State of the community

[BoM]

This whole hot garbage of a take was painful to read so I'm throwing some clarifications out there before I write a more eloquent post elsewhere.

 

3 hours ago, All Ts said:

It's important to understand how SG got here if you guys really wanna fix it. It was basically decided some of it's most notoriously successful servers on one of the most popular games of all-time weren't important anymore (unintentionally and intentionally). Playing the servers became less important. Posting on the forums became less important. Accruing bans or play time became less important. Even touching the server you were managing or at all interacting with the community in any remotely perceivable way became pretty unimportant. Frankly a lot of the time no one wanted to interrupt the status quo for the better or be the person to say things were going bad & hold anyone accountable. I looked like an asshole pointing out people's inactivity, telling people no on admin apps, pushing for demotions and against promotions but I still feel that it's the right way to do things. Things always trended way too hard towards leniency and the caliber you were became a lot less important. This situation was exacerbated by changing the process for applying several times in critical ways & made worse when the people being promoted are only loosely known by the people promoting them. If you don't know the person running a server- especially one of the important ones then you don't know their CA's, or their admins, or the player base of the server either. Throughout my time here I have continuously seen people gaslighted on this issue, but this is how it is. 

- A lot of people grew up and lost interest in the servers, younger generation did not flow players in as efficiently. Also resulted in lots of trolls unfortunately, more lenient banning just had trolls scaring away regs.

- Admin app changes had minimal statistical effect on the state of things ever. We went from like 5-7 approved out of 25 in a 1-3 month span to just 5 approved. Similarly our servers took nosedives unrelated to not having admins, resulting in less overall apps, eventually drying up our staff pool heavily.

- It's not gaslighting, BDs are capable of being in tune with a lot without you actually being able to see some noticeable result of it. Honestly just garbo rhetoric that you should remove from your brain.

 

3 hours ago, All Ts said:

 

I don't even remotely like Fuze but the go-getter attitude to do literally anything at all, have fun (hopefully) doing it, and execute it well is the ONLY measure that ever should have mattered. It's really the only thing that matters running any project. Make this guy BD. SG needed a lot of it's higher-up BD's in the dirt with shovels building servers when things started divebombing. Needed people with red names getting involved with the main 3 and if they HATED the server & it's player base they at the very least could use their experience/pull to have someone underneath them who LOVES the server learn not to be a fuck-up. The current structure at the community where a few people that barely speak to each other build servers that no one has any oversight over and the people with red names infrequently delineate on what is likely unimportant in the grand scheme is not a healthy way for things to run. Have to lead from the front-lines. If it's really decided that SG wants to go another way, that's fine. But the state of having 7 higher-ups and I don't see any indication that one of them is involved with or has really any interest in the big 3 servers that built the community up in it's transition to CS:GO is a problem. There needs to be drastically more involvement or a look at the way things have adapted as SG grew. 

- He can't have BD. maybe. dunno.

- Everyone always hating on the red guys. nothing new man honestly...can show you shit like this from the beginning of SG. Fact is we lost a lot of management and couldn't replace it fast enough, still can't...so yeah we're rethinking what we can do in the interim. This whole thought of wanting someone who's already busted their ass for years and has to manage all the managers, promotions, multiple monthly meetings, money shit, approval and voting of XYZ, a lot of drama, interstaff relations, and probably a handful of other things to just step up more and carry the servers on their shoulders instead of *more logically* trying to find people to bring up and fixing the problems causing a lack of that is just dumb. Keep wasting your time thinking it's all about leaning on the uninvolved red guys, you will get nowhere.

 

3 hours ago, All Ts said:

 

The theory that CS:GO itself was just something to get away from, that it was in a stage of die-off was pretty malignant IMO. Whatever came from that weren't the most fruitful projects or weren't really supported much by the community at large. It seemed like an excuse to me for people who were otherwise not interested in the servers to stick around in a retirement home and bark at people all day. Anytime a server held good management on CS:GO and were backed by competent TA's, they genuinely did well because that's where the player base was and has always been. SG has been around forever building a community of Counter-Strike players, it would make sense to me to start there and if you want to work up from there then you'll at least have something instead of nothing. Why waste it? The multi-year veterans here aren't interested in niche half-assed one-offs of other games but plenty would probably pop in to see an SG Jailbreak, ZE, TTT run decently. Even some niche one-off inspired projects that were run well at SG have done well when the person behind them really gave it a real try & weren't using them for a promotion to ego on people with. 

- Pretty valid actually, wasn't an excuse...and so far in about a year of pushing for that we've seen growth in minecraft and discord because of it. It's small yes, and it needs a lot more pumped into it but we have had successful ventures. Squad died to shitty management, even then it did okay for a while it just didn't pull people because not milsim community. Rust died due to our server being blacklisted, and was actually killing it beforehand. shoutout @Creten@gween

- Your hatred of BDs is evident. get over it, try another angle.

- The active move towards non CSGO stuff went through so many channels, talks, meetings, and votes...and even then there was a pile of people through the entirety of 2021 who busted their asses trying to keep CSGO going every which way, including virtually everything you mentioned here.

 

Sorry I didn't give a lot of effort here but honestly this is mostly jaded dated nonsense and if you have an issue with the structure or the red guys just fucking leave man.

[kabLe]

35 minutes ago, BoM said:

- It's not gaslighting, BDs are capable of being in tune with a lot without you actually being able to see some noticeable result of it. Honestly just garbo rhetoric that you should remove from your brain.

 

 

- Everyone always hating on the red guys. nothing new man honestly...can show you shit like this from the beginning of SG. Fact is we lost a lot of management and couldn't replace it fast enough, still can't...so yeah we're rethinking what we can do in the interim. This whole thought of wanting someone who's already busted their ass for years and has to manage all the managers, promotions, multiple monthly meetings, money shit, approval and voting of XYZ, a lot of drama, interstaff relations, and probably a handful of other things to just step up more and carry the servers on their shoulders instead of *more logically* trying to find people to bring up and fixing the problems causing a lack of that is just dumb. Keep wasting your time thinking it's all about leaning on the uninvolved red guys, you will get nowhere.

 

- The active move towards non CSGO stuff went through so many channels, talks, meetings, and votes...and even then there was a pile of people through the entirety of 2021 who busted their asses trying to keep CSGO going every which way, including virtually everything you mentioned here.

 

 

Bullet 1: I'm not saying your gas lighting anyone but realistically there is no way you can be plugged into every minute detail at every level that requires making informed decisions. The supporting ranks IMO are there to assist you in giving those opinions. 

 

 Bullet 2: While this is absolutely true, there were many other smaller decisions made that lead to this outcome. I'm not saying any BD needs to step up and put the whole community on their back, but by saying that in one of the lowest times in SG, that you have all put in your time already, your saying everyone else should put them on their back and you won't do anything to assist with the plethora of knowledge and influence you have, if you don't want to. Under normal circumstances, I'd absolutely agree. We had a system in place that allowed the Board to be more hands off and focus on the macro instead of the micro. But now more than ever, we need people focusing intently on the micro or there won't be any macro. 

 

Bullet3: I concur with this. It was not afaik, a random decision to stop focusing on CSGO. We still had server managers who volunteered to keep the servers going, but it did not pan out the way originally hoped. 

 

At the end of the day, we could say this person did x and this person did y and thats why we are here but what is the actual point of that. To blame someone for the collective failure that is currently taking place? I just don't see how that is productive. I'm sure everyone has their opinion on why things went sideways, and I'm no exception to that. I've done my fair share to contribute towards toxicity and I'm not denying that. If things keep trending this way I don't see how we claw our way back to making forward progress. I'd rather stop the blame game, recognize decisions and attitudes that resulted in negative outcomes, learn from it, and put our best foot forward to correct things. Higher ups are always discussing ways we can make things better and where to zero our focus in. We've already had discussions on easing up requirements for CA and as far as I know, we will be seeing some announcement in the coming future.

 

The bickering and pointing the finger isn't helping anything. If people have ideas, post them so a discussion can be had or DM them to an SM+. In all the threads I've seen there hasn't been much of an actual solution, just discussion on why things went wrong. While its important to understand and improve on those aspects, dwelling on them isn't going to move the numbers up at all.

 

- He can't have BD. maybe. dunno.

Objection. Heresay.

[Jake]

Question since I have been absent from this community since I've stepped down: 

1. How many of you have even played on any of the servers in the last month? 

2. Why does SG pay for all these dead servers. Why not take down all the failing servers (Just guessing squad and rust are probably dead 24/7) and focus on the existing or up and coming. Some of these servers never have anyone playing and cost money, so what's the point of keeping them up? I may be missing something here, but it just seems like a waste. 

 

Also, I know Noob suggested it, but for those legends who still play games and occasionally check up on SG why not give admin to those players to give them an incentive to come back? I'm not talking full powers, but maybe to the degree of CA abilities? (If they are still the same as they were back in the day). As far as I'm aware, that's always how it was done, and suddenly, it is changed. 

Also, not sure if @delirium deleted his post; if not, why was it taken down? I feel like it was a valid point about leadership. 

 

Closing thought: Look I know I've been gone for a few years and don't have the inside knowledge of what the higher-ups are doing or what changes have been going on, but I don't want to see a community that we've all spent so much time in go away like many others like it. Something has to change drastically, or nothing will get better. I'm aware that I don't have any specific suggestions or ideas that are new or drastic, but I felt like putting my thoughts out there. Just my perspective. 

[BoM]

7 minutes ago, Jake said:

Question since I have been absent from this community since I've stepped down: 

1. How many of you have even played on any of the servers in the last month? 

2. Why does SG pay for all these dead servers. Why not take down all the failing servers (Just guessing squad and rust are probably dead 24/7) and focus on the existing or up and coming. Some of these servers never have anyone playing and cost money, so what's the point of keeping them up? I may be missing something here, but it just seems like a waste. 

1. Not sure why this matters.

2. It's all on 2 dedis. doesn't change cost much.

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Also, I know Noob suggested it, but for those legends who still play games and occasionally check up on SG why not give admin to those players to give them an incentive to come back? I'm not talking full powers, but maybe to the degree of CA abilities? (If they are still the same as they were back in the day). As far as I'm aware, that's always how it was done, and suddenly, it is changed. 

Legends can do that upon request.

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Also, not sure if @delirium deleted his post; if not, why was it taken down? I feel like it was a valid point about leadership. 

It was just calling Caution out. really out of place. Trying to keep this civil, told him to DM him directly.

 

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Closing thought: Look I know I've been gone for a few years and don't have the inside knowledge of what the higher-ups are doing or what changes have been going on, but I don't want to see a community that we've all spent so much time in go away like many others like it. Something has to change drastically, or nothing will get better. I'm aware that I don't have any specific suggestions or ideas that are new or drastic, but I felt like putting my thoughts out there. Just my perspective. 

Welcome back, unfortunately this adds nothing

[delirium]

Yes, Calling the leadership out in a thread talking about why the community is failing at this point is out of place.

 

Noted.

 

The beatings will continue until morale has been improved.

[thuxys]

 

2 minutes ago, Jake said:

2. Why does SG pay for all these dead servers. Why not take down all the failing servers (Just guessing squad and rust are probably dead 24/7) and focus on the existing or up and coming. Some of these servers never have anyone playing and cost money, so what's the point of keeping them up? I may be missing something here, but it just seems like a waste. 

 Last year we removed crackhouse,1v1, and ffa because it was in a similar position. We usually keep them up when we have staff actively working on it (even if any progress isn't being made or shown). I'm guessing once new servers are out some of the dead servers would be chopped at the BD+ discretion.

 

12 minutes ago, Jake said:

Also, I know Noob suggested it, but for those legends who still play games and occasionally check up on SG why not give admin to those players to give them an incentive to come back? I'm not talking full powers, but maybe to the degree of CA abilities? (If they are still the same as they were back in the day). As far as I'm aware, that's always how it was done, and suddenly, it is changed. 

 

We need to give legends some type of perm in order for them to want to play on the servers? Something about that doesn't sound right Jake. I remember Xeno coming back very briefly because he found out he didn't have perms anymore, applied for admin, got it, and he never came back again. I'm not saying all legends would do what he did but having perms doesn't really affect anything.

[Steven.]

5 hours ago, BoM said:

Rust died due to our server being blacklisted, and was actually killing it beforehand. shoutout @Creten@gween

OH NAHHH WHAT IS THIS TOMFOOLERY??? 

[BoM]

1 minute ago, Steven. said:

OH NAHHH WHAT IS THIS TOMFOOLERY??? 

ah shi-....

[Steel_]

Yo! Midnight thread takes this shit is fire 

[All Ts]

1 minute ago, BoM said:

1. Not sure why this matters.

Playing on the server should be bare minimum if people care. It should literally come before anything else. I don't even mildly understand this viewpoint and would love to see you try to substantiate it. When will anyone log on if the people who care most, don't. You can't just create servers, even if they're great and expect people to just play them. This 100% goes back to the first post I made and standards being way too low. Honestly, I've seen some amazing albeit empty CS:GO servers that pushed the envelope. SG could easily operate on 1 dedi so while his post about removing individual servers it still makes perfect sense in my mind and is a perfectly valid question.

 

Lastly I feel like your posts and attitude about all of this comes off really dismissive and aggressive for no reason. I think you should leave all the posts up unless they're explicitly breaking rules and if you think they're dogshit useless then you don't have to act on them, you really don't even need to respond to them. You responded to me super aggressively & accusatory. I then responded to you addressing the legitimate content of your post. It's jarring that both myself and delirium, who see eye to eye on virtually nothing said the exact same thing almost verbatim. I don't know why you have to make a thread of people making suggestions into a pissing contest where you pick through there posts & respond passive aggressive or straight delete them.