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Topics - kill343gs

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Site News and Feedback / Please read: We're willing to talk
« on: June 09, 2018, 07:16:36 PM »
I'm a bit late posting this, as life continues to get in the way at times, but I thought it important to share this in a place where everyone can see it.

Recently, a handful of comments made by some people lit a bit of a fire under me. Something along the lines of making empty demands with no real good intentions. And I'm not out of touch here, guys. I do actually listen to what you all have to say. I just want the things you say to actually mean something. Anyways, I'm rambling. To make a long story short, i ended up dropping the following statement in discord:

 
playground.png


And I do sort of stand by that statement, maybe with a bit less emotion. But that's not really what's important here. What followed matters more.

Rightfully so, Bajur was pretty fired up after being basically called out en mas in such a childish nature. Warning, long read follows:


I hope this gives you all a better idea of what it is we're doing here, and why we're doing it. And know that we, or I at the very least, am available if you have questions, concerns, opinions, etc about us.

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New thread so my reply doesn't get buried and people end up thinking I was (once again) one and done with actually making moves.

A lot of really good feedback. Some stuff I was thinking about, some totally new ideas. I appreciate all of it much more than you know.

My first priority, because everything else I want to accomplish relies on it, is revamping our staff format. I've had a lot of good ideas given to me both in my previous thread and behind closed doors. Look for a larger, more focused staff team with increased accountability. (And with that, we will be needing more staff. If anybody has nominations, I'm listening.)

I will be looking into ways to integrate discord into the forum and vice versa. Discord and forums both have unique things to offer, and I think achieving a balance between the two is our best bet going forward for finding and keeping new members, and maintaining all the good things GTM has had to offer since 2008.

The tournament board will be next on the agenda. This was never a question and will be getting addressed early on, along with challenges and BOTM.

Incentives are a topic we've been tossing around for quite a while now. I really dig the idea of turning BOTM into a celebration of showcased bots, paired with a page listing all tournament winners and hosts. We've also talked about an achievement/awards system behind the scenes. Some combination of these things will be happening.

I hadn't even thought about the tutorials section in quite a while, I'm glad that's been brought to our attention. We'll do what we can. (I know someone mentioned video tutorials, and that got me thinking about like, an official GTM youtube channel? There's a lot of possibilities there for a lot of different stuff. Stay tuned on that.)

The wiki.... is a thing. It's not something that effects our daily lives, so don't expect anything immediate there. I think we could definitely make better use of it, and if I can get some staff to work on it at some point, we'll see.

Regarding other communities, I have PERSONALLY reached out to every mentioned robot combat community AND MORE, but my voice alone is not enough. When you're hanging out in those communities, which I hope you do because they all have a lot of cool different stuff to offer, you can always mention what your GTM experience is/has been like. I'd love to work on stuff together with those communities as well, but they have to be willing to bridge that gap. Right now the bridge only has one lane, and that's coming from me.


I'd like to thank everyone who gave their two cents, and for their patience with me as an admin. I had a lot of big ideas of how I wanted things to work out coming into this position. While we've made a lot of small steps, we never really addressed the big picture. I mostly wish I had found myself here two years earlier, when life was a lot less hectic. But I promise you, I'm doing everything I can now to make this community last long into the future.

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This is not a sales pitch.

This is an honest, difficult question, coming from a guy that's running out of answers.

I want to know what we're not doing enough of, what we're doing too much of, and what we can just flat out do better for YOU.

I don't want to hear about how GTM is 'toxic,' because it isn't. We've worked very hard to make sure of that.
I don't want to hear that people don't want to play ra2 anymore, because that isn't true. We've recently had 2 absolutely massive tournaments kick off. Where they're going is a separate matter. More on that later.

I want ideas.

Here's where we're at right now.
1. We've made a mess of the tournaments section. There's no reason for people to bother hosting an official tournament right now. We've done a terrible job in this section for too long. I don't blame anybody in particular, just a lot of shortsightedness. Expect tournaments to roll back to a system similar to before, albeit simplified significantly. Oh, and any tournament over a certain size will require backup hosts. This much is not up for debate.

2. Similarly, the challenge board is in rough shape, and isn't used much. Expect this to get rolled in with tournaments in some way, sharing staff and becoming simplified.

3. The image uploader system isn't great. I'll be talking with apanx about what our options are going forward.

4. We have a lot of inactive staff. I would like to move those no longer around or participating into retired roles, and potentially filling out some slots to make sure we have more coverage.

Beyond that, I want to know what you think. Consider this an open forum for discussion. I'm all ears.

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Site News and Feedback / New Staff
« on: April 15, 2018, 06:20:59 PM »
We would like to welcome doot to the tournament mod team, and Pwnator to the global mod team (officially!)

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The old GTM steam group has become pretty close to useless now. If this is something people are actually interested in, I've created a new GTM steam group.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gtmofficial/

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Off-Topic Discussion / MOVED: IronBound
« on: November 30, 2017, 08:13:39 PM »

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Off-Topic Discussion / MOVED: Orc's Wars
« on: November 30, 2017, 08:12:51 PM »

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Site News and Feedback / Regarding Personal/Display Tournaments
« on: November 30, 2017, 08:12:19 PM »
We've decided, after much discussion (although, admittedly, not 2 months worth of discussion, my bad) to relax the rules on personal/display tournaments, allowing hosts to accept entries and run them the same way sanctioned tournaments are run. We feel as though at this point, any RA2 related content is a good thing for the community, and stifling the creation of said content is simply counterproductive to our goal of making the most of our time together on GTM.

That being said, display tournaments absolutely WILL NOT be enforced the way that sanctioned tournaments are. The only way that Gametechmods guarantees your tournament experience is if you are participating in regulated tournaments. You are entering any and all display tournaments at your own risk. Display tournaments could be run unfairly, take unreasonable amounts of time to update, or be completely abandoned by the host with absolutely no repercussions. The only thing hosts can get in trouble for is breaking GTM forum rules. In addition, personal/display tournaments have absolutely no bearing on anything related to competitive RA2, host score, tournament hosting awards, etc. They are nothing more than threads with videos in them.

The personal tournament section is also the hub for sharing content that relates to RA2 tournaments being run outside of GTM. Things like OrcsWars, redditbots, Banter Wars, etc, now all have a home here on GTM. Any issues that arise during the course of such tournaments are the host's problem, not ours.

Hopefully this works for everyone. We have our current official tournament system for a reason. With it in place, we can continue to guarantee you a fair and complete tournament experience, or at least create repercussions for tournaments that don't. I am going out on a limb here and hoping that this, along with host points etc. will be enough reason for official tournaments to continue to exist.

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Site News and Feedback / Warning System going forward
« on: October 18, 2017, 07:55:48 PM »
The warning system is being simplified. The rules themselves will stand as they are currently written. Naryar's system was fine on paper but in actual use was more complicated than needed for a forum of this size.

The majority of you know how you're supposed to behave. For those moments where you have lapses in judgement, forum staff will be given the benefit of the doubt to handle the situation as they see fit. We have logs of all actions taken by both moderator and administrative staff, and will be able to review any course of action that seems unfair. I have the utmost trust in the folks that volunteer their time to help staff this forum, and as such I am willing to give them that leeway until I am given a reason to take it away.

If you feel as though you are/were unjustly treated, please contact a member of the staff other than the person who handled your situation so that it can be brought to our attention collectively.

In the meantime, I would like to note the fact that the attitude of our community has turned sour recently, to the point where other segments of the greater robot combat community have taken notice. The game that brought all of you here in the first place is almost 15 years old now, older than some of our members. There is absolutely no reason to be treating your peers like garbage, because there aren't that many of them left. More than anything now, we are policing attitudes. Keep that in mind.

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As currently written, display tournaments are specifically not to accept entrants of any kind. This was written at a point in time where we were essentially the only community involved with RA2. With the recent instances of redditbots, banter wars, etc, we feel as though this deserves a rewrite to accommodate these additional avenues of RA2 content that are not centered around GTM. We are currently in discussions on how best to bring you the best of both worlds.

We run our tournament section the way we do because we want to guarantee to you that your time won't be wasted when a tournament isn't finished or is run improperly or unfairly. We have staff that are specifically dedicated to ensuring that these run smoothly and in a reasonable amount of time.

For a game as old as this, we think it's important that we, in some way, shape or form, offer a platform for people to share and enjoy any content that relates to it. We hope to find a balance between the two sides to this issue.

Please understand that this is an issue that has just now gained our attention. I'm not interested in making sweeping decisions by myself or with minimal input. I don't always have the best answers for everything. I'm dedicated to making sure the staff as a whole gets a chance to be involved with these decisions, so they take a few days sometimes. In the meantime, we ask you to please respect the rules that are currently in place.

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Off-Topic Discussion / GTM Fantasy football league
« on: September 24, 2017, 10:33:50 PM »
We just had this idea tonight so we're late but **** it. If anyone wants to play fantasy football I'm starting a yahoo league right now, we'll be drafting with however many teams we get this friday night. Drop a message in here and I'll send you the link to join.

Anybody who quits on their team will not be allowed to play next year, which will be actually full season.

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As some of you may know, our very own RFS runs a website as well as a page on facebook where he writes articles and reviews regarding all things robot combat. RFS has been a member of this community for well over a decade, and helped make great strides in the early days of RA2. He may have rubbed a few people the wrong way in his time, and he was no stranger to controversy, but there's no argument that he is one of the more important figureheads in this dumb children's computer game's history.

RFS is a resident of Texas. Last week, RFS's house was destroyed in Hurricane Harvey. This photograph was posted to the Battlebots Update facebook page today. This is just about all that remains of his house.



Despite his grave situation, RFS continues to upload content to Battlebots Update from his "rainy day" backlog. That fact alone speaks volumes about what kind of person he is.

In addition to the standard Battlebots Update patreon, RFS has posted a link to a paypal where, if you are feeling generous, you can donate a little something to help a brotha out.

https://www.paypal.me/TwilightFoundry/5

Any and all help would be appreciated. We as a community haven't exactly been the best of friends with each other recently, but I know that some of you are good people that might be willing to help.

Thanks guys.

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Off-Topic Discussion / MOVED: gtm UNsafe space thread
« on: May 23, 2017, 09:39:14 PM »

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Discussion / MOVED: Let me just say I am not a troll.
« on: February 21, 2017, 10:59:06 AM »

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Site News and Feedback / Please Read: A Reminder
« on: January 06, 2017, 08:22:51 PM »
I would like to remind everyone that just because we all hang out in discord with our friends, play games together, etc, that this does not give you the right to break rules and act out. Some things have been going on in the past few weeks that aren't going to fly.

We don't need vigilantes who don't know their place popping up in every thread barking orders.

We don't need people reporting posts because A. They think it's funny or B. They got a little triggered. This is a real function that the staff uses to work on the forum, and if you clog it up, it makes our job more difficult. This has been addressed recently, but it can't be stated enough.

We don't need people sending malicious files of any kind to other users. I don't care if it's a young kid with 2 posts or a member of the staff, it's not even a little OK. If anybody is caught doing this, you will not be welcome in this community anymore.

None of this is up for discussion.

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Ironforge TC Showcases / I made an ironforge bot once
« on: October 02, 2016, 07:00:34 PM »
I threw this together in 45 minutes because I wanted to enter something new in GTMCS. It's probably terrible. I'm sorry.


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