Discussion

[Chick3nWings]

Originally Posted by Ramsey

We have 8k members I dont see why people don't get on IRC or create forum topics and discuss....You wont be banned if you follow the rules and be respectful.

I hate to say it and hate to name names, but a huge part of your problem is Ultyma. I've seen him be abusive and disrepectful dozens of times of IRC.

The last time I had a conversation with him on irc, we were discussing donations. Within the next few minutes, I got (not exaggerating) six pm's telling me that people can't bring themselves to contribute because his behaviour is so offensive. Two of these people advised me not talk on IRC because if he (Ultyma) was in a bad mood, he would ban me for no reason.

I think if you want to salvage your reputation and build the community as you are describing, you need to address this issue.

[SkydiverIdaho]

Originally Posted by Ramsey

We have 8k members I dont see why people don't get on IRC or create forum topics and discuss.

SWGEmu isn't going to succeed without a willing community. This community is doing a piss poor job of working to build a better community for the future precu.

Please encourage your friends who played precu to join and participate in dicussions on the forum. PLEASE give suggestions, we read them. What do you want to be able to do with scriptable npcs? What are you looking for in a server? What if...

There are tons of things you can do to make SWGEmu better, without having to be on the staff. Just help others out and SHARE ideas. Don't wait for updates and post "good job" every month or so. You wont be banned if you follow the rules and be respectful.

If you want to know what we're working on:
Crafting (research)
Clustering (beginning in core3, oru's planning that I think)
Npcs/mobs (core3)

I was primarily a research guy but I'm learning the ropes of core3 to help TA and Oru. Once a few more things are added I will ask oru about doing another stress test with more content. But before that we need a stable community.

I've done this sort of thing twice before with little success, I'll have another go at it.

Suggestions?

I think that if you do a bang up job with creature handler, you're going to get a lot of people like me coming to play the emu.
I don't care about jedi.
I care little for space.
I really couldn't care less for pvp.

What I loved about the game were my companions. I'm playing WoW atm, I tried playing a huntard but it couldn't hold a candle to what we lost with the NGE.
I tell anyone who seems willing to listen about what's going on here, and I've had a lot of people show serious interest. Most of them are refugees like myself.
I'll be very happy just sitting on some nice high hill with my pets, doing some tricks and just enjoying the world.

As for the IRC, every time I've gone in the channels it feels like the sword of Damocles is poised above my head. One innocent question and the thread breaks.

I'm not the biggest contributor to the community, mostly because at this stage of the game I don't feel like I have much to offer. I don't know coding. I've had more trouble than success at actually logging on to test animations. I've been waiting patiently and trying to get the word of the emu out there to some who might not know of it.

I'm not sure what else I could do at this point.

[Smannesman]

So far I haven't noticed any irrational banning behaviour and Ultyma (since you seem to be targeting him especially Chick3nWings) could've done so when I was trying to crack some sarcastic jokes.
You have to take into consideration that they've had a flood of newbies coming onto IRC/the forum just to ask the same questions over and over and over again.

"When will it be done?"
"What is the IP of the server?"
"Is the server up?"

And there is a tiny clue hidden in the topic which says something like "LOGIN: UP - ZONE: UP" and it also states where you should go should you need assistance.
Maybe they can be a bit harsh at times, but you would be slightly annoyed if people kept asking you the same questions about something you're not being paid to create, but you're creating because you want to.

So yes they could be slightly less cranky, but I do understand where they're (or perhaps were) coming from. I find it more objectable that some regular members flame those newbies.

[Legoklas]

Okay Ramsey hear out.
This forum was very active before you devs started to interfering with the communitys relations, no offense, but you devs are litterally scaring the living crap out of ous.
Especially when Ultyma had a "Ban everyone who disagrees with me" Rampage, and when he changed peoples posts with "Yeah i suck" "Iam gay" "Iam sorry Ultyma for being such a **** sucker" simply just becuse they disagreed with him or becuse they got sick of hes ban rampages.
Maybe iam the only one who feels like this, but i doubt it.

Originally Posted by Legoklas

Okay Ramsey hear out.
This forum was very active before you devs started to interfering with the communitys relations, no offense, but you devs are litterally scaring the living crap out of ous.
Especially when Ultyma had a "Ban everyone who disagrees with me" Rampage, and when he changed peoples posts with "Yeah i suck" "Iam gay" "Iam sorry Ultyma for being such a **** sucker" simply just becuse they disagreed with him or becuse they got sick of hes ban rampages.
Maybe iam the only one who feels like this, but i doubt it.

Everyone feels this way lol.

[Chick3nWings]

Originally Posted by Smannesman

So far I haven't noticed any irrational banning behaviour and Ultyma

Well, that's great. Maybe things have improved. I wouldn't know because I got sick of watching it happen and don't go back.

Originally Posted by Smannesman

You have to take into consideration that they've had a flood of newbies coming onto IRC/the forum just to ask the same questions over and over and over again.

I have two autistic children, so I know a thing or two about patience. I also know that losing your temper and taking it out on someone isn't ok, any more than being pestered by new people is an excuse for abusiveness.

[Legoklas]

Originally Posted by Po-ooga

Everyone feels this way lol.

Yeah i know that lol, but i cant really talk for everyone now can i? xD

[Niad]

Originally Posted by Ramsey

The general concern has been random bans, which I will address now.

Our IRC ban list goes all the way back to like July of 2006. It is obviously irrelevant at this point in time, so what is going to happen is a clear of the ban list. There may be ISP wide bans to take out a single spammer back in september, but it could potentially ban other new members of the community who had nothing to do with it.

What I'm trying to do here is 100% my responsibility. Do not blame the shortfalls on other members of the staff. The Ban policy has been revised, and we will be a bit more considerate when banning.

The reason we have been banning in the past is not because were inconsiderate or hate particular members, its because we have been asked the same select few questions almost every day of our life for the last 2 years. But things will change, so bear with me.

As for other sugggestions, I have noted them down and I have been talking to a mod to organize the forums a bit better.

Stay tuned, and thank you for your input.
Ramsey

Whatever has happened in the past, obviously ramsey has noticed the problems and is willing to take them on himself to address the issues.

so lets turn this thread from a *****ing/complaining thread, To a constructive critisism thread. Lets tell ramsey and the other devs, what we think is wrong... and lets work with them to fix it.

This could be the start of an entirely new SWGEMU forums, as long as we are proactive and work together.

[phillipidies]

This is my first post on these forums even though I've been following the Emu for over a year (or there abouts). I check this site for updates almost daily but it seems that most of the info hits IRC way before it makes it to the forums. I'm 30, I have a job, a life, and stuff to do. I don't code even a little, and I've already found a sever to play on once this project is finished. I appreciate all of your hard work here, but other than updates I have no reason to even browse these forums at this time. I don't have the time or even the desire to hang out in IRC just waiting for the next little tid bit of info. What's more, is that I don't think I was an atypical player of SWG. Almost my entire guild on live were in the 22-40 age range and we all had other things going on in our lives. I don't want to be beligerent but this community is somewhat less than friendly and there's only so much "STFU NUB" and e-peen waving that I can take. It seems to me that the internet almost automaticly reduces people's functional age by at least 10 years. This is why I don't post, or hang out in IRC. This is why the dozen or so people that I talk to, who will be playing the Emu, don't post or participate in IRC. If you want the older crowd who made up a fairly sizable chunk of live to participate, my suggestion would be to update the forums more often. I don't know how big of a pain this would be, but it would certainly get me more involved. I may have just repeated what a dozen other people have said, but I'm not wading through 11 pages of responses, I really don't have the time. Thanks again though for all of the hard work you guys have done and best of luck in the future.

[Akelei]

Originally Posted by Legoklas

Okay Ramsey hear out.
This forum was very active before you devs started to interfering with the communitys relations, no offense, but you devs are litterally scaring the living crap out of ous.
Especially when Ultyma had a "Ban everyone who disagrees with me" Rampage, and when he changed peoples posts with "Yeah i suck" "Iam gay" "Iam sorry Ultyma for being such a **** sucker" simply just becuse they disagreed with him or becuse they got sick of hes ban rampages.
Maybe iam the only one who feels like this, but i doubt it.

I actually agree. If you basically **** on your community (Sorry for language.) you really can't expect them to be very helpful in return. It's appaling to see you attacking the community for doing a "piss poor job" with incidents like the above happening not just occasionally, but pretty frequently.

[Legoklas]

Originally Posted by Niad

so lets turn this thread from a *****ing/complaining thread, To a constructive critisism thread. Lets tell ramsey and the other devs, what we think is wrong... and lets work with them to fix it.
.

Isnt that exactly what we have done?
We have Critisised ( yeah english isnt my first language ) and we have told them what annoys ous.

I am banned from IRC cuse i asked a friend of mine if HE had snapped up something new about the EMU.
Then i mailed Ultyma and asked why the hell i was banned, yeah okay i wasnt really friendly but iam not an ass kisser and i got my honor.
So thanks to that, iam banned from the TC.
And iam not the only one.
I mean jesus christ there is even a "I hate Ultyma" website.
Ramsey, you got MY respect.
Iam not saying that you devs shouldnt be around the forum, what iam saying is that you devs really need to be absolutely Neutral.

[Chick3nWings]

Originally Posted by Niad

so lets turn this thread from a *****ing/complaining thread, To a constructive critisism thread. Lets tell ramsey and the other devs, what we think is wrong... and lets work with them to fix it.

Well said, so let's see here:

Put some work into revamping the web site. It's your first line of communication with your community; make it something exciting and to be proud of.

Progress: post your project plan/schedule and keep it up to date. The people watching this site are asking questions about development because they are excited about the prospect of playing the game again. Play into that...give them the information and they will get even more excited when they see that tangible progress is being made.

Open the source back up. I don't know precisely what happened that brought about the decision to close the previously open source project, but the general rumor seemed to indicate that someone had stolen the code and claimed that it was theirs. Aside from the fact that you can't steal something that is freely available, who cares if they say they developed it? You don't stand to profit from developing the EMU so questions of ownership are nothing more than a matter of ego. People coming to this site don't care who developed what, all they want is the game itself.

Keep a test server up as often as possible. One of the things that differentiated swg from other games was it's social element. People would log in just to hang out and talk with their friends. Give that back to them.

Post your budget and donations. If people see what it is that you have to spend each month to keep this project alive and that there are shortfalls in the donations, they will give. People will also be more comfortable donating if they have some insight into what the money is being spent on.

Keep the forum FAQ's and newbie guides up to date. Task someone as the official writer if necessary to polish and keep up with the material and updates.

And keep up the efforts to reach out the community Ramsey, they will pay off.

-Wings

Possible Community Task Manager idea, to access that page you could have a link on the mainpage to say

www.swgemu.com/tasks

which would take you to a page designed in that manner, each of those task boxes is a button, you click on it and you are taken to the subforum for each task, where you can observe what's in progress, and know what is left in each subcategory. To avoid multiple people doing each task, you would POST a thread saying EXACTLY what you were going to look for, so that others would do something different. Once finished, a Dev/Mod could compile the information, and put it in the To Be Implemented category, and once put into Core 3, could then move on to Finished and Implemented (so you can see exactly whats in.)

[Legoklas]

Nice one Taaack
Looks like the skill trees ^^

[Naveed]

well i will echo a few of the things that have already been said. Mainly a fear of what will happen. Most of the people that come here have a knowledge of computers and programming that extends to installing the SWG disc's and logging in. Most don't understand how the EMU works, what is server side and what is client side, what can be changed, what cant be changed, and have no idea what scripting is. Every time someone asks a question that may seem obvious or way off base he is flamed by either a community member or even by a dev or moderator. This has gotten better recently but still exists. also many of the questions and topics have already been asked and asked multiple times. Honestly i think that the best thing that could be done would be to have a dev write a real FAQ and explain the ins and outs of programming the emu what can and cant be done and what some of the terms that get thrown around frequently mean. (This would of course take alot of time and effort which would detract from the EMU effort). But i think it is what would be needed.

Also perhaps a pre-determined moderated Q&A session on irc with the devs where people could pose questions to the mods who would then forward the relevant ones one at a time to the devs who could answer each one, no matter if they feel it is a "dumb" question or not.

When you are dealing with as many people as there are here in a field that is foreign(programming and advanced computing) to the core of what brought us together (the love of SWG) it will always seem like the people who don't know as much are the masses and those people need to be dealt with fairly.

Basically, i feel the community morale and attitude is poor. and, well attitude is a reflection of leadership. The best way to advance the community is by making everyone knowledgeable at the subject at hand and people learn at different speeds so the best way to do it is a ton of information that can be looked at in a concise format.

sorry for the poorly formatted thoughts but i just typed away.

Also Ramsey i feel you may have a slightly different view of certain aspects becuase you are here for the love of the EMU not the love of SWG, not trying to be an @$$ just trying to point out a possible differance.

When we have been asked to do things we have done them, there have been good responses to all the things we were asked to do including animation tests, stress tests and look at the responses to this thread