NEWS: Wyrom discusses staffing at Discord, responding to a question about hiring more Dev GMs to replace recent losses. (There’s absolutely no summary I am willing to make of this):
Text of Discord Post follows:
PM Wyrom
PM Wyrom Discusses Staffing
on 24 December 9:49 PM
from the Official GemStoneIV Discord Forum
in the General/State of the Game categoryhttps://gswiki.play.net/GemStone_IV_staff_list
This is updated as of a little bit ago. Our staff “cap” is roughly 40, this ensures us that our compensation structure feels worth it and we can manage everyone. We’ve over 50 currently. I did over hire during our 2019 growth (before the pandemic) and continued with hiring another set of staff during the pandemic. With things settling back around the 2019 numbers, it does impact compensation as GMs are paid based on a percentage of revenue the game generates. We also have times where staff feel like they are drifting because they don’t get as much attention as we should give them.
I led the teams through an reorganization this summer to consolidate duplicated efforts and better manage the project loads though. During that time, I also stepped back and split my duties up a bit more. Think of me like a three fingered Infinity Gauntlet. So Estild, Thandiwe, and Isten have a lot of my power. I lead a team now, rather than the full staff list, but I also lead the APMs.
Then a few messages down, he added:
I’m going to touch on the OP’s original post and kind of go from there. Get in for a ride, I’ve been typing for 2 hours.
I understand when there is a change in momentum that things feel bad. I don’t feel there is a lack of information or direction right now, but I do feel like for quite a bit we had information overload. Documents were being shared at the brainstorming phase, certain GMs were engaging in hourly discussions over the course of an entire day at time, and multiple projects were being worked on that sort of collided with each other. There has been a slowdown currently on the state of Divergence, and the byproduct, Ascension, but that’s one very specific area. The GameMaster, Naijin, leading the charge on this stepped back a couple times during the year and would eventually leave us after SimuCon indefinitely. I have stated a number of times on Discord that there are some unexpected slowdowns for the time being and we’ll be picking up the pieces as we can. A lot of projects will still be completed. Some projects might change direction. And probably a small handful will be scrapped. We still accomplished a lot this year and over the last 8 years that I’ve been trying to steer this ship. I don’t know the proper words to say here, but it doesn’t feel good when one thing seems to deter everything we accomplished in a single year. I understand that one thing is a pretty big thing for a lot of people, but there was a lot of work put into 2022 by over 4 dozen staff members. I can only go by the title of this thread being the game.
There are some of you that hate the idea of Divergence. There are also some of you who really like the idea of Divergence. And then there are a lot of you who are indifferent to it. That’s how it goes with just about everything. And while we did bring players into the fold on brainstorming ideas, it did open the door to a lot of issues. Estild and I both agree that coming up with game changes in a vacuum is a bad idea, but bringing everyone into the game design phase is also a bad idea. And due to that, you’ll have to trust us that our best interest is balancing the game for fun and longevity. Sometimes their are necessary changes that aren’t very fun. For me, Growing Pains III made me quit for awhile. The changes to MSTRIKE were the nail in the coffin, I was out! When I came back, I completely understood the changes were necessary, but they weren’t fun at all. I loved being able to dominate the Brokenlands. I probably even caused some of the data that made it necessary for the changes to happen. But being in a game design/managerial role with the game comes with way too many unpopular tasks.
Getting what GMs are working on is up to the GMs though. Naijin liked to talk about his projects with everyone. Not all GMs want that much attention. Not all GMs want to have their project portfolio picked apart. We have made some staffing changes that will help us with certain project loads for 2023 and beyond (I’ll mention below). Personal projects are taking more of a backseat, so that core projects can get some attention. GMs can still work on personal projects, but it will be after they can complete their core and/or team stuff.
For me, one of my key projects were working on the silver situation. And we did a lot of good work there. I still need to respond to the #Loot cap is awesome thread, but when there are a lot of angsty voices in a thread, it makes it a lot more difficult to respond. I gain nothing by spreading misinformation about what we work on and how it’s doing, but I’ll always come off as combative if I do try to rein in on a discussion so that we keep it on track with the facts, because currently the thread is very wrong in what is being shared. I also don’t have a whole lot of time to spend on Discord. I love chatting on here, but it takes a lot of time to give you thorough answers. Same goes with the old play.net forums. I enjoyed reading them and responding, but it can be a full time job just doing that.
It’s been a busy year for a lot of us. The last month we’ve been dealing with a problem player as well who has been plaguing the game with being vulgar, racist, and hateful. I’ve had to spend the last 2 weeks trying to figutr it out and be here all night trying to deal with it. We’re a small game with not many full time staff members. Something like this can completely ruin a lot of work. It has nothing to do with what OP has here, and I’m not using it as an excuse, but it has impacted my ability to be able to respond here even more. This one person really has amounted to about 100 hours of work for multiple people in December alone. That’s 100 hours away from literally any other project I could be working on. So now new F2P creation is off for about 18 hours a day.
Now I’d like to touch on feedback, responses, and the dreaded Dial-a-GameMaster issues.
Feedback, the person, is a Simutronics staff member. That’s not their sole gig, but it’s one of their roles. Feedback, lockout, and billing are all separate people that are Simutronics employees. They are not game staff and don’t make game decisions. Even though I’m a Simutronics staff member, I am more game side than Simu side. In the chain-of-command, it’s a step over me. There are three main things to take to feedback.
* Feedback about anything you want, whether it’s a compliment, complaint, or just a general piece of feedback on something game related. Stuff like this gets forwarded on to myself, the APMs, and/or a specific GameMaster that might be overseeing the situation. For example, an issue about Platinum would be sent to likely me and GM Naionna. Feedback won’t respond in this case, it’s up to the individual GameMasters to address it. Sometimes the issue is already addressed and the player took it to feedback for an additional level of response. Unfortunately, that won’t happen. Feedback is never going to change the course of what a game system, override a GameMaster, or respond in a way that would be counterproductive for GemStone staff. If that was the case, we’d not have any GMs here anymore. I carefully monitor to make sure things are addressed or have been brought to the proper people’s attention. Most stuff is addressed here on Discord or formerly on the play.net forums. Occasionally it will be addressed in emails or directly with a player. Think of feedback like the operator.
* Appeals are the next in line. This is an individual appeal against you or a decision that was made that you feel wasn’t fair. This should only be done after you’ve assisted, had a referral, and then had a Senior GameMaster (SGM) referral. After that point, feedback is the next step. To be very transparent here, this will result in one of my two meetings a week that I must discuss it. It’s not just me and feedback in this meeting. I will say, I’m likely far more lenient in most cases. Feedback won’t just act on their own here. All appeals get responses in some manner. This route is typically the last route and all decisions are typically final. Going to feedback, getting an answer, and then coming to a GameMaster (myself included) will result in nothing that can be done.
* A complaint about a staff member is the last reason to go to feedback. If it’s about anyone other than me, it will be discussed with me. If it’s about me, it gets sent to my boss. If it’s about my boss, it will go to his boss. Everything stays housed in the Simutronics bubble though. I can’t say what happens here, usually disciplinary actions against staff are locked behind the NDA.
Some things to consider. If you CC me onto a feedback email, unless it’s clear it’s not a complaint against me/the game, I really shouldn’t respond. Feedback in this case is a last resort. If you want to bring it to my attention, doing so through feedback is the wrong choice. Most feedback emails are billing concerns, which are handled during business hours. EMAIL in game has a proper listing of everything with the times the office is open. A lot of issues tend to be things that really do need to be redirected to the game though, via ASSIST, and feedback does notify you if that’s the case. If your player shop was repossessed, that’s an ASSIST in game, nothing can be done via feedback (unless you’re appealing a decision that was made). If you can’t find your Premium Home, that’s an ASSIST. If you lost an item, that’s an ASSIST.
So with concerns with the “void” of feedback, it’s mostly because a lot falls into the first bullet point. I did suggest to feedback to send a canned “thanks for emailing” response, but we generally find them a very poor form of responding. We decline to use them most the time in game (we have tons of them at our disposal). So the rule of thumb is, if it’s not being addressed on Discord or a specific GM doesn’t plan to respond, they will be sending a canned response for now on. Probably will include a lot of what I am saying here in that response.
Touching on specifics in this thread. I am not pointing the finger at anyone or being defensive, I am just responding to things brought up here.
The EG flarer was something that GM Thandiwe, who is the Assistant Product Manager of the Events Team, addressed. I get it, the pricing change and shift on availability was an issue. I even jumped in and addressed the scaling costs getting too high. The fact that things were super cheap prior was a bug, as there should have been a minimum cost in seashells that was not happening (it actually failed on things like accessories so it was giving a base cost pricing that was multiplying by 1, which it should never do). But feedback would not change the course of that update. However, as I told Neovik, feedback never got that email. Neovik did post a screenshot that he sent it directly to gsfeedback, but it just never got there. We checked spam, promotions tab, social tab, and even in some weird archived filters, it just didn’t exist. This happened one night when there was some issues being discussed that feedback hadn’t responded to a player, and then everyone dogpiled on it and so I got on top of feedback because it felt like it needed to be addressed. We later found out, the email in question that kicked the whole thing off was sent 9 months ago about something else entirely. This kicked off a dozen or so emails for people to say “are you getting my emails” which just compounded more issues. Either way, this has been addressed as mentioned above.
Simu vs GameMaster issues are not a thing. Yes, there are staff members who maybe aren’t aligned with business goals, but this made-up world we all cherish is still a business. Simu doesn’t set the projects. There are three main projects right now. Core GameMaster projects, team projects, and personal projects. We’ve tried things over the years, but this is where we’re settling in. To be a GameMaster, you must perform your core GameMaster projects. One thing we’re moving to in 2023 is having team projects take more of a priority over personal projects. This will help get some stuff completed. Most times, personal projects take the reins for the last decade+. For example, Reim was a personal project of Retser’s. Not all personal projects are just small tasks, but they can have game-impacting changes. However, personal projects are usually nothing on any roadmap.
Simu doesn’t come in and dictate the projects. They tell me what I need to do in terms of the business goals, I have to translate them into game goals. For example pay events. I was told to perform one every other month. What they are was up to me to manage. We knew Ebon Gate would be here, the rest we built from the ground up and chiseled into the events you experience today. Divergence was a Development Team project, but it’s been brought up the chain so many times that Simu is fully on board with it and think it would have a great impact on the game. This is kind of an example of taking something up the chain to get the spotlight on something. I have other things like this that haven’t been mentioned or addressed in this thread, so I’ll leave that there.
I talk about my roadmap every year. Each team has their individual goals, but the Creating Adventure piece is the one Simu-driven set of goals out there. The big one this year that is coming up to the deadline is the locker changes. Unfortunately, after I announced the locker changes, we had some pretty big Simu staff changes that delayed things quite a bit. The problem with lockers is it’s the one area that can corrupt characters. It’s a bunch of scary code that needs a ton of safety checks. I am working to see how I can get most of this done still before NYE. The other goal, which was hidden until after the Premium auction, was another big auction like 2016. Losing some coders means we lose QCers too, which really puts a dent in our momentum for this. It’s happening still. Goal is still Q1 2023. I mentioned January originally, but as I look at the calendar, and we still need to get our new GMs trained on GSL, probably looking at March. Don’t consider this an announcement on that part though. Just me talking casually with all of you.
Since this thread is mostly about development, I’ll close it out by saying losing Naijin mid Divergence was tough for players and staff. It’s very clear that it needs to be worked on, and I think Estild has already chimed in. Bringing it up over and over won’t really change that. Might make people too anxious to want to respond though. It’s not easy to jump into a thread like this. I completely understand when you give feedback, you want a response. You want a clear idea of what’s happening. It’s impacting you and the people you play with. But we have to consider the whole game, the projects already laid out, and the impact it will have on GS over the next decade (at least until 2038). The path forward isn’t always clear to us either. And while we still have plans to finish everything, stuff changes, curveballs happen, and obstacles change the course.
Recent TownCrier newsletters.
