Story Update - Winter

[squakhawk 7300]

 

 

The Hawk Administration

 

Hello LOTC! It’s been a while, and many of you might be wondering what the story team has been up to. With the transition from Joel to Myself as admin continuing smoothly, we thought it would be a good time to release an update so the community knows what to expect from us.

 

 

Lore and the Playerbase

 

No lore is perfect upon the first draft. Many pieces of lore go through countless drafts and still have minor issues. There is no point in rewriting the entire lore piece solely because of these – and we’ve been trying to clean that up with the amendment project. The ‘car wash’ of the lore team has been a major success. The team has been patching up loopholes, redlines, and other things that slipped through the cracks when lore pieces were submitted. It’s helped raise our standards for what we expect from lore on the server, and is also helping to make sure the lore players interact with is as clear and concise as possible. This project will be continuous, as there are definitely still things we need to fix and tidy up. We’re hoping this success carries on into 2022 to help aid us in making a more dynamic server for all players.

 

To make the world as engaging as possible, lore should be readily available to use and interact with. An unfortunate byproduct of this is the incredible influx of story team requests, numbers of which have never been seen before. To put this into perspective, we saw only ~100 requests in January of 2020. That number rose to ~400 in January of 2021 and we’re on track to breach ~800 sreqs in this month alone. We can only expect this number to keep rising, though this is not a bad thing. We want lore to be widespread. We want players to be able to create interesting things and find a place in both the world and story that we immerse ourselves in. Despite these high numbers, we still have a fairly-short turnaround time for tickets. This isn’t to say that every request is answered instantly, though. One of the major issues that has requests sit up for days is the need for a story team member and the player in question needing to be online at the same time to sign an item.

 

The good news about this, though, is that we currently have techs engineering a solution to this issue. They are working on a plugin to help assist in signing items while players are offline. If this all goes according to plan, you can expect a drastic fall in wait times for these tickets. Unfortunately, we do not have an estimate on when this plugin will be complete or how exactly it will work, but we are going to update you all when we hear more. Ideally, it will be a simple tack-on to the current ticket system where one may put items in an enderchest-like inventory which an ST can easily access.

 

 

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Projects

 

Currently, our biggest focus and main project is dubbed ‘Lore Pixel.’ We are doing an overhaul of how we look at and how we sign items, which will also have effects with the aforementioned tech plugin we hope to see sometime this year. There are no real guidelines as to what is required in an item’s description. Some are left vague, while others cram so much detail in that it’s hard to understand exactly what it’s for. We’re looking to standardize this to make things simpler. This way any ST member will be able to immediately know what is required in an item’s creation and description. There is a vague guide from a previous admin’s era, but it’s lacking and doesn’t reflect the many changes in lore since then. As of now, there are sometimes long wait times for lore pieces that are more niche. Going forward, it is a possibility that lore pieces will require a guide to creating items that need an ST signature. I hope that the Lore Pixel Project will be able to clarify what is needed in the process of making an item, and will prevent both confusion and powergaming.

 

 

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Self-Teaching

 

A lot of what we’ve talked about so far is what we are currently focusing on. But what can you expect from us under new administration? A major thing we want to look at is self-teaching. This has been up in the air for sometime and left in a bit of a limbo, though we’re looking to find a healthy medium in which it may exist on the server. It is currently very manpower intensive, quite ironic for something dubbed self-teaching. In a perfect world we’d entrust players to actually learn the magic, as self-teach students are historically more prone to powergaming after not having done a full-read over the lore. We understand that sometimes reading a ten page post can be boring and tedious, but we still expect everyone to follow the rules. We’re not entirely sure what our solution to this self-teaching problem will be, but rest assured we’ll have something in the works sooner rather than later.

 

 

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Lore Criteria & Submissions

 

He who shall not be named’s lore guidelines were rather lackluster and unintuitive. A lore must be built upon a good foundation. We understand that at times it can be frustrating to submit lore as what the team expects isn’t exactly outlined clearly anywhere. We’re going to be revamping Flamboyant’s old guidelines into something that is more fitting for where the server is today. No, we will not be doing another lore games. We are just going to draft a more fair set of criteria and rules for what we’re looking for going forward. As a team, we are focused on standardizing lore to provide a balance between aesthetics, mechanics, and roleplayability. Like many of the other things in this post, it will be released soon. Although it might feel like we are a broken record with how many things are releasing ‘soon’ with no real date specified or mentioned, the team is in a very good place right now. We are as active as ever, and full of people eager to work and make the server a better place. 

 

 

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Event Roadmap

 

Moving into 2022, a personal goal of mine is to have a successful year of events. This entails beginning to roll out maplore events, which should be kicked off by the end of the month. Due to long waits for requested builds, and a period in which we had to fully rewrite and restructure our world lore, the Event Team was unable to run many events pertinent to worldbuilding, but rest assured that we do have great plans for this year in terms of events. The events surrounding the Ando’Alur fallout area are what the team will be using to springboard into the path we have for the rest of the year.

 

Following that, I’d like to talk a little bit about our precise roadmap for rolling out events. Many of you may have noticed through exploration and looking at the map on the forums that there are certain areas of the map that are blocked off and inaccessible. The current trajectory of events will take us to a point where those regions of the map become unlocked and available for world lore events, somewhat like an expansion to the map. This will provide opportunities for both nations and smaller groups to adventure out to previously uncharted lands to discover what lies within. However- if you’re more of a homebody and prefer to roleplay with your own nation’s tiles, we have good news for you. In addition to the two new regions, we’re also planning to have events that are more tailored to both nations and smaller playerbases. We hope that if you want to participate, you’ll be able to enjoy the range in events being put out this year.

 

 

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Lore Surgery and Shelving

 

While I have been manager, a personal pet project that I’ve put forth and overseen has been Lore Surgery. Spawned from the ‘they did surgery on a grape’ meme, Lore Surgery is intended to analyze and attempt to solve problems that individual lore pieces are facing. In the time that Lore Surgery has been implemented, we’ve examined and worked on thirteen total lore pieces. Of those thirteen, ten were successfully ‘rehabilitated’ and subsequently received at minimum temporary and at maximum permanent boosts to their respective playerbases, essentially debugging and hotfixing problems as they come along. The other three (Chi, Enaction of Yeu, and Striga) were shelved after multiple endeavors and attempts to increase the availability and the number of users. 

The Story Team’s outlook is not one that moves to shelf a lore piece the first time an issue shows up on our radar. Lore Surgery has been a definitive move towards taking multiple steps towards fixing each and every lore piece before the team considers a shelf. Unfortunately, there are still instances where a lore piece fails to thrive after assistance from the team, and then and only then is shelving considered in any serious capacity. Both myself and the team understand that there will always be players who care about and want to engage with lore, and will fight to keep it from being shelved, and I understand that it’s not a fun feeling to have something that you personally care about be taken away or rendered unusable. During the  course of my administration, I want to make it clear that my outlook will always be to attempt to fix or amend current and modern lore before looking to outright shelf it, and I believe that amendments and Lore Surgery are crucial to ensuring this.

 

 

With that, I'm going to be addressing some of the Q&A from the feedback form left on the change in administration post.

 

QsO: "Remove Azdrazi" - "Remove Druidism" - "Remove Boomsteel" 

A: You two can't really get along >:( If you have any problems with these pieces, perhaps it is best to communicate with a bit more feedback. 

 

Q1: "Communicate with communities that projects have a direct influence on." 

A: In my opinion at least we've done a decently good job at this, during the Racial Update we contacted multiple NLs, current and former, as well as cultural leaders which helped us massively and ultimately to a very successful project. We did the same during the Voidal Projects, and I think we'll continue this method going forward. We've aswell had much more discourse regarding amendments and lore injections, which I think is pretty good. We will never drastically alter a lore, culture, community, etc. without heavy discussion and taking preemptive steps. 

 

Q2: "Quit ST Gatekeeping Magics" 

A: People typically are into a magic or group far before they become ST because it proves familiarity and a willingness to work with and on lore. This can lead to a sometimes true, sometimes false sense that ST hand out magic to each other exclusively, and do not make an effort to include others. If you have any qualms with ST gatekeeping or hoarding magics let me know and we can discuss the problem and try to come to a solution. At the end of the day, my goal as an Administrator is to provide more accessibility to lore.

 

Q3: "Reset the kalpa" 

A: maybe 

 

Q4: "Cut down team size" 

A: While it is a concern, if we want low sreq-turnarounds and consistent voting of 5+ pieces a week, along with a couple-hour long turnaround for apps (along with general improvements to the server with our projects), we can't do that with a team of ten people. Flamboyant's team, was a team of ten people- and we saw months-long wait on Loremags, even with >100 sreqs a month, hours to days turnaround, and the same with apps- even with so much fewer of them. With double that size, we've seen our tickets and apps 10x and our review times shortened to a week with five pieces, which is an insane improvement. I’m pleased with where my team is at. 

 

Q5: "Increase Transparency" 

A: This has been a key focus through my tenure and will stay a thing. While we haven't had a story update since the past year, the team has not changed much. When the team begins new projects, I will be sure to address it in a story update. I’ve pushed for making changes such as making audit logs on lore and voting results public in the Story Discord. If you're ever curious just ask freely in the LOTC Story Discord. 

 

Qs6: "Have less events" - "Need more events" 

A: As I've said above, this year will have a lot of events which focus at varying scaling levels of numerical involvement and relation to story. We're about to have a big antag and a lot of map events + Ando'Alur begin, so I would stay tuned! No one is required to go to an ST event if they don’t want to, so don’t make yourself unhappy by engaging in roleplay you don’t want to do.

 

Q7: "Increase ST Diversity" 

A: I'm going to be genuine in the fact that if you see somebody acting in interest of themselves or a community, please tell me or a manager immediately. Aswell, if you don't think your community is well represented, apply. If you see bias, say it, and we'll do something- I'm always looking for it as I'm always in the playerbase-at-large's best interest here, I always want to make sure the ST is transparent and only has "LOTC" in mind, rather than their nation or friend group. 

 

Q8: "Kill high elves, stop pandering to Oren"

A: 🤨

 

Q9: Orchestrate more Worldbuilding 

A: Unfortunately as previously mentioned in the main section of this post, we were on a huge setback from going the better part of a year dealing with staff communication and rewriting maplore. We have a coherent, cohesive, and very interesting story to tell for all regions of Almaris- coming soon, I promise this. You'll see the world significantly change, and the effects of the map very much make it feel lived-in and breathing.

 

Q10: "I would like the story team to stop being" 

A: 😦

 

Q11: "Stop shelving lore, stop bitching" 

A: People often complain about gatekept and non-affective magics/cas which don't serve to enrich the world or story. We want to ensure that players don’t feel as though they have no chance of being able to be involved in a community. Ensuring availability and quality is hard when a player base is inactive. In the case of the three main lore pieces that were shelved this year, we saw that they had such a high rate of turnaround (meaning, users took the magic, and either subsequently dropped it, went inactive, or left the server) that they were actively detrimental to players’ experiences as a whole and thus were shelved after multiple efforts to fix the problems. 

 

Q12: "Will the story team be increasing their numbers?" 

A: Likely not lore, maybe as people come and go throughout the year- but certainly for events. We're always taking applications either way, but with a very exciting year of events ahead of us, we would love to have fresh faces on the team. We have some truly outstanding ET individuals right now, but with what's planned I truly believe that we can always use some extra assistance. If you feel like you’re up for it, and want to get involved in the process we're always taking applications! 

 

Q13: "How could you improve the team's conduct?" 

A: While on official story business, there is a standard an ST adheres to. We do not accept slander, flaming, harassment, toxicity, anything of the sort while an ST is on the job. ST members are not only staff, but also players, and should not be above LOTC rules. As an admin, I want to ensure that my team meets the standards of proper behavior on LOTC. If you ever have a concern, you can always make an anonymous report through our Story Feedback google form in the Story Discord, or contact myself (SquakHawk) or Kalehart. I want to ensure that my team is the very best that it can be, and community guidelines are no exception.

 

 

 

Administrator

squakhawk

 

Management

Kalehart

ScreamingDingo

 

Middle-Management

Valannor
Lumii (Thank you for working on this post!)

yandeer (Thank you for working on this post!)

 

A special thank you for exceptional and hard work goes to all those who'd helped in all the projects and issues we wrapped up during the Fall and Winter. The team could not be possible without you.

[ScreamingDingo 16792]

help he's assassinated me I have no control over my redtag

[ydegirl 1756]

the hawk administration.

[ronin_champloo 5951]

RESPOND TO RP ITS BEEN 20 MINUTES

 

EDIT:

 

THANK U PEOPLE OF LOTC

[Latelle 719]

oh thank god new lore guidelines

 

why couldn't this have happened before i submitted cedli

 

oh well, unironically as a short lived et member i look forward to see what the st does under squak. gl

[Benjikhei 696]

👏

[Bhased 3587]

[Glade 521]

Good luck!

[alexmagus 573]

an update from my favourite staff team........... im overjoyed

i fly like paper get high like planes if you catch me at the border i got visas in my name if you come around here i make em all day i get one done in a second if you wait. i fly like paper get high like planes if you catch me at the border i got visas in my name if you come around here i make em all day i get one done in a second if you wait. sometimes i think sitting on trains, every stop i get to im clcoking that game, everyones a winner we're making our fame. bona fide hustler makin my name. sometimes i think sitting on trains, every stop i get to im clcoking that game, everyones a winner we're making our fame. bona fide hustler makin my name. all i wanna do is bang bang abng bang and a chaching and take your money all i wanna do is bang bang abng bang and a chaching and take your money all i wanna do is bang bang abng bang and a chaching and take your money pirate skulls and bones, sticks and stones and weed and bongs. runnig when we hit em, lethal poison for the system.

[rukio 8909]

Day four or five of waiting....

 

 

((Also can we plz get different in game color tags for Lore vs Story so I know who to antagonize proper))

[MeteorDragon 2799]

 

Squak doesnt take herobrine seriously!!! How can you expect him to be a good admin?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!??!?!11!??!/?!//1/@kenqpoh

In all seriousness, good luck, hope you do some good things for the server as a whole.

[Shorsand 1744]

RESET THE KALPA RESET THE KALPA

RESET THE KALPA RESET THE KALPA

RESET THE KALPA RESET THE KALPA

RESET THE KALPA RESET THE KALPA

RESET THE KALPA RESET THE KALPA

 

[MapleSunflower 1049]

LETS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seannie 6832]

guns

[The King Of The Moon 5117]