Community meeting: 11th November 2017 @ 3pm GMT

[Snowman]

Meeting Saturday 11th November 2017
Time 15:00 UK time (GMT - we're out of BST now for our non UK friends)
Venue: Teamspeak

The meeting will start with a brief explanation of how we will run Q&A, to avoid everyone trying to speak at the same time.
All are welcome and we would like as many as possible to attend and have their say and raise any questions they may have.

Agenda
- Intro
- Technical updates
- Special Events
- Training (FMTs and Advanced)
- TVT / PVP Nights
- Aspiring DEVs
- Video production / YT channel
- AOB
- Open floor

These points may be amended slightly prior to the meeting.

If you have additional questions you would like raised at the meeting, as before, please mark them down in a reply with a brief explanation or wait till the open floor segment of the meeting.

Cheers,

Sltealthysnowman

[Eagle-Eye]

I'd like to raise a proposal to vote on/discuss during the meeting. If this idea needs staff agreement prior any public discussion, or has come up earlier and been denied, let me know not to bring it up during open floor.

Proposal:
Zeus operators during S1 game nights

Background:
- Though it is avoided as much as possible, missions are regularly replayed. In some cases, a particular mission has been played so many times by the same people that it leads to what IMO could be considered meta-gaming. E.g. I've noticed CO's using the exact same (initial) game plan that has been successfully used before. Similarly, if a certain approach was a Charlie-Foxtrot, the next CO would go out of his way to avoid that route.

- We've played missions where towards the end, we come up to an enemy base and notice they have several armed/unarmed vehicles, helo's, ... at their disposal. Just because it wasn't scripted or the exact conditions to trigger them weren't met, they remain completely static and unused.

Arguments for:
- Replay value, mostly. Every Zeus has a different style, does things differently, requiring a slightly different approach.
- Makes it interesting for the mission developer to play his own mission, without knowing exactly what to expect when and where.
- Scaling a mission. With the apparent lack of smaller-group missions, it's sometimes difficult to find a proper mission towards the end of game night. With a Zeus, a CO60 could be scaled down to a CO20 by changing AI numbers / equipment. Likewise, at GN start with 20-25 players, you could still go for a CO60, scale it down a bit, then build up again as player count increases.
- Overcoming ArmA 3 AI logic... As is known by most probably, AI can be terribly stupid. You could be on a hill engaging the AO while AI units patrol at the foot of that same hill, no more than 200m away, but completely oblivious to your shots. Zeus could re-task these units to clear the hill.
- Fixing ArmA 3 "features". Can't remember if that was on S1 or S2, but I've encountered situations where someone of staff actually checked if a mission had a Zeus-slot to fix a situation caused by ArmA physics or so.

Arguments against:
- Most obvious one: A Zeus operator is in a position where he could just as easily break a mission as he can make one.
- Might drastically change the mission the developer had in mind, thereby changing the entire dynamic, but also making it harder to send feedback the right way. (what was mission bug/feature, what was Zeus interaction?)
- Takes away a player from the OOB.
- When a mission is replayed later, a former Zeus might still know enemy numbers and equipment.
- Likely requirement to set up extra set of rules/do's and don'ts and/or "check rides" for new Zeus operators

Access:
- At Mission DEV's discretion. If he doesn't want someone to mess with his mission for whatever reason, he doesn't implement Zeus modules.
- At Mission DEV's discretion: optional cost system to the interface, to avoid/restrict overzealous Zeus.
- Mission DEV could opt to provide either:
a) 1 or 2 specific roles that have Zeus access (open for anyone who wants to have a go, if approved during slot-up. Does not generally require updating after mission is live)
b) Game Master-modules using a player ID in their missions that will allow a pre-defined list of people to get access to the system (e.g. Staff, "vetted" members, ... Might require frequent updating if list of approved people changes regularly)


Cheers,
E²

[Wombat]

Proposal:
Zeus operators during S1 game nights

For the sake of clarification, your proposal is to allow certain people to access ZGM (Zeus Game Masters) within Server#1 gamenight missions in order for them to make the mission more dynamic?

[Eagle-Eye]

Yes

I know it's a bit hard to distinguish with the name of the community, but I believed the term ZGM was mainly used for missions set up from scratch (as done on S2), so didn't want to use that exclusively. I'd still keep to pre-made missions, to avoid waiting times etc.

[Lionheart]

Proposal:
Zeus operators during S1 game nights

Great idea +1

There are certainly several ways to implement that into our community "safely":

- First off, we have some very old missions that we've played way too many times that could use this. Certainly there are admins who know which missions fall under this criteria.
- We could also have every 2nd mission on gamenights be a ZGM, pushing the excitement a few hours more since usually the quality of gameplay degrades after the 1st mission.
- There has to be a very definite shortlist of people qualified to take the position.
- We can invite guest ZGM veterans from other youtube channels/twitch/communities, to run a mission for us in exchange of allowing them to stream/upload it. We would also greatly benefit from such PR stunt. Newcomers love ZGM as seen on youtube's Luetin channel etc..
-There can even be the sort of mission where they build one from scratch for the 1st mission (starting it before gamenight begins) so that it's ready on time for the briefing.
- There are guides available online from proper zeusing. Worth looking at to begin making a guide for ZGM on Zeus Community servers. Those include the etiquette of zeusing, dos and donts, how to respond correctly/proportionately to players advances.
- A monthly zeus gamenight can benefit the community a lot for learning the dos and dont of zeusing as well as try out some new names that are interested in that sort of thing.
- Future missions need to be developed with zeus in mind. This can be sorted into 3 categories of missions where it's either Zeus required, Zeus supported, or Zeus not available. The mission developers can have the final say on that regarding their missions.

With enough guidelines for the ZGM role, this new gameplay mode can be very beneficial for the community and for the gameplay in general.

[Snowman]

ZCM 11/11/2017

Minutes:

http://bit.ly/2hn79d1

00:00 Introduction
02:30 Technical update
05:10 Special Event update
06:37 Question on Temberlan release
07:55 Training update
09:51 TVT Update
10:30 DEV Tag role update
12:53 Forum rules and etiquette
14:16 YouTube Channel and intro video ( https://youtu.be/99plXirpVFA )
17:48 Question on uploading content mechanism for contributors
19:50 edit for watching intro video
20:20 Update on Mission management system
21:01 Suggestion and discussion of ZGM role in game night missions
30:36 Suggestion of ZGM events to promote good ZGMs monthly.
38:49 Note on social channel usage
40:35 Open floor
40:55 Question on Feedback links in debrief
44:20 Question on updating and accuracy on mission spreadsheet
49:32 Closing statement