Balance

[Maranya Valkonan]

This is split off from the Your input is requested topic over on the Magic OOC board.

Neo has been of the opinion that DoF and DoM are getting the short end of the stick in favor of DoS in terms of nights.

From what I have observed in my relatively short time participating in the Duels (only since April 1st or so this year), I believe that Neo is absolutely right.

Duel of Magic is getting the extremely short end of the stick when it comes to the schedule.

Let's break it down, day by day.

Sunday. Fight night on RoH. All three sports get equal time, according to the schedule. So that's 1/3 Magic, 1/3 Fists, and 1/3 Swords.

Monday. Fists on DM. According to the RoH schedule, it's also Magic there, but as I have learned, no one apparently participates/calls for Magic on Mondays. They do call as a rule on DM for Fists. Therefore, Mondays go to Fists. Full point.

Tuesday. Magic on DM. According to the RoH schedule, it's also Fists there. I have learned that people do call for Fists on RoH on Tuesdays, so at best Tuesday is a split between Magic and Fists. Half point each.

Wednesday. Fists on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a semi regular basis. Full point to Fists.

Thursday. Swords on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

Friday. Swords on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

Saturday. Swords on DM. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

So, let's now do the math.

Swords: 1/3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 1/3 days

Fists: 1/3 + 1 + 1/2 +1 = 2 5/6 days.

Magic: 1/3 + 1/2 = 5/6 of a day.

Magic really is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the schedule, and the numbers prove it.

What would be fair all around is this:

1) Fight Night remain as it is.

2) The shared days disappear. In other words, Monday remains Fists on DM, and Tuesday remains Magic on DM, without competition from the other sports.

3) Swords gives up a day for Magic. My suggestion is either Thursday or Friday. Why do I suggest this? Because each of the other sports maintain a DM presence once a week, and Saturdays is the DM day for Swords.

Voila! Every sport gets one day on DM and one on RoH, not counting Fight Night on RoH. Equal time, for the most part, between the sites. And, most importantly, equal time for all the sports.

Balance.

[Elijah]

I think every night should be Fight Night and that the DM and RoH become one overall forum again sharing the same storyboards and chat room lists.

Once upon a time they were of the same forum and I think its time for this community to come full circle and reunite. In June 1993 I signed on to AOL for the first time as a table top RPG player who when scrolling through the available chat rooms list saw "Red Dragon Inn" and instantly clicked on the choice. Through a couple sessions of D&D style RPing I was introduced to DoS. The rest as they say is history, but that history has seen some crazy times both good and bad since then. The dueling community split from the RDI on AOL when things got really bad and we both ended up getting terminated from AOL. Both the RDI as the now DM and RoH have survived the circumstances, stabilizied, and have already reconnected. The DM doesn't need the RoH as much as the RoH probably need the DM to stimulate continued new interest, but in the begining people came to the Inn to RP then got into the duels anyway.

By reuniting both communities fully gives everything more convient exposure in the same outlet for the general RPing and writing while gaining more ease to grab in a quick duel. I think we could keep some of the dueling flair and style in our sections, and by making every night available to all three sports, every sport has a fair shake. Choice and convience will bring and keep the massess more than seperatism.

[Jaycy Ashleana]

A very quick reply to one thing:

3) Swords gives up a day for Magic. My suggestion is either Thursday or Friday. Why do I suggest this? Because each of the other sports maintain a DM presence once a week, and Saturdays is the DM day for Swords.

Find a caller willing to do it, maybe it will happen... but also remember that Swords has always been the most popular of the three sports.

The sports have very few callers as it is. They are volunteers, and work too hard anyway. They have a choice where they want to call. If DoM wants more nights, DoM needs more callers willing to officiate duels.

DoM "gets the short end of the stick" because there aren't many DoM callers. You want to change that? Volunteer your time. (And that is a general you, not directed at Anya specifically.)

[Goldglo]

Duel of Magic is getting the extremely short end of the stick when it comes to the schedule.

Let's break it down, day by day.

Sunday. Fight night on RoH. All three sports get equal time, according to the schedule. So that's 1/3 Magic, 1/3 Fists, and 1/3 Swords.

The potential for 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3 is there, yes; however, it's up to the duelers that evening to decide what sport they want to duel in for any given match. I don't have the overall FightNight statistics broken down, but I'm willing to wager it's not a 33.3% split overall.

Monday. Fists on DM. According to the RoH schedule, it's also Magic there, but as I have learned, no one apparently participates/calls for Magic on Mondays. They do call as a rule on DM for Fists. Therefore, Mondays go to Fists. Full point.

Yes, DoF, currently, is the only active Monday sport (RDI shift). However, it's worth noting that the Monday shift has no scheduled caller; those folks you see there each week are covering an otherwise empty shift which, ironically, is DoF's most popular shift of the week by leaps and bounds over the others.

Tuesday. Magic on DM. According to the RoH schedule, it's also Fists there. I have learned that people do call for Fists on RoH on Tuesdays, so at best Tuesday is a split between Magic and Fists. Half point each.

Hardly anyone even comes into the RoH Outback on Tuesdays, and even fewer duel. The Tuesday DoF shift has a scheduled caller (Wyheree). DoM has a staffed RDI shift which is usually pretty busy.

Wednesday. Fists on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a semi regular basis. Full point to Fists.

Similar to Tuesday, hardly anyone comes to/duels in the RoH Outback on Wednesday. Wednesday has a scheduled caller (Kheldar), but he often works late during the summertime and can't always make the shift.

Thursday. Swords on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

Yes, DoS, currently, is the only active Thursday sport (RoH shift).

Friday. Swords on RoH. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

Yes, DoS, currently, is the only active Friday sport (RoH shift). However, this shift no longer has a regularly scheduled caller.

Saturday. Swords on DM. It doesn't have to share with any other sport, and it is called for on a fairly regular basis. Full point to Swords.

Yes, DoS, currently, is the only active Saturday sport (RDI shift).

So, let's now do the math.

Swords: 1/3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 1/3 days

Fists: 1/3 + 1 + 1/2 +1 = 2 5/6 days.

Magic: 1/3 + 1/2 = 5/6 of a day.

Magic really is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the schedule, and the numbers prove it.

DoM only having 1 regularly scheduled shift is mostly due to lack of calling staff. If someone wants to call DoM on Mondays over on RoH, I imagine there would be few, if any, objections.

What would be fair all around is this:

1) Fight Night remain as it is.

2) The shared days disappear. In other words, Monday remains Fists on DM, and Tuesday remains Magic on DM, without competition from the other sports.

One issue with this would be that most shifts would then take place over on the RDI. We want shift representation over on the RDI, but I don't believe (personal opinion) that the majority of the duels should be held over on the RDI. Having one shift per week, per sport, over on the RDI has done a world of good for RoH and it's brought in a lot of new players/old players back to the game. That's a wonderful thing, and we're extremely grateful to Panter and the RDI Admin team for letting us share space.

If we keep one-shift-per-sport-per-week over on the RDI and eliminate shared days, we'd have DoF on RDI Mondays, DoM on RDI Tuesdays, DoS on RoH Thursdays or Fridays and RDI Saturdays, and Fight Night on RoH Sundays. That leaves Wednesday and Thursday/Friday for two other days for DoS/DoM/DoF to somehow split to each get another day of the week, shiftwise.

3) Swords gives up a day for Magic. My suggestion is either Thursday or Friday. Why do I suggest this? Because each of the other sports maintain a DM presence once a week, and Saturdays is the DM day for Swords.

If people want to duel DoS on Thursdays/Fridays, and the calling staff's available, I think it's good to have the shift (again, Fridays has no current regularly scheduled caller for DoS). Likewise, there's a caller willing to host DoM on Thursday or Friday, and Topaz agrees, then I'm fairly confident a shift would be held/established.

Voila! Every sport gets one day on DM and one on RoH, not counting Fight Night on RoH. Equal time, for the most part, between the sites. And, most importantly, equal time for all the sports.

Balance.

To address a couple of Elijah's points, too:

We talked about making every night "Fight Night" and while I once thought that was a really great idea, I don't think it's necessary to do so at the moment. A lot of uniqueness would be lost, even if venues changed every night. Swordfighting on the Isle, magic-wielding within the Outback, etc. - the RP traditions and distinctiveness of each setting would start to fade away. I'm not saying we need to always be beholden to tradition or 'the way things have always been done', but while every-night-Fight-Night would have upsides on one hand, there would be downsides on the other.

As far as a merging of the RDI and RoH, that's an entirely different subject that I don't want to derail this thread. Suffice it to say, in this thread at least, there are some who think it'd be a grand idea, and others who think it would be a terrible idea.

We've had a few more folks join the staff in recent weeks (thank you!), which will help, but not all of them can do a full shift each week and will mainly serve backup/shift-covering roles.

I think (personal opinion) the schedule does need some tweaking but a lot of what can be done with the schedule is reliant upon a) the number of available callers and b) the nights those volunteers are available to call. The schedule is not purpously weighted to favor one sport over another, or slight one sport over another. The schedule isn't designed to imply 'RoH supports DoS over DoM' or anything like that. I'd love it if DoM could find the staff to reclaim its Monday (or whatever other day) shift and run more than once a week. The schedule's currently the product of and limited to volunteer availability. As I wrote earlier, it's currently a topic of discussion amongst the sport/site leadership and we'll do our utmost to make the best out of the available volunteers.

--Matt (the real one)

[Delahada]

all right - so

here's a question

how many staff/callers are there? and - are they all trained to call for every sport, or just a select few?

I'm asking 'cause - making every night fight night is not a bad idea, really, and if you had enough staff members you wouldn't even have to have it be in just the annex. which I agree is silly. I think each sport deserves its own place.

let's say you had fight night every night, though. to keep them all separated into their own unique areas (arena, outback, isle), you'd need at least three callers every night. ideally, you'd probably want 21 staff/callers total, right? that way you could give one caller one place one night a week and not overwhelm anybody. but I really doubt you've got that many people.

here's who I know: Goldglo (Matt), Tormay, Topaz. Misty, Michiko, Guill, Imp, Wyrhee (sp?). and there's probably others. but okay. right there you've got 8 callers.

I know the annex isn't ideal right now, but right there you've got at least one person to cover one night a week. if you did do fight night every night, then maybe that in and of itself would attract more participation, and if you get more participation, more people enjoying the duels, then maybe, just maybe, you'll find more people willing to apply to call as well?

just a thought.

[Jaycy Ashleana]

here's who I know: Goldglo (Matt), Tormay, Topaz. Misty, Michiko, Guill, Imp, Wyrhee (sp?). and there's probably others. but okay. right there you've got 8 callers.

I know the annex isn't ideal right now, but right there you've got at least one person to cover one night a week. if you did do fight night every night, then maybe that in and of itself would attract more participation, and if you get more participation, more people enjoying the duels, then maybe, just maybe, you'll find more people willing to apply to call as well?

This implies that every caller would be willing to call every sport.

I have a hosting name but I don't commit to a regular shift/call much because I have class Mon-Thurs nights and generally have things to do Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Even if I did call regularly, I wouldn't call DoM. Other callers may feel the same way about other sports. So even if Fight Night is every night, that doesn't mean the sports will get "equal airtime." Are you going to make it a requirement that anyone who calls has to be willing to call all 3?

[Mart]

Uh... I could call Magic on Mondays with this guy here. Is there a link to somewhere where one applies and finds someone to show them the ropes? Maybe? Somewhere? Fancy stuff?

[Amaltea]

When someone volunteers their time -- the key word is volunteer -- they pick the sport they want. It has never been a requirement to know all three.

We have had a lot of set backs with participation, it's kinda like a vicious circle. People do not duel because there are no callers, or there are no callers because players do not show up to duel for their shifts.

Right now we are very grateful to the callers that do show up every night or at least whenever possible to call a shift. Ideally we would love to have dedicated callers to a dedicated night, but we know we all have lives and things do come up.

Like Jaycy said in her previous post, if your favorite sport is suffering from lack of callers go ahead and volunteer some of your time to help out. On the other hand, if it's suffering from lack of participation bring people to the duels.

Please, this is a general "you" not directed to Anya or anyone in particular.

[Amaltea]

Uh... I could call Magic on Mondays with this guy here. Is there a link to somewhere where one applies and finds someone to show them the ropes? Maybe? Somewhere? Fancy stuff?

Here's a link to the application

As far as learning the ropes, usually a new caller is paired with an established caller.

[Mart]

Thanks!

[Delahada]

This implies that every caller would be willing to call every sport.

well yeah - I was kind of implying that. that's why I asked if callers were certified to call all three sports, but Amaltea answered that question nicely, and so did Jaycy! thank you both!

Even if I did call regularly, I wouldn't call DoM. Other callers may feel the same way about other sports.

When someone volunteers their time -- the key word is volunteer -- they pick the sport they want. It has never been a requirement to know all three.

insert space here to break apart into next thought

So even if Fight Night is every night, that doesn't mean the sports will get "equal airtime." Are you going to make it a requirement that anyone who calls has to be willing to call all 3?

based on what Amaltea said, I'm not sure I'd call it a requirement. though if, and that's the big if there, fight night was made every night I guess I'd say that those willing to call would also have to be those willing to call all three sports.

although - if you got enough callers, you could also schedule more than one per night and have it set up so that certain callers will only call certain sports. in that case, fight night wouldn't even have to be in the annex, if, again if, you had, say, 3 callers, one from each sport, for every night of the week.

y'know. that'd be ideal, I think, but who has the time? who has the inclination? yeah - I know right now participation levels are kind of low, but I also think that's because there's some confusion on the schedules.

I mean - I didn't know when dom and dof were scheduled when and where specifically until I asked anya about them. swords I know because, well, it's four freaking nights a week, including sunday fight night. always the same four days in a row.

according to what anya outlined above, it's still kind of confusing to remember when magic is and when fists is. and where.

[Michiko]

I love you Sal
Active Callers: Topaz, Misty, Myself (Michiko), Tormay, Guil, Kheldar, Wyhree, Matt (Goldglo), Imp, Kheldar

Semi Active: Jaycy, Roman, Ceroira

Plus we step in to aid with Challenges, Tournaments...

Hades Bless, I'm even willing to open the Great Helm 1 to 2 nights a week.

I came on as DoM and aside from Topaz we two are the only 2 callers that devote a standard shift to DoM. If it wasn't for covering for DoF, I could open up DoM on Mondays, but then DoF would need a caller to cover. Last night was bad enough trying to find help when I was feeling like I was about to throw up from a headache.

[Michiko]

Thanks!

No, THANK YOU!

Every set of hands is greatly appreciated.

[BardGallant]

Every set of hands is greatly appreciated.

Is that so?

[Michiko]

Well, now you had your shot big boy

Every set of hands is greatly appreciated.

Is that so?