The future of Escaperestart.

[Aqua]

Gonna make it short and sweet as it's pretty basic:

As discussed in this thread:
https://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/smp-feedback-form-we-need-your-help.20760/

the community needs to outreach and expand into new areas. One thing that's been blatantly obvious for a while is that, and I say this with no disrespect, the Admins and staff seem to be too afriad to expand into different mediums for whatever reason (Maybe because of what happened with DarkRP, but that can be explained and debunked logically).

SO

Rather than make random points here and there complaining about the community dying or suggesting ideas that fall upon deaf ears, we need to think of NEW, INTERESTING and EXCITING ways to both expand our player base and expand the areas of outreach to players, so let's have a thread where everyone imputs their possible ideas and make ESCR great again!

So whether you're a nerd, a catfish or a bigot post ideas that you would like the community to explore or think would benefit the community in certain ways, not just mods or admins, everybody!

EDIT: I know I have a bias against Minecraft, but if you have any ideas involving Minecraft or genuinely believe it is the way forward feel free to post.

 

[Psycho]

Why don't you ask the 8+ Admins that this Community has. I'm sure that they're all up to something good.

 

[Infected_alien8_]

Whatever happens, we need to ideally find games that our existing community members want to play (because even if we advertise or go on a server list, noone's going to want to join an empty server, we can't be like "oh hey come join our amazing community! Oh, no, none of us actually play the servers hahahahh! But you should!!" because people are going to walk away. Also, the idea of catering to getting new players and neglecting people already here makes about 0 sense to me because we, us, right here, are the community, so what even is the point in us trying to get new players and be 'great' again if we ourselves don't even want to be here because the community doesn't do things we want? Plus if we don't cater to what people here want, people leave, then it gets harder to get new players in because we're more empty. Whereas, if we discover what people still here like to do, build a server off of that, there's bound to be others out there on the interwebs who share that interest, see we're a community of people who do what we enjoy and share an interest with them, join us, we get similar minded people join (in a sense at least) with similar interest and the community grows.

Of course though we have to rely on the fact that people still here do actually have a game they like (other than Minecraft since we already cater to that and at this point I think a fairly small portion of the community actually plays that, hence why it doesn't do so well in bringing new players in [but I've not seen the data so I could be completely wrong on that]), which has a decent amount of people interested and wanting to play, which is easily advertised/on a public server, which doesn't get old super fast and which has people willing to put the volunteer work into making it run and update it.

And we don't need to open up a server, make it set in stone and keep it for months and when it dies try to revive it - just keep moving with the times of what people here want. Also, our focus doesn't even need to be on making our own servers. We're a community of gamers, and we can use that shared interest to feed the forums and bring people together. E.g. we could have a monthly competitive 'screenshot thread - share your crazy screenshots of any game here' and people vote for the funniest/craziest moment in a game someone captured and they win a little voucher or something (but we'd need the money for that of course).

But essentially I think we should keep tabs on what people enjoy doing here and work with that, not try to run in directions and leave people here behind, not try to stay still when people here are moving on, just try to keep everyone here happy, and then naturally, if we advertise and do well in our servers etc. we should attract people to join and stick around anyway because we're a nice place to be.

Also we need to find a way to make people from different interests within the community to come together (event nights work but they need to actually be fun and have social sides to them and also be hyped up a bit more. We could have the classic movie night, we could have those events we used to have like the special minecraft survival maps like 404 seed or the Super Hostile Wool Collector thing, but preferably not always Minecraft since the point of this is to bring everyone together who might not usually be brought together through our server system, or join a public server on Rust and play that together or whatever since some people from the MC servers will meet TTT players who share the interest in Rust for example [we shouldn't be afraid of joining public servers as a community since that's also a way to advertise ourselves if we all join a server together and make it clear we're part of a community e.g. using a clan tag]). Anyway, I say this since the main issue with TTT was that TTT players would join the forums (because we were sneaky and made them join to get a custom title), see nothing for them there (since TTT was their interest so they'd play TTT and have no reason to do anything else with the rest of the community) and the server did great but the community didn't really 'grow', it became a kind of island on its own, which is nice but I don't think is what people want?

Our Discord server is a nice little hub for people to interact with the larger community and if I manage to get TTT working again I'll make sure to advertise that lots (and if we get stuff like the werewolf/mafia bot that'll be great cough).

Anyway those are my thoughts, they may be a little idealistic/impractical though I'm not sure.

 

[Enderfive]

Also, the idea of catering to getting new players and neglecting people already here makes about 0 sense to me

who said anything about neglecting the existing playerbase?

 

[Infected_alien8_]

who said anything about neglecting the existing playerbase?

Well when most of the community's servers and focus is on Minecraft and a large portion of the community has lost interest in that, to me that suggests neglecting of current players. I'm not sure who said it but I remember someone saying something once about how focusing solely on Minecraft is the way forward because it's easiest to advertise and we have roots in it, despite the fact a lot of people have moved on from it. I don't agree with that, and whilst I think having some Minecraft in the community is a good idea since there are people here who enjoy and play it, focusing on it still as a way to 'grow' as opposed to moving with the times and focusing on new stuff that people here are interested in is a mistake in my opinion.

 

[Enderfive]

Well when most of the community's servers and focus is on Minecraft and a large portion of the community has lost interest in that, to me that suggests neglecting of current players. I'm not sure who said it but I remember someone saying something once about how focusing solely on Minecraft is the way forward because it's easiest to advertise and we have roots in it, despite the fact a lot of people have moved on from it. I don't agree with that, and whilst I think having some Minecraft in the community is a good idea since there are people here who enjoy and play it, focusing on it still as a way to 'grow' as opposed to moving with the times and focusing on new stuff that people here are interested in is a mistake in my opinion.

ah

yeah, i can agree with that, and everything else you said

 

[Catcocomics]

We could do a community guild in Chronicles of Elyria when that comes out.

 

[Willchill]

I think one of the problems you will face with this method is the fact that there are very few games which have a significant-enough playerbase to justify establishing new servers. Events could be a good 'taster' to encourage people to try new games, but would only really be viable in free games or on free weekends.

 

[snowma]

I personally think nothings wrong with ER. You've got your donations, you've got your frequent members. Discords doing well.

SMP dies out faster and faster and you might never get as many people as you had in the "good old days" but holy shit would you look at what ComputerGuy_ and MintyRogi did.

If that doesn't give you faith about the future of this community then you are literally hitler.

I didn't see this shared about Danni122112 THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. OUR CURRENT MEMBERS ARE JUST AS GOLDEN AS THE NEW ONES WE ARE SO DESPERATELY TRYING TO GET IN HERE.

I will also throw in something here and lest we forget that we are slowly growing older and older and I will personally shit on anyone who puts down any staff for living their IRL life instead on working on this community.

Not that I don't like ER but I don't think you should prioritise this over what you do in your everyday lives. I'm seeing a lot of people apologising for being unable to do a) b) and c) because they were studying/out with family, whatever.

(I cant see a breakdown of donations but you seem to fill it up every month and if thats strong then surely everythings a-ok?)

Whoever edited this so the image is in there is an absolute gem. Ta.

 

[Psycho]

If that doesn't give you faith about the future of this community then you are literally hitler.

I've been trying to figure out what was wrong with me lately! I've actually lost faith in this community a couple months ago and have tried to supress such thoughts of just moving on. Fortunately for me, I've removed myself from EscR's Discord channel, so that's some sort of progress.

You bring up IRL trumps Staffing and I agree that it should, but when IRL starts to become an excuse for not being able to deliver what you volunteered to do within this Community then maybe it's time to resign. I know that I have been a critic of some decisions that have been made here, but it's just my opinion and how I chose to voice it on here. Other than that, I guess I just stuck around to see what would happen, but there isn't much left from how I see it.

 

[Jayfeather]

Everytime a community member has to explain the the administration about branching out

 

[Vino]

Let's be real here, no one is putting any effort into anything but making minecraft server. All people are doing are complaining and telling staff to make stuff for other games that we probably have no knowledge on.

If you want change you need to do something, not tell people what they should do. Research other game server, what makes them popular, and collaborate with staff to make those instead of sitting back.

Apathy is what keeps us from growing, but so many groups of people here are fine with what they have and that's their small community of friends here. So if you want change so badly then do something instead of telling others what to do

 

[SirComputer]

I've left this for a bit just to see what the community think and to watch the discussion without interfering. I think it's became apparent that the admin team haven't managed to generate the greatest ideas for the community's long-term development so far, seeing as we're discussing this right now, so it is important we know what everyone thinks, not just "us". The discussion has been quite all over the place, but I'm going to chip in here because I think Aqua making this new thread to discuss it all was the correct thing to do.

What I'm going to say is that if you're going to expand to other games, you need staff and a good amount of them who will enjoy putting in the effort to make those games work. We can say "let's expand into xyz", but unless we have people who want to make it work (and people who can make it work), we're not going to get anywhere. And that's partially why we've stuck with Minecraft for so long. We have primarily staff who have Minecraft. These staff members like Minecraft, and want to put their effort into Minecraft because they like it. Because they don't like, perhaps, other games we're thinking of expanding to as much, they won't put as much into and won't be able to generate the best ideas for it because they aren't the biggest fan of what they're doing. Players don't go to half-arsed servers.

So that leaves our next question. What games do we want to make? If we don't make games we want to play, why would anyone else want to play them? Of course, this is only one small reason and one small question. There are plenty of other reasons why we haven't been able to expand, and there are plenty of other questions to be asked.

If it was so easy, I suspect previous Community Admins would have made light work of it... right?

 

[Vatumok]

We always have been a community that is owned and run by the community itself. I agree that some admins do not really do much with their rank but ultimately the responsibility to branch out lies with every single member. You can't expect staff members that have played and been promoted through mostly minecraft to just manage all other kind of servers. What should happend is that people experienced in other games take the initiative and come up with plans to host other servers. As CA I used to give people a lot of freedom when they did that, example is Hex with GMOD even tho that didn't work out. I bet the current admin team will do the same if people have a good idea. My point is that you can't just blame the admins for not doing what the players want because it's up to the community itself to find other alternatives.

It's nice to bring up the topic again because maybe it brings out some ideas. If nothing happens, which I expect, there are still people interested in what we currently have. Donations are coming in and there's still some activity on the servers, it's alright if some people are happy and willing to pay for things. If later we do come up with plans to expand is nice but it's not something we should necessarily expect.

 

[Hex]

I'd just like to add on to SirC's post, as someone who attempted to Expand (and failed). These are just my personal experience and how I felt, so please keep that in mind.

I feel like at points there's a lot of scrutiny and judgment when it comes to expanding into a new game. Everyone always talks about expanding into new games, but when someone actually wants to bunker down and do it - sometimes it seems like the community really isn't all that interested in the first place, or even dislike the idea - which can be very off putting. When I was working on DarkRP, it felt like sometimes my main motivation wasn't to improve the server - but to make this community feel like I'm not failing them. I used to always look at it as a really really terrible thing, to fail on a new start. I personally felt a lot of pressure and after a while I was just very burnt out on the idea - and it wasn't something I felt like I wanted to do anymore but needed to do because I wanted to not fail, which brings me to my next point.

I think a lot of people view failure as a bad thing, and I can't really blame them because I did (sometimes still do) too. I believe its why I felt so much pressure when I was doing DarkRP (which is my fault). People are scared of failing this community when we should be looking at failure as a step toward success. Now, there's a difference between not trying and failing and trying your best and failing of course, but I hope everyone gets the principle of what I'm trying to say.

Maybe, I even needed the pressure. Pressure can be good at times, but it starts to wear down on a person. I don't want to sit here and let you think I'm saying "Let the admins be lazy!", no I don't agree with that and I think you should say something if nothing is going on. If someone makes a half-ass attempt at expanding, then sure give em' hell! What I do want people to think, is that we should at least appreciate the people who do want to work hard and expand into other games, instead of somewhat neglect whats going on once it starts to happen. Maybe you aren't interested in the game, that's alright! You could still always show support and just follow updates/news and show you appreciate the hard work. I think something like that would go a long way, especially for new admins trying to expand. I feel like its a better motivator than everyone kinda just ignoring the new attempts.

Listen, I'd LOVE to do any gameserver anyone wants, I'm not incompetent and I know its what people want. It just sucks when you start working on it and it becomes more of a chore because you are scared of disappointing a group of people (even if you try your hardest). I think everyone as a community should just try and be more supportive of other game servers, and try to show appreciation for the people who work hard to push for it (even if it fails terribly). I think Vatumok's post kinda ties in well with this also.

Now, this is practically all my personal opinion, and maybe its just how I felt when I attempted to expand into something new. Maybe I'm the only one to feel this way, but I know it wasn't the best feeling in the world.

Also, as I said if, anyone is really interested - I am always interested also and wanting to try out new things. I would love to expand into more games, even if it takes me to learn the server programming for a while. I love all types of games, and am willing to try out interesting and fun things. Do not be scared to PM me, or any other fellow CA about them! We will listen

EDIT: Ultimately, I think STAFF AND PLAYERS should start to work together more, even if its just a little support from the players, it can help staff a lot - and vice versa. You can't put all the blame on the players, because we as staff do have a responsibility, but it makes it A LOT easier if the community we are working with shows more support than just being quiet / pointing out the negatives in a situation.

 

[Jayfeather]

Let's be real here, no one is putting any effort into anything but making minecraft server. All people are doing are complaining and telling staff to make stuff for other games that we probably have no knowledge on.

If you want change you need to do something, not tell people what they should do. Research other game server, what makes them popular, and collaborate with staff to make those instead of sitting back.

Apathy is what keeps us from growing, but so many groups of people here are fine with what they have and that's their small community of friends here. So if you want change so badly then do something instead of telling others what to do

Let's be honest, this is the best case scenario, but when you join a community you don't expect to have to give above and beyond your best effort. The community should be catering to the players, not the otherway around. "Do it yourself" when speaking to members and low staff is back asswards logic

 

[Aqua]

We always have been a community that is owned and run by the community itself.

(This is my thread I'm allowed to shitpost smd)​

 

[JtTorso]

(This is my thread I'm allowed to shitpost smd)

Perhaps you can clarify who actually runs the community?

 

[Aqua]

Perhaps you can clarify who actually runs the community?

https://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/lets-talk.19360/
https://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/lets-talk-seriously.19370/

...I'm lazy but you get the picture, there are more threads.

EDIT: This is directed to the "always" part of vatu's comment, I have no quarrel with the current administration apart from Jolt.

 

[JtTorso]

https://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/lets-talk.19360/
https://escaperestart.com/forum/threads/lets-talk-seriously.19370/

...I'm lazy but you get the picture, there are more threads.

I see where you're coming from with the first one, probably one of the worst posts made by an admin here.
The second one I think works against your point, the point of this one seems to advocate for more speech, shit posting, etc.

Is posts and thread deletions still a thing going on? Are we not past this?

 

[Aqua]

I see where you're coming from with the first one, probably one of the worst posts made by an admin here.
The second one I think works against your point, the point of this one seems to advocate for more speech, shit posting, etc.

Is posts and thread deletions still a thing going on? Are we not past this?

Let's finish this now if you wanna talk about it dm me so we don't go too off topic since this is a VERY SERIOUS thread, but it was more about Bryan and censoring as addressed in the second.

 

[Ogarci]

Is there any support for a 7 Days to Die server? Its been one of my favorite games recently.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/251570/7_Days_to_Die/

 

[rosekill]

The servers going to have 7 days to die.

 

[CloudBryan9]

I agree what has been said before. If you want the community to join a new game, go take the initiative.

The main reason why we have so many MC servers is that the Admins enjoy working on MC servers. Some of us would love to see more variety in the games we host servers on... but we lack the time/knowledge/energy to get them running. Me personally, I would love to develop a unique Rust server. However, do to the fact I am leaving for college in 1 month. I am not able to pull it off.

Tl;dr Stop blaming the admin team for the lack of variety in servers. Go take the initiative and make it happen.

 

[Hex]

Is there any support for a 7 Days to Die server? Its been one of my favorite games recently.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/251570/7_Days_to_Die/

Just looked into it, it seems it has support for linux and everything!

Edit: I'll be looking at this more when I get home