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But....this is where I am baffled.... Where does it harm the game to communicate with people? We get very little communication, to the point that we mistrust it when it does come - if stuff is aware [by the admin] of being there, be it an org req, or info for a meeting, or a custom house request, why pretend it doesn't exist?
I am not saying that we pretend it does not exist. Not in the least. And it does not obviously hurt for there to be a communication. It is a matter of main admin, able to provide that contact, having the time to look at requests and provide that feedback. I'm sure that when main admin are able to, they will.
Since it is almost Christmas in Australia and Christmas Eve here in the states, it may be quiet for responses here. But, hopefully @Oleis can chime in.
Anyone who's sat through months of waiting TO SPEND MONEY, RL MONEY with no communication knows that this isn't just a holiday-time issue I'm talking about, but simply how Aetolia operates. And man is it sucky.
On the other hand, as someone who did not have an active Patron, has no friends on the staff (I'm still relatively new to Aetolia, honestly, 2 RL years of Fae's life I did not play at all), and therefore had to go begging around to get simple things like glitched parts of the Guildhall fixed...
I love the OrgReq system. I mean, I love it like a fat kid loves oreos, or like my coder friends love Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. So... If it's simply placation, it's the tastiest most loveliest placation ever.
But see... I'm coming from the position where I couldn't even get a glitched feature in the Guildhall fixed without whining about it on the forums and randomly catching the sympathies of @Haern. ...Or by messaging/emailing @Razmael to the point where I felt uncomfortable (and somewhat stalkerish). I would never have even bothered -trying- for anything more than simple fixes/adjustments... Because I couldn't even get the simple things addressed.
With OrgReqs, I have gotten several small things pretty much instantly adjusted and corrected... And it's wonderful. (Thank you, @Oleis!) It has actually given me the confidence to request something above just "please add X to the Guildhall" or "please fix X in the Guildhall."
On that note... I have to throw props out to @Obyn, who actually did take the time to send me a few tells letting me know that he is, in fact, working on the Syssin project I put forth (that I never would have requested without the OrgReq system). He said that it'll take a bit because of his workload but that he was working on it. So... He's pretty spiffy in my book.
Still, I do understand Moirean's frustration. Personally, I think that if IRE really wants to retain members, provide professional games, and grow, it needs to hire more permanent staff for each of its games.
I by no means am offering criticism to the concerns, but I would like to submit a bit of perspective on the OrgReq system and how I see it from a volunteer standpoint. When an Org requests -numerous- things, it comes to us as a volunteer in a list. It typically is more reasonable to seek out the Orgs who have single, less time intensive requests due to the fact we can knock those out and move on to the heavier hitting stuff as time permits.
The larger requests or Orgs with numerous requests sometimes have to take a backseat, while we as volunteers work alongside the administration in planning, organizing, and execution. These steps require communication between numerous sources, as not all volunteers inherently have the ability to code, or even access certain things.
As @Dristin has stated, by no means are we neglecting the work, we are just waiting for official response from sources who may be on vacation visiting family and doing REAL LIFE things during this time of year.
Consider this the notification that we as volunteers alongside the administration will work on contacting and communicating with you after this time of year has settled in, and we ask you as a holiday gift to us to please be patient.
I assure you there are numerous idea/planning threads currently amongst the volunteers to work on plans which have been submitted, and we are very excited to work on them once we have time!
These things keep me awake at night.
I'm not sure where the hostility here is coming from but it feels like the fact that we're largely unpaid volunteers, with the exception of @Razmael, who is on vacation and has limited access to the game, and @Oleis, who is only considered to be part time to my knowledge. We all have family, friends, and other commitments that need to take up at least some of our time. Please keep in mind that we are offering our spare time for this game and all of us do occasionally want or need to do other things with it.
For clarification on orgrequests: If you submit a lot of them, or your requests are very significant in scope or work required, you're going to get a few of them done and the rest are going to wait. Most of the time you're going to get an approval along the lines of "this is low priority, but sure" in that case. Sometimes you're just gonna wait.
In the case of @Moirean's two requests that are sitting there, I explicitly said "a month or so" and "two weeks" respectively in terms of when I'd even touch them, because we already had a giant Spinesreach request to deal with. That remains true.
At some point we're grasping at straws, guys. I know I can't ask you to be perfectly happy, because things aren't perfect. But we're making progress in all the areas we pledged to work on this year. And for some people, that may never be good enough. A conflict system that involves strategy and group fights involves too much strategy and group fights. A mechanism to provide communication between admin and org leaders provides 90% of the communication it's supposed to. That's the danger of working on any game. God knows we have it better than WoW and LoL and all those folks. But ranting about the missing 10% does nothing. Ranting in general does nothing. When in doubt, just ask.
Pairing that with the time of year and all of the other things that happen? While of course my little inner Veruca Salt is going "I want this now needy needy needy me me me me me", life happens and you need to be more flexible and welcoming of other peoples' lives, not just your own. Would more communication be nice? Of course! I at least don't feel neglected or like I'm just being placated, especially not on Christmas week. But that will always be the case, there will always be room to improve upon, but we as players also need to do some improving too, as we play a big role in the communication.
As feedback for OrgReqs - a field to set a single one as a priority would be nice, like bugs.
Maybe part of this is design flaw, as well. We kinda got a customization system for NPCs so we wouldn't have to poke and bother admin, but it feels unfinished. The message system surely must feel confining at times for admin to use and easily keep track of things. Does the website work correctly? I'm starting to suspect some of the messages I've sent from there just haven't been received. Is stuff broken with orgreqs maybe? @Oleis, you cite my approved ones, but I was referring to the ones with no verdict - are those not showing up maybe?
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
P.s. The 9 is only because I have this suggestion : Once an item is commented on you get a message saying it, but is it possible for the output in ORGREQ (org) LIST to be changed to 'commented' instead of lingering as submitted? I was looking for a change in status to see the comment because I had missed the Aetolian auto-message in a bunch of vial decay spam.
Politics
I really, really, really, reaaaally like the orgreq system. It means we can choose our patron exclusively based on the roleplay of our org, rather than a need to have an active patron to help us do things. And it helps alleviate the weird IC/OOC dissonance that comes of asking your IC patron to do things that don't make sense from an IC standpoint. (Asking for new mobs, new wares for mobs, stuff like that--these are things that theoretically the mob would acquire on their own, etc.)
But it's very useful, and a lot of the things are completed in a very timely fashion. Submitted stuff about a week ago that got done in a couple days, including tweaking of the thing that fixed it so it's working correctly. (P.S. @Dristin is awesome)
I think it'd be nice to be updated every...I dunno, three RL months on the status of things if a req hasn't been completed? I have an orgreq (67) that got submitted/approved five months ago. I commented on it, asking if anything further was needed from me after two months, to no response, and eventually messaged @Oleis for an update about a month ago, also to no response. Even if that update is 'We're still working on this, it'll be done tuesday/eventually/soonTM/whenever we get to it.' I think it'd alleviate some of the communication confusion.
The stuff that sits there untouched for a while -can- be frustrating, especially when it sits there upwards of a couple months, but I generally assume it's because you guys are off being awesome and such and-or because you're trying to decide if it's viable. If other people use orgreqs the way I do, the stuff being asked for isn't always standard, so it can take time to figure out if it is viable and if it is, the best way to go about doing it.
Would be way awesome if there'd be more open communication therein. That's really the only issue I have with the system at all. Otherwise it's super helpful, and super awesome, and it doesn't require us to catch each other at just the right time when the stars (and everyone's crazy schedules) align.
As a tangentially related aside, the communication issue seems to be game-wide, not just contained within the orgreq system. I haven't had @Razmael respond to messages or e-mails in -months- and I'm almost literally trying to throw excessive amounts of money at him for things in every single one.
Edit: Fixed a sentence that made no sense. Also. I DO understand that you guys, especially though not limited to Oleis and Raz, are excessively busy being awesome and doing awesome things, just counting the stuff you do on Aet, and not accounting for the real lives I'm sure all of y'all have. Not asking for next-day answers -- as awesome as it'd be, it's not really a realistic expectation. But. Eventually would be nice. Know messages get lost at times, or read and then forgotten before getting answered. Stuff happens. Just seems to happen a crazy amount, of late.