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New Role - Guide

allure_e

New Magician
Minecraft IGN: allure_e
Honeybadger
#1
With Scarlett being given a new role and no longer allowing players to teleport around the castle, I've noticed the rise in a few players like myself, consistently offering help and opening their pms to all players who find themselves struggling. I actually just started doing this about 12 hours ago, and the moment I posted in global letting people know that I was willing to guide them places and offer my help on quests I had so many requests that I could hardly keep up and spent almost 6 hours today simply guiding and helping with quests. I'm not the only player doing this, while I was on I saw more and more people begin to offer help, and when they were stumped they would refer to others who had offered help as a backup.

This being said, I think it may be prudent to - not exactly 'expand' - but add a role to your team. Not given any other admin or mod powers, but the addition of a role for players willing to guide other players and offer their assistance. Scarlett's directions can be rather confusing, I myself spent a long time trying to learn all the routes so that I would be able to help newer players, or even older players struggling to adjust to a server without Scarlett's help, and I know others have done exactly wha I'm doing. With all of that being said, I just thought I'd suggest adding a specific role that players could go to for peer help. It would take some stress away from your mod team as simple questions and asking for more help could now be broached to other players first, and they could then be referred to a mod if it was beyond player capability to handle. I've noticed that often when people ask for help their plea is buried in a fast paced chat, and it can be rather demoralizing as I've had the same thing happen to me many times on this server and others. Having a small team of guides and helpers to see these messages and do their best to reach out to all struggling players could majorly improve the environment now that the server is intended to be learned rather than teleported around!
 

arne ☾

Notable Magician
Staff
Minecraft IGN: tqrpiar
Auralock Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Werewolf Lead Lore Master Lead
#2
Hm, I have mixed feelings about this personally! While I think in some ways it can be really useful to have people as "check points" to talk to and ask for help!
While it does seem very useful, I'm wondering of how members aquire the role, are people able to give themselves this role and take it off when they don't feel like this, or does this also link with an application process?

Overall I do think the role is highly useful to a lot of new members, but I think moderating wise to obtain the role seems like a difficult thing for me, if you understand where I'm coming from!

There's always the quest chat too, unfortunately not everyone realises they have to ask things in there but when they do so, the ability to leave general chat and only ask for help there is open for anybody!

I'm wondering what other people think about this
 

allure_e

New Magician
Minecraft IGN: allure_e
Honeybadger
#3
While it does seem very useful, I'm wondering of how members acquire the role, are people able to give themselves this role and take it off when they don't feel like this, or does this also link with an application process?
Seeing as this would be a role in which you need to do your very best to help other server members, I would definitely suggest an application process. There are already a lot of formats for those on the website if people are looking to apply, though for a voluntary player role I don't believe it should be quite as rigorous! I think even without this role, people like myself and many of my friends will continue to advertise and offer help, but it may incentivise players to ask for help when they need it if they see other players who have made the choice to make time for those with questions. It can often be intimidating to ask a mod or admin for help, especially if you only have a small question and worry about bothering them while they may be doing bigger things, so this was simply an idea to try and help combat that!
 

nathan1e

Animorphus
Minecraft IGN: nathan1e
Honeybadger Auralock Dark Follower Phoenix Vampire Werewolf SPEW
#4
I'm just going to go ahead and say I'm not particularly fond of this idea. And, regardless of how I feel about this idea, I simply don't think it will be accepted.

If there are players that are willing to give out help in the form of guidance, I don't think it adds a whole lot to make it an entire role on the server. Help is shown in the form of actions, not in the form of a role. That is to say, if this role would exist, would this discourage players from asking help to regular players who are equally keen on helping? Would players with the role be obliged to help at all times, even when they don't want to help for a moment? Would this role cause players to think that they can just go ahead and demand help from other people with a different role, even if said different role has nothing to do with guiding players through the server? There's a great amount of things that I think could work rather badly when it comes to this suggestion.

As it stands now, any player can help any other player, no role required. Help-requiring players need only ask and there will usually be at least someone in chat ready to help. I don't think there's anything wrong with how it works now, and I therefore don't believe there is anything that needs fixing.

Furthermore, something that caught my eye within this thread:
It would take some stress away from your mod team as simple questions and asking for more help could now be broached to other players first, and they could then be referred to a mod if it was beyond player capability to handle.
Seeing as this would be a role in which you need to do your very best to help other server members, I would definitely suggest an application process.
If the main problem described is giving the mod team too much stress and the solution is supposed to take some stress away, I don't think adding an application process would help a whole lot. While this may give the lower staff some less stress, but I think it would add a whole lot more stress to the staff members that are a bit higher up and are actually responsible for applications, as such a process can take a lot of time and effort; time and effort that I think is better put into the server itself.
 

Alexa Zoldyck

Graduate
Minecraft IGN: AlexShock
Auralock Dark Follower Serpent Vampire
#5
imma put my thoughts on this out here

I think while this could be useful, it would also kinda be a waste of time for the staff. For them to make a new role and go through and look at apps.

Many help and are willing just to take people, even if they aren't staff, I know I wouldn't apply but I'm still willing to help others, answer questions, and bring people if they are lost or need help.

That also kinda takes away the point of all the Prefects. Their job is to Mod and is there for people with questions.

I think that currently, just people help in the chat is fine,

that's just my thoughts tho.
 
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Somnambulist

Librarian
Minecraft IGN: Psycho
Phoenix Raven Werewolf
#6
Isn't this what the Prefects and other Staff should usually do when it comes down to helping players out? Then again, sometimes I notice that there would be a lot of questions asked by players in chat that don't seem to be answered by staff in global chat, but then staff would still say "Congrats!" whenever a player gets sorted or levels up a few lines after. Sometimes it just seems like they're ignoring the players or busy doing something else whenever I notice this happening in chat.

I like your idea of having a Guide that should focus on the player's quest questions or help them find a place within Hogsworth, but then there's the Quest chat where players are free to help out one another, as mentioned above - which brings the question of if a Guide prefix would even be needed? Prefixes don't show up in the other chats except for Global and Prefects try to moderate quest related questions toward the Quest channel so in the end it's hard to know if a player is a [Guide] in that Quest channel unless their name is known or stands out.

Back to your idea, I would expect a [Guide] to have a list of requirements -
  • Must be a Graduate
  • Finished majority of Quests so they are knowledgeable of what's required in them.
  • Knowledgeable of the surrounding areas to easily find places that a player needs to find.
  • Proactive in chat when it comes down to helping players out.
  • They don't need to have any moderation commands or any staff related things - they would simply have a [Guide] prefix and still be a player on the server in the end.
  • I think the main expectation with the [Guide] is that they focus on continually helping players out.
 

1psaonly

Dragonologist
Minecraft IGN: 1psaonly
Dark Follower Serpent
#7
I really like the idea of having a guide!!!! Many players already help others through their own will, and making it official would be super duper cool!!!! I think the best way this could be implemented would be something similar to the Club Penguin Tour Guide system!!!!! I really like Psycho's requirements to be a guide, and I think that could be implemented similarly to the Club Penguin Tour Guide implementation!!! This way, people can help others, and new players will always have more people to select from to help them, and it will be less burden on the Prefect teams!!!! Overall, I think this idea is super duper cool, and sounds great!!!!
 

Joshios

Animorphus
Minecraft IGN: Joshios
Auralock Dark Follower Griffin Phoenix Vampire Werewolf SPEW
#8
I don't agree with this post. As staff members, we are encouraged to help players out. Most of the time, we tend to guide players in the right direction, instead of giving them the answer. This goes for all staff, although since it isn't a requirement, not all staff will help players as they might not have time, have PW work to do, etc.

A big point here that you mentioned is the players. I know a lot of players who love to help out, whether it's creating guides, or showing new players about locations around the castle, and this sub-community has always been here on Potterworld. Not to mention the moderation team, who also help out!

Potterworld's vision of Exploration contradicts this suggestion and role. From a server perspective, it doesn't make sense to give players the answers to the content we create. Don't get me wrong, the staff team will always be available when players need assistance, but I think it's best players explore on their own.

I would like to point out that I am not a poltergeist nor the deciding factor of this suggestion; however, I wanted to throw my two cents into the discussion. The Unspeakables team is actively working on improving exploration, such as the Scarlett NPC. Player feedback is important for the server and to make exploration better.
 

Joe_Magus

Animorphus
Minecraft IGN: Joe_Magus
Dark Follower Raven SPEW
#9
the staff team will always be available when players need assistance
That just isn't the case though - as Psycho pointed out staff have been about in chat when questions are being asked endlessly and even had full blown conversations in chat before when I've found myself asking the same (relatively easy to answer) question over and over, usually ending in "So is anyone going to help, or?" after the 20th time of asking. Which, before the answer may seem impossible to work out and after seems so obvious. But regardless, staff are not always there to help. Not that I blame them at all, you have said many are busy and I guarantee they are, but that's not always the case and there seems to be a pattern in the early years asking the same questions, about the same quests and I honestly don't blame staff for not replying every time. Maybe this is a case of working out what quests need a little extra guidance and giving it through instructions or descriptions.

On topic, what OP is doing, helping other players out and guiding them, is the point of the server altogether - to work together, with friends in quests and overcome adversity and the fix to this is to join up in teams and work together, helping each other. I would say there is maybe room for work on the FAQ to add more frequently asked questions - the ones we all see in chat constantly or even more detailed quest descriptions and instructions or more quest trails to guide people (not all the way) but just to help with direction maybe.
 
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Zocolat

New Magician
Minecraft IGN: Zocolat
Honeybadger
#10
With Scarlett being given a new role and no longer allowing players to teleport around the castle, I've noticed the rise in a few players like myself, consistently offering help and opening their pms to all players who find themselves struggling. I actually just started doing this about 12 hours ago, and the moment I posted in global letting people know that I was willing to guide them places and offer my help on quests I had so many requests that I could hardly keep up and spent almost 6 hours today simply guiding and helping with quests. I'm not the only player doing this, while I was on I saw more and more people begin to offer help, and when they were stumped they would refer to others who had offered help as a backup.

This being said, I think it may be prudent to - not exactly 'expand' - but add a role to your team. Not given any other admin or mod powers, but the addition of a role for players willing to guide other players and offer their assistance. Scarlett's directions can be rather confusing, I myself spent a long time trying to learn all the routes so that I would be able to help newer players, or even older players struggling to adjust to a server without Scarlett's help, and I know others have done exactly wha I'm doing. With all of that being said, I just thought I'd suggest adding a specific role that players could go to for peer help. It would take some stress away from your mod team as simple questions and asking for more help could now be broached to other players first, and they could then be referred to a mod if it was beyond player capability to handle. I've noticed that often when people ask for help their plea is buried in a fast paced chat, and it can be rather demoralizing as I've had the same thing happen to me many times on this server and others. Having a small team of guides and helpers to see these messages and do their best to reach out to all struggling players could majorly improve the environment now that the server is intended to be learned rather than teleported around!
I actually think this is a good idea, but sometimes it can be very tiring. I've had to bring multiple people at the same place constantly and I couldn't get on with my quests. I know other people can help, but it's happened that we were only 2 people on the entire server to help the others.

I guess if this role were to happen it would need to be given to people who have finished everything or just have a lot of time to guide people. But overall I agree with the idea of having guides
 

Grace

Graduate
Staff
Minecraft IGN: PinkWeezie
Honeybadger Auralock Staff Vampire Wizencouncil SPEW Lead Scribe Lead
#11
Hello!

Thank you so much for your suggestion! This is definitely an interesting role idea for the team. I'm going to bring your suggestion up with the rest of the Poltergeist team to get their opinions and feedback on it as well. Once we have come to a decision about it I will reply to let you know! Hope you have a fantastic day. :)
 

Callie

Graduate
Minecraft IGN: ProbsAMistake
Auralock Dark Follower Griffin Phoenix Vampire Werewolf
#13
A tad very very late however, as someone who has been a Prefect and been through/looked at the application process I would say this roll would not only as mentioned previously give stress to the people looking at applications, but also take away one of the easiest ways to show interest/skill in the Jr. Prefect position! One of the best ways to show you have a good interest in helping the community is by answering player questions in chat, and that would include guiding them places. By adding a completely new role for this (even if they don't have permissions) would take away some of that opportunity. While I think in concept this is a fantastic idea, I think there are other ways to solve this.
 

Joe_Magus

Animorphus
Minecraft IGN: Joe_Magus
Dark Follower Raven SPEW
#14
Update to my reply -
One thing I have noticed whilst going through my Quests, is the directions can be misleading or not accurate enough. The quests also punish you for skimming text. Examples of this are NPC's that when you return to them, because you don't know what you are doing or where you are going, they don't give you information on where to go or what to do next, instead say something along the lines of "Well hurry up, They will meet you at the Cave"

Another example was one of the Dwelling Quests - an NPC says "There is a cave north of here" and I went flying off on my broom, north, in search of caves - ended up finding one directly north that wasn't the right cave. Really the cave was much closer to the Dwelling and was Northeast. Maybe sharpening up some Quest text such as changing this to "The cave is a short walk northeast" would probably help people find there way easier.

Another one - an Eldham Ridge quest "The cave is in the hills outside Eldham Ridge" - Had me search the small foothills east of Eldham Ridge - I know this cave was supposed to be well hidden, but maybe not changing the text but, insert a way to find a clue to where his hidden cave is - In the Library of Eldham Ridge a book that is called "Cavers Guide to Eldham Ridge and the Surrounding Areas" with a page ripped out - and when you find the page - it specifies how to get to the cave.
 

Max Fireheart

Graduate
Minecraft IGN: Maxymoos
Griffin Phoenix
#15
Hey there! I know I'm also late to the conversation, but I do agree with everyone else above here. While I think it would be convenient for players, there would be some problems (in my perspective). First, there are always going to be players who need help. It is a Prefect's job to not only moderate the server, but help players out! As you mentioned above, there's always a case of a couple of people who don't receive help. Usually, this then goes to other players. I think it builds a sense of community within Potterworld, and having a role like this would sort of limit that sense of community. I do agree with whoever said that, as it's a pretty valid point. Furthermore, it's very hard to get everyone's questions answered! To be able to accomplish this means that you'd have to organize chat more so that no questions get missed, and have a very large team. Since Potterworld has recently been gaining activity due to TikTok, there are so many more new players that require assistance. I'd say that even a team of 10 people online at a time would not be enough. This means that the team would have to be probably above 30+ people to realistically be impactful more than the players themselves. Of course I see the pros in which it could be good to have one role specifiy on exactly helping people out, and not moderating at the same time, but I still don't think it's necessarily worth it.
 

Ashh

Librarian
Staff
Minecraft IGN: AzureAsh
Auralock Dark Follower Staff Phoenix Serpent Vampire Werewolf Discord Moderator SPEW Game Designer Lead
#16
Hia RosesAreRosey! Thank you for taking the time to make a suggestion using our feedback and suggestions forums! We really appreciate your idea, and your dedication to help players who need help.

Unfortunately, we are going to be declining this suggestion. One of the responsibilities that the Moderation Team has is to help players where they can, as seen
here in this information thread on what the different roles do. Other staff members are encouraged to help players in chat as well. Players are also able to help other players in chat, and encouraged to do so. We are also currently working on adding more accessible information through Scarlett, adding more signs to help players get to locations, and adding more broadcasts to give useful tips for new players, as well as making quest directions as clear as possible. We want players to try and figure things out as far as possible on their own without too much direction from a member of staff.

Additionally, we would not want to add a role just for this purpose, when there are other roles that have this as part of what they do, as well as the fact that anyone is able to help players in chat. Creating an application for this position that shows how well a person would know places would be a challenge. Because of the above, we would not want to add this role.