We'll Just Leave This One Here...

[Dacy]

Please read what I wrote more carefully.

Public relations is not about just promotion of the game to the press. This wouldn’t be about promoting the game although, the game only exists because there’s a Community. If people leave and no one comes to replace them, it will die. So, despite the fact it’s not a money making venture, they still need a certain amount of promotion to keep the game going at this level. They also need donations to keep the servers running. People are not going to play or donate if they don’t feel good about the game.
 

Your first paragraph, @ZacKing, indicates that you don’t have great feelings about the staff here. And from what I have heard, you are far from being alone in that regard.  This is why I’m saying that people who have skills with people are needed. And the idea is to make less work for the devs so they don’t have to try and do things outside of their field of expertise.

 

As far as the CR role goes, this is not a campaign to try and get it reinstated. But I am not sure you understand why it was created in the first place. I’ve heard you complaining lots about the editor. Lots of people want different pieces added. Other people also want to see changes made. Nothing seemed to be happening with bases for a while. And then, even when we were getting pieces, they weren’t ones we needed the most. Base builders felt ignored and marginalized. CRs were created to be a liaison so that base builder needs could be heard and addressed. We also were given the powers to do the contests that had been dropped, and many people wanted to see. I know not all people want contests, and that’s why we started things like the base crawls. Which you enjoy, and you would not have without the CRs. 
 

The liaison part did not work as well as we had hoped, since, as noted, the communication structure is not good, and the structures for CRs to operate within is not well established, but the idea was again, to remove some workload from the devs, so that they didn’t have to spend so much time focused on the forums to figure out what things best to focus on. Community Representatives themselves were supposed to be a time and energy saving position for the developers. We did and still do things they don’t have the time to do. I hope this has helped you understand what the heck a CR even is.

[ZacKing]

1 hour ago, Dacy said:

Public relations is not about just promotion of the game to the press. This wouldn’t be about promoting the game although, the game only exists because there’s a Community. If people leave and no one comes to replace them, it will die. So, despite the fact it’s not a money making venture, they still need a certain amount of promotion to keep the game going at this level. They also need donations to keep the servers running. People are not going to play or donate if they don’t feel good about the game.

 

That's fair and I see this mentioned by a lot of people.  The games got a very healthy playerbase from what I can see and there's literal tons of veterans playing who've been around since the game went live 20 years ago.  They don't appear to be leaving anytime soon and from what we're told, there are new players coming in every day.  Donations are filled in literal minutes every month, so I don't see that as being a problem either.  The game and the loyal players don't look to be going anywhere anytime in the foreseeable future.  I'd be more concerned about the HC folk getting burned out and not wanting to do it anymore than I would about a dwindling player base.

 

1 hour ago, Dacy said:

This is why I’m saying that people who have skills with people are needed.

 

I don't know that'll really make any difference to be honest.  We already have a lot of great, very kind people here with excellent people skills who don't have blue titles and aren't affiliated with HC.  I've had a couple of really kind players devote way too much of their free time helping me out with building stuff.  I don't think HC needs that kind of role when the players themselves can do it just fine and don't have to worry about whether or not they're following proper protocol. 

 

1 hour ago, Dacy said:

I’ve heard you complaining lots about the editor.

 

haha I'm not the only one! 🤣  It's all good though.  The editor is what it is. 

 

I think it's important to say that I personally don't feel like I'm being marginalized if changes I'd like to see to the editor don't get addressed and stuff I'd like to see added into it doesn't happen.  I understand the HC folk are volunteers and they're doing this in their precious spare time for free.  I think more people need to understand that IMO.  If they see something I suggest and want to act on it, great.  If not, oh well.  Of course I'll try to advocate for changes I'd like to see, but in the end, I get it that this is a volunteer group doing this in their spare time.  Maybe more people who are feeling that they're being marginalized need to manage their expectations better.  Others might feel differently and feel like they're being ignored.  That's a personal thing though.

 

1 hour ago, Dacy said:

I know not all people want contests, and that’s why we started things like the base crawls. Which you enjoy, and you would not have without the CRs. 

 

I'm not sure I understand why we couldn't have base crawls without CRs?  There's all kinds of player run events going on every day.  Just last weekend I brought a Kronos Titan to the weekly Saturday Night Synapse league which is a hugely successful and ongoing player run and player managed event on Torch.  I'm not sure why base crawls would be any different?

 

Back in the live days, on Triumph there used to be Supergroup Faires where SGs would recruit and host all sorts of contests and such.  That was all player run too.  That kind of stuff happens here, like nightly Hami raids and MSRs.  It just takes interested and motivated people who want to make that stuff happen to do it. 

 

This is an interesting topic and discussion to be sure.  I respect your perspective on it. 

[BlackHearted]

It would be really nice to see an actually thought out process of having CRs to communicate with the developers... as someone who's succesfully campained multiple times to get base items and game features added, it's a painfully mind numbing process to go back to the devs over and over and over re-wording the same concept until it is finally  communicated properly.. i spent like 2 years begging to get gender neutral bathroom signs added to the bases....... b/c for obvious reasons those are desirable..... and it was turned into a circus and openly mocked for months and months until finally one day i just happened to be able to get the attention of 3 of the right ppl at the same time and then magically it was added into the game an hour later... b/c there is no real system for getting things done.. even if you know the people involved and have a report with them...... good luck getting even the most basic of things accomplished..   Some kinda way to actually get ideas into the hands of the right ppl without it being an act of congress + a three rings circus of forum communications would be great, be that CRs or something else.

 

[ZacKing]

10 minutes ago, BlackHearted said:

It would be really nice to see an actually thought out process of having CRs to communicate with the developers... as someone who's succesfully campained multiple times to get base items and game features added, it's a painfully mind numbing process to go back to the devs over and over and over re-wording the same concept until it is finally  communicated properly.. i spent like 2 years begging to get gender neutral bathroom signs added to the bases....... b/c for obvious reasons those are desirable..... and it was turned into a circus and openly mocked for months and months until finally one day i just happened to be able to get the attention of 3 of the right ppl at the same time and then magically it was added into the game an hour later... b/c there is no real system for getting things done.. even if you know the people involved and have a report with them...... good luck getting even the most basic of things accomplished..   Some kinda way to actually get ideas into the hands of the right ppl without it being an act of congress + a three rings circus of forum communications would be great, be that CRs or something else.

 

 

So I'm not going to lie, but I don't see what you asked for taking a long time being a huge issue.  I'm not trying to insult you as it was something that was clearly important to you, but I personally don't see adding that item into bases as being "mission critical" by any stretch.  It's also a very good example of how the CRs would get bogged down by tons of requests for personal stuff that isn't really needed or helpful to everyone or the stability of the code.  Adding a bathroom sign doesn't do anything to address things like helping to reduce item counts in bases.  Changes that'll reduce item counts will lead to less memory and storage and lagging in bases and that's good for everyone, not the one or two people who want a specific sign.  I'm sure everyone who builds a base has a list twice as long as their arm for items they'd personally like added.  I've made a few suggestions on that front too, but I can admit they're more "pet project" things that are nice to haves for me and I'd much rather see more comprehensive changes made that increase stability of the code and reduce the lagginess in the editor.

[BlackHearted]

2 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

So I'm not going to lie, but I don't see what you asked for taking a long time being a huge issue.  I'm not trying to insult you as it was something that was clearly important to you, but I personally don't see adding that item into bases as being "mission critical" by any stretch.  It's also a very good example of how the CRs would get bogged down by tons of requests for personal stuff that isn't really needed or helpful to everyone or the stability of the code.  Adding a bathroom sign doesn't do anything to address things like helping to reduce item counts in bases.  Changes that'll reduce item counts will lead to less memory and storage and lagging in bases and that's good for everyone, not the one or two people who want a specific sign.  I'm sure everyone who builds a base has a list twice as long as their arm for items they'd personally like added.  I've made a few suggestions on that front too, but I can admit they're more "pet project" things that are nice to haves for me and I'd much rather see more comprehensive changes made that increase stability of the code and reduce the lagginess in the editor.

if you do not see how adding something that's acctually wanted in the game taking over two years to be heard about b/c there is no true lane of communication then there's no need in us to continue discussing things b/c you're missing my point... there is NO ACTUAL way to communicate with the devs... you have to jump up and down and wave your hands until you are noticed..... if you do not see how that is problematic that's fine........ a lot of us however see that as being an issue while "trash pile 38" is added and things like "hey we'd like an alphabet" takes over 3 years to be heard, and thusly want there to be an actual path of communication to the devs, not a never heard and impossible to wade through bog of ideas on a foum somewhere no one reads b/c it's bogged down with random off topic comments about peoples personal opinions about other ppls posts instead of addressing the actual OP.. .like what you've done here waisting my time and anyone elses who reads this thread.

 

[ZacKing]

13 minutes ago, BlackHearted said:

if you do not see how adding something that's acctually wanted in the game taking over two years to be heard about b/c there is no true lane of communication then there's no need in us to continue discussing things b/c you're missing my point... there is NO ACTUAL way to communicate with the devs... you have to jump up and down and wave your hands until you are noticed..... if you do not see how that is problematic that's fine........ a lot of us however see that as being an issue while "trash pile 38" is added and things like "hey we'd like an alphabet" takes over 3 years to be heard, and thusly want there to be an actual path of communication to the devs, not a never heard and impossible to wade through bog of ideas on a foum somewhere no one reads b/c it's bogged down with random off topic comments about peoples personal opinions about other ppls posts instead of addressing the actual OP.. .like what you've done here waisting my time and anyone elses who reads this thread.

 

For starters, whether an item is "actually wanted" is highly dependent on the individual making the request.  As for the rest, well from what I can see, it isn't true at all that there's no line of communication with the HC folks.  They're asking for player feedback on changes all the time in the various focused feedback threads.  I don't personally use Discord, but from what I understand they listen to and gather player suggestions there too.  What players they listen to most is another discussion entirely.

 

I understood what you wrote just fine.  I'll reiterate that I don't see adding yet another bathroom sign to the editor is all that important or critically needed by any stretch.  I get that it's important to you though.  Your post is also making my point about CRs getting bogged down by requests for nice to haves that are personal pet projects for someone.  All your doing is making another avenue for ideas to get lost and/or ignored.  What happens when the HC people don't implement your idea for a bathroom sign?  Start pestering the CR every 5 minutes about whether the HC people heard the idea?  It's proving my earlier point that some people can't manage their own expectations and making demands of what a volunteer group should be working on in their free time.  CRs won't change that.

 

As far as forum threads being "bogged down with random off topic comments about peoples personal opinions", well you're doing that too.  In your personal opinion, another bathroom sign is a must have.  To others, it's not even on the bottom of the list nor should it be.  The forums are a place for discussion and for people to share ideas.

[Dacy]

21 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

I'd be more concerned about the HC folk getting burned out and not wanting to do it anymore than I would about a dwindling player base.

They are part and parcel of the same thing. Burnout happens because of any number of reasons, usually multiple ones: Either people are overextended and overwhelmed, or feel disenfranchised, or hate the environment, which can be toxic for a number of reasons. What I feel like I'm failing to communicate, here, is that I want them to bring in more volunteers with skillsets that address these very things. Devs right now are having to do 1) game development 2) keep up with the forums to some extent, so they know what players want, and to some extent, 3) deal with the playerbase. Why do they have to do this? Well, comes back to connectivity: if they are off in their own bubble, they will work on what they want to do, which may or may not be something well received by the community. Maybe that's okay with you, but again, games survive by being popular with their player base. We've already seen this game fragmented by people with different ideas as to the direction and focus of the game. Games die, that's the nature of the industry. And yes, we've had an influx recently, but there are also players leaving, and our population had dropped significantly before that, overall.  This game is highly loved. But players can and do leave, and they will, and they will leave faster if they aren't happy. Without promotion, new people won't hear about the game, and it will inevitably fade. I'd prefer to give a game I love as much longevity as possible.

 

Players, like workers, also leave for a variety of reasons, and games try and keep them as best they can: with new things, usually powers and content, which is what the devs mostly work on. But as Dythok pointed out, the games he has liked the most have been the ones that felt like he was a part of, it was "our  game" not "their game". You point to an involved community, and both of those points are very valid and complimentary. My point is, culture and the community environment go a long way towards fostering that, and we have, but toxicity seeps in and  destroys that. That's probably why I prefer to remain positive; complaining incessantly about this or that is a sign a player is not happy, and those people will probably eventually leave, but in the meantime, they fan the flames of discontent. Not that pretending everything is perfect is a good answer, by far, but your focus sets a tone for others. As you also demonstrated, there is a disconnect between the leadership here and the community. For you this means, hey, we don't need them, we're doing fine on our own. But how much better could it be if we were all working together? How much less work would they have to do if someone could compile the communications from the forums and the community so they didn't have to wade through all of it? Work culture is important, too, even when or perhaps especially when it's a volunteer organization, and I won't speak specifics of the culture here, but I believe there is room for improvement. And we DO need them, they are piloting the ship, so to speak.  Yeah, passengers can find their own amusements on a ship without having to speak with the captain, but imagine a ship without a crew that interacted with the passengers. You need a drink? Tough, figure it out.  More blankets? Oh, is your room too hot? Deal with it. Did you want a show? I'm sure some of the passengers must have talent...maybe they will volunteer to put on a show. Imagine if the crew piloting the ship had to also deal with all of these requests.

 

You say you can't figure out why I say CRs were responsible for the Showcase, why, people put together things all the time. Yes, and we did and we will, but the CR title, while maybe some saw it as a prestige thing, was really more like a marker saying, I'm responsible for this. While several sgs have held contests for bases, no one did one that included all of the shards, and the smaller shards did not really even do them. No one did a crawl. Ever try and get someone to volunteer to lead a large activity? Heck, it's hard enough to find people willing to take the star on missions or on leagues. Last year I tried to find bases for hosting the Halloween giveaway on all the servers, but 2 of the shards, for the first time, had no one, and I even had titles and awards for anyone who'd bothered. Finding volunteers can be hard. A named position, even a volunteer one, conveys not only a certain authority, but a certain responsibility.  And people could see in the HC discord, who to ask about base things when they needed to know and weren't sure about things. We were helpful and present before being made CRs, but we did not put together all of the things we've done since becoming CRs until that responsibility weighed on us, and the authority granted us a pathway. CRs were neutral parties, not affiliated with SGs or really even servers. That's often very important. So, sorry you can't see who we were or why, but I still think it's a good position to have for the game, for the community, and for the devs.

 

[ZacKing]

23 minutes ago, Dacy said:

if they are off in their own bubble, they will work on what they want to do, which may or may not be something well received by the community. Maybe that's okay with you, but again, games survive by being popular with their player base.

 

The HC folks have always been working on and from what I can see will always continue to work on things they want to work on.  I've also seen there's a very vocal and loyal group of people who are going to lap up every single change made no matter what it is and will continue to support the game and HC for as long as they're alive.  It's honestly like watching a cult sometimes lol.  I don't mean that as an insult to anyone.  HC is never going to please everyone, nor should they try to IMO.  As I said before, this isn't a commercial venture.  There's no shareholders to worry about hitting revenue numbers for.  It's a passion project for a group of volunteers.

 

29 minutes ago, Dacy said:

My point is, culture and the community environment go a long way towards fostering that, and we have, but toxicity seeps in and  destroys that.

 

So what constitutes "toxicity" exactly?  Who gets to decide what is or isn't "toxic"?  From what I've witnessed here, anything in the slightest that goes against a change being implemented or that questions a decision made by the HC team is labelled "toxic" or "trolling", regardless of how well thought out and respectfully presented.  I could go on and on and on and on and on and on with specific examples of this, but there's no point in rehashing any of it.  It is what it is and I don't see PR people or CRs changing that ever.  Nor do I think even with CRs or PR people or whatever the HC staff will be able to keep up with player demands. 

 

37 minutes ago, Dacy said:

As you also demonstrated, there is a disconnect between the leadership here and the community. For you this means, hey, we don't need them, we're doing fine on our own.

 

That's always the case.  I don't know if you've ever been in a leadership or command position of any kind, and if not, you'll quickly learn that you can't please everyone.  The HC folk do what they want and work on what they want and listen to a very small subset of players in their inner circle.  That's fine by me, I can't change it.  I've complained about it before and probably will again at some point in the future, but I also understand it's not going to change nor do I expect it to.  Again, this server is a passion project for a group of volunteers.  If it were me running it, I'd probably be doing the same thing they are.  I don't mean that as an insult to any of them at all.   I understand we're all here at their pleasure and they can cut any single one of us off at any time if they want to.  It's their house, we're just guests.  If anyone feels like they're being marginalized or ignored or don't like the direction this server is going in, there's other options out there to try.  Some of the other servers have done some very cool things that are far and away better than anything implemented here as of yet.  Again, not an insult to any HC people.

 

44 minutes ago, Dacy said:

Ever try and get someone to volunteer to lead a large activity?

 

Yup.  Every single day in my professional life. 

 

45 minutes ago, Dacy said:

So, sorry you can't see who we were or why, but I still think it's a good position to have for the game, for the community, and for the devs.

 

I know who you all were just fine and thanked you for all your efforts.  I understand and appreciate how much work it is to set up events and to get people involved.  It's no small feat.  All I'm saying is you don't need a blue title for any of that.

[Dacy]

K, well, I still don't think you fully understand what it is I'm trying to say, and yes, I have been in leadership, and yes, I know you can't please everyone, and if I didn't know that before, I CERTAINLY know that after the contest we held.

 

So, yeah, you're never going to get all to agree, I think culture can be improved, and I know games exist where such culture exists, but clearly, you're happy with the status quo. And just as clearly, you'll stick around regardless, presumably. I would rather proactively work to make things as good as possible and not just leave it as "working for now", but we'll just agree to disagree on that one. I think more volunteers would help. Sums it up. As far as my definition of toxic, I can't make all of the points I want to make without talking about things I don't wish to talk about, so I'll just stop there.

 

I didn't say it before, but thank you for  your support. I agree, I don't need a blue title, but not having it does take some of the pressure off to do quite so much. I have to hope you are right, that others, who also do not need blue titles, will step up and do more event organization, especially ones that include other servers than their own.

Edited April 30 by Dacy

[Dacy]

3 hours ago, ZacKing said:

Nor do I think even with CRs or PR people or whatever the HC staff will be able to keep up with player demands. 

And a last note: no one ever claimed this was even a goal. Collating and keeping track of and communicating player wants is not at all the same thing as that being a way to make sure all those wants are executed. Player wants are endless. Some are impossible. Some are repeating what others have already said. What CRs were supposed to help with, and indeed, did and we continue to try to do this, is help present, but more importantly, narrow down the list to what's the most desired or beneficial (as in, useful to the most people). This is a time and labor saver, but it never was intended to make all the wants into reality.

[Troo]

On 4/27/2024 at 12:30 AM, Dacy said:

Your former CRs,

Easter Bunny and Dacy

 

fixed it for ya.

 

I'm sure many many folks thank you for what you've done and continue to do.

[ZacKing]

12 hours ago, Dacy said:

K, well, I still don't think you fully understand what it is I'm trying to say, and yes, I have been in leadership, and yes, I know you can't please everyone, and if I didn't know that before, I CERTAINLY know that after the contest we held.

 

Dacy, I understand where you're coming from and what you're saying just fine.  I just don't agree that CRs are a necessity or that they'd have as large an impact as you think they would, if any at all.  That doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong.  It's only a simple difference of opinion and two people having a discussion.  CRs collating player feedback and suggestions to organize and feed to the HC people isn't going to make more people engaged in running events or make more people feel like they're being listened to by the HC folk.  They're never going to please everyone, CRs or not. 

 

I think it's you who has been missing what I have been saying.  There's plenty of good and helpful and kind players out there who don't have any blue titles, aren't "official" in any way yet are having just as much, if not more of an impact on the community than CRs have.  You just don't hear about them or they're basically on one server. 

 

As far as player events, they're out there.  Here's one group from Torch advertising server wide events to celebrate their anniversary.

Here's another one from the leader of the weekly Saturday Night Synapse League on Torch which is a hugely successful player run and player organized event.

Here's a shout out to a fellow base builder from another player

I too gave a couple people a shout out in the threads I posted who helped me out with building, especially @ShardWarrior who probably spent more than 40 hours helping me out with building stuff instead of playing their characters.  I'm being very honest here in saying that getting that level of help and devotion of time from another player does way more for me personally and my sense of the community than any server wide events ever will.  This is just one example from me and a few examples I found in 2 minutes of searching the forums.  There's a whole lot of very kind, very helpful people here doing all kinds of things in their free time to help make the game more fun for others.  You just don't hear about them. 

 

My point is that none of the people doing this stuff have blue titles and they don't need them.  These are successful player run events that get a lot of participation and are fostering a great sense of pride in the community.

 

12 hours ago, Dacy said:

I would rather proactively work to make things as good as possible and not just leave it as "working for now", but we'll just agree to disagree on that one.

 

That's fair and I would hope you'd understand that to some, the current state of things is good enough for them.  Anything new that comes along is icing on the cake.  What you consider "good as possible" is going to differ wildly than someone else.  Ultimately, it's up to the HC people to decide what's best for them to do in their spare time and the direction they want to take the game.

 

12 hours ago, Dacy said:

I didn't say it before, but thank you for  your support. I agree, I don't need a blue title, but not having it does take some of the pressure off to do quite so much. I have to hope you are right, that others, who also do not need blue titles, will step up and do more event organization, especially ones that include other servers than their own.

 

You're welcome.  As for whether or not other players will run events, see above.

 

12 hours ago, Dacy said:

And a last note: no one ever claimed this was even a goal. Collating and keeping track of and communicating player wants is not at all the same thing as that being a way to make sure all those wants are executed. Player wants are endless. Some are impossible. Some are repeating what others have already said. What CRs were supposed to help with, and indeed, did and we continue to try to do this, is help present, but more importantly, narrow down the list to what's the most desired or beneficial (as in, useful to the most people). This is a time and labor saver, but it never was intended to make all the wants into reality.

 

I wasn't suggesting that having CRs would make all requests from players happen.  Apologies if that wasn't clear.  I was only suggesting that CRs would be getting bogged down with requests instead of HC folk.  It's just shifting the work from one person to the next and it would still mean some requests may get worked on and others wouldn't.  There would still be those who would be happy with changes and others who wouldn't be.  Again, there's no pleasing everyone.

[Dacy]

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that they weren’t players doing events because of course I know that the there are. And Shard Warrior is indeed, quite helpful, as are quite a few others. But I was referring specifically to base events, and most of the base events that are held are like the Fusion Force events, they are super group specific. I’m saying I have not seen base events run that are, for instance, like the showcases, where everyone is included, no super group is associated, and it’s across all the shards. Generally things are run from a particular group. The CR position was a neutral one, and everyone was included by design. 
 

It would be wonderful to see more people running events that aren’t associated with a particular group, because some groups don’t like other groups, but it’s not some thing I have seen yet. But now that it’s been demonstrated, perhaps we will see that. 
 

I appreciate that you appreciate the work that Easter bunny and I have done, and that you don’t feel like the title was any part of it. I feel very much like the title granted an authority and access that we didn’t have before, but you’re free to disagree, of course. As you have. Not to say we can’t continue to work without a title, because we are, and others do as well. I know the title are not necessary to do things. They were just a help in focusing attention, and giving us authority.  

Edited April 30 by Dacy

[TorrentYed]

This was a shock to hear!

 

Dacy and Easter Bunny, you two are such fantastic organizers and community supporters. Speaking personally, it was because of Dacy's base building videos and the consolidation of techniques that I first got started with what is, quite frankly, a building system that is not transparent about the nitty gritty of its functionality! And comparing the tools that many of us started with to the tools we have now (surface tiles for placement, invisible collision, expansive water, etc.), it's so much easier to realize a build vision—and I don't think we would've gotten them without those needs/desires being communicated.

 

Add on to this your work with the base directory project, your assistance with player contests, the leading of base tours to bring visibility to others' work, and just your continual presence when people have questions, you two epitomize not just representatives but paragons of the base-building community.

[Excraft]

I have a question here that I'm reluctant to ask because I'm sure some will take it the wrong way and ascribe some underlying negativity and insult to it that isn't there and isn't at all intended.  I don't at all mean this to be insulting or disparaging of anyone or anything, so please don't take it as such. 

 

From reading the thread here, it sounds like it was a real chore to find people to participate in base contests.  Could that be that it's just such a small minority of players interested in and involved with the base building community and there isn't much interest in bases and base building among the larger population of players?  Even with rewards like merits and gold titles, it sounds like it was still a huge chore to find people to participate.  Again, I don't mean that as an insult in any way, so please don't take it as such.  Maybe the players on servers like Indom and Reunion just aren't all that interested in base building?  Just like you'll find more RPers on Everlasting than you do on Torchbearer.  Everlasting is where the players interested in RP tend to congregate.  Also, building a base is a lot more work than pulling together a league to run some TFs or iTrials together.   It's not an insignificant time requirement for the builder. 

 

From everything I've seen with bases, videos I've watched, posts I've read and people I've talked to, it can be quite a heavy investment of time and effort in building above the plot.  Maybe that's something most people just aren't interested in?  Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy paying a visit to check out some of these amazing creations.  Beyond that, I don't use bases for anything other than storage, crafting and the occasional quick teleport.  Most people I run with are the same.  I understand that I'm not the target audience for the base contests. 

 

Something people may want to consider is that since prestige isn't a thing anymore, SGs and bases don't have the same meaning they had on live to many people.  SG leaders who wanted to build to the nines and wanted to do raiding needed large, active SGs with lots of active members to earn enough prestige to build and afford to pay for upkeep.  That level of memberships is no longer required here.  I'm not saying whether that's a good or bad thing, just that it could be a reason for a lack of interest.  

 

Bases are like PvP in that they look to be a very small, niche community among the overall player base.  There's nothing wrong with that, just saying that it's a small enough group of players to explain why there's an apparent lack of interest.

 

As to the topic at hand, I agree with those who've said that we don't need CRs.  Thanks for the time and effort you spent while in the position though.  Please do continue being helpful and supportive.  I've enjoyed paying a visit to the bases in the tech showcase. 

[Dacy]

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

From reading the thread here, it sounds like it was a real chore to find people to participate in base contests. 

I'm sorry to give that impression! No, far from, our contest had so many entries, we had to limit those who got a judge's tour to a smaller list.  No, the thing I don't see is people volunteering to RUN base events that don't promote a specific SG. That's all. And yes, there are many who don't like contests, myself among them, (I hate judging!), so we are doing the non-competitive  base showcases. We are doing our best to include all.

Quote

From everything I've seen with bases, videos I've watched, posts I've read and people I've talked to, it can be quite a heavy investment of time and effort in building above the plot. 

1) If you've seen my videos, I do my best to point out the disadvantages to building above the plot. I heavily prefer to build inside the base, and have done on most of mine. And 2) contests are not about who can build above the base!! In fact, most of the winners utilize inside the base  for at least half. In my experience, there is a faction (usually inexperienced builders) who think that above the base is somehow superior. It is not, imo, of course, there are things you can do there that you can't do in a base. Contests are not about the size or the location of a base. They are for people who want to be evaluated for base impact and building skill. And yes, we have a LOT of super talented people, so winning is HARD. Judging is also HARD.

 

The smaller shards DO have wonderful builders. Easter Bunny has quite a few really nice bases on Indom, including my favorite of his, Shard Warrior has bases on all the shards, the best mural example there is is on Torchbearer...and on and on. Which is why I like to see them included. There may not be as many, but there are great builders on all shards. But not so many that maybe contests happen so much there.

Edited April 30 by Dacy

[Dacy]

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

Something people may want to consider is that since prestige isn't a thing anymore, SGs and bases don't have the same meaning they had on live to many people.  SG leaders who wanted to build to the nines and wanted to do raiding needed large, active SGs with lots of active members to earn enough prestige to build and afford to pay for upkeep.  That level of memberships is no longer required here.  I'm not saying whether that's a good or bad thing, just that it could be a reason for a lack of interest.  

 I am sorry, I wanted to respond and then I didn't finish reading first. Usually I only jump to the keyboard once, but you have me jumping several times.  Anyway.

 

There is a huge interest in base building. People like this game why? Usually because they have an emotional connection to the world of comics, movies, or they like highly customizable characters. For many, they like to imagine characters, backstories, settings, even whole worlds. People who just want to run thru and get the powers and the build tend to be the kind who get bored faster than those who are invested in their characters with stories and world building, in my experience. There are gamers who like to try games, then move on (who tend not to be builders), and there are the dedicated City folk. Not all the dedicated people stay forever, but a good portion will stay as long as they can manage. And those are the ones that want bases that fit their characters. And there are a lot of us, percentage wise, it's what's kept this game going, imo. I'm not saying base building has kept this game going, mind, I'm saying base building fits in with the sorts that are the most faithful to this game, because it allows them to realize their characters' stories, backgrounds, and create their own realities within the game, and our particular base editor is awesome for that. You should have seen us trying to figure out the categories for the bases for the new directory. The sheer volume of categories here is mind boggling, and I know we did not get them all, trying to figure out what more general term might encompass many outliers, but still, one of the more popular categories of descriptions is "Defies Description". So if you think there is a "lack of interest" in bases, quite the opposite. Building, because prestige is gone now, has exploded. We have well over 33,000 bases that have been created on Everlasting alone. And how many players, do you think? Yeah. Clearly no interest in bases there. Excelsior has fewer, but still over 30,000.

 

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

As to the topic at hand, I agree with those who've said that we don't need CRs.  Thanks for the time and effort you spent while in the position though.  Please do continue being helpful and supportive.  I've enjoyed paying a visit to the bases in the tech showcase. 

"We don't need CRs", I keep hearing this (from others as well), and yet, "Please do continue being helpful and supportive" and "I've enjoyed visiting the tech showcase". I'm guessing by, "we don't need CRs", you mean, we don't need a titled person, because then going on to say that you want the continued support and you enjoy the showcase tells me that you like things a CR does, regardless of whether or not we have the title. Being helpful, supportive, and doing events is most of the definition of the CR position. So to say you don't need CRs and then immediately talk about how you like what a CR brings...to me, what we did as CRs defines the position, it IS the position. So I'm trying to frame what you say into what I think it is you actually mean, but just fyi, when I see "we don't need CRs" I hear "your work as a CR meant nothing and made no difference, and community relations and communication to the devs is unimportant."  And I have to work to reframe that to what I hope it is you meant. But it doesn't feel good to hear, every time.

Edited April 30 by Dacy

[PeregrineFalcon]

For what it's worth Dacy, I'm glad that you and Bunny were the Base CR's, and I think you both did an excellent job.

 

I think that the Council of Fourteen, and the player base, both benefit from having someone in a community relations position. Contests and events and being able to speak with someone with an official title about concerns goes a long way toward maintaining interest and retaining players.

 

I spent years on the retail forums trying to get the developers to do something with bases and I even talked the official base dev (yes, there actually was one for about 8 months) to post in the base builders forum. While I haven't really been involved with the base community here on Homecoming, it warmed my black heart, just a little, to see that there were still people like you and Bunny and others who were still enthusiastic about base building.

 

I hope that becoming unofficial doesn't kill your enthusiasm or your desire to keep running contests and events. But if it does that's the Council's failure, not yours.

[Excraft]

16 hours ago, Dacy said:

"We don't need CRs", I keep hearing this (from others as well), and yet, "Please do continue being helpful and supportive" and "I've enjoyed visiting the tech showcase". I'm guessing by, "we don't need CRs", you mean, we don't need a titled person, because then going on to say that you want the continued support and you enjoy the showcase tells me that you like things a CR does, regardless of whether or not we have the title. Being helpful, supportive, and doing events is most of the definition of the CR position. So to say you don't need CRs and then immediately talk about how you like what a CR brings...to me, what we did as CRs defines the position, it IS the position. So I'm trying to frame what you say into what I think it is you actually mean, but just fyi, when I see "we don't need CRs" I hear "your work as a CR meant nothing and made no difference, and community relations and communication to the devs is unimportant."  And I have to work to reframe that to what I hope it is you meant. But it doesn't feel good to hear, every time.

 

Correct.  I don't think we need people with titles to organize or run events.  The titles don't mean anything, the actions do.  Nor do I think people need blue titles to help the community.  @ZacKing included a small fraction of examples earlier in the thread.  There are a whole lot more player run events going on every single day.  I see them every day on Torchbearer, Excel and Everlasting.  I too enjoy participating in the weekly SNS over on Torchbearer.  I've managed a few Kronos Titans for it myself.  There's daily Hami raids on Excel in the evenings.  MSRs are regular events too on Excel.  I've seen players specifically running patron arcs daily just to help others unlock the patron pools.  There's one player who specifically offers zone tours to help new players unlock the LRT and get access to every zone.  To my knowledge, none of these things being run by other players are to promote specific SGs.  None of the players out there who have been organizing and running these events day after day, week after week, year after year have ever had a blue title.  Having a blue title has never been nor will it ever be a requirement to be a helpful, friendly member of the community to organize events that others can join in on.  It just takes a desire to do it, which granted most people don't have.  Those that do however, the absolute majority of them aren't CRs and never will be CRs and never have a special title which ultimately is meaningless in relation to the ability to organize events.  If you enjoy helping others and organizing events, by all means please continue to do so.  I don't see how having a blue title is a requirement for you.  From what I gather, your video tutorials and such were all done prior to there ever being any kind of CR position, so if you didn't need a title before to be helpful and organize events, it doesn't matter that you don't have one now. @Kalikamata is a great example of this.  It takes a lot of coordination, effort, time and communication to organize and manage several leagues running the SNS concurrently each week.  That's all being done without a blue title.  As for the base crawl idea, I don't see how having a blue title had anything to do with it.  That's something you all could manage without the title and from what I understand, there's more categories to come for it outside of the tech bases.  Are those not happening now because you don't have the title?  If the base crawls will continue, it just proves the point that titles aren't needed for it.

I also want to add, and I can't believe I'm going to say it, but I agree with the HC thought of not having too many events too often that have big prizes like gold titles and merits and such. 

 

16 hours ago, Dacy said:

So if you think there is a "lack of interest" in bases, quite the opposite. Building, because prestige is gone now, has exploded. We have well over 33,000 bases that have been created on Everlasting alone. And how many players, do you think? Yeah. Clearly no interest in bases there. Excelsior has fewer, but still over 30,000.

 

To clarify, I was not suggesting there was a lack of interest in building in general.  I was more thinking of reasons why there may be a lack of interest in participating in a base contest.  Sure, I totally agree there are a lot of bases out there now, primarily because of the removal of the prestige system.  Absolutely there are players making "homes" for their characters.  There are also many more players like myself who are making one room storage hubs across multiple characters and accounts.  I probably have a dozen or more storage bases across various accounts myself, so while that seems like a big number of bases, it doesn't mean they're all "contest ready" or built for contests.  I'd wager most are just for personal storage and quick transport hubs, but I have no problem deferring to your knowledge of what's out there as you'll have a much better idea than I do.  I can only go by what I've seen. 

 

I do enjoy the work all the builders put into their bases and thank you to all of you out there who use your free time to do things for others.  I appreciate your efforts and hope you'll continue to keep doing what you're doing.

 

[ZacKing]

18 hours ago, Dacy said:

So if you think there is a "lack of interest" in bases, quite the opposite. Building, because prestige is gone now, has exploded. We have well over 33,000 bases that have been created on Everlasting alone. And how many players, do you think? Yeah. Clearly no interest in bases there. Excelsior has fewer, but still over 30,000.

 

I agree that there's way more bases now than before because prestige was eliminated and removing that silly system was a good thing.  I'd caution against reporting numbers like this though without context.  It's like the HC folks giving everyone a false sense of hope in telling people that's there's over 2 million "inactive" names that are sitting there unplayed.  A LOT of people are thinking that's an absolute guarantee the name they want is going to get freed up when the name release finally goes live.  That's not a good thing to be putting out there in my opinion and it's going to lead to a whole lot of disappointment when a name someone is after isn't released. 

 

Anyway, 33,000 bases might seem like a lot, but there are important qualifying questions about that number.  Some examples -

1. Over what time frame have these been built and are the accounts of the builders still active?
2. How many of these bases have actual passcodes that can be used by the public at large?
3. How many individual players (not accounts) does that number represent in terms of builders?  Just about every single person I know here has multiple accounts.
4. How many of those bases are something more than experiments to try different things to be used in "real" bases?  As an example, I have "test" bases I use on alt accounts to try out different things and then incorporate those items/techniques into the base I'm actually working on.
5. How many of these bases are what would be generally be accepted as "contest ready"?
6. How many of these bases aren't just one room storage bins cobbled together for someone's alts?
7. How many of those bases were built by one person who built it for another person?

Again, removing prestige is a great thing and I agree there's more people messing with bases now than there were on live.  That's a good thing.  Whether or not they're a base that people would consider entering into a contest is another story.  If there's over 33,000 bases on Everlasting alone and it's been difficult to find people to enter a contest, that's telling to me as to what people are using bases for and how small the building community is in relation to the overall player base. 

 

I'm not questioning the overall numbers nor am I saying the sheer number of them means people aren't using the editor and building.  Just saying that it's important to have all the context.

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, ZacKing said:

How many individual players (not accounts) does that number represent in terms of builders?

 

And how many individual players is that in relation to the overall number of individual players.

[Dacy]

@ZacKing and @Excraft, you two sure do like to argue. You say, we don't need blue titles or community relations, but both of you are poster boys for why we DO need community relations, as neither of you has any real regard for the team here. Although, tbh, I don't get the feeling either of you ever amend your positions, so, the ship has likely sailed on trying to 'improve relations" with you.  Excraft, you've even said you "don't have a dog in this fight" in another thread,  and Zac, you've said repeatedly you're "not the target audience", and yet, you show up like flies to a feast every time you see an argument you can make in this base construction topic. It gets tiresome. Your opinions are as welcome as anyone's, but once you get here, it starts to feel like more than expressed opinions, it feels like a battlefield.

 

You say, people run events all the time (which is true) and I say, I'm talking about base events,  you two try various straw man arguments, from picking apart the numbers and trying to define what constitutes a base worthy to be counted, by continuing to come back to relating this all to contests and some perception on your part that there's low interest, which I've told you is NOT true, to listing off even more non-base player run events. All this from two barely connected to base building at all, by their own statements. I admit to not even understanding why you are arguing so hard.  Btw, for some of your questions on how many bases we have and so forth, check out the directory. That's way not all of the bases, but we continue to try and reach out to the builders who have bases that should be in there.  I realize you don't likely care, you were just trying to tear down the idea that there was much interest in base building, but whatever, the resource is there.

 

The showcases will continue, because we started them. The contest is of more question, but we probably will, again, because we do what we say we will do. Would we have done the showcases or the contest we did, or the updating of the directory, or the other projects we have in the works to help with base visibility and editor ease, if not for the responsibility of the title? Likely not. I'd have to say, almost certainly not. Yes, the videos are all mine, and predate the CR stuff, as does my helpfulness and the base builder's discord, which has hundreds of people, and I know there are many many more that have no idea it even exists. My Halloween event predates being a CR, too. What the title did for us was give us the authority and responsibility to do what ELSE we've done. I challenge you to come up with an event that is not either sponsored by a particular sg, or where the main focus is to show off a particular base, or event in a base, that we did not do. Why is that? Well, simply put, things like raids and MSR leagues have a mutually beneficial goal for gamers: xp and infl, so yeah, people will do that. People will also do badge runs and hard mode, for bragging rights if nothing else. There is status in being a known leader of things like this, people like status. This is why you will see people hawking their base and asking people to come visit it, too, people want to show off their work (and there's nothing wrong with that). But there's nothing inherently rewarding about organizing an event that shows off everyone else's base, and things like that take up time. CRs did things that pointedly did not benefit them, but did benefit the community. I already have the game, my many base builds that are ongoing, my videos, and then, oh yeah, RL, so time is a factor, and I'm not sure that we'd have even thought to do something like showcases without the responsibility and authority we were given. So there are many things I doubt would have happened without the CR role.  Now that we're here, of course, there is a certain momentum to our work, for it to continue (but at what capacity, I don't know). But certainly enough to do the showcases.

 

From these interactions, I get this information: you like the game, but not Homecoming, so you'd rather have things be player run. You see no advantage to better communications with the HC team, and so you disdain the idea of a CR, and think that the position never mattered. You also seem to think the base building population is small, unimportant to the game, and lacks "contest worthy" bases, or lacks interest in contests, or both. Check. Got it. Never going to agree with you, but that's okay.

 

You'll probably stay around and try and argue some more, but I already told you that denigrating the CR position was hurtful, and I'm feeling battered enough, so I'll be going now. Have fun storming the castle, and all that.

 

[Trick]

Some people need lives...or hobbies. Something to do besides wasting time being argumentative.

[Unearthly Herald]

I like to take this time and send good vibes.

I like this game and I like Homecoming. Also and when it comes to building bases, I find Dacy and other people as creative, awe-inspiring, and immensely talented.

I remember checking out more than a few of Dacy's YouTube videos about base building and I was like "Wow, I did not know that was even possible to do with bases." I am thankful and appreciative. And I do enjoy touring bases. I find it to be fun.

I will leave it at that when it comes to sending good wishes. I don't want this to be long-winded.

[Force Redux]

Dacy and Easter Bunny, ty for all you do to make our community the best, and supporting builders across the community 🙏😌🙂