Forum Closed

[Aanker]

After reading through the later pages of this thread I think I am getting a better picture of exactly what upset you, GED. It wasn't the perception of the community attitude directly but the actions contradictory to your orders (e.g. to not let the MCC community migrate back, because of their attitude) that eventually culminated in the closing of the subforums and the subsequent controversy. Which I guess, in a sense, is fair. I cannot agree with the assessment however that my faction was in particular to blame for the aforementioned 'attitude', as we have always tried to create a serious and 'non-trollish' environment on the server. It is true that we had a spat with moderation just before server launch, mostly related to us feeling specifically and especially persecuted, but attitudes are not built up through single exceptional incidents but rather by tension over long time. Just before the spat, for instance, we were trying to develop plans for the promised naval plugin, and so forth.

I think a lot of it - the attitude, that is - boils down to the lack of community expansion over long time: instead of the server population growing, as I felt it did when we were predominantly located on TWC (but also in the beginning of MCC), it was sometimes shrinking. This resulted in old grudges accumulating, instead of being forgotten with the arrival of new blood on the server to shake things up (those who have played on the server will remember how the classic Dwarven-Northman rivalry waned with the arrival of North Korea). To combat the shrinking population, formerly banned or shunned players would be allowed back and the rules would be made less strict to accommodate for those we could simply not afford to kick out from the community. And because every player on the server would become familiar with every other player, we would act less formally and let insults and other (on TWC) unacceptable behaviour slide because "it's all in good fun". While the latter, in my honest opinion, is enjoyable, I could see how it would drive away prospecting new players. It's a vicious cycle really: we get fewer players, we isolate ourselves, and that brings in less new players.

The core problem with MCC though was purely practical and relates to this failure to attract new players. It was entirely on its own in the wide world of already established servers, with a comparatively small server population and no easy place to recruit. On TWC, you could rely on the curious Rome: Total War player to drop in and notice that someone wanted to recreate the Roman Legions in Minecraft. Our server was also very suited to that type of player as we focused on wars, diplomacy and to some extent economy. We had a good recruitment base and an environment that reliably provided mature server members. The oldest members of our community (amongst which I will shamelessly include myself ) helped shape many of the basic principles and ideals that today still prevail on the server. Many of the now long-gone factions became role models for all later clans and groups of players. And we found each other, met, we played together, because TWC enabled it.

I would myself argue, based on these points, that TWC should still be the natural home of this community. I do not know the exact financial implications of that in terms of the MCC site itself (as the Minecraft server would still be of use, of course). I do however think that the community can behave better and live up to the standards of TWC, at least with enough moderation and a new move to deal with the corrupted attitudes that have sadly festered on our servers. The question is if some would want to, if they would keep playing if they can no longer live out their internet dreams of cursing and insulting other people, and of course ganking people just as they walk out of the safe zone.

[Connor93]

I would myself argue, based on these points, that TWC should still be the natural home of this community. I do not know the exact financial implications of that in terms of the MCC site itself (as the Minecraft server would still be of use, of course). I do however think that the community can behave better and live up to the standards of TWC, at least with enough moderation and a new move to deal with the corrupted attitudes that have sadly festered on our servers. The question is if some would want to, if they would keep playing if they can no longer live out their internet dreams of cursing and insulting other people, and of course ganking people just as they walk out of the safe zone.

To be honest the time for migration is over for us. We have our own stable server now with a functional website. All of us in positions of power - the ones who are now paying and have console access - all actively play the game so if a problem did come up we'd probably be able to fix it before half the players even knew there was a problem. We are set up for our own website and things are looking promising for a community teamspeak channel. Almost all of our rules and regulations are run through community discussion before a final decision is made so everyone has input. A lot of our rules such as gamey base rules, timelines to punish factions hiding offline, and other rules were all decided via community opinion polls.

Quite a few have already offered to donate to offset costs although that is unnecessary as both Ditro and I have steady military pay and haven't anything better to spend it on.

Putting ourselves under the heel of people that don't even play would be detrimental to us at this point as we need stability and the community needs to see what is being done, how, when, and by who so no one is left in the dark anymore waiting on dev diaries or ambiguous "soon" answers. The admin's we've had at TWC and MCC have never been able (or maybe willing is better) to live up to those standards.

The most I hope for out of this thread is whatever end is to come out of this thread and then possibly a recruitment thread for the community server, many of whom are still very active TWC members despite this debacle.

[Tiberius Decimus Maximus]

Okay okay okay, before we go any further there's something fundamental we need to make clear. So, GED says he never received any messages from the MCC staff. Now, I think I recall there being a fair few times, but the one I can definitely say I'm not crazy on because other people mentioned it here too, is that Hawk managed to get ahold of GED a few times, or at least attempted contact. Now, again, assuming I'm not crazy here and misremembering, but we all waited a good long time to see if anything came of it, or hell, for any details to emerge, but nothing did happen. So I mean for everyone else in this community, we took it in good faith that the up-aboves at least gave it a good effort to contact you before moving ahead with any plans for a community server and a move back to TWC?

So when you came back and said no one had even attempted to contact you, I can assure you that most of us were likely mighty confused, and that kind of played into the anger and resentment that cropped up because we were all collectively punished for something that was out of our hands.

And again. Collective punishment. Not cool.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Okay okay okay, before we go any further there's something fundamental we need to make clear. So, GED says he never received any messages from the MCC staff. Now, I think I recall there being a fair few times, but the one I can definitely say I'm not crazy on because other people mentioned it here too, is that Hawk managed to get ahold of GED a few times, or at least attempted contact. Now, again, assuming I'm not crazy here and misremembering, but we all waited a good long time to see if anything came of it, or hell, for any details to emerge, but nothing did happen. So I mean for everyone else in this community, we took it in good faith that the up-aboves at least gave it a good effort to contact you before moving ahead with any plans for a community server and a move back to TWC?

I remember very precisely that there was more than one attempt by Ditronian to have Hawk contact GED. Allegedly he [Hawk] was going to email GED on Saturday, December 6th, IIRC. However, I do believe nothing came of it because Hawk disappeared.

I was going to bring this up but neglected/forgot to.

The most I hope for out of this thread is whatever end is to come out of this thread and then possibly a recruitment thread for the community server, many of whom are still very active TWC members despite this debacle.

Like Ynen said, I've been a member of TWC for almost 5 years now and have never gotten in trouble other than for double-posting for once, and that was because I didn't know how to multi-quote at the time. The fact of the matter is that many of us who have long been highly contributing members of TWC are caught up in this. Honestly I really left MCC three maps ago, and have only "dropped by" in effect since then, so however this turns out will frankly not affect me. What I don't like, as Ynen said, is that I've been effectively brought to the forebear by being inadvertently classified as part of the "scum and villany" of the likes of those with nefarious attitudes and intentions found in the MCC community. Some of the more upstanding MCC members were thrown under that bus as well.

Frankly, this is literally how I see the current attitude of GED towards the MCC community. (And frankly, it is justified.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[TheEliteDwarf]

Let it be known...

The entire reason I had my son join the site was to prove how easily you guys were driving away new players. / So I had him join just to see what happened. / I used his joining of the site to illustrate what was happening and try to convince the community it was damaging itself.

Your son settled near the Dwarven Empire. In fact, he was closer to the capital city of Dvor-Ervingur than the Dwarven city of Uramir and in addition to that he was essentially in the Dwarven Empire's backyard.

On the latest MCC server world (map 5)... Your son settled in the following highlighted place...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see... His settlement does not have "ruins" attached at the end of it. In fact, when your son's base was discovered, he was vassalized. The Dwarven Empire provided him with protection and materials in order to allow him to play at his hearts content without having to fear about being taken over by the nations to the East as well as without him having to labor endlessly by himself to acquire the resources the Dwarven Empire gathered in a fraction of the time.

After being vassalized, there was something going on globally which caused the Dwarves to do a public KNAI shout which your son -without pressure or command from any Dwarf- participated in. He himself shouted the ancient Dwarven battle-shout and at that time the Dwarves online were in a call and we all took note and actually said to ourselves "how cool! / that's great!"

If you want an example of a nation going on a vassal spree, you should hear about the previous Belduum (map 4) world and how the Arkadian Empire had multiple vassals that had several players which caused the server's factions to literally be in a state of cold war. In that world, there were 3 predominant power blocs... The Arkadians in the West, the Dwarves and Vikings in the South and South-East, and the North Koreans in the North-East.

---

There are about 20 players who got absolutely raped within hours of joining the site to the point that they just left. Many of them sent me PMs about it.

One major flaw of that latest world was the map size. There were a lot of people and not enough space to allow for newcomers to hide away and build up and as well as to provide buffers between the larger, more experienced factions from brushing up with said smaller nations.

One good example is the Dwarven skirmish with the Arenland faction. Arenland had a small settlement on the right side, at the base, of the mountain where the Dwarven city of Uramir was founded. Naturally, this caused a conflict because that Arenland settlement was too close for comfort to us Dwarves and we set out to take care of the problem. Now, everyone needs to take note that this happened during launch day/following launch day. Moreover, when the map with faction settlement locations was published, I was shocked to see that Arenland had 4 or 5 settlements scattered all over the world. Instead of gathering together to have a better chance of defending themselves, they spread out and unfortunately ended up bordering other factions. With that said, it should not be unfathomable (as it was to some people at the time) that skirmishes/wars broke out over securing territory. Since the beginning of every server launch, there have always been such skirmishes/wars on our PVP server. Should anyone be to blame, it should be the admin(s) that chose such a small map size which led to nations being crammed together which ultimately caused smaller nations fighting large ones.

---

You guys are so happy about 30 players online at once that you cannot see the fact that number should easily be 200.

I do not know if you can recall this but back on the golden age server, the Ervingur world (map 2), someone posted the political factions map on Reddit and soon after that the number of average players online went from around 20-25 to up to 80-90. Now, at that time the Ervingur world was the same size as the current community map. So, all those new players who joined ended up settling in areas far / a good distance from existing nations. However, with those new people came factions named "RedditArmy" and such. Eventually, those players left not because they were "raped" but because they were not used to the badass setup of the MCC server at the time. They were expecting that our unique and wonderful server to be like all the other servers (all enchants enabled, vanilla armor setup, all pots enabled, etc).

However, it was in that same world that the North Korean group of players arrived. We had never experienced such a group before and it caused ancient rivals (Dwarven Empire and The Northmen) to join together against them. At the time there was anger at the Dwarves and Northmen for warring such a new nation but from the info we gathered, they were a gaming clan that planned to "enslave" the rest of the nations of the server. See the following pictures...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So, the Dwarven and Northmen rivalry was put aside to band together to fight a common enemy. In the end, the North Koreans proved to be good sports in the sense that they still stuck around and actually made the server much more lively and contributed lore and comedy that made killing them ever more worthwhile. However, let me just point out that the North Koreans settled in an area considered to be under the Northmen area of influence and because that world was large they could have as easily settled somewhere else and not provoked such a nation.

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4. The fact that known cheaters and others are being allowed back on the community server.

Ditronian did not have the ban list that MCC used. From what I know, only you, GED, could have provided it. However, what needs to be mentioned is that the administration of this past world created an amnesty program for the world before this latest one (map 4) which allowed those same cheaters and more to return.

---

Elite69

[niels1313]

I begin to understand GEDs point, the attitude of the MCC-community was very wrong at some points. Digly and I already tried to express that loads of times, "our whining"..

The whole you - attitude, ignoring Kingdom vs Kingdom- element, only raiding. I also never liked/agreed with hackers getting amnesty.

But then I say, I am no moderator. When people ignore the rules, where was moderator to take action? Aren't there moderators to prevent a "bad" attitude environment?

[Aanker]

The whole you - attitude,

That especially,

ignoring Kingdom vs Kingdom- element, only raiding.

But I don't know if this is the answer really. On the map before this recent launch chest looting was disabled. I personally liked that decision, and the reasoning behind it, e.g. that people would log on in numbers to fight real battles and limit the amount of grief in war. However, the last map became infamous for the offline wars, so I guess it didn't really matter that much in the end anyway. Raiding is actually one of the few ways a smaller faction can defeat a larger one and I think it has a place even in outright Kingdom vs. Kingdom warfare, but the extent of it above all other forms of interaction (diplomacy on the last map essentially boiled down to raid or war) and the direction of raiding especially against newcomers were critical issues in my opinion. Instead of strengthening newcomers against established powers, it discouraged them.

I also never liked/agreed with hackers getting amnesty.

Me neither, but then the community was desperate for members.

But then I say, I am no moderator. When people ignore the rules, where was moderator to take action? Aren't there moderators to prevent a "bad" attitude environment?

Perhaps moderator disciplinary actions should have been more consequential, especially against the (all too frequent) flame wars.

[supercommander]

Firstly, I just would like to apologize for my earlier comments. I was (understandably) angry, and tend to take things a liiiitle bit too far.

With that being said, the MCC community certainly does have a few bad eggs (which I suppose could include myself), but it's not fair to judge everyone else from the actions of a few people.

I also never liked/agreed with hackers getting amnesty.

I think for the most of them its been over a year since they got banned, and it should be safe to say they've learned their lesson. Everyone deserves a second chance (well, mostly everyone). If they cheat again, then they get banned for good.

[Caesar914]

This thread is just depressing. I don't even know what we're trying to accomplish now. The damage is done, and as an average player/lurker, I don't think I can trust Ged's judgment in administering a server anymore. This community was born on twc, and somewhere along the line Ged had decided that we were no longer worthy of that association. That's what sticks out to me most from Ged's comments here, the message of "leave and don't ever come back". It's so insulting and discouraging that I don't even understand why you would want us back on mcc at all, if you apparently despise us so much?

[Diglytron]

This thread is just depressing. I don't even know what we're trying to accomplish now. The damage is done, and as an average player/lurker, I don't think I can trust Ged's judgment in administering a server anymore. This community was born on twc, and somewhere along the line Ged had decided that we were no longer worthy of that association. That's what sticks out to me most from Ged's comments here, the message of "leave and don't ever come back". It's so insulting and discouraging that I don't even understand why you would want us back on mcc at all, if you apparently despise us so much?

I don't want to say it, but this is also the feeling I have. I've been member on TWC for almost 5 years now, and have 4600 posts of which the large majority outside the Minecraft forums. (maybe only 500~ in the MC forums). Now GED basically says the community is bad; behaving bad and therefor should not return to TWC. But I want to remind him that most, if not all, people posting in this thread, have been member of this community first. We were part of TWC before we also had to join MCC to play on the server. I never liked that, in fact, I was the only one making a thread where I adviced you to stop the move to MCC... But little did I know that the move wasn't because you had 'big plans' for MCC, but was apparently, as how I understand it now, cause you didn't want the Minecraft community to be associated with the TWC community. I

I don't even know how to describe how harsh that sounds towards such a large group of players, many of them citizens or other awardwinning players. And now you basically say we have to leave cause some of us behaved badly. I don't know what right system this is, but in a normal system people aren't judged for some individuals doing bad. (Sorry for the bad reference) but Muslims weren't judged for the Charlie Hebdo attacks cause they simply had nothing to do with these.

I can't really respond to any of the other reasons you're angry or made this decicion on as I am simply unaware of those.

[Buddydog]

I don't like bringing up the past as we have moved on, but this community has been a victims of GED's system and now expulsion on trumped up grounds. And some facts need to be clear.

2. The ridiculous amounts of problems with peoples behavior in general, both in game and on the forums. Behavior that you all know would get you heavily infracted on TWC. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible with lots of that, to no avail. Some of these people I should have just banned I guess.

If I may dare say, alot of this behavior was partially instigated by your system and your apologist and former admin, Remlap. You, Remlap, and the underlings would regulate very simple insults such as "stupid" but tolerate and even promote heavy harassment of players. Moderation reports to Remlap or even you were either ignored and sometimes retaliated against by you (such as removing victims access to the courthouse forum). Persons who portrayed racism were permitted to make rant threads about racism, but threads where individuals condemned about such occurrences were deleted. All this showing a system of promotion of bad behavior by you and Remlap and retaliation against those who wanted to make the server a friendlier place.

Ironically, you just swore in your first post in this thread, which I believe is infractable.

3. When I tried to rework the faction forums and put some sort of new structure in place all I got was negativity and outright hostility.

People had experience with the bureaucratic nature of your structure that produced years of inefficiency. People grew tired with staff who were dependent on marching orders from you when server inactivity required more community involving, direct action. From what I experienced and others at the new community website are complaining about, there was so much inefficiency and so little interaction or care for the community's interest

4. The fact that known cheaters and others are being allowed back on the community server. If you guys want to associate with people like that, then by all means go ahead. Just don't expect me to support it.

Yes, Celoxia was allowed back because as you have said before your new 2014 policy, people deserve a second chance to make a net positive contribution. These are human beings not disposal machinery parts. People learn from their mistakes as you should to and never disown another group of likeminded individuals again.

[LukasVerdansky]

Let's say that, hypothetically, MCC is resurrected and reinvented in perfect working function. One of the biggest issues I have with any future with MCC is the fact that we'll fall back into stagnation and disarray as the staff posts will most likely not change from before, and it took non-staff members to figure out a way to keep the community alive. I won't go so far as to scream incompetence, but the lack of communication and dedication is why we returned to TWC, I should think. Regardless of what happens outside of Minecraft and the community (be it emergencies, school, or simply lack of available time), I found that there were absolutely no available contingency plans to follow in the event of emergency. With GED's absence, we had no real server access, which meant that nothing could be fixed or altered appropriately when problems arose. It didn't help that admins like Hawk and TASS were preoccupied with their own stuff as well, which left really no one interested in the plight of the community.

As the cliche goes, history tends to repeat. I'm just not sure if the people that were in charge would still be the ideal candidates to take MCC forward, were it to come back. But I could be wrong. Let's hope so.

[Connor93]

Let's say that, hypothetically, MCC is resurrected and reinvented in perfect working function.

We wouldn't move back even if the stars aligned. MCC has absolutely nothing to offer us except an isolated website.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

If I may dare say, alot of this behavior was partially instigated by your system and your apologist and former admin, Remlap. You, Remlap, and the underlings would regulate very simple insults such as "stupid" but tolerate and even promote heavy harassment of players. Moderation reports to Remlap or even you were either ignored and sometimes retaliated against by you (such as removing victims access to the courthouse forum). Persons who portrayed racism were permitted to make rant threads about racism, but threads where individuals condemned about such occurrences were deleted. All this showing a system of promotion of bad behavior by you and Remlap and retaliation against those who wanted to make the server a friendlier place.

We wouldn't move back even if the stars aligned. MCC has absolutely nothing to offer us except an isolated website.

If you all thought MCC had gotten so bad, then why are you complaining that GED kicked you out?

Heh. This isn't the first community that had most of its potential completely wiped out by confusing decisions by TWC Staff. Why even have an Other Games section if all staff wants done in it is discussion about other games? Letting communities of other games organize themselves and organize events here seems like it would be a boon to the site. The Arma clan tried to organize a massive campaign awhile back and staff wouldn't even let the organizers post an advertisement for it IN THE OTHER GAMES SECTION because it was outside of the clan subforum despite the fact that they were promised a front page advertisement that didn't end up getting posted until the day before the campaign started.

Poach was basically "the guy" for other games and now you've gotten rid of him. Bizarre.

Glad to see a bit of a 3rd party voice here. I'd like to hear more about this and potentially any other instances, from both sides of the argument.

[Connor93]

If you all thought MCC had gotten so bad, then why are you complaining that GED kicked you out?

Its the manner that kicked us out that upset me the most. GED insulted our entire community and basically said TWC is too good for any of you. Sure he had a right to be upset given that he wasted money, but taking it out on us was hurtful given all the years we as community have faithfully dedicated to his servers only to be treated like the minority of toxic players.

We finally had enough of that disaster of a new server launch and were on the rise with a community server and felt at home back at TWC. But nope, here is a big you sign and delete the entire forum without a second thought or warning.

[Sanny]

delete the entire forum without a second thought or warning.

The forum is still there, just archived

[s.rwitt]

Heh. This isn't the first community that had most of its potential completely wiped out by confusing decisions by TWC Staff. Why even have an Other Games section if all staff wants done in it is discussion about other games? Letting communities of other games organize themselves and organize events here seems like it would be a boon to the site. The Arma clan tried to organize a massive campaign awhile back and staff wouldn't even let the organizers post an advertisement for it IN THE OTHER GAMES SECTION because it was outside of the clan subforum despite the fact that they were promised a front page advertisement that didn't end up getting posted until the day before the campaign started.

Poach was basically "the guy" for other games and now you've gotten rid of him. Bizarre.

[Sanny]

Heh. This isn't the first community that had most of its potential completely wiped out by confusing decisions by TWC Staff. Why even have an Other Games section if all staff wants done in it is discussion about other games? Letting communities of other games organize themselves and organize events here seems like it would be a boon to the site. The Arma clan tried to organize a massive campaign awhile back and staff wouldn't even let the organizers post an advertisement for it IN THE OTHER GAMES SECTION because it was outside of the clan subforum despite the fact that they were promised a front page advertisement that didn't end up getting posted until the day before the campaign started.

Poach was basically "the guy" for other games and now you've gotten rid of him. Bizarre.

I agree completely.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I recommend starting over. I will even build you a world room.

[Sanny]

I recommend starting over. I will even build you a world room.

We have started over, hence why this thread is no longer necessary or relevant.