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[Arianne-bugs] [ arianne-Feature Requests-3407807 ] New playersupport category: ingame helpers
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From: SourceForge.net <no...@so...> - 2011-09-22 10:18:28
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Feature Requests item #3407807, was opened at 2011-09-11 19:50 Message generated for change (Comment added) made by nobody You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=351111&aid=3407807&group_id=1111 Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread, including the initial issue submission, for this request, not just the latest update. Category: None Group: None Status: Open Resolution: None Priority: 5 Private: No Submitted By: bluelads (bluelads99) Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody) Summary: New playersupport category: ingame helpers Initial Comment: Hello, kosch and me thought about a new kind of support, which isn't related to technical support stuff but more related to answering ingame questions, giving players a chance to ask about quests and other things they maybe can't do alone or need help with these. For this feature, players who play a bit longer and like to help others can join a kind of group and will be informed about questions for example with a new command like /question. It's not needed to log the messages somewhere and if they belong more into the technical support/official support part, the player will be advised to send it there. A list of volunteers can be placed on the webpage and wiki. That might help the normal support from questions which aren't that much technical based and more pure ingame ones and players can see if someone is online who can help with answering quest/items/creatures questions with giving hints or show where players can inform themselves. Maybe these volunteer players can set their status on "volunteer" somehow to show that they are active and available to reach in game (don't know if that is possible). What might be good/what's needed * volunteer-players should be over level 100 for having an idea about most parts of the game * highlighting such players like with a green name? * showing them on the webpages * creating a new command (like /question) * players who want to volunteer Please comment on the idea :) Greetings kosch and Bluelads4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody) Date: 2011-09-22 10:18 Message: That model sounds really nice and perfectly for Stendhal :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Katie Russell (kymara) Date: 2011-09-22 08:38 Message: To be clear, my suggestion is: -define the role of catalyst/helper -write a similar document to the freenode document to explain what that is -place the document in a prominent position -advertise the document and the role with a news release or similar -there is no special sign in game, catalysts are players, they adopt the role by acting in the way described -offer extra training and help if needed (as part of a document, sessions, or example) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Katie Russell (kymara) Date: 2011-09-22 08:14 Message: For me, this posting regarding the freenode network (where our irc channel is) represents a very good model for helpers: http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml Please have a read of that and see what you think. In particular I think their model of having a catalyst as a user (i.e. no special status) is a very good one. That is on the last bullet point. They are of course special because of what they do and how they help, but there is no official status which means there is no official commitment (reducing stress all round). I would be happy to offer training to people who would like to be considered as a 'catalyst' for Stendhal game. I would also happily write a similar document about Stendhal catalysts (we can call them whatever you like) which people can read, and decide to adopt if they choose to. It's really just a good guideline for how to be a nice community member :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: monsterdhal (monsterdhal) Date: 2011-09-15 11:24 Message: comment ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: monsterdhal (monsterdhal) Date: 2011-09-15 10:00 Message: @kymara: thank you for your explanations and your thoughts about how to deal with two different possibly overlapping helping instances In the first Place: If I am beeing asked for some creature, I might also just point the asking player to Starkad. Even if I was a "helper", I would not think that I am a substitute for Starkad or for any Tutorial that is already integrated in the gameplay. Regarding overlapping topics between /support and in-game helpers: It would be the same as it is now. If someone asks another player a question she cannot answer, she might be pointing to /support. And if a player asks /support for a creature, say... /support might say: Please ask a player or ask Starkad. Helper marks could just be a signal for new players that there is someone, whom they can ask questions without needing to fear that they are bothering or needing to fear getting a rude answer. Abuse of the confidence, players provide to marked helpers might be an issue - indeed! Therefor it should be exactly clear that "helpers" are just players like all others - just marked not be be bothered by beeing asked for help. A different marking colour (green?) might be better than pale yellow... Just not to be mixed up with admins/gms. Granting/removing helper status: That is one thing I've not thought about yet. What might be the best way doing it? A player-settable flag might be nice, but permanently altering the status might be annoying, too... How about being able to set it for some pre-defined time, say? Allowing players to always switch it on and off, according to their actual mood, is not good in my opinion. If I wanted to be a marked helper, there should be some feeling of responsibility and I should be willing to do it for more than just 5 minutes. A admin-granted flag would increase the workload for admins, not decrease it. And it would mean that admins had "grant confidence" to every single helper in the first place. Then they also had to monitor the behaviour of helpers and/or deal with complaints against helpers in a different way they now have to deal with complaints from players against players. That might be too complicated and not helpful to make gameplay AND administration/support more comfortable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Katie Russell (kymara) Date: 2011-09-14 11:43 Message: Some responses to points raised. First of all don't just think I'm discouraging the idea outright. In a ideal world a helper status sounds nice - more than nice! People like Bluelads4 for example who are not admin but know a vast amount about the game and like helping people would be ideal helpers and it would be good for newbies could know to ask them (and that it wouldn't annoy them!) but not some less helpful player who is not interested in helping. Monsterdhal/all: Level 100 admins: a) read /support and answer support b) are marked in pale yellow No extra privilege. No teleport, no jail, no ban. The FAQ links to adminlevels + commands available. I think that is why it sounds exactly like level 100 admin at first. Is there a difference between support and helper questions? If yes, do players actually distinguish, and what do support do if we are asked more of a 'helper' style question? Is it a problem for us to also answer these questions? Some example of support questions: My screen is black, help! Can I delete my account? My friend lost their password can you help them? I have to kill a red roohako for my daily quest but it's way too hard in the dreamscape where the creatures are, can you fix this bug? (We suggest they get someone to help them for now) Player X is annoying me! Player Y is trying to kill me! Some examples of helper questions: Where do I find a black slime? (If support get asked this, we tell them about Starkad. We do not just give the answer.) I'm new, what quests can I do? (If support get asked this, we tell them to talk to NPCs in Semos and ask about #quests) How do I get horse hair? (If support get asked this, we tell them to check the Travel log for help. If that doesn't help we hint to say Ouchit's name or remember what Ouchit told them exactly.) Can you help me kill a red roohako? (If support gets asked this, we suggest they ask other players. Not sure if it's the idea that it's part of the helper's job to actually help practically like this) What would helper responses be? Can anyone give some more example questions and answers to demonstrate how it's different? Next, I am thinking about the practical side and abuse. Is being a helper something that an admin has to set for a player, or does the player set it themself and can therefore add or remove at will? What about trust? What if a helper starts misbehaving or leading players into danger? Who is to blame? Who will get complaints? Should admins be monitoring helpers? Do we have time for this? How would we monitor them? What about removal of helper status? You might suggest we simply put big disclaimers like 'helpers are not endorsed by the admin team etc, you follow a helper at your own risk' but similar warnings about many other security and game related issues do get ignored time and time again. I would discourage, at least initially, a common communication channel like the /question suggestion. I'd suggest that helpers would be treated more as individuals than the 'helper team' who is messaged en asses. They would be people who can be approached and questions could be asked with the normal messaging system or out loud as public chat. One major reason for this is that a common channel will just get clogged up with chat and there would quickly be confusion between someone asking a /question and then a helper answering in person because they are near - other helpers don't know it was answered etc etc. In /support we have to be very rigorous on this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: monsterdhal (monsterdhal) Date: 2011-09-13 14:11 Message: @hendrik: 1st: I don't really think that a) the ability to read special /question messages and b) the marking as "volunteer" is the same as a level 100 GM. There are no admin privileges bound to that volunteer thing. 2nd: Maybe that does not solve the bottleneck you described. But it is a nice idea that could improve gameplay anyway. If there would be an amount of volunteer-marked "normal" players with _no_ special privileges (that exceeds the number of GMs/admins), it would show new players who they can really ask and do not need to fear beeing cheated or insulted just for asking. in addition: We (redqueen and me) are about to setting up a mysql database on our home server this evening and try getting familiar with stendhal's data structure. Maybe soon we can help this way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: bluelads (bluelads99) Date: 2011-09-13 13:27 Message: I wouldn't agree either with giving players who want to help others advantages like a lounge or something. The idea wasn't meant in a way that players who would like to help get a special status like an admin status but more in a way like a list which could be published with names of players who can give some answers around quests and items, unrelated to support. But it already works in that way at the moment, the entry at all was just an idea :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Katie Russell (kymara) Date: 2011-09-13 11:57 Message: About the lounge idea: this would not be possible as we should not give admin special treatment. Friends are of course welcome to hang out together in any case, but this should be open to all players, or you could invite players to the lounge of your own house for example. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Hendrik Brummermann (nhnb) Date: 2011-09-11 22:28 Message: Isn't that exactly what level 100 GMs are? As far as I can tell, this approach failed a) most people just wanted to have the status without actually answering questions or b) used their missused their status to threaten players. And last but not least some support GMs got massively abused on Youtube and other plattforms. Unintentional unanswered support questions do not happen often, so we don't seem to have a problem here. The current bottleneck are high level admin tasks: * Those tasks that require a good knowledge of database systems (there are two very simple self assessment test linked on the How to be a GM wiki page * Require a lot of time which feels as being wasted on a very small number of trouble makers that are lying in 9 out of 10 cases. * Require a high trust in the admin because theses admin have access to personal information of all players. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: kosch (hcsok) Date: 2011-09-11 20:10 Message: Just add that it would be nice to create a helperslounge within faiumoni. so all helpers can go inside this house (only if volunteered), chill out together on a green(!) couch ;) , listen to piano music and first stick together which answer would be good. that would be similar to an adminlounge. in my opinion, the complete construct of this "/question" -> "/answer #" idea could improve community very much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: bluelads (bluelads99) Date: 2011-09-11 19:53 Message: oh P.s. the feature request isn't meant as a critism to the existing support :) just maybe a chance to heat the community up a bit in a positive way and disburden the official support a bit :) (don't know if there are many support questions/messages at the moment about such things, just a guess :) ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=351111&aid=3407807&group_id=1111 |