Spiritwind

Just checking in to see if there has been any more staff talk regarding this? Really losing faith in the future of SG with this, especially after reading what I hope was a joke thread about 'rebranding' SG. I think staff is looking in COMPLETELY the wrong direction as to why SG is failing. It is not the brand, it is not the servers, it is the direction, it is the leadership, it is the lack of initiative to actually stick with something. If you really want to see things move forward, you have to build some morale within the community. You have to get people motivated. SG worked in the past because people actually worked together. There was structure, there was a system, there was discipline, there were hard working people that made it happen, and people felt like they were in a community. The leadership led, and they actually listened and took action based on what the group as a whole spoke about. When I first joined SG, it was the structure and adherence to it that really impressed me. People had a really good system. People stuck to it. There was very little tolerance for deviating from that. Except for a few people here and there, it did not feel like a popularity contest. Hell, just to become an Admin, I had to apply, a meeting happened where staff not only discussed me, but I was personally interviewed. I then had to attend classes on a schedule before I ever even had the most basic of powers. Freaking Bob Loblaw spent countless hours with me and a group of four other APPRENTICES drilling the rules into our head and the suitable punishment for us. It was a classroom. I had to be there at a certain time. The organization was unreal; and very impressive. You know what type of leadership that took? Of course you don't, we haven't seen that type of organization in SG since it started to fall into the drain. I get it though, people have lives. People have to move forward. We all grew up. We have jobs. We have families. But, where we failed, is passing that mantle when we cannot do this type of activity. People got selfish and wanted to see themselves in the seat of power. Things were neglected, and our system was slowly lost. Another big part was the discipline. If you screwed up, you were dealt with. There were no 'friends with benefits'. 99% of the time, it did not matter who you were friends with. I saw some great people. Some members of the community that really put forth the effort but then screwed up, got drunk on vent, said a few things, and then get permed. There was no chance of coming back. You made mistakes, you dealt with them and moved on. It did not matter how old you were. It did not matter who you stayed in contact with. You had lost your place in this community, and the community moved on. Later, we got rid of a large group of rules that kept order and values within the community. This let the trolls take root. Afterwards, we got rid of our strict standards. Now, you can see what we have become because of it. If you call yourself a leader, be a leader. If you want to 'rebrand' or completely tear SG down with the hopes of building it into something it isn't - than leave and do just that (and watch your idea of what would work fail all over again). Its worth pointing out, that while things were strict and structured, everyone still came together and had a blast.

Here's to hoping that multiple staff members see this, and actually take it to heart and figure out how to move forward. Even though they got banned and some acted childish, a lot of members have come forward and shown a mutual agreement. It'd be really sad to see that completely disregarded, as we've seen done multiple times in the past. We need more than just words. One thing we can all agree on, currently, SG is in its death throes, and has been for quite some time. I hope the right decisions are made to give it a fighting chance...

Why are multiple people in this being banned now?

Dominic, again, actions and not words. I do appreciate that you do not take offence, but I'm seeing very little leadership and talks of how we can actually make it better; and a whole lot of excuse making and 'fluffing'. The fact you blame it on "I was 16 and other people..." shows that you never truly learned from those actions. I own my mistakes from when I was 16. I know I learned from them, but I am still the same person who made them, and I am just as responsible for those mistakes now as I was when I was 16. A lot has happened since then, and I may have gotten some of the events mixed, but by no means does that make it any less valid. I do remember the staff discussions at that time. I do remember seeing in the logs what you were doing. I remember seeing on your forums the trashing going on, by yourself and others. I remember staff members scrambling trying to do damage control on the mess you had created then. I remember the complete morale loss when you were unbanned, and the string of bad decisions occuring before and after that point. These bad decisions have brought us here, to a point where there is talk of removing the forums, and what few servers remain are completely dead. I don't know if SG will ever recover. I hope it does. But it is going to take leadership it does not have now, and has not had in years. As to the original talk of moving the forum to discord, I feel like its just for a sense of false security and sense that things are 'ok'. Discord shows hundreds of people being online, where the forums and servers show the true activity. The online count by no means marks activity or 'health'. I had seen people in the past use that as a suggestion years past that discord was doing better than the forums, but truth be told I'm in about 20 discord channels, and I haven't touched 19 of them in at least a couple years... I have a feeling you are in many too, that you never even glance at.

It turned into a who should be incharge debate as soon as removing the forums at all was even suggested. But, you are correct and make a lot of very good points in your post.

Dominic, my personal opinion, and take this any way you want: A major reason as to why SG currently has 0 players in the servers, is on the brink of extinction, and has lost 99% of its dedicated members is left to the simple fact that you are even in this community, let alone a vice president. Hear me out; SG has become nothing but a popularity contest. Pure and simple. What you did 3 years ago should have resulted in permanent removal from the community. Prior to Caution taking office, there would not have been a single chance for you to even make an appeal after the sort of behavior you displayed. All staff attention has gone to exactly that; staff attention. Decisions are no longer made on the idea of what will actually help the gaming community, the past and present members, but instead is based on what will make you feel better or look more flashy. The only reason you were unbanned, is that the remaining members of the community were narcissistic buddies who still included you in their circle, minus a few good souls who only stick around and help because of the nostalgia of the good ol' times when SG actually meant something and had core values and leadership. You can take this however you want. But, I can say that I've talked it over with multiple people who have been long term members, and they felt the same way. If you are taking offence to this, just ask yourself one question. If I did what you did 3 years ago; started another gaming community, tried to sour the SG reputation by telling people we were stealing money, went on the servers and kept spamming ip links, created multiple fake accounts to continue to harass the community, stole SG developed plugins, convinced multiple admins to follow me; and then continued to try and create drama between the two communities. Would you let me back in? Do you really think you would ever have been let back in if you had not been buddies with some of the higher ups and active members still? I don't think your a bad person dominic. I think at heart you mean well and you've grown since then, but I don't think you should ever have been included again. You may have changed, but you are still the same person. You may say you have an open discussion, but its just a front. Show you are open to what the community is saying not by words, but by action. You say that you don't think you should leave higher staff directionless, but SG has been directionless for years. Look at where it is now. This is what it has become under your direction. EDIT: Last but not least, if that gaming community you had made had ever been a success, do you really think you'd have ever took a second look at SG again? Nope, but it failed, just like SG is under the current leadership.

Personally think it should just be left alone. Having a landing page isn't going to do anything. Removing the forums will just encourage old players to accept SG as dead and move on permanently. If you want to move to full discord support, have a top announcement bar that states the forums are no longer supported by staff and admins, with a discord invite link. That is my personal opinion, but having not been active in years, I know I have no say at all. I just know that I personally would never bother with SG again if I saw the forums were removed or archived. While I did not take the time to read all of the posts above in full, I do have to agree with Phoenix. If you feel that old staff have a need or desire to hide behind a VPN, maybe you should take that to heart, and maybe it's part of the reason that SG is near the brink of disappearance. PS: I messed up my 1234 post count for this.

Good work guys!

@RevengaAll good points. Things are constantly evolving, and gaming has done so as well. WIth the introduction of Discord, I think most people left gaming servers behind; and even most modern multiplayer games no longer support classic server browsers or even direct connect. Just out of curiosity, a quick check and it seems like the only remaining gaming community from back then even still around is hellsgamers, and looking at their servers and forums, they are a fragment of what they use to be. I do indeed miss coming on and seeing at least 70-80 active users live on the forums at any given moment, a constant stream of posts, and Ventrilo having dozens of people hanging out in active voice chat. I do hope steamgamers finds its new identity, and with it a breath of new life.

Take this any way you want, but to be honest, over the last few years, things have just changed so much that steamgamers does not feel the same. There have been some, in my opinion, incredibly bad decisions that I do not feel a desire to even voice, and while I come here from the nostalgia, I don't feel like it will ever be the same, and any desire I have to play on the servers left years ago. Maybe it is just the fact that the majority of the people I used to know are long gone, and that I'm old enough to the point its hard to feel a connection whenever I try and rejoin.

This seems like a good idea to me. It discourages favoritism and encourages people who want admin powers to be more active within the servers. I also like the idea of Retired Staff. That is also cut and dry, no favoritism, yet gives acknowledgement to all prior staff.

Thanks, we appreciate you guys being open to talking about this more. Hopefully we can come up with an idea that equally and fairly acknowledges previous and future veterans while at the same time being beneficial to the community.

I would rather it be that then have more separation tbh. I am open to discussion on it, I just haven't heard a reason this has been done that could have easily have been solved by removing LGs server and forum powers rather than dividing it. In other words, why was it determined that some should keep admin and others should not, when the starting argument was that once a upon a time dosent mean they should now. Do you see how I see this as a favorites? That some modern higher ups thought some people didn't deserve it, so they wanted to separate it out. Why would previous people who had LG but never abused it get demoted in the first place? Why not just keep the current LGs who never hurt a thing as LGs? You see what I'm getting at here?

I agree, they should be able to apply for admin powers, but I don't think any of the recognition ranks should be given any power at all. If you aren't actively playing the servers, you should not have powers on them if you randomly join. The same goes for having higher up forum access. I think historically it was probably so that those members could still give respected input on higher ranking discussions, but that never really happened. I personally forgot the CA side of the forums was even there, and never really bothered looking at it. I think many of us never even used our powers in the servers, if we got on. I personally never did, I knew I was not familiar enough with the latest ruleset, and would have rather avoided getting in trouble and losing my recognition rank. Honestly, the Legend rank should not exist at all. It should just be a "Retired Staff" rank. That would cut out the separation, there would be no room for a favorites game, there would be no need to give server powers to anyone retired, and everyone, CA+ could get in it, without any discussion being needed. It would be cut and simple, and just a badge you wear on the forums when you visit, and if the server operators want to set up a special skin for it, then perhaps that too.

"Not really a point to argue with you then if you can't see it another way." Is pretty much saying you've made up your mind. Bothering to post in no way shows that you are open to debate, but rather open to defending the decisions that have already been made. You in no way are required to see things my way, but you have been very defensive and given no ground nor acknowledgement towards what I have mentioned. Just to clarify though, my prior mention towards applebees and the marines was not meant to be a bash towards you at all. I respect that you served our country, it was only mentioned in correspondence to show a segregation where there really does not need, nor should there be one. However, I do appreciate that you have taken the time to respond at all, that much is appreciated. @Malibu In recent history, yeah. But you have no idea what I, or others, have put into this community. You only see what is right in front of you. You do not see the man hours that go into it, the money we ourself contribute without being recognized (@extreme and I put $100s towards darkrp), nor the things we do behind the scenes that someone like you never even knows about. Not only that, I've been around a lot longer than you, and the height of my activity was before you even heard of SG. I'm not saying any of this means I deserved LG in the first place. I myself have said that I didn't. However, I do believe there are multiple people who were demoted from LG to veteran that deserved LG way more than anyone else on that list. There are some in the veterans list that went way beyond anything that anyone, even @Caution, currently contributes to the community. But, being from a time after then, you would not know these people. Many moved on in life, and might only get on the forums once or twice a year. However, these people still deserve more recognition, and I can imagine they will feel a little heartache to see they were moved down from being a legend. Second, I don't even know who the fuck you are, so how could you claim to know me or what I did? You've never worked as staff, you have no clue what goes into it. I'm not saying I worked my ass off, I slacked off a lot of a TA. I got caught up with a lot of personal things going on in life, and should have given up the position way before I did. Never have I said I deserved LG. I did however wear the tags, that I was told I could wear for life, with pride. So yes, there is some sadness and saltyness with now being told I can't. Yes, some people are more deserving than others, but who is anyone to dictate how much time someone contributed. A lot goes on behind the scenes, that even the BDs aren't aware of. The only time they are is when things get presented in front of the community, or when they flat out get cocky and tell everyone "look what I did". @Dominic This makes no sense. It was already a slap in the face, so lets separate it more, and make it an even bigger slap in the face to even more people? If we want to talk professionalism, the more simple and more clean it is, the easier it is to manage, and the more professional it appears to the public. This is where SG has kind of had it mixed up, and all these division of ranks and flashy colors, kind of just make us look like confused high school kids that have no clue what we are doing or where we are going. Generally, to appear professional, sleek and simple is the way to go. If you want an example, just type google.com and look at their homepage. As to everything else, I'm sorry I myself, and the others that got demoted, didn't do enough or leave a big enough mark on the community for you guys to feel we still deserved LG. I'm sorry we let you down and I'm sorry I'm upset about such a simple stigma.

I think its quite obvious you have your mind made up by this and me speaking is just increases the chances of me leaving on bad terms with people around here. If my voice, and the voice of many other people (original thread) does not show you that you need to look at this open minded, then nothing I say will. As for your last post; "People absolutely still see that they helped the community become better; that's the entire point of the recognition ranks in general, whether it's HG / LG / Vet. LG was absolutely given as a thank you, but our gratitude does not start & stop at what permissions or pretty colors we give. We're not going to completely disallow any type of change whatsoever to the rank just to make sure people feel extra thanked. That's like me getting butthurt if Applebee's gives Veteran's discounts, then later stops. Even the BD rank was redone a decent amount to better fit our needs and the direction that we want to go in as a whole." This has been me saying that I feel you are not saying thank you to the long term members with this change. I have said multiple times, I could care less what permissions you are giving. What matters is that you just separated out a rank, and determined who was better than the other person. That shit hurts. That is the kind of stuff that will cause you to loose long term dedicated members, the backbone of your community. But, I'm pretty much being told right now that my opinion, and the opinion of other people effected, don't matter. No, your right. This would be more like Applebees saying we are giving 20% off to all veterans except the marines. They just get 5% off.

And what I was saying is they should have never of had CA powers. It should have been a recognition. A tag they could proudly wear. So that whenever they came back, people would see that they at one time helped the community become better. Now its removed. Now many of those users no longer get that recognition. Many of us did not care one bit if we had admin powers or could see the CA forums. We appreciated the thank you that was given to us. All that needed to be done was a removal of those powers. If one individual needed admin or wanted to help, they could have applied. If another needed to see the CA forums, then they should have been working towards getting CA. Comparing a honorary rank change to a management rank change is pointless in my opinion. It was my belief we werent given LG to continue to work, it was my belief we were given LG as a thank you. Sorry if I was incorrect in that assessment.

HG were long term members and Admins/CA who contributed to the community for a set amount of time and deserved recognition. LG was AO-BDs who resigned on good terms and contributed for a good amount of time. It was cut and dry, pure and simple. It was only in later days that we turned it into more of a popularity contest. Just around the same time we made changes to what age ranges we allowed on the staff team because certain staff felt they were likable enough.

If they went out in a firestorm and caused trouble in the community, its pure and simple. They don't get LG. They get demoted to a regular member, or if they caused harm to the community, they get the banhammer. If its an LG that screwed up, then that is simple, they get regular tags or the banhammer. If its a personal vendetta and one person resigns, the other should bite their tongue and deal with it. That is what adults do. Personal bias is always impossible to avoid, of course. That is why you make an effort not to create division like this change did. Do like we did in the old days, keep a cut and dry qualification for it, and don't look below and above that. That is how you avoid bias opinions, that is how you avoid turning SG into a high school popularity contest (which it has been becoming the last few years). I guess I just want to know the reason this change went about. If its about them having admin, remove admin for all of them. Make them go through the normal process, or a direct application process and get Admin with their LG. Quite literally, I see no reason this change would have been made, if not for personal reasons. Someone took a look at the LG list, didn't like a name or names they saw on it, and wanted them out. To be honest, this change has me feeling like its a good time to say goodbye to SG (after over 10 years). That is the feedback I am giving you. I feel many people who priorly got the recognition they deserved just got a slap in the face, and that is not something I want to be a part of. It is up to you whether or not you want to consider reevaluating this change based on feedback from multiple long term members, the members this change effects, or if you want to continue with your ideas. You are afterall the President of SG. It is in your right to take this baby the direction you believe is best.

Figured after @Cautions post, this would be a good "official" place to bring this up. If I'm wrong, feel more than welcome to move it. Lets keep this civil and clean please. This is a discussion for the reworking, a place to put ideas forward, or voice your approval or disapproval of the change in general. Personally, I think Caution is right. LG should have never had permanent Admin in any servers. Admin should have been granted on a case by case basis, if the person was active in the servers again and wanted to apply or work it out. No Legend should have the permanent ability to just randomly join a server after years and get any special privilege other than perhaps a cool skin. However, I don't agree with separating the LG rank, I just agree with removing server powers. I feel that separating it out cherry picks the BDs or other Staff favorites. I think it would have a tendency of choosing favorites over the amount a person actually contributed. I think it should be just one flat rank, LG. This way, everyone who deserves it gets recognition, but nobody feels like their time and resources weren't appreciated. Honestly, I don't see any reason this would have even been thought up unless someone had a gripe with one of the legends and wanted them demoted. This should not happen in my opinion. Personal relationships should not be a factor, how much you contributed should be a factor. However, personal relationships will always be an influence on a vote when you have a relation with that person, which is why veteran and LG should just be one rank. Personally, I had LG because I was a TA. I don't however feel like I put in near the amount of time I should have to have deserved LG or even the rank, however I was a long time Admin, and have been a long term member of the community, and accepted the promotion and held it with Pride. I do not feel insulted I got demoted, as I said, I never felt I deserved it in the first place, but was greatful nontheless. However, I did see a few old school members of the community, who I can recall putting in a lot of work; if anything more than any of our staff today, yet got the rank Veteran. The only reason I see this is likely is that they are no longer active, some check in here and there, but most modern staff today have no clue who they are or the work they put in. They still deserve the recognition, regardless of whether or not they are active, but are no longer getting it. Instead, they got a rank below another rank that says this guy did better than you. I see others who have been staff members off and on, and while they did not have the social skill as others, they still put in just as much work, if not more, than many of the people you deemed worthy of Legend. To be honest, a large list of people I see in Legends got along great with most of the staff, and a couple never did anything large for the community, at least not in the long term. But, while looking in the Veterans, I see a few people who worked their ass off, for the long term, but was never on the social level the Legends were. I just see it being a long term problem that dosent need to be there. Why separate it out, I guess that is just my only problem. If we are going to make changes, lets make changes that will actually impact the community in a good way. Not one that is going to cherry pick and divide out our long term members. I feel this was an unneeded change, and one that will do more harm than good right here and now, and in the long term. Edit: Also, bummed that after years of wearing it, I am now no longer allowed to wear the [sG] tag in steam... For some reason, that does kind of feel like a slap in the face. @Caution No matter how many times you say this is not a demotion, I don't see how it could be viewed as any other way. You kept the original rank, then made one below it, and moved a lot of members to it. That is cut and simple a demotion.

What is the general purpose of this? Tbh, it kinda felt like a slap in the face to see that there is a lot of long term higher end contributors that just got "demoted" (yes, it is a demotion for those still active). It just seems like yet another way to play favorite. Why change the old system? It worked, and worked for years. What am I not seeing that makes this beneficial to the community in a way other than playing "Popularity Contest". If it was a trust issue that resulted in these people demoted, why would they even have Legend to begin with (in the old system)? If they are untrustworthy people, they probably never deserved a higher rank to begin with.

Sad to see you go. You have done awesome for this community, wish you well on your adventures in life!

I got it on Epic. Played through most of it on xbox though. Still haven't caught up with where I was on there. Got pissed yesterday, my white Arabian vanished after doing a quest. If you end up playing any online, give me a shout!

Congrats to everyone promoted! Some well deserved for sure! Also a big thanks to everyone who has helped along the way, it has been awesome working with all of you! I'll still be around for sure though!

So sexy. Nobody can imagine the endless hours of work that went into this amazing design! Great work guys!