Your View: On Course—Off Course?

[ChaoticallyCheshire 636]

2 hours ago, itdontmatta said:

please reach out to me.

I know of someone you banned without telling them the reason. They messaged you for days before you replied. You tried to strong arm a certain response out of them that they obviously weren't going to give and would not listen to a word they had to say. 

 

On top of such, how long did it take for Nor'asaths mines to work? I know quite a lot of time went by and I heard that they kept reaching out to you just for nothing to happen. 

 

I hope if you reply you can do such without any passive agressiveness that you seem to be famous for. 

[Twodiks 483]

I think for better or worse, the server is untouchable due to a community unwilling to actually inconvenience themselves (i.e actually quitting when the server does something bad). But if anything, I think things really need to be shaken up a lot, even just for the sake of it. Despite a couple of shifts here and there, the server really hasn't changed over the past four years. The only noticeable change I saw in the server was when war was basically gone for 1-2 years, and that was unintentional afaik. Even CRP default hasn't really changed conflict too much and that's probably the biggest manmade change I can think about. I know thats its difficult and even dangerous to touch the status quo. But most if not all of these issues people have been talking about in this thread are far from new, and I disagree where people mention that the server has been on the downhill, I feel like its just dull as its ever been.

42 minutes ago, fedallah said:

start treating minecraft like some sort of video game and you will be so much happier

hi frilliam

Edited August 16, 2023 by Twodiks

[Nectorist 7423]

I have the urge to write a larger post about it that can't be condensed into a simple forum reply, but I don't think the issues on the server really stem from the mod team, techs, etc. The staff team and its conduct is arguably the best the server has had except for maybe 2021-ish. The rules that exist right now are among the friendliest towards RP. Degeneracy is clamped down on and not covered up nearly as much as it was before. The toxicity right now is at record lows. I've noticed that many points of criticism people have of the server right now were problems that were much worse years ago, even though the general consensus is that the server's peak was around 2014-2018 (and possibly stretching out until 2020). People often look back on those years with rose-tinted glasses and ignore a lot of flaws, but there's a reason that those who were around then long for a return to the good old days.

 

The server's present problems lay almost entirely at the feet of the community, though I think it's a far more subtle, less malicious thing than people say. It's hard to pinpoint or express in simple terms, but there has been a cultural malaise that's overtaken LoTC for years now, and began to ramp up since around 2020. If I had to give a simplified cause, it's the server's older generation (those who knew how to make RP) moving away en masse and newer generations with radically different views of RP (probably influenced by a different pop culture/internet culture zeitgeist they've grown up in) taking their places and being unable to fill their shoes properly. Maybe it's just growing pains, and we'll need a few years for things to return to the vibrancy that was had years ago, or maybe it's a permanent problem that's just irreversible. I don't want to be pessimistic at all, but I also don't think there's a silver bullet solution. A lot of changes people have proposed here are good, don't get me wrong, but it feels like they're focused on tweaking the rudders while there's a gaping hole in the ship.

 

People have always taken LoTC way too seriously (me too), but at least in years past it felt like people could have fun while doing it, as a way to justify the long hours spent online and the Friday nights devoted to RPing or scheming or grinding for tomorrow's warclaim or whatever. I don't get that vibe at all.

 

Or maybe I'm just old

[Wizry 358]

3 minutes ago, Nectorist said:

Or maybe I'm just old

old.

[Laeonathan 3970]

Compared to the shit I've seen in 2018, the server has improved by a lot. Far less toxicity. More TOS bans. RP default. The Roleplay quality has improved by a lot. God, when I look at screenshots from 2019... just horrible. 

 

Often we as older players fall into nostalgia, thinking everything was better in the past; yet forget how shit it used to be.

 

In the end, 90 % of people who come to state their opinion are mad about xyz. People who are content barely come here. Not even I am content - I'm annoyed at the constant negativity. I've read (admittingly somewhere) that a game usually has 5 to 10 the active players than their peak - so in the case of LOTC, we're talking about 800 to 2000 active members. A vast majority hasn't commented. They do not care. "Negative" Threads are often massive echochambers of frustrated people. 

[Ragnio 499]

3 hours ago, Unwillingly said:

SNIP, cause really long post!

I totally agree with you here @Unwillingly. Most cities are far to big to actually find roleplay at and even if you join an active city you often need to run around to actually find someone. There have been some exception to this, but most often this happens (At least when I am online).

Besides such I am also agreeing on the part in regards to ET-Events. When I first joined roughly seven years ago and the first few years after that I saw smaller events here and there, which made the world feel more alive and interactable. Most often smaller pieces of lore are not utilised enough to actually make players say “Wow, I never saw this being or that plant before!” and I would like to see the ET change this very aspect by implementing smaller event sites for different creatures and plants or other oddities, making them more approachable by the normal player. Sure, DYI / Player-Events are a possibility for such, yet, it always feels a bit more different when an actual ET-member is around to assist with such or even uses such DYI / Player-started events to start a smaller eventline or build upon those events.

[itdontmatta 7192]

39 minutes ago, ChaoticallyCheshire said:

I know of someone you banned without telling them the reason. They messaged you for days before you replied. You tried to strong arm a certain response out of them that they obviously weren't going to give and would not listen to a word they had to say. 

 

On top of such, how long did it take for Nor'asaths mines to work? I know quite a lot of time went by and I heard that they kept reaching out to you just for nothing to happen. 

 

I hope if you reply you can do such without any passive agressiveness that you seem to be famous for. 

genuinely sorry about the mines ive been adapting to a new city + job and sometimes mineman shit starts to feel like work 

[NotEvilAtAll 9944]

18 minutes ago, Nectorist said:

even though the general consensus is that the server's peak was around 2014-2018 (and possibly stretching out until 2020)

IMO it's mostly the rise of Discord + older folks moving out without the server establishing a good pipeline to transition people from roleplay takers to roleplay makers.

It's said that for an online community, 90% of users only read others' content, 10% will engage and reply to existing content/narratives/whatever, and 1% will actively go out and create their own stuff. We need to build a stronger creator community on LOTC so that the players who DO decide to run events, narratives, do crazy stuff like builds and exploration sites or whatever, etc aren't burned out as much trying to support their communities. When old players cycle through and are replaced with new players, those new players need to get comfortable with being creators so that the net number of LOTCers actively engaging their peers in dynamic roleplay doesn't go down. Additionally there's the problem of old players burning out and ceasing to start up stuff on their own, taking a more passive role in their RP and thus reducing the number of creators on the server without reducing total server population.

Discord compounds this issue by making it easier to do things OOCly vs RPly and easy to get RP without starting it yourself. Discord is a very efficient way of organizing your LOTC community such that it's almost natural selection for more discord-heavy communities to thrive while others die out. Many communities (including my own to some extent) have made the gradual transition from being in-game communities with a discord to a discord with an in-game presence. Discord makes it way easier to passively engage in LOTC RP and encourages a lazy RP mentality where you wait for RP to come to you instead of seeking out and starting it yourself. Many people don't log on at all unless they're pinged for it on discord.

tl;dr LOTC needs more roleplay makers, not more roleplay takers. ppl get burned out from running events and leading communities b/c they're not able to be supported and backed up by other roleplay and narrative creators (also b/c the server sometimes has very high expectations of community leaders but that's a separate issue).

[Deer__ 529]

Only genuine thought is that I'd like to see more community feedback posts on things on the FORUMS before they go live. Whether it's greater lore changes, rule changes, system changes, whatever is big enough to have an effect on most of the server for better or worse needs to be shown to the community in a post and discussed. 

The most egregious recent example of this is that MRP/CRP rule list. Whether it getting clowned on was warranted or not (The name MRP definitely deserved getting clowned on), there should be more feedback sought before something goes out. Of course not everyone is going to agree on anything but at least pulling in ideas or seeing issues with it that perhaps you didn't see before will help when whatever system inevitably gets pushed anyways.

I know the reply in that MRP post was 'well we have the moderation discord, join that'. My answer to that is not everyone wants to join their 15th LotC discord server, put up a poll or post on the forums so it's sure to reach more people and then you have all that feedback, all those ideas written down. Whether or not some of that feedback is awful in your eyes or not, you're bound to get something useful out of it.

Edit: Little afterthought to clarify. I don't think new changes need to be liked by majority server. Like I said, you can't make everyone happy. Push the changes anyways, but give a little showing before you do.

[Nectorist 7423]

12 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

IMO it's mostly the rise of Discord + older folks moving out without the server establishing a good pipeline to transition people from roleplay takers to roleplay makers.

It's said that for an online community, 90% of users only read others' content, 10% will engage and reply to existing content/narratives/whatever, and 1% will actively go out and create their own stuff. We need to build a stronger creator community on LOTC so that the players who DO decide to run events, narratives, do crazy stuff like builds and exploration sites or whatever, etc aren't burned out as much trying to support their communities. When old players cycle through and are replaced with new players, those new players need to get comfortable with being creators so that the net number of LOTCers actively engaging their peers in dynamic roleplay doesn't go down. Additionally there's the problem of old players burning out and ceasing to start up stuff on their own, taking a more passive role in their RP and thus reducing the number of creators on the server without reducing total server population.

Discord compounds this issue by making it easier to do things OOCly vs RPly and easy to get RP without starting it yourself. Discord is a very efficient way of organizing your LOTC community such that it's almost natural selection for more discord-heavy communities to thrive while others die out. Many communities (including my own to some extent) have made the gradual transition from being in-game communities with a discord to a discord with an in-game presence. Discord makes it way easier to passively engage in LOTC RP and encourages a lazy RP mentality where you wait for RP to come to you instead of seeking out and starting it yourself. Many people don't log on at all unless they're pinged for it on discord.

tl;dr LOTC needs more roleplay makers, not more roleplay takers. ppl get burned out from running events and leading communities b/c they're not able to be supported and backed up by other roleplay and narrative creators (also b/c the server sometimes has very high expectations of community leaders but that's a separate issue).

Yeah, I think this is probably at the core of a lot of it. The server right now is built for a generation that has mostly left and never really raised the newer generations to take over from them. It's like if a story written by an author from 1850 was handed over to someone born in 2003 and they were told to complete it (2016 -> 2023 in internet terms is about that same length of time imo). Their plot, prose, style, cultural references, themes, etc, would be vastly different than what came before and make for a jarring and probably inferior product. It's not that this generation is incapable of roleplaying, but they've inherited a server that's been built atop years of history that was influenced by a culture and community that's alien to them.

 

I'm kind of in favor of a partial lore wipe (this includes nations, families, characters, and whatnot, basically wiping the slate clean for people to develop new projects. Standard lore like racial lore, many of the magics, etc, would remain) but that comes with its own issues and would also be bitterly resisted. Still, I do think a "new server" must be made to accommodate the new community culture we have instead of people feeling the obligation to don the ill-fitting clothes of the people that came before them.

[Aengoth 2883]

I think its a shame that less communities are willing to engage with PvP and use it to bolster there own narratives. Guard roleplay is such a good way of integrating new players into communities and the server at large.

[Cheese 2307]

1 hour ago, ChaoticallyCheshire said:

• Community safety — promote a culture of respect, empathy, and understanding, where all players are safe to engage in the game and the community, free from harassment, discrimination, and harm

 

I think the post sparked by my ban report against pcswift and termss speaks volumes on how this is not being followed. The fact that said ban was basically swept under the rug and treated rather dismissively. Which after seeing this it doesn't shock me. It also instills a hopeless feeling of how nothing will change. A vast majority (not all) of the mod team are all part of the same community or similar ones, and definitely show bias towards said groups. 

 

There needs to be a massive change if this place is going to be as enjoyable as it once was. As an old time player I came back with an excited pep in my step that has since died out after seeing what this server has been reduced too. After the big post I'm debating leaving again because all it's done is pit everyone against each other and put a target on my back. It shouldn't be so controversial to have a slur removed from the server.

 

I once jokingly said "y'all ftbing?" in looc and pinged a mod who threatened to temp ban me for using said word, even when I expressed how it was a joke. I was in vc with said people, they were rping alone in their chars home. If I can ping a mod for saying that and get threatened then told never to do that again and how I wasted his time then it makes ZERO sense why a slur is allowed. 

The irony of this situation genuinely does baffle me. Why should we debate people's ooc comfort and safety? Even if there was no slur used, the fact that people in your situation were uncomfortable and recieved NO sympathy from the other party or staff baffles me. OOC comfort should never be dismissed in favor of "tasteful roleplay"

[Hot_Dip 680]

5 minutes ago, Cheese said:

The irony of this situation genuinely does baffle me. Why should we debate people's ooc comfort and safety? Even if there was no slur used, the fact that people in your situation were uncomfortable and recieved NO sympathy from the other party or staff baffles me. OOC comfort should never be dismissed in favor of "tasteful roleplay"

Just because you're uncomfortable with something doesn't mean you should get a whole bunch of sympathy. If someone joins the server and gets bandited on the roads and it makes them uncomfortable that they have to lose their minas, that doesn't mean the bandits should say sorry and let them go. If you get insulted IRP and get offended ooc that's your problem. This is a video game lol. If playing said video game makes you uncomfortable then you shouldn't be playing it. 

[Xein000 90]

I'm still trying to learn how combat works, but if I carry for example 2 weapons in my hands to dual veild them, I don't want someone to tell me that I can't do that, even if I am doing the same motion with both weapons in one swing, or trying to use both in one emote. I like the honor system with a bit of rolls for some things, if I'm making something and isn't sure if something will work or not then I will roll to see how it goes and if what I tried to do works or not.

The amount of leather/iron/gold/diamond is soo high for all the amours, and knowing that diamond/emeralds are no longer in the common mines this isn't good. I've also tried to find unclaimed world mines to mine things at, but I feel like an nation must own an tile kinda for an mine to appear as I can't find any mines in the wild. I get soo little copper and we can't even turn an block of copper back to smaller coppers. So copper is really rare and damn hard to get at the moment as you only get 3 per mine that you're able to visit. And for me that likes to travel and visit mines all over the world I feel I need an copper mine, but sadly I can't find any. As for Neterite I understand why this is rare, but at least it works fine just the way it is, assuming you got permission to mine in one of these highly guarded mines if you are now luckily to do so. I liked how the mines were at the start when I first started to play on this new map and we could get what we wanted/needed but mining is a bit difficult now compared to the start of this new map. Also I don't understand why we can't mine crystals as we want when we got the right tool for the work, but need to get permission to even be able to mine these at all.

I do like that we can use an hoe to farm at different places, that works great!

As for leather... I wish you hadn't changed how this was before to what it is now. Leather is soo hard to get when you're limited to only breeding 4 new animals after each restart, and  I know how long that can be as it's no fun waiting for the next restart every single time. Like, put 30 minutes or 1 hour or so between each time you have breed these 4 animals, make it an cool-down instead or something. As things are right now I have to ask others OOC to help me breed my cows and can't really have an heard of cows on my own that I can enjoy.

 

And thinking on breeding the horses are broken with their breeding atm. I've tried at 2 different times to breed my horses and try and be an horse breeder but sadly it's broken and someone must fix this please. Let me be an horse breeder again! Also please fix so that we can carry a 2nd person again, I miss being able to offer an ride to strangers on the road as I travel around the map and like to be helpful once in a while.
Also please allow Donkeys and Mules to be stored in an horse whistle. If they have bags that are filled with something you either lose the stuff at your own risk just like the lead if you got an rope to the horse and stores it away. I just want to be able to enjoy having an Donkey/Mule with me instead of an horse all the time, hope you can understand.

Last I will just say this.
It's really annoying when you can see nametags of others in the distance, but the shouting can't even reach these people at all. And worst is you're at their gate and want to be let in but have no way to communicate with these people sadly, unless ooc to get someones attention.

Also I almost forgot, that if I soulbind my horsewhistle, I can't use it unless I remove the soulbind first, please fix this too thank you.

Sorry for the wall of text but I hope these things get fixed.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Xein000

[KamikazeReaper 400]

the CT soul pillar thing really bugs me to shreds, and how mods never really seem to be unified in their actions really grind stones on general players, and as Alexa said clicker goons are an issue