Minory
Expert
And, why couldn't someone do that that isn't us?
Community Manager?
- Thread starter Skrypt
- Start date
Minory
Expert
I think you should bring in someone fresh, someone new, and someone that has skill in administration, and community association/society. It doesn't have to be someone solely based on their game play and style.
Minory
Expert
Oh, and thanks JoeB for your contribution. I read that whole thing, and it's impressive. Thanks to Jenna for your work, too.
Skrypt
Expert
Little reference to what I do as a staff member because I seem rather mysterious to some of you as a staffer. Might have to give myself a warning point for slightly necroing a thread but, I had missed it because I was away last weekend and did not realize how mysterious I had become to some of you guys.
I as a staff member answer massive amounts of pages. Even when Bryce was around I nearly doubled his page answering *flexes*. I have been on staff for a very long time now. Started as counselor worked up to Seer and eventually, just recently, became Event Master. This is just a higher level of staffing giving me more abilities which I mostly use to help players while not completely interfering with game play. The less work that admins have to do in regards to pages the better as its all about development. I also miss Bryce. Him and I talked everyday sometimes all day when he was on staff but, he is gone and still in our pixel hearts.
I work every day during the week but answer pages while at work. Most answers to pages are great, they are helping players who did not know the answer to questions. That is a large bulk of pages which, is very nice. Unfortunately, answering pages sometimes means giving people answers they do not like but, that goes with the territory. That could mean a few players have had had frustrating experiences with me. I am the enforcer of rules, especially our Terms of use in game. This is often rough but it needs to get done for the sake of the community. I was staff aka Pagemaster for the 3 day revert so lets just say I've taken my licks.
I also attempt to help with ideas and things that sometimes Shane/Adam/Carl need help with *cough* POKER. If you have paged in it is highly unlikely that you have not come into contact with me unless you needed an Admin's assistance or I was sleeping/watching football. Answers are given strategically because the idea behind it is that we want you to figure out the answers for yourselves sometimes. This is why sometimes I leave pages open ended. I run a lot of PVP tournaments and have run many CTF's since getting the power to do so again.
I do not show my staff char to the community very often. I don't like to interrupt game play in that manner because when a staff member actually shows up everyone stops in their tracks. Some staffers tend to "Poof." more than me but, it just isn't my thing. This means that you do not see me as a staff member in game unless you Page in with a question that I feel can be better explained in person. If there are multiple players around I often will only reveal myself to you. It is hard to fit an answer in those small text boxes. I also am not very active on the forums when it comes to posting which is where you see a lot of staff interaction. I am on the forums all day but have my staff name "hidden" so it appears that I am not there. I read the forums react especially to good ideas(in my opinion) however I do not typically post in the forums. I guess I should do that more. The mIRC and forums are some of my favorite things on this shard . I tend use a different Aliason mIRC though so you many times will not see my staff name in there unless all hell starts breaking loose. This happens from time to time as you guys know.
So hey guys in case you didn't even know who I am I do exist here. I love this shard and have been on it since the beginning. I have interacted with many of you many times outside of staffing as well.
I fully support the idea of us getting a Community Manager and I feel it should be someone who fits that role and only commits to that role as Shane and other staffers had said. We added some counselors and I talk to them regularly try to teach them the ways of mastering the pages. Be easy on the pages, we get beat up sometimes and I have been called every name in the book but still love you guys. Being a counselor is rough. I know from experience so be nice to them they just want to help. I try to help out with the shard as much as I can and want to see it grow up bigger and stronger than it already is. There are lots of new players out there everyday asking how things work so help them out. Shout out to the Vet players who are obviously my favorites.
Good luck reading that mess up there,
Poof.
Amen brother, you've been very helpful during my pages.
You made a great point I'd like to highlight:
"I fully support the idea of us getting a Community Manager and I feel it should be someone who fits that role and only commits to that role as Shane and other staffers had said."
As you said, multiple people are crushing it behind the scenes. So this role would be highly focused only on community management (forums, reddit, etc, relations between dev team & players). They should not be involved in other capacities such as counselor or page requests.
Spacejam60
Master
We need a newer player who's never played and misses aos and trammel
so-LOW
Grandmaster
Lol
JoeB
Adept
Pages are In game requests when you click the help button on your paper doll. You ask a question in a text box such as, What are skill scrolls? (my first ever page).
Hierarchy goes:
Counselor (JennaL, ErichH) Very basic commands, basically answer pages, can't teleport, or see whos online.
Seer More advanced commands. Still rather basic but significant
Event Master (Me) More commands. Ability to help with a vast array of in game issues.
Admin+ (Shane, Carl, Adam) The whole ball of wax.
Our counselors are very new and it personally took me months to move on from counselor to Seer. Even more months to reach event master which, is basically a supped up Seer. Each staff level adds some commands and abilities. Mostly utilized to answer pages/help players in game. From answering a simple question to literally moving an object out of a house wall because it got stuck in there.These positions are in place to protect the integrity of the shard via lack of corruption. A staff member must prove themselves to the players as well as other staff that we can all trust them and they are a good responsible staff members. It is very easy to abuse commands given especially from staff members who might be actual players in game. This is why these many positions were wisely created. All staff members should be treated equally, do not get frustrated because they may not be able to help you directly. They always send out for assistance I assure you. They want to help but they just lack the ability. That is for good reason at this point. Eventually the proper staff member will come to you, if you have problems often private messages in forums and or mIRC can be useful but they do get bombarded so be patient if you can.
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S
Shane
Guest
I really don't trust many people at all.
You really can't at the position i'm in. I'm extremely fortunate to have been friends with Adam for years IRL like we have, and that he took the course of programming when i got him involved in this debacle. We've had a few other developers and while some were really talented and did help when help was needed, it still wasn't the full potential i knew they could do, as in what Adam is currently processing for the community now.
As JoeB displayed above the hierarchy is pretty simple which is why we don't really even list it. Even if a staff is a counsellor, they should still be treated as if they were any other staff member. We can't stress enough how rude it is when some people see a counsellor show up and instantly ask for a Gamemaster/admin and be rude to the counsellor in return because they feel they can't do anything for them. This isn't true, they are there to relay issues to us, for us to fix, for you.
Also, For sure, there is no need to give anyone abilities to create items, or alter properties in the game any more. Between me, Adam and Carl we handle that fine. We probably won't see anyone become GM+ in a long time , which i always put fourth with people that want to become staff, or help us out. We are able to get outside help, etc without basically giving them the run of the server. We've a couple counsellors that had almost no benefits aside from answering pages, and they still found ways to abuse the little power they had. It's really interesting what people try to do.
With all that said, there's also the aspect of players that have become staff and still play, and how they can sometimes take their PLAYER character issues, over to their STAFF characters. This is actually one of the largest concerns and issues when hiring staff, even for the smallest things. They need to understand, learn, and be able to separate their character notoriety and concerns, from their staff notoriety and concerns.
It's more of a process, concern and issue it itself as a whole than probably everyone generally thinks.
We've never ever had any shady deals or economy wrecking corrupt staff at all. Some of our previous staff definitely could have, but i think everyone generally respects what we have done here, and what we are trying to do.
But all in all, there's no need to list staff positions because ALL staff should be treated the same.
You really can't at the position i'm in. I'm extremely fortunate to have been friends with Adam for years IRL like we have, and that he took the course of programming when i got him involved in this debacle. We've had a few other developers and while some were really talented and did help when help was needed, it still wasn't the full potential i knew they could do, as in what Adam is currently processing for the community now.
As JoeB displayed above the hierarchy is pretty simple which is why we don't really even list it. Even if a staff is a counsellor, they should still be treated as if they were any other staff member. We can't stress enough how rude it is when some people see a counsellor show up and instantly ask for a Gamemaster/admin and be rude to the counsellor in return because they feel they can't do anything for them. This isn't true, they are there to relay issues to us, for us to fix, for you.
Also, For sure, there is no need to give anyone abilities to create items, or alter properties in the game any more. Between me, Adam and Carl we handle that fine. We probably won't see anyone become GM+ in a long time , which i always put fourth with people that want to become staff, or help us out. We are able to get outside help, etc without basically giving them the run of the server. We've a couple counsellors that had almost no benefits aside from answering pages, and they still found ways to abuse the little power they had. It's really interesting what people try to do.
With all that said, there's also the aspect of players that have become staff and still play, and how they can sometimes take their PLAYER character issues, over to their STAFF characters. This is actually one of the largest concerns and issues when hiring staff, even for the smallest things. They need to understand, learn, and be able to separate their character notoriety and concerns, from their staff notoriety and concerns.
It's more of a process, concern and issue it itself as a whole than probably everyone generally thinks.
We've never ever had any shady deals or economy wrecking corrupt staff at all. Some of our previous staff definitely could have, but i think everyone generally respects what we have done here, and what we are trying to do.
But all in all, there's no need to list staff positions because ALL staff should be treated the same.
so-LOW
Grandmaster
Does anyone on staff pvp?
S
Shane
Guest
No one above GM+ really has char accounts.
We do i guess, but we rarely find time to PvP / use them.
I plan on getting more into it soon , i own the 18x18 between vesper/minoc thats ageless.
Next week i am going to start a character from scratch and grind up while i take notes to see what adjustments we can make for new players.
so-LOW
Grandmaster
Ya it would honestly be smart for a few staff that you know can keep their emotions out the game to pvm/pvp somewhat regularly. POWER might have room for you :/...
lost
Grandmaster
Girana would be great community relations, his superb replies about whining n it's not a problem are clear, precise and to the point!