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Prizma
post Jul 27 2006, 07:42 PM
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Hello, I am considering applying for a carnage host position and was unsure of the Pros and Cons to being a Carnage host. Any guiding words from people whom may have been hosts in the past or are currently serving as hosts?

Any thoughts and advice would be apperciated in this matter.

Thank you!

~*~ Prizma ~*~
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Worldwalker
post Jul 27 2006, 07:53 PM
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Sa san
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Pro: You get to help the community.
Con: You get vilified by the community.

Pro: Being "backstage" at Carnage is lots of fun.
Con: Telling your in-laws that you can't get there Friday night because you have to host is not fun.

Pro: You can get into Carnage for free.
Con: You'll probably be so burned out on Carnage you won't care.

I did it for three years ... I loved it, but I won't go back. (Sorry, MeJak)

-- Worldwalker


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Falaris
post Jul 27 2006, 09:22 PM
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Oh san
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In the first place, unless you actually DO get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside doing things for others selflessly and really like when other people have fun from something you did, don't bother.

After that, make sure feeling that feeling even just once in awhile (and it takes time until you can become a consistently good host, if you ever get there, and some never do...) outweighs the fact that you are expected to not only cover your own shifts and clear your real life for them, but any time you are online be ready at the drop of a hat to run and host/assist a carnage, be completely destroyed by the community no matter how good of a host you are, and more or less get nothing in return besides the aforementioned fuzzy feeling, saving a few thousand coins not having to pay each time you go to carnage, and a free 95 weapon once a week assuming you actually become a full host, then it'd be worth it to apply as well.

If I sound discouraging, good. So many people have delusions about carnage hosts, whether they want to be one or hate them, and you should have a clear understanding of what you are getting into. Similar to Worldwalker, I cancelled out on family or doing things with friends to be around because I had to host on some given night. Much like other positions in Nexus, it IS a part-time job, you ARE expected to show up on time, and do your job to the best of your ability, with horrible pay and you WILL be treated like dirt most of the time by the players you are trying to help for a good amount of time until you start rolling out good carnages on a consistent basis.

It is downright disgraceful what some idiots do to other people in this game, and moreso than pretty much any position in Nexus you will be harrassed just for being a host and having to make decisions, and most aren't even decisions but you just following host guidelines, most of the time people act innocent even though they DID break the rules and then will trash you publicly where you normally have to bite your tongue so that it doesn't make the comm spam even worse. Although in all honesty, I didn't bite my tongue often as I have a low idiocy-tolerance. I have heard of not only good hosts, but good people be cursed at, harrassed (sexually as well), and most of the time these people get away with it (until Ahalya was archon, and then KRU went and screwed that up royally as well and started actually highlighting player posts on comm that harrass hosts, promoting it).

I hope this completely disenchants any fantasies you may have had about being a carnage host. The reality is, its not something I would return to either now. I went back initially because the carnage staff was having some hard times and in particular, Bloodlust (my favorite division of course) had something like 3 hosts at one point including the head and myself. Now though, not even hearing they are in that kind of peril would bring me back as the community has degraded so much even from Yuri 40, when I thought host harrassment once every few carnages when one turned out really bad was unwarranted. Now, just about every night a host will be harrassed. It is sad, but out of love for MOST carnage hosts and spite for the community jerks, I hope KRU DOES go ahead and automate carnages, thus completely destroying any organized PK, and this is coming from someone who was head host of both the riches and bloodlust departments.

In conclusion, don't do it for any reason besides really really enjoying being the person to put on events where other people can have fun.


-Falaris


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dondon
post Jul 27 2006, 10:02 PM
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Il san
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Oh, and if you actually still decide to become a carnage host, keep this sentence in mind;

"omg what if i don help mah friend? they r so gonna kos me irl and hate me omgomg. but if i help them, omgomg other people are so gonna kos me and hate me. wth!"

Well... Just be prepared for that kind of situations. Trust me, when you have power, friends expect YOU to do MORE for them. And the fact is that if you do so, others will call you corrupt whatsoever younameit. But if you don't, in turn your friends will hate you KOS you and may even just badmouth you blablablablabla.

Heh.
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Hardcore nexus p...
post Jul 27 2006, 10:06 PM
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Con: Adjusting your life so that nexus comes first.
Con: Waste your time for something that should be a Kru provided Service
Con: You'll never make good teams so people that you dont even know wont like you and the people that do like you wont care that you host or not
Con: You are paying Kru your money so that you can work for Kru
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DEREKSMART
post Jul 28 2006, 12:31 AM
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QUOTE(Falaris @ Jul 27 2006, 10:22 PM) [snapback]5143[/snapback]

[...] I hope KRU DOES go ahead and automate carnages, thus completely destroying any organized PK, and this is coming from someone who was head host of both the riches and bloodlust departments. [...]
-Falaris


Haha, right, the wonderful and fully functional carnage system nexus currently has will be destroyed!

Just out of curiosity, remind me what hosts currently do for the carnage system that can't be done by a computer 100 times faster and of equal or better quality?

It's not like hosts have to make any sort of deeply insightful decisions beyond the scope of modern AI techniques. All hosting is, is making decisions based on statistics or rule enforcement and performing a preset series of tasks.

Every complaint about carnages is either about teams being completely unbalanced (which happens often and is a result of hosts having incomplete statistical data about the participants or a biased view, neither of which are a problem for a computer) or some sort of rules abuse/unfair judgment levied by a host which would never be a problem unless there was a hardware/software error (the probability of which is far less than human error.)

It's funny how most of the people who think full automation are (or were) carnage hosts (I was once a host too.) It's probably because you think you're too important to the system to be removed. Well, it's partially true, you are important to the system, but only because Kru hasn't made the effort to fully automate it yet.

To keep on topic: Don't become a carnage host. If the ratio of incoming hosts to leaving hosts is less than 1 then that's just more incentive for Kru to fix the system the only way that will actually fix it: full automation.
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Hatiki
post Jul 28 2006, 01:00 AM
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Well i've never actually been a Carnage host, but I was a Foxhunt host and I'd say it is almost similar.

Pro: Help with community
Con: Community complains and whines
Con: Can get stressful at times

Can't think of anything else right now.


--------------------
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Worldwalker
post Jul 28 2006, 09:53 AM
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Regarding automation:

I think of all the people here, I may have the best background to discuss the mechanics of hosting. I was a host from the golden age (Wasse's era) through the beginning of the end (my own time as head host) and I was present for many of the major changes in Carnage overall.

One critical thing: if Dereksmart was right, which he isn't, I'd have been a lot better at picking teams. The reason automatically-picked teams suck 9 times out of 10 is that it isn't, unfortunately, just a matter of statistics. Even if I wanted to, I could not walk into the Carnage hall and run a Carnage today, not one you'd want to go to. It would take me at least a month of playing and observing that level of Carnage to be able to pick teams, possibly more if it's something like Glory which is so heavily dependant on skill.

Random example: me. Worldwalker is a ... um, lemme go log on and check ... 380/270 mage. Now, there was a time when those stats would actually have been decent for Carnage. (back when CW and his 1 mil vita were an aberration) Yes, I've been one of the tops a few times. Not often, of course, but it happened. But am I a top? The one word answer is "no". Even if somehow today (everyone else stayed home?) that 380/270 was one of the highest stats in Carnage, I'd still not actually be a top, because, sad to say, I'm really not very good as a PK mage. One of the worst I've ever met, when it comes right down to it. The way we used to put it, I don't live up to my stats.

On the other hand, there are people who play way above their stats. You get some people who are just plain good. They have great tactical sense, great reflexes, everything, and they always do the right thing at the right time. I'm not going to mention names because I don't want to turn this into a "carny greats of the past" thread, but just like anything else, there are some people who are better at it than others, and some of those people are insanely good. Not because of stats -- that doesn't really count in anything but Celestial -- because of skill.

Then you have the third component, combinations of players. For instance, a certain mage, poet, and rogue trio who were a longtime headache for hosts because any two of them in combination were more than twice as lethal as either alone, and if you somehow got all three on a team, you'd better put the whole other team against them, and I'm only exaggerating slightly. Some poets won't heal rogues, some won't heal anything but rogues. Some players will try to lose if their friends are on the other team or their enemies are on their own team. Some hate each other so much they'll devote all their time to killing their enemy if he's on the other team and wind up being almost useless to their team overall.

Finally there are the other weird factors. For instance, there's the lag issue. There was a time when I would check my own lag before picking for Avatars (pre-Celestial days) because I knew if I was lagging, so were a particular three tops (warrior, poet, mage), which would affect their performance. Our ISPs shared some critical bit of infrastructure or something en route to Nexus, so we either all lagged or we all didn't. Some people are slackers, no matter what their stats, and are semi-afk half the time. Some people are character sharers. I used to tell my hosts to count how many of the "leech sisters" were there; if it was just one, the odds were that that person was sharing, and probably one of the ones who were really good; if you had the whole set, they were who they should be; anywhere in between was a crapshoot. There were one or two character sharers who I simply, flat-out asked who they were that day, and picked teams accordingly. (I'd lost faith in Nexon enforcing their rules at all at that point; let them catch their own char sharers, starting with some of the really blatant ones who had admitted it in public, I had a Carnage to run) Then there are the odds and ends like, oh, people with particularly important weapons. (Eggy and the NB Ee San Nimble Blade in Ancients for instance) Most of them don't matter, but a few do, very, very much.

Does all of this matter?

If it didn't, any random person could be given host powers and a 5-minute briefing on how to use them and pick perfect teams. Autodye could pick perfect teams right now. Neither one, of course, is true. People have said elsewhere that I was particularly good at team picking; I don't happen to think so myself, not compared to people like Falaris or Calmwind, but I was certainly better than J. Random Newbiehost making his first try at it. (except when that newbie was CW, but that's a long story) The reason manual picking takes so long isn't that we're all sitting there playing poker. It's because we're sweating blood over whether those teams are going to be balanced or not, and debating with each other on how to make them perfect.

Teams picked by autodye are a lot like teams picked by a newbie host who can only read the numbers and doesn't know anything about how to actually balance teams. The difference is that there's nobody to blame for "corruption" when an autodyed team sucks, so there's less complaining on Comm about it. People have to find something else to blame for the fact they lost, something other than the cold hard fact that half the people who walk into the arena doors will come out losers (hey, it was 75% back in the day) so they blame their teammates, the phase of the moon, whatever. That does make autodye look better ... there's less complaining after an autodyed Carnage ... but it's not because the Carnage was any different, just that there's nobody human to blame, so they move to other targets.

There are no statistics you can measure that will improve autodye. Carnage records? What are you going to do with that, if someone is good and wins more than average, stack the teams against them so whatever unfortunate person gets teamed with them is guaranteed a loss? How about checking lag? Just like when people used to think the hosts looked at equipped stats, not naked, and so they would put on junk items until the round started, if the system was measuring lag those people would start huge downloads to lag down their connections during autodye. I wish there was a way to put a skilled host into a script, because I'd probably even be playing again if I could go to Carnage and be guaranteed it would be really, really good. The problem is, the kind of data recording and analysis it would take to duplicate what a good host actually does, even if it was possible to do and impossible to exploit, would take a huge amount of code, work, and resources in general. How do you write a script that understands that some poet only heals rogues, or that some rogue will slack if his RL g/f is on the other team? It's hard enough to manage that with dedicated human beings, with all the analysis that a trained human brain can bring to the job; you're not going to do it in any script that can run inside a MMORPG, especially one as old as Nexus.

Of course, this doesn't even begin to touch on actually running the Carnage. It's a lot more complicated than the WoW Battlegrounds, and for anyone who thinks that's a functional system, two words: "AV Fishing". From what I read in patch notes once in a while, Blizzard is still trying to build an automated system that can cope with the natural tendancy of humans to slack off and let someone else do all the work, and still failing. And they've got the resources of the largest MMORPG in the world, with an income in the multiple millions of dollars per day.

I'm not a host anymore. I won't be one again. So I have no stake in this. And personally, I'm in favor of full automation just so that the whiners can get what they bloody well deserve. Carnage is not what it was, and never will be. It's become nothing but a randomizing mechanism to distribute wins with. I wish they would automate the thing, have it run every hour on the hour, whatever. It's not Carnage anymore anyway. Not what people like Bringer and Tu.... and Wasse and Rashidi and I built. Not even what I watched die.

The problem is not in the Carnage staff, except to the extent that the system chews up good people and spits them out, and leaves only those who don't really care anymore, because only someone who doesn't care about much of anything, especially about being a good Carnage host, can stand how the community treats those hosts. The problem is a combination of player expectations (and behavior) and the out-of-control power situation in Nexus. There is no way to turn back the clock to one 4-team Carnage per week per league, and there is no way to rein in the powerhunting, without angering enormous numbers of players. There is, simply put, no way to fix what's broken.

I was a host for three years. During my 8 months or so as head host, I found myself putting 20+ hours a week into the job, between hosting, paperwork, dealing with participants, meetings, fighting Nexon, yadda, yadda. Yeah, another part-time job, except I was paying for the privilege of doing it. And I did it anyway, out of the sheer love of Carnage, the sheer love of being able to make something good happen. Even with all the bad things (another one of those stories I can't tell), I loved it. I wouldn't go back now, but I wouldn't have missed that for the world. If you're the kind of person who can be a host, the contact high you get from being in a room of 100 people having a great time pays for all. The feeling you get from some random participant whispering "great Carnage" as you're locking up the doors afterwards can leave you sitting an inch above your chair.

A bit of trivia for you: I never wanted to be head host. I was happy running Bloodlust. I kind of got roped into it, agreed to do it for as long as it took to get a replacement, and ended up doing it for almost a year. I wish things had gone better. I feel responsible for a lot of what's happened to Carnage. I didn't fight hard enough ... the Carnage archon (two different ones, actually) had personal issues with me (yes, I knew who they really were) ... there were things going on at Nexon ... maybe if someone else had been head, things would have been different. I gave it all I had. I did what I could. I went to the wall for my staff and for the players. Maybe I should have let them fire me ... would that have mattered? Or would they just have put in a figurehead with "the name and the blame" like they did later? I was the last real Carnage head, the last who had anywhere close to the kind of power that Wasse held, and I wasn't good enough. I didn't do enough. I don't know what I could have done, but I know what the results were. I couldn't save Carnage from what it has become. And for that ... to all of you ... I'm sorry.

-- Worldwalker
who built Bloodlust ... one of the two things I did in Nexus I'm really proud of


--------------------
Honor. Duty. Responsibility. Courage. Courtesy. Generosity. Pride.
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DEREKSMART
post Jul 28 2006, 12:13 PM
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QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

Regarding automation:

I think of all the people here, I may have the best background to discuss the mechanics of hosting. I was a host from the golden age (Wasse's era) through the beginning of the end (my own time as head host) and I was present for many of the major changes in Carnage overall.


I too was once a host for quite a while (pre-autodye and everything) and I am familiar with the mechanics as well.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

One critical thing: if Dereksmart was right, which he isn't, I'd have been a lot better at picking teams. The reason automatically-picked teams suck 9 times out of 10 is that it isn't, unfortunately, just a matter of statistics. Even if I wanted to, I could not walk into the Carnage hall and run a Carnage today, not one you'd want to go to. It would take me at least a month of playing and observing that level of Carnage to be able to pick teams, possibly more if it's something like Glory which is so heavily dependant on skill.


So if I was right then the current auto-dye system would pick better teams, thus implying you would have been a lot better at picking teams? I've talked about this before and that's completely incorrect. No where have I ever said the current auto-dye system is adequate to pick balanced teams.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

[paragraphs about skill > stats]


I fully realize this and know what I'm talking about when I say a computer program can take this into consideration. Think about how you or any other host balances tops. You do so based upon your experience of their skill; a judgment based upon statistics. Statistics that aren't always complete or correct in the current context due to failures in human memory.

Statistics could be taken from not only a weighted win/loss record, but also kill/support logs. It would not be too difficult to implement a system that not only tracks kills and the overall damage a player deals to a team but one that tracks the support role of poets who buff, debuff and heal players. As if the human hosts even come remotely close to properly judging skill anyways!

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

Then you have the third component, combinations of players. For instance, a certain mage, poet, and rogue trio who were a longtime headache for hosts because any two of them in combination were more than twice as lethal as either alone, and if you somehow got all three on a team, you'd better put the whole other team against them, and I'm only exaggerating slightly. Some poets won't heal rogues, some won't heal anything but rogues. Some players will try to lose if their friends are on the other team or their enemies are on their own team. Some hate each other so much they'll devote all their time to killing their enemy if he's on the other team and wind up being almost useless to their team overall.


Player combos would be implicitly taken care of using the previous statistics I mentioned. Players that are really good together will gain quite a bit of weight in the system until such a time where they'll start getting split up to even the teams out. If they start sucking when not together then they'll lose weight and start getting thrown onto the same team. It's a cyclical system that works just like how the human mind works. If you know that for the past 5 carnages combo X has been really killer and you have no way to balance them out on the other team, then you split them up for the sake of the carnage. The thing is, the computer system will pick up on trends far faster than a human and thus will make better decisions regarding the combo more often than a human would.

Also, how many hosts actually do these things now? You're quick to bash the presented automated system for perceived inferiority to a human host, but you don't even realize how rare it is that a current host makes decent judgment regarding the balancing of tops. Most of the hosts probably just have a notion of "This guy sucks" or "This guy is good" pretty much separating the skill gradient into 2 absolutes. Maybe if they have they're wits about them they'll know about some decent combos, but that still doesn't give them the ability to make good teams with what's there; and it shows!

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

Finally there are the other weird factors. For instance, there's the lag issue. There was a time when I would check my own lag before picking for Avatars (pre-Celestial days) because I knew if I was lagging, so were a particular three tops (warrior, poet, mage), which would affect their performance. Our ISPs shared some critical bit of infrastructure or something en route to Nexus, so we either all lagged or we all didn't. Some people are slackers, no matter what their stats, and are semi-afk half the time. Some people are character sharers. I used to tell my hosts to count how many of the "leech sisters" were there; if it was just one, the odds were that that person was sharing, and probably one of the ones who were really good; if you had the whole set, they were who they should be; anywhere in between was a crapshoot. There were one or two character sharers who I simply, flat-out asked who they were that day, and picked teams accordingly. (I'd lost faith in Nexon enforcing their rules at all at that point; let them catch their own char sharers, starting with some of the really blatant ones who had admitted it in public, I had a Carnage to run) Then there are the odds and ends like, oh, people with particularly important weapons. (Eggy and the NB Ee San Nimble Blade in Ancients for instance) Most of them don't matter, but a few do, very, very much.


Believe it or not, lag is not as big of an issue as it was in the past when most players were on 56k with a few gifted ones having broadband. Many more players have broadband now, thus making judgments based on connection speeds almost completely useless. Those that lag consistently will probably suck and will be treated as such in the system.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

Does all of this matter?

If it didn't, any random person could be given host powers and a 5-minute briefing on how to use them and pick perfect teams. Autodye could pick perfect teams right now. Neither one, of course, is true.


Yeah, because you're arguing a strawman.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

People have said elsewhere that I was particularly good at team picking; I don't happen to think so myself, not compared to people like Falaris or Calmwind, but I was certainly better than J. Random Newbiehost making his first try at it. (except when that newbie was CW, but that's a long story) The reason manual picking takes so long isn't that we're all sitting there playing poker. It's because we're sweating blood over whether those teams are going to be balanced or not, and debating with each other on how to make them perfect.


Believe it or not, the thought process involved in balancing a carnage is nothing more than simple logic and statistical (and not just statistics related to stats) inference. Something which computers excell at leaps and bounds beyond our very fallible minds.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

There are no statistics you can measure that will improve autodye. Carnage records? What are you going to do with that, if someone is good and wins more than average, stack the teams against them so whatever unfortunate person gets teamed with them is guaranteed a loss? How about checking lag? Just like when people used to think the hosts looked at equipped stats, not naked, and so they would put on junk items until the round started, if the system was measuring lag those people would start huge downloads to lag down their connections during autodye. I wish there was a way to put a skilled host into a script, because I'd probably even be playing again if I could go to Carnage and be guaranteed it would be really, really good. The problem is, the kind of data recording and analysis it would take to duplicate what a good host actually does, even if it was possible to do and impossible to exploit, would take a huge amount of code, work, and resources in general. How do you write a script that understands that some poet only heals rogues, or that some rogue will slack if his RL g/f is on the other team? It's hard enough to manage that with dedicated human beings, with all the analysis that a trained human brain can bring to the job; you're not going to do it in any script that can run inside a MMORPG, especially one as old as Nexus.


There is one point I will concede and it is that yes it would take a decent chunk of time and work to implement the system correctly. Something which Kru is probably currently incapable of doing, unfortunately.

Could the system be exploited? Sure. Can human hosts be exploited? Yes. A human host could be exploited in much the same way the system could (a good player could do crappy on purpose) except the system will pick up on it much quicker and will make the adjustments that would lead to better carnages on average. It would take quite a while for a human host to pick up on it, due to the tendency of people to put more weight on past experiences, since they are almost always exaggerated due to poor memory.

Would it be very difficult to create code that could emulate a very good host (incredibly awesome carnages 85%+ of the time)? Yeah, and it would probably take more intricate statistical gathering. Would it be very difficult to create code that could emulate a decent host (50%+)? No, this system could do it just as well as a decent host and will get better with time, surpassing such a level faster than a person would.

The question we have to ask is not whether the system could be beaten by a properly trained and very dedicated human host, but whether the carnage system even has such a host who hosts most of the carnages to begin with. The answer is no and given the fact that with the system being automated carnages could be hosted more often and conducted far faster, it's easy to see the system would FIX the current one.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

Of course, this doesn't even begin to touch on actually running the Carnage. It's a lot more complicated than the WoW Battlegrounds, and for anyone who thinks that's a functional system, two words: "AV Fishing". From what I read in patch notes once in a while, Blizzard is still trying to build an automated system that can cope with the natural tendancy of humans to slack off and let someone else do all the work, and still failing. And they've got the resources of the largest MMORPG in the world, with an income in the multiple millions of dollars per day.


I'm not familiar with WoW Battlegrounds, but from the sounds of it, I seriously doubt you can even compare it to the carnage system. They seem completely different with an entirely different set of goals inside of them (afk farming helps in there? I fail to see how doing anything would "help" in the carnage setting.) Furthermore, I may be wrong, but it seems as though the automated system for BG has very little, if any relation to the proposed one for carnages.

QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 28 2006, 10:53 AM) [snapback]5205[/snapback]

A bit of trivia for you: I never wanted to be head host. I was happy running Bloodlust. I kind of got roped into it, agreed to do it for as long as it took to get a replacement, and ended up doing it for almost a year. I wish things had gone better. I feel responsible for a lot of what's happened to Carnage. I didn't fight hard enough ... the Carnage archon (two different ones, actually) had personal issues with me (yes, I knew who they really were) ... there were things going on at Nexon ... maybe if someone else had been head, things would have been different. I gave it all I had. I did what I could. I went to the wall for my staff and for the players. Maybe I should have let them fire me ... would that have mattered? Or would they just have put in a figurehead with "the name and the blame" like they did later? I was the last real Carnage head, the last who had anywhere close to the kind of power that Wasse held, and I wasn't good enough. I didn't do enough. I don't know what I could have done, but I know what the results were. I couldn't save Carnage from what it has become. And for that ... to all of you ... I'm sorry.

-- Worldwalker
who built Bloodlust ... one of the two things I did in Nexus I'm really proud of


You did a fine job. Trust me when I say the carnage system was GREAT even when Drywater took over. It was doing well for a little while after that too, then it really went downhill. The only reason you couldn't save the carnage system is because it didn't need saving until long after you were gone.
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Falaris
post Jul 28 2006, 12:31 PM
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Oh san
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If you want to add some statistical figures since thats how I like to get points across, consider this:

Auto-dye: Under Ahalya, there were periods of forced auto-dye. Carnage received more complaints from more people. I also asked for the records for each carnage (each carnage is recorded into a database so they can pull up and see what happened in it, as well as read the host's notes). Out of 11 carnages that were autodyed, only 3 even went 3 rounds. Any decent host also knows that 3 rounds is not a sign of a good carnage either.

Me: As a Bloodlust host, for roughly 2 months at the end of last year I had a streak of all 3 round carnages, except for 1 somewhere in the middle of that time. Again, not saying 3 rounds is a medium for measuring whether the carnage was good, but at the least it was fair.

Everyone has this wild idea that if you measure a carnage by being 'good' or 'bad' that there are 2 outcomes and thus its 50/50 whether autodye would do either one. NOT TRUE. There are WAY too many more metrics and things to consider that autodye cannot account for not being a human. Read the post of Worldwalker's for numerous examples. This is why it turned out to have 3 rounds roughly about 27% of the time, and I believe that number would get worse over time had there been more than 11 carnages that I knew for sure were autodyed and tallied in as well. Even if it was 2 vs 2, autodye would not be a 50/50 chance of making even teams, as there are bugs that sometimes would make it 3 vs 1 or even put all 4 on one team.

Yes, the number one complaint is about 'host corruption' or whatever, but in reality the majority of the players who complain in this game are morons who bring their problems on themselves and take it out on others because they are spoiled brats. Period.

I had more whispers at the end of every autodye I was forced to host (and after two I couldn't take it anymore because I saw how I would do teams, knew I could do them better, and refused to keep hosting carnages that weren't fun) about how bad teams were and how people were just ready to quit going to carnage than even from my WORST carnages. I have yet to see audodye receive 'Thanks' posts on community board about what an amazing time people had (to this day, my 4 favorite screenshots are 4 posts of thanks after the best carnage I have ever hosted, not to mention it was in an arena map that I designed). I may have gotten some complaints for being egotistical or whatever from some of my enemies, but I know for damn sure that more people than not enjoyed how I hosted, being generally reliable for good teams and not being a robot who didn't interact at all with the players. I don't look at the job like I am going to a board meeting and I have to act perfect every time, I would make fun of players who die like newbies, I would taunt players in sage after the 2nd round going onto the 3rd who said at the beginning my teams sucked, I would not put up with crap from players, and I think 99 times out of a 100 my carnages ran extremely smoothly because I wouldn't let all the jerks push me around. It wasn't until the archons from and after Worldwalker's time started putting on more and more restrictions that hosts in general couldn't do their job as well in areas of control and players began to walk all over them more and more and not until Ahalya that things started going the hosts way again, but by then most was lost. Of course, not caring if I got fired or not, that didn't really change things much for me, and I like to consider myself an old-school host (more than a few hosts got annoyed every time I said 'back in my day...').

It is my belief that a host can heighten the experience of carnage. Do you think that sports announcers who are popular are robotic in nature? No, they scream when there is a goal, get caught up in the excitement, and relay that to the people listening. Similarly, when a host starts yelling about if they are going to see revenge the next round, walking over to the teams and trying to get them pumped up, and then screaming "FIIIIGGGGGGHHHTTTTT!!!!!" it is a lot better than "Round 2: You may now fight." A few times I would get a host to pick one team, I'd pick another, and we would act like commanders on a battlefield, shouting orders and encouraging words to the teams.

Another thing to consider is elixir auto-dye. How come maybe twice out of an entire month at the most, hosts don't touch how tops were autodyed and will just fix the numbers by moving newbies from one team to another (yes, even if they don't balance, autodye still can't get the teams at even numbers usually). Since NOTHING relies on stats, any type of autodye would not really work whatsoever for elixir.

I guess if you are one of those who just like to go, see if you can kill a few people, get your prize so you are one step closer to Sam san, and hang out in Sire pit all day going LAWL LAWL, then autodye is probably a pretty nice alternative for you. And given that so many people who go to carnages are retarded like this, thats why I don't even mind if they did automate carnages. But the fact is, autodye will never and can never do what hosts do until artificial intelligence is fully developed and implemented into a system like this, and then it's just like another person anyway, no?


-Falaris

Edit: Seeing DEREKSMART's response, I have to point out, you do agree the current system is inadequate. Now, do you honestly believe KRU is going to take all that time and have the resources to do it RIGHT? Do you think they would even want to? Or do you think they would throw together whatever worked, and focus their time on all the "RP" events that the new GM is force-feeding everyone to leave her legacy?

Edit 2: And, furthermore, does your proposed system take into account people who use LJ? smile.gif


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Engell
post Jul 28 2006, 11:18 PM
Post #11


Il san
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QUOTE(Hardcore nexus player @ Jul 27 2006, 10:06 PM) [snapback]5148[/snapback]

Con: Adjusting your life so that nexus comes first.
Con: Waste your time for something that should be a Kru provided Service
Con: You'll never make good teams so people that you dont even know wont like you and the people that do like you wont care that you host or not
Con: You are paying Kru your money so that you can work for Kru


Couldn't of said it any better. Is there any pro's?
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Worldwalker
post Jul 29 2006, 03:07 AM
Post #12


Sa san
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QUOTE(Engell @ Jul 29 2006, 12:18 AM) [snapback]5260[/snapback]

Couldn't of said it any better. Is there any pro's?

Yes. When a Carnage runs right and people have fun, it's a huge rush. One of the best feelings you can have in Nexus. Well, for me anyway; your mileage may vary.

I miss that. A lot.

Crazy as it may sound, I even miss dealing with disgruntled participants. Not because I enjoy being sworn at and told I'm either incompetent, stupid, or corrupt, but because I could usually get them to understand why things had to be done the way they were, and they usually ended up, even if not really satisfied, at least happier than they had been. It didn't always happen that way, but often enough.

That was one of the reasons why being head host took up so much of my time. If someone needed to talk about something, I would talk (at least until it became clear that it was going nowhere). Anything from bad team picking to them getting their fool posterior banned from Carnage, I felt it was my job to discuss it with them if they wanted. If it was a hosting problem, listening to the complaints helped me get it fixed. If it was a player behavior problem, talking with the offender helped prevent repeat offenses. (and cut down a lot on the Comm flaming) Other people do things differently, but that worked for me ... but killed a lot of my free time.

Hosting can be an incredible amount of fun. You get to really watch Carnage in a way that you can never do when you're in there fighting. The cameraderie among the hosts was something special back in the day; dunno if it still is. You're a part of something really special. And there's the feeling that you're doing something -- giving, not just taking.

Obviously some people are going to read this and say "so?" ... well, they shouldn't be hosts. They'd hate it. But for the people who understand what I'm talking about, it's worth all the cons, at least until you burn out.

-- Worldwalker

btw, for the people who think hosts do it for the "pay" ... y'know, the only time I ever bothered to pick up mine was when some friend needed an item ... Carnage owes me a couple of years of back pay!


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Hardcore nexus p...
post Jul 29 2006, 08:45 AM
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QUOTE(Worldwalker @ Jul 29 2006, 03:07 AM) [snapback]5286[/snapback]

Yes. When a Carnage runs right and people have fun, it's a huge rush. One of the best feelings you can have in Nexus. Well, for me anyway; your mileage may vary.

I miss that. A lot.


I guess it takes a certain type of person to be a carnage host. A person who doesnt have a problem changes cons into pros.

Pro: Adjusting your life so that nexus comes first
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Corath
post Jul 29 2006, 01:20 PM
Post #14


Sam san
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I was a carnage host under Worldwalker and Drywater, and for the most part I had a great time.

Most of the pros and cons are very valid... I know for sure my wife wouldn't want me to cancel a romantic evening because I had to host a carnage. (I think she'd kill me tongue.gif)

All in all though, I had a great time as a host. I loved the fact that people knew me, I knew people, and we generally had a good time. I always made a point of going over to each team and trying to get them in the mood of things, and whatever else.

I also remember very clearly... lol... one of my very first times as a host of BL, I accidentaly cast Mass Vertigo on everyone. Then all of a sudden, "Worldwalker! CORATH!!!!" I was in a corner, I didn't know it would affect the whole map!!! wink.gif

Good times... smile.gif


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I play World of Warcraft. Thrall-NA server, Horde faction.

Corath's Blog - randomness about World of Warcraft and beyond.
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Aaron
post Jul 29 2006, 10:20 PM
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Cool. I left for three months, and the naysayers still ruin all the forums. Awesome.

Go for it, man. I've never done it, but I have held a high council position in Heavens. While the correlation is far from anything decent, I can say wholeheartedly that helping people was fun.

Maybe you'll enjoy it, too.


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solman
post Jul 30 2006, 09:37 PM
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Oh san
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I personally was one of the fastest growing hosts nexus has seen in quite a long time. I became a head host in less then a months time. I was apart of the transition of moving from manual to auto dye. I was a carnage participant almost every day prior since 3.0. I knew exactly how carnages are ran and how to pick fairly decent teams. Truth be told however, when I was first hired and given the chance to pick legends as my first time picking teams.. I picked teams I thought all the hosts would agree with rather then what I agreed with. Basically meaning if I were to play in a carnage I would know how teams would turn out and thats how I picked them. The carnage was a semi slaughter. Pretty easy win but it did last a little longer then most. Thats when I personally said, im never picking teams again to please other hosts.

After that point I picked teams to what I saw as fair. Afterwords hosts can look it over and we can argue whos who and if its fair or not. After this I would say 90% of all carnages I picked went all rounds. When being a bloodlust head I recall some special nights where I would host alone and have over 200 people show up. If hosting solo, teams were picked under 3 minutes and the match started in around 7 minutes after door closing. Those saturday night madness carnages were alot of fun.

Personally as a host I was all about having fun. I wanted everybody as a whole to have fun. I would literally ask and poll people to spam me on what theme they wanted. Half the time I did do at least 2 themes. That being 3 out of 5 rounds and whatever other theme people wanted. Longest carnage I ever hosted was a saturday midnight madness solo. I started it at 11pm central time and it didn't end till 2am central time. I hosted it solo until around midnight. This was 3 of 5 rounds and it did go all 5 rounds. I got yelled at by a few people they had to go to bed but everybody who could stay up or got in trouble doing so said it was by far to long of a carnage but it was the best one they had in ages. Its those kinds of moments as a host thats worth being a host. They are rare and few between even for good hosts trust me. This carnage took me around 5 minutes to dye and 10 minutes from door opening to get it started.

Now I personally was a rebel. I refused to auto dye. I don't care if 500 people showed up or 20 people showed up. If I picked teams personally other then an observer, I manually dyed every single participant. I was yelled at many times for this. Yet I saw myself as quick and efficent at this. I honestly don't see many hosts who couldn't be with this. Its after you dye everybody and have a basis to work off of is when you start arguing and moving people around. More hosts who throw their opinions in are the situations where teams take ages to pick. Believe me, as hosts we wanted teams to be perfect with an equal chance for everybody.

The whole auto dye was ment for 2 things. To speed up team picking (which I don't see it did since we had to refilter the whole team anyways) and to eventually get carnages as auto run without hosts. Which hey if they want to do that its fine by me to. As a player I could manipulate the auto dye system no matter what circumstances they threw in. Worldwalker said it best, people can manipulate their connections, stats, equipment, or even who they like or dislike. You don't think a smart carnage player could manipulate this system? Hell elixir wars are almost all automated. I can pick my own team when walking threw the doors as I see fit. If I see a friend on 1 team, over 90% of the time I can get on his team just by walking threw the door at the right time.

Now I would have to say, archons and so forth I was probably 1 of the most hated players that archons wanted to deal with. Just for the fact that my poet was a nudist, my rogue would constantly be well.. cdc and very well hated by all. I don't really recall solman being hated other then by subpaths and/or clans or any type of high position in nexus because he would remain a nudist no matter what. Was not hated in the aspect like I was a bad guy but the roleplay didn't fit their happy mold of what a player should do. My mage and carnage host however was pretty well liked by everybody. Its when they clump each of my roleplays and characters together is when I would be singled out and hated by certain archons and so forth.

I remember the day I was even mentioned I should be a carnage host, I was told not to apply threw my poet because you can't be a nude host and don't apply on cdc because you were to hated on that character. I was actually asked if I had a character that could fit the role of a host and not hated by all who was 99er+.

Now if I did become head host, I would almost gaurentee I would be the shortest lived head host because I would demand and fight with the carnage archon about a few rules like auto dye being required as so forth. As every carnage head in the past or even division head, we all have a theory or an idea of what we would like to see carnages become and develop. I had many ideas of what I wanted to see carnages become. Hopefully those ideas would take ages to develop and write the code to keep nexon from attempting to make carnages fully automated, yet ideas to help that idea along.

Now theres a few things Worldwalker did forget to mention. If nexon truely made hosts extinct and a fully automated system, how can the system stop rule breakers? For example team killers. Can a system determine whats an accident and whats legit? A simple inferno and oops 2 teammates die but the other teams top dies. Opps auto boot with a ban.. What about pre 99er carnages with rogues not seeing other teammates and killing newbie rogues.. Whoops auto ban and boot although they couldn't see them nor was it a multi casting spell. This spell was ment for single targets. They can't single this feature out. What about keeping people from running around pre rounds? Now this 1 I can actuall figure them doing something about. Doors close and auto dye and all players go into a door via npc warp into the arena. everybody starts at once in their own area. This could prevent it but I see even more glitches, lag outs and crashes from players leading to even more unbalanced teams.

As sad as it sounds. Any host is the X factor in a carnage. They are responsible for keeping it fair, fun, and balanced. No system and auto simulate this. Not even for players who log to avoid being dyed right away, which is another thing that can be abused. Have a top log and auto dye, they log back in and all of a sudden even in the remote possiblity teams were fair this will make them unfair.

My vision for carnages would of been a very good one if I didn't come to a short end due to the whole being reset and banned thing. There was alot of things I wanted to see and means for improvement. Now this is 1 of a few reasons I have for not wanting to come back, I am actually one of the few people who actually still want to be a host. I want to feel like id be making a diffrence in improving nexus in at least a few ways. Which is the kind of drive you need if you want to be a host in general. Its the realization that you can't make that kind of diffrence no matter how much effort you put in is when you really lose that desire as a host. I mean all hosts have their reasons for not wanting to come back and being a host. Yet most want to feel like their time and effort was ment for the improvement or for those extreme cases the demise of something. You don't want to see whatever opposite extreme your trying to reach because then you will feel like your time was all for nothing.

Now as a player on my rogue, his whole roleplay was to be hated by the community. He was suppose to be an egomaniac, yet he was also suppose to do pretty funny things that are boarderline and yet still get away with it. As a player I know a few hosts got a few great laughs out of some of the antics I did on my rogue, yet some of the things they despised him for because they knew if any action they took they would get torn a new 1 due to it would throw teams drastically off. I do recall one time I was the last person alive as always and a host saged "any other blue team alive" and I turned around and was being chased by 2 people and still saged back "shut up (host name)". He gave me an auto boot and the round and carnage was over. That made almost the whole carnage staff, players and everybody around him come down on him because he literally booted the only survivor during a round but in essence ended the carnage and gave the win to the other team. Most hosts would just say not to say that, extreme cases being they do something afterwords which rarely happend because it was blown off by then and its just expected from my rogue. So again like I said, hosts get to sit back and watch a carnage but they really can be the X factor. Yet when just watching a carnage it can be fun talking to hosts and seeing basically what you created. Oh BTW corath.. Mass vertigo is evil!


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PoeticTruth
post Aug 1 2006, 03:01 PM
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I definitely agree that it takes a certain person to Carnage host. I did it for over a year and a half. Now I am a Fox hunt host, a Guide, and a Tutor. I suppose I'm one of those "Certain" people who loves to help others at my own expense. The own expense is very little sleep, skipping of social events, or simply just working when I log on nexus instead of talking, hunting, and doing things I would want to do.

But I can honestly say I have enjoyed my time as an Elixir host, and still enjoy my times now.

Worldwalker is completely correct. There is no bigger rush than having a well balanced carnage event where everyone has fun, thanks you for your hard work, and enjoys themselves. It's getting over the people who can never possibly have anything ever good to say -cough- yfandes -cough- and just enjoying the people who actually want to have fun.

Personally, I think the dolts who are so doltastic that they go to events JUST TO COMPLAIN are hillarious. They make me laugh A) Because they waste their time knowing they won't have fun and cool.gif They think they actually affect people. Thing is hosts KNOW who the complainers are, and we've learned to ignore them. No, we don't place them on nasty teams, sabotage their chances of winning, or anything like that. We just revel in their sheer ability to be jerks when someone is doing something for them.

People may say that "Hey, you get paid for your position, you shouldn't be complaining -and take my abuse-". Ok, i'll trade what.. 12 hours of my week, atleast, for 1 carnage prize per week. Sure, that sounds dandy. Oh wait, if i worked a MINIMUM WAGE JOB doing HALF the things I do for a carnage event.. I could pay for Nexus for atleast 6 months. Dandy. There is NO EXCUSE for host harassment. Sure, if you're friends with a host and you aren't being rude, that's fine. But random insults just because you lost, or complaining about a wait, or simply sticking up your nose because something doesn't go you way, is not ok.

But i'm not complaining, as I said before, I really enjoy it. You just need to be able to recognize when you can't handle the work load anymore and give it to people who really can.

As for Automation, that would't work. First of all, who would the players have to complain to when their teams were "Unfair??!" That'd be a tragedy. But seriously, a big part of the carnage process is the people who run them. Just think if you got your tech support from someone you couldn't understand.. (gee wizz, who doesn't complain about that) or even converse with a COMPUTER.. "I'm sorry, I don't understand.." .. to get somewhere? We all desprately press 0 when we want to talk to an operator.. think if there was no one but a computer on the end of the line.

That's almost iRobotish. scary

And Corath, I did that once. WHOOPS lol, Hosting mishaps ftw
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Prizma
post Aug 3 2006, 09:14 PM
Post #18


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Thank you Everyone who replied to my post! I apperciate the insight and I did enjoy reading about others experciences. The pro's and con's seem to be pretty much what I thought they were. I think I will give it a go as soon as my baby is born, I don't want to commit to something that I might not be able to follow through with. I can see it now, if they accept me my first day of training I will have to go to the hospital, Lol.

I think my biggest concern with applying to be a carnage host (and if I am accepted) is that I am a weak lvl 99. I have 11k vita and nearly 3K Mana....and I have been playing since Yuri 37. I just don't want to host a carnage and have higher lvl players not take me seriously because I am a weak character, or kill me and then do whatever they want, running a muck. Perhaps I'm being overly paranoid... >.< Any thoughts?

~*~ Prizma ~*~

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Worldwalker
post Aug 3 2006, 09:45 PM
Post #19


Sa san
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QUOTE(Prizma @ Aug 3 2006, 10:14 PM) [snapback]6065[/snapback]

I think my biggest concern with applying to be a carnage host (and if I am accepted) is that I am a weak lvl 99. I have 11k vita and nearly 3K Mana....and I have been playing since Yuri 37. I just don't want to host a carnage and have higher lvl players not take me seriously because I am a weak character, or kill me and then do whatever they want, running a muck. Perhaps I'm being overly paranoid... >.< Any thoughts?

The first Carnage I hosted, I was 15/25. DDarkstorm killed me. (deliberately, and then tried to bribe me, but that's another story entirely) It happens. It'll happen to you. Calmwind was killed hosting. ShinI was killed hosting.

It's not your stats that people respect. It's your host dye and skill they respect, and your finger on the boot button they fear.

And if they do kill you, as many people have found out the hard way, the boot button (and the head host's ban button) works just fine when you're a ghost.

-- Worldwalker
who has accidentally Infernoed her share of hosts


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solman
post Aug 3 2006, 10:58 PM
Post #20


Oh san
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Despite I don't want to admit it, when I was reset I was still a host. I was a level 3 newbie as a divison head. lets just say i was killed many times. I just made a new rule saying it was okay to kill me since 1 ambush = instant death. But like worldwalker said, we all die eventually. However no matter what your level or stats you will be taken seirously as a host. Imagine a level 3 division head and how serious do you think people would take me? The newbies in power jokes still come to mind to haunt me.


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