Staff team changes

GM Dong Doo! @Doo

 

Another protip for the hiring process-

You need people with redundant skills. Your team was held up by one admin during November. You need to make sure there are people with overlapping skills so GMs/admins/developers can get the rest when they need to. Staff burnout was real- and because no one felt there would be tangible change despite making a ruckus, they left.

 

The part where you basically say gameplay decisions are pushed by staff members who don't even play the game and don't know the meta,
Thats what scares me the most.
It explains why so many valid points are not taken into consideration, why neo tokyo isnt better, why toad isnt better @Doo and why we are most likely to see new content instead of seeing the current problems fixed.
It doesn't look like the server is going the right way, I hope Tim and the others can look at what you said objectively and do stuff differently while recruiting new staff.
The server is 1 pink bean update away from going to shit the way i see it, new content = new problems the way things are done at the moment.

You bring good suggestions and good points, and I'm glad that everything is public now and not under the table, that is surely the first step of changing how things are done.
Please don't kill the server @Tim, I'm sure you can make things better .

 

I always liked your posts. The way you phrase things is incredible.
Thank you for speaking up.

 

The sad thing is nothing will ever change, especially when the owner himself don't even bother addressing the questions posed to him regarding @Tako Yuet forum ban, I don't see how he will be able to address this thread. Typical of him to just run away from the problem, thinking it would solve itself.

 

We’ve been friends even before you became GM and I know how hard you’ve worked in the last few years, both as player and as staff to strive for this server to become a healthier, cleaner and friendlier place.

When I randomly screenshot you highly suspicious FM merchants that contain nothing but easily hacked items, I knew this will always be followed through by a formalised investigation and subsequent report. We talked about how these reports take an exceptionally long time to process because it all channels down to one person and during this time the economy gets just a little more ruined.

We vented the frustrations we have with the progression of the server, how much you and the other ex-GMs try to advocate and how little things change because inevitably the GMs who remain on the staff roster can’t seem to understand that your input and suggestions come from experience with this game.

Never once were you unprofessional in your time as Staff and even after you left the Staff roster you maintained both your professionalism and your respect for confidentiality. Not once did you share content from Staff chat or name drop anyone though I suppose we both know full well who are the problem children on Staff. I suppose it’s blatantly obvious now to the entire community because everyone who dedicated themselves as both player and staff have now left the roster.

I’m sorry for deterring from this professionalism but I am going to namedrop from here on - I don’t believe it’s in the server’s best interest to have Becca remain on the staff roster. For crying out loud she has almost as many posts in GIOYC as ban appeals / report abuse :’) It is entirely unprofessional to have a voice in staff that weighs more heavily than others, especially when that voice comes from someone who doesn’t actually play or interact with enough of the game and it’s community to understand what the players want.

It is additionally sad that the inactive members of Staff whom you speak of who readily offer their ignorant opinion when deciding game changes have yet to comment or refute on anything you’ve said. Then again, they don’t need to see what the community thinks before they offer their vAlUeD oPiNiOn into staff chat, right?

 

Thank you @Josh for speaking up so there could be potential changes in the future of staff dynamic. And again, thank you for keeping me sane while we were on staff together; you made my experience so much better.

As a ex-GM that did everything I could ranging from testing content for updates, to bug reports, to gameplay debate, to rwt investigations, to actively banning hackers, to attending to report abuse and character issues, to hosting gm events in my free time, I feel like I have a lot to say on this matter. There are a few things I would like to address that you either touched upon or missed that would be very important for the near future:

Lack of tools to be self sufficient as a GM/GM Intern
This is no surprise if you are a frequent visitor of the ban appeal section or report abuse for RWT investigations/chat logs. As a GM, we would always need admin assistance for the smallest things because there are only two active admins, and one is shouldering the heavy load @Tim. What Royals staff needs is to have a read access database so GMs can be more self sufficient and less reliant on admins because it would take sometimes days just to receive one simple answer (hence why some ban appeals and certain report abuse takes so long. It's not that GMs don't want to answer you guys as soon as possible or are actively ghosting them.)

Lack of Direction as a staff member
Basically do whatever, whenever. There was no sort of delegation or organization on what certain staff should handle. With this, it would be hard for certain staff members to stay on track and actually do things. You have to be independent, motivated and self sufficient to get things done or the later ladder: the burn out stage would eventually happen. At one point, during peak covid (before the recent hires) when we had ~3.5k concurrently online, and there was only 3 interns actively handling report abuse so that says a lot about staff activity as a whole. (Thank you @Gert , @Josh and the people that actively reported hackers to keep Royals clean as possible - I don't want to name any names but you know who you are!)

Lack of testers - BUGS BUGS BUGS
Have you guys ever wondered why every update there was usually some sort of unscheduled maintenance to fix bugs or it was released super late? The sad reality is that we don't have enough staff members testing for every update to give feed back to the developers before the set release date. There were only a few individuals on staff that were glad to offer a helping hand (Thank you @Kai and @June for actively testing with me)

You should only apply to staff if you genuinely care about the server
Like Josh said, you shouldn't be applying if you are seeking fame or recognition, for your friends, or to just host events. You should be applying to staff because you genuinely care about the server and you want it to succeed. To no surprise there is a direct correlation between the staff members that actually actively play the game and the ones that put in work. It's pretty clear we don't want our countless years of hard work to go to waste due to the rampant amount of RWT and hacker situation we have that has been going on for years now.

Staff discussion priorities
This annoyed me the most to be honest. I'm genuinely curious why there are big discussions revolving around the likes of forum trolls like Zofran that continually ban evade to mess around. Shouldn't it just be as simple as just ban them and move on? We should be carrying on with other important staff duties instead.

Gameplay-debate
As many of you guys know, I am somewhat active contributor in feedback threads because I want to voice my opinion for the betterment and future of the server. I understand that not every idea I put out there is feasible but I dislike that staff members with less experience can chime in and have a direct impact with the games economy or meta. I had the mentality to keep fighting for what I believed in. The sad reality is that we didn't have enough end game players with adequate experience to fight or enforce for what we believed in.

My Regrets & conclusion
The only thing I regret is not staying on staff to defend you @June. As a staff member you should show no signs of conflict of interest, be fair, respectful and have no double standards. I'm quite disappointed how things ended up the last few days and I'm hoping we can come to an feasible agreement with the community and staff so bridges won't be burned any further. To all the people that messaged me and asked me why I left staff so suddenly, I had future commitments in real life but also to no surprise the points brought up by Josh and I. Again, I would like to thank the community for all the hard work you guys put in whether it would be filing report abuse to help us, making feedback threads or just actively playing the game. Also, thank you everyone for coming to my events I hosted while I was a GM, I had a lot of fun!

 

I thought I might be able to share a bit on my personal thoughts regarding the general feel of the server's ownership and how the way there's a few standout underlying issues which have seem to constantly resurface over the years:

I have witnessed many of my personal friends take on the mantle to take on a staff role, only to have been eventually burnt out and stepping down. Why is that so? It can't be simply due to having more commitments in real life so much so that they feel bad to hold the position, in my understanding there's nothing wrong with having responsibilities outside at the same time as being a GM here. They can always add more GMs while keeping the old ones. So, why is it that every one of them leave with such a bitter taste in their mouths, some even so in a tragic way? Why are their efforts and inputs not recognized?

From what I seem to observe, these people were all highly committed in what they do and I strongly believe they act on what they feel is best for the server, not because of their own selfish agenda. But alas, it really does seem that their feedback is not taken into account, as one might put it, there's a very strong "my way or highway" culture practiced here. And I feel that to sustain a long term team of strong, knowledgeable individuals, it has to be a joint effort. Everyone is on the same side. No longer can the administration hold a blind eye to proper input and feedback, it is no longer a simple race of "getting autoban up", no. There has to be a healthy amount of balance between the team of which I really wished was not totally one-sided. The knowledge and experience that veteran players provide should not be turned onto deaf ears. I genuinely implore the staff to actively heed the feedback given by active players holistically playing the game as they know how the state of the game truly is and not players who are might have a more niche perspective. With that being said, there aren't many left (in my opinion) now in the active staff...

Another point that has been brought up by Josh it being professional has been a constant issue with the staff with fundamental inconsistencies throughout the years, old players would know of such instances, we do not forget such things. But at the same time, we choose to overlook it. Why? Maybe it's because royals is our little outlet to continue hitting mushrooms while having some form of escape. Maybe we choose to suck it up and not let it get to our heads. But deep down inside we all know that there have been very (dare I say) blatant acts of favoritism over the duration of this server, of which we really would do much better off without. The three main things which come to mind are fairness, consistency and transparency, all these lacking in one way or another, which I feel holds back this server from truly being a safe and conducive environment for people to play in. Remember the actions of what the staff do are seen and even judged openly, do not expect people to not make assumptions or jump to conclusions should such incidences begin to surface, the onus is on the staff to direct the player base with transparency and fairness. I also really suggest disallowing ban appeals to be done via PM as all it does is leave things up for speculation and assumptions. There is no point making the appeal public but the discussion private. In fact, maybe consider making ban appeals entirely private.

Maybe I'm just being idealistic and naïve, but I always feel that it's never too late to make the correct changes. Dear staff, please take the recent series of events as crucial learning points, there's always an opportunity to learn from every episode.

 

I think there should be some tools for sure for staff here, don't even need read access database if they want to be extra extra safe. You could develop a tool that does some basic but very common queries for GMs without them having to learn how to do queries themselves or deal with potential technical and/or privacy issues. If there's big big reports that require indepth database scouring then yeah that's what admins should be for, but not every basic bit of database access

 

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/removal-of-fm-button-8-months-later.100485/

Alot to read through, but reminds me of the current situation and gives players an idea of how issues are resolved here

 

This is something I was always advocating for, but perhaps too subtly. It always seems too difficult for a group decision to be made, though, and when less-active or inactive staff members are not willing to step down, it would make me feel a little bad outright asking them to leave because they can't contribute enough. I go through periods where I am less active but always try to do what I can, when I can. And I'm sure that's been the norm for pretty much all current and former staff members

I feel this is, frankly, quite unreasonable. To outright prohibit relationships from forming in a group setting like this we would all have to be completely devoid of human emotion. I love everyone that I've worked with on staff, past and present, and will continue to care for them all as I come to know them as my friends and second family.

That's not a bad idea, maybe after internal staff discussion about potential new hires we could simply have a thread to vote for support of the possible Interns? I'll definitely be making a mental note of this for future discussion about how hiring is done.

That's actually something being worked on, which was spurred on by the recent departures. We're trying to come up with a sort of 'task list' that staff members can volunteer for specific things to do routinely. Of course when someone can't keep up we'd want more on deck to jump in and help as well.

 

Yes, yes, YES.
Not only does this put a huge strain on the one Admin that handles all of this, it brings most reports and appeals to a standstill at the best of times. Add in the timezone differences and many of us are asleep when that information comes rolling out, further delaying getting the players the help they need. While I'm sure most people have patience with many matters, some things just can't wait and need to be resolved in real time. Not only that, but in my time here we have actually LOST more tools than we have gained with the restructuring of our moderator control panel. A lot of information we previously had access to is now gone.
I can understand a bit how things do take quite a bit of time, because the main goals of the development team are to do them absolutely spitshined right the first time, it's also severely detrimental to the players and staff members to have to wait for things to be 100% perfect before they are accessible. I'd rather work with a somewhat broken system than no system at all.

As I responded to Josh's first post with the tasklist we are working on, I don't know if I need to reiterate the point but I can divulge some more information on it if necessary.

I think the biggest issue here is trying to get so much out every year. All the seasonal events, updates, new content, it gets to be too much. I think the players (for the most part) are happy with how much content there is, but they are not happy with the overall state it is in. I have suggested before to skip one or two seasonal events in a year so more work can be put into the big ones (Anniversary and Christmas) and fixing the issues on the game. I mean, we all know that some updates will have completely unforeseen issues, but if the important things were prioritized I feel that would lessen quite a bit.

This, definitely, 100%. You said it well and I don't need to add anything.

This one I'm split on. Half of me says just to go ahead and take care of these situations to the best of your ability and knowledge, the other half wants to weigh in opinions from the rest of the group before proceeding. I think wanting to discuss these things isn't bad, we don't want to step on toes or take one course of action before pondering all the points, but we also can't wait for things to go awry and just continue getting worse, festering, while we talk it over for a few days due to time availability differences.

I just want it known publicly that Feedback threads have never been ignored, it just takes quite a bit of time to go through so many good ideas. I think a larger staff would be better at this, or even 'hiring' something like 'player advocates' that specifically can cull Feedback for good ideas and needed changes and present them in a summarized form with pros and cons. Most of the Feedback threads I've had the time to read I nod my head to while skimming them.

Johnny, Josh, June, you were all extremely valuable staff members and I am sad to see you no longer apart of the team. Your commitment and dedication was not unnoticed or unappreciated. It just feels like things move so fast and there's never enough time to devote to thanking people like you, who really do love this server and the community.

 

it's hugely unfortunate, but since you responded, it leaves me no choice but to spell things out a little more clearly. in my honest opinion, you actually belong to this group of individuals

you being one of the senior members (both in age and length of service) on Staff means that you have even more responsibility to help steer the team in the right direction, and it's regrettably something you never seemed to be able to do, at least when i was in Staff. i understand that you have more important real-life commitments to attend to, and you definitely should prioritise those. but if you can't cope, then please have the dignity to step away and let someone else take over. it's not like you have extensive game experience anyway

and yes, the new initiatives are great to hear, but what's the point of implementing them in an already forsaken team?

 

I fail to see the logic in saying that I am one of the inactive 'dead weight' staff members, when I'm here responding to you and having a dialogue.

My game experience doesn't need to be first hand. I've also called on others when my knowledge fails me and use their know how to help craft my opinions on matters.

And for you to suggest I should step away because I don't have 12 hours a day to dedicate to a game is a rather rude thing to say. Just because I have less time to commit daily does not mean I love helping any less.

If you think that the staff here is forsaken, why did you post this feedback thread? I assumed it had been to voice your internal and external opinion on staff and to spur changes. Is that not the case?

 

Just curious, how do you feel about active staff members that don't actually

?

It's been quite a while, Muff, but taking a quick look at your post history it seems like you've brought your work ethic from Extalia with you here.

 

@sids4GM

 

responding here for a dialogue does not immediately make you valuable to the server. these instances should also not be sporadic, but should instead be occurring consistently and purposefully

yes, game experience does not have to be firsthand, neither should it be a compulsory prerequisite for someone to be an able contributor to the Staff team. however, being able to recognise when you're wrong, being able to understand others' experiences and opinions, and being able to accept that things don't always go your way (i.e. game changes don't always have to cater to you and you only), should most definitely be a necessity for anyone who works on a team

i never suggested the bit about not having 12 hours a day to work here; none of us do and none of us are even paid. i believe at least 90% of the Staff team have full-time jobs and more to take care of. but this then comes down to crux of the issue: no one in the current Staff team (with the exception of a few individuals, but not including you) has been willing to put in a consistent grind. as @Johnny mentioned, there was a period of time where just 3 of us interns were basically handling the entire Report Abuse section. why and how? because we made it a point to dedicate at least 30minutes per day just scanning through those that we could handle, and escalating those we couldn't without making lame excuses. how can you guys meme on Staff chat for extended periods, then complain you have no time to attend to a few threads (even just 3 - 5 every other day)?

you're absolutely right that i made this feedback thread to spur changes. it's just unfortunate that you happen to be part of the change i'm hoping to advocate for

 

I'm sorry your few brief months on staff coincided with my wife's third trimester of pregnancy, but that appears to have given you a skewed outlook on my dedication and commitment here.
Perhaps if you had taken the time to get to know the rest of the staff members on a personal level you would not make those judgements as easily. It truly did sadden me when new staff members joined but did not care to try and be friendly with the rest of staff. I think it's very important to develop a relationship with everyone beyond just what someone else can do as a staff member. I was especially hopeful for you and Johnny to be a part of the group and for us all to become friends.
I hope in the coming months you can see that change will happen, as I will never back down from wanting things to progress positively in this server, and especially within staff.
I really, truly do want things to improve all around and will do my best to be more active. I feel in the last month this has improved greatly, but if it's not enough then I will try harder.

 

while we're on the topic of staff, i got to ask why did the admins hire someone who doesn't seem capable of articulating or forming a well-reasoned opinion on any matter. I honestly don't have anything against the guy (im sure he's a good guy actually) but cmon, at times like this, you need people who can not only understand or articulate the staff's opinions in a thoughtful manner, but also form his/her own too. There's a lot of value in applying one's own and shared principles consistently to evaluating situations or even drastic in-game changes, and the community would be right to expect that essential quality of staff members as it means that they're at least representing our (or a group of people's) interests

 

He’s been on staff since January, so presumably spans your wife’s entire pregnancy but congratulations on your daughter nevertheless.

I agree with the point in being friendly with the rest of the team. That is, if there is a team to begin with. Personally I wouldn’t feel too friendly towards a group of people where you’re clearly functioning as the group project bitch doing the bulk of the work. Also he’s clearly getting supported by the rest of the ex-GMs here so ... can’t be that unfriendly lmao

I have the utmost respect for Josh, Johnny, Gert and June because despite their differences they all shared a professional attitude towards their role in GM intern/GM in their “few brief months on staff”. That is to say they actively engaged with the community, actively did their share of the work as staff and actively advocated for players.

While the rest of you sat and became friends, voted in changes that made no sense to anyone active in the game, and sat on any meaningful suggestions from the community.