An open letter to the Guides

[TotiGonzales]

Dear Guides,

I write this letter to you because I think something along the way went terribly wrong between you and the rest of our community.
First I would like to apologize for hurting your feelings and trust with our uncalled for jokes. I would like you to know that even though I might have made those jokes in the past I never really thought you were useless.

I would like to take this paragraph to explain to everyone that might read this how important guides are to this community. The Guide role is, in my opinion, one of the key things that sets us apart from every other Minecraft community. Our builds are worth nothing if people don’t get to see and experience them. The existence of the guide role is vital to getting new players to stay and explore what we have built. I bet more than 50% of newcomers never even get to see Gondor past Minas Tirith. The Guide role has the possibility to organize tours and show people places that they wouldn’t get to experience otherwise. In my experience, the tour Ark gave me around the entire server: from Minas Tirith sewers to getting lost in Moria, is what got me hooked. Plus the tours are not the only thing guides are organizing. All the events like readings, minigames, guide books and more are very important for people bonding on MCME, getting involved and taking on a role.

I guess what I want to say is: I know the past couple of months haven't been easy on you and I know you might feel like the community doesn’t want you. I can assure you we’ve been missing you. We’ve been feeling it in every corner: from the dead Times to the lack of tours.

By now I think we all realized that motivation comes from the group of people you play with. I want to let you know that personally I understand and respect your sense of community within the role. I can’t imagine how hard Ark leaving must be for you. But this is exactly the time where you must be strong. Maybe you could give us all another chance and you might make new friends that will keep you motivated when others get busy. I assure you there are many great people.

I want to let you know that whatever happens to your role in the future, I could never imagine MCME without you.

Guides, please come back!
​

Toti

 

[ryttyr]

The reason I choose to stay on MCME and take the time to get Artist was because I didn't want to loose all the friends I had made on the server and if it weren't for the Guides and their awesome tours I wouldn't have made those friends in the first place. I owe everything I am on MCME to the Guides.

 

[RubenPieterMark]

Guides are indeed extremely important to the server. The efficiency of the guide team decides how many of the hundreds of new players that join MCME every month actually stick around to contribute to our server. Guides are far from useless.

Here's an idea: how about builders show guides their recently completed projects with interesting facts and details, which guides then can show on their own tours to the community. This would make a bridge, with a double advantage, between guides and builders: guides know more places to tour and have more background information to talk about and guides and builders would get to know each other better and would actually need each other.

A last thought: when guides are confronted about the obscurity of their business (by people who have little business with the guide team), the reply is always either 'the guides are very busy with irl obligations rn' or 'there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff being worked on'. It is none of my business whether the 'guides that are busy with irl obligations' should hold their rank or not, but perhaps the guide team could give more clarity on the 'behind-the-scenes stuff' which is so often referred to?
Even though you are not obligated to prove your use, to builders, it would ease tensions between the two branches of the rank system.

 

[Monster_Duck]

The builders have a place to put what they do, so maybe guides could do the same.

 

[Samfries_Taranoc]

Guides, please come back!

Well, it's too late now. You should have stopped earlier. Now it's punishment time.




/s

but actually I have GCSEs(big exams which determine basically your future - don't listen to TI) in less than a month so that's why I'm not on much. However, I can be a lot more active from June 15 onwards due to a massive school holiday. Also, the behind-the-scenes stuff is basically stuff like summer and anniversary events. In fact, we actually had some Easter events planned, but they didn't occur due to reasons I think people know.

Here's an idea: how about builders show guides their recently completed projects with interesting facts and details, which guides then can show on their own tours to the community. This would make a bridge, with a double advantage, between guides and builders: guides know more places to tour and have more background information to talk about and guides and builders would get to know each other better and would actually need each other.

I like that idea, but of course we can't do much right now due to a lack of an official head.

 

[Raffyyy]

It's reassuring to see y'all care about us like that

What I mean to say is, these concerns have been noted, and it's something that the Guide Leadership (Which at the moment consists of myself, Soarz and Matthew), as well as all the guides as a whole, will address and act upon.

Like Sam said, we don't have an official head, with myself acting as the interim leader of the guides, which obviously makes things a lot harder.
Also, the exam season is becoming ever closer, which for a handful of guides, means they have to readdress their priorities.

We do however have a guide workshop this coming up soon that you're all welcome to come along to.
And of course stuff will improve when a new Head Guide is permanently instated.

 

[TI_020601]

the guide team could give more clarity on the 'behind-the-scenes stuff' which is so often referred to?

Behind the scenes stuff is anything from planning events to internal admin, it's the things the guides do that the rest of the community doesn't need to see. We're vague about it because the specifics aren't important, when we actually have something to announce we announce it, we always have and we always will. The only parts of Guide's work that you don't see are the parts you don't need to.

Here's an idea: how about builders show guides their recently completed projects with interesting facts and details, which guides then can show on their own tours to the community. This would make a bridge, with a double advantage, between guides and builders: guides know more places to tour and have more background information to talk about and guides and builders would get to know each other better and would actually need each other.

I think this is a good idea but only in theory. In practice I think it would lead to some, not all but likely a vocal minority, of the builders complaining that their builds haven't been toured or that no guide has shown an interest in touring them which would then put pressure on the Guides to do tours only in those areas, it may also pressure Guides to tour more than they can really manage*. There is also no lack of places for Guides to tour, and I can guarantee that as new places are built the Guides tour them as soon as they have the place figured out so I don't see this having benefits to the number of tours we run or the quality of tours. And as far as I'm aware there has always been and is still some dialogue between Guides and builders in the planning of tours of new additions to the server. As for making Guides and builders need each other I'd argue nothing would really change there, we can't tour if you don't build and there's no point in you building if we're not showing people round and getting them to stay and help, so I don't really see how this would change anything other that increasing communication which I think is kind of a non-issue at the moment(It was an issue in the past but not so much, if at all now) and wouldn't have as many benefits to either rank than, say, if builders were actually punished for making jokes about Guides being useless, it may not seem like an issue to you but when we come on and are berated for doing our jobs it makes it less likely we'll want stay on the server, let alone want to help and interact with the people berating us.

The builders have a place to put what they do, so maybe guides could do the same.

We actually do! It's called the announcements channel, whenever we want to let the community know about something we'll put a post in there so people know what's up.

the lack of tours.

I think with this people need to remember that 1 tours while important aren't all we do, 2 we don't always want to run tours and probably the point most people forget is, 3 people don't always want tours/ tours can't always be run, there have been so many times I've come on to do a tour only for it to not be possible because of either a large job or build day or people's lack of interest. Basically don't tell a Guide to do a tour as soon as they join, ask, if they want to they will but don't force it.

*So I'm sure you know most of the Guides are still in school which of course mean that at certain times in the year MCME should not and cannot be our focus, we all try and stay as active as possible but it can be difficult around exam time. Almost all of the Guides have big exams (of varying importance to our futures) coming up in a few weeks so we will be less active than we'd like to be, however, that absolutely does not mean we won't be doing stuff, we'll still be on the server and doing our behind the scenes work but for the next month or so don't expect us to be on 24/7.

This ended up a lot longer than I intended it to so I'm very sorry about that. I'd also like to say if it reads in any way hostile that wasn't my intention and if any of you have any questions or replies to what I've said I'd be happy to hear you out or answer your questions.

 

[RVB_Legend]

It seems that nearly all the guides understood this message wrong. I joined in december of 2018 after seeing the video from Kerallis. In this video I got the feeling that guides on this server where even more amazing than the builders on here. I had the image that guides are the ones knowing all the lore and cool places on the map. In reality I saw that this was true but I just saw it so less. I'm still new on here in my eyes and I don't judge or point fingers, just like Toti isn't blaming (or demanding something from) anyone. He just means the same thing that I do. This community is important and you all are a big part of it. What we have here is something special. I may be new on here, but I love this community so much.

 

[Samfries_Taranoc]

It seems that nearly all the guides understood this message wrong.

We seem to understand a lot of things wrong, like how the continued harassment was apparently "Just a joke". But seriously, how did we seem like Toti was blaming/demanding from us, apart from the demand that we come back.