Staff Team and Applications - Roles, Responsibilities, and FAQ

Game Discussion
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Welcome!

The following is an outline of the primary roles in the staff team and the responsibilities attached to those roles. These roles and responsibilities may evolve and change as time goes on. In addition, we cover some of the questions we have had about the application process.

Staff applications are currently open. The deadline to apply is April 4th for the first wave. Any applications received after this deadline may not be reviewed until summer or based on demand.

Application Link: https://pmuniverse.net/apply

Roles

Storywriter

Storywriters come up with exciting stories that will produce good experience and gameplay for everyone. They work together to piece together a cohesive narrative for primary and side plots and work with content creators on projects.

Responsibilities

  • Compose dialogues and story arcs for various game elements

  • Create engaging tutorials via the story editor to convey important details and mechanics to new and existing players

  • Coordinate and put together a storyline that ties into new or existing sets of dungeon and overworld progression

Moderator

Moderators help ensure that all communications and content across all of PMU are appropriate. It is the most community-oriented role in the team.

Responsibilities

  • Make sure that the website, forum, game and chats are used in accordance with our community guidelines and terms of use.

  • Listen to problems and concerns the community may have, and work towards addressing them while also communicating progress to involved members of the team.

  • Communicate and relay relevant news from team leads, either through the forums or through discord.

Designer

Designers define the style and ensure consistency of the game’s look and feel; they are the visionaries, building and improving on the game’s content – namely the various maps and dungeons that form the game world.

Responsibilities

  • Design and improve game maps; work on expanding the overworld where necessary

  • Making sure that each map’s attributes and functions are working properly

  • Design both normal and random dungeons

  • Create and modify the game’s NPCs, and place them in their appropriate maps and dungeons

  • Write story dialogues when necessary, and make use of provided scripts to create dynamic story events

  • Moderation duties when moderators are not immediately available or require extra assistance

Developer/Scripter

A developer handles most of the back-end functionality behind in-game content and mechanics. They are primarily responsible for work behind moves, abilities, items, and NPCs.

Responsibilities

  • Manage mechanisms, moves, NPCs, and items to make sure the gameplay is balanced as possible.

  • Investigate and address issues reported relating to in-game content.

  • Moderation duties when moderators are not immediately available or require extra assistance.

Programmer

A programmer is involved in various aspects of the game and is core to all of game development. Programmers are the proverbial engine behind the project – a majority of work is spent working on the client or server, focusing more on feature development and creating a framework to work with, rather than game content.

Responsibilities

  • Program and implement new features and content into the game.

  • Create facilitatory tools for the team to aid in applicable work

  • Work with source control to manage feature implementations and bugfixes

  • Write documentation for various implemented tools

  • Refactor and optimize code

  • Communicate and coordinate with team members and leads to bring projects to completion

  • Moderation duties when moderators are not immediately available or require extra assistance.

Administrator

Administrators oversee managerial duties for various ventures; they perform tasks necessary to keep the entire project running smoothly, such as resource coordination, scheduling, and team management. Administrators also ensure a safe environment for both the staff team and the community. Each administrator has a slightly different set of responsibilities, but a majority of them overlap.

Responsibilities

  • Manage the staff team and help lead each staff member to success in their role.

  • Listen to concerns the staff team and the community may have, and work on resolving these problems.

  • Secure, manage and maintain the game’s server and the rest of the game resources, as well as ensure their stability and availability.

  • Assist in player account management where necessary

  • Manage finances, including donations and the server bill payments.

  • Review and manage staff job applications the team receives.

  • Publish game and website updates

  • Moderation duties when moderators are not immediately available or require extra assistance.

Application Process, Frequently Asked Questions

What is the process for staff applications?

  • Once your application is sent, it will be initially reviewed by the administrators who may then pass it onto the rest of the team. Information from the application such as email, contact info, or anything the applicant may have wished to be private will be stripped out.

    Depending on the role and applicant, there will be between 1-3 interviews. If the interviews go well, you’ll be onboarded into the team and follow the trial process.

Is there an age limit to apply?

  • You must be 15 years of age or older to apply. Note that we take a variety of factors into account in choosing an applicant and age will not negatively or positively impact your odds if everything else is fine.

How many people are you expecting to take in?

  • We expect to introduce 3 moderators, 2-3 designers, 1-2 devs/scripters, 2-3 storywriters, and 2+ programmers to the team at minimum by the end of Summer 2020. If you are interested in applying but are hesitant to, keep in mind that we keep applications on file and may eventually return to them. We read every single application and every quality applicant has a fair shot at being considered.

What language is PMU currently written in?

  • The PMU client and server are both developed in C#. If you do not know C# but are experienced with other object oriented languages, it will not take you long to adapt to the syntax and we will help you along the way should you have any trouble should you join our team.

Does every staff start out as a Junior Mod?

  • Every staff member that passes their interviews and is accepted onto the team will undergo a trial and may be given the role they directly applied for. If you have additional questions about how this works, we encourage you to ask during the interview stage.

What do you look for in an applicant?

On the application, there is a section about secondary skills. If I have experience with these, where can I share portfolios/links or talk about my experience with those skills?

  • On the final pages of the application we ask “Is there any other information you feel we should know?” which is a long-answer textbox. You can put this information there, or in the cover letter section on the page where you select the roles/secondary skills themselves.

I’m interested in contributing sprites for PMU. Can I help with that?

If you have any questions that haven’t been covered here, let us know!

Additional Reads

These older guides are a good read for anyone looking for more into what is expected and how the team has operated over the years. The parts of them regarding applications, the process, and tools used may be slightly to extremely outdated, but you will find nuggets of wisdom within them that are still strong and valid.

A Pinch of Moderation (A guide to being Staff)

A Guide to Staff Applications 2017

Changelog and Credits

Changelog:

2020-03-25T00:00:00Z - Initial post

Credits:

  • Foxie and Fennes - starting point of staff responsibilities
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