Staff for shards

[Ravenwolfe]

So, I'm curious about something with you guys that run shards. I'm constantly seeing postings about staff positions and they all have rules about Staff not receiving any benefit. Usually something like, staff can be players but they cant give themselves stuff etc. Yet they are looking for volunteers staff. So what is the incentive to staff on a shard?

I'm curious to hear from some owners as well as potential staff members on their opinion of this. What is the harm with staff receiving things like resources for their time spent running the shard? I'm not talking about getting super weapons or stuff that players can't get. I'm talking about paying staff members in resources, regs, skill points, whatever.

My view is that staff is spending their time helping players instead of playing and earning gold, gaining skill, or mining ingots, or farming regs. My thought is that rewarding staff with such things keeps them more willing to spend time helping the shard instead of playing. It also lets them use their player accounts to help shards with low population (hunting parties, vendors, etc).

The reason I'm bringing this up is I have been thinking about creating a staff reward system that would allow them to "buy" resources with some type of staff currency. I'm also curious if this would help shards get more staff, as I see very little incentive to staff instead of spend your time playing. Maybe this is why a lot of the staff on shards end up causing problems or violating rules. Basically, you have to ask yourself if they are getting nothing for staffing, why are they doing it?

Appreciate thoughts and discussion on this.

 

[Dan]

I think the problem comes down to perception. Most players want to feel their time is worth something in regards to the items they collect. While what you outlined sounds nice all it takes is one evil staff member to ruin all your hard work. Heritage is the same way in which Counselors are severely restricted and I do not allow GMs.

 

[Voxpire]

I like the staff currency idea, but it would have to be non-physical, so they can't dupe, add, or change it in-game, or it would just defy the purpose... but how would you award such currency? On a "salary" set amount per week/month? When it comes down to it, you could probably just give them a gold allowance...

Ultimately, what I look for when hiring a staff member, is passion and a genuine interest in the role they apply for.
I want to know what they can do for the shard, and what they expect to get out of a staff role.
Of course any shard would prefer to have volunteer staff, some shards don't have any choice and must take what they can get, but I'd always prefer to offer to pay them cash, or cut them into a % stake, depending on the role and if they accept the job.
Most of the time people want to staff for fun, others do it for attention or recognition, some even do it just to put it into a portfolio... I couldn't pin down any singular reason why someone would want to become staff on a shard.

...A staff member who loves their role and always has something to do, never has time or will to play and considers their role as payment enough, that is the best way to avoid corruption and boost staff morale, in my experience.

 

[Valorian-Aeternum]

I always try to avoid some sort of staff benefits, cause sooner or later the players will hate it.
I always did pure roleplaying shards, so there a benefit is recognized by others in a very short time. If you award some gold to staffmembers, the other players will just be curious where the certain wealth came from and then they argue about unfair benefits for some guys since the player account are not allowed to be the same as the staff accounts....

What I like to do with Aeternum is another sort of benefit system where players can give likes or trophys to staff members. So they will rise in the ranks which will give a good impression on the work the staffmembers do.

For example: If a staffmember is hosting a Questline and he does a good job the players can award him with some likes and stuff (no details yet), so this is a direct "thank you" from the players to the team members.

When I hire some guys in future we will do it as a team, so you apply as a member via a form. Depending on what you show for the certain position the team members can vote for you to join the team.

...A staff member who loves their role and always has something to do, never has time or will to play and considers their role as payment enough, that is the best way to avoid corruption and boost staff morale, in my experience.

Totally agree. I cannot affort to pay everyone, also I always say that building UO is more about passion then about money since even in Germany we are strictly not allowed to make any money with this sort of copied game stuff...

I faced a lot of people who are only interested in stealing away stuff, which I hate more then everything. I hate people that are too stupid or lazy to get shit done themselves. So I have a red list of guys I will never ever allow in my team. I am also always running some checks in the comunity. Is this guy well known. Is he part of another project, is this project in the building or already finised, is there someone who can give me some background information and so on...
So thieves are not allowed. (I even stopped doing stuff after I faced this the first time, cause it makes me sick and I am not sure if the community can affort to loose the last real designers on UO graphics.)

Besides that I am totally loyal to members that are passionate about the project. I really love even to meet team members if it is possible to increase the "team feeling" up to a point where everyone is simply crazy about the project.
I agree with Ravenwolfe that those people need to be awarded somehow.
I was thinking, since I am also an illustrator and I do some nice leather covered booklet with stories and some illustrations printed and also including the map I would give this as a very personal reward to long term staff members as a thank you for joing the project and staying passionate.
I don't know how you think about that, but I really like the idea of giving something to remember to the people that put so much effort in the project.

 

[Ravenwolfe]

I think the problem comes down to perception. Most players want to feel their time is worth something in regards to the items they collect. While what you outlined sounds nice all it takes is one evil staff member to ruin all your hard work. Heritage is the same way in which Counselors are severely restricted and I do not allow GMs.

I totally get that, but I'm not talking about things that players can not get and certainly not things in unreasonable amounts. I'm not sure how they could ruin it, as it is not something they can give themselves, its reward by the system (or owner) and so he can control the reasonableness. Done correctly, the players would not even know.

And in truth, I don't think the players would really care. I can spend 4 hours staffing or 4 hours mining. If I can get the ingots by mining or by staffing, which would you rather me spend my time doing?

@Voxpire - totally agree, would need to be a virtual currency. The hard part is deciding how to reward that as you said. I would think a salary adjusted by rank and configurable in the script would be a cool way. I also agree that staff who are altruistic and do it for the experience are ideal. However, I believe that staff should play on the shard (maybe depending on the rank). I think they gain knowledge and spend much of their time helping newbies, which benefits shards with a low population (or one just starting).

In fairness, I don't run a shard, so I've not experience the bad staff you guys may have. I just wonder if given proper incentives, the staff that otherwise might try to cheat might be more honest and loyal when rewarded.

 

[zerodowned]

my thoughts would be an xmlAttachment with the reward amount property only set/get by the owner:: [CommandProperty(AccessLevel.Owner)]

it wouldnt stop rogue staff from deleting the attachment but at least they couldnt change their own reward balance

 

[Neshoba]

Staffing is a hard thankless job most of the times ,, Our staff has been together for close to 10 yrs off and on ,, (( shard is a combination of 4 shards Owned by Our Staff over the years)),, We do it for the players and for the game ,, as Owner I encourage Our Staff to have a player char to play and test with ,, this also helps Staff know more about the game and whats going on (this helps with exploits that are not reported by players) We have rules but they are with in reason for Staff and players alike it benefits the shard to not have overpowered of propsed evos (propsed evos is just askin for a fatal error) chosin a Staff member is difficult and precarious at best but as far as a reward system for Us not sure it would work We have all owned and staffed for awhile and stay connected in discord and stuff and always discuss big item descions with all staff combined also all Our Staff has their own personal set of armor that players can get from staff mobs some is rarer than others and is staff items that players cant get but want lol which are given out at special events as Staff event reward rares so not real sure how to reward Staff because a thank you just don't cover it a lot of the times

 

[Kamras]

Automation for more redundant task is the better approach. I forget what script it was however someone made a automated staff system that handled basic request and what not. With that out of the way, the staff you do have on hand would focus on actual development and player events. So, in theory no staff members should ever need anything higher then a Seer or Counselor if the more administrate task were automated. As always exceptions to exist but that is the general concept I'm getting at. So as far as a reward system, the XML attachment would be perfect, just restrict access to the [getatt command to owner. Then setup a staff store that their non staff toons can access to boost their toons or buy equipment. Maybe give them a daily digital currency depending on how many projects/time that is actually spent in game.