Spiritwind

Necroing this thread as I'm curious if adding a landing page made the servers thrive?

I'm just pointing out that things are dead and you guys are worried about the wrong things, while acting like the fact things are dead is just a temporary issue. I don't need a lecture about how giving out staff works. Especially not from someone that should never have had their perm removed, let alone promoted to BD. But, that is a modern SG trend and a symptom of what killed it. The fact your post has 8 likes and only 1 of which is an actual regular member demonstrates my point of what SG has become. You can live in denial all you want, but the reality is that SG has failed under TERRIBLE leadership. The fact is, only ONE person who has joined the forums in the LAST 3 YEARS has viewed this thread. More than 70% of the people who have viewed this thread are either currently admin+ or have been admin. That is what SG has become. It is just crazy to me that knowing this, the changes upper management is suggesting is a Supporter rework and a few promotions into a staff list that is already 50x bigger than its active player count. Just go ahead and continue the 12 year old "Join my minecraft server and get admin ... please don't leave" move. We've literally resorted to BEGGING people who were PERMANENTLY banned to come back and run and manage the servers and communities. Yes, I get it, some people like to chat on discord, but even a 14 year old mmo guild I'm in on discord has more activity than the SG discord. It's the afternoon of a summer break day, and the SG discord general channel at this time has only 3 messages total today, and those 3 messages are from Admin+. It also has a total of 0 people in voice chat. The other channels have some messages, but it seems like no different than the shoutbox activity prior to discord - not really of relevance but just people blurting random thoughts with some light communication involved. "because someone here wants to do it." Leadership isn't about a free-for-all where people only want to do what they want to do. It's about guiding and directing people, and encouraging them to do even the hard things they normally would not want to do. If they are only doing the things they want to, then why in gods name do we have more higher ranking staff than members? Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Our servers currently have 0 people in them. None of the servers have had more than 2 people in them so far today. Over the last 48 hours, only one server has had more than 6 players. That was only for about 2 hours.

Then why is the announcement post about new admins and a subscriber rework?

You know, I honestly don't know. Gaming has since evolved past large group social seeking gaming into more of a private party social gaming. Server browsers are all but gone, nearly every game supports private party groups, and there is no longer a need for giant networks like this, except in very niche games, and even then, everyone is familiar with clients like discord that even though people might join a server, they aren't going to seek out the community or the discord for that server beyond basic support. People are also in dozens of discord servers. I can't name how many I've joined, used for a single day for support in some way, and haven't opened that discord since. Pretty much the only appeal communities like SG have are people in our generations, who seek out the nostalgia of it, or communities centered around social differences or beliefs. My honest opinion, servers aren't really needed anymore, expect for what the community wants to do. SG does not have to have a counter-strike server. It does not need to have a rust server. But, if the community wants to have one, then by all means, keep one active. Gaming Communities are no longer measured in success by their servers. Servers in general are becoming outdated. People are also no longer interested in the 'gaming community' that runs a server either. It's just another brand in the mass of brands. Chances are the next time they play the game, they'll just click the matchmaking button with whatever settings they want. Short of survival games, there is literally no need or desire to join the same server in modern gaming. Instead, I think we should be focusing on both discord and the website/forums. SG right now has very limited, if not any, discoverability. Short of typing Steam Gamers, you'll have trouble finding anything regarding it on Google difficult. When was the last time someone put work into SEO? I know it was mentioned that the website is a technical nightmare, but honestly, it's probably far more important than anything else that could be done. What can we offer to bring more traffic here? Perhaps a resource network of how to run and operate your own gaming server? Maybe some useful SG plugins for games that you have to come here to download for your own server? Not sure if that would cause member retention, but at least it'd be some traffic. There is still a need for a social setting like the forums though. If there wasn't, Reddit would not still be around. You have to come to a realization though Dom, Steam-Gamers is all but dead. It hasn't been months or a short time. Its been years, and it has been in a constant decline even under your leadership. I'm not saying you have to resign, I don't think it'd make a difference at this point. What was done is done. But, what you guys are doing isn't going to bring new players. You can probably count the amount of people excited by your announcement on a single hand. Do something different to expect different results. Right now you are doing the same exact thing as Edge Gamers, and they are dying. You are doing the same thing as Hellsgamers, and they are dead. You are doing the same thing as 99% of other gaming communities that no longer exist, and SG is all but gone because of it.

You don't need admins, higher ranking staff, or a rework of the donations system for people playing in voice chat on discord.

" lower population numbers in recent times" "struggled with activity in recent months" It's been going on for years. Not in recent times or months. The crazy thing is, nothing is changing. People are not leaving because the supporter system needs a rework. People are not leaving because the right people aren't being promoted. People are not leaving because you haven't rebooted the same server for the 10th time. People aren't leaving because of the community name. People are leaving because of poor leadership and a lack of direction, organization, and sense of community. Hell, the only thing you need to do to become BD now is to have gotten banned at one point and then just be active in discord. It's a toxic environment, with the only people sticking around being those that feed on the constant narcissistic backslap that seems to go around, and a limited few who just miss the old days, hope that some day things will get better, and don't want to see it gone forever. There really is just a point where you have to sit down and look at what SG has become under the current leadership. Just because it has a server up and some people that talk in discord does not mean its surviving. At the time of writing this, in the last 12 hours, only 1 person has attempted to connect/join an SG server. That is where we are at. That is the state and health of the 'community'. Community Faith in SG leadership < 0 Honestly, at this point, why don't we just have a timer and if you play on an SG server for 30 minutes, you automatically get Admin. Would save you guys some time. Reminds me of joining a desperate 12 year olds minecraft and they scream 'if you stay I'll give you admin' into chat.

Thought people who come back aren't important and don't matter? Congrats though, while I can't say I think it's a good thing, you have put a lot of time and work into SG since your perm removal, and that is something that does not happen much anymore.

Thanks for the update, much appreciated.

A Jailbreak server might actually get me on again. It would be neat, though I bet it'd be depressing with 'old man' me not having the same reaction speed as before.

Do wish we could keep this serious so some actual good might come of it. Though, I do appreciate some of the humor.

I see my shadow ban expired, thanks. @jazzytake this any way you want. From your ban appeal: "It took a lot of years for me to grow up and figure out how to actually interact correctly with people rather than being polarizing all the time like I was before" There is no other way to describe each and every response you have made to me other than 'polarizing'. You are very defensive, you are very passive aggressive, and you have been trying to demean me from the get go. You are doing a very poor job of interacting with people. I actually walked into this with respect for you as it was obvious you were putting a lot of effort into the servers. That respect has since been totally lost. The right thing to have done during all this would have been to try and sit down and actually talk. Try and hash things out. Instead of telling me I'm inactive and my opinion does not matter, try and get me active and helping. Try and get the other people in here active and helping. That is what leadership does. The only person I've actually gained a little respect for in all this is @Dominic. At least he listened, remained calm, didn't try and belittle people talking against him, and tried to make suggestions to move forward, even if it may have felt like a charade.

@Caution @Dominic @jazzy The most activity SG has seen in the last 2 years has been a thread calling for your resignation. Let that sink in. You can post whatever you want defending yourselves, you can delete and ban however many +1 posts calling for your resignation; but it happened. That is the strength of your current leadership.

Yes, you banned the ones who werent because they spoke out against you. Your excuses for banning them were plum stupid. Your narassism is showing since your power was called out.