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Hi TW, it's me, Apocalypse WOW!. We haven't talked for quite some time and I think it's about time we had another chat.
Guys, we're hurting. We're hurting and we're not doing the things we should be doing to make us feel better. And frankly, I'm getting pissed off.
Now, in my life that doesn't involve repeated repelling and flying around in little ships that shoot each other I do a lot of community involvement work. In a nutshell that means I help neighborhoods take care of themselves and feel better so they don't need people like me to help them anymore.
In a very simple way, we here at TW are a community. I'm not the first person to bring this up but I think it's time we re-evaluated what that means to us. Granted, I'm mostly only familiar with the basers, but I think right now it's the basers that are hurting in particular.
There are some urban neighborhoods become so degraded that no one wants to live there. So they leave and all that is left are empty husks of buildings. This happens because of poor planning and lack of commitment from the few remaining members of that neighborhood and the leaders in charge of governing each particular ward. Some people call this Detroit.
A few TW newsworthy things have happened that have made me think of this.
First, two huge losses. Mambo and Dudgeon dissolved. Guys, this here is a wake up call that things are going badly for us right now.
Mambo. A solid top five basing squad folded into itself from inactivity. There wasn't a Mambo-er that I didn't like. They were always competitive and added nothing but strength the basing ladder. Sure, the active players will filter out to other squadrons and bring their great strengths with them, but the point is, one of our major houses has just burned down.
Dudgeon. There was a time, I think it was maybe about a month after last season, when I looked at Dudgeon and was impressed. They seemed to know how to base and looked as if they could probably get into the next league and would probably win a few games at that. What happened? A promising squad became gutted for whatever reason and I think that is something we should be concerned with. An up and coming house was left half finished, the rain got in, and the no one wanted to live there.
That with Incuria folding recently, the field of competitive base teams has shrunken rapidly. Unionville, Hillpeace, and Red Veil have emerged but in many regards they've just replaced old squads. How things stand right now it seems like we'll be lucky to get 12 active base teams that will always show for matches, let alone 16. The point is that there is very little growth, people keep getting redistributed over fewer and fewer squads.
Our neighbors are moving out and the quality of the neighborhood suffers for it.
Other neighbors lock up their windows and don't come out to talk anymore. There are some players that I could name that I've played dozens of games with and yet have never had any words exchanged. You know, I've thought about this and I've reached a conclusion.
These players are stupid. Absolutely stupid.. You're too elite to talk to the people you play a spaceship game with? Who's dumb idea started this trend? You refuse to speak to people outside of your own squadron?
Moreover, you decrease the quality of the game with your stupidity. Why would I care about anyone I've never exchanged any words with? When the neighbors don't even talk to each other, the community as a whole caves in on itself. You play this game yet don't speak to the players? What is wrong with you?
At the very least be jerks, because its fun to win bds against jerks.
Why do players act like this? Why does a community function in the way it does? Sure, players get tired and uninstall, but players have always gotten tired and uninstalled. This game was out of date years and years ago yet we still play it because it is a quality game. The fact that the community is crumbling is instead indicative of other problems that are not being addressed in any serious regard.
There's a thread about Thix's and Spikey's and Sumpson's attempt to put together a basing tournament. OK, first, they totally dropped the ball on not including all major basing squads. Bias, forgetfulness, whatever, it was a bad call to leave out some of those squads.
Then of course, those squadleaders justifiably get upset and whatnot and boycott the tournament in favor of Kim's. OK. Fine. Understandable.
Guys, why did it take Thix to get this ball rolling? Again, why did it take the captain of Hillpeace, a fairly new squad to get this dialogue going? Because there wasn't any dialogue about this before as far as I can see. The first mention of any sort of base tournament came to me today with that post.
Staff, you've been pre-empted by Thix. Let that sink in.
"Kim was considering/going to do a bd tournament after the dd tournament." Ohhhh. I see. Thanks for telling us after the fact. This is the sort of activity that is desperately needed and you fight over who gets to coordinate it because Thix and Spikey were pretty much making it up as they went? You can't collaborate? You can't say "well mister Hillpeace and Ruby and BasingCrew captains, we play this game together, so you better be rethinking that line up you have there and here are some ideas to make it more interesting??" And staff? These tournaments are driven by the players, yet you choose to exclude the captains of the squads that are going to be participating? IN A SPACESHIP GAME? What is wrong with you people?
It sounds to me like you're chiming in after the fact that "you were going to do it so butt out." Come on. Maybe I'm incorrect and you had a timeframe and a plan all mapped out already. But I doubt it.
Communities take after their leaders. The tone of the community is defined by its leaders. The leaders make or break the long term stability of the community.
Let's take a look at our leaders, our heads of staff, and our staff itself.
First let me say, thank you for the things that you are doing. For coordinating the bots, for taking your time to make this game playable, for hosting events, for answering help calls when I make them. On a purely technical side, I *personally* think you're doing a good job. You are keeping the framework going.
But you aren't leading, and as senior members of this community, with the power to change and restrict this community, this is a huge flaw. I think the reason that our community is starting to vacate and wither is in large part due to the failings of staff to lead.
"Oh Apoc, you're such a card, staff are lovely and roses and sugar and spice and you're just new to this online gaming community of ours."
And base isn't dead most of the time now, the number of competitive squads is growing, and I'm a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Mars.
When was the last time a head staff made an effort to actually bond with the players they coordinate? They do sometimes and some staff are way better at doing this then others. But you know, the only major staff I've ever had a semi-decent conversation with has been qan, shayde and maybe vehicle.
Oh I've seen some of you talk, but you've never really gone out of your way to be *nice*.
If you are going to be head staff you need to step up and get to know your community. You are failing at this miserably and your community follows your lead.
In another thread about pure pub ideas, I think it was Troll King brought up the point that no regular base players play in pubs. This is a place where *staff* needs to help. Why don't I see <zhs> in pubs playing and, you know, zone helping? I think that would make a huge difference.
This sort of revision of staff duties needs to come from up above. If upper staff is having problems, how are we to ever know about it if you don't ever talk to the people you're leading?
And please don't say "well I don't lead, I just coordinate whatever."
The fact that you are *UPPER* staff in this game makes you a leader, like it or not. The fact that you have the ability to kick people from the zone and wear fun tags MAKES you a leader. If you are going to be managing the zone you need to manage the players as well. And you're clearly not.
I like this game, and I'm willing to bet that anyone reading this does too. So why don't we cut the crap and actually re-evaluate the trends that occur? To build and maintain a community, it takes work. So can we stop bickering, change the things that we are doing that are harming us, and grow as an online community?
This is my two* cents.
*thousand
Guys, we're hurting. We're hurting and we're not doing the things we should be doing to make us feel better. And frankly, I'm getting pissed off.
Now, in my life that doesn't involve repeated repelling and flying around in little ships that shoot each other I do a lot of community involvement work. In a nutshell that means I help neighborhoods take care of themselves and feel better so they don't need people like me to help them anymore.
In a very simple way, we here at TW are a community. I'm not the first person to bring this up but I think it's time we re-evaluated what that means to us. Granted, I'm mostly only familiar with the basers, but I think right now it's the basers that are hurting in particular.
There are some urban neighborhoods become so degraded that no one wants to live there. So they leave and all that is left are empty husks of buildings. This happens because of poor planning and lack of commitment from the few remaining members of that neighborhood and the leaders in charge of governing each particular ward. Some people call this Detroit.
A few TW newsworthy things have happened that have made me think of this.
First, two huge losses. Mambo and Dudgeon dissolved. Guys, this here is a wake up call that things are going badly for us right now.
Mambo. A solid top five basing squad folded into itself from inactivity. There wasn't a Mambo-er that I didn't like. They were always competitive and added nothing but strength the basing ladder. Sure, the active players will filter out to other squadrons and bring their great strengths with them, but the point is, one of our major houses has just burned down.
Dudgeon. There was a time, I think it was maybe about a month after last season, when I looked at Dudgeon and was impressed. They seemed to know how to base and looked as if they could probably get into the next league and would probably win a few games at that. What happened? A promising squad became gutted for whatever reason and I think that is something we should be concerned with. An up and coming house was left half finished, the rain got in, and the no one wanted to live there.
That with Incuria folding recently, the field of competitive base teams has shrunken rapidly. Unionville, Hillpeace, and Red Veil have emerged but in many regards they've just replaced old squads. How things stand right now it seems like we'll be lucky to get 12 active base teams that will always show for matches, let alone 16. The point is that there is very little growth, people keep getting redistributed over fewer and fewer squads.
Our neighbors are moving out and the quality of the neighborhood suffers for it.
Other neighbors lock up their windows and don't come out to talk anymore. There are some players that I could name that I've played dozens of games with and yet have never had any words exchanged. You know, I've thought about this and I've reached a conclusion.
These players are stupid. Absolutely stupid.. You're too elite to talk to the people you play a spaceship game with? Who's dumb idea started this trend? You refuse to speak to people outside of your own squadron?
Moreover, you decrease the quality of the game with your stupidity. Why would I care about anyone I've never exchanged any words with? When the neighbors don't even talk to each other, the community as a whole caves in on itself. You play this game yet don't speak to the players? What is wrong with you?
At the very least be jerks, because its fun to win bds against jerks.
Why do players act like this? Why does a community function in the way it does? Sure, players get tired and uninstall, but players have always gotten tired and uninstalled. This game was out of date years and years ago yet we still play it because it is a quality game. The fact that the community is crumbling is instead indicative of other problems that are not being addressed in any serious regard.
There's a thread about Thix's and Spikey's and Sumpson's attempt to put together a basing tournament. OK, first, they totally dropped the ball on not including all major basing squads. Bias, forgetfulness, whatever, it was a bad call to leave out some of those squads.
Then of course, those squadleaders justifiably get upset and whatnot and boycott the tournament in favor of Kim's. OK. Fine. Understandable.
Guys, why did it take Thix to get this ball rolling? Again, why did it take the captain of Hillpeace, a fairly new squad to get this dialogue going? Because there wasn't any dialogue about this before as far as I can see. The first mention of any sort of base tournament came to me today with that post.
Staff, you've been pre-empted by Thix. Let that sink in.
"Kim was considering/going to do a bd tournament after the dd tournament." Ohhhh. I see. Thanks for telling us after the fact. This is the sort of activity that is desperately needed and you fight over who gets to coordinate it because Thix and Spikey were pretty much making it up as they went? You can't collaborate? You can't say "well mister Hillpeace and Ruby and BasingCrew captains, we play this game together, so you better be rethinking that line up you have there and here are some ideas to make it more interesting??" And staff? These tournaments are driven by the players, yet you choose to exclude the captains of the squads that are going to be participating? IN A SPACESHIP GAME? What is wrong with you people?
It sounds to me like you're chiming in after the fact that "you were going to do it so butt out." Come on. Maybe I'm incorrect and you had a timeframe and a plan all mapped out already. But I doubt it.
Communities take after their leaders. The tone of the community is defined by its leaders. The leaders make or break the long term stability of the community.
Let's take a look at our leaders, our heads of staff, and our staff itself.
First let me say, thank you for the things that you are doing. For coordinating the bots, for taking your time to make this game playable, for hosting events, for answering help calls when I make them. On a purely technical side, I *personally* think you're doing a good job. You are keeping the framework going.
But you aren't leading, and as senior members of this community, with the power to change and restrict this community, this is a huge flaw. I think the reason that our community is starting to vacate and wither is in large part due to the failings of staff to lead.
"Oh Apoc, you're such a card, staff are lovely and roses and sugar and spice and you're just new to this online gaming community of ours."
And base isn't dead most of the time now, the number of competitive squads is growing, and I'm a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Mars.
When was the last time a head staff made an effort to actually bond with the players they coordinate? They do sometimes and some staff are way better at doing this then others. But you know, the only major staff I've ever had a semi-decent conversation with has been qan, shayde and maybe vehicle.
Oh I've seen some of you talk, but you've never really gone out of your way to be *nice*.
If you are going to be head staff you need to step up and get to know your community. You are failing at this miserably and your community follows your lead.
In another thread about pure pub ideas, I think it was Troll King brought up the point that no regular base players play in pubs. This is a place where *staff* needs to help. Why don't I see <zhs> in pubs playing and, you know, zone helping? I think that would make a huge difference.
This sort of revision of staff duties needs to come from up above. If upper staff is having problems, how are we to ever know about it if you don't ever talk to the people you're leading?
And please don't say "well I don't lead, I just coordinate whatever."
The fact that you are *UPPER* staff in this game makes you a leader, like it or not. The fact that you have the ability to kick people from the zone and wear fun tags MAKES you a leader. If you are going to be managing the zone you need to manage the players as well. And you're clearly not.
I like this game, and I'm willing to bet that anyone reading this does too. So why don't we cut the crap and actually re-evaluate the trends that occur? To build and maintain a community, it takes work. So can we stop bickering, change the things that we are doing that are harming us, and grow as an online community?
This is my two* cents.
*thousand
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