My open letter on how to solve some of these issues

[Nathan]

At this point, if you move on to other pastures, pulling teeth and putting lipstick on your pigs or what is it that you do for a living, you will bring positive change. It's a win-win, bro.

Got it, bro.

[Brian]

-text-

My assumptions comes from past results and experiences. Not with Badandy specifically but by past leaderships who over promised and never delivered and then just quit when things got too mundane. My purpose with the open letter is not to find faults in every single thing but instead a plan to move forward, to setup a proper bedrock of a foundation, which everything else can rest upon. It was more of a call for a brighter future than a look back on past mistakes.

This is exactly what Badandy has been working on, and has been through review in recent days. In our recent conversations in different topics over the forums this is what we've been trying to establish with you.

This is my main issue. Why is it that I have to pull teeth and ask questions instead of being a proactive conversation led by administration? Why is the leadership afraid to have an open dialog and to work in transparency instead of covering things with curtains and revealing them only when users ask for them?

Having these "closed-door" meetings, decisions being made for us, without taking into account that perhaps we have seen a thing or two and would rather help resolve the issues ahead of time INSTEAD of being forced to accept decisions made for us which results in players not wanting to spend time in any of the servers?

At the end of the day, the focus should be on building something that people want - not building personal projects and then hoping people like them.

I don't think asking us a question if you have one is pulling teeth, we've been open with the people for years now, if people have questions they tend to get answers and you'll run in to a no sometimes and that's alright too, we should have the right to keep some things internal too, but there's not much that we do.

When have we had "closed door meetings" and when have we ignored the public and their opinion. We put forward our idea to the public, we put forward a poll, we are working on a vision to put forward to the community.
We've been sharing our stance and ideology for years, we've told you where we are, our struggles, the things that we could use. We took in player feedback and have constantly been adjusting our stance internally based on feedback we've gotten through posts.

It feels to me you are either still angry with how things were done years ago and are still complaining about that or are just refusing to see the change that has already been brought to Argonath and what we have shared with the community, because we've been to hell and back to get to the point where we are where we can actually work towards forming the communities idea for a server. Did you forget where we were just a few years ago where the owners wouldn't even allow us to try out something simple like removing blips, even though almost everyone in the community wanted it. And I do not disagree things might be slow sometimes but we are a small team, working free of charge. We all have lifes, families, we enjoy playing other games, we have other friends, other communities we are part of. But that doesn't mean we care for Argonath any less. We try to be fair to anyone, and give everyone a fair chance. But that doesn't mean we just do things willy nilly, we try to have a structure, a balance. We've shared all of this publicly several times, in the chat with the owners topics, on several topics you or others have created. Even in private messages when someone asks us we give the same response, if you want to help talk to us, but be willing to put in the work and show us you want to work with the rest of us to progress things.
This is also why its frustrating for us having to respond to the same things over and over again. Our answers are and have been publicly on these forums for some time now, we try to strive towards so many of the things you have been complaining about and when we tell you this it genuinely feels like you have been ignoring what we've been sharing with you.

I think this is part of the problem, there is information silos of these projects. Things don't get communicated efficiently.

If you enjoy these projects you would've been aware of them already, they're community ran and are well known internally. The Minecraft server is still in vanilla due to 1.19s recent release so there was just an announcement in their Discord. VC is in closed development, as their current server is still running fine. MTA:SA has been announced publicly and with people active on the server or in the discords. GTA V information is publicly available on their discord and it has been shared on these forums several times that leaks and info will be shared in their Discord.

We don't often post announcements because of the same concerns you have shared, we don't want to give people false hope. Running an unpaid community is hard, projects sometimes stagnate and people leave. There's no shame in that but we don't want to have players expecting something before we can be sure that its something we can present to the community. We also forget things sometimes, my first thought isn't always announcing something, rather than have it work properly and its easy for me to forget that others might not be aware of things. It's easy to give someone a nudge or heck even post something yourself if you want to call interest to something, that's where helping out starts.

I've always responded in a similar fashion. I never resorted to name calling, cursing others out, etc. The same cannot be said by some of the members of the leadership team (Kessu specifically). Asking tough questions is not the same as being disrespectful. I'm asking tough questions because I truly want to understand. Instead, I'm seen as being just a toxic influence of the community.

While still in a group chat with myself and Andy (and technically being a trial panel dev), and after not having messaged me for over five months you were actively shit talking leaders of the community in Discord. Kessu can be a cunt, but from personal experience he tends to only be one to people that are trying to push the limits of what is allowed or decent. He is actively aware of his own behavior and while I don't always have to agree with what or how he says something, I know I would always be able to approach him if I think he has crossed the line or just to give him my opinion, and that goes both ways.

I guess there is nothing left to say on my end then. I genuinely thought that I was helping by leading towards a better future but instead, the view point I'm hearing is that I'm just a squeaky wheel that needs to shut up. I've had multiple people tell me that I should just start my own community instead of wasting my time in these conversations. What kind of answer is that?

At this point, I'm at a crossroads. Do I simply just give up and move on to other pastures, or do I keep continuing to fight and bring positive change. At this point, I don't know.

While I am sure you genuinely believe you are helping, unfortunately to us it often feels like you think you know better than us. Just like you feel you are not being heard, we often share our experiences and opinions with you and you act like we are personally attacking you, while to us we are just having a conversation. I have a diverse opinion but a lot of experience especially with roleplay servers, I don't act like I know it all but I like sharing my own opinions and experiences and that's all they are. We don't mind you sharing your concerns or opinions but often you are sharing something we've already given the answer to. Or you share your concerns but they're just attacks on how things are, or were. And often not solutions to the issues we're experiencing or a hand we can use for help.
And then when things don't go your way you often offer up an ultimatum or just leave entirely. Last time I was not even given enough time to respond to your concerns, yet it often feels like you are blaming me for that going wrong, while I could not do anything at all about your decision to leave.

When I had my own struggles with Argonath and even during periods where I was happy with Argonath I was actively leading other communities, some SA, some other games. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, like I said in one of my above messages, I can do other things and still share my love and dedication for Argonath. I don't think there's a shame in doing other things alongside of Argo, I'd even say it is a healthy thing to do. In a free community things are expected to take longer periods of time, we share everything publicly and everyone can see the size of our staff team. I don't think it's a hard thing to do to see these things and set your own expectations accordingly.

If you feel fed up or genuinely believe that our attempts to reach out and the conversations we've had mean nothing then it might be healthy for you to step away for a bit and if its up to me I don't see Argonath going away any time soon and so long your access is not blocked you'll always be welcome here.

[Brian]

My point is that we should move in a direction with a solid foundation. A solid foundation results in a successful place being built. Doing things as they always have been done will result in the same results as before and at that point, the question to ask is why waste the time developing and launching multiple servers.

The reason Badandy is taking his time with the vision is because he wants to provide a solid foundation, so that we can have a successful place being built. It's the exact opposite of doing things as they've always been done.
And even though we've answered this over five times in recent topics so far /Developers are free to work on the servers they choose to work on, so are staff members and leaders/. We are not, and can not force people to work on servers they do not want to work on or have no interest in working on. /This is not a business/ and if we were to start forcing people to work on things they do not want to work on you will actually end up killing the community.

This is part of the reason of our annoyance, you keep saying the same thing, leaders are not doing anything, too many servers, no progress. Yet that's all I've seen so far, you don't try to explain to us on how you got to your opinion, you don't try to put forward any type of useful data to collaborate your opinions and you don't try to actually help us move forward to solve these things you see as issues. We've asked you several times to elaborate on some of the points you've been making and you act like that's too much of an expectation and yet you expect so much of us.

We really do welcome your concerns and opinions but the issue is that we are often stuck with you telling us "Hey this is the issue" but then if we'd ask you "Okay, how can we do better" you don't want to help us get to the answer and it feels like you just keep putting the blame on us even when we try to reach out and do better.

[KenAdams]

Why is it that I have to pull teeth and ask questions instead of being a proactive conversation led by administration? Why is the leadership afraid to have an open dialog and to work in transparency instead of covering things with curtains and revealing them only when users ask for them?

Having these "closed-door" meetings, decisions being made for us, without taking into account that perhaps we have seen a thing or two and would rather help resolve the issues ahead of time INSTEAD of being forced to accept decisions made for us which results in players not wanting to spend time in any of the servers?

At the end of the day, the focus should be on building something that people want - not building personal projects and then hoping people like them.

Honestly speaking, we, the players are free to ask questions whenever we want to. The administration you talk about belong to the same species, Homo sapiens . Kessu or Brian or Doyle will not get any dreams that Nathan or someone else has some questions to ask. At the end of the day, they have their own real life problems, just like we do.

About the "Closed door meetings":
The only discussions the III:MP administration have had "bEhInD cLoSeD dOoRs" were the discussions that have happened numerous times in the past in public. We (and other server HQs) are learning from the previous mistakes. We are always open to suggestions and feedbacks and believe me, I have never been banned for suggesting/questioning something in SA:MP or VC:MP. It's just that one should get off that high horse and actually start suggesting things, lol..

None of these projects are personal and none of the devs are being paid for working.. It's just for their mental satisfaction.

Also, if we lack the guts to thank a developer(or a staff member) for actually doing something good, then we loose the right to question the same developer(or staff member) for doing something wrong. I don't know why people take things for granted, not only here in this community, but in real life aswell. Hell, I've had Covid and I learned that I can't even take oxygen for granted. I'd personally advise you to stop rage-quitting and giving up on constructive things. Just because Brian didn't respond to your group chat due to his IRL issues doesn't mean that the whole world fucked you up.

[Nathan]

Requesting this topic to be closed. Thanks.

[Kessu]

Discussion will remain open.

[Nathan]

Discussion will remain open.

What the point? You proved your point and I retracted my statement.

[Kessu]

Discussion will remain open.

What the point? You proved your point and I retracted my statement.

You are not the only party in a discussion. This is a forum topic that is publically open. Anyone can give their input, even if you decide to edit out the initial post and remove all your messages from discord 

[Nathan]

Discussion will remain open.

What the point? You proved your point and I retracted my statement.

You are not the only party in a discussion. This is a forum topic that is publically open. Anyone can give their input, even if you decide to edit out the initial post and remove all your messages from discord 

Nobody else agreed with me. So clearly I'm in the wrong and there is no need for further discussion.

[Kessu]

Discussion will remain open.

What the point? You proved your point and I retracted my statement.

You are not the only party in a discussion. This is a forum topic that is publically open. Anyone can give their input, even if you decide to edit out the initial post and remove all your messages from discord 

Nobody else agreed with me. So clearly I'm in the wrong and there is no need for further discussion.

And that doesn't mean the discussion should be ended for everyone because you no longer want to participate.

The topic will remain open.

[Mario_Rinna]

Nobody else agreed with me. So clearly I'm in the wrong and there is no need for further discussion.

What's the big deal, though, a bunch of people wrote some posts and exchanged opinions. Nobody died. 

[KenAdams]

Nobody else agreed with me. So clearly I'm in the wrong and there is no need for further discussion.

What's the big deal, though, a bunch of people wrote some posts and exchanged opinions. Nobody died. 

Exactly... 

[Doggie]

You find the dude that came up with the idea to do a full reset, trade his blood for a timemachine and travel back to the days where the server was packed with 120+ players.

[KenAdams]

You find the dude that came up with the idea to do a full reset, trade his blood for a timemachine and travel back to the days where the server was packed with 120+ players.

Interesting....

[Nathan]

Restored the letter back.