Hello to everyone who has viewed and interacted with this thread, as well as the poster. I’d like to take time to reply to this thoroughly on behalf of the staff team and give a decision. We really appreciate those that have given their opinions on this matter, as well as the passion that some of you have when you try to get your ideas across. We just need to remember to do this civilly and respect others' opinions.
We are indeed aware that those from Europe and Oceania are not able to attend as many classes. Ideally, we would like to change this so that those from those timezones are able to attend more classes, but unfortunately this is dependent on the Professors that we currently have and what times they are available and willing to teach classes. If you are from Europe or Oceania timezones, we encourage you to apply for class helper! Professors get to choose what classes they schedule and at what time they teach. This goes for surprise classes too. They can host them outside of the schedule whenever they would like to and it doesn’t conflict with another class. We would not want to force Professors to teach certain classes or at certain times, as this might be in conflict with their interests and their schedules. A lot of work goes into being a class helper, and similarly Professor, and having to teach and do work for a class that you don’t actually enjoy or want to do might make the position tedious and unenjoyable.
Yes, we are all on the team to add to the server and to benefit players, but we are unpaid volunteers, most of which are at high school or university level, or have a job. Our Academics (and staff) members are real people with lives. Many staff members have multiple positions which they need to do work for, and would be unable to host a class at a certain time. Professors generally tend to schedule classes when they know that they would be able to do them. A Professor scheduling a class when they are unsure if they can make it or not wouldn’t make sense and would end up creating more frustration and confusion than if there was no class scheduled.
Regarding the point about Arena staff doing dueling classes, the Arena team is a part of Game Design, and Professors are a part of Academics. These are separate teams and departments entirely, and we do not want to change this. Upcoming changes/updates will further separate classes from Arena Team hosted events. The Arena Team’s job is to create tougher, friendly competition that is less rewarding when you don’t perform as well as other players, whereas classes are meant to foster an environment for players of all levels. The style of challenges is very different from how a dueling class is run. With this separation, changes to how challenges are run and managed backend will be different to classes, and we want to keep those roles separate so they can focus on how they need to be managing.
We currently have 15 class helpers, which is quite a large number. These class helpers will eventually work their way up to being Professors, but that is something that takes a bit of time. Class helpers need to be ready and have experience before being able to be promoted. Because of the number of applicants that Academics gets, unfortunately the Academics leadership team cannot accept many of them. Similarly to how job interviews work in real life, the best applicants are taken and given the position.
Because of everything mentioned above, there isn’t much that we can do about this at this time, so I will be closing this thread. If you disagree, that’s okay and you are free to, but this is unfortunately the decision that we have come to.
Best regards,
Ash
