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Goldfolk

Goldfolk

Dalayan Elder
Over the past few months competition at the highest end has been ferocious and there were several incidents that caused a great deal of controversy.

There have also been several nerfs that have caused some unhappiness.

Now that the dust has at least partially settled it might be a good time to think about putting into place a system that could take some of the heat out of difficult situations and also hopefully ensure that the server development is better thought out.

So my proposal is an advisory group that can assist the Devs and GMs in carrying out their duties. This group could, for example, be composed of 1 representative from each of the top five guilds and two from the remaining guilds.

The purpose of the group would be to advise on ideas for development and to provide advice on suitable action on infractions within the game.

So as examples:

Dev X wants to implement changes to a class that enhance or nerf its capabilities, he/she explains to the group and they give it their blessing or suggest alternatives. If the changes are implemented we don't get a hate thread from that class that moans endlessly. Actually, you probably still do but you can at least now tell them to STFU because it was agreed by the group and has some authority as a result.

Player X in Guild Y has found an exploit and not only did this go unnoticed but several members of his guild benefited and obtained an advantage. The group nominates 2 representatives not from Guild Y to sit on a panel with 3 GMs to advise on an appropriate punishment. The point here is that the 2 representatives are not there to determine the punishment but to reassure everyone that the punishment was commensurate with the crime and that justice was served. They would be forbidden to discuss details and doing so would disqualify them for the future.

I realise that this is controversial but given the amount of flak that the GMs and Devs have taken recently, isn’t it about time we had a system that took some of the heat out of difficult situations. This is just a suggested format and would leave it to those in Authority to decide exactly how this could be implemented.

Finally, I would just like to say that this is in no way a criticism of the way the server is being run but it is intended to actually reduce stress on the Devs and GMs who seem to be constantly harangued becuase whatever changes are made there is always somebody that is unhapppy. Equally, this would be an easy method for the Devs to check out ideas before they were implemented.
 
There have always been periods of "flak" and this is not *near* the biggest one we have had. Ikisith got a bit out of control and we are doing what we can to keep the progression power curve from being too steep to add in future content.

Basically I suppose this all comes down to the sandbox argument. We do our best to keep things balanced despite what players think or are used to. That is the beauty of SoD in my opinion - we have no bottom line to worry about. We do not have to worry about keeping people paying and can focus on making a balanced and good game.

I will let Tarutao handle the GM side of this one but as for the dev side I am very unconvinced that this would do anything but let the devs get complained to ahead of time instead of after the proposition.
 
For the GM side of things, I'm going to echo the sentiment that I don't think this would lessen player angst on staff decisions.

If anything, your proposal for GM Team decisions would create increased politicking and bad blood between guilds as they listened in on the GM Team's decision making process. Either they'd have veto power over the GM Team (bad thing) or the united front of the GM Team would just make the non-staff representatives complain if they didn't agree with the ruling.

I don't see a benefit.
 
While I like the spirit of this idea it sounds like the kind of thing that happens two steps before another Spanish Inquisition.
 
What would this do that a Dev/GM posting their idea on the forums and letting everyone reply wouldn't?

Other then making some elite poopsockers feel even more important.
 
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How to introduce changes:-

Publish details of the change in advance giving before and after numbers

Give clear reason(s) for the change

Publish the evidence that supports these reasons

Listen to and respond to comments on the change

Amend the proposal in the light of the comments

Listen to and respond to comments after the change.

How NOT to introduce changes:-

Introduce changes without warning

Give no or bogus rationalisation

Do not respond to the concerns of the affected players

Invoke the "It is my sandbox so I do what I like"
 
I think more dialogue between players and devs would be cool but how realistic is it to be able to rely on the feedback given by players and what happens when it's a change that needs to happen but is unpopular? It's also asking people that dev to put in even more time and effort.

I think if anything was going to change it should be how we approach posting about class issues and such, also a stickied index thread compiled by players linking class specific/general/raid/6-man/sub-65 threads under the appropriate headers might help to keep a lot of minor issues fresh in minds. If any of you Class Top 5 guys want to take a crack at that it would probably be a lot more beneficial than a digital wiener measuring thread.
 
Rorne said:
I think more dialogue between players and devs would be cool but how realistic is it to be able to rely on the feedback given by players and what happens when it's a change that needs to happen but is unpopular? It's also asking people that dev to put in even more time and effort.
Click to expand...

In many cases I think it would save dev time and effort. Some recent changes are obviously not balanced/working correctly, and having more interaction with players would reduce the number of revisions to changes more often than not.
 
Bridger said:
How to introduce changes:-

Publish details of the change in advance giving before and after numbers

Give clear reason(s) for the change

Publish the evidence that supports these reasons

Listen to and respond to comments on the change

Amend the proposal in the light of the comments

Listen to and respond to comments after the change.

How NOT to introduce changes:-

Introduce changes without warning

Give no or bogus rationalisation

Do not respond to the concerns of the affected players

Invoke the "It is my sandbox so I do what I like"
Click to expand...

^^^ Good start
 
i play a mage and a besatlord and i dont have runic 2 so i guess teh nerf didnt kill me, but at the same time. Look at my sig.... Wiz said it best. Its the devs visualization of the game... the have a grand picture in view (i hope). Its part of the mmo verse... be good for 3 months bad for 9... everyone gets a turn... except paladins, they never get a turn.
 
Bridger said:
Invoke the "It is my sandbox so I do what I like"
Click to expand...

I am a little no body on the SOD server. I use to be a donator. I also like carrots.

I have never understood how complaints happen about what the people behind this server do. From what I have read over the few years I have been playing here, I understand that there is a few paid people and a lot of volunteers.

It would be interesting to know how many people in the top five guilds pay money to play. There has to be some or I hope most.

It is a free server for a game I have loved for ten years and still like to play every so often. The original is free now to play so how about go play there instead of ruffling sand and pressuring GM's and Dev's.
 
Icotopl said:
It would be interesting to know how many people in the top five guilds pay money to play.
Click to expand...

That would indeed be interesting.

At the time of this post, FWF is forming raid, and I see 3 platinum 1 gold 1 silver donations there.

There's actually 4 platinum donators there, but one of them is a member of <Exodus> that just happens to be nearby. (Exodus is also one of the top 5 guilds)
 
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