+Requests System

Discuss and propose improvements to the request system here. We try to keep it up to date and improved, so please refer to the existing helpfiles and mechanics of the system to make sure that any proposal remains fully relevant.

<the following post was moved in from another thread>
Gulp forgot to mention that two of the current requests concerned placeholder code for Dark Horizons II and are not for Dark Horizons I.

So, what is wrong with “maybe in the future” as an answer? It is better than a flat out denial for something we can’t do for you immediately. You may not like the answer but sometimes that is all we can do. This doesn't mean the system is a failure it means we can’t do it at this time.

There are some issues with the system, yes. All of them are human error problems.
One problem is players defaulting requests to “wizard” level. We (the wizards) are bad about reading something and saying to ourselves "playstaff" without checking permission levels. For example, I didn't realize that Joe's latest request in a chain of requests was at wizard level and not helper level. I've been waiting for them to get on it. It was 1) a playstaff request and 2) I don't connect at the same time as Joe.

The second issue is staff burnout. It is a major problem at the moment and we are talking about corrective measures. Back to issue one, the two people answering the bulk of the requests connect in the morning EST and the bulk of the people putting in requests connect in the evening.

The third issue is that we only have one coder who does an immense amount of work for us each week for free. But there is only so much time in a day and probably 1/3 of requests we receive ask for new code. Most of those will be denied because we lack the capacity to fill them. The better ones might be given a “try in a couple of months” answer or “we have taken it into consideration.”

The last issue is a player issue. We can rotate staff, we can try to find new coders, we can force requests to default to the judge-level for sorting, but we can’t change player behavior. We need cooperation, specificity (“the RP on Tatooine” is NOT enough information.”I’d like to meet with X NPC” is NOT enough information. Playstaff needs to be able to go into the meeting prepared if you want anything to happen), maturity, and understanding. You won’t like every answer you get. You are not entitled to like every answer you get. Many requests will be denied. Many requests are suggestions that we have read and taken into account--- but we aren’t obligated to use them.

You know the old example about a child touching a hot stove? That has come into play on Dark Horizons. Nobody likes dealing with property or building requests because of what inevitably happens. It isn’t a code problem and building isn’t especially difficult--- but we know to expect bad behavior from players.

Player X got a new hospital on planet Y. Players A, B, and C spam building requests. If there is the slightest delay or a single denial then staff can expect trouble. The worst treatment I’ve ever received has come from players that I slave away for on a FREE game.

Requests and "in the future"....well I can understand that some things can't be done right now. But to say a request is "Closed" with a statement like that is not really closed. If it can't be done or if it is a flat no it will not be done then say it and give the reasons why.

Another one of my personal favorites is this one I got that closed the request "may or may not choose to expand his sales inventory in the future." That was all there was as the reason to close it.

Now when I received that back in April the Wizards, from all accounts on these boards, had already known that the DH1 was going away. But I, as a player, had no idea this was the case. An answer such as the example I gave really said nothing, didn't answer the request, gave no indication what would be done would not be done, nor what to expect.

In this player's eyes this was just a way to clear out the Request board to make it look like more was being done when in fact nothing was being done.

This is but one example and I have more and have seen more from other players.

No, that was actually a polite way of saying "You don't own the vendor you just own the property. It is his business and he will choose what is bought and sold."

T, I never said I owned the vendor. I put in a request asking for the vendor to sell other items. What I got was no answer.

Yes, you got a denial that said "the vendor might choose to sell other items in the future."

I've never used the request system on DH1, I've had no need to ever request anything since I just show up to RP and talk to people. I don't really delve to deeply into the 'doing things' system.

What I have seen of the request system from others and on other games often leaves me wondering what the point is. It's a fancy @mail system, a fancy way for people to leave a voice message but in the end the responses generally are the same. 'Yes. No'. That's what it all boils down to. I guess I'm personally a little confused on what the purpose of the request system is, just a staff bboard essentially so they can see what people want? In the end it boils down to yes and no with no real explanations of why yes or no, just we said so.

Hi mom, Hi dad.

It makes it easier for staff to keep track of what has and hasnt been done. Now that players can comment on their own requests (thank God!) it is a handy place to store all of the information behind the requests.

Edit: To clarify, it is easier to get things done when you can /comment on a request, and get an answer from the player via /comment. Any staff member can see the comments so once all the essential questions are answered anyone can generally handle the request. You aren't locked in to a single staff member like you were when we had to depend on @mail and pages. All the information is right there for everyone to see.

Ok, then another example of closing the request:
This suggestion has been taken into consideration. I am clearing it to make room for future requests..

I contend that this is no answer either but a way to clear out the request board.

Your request was a suggestion not a request. Yes, it was a way to clear the request board ... of things that weren't really requests. It was asking for future developmental changes and, as I said, you are not entitled to have a suggestion used.

Why should I say yes or no right away? I could say no as a matter of course but what if we want to use the idea in the future?

Again, reread my comment about a single coder.

Actually it was a bug where my own security attacked me for doing some on my planet.

No, it was not your "own" planet. It was the planet on which you were elected the head of state.

Paradox raised a good question about the point of a request system. Since I held off on coding one until about 3 months ago, I think it's a fair question.

From a player perspective, there is no real difference between having a request system and having a staffer who always knows where to find your most recent mail, what the state of your current requests is right now, when you sent that mail, how long you've been waiting, how many requests you've made in the past week or month or whatever, what other staffers have to say about that request (special circumstances, key information, mis-filed and actually belongs in the code requests and not the RP requests), and so on.

It's an organizational tool to help staffers handle the volume of requests they will (hopefully) receive (and incidentally allows players to see the stats on how many requests staff are processing; if we're handling 200 requests, cut us some slack as we get caught up; if we're all caught up, launch things our way). When things are going full-throttle, a hundred requests may come in over the course of one month. A hundred requests is a lot of legwork no matter how you slice it.

It helps to be able to type a command and see a list of all the outstanding requests, with the ones who've been waiting longest outlined in red ansi. No, it doesn't do the work for us, but it's a sight better than combing through 200 messages in your @mail inbox looking for that specific mail someone sent you 4 weeks ago that you never read because you were looking for someone else's mail from 8 weeks ago when you got it.

+requests/active is pretty handy for eyeballing total requests in the queue. Hopefully the tool itself can be fully debugged, enhanced, and made maximally userfriendly before we relaunch; anything which makes it easier to stay organized will make it easier to keep reliable, consistent records, for one thing.

You are right T. I concede. Good luck with all this.

And the request system is a work in progress. Last week it was changed so players could comment on their own requests.

Recently, I've suggested that the request system @mail players to inform them of new comments.

My reason: /comment is probably the best feature of the new system since it allows us to keep questions, answers, and other info in the same place. I think it is probably more realistic if we automate the system to inform players of comments since the alternative (at the moment) would be expecting players to check their requests every few days.

Possible Cons: Mail spam, players not checking mail, ????

My feeling is that people would probably want to know more than they'd want to avoid @mail spam.

I'm a fan of the current system. It's neat and orderly, and the ability to view and add comments is great!

Now, if only it were used less for superficial +requests, and/or more information was provided in them, that'd be great (this would apply both to the player request and the comment(s) left by staff).

Quote :

Your request was a suggestion not a request. Yes, it was a way to clear the request board ... of things that weren't really requests. It was asking for future developmental changes and, as I said, you are not entitled to have a suggestion used.

If a +request that comes in is considered a suggestion, and not a request, why not just give a simple, understanding explanation for closing the +request? Something as easy as, "This is more of a developmental change then <insert reason here>. For <this reason>, we are going to close the +request for now; if there is time in the futue, we may try to consider it then." This may be just me, but giving short and vague answers just seems to insight bad feelings on both sides. Players get upset, then staff get upset when players don't seem understand, and vice versa. Then we're left with unneeded bickering back and forth. Courtesy the first time goes a long way to prompting courtesy throughout.

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On another note...what if there was something like a "Suggestions" system? It would eat up space and just give more work to our one coder, but in the long run it might be something useful? A player sends in a +request that is more of a 'suggestion', so <insert reason for closing +request> and say it's been filed to the "Suggestions" system.

Also paste a, well...'disclaimer' on said system saying there is no certain guarantee of when/if suggestions will be gotten too. But players will at least know the thing they sent in was more than glanced over and put in the shred pile becaue it was not applicable, and there would be a record of suggestions for, when there is time, staff to go over.

That is what the suggestion BB is for.

Yes, I do give a lot of short answers. Sometimes I think a player knows more than they really do but I have been learning to dumb down my replies (excuse the phrase).

But most non-story requests will still be answered in a sentence or two. Around a third of the requests we have answered since the first system was implemented have been answered with one word: either "fixed" or "done" depending on the request.

We have had some complaints about that but when the request asks for staff to do a simple task what do you expect? "Done" means the task was done and "fixed" means the problem was fixed. They aren't ambiguous words. Sorry, but if I had time to write a narrative story of my exploits fixing this request I'd probably rather spend it doing something fun.

I've been the staff work horse when it comes to requests. As it is I've handled probably 70 to 80 percent of the game's requests over the past two years. Giving lengthy explanations unless one is needed is too time consuming. There is just too much volume coming in for that to be possible. It also generally backfires in some way because people spend hours to pick apart every line of a lengthy explanation that I'd probably had less than five minutes to write and then try to argue. This takes up more of my time.

So, as of lately, I go with succinct answers and I'm trying to dumb things down as much as possible.

Does the suggestion bboard time out? Though that doesn't have much to do with the subject at hand, sorry. Perhaps just a quick reply to a player of, "This may be more suited to the Suggestions bb, for now we're closing the request, but it'd be helpful if you could put the idea up there for others to consider and comment on," might be something that could be done?

I've got nothing against straightforward answers like "Done" and "Fixed." Straightforward answers are wonderful, and can bring something to a neat close with there is understanding. What I meant more by 'short' wasn't quite 'straightforward', though; I meant more along the lines, well...being along the border of rude.

Take the example the exchange earlier in the forum discussion. A player brought a concern forward to try and, simply, get clarity on the situation. Said player was not met with a straight-line explanation of why, but more of something along the lines of, "I am right, you are wrong. This is this, and that is that, so drop it." Vagueness and shortness led to a misunderstanding that could have been avoided.

I can understand how going through a great deal of the game's +requests can lead someone to trying to find the simplest way possible to wade through the text. Heck, I'd be doing that too.

Sorry, I'm know I'm venting. In the case of the earlier example I'm trying not to talk about too many player specific things on the BB.

It was simple enough. "No" means "No". Can I get a vendor I don't own to sell this? No, you don't own the vendor, but we might add items to that vendor in the future. I answered a yes or no question with a "No" but also with the qualifier that we may still do it anyway.

Yes, the suggestions BB does have a timeout. We normally read things in the first day or two they are posted (unless it becomes a long heated debate then we might skip it) so even a shorter timeout is enough to ensure that the suggestion is heard. It is currently set to the default timeout.

This is off topic, I know. But with the player base down to next to nothing, with all the comments already posted, suggestions made, to receive the comments that seem to suggest "I am staff, I am right, you are wrong" kind of closes the door to any further discussion on the topics.

I offered examples of issues that I, as a player, encounterd and honestly felt the door was slammed in my face. Hence my comment of I concede, you win.

I understand your comments. You want more feedback. I'm sorry, I don't have enough time in the day to give it. I can give a short response and hope you take it in the best light or I can skip the request and hope someone else answers it.

I think at least one of your examples was badly picked but, overall, I understand where you are coming from. Please understand where I am coming from. I don't have the time to write out a lengthy explanation. Understand that I do all this work for free. I don't get paid or compensated in any way. Understand that I have a family, a career, and obligations outside the game.

Understand that I am a person who would, one day, like to enjoy the game I have worked so hard on. Understand that I have spent dozens of hours helping you alone, striker, out of all of our players. I've answered more of your requests than any other player because you have put in more requests than any other player. Understand that I continue to help everyone despite harsh treatment, unjustified rumors, and a total lack of understanding toward me.

I do understand all that. I have been staff on many other games. I fully understand where you are coming from. When things got overwhelming and I couldn't be objective or was just burned out I voluntary stepped down. I was always asked to return and sometimes I did.

I used those examples as just that, examples that the responses left me wondering even more what it meant.

In the case of asking for three items to be sold at a vendor to have said "this is a suggestion, please post it on the suggestion BB" takes as much effort as what I received as an example.