May I suggest that all current and/or future staff members use the in-game function to allow sound to come through whilst alt tabbed. Reasons: This would prevent alot of lying children. You would be able to react to mic-spammers within a couple of seconds instead of forcing us to wait for you to come back from whatever you are doing outside of the game.
I personally use this myself and recommend it. However, this feature while alt-tabbed will not serve as useful as you think it may be. Some players will always be loud, obnoxious and unpleasant, staff members are there to put a stop to these players. If a staff member is alt-tabbed, how are they supposed to tell who is speaking? Do they assume? There's not a way to tell unless you distinctively know a player's voice. While browsing the forums, I am guilty of not putting my full-blown attention to everything that happens in-game due to the responding to questions via steam, forums and even shoutbox. But even if I were to commit my all to listening to everything that happens, that would not suffice, a KOS may be called while another player is yelling, a player may be harassed while someone else is screaming, etc. What I'm trying to say is that 'suggestion' will not change anything. If a staff member is staffing a server, they should divide their awareness towards keeping it stable and fun for everyone.
If someone starts screaming and abusing the voice function, its highly unlikely going to be for 1-2 seconds allowing plenty of time for said alt tabbed staff member/s to quickly enter the game again and gag, Also clearly if someone heard said KOS over the person being an obnoxious twat than you could of probably heard it too. This suggestion provides a way for people to enjoy the server without small children easily lying about something. For example: Report: RDM'd me for no reason. Reply: I heard a KOS. In this situation, if the staff member/s online had been listening to the sound but never heard a KOS on said player filing the report the reported would go under observation for lying blatantly just to RDM. Then if this continues to happen with the exact same reported player you could confirm they are lying. This would also drown out alot of mic harassment that goes on. So far the only staff member i've had instantly react without me having to use @ chat and wait for 3 minutes and probably repeat myself a hundreds times until they come back from doing something is @Spectral . He consistently reacted to any form of harassment on anyone within seconds. How did he know who was harassing? really simple he clicked the game to open up again. This statement right here makes your comment about my suggestion not going to change anything irrelevant. Clearly they could divide their awareness better by doing this. Yes I know it won't stop every little thing, but I never said it would. However it would stop alot of things that are being missed by alt tabbed staff members.
How exactly do you plan to monitor this? Make the staff constantly send screenshots? If a staff member is dealing with a report and there mic spam and they dont instantly gag, do you assume they aren't doing their job? What if they went to get a drink? Are the doing it wrong then? No. This is unnecessary and is impossible to track, mic spam isn't that much of a problem and is always dealt with accordingly.
Why would I want to monitor it? Its a suggestion to help staff be more attentive about in-game chat whilst being alt tabbed and missing alot. No I don't assume this. You are making an assumption that im assuming that staff aren't doing their jobs when they are busy with other in-game events, which is not the case. Its simply a way for them to pick out liars and to be able to alt tab and do what they like and deal with things that are being said over mic if need be. By my understanding there is a rule made by one of the higher ups that states that you need to put AFK in your name if you aren't actually at your computer. So yes, it would be wrong. Obviously we arent little brats that expect this but that is a rule I know exists for staff. This isnt just about mic spam. Its about several different things that could help the community thrive if they were dealt with faster/better. I'm not stating that you guys suck as staff but in my time playing i've only seen a few staff members give their full attention to in-game events and deal with every type of situation with care, not only for the server but for the people that feel they were wronged by someone in-game. Thank You @Toxin @Spectral @MangoTango @ThatBox As for the impossible to track, not sure if you are saying its impossible to track the people in-game talking or if the staff member is using the function. In the case of impossible to track who is talking in-game, its really not impossible @Spectral managed it fine. If you are saying its impossible to track if the staff member is using this function, this is a suggestion for staff to possibly use this function to help our community become better in a way. I'm not suggesting this become in enforced rule.
@Carned you are ex-admin of the servers and this suggestion is about some staff needing to be more attentive and how this would help. Then you say TL;DR perhaps this is why you think its a shitty suggestion because you were not attentive yourself.
Wasn't an insult, I know you and I know how you staff but TL;DR from an ex-admin on a fairly reasonable suggestion just seems kinda petty.
Thats fantastic, Its still a fairly reasonable suggestion to help staff deal with liars and/or mic spammers. So my suggestion stands rather valid and it wouldnt surprise me if some staff have seen this and enabled it so they can alt tab.
Wait, people play source games without borderless windowed mode? This helps immensely. During my short experience of being a staff member, I had this feature enabled at all times. Hell, even before I was a staff member I had it on just so that I could catch little tid-bits of information. Like when the round starts/ends, etc. Would say +1, but any of the staff that would alt-tab and wait for the round to end each time sort of discourages me to play with them if they decide to hop on, and there's no way to really 'enforce' this type of setting for Staff Members.
How bout i add this to the suggestion just add the staff members on steam and steam message them when someones being obnoxious or breaking the rules
Or how about the staff pay more attention to the game? If you need to message them if somebody is being obnoxious, breaking the rules, or whatever, then they aren't doing their job.
Well a lot of the time the staff have stuff to irl so they cant be on every single second of the game thats why i added that
