Working on your server.

Anonymous

Anonymous

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So anyone who's running their own vision in a server has probably came across this issue I'm having.
Having more work than people to delegate it to, which leaves the rest to pile upon your shoulders.
I'm not sure about some of the folks here, but I have a hard time trusting anyone enough to give them permissions to help me out in any area of the server, let alone in the main tasks.
When it comes to how I want things I find it easier for me to do the work than to explain how I want it then go back and double check someone else's work.

So I'm curious as to who else has experienced this or a similar situation.
I'd love to hear some stories about hiring some staff members, or even horror stories about it. Let's face it, we all have our own fair share of "Moments" on the servers we run/work on.
 
My problem was always wanting to do it by myself too. Even when I had a few staff members helping me out. I found myself baby sitting them or spying on them so much, that it became hard to get my own work done. I was usually forced to get rid of my help. Since then, I've managed to come up with ways to automate most things and not need help. Also have found some awesome guys around the community that are pretty trustworthy, but most people that are worth getting help from usually have their own projects.

But yeah, I had some bad times with some old staff members. Remember when one flipped out and placed a shit ton of sand stones all throughout Luna. I mean covering the entire town. He thought he succeeded at screwing me over too, was so happy of himself. Was easy to ban him, and wipe his mess with one command. Just helps to know what you're doing I guess. Running a server is a hell of a job, and takes up a lot of personal time.
 
I also found that working a server was pretty much easier for me to do alone, unless I had some really
good staff. A few of those did come along from time to time, which helped alot of course
with pages, player problems.
Worst story would be a server I worked on- a gm gave his account name/password to
a friend, these two became mad at each other for some reason.
Long story short, the gm's friend logged into the server one day, tiled gold to the
roof in the jeweler building inside along with the same inside the bank. Then tiled
mobs threw brit, with the tile of course everything went below also. So trying to move in brit while doing
a wipe was pretty tough.
 
I find it easier to be a staff with a releaes of intrest and given creative control be left alone to wander around to my own vices and to be able to create things, or build places or things, ie monsters, or items, or special areas that none will ever ever find unless they are really really bored.
 
I have wonderful staff whom are assigned specific tasks / skillsets and they blow me out of the water with it. But these are people I use to staff for years ago I know and trust explicitly and have known for some 10+ years. I have such a hard time hiring a new person to do some work. It ends up being an interrogation or a grill I slab them on. For general spawning I keep to mainly OSI spawns with some exceptions for quests or changes I want, but for the Map of felucca its entirely custom. I have ideas and plans but I'm always wanting to change them, so for the most part it ends up to spawning dungeons being so frickin tedious. Overworld would be cake but its the matter of opening fiddler and going to cords, setting a new xml finding an approperate range and pulling up my list of mobs in specific area types and loading them and finding a balance in range and spawn thickness that feels right. I have a hard time leaving that to someone else. I mean I've seen some people who would spawn things so horrible it would be a wonder if you cvould even see the trees through the thicket of monsters.
 
These are some pretty funny stories. I think I am just blessed. My biggest issue has been that no one else seems to stay interested as long as I do so they decide to leave long before any issues arise.

But, as many shard owners point out, the hardest part is relinquishing control. We all have a vision and want to make sure that everything done lives up to that vision so, often times, it's very difficult to allow others to help.

So, in essence, we are our own worst enemies.

I do want to give a shout-out to those who have stuck with me through most of it tho: Eri, Otim, Hammerhand, Bittiez, rmacham, tass23. I couldn't have come this far without their continued support.
 
When I was running my server, I had a Great group of Staff on a pol server when it first came out....then as I learned all the tricks of the trade, I began to do more on my own and let them play more as individuals, with designated times and days of the week for them to be staff. I guess one really finds that with creativity on our shards as our visions we treat them like children and want no one to harm them and our creative talent and mind set....but all in all I like people and Loved having staff and hearing their opinions and taught many to build and script....
 
I have a friend that plays with me since we were players on Hybrid. We both roleplay and share a vision of a shard model.
We have no rush and we enjoy the pirate's life!
 
When you find a loyal staff member or staff members, do your best to keep them around. They are few and far between anymore these days. Running a shard is no easy day at the beach, even if you're like Insanity and have a lot of automated things, it still helps to be able to delegate. You need to discover your staff member's strengths and weaknesses very quickly. Don't ask them to do things they aren't "good" at doing all the time, they will lose interest and move somewhere else. That being said, don't be afraid to pat your staff on the back often when they go above and beyond. :)
 
Finding a good dependable staff is not easy, a handful of people I played the game with for years were my main support. Some were skilled while other not so much. Building a game world is a pretty huge undertaking, so the more help I could get the better. Sadly there is something about positions of power or authority that attract the wrong kind of person. So trying to weed out the sociopaths was another issue to deal with.

For the most part in terms of staff I did not have to worry too much about Map or Story / Content. But I did have to jump on those tasks regularly to stir up activity as there was a bit of a lack of leadership / initiative. Understandable as they are helping out rather than creating their own thing.

Code wise I was extremely paranoid. I was developing some systems that were unique. I had heard story of code theft of shard in the past, so because of that I was never really comfortable with help on the script side. I have seen for years a pretty unsavory competitive vibe between shards so that left me on edge when it came down to certain types of help.

Collaborative projects are never easy, especially when dealing with creative projects. Often it comes down to a matter of taste or interest and there is no clear cut good or wrong answer on issues. Sharing a vision where everyone can give their 100% towards a common goal is sadly rare. The best support in terms of staff I ever had was someone who ran a shard of their own at some point. They understood exactly what I was facing and really gave a solid effort to help out.

Some old friends from my old UO days have been itching to start a new project, the topic of reviving my old shard project came up. Against all better judgement I am seriously considering it. I will need to find people to collaborate with otherwise the amount of work make a hobby such as this become a chore fast.
 
Anonymous said:
When it comes to how I want things I find it easier for me to do the work than to explain how I want it then go back and double check someone else's work.
Click to expand...

This is my personal thoughts. Whenever I play a UO Server I go on that server and I play it to have fun but when I find a bug I send the fix (after I fix it) to them!
I understand they are going to look through it and it may take some time but this is 50x better then having to go on the Bugs part of the forums and waiting for help.

I always find it easier to do anything myself then to rely on anyone else. I do believe in sitting down and learning from someone but I sure as hell don't ever hand my work off to anyone personally.

I understand if you have a team or whatever but my biggest pet peave is server owners who come on RUNUO/ServUO and would post for bugs help and expect EVERYONE to help them and have it so they put no effort forth and yet they are willing to take peoples donations and put them towards what they want not the server etc.

I am stubborn. Thats basically my thoughts :D
 
It's all about who you surround yourself with when it comes to your staff. Finding competent, trustworthy people to help out is pretty hard to do. I couldn't be more proud of my staff that I have on An Corp. From the Devs to the other Admins and GMs, they are just fantastic. They all want to be there because they want the shard to be successful. There is no ulterior motive with them. Currently, we have three Admins, three Devs, one Seer, and two really awesome GMs.

I've found that you can't take things like this too seriously. Not only will you burn yourselves out, but you'll probably come off as a nazi and will drive away or anger your staffers. Also, you have to keep in mind that you can't just bring on anyone who applies to be staff. There are a lot of people who don't know how to handle power like that and abusing it comes easy to them. We always start out all new staff as Counselors and get to know them from there, no matter what position they will fill.

Set some ground rules and keep things fun.
 
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