Community Team Update - May 2020

[LotsOfMuffins 1357]

 

 

 

COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE LOG

MAY 2020

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Hello again!

 

The past month has been wild. With a focus group change (Broom Crew → Pots and Pandits), a completely new team (Application Team), and, of course, loads of applications, monk guidances, and projects, things have been moving forward! 

 

APRIL DATA

 

- Overview -

 

This month, we saw a total of 370 apps handled, with 200 new players welcomed onto LotC. 

 

Last month, we had 395 applications and 216 new players. As usual, we’ve still maintained about a 1:1 acceptance versus denial rate, with the exact amount being around 53% of applications being accepted, 2% less than last month. Of course, the biggest reasons for denial is due to applicants not making the necessary changes within 24 hours of being placed on pending, though a common reason for denial also includes simply having a lot of things needing to be fixed/changed with their app! If an applicant has over 5 issues with their app, we typically deny them, as that usually means they have to rewrite a large chunk of their application. This gives them a chance to start fresh. While before they’d be waiting days to get reviewed, applications are being reviewed within a few hours now thanks to our new Application Team (read more on that below), so it’s less troublesome to have to make a new application. Similar to last month, we’ve still had quite unusually high amounts of applications, but it’s seeming to begin to lessen as the quarantine ends for many people around the globe. 

 

 

- Accepted/Denied Ratios -

 

 

 

 

- Race Specific Data -

 

 

 

 

- New Player Guidance -

 

 

 

 

TEAM DATA

 

- Application Team Data -

 

 

 

 

 

APPLICATION KING/QUEEN

 

This month’s Application Queen goes to... @LotsOfMuffins!

 

@LotsOfMuffins

 

Followed behind by @Dinochann and @TimberBuff!

 

Back again once again to accidentally reclaim my crown, I have managed to review nearly 50 applications this month. I don’t really ever plan on achieving Application Queen; it just kinda happens. Whoops. 

 

CURRENT ROSTER

 

- Community Administrator -

@LotsOfMuffins

 

- Community Managers -

@armajesty

@Nestro_Miner

@NotAFie

@puffables

 

- Community Team Members -

@AnonymousAlexa

@chaosgamer_

@Dinochann

@Hopesky123

@LordScisso

@MC_BreadStick

@Mariolla
@UwUPlant

@PeptoDeNewb

@snoopie12

@stickyhon

@TimberBuff

 

- Content Creators -

@Amelica

@Beordan
@ElvenMommaHacker

@ImNerdiie

@JokerLow
@Parion
@puffables

@xDK

 

- Wiki Team Members -

@1_Language_1

@Aelisus
@DevoutChorale_

@JokerLow

@Qizu

@Scipp3r

@Tigergiri

 

 

PROJECT UPDATES 

 

- Application Team – @LotsOfMuffins -

The Application Team was led by @LotsOfMuffins for the duration of its set up. However, the Community Manager who will be overseeing it from this point on is @armajesty! The team has had a great start, already clearing up the applications page in a matter of days thanks to the amazing staff volunteers. The team is comprised of both Community Team Members and other volunteers from different parts of staff who work together to review applications, collect feedback from new players post-acceptance, and ensure that the application process is the best it can be. This team is only available to Community Team Members and current staff members. CT Members are no longer required to do applications, though those who chose to be a part of the AT are required. This is to prevent burnout; if a member is feeling burnt out from apps, they can simply switch out of the team and into a different focus group, allowing someone else to join the open spot and review applications in their place. Not only has this encourage CT Members to focus more on the community and advocating, interacting, and helping the community, but it’s also alleviated stress from the team to handle loads of apps in order to keep up with the heavy influx. 

 

 

- Content Creation – @NotAFie -

Hii, guys!! Fie's here. I'm gonna get straight to the point. The month is over, and once again a lot has happened with the Content Creation Team. First of all, I'd like to thank each and every Content Creator for putting their effort and time into this team. You all are greatly appreciated and loved. Quite a few have joined and left this month. Currently we have Amelica and puffables on the team as our artists, ElvenMommaHacker and xDK as video editors, JokerLow as footage recorder, and Beordan, Parion, ImNerdiie, and Amelica as our skinners. ImNerdiie is also a builder for the team. You all are amazing, keep the great work up!!

 

Our current projects include training and tutorial videos, reworking the skin archive, and Tutorial Island in collaboration with the CT Projects focus group, which is managed by the lovely @puffables, and the World Team. In addition, we are updating the website’s home page; xDK and our devs are hard at work on this! 

 

The future goals for this team is to finish the current projects and let new ones roll in. Once again, thank you all for your amazing help. 

That's all I have to say. Cheers!

 

 

- Events – All Management -

Over on in events, we hope you all enjoyed the Labyrinth event run by many of our fabulous CT - some nifty little prizes in store for those who could get through the danger, traps and puzzles! A big thanks to the events team for their hard work in both preparing and running this - and thank you all who participated! ❤️ 

 

 

- Pots and Pandits – @armajesty -

Hello, everyone! We are happy to announce that not that Broom Crew has completed it's tasks of reworking Pots n' Pandits and revamping the skin archive, we will be installing the new focus group for Pots n' Pandits. This focus group will focus around teaching new players about the Conflict Rules, Rollplay vs roleplay and overall how to CRP properly. Players are recommended to work with these Pots n' Pandits Group members by moderation if they display innapropriate behaviour in regards to roleplay. This can include powergaming, or just low quality RP. Alongside this, the members of the group will be creating a NPC-based system on tutorial island that functions as a tutorial about CRP and how it is done. These NPC guides will offer tips and tricks on how to make CRP more enjoyable for everyone.

 

 

- Projects – @puffables -

Heya gamers, this month over in projects, we've been doing the finishing touches and have now concluded several of our projects! Our 'travellers guild' has been completed, needing only final review before launching. Guidance Rework has tied into this - solidifying a good system that ensures an interactive first experience for new players, as well as building a link to nations and charters. The monk lore rewrite is well underway - some finishing touches to our submissions occurring still now. 

The largest project of this month has been finishing the Tutorial Island. A huuge thanks to everyone who helped out with this, all our projects members and assisting WT - but an especially big thanks to @ImCookiie and @ImNerdiie for being driving forces in this, and for their excellent work in pushing this forwards towards completion !! ❤️❤️ 

Looking forwards to seeing all this in action, and a better first experience for new players achieved overall!

 

 

- Wiki Team – @Nestro_Miner -

The wiki, as of late, has unfortunately met with some technical difficulties, some rather major ones at that, specifically when creating accounts and attempting to upload images. However, we can assure everyone that there is light at the end of this tunnel. The Forum Technician, @Lyonharted™, has been working on a new major update for the wiki, however, not much can be said about it at the moment! In spite of all this, I’m proud to say that the Wiki Team has been continuously doing their work! This month’s focus was updating and creating settlement guides and we’ve been doing an excellent job thus far! Our next focus after settlements is moving on to nation guides!

 

At the beginning of May, we announced a new reward system given to players with the top three most wiki edits (a quick reminder of what you could win: first place gets 1800 Minas, second place gets 1200, and third place gets 600)!

Here are this month’s winners! 

First place - 1_Language_1 with 135 edits this month!
Second place - James2k with 93 edits this month!
Third place - Eryane with 36 edits this month!

 

 

JUNE’S DIRECTION

 

Last month was primarily about engagement, projects, and more community advocacy. This month, we’re focusing more on the solidification of our new team, the Application Team, and our revised focus group, Pots and Pandits, as well as pushing out some projects and content!

 

 

- Last Month’s Goals -

 

1. Community Advocacy

Our latest community advocacy project has been spearheaded by the outstanding @puffables! Thanks to her hard work, we’ve finished gathering feedback from over 20 new players, settlement leaders, and established players. Although we didn’t meet our usual goal in terms of how many players we interview, we’re still doing our best to continue on and improve! The feedback is currently being compiled so Community Management can have a meeting, discuss the results, and implement changes! I’d like to give a special shoutout to @DinoChann, who interviewed nearly 10 different people for the project. That’s about half of the total interviews! For more information on how this works, take a look at last month’s Community Update, which can be found here: https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/191343-community-team-update-april-2020/.

 

2. Monk Guidance

All but one team member has completed at least one monk guidance this month, as per our goal, with the average per member being about two guidances. This month, we’ve seen a total of over 50 new players given monk guidance, which is a huge increase compared to past months. With PM’ing applicants on discord after acceptance informing them of the process, leaving comments on accepted applications with the command they should run to receive it, and generally encouraging CT Members to guide more new players, we’ve definitely improved tremendously. This system is going to change soon, however, with the finishing touches of Tutorial Island being made; all new players will be run through this tutorial, and as such, monk guidances (hopefully) won’t have to be nearly as in-depth. In addition, every single new player will be informed after exiting Tutorial Island to run the /creq command for additional help getting started, so hopefully this means that we will be seeing even more monk guidances being completed in the coming weeks following the release of Tutorial Island!

 

3. The Wiki Team

The Wiki Team has a huge and necessary update coming from the one and only @Lyonharted™, which will help with a lot of the issues the wiki currently faces. Although I cannot speak too much on the changes to come, keep an eye out, as we’ll send out an announcement with more info once the project has progressed more. However, if you would like to assist the Wiki Team in transcribing, organizing, and moving stuff around, please fill out the following form: https://forms.gle/ENVJ6CCZSr67LK4EA. Be warned, though; it’s a lot of copy/pasting. For a good cause!

 

 

- This Month’s Goals -

 

1. Tutorial Island

@ImNerdiie, @puffables, and @ImCookiie have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on Tutorial Island. The NPC’s are almost done, the settlement boats have been built and are being put into the build itself now, and it’s nearly ready to go to Admin Approval! This is a huge game-changer in terms of helping new players understand the commands, functionalities, etc. of the server upon first joining, so of course, it’s our goal this month to finally push it out! Unfourtunately, we haven’t been able to push this out sooner due to how big of a project it really is. It’s a lot of building, writing, and planning! But hopefully, we’ll be able to finish sorting out the finishing touches and NPC’s and get it out as soon as possible. I’d like to give a huge, huge, huge shoutout to @ImNerdiie for being such a fantastic help with this project. She’s spent hours and hours on building and planning the island, and all her hard work is quite obvious by just taking a look at what she’s built. It’s an amazing build that I cannot wait for you guys to see!

 

2. Application Team

Ensuring that the new Application Team runs smoothly is another goal of ours for this month! Team members have mostly already been trained, CT Members have been working well with the AT Members to ensure that applications are getting done and that feedback is getting implemented, and after a short period where I ran it to get it off its feet, it now has an official manager: @armajesty. Things are going pretty well, though of course, it’s a goal to ensure that it continues to go well!

 

3. Community Events

Last month, @puffables planned a fantastic maze event with some volunteers from the team, though we have four events that are going to be in planning this month, including another Creative Cafe and Battle of the Arts! We haven’t released as many community events since the focus group was changed into Broom Crew (and then Pots and Pandits), though it has helped us dedicate more time to projects, script writing for Content Creation, etc., so it was a necessary shift. Creative Cafe is currently being planned by @LordScisso, Battle of the Arts by @armajesty, one of our upcoming big events by @TimberBuff, and our fourth event is TBD. Team members can volunteer to run or help with events, which is why we have a different group running the events each time. Keep an eye out for some announcements regarding our upcoming events and be sure to hop in and participate!

 

 

 

If you have any questions or comments about the direction that we are going in, feel free to leave a comment down below or reach out to a team member.

 

 

[JokerLow 1189]

very cool

[snoopie12 817]

Gang 

[NestroPapaya 478]

Gang Gang

[Tigergiri 2859]

Tigergiri Throws CT Hand signs at the amazing writing!

 

[Nozgoth 2897]

imagine being CT

(Jk lol I love y’all)

Edited June 1, 2020 by Nozoa

[DylanDeNewb 160]

1 hour ago, Nozoa said:

imagine being CT

(Jk lol I love y’all)

un-void, no balls.

[Nozgoth 2897]

2 hours ago, DylanDeNewb said:

un-void, no balls.

I’m a real one tho

[xDK 478]

yes

[1_Language_1 1670]

I can't wait until one day they let me onto Application Team. 🥺

 

I'll hold that crown for you Muffins, it looks too heavy for your blessed head. 😘

 

[firespirit44 1279]

This data is pretty insane, big props to the CT Admin and her team for spearheading the data gathering. 

 

Could you also track where these new applicants are coming from? I think it would greatly help out to understand where the newer players are finding LOTC, and possibly look into promoting content on those channels. 

[LotsOfMuffins 1357]

50 minutes ago, firespirit44 said:

This data is pretty insane, big props to the CT Admin and her team for spearheading the data gathering. 

 

Could you also track where these new applicants are coming from? I think it would greatly help out to understand where the newer players are finding LOTC, and possibly look into promoting content on those channels. 

Thank you!

 

Definitely a possibility. I can add that to our data-collection and see where most people are saying their referrals are from. 

[Shmeepicus 3942]

How come so many people dipped out on CT team this month?

 

I left cause burnt out but noticed a bunch of names missing in LoTC discord. (<--- edit)

[Evonpire 1816]

20 hours ago, Shmeepicus said:

How come so many people dipped out on CT team this month?

 

I left cause burnt out but noticed a bunch of names missing in LoTC discord. (<--- edit)

I mean I personally left for some personal reasons, I’m also surprised was yeeted from the Data so soon.