Post by the clown on Feb 9, 2019 17:03:21 GMT -5
tl;dr the game needs more automation & the admin team should focus on administrative stuff while the eventmin team handles everything story-related
There's a stigma that BYOND Admin teams are always overbearing and stifle fun roleplay for the sake of their own fun. Of course, that doesn't apply to everyone and most (?) people don't become admins with the intention of this happening. I think that this tends to end up happening because admins are expected to do too much- they're expected to handle the great (and thankless) burden of being an admin as well as a storyrunner, PR agent, mediator, etc. With that sort of overbearing weight, it's natural for games to fall apart. It's happened over and over again for years. Who wants to stress out about a million things for free, anyway? There are very few people out there who can juggle all of that nonsense and still function well enough to make their games cool and fun for other people. There are ways to avoid that fate- and most games are unable to achieve these solutions because they either don't have a competent coder or their owners don't care to address these issues.
1. Add more automation to the game.
Imagine an ingame store where the game let's you buy your own jutsu, perks, and cores. All that the game needs to do is check certain pre-reqs when a player attempts to make a purchase before taking away PP and giving them what they want. That alone would obliterate 50% of GMhelps. No longer will you need to hire gruntmins to do nothing but slave away on GMhelp watch to give out T1 strength to every new player. Instead, those admins can help with processing custom applications faster and hashing out clan/jutsu/etc balance.
A step beyond this- build more systems like tracking. That sort of shit makes Project: Shinobi feel like an actual videogame instead of just a virtual experience that you have little control over. It makes players more invested in the game which in turn improves the mood and productivity of one's admin team. A functioning ingame bounty board, a simple economy, etc would go a long way towards stabilizing the game and making less work for admins who would otherwise have to oversee this sort of stuff themselves OOC'ly.
2. Separate the admin team and eventmin team into two equal groups with different focuses.
As it stands, the admin team has final say on what sort of story will be told. However, being a good storyteller or roleplayer are not pre-reqs to becoming an admin. Usually, skills such as being great at balancing jutsu or being a good workhouse when it comes to GMhelps and writing guides or just having a wealth of knowledge about Naruto are what turn players into admins. In the same respect, people who are great eventmins are probably not suited to decide whether or not bijuu can be sealed into swords to create demon weapons (lol). It makes sense to separate admins from having to worry about creating and managing the wipe's plot because not only does it give them less work to do, but then they aren't playing to their weak points and sabotaging the wipe.
Currently, it's: Eventmins --> Admins --> The Owner
I'm proposing: Admins/Eventmins --> The Owner
Of course, there should be checks and balances. The admin team should have to be consulted for A and S-rank EC-exclusive jutsu, ECs above a certain grade, etc to ensure that the wipe remains stable. The eventmin team should also get the opportunity to look over rewards and application approvals/denials to challenge perceived injustice (ie an admin getting an unique that they probably don't deserve) because eventmins potentially see IC moments that the admin team doesn't. Ultimately, the owner(s) would have the final say, so disagreements between admins and eventmins would be handled swiftly before people moved on. It should be simple, common sense checks that ensure that neither one admin nor one eventmin can run the wipe into the ground. If the wipe fails, it'd be because multiple people from multiple different departments failed.
If you're afraid of having too many players being admins/eventmins- then reduce the number. It's better to have 3 eventmins that run 2+ events a week than 8 eventmins who are prone to disappearing for weeks with no notice. The same goes for admins- you don't need a dozen dudes to vote on apps. Enough people to avoid an ideology bubble, few enough people to avoid bloat and inaction. The golden number is probably easier found by someone with more experience than me, but a team of 5 or 7 seems good off the top of my head.
Most importantly- with the admin team taking a step back from the story and being held accountable by a separate department, admins would get the appreciation that they deserve. They would no longer be scrutinized and criticized when they put in hardwork and their own characters become strong. The assumption would no longer be that admins are handed their power just by being admins but, instead, that they struggled just like everyone else and ended up on top. Admins would no longer feel like they're slaves nor watch astheir enjoyment and sanity slip away with every passing week. They, too, will actually have fun in the wipe as a player and as an admin.
That should be the goal, dude- make the game more efficient and set the stage to make it fun for as many people as fun.
There's a stigma that BYOND Admin teams are always overbearing and stifle fun roleplay for the sake of their own fun. Of course, that doesn't apply to everyone and most (?) people don't become admins with the intention of this happening. I think that this tends to end up happening because admins are expected to do too much- they're expected to handle the great (and thankless) burden of being an admin as well as a storyrunner, PR agent, mediator, etc. With that sort of overbearing weight, it's natural for games to fall apart. It's happened over and over again for years. Who wants to stress out about a million things for free, anyway? There are very few people out there who can juggle all of that nonsense and still function well enough to make their games cool and fun for other people. There are ways to avoid that fate- and most games are unable to achieve these solutions because they either don't have a competent coder or their owners don't care to address these issues.
1. Add more automation to the game.
Imagine an ingame store where the game let's you buy your own jutsu, perks, and cores. All that the game needs to do is check certain pre-reqs when a player attempts to make a purchase before taking away PP and giving them what they want. That alone would obliterate 50% of GMhelps. No longer will you need to hire gruntmins to do nothing but slave away on GMhelp watch to give out T1 strength to every new player. Instead, those admins can help with processing custom applications faster and hashing out clan/jutsu/etc balance.
A step beyond this- build more systems like tracking. That sort of shit makes Project: Shinobi feel like an actual videogame instead of just a virtual experience that you have little control over. It makes players more invested in the game which in turn improves the mood and productivity of one's admin team. A functioning ingame bounty board, a simple economy, etc would go a long way towards stabilizing the game and making less work for admins who would otherwise have to oversee this sort of stuff themselves OOC'ly.
2. Separate the admin team and eventmin team into two equal groups with different focuses.
As it stands, the admin team has final say on what sort of story will be told. However, being a good storyteller or roleplayer are not pre-reqs to becoming an admin. Usually, skills such as being great at balancing jutsu or being a good workhouse when it comes to GMhelps and writing guides or just having a wealth of knowledge about Naruto are what turn players into admins. In the same respect, people who are great eventmins are probably not suited to decide whether or not bijuu can be sealed into swords to create demon weapons (lol). It makes sense to separate admins from having to worry about creating and managing the wipe's plot because not only does it give them less work to do, but then they aren't playing to their weak points and sabotaging the wipe.
Currently, it's: Eventmins --> Admins --> The Owner
I'm proposing: Admins/Eventmins --> The Owner
Of course, there should be checks and balances. The admin team should have to be consulted for A and S-rank EC-exclusive jutsu, ECs above a certain grade, etc to ensure that the wipe remains stable. The eventmin team should also get the opportunity to look over rewards and application approvals/denials to challenge perceived injustice (ie an admin getting an unique that they probably don't deserve) because eventmins potentially see IC moments that the admin team doesn't. Ultimately, the owner(s) would have the final say, so disagreements between admins and eventmins would be handled swiftly before people moved on. It should be simple, common sense checks that ensure that neither one admin nor one eventmin can run the wipe into the ground. If the wipe fails, it'd be because multiple people from multiple different departments failed.
If you're afraid of having too many players being admins/eventmins- then reduce the number. It's better to have 3 eventmins that run 2+ events a week than 8 eventmins who are prone to disappearing for weeks with no notice. The same goes for admins- you don't need a dozen dudes to vote on apps. Enough people to avoid an ideology bubble, few enough people to avoid bloat and inaction. The golden number is probably easier found by someone with more experience than me, but a team of 5 or 7 seems good off the top of my head.
Most importantly- with the admin team taking a step back from the story and being held accountable by a separate department, admins would get the appreciation that they deserve. They would no longer be scrutinized and criticized when they put in hardwork and their own characters become strong. The assumption would no longer be that admins are handed their power just by being admins but, instead, that they struggled just like everyone else and ended up on top. Admins would no longer feel like they're slaves nor watch astheir enjoyment and sanity slip away with every passing week. They, too, will actually have fun in the wipe as a player and as an admin.
That should be the goal, dude- make the game more efficient and set the stage to make it fun for as many people as fun.
