Danny

Comparing to 2015 General Election positions, closest to the SNP... Guh.

Salmon red.

MY SON RETURNS.

HELLO AERI HOW ARE YOU.

You're still about!?!

Cheers! :)
 

Welcome back, Danny boy. Come, sit. Have some tea and/or preferred beverage, enjoy the virtual drama.

Looks like there's still plenty of it to go around...

Since he was the owner of the chat, did you ever make a new one?

Pretty sure a new one was made yep.

Hi. I am Danny.

Some people might remember me, most probably won't. Really this is just a small post to re-introduce myself to everyone - I'm planning on getting back into LotC as I've been away for quite a long while.

For those who don't remember me - I'm Scottish, I used to be the Player Relations admin and I've been gone for a year, maybe a year and a half, I don't quite remember. I started LotC at the tail end of 2011 and it was insane. I'd never been involved in anything like it. Like seriously - it's what I'd wanted since I first started playing games - a game where you literally made your own character and did whatever you wanted in your own world, and now I'd found it. Quickly, it became my nightly obsession and soon enough I joined the Application Team and began focusing most of my time on that. I kept playing as a player, focusing my time on my villain RP and joined the Villain Application Team (of which I think I may have been the worst member...). Strangely I seemed to enjoy being on staff and working that kind of stuff funner than actually roleplaying as Asulon wore on - I drifted away from really roleplaying that much. Then booyah GM. Brilliant. Heaven. I think I did an alright job at that. Then I got the chance at admin and spent most of my time on LotC in that role. That's pretty much it. Quick anecdote: #youngestAdmin@16yearsold.

But yeah, time wore on and life caught up with me and I felt it more important to focus on that rather than on the server as I was spending ridiculous amounts of time dealing with every single little drama that stirred. So I went. Popped in a few times since, but now I'm hoping on sticking around for a while longer. 

I guess it's worth just saying a bit about myself as well though. Like I said I'm Scottish, I'm 18, I'm a guy. I'm studying history and management at uni from September onwards. I like Game of Thrones, I like a drink but I hate bacon. Quick note: I also hate cream and milk but I love cheese. I used to have a bit of an obsession with Sloths but that was just a teenage crisis. They are still pretty damn cool though. I don't really have anything interesting about me except from that. 

I don't have a clue who's still around and who isn't - there's admins I don't recognise, GMs I've never heard of and only a few names that still seem to be the same as when I was around so this'll be interesting. So, yeah, that's me. I won't be actually on the server for a week or so yet until I get around to buying a new laptop as my current one is fried and my desktop can't even handle Skype anymore but I'll be on and around the forums. 

I'm looking forward to meeting all you newbies (which I'd probably now be classed as...) and getting to chat with everyone who I haven't spoken to in way too long. So yeah, hi I guess, nice to meet you.

Hello folks!

Quick post here - we're setting up a Gallery for the site and we need content for it, and as such, I'd like to ask for everyone who wants to see their content in the gallery to lob it into a post here for us to use. Whether it be screenshots of your roleplay, landscapes or whatever or let's plays, trailers or cinematic videos - as long as you've made it, and you're happy to give us permission to upload it to the LotC site then it's welcome.

Please pop anything you want to see in the Gallery in this thread. If you submit anything, we may edit it slightly into different sizes but that's about all we'll do. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got, cheers!

I will go middle ground with you, Salmon Pink.

There is no middle ground on this field - it is Salmon Red, or you stand with those disgusting admins.

Oh Danny, when will you learn that it's pink. 

Salmon Red!

The salmon pink is a joke, cause the Admin rank had that colour, all GMs and Admins (minus Danny) said it was pink, whilst Danny refused to listen and stated it was Salmon. 

Funny how thats all the stuff thats in 4.0. Coming from a builder in the DEV server, of course.

Looks like I'll be seeing what I wanted then.

• I want to see RP hubs that people go to roleplay in, but also people having the ability to have their own homes in freebuild regions in even the most centrefold areas of the map (fully achievable by just giving incentives to arriving at the hubs).
• I want to see a simple set-up of just four main nations with their sub-races being somehow integrated into their overarching nation's cities, of which there should be but one per nation - with maybe an extra town if population allows it (again, simplicity is key to things like this - don't overstretch the population, but don't over-centralise either).
• I want to see an end to overcomplexified systems of governance or nationhood with the eradication of systems that are based off of medieval-esque systems of religion, taxation and government (that, however, is just my personal preference -- if the nations want that, I as an individual won't stand against it).
• I want to see a map and a server that is built around the concept of fun roleplay rather than mega-serious roleplay.
• I want to see a friendlier introduction to LotC through the tutorial experience that is being created and this is something I am drooling at seeing.
• I want to see a bigger, better, stronger and funner server for everyone - a server that caters to more than just settled roleplayers, but also to Minecrafters who have just learned what roleplay is - I want to see us achieve what I believe the true purpose of LotC is: a platform through which people have the chance to play Minecraft and roleplay simultaneously, where skill and ability are not a barrier to fun, and where the main focal point is simply letting people play Minecraft in a similar way to its original form, but with the extra value and fun of roleplaying through it, with neither of these being a priority over the other.

That's just me though. 

I think the true 'failure' (perhaps a bit too strong, but still very much apt) of our wiki comes from two things: It's isolation from the rest of the site, and its (quite frankly) ugly nature.

It's located off of the main site and requires external registration, etc to change which is never a good thing and the design of it is truly not that great. These are two birds we are able to hit with one stone, and it is something that I'm gonna go pester Tythus about some time soon.

We're totally able to integrate the wiki on our own site, under lotc.co/wiki/ or wiki.lordofthecraft.net, whatever, and make it so that as soon as you're registered on the forums you're registered on the wiki, that's totally within our means. That removes the isolation aspect - and if you're worrying about any security risks there, it's totally safe - we can make it so only certain groups can edit it, perhaps creating a new player rank that requires 10 posts or something before they can change the wiki. That way we can allow almost every single player the ability to alter the wiki without needing to worry about spam-bots, or anything like that. 

Then, we can also solve the design issue at the same time. The real issue with most wikis is they're ugly as anything - let's be honest, they rarely have nice designs that fit in with the rest of the site they're part of. We've always really had that, except for the period of time we did actually have a design on the wiki that did match our sites. At the same time as sorting out that user authentication / database issues, we're also fully able to set the wiki so that it pulls the design of our website and implements that.

To do this, it is third-party software we'd use, but it's tried-and-tested software and it'll let us quite frankly have the best wiki we've ever had. By removing that isolation and hardship of registration from using/editing the wiki we'll encourage a much more community-based approach as you'll be able to simply flick over and make an instant change - and by sorting our the appearance of it, it'll become more more user friendly for everyone and new players won't look at it and be terrified by a formidable design and fortress of content. 

This does mean that we'll again have to move every single piece of wiki content over to another wiki, but if we go ahead with a plan like this, then we'll probably not have to do that again. Besides, we can make sure it isn't just down to a handful of people to make that transfer this time, because of the ease of access, anyone can help.

Like I said, I'll catch Tythus at some point and chat with him about it. I think this will revitalise the wiki and really bring it much closer to us as a community - rather than it being the furthest away piece of the site.

When I was an administrator I tried to keep in touch with the spending and revenue of the server and it was extremely rare for us to be in a situation when we didn't get enough money to run the server properly. When I returned recently, I did talk with Tythus and I know things are still going very much the same as that, except with a recent giant boom in donations that's down to the change in perks: this is a novelty however.

When we discuss the money that LotC takes in, there's two main sources. The primary, but unreliable source, is donations - we can get anything from a few, to twenty donations in a month - that means that it can amount to $300 or $100, it just depends on the month really. That's then subsidised and supported by the money raked in from advertising - that's a surprisingly large sum of money, I was quite shocked when I discovered quite how much it was. I used to have access to both of the numbers for these revenues, but I obviously don't anymore. You're misgiven in thinking that we rarely get enough to keep things operating, because I can assure you that isn't the case. 

When you look at spending, however, you need to pay attention to the fact that we pay out for more than just server hosting. We pay for a web server, for DDOS protection on it and TeamSpeak, then more DDOS protection on the Minecraft server. We then have to fork out money on things such as forum skins, renewing licenses to software and in the past we have paid technicians to work on plugin projects for us up until we got the team we have now - I have full faith in the fact that Tythus doesn't skim any money from donations like some suggest. Indeed, the extra revenue from this month, as far as I'm aware will go towards redesigning the website for when the time comes IPB 4.0 decides to dance into our lives.

I don't think it's right that we make it total public knowledge quite how the funds are spent - it really isn't actually people's business, as bad as that sounds. However, I feel more visibility must be made within the admin team itself as (unless things have made a u-turn), it isn't ever that clear how it's spent to them either. We were going to sort that a while back, hence why we actually registered a company and were going to create accounts in its name for handling money so every admin would be aware of expenditure, etc but we never finished that (and indeed the company still exists with entirely no assets at all!) I don't think, however, making public mention of whether we are in surplus or deficit is a problem however - I know Tythus has before had to supplement server funds to ensure things kept running smoothly - and I think things like that should be told to the playerbase, just not exact figures as I don't see any necessity in that.

 -snip-

I don't agree that the change that LotC has experienced is irreversible. Yeah, it does come down partly to the fact we've grown to know each other and we've built an integrated community around that, however, things have already been changed that show progress is possible and many of these changes are entirely possible, and undoubtedly would yield good results for the server and its progress. Take cliques and elitism for an example - these are things progress has been made on already, admittedly not enough, but the progress that has been made proves it's possible. I hold the view that the way the server was in the past largely did come from the community's attitudes, but those attitudes and indeed the actual servers play-value both directly stemmed from the systems and ways the staff had implemented their aims. 

I will give you it - /help isn't particularly ideal currently. I'm not quite daft enough to believe it is - however, with a fuller system it would work well. The /help command is these days fairly clean and easy to use and get, much more so than other Minecraft server's, and that's something unique to us that most definitely gives us the edge.

I concede, there is benefits to a GUI system, but I still strongly believe in the command based Minecraft-default system. I'd love to discuss it with you and see if we could come up with a system that the staff team would agree with and one that the entire server would benefit from. In an ideal world, a system where players (upon first logging in) get the choice to use either a command-based or GUI-based interface would be perfect. Whether that's too much work to expect or not, I don't know, but that'd be a brilliant one.

Well the scenario I'm talking about is the Verge/Fringe; It was like a month before the expected release, and 3-4 before the actual release. I made a big thread saying "hey guys, if we don't do somehting exciting this thing is going to be boring & a huge flop". I came up with a few detailed ideas, asked a few Event Team members for their opinions on what could be fun, stuff like that. I detailed it all out in a thread on the development/GM forums. You replied basically said "I don't think we should do any of this and just let the players explore". Killed all drive I had to work on the project and it got put to the wayside till it was finally released months later than it should have. Everytime I see a player say 'ya verge sucks', I'm a bit annoyed because it should have been more. It should have been better. It sucked and it shouldn't have.

If we're recalling the incident that I'm thinking of with regards to an antagonist, we simply had different opinions on how we could tackle an antagonist system on the Verge. I didn't state exploration should be the only purpose, if I remember rightly, I had different ideas on how the Verge should feature antagonists and when they should be introduced. I'm more than happy to discuss that with you if you want me to, but I think the primary focus of this thread and my original thread shouldn't be on mistakes I've made in the past with regards to not implementing these ideas fully, nor the mistakes the staff team as a whole made by not pushing forward such vital changes. 

off topic but it's pretty weird to see you [danny] make all these suggestions and stuff after you shot a lot of ideas and plans down as admin...

I never shot them down as an admin, I just didn't put my full weight of support behind them and didn't realise the necessity of them - I did exactly what almost every staff member did and didn't realise the importance of them, and I take the full blame for that and as I've done before, I apologise for it. I did, near the end of my time, realise the importance of them (and many I pushed for before 3.0 also) but I didn't ever push enough to try and get them in and I totally appreciate that. I suppose through returning and not being where I was prior, it's been an eye-opener to the realisation that we now do need to push extremely hard for these changes. What I'm doing now is encouraging the current staff team to not make the mistakes that I made by not making these changes become reality.

Heya Tel, cheers for replying to the thread. Just before I reply to certain things, I want to clarify that I misunderstood the land system that's going to be actually used for 4.0 - it wasn't given a very clear description with regards to the fact there will be central free land, so that's not an issue anymore. I'm still cynical about the actual land claim system, but that's probably the only thing I feel we can play a risk-game on and if it doesn't work, it's a simple remove. We just have to be ready to take it off if it doesn't work and if it doesn't provide the fun factor.

With regards to the economy, I don't discuss not having one / not allowing an economy to form because that's really not something that's possible. What I discuss is not focusing on building one as we've done in the past - every time we have made an attempt to design things based on the ideal of creating a working economy, it's failed and pushed us further from success.

The ideal of building an interdependence on players for resources in the hope of encouraging roleplay is simply that, an ideal. Apologies if I misunderstand you, but that's certainly what it appears from what you've said. It doesn't provide any enjoyment value to the server, and indeed it hinders players further from reaching that 'fun' appeal of the server. I don't know if that is what you're suggesting, as you really haven't made it quite that clear or not.

My other understanding is that you agree there shouldn't be restrictions on the economy or a focus on building one, but instead players should have the capacity to still make use of one of the vital mechanics of Minecraft, that one being crafting, unhindered. That's truly what I believe, however, I believe they should be able to do it via the default methods, that's another argument however.

It is not true that with the removal of warfare-based roleplay people will turn towards trollplay or harassment - it means that, with the encouraging from the staff and the introduction of RP hubs and appeal to go to these places, people will turn to community based spontaneous roleplay as we've seen in the past.

I'll miss out your second section regarding Regioning, as like I mentioned prior, there was some confusion regarding that and whilst I am still sceptical, I'm personally happy to see how that goes

And then finally onto our old argument regarding UI systems. I ain't gonna return to the debate that we've had time and time again already because it's evident that we're both just as strongly opinionated on it and we ain't gonna budge. What I will say, however, is that I still fully believe that by introducing alien GUIs and brand new concepts on how to play Minecraft, you over-complicate things for new players. People are used to being able to type in commands and having the ability to type /help to get an easy understanding of what they can do, that's something every Minecraft player can do and gets, it isn't a learning curve at all - but I still strongly say that introducing these alien GUIs is a learning curve. I love the tech team and the plugins they create, and I think you're great too, but I think that your GUI system just isn't what the server needs to succeed.

I appreciate the reply and I hope you didn't take any offence from any of my remarks or any of them as a direct focus on yourself or your team, however, I stand entirely by everything I stated in that OP (except with regards to land) because I fully know that if we want LotC to return to a strong position, with a large population and growth, great appeal to new players and for it to really achieve it's aim of being a truly fun, free roleplay server we need to take a step back and realise that we have to adopt the Aegisian way of thinking, return to Aegisian techniques and systems but of course improve on them (as there's much to be improved), but this time ensure that we climb up the correct mountain by the correct path, rather than losing our footing and jumping into the crevasse we did before.

2) Yes, I AM getting killed a lot, once because I was mededating. The other time because "we don't like strngers", an another time because "we don't like your kind" and so no and on.

 

That's something that shouldn't be happening and that's evidently players that aren't wanting to actually provide enjoyment to other players in the community, but instead just like being a pain in the backside.

 

3) That's my point, rp should be required, but did you see that mentioned in the new rules thread? Because I did not. New rules should be clear, when they say PvP is default and only 1 person has to want it, then I see it as you can walk up to people and beet the everything out of them.

 

It is mentioned in the rules and it's always been a rule even during RP-default times. People have never been allowed to exploit it, it's always been required.

 

5) I would not kill someone with less gear or no weapon, I think tht is VERY lame and stupid in common.

 

Again, that's a problem with people themselves who need a kick in the head - not a problem with the system itself. 

 

6) Also, perhaps you could give us, players, as in ALL of us, the option to vote? I know this sounds stupid, but you could try it, to see what mojority now actually wants, not only the big Diamond vips and the Lord and Dectrums, but all of us, the new ones, the hobos, the homeless...

Let all of us decide, announce it on the server and on the forums that there will be the ability to vote, as that is how I'd see it to get to a good and mostly accepted system.

 

There's been votes in the past, and the last one said PVP-default and that was when I was still admin I believe. We jiggle between the two different sides all the time and there's been community discussion and votes time and time again.

 

Answers are in bold to the ones I was able to answer directly.

Woah, seems you're quite frustrated there, as is to be expected when change like this comes along. I'm not in support of consensual war rules, but I'll reply to the PVP-default aspect of your post.

This is a debate that's ran around since really the start of the server. Some people wanted PVP default, some wanted RP. We've hopped between them time and time again and when I was on the staff team, for most of the time, I was pro-RP. I did end up changing to supporting PVP-default and I still support it.

It isn't true that anyone can be randomly killed because of PVP default. A - Nobody can actually be randomly killed, RP scenarios must occur before any kind of combat anyway. B - The same could easily happen with an RP default system, it'd just take longer.

PVP default leads to less OOC conflict and drama, as well as less bickering and tension. I can categorically state that as I've witnessed it on every step of the rank ladder. RP default has a tendency to end up with accusations of powergaming and people falling out over it. PVP default deals with things nice and cleanly.

That being said. RP combat is still entirely available for anyone to use if the other person agrees! It isn't as if RP fighting is outlawed - ask the person "Do you want to RP fight?" and there's a chance, if they think you wont powergame it, that they'll say yes.

If anyone is just running up to you and killing you, then you should be reporting that however. Any killing must have a scenario surrounding it and RP leading up to it. Someone can't just approach you and say "Time to die" or something, they need to actually have an RP scenario with you before they try and kill you via PVP.

And even then, there's the common misconception that PVP isn't an RP way of dealing with things, when it actually is. It has the RP leading up to it, it fully takes into account things like armour and weaponry (whilst mages are still at a disadvantage currently).

And I mean, people will come and counter the arguments I make. And then it'll continue like every other PVP-default or RP-default argument, but the point still stands:

I don't do PVP, I'm rubbish at it - but I'm still fully behind PVP default, because I know as a fact that it is the most efficient and effective system that we can put in place on the server. The issue that lies with combat now is that we need to reduce its prevalence in roleplay and try to move people away from combat-orientated roleplay, that's the issue, PVP-default isn't.

There are several ways, getting online more and answering more modreqs, or also to just be more active on the forums and to comment when people do feedback, there are several ways. I am not going to list them, but I definitly wish admins to do one of the above in order to prove their active. 

Doing the ModReqs, like I mentioned can be an issue though because you do get so easily distracted by other people trying to get a hold of you for even more important things that need to be speedily dealt with. The other points are things that can well be done, but do you really think the impact will be that big? If trust's trying to be built I don't know if quite that will suffice.

The important work of the admin team is generally what goes un-noticed. Things ranging from the simple management of the staff to making larger decisions on the server. The credit from it does tend to go down to a single person (as well as the flack), and that's the person who makes the call. That's something that really won't change.

I do agree that a more public image is a necessity, and I do think that things as simple as wandering around the forums and posting - this is something I failed to do as time went by, although I was at one point almost at the top of the posting list every day, it died out and I slowed down - instead of just reading, they do need to reply. Perhaps if smaller things like this were all done, by each team member, it might improve that image.

And when it comes to periods of inactivity, like Viper's - temporary removal from the rank until they return is the only appropriate action. Permanent isn't the best way, as as far as I know, Viper is going to return, but it looks atrocious when you have people designated as a staff member and they haven't been on in ages.

Just to clarify, I ain't arguing against you - I'm totally in agreement that the perception that the playerbase has of the admin team does need to change and that can be done via the admins pursuing a more community-based role, it's finding the best ways to do that that's the struggle.

But hey, my feedback means exactly the same as everyone else's these days - I can't make it happen, although I would if I could, we just have to hope that one of the admins hops along and reads this thread, maybe even posts a reply to the matter on it.

Look, idk what you did as an admin, other then that you were pretty active and you were pretty public. Here is the thing Danny, lotc is a project, were all people who are using this project for our own entertainment. Right now the admins are the supervisors and pretty much dictators of the project, they make the policies and they recruit people who they will mandate to supervise the project and make sure its a safe and enjoyable environment. 

 

But, here is the issue to me, mr. danny, I find the admins the heroes and people the community needs to trust and have faith in. The people who are just and do not have bias what so ever, people who are active and take care of the community. But here is the thing, they kind of give me the impression that they I shouldn't put my trust in them lol. If you don't hear from an admin or know what the hell their doing, why should you trust them? Why should I trust people who I might seem to find not trust worthy. 

 

Now, you might say this is me personally but I know that other people feel the same way, and admins lack the care and dedication to the server, take for example rittsy, he is the only one releasing policies. Sure, I am conffident that other admins may have contributed, but where is the credit? What I am trying to prove by bringing this example is that why don't admins try to show to the community that they actually care, and their not just doing this for power. I have no proof that vip3r is still around and he does things for us, I have no proof uraspet still helps. 

 

I want to trust my admins, and I quite frankly can't, which is why I gave them a low rating. This is MY issue with the admin team. 

That's exactly one of the issues I highlighted - you don't see what it is that the admin team actually does, and that's something that if possible needs to be made more evident to normal players, but it's a hard thing to make more evident because of the nature of the work they do. Unless you expect them to jump around after doing something and make a status saying "Just helped Danny with his forum account problems!" you don't see that sort of thing.

I tried to aim for a more public image when I was an admin and near the end of my time I tried to fit in ModReqs etc just to try and improve the visibility of administrators, but it is a hard thing to do because you're getting constantly pestered from elsewhere. I don't quite know how else visibility can be improved, in all honestly - do you have any suggestions on how they could make themselves more present?

I mean, they're on TeamSpeak in public channels chatting away. One thing might be getting involved in the general chatter around the forums as that makes them more involved in a friendly way with the community which would help to build trust. It's not an easy thing to solve, and replacing admins isn't the way to resolve it either.

The role of administrator isn't always filled by someone who becomes inherently inactive. It's true that a lot of what the admin team does is behind the scenes. I will admit now though that there is a lot of inactivity (or maybe not even that, but just non-constructive work) hence why I threw the towel in. A more public presence has always been needed and is always something I wanted to see, but it's something that you're unlikely to really actually get. I give full credit to the admin team though - I've been there, and a lot of the work does seriously go unnoticed because a lot of it isn't ModReqs or frontline moderation, but waiting for people to contact you and dealing with larger issues and developing issues under the surface of the server and you tend to get so mixed up that you don't realise your public presence has diminished. Been there, experienced it.

Looking back on what I did as an admin, my activity reduced over the months. I was a very active GM - that ain't arrogance speaking that is honestly fact - when I first joined the GM team I was at the top of the ModReq stats, I was on the forums dealing with support and I was active. Over the months that did reduce, and then I became admin and boom activity set in, yet over the months again that diminished. 

Admin activity isn't nearly what it could be - it hasn't been for a long time, but many people do have this impression the team just sit on their arses and do nothing all day which is entirely the polar opposite of reality. They do work, and much of the work that they do isn't publicly seen as a GMs is via ModReqs, bans, support threads because a lot of it is conducted in speaking with players privately and in dealing with the larger scale issues.

The GM team is the more pro-active squad of the server's management, running about dealing with things as they come and before they come. The Admin team isn't the backroom policing as such, but rather the backup folk who deal with things when they get either out of hand or simply when they're contacted directly.

It isn't fair to simply categorise it as inactivity due to 'rl issues', but I must admit that there does seem to be the curse of the admin which does occur. Activity does reduce over time, and what needs to be found is two things:

• Yes, an increase in that activity.
• However, also a more public image of the actual work done by the administration team because the vast majority of their work does go under-represented in the community. This may be more difficult to achieve than the other point, as without broadcasting "JUST DEALT WITH A PM FROM DANNY", there's little in the way of a solution to this.

 

These results are across the board lower than usual. Each team was creeping up for the last six months. Why the sudden lunge back down again?

 

 

The same thing was thought of of the old PR person whose name now escapes me for some reason. Because they're the one who is always announcing to the players, they seem to be the only one who does anything.

 

Developers, for example. Which Developers do you think are working the hardest? Its very difficult to tell as 99% of what they are doing is not going to be seen for a while.

 

"old PR person" - I am hurt, hurt.

-Introduction of a Nether VIP rank. More on this will be revealed soon, but I will reveal that only one person will have access to this rank at a time.

Mogroka.