LotsOfMuffins
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Posts posted by LotsOfMuffins
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COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE LOG
APRIL 2020
INTRODUCTION
Hello again!
The past month has been jam-packed with a load of applications, tons of progress on projects, and community advocacy, all thanks to the sheer amount of free time we’ve found ourselves with, and the next month is hopefully going to be just as productive. Read more below to hear about what we’ve been doing for the past month and our goals for the next.
APRIL DATA
- Overview -
This month, we saw a total of 395 apps handled, with 216 new players welcomed onto LotC.
Last month, we had 261 applications and 141 new players. We’ve still maintained about a 1:1 acceptance versus denial rate, with the exact amount being around 55% of applications being accepted. The biggest reason applications are denied is because they don’t correct the changes within 24 hours, and since we’ve made our application standards a bit more tough, more apps have changes needed. Obviously, the high app numbers are due to the quarantine (we’ve gotten nearly two times the amount of apps this month as compared with last month; the accepted apps nearly equals the total apps we had last month), with people getting bored and wanting something to do. Unfourtunately, this means wait times for apps are high, but the team is doing their best. More on this below.
- Accepted/Denied Ratios -
- Race Specific Data -
- New Player Guidance -
TEAM DATA
- Application Team Data -
APPLICATION KING/QUEEN
This month’s Application Queen goes to… @LotsOfMuffins!
Followed behind by @LordScisso and @stickyhon!
In order to help the team out, I’ve taken on a couple of apps per day, which has accidentally made me the Application Queen. I wanted to be this when I was a regular member back in the day, but I guess now is as good a time as any. Whoo.
CURRENT ROSTER
- Community Administrator -
- Community Managers -
- Community Team Members -
- Content Creators -
@nerdypenguins
@Parion
@puffables
@Shmeepicus- Wiki Team Members -
@1_Language_1
@brotherbotany
@Chorale_
@HeftyDonut
@QizuPROJECT UPDATES
WIKI - @Nestro_Miner
Heyoo everyone! This month has been a productive one for The Wiki Team! We’ve made great progress in ensuring The Lore on the Wiki has been updated and The Story Team have been a great help in ensuring that our guys post complete and authentic work! This month, a recruitment message was posted and we got a few new additions to the team which is great! All the help is welcome so if you’re interested in joining then please shoot me a message @ NestroMiner#1721. I’m also proud to say that our members have been working a great deal recently on fixing the uncategorized pages and doing maintenance reports. There’s a lot to look forward to in the near future and I’m excited! Lastly, I just wanna give a big shoutout to my entire team for their continuous hard work. Have a great day everyone, and stay safe!
BROOM CREW - @armajesty
Hello, everyone! Broom Crew has been hard at work this month in regards to Pots 'n Pandits. We managed to set up a Your View in order to take the opinion of the Community into account while determining the proper course of action. The plans for Pots 'n Pandits has officially been set in motion and we are aiming to have it completed by next month at the latest. This month, after much recommendation, we picked up the New Player Guide and have begun to rewrite it. It was brought to our attention that the guide is outdated and so we are prioritizing this update and hoping to finish it within the month of May. The final thing I would like to discuss is the purging of the Skin Archive. Unfortunately, many of our links corrupted as we were moving onto our final phase so we will have to restart this project, through we are hoping to wrap things up as soon as possible! A huge thanks to the hard working members of the broom Crew. Keep up the good work
PROJECTS - @puffables
Heya gamers, this month projects fg has been continuing to move ahead with our plethora of projects - a lot of changes made, and a lot done. Our 'travellers guild' is ready for release, juust waiting on our guidance rework [ after reviewing the 'your view' on such earlier this month ] and monk rework/lore projects to release them all together. We are also hard at work on the TUTORIAL ISLAND, something i know a lot of people are pretty interested in seeing! Prompts done, the build making way - we're putting a lot of focus into getting this done!
Our hope is that these projects end up linking smoothly from one to the other, for an ideal new player experience. Tutorial Island presents players joining for the first time with all the OOC/functionality knowlege they'd need - teaching of the chat plugin, basic commands, basic rules, settlements and various other bits of useful information to get started! Once they've completed this, we hope to have them directed from the spawn at CT to the Travellers Guild - where a CT member as a monk traveller can guide them in RP to a settlement of choice, get them started with RP, collaborate with settlements for a smooth, rp-based integration, prompting good storytelling and immersion from the very start.
Very much looking forwards to having this released to you all - and a huuuge thanks to the Projects FG and all who have been assisting with these projects !! ❤️❤️CONTENT CREATION – @NotAFie
Hey gamers, Fie here!
This month has been quite the wild ride. I'll try to stay as brief as possible in this summary. The content creators have been hard at work. We are currently in the process of reworking the Skin Archive together with the fabulous Broom Crew, managed by Armajesty. Another project would be the training and tutorial videos. Sadly, the Content Creation Group is currently short on Video Editors. If you are interested in the position, feel free to apply (https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forms/52-content-creation-staff-application/). It'd be a joy to have you!
Lastly, I'd like to thank every Content Creator for working so much on our projects, even though things can get quite hectic. I believe that's all I have to say - sooo, cya!! Stay safe, everyone! ❤️EVENTS - All Management
The month of April was jam-packed with Easter egg hunts and chasing down crazy rabbits. It was a blast to be able to share these fun holiday events with you guys, and we look forward to many more! Special thanks to @Ttsim for heading the Chase the Rabbit event and putting it together, and @armajesty for overseeing it! Keep a lookout for our May event, and the next Creative Cafe will be coming in June, so start preparing your talents.
MAY’S DIRECTION
Last month was primarily about pushing through applications despite the large influx and working towards completing our first test run of the new community advocacy system. Now that we’ve done that, it’s time to keep moving forward with engagement, projects, and more community advocacy.
- Last Month’s Goals -
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Engagement
Every two weeks, Community Team Members have a conversation with their overseeing manager about how they’re doing in terms of applications, monk guidance, etc., each of our core duties. This month, we’ve added engagement to that list. So, every two weeks, a Community Team Member sits down and discusses their other core duties as well as how engaging they are with the community. Managers keep a lookout for how active they are in the discords, in #h and #ws, and generally in-game, and they talk about how they can improve. Personally, I’ve seen members such as @stickyhon and @Nozoa assisting new players in the main discord daily, and a large majority of the team speaks in #ws to wandering souls as well. This is continuing to be a topic of interest as we move forward, however, as there is always room for improvement.
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Community Advocacy
Throughout April, the team reached out to nation leaders, charter leaders, and players concerning the new charter reform. We heard over 30 different peoples’ input on the subject, compiled the positives, negatives, and suggestions into a document, summarized them for ease, and sent them on.
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Applications
The Community Team has been hard at work keeping up with applications. The large influx has been wild, but we’ve been managing to keep the wait time down to a few days. Initially, that sounds bad. But keep in mind that we’ve had almost two times the amount of applications in April than March, and the number was still a bit high for March compared to usual. Due to the coronavirus, people want something to do, so they’re applying. Lots of them. And we’re still managing to keep the wait time from turning into weeks so I am proud of the team for all their hard work
- This Month’s Goals -
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Community Advocacy
Last month, we completed our first community advocacy project under our new system. Read more on that below. This next month, we will be continuing this feedback system with a new topic: applications and how they should be handled. This topic will concern mostly nation/charter leaders, but we will also interview players and new players on the subject. If you’d be interested in giving us in-depth feedback regarding how we handle applications, the current application standards, etc., please reach out to a Community Team Member
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Monk Guidance
I made it a goal within our team for every single Community Team Member to complete at least one monk guidance. We’ve basically achieved that goal, though one or two members missed it. I’d like to continue with this, slowly upping the bar to more guidances without making it a quota; instead of punishing members for not reaching a certain number, I am rewarding those who do. Monk guidance is a crucial part of new player integration into the server, and thus, it should be a focus for the team! Hopefully, one day, we will be able to provide guidance to almost every new player who logs into the server. But as it stands, it’s difficult to get new players to request that guidance. We send them a PM on discord after accepting their application asking them to make a /creq, we include it in our accepted message, and we reach out to those we see struggling, but the fact of the matter is that not all new players request guidance, and we can’t sit around Cloud Temple waiting for someone new to pop up all day. Perhaps part of this is streamlining the process through Tutorial Island, as progress continues on that, or through a system where the new player has an option during their first log in to click a button to request it instead of typing out a command. Or perhaps we just need to encourage them to make a /creq more. However this looks, we need to work towards guiding almost every new player.
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The Wiki Team
The Wiki Team has been a focus before, and it is again now, as we’re yet again shifting how it works somewhat. Instead of dished-out assignments that are the same for each member, we’re working with the members to establish what they want to work on and then helping them achieve that. Perhaps one member wants to update lore pages and another wants to write about dwarves. That’s fine! Our goal is to ensure that progress is happening and moderate the players with regular accounts, not to force the Wiki Team Members to complete a bunch of writing assignments that they may or may not be interested in. Read more on that here:
If you have any questions or comments about the direction that we are going in, feel free to leave a comment down below or reach out to a team member.
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The Wiki Team Update – April 2020
Introduction
The wiki has seen a period of higher activity than in years passed, but is still way too low if we want to see the wiki get to a great place in a reasonable amount of time. To do this we’re opening wiki account creation to anyone who shows interest, and incentivizing people to spend their time improving the wiki.How to Get a Wiki Account
Previously, in order to get a wiki account, you had to fill out a Google Form that no one could find. From now on, all you have to do is head to the LotC discord and fill out the pinned format in #wiki-account-request. If you have any issues or need assistance, please reach out to a Wiki Team Member.Standard Accounts Versus Wiki Team Accounts
If you get an account through #wiki-account-request, you’ll get a standard wiki account. The differences between these and those provided to Wiki Team Members are:
- Standard accounts can’t edit protected pages, such as the Main Page.
- Standard accounts do not have bot privileges, and can’t use automated editing tools.
- Standard accounts can’t create new accounts, block or delete accounts.
- And, standard accounts can’t delete, move, or protect wiki pages.
Otherwise, you can do anything not mentioned. You can edit and improve any unprotected page (94.9%, or about 100 out of 2500 are protected), create new pages, upload images you need for pages, etc.The Wiki Team
Wiki Team Members work with the Community Team on focused assignments and moderate standard accounts’ edits to ensure they are not counterproductive. If you’re interested in applying for the Wiki Team, you may do so here: https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forms/49-wiki-staff-application/.Rewards for Editing
To incentivize people to have a greater impact on the wiki, we’re offering a new monthly reward system. Whoever has the highest edit count at the end of every month will now receive 1,800 minas, with 2nd and 3rd place getting 1,200 minas and 600 minas respectively.We understand that judging people's contributions purely off of edit count can be misleading and encourages bad practices, but the Wiki Team will be moderating edits to ensure no one is performing redundant edits or edit bombing to artificially increase their edit count. The emphasis here is on quality, the more we can improve the wiki as a result of this the better. It also goes without saying, but anyone that uses automated editing tools, bots, or poor editing practices to artificially increase their edit count will be disqualified from the reward system for that month.
Conclusion
We will continue to try to improve the wiki as we move away from the non-functioning strict private model and move towards a freer, user-friendly wiki. We’re accepting suggestions for improvement and invite anyone who wants to improve the wiki to make an account. Mistakes are expected as people learn the basics; it’s no reason to panic if you see pages with fresh mistakes. Rolling back mistakes is a button-click away for the wiki team, and we all started somewhere. Thank you for taking the time to read this over, and we hope to see some new wiki editors!Credits
@brotherbotany - writing/editing
@LotsOfMuffins - writing/editing
@Nestro_Miner - reviewal6 -
woah! toxic gamer moment!11! this is a true tragedy!!11!
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Whitelist application posted here instead of the normal section due to a forum error.
App accepted.0 -
Add me on discord @ LotsOfMuffins#0119.
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Community Meeting Notes – April 2020
Renelia, Arcas
Hello once again, my dudes!
This month’s community meeting has passed. Primarily, we talked about the direction of the story team, some updates on projects, the next map, etc. Give the recording a listen, and feel free to leave a comment down below with your thoughts!
Original: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QhQVa_tU9yXgznr9cVY9An_S8DPORvvk/view?usp=sharing
@Crevel‘s: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yBFIuXeRfmXPWl7Rl51YtH1nYRvWXRQX/view
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AELA’S BED AND BREAKFAST GRAND OPENING
~ Sun's Smile, 1765 ~
SUMMARY
The newest bed and breakfast in Helena has officially opened! To commemorate such an event, a ribbon cutting ceremony, games, food, and gambling will be held within the tavern. The entrance to the new bnb is on the second floor, with all the available rooms on the third. Come celebrate, and consider purchasing a room while you’re there! If you purchase a room during the event, you get the first night free!
ATTRACTIONS
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Play gambling games in the tavern
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Get a tour of and explore the new bed and breakfast
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Eat breakfast in the new kitchen
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Participate in the ribbon-cutting ceremony
OOC INFORMATION
Date: Sunday, April 26th, 2020
Time: 4 PM EST / 3 PM CST
Location: The Helena tavern
Contact: For questions, comments, or concerns, please contact LotsOfMuffins#0119.
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MISSING – JASPER CARRINGTON
[!] The sketch of a human male is etched onto the quickly-scrawled poster.
Jasper Carrington has gone missing. Last seen in Helena, any information about his whereabouts is helpful. If you’ve seen him, please contact Aela via a bird.
Jasper, if you’re reading this, please, be okay. I’m scared to hell.
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No. It’s a fantasy server. Anyone who says we’re nearing the 1800s and should get more tech need to understand that we don’t line up our timeline with the real world’s, and the real world has been around a lot longer than 2020 years. Either way, this is a fantasy server. We’re like Lord of the Rings or Elder Scrolls and stuff like that.
So yeah. In my opinion, guns don’t belong on this server. That’s my personal opinion. Don’t like the idea.
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Just now, wealthypiano said:
A brief reply, along with a stamp are seemingly left in response.
“The Ministry of Justice would like to note that citizens may not post their own individual bounties, particularly ones offering rewards for dead or alive. Please seek out a member of the Constabulary or Imperial State Army to see about a proper delivery of justice. Thank you.”
Joseph D. Adler
Solicitor-General
((wealthypiano#5651))
[!] A letter comes in reply.
“Then I offer this information for people and totally don’t offer Minas.”
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WANTED – 800 MINA REWARD
- Simo Mohammed -
[!] The sketch of a human male is etched onto the quickly-scrawled poster.
Wanted for assaulting a citizen of Helena just outside the city gates. I, Aela, attempted to bring the man inside to speak to a guard about the occurrence, but out of nowhere, the man decided to run. He ran from me and down the road, where he ran into a patrol group. They chased him but failed to capture him. As such, I am willing to award 800 Minas from my personal Minas to anyone who is able to apprehend him and bring him to justice in Helena. Or, of course, just bring me his head. That works, too. As long as I know he is brought to justice, the reward is yours.
Send a bird if found to Aela.
KNOWN INFORMATION
- Roams Haense frequently- Was caught just outside of Helena, so assumedly roams there often as well
- Part of a bandit group
- Named Simo Mohammed
- Very short
- Part of Nottingham, a terrorist organization
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2 hours ago, yopplwasupxxx said:
In my over 7 years of being on this server, I have never once seen a Wilven Monk
Hi! This is how much monk guidance we’ve done so far in the past 2 weeks:
https://gyazo.com/68fd921c4eed8adee10da1a625bca259As you can see, we do monk guidance, just unfourtunately, you probably don’t run into us. It happens.
1 hour ago, Luminaire said:I feel like monks are horribly underused. Last CT post said there were 2 players guided to Renelia by monks and I don’t even remember seeing a single monk come there. Yesterday I had the first actual monk. Most of the time I find myself having to contact new players who applied as Dark Elves living in my charter myself, even though the CT should be the ones guiding them. To me it has always felt like it’s just a thing that the CT do if they encounter a new player at CT.
Also, how does the CT management avoid bias with monks? It’s super easy for a CT to just guide a player to their own settlement even when it was not mentioned in their app. If such cases are stumbled upon, then how does the CT react to that and will they punish members of their team who intentionally take new players away from other charters? It still to me feels like a super unreliable way of getting new players and one that can easily be abused by the team.Hi. Monks are not underused, we actually roleplay them and guide new players every day. Unfourtunately, since there were only 2 players guided, they probably just weren’t while you were there, as that’s two very specific instances. We offer monk guidance to everyone. We add to their accepted response to run the /creq command. We PM them after acceptance on discord asking them to run the command. If they don’t run the command, we unfourtuantely cannot sit around in CT waiting for a new player to appear ❤️
We watch who is sent where. There have been concerns brought to me by management with certain individuals, and each time, it’s been handled, so we are looking out. And when a nation is receiving a lot of new players, I instruct my team to initially suggest alternate nations (unless the player specifically requests said nation). This occured about five minutes ago due to the high number of Oren players. I announced that CT members should focus more on the other human nations since we’ve guided a load to Oren so far.
If you have any specific instances that you’d like to discuss, reach out to management or myself in PM’s. Abuse is certainly possible in everything, even with applications. It is very easy to abuse practically everything. That doesn’t mean it should be rid of. The abuser will always be punished, but that doesn’t mean that the system in question should be removed altogether if a few abuse.
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BEACH BOIS MASQUERADE
As issued by the Minister of Events and Projects, Emeline Le Doulcet
~ The Grand Harvest, 1764 ~
~SUMMARY~
Following the success of the wondrous Festival of Bears, the Sutican Ministry of Events and Projects is proud to present the Beach Bois Masquerade, taking place on the top of the Sutican castle. Bring your masks and fancy dresses, or sunglasses and swimsuits. Either works. Participate in yet another lottery, where you can win a large amount Minas. There will be dogs. Pet dogs. Dogs are cool. But more importantly, masks. Bring lots of masks.
At the end of the masquerade, a king and queen will be chosen and rewarded with a crown to commemorate the event. Each will be decided based on a voting system based on your outfit and mask. Anyone can sign up.~ATTRACTIONS~
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Sport a cool-looking mask
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Wear fancy dresses
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Participating in a lottery with a huge, to-be-disclosed-at-a-future-date jackpot
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Bring pets because pets are cool
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Win masquerade king or queen
~RULES~
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If you die, you can’t sue us
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No kidnapping allowed
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You must wear a mask to attend
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No weapons are permitted within the castle walls
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Before entrance, you will be asked to lift your mask to prove you are not banished or something
~OOC INFORMATION~
Date: Saturday, April 18th
Time: 4 PM CST / 5 PM EST / 9 PM GMT
Location: The top of the castle (directions will be available on the day of the event)
Contact: For questions, comments, or concerns, please contact LotsOfMuffins#0119.
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All eggs have been found! Thank you for playing ❤️
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Just now, Harold said:
Okay then, i’m about to go play a pink 10ft human because I just want to have fun.
Yup! Have fun ❤️
10 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:these “hints” are way too easy ngl, may as well just tell ppl the coords of the eggs
I’ll let the Community Team know and we’ll work on making the next hints harder, thanks for the feedback! ❤️
Eggs 2, 3, 9, and 10 have yet to be found. The rest are all found so far!
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Welcome to the next event put on by the Community Team:
The Great Easter Egg Hunt
Welcome to our newest community event, where you will spend Easter hunting down eggs and finding unique prizes in each. This event will begin as soon as this post is up on Sunday, April 12th, and it will continue until every last egg has been found using the following hints.
Hints
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An island surrounded by beautiful clear waters, on it would be lava that would melt the strongest of steels, besides a blood stained ground, within view would be banners with the colors of blue and black that stand proudly.
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In the harsh deserts of Korvassa, an island surrounded with crystal clear waters. North of which, a sand fortress stands strong as ever. To the south would be ships of many kinds and a great statue hoisting a trident.
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Where brave descendants have fought against the Evil, who called himself 'Grief', rests the next egg, waiting to be found.
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In this oh-so peaceful village full of tiny people rests the next egg.
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In the home of the descendants dedicated to nature, an egg sits where water runs.
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Nearby the mountain of Larihei’s followers an egg lay, sheltered by trees and warmed by a fire.
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An egg sits where streams cruise, monkeys bathe and monks practice.
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Weere the moon meets the earth and dark elves settle, an egg will present - on the pedestal.
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In the high reaches of Aedvang, an egg lies ready to be plucked from its nest.
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Covered in the showers of a nearby waterfall, another egg awaits its finder.
Instructions
Once you find an egg, please make a /creq in-game at the location, and a CT member will come to verify that you did find the egg and give you your prize! Each time an egg is found, it will be broadcasted in-game as well posted as a comment on this post, so you will be able to tell which eggs are left to be found for which hints.
If you have any questions, please let me or another CT member know, and happy Easter!
The Eggs
Each of the eggs will be a rainbow head with glowstone directly underneath and surrounded by flowers. For a reference, look at the below picture. Ensure that if you think you’ve found an egg, it looks like this. Any attempt to forge a fake egg will be met with a blacklist from all future community events and a hot talk with a moderator. Have a lovely day ❤️
Special thanks to the Community Events Team for working on this project!
Credit to @reko for the featured art
Credit to @LotsOfMuffins for writing the post
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6 minutes ago, LucaVerheij said:
Is this section also viewable for those who like to help new players, but arent staff?
As it stands currently, no, due to concerns with how this would work. It is available for all nation/charter/staff dudes, though, who do have the knowledge to answer their questions and such.
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New Player Discord Integration
Sutica, Arcas
What’s poppin’, gamers?
The New Player Discord has been around for seemingly forever. Since its creation, its purpose has been to assist new players with questions, resources, etc. However, over the course of its lifetime, it’s evolved into something more. We’ve established methods of showing nation and charters when a new player is accepted and what settlements they might be interested in in order to assist recruitment, created a method of requesting skins to be made for new and established players alike, and provided helpful links and resources such as settlement guides and a faq.
The goal of the NPD was always to help new players, and the goal of the main discord was to provide a place for the community to come together.
Moving forward, however, the aspects that made the NPD so great have been integrated into the main discord. Roleplay opportunities, an expanded nation and charter support system, skin requests, and an entire section just for new players have all been integrated. New players aren’t immediately integrated into the main section of the discord, but instead, they’re first in their own category where they can ask questions and receive help from staff members and nation/charter representatives as well as see helpful links, including a faq and settlement guides hub.
Due to this integration and its success, as well as the positive feedback we received in the Your View concerning the NPD and main discord, the New Player Discord will be fully integrated into the main discord starting April 20th, 2020.
If you have any questions concerning what this will look like, why this is taking place, etc., please do not hesitate to reach out. My PM’s are also always open. ❤️
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On 3/26/2020 at 7:55 AM, LucaVerheij said:
But how about the seperate Community Team games discord, is that one also going to be converted into the main one then. Because the main issue with this was the pings, however if you create like an ‘Games’ role or something and only ping those when like an CTF starts the Games discord could be converted into the main too. All the info at one spot, I think its an good idea.
Yeah, it most likely will, exactly as you said it. There’d be a reaction role in #role-request.
On 3/26/2020 at 10:08 AM, Luminaire said:If you seperate a part of the main lotc discord into a group of channels for new players I think this could work, best not to throw the new players into the main lotc chat directly.
Yup!
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1 hour ago, Sorcerio said:
Overall good work, particularly with the projects! However, I am still quite disturbed by the lack of player guidance as opposed to the month prior, as 141 new players were accepted, yet only a fraction of them received guidance. Of course, I’m not saying every player needs guidance, as even staff have other duties to attend to, but the current number guided certainly does not reflect good effort in that regard.
What is even more offsetting is that twice as many players were guided to Sutica as opposed to any other nation. I don't understand if it’s because Sutica is closer to Temple or the team has personal bias towards the nation, but regardless, this is something that should not be happening as frequently as it does. While I can acknowledge that some players may not wish to relate with a set racial nation, most new players tend to adapt quite quickly from what I saw as a CT, able to conform to set roleplay systems when they associate themselves with a more racially oriented nation, such as Oren (humans) or the Haelun’or (high elves). A nation like Sutica where there is no roleplay conformity or culture is certainly not a place where so many of our new players should be lead to start off. At the very least, nations should be getting semi-equal amounts go guidances per month (give or take a handful of variations).
As a CT, your job is to go the distance to ensure new players successfully fit into the community. Please try to make an effort to take people elsewhere, even if it means sprinting across the map for an extra five minutes. I obviously cannot speak for all CT, some of them may very well be taking those extra steps, but I implore those of you who this relates to to change your current course, for the new players’ sake.
Otherwise, I look forward to seeing how your other projects will turn out! Peace.
As spoken about in the staff discord, if a new player requests to go to Sutica or mentions it in their application, that is where they were taken. Sutica is, for some reason, a very popular choice to include in applications, so since they request it, that’s where they’re taken.
The issue I see is that the number is high compared to others. I informed my team to focus on Curon, Kaedrin, or Haense when I saw Oren’s guidance numbers higher than the other human nations, and that’s what they did. We will continue to do this for all nations that have more-than-average guidance numbers.
In terms of not every new player receiving guidance, the issue is, we reach out to them, we put on their applications to make a /creq and give a specific command to run, we friend them on discord and ask them if they’d like guidance, and they don’t. When a new player makes a /creq or accepts the help, we provide, though. Our newest policy is that applications that are put on pending or accepted must be PM’ed on discord, which has already drastically increased the number of guidance from February to March, but perhaps there is some other method we need to take in order to encourage new players to receive guidance. I don’t know. If you have any ideas, please shoot me a PM on discord.
3 hours ago, Lackless_ said:3 hours ago, Hobbs_Burrows said:Denying 45.9% of people? People have willingly sought out this niche, fairly hardcore themed server and you turn 45.9% of them away? I think you need to seriously evaluate your priorities and outlook
idk about that 1 chief
Denial doesn’t mean they cannot make a new application immediately or aren’t contacted with feedback. I have personally noticed some team members not providing a lot of feedback on denied applications due to the nature of them, which I have addressed, but other than that, a lot of applications are denied due to not meeting the standards, being put on pending and given 24 hours to make changes but no changes are made, breaking the rules in their app (by mentioning something against server rules such as brothels and such), or being “meme” applications. These are denied, but they are given a chance to reapply immediately. I recommend taking a look at the denied applications and reading some of them over or looking at the responses given.
If you have any more feedback regarding this, shoot me a PM on discord. I’d be more than happy to explain anything further or look at specific applications that shouldn’t of been denied.
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1 hour ago, Zacho said:
A well written update! I particularly like the idea of setting goals as a team and setting them publicly. Obviously we will all fail in out goals at one point or another, but I’m confident that the CT can overturn this and make all their goals very consistently, a nice addition for sure.
Thank you! It’s been something we’ve been doing for the last few months, since December I think, and so far, they’ve been helping keep us on track.
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COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE LOG
MARCH 2020
INTRODUCTION
Hello again!
March has been crazy, both in-game and out-of-game. First of all, I hope you all are staying safe during this really, really odd time and are finding things to entertain you while you’re probably stuck inside your homes like I am. In terms of the Community Team, we’ve been hard at work continuing to enforce our new application standards, advocating for the community, engaging with the players, handling the loads of applications that’re coming in, and working on all of our huge projects, including (but not limited to) Tutorial Island, the transition of the NPD into the main discord, updating the magic lore on the wiki, the monk guidance rework, and more!
MARCH DATA
- Overview -
This month, we saw a total of 261 apps handled, with 141 new players welcomed onto LotC.
Just like last month with our raised application standards, only one in every two applications are actually accepted. Despite this number, we still say nearly 150 new players in March, which has increased a lot compared to 211 applications and 111 accepted new players in February. This, obviously, is probably due to everyone being stuck at home. However, despite this large influx of applications, the Community Team has been hard at work handling them, and I’m super proud of each of them for putting forth extra effort as volunteers in order to handle all of these.
- Accepted/Denied Ratios -
- Race Specific Data -
- New Player Guidance -
TEAM DATA
- Application Team Data -
- Other Team Data -
APPLICATION KING/QUEEN
This month’s Application King goes to… @_Pan!
Followed behind by @LordScisso and @armajesty!
Once again, @_Pan maintains their title of Application King. @LordScisso is pretty new to the team, so great job to him for catching up so quickly. Previously, Community Managers didn’t really do a lot of applications in order to focus more on their managerial duties. However, @armajesty has really helped out a ton this month in reviewing loads of applications.
CURRENT ROSTER
- Community Administrator -
- Community Managers -
- Community Team Members -
- Content Creators -
PROJECT UPDATES
WIKI - Nestro_Miner
The Wiki Team has found itself under new management once again. Hopefully, I am here to stay for a good while! Under my leadership, the first project tackled on the wiki was updating the Lore Section. Now The Lore Category is a big one and also very important, there's quite a bit of work needed to be done and we are working on it. We hope to finish the entire Lore Section within a month and we are being aided by a few members of The Lore Team.
Besides updating The Lore Category, there are a few other concerning issues we would like to tackle;
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Firstly, there are over two hundred pages that have no category and we will be working on fixing this!
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There’s a lot of maintenance work that needs to be done and The Wiki Team will be working on fixing them.
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There are over seven hundred pages that aren’t linked with anything and it will take some time but we’ll also be working on fixing them!
There’s much to look forward to and we plan on recruiting more members soon to help make the Wiki a fun and informative place! If you’re interested in joining then please contact me @NestroMiner#0001.
BROOM CREW - @armajesty
March has been an extremely productive month for the Community Team’s Broom Crew. Our members have been working effortlessly in order to complete their current assignments. I am glad to say that we have finished the re-sorting of the guides on the forums. This was done in an attempt to keep things more organized as well as to remove extremely outdated guides with misleading or false information. We’re hoping to see this system starting to be implemented as soon as possible! Moving on from that, we have completed the reorganizing of the discords. This includes which channels should be added, removed, etc. Our lovely Admin has been working hard to actually implement these changes and we will continue to see changes in the main Lord of the Craft Discord until we are ready to destroy the New Player Discord once and for all. Now that we have current projects we are moving forward to focus on the Pots ‘n Pandit’s Rework and the re-sorting of the Skin Archive. What is in store for these two projects is still a mystery, but will soon be announced.
PROJECTS - @puffables
The Projects Focus Group has been working hard at the conclusion of several of their projects! With some new helping hands, the Tutorial Island is building its way up - really coming together [we love our shrimp island..] !! Prompts set, its not long now before this shiny project can be released! The Travellers Guild has replaced the Quest Guild - further developed, a few tweaks to bring the best experience. Fully complete - expect to see this released and going in the coming weeks. Along with Travellers, we've picked up the project of improving new player guidance - this should link in smoothly and well with the other two projects, a smooth transition into the server for any new players. We thank the lovely Projects FG team for their work, along with the other teams working with us, so many wonderful helpers! ❤️ ❤️
Looking forwards to bringing you all more wonderful stuff, and the RELEASE of many of these long-spanning, hard-worked projects.
~ puff ❤️
CONTENT CREATION – @NotAFie
Hey guys! Fie here. I just wanted to give you all a quick overview of the ‘new’ sect ‘Content Creation’. The Content Creators (CCs for short) have been working closely together with the many different Teams for quite some time. Let me summarize what the Content Creation group is and what we do: The Content Creators work closely together with other teams and CT focus groups. For example, we create trailers for the events hosted by the Event Team, we do Art for the forum posts the Community team makes, etc. Of course, not every CC has the same talents/fields to work on. Therefore, we have four categories:
- Art
- Video editing
- Skinning
- Building
Puffables is an artist, the video editors are z3m0s and ElvenMommaHacker. Our three skinners are Beordan, Parion, and nerdypenguins. Nerdypenguins is also a builder. Much appreciation and love to you all. I’m super proud of you guys. Our current projects would be the training videos ElvenMommaHacker is working on right now, as well as the trailers which are being made by z3m0’s. An upcoming project would be the overhaul of the Skin Archive, to list one. The skin archive is a collection of many different skins for all the different races/cultures. Players may use these skins for free. This project would be a collaboration with the ‘Broom Crew’, managed by Armajesty. We will begin by sorting out the outdated skins and slowly adding new ones for each race.
I believe I have covered everything that needs to be covered. Once again; I thank all Content Creators for their hard work and the effort they put into this work.
Cheers ~
EVENTS - All Management
The Community Team had a wonderful time running events within the month of March. The events that have taken place to this date are the Creative Cafe and the Battle of the Arts contests! One event that players can still look forward to is The Labyrinth, a maze-like event with tons of traps and prizes! The new system regarding events featuring manager-lead volunteer-based teams has been super successful, and is much more efficient than having three people in a focus group trying to run events! This makes it a better experience for staff and players alike and allows us to hold more fun events for the community! Next month we are following an Easter theme with our events. The ones we are currently planning include Chase the Rabbit (a twist on Chase the Turkey which was held in November) and our one-year anniversary for the group with a server-wide Easter Egg Hunt. We hope to see you all participating in further events!
APRIL’S DIRECTION
February was mostly filled with application changes, with increased standards and higher expectations. March, however, was primarily about community advocacy. Back in December, we had a report system where each member would write up a report based on either Google Form responses or quick interviews and send it off. It didn’t work due to a multitude of reasons, including the robotic aspect of just using Google Forms, the lack of motivation, and the sheer number of people you had to reach out to in order to receive an accurate measurement of what the playerbase wanted. In March, we’ve begun our next community advocacy initiative. Instead of each member doing one report, all members work towards one common report, and they don’t have to write up the summary; the managers do. We are currently in the middle of our first community advocacy test run. Read more on that below.
Last Month’s Goals:
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Engagement
The Community Team has been more heavily encouraged to engage with the community than ever before. With this past month’s Community Game Night, where we played a LotC version of Hunger Games with the players, Creative Cafe, and just generally chilling in the VC’s and being in the various channels, the team has really improved. I want to give a special shoutout to @NOZway for going above and beyond with planning events with the community such as movie nights and generally always engaging with the players.
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Wiki Team
The Wiki Team was manager-less last month. It was a rough time. It feels like we get a new Wiki Team Manager each month just for them to quit within the same month. However, Nestro_Miner has been sticking around, so hopefully, that’ll continue. They’ve been making great progress in regards to updating the lore, and our first round of updates will be for magics! Read more about what the Wiki Team is doing above.
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Application Standards
As stated up above, application standards were tightened and improved. The ratio of accepted applications to denied applications has become nearly 1:1, meaning half of all applications are denied. This goal is considered accomplished! To read more about how we dealt with application standards, read our previous month’s update:
This Month’s Goals:
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Engagement
We focused heavily on engagement last month due to some player feedback concerning how little the CT actually interacts with the players, so although we started last month, we’re continuing to focus on this and aiming to continue encouraging engaging with the community.
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Community Advocacy
This past month, we started with our next community advocacy system with the topic of the charter reform. Each member has been asked to reach out to a nation leader/steward, a charter leader/steward, and an unaffiliated player, and speak in VC with them. In this VC, they ask them questions about their thoughts on the charter reform and how it will be in terms of success, as well as whether or not they believe the Charter Team is going in the right direction. The team members then take notes of this discussion and the manager in charge of the topic (me) compiles the notes into a loose report, which is then sent to the Charter Team. We’ve only just begun with our interviews, so one of April’s goals will be to push forward and finish the topic, ensure the players’ voices are heard by the Charter Team, and then move on with another topic!
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Applications
With everyone stuck at home, we’ve had a huge influx of applications. This next month it will probably continue to increase. So, one of our goals is to simply be able to handle all of these applications. Management has been reviewing more, including myself, and the team has been picking up the pace pretty well overall, so we are looking to continue with the hard work!
If you have any questions or comments about the direction that we are going in, feel free to leave a comment down below or reach out to a team member.
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FESTIVAL OF BEARS
As issued by the Director of Events, Emeline Le Doulcet
~ The Grand Harvest, 1763 ~
~SUMMARY~
To continue the riveting tradition of BEARS, the wondrous Free State of Sutica will be filled with bears on The Grand Harvest, 1763. Join us as we celebrate BEARS in the town square, which will be filled with games, treats, prizes, stalls, shops, and BEARS. Fight a bear. Hug a bear. Buy a bear. Bears.
Please note that we are not responsible for your safety. If you are harmed, maimed, or otherwise murdered during the Festival of Bears, we are not responsible. You are responsible for your own safety. Hardhats and armour are recommended, as these bears are not trained. Although they will be tied up, the rope is very thin. Good luck.
~ATTRACTIONS~
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Purchase a unique, limited-edition Festival of Bears T-Shirt, only available for purchase during the festival.
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Run your very own booth for FREE (sign up here: https://forms.gle/T9aeyYLGeCH8g6mT9)
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Purchase merchandise from stalls.
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Play games and win prizes.
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Fight a bear. Fight two bears. Fight ALL THE BEARS.
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Witness BEARS.
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Learn some fun facts about BEARS.
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BEARS.
~OOC INFORMATION~
Date: Saturday, April 11th
Time: 4 PM CST / 5 PM EST / 9 PM GMT
Location: The Sutican town square
Contact: For questions, comments, or concerns, please contact LotsOfMuffins#0119.
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On 3/24/2020 at 10:12 PM, VonAulus said:
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.
If we get an actual content creation team, that’d be great. Some sort of media people should exist, yes. I don’t know if we will actually get some sort of intern, but in terms of actually having a media person or team, that’s necessary. Heck, we need more video editors and artists as it stands right now, and I’m recruiting as much as I can.
On 3/24/2020 at 10:12 PM, VonAulus said:On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:Each team has to consider which systems & projects can keep up with a growing server and which systems must be remodeled or shelved before the team gets overloaded. Any lingering feelings that you need more staff right now is an indication that your team is not fit for the future and is not putting forward its best.
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.
I’m happy to say that the Community Team feels more like a team now than it has in a long while, constantly working together and aspiring to help players, but there is an array of issues that have to be solved in order to sustain a greater playerbase. For example, Telanir explains here:
On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:Community Team will struggle to keep up with current projects & whitelist app flow.
Which is somewhat true. But in terms of applications, with the overload we’d gotten recently, we handled it pretty well. The real issue of the CT is figuring out how do we integrate all these new players. Currently, monk guidance is pretty helpful. It’s been remodeled a bit in order to help the new player be able to understand chat functions, bank and auction house mechanics, how to find settlements, how to shop, and then finally, get involved in a community. However, this process takes time, and such, it’s difficult to get each new player guidance. We can handle applications somewhat fast and can roleplay while reviewing them, but you can’t roleplay while helping a new player and it does not take a short amount of time. This process is very hands-on and involving. If our playerbase increases, it’s assumed that the demand for new player guidance will also increase. As such, how do we handle it? Well, the issue, as Telanir says, isn’t in our member count. We have at least 5 CT members on at any given time. The issue lies in do the CT members have time, can they break away from their roleplay, who is available, etc.
There are a few different approaches to this issue. We could lessen the time it takes to complete guidance. This would mean cutting down on what we’re teaching or speeding it up. Personally, I don’t think this is a great option. We shouldn’t be rushing helping new players. The other option is to automate some of the process. As in, Tutorial Island. This is a project that has been in the works for months. Essentially, it’s an island which new players initially spawn at to get a basic overview of how to do certain, key mechanics, such as the banks, auction houses, shops, chat commands, etc. If Tutorial Island is a thing, we wouldn’t have to guide as many players as, hopefully, they’d be taught through this, and those that do need guidance, it’d be a lot shorter due to not needing to teach every mechanic. So, if there is going to be a large increase in new players, I’m banking on this Tutorial Island project to be a success.
On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:Community get-togethers like the Creative Cafe and livestreams are so rich and beautiful they make my heart melt. I love player content and know you do too, so promoting more of it is a no brainer. Contests like the Battle of the Arts bring together the biggest creative talents which would be brilliant to showcase on our Twitter, YouTube, and any other platform.
And these will continue! Hopefully, if we can get more content creators, we can hopefully advertise them better. Unfourtunately, we’ve only got two video editors. Got anyone else in mind?
On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:I’d also tentatively suggest reaching out to our fellow RP communities (perhaps even beyond mineman) and building a friendly relationship, maybe cohosting some events? I wouldn’t view us as competitors really, but probably one big community with a common love for roleplay. Not a big priority and maybe not even feasible, but who knows what can happen.
School RP?
On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:Building a Media team to host videos or bring back that juicy LotC-BC is always an idea but volunteer-based media solutions have rarely been a focal point here nor a reason for much growth. The LotC-BC series (in 2014 I think?) though was great for community building and really helped make us feel like one community. Also still a fan of the trailers, would be cool if our current content creators in the CT are capable of producing things like this.
We need more video editors! If you know of any or have any ideas on how I can better reach out to the community for some more, let me know!
On 3/24/2020 at 10:12 PM, VonAulus said:On 3/24/2020 at 4:23 PM, Telanir said:As techs we of course should continue to incentivize voting, but I feel like incorporating a friend referral system with rewards for both players based on engagement & retention could be useful (and idc if it gets abused frankly, it can get punished when it’s caught.) I still believe that we should be finding novel ways to reward players for in-game activity, and there are sensible ways to, for example, make use of region activity without making LotC into a full time job.
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.
I can make an Instagram with the content creation team if you guys approve of it. We can have little contests or something on there in order to earn Minas. That might work. And let’s do the friend referral system. Please.
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The (now useless) Skeleton Guide
in Farewells
Posted
i liked it