[Official] Staff Q&a

[Senda 472]

When will the voting plugin be brought back?

 

What does an average day in the life of a Tech team member look like? 

 

What can we, the players, do to give the best possible feedback on bugs/suggestions? I have seen a few different people use and/or request various media to give feedback. Some seem to prefer a quick status update, while others want to see a forum thread. Is there a standardized format for this, do we want/need one and how do the people that effect fixes perceive this? 

[Sporadic 2844]

When will the voting plugin be brought back?

do not have a personal ETA on this, but hopefully soon! Encouraging votes is such an integral part to a server, because we really need the traffic.

 

What does an average day in the life of a Tech team member look like?

Code monkey get up get coffee..

code monkey go to job.

code monkey have boring meeting

with boring manager Rob.

 

Hmm, but in all seriousness. My process of staff work generally starts with going over the Skype chats, addressing the GM questions and immediate tech issues that need to be fixed. Then, harass Tythus with the problem of the day. Then if there's high priority plugins I'm working on, power through coding work and alpha testing. If there's only medium or low-priority, I divide time between coding and going over the ideas & feedbacks forums.

 

I see most if not all plugin suggestions. Posting ideas is NOT wasted effort, because I've implemented a lot of them (tents, custom trees, status symbols, inventory search, to name a few). Just make sure you're able to garner sufficient community support and a slice of my interest. I am also interested in people's philosophies and how they believe the mechanics should work. The community generally tells you where they'd like to be enabled by plugins, and where they want to be restricted. I work off of those things.

 

Coding is the fun part. I try to only do plugins that I am in some way excited about myself, because it's the best way to ensure productivity and an eventual release. This does mean my personal desires comes bundled into every project. But I never start projects without Admin approval, be it explicit or implicit (we are trusted to an extent to release only sensible plugins).

 

What can we, the players, do to give the best possible feedback on bugs/suggestions? I have seen a few different people use and/or request various media to give feedback. Some seem to prefer a quick status update, while others want to see a forum thread. Is there a standardized format for this, do we want/need one and how do the people that effect fixes perceive this?

For bugs, always mention everything. Giving an extremely detailed step-by-step of events leading up to the bug might seem redundant, but one of those small things may very well be the key to figuring out the problem. So generally, threads>status updates. Today, a simple status update with 'Warps are broke' was sufficient, but that's because it's a known issue. If I have too little information, I might not have the time to diagnose and fix the bug.

For suggestions, try to maximize the benefit:effort ratio. That is, gauge how many people would benefit how much from it versus the complexity of the idea. If you give feedback, maybe give it along the lines of 'more people would be able to enjoy this if...' or 'perhaps we could also make this work without implementing the...'.

[gabriel101x1 463]

Why don't you remove all the useless staff teams, and only leave Admin, GM and AT?

 

Why don't you pay your coders so they produce good plugins in a timely fashion?

 

Why don't you pay popular youtubers to broadcast trailers, rather than post them on your LotC Youtube channel where it will get 200 views?

 

Well if the server got more donations then we would be able to do these things.

[Telanir 6975]

Why don't you pay your coders so they produce good plugins in a timely fashion?

 

Pay is cool, but we don't want pay.

Even if we got enough donations to support that kind of philanthropy (lol), while I can't speak for the rest of the coders, I work out of self-interest. This means we might like one of the following (or other): the community, the server, the philosophy behind lotc, the gameplay, the praise, blah blah, etc. and whatever the reason might be, we want to support LotC and help it thrive.

 

Payment isn't going to make me work faster, in fact, it'll discourage me from participating at all.

[CosmicWhaleShark 2488]

Why have you decided to reserve soul stones to only nation capitals?

[gabriel101x1 463]

They aren't. Only emerald pillars are reserved for nation capitals. Anywhere else can get redstone pillars.

[Sky 0]

They aren't. Only emerald pillars are reserved for nation capitals. Anywhere else can get redstone pillars.

Just to make sure that you understand, redstone pillars are a donaters perk!

[gabriel101x1 463]

Just to make sure that you understand, redstone pillars are a donaters perk!

 

I am aware of that fact.

[Birdwhisperer 1174]

They aren't. Only emerald pillars are reserved for nation capitals. Anywhere else can get redstone pillars.

I believe he's asking why that is.

[CosmicWhaleShark 2488]

They aren't. Only emerald pillars are reserved for nation capitals. Anywhere else can get redstone pillars.

 

Yes, but why have you decided to remove emerald pillars to any location but nation capitals?

[Rig 17581]

Yes, but why have you decided to remove emerald pillars to any location but nation capitals?

Some Dwarves and Flays abused setting soul-homes earlier in 2013 at the beginning of Anthos, so Tel had to recode it to be less abusable. 

[CosmicWhaleShark 2488]

As much as I appreciate you answering on behalf of the staff, Piercing, I would like to actually get an answer from the staff. Also bear in mind that as it still stands, a High Elven tomb has an emerald pillar, as well as the human town (not capital) of Kralta. Leanniel to my knowledge is the only town to have their soulstone removed, and this soulstone was the one moved from the manor to the actual town due to an event. The soulstone was moved from a single large home, to a whole town, and then promptly removed under the notion that only nation capitals would be retaining their emerald soulstones.

 

Hopefully this is unintentional but from what I've seen in regards to general treatment of that town, I would consider it to be blatant bias or perhaps an unfair focus of attention on the staff's part.

 

So, why would you have it so towns can no longer retain their emerald soulstones. More specifically, considering current circumstances, why cannot Leanniel keep theirs?

[Priceflash 832]

As much as I appreciate you answering on behalf of the staff, Piercing, I would like to actually get an answer from the staff. Also bear in mind that as it still stands, a High Elven tomb has an emerald pillar, as well as the human town (not capital) of Kralta. Leanniel to my knowledge is the only town to have their soulstone removed, and this soulstone was the one moved from the manor to the actual town due to an event. The soulstone was moved from a single large home, to a whole town, and then promptly removed under the notion that only nation capitals would be retaining their emerald soulstones.

 

Hopefully this is unintentional but from what I've seen in regards to general treatment of that town, I would consider it to be blatant bias or perhaps an unfair focus of attention on the staff's part.

 

So, why would you have it so towns can no longer retain their emerald soulstones. More specifically, considering current circumstances, why cannot Leanniel keep theirs?

-my post is sad and useless, removed-

[gabriel101x1 463]

The rule about emerald pillars only being available to nation capitals has been around for ages, it was coined because the staff wanted to encourage more RP in nation capitals since they were ghost cities at the time. As far as I know none of the places you mentioned should have emerald pillars and I will be looking into that.

[bulldogsoccer88 40]

I was going to apply to the be a GM but if I were to become one, would I have to give up a lot of RP doing Modreqs and things in those sorts? I wish to help the server of LOTC but I don't wish to be doing it while I am not in a pleasant mood of never getting to RP.