Josh3738

Hey all. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve heard from me directly for which I owe you an apology and an explanation. Around June/July, I was promoted to a full-time managerial role for my real job which comes with long, odd hours and a learning curve that would make your head spin. I won’t get into nitty gritty details, but I planned for and warned my team directly at the time that I would have less availability for a while and to talk with a manager if something pressing came up. Suffice it to say, I took much more time settling into that role than I anticipated, and many things were delegated to my management in the interim. While I can assure you that, despite there being no announcements from me, progress has continued on a number of fronts, I regret the lack of a guiding hand in pushing some of these things in the right direction and over the finish line. My absence has been a point of stagnation for the team, allowing for old-head doomer mindsets and unsupported progress in the face of dealing with high level bans and paperwork instead with the hours I did have. How any team thinks, what they do, and what they want to push is ultimately reflected onto the server as a whole for better or worse, and the last couple months have certainly proven that. Having settled in more or less… I’ve been purposefully quiet on the public front and even to mods for the last few weeks while I had full or private meetings with other admins, looked through mod and forum discussions, and considered what needed to be done to drive things back in the right direction. To paraphrase some of @Telanir's usual lines, the purpose of an admin is to plan for the next 10 years. To provide a vision both for the team and the server beyond it with the ultimate goal of improving player interactions and, in the case of moderation, lessening the need for the team to even step in. What needs to change? How do we get from here to there? Team Restructuring It’s got to start with the team itself, both in structure and in the mentality that structure supports. The positions of the team as well as the duties that come with each are being reshuffled: Manager I had previously attempted a prior admin’s style of approach when it came to my managers being more facilitators of team functions rather than actual managers. This really hasn’t worked and led to a number of issues. They’ll now be taking up a more direct role in coordinating the day to day operations of the team with regard to reports and appeals, project progress, and team management. Advocate Somewhat taking on the good parts of the old manager duties, these folks are the experienced trainers. Moderator Boots on the ground. These folks help to improve the experience of the players by assisting with server functions, resolving conflicts, and leading by example in being good role models for the community. Trials Our brave new folks. The members of the community who want to change things for the better and help those around them. A New Roster How we work together as a team going forward and what mentalities and goals we want to promote depend on who we have. Who are the people that want to work for the community? Who are the people that want to push the server in a better direction? Do I want an old guard maintaining what we have or do I want a wave of fresh faces and ideas to drive things forward again? Just keeping the lights on doesn’t cut it, and changing that begins with the current team. Effective immediately, all management has been demoted or removed from the team. Several other mods have also been removed, trials passed, and a number of applicants are being contacted tonight to bring them onto the team. @trinn and @frankdh will be the first of a new wave of management, and we’re going to be looking to bring on a lot more trials than those being accepted now. Addressing War Everyone’s favorite. There’s a version of the new rules that’s passed an admin vote already. It needs to get cleaned up a bit and have another review of costs as it’s more expensive than we’d like, but then we should be good to go. Tech team is making sure the war server is ready as well. All of this is ultimately getting pushed through to facilitate the current conflicts, but at the end of the day it’s still just a patch to an old system. War as a whole and how we conduct it has been in dire need of a total rework for years at this point both technically and administratively, so exploring options with that in mind will be the next step as opposed to future patches to the standing system. What’s Next There really is a lot to get done, and there’s more being set in motion than just these few things. If the tone and topics previously discussed didn’t give it away, a lot of this is going to be policy, internal operations, etc. work, so I won’t bore you with long explanations of notion rewrites and team culture. Overall, the next couple of months are going to be focused on reorganizing and rebuilding the team, its resources, and how it will continue to interact with the community long term. It’s unrealistic to think things will instantly be better or that there won’t be growing pains as we go through this process, but my hope is that by the end we’ll have a sturdier, more productive, more effective team than has been.

TL;DR fix the map when it gets ugly, keep travel lanes open and the immersion datapacks working, and make sure we don't forget everything we just learned from this map dev (worldpainting, biome coloring, etc.).

Mod-Tech project led by one of the main organizers of the physical build for the current map being brought in to maintain it and cache things for next time. What he does extra is up to Squak. And as far as expected duties, these things are either mods (landscars), implementation (datapacks), or just don't happen due to confusion on who between the two handled what (road blocking, pillar moving, etc).

Map Team @Daisyand I are pleased to announce the creation of the Map Team, a specialized co-op formed through collaboration between the Moderation and Tech Implementation teams. Much like the Mod-ST co-op work, this is another step in trying to simply or cover gaps between the things our teams oversee, and it's our hope that we can continue to bring improvements through closer work with our counterparts on Tech moving forward. (A big shout out to @Cheezboi9, @Crunchiest_Leaf, and @Adelemphii who have already put in a ton of work fielding our requests and recommendations for things like Surge cost reductions and mine adjustments). Purpose A couple of main ideas went into this, but the co-op was ultimately established to provide more focused oversight of the world’s landscape and infrastructure. Its purpose is to maintain key features that often fell by the wayside—such as roads, soulstone pillars, and significant builds—while ensuring the map remains clean, immersive, and functional over time. Just as importantly, the team serves as a line of continuity for the knowledge, assets, and lessons from this map’s development so future maps can be built with greater efficiency and quality. Responsibilities Their duties include: Restoring or ruinizing neglected world scars to maintain a clean and immersive environment. Constructing new DLC areas in coordination with story requests and the admin team. Relocating and maintaining roads and soulstone pillars to improve accessibility and prevent folks from blocking main roads. Performing continual map beautification, enhancing terrain, structures, and natural scenery. Serving as janitors of biome and weather datapacks, ensuring environmental consistency and immersion. Collecting, organizing, and maintaining assets for future map development. Responding to moderation and implementation team requests for map-related tasks as needed. Structure & Oversight The Map Team operates under a designated Lead, @Fimlin, who reports directly to both the Tech and Moderation Admins. The group itself consists of a selection of moderators and implementation team folks with an eye on looping in others.

Ser Alwyn Glennmaer sat on the floor of his solar with his back against the wall. The destroyed remnants of the furniture lay scattered about the room, a testament to his reaction to the news of his King's death. And it was in this state that a brave servant saw fought to deliver word of his many-greats-granddaughter's death to the already grieving lord. He had lived a long, long life by now, and God had seen fit to bestow upon him dozens and dozens of grandchildren, all of them unique and beloved by the old man. Yet it had been Josefina in particular he had spoken most with in these final days, who brought silliness and fun when it was best needed, who had sent him letters more often than he could reply, and who had been the kindest, most thoughtful person he'd come to know. Even now, one of the many scattered papers that lay across the ground had been addressed to her as he had begun to anticipate his own end and had wished to say goodbye. "I was supposed to go first, lass." His lips trembled as hot tears rolled freely down the cheeks of the old man, disappearing into his beard.

It had been over a century and a half since Ser Alwyn had arrived in Acre, a sellsword by all accounts and only made a knight of the hedge on the whim of another he'd saved days prior. A call had been put out for able bodied men which he had planned to answer, and it was there that he met Ser Uther. He might have thought the young knight a barbarian warlord save for his faith, but his word was true and his deeds even more so as time would show. A sense of duty and honor that seemed to light the way in a world of dark deeds had become a guide to a younger Alwyn who would spend his life trying to live up to the paragon the Adunic warlord would grow to become. From the golden fields of that forsaken town to the dire days of the Barrowlands, he would follow his new lord and swear an oath of fealty through unceasing rains and watchful nights. Torn from those new lands, he followed again to the shores of Aevos and knelt again to swear oaths atop the mountains they had claimed, promising forevermore to watch over the lands of the Númenaranyë and the renewed peoples of Adunia. All this and more came flooding back as every memory of his dear friend played through his mind, a century and a half of sorrows and joys, adversities and the days they'd overcome them. And so the halls of Formindon echoed with the crashing of furniture and the hoarse, anguished cries of the eldest Glennmaer. Behind the doors of his solar, Ser Alwyn grasped the leg of a chair in one hand, or at least what remained of the chair, and the crumpled letter in his other as he sent a kick into his already overturned desk with a yell. The papers that had fallen at its upheaval scattered further as he cleared his way to the center of the room to send another boot into a chair before the fireplace, splintering it in the process as another cry escaped his lips. The servants were wise enough to leave the old lord alone, and it would be a long time before the room would fall silent once again. As the sounds of destruction at the hands of the grieving knight died, he knelt in the midst of the carnage. Exhausted and broken, he simply grasped the letter between his hands. "My Captain... My King..."

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.