Hello, everyone!
Our Volunteer Class Representatives 2nd term will be ending soon, and we are starting up the 3rd term nominations today. You will be able to find those nomination posts listed in the individual Class Forums.
For those unfamiliar with the VCR (Volunteer Class Representative) program, it's a program where players are able to nominate themselves to represent their class and communicate with Warpportal on class issues, game issues, and help us test upcoming builds. It's a way of better connecting Warpportal and Gravity with the community.
In order to apply, you'll use a form that we supply and submit your application on the Class Forum topic that we will put up on October 1, 2014. So make sure to check out your class forum on that day for the topic, and we'll make a brief announcement once they are up.
We've gathered feedback from our VCRs, and discussed internally ways of improving the system, and the following changes will be made for the upcoming term:
- We will be accepting 3 VCRs per class. We used to only accept 2, but find that we can handle 3 per class and this will hopefully allow for more perspectives and more feedback.
- Instead of a nomination and election process, we've decided to allow for applications and then Warpportal will select the 3 volunteer per class, similar to how we select Volunteer Moderators for the forums or our Volunteer Event planners. We've received feedback that the current election process is open for a "popularity contest" instead of always getting the best volunteers, and we want to make sure everyone has a fair shot at a spot. This is why we're accepting more volunteers this term.
- Nomination process will be two weeks, up from one week. This is to allow more players time to submit their applications to be reviewed.
In addition, once selected as a VCR, there are going to be some changes to how it works:
- There will be a weekly feedback topic posted in the VCR-only forum in order to collect feedback from each of the 36 representatives on a more consistent basis. In our first term, we would require reports, but found that this was often repetitive when we would not make drastic or any changes to their particular class week-to-week. Every VCR will be required to reply by a certain time in these feedback topics, and it will allow us to gather more feedback consistently. This would not take the place of gathering feedback from the community, as well, but acts as a check for VCRs in case they become inactive.
- VCRs who chose to volunteer and assist in testing our upcoming patches will be required to submit a bug report weekly if there is a content patch on our ITS to test. If there is nothing to test, obviously the report will not be required. This will hopefully solve an issue where testers were using this opportunity to preview upcoming content, but did not provide any meaningful assistance in reporting bugs. Ultimately, we would want a Public Test Server for all, but before we are able to do that this will be a meaningful substitute.
- Applying a three strike policy when VCRs violate any sort of in-game or official forum or site rules or policies. The VCRs are representatives of the community to Warpportal, but they are also seen as representatives of RO2 for the community, especially to new players. While we completely welcome constructive criticism in order to help make the game better, we want to make sure the VCRs are not saying anything inappropriate while they have the VCR title on their name. This would include telling new players to avoid playing RO2, being a troll, or in any other way not representing yourself, your class, or the community well. If you are caught three times doing this, we will have to replace you. We understand that there are other players who might try to target and report VCRs through this method to get them replaced, so also understand the final decision is made by the Warpportal team on these, and we will strive to be neutral in every case. We are making this change so that the discussion improves for everyone.
There will be some other changes in how the system works internally to better facilitate communication, feedback, and hopefully quicker responses from Gravity on the issues and bugs that are concerns of the community, as well.
We hope this change will help us grow the conversation and move us towards a better Ragnarok 2.
Here are the specific Class VCR Application threads:
We will accept applications through October 22, 2014, and then will make a decision shortly after.
Thanks,
Njoror
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