Community Meeting - Minutes

[Thomas 3014]

Right, here you go. Everything from start to finish is contained in here, if you were unable to attend the meeting then here is your catchup. The following notes were taken during the meeting, though due to the note taker having to leave prematurely, all of the questions asked during the Q&A section are not noted, some are.

 

Warning: I didn't realise I was going to be recording most of this, so the notifications are preeeeettty loud in regards to pokes on Teamspeak. I apologise for this, as sometimes it's a bit difficult to hear us speak after I get poked about 50 times in the space of 30 seconds. The next meeting will have measures in place to ensure the recording is nice and level, but oh well.

 

Written Notes:

Spoiler

NOTES FOR THE COMMUNITY MEETING

 

2:00 PM PST
Meeting began. Tahmas gives introductions. Tells people to stop spamming in the chat and to stop poking.

 

He begins to start answering the questions.

 

Beast: At the end, there will be an open Q&A.

 

First question by Wendigo. How are we doing in terms of funding?

 

Tahmas: We’re doing okay. Things are going smoothly. EULA hit a bit but we’ve recovered.

 

Tahmas gives answers on noob friendly type stuff, he passes the torch to Ski.

 

Ski replies with the previously mentioned answers beneath the “noob-friendly” question.

 

Ski tells the gathered players about the TP command.

 

“Oh boy.” - Nug

“I care about spawn being compact.” - Aesopian

 

Road side taverns announced.

 

A collective ‘noooo’ from many individuals in the chat.

Adam-barnett: Noooo

Aesopian: this is dumb

Dizpanda: nice.

Discoliquid: i love it.

“Priceflash”: sounds horrible.

 

2:05 PM PST

 

Ski says that a potential admin must have been “active and contributed a lot to the staff.”

“Not someone who has gone out and caused a lot of drama within the community.”

“Only open to members that are currently staff.”

 

Niccum: “wiseacres next admin im calling it.”

[Lots of memes in Teamspeak chat. No real concrete reactions.]

 

2:10 PM PST

 

Ski: “Map is too large. We need fast travels.”

Kowaman: “Tofu is working on the FT plugin. It will also bring your horse if you’re on a horse.”

 

Tahmas: “Tsu said we’re trying to solve this by merging magics. The LT and MAT is focused on helping these magics and working with the communities of these magics.”

 

Teegah: “Good idea on what exactly is causing the lag. Been working on fixing it and making it better. If you were at the warclaim yesterday, it was almost perfect-... and yeah. It’s definitely getting better but there are still places that can still be improved.”

 

Kowaman: “Need optimizations. [2 devs on the case.] Whenever we make big changes, we like to tell people what’s going on.”

 

2:15 PM PST

 

Kowaman: “Pex modifications for ET. Minor fixes. ET pex in the past were done poorly and needed to be redone. ET is more secure and streamlined so that things don’t break.”

 

Tahmas: “Heists are good addition to thievery roleplay. There will be a your-view.”

 

Teegah: “Trails and spooky horses will be fixed soon.”

 

Tahmas says that we will be brainstorming new ideas for donations.

 

Tahmas begins to speak on the plan the team has to fix the spawn. He mentions monks.

Aesopian: “****! MAKE IT A HUB.”

 

2:20 PM PST

 

Lore team will be going over lore rules and guidelines as to making lore rules.

 

The players gathered talk about the spawn while Sky answers Druid inactivity.

 

Destinator: “Shouldn't the first thing new players see be roleplay, not OOC resource gathering?”

 

OMAR GRIMMER FOR REX 2015: “the areas on the current resource islands are pretty small, if there will be 1 resource island then i recommend having a bigger tree area, i'm not so sure about the other areas though”

 

The devs tell the community that “PVP buffs will not be returning.”

 

Magic races already have good enough PVP buffs. Won’t be adding anything else to magic races. When the magic plugin is eventually released, we will have someone.

<14:23:12> "nug": uh

<14:23:12> "Epicbeast6209": LOL

<14:23:13> "Pando": wtf

<14:23:13> "the real freema": >magic plugin

<14:23:13> "DiscoLiquid": CONFIRMED

<14:23:13> "Aesopian": magic plugin

<14:23:15> "Pando": EDGY

<14:23:16> "Aesopian": LEL

<14:23:17> "Aesopian": LELELELELELEL

<14:23:20> "sandk1ng.": MAGIC PLUGIN

<14:23:22> "DizPanda15": wow

<14:23:23> "sandk1ng.": MAGIC PLUGIN

 

2:25 PM PST

 

“MPM will not be coming back for a while,” Tahmas told the crowd.

 

“Any dates or goals as to when Nexus will be removed?”

 

Kowaman: “We are removing the old nexus crafting system by the end of the year with Obelisk. Professions are being fixed and tweaked. The plugin can’t really be ripped out. It’ll break a lot of things.”

 

Voting plugin will be fixed. Will be replaced with something better.

 

LC will be given on a paid system.

 

2:30 PM PST

 

“Why is priceflash banned?”

*shrug* He likes to hack things.

 

Harrison has ideas to revitalize player retention. Settlement guides, etc.

 

Remove the dumb war rule where once the capital is taken, all lands are taken.

 

“War team is going to be working on the severities.” - Ricky

 

Ski: “we’re not letting races just get destroyed.”

 

Nexus will be revamped not removed.

 

2:40 PM PST OPEN Q&A

“Can we help the snelf race become a real culture or a real sub-race?”

They can write lore about it and go through the submission process.

 

“What’s going to happen to the tomes of power?”

Nothing has been said yet.

 

“Pop lock on Oren?”

Yeah, no.

 

“Aviary plugin?”

Basically done. Just needs to be gone through and tweaked. It should be up soon ™

 

“Cybering?”

 

Possibly allowed if we can verify age : ^)

 

“Can we bring back brothels?”

No.

 

LC rant from Leowarrior. Said that the proposed system would not work.

 

Pre-Meeting, we held a small conversation between staff and answered some of the 'main questions', and wrote the down in a more in depth way than the notes were, so these are here:

Spoiler

- Money, what’s our current running length with the donations we have, on average what do we get a month, and on average what’s the current cost per month for the server?

Ski: Ever since becoming admin I have not heard anything about money woes which leads me to believe it is not an issue.

Tythus: We are doing OKAY, not great. But not terrible.

 

- I see you’ve been implementing some ‘noob friendly’ things, what else do you have planned for the road ahead.

Reworking spawn.

HB’s settlement guides.

Ski: Working on giving the monks a spot in the new spawn that will be near new players. These monks will be working with the idea that they will be actively working with the new players. AT now have TP commands under the idea that the AT will use it to help guide new players. (TPs must be documented through screenshots.)

Beast720: So today we are announcing the return of roadside taverns! These taverns are known as neutral ground, not belonging to any Nation, Race, or Guild. They are supposed to rekindle roadside roleplay to help make traveling fun again. They will also act as pit stops so players can get more food to continue their journey. The taverns will initially be run by the staff.  Barkeeps will be found here giving out quests and bounties for you to claim, so visit them every now and then to see what danger awaits around the map!

 

- Plans moving forward concerning advertising and bringing in new blood.

Tahmas: Currently not very focused on advertising. The focus is retention.

In other words, maintaining over pulling. We will be working more on the planetminecraft page.

 

 

 

- What are you looking for in the next Admin, what role will he or she fill?

Ski: Someone who is capable of helping with lots of different problems. [Versatile.] Someone who we feel is comfortable with handling a lot of different types of issues. Large amount of time. A lot of different things we value highly but we will be doing interviews soon!

 

Ever: I don't believe we have any specific roles or goals for the next admin. Obviously they should be active and have a good vision + goals for the future but past that, I'm not really sure. We'll begin interviews soon, I think. There's about 5 or 6 pages of people to interview and I'd like to give most of them a shot.

 

 

- When are we getting fast travels?

Ski: Map is too big to have fast travels and people definitely want fast travels. Loud and clear.

Red pillars are trying to get added back. Been bringing that up with the techs as well.

 

Ever: According to latest dev team meeting, it's nearly done.

 

 

- The playerbase of certain magicks are shrinking greatly, and some are even on the verge of extinction. Do you have any plans to solve this problem?

Tsu: Cogn(a/i)tism as an example. We’re trying amend this issue by merging magics. Lore changes are needed and such. Work between MAT and LT necessary.

 

 

 

- What is being done in regards to the server lag? Are there plans to buff up the host, or decrease the amount of resources we're using? Could this mean the wipes of some warps / worlds and removal of plugins, or?

“Done some analyzing of the server resources.” (Teegah will answer this.) One of the main causes of lag are entities. Manage your farms. 50 mobs in a 6x6 area. Teegah will kill the animals/mobs and trash the items gotten from it.

 

 

- Are there plans to implement more transparency among the varying staff teams? (@All the teams). Including Dev Team.

Tahmas: Transparency is pretty okay for now.

Ski: Been handling AT concerns. AT is not a clique. Things are relatively okay.

Tahmas: If a player asks what we are doing, nine out of ten times, we will tell them. To my knowledge, any GM will speak about any project they are doing.

 

Transparency is only an issue in the case that we are not going out of our way to speak on what we’re doing. [But we answer if asked.]

 

Ever: What suggestions do you have? I'm all for more transparency when its necessary. I try to run all future changes through a player-vote feedback thread beforehand. (fast travels, gm shops, spawn changes, etc.)

 

 

- Why were there unneeded PEX modifications when there are more urgent issues to address for the Dev Team? (I.e: Changing ET pex to Actor and B`uilder, and creating individual permissions for each, when the team had no PEX for almost a month). Will this be an ongoing thing?

Issue already fixed.

Will attempt to bridge the gap between devs and team leads.

“ET pex is more secure and streamlined.” (Teegah will address.)

 

- Are there any plans for a future rule revamp? Will there be more leniency to thievery roleplay with the rules?

War rules are getting fixed a bit and added onto. (Your View will be posted.)

 

Ever: As far as I'm aware, there are no plans for a total rule overhaul or revamp. There tends to be re-writes every now and then, though, so it's always a possibility. As for thievery roleplay leniency... it's pretty lenient now, isn't it? Heists should be a nice addition but they won't exactly be easy. I think thieving roleplay is in a good spot right now- though I'm talking specifically thieving and not banditry.

 

 

- As it stands, Tythus is living in a cardboard box in the alley of a Burgerking, subsisting on the leftover Whoppers from Whopper Wednesday, having all his money transferred to keeping the server afloat. What are our long-term plans to get people to give us money to keep the server up?

Been brainstorming on new cosmetic and EULA-compliant donation perks. (If you get an idea make a thread.)

Tahmas: We will be doing research on how other servers handle the EULA and possibly implement similar ideas. We will attempt learn through them on how to work with the system of donating that we have been presented with.

 

Ever: Devs will likely answer this one, but there are plans for fixing up / additional VIP rewards. One idea that I thought up/mentioned awhile back was some sort of server-wide EXP bonus that high level donators could activate.

 

 

- Can we make spawn less ? Like just convert it into the CT from Vailor? Like , everyone liked Vailor spawn better. It was compact, it was pretty, every boat was in the same goddamn place.

Ski: Vailor had issues with roleplay being troll-y in the docks, etc. It was often bad for newer players.

Ever: We're trying to avoid spawn becoming a hub of it's own. While I personally don't mind where players roleplay (it's not our job to corral players around like cattle, after all), spreading players out around 4 islands (7 if count resource islands) is a bit much. The current goal for our spawn renovation is as follows:

 

Additional spawn points on each of the main islands (Ceru, Tahn, Asul) so players don't have to spawn on the Malin spawn island if they don't want to. Cuts down on travel time a bit. New players will spawn directly inside a new monk temple for their first spawn. The hope is they'll get some early interaction during their first few moments.

 

Likewise, spawn will be made into a new resource island so all resource gathering is concentrated to one location. This should help keep spawn (which is the first thing new players see, remember that!) semi-active, even if it's just OOC resource gathering. Also assists new players in finding out where to gather resources rather than make them jump through a couple of fast-travel hoops till they find one of three resource islands.

 

 

 

- Can we get a ruling on use of free narrative materials for writing lore? So, if someone out there produces free D&D assets (e.g. a random encounter generator) are we allowed to use those assets? Can we take them verbatim (if those people are offering them verbatim anyway)?

Tsu: Planning on going over public lore rules, guidelines, etc.

 

 

- Druids are dying, for some reason. At least, this is what everyone tells me. I can't inject terrorism to stimulate discussion, I'm too busy. Give them something to do.

Approach Druid ET members or other ET members. Or get motivated within yourselves.

 

Ever: As far as I'm aware, druids are building a new grove on Ceru. That should stir up activity a bit, aye?

 

 

- Restore PVP buffs to all races they were removed from.

PVP buffs don’t make the game balanced and don’t help with the roleplay on the server. Devs say the PVP buffs will not be returning anytime soon.

 

 

- Can we grant enormous PVP buffs to evil races? As it stands, we can completely ignore the 'threat' of any evil entity, because we can just default to PVP and then just one of our guys can take down that evil dreadnought monster. Like, seriously, how about we just give the evil hierarchy buffs according to how powerful they are? Evil should be feared. As it stands, I could piss on a demon and no one could do ****.

Evil race PVP buffs will be added to when magic plugin get’s added..

 

-Humanize lore characters. As it stands, aenguls/daemons whatever are just foreboding presences instead of people. Why can't we have Cooking with the Divine??gy

N/A

 

-Mpm?

Not coming back for a while. It’s not updated to 1.10 even though 1.9 works on 1.10. There will be issues if we implement it in its current state.

 

Are there any dates or goals for when Nexus will be removed?

The system will be fixed and tweaked. It can’t be ripped out but we’ll try our best to do adhere to what the community desires.

 

As it stands, only about half of the voting sites will reliably give you keys, which, when redeemed, only give you a chance at something useful (minas). A voting system like we had in Anthos, where the sites worked and would give you straight minas was much more functional. Is fixing this a focus right now, and how could it be repaired?

Vegas is finished. Will be implemented soon. Pure mina system from redeeming keys.

 

Answers to Dev questions are as follows:

Spoiler

 

Lag:

We’ve done some profiling of RAM and CPU usage, and have narrowed down some causes. Our Quality Assurance and Logistics Developers are working on optimizing and resolving the major issues. It’s an ongoing process, and we should slowly be seeing positive results. You’ll notice that at the war claimed yesterday, we were running at full server speed. The lag at last war claim, was due to a miscommunication on the GMs side.

 

Our host is very powerful, and resources are not the issue. We are optimizations in certain areas of performance, but plays should see no change in the experience. No warps, worlds, plugins will be removed, as they are not the root cause.

 

Transparency:

We have a dedication to ensuring all changes are published in our patch notes, and that the community is consulted before major changes are made. Excitement and information about upcoming content is important to any game, though so is surprise. When a project is far in the future we keep it secret as not to build up hope when we are unsure of a release date. When a project is closer to completion we always reveal details and assure the community is informed. If you ever have a question about what the Dev Team is doing you can speak with our Public Relations Developer Teegah and I am sure he will answer the best he can, without spoiling upcoming content of course.

 

PEX:

These were minor fixes, which took a small amount of time to do for the tech side. Configurations of things like PEX can be done in minutes, or at most hours, whereas our content development takes much longer. The Dev Team has many responsibilities that must be balanced. Bug fixes, content creation, server upkeep, and configuration of plugins and permissions are just some of them. The ET pex were poorly set up, and had to be redone for a while now. The reason it took as long as it did was due to issues finding a time to sit down with the ET Leader and sort out exactly what permissions were required, and how to lay it out. It is now more secure, streamlined, and organized.

 

PVP Buffs:

PVP buffs will not be returning anytime soon, there was strong community support to remove them.

 

Evil Race PVP Buffs:

This will be resolved when a magic plugin is released. Spring 2018.

 

Swing Timers:

We’re still working on the promised changes, it hasn’t been on the top of our todo list due to more pressing issues such as lag, and the current code in place is difficult to change to make those changes. We haven’t forgotten about it, and will be getting around to it when time permits.

 

Remove Nexus Professions:

We are looking into solutions for the problems addressed in recent posts. The concept of professions always have been and will continue to be an integral part of our community, however we are aware of the issues brought up, especially with the crafting professions. New concepts are currently being worked on, and changes will be made, however the concept of skills, in some fashion, will always be part of our server. Just to note, we are still on-track to replace Nexus with a better system by the end of the year.

 

 If you are confused or have any questions, feel free to poke me or ask on this thread.

-Thomas.

[Aesopian 1640]

Aesopian 4 lyfe 

[Archbishop 1784]

10 minutes ago, Tahmas said:

The concept of professions always have been and will continue to be an integral part of our community,

pls no

[Textarea 719]

4 minutes ago, A Moongazer said:

pls no

i wouldn't be playing on the server if it didn't have any sort of profession grinding :p

[Taketheshot 3834]

36 minutes ago, Tahmas said:

 

Remove the dumb war rule where once the capital is taken, all lands are taken.

 

“War team is going to be working on the severities.” - Ricky

 

Ski: “we’re not letting races just get destroyed.”

Triggered

[Drop Koala 332]

1 hour ago, Aesopian said:

 

Aesopian 4 lyfe 

 

More like Gaesopian

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

1 hour ago, Tahmas said:

LC rant from Leowarrior. Said that the proposed system would not work.

I didn't say that I just said it was unnecessarily complicated

[KeatonUnbeaten 1103]

i am firmly in the belief that i should have been there so i could get a say.

no further comments.

[Sky 0]

1 hour ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

I didn't say that I just said it was unnecessarily complicated

"I'm not saying it doesn't work, one way or the other I'll work with what I have, I'm just saying that it is overly complicated and can be simplified"

 

Or something to that effect.

[Birdnerdy 1539]

6 hours ago, Omar Grimmer'Lak said:

i wouldn't be playing on the server if it didn't have any sort of profession grinding :p

this is just sad

[mkaxeman 1106]

Teegah: “Good idea on what exactly is causing the lag. Been working on fixing it and making it better. If you were at the warclaim yesterday, it was almost perfect-... and yeah. It’s definitely getting better but there are still places that can still be improved.”

 

 

Because none of the orcs showed up lol

[Daisy 9738]

3 hours ago, The axeman51 said:

Teegah: “Good idea on what exactly is causing the lag. Been working on fixing it and making it better. If you were at the warclaim yesterday, it was almost perfect-... and yeah. It’s definitely getting better but there are still places that can still be improved.”

 

 

Because none of the orcs showed up lol

 

Regardless of who showed up from what side, there was 125 people there. In the past that would have killed the server.

[Elindor 666]

On 17/10/2016 at 7:36 PM, Tahmas said:

Tythus: We are doing OKAY, not great. But not terrible.

Literally what Tythus has always said.

 

I think the tavern idea of giving out quests is a brilliant one. Especially for players who are on when server numbers are low and are looking for something to do. With NPCs it will be really easy for an ET to create small questlines for beginners and the lonely; sending someone off to a particular city to retrieve something, the classic collect x number of things, even the potential of mini dungeon events activated by pressure plates. While this sort of thing becoming common would detract from what LotC IS, on a small scale it will keep things interesting and hopefully improve new player retention.

 

In terms of advertising I had a quick look at the more recent traffic and can tell you that the places currently still working are PMC and the voting sites. Much of PMC traffic comes from skin-makers, so if efforts are to be put into the server's page advertisement when this should be measured for effectiveness. Do something to bump it. See what happens after a couple of weeks. If it is working then put in the effort to update the pages and attempting to keep activity bumping it.

 

On 17/10/2016 at 7:36 PM, Tahmas said:

- The playerbase of certain magicks are shrinking greatly, and some are even on the verge of extinction. Do you have any plans to solve this problem?

Tsu: Cogn(a/i)tism as an example. We’re trying amend this issue by merging magics. Lore changes are needed and such. Work between MAT and LT necessary.

 

Have they tried talking to existing teachers and mages of such subtypes? You don't have to implement some new change. If I were to be told "we need more people who know telekinesis" then I'd do an app and find a way to teach students. Even if it is through forum RP.

 

 

And general feedback on the meeting as a whole. It comes across as though a lot of what is coming for the server, and the solving of things labelled as issues, are being addressed by Developers only. It makes me believe that they are being overburdened with tasks.

 

magic plugin will always be SoonTM. It is never going to happen.

[Thomas 3014]

Moved to the Archive. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.