The Decision Committee

[Shark 0]

Hello there SAO-RPG members,

It has been a while since the new Decision Committee has been formed and they are already working on addressing your concerns and issues. I would like to take the time to collect you feedback on the current committee. Please answer the above poll about the committee. If you like it but want some changes to be made, please PM me or comment below. I want to fix this site and make it one of the best Forum Text-Based RP's on the internet. Please give me your feedback so I can accomplish that task. Take the time to voice your opinion and help get this site on the right path. 

This poll is OPEN for ALL. Staff and Players alike.

I need to know who the true supporters are of the site and who will stay and wants to see this site through to the end. 

Thanks for your time and support,

Shark the Admin

[Zelrius 0]

Have they been collecting our ideas and suggestions? If so, from who and how often?

[Shark 0]

I have been giving them tasks to do. Thus far, there is a player guide in the reworks and etiquette under current discussion. They are supposed to be the ones you all go to and voice your opinions for them to discuss. 

[Takao 0]

I've talked to a few people regarding some suggestions they've had in private messages. Mostly regarding changes to professions/crafting.

[Lycan 0]

Updates we've discussed and accomplished:

• Friendship Inventory - Ruled as an unsupported mechanic for large group sharing with liquid time as a factor. Completed.
• New Player Guide - Agreed to a revision and actively identifying areas that need attention. In progress, barring limited staff time.
• Player Etiquette Guide - Agreed to create a strict rule set of does & don'ts with logical punishments. To be enforced on players & staff indiscriminately. In progress.

Suggestions that have been brought to me via IM or PM:

• Balance of existing Unique Skills
• PvP Viability and Rules of Engagement
• Rework of the Merchant Profession to be more viable and useful
• A "Rebirth" or "Harvest" system that makes player death less crushing for the writer.
• A "Starter Package" for new players to pick up at a higher level than 1 since it creates IC conflict to have done nothing for 2 years in-game.
• An easier to understand battle tutorial that includes the EN loss on misses and using post actions in lieu of the roll. (ex. Rolling a BD1, but saying your character searches for items in order to avoid a 2EN loss penalty and instead regaining 1 EN)

As a whole and from a personal perspective, the entire PST, GM, and Committee staff should earnestly be the Community Representatives. Those that the Community sees as unfit for staff should be brought to light by the community in the Support Ticket area for others to weigh in appropriately. Staff, as a whole, should operate with the Community's best interest at heart while preserving a fair and balanced game mechanic across the board. As of present, the Committee, voted on by the public and staff for their respective positions have been tackling topics one at a time. We cannot seek out your voices, however, and we hope that you, The Community, will reach out to us with your problems and concerns. Thusly, we can bring them to light and make changes as necessary to continue improving SAO-RPG.com.

If you feel your voices are not being heard, my inbox is open. I will personally see to it that your voice is brought before staff. You are also more than welcome to keep using the Support Ticket area and I encourage continued use of it so everyone may see your suggestions.

I believe the Committee is what your staff as a whole should be. I believe that everyone on staff should be trusted to keep your best interest at heart and make SAO-RPG.com a fun place to write/play. If you have a problem with a member of staff, voice it. We volunteered our time to help the community, if it is not needed, let us know.

[Calrex 0]

I feel like the decisions are a bit too cut and dry once again, but from what Lycan's said so far I can agree on.

While the Community representatives' main job is supposed to be taking in feedback, concerns, and the like from players, it should be the responsibility of the entire staff to be open and receptive, which I can only hope I'm being >_<.

So if/should a representative may be up to their necks with whatever might be going on they need to take care of, that doesn't mean that the rest of the staff should be inaccessible to voice their concerns or that you would need to hold your comment. So in a way representatives can be a form of "safety net" in order to make sure no one is left out or ignored.

For everyone on the site, please be sure to give this some thought and make your decision. The SAO-RPG staff wants to try and make this site better, and no important decision should be made in a vacuum. The more input received on the overall experience of the site should and will be taken into account, because if you are experiencing an issue it is rare that you alone are having that problem. So as stated above, if ever you want to give feedback or report something you feel isn't right, reach out. Whether it be through a PM, on the main Skype chat, or through a Support Ticket.

As always my inbox is open for anyone experiencing trouble, so don't be afraid to reach out if you need to!

[Nikodemus_Blackwood 1]

So far, I think the new PSTs and the Player reps have been more than helpful, and have listened to any concern i have come to them with, and been more than willing to work with me on being a newb to ensure I do things proper. Some of the things Lycan has mentioned have been issues I have expressed to reps and PSTs in the past. some things I think are great to put in motion, others need working and it seems the PSTs and Reps know this and are working with Admins to adjust them to make the game better and more balanced for us so we can all enjoy it.

[Life 0]

I'm sorry @Lycan but there is nothing on that list that hasn't already been discussed or thought over by staff.

The committee is redundant and does not speak for the whole community. New players shouldn't be told that other players know what they want and whats best for them. Once you get into that territory of changing things based on how you think things should be, it enters GM territory. Players have been able to express their opinions and suggestions since forever, instead of having a committee perhaps we should start taking them more seriously and start being a little more transparent with what we do/are doing on staff. While I'm not against there being community reps for players to go to for help, that shouldn't mean that they have the same level of power or authority as staff. Not to mention that the community reps might also not have all the answers, and will not always know the correct rulings.

You don't solve issues and rumors of abuse of power by creating another power to be abused, if you have issues with a staff member then contact one of the Admins about it. A lot of the things also being discussed by the committee have already been decided on as well long ago by staff such as a 'starter pack', the issue isn't giving new players freebies to catch up, its the discrepancy between the higher and lower levels. No one likes being the newbie, but we all went through it. That's not to say there wont be help for the lower level players in future, but the idea is for them to earn their position and levels, not be handed it. These issues are sensitive and bringing them into the public may cause a lot of drama and unnecessary conflict. 

Once again I will say that at no point has there never been a time where a player couldn't voice their opinion or reach out to a staff member for something. Over the course of all the drama I have never received a single message of concern about anything relating to the site or its people. Even if a staff member is not online, it shouldn't stop you from asking them questions. We don't need divisions in our community, we need a unity and a single authority to decide on matters by the community.

Furthermore, the committee and staff may have conflicting views and ideas, and again, the committee doesn't always speak for the whole community. While the committee discuss things in their own chat, the whole staff will never know what is being talked about in that chat, only the 3 staff members on it. No one GM should also have a bigger say than another, and no pst a bigger say than another. I personally find it insulting that three members of staff are talking about things that have a real impact on the site without the whole staffs full knowledge. How can we be expected to function as a team when there are discussions being held that exclude members of the team? And it also isn't fair to the community reps that because of this other staff members are going to be more inclined to reject their ideas, thus wasting their efforts.

Perhaps not all things mentioned are the case. But they are all very possible depending on the case. The committee is flawed, and again, redundant. If I offended anyone I apologize in advance. However I ask you to consider this from a new perspective. 

[Mayuri 0]

I have many thoughts on the committee and they were all covered by Life, so I won't repeat what has already been rather well stated. Zelruis also made a point by asking where it is that these committee members are taking information and suggestions from other players, because I've not seen this so I don't know who exactly is being consulted. There shouldn't be a committee. There should, as Life stated, be more transparency as to what is being worked on by staff as well as staff taking suggestions made by players more seriously. 

[Endilix 0]

I have to agree with what Life is saying. When the player representatives was first announced, I found it to be a band-aid on the problem. Based on my understanding, it felt like the staff team would be either replaced or gotten rid of entirely in lieu of a dictatorship. While I don't entirely agree with this option, I certainly don't think adding more staff was the option. Not to mention that they aren't truly staff. They're just community faces. And in that case we only need one.

But in regards to the community representatives having discussions that staff doesn't see, you have to realize that people do this anyway. You're just more aware of it in this case. And no, that isn't me condoning it, just saying that it's nigh impossible to stop by anyone but the people doing it. I do, however, agree that all discussions, especially those that affect us players as a whole, should be as transparent as possible.

This leads to my main point. There are unwritten rules, unclear rules, and just outright forgotten rules that either only staff know about, or someone thinks of and everyone calls it a defacto rule (or lack thereof). The best examples of this being the following ignored/forgotten or only staff known rules:

• The shared friend inventory (before it was abolished)
• The EN loss on misses (still not fully enforced, people ignore this all the time)
• Crystals requiring a slot of "Crystallize" enhancement on a potion to be a crystal (before the rule was changed)
• Trading between players either costing a post action or not costing a post action.
• Quest mobs ignoring the mitigation rule on loot (before it was written into the rules)
• Loot mobs requiring MIT rules (before it was enforced, people ignored it)
• Whether or not killing an orange player makes you an orange player (it doesn't, but it's not written in the rules, however Opal proved it with the death of Dom)
• Whether or not Performers can use Materials or have to use Recording Crystals sold by merchants for their shop (I've seen performers use materials, but the Recording Crystal in the shop explicitly says "Must be used for Performers to gain EXP")

These are what I can think of off the top of my head. It's not good that this list is as long as it is, and I've only been here for just over 2/3rds of a year, and I've seen all of this. I agree that etiquette rules are important, but what good is good etiquette when nobody knows how to play the game? New player guide? We need the regular guide updated for existing players before the new players can even think to understand the game. And no rule should ever just be "staff known". If it is a rule, it needs to be written down. Otherwise, it should not be considered a rule by anyone, not even staff. And if a rule is changed, it needs to be said to everyone in an announcement immediately at the time of change, and changelogs should be kept for every single rule change made from now to forever.

Having community representatives doesn't fix this major problem with the game, but staff transparency does. Staff transparency, in the way of constant changelogs, full rule reviews, updates, and filling in the holes in the rules without being afraid to say, "Oops. I dun goofed." are what will fix this. And then once that is finished, we can look to etiquette rules and new player guides.

I love this site. I love the people here. Nobody is perfect, and I don't expect our staff to be perfect. But be willing to admit that you made a mistake and fix it. Sit down with us players and say, "Okay. We get that this is broken or this sucks. What can we do?" We'll tell you. You say that you can't reach out to us, but you can. We are just as open as any staff member, but only if you're willing to listen. And more importantly, ask.

[Takao 0]

I feel like Endilix summed up my opinions on the matter quite well. I didn't particularly pursue the Community Representative position, it was just kinda put on me, so I figured I'd make the most of it and try to fix what I pushed for while I was on the staff team. I don't think that they[community reps] should be necessary or essential for fixing the site's outstanding issues, especially when the major problems should be both known and manageable for the current staff.

[orhalimi 0]

It is too early to say something, I personally don't felt any change yet. I would like to know more about the things you are working or dealing with.
Something like what Lycan did "we though on x y z, we are working on a b c. What is your idea and etc". The whole idea start out because players felt they are not being listen (and not because "the system wasn't perfect" like some here think), and I don't think that everyone should come to PM and ask on what are you working right now, players have some great ideas and it should be wide open.

About rule changing, notice that if you are changing a major rule it will be nice to get some pre-notice-time. Sometime some rules change in the middle of everything and we need to work around it and it less fun.

 

[Baldur 0]

While I agree it's too early to judge the committee since everything we do and talk about is done in private and we don't have anything yet that we can show as "hey, this is what we've done based on your feedback," I do agree with everyone else's point that there shouldn't need to be a committee. That's what staff is supposed to be. Now perhaps a committee could be called upon to judge rulings where staff members are involved so there's some impartiality there, but ultimately the GMs and PSTs should be the ones taking player advice and feedback and implementing those changes. The fact that they haven't and that the committee was needed shows why in that last pole the community voted overwhelmingly to change the staff.

My goal, at least, is to make the committee unnecessary after we've changed the oil and rotated some tires. The new guide that Lycan and other members of staff are working on is a HUGE first step, because poorly written rules scattered around the site, and "unwritten" and legacy rules are what lead to the abuse we've seen. With the new guide, we'll be able to say "here are ALL the rules, this is a living document, but if it's not written here, it's not a rule."

And that will be a HUGE step forward. Should it have taken a player committee to do that? No. But at least it's happening.

[Mayuri 0]

" ...but if it's not written here, it's not a rule."

I love that statement, but I think it should go further to state that if "its not in the rules, it's not allowed and if a player feels  it ought to be, then take it up with someone". 

I think the biggest problem hasn't been "staff known only" rules or defacto rules,(typically it's made up bs by members (including those on staff) and have tried to slip in because it doesn't state within the rules it is/isn't allowed),  it's the fact that when the guides are edited, they're not all checked for consistency which tends to lead to confusion and error on part of the player. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty unhappy with certain members including certain staff members trying to edit inventories after death to pass things along and "make up" friend inventories, which is cannon in the light novel or manga, but again, if it isn't in the rules it shouldn't just be allowed in as a loophole. 

[Baldur 0]

1 hour ago, Mayuri said:

" ...but if it's not written here, it's not a rule."

I love that statement, but I think it should go further to state that if "its not in the rules, it's not allowed and if a player feels  it ought to be, then take it up with someone". 

I think the biggest problem hasn't been "staff known only" rules or defacto rules,(typically it's made up bs by members (including those on staff) and have tried to slip in because it doesn't state within the rules it is/isn't allowed),  it's the fact that when the guides are edited, they're not all checked for consistency which tends to lead to confusion and error on part of the player. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty unhappy with certain members including certain staff members trying to edit inventories after death to pass things along and "make up" friend inventories, which is cannon in the light novel or manga, but again, if it isn't in the rules it shouldn't just be allowed in as a loophole. 

All of this is basically why we decided to tackle a revised guide. Many of the professions and rules haven't even been updated to include things like item tiers and sword arts being a thing. There are even rules in the Info Broker thread that aren't listed anywhere else. It's fine to leave the rules listed there, but there needs to be a single thread players can consult for all the rules so that stuff isn't getting lost, and we can say "this is the site's bible." And yes, if it isn't written there, then you can't do it. Friend's Inventory was pretty obscure canon, and not handled the same way either, but so is hacking a GM panel. We're certainly not going to allow that mechanically on the site. So yes, the first task has been a thorough review and consolidation of the rules.