Development of instance schedules

[Splishy]

Hi

as some of you are aware we managed to rope Daffyd into some coding work for us which should result in a tool that makes the signing up for instances more controlled (so we don't end up with a run like Sunday's initial DiM party!) and easier to understand. What I'd like to ask is for people to throw their ideas on the table here and let us know what you would like to see.

Cheers,

Splish

[Aimlin]

Few things I would suggest is
a) make each run a seperate posting so you don't have to dig thru a weeks worth of instances to see what is being done on a particular day
b ) you have a calendar, why isn't it in use??
c) when I post a run I post in classes needed ie Tank, Healer, and DPS as a spot is filled it is covered over with the name so people can readily see what is needed for a run still

[Splishy]

The calendar is a good point - we used to use it but it would appear that it can't be edited by all, which meant a thread and then whoever added the event putting it on the calendar. I'm certainly hoping that the tool we come up with will have a calendar view though.

As for having a seperate thread for each run it just made the forum more of a nightmare as people weren't sure which week they were signing up for etc.

[Aimlin]

May end up cutting my throat here but .... in the guild I was in on american servers we had an instance run forum. Each run posted was dated in title as well as Named (( ie. Stockades Oct 25 10am )). After the run was ran/cancelled the initial run thread was moved to a new folder called Past Runs.  This kept only upcoming events in the instance folder, and to be honest it took relatively no time to do this.

Btw we were at guilduniverse so not sure how difficult it would be here

[Daffyd]

I have no idea what your thoughts are on the matter but I'm setting mine down here as a starting point for everyone to rip apart and remix to see if we can come up with something great that makes everyone's heart ring with joy and scheduling run that much smoother.

I want as complete an integration with the roster as I can get. This means class, talent build overview, and anything else I can come up with will all be grabbed straight from the roster.

Ability to specify certain classes or abilities as must haves. Whether it's a priest for Strat (I gather that's kind of important) or a mage for the Lyceum in BRD you'll be able to reserve a slot for that class. You'll also be able to specify roles (tank/DPS/heal/cleanse/whatever) and only classes able to fulfill those roles will be able to sign up for that job. Also means a druid can sign up as DPS without showing the healer slot as filled. This might sound restrictive but imagine a 5 man BRD Emperor run with requirements set to healer, mage, melee DPS, tank, and 1 slot undefined. That gives you all you want with the flexibility to mix and match classes.

If the run or your role is full then reserves will be able to sign up. If someone pulls out and a reserve is needed then they will be notified by email.

I also want it to integrate with the quest log, if a run is scheduled for specific quests (e.g. BRD Jailbreak) all members with that quest will be emailed. Yes this means everyone installing the addons, what a shame wink.gif. Means people with only the Emperor won't be signing up for a BRD run expecting to do their quest and ending up killing Bael'Gar and doing the shadowforge key again. Obviously not every run will be for specific quests but some will and this covers it. I also plan to have it display all relevant quests from signed up members so the group can discuss which ones to do.

Each run will also have a discussion area for comments etc.

This is where it gets sticky and I need advice and opinions from other people. This is not an area where I can lay down the law so this is merely a suggestion for discussion.

I'm thinking of a priority system partly based on reliability. If someone has signed up for 10 runs in the last week but only turned up to 3 they should be lower priority for the run than someone who turns up every time (yes the schedule will allow stats to be kept on attendance). Note that I don't mean dropping out and being replaced by a reserve, I mean situations where 4 people are regularly left waiting for a 5th who fails to show and the run has to cancel. I'm not talking about a raid style compulsory attendance thing here, just some way of improving the percentage of runs that actually happen.

The other thing is sharing out the runs, if someone has done a lot of runs and someone who only gets the chance to come on a couple of times a week wants to sign up who gets priority? Should it be automatic or resolved by discussion? Those of us in IT jobs currently have a big advantage in signing up as we can get on the thread within minutes of posting.

This is basically a brain dump so excuse me if it's a little disjointed. None of it is set in stone and I'd value all your opinions on it. Stuff to drop, stuff you'd like to see, whatever. If I can code it you can have it. Except for in game integration, that's on the "don't even ask" list.

[Nildolwen]

i love your idea sand it sounds good to me the last point i think is very valid i think first come first srve to thread is a tad annoying as i am not on the computer all the tme and i dont spend ages waiting on the forum for the thread i looked all over the weekend for the threead and it wa sposted this morning by the time i got on at lunch time there was almost a full group organised already....sucks.

it all sounds good to me so far i think the attendance thing is a good idea along with everything else. *grumbles about blizzard*

[Daffyd]

Well after more thought I have an idea for attendance and balancing things out.  First thing, THIS IS NOT DKP!  Second thing, THIS REALLY IS NOT DKP!  Seriously, don't even think of confusing the two ideas, if anything this is the opposite of DKP in that everyone is given the same and you have to unearn it instead of starting at zero and earning it.

Each week everyone is given 100 points, you 'spend' your points bidding for a place on a run.  If you really need BRD then you can spend 60 points on that run giving you 40 points to 'bid' on places for other runs.  If there's a class restriction in place (e.g. healer) you can't bid on that place but other than that you can bid where you want.  Whether you bid 10 points on 10 runs or 100 points on 1 run is up to you.  Bids are for first choice group only, reserves are in order of signup (again bearing in mind role requirements, can't have a rogue as reserve healer) or sorted between the people involved.

If you fail to show for a run your alloment of points for the following week is reduced depending in how many runs you failed to show for.  Fail to show for 3 runs and you might struggle to get one the next week with only 40 points (assuming a 20 point per run penalty).

My definition of a no-show is failing to show up at the appointed time without notice.  Real life > WoW so if you have a last minute commitment then for God's sake tell someone!  No-one wants Seeds to become a military organisation, it needs to stay the same friendly place just a little better organised now there's more competition at the high end so less runs get cancelled.  If you're going to have to bail on 4 or 9 other people it's only polite to let them know if possible.  Obviously if your wife is rushed to hospital or something then bollocks to everyone else, anyone who doesn't understand how much more important something like that is than a game needs a reality check but for a last minute meal out with your partner then just let everyone else know and it's cool.

If a run is not filled within 24 hours of the start time then it will be open for all, no bids required.  This might cause people to play silly buggers and just sign up at the last minute but with no guarantee of the run taking place the rest of the group might withdraw their bids and the whole thing gets cancelled so that should be self correcting if it happens a couple of times.  Of course if the runs do get filled at the last minute then it's all working as expected and the run goes ahead

Coments welcome, once again this is a bit of a raw brain dump so not fully thought through yet.

One final thing, I'd like to get the loot tables for the bosses hooked in as well with the option for everyone to state which items they intend to need on if they drop.  Just lets everyone know in advance if someone else is after the same item they are

[Buadhachan]

So far this is all very interesting. I would very much like to see these ideas get airborne if you will. I have many ideas as to how a system like this should work, but first and foremost I would probably suggest to get the skeleton of this beast up and running first.

Experience tells me that even though it's a bitch (or can be) to do changes afterwards, a project gets that much more steam if it's operational before too much time is spent talking about features and details.

We all know that we want a simple and easily maintainable instance schedule. All the niftyness (roster goo and the like) is something you can add afterwards. A good coder (disregarding language) will make his code flexible, thus easily expandable. I am sure daffyd is proficient in his language of choice, so I have no worries there.

Before I forget - thank you daffyd for the initiative! Depending on your language of choice, I may be of some assistance (PHP, C#, Ruby, Perl, C, C++, Java, ASP...). I say may as I don't know how much time I would be able to devote to a project like this. At any rate I am sure you would be better off doing this alone, rather than sifting though the spaghetti I call code (my mentor tells me I OOP like no other .. I don't know whether to call him a git or to send him a bottle of wine).

My advice: Get something launched as soon as possible - then the whole damn thing will rocket.

[Aimlin]

I may be a lil confused here, but are we not as members as well able to post runs whenever we want.  I mean heck if I have free time and want to start a run then I am going to attempt it.  Giving a guild a certain amount of points to spend on runs is a detriment to the guild, there should be, moe emphasis on multiple runs and gearing up everyone then saying sorry Daffyd your points are gone so you can't run this week anymore.  when it would make more sense to get additional runs going so all are included then just a bid war

[Daffyd]

I may be a lil confused here, but are we not as members as well able to post runs whenever we want.  I mean heck if I have free time and want to start a run then I am going to attempt it.  Giving a guild a certain amount of points to spend on runs is a detriment to the guild, there should be, moe emphasis on multiple runs and gearing up everyone then saying sorry Daffyd your points are gone so you can't run this week anymore.  when it would make more sense to get additional runs going so all are included then just a bid war

Anyone can try and get a run together at any time, that goes without saying.  Any system like this would only apply to official guild runs, the ones done every week like Strat UD on Monday, Scholo on Tuesday etc.

I'll try and write a longer reply to Buad later when I'm not logged into the game but basically I agree

[rox0r]

I like it for what it is and it's logical efficiency, it makes sense and I see where you're coming from.

But...

I have to be brutal and say (this is my opinion, there are many like it but this one is mine) I honestly don't see it getting very far, we still dont have everybody signed up to the forums and we still dont have everyone using the mods. As good as it is, I can honestly see it driving some people away and not necessarily people we wouldn't miss.

[Choleric]

I have to agree in part with Rox here, although your ideas sound fantastic and I would very much like to see them implemented at some point in the future, I do not see it being as succesful as it could be until we have everyone on the roster as a bare minimum.

Until this is happening, we will have an efficient scheduler that is running Inefficiently because people are still not on the roster, making some of the features you mentioned such as quest organisation within runs redundant.

I am in agreement with the system proposed and I think it's very kind of you to develop this tool for the guild, I particulaly like the idea of assigning class positions to avoid a first come, first served situation such as today: I come home to find that Scholo is full with 2 priests and 2 druids, although the classes bring various abilities to the run, a mage or hunter would bring more succesful crowd control and ranged damage.

To finish up, I love the idea and I can see it working well if certain requirements are met, my only real concern is if there are still people in the guild who can not/will not sign up to the forum and install the roster addon, do we have any hope of these people using the new scheduler?

[Amberley]

As far as I can tell there seem to be 89 people not using the roster and only 1 of them has an excuse since he's not been online since March, another since June.  Everyone else not updated have logged into WoW in the last 6 weeks some even yesterday.

There are a few Alts who aren't updated which I will BADGER the people about when they are next online but other than that the rest, some play regularly some don't really seem involved in the guild they just come on play and log off.

The only think I could sugest is to restrict instances to people using the roster, if they don't install the addins they don't go on the runs even as reserve, this shouldn't affact the high level runs as from what I can tell all the level 60's have installed them.

I realise this is becoming quite strict but if we want roster to work we all have to us it or we just don't bother.

Splishy has stated it is to be used and been backed up by almost every regular player so it might be time to demote everyone not using it to the lowest rank and have the instance thingy not allow you to sign up for a run if your that rank.

Just thoughts but I agree with Rox and Chol, nothing we implement on the internet is going to work fully until the idiots not using roster see the light of day.

[Daffyd]

Just thoughts but I agree with Rox and Chol, nothing we implement on the internet is going to work fully until the idiots not using roster see the light of day.
 

Idiots is a little harsh I think, if they choose not to join the rest of the guild in working together then that's their call.  It will probably lead to them eventually being left behind though but it's up to them.

None of this is going to be imposed on anyone, I'm happy to write it if people want it and if they don't then I won't bother.

[rox0r]

Here's the way I see it, get the roster and forum issue sorted out before attempting a new instance tool. The rules have been layed out, reminders have been sent, people have been demoted and it's still not sinking in with well over half the guild. Demotions don't really have the desired effect since half the time the people demoted aren't even aware that they've been demoted (they were offline, no notification is sent to them) If they're not bothered about doing something simple like putting the mods on etc then they aren't going to care about their 'rank'. So what's the next step because those that haven't obviously won't....

Nobody is saying don't bother Daffyd, all we're saying is that we need to address the base issue of getting everybody on board and buying into the same system before we try running something that will invariably end in tears.

[Altrurian]

I have to agree with Amberley there and Rox, we are having enough of an issue getting people to sign up to the forums and install the roster add-ins which is why we didn’t bother going any further with GEM as a instance run organiser. The additional ideas are all well and good but if things are overly complicated in the initial stages Daffyd is going to end up putting a lot of time and effort in for very little return if no one signs up to use the system. The roles idea is my favourite so far although some of the stranger group compositions we have done runs with have proved that you do not necessarily need to have a traditional group setup. I think we need to start implementing a similar policy to that suggested by Amber, if you don’t have a forum account and haven’t installed the required add-ins then you will be demoted and given a lower priority on any high level runs unless you have a damned good excuse. Admittedly anyone who reads this already has the requirements so it shouldn’t be a problem.

[Amberley]

I have to say I have been online this morning and badgered three people who haven't got it installed, all have promised to have it done by the end of the week, so thats my test sample, I have told all three to contact, Splishy, Daffyd, Alt and Rox since they have good working knowledge and three of them work on helpdesks ish so should be able to talk people through the process:)

If and when I see more people come on who haven't updated I will keep doing the same thing so expect some questions boys:)

NOTE: anyone having problems please speak to the people above, just saying it doesn't work won't work with us, it does work it just might need some playing with etc so Pretty Please with Bells on top, make a post saying your having problems and someone will get back to you, then at least we know your trying to get it working:)

(I'm lucky splishy does mine so if it don't work its his fault)

[Splishy]

Splishy, Daffyd, Alt and Rox since they have good working knowledge and three of them work on helpdesks ish

Nuh uh, 2. I've not worked on anything resembling a helpdesk for a good year, and Rox is too grumpy to interact with people - remember he's the only person in his building with his own office?

[Buadhachan]

Since jUniUploader is a piece of royal crap, I will instruct Des on how to upload the .lua files manually. She should already know how to do this, but actually doing it seems to be the problem.

[Splishy]

Since jUniUploader is a piece of royal crap, I will instruct Des on how to upload the .lua files manually. She should already know how to do this, but actually doing it seems to be the problem.

Can you not write a script to do it on a regular basis?