Shalashask

Would you mind quoting me where I've done this? And I apologise for not consulting the LMs before hand, I was a bit confused about the scope of projects and thought that a public thread where anyone can voice their opinion would be best to start one off. From seeing past GMs comments about harassment while making ban verdicts I agree that it probably is best to keep it anonymous in most cases. I've been quit naive about how bad the harassment has been in the past. I've also taken on board what staff have been saying about this forcing them to tip-toe and change their wording if this was implemented. I'm gonna keep this poll up and see how it ends up looking in a weeks time. As I said in the first paragraph this was just an idea, from just my hand, and the concerns brought forward have shown that it will need to be heavily changed if it were to be implemented. My end goal was just to increase the transparency between staff and players, not make staff feel unsafe about being them self.

I don't want to argue, I'd just like to hear your reasoning a little more. Do you think this kind of attitude may contribute to people wanting to see more staff transparency?

Hi, so for my trial I am working on getting my project implemented, which I call "Freedom of Information." I've written down the basics of it below so hopefully you guys get a good idea of what I want to implement. The aim of this post is to gauge public opinion and see if people want this as well as any new limitations that may be brought forward. Also, do bear in mind this is just an initial idea that so far does not have any other staff backing at this moment in time. It is just an idea. Please do take the time to read through this post before voting. What is it? My idea is, where there is a public demand, to make staff discord/skype and server logs available to them. This could be for a number of things, such as when a new controversial rule change is implemented, and the players want to know who wanted it and why. It could also be when players want to know why certain people have been given magics/artefacts out. Why? I feel players will become far more confident in their staff if we are more transparent with you. By letting you guys see why we have come to decisions, and who were behind them you will feel far more happy that we are actually listening to you guys, and that there is no bias amongst the team. With you being able to see this, I feel players will feel far more happy in general with our performance, and improve the relationship and communications between you and us. I'm also a strong believer that anyone who takes a staff position should be accountable for their actions, and if they are not prepared to defend their actions to the public then they should not be staff. As a real life example, Members of Parliament in the UK are voted in by their constituencies. Their voting record in the house of commons is made public, so that the people who voted them in can see if they are actually representing their views. Now, I know this is somewhat of a false equivalence as a minecraft server isn't a country, and GMs aren't voted in by the players, but if an MP consistently goes against the will of their constituency, then they will be called to resign for not representing their constituencies views which they agreed to do when they stood for parliament. Who will it affect? All staff teams. Any team that makes decisions or big changes in how they operate, and the public wants to know why will provide logs to the public about it. Obviously I see the GM team having a greater demand put on them for logs, and at the lower end the application team will probably rarely be bothered due to the nature of their work. Examples? GM team- As I stated before, I can see the GM team being called upon to provide logs pertaining to new rule implementation, or economy changes. Also when there have been major role play occurrences such as coupe rulings. I've been in plenty of teamspeaks after these have occurred with angry players shouting about bias. By showing you guys the logs of these we can put your mind at ease that there was no bias made in these decisions. Not only coupe rulings, but also when there have been large controversial group bans that have left many players shouting bias. LT team- I'm a firm believer that the LT behave professionally and with the servers best interests at heart, but from my years on this server it has become apparent that there are quite a number people who believe the LT is a clique and only distributes magics to their friends. By allowing the public to see logs of when they decide who should get what magic and why, you will be able to see that the LT is not a clique and there is a firm basis behind their decisions when they distribute magic and magical artifacts. Limitations? So here are some of the current limitations that I have come up with, as well as the input from other staff members -Staff can be harassed or intimidated for their decisions. My plan to counter this would be to severely punish anyone caught trying to coerce a staff member to do their bidding. For example, threats of DDOS, pugsy etc. This is especially true for ban rulings. I have not been on the team for long but another staff member has pointed out that when some very popular players are banned, some of the involved GMs have been relentlessly DDOS'd. Therefore, logs pertaining to banning decisions should be heavily moderated, perhaps blacking out names so just the reasoning is displayed. -Also on the matter of bans, when there is personal information involved such as from harrassment, sharing the logs of decisions made for banning the perpetrator can result in massive embarrassment for the victim, and should be kept private. -LT/ET future world events. A lot of these are best kept secret just because it's not really fun for the players if they know what is going to happen at the next end of map event, as well as people metagaming where events may occur. -Not all decisions are made purely on discord or programmes where it is easy to copy and paste logs. Some meetings can occur in discord voice channels, skype calls and teamspeak. -When regarding controversial topics such as villain blacklists, some staff may not feel comfortable expressing their opinions that go against the general consensus. Staff members may also start tip toeing with language to avoid upsetting certain groups. TL:DR? On reasonable request, give access of discord/skype/server logs to the players of staff discussion when a major server decision has been made. I have created a poll to gauge feedback on what I consider to be the main points of this idea. I welcome all and any feedback.

Malgonious forgetting to turn /fly off during a skirmish against Oren.

Torbern takes a moment from cutting trees to remember his mentor and close friend.

A platoon of Urguan soldiers fall to their deaths after their bridge balista malfunctions at the siege of the Krag. Circa 1611

Axes are popular because it has a very shallow learning curve.

I would prefer an Athera sized map without the nonsensical King's road system. The staff team will just have to enforce stricter regulations on who gets land, and player groups themselves will have to think twice before giving a 'noble' a fort, because if we have as many unused plots as we do in now it will be a clusterfuck. I really did enjoy the March Ash scavenger hunt event we just did, and I can understand that it won't be possible on that scale on a smaller map, but I feel the items rewards were some of the only reasons people have for deciding to explore the barrens of Axios.

I'm not sure how it was handled last time. Hopefully the GM team could organise it better in the future by monitoring region perm lists and setting up google questionnaires for participants. I just don't like factions being able to travel across seas to defend their allies from an ambush. There needs to be some way to moderate this.

Allies of nations that wish to attend warclaims must prove that their armies have a feasible method for reaching the area of the warclaim as well as being able to reach it on time. They should be given the same criteria as a nation launching an attack on another e.g -Do their armies have permission to march through all this land? -Do they have boats for crossing waters? -Can they arrive on time to act in defence of an ambush war claim? Also maybe this isn't the right place to put this, but I don't think allies should be able to act from places just because they put in a forum post "X sends troops to this position". If there aren't allied soldiers living/roleplaying there, then they aren't there.

A Dwarf special forces soldier disguises himself as a Tuna fish. Eventually being reeled in by Angus, he waits in his basket for his moment to strike on the Norlandic King.