Date:	2011-12-24 23:59
Subject:	FRIENDS ONLY
Security:	Public
Mood:	frustrated
Music:	Silence

As a resultaru of some rather evil people I found on IRC I have decided to make this journal FRIENDS ONLY. If you are a friend of mine and this is the only post you see, please comment here or email me or bug me about it on IRC and I will add you ASAP.

Date:	2008-05-20 23:36
Subject:	Point systems CAN be fair
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

Since things seem to have stabilized around here for the time being *knock on wood* I thought I'd entertain you all with another one of my wacky ideas. In this installment, I will detail what I believe to be a fair point system that can be used to effectively manage loot distribution for your group. Most groups who try to eschew flat point systems which are inherently unfair do so by creating a complex and subjective system that tries to reward relative effort instead of absolute effort. This is not necessarily a bad idea, however I want to show that instead of abandoning the point system, one can in fact incorporate these ideals into a point system. This can simplify and streamline the task of keeping track of your group, and prevent the unwanted drama that goes along with subjectively assigning rewards.

The first thing any good point system needs of course is points. No change here, you just assign points to tasks as you normally would. These will contribute to the "raw points" value for your members. Here's where we introduce two special modifiers for the points- the "attendance modifier" and the "participation modifier". The idea here is to keep track of each members' attendance and participation percentages, then use those to adjust their raw point values to something more reflective of what sort of effort they are exhibiting. I call this modified number the "real point value".

Attendance points are awarded for each run the member shows up to and participates in- generally 1 point per run. Simply divide the member's attendance points by the total number of runs since they joined to get their attendance percentage. Now, there is a slight problem- using this value as-is results in a penalty for anything less than perfect attendance. Few groups require this, and few sane leaders would WANT to require this, so we have to set some sort of baseline value and then adjust the percentage to be in accordance with it. For this example I chose 62.5%- with this base value, you multiply the percentage by 1.6 so that a bonus is granted for having better than expected attendance, and a penalty is only inflicted if attendance drops below 62.5% (and nothing is changed at all if they have exactly 62.5%, as 62.5*1.6=100).

Participation points are awarded for each event the member participates in. I like to add an additional rule that one can only earn attendance points for a run if they earned participation points for it, but it's not required if that doesn't fit your group. Generally you want people to have a high participation in the events they show up for. 100% is a perfectly sane value for most small groups. Larger groups will want to choose a lower baseline though, since there may be multiple events going on simultaneously- you obviously can't expect a member to manage to be at both at the same time, and this should not be penalized. For this example I settled on the value of 80%, so we multiply the participation percentage by 1.25 (80*1.25=100).

Once you have determined and adjusted these two percentages, the next step is to add them together and halve them, and then to multiply this modifier with the raw points value, in order to obtain the real points value.

Now that we've determined the member's actual point value, we can work on how to spend those points. Instead of using flat costs, I have instead used a percentage cost system- loot costs a specific percentage of your real points value. So in this system you never actually "spend" points, but you start to build up a penalty to your points with the more loot you wield your points on. This has the desired effect of preventing "lootwhoring", whereby somebody accrues a whole bunch of points and then can basically just take any item they want without worry for what its cost might be. Using this system, it actually becomes undesirable to hoard points as there is little benefit to it due to exponential increases in cost as point total go higher.

Finally, there is a type of bonus I'm calling "effort points"- basically, bonus points rewarded for going above and beyond what is required of members. These bonus points are added to the score AFTER all other calculations- including the loot penalty. After effort points are added, you arrive at the "final point value" and you can then determine how to deal with that member's bids.

The last aspect of this system is "priority" which is basically a set of restrictions which state who gets considered for the loot in question first. In FFXI for example, there is a disturbing trend with people who will lot something they don't need, simply because they have the points to outbid anybody else even if somebody else needs it more. In extreme cases they may bid on something which they cannot even use at all, just because they can. "priority" protects against this by limiting such bids- before point totals are even considered, first we check to see if any bidders meet the restrictions on the item. If any of them do, ALL bidders who don't meet the requirements will be disregarded, and only the points of the remaining eligible bidders will count.

Another aspect of bidding; some groups will make you lose points simply for BIDDING on an item, even if you don't win it. I think this is a dumb-fuck-idea so in my system, you only increase your loot penalty if you actually win your bid- otherwise your point total is left untouched by the attempt.

So that, in a nutshell, is what I believe to be a fair point system that satisfies the needs of groups who see flaws in standard flat point systems and want something more appropriate. Feel free to comment and criticize, or ask for clarification.

Date:	2008-05-04 15:05
Subject:	It's all falling apart
Security:	Public
Mood:	crushed

Well, looks like things didn't work out. It's all spiraling out of control here and they're threating to shut off the internet. If this is the last message you ever see from me, that means they did. If I never see any of you again, I want to say thanks to everyone who's been so nice to me, apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently upset, and... good bye :(

UPDATE: I -think- I managed to get another month, however with the way things go around here that could easily evaporate tomorrow... but hopefully it won't. *hugs everyone*