Guardian Round Table

Didn't see it posted here, so wanted to make sure it got out.

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Guardian server is Life!

Founder and Leader and all around greatest member of the Solo-SG, The Charybdis Clan.

So what exactly was discussed, who decided that this was necessary, and who put which people in charge of this?

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I think Omega decided it was necessary, so he did it.

Thanks to CC for posting here because that at least told people it was happening.

It would have been useful if this meeting had had an agenda posted in advance because I think it would have allowed a more structured meeting. An "Any other Business" at the end could have covered ... AoB.

Kudos to Rose Quartz who translated a lot from the channel to league for the people who couldn't get into the league. Unfortunately they missed a lot of the discussion. As we didn't spawn another Pocket D, could have stuck to local though.

Not entirely sure it was worth the time investment; yet again Guardian proved that voicing an opinion is disliked. Why go to a discussion forum, then tell someone who voices an opinion that they aren't entitled to it?! We were there to discuss the slant of the server and you don't want to hear what people prefer?

Also now I see that f2p/prem can't post, I see why another Guardian website was mooted. Better that than a reliance on FaceBook.

Here are a couple of posts which I struggle to find and are useful when trying to sort out teams with f2p/premiums. Fragmenting the player base like this, seems to be a contributing factor.

Accessible content late 2011

Side by side comparison

There were/are some good people on Guardian but there are good people on other servers.

Looking forward to more theme groups, low level content and non itrial TFs.

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SAVE CoX info:
Titan Network efforts
Saving CoX events/FB info

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Global name: @k26dp

I have to agree. For one, it wasn't hosted in Local chat because the channel was made for it nearly a month in advance. People were being added to it. Come day of, people not in the channel were added. People who were full on global channels were offered a way to temporarily join it. And there was only one person. One, the entire time in Pocket D who was not able to see the chat; who Rosa awesomely translated for them. There questions were answered as well.

Also, there was a post on FB about this event, even a group was made for it for those folks on it; and I'd like to point out any argument stating that people may not have heard about it because they weren't part of facebook or maybe didn't see the forums. Some responsibility goes onto the playerbase who - more then likely have friends who read about it and could inform them. Omega couldn't likely spend the better part of a month running around every single channel, every zone, every hour of the day to inform people he was hosting this.

Everyone who knew, did what they could and drew in as many as they could. As for the GRT channel used? Omega didn't plan for as many to show up which ROCKS. It means that more people, I'd hope, cared about what was going on and they all behaved for the most part.

Positive things were done, so please stop focusing on the bad things that went wrong. We here all want a stronger community that will grow with the influx of new people coming in! That is all.

Also, I love you Guardian and I'll bring the cookies!

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Anything not nailed down is mine, anything i can pry loose wasn't nailed down good enough.

Criticism is always better when it's constrictive, and not sarcastic ~ Obsidius

I'd still like to know what was discussed. I generally like the community in Guardian, but I'm left wondering about one thing: Why, when the goal seems to be to strengthen the community, am I finding out about this after the fact, and when I noticed the commotion in Pocket D, why wasn't my question of "what's going on?" not answered?

Not that I'm trying to be as hostile as I'm sure I sound, but as great as the community can be, there is this feeling of it being very insular at times and hard to break into.

It's... frustrating.

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Not everyone is a member of FB.

Wasn't the point work out what works and what doesn't in Guardian to build a better server experience? If you sweep under the carpet the bad bits, how can you improve? That isn't focusing on the bad bits, it's being analytical. If that isn't your forte, then fine. But it's the way I was trained.

EDIT:
There were some good ideas offered. Be nice to see them come to fruition.

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SAVE CoX info:
Titan Network efforts
Saving CoX events/FB info

Gotta chime in on the Facebook thing. Capa, you are correct that not everyone uses or is a member of Facebook. That's an individual choice. However, the page serves it's function for those who do use Facebook and in running the page over the past couple of years, it's a good source of information for those who don't like or use the forums. I figured that if the information is out there in as many avenues as possible, then it's a good thing. This is just another avenue to disseminate information on the server and it's events, etc.

Sadly, the forums have been lacking in a while and the biggest draw for a long time were the "ban the user above you" and the "blame the poster above you" posts.

I have nothing against the forums myself, and I wish more folks would use them. In the end, I feel that if we can coordinate the message on both the forums and the Facebook page, it will be helpful as well as show some life on the forums.

Thanks to Omega for putting this together and seeing so many players out there shows that there is a core group of individuals that want to see Guardian grow and be more open and engaging to new players as well as those who left for whatever reasons they chose to leave. Guardian is my home and always will be. I hope to do whatever I can to help make Guardian stronger and a better experience for all.

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Global: @Armeros
City Info Terminal - Armeros
City Of Heroes - Guardian Server page on Facebook
"Official Park Ranger of the Shadow Shard"

Can we at least get some bullet points on what was discussed? Why is this such a hard bit of info to get?

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SuperFerret, Omega is going to provide a transcript of the Round Table. I was in and out due to my gall bladder pain that is making my life quite miserable. As soon as the transcript is available, I will post it here and on the Guardian Facebook page as well for maximum dissemination.

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Global: @Armeros
City Info Terminal - Armeros
City Of Heroes - Guardian Server page on Facebook
"Official Park Ranger of the Shadow Shard"

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Global name: @k26dp

I'm only able to post on the forum right now because for the first time in over 250 days, i was able to get a time card and go VIP again. In relation to this, is why I prefer to use Facebook as a means of communication with my other Guardian buddies, outside of the game. One of the points mentioned was that the Guardian chat channel, that was supposed to be for everyone, was closed and difficult to get into and/or unsilenced from. In an initiative to bring people closer, we have a new chat channel. Guardian Server. This is an open chat channel. You might see us advertising in broadcast.... To battle the restricted server channels, Guardian has a new chat channel: 'Guardian Server'. Come join the fun, send tell for invite, or just search for it and join it.. open to all!..... This is one of the things we are trying to do, to bring us all into more gaming fun.

I'd like to take a brief moment to address the point of not knowing that there was going to be a meeting. I am truely sorry you did not know in advance, and to the person who got there, and was not immediatly addressed, I apologize. I wish you could have been behind my monitor. I was there and "in"... I guess you could say.... and the chat was flowing like water, so I'm anticipating seeing the script too. Omega was still working on it today, when I was on gaming for most of the late afternoon to early morning. As far as notification of the meeting, it was put up over a month in advance on Facebook, and also listed as a part of the MOTD in various chat channels. It may be arrogant or ignorant of me to say this, but with so very many venues at your disposal giving the opportunity to have knowledge of the event, I am surprised you didn't know about it! I wish you could have been there! The only thing I can think is that maybe you haven't been on so much, in the last month?

With so very many of our Guardian family interested in this event, and all the positive input that various people gave, and things they want to do to help, I feel sure that there will be other such events for you to attend. You are only as excluded as you want to be. We love playing our game, and I, personally, love to play with all my favorite goofballs, and hope to find new people who enjoy my *cough* eclectic game playing viewpoint.

Happy Gaming!

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Guardian is my home world.

Gosh Darn People, the SG if ya goofie 8D

Silence is golden but duct tape is silver.

MA 195771 Debt to Casa

I appreciate the effort to put this whole thing together. And should in the future there be more of these "round table" type of events I will be more than happy to attend. One thing I DO hope you consider for future discussions is letting people outside of "key speakers" know what topics or bullet points will be discussed in advance. I was fully aware that we would be discussing how to make guardian server better, but at no point came across an itinerary of the specific topics. And I know that within my group who attended we all had that same feeling of being uninformed and unprepared. Letting us know how it would be structured in advance would have enabled us to better prepare.
Maybe it was just us or perhaps it was phraseology, but myself and my group became not only frustrated just trying to keep up with reading the chat but with understanding the specifics of the overview. I have to admit this lead to our attentions wandering a bit. Posting a "topics to be discussed" in advance would have given us an opportunity to ask what certain topics meant before hand, as well as opened up for people to have offered their services and prepare as key speakers. Again if this was actually done, many of us missed it, and if that is the case I apologize for the rhetoric.
Having said all that I do want to commend Omega on all the great work and monumental effort he put in. It was no small task, that's to be sure! I also hope that this will be the start of a semi-regular dialog that will only operate more and more smoothly with experience and time.

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Thank you to all of the players that have been patiently waiting for me to publish the summary and transcript of the Guardian Round Table discussion. As many of you can probably guess, getting this ready was a good deal of work and was put together during a very busy time in my life, both with work and a rapidly approaching wedding.

Overall, this was a tremendous success. I don't know exactly how many people (my best guess is around 70) were following this as it happened, but we did have 64 players contribute to the discussion at some point during the two hours. Keep in mind that this is just the beginning though. We took a good, long, hard look at ourselves and thought of a lot of good ideas to help start making things better. This ends all ends up as just a bunch of talk though if we don't follow through on some of these ideas. Be patient though, not all of the ideas discussed can be accomplished overnight.

It saddened me to see some of the responses to this thread. When someone decides to start up a project, they don't need everyone to agree with what, or how the project is planned. They don't owe you an explanation either. Just because someone disagrees with something does not mean it is not worth doing.

I did want to address a few of the lines in the above posts though. I put a lot of time and effort into the planning of this and carefully thought about how to best promote the event and what the content of the discussion should include.

1. I did not post this to the forums for a few reasons. One, my original intent was to post about it a few (2-3) days before the day the event took place. In the past few months there has been little to no activity on this area of the forums. I saw that CC had posted about this about a week before the event, so there was no longer a need for me to post about it. (note that NOTHING was added to this thread until 8 days after the original post) The second reason that I waited to include this on the forums was the tendency of people to troll topics. The third reason was that getting something like this out too early will take the steam out of the actual event. This was going to work best if players came into it fresh and have not already spent weeks going back an forth over topics.
2. Why I decided against posting an agenda ahead of time: This was done intentionally, not because of laziness. For one, I gave everyone a chance to contribute to this ahead of time by asking for topics that players wanted to have discussed. A few players came forward with ideas, but not many. Secondly, a posted agenda was more likely to stifle the ability of people to come up with ideas than it was to help them think of additional things. I had let it be known that this was going to be an effort to help make Guardian a better place, and know that is a rather broad scope, but it was intended that way. This wasn't ever going to be the end-all, be-all discussion to fix everything.
3. Choice of communication method: I entered the discussion with two options over what to use for communication: League or the global channel I created in the event more people would show up than a zone could accommodate. We had over a full league worth of players involved in the discussion, not all of which were in Pocket D. One of which I believe was a F2P player (or low enough premium to not have access to a global channel). So my options: League (nope, too many); Broadcast (nope, some players were following the discussion from out of zone); Local (nope, out of zone players, plus the fact that if I was a foot too far away, I'd miss the responses and they'd not get included in the transcript I was making); Global Channel (not perfect but only effected one player). I had made it known earlier that a transcript was being made and sent a tell to the player who was not able to/having difficulty joining the global channel, letting them know a transcript will be made. A member of the league was copying the main discussion points from the channel into the league, so the majority of the discussion was seen. Was it perfect? No. Was it the right choice? Absolutely.

In response to Capa:

• <removed because we discussed this in-game for a rather lengthy amount of time>

In response to SuperFerret:

• How did you miss that this was going on? The short answer is, I don't know. This was first put on Facebook about 3 or 4 weeks before the event took place. 2 weeks ahead of time, I had put this in the Level 50 channel as the message of the day. I also spent quite a bit of time broadcasting this in the large global channels and in teams/leagues that I was on for 2 weeks prior to the event. A week before, this thread on the forums was created. There were many opportunities to find out. It certainly wasn't missed because of lack of effort to promote/publicize the event.
• When you asked what was going on in Pocket D, why did no one answer? Please accept my sincerest apology for this. I feel bad that your question went unseen. I'm not sure when you arrived, but if we had already started, the chat was moving so quick your question probably got buried as soon as it was asked. It's unfortunate, but there's nothing we can do about it now. At least you can take a look at the summary and transcript.
• Why was it so hard to get this info posted? Part of it was real life obligations on my end, part of it was the amount of work to take all the raw data and put it into something organized and easier to digest. When I started going through the chat log (the 9pt font transcript is 38 pages long), it became apparent rather quickly that it wasn't going to be an ideal way for players to get a good understanding of what went on. So I started working on combing through it to gather points to make a summary. I wanted the summary to be concise and useful too, which also added to the amount of time that was spent on this.

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none

Before we get to the summary & transcript, this was the agenda planned for the meeting.

1. SWOT Analysis of Guardian (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
2. Identify Common Problems
3. Examine Root Causes
4. Brainstorm Ideas of how to Solve Common Problems & How to Begin Implementing Solutions
5. Other Ideas

Parts 2-4 kind of got mixed together during the discussion, but I figured they would since they are all very related. It even worked out better to fully look at a problem from it's root cause all the way to it's potential solution, and then move on to the next issue.

The meeting did go on for quite a while. I was prepared to stick it out to the end, but I could tell that it was getting to be too long for a lot of people, so it was cut short a little bit. We weren't able to go over quite as many other ideas at the end as I had hoped for. This is not to say people did not have plenty of opportunity to share their input. Lots of input was received for each section. Improvement is a continuing process anyway, so just because the meeting is over does not mean that any ideas that were not brought up can not be addressed.

The summary will be displayed in the following posts. Here is the transcript from the meeting. I have two versions available (a PDF, and a .txt file). There were very few edits made to this (3-4 minor word changes that were made after speaking to the person who made the statement, 1 censored email address so a player doesn't get spammed, 1 change[was requested] to a player's name). Any re-posted lines in league/global channel were removed (kept the one made by the original person whenever possible). Tells were NOT included in the transcript. Only League Chat and chat from the Guardian Round Table channel are available in the transcript. Other than those small/minor changes, this is exactly what went down and how it went down.

PDF Link
Guardian Round Table (chatlog).pdf (450 kb)

Text File Link
GRT logfile.txt (179 kb)

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none

Strenght/Weakness/Opportunity/Threat Analysis of Guardian:
*denotes points added after the meeting

Strengths

• A Welcoming Community Environment
• Family/Children friendly
• Generally calm, laid-back, easygoing; relatively little drama
• Respectful players
• A social and friendly player base
• General wilingness to help others
• Friendship outside of CoH/Sense of Family
• Communication & Networking
• Knowledge of CoH (gameplay, build design, strategy, etc.)
• Players willing to learn new content, and then teach others
• Many experienced and well-respected players
• Publicly Hosted Events (open raids, Night of the Damned, W.A.V.E., FNFN, etc.)
• Good Supergroups
• Creativity/Sense of Humor/ability to have fun

Weaknesses

• Patience of some with forming teams/leagues
• Tolerance of other players (new players, players we disagree with, refusing to do anything with a PUG)
• Attitudes, Egos, & Elitism (know-it-alls, braggers, 'better than everyone else', doomsayers, etc.)
• Direction Following (intentional ignoring; players closing chat windows)
• Small number of players that will consistently take initiative/lead
• Separation of groups within the server (day-time & night-time players; VIP & non-VIP; cliques)
• Inability of some to compromise (what they want vs. what the group wants)
• Selfishness of some players
• Laziness (only going after low hanging fruit; DFBs, WSTs; begging for Power-leveling/influence)
• Not attempting things because of fear of failing
• Many players are hidden
• Unintended usage of 'Help' & 'Looking for Group' channels; the ignoring of those channels
• Unable to take advantage of LFG Queue because of habit of preforming/closing the event
• *Sense of entitlement from some players (shouldn't have to work for anything, items on the market should be free, etc.)
• *Ability to follow through with ideas/projects.
• *Players that are overly critical. About EVERYTHING.

Opportunities

• Guardian is one of the more active servers. We could attract more players without introducing queue wait times to get in.
• Get people who have played the game in the past to return to Guardian.
• Find good players in the Free To Play/Premium crowd (possibly people who will be motivated enough to lead events)
• Advertise/Promote Guardian & CoH out of game (websites, blogs, FB, friends, school, etc.)
• Become friends with other players, especially new players. Players will play where their friends are. You never know where & when you'll find that next great friend/player.
• Make friends on other servers and invite them to give Guardian a look.
• Create a centralized place to display/list Guardian events & information (could be a website, or page on the Oroborous Portal)
• Find out what caused some players to leave. Is there anything we can do to fix any of the reasons?
• Develop/train more leaders (lieutenant leaders, start them off with leading simple/entry-level TFs, build confidence/reputation)
• Create/Host/Schedule new and or unique events, sponsored by SGs or individuals (leagues running same/different TFs; themed events; events/areas that don't normally draw much attention; new content)
• Use supplementary methods of in-game communication with players (Ventrillo, Skype, etc.)
• Expand your comfort zone. Try new things. Team with players you don't know.
• Learn from the successes/downfalls of the MENTOR project. Build a new one that is comprehensive and sustainable.
• Temporary growth/spike in population during summer (many of them will be children)
• Help players improve their characters (build workshops, accolade runs, etc.)
• Increase the size of the major Guardian networks (get everyone on a major global channel)
• Hang out in Atlas more. Be an role model for new players. Show them things (powers/abilities) they can look forward to as they advance further in the game.
• Show new players that there is more to the game than just DFB (join/lead a DFB then suggest another mission/TF/SF after it; try recruiting for other TFs/SFs in low-level zones or by using Looking For Team)
• Educate new players about the game (take time to explain missions/TFs, strategy, tips, how to use the user interface, generally accepted behavior, etc.)
• Take back the 'Help' & 'Looking For Group' channels (Just because F2P can use them, it does not mean we should avoid them. We should not only use them, but set the example for how they should be used.)
• Give the players that wish to participate in PvP a chance to do so (Intro to PvP, non-hardcore fights, PvP Boot Camps, Friday Night Fight Nights)
• If the game were to ever downsize/merge servers, we'd want Guardian to remain one of the strong servers so that we are one of the surviving servers. (a longshot, but worth thinking about)
• Encourage others to have characters that are flexible (or have alts) so that all sides of the game (blue/red/yellow) can be run with them.
• Promote non-farm Mission Architect arcs that are well done and fun or challenging to play.
• Use AFK-Radio to advertise events happening on Guardian?

Threats

• Players leaving for other games. Some do come back. (understand that this is normal and has been going on for quite a while)
• Players leaving for other servers (happens on EVERY server)
• Frustration with the game or other players
• Players getting burned out (from doing the same thing too much/lack of variety; leading too much; etc.)
• Pay to Win mechanic from Paragon Market devaluing effort and time put in
• Server population growing too much (culture change, possible introduction of queuing/wait times to get on the server)
• If there are too many events going on at the same time (or close to the same time) and the server population can't support all of them, it may effect attendance and cause delays with some events being started on time.
• On the flip side if the game were to ever downsize/merge servers, Guardian could be one of the ones absorbed by the surviving servers.
• If players don't make friends with others or feel like they are at home with Guardian, they are likely to gravitate toward the most populated server(s).
• *It could get to the point where event/TFs are "too" scheduled. It's important to maintain flexibility and not have this become robotic.

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none

so at the end of all this id like to see a few things like maybe a villians night or the all *a.t.* task forces...but not just trollers open it up to more.not everyone plays everything so it might get more interest if mental say plays a tank :P

and now that i dont work weekends i would join up for sure to do a few. however summer is here and i wanna be outside too so its kinda tough to do anything for a long amount of time.

or how bout pick a zone with a toon you wanna play and fglashback and do an arc. like say striga and go grab the wedding band or tobias hansens arc. which both are fun and cool temps too.

before my hours were tough to do anything but as for now..im working normal hours. as for stuff like hami ive overplayed hami so im taking a break and letting other have my spot under a mito.plus im tireds from work now and get sleepier by 9:30 est.

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Problem Identification/Root Cause Analysis/Potential Solutions:

Common Problem Areas:

People Leaving

• PROBLEM: Panic that Guardian is losing players/dying; Chicken Little's; doom-criers
  • ROOT CAUSE: Lack of patience when forming/looking for teams, misinformed and/or negative players
  • SOLUTION: Understand that players will come and go. Some may even come back after a break.
• PROBLEM: Perception of population/activity
  • ROOT CAUSE: Hiding, anti-social tendencies
  • SOLUTION: Effort to more appropriately use hide, being more vocal/friendly/social

Trials

• PROBLEM: Leader Requirements for some iTrials (level shifts, powers, ATs, etc.)
  • ROOT CAUSE: Players don't like to fail. Failing usually deflates the league and it breaks apart.
  • SOLUTION: Get players to understand the leaders are trying to put the group in a position where they can succeed.
• PROBLEM: Lack of willingness to do trials other than Lambda/BAF
  • ROOT CAUSE: These yield the highest risk/reward ratio. Almost always are succeeded at. Players are most familiar with them.
  • SOLUTION: Work to familiarize players with all the trials.
• PROBLEM: Driven by results. Little/no tolerance of failure. Afraid to take chances.
  • ROOT CAUSE: A trial with no end reward table is generally considered a waste of time.

Balance

• PROBLEM: Dislike for low level content
  • ROOT CAUSE: Giving up powers; have done the arcs/content before
• PROBLEM: Unbalanced running of content (low, mid, high, end-game, red, blue, yellow, co-op, pvp)
  • ROOT CAUSE: Personal preference, character concepts, ease of finding teams
  • SOLUTION: Schedule events for different factions/levels within the game.

New/Premium Players

• PROBLEM: Isolation of, and lack of interaction with non-VIP players
  • ROOT CAUSE: Players already have established friends/groups. Content that isn't accessible to non-VIPs.
  • SOLUTION: Reach out to non-VIP players when running free content.
• PROBLEM: Poor interaction with new players
  • ROOT CAUSE: Some players are children and don't know better. Some players are jerks.
  • SOLUTION: Be patient with all players. Let them know what is acceptable and what is not.
• PROBLEM: The game does a poor job pointing new players to different content
  • ROOT CAUSE: Too easy to get stuck in the DFB/AE rut one loading into Atlas Park/Mercy Island. Lack of continued visual pointers to check out other contacts.
  • SOLUTION: Recruit for other events in low-level zones. Also use the "Looking For Team" channel.
• PROBLEM: Patience with new players regarding names/costumes (some may be kids and just don't know any better)
  • SOLUTION: Be patient, don't publicly chastise them.
• PROBLEM: Lack of good mentoring for new players
  • ROOT CAUSE: People are busy; don't want to take the time to really help new players get caught up to speed.
  • SOLUTION: 'Life After DFB' program
• PROBLEM: If new players aren't leveling "fast enough" they'll drift to "easy" areas
  • SOLUTION: Make other content sound interesting to them. In the end, if they don't want to do more, be ok with that.
• PROBLEM: Players not wanting to expand their comfort zone. (DFB, DIB)
  • ROOT CAUSE: It's easy and gives a buff until level 22. Some don't know about any other content.
  • SOLUTION: Make other content sound interesting to them. In the end, if they don't want to do more, be ok with that.

Communication

• PROBLEM: Setting expectations; how things will be run (speed/normal/xp runs), time commitment involved
• PROBLEM: Awareness/promotion of the different mediums of communication (word of mouth/global channels/forums/FB/voice programs) used. Know that not everyone uses every medium.
  • SOLUTION: Create a centralized list/directory for all channels/mediums used.
• PROBLEM: Premium/F2P players not being able to participate on channels/FB/forums
• PROBLEM: Social vs. Business channels? How to advertise/maintain that list
  • SOLUTION: Do we even want to separate the two from each other? Being social is a strength of the server, so it seems odd to cut it out.
• PROBLEM: No response when tells are sent. Should respond even if it's a simple no.
  • ROOT CAUSE: Players may be afk/alting/logging off. Some may have chat closed & the sound off. Sometimes the chat window has too much activity and tells get missed.
  • SOLUTION: Be patient. Wait a few minutes, and if still no response try again.
• PROBLEM: Lot of garbage in the 'Looking For Group' and 'Help' channels
  • ROOT CAUSE: Players don't understand the intended usage for the channels.
  • SOLUTION: Reminder players to keep Help chat related to questions/help, and Looking For Group to recruit/find a team.
• PROBLEM: Players not playing with the chat window open
  • SOLUTION: Explain to them how important this is to use during difficult/complex missions/etc.
• PROBLEM: Voice programs distracting from players paying attention to chat
  • SOLUTION: If you can get everyone in on the same voice channel/call, chat can be forgotten about.

Teaming/Soloing

• PROBLEM: Not effectively recruiting/including F2P players
  • ROOT CAUSE: Not used to recruiting on channels that they can see.
  • SOLUTION: Being conscious of what communication venues that varying kinds of players have access to.
• PROBLEM: Exclusion from teams (normal content)
  • SOLUTION: Most things in game are not hard enough to require a specialized team. Some things, such as a Masters Badge run, or some of the advanced end-game content, may require a team to be a little more specific with how it is constructed.
• PROBLEM: Some players just prefer to solo
  • ROOT CAUSE: Preference, PC performance; gives them time to read the background story
• PROBLEM: Forming teams is hard for Villains/Praetorians
  • ROOT CAUSE: Lower population on these areas of the game.
  • SOLUTION: Promoting server wide events for red/yellow teams.

Respect

• PROBLEM: Not being understanding if others do not want to participate in something.
• PROBLEM: People need to loosen up & relax. Just because someone doesn't want to run with you right now doesn't mean they don't like you.
• PROBLEM: Respecting the time of other players. Not spending unnecessary time to fill a team/league until it's full when you've had enough to start (and be successful) for quite a while.
  • ROOT CAUSE: Habit of running a full group.
  • SOLUTION: Send a tell to the leader if recruiting has slowed down and you have enough to start.
• PROBLEM: Respecting other player's desire to have fun. Most things do not need an all business attitude.
  • ROOT CAUSE: Taking the game too seriously.
• PROBLEM: Hiding (Inappropriate/Appropriate usage)
  • ROOT CAUSE: Keeping events private; outdated reasons (spammers)
  • SOLUTION: Try to remain unhidden whenever possible. Get your friends/globals to do the same.

Scheduled Events

• PROBLEM: Events being delayed by other events
  • ROOT CAUSE: Too many events for the population to handle at once. Players that want to be involved in everything.
  • SOLUTION: Try to compromise with the timing of events that have adjacent/overlapping times.
• PROBLEM: Designing more events (eg. adapting Tanker Tuesday, new event ideas); run different levels simultaneously
  • SOLUTION: Setting a weekly TF/SF/accolade runs/safeguard or mayhem mission

Leadership

• PROBLEM: Not enough leaders on Guardian
  • ROOT CAUSE: see Leadership post below
  • SOLUTION: Good leaders mentoring players that would like to become better leaders.
• PROBLEM: Leaders that have bad attitudes/are abusive make people not want to run with them.
  • ROOT CAUSE: Ego's, severe lack of patience.
  • SOLUTION: Do not tolerate these type of leaders.

Performance

• PROBLEM: Some players are running on less than optimal computers that don't handle running some content very well

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none

Special Projects/Topics:

Mentoring Project (Life After DFB):

No one volunteered to own this at the meeting, so for now I'll take ownership of this project. Only a few ideas for this project were discussed at the meeting. More info about how this will be set up will come out later. The main point for now was to gather volunteers to start getting this planned out and put into action.

Some of the discussed Ideas/Goals:

• Teach about enhancements (slotting advice, Enhancement Diversification, where/how to get them and sell them)
• This project is NOT about Power-leveling
• Exploration badge hunting
• GM hunts
• Accolade help

Here are the people that volunteered to help out. We can definitely take in more volunteers though. If you'd like to volunteer, please send a tell or in-game email to @Omega Shockwave. I'll be reaching out to this group soon.

Life After DFB volunteers:
@Dark Energon
@Dragons Lair
@Frogblast
@Harbinger of Fire
@Infernal Disturbance
@K26dp
@Kragothe
@Kylon
@LadyWillow
@Omega Shockwave
@Rock Flash
@Seamus O'Don

-----------------------------------------------------

Focus on Leadership:

How to be a good leader:

• Take time to learn the event/TF/Trial
• Set clear expectations beforehand
• Guide players that are lost/slow to catch on
• Show initiative
• Set a good example; Be a role model
• Help out those interested in learning to effectively lead
• Respect as a leader is earned, not given (this is different than players respecting other players)
• Understanding that the team succeeds or fails together. It's not about 1 person.
• Always keep a cool head and be fair with both the team and individual players.
• Try to handle confrontations privately.
• Accurately identify skill level/ability.
• Able to make necessary adjustments.
• Communicate directions well and in a timely manner.
• Be able to delegate tasks
• Let others lead when you are not, without stepping in on their toes. It's ok to offer help, but it's their show.

Why don't some people lead?

• Some don't feel like leading or are not motivated to lead.
• Some don't know what they are doing well enough (lack of confidence/knowledge/experience).
• Players belittling/mocking/berating them for mistakes (publicly & via tells)
• When they have in the past, there was too much back-seat driving or other players have tried to just take over
• Don't like dealing with players who refuse to listen or play with their chat window closed.
• Some have a hard time attracting players because of lack of reputation.
• Some players get distracted easily.
• Some players type very poorly/slow.
• Some are intimidated about living up to the example of some of the prominent leaders.
• They don't want to lead if they aren't sure it will pass.
• Some are not good with handling players that are new/clueless about the event.
• Some have lead and have had their event be griefed in the past.
• Some are burned out from leading too much.
• Some players will, but are a bit resistant to it. Some players just need a push to get going.
• Sometimes the role your character is playing makes it difficult to lead and effectively play at the same time.
• Some players are better at helping in other ways (eg. recruiting)

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none

Ok. That's the end of the summary. That's all that was really discussed, lol.

Update: I'm a little behind with getting the popmenu created for incarnate trials. The rest of this ate up most of my free time this week. I'll try to have something done for this within the next week.

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@Omega Shockwave
Server: Guardian
SG: The Omega Revolution
VG: none