Show Online Staff

[Bobgod]

This is a regular thing as you probably know. Someone needs a mod for evo trades, trasfering stuff to an alt or shiny trading, but there is none in the channel they are in right now. What I typically do in those cases is that I whisper the mods that are online in the forum at that time one after another.

What I want to suggest is a list in the menu of currently available mods that you could whisper from there. As Pereiraa pointed out this would come with privacy issues for the staff, so I'd suggest making every staff member invisible on that list by default on log in, but giving them the option to "report for duty" and be shown on that list in case someone needs help.

[KaynineXL]

Sending a support request in-game goes directly to all staff members online and those that come online while your request is still up I think, I'm not sure if there is an option for evo trades/transferring stuff though.

Edited March 24, 2016 by KaynineXL

[Bobgod]

Sending a support request in-game goes directly to all staff members online and those that come online while your request is still up I think, I'm not sure if there is an option for evo trades/transferring stuff though.

There is no option for "I need help with something trade related" or for other questions only a mod could reliably answer, that's why I made this suggestion.

[Noad]

This is something that will not be implemented for a few reasons. Firstly, we would prefer people to not know which staff members are around because this would make it fair game for cheaters and rule breakers. Another reason is staff privacy, we have a large player base and it would be overwhelming to recieve so many whispers at once. Staff prefer to watch channel chat for players seeking assistance. Lastly we have the support request function in game that players are free to use if they have any questions or would like assistance trade evolving a Pokemon.

[Bobgod]

Firstly, we would prefer people to not know which staff members are around because this would make it fair game for cheaters and rule breakers.

 

If you'd include the invisibility feature I suggested, this wouldn't be any more of an issue than it is now.
 

Another reason is staff privacy, we have a large player base and it would be overwhelming to recieve so many whispers at once.

 

Same as above. Basically logging into the forums shows there is a good chance of you being online already, using that is just not as convenient. If you want to roam the channels freely without getting tons of whispers just go back to invisible mode.
 

Staff prefer to watch channel chat for players seeking assistance.

 

This is actually less effective than what I suggest. Let's say only 1 mod is online then you'd have to post your problem into channel chat 8 times on average if that mod is switching through all channels regularly. This just causes more spam for everyone and frustration for people who need help.
 

Lastly we have the support request function in game that players are free to use if they have any questions or would like assistance trade evolving a Pokemon. 

 

Is that what the "gameplay inquiry" type is for?

[Noad]

The invisibility option would not work because, for example, there are 5 staff members online and only 1 staff member is "visible" they would get whisper spammed by the entire server (or at least those with questions). It would be too much to cope with and I can say this from the experience of the floods of whispers I get from talking in channel 1.

Only a small percentage of players actually own a forum account or even know of its existence, which is unfortunate. So I doubt players use the forums as a guide to which staff members are online. Not to mention that a lot of us access the forums from our phones whilst out and about (I'm currently on the bus coming home from work).

However I do agree with the point you made about Support Requests. I do not feel that Gameplay Enquiries should lead to the message "Use a walk through \ Google". As staff, I feel like it is our job to answer these questions and wouldn't be against players being able to send them. I would much rather recieve a support request from a player asking me to help them evolve their Haunter than get a Player Report from them telling me that a player has scammed it from them.

What I'm getting at is I think that your suggestion should target some changes to our support request system to achieve what you want. Showing Online Staff is not the way to go about this and current staff members do not support it for reasons I have already listed in my posts.

[Bobgod]

The invisibility option would not work because, for example, there are 5 staff members online and only 1 staff member is "visible" they would get whisper spammed by the entire server (or at least those with questions). It would be too much to cope with and I can say this from the experience of the floods of whispers I get from talking in channel 1.

I think that the flood of whispers could be caused by the lack of having a mod in your channel for 95% of the time, so when one shows up they get 20x the number of questions at once. Since I'm not a mod I can't say anything about how many whispers you get once you've been in the same channel for a longer time though.

 

 

 

What I'm getting at is I think that your suggestion should target some changes to our support request system to achieve what you want. Showing Online Staff is not the way to go about this and current staff members do not support it for reasons I have already listed in my posts. 

If adding more options to the Support Request feature does the trick, too, that's fine for me.  :)