Staff team changes

Lol

I make no illusion im not the least-GMy of the GMs.

But that doesnt mean im deadweight in staff. Theres more to it than banning hackers, you know that. You also know how much is reliant on Admins to get anything done and how much waiting is done.

I may not contribute the same as some of the others, but after working 12 hours most days a week I come home and answer PMs and discord messages for a couple hours while decompressing. I do what I can. There is no reason we can't bring in more staff to help with the workload. And theres no reason we should be kicking staff that are otherwise active but arent hitting arbritraty metrics (I deal with that shit every day, its a terrible system).

Ive been on Staff for over 3 years. Ive seen good staff come and go. Ive seen shitty staff come and go. I joined to help players and I do that. I have no regrets and I see no reason to stop doing that because some staff did some shitty stuff and some ex staff are upset with how some stuff is done. Theres still some good in here- even if its hard to see.

 

Is there any reason they couldn't train you for the job? What about Shane? Both of you seem very professional, smart, and trustworthy. Or do neither of you have time for it?

Sen is another person who, while new to staff, has been a member of this community for a long time, and behaves very professionally. Has trying to convince him to take on more been considered?

With this community, you'll never know what to expect, lol

 

My guess is that they are more casual players with light involvement in the actual gameplay. They are wonderful people and staff members but if I was to make a serious RWT report that requires a complicated investigation with log checks, I don't think they are the right people to handle such tasks.

 

This is true for sure. Experience with the economy, etc, is a must for investigating RWT. Tim is fantastic for that job.

But what about harassment disputes? Why is Tim needed for those? Why not put another staff member as "head of harassment" and keep Tim out of it? A "casual" player with lighter involvement in the gameplay and community would be ideal for that role, as they are just less likely to have conflicts of interest like Tim does (and by the sounds of it, he's sick of dealing with that crap anyway?)

 

Let me address these points first. Will address the rest once I'm home.

Actually I'm glad you admitted that you trusted us. But I hope it will be put into action down the road whenever you guys continue with the process of restructuring Staff. Staff needs more access to logs to help out with investigations that involve logs. This will definitely lessen Tim's plate by alot. And this is something I've been asking for for a very long time. Not sure if you recall. Even Muff is actively pushing for it.

It is not a rumor. I asked you once in Staff what Becca had access to and you actually told us she had access to privileged info, I believe it is donation details. Whether or not she had access to more stuff such as chat log is beyond our knowledge, only you know best.

 

don't have to get all salty, i'm just calling it as it is. again, working 12 hours a day etc. always comes up with you guys. i have a full-time job and work 10-12 hours a day too, but i've never used it as an excuse to go missing for extended periods of time or not do what needs to be done. yes, maybe you're helping players in various other means, and that's great. you don't have to be a GM to do that though

Evan and Shane both lack the game experience to be an Admin. Shane is also the person in the screenshots i shared in one of my earlier posts. that incident occurred on the day just before the new interns joined us. if anything, it felt like he was merely doing it for show. he was never consistently active at all during my 9 months in Staff, and i doubt he has been since i left too

my personal suggestion would be not to take everything that you see on forums as it is. ban appeals are quite literally the easiest thing to do as a Staff member, besides the more complicated rwt ones

 

I never see a criminal admit what he did, of course he is the owner of the server and he can say anything, but who knows

 

Off topic but is this not information harvesting if it’s true?

 

For sure, I think Sen would fit well if he's assigned to handle harassment cases or reports regarding disputes among players. Assinged staff might wanna take turns since it'll entail a lot of stress . Tim already has too much work on his shoulders. This guild-war drama shouldn't have been handled by Tim in the first place. He could have helped with the final decision as an admin but it could have been handled by a different staff member. I can't really blame Tim for his involvement since both parties, not just his friend Raony, reached out to him via dm and Tim was sandwiched between the two parties in this chaotic drama. Maybe that's a change they can consider?

 

I just wanna state for the record that I believe Matt can technically do whatever he wants. It's his server after all. But if he wants to lead a team, then he must ensure fairness across the board. It doesn't matter if the data he gave Becca access to wasn't sensitive data, that's not the point. The point is if it were any other staff, he wouldn't have given the access anyway.

Part of the reason why Staff burnt out is due to the lack of access to tools necessary for them to do their job to their highest capacity. And that decision of giving access has to be made by Matt.

 

because when the junior Staff members cannot resolve the issue on their own, inevitably it goes to Tim. but as John already mentioned in his post here

somehow the less important or gamebreaking things like harassment bans, forum trolls etc. also make their way to the Admins. this could be attributed to a few reasons, namely the inability of GMs and junior Staff to make decisions on their own, the lack of tools and access, wrong areas of focus and many more

 

Eh I'm not quite sure. Matt just told us that the info wasn't as sensitive as we thought it would be. Just sufficient enough to help him with giving out forum Donator status.

But like I said in my previous post, the whole point revolves around favourism and biasness, and lack of access to these crucial part of the system for us to do our job properly.

 

Speaking for myself- I'm not one for the job.

But I also tend to be the outlier in discussion, and am currently on the opposing end against some staff for some of the shit that's happened recently, and at ends with others for that isn't really public but has been a pretty substantial discussion in staff recently. Quite simply I don't see Matt or Tim offering their support in that regard.

Could I do it and not abuse the hell out of it? Sure- I haven't had any issues with any of my privileges over the last year (more than can be said for others).

But, the FDA just announced that they are approving the Pfizer covid-19 shot, and we are getting sub 70 degree freezers/supplies shortly. Once we get stock, which will be soon (could be tomorrow, my state is supposed to be one of the first states) I will be immunizing and most pharmacies will be doing more covid shots than they are filling actual scripts. To be frank, I have more important things coming up than patrolling the game- even though that's not really what admins do anyways.

I am a casual player, but it's way more than simply looking at logs. Of course I have very little experience with this as I don't have access to said logs so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. There's also more to the game than RWT. Just like there's more to playing the game than bossing- which I no longer do (and haven't done much of at all on Royals). I had my moments on GMS, I was in a top guild and we had slots on the zak schedules, and we horntailed regularly and I was one of the first players in Broa to have a 185 att xbow etc etc yadda yadda. I may not know Royals markets like Tim, and I may not min-max here like some other players but that doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about in discussions.

You're right- I don't have to be a GM- however (and I honestly don't know if you quit before this), there have been recent changes, and if I stayed a forum mod I would have actually lost access to things I had access to all along. Me becoming a GM allows me to maintain the level of access I have had. God forbid after 3 years I move up a little. I address the game experience part above.

I mean- if we're calling it like as it is- I see a bitter former staff who instead of holding his ground and trying to make things better, left to complain to the masses like some others have done. I appreciate what you did while you were in staff, but if you ever had an issue with me, you should have said something- even though I never had any issues with you.

 

Then perhaps they need to be trained/ empowered to make these decisions? And not criticized if they make a different decision (within reason) than the admin would have? Its not like the admins necessarily make better decisions either (as we have seen).

 

@Matt you have such a long post here, what do you think about the admin who abusing his power to bully a female player over sexual harassment?
Should people continue donate to your server and get treated the same way as her?

 

and now i see a current Staff member trying to make himself out to be more useful to the server than he really actually is

we both know the real reason why i left, which is something you recognised as a problem as well. i did hold my ground for the first couple of incidents (or more), but it seems like you've conveniently left that out too

i don't have an issue with you personally, but i don't think it's inaccurate of me to say that there are many more people who are capable of contributing on a larger scale and more meaningfully than some of you who still remain on the Staff team. yet the group of you somehow continue to insist you're doing a great job. self-delusion, perhaps?

 

Spoiler: r e l e v a n t

Okay y'all full disclosure I know absolute jackshit about this game and I could not think of a single worse person on Staff to do what Tim currently does lmfao

That said, to bring it back to the original discussion by Josh I wanted to add a couple of thoughts:

1. The way that our server's Staff is currently structured makes it simply impossible for any GM to gain the necessary "training" to eventually step up to an Admin position. I'm only a soft veteran so I don't know the process in which Staff members such as Tim and Yan obtained their titles as Admins, but I highly doubt that whatever such process was, it exists now. Unfortunately this is a bit of a moot point because like Josh and probably many others, I don't view any current member of Staff as having the sufficient experience nor qualities required to take on Tim's mantle anywhere remotely in the near future.

2. Staff priorities need complete reorganization. There is essentially zero established procedure for the various duties that require our attention, and the current system is essentially a giant hodgepodge of "do what you can when you can." As one might expect, this becomes extremely messy. For example, sometimes it feels like my entire existence as a Forum Moderator is pointless because GMs with greater access to the forums than I do will randomly take it upon themselves to deal with forum reports and other issues that Dave and I carefully maintain on a knife's edge--and then I'll have to do PR cleanup when people (rightfully) bitch about the inconsistency of our rule enforcement. Fortunately, reorganization of our priorities is actually something that is actively in the works and I'll be advocating for additional changes in this aspect moving forward. So I'm personally excited to see what comes of it..

3. Staff as a whole are terrible about accepting and internalizing criticism, and it leads to these endless cycles such as the past few days in which the fury of the community finally boils over. You can see it when Admins flatly (and explicitly) refuse to engage in community feedback--and when finally pushed to do so are constantly on the defensive. I'm sure many of you have seen this in action by other individual members of Staff as well. And since we're in the business of airing out internal staff dialogue now apparently... (I did y'all the favor of not calling out the individuals who actually said some of these words)​

 

I believe if some GMs have access to your necessary tools, you guys can do good or even better than what Tim do.
You guys quit GMs but still gain respect from many players, not like someone try to hold that position but all they get from the community is the disgusting thoughts.