granderslice wrote:Bluedrake,
FCV has been a welcomed addition to the realm of PR since its inception not too long ago. The more servers, the better for a game struggling to broaden its player base. HOWEVER, more often than not the admins are either too heavy handed or non-participatory.
EXAMPLE #1:
Today: 9/18/15 at 1:30 PM PST
Map: Fallujah West
Full server
Admin on: Ducky21
Issues: Multiple reports sent for intentional TKing by numerous players. Force TKs (walking over VOIEDs) and just shooting teammates point-blank.
Ducky21 did nothing. Not a warning, not a kick, not even recognizing the reports. In essence, Ducky21 is a "lame duck" admin (pun intended).
If you are unable to acquire adequate administrators, ones who understand the reporting system, ones who take action, ones who recognize and see TKs happening and take appropriate action, then perhaps FCV needs either an auto-admin at all times or to be put down until adequate admins are acquired.
PR is a small and dedicated community. But it has grown recently and NEEDS admins to control the unruly and unlearned. I'm sorry to have to write this, FCV has become the "go-to" server for everyone that has been banned from HOG and PRTA. And admins like Ducky21 are not doing anything to maintain the class and demeanor you (Bluedrake42) want and expect from your server.
"Just Games, No Bullshit" should read "Just Bullshit, No Fun"
Alright so I'm gonna say this here, and just point to it again when someone inevitably brings this up.
We're lacking in experienced admins, and there is not much beyond what we are currently already doing to combat this. I've been constantly asking other experienced admins from other communities to assist in administrating our server, but no one is interested in helping. So this is us doing the best with what we have.
Ducky is probably one of the only admins willing to help at 3AM-11AM EST, a region we are poorly understaffed for. If you come on in the evening from 5PM-1AM EST that's probably when you'll see our server at its best. Additionally, Ducky is a trainee admin for a reason... and for a good reason. This is why he can't do much... and if we made him full admin... you'd probably come back complaining that he's abusive.
So let's get some background on where we are, why, and what can be done.
Free Candy Van started as a new community under myself and Brennan. We pulled a large number of administrators from =DRK= and its surrounding playerbase, and over time trained an exceedingly strong administration team. However, during a drastic move to merge Free Candy Van with PRTA (which I did not support) PRTA NA was created, and our administration team kept with that entity.
After some time, I decided to leave PRTA (as did Brennan) and since Brennan didn't have the time to effectively manage a new community, I reinstated Free Candy Van under =DRK= to save time. This was because I was the only one with the time and money to manage it appropriately. However we had lost our entire initial administration team to PRTA, and I had to start back at square one.
We have had to build a new administration team from =DRK= and its surrounding playerbase, and while its taken some time... I'm expecting we will be able to build just as effective an administration team as we were before.
So perhaps you're saying, why not get admins from other communities to help? Okay well... lets talk.
PRTA has a monopoly on most of the admins, and following my departure... their leaders have explicitly asked me to not try and recruit back any of my original staff or they'll start banning members of my community. So I can't recruit any of those admins for our server, which rules out practically 90% of our potential good admins.
HOG has probably a more concentrated group of more experienced admins, but in my opinion they're exceedingly brutal in how harshly they administrate. Which is like... why they have so many people that dislike them. They're like the LAPD of PR Administration. Intensely loyal to their small dedicated group, but also self serving and prejudiced. Not that they'd work with us anyways.
CIA would be a decent candidate, but they're not happy with Project Reality has a whole... and just generally not particularly dedicated to helping administrate a server in general. Much less FCV.
And lastly... TacticalGamer is like the nice grampa that everyone likes but no one wants to spend all the time to actually go visit, so he sits there wondering why he's so lonely all the time. They barely have the time or energy to keep themselves up, so they aren't going to have that energy for us either.
This is all a shame... because while an exceeding amount of Project Reality's current server administrators who could help us (like PRTA NA) actually originated from our original community, Project Reality as a whole is too splintered and gated to call on anyone other than ourselves for help.
So...
The only option we have left, is slowly build back our own team again from =DRK=. Which is going to take time, and a lot of effort. We already have a core team of about 5-6 great administrators, and despite Project Reality's waning popularity... I think we're maintaining a pretty stable playerbase and player environment. It needs work of course... but its pretty damn good given the situation.
Also no, we're not going to shut down the server just because we're having some problems. We're not going anywhere. Project Reality is a free game, and our staff work for free. We're doing the best we can with what we have, and if you want to see us do better... maybe take a hand in helping. You're lucky to have servers at all, even more so to have administrated communities that work for free. If we shut down, the players will go to servers with even less administration... and you'll have even more to complain about.
Also FYI, while I appreciate the feedback... your petty insults to our slogan and server don't do anything for anyone, besides add on to the aimless bickering that got us here in the first place. If you want to see a positive change to the server community, maybe start with yourself.
Thanks.
~ Bluedrake
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