Although I commend the effort and whatnot, I don't think that is the
real issue behind the 'us vs. them' thingie.
The main fact that annoys me, in general, are imms who simply have an
attitude problem when it comes to rectifying problems. I seriously don't
enjoy talking to an imm for 2+hrs, then getting a response that basically
amounts to "Talk to that imm instead" or "got a problem? appeal."
I don't like the fact that imms end up asking me to refer to others when
it seems to me they knew they had no final say to begin with in that matte
r. Maybe they thought they did, and were simply being helpful, but it
doesn't take hours to figure that out.
Also, a lot of the times I hear imms referring to correcting something
because it was mentioned a lot by players (a certain group, obviously,
since some of us never seem to be heard -- just eye candy, perhaps).
That's a seriously wrong way of approaching a problem or solving it,
considering that's exactly us vs. them. If you hear about something,
my advice is finding out what and who brought such concerns, then
seeing it for yourself. For example, if somebody complains about sniper
characters being too powerful, you have them play a sniper character
against somebody who plays the char type they are currently playing.
Similar things should be done with areas and whatnot -- if you hear
about a mob being too weak, see if that's the case with another char
or something -- currently, as a non-stunning mage, xp is just too painful
to obtain efficiently... not to mention tons of stunbaits giving a lot
more xp in comparison to mobs that may be, say, backstab bait.
Went a bit on a tangent here, but the problem between us vs them lies in
the fact that we don't see imms spending much time morting. I know it's
policy not to have it common knowledge, but I think each imms should have
at least one visible character they use to show that they spend time with
mort chars as well. Personally, the only imm I see mobkilling on a
regular basis is Stile -- rest of them are online and do the things any
oldbie would do -- sit back and socialize, not participating in the very
things you are responsible to fix.
I acknowledge that I am being what I abhor most, generalizing a big part
of the playerbase, but that's what I see. Accurate or not, it is what is
shown to me, and it is what I have available to judge what 'you' do. I gue
spencer's idea could be expanded to include the morting imms did --
maybe add that as another section in the LT, like the dept report.
Mo!
From: Sandra
Wednesday, February 10, 07:20PM
Just something to add to us playing our mortal characters. I play
a mortal daily(except this week when I'm trying to get housing and
help files done). I don't always sit around, in fact, I only do that
with two characters, my most obvious ones. I've made probably 10
different character types since the new fight system went in, testing
and killing quite often. I know i"mnot the only one also. There
are quite a few of us that play pretty regularly. Though to avoid
getting tells about imm stuff and such, we do keep those alts of
ours a secret, and pretty much intend to keep it that way. At least
I do.
-Sandra
From: Rufus
Wednesday, February 10, 10:57PM
I have to admit, I don't play like i used to. I don't have time.
Promotions at work, RL that's seemed to taken many nice turns
lately... when I do have time to 'sit down and play' I have this
overriding feeling of guilt considering there's a bug list about
twice as long as most of my posts (grin) waiting for me to get
cooking on in both building and coding. But when I do play, I
don't sit around and socialize. From a morting perspective, I
don't know most of the people around anymore, I don't have the
time to devote to RP the time that's required, I play the game
for the game itself.
Enough of a sob story though. I'd like to devote more time, as it
is though, I still maintain approximately 25 to 30 hours worth of
work here a week and some of that is playing. A lot of it is testing
on a separate mud that can be brought down and taken up at will in
order to correct problems that can't be fixed immediately on the
main mud. I don't have time to wait for Nuada to repop several times
while other people are slaughtering him in order to correct his xp
and fighting strategy... it's just not possible and I need to
maximize my time.
-Ruf
From: Mo
Wednesday, February 10, 11:19PM
I'm not accusing anyone of not spending enough time, just not the
same kind of time that morts spend here. And I admit, if it was up
to me to decide what imms should be doing in their online time, i'd
much rather have them tackle bugs and other projects than steal my
xp mobs :p But seriously tho, maybe we need another department
of imms, or some seriously devoted players (not i, since i need
my time to pk :p) who can post their findings on a board and
stuff before it takes the form of a suggestion/something that
prompts a fix.
Most of the problem I have stems from the fact that I don't have
any idea where imms get their input from, considering most spend
their time doing stuff that gets more priority. Bug list and typo
list would be one, to be sure, but I doubt balancing problems make
it to that channel. All i see is responses and posts on this board,
and it doesn't account for many of the changes we did go through.
But in general, this mud is a much happier place for me to be than
it was 3 years ago (since it's me making life unpleasant now, not them
making my life unpleasant).
Mo!
From: LadyAce
Thursday, February 11, 08:57AM
You bring up a good point, and I agree with you, Mo -- but let
me explain where I think we're at with this...
On the one hand, if we don't mention the fact that player comments were
a part of a change, it makes it seem like we don't listen. If we say that
a change is based on our own observations, people say that we are just
making changes to give advantages to our own morts. In reality, we only
make changes that we can verify with our own experiences, and we draw
on the experiences of other mortal characters to direct our
investigations.
I'm sorry that my own morts are not more visible, sometimes I wish they
were, while other times I'm glad -- I worry that my experiences
would be less useful in making accurate determinations aboout how
things really operate.
I agree we should be more vocal about the methods we use to find problems,
but I've been in so many conversations where people said "why was this
changed? there was nothing wrong with it." and I list the problem,
and people say no one thought it was a problem, and so I mention that
many mortals complained about it, and they say we only listen to a few
people, and we say that we checked it out with our own mortals and we
think that they're right, and we hear again that we changed it for
our own good or again only listen to certain people. And this goes around
and around and around....
-LadyAce
From: Ea!
Thursday, February 11, 10:11AM
Just as a quick side note: when it comes to choosing which bugs
get fixed and addressed, I tend to address the ones that are reported
via the bug (typo, idea) command before
addressing otherones. Why? It's mailed to me each week.
Every week I go through all of the code bugs/typos and sort
them. I fix what I can quickly and put the rest on the
overall coder todo list (assigning a priority).
Balance issues I tend to let sit until I've seen a few different players
(not characters) report the same issue. Then I deal with it like
other bugs/typos.
Not to imply that I ignore things on the discussion board -- far from
it. Just that there's a well established routine for
things reported via the channel.
Oh, and for the most part, when people tell me bugs, I report
it via the bug command unless it's urgent.
-Ea!
From: Brede
Thursday, February 11, 11:45AM
Back to discuss Mo's idea a bit. Suppose a group was created of 4
characters, with at least 1 imm alt in it. As a group they could kill
mobs that have a questionable trait about them, and report to the
building department.
I am not suggesting hours and hours of this, I mean getting the 4 people
together once a week for an hour or two, killing some thing and discussing
the mobs strengths/weaknesses, then reporting it.
The reason I suggest an imm alt in the group is to add strength to the
groups findings (at least, imms seem to listen to imms more then they
listen to other players)
Even the builders of areas could get into this, and suggest to the group
what mobs/items may be questionable, and the group could then do a
test of 3 or 4 kills and see what conclusion they come to.
I think that this group could be chosen via applications from morts, not
near as elaborate as the imm proposals, and posted on a public board, for
the mud public to decide who they wanted to speak for them.
Just my 2 cents
Brede
From: Adolfus
Thursday, February 11, 08:46PM
If you make a log file you can experiment with whatever you want
then add your comments in and its like the person was there in
the room with you. As long as the log doesn't look fishy then it
will be believed, if it does look fishy it can be verified. So
making a group to go kill mobs doesn't have much merit in my
opinion. As I've said before I think the problem is more of
perception, if someone dismisses an idea quickly it doesn't
appear they give it much thought, also if it gets no attention
at all, ie no appends then it also appears to go unnoticed.
If a simple append of, noted we will look into it, or we will
discuss it, etc, would make it appear things get more attention
and consideration. As it is you see very little of this.
I'd rather see any suggestion discussed by imms and them
decide if it has merit, rather than a simple dismissing of
ideas until it gets mentioned by a bunch of players, as if
someone felt strongly about something they could organize
their friends to mention it to imms or use the bug or idea
commands.
But the real problem I feel is with all the coding projects
that are going to take a very long time to implement and
the lack of coders on the imm staff, at least enough of a
lack of coders so that trees aren't going to be finished
soon, there just isn't enough resources to consider
players ideas much. This is why I think ideas get
dismissed, because it just can't be fit in. It's very
unfortunate I think, it seems if 3-5 good coders were
immorted along with what we got, all these backlogged
projects could get finished in 4 or 5 months.
Does this post resemble Arkansas?
