Post by bobo on Jun 21, 2015 18:32:33 GMT -5
The main way staff can monitor players is through the "monitor" command.
This command combines two attributes: a population to target, and a category of actions to observe.
The population can be things like:
* All players
* Players of a certain clan
* Individually specified players
* (Maybe, I don't remember) players of a given race/class?
The actions are things like the following (I forget the exact categories, but of course things like thinks/feels/psis can be observed):
* Magick
* Social
* Combat
* Rogue
* Crafting
* Psionic
* Others_in_room (actions of others in room)
* All actions
So a staffer could pick out multiple populations to add to their monitor.
Normally, a staffer will monitor the clans they are in charge of--"monitor kadius default" or something (it's actually more complicated with clan numbers, but that's the core of it).
If the staffer is interested in other things, it is easy to "monitor all magick" or "monitor all rogue" so they will see every spell cast in the game, or every thiefly skill used in the game, regardless of whether they were specifically interested in PC X or Y.
If there's an outgoing character doing a lot of interesting things, you might "monitor amos all + others_in_room" or something.
All of these options can be turned on and off per the staffer's preference, and they will get that feed no matter where they are.
There is a channel for system-wide alerts that also has customizable options depending what a staffer wants to hear. There are connections, logins, zone saves, stat rolls and rerolls, deaths, probably attacks, not sure. There are certain NPC door guards to certain areas that will also echo staff when it blocks a PC from entering.
As for objective and more static things like that, staff can do "who" with options like "who o" that lists all players logged on and there objective. There is probably a similar one for mood, and there's also a "where" command that lists all players and the room they are in.
As for getting the attention of staff, if it's peak time, you're unclanned, and you are just doing solo-emoting and you are unclanned, you stand a poor chance. Monitoring unclanned is or was, actually kind of difficult. Technically every PC has clan 0 "no clan," so monitoring clan 0 gives you all PCs instead of just unclanned PCs. Who knows, maybe this has changed.
Depending on what staffers are looking for, it can of course be easier to get attention by misbehaving. Spamcasting, spam-peeking, and similar behaviors are easily detected because it's easy and common to monitor all for rogue or magick, so when you spam-peek, you also spam staff.
Monitoring all for roleplay commands is done, though spammy, so you're no more likely than any other player to get noticed.
The best times to get noticed as a relative nobody is off-peak when you are one of few options to observe, and striving to be the most interesting one of those few. It also helps to have clan affiliation of some sort, or at least be around or interacting with those that do.
Also, based on my dim recollection, one annoying limitation was that if there was no category of monitor options that covered, say, the "sit" command, then you would never see any command-emotes for that command on monitor. You would actually have to observe it in the room.
This leads directly to a practical recommendation: if you think you might have reason to be showing up on monitor, for example you are clanned, then you may get more exposure by actually using *emote commands for your actions as opposed to () emotes on second-string commands like positioning. If you or your clan are being monitored, say/talk/tell and their associated command emotes will always be noticed, so there is no worry of missing any of those.
Of course you also don't want to be a total pussy dancing like a puppet for staff so just do what looks good, and don't neglect the standalone *emotes.
This command combines two attributes: a population to target, and a category of actions to observe.
The population can be things like:
* All players
* Players of a certain clan
* Individually specified players
* (Maybe, I don't remember) players of a given race/class?
The actions are things like the following (I forget the exact categories, but of course things like thinks/feels/psis can be observed):
* Magick
* Social
* Combat
* Rogue
* Crafting
* Psionic
* Others_in_room (actions of others in room)
* All actions
So a staffer could pick out multiple populations to add to their monitor.
Normally, a staffer will monitor the clans they are in charge of--"monitor kadius default" or something (it's actually more complicated with clan numbers, but that's the core of it).
If the staffer is interested in other things, it is easy to "monitor all magick" or "monitor all rogue" so they will see every spell cast in the game, or every thiefly skill used in the game, regardless of whether they were specifically interested in PC X or Y.
If there's an outgoing character doing a lot of interesting things, you might "monitor amos all + others_in_room" or something.
All of these options can be turned on and off per the staffer's preference, and they will get that feed no matter where they are.
There is a channel for system-wide alerts that also has customizable options depending what a staffer wants to hear. There are connections, logins, zone saves, stat rolls and rerolls, deaths, probably attacks, not sure. There are certain NPC door guards to certain areas that will also echo staff when it blocks a PC from entering.
As for objective and more static things like that, staff can do "who" with options like "who o" that lists all players logged on and there objective. There is probably a similar one for mood, and there's also a "where" command that lists all players and the room they are in.
As for getting the attention of staff, if it's peak time, you're unclanned, and you are just doing solo-emoting and you are unclanned, you stand a poor chance. Monitoring unclanned is or was, actually kind of difficult. Technically every PC has clan 0 "no clan," so monitoring clan 0 gives you all PCs instead of just unclanned PCs. Who knows, maybe this has changed.
Depending on what staffers are looking for, it can of course be easier to get attention by misbehaving. Spamcasting, spam-peeking, and similar behaviors are easily detected because it's easy and common to monitor all for rogue or magick, so when you spam-peek, you also spam staff.
Monitoring all for roleplay commands is done, though spammy, so you're no more likely than any other player to get noticed.
The best times to get noticed as a relative nobody is off-peak when you are one of few options to observe, and striving to be the most interesting one of those few. It also helps to have clan affiliation of some sort, or at least be around or interacting with those that do.
Also, based on my dim recollection, one annoying limitation was that if there was no category of monitor options that covered, say, the "sit" command, then you would never see any command-emotes for that command on monitor. You would actually have to observe it in the room.
This leads directly to a practical recommendation: if you think you might have reason to be showing up on monitor, for example you are clanned, then you may get more exposure by actually using *emote commands for your actions as opposed to () emotes on second-string commands like positioning. If you or your clan are being monitored, say/talk/tell and their associated command emotes will always be noticed, so there is no worry of missing any of those.
Of course you also don't want to be a total pussy dancing like a puppet for staff so just do what looks good, and don't neglect the standalone *emotes.
