501 and Telanir: Attacking decline one step at a time

[Fimlin 1997]

I have more videos from older map battles because they were worth uploading, but I have loads of shitty footage of the more recent battles and raids that are mostly just not worth uploading

 

i rember nexus pvp with armor weights and taking time to put armor on, people hated that a lot so it was removed, only to be snuck back in with the nexus we have now

 

shrug 

[Lark 2227]

Alright now that I'm awake I can post a proper response.

 

This is a great post and all, and I've seen quite many like it(myself having posted a few). Its a great idea, its exactly what we all want. But when are you asking for this to be done? Now? A week from now? A month? A year?

 

Nexus is a finely ingrained code in the system that was brought out by the community, and now that its been around for a while, the Devs do see and hear everyone. But here's something that occurred to me recently. 

 

The Devs need incentive besides "ITS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVER" to work. Its the whole thing of, "hey artist can you do this extensive detailed drawing for me for...eheheh..exposure?" Obviously the answer is no. I'm sure most of the artists on LotC will tell you to **** off, some will do it in a kind way at least. So Lark, what are you saying?

 

I'm saying the Devs need money, or rather, the server needs money to pay them. So what is needed right now isn't the community yelling at and disrespecting the Devs (Not this topic per say but a little encounter on discord last night which blew my mind that this was the state atm).

 

From my last tenure on the GM Team, here is my understanding of how the server works.

 

Players are attracted to the server via the Media Team's work via videos, whoever runs the Twitter(seriously that was a great idea), and just finding the server on the forums. The Application Team acts as the Great Filter of Newbies, trimming the fat so to say and leaving us with very few new players entering the system, but usually of good quality at the very least. Most of the time, no fault to them, its that a person's nature isn't really shown on a whitelist application. 

 

Then it falls to the Event Team to the entertain the players, the Lore Team to provide a world for the players to explore in, the Forum Mods to make sure that the forums are manageable and can be used as medium to interact with each other in a mostly respectable manner outside of the server, and the Global Moderators to moderate players behavior and act as front end customer service to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves as well as working to improve the server with various programs and services that rise and fall over the years. Sometimes they serve their own agendas but that's a given, lets be honest here. 

 

That is just the front end of the server, which is a lot! All these teams are designed to help make roleplay a more enjoyable experience because roleplay in this sort of medium can get incredibly chaotic at times. Unlike say, a tabletop RPG, or any game which has people sitting around the table cooperating. The players are simply that, the players. They have no real power on the server unless they take up one of these roles or become a nation leader, even then that power is limited to having power over other players and staff if they know some well enough. However this power is limited by the GMs still.

 

To put it into sports and D&D terms, because that should cover most people's understandings:

 

The GMs, FMs, AT, ET, and LT make up the referee and the rulemaker, or the Dungeonmaster, the person who keeps everyone in line with the story presented, as well as bending to allow new stories to be formed by the players. They enforce the rules of the server, act within the rules of the server(usually), and work to provide the world, show how that world interacts with the players, and generally make sure everyone is having fun. That is the ultimate goal of these teams. Which they do well, despite all the ups and downs of the server, they still carry out the jobs to varying degrees of quality and they get it done. 

 

Wiki Team is not included on this list because to be frank I don't believe I was around to see them in full, I know I was only around when they were just a wee sparkle in someone's brain. The Wiki Team essentially serves to make sure all information about the server is readable and accessible to the players in a more streamlined manner than the forums. I wouldn't say they are front end, but definitely work in concert with the players and LT to make sure the Wiki has up to date and accurate information.

 

 

So where does that leave the Developers and Administrators?

 

The Administrators do not hide away from the server because they have a massive steam library to fill out, nor do they hate the server or whatever it is the community comes up with this time. This team, and ALL THE OTHER TEAMS, including Developers, have people on them. People have lives to live and I feel that so many people forget that while the staff are here to maximize your enjoyment, they are not robots. They cannot be here at all times to cater to your whims. They need sleep, food, socialization, sex, and money. The teams I feel that have this fact forgotten about them the most are the Admins and the Developers.

 

The Administrators run the back end of the server, they are the ones who usually work in concert with all the others teams to orchestrate all the stuff that happens on the server. For example, our new Community Admin, Wrynn (good luck to him), is the current mouth of the Admins and the Players. He's customer relations, he works with the players to improve relations and get projects going. But what people tend to forget that this stuff takes time. Just like Nexus Crafting Times, changes and improvement take a lot more time than people expect, and then they get mad and complain on the forums. Tythus, Telanir, 501warhead, and Harold all have lives, they all have **** to do outside of LotC.

 

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be Admins and be removed, it means that people need to actually respect them and remember they are not machines and servants to your whim. When I'm discord talking with one and some dude pops on to swear at one of the Admins and call them a retard, I'm ******* surprised they weren't just straight banned. Thats some restraint I wouldn't have if someone disrespected me. I work retail at the moment (and I'm sure others who do can attest), **** customers. So when you have a player, (customer) come up to you and just blatantly disrespect the LotC equivalent of a manager or owner and get shut down verbally instead of being banned, you have to give them props for their patience in dealing with the community. We shouldn't be acting like this towards them. They are people who have lives and aren't really given much incentive to dedicate time to LotC when they are treated like ****. It becomes work rather than an enjoyable duty and job.

 

This goes for the Developers as well. Coding takes time! A lot of time! All the wonderful plugin ideas that the community produces are great! But they take time and then it comes down to priority. Players want Magic Plugin, a magic plugin takes a while and even then, to get a magic plugin that caters specifically to LotC's brand of special snowflake magic is extremely difficult! There's some weird magic out there and to code all the interacts between it all without major bugs would take years! But I digress. Writing hundreds of thousands of lines of code takes time, and keep in mind they do this for free. Most coders who do this get paid at least $15-40 and hour, maybe more depending on how good they are. The Developers need jobs to sustain themselves because the server doesn't pay them.

 

We can complain and rant on the forums all we want but this all takes time, which I don't think the entire community will ever get but calling for the removal of Devs and Admins who are just doing their jobs and are trying to have lives as well, its just not called for. Its not like they are ACTUALLY SIPHONING AWAY SERVER MONEY FOR A VACATION. That happened, long ago. Those guys aren't here anymore, now we have people who do care about the server but don't really get anything back for it.

 

/rant

 

Tl;dr Appreciate the staff more for what we do, address real problem of making the server more successful through knowing that coding takes time and money, one of which we have plenty of because the server isn't dying anytime soon.

 

[Danny 2232]

4 hours ago, Lark said:

rant

 

Tl;dr Appreciate the staff more for what we do, address real problem of making the server more successful through knowing that coding takes time and money, one of which we have plenty of because the server isn't dying anytime soon.

 

0

 

 

You raise several very good and very important points and I agree with you on a number of them. The staff teams are all volunteers and the community has always been to quick to shred them when poor decisions are made or when they disagree. We often forget that this isn't a group of professionals who do this for money but rather people who do it out of their care for LOTC. The community needs to remember that. 

 

But at at the same time time let's not conflate the disgruntled nature of these complaints with a misunderstanding of server development. This isn't an issue of things taking time - a number of issues that have been raised in recent threads are ones that have existed and been known about for over five years now. Rather, it's dissatisfaction with a staff team reluctant to adopt the necessary changes and consequently it's a disillusion with the server administration. Many of these changes are ones the playerbase wanted back when I was admin and were ignored then and have been ignored since. 

 

And that's where I perhaps stand on a different footing from Matt's OP. I don't think anyone need to step down but rather that some swallowing of pride and acceptance of reality is required so the gears can actually begin spinning rather than simply being passed over again. From what I've heard so far that may well be happening this time and that's exactly what the server needs.

[zaezae 1098]

I also get tired of shitty personal attacks against folk. 

17 hours ago, Teegah said:

 

it is being handled with consultation from the community, people tell me what they want with pvp everyday on skype or teamspeak and 90% of what they tell me is the same ideas and stuff people have been asking for for a long time

0

 

What is the team doing about Nexus if anything? Or planning to do? Or just thoughts?

[Zindran 590]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

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