Ark

I think that being aggressive OOCly is typically a bad thing but I get what you mean. Sometimes raiders can really ruin an event that you spent weeks preparing which is so annoying.

this guy would be a good peactime nl ngl*

Hi, I'm Ark. I’ve created a few different communities in my time on LotC and the community creation aspect of it has always been my favorite part of the game. I’ve decided to distill my almost decade of experience of creating online communities, specifically on LotC, to help those who are currently making communities, have a community, or just would like some tips on things they could do. #1. Find a good niche and stick to it. When we created Haense, the idea was to have an all encompassing northern faction that united the many different “northerners” at the time. We fought hard to keep this niche and timing really helped us as the Starks from Game of Thrones were really popular around the time we started it all. Describing our faction as "We're basically the Starks" had huge appeal and made many new players join us for that reason alone. Though your niche doesn’t have to be that, generally the larger you want to be, the more popular of a niche you should take advantage of. Just try to find something popular and advertise the hell out of it. It’s alright to stick to a popular niche. It's a popular niche for a reason. If you have a hard time describing your community to a new player in more than one sentence, you should take another look at your niche and see if there’s something more succinct you can capture. #2. A good team beats a great person every time. Some of the friends i’ve made leading communities on LotC will stick with me for life. @Eddywilson2 and @ErikAzog. A community is a group of people centered around a common goal. If you’re anything like me you are going to try to do everything yourself because you’re a perfectionist and if you do it, at least you know it’s done right. But you will get burned out and disillusioned. Something that has helped me is to figure out swim lanes that people tend to excel in. I am really bad at military conflicts in LotC. I’ve lost nearly every single one that I have been the main commander. Eddywilson2? He’s really ******* good at it, so I let him deal with that. I’m very good at making active RP hubs through community engagement and events, so I do that. Taking a step back and realizing, “What am I good at and how that can contribute to the community” will save you friendships and hours. #3. Be honest OOCly Even if you’re going to fight against someone, be clear about that. Rarely do snakes get anywhere. You only have a single reputation, people will respect it and it will make every single conversation you have in the future easier. #4. Choose a side. Every single time i’ve had two groups that I thought would easily merge, there've been troubles. People protect their status and any change to that can be very threatening. Without cutting out one of the groups, it always leads to more infighting and drama down the line. Picking a side and sticking to it typically leads to the most troublesome leaving and the rest integrating. It’s not always bad to take a small hit to build back better with one consistent vision. #5. Help people do what they want to do. (Within reason). The most motivated people in a community are those who are allowed to do what they want to do. I’ve had lots of people come up to me in communities, towns, cities, with pretty crazy ideas. Most of the time I'd allow them to go for it. As long as it wasn’t totally out of the scope of what we were doing, i.e. no space command in our medieval kingdom, I found that people appreciated the trust and worked harder at projects that were their own. Even then, sometimes the projects fell through but they appreciate your trust in them, and they are more willing to run a project that you know would be useful. #6. Remember it's a game. I’ve been really bad about this at times in my lotc career, but there are real people behind the screen. They can become great amazing friends who might change the course of your life, treat them as such. Using people as an end to a means will only have people regretting ever getting to know you. Shoot the shit, have fun, chill out and remember it’s just a Minecraft server. #7. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are literally the most valuable thing I learned from lotc. From keeping track of rallies to events going on in your town, you should be using them where you can. This habit has helped me in my career immensely, just learning to organize information allows you to make better decisions and see what’s working and what isn’t much quicker than a blind approach. If you do not have a spreadsheet for your community, please go make one right now. If people are interested in what I mean by that, let me know and I can make a little mini-guide on how I use them to run communities on lotc. #8. Your bar owner is the third most important person in the faction. If you want an active city, get an active bar owner with a vision for their bar. They will work harder, put on their own events, and generally create a RP hub that’s separate from the traditional “Keep, barracks, etc.” I like to have 2-3 RP hubs in any community, with enough space between them to prevent RP overlapping but play around with it. Even after 8+ cities or so I think there’s other stuff that could be done. #9. Culture is written on the forums, but made in game. I really do think cultural posts are valuable, but without anything tying it to the game makes it useless. People aren’t going to start doing something just because you wrote in a post that’s what you do. Coordinate your community leaders to start doing that and people will follow because we all mimic what we want to become. #10. Your middle leadership, (Lieutenants, Stewards, etc.) are incredible resources and listen to them. With community's being on the scale of LotC (100 people being close to the cap), it’s easy to think you can make every decision or understand how the community feels about a certain thing. But generally it’s good to run a 10-30-60 rule. 10% being your head executive leaders, these are the people who are making the big decisions, ie. who are we warring, what niche are we going to be, etc. 30% are the leaders who make your administration actually function. They are the people collecting taxes, helping to write posts, officers in your army. 60% is everyone else. Generally I see one or two things happen, you have a lot of people who listen to the 60%, so whenever people start yelling and getting upset at a certain change or event they make drastic changes but if you’ve planned out what you’re doing you shouldn’t change just because the mob says so. Or, you have 10% of the player base dictating everything for everyone else, which leads to burn out among the 30% who are seeing bad decisions being made because the upper 10% doesn't understand the playerbase. If your Stewards, Officers, and other officials are telling you something, I implore you to listen. Anyways, thanks for reading. A lot of these ideas have been stewing in my brain for years and since I'm satisfied with the communities I've built on lotc over the years I hope this inspires some people to make better communities. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. Also I have a twitch stream now that I'd like to shamelessly plug. twitch.tv/TrainingArk, if you’re interested in self improvement and want a community that will support you in that, consider joining.

as a follow up to my last thread ask me what song u make me think of and ill tell you

As always, first I want to thank you my readers because humility is my most valued trait. LET ME TELL YOU. HAENSE? BEAUTIFUL. You would think if you had to walk past a few thousand iceciles to get to a place it'd be some shit hole, but no not Haense. They decided to make one of the most colorful(but still tasteful) cities i've ever seen despite being in the literal middle of nowhere. Impressive really, those Barbanov's are tough stock whoever started them should be real proud of themselves. Anyways I get into this super beautiful city in the middle of the freezing wastes and you know what I am greeted with? Hint, it's not alcohol. (At least not yet). For the first time I went to a city, I was offered something else first, cheese. Apparently I just showed up in time for the cheese festival on accident. You see I don't really eat cheese because I'm pickier than a High Elven prince with digestion issues, but I was excited to see all the fanfare anyways. Some little kid came up to me telling me how she could write and was impressed that I was a travelling writer, apparently she writes historical theses or something, whereas I just write these silly missives. I wonder what they are feeding these kids nowadays. Must be the cheese. She can't be that bright though, because she tried to offer me some half nibbled cheese and in one swift motion I managed to throw it over my shoulder before she could tell. So yeah, you might understand history but at least I have eyes. (Might be a bit inappropriate to say, considering half the people I met were missing at least one). I really need to express how beautiful everything in this city was, which brings me to my next point, the only thing that I saw that was not stunning was this lady named Veronica. If the city and its citizens looked like angels from heaven, she was more like an Olog with a venereal disease. (Sorry again to my Olog readers, I promise next missive I will make a Pro Olog metaphor.) Even the king was dressed to the tee, you know you expect kings to look good but this guy was stunning I tell you. Crowds formed around him and it seemed more than just some power grab. Looks like he has a real following and the respect of his people, cumulated in a beautiful quote when the talks of a beauty contest of his shoulders was brought up by some clever elf. (Hint that elf was me.) "We are a kingdom based on strength, not gossip." Man, isn't this guy great? Like the kings of old, I can see why Haense is so lively under his administration. I hope he doesn't kick the bucket any time soon! The only real complaint I have about the king was he saw this goblin, beep or something was her name? Ugly as shit, I swear but he told her she was beautiful, so I'm starting to think everyone in Haense is at least a little blind. Wonder how they built such a beautiful city when they obviously have seeing issues. You know, Caelius if you're reading this, a glasses store in Haense might be a great business. Anyways. Until next time, Aetius signing out. I am STILL looking for an editor, if interested please send me a bird. Ark#0952

As always, first I want to thank you my readers, because I know I don't make any money off this but it seems like the right thing to do when I inevitably ask for money later in my career. So after you take that slow camel all the way to Balian's stairway to heaven, you feel like you need a drink. Luckily, there's some crusty kid selling bottles of wine right as you step up. You know, I automatically knew I was going to love this place from that. But when I explained to the kid I had no money he grumbled some explicative at me and walked off. Anyways, I definitely needed a drink after I walked up what felt like 1,000,000,000 step stairwell. Unfortunately there was no free drinks once I entered, but there was some old dude who explained the summary of human politics to me without me doing anything to prompt it. Plus, who thought it was a good idea to put a bunch of statues of old dead people when you walk into the palace. The eyes stared me down, but luckily Lucius decided to show me around the rest of the palace so I could get away from the peering Peters. He mentioned that he was also running for Senate, to be clear, I have no stake in the game, nor really care whose senator of this desert city, but because I met him and none of the other candidates he officially has my endorsement. Lucius the Leader(I never did get his last name): He will bring back activity to the streets, encourage immigration and support the political engagement of those living by creating a city charter for Mayoral elections. If you don't vote for Lucius, please stop reading my Observations, because I haven't observed any of the other senators and since reality is perception, they do not exist thus you should be concerned for supporting someone who doesn't exist. Anyways, after I got bored of politics I went around and shared a drink with two soldiers for about fifteen seconds until they were dragged away to some trial. Having enough of politics for the next decade of my life, I said my goodbyes to the city and made my way back down those 1,000,000,000 step stairs and then again onto the back of what might be the slowest Camel I have ever met. Until next time, Aetius signing out. I am STILL looking for an editor, if interested please send me a bird. Ark#0952

I want to thank all of my loyal readers first and foremost, please forgive me for any errors in this report as I am trying to get the important news out as fast as possible. To keep you all updated in my travels, I stumbled upon a wedding in Sedan. It was a boring affair for the most part, as most weddings are, but they are quite progressive people. I saw both a monkey and a woman giving the procession. Good for them really, it's good for humanity to start opening things up for more people. We love to see it. Anyways, for the real reason you picked up this missive: After the wedding we all made our way to the court, where a young Joseph and older Frederick I met with some people who I would later learn are the Alstriem's. They are leaving the Harvest Lords, by their own accord, without any bad blood but you never know nowadays! Apparently those in the Commonwealth have decided to join Sedan together alongside the Alstreim's except for Lord Jazloviecki and Lord Aldersburg. Mathilda von Alstreim kneeled to show her loyalty alongside her men. Anyways, I do recommend visiting Sedan. The milk is great and the courts eventful. Until next time, Aetius signing out.

I really enjoyed moderation, I know it's just a game but I really appreciated the management we had. Especially Mirtok, I learned a lot from working under him and I definitely think it will help with future professional endeavors. i dont think we've ever roleplayed. im doing good very busy That the person you're interacting with is a real person behind the screen. It's easy to get caught up in character and all of that, but I think a lot of people use the anonymity as an excuse to be an ******* sometimes and I don't like that. I'm still around in RP mostly taking a step back from staff. I'll be around to play league and ****, won't be the last of my Renekton. Honestly, I just want it to be an inclusive community where anyone who has a good attitude and works hard can rise up through the ranks and help in the cooperative environment you all are working on together. I know there is a lot of drama in regards to me and Haense and i'm not trying to claim any type of moral superiority here but the saddest part of everything that happened in Haense was that I felt that attitude was gone. We would all fight and we would all argue but there was a vision of creating a really good community that went past just LotC but made long term friendships. Some of my best friends in the world i've made through LotC and Haense, that was always the beauty of it to me. I just hope you guys keep the tradition of being a community first and an RP Kingdom after.

Funniest RP moment i've had in recent memory was when they started the world ending events in last map and Peter Max made a bunch of people get different food items then forced everyone to eat the kibble rations he made. Achievements? There's so many, I wouldn't know where to start. Haense, Gold Corps, the friends i've made. I've really done a lot over the years i'm real proud of. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one. - Marcus Aurelius no me CST is the best timezone. love u 2 king my dms still open Ark#0952

my life is over never whenever

no i havent met him, who is parodies?

I am doing great, i'm in an amazing place in life. New job, new environment, looking forward to the road ahead. no thanks those are for @da_emperors i have no idea what this means I think my favorite character has to be Rickard Barrow. He was the character embodiment of all of my ideas and ambitions on LotC. I also learned a very important lesson about being apart of something greater than myself through playing him, a lesson that I believe is important for everyone to learn at some point in their life. I don't think i'm leaving I just can't afford the time commitment as much. @ 1 speed this might take a while.. you get some really weird nani pings as a mod, won't go into details but *vaguely gestures at all of those*

So if I do a leaving post i'm bound to come back, so I think a good compromise is an AMA. I honestly just like chatting with everyone and getting a little last capstone onto my stint on lotc. Due to work and irl stuff I don't have as much time for LotC but I really would like to chat with everyone one last time before I dip. These are always fun so toss any questions you have this way.

Peter Maximilian only patrons the Novellen Tavern.

sitting in a dorm room with this nerd named @Eddywilson2when @cruzazulcrowned him King of Haense, it was really dope

Name: Aetius Age: 48 Race: Wood Elf Prior Relevant Experience: I shot at a scary olog once!