Re: Administration/Moderation/Community/Forums/Clans

//EDIT: Took the conversation from YB's clan thread and moved it here to clean their thread up. Feel free to continue discussing. -Galen
P.S: THIS THREAD IS MEANT AS A PLACE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK, NOT AS PLACE TO CALL OUT PEOPLE AND BASH THE GAME!

It just seems like nepotism that doesn't really benefit anyone. I'm not saying the forums are trash, there are just way more mods than there should be and most of them don't do anything.

 

ACTUALLY we don't have enough mods who are actively doing things. Forum mods like Noburu who aren't assigned to any subforum actually have no powers to do anything. Guessing you didn't know that. The only people who actually still can do moderating stuff are people listed on this page (https://forum.kag2d.com/members/?type=staff) or as you can see on the main page where all the forums are listed up, there always is a little line telling which mods are responsible for said subforum.

//EDIT: and no, I don't have to play the game to be able to do moderating work. Why would you think one has to do so (the only sections in which it is obvious that you have to play the game would be Classes & Mechanics and maybe Bug Reports, but that's about it)?

 

I didn't know that, why even give them mod flair then? Also, do you honestly believe you need more mods? If your opinion were shared with anyone from THD, then apps would be open. The moderation seems to be fine though, I find it hard to understand why you believe there should be more mods.

Look at any other clan's thread on the forums, there really isn't a topic to follow to begin with, and nobody really discusses the clan of the thread they comment in.

I never said that you have to play the game to do moderating work. What I essentially said was that it makes no sense to volunteer your time cleaning up shitposts on a forum for a game that no longer interests you.

 

I have talked to both Geti and Furai and we have come to the conclusion that it's pretty much pointless to try and look for fresh moderators at the moment.

I am not complaining, I was just trying to give you a little more insight in what's actually happening.

Also, personally, I haven't played KAG regularly for over a year now. Why? Because I simply don't enjoy it as much anymore. That's all there is. However, moderating a forum is a completely different story. Just because you don't enjoy A anymore it doesn't mean you can't enjoy B.

 

This is the response I've been waiting for. It seemed really strange that someone would want to moderate a forum for a game they no longer play, but I suppose you can enjoy one without the other. It is a little sad to see people leave the game for good, and seeing old mods is a frustrating reminder of that to me, but nothing is forever, and people changing interests is natural and something I should learn to accept.

 

HAHAHA

I laugh at this conversation. I knew most admins didn't play the game, but man this is just hilarious. Honestly, if the devs are actually trying to keep this game alive I think they have no fucking clue.

Hey we have old admins and moderators from years ago that don't even play the game but hey, that's not important right? They still can do what they do

While this is true, don't be surprised when the community is DYING FAST. MLK dies and no one substitutes Spidey. Old playerbase gradually abandons game and the same admins stay for years with a community that doesn't even know them ingame. Then some bitch about noobs or shit like that... No one thought maybe the community problems start in it's administration? Change the admins or listen to what the current admins want to change it's so fucking obvious.

I know like 10-15 people who are active ingame and really love it to the point that when I play I always find a mix of new players/unknown ones and some of this mor veteran group im referring to (some of YB). Literally all of them have good ideas towards making a better game of this (cause we love this and at the same time hate the BIG issues it has) but they either don't share them because the debates always end up instalocked, flamed or trolled, or think there's nothing they can do to help it.

Maybe if you devs update a little (for one fucking time ffs its just basic admining) the admins and moderators (literally theres never admins in official servers), it wouldn't feel so bitter to be a part of kag community, where you have to know every player 3 years old to be considered able to cast your opinion, and noobs are just to be destroyed and spammed with 5 and 7 emotes after u do so.

TLDR: Get some new admins and maybe consider changing the moderation of forums (this forums have FUCKING LITTLE activity to have +30 admins (AND MOST OF THEM ARE INACTIVE OR ONLY PARTICIPATE IN FORUMS), while a lot of ACTIVE PLAYERS who play the actual game a lot would love to see more control in servers and a more active and dynamic community management. I will not talk about clans but there's a lot to be discussed about it too...

 

Spoiler

I'd love to see how you can meet the moderators or admins of AAA-title games ingame (or staff from forums like Starbound's, to get a closer example). What does it matter if they know us ingame or not? If they have questions on forums or need help and they see that we have the badge then where's the problem?
What are the community problems that start in the administration for you? Would you mind explaining that a bit further? These forums are by no means perfect, nor is the administration team.

Spoiler

I agree that the game has issues (ATTENTION: PERSONAL OPINION). Debates that get "instalocked" only get instalocked because the threads are redundant. There is countless threads about the game's problems that are still open and in which people can discuss things. Re: flaming/trolling - the report button is there. If you see something that you think violates the rules, then hit it. I can't permanently check all active threads and the replies for stuff that might violate rules, I don't have the time to do so, that's why we have the report button.

Spoiler

Currently we're discussing about the admin situtation on the official servers, please have a little more patience, there's something coming around the corner SOONtm (I'm sure).

And yes, I agree that it's very sad that there's a lot of old players around who disregard opinions because "u r not from 2011 get lost pleb scrublord 420xxxblazeit ". Sadly, there's not much that we can do about it, we can't censor people on the forums. The only "weapons" against that are the ignore functions that we have both ingame and on the forums. (I know that those aren't the ideal solutions against butthurt and elitist oldfags, but there's not much else that you could do about them)

Spoiler

What would you want to change about the moderation on the forums? And what do you mean with "more control in servers" and more dynamic community management? If you wouldn't mind dropping some examples, that'd be really great as there's always room for improvement.

tl;dr: no you won't get one, read the thing you lazy bugger.

 

You are an example of a good admin Galen I honestly think this.

What does it matter if they know us ingame or not? If they have questions on forums or need help and they see that we have the badge then where's the problem?

While the functionality it's alright and they can use your help in any issue they face, and I don't see an actual problem with admins not being ingame, my point is that it would be more efficient for a happy community to have the admins ingame, just for people to know you guys and your labor, because it feels less "corporate" if they can actually play with the team rather than just contact them when they need help. But maybe I said that before in a hostile or negative way; I didn't mean no offense, just giving my completely personal opinion here.


What would you want to change about the moderation on the forums? And what do you mean with "more control in servers" and more dynamic community management? If you wouldn't mind dropping some examples, that'd be really great as there's always room for improvement.

I don't mind giving some ideas that would help imho:

-I thought about something the other day, a mix between the classic serverlist approach to joining games and the gather idea. Gather is too complex (say it isn't if you dare, I'm talking about your typical newcomer user level), and serverlist is too mechanic and simple. Maybe a roster room for reuniting people looking for a game where they can chat and maybe even vote the kind of gamemode and shit they want to play? I assume this would be INCREDIBLY difficult/painful to code/painful to manage, etc, but yeah it's just a happy idea.
-Fix the shitvoting, instead of kicking people get them forced to spectate and while they are speccing a present admin(*) would fix the situation and kick IF there was legitimate griefing
(*) but for this to be possible...
-More admins in official servers, ideal would be always an admin active. I also dont understand the problem with guards, the idea that you can call someone to help solve a situation is clever and maybe removing their extreme power would make it possible to make their presence bigger by recruiting more.
-Dynamic community management = official clan management with official administrated charts and leagues, official WIKI (essential for new players; give a man a chat message and he will learn not to dirtspike, give him a wiki and he will learn how to play the game for good) as the current one is abandoned, official management of the steam shit (I'm not sure, maybe its currently managed somehow).

That was some ideas, I hope they are not too silly but I think some things can be done. For the wiki I'm sure a lot of people would want to help with this, me included, as well as the admining in official servers and such stuff. We have a small playerbase but it's a very commited one imo

 

After reading some of the stuff on YB and here I gotta say both sides make some interesting points. I can't really say I agree with anyone though.

For starters it is a little weird how inactive some of the moderators are with KAG and/or the forums. For example if you check out Geti's title you'll see "If you need something pm Rayne".
Now don't get me wrong I LOVE Rayne but from what I know he's no longer going to be around and hasn't been for quite sometime. So basically you'd be wasting your time if you were actually doing this and you'd probably get the wrong impression about the forums, KAG, and THD doing so. Not really a big deal though because if you just posted somewhere else one of the active moderators would be happy to help you. Hell even Geti is awesome enough to take the time to answer questions, even silly ones. However I only know this because I've been around for a while.

Another thing is I see galen says "Forum mods like Noburu who aren't assigned to any subforum actually have no powers to do anything". I can't help but kinda question this concept, I had no idea about this and I feel like if this was anywhere close to common knowledge I'd know this already. Most of these mods with no powers don't hurt the community at all but they don't help and they represent the image of KAG and THD. They don't need to have that title any more if they're burnt out, new players and even old farts like me get misconceptions about how KAG and THD are doing in terms of being alive. It honestly makes the forums/KAG not look as good as it actually is and for what really? I don't think it'd actually hurt anyone's feelings if they got a reasonable warning about being inactive for to long, didn't care and then got removed from there position.

Don't get me wrong because the damage is hardly worth complaining about. However I can't help but jump to the idea of it being contagious behaviour for other moderators, admins, and testers. Then when you put it all together it actually does do some decent damage. You see other people in this position not really take initiative for anything with no repercussions and you can't help but feel like there's little to no pressure any more. I mean I don't think getting crazy about rules is the answer either but a little tiny bit of fear of losing your position after a while of doing shit all could probably help encourage people to contribute something positive every once in awhile.

Also there is one thing I really don't respect at all that I see time to time. There are some mods/guards/admins/testers that still have one or more of these titles and actually openly bash KAG or THD. I think this is actually really cancer for the community and highly contagious behaviour when you see no repercussions. I hope I don't sound to much like a broken record and I know they deserve to be open about there opinions. However I don't think its a good excuse when there not actually contributing any constructive criticism and they are just trying to make people upset. I understand its a pretty grey area but it still really sucks for the rest of us that still believe KAG is worth investing time into.

When you put all this together it's actually really hard to feel good about yourself for wanting KAG to keep improving and become more then an obscure game. I used to have so much fucking faith in this community/game but its all these things I mentioned and few other off topic reasons that have completely killed that for me. I know for a fact every time an active strong supporter of KAG loses faith they bring plenty of others down with them. This will just keep happening and I know THD wants to move on from KAG already but if we made some small changes to keep people like me believing we'd maybe have more of an active and happy community. Who knows maybe THD would actually feel like working on KAG more if they seen how positive feedback and modding could get. Maybe I'm just to much of a dreamer and I'm willing to accept that as well. Either way I can understand why people around here are so burnt out at this point. I hope I didn't upset anyone because I'm not trying to. I just wanted help give another way to look at all of this.

 

Hard censorship.

 

I deleted your post because it was offtopic and NOT constructive feedback. Read the edited part in the OP please.

 

Yes, there are some very inactive forum mods, but there are others assigned to the same area that are active. Official server admins are not too active but i see some every day and if there is a greifer etc you can spend the 5 seconds to open up irc and get help from an admin(usually some idling at any given time).

1) nice thought but i dont think there will ever be enough admins to do this. People get bored of games and have lives.
2)read 1
3) all that clan league stuff is the job of the community . Just because everyone abandoned the wiki does not mean just make an official one. It is everyone's fault for the wiki being trash and i do not feel like wasting anytime on that mess personally

 

This is interesting. Do you mean the community asked for modding tools to fix the bugs themselves, instead of asking for the bugs to be fixed directly?
Sincere question, I wasn't around then.

I understand that must be frustrating for you. I personally don't feel like the game is abandoned but I do think the focus has been wrong for some part. The basis of the game is the multiplayer experience, and there's a lot of bugs and issues there. Right now in this build knight is pretty much broken for me. There is a lot of desync issues which, amongst others, makes shielding very ineffective (and ironically jabspam OP). I could live with some of the other things if only the game had the solid essentials for a good multiplayer experience.

I like this, a lot. Right now the reaction is often "omg y u cancel vote admin, hes obv griefing wtf" whereas you simply can't easily know whether it's a legit vote if you haven't seen it yourself, and you can't really rely on ppl voting fairly either. Maybe autofreeze the player who is being voted (+ invincibility if possible) until both parties have had a chance to explain themselves. A way to make it easier to identify which player is being voted would also help (although autofreeze would take care of that problem too) as well as the PLAYER name, not the username, showing up on the vote.

 

the abuse would be in-fucking-sane

 

Remember that this is only possible with an admin present. If somebody grief-freezes another person, obviously you'd ban that person. This does require strict enforcement but would give admins an easier time dealing with potential griefers.
Alternatively, how about this: The target of the vote gets the red circle around him with the warning not to leave server (or =autoban), but does not get frozen.

 

Thanks for the response @Geti , I can't say I disagree with any of that either. The forum moderators that are active do a great job, it's really not hard at all to get proper help around here if you ask nicely. I also completely agree about the old boys club syndrome, I've seen it first hand and sometimes new recruits gets sucked into it. I'm glad you agree about the trolling from people that should know better. I've been guilty of it and learned from it but I don't think many others will. It still seems like a grey area when I think about it though. Perhaps it can eventually be a bit more black and white with rules over time or someday.

New blood would be great to see in positions like admins or testers. It'd be nice to try and find a way to point the steam sale people to the forums easier. It would obviously be hard to filter out the right ones if they haven't had any interaction outside of the game yet. I think a lot of them never make it that far, I find the KAG forums pretty addicting and I think some of them would to. I mean who knows maybe were missing out on some really great people because of that.

I'm really glad you agree about the "ceremonial" titles, I was worried I about saying to much about it. I completely agree about keeping Kouji and anyone with a soul would to. It's upsetting to know how hard of a time a lot of this community has given you and THD overall. I want you to know a lot of us come off as jerks that hate the game or something but we bitch because we love the game. You guys made something really awesome and I don't think the average person here knows how to speak to a game dev without being a dick about it. I know I don't and I've even caught myself saying "fix bomb arrows Geti" or something when I was lucky I could even directly share opinions with you about it. Most of us don't say these things because we hate it, its more so we're trying to help and we don't know how to properly express that.

I wish my writing skills were notable because I'd love to jump all over the wiki action. I bet if I could convince @ParaLogia to do it with me as a side project it'd be possible. I've seem amazing KAG related write ups from him already.

Either way I don't think this game is going to die, my whole rant was more so towards I think KAG has a lot of potential still. I used to have plenty of people ready to play with me everyday all day because we thought the game was going to really take off eventually. I still don't think that's impossible either and I feel like it might just happen one day still. I also think if it was doing better it could help you guys feel more appreciated like you should. THD deserves more credit then it gets, seriously. I worry about how hard of a toll this all takes on ya and I'd hate to see us scare you off one day. So please don't let our lack of proper expression bring you down, just think of us as fan boys trying to act like game devs ourselves. For example I'm pretty sure creators of Star Wars have to deal with annoying feedback from people that eat, live, and breath the series. I think you'll get my point though and thanks for everything, cheers. <3

 

( off topic - Personally, I just like jumping into IRC when I'm bored and not busy and sending Geti something stupid to "fix" as an old meme joke. )

From what I've seen so far, I think one more wave of possible official admin recruitment would help out a bit, if there was enough advertisement. As it stands, I'm not exactly sure if the test roster needs the same thing since its been pretty stagnated for a while. Can agree tho @Geti with the amount of shit feedback you've gotten since I first got here in 2012, whether it be a joke, serious, or someone who doesn't understand current limitations of the script or your time.

 

Appreciation appreciated ..
Imma fix the API issues now ..
/ If only I could ..