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Posted 19 October 2020 - 05:47 PM #21

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I'd like to say it's about time someone has addressed these topics, but sadly that would be far from the truth. Though communication has improved some, it still has an extremely long way to go. Unless it's made a priority, and other staff members are given the trust to aid with these issues, things will continue to slip back into the same poor state. I won't delve into the rest of the matters because this isn't the place and to be frank, it's all been said before, but I'd like clear up what happened with Crack the Clue.
 
Crack the Clue:
 
The Crack the Clue event was something that we were looking forward to doing. A unique event that paid homage to Old School Runescape with our own Alora twist. Code 002 and I had been working on the project for a few weeks, figuring out the clues, testing potential clue hints with other Administrators, and communicating with Omicron on what types of things we could and couldn't do to make the event both challenging and engaging. We were nearly finished with the clues when we found out that there was going to be a new game mode announced, Realism. The timing coincidentally collided with the launch of another new OSRS-based RSPS. To make the new game mode more enticing a unique armor set was added, which just so happened to be our reward for Crack the Clue, the Ornate Armor Set. So with half of our rewards being thrown out the window, Code 002 and I decided to scrap the project. An unfortunate end to what was sure to be a fun event, but we hope you understand.


Posted 19 October 2020 - 05:48 PM #22

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Thank you @ Kq head , you summed up everything perfectly. I couldn't agree more to what you said up there. I'll leave my opinion below, three points to consider shown below;

 

1. The server being advertised and new players joining the community. I believe there's been regular 'Competitions' and some extras (Don't know what's occurring behind the scenes in terms of advertisement)! As of recent events, goodluck @ Moe with the additional role, that's a positive direction! 

 

2. Communication with the community! Community input is vital. 

 

3. Delays of updates isn't an issue, as long as the content that is released is to an acceptable standard. Quality over quantity

 

A lot of exemplary comments have been made so far. My input towards the rank is positive, achieving immortal has left me with limited challenges, but with the new rank in order, I will happily tackle it! There's always going to be talk regarding price fluctuation of customs/bonds, but I imagine the wealth to be distributed to an extent eventually with time and new players.

 

I believe there's solutions for everything, perhaps monthly community inputs would benefit the server? (or more regular if needs be) Having open discussions regarding major flags, I'm sure the community would suggest ideas on how to improve and make Alora better. (Burden off your back and the staff if possible)

 

The idea of dedicating a role to staff members regarding informing community with development blogs would be ideal. It doesn't have to be pages of information, it can be a small paragraph on what's been worked on in the upcoming weeks/months.

 

Thank you @ Omicron for the clarity and I do appreciate the hard-work. I understand a lot of hours are being put into development, but please do inform us as we are impatient as ever. 

 

Always happy to help, the more opinions the better! 


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Posted 19 October 2020 - 05:49 PM #23

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We know that there's no way for you to know that we're working on all of this, which leads me to my next point: communication. With that being said, hopefully you can also sympathize with us and understand that sometimes things happen in our lives that we cannot control.

So, something that could be done to easily avoid this "lack of communication" here ..is to have someone make up "news papers" or teasers of things to come - while it's not a full form of communication, players will at least know what to expect - I'm aware that estimated time frame for these things are quite hard to keep to but this at least gives players some idea of what's going on rather than not knowing anything. I believe you did this a bit with the introduction of runelite client. With this you can see how the players feel about the updates to come and you can learn what to prioritize over what and so on.. 

 

Continuing on with the "lack of communication" bit, one thing I've noticed when coming to this server, maybe it's just me.. but I find it oddly frustrating not knowing what the hell is going on with the staff team. I see random promotions, random demotions and people randomly quitting and all without any announcement and or explanation as to why - sure those members that resign or get demoted aren't required and have no obligation to say anything as to why and or what happened but I definitely feel the community should be and needs to be updated on when these things happen instead of randomly seeing someone that was a staff member no longer being a staff member and it not being addressed to the community until someone decides to finally make a staff update.. a tip for the future, if you do monthly updates on this is to add additional change posts to that main post if there so happens to be changes in the staffing team within the month. I apologize if this is something that already happens in the discord, but, not everyone uses the discord like that. Forums are just as vital in a concurrent player base as discord is..

 

 

 

Communication has been an issue for awhile now, as Chad and I scramble to rush updates out (as a 2-person development team) we do sometimes lose sight of the big picture and neglect the communication aspect. It isn't something we intend to do, it simply makes more sense to us to put our time and energy into developing these updates to have a healthy, constant flow of new content and bug fixes, as well as responding to all the PMs that we receive daily and keeping in touch with the higher up staff team to make sure that things are running smoothly.

I had a good bit of experience in this myself, not in development, but managing a server and the staffing team/community and I can tell you that it's really important to keep people up to date with what's going on regardless, otherwise people will start to believe that you're in it for the money and or starting to abandon the server - which.. is what you have with this post. The only visible thing that's been shown in any sort of update progression is a new donator rank, you probably should of waited to roll it out and or hint it at all until the bigger update/s happen and or after them even.. 

 

You have a community manager, event/advert manager and 4 or so other admins that can fulfil the holes creating problems in your communication - use them.. if they can't do it, find someone that can.. simple as that.

 

This is one of the things that I will never understand the logic behind... Let's look at the most recent, and probably best example of this. The Chambers of Xeric rework is probably one of the best content updates Alora has seen in a long time; not only is it a good advertisement point, but it is also the cause of many old players returning. While I don’t agree with people saying “cOx iS iMpoSsible” I must admit I don’t see any logic behind delaying crucial bug-fixes, like the scaling of the top floor or the chests randomly disappearing for an entire month.    Another good example of this would be a very long time ago, when the skilling interfaces were updated to match OSRS. This update brought a crafting bug, that made the skill impossible to level early on, pretty much rendering the skill unusable for an entire week. Whether the reason is that a server restart would “annoy” players, or rather it was better to simply delay it a week so that the update would look bigger and better. It makes absolutely no logical sense. 

It's pretty obvious that these delays are there so that there's more content to be added to a single update, this is how most things go in terms of development of a game - in this case an rsps. Some games have regular downtime for maintenance weekly, but unfortunately that isn't an rsps works. I do believe that critical bug fixes shouldn't be held back in any regard and should be pushed out ASAP but the problem here is that they probably backup all the files having it sitting ready to be updated so attempting to try to update the server would implement everything they've been working on which would bring a plethora of new exciting bugs for everyone to deal with as they're not finished yet.. it's not exactly the smartest way of handling the files for the updates, I could be wrong.. but I'd assume it'd have to be the case or something similar otherwise there shouldn't be any problem with pushing out the critical bug fixes and the problem with it is, if they've done this with all the files it can take a long time to transfer.. which I can't really blame them for trying to avoid but maybe in the future better management of the files and so on can be considered.

 

I guess I'm fairly newer here.. so I don't really know the owner or the staffing team to any regard very well - so I don't know for sure if this is a continuing problem for a long time. I'd assume that it isn't that bad if the server has managed to stay up for 4 years with a decent playerbase but it's good someone has voiced their opinion/s for the community but in the future I don't think anyone should be afraid to voice their opinions on things so long as they're not just toxic gibberish because something bothers you a little bit and you for some reason can't seem to get over it and it's not really that big of a deal such as the below example 

 

I’ve contacted you a month or two ago regarding the Scythe of vitur’s wrong angle.

this is such an irrelevant thing to be bothering about and has absolutely no impact on the players gameplay and 90% of people probably didn't even know. Anyway.. voicing opinions is how you get things to change, staying quiet then there's no feedback etc to refer to when continuing on with updates and so on.. but being annoying and toxic about it you may as well just get booted into orbit.

 

 

 

Aside from that, the Eternal rank is simply a prestige rank -- yes, there are a few new perks (such as being able to transfer your rank more regularly) but at the end of the day it isn't anything that threatens the integrity of the game, and ultimately the addition of this rank will do more good than bad as it will allow us to keep providing the best support and content that we possibly can.

Most people won't even achieve this rank, so it's weird that they're even complaining about it. I think there should of definitely been a post made about it as soon as it was visible to the public or as said previously not made visible to the public until update/s roll out as an addition to the update posts explaining the rank in more detail and why it's been implemented to avoid such a harsh backlash.

 

Nice post, relax a little bit Alorians  <3



Posted 19 October 2020 - 06:44 PM #24

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I'll try to address all of the points you've proposed as best as I can so that you can see our side of this, as I now have a better insight into yours (and that of numerous other members of the community). Firstly, the Chambers of Xeric rework has certainly been in need of some attention to tie up the last few loose ends with it -- it was a huge update to change the raid from a single layout to a dynamically generated system and there were bound to be bugs, and while a few bugs being present is clearly not the issue here, I would like to apologize for the delay in these fixes being applied to the actual server. I know it is difficult to know exactly what goes on behind the scenes, and all of those bugs are actually already patched up (among a plethora of updates that are waiting to be pushed) but some unexpected IRL circumstances have caused us to push back the update schedule a few times this past month. Some staff members who've helped us beta test this week could also attest to the fact that we do have a sizeable update planned for this week, which you'll also be able to see for yourself shortly. Also, the idea that the Eternal donator rank has somehow slowed down the update schedule is simply incorrect, the Eternal donator rank has only been worked on the past few days, the rest of the month has been spent fixing up CoX and other bugs, as well as adding in a huge amount of new content (Tithe Farm, Mahogany Homes, new RuneLite plugins, a Vote Shop expansion, an in-game Lottery system, and much more). We know that there's no way for you to know that we're working on all of this, which leads me to my next point: communication. With that being said, hopefully you can also sympathize with us and understand that sometimes things happen in our lives that we cannot control.

 

 

Let’s go paragraph by paragraph so we make sure not to miss anything.. 

 
“...all of those bugs are actually already patched up (among a plethora of updates that are waiting to be pushed) but some unexpected IRL circumstances have caused us to push back the update schedule a few times this past month.” 
Why must our playing experience suffer because of delayed bug fixes? You said yourself, all of the bugs are already fixed and ready to be pushed through, but why does this have to take so long? I fully understand new content takes time to develop, but if the bugs are already fixed why not just push them through every week with a weekly reset? Better experience for us, and less bitching coming your way. Weekly resets have been something the players have been asking for for as long as I can remember. Sure, the server doesn’t lag as much as it used to due to longer uptimes, but there are other issues to be dealt with, and this allows bug fixes to be pushed through consistently, keeping the players happy. It doesn’t matter if its 3 bug fixes or 100, every fix helps the server stay on top. 
 
The issue is not whether or not the new rank has slowed down updates or bug fixes, rather that the rank itself seems very rushed, with little thought as to possible alternatives. Players have been begging you for rank transfers for a long time now, and that isn’t even being considered. But for some reason you are considering a new top tier rank that will allow players another transfer, and it's simply not realistic. You can even see current immortal donators like @S / Seabound showing no interest in having to liquidate their entire bank to obtain this new rank. 
 

Communication has been an issue for awhile now, as Chad and I scramble to rush updates out (as a 2-person development team) we do sometimes lose sight of the big picture and neglect the communication aspect. It isn't something we intend to do, it simply makes more sense to us to put our time and energy into developing these updates to have a healthy, constant flow of new content and bug fixes, as well as responding to all the PMs that we receive daily and keeping in touch with the higher up staff team to make sure that things are running smoothly. That isn't an excuse, and we have made attempts to change this, such as providing more development blogs, but that has admittedly slowed down as the summer has ended. We understand your concern though, and I really would like to change this by planning out future updates on a stricter schedule with more consistent development blogs.

 
This communication problem could be solved very easily… delegate work. The staff team wants to help, they are passionate about the server and it’s very obvious. You need to have the trust in your team to let them work for you. You could delegate work on the forums that only you can do, to some of the admins. Let your staff team test and publish development blogs. You can keep saying the same things over and over, but until you trust your team to help you on this journey, it won’t succeed like it could. 
 

As for the rank, as I mentioned it is something that we've worked on this week and some of you may have noticed the usergroup on the active members list. I'll address a few points here to allow you to understand why we are adding it, and hopefully you'll come out with a different view of the rank. To preface, we have never proposed a previous donator rank. We do sometimes poll updates that affect Alora in a massive way, but donator ranks have not fallen under this category as they have always been a part of Alora. The fact of the matter is that Alora requires income to operate, and without income we would not be able to advertise or provide the development or support that we have for nearly 4 years now. The store, and the donator ranks that go with it have always been a part of Alora. I understand how seeing us working on a new donator rank after a month without updates may leave a bad taste in your mouth, and that goes back to the communication point, because we absolutely never intended to release this rank without the massive update that we've been working on.

 
The rank seems, simply put, rushed. It seems like a last resort to keep the server alive, when there seem to be other options out there, options that would make the players much happier. 
 

As you can imagine, after 4 years of uptime (longer than most servers last), store purchases are nowhere near where they were when Alora was first released. This is simply a side effect of having a mature economy -- nobody is purchasing whips from the store anymore, and to be fair custom donations for rank account for most of Alora's income nowadays as people don't need to purchase anything from the store. How can we counter this? Well, we can slowly start adding new over-powered items to the store to entice people more, but I don't think anyone wants to see those sorts of items in the store. Instead, a donator rank that a few will marginally benefit from, but will massively benefit Alora in staying alive as long as we possibly could seems like the best option to us. The way things are at the moment, we'd be forced to start cutting advertisements sometime in the next few months to make sure that Alora isn't losing money. Expenses to operate a private server are not cheap, especially if you care about the longevity of the server and want to ensure that there's a steady influx of new players.

 
My issue with this isn’t that the rank would be too powerful, rather that it is unnecessary and a ridiculous ask from your players. How do you counter this? Intermediate donor ranks, rank transfers, an updated in-game store.. Shall I go on? How about you ask your staff or your community for help and listen when they tell you their ideas. 
 

Aside from that, the Eternal rank is simply a prestige rank -- yes, there are a few new perks (such as being able to transfer your rank more regularly) but at the end of the day it isn't anything that threatens the integrity of the game, and ultimately the addition of this rank will do more good than bad as it will allow us to keep providing the best support and content that we possibly can.

 
Why would anyone in their right mind pay for a prestige rank? You’re basically saying the only thing that this rank would offer is more regular rank transfers.. So why not just offer rank transfers as a custom donation? This would apply to a much larger portion of the community, rather than the 1 person that MIGHT buy this new donor rank. You are flat out admitting that this new rank is a cash grab by saying it’s a prestige rank just so players can give you more money.
 
 
It’s time to admit when you’re wrong and own up and make changes. It’s clear that the community is fed up and ready for a change. Stop making excuses as to why things can’t be dealt with appropriately, there are options, you just don’t want to implement them. You don’t want to trust your staff to make all of these things possible, you don’t want to make a legitimate effort to fix these issues. Prove me wrong. 


Posted 20 October 2020 - 06:14 AM #25

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$10,000 + for a rank on a private server is absurd anyway 

omi wants to get even more irl gp.


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Posted 20 October 2020 - 09:08 AM #26

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Last year I made a suggestion on these transferrable donator ranks. This suggestion was left to be ignored for half a year. Then silently declined. For what reason would it be possible with a 20.000 dollar rank and not 10.000 dollar? And where does this end? Will we have 100K donator ranks in 4 years? And at what cost?

 


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Posted 21 October 2020 - 08:37 AM #27

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I made a suggestion about a rank transfer aswell at some day. 

The thing i dont understand is that we have like 7 game modes, and the 3 highest ranks can only transfer twice... Doesnt make sense imo. 

Aswell that the people with those ranks bought the ranks, the ranks are theirs. How can it be that something is yours but you cant do with it what you want? I can understand you cant transfer as much as you want. But twice?....  Some people paid thousends of dollars for the rank.

 

Alot of people would love to see that number increase. Even if they have to pay a transfer fee for it. I wouldnt mind. 


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Posted 21 October 2020 - 03:20 PM #28

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First of all, Kq head, thanks for this topic. It's a great topic and good read.

 

I used to like Alora, really put a lot of hours in it, but the flame just burnt out eventually. Shit happens. One of the reasons for this is that updates are being promised for sooo long but never come out. For example the CoX rework. When they come out, they're full of bugs / not fully coded. That's just sad to see from my point of view. It really demotivates the players in this way.

Also it's maybe an idea to stop prioritizing small updates over the more important, bigger ones.

I mean 2010 mode is cool and stuff, but literally noone ever asked about that. Why are there dev hours spent on that update anyway?

 

Two updates ago (17/08/2020) there were changes made to LMS. Which means time has been spent on this minigame. It's still in the old format, which is (sorry for my words) trash as fuck. The new LMS went live the 29th of August 2019. Which is over a year ago. Want to revive the minigame? Start by reworking that part. The differences shouldn't be too complex; give everybody an option to pick / change starting gear & let the chests open only if someone has a key in their invent.

 

The lack of communication is a bummer which kills the server eventually. Like others have said before, communicate with the community, let us know what's up.

Another donator rank Alora is eh.. Pretty sus.. I remember when immortal came out, the vast majority of the server wasn't happy at all.

I just enabled Ome Duo (thats how we call it in The Netherlands), i might be able to go for the eternal rank in a few years.

 

Well, i'll go back to my cave and lurk the forums every now and then, cya around boys!


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