Staff queue skipping in the queue server.

[Allen Kennedy]

Alright, so I'm going to address the elephant in the room.

Staff members use the queue skip to get into the server really fast, and people fucking hate it. All it's doing is making people angry, and causing segregation within the community.

My proposition to make it more fair:

Senior Admin+ Can still skip. (Obviously, makes sense, more refunds get done amirite.)
Any other staff member can only skip the queue if there is less than four staff members currently on the main server. (I don't mean not permitted to, I mean unable to.)

 

[Chase]

Staff always have important shit to do in the server. I would much rather have the staff member get in instantly than any regular player. They worked hard to achieve their rank and hard to keep the servers in order. The least we can do is allow them to skip the que.

 

[Walker]

I have said it before and I will say it again. The relationship between players and staff is currently horrific. Some if not most players have lost respect for the staff team for various reasons. (Some more valid than others) While I understand that staff skipping the queue has its good points it really does just piss off players if they are waiting almost an hour for a slot and their place just goes up because some staff member jumps in. I could go off on a tangent and rant about how the staff team need to start listening to the community etc but I want to avoid fuhrer issues.



I'm in support of removing the queue server anyways but just throwing in my 2 cents.

 

[Chase]

Honestly you guys probably have no idea what the staff deal with and how they need to be on the server. It is a high demanding job. They NEED to be on the server. Say there's a prop pushing rule breaker that is throwing every car around in the server but there's no staff on and they need to join the server to get real time evidence to stop him. They can't just go on your word they need evidence or they need to see the rule breaker in action for something like that (since there's no actual logs for prop pushing cars). There's some things staff need to be in the server for to do their job. Them skipping que can be essential. I don't see why you all have a problem... Those are people we entrust to keep the server safe and you have a problem with that because they have a higher priority to get in the server? Get out of here with that. You want a skip que option? Bust your ass to help other and become a staff member, other than that quit crying.

 

[Garret_Pp]

I would be up for a staff option to "top que" when we get in there. This would be so if staff was needed we could judge whether or not we needed in faster. Otherwise we would be like a regular player in the que. But an automated system that only puts us at the top if there are less than 4 or 5 staff on can prove hurtful. Sometimes more staff are needed an sometimes they aren't. But staff should be entrusted with the power to decide that as we are already trusted with many other decision making abilities.

 

[Xquality]

I personally feel like having 8 staff on compared to 3 or 4 is much better during peak times. Simply because if there are only 3 on, those 3 are doing reports 100% of the time and that's stressful. When there are 8, they can take turns and everything just works a lot better.

 

[Teemo]

Just witnessed this happen, not mentioning names but after 1 hour of waiting I just got sent back 2 slots because of staff "priority"....

 

[JARRE]

1. Make the maximum skip queue staff limit thing on 4.

2. Make it so staff get an alert if another staff wants to join when the queue server is up

3. Let the staff decide if they need the extra staff member(s) online according to the amount of reports there currently are and the amount of work there needs to be done.

4. ???

5. Profit for everyone.

 

[blobvis 2.0]

1. Delete queue
2. Everyone happy

 

[Allen Kennedy]

I personally feel like having 8 staff on compared to 3 or 4 is much better during peak times. Simply because if there are only 3 on, those 3 are doing reports 100% of the time and that's stressful. When there are 8, they can take turns and everything just works a lot better.

I agree, however this is purely from a standpoint of the player who has been waiting bloody ages to get into the server, after crashing twenty seconds after joining last time. To them, and the other forty people who have been waiting a very long time, it seems very unfair, now unfair, life is unfair, who cares? This isn't a suggestion to help make things more efficient, it's a suggestion to help repair the abysmal relations between staff and player, which will, in turn, result in situations being dealt with faster and fairer, as everyone is a bit happier. I can see how staff members will not like this idea. If we all had the chance to skip the queue we would. Staff members supposedly have this power so they can get online quicker and deal with reports, refunds, keeping the chat clean, etc. (Doing what staff members do.)
However this only further segregates the community, turning everyone against each other, which is not what we need.

A compromise has to be made.

 

[rogue]

reports list at peak times is very full so the world doesn't just revolve around you. It must work for the majority.

 

[John Daymon]

You don't really understand how it is being on the server as a staff member do you?

So, let's say we had the system like back in the day where the person who had the fastest internet and who was best at spamming would mean that we would have a fat stack of reports with only 1 staff dealing with reports as either the other 2 are afk or just simply busy doing stuff, or we have it where we can get a stacked server with reports and staff members so that the reports actually get dealt with and wont be closed and told to make an AR, this has happened and we've had complaints about that.

Now sure it might seem to be unfair for you guys but you have to understand it's not just to help us staff members, it's to help you guys so you actually get your reports dealt with, if you can't deal with that then I suppose you'll just have to live with it.

 

[Slayerduck]

I personally feel like having 8 staff on compared to 3 or 4 is much better during peak times. Simply because if there are only 3 on, those 3 are doing reports 100% of the time and that's stressful. When there are 8, they can take turns and everything just works a lot better.

Have you thought about the bystander effect? Personally when I'm on at peak times reports don't get done especially if there are a ton of staff online. Most of the times after almost all staff is logged off the few remaining staff gets to clean up the report queue and then i ask them why it was taking so long since there was so many staff on before and i get told they simply weren't doing reports. I actually had some video footage of this but I'm not home right now so i can't look it up.

 

[Fredy]

I'm just gonna throw around some figures:
During the past 10 hours the queue server has been up, 259 people have left the server (and hence given a slot to someone from the queue server).
This makes an average waiting duration of 140 seconds per slot, disregarding people who leave while being on the queue server.
Out of the 259 people who got to join the server, 21 were staff who got to cut the queue.

Now I don't think 21/259 is a ratio that is even worth talking about (~8%) while the benefit of getting more staff on the server is very obvious and probably much higher. You simply can't always moan about how staff aren't doing reports and then turn around and shame them for getting on the server more easily to do your reports.

Let's face it, the real issue isn't that staff get to cut the queue, you just overreact to it because someone got to skip the queue.
The biggest issue is that there's too many people who are trying to join.
Even without staff skipping in queue it would take you ~45 minutes to join when you are in the 20th place of the queue, which is frankly not acceptable.

Now when people are mentioning how they always got a slot within 10 minutes before the queue server was up you have to realize what that means. Clearly, as I said before, the queue server hasn't brought more players to the server so I'd argue the rate players try and join stayed the same. If you get in quickly it means that you literally skipped the queue. Someone else who was also trying to get in (and probably already waited longer) now has to wait even longer. The only difference is that in these instances the "victims" can't see the people who cut in line.

The facts are that we know know we'd at least need a 110 slot server to satisfy all of the demand during peak times. Unfortunately Increasing the slots isn't a viable option as the server is already laggy enough as it is.
This means that there's not many options left:

1. Go back to what it was
2. Open up a second server with all of its really bad implications such as splitting the community
3. keep the queue server

Even I don't really know what to do at this point unfortunately.

Now let's get from the facts to some replies:

Some if not most players have lost respect for the staff team for various reasons.[...]I could go off on a tangent and rant about how the staff team need to start listening to the community etc but I want to avoid fuhrer issues.

This is just populist nonsense. There's not a single thread on the forums that I can see talking about how the staff team needs to start listening to the community. But of course it's always the same people bashing the staff team for whatever bad things are going on in the community without providing ANYTHING of substance.
I could go on about how especially you would just use any opportunity to bash on staff regardless of how irrational your argument actually is. And every time you then get asked for any evidence or even solutions you fail to deliver even the slightest hint of rationality.

Have you thought about the bystander effect?

The bystander effect does not apply here at all here as it's to do with risking your life or fucking up in front of many other people. Furthermore it's not very wise throw around these links without having any evidence to back it up or even understanding what they are.

However this only further segregates the community, turning everyone against each other, which is not what we need.

This isn't a country where everyone is equal. Staff are obviously not equal to you as they have a lot more power and duties.

 

[Philip]

The queue server just makes people pissed off for some reason, just close it.

 

[Imperial Watch]

>Complains staff never get on to do any reports on the server at peak times when its actually really hard to get a spot during those times
>Complains when staff get priority to do said duties

 

[Allen Kennedy]

The queue server just makes people pissed off for some reason, just close it.

Honestly I think he's right, this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Teemo]

I have bitched about the queue server but after speaking to @Fredy he is trying solutions to please what the community is saying.
The community said they hated waiting an hour just for someone to go on press join and get in instantly. Hence the queue server.
If you are going to give staff and Fredy shit, why don't you fix the problem?

He is trying things to make the server more enjoyable for you and then you give him shit for it?

 

[Casey Heller]

Heres my idea.

Make another server (Same exact everything, database, map, everything)
Make the server about half the scale of the original size (So only 30 player slots)
Only open the server at peak times.
> If second server is full, launch the queue server and when you get in line to join, the decision box will tell you what server you are joining.

Problem solved for everyone. Everyone gets perpheads, the community isn't split because the second server will only come up when the first is heavy enough.

Staff Q&A:
>Staff aren't required to join second server. Period. Post the AR.

 

[Bean Can]

This isn't even close to a problem...

As Imperial Watch has said to many people complain that staff members are never on and when staff get a chance to join in and skip the queue every freaks out. It honestly makes no sense that people are complaining about this. The queue helps people who end up spending 1+ hour to join the server faster then someone who wants to join the server and joins in 5 minutes. I feel like it is way to early to start judging the queue server and automatically saying that you should "remove".

I feel like the queue server benefits the server because of the reasons @Xquality and @Fredy have said before. If anything people are just afraid of change to the server(At least major change) for example people were afraid of the first weapon update because they thought it would "fuck" up the balancing and now people on the server prefer the new weapons over the old one. It has been 3 days since the queue has been out and people are automatically saying delete it!

Just a by the way this isn't biased in any sort of way as I am an enforcer and I have to wait in the queue just like everyone else. Deleting something isn't a solution.