A Rant Regarding The Connection Between The Ct And The Community

(DISCLAIMER: What I'm about to say is a personal opinion/observation based on what the community thinks. This is NOT a hate statement towards anyone on the CT, this is simply just a criticism that I believe might be hindering the server. Do not take this the wrong way; I do NOT hate anyone. The CT has done a good job, but I just see some flaws that I want to address.)
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(Warning: Long thread ahead. You have been warned.)
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I joined this game back in 2016. Since then, I have played through the game countless times and witnessed multiple updates that have brought change to the game. Then there is the community, which includes the most devoted members of the server. These people are the foundation of this game- from discussions to events to giveaways to suggestions.

Let's put the emphasis on suggestions. This forum has an entire section devoted to suggestions from the community. Aside from some of the lackluster ones (such as backpacks or housing), many community members have come up with good ideas. Then there is also the community's opinion on what's currently in the game, which can vary a lot, though some opinions seem to stand out more than others. Whether this is a badly designed quest or a mechanic that is flawed, the community has made it clear that they do not like these things within the game.

The main issue regarding these opinions is how they come about. This primarily started with the Gavel Update. The trailer showed a character called Bak'al interacting with the player. New, interesting bosses. Things that would have changed the game forever. But when the update released, some of these things weren't present. Several quests were somewhat lackluster in design. Quests ended in "the threat is still here" yet there was no boss to face as an epic conclusion. Over time, these issues would be addressed, but only after years of waiting. And even then, there are STILL things the community disapproves of that have not even been touched.

Some of these things include:

- Quest helmets. No one likes them, not even the staff. So why are there still so many in existence? The few updates after Gavel we saw a few of the helmets being changed to untradable, namely the breathing helmets and the creeper mask, but then it just stopped. This could easily be solved by slightly modifying the quest (or remaking it), removing the tag of "Quest item" and making it re-obtainable through purchasing or looting off a mob. Why do we need to have the climbing helmet a quest item? Can't we just purchase it from Ice Nations? This whole aspect is annoying but yet nothing is done about it.

- Unfinished quests/bosses. There are countless Gavel quests that should have ended with an epic boss fight, whether it be a huge worm, a murderous villager, or the being of all light. Except, nobody came. The quests were left with the sense that the evil you thought you defeated was actually still here, but the game gave you no way to fully finish your duty given to you in the quest. The trailer showed what looked to be a worm boss for the Worm Holes quest, yet nothing came with the actual release. And worst of all, absolutely NOTHING has been done to fix this. Time after time the community complains about the lack of completion, yet we go years without anyone even considering to add a boss to the quests. If you can make epic boss altar fights, LI, and the Garaheth fight, why can't you make a boss for these quests?

- The Realm of Freaking Light. Okay, I understand that a lot of Gavel quests weren't the best. Over time, a lot of these have been remade or reworked. The Eye of the Storm had a dialogue upgrade so it seemed more believable. Star Thief was remade from a crappy dumb quest into something more serious. Even ??? changed from a quest you could get accidentally banned for into a community-based event involving the cooperation of players. But one thing that has literally been untouched for all this time is one of everyone's least favorite quests: The Realm of Light. Taproot gets you excited, introducing the destruction of the Decay to the player. Then you do Finding the Light, which is just...kind of pointless as you just fetch items from NPCs. But the biggest letdown is the supposed finale to this whole questline, where you finally get to confront the Decay itself...oh wait, no you don't. First off, it's a huge chore of a quest. The "light" realm is filled with a TON of hostile mobs- nothing "light" about it. The quest itself is just fetching items from either mobs or mini-dungeons, they managed to add not one but TWO more quest helmets into the game, and to finish this whole disaster off you're left with the ability to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because you can't fight the final boss plagued by the Decay. You'd think that a quest like this would have been at least partially reworked after the community bashed it, but nope...nothing done to it for multiple years.

There are many other things I could touch on, but these issues that continue to persist after years of the game being open has made the community criticize and even hate on the CT. Rather than listen to the community's suggestions and criticism, they just do their own thing and ignore the players. Many people claim the CT is too disconnected from the main community, which for some cases might be true. When I was on the CT I tried as much as possible to cater to the player's opinions. The last quest helmet removed- the creeper mask- was my idea, because I saw the creeper mask as something you could just re-obtain once you reached level 68. And I'm pretty sure the community appreciated it, too.

I know that technically the individual CT members don't have much control on what they can do, especially if they're fairly new. But something I've noticed in the major update changelogs is that the meat of the content is only being done by manager-level CT members. The entirety of the MH questline, which was desired for some time, was done by only one person. What about the other quest makers? Why are they not allowed to take on quests/quest remakes that could benefit the community? Given it took over a year to release 1.18, why couldn't they remake Realm of Light? Why couldn't they remove all of the quest helmets? If you started on fixing the bad Gavel quests, why couldn't they finish the job with all of the members you have?

This is why the overall community of this game is dying. We wait year after year for the glaring issues to be fixed, yet they never are. The Soon(TM) meme exists because of the community's endless waiting. I understand that the CT are volunteers. I appreciate what they are doing, but they aren't doing enough to fully satisfy the community. They isolate themselves from the mortals who can only play the game and not change it. If I were to fully rejoin the CT I want to take on the things that the community is sick of dealing with. If I could I'd remove all of the quest helmets, add the long awaited bosses, heck, I'd even take on remaking the Realm of Light quest for the sake of the community. Like stated above, I do not hate what the CT is doing; I only wish they would listen to the community more so people don't bash them for not caring.

I only hope one day I, and hopefully others, will end this large gap between the players and the creators.

 

This is purely speculation on my part but I think the reason why many quests haven't been added and why important quests like The Realm of Light haven't been remade yet is because it's part of the main storyline. And that can't just be released in small bits. All of it needs to be finished before it gets added.
1.18 was supposed to be Road To Dern and I think to fully appreciate Dern (or the road to it) we need a main storyline. To me it just makes sense that they were working on the main storyline to build up to Dern but when focus shifted to the Economy Update the CT's time was spent more on that and the main storyline got pushed aside for a little while.
This is just what I think happened and I have no insider information or anything. I do however agree with the quest helmets although that was a bit off topic from the rest of the thread.

 

The thing about this "main storyline" is that no one knows what it is, not even most CT members. It's this anomaly that is what the high staff wants the game to become, but nothing is ever done about it. If they wanted to change the storyline though, why bother remaking all of these quests that would otherwise be changed later on? And even then, what is going to be so "different" that we can't remake the Realm of Light quest right now? Quest makers are given the lore from Grian, but yet this quest can't be remade even with the lore?

And as for the main storyline theory, hasn't the early quests been shifted heavily in the direction that we are this soldier trying to fight off the corruption? The AP (after portal) time has been established, we have multiple cutscenes and discoveries that feel like they are part of this main storyline, but yet they aren't? In that case, will the CT even have enough time to create a whole other region and the road to it as well as changing the entire game to something entirely different?

I feel like before you go and make something new, you need to fix and polish up what you already made first. Realm of Light is a huge example of this, which never gets this polishing year after year. Besides, script is at a point where it can make any quest feel brand new and unique, so why do they still refuse to improve it, even slightly such as making RoL accessible not through a quest helmet but rather using a barrier like the dungeon quests have? Why is this?

Another thing I want to say is I'm annoyed by the secrecy the CT uses to hide information from the public. If they were more open to share their progress with the community, I feel there would be far less hate towards them. Even as a CT member I felt I had to keep everything a secret because they believe secrecy is better than giving the community the awareness that we were actually getting stuff done. I don't want to see the server die, especially with the MC's community dying out into a selective audience of devoted players. If they could just do the things the community wants them to do, I think the server could revive to what it was like back in 2017.

Again, it's just my opinion. I want to change this whole "hatred towards CT" thing, but even with my knowledge and determination the only thing I can do is post things like this to get public awareness. I hope that can change sometime in the near future.

 

I get the feeling the reason a small number of GMs do most of the work is that they're among the few willing to put in so much time. I'd imagine Imaxe's work over the course of 2018 to be in the range of 10-20 hours a week, given how much he made and how he's noted for his dedication in a fairly large community. Add that the GM team is far smaller than the build team - which is about four times as large - and I can see how this situation would come about. It's pretty clear that the GM team has more on their hands than the build team relative to their sizes, seeing as the latter had the time to rework practically the entire map*. Most people just aren't willing to sink 20+ hours a week into any project (no matter how much that would have been nice while I was in high school...).

Here's a thought - how much time do builders put in, and how distributed is this time among the team?

*then again, per the update log Snerp seems to have done a solid 25-35% of the build reworks, so maybe it's the same situation


Regarding the Gavel delays, I think Salted addressed this recently, where they had hired someone who was apparently going to do a lot of stuff but just kind of bailed, hence a lot of the planned content got shunted to future updates.


That said, I'd be fine with Road to Dern delays for the next two years even, if that time got put toward improving the existing game. Another thing to think about - nearly a year of continuous work has gone toward RtD, which we don't know anything about. It's possible that e.g. GMs other than Imaxe spent most of their time working on RtD which we obviously wouldn't know about. Maybe the rest of the GM team finished a dozen RtD quests while Imaxe was doing D&D questline* and reworks.

*Can we address the fact that D&D is a really bland name? What's up with that?

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Also definitely appreciated the creeper mask no longer being a quest item, thanks for that.

Edit: a GM liked this yeet

Edit 2: hi Imaxe

 

Heres a list of backlash sparked by lack of communication

RtD isnt next update: After months in the dark, Grian makes a post that says of yeah rtd isnt next update and leaves

101 leveling thing

Shoutbox

 

yeah they should keep us more in the know cuz then we would know that they are actually making progress and stuff yeah
like ice dude he was excited for rtd but then waiting then he find out it not next so he froze my computer :(

 

To be honest I didn't realize that Gavel was released prematurely because of a developer leaving, and I apologize for making those assumptions. I still think that considering how much time has elapsed that the CT should be ready to focus on Dern/RtD/main storyline at this point, and it may be critical if they want to maintain the veteran player base. I am aware that the quest makers are far less than other positions, not to mention the strict protocol new applicants have to go through just to make it onto the team. This reason is why I don't understand why they are so reluctant to give me a second chance, because if they are going to focus on RtD next update they're going to need some help, and I have all the time in the world (as in hours upon hours thanks to online classes).

Of course the whole thing with "they may have made RtD content" goes back to the whole secrecy thing, and this is why I'd wish the CT would be a little more public with their progress. They don't have to say everything, but enough to start the "hype train" for the next major update. After Corkus this whole "hype" phenomenon kind of dissipated, possibly because the content may have not pleased the community as much as a new province does. The community is like this, and as a member of it I hope to see progress, I hope I can contribute to the progress again eventually, and I hope the server can maintain itself for years to come.

This is why I'm concerned. While your post may be a joke, some people might think this and as a result they bash the CT about it. More communication among the community would help ease this backlash, and if the CT is willing to listen to the overall opinions of the player base they could make adjustments to help improve the game, especially after a new update is released.

 

Nope not a joke, honstly think that wynncraft is lacking greatly in communication between CT and community.

 

As a former CT member I tried as much as possible to cater to the community. Of course this is kind of difficult since a lot of what the CT does is assigned to them rather than conjured by the member themselves. Only once you've gained enough trust and experience do you actually get to be more free with what you create, which can take years to achieve.

It annoys me that people have these issues regarding bugs with mobs/quests and suggestions that go unanswered and with my knowledge and experience I could possibly fix or do them, but because of the never ending complications I can't do anything to help them. I believe that all CT needs to keep in touch with the community, especially high staff. Salted does the best job with this, as he will occasionally reply on forums and make announcements about various things. But what about the others? Considering Grian is basically the vessel for all of this game's lore, I feel that it might greatly help if he interacted a bit more with the community so we don't have these "bombshell" announcements such as RtD being delayed.

It's just a realization, a thought, and it only comes down to whether the CT want to try to do this. All I can do at this point is vouch for the community. This is honestly the only server I played with a helpful community and fair gameplay and the last thing I want to see happen is the community getting angry and leaving for good.

 

I agree with you on a lot of what you're saying, something that I always find strange is that we always get updates with loads of fantastic things, even though no-one asked for them.
Corkus was fantastic, but no-one really expected or wanted it (It's great now that we have it though tbf)
Discoveries and altars were a great addition to the game, but again, no-one was asking for them.
Professions and crafting are also really amazing and give us loads to do, but still, no-one really asked for them.

We've spent years after Gavel waiting for quest lines like Realm of Light to be finished and polished, Gavel dungeons to be added, lore holes to be filled and only in 1.18 was the Molten Heights questline finally added.

I know that there's probably good reason for a lot of this and everything that we've got instead has been great, but it just emphasises the point that communication is clearly extremely poor between the community and CT.

(Shoutout to Salted for the poll on dungeons recently though, that seemed like a really positive way of communicating with the community!)

 

I think quest names should be simple. Titles are how we remember media and if the title is too long, nobody will remember it. For example, what else should it be called, The Battle of Molten Heights? That doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Dwarves and Doguns.

Actually, a title like Garaheth's Death actually sounds quite nice imo, but Garaheth isn't even mentioned until part 3, and we don't kill him until part 4


In response to the actual thread, I completely agree with just about everything said already, especially with the lack of communication part. There's something that's bothering me for some time now caused by a lack of communication, and that's how updates are hyped up. This is a problem for 2 reasons:

1. There isn't any. Absolutely nothing is done to hype up the upcoming update, other than vague teasers. While yes, I understand teasers if the update isn't coming up anytime soon, but giving vague teasers 2 months before beta release is just stupid imo. I get it, you don't want to disappoint anyone if a feature ends up getting cut out, but seriously, it's two months before beta release. You're already so far into the update, you know that you won't change anything in a timely manner, so why can't we know what the update is about before 1 month before release? Also, why is it that we always know about the update after the next update, but never the upcoming one? For example, Corkus was teased by one of Grian's threads and Tantibus' fake changelog (which actually gave us a screenshot of Relos btw) and yet, Gameplay Update wasn't talked about until the changeblogs came out. In one of Grian's threads about 1.17 after Corkus, he didn't even say what the update would be about, but said that 1.18 would be RtD (and we all know how that worked out). Why do they do this? Nobody cares about what's coming a year from now, and those that do would rather hear information in the upcoming update because it's coming sooner.

2. False hype builds up. The few things we knew about the update were what Salted and the CT said about it, which is that "This update > Gavel" and "This will be the biggest, coolest, and best update ever" which, now, isn't true at all. Don't get me wrong, crafting is cool and all, but how is it bigger than Gavel? Gavel changed the fundamentals of Wynn to make it seem like a completely new game, added the biggest landmass to this day, and added so many quests. While yes, none of that content is very good today, with the exception of some quests, but still, Gavel was so much bigger than 1.18 that idk why the CT and Salted made 1.18 seem to be better than it actually was. And yet, 1.18 is the most bashed update since Gavel. I don't agree with these people, but I see where they're coming from. They waited a whole year for an update, only for it to be an update that they don't like and were expecting RtD. Sure, the teasers made most people predict that professions would come, but nobody predicted that you had to grind for hours on end just to actually benefit from the update. If we knew sooner about what 1.18 would be about, then I don't think as many people would've been as upset.

 

On the hero beta there was a GM (I know who he is, but is it a good idea to say his name?) who put a video showing an NPC that appears when you go near the north entrance of Ragni that will say something like "Hey! Your a new adventure right? I'll give an advice, don't level up all your professions it's better to only chose two professions, because it's really hard to do all of them", it was a reply to someone who said that new players will be faced with this problem.
But sadly I think the video was deleted (not 100% sure), I tried to search for it to post a thread about it but didn't find it.

I can say with confidence that all of these were things that was really wanted to be add to the game, new content to explore (corkus), explaining lore and new mini boss (discoveries and altars), crafting and mining etc (professions) all of these we're wanted updates, but I can understand what you mean, a lot of things were left in the dark without anyone saying that they at least are working on it.

 

Everything the CT does has its purpose, though at this point the whole update dilemma is beginning to get a bit shaky. After Corkus the thread talking about RtD came out, creating hype among the primary members of the community. People thought, "Yes, we're finally going to see a bit of Dern, we're going to find out more about what this place is, and we're going to face one of our last challenges as a soldier". Except, that never happened. I left December 2017 for personal reasons but apparently what I heard happened after was the presence of silence regarding anything new, followed by the sudden "RtD is delayed" issue. Then we were instead given an update that, while was in idea form for some time, became controversial among a part of the community because it changed the game from doing quests and getting xp to somewhat of a farming simulator. The grinding issue became more extreme now that you had to bring 12 more experience bars to level 100, and this easily turned off the parts of the community that despised the grinding issues all together.

This is the phenomenon of "false hope", where we are led to believe something great will happen only to get disappointed a year later with news that this great thing isn't actually going to happen. False hope is harsh and unforgiving, especially to certain communities like this one who go nuts at any word of an update bringing tons of new content. A lot of times this can't be helped, but if the CT gave updates every month or so about the progress of the current update, it might help ease the blow of bad news like what happened with RtD.

Again it's up to them in the end to decide whether to connect more with the community. I certainly would do that as much as possible if I became CT again, because the community is the thing that holds up this server and if we lose them we lose everything.

 

Tbh I think that the new grinding update is better than RTD (even though it didn't released yet :/), I understand if you prefer RTD over the new grinding update, but I would like to point out that the new grinding update was a good addition to the game, it also fixes one of the most famous problems "The Economey" (it was one of the most complaints on Wynn history), Also it add crafting/professions which is one of the most requested features to be add since forever (it also was on the work for 4-5 years).

About the RTD delay, I would say that they just show most of their work on RTD as an apology (instead of just showing some cool builds), but I don't really think that will ever happen.

Also, I think that the update for level (from 101 max to 104) was worse than delaying the RTD update (delaying the RTD update was a disappoint too).

 

I'm pretty sure like most updates they already have a game plan for how everything is going to work. RtD was technically being built back in 2017 when I was still on CT so it definitely isn't being forgotten. The whole economy system was also mentioned a few times in the CT chat as well, which may have sparked a need to prioritize it over main storyline/RtD. However if they are going to change courses or if something hasn't been fully confirmed yet as the true "next update", it should be addressed that it might not be the update right after the pending one in development. The way they went about hyping RtD before the dungeon update even released created a sense of excitement that shouldn't have come about unless the CT was adamant that this was the next update (since new updates are determined shortly after the current major update releases).

As for increasing the max level, I honestly have no idea why they did that because I swore I heard Salted say multiple times it was unnecessary to raise it until it needed to be raised (such as with Dern if it is going to be a region post level 100). If anything it seems like a weird tactic used to get veterans with their level 101 classes to grind them up to a new max level, which may not be the best way to go about that.

But what do I know, anyways. My ideas go unanswered and my talent is useless unless I can prove otherwise. I'd help this server out, but in this crippled state I can't do anything except tell my opinions to the community as a form of discussion...

 

The level cap increase was to make the crafting code more robust. (I don't remember where this was posted, might have been the changelog)