I wanted to think about this question for several days before emotionally responding. I didn't want a long answer, but here we are. I honestly believe long threads don't amount to any results, being the person who used to put up ultra-long threads of manifestos and ideas that I had. That being said...
I think you can try actual break up the question into two parts:
- - What killed Argonath RPG SA:MP?
- - What is the existential threat that we face as a community now?
First, what killed Argonath RPG SA:MP? Well, let me break it down on the top three reasons I believe that caused the death of SA:MP.
- The terrible method of handling user data (or lack of) during the migration to RS5
- The lack of adequate staff, leadership, and guidance
- Age of the players, age of the game, age of the SA:MP community, the developer support of SA:MP client
Horrible handling of user data during RS5 migrationTo give some context here, I believe we should be aware of why the start of RS5 ended up being a shit show. In the "old world" of RS4 and below, user credentials and information were stored in flat files. For those who aren't CS majors, this is very bad. Think of a flat-file, mostly being a large text file. For login, the server would need to process the entire file every single time to get anything done. This would mean as the server would grow, login times, and other things that required interaction with these files would take slower and slower and slower. Eventually, and especially at the scale of Argonath, this would become completely unacceptable. This would mean you would need to wait for 5 to 30 seconds to log in. 5 to 30 seconds to do a transaction. 5 to 30 seconds to enter a property. You get the idea.
The solution to this is to use databases. Databases are great because they have an index, and you can easily query tasks without needing to go through the file every single time. In layman terms, this results in faster login times, faster ways to handle transactions, and, most importantly, easier to manage than a single file.
So great, you're thinking, this should have made RS5 remarkable. Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, due to the way the flat files were set up, there was no easy way to migrate the existing user data from a flat file to a database. Database Administrations get paid six-figure salaries to solve these issues, and this would mean someone would need to figure out a way to do this. Someone would need to spend full-time jobs' worth of work to try to figure out a way to migrate data from a flat file to a database.
And because of this challenge, the decision was made to start fresh. It would only be more straightforward and granted most people were slowly getting tired of the server dynamics, and some wanted to push for a change to give everyone a new fair chance to start fresh.
This decision, though hard, was made without any input from players.
Now imagine from a user's point of view. Facebook decides that they no longer want to use their databases and want to move on to something else. They tell everyone to start over and create a new account. What would the reaction be? Well, probably the same as it was with RS5. Exactly half of the player base left, and the ones who stayed became bitter to having to grind all over again. So in Facebook's case, to not lose users, they would work out the hard problem and make sure that no user gets left behind.
Argonath didn't (and I'd argue still doesn't) have the same technical and financial support like Facebook or any company. So you can tell the decision to have people start fresh was not made because devs were lazy, but because it's a severe problem to solve and Argonath didn't have the resources to handle it.
What went wrong, I feel, was that the decision came last minute, without any proper explanation, and without letting people somehow migrate their data over to the new database/modular world. I feel what would have made sense was to give the player base know on what's happening, and what actions they have available to them. The leadership didn't do that.
As a result, players felt left out and fucked over on their years of work without a proper explanation. Therefore, half left.
Solution: There should have been better communication and community involvement to tackle the database migration issue.
Lack of adequate staff, leadership, and guidanceArgonath went through several eras of staff and leadership. Some staff members were great, hard-working, and showed a great attitude. Other staff members abused their power, weren't helpful, and brought in more damage to the community. If I can summarize, people are people, and people suck in general.
I feel this problem stems from top to bottom. At the top, we have a server owner who we haven't heard from in several years. Below him, we have a community leader for SA:MP who doesn't have time for the community anymore. There have been many documented cases of abuse from his end and him only just steering the ship in any way he likes without the input of others. And then, after doing that, he decides to delegate the rest of the work to the division leaders and remain silent. This isn't an emotional response but just an observation of working closely with him.
That being said, being a division leader is literally the worst job you can have. Imagine being a manager at a national chain restaurant. Yeah, you have staff under you, and you are responsible for them. You are capable of making sure your restaurant is still profitable and that the place looks clean. But at the end of the day, you never truly make decisions. They come down from the top. From the VPs above you. You'll never have the ability to make any meaningful change, and in reality, your job is to make sure business runs as usual. Now imagine having VPs and CEOs who are not there anymore. They're just absent. So you think to yourself, "well, maybe this would be a good time to make some change." So you start adding your flavor to things, start adding new menu items, etc. And the VPs all of sudden call you and tell you to stop changing things, that you need permission to get any changes done, and to stay in your lane. So you decide that you'll be a good boy and return things to usual. But then you notice that your customers aren't happy with the "usual," so you start doing some minor changes. This pisses the VPs off even more, and they tell you that you're fire. So last 10+ years you spent working at a restaurant come to an end just because you decided to try something new.
The same can be said about division leaders. They're glorified restaurant managers. The moment you step on the toes of the community leader, you will be turning in your resignation.
Well then, you think, why not just have a different community leader? Well, good luck. The current person in charge will never resign from his position because he feels he's been doing an impressive job, and if you're trying to aim that way, you will be kicked out of the server, accused of being a crazy person, and that you keep shaking the boat.
But if I'm honest, I honestly think the current division leaders and webmasters are doing an excellent job at trying again. But I feel their pain when it comes to making any groundbreaking changes. They'll never have the ability to do it as long as the current community leader is in charge.
Then, there is also the problem of staff inadequacy. Each staff member interprets rules differently. This results in unfair and biased punishments (or lack of) being thrown down on the players. Staff members don't have the proper support and training needed to get promoted and to become better at their job. You get promoted purely on how active you are within the community, how much punishments you throw, and how active you respond to reports. That's about it. I've seen good people get passed over promotion simply because they didn't respond to reports fast enough. I've also seen folks getting promoted solely because they have a good relationship with the staff above them.
Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.
As a result, players were punished unfairly, and without proper reason, division leaders were limited to their power to make sure they don't rock the boat too hard, and players left because they saw the full-on corruption and absence from the staff team.
Solution: Bring in an active owner and community leader to lead the community forward. Someone who goes out of their way to keep the line of communication open with the players. Someone who understands players. Someone who will be dedicated to the community and will do everything in their power to grow and protect it.
Age of the players, age of the game, age of the SA:MP community, the developer support of SA:MP clientThis is the last one and hopefully the shortest one.
First, when I started playing on Argonath in May 2009, I was 15 years old, was in high school, had plenty of free time. Now, at 25, I'm working full time, married, and have a kid on the way. I don't have as much free time as I used to. Time is crucial to me, and I will cut out anything that doesn't matter to me anymore.
I feel this story applies to most of the veterans here. We're old. We have lives. Our priorities changed.
On top of this, GTA:SA is old. Yes, there are communities where old games thrive (take a look at OSRS), but they usually don't bring in as much, if any, newer players. On top of this, the SA:MP community by itself is pretty old, too, and because of this, the developer recently said that he considers the project dead too.
It's a sad reality, but it's the truth. We need to embrace the fact that we can't just pull strings of nostalgia to get people to come. I feel our only solution is to attract existing players to come here to remain here as we approach our imminent death.
Solution: We try to bring in existing SA:MP players to our community but also be aware that at some time, we need to move on to other newer games.
So, in short (or tl;dr), communication should have been more stressed during significant changes by the leadership. The community leader needs to be replaced with someone who is active and can adequately guide the staff team to be better versions of themselves. We need to figure out our exit plan on how we grow the Argonath community in general instead of pulling strings on trying to get people to come back to try SA:MP again.
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