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Post by lyse on Dec 1, 2015 12:45:32 GMT -5
To which the only appropriate response would have been: fuck you, I'm an unpaid volunteer. Why would you respond that way? "You didn't do much" isn't a criticism, or a complaint, or a suggestion or demand. It's a statement. If a staffer told me in response to my character report "you didn't do much" I wouldn't take it as a "you should've done more" or "I expected something else" or "You're lazy." I'd take it as a "you didn't do much." I'd re-read my report and see if I actually DID something other than try to do something, or send other people out to do something. If I discover that hey - all the things I did, involved getting other people to do things, but I didn't actually do any of it myself - then yeah the assessment would be correct. I didn't do much. Well, the problem with "you didn't do much" is it still doesn't tell me what I need to do, what I should be doing or even if I'm going about it the wrong way. How hard is it to actually give feedback? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought reports were for the purpose of staff knowing what your character was doing and giving feedback. Not only that, but they're sitting there taking meticulous ass notes on your character and putting it in your pnotes but, you've already explained what you were doing and why in your tps report. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2015 12:50:05 GMT -5
To which the only appropriate response would have been: fuck you, I'm an unpaid volunteer. Why would you respond that way? "You didn't do much" isn't a criticism, or a complaint, or a suggestion or demand. It's a statement. If a staffer told me in response to my character report "you didn't do much" I wouldn't take it as a "you should've done more" or "I expected something else" or "You're lazy." I'd take it as a "you didn't do much." I'd re-read my report and see if I actually DID something other than try to do something, or send other people out to do something. If I discover that hey - all the things I did, involved getting other people to do things, but I didn't actually do any of it myself - then yeah the assessment would be correct. I didn't do much. i'd have to see the full yo-yo-yo on it - i can only assume there's more to the story than what @banme has told us - but, @ghaati , to answer your question: that sort of snarky-ass one-liner is the shit that gets my shit in danders. it encourages exactly what @banme did: the assumption that there are the cool kids and the rest of us. falling into this category are: the zero or only negative account notes on long-lived characters that did do shit the utter disdain for player stories - you didn't do much that interested me the neglect of the many for the few - you didn't do much that affected my luvahs the utter inability to engage players and collaborate with them and motivate them through fucking useful feedback at the end of the day, there's just no reason to remark 'you didn't do much'. period. even if @banme didn't do much. just say: thanks for the report. because, at the end of the day, we are all just sensitive artists. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2015 13:32:29 GMT -5
Dude, JCarter, I'm not massaging stats. And if you really can't understand what I'm saying at this point, no explaining is going to help. I never said the average for this year was 250. I never said the average for this year is higher than last year. I'm not cherrypicking months, they are the months that are the least affected by 2013 that happen before the downswing in numbers. yes, you are. you're taking the outliers for the year (april and may) and grouping them with an extra 3 other months (stopping before the historically low month) and computing the average, which makes things look statistically similar to a representative sample of the previous year. Not to mention that you're weighing the 5 weeks of august the same as the 4 weeks of the previous months because you're calculating per calendar month instead of blocks of time. April average 2015 (unique logins per week of april/4): 256 May average 2015: 272 June average 2015: 249 (rounded up) July average 2015: 239 (rounded up) Aug average 2015 (logins / 5 because 5 weeks): 235 (rounded up) Sept 2015: 211 The first two months skew the data and are literally the most populated Apr 2014: 258 (rounded up) May 2014: 260 (rounded up) June 2014: 247 July 2014: 245 Aug 2014: 250 (rounded up) (5 weeks) Sept 2014: 230 Still arbitrarily weighing all months equally: Apr-Aug average 2015: 250 Apr-Sept average 2015: 242 Apr-Aug average 2014: 252 Apr-Sept average 2014: 248 Notice how adding a single extra data point shifts the 2015 vs 2014 difference from ~2 to 6. also notice how those 5 months in 2014 were representative of the yearly average (252 vs average of 253) and the 5 months in 2015 are not. also i have no idea how 2013 factors into a 2015 vs 2014 analysis and tbf it's not relevant. You're were totally right about weighing august too heavily. I was off there. buuut... You don't see how the huge swell in players from 2013 affected 2014? I'm not just comparing 2014 to 2015, I'm looking at the data as a whole. You got your numbers from 6 months, by including September. That is also contributing to the different numbers. I don't see how you can talk about the first 2 months skewing the data then include the month where it dropped the most significantly. It would make way more sense to me to simply add the first three months of the year to the equation, if you were trying to make the point that the two years are not similar. The only reason I didn't include them was because of 2013 being a huge outlier that clearly affected early 2014. But I'll go back and do it now just for the sake of it. 2015 jan - 238 2015 feb - 245 2015 mar - 242 2014 jan - 275 2014 feb - 276 2014 mar -257 Adding that to your numbers (excluding september) it comes to: In the first 8 months of the year. 247 - 2014 258 - 2015 But then you'd have to find a way to explain how the huge boost in 2013 isn't affecting 2014. I based the opposite assumption on early 2013 and 2012 being more similar to 2015 than 2014. |
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Post by jcarter on Dec 1, 2015 13:57:53 GMT -5
You're were totally right about weighing august too heavily. I was off there. buuut... You don't see how the huge swell in players from 2013 affected 2014? I'm not just comparing 2014 to 2015, I'm looking at the data as a whole. because there's no evidence to say one way or another whether the influence of 2013 effected 2014. the means of 2012 (259) vs 2014 (253) are similar. if i had to guess i'd say there was probably a huge push on TMS or TMC during 2013 which saw an influx of new players over the month but failed to retain them. but it's just a guess because we're looking at only one aspect. 2014 started off strong compared to 2012 but after march took a downward trend, and from may-dec was below the same period for 2012. im not saying 2013 didn't effect 2014 overall but i don't think there's enough information present to make even an assumption. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2015 18:03:02 GMT -5
You guys are still on that?
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Post by jesantu on Dec 2, 2015 0:17:15 GMT -5
If you don't see how "didn't do much" could be construed by some as negative and critical then I don't even know what to say to you any more.
I think you completely get how it'd potentially come across that way but the contrarian in you simply can't resist. As always.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 0:47:00 GMT -5
I'd be pretty disheartened if a staff member told me that my PC "didn't do much."
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 0:48:51 GMT -5
I've interacted with Wug. I don't think he knew that I was privy to that, so it's not like we had some kind of buttsniffing relationship. All I can say is that he has a cooler-than-thou attitude a lot of times, and while I found it personally grating, I don't think he's a bad guy, and I'd probably have a beer with him. The problem arrives when people interject their personalities into something that's touted as professional or carrying that lack of bias that many associate with a gamemaster.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 1:11:50 GMT -5
Well shit. Just paste the entire request exchange? It's not like you're hiding your identity. Merchant/aggressor who outfitted Albie in Horror armor and almost made sargeant is pretty much enough to identify you twice over. Just paste the entire report/response and leave no doubt anywhere.
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Post by BitterFlashback on Dec 2, 2015 3:03:26 GMT -5
Let's hear about a few PC stories that got shot down or passed over. , you're being paged. RogueRougeRanger, you're being paged. We have a blue light special on Staff Sabotage in the WTF Arm Thread. I've come to realize that "be the change" means "be the change within the parameters of the world that already exists", and lemme tell ya, I started playing in the Byn, and mostly stopped giving a fuck about leaving my mark on the world and just playing a real, hardcore Zalanthan personality, and I was suddenly having fun on this game, again. So "be the change" means "don't even try to change anything, because you can't, you fucking peasant." To be honest, that's how most of us read the doubletalk before you showed up. If I only saw it dropped for mastercrafts and letting players make permanent content, I'd take it as an insulting way of staff saying we should focus on our characters instead of the game world. I've seen it dropped for just about any request for a change, whether it be OOC attitudes or IC practices that players are repeatedly told on the GDB is up to them and forcibly informed in-game/via request tool that they can either abide by or face storage. Is it really expecting too much to be allowed to have your character --who will never rise above a certain point-- behave in a manner that should merit other players reacting to them instead of staff getting pissed off about the world response they have to coordinate because different clan expendables are having a spat?
For what it's worth, I've had a good deal of my ideas shot down, and the plots that were shot down and the ones that went through were always directly proportional to scale in the world. Though, I gotta say, I never gave a fuck about mastercrafting doors, sorry bout ya. it's not about a door. it's about the fact that if myself, Prime Minister Sinister, and another player can't even get a curtain renamed to a door in a clan's stronghold after going through so much legwork on the scale of a rl year+, why should players believe any of the rhetoric that they can make any influence on the game world or have impact? it's like the lowest scale change you could imagine, why should anyone swallow the line that anything is possible when a thing labelled 'curtain' that is codedly identical in every way cant get its sdesc changed to 'door'. Funny you mention this. I have some information from good authorities on matters of staff that pertains to the attitude upstairs. See, the staff don't merely hate spending two minutes of soft work changing the description of a generic portal from a curtain to a door. They also hate other staffers whose behavior makes their laziness stand out. I've heard some things through the reliable, semi-staff grapevine about Rahnevyn being one of the best staffers to play under. He was very supportive of player interaction, did a lot of animations (not of the "oh hey, here's a near-lethal world response you indy fucks" variety), etc etc. Rahnevyn basically did everything posters here say they wish they got from their clan staffers, he was good about communication, feedback, and suggestions and didn't treat player input like chaff to be scraped off. Rahnevyn eventually quit because he became a black sheep. He was catching shit for "animating too much." I guess he should have been the change instead. Of course, it could have been worse. He could have gotten fired for spending 2 of the 525,600 minutes in a year to update a door.
What do you guys think happened around then to cause the drop? It went from 250's average to 200's... Was there any event, or did people just finally get fed up and start leaving? That's basically a sudden drop in 1/5th the average unique log-ins. I'd say the fact that players are increasing now might mean we're pulling out of whatever caused us to drop so much, but there's no way to tell until the year ends. Attrition isn't always tied to a big event, like a light show in the middle of a fight. Sometimes it's more like erosion. You see little bits eaten away when everything's even, but when a key person or two leaves, other people who were just sticking around for their key friends leave with them, and then that absence can eat away even more people who just get tired of feeling alone. To put it another way: it's possible there was just a chain reaction of people saying in succession, "Well, enough of that game. I think I'll just staplegun my forehead for a few minutes to get the same experience - but faster." |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 10:40:46 GMT -5
So "be the change" means "don't even try to change anything, because you can't, you fucking peasant." To be honest, that's how most of us read the doubletalk before you showed up. I'm not really a huge fan of these Armageddonisms. Find out IC. Be the change. So on, so forth. But if you were to ask me what that means to me, now, I'd say ... To play something inspired and fun without expecting any kind of support. To liven up the game world and inspire others to have fun, as well. And if I do that, whatever support I do get is welcomed. You can parrot the volunteer joke all you want, but staff time is limited and I'm only one of many players. I shouldn't expect that I always be center stage. And I'm not so sure I'd wanna play this game if everybody always got what they wanted. What a grotesque thing it would become. Then, I wonder if that's what any of you actually want? Or is it "No, we just want more power to shape the world. I want MY thing to happen." I don't know. Speaking of RedRanger, though, I'd love to hear from them about how they were shot down or marginalized. See, I played with them for quite awhile, and it seemed to me that Dragean got damn near everything he wanted. So, what is it you didn't get that you thought you deserved? Also, I'm curious! The old rumor was that Dragean and Raleris started off contentious, but the rivalry went into a full blown boiling cauldron when Aristarche snuck off to bone the Winrothol on the side. Is that true? People always wondered what sparked that hatred between those two, and that's the story I got from a PC templar. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 10:47:45 GMT -5
Rahnevyn eventually quit because he became a black sheep. He was catching shit for "animating too much." I guess he should have been the change instead. Truly? That's terrible, if true. He was absolutely my favorite staffer, bar none. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 10:49:21 GMT -5
Rahnevyn eventually quit because he became a black sheep. He was catching shit for "animating too much." I guess he should have been the change instead. Truly? That's terrible, if true. He was absolutely my favorite staffer, bar none. You may want to ask Rahnevyn that question. Paging rahnevyn. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 10:51:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't want to just assume he was pressured into quitting, because for all I know he may be reading this (or hearing about this) and shaking his head at how wrong it is. (Probably not, because it was just posted, but you never know!) Maybe he quit for RL reasons; I have no way of knowing. But if that IS true, and again, I'm not assuming it is, it's really sad because his animations were what made him such a superior staffer. He brought his NPCs to life in a way nobody else I've ever seen could. I have beaucoup respect for that guy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 11:30:04 GMT -5
I think sometimes leader characters are left to their own devices, not really knowing what to do. Sometimes they have their own goals for a clan but often times they are completely int he dark. I think staff try not to influence their leader characters but think it'd be good if they gave them more direction, or create clues to indicate what's going on in the world in regards to the clan and themselves.
For example a templar might know things from virtual connections, virtual templars they might know, virtual noble family members, or just talk among the militia. It's reasonable they hear things and know things that other people don't know or hear like the state of the war, or which noble houses are feuding, etc. In regards to a merchant, they might hear things about raiders, or what other houses are spending their money on, giving them clues about what's going on in the world. Like maybe Tor puts in a huge order for armor and weapons for Salaar, indicating something big might be going on. Maybe this kind of subtle flow of information from staff goes on, but with staff interacting minimally through animations and more through the request tool, it's these subtle little clues that make the world feel like more than just the sum of the objects, rooms, NPCs other players that make it up.
A world story that goes on along side, and involving the stories of the players in the game seems like the idea situation. I'm not sure the larger world story is really getting told anymore, instead relying on players interacting together to provide that. On those occasions there is world story event, most players are often involved. I think staff could do better at creating clues to inform players about what's going on around them, about how the game world is different today than it was yesterday, how it's changing and what direction those changes seem to be heading towards. Give players clues and allow them to speculate and act, then have the world respond to their actions in a fun and interesting way, a way that is just as likely to be beneficial as detrimental to the player(s) involved.
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