HogoBojo

Aegir Joakim Colborn would be greatly and deeply saddened upon hearing word about the passing of his adoptive Father. Although it was abundantly clear that him and his Father disagreed in the ways of governance, he would think back to his childhood and all the lessons he was taught, as well as everything his Father had accomplished during his lifetime. Although the man was not perfect in Aegir's eyes, above all the man was his Father, and someone he would miss more than anyone else would ever know.

Aegir Joakim Colborn would receive his invitation personally from Ser Caspian, offering a warm smile as he read it over, taking a mental note of the date and marking it in his calendar to attend.

“A mighty victory for the Margrave to be certain— to lead that many men into battle, and for not one to fall is a feat in itself.” Hogmund would murmur to his son Isaak as word of the outcome spread far and wide throughout the land.

Aelor Wynasul would gander down towards the ballot on the desk in-front of him. The man would tap his chin as he thought carefully about who he would vote for. The last few Sohaers had an insane amount of impact upon on The Silver State, and considering recent events, this election would be just as important-- at least to him it seemed that way. Upon the conclusion of his internal monologuing and debating, he would come to a decision and write down his information, followed by that of the candidate he decided to support. The Wynasul would then proceed to carefully fold the filled-out ballot, placing it into the box.

"Ai." The Mirror Prince replied simply as his gaze glanced up from the missive towards his his reverse mirror image and brother, Elias. "I will miss him dearly, as I will our homeland, and all of our people that we lost." With that statement, the man would shed a tear as he looked forth towards the Ocean for one last time, admiring its beauty and the crashing of the waves. The Prince would turn his back from the view and the former Royal Capital for a final time, leaving the place which he knew as home for his entire life. @Kaii

You did me proud.

Hogmund Jakob would find himself waiting for Ser Joakim to return. The Knight had been there for him during the turbulent days when he was a child and lost his parents at an early age, and grew to become a mentor to the Prince. Despite all the time that had passed, and the time that continued to pass, the Knight did not return- he would not return, not alive anyways. Unaware at the recent events, Hogmund would continue his daily activities, waiting for the day when Joakim would return- the day that would unfortunately never come to pass.

ONE: TWO: THREE: Honestly this was a lot harder to do than I expected. I've seen so many shows & listened to so many openings that I can't even recall them all. Without delving through my entire watch history to find ones I've forgotten, above are three that I'm quite fond of.

Hogmund Jakob would weep upon the passing of his dear brother, crying out to the night sky. “Oh Godan why?” He’d yell out, another one of his kin lost too soon. “First my parents, and now my dear brother— Why does death plague my family so, especially before they even reach their elder years.”

Howdy, Metaplay is something that has been plaguing our server for quite some time. The term itself was not coined until somewhat recently, with definitions, rules, & guidelines denoting such being made by myself & the rest of The Administration. When our internal discussions first started, stemming from a very public community situation, I was fully onboard with the development of our implementation of the Metaplay Guidelines. I worked hard alongside my greatest ally Squak, as well as the other Administrators to help develop & enforce these policies. When I caught wind of a different situation that I believed to be Metaplay, I made sure to report it with all due haste. In-terms of the Vinovia situation, particularly the Metaplay aspect– I was added to the Discord by LobsterLarry, someone I consider to be a good friend of mine, and the Leader of Vinovia. When talking to him, he seemed to be ambitious and eager to get this project running, and talked quite enthusiastically for ages about it. When tossed an invite to the Discord, I happily obliged. I very rarely peeped the Discord, with me checking it less as more time came to pass. Different Discord Roles were afforded to me as courtesy by Larry as his friend– although they were removed and added several times, most notably when the Vinovians caught word of a report & knew they were cooked. Just to be perfectly clear– I did not check that Discord often, and was unaware of the Metaplay that transpired. In-terms of the application monkeys– I was reached out a few days ago by a team member of mine who expressed deep concern about how Vinovia was getting applications reviewed. For those unaware, a group of already whitelisted players would grind out full applications for their friends, to get them whitelisted quickly & without issue. Upon hearing such, I informed the team member to deny any & all applications they are aware of that were made using this procedure. In addition to this, I informed said team member that I would investigate & look into taking further action. I received this message on the 10th of this month, so four days ago. Fully writing applications for others is something I’ve always been strongly against, and believe it just acts in complete bad faith. This takes us to now– Metaplay was discovered, as well as bad-faith actions in general. I’m appalled to see such, especially by people I consider to be close friends. I myself although was unaware until the report- I failed to carry out my duty as an Administrator to enforce the policy, despite it transpiring right under my nose, and by those quite close to me. To ensure that trust is still held, and so none can loft false accusations towards The Administration, I have decided to tender my resignation. This decision was solely mine to take, and one I take to show that you’ve all already been warned– and you will face the consequences should you break our Policy. Administrators are to enforce this Policy with self-initiative & haste– and by me being unaware of such actions & my free time drawing thin, I’m unable to perform the duty expected of me by myself, and by others. Thank you to my fellow Administrators, and The Community Team for the opportunity to serve as Administrator. I'm proud of what my team has accomplished, and what I have personally accomplished in my role– especially for our strides in our Safety Policies. I wish the best of luck to my successor when they are selected. A special thank you to the Community as well– I'm honoured to have gotten to serve as Administrator, and gotten to interact with all of you. I'll still be around, although not on staff, for those of you who still wish to talk– you may reach out. — Hogo

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

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

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 - - Raw Application Data - __________ 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 Celia’nor - Capital Showcase 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: 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. 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!

I wish I could take credit for this masterpiece, alas I cannot.