Tw Staff Is The Worst Staff:(

[Rudy]

Hence pubbots

[Jones]

not shooting anyone in elim falls into the same category as refusing to fight

[Richard Creager]

The same thing applies to the argument about the arenas being too small. The only arenas where this is a real negative are the pure pubs. Increasing arena sizes might give more people a chance to play in pure pubs, but the effects on regular pubs are at best negligible, and at worst, will make their problems larger. If the ultimate goal is for all pubs to be like the pure pubs, then increasing arenas sizes to let people play is an unnecessary step in that evolution (that is, if all pubs were like pure pubs, there won't be as short a supply to meet demand). A better approach would be to reduce the number of speccers. Another complaint Creager brought up was that there are too many javs (and thus too many TKs). But if arena sizes were raised then the number of teamkilling javs will go up as well. The jav problem needs to be addressed first before we even consider raising arena sizes.

Yeah, its a broke ass ship, and there's no way to fix this in the pub since it is public, though If you ask me I say fuck it and limit javs, usage pid, a name db, whatever you like. Though I have never seen the shipchanging from the bots when I have played. So I don't know how well that works. It never seems to work correct in pub 0 in spite of my cheater calls
The ultimate goal is to have a pure pub open 24/7.

[Kolar]

How long have you been playing? Seriously? And Kolar, this is not a personal issue for me. For once I'm not banned. Congratulate me.

Why am I so upset? I think Creager has a pretty good idea. He's been around long enough to remember how things used to be. This zone used to be fun. Without looking back at his post, but trying to remember some things I agree with, here is my list of things that are really fucked up:

1. <ZH> Staffers: They use RoboHelp like it's useful. Guess what: It's not useful at all. Here's an idea: Go the fucking arena and help the player with the question. Stop being lazy asses using !tell, and actually pm the player. Don't give me this "we get so many calls, RoboHelp eases the load" bullshit either. If you'd actually answer half the questions that come in you wouldn't have this load.

Which brings me to Part B of Section 1: Answer the questions! Don't just sit there. Sure, a lot of newbs don't know what's going on, but people like me are not fucking stupid. If you don't know the answer, PM the player with "I don't know, but I'll try to find out for you." If you're playing elim, say "I'm playing elim, let me get with you in a couple of minutes." We know you like to play too, but if you ignore us, that doesn't make us go away.

2. The Weasel: Do I really need to talk about this? The weasel is a catastrophe. Sure, any newb can get in base now, but that's not the way it's supposed to be. What fun is it if anyone can walk into this game from anywhere and ruin your time? Make the newb practice. Cloaking and sneaking in a tiny hole doesn't make anyone good, it only pisses off people who like to base... which is part of why I don't pub. Return the weasel to the way it was in 2001. It wasn't broke... you should have never fixed it.

3. Enforcing pointless rules: Ex: Sir>Elim_Killer's complaint about being warned in elim. Seriously, if he was the last person in, and he was drawing the game out by running, then I'll be the first to say spec him. But not shooting? Who is he hurting? Ratings don't even use average kill any more like they used to. He's not even dragging ratings down. What is he doing? He's having fun. Period. He likes to do something you don't understand. Let it be. Why should be be so eager to ban someone for such a petty offence? If you really want to flex your internet muscles, spec him. That's all that's called for. Anything more is cruel and unusual.

4. I'm already bored with this... but there are many more. I shall write more another day.

And Troll King, the reason I specifically mentioned Kolar is because every one of his "responses" is something along the lines of "you don't know what it's like to be staff. We're doing a great job!" Well seriously, I'm tired of that. Pretending there's not a problem doesn't make it go away either. It's time for suggestions, not defenses. The problems are obvious to everyone who has been playing this zone since back when it was fun.

In closing, you wanted to know what's wrong. I told you what I have problems with, and I submitted what I believe to be very reasonable solutions to a couple of these problems. And I explained my problem with Kolar's responses. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear in my eariler post. Hopefully this will fully address the way I feel.

1. You hardly see anything that staff does. I think it's unfair to say ZHs are not answering the calls, from what I've seen they do answer almost all of them, the odd call at 3 AM probably will have less of a chance of being anwered though but now with Mantra as the second dean we can assume more Euros will get ZH. RoboHelp does send out messages and take calls but most ZHs check the bot to see what it sent to make sure they got the right answer. At all times the Bot will tell the person they can message the staffer if they need more help, But I agree, people are too stupid to understand it so a change for auto-responces would be nice. It still is useful, the bot has a lot of information so used in conjunction with PMing the player I think RoBoHelp is useful.


2. Sir Elim whatever shouldn't be complaining about his own warning or bans on here. Email complaints@trenchwars.org and don't bring it to the forum. I will not discuss it futher because you nor I have access to both sides of the story or all information of the issue.

3. You don't know what is going on in staff, it's a fact. Staff isn't spotless, we're trying to do the best we can.


4. I will agree with Rich that the public settings are no good but lower staff has about as much control or say over it as you do. There's a hierarchy here and there's a few staffers who won't listen to the public or lower staff. I've tried to change this but got no where. The last hope I guess is TWPS, I don't think public changes will pass though but it's worth trying.

5. I want suggestions and criticism, not more hate posts or 'staff sucks' threads because you got warned or banned, or just because British told you to fuck off.

6. The zone is not as good as it use to be to me. Maybe it losts its excitement long ago or something, I don't know if it really has changed a lot.

[Edify]

so he made ww3 eh? give him some credit for that atleast.

[PEGASiS]

1. You hardly see anything that staff does. I think it's unfair to say ZHs are not answering the calls, from what I've seen they do answer almost all of them, the odd call at 3 AM probably will have less of a chance of being anwered though but now with Mantra as the second dean we can assume more Euros will get ZH. RoboHelp does send out messages and take calls but most ZHs check the bot to see what it sent to make sure they got the right answer. At all times the Bot will tell the person they can message the staffer if they need more help, But I agree, people are too stupid to understand it so a change for auto-responces would be nice. It still is useful, the bot has a lot of information so used in conjunction with PMing the player I think RoBoHelp is useful.


2. Sir Elim whatever shouldn't be complaining about his own warning or bans on here. Email complaints@trenchwars.org and don't bring it to the forum. I will not discuss it futher because you nor I have access to both sides of the story or all information of the issue.

3. You don't know what is going on in staff, it's a fact. Staff isn't spotless, we're trying to do the best we can.


4. I will agree with Rich that the public settings are no good but lower staff has about as much control or say over it as you do. There's a hierarchy here and there's a few staffers who won't listen to the public or lower staff. I've tried to change this but got no where. The last hope I guess is TWPS, I don't think public changes will pass though but it's worth trying.

5. I want suggestions and criticism, not more hate posts or 'staff sucks' threads because you got warned or banned, or just because British told you to fuck off.

6. The zone is not as good as it use to be to me. Maybe it losts its excitement long ago or something, I don't know if it really has changed a lot.

Since you quoted me at the top of your post, I'll assume most of these comments were directed towards me. So here we go. I'll number my responses according to yours so you know exactly what I'm responding to.

1. I know that I usually have to make help calls at least twice, so if the fact is that almost all help calls are being answered, then that means either that someone thinks my questions are less important than the vast majority, or that you're wrong. I'll assume the former, because the latter is near impossible, right? That leaves only the assumption that my questions are less important than most, so I suppose I'll have to start finding out what qualifies a question as worthy of a response, and I'll begin asking questions accordingly.

2. I didn't even know that S>E_K! was banned, so my comments had nothing to do with that. My comments were about the fact that not shooting anyone in elim is not going to be the downfall of the zone. Go warn people using racism in public (which we all know is a sin from hell), or people teamkilling (which is fun, but I can see where that would hurt the zone), or people who are cheating. Can't find any of those people? Well don't just start warning people for random shit. And I dare say that not shooting is random shit. And Jones, I am well aware that it is termed "refusing to fight," but I ask you, please tell me the harm in this if it is done in the beginning / middle of a round of elim when the passive player can't be blamed for drawing out the length of the round.

3. Staff is not doing the best it can. Stop speaking for staff. You're only one member, and care as you might, obviously not everyone on staff does. I think that's very apparent, so I won't even continue with this rebuttal.

4. I admire the fact that you recognize the problem and you care about fixing it. I think that you are doing a great job in this aspect, and you'll get no ciriticism from me for actively trying to improve the zone.

5. I don't know what you're talking about when you say, "...because British told you to fuck off..." Was that directed towards me? Either way, you want suggestions, and I'm doing my best in my past two posts in giving suggestions. But you're aware that these and previous numbered points are suggestions, right? Or do I need to tell you that they are?

6. It has changed. Too much.

[Ephemeral]

My opinion is.....
If I was watching television and I didn't like a certain network or a certain programs, wouldn't it make the most sense to either change the channel or simply turn off the television?
I suppose I could write complaint letters to the network executives. I guess I could let them know that I thought programs back in the 1960's were better then those today. Somehow I doubt they are going to listen or care.

Bottom line is that there is no way to make everyone happy. Many issues have some opinions on the left side of it, the majority of opinions in the middle, and some opinions on the right side of it. The usual pragmatic decision is to satisfy the middle opinions, pissing off the ‘left and right’ people.

Another really big issue, when it comes to being critical and considering the changes that TW has gone through, is that TW does not have a mission statement. No one knows what TW’s ‘purpose’ is in life. As such, no one can really make a judgment if it’s evolution is successful or not. TW simply exists, and it’s evolution simply ‘is’.

[PEGASiS]

My apologies for the double post, but regarding your comment about not knowing what goes on in staff, I beg to differ. One does not have to be in staff to know the doings of staff, just as citizens don't have to be in government to know what goes on in the government. Sure, I may not know the smallest details; who's kissing whose ass; and who is doing the most work, but I can tell you that staff's actions as a whole are clearly evident to everyone who plays this zone.

For instance, I know that there are some lower staff who are trying very hard to improve this zone. I see <ER>'s hosting countless events that I think are very fun. There are many hosted that I don't enjoy, but others like those games so I'm glad they're hosted. It helps the zone as a whole.

I know that there are some moderators who are not lazy. I get my best responses from help calls from moderators who don't feel like they're above the rest. I know that there are some <ZH>'s who are better than I think, but I know there aren't many.

But what I also know is that this zone is giving staff positions to bot coders whose misguided attempts at improving the zone are going to end up sinking us farther away from the fun zone that TW used to be. People are being replaced by bots, and I can see how that might be necessary some times, because staff obviously can't be everywhere and do everything. But knowing java script, or whatever these bots are coded with, does not qualify a player to be staff.

Start considering the player's maturity, knowlege, activity, and willingness to help over their technical knowledge of computer programming. If a player wants to code a bot, let him, but don't make him staff for it. If the bot is good, use it, but don't let it replace human interaction. And if all else fails, look back to how things used to be, and use that time as a reference, because this zone used to be fun, and it used to be a lot better than it is now.

[PEGASiS]

My opinion is.....
If I was watching television and I didn't like a certain network or a certain programs, wouldn't it make the most sense to either change the channel or simply turn off the television?
I suppose I could write complaint letters to the network executives. I guess I could let them know that I thought programs back in the 1960's were better then those today. Somehow I doubt they are going to listen or care.

Bottom line is that there is no way to make everyone happy. Many issues have some opinions on the left side of it, the majority of opinions in the middle, and some opinions on the right side of it. The usual pragmatic decision is to satisfy the middle opinions, pissing off the ‘left and right’ people.

Another really big issue, when it comes to being critical and considering the changes that TW has gone through, is that TW does not have a mission statement. No one knows what TW’s ‘purpose’ is in life. As such, no one can really make a judgment if it’s evolution is successful or not. TW simply exists, and it’s evolution simply ‘is’.

Have you ever considered why one might take the time to write pages of text regarding his disappointment in the state of a gaming zone? Sure, I can "turn off the tv," as you put it, but that would take away something that I care about. Care about an internet game? Well, as sad as it sounds, sure, I do care. I have played trench wars for five years now, and I've watched it change. And I'm not happy with the changes...

You can tell me all day long that I'm wasting time posting, or that you disagree with my opinions, but I won't stop posting them, so I believe you are the one who is indeed wasting your time. If you don't like the fact that I'm complaining, turn me off. Don't tell me not to speak out. This forum is clearly labled "For TW Staff to read," and my posts fit the criteria. If opinions were not welcome, this forum would be private.

[Kolar]

Since you quoted me at the top of your post, I'll assume most of these comments were directed towards me. So here we go. I'll number my responses according to yours so you know exactly what I'm responding to.

1. I know that I usually have to make help calls at least twice, so if the fact is that almost all help calls are being answered, then that means either that someone thinks my questions are less important than the vast majority, or that you're wrong. I'll assume the former, because the latter is near impossible, right? That leaves only the assumption that my questions are less important than most, so I suppose I'll have to start finding out what qualifies a question as worthy of a response, and I'll begin asking questions accordingly.

2. I didn't even know that S>E_K! was banned, so my comments had nothing to do with that. My comments were about the fact that not shooting anyone in elim is not going to be the downfall of the zone. Go warn people using racism in public (which we all know is a sin from hell), or people teamkilling (which is fun, but I can see where that would hurt the zone), or people who are cheating. Can't find any of those people? Well don't just start warning people for random shit. And I dare say that not shooting is random shit. And Jones, I am well aware that it is termed "refusing to fight," but I ask you, please tell me the harm in this if it is done in the beginning / middle of a round of elim when the passive player can't be blamed for drawing out the length of the round.

3. Staff is not doing the best it can. Stop speaking for staff. You're only one member, and care as you might, obviously not everyone on staff does. I think that's very apparent, so I won't even continue with this rebuttal.

4. I admire the fact that you recognize the problem and you care about fixing it. I think that you are doing a great job in this aspect, and you'll get no ciriticism from me for actively trying to improve the zone.

5. I don't know what you're talking about when you say, "...because British told you to fuck off..." Was that directed towards me? Either way, you want suggestions, and I'm doing my best in my past two posts in giving suggestions. But you're aware that these and previous numbered points are suggestions, right? Or do I need to tell you that they are?

6. It has changed. Too much.

Your an individual, you can not make assumptions like that to judge how all staff calls are taken using your single experiences.

I will not talk about Elim Killer, I dont know if he was banned but compliants about warnings and bans are not for this forum. I don't see the point in talking about it further, I don't know what happened nor do you.

I always see staffers doing the best they can for this zone. I am speaking from my own prespective, which is more clearer then yours considering the access I have.

I want critisism and suggestions about how to fix the zone, complaining about how we're doing that does nothing, I would like that to stop so people can focus on fixing the zone's problems. I said British because people mostly complian about him and staffers like him, it meant nothing towards you.

I can tell you know, almost everyone without staff chat or anyone who doesn't talk to me or other staffers will not even get a small image of what happens on staff. There's not only staff chat also, there's more staffers can see and take part in you guys don't see. It's almost like looking under the hood of a car, seeing and understanding how everything works; compared to seeing pictures and video of such workings, the comunity only seeing that.

No one is being replaced by Bots, Qan wants to get 1 or 2 bot coders on staff so they could over time maintain vitial systems in the zone, when he and other Smods decide to leave or just when they need to leave for a short while. The goal is to find players who can do the job, both as a staffer and as a coder. It has been suggested they become outsiders with staff chat and build their way up from there. Either way having them in staff will not negitivly effect things. I was once not in staff, I thought I knewn a lot also, that changed pretty quickly. Hal also is just a joke 2d made for fun, we're not making him a ZH :P.

TW needs driection like Eph said, nexts to good staff. Too much is left open to debate and too much of the problems here are misplaced. What he means by a mission statement is not "this is what is wrong with the zone, fix it!", a mission statement will guide us when faced with such problems.

[Ephemeral]

Have you ever considered why one might take the time to write pages of text regarding his disappointment in the state of a gaming zone? Sure, I can "turn off the tv," as you put it, but that would take away something that I care about. Care about an internet game? Well, as sad as it sounds, sure, I do care. I have played trench wars for five years now, and I've watched it change. And I'm not happy with the changes...

You can tell me all day long that I'm wasting time posting, or that you disagree with my opinions, but I won't stop posting them, so I believe you are the one who is indeed wasting your time. If you don't like the fact that I'm complaining, turn me off. Don't tell me not to speak out. This forum is clearly labled "For TW Staff to read," and my posts fit the criteria. If opinions were not welcome, this forum would be private.

Whoa, back that truck up. I did not say any of the things that you assumed I said. You, and everyone else is 'allowed' to speak out, offer opinions, offer suggestions, or simply bitch about things.
I was simply offering a slightly different perspective than the one you are taking, a perspective that might at most be described as 'perhaps caring a LITTLE less'. I, like you, care a lot about this community. I, like you, would like to see some things changed and/or improved. I, like you, feel some things currently suck.

But the one thing that I have learned about life, many times I can not change the things around me, I can only change the way I look at them.

Interestingly enough, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at seem to change. That was my point.

[Richard Creager]

TW needs driection like Eph said, nexts to good staff. Too much is left open to debate and too much of the problems here are misplaced. What he means by a mission statement is not "this is what is wrong with the zone, fix it!", a mission statement will guide us when faced with such problems.

Not being in staff and having no sysops or upper staff makes this utterly IMPOSSIBLE.

[PEGASiS]

But the one thing that I have learned about life, many times I can not change the things around me, I can only change the way I look at them.

Point taken. I'll work on that.

And Kolar, just because you didn't know anything before you got staff doesn't mean that I don't. Don't assume that you know anything about me. I have IRL friends who were staff for a long while. Just because I am not personally on the staff chat does not in any way mean that I don't know what goes on on that chat. Likewise, I'm familiar with many more aspects of staff than you seem to think. Keep in mind that, while you think you know everything, you don't.

[Kolar]

Point taken. I'll work on that.

And Kolar, just because you didn't know anything before you got staff doesn't mean that I don't. Don't assume that you know anything about me. I have IRL friends who were staff for a long while. Just because I am not personally on the staff chat does not in any way mean that I don't know what goes on on that chat. Likewise, I'm familiar with many more aspects of staff than you seem to think. Keep in mind that, while you think you know everything, you don't.

It's an rational and logical assumption. Not to mention a lot of what you say are not real issues on staff, I think it's fair to say you are not seeing the whole picture.

Edit: Also I did know some stuff about staff, but not how they worked or how the enviroment was, I dont see how anyone could without being there. So my point is lets focus on the real issues I.E ship settings and other major public things like RoboHelp. I don't think we'll get anywhere without Sysops help but we can do something now that TWPS is up.

[Sir>elim_killer!]

K this is the last time Im going to say this.

Emailing staff about bans I recieve never works, and I justg wanted to point a error in the system. If you don't like me complianing about my ban, dont read my posts. I feel they way the zones ban people is a problem and I think it should be fixed. For your knowledge I was not banned for not fighting but i was repeatedly wanred and specced. At some time I was even fighting, and I just wanted to say my opinion on why I think even getting warned was bull.

For the staff, I have been in staff and I do know how it is run, as well as I do have friends that are in staff now. So don't say that we dont know what we are talking about.

We make this posts because this was the first tru online game that I ever got involved with. I have played this game for over 7 yrs and have grown up with so many people in this game. I have seen how people as well as this zone has changed so much over the years. Even though it hurts me to say but this zone has become aport of my life over the years, sometimes for good and bad. So we try to speak out, because we have loved the experiences that we have all shared in this zone. For us seeing many changes over the years brings disappoint because the zone is not the same zone that it was when we first started.

I just feel the zone is not getting better but getting worse and this is just my opinion. Yet I do know alot of people that feel the same way as I do. I just hope you understand where many of the vets are coming from when they say this. Also remember many of the vets that you tend to insult have gave much to this zone that you don't even know. So try to show a little respect that they may know a little on what they are talking about.

EK