~The MCME Times~ #5/16 - Breaking News: Ryiw & Genexos promoted to Designer!

Wroxxite · Feb 8, 2016

Two new designers, quite interesting

mandolore100 · Feb 8, 2016

Whats up with the giant trench next to calembel?

PINT00 · Feb 8, 2016

I have a simple view on the way that the Artist ranks are being given out like free samples at the neighborhood grocery store, it is nice, but unnecessary. I think it has become too easy to become an Artist, and there should be more inspection into what these builders can actually do. I have only applied for ranks twice on MCME, one of those times was for commoner, I built a nice tower with a weird dome on top to represent the tower in the center of Pelargir in a Pelargir theme build about eight months before Pelargir was even started. Sadly I never became commoner and about two weeks later the new rank system was implemented I could finally fly. This was before everyone knew me so well, and I went away for about a month and a half. After that month and a half I went onto the server for like a full 18 hours and did about twenty different things, in that day I think I did two jobs, all the possible plot builds, and the theme build, just for fun because I think it was a Christmas themed hobbit hole. Next after everyone got accustomed to the crazy axe murdering, all ways helping and annoying at the same time, ready for action, wookie, named PINT00. I set a personal goal just to be Artist. I think I participated in 5 to 7 themed builds. Lucky me not to get discouraged the person that replied to my application was my favorite designer Will_em, mostly because just like me he doesn't care, and he also ran the first job I ever participated in which was ruining houses in Osgiliath. He told me I sucked at building. Granted thats not what he said (kind of was), me and him went on teamspeak and he told me how to improve. So later I applied to run a project, I think I actual ran the first public project, Building Camps. During that time I was temporary Artist, I was able to do what real Artist could do. Since most people did know I did have good building abilities designers asked me to build houses for them and do other things for them. When I finished the project and was back at droog level, I decided never to become anything more than droog, because of a word that make my ears bleed, r-re-rrr-respons-responsibility. Basically were I am going with this big and unnecessary(key word) rant is I PINT00 have good building capabilities, and I worked real hard to be a Artist, but was rejected, and now people do maybe 2 or three decent jobs on themed builds and become Artist. True Artist like Toey and Volcrest are now deemed equal to people with levels of building like mine. You should bring back the old system of accepting applications, Will telling people they suck.

Because only than will you get the true Artist that will really try and prove themselves worthy.

Indorilian · Feb 8, 2016

PINT00 said:
Insert entitled ego here

this. What you say here is an issue. Your essentially saying that since you had to improve your building skills in order to get artist, other people should have to wait as well in order to "earn" it. That's not how life works. Are you going to go into whatever field you intend to work in, start off bad, eventually get good at it, then look down on the guy who may not have as much experience, but is just as good as you? No, you're going to want to add them to your team, cus if they're that good now, imagine how good they'll be down the line. It works the same way in this game. Just because it took effort for you to get it, doesn't mean others will have to work as hard. Realize life isn't fair, and stop looking down at people who have the same rank as you, just to stroke your ego.

PINT00 · Feb 8, 2016

Indorilian said:
this. What you say here is an issue. Your essentially saying that since you had to improve your building skills in order to get artist, other people should have to wait as well in order to "earn" it. That's not how life works. Are you going to go into whatever field you intend to work in, start off bad, eventually get good at it, then look down on the guy who may not have as much experience, but is just as good as you? No, you're going to want to add them to your team, cus if they're that good now, imagine how good they'll be down the line. It works the same way in this game. Just because it took effort for you to get it, doesn't mean others will have to work as hard. Realize life isn't fair, and stop looking down at people who have the same rank as you, just to stroke your ego.

1. I respect you because you live in New Jersey, so I will not get all up in your grill.
2. The size of my ego is unfathomable.
3. I don't think you read the whole thing, I never became Artist and I never want to become Artist.
4. All I was ranting about was there should be more steps to the process other than just an application.(Will_em telling you you suck should be one of them(LoL)) A lot of what you interpreted with what I wrote is not what I meant, all I think is it should be harder to be an Artist.

TheSpeedy_ · Feb 8, 2016

So I would like to share some of my thoughts on a few things here:

A. Is the number of Artists a problem in and of itself. No. The problem is a lack of player retention. We have fewer new players that stick around. Themed builds are great for players who like to build, but, as I and others have discussed at length across the forum, if you're not into building our server lack anything remotely worth investing one's time into.

B. PINT00:

Cut the crap, drop your false expectations, and lose the cavalier attitude. You spent a good portion of time as (a temporary) Artist, regardless of whether or not you earned it, and during that time your poorly represented yourself and the community. You lorded your title over others, acted above the rules and player etiquette, and essentially ran amuck harassing other players. You flee from claiming responsibility for your actions, you talkback when players correct you for your various comments and actions. Now I'm not about to attack you personally, but don't claim that you were denied a rank or that you ought to have held it because "people do maybe 2 or three decent jobs..." You lack maturity, your lack commitment, you constantly instigate and antagonize other players. How dare you claim, directly or indirectly (hence the allusions you present in your selfish, egotistical rant), that you were somehow passed over for your talents. Check your attitude at the door, especially for a player who is seldomly active at all.

C. Is the Artist rank too easy to attain?

Yes, and no. Without a rank between Adventurer and the others, players are dropped into the fold with little to know reason to progress as a member of the community. There is no incentive for players to get plugged in, and so they start for something and then fall away. As with point A. the lack of new players isn't helping us. And to add to that, the average age of players has fallen in recent times too. And frankly, the bureaucratic hierarchy in which our server operates falls well above the concepts in which they grasp. To be frank, I see our endeavor more of a joyless, endless circle of nothingness. Like a dead end job, it becomes insufferable after pouring hours upon hours of work with little results. Progress has slowed significantly. In 2012, we were on the beginning cusps of Rohan. In that same year, we revamped the Shire. Fast forward four years, and Gondor is still not finished. In that time, I've taken a year long hiatus, and still the gears of our method of operation have rusted, slowed, and all but fallen apart. We've wasted our time trying to maintain how we've always done things, instead of innovating with the changing times. The lack of innovation is death to any organization. So bringing this all back to the point, the Artist rank requirements are not too easy. We just lack the necessary measures between Adventurer and other ranks.

D. Fin and the rest of the Staff, Artists, Guides, Players.

You are doing fine work, impressive work. It is always a pleasure logging in and interacting with you all. I do not say these things in condemnation, but rather raise the concerns in the hopes of improving the experience for all players. As much traffic as a Reddit post brings, it does not retain players. Through the efforts of you all, perhaps we might be able to bring about change to our means of achieving our goal. I wish you all well.

Eriol_Eandur · Feb 8, 2016

mandolore100 said:
Whats up with the giant trench next to calembel?

Someone made a small stream flowing down from Harlang's Neck which disappeared somwhere north of Calembel. I started to continue it, but then realized that the area will need a more extensive revamp. It's on hold until I finished the lower parts of the large rivers.

Tyranystrasz · Feb 8, 2016

PINT00 said:
Mimimimimimi

Stop acting like Artist rank is a "Who has the bigger penis" competition.
It brings only stupid drama.

mandolore100 · Feb 8, 2016

Eriol_Eandur said:
Someone made a small stream flowing down from Harlang's Neck which disappeared somwhere north of Calembel. I started to continue it, but then realized that the area will need a more extensive revamp. It's on hold until I finished the lower parts of the large rivers.

Ok thank you

Finrod_Amandil · Feb 8, 2016

Okay my friends, did not expect that my opening statement would cause such a big discussion, but I'm happy it did, also thank you all for your statements, but please try to keep them friendly and constructive. @PINT00 I think you misconceive what it means to be an Artist, and I think it doesn't hurt to spell it out for once: We have these 27000 x 30000 block big map, a savefile which technically is not worth a penny but ideologically is priceless. The most valuable thing people have in todays societies is TIME, we cannot make it more, we can only decide how to spend it. And now think of how many hours have been spent to create this Middle-earth map. As Adventurer you cannot touch the map unless under strict supervision. As Artist you can. You get the privilege to work on something of immeasurable worth. But with that privilege of course comes, yeah, responsibility. As Artist (and beyond) you silently agree to be to some extent responsible for the well-being of the map and that is a (so far) unwritten requirement you have to fulfill to get Artist. Everyone that I promote to Artist I have experienced ingame. I have experienced that they honour the work they may be able to contribute to, I have seen their passion and that's what makes a person do great things. On the paper activity and building skills are required, but in fact there is more to it.
Oh and by the way: the reason why it took me so long to be promoted was because over a few months the apps were only checked very sporadically if at all.

@BurgundyStig your C. point grinds my gears, which I think are not rusty yet. The one about the slowing down progress and the one about it all growing into a joyless scripted procedure that does not really lead anywhere.
I think you are right on both points. I would contradict your point of lacking innovation, we do have more innovative additions than we ever had in the form of new plugins that are being developped in amazing speed currenty. But we lack social innovation. After the big cities of Gondor were done, which understandably are both for staff and others way more fun and challenging to make we accidentally moved towards a situation where every staff member leads its own project, there's no interaction between staff members about projects, the staff project forum feels like the typical scene of a tumbleweed being blown through the desert. And this lack of interaction projects on the Artists and also on the Guides; I feel like they adopted the mindset of asking oneself "what do I need to do on here?" instead of "what do we need to on here?". Of course this is no critique to anyone, it just happened to be like this. (And it is my job to try initiating changing it back). On the other hand, Gondor with locations like Osgiliath (which was kinda built twice and is the biggest city ever), Minas Tirith, Pelargir, Dol Amroth and Linhir simply is a bigger bite to take than Rohan with Edoras and Aldburg that can almost not come up to the size of the medium cities of Gondor. Also if you compare the terrains of Rohan and Gondor on dynmap it is by no means astonishing that the latter took way longer.
The point that with the current age of people our rank system is not appropriate anymore is also very intriguing. However there I think it's a matter of conception and not of the system as-is. The ranks depict proven skills and matching responsibilites. Everyone has been a droog once, including me, and I would not say I am fundamentally better than as droog, I just have proven and exercised certain skills I already had in some form. This leads to something EVERYONE on here needs to realise: An Artist is not better than an Adventurer, and the Head Designer is not better than an Adventurer either. Since I've gotten Commoner I looked at people with lower ranks from the same height, but always I looked up to those who had a higher rank. If I ask an Artist to do something and he does not feel like doing it, I accept that. There's often things I'm supposed to do but don't feel like doing right then. Go now and reread the quote I posted as closing statement. Adventurers are technically inferiors to Artists and other ranks, because an Artist has access to more commands and similar things on our server, and an Artist is practically more valuable than an Adventurer because he has already proven that he has skills that can be of great use for our project. Go with this mindset: An Adventurer is like a sheet of which you only see the empty back side. You have no idea whats on that sheet, but it may well be that there's something really awesome on it. Thus instead of stepping onto the sheet, grab it and turn it around and reveal it's secrets. Try to make a new Adventurer be your new friend and not your new enemy.
The joyless thing: As we see from the motivation series, theres different things that make everyone of us thrive and find joy in MCME. Many like to build gigantic cities, something one could barely do alone, unfortunately we have already used up all of them, at least in Gondor. I promise everyone: A time will come, hopefully quite soon, where we no longer won't have to only read in the Times about where we have reworked rivers and where a new desert was created. Also I promise to open PVP a bit more often

Again: Thanks for initiating the discussion, please contribute your two cents, but keep it friendly and constructive!

PINT00 · Feb 8, 2016

BurgundyStig said:
B. PINT00:

You spent a good portion of time as (a temporary) Artist, regardless of whether or not you earned it, and during that time your poorly represented yourself and the community. You lorded your title over others, acted above the rules and player etiquette, and essentially ran amuck harassing other players. You flee from claiming responsibility for your actions, you talkback when players correct you for your various comments and actions. Now I'm not about to attack you personally, but don't claim that you were denied a rank or that you ought to have held it because "people do maybe 2 or three decent jobs..." You lack maturity, your lack commitment, you constantly instigate and antagonize other players. How dare you claim, directly or indirectly (hence the allusions you present in your selfish, egotistical rant), that you were somehow passed over for your talents.

C. Is the Artist rank too easy to attain?

Yes, and no. Without a rank between Adventurer and the others, players are dropped into the fold with little to know reason to progress as a member of the community. There is no incentive for players to get plugged in, and so they start for something and then fall away.

B. PINT00
Dude I still am all of that just with the title of Adventurer. People don't change drastically from small changes as like gaining ranks. And bro chill; every1 knows you don't like me, and my immaturity, I like having fun, let me be and if I get in trouble for it it is my fault not yours..

C. I agree entirely.

Tyranystrasz said:
Stop acting like Artist rank is a "Who has the bigger penis" competition.
It brings only stupid drama.

Kisos · Feb 8, 2016

Tyranystrasz said:
Stop acting like Artist rank is a "Who has the bigger penis" competition.
It brings only stupid drama.

mimimi

TheFunnyFace · Feb 8, 2016

Luk, how was it possible to load so many chunks in minecraft like in the titelscreen of the video?
Never got so many.

Portalrules333 · Feb 8, 2016

BurgundyStig said:
. In 2012, we were on the beginning cusps of Rohan. In that same year, we revamped the Shire. Fast forward four years, and Gondor is still not finished.

Are you seriously suggesting that the almost totally barren terrain of Rohan should have had an equal completion time to the much more detailed and beautiful Gondor? Rohan is basically all of the famous locations and smaller towns, with grass between them. The shire revamp, while more detailed for sure, still was pretty basic compared to what we're pumping out now (in fact, we had to do a Shire treevamp last year, as most of the trees were just randomly generated or just plain ugly). Gondor is made up of uber-detailed towns/cities, with uber-detailed hills, forests, rivers, fiords, pinnacles, and anything else you could possibly want in between. Check the Dynmap, it's like night and day.

Not only that, but Gondor is about as large as or even larger than the combined land area of both the Shire and Rohan.

Beathaven · Feb 8, 2016

Wow stirred up a large hornets nest right then and there

mandolore100 · Feb 8, 2016

Congrats Ryiw!!

Atlantispy · Feb 8, 2016

If people seriously think that the speed at which projects have been completed on this server has changed over the years you're sorely mistaken, it's always been a plodding along process. Builds take far longer if they are more detailed, hence why the Shire revamps too far less time than Gondor has taken.

Also congrats Ryiw

ooitsbirdo · Feb 9, 2016

OK, My views on this, SHUT UP all of you!!!!! i rest my case

also @Tyranystrasz
"Artist rank is a "Who has the bigger penis" i though that was the description of the artist rank

congratz @Ryiw , Can you know build Mordor now

jacenpeter · Feb 9, 2016

First you have to roll the dough and cover it in cinnamon, butter and lye before you bake it into a yummy andrast pretzel.

Welcome to MCME!

Joining the server

IP: build.mcmiddleearth.com

~The MCME Times~ #5/16 - Breaking News: Ryiw & Genexos promoted to Designer!

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