All 5th Age Staff

2008-08-10 07:58:54 am

I hereby am giving all 5th Age staff members, administrators, "free lancers" 1 week to comply with the program or be promoted to player. This would be the following list of people:

Mia Akemi
Darknae
Dersaidin
Kynny
Cell Master
matski
Mr Brain
nwasells
Olive Man 40
Sorceress
WarDrake
Max

I have sat long enough trying to be political with these people. If I have not heard from these people or they refuse to cooperate, I am letting them go on with their lives, and will seek replacements. Once replaced the people will not be eligible for a staff position again.

As I have said before even if I have to do the entire project myself I will.

Thread title:

onald

2008-08-12 08:52:25 am

im not on there but i got an email, the deal is my computer i was using to be online is still out, not sure what going on with it and had no money to to fix it, i did try a new hardrive in it but thats not it......

im still wanting to help but right now i am checking my email with friends computers so i have realy no way of help with any big online projects right now.

will get back as soon as something good happens.......

Mr Brain

2008-08-17 08:50:49 pm

The week is over. Here's the new 5th Age staff team:

DM Mercury
nwasells

Good luck Wink

DM Mercury

2008-08-17 11:51:47 pm

yep pretty much thats it.

Kay.

2008-08-18 12:00:29 am

*does a little salute* And me, who moderatifies =)

Amaelthalion

2008-08-22 01:38:01 am

As always I'm a little late to the party, but I think something small needs to be said. Your patience is not in question here Merc, so please do not take these next statements as such. My main point is this: why cut the staff? If they are not currently working, then it makes no difference if they can help with progress or not. I don't see the point of removing their staff abilities. With the exception of newer staff I have personally seen each of these people dedicate more hours than some of us are willing to spend on more important tasks trying to help make the projects in the past a success. I can understand what it's like being the only person who seems like they are doing anything, trust me I've been there. But did I fire my entire staff when they decided to go on a three week vacation right before a big rush? NO.
Progress has to made. We all understand that to be true. HOWEVER, as I said before the people you have chosen (or who have chosen you) are at a critical point in their lives; they are still kids, but they are also trying to become adults. They have to make key decisions that will effect their future. Yes, I know this project will succeed. Brain says that's me having faith, so be it. But I also put my faith that the people who have to survive, find real careers and make a family ARE NOT abandoning this project. You will always have support and perhaps this is something that should be a private conversation, but let's face it that's not how this family runs (and you all can squirm, whine, moan whatever, we act like a damn family). I know in my heart that cutting the staff is not the right answer here, in the end it is your call, but in the opinion of an old (enter what you'd like here, friend, annoyance, pest, believer) I have to stand up for the staff and say keep 'em on, the worse thing they are doing is taking up space, and besides if they never log on, how much space are they really taking up :p?

As always I'm a little late to the party, but I think something small needs to be said. Your patience is not in question here Merc, so please do not take these next statements as such. My main point is this: why cut the staff? If they are not currently working, then it makes no difference if they can help with progress or not. I don't see the point of removing their staff abilities. With the exception of newer staff I have personally seen each of these people dedicate more hours than some of us are willing to spend on more important tasks trying to help make the projects in the past a success. I can understand what it's like being the only person who seems like they are doing anything, trust me I've been there. But did I fire my entire staff when they decided to go on a three week vacation right before a big rush? NO. 
Progress has to made. We all understand that to be true. HOWEVER, as I said before the people you have chosen (or who have chosen you) are at a critical point in their lives; they are still kids, but they are also trying to become adults. They have to make key decisions that will effect their future. Yes, I know this project will succeed. Brain says that's me having faith, so be it. But I also put my faith that the people who have to  survive, find real careers and make a family ARE NOT abandoning this project. You will always have support and perhaps this is something that should be a private conversation, but let's face it that's not how this family runs (and you all can squirm, whine, moan whatever, we act like a damn family). I know in my heart that cutting the staff is not the right answer here, in the end it is your call, but in the opinion of an old (enter what you'd like here, friend, annoyance, pest, believer) I have to stand up for the staff and say keep 'em on, the worse thing they are doing is taking up space, and besides if they never log on, how much space are they really taking up :p?

Mr Brain

Edit history:

Mr Brain: 2008-08-22 06:50:03 am

2008-08-22 06:47:11 am

Amael is like all those people you got rid of: ALL TALK.

We're not talking three weeks here, we're talking years. Your little rant is very nice, very sensitive, but in the end nothing is going to happen if no one does anything. If their careers take so much of their time, so be it - they should stick to them and I wish them the best of luck, but they shouldn't offer to do a job they can't do and disappoint the people who are counting on them - not only Merc but the people who pre-paid for the game.

Most of these people did absolutely nothing for this game (age 4 was another game) other than argue endlessly about every single tiny detail and hinder the progress of the work of the few who actually seemed willing to do something. It's like trying to build a fucking bridge with two engineers and twenty bureaucrats who think they know anything. This may be harsh, but in a volunteer-based team, people who aren't willing to do anything do not deserve any kind of credit, authority or input. Which is why they should not stay in the team. Mia, Max, I know some of the work I acomplished was due to your guidance and suggestions, but you didn't actually do anything yourselves (Max helped buy some trees and terrain textures). The following three people are the exceptions:

Dersaidin did some work (small forest, waterfalls, bridges, crops). He's essentially a good and capable worker and he should stay in the team, even if he can't return right now. By the way, I could swear he replied to this thread (saying he couldn't return now), but maybe I'm confusing things and his post wasn't actually deleted because it was bad PR, as I think it was.

Darknae did some work (built small fishermen's village), but he lacks the mental discipline to work in a long term project and as the member of a team which he does not lead. He left to make his own game, which I am sure is not a bad game, but since he decided to leave, nothing we can do about it.

Cell "Mr. Indecisive" Master did some work (tunnels, part of an orc, stone cliff), but he didn't seem certain of whether he wanted to participate or not, given the amount of times he changed his mind about staying, I mean leaving, I mean staying, I mean leaving, I mean staying in the team.

Merc himself is not beyond reproach. Indeed, if one week is enough for people to be expelled - even if it was one month - Merc might as well have expelled himself for how slowly he is working. I know, real life work, hobby project, blah blah blah, anyway, he seems to be working, even if slowly, which is more than everyone else is doing. Removing inactive members, idling in-world more and growing out of his HUD-mania are good signs, signs that he's willing to work more in the game now. nwasells did a little work - LESS than Dersaidin - months ago. His willingness to go on helping is praiseworthy, but ever since he said he wanted to go on helping, almost two weeks ago, he did nothing and he's nowhere to be seen, which makes me fear the worst.

Now, let's compare this with what I accomplished for this game - I don't mean to boast, just put this whole thing in prespective. I am an university student working on a REALLY FUCKING HARD 5-years master degree in computer science and engineering. I've had a reasonably successful year, which means I did not neglect my university work (the only class I failed last semester I failed on purpose, due to the schedule of its classes and exams being in conflict with another class I was doing). I make or modify websites for money in part-time. I help my parents regularly by performing small tasks for them. I am the webmaster of a manga scanlation group as a hobby, this requires a lot of my free time too. I am an amateur landscape photographer, and every time the weather is appropriate, I grab my camera and go off to photograph the forest where I live, which is seriously beautiful (website with photos as soon as I have enough free time to finish it Tongue

). This summer the weather has been great. I lift weights in a gym. Sometimes I travel, I go out to dinner or see a movie with my friends. I play board games with my brothers and friends, computer games by myself and I watch anime. I learn new programming languages and work on different projects, such as my program to manage desktop wallpaper pictures or my server to play Mafia (Werewolf) on the internet in real-time. So you see, I am not entirely idle either.

I explicitly wrote, in a staff forum post, my terms for collaborating with the 5th age - and the gist of it is that, unlike all those people that Merc got rid of, I am NOT a staff member. I have NO authority, no position in the hierarchy. I take no orders, receive no credit, have no responsability. In other words, nothing should be expected of me. And yet:
* I have created BRAT, an auxiliary, temporary chat relaying bot in order to enable communication between all parts of the world, because no one else seemed willing to make one.
*I have created BERRAIN, a kickass linux AW bot that enables all sorts of massive terrain manipulation tasks to be performed with ease, even beyond the limits of the world. You can save terrain dumps and use them in your own programs. You can load dem2rwx terrain on top of an existing complex terrain without damaging it. You can move mountains, exagerate valleys, create seas and automatically draw terrain transitions. If you want it for your own world it is available for download in www.andras.net .
* I have created several terrain models for the game, which were afterwards scrapped because Max and Mia decided they were no good. The final, current terrain model is a composite model made possible only through the usage of BERRAIN. More than 20 distinct parts were used in order to create a gentle sloping valley surrounded by mountains and with a river running off to one side (thanks to Max for the creative input here). The valley opens to a large sea. There are also swamp and a desert areas. I made the terrain transitions between all types of terrain (recently, which is why the old screenshots have no transitions).
* I have built the river and mud lakes in the swamp, by placing particle emitters and zones. This was hard and boring work (Note: I am not the author of the emitter settings, Dersaidin is; He also made the waterfalls and rapids. nwasells made the rocks and water particle texture).
* I started making toolbar buttons for the game. I later stopped because they were too cartoonish for Merc. I'm not a very good artist Tongue

I got us a composer, who later left because nothing was happening and he had more interesting stuff to work on. I helped pay for the tree models. I created multiple simple objects and a few textures. I built a maze for Hunt-the-player (not yet operational). Only these minor tasks would be enough for me to have worked as much as any other staff member, except for Merc and Dersaidin.
* I created BRIME, an also kickass environmental control bot which enables easy to configure smooth changing world time, different time and weather in different parts of the world, zones of any shape that can be unpassable, only accessible to certain people at certain times, play different ambient music, display messages when you cross into them, etc. This bot is still being tested and finalized, but it will be up for download in www.andras.net when I'm done. It includes a mass object generator which I recently used to cover the 5th age world with a pleasantly random-looking forest comprised of over 1000 trees (I also places dead trees in the swamp area with it), but it can do a lot more than that.
* I am learning to model buildings.

So, Amael, if I can accomplish all this, what is it that's SO time-consuming that prevents a team of ten people from doing mostly anything at all during the course of two years? Why exactly do they deserve to stay in the team? Maybe if we had a team of really interested and hard-working people, expectations would be more realistic. And I should point out that I do not work in the 5th Age consistently. I ONLY, and this is part of my agreement, ONLY do work whenever I observe someone else (a real staff member) is working or willing to work. This usually lasts one or two weeks, and then when everyone is gone, I also stop working and wait for them to return.

Amael is like all those people you got rid of: ALL TALK.

We're not talking three weeks here, we're talking years. Your little rant is very nice, very sensitive, but in the end nothing is going to happen if no one does anything. If their careers take so much of their time, so be it - they should stick to them and I wish them the best of luck, but they shouldn't offer to do a job they can't do and disappoint the people who are counting on them - not only Merc but the people who pre-paid for the game.

Most of these people did absolutely nothing for this game (age 4 was another game) other than argue endlessly about every single tiny detail and hinder the progress of the work of the few who actually seemed willing to do something. It's like trying to build a fucking bridge with two engineers and twenty bureaucrats who think they know anything. This may be harsh, but in a volunteer-based team, people who aren't willing to do anything do not deserve any kind of credit, authority or input. Which is why they should not stay in the team. Mia, Max, I know some of the work I acomplished was due to your guidance and suggestions, but you didn't actually do anything yourselves (Max helped buy some trees and terrain textures). The following three people are the exceptions:

Dersaidin did some work (small forest, waterfalls, bridges, crops). He's essentially a good and capable worker and he should stay in the team, even if he can't return right now. By the way, I could swear he replied to this thread (saying he couldn't return now), but maybe I'm confusing things and his post wasn't actually deleted because it was bad PR, as I think it was.

Darknae did some work (built small fishermen's village), but he lacks the mental discipline to work in a long term project and as the member of a team which he does not lead. He left to make his own game, which I am sure is not a bad game, but since he decided to leave, nothing we can do about it.

Cell "Mr. Indecisive" Master did some work (tunnels, part of an orc, stone cliff), but he didn't seem certain of whether he wanted to participate or not, given the amount of times he changed his mind about staying, I mean leaving, I mean staying, I mean leaving, I mean staying in the team.

Merc himself is not beyond reproach. Indeed, if one week is enough for people to be expelled - even if it was one month - Merc might as well have expelled himself for how slowly he is working. I know, real life work, hobby project, blah blah blah, anyway, he seems to be working, even if slowly, which is more than everyone else is doing. Removing inactive members, idling in-world more and growing out of his HUD-mania are good signs, signs that he's willing to work more in the game now. nwasells did a little work - LESS than Dersaidin - months ago. His willingness to go on helping is praiseworthy, but ever since he said he wanted to go on helping, almost two weeks ago, he did nothing and he's nowhere to be seen, which makes me fear the worst.

Now, let's compare this with what I accomplished for this game - I don't mean to boast, just put this whole thing in prespective. I am an university student working on a REALLY FUCKING HARD 5-years master degree in computer science and engineering. I've had a reasonably successful year, which means I did not neglect my university work (the only class I failed last semester I failed on  purpose, due to the schedule of its classes and exams being in conflict with another class I was doing). I make or modify websites for money in part-time. I help my parents regularly by performing small tasks for them. I am the webmaster of a manga scanlation group as a hobby, this requires a lot of my free time too. I am an amateur landscape photographer, and every time the weather is appropriate, I grab my camera and go off to photograph the forest where I live, which is seriously beautiful (website with photos as soon as I have enough free time to finish it :P). This summer the weather has been great. I lift weights in a gym. Sometimes I travel, I go out to dinner or see a movie with my friends. I play board games with my brothers and friends, computer games by myself and I watch anime. I learn new programming languages and work on different projects, such as my program to manage desktop wallpaper pictures or my server to play Mafia (Werewolf) on the internet in real-time. So you see, I am not entirely idle either.

I explicitly wrote, in a staff forum post, my terms for collaborating with the 5th age - and the gist of it is that, unlike all those people that Merc got rid of, I am NOT a staff member. I have NO authority, no position in the hierarchy. I take no orders, receive no credit, have no responsability. In other words, nothing should be expected of me. And yet:
* I have created BRAT, an auxiliary, temporary chat relaying bot in order to enable communication between all parts of the world, because no one else seemed willing to make one.
*I have created BERRAIN, a kickass linux AW bot that enables all sorts of massive terrain manipulation tasks to be performed with ease, even beyond the limits of the world. You can save terrain dumps and use them in your own programs. You can load dem2rwx terrain on top of an existing complex terrain without damaging it. You can move mountains, exagerate valleys, create seas and automatically draw terrain transitions. If you want it for your own world it is available for download in www.andras.net .
* I have created several terrain models for the game, which were afterwards scrapped because Max and Mia decided they were no good. The final, current terrain model is a composite model made possible only through the usage of BERRAIN. More than 20 distinct parts were used in order to create a gentle sloping valley surrounded by mountains and with a river running off to one side (thanks to Max for the creative input here). The valley opens to a large sea. There are also swamp and a desert areas. I made the terrain transitions between all types of terrain (recently, which is why the old screenshots have no transitions). 
* I have built the river and mud lakes in the swamp, by placing particle emitters and zones. This was hard and boring work (Note: I am not the author of the emitter settings, Dersaidin is; He also made the waterfalls and rapids. nwasells made the rocks and water particle texture).
* I started making toolbar buttons for the game. I later stopped because they were too cartoonish for Merc. I'm not a very good artist :P I got us a composer, who later left because nothing was happening and he had more interesting stuff to work on. I helped pay for the tree models. I created multiple simple objects and a few textures. I built a maze for Hunt-the-player (not yet operational). Only these minor tasks would be enough for me to have worked as much as any other staff member, except for Merc and Dersaidin.
* I created BRIME, an also kickass environmental control bot which enables easy to configure smooth changing world time, different time and weather in different parts of the world, zones of any shape that can be unpassable, only accessible to certain people at certain times, play different ambient music, display messages when you cross into them, etc. This bot is still being tested and finalized, but it will be up for download in www.andras.net when I'm done. It includes a mass object generator which I recently used to cover the 5th age world with a pleasantly random-looking forest comprised of over 1000 trees (I also places dead trees in the swamp area with it), but it can do a lot more than that.
* I am learning to model buildings.

So, Amael, if I can accomplish all this, what is it that's SO time-consuming that prevents a team of ten people from doing mostly anything at all during the course of two years? Why exactly do they deserve to stay in the team? Maybe if we had a team of really interested and hard-working people, expectations would be more realistic. And I should point out that I do not work in the 5th Age consistently. I ONLY, and this is part of my agreement, ONLY do work whenever I observe someone else (a real staff member) is working or willing to work. This usually lasts one or two weeks, and then when everyone is gone, I also stop working and wait for them to return.

DM Mercury

2008-08-22 10:08:08 am

actions definitely speak louder than words. the staff being so inactive and not bothering to communicate in any way shape or form basically has said that they themselves have quit, so why not just make it official. world of warcraft or hello kitty online seems to have attracted the staff to place their time there rather than here. so be that as it is, enjoy.

Kay.

2008-08-25 12:17:00 am

Amael, you say that the worst inactive staff do is take up space, but that goes against the research and theories behind motivation and teamwork. We're talking about more than a three-week vacation.

To give a concrete example, when I was on staff, it demotivated me to have inactive staffers. To make things worse, one would pop in once in a blue moon to announce his/her greatness and plans, to cause some drama, and then disappear again.

Kynny

2008-08-26 08:19:56 am

oh, hello

DM Mercury

2008-08-26 05:17:11 pm

i dunno might be locking this topic soon....

Kay.

2008-08-26 07:52:06 pm

Speak of the devil--er, I mean, the Kynny! *blames him* (j/k)

Kynny

2008-08-27 07:39:23 am

i did build a big area in age4 it just wasnt opened due to the fact i couldnt make monsters spawns blah blah blah

i miss age 3 where things were simple Undecided

Mr Brain

2008-08-28 05:17:08 am

We are talking about age 5.

Kynny

2008-08-29 05:32:34 am

/care

sorry brain, i forgot you were god Grin

Mr Brain

2008-08-29 06:08:19 am

It looks like you missed the point.

Kynny

2008-08-29 08:55:33 am

yes i missed the point - i just used a recent thread to say hi that is all

Kay.

2008-08-29 10:01:48 am

*fist shakes* See? Blame teh Ynnyk!

DM Mercury

2008-08-29 02:30:41 pm

s'ynnyk are extremely rare

Kynny

2008-08-30 11:45:47 am

i eated them all Embarrassed

DM Mercury

2008-09-05 07:30:20 am

and then i deleted you

Kynny

DM Mercury

Edit history:

DM Mercury: 2008-09-15 03:21:31 pm

2008-09-07 01:05:38 pm

>> USER IS DELETED <<

pendragon

2008-12-03 07:29:45 pm

Kill things and eat them!

Hi everyone!!!
Wow, been 7 -8 months sence i was last in here and still the same staffing issues. Hmmm, it's like desha Vu' all over again.

DM Mercury

2008-12-05 08:12:26 pm

even if there was substantial payment to the staff i think it would still just be me.

Mr Brain

2008-12-06 05:16:03 am

You think wrong Tongue

I only help as a volunteer when there's an actual staff doing things, but if you pay me I'll work for you, no problem. I do work for money in other areas, and that's the priority for me. I could use that time on the fifth age if I was being paid.