Official: Turns Are In Thread

[Jodookus]

I would have to say that turn processing is a given event. It occurs at the same time every 2 weeks. If I had that as a deadline I would have to schedule my life to accomodate that event. While I understand other events impacting the time continuum it appears like interuptions are now the norm.

 

I run a business. If I tell my clients "x" they expect "x". If the meeting is at 9am they expect me there. If I am running late once in a six month period clients can be accomodating. If I am late every week then they either will say something or quit using me. I would say many of us are now at the "ok this happens all the time" level!

 

 

Dead on MMB.

[tigeriith]

And now for a totally different approach.

 

How about changing the submission deadlines to be more in line with the processing deadlines so that it will appear turnaround is quicker. I would be happy to have a change in the deadline that gave smoother service. Possibilities:

 

1) If Thursday is used to input the snailmail turns and little is done with the electronic turns (think I remember hearing that) how about a Thursday deadline for SNROTE turns while keeping the deadline at Wednesday for snailmail? This way even if it is Saturday evening, it will be two day turnaround for the electronic folks (and no worse than the current situation for the snailmail group).

 

2) It the real world interferes with turn processing during the week, make the deadline 6PM Mountain Time on Friday and go for two day turnaround over the weekend.

 

3) Whatever new schedule works best for Pete and Russ where they have the least chance of real world interfereence and can give consistent turnaround.

[Marvin]

Time to speak up again FWIW. When I see MadMartinB post I know something important must be going on.

 

Overall I have no problems with Locklyn's postings. He goes farther than I think appropriate at times, but it balances out some of the yes men, and most of what Locklyn posts are things that most of us have at least thought to ourselves at some point. I agree with Locklyn more often than not.

 

There may be no written guarantee of turn results on Saturday but we have had turn results by Saturday most cycles for years now, so sure, that is what people rightly expect. Now that they are not getting that level of service anymore, they are cranky. The orders due deadline has been moved back at least 2 days since the game started to facilitate Saturday results which is reasonable since it takes longer to process turns as the game grows. I think most if not all understand that things go wrong and with a small company, major life events can impact the business. I would wager nobody would would complain if turn results were delayed by something beyond Pete's control. But I would prefer not to hear about volunteering to keep ice hockey scores. There are things I would like to volunteer for during the week, but I have to work.

 

I assume Pete works long hours processing the turns and would probably likes to have his weekend off as well. I certainly don't begrudge him some "compensatory time" to make up for some of that, although when one runs their own business they usually have to accept that they'll be working more than 40 hours per week. So I do not expect Pete to immediately answer an email. But I do expect him to answer it within a day or two and that is not happening anymore and hasn't for quite some time. Here again I agree with Locklyn. This is mostly a play-by-email game and we should not have to make long distance telephone calls to get timely customer service. I know pretty much everyone on the U.S. have "minutes" on their cell phones they can use without cost, or can call on their employer's telephone, and that long distance telephone service costs a fraction of what it did when SuperNova II was running, but still, there are players all over the world and they should not have to telephone to get customer service. For most game problems telephoning is less efficient and takes up more of Pete's time than exchanging an email or two. Better he use that time to improve the game if something can be fixed quicker via email. But you cannot blame people for calling when they've learned that emails are not answered but the telephone is.

 

Locklyn, if you are spending $100 / turn on this game and are becoming unhappy with the service, consider cutting back before dropping. I know you have a huge empire that takes many turn sheets to run smoothly, but consider that it may be better to have a huge empire that only gets the essentials done than dropping out of the game completely. If RTG's income on the game drops enough, it will give them incentive to invest more effort in to the game to build interest back up. Their other option of course is to let it wither and milk the last drops out of the cow, but I would hope they would instead improve the game instead to revitalize it. $12 / month is not that much to keep your position on life support and give RTG awhile to decide whether to invest in the game or not. You can get a lot done in one turn sheet if you prioritize. A lot of players can't afford more than that anyway, either financially or time wise.

 

As I understand things, turn processing starts sometime Thursday afternoon. I wish I knew more about how labor intensive it was to process turns. I get the impression there is a good bit of manual intervention required and it probably isn't the sort of intervention that you could easily bring in someone at minimum wage to handle. Perhaps that would be the best place for RTG to invest in improvements? Better automate turn processing so it can either run unattended more or could be monitored by Russ part of the time to give Pete time to sleep, run errands, whatever.

 

Another thought is that perhaps Pete is simply getting burned out as GM. I hope not because that would most likely be the end of SuperNova. Maybe not soon, but much sooner than it would come to a natural end (player attrition). That would be a shame as the game seems to be otherwise just entering its middle age.

[Virmilyn]

But I would prefer not to hear about volunteering to keep ice hockey scores.

 

I would.

One of the issues is communication.

A simple post, "Expect turns Sunday", at an early juncture in the processing, thursday or friday morning.

If an explination about having hockey commitments, great, "good luck I hope you have fun and win, will be looking forward to sunday."

Communication!

[Mahdi]

Hello,

 

My name is Craig and it's been three minutes since I hit the refresh button on my e-mail.

 

Crowd "Hello Craig"

[Breoghan]

Is it 'late Saturday' yet?

As a presumed 'yes-man', I'm not sure unless someone tells me.

[RTGRuss]

Guys,

 

We know that you want turn results as soon as possible and Pete will be working to get them out later tonight as soon he can. We'll do what we can to try to things back to a late Friday or early Saturday schedule - believe me we like to have them out late Friday night when we can so you have the whole weekend to work on them, plot and plan, etc. Unhappy players certainly add to our stress level and unhappiness as well and we wouldn't be in this business if we didn't care about that sort of thing.

 

Russ

[Jodookus]

Thanks for your reply Russ. Looking forward to turn arrival and improved processing turnarounds. Have a great evening.

[cestvel]

What's the point in getting personal? I'm no Locklyn fan but back off El. He does raise valid points.

 

Why do turns keep arriving late? Why don't we get responses to questions? Everyone has a personal life that's true. But when you run a business, you DO have responsibilites to your customers. Things like timely service, responses to game related questions, etc. Perhaps if the business can't maintain adequate service, the business needs to bring on more help to alleviate the bottleneck and get to a reasonable level of performance.

 

Because I only have the weekends to do turns for 5 empire!

 

And Sunday morning for you means Sunday afternoon over here in Europe.

 

Friday turns on time were Saturday morning over here.

[Bovine Hegemony]

Guys,

 

We know that you want turn results as soon as possible and Pete will be working to get them out later tonight as soon he can. We'll do what we can to try to things back to a late Friday or early Saturday schedule - believe me we like to have them out late Friday night when we can so you have the whole weekend to work on them, plot and plan, etc. Unhappy players certainly add to our stress level and unhappiness as well and we wouldn't be in this business if we didn't care about that sort of thing.

 

Russ

 

Russ,

This is all well and good, but it isn't anything we haven't heard before. Late turns don't bother me nearly as much as the poor customer service (via anything but phone) and the lack of any visible substantive improvements/features to the game. Battles have to be "monitored" to ensure they work right. Numbers reported in battles don't come out right, but we are to trust they worked right. Features that either don't work or aren't implemented yet since the start of the game. We (the players) keep getting reassurances from you that things are in the works. You just had a meeting. We should be seeing something soon. Meanwhile, there has been no changes or improvements announced/released in years.

 

Leeland Krueger

[SCINAT]

Hello,

 

My name is Craig and it's been three minutes since I hit the refresh button on my e-mail.

 

Crowd "Hello Craig"

 

Welcome Craig! The meeting is just about to start...

[RTGRuss]

Just got off the phone with Pete and he's on the final phase - maybe an hour or so for PDF creation from the snapshot files and they should start going out.

 

Russ

[WKE235]

Just got off the phone with Pete and he's on the final phase - maybe an hour or so for PDF creation from the snapshot files and they should start going out.

 

Russ

 

Danke Russ zu der Information

[hobknob]

And now for a totally different approach.

 

How about changing the submission deadlines to be more in line with the processing deadlines so that it will appear turnaround is quicker. I would be happy to have a change in the deadline that gave smoother service. Possibilities:

 

1) If Thursday is used to input the snailmail turns and little is done with the electronic turns (think I remember hearing that) how about a Thursday deadline for SNROTE turns while keeping the deadline at Wednesday for snailmail? This way even if it is Saturday evening, it will be two day turnaround for the electronic folks (and no worse than the current situation for the snailmail group).

 

2) It the real world interferes with turn processing during the week, make the deadline 6PM Mountain Time on Friday and go for two day turnaround over the weekend.

 

3) Whatever new schedule works best for Pete and Russ where they have the least chance of real world interfereence and can give consistent turnaround.

 

 

This has happened before. Originally turns were not due until Thursday. When results started getting pushed back the submission date was changed to Wed.

 

For the first few years turns would be waiting for me at 9:00 or 10:00 Friday morning. Any sort of Friday delivery was pretty much the norm. Beyond Friday was late.

 

I am always excited to hear of new players/positions in the game. That is evidence that my fix will be around for while longer. However, new positions/players should realize that more established positions generally take longer to play.

 

I also think SN is the best on the market. It is not without fleas. Being in the game today is all that needs to be said of a persons commitment. It is also what allows them the right to speak up if there seem to be issues that need addressing.

 

Back to turn watching....

 

[Coconutheads]

Thx russ