Managing multiple games

[Chris]

Looking for feedback of those who manage multiple games or games with multiple servers/worlds.
Do you manage each game separately or have a general game staff and assign them to different games?
What level of integration do you have (only similar tools for staf or maybe something more sophisticated)?
Any other experience on this matter?

[codestryke]

We have separate admin panels for each game. This is the only interface that our other admin's get to see and it helps when games are on different servers. Our admin panel is based on a library so each admin panel has the same look, feel and functionality as all the other ones. This allows us and our admin's to quickly do the work required as there is no fumbling around trying to find what you need on each of the different panels. To be honest I've probably put more work into the backend library then all the games combined but the work done then has really paid off now.

Myself and MystressNyx also have what we call "the panel". The panel is our one stop view into all the games. It's sort of like iGoogle where we have blocks of information for each game. Each block has links to allow us to go right into the game, chat, forums or admin panel of each of the games.

Also integrated in the panel:
Promo - shows how many hits each game is getting from promos, how many sign up and how long they continue to play
Issue Management System - basically a bug tracker, feature request etc. This was also integrated into each admin panel to allow admin's to post bugs etc. But it all gets deposited into the panel
Sales - shows graphs of our sales and sale tends

When we purchased Galactic-Lords it was hosted on another server at another host so for the panel I created JSON pages that the panel communicated with. So now it doesn't matter how many servers we have that code is easily re-usable and can pull the information we need for fast integration. Later we updated our server and put GL on it along with all the other games. If in the future we needed to pull info from another server I would change how we poll the information from an outside source. I would still use JSON to grab the information but instead of just viewing the data in the panel I would save it first to the database and put the polling of the information into some background process. Reason for this was the original GL host was, well, not so good so it would hang our panel because the page was polling the JSON data and it would have to wait for the timeout to occur before rendering the rest of the page. This is also how iGoogle does it and now I know why

[Chris]

- What staff structure you have? How many helpers per game? What power/authority level they have there (full admins/limited admins/moderators)? Does these helpers are dedicated to one game or handle multiple games?
- Why you went for issue tracker for suggestions? Would it be better to use forum for suggestions handling?
- What staff communication (forums/chat/etc) you have?


As for me, I have one huge game and several smaller ones, so it is not a truly multi game system. The staff is divided into functional staff (not assigned to any particular game, very few, mostly forum moderators) and game specific (some of them help in 2 games at once but most deal with 1 game only). There are 2 forums, one is for all games & all helpers, the second is made by helpers of the biggest game and is used by helpers only.

[MystressNyx]

At this time, there is only one person who is technically an "Admin" and he only works with a single game. In the past, we have always had a different staff for each game as it is essential for the Admin to know the game through and through and it's unlikely to have an entire team that is that well versed in all of our games. Not to mention that it really decreases the likelihood of burnout to stick to one game. Codestryke and I are the only people who work with all the games.

We no longer use Admin lvls as we've found in the past it just hampers them in doing their job if they have restrictions esp when their abilities vary one to another. They wouldn't be in that position if we didn't trust them with the job, though all actions are logged just for accountability. Anything that deals with sensitive data, such as payment details, are only ever handled by Codestryke and I.

The IMS is for Admin to Owner communications. When he said feature requests, he meant additions to the admin panels, not for the games themselves. It's akin to a ticket system. That way we have the ability to post updates as we progress and close out the "ticket" when it's complete, which keeps things orderly.

Each Admin panel is equipped with a forum and each Admin is assigned an inbox for one on one communication via our msg system.

[Chris]

I'm confused, this does not add up There are 2 owners who supervise all games. There are 4 games and 1 admin. You do not give anyone level lesser than admin. So, who is managing the remaining 3 games? I think I misunderstood this

[MystressNyx]

No, you didn't misunderstand. I manage all the games full time.

[Chris]

But... but... Vacations, weekends, bed time! How?! It sounds almost like a real work!
I admire your hardworking, I would go crazy if I had to do it all by myself

[Scion]

It sounds almost like a real work!

classic ...good thing im not incontinant.

[Slashmore]

No, you didn't misunderstand. I manage all the games full time.

What do you mean by manage?  Run and keep players in line or coding, fixing bugs and keeping players in line.

[MystressNyx]

haha Chris, it is very much a full time job, but just like leaving the office, I have a stopping point where I am done for the day. And we've never had trouble managing vacations. I have a few players that know how to contact me in the case of emergencies, but as long as most of the games have been running, a lot of things can go on auto pilot for a few days.

Slashmore, all of the above, except coding. I fix some bugs via minor edits, but that's about the extent of it. Coding is Codestryke's area of expertise.

[Sunchaser]

Compliments to codestryke if it codes everything for 4 games; I am building a new version and i will use SVN branching leaving the old version in maintenance mode and developing features on the new one; and I code pretty fast...

I can't see how i can make features on both games with a certain frequency without working full time...

[Slashmore]

haha Chris, it is very much a full time job, but just like leaving the office, I have a stopping point where I am done for the day. And we've never had trouble managing vacations. I have a few players that know how to contact me in the case of emergencies, but as long as most of the games have been running, a lot of things can go on auto pilot for a few days.

Slashmore, all of the above, except coding. I fix some bugs via minor edits, but that's about the extent of it. Coding is Codestryke's area of expertise.

Sweet

Well you have both done a good job from the little look around I took.

[maclof]

For the game i'm working on I started developing using a local SVN server since day one. This svn server (using apache2 mod_dav) is on the same machine i develop on, and is purely for keeping track of previous code changes, and I also have the possibility to merge & revert code back to previous stages.

I've already got a system in plan for Operation Zombie incase I ever need to use multiple realms (or "worlds" as such) in that the code dynamically works with one another to interconnect between different hosts, automatically .