A while ago Empress Teck made a topic involving the preferred limitations of staff in regard to the capability of their staff accounts. While I believe it was a good discussion I would like to pinpoint a couple main points, suggest my opinion, and highlight them available them for further discussion.
1- Staff below GM, and Admin ranks should be able to hunt on their staff account, and transfer pokemon over to their player account.
2- Staff below GM, and Admin ranks should be able to battle players while online, as long as it does not interfere with their duty as staff.
These are not to be allowed without guidelines and restrictions, I'm not by any means saying that they should just use their staff accounts as player accounts, and I'll expand on those soon. First, I'd like to address the elephant in the room:
As for the reasoning behind this topic, it was mostly inspired by seeing the lack of actual help for people in game. I can't help but feel that CGs would be more inclined to be online, active, and helpful if they had more things to do in game. I strongly believe that the lack of conversation on the help channel would be stimulated if CGs were there, often I see it's completely abandoned or that the noobs who actually need help invade the other channels seeking guidance they should have been able to find on help. I do realize that there is a lack of CGs at the time as well, with fonty and Creobis being the only current active members. That is something that will have to be worked out between staff, but perhaps if life as a CG was more interesting there would be more incentives to undertake a thankless job like staff.
Hunting, I feel, is a self-explanatory way for CGs, Artists, composers ect. to stay interested in game while helping people or doing their own duties that wouldn't require a great amount of concentration. The problem lies in the transferring of legitimately found pokemon to their player accounts. In order for this to work there would have to be some restrictions:
1-In order to avoid transgression no actual trading would occur, pokemon would need to be transferred by someone on staff.
2-Pokemon would have to be on par with S Rare or higher to be transferred to save time/work for whoever can transfer the pokemon. We don't want to add more to those staff members who's plates are already full.
3-(possibly) If there was an issue with trading those legitimate pokemon to other players, a compromise could be formed that these transferred pokemon could not be traded once transferred. One might question the reasoning behind doing the transfer in the first place if this was the case, however some people might like collecting OT pokemon or what have you and prefer for them to be on the player account.
4-(possibly) if trading were to be allowed after they're placed into the player account there would need to be a degree of secrecy as to the identity of the staff member, to avoid any advantage one might get from being a known staff member. I don't personally feel this is necessary, but there will always be children who cry foul any chance they get.
Battling is a quintessential aspect of the game, one that can be enjoyed by noobs and veterans alike. I see no reason why people with spare time on their hands should be restricted in this matter. The same logic as hunting can be applied to this, more interest in the game = more time spent in game. Not only that but it would be a way for staff to connect to players better, and certainly for them to greater understand when a discussion comes up about the flaws of the battle system, and how they should be handled. Some of the points brought up against this in the previous thread were:
1-"Staff will beat players and ruin their records" .... don't battle staff if you're afraid of losing, or request no legendaries be used. Personally if I were staff I wouldn't find any sport in using crazy powerful pokemon anyway.
2-"People who battle staff will get pokedex data that others won't".... If you're so concerned about missing out on pokedex data that you'd like to limit the enjoyment of other people for your own sake you should get out of this community, we don't want you here honestly.
3-"Staff will be bombarded with PMs and battle requests".... /PMoff, and hitting no on the request screen isn't hard to do. If a staff member is known to battle it won't bother them, if they're not they won't get many battle requests. I believe there is also a command that disables battle requests.
4-"Being staff is a serious duty, when you sign up you forgo any merry making within the game".... There's not one reason people who are supposed to interact with the community shouldn't be able to do their jobs while having fun.
In summary I believe setting these ideas into action would promote activity within the staff (which will help newer players get the help they need easier), increase the understanding between players and staff in regard to the battle system, enrich the experience of being staff, and make the community happier as a whole. As always, thoughts and friendly debate is encouraged.
1- Staff below GM, and Admin ranks should be able to hunt on their staff account, and transfer pokemon over to their player account.
2- Staff below GM, and Admin ranks should be able to battle players while online, as long as it does not interfere with their duty as staff.
These are not to be allowed without guidelines and restrictions, I'm not by any means saying that they should just use their staff accounts as player accounts, and I'll expand on those soon. First, I'd like to address the elephant in the room:
"Why shouldn't GMs or Admins get the same privileges as their colleagues?". To put it bluntly, they have things to do in game and should be focused on those objectives. I see no reason why Chocobo should be battling or hunting when he could be spending time tracking down the endless botters active at that time. Furthermore, I believe the majority of GMs truly enjoy hunting down criminals and find it enriching, which removes the point of needing stimulation such as battling or hunting.
As for the reasoning behind this topic, it was mostly inspired by seeing the lack of actual help for people in game. I can't help but feel that CGs would be more inclined to be online, active, and helpful if they had more things to do in game. I strongly believe that the lack of conversation on the help channel would be stimulated if CGs were there, often I see it's completely abandoned or that the noobs who actually need help invade the other channels seeking guidance they should have been able to find on help. I do realize that there is a lack of CGs at the time as well, with fonty and Creobis being the only current active members. That is something that will have to be worked out between staff, but perhaps if life as a CG was more interesting there would be more incentives to undertake a thankless job like staff.
Hunting, I feel, is a self-explanatory way for CGs, Artists, composers ect. to stay interested in game while helping people or doing their own duties that wouldn't require a great amount of concentration. The problem lies in the transferring of legitimately found pokemon to their player accounts. In order for this to work there would have to be some restrictions:
1-In order to avoid transgression no actual trading would occur, pokemon would need to be transferred by someone on staff.
2-Pokemon would have to be on par with S Rare or higher to be transferred to save time/work for whoever can transfer the pokemon. We don't want to add more to those staff members who's plates are already full.
3-(possibly) If there was an issue with trading those legitimate pokemon to other players, a compromise could be formed that these transferred pokemon could not be traded once transferred. One might question the reasoning behind doing the transfer in the first place if this was the case, however some people might like collecting OT pokemon or what have you and prefer for them to be on the player account.
4-(possibly) if trading were to be allowed after they're placed into the player account there would need to be a degree of secrecy as to the identity of the staff member, to avoid any advantage one might get from being a known staff member. I don't personally feel this is necessary, but there will always be children who cry foul any chance they get.
Battling is a quintessential aspect of the game, one that can be enjoyed by noobs and veterans alike. I see no reason why people with spare time on their hands should be restricted in this matter. The same logic as hunting can be applied to this, more interest in the game = more time spent in game. Not only that but it would be a way for staff to connect to players better, and certainly for them to greater understand when a discussion comes up about the flaws of the battle system, and how they should be handled. Some of the points brought up against this in the previous thread were:
1-"Staff will beat players and ruin their records" .... don't battle staff if you're afraid of losing, or request no legendaries be used. Personally if I were staff I wouldn't find any sport in using crazy powerful pokemon anyway.
2-"People who battle staff will get pokedex data that others won't".... If you're so concerned about missing out on pokedex data that you'd like to limit the enjoyment of other people for your own sake you should get out of this community, we don't want you here honestly.
3-"Staff will be bombarded with PMs and battle requests".... /PMoff, and hitting no on the request screen isn't hard to do. If a staff member is known to battle it won't bother them, if they're not they won't get many battle requests. I believe there is also a command that disables battle requests.
4-"Being staff is a serious duty, when you sign up you forgo any merry making within the game".... There's not one reason people who are supposed to interact with the community shouldn't be able to do their jobs while having fun.
In summary I believe setting these ideas into action would promote activity within the staff (which will help newer players get the help they need easier), increase the understanding between players and staff in regard to the battle system, enrich the experience of being staff, and make the community happier as a whole. As always, thoughts and friendly debate is encouraged.
)