The Problem With The Community/staff Dynamic On Wynncraft

Alright, gamers I’m back from the dead to post another long rant thread on a topic already beaten into the ground.


I’m pretty sure we can all agree that the primary issue plaguing Wynncraft is the community relations. Community goes after mods, mods go after community, tensions rise, rinse and repeat. To be completely honest, this is not a sustainable model to have. I'm of the opinion that the primary way Wynncraft retains its player base is the active community, and with the noticeable drifting away of those players, many of which were due to one of these issues, Wynncraft lacks this player net, and without that you not only lose active users but potential new ones invited by higher leveled friends, which is how I and many of my old friends on the server got into it in the first place.


Now I'm going to go off on multiple tangents criticizing both the staff and the community s̶o̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶g̶r̶y̶ ̶m̶o̶b̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶k ̶. Feel free to skip parts.


Part 1 (Staff): Radio silence

Examples of this in action: the whole dern fiasco, current war/marketplace situation, shoutbox thread.


The primary way I notice the staff handling situations with a disgruntled community / potential new additions is long stretches of nothing. This, in my opinion, is a poor cop-out to build hype for an update, or especially a way to handle communities relations. Firstly, update news. Most of the updates we've been through, we've had nothing on the update except for a few cryptic teasers. Due to this, almost nobody knows what to expect from the update. This dynamic inevitably creates astronomical hype for an update, especially when combined with expectations of what the update would be from previous statements. (looking at you, Dern). This nearly always ends in disappointment, not because of the content teams effort, but due to the hype level just being too high for a team of volunteers to realistically attain.


Of course, this isn't applied to just updates as well. I've noticed that this has been applied to many situations of community anger, such as the shoutbox thread. This is a PR solution which doesn't actually solve anything. 2 results can happen from implementing this strategy:

A. The community anger grows to the point in which the staff has no choice to either respond and/or lock the thread. (XP reset debacle)

B. Or it will inevitably fizzle out, but people will still be harboring the grudge against the staff.

Neither of these is desirable situations. Option A is often viewed as damage control in the best case or provocation when factoring in the staff's second issue, which I will get to shortly. Option B builds up over time, but the resentment in inevitably creates leads to burnout of top players, which means an inevitable loss of players/future players, and a money drain due to these players being the most likely to purchase bombs. Nobody wins in that situation.

How Would I solve this issue? Easy. Engage with the community more. The core community of the game is both it's primary advertising base along with its primary income method. Even throwing moral reasons out the window like the libertarian I am, from a pure business standpoint keeping this player base happy is essential. Instead of radio silence on an update, maybe post a screenshot or two that shows a portion of a build or feature. You don't even need to give context. But this accomplishes two things.

1. It shows that the update is, in fact, being worked on hard and that it will come. (which seems obvious but I have met players who never thought the economy update would come.)

2. It builds hype without allowing expectations to go through the roof. People would be focused on what the build is for, possible Easter eggs, etc, that it allows the devs both more time without the feeling of gaining nothing, and sets a basis for expectations.

This is just an example. you can do a lot more to keep both the community occupied and to build hype without the community getting impatient along with the lack of building astronomical expectations. But radio silence does no one any favors.

TLDR: Radio silence both on updates and feedback is bad don't do it.


Part 2 (Staff): The Community is always right.


Another thing I've noticed is when the staff does respond, it's not exactly in the most respectful manner. They typically tend to be stubborn, disrespectful, and even resorting to insults. Anyone with any experience in or can tell you: DO NOT DO THIS. Now I know that staff does not always want to take a community suggestion/feedback. And that's fine. But when faced with a suggestion/feedback, I believe that one of two routes should be taken,

A. If it's just a flat out bad suggestion/feedback, leave it alone and don't say anything. The community will inevitably tear it apart for you.

B. If its receive large amounts of support, explain why it cannot be implemented/wouldn't fit with the game, but that you understand their point. Do not get defensive. Do not get accusatory (both A-La hero beta feedback section). Being respectful to the community is the best action any PR team could take.

Also, this may be a bit off topic, but if a suggestion is getting a ton of support to fix a problem, do not pretend the problem does not exist (looking at you, https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/the-biggest-scam.242076/). Show that you understand the problem they are getting at, but explain why you cannot fix it/why you cannot take that suggestion (In the case that the suggestion is gaining a large amount of support).

TLDR Don't be rude in your response and show that you understand their point



Now its the community turn: Be nice to the content team

I am fully aware that this paragraph is the least likely to have an impact, but I'm going to say it anyway. Many times I've seen people blame the content team as a whole for wynncrafts current issues. DON'T DO THAT. Most content team members are not only volunteers, which should be enough to not attack them in the first place, but from what I understand they have little say on what happens in general in the first place. Attacking them does nothing but deepen the divide between the two factions. It is the higher up's decision, and if you need to be made at someone, don't be made at the content team, because odds are their innocent, for a lack of a better term. (also just be nice in general I shouldn't even have to say this but alas).

TLDR: Title.

And now I've written a nearly 1200 word essay on wynncraft community relations. Hopefully, this does some good and not make things worse as I fear. Disagree? Feel free to debate in the comments. Have a nice day and remember to be nice and that overgrown is one the best wands.

 

Hmm I haven't read the whole thread yet, I immediatly jumped into this part, but if you have any proof/pictures of this please send them to me in a private message on the forums or discord ^^

 

something something deontological something something no true libertarian something something

Nice post though.

 

This. A lot of people need to read this, community and content team alike. I've seen too many arguments devolving into 'why aren't wars back you stupid (insert person on ct who can't do anything about it)' and 'they're just volunteers buh buh buh'.

If I were to add anything to it, I'd say that mods being restricted from talking about certain things led to bad things, the shoutbox thread and whole war/market situation being a great example. They were just being bothered about stuff they couldn't or weren't allowed to answer, and it feels like both sides let eachother down. Maybe something to think about.

 

Are we certain that the mods were prohibited from talking about those? It's entirely possible that they just came to an unspoken consensus that there was nothing they could contribute.

 

I agree with the first bit of the staff being radio silent. Usually they are quite for to long and when they speak up its when we are angry and then they (naturally) are annoyed. I can hardly blame staff for acting rudely towards us as very often we act far worse towards them. Regardless all of this could easily be diffused if we got updates on what was going on. For example if each week we heard "market is getting a revamp in X and Y and wars are still unstable on server loads blah blah blah" we all would feel much better knowing that they are doing something.

It would be nice if we got updates on game play features to the same extent we got item update information.

As for the community always being right this is true, LISTEN TO OUR FEEDBACK! Another thing is if you have a vision for something tell us what it is and then get our feedback. Things like this truly go a long way in a community like ours. In reality we all...I hope...want to see Wynncraft grow and become a better game so realistically more transparency and communication between staff would be more than ideal for this long term goal.

 

Well, I think I've seen a mod on Discord who said they didn't know anything about wars or trade market, and even if they did, they wouldn't be allowed to say it. Might've misunderstood that though.
And I think it's pretty obvious mods weren't allowed to say anything on shoutbox (thread), with changes to some posts and poll and a few likes on posts? They were fully aware of it existing, but I really doubt with it being so controversial, there would be no moderator posts at all.

Then again, they could both just be general consensus between mods- I wouldn't know for sure, but my best guess is that mods weren't allowed to say anything about the shoutbox and they didn't know anything about wars/trade market. Still, if it feels like mods aren't allowed to state anything about the subject, something went wrong somewhere, I feel.

 

I think it's likely the mod team wasn't aware of whatever is going on with market/wars for the most part, since the team is pretty big. I don't remember the post changes, what was going on there?

 

If your referring to the main post it was just Grammer.

 

No, it's on the edge of my mind. I remember some scandal about changes to a poll but I don't remember the details.

 

On a previous shoutbox revival suggestion, a moderator changed all of the poll answers to "no".

 

Mod insults the entire Wynn community's sense of humor >:(

 

toy is gone

 

I hope so

 

why do i have a feeling people do this for likes?

 

they sort of don’t.

 

eh

 

nah dude if you want like just say wynn is grindy lmao like what a surprise an mmo takes time whoa there

 

While I agree that the timers would be nice I don't think they're realistically achievable. Guessing how long it will take to code something is a tricky process as you often run into unexpected hurdles and/or tricky bugs. Also there's the matter that the mods don't really know anything about what the ct/builders/command blockers etc. are doing.