Information Politics part 2

[Kerol]

I opened this thread although I know about this one, but I would not like to ask Karyuu to unlock it again, neither to continue the discussion topics there.

Since the time of the other thread a lot of things have changed.
Pets are (more or less) working now, the GM system got totally overworked, many people have left, many people are new.
Fighting system is working with new weapons, without bigger flaws now and crafting is getting implemented..
Rules have been overworked, the forums have changed (and will be \"restarted\" next month on a new server and new layout.. I don\'t have the link at hand atm to Karyuu\'s post >.> ), the atmosphere in general has changed, from my point of view.

So in general it\'s a totally different situation than back then.

The purpose of this thread is to get a picture of the situation _as it is now_ on the information politics.

What do you think?
Do you get enough information on what is going on?


(And please don\'t ask when the next wipe will be, because we really don\'t know.)

[Nilrem]

If I\'ve to take all people in consideration, then there\'s never too much information.

Originally posted by Kerol

What do you think?
Do you get enough information on what is going on?

Shortly put, no.

[CleverFool]

Originally posted by Kerol
(And please don\'t ask when the next wipe will be, because we really don\'t know.)

How about the magic? I didn\'t hear anything at all about it for some time. Is it being or is it going to be touched at all?

[steuben]

for the most part, the info flow to those of us who play the game is sparse.

we don\'t need the find details of what is going on. those who really care about that can check the cvs... when it works.

but, maybe some kind of monthly-ish update kind of thing. there used to be a mailing list. notification of major updates to the server/clients could be sent out through that. rather, then having to check the forums/main page to learn about it. not that we shouldn\'t have to do that too.

but, some kind of update notification should be distributed.

*has visions of a huge, customizable mailing list setup*
*realizes that, that is a lot of work and settles for a simple photocopied sheet*

[Karyuu]

Try to be constructive in your posts if you\'re going to make them :) Like steuben\'s. If you feel you are still 90% in the dark and don\'t like it, offer suggestions of what you would like to see changed about it - without asking for the team to open entire plans to the public, of course.

And I too wonder what happened to that mailing list.

[Pestilence]

Well think that information in general is being told enough if the devs are talking with people. They aren\'t keeping everything secret.

The main problem in my opinion I think is that there is little official information about some things and that it\'s often through the rumormill that things are spread.

What I would like to see would be for example a rulepage where rules and decicions are posted.

This would work both ways the players can point at that when they feel a GM did something wrong, but GMs can also point at the rule page and say the player should have known that.

It makes things clear so you don\'t have the \"GMs have it in for me\" feeling or feel like people are popping up with rules there was no way of knowing of if you are new and also the GMs have security that if they are unsure what exactly the rule was they can look the rule up before taking action.

The mailinglist is definately a good idea I think. Specially a place to tell what has changed and perhaps show us glimpses of the next update.

GMs getting better informed would also be something I feel could be improved. Right now much information comes to the players through the GMs and if they then don\'t know whats going on....

[Karyuu]

All the in-game rules you\'ll ever need to know are in the Player Policy thread, with more information in \"PlaneShift Game Masters,\" and \"In-Game Support and Reporting Abuse.\" The big ones though, concerning things like naming, behavior, killstealing and map decoration, are centered in the Player Policy. If you feel this isn\'t enough, please elaborate.

Unfortunately, glimpses of the next update aren\'t likely to be shared - remember, we aim at surprise. I don\'t think that a lack of such glimpses is going to affect anyone too much.

Concerning GMs, can you bring up a specific example, or a few?

[stubloid]

Personally I think there should be made a \"In Developement\" (or something..) section either here in the forum or on the website. I miss something to look forward to and would also like to know how far the game is proceeding.. As mentioned before it is only from rumours you hear about new stuff, and sometimes here in the forum...
To make the developement steps clear (and official) for people I would like to see this.
And mentioning the website - (i know it\'s off topic but...) why not make it more presentable like \"Welcome to Planeshift... Planeshift is a MMORPG ... blah blah..\", instead of just having news on top of the page..?

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by Karyuu
All the in-game rules you\'ll ever need to know are in the Player Policy thread, with more information in \"PlaneShift Game Masters,\" and \"In-Game Support and Reporting Abuse.\" The big ones though, concerning things like naming, behavior, killstealing and map decoration, are centered in the Player Policy. If you feel this isn\'t enough, please elaborate.

First of no I don\'t feel it covers all the rules eventhough it ofcourse covers all the basics and so not going to make a nitpicklist for that. What I am missing more is that one: it isn\'t a page and two: decicions

I don\'t feel someone should go to a forum to find the rules to the game. Community links should be something one is optional to visit. I think there should be a link from the mainsite to a page where the rules are listed.

decicions? You may ask. Why do they need to be there? Well I guess it\'s not an absolutely nececity, but I don\'t see why it would have to be the bare nececaties.

Why decicions? Well I feel that many rules and also how rule enforcement should be handled would be much clearer with them. Things like for example the nameing rule is quite a hard one to get one line and both players and GMs sometimes aren\'t sure when a name is on the border. With some decicions already made it could be much clearer where the line is.

Concerning GMs, can you bring up a specific example, or a few?

Examples of GMs not knowing what is going on? Well had several times GMs didn\'t know. You yourself have told me you didn\'t know what was going on when talking about things like bugsolving and you even have a doublerole in this matter.

As I mentioned in earlier posts I\'m not going to point fingers specially seeing most contact I have with GMs are simple private conversations and they are often friends who I don\'t want to involve in a discusion like this and anyhow one is not allowed to discus Game Master or moderator actions.

[Karyuu]

We are hoping to redo the website entirely - Netty has graciously volunteered for the project, and we will be aiming for a far better organization and efficiency. I too agree that things should be easier to find.

You didn\'t quite state that decisions you want to have visible, and I\'m unsure what you may be referring to. \"Decisions\" is a very vague topic.

Yes there are borderline names sometimes, but lately we\'re trying to be a lot more lax and not change anything unless other players report being bothered. Do you mean you\'d like to see example cases of rules being enforced? In what format?

Concerning GMs not knowing what is going on, yes it is very true that sometimes even we are not up-to-date on what may be happening, but this is usually in the beginning of a release or upon the discovery of a completely new bug. I\'m sorry if my memory is failing at this point and there have been multiple cases of other scenarios. (My only role in bug-hunting and solving is that of a GM - neither the moderator nor 2D WTB dev positions require extensive knowledge on bugs, though I take it upon myself anyway.) Have there been recent events where a GM has not been able to adequately help you with bug reporting, or another form of aid? Don\'t worry about discussing GMs right now, since community feedback is important for our improvement. We\'re here to serve the players, so if we\'re not doing that, we need to hear about it.

[Pestilence]

You didn\'t quite state that decisions you want to have visible, and I\'m unsure what you may be referring to. \"Decisions\" is a very vague topic.

With decicions I mean things that have been decided before about how to use the rule. With the naming rule for example I have seen changes in how it is enforced from when I began. Discusions like with the Dragon Council (yeah in it so thats something one remembers ) make the border more clear, but if you don\'t keep the decicions somewhere new people may never hear of it and might not know what the reason (or reasons) was to decide and if it\'s an exeption or a rule.

Ofcourse better if the person or guild would not be named and that it\'s more written like an example.

Have there been recent events where a GM has not been able to adequately help you with bug reporting, or another form of aid? Don\'t worry about discussing GMs right now, since community feedback is important for our improvement. We\'re here to serve the players, so if we\'re not doing that, we need to hear about it.

hmm not been able to help. Well no think the GMs are doing a great job and never felt they were not willing to help me. Might be my charismatic self though.

No it\'s really that I sometimes wish the GMs were kept more in the loop so to say of bugsolving after they reported the bug. I have had one time that a dev said in IRC that he wouldn\'t be around and couldn\'t fix the bug till he got back. Somehow none of the GMs knew this when I talked about it the next day.

So no don\'t feel the GMs are not doing their job, but do feel GMs should get more info to be even better at their job

PS: Sorry people not planning on hogging the thread but if Karyuu asks you something you better answer. She does hold the magicwand you know *grins*

[Ekusile Feyorel]

I think the mailing list is a great idea, but I would have a guess that it stopped due to workload, which is understandable.

As a compromise, maybe a thread, with a monthly update, using a template for most things and maybe a few lines of comment on the bottom, this would keep typing (and therefore time) to a minimum.

For example :

Combat  : No changes planned soon(tm).

Crafting  : Currently Implementing.

Magic  : Reworking strength of spells.

Comments  : Currently looking at supplying Ekusile with all known glyphs, for such a great idea    

Obviously just an outline, but a template would get the information across quickly.

[narita]

The thing I would like to know is when the server version will be upgraded. It's usually a source of confusion because of usual missing clients (Linux, Mac), unavoidable new bugs and download time. Knowing that in advance, people could change there plans like delay the events they schedule, getting few holydays, etc.

A time stamped message of the day when login would be fine.

This could be expanded to any great source of server/client instability as far they can be scheduled (I don't mind power outage).

[Karyuu]

How far in advance would you like to see news of updates/releases?

[DaveG]

There have been days when I logged on to find an update has been pushed...  Expecting advanced notification for everything is a bit much. 

When it comes to releases, though, we shouldn't have any advance notification.  Most of the time they don't go through the day we originally set, and if that was public we'd never hear the end of it.  There's nothing anyone can do before the new stuff is available anyway.  A mailing list to send these things to when they happen might be a good idea, however.  We already have a public mailing list via SourceForge, and we could probably just start using it again.