Update to the NPC Shift Policy

The following statement has been added to the policy on NPC shifts:

You are expected to arrive at Logistics on time and be ready to accept NPC roles immediately. If you are more than ten minutes late to your NPC shift you will be assessed a Rules Violation for failure to NPC.

If you're asking yourself, "so does that mean that if I'm more than ten minutes late I just shouldn't show up?", the answer is yes, because it won't matter if you do or don't. Rules Violations add up in a painful hurry, though, so my advice is to make sure that you're on time and ready to NPC. Also, bear in mind that violating the NPC policy also brings a restriction on learning skills for that event - another reason to square your shit away and get to your NPC shift when you're required.

If you're cracking down on rules violations for being a little late; such as being in the middle of a mod and being forced to leave mid way; or extensive walk; then are people getting the extra NPC service points for being stuck in a mod at the end of their shift and rolling over into the next mod shift? It only seems fair to make sure that people are rewarded for staying longer to complete a mod on their shift opposed to people just being punished for staying to finish a mod and being 15 minutes late, or at least making an allowance to stay 15 minutes late to make the time up. If there's a stick, there should be a carrot as well.

To my knowledge, MMs have always been authorized to award SP to players whose NPC assignments extend past the end of their shifts. This policy remains unchanged. I will, however, review that policy with the MMs to ensure that it is being followed.

This seems like a problem for people who aren't mm's but my question is will anything be done to stop early npc shift endings? I know it sounds odd for a non mm to be complaining about this but as a player it's frustrating for an npc shift to end hrs early when people pay to play. Specifically for me because fighting is fun lol.

clarify? Are you referring to a few people leaving a shift early or an entire shift finishing before it's scheduled till? In either case this would be a serious matter to bring up with either Matt White or Andy as soon as it happens.

I've had it happen to me a few times too; Last non-alt event after the Sand Trap / Djinn Mod. We finished and it was 10 minutes before the end of the shift, but we were released. It was a meat grinder and many people needed a break, plus what are you going to do in ten minutes with a bunch of people getting prepped and carded.

To clarify, there are situations which warrant people to be a little late, but people should be allowed to complete their shift if these situations occur; or people should write down the time people leave their NPC shift that way they can just skim the list and go "Alright this shift stayed an extra 30 minutes, here's 50 SP." It doesn't bog up the system, and it doesn't affect the next shift, but it assures that if you're going to be cast iron with the rule violations that people get a carrot at the end of the stick.

My biggest clarification are the situations where you have a longer than usual mod that included a walk down past the maze or into the area past the lake; you complete 70-80% of the mod, and you have to leave before the completion of the mod just to make the walk back to logistics to make yourself arrive on time; people may not even have a time piece on them or the combat may be too intensive to check the time until you're already late. It's hard for a player to estimate how long a mod's going to take, and it's a little unfair if Bob, the only healer on a mod has to bail for paperwork thus causing a player death. It's good that people are cracking down, but there should be a little wiggle room for this type of scenario. I've had situations like that on occassion happen to me, and I know I would be extremely bitter if I lost my build because a mod took too long and I didn't have a time piece.