Nov 20th, 2015, 09:05 PM
I agree MCP has picked up lately, partially because advertisement and partially because of the time of year. I'm interested to see how American Thanksgiving goes.
I also agreed adding things like contests are great for the server, however it's also important to remember MCP is great because we put lots of thought into things we add. I feel we may even be letting that slip lately. Perhaps we need to refine/cut some features before we add more.
So here's my opinions on some of the events you mentioned:
Plot Contest: Great, we'll probably do one every month from now on.
PvP Contests: These would have to be done by a warden or owner because of factions (I'll cover that later below)
Guard Kills: The guards would hate me for this, before something like this would be added a guard rework would be needed
Best Looking base: Overlaps with plot contest and judging would be too hard
Best functioning base: Hard to judge
Prison Events: Elaborate? I would like more big events which involve everyone but they're hard to create and can also confuse new players. I like events which occur at Christmas like the Candy Cane Event. Give us ideas!
Scavenger hunts: One word. Xray (Although easter egg hunts would be dope). It's not likely but if we find a cheat proof way we'd like to do things like thios
Christmas point games: elaborate? Christmas points will be very similar to other years/holidays
Top event winner of each month: Great idea, will look into.
Recruitment policy: Very delicate thing, can give the server a bad rep (players adverting on other players), alts can be used it the rewards are decent, hard to incentive in a balanced manner. The idea of requiring invited players to achieve a rank is a good idea.
Some of these events would have to be done by wardens in a custom manner or require much effort to create custom things.
I wish wardens were more hands on like they used to be, because frankly wardens who dick around without destroying everything are the best kind as it makes players feel welcome like they're a part of something. I remember when I first joined MCP there was a fleet of wardens always doing something and I miss that to this day. The problem is the direction I've taken MCP is an omniscient roll which I tend to oversee everything which in turn makes wardens tend to not feel like they can be creative
So between wardens not being creative as before and me being busy there's only so much that can be done (look at the changelog).
I've always encouraged wardens to do their own thing but they can't help with the large technical tasks and never have. Almost everything on the changelog is possible, just I literally can only do so much.
This might change/not be as big of an issue in the future as Geonat will be coming back soon, and more importantly Zeedin is learning to develop plugins. I don't expect Zeedin being able to write plugins to instantly finish the changelog in fact I don't expect it to do much on the changelog at all despite it being very handy. I do however expect it to allow us to open up and have the custom things we create be even more creative and help us out.
Zeedin still does all the building, networking, and much more. With developing on top of that there's only so much he can do which is why for a while the idea of bringing in help has steadily creeped into my head.
The fact is help will never come through MCP players, they're players who at best become wardens who are limited by their technical understanding. Wardens are wardens because they are trustworthy so if they were capable I'd likely let them work on bigger tasks but the bottom line is they're not.
Because of this help would have to come through someone who knows what they're doing. The problem with this has always been that someone who knows what they're doing involves meeting a new person and bringing them in. For starters finding someone competent is hard enough, someone I like and trust enough coming out of the blue is not likely. I've had multiple offers for fully competent people to help but I've turned them down for trust reasons and our own ideas not lining up.
So I've always been against bringing in someone who fits the unlikely roll if they show up, but now I'll at least consider it heavily.
I like discussing player retention as it's very important to the server. In my opinion MCP has a very firm grip but it is hard for it to sink its claws in. We lose many new players but the ones who stick around tend to stick around for a very long time. Hence the "One does not simply quit MCP motto".
I agree MCP has a hard time getting new players to stay, and in my mind that's partially because it's not like V2 before when there was tons of wardens, tons of staff, and tons of players to make it feel like a big sense of community. I think if MCP gets close to this it will take off yet it never has.
To make this feel like the case we need to work on community things:
- Making things straight forward
- Friendly Staff
- Simple entertaining gameplay to entice people
I've always worked towards these things but it's very hard with a complex beast like MCP.
I completely agree and find it a very strong statement that you remember me messing with your name when you first joined, and I remember it too now you mention it
As for the current staff I have to somewhat agree. Lizzy is a bad mod. I'll be demote them as of this post and opening up a new slot in the near future. When I removed mods it was because they didn't do the job of helping new players. Each time I brought them back that was the main focus. I specifically told Lizzy that was their first duty as a simple robot can manage chat and I no longer wanted mods to be like that. Lizzy has fallen short of their duty, partially from activity base and partially not doing their duties well enough when being online.
If I do bring new mods I'll make it very clear their job is to help new players.
As far as wardens go their first job is to help players and solve simple bugs so me/zeedin don't have to deal with them. On top of that it's to be fun, friendly, and since they became warden that does not mean they can suddenly new players. That has always been the case but welcoming new players is not their main job but they should always do it. We also only have 2 wardens, Geo who has been gone for months and Nate who is a great warden and I find he is a good balance of helpful & friendly (just maybe not so outgoing when it comes to doing tasks/new things).
I'm happy with wardens right now but I wish they'd be a little more "Free" and independent.
I feel as if I always make it clear our goal is to have good player retention and we're not lacking in the department we just maybe need a different approach/a few changes. We know what it takes to have good retention but achieving it with a good balance of everything else is hard.
When it comes to expansion believe me, we try. I'm doing everything I can involving paying server lists, making the server appealing from an outside view, and I have tried to acquire youtubers (very hard to do). I need to give getting youtubers another goal and make my own videos again. It's a fair challenge to get youtubers, sponsored ads, and do everything else maintaing a server requires while being in budget. Once again it comes down to us doing things well even if the server never "makes it" we managed to create something good.
We'll take another look at all these things and once again fuck you for making me write an essay bob.
In seriousness thanks for your great suggestions and hopefully this post made us a bit more transparent as far as our thoughts go.
Keep giving us suggestions
I also agreed adding things like contests are great for the server, however it's also important to remember MCP is great because we put lots of thought into things we add. I feel we may even be letting that slip lately. Perhaps we need to refine/cut some features before we add more.
So here's my opinions on some of the events you mentioned:
Plot Contest: Great, we'll probably do one every month from now on.
PvP Contests: These would have to be done by a warden or owner because of factions (I'll cover that later below)
Guard Kills: The guards would hate me for this, before something like this would be added a guard rework would be needed
Best Looking base: Overlaps with plot contest and judging would be too hard
Best functioning base: Hard to judge
Prison Events: Elaborate? I would like more big events which involve everyone but they're hard to create and can also confuse new players. I like events which occur at Christmas like the Candy Cane Event. Give us ideas!
Scavenger hunts: One word. Xray (Although easter egg hunts would be dope). It's not likely but if we find a cheat proof way we'd like to do things like thios
Christmas point games: elaborate? Christmas points will be very similar to other years/holidays
Top event winner of each month: Great idea, will look into.
Recruitment policy: Very delicate thing, can give the server a bad rep (players adverting on other players), alts can be used it the rewards are decent, hard to incentive in a balanced manner. The idea of requiring invited players to achieve a rank is a good idea.
Some of these events would have to be done by wardens in a custom manner or require much effort to create custom things.
I wish wardens were more hands on like they used to be, because frankly wardens who dick around without destroying everything are the best kind as it makes players feel welcome like they're a part of something. I remember when I first joined MCP there was a fleet of wardens always doing something and I miss that to this day. The problem is the direction I've taken MCP is an omniscient roll which I tend to oversee everything which in turn makes wardens tend to not feel like they can be creative
So between wardens not being creative as before and me being busy there's only so much that can be done (look at the changelog).
I've always encouraged wardens to do their own thing but they can't help with the large technical tasks and never have. Almost everything on the changelog is possible, just I literally can only do so much.
This might change/not be as big of an issue in the future as Geonat will be coming back soon, and more importantly Zeedin is learning to develop plugins. I don't expect Zeedin being able to write plugins to instantly finish the changelog in fact I don't expect it to do much on the changelog at all despite it being very handy. I do however expect it to allow us to open up and have the custom things we create be even more creative and help us out.
Zeedin still does all the building, networking, and much more. With developing on top of that there's only so much he can do which is why for a while the idea of bringing in help has steadily creeped into my head.
The fact is help will never come through MCP players, they're players who at best become wardens who are limited by their technical understanding. Wardens are wardens because they are trustworthy so if they were capable I'd likely let them work on bigger tasks but the bottom line is they're not.
Because of this help would have to come through someone who knows what they're doing. The problem with this has always been that someone who knows what they're doing involves meeting a new person and bringing them in. For starters finding someone competent is hard enough, someone I like and trust enough coming out of the blue is not likely. I've had multiple offers for fully competent people to help but I've turned them down for trust reasons and our own ideas not lining up.
So I've always been against bringing in someone who fits the unlikely roll if they show up, but now I'll at least consider it heavily.
I like discussing player retention as it's very important to the server. In my opinion MCP has a very firm grip but it is hard for it to sink its claws in. We lose many new players but the ones who stick around tend to stick around for a very long time. Hence the "One does not simply quit MCP motto".
I agree MCP has a hard time getting new players to stay, and in my mind that's partially because it's not like V2 before when there was tons of wardens, tons of staff, and tons of players to make it feel like a big sense of community. I think if MCP gets close to this it will take off yet it never has.
To make this feel like the case we need to work on community things:
- Making things straight forward
- Friendly Staff
- Simple entertaining gameplay to entice people
I've always worked towards these things but it's very hard with a complex beast like MCP.
I completely agree and find it a very strong statement that you remember me messing with your name when you first joined, and I remember it too now you mention it
As for the current staff I have to somewhat agree. Lizzy is a bad mod. I'll be demote them as of this post and opening up a new slot in the near future. When I removed mods it was because they didn't do the job of helping new players. Each time I brought them back that was the main focus. I specifically told Lizzy that was their first duty as a simple robot can manage chat and I no longer wanted mods to be like that. Lizzy has fallen short of their duty, partially from activity base and partially not doing their duties well enough when being online.
If I do bring new mods I'll make it very clear their job is to help new players.
As far as wardens go their first job is to help players and solve simple bugs so me/zeedin don't have to deal with them. On top of that it's to be fun, friendly, and since they became warden that does not mean they can suddenly new players. That has always been the case but welcoming new players is not their main job but they should always do it. We also only have 2 wardens, Geo who has been gone for months and Nate who is a great warden and I find he is a good balance of helpful & friendly (just maybe not so outgoing when it comes to doing tasks/new things).
I'm happy with wardens right now but I wish they'd be a little more "Free" and independent.
I feel as if I always make it clear our goal is to have good player retention and we're not lacking in the department we just maybe need a different approach/a few changes. We know what it takes to have good retention but achieving it with a good balance of everything else is hard.
When it comes to expansion believe me, we try. I'm doing everything I can involving paying server lists, making the server appealing from an outside view, and I have tried to acquire youtubers (very hard to do). I need to give getting youtubers another goal and make my own videos again. It's a fair challenge to get youtubers, sponsored ads, and do everything else maintaing a server requires while being in budget. Once again it comes down to us doing things well even if the server never "makes it" we managed to create something good.
We'll take another look at all these things and once again fuck you for making me write an essay bob.
In seriousness thanks for your great suggestions and hopefully this post made us a bit more transparent as far as our thoughts go.
Keep giving us suggestions
signature
???