User:Cate/Elder Election

Hyskos Elder Election: Statement

Q1. For those who have never had the opportunity to interact with you before, can you share a little about yourself and what you enjoy about ATITD?

• Hello! My name in real life is Catherine, and I live in a smallish town in the old goldfields of central Victoria, Australia. I took early retirement after a longish career in project management in Defence and Human Services.
• I've been playing ATITD from close to the end of T4 and have kept playing through thick and thin because I enjoy the friendships, the opportunities to collaborate on creating things and for the problem-solving challenges that are embedded in just about everything. In T5 and T6 I learnt a lot through the Southern Cross guild and with a lot of help from friends made it to Oracle of Seven in T6 and T7. In T8 I'm again an Elder in zFree, and am taking my time to look around and help more with research and the new things that have been coming along.

Q2. What are some of the challenges for the players in this tale and what can be done to address these?

• I think the introduction of the factions has significantly changed the dynamic of the game, and that on its own makes the tale feel different. It has taken me some time to work through how I feel about how the compartmentalization of the players and competitiveness it introduces to the game play. I have reconciled my dismay by telling myself that it should be possible to work collaboratively across the factions to ensure that each faction can work on techs and access techs researched by other factions through the managed 'transfer' of regions - partially to limit the amount of materials that it consumes but also so people and regions can take pride in specializing in what they want to work on. I am an optimist, and would like to contribute some way to that as I can. I see some of that happening under Augir's leadership of the tribute system, where agreements are made for us to not contest some regions. The new changes Apophis is considering will probably shake that up a bit, but change is good, right?
• For me as a player, one of the challenges I'm facing is the pace that we are racing through everything. I have hardly taken a breath all tale so far. Exhaustion must be facing a lot of us. I also feel frustrated sometimes that I can't spend more time in game (which I want to do) without keeping a reasonable balance with real life interests, which are many. There are so many interesting new things to try out, but the infrastructure to ensure tale-long success for our guild is lagging behind the expectations of our guildies. I do not macro or have an alt, but humbly admit that if it weren't for the ceaseless efforts of the team's alts it would be impossible to be able to achieve what we have.

Q3. Why should we vote for you? What do you bring to the Elder group?

• I hope I can bring a balanced perspective and commitment to communication to the role. It won't hurt for there to be more visibility of what the elders are doing or have the potential to do.
• I have been a Demi Pharoah in the last two tales and have had some interesting experiences talking down and dealing with griefers. This isn't in scope of the Elder role, but I can do the hard edge of HR if needed.
• Maybe contribute to discussions that influence the directions things take, from the perspective of southern hemispherians and European players who sometimes find it hard to participate in events that occur in other more populated time zones.

Q4. How else are you providing leadership in the game and amongst the player base?

• In game, as at work I seem to work best in 'start up' activities, when something needs to be happen to get something organized and I'm around I'll usually step out and try and do something. This page is an example - it was a good scheme for running 'offline debates' last tale that I had a hand in starting it up so the basic idea has been quickly modified and put to use.
• I seem to have reasonable skills in communication and in working through issues with people or on behalf of people, for the common good. I use this skill to work through misunderstandings or address behavior that doesn't fit in with our norms.

Q5. What question would you like to be asked, and why?

• An oldie but a goodie - Would you prefer to be thought of as a pirate or a ninja, and why? Today I'd like to be thought of as a pirate, so I can go to sea with a bunch of friends and a parrot. Tomorrow I might be feeling different, of course.