OOC: Player Meeting Changes

[Pheats]

For a while now we have been noticing a decline in interaction during meetings and the legacys.

Because of this we've been working hard to try and think of ways to get more interaction and more involvement between the players and the Legacys and governments.

Firstly we have tried to get the legacys walking around out in the open a bit more, this has not really worked, unfortunatly when the arks that play them actually find free time to get on them it is rare for anyone to notice them, let alone the core roleplayers. However we will continue trying to get them on more often outside of meetings, you will just have to keep an eye out for them.

Secondly have tried advertising the fact that players can send In Character emails to the events characters directly (or indirectly to there groups, you wouldn't mail your CEO to ask for more paperclips now would you?) by sending appropriatly written mails to events-feedback@ark.anarchy-online.com

These mails can be anything from sending reports on whats happening (Player or ARK events wise), asking questions you havn't been able to ask in meetings (or cannot wait untill the next) or requesting a meeting with the Legacy to talk face to face (we may have to resort to sending lackeys if people are not availabe at times).

This has been somewhat succesful, as we have received slightly more in character mail then previously, however interaction is still slim.

As such we have been thinking up ways to make the meetings themselves more accessible. These changes are not a sure thing at the moment, we will not implement any changes listed below untill people have had a chance to discuss and have there own say in what they think of it. At best, these changes will be agreed upon at the next one of each meeting in character at worst they may be scrapped altogether.

So without further ado here are the changes we have come up with so far.

Council of Truth:

-The Council Meetings will be open to all clan players, regardless of their standing in organizations or size of organizations.

-Any number of members of organizations may participate in the meeting. This may change if it gets to the point where we struggle fitting people into the council chambers (yeah right)

-During the meeting the inside door will be locked, any late comers will have to stand in the entrance hall, they may or may not be allowed late entry.

-Guards will be placed inside the entry hall.

-Trouble makers will be ejected from the council building and they or their organization may be banned from further participation either temporarily or permenatly

-Only those organizations which sign up to the council and pay there annual fee may cast a vote in any official polls set up by the council. The sign up for offical participation will follow the existing rules, this is the only way to get an active vote in polls.

Omni-Tek Affiliate Meetings:

-Any number of players from an affliated organization may enter the building, however only 2 members may participate in the meeting due to space limitations, the rest may remain in the foyer. We may lock the door out of the foyer if people are found to be wandering around too much, access to the toilets will be allowed.

-If numbers increase to the point were we have a full meeting room and still people wishing to participate (in other organizations) secondary meetings may take place in the side rooms.

-Players with no organization will still have to sign up for self affiliation as currently stands.

Newland City Council:

Currently we have no changes planned for these meetings, however if you feel you have a suggestion that could help, feel free to comment.


As I stated above, non of these are set in stone, we would like to hear you, the players, feedback on these changes before implementation.

[Nulion]

These sound like some great changes you guys have proposed...I especially like the ones about locking the doors, after last month's fiasco in the Rimor CoT. The other nice thing about all this is that the hoop-jumping for admittance into the Council was definitely a hindrance...but at least we can simply say now "Come along, just be sure to pay the fee."

...We are working on a way of trying to keep track of those fees, I should note

I'll need to contact you guys over a few other issues that have cropped up in the past few days too, that aren't exactly appropriate for the forums.

Let's keep this thread CONSTRUCTIVE, guys!

[Towerblock]

I dont mail you guys because I generally have little need to. Don't think I dont love ya or anything, but i'm happy on cheap dates (barring a few things here and there that are breaking).

I simply just don't have the time.

As for proposed changes, things look agreeable. I'd seriously kill to see more and more Legacies log in and handle everyday things, but I realize thats prolly a lil too far outta scope. I do however, like the fact that at given LTC playtimes, that they are accessible to me should there be a need. I also am pretty driven to see changes in things, and give the RP on Rimor a bit more of a dynamic feel. This is core to me to see developement happen, especially if its visible to players in general (not necessarily limited to RP'rs)

There are other things like that i'd like to impart to you personally, Pheats, but I am quite positive you are already uniquely aware of the Fixer plot's impact on the RPr's atm. I suspect things are in a pretty delicate believable balance for more than a few of us. This is not a protest or anything, but I personally believe this plot can end in greatness, if you expose just as much good coming out of this as the bad. Currently, its been 90% negativity thus far, and that could be seen as a serious buzzkill to lots of players. I think it would be a wonderful olive branch to pass by eliminating some of the doom and gloom that you've sort of forced the Neutrals into. :P

[Gustavis]

The reason why, in my opinion, people have started to show less interest in roleplaying, not only concerning meetings, is that lately there have been many events where the players had little actual say in what was going on. I recall a few months ago, a Red Freedom event where Jaunay attacked the ICC, and I was there with at least three other orgmates, attacking Jaunay. She had a shield that reflected ALL damage. Sure, the event had to continue, but we practically had no actual way to influence it at all, when isn't this what was originally promised with the game's RP?

The same goes with the taking over of Newland. I would think that the players should have been at least ALLOWED to fight the Fixer goons, and change what was going on even slightly. I appreciate all the events that Events has been coming up with lately, because they're interesting, but I do wish we had more say in some of them.

[Pheats]

Thanks to those commenting on the changes, anything that we can do in an attempt to get more people participating we will always look into.

Needless to say we try to allow players effect all events but there is a limit to how we can allow you to affect them without losing control of the event or corrupting stories.

That said your actions have a major impact in storys regardless as to wether you where able to gun down a nasty man or not, just the act of you attempting allows us to change things.

Please refer to my posts in this thread

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=554861

For more information about how we do things and what we can and cannot do.

And if that doesn't satisfy your reading feel free to send a mail to the address in the initial post and we will be happy to discuss.

Please try and keep this thread on topic of the changes to the meetings.

[trousers]

Pheats,

Thank you for opening up this discussion with the playerbase; here is my feedback on the topics.

Legacy Leaders being logged on more - I am sorry, but I have to call Shenanigans here. While this makes a very good Straw Man argument, it just simply isn't true that no one pays attention to the Legacy leaders. Some (Max usually) will log in between meetings the amount of time spent on dim is generally very brief. Below are the logs I have from LTCTracker for the past 30 days reflecting Legacy Leader Activity on a day that is not already flagged as a meeting day.

Name	On	                Off		        Time on Dim		
Rosuma	05/25/09 09:49 PM	05/25/09 09:57 PM	8 minutes			
Wanja	05/28/09 07:48 PM	05/28/09 07:50 PM	2 minutes			
Max	06/03/09 01:50 AM	06/03/09 02:00 AM	10 minutes			
Jacobi	06/08/09 02:11 AM	06/08/09 02:46 AM	35 minutes			
Max	06/16/09 06:25 PM	06/16/09 06:42 PM	17 minutes			
Hekkat	06/17/09 10:14 PM	06/17/09 10:29 PM	15 minutes			
Wanja	06/19/09 01:38 PM	06/19/09 01:45 PM	7 minutes	
                                    Total for 30 days: 94 Minutes
		
11.75 Minutes - Avg Time on Dim (All Factions)
		Omni	44 minutes total	8.8	Avg
		Clan	35 minutes total	35	Avg
		Neut	15 minutes total	15	Avg

So my counter argument to you is that it may not be that no one has time to notice the Legacy Leader when they log in, but it may just be that they log in so infrequently and for such brief periods of time we cannot possibly engage them in a proper fashion. It is not everyone's MO to /tell the legacy leader within the first minute they log on just to say “Peek-a-Boo!”. For example if Pantsman were to notice Manhands log on, He wouldn't be inclined to send her a tell, however, he may say notice her online, say his goodbyes in /v to his friends and then /walk his butt from Newland City to the Trans HQ and hope to catch her there. This prep time could be several minutes on it's own and based on what I am seeing you're simply not allowing it to happen. Let alone, the idea that a legacy leader could /tell one of the known affiliates! “Good evening, I just wanted to let you know I will be around for the next few minutes in case you need me for anything.” Because believe it or not, not everyone on Rimor is subscribed to LTCTracker or has every Legacy Leader on their friend's list (or keeps their friends list open!!!).

*whew*

CoT Meeting: Good Initiatives

OAM: Make the Admin building a Public Playfield so that Devdas' Advertisements are actually factual. Right now *NOT* everyone can participate. If the interior door can be locked to keep people out for IC reasons there is no reason why the playfield cannot be opened up to the public and accessible from Omni-HQ. This would also allow Omni-Tek Roleplayers to take advantage of the ample office space in there for IC odds and ends.

NLCC: Only thing here is I think the council needs to have the fact stressed to them AGAIN that their meetings are designed to take place without a legacy present.

@Bubba – I wasn't there for the event, but the way it sounded to me was that the ARKs there had 2 conditions, a Peaceful “Players do what they're supposed to do – Have a meeting without the legacys present” or the the Aggressive “The players become belligerent” outcome. And the way I had the events given to me it sounds like the players forced that outcome onto themselves because they just couldn't play along.

[Pheats]

I agree, the legacys logging on isn't so succesful due to our end aswell, many just log on to check offline tells or to send a couple of tells to specific player, and I do beleive they should walk around more, but I can't force them too if they don't feel they have the time for it.

As for making the admin building a public zone, I am all for that, however its not something we have any direct effect on.

[Nulion]

Well, at least we have direction, right? We know where we need to go and what we need to work on, and that's a great step.

Hopefully you guys can maybe...I dunno, give the Legacies lollypops for logging in more often or something We'll call it Legacies for Lollies, hehe.

But about the OAM meeting area, is it possible to maybe recommend it somewhere? Put the word out that maybe that's something the community would enjoy?

There's gotta be a way!

[FoosballX]

I say Events should drop rollerrats before every meeting.

[trousers]

As for making the admin building a public zone, I am all for that, however its not something we have any direct effect on.

As you know I'm a big fan of grass roots efforts. So who should the playerbase lean on to get such a change brought about?