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| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 15:12 #115107 | |
KymriskaDraken
963 posts |
I see on Facebook that the forthcoming West Anglia/Liverpool Street sessions have been designated a "Community host" and the FB post suggests that these will be regular, even weekly. While I have no problem with advertising hosts to a wider audience, the suggestion that there will now be official hosts concerns me. In the eyes of users this might degrade the hosts provided by many other people, myself included. It also begs a question about the choice of sims. Will the "official" hosts continue to use sims and timetables provided by all developers, and use different hosts, or will they be restricted to a particular group of sims and timetables from a particular group of developers? If these hosts are to be weekly it could well freeze out other people planning to host sessions. The one being advertised will be held on four different days which is a lot of competition - one day directly competes with a chain that I am hosting with a colleague which has been advertised for a few days. Whilst anyone is free to host a session at any time on any sim I really feel that official sessions should not directly compete with sessions that have already been advertised, especially those planned by experienced hosts. Kev Log in to reply The following users said thank you: DriverCurran, ajax103 |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 15:33 #115109 | |
pedroathome
915 posts 
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The outline of what has been considerd is to host from start to finish of a timetable. Once this has been completed, to pick a different sim (or set of sims) from another region, as seen on how the simulations manual page is set up. For example, after completing a west anglia session, something like Kings Cross woulden't be hosted. This will at least give some variation in what is being hosted. - With the occasional donationware sim. Yes there probably will be times when hosts overlap, but not forgetting, not everyone has got every simulation Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 15:35 #115110 | |
TimTamToe
664 posts |
KymriskaDraken in post 115107 said:Considering your hosting session and Alan's are different sims I can't see how it directly competes (yes I know they are the same time). Not everyone has all the sims and it gives variety to the users as to what sim they want to go on, both in terms of the sims they have and also the difficulty of the sims. Gareth Last edited: 27/01/2019 at 15:38 by TimTamToe Reason: (James quicker at typing...) Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 18:19 #115113 | |
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Noisynoel
989 posts |
TimTamToe in post 115110 said:KymriskaDraken in post 115107 said:They compete because there are only a small number of people that join on-line multiplay sessions and even less at the specific time of any one host. Certain people have been holding regular hosts for many years now and are probably feeling as though they have been representing Simsig in the multiplayer world for that time as no one has done anything official, and therefore feel that they are being pushed aside because it's not official. Perhaps the better move would have been to include those people, see if they could do some of the hosting. It's all about inclusion, surely people should be made to feel more welcome, not more fed up.Considering your hosting session and Alan's are different sims I can't see how it directly competes (yes I know they are the same time). Not everyone has all the sims and it gives variety to the users as to what sim they want to go on, both in terms of the sims they have and also the difficulty of the sims. Also there has been no mention made of these "community hosts" on our own forum or website.. Surely if we want to encourage the newbies then it should at least warrant a forum post as opposed to just a hosting ad in the upcoming games section. Noisynoel Log in to reply The following users said thank you: KymriskaDraken, DriverCurran |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 18:20 #115114 | |
GeoffM
6376 posts |
Perhaps some misunderstanding here. These "community" hosts were supposed to be hosted by, or attended by, developers and testers of the relevant simulation(s) so help could be given. If a better name can be given then I'm open to ideas. The more games advertised the better IMHO. SimSig Boss Log in to reply The following users said thank you: agilchrist, KymriskaDraken, tjfrancis |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 19:45 #115116 | |
9pN1SEAp
1180 posts |
TimTamToe in post 115110 said:Well it seems that everyone has joined the "community" host (based on the sign-ups) leaving my Scotland without quorum. Plus an additional game going on (with only 2 players), both of these advertised after mine means I've wasted an evening setting up a host. If these events are going to keep happening perhaps it would be polite to advertise with a little more notice to avoid clashes? Jamie S (JAMS) Log in to reply The following user said thank you: KymriskaDraken |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 20:01 #115117 | |
jc92
3687 posts |
GeoffM in post 115114 said:Perhaps some misunderstanding here. These "community" hosts were supposed to be hosted by, or attended by, developers and testers of the relevant simulation(s) so help could be given. If a better name can be given then I'm open to ideas.For me, a community host is one hosted by the community itself. How about "developer feedback host"? The feedback goes both ways in these cases and it sounds a bit more official. "We don't stop camborne wednesdays" Log in to reply The following user said thank you: KymriskaDraken |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 20:09 #115118 | |
agilchrist
258 posts |
Not sure the name is that relevant, its only a name and no matter what it is called it would still be the same thing which is a hosted game. We host a game nearly 5 nights a week sometimes more and we never advertise it publicly, so number of players that you would be potentially loosing on another hosted game may be minimal, in this case we had three people join the chain outside the usual people so its not that many considering on many games you have a queue of people who all get fed up waiting for a panel. People can choose and all this is offering is choice and I think it can handle more than one game running at a time. You just have to look now, the CScot game has ended (as has the Anglia chain) yet somebody else is about to open a Manchester hosted game whilst another is running and there seems to be enough people for that. Just because you host a game does not give you rights to stop others from doing so, people are free to choose. Blessed are the true believers, for only they shall walk the Path, and they shall be welcomed unto the realm of the Ori and made as one with Them. Last edited: 27/01/2019 at 20:19 by agilchrist Reason: None given Log in to reply The following users said thank you: tjfrancis, bri2808 |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 20:38 #115120 | |
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KymriskaDraken
963 posts |
agilchrist in post 115118 said:Not sure the name is that relevant, its only a name and no matter what it is called it would still be the same thing which is a hosted game.A hosted game that is given extra publicity on the SimSig Facebook page. Not exactly the same thing. Maybe I will call my next session a Community Host as well as it's just a name. agilchrist in post 115118 said: We host a game nearly 5 nights a week sometimes more and we never advertise it publicly, so number of players that you would be potentially loosing on another hosted game may be minimal, in this case we had three people join the chain outside the usual people so its not that many considering on many games you have a queue of people who all get fed up waiting for a panel.So why do you feel the need to make your private hosts "Official" public hosts? Why not just post them as regular hosts and not bother with the "Developers and testers will be on hand..." stuff and the extra publicity on Facebook (which this time has probably had a minimal effect as the post was made very close to the start time/date of the session). agilchrist in post 115118 said: You just have to look now, the CScot game has ended (as has the Anglia chain) yet somebody else is about to open a Manchester hosted game whilst another is running and there seems to be enough people for that.The CScot game was truncated because of lack of players. agilchrist in post 115118 said: Just because you host a game does not give you rights to stop others from doing so, people are free to choose.I did not say that it did. I just feel that swamping the upcoming games with lists of "Official" hosts is not the best way to do things, especially at short notice. By all means have official games but announce them in advance so the rest of us don't waste our time planning hosts at the same time. Kev Log in to reply The following user said thank you: jc92 |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 20:56 #115123 | |
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agilchrist
258 posts |
KymriskaDraken in post 115120 said:A hosted game that is given extra publicity on the SimSig Facebook page. Not exactly the same thing. Maybe I will call my next session a Community Host as well as it's just a name.I never called it that in the post, but you can call yours whatever you want its a free text field. KymriskaDraken in post 115120 said: So why do you feel the need to make your private hosts "Official" public hosts? Why not just post them as regular hosts and not bother with the "Developers and testers will be on hand..." stuff and the extra publicity on Facebook (which this time has probably had a minimal effect as the post was made very close to the start time/date of the session).I do not feel the need to do this as I said we played 5 or more nights a week privately and were asked if we could make them public with a view to improving player knowledge amongst other things. You know as well as I do that there is a varied user knowledge base. KymriskaDraken in post 115120 said: I did not say that it did. I just feel that swamping the upcoming games with lists of "Official" hosts is not the best way to do things, especially at short notice. By all means have official games but announce them in advance so the rest of us don't waste our time planning hosts at the same time.Not sure I said that at all your assuming thats what it means. There is also nothing in there which says "Official" and they are planned in advance. As I said before in previous message, choice should not be limited, users should have the right to choose which game they want to attend, I doubt that both games running will have any effect at all on your game, its not like we have tens of workstations to fill. But if you do not test demand then how will you know, I am not scared to see the outcome, we do not require any players to keep our host running and if you are so short of players I would have happily have sent them over but you just seem to want to start an argument about it instead of looking at this as a positive move to increase the number of people in games. Perhaps the wording of the title was a little off, but its only words and in the end its still a hosted game whether its on facebook or not. Edited to add : Oh and BTW, I never even knew there was a facebook page until yesterday, I hate facebook never look at it and use messenger because I feel I am forced to do so. But it would be nice to see if linking that makes a difference to the player numbers. Blessed are the true believers, for only they shall walk the Path, and they shall be welcomed unto the realm of the Ori and made as one with Them. Last edited: 27/01/2019 at 20:58 by agilchrist Reason: additional wibble on the end. Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 21:00 #115124 | |
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GeoffM
6376 posts |
KymriskaDraken in post 115120 said:A hosted game that is given extra publicity on the SimSig Facebook page. Not exactly the same thing.I believe you (and anybody) can advertise their own game on the SimSig FB page. SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 21:21 #115128 | |
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9pN1SEAp
1180 posts |
agilchrist in post 115118 said:Possibly a bit disingenuous; CS was ended because nobody turned up, very unusually for a Sunday evening. 5-6 players were definitely in-game elsewhere on the other advertised sims. And yes, of course there are players available for Manchester because all the other sims are now NOT running. To have one other sim running, okay that gives a choice. To have two others running and not advertised until after you've planned a session is just getting silly though. Jamie S (JAMS) Log in to reply The following user said thank you: KymriskaDraken |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 21:45 #115130 | |
AndyNTH
31 posts |
This is a great idea. Probably the best idea I've ever heard of. I am absolutely delighted. What could be better? To naysayers that say it may reduce the attractiveness of other hosts: clearly not! It provides a model that all other hosts can be gauged against which raises the standard across the board. Excellent work. Carry on. Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 21:54 #115134 | |
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GeoffM
6376 posts |
GeoffM in post 115124 said:I believe you (and anybody) can advertise their own game on the SimSig FB page.Correction: you can post on the SimSig Facebook page, but you can't publish an event - and I can't see how to change that, unlike posts. I certainly don't have a problem with regular posts being used to promote a game (suggest linking to the game on this website), and we (devs/mods) can use the same method. It's better to keep the attendees in one place anyway. SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 22:40 #115137 | |
ajax103
1120 posts |
With the Anglia sessions I would join one HOWEVER and this is the killer, it requires you to be on Teamspeak and for one who has no idea how that works compared to Skype and doesn't know if they actually need a headset for their laptop in order to communicate with others then it's sadly is a block to me joining in such sessions. Also no idea if it's something that requires payment to use the service as the app on iOS certainly does. Call me a dinosaur but I'm just so used to the built in messages tool that the sims have. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: bri2808 |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 22:46 #115138 | |
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MarkC
1105 posts |
ajax103 in post 115137 said:With the Anglia sessions I would join one HOWEVER and this is the killer, it requires you to be on Teamspeak and for one who has no idea how that works compared to Skype and doesn't know if they actually need a headset for their laptop in order to communicate with others then it's sadly is a block to me joining in such sessions.Team Speak Is quite simple. It has no cost, at the very least what you need is speakers and a keyboard. speakers so you can here what others are saying and a keyboard to you can use the message box. There is this link to a forum post Last edited: 27/01/2019 at 22:47 by MarkC Reason: None given Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 27/01/2019 at 23:01 #115139 | |
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tlib
9 posts |
TBH I cant see what your problem with Teamspeak is here. Atleast 2 of the attendies tonight did not use their microphone (just text chat within Teamspeak) but it allows quicker messaging for those who do have a microphone. I personally use the built in microphone on push to talk (so I only transmit when I hit a certain key combo which can be set in the program). Also with the sim messaging the messages get lost when you are on a busy sim unless you have a seperate window open with them in which cant be alt tabbed to as they are still part of the same program. Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 00:09 #115141 | |
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AndyNTH
31 posts |
Not using TeamSpeak is very unrealistic as in real life signallers would communicate over voice in exactly this manner. Anyone who says that TeamSpeak is a barrier to entry would quickly reverse that opinion once they have seen the ease and added value using it has!
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| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 04:03 #115142 | |
postal
5265 posts
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AndyNTH in post 115141 said:Anyone who says that TeamSpeak is a barrier to entry would quickly reverse that opinionI have never used Teamspeak for the principal reason that I don't live on my own and I don't have a separate room where I can play to my heart's content. Using a voice app in the living room while others of the family wanted to watch or listen to something else would be very intrusive and disrespectful to them - if the voice part is ruled out do you need to join Teamspeak to avoid being frozen out and to get the hidden messages and banter not shown to the great unwashed in the sim messages window? “In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe Log in to reply The following user said thank you: bri2808 |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 04:14 #115143 | |
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postal
5265 posts
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GeoffM in post 115114 said:Perhaps some misunderstanding here. These "community" hosts were supposed to be hosted by, or attended by, developers and testers of the relevant simulation(s) so help could be given. If a better name can be given then I'm open to ideas.As a note of caution, I think we are in danger of getting back to the Aaron days and the perception that there is an "inner circle" who run SimSig to suit their own purposes rather than thinking of the community as a whole. I am sure this is not the case but the optics of the way this was implemented and the following discussion have not come across to me in the right way. Rather than getting further into "you said/(s)he said" and entrenching ourselves in deeper and deeper positions which will make it harder for sense to break out might it be better if we first understood what is the thinking behind the "community hosting" idea, what thought was given to how it would affect other "less official" hosting before the idea was rolled out without any pre-advice and what can we now do to ensure that we can get rid of the potential "inner circle" perception, Edit: Kieran/Aaron rather than more recent Aaron's. Apologies to AR88 for the misunderstanding. “In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe Last edited: 28/01/2019 at 07:26 by postal Reason: None given Log in to reply The following user said thank you: KymriskaDraken |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 04:31 #115145 | |
Ar88
310 posts |
postal in post 115143 said:As a note of caution, I think we are in danger of getting back to the Aaron daysI'm not sure I follow what this means, or if this is a stab towards myself.... The Welsh contingent. Aron, or Ar to mates. Also known as 88E or ThatManCalledAr. Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 06:54 #115146 | |
Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
Ar88 in post 115145 said:postal in post 115143 said:Different Aaron.As a note of caution, I think we are in danger of getting back to the Aaron daysI'm not sure I follow what this means, or if this is a stab towards myself.... Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply The following users said thank you: Ar88, postal |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 07:36 #115147 | |
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Ar88
310 posts |
Peter Bennet in post 115146 said:Ar88 in post 115145 said:Thanks Peter & Postal. Caught up on the “Aaron” & I’m certainly not to that level! :’)postal in post 115143 said:Different Aaron.As a note of caution, I think we are in danger of getting back to the Aaron daysI'm not sure I follow what this means, or if this is a stab towards myself.... The Welsh contingent. Aron, or Ar to mates. Also known as 88E or ThatManCalledAr. Log in to reply |
| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 09:28 #115149 | |
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ajax103
1120 posts |
Now got TeamSpeak 3 client installed but do I need to be a registered user to take part in sessions using it? All I know with it is how to connect to it successfully but nothing else 
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| Community hosts 28/01/2019 at 09:59 #115150 | |
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MarkC
1105 posts |
ajax103 in post 115149 said:Now got TeamSpeak 3 client installed but do I need to be a registered user to take part in sessions using it?When you next go on to Team Speak One of the Team Speak Admin (as long as one of them is online) will change you to registered, Its been a while but I belive you should still be able to swap channels and hear what is going on and use the message box. Log in to reply |