After some discussion between most of the current staff, we have an idea proposal that will help the server run smoothly, whilst reducing work load on Zerg.
We have recognized that there are some administrative duties that Zerg does not like to perform, and as such they get put back on the metaphorical “To do list”, which often frustrates players – And this should be a solution to that.
So, to cut to the chase, we are suggesting that a member (or members) of the current modding team are given the ability to perform some of these administrative tasks, shown below:
Changing Clan Suffix: Done. This is a big one, in my opinion. I am constantly asked by players if I can change their tag to a clan tag, or if I can remove them from a clan etc, and each time I have to tell them to ask Zerg. We know that Zerg can often be very busy coding, so this players clan tag may not get changed for a while – Which frustrates them.
Save, and produce backups/snapshots of the map: Sometimes map saves get missed, which can be detrimental to the server if it crashes, causing a larger roll-back.
On a similar note, sometimes a complete map backup is not taken each day because it has been forgotten about, or Zerg is too busy – Which can be bad if something needs rolling back, but it can’t because the snapshot it needs was never taken. A limit could be applied to this command to prevent it from being run more than once every 24 hours, so as to save memory (and prevent unnecessary backups.)
Word Edit Rollback Tool: Whilst I can currently roll selected areas back, we would benefit from having someone else who could do this. Perhaps from the US timezone?
Waypoints: It can be a fair amount of work to teleport to people, see if their town meets the required criteria, and then check their forum post and members. Having a mod that could do this would remove some of the work from Zerg.
Regen the Regen Zone: People often comment that the regen zones haven’t been regenerated in a while. Having an extra person who is able to do this would ensure that they get regenerated on a weekly or fortnightly basis, which could again be limited so that they do not get regenerated too often.
Having a moderator(s) with these abilities will remove a lot of the extra work from Zerg, and allow him to solely concentrate on coding the server, which will help these tasks get done more efficiently, resulting in an overall better player experience on the server.
The people(s) with these abilities could be ranked as A-Mod (Administrative Mod), H-Mod (Head Mod), Mod, or even Admin.
This may take a bit of extra coding work to set up and produce a user friendly set of commands for these things, however once set up it would remove a lot of the extra work Zerg doesn’t like doing, allowing him to do the work and coding he wants to do.