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Dentril's New Moon October 2019

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Mistri, Oct 1, 2019.

Dentril's New Moon October 2019
  1. Mistri Network Lead

    XP:
    1,695,816xp
    [IMG]

    Boo! Happy October, Shotbow! My name is Mistri and I'm your host for this month's edition of Dentril's New Moon.

    Updates
    MineZ Updates
    This month, we released some cosmetics for MineZ: dyed armor! Premiums automatically get all dyed armors up to their rank color, and subscribers get a special rainbow armor! However, you can now buy special armor colors in the Shotbow Shop here!

    Annihilation Updates
    This month, Annihilation got an update relating to classes and game mechanics. We put a lot of consideration into making this a very balanced update, so let us know what you think on its announcement thread!

    Statistics
    SMASH Rankings
    The summer season is in session, so rack up that ELO quickly before it's over! The current standings are:
    • 1st - Cometcat13 (1201)
    • 2nd - _BrightDarkness_ (1177)
    • 3rd - Veghetto (1117)
    Mine Theft Auto
    MTA Leaderboards for September 2019
    Combat:
    • 1st - the_digital_god KDR: 16:1 (16.0)
    • 2nd - MichizaneAG KDR: 10:1 (10.0)
    • 3rd - TheLegendBand KDR: 10:1 (10.0)
    Arrests:
    • 1st - hetase Arrests: 40.0
    • 2nd - Sitnown Arrests: 13.0
    • 3rd - Foxorange Arrests: 12.0
    Experience Gained:
    • 1st - mame2928 Experience gained: 24729.0
    • 2nd - MESLEG Experience gained: 15528.0
    • 3rd - Viral333 Experience gained: 14892.0
    Minigames Won:
    • 1st - Viral333 Minigames won: 38.0
    • 2nd - Foxorange Minigames won: 31.0
    • 3rd - burakuma Minigames won: 20.0
    Network in General
    Staff updates:
    • Mosh_Von_Void joined the development team as a Jr. Developer
    • Kevin_is_Panda was promoted to Full Admin
    • Hvba joined the Mini Builder Team
    Statistics:
    • A total of 54,160,602 XP was earned by players this month
    • There were 1,168 players banned in the last month
    • This month, we reached a peak playercount of 388 on September 15
    Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this month's edition of Dentril's New Moon. Have a spooky month, and see you next time!

  2. MCDuckler Platinum

    XP:
    310,131xp
    First :D

    just kidding, happy spooktober y'all

    Gesendet von meinem ONEPLUS A5010 mit Tapatalk
    ShayminPlays likes this.
  3. Tozzu Platinum

    XP:
    46,535xp
    Good luck on the daily spookfest treat chests, oh wait
  4. Saviour Regular Member

    XP:
    12,051xp
    OH WAIT ALTS ARE TOO OP AND PAY TO WIN
  5. Tozzu Platinum

    XP:
    46,535xp
    But hey, no worries. We got dyed armour!
  6. connor564 Platinum

    XP:
    157,819xp
    woooo...
  7. genesispeaches Emerald

    XP:
    272,296xp
    brown leather armor for only $2
  8. 111kittycat111 Platinum

    XP:
    436,546xp
  9. Smartzz Emerald

    XP:
    194,786xp
    Last month was probably the worst month I think I've ever seen update wise for this server.
    1. Overpriced cosmetics that aren't well developed
    2. Speed changes
    3. Bow trails that were announced that you need to pay for
    4. Leaving once again, everyone in the dark on the future and ACTUAL changes that matter
    5. And an absolute disappointment by breaking a tradition done since 2013 of Spookfest
    For the love of god, get your community together, and get your staff team together. As of now, the cosmetics push looked like a cash grab that was pushed out and overpriced like every other purchasable item on this server. There needs to be one pack you can buy for all of them rather than each dye individually and a better interface along with commands that make it so that when you apply the armour it automatically changes to that colour you have set.

    The speed changes were horrible and this was done because of Zuckles. This was done to please the "new community" that has yet to come to fruition and has yet to have any reason why the game should be balanced around the nonexistent "them". So many solutions could have been made that would have been better than the solution that was made, because all that did was piss people off and even some staff members were trying to give ways to help fix the problem because it doesn't look like some of them were informed about these changes.

    Bow trails fall under the same category as the armour, if you have to manually set them every single time you log in, I guarantee that no one will care about these items and if new marketing strategies aren't employed then you're going to have a hard time selling these. This is a series of IFs but I highly doubt that any of this stuff will be avoided.
    You've focused on cosmetics and a box that was "done" for the last 2 months. What. The. Hell. The fact that a box took TWO MONTHS to just RECEIVE is absolutely mind boggling to me. The server sill hasn't been fixed. Staff went back in forth on the Discord day in and day out with people complaining about the lag and these poor staff had to always say, "We think it will be done soon!" or "Hopefully it will be in by the end of the month." Feel bad for them... In the meantime instead of trying to push bigger updates and fix the current ranks you already have you added more stuff to the shop that clutters it even more, yay. There have been no insights to why you tried to develop the game the way it's been done other than making it very clear that this is no longer the communities game.

    You could have put some of those resources above into Spookfest, a tradition done for many years that along with Christmas everyone looks forward to. In the dark on that, gone, no Spookfest. Cannot believe that after so many years of this happening, pure laziness and arrogance is what cause this event to not happen. If THIS happens every time an expected date is supposed to come around, imagine how much is going to get done. Because origins right now is looking a lot like Spookfest right now.

    Here's my 10 cents, because obviously my 2 cents was free. What I'd do in this situation is work your way from the inside out. Get all of your staff on the same page when you make decisions and work as a unit, not a loose cluster, well you know what word comes next. Seriously I know some of the people you have in that Slack aren't stupid in the slightest and I know for a fact can make a positive impact on the server, let them shine more. You also need to get rid of some of those staff members. I know a lot of them leave for extended periods of time, don't let that happen as frequently as you do. You need to find a way to keep a consistent staff team going and get rid of the extra you have now. If they were paid I can assure you 80% of the people that you have on file would have been cleared out by now.

    Next up, the community. People wouldn't be so angry if you guys would listen sometimes. My friend Treetop made a good analysis and said you guys have listened to the community once and held it over our heads as if you listen every time. The most successful corporations have the best marketing and have some of the best PR. Holding "We listen to our community" over our heads doesn't work and isn't effective when making changes. You need to find new ways to appeal to players. I've worked marketing with a survival server and they now have a consistent 100-200 players on over the course of a year with advertisement deals and branding, get someone smart to manage that because when the time comes that will be the make or break decision.

    Finally, get something new. Your server has had the same gamemodes for years now and the final gamemode which I think really had a shot of doing well, was put on hold. Seriously? You guys even said that people don't like long grindy games in MC anymore, then why get rid of the one fast paced one you had in development? You're aware of the change, yet you don't adapt. Servers are all competing for players and your player counts have dropped, get someone in there who can figure out some numbers and actually start trying to rebuild a reputable server. Just because you were the first network, does not mean it will make you the last.
  10. Smartzz Emerald

    XP:
    194,786xp
    Sorry for double post.

    Being PR manager I don't think calling your community out for stuff like this when it was misinterpreted entirely from both ends is a good idea, especially as the PR Manager which does his job to the bare minimum, because I see Doc handling most of the community.
  11. Mistri Network Lead

    XP:
    1,695,816xp
    Smartz_, thanks for voicing your opinion in a somewhat constructive manner. I've taken some of your points into consideration and have brought them up internally. However, I have to respond to some of the points that you made:

    And for good reason: we're moving hosts as we speak, and in doing so we're working on improving how our servers are run on the software-side, meaning we can have more robust servers with less downtime and easier-to-maintain games, meaning faster updates.

    I think you're misunderstanding what we're trying to get at by releasing standalone cosmetics. Our current monetization system works based on a one-time payment, so premiums just pay once and never have to pay again. While this is great in the short run, it's not great in the long run because they continue to enjoy the benefits without having to purchase any more.

    We're shifting towards releasing cosmetics that you have to pay for individually, as this will sustain us a lot more. This isn't to say that premiums won't get perks in the future, but we're going to work on adding cosmetics that are both applicable to premiums and standalone items. I'm not sure what's so frustrating to you here: we're adding cool new cosmetics to the game. Even if they aren't "well developed" in your opinion, they're bringing us revenue that will keep us afloat in the long run.

    Pretty much all updates that Doc & the dev team have done this month have been posted to the Discord. We've left nothing in the dark, and we've been more transparent than we've ever been before this past month. Our slow-ness in development arises from working with the new host to ensure that external attackers can't make lag Shotbow anymore.

    Now that I'm writing this, I should have probably included that in the New Moon, and perhaps that would've been a good thing for the community to hear. I'll keep in in mind for the future.

    You have literally 0 knowledge about what goes on in our staff team. We're "together", thanks for the suggestion. If staff that feel that their ideas are being repressed, we encourage them to speak up, either with a full admin or anonymously (we have a system for that), and we make it very clear to everyone that these options exist.

    Not to mention we've retired 3 inactive staff members this month. We just don't publicize it. You could probably deduce who was retired if you look at the edit history on the Shotbow Staff List.

    First off, I feel like whenever someone makes a suggestion that isn't repsonded to by the staff, they instantly say that the staff aren't "listening to the community". Most suggestions we see on the forums are added to our to-do lists, discussed in meetings, but rarely do we respond on the forums saying we'll implement it — mainly because if we fail to do so, you'll hold us accountable "you said you'd implement it but it's been weeks and you still haven't!" — sometimes, there are higher priority things that we need to take care of and we don't want to risk this.

    That said, I'm not sure what your "analysis" is, nor have I seen it. Feel free to PM me here or on the Discord and I'll take a look.

    This is actually exactly what I wanted: I worked behind-the-scenes with the team for the past few weeks to ensure that more sneak peeks are being posted by Doc and the Network Leads on the Discord. This way, the community feels closer to the leadership, and are also hyped by the coming updates.

    While I'm not trying to claim that I'm perfect at my job, you can't assume what I'm doing/not doing.
  12. 1999rocks Platinum

    XP:
    99,404xp
    this just shows that shotbow has given up, the only fun thing that the community looks forward to since there's literally nothing else, andddd they scrap it...it's been fun guys. But hey! We got dyed leather armor!

    In a year's time the people like me who have been holding out hope for years that this server could rebound or at least see anything positive will have given up and that'll be the end.
  13. _Stimpy Platinum

    XP:
    196,017xp
    first year in minez history with no spookfest...

    really shows where the server is heading...
  14. RaianPlays Platinum

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    2,267xp
    Spooky Romero?
  15. Smartzz Emerald

    XP:
    194,786xp
    But the whole process the staff members kept saying "We think it's getting closer" or "Yeah we have the box" when in all reality the Shotbow network was still waiting on a box. That was my issue with that.

    Then I think you guys need to find other creative ways to keep the server afloat. The reason those cosmetics were to poorly received was that they looked like money grabs. You guys do not have the community to do money grabs right now. You need to fix some of the current ranks and people with money will step in. Because I know a lot of people I'm close friends with that are premium would actually buy some stuff on here if they thought it was going to a good cause. (Which also has partly to do with the image of the server.)

    On regards to the current system you guys have, you need to rethink your marketing strategies. You do have to pay for your ranks that are less than 100$ more than once because they only last for 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months. They also cost 10$, 25$, and 50$ respectively. But to get access permanently you need to pay 100$? That's a huge investment. Most other networks have a rank that costs at most 60$ with constant sales for holidays, because if people see 20% off a 60$ rank, it may look like a lot but in all reality you're only losing 12$ and a lot more people will be inclined to buy ranks during that time period and your net gain will be a greater than a month with sales, rather than a month with no sales. However, ranks like Emerald and Obsidian need to be on the store. You HAVE to advertise that. There is always the chance that someone will pay 500$ for a rank but if it's not front and center on display, then they don't know it's there. This all once again comes down to marketing. I was staff on a survival server and I purely worked on transnational data and constantly reworked the ranks to meet an equilibrium. That money was enough to hire a developer and actually snowball the server into a server with 130 players on fairly consistently. Get someone with some economic experience to gut these ranks, you need to start making more money in ways that are grabs like cosmetics. (Not saying I'm against selling them, it was the time of their release is why they were received so negatively.)

    Yes, you guys have done a better job being transparent, but at the same time, some comments in regards to that transparency have come off aggressively or negatively and you need to watch out about doing this because it just absolutely kills your PR.

    And this is where I say, I do have an understanding of what goes on under the hood, I'm active in this community and not an idiot as some people would like to think. Every single staff member you had in 2016 and 2017 has spoken so negatively of their staff experience and of the server as a whole. Staff members that have been let go recently have spoken about why they left. (I'm not putting who because I respect their privacy.) I am also very close friends with two of your staff members and talk to one of them frequently. (Once again, not naming names, if you know me then you know who this is.) The point is, the community hears this stuff, just because you don't publicly announce it, it can still come off as rumours. Whether or not the rumours are correct generally depends but Fridge retiring was floating around for 3 months and guess what happened.


    Then you need to have some way of telling that staff has read this and has been taken into consideration. A lot of the time staff say, "Well post it on the forums" to hear crickets from the team and you make them feel like they wasted their time. Have some way for the staff to react other than a comment that says "Yes we have taken this into consideration" and then from there be able to show "Hey I like this idea, we're going to possibly take it to the next step." I purposely included possibly in that last statement because it takes into account for something happening and the idea being scraped or being put on hold.

    The definition of analysis is, "Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something." That is pulled straight from Webster. I was examining your structure of arguments. We get mad because you guys leave people in the dark on these ideas they bring to the table and they feel ignored. The whole community feels ignored when someone asks "Why was hasa remade is there any way it can be brought back?" and Doc responds with "Hasa will stay." That looks like the biggest middle finger to the whole pvp community. That goes right back to the aggressiveness or negativity that I mentioned earlier. We come out the gate swinging because we feel ignored as community and we feel like we have to threaten someone to get our point across. We may not be ignored on all things but when it's looked like that for years now, what other option do we have to believe?! The crux of your arguement is that just because you don't listen once means that you guys don't listen as a staff team when in all reality we only see you listen once! You make these changes that everyone is scratching their head on like "What the absolute hell were they thinking?" and it just widens the gap between players and staff. We are inclined to believe that you don't listen because we seldom see our ideas come into fruition. With the system mentioned prior you could exclude some of that and clean up that mess A LOT.

    Alright look, I'm not attacking you personally here. For all I know you could be a great guy and if any of this seems rude, take it with a grain of salt but... I'm not telling you how to do your job, I'm just telling you how everyone else in the business world does your job man. A PR job description can be generalized by this paragraph, "Public relations is the practice of deliberately managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment." This is marketing. You need to gain exposure through topics of public interest. You are the dude who is supposed to be able to relate to us and market to us. No offense, I don't see you on at all in Minez, I don't see you post on the forums besides the monthly newsletter, and I have no clue (once again this is meant in the nicest way possible) what your history is on this server. You're the community manager and when I was in the Shotbow discord for a whole summer I seldom saw you say anything in this MineZ or Annihilation channels which I both checked frequently. Got to get in touch with the community and that doesn't apply to just you so don't think I'm calling out just you, I'm saying the whole marketing department could do a better job advertising and managing this community because I know at least the MineZ pvp community and from what I've heard the dungeon community is just upset with the way this server is being handled right now.
    1999rocks likes this.
  16. poggers232 Platinum

    XP:
    107,796xp
    ResidentSleeper
    RoryIsAThing and Tannatron like this.
  17. 1999rocks Platinum

    XP:
    99,404xp
    This comment embodies the way we feel about the staff, the game, and shotbow. No offense to Smartz_, but these are not original ideas, these are the ideas that we have all wanted all of the staff to hear and really listen to. We've been trying to get this across to staff for years with seemingly no success. These things are not just agreed upon my me and Smartz_ to make the experience and the game objectively better, these things I've been thinking and hearing from players for such a long time.

    Also, Doc is often very short with people and often exceptionally rude, this is not exclusively him, and also unacceptable -- it would be incredibly helpful to everyone involved if that were to change. This is not an attack against Doc, but instead and observation and hopefully helpful to bring up.
    Tannatron and Smartz_ like this.
  18. Smartzz Emerald

    XP:
    194,786xp
    I'm well aware of this. I just wrote it all into a forum post. I just get frustrated and I know everyone else does.
    1999rocks likes this.
  19. connor564 Platinum

    XP:
    157,819xp
    Is, uh, nobody gonna talk about this? This was the EA approach. What. The. Fuck?

    Premiums who spend +100 friccen dollars SHOULDN'T have to pay again. To put this in perspective, though, 100 dollars is only about 4 "Quality" cosmetics on Shotbow's buycraft. Perhaps if the network shifted away from this awful mindset of "Bad sales because premiums" and start blaming the actual problem- the terrible prices. I guarantee you- by shifting to this standard, you'll just alienate your player base further.
    RoryIsAThing and Smartz_ like this.

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