I'll post this here as this is where I feel my roots are. Not sure where the rest of my tree is at the moment, but my roots are here and I feel amongst enough friends to post some ramblings..........
Personal thoughts:
Recent happenings in the community have been troubling me.
I am sure that OB & I manage to get some things wrong or miscommunicate or communicate insufficiently at times, but at the end of the day you break either of us in two like a stick of rock you'll see nothing but 'dMw'.
We do what we do with dMw's best interests at heart and between the two of us we spend untold hours outside of our gaming discussing, managing, planning and trying to develop and improve dMw for everybody. We've always been open & honest about what we do, we've never hidden the community accounts from anybody and we have more admins sharing the workload and 'power' than at any previous time. So, the recent threads have been bewildering to say the least.
When people attack others directly without holding all of the necessary information or even thinking through the effects of their personal attacks it saddens me greatly and some of those comments really seriously hurt. For my part, OB and I work as a team, we regularly speak on the phone about dMw matters, we have a torrent of PMs between us and other admins about various issues and how to proceed, so when someone throws daggers at OB or me then it hits the other one of us too.
Speaking for myself, I have found the level of vitriol that some people feel free to hurl at me or OB extremely difficult to cope with and have got to the stage of whether it was even worth continuing at all if who we are is so hated and what we do so terrible.
I find it even more difficult to see ex-admins who have thrown their toys out of their many prams and self-banished themselves from dMw, returning to our forums only to make cheap shots at us knowing full well that our own dMw standards will stop OB or me from responding and posting the other half of the story in the public forum. We have no wish to '**** on a dead men's grave', but there are so many people out there who think that half the story makes them properly informed - and before you ask, No; the information contained in this section or even the Section Head forum does not even come close to constituting the whole story.
OB and I are just human We just try our best to be decent people, to not act like pricks and to do the right thing for the members and for dMw. We donate a huge chunk of our personal time to the community each week and we don't get paid for our trouble. I have found it difficult to maintain a positive mind when so many of the attacks describe us as some kind of power-mad, money-grubbing genetic low-life.
The threads have contained some positive ideas and contributions and that at the moment is what I am trying to focus on, but it sure is hard to think good things when someone is kicking you in the nuts all the time.
So where now?
I am hoping that we can sort the wheat from the chaff and debate those worthy ideas here and come up with enough positives to help us plan dMw's future from here. If nothing else then please send me some salve for my aching balls.
OB and I want your input. We want to hear your voices, we need to hear your voices. Silence is de facto support of whatever idea is being discussed, so please contribute your time, ideas & effort to help develop the community. We we value those contributions and we do try to listen and take those thoughts and ideas onboard when setting final policy with the Coucil.
Yes we can & will get some things wrong.
No, we cannot wave a magic wand and fix all things at once. We take one step at a time.
At the end of the day though someone has to run the community, so OB & me is where the buck stops. When someone does not like what we do then it is our heads that are above the parapet first being shot at. It's just a damn shame that some people feel the need to shoot first instead of asking questions through normal channels.
I remain hopeful that YOU, the game admins and section heads, will contribute sufficiently your ideas and effort to initally developing support for your own game, then the other games we support and finally the overall plans for the community, that we are then able to draw out the positive from recent threads.
Please post up your ideas, get active discussing them and push ideas up via your SH for further discussion & deliberation. dMw is full of opportunities to succeed, so please help us make dMw a continuing success.
TL.
Tealeaf, I count you as a mate and have done since LAN1 (same applies to OB), you and the community have my full support and any help I can provide.
People leaving the community happens, its a big community, the way some choose to do it is immature and smacks of a toddlers tantrum but let them get on with it, dont take things too personally.
This place would be much worse without the support you and OB give,some people dont see that but I guarantee they'd notice you if you weren't there.
The amount of free time donated to this community by many many people is hidden and often thankless, but I for one would like to thank now all the DMWers who make this place what it is.
I've not commented so far on the management structure thread. This is because most of the things I would say, have already been said.
Since I've been a member there have been several tweaks and changes to the community, and there have always been some members who felt disgruntled each time (remember The Great SOG Invasion of 06?). However each time change has happened, dMw has grown, either in size, experience and/or resillience.
I still find it a friendly, happy place to be (Forums and servers).
Reading the management thread I was surprised by a couple of things.
Firstly the fact that we were changing structure; it was the first I'd heard of it. It is maybe this aspect that has put some peoples backs up. as far as I was aware, dMw was cruising along nicely, (Like a swan, elegant above the water, Peddling like f**k below, as it turns out)
Secondly, that some people got so het up about it. I don't see the management being cliquey or lording it over members. I see the accounts published with no red ink. I see the forum is still busy. I see the gaming servers running smoothly; I have 3 CSS servers, 3 L4D, 2CoD4 and 2 NeoTokyo on my HLSW list, dMr have a few, and there's an ArmaII running somewhere, and anytime a new game arrives at least 1 server opens up immediately.
What more could a chap want?
I think Sparko's post best sums up my feelings
Quote from: Sparko;283022why is there so much negativity?, i havent been a member of this community for long but i know for sure its the best community i have ever come accross as far as online gaming is concerned. i cant see anything wrong with any part of the community, who its run by, where the funds go, how full the servers are. what i wouldnt like to see is the community to go all "commercial". i like the guys (and gals) that are online regularly, playing the games we always play. At the end of the day we all just want to play games online, have a laugh, give each other stick etc.
I cant imagine how much work is involved in keeping a community like this up and running. some of us seem to forget when we are playing online on one of our servers (whatever game) how much effort has gone into providing it for Nothing.
like i say i havent been a member of dMw for long but i really cant see anything wrong at all.
also i dont understand the problem with the donation part, am i missing something?
So, TL & OB you have my thanks and support.
Regards
Blunt
Personally I think the way dMw operates and manages is just fine.
I just think some are under the assumption that because they are supporting members, they are now shareholders of dMw, which I think is why the question of 'electing leaders' and 'all sit down and debate how dMw should be run' came about, Is this a business? No, as you have said yourselves, you (TL and OB) are dMw, you own dMw whether anyone likes it or not!
People still want to have a say in various matters, it is what a community does, which is what this community does, but yet they want more say? so maybe it is worth polling some idea's to get a general consensus before implementing? I don't know.
We are always trying new games that can fit the dMw ethos, when a request comes in, dMw re-acts quickly to it and some(if not all?) are proving popular, these are bringing in new people, people who like the way dMw operates, is it enough? Is there anything else we can do to entice them to sign up on the forums?
There is always room for improvement here and there, but we are still going in the right direction from my viewpoint and you guys are doing a great job! :)
The changes suggested are not life threatening and appear to me to be a sensible path to progress.
I have been upset at some of the personal attacks and comments of some participants, not called for IMO and non-productive.
I mainly take part in Dead Men Racing (cos I'm crap at everything else) and have heard no criticism of dMw management and administration, in fact most participants have only praise.
To quote Blunt:So, TL & OB you have my thanks and support.
Regards
Lameduck
Noli nothi permittere te terere
(Never let the *******s wear you down)
I only have a few pennies in this matter that I wish to share with you guys.
I know I'm not the most 'serious' person here, but I want you all to know that this is the way I feel about the community.
Its the best community on the whole internet. Altho, honestly, its the only one I am a memeber of. But thats because where ever I go on the web, theres nothing like home (dMw).
I have no problems with the way TL or OB are managing the community, and I appreciate all the hard work they do, even if they dont always get a pat on the shoulder and a 'good work guys'.
We speak of holes and weaknesses in the community, but if you ask me there will always be bits and bobs that arent perfect, we are only a naked ape, we cant do perfect. We can do well, and thats what dMw is doing.
There will also be some muppets and forumtrolls about, and unfortunatly they will always be there. Such is life too, dont we all know the annoying collegue in office that just has to make everyones day as miserable as he/she is. Thats why its so great to have a great boss that can step in and make things right again, no matter what the annoying collegue manage to conjure up of bad and angry feelings.
Keep at it, TL and OB. And to you and the rest of the admins: Thank you all for making this a safe and secure place to be for a little girl like me. And thank you for making it possible for other people to enjoy the games, chats, forums and everything this community has to offer.
As previously stated by others, OB & TL are doing a fine job, keep it up, your doing it great :)
other then that i only got one comment atm
Nothing wrong -> move along ;)
TL,
I admire your restraint in not posting in the public thread, I know how much this community means to you and Oldie (indeed all of us) and that you can be very defensive and direct when you see posts of a nature you feel attacks that spirit. Sometimes this can fuel the fire without intending to.
I think that the quote about the same people all the time is annoying, yes it's the same people, but these people are the ones that commit a lot of their free time into looking after the servers and defining the rules applied. Said people keep those positions because of their continued commitment. I know from experience that when obvious commitment is made, it is recognised and people are offered more supporting rolls in the community. It's a big responsibility and sometimes people don't think they can give the time which it would require, others take up the challenge and excel.
There have been a lot of people wanting change or external team war arranging, but when that chance is offered ,if they can prove a commitment, and the opportunity is given, those same people don't commit and continue to demand the same change. They fail to see that sometimes things fail because the community either doesn't want it or can't commit and they take that out on the admin structure.
Another thing they don't seem to realise, is that this it a team play community and sometimes certain games or mods do not fit in with that ethos. That is why they aren't supported, as has been said a lot of times before "if you don't like it, play elsewhere", this doesn't mean "**** off, we don't want you", this means there are plenty of places out there where you can get your fix and return to play on the supported games and be welcomed.
Funds..... I believe this has probably materialised because of the "Supporting Members" change and it's obvious income. I can only hope that you now have recovered the monies that you have personally put into the server fund and I think that it's too early for people to see the benefits that the positive balance will have when we have to expand due to newly supported games and mods. Expand too early and it's wasted and at the moment we seem to be fully catered for, but now we have the ability to react to newly emerging games and their specs.
Sometimes unpopular choices and changes have to be made to maintain the integrity of the 'dMw mission statement' (oh how I have myself for using that term), but it's working and drops in standard are quickly rectified.
As Blunt says, Sparko's statement is by far the biggest argument for the structure in hand and new players are joining and staying because of said structure.
Historically, unpopular changes have strengthened the community rather than weekend and those changes were decided by the current management.
Basically, keep up the good work, don't feel you have to react to attacks that may seem personal because sometimes not reacting is the correct action and things of that nature.
Thanks for the words of support, folks. They were much needed and very much appreciated. :blush:
It was great to see so many servers active last night and, IMHO, a good sign that it's not all doom 'n' gloom here, eh? :flirty:
Quote from: OldBloke;283825Thanks for the words of support, folks. They were much needed and very much appreciated. :blush:
It was great to see so many servers active last night and, IMHO, a good sign that it's not all doom 'n' gloom here, eh? :flirty:
Anytime boss :)
Tbh, i dont think we are in that bad a shape as some might think, we are just hitting a streak of new great games launching, which is spreading our player base across a lot of games, and then there are vacations and so on..
Thanks for the support folks, Now onto the work part of the post:
Quote from: TeaLeaf;283676So where now?
OB and I want your input. We want to hear your voices, we need to hear your voices. Silence is de facto support of whatever idea is being discussed, so please contribute your time, ideas & effort to help develop the community. We we value those contributions and we do try to listen and take those thoughts and ideas onboard when setting final policy with the Coucil.
I remain hopeful that YOU, the game admins and section heads, will contribute sufficiently your ideas and effort to initally developing support for your own game, then the other games we support and finally the overall plans for the community, that we are then able to draw out the positive from recent threads.
Please post up your ideas, get active discussing them and push ideas up via your SH for further discussion & deliberation. dMw is full of opportunities to succeed, so please help us make dMw a continuing success.
Let's start posting the constructive ideas of your own or from the public threads to this forum area and start discussing, debating, developing ideas please. If you don't then we'll end up announcing another change that people then say they had no input into and of which they had no prior warning.
Please, we want to hear your voices.
Reading some of the posts, one thing stands out (to me), which is relaxing the rules in some form, however, making a tactical community to a frag community does not appeal to me personally (at all), but thinking what's best for the community and to help it grow makes me think of a solution to keep everyone happy :)
First Idea (and I mean IDEA) Is to maybe have a separate "frag" server where the objectives are not pushed, but the integrity is still held (no purpose TW/TK, no swearing, no inappropriate behavior etc) and from the 'frag server' we could lead a objective ideal, but not enforce it, but we could advertise and entice people onto dMw's tactical servers, which could be more effective in bringing more members into the community? and keep the tactical servers clear of fraggers, maybe on a trial basis (Don't get me wrong, this is not something I would want to see myself, but me thinking outside of the box)
Second Idea, To 'officially' relax the swearing after a watershed (9-10pm) or so long as no-one who is under a specific age will be subjected to it (age specific?) and so long as it is not OTT obscene swearing.
food for thought
Quote from: Snokio;283993First Idea (and I mean IDEA) Is to maybe have a separate "frag" server where the objectives are not pushed, but the integrity is still held (no purpose TW/TK, no swearing, no inappropriate behavior etc) and from the 'frag server' we could lead a objective ideal, but not enforce it.
Nothing personal, but the idea of an open frag server sends shivers down my spine. Unless you are going to fill it every night with majority dMw's it won't work. An open server that clearly states the rules and sticks to them, maybe.
Quote from: Snokio;283993Second Idea, To 'officially' relax the swearing after a watershed (9-10pm) or so long as no-one who is under a specific age will be subjected to it (age specific?) and so long as it is not OTT obscene swearing.
This already happens. I think we have a pretty good bunch who know what is reasonable and what isn't. If you officially condone it you'll encourage it. If you encourage it you'll end up with a load of idiots thinking it's both big and clever.
I swear a fair bit at times, but I try and cut down. I find it embarrasing when I catch myself doing it. We are a communicty of mature gamers, not a ramshackle bunch of swearing alcoholics...:norty:
Quote from: Snokio;283993Second Idea, To 'officially' relax the swearing after a watershed (9-10pm) or so long as no-one who is under a specific age will be subjected to it (age specific?) and so long as it is not OTT obscene swearing.
food for thought
Fine but we've already had one member recently complaining about the language on the servers.
What's obscene to one may be fine to another, that's the problem. I've never had the propensity to swear online.... that is until I started playing L4D. I dunno what it is about that game but it makes me swear like a good 'un. And I have no idea why....
In my eyes there is 3 kinds of swearing. The odd swear word after 9/10 o'clock at night in the heat of battle, I can't see it being a problem. But no one wants' to hear every other word being an F/S/C anytime of the day and the biggest no no is abuse. Calling some a C is totally different to saying F after being killed.
I hope the person wasn't complaining about the language on a COD server.
Here's a rambling thought. How about a monthly/weekly/half yearly meeting on TEAMSPEAK! How much of the crap we've been seeing lately could have been averted by talking to each other? Almost all I'd wager. The internet/forums/PMs is a pretty shite way of communicating isn't it?
Quote from: Doorman;284055Here's a rambling thought. How about a monthly/weekly/half yearly meeting on TEAMSPEAK! How much of the crap we've been seeing lately could have been averted by talking to each other? Almost all I'd wager. The internet/forums/PMs is a pretty shite way of communicating isn't it?
I would post with the "I'm with stupid"-icon, but this isnt a half bad idea, and as such I dont find Ron stupid, so I will just say I agree. We should have meetings over Teamspeak as its easier to communicate that way.
Might be in the wrong place to post this (feel free to move) but how about looking into welcoming new members into the community in a bid to keeping them, I see new names at the bottom of the forum page on a regular basis 'Our newest member is ******' but never see them post a thread to say hello or see them on any games, could be down to many reasons, maybe shy or just not bothered.
My suggestion (If there is a need for it) is that maybe we should have some sort of system in place into welcoming them, such as a dedicated person to help that newcomer navigate around, some might be new to the game or concept of tactical gaming and needs to be shown the ropes, and maybe they should get an invite into the steam community from the off? As they might join a server thinking this seems an active server, and then come back and see it empty (then we can spam them to join our games then they are on :devil:)
Cheers :)
Snokes
Quote from: Snokio;284196Might be in the wrong place to post this (feel free to move) but how about looking into welcoming new members into the community in a bid to keeping them...
I'm pretty sure that can be automated - Gandy?
As the site has been mentioned, it could do with an update, the front page is old and all the games and servers aren't in the list. I went for a quick look at other gaming community sites front pages and our's isn't attractive. We have some designers on here, could they come up with some ideas on a new look?
First impressions init
I am in USA with work and haven't had time to comment on this until now. Some quick comments.
When introducing new games do not do it the way CoD4 was introduced. It almost completely destroyed CSS. In my eyes the introduction was a disaster and should not be repeated.
I have noticed Nettokyo was is introduced in a much better way. I hope this continues.
I think we should introduce an UT3 server with CTF or VCTF (or similar teambased games). My experience of public servers are that they are generally very good in regards to teamplay. Those who want to play DM do that in that game mode and not in CTF. We already have 10+ players that own the game and play it. I think it would be very easy to admin in comparison to CSS. There is a large number of players and we could attract people to our community through that base.
More comments when I have more time.
I can't remember that far back now, what where the differences in the introduction
Quote from: Jamin;284224As the site has been mentioned, it could do with an update, the front page is old and all the games and servers aren't in the list. I went for a quick look at other gaming community sites front pages and our's isn't attractive. We have some designers on here, could they come up with some ideas on a new look?
First impressions init
Yup, I think smartening up our website is something that needs attention and will definitely/most likely be in any implementation we do. :thumbsup2:
Quote from: Dr Sadako;284244When introducing new games do not do it the way CoD4 was introduced. It almost completely destroyed CSS.
I'm too sure either Arm.
IIRC CoD2 evolved naturally from BF2 and BF Vietnam?
Quote from: Penfold;284247Yup, I think smartening up our website is something that needs attention and will definitely/most likely be in any implementation we do. :thumbsup2:
Looking forward to it :thumbsup:
Is that looking forward to 'seeing it' or looking forward to 'help create it'? :norty:
Quote from: Penfold;284249I'm too sure either Arm.
IIRC CoD2 evolved naturally from BF2 and BF Vietnam?
Not really, but I don't want to stir up old things and now BB has no chance on commenting on it (as he was a major part in this).
CSS was thriving at that time and we had games almost every day of the week. BF2 at the time was dead in the water and very few played it. CoD4 abruptly was introduced, which was fine as many were playing it. Me included. However, it was decided that the CoD4 servers should be PW protected and we should have no public servers. This meant that recruitment solely was from our own ranks and no surprise it was predominantly from the CSS servers. It took about 8-9 months before a public server was opened. At that time the CSS part of the community had taken a huge blow and we see result of it today. The second bad decision was having a ranked server in combination with PW protection. This forced us into playing only the standard maps. Maps that are ok for single player but very poor for multiplayer especially when applied in "TCS" mode. For comparison it would be like playing TCS on HL2 maps, I think that brings home the point. The standard CoD maps are all way poorer in gameplay than any CSS standard map. The choice of ranked server in turn made all custom maps not available i.e. no chance of finding better maps for tactical play. A suprising set of choices in my book.
Quote from: Penfold;284252Is that looking forward to 'seeing it' or looking forward to 'help create it'? :norty:
I wish i had the skills to do so :(
One thing i have been thinking about was to advertise more of the community's supported games as a whole whilst in game (via binds etc), one thing that all the servers I have been on focuses on is 'join our community / register with us / we have private *add specific game here* servers'.
Whilst i was in a NT server, i asked a few pubbies if they enjoyed playing tactical gaming, which led me to ask what other games they play, none of them knew we had a L4D, CSS and COD4 servers (unless they visit the site first) one asked if we had a public L4D server, and the other asked about LFS, so I think that maybe we should change our way of advertising the community to include and focus the full spectrum of games we host.
(p.s, maybe we should advertise it is 'FREE to register' to help entice them in?)
Just a thought :)
How is the plan for a website update going?
Quote from: Armitage;285739How is the plan for a website update going?
We're waiting for TL to return from hols but it is an area where we're agreed that a change is needed.
I agree maybe a little clean and tidy up is in order of the site, but I am not the person to do it. No webskills whatsoever sorry.
If this is not in the right place let me know. (I am sure Pen will :) )
I am with Doc maybe relooking in to UT3 as that is tactical and requires in my expereince coms. Maybe we could trail it at the LAN on the Friday? See what people think.
BF1943 is out this year this might get picked up again. So I would keep an eye on it.
Hope that is the sort of help you wanted.
Also OB and TL, Section heads, fellow admin thanks for all the work and all the fun. As a new admin the support has been amazing. Also since I first met some of you at my first LAN for making me welcome and now as part of the funitiure :)