Community Meeting Notes -January 2021-

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Community Meeting Notes

- January 2021 -

Topics

• Texture pack

• Community Team

• Vortex

• Story Team Events

• Player Retention

• And way more...

 

 

Recording

• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1O1iJW533SflJnuu8iHBTiIJUJJFXEeqE?usp=sharing 

 

 

Questions and Answers

Q: A server Texture pack!!! I know a basic one has been worked on but would it be possible to do a more in depth version considering all the very cool things that could be done with the custom vortex items! making every block and item not just vanilla plus but into a fantasy style pack that fits LoTC would add to the immersion on another level and I think would be loved by the community and well worth the time (Tech)- 🔥Chaos🔥#4247 (00:00:20)

A: Vortex is coded with a code in mind, so we have a working draft of a texture pack. It's put to the side for now but wants to be put into work later on, some other things are more important. It's something that they really want to get going though and make public to others to use as well. Basically finishing stuff out before it gets out, will see it along at the same time of the big vortex update.

Q: With Telanir currently as the acting Community Team Admin, he's done a good job reforming the team into something more functional. However, given that this was only meant to be a temporary placement, have any considerations been made into a more permanent replacement? (Administration)- Crevel#9266 (00:02:55)

A: Telanir is CT admin, after muffins has been removed from the administration the idea of temp has gone away. So he is the CT admin for a while. 

 

Q: What exactly will be the forum for us the people playing the game to create and submit suggestions in order to have an organized way for people to inform the staff where the server can be improved (Administration)- Jameson#2863 (00:03:55)

A: We are still looking into new ways of communicating, but most of the suggestion channels weren't very proactive and mostly not implementable in the short term or they were mostly out on adding a plugin that does X. We are looking for other means of this suggestions, like other discords for staff specific teams. 

 

Q: Any updates or changes to Vortex soon? Specifically so it’s not as grindy. (Tech) -Kingston#6969 (00:04:55)

A: It's going through huge rewrite, going through a whole depth to it and more quality of life important. Everything will have meaning and add to the world. Check out the Tech Discord for more information.
 

Q: How are you guys on the community team? How’s everyone on the team's work ethic, feelings about the team and such? While we’re on the topic what do the community team have planned for the future, new projects or anything pertaining to that? (Hope you guys are doing well) (Community)- BenjiBot#1207 (00:06:40)

A: We are re-building lately. Last month we accepted 8 new people into the team. Mainly focusing on apps, they are under control. Apps are now taking only a few hours before they are being reviewed.  Now that we have that under control we are more looking towards picking up projects like battle of arts, ct updates and more to come. A big thing is every member of the team going through a choosing three roleplay groups and putting on a list to get to know our community more. We want to make a system of volunteers to get new players well integrated. Alongside this Treasure is doing great with the player retention, using numbers and results to work off of.  We have ideas but we have inter team collaboration, so a lot of approvals from each team but there is movement. 

 

Q: Any plans to celebrate LotC's 10 Year Anniversary? (Administration)- Crevel#9266 (00:11:01)

A: Would like to but not our priority, we want a small event but will see when we get there. 

But Treshure says there is a video planned!

 

Q: Is there any plans on changing up the pvp system? As in, making it less of an aspect than it is.. I mean we are on an rp server not a pvp server? (Tech)- Kingston#6969 (00:12:36)

A:  Already gone through. More information at the Tech Discord. The war server, we have a newer api software to work with, so with the war server there is hope it will be better with the new software and it should have less lag since it is multi threaded. 

 

Q: To add to the question above, I feel a big part of this also has to do with the lack of knowledge with CRP so maybe bring back pots and pandits? or give a bigger description on the rules or something pls. (Community)- 🔥Chaos🔥#4247 (00:13:50)

A: Pots and pandits was couple months ago, so it is semi-shelved. Since there was only 1 player every two months that requested it, we decided it was not being worth a big project so we have made a general video for it. But if a new player makes a /creq  we can still teach them the basics of CRP.

 

Q: Question-will the community team be holding events related to this new map, like they did on Arcas or will that no longer be a thing due to the long wait it takes to get an admin to sign off on projects and deliver prizes that may be required? (Community)- Tainted_Ace#4526 (00:15:01)

A: On prizes, mina are going to be easier now and immediately handed out after an event, as the economy team made a nice treasury for ct to use. Managers can quickly get money for prizes from this. For events, we probably will hold them soon again, but we have focus on the team getting stable. However we are looking towards events again soon, especially for the holidays so stay tuned!

 

Q: Related question to events, I have yet to do to much exploring on Almaris but I know Arcas had a ton of random hidden event locations and such, Almaris being a bigger map I assume they are harder to find however is that a focus on this map at all? (Story)- 🔥Chaos🔥#4247 (00:16:35)

A: There are a lot and people who have found them, but some are inactive. ST are probably doing events soon for those inactive places. There are Four bigger event sites and 1 smaller one. However, a lot is going on, and the team has multiple tiles with story lines. When Joel is  coming back from hiatus those will likely start, but mostly all paperwork and entertainers are doing smaller scale. More or less under ten until someone gets into high gear. Stuff through february will bring more community driven and events will come along and large scale things too. Really trying to still get region lores set up and story lines. After the inferi event line, ST needed a break. A lot are coming back into gear, though it was realised at the end arcas that world war wasn't really adequate to what we have at the time so they have been working to get all of that up to par. A lot more will be heard from ST soon!

 

Q: Staff has recently put out a thread on player retention. How serious is the declining retention on the server being taken and what plans are being formulated to address this issue? (Community)- Burnsider#3564 (00:20:54)

A: Treasure is doing great with the player retention, using numbers and results to work off of.  We have ideas but we have inter team collaboration, so a lot of approvals from each team but there is movement.
 

Q: Have a question for the story team! Would it ever be possible to use old realms? Or parts of old realms for big events. I'm not sure if they're accessible or saved but having the option to go back to Atlas for an event or something like that would be a blast! (Story)- 🔥Chaos🔥#4247 (00:21:15)

A: Yes 100% it's a pipe dream run, so players like going back to Athera. It was a massive disaster from a staff perspective. Athera was just an example of what not to do, would love to entertain it. There is something planned out but more figuring how to do it but it will be on a much smaller goal like a nation group at a time. From the tech stand, there were a lot of problems with Athera event line, loading it, converting, fail safe, old broken items , dupes, old lore items, it wasn't taken care of because of planning. It if ever happens again, we have to keep these things in mind. So lots of planning and set up is needed.
 

Q: How does the event team plan on moving forward with events due to the apparent setback of vortex? Things such as world events, eventlines, event sites, etc. Is there anything we can look forward to in the future? (Story)- un-w#9099 (00:26:09)

A: In short, everything that is tangible, so story and lore. So lore is paperwork, February is across the board. You will see more green tag precedence, with interactives and events. Huge push to encage players with old and forgotten things and new gen to show them all. 
 

Q: As the community team is regrowing its numbers we’ve seen the return of Community Team Monthly updates, are there any plans to start up any of the other things that the CT dropped while having low numbers? Like the BotA or Monk guidance? (Community)- Desired#2831 (00:28:19)

A:  Yes, this month, alongside the ct update. February will have BotA due to Jananuary not having one because of restructure of ct. Monk guidance is actively being looked at, to improve it and re-vamp it to help with player retention to improve it. We are still hashing it out, so it might be involving other team tho so like quests and to get new player into an intervention
 

Q: Why is it up to team managers on whether their staff members are removed for abusing pex? Shouldnt it be a conduct standard that abusing pex is at minimum removal from staff? Allowing managers to make the decision is quite encouraging of nepotism. (Administration)- Sham#8133 (00:30:26)

A: It's less about managers making decisions. But more managers manage their team to check if the person was actually abusing pex. Because a lot of times it's just a misunderstanding. When it is abuse they get removed.  It is taken very seriously and at the end of day it is admin call. There are discussions and shoulds and shouldn'ts.. But you can reach out to the admin to say if managers are playing favoritism.
 

Q: For the tech team- are you open to returning LOTC to 1.8 pvp? This would be a popular decision amongst all militant rpers: soldiers, mercenaries, and bandits alike. Would you like to see polling data to confirm what is already well established anecdotally? (Tech)- birdman#9444 (00:32:18)

A: No...not in current time. With vortex there is just a lot more to do with it. There were a lot more problems with it code wise. It was a bit of a headache and limiting.  1.9 is just better with rp than 1.8.

 

Q: The last post in #social only half makes sense and is from october. What plans are there to revitalise the social media presence of lotc? (Community)- Sham#8133 (00:34:01)

A: We are looking into it, however the administrational departure still has its effects and the big question also is if social media had any use or influence to attract new players. So for now the answer is no, no current plans yet. 

 

Q: Does the economy team have any future plans on bolstering the current player economy? (World)- WildWyvern#3228 (00:37:27)

A: We've already changed your minas per vote, buffed it up and consecutive voting too. We have seen we are over 500.000 mina in the economy, where a lot is being held in player or nations banks. In terms of resources you can speak to nation leader to help you out

 

Q: When the new map first started we were told by economy team that there would be a limited amount of Minas(2 million), how much of that minas has been given out via Voting so far? (World)- Desired#2831 (00:39:18)

A: There is currently over 500.000 mina in the economy. 

 

Q: With large scale battles, will there be an advantage/disadvantage for attacking/defending certain areas? (Moderation) - Welkitends#1764 (00:39:28)

A: War server is being worked on. If we do not have the things ready for large scale battles  we have other ways to fight big battles, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. 

 

Q: What is the future of Magic? With all the shelving and stuff, is there any plan for it? (Story)- Trouble#1991 (00:41:05)

A: A handful is being shelved, a handful is being rewritten. Anything that is shelved is completely open for players to rewrite on their own. 

 

Q: Since November/December the majority of the Content Creation team has stepped down from CT. What are the plans for this part of CT now that their manager and the majority of members are gone? (Community)- Desired#2831 (00:43:14)

A: Simply, there is no more content creation. Slowly everyone has shifted to CT staff. So we are training and shifting to do CT standard tasks, so we have enough people to step in for apps again when needed. 

 

Q: Has a new settlement manager been selected yet? If not, is there any timeline on when one will be selected? (World)- Desired#2831 (00:44:38)

A: Yes it is Zindran. Feel free to reach out to him for any settlement inquiries. 

 

Q: When are you going to get rid of the incompetent staff members? Drain the swamp. (Administration)- Rusti#7801 (00:45:47)

A: If someone is incompetent and they are on trial it will not be extended or if they are not on trial they will be removed. Quality of staff and our work is tried to be held high. If you ever feel like staff are being imcompetent, reach out to a manager or admin. 

 

Q: At the end of the War Rules post that Basket made a while back, it said there was internal conflict rules coming in January. I'm assuming that isn't done, is there any update on that? (Moderation)- Noobli#4534 (00:47:21)

A: Nope, it is being worked on. Not much to say about it but the moderation team will give an update soon. 

Q: With the mention of the CT having their own bank for events and such, is there any possibility of New player Skins or Skin Archive donations being paid for again? (Community)- Desired#2831 (00:48:25)

A: Hard one, not 100% sure, in terms of economy if it will work out. For this time being, it can't be answered and I will be looking into it. CT skin archive is still being looked into because a admin got removed, several things were removed so it will be looked to be rebuilt again

 

Q: Actually I have a legitimate question to tack on here. I believe that Nation leaders should be allowed to cooperate directly with the ST for their event lines that apply to their nation, so that they may have the ability to offer insight on how to make events that would be particularly engaging for their player base and culture. Will ST be communicating with all nation leaders directly for event lines involving their nations? Is that something already done? (Story)- Noobli#4534 (00:49:54)

A: When ever comes to this we reach out to the leaders, work something out. As far as anything goes no set in stone policy. Right now, if something happens we will just reach out. Always a courtesy. Smaller events, smaller stories are up to them how they want to work with. But on a larger scale we work very close to nations and leaders. So basically yes.

 

Q: I've heard talk of a race rewrite. Are there any updates regarding that? (Story)- Soul#9694 (00:52:40)

A: Not much of a rewrite but it was never formalized. So a draft was sent for admin review but has been sent back for more changes. It's a work in progress right now, waiting for people writing it to make changes. However it's not the most pressing project.

 

Q: Last I heard the Skin Archive was "broken", is it still broken? If so what is the issue with it? (Community)- Desired#2831 (00:54:29)

A: With departure of the last Community Team admin, they cut off ties with the server as a whole, some links in the skin archive will lead to non existing files. Some are accessible but some aren't. We are looking into it to see if we can fix this but if not, we are setting something up to rebuild it. More updates soon but no decisions yet.

 

Q: I'm very new in this, but I want to do some big events on the server, and currently with the player base and from what information I've been told, I'm not getting clarity on if/how world/story team, mods, tech team works and how to get in contact with them reliably and know that problems are resolved and communicated with our ideas and events. Eg; I took a week for a potential dupe I encountered to get a response with no update, and 3 accounts of resource veins are yet to get responded to. tl;dr Why is it so hard finding out the commands and getting in contact with mods, tech team and world team, for me [a new player] at least. (All Staff)- LeopardMan19218#1702 (00:55:39)

A: To make contact with a staff member you can always make /modreq, /creq, etc in-game or reach out to a staff member through our discord. For the Tech Team this is a /treq or by submitting a request/bug through the Github bug tracker. If it's too sensitive you can pm Llir directly.

 

Q: This is a question for the development team! Do players have a forum outlet or opportunity to submit plugin ideas for the server? In the sense where you could provide code, diagrams, or the general idea of what the plugin is & how one would implement it on the server? As I know people can already submit general suggestions in the tech discord. And if there is not, could there potentially be a push for such? (Tech)- CallMeDoctor#0362 (00:57:34)

A: Kinda answered. Major plugin suggestions, not really taking ideas but we have limited man power and everyone has a project to work on. So smaller suggestions are better. Coding a plugin is quite a big thing…. 

 

Q: Is there a possibility of LotC making its way to TikTok? There have been quite a few minecraft servers that took off because of TikTok advertisement. (Community)- Desired#2831 (00:58:54)

A: We have one, though not taken into use as it was made under the old CT admin. So still figuring out like the other social media platforms. So it's a work in progress. 

 

Q: Oh goodness, this is a major one. I want to try and make an order of Golemancers and start teaching people, but there is no Thanhium to create Golems with. When are the Lore Nodes coming? (Story, Tech, World)- Noobli#4534 (00:59:50)

A: Might look into automated nodes but I don't know if we wanna go to that because we don't have it on new vortex. So for now, probably within the week, two weeks, we don't mechanical way we will revert back to manual system. Work with the Tech team with item login and modding function. But just figuring out how to implement it. Should be out reasonably soon. The problem is there is a tech exploit. So rewrite is needed for vortex so someone has to sit down for a day or two, but cant work out in next week, will rather tell ST to work old ways. There is a function coming where we can spawn in items, that strips down all mechanical uses. It can be given to represent it and then can work with texture pack

Make an /sreq and they can meet you halfway. Will just looks like an iron sword but with a texture pack it will look like what it needs to be. More than happy to help people, so spread word. 

 

Q: How much of a priority is wiki-related work and will there be any official wiki initiatives beyond simply deleting content or letting people without basic (namely human) history knowledge have free reign to decide what should or shouldn't be worked on? (Community)- LithiumSedai#2394 (01:07:03)

A: When we delete a page it is NOT gone, it can be restored easily if someone requests. Pages are being deleted because they either are useless or have 5 or less sentences.

We are looking for more things than just deleting but there is just as much we can do. 

JokerLow and Marb are reaching out to nations leaders for them to update their wiki settlement guide and all for new players to make it easier for them. If you  have issues with the wiki or need help, PM HogoBojo or JokerLow and they will be more than willing wot work with you
 

Q: Unsure which team this question would be under but..

What would staff say makes LotC different from other servers? What makes it more unique & thus more appealing to players? This could be taken in the sense as advertising for LotC, or even just encouraging new and old players to remain hooked. Upon asking a similar question in a few player groups (nothing on a mass scale of course), but a fair few argued that LotC, between a lack of lore compared to older maps, no longer being considered "the number one economy server," or other servers having plugins very similar to that of LotC's, is not as unique as it once was. If the staff agrees with this sentiment, what would be the plan, & in what area, to make LotC "more unique" or attractive retention-wise? (All Staff)- CallMeDoctor#0362 (01:09:34)

A: We have a lot of plugins and systems that are custom made and all to fit the server, so you won't be able to find that anywhere else. Also the longest running rp server! Almost 10 years!

Our community is really, such a passionate and engaging community. Who care about the server and are putting in a lot of work. And this community makes us unique.

The goal also isn't just to make profit, all money flowing in just really goes back into the server! Lotc is the most immersive storytelling experience in terms of gaming. Minecraft is just perfect for the shaping the world into the vision and having complete creative freedom

And Lotc dominates this, with a decade for lore and history for us. Not any economy server, nor a pvp server but it always adds to the rp. 

 

Q: What happened to fireside chats (Administration)- Conor#8203 (01:14:51)

A: On And off again thing, that we as admins thought would be beneficial for the community to see the admins thoughts and wanting changes. But after a while many thought it wasnt most effective way to connect with the community.  Looking into new ways for admins and other staff to communicate with players and the transparency with the community.

Best way to join all the discord of the staff, better way to get your thoughts seen.

 

Q: Is there any plans on making a portable storage space? As in backpacks, shulker boxes again, etc.. (Tech)- Kingston#6969 (01:18:14)

A: No, not plans for it right now. When 1.17 rolls around, we will be able to do the bundles. Shulker boxes were buggy, most of the time deleting players' items, and felt wrong about being able to hold 1000s of items on your inventory, very unrealistic. Just gonna hold off until 1.17. 1.17 will be coming out in summer, so we will be getting onto it as soon as possible.

 

Q: Are there plans to bring back the wiki team or at least devote some more resources to the two wiki caretakers in some form? relying on volunteers isn't exactly...sustainable (Community)- Sham#8133 (01:22:02)

A: We would like to put more focus on wiki because we have a team for it to make it a reliable source. When new players come in, they get redirected to wiki. So it's the first thing they really see, so it should be a higher priority than it was. Trying to make it a combined staff project to work on wiki and help from volunteers. A discord is being made for easier communication for this too!

 

Q: Weren't we going to yeet the enderchests? (Tech)- Potatatoes#0500 (01:24:07)

A: I don't know if we ever will remove them from Cloud Temple, but around the world they have been removed. It is still trying to be figured out. They just don't fit in what we are trying to go with for player items. Might find a new use for it sometime. There still is one at the Cloud Temple due to the way they /evict command works. 

 

Q: In regards to the Wiki Team, is there any interest in exploring the use of the Wiki Wizard rank on the forums? You could call it a prestige rank but it is weighted similar to Creative Wizard. For example, allocating the role to players that make extremely large contributions to the Wiki and otherwise? (Community)- Heero#7850 (01:27:38)

A: This is what it is being used for, it just isn't being handed out that much as the Creative Wizard role.