Sales Pitch

[.silence.]

I have been a part of FFN/this group in some way, shape, or form for around two years. I donated my time to help admin the servers (until I ran out of free time) and I donated $10 every month for almost as long as I've been here. I'm not looking for a pat on the back. I'm looking for a reason to contribute again. I want to help out in some way, but you need to sell me on the reason why.

I know this is supposed to be a whole new experience: new community, new name, new leadership, etc. There has been talk of things being different this time, but little discussion (in public, at least) about how things will be different. I cannot, in good conscience, talk myself into helping/contributing to VF4 without seeing in writing what exactly is going to be different. What exactly are you going to do to avoid sinking this ship?

I understand if this seemed overly negative, but I wanted to do this in the most straightforward way. I'm not mad about how things went down with FFN, but I am skeptical about how things will change. Like I said, I want to help... but, I don't want to waste anymore time and money.

.silence.

 

[Net]

Well I think it would be good for all of us in charge of our own roles to tell you how we plan on improving.

I am in charge of business side of things. So what I plan on doing is focusing less on profits and revenue (to some extent, bills still need to be paid) and focus more on what we can do to make this the go to place for people to enjoy themselves and have fun. So less like a corporation and more like a playground.

I look forward to what others in their roles have to say.

 

[VintagePC]

Given that I'm here to run the TF2 gameservers, I shall continue to do that.
If anyone had issue with the way things were done since I stepped up at FFN, I _AM_ open to discussion and more than happy to explain why things were done the way they were.

Most of my other work is backend/integration/things that won't be seen, but serves to make running things easier here.

 

[Reechard]

I'm still around, I'm mostly running what isn't seen, the webserver, the gameserver, the hardware machines that everything runs on. I'm constantly tweaking and tuning the webserver to get the most performance out of what we have. We're on new hardware now, and I got everything from the old machine migrated over and set up on the new one. We have slightly better hardware now, but we've dropped the RAID array we had on the old machine, so disk usage optimization is the key now. We're also now running the Tekkit server on the new webserver, as we've completely dropped one hardware box. My job is to give the most playability across the least amount of hardware so we have a good baseline to build from and still be able to afford it. We're working with Sega now to get HLStats back up on a new installation for VF4, a big thanks to him for his server resources, they should help us stretch a bit more out of the new webserver. I've also taken over the backend of Tekkit, and have a lot of learning to do with managing the machine. Trust me when I say I'm really busy back here, you just won't notice what I do quite as much as what some of the others do ;-)

 

[DeBo]

I've stepped up from Assistant community Manager, to the Community manager as a whole. I plan on being as reachable as possible when issues with the community come up, or when issues occur between Admins and Moderators. When I'm not available, I've brought in Lavared as a backup so when I am NOT available, there will always be somebody the community can go to with concerns and issues. Basically I want to make sure that we have FUN, but this place doesnt get so trolly that nobody wants to be here again.

 

[LavaRed]

As Debo said, I'm here when he isn't or is otherwise indisposed. I've got my hands well into the Tekkit server as well, so if you have immediate concerns there, attempt to find me first. Between Facebook, Twitter, Steam and the forums...if you can't find me then send out a search party!

 

[Katsumeragi]

I've stepped up from Assistant community Manager, to the Community manager as a whole. I plan on being as reachable as possible when issues with the community come up, or when issues occur between Admins and Moderators. When I'm not available, I've brought in Lavared as a backup so when I am NOT available, there will always be somebody the community can go to with concerns and issues. Basically I want to make sure that we have FUN, but this place doesnt get so trolly that nobody wants to be here again.

Funny I remember everyone having the most fun WHEN it was trolly, ie when FFN was formed, seems to me that when we started tramping out the Trolls the fun went with them.

 

[DeBo]

When FFN was formed, things were kinda trolly, but in a fun way. People goofing off, and actually having fun. Things started not being fun, when people crossed the line of having fun to being assholes to other members. I want to have fun as much as the next person, but I want to make sure everybody else is too.

 

[.silence.]

I get that the workload is being spread out more, responsibilities delegated. That seems like a logical/good idea.

What is being done about funding? How is VF4 going to sustain itself right now? I understand the goal is to create a place where people want to play and give you their money. Where is the money coming from now? What are your ideas for soliciting donations? How are you going to attract and then maintain a server population? Are you just depending on the same old game servers?

 

[CaptSpiffy]

Funny I remember everyone having the most fun WHEN it was trolly, ie when FFN was formed, seems to me that when we started tramping out the Trolls the fun went with them.

Basically, we're trying to get it back to being more like Doublecross, and less like Payload.
Our shenanigans were cheek and fun, their shenanigans were cruel and tragic. Thereby making them not shenanigans at all... evil shenanigans.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk 2

 

[VoltageSpike]

Basically, we're trying to get it back to being more like Doublecross, and less like Payload.
Our shenanigans were cheek and fun, their shenanigans were cruel and tragic. Thereby making them not shenanigans at all... evil shenanigans.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk 2

Fine, I'll go get my huntsman and pain train...

 

[Katsumeragi]

1. When FFN was formed, things were kinda trolly, but in a fun way. People goofing off, and actually having fun.

2. Things started not being fun, when people crossed the line of having fun to being assholes to other members.

3. I want to have fun as much as the next person, but I want to make sure everybody else is too.

1. This is what we need to go back to, the first year or so of FFN.
2. That is a matter of perspective. Little kids and emo's were getting mad and complaining. FFN used to be a more adult'ish community, now its all little kids and a lot of whiners.
3. You cant make everyone happy, thats why so many people left, this up and down of idea's/rules/roles/feelings fucks with the servers and people get sick of it and leave. Find a target group and shoot for pleasing them. Try and make everyone happy and shits going to get rebranded again.

And onto rebranding, In my mind when something gets rebranded shit changes, like upper management changes. Whats different in staff then what we had before? Makatiel and Arcy are gone? Seems to me like its just FFN running away from its name and trying to get people to play again with a different name.

 

[LavaRed]

Basically, we're trying to get it back to being more like Doublecross, and less like Payload.
Our shenanigans were cheek and fun, their shenanigans were cruel and tragic. Thereby making them not shenanigans at all... evil shenanigans.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk 2

I'm gonna pistol whip the next one of you that says shenanigans!

 

[LavaRed]

And onto rebranding, In my mind when something gets rebranded shit changes, like upper management changes. Whats different in staff then what we had before? Makatiel and Arcy are gone? Seems to me like its just FFN running away from its name and trying to get people to play again with a different name.

First of all, there's more change in staff than you think, and it's not just the names that are involved, it's the fact of multiple people making decisions as issues arise rather than waiting for a single person to take care of everything. Second, a large part of the migration is leaving the negativity behind. We're starting off with a positive attitude to associate with out new name, thus shrugging off the old stigma.

 

[Katsumeragi]

Sooo what changes are being made to make people want to donate? Starting off in the hole is bad enough but is anything donation wise getting changed up? If donations werent being made before why do you think they will come in now?

 

[VintagePC]

Sooo what changes are being made to make people want to donate? Starting off in the hole is bad enough but is anything donation wise getting changed up? If donations werent being made before why do you think they will come in now?

Given that I can't read minds, I'm going to be asking that very same question in the forums once I finish the migration stuff I need to do. We have TF2 perks and forum perks. I had a thread in the FFN forums for suggestions, and everything feasible was implemented. If I don't get feedback as to what would make people want to donate... well, you see my delimma.

One thing that has been suggested is raffles for supporters - things like TF2 items, gift cards, games. We're looking in to that and the legality (given that it's technically a lottery since you must be a supporter/pay to win).

 

[African Grey]

Stop me if I'm remembering wrong but,
Guys the reason why it got bad was because we were successful. We got big, more people came. You can't have that sort of atmosphere easily with a large diverse group, drama comes up. So we went a more professional route, FFN became a business before it was a business because it had to provide a service to more than something that could be called a small loose group of friends. We had to tolerate people and play nice and all that. So those guys that left, Ghost Medic, Chips, and the rest, they didn't like the idea of us not being a small lighthearted place where we could troll each other without drama because no one took things too seriously and knew each other to some extent there. So drama happened, they left/got kicked out.

So here we are, shrunk down after a long decline and re-branded, ready to start again. We gonna do the same thing as before and then worry when we limit our growth potential again, or are we gonna keep the trolliest trolly to the Teamspeak trolley, in game toils, and spam section trials? And maybe chatbox, but slightly less because it is on the front page.

We've got that donators forums and a serious discussion and most people around now know how to not take things too far. We just need to be sure what 'too far' is and how our approach on that effects the potential of this community.

 

[DeBo]

Here's the main thing with donations. At this point, we are small enough, when we have to we can pay for shit ourselves. I'm gonna be putting in this weekend to help net out with it, but in the long run, servers stay up even when we don't have donations. And to get donations were going with an ACTIVE admin group and going to make sure we push to bring people to the forums again. Also staff as a whole are trying to be active on the servers so that its not just the admins doing things. As for the whole community thing I have a very long explanation that I hope you can comprehend on to why were doing things the way we plan on doing things.

 

[Net]

I think good natured trolling is fun and welcome it. The problem is when the trolling is directed at someone who wants no part in it.

For example there are some things I can say to my friends and they know I am just kidding and laugh but I would probably get a different reaction out of strangers or aquaintences.

Same thing here keep the heavy trolling between friends and people who know your joking and don't get butt hurt if you fool around with someone who doesn't get it and gets hurt. Be an adult apologize to them and move on.

 

[African Grey]

Well the problem is deciding on what to do when people don't do that, and what the policy is in dealing with them. Rules are hard to define without feeling restricting, that was one of the problems people had, new rules being made to keep everyone civil with each other, which was needed at the time because we were growing. For now we're fine but if we grow enough we'll have to figure some things out before they're needed. I'm going to be more active than I was any time in that last year of FFN. If you guys are accepting moderator apps soon let me know. I want to help out.