Re: Add Counselors. Retention is just as crucial as Marketin
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 11:44 pm
I nominate Ashborn. Spam this man with pages!
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Have you ever seen IRC? Sure, there are a few of us who will help the newer players. But many will simply ignore or troll them. I can't imagine opening up the page system to all players would be any different.Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:Kaivan wrote:I don't really think that question has been evaluated on our end yet. That's something we would have to discuss internally.
I don't think you actually need 'counselors'. If they are just answering questions and helping players, as suggested, you could actually just open up the 'Page" system to ALL players and anyone that opens it up can check and answer questions and help players with anything they need, the regular way. This way nobody has 'special' powers, but they can still help anyone that needs it.
Thoughts??
Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:I don't think you actually need 'counselors'. If they are just answering questions and helping players, as suggested, you could actually just open up the 'Page" system to ALL players and anyone that opens it up can check and answer questions and help players with anything they need, the regular way. This way nobody has 'special' powers, but they can still help anyone that needs it.
Thoughts??
The system could be setup so that only certain guilds/players could answer the pages. No special powers needed.Rose wrote:Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:I don't think you actually need 'counselors'. If they are just answering questions and helping players, as suggested, you could actually just open up the 'Page" system to ALL players and anyone that opens it up can check and answer questions and help players with anything they need, the regular way. This way nobody has 'special' powers, but they can still help anyone that needs it.
Thoughts??
As much as I would love to see the responses to pages escoo/saber/gyro would muster up, I doubt new players would find it as amusing.
lol
I feel like that shows favoritism and presents potential abuse but... It's a possibility.Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:The system could be setup so that only certain guilds/players could answer the pages. No special powers needed.Rose wrote:Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:I don't think you actually need 'counselors'. If they are just answering questions and helping players, as suggested, you could actually just open up the 'Page" system to ALL players and anyone that opens it up can check and answer questions and help players with anything they need, the regular way. This way nobody has 'special' powers, but they can still help anyone that needs it.
Thoughts??
As much as I would love to see the responses to pages escoo/saber/gyro would muster up, I doubt new players would find it as amusing.
lol
Is it something you will discuss internally? We'd like you to, for what that's worth.Kaivan wrote:I don't really think that question has been evaluated on our end yet. That's something we would have to discuss internally.
We would not completely open the paging system for all players to access for several reasons. One extremely good one is that many times players page in with requests for specific things or with information that isn't just a question, and that information is generally expected to be in the confidence of staff. Opening the paging system to all players exposes that information needlessly.Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:Kaivan wrote:I don't really think that question has been evaluated on our end yet. That's something we would have to discuss internally.
I don't think you actually need 'counselors'. If they are just answering questions and helping players, as suggested, you could actually just open up the 'Page" system to ALL players and anyone that opens it up can check and answer questions and help players with anything they need, the regular way. This way nobody has 'special' powers, but they can still help anyone that needs it.
Thoughts??
This is something that we've briefly discussed in the past, and it is something that we may look into again, given the thread here.Treysta wrote:Is it something you will discuss internally? We'd like you to, for what that's worth.Kaivan wrote:I don't really think that question has been evaluated on our end yet. That's something we would have to discuss internally.
I'll try to mostly clarify exactly how these situations work at the same time.AshBorn wrote:As I see it then, based upon this thread, these are the options:
1 - Community Companion System - Been used in the past, may still have some kinks. Unknown amount of time and effort to get it working correctly.
Pros: No trust issues. New players will get the assistance they need and that personal touch from a veteran or staff member.
Cons: Anything beyond helping new players is not benefitted from this program (my understanding anyway). Non-new members will have to rely on the current IRC or the Page system for help. Further, they will not be able to assist player events or GM ran events; leaving the burden squarely on current staff. The last con for this would be the difficulty to get it working, as mentioned by Kaivan. The other options may have this similar con as well but Im only listing it once.
2 - Counselors with very limited powers - Hasn't been used in the past in this way. No idea on implementation requirements.
Pros: New players will get the assistance they need.
Cons: No personal touch added since, under what was discussed, there will be only contact through the page system and the counselor will likely never be seen (frozen in green acres for example - as mentioned by Anarcho). Further, they will not be able to assist player events or GM ran events; leaving the burden squarely on current staff.
Generally speaking, what Counselors could do on OSI servers - at least in the pursuit of their job - is what they can do here on UOSA. As with OSI servers, this did not involve assisting in player run events in any way (one has to ask exactly how they would do so with the general mechanics you outlined in the pros and cons), but merely meant they would be assisting in the regular day to day requests for information and help.3 - Counselors as seen in T2A - This, in my opinion, is the best option. It has been used in the past, to the shard's detriment (aside from the server getting Kaivan the master of era accuracy!)
Pros: Era Accurate (Kaivan would know more about this than myself, but it seems so). New players get the assistance they need. There is also that personal appearance. These counselors can assist with GM and player ran events. Obviously they cannot create or edit items, so their assistance will be limited - as it was in T2A from what I recall.
Cons: Trust. These counselors, if they have player accounts, will have a conflict of interest. They could turn invisible and spy on people. They could open house doors to let people in and loot. They cannot create / edit items, so that is not an issue. These issues are solved by using counselors who do not have player accounts, and/or solved by removing invisibility or just general oversight of other staff members.
At this point in time, we're not looking to add in any new GMs at all. We've specifically kept a very limited number of staff members because there is a lot of responsibility in properly administrating a server., and adding anyone new to that particular role is an extremely risky thing to do. However, beyond that, some staff members do tend to specialize in certain things (e.g. Boomland focuses on events), but we all contribute to internal discussions and manage the day to day activities on the server. So while it's true that Anarcho mainly focuses on coding, and I focus on policies & mechanics, that doesn't mean that we don't handle requests for silver rewards, or answer pages about questions in game.4 - Adding more GMs - This is an option as well. The staff here made a decision that server needed two GMs. You guys originally hired (putting Anarcho in a separate category of coder) 2 GMs but one left. His position was not replaced (since Anarcho is more of a coder, and not like Boom for example). My question is, did your original intent to staff 2 more GMs to do as Boom does, change? If not, then as you originally thought, the server is lacking a GM. Perhaps you expect Mammoth to return soon.
Pros: Double Boomland. I doubt there is a soul on this server who dislikes what Boom has done. I applaud all of his efforts. He's worked with me on my events to make them possible while still respecting the server's wishes. Further, he's made such an old game very fun with bagball, potion wars, gargoyle invasions, etc. Mammoth had plans for things along these lines, and having two GMs would see them realized (I spoke with him recently and he seems to be doing well!). Another pro, less work for BLJ! That guy is always on doing awesome stuff. I would hate to see him burnout. He could use a hand. I don't mean to imply the rest of the staff is not helping. They also make very noticeable differences but in a different way than active GMs like Boom do. The staff seems to have roles, and there is only one from what I can tell in the 'active' GM role that Boom currently holds.
Cons: Trust. As the staff did before when they staffed BLJ and Mammoth, they will have to trust a new individual. Obviously, since GMs can create and change, that player would have to give up their accounts. Most people who have acquired the trust necessary for this position have also spent a lot of time on their accounts. They have value. BLJ and Mammoth both gave up their accounts in order to help the shard, and there are others who would do the same.
I don't think that this is something that needs to specifically wait for Boomland to give an answer. Player run events are the sort of thing that do not need regular interference from anyone in a counselor or staff position. At best, the ability to announce the event on a town crier, set up gates to the events (although I don't particularly agree with that one), or broadcasting the events is about as much as we can reasonably do to assist in helping player events.AshBorn wrote:I think Boom could answer the question of what it means to help on player events.
Generally speaking, we do not actually get that many pages in a day. Accounting for an entire 23.5 hour period, we probably get ~6 pages about different problems. The issue surrounding getting pages answered is that sometimes pages come in at all hours of the night (and yes I am up at 3AM EST, but I'll be asleep within 15 minutes of this post going up), when we aren't available to answer them, and even during the day time, we typically have other things that keep us from focusing on UOSA all the time. So while there aren't that many overall pages, we don't have a stellar answer rate for the pages that come in, and that is where Counselors can have the most meaningful impact: answering pages, acting as the intermediate link between staff and players, and having a bit more of a "face" when they do arrive to handle a problem.As for the 4 pages in the last 24 hours, is that typical? I only know from my experience of putting in pages and from what I hear from new players about wondering whether there is staff or not. I think the community that has chimed in so far also agrees that paging is a very slow process. Maybe their thinking is outdated? Perhaps it is less of an issue now. But again, as players increase, so will pages ideally.
5) Updating the website, wiki, etc. I know boom and the rest of you have been working on this but it's still not finished. The wiki is the most crucial. At least change the link on the site to forward to Booms wiki. New players will have no idea Booms wiki exists. Perhaps a client for Macs posted in the download section. Apple is huge now and we are missing that entire base. I tried to get it to run on my Mac and it's basically up to VMware. This would take a lot of effort for sure, so maybe it's something to look into down the road.Chicanery wrote: i think with the resources we have at our hands today, we can greatly improve the efficiencies of getting the right information to the right group of people who need it by utilizing YouTube. if we can set videos up on relevant stuff such as how to use razor, how to cycle a halberd (with a video that doesn't have a duration larger than 3 minutes), and other useful information.
i challenge you to reach out to the appropriate staff member and take the lead on creating a UOSA learner's YouTube channel and compile videos that are necessary for new people to come in and enjoy the shard at 90% less the hardship