Dialog with the Owners

[Sawyer]

Well.. it's very encouraging see all of you around nonetheless. I guess that's a start for people to actually start hoping again. 

[Aragorn]

I don't think people necessarily wanted to get you and Gandalf back for the leadership, but rather, to attempt to get the proper access to fix/upgrade/add things so that you guys wouldn't have to be bothered ever again. That's part of the reason the servers are empty. No one is willing to provide developer assistance if the community doesn't have the proper resources to improve its infrastructure.

Now we are coming to the real honest convo... So your own fails you put on owners... I was running server torgether with three admins 24/7 trying to set it alive from crashers, and yeah I had no possibility that time to restart server or do anything on it... But I did, and those tree guys did... While figuring out the problem of crashers we were administrating server... I also know server whos owner was never online and server was running by players aka admins kick/ban... And the atmosphere was good...

Some posts here I see the real problem now - yeah the atmosphere and not that shit about "who is absent lets blame them"

I also do not see any requests to set servers or scripts or whatever else and servers are running so that is also not the point of owners or servers being guilty for empty community...

I was a hard admin (and still is - unlike your visions and opinions about me my opinions are not changing) with the strict character and even I was succeeded to gain a hell of big community... That means the atmosphere was good and means that our vision which exactly includes atmosphere of server was correct... Right now atmosphere is totally different and this is what I see as a main reason...

If to talk honestly fully I do suppose that you rather more sit on discord then be on server and yeah that is also a problem... I know what is chatting and how much time I wasted on it doing nothing...

Now to what we did face I can repeat our suggestion - if you still think you can run Argonath better - we will give you new server - do there whatever you want I will not even appear there, all will be on a responsibility of owners... If they will face the problems and would like to shut it down - it will be their decision, if they will manage with success we all will lose nothing...

[Gird3r]

Now we are coming to the real honest convo... So your own fails you put on owners... I was running server torgether with three admins 24/7 trying to set it alive from crashers, and yeah I had no possibility that time to restart server or do anything on it... But I did, and those tree guys did... While figuring out the problem of crashers we were administrating server... I also know server whos owner was never online and server was running by players aka admins kick/ban... And the atmosphere was good...

Some posts here I see the real problem now - yeah the atmosphere and not that shit about "who is absent lets blame them"

I also do not see any requests to set servers or scripts or whatever else and servers are running so that is also not the point of owners or servers being guilty for empty community...

I was a hard admin (and still is - unlike your visions and opinions about me my opinions are not changing) with the strict character and even I was succeeded to gain a hell of big community... That means the atmosphere was good and means that our vision which exactly includes atmosphere of server was correct... Right now atmosphere is totally different and this is what I see as a main reason...

If to talk honestly fully I do suppose that you rather more sit on discord then be on server and yeah that is also a problem... I know what is chatting and how much time I wasted on it doing nothing...

Now to what we did face I can repeat our suggestion - if you still think you can run Argonath better - we will give you new server - do there whatever you want I will not even appear there, all will be on a responsibility of owners... If they will face the problems and would like to shut it down - it will be their decision, if they will manage with success we all will lose nothing...

You are being equally ridicilous and right at the same time.
I understand if you want people to see your side and get the players to understand the work that goes into building things. Or behind the scenes so to say.
But to freak out and  and say "Well you do it better" is hardly more mature. Infact it's unrealistic in itself.
Stop being a bitch. You are better than that Aragorn.
When you create a community, you take on the burden of owning it trough the good times and the bad times.
If you can't deal with that, you should not have created Argonath RPG.

[Aragorn]

And what about the SA:MP server as i'm a member of the SA:MP community altough i'll gladly play on the V:MP server once i'll be able to run GTA V, but yeah my main question is what about SA:MP

Right now it looks like SAMP itself will be stopped... They were telling everything will be shut down... So I cannot tell anything about SAMP...
If there will be some new platform and players will want to play there - we will support I think...

[Legolas]

I see that temperature is rising. Can i suggest bit of Chill? Maybe instead of blaming eachother. Please make a polite conversation with suggestions. With war we will never reach agreement where to go.  Everyone please?

[Huntsman]

Okay, now this is quite interesting.

For more than two years you people were gone. Now you come back and start pointing fingers and belittle people that did all they could to keep it alive in a desperate situation. Nice. Off to a good start I see.

The one server that did not change is the one with leaders who did not fall for shit from the community and made their own plans.

Yes, the same server who was neglected by you to the point where the server would be down for two months and there's nothing the VCMP HQ could do about it. People got sick and tired, and the server management started paying for their own host and seperated from Argo's host, becoming independent from your wallet and your decision making. And now you try to use it as some sort of an example to reinforce your point? :D:D

What the VCMP server has achieved is damn sure not because of either of you.

[Chase]

Those in charge have all access to the VM's as needed. If they would need more capacity in any way, it was never asked. If they would need upgrades they could do it themselves. Only thing kept from access is the main dedicated server, and just like any other hosting company, that is none of your business.
If developers have no idea what they are doing you need more capable ones.

And that's lovely, except certain machines, such as the SA:MP machine, has Windows Server 2008 on it, which is unsupported. You can't upgrade that without access to some sort of VM control panel to insert an ISO and get some sort of KVM (which also includes the ability to restart/stop, etc), like most VPS providers have.

Also, it is my understanding the webmasters still do not have the ability to re-enable cloudflare on the .eu domain (for ssl), something that has been asked years ago.

Now we are coming to the real honest convo... So your own fails you put on owners... I was running server torgether with three admins 24/7 trying to set it alive from crashers, and yeah I had no possibility that time to restart server or do anything on it... But I did, and those tree guys did... While figuring out the problem of crashers we were administrating server... I also know server whos owner was never online and server was running by players aka admins kick/ban... And the atmosphere was good...

What would you have done if that server completely crashed, and the restart button no longer worked? And the owner(s) did not respond? If you tell me you would put forth money to buy a new server and subject it to the inactive owners leadership, I think you would be insane.

Now to what we did face I can repeat our suggestion - if you still think you can run Argonath better - we will give you new server - do there whatever you want I will not even appear there, all will be on a responsibility of owners... If they will face the problems and would like to shut it down - it will be their decision, if they will manage with success we all will lose nothing...

The challenge is accepted, no need to give a server, myself and a few others have it covered. In fact, I bet you whatever amount of money your favorite bottle of vodka costs that it will work, at least reasonably better than the current state.
Thank you for the opportunity.

[Mark]

For the past three years SA:MP has changed HQ at least 5 times, 5 different visions and no stability at all. Someone enforced RP, others enforced freeroam in the server.
IV:MP has failed to impress once it went on T4 client, a client developed by one dev for this server only, not something you'd take for guaranteed. IV:MP main issue was that the players were more focused on events and cops vs criminals activities, those who were doing something different eventually left because they didn't like it anymore to be ignored, my guess.

Why am i saying this? Because these two divisions have focused for years on your vision, SA:MP was going well (let's say recovering from rs5 launch) until, 2016, when something between that HQ and Gandalf broke after discussions on changing the vision of the server to "listen" to the playerbase who wanted a change (the same players who supported the server by playing after rs5 launch, remember that), after that a huge downhill with multiple HQ changes happened.
IV:MP never tried to change vision, waves of new players existed until 2017, then the old client died, those guys who kept coming didn't get to know well enough the new T4 client.
Nowdays i see on the IVMP T4 Client discord waves of people joining that want a working server but the only one with decent scripts is dead, why? It hasn't adapted, nor was shaped around players imho, it took good ideas from players once in a while but did not deliver well the message of what is roleplay. The remaining free roaming people got tired or found new games, roleplayers simply left by disappointment on the lack of quality in interactions. Myself and other friends who played this server regularly got hugely disappointed when people were allowed to leave roleplay scenes and ignore them when approached even kindly, this wasn't supported by all the members of the that adminstration team, but few individuals caused this and weren't pushed out until it was too late.

Now, V:MP, i have played on the first iteration of this server which was shut down unexpectedly when it was dropping players last year, now a year later, it's back but the same issues arised.
What can you do to help as owners? Motivate the HQ and let them pursue the road they are tracing, help them get more developers to speed up the improvements for the server and of course give your vision to them.
 
These people in charge want the best for the players just like you do, as players all we can ask is that you listen to them because they know what needs to be done now. Let them demonstrate you a "tweaked" vision on roleplay interactions can exist without removing the "old" one completely, nobody here wants hardcore rp, they want more quality and more interactions with other players, they're tired of grinding all day.

[Gird3r]

I see that temperature is rising. Can i suggest bit of Chill? Maybe instead of blaming eachother. Please make a polite conversation with suggestions. With war we will never reach agreement where to go.  Everyone please?

Basically everyone except Aragorn is chilling.
He's mad he did not return to a perfect community that he left. WHat the fuck did he expect really? Things in the world will always shake around.
I stay with my point: A cult of personality formed around him, and when that rock got removed, it was a significant thing.

I know Aragorn, he is strict and to the point with no bs.
He's not anywhere close to that right now. His answer to valid criticism is to
say "do it better". Basically bitch.
Nobody is saying fuck you, nobody is saying "ill ddos you". Nobody is saying
something genunly evil like "die as a dog" or whatever. You get my point yhea?

Hardly anyone here except the very few are doing things will ill intent.
And the thread is after all called "Dialog with owners".
Not "Soviet gulag tiem".

[Aragorn]

Stop spread childish rumors about me pissed of that community is empty... I am pissed off that you all find a reason in me being inactive then in yourselves... When you arrived to me and started pointing fingers that I must do as you want otherwise I am a shitty owner selfish and blah blah blah and you are sitting and waiting from me some piece of crap in a style of "oh yeah sorry you were good running community" hoping that some due to respect words will help... Apparently I look stupid...

It is very easy to blame the owner (every shit on every server does it) and it is very difficult to face with your own problems... And yeah as I was away - I had no problems here...

Besides it I am very happy to see this conversation as it shows me the exact problem community and developers faced with - leaving one by one due to a tons of shit towards them... Well they had no support and were not sure if I would support them, now you will face with the sure in himself owner of server... Those who does not like it and do not respect it can find another server and owner who will be that weak to listen to you with opened mouth and taking every shit into his address as a normal...

If I will hear again any such rumours about me like "this prick arrived and wants to destroy what we did" or "this prick arrived and we will have no life" - you better get out from Argonath, if you do not want to be aragornized... I will not allow toxic behavior towards owners and trust me I will not accept this behavior against any developers team who want to continue the work with us...

Once again I will hear the lie about owners or their policy - you are out...

[Aragorn]

Not "Soviet gulag tiem".

If to talk about Russians - check the most crowded servers on VMP...

[Chase]

If I will hear again any such rumours about me like "this prick arrived and wants to destroy what we did" or "this prick arrived and we will have no life" - you better get out from Argonath, if you do not want to be aragornized... I will not allow toxic behavior towards owners and trust me I will not accept this behavior against any developers team who want to continue the work with us...

Once again I will hear the lie about owners or their policy - you are out...

I haven't seen anyone say that you want to destroy what was accomplished during your time away. A lot of people including myself are afraid and fearful that it might happen. I personally haven't witnessed it but I have been told by many former HQ that whenever Gandalf would return from his times away, he would revert any changes or updates he did not approve of. (haven't heard you specifically mentioned). I am not saying this is true, I don't know. But the fact it has been said gives us cause for concern, and I hope you understand that. I am not saying you will, but I among others have asked you to not do such a thing. I hope that makes sense ))))

[Gird3r]

Not "Soviet gulag tiem".

If to talk about Russians - check the most crowded servers on VMP...

You know very well what I meant.
I'll admit, I have not been around for a very long time either (in terms of consistenty). But what is "plaguing" argonath rpg right now
is the same shit that happened in the past. Except it's more noticeable now.

[Kessu]

Okay, now this is quite interesting.

For more than two years you people were gone. Now you come back and start pointing fingers and belittle people that did all they could to keep it alive in a desperate situation. Nice. Off to a good start I see.

The one server that did not change is the one with leaders who did not fall for shit from the community and made their own plans.

Yes, the same server who was neglected by you to the point where the server would be down for two months and there's nothing the VCMP HQ could do about it. People got sick and tired, and the server management started paying for their own host and seperated from Argo's host, becoming independent from your wallet and your decision making. And now you try to use it as some sort of an example to reinforce your point? :D:D

What the VCMP server has achieved is damn sure not because of either of you.

Just to correct the facts, we didn't have a official server for 8 months, but we searched far and wide for optional possibilities while I was running the server on my home PC for several weeks. Since then we've upgraded our hosting situation quite a bit, partially in thanks to Marcel who allowed us to use one of his hosts to run the server from until we got hit by a massive ddos in which the hosting company said they will not tolerate another hit of similar nature (it took out most of their services). So we got booted out 

Since then we've had our own host and we're quite happy with how it's worked out in the long term.

Now we still very likely wouldn't be here if it weren't for the owners, but the later part of the server's history we have indeed not been dependent on the owners for anything, mostly due to having all the access we could dream of and a far more powerful host than what VC:MP actually requires.


Now to the other part of the quote;

The one server that did not change is the one with leaders who did not fall for shit from the community and made their own plans.

I assume that's in relation to VC:MP, and quite honestly we work with the community a lot to try and keep the server entertaining for everyone. Do note however, that we in no way will try to please everyone, for every decision will piss someone off and we're fine with that. While we do reject ideas straight up, most of our recent-ish updates and our planned updates has been planned out by us with the community aid. The community puts up the most ridiculous ideas sometimes, but we take those ideas and see if we can make something out of anyway.

Even we, as the only real roleplay server on the client, can't survive not listening to the players in any way, but there is a limit to how much effect players will have in decision making and ultimately every single decision that is related to the VC:MP server is up to me and Klaus to figure out.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[Aragorn]

I haven't seen anyone say that you want to destroy what was accomplished during your time away. A lot of people including myself are afraid and fearful that it might happen.

Then stop being afraid and panic... This goes nowhere...