Player application and member recommendations

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:31 pm

Yes, but on the other hand, if the penalty is too light, we could end up with less than stellar players, which is a concern for many, me included.

Zelknolf · Post by **Zelknolf** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:44 pm

zicada wrote:Yes, but on the other hand, if the penalty is too light, we could end up with less than stellar players, which is a concern for many, me included.

But if we provide too strong a barrier to new players, we won't have any; which is a concern for many, me included.

That and, c'mon. How many people were really good roleplayers when they joined ALFA? I'd say that most of our really good ones learned their tricks from other people trying to be good role players. A focus on "good enough" instead of "stellar" seems a much more realistic approach.

//edited for typo. *kicks keyboards*

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:45 pm

But if we provide too strong a barrier to new players, we won't have any; which is a concern for many, me include.

Hence the balance thing

danielmn · Post by **danielmn** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:48 pm

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... .php?f=237

If your going to trust a players rec to stand alone for admittance, be sure the recommended fits the criteria the community wants. Otherwise, go for it if it's what is needed or wanted. Suppose it will be up to the allready thin dm population to keep tabs on if they are doing okay or not.
Hope they enjoy being police too!

Thangorn · Post by **Thangorn** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:50 pm

Why not just have a "referrals" week, fortnight, month, tenday..? That way we can push for people to invite their mates during that period, get a quick injection of players and then test how well the process worked..

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:50 pm

hat and, c'mon. How many people were really good roleplayers when they joined ALFA?

Talking for myself I was fucking horrid. Totally incapable and completely clueless. I had zero FR lore knowledge, and basically just mimicked the others until i got the hang of it.

It actually amuses me that 90% of the applications we get go "ive been playing pnp for 20 years"

We either target a very specific demographic, or they're big fat liars

Anyway, the current things we ARE doing to increase player numbers:

- More cooperation with Nwconnections
- New website
- Much better indexing with all the search engines with said websites

If we add this invite system aswell, AND use some clever "tactics" to get ourselves onto the frontpage of various nwn portals,- we're atleast TRYING.

None of the current admin are afraid of new things as far as I can tell. Personally Im all for testing out ideas live, BAM, and if they work they work, if they dont they dont. Either way its not THAT much worse than status quo right..

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:53 pm

danielmn wrote:http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... .php?f=237

Thanks for giving a practical point of exactly why im against 6 month admin periods. This is what happens:

Person becomes admin
Person spends forever getting into the most pressing issues
Person gets sick of nagging
Person gets back, starts doing actual work
Person gets halfway, blocked by beurocracy or 'being sick of it'
Persons term is over

Rince

Repeat

Zelknolf · Post by **Zelknolf** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:53 pm

zicada wrote:
But if we provide too strong a barrier to new players, we won't have any; which is a concern for many, me include.
Hence the balance thing

Well, then I'm with Nalo. Ban is too much, especially if our reccomenders have jobs in ALFA, and I'll bet the people who are interested in contributing to ALFA are interested in getting their friends to play, too (I know I am, and that I've at least one fellow I'd drag in.). If an HDM, Admin, or a staffer makes a bad reccomendation (they're human, after all), a chunk of ALFA loses its leadership for 2 weeks?

That'd be pretty fail, imho, and it'd be a crappy thing to put in different punishments for bad reccomendations for people with positions. Imma point to my "If you can't use the power to reccomend well, you can't have that power until you've had time to think about it." reccomendation again. *nodnod*

Ksiel · Post by **Ksiel** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:54 pm

I think the worry of getting low to average RPers is too big of a concern. I look at it like this.

Lets say you join a soccer team, where you just an average player, however, everyone else was a great player. You play and practice with this team. It would not take long and your game would improve, you would learn from these others, pick up their tricks of the trade so to speak.

This is what we have here in ALFA. As a whole we have superb roleplayers. If we were to bring in an average RPer, it would not be long before they improve or no one will play with them which is no fun and they go to greener pastures.

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:56 pm

Zelknolf wrote:
zicada wrote:
But if we provide too strong a barrier to new players, we won't have any; which is a concern for many, me include.
Hence the balance thing
Well, then I'm with Nalo. Ban is too much, especially if our reccomenders have jobs in ALFA, and I'll bet the people who are interested in contributing to ALFA are interested in getting their friends to play, too (I know I am, and that I've at least one fellow I'd drag in.). If an HDM, Admin, or a staffer makes a bad reccomendation (they're human, after all), a chunk of ALFA loses its leadership for 2 weeks?

That'd be pretty fail, imho, and it'd be a crappy thing to put in different punishments for bad reccomendations for people with positions. Imma point to my "If you can't use the power to reccomend well, you can't have that power until you've had time to think about it." reccomendation again. *nodnod*

My point was to point out the extremes. Then we find middle ground as a group, and agree...

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:58 pm

Ksiel wrote:I think the worry of getting low to average RPers is too big of a concern. I look at it like this.

Lets say you join a soccer team, where you just an average player, however, everyone else was a great player. You play and practice with this team. It would not take long and your game would improve, you would learn from these others, pick up their tricks of the trade so to speak.

This is what we have here in ALFA. As a whole we have superb roleplayers. If we were to bring in an average RPer, it would not be long before they improve or no one will play with them which is no fun and they go to greener pastures.

Exactly.

BUT

I remember, from back when i actually played the game, or DM'd, that i was pretty diehard against anything that would mean lower quality players, and pretty pissed off at 'making things easier just to get more players' So I guess i understand both points of the argument based on experience.

This was back when we had 15 live servers and ALOT of players though. We don't now, at all.

Thats why i'd like to find some sort of middle ground that everyone can agree on.

My point all along has been that ALFA changed from back then. ALOT. We need to get to grips with it, and do the best thing. So yeah, I guess I would also risk a little quality in terms of quantity at this point.

Zelknolf · Post by **Zelknolf** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:01 pm

zicada wrote:My point was to point out the extremes. Then we find middle ground as a group, and agree...

You wrote a post on a message board with a rhetorical purpose? Isn't that... like... bannable or something?

But you've revealed the banstick as a strawman, so what's the 'moderate idea' (read: actual suggestion) to come?

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:11 pm

Zelknolf wrote:
zicada wrote:My point was to point out the extremes. Then we find middle ground as a group, and agree...
You wrote a post on a message board with a rhetorical purpose? Isn't that... like... bannable or something?

But you've revealed the banstick as a strawman, so what's the 'moderate idea' (read: actual suggestion) to come?

Thats this threads purpose to reveal.

Zelknolf · Post by **Zelknolf** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:21 pm

Ah, then I would suggest that "no punishment" would be the opposing extreme. A strawman'd overkill to try to make actual suggestions seem lax and to make a more severe punishment seem moderate is no good; if the community wants a severe punishment, I'm fine with that, but we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we're not taking an honest look at what we're doing.

zicada · Post by **zicada** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:26 pm

Zelknolf wrote:Ah, then I would suggest that "no punishment" would be the opposing extreme. A strawman'd overkill to try to make actual suggestions seem lax and to make a more severe punishment seem moderate is no good; if the community wants a severe punishment, I'm fine with that, but we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we're not taking an honest look at what we're doing.

Exactly

If we want to allow people to invite friends;

left right
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no punishment | harsh punishment
what we might want

Yes ?