Illarion.org

There's been some confusion on some things lately that I've seen and I mean to inform and enlighten, because if you know these things, you can save a lot of time for yourself and for the staff both and generally have a more efficient experience here. Often folks complain that it seems that the left hand of the Illarion staff isn't communicating with the right hand, but I think that's just confusion over what the staff does at Illarion. No matter how efficient a corporation is, you won't expect to call the warehouse worker and get the same information as you'd get from the CEO. If we all knew each other's jobs, we'd only need one staff member. =)

While I want to explain the meaty stuff of how the staff works and who does what and so on, first I want to get to the most important stuff. The stuff that's becoming daily issues.

Namely: who do I talk to about x, y, or z?

• If you find a bug and want to know who to report it to, report it to our bugtracker forum (Mantis) which is linked to from the frontpage or right here: http://illarion.org/mantis/my_view_page.php
• If you're experiencing technical difficulties with the client, I know it's difficult to be patient, but please post you problem as well as your computer's stats at the support forum. Even though this method seems slow, it's likely the fastest method to get support. We're all amateurs doing this on our spare time, so we can't offer you 1 on 1 24 hour support.
• If a player is causing trouble (PKing or the like ingame) there's a few things you can do. The best method is to right click the player and click "report to a GM." This gives us their character number making it easy to punish them as soon as we receive the report. If you don't manage to do that while they're on screen, you can !gm a complaint. However, unless a GM is right there waiting for pages they'll need the name or the character number of the rulebreaker. Lastly, you can PM a GM (this is the last and least resort). GM's will be listed later in this thread.
• If you have an idea for a quest, storyline, etc.. PM a GM (specifically a questing GM)
• If you want to donate money to the society, PM Aragon, our treasurer.

Don'ts:

• Don't chase down a dev in IRC or on messenger because of your technical difficulties (unless the individual dev gives permission for you to do so). They're very busy folks and they have real lives too. Be considerate.
• Don't report your bugs or technical difficulties to GM's. We have no idea how to fix these things, more than likely, and we'll just redirect you. While it seems like an innocent thing to do, sometimes these sorts of requests come in in the dozens on a given day (such as when the server is down) and the time our GM's are spending on them could be spent on doing cool things ingame.
• Staff members are people too. If they give out their MSN, or are hanging out in IRC, or so on, this doesn't mean that they're "on the job" all the time or open to queries about Illarion. Be considerate. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to ask ahead of time if the staff member is open to Illarion-related queries.

Alright, that being said, let's talk who's who and how the staff is organized.

The staff of Illarion runs via adhocracy, which is to say, it's opposite of a bureaucracy. While there are certainly folks in charge and some degree of folks with authority, these roles are less-defined and activity doesn't go from top to bottom in a pyramidal structure. All staff members are expected to come up with their own ideas, be self-starters, and work at the pace they choose to work. This might be one of the reasons folks say that the left hand isn't communicating with the right, but adhocracy really allows the bright go-getter types to shine (while unfortunately the less-motivated tend to suffer, which is why motivation and drive is the first thing we seek when we look for new staffers).

On one side of the staff we have our developers. These hardworking folks build the game, the website, the server programming, the database, and even the forum. When they aren't building new things, they're chasing down and getting rid of bugs.

While it's on the front page, in case you missed it, these are the people involved.

Our development staff includes:

• Alatar: Founder of Illarion, Chairman, Webmaster, All Around Cool Guy
• Ardian: Scripts
• Cassandra Fjurin: Server, Scripts, Black, Vinyl
• Falk vom Wald: Scripts, Old Man of the Monastery
• Gro'bul: Graphics, Consummate Gentleman
• Hemisphere: Graphics
• Kadiya: Homepage, Scripts, Kicking Butts
• Lennier: Mapper, Halfling
• Martin: Scripts, Server, Graphics, Skis, Giving the Stink Eye
• Nitram: Homepage, Scripts, Another Martin, Not Happy I Forgot Him In The Initial Draft
• Nop: Client, Impressive Beard
• pharse: Scripts
• Vilarion: Scripts, Server, Secretary of the Illarion eV, Ladies Man

Your Gamemasters come in two varieties. Seers keep an eye out to put an eye out (chase troublemakers around) and Questers do fun stories. Gamemasters as a whole also make certain administrative decisions (like what the rules are and what constitutes a break of one) and they tend to be the voice of the staff to some degree.

Gamemasters:

• Arien Edhel: Head Seer, Lord of Shadows, Keeper of the Vault
• Estralis Seborian: Seer, Powergamed his Detective Skill to GM, Handsome Devil
• Zak: Seer, Fuzzier Than Normal
• Vaun: Seer, Noob

• Alsaya: Head Quester, GM of the World, Makes GMing Sexy
• Mesha: Quester, Villainous
• Naerwyn: Quester, Crazy Fairy

A few other folks that should be mentioned, now that I'm at it:

Aragon: Treasurer, Family Man, Another Martin (also the guy who's responsible for throwing such incredibly successful rl meetings year after year)

Also our player helpers. While you are too many to name individually, we're none the less very thankful for your work. This includes scripters, testers, mappers, translators and other folks who are just filling in the cracks the staff can't do on their own. This also includes the unofficial variety who just help out and get no recognition, like the folks who help fill in our Illarion Wiki. Thank you much.