User:Barnessc/Review811

So far, I received a great number of reviews for my first time being staff. Some good results, some new issues I didn’t see coming, and some I expected to see.

001
'Nate, you're a good guy. I must admit that when you were made admin I was a bit 'huh bu-wha' but if the humans need a fachead, you're the person for the job, since there's not really any other players who I think could handle it. What I have noticed though is that you seem to be doing less since you actually got the position. Don't let it drain your soul and burn you out, you're a good person! I've also noticed that you seem to get discouraged easily when trying to run tps. Don't get discouraged, learn how to build up momentum. Sometimes stuff starts slow but it does build up, so don't just drop something if one scene doesn't work out (like the hate plague idea or the French Revolution). And don't be afraid to ask for help from your fellow staffers and players if you need it.  Finally, please stop being so... insane. You can be really immature on channels both OOC and IC and bait players like . Please don't, people want to be able to look up to the admin and respect them, its hard to do that sometimes. But you'll come good, I know you will, because your heart is in the right place.'

Thanks for the feedback! I was and am still worried about being the best candidate for the faction. I feel that in time, I will soon mature properly to be the best. I’ve had some hard shoes to fill. Mikey was and is a damned impressive one to follow. He’s still a dedicated one and is help to the faction is still there.

I do apologize for the French Revolution not kicking off the way I expected it to kick off in May/June. I was stealing wi-fi and staying late at work to try and get scenes going. Most of the events were to be early morning because I was trying to run those scenes at work. Compton, James, and Jayson were great helpers in the scenes I was able to kick off. The good thing is, the Revolution not happening allowed for Picard to stay in reasonable amount of control in France. Honestly, Picard blew up in my face – I only expected to need him as a reference and as an emit here and there. I didn’t expect for the demand of him to increase the way it did.

Unfortunately, I will admit I am a social astronaut. I’m rather calm and easy going and that I will let anything happen but sometimes I do run a joke past it’s funeral.

Thank you for the praise and the suggestions. I think Fearless Feedback is the best approach we can use to help each other; as players; as staff; as friends; as a whole grow together to be united and enjoy the mush as best as possible.

002
'Nate, your heart is in the right place and I know you care probably more than any other player on the game about the human side of things. I trust you to keep motivated and to keep your players motivated to reclaim a proper foothold in 2k5's bigger picture. That said, you need to ease up a bit with your behavior. It's okay to rip on someone occasionally or have a running joke, but you push it too far. There's one person in particular you rip on as Nate, as Thrust, on , on , in OOC chatter, in IC roleplay... the joke's only funny so many times before you just start looking like you're trying to run people off. Take stock of your sense of humor and think more about the possible interpretations of what you think is just harmless funning, and you're golden.'

I’d not say that I care more about the any other player – my faction is made up of some pretty damn good and dedicated players. Andi has been with us for how long? Same with Mikey/Noah. I feel that all my players are dedicated and the best bunch of players to work with. I think any of them would rise the occasion.

I apologize for my sense of humor. I am working on it. Nate’s ripping on Jayson mainly comes from the fact that he sees Jayson as his younger brother – the one you can’t leave alone for more than fifteen minutes before you need to see what he is doing. And as for Thrust… He’s after anyone he can get a reaction from.

003
'A very good admin. Quick to reply, if he doesn't know the answer, will know who to ask. Answers for questions are sensable, well thought out, and reasons for approving or disapproving suggestions and the like are sound.'

Thanks for the kind words. I’m learning who to ask and the answers as best I can so I can avoid being the middleman and give you the definite answer right then and there. J

004
'Nate is a wonderful Fac-head, suicidal, but pretty darn cool none-the-less. Since I've been around, the humies/EDC seem to be very active with both factions (bot and con). The Ramjet vs Nate scene was pretty awesome, albeit long; but full of win sauce.'

Never thought I can see wonderful and suicidal in the same sentence! :D Ramjet and I tried to get a great scene together. Combat when it is rigged is fun. I loved that scene and I will be working with Ramjet to continue doing many cool Aerospace/EDC events.

005
'Nate.. I love the willingness you've shown for taking the humans on almost as your personal mission, as an advocate for them on a robot-based MUSH. I hate humans (not the real ones, the mush ones), insofar as I'd be perfectly happy with an all-Cybertron setting, but your passion and dedication are undeniable. You've shown initiative as a scene-leader, and while being human-focused seem to keep in mind the majority of the playerbase in keeping your scenes open for all sentient beings. All this, and you're a great guy to work with.'

This is my favorite type of review comment – Definitely out of my faction but an insight to see what people expect and like. If you ever want to talk to me about your reasons why you hate humans, it might help me understand what can be done to help the humans. A +gripe or +twink can work. I’m not out there to make Terran only events – which is why you really don’t see me having Nate doing strickly EDC events. Also, it’s why I use Thrust on some extent – to get things rolling like Aerospace going after the EDC.

006
'You're doing a good job running the human faction. I like a lot of what you do, even if it doesn't seem like it.'

Thanks. I see the Terran Fachead position more as the representative of the democracy. I let my players decide what they want to do and tell me what they are looking for and needing to see from me and staff. I then talk with Staff and see what is possible and where the leg work needs to be done. From time to time, I will try to set up a serious of improved scenes rather than real TPs just because the terran playerbase is small and really diverse. For the most part, any of us can be soldiers but that role gets tiring after a while. However, taking Sam to an IKEA or having a BBQ is different and can be pulled off with any amount of players – whether it be mechanics, soldiers, engineers, doctors, legal aids, civilians, etc. I try to be the behind the scenes fac-head instead of the movie director who leaves no room for the actors to be themselves.

007
'Eh, good enough. Except, we need more Sweepcub references! I demand moar plx! ;)'

I'll try to be more than Good Enough! Thanks! I am glad I sweep’d someone off their feet with my bad Sweepcub jokes. ;)

008
'I have not been impressed by your leading thus far. It looks like you do not have enough time on your hands to lead the humans leaving Spike in charge (and let's be honest, he really does not have the time or inclination to lead the edc at this point. Leaving and wondering if he should stay on the mush or not proves that.), or you do have the time, but shunt off responsibilities to him anyway. Either way, it's leaving the players in the dark. Take charge and run the faction, as leader of the edc if you have to. Figure out a way for Nate Briar to take command. This btw, would make much more sense than you being stuck back down on the rank ladder pulling the strings from the shadows. Make changes as you see fit and don't be afraid to. I understand that there were going to be changes in the edc in how they were going to be run, but that was a long time ago. Are they going to be implemented? Besides the squabble with France and Picard, there isn't anything else going on and hasn't been for a while. Is that still going on for that matter? It felt like a side note to Russia Risk. But do not think this review will be all sad faces and rain clouds. No. You're friendly and open with the players; both are good strong points for you. Even if you do things that annoy people with your newly acquired admin powers from time to time.'

I think there might be some leve of misunderstanding in this idea that I stuck Spike with the tasks and assignments. When I was offered to be fachead, it was with the conditions and terms that staff already had came up with – one of them being that Spike was to be the leader of the EDC. This was because the EDC is not a dynasty that automatically promotes the next Briar after the previous General Briar died. Also, if you were to see Nate’s specs and stats, you’d see that I have been working on his leadership and intelligence to make him a better leader to take command of the EDC but he currently does not have them compared to Marissa and Spike. Spike, as the General of the EDC’s IC and OOC responsibilities are have the EDC defend Earth and do some offensive. In reality, the EDC is not capable of leading an aggressive force against the Decepticons but we can do the raids, small strikes, and assists.

My responsibilities encompass Spike’s but they also include the civilians and to a level, the characters like Compton Xabat. Compton’s a great guy to work with. Picard can give him a notice and he does the said deed but with his own flavor. I also don’t need to tell Xabat to do anything. Why? Because a terrorist only acts on what they want to act on. I might inform Xabat OOCly that the EDC is doing something so he can figure out how he wants to play along with it or ignore it.

It’s been a hard transition for me to work with Spike and the rest of the EDC divisions without Nate being the fac head for the EDC but it makes sense for him to not be it. I can cook up a really great idea with the rest of TP staff but I still like to get permission from my players and Spike to do it. Why? Because I don’t force your moves. For example, I can easily come up with a TP that involves the EDC bombing Iraq. But some of our characters and players will not agree to it. So why force their hands? I will do it with small scenes but those are really easy to get rolling and are hard to object to. A BBQ or move outing is themely for how our characters act. Unless it was for Sam to see Dream Girls. Or for James to take Ballet.

I’m working hard on trying to get Nate to advance up the ladder so he will be a Rank 5 – right above the cut but below Spike’s and Marissa’s rankings. I want to /EARN/ that rank rather than force it. Funny but cheesy story. Thrust was Rank 1 not too far back. He’s now a Rank 3. Nothing felt better than seeing him earn his two promotions.

My perspective of how to be a great fachead is to inspire and encourage RP and TP scenes. Not force them or order the troopers to be part of things. Again, I need to be careful because I am not leading the EDC. This means that let’s say if Nate decided to lead an attack on France next time Picard acted up, he would have to answer to General Witwicky. I like having the consequences set up within the faction. It’s too easy to make yourself be the good guy when you did something bad. But this fixes that issue only slightly for the time being. I view it that EDC is not my faction to control. It’s anyone’s who wants to be part of it. If Gabe wants to run Talon related events for a week, I support it. If Jayson wants to do be pranking people for the month of April and we like the idea of it, let’s do it. It’s not /my/ faction. It’s the players’ faction.

Some information about Nate that you might not be aware of to know by having minimal encounters to him. Nate’s not sure if the EDC is the right career path for him since he lost his cousin. Nate’s happy with his life; he fears losing it. Nate’s also very laid back.

As for my time here at 2k5? I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you. Only because I think I am right. Below is my @time/history.

Date      OOC/Idl OOC/Act  IC/Idl  IC/One  IC/Act Mon Apr 07   2.93    6.65   16.70   16.18    3.35 Mon Apr 14   0.23    0.15   15.50   10.35    5.00 Mon Apr 21  14.68    3.30   22.85    9.35    8.12 Mon Apr 28  16.32   14.07   14.63   13.68   12.47 Mon May 05   7.88    7.68   21.28   13.80   16.65 Mon May 12   1.92    4.22   14.68   16.50   22.02 Mon May 19   2.25    5.83   11.63   27.93   13.82 Mon May 26   0.72    6.93   20.10   18.18   25.08 Mon Jun 02   0.95    9.12   16.28   25.37   23.63 Mon Jun 09   2.85    4.18   16.93   20.03   31.97 Mon Jun 16   1.02    3.80   26.23   20.87   35.65 Mon Jun 23   0.97    2.67   14.37   24.25   29.72 Mon Jun 30      0       0   20.15   22.07    6.85 Mon Jul 07   0.27    1.25   82.28   11.30    8.12 Mon Jul 14      0    0.18   46.83    5.78    9.23 Mon Jul 21      0       0  102.47   15.43    9.23 Mon Jul 28      0       0  100.18   15.87    8.45 Mon Aug 04      0       0   99.90   15.63   16.72 Mon Aug 11      0    0.42   86.97   23.28   20.77

I average 40 hours a week of being active here. That’s without pay, mind you. I do have a social life, work 40 hours, take care of my POS car, freelance, and other things. I spent the month of June moving out of my apartment. I then spent July looking for job hunting, interviewing, and helping a friend move out. I actually stored some of my stuff there and had to move that stuff out. I’ve been hired by Apple Corporate/Retail and been reading tons of sensitive materials that I need to by the end of this week for my final certification from Apple. I still try to be here as much as possible. Like right now, I am in my third week of training with Apple and I am a thousand miles away from home. I made sure to borrow a crappy laptop so I can at least be here when I am not studying so I can catch up and cast my dice as I do as Terran fachead.

Now, for the weekly 100 hours idle time July to present? I started leaving my desktop on and reading back scrolls of things discussed on the staff channels, the RP channels, public, etc to see what were common things that people are looking for seeing. One of them is more social RP with the Decepticons. I agree, it would be cool to have those social scenes that don’t need the OMG KILL THE CON going on. But understand, it’s like an American soldier walking into Iran and saying, “No fight, just here to talk.”

Picard and French? That’s an interesting question. I tried to get things rolling with getting them but it seems like they became a bad novelty device. And I’m letting it be that way for now. I have some ideas I want to try out and I think the last Galvatron for letting me do what I did with that time just as I thank the new Galvatron for the help he is giving me for getting this era of Picard to go on. Just watch and wait.

I’ll make sure to be careful with the powers and jokes as well!

009
' Nate is a solid guy. He takes the non-fun but necessary aspects seriously, and he's not afraid to do the dirty jobs that no one else wants to do. He's also very active ICly, and he seems pretty sensible. I am excited for the stuff he's going to get the humans doing in September. As a criticism, he's a little too helpful in weird ways, and I think he knows what I mean.'

Thanks! I try to only confront people when there is cause. I’m guilty of being lenient, perhaps a little to unconfrontational and silly but I do try to make sure that everyone can play in the RP sandboxes I create and that everyone has the opportunity to have a good time.

010
'Hi Nate. I think you're doing a great job overall. The Terran faction has really been active and is a real contributor to the MUSH as far as RP and TPs. I have to say that besides the 'big 2' of Autobots and Decepticons, the Terrans are the next faction in terms of activity, good players and overall having their stuff together. The Junkions are trying but just haven't managed it. You yourself have a lot of enthusiasm, you're approachable and you listen to the players in the Terran faction, all of which are good things. I was going to complain that scheduled activities (such as TPs or scheduled scenes) seem to have died down within the Terrans after a good start, but now it looks like you're back on track and I know a lot of RL things have been keeping you busy. So no complaints at all there. But I will also add a little bit of criticism, which is that your own personal RP - it seems to border on silly a lot of the time. Sometimes is okay, but when you're making comments on the Autobot bboard channel or making posts on the reports bboard it seems like a little more seriousness is called for. Even if your character is not especially fond of Autobots, there's still such a thing as being a responsible military leader and an ambassador for the EDC and the Terrans in general. If Autobots are saying 'this human is a menace' or 'this human is prejudiced against all of us for no good reason' then it's a problem. :) My suggestion is to either try to tone down the anti-Autobot rhetoric and just do it in person but not over the channels (and definately not in a way that makes it sound like you're speaking for the entire EDC or the whole Terran faction). An alternative would be to have one more Terran character that is sort of the 'fachead' character, such as an NPC or some new TP character or even an OOC character, and to remove Nate from the position of IC responsibility and rank. Nobody will mind Nate shooting off his mouth if he is a civilian like Daniel was, or if he's ranked very low. But overall, great job and keep up the good work! :)'

Oddly enough, I just used to be a Junkion promoter. (Reference Broadcast) I think the Junkions can grow and have had really loyal players in recent times; Dee-Kal, Monstereo, Lee-Zard, and some others come to mind.

Ah! But you see, I am a whimsical person in real life! I work for Apple now – not because I know what I am doing but because I think different. And Nate’s inherited that bad trait from me as well as Mikey’s racism against transformers – Nate hates them more because he blames them for Mikey’s death. He’s getting a little too frustrated with the war and he would much rather like to sit back and enjoy life – whether it be two hand touch with James, keeping Sam from mixing coffee and mustard, or trying to not kill Jayson.

Nate’s status in the EDC as a whole --- well, I can see you’ve studied me enough to know how I RP Nate that you can probably see where I am going to go with this statement… Nate’s not sure where he wants to be with the EDC. Originally Nate’s creation was to be the younger Briar who mocked his cousin. Then the punk who joined the EDC. But Mikey had other plans and went and died on Nate. That kind of caused a weird ripple on Nate’s mind of what he wants to do. He knows he wants to live and keeps thinking about leaving the EDC. Sometimes he verbalizes that notion but he can’t bring himself to do it just yet – he sees The Mechanical Ghost Squadron as his family now and he doesn’t want to lose them. Or let them take the bullet because he was not there.

Real life, I hope and know will be resolving. I will be having a schedule crisis soon with work where I might work until 11 PM EST, drive an hour home and not be able to be part of the night’s scenes. But I should know my schedules about 2 weeks in advance so I can plan from there when and where we do things. That’s why September’s schedule is by week – not by days.

Closing Remarks
I appreciate all these reviews and encourage to receive either +gripes and +twinks if you have further questions or needs to communicate to me without letting me know who you are. If you don’t mind going to me, you can @mail and page me and we can have peaceful chats about this.

Thank you for taking the times out to review me and let me know where you are looking to see me go and what I am doing wrong and what I am doing right. I really appreciate everyone’s comments and see the validities in their statements and concerns. I will do my best to keep things on the right tracks and bring up where I am lacking.

Thank you, Scott