Finrod_Amandil said:

Opening statement

Yeah the Times are late again... BUT! They have as much content as never before! I even had to take some planned content out again because the post had more than the maximum 20'000 characters... Thus I don't want to use up any more chars in this intro, but instead present you some more interesting things!
Enjoy!
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Whats Up?

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Breaking News: Staff Meeting #17

On Sunday we had our first Staff Meeting of 2016. Here I will present some of the topics that were discussed. Please feel free to voice your opinion on these topics below!

• Giving Artists access to the Job plugin:
  The first topic was already one of the longest and most difficult ones. We have noticed that Designers more and more often create Jobs for Artists. Thus the suggestion came up to give Artists to some extent access to the Job Plugin.
  
  The main concern was on one hand that being able to lead jobs is simply not a requirement for Artists, and it may be possible that the Artist leading a job cannot properly handle the job or an other kind of unwanted situation results from it.
  
  Another concrete idea we had is creation of a temporary Foreman-like rank that has access to the Job Plugin, but expires when a minimum amount of job per time (e.g. 2 jobs per week) is not achieved. Downside of that is additional administrative work and inconsistent amount of work for jobs, so that it may simply be impossible to fulfill the requirement with proper jobs.
  
  In the future the Plotbuild plugin may allow more flexible permissions for Artists as it will be possible to create Plotbuilds with Artists as Plotbuild staff, something that could be used to make jobs managed by Artists.
  
  
• Support for creating videos:
  While talking about Public relations and which channels (Facebook, Youtube) to use in which way (we mainly want to use Facebook more intensively again) @_Luk was speaking up asking for help with creating videos for the MCME Youtube channel. We want to carry this on to you dear readers: If you have some skills in video recording and editing and would be interested making official MCME videos, please contact @_Luk or @Tyranystrasz!
  
  Furthermore @Tyranystrasz brought up the idea of having 360° videos, e.g. of Moria locations.
  
  
• Head Designer support:
  With having laden a lot of jobs onto my back by now I am now trying to share these jobs out again so that I can be a bit more flexible with what I am doing, when not all my free time is used up for administrative things. As it looks now @Fireinferno13 will support me with some help on the MCME Times, @Ivan1pl may take over the lead of the Themed Builds and @Eriol_Eandur, @_Luk, and @bender400 may take care of reviewing the Artist apps. Thanks a lot already for speaking up!
  
  
• Community Meetings:
  @Fireinferno13 brought up the idea of having meetings to exchange suggestions and concerns between all members of the community. As I reckon with not enough interest, not enough topics and too much organisation work (It's tedious enough to organise a staff meeting ) I did not support the idea. As counter-suggestion I brought up allowing everyone to listen to the staff meetings as they take place, and be able to contribute to the discussion through chat. But concern with that was that it may be too hard to regulate.
  
  As solution I will make an AMA (Ask me Anything) resp. Q&A (Questions & Answers) thread where you can voice all general concerns, ideas and so on, as this may be the easiest and most flexible solution to allow more communication between staff and non-staff.
  
  
• Modded MCME?:
  Upon various suggestions from all corners of the community I brought up the question whether we should think about using mods as a requirement for MCME, to have more blocks available, and maybe more client side features firmly in use, e.g. the Better Foliage Mod.
  Main concerns, and reasons why MCME is still vanilla (mod free) are difficulties when installing (incompatibilities with certain operating systems), maintenance discomforts (every user has to update when something changes, as opposed to plugins that only the server has to update), along with that with newer Minecraft versions we get more and more options to get more blocks through vanilla mechanics (3D block models, randomized textures) we all agreed not to consider using Mods (beside irrelevant optional graphic mods as Optifine and Shaders) on MCME and stay vanilla.
  
  
• Boosting Donations with PVP attributes:
  The amount of donations has ceased a lot recently. They are vital to keep MCME alive! The idea that was brought up for the meeting was giving advances on the PvP server (which is currently being reworked by @DSESGH to be more reliable). But the idea was quickly discarded, not only as it may cause legal problems with Mojang (they forbid to restrict game content with money) it would of course also ruin the fun. Still in consideration may be small features that do not change the game, colored nametags and similar.
  Please consider donating now and then, even if it is only 10$. Else we soon have to consider more desperate solutions! We already lost Freebuild due to lack of donations, so make sure we don't loose anything else!
  
  
• Proper Moria Kickoff:
  Since a very long time we say that Moria will properly start (be in close focus, many staffs and non-staffs working on it) when Gondor is wholly done. As the last parts of it (especially Andrast, Belfalas and Tolfalas) may still take a while to complete we did set a deadline for the wait now and plan to start Moria properly this summer!
  Furthermore Despot suggested that the main city part of Moria will be done carefully step by step, reasoned by the area being very densely filled with things. After that we may split up the remaining areas and treat them like sub-projects with a staff member leading one of it each.

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Plugin Development

Animation Plugin (New) - Dev: @Ivan1pl

This is probably the secret main announcement this week! Yes the Door Plugin to have clickable animated doors, as well as the Moria gate that opens when you type "mellon" in chat is about to return at last! I have no clue for how many years people have been screaming for this to happen, but according to recent reports of Ivan, the plugin is already at least 50% done!
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Plotbuild Plugin (Testing in progress) - Devs: @Eriol_Eandur & @Ivan1pl

The Plotbuild Plugin will make it possible to make plots on the main map that can be claimed and be built on by anyone and then be easily reviewed and managed by staff.

No changes since last week.
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New New Player World (Ready for implementation) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur, Assistance: @_Luk

A new Intro Quiz for new players.

No changes since last week.
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Moria Teleport Plugin (Testing in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur

For seamless teleports to and from new Moria aswell as inside Moria.

Finished, testing in progress on devserver.
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Minigames Plugin (Small fixes in progress) - Dev: @Eriol_Eandur

A plugin to easily run various minigames like Hide and Seek, Races and Quizzes.

This week I can present you a showcase of the Race gamemode of this plugin! In the first video you'll see an unabriged recording of how to set up a Race, and in the second one you see that Race in action, thanks a lot to the staff members who tuned in after the lengthy staff meeting!

Setup:

Race:

Thanks again to @Wraith_Knight for the screens!
(http://imgur.com/a/kKBCJ) ​

Tours

There are no Tours announced for this week yet, but keep an eye on this thread and request a tour if you want one!
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Jobs & Plotbuilds

Jobs for next Saturday will be announced in this thread over the course of the week. Be sure to ask Designers for jobs at any time, maybe they can offer something!​

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PINT00's thought on the Times. This was a long one.
More Serious:
The Staff Meeting:
Giving Artist Access to the Job Plugin: NOOOOOO! HELL NOOO! Just NO. No explanation needed, NOOO.
Support for Videos: I can be no help as I have no experience. But to T-Rex trying 360 video! Head Designer Support: k
Community Meeting: I believe this is highly needed. There should one of these at least once a month. It is important to get ideas and opinions from the community and not just a select few. Also with the community being able to listen in on the staff meeting, use ts and mute all the microphones of all the mofos who aren't staff and you should be good.
Modded MCME: Again NOOOO! WTF?! NO NO NO NO NO! JUST NO! You would be ruining what makes MCME, MCME. It is building middle earth in minecraft, not tekkit. Its in the name, MCME = minecraft middle earth.
Boosting Donations: That is a touchy subject that is better left alone.
Proper Moria Kickoff: idc

Plugins:

Animation Plugin (New) - Dev: @Ivan1pl

This is probably the secret main announcement this week! Yes the Door Plugin to have clickable animated doors, as well as the Moria gate that opens when you type "mellon" in chat is about to return at last! I have no clue for how many years people have been screaming for this to happen, but according to recent reports of Ivan, the plugin is already at least 50% done!


MiniGame Plugin: QUESTION: I notice when you place the gates sometimes blocks are destroyed, when they gates are taken away are the broken blocks automatically replaced or do you have to manually replace the blocks.

Also in the second video when K1sk the tree hugger leafs because he could't join, lol.

Media:
@Wraith_Knight I have problem with your screenies bro. Around 75% of them are pictures of the sky with you looking directly at the sun. I counted a total of three pictures that have more landscape than sky. There should be more ground than sky in the pictures, but just a personal opinion. There still purrrdy though.
Tours:
There are no Tours announced for this week yet, but keep an eye on this thread and request a tour if you want one!

This bothers me a lot. This leads me to presume that Guides aren't doing a good job of being Guides. Before I left and got addicted onto CS:GO there was always a tour every Wednesday and Saturday. Also tours are very important to new players, when I first joined that is all wanted was a tour from the Rangers, and I don't think it has changed, there should be more tours than just requesting one on this thread.

Jobs:
Jobs for next Saturday will be announced in this thread over the course of the week. Be sure to ask Designers for jobs at any time, maybe they can offer something!

So has the same thing happened with jobs. So jobs are no longer a spontaneous thing, they are scheduled to be on Saturdays, this is another thing that needs some thought and improvement. Again this would help for new players if they first join the server on a Sunday and quit Thursday because there has been no jobs the entire week, and because he is new and hasn't explored the forums a lot doesn't know jobs are on Saturday.




Those are my thoughts for this weeks times. Have a Happy Holy Week.

First of all, thank you dor putting so much effort into the times. Every week i am very excited when the Times comes out and gives us new information and some sum up of the work that has been done each week. So i just wanted to say that we all apriciate the time and effort you put into these.

Secondly there where some interesting topics in these times. Personally i am really excited about the ideas of artist running jobs. The problem which is created by giving artist access to this command would be that some artist (maybe all, which i dont think is true because you are considering this as a possibility) cant handle such a task. On the order hand we want to create middle earth. So with artist running jobs a designer would be free to work on more
Sufisticated things. It would also mean that there would be more things for adventurist to do when they join the server. Which would possibly make them more excited and stay longer then only a view hours on the server. This would mean the community would grow which in my opinion a very good thing.
So a sollution to this problem would be that some artist which the staff seem fit to be able to run a job would get access to the command. As an example the public project of mr. @thomasd16. This public project creates a lot of job opportunities which are limited by thomas not having access to the command. So a solution would be to give him access to this command. This would increase building jobs for advent., giving a artist more responsibilities to show and challange them a bit more and at last faster finishing of certain areas (because many hands will finish something faster then only one pair of hands). The only problem with this is how would you only give certain artist access to this command. I know that many of you are againt making yet another rank for this, but why not do this as an expiriment. You could for example give it a month and see if it works. If it doesnt work just remove it. This is not creating a rank just for making another rank. This would give designers more time to finish other work, artist a more challenging opportunity and advent. more jobs to do. It would also help out to figure out if someone is ready for more responsibilities.

Thirdly i have been following the work of @BRASHEXODUS and @NEEPcrafter on the forums and i need to say that i am enjoy watching screenshots of their work. Its very enjoyable reading all the comments of staff and non staff on these posts. I would advice everyone to have a look at these post.

@Tyranystrasz has also been showing me some of his texturing for his village in anfalas. I have to say his blocks add a lot of more details to landscaping and are in my opinion a oppurtunity for creating a more detailed environment.

Lastly the videos you have been making have given us a more detailed look into some plugins you guys have been making for us. I really hope you will keep making these.

This comment hasnt been proofread and made on my iphone.

I totally agree with what Darki has said about artists running jobs. Though instead of having only a few artists able to run jobs, we could (this has probably been discussed before but whatever) have an Artist + rank of some sort. Meaning only skilled enough artists get the rank. They would have access to run jobs, and maybe place the redstone things pistons, candles etc..

Maybe it would be too similar to Designer but idk, just a suggestion

The allmighty all seeing all knowing pint00 comes again to judge and bring justice upon online communities everywhere, asserting his opinions with staunch judiciary power.

kisos said:

The allmighty all seeing all knowing pint00 comes again to judge and bring justice upon online communities everywhere, asserting his opinions with staunch judiciary power.

Click to expand...

Kek

Darki190 said:

Secondly there where some interesting topics in these times. Personally i am really excited about the ideas of artist running jobs. The problem which is created by giving artist access to this command would be that some artist (maybe all, which i dont think is true because you are considering this as a possibility) cant handle such a task. On the order hand we want to create middle earth. So with artist running jobs a designer would be free to work on more
Sufisticated things. It would also mean that there would be more things for adventurist to do when they join the server. Which would possibly make them more excited and stay longer then only a view hours on the server. This would mean the community would grow which in my opinion a very good thing.
So a sollution to this problem would be that some artist which the staff seem fit to be able to run a job would get access to the command. As an example the public project of mr. @thomasd16. This public project creates a lot of job opportunities which are limited by thomas not having access to the command. So a solution would be to give him access to this command. This would increase building jobs for advent., giving a artist more responsibilities to show and challange them a bit more and at last faster finishing of certain areas (because many hands will finish something faster then only one pair of hands). The only problem with this is how would you only give certain artist access to this command. I know that many of you are againt making yet another rank for this, but why not do this as an expiriment. You could for example give it a month and see if it works. If it doesnt work just remove it. This is not creating a rank just for making another rank. This would give designers more time to finish other work, artist a more challenging opportunity and advent. more jobs to do. It would also help out to figure out if someone is ready for more responsibilities.

Click to expand...

Eaglz said:

I totally agree with what Darki has said about artists running jobs. Though instead of having only a few artists able to run jobs, we could (this has probably been discussed before but whatever) have an Artist + rank of some sort. Meaning only skilled enough artists get the rank. They would have access to run jobs, and maybe place the redstone things pistons, candles etc..

Maybe it would be too similar to Designer but idk, just a suggestion

Click to expand...

Ya I don't agree. I don't think Artist should have the possibility of using the job commands. If you are to give Artist job commands, it is, at that point, the same thing as designer. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Second with the Artist+ Rank I don't see it working without extensive thought on how it would be given, mostly because at that point it would be a Designer rank. Adding on to what Eaglz said I don't think that Artist+ rank should be someone with extremely good building skills,(again makes it more of a Designer) but instead someone who is very well trusted. Still I don't think Artist should have the job commands at all.

Though there is a small thing that Darki brought to my attention. That is public projects. I think that the Artist+ rank would be useful. I believe that all Artist or Adventurers working the project should have access to the job commands. It would help run the project more smoothly. Personally if @Ardelenia , @Volcrest , and I had job commands when we ran our project, I believe it would of taken the predicted 2 weeks instead of 2 months.

kisos said:

The allmighty all seeing all knowing pint00 comes again to judge and bring justice upon online communities everywhere, asserting his opinions with staunch judiciary power.

Click to expand...

K1sk=

Yarrr my racing skillz!

@PINT00 I don't look directly in the sun but in the area the sun shines in, mostly the sun is in the screenshot so it has the glowing or shining effect on the terrain or object, but it's a personal opinion and i'm open for any suggestions/comments about my screenshots. Thanks for giving feedback

Finrod_Amandil said:

For separate community meetings, do you believe there would be enough interests and topics around Pint?

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I think that yes there is always something to talk about, whether it be project or issues of plugins. There is always ideas and issues that pop up all the time that haven't been seen before. You are right about the one month meeting time, that does seem very often, but at least every 2 and a half months.

Wraith_Knight said:

@PINT00 I don't look directly in the sun but in the area the sun shines in, mostly the sun is in the screenshot so it has the glowing or shining effect on the terrain or object, but it's a personal opinion and i'm open for any suggestions/comments about my screenshots. Thanks for giving feedback

Click to expand...

No problem.

I do agree about adding artists to plotbuild staff is a good idea @Finrod_Amandil. The isue that isnt solved by that is that our goal is to create middle earth in minecraft. By giving some artists access to the command plugin we would solve a lot "jobless time" when no designers are around or willing to run a job. Although the plotbuild would cover part of this, it doesnt give a 100 % benefit. I personally think there are so many jobs that could be done by advent. Which will just not be able to be covered by designers.
In our newer made places like anfalas, andrast and fennas there is a lot more detail put into landscaping and forrest. An example of a job ran by a artist could be placing stones, stream, different blocks and maybe tree stumps. The fennas team have been leading jobs that are made by designers atm. On the forest area outside of fennas. So let say @Wroxxite wants to run a job and ask @Thijs1801 to make one for him. @Thijs1801 creates a job, now @Wroxxite is able to run his job. This means @Thijs1801 trust @Wroxxite that he will do a good job leading it. So nothing wrong with this system? Ok, lets see what can go wrong.

1. Thijs goes off (job ends after 5 min)
2. Wroxxite wants to end job but thijs is afk.
3. Thijs or other designer is not online to create a job.

Lets be clear here i am not hating on the system I am just mentioning its flaws. To me it seems like there are a lot of factors that can be removed by giving some of the artist access to the job commands. I dont understand why we can't do a rehearsel just like a dinner rehearsel for a wedding or a theater rehearsels for a theater performance. These are there to detect flaws and to be able to change those for when its really implemented. I don't understand why we could not give this a try. Just one or two weeks to see if it works. If it doesn't work out, just remove it.

I dont see any big problems which could arise with giving some respected artist access to job commands. Let say artist doesnt do a satisfying job, have a talk about the job he did. If he doesnt listen remove his access. That is just a simple solution to this problem.

As of @PINT00 point of artist getting to close to designer. I think mr. @PINT00 has lost the point of what MCME is and what a designers job is. I think giving some artist access to job commands will not ruin the rank system. There are still plenty of more accessable commands or tasks that a designer has access to and artists dont. This is for a reason, but i dont see why jobs should be one of them. Lets keep in mind that the goal is to create middle earth and not to have the highest possible rank. The progress could increase a lot in certain areas. I believe if a artist is trusted with a public project he could also be trusted with the job plugin. When @Finrod_Amandil gave @thomasd16 fennas, he trusted him to do a good job. @Finrod_Amandil still checks up on him, but this could also be done with jobs.

We could create a thread where designers could put jobs that they want to be done and they trust and artist could run. Now artists with access can pick a job to run and can run a job. After they finish they make a screenshot with the advent. And post it in the chat. Like f. ex. tree derp job done with advent. @advent.1 and @andvent.2. The designer now checks it and deletes the post when satisfied or give some tips on how it could be better. This sounds like a good system to me.

Now one could say that this would make the plotbuild plugin not needed. I dont agree with this. The plugin gives advent. access to building building without direct supervision. It also give them access to creative in a certain limited area. Which is not needed when doing a job which can just br done with the block picker. So in my opinion both giving some artist access to the job commands and the plotbuild plugin are benefitial to creating middle earth.

@Finrod_Amandil , about the next video i would really like to see architect. Which you already said would probably be the next video. Which i am really excited about.

Me haz an idea, foreman...

Darki190 said:

So let say @Wroxxite wants to run a job and ask @Thijs1801 to make one for him. @Thijs1801 creates a job, now @Wroxxite is able to run his job. This means @Thijs1801 trust @Wroxxite that he will do a good job leading it. So nothing wrong with this system? Ok, lets see what can go wrong.

1. Thijs goes off (job ends after 5 min)
2. Wroxxite wants to end job but thijs is afk.
3. Thijs or other designer is not online to create a job.

Click to expand...

C'mon thijs step it up.




Also I agree 100% with this

Darki190 said:

As of @PINT00 point of artist getting to close to designer. I think mr. @PINT00 has lost the point of what MCME is and what a designers job is.

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Well seeing as Mr. pint is banned I would have to agree