them anywhere near where men lived. "They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew," he said, "for they would think we were after their sheep. And at other times they would be right. No! we are glad to cheat the goblins of their sport, and glad to repay our thanks to you, but we will not risk ourselves for dwarves in the southward plains.""

Two examples of textual support for northmen, living on opposite sides of the wood, using what likely amounts to English style yew longbows. This makes sense given that the Woodmen and Men of Laketown may use Mirkwood as part of their livelihood, but primarily they live in settlements outside of the forest itself, on the plains to the west and east, where a longbow is much more feasible. By contrast, the Elves living within the wood would need an alternative.

I really love all the thought that's put into the cultural differentiation between the different races and cultures of Men in the game. I think it gives a delightful layer of specificity and attention to detail. I hope that admins especially work very hard to maintain this; not everyone has the knowledge of Frigga and they may make items with good intentions that don't fit the cultural models. If you weren't aware of all this before keep an eye out IG; see if you can spot some of the real world cultural modelling!

[Grommit]

A good example would be a longsword with greatsword damage that was about recently.

I hadn't heard of this one, but someone, I think TwitchyWeasel mentioned something like that way earlier in this thread. You use past tense: did Icarus/Anc fix it in a review or do you believe the problem to still be present?

[Tykanis]

Ah the person with said item is currently dead hence why I us the past tense. I believe our orc sided friends now have a hold on it, pretty much like every unique item that has hit humanside >.>.

Also, Thank you Brian for laying that out for me there.

[twitchyweasel]

I was more curious as to why a player donated craft, donated for the use of human sides benefit was used for one maybe two people and set to nocraft. Unless the only people that can ever make a recurved compound bow...Which I doubt but hey I am not anywhere near a Tolkien Lore expert.

Hi Tykanis; I wanted to take a moment to address this comment from my perspective on things here.

I've written many descriptions for lots of items; primarily in the previous iteration of SoI, but some in this one as well. It's definitely always a thrill to actually see them in the game, and makes the work put into them rewarding, so kudos to your friend that wrote the descriptions. I've made crafts as well and that's very much more difficult as it requires a lot of research into old style manufacturing processes, so major kudos to them on that!

For the limitations on making a recurve bow, this is where things get really interesting. When making my elven character (which I'm almost scared to talk about as it might bring up the favoritism/why was an elf allowed IG thing again ) a huge part of the discussion was around what was the culture of the Mirkwood Elves going to be like, and how would this reflect in the style of their items. I kind of went down the rabbit hole on this one with Frigga (who is an absolutely AMAZING source of information on medieval European cultures. Seriously, we are so lucky to have her design influence on things, you don't even know!) and before I went to work on actually describing the items we did a tonne of discussion on the real world cultural influences and equivalents of the cultures that are IG right now.

When talking about the design of the Mirkwood Elves and the environment that they live; densely forested with a tonne of underbrush, we decided that the traditional "elven" longbow wouldn't make any sense. This is also supported by the texts of LOTR, as when the Fellowship arrives in Lothlorien, a much more ordered forest with a much less dense and wild understory, Legolas is given a longbow by the Galadhrim, which is much larger than the bow he brought from home. We also talked about the way that the Elves lived in the forest; they aren't the masters of advanced craftsmanship like the Noldor are, but we decided that what they did make would be perfectly suited to their environment. That's where we decided to go with a recurved bow; smaller, far more maneuverable in dense conditions than a longbow would be, but with great range and stopping power for its size. The elves would have access to all of the materials needed for the bows, the sinew, horn, and wood. It made sense to us as what they would develop for optimal use in their environment.

Contrasting this to the men of Laketown, this is a longbow culture. Just look at Bard the Bowman; his bow is described in The Hobbit during the attack of Smaug: "Now he shot with a great yew bow, till all his arrows but one were spent." There is further description of the type of bows that the men on the western side of Mirkwood use as well, given by the great Eagles:

"The Lord of the Eagles would not take them anywhere near where men lived. "They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew," he said, "for they would think we were after their sheep. And at other times they would be right. No! we are glad to cheat the goblins of their sport, and glad to repay our thanks to you, but we will not risk ourselves for dwarves in the southward plains.""

Two examples of textual support for northmen, living on opposite sides of the wood, using what likely amounts to English style yew longbows. This makes sense given that the Woodmen and Men of Laketown may use Mirkwood as part of their livelihood, but primarily they live in settlements outside of the forest itself, on the plains to the west and east, where a longbow is much more feasible. By contrast, the Elves living within the wood would need an alternative.

I really love all the thought that's put into the cultural differentiation between the different races and cultures of Men in the game. I think it gives a delightful layer of specificity and attention to detail. I hope that admins especially work very hard to maintain this; not everyone has the knowledge of Frigga and they may make items with good intentions that don't fit the cultural models. If you weren't aware of all this before keep an eye out IG; see if you can spot some of the real world cultural modelling!

Completely hear you on the cultural part. Let's let the elves keep their recurves. Give us Northman an equal tier longbow

[Brian]

For sure; if they can take out a Giant Eagle or a Dragon, the men of Laketown are no slouches in the bow making department!

[seirza]

A newbie enters the fray!

It's taken me 3 days to read this thread in its entirety. I've read every word, comma, dash and period, and every quote, code snippet and anything else that exists, even timestamps! This brings me in when the thread is essentially dyeing, but I don't care.

I, up to this point, have been 97% following Nimrod's challenge to hide myself from involvement in the game at an ooc level. The 3% revolves around my recruitment and I'm unapologetic about that, because I wouldn't be enjoying this amazing game otherwise.

At the expense of being picked apart, terrorized, and told I don't have a dog in this race....challenge accepted. I think I can contribute, so I'm going to try.

Brian, I apologize ahead of time, because I'm definitely about to bring up that 'thing' you'd like to die, because it being so heavily referenced through over 70% of this discussion means that the single incident was indeed the entire basis for some arguments, contrary to author implication of a broader spectrum of actions. As an outsider, when one thing is all I see, that thing is the problem.


On to my points:

• 1) Transparency: Throughout this thread, I've seen a consistent cry for transparency, and I don't think some folk requesting it understand what they're asking for. I think it would be a terrible idea to have complete transparency in the game. Transparency will eliminate the ability of staff to add immersion and dynamic to the game. It'll eliminate their ability to surprise us and add depth to the game. And if you know every little thing that's going to be coming or that is going on, things are going to get dull very fast.
  
  I think the desire for transparency comes from folk who've been around through bad times wanting to know every little thing going on so that they can insure themselves that it won't be happening again, which is the wrong way to think on it.
  
  I'm not saying I think everything should be kept bottled up either. Basic standards (which many staff have mentioned are coming) are legitimate in my opinion. And something rolling out overpowered is only a problem if it isn't fixed. In this thread are multiple promises that the power of surprise implementations will always be closely scrtinized and dealt with if they seem too unbalanced for the game. And I've also read mention that the ones repeatedly referenced were in fact handled, so the argument there is moot now.
  
  I think staff reserving the right to control disclosure of their surprises will enrich the game world going forward.

• 2) Forgiveness: I'll be completely honest, the reflection of the community from this thread and some of the other most recent ones on the forums surprised me. I had to actually dig deep to realize that some of it came from people who aren't currently playing the game. I couldn't believe that the amazing roleplayers I'd run into ingame could act the way folk do on the forums. People like me are part of the direction the game is going in, and I think over half of the 'past' that keeps being trudged up has no place in the minds of people who are truly interested in the forward direction of the game. Those leaning toward the negative need to do some self reflection and decide if they really like the picture they're painting for folk like me who come in excited and then find this insanity. Constant negativity, if it persists, will become the end of the game long before administrative errors will.
  
  Staff screwed up with an incident. They admitted they screwed up, and provided examples of not only how it was corrected, but how they're going to avoid similar situations creeping up in the future. Don't hold onto it with the pretense that you just don't want to see it happen again.

I've spent two hours writing this and likely looked at it too long, but here it is. I'm sure based on the mood in this thread that by the time I'm able to look again I'll have been skewered, but we'll see.