The server, and what it is

[Jayarr]

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Introduction
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Hello, my friends.
I want to talk about this here and now, as this is meant to be a post to explain what we as a community think is wrong with the server.
All I ask for is that this post doesn't get removed, as this is meant to gather community feedback to see where we are as a whole. As a community. It most definitely can collect valuable information, as long as the people who read it are willing to put in their two cents.

 
This isn't to inspire drama or cause it.
This isn't to spread hate on the server.
This isn't targeted towards anyone.

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To specify
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Let me start off by saying the reason I made this post. I made it because I genuinely love the server and how much it's changed my life. This can be proven on how many times I try to come back over and over and over. I think this applies to not only myself, but multiple others who play the server as well. We all have found a genuine home and a community which we can escape real life from and come to, giving us the ability to socialize with a multitude of people, as well as work alongside them. This is something that people often struggle with or find overbearing to do in real life.

This is why I think people have the urges to speak out and want their voices to be heard on a server like this. Because we genuinely can have a connection to what it is.

There's nothing short of this other than saying how much we appreciate having synergy here for us, and what it's done and could further do for us in the past and present. We will forever be thankful for what you, the founders, the staff, and even the players. We built something very strong and connected, and that is something that none of us should live down.

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What's happened?
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Now, this is the beef of the post. This is clarifying where we are now, and why we as a community think we are close to a solid death if we continue our ways.

There are many reasons that can be listed, and I am sure that I will miss more than a few. However after communing with multiple trusted community members, who I shall not name at any point, I have come to a conclusion that what I am about to list are the primary issues in more than 30 community members' eyes.

I will be listing them, then elaborating on them further.

 

1. Development/Updates
2. Communication with community
3. Staff programs
   • Lack of events
4. Toxicity/Stubbornness
5. Playability incentive 
6. Player income

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Elaborating
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1. Development/Updates

This right here is giant. Monumental. It is the key in what shapes how a community can survive and what satisfies their needs, giving them the ability to continue playing as they will.

There has been a big update as of recent, and that has pushed the founders to take what I believe is a 3 month break. This is okay at most times as you guys did just work on something big and it can be quite stressful to maintain all the time. It's best to take a break. However, the community has been slowly on a downwards trend, and taking a break that long is a surefire way to knock it out, if not for good. I'm not saying you guys should push yourselves, as it is unhealthy and shouldn't be done. However, what needs to be done in place of this is the addition of an actual development team. You guys need solid workers that you can use to maintain your server while you take the breaks you need. I know you may not want to do this as trust issues may be a concern, and it would be valid as I am a prime example, but not now. I urge you guys to heavily consider recruiting developers to do this work for you, as you guys seem to be extremely burnt out of working on the server.

As for anything else, the only thing I would like to touch up on is to thank Zim for how much he dedicates himself to ensuring development is properly done when it needs to be. He seemingly does his best whenever he can. I enjoyed working with him in the past, and I'm sure he remains the same now.

2. Communication with community

I feel as though we are in the dark more often than not. We are typically uninformed of what you guys do behind the scenes for a multitude of things, and this can make people very skeptical on how much information they are receiving on a day to day or even a week to week basis.

First off, I want to make it clear that high staff such as Forseen, Dragon, Freck, and Anderson are doing an excellent job at staying on top of this at all times, and we cannot thank you guys enough for being here when we need it. You fellas are always there almost immediately when we need it, and that is super super helpful. However, you guys can't do it all sadly, and there is a lot that the community would personally want to hear from the founders. Community meetings are an oddity, happening every few months at best. These don't necessarily need to happen, but it would be best to post something on the forums for people to look at, as it lets them know you, as founders, are still keeping an eye on them and are connected with them. We rarely know that now.

3. Staff programs

Now, this is all related to what I saw before Forseen and the new directors had to straight up dedicate a good chunk of their days to fix this. So take this with a grain of salt, as I know some of it may have changed.

I personally have seen a lot of issues with who is being given head admin and even veteran admin. It seems more of a "I can do this so I will" type deal. I get this, there could be a great lack of staff to choose from. But the people that you choose reflect on staff as a whole, especially the head admins. (I know this was dealt with recently, so good shit from their part)

As for anything beyond the base of staff, there has been a multitude of complaints about this and that. GM program, TR program, etc. These complaints are valid in a good chunk of cases, but I can't help but feel that people don't want to go to the higher ups of the programs to get them resolved. And I specifically will talk about this later in my post. Aside from that though, I feel these two programs have always been up and down. With the server being really low in population, I'm sure they aren't in too good of a place now. They may be trying their best to pick things up, but it's hard to see it that way.

I will gather some statements I have received in the past and put them here, and possibly edit this post further on if people comment on anything else they've seen. 
(these are not coming from me so don't take it to me, thank you)

GM:
Lack of events
Event requiring a full story
Quality > Quantity

 

TR:
Teamspeak rule

 To touch up on GM, I know @Daytona211 is trying to do the best he can and I'm sure we all appreciate it. However, appreciation can be outweighed and overheard in the sea of people going on about these issues. To start, lack of events. I feel this may be due to the lack of game masters/staff themselves, but it could also be due to what's happening inside the program. For example, events requiring a story. People may not be creative enough for that, and yeah game masters need to be, but it is ineffective and generally not a good way to encourage more people to become a GM and do events. Second off, quality over quantity. With a full server, I completely understand this, who doesn't hate really poorly thought out/executed events. But we aren't full if ever anymore, and people are craving for the next event all the time, as maybe two-three happen a day, if even.

 To touch up on TR, the teamspeak rule is about all that remains with that. I believe joah did this, so not much is in control there. I've also heard it's because of the map, because of minges, all sorts of things. But in any light, it hinders a good majority of the rare CC we can catch these days. There is a server suggestion for this, I recommend giving it a look. Other than that, TR is looking healthy as always.

4. Toxicity/Stubbornness
Now, I talked about a specific point just above about how people don't want to talk to higher ups in any light about most things. This is due to a multitude of things, mostly being that the people in charge can often be stubborn and stuck in their ways, or just won't budge at all. I feel as a higher up in any position, staff, high command, etc, you should always be open minded and able to make changes that the community wants in general without having them think it'll forever be stuck where it is. Personally I would like to ask @Daytona211 or @Sock Monkey if either of you two have ever been approached about these things I mention above or really anything you've heard about your programs that may often have a reason for it. I know that a good chunk of people will avoid CoC and complain to a director or above almost immediately about said issues. I'm sure a lot could be solved if they went straight to the heads of branches, however this isn't always the case as I know some heads can be very stubborn, as I've stated.

As for toxicity, I feel that potentially this post could show toxicity as people might try to find reason to argue with each other, instead of having a civil debate/conversation. This has always been around. But I feel it now more than ever, as we are at a time where everyone is trying their best to fix what they need to, in a very stressful environment. Regardless, it isn't okay and can easily drive people away more often than not. As a community, this should be worked upon.

5. Player incentive
Now, there are a good few things I want to cover here. This is all things that players can do themselves, whether it be grinding money for that next weapon or not.

1. Weapons
Upon returning to the server, I noticed that perma weapons had gone up an ungodly amount in prices, as not even 3mil can afford anything of use. Grinding is what keeps people AFKing/playing on the server, but the bar has been set too high and everyone has given up at this point. It's pay to win pretty much, and as much as I once again can understand it on a more active server, now is most certainly not the time for it.

2. Simulations
To put it in short, people are scared to host sims now. Realistically, they probably fear that someone will call them out for level grinding or something along those lines, and this makes it so absolutely nothing happens in down time. Once again, getting people to grind is good, with jedi and all that, but removing FFAs has caused a surge of fear for simulations in general. Bringing them back may cause people to at least do something in down-time once more. People can still grind the levels if they choose. But choice, specifically player choice, is the keyword in what makes something good and fun.

3. Maps
The maps being chosen recently just aren't good for the community. The one we are on currently is cool and all the planets are nice, but we don't need that right now. These cool "big ground planet" maps are generally a hit or miss. Endor and anaxes were hits, everything else was a miss. So when we do get a hit, why do we move off it so hastily? Personally, I would advise the map rotations idea between hit venator and ground maps. This would keep things changed up, without moving to something that could generally kill the population.

6. Player Income
We have arrived at the last point I would like to point out, and that is player income.

Generally, I have seen returning players more than actual players. It’s not the servers fault, or is it?

Everything I mentioned above really impacts this. Current players leave due to things like this, or as @Jad said to me, they generally have too much time and get themselves burnt out. It's a mix of the two, but the former feels stronger then the latter, as it could resolve being burnt out. Regardless, we don't have a solid player income and that can obviously be fixed in a multitude of ways. It all comes down to what I have mentioned and more.

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Conclusion
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 Generally, no one is the "bad guy” here. We are a community, we are all at fault for what we are doing/have done. Some more than others, however they wouldn't be at fault if not for us being here to work together.

I've gone ahead and put up a poll that dictates whether or not you agree, partially agree, or just don't agree with all these things I have brought up. I'm interested in what this post could bring up for the community, so we can truly see what's in everyone's minds. This could be very constructive, or not at all. Hopefully the former.

 If the founders gave this a read, I appreciate it as I feel someone had to mention it at some point, and I wanted to do it before someone else who's possibly more aggressive did it. I generally gathered all of this from the community, so I hope you don't take this as me trying to just cause drama.

 

Edited August 6, 2020 by Jayarr
Grammatical errors have been fixed.

[Bbstine]

I can’t read so there’s that

[Spaghetti]

why so many words though. you make a great point but it's so long

[Doc]

4 minutes ago, Spaghetti said:

why so many words though. you make a great point but it's so long

Usually when you’ve got a lot to cover it can’t be summed up to a few bullet points. Lot of aspects, lot of words. It’s not really that long. 

 

57 minutes ago, Bbstine said:

I can’t read so there’s that

I get the haha funny but when it’s a serious topic like this pertaining to how the server is, meme stuff kind of just detracts from the point trying to be made. Sorry to go to you specifically but I have a feeling more will be coming and want to get ahead of the curve

[Chop]

18 minutes ago, Spaghetti said:

why so many words though. you make a great point but it's so long

Ever read a book?

[BigZach]

This server gave me a place to breathe and grow alongside my other responsibilities, I started playing when I was in highschool and now I'm in my second year of college. The server for me, has the same kinda influence minecraft did. I don't know what it is but something about the serrver hit different, it was special. We all know it wasn't the RP, but it really is a special thing, no wonder thare are so many people that are passionate about the server.

I just want to let you all know, I appreciate you and even if I don't, I do.

[Daytona211]

I ask for feedback quite often, and the feedback I have been given was we want both more events, and better events. 

Obviously this is a no brainer, but it leads to an issue. Many gamemasters can't fine tune there skills when they have to pump out events all time. 
This is why I instituted, a plan of action for the future: Firstly I have set a benchmark of performance / teaching as well as adjusted minimum quotas

Performance - To increase the quality and enthusiasm within the team this is due to a few factors: Event docs, importance of AARs, Communication with players both before and after events.

Teaching - Allowing more senior members of the team to teach newer gamemasters tricks of the trade and allowing Gamemasters the agency to try new things, and create new and exciting events not just classic shootem ups

The roadmap was as we improve the quality we will inspire new members to want to be Gamemasters, and as such we will have more members in our team (this is a verifiable fact we went from 9-12 gamemasters to 20+) and as a result have more events lowering the responsibility on every gamemaster per week. 

This is precisely why I have made it the single most important issue of my time as GMD to put Quality and player experience above everything else. If the players are happy then I am happy. 

I have spoken candidly about this and on almost every announcement either reiterated this or asked for feedback (see links below for many examples of this). 
I find it difficult to get a consensus from people on a roadmap through the forums this is why I prefer speaking with people in a more detailed manner as these posts are not always sufficient in creating a firm understanding of the program and the direction I wish to take it. 


If any of this is not the direction the community wants or needs. I would be happy to let someone else step up to the plate and take the mantel of GMD as the communities wellbeing is the chief concern of the GMD. But these are the ideas I have led on in the belief that it will be the best course for the server. With this said I have always and will always have my mind being changed.

To answer your question: No I have heard individual concerns about my program, but typically after addressing the concerns the person agrees with the path we have chosen. But I think that those concerns are not sufficient feedback which is why my team enforces the use of AARs and the forms to get feedback

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CX8wTU-3jngWi20BKFp7EemfYVR4KQC4jcqqJHhsp7M/edit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5jFOCMGCfuAgDHKzV8pYdf3-eE31sS4AGX1GkClsmpENFPQ/viewform

 

 

[Qwekan]

server is fucking retarded 

[Baelfire]

I havnt been on much besides to just afk for jedi levels. and like Jayarr said its pointless to even think about getting a weapon cause the prices. so my ingame experience is from the limited BH gameplay ive done and see the....''roleplay'' from that. Though from trolling the forums as much as i have since i came back i can see that this server is a shadow of its former self and he really hit the nail on the head in this post as to what seems to be some primary issues

[Smeck]

1 hour ago, Jayarr said:

what I am about to list are the primary issues in more than 30 community members' eyes.

Make that 31.

[Sock Monkey]

2 hours ago, Jayarr said:

 

 To touch up on TR, the teamspeak rule is about all that remains with that. I believe joah did this, so not much is in control there. I've also heard it's because of the map, because of minges, all sorts of things. But in any light, it hinders a good majority of the rare CC we can catch these days. There is a server suggestion for this, I recommend giving it a look. Other than that, TR is looking healthy as always.
 

 

There has been a clear distaste from the community and the TR program when this rule was formed, I protested it heavily initially, but didn't have much say in the final decision, which is fine. I would like to see it go though, and hopefully the server suggestion passes. 
 

2 hours ago, Jayarr said:

4. Toxicity/Stubbornness
Now, I talked about a specific point just above about how people don't want to talk to higher ups in any light about most things. This is due to a multitude of things, mostly being that the people in charge can often be stubborn and stuck in their ways, or just won't budge at all. I feel as a higher up in any position,
 

 

I am guilty of this myself tbh, when @JBFox first protested a TRO rule that he didn't agree a few weeks ago I was pissed cause I was like damn, I made this rule and you're trashing on it, go away. I was able to sit down with him though and get his take on it, and initially I held a vote for TROs to remove it, but I didn't get many votes counted, so I am removing it myself because I disagree with the rule myself now (it will be removed starting friday for TROs who care ;) ). 
 

[Foxey]

Given the responses to the poll, I know I'm not alone in agreeing entirely with what you've said here. You've put pen to paper so to speak and written that which I have tried to yet always been unable to write.
 
I came to this community over a year ago now, and the friends that I have made in the past year are some of the greatest I've ever had. From the 104th, to Naval, to Staff, the adoration and respect I have for the people I've met on my journey is high. When I took a hit IRL I wasn't able to continue pursuing my dreams of working towards repairing Synergy. I needed a break. When I left, activity was decreasing, the frequency and quality of events was on a downward spiral.

About a week ago I started hopping on the server again, spending 3-4 hours in the evenings hanging around BCC- waiting for something, anything to happen. Nothing ever did. In the seemingly endless downtime I'd attempt to refresh some trainings- pilot, for example. Nobody would respond to my requests. Synergy is a special place to many people, we come back looking for even a small taste of what we once had here- and it is incredibly painful to see the life fading from the server everyday. When I left in the spring, the server was dying. Now that I'm back, it feels as though the server is drawing its final breath.

All is not lost, however. I, for one, believe in the community. If we can all come together and recognize these problems, if we can work together as a community, from the bottom up and from the top down, I believe we can all get a taste of that thing which we wholeheartedly miss. I'd place a lot of emphasis on the community, here. This truly is a state of affairs that everyone must come together to solve. The Founders, High Staff, High Command, all the way down to the average CT Private. 

TLDR: Let's get to work. 



 

[Polik]

Theres a lot of good people here at synergy with great work ethics and people I can see in real life shooting for the stars, however the environment of this community and how the leadership chooses to address this, is not what I would expect from a multi-platform community. Good people, wrong environment.

[Doc]

As someone who’s been on and off the server for years, it’s sad to see the current server state. And as jayarr stated, it’s not exactly really anyone’s fault. I feel a part of it was complacency. We got to a point of max server at all times and having to kick people off server to get in and we saw it as a peak so we didn’t knee up with changes other servers were making. With the shrinking gmod playerbase changes need to be made to keep players in and keep them coming. I don’t know if we can ever get to that peak again but I believe we can make changes and actively attempt to be better and improve everything we can. The more we do to improve, the more people play, get involved etc. These kind of changes start from the top, making active changes and expanding the community. We do if possible need a set dev team to consistently work on things, and hearing things like “making your own fun” and such is something that I personally have gotten tired of hearing both before I left and after I returned. Can’t leave these things to average players with little capacity to make this fun. I want change, as does the rest of the community, but the people with power need to ensure we are allowed to make positive change 

Edited August 5, 2020 by Doc
Update

[Comics]

I just hate what the community has become tbh. Every week there is some other huge drama and I just can't bear it bro.

What happened. Why'd everyone change.

Like why do all this shit for gmod. I wish we could go back to when people did this shit for fun. Rank wasn't a concern we only cared for each other. It's cut throat and I hate it. This place used to be a great place to escape and I just don't feel it anymore. I love this server and I love my battalion but it's a job and I feel like I'm here for no reason. I dunno why I force myself to play anymore cause it don't make me happy.

I ain't leaving anytime soon, I gotta help my boys and do what's right. Prove everyone wrong

It just comes at a price

[Bbstine]

1 hour ago, Doc said:

I get the haha funny but when it’s a serious topic like this pertaining to how the server is, meme stuff kind of just detracts from the point trying to be made

Bold of you to assume I’m all haha funny, I have been here for 3 years and have seen the peak of the server and at the low of the server, of course I read through this post and I understand all but a few things. You speak about how player influx isn’t what it used to be but as it has been said for months, Garry’s Mod isn’t new, nothing about Star Wars RP is unique to any server regardless about how much we spend on new server specific things. What would you do to bring in a new influx of players without the old vets coming back?

 

I do completely agree that the events have been lackluster and have been for a very long time, stories have been done and there isn’t that much creativity you’re allowed due to restrictions on the program to protect the server. Personally I believe most restrictions should be pulled in order to allow better creativity and even forget lore accuracy and allow me to straight murk Dooku or Grievous, I get that youll sit there and be like “well yesterday we killed Dooku so now we can’t use him to continue continuity, but if we just allow for different stories to be made by different gamemasters with no hold backs to keep lore accuracy this will allow for alternative dimension events and I think that would be fucking awesome.

 

Communication I agree does need to be made more frequently from our Founders/Management/Directors, but we have two very capable Directors who are currently working on getting that all going, which is perfect!

You have to look at the possibility that there’s nothing to communicate during these times, and we all are just waiting for something big to happen.

[BigZach]

15 minutes ago, Comics said:

I just hate what the community has become tbh. Every week there is some other huge drama and I just can't bear it bro.

What happened. Why'd everyone change.

Like why do all this shit for gmod. I wish we could go back to when people did this shit for fun. Rank wasn't a concern we only cared for each other. It's cut throat and I hate it. This place used to be a great place to escape and I just don't feel it anymore. I love this server and I love my battalion but it's a job and I feel like I'm here for no reason. I dunno why I force myself to play anymore cause it don't make me happy.

I ain't leaving anytime soon, I gotta help my boys and do what's right. Prove everyone wrong

It just comes at a price

I feel likes it's always been like that, you're perspective has just changed. Atleast it's been like that for me.

[Skore]

Synergy has almost always been about politics not actual gameplay. I feel like it has been that for a looooong time

Edited August 5, 2020 by Skore

[Korm]

The server is a good place for me to escape reality. Like any other game. I am a bit upset at the style of events. We need more variety. More multi battalion deployments. Stop favoritism of the battalions the GM's are in or like. This is a bad thing for the rest of the battalions that aren't often deployed.

As part of my perks I get to do events on occasion, and as such I will. You can count on me to do some Jedi deployments, get some 41st some action. Send my 104th boys in with tanks to support 501st during a charge, ect.

But as it stands now, most deployments / and main events are "send 501st/212th/21st to dagobah." Leaving everyone on the base screwed. Some GM's and Encounter hosts do the people on base justice but not fully. I think this is a good reason in the declining numbers in some battalions.

I'm working hard in CG, and Jedi. I'm tired, I wanna do something else but I can't. They need my help and the server could use some higher quality events.

So 104th boys, Grandpa korm is here to help, as well as anyone be it naval, jedi or bh that needs my help. I'll do it. It'll be hard but I'll do it. <3

[Comics]

1 hour ago, BigZach said:

I feel likes it's always been like that, you're perspective has just changed. Atleast it's been like that for me.

I dunno bro. I used to love the server and that always overshadows the drama but it just all feels like drama.

I find it hard to make friends here cause iunno whose out for my throat. Back then we was just chilling. Maybe I'm just less retarded but I'm not sure. All I know is that I miss having friends

[BigZach]

1 minute ago, Comics said:

I dunno bro. I used to love the server and that always overshadows the drama but it just all feels like drama.

I find it hard to make friends here cause iunno whose out for my throat. Back then we was just chilling. Maybe I'm just less retarded but I'm not sure. All I know is that I miss having friends

You seem overly paranoid. Just chill out a bit.

[Comics]

1 minute ago, BigZach said:

You seem overly paranoid. Just chill out a bit.

You don't know the half of it. The server definetly changed. 

I paranoid for a good reason. Ain't no one ever got my back.

[BigZach]

Just now, Comics said:

You don't know the half of it. The server definetly changed. 

I paranoid for a good reason. Ain't no one ever got my back.

Look, you on some para shit. Get some rest then if you wanna talk later we can. The higher you go the more you see.

[Mitchell]

Something I also wanted to touch on that you didn't really go over.
The server as a whole requires an active staff team to function properly. The problem is that at the current moment, staff is completely shit to go through.

Staff feels like a job, one that you get no reward for unless you get staff of the week / month which is an arbitrary thing that is favoritism to get if you have similar stats to another person. This mentality drags people into getting on the server to just hit their quota which results in a shitty staff team.

The worst part is that like a job, it's the lowest level employees ( SAs and below ) That are doing 99% of the work.
You really wanna know what the HAs do?

HAs: Interview people, sit in a channel once a week to discuss promotions / demotions etc check stats and hours. Handle any disciplinary situation that may come up, sometimes monitor the forums, they are also given an assignment such as forum LOAs and keeping discord up to date.

Do you guys see the issue here?
HAs are supposed to be the hardest working and best people in the staff team who put in a fuck ton of work to get where they are. And yet they have the least responsibilities of the staff ranks besides NAs which can only take tickets?
People wonder why HAs tend to be really fucking lazy, and the reason is that they normally have fuck all to do. Honestly, the directors could wipe the HA team and have VAs do the staff interviews and no one would notice a thing because VAs have taken over stuff that they have done in the past such as monitoring staff applications and now with VAs being able to leave feedback on staff members HAs rarely do it and rely on VAs to do that for them.

There's also the fact that who gets HA is very arbitrary ( I don't know if I am allowed to really go into detail how we choose HAs / vote on them so I can't go into detail :/ ) and sometimes we may get people who aren't the hardest working but have "Good leadership qualities" that translate into lazy HAs. I mean like shit I didn't even know Freck was getting HA until the morning after.

Staff is shit and dysfunctional, our biggest program for player retention is the GM program which staff is required to be in. Hell our GMC only accepted being staff because he was allowed to skip NA and wants nothing to do with staff because it's shit.

And yes before people comment, "it's a volunteering service for the community" I've done enough volunteering work IRL to get that everyone is contributing to improving things in some way. Staff is not that way, if you are an SA you're the one doing the heavy lifting while your 'overseer' is sitting on their asses getting told they are doing a good job.

And don't get me started on the whole "staff are held to a higher standard" bullshit. It's annoying that there are so many inconsistencies with the way punishments are handled.
For example, Woeny should of 100% been AT LEAST demoted down to SA and stayed there for an extended period of time before being moved back up after blowing up 6-7 people in messhall with a bomb that he placed that someone punched. However, he was put back up to VA after a week ( not my decision ). 

I love helping people, I honestly wish that I could of done more to help fix this broken mess of a staff team, but unfortunately I lost that chance. When I was offered VA I declined it because I knew that it would just kill my drive even more and I'd end up resigning regardless. So I pulled the plug early.

Apologies if this is sort of rambling, if you want some clarification on my points go ahead and ask. Somethings I obviously can't talk about too much cause of confidentiality and what not.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Mitchell

[Eclipse]

The server has been extremely beneficial to me in the most recent years of my life, allowing me to connect with new friends and people over the internet, getting my leadership skills better and communication skills. The people on this server are actually a key reason why I am able to communicate with people. I've never really had troubles with communication and with coming out of my own shell but I've had troubles with social anxiety and honestly the server has allowed me to interact and converse with the most unlikely of people which benefited me greatly at a time where it was vital, as I was just turning 13 and I was getting ready to go through the biggest times on my life. It has truly allowed me to connect with my peers in real life after connecting with the most random of people on the internet. It is one of the best experiences I have ever done although at times it sucked. 

This server has honestly improved my quality of life, and I am sad to see the state of it not getting better. It seems like a lot of people have lots of strong opinions about the server. I have no real issues with it except of the perma weapons system and credits.
Credits feel like such a drag to get. I think a key reason of why lots of recurring players come back instead of new players becoming regulars is because of the credit system and how it works. Perma Weapons are good weapons but they cost a lot of credits that require you to afk for or gamble for. This isn't as hard for recurring players as they likely have perma weapons already/know people to gamble with/are in units with good guns/are willing to afk. New players however still need to buy skill points and perma weapons. They likely don't want to afk, there isn't lots of options for units with good guns early on (ARC is probably the best and that takes a while, ARF is probably the best quickest.), they don't know many people so they don't know who to gamble with nor do they know good gambling amounts.

I don't really know where I was going with this honestly, but I feel like the whole credit system should be revamped. Less grindy. I shouldn't have to sit there afk for two days to buy a new gun so I can kill things quicker. It would be really hard to revamp as there isn't many other ways, but I think killing things should give more credits and there should be alternative ways to get credits that don't come from other players. Maybe challenges? Idk really. Like every 500 npcs you kill you get more credits? Honestly no clue, just spitballing why I think new players might not want to stay due to lack of $.
 

TL;DR I think the credit system is flawed and should be revamped so new players aren't overwhelmed and so they don't need to AFK forever to be able to get guns and have fun. I don't know how it would be fixed but I feel we should look into options and make getting credits less grindy and more fun/natural.

[Egg]

4 hours ago, Spaghetti said:

why so many words though. you make a great point but it's so long

If gamers out here make short and flamey posts, they get beaned for starting drama. It has to be a long and well put together post, not only to effectively get his point across and give background and context to the issues and how to solve these issues, but also to not get put in the dirt with the good old excommunication package.

 

Overall, this is a very well put together post that very effectively outlines many of the secret thoughts, complaints, concerns, and criticisms that people have been having with the server for a very very long time. Sadly, just as in the past, making forum posts saying things really doesn't help actually improve any of these things. All it does is just point out what is wrong and how people feel, but identifying how things are going wrong or making a plan to fix things isn't really that effective of a method. I am all for speaking up and speaking out for things to change and be better, but I don't really think things are going to change all that much at least quickly unless there is a sudden major overhaul of the server, how the leadership of the community operates, and how the players of the community interact with each other and the servers itself. I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying @Jayarr and I once again would like to applaud you of how well this is structured and put together for those who actually care enough to put forth the effort to read it, and hopefully there can be some significant changes and the server can once again become one of the big powerhouses that it used to be.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Egg

[Lix]

i agree with basically everything here

execpt i think extensive was the best map tbh.

[Nade Jones]

this man fixing facts lowkey

[Marvel]

I've recently decided to step away from the server once again due to just about everything you've stated on this post and here tomorrow it will be 2 years on this server for me and it's drastically changed in my eyes.

I remember just chilling as a CT for the first 4ish months on the server where my circle of friends on the server were a max of like 3 people and it was a blast. I just ran around shooting mindlessly in events and during downtime I would walk around Extensive and talk to people and everyone actually talked back. These days it's rare to run into people and when you do there are never any conversations. It's just people mindlessly running around these big ass maps we have. Extensive will always be my favorite map purely due to it's size. Endor did it good with it's size as well. Anaxes was too big and this new map just has too many other negatives alongside it. I miss having active interactions with other members of this community in game. I heard this saying get thrown around a lot where GMOD is just an addon to TeamSpeak and it started to really feel like that but even now numbers in TS have drastically gone down alongside the in game numbers.

I don't know I feel like I have more to say but my mind is just going blank. I just played through Halo CE on Legendary and my mind is melted rn so that might be why.

- 

 

[TheGoodOatmeal]

I agree, especially with toxicity. Here is a personal example: 

 

So in the beginning of May/end of April, I -1ed a former 21st BCMD Bacara re app. I put as my reason “-1 DM me if you wanna know why,” keeping it personal. Then I sent him a doc filled with reasons why I dont think he is fit/things he lied about on his reapp. Days go by and he still has not responded. So I bring it into the 21st Discord, talking about how this battalion was dying because our Officers were just in it for themselves and not for the low ranks or the battalion. I said this because many of our officers were inactive/just doing their reqs so THEY can get promoted. If they did not have to do training, they wouldn't. Also they would not be on enough to help promote the lower ranks and keep them engaged, at the time I was a NCO and could really only host training for the troops, and promotions were the main incentive and I could not do that. There were times that even officers FORGOT to promote people just cause they were not paying attention.So I basically bring these points up in the discord, and I immediately get yelled at by one of the former CMDs, even telling me to “fuck off” (breaking code of conduct) just because I spoke my mind, and I was not being a dickhead or trying to be rude, I was just simply stating issues I see. Then a couple days go by and I decide to take a LOA, because I was feeling a tad bit burnt out. I then found out that the 21st High Command, screenshotted all of my private DMs I had with each CMD, and they put it into a master doc made by the BCMD titled “Evidence Against Oatmeal.” Ironically, they just proved my point more. Then I got a PM by the BCMD and he was accusing me of powerplaying, when I literally never stated I wanted to become a CMD or wanted anyone removed, I just wanted to fix the issues. I also found out they were waiting for me to get off of LOA and see if I screwed up anything just the slightest bit, because if I did they'd remove me because of “powerplay” or “causing a rebellion.”

This is the issue, people have let the power of high ranks get to their head so much that they think every different opinion is “Powerplaying against them” or “disrespect.” People are way too soft and need to understand constructive criticism. I was witch hunted for trying to state my opinion. I never did anything wrong so thats why I was not removed. Is it not sad that I was on the chopping block for stating my opinion, in a respectful way. Keep in mind, I ONLY brought it to the 21st discord because the 21st BCMD was IGNORING my DMs.

 

People care more about the rank then the people.

PS: I brought this to the high staff and they did absolutely nothing. Even though just recently, people were severely punished for this type of stuff.

 

EDIT: I suggest it was staff bias since the former BCMD was a HA.. but just a thought.

Edited August 7, 2020 by TheGoodOatmeal

[Korm]

We need to come together as a community and have fun. We need to do like @Marvel said and actually talk and RP with eachother. The past month I've been super active on my clone and Jedi. I've been offering comms rp and vocal RP. I want more of it. I'm hoping we can fix it, but no one can do it alone. We need to do it together.

[Freck]

Now I promised myself I wouldn't get involved with this post as I wish to remain a professional, but I'll be honest Mitchell you approached this in the wrong way, as it actually reflects a lot of what you could have done to change the Staff team / server as a Director.

I'll go through some of the things you've mentioned just to show what I mean.

1)

16 hours ago, Mitchell said:

You really wanna know what the HAs do?

HAs: Interview people, sit in a channel once a week to discuss promotions / demotions etc check stats and hours. Handle any disciplinary situation that may come up, sometimes monitor the forums, they are also given an assignment such as forum LOAs and keeping discord up to date.

At the current time, Head Admins are actively doing the following:

• Keeping tabs on staff members throughout the week.
• Completing their weekly assignment & their stat assignment in preparation for the High Staff Meeting.
• Taking part in votes / discussions involving many controversial topics.
• Supplying suggestions on how to benefit the team.
• Remaining an active leader within the server.
• Keeping on top of interviews/forum moderation.
• Taking part in certain situations (not all) to expose them to the "Director Life", preparing them all for future experiences that could occur within the server but also in the real world.

Now as I said, this may have been what it was like when you were a Director, but you had the power/opportunity to change how it was.

2)

Quote

HAs are supposed to be the hardest working and best people in the staff team who put in a fuck ton of work to get where they are. And yet they have the least responsibilities of the staff ranks besides NAs which can only take tickets?

Now this is just wrong. 

Head Admins have a lot to do, I listed them all in point 1). Now, the question as to if they actually fulfilled these responsibilities when you were in charge is something completely different to talk about, but that shouldn't reflect them and not reflect you, as you, as a Director, played an integral part to the team. The key word being "Team", where collective responsibility is key.

3)

Quote

There's also the fact that who gets HA is very arbitrary ( I don't know if I am allowed to really go into detail how we choose HAs / vote on them so I can't go into detail :/ ) and sometimes we may get people who aren't the hardest working but have "Good leadership qualities" that translate into lazy HAs. I mean like shit I didn't even know Freck was getting HA until the morning after.

Head Admins are chosen through the following:

• Work Ethic (through their branch work but also using the other resources that VA's are given)
• Interactions with others.
• What they can bring to the team. 
• Timezone.
• Qualities of a leader.
• Server Activity.

Gonna be real man, if you wasn't using the above criteria to select HA's then you were doing something wrong.

4)

Quote

Staff is not that way, if you are an SA you're the one doing the heavy lifting while your 'overseer' is sitting on their asses getting told they are doing a good job.

I'd like to say this is also incorrect. 

Did it used to be like this? Yes

Is it like this now? No

Why? We are a team and we all pull equal weight.

Again, this seems like something you had the ability to change but didn't.

5)

Quote

And don't get me started on the whole "staff are held to a higher standard" bullshit. It's annoying that there are so many inconsistencies with the way punishments are handled.
For example, Woeny should of 100% been AT LEAST demoted down to SA and stayed there for an extended period of time before being moved back up after blowing up 6-7 people in messhall with a bomb that he placed that someone punched. However, he was put back up to VA after a week ( not my decision ). 

This interests me because surely as a Director you get a good say in what happens? I mean I've had the say in literally everything that has happened so far.

If you had this opinion, you should have voiced it at the time and stuck by it. If I can stick by my decisions/opinions whilst others oppose me, then so can you. 

6)

Quote

I love helping people, I honestly wish that I could of done more to help fix this broken mess of a staff team, but unfortunately I lost that chance. 

This entire reply is not supposed to be in any way me going "off" on you, it's me simply helping you see that you had an overwhelmingly large amount of say in many things including the work ethic of your High Staff Team and the server/staff team as a whole.

Myself and Anderson are still working on (and fixing) things that you could've (and probably should've) done when you were in power.

As Directors, myself and Anderson have been doing our part, whether this being reforming High Staff, re-igniting High Command or finally making the necessary changes to what was the incredibly out-dated rule document

Not trying to be rude man, but you seem to be painting the wrong picture here.

[Mitchell]

2 hours ago, Freck said:

Now I promised myself I wouldn't get involved with this post as I wish to remain a professional, but I'll be honest Mitchell you approached this in the wrong way, as it actually reflects a lot of what you could have done to change the Staff team / server as a Director.

I'll go through some of the things you've mentioned just to show what I mean.

1)

At the current time, Head Admins are actively doing the following:

• Keeping tabs on staff members throughout the week.
• Completing their weekly assignment & their stat assignment in preparation for the High Staff Meeting.
• Taking part in votes / discussions involving many controversial topics.
• Supplying suggestions on how to benefit the team.
• Remaining an active leader within the server.
• Keeping on top of interviews/forum moderation.
• Taking part in certain situations (not all) to expose them to the "Director Life", preparing them all for future experiences that could occur within the server but also in the real world.

Now as I said, this may have been what it was like when you were a Director, but you had the power/opportunity to change how it was.

2)

Now this is just wrong. 

Head Admins have a lot to do, I listed them all in point 1). Now, the question as to if they actually fulfilled these responsibilities when you were in charge is something completely different to talk about, but that shouldn't reflect them and not reflect you, as you, as a Director, played an integral part to the team. The key word being "Team", where collective responsibility is key.

3)

Head Admins are chosen through the following:

• Work Ethic (through their branch work but also using the other resources that VA's are given)
• Interactions with others.
• What they can bring to the team. 
• Timezone.
• Qualities of a leader.
• Server Activity.

Gonna be real man, if you wasn't using the above criteria to select HA's then you were doing something wrong.

4)

I'd like to say this is also incorrect. 

Did it used to be like this? Yes

Is it like this now? No

Why? We are a team and we all pull equal weight.

Again, this seems like something you had the ability to change but didn't.

5)

This interests me because surely as a Director you get a good say in what happens? I mean I've had the say in literally everything that has happened so far.

If you had this opinion, you should have voiced it at the time and stuck by it. If I can stick by my decisions/opinions whilst others oppose me, then so can you. 

6)

This entire reply is not supposed to be in any way me going "off" on you, it's me simply helping you see that you had an overwhelmingly large amount of say in many things including the work ethic of your High Staff Team and the server/staff team as a whole.

Myself and Anderson are still working on (and fixing) things that you could've (and probably should've) done when you were in power.

As Directors, myself and Anderson have been doing our part, whether this being reforming High Staff, re-igniting High Command or finally making the necessary changes to what was the incredibly out-dated rule document

Not trying to be rude man, but you seem to be painting the wrong picture here.

So I already spoke with you in discord some, but I wanted to write this out on the forums.

My intention was to say that the server relies on its staff team and because it’s struggling at the moment the server is as well.

yes I do realize I had the power to change things yet I didn’t. Hindsight is 20/20.

Jayarr’s comments about the GM and TR programs are good points, but I wished to touch on something I wish could of been changed.

The notion that because I didn’t do anything about it means I’m painting the wrong picture is missing the point of why I wrote that post.

Just to make it clear, these are issues that I saw towards the end of my time as director and issues I wanted to address and fix. If you guys have already fixed it then good on you, if not then well you were just given places that have potential for improvement from an outside perspective, which is more that what I had.

at the end of the day, I want you two to succeed, hell I literally picked y’all as my replacements and was gonna have Anderson as my director partner until I made some mistakes. And no offense taken by your post, not like I don’t already know that I let it slip towards the end.

 

[Joah]

Sounds like a lot of issues and no solutions. (The typical issue of these posts)

The only solution in this post is regarding perma-weapons.

Hiring a dev team resulted in perm bans, probably not a good idea. (Already tried this, the user of this post should be aware of what I mean by this.)

 

 

This endless cycle of complaining and being happy will never cease on garrys mod.
At the end of the day, I see consistent events on the event server whenever I seem to open GameTracker. So I don't understand the lack of events, when I see the event server constantly in use. https://www.gametracker.com/server_info/66.70.180.193:27035/

Check the past 7 days.

As of the quality, I don't know. People have lives outside of gmod.

[Bolt]

On 8/5/2020 at 1:41 PM, Jayarr said:

2. Simulations
To put it in short, people are scared to host sims now. Realistically, they probably fear that someone will call them out for level grinding or something along those lines, and this makes it so absolutely nothing happens in down time. Once again, getting people to grind is good, with jedi and all that, but removing FFAs has caused a surge of fear for simulations in general. Bringing them back may cause people to at least do something in down-time once more. People can still grind the levels if they choose. But choice, specifically player choice, is the keyword in what makes something good and fun.

 

Someone removed FFA simulations? which retard did that?

 

In other words, the biggest point at all that was missed here is, Garrys Mod is a slowly dying game. It has been around for years, and for the last few years SWRP has been one of the top genres for the game, but Garrys Mod as a whole is growing old and people are moving on, especially from SWRP. Youtubers who played years ago that brought influxes of players don't play Garrys Mod anymore, or if they do it's most likely not SWRP. The game just isn't as popular as it once was, and over time it has gotten more boring. Something about the years 2016-2018 of SWRP made it very fun and entertaining to my younger self as for others, but as I got older, it just got repetitive and boring, and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing simply because of others and people who I knew well on the server, but that's all that kept me going on SWRP in late 2018 and 2019. I was on the server a few days ago during maybe an hour or two after what used to be the servers prime time, and I looked at the tab menu, and there were barely any people under the rank of SGT. This reminded me of back in around what I'd think was October 2016. The 91st in months prior had gained lots of members and people ranked up, but recruitment slowed down and things got slower, and almost everyday you'd get on and the 91st was only officers, maybe 1-2 people that weren't officers, and that'll kill a battalion, then the current Neyo at the time resigned after an amazing run that saved the 91st early on, and then it got better again, but this shows that we need to constantly fill up those lower ranks.

 

I kind of rambled here and I may be wrong on some things, hell I could've hopped on the one day that no low ranks were on but there's a lot on other days, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

 

edit: doesn't relate to post but i wanna know if anyone remembers when all battalions would get sent to event server and deployments weren't just a certain few battalions, now sending all battalions isn't really realistic or lore friendly but just a thought that I had since I remembered events from long ago where main would be empty for a good 1-2 hours and then everyone rushes back on (and some folks wouldn't be able to get in to haha)

Edited August 7, 2020 by Bolt

[Joah]

At the end of the day a solution post would be epic.

[Joah]

I sincerely dont disagree with the issues at all, I just don't see anyone attempting or even somewhat interested in working together on a solution. It's a community effort not a high staff reliance. 

 

Agreeing with a post and doing something about it as a community is entirely different.

[Jayarr]

6 minutes ago, Joah said:

Sounds like a lot of issues and no solutions. (The typical issue of these posts)

This was generally an informative post to point out whats going on and to see if the community members agree, so I expect fixes may or may not come along side that hopefully.

8 minutes ago, Joah said:

Hiring a dev team resulted in perm bans, probably not a good idea. (Already tried this, the user of this post should be aware of what I mean by this.)

This really depends on who you end up hiring, in general I feel like a process behind picking people (submitting portfolios, general experience, etc) would raise the bar for this a little. I was a rotten apple in the batch personally, and I'm sure there are willing people out there. And you could always get said devs to send their content to zim or other founders as a means of protecting it from anything happening.

Regardless, I personally still develop, and can say there are a lot of scammers and what not out there. However, I feel the pay off for the trial and error accompanied by this is greater then the risk and could help take a significant load of your guys's chest.
 

13 minutes ago, Joah said:

As of the quality, I don't know. People have lives outside of gmod.

As for this, I've personally always gotten this. It's hard to stick to the never ending cycle of the game. However, if peoples lives start outweighing their ability to make said content good, does that not mean that perhaps someone else should take their place?

All and all, I get where you're coming from. None of this is easy but I feel like everything needs a good kick to get things going again. Sometimes posts like these are not useful in the slightest, sometimes they are.

[Joah]

@Jayarr Fair points, I made some new points that clarified what you said in regards to this.

[Fizzik]

3 minutes ago, Joah said:

At the end of the day a solution post would be epic.

There is only 1 solution.

[Joah]

@Fizzik Execute order 66

[Fizzik]

Just now, Joah said:

@Fizzik Execute order 66

It will be done my lord

[Daytona211]

My main problem referring to my post is I ask for feedback and receive non until someone makes a forum post which gets +1s. If this is such an issue why does no one tell me this when I speak with them, why does no one use the main avenues (my forum posts, google forms, Personal messaging) to communicate issues. 
I think it's a community wide issue from the top to the bottom

[Jayarr]

2 minutes ago, Daytona211 said:

My main problem referring to my post is I ask for feedback and receive non until someone makes a forum post which gets +1s. If this is such an issue why does no one tell me this when I speak with them, why does no one use the main avenues (my forum posts, google forms, Personal messaging) to communicate issues. 
I think it's a community wide issue from the top to the bottom

I believe I did point this out, and yeah it is a community issue.
In short what I said is people like to skip over the heads of branches and either go straight to the next higher up (directors, HoA, etc) or go straight for a server suggestion. Communication isn't the greatest and could definitely be improved.

[Daytona211]

22 hours ago, Mitchell said:

 Hell our GMC only accepted being staff because he was allowed to skip NA and wants nothing to do with staff because it's shit.

GMD *

Joking aside, I only joined staff because it was a requirement to become a GM. Your rationale on why is way off.

I don't really have an opinion on the staff team since I know the bare minimum about them. I want nothing to do with staff because I don't get enjoyment out of answering tickets for textscreens, or dupes. It seems like a job to me and a very easy one, and I don't play here to work a second unpaid job. I play here to tell stories and entertain people.

[Sanchez]

On 8/5/2020 at 8:56 PM, Mitchell said:

 

Staff feels like a job, one that you get no reward for unless you get staff of the week / month which is an arbitrary thing that is favoritism to get if you have similar stats to another person. This mentality drags people into getting on the server to just hit their quota which results in a shitty staff team.

 

 

On 8/5/2020 at 8:56 PM, Mitchell said:

 

Do you guys see the issue here?
HAs are supposed to be the hardest working and best people in the staff team who put in a fuck ton of work to get where they are. And yet they have the least responsibilities of the staff ranks besides NAs which can only take tickets?
People wonder why HAs tend to be really fucking lazy, and the reason is that they normally have fuck all to do. Honestly, the directors could wipe the HA team and have VAs do the staff interviews and no one would notice a thing because VAs have taken over stuff that they have done in the past such as monitoring staff applications and now with VAs being able to leave feedback on staff members HAs rarely do it and rely on VAs to do that for them.

 

Mitchell Im going to roast you really hard here DONT TAKE IT personally. 

How were you a director?

 

On 8/5/2020 at 8:56 PM, Mitchell said:

 

There's also the fact that who gets HA is very arbitrary ( I don't know if I am allowed to really go into detail how we choose HAs / vote on them so I can't go into detail :/ ) and sometimes we may get people who aren't the hardest working but have "Good leadership qualities" that translate into lazy HAs. I mean like shit I didn't even know Freck was getting HA until the morning after.

 

HA's should be doing almost all of the heavy lifting regarding the staff team. They are the head admins.

You obviously weren't delegating appropriately to the HA's so their drive went down and became lazy. You let that happen. 

What is going on how did you not know Freck was getting HA? 

Good leadership qualities do not translate to lazy HA's  not even partly true. 

How do you quantify a good HA you can't. You have to speak on there qualities as a person which through a vote is decided. 

When you try to translate a person into numbers it doesn't work. Look at the mess the SAT and ACT for college admissions. 

ALSO NO DIRECTORS CAN NOT HAVE VA's DO INTERVIEWS TRUST ME I KNOW I GOT SHOT DOWN HARD.

It seems like this is a huge communication break between directors, head of, and HA's 

[Egg]

8 hours ago, Joah said:

At the end of the day a solution post would be epic.

Now is my chance...

#egg4founder

 

[KGYeti]

Synergy is gonna go on a banning spree after seeing this But i agree these points are true too the heart and sould i've been playing since the beginning and watching the server go down hurts

[Jayarr]

23 minutes ago, KGYeti said:

Synergy is gonna go on a banning spree

I wouldn't say so. So far multiple higher ups have read and even commented, but no one has received a ban. I wouldn't assume anyone would be unless their intentions were purely aggressive instead of constructive.

[IKE]

Let us RDM ez.

 

for real tho consistent sims would be fun for people I think.

Edited August 7, 2020 by IKE

[COC4IN3]

Freck and anderson are probably the best directors that synergy has ever seen ngl... Both hard workers and I am sure that they will put people to the test when it comes to it. GG people!

[Joah]

On 8/7/2020 at 4:30 AM, Egg said:

Now is my chance...

#egg4founder

 

Go gettem trooper xD

[Marvel]

On 8/6/2020 at 9:25 PM, Sanchez said:

 

Mitchell Im going to roast you really hard here DONT TAKE IT personally. 

How were you a director?

 

HA's should be doing almost all of the heavy lifting regarding the staff team. They are the head admins.

You obviously weren't delegating appropriately to the HA's so their drive went down and became lazy. You let that happen. 

What is going on how did you not know Freck was getting HA? 

Good leadership qualities do not translate to lazy HA's  not even partly true. 

How do you quantify a good HA you can't. You have to speak on there qualities as a person which through a vote is decided. 

When you try to translate a person into numbers it doesn't work. Look at the mess the SAT and ACT for college admissions. 

ALSO NO DIRECTORS CAN NOT HAVE VA's DO INTERVIEWS TRUST ME I KNOW I GOT SHOT DOWN HARD.

It seems like this is a huge communication break between directors, head of, and HA's 

[Zim]

hi.
my only thought here is, if someone really cares enough to make a difference and not just throw common knowledge around while not listening to the answers already provided by founders and high staff, they should do what i did.

i came here with no trust a week prior to becoming an SA (superadmun) for my work.
i asked joah if i could dev, he said no, i said fuck that i will make him say yes.

i came back with my own work, work i put together from scratch, not asking for handouts of existing files or other bs.
from there joah could see i had - if nothing else - dedication and actually gave me a shot.

by the end of my first week i was SA giving you guys the first update i made here
p.s. sorry for all lowercase, but idc
p.p.s. no shade @Jayarr or any other points made here, but wanna bring the fact up that no one has actually made a true effort besides the normal "give me files" "no" "ok. i go bitch on forms now, lol." the last person i saw come into the community with the same mindset as me when i came in was Jad, and @Jad has alot of trust and freedom now. ty jad, now learn to dev so i can live in peace lol

[Korm]

2 hours ago, Zim said:

hi.
my only thought here is, if someone really cares enough to make a difference and not just throw common knowledge around while not listening to the answers already provided by founders and high staff, they should do what i did.

i came here with no trust a week prior to becoming an SA (superadmun) for my work.
i asked joah if i could dev, he said no, i said fuck that i will make him say yes.

i came back with my own work, work i put together from scratch, not asking for handouts of existing files or other bs.
from there joah could see i had - if nothing else - dedication and actually gave me a shot.

by the end of my first week i was SA giving you guys the first update i made here
p.s. sorry for all lowercase, but idc
p.p.s. no shade @Jayarr or any other points made here, but wanna bring the fact up that no one has actually made a true effort besides the normal "give me files" "no" "ok. i go bitch on forms now, lol." the last person i saw come into the community with the same mindset as me when i came in was Jad, and @Jad has alot of trust and freedom now. ty jad, now learn to dev so i can live in peace lol

Excuse me young man. I'm learning LUA to help Jad. I know it's gonna serve no practical purpose in the real world cuz lol lua, but I'm learning, been watching vids, bought a book. Going to start working on something relatively soon.

And I appreciate you and Jad and the founders for their work <3

[Piff]

I feel bad for jad, how many times has he been @ed in this post

[Jayarr]

9 hours ago, Zim said:

hi.
my only thought here is, if someone really cares enough to make a difference and not just throw common knowledge around while not listening to the answers already provided by founders and high staff, they should do what i did.

i came here with no trust a week prior to becoming an SA (superadmun) for my work.
i asked joah if i could dev, he said no, i said fuck that i will make him say yes.

i came back with my own work, work i put together from scratch, not asking for handouts of existing files or other bs.
from there joah could see i had - if nothing else - dedication and actually gave me a shot.

by the end of my first week i was SA giving you guys the first update i made here
p.s. sorry for all lowercase, but idc
p.p.s. no shade @Jayarr or any other points made here, but wanna bring the fact up that no one has actually made a true effort besides the normal "give me files" "no" "ok. i go bitch on forms now, lol." the last person i saw come into the community with the same mindset as me when i came in was Jad, and @Jad has alot of trust and freedom now. ty jad, now learn to dev so i can live in peace lol

That's a fair process and all as it shows who's dedicated and who isn't, however I would still like my main point for development to be known. Which was, hire some people. Get good fellas over here, whether it takes trial and error or not.

There's hardly anyone on the server now that can step up and say "I can put the work in", purely because no one really knows how to develop here. Jad was the last person to openly admit and even show he can do work, but no one else seems to know how. That's the underlying issue right now though, the player count and how it's hindering good ideas and processes such as the one you mentioned.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Jayarr

[Baelfire]

To be fair Zim that was also before the betrayals Joah has come to face. While that process may have worked for you then, it sure as hell wouldn't work now, and if it did somehow work it would take a veryyyyyy long time now.

[Zim]

2 hours ago, Jayarr said:

That's a fair process and all as it shows who's dedicated and who isn't, however I would still like my main point for development to be known. Which was, hire some people. Get good fellas over here, whether it takes trial and error or not.

Y'all keep saying hire like the server can afford that.
I don't even get paid for every update lol.

1 hour ago, Baelfire said:

To be fair Zim that was also before the betrayals Joah has come to face. While that process may have worked for you then, it sure as hell wouldn't work now, and if it did somehow work it would take a veryyyyyy long time now.

I personally strongly disagree, Joah has not been more or less difficult since I joined to work with him and become apart of the team. It's about presenting yourself right and proving we should trust you. He has never just given trust, nor has anyone on the Founder team. I have seen him "betrayals" or not, give tons of developers who proved they knew stuff a chance. Ex. Jayarr, Gideon, Kyle, CBlake, Maxwell, Jad, Props, etc. Heck, even Jackson and Square had to earn box access. They didn't get it just because they were Founders
But, everyone has their own opinion on others Baelfire, so even if you don't think this is valid, we can agree to disagree.

Also, I don't mind calling people out and especially when it's a repetitive theme. 
For all the guilty apes of this, rather than just blind disagreeing with all my posts about the server, why don't you dm me or respond back with some sort of backing, reasoning or solutions. It's players that sit and complain with no answer being good enough, but refuse to do anything besides sit there that are fucking useless. You clowns. At least Jayarr is TRYING.
  

 

[Maverick]

3 hours ago, Zim said:

It's players that sit and complain with no answer being good enough, but refuse to do anything besides sit there that are fucking useless. You clowns. At least Jayarr is TRYING.

And that...ladies and gentlemen, is how you end wars. By being a total savage with the brutal honesty. I thoroughly respect people who can be blunt and honest.

[Sanchez]

3 hours ago, Zim said:

Y'all keep saying hire like the server can afford that.
I don't even get paid for every update lol.

I personally strongly disagree, Joah has not been more or less difficult since I joined to work with him and become apart of the team. It's about presenting yourself right and proving we should trust you. He has never just given trust, nor has anyone on the Founder team. I have seen him "betrayals" or not, give tons of developers who proved they knew stuff a chance. Ex. Jayarr, Gideon, Kyle, CBlake, Maxwell, Jad, Props, etc. Heck, even Jackson and Square had to earn box access. They didn't get it just because they were Founders
But, everyone has their own opinion on others Baelfire, so even if you don't think this is valid, we can agree to disagree.

Also, I don't mind calling people out and especially when it's a repetitive theme. 
For all the guilty apes of this, rather than just blind disagreeing with all my posts about the server, why don't you dm me or respond back with some sort of backing, reasoning or solutions. It's players that sit and complain with no answer being good enough, but refuse to do anything besides sit there that are fucking useless. You clowns. At least Jayarr is TRYING.
  

 

Too long didnt read 

Disagree

Edited August 9, 2020 by Sanchez

[Zim]

5 hours ago, Sanchez said:

Too long didnt read 

Disagree

[Egg]

On 8/8/2020 at 8:35 PM, Joah said:

Go gettem trooper xD

Ez pz

Won't let you down

[Brooklyn]

Just a suggestion, and this might already be a thing, but why not add a "Server Funds" section on the forums? So, as a community, we can see what the TS costs, the server costs, forums, etc. Lay out the bills on here so we all know and can donate accordingly. I've spent around $2,500 (Buying for myself and other people) and I could only assume that covers server costs for a good while.

Adding on to that, if there are suggestions to ADD battalions or ADD models or side projects that YOU as a Founder team want to add, but don't have the money to initially drop for, put that down as a donatable section. So we can contribute. We always take and take when it comes to suggestions, but if we had the chance to know that the money we donate goes towards a specific goal, you could see more revenue and more content being produced. @Zim Sorry, I don't know who else to @ right now

Edited August 15, 2020 by Brooklyn
Spacing out is key

[Peace]

6 minutes ago, Brooklyn said:

Just a suggestion, and this might already be a thing, but why not add a "Server Funds" section on the forums? So, as a community, we can see what the TS costs, the server costs, forums, etc. Lay out the bills on here so we all know and can donate accordingly. I've spent around $2,500 (Buying for myself and other people) and I could only assume that covers server costs for a good while.

Adding on to that, if there are suggestions to ADD battalions or ADD models or side projects that YOU as a Founder team want to add, but don't have the money to initially drop for, put that down as a donatable section. So we can contribute. We always take and take when it comes to suggestions, but if we had the chance to know that the money we donate goes towards a specific goal, you could see more revenue and more content being produced. @Zim Sorry, I don't know who else to @ right now

This... wouldnt be the worst idea. But there would have to be some sort of incentive to actually do it. Most people are gonna see something like that, not see any perks, and go, "man, wish I could help." Then walk away. Maybe credits or some tags in TS, maybe the donator could curate an event for their battalion or server event. Youknowhowpaytowinworks

[Brooklyn]

1 minute ago, Peace said:

This... wouldnt be the worst idea. But there would have to be some sort of incentive to actually do it. Most people are gonna see something like that, not see any perks, and go, "man, wish I could help." Then walk away. Maybe credits or some tags in TS, maybe the donator could curate an event for their battalion or server event. Youknowhowpaytowinworks

I wouldn't even say have an incentive for it. This is soleyl for people who want the server to stay up and help finance projects

[Zim]

40 minutes ago, Brooklyn said:

Just a suggestion, and this might already be a thing, but why not add a "Server Funds" section on the forums? So, as a community, we can see what the TS costs, the server costs, forums, etc. Lay out the bills on here so we all know and can donate accordingly. I've spent around $2,500 (Buying for myself and other people) and I could only assume that covers server costs for a good while.

Adding on to that, if there are suggestions to ADD battalions or ADD models or side projects that YOU as a Founder team want to add, but don't have the money to initially drop for, put that down as a donatable section. So we can contribute. We always take and take when it comes to suggestions, but if we had the chance to know that the money we donate goes towards a specific goal, you could see more revenue and more content being produced. @Zim Sorry, I don't know who else to @ right now

This is actually a really good idea, kinda rough for figuring out a good setup that is fair and visable.
But I like the idea. The other problem that might rise in a setup of this is trying to compensate for taxes. Because the server sees about 1/3 of all profits go to taxes. Then to the box, ts, forms, etc. 

But I like this idea. @Joah might agree, or disagree.

[Brooklyn]

21 minutes ago, Zim said:

The other problem that might rise in a setup of this is trying to compensate for taxes. Because the server sees about 1/3 of all profits go to taxes. Then to the box, ts, forms, etc. 

If that is the case, then why not add the tax cost onto the price? I doubt it could be used as a "I'm money hungry" sense. As long it it is honest $ totals.

[Craigary]

38 minutes ago, Zim said:

This is actually a really good idea, kinda rough for figuring out a good setup that is fair and visable.
But I like the idea. The other problem that might rise in a setup of this is trying to compensate for taxes. Because the server sees about 1/3 of all profits go to taxes. Then to the box, ts, forms, etc. 

But I like this idea. @Joah might agree, or disagree.

Just do investment packages, 

ts investor 

forum investor

and server investor 

like what ron did for rust

you could have levels and in terms of incentives just give them vip and a ts channel or a fancy colored forums tag like before. If someone wants to invest in the longevity of the server they usually aren’t looking for a bunch of handouts tbh.

 

[OLDLOCKE]

Let me take the time to thankyou for steping up to do this not many people actually take the time to write out and simplify there subject. The heading is beautiful, Middle is through , Ending was good. Only thing is as old players yes we are experinced but at the same time some might be heistant to come back. You guys are indeed doing the right thing by making tests and reaonable  decsions that so qualified people can get what they deserve which i appreicate seeing after witnessing the  mess I've seen left years ago.

 

However some old people probably still see others in power (idk who becuase i choosed to stay out of the drama back then) that are still around i respect their choices however some are coming back little by little BUT we also have to admit that some people moved on from this community after there experinces. Now i want to move away from this  subject of calling people old they might send the zoomers after me (Sarcasm).

 

 

 

 

 

These two matters are different and seperate ^

                                                                                  V

 

 

 

There something i personally want to talk about that bothered me which i've already heard the reasons behind it, but also experinced people leave because of it.

I know weapons in armory are a incestive to make players have goal to spend more time on the server to save up for there weapon they want however from what i've seen in past week till now some new players do not like that basically all weapons in the in game shop are 15million to million even back then people dislike it, but it was a mesaure for balance but at the same time it drove people away with old patches that happen wiped others inventory's which pissed lot of people off.

I know people will disagree and fight for it to keep it the way it is I fully understand both agruements (But two years to get west star) and a patch whipes that progress away) i think people back then or if that happen now would be pissed.

Do i have answer to make better ecnomy Nope.

But im sure someone will drag in another concept which im thinking about also that was probably said long time ago.

But that up for dispute if it dose pop up.

Anyways have a goodnight.

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by OLDLOCKE
Because i am not perfect.