Hello, everyone. First off, I want to apologize for the forums being down as long as they were. There we technical issues that were difficult to troubleshoot and thus resolve. Even now, not every issue is solved, but at least the forums should be working mostly now. (Let me know of any bugs you encounter.) I know Antares hasn't been really healthy lately. General disinterest in Starbound, lack of updates, and the forums being down have crippled the morale of our community. Despite these issues, I encourage everyone to remain calm and trust in both yourself and your peers. This might be Antares darkest hour, but hey, we'll bounce back, eh? There's a lot to be said about attitude. Right now, I think cohesion, camaraderie, and a general sense of belonging will do wonders for us. I'll be working on solving these pesky issues in the background and upgrading the server to have more features in the coming months. In fact, because things have gotten so stale in terms of features, I've been considering risking running the server on the nightly builds. Please post below your thoughts on this if you have any. As for our Project Zomboid side project, I'd like to downplay it's prominence while we focus back on Starbound and enhancing the experience for you here. I think that Antares can easily regain it's former glory, but not without feedback from what's left of it's community. I've been giving a lot of thought to things in general, such as our whitelist. How small it makes us. How protect it makes us, too, in a sense. So perhaps to help us get back on our feet, we should stretch our legs? Loosen our grip, so to speak, in terms of relaxing the qualifications for passing the whitelist. Now you might be thinking something along the lines of, "Won't roleplay quality dip?" It might... but only elitists would be bothered by this, and we're not supposed to be elitists. We should help our fellow people and encourage positive roleplay habits. So I think, if we can all do this, and be kind to one another, show each other the way of roleplay - we can survive. I'll wrap this up, as I've already written a lot. I look forward to discussing our future with you in the posts below. Cheers, Kaz
Masterfully done sirrah! Proposing a new direction for the server whilst, in the same breath, preemptively attempting to silence any dissent or nay saying by effectively branding all those who do not agree nasty little 'elitists.' Woe is to me though, for I must come forth and admit... Roleplay quality does matter to me, quite a bit as it were. Call me Elitist, Classist, or even Cassius Clay, but my point shall stand. I do not believe just because one enjoys actual dialogue and compelling narrative over self-inserting fantastical flights of fancy, that they are necessarily elitists, and that a desire for general quality of the server is anything to be dissuading people off of. So, in mine insignificant voice I shall simply request.. 'Please don't do this.' Do not open the floodgates and allow human waste to flood into the community, albeit temporarily, and sacrifice quality for numbers. GC, this is not.
Yet some of Antares' people that I know of are, in fact, planning a move over to GC. And to be honest I might be one of them depending on what happens. You're going to need something good or enticing enough to keep people around here. Like, say, places that don't crash. But if you can't solve that then yes indeedy, this most certainly is a dark time. And I honestly am skeptical about whether you truly could make it bounce back.
We need something to happen in Antares. Something to push a story, something to happen. New colonies just aren't cutting it anymore. We need a big server-wide event to happen.
Let's get to brainstorming, then! I'm sure we can collectively come up with something to breathe life back into Antares. I've always wanted to do something involving "Arcs" and "Chapters", to help keep the ball rolling.
I've been involved in some of the more popular arcs All were only semi-concluded, and left with something of a cliffhanger before upbeat giraffe One was the Blackfang tribe storyline, which is likely the most widely used excuse for Floran discrimination in Antares. The second was the Outcast story arc, involving a group of anarchists (it was an engaging faction, even if some of the people involved did end up getting banned...) Another could be the story arc involving the Holy Fleet of Avos and the Flightless, if people aren't sick of seeing the birb master race Or we could always move forward a few years in time and have some pre made factions Just a bunch'a ideas.
I feel removing the whitelist could do things to help boost our population, assuming the staff can handle it, which in most cases I feel they'd be able to. And sadly the constant nightly updates are too many to keep updating on slow internet, so I can't agree with it due to my lack of availability. (100kb/s download speed.) A story arc could work, assuming it doesn't arch off into the land of unrealism and confusion, I'm for all if you can think of something.
Removing the whitelist would be a huge step, dunno if that'd be a good or bad step. Probably bad, considering staff is already exhausted and busy as it stands. And if we're going to have story arcs, we need people in charge of that aspect of the server.
I'm for story arcs. But they need to be like a tiny snowball rolling downhill, increasing in scale the more snow it collects. Make it base off the number of people participating in it instead of doing something grand and complex from the start. I'm still sticking to Tsuyoshi though, I like that Hylotl-asian vibe too much
Yeeaaah... events may be a problem given our current Staff numbers. I'll look into properly recruiting more people if possible.
I strongly disagree with the idea of removing the whitelist, that would make the server accessible to ALL KINDS of undesirable sorts and griefers. In my opinion it is far more trouble than what it's worth.
We wouldn't ever remove it entirely, just make getting approved easier. The whitelist would just act as security then rather than screening quality.
I think that something should be done to the application process to encourage more people to sign up and start. When I was a PA, alot of applications would talk about how long they spent filling out the form, so maybe tone it down significantly, just until we get something smooth rolling again. Also, I've been thinking lately about some sort of server wide disease that comes through, maybe in conjunction with some other event, like a meteor strike or a sector wide EMP flare or something. A few people get infected, it spreads, and it becomes a sort of 'zombieland'. May kill off some main chars, true, but I think its time for a fresh start with some chars, and this would also be an interesting way to interact, if everyone is trying to survive the 'zombie' horde together. Doesn't have to be zombies, but I think the infection idea is a good one. Give scientists something to do, the cure would be strictly regulated OOCly so people dont come up with it overnight, clues to its outbreak epicenter would be given out every now and then, etc. I'd gladly help with events and the like, and would definitely do what I could, but my attention span is usually lacking. :\ Also, glad the forums are up, but whats with the change back to the old url? I didn't even know they were up until I got an email about that new thread you just put up, Kaz.
Old url, better url. Haha, no, but seriously, this url is our home. It was wrong to ever leave it, I think. We'll have more exposure with this url.
Personally I think the whole zombie apocalypse idea sounds wicked. If that's what you're going for, count me the frick in!!! But of course I'll support any other ideas too
Like the infection idea. ALSO... Can we has the forums get updated? We lost like 3 weeks of information lol.
