Let me start this off by saying that I have the upmost respect for our staff, and the time they put in the make sure that we all have a good experience here in Antares. Hoooweeeeveeer... There are a few complaints me and a few others would like to bring up. Understand I only post this after having talked to multiple people who have had the same issues. Staff Response Times: I know there's well over a triple digit number of members on the forums. I know it must be difficult shy of impossible to get to everyone and solve every problem. However, many of us have felt that there's outright neglect going on and that some of our conversations either aren't getting continuous attention, or are getting derailed or even outright ignored. That's not good. Again, this isn't some angry rant or anything, and I'm sorry if this is coming off aggressive. We're just all kinda tired of it and would like something done about it. Also, if you're going to ban a mod Kaz, please put up it's own announcement for it instead of a single line at the end of one for a different game entirely. ILC kinda deserves its own thing. kthxbyeplsdontbanme
Response time has been a bit slow, the Contact page said '1 day' while I've waited nearly three, no disrespect to the admins, without them we'd probably all be sitting around SP messing with terrible mods. plzdon'tbanmeagainthanks EDIT: also i didn't mean to time that post after frohmans ahahahahah.
I too feel like there has been a lot of this going on. Moderators looking the other way for some things, letting some issues fade rather than solve them, and honestly just dragging their feet about things. I understand that IRL is a thing. I get that. However, this is a service you all are offering. And as such, you are responsible for seeing to it that however much amount of quality you claim the server has is met. That means dealing with problems and such as they come up. Now, if IRL prevents those who are supposed to do this from doing such, then the responsibility should be broken down to others. Which it has, hence the moderation staff. But obviously, its still not being met. Whether this is due to outright negligence, or under-staffing is besides the point. Point is, it remains yet to be dealt with. So all this being said, I'd like to ask a question. How does the Antares staff plan to deal with this problem plaguing the server?
I have to give my word in and agree with these ridiculous wait times. Yes, while I myself haven't had a direct issue I needed solved, and haven't gotten it solved, I do have friends that have been having this exact issue. Even though yes, I'm not the direct one, it still kind of iffed me that they were being shrugged off, or it took so long. One or two still are in fact.
I recently haven't had to contact Staff, so I haven't noticed anything. What you say could be true, though.
I don't wanna add any fuel to the fire, but I put in a staff chat asking for Terra to have a colony page. It's been like... Two days, I think.
Two days isn't exactly a long time, and most staff probably don't have the authority to add subforums. In fact I'd go as far to imagine that Kazyyk is the only one who can add subforums. Forum management and forum changes are typically held as separate areas when assigning authority/privileges to accounts... The latter almost always being restricted to administrative/forum lead accounts. Mind you in a properly set up forum adding a subforum takes only a minute or two. Basically, poke Kazyyk.
You don't think a lot of us have tried that already? Plus that is only one issue out of many that have been brought up. And two days is a long time to wait for some. And its only been two days for them so far. How much longer are they supposed to be kept waiting? Me, I've been waiting on an issue since Sunday-Monday.
AFAIK the only "staff" are more or less Twitch and Kazyyk. Kazyyk doesn't play on the server and Twitch works a lot, this whole thing sorta seems blown out of proportion a bit. If there's a die-off in moderation then the solution is more moderators. I don't exactly see anyone stepping up to the plate and saying "I'll do it, then." If there's more issues stop referencing them without explanation and state them. There's even a thread made by Twitch on the forums asking for people to criticize anything openly and make suggestions. What are these "many issues" that have yet to be brought up? Because if they're not being brought up they're clearly not that important. I don't mean to be rude but you're trying to back up and argument by referencing something that's not elaborated or explained anywhere else. You can't say "This is bad because reasons, just trust me!!" and expect anyone to take you seriously. I'm seeing a lot of whining with next to no solutions being proposed, along with a healthy dose of entitlement. Considering the level of donations and support this community sees from it's players, none of you should feel very entitled to anything. The server was more or less dead until the administration stepped in and made a hub for people to hang around in, and literally jumped from a high of 3-4 people to about 13-24 over the course of a week. Servers cost time and money, and as someone who probably has more administrative experience than all of you lumped together in both casual and professional settings I will tell you now it's very easy to get burned out - especially when people who are more or less receiving charity whine excessively about problems without offering to put in a helping hand. At the end of the day this is supposed to be a community, which makes any faults the server may have as much your fault as it is any admin's. If there's serious issues with the server then it's in everyone's interests that you level your criticisms and bring them forward in a concise and constructive manner. Maybe I'm biased from past experiences, but in terms of server quality Antares is a drastic step above the bulk of servers out there. It's not the greatest but it's far from being as bad as people are making it out to be. In my opinion Antares' greatest problem is not anything related to staff but is more or less how difficult it can be to actually find and establish roleplay with other players. It's already daunting enough for people who are new to the server, but it's even more-so and downright discouraging when it's nearly impossible to find actual RP because a good chunk of people are just outright unwilling to go out of their way to take the time to roleplay with some new faces. This has gotten better now that there's a central colony, but when I first joined I can recall that it took me a solid four days of hanging around the server trying to make a break and get some roleplay despite there being about ten or so players on at the time. Most people seem to be prone to outright ignoring the galaxy chat for some reason (This is also an issue I've noticed on the PZ server too). It's silly.
You're entitled to an opinion, but this is a group of us coming forward to ask for a solution from the staff. Personally, I'd gladly take up the responsibility of helping people with this sort of thing. I even APPLIED for the staff at one point. I doubt I'm the only person who has this sentiment. This may not be the most constructed manner, but there isn't exactly a template for bringing this sort of thing up. And can you honestly say that if everyones OOC conversations and requests aren't addressed, that things will speed up? None of this is about server population and the lack of IC engagement, don't bring that here. This is about improving response times, and I'd kindly ask you stick to that topic.
I agree with most of the grievances aired in this thread. The bulk of the issue is inactivity among most all of the staff. This is very much a real issue, so while I appreciate the people defending the staff, please don't. We have alot of dead weight right now that doesn't put out work, and slows down discussions of larger issues as we wait for them to give feedback.
The first paragraph you have written states a big part of this whole problem. You even mentioned in an earlier post how most of the complaints requiring powers that people have already brought up are only had by ONE admin. See an issue there? As for that second issue, no one has stepped up, because they haven't asked. Generally in my experience at least, its considered poor etiquette to demand, or even request to become a mod, unless the server has requested more mods apply. The only reason people aren't mentioning names or events is to not start all out flame wars. However, this doesn't mean they should simply remain silent, or their claims are invalid because you say so. But if it needs to be explicitly stated, perhaps that's the next step... Thank you for mentioning that thread though. That's the next place to try. No, you are seeing a lot of complaints about things people have kept quiet about, without wanting to. I'm not seeing any entitlement here. It's not like we're being treated like royalty or anything, let's get that clear. Had we never spoken up, these things would never be brought to attention, like we're trying to point out. Like how any other method is ignored or waited around for days until some sort of update is had, or we give up. Perhaps the level of support and donations is a correlation to how we are treated? Oh, they certainly stepped in alright. Twitch making a lawless hub SURE fixed all the problems. Like the crashing problem. And the slow moderation problem. The powergaming meta gamin and asspulling problems? As you can tell, I don't think that holds any bearing here. Also, look at the averages, and you'll see its gotten better by one person. I'm not seeing these stats you claim. Sounds like a disgusting generalization, to me that sounds like a thing where because you feel like you 'know better' than all of us, that that's how it should be right? Like I said. Doesn't matter if its charity. It's a service being offered for free. You can't expect to just toss free cheap stuff at someone and for them to be giving you all kinds of accolades, at lest not when other options exist. But if the qualities there, people will give you credit for it. That just is logically how its supposed to go. Equal and opposite reaction. The first sentence is a copout to not acknowledge any wrongdoing or blame. While not 100% flase, let's remeber they are the one's that ultimately hold 100% of the power. They can chose to listen, and they can also turn a blind eye. Bias seems to be a theme in Antares. That's for another thread though. Also sounds a little uppity. Fun is determined by the experiences of the users, not how many bells and whistles you can jam on the outside of something. A gold plated piece of crap is still crap. I'm not saying this place is the absolute worst. Far from it actually, or else I'd no longer be here. I wouldn't care enough to form an opinion and try to help this place progress. It's because I care I raise these concerns, just like all the other users here. But denying any sort of fault will just hold us back. Let's instead try and learn from all this. This may be true. I can't find a whole lot of arguments here. I couldn't agree more.
Another bit of it is that a lot of the staff ((I don't know if I'm even staff at this point)) that are active, don't have authority to assist in issues or things raised by the community. A lot of the times when concerns are in fact pointed out to me, I can't do anything about it. I want to, but I just can't. I'll either moderate in game to prevent issues from occurring or report issues to staff when I can. Most of what I do is review applications and use admin commands in Starbound. When player reports are made, I'm not invited to those. When staff is contacted, lower end moderators aren't. I'm not saying that I can take this all on. I'm just saying that having more active staff is a good step. At this point, I'm just waiting for Global Mod application to go back up. But I ramble. Seeing Mod applications go back up that actually carry real weight and decision would be a good step in my opinion. To have more people that want to take an active role in helping the community's issue, it would be a good step to offer the chance to do it. I became a mod to try and help the community, but I can certainly say that I haven't been given the chance to. To actually give every bit of staff a voice and ability to help in matters no matter how high or low they are would improve response times. Mainly response times though! There's only so much each rank of staff can do. I don't know where I was going with this, but it's on the table to show my own discontent on the issue and inability to assist.
I completely agree with this topic. I.... Wreth and myself have a an issue that is as of 7/23/2015 will be going on two months. I don't know if the plan is to just let it go to the wayside and hope it is forgotten, but it is ridiculous that is it taking that long to resolve the issue. It does not give players much confident in the staff or the server when issue take so long to be answered or resolved. It creates a domino effect as well. Would you put your money into a service or product that it is less then what you expect? Many one say no. I am not saying that is the case here. However it is something to think about. Like the issues that are queued, this needs to be resolved in a very timely manner. Many have step up to the plate even in this thread and have stated that they have applied. It now reside on the staff once more.
Why fight for something then if you don't even believe it? No need to balance out an argument just for balance sake. If people want to defend, they will. Otherwise, let your true feelings be heard here. No saying you can't have an opinion, but I'd prefer it be your actual opinion then. At least you admitted it though, that's a good sign.
