Omni-Tek Affiliate Meetings - A Re-Thinking

[trousers]

While there are a lot of problems with the OAM (or even the CoT, NLCC, etc) I feel that as the players we often fail to clearly see the line between feasible and wishful thinking when it comes to what we would like ARK Events to do.

Because of this I am going to address this Re-Thinking strictly in terms of Player and ARK Effort. This means only changes to Level of Effort and Policy. No special items, no special playfield, etc. While I believe the RP Community does need special items, and new or modified playfield, these requirement Development Time which for the purpose of this document we’ll assume is not possible to obtain at this time.

The First Big Problem: Attendance

This is by far the largest problem because it is impacted by many other problems. The result of each of the smaller problems compounds to create this issue, so, by addressing the smaller issues you will, in time, be able to reverse the negative population growth in these legacy meetings.

Sub-Problem 1: Things to do

I can’t speak for right this moment, but historically speak there have always been a low number of tasks compared to the number of meetings held and the number of people attending. I think the solution comes from Tasking the ARKs with having to come up with something to be done every month. These tasks can follow criteria similar to this:

• If you control a Legacy Leader you must come up with at least 1 task per month.
• If you control more than one Legacy leader you are not required to come up with more than one.
• If the task is for a particular department it will be offered to the affiliate(s) of that department.
• If no affiliates exist for the department the task was created for it will go into a Hopper.
• If a task is in the hopper it will be offered to the affiliates of the intended department if one is available, if none are, one or more task(s) from the hopper can be removed and offered as General Assignments to anyone in attendance.

With time, a surplus of tasks may build up and ensure that there is always something to do. These tasks do not need to be long, drawn out assignments which require significant ARK commitment but will provide players with more of an experience then simply staring at the Legacy Leaders who have no reason to be there.

Sub-Problem 2: Rewards

Very rarely in the past have Roleplayers received anything in exchange for our time beyond self gratification, and that often is a rare treat. Players who complete overly complicated tasks and get rewarded with a pat on the back may feel less inclined to commit themselves to such tasks in the future since the Effort vs. Reward pales when compared to other activities such as PvE or PvP.

With a proper rewards system in place players may be happy to complete things that may have been deemed menial in the past such as collecting items, gathering intelligence or even standing guard. According to Pheats ARKs can Issue:

• Some Items
• Some Credits
• Some Tokens

While they cannot issue:

• Experience points
• Victory Points
• Titles

While I do not know if the limitation on issuing things is a mechanical limitation or a policy limitation, but I will assume it is a policy limitation. If this is the case, I believe Kintaii should ease the restrictions on how players can be rewarded assuming the rewards are issued based on a set Metric. Use of a Metric will ensure fair distribution of rewards and allow ARK to easily discount claims of favoritism.

Suggested Metric:

• If the player is receiving disciplinary action all rewards are foregone for the month.
• If the player attends the meeting and does not contribute in a meaningful way they will receive the attendance reward.
• If the player attends the meeting and contributes in a meaningful way they will receive the participation reward.
• If the player attends the meeting and completes a special assignment they will receive the participation reward plus any items that were approved for disbursement at completion.

Suggested Rewards:

• Disciplinary Reward: http://xyphos.com/ao/aodb.php?id=268740
• Attendance Reward: http://xyphos.com/ao/aodb.php?id=152932
• Participation Reward: http://xyphos.com/ao/aodb.php?id=285612 + Credits
• Special Assignment Reward: http://xyphos.com/ao/aodb.php?id=285612 + Credits + Any Special Items

In my Opinion, this will ensure fair and equal rewards, scaled to the player’s level. This will make even the most menial of tasks have a fairly nice reward and may encourage outside the OAM Events run by the players which will result in Inbound Reports to the Directors which will provoke additional RP opportunities for all.

Sub-Problem 3: What’s RP?

This is a universal problem which has an impact on the OAM and every other element of RP; People simply do not know where’re here or what we do. The simple solution is to pound the pavement and make a solid effort to raise awareness.

I have two suggestions (formulated by a post I believe I read by UKBlizzard).

1. Hold a series of OOC Events in popular places where members of the Events Team can come and talk to players about RP. Think of it like a more spontaneous ARK Expo but just for the Events Team. You can do them on the fly, or schedule Gridstream Productions to DJ and help promote them, but get the team out in an OOC capacity to engage the playerbase and let them know what they’re missing. Coordination between the existing RP Playerbase and the ARK Events team will be vital since crowds inherently draw people in.
   
2. Hold In-Character parties. This can be accomplished by staying an OAM one month and instead having an Employee Appreciation Party. The Legacy Leaders could gather in Baboons or the Rompa Bar and engage the players in-character while being (forced) to be friendly and outgoing to everyone. Zone announcements can be made in All Omni-1 and Omni-3 zones so that people who are unaware it’s happening will have a reason to go and check it out.

Sub-Problem 4: The Wow Factor
This will be a summary of http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=573854.

When people go to the meetings you may want to wow them before, during and after the meeting visually. Currently only the inside of two rooms of the meeting room get NPCs spawned for the meetings and it comes off drab and boring.

If the meetings are moved to a playfield which ARK Events can decorate to their hearts content you may be able to attract and hold the interest of more new roleplayers. Much like new players to Anarchy-Online get turned off by the Graphics on the ICC Shuttleport, new Roleplayers may see bland environments as a lack of caring and be turned off.

Shifting the OAM gathering spot should be a simple policy shift which may greatly improve the meetings as a whole.

The Second Big Problem: Structure

Taken from another post of mine:

Every Omni-Tek Affiliate needs to have their affiliation stripped.

Drastic, yes. But I feel it puts a swift and abrupt end to an issue that is rampant on Rimor; people acting dumb.

Over the past several months we have had players who get their affiliation and immediately begin acting like they are the Director of the department they are affiliated to. Just to curtail any attack on how Trousers acts, the Omni-Trans Organization has been around since February of 2004, before the OAM were ever known about.

The process of sending an E-mail and wielding supreme executive authority needs to be broken and reestablished. To do this, I propose the following:

1) All Affiliates have their Affiliation revoked and are given “Loyal” Status. Loyal Employees are permitted to attend the Board Meetings, but are forbidden to act on behalf of a Legacy Department.

2) General Assignments may be completed by Loyal and Affiliated Players. As players complete assignments, or an acceptable amount of time has passed, the Legacy LTC’s may approach a Player if they: a) feel the player would contribute to their department. Or, b) have been previously been approached about joining that department.

3) The Legacy LTC Should at that point interview with the player. The Interview should consist of a brief overview of what the Department does and what the department’s limits are (Currently not done.) Following the summary the player should be asked a couple departmental situational questions to make sure they even grasp what a member of that department should do. If they Pass they become Affiliates.

Three fairly easy steps to introduce education into the system. The CoT may not need education because they are based solely off ideals, but the Corporation is structured and employee behavior and expectations should not entirely be left up to the player to dictate.

[Pheats]

Ok, a quick reply to some of the suggestions.

First the things to do, we do try to give players something to do when we can, be it a small task or a chance to participate in a story, however we do not really have the time to come up with something every month and especially not for every department.

We'll happily take suggestions of tasks players would like (email them to us!) and we can work off them as a base but we will not always be able to set up a task.

On this subject though, there are a few other points I'd like to make, firstly the OAM is not a mission booth, it is not here to give you missions and tasks, its here for you to report your own creations to the directors as much as anything else. The tasks are ideally a secondary thing.

That takes me onto a second point I'd like to bring up, player contribution, as stated the OAM is here for you to give your reports and information to the directors, if your doing something that is in character then reporting it to the directors can let them interact with you in a way that could end up with tasks being set, however if you just come and sit in front of them for an hour they don't really have anything they can do with you.

Roleplaying is a 2-way thing, if one side doesn't take an active part nothing will really be able to happen, sure you might get sent to run around somewhere or shoot something but unless you bring something to the table that's all that will really be able to be done.

Second thing, rewards, this is something we will be looking into when we can (not just for OAM or other meetings either) but for now we only have what we have and how appropriate things are limits things further.

Location, Im not sure what exactly is wrong with the locations at the moment, the meeting rooms appropriate and while yes not every room is filled, not every room is used either, and it would be a lot of wasted work setting something up that no one will ever see.

As for where to meet, outside the admin building is generally an appropriate place and accessible place, the fact that its pvp enabled could be a problem, however the guards their are strong enough to deter many, couple that with it being out of the way then the worst that would really happen is Rosuma vents some anger on some scruffy clan without a clue.

[Nadab]

Last month's meeting (Atlantean) was a great example of utilizing other rooms in Admin. CEO Zora saw that the turn out was low, and we moved to the smaller conference room and was able to talk in /v. Thanks, that was a nice change.

You guys in Events are doing a great job, considering the time you have available, 2 dimensions to handle and the *gazillion* strings being pulled for your attention. Keep up the good work.

*passes out warm fuzzies to all*

[trousers]

Pheats,

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that you fully read the post or took the time to understand it. Before I make my counter-points I would suggest that you re-read everything.

First the things to do, we do try to give players something to do when we can, be it a small task or a chance to participate in a story, however we do not really have the time to come up with something every month and especially not for every department.

I understand this, and that is why I didn’t suggest that you do. Please Re-Read my position of OAM tasks.

We'll happily take suggestions of tasks players would like (email them to us!) and we can work off them as a base but we will not always be able to set up a task.

As long as you do not cite lack of suggestions as an excuse to not come up with any on your end.

On this subject though, there are a few other points I'd like to make, firstly the OAM is not a mission booth, it is not here to give you missions and tasks, its here for you to report your own creations to the directors as much as anything else. The tasks are ideally a secondary thing.

As I stated in the other thread, the issue I see us having at the moment is that there is a stalemate between ARK wanting to come up with tasks because of low player attendance and player attendance being low because there is a feeling that there is no reason to attend.

I would also like to point out that you are in a very slippery slope here. You say that this is a sounding board for our player stories but on several occasions you will simply put the Kibosh on player stories or refuse to participate in them. You have done this as recently as two days ago. If the playerbase gets the impression that you won’t play nicely with their ideas, and you don’t have ideas of your own, it brings the whole of the Legacy Meetings into question. I don’t think we’re there yet, and I hope we don’t get there, but I am pointing out you’re putting yourselves on a path to get there sooner than later.

That takes me onto a second point I'd like to bring up, player contribution, as stated the OAM is here for you to give your reports and information to the directors, if your doing something that is in character then reporting it to the directors can let them interact with you in a way that could end up with tasks being set, however if you just come and sit in front of them for an hour they don't really have anything they can do with you.

Again, see my stalemate and slippery slope statement.

Roleplaying is a 2-way thing, if one side doesn't take an active part nothing will really be able to happen, sure you might get sent to run around somewhere or shoot something but unless you bring something to the table that's all that will really be able to be done.

The issue, as I see it, is that both sides are not taking an active part. This is why I asked to talk to you so that we can remedy this.

Second thing, rewards, this is something we will be looking into when we can (not just for OAM or other meetings either) but for now we only have what we have and how appropriate things are limits things further.

Rewards of all kinds is a major problem for the RP community. Your stance on this should be that this is a top priority, not something you will look into when you get around to it.

Location, Im not sure what exactly is wrong with the locations at the moment, the meeting rooms appropriate and while yes not every room is filled, not every room is used either, and it would be a lot of wasted work setting something up that no one will ever see.

You’re probably not sure what is wrong because I didn’t bring this up. There’s nothing wrong with the interior playfield, that is why I omitted it from my post.

As for where to meet, outside the admin building is generally an appropriate place and accessible place, the fact that its pvp enabled could be a problem, however the guards their are strong enough to deter many, couple that with it being out of the way then the worst that would really happen is Rosuma vents some anger on some scruffy clan without a clue.

I think you completely missed the point of my suggestion on moving the location. I would recommend that you re-read the post, the Pros and the Cons, and then come back here.

[Pheats]

Ok, you suggest each legacy player comes up with 1 event per month, that would equate to 1 task per month per department, as we tend to only have 1 legacy per ark per faction.

Add to the fact that tasks generally are not and cannot be set up by just 1 ark means that it ends up spreading among the team resulting in lots of work on lots of separate tasks. If then you take into account that a lot of these will be going in the "hopper" as it were, that's a lot of work that isn't getting used that could have been used somewhere else (like working on other points you bring up) and then next month we'd be working on new ones some of which would go into the hopper again, though some of the ones set aside may get used they may not as not all tasks would be changeable to a general task for any department either.

So even if a surplus builds up we'd still have to be coming up with new things each month to ensure that there's always something that will be possible to use rather than just hoping something will work out.

As for the player contribution/legacy interaction, there is a difference between us stepping away from a storyline that's got out of hand that has already had to be intervened upon request multiple times and legacy actually discussing things in a conversation. Not to mention we always have something going its just getting people to interact with us, this isn't just meeting-wise either, many storylines have had to be drastically altered simply because the intended audience simply did not interact instead waiting for us to give them the story in full.

As for rewards, no they are not top priority, rewards never have been and never will be top priority, not when we have things like working on the storyline and our storys and getting other events out their, add to the fact that a large portion (dare I say the majority) of roleplayers I've talked to have said that rewards are nice but not what bring them to things makes me believe it probably isn't warranting a top priority status.

Thats not to say were going to leave it for years and never get round to sorting them out, as rewards are nice and it nice for us to hand out nice things to those that work with us to come up with some nice events, but it also doesn't mean I'm going to fly over to funcom, barge into the offices and demand to see kintaii and means to sort them out.

What it does mean is that we will be working on this when both the ARK events members and Kintaii have time to have proper discussions and work out a good system.

Trust me I've tried sorting this out when we don't have time to properly discuss things, nothing ends up happening and things get worse because it ends up being wasted time.

And as for the location, I see your points however I still believe Omni-hq is the more appropriate choice for the following reasons:

-It really is quite easy for anyone to get to, it has grid access and only a short walk from some of the key Omni-tek zones.

-Its one of the most heavily defending Omni-Tek controlled area's with compliments of some of the strongest Omni-Tek NPC guards in the game (I've checked!)

-It is representative of the corporation, Omni-Tek is all about the profits rather than comfort it goes well with the cramped overly built up area's that is their presence on Rubi-Ka

-It fits, it is the Rubi-Ka corporate headquarters where most if not all the directors will have an office and is one of most central points of Omni-Tek where reinforcements are easily deployed should it require.

The only problem I'd really consider is the 25% gas, but even that fits to a point, Omni-Tek wouldn't be able to go attack the CoT or NLCC due to ICC sanctions but the clans do not have such constraints.

if you compare that to somewhere like the Omni-Mining HQ in clon**** that may have a grid point but is far out the way should someone not be able to grid there, security is not as elite, and isn't really appropriate for many directors to visit (why would the director of omni-med for example travel out to a mining HQ rather than the corporate HQ right by their point of work).

I mean its a good suggestion but it doesn't, at least in my eyes, fit as well as Omni-HQ does.

[Gimpeline]

...
As for rewards, no they are not top priority, rewards never have been and never will be top priority, not when we have things like working on the storyline and our storys and getting other events out their, add to the fact that a large portion (dare I say the majority) of roleplayers I've talked to have said that rewards are nice but not what bring them to things makes me believe it probably isn't warranting a top priority status.
....

Yup. This is something we do for fun. It is not a job.
Rp i itself is a reward.
I'm sorry, but this sugestion would make rp more a job than fun just to keep my "loyal" status. I have a job as I am sure the arks who are volenters do aswell. I don't need another one. RP is intended to be fun, not work

[Gunfytr]

Yup. This is something we do for fun. It is not a job.
Rp i itself is a reward.
I'm sorry, but this sugestion would make rp more a job than fun just to keep my "loyal" status. I have a job as I am sure the arks who are volenters do aswell. I don't need another one. RP is intended to be fun, not work

ill bump this.

[trousers]

Yup. This is something we do for fun. It is not a job.
Rp i itself is a reward.
I'm sorry, but this sugestion would make rp more a job than fun just to keep my "loyal" status. I have a job as I am sure the arks who are volenters do aswell. I don't need another one. RP is intended to be fun, not work

How exactly would this make RP more of a Job for you?

If Sergeyich asks you to do a task, and you can't be arsed to do something for the Directors, don't go, or simply decline the task and let someone else do it.

If you have some other profound insight into this please share.

[Xeenah]

*turns page*

[trousers]

Ok, you suggest each legacy player comes up with 1 event per month, that would equate to 1 task per month per department, as we tend to only have 1 legacy per ark per faction.

To a degree, that's correct. If an ARK players 2 Omni-Tek Legacy Leaders, a Neutral Legacy Leader and 2 Clan Legacy Leaders they'll need to come up with 1 task per month, not 1 per legacy, 1 per month. I personally don't feel that's a very high bar to set. I'll continue...

Add to the fact that tasks generally are not and cannot be set up by just 1 ark means that it ends up spreading among the team resulting in lots of work on lots of separate tasks. If then you take into account that a lot of these will be going in the "hopper" as it were, that's a lot of work that isn't getting used that could have been used somewhere else (like working on other points you bring up) and then next month we'd be working on new ones some of which would go into the hopper again, though some of the ones set aside may get used they may not as not all tasks would be changeable to a general task for any department either.

Tasking an Omni-Mine Affiliate to gather Notum Nuggets to augment a shipment, or an Omni-R&D affiliate to gather a bag of specific Instruction Disks hardly would require multiple ARKs to setup. If it does, I believe you have another policy issue. If you re-read my suggestion on coming up with Taks you'll see that I mention all Tasks do not need to be on an epic scale, however, the reward for doing such minor tasks needs to be worth the effort as I have mentioned already.

So even if a surplus builds up we'd still have to be coming up with new things each month to ensure that there's always something that will be possible to use rather than just hoping something will work out.

You can set it up in such a way that if the hopper has a specific number of pending tasks then the ARK is relieved of needing to come up with more. This could also allow an ARK to spend 1 day and bang out a number of tasks to keep them up to date for months to come. Again, these are suggestions, not dictations, so there's no need to approach this as if it's set in stone.

As for the player contribution/legacy interaction, there is a difference between us stepping away from a storyline that's got out of hand that has already had to be intervened upon request multiple times and legacy actually discussing things in a conversation. Not to mention we always have something going its just getting people to interact with us, this isn't just meeting-wise either, many storylines have had to be drastically altered simply because the intended audience simply did not interact instead waiting for us to give them the story in full.

Perhaps you can give us a few examples of when this has occurred?

I can't speak for RK1, but I know on RK2 we itch for interaction. We have mechanisms setup just to alert us when there is an opportunity to interact with you. My Opinion on this is that there may just be a problem with communication and timing here.

For example: Omni-Pol is supposed to be patrolling Omni-Trade right now looking for smugglers. We don't know when you're planning on actually logging smugglers on. If we were to go and randomly patrol the Trade District it takes more then 1 hour to /walk the entire district if we wanted to seriously RP the patrol. After doing this patrol more then once a player may begin to lose interest in attempting it. Then, you randomly log your smugglers on and no one is patrolling because no one wants to be bothered with it.

Now, you could point the finger at the players and call us lazy. We could point the finger at you and say your implementation of the good idea is God awful. But honestly this doesn't help anyone.

In the above example you have two interested parties that simply never connect. If you communicate your intent in advance such as 'We believe there may be smuggling activity in the district on such dates at such times” and allow the players to check it out and let them see if anything is actually going on, or have an ARK communicate to the player(s) telling them it's go time, you may find you have better results.

Mind you, the above is based on my own experiences. And, don't forget that you often orphan players in storylines as well. I spoke to Cylie last night on this particular topic and she actually began to get mad at the way you have abandoned her on numerous occasions in the past.

As for rewards, no they are not top priority, rewards never have been and never will be top priority, not when we have things like working on the storyline and our storys and getting other events out their, add to the fact that a large portion (dare I say the majority) of roleplayers I've talked to have said that rewards are nice but not what bring them to things makes me believe it probably isn't warranting a top priority status.

I don't deny that the vast majority of people you spoke to have said that rewards don't matter. Simply look at some of the replies to this thread, and I fall into this category as well. So allow me state very clearly.

I do not feel that Rewards are required for Roleplaying.

However, I will say that it would be in your best interests to get a handle on this topic. The people you spoke to (which did not include me, I'd like to point out) are likely members of the hardcore RP community. Them, like I, RP because we enjoy doing so, but we are a vast minority of the players.

Look at the OAM. I was there at its inception and I was there a few months ago and the difference in population is depressing. When the OAM started it was fresh, it was new, and everyone who had an interest in RP attended.

However, over time players began to realize there was no incentive to spending hours at these meetings to accomplish nothing. Because of this the attendance started to cook off until you were left with only the hardcore RP community. If you wish to cater only to this minority demographic that's your prerogative. But if you want to truly reach out and include more of the playerbase you need to fix and start rewarding effort just as PvE and PvP does.

And as for the location, I see your points however I still believe Omni-hq is the more appropriate choice for the following reasons:

-It really is quite easy for anyone to get to, it has grid access and only a short walk from some of the key Omni-tek zones.

Clon**** is also easy to get to. At the minimum level of 50 to attend the OAM a Solitus will have 222 Computer Literacy and be able to activate the Clon**** Grid Terminal just as easy as they could the Omni-1 HQ Terminal.

-Its one of the most heavily defending Omni-Tek controlled area's with compliments of some of the strongest Omni-Tek NPC guards in the game (I've checked!)

The Strength of the guards is not the point I was trying to make. In Clon**** you have ample space to spawn Omni-AF troopers, Unicorn Specialist, Juggernauts and the like to really wow the players as they approach and wait for the meeting. You can't really do this in HQ because of Limited space and the Pandemonium Dropoff.

-It is representative of the corporation, Omni-Tek is all about the profits rather than comfort it goes well with the cramped overly built up area's that is their presence on Rubi-Ka

Nothing is more representative of the corporation then Clon****. They have the First Notum Drill and the First Notum mined which is the root of everything that allowed Rubi-Ka to be.

-It fits, it is the Rubi-Ka corporate headquarters where most if not all the directors will have an office and is one of most central points of Omni-Tek where reinforcements are easily deployed should it require.

The only problem I'd really consider is the 25% gas, but even that fits to a point, Omni-Tek wouldn't be able to go attack the CoT or NLCC due to ICC sanctions but the clans do not have such constraints.

I've agreed that it makes a lot of sense to have it in Omni-1 HQ, however, I feel the advantages of moving it out into a more open, brighter and safer playfield outweigh the 'feel' of having it in HQ. Since you're always looking for reasons to explain things away, you can say “It's a security risk to have so many directors in one room in such a high profile part of the city.”

if you compare that to somewhere like the Omni-Mining HQ in clon**** that may have a grid point but is far out the way should someone not be able to grid there, security is not as elite, and isn't really appropriate for many directors to visit (why would the director of omni-med for example travel out to a mining HQ rather than the corporate HQ right by their point of work).

I mean its a good suggestion but it doesn't, at least in my eyes, fit as well as Omni-HQ does.

For the same Reason the Omni-Mine Director, Omni-Trans Director, Omni-Pol Director would have to travel to HQ now; It's where the meeting is. It doesn't require a more in depth explanation then that.

[Effrit]

I would say personally, having the OAM/BoD within Omni-HQ makes absolute sense for the reasons Pheats has stated.
Omni-Tek is supposed to be the profit driven hyper corporation, employee comfort doesnt really come into their ideals all the time. Omni-HQ over shadows and awes those attending. All the tall buildings close together all the security. If you walk there from Ent, theres what looks like a security check point before the zone.
It is a display of corporate power, which you dont get at Omni-Mining HQ.
Also spawning and despawning a bunch of guards would just be an added chore.
Having the gas at 25% may seem like a problem. But the playfield is usually dead, with people running straight for the grid upon zoning from pande.
What your suggesting sounds like alot of extra work for ARK which probably wouldnt do alot to benefit the turn out at these meetings or RP on a whole.

The possible largest problem with such meetings is that theyre difficult to find out about.
If there were posters added to the billboards advertising them, location and time there might be a higher turn out.
At the moment it takes someone to dig around to find out about such meetings or to hear from word of mouth.
If anything there needs to be work on communication and announcements of whats going on Which Events is doing alot better at now, with announcements across playfields by tannoy systems for example.

RP itself is the reward, the self satisfation you get from it. I dont mean to be elitist but if people require a physical/digital/pixel reward to get a buzz, maybe RP isnt for them.
Secondly you would get people soley turning up for the reward, who may get bored and destroy what ARK and others have worked to create.

[Nashedra]

I can't speak for RK1, but I know on RK2 we itch for interaction. We have mechanisms setup just to alert us when there is an opportunity to interact with you. My Opinion on this is that there may just be a problem with communication and timing here.

For example: Omni-Pol is supposed to be patrolling Omni-Trade right now looking for smugglers. We don't know when you're planning on actually logging smugglers on. If we were to go and randomly patrol the Trade District it takes more then 1 hour to /walk the entire district if we wanted to seriously RP the patrol. After doing this patrol more then once a player may begin to lose interest in attempting it. Then, you randomly log your smugglers on and no one is patrolling because no one wants to be bothered with it.

Now, you could point the finger at the players and call us lazy. We could point the finger at you and say your implementation of the good idea is God awful. But honestly this doesn't help anyone.

In the above example you have two interested parties that simply never connect. If you communicate your intent in advance such as 'We believe there may be smuggling activity in the district on such dates at such times” and allow the players to check it out and let them see if anything is actually going on, or have an ARK communicate to the player(s) telling them it's go time, you may find you have better results.

Mind you, the above is based on my own experiences. And, don't forget that you often orphan players in storylines as well. I spoke to Cylie last night on this particular topic and she actually began to get mad at the way you have abandoned her on numerous occasions in the past.

I'd like to refer to just this fragment. The systems you have in place to notify about an event are awesome. We also have several ways of notifyling you guys that we can use. In most cases we try to use as many ways of getting the word out there as we can (we use IRRK bot, notify people during meetings, notify channels, sometimes even send tells.) However, this does not always seem to work. The affiliates don't show or the high level strike force we were expecting turns out to be just a couple of players. The same problems happen on our side too. Most of the time we have very limited resources we try to utilise as best as we can. It's not like it's a total disaster though and I hope that at least some of you enjoy the storylines that are being run.

My apologies to everyone who feels dissapointed that a storyline was discontinued. Whenever a story is closed it was my decision (for the last year and a half or so.) It's a very, very hard one. I hate leaving a good story in limbo, but sometimes we just don't have the resources to continue them. We do try to keep them in at least some way alive, as much as is possible.

Lastly, I'd like to mention that at least two of the storylines listed in this forum are not constructed to be a group of LTCs versus players. Players can join any side they want. They can be helping smuggling notum, or they can be trying to bring the smugglers down. They can be members of the Underground or they can be trying to catch the dissenters. Or both. For example, we have Underground cells on both dimensions consisting of players.

So if someone is patrolling be mindful the smuggler may be another player. If you're smuggling notum, keep in mind a player may be out there with the task of catching you.

[trousers]

So, it's been two years.

How has the growth of the OAM been without the implementation of the above ideas?

[Agentcora]

I've not made it to one for a while now, last time i did however it was only me plus ARK for the last few meetings.

I kind of miss them