LotsOfMuffins
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Posts posted by LotsOfMuffins
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The New Player and Main Discord
The Dominion of Malin, Atlas
Hey, gamers.
Over the course of the last few weeks, the Community Team has been discussing transitioning the New Player Discord (NPD) into the main LotC discord.
I’d like to hear your guys’ thoughts. What changes should be made to the LotC discord? What channels from the NPD should not be added? What channels from the main discord should be deleted? How can the discord be better in general?
What is the NPD?
If you don’t know what the NPD is, it essentially is the discord each new player gets invited to in order to help them settle into the LotC community. The differences between the two discords are basically the channels; the NPD has channels where we post the apps of new players and ping the nation/charter leaders/stewards with the apps from players possibly interested in going to their settlement, a place to post roleplay opportunities, skin requests, etc.Why is it transitioning?
The entirety of the NPD can be moved into the main discord by restructuring the nation/charter section and adding in the skin request channel. The roleplay opportunities channel is already moved.The reasoning for this move, if it were to happen, is that the difference between the NPD and main are just the channels and the intention. If the channels missing in the main were added and the new players received their own category where the focus was on them, then what’s the difference? Why have two discords when you could consolidate them into one?
The main concern I’ve heard is mixing new players in with old players. We’ve already alleviated this by separating out new and old players. When you first join the main discord now, you will have the chance to specify whether you’re a new or established player. New players are taken to their own category with nation/charter leaders/stewards and staff members, where we can answer all of their questions and help them out. They can receive roleplay opportunities, see the rules, etc., though.
Thank you for your feedback ❤️
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Blacklist appeal denied.
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Heyo! Wrong place. Please use this link: https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forms/13-ban-appeal/
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4 hours ago, NotEvilAtAll said:
But if we know anything about the next map, we might hurt the feelings of those who are building it by providing constructive criticism and feedback!
Lmao, nice to know that the staff intend to be blatantly pro-nation and anti-charter.
I guess that’s not too surprising, seeing as the new rules of charter activity are even harsher on charters than on nations relative to the land given to each.
Might as well keep propping up these nations with OOC benefits and protections that aren’t given to charters. Reward the massive nations and starve the small charters so nations don’t have to deal with competition from below, creating an uncompetitive roleplay environment where said nations don’t have to be innovative, unique, or hard-working to maintain their power.
Nations are a concept that needs to die. Every single privilege handed to a nation is unnecessary; if a group truly were worthy of nation status, it wouldn’t need those privileges to maintain itself. Nations are arbitrary, for the only difference between them and a large charter is a slightly larger amount of people sitting around in the activity square (which crosses some arbitrary quota decided by the staff) + some OOC benefits given to the nation that the charter cannot get (green pillar, speed roads, tile ownership and vassals, etc).
How about instead of providing OOC benefits to groups that are already doing well, the staff provide no OOC benefits to anyone at all (or provide OOC benefits to everyone equally)?
Instead of focusing on nations, focus on the community as a whole.
Shoot me a PM, we can talk about some feedback and crap regarding the new direction and I can see what I can do.
6 hours ago, argonian said:what is this dumb meme of refusing to give any details about a new map until after it’s already pretty much done?
how tf are we meant to give feedback then galaxy-brains?
I’ll talk to Grool, see if we can get a bit more posted on it.
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Community Meeting Notes – March 2020
Johannesburg, Axios
Hello, my dudes!
Unfourtunately, I volunteered to do the recording for this month’s community meeting. My recording software broke about 30 minutes in. So instead, I have very detailed notes relaying everything discussed. Next time, I’ll have two Community Team Members do the recording, so I know for sure it is done and not completely screwed up. Thank you for understanding!
As a note, you guys voted, and we will be having monthly community meetings from now on. So look forward to the next one in April! If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, leave a comment down below, or shoot me a PM; my PM’s are always open ❤️
- Hidden switches are back. They were originally gone due to lag.
- We have tons of upcoming community events in order to bring the playerbase and staff together.
- /places has been updated just today!
- The Lore Games was the first project of its kind that we've done scale-wise for the lore sect, and we've learned a lot from it. We mistakenly left a lot of the writing up to the general playerbase, and this has proven to be a mistake as people write at varying speeds, there's infighting amongst playerbases trying to decide what they want to pursue, et cetera. In the future, we are aiming to have Story take the brunt of writing when it comes to these projects. This is being experimented with during our Techlock project, where Story will act as the primary writers for the tech that is being established, while at the same time we gather input from the community through the discord we have set up. We aim to find a good balance between Story writing and player-input gathering, as what we want to avoid is having Story take over projects completely that impact the server heavily.
- If you’re wanting to get updates on each team’s latest projects, take a look at our monthly updates or speak to a team member.
- Staff speakers are the Community Team. They are here for the players. If you have something you wish to bring up but feel ignored, speak to a Community Team Member and they will do their best to ensure your voice is heard.
- Moderation and Story both have “quotas”.
- Moderation has seen an easier time approached and handling issues when its given in report format. As they are not being rushed by either side nor holding either side in place from anywhere from a few mins to hours digging through Omni Logs, getting feedback, both sides stories, etc. The main issue we are currently tackling is the notification of new reports and making sure they get done within 72hrs since being claimed. Once Moderation is done with its current list of projects this will be the next thing we tackle.
- The Korvic/Mystery fiasco is one marred with miscommunication. Korvic had some perms that he should not have had access to and gave some perms to Mystery. Through this, Mystery set up Athera, which is good and I don't believe he had malicious intent. However, he also spawned in a large number of minas and would hand them out to people during the event, either as compensation or "rewards". The amount given is extraordinary compared to previous mina rewards, ranging from 2k to 60k+. When this was discovered, Korvic was temporarily banned while we did a sweep to ensure that his perms were removed. This ban lasted less than an hour, but Korvic purposefully made a fuss about it, despite knowing full well why the tempban was being done. Overall, the things done were not really malicious or game-breaking, and this is why Korvic and Mystery are not actually banned.
- Yes and no. The Athera eventline was a good display as to how too much autonomy actually hurts the event. On the surface/ to the players, a lot of the event went well, but there were a lot of bumps. A number of actors expressed interest in having the eventline postponed for a bit longer as they wanted more time to prepare. Many of the issues with things like regioning and the nexus items could have been prevented had Mystery followed the proper channels and not rushed things the way he did with his admin-level perms. I do not mind giving managers free rein for things if they communicate well during it. So if Julius (one of the new managers) wanted more freedom for an eventline, I would give it to him, so long as we were able to communicate what he had planned and he was communicating more with the team so things don't get rushed again.
- We’re looking at ways for nations to expand, though we’re not sure if we’re gonna go the direction of letting people purchase evicted charters and stuff.
- A huge event where everyone goes to Athera isn’t probably happening for Athera again anytime soon, though we’re unsure what we’re gonna be doing in the future.
- We are most likely not getting racial bonuses again. It hasn’t been discussed in the tech side of things, though they did lead to a lot of complaints. If they had a more aesthetic impact or didn’t benefit pvp, then potentially, but it depends on what the bonuses are.
- The general consensus is that we want to steer away from giving out a bunch of loot, it’s something that we’ll discuss more with the new management.
- There will be hubs around the new map. Essentially, they’re hub points where you can head to from spawn and it’s centralized around the nations around it. The World Team has a world painter who is sculpting it in certain aspects.
- The World Team wants the nations to be more of the focus as to vassalhood and deals and such, being the main landowners. The focus will be on nations and those groups.
- The warp signs at CT will remain until the lag and chunk issues are fixed when the server hits higher pop above 210.
- 8.0 is in development and we have a map. We do not have a release date.
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For more information on 8.0 and the activity system, please reach out to a World Team Member.
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10 hours ago, Jenny_Bobbs said:
You have calculated 104 guidance logs in total but only 19 settlement tours, can we have a bit more transparency on what ‘guidance’ logs are? I understand it is also going through commands and walking the player through RP. Though it also should be settlement tours to get the player to directly engage in RP. With the majority of elves accepted being high elves, it’s disconcerting that none where guided or attempted to be taken to Haelun’or or other elven settlements (besides the 1 to Irrinor).
11 hours ago, Ankan said:They don’t seem logged often enough either, looking at the OTHER graph. I would be interested to see where Meteordragon’s 16 players were led to.
10 hours ago, Ankan said:Disconcerting, maybe, but not surprising.
v
5 hours ago, LotsOfMeteor said:Guidance is more than just bringing new players around. Most of mine comes from taking people's tickets. I am by far not the one who does the most player guidance- which is sad. Though when I guide people, I go to the racial nations first(unless they name something in their bio), then of no one is there I try to take them to a place that I know a lot of their race hangs around. Also, some of the actual guidance logs are shown twice on the data for nations because we may take someone to more than one place. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
Edit: I checked the data and there are 109 Guidance Logs and 19 Settlement Visits. Also, not every new player gets guidance because they don't make a ticket, or we miss when they log on
❤️
10 hours ago, Jenny_Bobbs said:Is the bulletin board project in effect or still ‘being worked on’ as it was supposed to (in theory) mediate the problems.
v
12 hours ago, LotsOfMuffins said:Unfourtunately, our biggest projects such as Tutorial Island and the construction of our next big event (TBA) have been stalled due to world edit destroying the server 9 out of 10 times it’s used, and other projects such as the Quest Board have been delayed due to Tha_Mystery_Man having to focus more on Athera than it.
10 hours ago, Jenny_Bobbs said:The data can also be turned to humans, being the most accepted overall race, yet out of the 50%+ of humans accepted 9 got toured. (Which is a majority but this statistic should be way higher for the amount of guidance logs made.
v
5 hours ago, LotsOfMeteor said:not every new player gets guidance because they don't make a ticket, or we miss when they log on
In addition to Meteor’s response, I actually do have news regarding this.
https://gyazo.com/d18babb573a7d0afd2a8e223f5b6f800Basically, this should increase our monk guidance count and actually encourage CT members to like, guide new players.
5 hours ago, ImCookiie said:It doesn’t make sense that 38.5% of all new Elf players are High Elf, yet Haelun’or had no guided-tours during the month of February. Are players being led to the closest settlement(s) regardless of their application choice?
Yes, I’ve noticed this and management has, too. Perhaps it’s due to them being part of the large number who weren’t reaching out for tours, since we take all high elves directly to Haelun’or. Hopefully the above policy change will correct this somewhat.
8 hours ago, Luminaire said:Why are dead charters still on the list for new player guidance? I mentioned this last time too, that list is horribly incomplete (Vira’ker is still there) and includesq dead charters and is missing out on charters that have been around and active for months.
Yes, so I recently took a hot look at the spreadsheet and deleted, like, half of the charters in there. I think the best bet is to just, uh, copy/paste the list of still-existing charters from the activity sheet used for calculating each region’s activity.
5 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:It's worrying to see someone handle 1/4th of the incoming applications please don't let Pan burnout and try and spread out more evenly the amount of applications to all team members.
Yeah, so, actually, the spreadsheet screwed up some numbers since we added, like, 10 rows to the spreadsheet (rip staff downsize) and it just didn’t calculate those 10 rows. After adding it, you can see that other members did do more apps than originally thought, so there’s a place. But yes, overall, _Pan is doing quite a lot. I swear I didn’t tell them to 50. They’re just above and beyond. Thanks, @_Pan.
11 hours ago, Ankan said:How come Sutica is visited double as often as any other settlement?
I dunno why Sutica is doubled. I’ll talk to the team about spicing up who they’re sending new players to.
8 hours ago, Luminaire said:Other than that, good update.
12 hours ago, SquakHawk said:thank u puff parion muffins and noz u guys are great love you xoxoxo ???
6 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:But otherwise it really sounds cool. Hope all the projects go well.
Thanks for the positivity, my dudes.
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COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE LOG
FEBRUARY 2020
INTRODUCTION
Hello again!
This past month has been wild. Not just with a lot of internal projects within the Community Team, but also with our primary direction. Our focus is still shifting towards the community as a whole instead of simply new players or applications. This has primarily been pushed by the encouragement of interacting with the community and engaging with other players. Obviously, there is a lot more work to be done in terms of this goal, but the past few weeks have seen considerable progress, especially with Community Team Members chilling in VC more in the main discord. However, we don’t get many people joining us, so keep an eye out when we’re there (I will also announce it) and feel free to join us!
FEBRUARY DATA
- Overview -
This month, we saw a total of 211 apps handled, with 111 new players welcomed onto LotC.
Last month, we saw 194 applications and 145 new players welcomed onto LotC. Over the course of the past month, our application standards have become tighter and more restricted, which contributed to the ratio of accepted apps to total apps drastically changing. If you round the numbers, it was about 15:20 last month, though this month, it was 11:21. This can be further rounded to about 3:4 versus 1:2, meaning in January, we accepted approximately 75% of applications, which has dropped by 25% in February. Despite how we have had even more applications come in, a lot more are being denied. Some of the new changes include you must have at least two lore references and the roleplay scenario response must be at least four sentences.
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TEAM DATA
- Application Team Data -
- Other Team Data -
APPLICATION KING/QUEEN
This month’s Application King goes to… @_Pan!
Followed behind by @NOZGOD and @LotsOfMeteor!
Once again, @_Pan has achieved Application King and has maintained their title!
CURRENT ROSTER
- Community Administrator -
LotsOfMuffins
- Community Managers -
Armajesty
puffables
- Community Team Members -
_Pan
ABitOfSunny
chaosgamer_
DreamInSpace
Evonpire
Kuila
LotsOfFie
LotsOfFish
LotsOfMeteor
LotsOfWonks
Mariolla
Mccreeperkiller1
Nestro_Miner
NOZGOD
Slic3man
Ttsim
- Content Creators -
Beordan
ElvenMommaHacker
Parion
Ulmo
z3m0s
PROJECT UPDATES
- WIKI - LotsOfMuffins -
The Wiki Team has been hard at work with several projects this past month. Unfourtunately, our Wiki Team Manager, TwistedFries, had to step down recently, but the team still continued with projects whilst he was around. Currently, they are on pause while we bring on a new manager.
The front page project is their primary concern as it stands, since the character page project, where all inactive, out-of-date, or insignificant character pages were massively removed, is pretty much complete. This past month, a large number of other staff team members volunteered to give ideas and discuss how the front page should look, and our new front page is coming along nicely. It’s nearly done and should be out at the end of this month. Coming up next, lore is going to be our primary focus, where Lore Team Members will come together and help Community Team Members update all of the lore on the wiki. This is a huge task, so if you’re interested in joining the Wiki Team, shoot me a PM @LotsOfMuffins#0119!
- BROOM CREW - Armajesty -
Hello, everyone! This is the first official work update from the Broom Crew™ and I'm happy to tell you things are going swimmingly. We've begun to organize guides in our push to remove outdated ones in order to keep things up to date on the forums. Alongside this, we're working hard to redesign our monk guidance system with the help of the ideas provided by Nation Leaders and the Projects Team! We're hoping to create a system less focused upon the OOC details, and more focused on immersing players and giving them a feel for what roleplay on the server is like. The final project that we have begun working on is our integration of the NPD into the main LOTC Discord. We're working harder to organize things within the main discord and create a more active, and easy to navigate layout. We've got lots of plans for March so a huge shoutout to LotsOfWonks, Evonpire, LotsOfMeteor, Nestro_Miner, Ttsim, and DreamInSpace for all of their hard work.
- PROJECTS - puffables -
Over on in the Projects focus group, we're working hard still in two main areas! As a few of you have probably seen, a strange building has popped up in CT, further down the path from the markets. Our 'Quest Guild' is well underway with the fabulous assistance of the ST; just a few small finishing touches before we open it up to you all. It's certain to be a lot of fun, with tons of great opportunity and roleplay!! Second along, the Tutorial Island build is being picked up once more by WT members- unfortunate to have a lil bit of delay due to server status issues, but we hope to soon have this up and running as well! We look forwards to seeing a cool way of teaching new players the OOC side of getting started so that they can be fully immersed once they join in! Again - a wonderful month, big thanks to all of the Projects contributors!
- EVENTS - Armajesty, LotsOfMuffins, puffables -
After a month-long break the Community Events team is back, and better than before! We have reinstated Community Events as a team-wide project as it is something that is highly demanding of its group members. In the month of March, we have three events planned, these being Battle of the Arts ran by Armajesty, Creative Cafe by LotsOfMuffins, and a surprise event being planned by puffables. Each of these events has small teams helping lead the charge in order to make things happen. Alongside this, a small project called Community Game Nights is being worked on which was inspired by the overwhelming positivy following the Capture the Flag event. These game nights will feature popular mini-games like spleef, capture the flag, jackbox and more allowing the community to come together and have fun in a setting unrelated to Lord of the Craft.
FEBRUARY’S DIRECTION
This past month, we primarily pushed forward with application standards, as seen by the large drop in accepted applications, and continued moving forward with becoming the Community Team rather than the New Player Team or Application Team through increased community engagement.
Unfourtunately, our biggest projects such as Tutorial Island and the construction of our next big event (TBA) have been stalled due to world edit destroying the server 9 out of 10 times it’s used, and other projects such as the Quest Board have been delayed due to Tha_Mystery_Man having to focus more on Athera than it. However, the server won’t be dead forever and Athera won’t last forever, so our projects will continue to be refined and worked on in other aspects until we can release them.
Last Month’s Goals:
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Playerbase Engagement / Feedback
In February, the main drive has been pushing for engagement with the playerbase. After all, you can’t call yourself a Community Team Member without actually being involved in the community. Recently, members have been in VC more and more often in both the main and new player discords, as well as answering questions in #ws and #h.
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Discord Overhaul
The main discord has been moved under the Community Team in terms of management and organization, but the Moderation Team continues to moderate it. This overhaul has been moved under Broom Crew as one of their projects, but we are currently working on creating a new player section on that discord in order to allow those not yet verified to still ask questions if they find themselves in the discord.
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Focus Groups
In the last month, we had a (hopefully final) shift in focus groups. Instead of Community Events, we now have Broom Crew, which focuses on internal projects within the team such as the monk guidance rewrite, the discord overhaul project, guides organization, and finally, the revival of the old Pots and Pandits project. This group is led by Armajesty, who previously led Community Events. As for events, these are now being done every other month with managers leading individual events with members volunteering to help.
This Month’s Goals:
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Engagement
We are moving forward with player engagement and community involvement with the team. This started with pushing for members to be in VC more often, speaking more often with players( in the discords, in #ooc, etc.), etc., and this continues with ensuring that players’ needs are met, continuing to interact with the community, and increasing our server presence overall.
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Wiki Team
The Wiki Team has been a roller coaster. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t stopping, and I will not let the progress stop, but it has been going in an odd direction. As such, I personally have been taking hold of the team, and the next manager to lead it will be leading it alongside me if anything. One of our issues involved the documents of the team being owned by a member who quit and revoked permission, so the entire system of the drive will change completely under its new management. In addition, it focused heavily on character pages and settlement guides. Instead, we will be working more closely with the lore team in order to update lore pages after we finish our front page update. If you are interested in helping with the Wiki Team, please shoot me a PM at LotsOfMuffins#0119. Thank you!
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Application Standards
Community Management has formed a new system regarding improper applications. Essentially, if an application is accepted that is deemed “improper” in any way, such as not following the guidelines, then it is logged and the member is spoken to. If a member receives a large number of logs, they meet with management where we go over what the plan is moving forward and provide tips and feedback to help the member. So, in March, the plan is to continue this and hopefully lower the number of improper applications popping up as well as maintain the tightened restrictions.
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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This players questions have been answered and the situation resolved. Should you wish to have this reopened, please PM me your reasons why it should be so.
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This players questions have been answered and the situation resolved. Should you wish to have this reopened, please PM me your reasons why it should be so.
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New Player Tips
Bastion
Hello!
Recently, the Community Team’s Content Creation sect has grown immensely. ElvenMommaHacker and z3m0s, our video editors, are currently aiming to make a playlist for the LotC Youtube featuring how-to videos on popular topics such as the chat system, soulstones, the bank and auction house system, shops, and more. One of these videos, however, is going to include general new player tips from you guys. So, please comment down below any sort of tips for new players that you think are helpful, and the most helpful and prominent ones will appear in the video (with credit). This can be anything from “avoid jumping off cliffs” to “get involved straight away in a community”. Any kind of tip is welcome, so long as you’re civil and such.
Thank you!
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Just now, Salty said:
Id like to introduce you to peaches the six foot wood elf who is and i quote a “Massive Spaz”
accepted fairly recently, CT who took it should probably be repremanded ?Sure. I’ll reprimand and remove the person who accepted it.
Actually, I’ll log it in our new improper applications list. If it continues, they’ll be put on suspension ?
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Just now, Aethling said:
I gave y’all a list of names based on Elven and linked you the Wood Elf appearance guide.
Yet we still have pink Wood Elves let through, with no knowledge of their culture.
I’ll add this to our list of improper app examples. In #nation-and-charter-support, I talked about our new system, which tracks bad apps and who is accepting them rather than just talking to them. This system was introduced today, so what that further action is, well, it’s either suspension, removal, etc. Something along those lines. Hasn’t been fully fleshed-out. Thanks for bringing it up again. If you find any further examples, please shoot me a PM or another manager.
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1 minute ago, Salty said:
getting onto CT is popularity competition lowkey, if everyone likes you and is your friend you'll get on, its slowly becoming a clique which is big sad
one of the best things about previous iterations of CT was its diversity, they had someone from most groups on LOTC. It really is slowly becoming mainly helves, and i do think alot of this is due to the bias on picks from the anon votes for new CT they have. But i also more then likely have a biased opinion, those are simply personal observations. When i was on CT you had to give a legitimate reason for every vote that the Admin reads, but im honestly unsure if they still have that. ive heard they dont, but i obviously cant verify
Yup. You have to give reason, and the management reviews it. I dunno who told you we don’t, but my management can confirm that we do new picks by reading what people say, looking at the votes, etc.
Just now, Luminaire said:I’m still blown away at the fact I ever made it in to begin with, but in all honesty it was because I knew people higher up in the team who vouched for me back then. If not that I would’ve never made it in, it’s a problem that has plagued the team for forever now. You see a lot of applicants sucking up like crazy to the managers and muffins and it works almost every time.
Show me some examples, I’ll talk about them.
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1 hour ago, Salty said:
That being said, community team is not active enough in the actual server. More times then id care to count i am the first one to reply to someone in the help channel, i bump into new players who have no clue how to emote, and i as a player am put into a position to train someone who should have already been given the basics by a CT. I personally dont mind, i for one love to help new players and returning players integrate, its part of why ive wanted to be a CT, albeit being denied as of late. Community Team needs to be more active, when im in calls with CT who are actively avoiding tickets and am having to ping community team for new players because they dont even know how to tag the team in game, there is an issue. CT has become far too detached from the community they are trying to represent, and the players they should be aiding.
Now that being said, CT has some great ideas and concepts ive heard about and witnessed. Sadly, many of these concepts are still just that, concepts, hardly created and not even revealed to the community. Tutorial island should be done by now, or at least be in final stages, the map is about 5 months away from closing allegedly, and this project has been in concept since its beginnings, and yet from what i understand, very little progress has been actually made. Now granted, this could be due to several things, change in admin leadership, techs doin a vanish, but even with all that, some sort of tutorial should have been released in the mean time, or at least feedback gathered from the community.
That doesn't even bring me to the lack of focus groups, which help maintain a focused workload for CT, removal of actual good ideas and groups, such as Pots and Pandits, which i will always advocate for, because new players often times do not know how to properly CRP. I’d love to see CT start to focus more on natural interaction with the playerbase. While i dont believe that CT can do as much as soul is suggesting, it would be nice to see CT at least focus and communicate with players regarding feedback, with more then just a ‘feedback noted’ and a thumbs up. CT are supposed to be the middlemen between staff and the playerbase, and communicate for either side to the other, and i just haven't seen that recently.
In closing, i think that CT, while having good events (such as CTF) and improving its application process, has simply not done enough for the amount of time this map has been up. Much more should have been implemented by now, more feedback gathered, more projects finished. New and Returning players alike still enter the server with little guidance, and can often times be found in the help channel of the server and server-approved discords ignored without receiving help. This needs to be changed, and while i dont hate where the CT is at right now, it could be better, and its my hope that this feedback genuinely helps them get their eggs in a bunch and get through this.
I’ll respond paragraph-by-paragraph based on what I’ve quoted above.
Yes, this is definitely a problem that I’ve seen and have been cracking down on. In addition, we were accepting just flat-out inactive people previously. This is no longer the case. Of course, we do have to crack down on our members actually replying to people in #h and such, so, yes, I won’t deny that this is an issue. While we are currently trying to solve a plethora of internal issues, such as the application crisis, we’ll crack down on this as well, just do know that it isn’t going to be done immediately due to the large number of things we’re focusing on. Don’t wanna spread us too thin.
It is definitely due to several things. Namely, Tutorial Island needs builders, and we have about one world team member who is actively working on it. We ask for volunteers frequently and those who help help. Shoutout to Junar. Good idea on collecting ideas while we wait. I’ll let puffables know. Of course, like usual, if you have anything you’d like specifically to see happen with Tutorial Island, shoot her a PM as she’s the manager in charge of the project.
Pots and Pandits just hasn’t been a huge priority for us due to the tons of other projects we have going on and how we don’t wanna spread ourselves too thin. However, with the shift slightly away from events and more towards actual projects, Pots and Pandits is going to be a part of our newest focus group, The Broom Crew, run by Armajesty, as soon as guides are done (not writing guides, just organizing them, because bruh if we’re gonna rewrite every guide, I’m gonna cry). Shoot her a PM if you have any specifics you’d like to see. And yes, feedback, like I stated in the reply to Soul, is crucial, but due to recent feedback, we’re moving away from making Your View’s for things that aren’t pertaining to our team and such. Gathering feedback is still happening, as seen in our last update:
We unfourtunately have loads of projects we’re working on, so it’s hard to explain them all, but in regards to you not seeing a lot of progress, I recommend taking a look at our update again, as it lists most out alongside our goals for each month. If you have any specific questions, shoot me a PM. My PM’s are open.
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Just now, JokerLow said:egirl highelf team, thats my definition for the current community team
Bruh.
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4 minutes ago, Salty said:why would i want CT reviewing orc apps, do they know anything about orcs?
7 minutes ago, Aethling said:Why would I want CT reviewing Wood Elf apps, when they don’t know anything about Wood Elves?
If, of course, there’s any application that just aren’t following orc or wood elf standards, shoot a manager or myself a PM. If any wood elves or orcs would like to apply, that’d be fantastic. Unfourtunately, it’s up to the team itself to decide who gets accepted and who doesn’t, and our team is very full right now (rip staff downsize). If you have any issues regarding this, I recommend reaching out to a manager or myself and we can have a conversation about this.
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2 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:
1) Giving priority to the important things
I’ve seen that sometimes the team has a bit of a light approach to certain situations and gives a lot more importance to stuff like events or holding minigames in the lobby when the server is down. While I don’t think hosting minigames is wrong I think shifting the team’s attention to stuff like that instead of trying to talk to a community that is not happy with the way the server works right now I find is a big problem. Why is the team that is supposed to represent the players not writing posts like this one after seeing players feel like this?
I'll give a recent example of something I feel could've been handled differently, and while I want to say that it was solved in a great way by Twistedfries and Ragnio, but over 400 character pages in the Wiki, OUR wiki was on the verge of being deleted, but they were not even allowed to ping everyone on the discord or post an announcement in the News section of the forum, and while it was handled properly why was it until the last minute that players were informed of this decision? Why not bring in players into the loop before?
This is only one situation but if you keep going you’d notice that players would often feel like the community team gives more priority to events than to what is happening to the server. Posting stuff like a Battle of the Arts when there are more important problems.I don’t quite understand. What are the more important problems? Certain situations are not for the community team to comment on, as they don’t pertain to us. As for the situation with TwistedFries, he is our newest manager, and I’ve already spoken to him – you’re right, character pages are now in a much better direction. If you have any issues with the current direction, perhaps shoot him or myself a PM, but this shouldn’t happen again. As for Battle of the Arts, we have our own schedules that we must meet. For example, Battle of the Arts happens every three months. We are not going to delay an event for four months because of a pedophilia scare. If anything, this is the time that we should be attempting to bring the community together. Situations such as those are for the administration to comment on, not the community team. So if the community would rather us halt everything, I don’t understand why.
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2 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:2) The focus has returned to the new players & applications
While I love new players and helping out applicants, the team is called the community team, not the New Players team. I've seen returning players come back into the server and feel lost with the different plugins and left to figure things on their own. The regular players don't feel like the team has anything to give them or anything in the team represents them, some even want for the team to go back to being called the Application Team since the focus is mainly that, despite some applicants complaining recently of the time it's taking for their applications to get reviewed.
We are actually working on setting up our guides system so people aren’t lost. Also, if you take a look at our recent updates, you’ll see our current direction and how we aren’t just doing applications. I’ll link the latest one here.
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2 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:3) Where are the Your View threads?
A lot of things are happening in the server. The community was quiet for some time with the state the server was in, and we understand that a majority of the Devs left and the work was a lot for the people that stayed. But people are not happy, some wars have been going on and OOC situations have arisen during them, people have complained about some changes made by different staff teams and the team that is supposed to be the representation of players in staff has not asked something different than our view on events, or what events we want to see. Don't get me wrong I feel events are cool but again, what is more important? Chasing a turkey or giving the players of LoTC a voice?
Your View posts are a bit of an issue, for a number of reasons. I’ll start with saying that we have out like six, so take a look at those in the News thread. But the team received a lot of backlash with being the ones to ask for opinions, given that it’s not for our team. And so, we listened, and we now make Your View’s on matters more related to the actual team and to the community as a whole. For example, Your View’s about coups, wars, etc. are to be posted by moderation, Your View’s about plugins, 1.15, etc. are to be posted by development, etc., as they are the ones who actually take the feedback and utilize it. If you have any further questions about this, I recommend reaching out to a Community Manager or myself.
And yes, chasing a turkey. As well as capturing the flag. And escaping the temple. We have even more events coming out in March, which’ll be quite exciting. My favourite part is how it brings everyone together, new and old players alike. It’s outstanding how exciting people get over capturing the other team’s flag. It’s also great to have randomized teams, where players who have never spoken to each other get in VC together and just have a good time. Shoutout to @Milenkhov, @Ryloth, @Auswolf, @Alfomos, @Kenzo74, and many others who are regulars for our events and meet lots of new people every time. I highly recommend giving it a shot; it’s broadcasted each time before we start.
Also,
2 hours ago, Lsuvsfar said:Mini-events like that are a great way to bring together players of different group, who would normally never interact, into a friendly atmosphere which encourages mutual cooperation.
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3 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:4) Online presence
Online presence should not consist of a forced message sent once a month in discord, in the past you could see a Pink tag engaging in conversations in discord and online, not only when being forced to but almost all the time, trying to help out players or just talk with them about things as simple as how their day is going. Answer questions in #h and in the help channels in discord, the team has acquired a bit of a robotic feel to it, don’t go for copy pasted answers if someone asks a common question by directing them to #faq, #important-info, or any of the other channels with information on any of the discord servers.
(Nestro and Nozgod are amazing and try to do this if I don't mention you it might be because I've mostly seen them talking the times I am looking at discord)
One of the main things we go over is ensuring that everyone is active in each discord, #h, #ws, etc. We unfourtunately cannot micromanage each member to ensure that they are doing this, but we encourage it and shoutout those who do it.
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3 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:5) Decisions against the community
The team is called the community team and I don't want to sound repetitive but why would the community team act against the interests of the community? Why remove spaces like #debate in discord where that's the kind of space that you should be advertising and using to understand what the community wants. Start using the tools you have wisely, you have social media and discord and social media is pretty much dead. I suggest you follow Harrison's example and engage with people, ask them questions, set daily debate topics, be a part of the community not just the gatekeepers of LoTC or the AT. If you don’t like the stuff being discussed on #debate don’t just say it’s a channel that’s not needed accept that some people don’t agree with you and take their comments to improve.
I don’t see any other example beside #debate, which I’ve already been over and solved.
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3 hours ago, SoulReapingWolf said:6) Advertise your projects
Let people know what you are working on! The team had some amazing projects a while back like the tutorial island or making guides, reviving the social media, make a plant and creature index with the STs. This allows people to comment, give ideas and feedback and know that the team is not only doing applications. Don't wait to do this in the monthly community post because the information gets lost easily if you present 100 small updates to projects in 1 singular post. Make small focus groups like the ones a brand does before launching a product to get an idea of what the market feels about their product but instead of products and the market, projects and the LoTC community.
Take a look at our updates to see what we’re working on. We also announce all events, post news updates for Your View’s that we are doing, announce feedback-gathering, new initiatives (such as the wiki team), we even announced Tutorial Island months ago in #announcements in the main and new player discords if you scroll up far enough, etc. If there’s anything specific that you’re feeling like we aren’t announcing, feel free to let a manager or myself know.
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2 hours ago, Luminaire said:I have a few issues with the team currently. My main gripes are the way applications are being handled and the downright abysmal standard set, along with the training of this team.
When I was a regular CT and manager, the team was slowly expanding its boundaries, I left a bit before they formally took up ban appeals and the majority of LOTC hated it (just look at the way Bardmain’s appeal was handled). The Community Team, as per staff reforms was designed to be a team to serve as the gateway to LOTC. This included being a gateway for returning and banned players. Although the principle was never bad, the team has lost pretty much all direction and it shows. The members don’t focus on specific tasks anymore, and the quality of the overal work they provide has dropped a lot.
I @ the team and talk to their managers quite often in relation to the quality of applications, and all we ever get back is a feedback noted, worded very simply: “we’ll talk to our team” or “we’ll handle it”. Do things really improve from there? Not really, no.
Basically I’m not going to spitball to much and just keep it to a few points that I believe cover the whole issue with the Community Team.-
Retrain your entire team on applications.
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Up the standard for applications again, ask more lore references and flesh out the roleplay scenario, as with a single poorly written line you get accepted.
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Fix the shitty feedback reports. You were given feedback on them and we have yet to see them return properly. It has been quite a while since I have seen a new one. Either they did not change and were done in the same way as before, or they were removed without us knowing?
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Next community meeting when?
- Feedback noted.
We do focus on specific tasks, such as our upcoming projects. Take a look at our last update for more info on what we’re working on. Each member is a part of one focus group (wiki, projects, broom crew [used to be events, but now that’s an everyone thing]), and each have specific tasks. For example, guides, tutorial island, quest board, etc.
We have talked to our team. We do. And I’ve already informed you of our next initiative in #nation-and-charter-support, so feel free to take a look at that if you’re confused on what we’re doing in terms of applications.
- Yeah, once we get finished with initial training for our eight new team members, this is something we’ll do.
- Good ideas. As in, the specifics are good ideas. Hard to know what to up the standard for usually, but when you give specifics such as more lore references and such, yeah, that can be done. As for lore references and roleplay scenarios, I’ve just brought this to management, it’s literally being discussed and voted on as I type this message.
- We were given feedback, thank you. We did Your View’s for a time but received more feedback on that, too, so now we’re trying out a new new system. Our updates speak about this as well, if you take a look at the January one:
- Sure. The Your View had three people suggest time frames as far as I can see, which is every month, every other month, and every three months. Other than that, they asked that it not be at 5 am GMT. So I’ll reach out to the other administrators and start seeing a time that is GMT-friendly that we can do.
- Feedback noted.
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Retrain your entire team on applications.
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9 hours ago, calzium said:
Dael’s shoulders disheveled a bit as he sat outside of the cavern, thinking to himself; “Okay, it might be a bad time to give him this.”
He’d look down at a #1 Shade mug.20 minutes ago, Lackless_ said:Lockezi looks at Dael “What the ****.”
Luma, from next to Locke, utters, “Yeah, everyone knows that I am #1.”
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19 hours ago, Kenzo74 said:
"What stagnates progress more than the turmoil set ablaze by power-hungry hypocritical fools, who, in their incompetence, spent their days only undermining order and bringing about chaos?" The soon-to-be sworn in Okarir'san rhetorically mused as he peered over the missive, shooting only a brief glance to his student and guard "Haelun'or will prevail like it has before and those so-called mali'aheral to whom the name of Larihei is not even familiar, those few whom, tempted by the promise of power joined up in this short-lived theatre, they will have done Elcihi a favour by rooting themselves out like the weeds they are."
”Hmph,” Emeline huffs, leaning back against the couch casually while sipping a cup of tea. ”I look forward to seeing them perish, then. Is that what you could consider ‘impure’? I may not be the most versed in the ins and outs of what it means to be pure, but I do believe following a path of greed could be counted as as impure.” The ‘fenn lets out a sigh, furrowing her brows. For a moment, she pauses, a bead of sweat forming alongside her forehead. A moment later, her eyes glow a dim white as the missive is lit aflame. ”Boring.”
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27 minutes ago, Luminaire said:
When will the team be properly trained to actually read applications? Neon blue eyes, 80 year old Elf born in Aegis, etc. It’s not a format issue but it’s just the team not being trained to read applications properly. Will that be fixed? It’s been an issue for months now and has never really been properly addressed other than a “message a manager” every now and then.
yo, yeah dw the application standards have been mega raised, ct members have all been informed to be harsher, we’ve been setting clearer guidelines, etc. especially with things such as poor skins.
if the issues persist, we will be having a redo on application training for legit everyone seeing as that means the training wasn’t effective in the first place. i just finished rewriting the application guide to be more coherent than the previous, so hopefully that helps, too.
but yeah we say to message a manager because there’s no way for us to know 100% of the time unless we’re told. we take a look at most apps that come through, but of course, we can’t check on every single application, so if you guys find one that isn’t acceptable, just shoot one of us a pm so we know it’s still happening. this meeting of ours happened like a few days ago so apologies if something happened before then
2 hours ago, Milenkhov said:Really feel as if this goal was acomplished, thankful for all the work that has been put towards the community and to hear players ideas and feedback, keep it up – you all are rocking it!
bruh thank u, we’ve been trying to include more fun events and your view’s to kinda make sure everyone is heard. glad to hear you’re liking it! if you have any suggestions on how we can do better, bruh im here
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COMMUNITY TEAM UPDATE LOG
JANUARY 2020
INTRODUCTION
Hello again!
This past month, we heard you. We heard your thoughts on ban appeals and reports and decided to change it up. Lots of testing occurred this past month, especially with reports and focus groups, just trying out new ideas, but now we’re finally looking at some results. Read on!
JANUARY DATA
- Overview -
This month, we saw a total of 194 apps handled, with 145 new players welcomed onto LotC.
Last month, we saw 185 applications and 135 new players welcomed onto LotC. This month we had a bit of an increase, so we’re steadily resuming increasing our incoming Minecraft roleplayers. The ratio of accepted apps to denied apps seems to be just about the same. However, this is most likely going to change moving forward as we’ve upped our application standards. More on that below.
- 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 @NOZ and @_Wonk!
_Pan is full-steam ahead as one of our newest members!
CURRENT ROSTER
Community Administrator
LotsOfMuffins
Community Managers
Armajesty
puffables
TwistedFries
Community Members
_Pan
_Wonk
chaosgamer_
DreamInSpace
MamaBearJade
MeteorDragon9000
Nestro_Miner
NOZGOD
PROJECT UPDATES
WIKI - TwistedFries
Since the last update of January a lot of things have changed within the Wiki-Team, including an update on the leading manager of the team, updates on the backend-side of the wiki and much more. But let’s start with one topic at the time!
KaleyKitty was originally the leading manager of the Wiki-Team, however, she had to step down due to personal reasons. As such a new manager was appointed, being TwistedFries. Underneath TwistedFries management a lot of projects were started, setting the new Wiki-Team of to a good start.
With the new Team being back in shape they started to work on several projects over the last month, resulting in over 660 edits throughout the whole team, with most of the Wiki-Team-edits done by Ragnio (546 edits/actions), TwistedFries (85 edits/actions) and Language (19 edits/actions). Most of those changes took place due to one of our major projects, being the ‘Uniformity-Update’.
The ‘Uniformity-Update’ was planned and executed by Ragnio and TwistedFries, focusing on Updating the major backend-side of the Wiki, including all of the Backbones, Code-Templates (For Navtables, etc.) and general ruleset and guideline of the Wiki. Each of those pages got updated, reworked and some outdated and unused ones removed from the Wiki, resulting in a cleaned-up backend-side for players to use from now on.
Our second project of the month was the ‘Account-Cleansing’-Project, which was once again executed by TwistedFries and Ragnio. Many of you, at least those with Wiki-Accounts, have noticed that their accounts were locked down by the Wiki-Team. Such an action was taken due to the number of inactive accounts that exist on the Wiki and the possible danger of people abusing inactive accounts by accessing them. To visualize such...here are some statistics:
→ 481 Wiki Accounts
→ 448 Inactive Accounts (No edits within the last 30 days)
→ 33 Active Accounts
→ 6.8% of all accounts are actively used
At the same time we wanted to implement a new application system, which will handle the new creation of Wiki-Accounts from now on. You can apply for such an account here. This would allow the Wiki-Members to collect and record information about who receives an account, while also getting to them more efficiently. In the future we will continue to do activity checks, removing accounts on a monthly base, depending on if they did at least 10 edits in the course of 30 days.
Lastly, our team started to work on the ‘Settlement-Guide’-Project, lead by our beloved TwistedFries, Language and MamaBearJade. Throughout the next few weeks all Settlements and Nations will receive or get an updated Wiki-Guide-Page, which shall help new players to find the settlement, get some basic information on the location and also link to their forum-posts or category. By doing so we are trying to support both new players and settlements in creating roleplay-situations and activity.
With all that being said we would love to remind you all, that the Wiki-Team is still in dire need of helpers! To apply to the Wiki-Focus-Group feel free to fill out this application-form.
COMMUNITY EVENTS - Armajesty
Greetings and salutations from Armajesty! This month was quite slow for the events team, and with good reason. To begin, I’d like to thank _fie, Pan, chaosgamer_, Nestro_Miner, and MeteorDragon9000 for all of their hard work in the events group. I am sad to say that the Community Events focus group will be disbanding and shall be replaced with what we are tentatively calling the ‘Broom Crew’. Do not fret, though! Community Events will be returning (hopefully in March) as a team-wide project. Moving on, this month we worked hard to organize the Capture the Flag event, it being our main focus for January, this was a drastic change from the four events hosted in December. It was nice to take a step back, but also allowed us to see the flaws in our system and make changes. We promise that events will be returning shortly, and thank you all for your patience. Also, don’t forget to participate in our Events forum if there are any events you would like to see in the future! https://forms.gle/W2iAPSsBVQ8LtXPAA.
TUTORIALS - puffables
Over in the projects focus group, through January we have been slowly but surely pushing forth progress! The Guides Maintenance section, as you've probably seen, has been transferred over to our new focus group now, the lovely broom crew ? The tutorial island prompts are still going strong and we have been powering through with the nation prompts - NL's/Stewards, be on the lookout for prompt requests and advice queries being sent your way soon!! With our quest board project, speed has now been picking up - we have gotten some good work done on it, and progress will only further continue into the next month. All in all, the month of January for the projects group has been pretty successful - looking forward to bringing out the completion of some of the projects for you soon! ❤️
JANUARY’S DIRECTION
Last month, you guys were very vocal about your thoughts on the ban appeal system. During our latest administration meeting, I brought it up, and we discussed it. Essentially, we came to the conclusion that CT members just aren’t moderators, so inconsistencies in the way they viewed appeals, odd verdicts, and lengthy response times just weren’t worth it. And so, appeals are back with moderation.
Despite our appeal move, things haven’t been as fast as we’d like with recent projects and ideas due to the server being somewhat broken. However, as that should be fixed this month, we are still moving forward.
Last Month’s Goals:
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Playerbase Engagement / Feedback
We got loads of feedback about reports. These are going to be changing. We tried doing more Your View’s alongside interviews, though reports in general have caused a bit of burnout given how lengthy of a process it is. Our next plan is to test out doing a Your View as well as each CT member doing 2-3 interviews. Assuming we have 16 members due to staff downsize no longer existing, that’d be 32-48 interviews plus responses from the Your View. The first test run of this system is happening this month, so hopefully it goes well.
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Moving Forward with Projects
The quest board and tutorial island projects are moving ahead, as well as our guide overhaul. Each project is still going on, despite the lag. However, we aren’t really planning on releasing anything until the server is fixed.
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Guidance Overhaul
The lag did not slow. We are still dying inside.
This Month’s Goals:
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Playerbase Engagement / Feedback
The overhaul is continuing with reports. As stated above, we are trying out a new system, so we are aiming to continue with improving playerbase engagement / feedback over the course of the next month.
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Discord Overhaul
Coming this next month is a huge overhaul of the discords. Although I won’t go too much into it, I doubt it’s going to be a change anyone will hate. Keep looking for some upcoming changes.
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Focus Groups
A shift in focus groups occurred last month, though yet another change is coming. As spoken about above in the community events update, community events is turning into a new focus group entirely. This group will take over the guide overhaul that the projects group was originally handling, as well as the monk guidance overhaul. It will essentially be in charge of handling projects that don’t involve collaboration with other teams, unlike the projects group. This change will occur this month, hopefully encouraging more CT projects to keep moving forward.
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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Emeline Uialben, proud bearer of the Uialben name, grits her teeth upon reading the missive, immediately rushing down the stairs of her Irrinor home. ”If I leave my father in the dust now, I might as well scratch this name out as well,” she mutters to herself as she takes down the hanging sword from its display and sliding it across her back. Gathering what supplies she has on hand, she sets out to find her father and aid him in whatever conflict he’s found himself in this time, whistling for a bird to reach out to him and chucking the missive into the air. ”Don’t worry, Dad. I’m coming.”
Luma Vincrute frowns upon finding the missive having flown her way. The ‘ker tosses it back into the air without a second thought, simply moving back inside whilst whistling.
Althaia Elibar’acal tugs at her father’s shirt, proudly showing her latest catch from the river. It’s the missive. ”Why do they wanna kill this man? Is he impure? I don’t think he deserves to die,” the ten-year-old ‘aheral questions him, but the missive soon flies out of her hand, caught in the wind.
Cehdriel Analise find the missive on the ground while making a campfire. ”Huh. This is why trees are better,” the ‘ame declares before chucking the missive into the fire as fuel.
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12 hours ago, VonAulus said:
What is your LOTC origin Story?
Wow. Well, back in March, about three days before my birthday, it was spring break, and I was extremely bored. I was searching online some roleplaying sites, and I came across a lot. For a while, I was super into Hogwarts RP. I did some Garry’s Mod RP, then I did some online RP, and eventually, I said screw it. So, I searched for Minecraft RP, and I sighed dramatically because the first server I came across had an application process. Ugh. But I applied, got put on pending because apparently wood elves couldn’t see in the dark (disgusting), and then I was accepted the day before my birthday. That was like 10 months ago. Now I’m an admin.
So, yeah, long story short, I got bored one day, and here I am.
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Why did you aspire to become the world administrator?
What did you find to be the most surprising about being an administrator?
Would you agree that being an administrator and being the lead of a team are like two different jobs? Why or why not?
Do you enjoy being an admin?
If you could change one thing about LotC, what would it be?
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4 hours ago, AlaSol said:
When will you admit that I, LotsOfMuffin am the son of you and ThaMuffinsMan?
Also; When will you let go of the CT Farm Fiasco
Finally; favorite type of chip.
No.
No.
Yes.
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1 minute ago, Tha_Mystery_Man said:
Will you marry me? uwu
.
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[Your View] The New Player and Main Discord
in Announcements
Posted
Unique idea, including a hub for discords. I’ll talk to NLs about that in our next NL meeting!