Hi,
Despite the success of GMod right now with their Deathrun, Minecraft's Deathrun hasn't quite been working. Under my lacklustre management, we've lacked activity and direction. Due to low staff levels caused by the huge amount of effort going into SMP, we've been unable to gather a large enough team to effectively collaborate, with meetings trying to be attended by three people, two on opposite sides of the world, which just isn't sustainable.
We've also had to ask ourselves if Deathrun is really what you want, or whether it was a dubious decision made under immense pressure, purely for the sake of change. Was it really what would attract people, or was it what someone thought would attract people? We had some admin talks a while back on the state of the community where we also decided on Deception, and the primary reason Deathrun was created was that I and the RoF team felt we had to save lava survival, arguably the community's primary USP, from an, in my opinion, idiotic death. Servers should be developed out of care, not necessity.
For these reasons, we're deciding to cease development of Deathrun, and focus development back onto Rituals of Fire. We believe we can offer more by improving what we have rather than restarting from nothing. We're here to create a unique server, not a Hypixel clone. We believe we can create something that people want to join. Rituals of Fire attracts the majority of new users, but just doesn't quite retain - is it due to people online, perhaps? Something else? We can look at that and develop it, which we've talked about for a while, and were getting on our way to doing so. Finally, we can create a server that we all believe in with momentum behind us, and if we all care about what we create, we're going to create something a hell of a lot better.
Throughout this, there has been one user who has offered to maintain development when I thought we couldn't go on, and created a list of improvements for RoF that started this in the first place, rescuing lava survival. As mentioned on the Community News, Robo has been promoted to Admin, so congratulations! He will be taking lead of managing RoF, and I know he will do a very good job. As I am resigning on October 31st, this promotion was going to happen eventually, but now presented the perfect opportunity to do so. I will be focusing on development instead, and providing technical assistance to other servers in the community.
Existing Deathrun development will be merged into Rituals of Fire, for example adding Butamou's always excellent maps, such as DR_Drain, and features we planned with the Deathrun server may be added to Rituals of Fire's gamemode in the future. As well, existing Deathrun contributors have been merged into RoF staff, with a position of Moderator being offered, so people like RaizzanX's dedication to helping build and test maps will not go unnoticed and forgotten.
I do accept that there will be users disappointed with the decision that we have made, but it is one we felt was necessary for the continuation and progression of lava survival within the community. When something isn't working, you've got to change things up, and that's exactly what we've done.
Thank you for your understanding.
-The RoF Team
---------------
I'll also add a quick footnote about donations. We've not got many funds left at all, and we may be gone in as soon as a month or two if donations do not pick up. Thank you to our patrons on Patreon helping cover the monthly bill, but right now, only 1/5 of it is being covered! We would be incredibly grateful for anyone wanting to donate, whether it be a one-off on the forums, or a monthly donation on Patreon, however small it may be, because it will add up. Without your donations, we will be unable to run our Minecraft servers, including the huge SMP on its way, and in the mean time it may force us to apply donor rewards to our servers. RoF already has a lot of this coded. I'm sorry we have to get serious about this, but it's getting to a dangerous point. Thank you.
Despite the success of GMod right now with their Deathrun, Minecraft's Deathrun hasn't quite been working. Under my lacklustre management, we've lacked activity and direction. Due to low staff levels caused by the huge amount of effort going into SMP, we've been unable to gather a large enough team to effectively collaborate, with meetings trying to be attended by three people, two on opposite sides of the world, which just isn't sustainable.
We've also had to ask ourselves if Deathrun is really what you want, or whether it was a dubious decision made under immense pressure, purely for the sake of change. Was it really what would attract people, or was it what someone thought would attract people? We had some admin talks a while back on the state of the community where we also decided on Deception, and the primary reason Deathrun was created was that I and the RoF team felt we had to save lava survival, arguably the community's primary USP, from an, in my opinion, idiotic death. Servers should be developed out of care, not necessity.
For these reasons, we're deciding to cease development of Deathrun, and focus development back onto Rituals of Fire. We believe we can offer more by improving what we have rather than restarting from nothing. We're here to create a unique server, not a Hypixel clone. We believe we can create something that people want to join. Rituals of Fire attracts the majority of new users, but just doesn't quite retain - is it due to people online, perhaps? Something else? We can look at that and develop it, which we've talked about for a while, and were getting on our way to doing so. Finally, we can create a server that we all believe in with momentum behind us, and if we all care about what we create, we're going to create something a hell of a lot better.
Throughout this, there has been one user who has offered to maintain development when I thought we couldn't go on, and created a list of improvements for RoF that started this in the first place, rescuing lava survival. As mentioned on the Community News, Robo has been promoted to Admin, so congratulations! He will be taking lead of managing RoF, and I know he will do a very good job. As I am resigning on October 31st, this promotion was going to happen eventually, but now presented the perfect opportunity to do so. I will be focusing on development instead, and providing technical assistance to other servers in the community.
Existing Deathrun development will be merged into Rituals of Fire, for example adding Butamou's always excellent maps, such as DR_Drain, and features we planned with the Deathrun server may be added to Rituals of Fire's gamemode in the future. As well, existing Deathrun contributors have been merged into RoF staff, with a position of Moderator being offered, so people like RaizzanX's dedication to helping build and test maps will not go unnoticed and forgotten.
I do accept that there will be users disappointed with the decision that we have made, but it is one we felt was necessary for the continuation and progression of lava survival within the community. When something isn't working, you've got to change things up, and that's exactly what we've done.
Thank you for your understanding.
-The RoF Team
---------------
I'll also add a quick footnote about donations. We've not got many funds left at all, and we may be gone in as soon as a month or two if donations do not pick up. Thank you to our patrons on Patreon helping cover the monthly bill, but right now, only 1/5 of it is being covered! We would be incredibly grateful for anyone wanting to donate, whether it be a one-off on the forums, or a monthly donation on Patreon, however small it may be, because it will add up. Without your donations, we will be unable to run our Minecraft servers, including the huge SMP on its way, and in the mean time it may force us to apply donor rewards to our servers. RoF already has a lot of this coded. I'm sorry we have to get serious about this, but it's getting to a dangerous point. Thank you.
