So should we not recruit new players but refer them to Cantona

It's entirely up to you. The goal here isn't to say 'right, don't do this this and this'; whether you want to recruit or not is entirely your prerogative.

Should you choose to leave it to me and my crew, we will recruit directly from the unsponsoreds and try and teach them as much as possible in a short space of time; and you will have the benefit of recruiting from my crew when you have a better idea of which players you want, who would suit your crew etc.

The Factory isn't a permanent place for new members, it's a place where they learn the ropes before we 'find them employment' in a real family.

I still think this is a really bad idea. There are numerous crew openings and now 2 open cities for which other 'deserving' (I say that lightly Cantona, please don't take offense) CL's could be placed. Not only does he get a stat boost and admin protection, but when this whateveritis is done with, he stay's CL with a stat boost without going through the process like any of the rest of us. (If I misunderstood this part, please correct me.)

What is there to stop Cantona from stacking up friends' crews with active players and just leaving the inactives for his gun?

Again, absolutely no offense to Cantona. I think he'll do just fine as far as his CL duties go, I just do not agree with this whole Gods interference thing.

Would it not be less political to code an NPC 'Recruitment' CL that would autosend a short explanation of the way, and an invite to new users? They then could be purchased from said NPC CL at whatever set amount per activity level or whatever by active CL's with room. This would give interested users at least another couple of days to sort through the forums and tutorial, ask questions, and find a family they can trust and thrive with.

I understand that this is what Izzy is trying to do now, but I just believe there will be too much bias towards one certain crew/group/playing style one way or the other.

*shrugs* My 2 cents. I'm all for giving it a shot, but, just kind of skeptical I suppose.

I disagree totally OutKast, I believe that Sprozza is completely capable of being un-biased and besides, it is up to us to recruit them from his members, not up to him to send them to a certain crew.  I also agree with Izzy tht there is a real problem mostly due to time zones,  that a lot of new people end up practically ignored.  If you have a solution to that, then by all means, let's hear it.  How could a NPC work as the CL of this?  He is there to teach not only to recruit

Not saying he couldn't be unbiased, but, it's human nature. But that whole point disappears with your second statement, I had that wrong.

The NPC would autosend invites with something like a footnotes version of the tutorial along with it. That covers the time zone thing. The teaching, well that's up to us.  And, in part, up to them to ask questions and read through the forums.

Again, I'm willing to try anything once, so I'm interested to see how it goes down, I'm just not sure I like the idea so therefore a bit skeptical.

Cantona/Sprozza is quite knowledgeable and will be a great CL/Teacher. It is not the person I have an issue with. Tis the idea as a whole.

No offense taken Outkast, you're only articulating what are lot of people are thinking. I appreciate it you being public with it as all of this grievances/issues are legitimate and I will do my best to address/alleviate them for you.

There are numerous crew openings and now 2 open cities for which other 'deserving'  CL's could be placed

The current approach does not work from an ROI point of view. The returns this game makes are absolutely woeful, to say the least. Will this 'idea' work? There's no guarantees, but it makes more sense financially than relying on a system which is falling short of the mark. As I've mentioned earlier, this isn't a permanent fix, it's a stop-gap measure until a new feature can be fully implemented.

This is not a sleight at any of the CL's either. I've said time and again that people are here to be Mobsters, not people working in an employment-recruitment office. To achieve the sort of results needed to boost the ROI, a Crewleader and his crew would not only have to sacrifice their RP-integrity/believability, but other areas of crew management and crew 'life' would suffer also. With this crew, that isn't a problem because our entire raison d'etre is to introduce new members and get them addicted, by hook or by crook!

but when this whateveritis is done with, he stay's CL with a stat boost without going through the process like any of the rest of us.

As I have said to all of the Leaders in private, and as I touched upon in my street thread, I do not particularly consider myself an equal to the current leaders - I'm not really comparable to them at all. They are leaders who are in bold to mould a family and create a legacy, I am merely a potential solution to a problem. This is why I'm distancing myself from the IG politics and why, barring anything absolutely drastic happening, it is my intention to step down once the goal of the crew is deemed complete by the admins. If I am to receive a 'real' auth as a 'real' Leader involved in the politics and the intricacies of the game, you can have my word that would only ever be with the blessing of the current Leaders who make these decisions.

What is there to stop Cantona from stacking up friends' crews with active players and just leaving the inactives for his gun?

It's an easy soundbite, but I wouldn't have agreed to this unless I had faith in my ability to diffrentiate between what is good for the game and what is good for my friends/me. Have a look in the suggestions forum and you'll that, on this account alone, I've made suggestions which are not conducive to the good character at all, but are in what I believe to be the best interests of the game.

Izzy is of the same mindset; he's given me the nod to do this because he believes I can do it in a way that is fair and non-politically motivated. It's worth mentioning that in my time on mafia, as well as being an assistant and a helpdesk, I have also (admittedly for a very brief period) assisted in the PPC advertising campaigns for the game, for which I was privvy to relatively sensitive info.

Finally, I am not a law unto myself, I am being held to account by my crew. I have with me a RHM who I can honestly say I have never spoken for more than 5 seconds today. He's here not because of my friend but because he'll do the job well. Similarly, sponsors are being picked according to their capability and their enthusiasm, not my relationship with them. Whilst it may be the case that more people are from Chi than anywhere else (due to the size of the city). these are all people who have no obligation or loyalty to me and if I started playing favourites they'd have no problem in selling me down the river.

Would it not be less political to code an NPC 'Recruitment' CL that would autosend a short explanation of the way, and an invite to new users? They then could be purchased from said NPC CL at whatever set amount per activity level or whatever by active CL's with room.

An NPC is never a replacement for real, human contact. Because this crew exists solely for the reason of newb addiction inducement and tutoring, once it's fully staffed there will be players on around the clock to guide the newer members.

Secondly, having to 'purchase' the members from an NPC crew would ultimately mean it would be ignored in favour of recruiting the old way in which case we may well be back to square one.

^ Nuff said. Good point on the purchase part of the NPC CL thing as well. I appreciate you kind of laying it all out there. Much respect and like I said before, I'm interested to see how this thing unfolds.

An overhaul of the introduction to the game has been long in the works but it would seem (based on how the notifications are dealt with upon login for example) that many of the systems are already in place that would enable a recruiting system which is far less invasive to other players than simply placing someone in a position that they have not earned.

Even ignoring the above and proceeding with this method, wouldn't it make more sense for every new master account to automatically be placed into Cantona's crew? If they are not new, they can buyout for nothing and go along their merry way. If they are new, then they are in the right place to receive any assistance they need. This not only takes the burden away from Cantona and his assistants, but if something simple like a notification to each of the 9 helpdesk accounts, then they would be in a position to pick up any slack.

Just to echo what Squishy said; whilst auto-placing people into my crew, or even an NPC crew, might make sense it's ultimately inefficient as it takes coding time away from the feature that is being developed (within the next 30 days). Once this is complete, there should be no need for me or any admin crew; this is just a duct-tape solution to try and ensure the ROI on advertising doesn't suffer too much before change is complete.

A little information to mull over in regards to this crews necessity and function. Bear in mind that on Wednesday 31st of July, I set up at around 23:35, so I only actually had around 30 minutes to recruit/do anything before we were into Aug 01.

Wednesday 31st July
18 new sign ups
All contacted, taking an average of 4.83 minutes before first contact (100%)
2 found crews (11.1%)
2 have played longer than an hour. (11.1%)

- Of the 2 people who found crews; one of them is my member, despite me having only 30 mins to recruit. The other has not yet played an hour.
- Of the 2 people who have played more than one hour; one of them is my member

Thursday 1st August

37 new sign ups
All contacted, taking an average of 4.01 minutes before first contact (100%)
7 Found crews (18.9%)
7 have played longer than an hour (18.9)

- Of the 7 people who have found crews; 6 are my members, the other has played more than an hour
- Of the 7 people who have played longer than an hour; 6 are my members, the other has a crew

The reason that I'm pointing this out is that (so far) there seems to be a direct correlation between the way this crew is set up to approach people and those people feeling engaged and interested enough to continue playing. In 1 day alone, we have almost doubled the ratio of sign ups who are sticking around longer which is a huge difference for the advertising budget, naturally.

It's also worth pointing out that the crew still isn't running at '100%' as I'm still in need of a sponsor who can cover a 'graveyard' shift of around 6/7am-12pm mafia time, which means we're naturally still suffering and experiencing a downturn in those hours, so I can only assume things will become more effective. A final note, during the time I've been bold a sponsored member of another crew with 25 units has approached me, letting me know that they're new. They were asking for tips/advice on the game because they felt relatively ignored by their family. That is the kind of thing that isn't conducive to user retention and growth of the game; and hopefully by the way this admin crew is set up (and the way the new feature will work) that sort of issue is something we'll be moving away from as newbies have so much more time to pick a crew. So far, this system is clearly working and the detractors don't have a lot to base their opposition on, though I appreciate it's still v. v. early days and it could all go horribly wrong - so I'll hold out on  a comprehensive judgement until Sept 01

Lastly, I can't really stress enough that we're not here to 'take' from any of the current leaders; the figures for Wednesday and yesterday show that in all likelihood everybody we'd have recruited probably wouldn't have gone on to find a family. That aside, we aren't keeping these members anyway; Jack_Carter has already taken an application from our thug damond and will be joining him shortly and we encourage any Leader and/or their crew liaison to open communication with our noobs; they don't necessarily need to wait for the noobs to come to them.

As ever, give me a shout if you have any questions.

I'd like to address something you've said Drunky as this was a concern I've already raised privately;

(3) I should hope that any of The Factory that go IA while still within the family should either be up for grabs for the entire site on a "race for it when it turns" basis, or just be deleted without anyone getting a bonus. Anything else would be basically using admin-powers to direct free kills towards whoever ends up with them. And, to be frank, either option is depriving whoever would have sponsored the person with something they should have earned. So I really have no idea how to deal with that problem in a fair way.

 

The idea proposed, but not guaranteed to be in place, is that Squishy will drop any Inactives and give them an unconfirmed protection time. This allows for the usual "race" to kill that would have taken place. However this isn't anything that is of a concern until such time as The Factory is coming to an end, or is reaching capacity. 

Fuck it, whilst i'm here I might as well give my thoughts on your other points..

(1) Maybe this point has a simple answer ("That's what we'll be doing in a month") but I'll ask it anyway as a pseudo-suggestion for how things should shake out in a month: Why did this have to be done to by an actual player account? If we're going to have a god crew, why not create a new account called "Immigration_Services" (home city: Ellis Island, NY), and have it staffed by multiple volunteers in the helpdesk style? Or for a more coding-intense option, a crew named "Immigration Services" with a bunch of random American-sounding names that would appear in bold and could all send invites/act as a mentor in the meantime.

This mixing of player and administrator functions is something I see as a negative in and of itself. I have absolutely no idea how I'm supposed to role-play Cantona's position if I ever have to. A city-hall backed mobster running a nationalized industry yet somehow in America? A literal godsend -- the second coming? The antichrist, and the rapture is upon us? In the meantime, I'll be completely ignoring the fact that he exists in all my in-character posts, since eff if I know how to handle it.

Is the place in which Cantona's HQ is based really an important issue? He's from Chicago, he has an HQ in NY. NY weren't consulted before he was placed in NY, should they have been? I don't believe so. You know why? Where the HQ is based is largely irrelevant.  I can agree a lot with your other point on the player account being used in this manner, but really again its not a big deal to me. Thats just my view. Hiding things behind Helpdesk/Admin accounts would do nothing to remove your other concerns, its still Cantona/Sprozza, he's still the same guy and would still answer the questions the same way his character would.

With regard to how you role play Cantona, I again don't see any issue with how to role play him. You've already used the role play terms of "City Hall" there, which is all Cantona's character is backed by. He is a leader unlike any other, he has the backing of City Hall. But he's still a leader, there isn't anything different in that regard.

Now I say all this as someone that was really negative about the whole plan. Myself, my hands and my Made+ members try to recruit as much as humanly possible without dropping down to the extent of Whoring people. But clearly the Admins have checked their stats and saw that they are pouring money down a drain because of the fact that people like myself are too concerned about "whoring" and as a result there are players coming to the game and leaving without having any contact, thus meaning the advertising money has been wasted. The admins have every right to try and resolve this, its their game and they need to ensure that they aren't wasting their money.

I still wouldn't say that I'm overly thrilled with the whole scenario, but like everyone else I intend to give it a chance and try to figure out a way to work with it.

Anyway. Thats my two cents on your comments Drunky. Take from it what you will. I'm sure Cantona will be along later to answer them directly, though.

If I were a new player and I signed up, and I found out one of the people that contacted me was literally a godsend who, barring extreme situations, would absolutely not be killed ... but the rest were quite human ... Well, that's a no-brainer. I'll pick the guy with god mode to lead me, thanks.

 There's two things immediately wrong with this statement. First of all, finding out I/my crew is a 'godsend' isn't something that will be immediately clear to anyone who has just started the game. The approach of my sponsers and myself isn't 'hey we're an admin crew, why don't you join us?'. The approach is that we're offering something no other crew can/will. Given the that the the normal way of picking a crew (and lifelong commitment)  is based on a recruitment mail that looks essentially no different from any other you've received; the option of having a temporary shelter with no obligation where you can then take your time finding a crew is proving to be a very popular option. I accept that some users will naturally browse through OOC/News & Announcements, but to be quite honest not many do this before they join a crew.

Two things prove this. First, the immediate upturn in players remaining active after signing up. Second, the last 5 'real' ias  (ie noobs who signed up 7 days ago) to die at the time of writing had 14, 10, 5, 9 and 5 unread mails which were all - barring the welcome mail - from real users; and despite this they still didn't stick around. Perhaps this is a problem that could be addressed by 'real' crews, but ultimately it hasn't been and something needed to be done to limit the wasted advertising budget - and again I can't stress enough that this is a temporary measure.

The second thing wrong, I have no bonus that means I would 'absolutely not be killed'. My defence has only been raised to place me on an even footing as what the 'average' Leader's defence is. I'm no more 'unkillable' than any other leader. Naturally if I am just gunned down for no reason, Squishy will have something to say because an unjustified attack would have a detrimental effect on the site's advertising performance (which has shown a marked increase), but if I did a boo-boo and anyone had a legitimate grievance I wouldn't be around for long, I can guarantee you that.

(1) Maybe this point has a simple answer ("That's what we'll be doing in a month") but I'll ask it anyway as a pseudo-suggestion for how things should shake out in a month: Why did this have to be done to by an actual player account? If we're going to have a god crew, why not create a new account called "Immigration_Services" (home city: Ellis Island, NY), and have it staffed by multiple volunteers in the helpdesk style? Or for a more coding-intense option, a crew named "Immigration Services" with a bunch of random American-sounding names that would appear in bold and could all send invites/act as a mentor in the meantime.

This mixing of player and administrator functions is something I see as a negative in and of itself. I have absolutely no idea how I'm supposed to role-play Cantona's position if I ever have to. A city-hall backed mobster running a nationalized industry yet somehow in America? A literal godsend -- the second coming? The antichrist, and the rapture is upon us? In the meantime, I'll be completely ignoring the fact that he exists in all my in-character posts, since eff if I know how to handle it.

 Your first suggestion has merit, but can you see how confusing/conflicted it would be for new users? Having one account that various users can log into that directly interacts in a capacity much more involved in the game than, say helpdesk could be a minefield. 'If 5 people can play using the immigration services account which has powers to invite new memers; why can't my friend log in for me while I'm at the dentist?'. This may seem extreme, but it's a possibility. You also have to consider how jarring it would be for a new member to be talking to one person via an immigration account, only for the tone of messages to be completely different because someone else has taken over. Personally, I wouldn't be enamoured with that approach as a new player of any game - and there's potential for further confusion still as a noob may receive conflicting advice from the same account.

A more code-intensive option is totally self-defeating, however. This crew is basically a piece of duct tape. It is jerry rigged to solve a problem in the best way possible that requires as little attention from the admins as possible so the arrival of the new feature (which properly address this problem) will be sooner. A code intensive option as a fix for a stop-gap measure will only make the real solution farther away, which makes little sense.

The mixing of player/admin functions is something I also see as a negative, but it is a best-fit scenario for the problem we have, and I have no admin functions, whatsoever. The only thing I have is a temporary boost to my D which essentially puts me out of the range of a random wacker/rogue yet still makes me very much killable if a Leader has a genuine beef with me. In terms of roleplay, I should think it would be quite easy. Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire blurred the lines between governmental office and Crime Boss. Frank Costello in The Departed was allowed to remain a Boss by the G-Men because he scratched their back and they scratched his.  There are 2 examples from popular media that would make sense right off the top of my head.

(2) With all respect to Cantona, who would have been on my personal short list for a position like the one I described above anyway, I don't think we should underestimate the risk of this being misused -- especially in those little, unintentional ways that can't be avoided. Part of being human is, well, being human. What's going to happen if one of these new players starts asking Cantona open-ended questions about the other families? Even two different but perfectly honest/correct answers could completely change where that player ends up. And that's assuming Cantona even has personal knowledge of the matter. Any "I don't personally know so-and-so" is an implicit "so don't bother with them, they don't have admin-blessings" -- especially if coupled with similar questions being answered about other people.

I am not going to lie to you here and say I am immune from personal bias because ultimately that's impossible. It's impossible for me and it would be impossible for an account staffed by multiple users as you suggested previously.  The only way to remove this entirely is to have a totally non responsive NPC character and judging from the welcome mails and the home page that directs you towards the tutorials and so on, this really doesn't seem to be too effective.

However, I have tried my absolute best to ensure personal bias is at a minimum during this process. The three people in my crew are people I have never, ever worked with in any capacity before and none of them are from the same family, or even district. In addition, I have spent more than a couple of hours comparing the families in a few different ways:

• Percentage of Made Men in their crew
• Percentage of IA players in their crew
• Crew activitiy in the Streets/Public Forums
• Percentage of crew who have suicided/retired

These are some barometers which, in my opinion, demonstrate how well a crew is doing in terms of engaging their members, keeping them interested and valuing them. I'm doing my best to keep my own personal opinions at bay, here, and in the event that a members contacts me asking for information on someone I don't know, I make an effort to try and talk to that person so I can make some kind of judgement. Again, I will fully admit that this is not going to eradicate personal bias; but I still think it is a preferable option to an un-reactive NPC option that doesn't even engage the users in the first place.

(3) I should hope that any of The Factory that go IA while still within the family should either be up for grabs for the entire site on a "race for it when it turns" basis, or just be deleted without anyone getting a bonus. Anything else would be basically using admin-powers to direct free kills towards whoever ends up with them. And, to be frank, either option is depriving whoever would have sponsored the person with something they should have earned. So I really have no idea how to deal with that problem in a fair way.

I've already mentioned this to a few people who've asked me in private - Alabama being on of them. As I said to him, I'd prefer keeping any IA's in my crew unless I am absolutely at capacity simply because any user that goes IA under my watch is a failure and one for which I should be held accountable for. If I'm in the News forum pointing out how my crew has doubled activity in new users, it's only fair that the instances where we have not succeeded should be 'viewable' in the public domain, also, and I feel that simply dropping those people doesn't allow that. My preferred option would be, as Alabama has said, for all of those gangsters to receive pro for X amount of time (similar to Durden big 3) at the end of my enture, at which point they would be publicly available for anyone to race for.

Hopefully, this point will be moot as I won't have any IA members - but then I am the eternal optimist.

Sorry for the lengthy and long winded reply but ultimately I want to be as transparent as possible.