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Holiday Update!

Somnastra

Somnastra

Puppycat Herder
Events Staff
Lore Staff
Good
Staff
Retired Owner
Somnastra
Somnastra
Good
pyrocide said:
I read this, and thought, "why would someone disagree/dislike this? It's actually..."

Uh, yeah, no clue what happened. I browse on my phone a lot, probably hit it while scrolling or something.
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I was laughing so hard, because I was thinking the same thing.
 
7

7632

Guest
Warning: Incoming Wall of Text. If you are easily distracted, you're prejudiced against any of my thoughts, or you simply don't care, stop reading now. And no, I'm not going to talk about the economy... much... ;)

I'll start by saying I deliberately delayed writing and releasing my response, both to give myself time to think about the OP and to read and ponder the response. I think there's a lot of here that deserves feedback. I'm going to dissect each section of the OP and add my thoughts. I may be critical of some things. Please don't take interpret it as ad hominem. If HollowWorld is to be a transparent community, we must all be able to listen and consider rationally based constructive criticism. The real question is... is my response rational? That is a whole other discussion.
/rerail

This response is meant to call attention to and to spur discussion on the points made in the thread.

Somnastra said:
As we start to head into the holiday season, I wanted to give an update to everyone on where we're at. This is something I would like to do every few months, and will let me convey certain bits of information that would be difficult to disseminate otherwise.

I'll be sharing with you guys some things that rarely get talked about openly: the financial state of the server, new player applications, and player activity. I will also discuss the status of the staff team, and then there will be an update for each department, written by the appropriate coordinator. If you've got questions, please let us know, and we'll do our best to answer them sans spoilers.
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Som: I think the level of transparency that you've allowed rivals no other. I can't think of any other examples in which a server owner takes time out of the day to write a clear, thought out letter. This letter validates my faith in your ability to lead. That you've included and encouraged others to adopt such transparency is inspiring. We should all be very appreciative that you and the other staff members took the time to give us such a wonderful holiday gift.

Server Accounting
<snip>
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I'm glad to hear that the server has a bit of a financial buffer, but I hope we as players don't take that for granted. Lately I have, as I've been struggling to make all my payments. But, I think we all can do better to contribute more. Just remember; HollowWorld provides hours of entertainment free of charge. It's the least we can do to contribute, even if we have to give up buying that cool new album on ITUNES to do it.

As a side note, I don't think it's a particularly good idea to use your own personal paypal for the server finances.

Health of Server Population
<snip>
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This is all wonderful news. You all should be very pleased to see the community remain healthy. I'd like to commend you all for properly screening the whitelist so well. I've not witnessed any newly whitelisted (or older players, for that matter) advertising, griefing etc. That is incredibly unusual and I think we as players take that for granted. Thank you thank you thank you to the whitelisters for doing one heck of a job.

I would like to point out that there are resources available that allows server administrators to more easily track activity levels. I'm sure you already know this, so... that's all I have to say about that...

Plug-Ins
Contributed by Sally
<snip>
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Sally: Thank you so much for managing all the plugins for us all. You do a ton of work for us, all free of charge. I know we've had our disagreements, but it doesn't mean I don't respect you for what you do. The mychunk update has been a mess and you've been tagging people one by one and asking permission to delete. That's a ton of work, especially when the easier (and much less desirable) way would be to just delete them all. You look out for the players best interests, sometimes to the expense of your own. It's not unnoticed.



Builds and RP/IC Infrastructure
Contributed by Mairin
<snip>
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There's a lot here. You all are working hard as usual, again with no compensation. I've heard of situations where server owners pay builders hundreds of dollars to construct maps and builds for them. Your team does all this for free. What a great asset.

I look forward to seeing a few more questlines, to be honest. One approach I've seen some people do is let players suggest questlines, for events or otherwise. Regardless, I'm a bit nervous that too many quests might turn the server into more of an RPG. I don't really want to see "go kill 100 spiders" standalone quests. The style that you made the tutorial quest is marvelous, and I look forward to seeing how you tie in quests with the lore and atmosphere of the server.

I love the shophub. I do think pockets should be readded, pending the resolution of the UUID conflict. I've had tons of people ask me how I got a pocket and have even had an offer for a player to buy it from me.

As for the region that has houses/stalls for rent. I see both sides to this argument. In the past, as a merchant, I would have loved the idea and been very supportive. Now, as a region owner intending to build up a city designed specifically for trade purposes, I don't know how I feel about a server run city again. I think we've done a great job spreading RP around since the destruction of PS. At the very least, I hope to see players and region owners involved in deciding whether to bring back an active server-owned region.

Moderation
<snip>
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OOC/IC blending is something that actually bugs me a bit. I've noted several occasions where IC issues become OOC issues. To some extent, I've noticed OOC dislike that STEMS from IC dislike. That bugs me a bit. It's not the fault of the moderation team by any means. It's something we all can improve on as players.


Lore
Contributed by Michcat
<snip>
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I'm glad to hear that the Lore team has expanded. Lore is an incredibly complex, detailed, and living concept. Once again, the lore team does this all with no compensation. I think we as players sometimes take things for granted and can be more patient.

Events
Contributed by Michcat
<snip>
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Events continue to be a strong point on this server, thanks to Mich's dedication and player willingness to create, support, and participate in events. When I first joined the server, there was a big campaign. At first, I was a bit lost. I didn't really know what was going on until other players explained it to me. Once I realized the scope of the campaign, I knew this was a place I wanted to be. The living map style is incredibly fun, and I'd hate to see it dissipate. Regardless, your team has done a lot of work that deserves commendation.

Media
Contributed by Iceandfire
<snip>
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I love the competitions, and I've noticed an uptick in media activity. Media is hard work that is once again being performed without compensation.

Concluding Thoughts

We as players are so fortunate that all these people work so hard to bring us HollowWorld. We need to do a better job remembering that they do this for free. They have lives outside of Minecraft. This is not a job, but a hobby. Even if we think a person is not doing a job properly, we need to remember that they have real lives and get busy. The staff doesn't criticize us for taking absences.

This place is so thoughtfully constructed and operated. It is deliberate. It's amazing to see it as #4, but it deserves to be #1. Any place that can withstand my barrages of text, critiques, economy threads and witch hunts deserves to be #1.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Somnastra

Somnastra

Puppycat Herder
Events Staff
Lore Staff
Good
Staff
Retired Owner
Somnastra
Somnastra
Good
Antilogy said:
As a side note, I don't think it's a particularly good idea to use your own personal paypal for the server finances.
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Right now, it's rather my only option, and I've ceased to use it for anything else. I:
 
S

SallyPirate

Lord of Altera
Ugh, all these good feelings are gonna make me vomit..

Joking aside- I was a little skeptical and wary when I read the warning, and by the end I was pretty happy with that response, thankee Antilogy~
 
Baron

Baron

Sovereign
Retired Staff
aidoninja said:
*sigh* doctor who, timelords have 2 hearts, bbc>everything
player love is represented by a heart
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Don't sigh at me, that's a weird chain of thought to follow. Space Marines have 2 hearts as well, but I'm not saying we need a grimdark rating.
 
7

7632

Guest
Klingons have two hearts, too. We totally need a Klingon rating...

Actually, they have 8 chambers. The equivalent of two hearts.
 
Tybalt

Tybalt

Lord of Altera
Gaby said:
...
@bettemus99
I feel like the universe is playing a cruel joke on us.

for anyone who doesn't get the joke
I used to have a werewolf character on this server, and when I came back, my whitelist application got rejected twice because I insisted on wanting to play a werewolf.

bette used to play a werewolf, but that werewolf got her wolfy powers taken away.
aaaaaand she recently permadied.
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I spent way too much time trying to see if that first spoiler was just glitch ing or not
 
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