Note: this is all preliminary. This suggestion will probably best be decided once we have donator perks figured out as a whole. It would be pretty counter intuitive to accept this suggestion and then make it donator exclusive once everyone and their mother have already changed their titleThe suggestion of putting it as a donator perk has been thrown out there.
Another thing we might be looking into is badges on your forum profile. One of those might be “retired [rank]”
1) So what if there is the tiniest little degree of separation? Staff keep the community running. Without them, it would crumble. So why not throw staff the tiniest little shred of thanks their way for the staffing they did? Sure, staff vs player alienation is a real issue, but this is literally the one thing that staff get to keep from their time staffing. This isn't the place to start hacking to try and solve a rift between players and staff. And yes, I did say cool kids club. Because I think being staff is pretty cool. Sorry if that bothers people.Few problems here though that are pretty glaring.
1) You’re going back to creating the exclusivisity that existed between the player base vs the staff team that alienated a lot of people at SGM. You even said it direct in your post called the staff team the “cool kids club” inferring the clique. Is that the direction that AHG is going in as well?
2) Custom titles is a pretty poor way of tracking ex-staff members. What if they don’t use the custom title at all while staff? There’s 101 better systems that could be used. Why not create a “Former Staff” cosmetic rank for instance?
3) It is a really poor staff incentive. Why not use the available development team to create actual real staff incentives? Points for staff team. Staff picnics. Custom skins for staff. Etc? I’ve heard playing cards are being developed for the staff on Minecraft so it seems like this is already happening. Why limit a feature that’s already available on almost any other gaming forum?
4) It could generate income. Heck, put it behind a paywall for ranked members only. I think most would be okay with that.
while this is true, and ofc the community is top tier, the staff puts forth specific effort (at least fifteen hours biweekly, historically) devoted to just making sure the servers stay the cleanest and best they can be. we cannot be totally blind to the work staff put in for almost no benefit whatsoever. this is the one concrete thing they get, i think it's fair for staff to keep it.And @Titan the server can’t run without staff, but it also can’t run without the community behind them. I agree with pretty much everything else you said.
I like the poll idea! This would probably work better in discord, yeah?What if we did a short little pseudo-poll about the thought of making custom titles part of donating (adding it to current perk packages)
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And @Titan the server can’t run without staff, but it also can’t run without the community behind them. Individually, staff make a greater impact. Collectively, neither can exist without the other. I agree with pretty much everything else you said, tho.
I do remember, as a new player and staff, finding it neat to be able to see that someone was former staff at one point because of their custom title. So that is a point to bring up
while this is true, and ofc the community is top tier, the staff puts forth specific effort (at least fifteen hours biweekly, historically) devoted to just making sure the servers stay the cleanest and best they can be. we cannot be totally blind to the work staff put in for almost no benefit whatsoever. this is the one concrete thing they get, i think it's fair for staff to keep it.
As for that last bit, I 1000% agree.
It isn’t about making a divide. It’s simply the only current perk for former staff. It’s the only thing you keep. When players play, they aren’t doing it simply to support the community. 99% of the time they are doing it because it’s a fun, familiar place to play. Titan is right about staff putting in work. Staff put in more work and effort, beyond just the hour requirement.I'm really concerned about this statement from an admin perspective to be honest. It totally ignores the community. I think it's important to remember that a lot of the people who populate our servers are there for way beyond 15 hours biweekly, and without them, the servers wouldn't be a thing. I'm not sure why, but you have seemed to confuse the proposal here to be to remove all staff incentives. I'm not saying that in the slightest. Staff incentives are important. However, I am saying that we shouldn't restrict a common forum function that excludes others in a public eye for the sake of forming a cliques.
It’s simply the only current perk for former staff. It’s the only thing you keep.
was going to type something out after rating it last night, but couldn't think of a good way of explaining my stance, best i can come up with is thisHey @Kythol , I saw you rated this dislike. As someone who has been around at SGM for so long I was wondering if you'd like to provide input on why this it is a bad idea to give donators more features and give staff better incentives.