QueenOfHearts

Hopefully it can get back to where it was. 

Best of luck! We'll always be here to hang! I hope I'll see you, ya wifey, and tuxedo sooner than later at that wedding ?

As many of you have noticed I have not been around as much, life has kinda taken over and I have not had as much will to get on servers
So for that reason, I decided to step down. 
I may be back someday to moderate/administrate and I will definitely still get on servers and talk to the community, but for now, a staff position is not suitable for me.
I wish the staff team the best and apologize for any hardship this causes
 

I just experienced so many levels of sadness and sentimentality I didnt know existed after reading her old name.. Anyways, hope everything is ok with you @QueenOfHearts , you're always welcome back to the staff team if you ever decide to come back, ya did a hell of a job.  See you around.

As many of you have noticed I have not been around as much, life has kinda taken over and I have not had as much will to get on servers
So for that reason, I decided to step down. 
I may be back someday to moderate/administrate and I will definitely still get on servers and talk to the community, but for now, a staff position is not suitable for me.
I wish the staff team the best and apologize for any hardship this causes
 

From one oldfag to another:
Just because you step down doesn't mean you have left the clan(I'm sure you know that though)!
I hope things work out for you whatever it may be, don't forget xG will always be a Home for you, I know its been a Home for me time and time again over the years ?
Best of Luck moving forward Vinyl.

You'll always be the queen of my heart ?

It feels odd to be the first commenting on this, but still.
Thanks for being one of the best mods we had on the server, you found a great way to still moderate while keeping conversations nice and friendly. I know what it like to have life take over in these kinds of situations, best of luck in your future endeavors. Cheers.

~closed
from tope: "I got called onto JB because someone said you were massing repeatedly, and once I got on I saw you clearly freekilling, gunplanting, and breaking nearly every rule for a guard. From what I can tell you were doing it because you 'did not feel like being a guard' at the moment. As well, it was only a week ban (you are lucky I did not make it longer/permanent) so you can wait it out buckaroo."

Its a good idea in theory but I feel many players in this clan are already in a dojo, meaning you would need to incentivize them to leave. Plus the material costs to get everything to 100 would be a lot, plus research times, it would take up to a year. I love the game and love xG but it would be a lot of work

Chivalry Medival warfare could be a good CN game

Chivalry Medival warfare could be a good CN game

Chivalry Medival warfare could be a good CN game

I know this was extremely difficult for you, but I think you've done the right thing.
Regarding your health, it is far more important than a video game community. It should always come first. I know a lot of people say "haha, just ignore them it's the internet" but it's not always the case for some people and you know what? That's okay.
I'm proud of you, bro. Keep your chin up. Much love. xoxo

I feel ya kypari. Keep in touch but take care of yourself. Mental health is very important 

What is below this paragraph states how I personally feel about the state of the servers and the TF2 division as a whole right now.  No other person had any part in this, so if anyone is to be questioned then that person is me. I don’t mean this thread to attack anyone, but its important it gets out there one way or another.  I may be being completely irrational with this post, but this is several years worth of frustrations summed up into a single thread, so I apologize in advance.
 
If you are new here, I'm a previous Division Leader, I've been staff several times, and am currently an admin of the Team Fortress 2 servers.
 
Take this thread as you will.
 
Drama
 
Between several servers, different discords, groups, there has been on common theme between all of them.  That theme, is the absolute inability of people to get along with other people that have opposing views, creating drama.  There are times that a simple discussion turns into an absolute shitfest for no reason at all, and fuel must be added to the fire no matter what in order to fit each person's own narrative.  There are also times when people are constantly mocked on the servers for one reason or another, and when they ask the person who is doing it to the stop the response is usually “get over it” or “just local mute them”.  How is that a solution we should be enforcing at all? If people are mocking someone just to annoy them, or get a reaction, or whatever other reason, it is harassment, and should be handled as such.  When things are agreed upon and finished, it doesn’t come lightly, it comes when one person steps in and says let's get this done with, almost as if the two opposing parties are unable to even communicate without being at each others throats, let alone negotiate, unless a third party steps in.  It’s time to brighten up and get along with each other.

 
You may be asking, “why is this a problem?” Or you may be rolling your eyes at this point, well I'm directing this at everyone.  With the rate of how things are going, these servers we love to play on could very well be dead sooner than any of us think if something doesn’t change.  If that doesn’t concern you can you really call yourself a community member? It's all of our jobs to not only maintain the servers, and not only to play on the servers, but the most important job of all of us, is to have fun playing on the servers, not only for ourselves but for others.  We all represent xG, even if you aren’t a part of the clan, when you are playing on the servers, talking on the forums, or in the discord, you are representing xG and who we are as a clan.  Do we really want drama to be the thing that defines us when people look at the clan? Do we really want people to walk away because of it? I know I don't, and I sure hope you don’t either.  It doesn’t matter if “it's just online”, everyone here is a real person, with feelings of their own, we aren't built the same, and we weren't built to handle emotions the same as the next person.  If someone has a problem with how you act towards them, or how you treat them, then it's time to lighten up and be considerate for other people's feelings. As is such with the Castroy situation, he is repeatedly mocked with a phrase that is very well known to hurt him, but it is continued anyways because those doing it like seeing the reaction, or seeing that it annoys him.
This can be solved with one word.
Respect.

 
Another issue I'd like to bring up, is how things are handled in the division.  On several occasions I've seen people say “well not many people are complaining about it so it's not that big of a problem”.  I firmly believe that having that kind of mindset will drag the division down, we should not be waiting for people to complain to get things fixed, or removed, or added, etc.  Our priority should be looking at the issue that is at hand, even if it was mentioned by a single person, and seeing what we can do about it. Fix the issue before it becomes a problem, don't wait until the boat has already sank. On the surf server, there is a well known issue with the checkpoint saver plugin, where it resets your saved position with no warning.  I tried several times as a DL to get it fixed to no avail. That being said, I saw someone say that their checkpoint got reset, I didn’t see their name but a few times beforehand but I could see they were genuinely disappointed.  The only solution that was offered was to “jiggle your mouse around a bit and test before you walk away”, which is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that simply, they shouldn't HAVE to. We do things to make the experience more enjoyable for all players, if a new player joined and saw that their progress was reset for no reason they'd probably think otherwise and not feel too good about the server at that point.  After I saw that, I took it upon myself to finally sit down and fix the plugin once and for all, I didn't do it for myself, or for the higher ups, I did it for HIM, the one who brought it up. That's where the issue of “waiting until it becomes a problem” comes into play. Nobody else thought it was a problem, even the higherup I sent it to( @SegFault ) so he could add it to the server, but when it's affecting our players, at that point it IS A PROBLEM, whether it is widespread or not.  I believe this can be attributed to one word:
 
Motivation.
 
Something I feel several of our higher ups are lacking, or at least a good portion of the time, especially when it comes to working on the servers.  As a DL your job is the same as everyone else, but you have the responsibility to actually add to the servers and fix what's wrong. I'm not saying @mrnutty12 and @SegFault don’t do anything, but it feels like when they can't figure something out they just give up and wait until someone else( @Lithium ) figures it out.  In my eyes this shows a complete and utter lack of motivation, and unwillingness to work. You don't have to be working on the servers at all times, but if you are unwilling to dedicate time to it then why are you in such a position? An example of this is with @mrnutty12. I won’t lie and say I don't get frustrated with you when it comes to server work, because I do.  And I won't lie and say I'm always nice when I bring it up to you, because I'm not. But when you threaten to step down everytime I DO bring it up to you what does that say? It shows me personally you're unwilling to take criticism for your actions. You have told me yourself that people think you're lazy, and you think you're useless, but you don't try to change. How can you sit there and guilt yourself when there's no attempt being made. I don’t do it to try and hurt you, or push you away, I tell you how it is because it should be a red flag that clearly something is wrong, and that it should change. Another example: Population events quickly went from several times a week to sometimes not even happening once a week, whether that be from lack of players, or those who set them up just not wanting to do them.  This issue is not only directed at the higher ups, it could be directed at the division as a whole. To me it feels like many people just don't care what happens anymore, as long as x server has players on then they’re happy, those servers normally being surf or tgh. It's almost as if some people would rather see the server they like completely filled and the other server completely dead, that doesn't sound like a healthy community or playerbase if you ask me.
 
Management
 
Management wise, I don't think anyone could ask for a better staff team, but like all teams, we have our faults.
Disagreements on rule matter
Many times I have seen staff enforce a rule in wildly different ways than the next staff, which if it gets the job done is fine, but not when its creating a false idea of what they can and can not do.  There have also been times that I've seen rules enforced that I've never even seen or heard of. Obviously we will never all enforce things exactly the same, but there should be more efforts to try. This comes down to one thing, consistency.
Arguing in the servers, or discord
Disagreeing with each other is a given, it's not that big of a deal, but how it is handled is absolutely a problem.  A good example of this would be of what I saw last night. I won't give any names in order to provide anonymity but basically, there were two sides.  One side said he or she did this on the server and then put the blame on someone else because of x reason, and the other side disagreed and said the person that was blamed was the one who actually stated the issue on the server.  Keep in mind, there were witnesses on both sides that had different stories, and there was no solid evidence of either stories. Both sides were at each others neck for over half an hour, over something that couldn’t lead anywhere, and then it was attributed to them “trolling” or being “passive aggressive”.  These weren't just people that had just joined the server either, these were including staff members, higher ups as well. Quite frankly it's sad to see it happening.
Rules
It's no secret many people think we are too strict on rules.  While I think rules are important to have, at a certain point it needs to come down to staff discretion.  In order to do that though we'd need something I mentioned earlier, consistency.  As it is right now, I think all of our rules are fair, and they make sense, BUT the matter is, is that we have too many.  I understand the want for rules to be specific, and I also understand the rules to be generalize, it should be somewhere in between.  Have some trust in our staff and give the players some freedom. We can still enforce the rules, but we don't need to have a 2 page long list of rules, either.



 
Conclusion
I won’t sit here and put the blame for what's happening on one person, because what's happening is all of our faults, and that means the only way things will change is if everyone works together.  We are all told that the servers losing players can be attributed to “the game dying”, that’s not a good reason. If anything, that tells me we need to push harder than before to get our servers back to where they should be. There are rumors that are thrown around on the daily of “they said this” or “they did that”, and there are constant disagreements within our own staff team, and times when staff are at each other's throats while on the servers. There are times when the entire server is riled up because of situations like this. How many people have to leave before something changes? I didn't plan on coming back so soon originally even considering the irl information I learned, but I also didn’t plan on never coming back. I came back because I saw what was happening, and I care for this clan more than damn near anything, and I'm not willing to let this continue without at least trying to get it fixed, it's time for people to take off this mask as if everything is fine in the community and buckle up and get this figured out.  If you disagree with me, then feel free, if you agree with me then feel free; but no matter who you are, it's time for things to change around here. We are supposed to be a community, a community traditionally is a group of people who share common interests, and goals. What kind of community are we when we aren’t acting like one.
 





Edit: How the bulletpoints are SUPPOSED to look..

lul the tf2 division bringing its petty and useless drama to the forums once again it's 2017 all over again

Thank you for taking private chats and putting them up, I'm sorry if you don't like my opinion. you added me. i blocked you. i blocked you on everything. I don't wanna talk to you anymore. why put this up here?
 

lmao theres nothing wrong with the map. why remove it? Its better than echidna shrine.

About two weeks ago, @tree_ with the help of his friend @♥Cookie♥ made a post regarding our rules around the usage of slurs. They called into question why some slurs are okay but not others. I couldn't have explained it better myself, so I'm just going to attach a quote of their post.
The poll had more people voting to keep the rule as it is, with some slurs banned but not others, or more people voting to allow the n-word (and presumably all other slurs) than there were people who voted to just ban all slurs entirely. The thread is also locked for some reason. I'm not sure if it was @tree_ who locked it or staff members themselves, and I apologize for opening this up to public comment but I truly think this is something worth discussing.
So to start us off I have a question, why? Does using a derogatory term to refer to someone who's gay somehow less offensive than using a derogatory term to refer to someone who is black? I just don't get it. Sexual orientation and race both play a part in social location, which means social power is involved which is why black people can call other black people by the n-word. However, when a white person uses a slur against a black people suddenly social and historical context comes into play. Same goes for gay people. And that's why we don't allow racial slurs, no? 
By this logic, I'd have to agree with the minority of the voters here - ban all slurs. I just don't see the difference - but by all means please do explain it to me. 

+1 Wait who are you? Only 1700hours? we have standards play a bit more before applying please

An issue that we have on our servers is our treatment of slurs and offensive words. We don’t allow racial slurs and other vocabulary made to demean and offend, something that benefits the servers, But one word escapes this rule
 
Faggot
 
It is ridiculous that it is allowed considering the fact that the servers have such a large LGBTQ+ presence , but that is why this thread was made, to discuss and push the fact that it really should not be allowed. On Top of the fact that is offensive and often used in toxic ways, it paints the server as hypocritical. Why ban some slurs and not others? I have often kicked/muted people for slurs who then start saying faggot asking why this is allowed, why am I not muting them. It is a bad message to send. I know that there are people who wish to keep their right to openly say slurs (despite no real reason to) but really it is detrimental to the message we are trying to send and does nothing beneficial to the servers.
 
So I ask that we vote, to enforce a ban on the word, a notion me and other mods, try to enforce already, as it hurts us, hurts them, hurts us all and sends a hypocritical message to any new and veteran players.

Your profile reputation is horrible. You have more negative reps than posts.

Can vouch, @Precious is so flamboyant, with socks you won't even notice

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