Community Team Update!

[HogoBojo 4725]

COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE

[Posted January 2025]

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Howdy everyone, 

 

I hope that you all had a great Holiday Season & Happy New Year thus far. With 2024 ending, and 2025 taking its place, I’d just like to take a moment to thank all the wonderful members of my team. Both past and present Community Team Members have been hard at work during the course of the previous year, as well as the start of this New Year. I truly appreciate all the efforts of my team.

 

With that being said, I’ll get straight into it– this update will cover a lookback at applications over the last year, as well as some of the things that the team has been up to since the last update. Thus without further ado, I’ll let you continue with the update.

 

 

CURRENT ROSTER

We’ve had a few people depart the team, as well as welcoming a few new additions.

Thank you to those who departed for all their hard work & a huge welcome to our newcomers.

We are currently recruiting, so you can apply here if interested!
 

 

INTRODUCTION - APPLICATIONS
 

Applications have always been a crucial part of the server, as they serve as the gateway new players must pass to join the server. Throughout this year the team has continued like the previous year to review thousands of applications. Those handling applications set out this year to improve the standards and criteria used in our application process. Specifically, we focused on refining the questions associated with the whitelisting to ensure they are clear, comprehensive, and effective to make it easier for players to pass the first time around when applying. We also sought to be more communicative when providing feedback on the application status to the applicant.

 

 We have overall experienced smaller influxes of applications compared to the previous years, but even so, application review times have been staggered at certain periods throughout the year during busy periods for those outside the server. Quick response times are important, and we know that– and we have been working to improve them all throughout the year, and have had great success, especially with review times in the last few months. We will not stand here on our laurels, and that is why we will continue to work towards improving and keeping application review time lower as we move forward into 2025.

 

 Over the last few months, we have seen applications vary between August to December 2024. In August, a total of 268 applications were submitted and reviewed. In September, a total of 221 applications were submitted and reviewed. In October, a total of 232 applications were submitted and reviewed. In November, a total of 254 applications were submitted and reviewed. In December, a total of 200 applications were submitted and reviewed. So the period of August to December 2024 saw a total of 1,175 applications submitted and reviewed in this current quarter of 2024. Finally, out of these, 612 new players were accepted.

Overall in August, we observed a rise in the number of individuals applying to be whitelisted on LOTC. However, this trend took a notable downturn in September. Applications began to increase again in October and November, coinciding with the autumn break period when more applicants were available. Yet in December, a slight downturn occurred as more people were busier once more. This pattern reflects trends seen in previous years during these months, though the downturn is more pronounced than in prior years. Importantly, during this period in 2023, we reviewed 1,143 applications, compared to the 1,175 this quarter.

 

With that being said, please find below the in-depth application data for 2024.

 

__________

 

APPLICATIONS - 2024

 

During 2024, we saw a total of 2,626 applications submitted and reviewed. Out of these, 1,464 new players were accepted! 

 

Please note that the Racial & Timezone Data shown will only be shown for Accepted Players.

 

 - Accepted/Denied Ratios - 

 

- TimeZone Data - 

 

- Race-Specific Data - 

Spoiler

 

- Raw Application Data -

Spoiler

- Racial Data -

- Humans -

Total: 773

Adunian: 69

Heartlander: 87 

Highlander:  114

Farfolk: 79

No Subrace: 424 

 

- Elves -

Total: 475

Wood: 126

Dark: 12

High: 154

No Subrace: 71

 

- Dwarves -

Total: 116

Cave:  20

Mountain: 44 

Forest: 18

No Subrace: 34 

 

- Orcs -

Total: 63

Orc: 43

Goblin: 20 

 

- Halflings -

Total: 20

 

- Timezone Data -

Oceania: 124

America: 912

Europe: 428

 

- Accepted/Denied Ratio -

Total: 2626

Accepted: 608

Pending-Accepted: 856

Pending-Denied: 900

Denied: 262

 

__________

 

APPLICATION MONARCH

 

The title of Application Monarch for 2024 goes to @Smol

 

With the most applications reviewed during this period,

@Smol is our reigning Application Monarch of 2024,

followed by @Bird5k and @Blake0205.

 

 

COMMITMENT UPDATES

Media Team

Though in a hiatus for a bit of time, the Media Team has recently released a number of high quality videos to our YouTube channel!

 

Thank you @Blake0205 for all your hard work on the following videos, please check them out when you get the chance:

 

Nevaehlen - Capital Showcase

Spoiler

 

 

 

Celia’nor - Capital Showcase

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 Alongside those videos, the team is still hard at work on a variety of new projects. And as we move through the winter season and more time clears up for video making, a couple of these videos should be coming out in the coming weeks. We have a variety of showcases, lore explanations and trailers for different aspects of the server currently in the works, as well as an update to the distant horizons video put up previously. We look forward to seeing what our immensely talented members of the Media team have planned next. You can find all these videos on our YouTube channel here.

 

 As with the long form content up until recently, short-form content unfortunately has been a bit slow as well. With the completion of our ongoing long term content videos we will try to pump out more short-form content by both creating unique videos for those platforms as well as using our freshly created long form content and cutting clips and short scenes from that.

 

Please check out our latest short, created using footage from the aforementioned Celia'nor Capital Showcase:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 Wiki

General Update

Currently the Wiki Team is in the process of general maintenance. We’ve published our new magic overview pages, which is the first step of our newest mantra of avoiding rewriting lore posts onto the forums as had been done with the past. As it is an impossibility to keep up with the ever changing nature of lore we now focus on brief write ups on the lore (to keep the wiki whole and continuous) and links back to the original piece on the forums. Similar changes will be done across many areas of the wiki in the next little while.

 

Some other major changes and work in progress updates are; We updated the world map located on the homepage of the wiki to be up to date with the ever changing nations. We also recently updated our big nations and realms outline page, to keep up with the events of the server.

 

Rules Update

We have also been hard at work with updating and streamlining the rules of the wiki, with careful consideration from both the community teams wiki team members as well as the server admins. With the new rules separating the old over encompassing rules into two categories: 

 

The new rules of the wiki, these must be followed when writing wiki pages and the team will be going through various pages to update them inline with the rules!

The Wiki Rules: https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=LOTC:Wiki_Rules

 

The wiki guidelines, these are general guidelines and structure for how wiki pages should be made. Most of these consist of useful tips and explanations to aid any wiki writers though they must not be followed explicitly, it is highly recommended to use them when writing your wiki pages.

The Wiki Guide: https://wiki.lordofthecraft.net/index.php?title=LOTC:Wiki_Guide

 

 

Community Services (Map Art, Capital Pastes, Shops, Etc.)

Over the last year, the Community Services sect has been hard at work processing and distributing Map Art, with a grand total of 474 total works during 2024. Should you like to request Map Art, you can do so here for 100 minas/individual map. Please make sure to make a creq when it says your Map Art is uploaded & is ready for pickup. If you have any questions about Map Art, feel free to reach out to @SaviourMeme or @HogoBojo on Discord.

 

Pastes also continue to be handled by the team, with many Capital pastes done in 2024, and several terrain pastes being handled as well. For those currently unaware, we currently offer full Capital Re-pastes for Realms, with each block being priced at 0.1 minas, with nature and various blocks being free. Additionally, we offer large terrain pastes at the discretion of the Community Team Administrator. Please keep in mind that terrain pastes must be coherent with the original set biome, and not overly stray from the theme. Terrain pastes will only be considered for large terraforming, and small projects should be handled via LC. We are also currently undergoing internal discussion about returning pastes in a broader capacity. If such is approved & implemented, the pricing would be the current standard, however a minimum amount of minas cost would be implemented, regardless of the evaluation. If you have any questions about pastes, or would like to request one, please contact @HogoBojo on Discord.

The Map at Cloud Temple has been updated to be current to all the existing Realms. Additionally, the /places command that Wandering Souls use to explore Realms has also been updated. Please contact @HogoBojo if you notice either of these need updating in the future, or make a /areq.

Spoiler

 

Since the servers update, several items have been added to The Cloud Temple shop, from music discs to scute, to various other items. If there’s an item that you would like to request to be placed at Cloud Temple, please make an areq for HogoBojo & he will get around to reviewing it. Unfortunately at this time, we can not add armour trimmings per Technical reasons, apologies. @wowj your request about pottery shards is currently being looked at, and if there’s no issues, it will be implemented in the coming days.

 

 

Events

Over the last year, the Event Focus Group has been hard at work producing various events for those within the community. There were often a variety of events, ranging from our pet adoption days, where local shelters showcased adorable animals looking for forever homes, and summer Olympic events that celebrated sportsmanship and camaraderie with fun competitions.

 

Most recently, we organised our much-anticipated Christmas Island event, which spanned an entire week in December. This was held on our Christmas Island which was put together by @WhatASithuation. This festive celebration featured various activities designed to bring joy and holiday spirit to everyone involved. Among these were Red Light, Green Light, and our Secret Santa exchange. We held a good turnout for each event, and it was wonderful seeing everyone enjoying our festive events.

 

An update for the Escape The Temple Event; the Redstone mechanism for the last section is currently broken, and we are actively working on getting it repaired. Once the Redstone is fixed, we will allow the remaining groups to go through it. We apologise for the delay in having it fixed. We may also open it up to new groups once run through by those who already signed up prior.

 

 

TEAM DIRECTION & CONCLUSION

 

- Goals Over the Last Few Months -

Over the last while, we set several goals, with one of them being various Wiki revamps, including the update to the Wiki Guidelines & Rules. This is something I’m happy to say that we’ve completed. Another part of our goals was the ramping up in regards to content, both shorts and long-form content. Although we took a short break, we’re back with our long-form content & have released a few Capital Showcases, with many more of them in the works, due to come out in the near future. Although it was a goal for a while, shorts unfortunately took the backseat while the team focused on other work. Look below for our plans moving forward for shorts. 

 

- Future Goals -

Moving forward, we have several goals for the team to pursue. First of all, we will be sweeping through the Wiki to ensure pages are meeting our new Rules & Guidelines. Another goal for the team will be continuing to work our way through the Capital Showcases, as well as look into other videos going up in the near future as well. Shorts is something that I keep mentioning in updates, and is something I admit we’ve been lackluster on time and time again. We’re going to start experimenting with making videos explicitly for shorts, but also look at making small snippets from some of our long-form content into shorts. Application review time is a standard goal, one I mention in most updates, and this is something we’ll also continue to improve, despite how well it has been doing in recent months.

 

- Feedback Form -

Since its inception, the Community Team has been dedicated to assisting wandering souls, whitelisting players, aiding new & old players alike, and much more. However, it's been some time since we've sought feedback on the Community Team itself. With the survey below, our goal is to gather valuable anonymous insights into what the Community Team excels at and where it could improve. We will be aiming to post this form every three months.

 

Please provide honest feedback so we may improve our team's performance.

 

You can find the survey below:

 https://forms.gle/JrUyvtrc1DkkgwR76  

(Form will close after one week.)

 

- Conclusion -

All-in-all, we’ve had a productive last few months, as well as the year as a whole, with lots of projects being started, finished, and being continuously worked on. We buckled down to a smaller team size, and reworked a lot of our inner goings, and overall it’s paid off. Something I mention during most updates is that there’s always room for improvement, for me, and for the team, and this is something we will continue to strive for. With that being said, if you have any feedback, please use the anonymous feedback form found below. This is the main way and easiest way for me to get unfiltered feedback, so please utilize such with any feedback.

 

Once again, I hope everyone had a Happy Holidays & great start to their New Year. Until next time.

 

 

Need help? Feel free to contact a community team member via the forums, Discord, or you can use the command /creq in-game and a member can help you out there!

 

Shout-out to The Community Team for their work over the previous year & the work that they've done this year so far.

 

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me via Discord (@HogoBojo), or the forums, and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Cheers!

[Jihnyny 5233]

can you add vassals to realm activity, races dont do shit

[HogoBojo 4725]

1 minute ago, Jihnyny said:

can you add vassals to realm activity, races dont do shit

Hello, activity is handled by the Tech Team & we do not have the ability to update the /realm activity command, apologies. 

[ImmortalShadowZ 1306]

Well time to throw up 15 paste reqs real quick.....

[teeylin 1688]

Hogo, paste in my 5x5x5 statue, thanks.

 

 

What do you mean 10,000 mina?

[Scatmanpro 275]

Loving the little application graphs as always, looks really cool

Thx community team for helping this server survive 🙏

[Unwillingly 18096]

caurost is not on the wandering soul list or cloud temple map :^(

[HogoBojo 4725]

35 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:

 

caurost is not on the wandering soul list or cloud temple map :^(

 

An accidental oversight, apologies. I’ll update this next time I’m on ASAP!

[Smmer 2441]

can i come back to community to do apps, they were comforting.

[Cheese 8880]

11 minutes ago, Smmer said:

can i come back to community to do apps, they were comforting.

they're so scary i promise save yourself while you can

[ydegirl 2357]

WHERE IS BATTLE OF THE AARTS

[subatomic 1497]

im team unc now

[SaviourMeme 968]

22 minutes ago, ydegirl said:

WHERE IS BATTLE OF THE AARTS

Soon, the post for the next one will be going up in the following weeks

[wowj 9747]

8 hours ago, HogoBojo said:

@wowj your request about pottery shards is currently being looked at, and if there’s no issues, it will be implemented in the coming days.

i sharded my pants

[Saun_399 289]

How likely is it that ships will be allowed pastes again along with terrain?