- A Day in the Life of an RPG Community Manager
- Torn City on Facebook?The Facts and Figures Follow Up
- Facebook ?Like? Button
- Torn City Lite
- Launch date: 1st September 2011
- Total number of players to date: 18,598
- Percentage of players reaching migration level: 15%
- Number of players still active per day: 800
- Torn City Impact: Graph below highlights the number of new players referred from Facebook to Torn City.
- Facebook Torn City
- Crimes
- Attacking
- Gym
- Weapons / Armour / Items
- Jail / Hospital
- Factions, upgrades, war and chaining
- Properties
- Bank
- Selection process of the Players Committee
- Uniqueness. I think it’s very important to get a wide mix of players involved in the Committee, with varying skills. People showing these skills or abilities in their application scored highly. It’s also important to pick users who have a wide range of play styles, so we can try to get all of the voices of the public in to one small committee.
- The length of their application. Of course length is not everything (in most cases), but a long application shows that they’re serious about joining the committee and that they’re willing to put the time and effort in. It also shows that they’ll put more detail in to their responses when discussing future changes / updates.
- Writing skill. Although not massively important, users who spellchecked their application got a big thumbs up from me. Proper writing techniques show intelligence (usually), and again that they’re willing to put in the time and effort.
- Charisma. I tried to pick people who I, and the other potential committee members would get along with. This is where the ‘Tell us a bit about yourself’ came in to practice. Friendly people certainly did well.
- Age. Most people started off their application with “I should be picked because I’ve been playing for 2,000 days”. This was probably detrimental to their outcome. I tried to select players of varying days to reach the whole spectrum.
- Subscriber Status. In the end, subscriber status wasn’t a big deal to me but it did result in a small boost in some circumstances. Players with excellent applications who didn’t have subscriber status still easily made the cut.
- Post count & IRC activity. I needed to select users who would be active in the forums and IRC so ongoing discussions can continue without fault for as long as necessary. It’d be very difficult to have a conversation with someone if they only checked the forums once a day. It’ll also be very good having the majority of the committee in IRC at the same time for discussions and/or a chat when I pop in.
- Application layout. This one’s very simple, I asked at the bottom of my post “Using underlines for the question, and your response below each one”. Users who didn’t follow this obviously were not paying enough attention and fail to read a simple line of text. The ability to read what I have to say and take it all in will be very important in the committee.
- Torn City Player Committee Overview
- Play Torn on the development server and provide intelligent feedback on upcoming updates and changes.
- Work with Developers, Admins and Staff to make sure all voices are heard and taken in to consideration.
- Alert Developers or Admins of any potential gameplay issues they foresee or experience.
- Put forward ideas of which the entire committee and developers can discuss and vote upon.
- Constantly liaise with the public to make sure they properly understand changes and the reasons behind them.
- Be active and vocal in the Forums and IRC.
- Put the Player Committee and Torn ahead of their own personal game experience and achievements.
- Provide intelligent and meaningful feedback to developers in as much detail as possible.
- Discuss and vote on upcoming changes or ideas provided by the development team or other committee members.
- Use their position or knowledge of future updates to benefit themselves in game.
- Speak with anyone outside of the Player Committee / Staff team about any upcoming changes or updates.
- Continuously replace members of the Player Committee who are not delivering.
- Maintain a wide variety of users in the Player Committee.
- Recruit users who both like and dislike past updates.
- Constantly liaise with the Player Committee on a day to day basis.
- Keep the committee civil.
- Add a ‘Committee Approved’ seal to each announcement made which gets the go-ahead from the Committee.
- Are text-based Online RPG games any good?
- Don?t fix what aint broken. Or should we?
I often get asked ?What?s it like to be an Admin for an online browser game?? and without responding in novel length, I generally just say ?very busy? or ?stressful on a bad day?. However without a lengthy explanation, my job, and the staff jobs could be seen very differently by the players.
With that said I would like to take you through a day of the life of an admin or staff member, and give you some insight into what really goes on behind the scenes in the Torn City management team.
All in a days work; can mean many different things to me. I am basically the chief of staff, my role is whatever the day may bring. I oversee all staff including playing admins, assist the development team, help fix bugs, assist in public relations such as player competitions and giveaways, deal with donation issues and work on our Facebook Fan page. So basically every morning could bring me something different to do and some mornings it brings everything!
I generally check in for the first time by about 6:30 am, and check out for the last time by about 10:00 pm.
Here is how my home page differs to a normal player; Not that much as you can see!
Look at the bottom left hand corner, there is where you?ll see the main changes. Red line is for highlight purpose only, we don’t actually have a big red line on our page :p
We have quite an elaborate admin panel, with over 70 links that each lead to other tools once clicked. The viewable information is shared between the different levels of staff. As the screenshot shows, there are four sections in the sidebar which allow for different levels of staff to view only the sections allotted to them.
Secretaries have the most tools of any staff member besides Admins, whom have the entire tool setup. For example, they have tools that aid in finding multiple accounts, they can assist with certain faction issues that come up and they have several different ways of checking IP?s which is useful in assisting when an account gets hacked. Secretaries work through all player reports that come in through the day that do not require Admin action to be taken.
They also deal with all ?fed reports? in the same manner.
The general rule for player and fed reports is they must be replied to within 24 hours of being received in our report queue. Also in their list of tools is an item tracking and item transfer tool, this is helpful when a player misplaces an item; such as uses it and forgets, sells it, or allows a friend to borrow it. Chat logs are a very recent addition to their tools, using this they can follow up reports of chat violations.
Moderators and Helpers perform very similar roles. Moderators have more tools than Helpers and are given more duties. A helpers role is one we use for probationary periods while new staff are learning the In’s and out?s of being a staff member and all that entails. We use it to earn trust in our new staff and to ensure they are a proper fit to the staff team before allowing them access to more private areas of the staff panel. Generally Helpers answer help questions, monitor the forums, monitor the chat boxes and sometimes they run the Bookie.
Moderators do the same duties as the Helpers but with added duties of editing graphics that should not be in the game such as forum signatures and profile signatures, they can fix marriage problems for players, they answer player reports that deal with things such as spam in the newspaper or inappropriate images that get reported, and they also deal with mail reports that come into the system.
With all of that said, that makes up the complete staff team. We work together as a team daily, we do have our bad days just like any other company, however the good far outweighs the bad. As I have described we have a large scale option of tools at our disposal to assist in our daily duties. Staff review thousands of reported accounts monthly for various reasons which can be as simple as a forum signature that is too large, all the way to the federal jailing of accounts which averages around 500 a month. The jailing could be a minimal first time offence or more serious in nature such as bug abuse or real money transfers.
I hope this has given you some insight into what happens behind the scenes of Torn on a day to day basis.
-Clansdancer
With 2011 drawing to a close, it feels about like the right time to reflect on one of the biggest updates in the history of Torn City; the integration of Facebook.
How did we integrate Facebook into our marketing strategy?
Let?s first take a look at the controversial approach* to integrate the Facebook ?Like? button into Torn City player profiles.
* Controversial within the Torn City community due to mixed feelings over Facebook.
Everyone wants to be liked, right? Or at the very least, nobody likes to be unpopular!
Based on this assumption we decided to integrate the Facebook ?Like? button into player profiles. The idea behind this was to utilise Facebook?s default behaviour to post the users ?Likes? to their wall, automatically telling their Facebook friends that they liked the profile of another Torn City player. This helped to achieve two goals. Firstly, it helped us tell others about Torn City. Secondly, and most importantly, we credited the ?Liker? as the referrer should someone join through their ?Like? action.
As with everything we do in Torn City, we have to be transparent and clearly define the benefits to the players as Torn City?s community is the life blood of the game.
This is a great way for players to recruit others with very little effort. Let?s not forget all the goodies players receive for successfully recruiting new players, and the massive bonuses they get for mentoring new players to ensure they reach level 10!
If you wasn’t aware of this cool feature, check out your recruit citizen’s page now to see if any of the profiles you?ve ?Liked? have brought in any new players.
Next up was the Facebook version of Torn City.
In an attempt to try something a little bit funky and utilise the power of ~31,000 Facebook fans, we decided to create a smaller version of Torn City exclusive to Facebook, known as Torn City Lite.
The idea behind this strategy was to use the power of social media to reach a much larger audience with a potential interest in browser based games. The ability to publish in-game events onto the players Facebook wall, viewable to RL friends, created the snowball effect required for effective viral marketing.
If we could engage players through Torn City Lite on Facebook, we believed we had a much higher chance to migrate these players over to www.torn.com, the full version of Torn City.
Torn City Lite - Key facts and figures:
As some of you may have already discovered, we?ve been working on a small, mini version of Torn City, entirely separate from Full Torn. It is due to be released on September 1st, 2011.
The purpose of this mini-game is to try and infiltrate the huge market of over 750 million Facebook users and bring those who sign up to the game, eventually over here to Full Torn. Facebook Torn is a much smaller version of Torn and just keeps the main core elements.
Most of the core elements have been dumbed down, and are simpler and easier to use which provides a nice ?pure? feel.
The maximum level you can reach in Facebook Torn is 10 and at level 5 players will be able to ?migrate? to full Torn, offering many goodies including a unique honor bar + merit, a small EXP and crime boost plus a few more special items. Players will also receive 15 days donator status free on full Torn once reaching level 5 on facebook Torn.
We are releasing approximately 1,000 pre-launch slots for you guys as we test server loads prior to 1st September. If you’d like to be one of the first in, please follow this link – http://apps.facebook.com/thetorncity/?code=123asd456
Facebook Torn will be in BETA for a few weeks, so please bear with us and report any problems you find. We’ll be working hard to make it perfect 
If you’re not one of the first 1000 in, don’t worry, here’s some screen shots to keep you going and we?ll be opening the doors for all on September 1st.
Enjoy!
We received over 250 applications from users wanting to join the players committee. It was my job to reduce this number to around 30.
The selection was mainly made up of a few main stages…
Stage 1 : Application
I spent a night (and morning) going through all of the applications one by one, giving each one a score out of 5. Players who scored 4 or 5 moved on to the next stage.
I rated these people based on several things.
Stage 2 : Activity
Although I was looking for a wide range of users in the player committee, I had to make a choice. I could let users in who only logged in a couple of times a day, but I’d never hear from them or be able to discuss anything with them. In the end, a very high level of activity was important. The ability to get in touch with any of the committee members almost any time of the day is a massive plus.
I rated users on their activity by once again giving them a score out of 5.
For example… This user rated 1.
And this user rated 5.
Players who rated 4 or 5 moved on to the next stage.
Stage 3 : Reading of the Committee Rules/TOS
Believe it or not, you were actually being timed when that little screen popped up which asked you to accept or decline (these rules/TOS are now up in a blog). We ran a number of tests before this was launched. An average person could read the entire thing in around 45 seconds if they were reading quickly without taking any of it properly in. It took around 80 seconds to read it thoroughly.
Users who took this amount of time to read the page showed that they were very interested and serious about the player committee, and of course users who took 3 seconds by instantly clicking accept were automatically expelled from the selection process.
In the end, it was decided that anyone who took over 48 seconds would move on. This allows the fast readers who were taking in the information to continue forward. I was very happy with the people who stayed on the page for over 2 minutes, thoroughly reading it a couple of times.
Stage 4 : Review of remaining applicants.
All remaining applicants were checked over again to make sure we had a good mix of users, I.E. people who both liked and disliked previous updates. Applications were also re-read to make sure we didn’t miss anything and other previous stages were checked once again.
Stage 5: Where we are now…
There are now 28 people remaining. These people will be accepted in to the committee and will go through a month long trialing process. We will be removing up to 8 users who are unfit to continue in the committee. Whether they are not active enough, or are simply unable to fulfil their duties as committee members.
Even after the trialing process is over, we may remove or replace committee members if we think they’re unfit to continue.
Once again, thanks to everyone who took the time to submit an application, I really enjoyed reading through them all.
- Chedburn
The purpose of the Player Committee is to…
Designated members of the player committee must…
Designated members of the player committee must NOT…
Failure to follow these will result in a prompt and permanent federal jail sentence.
Admins will…
If you’ve not had the opportunity to play a massively multiplayer online RPG game and you have stumbled upon Torn City by accident, you may be asking yourself this question, “Are text-based online RPG games worth a try?”
Well, as expected, here at Torn City, we have a definitive answer for you but we also understand that hearing it from us, the game owners, would probably not give you the reassurance you’re looking for. That’s why we’ve taken this opportunity to share the thoughts of our latest players.
After playing Torn City for approximately 1 week, we took a random selection and simply asked them this question…
If you had to describe Torn to a friend what would you say? We love blunt, honest feedback.
So here’s their 100% unedited answers… And we mean UNEDITED!*
*We love and value all our Torn City residents, but, my lord… the spelling and grammar here is something else. Luckily, Torn City offers great education courses.
| # | Response Date | Response Text |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feb 24, 2011 11:35 AM | Its really fun  |
| 2 | Feb 24, 2011 1:45 PM | its a good game that is slow but fun it you stick with it like most rpgs |
| 3 | Feb 24, 2011 3:44 PM | good challenging game…not easy at first but if you hav friends already playing the game it makes the start up easier |
| 4 | Feb 24, 2011 5:23 PM | i would say once you start playing you wont want to stop, many people just make an account and see that it is all text and stop playing but if you give it an honest shot you will really enjoy the game like i did, i would recommend this game to all people of all ages. |
| 5 | Feb 24, 2011 8:22 PM | OKAISH =P SORRY GUYS |
| 6 | Feb 24, 2011 8:54 PM | awesome |
| 7 | Feb 24, 2011 9:12 PM | do it now or regret it forever, totaly awesome. Best browser game ot there! |
| 8 | Feb 24, 2011 9:23 PM | cool game |
| 9 | Feb 25, 2011 4:39 AM | it’s a fun type-based rpg that you absolutely have to play |
| 10 | Feb 25, 2011 6:40 AM | The community seems a little desolate compared to two years ago. |
| 11 | Feb 25, 2011 6:45 AM | Try it out. It’s fun. |
| 12 | Feb 25, 2011 6:45 AM | easy, and fun. |
| 13 | Feb 25, 2011 7:22 AM | kinda boring to start but gets addicting |
| 14 | Feb 25, 2011 10:53 AM | Bit like Mafia Wars but better! |
| 15 | Feb 25, 2011 6:51 PM | It is in fact the best text-base rpg out there. |
| 16 | Feb 25, 2011 7:26 PM | A game that takes not much time per day. |
| 17 | Feb 25, 2011 8:42 PM | great. worth playing |
| 18 | Feb 25, 2011 10:36 PM | its alright if you have time and really want to get into it, its defiantly not a once off play game |
| 19 | Feb 25, 2011 11:28 PM | it’s fun |
| 20 | Feb 26, 2011 6:27 AM | Its a good game. Play it. |
| 21 | Feb 26, 2011 9:57 AM | It’s a cool text based game, with a realism that rivals any other out there… |
| 22 | Feb 26, 2011 10:23 AM | a txt based rpg.kind of like mafia wars but a lot better. |
| 23 | Feb 26, 2011 12:51 PM | Interesting concept, but the community isn’t that friendly |
| 24 | Feb 26, 2011 2:02 PM | i think it is really good for people who like violence i dont mean really doing it but watching movies and doing things like this on ps3 and xbox360 |
| 25 | Feb 26, 2011 3:37 PM | its an interesting game. |
| 26 | Feb 26, 2011 3:44 PM | the torn city was the best game ever you play in this time |
| 27 | Feb 26, 2011 11:06 PM | It’s a good game, but a slow mover. |
| 28 | Feb 27, 2011 2:14 AM | It’s fun if you don’t mind it being entirely text, and it’s very difficult to start. |
| 29 | Feb 27, 2011 2:33 AM | amazing |
| 30 | Feb 27, 2011 2:45 AM | its a great full packed game where you can do pretty much anything , its awesome like no other game i have ever played |
| 31 | Feb 27, 2011 8:18 AM | Well my freind got me into it just today and im really enjoying it, but its kinda annoying waiting for your nerve and energy to refill, the game sort of resebles mafia wars on myspace =) but still quite fun |
| 32 | Feb 27, 2011 12:34 PM | Come play torn with me dude…nice game, |
| 33 | Feb 27, 2011 2:26 PM | A nice game. |
| 34 | Feb 27, 2011 2:28 PM | Good game, a lot of features, great tutorial system to learn basics |
| 35 | Feb 27, 2011 4:44 PM | After many years of consideration, I finally broke down and tried the game out for myself. My husband and his friends play this game and have been on my case for a long time to play.
I broke down, I like it, I may actually stick around a bit, hopefully it will no consume the amoutn of time it does for my husband, but while the kids are playing, I can play too! thank you |
| 36 | Feb 27, 2011 5:27 PM | come join the the community of criminals….its gooooooooooooooood to be bad…. |
| 37 | Feb 27, 2011 6:19 PM | fun |
| 38 | Feb 28, 2011 12:19 AM | Its smexy |
| 39 | Feb 28, 2011 12:35 AM | It’s a game where you need log daily, but if you like this kind of game, you’ll see that this is the perfect one. |
| 40 | Feb 28, 2011 1:27 AM | it’s good, not good enough, but still better than any other games I’ve known |
| 41 | Feb 28, 2011 7:01 AM | its good if you’d like a fun easy but also in depth game to play daily for an hour or too. |
| 42 | Feb 28, 2011 7:18 AM | Torn is a great and fun game to play. |
| 43 | Feb 28, 2011 11:57 AM | awesome game dude…check it out |
| 44 | Feb 28, 2011 12:15 PM | Come into Torn City to start a new life. |
| 45 | Feb 28, 2011 1:57 PM | Id have to say that as browzer games go it is far better than mindless clicking ones. In Torn you have to actually use your brain which i find awesome. |
| 46 | Feb 28, 2011 3:17 PM | its time consuming but great |
| 47 | Feb 28, 2011 3:52 PM | Its facinating but confusing game to get started, i thankfully had someone to ask questions to and ask them to explain stuff and the why’s and how’s of the game. |
| 48 | Feb 28, 2011 4:36 PM | fun and sociable |
| 49 | Feb 28, 2011 6:00 PM | you get to do crimes and attack people it is really fun |
| 50 | Feb 28, 2011 8:40 PM | fun |
| 51 | Feb 28, 2011 8:58 PM | Amazing realistic which as a child you will be aware when you grow up it has useful tips. And it great!!! 5* |
| 52 | Feb 28, 2011 9:31 PM | Its a cool game where you get to be your own character in your own group and you can do whatever you want as you slowly build your empire. |
| 53 | Feb 28, 2011 10:50 PM | Its a kickass game but it takes patience |
| 54 | Mar 1, 2011 10:30 AM | a good game to waste time on |
| 55 | Mar 1, 2011 3:01 PM | Great text-based game, easy to get in to/addicted to. |
| 56 | Mar 1, 2011 4:28 PM | This is a great game. |
| 57 | Mar 1, 2011 4:48 PM | Totally amazing best game on the internet |
| 58 | Mar 1, 2011 6:33 PM | Make a torn city account, it is so cool. I will send you lots of cash and emails, we can even start a faction together. |
| 59 | Mar 1, 2011 7:03 PM | Well to be honest I’d have to say that it is really enjoyable, however the start can be a little slow but that is to be expected but with time i feel it will grow exponentially. With it being awesome already i am excited to see where it leads. Thank you |
| 60 | Mar 1, 2011 9:31 PM | good. |
| 61 | Mar 1, 2011 9:46 PM | Give It A Go. But If You Dont Like It Dont Play It. |
| 62 | Mar 1, 2011 9:49 PM | Its a very good and realistic game. Which takes maybe half a year to be a very good player. But overall it is a very good and enjoyable game. |
| 63 | Mar 1, 2011 10:34 PM | like world of warcraft with words not people and very criminal like. it takes a very long time to get to the top though |
| 64 | Mar 1, 2011 10:35 PM | torn is ok =\ |
| 65 | Mar 1, 2011 10:44 PM | Its fun, if your bored and trying to kill some time on the computer. |
| 66 | Mar 2, 2011 12:27 AM | good game try it |
| 67 | Mar 2, 2011 12:33 AM | its like coffe, you ty it once, you’ll find you cant function without it ;D |
| 68 | Mar 2, 2011 2:25 AM | rawr |
| 69 | Mar 2, 2011 5:36 AM | it is THE BEST stratergy game on earth u should definitely join it and play hard |
Updates are hugely important to keep a text RPG game, the size of Torn, ahead of the competition. Unfortunately, many times in the past, players have responded to updates with “Don’t fix what aint broken”. If we followed this logic, Torn City would be a very boring place indeed. It also very much depends on your definition of ‘broken’. As the years progress, we vastly improve Torn based on player feedback and new ideas. To make Torn the world?s best browser RPG game, we’re looking at a few hefty changes in 2011. We’ve been planning them for the past year or two, and we’re almost ready to begin implementation, which will be done in several steps for each large update.
The updates and changes we make, aren’t just to make Torn more fun, they increase the longevity of the game. Unfortunately, sometimes when we try to increase longevity, players make the sacrifices. We always have the game at heart, nothing else. There are no big ‘nerfs’ planned for 2011, but they may happen! This means you could be making less money on some things, or perhaps something you use today, may not be as good tomorrow. This may affect you personally in some ways, but in the big picture, everyone is in the same ballpark. They experience exactly the same changes as you do, so in terms of fairness and competition – you’re not being ?screwed? out of something, everyone is ? but for the good of the game. Changes are good, and necessary, in an ever evolving text-based RPG; we research deeply in to the issues and try to foresee any problems occurring.
We’re not here to make your lives harder. We’re not here just to take things away from you for our own amusement. We’re here to make the best damn RPG game around, and keep it alive and kicking for many years to come. This means keeping a tight grasp of the economy (and even deflate it if we can) and keeping game play fair. We also have to consider our new users too!
Anyway, enough of that!! Here’s what we’re planning for 2011.
Complete crimes recode.
This will include moving crimes to a completely new scalable system, which means new crime results can be added much easier – leading the way to hundreds or even thousands of new crime results designed by professional writers & authors. Unique crime results which give results past the limits of our imagination – special abilities, new items and brand new events.
We’d probably want to reorder the crimes and change the difficulty of many of them both up and down so they make more sense realistically. And of course, adding many more totally new crimes and sub crimes. It will certainly be very exciting if we go ahead with it. This would change the face of crimes, meaning users would have to relearn what they can and can’t do again – Although this shouldn’t be much of a problem.
We will also have a look at the different payouts, reducing some, increasing others. Keeping the economy under control while improving this system is a must, as I?m sure all of you understand. Eventually crimes won’t just be about making money though, we’re looking at massively building upon the whole system. Perhaps missions will require certain unique crimes to be done. Perhaps special crimes will only be available every now and then. Maybe you won’t even get money or sellable items at all for some crime results; perhaps you’ll be rewarded with honors, special useable items, special player bonuses, stat boosts, and totally unique weapons?
While this doesn’t flood your accounts with money, it will certainly make crimes so much more exciting and captivating. Receiving random events through crimes and chances of earning very rare items and whatever else we set our minds to. Our aim is to make almost every crime result unique – instead of getting the same old boring text every single time.
Company additions.
This involves completely changing the daily payout system to be more effective and realistic, and making it much easier for directors to understand what they’re doing right or wrong.
We’re adding more things to buy for your companies, small add-ons which boost company profit. We also want to add company skill for users – Users can slowly gain skill for the company type they’re working at, they would keep this skill always, even if they change to a different company. Higher job skill would work alongside a users working stats to increase the overall company’s profit. Special company educations may also be introduced, which would also boost how much of an effect you as an employee have on a company. We’d like to make company job points follow users, so if they ever go back to a similar job, they can use the job points they received with a different company.
We’re toying with the idea of upping the maximum company rating from 5 to 10, but that will be a lot more work – thinking up 60 new and unique company specials.
We’ll also see at least two new company types being added, Architects & Contractors. But we have many ideas for more too.
Completely new weapons and armour system.
We’re keeping this under wraps for now but to give you a slight idea… It involves turning 135 weapons and armor in to over 335,340,000. And will certainly give you more stuff to spend your money on – including weapon attachments perhaps?
We’d also like to change the ammo system completely, to be simpler but more interesting and realistic. We could introduce realistic ammo for all guns (for example, AK-47 would have 7.62 caliber rounds). We could also have different types of ammo, for example tracer rounds, high explosive, etc. which might deal more damage, but have their own disadvantages and costs. You could buy this ammo in Torn City, but it may not always be available. You may have to travel abroad to get it, or perhaps buy it from somewhere else completely?
Join us on our journey. It?s going to be a great year in Torn City!