ROR DIARY : RESTRUCTURATION.

[Atropik]

I wonder, could we ever have this posted, if Aza hadn't come?

[Nidwin]

Pas facile la vie d'artiste mon pauvre Yali. Courage et de tout coeur avec toi mon petit. (49 ici gamin)

My advice,
don't try to push or rush anything and this to all of you "staff". Where there's passion, or Big Money, there'll be drama, most of the time followed by the usual drama queen fanboys and their verbal nonsense and bullshit.

See you in the lakes.

[Danielle]

If there is a kind member of the community who speaks fluent French and English, you could just give your posts to them and let them translate, while posting your original in French. French is a beautiful and highly useful language, there is no reason you should be discriminated against, because it's the first language in the country you were born. In this post, I could understand everything, so it was fine anyway, but it's not that way every time you post. The correct title is: Restructuralization.

My primary concern with every single drama on this server are a lack of clarity and transparency. So I am going to give you some negative feedback, about what I don't know. Unfortunately all I see in your post is a little info-graphic with some circles that doesn't explain all that much related to what happened recently.

1. Rules for staff. Are there any?
2. How are the rules for staff enforced and who enforces them?
3. What are the sanctions the enforcer can apply? How far does a violator need to go to be punished with removal from staff and/or ban from server?
4. If a staff member or a player feels like a member of staff has violated rules, what is their recourse?
5. How does the power structure of the project prevent the concentration of power and it's abuse?

I and everyone else in the community have no idea how this works. Right now I 'believe' Wargrimnir is in charge of both staff and player violations and that high level staff violations are resolved collectively by the leads, Yaliskah and Max. The reality is I have no clue. I have no clue, because either through neglect or intent, the staff are not interested in players having this information. From a public relations perspective, this couldn't be done in any worse way. Appearing bad due to spoken/written address is one thing, that can be a small to medium problem. Having no sense for a need of accountability is another problem altogether that is far worse in this case. I 'believe' 'something' was done internally to deal with what Torque has been doing on the server. In fact I again have no idea or information to go on to. Is there a good reason somebody can't come forward and say: "Torque has done 1 or 2 things badly, he apologizes, due to what he has done we have decided to do A, B and C?" I understand dealing with things internally is more private and sensitive, but you do need to manage your community and public relations as well, because at the end of the day, the project does need players. Saying nothing, is the worst you can do, it allow people to assume the worst and if you give off a bad appearance (which you are doing), they will readily assume the worst.

If it is at at all possible, the same person shouldn't be in charge of both player violations and staff violations. I met Wargrimnir in 2015, he was a kind and outgoing person who asked me to make a bug report in the best possible way, probably the best person I could point to, to become a head GM. To this day, his head GM position hasn't done him many favors, in how it has affected his forum appearance. It's his job to go after players, even if he is supposed to be neutral, it's going to affect him. It doesn't take a political mastermind to see why player and staff sanctions should have separate arbiters.

Can we also go away from the mentality of diminishing everyone in this project? Yaliskah, you are important, because you pay for the server, you started the project, and there wouldn't be anything going on without you. All the staff members are important, due to the content they generate. Finally however, the community and the players are also important, because this is a multiplayer game, and without a community to play it in sufficient numbers, the game doesn't exist.

Yes, this is a volunteer project. I've worked on a couple in my life and they did have rules for the staff/volunteers as well, even if they had less staff and workload than this project. Is it fun to have rules? No, it sucks, but it's necessary.

Good luck setting this straight.

[Telen]

Maybe you need to show a more unified image to the community instead of putting single team members up for sacrifice. So far all changes and issues are dropped on one person, first Az now Torque and neither seem to have reacted well to it. If I was you I would stop putting names to changes. All changes are team wide and all team members have input should be the message.

Whatever the problems between Cegee and Torque and everything that's happened due to them. Really it should have been enforced that they limit interaction. Yes its hard to treat adults like children and that may make them react even worse, but if they have a personality that wont let things go best to let them do it somewhere it doesn't impact the whole team. Neither of them or Az or Asuryan come out of this looking good as most onlookers don't hold grudges to that extent.

[Grobbok]

it's very good to see that the project is going on
but what about the future?
when will be some new content on rvr, like fortress and city siege?
is it true that you fear about put city siege because you don't know how to make city siege works without empty instances?
Is "empty instance" problem so important that it blocks all work?

[nocturnalguest]

Thank you for this statement. Most people I encountered here are in their middle age, have kids, so am I. I really support the part with loved family, friends and jobs. Because come on, people, the fk you discuss?! It's just a freaking game and you speak of "betrayal" and "insult" like something super serious happened. Cmon...
And regarding evidence. Are you (people) that blind so you needed those screenshoots or something? Couldn't you figure out all that just by posts, changes done and all of the rest interactions? This drama is very overrated.
And I really appreciate changes stated by Yali. In my opinion they will do good.

[peterthepan3]

it's very good to see that the project is going on
but what about the future?
when will be some new content on rvr, like fortress and city siege?
is it true that you fear about put city siege because you don't know how to make city siege works without empty instances?
Is "empty instance" problem so important that it blocks all work?

Forts are being worked on, but will take time. Empty city siege instances are 100% a problem, and I have faith that the RoR team will try to move away from such a thing.

[anarchypark]

You have my trust, team.
keep up the good work!

[oergel]

Sounds good, i hope the dust settles a little bit now.

Let me know when you are recruiting code monkeys. No experience in video game development, but 10+ years in "normal" development with C#, C++ and a lot of SQL/MySQL.

[Glorian]

To Summarize it what is actually hidden in Yali's Text.

Or if you look on the chart then Torque is the R&D bubble.

R&D will no longer communicate with the Community.
R&D will no longer have GM Powers.
That means R&D can't talk unblockable to Destro or Order Chars, can't send someone to the moon, can't ban someone.
R&D can't teleport on live server.

And you can set R&D to ignore if you like.