Staff members in the forums.

[mad30]

I didn't feel like derailing the "Removal of Complaint Box" topic which is where this discussion started.

But here's the summary of the start

The only way the complaint box can be successful with this staff, this community, and the history of pwo... is to remove staff interaction from the forum to a minimum. I have never seen a successfully ran game where so many staff members communicate so freely with the community. Usually it's limited to a few(3-5) core people with very infrequent occurrences with other staff members. This forum IMO should be treated as a 3rd party site, for the community, ran by the community. Instead it seems to be for the staff members, ran by staff members.

As for having the forum run by the community and have little or no involvement by staff (by this I assume you mean only moderating as needed), I believe this would be counter-productive. Given that the forum is for complaints against the game and staff, having us stay out of it and not respond to the complaints or take part in the discussion that arises would make one of the other concerns for the forums' creation true- that we are sending posts there that we wish to ignore. Which again is not true at all.

On the other hand if players wish to leave staff out of a given discussion in that forums they can always ask for that and it will of course be respected.

First hitmon when i said "forum" i mean "forums" as in all of forum.pokemon-world-online.net. Now you may have remember me proposing the staff forum (hidden to the players) go to a different location but no one took me seriously then. This existentially would be the same thing but to a more direct degree.

The current situation doesn't work because everything is to "personal" between staff and players. I don't mean personal like your momma jokes personal but like 1 on 1 communication personal. This causes rifts between players and individual staff members. How is this bad? The hatred against Lee now is a direct correlation of this, and there has been examples of this issue in the past but he's the most recent. Instead of players knowing the 'admins' are doing things they disagree they are able to directly call out that person making others doubt his decisions undermining his work while elevating other admins work causing a direct divide between members of the admin group caused by public issues (private rifts are inevitable but public rifts can be avoided).

Now if admins were "anonymous" in the community they can only blame the staff as a whole or credit staff as a whole. Much less hostility would come from players towards a staff group keeping individual staff members morale higher than otherwise. When you are alone negatives have a much more affect on you mentally than when you have someone along side you for support. Bis's history supports this. If we supported Bis when he received criticism like we should have if we were united staff group I would like to think things would have turned out better (Bis I apologize for not doing this). Now, that would have simply been prevented if staff were anonymous and no one could call out Bis to begin with there forth no defending of him should never had been needed.

There's the core of why staff should not be apart of the forums, now the core idea around HOW which hopefully makes this discussion and my stance make more sense.

Originally CG's were suppose to be the voice of the staff members to the community. This is not the case as GMs GEs and Admins still have too loud of a voice. For sake of this discussion lets just say CG's are no longer PWO Staff but "Forum Staff". The theory is there would be a "lead" CG or branching CG that would in fact be a PWO staff member but of no title. The CGs then would be MODS of this forum and community leaders. PWO staff members would still be able to read this forum, take advice and suggestion, and be able to reply on this forum, but not have anyone know they were a staff member. There is absolutely no need for anyone to really know who is and isn't a staff member other than by their staff member name from in game and knowing them by the position. Now when I was Admin I more or less put this theory to the test and from my own experience I would say it worked. No one judge my decisions based on their prior knowledge of me because they didn't have any prior knowledge of me. They could be bais against me nor could they said I was being bias in what I was doing. I didn't get hit up for favors or for insider knowledge or for special suggestions.

Now as far as actually communicating with the staff by players when needed, An official communication channel would be used. A report section via playerdex to report scams/hackers/botters ect. A suggestion box for official suggestions by the players via suggestion box in pdex. Group logs on the website where individuals don't post logs but a log would cover everyone in a group ie: GE Log where all new information that any GE wanted to provide would go into the log. Finally official announcements would only appear on the website and the CGs could then report that in the "announcement section" on the forums relaying the information. I am sure I missed some stuff, but this should give you the gist of the theory.

Questions?

 

[Pretentious]

I'll keep this short...

Good idea, but I really don't think it's necessary.

Lee doesn't post in the forums anymore.
Jinji rarely steps outside of the Meet & Greet Zone.

If it wasn't for Rig and Fonty, nobody would have any idea of what's going on.

This isn't a *real* game. There isn't community involvement in *real* games because they don't care. *Real* games have one purpose: to make money. The staff of PWO, on the other hand, is supposed to care about the community because this game is supposedly MADE for the community.

 

[mad30]

I'll keep this short...

Good idea, but I really don't think it's necessary.

Lee doesn't post in the forums anymore.
Jinji rarely steps outside of the Meet & Greet Zone.

If it wasn't for Rig and Fonty, nobody would have any idea of what's going on.

This isn't a *real* game. There isn't community involvement in *real* games because they don't care. *Real* games have one purpose: to make money. The staff of PWO, on the other hand, is supposed to care about the community because this game is supposedly MADE for the community.

I must admit I do not visit the forums as much as I have before, so perhaps you are correct in stating the staff don't speak as much, however the damage is done and this is not a suggestion simply a what if discussion.

There isn't community involvement in *real* games because they don't care.

I have to disagree. There are a lot of "3rd party" communities with games (fan forums) which is sort of what I was on about. However there are more games that directly manages communities. Bioware is a prime example of a company who directly handles a community for all of their games. Other games with such initiative are many mmo's and even bungie has a community they interact with.

With the evolution of online multiplayer having balance changes (think halo3 vs destiny where halo 3 there was never any balance changes just "map packs" and with destiny they have "nerfed" weapons and made changes to the game play without expansions), large time "real" games are reaching out more now than ever to obtain feedback from the playerbase. One such way to do this is via a company ran forum. Other ways include twitter, tumblr, and facebook. All of which are part of a community.

 

[Pretentious]

You make some excellent points about the evolution of gaming, and you're absolutely right. With so many outlets (you mentioned twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc), games need to appeal to their fans or else the players will simply move on to a different game. I don't necessarily think those communities impact their game as much as this community impacts this one, but you're still correct.

 

[Electrofreak]

I agree with the idea of staff failing or succeeding as a team. It creates teamwork in arduous times and overall feelings of wellness and success in good times. It would help bond the staff better as well over time, creating less rift over personal issues. Most corporations actually do what you are suggesting @ Mad. The exceptions to this would be companies under a celebrity CEO, in which case the company is usually more drastic in successes and failures.

Overall I think a less direct and anonymous staff response would be better. I think however for the GM position and ban appeals, you should know who you are talking to. Other than that, I think a generic forum account for responses to questions and other things could be useful. This would further help stop the demonization of others via out of context statements.

 

[KaiReborn]

I can see a number of ways that could turn out. If forums were to act independently for the game with staff not being as interventive (and when they were to intervene, there wouldn't be a tag to give them away), then I'd be in favor of having forum mods being players that aren't directly tied to the staff team (or to the other group in this conflict). Reason I say this is because I think it'd need to be a task for people as unbiased as possible about the conflict (and also to avoid cgs becoming meatshields - which is a situation I find likely to happen if your what if scenario is implemented word for word - as chances are that they would be focused on for being the voice of staff). That would also end up allowing the staff on working on the what is really important - bringing content to the game without being bothered by the environment - at least until the tense environment fades out. The best way to see how if it would work effectively or not would be to put this idea under an experimental stage, so there would be less ifs surrounding it

 

[HitmonFonty]

I'm not sure about this at all. You're suggesting a completely different approach for PWO/Player relations here. So instead of individual staff replying to players- as I'm doing right now- when asked, we would post behind a single nickname, maybe similar to Twitter where several people respond but if we don't sign off on the tweet nobody knows who made it. On Twitter which is a far more formal affair I find it natural to do it that way, but here? Maybe it would be more professional but I think also make the PWO staff remote and sterile in a way.

Believe it or not the policy is the same as when you were Admin mad. Nothing ever changed, we still don't encourage staff to join in discussions started here by players unless 1. Moderation is needed or 2. Staff are directly asked for opinions or response. The reason we stand out so much is that players have all but deserted the forums these days and much of what is posted here is asking for staff response or opinions- or indeed needing moderation.

I do believe one reason players don't use the forums much at all these days is because of the amount of complaints we are getting here, and because normal posts have been unnecessarily hijacked by disgruntled players not wishing to see anyone post anything positive on the forums without being challenged. Nor is it just empty belief but it is feedback I have received from players.

I feel this is going off-topic to your suggestion though. Whether or not to remove our 'nicknames' from these forums (and ingame maybe) and replace them with something like PWO-Staff or PWO-GE, PWO-CG, PWO-GM, PWO-ADM, PWO-DEV etc? I'm just not sure the game needs to be or should be that impersonal.

 

[Amelia]

I will suggest several things of me for this matter. Not much I could notice for staff - player interaction but in my opinion it's going very weird way. Every rank that will affect players interest should be anonymous. You simply can't mix the work, interest and the friends. Even if you are not biased you will most likely end up being called one by people seeing how community is as of late. I will suggest several changes now!

Forum Moderators Will not be involved in discussions and who will not interact with players about anything on personal level. I often call them forum hunters and they make sure that people respect forum rules, checking for double accounts and so on (yes I dislike the idea of people using double accounts, not before one gets banned, stupid reason I know). This is the rank who pretty much is responsible for whole forum culture. This rank should not have any powers ingame, forums only. They aren't supposed to care if someone scammed or hacked the actual game. Forums are their territory, not the game. Just no need for them to be focused on several different areas at once. A distance between this rank and players needs to be determined. You need to know how much you can go without crossing the line of "limited player/staff interaction. This should be strictly anonymous rank.

Community Guides They will offer people to help and coordinate the community and prevent misleading. Community Guide could be pretty much the person between Staff and a Player when it comes to offering help and solving basic issues or announcing things(no moderation). Community guides are to be active both ingame and on the forums making sure people stay up to date with changes and news. This rank must require 100% of the game knowledge and is possible to promote only players who showed to be good and dedicated. A distance between this rank and players needs to be determined. You need to know how much you can go without crossing the line of "limited player/staff interaction ( more freedom than moderators due to nature of their job). This should be strictly anonymous rank.

Games Masters They will be active both ingame and on forums. They will be taking and isolating the cases and posts of their "bans and cases" or something what is related with their job ingame. Game Masters are strictly to be anonymous. Interaction with players is to be limited and only subject to talk abut is how to report something or how to complain on a issued measure against the player in question. This should be strictly anonymous rank. From my experience this rank deals with worst cases in entire community. Constantly dealing with offenders and abusers needs certain mind set and clarity. Every more serious decision is to be discussed with other GMs only. In case you feel that you cannot carry out one mission you are to ask other moderator to do it for you. This is often the case where you need to make a decision for someone you know or like. Don't be tricked here, GMs are not allowed to like or dislike or play favorites. They remove the very reason why PWO is here, and that reason are players.

Official Wiki Editors Noticed you have a wiki here so this one was on my mind for a while. This does not require to be anonymous. Assuming that editors won't have any information about "upcoming" updates and things which are planned because those are supposed to be "secret surprise" for players. Wiki editor can be any of the staff mentioned above as well or a player who showed knowledge in this field. But yeah, they won't have any "tools" or information which are ahead of the current time. Editors get their special forums with permissions set depending what their rank will be. They do not see the actual staff forum and categories.

Admins Logging the game changes and answer when they are being called would be ideal for them to do. It's natural that admin can help out sometimes when a CG or someone can't or don't have tools to give proper and correct info. Every update planned should be approved by an admin. Given admins game knowledge and how the pokemon system works they do indeed deserve the spot assuming once they've been legendary players who passed all of the tests needed. I often call admins coordinators. They do not coordinate players, they coordinate staff who are coordinating the players and that is big difference. Admin should be a lot more active on staff areas of the forums, more behind scene tasks. Not every community allows admins to moderate so interaction between players and staff here can vary. Pretty sure you can set up one. Full database access no game code access. Code is not open source AFAIK. But this is not always the case.


DevsFull database and game code access. Fixing the code bugs and issues for codes and introducing better and new system weekly is what a dev is supposed to do. They do not do moderation or coordinating the staff or players. They can offer help on forums if needed or called to. Dev is naturally highest rank and only the most trusted and skilled are to get one. What DEV MUST do is to have special forums for them and players to interact such as "code issues" and code suggestions. They will look often on those forums to see if there is something to fix or add new. Also, there has to be special place where staff can give their "wish" list to a dev to make it happen. Dev must know 100% how the pokemon system works. What dev should not do is to introduce things that are not priority for staff and players as second. Other staff are to decide what is the priority because some of them have job to interact with people to know what game needs. No update and fix should be dictated. Every update is to strictly to be discussed with other staff. The game code is pretty much what is making this project to live. If you fail to protect it and keep it safe then things wont be smooth anymore. You MUST not put the code in the danger.


- Every staff rank has one thing in common, they operate with different alias ingame and different alias on the forums. They must not allow for them to be known. This is to prevent emotions to dictate over a decision and to exclude any chance of bias towards staff or players. Wiki editors are exception here. They can be known, but they must not know who other staff are. Everyone should be aware what their job is. Staff as whole needs to be perfectly in sync. If you are out of sync then you have issues to be taken care of. Also, you have to set your standard, no offense to anyone but current standards are very poor. I can understand that there is a lot of hate and tension going on but you have to deal with it and move forward.

 

[KaiReborn]

Tidbit of information you seem to be unaware of: the source code of the client was released unofficially a few months ago

 

[Nikola]

you Know, here admins code and fix things and have code Access. As for keeping the code safe...well client code has been released already and server code is owned by several people including myself. I also have the passwords and user informations for god knows how many hundred of thousands accounts due to having the backup. Same way some idiot who will abuse it could have it. Not saying that I care about user info or if I will abuse anything, I wont just stating the fact how your story about keeping things safe falls in water.

I do agree that moderation could be amended and stuff changed. when I was a gm and when someone told who I actually was I had to deal with abnormal wave of hate coming from peple i knew for years and spent time with. If I can do it again I would do it most likely, I am not repenting. I have banned thousands of people and I saw everything. But i never saw anyone getting banned unfairly or where bias changed the decission, not from side of my team not, from other staff yes. I wont talk much abvout this into details because its supposed to be secret but just saying. Same way I banned many people who had their bans undone and same people got banned later for same thing and trolling everyone today. Ever since I am not a gm ive been trolling and having fun. I will even make a leather coat and shoes story just to see if people can be trusted. But again it's all fun and a game.

Power if not controled can cause serious issues. Not everyone will keep things for themselves. I can personally get banned hundreds of people this very moment including myself to finsih the circle. (will not say why, not yet). When I was a GM, PWO had good amount of people playing. I was aware not everyne is playing legit. It was time of the great game change and 2014 will be remember as best and worst year for PWO. Me and my team banned insane number of people and game pretty much had 80 players online. I was looking for weeks to find someone whos hacking. From those 80 half were vermin and other half were good people and some of them were given a pardon.

Similar circle is happening today. the game is full of the vermin, imbecils, corruption where everyone is doing what they please laughing at newer players as they cheat. It will take a little more dedication to lower the number from 300 to 80 to eradicate the plague and put fear into the people knowing that cheating might not be viable anymore. maybe this year they decide to fix /trade and /pm for players to be unable to see if a moderator is online or give detailed who is online list to gms to see user agents and ip of people who are browsing the forums. In order the eradicate the vermin completely new tools will need introduction which is why I aprove your idea of DEvs providing the tools to people, well that is what is supposed to be a case anyway. Currently you need to wait 3 months to get an aswer negative or positive if you are getting a tool needed to carry out the asigment. I had my own standard when it comes to banning. When banned you have 1% of chance of getting unbanned if your cooperation is needed. So better use 1% chance then 0%. More bans should be ban of a person who owns the accounts. There is no much use when you ban only one account where that acc has nothing left on it. This is why I was often quick to issue an IP ban and track down much accounts I could find. So for EXAMPLE; Fonty wants to ban me be for comitting the worst act. Rather than banning only one account who commited the crime every other known account has to be banned and every other account linked with me banned and investigate the couriers and associates. You eventually will get a list of 50 people to ban and ingame property taken away from the game. This is how job is supposed to be done. You want to narrow down the culprit from starting point till ending point. Spare no one as you do it. You have to show to people that hacking is serious crime. I always liked how people in ancient Greece were killed for lying and breaking rules. Do that several time no one will want to lie again. Or cut the hand of a thief who stole a bag of potatos. Everyone will be having second thoughts before they decide to steal. Same goes for scammers here.

This is the main reason why moderators should be anonymous, more than every other staff. And I do agree that having seperate account ingame and on the forums is very viable idea. Afterall, bans aren't being dealt with on the forums so there is no way for someone to Know who you are. In my opinion staff as whole needs changes in their own ranks. Everyone needs to change their names and standards. Starting from Fonty all the way till artists. Consistency is the key here, you have to preserve it.And yeah, having forum mod is not a bad idea a lot of current staff can be placed there with names changed ofc.

 

[Amelia]

Wow, what a mess! Why would someone share the code to anyone? Server code is serious issue. It's the very reason why PWO can run. No offense to anyone but I am quiet disappointed how this all happened especially with the server code. God...What a mess...

 

[Jhaxion]

Wow, what a mess! Why would someone share the code to anyone? Server code is serious issue. It's the very reason why PWO can run. No offense to anyone but I am quiet disappointed how this all happened especially with the server code. God...What a mess...

That's not even the half of the stuff that' has taken place here. You think that's a mess, I suggest you browse the forums and take a look at older posts maybe then you will see why some of us are frustrated.

 

[Merse]

Wow, what a mess! Why would someone share the code to anyone? Server code is serious issue. It's the very reason why PWO can run. No offense to anyone but I am quiet disappointed how this all happened especially with the server code. God...What a mess...

You see, when I was talking about far too less to fully understand the depth of PWO's crisis and demise, I was talking about that exactly
In short: There was this guy who helped to create PWO at the very beginning. Namely, he wrote the client code. Then he left to be a soldier. By the time he returned, PWO was heading towards apathy and was regularly declining due there was nobody in the staff who knew the client code in depth. Updates were slow and shallow, years old bugs weren't fixed etc.
This guy came back, and released one awesome update after another, but meanwhile he ignored the rest of the staff. Basically the staff was working on one thing and he was working on another. And as he knew everything about the code, he was working at an alarming rate and he quickly turned the community to his side, and partly against the current staff who were loyal to the game for years, but couldn't work at the rate he did. Long story short, there was a huge quarrel and he was thrown out from the staff and basically from the game as well, which caused a huge outrage in the community as the players felt the staff chased away the only member who actually did something to keep the game alive.
As a retaliatory strike, the guy made the code open source (it was him who wrote it after all and it was "his"), and finally revoked PWO's staff's right to further develop his client, and he started his own Pokemon MMO.
Hence the staff was forced to relaunch a long abandoned project of writing a brand new client, but the only staff member who is working on it has very low morale and drops by only for a few days in every 3-4 months, so it is uncertain when the new client will be finished, if ever...

 

[Amelia]

Thanks Merse. That explains a lot.

 

[JustWorking]

I will suggest several things of me for this matter. Not much I could notice for staff - player interaction but in my opinion it's going very weird way. Every rank that will affect players interest should be anonymous. You simply can't mix the work, interest and the friends. Even if you are not biased you will most likely end up being called one by people seeing how community is as of late. I will suggest several changes now!

Forum Moderators Will not be involved in discussions and who will not interact with players about anything on personal level. I often call them forum hunters and they make sure that people respect forum rules, checking for double accounts and so on (yes I dislike the idea of people using double accounts, not before one gets banned, stupid reason I know). This is the rank who pretty much is responsible for whole forum culture. This rank should not have any powers ingame, forums only. They aren't supposed to care if someone scammed or hacked the actual game. Forums are their territory, not the game. Just no need for them to be focused on several different areas at once. A distance between this rank and players needs to be determined. You need to know how much you can go without crossing the line of "limited player/staff interaction. This should be strictly anonymous rank.

Community Guides They will offer people to help and coordinate the community and prevent misleading. Community Guide could be pretty much the person between Staff and a Player when it comes to offering help and solving basic issues or announcing things(no moderation). Community guides are to be active both ingame and on the forums making sure people stay up to date with changes and news. This rank must require 100% of the game knowledge and is possible to promote only players who showed to be good and dedicated. A distance between this rank and players needs to be determined. You need to know how much you can go without crossing the line of "limited player/staff interaction ( more freedom than moderators due to nature of their job). This should be strictly anonymous rank.

Games Masters They will be active both ingame and on forums. They will be taking and isolating the cases and posts of their "bans and cases" or something what is related with their job ingame. Game Masters are strictly to be anonymous. Interaction with players is to be limited and only subject to talk abut is how to report something or how to complain on a issued measure against the player in question. This should be strictly anonymous rank. From my experience this rank deals with worst cases in entire community. Constantly dealing with offenders and abusers needs certain mind set and clarity. Every more serious decision is to be discussed with other GMs only. In case you feel that you cannot carry out one mission you are to ask other moderator to do it for you. This is often the case where you need to make a decision for someone you know or like. Don't be tricked here, GMs are not allowed to like or dislike or play favorites. They remove the very reason why PWO is here, and that reason are players.

Official Wiki Editors Noticed you have a wiki here so this one was on my mind for a while. This does not require to be anonymous. Assuming that editors won't have any information about "upcoming" updates and things which are planned because those are supposed to be "secret surprise" for players. Wiki editor can be any of the staff mentioned above as well or a player who showed knowledge in this field. But yeah, they won't have any "tools" or information which are ahead of the current time. Editors get their special forums with permissions set depending what their rank will be. They do not see the actual staff forum and categories.

Admins Logging the game changes and answer when they are being called would be ideal for them to do. It's natural that admin can help out sometimes when a CG or someone can't or don't have tools to give proper and correct info. Every update planned should be approved by an admin. Given admins game knowledge and how the pokemon system works they do indeed deserve the spot assuming once they've been legendary players who passed all of the tests needed. I often call admins coordinators. They do not coordinate players, they coordinate staff who are coordinating the players and that is big difference. Admin should be a lot more active on staff areas of the forums, more behind scene tasks. Not every community allows admins to moderate so interaction between players and staff here can vary. Pretty sure you can set up one. Full database access no game code access. Code is not open source AFAIK. But this is not always the case.


DevsFull database and game code access. Fixing the code bugs and issues for codes and introducing better and new system weekly is what a dev is supposed to do. They do not do moderation or coordinating the staff or players. They can offer help on forums if needed or called to. Dev is naturally highest rank and only the most trusted and skilled are to get one. What DEV MUST do is to have special forums for them and players to interact such as "code issues" and code suggestions. They will look often on those forums to see if there is something to fix or add new. Also, there has to be special place where staff can give their "wish" list to a dev to make it happen. Dev must know 100% how the pokemon system works. What dev should not do is to introduce things that are not priority for staff and players as second. Other staff are to decide what is the priority because some of them have job to interact with people to know what game needs. No update and fix should be dictated. Every update is to strictly to be discussed with other staff. The game code is pretty much what is making this project to live. If you fail to protect it and keep it safe then things wont be smooth anymore. You MUST not put the code in the danger.


- Every staff rank has one thing in common, they operate with different alias ingame and different alias on the forums. They must not allow for them to be known. This is to prevent emotions to dictate over a decision and to exclude any chance of bias towards staff or players. Wiki editors are exception here. They can be known, but they must not know who other staff are. Everyone should be aware what their job is. Staff as whole needs to be perfectly in sync. If you are out of sync then you have issues to be taken care of. Also, you have to set your standard, no offense to anyone but current standards are very poor. I can understand that there is a lot of hate and tension going on but you have to deal with it and move forward.

I wouldn't be throwing around such suggestiosn casually. You will be better of discusing about those with staff members. You are throwing valuable pearls before pigs.

 

[Chocobo7]

If it wasn't for Rig and Fonty, nobody would have any idea of what's going on.

I can speak for my own ideas here but when a lot of this is because this was meant to be a big part of their roles compared to other staff, I myself don't post often in topics that aren't dircectly related to myself or GMs because there are people who are better at it than me and know more about the subject as well. I feel like the best person to make the post should be the one making it and that would be why those staff are the ones giving out most of the information to players. Though this is all from before I took a break so in those months maybe ideas have shifted to a different place.