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  #1  
Old 05-27-2014, 10:13 PM
Kohola_KinG Kohola_KinG is offline
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Dictatorship Or Democracy?

Decided to post in the official forum as it's a lot more official than unofficial.

As we all know era is a dictatorship. I'm not saying it's a bad dictatorship but is it the right thing for era? I honestly don't believe so.

This thread isn't to flair up any tensions or for people to QQ. It's simply just in the best interests for era.

We all know managers at the start are full of ambition, motivation and plans. They don't always get what they want done but they get some stuff done and then what happens is they start to laze off and things slow down.

This is exactly why i think a democracy of some sort would be the best for era. Would it not be better to have people elected for the manager role and let them deliver their projects and they know that if they don't continue to work hard they will lose their "votes", if you will.

Let's say they get to manage for 6-8 months and then another "election" if you will takes place for somebody else to take over and deliver their work.

I see a lot of questions against this but i just want to get across my intentions as to why i think it could work and why it would be better.

The people of era always want the best for the game, they play the game so they obviously want a better game experience. It gives them power to put somebody in place who will deliver what they want.

It also keeps managers on their toes and keeps them working.

Maybe many will disagree, i dunno, just a suggestion.
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  #2  
Old 05-27-2014, 10:37 PM
BlueMelon BlueMelon is offline
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Who would want to be manager? It takes someone with ballz o' steel to actually want to be manager.
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  #3  
Old 05-27-2014, 10:39 PM
Stephen Stephen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kohola_KinG View Post
Decided to post in the official forum as it's a lot more official than unofficial.

As we all know era is a dictatorship. I'm not saying it's a bad dictatorship but is it the right thing for era? I honestly don't believe so.

This thread isn't to flair up any tensions or for people to QQ. It's simply just in the best interests for era.

We all know managers at the start are full of ambition, motivation and plans. They don't always get what they want done but they get some stuff done and then what happens is they start to laze off and things slow down.

This is exactly why i think a democracy of some sort would be the best for era. Would it not be better to have people elected for the manager role and let them deliver their projects and they know that if they don't continue to work hard they will lose their "votes", if you will.

Let's say they get to manage for 6-8 months and then another "election" if you will takes place for somebody else to take over and deliver their work.

I see a lot of questions against this but i just want to get across my intentions as to why i think it could work and why it would be better.

The people of era always want the best for the game, they play the game so they obviously want a better game experience. It gives them power to put somebody in place who will deliver what they want.

It also keeps managers on their toes and keeps them working.

Maybe many will disagree, i dunno, just a suggestion.
Voting for an actual change isn't affective. However, if Era wanted to devise a way for players to rate the manager on a monthly basis that would be more affective.

For example, the player logs in on the first of the month and is given the opportunity to rate the manager from 1-10. The results are displayed publicly. You may vote at any time once a month.

This way you could record the managerial performance month over month; i.e., "Oh, Zao has had a rating greater than 60% for the last 4 months, he is a good manager".
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Old 05-27-2014, 10:45 PM
BlueMelon BlueMelon is offline
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imagine a +/- rep system on era
who would be in the green?
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  #5  
Old 05-27-2014, 10:50 PM
Kohola_KinG Kohola_KinG is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen View Post
Voting for an actual change isn't affective. However, if Era wanted to devise a way for players to rate the manager on a monthly basis that would be more affective.

For example, the player logs in on the first of the month and is given the opportunity to rate the manager from 1-10. The results are displayed publicly. You may vote at any time once a month.

This way you could record the managerial performance month over month; i.e., "Oh, Zao has had a rating greater than 60% for the last 4 months, he is a good manager".
Sounds good but the question is. What if they get rated poorly, what happens then?

@Bluemelon.. I honestly disagree about the 'having balls to be the manager'. If you have good plans and determination then i see no reason why you wouldn't go ahead and deliver them.

Also, why would they always be negative in the ratings? If they are doing a good job, keeping a good functional working team, delivering projects. I see no reason why they wouldn't be rated highly.
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  #6  
Old 05-27-2014, 11:01 PM
shrimps shrimps is offline
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This probably wouldn't work, too many people would troll/pollute the system, like the support center, too much trash goes in there it just clogs the system and it doesn't get used.
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  #7  
Old 05-27-2014, 11:21 PM
Kohola_KinG Kohola_KinG is offline
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This probably wouldn't work, too many people would troll/pollute the system, like the support center, too much trash goes in there it just clogs the system and it doesn't get used.
We can both agree that the support center isn't really focused on by the staff. Also a lot of things doesn't get used in the support center because let's be honest. A lot of it was like to much hard work. You get the drift? To lazy to implement.

Option 1: Staff members get the vote instead of the public. Depending on the votes & feedback or however it's done. Then PWA confirm it and make it happen.

Option 2: PWA take notes of what manager they appointed promised they would achive. After a certain time period, PWA get's back online and asks to be provided the following work they had promised. If not delivered, they get removed. Voting system is then introudced within (staff team). Staff team vote as anonymous (ofcourse). Outcome= new manager.. They deliver their ideas to PWA then same again.


I can guranatee you that a lot more work will be delivered due to the constant pressure. That's how successful teams function. They need pressure, without pressure what is their to worry about? They can work at their own pace (exactly what has been happening for to long).
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  #8  
Old 05-27-2014, 11:29 PM
Supaman771 Supaman771 is offline
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@Bluemelon.. I honestly disagree about the 'having balls to be the manager'. If you have good plans and determination then i see no reason why you wouldn't go ahead and deliver them.
From personal relationships, and just some observation... only 1 (Ice) of the past 5 Managers (Zach, MD, Fidel, Ice, Zao) actually wanted/did anything with the position beyond babysitting it. And he ended up with the shortest run of them all since he just wanted the admin powers without being accountable (his current position).

Blue said no a couple times IIRC, pretty sure I'm the only one recently who has actually asked/had ambition to do it -- but that's a no-no. Everyone else they pushed into it, 'cept Ice who texted Gabriel.

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This probably wouldn't work, too many people would troll/pollute the system, like the support center, too much trash goes in there it just clogs the system and it doesn't get used.
I agree with this. Only a small portion of the server has any respectable opinions (that aren't totally troll) when it comes to the administration. I'd give you mine, but then I'd probably get a deleted post or a lecture.
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Old 05-28-2014, 02:08 AM
Stephen Stephen is offline
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Sounds good but the question is. What if they get rated poorly, what happens then?
Doesn't have to be a master plan; some of the best systems evolve.
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Originally Posted by shrimps View Post
This probably wouldn't work, too many people would troll/pollute the system
This is like presidential opinion polls - they're not deciding factors but help guide decisions and serve as fast feedback for leaders. If the average rating is low then an exceptionally low rating is poor and "okay" becomes a good rating.

Try not to think programmatically or systematically; it's a human process and big wide-sweeping rules don't typically help. I recommend approaching things on a situation to situation basis!
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Old 05-28-2014, 10:00 PM
Spikedude Spikedude is offline
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Warning: overly wordy Amsel post to follow.

From what I can remember, we've always joked about how Era management is constantly on the next bus. All managers tend to go through the same few "phases" of appreciation:
Honeymoon: "Oh, the old manager was such crap, I'm so glad we have someone new around."
Suck-up: "You're doing such a great job, and getting so much done, you're one of the best managers we've ever had! PS can I have a job as PR?"
Loss of thrill: "What has the manager even DONE recently?"
Decision time: "You were faced with a problem where 50% of the players wanted one thing and 50% of the players wanted the other, and you went with the group who wasn't ME?! Worst. Manager. Ever." (Really did something in the middle, so 100% of players think this).
After the hammer: "Oh I'm so glad we got a new manager, that last one was such crap."

Truth is, we will never find a manager that all of the players appreciate, because players have contradictory opinions of where the game should go. As I've said in other posts, most developers on Era have given up with ideas that try to please everyone; we're much more concerned with making sure everyone has at least one cool new piece of content released that they enjoy every so often. You might not be in to no-pk events, so you may have thought NPCDodge was stupid, so the next thing I came out with was GangPK (entirely PK based). Some might not like that because it's too closed off, so one of my next plans is a more traditional Gang "area" based off Benny/Dusk's ideas (IE kicking off gang challenges yourself). And all of the developers do this; Tim, for example, will work on a new Inventory one day (appealing to those who think Era needs a visual makeover), then work on the gang system the next (appealing to those who think Gangs need a functional makeover).

Despite having the fewest developers to choose from that Graal has ever had (and one of the smallest development teams that Era has ever had), we release new content on almost a weekly basis. And this is a game that you all play for free. I think it's great how much effort the staff has put into giving Erians new content to enjoy. We've had countless events, a few new quests, multiple holiday scenes, all of gun skins, the new inventory system, a whole bunch of random graphics/levels/sounds/ganis, etc etc all come out under Zao's management in the past six months. Personally, I think he's doing an awesome job. I honestly don't remember a time when work has gotten done this consistently and quickly (don't you remember the summer where era was down for like three months for a reset and the only new developments were cars and small biz's?).

As for the reason why Zao, Ice, and Blue (who I'd consider "management") might not release content at the rate they once did, it's because they're constantly fixing all the little things that most of you don't even know about. When cars broke, it was Ice and Blue fixing it up. When projects are running behind, Zao is on our butts immediately. Yet, despite this, they STILL have each found time to release some really cool things in the past six months (Zao released two of the most popular non-pk events, Blue released the christmas music player that pretty much everyone used, Ice always does a lot of the holiday scripts, etc).

And to the point of "nobody wants manager," that's not really true. While I've never asked him directly, I find it hard to believe that Zao would say he doesn't enjoy being manager. And plenty of us are ready to take over if Zao decides he's not into it anymore. The real problem is that Erians burn out every manager by treating them as though Era is supposed to be their full time, 40-hours per week job. Virtually all managers have also been players, and even if they are on for 40 hours in a week, they aren't going to be doing work that whole time. It's not a paid position, and it's crazy to expect something so much out of a volunteer.

(I don't usually do this, but) TL;DR: Zao is a great manager. When he gets sick of it, we have plenty of great candidates waiting to be the next manager. Era's outlook from an entertainment perspective is the best it has ever been. I think players need to stop looking for issues where there aren't any.
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  #11  
Old 05-28-2014, 10:07 PM
Supaman771 Supaman771 is offline
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You're doing such a great job, and getting so much done, you're one of the best managers we've ever had! PS can I have a job as PR?
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Old 05-28-2014, 10:11 PM
Spikedude Spikedude is offline
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k.
I've sucked up to a lot of people in my day, and Zao isn't one of them. I don't even think Zao reads the forums. Plus wouldn't need to suck up; I'm level 4 RC anyways and have more than enough rights to do the things I need on a daily basis as a developer.

I would accept the accusation of "suck-up" if my point weren't backed up with about a thousand examples and detailed comparisons to old management styles, which you apparently glazed over and ran to the "TL;DR" (now I remember why I don't put those in).
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Old 05-28-2014, 10:41 PM
Kohola_KinG Kohola_KinG is offline
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Nobody's saying anything bad about Zao or any manager. No idea where you got that from.

What i'm trying to get at is.. A way that players can come together and stand up to the manager if they believe they aren't delivering what they want. We can't stick with the same manager forever. They have things they will never change that players want changed. Different managers = different beliefs/changes.

Constant change on era is what is needed to keep them entertained. It's a game after-all, not real life. People play games to be entertained, not to play happy families and live a life.

@Stephens idea, i really like it. Could it be implemented?

Edit: The idea behind this is to also keep managers on their toes. They know if they don't deliver and run things professionally as they can then they know they will get bad rep/no votes etc. This will keep them working.

Just because things are being released doesn't mean it's coming from Zao. How many projects has he worked on, did he help with you? Just because he give you permission to do it, doesn't mean he should get credit for it? Does he lead any projects etc?

I'm not saying he doesn't, but like i said; just because content is being released doesn't mean it's coming or being directed from him.
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Old 05-28-2014, 10:43 PM
Supaman771 Supaman771 is offline
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I would accept the accusation of "suck-up" if my point weren't backed up with about a thousand examples and detailed comparisons to old management styles, which you apparently glazed over and ran to the "TL;DR" (now I remember why I don't put those in).
I read the whole thing as I always do... twice.

Just seemed highly bias toward the team you work/are an administrator on, and beyond the second paragraph it had nothing to do with the topic.

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Old 05-28-2014, 10:53 PM
Spikedude Spikedude is offline
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I just figured Koho was bringing it up to say "I want to vote to change the manager now." Other people complained about them earlier in the thread, as though to say the same:

Quote:
From personal relationships, and just some observation... only 1 (Ice) of the past 5 Managers (Zach, MD, Fidel, Ice, Zao) actually wanted/did anything with the position beyond babysitting it.
The reason I brought all of it up is that players will complain about whatever is in charge, no matter how good of a job they're doing. Look at almost all of the past managers. You can browse through the hall in the events place; can you really pull out more than like 3 or 4 that you thought did a good job? But somehow Era has managed to stay alive and making new stuff for like 15 years (without paying anybody for it). I don't think players should get the choice of who runs things, because it would change hands too quickly for anyone to get started on real projects, and some of the people that would get chosen would be horrible. Era is supposed to be more like a business than a government, and that's how we can be efficient. If everyone's out campaigning to the players to stay/get Manager, and still get cycled around before they can learn the ropes, nothing will get done.

The reason I got so defensive is because I thought this thread was supposed to be a personal attack on current management (saying "hey, we need new management, so let me vote on who it is").
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