Minor addendum

FIRST: If you haven't read the previous blog post, go read it here.

NEXT: Talis is setting up a new patcher and small installer so that you guys won't have to just use the torrents to distribute the client. Both will be up shortly and everyone who played on aRO will need to install them in order to play on Anthem. After that, I think a new full installer will be distributed over torrent only, and the small installer will get a torrent as well. If you don't have the old aRO client, you'll need to pick up a copy of kRO Sakray, which you can find in quite a few places. Like with old aRO patcher, you'll be able to do it without the full kRO client; all you'll need to play is Sakray and the new AnthemRO patcher.

A lot of you are curious about why I'm leaving. It should be fairly obvious that I'm in some kind of personal trouble, and really that's all I can say for now. It's pretty much been made impossible for me to continue running the server without putting myself at serious risk.

I think there's a pretty good chance I'll keep this blog going, although I'll probably make it into a general videogame sort of blog instead of specific to AnthemRO.

Hopefully the AnthemRO forums will be up soon, and you all can go back to "/ot."

The Future of AnimaRO

It's been a long time, guys.

Since mid-September, the webserver's been down and we haven't given you guys much of an explanation. Unfortunately, I really still can't give out the whole truth of what went on. The reality of it all is kind of harsh, and I wish there was another way I could do this.

The webserver is gone. The people responsible for its shutdown performed an OS reload on it and deleted both it and the backup files. Furthermore, due to outside pressure, establishing a temporary website of any kind could have resulted in very serious legal complications.

I've been apologizing since September about this, but I have to reiterate how sorry I am. I never wanted it to come to this.

The end result of all the things going on in my life right now is that AnimaRO is no longer able to exist. I simply am no longer able to keep things going, and changing hands would just cause someone else to get into trouble.

However, since the webserver was shut down, we've been making contingency plans. A team of former staff members and community leaders has agreed to take up the AnimaRO community as well as take the aRO game database so that you will keep your characters and items. Over the last couple months, we've run the game servers while they made everything ready so that you can seamlessly switch over between the two servers.

The new community home will be (as some of you have already guessed) www.anthemro.com. Likewise, the IRC channel will move to #anthemro. I'm not sure what will happen with TS at the moment, but I have the current one paid up until January, so that should be plenty of time for an alternative to get set up.

I realize how important this place is to many of you, and while I can't keep it alive, I can assure you that your new home will take good care of you. I've given a lot of guidance to them, and some of them are former staff as well. This means that most of the systems you've come to know and love, like automated donations, ad pennies, support tickets, and such will remain intact in the transition.

It is very important though that I reiterate that I will not be involved. Thus, do not send PayPal or snailmail payments to the old recipients as they will not go to the new site. I may stick around as a community member to make more informative posts about playing RO in general, though.

I am really sorry things didn't go smoothly with me at the helm. I know that Talis, Isuzu, and the rest of the new team will do a much better job in the lead than I likely did.

Thanks so much for sticking around. I love you guys, and every bit of support you gave over the last few years has been very appreciated.

See you all on the flip side, guys and gals.

Fraudulent "Truth" Sites

I realize it's been a long time since we updated (about a month) so I apologize for that.

I can't provide any more detailed information regarding aRO's current situation. I know it has been an extremely long time (months!) but my hand is somewhat forced right now. Please try to understand.

What I did want to cover though, was that sites are being posted with some extremely outrageous claims. I would like to quell all rumors that I was arrested by the party van or abducted by aliens or that I owe someone or another some outrageous sum of money.

I encourage you to take any rumors such as these that you may hear with a grain of salt. If I don't post any official word, chances are that whatever you heard is completely false.

Thanks for continuing to play. Your continued support is really appreciated in tough times.

DB/charserver crash explanations; webserver update

Yeah, I know I need to update more, but personal things are making this difficult for me at the moment.

The first thing I'm going to discuss is the recent db server crash which thankfully was nothing to worry about, just a hiccup in the system, but it was unfortunately something I couldn't fix directly and had to have the ISP techs reboot it on their end.

Second is the character server crashes. We know what is causing the problem (have for a while) and have been working on it, and I expect good news on that in a day or two. Hopefully that will take care of it and everything will be running smoothly again. @.@

Third is the webserver, I realize that it's been down a long while and everyone is impatient. I finally have it back from the looks of things, but prospects are looking bad and we are running a high probability of data loss from what it sounded like. I'm more than a little upset and if I was extremely rich or something I'd probably sue the people responsible. We should have it up and running in some form very soon, which is good news, but I am not sure what shape it will be in. So that's kind of bad news.

And lastly, regarding blog comment moderation, Gene has been very not on top of it. I will kick him to do a better job.

That's all for now.

I still don't know when the webserver will be up.

That's all I'm really able to say at this moment. I talked with the host and they said it would be back up a while ago, but it's still down.

Again, no one is more distressed about this than me. This is not my fault and there really is nothing I can do to make this go faster.

I'm aware that there are a lot of rule breakers going around right now, and without the reports section and support tickets, the rules aren't being enforced. I'm sorry. It really makes you wonder how other RO servers do without things like support tickets and dedicated rule enforcement. When we can bring the server up, we will - but until then there's not a whole lot we can do.

I might as well go out and say that this is something more serious than a technical problem, and that's why the delay is so long. When I'm able to discuss more information with you guys, I will, but until then, please be patient.

Again, I'm really sorry for all this. As soon as we're able to fix things, we will.

NewAnimaRO.com down; game is NOT

Hey, guys.

I've got a little bit of bad news that I'm sure you're all aware of. The AnimaRO website has been down for a couple days now, and no one is more upset at it than me. We've been corresponding with various parties to see what needs to be done to get the website up and operational, but at the moment the webserver is in the hands of the provider to get some things done so we can bring it back up. Unfortunately the people I need to talk to only work normal hours, so it's been somewhat frustrating thus far to be helpless. Hopefully I can start getting things under way on Monday.

Since we can't do most of our other duties, we're busying ourselves running events in the evenings. A lot of you guys have had a lot of fun. In fact, I'll be running an event with L as soon as I get finished with this post.

We're not going anywhere, everyone. Thanks for your continued support!

Graffiti: Staff Accountability

Corrupt. Biased. Unfair.

These three words have something in common: they have all been used to describe staff members at some point in time.

On some rare occasions, the claims ring true. However, these words are often part of outbursts by emotional players who do not understand the weight of their (commonly baseless) accusations.


So, what is Staff Accountability, anyway?

Staff Accountability can be loosely defined as holding each staff member responsible for his/her actions or, as the case may be, inactions. In addition, if a particular staff member is supervises other staff, s/he is responsible for the actions of his/her subordinate(s). The staff operates as a team, and ultimately each team member bears a measure of responsibility for his/her teammates because of that.

Sure, you can define it. But can you actually implement it?

The main way that accountability is implemented in practice is by placing limitations on the staff.

• Limitation Of Power & Access: The range of powers each staff member has is dictated by the needs of his or her position. However, powers and access are earned, not given lightly. In general, Sub GMs have fewer in-game powers, less access to sensitive information, and limited forum abilities. High GMs have a larger number of powers, both in-game and on the forums. They also have access to more sensitive information than a Sub GM. However, a Sub GM who has not proven him or herself may not get complete access to all the standard Sub GM abilities, much less the High GM ones. The same thing applies to the High GMs, as well. These limitations serve as a safeguard against power abuse, privacy violations, and general misuse.
  
• Limitation Of Responsibility: The different positions each have different responsibilities. The Sub GMs answer quicker tickets, help players in-game, mute street chatters and other rule violators, and forward item recovery cases to the High GMs. The High GMs have the responsibilities of handling item recovery cases, checking botters, punishing other rule-breakers, among a handful of lesser responsibilities.
  
• System Limitations: During our time as staff here, we have strived to alter the system so that rulings can be as objective as possible. We created the Punishment Guidelines and the Item Recovery Fees table from scratch. These are two posts that clearly outline what you can expect from us (punishment-wise, recovery-wise, and fee-wise) in the given situations. This is yet another layer of protection against subjective judgments.
  

However, here's a bit of behind-the-scenes information you may find interesting:

Each staff member is reviewed every month to two months in a process called "evaluation." In the review, every single ticket response and forum post is read by another staff member from an objective perspective. Their work is critiqued in a number of ways, including grammar and professionalism. The reviewed staff member then receives an overall score for the timeframe. However, we do hold staff members to a certain standard. Staff members with overall scores or pieces of work that do not meet this standard are penalized. Even staff members who meet this standard are given advice and constructive criticism.

What you should remember is that no matter how "great" a staff member may be, he or she is always evaluated and always held accountable for any mistakes.

So what does this have to do with me?

You, the players, often bring up the subject of staff accountability. I've seen it mentioned in multiple forum posts, which is what inspired me to write this article in the first place. Accountability is a valid concern because it affects your opinions of the staff, your interactions with the staff, and ultimately, your gaming experience here at AnimaRO.

Here's some food for thought: Why is it that players who praise GMs often get called derogatory terms like "ass kissers," while the people who flame the staff are placed on pedestals?

The staff does expect a measure of respect from the players. However, we recognize that there is always room for improvement. However, many people take whatever failings they see (sometimes imaginary) and use it as material in their latest GM flamefest. There is a world of difference between "GMs power abuse!!/GMs can't do their jobs!!!/GMs (insert punishment here) my friend for no reason! Corrupt!" and "I believe the ruling on Case X was wrong because of reasons A, B, and C." You can give civil, constructive criticism about our performance without resorting to flaming, disrespect, or the general state I like to call "being an asshole."

If you see a way the staff can improve, I'd love to hear it, either as a PM to my forum box, in a support ticket, or as a post in the Feedback forum. Just remember that even GMs are held accountable for their actions, so each decision made by the team is made with the utmost of care.

*Note: Parts of this blog entry were taken/edited from a post by GM Laeryn on the AnimaRO forums.