Frustrations?

[GlasiaVD23 (Glasia)]

They may mean also updates on how the progress is going, not only the final result. Is Development Timetable up to date?

[Solysis]

hm yeah thats fair. but if we cant use the intentions of the person getting banned, we could use the reaction of the community. it seems that every time someone gets banned unfairly (outside of autoban), the community (something you cant fake) never sees their offense as harmful. (i could be wrong)

[0re2.0]

Well, I suppose “no updates” is not the right way to put it at all, since there are stuff like survival updates and hotfixes still being pushed out, and you and tex are no doubt still regularly churning out code for this server; but what we likely mean is that there is no concrete update, like a content update that shakes up the server a little.
You’ve skipped the seasonal events this/last year (i cant really remember well rn) and a dwindling player count just makes the server… bland without anyone else. We also really shouldn’t expect a pace of content updates or even just hotfixes comparable to any other game service, since it’s best if you put literally anything else as a priority in your life.
Still, the fact of the matter is that we percieve the server as being frozen in a stasis, with little being changed over long spans of time DESPITE all the work you put in just for basic maintenance. Over the past year I’ve seen some random PvPer visit the server and remark on how little anything has changed since they’ve last been here. It’s either a fun and active community or regular content updates that can stimulate us, and I don’t think we can expect either of those in a reasonable time frame.

Also idk survival, things might be different there

[popstarfreas]

@0re2.0

what we likely mean is that there is no concrete update, like a content update that shakes up the server a little.

@Rafaelgamerplay_raf

You’re clearly taking my statements too literally, I said that we haven’t received any clarifications about the server’s state, how it’s going and what is missing to update (developers, moderators, etc).

@pwrwq

the server is not getting updates

I’m not so sure that everyone is talking about the same things.

@0re2.0

a fun and active community

There are a bunch of people that seem active to me. I’m not sure whether you mean the server isn’t fun for you or you somehow mean the people are not fun. I cannot say much for the people that are active, but random people I meet in zombies can be fun.

@0re2.0

we percieve the server as being frozen in a stasis

Well, it is slow. This simply shows the difference it makes when I am here and when I am not. I used to have more time and was more involved playing with particular members, now that I cannot afford to spend that time anymore, you can see that the server is reduced to a maintenance state. I expect it will only change if someone is able to take over what I once did. Someone who has many hours per week that they can spare to literally do nothing but develop, but that also means that person would not be playing on the server with that time either.

On PvP I don’t know what anyone could expect there. There’s really nothing that needs to be done by me there. All balancing and maps are handled by the PvP Managers.

[pwrwq]

Well, the update part was before the end of April, where there was only like a small handful of updates in the past few months. Granted, most people here are in school and/or working, but for the most part, server updates declined shortly thereafter patching some bugs from 1.4.4 and the end of last month. It looks like now since we are approaching summertime in the Northern Hemisphere, there is going to be a more active staff presence than before.

[Tru3thful]

I’m a little late to all this, but I also haven’t read through everything, I’m doing so now. Sorry if some stuff was already responded to.

@popstarfreas

If you mean an update from me specifically, the last things I posted were:
Survival TrueSSC v1.6.0 and DTP Maintenance that was last month, nothing other than maintenance has happened in the last month, not sure how that counts as abandonment, I can’t post every week that per usual I fixed a few bugs but nothing else.

Why not make those small updates anyways on top of larger things? For a server that prides itself on community as it advertises through the Terraria servers website, we don’t hear back too much for things regarding the server itself. We could at least know then that steps were being made to help out with things around instead of complete radio silence. Alternatively, some place that staff members can directly report to the community about service problems/outages and when they’re fixed, which I’d suggested previously:

Service Updates Category on the Forums

Sometimes, some things happen without a lot of warning in advance and can sometimes get in the way of player plans. For example, recently players tried to get together to grind DP/XP in Rapid Hardcore Zombies, but Rapid lobbies wouldn’t work. When inquired about, as done here: There was an answer, which was: It’s good to know the reason, but knowing the “when” I think is equally important. Hence, I propose a category for service updates here on the Forums, where staff members can post updat…

It doesn’t have to be much, just a small log or two noting things that happened on the server side on maybe a biweekly basis; things that were fixed, added in preparation of the few community events that we do have, or in the case of a hypothetical service updates category, a place for any staff member to report confirmed problems or things happening such as modes being disabled. Transparency goes a long way, so having a dedicated place to do stuff like that for a communication link would at least show that stuff is still happening here despite major updates being few and far between. For an example, look at the Bungie Help Twitter account for the Destiny games, releasing links to patchnotes when they’re available, noting when things are disabled, and giving alerts to upcoming and ongoing maintenance.

@Rafaelgamerplay_raf

Tru3thful once was deposed and he really were competent

*they

@0re2.0

Yes, these rules aren’t strict as a dictatorship, and is quite effective at weeding out the countless script kiddies and racist weirdos that plague the Terraria server. However, these rules are better for a larger and better formed (i.e community management) community and only diminish our more intimate communication.

I feel similarly for this note. I understand and appreciate the idea of having very set - in rules to follow, to have good guidelines to help keep the community civil, but at the same time they’re more suited to a broader community, one that’s only partially met with Dark Gaming’s playerbase. I think we discussed it once… somewhere in the staff chat on the Discord server before, what is/isn’t considered part of the wider or active community? Just because someone’s very active on Survival (which is where it seems like a lot of active players are now) isn’t a guarantee that they have a more full understanding of different extensions of the entire community, where stuff like the Discord server acts as one of those extensions and keeps us generally linked together by mutual interests even after we’ve become less active on the main Terraria server. Again, for a server with a focus on community, it feels kind of odd to overlook that side of it that’s carries the same name and ideas, multiple people who’ve been around and have experience but are away either for taking a break or some number of other reasons.

@0re2.0

Maybe, the server can heal if you start being more open-ended towards the community, and give friendly faces such as Tru3thful and others some more freedom and power in terms of community management.

Please don’t call me specifically. I appreciate the idea and I’m grateful to be part of this community, but I took on the role originally to help further when it comes to the rules of the server. I’ve been asked by popstarfreas if there’s anything I feel like I’m missing to help out further, but my skills as far as what I could do for the server beyond rule enforcement and being a knowledge sponge have been stagnant ever since my moderator application. I’m not in a place to do more right now nor do I have the time to learn how to do more.

@popstarfreas

And if you believe I have a reluctance to understand people’s frustrations, then why do you think this thread exists?

@popstarfreas

Even now, only a few people have responded and it seems very much so like the only people who are going to voice their opinion are the minority of people, effectively the loudest people rather than those most representative, but this is a task that is impossible afaik to solve because this is how all communities work.

@popstarfreas

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to prefer to complain on discord or in-game, where their messages are inevitably either not seen by the people who can do something about it or are forgotten due to all the other things that get talked about.

Maybe it’s not the reluctance to understand, but the lack of clarity and where to deliver complaints for most players. The Discord server seems to be meant as an extension for the community and not much more, a place to congregate and do things other than just Dark Gaming related activities. From what I’ve seen there’s more people that have complained or suggested things on the Discord server exclusively because it’s a much larger platform than a specific, new account on a different website for this one small community. If talk for rules and other suggestions should be presented here instead of the Discord, I think it should be noted more directly on the Terraria server for maybe some of the players’ ideas that you’re looking for for feedback. Maybe it could be a text command on a cooldown like how PvP has !pvpinfo or whatever the string is that can tell people “hey, if there’s something you want to see changed or considered, go send it off specifically here” instead of hoping people get the memo and go suggest on the forums first.

[popstarfreas]

@Tru3thful

We could at least know then that steps were being made to help out with things around instead of complete radio silence

Not sure what you’re referring to here, examples?

@Tru3thful

some place that staff members can directly report to the community about service problems/outages

That’s essentially the News category and Announcements on Discord, and has been used for those things before

@Tru3thful

It doesn’t have to be much, just a small log or two noting things that happened on the server side on maybe a biweekly basis; things that were fixed, added in preparation of the few community events that we do have, or in the case of a hypothetical service updates category, a place for any staff member to report confirmed problems or things happening such as modes being disabled.

Someone is free to do that, unlikely to be me, I do things in the gaps that I can get a hold of, and most often do not remember what I did exactly. Only when I manage to get enough time to work on something bigger do I then post about it, like important fixes to TrueSSC recently.

@Tru3thful

look at the Bungie Help Twitter account for the Destiny games, releasing links to patchnotes when they’re available, noting when things are disabled, and giving alerts to upcoming and ongoing maintenance.

Yes, but I’m sure someone is paid to spend their time doing that.

@Tru3thful

go send it off specifically here” instead of hoping people get the memo and go suggest on the forums first.

For the most part, there’s not much focus on suggestions as it is, because 99% of them won’t be implemented due to time constraints. The back log needs to be caught up on first.

On the Discord server each suggestion channel specifically and exclusively links to the forum as how you post them. People would need to specifically ignore that and post in the wrong channel to do that, and I’m sure some people do that on purpose as to not follow up on it, a place to vent essentially.

[Tru3thful]

@popstarfreas

Not sure what you’re referring to here, examples?

Well, the few bugs you mentioned every week or so.

@popstarfreas

nothing other than maintenance has happened in the last month, not sure how that counts as abandonment, I can’t post every week that per usual I fixed a few bugs but nothing else.

Were those few bugs the maintenance things you mentioned or am I mistaken? If I’m wrong on that, then sorry, but if those bugs are unrelated other things, I think it’d be nice to hear about them in between major updates. As I said before, just semiregular updates about anything at all happening related to the development of the server, so that players can know things aren’t dead quiet, even if some of the things are normally unnoticeable.

@popstarfreas

That’s essentially the News category and Announcements on Discord, and has been used for those things before

Not everything is officially reported such as if/when things break on the server, when/why certain things are disabled, stuff like that. Obviously, not everything will be covered, but I think the major things that won’t have an immediate fix should be covered and given note of, since they can disrupt player activity.

@popstarfreas

Someone is free to do that, unlikely to be me, I do things in the gaps that I can get a hold of, and most often do not remember what I did exactly.

Ah, gotcha. Well, if you do ever remember, I circle back to my point of “I think hearing about the small things for the server would be neat to have around”.

@popstarfreas

Yes, but I’m sure someone is paid to spend their time doing that.

I mean… there’s already volunteer work being put forth here, right? I frankly never went about managing talk for a lot of error report issues through stuff like the announcement channels since I wasn’t sure if it’d be allowed, so can staff members at the Moderator level do that? Just report on problems with the server somewhere separate and clear for everyone to see, instead of potentially losing them to normal conversation only for an unnoted update to fix it at a later date? Going back to my Service Updates suggestion, the bug report mentioned shows that Rapid lobbies were disabled without any warning, and it was only then after said bug report that it was explained that they were disabled because of some gamebreaking bug. If staff members are told about specific things going down, one of them could report on it if they were allowed to (which I’m not currently sure if we are allowed to) so that everyone knows and that there isn’t any confusion for the future, and once it’s fixed report again. It would help further with keeping communication open regarding activities, which for an economy based server is at least somewhat important.