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Jun-28-2008 08:39

There have been some recent events on this game that warrant some concern. It’s no secret that there has been a lack of interest. Much of this may be attributed to the release of Shades of Mystery. If that is what people want to play, far be it from me to tell them not to play it.

That being said. I am still a paying customer of Sleuth Noir. As a paying customer there are some things that I expect. Ben has done a decent job at keeping the server up and running. We had a slight issue earlier in the week with not being able to travel and Ben did a great job of addressing the issue and getting it corrected. He always has done a great job of taking care of things. He has not however kept the game fresh and interesting. We recently had the expansion of the USS Sleuthetania. There was a buzz before the initial launch of it and we couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us.

Well what did we get? The opportunity to pay $20,000 to get on board of a ship and do nothing more than play cases. Sure there are some new characters and new items along with 2 new “coming soon” links. That’s it! I can’t help but to feel disappointed in the way this has played out. Two weeks later, the links are still coming soon and the interest of the boat has already gone away. I know I have no plans or reason to get on the boat and be cut off from my agency completely. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think a lot of people are disappointed with the boat as well and some may even be irritated and feel cheated by the whole development.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh and we are missing some secret that still needs to be unlocked on the boat, but if people aren’t playing, the secret will not be unlocked. I know that Ben is just one person and can only do so much. He has a lot on his plate right now with running both SOM and Noir. I’m sorry, but SOM means absolutely nothing to me as I don’t play over there.

Jul-18-2008 06:19

Sorry, I meant "the development team".

Jul-18-2008 07:45

OK, I can understand why people don’t like the idea of the game moving in a direction not driven by Ben. What would end up happening to the game? Well I guess none of us want it spoiling or getting gimmicky, but I am concerned about this post Ben made that all the eggs are now in the SoM basket.

My view is that we do have a good game now. I also think that unless it is overseen then it can go downhill. I also don’t believe there isn’t room for occasional upgrades.

I've developed my Super-User idea a bit today. I might be getting a bit controversial here so I'd just like to point out that these are just ideas to add to the discussion and I'm not in any way trying to undermine the admin team or their income from Sleuth!!! I’ve taken on board what Huglover said about subscriptions. I guess there’s always the cost of keeping an online game online.

Here’s what I’ve come up with today. Imagine Sleuth Admin were to appoint (on a voluntary basis) a Head Super-User, who they felt could be trusted to appoint a team of volunteers to help run the game. This Head SU could then appoint an SU Secretary to keep everything organised between the SU's. Finally, in this initial group there could be a Review Team. Now whether this would be programmers or just people who were chosen to identify improvements and upgrades would dependent on various technical and practical issues, so I assume for the moment, the Review Team would be purely advisory. Maybe they would be on hand for players experiencing bugs or technical problems, possibly they could be trying to progress the game. I’m not talking just new content, but general improvements, whether it be gameplay, presentation, advertising on the web etc. etc. etc. whatever… after discussion within the team they report their findings to the Head SU who then takes this to the Admin. This is an important function I think, because it would mean Ben has a single point of contact, rather than so many that he just has to ignore. Anyway, I think these people mentioned would have demanding roles so they would be "

Jul-18-2008 07:48

(cont.) "Officers".

In less demanding roles would be “Delegates”. These could then be allocated roles that we have today, like Editors, Chat Moderators and Board Moderators. Again, they would be appointed or approved by the Head SU. Perhaps this could be something for long standing, highly experienced players. It could also help keep newer players motivated to keep playing and gain the experience to be considered, so they can put more into building the community of Sleuthville.

Another idea I like for some reason is an SU donation fund for the game. Perhaps this would generate extra income from people who really want to see the game keep going.

Jul-18-2008 15:50

I didn't like the idea of a development team from the start but I"m sure for a totally different reason than Helen and Rose.

I hate committees. I've never seen a committee that could accomplish anything. Even city councils can't do anything...they pass things on to committees and nothing happens for years.

I believe we'd be further ahead with a "Dear Santa/Ben" list. If he had a list of plausible things to do I believe he would work on it. For instance, my suggestion about the SM's, he answered that and told us what was possible. Then the talk went back to committee's and he's quiet again.

This is just my humble opinion and observation.

Jul-18-2008 23:50

wow... i finished reading the thread (it's massive by the way). i feel very proud of myself so part of my post is just me congratulating myself. (GO RED)

now that's over I do have one tiny thought.

when people decide to leave sleuth... for whatever reason, they usually retire their detective. I'm not 100% sure why you would do that (cause I know I could never really leave red) but it means that the never come back. They never return because they would either have to start over (which would be hard) or they come back, but loose a stack of experience and their place on high score lists, contacts etc.

so my idea is this, in a way to gain old detectives back, would there be a way to leave, but have the option of coming back. For example if people left for shades, but then wanted to come back, could they do that without starting over???

I await rotten tomatoes being thrown at me for bad ideas!

Jul-19-2008 03:06

I will be willing to help with any idea that comes forward, I don't care what it is but I'll try to make it work , I've been here for over two years now and the state of the community kills me.

Jul-19-2008 06:21

I reread the response from Ben and I'm glad I did. I misquoted him, as he said he was putting “more” of the eggs in the SoM basket, not “all”, which is a relief to me.

@ Sophie, you have made a very valid point. Trains were never late under Mussolini… but sometimes to keep things balanced you have to get more than one input, at the expense of speed. We already have a place to write a wish list, this message board. That’s how the Sleuthetania came about in the first place. I’m not sure a list is really going to help Ben find more time for running both games. It’s just going to get very long.

I picked up on Ben’s comment “it probably is important for us to find more ways that players can contribute to the available game content in order to keep things fresh.” He also mentioned making the game open source, so there is definitely more to discuss than just SM’s.

Incidentally I had got half way through writing a SM and found that what I wanted to do was very complicated and I lost confidence in my ability to complete it, but I'll give it another go.

@ red_lips, I don't think it's true that most people retire their detective. Have a look through the agencies and see the number of inactive players there are. That's the way you come back without having to start over again. You just become inactive.

Hey, maybe we are all just over-reacting and in a few months time numbers will be back. We don't know either way. I'm glad I found this thread because now I know there are quite a few of us sharing the same concerns it makes me more positive that a solution will be found. :)

Jul-20-2008 10:30

Brasco: having a look at your super-user idea (which I apreciate), and also understanding that you did not like the development team idea...
- it makes me wonder: what's the big difference between those two ideas?
In my eyes it's just the same, but it might be that the organizing is a bit different?
Also a development team need to have some close contact with admin, in order to make things work, and there needs to be some kind of small leadership that takes care of the contact between the community and the admin.

In my eyes I thought we have the following situation:
- there are some of us in the community which love the game, but on the same time are not completely satisfied, because we have a feeling of being neglected. I am among those people.
- the Admin (Ben) seem to, of different reasons, to have far to much to do in order to be able to satisfy us.
- there might be a solution if we as community would be able to move some of the load that now rest on Admin, to be put on the shoulders of the community, or may be even better, some people from the community that are selected for this in some way. This will only be possible with a cooperation with Admin, and only to the extent that he authorize.
- there are sevral people in the community that have lifted their voice to say they would be willing to help Admin carry his burden, because we love the game so much, that we don't want to see Admin be overloaded to the point where he cannot carry anything.
- I don't think anyone who have said they would like to help ever thought that they would do so to change the game so that it was no longer the creation of Ben, or do anything that would undermine his leadership or ownership. I think that all of us would love to see Ben being involved as much as possible, but at the same time, there seem to be a sense of feeling that Ben's own wish to involve and use energy on Noir is declining.

Jul-20-2008 10:33

I think that second best to Ben doing everything himself, are a group of people doing part of the job for Ben, at Ben's instructions or to unload Ben of burdens that it's not crucial that He carry.

Third best would be people authorized by Ben, to also make the instructions after which things are going to be done.

Jul-20-2008 17:52

lol sophie. As they say, 'a camel is a horse designed by a committee' :) what... that's all I've got :p