PA Questions for FoamBats4All

[FoamBats4All]

So the questions I should've asked in the first place, what with it being the stuff I would have to do work for:
How good are you with the technical side of PA work? When it comes to investigations, for example, how many of your own queries will you be writing and how much will you be leaning on others for help when, for example, trying to place an order of events from logs after getting conflicting reports from players?

I have been using MySQL since 2004, and have taken classes involving databases, including data mining and relational database design and maintenance.

I have a strong relationship with the Tech Team, and am (as I hope should be obvious by now) technically competent.

And do you believe there is a reward system (specifically static XP and wealth) that can make the benefits of farming trivial enough that you wouldn't bother to enforce? Related to as much, do you believe that opportunity cost can be implemented well enough that the benefits of powergaming would be triival enough that you wouldn't bother to enforce? If either is a yes, what would that look like?

Such a system would be possible, yes. Prevention and curving would be the easiest methods to implement. I outlined a bit previously. Say we have a time frame, and a set number of experience (ideally modified by level) that a player should earn. With static content, we could prevent the player from turning in or updating quests (by, say, having the NPC say he's busy). Failing that we can heavily curve XP gains (both with statics and XP), depleting them down to nothing if needed. The individual numbers just have to be discussed and worked out. I'm confident that a solution can be found that puts a minimal workload on module builders and helps reduce the number of powergaming/farming complaints by preventing rather than sudden persecution.

I am very much interested in reading what Dan was focusing on, and (unless I notice some glaring errors) seeing it read maturation.

[FoamBats4All]

1. As player admin, what would be your view of the role of the HDM's and DM's. What responsibilities do you think server DM teams have (within the purview of the PA of course)

HDMs and DMs fall directly under the purview of the DMA.

That said, their actions with players do have a good deal to do with the position. Listening to player complaints and forwarding them to the HDM or DMA is one thing I see the PA doing in relation to (H)DMs.

More importantly, DMs have quite a bit to do with player activity. I would like to encourage players to step up and learn to DM on servers and be more involved in the community. Probably still in line with the DMA's portfolio, but it's something I'd like to at least inform players of.

2.What do you think of "Player density". Is it too high, too low, does it even matter?

Presently, it is too low. About a month ago it was fairly good. I'd still like to see it higher.

Does it matter? Well, we have a pretty diverse play group here on ALFA. If you only play ALFA for campaign-style play, player density probably doesn't matter too much to you. However from a persistent world perspective, I'd still like a higher player density, with hopefully more players interested in volunteering for tech, staff, administration, and DMing.

3.A player sends you a PM complaining in emphatic terms that a DM has killed them because the player believes that the DM doesn't like them and they would like a res and be moved to another server. What would you do?

Inform them that I am starting an investigation, and check with the logs. The complaint would be forward to and discussed with the DMA. I would speak at length with the player, hoping that the DMA would discuss with the DM (failing such, I would do it myself). Finally, I would talk to the HDM of the server, having them weigh in.

It's rather hard to prove something like that. Logging and working purely from data would be impossible, unless ALFA has some really complex logging already. Unless it -really- looked like the DM was being malicious, I'd weigh in most on what the DMA and HDM had to say, and decide from there. Throughout the entire process I'd try to be friendly to both DM and player, hoping to maintain some sense of community.

[FoamBats4All]

When do I get my foam bats?

When I get my tea.

[Rumple C]

How can we attract new players either from pnp, or other projects, and retain the players that we have?

I see this as critical to the long term survival of alfa.

[FoamBats4All]

How can we attract new players either from pnp, or other projects, and retain the players that we have?

I see this as critical to the long term survival of alfa.

I am open to ideas and suggestions.

I know that I was attracted by being invited by a friend (thanks Basilica, you jerk), and have since invited a few friends. Player invite incentives is an attractive prospect, that I do not yet know how to implement in any way that would be fair.

As it is now, I just don't have the information (from asking past PAs, for example, how they did things that were most effective) to provide a great answer. Advertisement, word of mouth, and the OAS2 come to mind. Encouraging players to ask their friends to join (be it from other servers or from the real world) looks to be the most effective, and would be the one that I'd like to give incentives on.

I look forward to discussing further with past PAs and with my staff and the player body if elected. To quote my first post, "This is perhaps the area that I know the least about, and will need to consult the player base on." That, however, does not mean that it is not one of ALFA's most pressing concerns.

[oldgrayrogue]

What's your definition of farming?

What is it about ALFA's definition of farming that you find unclear?

How can you farm without knowing you are farming?

Do you think an objective standard applies to determinations of farming or is it all subjective?

What do you think about the rate of leveling in ALFA? Too fast? Too slow? Just right?

How do you think you will cope with the inevitable stress of the PA job?

Thanks for stepping up.

[danielmn]

In addition to thee above, will you be getting together with the LA so that he may propose changes to the following within the charter:

4.1.1 Definitions of Grievances
While guidelines as to what constitutes a grievance will be made available to the community, exact definitions and decisions on individual cases are at the discretion of the appropriate Administrator or Administrators.

3.4 Recall
A motion to recall an Administrator can be made by any HDM or any of the other Administrators. The motion requires at least 10% of the sum total of HDMs and other Administrators, with a minimum of three persons, including the proposer, to be carried. Vote-eligible Administrator Staff and DMs are not able to propose, or move to carry, a recall motion.
Once a motion for recall has been successfully proposed and carried, a vote, lasting one week, is taken among the voting constituencies eligible to cast ballots in the election of that Administrator. The recall motion is considered to have passed if affirmed by more than 60% of the votes cast.

An Administrator who is recalled must immediately vacate the position.
Any Administrator in breach of the provisions of this Charter immediately and automatically invokes a recall vote against them.

4.1.4 Grievance Authorities and Right of Appeal
Investigations and impositions of formal censure, if any, are the purview of the Administrator with direct oversight of the member against whom the complaint has been lodged. A member may appeal any censure or banning decision to the Lead Administrator between notification of said decision or censure, and either one week after the imposition of a censure or the end of a ban.

[FoamBats4All]

I'm going to answer your questions a bit out of order.

What do you think about the rate of leveling in ALFA? Too fast? Too slow? Just right?

It is what it is? One of ALFA's pillars is "Moderated Advancement". Our standards give RP XP, our DMs grant XP, and HDMs plant spawns and static content. To me, that's pretty in line with our pillars. I don't know if it is too fast or too slow. Maybe some would prefer it to be slower, maybe some would prefer it to be faster. That just is how ALFA is. Leveling rates vary from DM to DM, from server to server, from HDM to HDM, from player to player. Short of making each character level at a standard rate without any influence from gameplay, you're not going to find any consistency.

We do have standards for XP granting, which is nice. I don't see DM-granted XP as being an issue. So that leaves static and combat XP. There, I would rather see the current system is patched, rather than replaced. Static chaining and mob farming should be impossible, not just discouraged. We have the privilege of playing in a game where we can get make a good many of our game 'crimes' impossible to commit. That seems to be the way to go, if you ask me.

Do you think an objective standard applies to determinations of farming or is it all subjective?

Well, everything is rather subjective. Either we place restrictions that people call useless and not tight enough, or we place restrictions that are too choking and drive away players. Anyone who has looked at government for more than ten minutes should know that everything is subjective. But:

What's your definition of farming?
What is it about ALFA's definition of farming that you find unclear?
How can you farm without knowing you are farming?

To me, farming is repeatedly going to go kill the same group of orcs, just as was given as an example in our charter. Static chaining is powergaming, not farming. Both are wrong, both should be made impossible. The charter states a few things, but you can get in trouble for something unrelated, under any heading that the current administration wants to put on the offense.

So how can you farm/powergame without knowing that you are? Because, honestly, not everyone reads every word of ALFA's exhaustive rulebook. How many statics per day is acceptable? How much combat XP? How much RP XP? We need a guideline for such, and to prevent people from getting too much combat/static XP in the first place. People want to have more players around? Well, there are some things that you need to do to bring that about, and one is making ALFA more accessible and less OOCly harsh on its players. Rather than hitting them with offenses for 'grievous' offenses, such as farming statics or such, just make it impossible to farm statics. It takes a bit of effort on Standards and the HDMs, but it's something that needs to be done.

How do you think you will cope with the inevitable stress of the PA job?

I'm already looking for a scapegoat. Want a staff position?

Really though, my platform is designed to reduce stress, both of me and of future PAs. Most of my goals are generally short-ranged and I doubt that I will need or want a second term. By using preventative solutions to mitigate the possibility of offenses, most of the stress of the position will come from player complaints. Which, I think I can handle fairly well.

Thanks for stepping up.

Thank you for asking necessary questions.

[FoamBats4All]

In addition to thee above, will you be getting together with the LA so that he may propose changes to the following within the charter:

I don't plan to, no. I would love to work with the LA, standards, and the other members of the administration, but I don't see how those three clauses are in need of changing.

4.1.1 Definitions of Grievances
While guidelines as to what constitutes a grievance will be made available to the community, exact definitions and decisions on individual cases are at the discretion of the appropriate Administrator or Administrators.

While I dislike this rule, as I think it is rather unlawful and open to administrative abuse, there's no need to alter it and I haven't seen it abused. Preventing crimes has nothing to do with changing this clause.

3.4 Recall
A motion to recall an Administrator can be made by any HDM or any of the other Administrators. The motion requires at least 10% of the sum total of HDMs and other Administrators, with a minimum of three persons, including the proposer, to be carried. Vote-eligible Administrator Staff and DMs are not able to propose, or move to carry, a recall motion.
Once a motion for recall has been successfully proposed and carried, a vote, lasting one week, is taken among the voting constituencies eligible to cast ballots in the election of that Administrator. The recall motion is considered to have passed if affirmed by more than 60% of the votes cast.

An Administrator who is recalled must immediately vacate the position.
Any Administrator in breach of the provisions of this Charter immediately and automatically invokes a recall vote against them.

Again, I don't see any need to change this. If anyone is recalled they would be to shuffle some ARs, who are not administrators.

4.1.4 Grievance Authorities and Right of Appeal
Investigations and impositions of formal censure, if any, are the purview of the Administrator with direct oversight of the member against whom the complaint has been lodged. A member may appeal any censure or banning decision to the Lead Administrator between notification of said decision or censure, and either one week after the imposition of a censure or the end of a ban.

Once more, I do not see how this relates, and have no interest in altering this.

[oldgrayrogue]

Thanks for the responses, there was one issue I forgot. Do you believe that players can "farm" RPXP? Would your coded system place limits on how much RPXP could be earned in a given time period?

[FoamBats4All]

Thanks for the responses, there was one issue I forgot. Do you believe that players can "farm" RPXP? Would your coded system place limits on how much RPXP could be earned in a given time period?

Farming RP XP is a rather dangerous notion. Last time I heard it floated there was talk of asking players to log in less. My response then is my response now: If ALFA wants to tell its players to play less, it has some serious issues.

Can someone farm RP XP? Well, sure. They can sit there and RP with yourself. Is that wrong? I honestly don't know. I don't think it's a priority, given that RP XP isn't extremely lucrative. Plenty of other sources of XP to take into considering.

"My system" has a lot of work to be done, to be sure, before it's implemented. I think that Dan and Zelk were discussing a system and pushing it. From what I have heard of it, it would curve RP XP as well. I would need to see more data and statistics before I would be comfortable pushing to curve RP XP -- an incentive and reward we give people for playing.

[Adanu]

My response then is my response now: If ALFA wants to tell its players to play less, it has some serious issues.

Most of what you're saying is fine with me, but I gotta chime in with this one.

The day I get told to log in less because 'I'm farming RP XP' is the day I tell whatever ALFA admin who thought that was a good idea to go away.

[Ronan]

Can someone farm RP XP? Well, sure. They can sit there and RP with yourself. Is that wrong? I honestly don't know. I don't think it's a priority, given that RP XP isn't extremely lucrative. Plenty of other sources of XP to take into considering.

For the players who I'd say are on the "farmy" (as you say, the definition is nebulous) side of things, RP XP is typically > 50% of their lifetime XP total (though I'd not say all >50%ers are farmy). This makes it the single largest source of XP for them, possibly much larger than the next largest source (combat, DM reward and static quest).

The thing about RP XP is that you only need to be active once every 7 minutes to earn a tick. You don't need to be doing anything which requires the player's attention. Even tells set it off. A player can therefore be AFK 90+% of the time and earn RP XP as quickly as someone who is engaged in active conversation, exploration, training, etc.

It is not lucrative over real-time, but it can be extremely lucrative over the amount of time invested if you consider the farmer need not be paying attention to NWN2 very often. If you take a mild example of a typical "semi-AFK" conversation of, say, a player paying attention to NWN2 33% of the time (not true farming, obviously), you get 45 xp per attention-hour invested. I would say this is very significant, approaching the general 70xp per hour of your average DM quest.

It is very common for me to log in to BG with 4 players online, and see each alone in a room. Typically 1 or 2 will be AFK, with the remainder emoting something every so often. Sometimes they emote the same thing over and over. If this was NWN1 ALFA, the DM could set their RP quality to very low or nonexistent, and they would not get much if any RP XP from this behavior.

I don't really bother logging in to groups like that anymore, instead opting for database query giving me their last saved location. If there's no group of 2+, I don't log in unless I have something specific in mind I want to do.

We don't want players' sole source of XP to be combat (that we call farming) or statics (that's stacking, powergaming, whatever), so I do not see why we'd want it possible to be RP XP either.

I would say our current RP XP system is extremely flawed, and often does not even promote the sort of RP it was designed to do. RP (especially in a group) generally demands active attention from the players involved. Our system rewards the same amount of XP even when player attention is lowered drastically. This means farming players are better off in a situation where they don't have to be paying attention to the game: solo, in a safe area. This lets them acquire XP more cheaply in terms of their own attention.

This of course says nothing on the silliness of granting adventuring levels mostly based on tavern RP, though I don't see why general dim-rets couldn't handle the odd case of the barfly-turned-hero well enough.

Do you still not think its a priority? It is true strikes have not (to my knowledge) been handed out for RP XP script abuse, but that does not mean they will not be in the future. I would prefer a system which really promotes RP and has a clearer line between use and abuse.

[FoamBats4All]

Can someone farm RP XP? Well, sure. They can sit there and RP with yourself. Is that wrong? I honestly don't know. I don't think it's a priority, given that RP XP isn't extremely lucrative. Plenty of other sources of XP to take into considering.

-snip-

Do you still not think its a priority? It is true strikes have not (to my knowledge) been handed out for RP XP script abuse, but that does not mean they will not be in the future. I would prefer a system which really promotes RP and has a clearer line between use and abuse.

If no strikes or warnings have been given so far, then I'm not really overly concerned with changes there. RP XP may be able to be farmed or farmable, and it may be a concern down the road, but right now I think there are plenty of issues to work on before RP XP becomes a top priority.

I stand by my previous post in regards to RP XP. I need to see the tables, crunch the numbers, and look at past documentation, rulings, decisions, and punishments before I'd feel comfortable suggesting changes to RP XP. And, there are other issues I'd rather be focusing on.

PA is focused on player monitoring/policing/punishment, and until there have been or (under a new PA) will be new punishments, I don't see the concern in suggesting changes to RP XP.

[Brokenbone]

Hi. If the PA thing doesn't work out, would you volunteer as an AR?