Staff Rework

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

    I'm going to be real in this suggestion so I apologize to everyone in this suggestion. This isn't a full suggestion, but just something that is brought up. Staff, in general, is in a bad position, especially Management. I know you guys host those "Tell us these things that you would want to see us fix," but how many people have filled those out, and those changes be implemented? Not to mention guess who you're reporting those issues to... Management.  So you know what I'm just going to do mine here since it not only has genuine stuff, but I will bring up issues and complaints. This is one of my many suggestions

The Issue:
    A complaint I have seen a lot is that Garnet himself doesn't care about the server. While that may not be true that is what I've seen. "We wait 3 months for an update and it's just broken." is one of the many quotes on that topic. To go deeper into this issue people are seeing updates that are small, but are broken or causes a lot of issues in the server. A Prime example is the TX-225. While added to 21st it was almost immediately met with shit in the staff chat. Someone argued that because it wasn't updated in Navy docs they shouldn't get it for the event and just led to a pointless argument that soured the event as the event had to pretty much be put on hold because of it.

The solution:

    Hire or start a Dev team. It's seriously that simple. Don't give them the keys to the server, but at least try to seek people who can help with the server implementing better updates. I know this will probably be instantly denied, but seriously, you guys have quite a few devs from gmod on this server. Just nothing is asked and it's just left with that stereotype that can be ignored. It will lead to another mass exodus. People just see the server as a lost cause and go to a server that has events, Devs, etc.

2: Build hype for updates. Don't just keep people in the dark or expect people to check the Trello. Go "Hey, this is being worked on", "Hey, update coming soon", or "Update X is now the out come to check out what's new to the server!!!" Rather than "Green crystals were added Yipee."

3: Add a PR/HR team. While it's nice that Management is acting as the HR team. What if people have an issue with management or one of the management members' friends? Who is the person you can report management to? Themselves and hope for change?

The Issue:
    Some people just treat staff as the freest ticket to becoming VIP. They get it and then the fuck off. Not doing events in terms of gms unless it's every month or so. Or just not doing much in terms of being a mod.

The Solutions:

1: Get people hyped to do events as a GM. Try to help people plan out events, or hold group meetings discussing for example: how to do a campaign on Geonosis. Get genuine server input in voice chats rather than a channel in discord that just gives the bare minimum because it's in text

2: If people aren't doing events remove them. Now please, I understand these people will experience burnout a lot, they also have lives. You can only do the same events over and over. However, the temporary solution is just having a few sets of gms handling all that work. If people are experiencing burnout let them be.

3: Be more lenient with staff applications. Rather than just denying a staff app because they didn't have 5 events, give them a chance to just fix it rather than forcing them to wait 2 full weeks just to apply again.

4: Start getting people to do minor events before/after 8 PM. I know that's like trying to pick straws, but over the past few days it has happened and we have had people in the ranges of 15-25 actively on and participating in the event. I find a huge difference when around that time the most are 4-10 on a good day, but we could have 6-7 events done in a single day and yet the max is 1-3.

Not to mention and I have seen this a lot from battalions' complaints are these exact issues. they just don't get on the server sometimes simply because they expect a single event will happen at 8 PM at night.

I want to give some shout-outs to people doing events before 8 PM. Shark, Crowe, Timmothy (I'm pretty sure), Zeref, and a few more.

5: Encourage people to do more joint training like with questions in OCC or on-the-fly training. "Oh hey, you wanna do a joint training on breaching an area?" "yeah, sure" and have a GM set it up. Rather than asking "hey, can we do a joint training" "Sure, let's wait 2 weeks to do it?"

[------ 3,818]

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

The Issue:
 A complaint I have seen a lot is that Garnet himself doesn't care about the server.

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

The solution:

    Hire or start a Dev team.

Garnet does plenty of updates to the server, but nobody makes suggestions for the server other than mark, remake, and me. These ideas go on trello where garnet is free to pick and choose what he spends his time working on. This suggestion subforum is DEAD even though every week at the NCO meetings I tell people to make suggestions here.
The real problem here is that the server has TOO much content to support the small player-base, and people aren't getting what they want because they don't make suggestions and rally support for those suggestions.

Garnet and I want to add what the community wants, but they just need to bring reasonable ideas forward that are realistic to achieve in gmod. 

I also want to correct you that there has never been a 3 month period with no updates on SWRP.
If you go to http://forums.garnetgaming.net/index.php?/forum/26-server-updates/ you will see that it is the MOST updated server this year.
I think the true issue here is that people aren't getting the updates they want, because they never asked for anything.

 

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

The Issue:
    Some people just treat staff as the freest ticket to becoming VIP. They get it and then the fuck off. Not doing events in terms of gms unless it's every month or so.

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

1: Get people hyped to do events as a GM. Try to help people plan out events, or hold group meetings discussing for example: how to do a campaign on Geonosis. Get genuine server input in voice chats rather than a channel in discord that just gives the bare minimum because it's in text

Moderators are just supposed to ban people breaking rules. Admins/Management do hold meetings on a weekly basis, but we cannot put a gun to peoples head to do events.
As far as people joining the staff team to get free VIP, what's the harm in that as long as they are punishing the occasional minge??

I'm more than happy to help GM's plan events (and I'm sure any admin+ would be willing to help in that same capacity), but the problem isn't necessarily the quality of their events, just the quantity and timing. We can make sure that events are held to a certain standard, but we cannot make people quit their jobs/education to get on to do events earlier in the day. We do ask people to get active early, but its usually met with responses like "at work rn". Our server suffers from being 99% North American players. We don't have an international playerbase that can keep events going round-the-clock. 
 

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

2: If people aren't doing events remove them. 

We already do remove inactive gamemasters.
 

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

3: Be more lenient with staff applications. Rather than just denying a staff app because they didn't have 5 events, give them a chance to just fix it rather than forcing them to wait 2 full weeks just to apply again.

How does this address anything with your before-mentioned criticisms of the staff team? It's just filtering out people who put out low-effort applications or don't follow simple format instructions.
Being lenient with applications has never gone well on any of our other servers, so why would it go any better here?

 

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

4: Start getting people to do minor events before/after 8 PM.

We do try to encourage this. Pretty much daily me/remake/mark are trying to get staff/GM's/NCO's on as early as possible. Again, we don't have a gun to anyones head, but we do this already.

 

6 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

5: Encourage people to do more joint training like with questions in OCC or on-the-fly training. "Oh hey, you wanna do a joint training on breaching an area?" "yeah, sure" and have a GM set it up. Rather than asking "hey, can we do a joint training" "Sure, let's wait 2 weeks to do it?"

We do encourage people to do on the spot trainings/joint operations when there is downtime. I don't see anyone saying "lets wait 2 weeks" to do anything.
The issue here is that NCO's/GM's aren't identifying "its downtime there's nothing going on, maybe I should do something with these troops".
The potential participants of these trainings are partially to blame too. I cannot tell you how many times I've tried to host activities for players, and like 2-4 players participate and the other 10 players are fine with just talking in MHB/lobby instead.

Really this problem is circular and was present in the last iteration of SWRP that we had.

[Nutter 15,166]

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

A complaint I have seen a lot is that Garnet himself doesn't care about the server.

Really haven't seen that stupid opinion in awhile (thankfully), but it is hard to ignore that the servers get updates atleast bi-weekly, some may have some very specific broken portions that take another update to get fixed, but that's a tiny percentage.

 

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

"We wait 3 months for an update and it's just broken."

While 3 months for an update is normal for almost all GMod communities, nobody has had to wait that long on Garnet server. Not sure where that came from, you must be new here.

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

To go deeper into this issue people are seeing updates that are small, but are broken or causes a lot of issues in the server. A Prime example is the TX-225.

If people would just notify me of the issues, small config issues can be fixed in mere seconds, nothing a "DEVELOPER" would fix, when it is so easily overlooked. IE: a missing "end" or flat out typo in the code.

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

Hire or start a Dev team. It's seriously that simple. Don't give them the keys to the server, but at least try to seek people who can help with the server implementing better updates.

We have exactly this, myself and @Bizzy work on updates, IE: the recent inventory system. Had somebody with a good portfolio came by the community, i'd likely hire them, or atleast grab them for some freelance projects.

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

2: Build hype for updates. Don't just keep people in the dark or expect people to check the Trello. Go "Hey, this is being worked on", "Hey, update coming soon", or "Update X is now the out come to check out what's new to the server!!!" Rather than "Green crystals were added Yipee."

Other communities receive quarterly updates, IE: once very 2-4 months typically. I don't do this here, I'm always updating the server. Why in the hell would I take the time to "hype up an update", as opposed to just gradually upgrading the server over time?

Doing this would require leaving the server unattended even longer, and then releasing a large sum of things with a huge potential for failures/breaks with untested new features.

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

3: Add a PR/HR team. While it's nice that Management is acting as the HR team. What if people have an issue with management or one of the management members' friends? Who is the person you can report management to? Themselves and hope for change?

Myself and @Proggy have always received reports, I don't think this is an issue. The title of HR makes little sense in this application.

7 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

The Issue:
    Some people just treat staff as the freest ticket to becoming VIP. They get it and then the fuck off. Not doing events in terms of gms unless it's every month or so. Or just not doing much in terms of being a mod.

A non-issue as they get demoted at a max of 30 days later. (assuming @Remake and @marks13001 haven't fallen too far behind.

 

 

I continued to read the rest of your post, but it just seems like alot of information everybody is aware of, without any real idea of how to implementing it, other than "talk to these people". We already do this man, it's not that simple. This thread is genuinely lost in translation as you went from one point to another and didn't really make a strong point for me to learn anything constructive unfortunately.

 

 

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

4 hours ago, Proggy said:

I also want to correct you that there has never been a 3 month period with no updates on SWRP.
If you go to http://forums.garnetgaming.net/index.php?/forum/26-server-updates/ you will see that it is the MOST updated server this year.
I think the true issue here is that people aren't getting the updates they want, because they never asked for anything.

I wanna fix this, this isn't my opinion, I'm literally quoting somebody who's been on the server longer than I have. I don't have the opinion garnet doesn't have about the server. That is literally just something that I heard. So I thought I would bring it up.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Luna_Stargazers

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

4 hours ago, Proggy said:

Really this problem is circular and was present in the last iteration of SWRP that we had.

I really agree with this graph as it just happened. With only 2 people active I couldn't do an event that would have any meaning.

4 hours ago, Proggy said:

but the problem isn't necessarily the quality of their events, just the quantity and timing. We can make sure that events are held to a certain standard, but we cannot make people quit their jobs/education to get on to do events earlier in the day. We do ask people to get active early, but its usually met with responses like "at work rn". Our server suffers from being 99% North American players. We don't have an international playerbase that can keep events going round-the-clock. 

I tried to say hey I know people have lives, but I'm guessing that was lost in translation. Sorry for that

 

 

4 hours ago, Nutter said:

read the rest of your post, but it just seems like alot of information everybody is aware of, without any real idea of how to implementing it, other than "talk to these people". We already do this man, it's not that simple. This thread is genuinely lost in translation as you went from one point to another and didn't really make a strong point for me to learn anything constructive unfortunately.

I know that I'm a bit bad at that. I've mostly heard and thought I would say and try to suggest something. Rather than let these things fester.

 

4 hours ago, Nutter said:

myself and @Proggy have always received reports, I don't think this is an issue. The title of HR makes little sense in this application.

Then the title of HR really doesn't make sense then.

 

4 hours ago, Nutter said:

Why in the hell would I take the time to "hype up an update", as opposed to just gradually upgrading the server over time?

Doing this would require leaving the server unattended even longer, and then releasing a large sum of things with a huge potential for failures/breaks with untested new features.

That is understandable. I just suggested it more as a way to try to get people on when something is happening. To check out an update. But that's a good counter point

[Smity_ 257]

1 hour ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

 

5 hours ago, Nutter said:

myself and @Proggy have always received reports, I don't think this is an issue. The title of HR makes little sense in this application.

Then the title of HR really doesn't make sense then.

The point of HR is to deal with staff/player related issues. If you have no HR within the staff team, that would leave it up just to executives to make the decision. I do understand that there might be differences from MRP and SWRP staff divisions, but it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. Instead of directly going at the throat of a server that wasn’t doing that wonderful, get as many people as possible to show up to those leadership meetings or get in-touch with remake or mark as he is always in TS. Suggest those Ideas and use the crap ton of resources you already have the server. If you don’t feel comfortable saying it in person, feel free to post in the suggestions tab as you have already. But don’t ever say garnet doesn’t care about a server that he updates the most. 

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

12 minutes ago, Smity_ said:

But don’t ever say garnet doesn’t care about a server that he updates the most. 

I'm not the one with that opinion Smity. I think garnet cares about all servers. That is just something I heard when talking about the server in TS one night and they went into detail. That is where I got that quote. You can say don't ever say that about garnet. But I'm not the one who needs convincing

Edited October 16, 2022 by Luna_Stargazers

[Smity_ 257]

5 hours ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

I'm not the one with that opinion Smity. I think garnet cares about all servers. That is just something I heard when talking about the server in TS one night and they went into detail. That is where I got that quote. You can say don't ever say that about garnet. But I'm not the one who needs convincing

This is exactly how drama starts, he said or she said. That's not exactly how you fix anything. When you talk to mark or remake they can discuss it and make the server better but saying “well, smity said SWRP sucks” does not help at all. Figure out the issue and try to help the executives with that. Otherwise, it will be that diagram all over again. Do your part and help the server. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Smity_

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

3 minutes ago, Smity_ said:

This is exactly how drama starts, he said or she said. That not exactly how you fix anything. When you talk to mark or remake they can discuss it and make the server better but saying “well, smity said SWRP sucks” does not help at all. Figure out the issue and try to help the executives with that. Otherwise, it will be that diagram all over again. Do your part and help the server. 

that is a good point. I will do that in the future

[Remake 226]

4 minutes ago, Luna_Stargazers said:

that is a good point. I will do that in the future

A lot of people have the idea that management is responsible for creating everything. In some ways that can be right, but like I’ve told my staff team, as management we are just in the driver seat steering. The players, GMs, and staff members are are the engine powering the server and creating the fun in game. Having you guys as the playerbase tell us what you want is going to create the best server that everyone wishes to see. Unfortunately we do not have the power of telepathy so we cannot read the minds of the players, so most of the time we are trying to do things we think players will enjoy. I don’t care what you suggest, big or small, but when you suggest something it gives us something to work with. So we are always looking for the playerbase to tell us what they want. 

[Luna_Stargazers 1]

18 minutes ago, Remake said:

A lot of people have the idea that management is responsible for creating everything. In some ways that can be right, but like I’ve told my staff team, as management we are just in the driver seat steering. The players, GMs, and staff members are are the engine powering the server and creating the fun in game. Having you guys as the playerbase tell us what you want is going to create the best server that everyone wishes to see. Unfortunately we do not have the power of telepathy so we cannot read the minds of the players, so most of the time we are trying to do things we think players will enjoy. I don’t care what you suggest, big or small, but when you suggest something it gives us something to work with. So we are always looking for the playerbase to tell us what they want. 

Got it I will think more into that next time

[ChrisRid 900]

Just to give my 2 cents, I might not be a player of SWRP but just going from my own experiences with DRP and CRP.

I think we have a really good setup regarding the staff teams. I know it might be a little frustrating when there aren’t too many staff online, or perhaps with the GM work you mentioned, but the vast majority of staff volunteer their time passionately to help keep the servers population happy, and I think they do a good job of that.

Now and then I’m sure there might be the odd member who you may have concerns with, but the managers (and Proggy and Garnet) have always been happy to help out and receptive to genuine issues, in fact it’s quite incredible how much time they all put into the servers really given they have lives to live too. 

You mentioned about the feedback forms for people to fill-in, and believe it or not I always fill one in monthly leading up to the promotions, even if I only have good things to say, and I do feel that the managers listen and take everyone’s thoughts on board. 

My biggest reason for sticking around on Garnet when I first found the server was the fact I felt it was run so well, with staff who cared and wanted to help people, who were unbiased with fair and transparent staff rosters and an appeal process. You can rest assured that spending 1000’s of hours in game won’t be lost to a rogue admin, because the structure is good. 

Again, this is my experience and views from DarkRP / CityRP

 

[Smity_ 257]

1 minute ago, ChrisRid said:

Just to give my 2 cents, I might not be a player of SWRP but just going from my own experiences with DRP and CRP.

I think we have a really good setup regarding the staff teams. I know it might be a little frustrating when there aren’t too many staff online, or perhaps with the GM work you mentioned, but the vast majority of staff volunteer their time passionately to help keep the servers population happy, and I think they do a good job of that.

Now and then I’m sure there might be the odd member who you may have concerns with, but the managers (and Proggy and Garnet) have always been happy to help out and receptive to genuine issues, in fact it’s quite incredible how much time they all put into the servers really given they have lives to live too. 

You mentioned about the feedback forms for people to fill-in, and believe it or not I always fill one in monthly leading up to the promotions, even if I only have good things to say, and I do feel that the managers listen and take everyone’s thoughts on board. 

My biggest reason for sticking around on Garnet when I first found the server was the fact I felt it was run so well, with staff who cared and wanted to help people, who were unbiased with fair and transparent staff rosters and an appeal process. You can rest assured that spending 1000’s of hours in game won’t be lost to a rogue admin, because the structure is good. 

Again, this is my experience and views from DarkRP / CityRP

 

Even with no experience with SWRP this was said very very well in this sense and I can say thats true for myself after working with garnet for almost a year now  Thank you @ChrisRid for this input. But anyways, if you don't feel comfortable talking to Remake or mark about pressing matters or issues, feel free to reach out to proggy or even myself as I like to involve myself with those issues, there is a lot of people within this community that want to see garnet thrive even more than it already has.