Dialog with the Owners

[Kowalski.]

You've said the community was always involved, and yet what we're all seeing (which is one of my main points of discussion) is that the community wants things such as slightly stricter roleplay rules for the sake of realism and fairness, and they're prohibited from being able to do so. That's a contradiction to what you've just told me.

Argonath V:MP was opened earlier this year, and it went decently but the community found a lack of enjoyment and the sever went to a rock bottom zero players. Within this period of time, the Argonath Staff Team, the likes of [Rstar]wdoyle2, [TCL]Mac, Darius_Johnson, Luther_Kingston and some others (I don't remember them all off the top of my head) were working on changing the rules and adapting the server to become something the community wanted, and now it seems as if you guys came and denied the community of their wishes.

I'm willing to see you guys as a solution as long as transparency, consensus and involvement of the community prevail. Without the players, there is no community.

[Surena]

Actually when I think of it... I tried to find the Argonath Vision post (took me a while, it's in News and Announcements which isn't the place I would have put it (?)) to see what is in it that is causing so much controversy between owners and the community but it seems that history is currently replaying?

I don't make it up, read for yourself:

Spoiler for Quote:

The founders were upset with the community they left because of how people treated each other, and how there was a lack of recognition from the administration for the efforts of new players and those who were not in the favour of leaders.
There for it was decided to create a new community that would be open to all people, and where new players were treated same as regulars and veterans. With a new community this was not a problem, as everyone was new and the only veterans were the main leaders.
With the growth of the community over the years, there have been a number of players who do not know about the origins of our community, and the goals that were set when creating it. As a result, there has been a clash between people who feel that they are entitled because of being regulars and the goals and ideas of the owners and developers.
To clarify this, we present our vision.

The rest you can read on your own to refresh your thought about the vision...

I suppose if there's still debate to make, then the best way would be to take the vision in regard or make arguments in line with the core values of it.

The vision looks fine, don't have any issues with it except that it's a little bit at the side and not easily found considering it is seen as the foundation of Argonath (?).

As far as I am concerned, the tool provided to the community which is the approach to make a second server on VMP should be taken and given the full confidence (according to the way the community states issues and reasons), they should really start on processing their idea into an actual project that can be seen and be experienced. With that said, I don't quite understand the reason why people still are moaning instead of working with the same time they spend on posting.
I mean HQ related issues can be resolved behind the screens, right? I thought this topic was more for the community players themselves to have a dialog with the owners but I could be mistaken.

Also the opportunity is given for expansion to new and other games, so why no action is being taken rather than talks is a good idea to let sink in.
Aimed at people that only moan, not the ones actually doing something. I think I read something about Kessu saying a project was underway or something? Not sure, the topic is so clogged I can't get my head around it.

As for the rest who are just players or old veterans, I think it is better not to clog up this topic more with past things and await a (hopefully) brighter future.

I hope this post won't cause even more controversy and discussions as it's the opposite I am trying to achieve while staying neutral...

[Aragorn]

But undermining the work of people who've kept this community on life support while you two were God knows where. Now that's another level.

Rounds and rounds the same... hahahahahaha
Relax, we will figure in out with people who ve kept this community without your moaning

[Sauron]

Read this and think about it.
A man eats his lunch at work and complains.
"every day the same old peanut butter. I hate peanut butter."
His boss tells him :
"If you hate peanut butter so much, why not ask you wife to put something else? "
The guy answers:
"What do you know, I am making my own sandwiches for lunch".

Sounds familiar?

[Kowalski.]

we will figure in out with people who ve kept this community without your moaning

Now facts are moaning. Right.

It's true, the community leadership, Brian, Kessu, and wdoyle2 have made every effort possible to continually provide damage control and keep the community going, and all of a sudden stating said facts is moaning? Come on.

[Huntsman]

Read this and think about it.
A man eats his lunch at work and complains.
"every day the same old peanut butter. I hate peanut butter."
His boss tells him :
"If you hate peanut butter so much, why not ask you wife to put something else? "
The guy answers:
"What do you know, I am making my own sandwiches for lunch".

No, this is more like:

"Honey, would you like to try some peanutbutter for your sandwich?"
"No, I'd preffer some Nutella today."
-wife comes back after three years-
"Here's your peanutbutter sandwitch"
"But I asked for Nutella"
"You don't know what you want".

Sounds familiar?

[Aragorn]

No, this is more like:

"Honey, would you like to try some peanutbutter for your sandwich?"
"No, I'd preffer some Nutella today."
-wife comes back after three years-
"Here's your peanutbutter sandwitch"
"But I asked for Nutella"
"You don't know what you want".

Sounds familiar?

Lol you even does not know what we can offer... While you are sitting and wanting Nutella for three years instead of taking it yourself from shop...

[Sauron]

Read this and think about it.
A man eats his lunch at work and complains.
"every day the same old peanut butter. I hate peanut butter."
His boss tells him :
"If you hate peanut butter so much, why not ask you wife to put something else? "
The guy answers:
"What do you know, I am making my own sandwiches for lunch".

No, this is more like:

"Honey, would you like to try some peanutbutter for your sandwich?"
"No, I'd preffer some Nutella today."
-wife comes back after three years-
"Here's your peanutbutter sandwitch"
"But I asked for Nutella"
"You don't know what you want".

Sounds familiar?

You did not get it.
But that was expected.

[Aragorn]

It's true, the community leadership, Brian, Kessu, and wdoyle2 have made every effort possible to continually provide damage control and keep the community going, and all of a sudden stating said facts is moaning? Come on.

I arrived and everyone is telling me that things are fucked up... But there was a hell of work not to fuck up things... So I am curious what is my fault with coming back and trying to settle things correct?

[Stefos]

At first it was a hype that the owners are back.
Now this ain't a 'dialog with the owners' anymore, it's an argument. Everyone was saying "It's not a community without the owners. We need the owners to revive Argonath!"
Now that the Owners are here, you guys don't give them a reason to do so lol.

Community Leader pointing fingers at an Owner?
How the fuck do you expect a good community if this is how we ended up.

Welcome to Argonath RPG everybody. A world of it's own. Literally.

The forums are being spammed with shit.

p.s i'm not siding with anyone nor hating or anyone.

[Darxez]

Oddly enough, I was expecting this to happen over time, with one person screaming the loudest but whom has had no prior experience with how Argonath used to be to be a rocket scientist andanother one, who's frowned and doubted by most contradicting himself and disliked by most.

Simplistic. Even Aragorn, an eldery man(?) was able to use things. Right now, you need to read a page of commands to go do a job. When I play a game, I want to be able to play it without much research. It's worse then putting together a dress room filled with shortened ikea wardrobes since your now ex GF picked the wrong one so you had to borrow a saw.

Hi Khm btw.

[Acika]

Hello people, i skimmed through all the posts and i didnt see anyone mention one thing, the thing that stuck with me for all those years. Maybe its time to get some truthful answers this time around.

Firstly: This is how i remember it, might not be 100% accurate, but thats what i believe people were presented at the time and my opinion on it.

Do you remember when this beloved place went down the drain? I do, RockStars 5.0 script. I, to this day, dont blame anyone else but Gandalf or Argonath Vision or whoever stands behind it.
You, yourselves destructed your own community.

Some very suspicious key things happened, it's been a while. People were presented with this:

- Server was getting DDoSed and the script was lost. Are you telling me out of like 5 devs/owners, whoever, noone has had a copy of a script?
- Little bit later it was said that Data Files are outdated and that we needed to switch to SQL database to support the new backend of RS5 script. That's the reason of the data wipe, but if you take your time to google a little you can see that conversion from Data Files to SQL database is very much possible. I mention this because i believe it also greatly contributed to people leaving.

I hope you see where this is going, i call bullshit on all that and i believe you purposely forced RS5 and your new Argonath Vision onto the community.

With all that said what boggles me is:
Why would you ever want to destroy your own community that was at all time high? You simply dont experiment in such state.
A data reset?
If its true that you had copies of a script with some data flashback, why would you present people with lies?
Why would you force 10% finished script or should i say 90% unfinished onto the people?
What was so good about your Argonath Vision that was worth killing this place?
And for the final, after seeing the inevitable fall(fuckup) you all decided its time to disappear for 7 years?

People are usually proud when they make something big and they try to keep it at all costs, but this, i dont get it, i dont get any of this. Self-Destruction.
Perhaps you had better things to attend to in the meantime.

I just wanted to remind people what happened last time you guys showed up.
Maybe its gonna workout much better this time around and you're gonna play the uno reverse card. Best of luck, i just would really want to get some answers on hopefully all of the questions, but ill take what i can get

[Aragorn]

What was so good about your Argonath Vision that was worth killing this place?

You know what, and you are right!..
We should not allow this place be ran by someone else and keep continue our Argonath Vision as its owners to hold it in a way WE did and noone else...))) Thanks for your point It is the most close to the truth I suppose...

[AK47]

The kings are back!

[Brian]

There has been quite a few posts in between when I posted and now so initially I will just respond to Gandalf and Aragorn responding to me.

Aragorn, I have no idea where in my post I seem scared of you, or scared for my position, I thought it was pretty clear in my post that I said Argonath was a part of me, a part of it is in my heart, I'll always try my best to keep things running as smoothly as I can. No matter what position I am in, when I left as SAMP DL do you think I sat on my ass and left SAMP to die, no, the next DLs needed help, so I helped, and I slowly came back.

As for us CLs doing things, we have been, and we have been trying, we've been CLs for a few months now, we worked on a Minecraft server, we discussed GTA V issues, we helped out SAMP, we tried porting the forums. It might not be all too much a but at least we were trying, at least we listened to the community, and probably most important, we involved eac hother.

If you want to know what is going on with Carbon maybe it would be good for you to message him, he's your friend, you assigned him to this community as a CL, you made sure he was our only way to contact you for us, emails were ignored, we didn't have any other way of contacting, so yes, of course you didn't hear from us much, it was close to impossible. When the community got hacked years ago, before Carbon was a CL, I had to spent hours in the middle of the night trying to find any way of contacting you Gandalf, did you hear me complain, did you hear me moan? No, cause at the end of the day we managed and worked things out.

It seems like the two, or three of you think just because some people are capable of working together as a team, not hating on eachother, not constantly throwing shade at one another cause we have different opinions something must be going wrong. Yes, the servers haven't be in the best shape, but our goal for the past few years hasn't been creating the best server on SAMP, or GTA V, Minecraft. We worked towards trying to bring the most stable platform to those that want to play we can, with the limited resources we have had.

And one last thing, in my posts where did I blame you Aragorn, or Gandalf, not once did I state this was your fault, I am not a confrontational person and I know we all make our mistakes over the years, like I said, I am sure you and I are not saints. But should that matter, should having the human decency to talk to the people that have been taking care of your project, the people that have tried to keep to your vision as close as they can without making too many changes. People that have been respectful enough to ask questions on what you would like the rare few times you were seen.

You bring up Senate and Carbon, yet ignore everything else that was brought up. I'd be more than happy to explain you what is going on with the community, where certain staff members are, how things are going, but you three are the ones that should be showing interest in learning more about the ins and outs of your community instead of, as you yourself said, blaming everyone else for the mistakes and errors they made along their way.

Once again, I do not care what position I am in, I do not care what vision you wish to pursue, nor do I care what server you want to make, or the changes you wish to make to a server, but you are not perfect, neither am I, nor is Kessu, Meeses, Acika, Greasy, Senate or Carbon, and that should not matter at all because at the end of the day its all of us together that are making this community a better place, and there have been people, not just the CLs working during the years you were away (Again, not blaming you but just stating what has happened) to ensure this places continues running.

We worked very hard to turn this place in to an inclusive community after some things happened over the past few years, with Cena causing havoc left and right, disgruntled players(which they had every right to be), the regular hackers, all we, the community leaders, the players, the staff. Are asking for is that you give us the chance to at least continue to allow us to help you get on the path you want to get on.

You are the owners, its your server, and there fore it'll be a dictatorship, we've known this for a very long time. But even you don't know everything, there's a lot of people here with years of experience, may that be as a staff member here, on different servers, hell even completely different games, as a player, as a rulebreaker, a veteran, or a brand new player. We all have our own experiences and we would like to share those experiences with you to eventually get his place back to the place that you have in mind.

But its hard, we do not know what you have in mind, and it seems that every time we share our opinion on the little things we know, we either do not trust you, we do not support the vision, or are moaning, while that aren't even the case, its just a normal opinion, grown from experience, just like yours.



This is something your community taught me, and maybe it can help someone else, but not one opinion is ever the correct one, its the collective opinions of many that eventually creates the fire.


I always tried doing everything on my own, but at one point I realized things go a lot smoother, faster, and end with better results if you take the time to listen to others, even if you disagree with their opinion, and even if it doesn't change your own opinion, because at the end of the day you will have a different point of view that could make you see things slightly differently.