Moderation Update: June

[ScreamingDingo 16791]

29 minutes ago, Charles The Bald said:

If your ideas are always getting shut down in the end, it must be because they’re bad ideas.

 

 

This is most likely the reason why war **** has been delayed, get feedback from the community and stop trying to be insanely insular in creating these rules. We need something that’s at least feasible that’ll last till 8.0, where an actual in-depth system that ties in all these cool concepts together can exist. But until then, it’s literally as simple as it has been explained in this thread.

 

Just block conquest, allow terms to be enforced and buff up raiding during war time so SS camping isn’t as lucrative anymore

[Sykogenic 1284]

34 minutes ago, Charles The Bald said:

If your ideas are always getting shut down in the end, it must be because they’re bad ideas.

 

Instead of complaining to the community that it’s “powers that be”. Try to work with the powers themselves and try to find common ground for a comfortable system that benefits everybody.

 

IMO.

 

It wouldn’t even surprise me if the next war rules are worse than the current ones by a mile and a half, seeing the way the current project is being handled.

 

Truthfully it’s a bit silly to think that the reason idea after idea is shot down is because they’re all inherently bad ideas. When I first started the project I made a Your View to get the communities feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Some of our attempts have been based off of the prior rules that were in place that many are calling to be brought back t, just tidied up and expanded upon in a few places to fix loopholes that were previously abused. We’re not so naive as to think that what has been proposed has been 100% perfect, but surely better than what we have now and seemingly what the community has advised that they want.

 

 

1 hour ago, Xarkly said:

 

At this point I think most people recognise it's an admin thing and any resentment to the GMs is owing to the fact that like ... people dont really know what the **** was happening. We've been left in the dark entirely up until now over who's writing what or who's stopping what. Whole things been very secretive which it absolutely  shouldnt be. 

 

On the contrary, it should be an open rewrite actively looking for feedback. Like recently I reached out to get involved in the conflict rules and I got told i HAD to be a Mod which is blatantly contrary to the policy of Staff being able to help out with projects across teams.

 

I can shoulder a bit of that blame to be honest. The reason I wasn’t initially vocal about the status of the project was because some part of me didn’t expect so much push-back, despite almost the exact same happening the first time when Kaelan and I attempted to rework Joels War rules. We had gone through everything, rewriting and revising as needed, brought it to the team at the time and let them pick it apart and fix it up and what not, and then Telanir tossed it aside and gave us what we currently have. So I don’t know what I was thinking expecting much different results. Definition of insanity I suppose.

 

With the War Patch to fix up some aspects of Telanirs rules hopefully being pushed through now Braxis has been working diligently on taking the ‘best’ parts of many different systems and make something that will actually function for 8.0. Right now the team has not done a whole lot given how the War Patch was a bigger issue, but with an end in sight real work can now begin on an 8.0 system. Whether it is more consistent monthly updates, independent war-related updates or more Your Views, the team and I will be doing what we can to keep people in the loop this time around, especially if things spiral out yet again and the rug is pulled from underneath us.

[Fireheart 2767]

On 7/10/2020 at 1:19 PM, howard said:

People who join this server are almost always confused by our weird bureaucracy, by how every decision needs to be rubber-stamped by admins who don’t play, and by our insistence on jargon. It’s a genuine obstacle to getting people to play the game. We should make an effort in the future to take power back from the admins and write rules in plain English.

It is, but it is a whole circle cycle type of issue. Speaking from the perspective of being on both sides of the coin rules are typically made to stop the 10% of the playerbase from taking things too far and ruining the experience for the other 90%. As the server grows and becomes more diverse you run into more groups of people wanting different things.

[osumanduas 1436]

On 7/10/2020 at 9:47 PM, Sykogenic said:

 

Truthfully it’s a bit silly to think that the reason idea after idea is shot down is because they’re all inherently bad ideas. When I first started the project I made a Your View to get the communities feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Some of our attempts have been based off of the prior rules that were in place that many are calling to be brought back t, just tidied up and expanded upon in a few places to fix loopholes that were previously abused. We’re not so naive as to think that what has been proposed has been 100% perfect, but surely better than what we have now and seemingly what the community has advised that they want.

 

I can shoulder a bit of that blame to be honest. The reason I wasn’t initially vocal about the status of the project was because some part of me didn’t expect so much push-back, despite almost the exact same happening the first time when Kaelan and I attempted to rework Joels War rules. We had gone through everything, rewriting and revising as needed, brought it to the team at the time and let them pick it apart and fix it up and what not, and then Telanir tossed it aside and gave us what we currently have. So I don’t know what I was thinking expecting much different results. Definition of insanity I suppose.

 

With the War Patch to fix up some aspects of Telanirs rules hopefully being pushed through now Braxis has been working diligently on taking the ‘best’ parts of many different systems and make something that will actually function for 8.0. Right now the team has not done a whole lot given how the War Patch was a bigger issue, but with an end in sight real work can now begin on an 8.0 system. Whether it is more consistent monthly updates, independent war-related updates or more Your Views, the team and I will be doing what we can to keep people in the loop this time around, especially if things spiral out yet again and the rug is pulled from underneath us.

 

No offence but as someone who was on the team at the time I can tell you the reason why it was thrown out and it wasn’t just because of some hand of god/(telanir). The entire rewrite from what I recall was too specific in all the wrong areas and multiple people pointed that out. Knox particularly hit on the fact that a lot of it was simply illegible and horribly worded. Which is why nobody complained that much from my knowledge when it was tossed into the bin. The main issue that there is with Telanir’s new status quo is that it requires the moderator actually knows how to think for themselves and make a call on the situation, instead of running to a handbook to railroad the entire process.

 

Adaptable GMs are a boon in my opinion, but in every discussion about the rules after the complaint was always: ‘I can’t make a call without some thirty page document that tells me exactly what to do.’ 

 

The problem with meticulously drawn out rulesets is that they’re made to be broken and when players inevitably find loopholes the team will thus be unable to cope with or account for said loopholes, and thus make bad calls in the moment. It is far more reasonable to train people to be adaptable, and to unequivocally support them in their calls after the fact. The basis of our current ruleset is fine, it doesn’t need to be broken down by adding a bunch of failed experiments into the mix, nor do many aspects of the current ruleset need /fixing up/.

 

The ultimate premise is good faith. If players cannot keep good faith with one another and offer respectful conflict than these stated players are in violation of the rules and should be offered infractions. There are semantics that should be debated like cooldown times, raid numbers, no conquest, etcetera. But these things don’t require an overhaul. I am of the opinion that the only real solution to the incompetent handling of conflict under the current ruleset is to make moderators a truely competent third party in the discussions between conflicting parties. Make people come to the table, enable the discussion, or leave them be because in this last scenario all that occurs is a waste of oxygen.

 

That's my two cents on the issue. Bastardizing the systems of the past only bastardizes the systems we create in the future.

Edited July 12, 2020 by methuselahs

[Sykogenic 1284]

11 hours ago, methuselahs said:

 

No offence but as someone who was on the team at the time I can tell you the reason why it was thrown out and it wasn’t just because of some hand of god/(telanir). The entire rewrite from what I recall was too specific in all the wrong areas and multiple people pointed that out. Knox particularly hit on the fact that a lot of it was simply illegible and horribly worded. Which is why nobody complained that much from my knowledge when it was tossed into the bin. The main issue that there is with Telanir’s new status quo is that it requires the moderator actually knows how to think for themselves and make a call on the situation, instead of running to a handbook to railroad the entire process.

 

Adaptable GMs are a boon in my opinion, but in every discussion about the rules after the complaint was always: ‘I can’t make a call without some thirty page document that tells me exactly what to do.’ 

 

The problem with meticulously drawn out rulesets is that they’re made to be broken and when players inevitably find loopholes the team will thus be unable to cope with or account for said loopholes, and thus make bad calls in the moment. It is far more reasonable to train people to be adaptable, and to unequivocally support them in their calls after the fact. The basis of our current ruleset is fine, it doesn’t need to be broken down by adding a bunch of failed experiments into the mix, nor do many aspects of the current ruleset need /fixing up/.

 

The ultimate premise is good faith. If players cannot keep good faith with one another and offer respectful conflict than these stated players are in violation of the rules and should be offered infractions. There are semantics that should be debated like cooldown times, raid numbers, no conquest, etcetera. But these things don’t require an overhaul. I am of the opinion that the only real solution to the incompetent handling of conflict under the current ruleset is to make moderators a truely competent third party in the discussions between conflicting parties. Make people come to the table, enable the discussion, or leave them be because in this last scenario all that occurs is a waste of oxygen.

 

That's my two cents on the issue. Bastardizing the systems of the past only bastardizes the systems we create in the future.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Guess we remember the entire situation differently then. I distinctly remember going through the entire team, making lots of changes based on their feedback and then being given useless, arbitrary requirements on length and other such things by Telanir in order to make it to his ‘chairman standards’. We’ve never claimed perfection, and were simply trying to revamp the prior rule set to keep up with the many issues that arose during the War of 2 Emps and ensuing drama. At the time I think it would have worked in patching things up, and I still think it would have worked in patching things up. It might have needed some TLC over time to keep up with the ever changing culture of LotC but oh well.

 

The main issue with Telanir’s status quo, as you call it, isn’t requiring moderators to think for themselves. The main issue is that its based on the fallacy that with the culture of LotC in mind two warring groups, inherently against each other, will come together and work together to agree to whatever random terms the other side is trying to force down the others throat. The concept of ‘good faith’ isn’t a bad one, it is just simply not realistic to expect it to work a majority of the time. 

 

Now sure, you can have this idea of Good Faith as Avenue 1 for a conflict, and if it fails you can fall back to Avenue 2, being a more meticulous rule set. That type of system is something that we are working on balancing and that might be realistic to pursue. But ultimately no matter what the system layout, there will need to be precedents and defaults to rely on. Funnily enough when Telanirs system went live it was the people who practice neutrality, or relative neutrality, who were the happiest about it. But from what I’ve seen they’re the people who have suffered the slow burn of this system. They’re the ones getting roped into silly, B.S. wars over minor things. This system has proven to be incredibly abusable and simply does not function. When I made our ‘Your View’ on war a couple months ago we get something completely different than what you claim is the right way to handle things. It may not be their first overall choice, but I think people recognize that bringing back CBs, better cooldown times, better rally caps, etc. work for the culture lotc perpetrates, and are just better than what we are stuck with now.

[Kaelan 1916]

13 hours ago, methuselahs said:

 

 

Knox was actually one of the GMs that sat in the call that lasted several hours and played a key role in the revisions that Syko and myself made to the document. From what I recall, the sentiment among us three and the current admin at the time was that we were pretty satisfied with the state of it. While it needed tuning and some good love and care, we felt it satisfied many of our immediate needs.

 

Perhaps you recall it incorrectly. 

 

From my own point of view, it was the hand of Telanir that brought in sweeping changes. I had presented it in a call with other administrators and was told that it needed arbitrary trimming down to 10 pages with no consideration for reason or context. And that we needed to put in what was called at the time a "Good Faith Clause." Syko and I sat down and hashed it out in about an hour and we returned to the table where we got overall a positive response and we left happy.

 

Next day Telanir swept the table with a broom handle and shattered all the dishes.

 

Lol

 

@Sykogenic

[monkeypoacher 6993]

On 7/10/2020 at 5:58 PM, Sykogenic said:

Not gonna bother responding to any one person, but I think this is applicable to everyone when it comes to conflict rules.

 

We know. We hear you. We’re trying. But every proposal or change or attempt to revert to ways of old is always shut down in one way or the other by the ‘powers that be’. There’s only so much we can do, and we’re sorry that it isn’t enough.

 

On 7/10/2020 at 6:21 PM, Xarkly said:

 

At this point I think most people recognise it's an admin thing and any resentment to the GMs is owing to the fact that like ... people dont really know what the **** was happening. We've been left in the dark entirely up until now over who's writing what or who's stopping what. Whole things been very secretive which it absolutely  shouldnt be. 

 

On the contrary, it should be an open rewrite actively looking for feedback. Like recently I reached out to get involved in the conflict rules and I got told i HAD to be a Mod which is blatantly contrary to the policy of Staff being able to help out with projects across teams.

 

you guys have to name names, because at this point just saying “admins” are shutting down the rule rewrite isn’t helpful. let us know which person to vocally demand new rules from.

[osumanduas 1436]

Personal experience on a critical issue isn’t something I recall incorrectly. I was there going over the document in cooperation with him at the time and in voice with one of you, the amount of arbitrary and easily manipulated facets couldn’t even be finished in that one session. Had to be finished in the following session there was so much to change. People care about their work, they don’t like when it’s besmirched I understand that. However, trying to speak as if someone else’s experience of the situation is somehow delusional and that the big bad admins swept it all under the rug, that even speak well on the point trying to be made. It actually makes it look worse. If you can’t see whats wrong with those initial points I mentioned at all: the already arbitrary and run on nature of the rewrite itself, then really those dishes were already shattered and all Telanir did realistically was take it into the backyard to put it down. Discussions on policy are hardly so agreeable, nor is this dismissal, which is far less easy to utilize when it originates from having been in voice, making real changes, I probably even still have the doc in my google drive. Point is, this is a critique not an attack. It’s an important distinction for healthy debate.

 

No the origin of the critique is far less important to me personally than the solution which should be put into effect. It’s an insane policy to me for instance, that conflict rules be informed by an amalgamation of all the failed policies that came before, empirically it’s actually regressive. Ultimately what would be productive under the current rule-set would be a true expansion according to the current nature of the policy. Namely a set number of clauses that moderators must insist that each party agree on. That way the moderators can have their scrap of policy and players can abide by a set of  rules that they mutually agree on. Essentially provide points on the contract that all parties must be forced to agree on.

 

If wars and raids are to be more principally driven then the semantics can’t be left to breakdown a debate. The moderating presence must take charge and provide a logical settlement. The tools necessary for that to happen should be expanded. The most effective and critical part about the new system is that players need to negotiate with players first, and then moderators, it’s gone a very long way in weeding out problem players, (I.E. it’s very hard for players to carry hardcore OOC grudges if the rules themselves indirectly demand that said apprehensions need to be set aside for conflict to occur). In all cases the server will keep chugging along regardless, but it can run certainly run better or worse.

 

23 hours ago, Kaelan said:

Knox was actually one of the GMs that sat in the call that lasted several hours and played a key role in the revisions that Syko and myself made to the document. From what I recall, the sentiment among us three and the current admin at the time was that we were pretty satisfied with the state of it. While it needed tuning and some good love and care, we felt it satisfied many of our immediate needs.

 

Perhaps you recall it incorrectly. 

 

From my own point of view, it was the hand of Telanir that brought in sweeping changes. I had presented it in a call with other administrators and was told that it needed arbitrary trimming down to 10 pages with no consideration for reason or context. And that we needed to put in what was called at the time a "Good Faith Clause." Syko and I sat down and hashed it out in about an hour and we returned to the table where we got overall a positive response and we left happy.

 

Next day Telanir swept the table with a broom handle and shattered all the dishes.

 

Lol

 

@Sykogenic

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by methuselahs