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NEWS [UO.Com] Looking for Event Moderators

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Greetings everyone, I currently have several positions open in the Event Moderator program. Since this is a contracted position you must be 18 years old to apply. We have the following shards looking for Event Moderators: Lake Superior Oceania Yamato Wakoku Asuka Izumo If you are interested in joining our family please email me at [email protected], with the following information: Account names (no passwords) What are some of your character names? How long have you played UO? Have you ever conducted any player events? Are you a rares collector? Send a small summary of an event you would like to […]

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kaio

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Will it count against me if i have a criminal record?
Ya man, they want PRO criminals, those are the ones that never got caught...
Sorry couldn't help myself he he.

PS For those who doesn't know Mervyn he is in a guild called PRO, and PRO is the abbreviation for professional .
 

Riyana

Operations
Administrator
Professional
Governor
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Stratics Legend
Event Coordinator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Patron
Personally I think the high value items need to be divorced entirely from the content: clickies for all for shard EM events and roving cross shard boss fight EMs for "rare" drops--everyone gets what they want and expect and playstyles aren't tripping over each other. It would remove most of the incentive for making EM events little more than thinly disguised rares dispensers, as so many are anymore. However, a more critical consideration of who is doing what and why is better than nothing, and I hope this is just step one of a critical and thoughtful cleanup/overhaul of the program.

That incentive is still there though, and unless the vetting is pretty thorough AND the sources of inquiry are sound and honest, then I'm not sure a simple application question will be useful.

And don't get me wrong--there is nothing inherently wrong with rares collecting. It's a perfectly valid thing to do in game and has its place along with any other playstyle. I am primarily a roleplayer but I have a smattering of EM rares, enjoy a drop as much as the next person, and even co-hosted a Rares Fest. However, when the only ongoing officially operated live content in the game is tied to a potentially endless supply of those rares and the operators of that content seemingly increasingly coming from among those whose primary playstyle involves collecting those rares, then the content suffers. Can one be both collector and dispenser of items without succumbing to corruption? Probably. Does the current setup encourage such? No.
 

skett

Babbling Loonie
Professional
Supporter
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I quit going to EM events years ago ( was one of the reason I took a long break from UO ) all it is, is a rares fest like @Riyana said.
Also they would hold them on a Thursday and I was always at work.
way to much lag way to agitating way to boring

They need to focus on global events imo
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
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I agree with @Riyana as an RPer I used to very much enjoy the events but back at the start the EMs actually interacted with the RP community... really making UO 100X more fun... we didn't need to get a drop... but the books we'd pick up with clues to what was coming and such were great... even the sometimes just named clothes on the corpses of things with creative named crafters... (which anyone could have made)... were fun and great... but then came the rares collecting... and steadily things became out of control. And it has come to what it is now... barely a story to follow if you can... gate here, gate there (because gosh forbid anyone should have to think about the clues or directions given and actually get somewhere on their own)... kill this kill that... and then once and twice a month separate into two groups and you know there is a drop so all the "collectors" gate in their 6 other clients ... server is so laggy you can't move but there are pools of deadly crap spawning all over so while you are lagged beyond movement you die over and over... and if you are lucky you get an item if not you died 15 times in vain...

And my experience is this isn't really fun anymore. And Corruption has taken over the events. So much so that it clearly is designed around thwarting things to the point that the EMs are basically just vendors for the very rich... and quite honestly the events have changed so much from what they were IMO originally designed for that now they are just not enjoyable.
 

ShriNayne

Babbling Loonie
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I think it should actually be the opposite, but knowing how backwards things often are around here, you could be right.... :eek:
 

Laura_Gold

Certifiable
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
How do I find out how many strikes I have against my account?
i must consider my sins
 

Archnight

Legendary Merchant & Rare Collector
Professional
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
I think the emphasis on EM's should be half on events with role playing/quality rare drops and half on global event arcs every quarter. There's too many event drops for the player base these days, we need to have the right balance so everyone gets a chances to play and have fun
 

Coco_Zamis_DF

Lore Keeper
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I would set the amount of drops to 100. maybe useful stuff like an special colored anvil,curtains or armor peace.
 

GarthGrey

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Even on a small, somewhat decent community like Siege. I'll admit 8 out of 10 times I won't attend an EM event because I just don't have the desire, 1 out of 10 because I can't make the time frame, the 1 out of 10 where I do go, I leave in frustration from various factors. But it never fails, I can log in after an event to the sounds of "anyone know what the drop was ? Or my drop got stolen or Drops for sale on my vendor"...so yeah.
 

Dot_Warner

Grand Inquisitor
Governor
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Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
EMs don't run the big global metafiction events like the 20th Arc, that's all Kyronix and Bleak coding their little fingers to the bone trying to mesh new ideas and old systems. Sometimes we get a good run like the majority of the 20th Arc, sometimes we get a cringe-worthy episode like the gargoyle cure debacle. It's a 6-person team, moderate your expectations.

EMs are telling shard-based stories, things that keep each history unique. Sure, they may share story elements...they have to...but they don't have the resources to pull off a 24/7 arc-length series of events that change or add gameplay elements. EMs can, and do, flesh out the big arcs with backstory/exposition; smoothing the rough edges and helping things make in-world sense. Putting together multiple story-driven events each month is no trivial matter. Think of them like Marvel's street-level heroes, actively engaging the citizens while the Avengers take on more existential matters.
 

petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
actively engaging the citizens...
.. for one hour per week (1 hour out of 168 hours).

If they stopped that they could likely pay someone to build proper global events every like 2 months. Player engagement on those is way better than the EM events where players usually just log in for that single hour and then leave the shard alone for a week.
 

King Greg

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
If they only put that time and money into creating global events and not those one-hour once-per-week things. I guess half of Bonnie's working time is spent herding her EM kindergarden.
I think I'll make that my signature.
 

Dot_Warner

Grand Inquisitor
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
.. for one hour per week (1 hour out of 168 hours).

If they stopped that they could likely pay someone to build proper global events every like 2 months. Player engagement on those is way better than the EM events where players usually just log in for that single hour and then leave the shard alone for a week.
BS has been advertising for an engineering position for at least three years without success. It's not a lack of want, it's a lack of people.

I'd love to see more global events, but I recognize the fact that the resources simply aren't there to churn out that level of content on a consistent basis. Blame EA's grotesque apathy, not the EMs. One hour per week, per shard, is better than zero.
 

petemage

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
BS has been advertising for an engineering position for at least three years without success. It's not a lack of want, it's a lack of people.

I'd love to see more global events, but I recognize the fact that the resources simply aren't there to churn out that level of content on a consistent basis. Blame EA's grotesque apathy, not the EMs. One hour per week, per shard, is better than zero.
I'm not sure about the engineering position. Maybe they didn't find anyone. Maybe it was not exclusive for UO but for Broadsword. Or maybe they just forgot to take it down again. I honestly have no clue there.

I believe though that quite some of the little resources they have are wasted on an event system that takes a dozen of humans doing the same things over and over every week. Free that up, and there will be new opportunities to bring UO forward. (not that I think its likely though)
 

skett

Babbling Loonie
Professional
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
BS has been advertising for an engineering position for at least three years without success. It's not a lack of want, it's a lack of people.

I'd love to see more global events, but I recognize the fact that the resources simply aren't there to churn out that level of content on a consistent basis. Blame EA's grotesque apathy, not the EMs. One hour per week, per shard, is better than zero.
or could it be lack of a fair compensation for the position being offered ?
 

Mentiras

Lore Keeper
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Awards
1
or could it be lack of a fair compensation for the position being offered ?
I would gladly do the job without compensation, in fact that's why I currently play uo. (Shamless plug for paintball on Legends on the 25th) I think what the program needs is someone who doesn't just run the same old smash and grab scenarios. I miss days of pet fights, scavenger hunts, and naked dungeon runs.
 

Deraj

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Define global events. Consider the 20th anniversary arc for example. What was the EM contribution to that? I did notice a couple of events that seemed to be related to it, but the bulk of what constituted that arc was a series of quests programmed by the dev team, as Dot pointed out, plus a very light and somewhat ambiguous layer of fiction written by a single EM. So the question becomes, what are the expectations for global events with regards to the role of the EMs?

In my view the real problem with events that goes beyond rewards or quality is that they don't have any teeth. Never does anything that occurs in an EM event seem to have an effect or consequence on the virtual world. It's all pure storytelling whose beginning often times has no precedent and its ending no consequence. Accrue a few years worth of events, and you have yourself some shard history, but who is writing it down? Does anyone remember everything that happened? And did any of it matter? Do the players have a role or are we merely an audience contributing a few lines of commentary? Was there ever any risk, or stakes, or chance of loss?

Put together an EM team and have them cobble together a series of events that are played out on multiple shards, but to what end? You can have some drops, you can have some interactions involving an EM surrounded by a careless mob of dragons and flapping wings standing over everything, and you can have some NPCs that respond to keywords. What is it that we're hoping to gain from all of this on a global scale? This is a genuine question, not meant to undermine anyone's point. My own point here is that, what is it that we are hoping to gain from EM events beyond drops?

Here is my answer to that question: personally, I would like the events to matter in that the course of an event is not always static but determined by the ability of the players to engage a threat or choose a direction, where losing is a possibility, and where losing means something in a grander sense. That's the dream. As it stands now, the EMs are working with the tools they have been given; many of them use those tools extraordinarily well, like on Catskills. For me, I yearn for events that are more than follow the EM from one mob to the next and from one mini-game to the next clever puzzle. The value of drops and promotion rewards pale in the shadow of those scant few moments where the world felt alive and the story developed its own course.

None of this is really meant to be a criticism of EMs, to clarify. It's more of a commentary on what seems to be the limitations of the program.
 

Uriah Heep

Grand Poobah
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
On Legends, Erebus has done events where we are self paced, follow the clues, take a week at our leisure, and then he will add more...I love it. Much easier to follow the story that way, pair up with a few friends to do it and figure it out, and not have to fight to understand anything over the shouted "Where is the drops, How many drops will there be tonight, Can we get on with this?" Love the EM, about done with the system tho.
 

ShriNayne

Babbling Loonie
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@Uriah Heep that sounds more like the kind of event the people I play with would enjoy! The go-here-bash-monsters, usually the same monsters, get a drop or more often don't get a drop because of the 20 multi-boxers type of event is just not fun for most of us any more, the constant whining really gets you down, I pity the poor EMs. I really wish anyone that was disrupting events or being a nuisance could just be sent to jail. Unfortunately on Europa the EM we had and liked was sent to another EM-less shard and we were left with someone who hasn't advertised any events (that I can find!) for almost a year. He/she doesn't interact with players at all, our previous EM was a really nice lady who spent time with players and asked them what they liked doing.
 

Captn Norrington

Stratics Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
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BS has been advertising for an engineering position for at least three years without success. It's not a lack of want, it's a lack of people.
The inability to fill that position is mostly because the requirement of having to move to their office in real life is a bit ridiculous for the lowish salary being offered for it, especially when factoring in DC cost of living. I personally know 3 qualified people who applied for it and would have gladly accepted the job if they didn't have to move across the country for it. Nobody is going to uproot their life and family moving across the country to work for a 20 year old game that could die at any moment and doesn't really teach any modern skills.
 

Dot_Warner

Grand Inquisitor
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
@Captn Norrington That is discouraging to hear. I knew one person who toyed with the idea of applying, but he didn't for that very reason. You'd think that with all the telepresence tech these days that it would be more cost effective to have people work on a digital product from a decentralized location, or to at least broaden the talent pool by allowing it (after an on-site training period).

Though in the broader conversation, I personally don't think the EM program is a waste of resources. But then I come from a shard with weekly events, most of which tie into global arcs (when they happen) to help flesh out the story. It helps that GL's Malachi is also the one behind the fiction, so we're a bit spoiled.
 

Khyro

Sage
Stratics Veteran
@Uriah Heep that sounds more like the kind of event the people I play with would enjoy! The go-here-bash-monsters, usually the same monsters, get a drop or more often don't get a drop because of the 20 multi-boxers type of event is just not fun for most of us any more, the constant whining really gets you down, I pity the poor EMs. I really wish anyone that was disrupting events or being a nuisance could just be sent to jail. Unfortunately on Europa the EM we had and liked was sent to another EM-less shard and we were left with someone who hasn't advertised any events (that I can find!) for almost a year. He/she doesn't interact with players at all, our previous EM was a really nice lady who spent time with players and asked them what they liked doing.
You're talking about Kimmie right? We got her on Chessie when our EM went MIA for several months. She was great. 4 events per month, posted well in advance, engaged with the shard, and often logged in outside of event times to talk to people. Once our normal EM came back she left, so if she's not back on Europa, then I wonder where she got assigned.

Our current EM though... we are lucky if events are posted on the calendar a few days before they happen. Their stratics account hasn't been logged on in 23 weeks. The "official" chessy EM website hasn't been updated since October. I don't think I've ever seen them on when there wasn't an event going on. I'm not sure what the requirements are to keep your EM position, but pretty sure they are doing the bare minimum.

I miss the old days of Dramnar and Drosselmeyer. They ran fun events like scavenger hunts, games, and puzzles, in addition to normal "Follow and kill" events (but even those usually had puzzle elements in them). I remember one time they just logged in randomly and said they have hidden powerful objects throughout the world, gave a few clues, and left us to find them ourselves.

Now it's just a kill fest with one of the most annoying boss combo's I've ever seen used. Valorite Elemental, constantly drops meteors, teleports constantly, and leaves those void pools everywhere. Impossible to do anything really. To me, those types of bosses aren't fun, just frustrating.
 

ShriNayne

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
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Awards
5
Yes I was talking about the lovely EM Kimmie. Last I checked Kimmie isn't on the list at all of current EMs. :(
 

Keith of Sonoma

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
4 events per month, posted well in advance
WOW, I bet that was great! The EM on Sonoma has 1 event per month, plus the Governors meeting, and a NET TOSS (EVERY MONTH)that I guess is supposed to pass as an "EM event" *cough, cough* . Also, he didn't post his schedule until the 14th of the month! Which is close to normal. :( If we had a real EM, I would consider doing events again, and would have kept my Governorship (of which we lost 4).
 
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