VonAulus

Howdy folks, This is pretty straightforward, after the end of the mandate from a previous approval to put in warp signs during the time of chunk trouble. Chunk troubles have been fixed by hard work from the techs. The warp signs have been removed till further notice. I understand that this was a very nice luxury but it is now time to return to those lovely roads. Reminder, with a return to roads there will be a rise of bandit/road roleplay, if you feel that an exchange was not a give and take as outlined in our new Roleplay Quality Standards, please compile evidence and post a report on the forums. There will definitely be some growing pains as we return to normal. I invite all of you to share your opinions on how we should work to bringing the server closer together and decreasing travel times. Soulstones are still a system and most Settlements should now have a Green Soulstone Pillar. I personally want to say thank you to the community for all its patience during the lag and chunk issues. Have a good evening!

I will hit her with an investigation ban.

I will pray for your speedy recovery. Take it easy.

I like the Tutorial Island idea. I know it has been difficult to get consistent builder help but maybe I could personally help. That is something we could during this map and next. Shoot me a PM so I can move this up World Team priority list. This sounds cool to me. I am sure Llir or Telanir would have a better understanding of how to set this up to be automated. Maybe even a stage on tutorial island which asks how do you find out about LOTC? That is good to hear. I am glad players are taking some steps towards moderating disputes themselves. The change to relying more on reports and less on in game split-second moderation has been a positive one. As a player I noticed there have been a few less toxic ooc skirmishes in LOOC due to these changes. Moderators need to continue to pressure players to act civilly and I think you have done a good job making rulings to protect the mods on the team. There is a chat in the World Section to staff discord. If you want we could put together what we see as a good plan of simple ideas to help mold the economy with the server. We can then take that to the players to see their creative suggestions and tweaks. I hope to get moving forward on this soon so we can have a plan in place for 8.0. One specific idea we had was for minas mints that I think it pretty promising. Llir and I have talked about making this a more mechanical system which would ease the burden on the Charter Team Volunteers. Something interesting would be that regions would automatically reset if they were unused for too long, so that the generic terrain would come back from an original backup. We could still intervene to turn places into event sites but would save us the trouble of lots of clean-up world edit. I have heard from some players a desire to return to a more RP Default system as we try to distance ourselves from our light-faction server recent past. I would be interested in looking into prioritizing dynamic villainy and removing raids altogether. I think you have stumbled on a catch-22. If you create a system to raid people, people will raid more because it has been institutionalized. So a system that was meant to limit raiding potential and destruction has brought it to new heights. Again, players can moderate themselves in most RP situations and when we run into every conflict with Moderation making rulings we get to the point we are at now. We have created a system reliant on Mods, so when that system fails (it has to) people hate the Mods in the system. We have to be careful to not put too much on Moderation as it is not their job to hold player’s hands but to help facilitate roleplay and make our server playable. I have no problem with coming up with new ways to measure activity but for now I have to roll with the imperfect system we have. I do not subscribe to a lot of what is stated in these posts and I do not think the arguments were super compelling on why we should re-add freebuild or allow inactive settlements to sit there. They do hurt player counts and are more of a headache for Moderation and World. If you took a look over freebuild areas from last map you would see towny spread every 50 blocks that landscared the countryside with no one to enforce build standards. It did not add that many more players as most the settlements were completely empty after one week. Charter’s this map have done something similar and I have noticed as I checked the rosters of the charters, the same 5 people appear on a majority of those being evicted. The same 5-10 players pop up moving from one charter to another, not really adding much to the rp story or map. This is not their fault, the system is promoting this activity. If someone wants to code Nexus plots or w/e we can take a look but I would rather have that in front of me before I agree to it.

I agree, we should be aiming to scale up production of content across the board. Specifically, I have been thinking about how we can use the map to drive up activity and engage more players to stick around for the long haul. I understand people may seem my charter reforms as contrary to this stated goal, however, I think settlement health is a better attraction to the server then settlement numbers. The map needs to feel alive and when you approach a place, there needs to be a high chance of finding an interesting RP experience. I think with the upcoming Lair Proposal, Charter Reform, and Nation Expansion projects coming down the pipe we can work on settlement health and player engagement all in one swoop. World edit is the main thing the team needs to be stable for us to get anything done. Recent hamstrings over the past few months have depleted a lot of our members patience when working on the live server. Hopefully with these optimizations we can find new solutions to fixing land scars, removing inactive builds, and other work World does everyday. This is very important. More people is not normally the answer, different people is. I think members of the staff and veteran players alike get the idea in their head that they are independents who are on staff. You are on a staff “team.” This means teamwork has to be a priority and slackers are going to get cut. We have to put feelings of entitlement and reward those members who are taking initiative and doing most of the work. As you said during downsizing, more members does not necessarily mean more work is getting done. More members actually demotivates the team a lot as you feel most people are not contributing. The economy is something World has been considering greatly. One frustration our team has is a lack of tech/dev support over the entire time I have been a member of staff. One small economy plugin goes a long way for that community. Economic activity on the server is in itself roleplay and will help to drive activity up if it is engaging and has server support. We need to have a way better economic plan for next map and there should probably be a subsection of World Team completely focused on economic reforms. The economy being more immersive and meaningful can only help the server grow to the numbers you are suggesting here. Please give us llama or something! Something I brought up to Luka during my time as manager was that we should do expansions to a map similar to how WoW or Runescape do expansions or content creations. Imagine you have the same team that designs the map stick around and work on smaller projects all together. The job of the map is not done on release, it should just be getting started. We could revamp areas of the map and work with Story to change the map and add more life/detail as the map progresses. These need to be long term plans not based on the whims of one person, but team wide efforts with a collective soul behind it. Athera is a great example of content we should be looking to do more often, with a lot of upside and little risk. I have talked about this before in meetings. Voting can not be the only way to advance the economy. Friend referrals is a great idea. I do not know if it is possible, but could engagement on social media be turned into a way to earn minas? I am generally not a fan of ooc things having in game benefit but that could help boost our presence, there. We should also have an Instagram account that is used to promote builds on the server. Some build accounts on Instagram get a lot of interaction and this is a possible pool we should be using resources to tap into. We should get a PR or Media intern. I am sure some college or highschool student could use an internship for their college resume. Some might think this is a meme but people put a lot of crap on those and you could explain that you are an intern for massive gaming community that spans the planet, yada yada how ever many users you want to list. People put they are president of the math club and this is not any more or less nerdy. Times are a changing and people are learning to respect organizing and social media content creation. If at the end you could show a portfolio of work you did for the server and a social media account you helped to grow, there is massive value there.

Ban this person for leaking.

Very impressive Anore. Glad you got the ball rolling with this much needed reform. This new system is much easier to use then the old discord look up.

Freebuild requires a lot more work because of the constant activity check signs and constant disputes over the 50 block rule. Part of why this is happening is put out in the post, it is a very large amount of work to keep up with all these settlements. I have had five charters in the last day with between 0% activity and 0.05% activity ask for Charter Expansions. It is way too much work for the current volunteers to keep up with and adding more people to the team is definitely not the solution. We are wasting way too much time managing the land due to the poor map design of this map which creates an imbalance in the value of certain land. The truth is about 95% of Charters fail and the 5% that succeed do not justify the hours and hours of effort players put into the build and resources to be set up for failure by the system created to give them an outlet. LOTC is not a Towny server at the end of the day, it is a Roleplay server, and the Charter system is anti-roleplay as it decentralizes and bastardizes player interaction. The fact you point out the fiefdom expectations in a nation but call for a freebuild system baffles me. Quite the mental gymnastic there.

Charter Policy Update March 9th, 2020. Why? After an extensive review of the activity data, it has become more than clear to the World Team that the current system has failed us. While we see a rapid uptick in the number of charters that form on Arcas, we do not see an equal uptick in activity to justify these settlements springing up. To put into perspective just how lopsided activity distribution currently is and has been for a long while now, of all the recorded data - sixty charters make up 15% of the server activity. With the average charter contributing .25% of the recorded data for the week. On the other hand, fourteen nations make up 85% of the server activity. With the average nation contributing just over 6% of the data for the week. This means that despite making up roughly 18% of the total player-controlled regions, the average nation contributes 24x more activity than the average charter. After the first round of cuts after the update to 1.15, we have cut the amount of regions we are tracking down to 55 regions. Those were just charters that had under 0.02% of playtime for either of the first two activity checks. Now on the backend of nation and charter management, seventy-four independent groups are a lot for a team of volunteers to manage. And this is especially evident when we review how over the past couple of months the system has been neglected, mismanaged, and abused. Steps for Arcas: The creation of new charters will be halted until the inactive charters have been cleaned up. We will be releasing a charter system with stricter requirements, along with expanding on the system with a Lore Settlement section (which Flamboyant will be posting soon). Charter tier expansion will require closer following of activity check numbers with the hope the centralization of roleplay will lead more groups to meet them. 1% is going to be the goal, there will be incremental increases on a two week schedule moving forward. March 22nd will be the first cut off at 0.1%. April 5th will be the second with a goal of .5%. April 19th will be the third with a goal of 1% for each charter. After this has been put in place, we will be looking into Nation reform and the new charter/settlement system moving into the rest of this map and next map. Qualifying for one of the two weeks of the activity period is all that is required. Make sure if you are a Charter Leader or Nation Leader to stay on top of announcements in the main LOTC Discord. This is where it is best to communicate with myself or other members of the Charter Team. I am going to be personally overseeing Charter Reform moving forward till we can find a suitable candidate to be the point person for policy initiatives.

Minas or die!

Thank you for all the work you did for the server, Korvic. Very glad I got to know you better over the last few months.

What is your LOTC origin Story?

I stopped the Narthok thread because it was toxic. I think if you read the forums that most criticism of me is allowed to pass through and very little is done by myself or Moderation to stop it. You can have whatever opinion of me or my motives you want but I would rather be friends with people then deal with bullshit and bullies. I think if you got to know me Crevel you would realize I do not back down to bullies and generally deal with situations head on with my chest out. I saw a lot of problems with the current map of LOTC and thought I could help to make the server a better place. I did not join staff with the thought of being an Admin but when I saw the possibility I went for it. I really care about LOTC and it has been important during my formative years and I want to give back to the community in the way I know how. I know you get bugged a lot but it is surprising how much people will lie to you to get what they want. On the flip side some player’s kindness and support know no limit when you help them. I find the vast majority of players to be really here for the right reasons which is to build a joint narrative and community. You know me Muffins but my personality is very much of trying to help others to get their projects or goals done. They are two different jobs but I had not thought about it much before it. I see a lot of people argue we need less Admins and let the team work itself out on their own. I think this lacks a fundamental understanding of how the Staff works on LOTC. The position of Admin is basically like being on the board of governors for any organization. You are involved in joint decision and direction of the server as a whole. You need executives to run the team and to represent their interests as well as the other groups interests on the board. You really need people with a direct line to the Admin team to advocated for what the team needs. If you had this level break between Admins and the teams you would not see a lot of the requests for basic permissions and busy work getting done. The few Admins would be overwhelmed with pings for little things each team needs. Obviously this system can be improved upon and I am sure it will change with time but the removal of Admins is really not possible after having seeing how the staff runs efficiently(or not so efficiently) in different cases at different times. Everything has its plus and minuses but when I help a player or see a project complete that is what I enjoy. I do not enjoy dealing with bans or toxicity but I would rather it be focused on me then on kids or innocent players on the server. I was feeling pretty down about being an Admin a few weeks ago due to a lot of constant negativity but I think that the work I do is important enough to deal with it and push past it. My parents raised my brother and I to work hard and advocate for ourselves and to engage in dialogue and teamwork with those around us so I try to bring that to the job. I would remove PVP from the server and reinstate Villain Application.

Yes he does know that I am an admin we talk about LOTC periodically. @VonEbs

Everyone is a lord of the craft. Good. You will have to ask them.

I am pretty hairy but I feel like that is TMI and not really interesting. Wdym? Ally. I have run out of time to work on my youtube channel since taking over as Admin. Maybe one day I will not cut off the possibility. I need more context.

Most non-human groups are generally more friendly from my perspective as an Admin. As a player the orcs were great to me in Asulon, particularly the Azog clan. Carrion picked me up in 3.0 and I have not really looked back. I spent time with the halflings and dwarves which was fun and those communities were kind to me as well.

I am happy with how the team has been functioning since we enacted a few small reforms. There is room for improvement and work will pick up soon once we update to 1.15 so I might be able to better answer that when we get there. It has been a bit of a dormant time with the stability issues. I love chocolate chip icecream. I am not sure I know that secret but advice I would give it to remove discord from your phone and only look at it when you have free time. LOTC can wait.

My favorite build would either have the be Brelus or Ves. Both are very different cities but I poured my heart and soul into both those projects. It is crazy we used to build in SMP without a build server or any real planning. I have thought about getting back to that.

I am bad because of the Coal Miners Union, they corrupted me in my youth and I am a slave to their will.

No politics.

I feel like the last kid picked in kickball right now. AMA(not politics)