Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2015 22:35:49 GMT
Greetings all!
As many of you know, we've had headaches over the shop for years. Pricing, item listing, balancing, and coding worries. It's been a pain in the neck that we've dealt with because we had no alternative.
In a move to return to PuNk's original inspiration for the site, I'd like to propose a fleshed-out system for free equipment and unit management.
The first step is to get rid of the shop itself. It's unnecessary if everything is free anyway. All items, equipment, whatever we want as the building blocks of our units, would be listed in a dedicated board or subboard. Instead of having an approach that items are restricted unless otherwise noted, we would think of everything as being permitted unless specifically disallowed. There would be restrictions on how the system itself works, but not on the items listed within.
For instance, we can say that German players can only request equipment actually issued to the Germans. In other words, national equipment is not interchangeable unless otherwise noted. So while an American character can assume an unlisted American item can be used, they can never assume the free use of non-American equipment. There would surely be exceptions with all the war-material-loans flying all over the place, such as the Soviets using British and American tanks.
Items would no longer be purchased, but selected from a catalog of free items. This catalog would be improved over time, but a simple list would be the obvious starting point. As for the listings themselves, we could link item equipment names to wikipedia, and let the player do their own research. IO is not a WW2 Encyclopedia, so why do we beat our brains to jelly trying to do it all ourselves? We could do our own descriptions and add images over time, but it is much too large a task to do just starting off. Baby steps!
There would be four kinds of items. Listed Approved, Listed Unapproved, Unlisted, and Rejected. Listed Approved items are recognized by site staff as historically plausible for use here on IO. These will almost certainly remain permanent in the equipment listing. Listed Unapproved are items that are recognized as having existed, but not weighed for balance and compatibility with IO. Listed Unapproved items may be used, but players accept that such items may be Rejected by staff at any time. Unlisted items may not be used. If a player wishes to list an Unlisted item, he submits it in a dedicated thread. Staff members check it for historicity. If it was used in the time period, he may mark it as Listed Unapproved. Once it is reviewed, it becomes either Listed Approved or Rejected.
How units themselves operate is another matter. Every person could, in a free system, manage their own mini-unit roster, similar to the old Character Lockers, only in a faction unit board. Unaffiliated units would be in the main board. If several people joined their units together, they could get a group sub-board.
Like so:
How people come together in forming a group is up to them. Whatever group law and government they want is their decision. IO isn't here to micromanage everybody, only to ensure that certain freedoms are not denied. Players are not entitled to be in a group if that group does not want them. Player membership in groups are optional. No group may prevent a player from leaving their group for whatever reason. Groups and players are within the realm of site law. Groups and players are trusted to self-balance, but moderators may step in for extreme cases. Groups may self-legislate and organize as they see fit within the guidelines of guaranteed freedoms.
In other words: Keep it historically plausible, don't bully your members, and don't feel entitled to membership. Everyone is subject to site rules and moderation, which tries to be as discreet and hands-off as possible. Sow a spirit of friendship and enjoy the site.
How will groups be created?
I'm not certain just yet. The immediate answer would be to create a group-subboard request thread. Requests for creation and disbandment would happen here. Whether we require a certain number of players to form a group or consider it as anything with two people or more, I leave up to senior staff. To lessen the workload on site staff, we could designate one or more of their members as group moderators. Each person would still be able to manage their unit threads within the group. This is an answer to one of my own frustrations with Divisions here, that the players couldn't update or change their rosters whenever they wanted. I had to give my update in thread or pm, and wait up to several weeks before it took effect.
Anyway, this should all cumulate to give us a much greater range of freedom on the site. Players may stay independent with their units or join together to create groups of varying structure and rigidity.
There's historical context for all of it. There were independent units all over the place, big and small. German Tiger and American Raider Battalions. British SAS, American OSS, German Brandenburgers, or even partisans. There were ad-hoc units containing whatever was at hand plus the kitchen sink; German Kampfgruppen, American and British Combat Commands, or Soviet Forward Detachments. Then there were the organized and planned units; battalions, regiments, divisions.
If this is approved I will start listing items for approval, and post a unit sign-up and creation thread.
As many of you know, we've had headaches over the shop for years. Pricing, item listing, balancing, and coding worries. It's been a pain in the neck that we've dealt with because we had no alternative.
In a move to return to PuNk's original inspiration for the site, I'd like to propose a fleshed-out system for free equipment and unit management.
The first step is to get rid of the shop itself. It's unnecessary if everything is free anyway. All items, equipment, whatever we want as the building blocks of our units, would be listed in a dedicated board or subboard. Instead of having an approach that items are restricted unless otherwise noted, we would think of everything as being permitted unless specifically disallowed. There would be restrictions on how the system itself works, but not on the items listed within.
For instance, we can say that German players can only request equipment actually issued to the Germans. In other words, national equipment is not interchangeable unless otherwise noted. So while an American character can assume an unlisted American item can be used, they can never assume the free use of non-American equipment. There would surely be exceptions with all the war-material-loans flying all over the place, such as the Soviets using British and American tanks.
Items would no longer be purchased, but selected from a catalog of free items. This catalog would be improved over time, but a simple list would be the obvious starting point. As for the listings themselves, we could link item equipment names to wikipedia, and let the player do their own research. IO is not a WW2 Encyclopedia, so why do we beat our brains to jelly trying to do it all ourselves? We could do our own descriptions and add images over time, but it is much too large a task to do just starting off. Baby steps!
There would be four kinds of items. Listed Approved, Listed Unapproved, Unlisted, and Rejected. Listed Approved items are recognized by site staff as historically plausible for use here on IO. These will almost certainly remain permanent in the equipment listing. Listed Unapproved are items that are recognized as having existed, but not weighed for balance and compatibility with IO. Listed Unapproved items may be used, but players accept that such items may be Rejected by staff at any time. Unlisted items may not be used. If a player wishes to list an Unlisted item, he submits it in a dedicated thread. Staff members check it for historicity. If it was used in the time period, he may mark it as Listed Unapproved. Once it is reviewed, it becomes either Listed Approved or Rejected.
How units themselves operate is another matter. Every person could, in a free system, manage their own mini-unit roster, similar to the old Character Lockers, only in a faction unit board. Unaffiliated units would be in the main board. If several people joined their units together, they could get a group sub-board.
Like so:
How people come together in forming a group is up to them. Whatever group law and government they want is their decision. IO isn't here to micromanage everybody, only to ensure that certain freedoms are not denied. Players are not entitled to be in a group if that group does not want them. Player membership in groups are optional. No group may prevent a player from leaving their group for whatever reason. Groups and players are within the realm of site law. Groups and players are trusted to self-balance, but moderators may step in for extreme cases. Groups may self-legislate and organize as they see fit within the guidelines of guaranteed freedoms.
In other words: Keep it historically plausible, don't bully your members, and don't feel entitled to membership. Everyone is subject to site rules and moderation, which tries to be as discreet and hands-off as possible. Sow a spirit of friendship and enjoy the site.
How will groups be created?
I'm not certain just yet. The immediate answer would be to create a group-subboard request thread. Requests for creation and disbandment would happen here. Whether we require a certain number of players to form a group or consider it as anything with two people or more, I leave up to senior staff. To lessen the workload on site staff, we could designate one or more of their members as group moderators. Each person would still be able to manage their unit threads within the group. This is an answer to one of my own frustrations with Divisions here, that the players couldn't update or change their rosters whenever they wanted. I had to give my update in thread or pm, and wait up to several weeks before it took effect.
Anyway, this should all cumulate to give us a much greater range of freedom on the site. Players may stay independent with their units or join together to create groups of varying structure and rigidity.
There's historical context for all of it. There were independent units all over the place, big and small. German Tiger and American Raider Battalions. British SAS, American OSS, German Brandenburgers, or even partisans. There were ad-hoc units containing whatever was at hand plus the kitchen sink; German Kampfgruppen, American and British Combat Commands, or Soviet Forward Detachments. Then there were the organized and planned units; battalions, regiments, divisions.
If this is approved I will start listing items for approval, and post a unit sign-up and creation thread.