Argonath is dead

[Nathan]

Argonath is dead. There will not be a new era of growth and success. It is finished.

Allow me to explain: all empires typically go through a similar lifecycle:

1. The age of pioneers.
2. The age of conquests.
3. The age of commerce.
4. The age of affluence.
5. The age of intellect.
6. The age of decadence.
7. The age of decline and collapse.

At each of the stages, people and values change. What was important during one stage isn't as crucial during another. Thinking of Argonath's community as an empire gives us a perfect illustration of understanding how and why we are where we are today.

The rise of Argonath (age of pioneers and conquests)

It's no secret that Argonath's roots started through a tremulous split between Ank*b*rg leadership and some of the members. Out of it was a new clan that ended up creating a new community. Going through some of the histories, it was clear that pent-up frustration with leadership, a series of community banning, and eventually the creation of a new server and new community was the result. Ironically, this model would repeat itself, and the exact reason Argonath was created (frustration with founders/leadership vs. players) is the same reason why people left in droves.

The new community saw incredible growth. The growth also resulted in attacks from other communities. Long story short, Argonath as a community ended up succeeding and eventually the downfall of the other community.

As the community started to grow, the owners had a pulse on the community and had a direction and vision of what they wanted to see. They created the servers at the right time when more and more people were starting to get computers (early 2006 to 2008), and there was a general rise in multiplayer gaming.

The golden age of Argonath (age of commerce, affluence, and intellect)

As more players joined, more volunteered to do development. This resulted in a self-sustaining loop of consistent updates which resulted in new players, which resulted in more and more developers and staff members.

From here, we see the opening up of more servers, new scripts, and features being launched. We see Paruni being opened for DM-specific servers being available. More and more players are joining, and Argonath has started to build its name as one of the most exciting game communities. People from around the world start joining, and because the server is English-first, this allows anyone in the world to join and have fun. It truly ends up being a world of its own.

This is the golden age of Argonath. The servers weren't perfect, and the scripts were limited, but we had a consistent 200+ players on SA:MP, as an example, and that resulted in us being on top of the server lists, which resulted in more and more players joining.

As more and more players join, eventually, the player quality starts to suffer. Around late 2008 and early 2009, we started to see cracks being formed. The owners start negatively reacting to player suggestions. Players start to express their frustrations and eventually get banned. A domino after domino starts to fall.

The collapse of Argonath (age of decadence, decline, and collapse)

For some reason, the owners simply start disappearing for months, and the existing staff of community leaders start taking over and forming the community in their own image. When the owners visit to check up, they notice that the community isn't doing what they initially want; they start enforcing actions that result in frustration between the community founders and the community leaders. Then the owners would disappear again, and the community leaders would start reverting the changes.

Then, the owners started to become completely inactive. With no captain operating the ship, the lower-ranked community leaders started to take action. First, a number of reforms started to take place. Ineffective and poorly fitting people would get promoted based on past friendships. When these people start driving changes, this results in more and more cracks between the community and leadership.

We start to see a mirror image being formed that's similar to how Argonath got started. Frustrated people express frustrations, which results in them getting banned. From being banned, it's easy to understand why new communities would start to get built.

Later on, a particular community ends up being formed out of frustration. This community ended up essentially taking over the player numbers from Argonath, and a good number of Argonath players moved over. More interestingly, new players (who I would not consider top quality) started joining this new community. Instead of just shitting on this community, I researched what they did right. One of the most significant benefits of this new community was that active leaders and consistent script updates were being released, which meant more exciting things to do. Though the players were not top tier, they made up for having a lot of players, which resulted in more and more people joining. Argonath lost momentum, and we slowly started seeing player numbers drop as people made a different choices.

Back to Argonath, since we had this split, new leadership started to get appointed, and more and more bad calls were made on who should get promoted. Eventually, it resulted in a pay-to-win system. Then, those leaders end up burning out and leaving, so more unfit people come into their place to lead, resulting in more and more bad decisions.

Focusing on SA:MP, the worst decision was the reset from RS4 to RS5, and then the subsequent recent when Teddy left. These were the final nails in the coffin for the SA:MP community.

There was a temporary activity spike for other game servers, but since we weren't expanding to other games, the community growth stopped entirely, and we were left with just the same five old games we've been playing for the last couple of years.

If I had to pinpoint when the collapse of the community happened, it would be in 2016, precisely ten years after the community launched. Since then, it's been desolate, and the community has died.

So what's your point with all this?

Argonath is an excellent case study on what to do and not to do when building any community. Analyzing what went wrong and having a complete picture of the history and how we got here is essential in making decisions for the future. I spent a reasonable amount of time thinking through this and visiting old forum posts, and it's funny to see that the exact reason why Argonath got started, succeeded, and then failed has been written out in the forums.

Nothing will change if nothing changes. Specifically, if we keep rowing in the same direction, using the same pace, with the same five people, we cannot expect different results. We cannot expect to succeed by simply launching MTA:SA (again) or launching another V:MP server. Launching a new game server in a new game (III:MP) will not result in this community's revival.

I hope that it'll be clear to the current leadership that something has to give and something has to change if they want to revive the community. I hope someone comes in and tries to revive the community instead of being a benchwarmer who denies ban requests and does not contribute positively to the community. I hope that a phrase out of my post here will not be taken out of context and blow up out of proportion. Please focus on the overall picture.

Argonath is dead. But it's only dead if we let it be dead.

[Sawyer]

[Nathan]

It’s my quarterly long text post that drives further traffic to the site and lines the owners pockets with ad revenue.

[Kessu]

Thank you for stating the obvious. We knew all that before.

I honestly don't know what you expect out of us. You want us to do something, we do something you say it's not something you want done, when it's the very thing you asked for.

Then you claim we're not transparent in our discussions and decisions, when in fact the discussions we have had have been in public and you know as much as we do.

Next step for you is to again "remind" everyone how the leaders aren't doing anything but I already see you did that as well at the tail end of your post.


Fact of the matter is we're focusing on tasks we know we're capable of delivering with realistic goals in mind and not utopistic scenario where suddenly we'll get +500 users on the daily again. It's not going to happen overnight and it may take quite a long while. We've analyzed the situation more than you ever will and we've done it from a position with direct knowledge of what happened in the community over the years instead of just the things that were made public and hearsay that you've got. We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

You may call us incompetent, benchwarmers, whatever. Fact of the matter is you're just trying to seek attention every couple of weeks with these posts of yours and rants in discord while continuously blaming everyone but yourself for the position you're in in the community. We'll let you continue create these topics because it does bring in good discussion, but that seems to happen after everyone tells you how fucked up your current point of view is and how it's based on the past that does not apply to the present.

We have faith that new gamemodes/scripts for the games people have actually requested to have and are playing is the proper approach to the current situation.

You don't build a house of glass if you intend it to last. We saw that with the previous leaders.

[Nathan]

We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

Tell us specifically why the community died and what you personally and you as the collective whole leadership team have done.

[Kessu]

We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

Tell us specifically why the community died and what you personally and you as the collective whole leadership team have done.

I have. You didn't read the replies of your own topics and I won't repeat myself in your 33rd topic of the year or whatever.

[Lonewolf]

new month, new WHY ARGONATH DEAD?><?>?>!?>!

[danigold1]

~Long and convoluted self-jerk delusional text that gets reworked and reposted every couple months~

[danigold1]

So what's your point with all this?
IDK I just thought some more attention seeking is due again

Fixed it for you, Nathan.

[Nathan]

We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

Tell us specifically why the community died and what you personally and you as the collective whole leadership team have done.

I have. You didn't read the replies of your own topics and I won't repeat myself in your 33rd topic of the year or whatever.

You didn't answer these specific questions:

1. Why did the community die? Who is at fault? I would love to hear your point of view on this.

2. What have YOU done specifically to drive the community forward?

3. What has the leadership team done specifically to grow the community?

[Kowalski.]

Nothing will change if nothing changes. Specifically, if we keep rowing in the same direction, using the same pace, with the same five people, we cannot expect different results. We cannot expect to succeed by simply launching MTA:SA (again) or launching another V:MP server. Launching a new game server in a new game (III:MP) will not result in this community's revival.

I'll comment on this part alone because the rest is rather obvious by now. Common sense should prevail, really.

We're not trying to revive Argonath with III:MP. What you said about it being a world of its own - well, we're just adding to it by providing one more experience for people to enjoy. If people play it, awesome. If not, well, there's nothing lost. The server's not meant to "revive" the community, just spark a bit of interest in players and create a new experience for the broader Argonath community to enjoy.

[Kessu]

We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

Tell us specifically why the community died and what you personally and you as the collective whole leadership team have done.

I have. You didn't read the replies of your own topics and I won't repeat myself in your 33rd topic of the year or whatever.

You didn't answer these specific questions:

1. Why did the community die? Who is at fault? I would love to hear your point of view on this.

2. What have YOU done specifically to drive the community forward?

3. What has the leadership team done specifically to grow the community?

Yes, I have answered all three questions. You just don't read any of the replies given. Go read my replies to you in previous topics, I will not repeat myself here again.

[Nylez]

VC:MP is alive and well, make sure to stop by 

[Nathan]

We know why this community "died" and we know we did everything we could to try and steer it off that path. You don't see those leaders around who drove the community to the ground, you see the ones who are trying to pick up the pieces and make the puzzle whole again.

Tell us specifically why the community died and what you personally and you as the collective whole leadership team have done.

I have. You didn't read the replies of your own topics and I won't repeat myself in your 33rd topic of the year or whatever.

You didn't answer these specific questions:

1. Why did the community die? Who is at fault? I would love to hear your point of view on this.

2. What have YOU done specifically to drive the community forward?

3. What has the leadership team done specifically to grow the community?

Yes, I have answered all three questions. You just don't read any of the replies given. Go read my replies to you in previous topics, I will not repeat myself here again.

If you can't be bother to answer three simple questions from the remaining player base, then you are not fit to lead.

[Kessu]

One last time; I have answered those questions before in your own topics. I will not be repeating myself to you just because you refuse to read replies to you.

I will not reply again to the same bullshit you're spewing out.