Confluence

Confluence
Scheduling


So we have brought in a lot of new friends, have seen some old friends become much more active once again, and with this turn of events a lot of renewed interest in corporate sponsored activities, especially PvP.

The only problem is, and I have to admit that it drives me nuts, is that we are stuck midway between a real schedule and impromptu operations. So let's talk.

I would rather do things one of two ways, for my sanity's sake, and because I think it will be best this way. The first way of course, is to schedule our sponsored activities, the way we did at the beginning of the year, which was good but inconsistent insofar as given a window of only a few hours on a particular night, it was uncertain who would be there from one week to the next. The second way of course, is to throw impromptu operations together, and haul ass to assemble whatever we can scrape together before heading out. I myself prefer the latter. After all, it is not all that grand, to throw together a fleet on a predetermined night, only to find tumbleweeds floating by in space as our ships sit idly at a gate, waiting for reds to appear anywhere at all in the entire region.

I really believe we are too small yet for an official schedule for anything more than industry. If our pilots all flew T2 for 0.0 or BSs for low security, we could certainly schedule regular PvP gangs every week, but they do not, so we cannot, or at least should not. However, I am finding it difficult to throw together operations on the fly, when we provide scheduled operations as well. I just do not have time every night of the week to toss something together for people, and neither do the rest of the officers or managers for that matter.

The problem: We schedule gangs for Industry or PvP, and our regulars show up, but others do not. Then the following evening the others log on, looking for fun group activities, asking if anyone is doing something they can participate in, but our regulars had their fun the night before, and are now doing private or small scale activities to generate income, standings, and whatnot. The Catch-22 is that a gang of 10x people is great fun for L4s but really bad for actually making any money. And while I may be FC, I am also CEO, so leading gangs every night of the week is out of the question.

Now that we have Varian back at the helm for FC operations, I myself have been preparing and leading gangs, and Jay (Mia) is leading them as well, and will be more in the very near future, things are looking good for frequent operations. However, there needs to be some sort of structure, so our PvP leaders are not logging on every night to, "PvP?" because between you and me, as much as I love a good fight, sometimes I just want to log on and mindlessly pound on NPCs as I watch my wallet get showered with ISK.

What I propose is a blackout system. We schedule, but do not exclude, thus meaning certain days each week are set as corporate/alliance days and others are set as casual days. On corporate days, you are expected to group together with an officer, commander, or manager and participate in sponsored activities. On casual days, officers and managers get the day off, and they can either choose to work on corporate projects, or spin their ship in a station all evening if they so desire.

I would imagine setting the week up with as many days that are casual as there are corporate/alliance is going to be best given the present group dynamic we have going on here, esp. since most of the FCs have extremely variable schedules right now anyways. So let's say, 3x Corporate and 3x Casual and 1x Alliance for now.

So let's say it is Wednesday night, a corporate evening and I log on. Looks like Providence is really quiet, well FFS I was hungry for some combat, but there is no sense in flying around shooting at space dust. Instead, I hop in a ratting ship, throw up a fleet invite, and we split into teams, and go pound some ISK out, while we compare PvP setups. Everyone who is able to do so should participate. If you do not participate, and the next night is casual, you may not get in on any fun with others if they have personal goals they are trying to meet or just need some downtime.

So let's say it is a Thursday night, a casual evening and I log on. Looks like a number of our members are itching to shoot some stuff, and Providence has a few strays that we could go after, but you know, I also have 250,000 m3 worth of crap to move, or two or three hours of industry chores to tackle. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, or it will literally not get done, so I set out to wrestle the beast that is R&D to the ground, and make him cry uncle. The eager PvPers, will have to join an alliance fleet, or strike out in small teams, and learn to command, which is a valuable skill to have no matter who you are.

The basic idea for me is this:

When we sponsor activities, I expect people who want to participate in them make an attempt to show up. We do not sponsor the same activities on any particular night every week, so I cannot imagine that someone is unable to show up because of something like that. Now, if you are unable to show up that week, that's fine, but I would prefer not to log on the day after a big operation to "Where is the fleet?"

"The fleet was last night, didn't you get the memo?" is my thought on that matter. I am sure anyone who has had an administrative role before at some point in their lives can relate.

So, comments?