The first half of your post mostly is on one issue, so I'm not going to bother with quotes for it.
Perception really is at the heart of the "Job" issue. Sadly, only so much can be done about that. I raise my eyebrows because people have said they don't want to go through this much trouble. What I was referring to there is not the entire process of writing a Quest, but just the act of posting to get a grade. It requires very very very little work. I think that was just a point of clarification, though, so let's move on.
Obviously we don't want people to feel like RPing is work. That's why we're trying to make Quests as accessible as possible. No, not everything is going to be a quest, but I didn't actually say "everything" I said "as often as possible." Shadow Play is actually a pretty good example. The entire thread doesn't have to be a Quest, but from when Belle's DB was stolen up through where we beat Rock (from the first post to the beating the first "boss" for those who haven't read it) makes a great quest.
It certainly didn't feel like work to get it posted, and there's nothing stopping us from turning it in for a zeni reward (I actually planned on doing exactly that once... something on the staff forum is squared away). The fact that I have to go to a forum and say "can we have zeni for this?" doesn't make RPing any less fun for me. Nor does the prospect of doing it later have any affect on my desire to RP.
Now, as you pointed out (and I'm jumping around a little bit here) using myself as an example is somewhat disingenuous. However, I argue that it is disingenuous only in that I'm ahead of the curve. I don't have some magical power that does that for me, it's a result of using the system the way it is intended to be used. As someone who helped make the system I obviously am in an advantageous position when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of Chubbs, but I don't think it's really that complicated.
The staff (at least I know I have) have said time and again that people just need to be active and turn in their quests. And that's exactly what I've done. No more, no less. Again, I'm willing to stipulate that I'm an outlier when looking at the actual data, but it's the process that is important here.
Limitations were taken off of the Job system specifically to allow people to avoid grinding. Yeah, repetition is necessary in that you have to RolePlay and then you have to ask for it to be graded, but I... just don't see how that could be considered a grind. It's not like we're asking people to spam dailies for faction (you'll have to excuse me if that wasn't an accurate colloquialism, my WoW-speak isn't exactly top-shelf).
Yes, we're putting the burden on the player to come up with their own quests to fit their character into, but how much of a burden is it really? People seem to be looking at it as a proactive system whereas I see it as a reactive system.
From the proactive point-of-view you have a player looking at it and saying "ok, great, now I have to do [X] in order to make any money." Where as, looking at it reactively, you'd say "I just finished writing, so why I'll call posts [X] through [Y] a quest and get some money for it."
That actually sounded stronger in my head. Regardless, I hope the point is coming across. Actually, it's the point I started out with. It's a matter of perspective. There are obviously only so many things that can be done about that. Honestly, if it comes down to it, the system might have to change. I'm not denying that. Regardless of how good it may work in theory, that doesn't mean anything if people won't actually use it.
My hesitation to make any changes, however, does not stem from stubbornness, or some misplaced sense of pride, but simply in that I don't think the majority of members have actually given it a chance to work.
You might be entirely correct that it may be because the act of asking for a grade is too daunting or diminishing, or whatever. I don't think that's the case, though. I think it stems more from laziness or apathy than anything else. No one actually cares to turn in a quest until the moment they need zeni. Then all of a sudden their up in arms because stuff is too expensive and money is too hard to earn.
A Friend In Need took you about 6 weeks (a little more) and Solider of Fortune took 3 weeks according to the time stamps on the posts. If it took you, and 4 others working at roughly the same rate, 4 or 5 months to get an HQ, would that really be so horrible? That question, of course, leads to another one of your points.
If I had to make an estimate informed primarily on past experience, and I stipulate that all involved parties are actively working towards meeting their goal, I would say you'd have a "core" of probably 3 players actively posting with one or two others floating in and out of activity to help earn money for an HQ. I think, with that set-up, they should be able to earn an HQ in about 6 months. That's a very off-hand time-line, though. I didn't exactly crunch the numbers for it.
I don't expect members to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself, but I guess I expect them to return that to some degree. I see the system as something that works with regular posting and the smallest bit of extra OOC effort. My RolePlaying up to this point would have been exactly the same whether or not the Job/zeni system existed, that's how I think others should treat it as well. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.
To make this more of a two-way dialog, what are some of your expectations of how a money system should work? What kinds of benchmarks do you think are reasonable? As I said above, I don't think there's anything wrong with an HQ taking 5 or 6 months of active effort to get (for the purposes of this specific question I'm putting aside whether or not that's the actual case under the current system).
Do think people are actually giving the system a fair shot? If not, how long would you wait before looking to make changes or what kind of criteria would you use to time the implementation of said changes?
Would these changes be just to the numbers (100-300 for a Rank 1 quest, for example) or to the system itself?
EDIT: I'm more tired than I thought I would be when I started that. Sorry for the rambling.
Perception really is at the heart of the "Job" issue. Sadly, only so much can be done about that. I raise my eyebrows because people have said they don't want to go through this much trouble. What I was referring to there is not the entire process of writing a Quest, but just the act of posting to get a grade. It requires very very very little work. I think that was just a point of clarification, though, so let's move on.
Obviously we don't want people to feel like RPing is work. That's why we're trying to make Quests as accessible as possible. No, not everything is going to be a quest, but I didn't actually say "everything" I said "as often as possible." Shadow Play is actually a pretty good example. The entire thread doesn't have to be a Quest, but from when Belle's DB was stolen up through where we beat Rock (from the first post to the beating the first "boss" for those who haven't read it) makes a great quest.
It certainly didn't feel like work to get it posted, and there's nothing stopping us from turning it in for a zeni reward (I actually planned on doing exactly that once... something on the staff forum is squared away). The fact that I have to go to a forum and say "can we have zeni for this?" doesn't make RPing any less fun for me. Nor does the prospect of doing it later have any affect on my desire to RP.
Now, as you pointed out (and I'm jumping around a little bit here) using myself as an example is somewhat disingenuous. However, I argue that it is disingenuous only in that I'm ahead of the curve. I don't have some magical power that does that for me, it's a result of using the system the way it is intended to be used. As someone who helped make the system I obviously am in an advantageous position when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of Chubbs, but I don't think it's really that complicated.
The staff (at least I know I have) have said time and again that people just need to be active and turn in their quests. And that's exactly what I've done. No more, no less. Again, I'm willing to stipulate that I'm an outlier when looking at the actual data, but it's the process that is important here.
Limitations were taken off of the Job system specifically to allow people to avoid grinding. Yeah, repetition is necessary in that you have to RolePlay and then you have to ask for it to be graded, but I... just don't see how that could be considered a grind. It's not like we're asking people to spam dailies for faction (you'll have to excuse me if that wasn't an accurate colloquialism, my WoW-speak isn't exactly top-shelf).
Yes, we're putting the burden on the player to come up with their own quests to fit their character into, but how much of a burden is it really? People seem to be looking at it as a proactive system whereas I see it as a reactive system.
From the proactive point-of-view you have a player looking at it and saying "ok, great, now I have to do [X] in order to make any money." Where as, looking at it reactively, you'd say "I just finished writing, so why I'll call posts [X] through [Y] a quest and get some money for it."
That actually sounded stronger in my head. Regardless, I hope the point is coming across. Actually, it's the point I started out with. It's a matter of perspective. There are obviously only so many things that can be done about that. Honestly, if it comes down to it, the system might have to change. I'm not denying that. Regardless of how good it may work in theory, that doesn't mean anything if people won't actually use it.
My hesitation to make any changes, however, does not stem from stubbornness, or some misplaced sense of pride, but simply in that I don't think the majority of members have actually given it a chance to work.
You might be entirely correct that it may be because the act of asking for a grade is too daunting or diminishing, or whatever. I don't think that's the case, though. I think it stems more from laziness or apathy than anything else. No one actually cares to turn in a quest until the moment they need zeni. Then all of a sudden their up in arms because stuff is too expensive and money is too hard to earn.
Quote:1. "Only" is just as relative a term as "hard," if you want to play it that way. Soldier of Fortune and A Friend In Need were "only" two quests, but it took a lot of time for me to get them out to a point where I was satisfied (months, actually). And I like to think that I'm not a terrible writer.The "only" used there was actually intended to be to point out the comparison you made between one person going for an HQ and 5 people going for one. I wasn't trying to diminish the effort it takes to complete quests to strengthen my argument.
A Friend In Need took you about 6 weeks (a little more) and Solider of Fortune took 3 weeks according to the time stamps on the posts. If it took you, and 4 others working at roughly the same rate, 4 or 5 months to get an HQ, would that really be so horrible? That question, of course, leads to another one of your points.
Quote:4. I think you're slightly underestimating the difficulty of trying to wrangle five players into doing an extended activity like that. I don't think I can honestly name five people on the entire SITE who haven't had large breaks between posting because RL issues come up, they lost interest in writing for a while, etc.. Maybe if you could clone 4 more of yourself it wouldn't be a problem; but otherwise it's like trying to herd a very unpredictable quartet of cats. From a distance. Through your computer.I was actually just using the number of people from your first post. The question of how difficult achieving that number would be was never raised. Now that it has been, though, I agree that it's not exactly easy to get 5 people working in a coordinated effort on a site like this. Definitely not impossible, but not a headache I'd be inviting any time soon (he said with great irony).
If I had to make an estimate informed primarily on past experience, and I stipulate that all involved parties are actively working towards meeting their goal, I would say you'd have a "core" of probably 3 players actively posting with one or two others floating in and out of activity to help earn money for an HQ. I think, with that set-up, they should be able to earn an HQ in about 6 months. That's a very off-hand time-line, though. I didn't exactly crunch the numbers for it.
Quote:2. As to you, you're the strongest character on this site, 300 CA above 2nd place, who is 400 CA above 3rd place, who is 700 CA above 4th. 4th place and below is where jumps become less extreme and the huge majority of the site resides. To presume that your personal experience with job quests is in any way a barometer for the average member of Chubbs is somewhat disingenuous, wouldn't you agree?I don't look at myself as an example of where the average member should, but more like an example of what the average member should be doing to get there. Hopefully that makes sense.
I don't expect members to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself, but I guess I expect them to return that to some degree. I see the system as something that works with regular posting and the smallest bit of extra OOC effort. My RolePlaying up to this point would have been exactly the same whether or not the Job/zeni system existed, that's how I think others should treat it as well. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.
To make this more of a two-way dialog, what are some of your expectations of how a money system should work? What kinds of benchmarks do you think are reasonable? As I said above, I don't think there's anything wrong with an HQ taking 5 or 6 months of active effort to get (for the purposes of this specific question I'm putting aside whether or not that's the actual case under the current system).
Do think people are actually giving the system a fair shot? If not, how long would you wait before looking to make changes or what kind of criteria would you use to time the implementation of said changes?
Would these changes be just to the numbers (100-300 for a Rank 1 quest, for example) or to the system itself?
EDIT: I'm more tired than I thought I would be when I started that. Sorry for the rambling.
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