EMPIRE EARTH

[dan]

Firstly Mods Inactive

Ill keep it short.. From what I have noticed since i have been back is a re occurring LACK of mods availability.. Personally i don't really need help but I see others who could do with the help of a "mod". Sometimes i log onto EE and there are random people who i dont know saying " help how do i host " or " how do i play EE " i see them saying it and get no reply.. I do not know how to make them host neither do i know how to make them " play " EE but the " mods " should know i guess.. They are online but are afk and only are available for one hour a day or just decide not to help...


Mods Lack Of Interest Towards EE

LOL this is a funny one seriously it amuses me so much how the majority of the " mods " have no INTEREST at all for EE... A large percentage of the Mods that we have are more interested in other games that i will not name and they have 0 interest at all for the progression on EE. In my opinion a MODs should be determined to keep EE alive and well I can say many peoples names who deserve to be Mods way more than others. I wont mention any mods doing a good job neither will i mention any mods doing a bad one but many people will agree with me on this point an im sure even many mods will agree with me.

I am just disappointing at the state of EE im not saying mods cannot play other games im just asking people to be moderators of EE or just be an average player like Zamin and AOD kass but i have to say even those two people have played a bigger part in keeping EE alive than some Mods and admin.

[dan]

I really do think ghost and megs should look into their current EE staff and have a word with some of the players just so they know whos doing their job properly

[Simple]

so true ! (Y)

[Captain Nemo]

You shouldn't be afriad of mentioning names, it would make this whole thing more clear. Is there a reason you don't want to mention names?

Anyway Ill address a few points cause some of them are basically just confusion.

The thing about people wanting help they often ask in lobby. Obviusly most of the mods have better things to do than observe the lobby chat all day, but they check in once in a while to read what's been going on and at least speaking for myself I react upon whispers. Also I think all the mods handle tech support in whispers, so even tho u don't see a reaction there might be one. Speaking for myself I've helped everyone who asked me (the best I could), even though one time I was watching a movie, but forgot my afk sign and felt responsible lol.

As for the interrest in EE, I guess you could say some of the mods aren't as active playing EE as you might have hoped. But it's a bit of a funny case. As you probably have discovered yourself you tend to play EE in waves (even tricky). Sometimes (like now) you play much and it seems wierd you'd pick moderators who don't even play EE. Well it's not so easy to pick those who are experienced enough to be mods and don't play EE in waves. You've just yourself returned from inactivity. Mods are often picked right at their peak, so when they become mods they're very active. After some time maybe they lose a bit interrest in EE and go a bit inactive. It happens to everyone not just mods. They may return again after some time tho. My point is: you simply can't pick out mods that are always active even though it seems easy to do so.
I don't think getting new mods all the time is the solution either. Obviusly if one is inactive for a VERY long time there needs to be added a new one, but it's really good to have some sort of contiuety in the staff positions.

I'd also disagree on your views of it being a mod's responsibility to play EE. There may be different views here, but it doesn't create more or less activity if a mod plays EE or not. Im all aboard it'd be nice with more activity on EE, but a mod's responsibility is mainly concerning the lobby. The responsibility is 2fold the way I see it. 1) You have the tools to mute/kick and basically uphold the ToU. Secondly you have the mod logo asigned to your name which means when people need help they come to you. Then you need to help people out.

So obviusly you need to show yourself in the lobby, and even though I can see it's nice to have some mods playing the game aswell, there really isn't a NEED for any mods to do this.

So I simply don't get your criticism. If we abuse powers or people aren't getting help (explained this above), or basically anything along those lines I can see theres a problem. But there are almost always mods in the lobby, and as far as I know we haven't gotten complaints from people who weren't getting help, and power abuse issues are delt with, with much care.


Edit: Whenever I see "helping keeping EE alive" I basically just read "plays EE actively". I think this is what you mean. Tricky does try very hard with fb page and everything lol, so what we can is being done on that front.

[Arntzen]

First of all. I do appreciate you actually caring enough to write your opinion on how you feel things have gone to EE, and your thoughts of Save-EE staff.

Personally when it comes to tech-support for users I almost exclusively use the whisper function. First of all I don't want to bother everyone else in the lobby when explaining basic stuff that 99,9999 % of the users already know. Second whisper makes a noise, so I get a faster reply from the user I'm trying to help.
I do see how it can seem like we're not helping, but keep in mind that most of the time when they ask for help, and get quite for a while. Some Moderator is actually helping.

When it comes to the "lack of interest" issue. I do see your point. For me the interest of EE comes and goes in waves. One month I play about 4 hours a day, and the next month I do other things (or play other games). Personally I don't see a problem with today's moderators. I think we are enough. I'm almost never the only moderator that is on.
This being said, IMO there is NO problem in my mind, for a moderator to not play the game. If he moderates, that's his "job". Being a "lobbywhore" isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

Also I'm maybe misunderstanding you, but it feels to me you're saying: "Moderators should be playing Empire Earth a lot more, and moderators that are active players are more suited for the job then moderators that aren't."
The way I see it, moderators and admins are just the frame around this community. The "job" moderating was never as big of a part in keeping the game alive as you might feel. But a huge part of taking in complaints about cheaters/spammers and whatnot. At the same time keeping the lobby clean from things we don't allow and being there so people can ask us directly. IMO the players of EE is what keeps things alive. Sure some of us (moderators) are active players. But this doesn't IMO make said person any better of a moderator. That's stepping out of the job and doing something more. I feel it's important to see the difference between being a moderator and a player.

Blaming Save-EE staff for how everything is today, is unfair towards the current staff, and the people who was part of the staff before.

[Arntzen]

Oh well, I didnt read what nemo said before replying, and realize I'm basically just saying alot of what nemo said. Oh well.

[Captain Nemo]

pff you're just trying to hide the fact you stole my thoughts and tried to pass them on as your own You could have at least tried to change the wording or the order of addressing the points...

Really, kazter is telepathic!!

[Arntzen]

Haha! I wrote and when pressing submit your post came up (wall of text) so just submited before reading it. Also if nothing else, i've expressed that I share ur opinion

[Samuel]

Also I think all the mods handle tech support in whispers, so even tho u don't see a reaction there might be one

This is very true, most of the help requests come from whispers, sometimes people ask in lobby but then the conversation will go through the whisper system.

[dan]

I would rather not mention names since Its unfair and im not that kind of person to highlight individuals from a group.

About helping on the lobby I agree with it you guys probably do help people like i seen a few of you guys helping earlier on today

When you talk about people playing in waves I generally think that if someone stops playing EE they should give up there position as mod since they are in active. How can someone who is in active help the progression of EE. The end result is doom for EE. Think of it this way, If you are employed with a company then you are fortunate enough to get the position of a supervisor then your duty is to supervise the other staff, you cannot supervise the staff if you are too busy working for another company... if you put as much effort into supervising and working for the first company then eventually you will see the company grow but instead all that effort is going to the second one. Im not being rude or mean towards the mods i think some of them will agree with me on this point but seriously one mod in particular is doing a REALLY GOOD job on EE atm by making a facebook page etc this is someone who deserves to be a mod. While other mods think they are fulfilling their duty by logging on for one hour a day and posting random sh!t on lobby then logging off. The way i see it atm is some of the mods have told me they will not be returning to EE.. that is not an attitude that a mod should have in my opinion.

[Arntzen]

I think both me and Nemo was saying you need to see the difference between playing and moderating. Not playing EE doesn't mean said moderator isn't moderating.

[Omega]

Moderating is a volunteer position. Just because someone is playing in waves doesn't even mean they're not still moderating. In fact, the job of moderating often gets in the way of playing the game. When you have 3 people you're currently helping, and there's a 7/8 game you REALLY want to play in, do you just randomly drop them all to play? Of course not. That's what being a moderator is like.

It takes tremendous dedication to the game to STILL moderate when you're not even actively playing the game. None of our staff is paid, we're all volunteer. We do this with our free time because we care about the game and the community. We've all sacrificed A LOT of our time towards keeping this game and community alive.

A lot of people seem to have the idea that moderating is easy, or that moderators get a ton of amazing perks, or something else like that. It's not really the case. Being a moderator for this game cuts into your free time, which is time you could be using to play EE. You end up helping people instead of playing. You end up having people give you shit because you're now an authority figure, trying to push your buttons so they can cry abuse (not so much anymore, but this was VERY true in the past). Some times, you might even get kicked out of games because the host isn't happy with some moderating decision you made.

While you didn't mention his name, you're obviously talking about Tricky. You're right, Tricky is an outstanding moderator, and has done a TON for this game and for its community. Just like virtually every moderator around, even virtually every administrator around, he's taken breaks from playing the game. He's even taken breaks from logging into the lobby for various reasons, sometimes for extended periods of time. If we did what I presume you're suggesting with your post, Tricky would not be a moderator any more; he would have been fired for inactivity, and that would have been an extremely poor decision.

As another thing, most of the work moderators due happens behind the scenes. You have no idea if they're playing in a game, sitting AFK, playing another game, helping resolve a dispute between two users, or helping 5 people at any given time. Similarly, there are times when moderators log off of their moderator name and onto another game, because they've just spent the last 3 hours of their time helping someone and just want to play EE now. That's fine even, and all of them, if someone starts asking for help in the lobby and there's no other available moderator on, or if there's some other issue in the lobby, will promptly log back into their moderator name, even at the expense of them playing the game. Again, that takes a lot of dedication to this game. More so than just playing it does. You can't say these people don't have an interest towards the progression of Empire Earth, because unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that, it simply isn't true.

We really do appreciate this thread, because it shows you care and are thinking about the well being of the game, and the community. If you have specific suggestions regarding how you think we can improve the process of hiring and retaining moderators in order to benefit the community, along with reasons why, we're certainly open to hear it.

[eeralf_]

I don't give damn shit! , sry lol, but my most mailess here is play, and i can do it

but dan ure are right, the problem is also so few peeps here, when he are 100 or 1000 so maybe better

iam happy this lobby exist and let me play EE until iam die, hahahahahaha

Prooooooooooossssssssst!

[dan]

Ok if you think that it is fine.. Ive already addressed my issues above hopefully we will see more people making an effort in the future, Thanks for listening people

[ben55]

idk I kind of doubt the integrity of the mod selection process when someone like Tool doesn't get selected but someone like lightnessking can. Tool has done more for this game than 99% of the people who use this lobby.

As for actual moderating. IDK people help others in the lobby all the time. The only thing they really bring to the table is to stop people from spamming the lobby with obscene gestures or if someone is getting ghosted. However the latter is pretty much policed by the community anyways.

Being a mod to me is about being active and on the lobby and knowledgeable. And the most active mods are all European. Tricky, Samuel, Nemo and Kazter. There is hardly ever a mod on between 9pm and 4am my time.

So I suggest you spread your mods times out if you do anything, since right now there is a big overlap.