Class and Arena Rules Automation

[Wildsam]

The beginning of classes and challenges are very similar, to an extent where it almost becomes a break you take until notes or the activity begins. While I'm all for welcoming the players and presenting the helpers, I believe there are ways to accelerate the process, one of which would be to automate class and arena rules.

When joining a class or a challenge, a GUI menu would automatically open and list the rules as separate items (maybe numbered heads?). Before launching the queue, professors and arena masters could select which set of rules will be applied for their hosted activity. Rules change very rarely, except for specific activities like dueling or flying classes so presets could even exist for staff members. There would simply be a green arrow at the bottom to agree to the rules (once you have read all of them) and finally start participating. The menu could not be closed until you have accepted to follow them.

The menu could even be used for more things, like adding the heads and the names of the hosting team from the beginning, making some space in your inventory or showing the important commands during hosted activities like /turnin or /rh in classes. In my eyes, this would allow the staff team to solely focus on the content they are about to offer to the server rather than going through the rules that aren't really read in the chat anyways since the players know them pretty well already. For newer players, this method would even facilitate and accompany them in the process.

Now, I'm fully aware that the current method works, but it takes time away from actually playing, so I'd love to hear your thoughts about this suggestion!

 

[Ivan_]

I don't know how I feel about this.. You're right when it comes to rules, they are very repetitive, but how many new people would actually read the rules if they can just skip thru and agree to follow me. I believe the whole point of professors writing out rules is to make people read them because it is slow in a way and you want to see what professor is saying, especially when you're new to classes. Also that time allows for both professors and people to prepare for class, and allow other people who are late to join in. And finally, most of us here are graduates who have been to many many classes and we shouldn't forget that classes are primarily intended for people who are still leveling up.
If we make the rules automatic, we might as well make a full robot that will host the classes and send out all the notes and stuff. And at the end there could be a quiz which is also automatic and you get your grade. This would solve the problem of certain time zones not having enough or any classes at all.

 

[Wildsam]

I don't know how I feel about this.. You're right when it comes to rules, they are very repetitive, but how many new people would actually read the rules if they can just skip thru and agree to follow me. I believe the whole point of professors writing out rules is to make people read them because it is slow in a way and you want to see what professor is saying, especially when you're new to classes. Also that time allows for both professors and people to prepare for class, and allow other people who are late to join in. And finally, most of us here are graduates who have been to many many classes and we shouldn't forget that classes are primarily intended for people who are still leveling up.
If we make the rules automatic, we might as well make a full robot that will host the classes and send out all the notes and stuff. And at the end there could be a quiz which is also automatic and you get your grade. This would solve the problem of certain time zones not having enough or any classes at all.

Thanks for sharing your opinion! I agree with the fact that it allows time for late players to join. To answer your argument about reading the rules, I want to clarify what I suggested. Basically, players would not be able to click on the "I agree" button before reading all the configured rules. This could be done through a timer (which I don’t think is ideal) or clicking on them, almost like a quest dialogue perhaps.

Concerning automated classes, I would be against them (and it feels like you are too, although I may be misinterpreting) and I am certain that there are ways to improve on the levelling up system. From what we know, the staff team has been working on implementing different new ways, such as the weekly assignment. But then again, the experience is vastly different than actual hosted classes.

 

[Ivan_]

Thanks for sharing your opinion! I agree with the fact that it allows time for late players to join. To answer your argument about reading the rules, I want to clarify what I suggested. Basically, players would not be able to click on the "I agree" button before reading all the configured rules. This could be done through a timer (which I don’t think is ideal) or clicking on them, almost like a quest dialogue perhaps.

Concerning automated classes, I would be against them (and it feels like you are too, although I may be misinterpreting) and I am certain that there are ways to improve on the levelling up system. From what we know, the staff team has been working on implementing different new ways, such as the weekly assignment. But then again, the experience is vastly different than actual hosted classes.

A timer basically makes it the same, if not worse as people who alr know the rules would have to wait. Quest GUI doesn't help either as people still can skip thru. But I guess there could be a solution for that. The only benefit rn that I see is that the professors themselves wouldn't have to type out the rules each time which is great, but I don't think that's our concern or something that should be a topic on forums. Maybe they alr have some sort of that (automated rules) and we don't know? And about the automated classes, I feel the same about them as I feel about this suggestion, it seems usefull but I don't know if it's quite right or no. And again, maybe we already have automated classes and we don't know 😳 some of those professors are sus 🤖(the last part is obviously a joke, for those who are struggling with sarcasm)

 

[Jae ⊹₊ ⋆]

G'day @Edgar! Thank you for expressing your concern and also providing a suggestion! On behalf of myself and the rest of the Poltergeist team, we thank you. We're always looking for new ways to improve the server. I'm going to bring your suggestion up to the rest of the team for further feedback. Once our leads have come to a final decision, I'll return with an answer for you so please keep an eye out on this thread

Thank you again and I hope you have a wonderful day

 

[Jae ⊹₊ ⋆]

Hello again @Wildsam!!

Unfortunately, this suggestion has been declined overall. However, we may make adjustments in Arena on how we present our rules, but this will not necessarily be through a GUI. We also are considering the idea of having rules in a GUI that can be re-accessible if someone wanted to check the rules again, but would like to at least say them once.
For classes, we do encourage keeping rules short so they shouldn't take long at the start of a class. The rules portion also buys time for profs/CHs to add any additional students to the class who missed the queue before starting the class officially, and shortening/removing the verbal rules would therefore shorten or eliminate that opportunity for students to join a class last minute.

Regardless, thank you for making this suggestion. I hope you have a wonderful day/night