Forest

Hey Everyone, Im not sure if any of you would remember me from back in the day, but Im kinda making a slow come back around. If you do remember me i apologize for my antics as a 16 y/o, but its been a long time since those days and my return after T3k

In MS Paint you nerds.
Fixed 

In MS Paint you nerds.
Fixed 

@virr
@Aegean
@LeToucan
@BleedsBrother
@diabeetus
@serbiansnaga
@HighSociety
@jaygoki
@Duckii
@Jaybreeze
@Deodate
@Rhododendron
@DuckiiJr.
@Chrono
@lilbleed
@MinerTeddy
@Snackbar
@MsSnackbar
@Lithium
@MineCrack
@Forest
@Hidingmaster
@Gawd
@Neo
@EdisonGlas
@Otherworldly
@Ero_Sennin78
@Selby9409
@easy
@Excision
@MajorB
@Peechis
@Hudson
@Bryce
@Cristo
@JustinBieber
@Doug
@Zehdari.
@Takibo
@Magical_Trevor
@Heisenberg
@S_bantf2badmins
@ssully101
@Foxxy
@Joshi3
@NotKevinShady
THIS MATTER HAS GONE UNSOLVED FOR FAR TOO LONG I CALL FOURTH THE OLD GODS TO TAKE STAND AGAINST THE TYRANNY THAT IS HAPPENING IN FUNNY CATS AT THIS VERY MOMENT .

The dirty swede may of thought we've forgotten and by changing this entire post to Swedish makes us weak, but we are strong.
ALONE WE FALL TOGETHER WE RISE.

Looking into the top Jailbreak servers leads me to believe that many servers are advertising their custom skin commands and many people seem to flock to the servers because of their custom skin and knife capabilities. Considering that the current plugins on JB are not really attracting a large amount of daily players, why not give it a try? And also, maybe set the default map to vipinthemix, or another map that was popular when the server was populated. I know moonjail was popular but considering the current turnout this could be an easy change that might just be the one thing that keeps the small 1-3 people server from leaving due to the map. Might as well be worth a try, right?
Finally, some sort of weekly population event of jailbreak would actually be beneficial to the playerbase. I've brought it up multiple times but it seems to always be swept under the rug. 
 
@jaygoki @Bumpy @Jadow @Lithium @Aegean any of these possible?
 

Absolutely not (god I hope people view this in Light mode)

@Caleb956 It seems strange that you got reported for abusing admin powers you weren't supposed to have just a little while ago but you apparently have the decency to explain to us what a community is supposed to be about.
The servers and this community specifically is based on the key idea that we want people to make friends and have fun while dedicated members willingly give up their FREE time to help moderate our servers. Server populations for custom servers on valve games are at an all-time low, and everyone is constantly growing and changing the games they play. 

Instead of forcing people to have resentment towards us and trying to force members to keep servers populated in games that they don't want to play, we would rather work with higher ups and either figure out solutions i.e. trying out a game that people want to play, or letting people do their own thing on our discord and trying to get people to have fun. Recently, we had a 15 person Rust group about 3 weeks ago, and we are constantly playing golf-it or other party games that people join. There are plans for Gmod in the works for months now because we want it to be good, and we also are ALWAYS open to suggestions. 
The idea that our servers that is paid for from Silence are not populated thus we are not a community anymore is absurd. 
On your second point of having communication is also baseless as one thing you are taught as a communications major is people get annoyed if you tell them things just for the sake of telling them. If there is nothing to update, what do you want us to post about? 
Your last point also ties into your second and that is communication is a two-way street. Listening is in fact even more important than talking, especially for higher-ups, and @virr and myself are on discord religiously. There is never a time that we can't be reached about any situation, doesn't matter if you are a non-member all the way to staff. If anyone feels you "shouldn't" reach us, please don't feel like that and we are always happy to help or listen in any way we can.
I'll leave this thread open for any further comments as I am genuinely curious as to what people have to say.

.. Huh. So, that's what it's like being on the receiving end of a "TL;DR" post
Jokes aside, I certainly can't speak for the current higher-ups, but I can only assume what is likely the biggest reason behind degrading activity on their part: life. Needless to say, growing up sucks. What's worse is that growing apart from something sucks even harder, in this case Xeno Gamers. Majority of the time there just isn't enough daylight or energy left in the day to meet the expectations of the community. I speak simply as someone who was in this position as an ex-CL (Co-Leader), and can attest to the fact that it isn't easy.
I understand that it can be frustrating to have "inactive" higher-ups, and it is more than justified to demand why no one is seeking replacements; but in order to have a replacement, you need to find someone who cares enough to put in the time and effort to improve things or to really make a difference. This means finding folks that take an active interest in engaging with the community as a whole, who will be in it for the long haul (and who won't bail within months). Finding a replacement is not as easy as it seems, especially for a position that is volunteer work that rewards nothing but a sense of accomplishment.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the backbone of any gaming community is not its higher-ups; rather, the groups of players that make up the community itself. Rather than waiting on anyone to do something about it, try a pro-active approach- I have made this point in the past and I will do it again: a member of the community is only as small as they make themselves out to be. Have an idea for an event? Just do it. Need something bigger than a thread to garner attention? Ask a higher-up to post an announcement or event in the Steam Group, I guarantee that they will not shoot it down (within reason) and would be happy to get the ball rolling. I cannot count how many times I have seen suggestions or recommendations in threads, only for them to fall flat because of the expectation that higher-ups will simply take it and own it. It is not enough to suggest something and to leave it at that, not if you truly want something to change. Members of the community need to take initiative, just as much as any higher-up would.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it's easy to point fingers at those in charge to make a difference and to clean everything up, but if you truly are a dedicated member of the community and genuinely care about how things are done, then you could be doing so much more than merely posting a thread to point out flaws and moving on. A community consists of a group of members who share a common interest, even a common goal. In this case, it's to improve.
So then I ask: if it's a community with a common goal, why do those improvements have to come from the higher-ups? Who is to say that they can't come from your average Joe within the community? But I digress, this is just my 2-cents, take it with a grain of salt.
Change starts with the community, and the community is everyone. Not just the higher-ups.

.. Huh. So, that's what it's like being on the receiving end of a "TL;DR" post
Jokes aside, I certainly can't speak for the current higher-ups, but I can only assume what is likely the biggest reason behind degrading activity on their part: life. Needless to say, growing up sucks. What's worse is that growing apart from something sucks even harder, in this case Xeno Gamers. Majority of the time there just isn't enough daylight or energy left in the day to meet the expectations of the community. I speak simply as someone who was in this position as an ex-CL (Co-Leader), and can attest to the fact that it isn't easy.
I understand that it can be frustrating to have "inactive" higher-ups, and it is more than justified to demand why no one is seeking replacements; but in order to have a replacement, you need to find someone who cares enough to put in the time and effort to improve things or to really make a difference. This means finding folks that take an active interest in engaging with the community as a whole, who will be in it for the long haul (and who won't bail within months). Finding a replacement is not as easy as it seems, especially for a position that is volunteer work that rewards nothing but a sense of accomplishment.
Additionally, it is worth noting that the backbone of any gaming community is not its higher-ups; rather, the groups of players that make up the community itself. Rather than waiting on anyone to do something about it, try a pro-active approach- I have made this point in the past and I will do it again: a member of the community is only as small as they make themselves out to be. Have an idea for an event? Just do it. Need something bigger than a thread to garner attention? Ask a higher-up to post an announcement or event in the Steam Group, I guarantee that they will not shoot it down (within reason) and would be happy to get the ball rolling. I cannot count how many times I have seen suggestions or recommendations in threads, only for them to fall flat because of the expectation that higher-ups will simply take it and own it. It is not enough to suggest something and to leave it at that, not if you truly want something to change. Members of the community need to take initiative, just as much as any higher-up would.
I guess what I am trying to say is that it's easy to point fingers at those in charge to make a difference and to clean everything up, but if you truly are a dedicated member of the community and genuinely care about how things are done, then you could be doing so much more than merely posting a thread to point out flaws and moving on. A community consists of a group of members who share a common interest, even a common goal. In this case, it's to improve.
So then I ask: if it's a community with a common goal, why do those improvements have to come from the higher-ups? Who is to say that they can't come from your average Joe within the community? But I digress, this is just my 2-cents, take it with a grain of salt.
Change starts with the community, and the community is everyone. Not just the higher-ups.

Ok so apparently this needs to be said and no one else will.
This entire post is probably worded badly but I don't really care, hopefully you're able to read it.
 
Let's go over a few basic building blocks for a community, you must:
A. Have a playerbase
B. Have communication
C. You SHOULD seek advice, or guidance from your players.
 
Now let's go through here and see what of these we have!
The screenshots below are going to be your friend for the first part of this post.

 
A. Have a playerbase - Uhh... Kind of? I'll give it a 2 at best. Any kind of playerbase you do have, I'd say a good majority leave after their first time connecting.
B. Have communication - There was a post in October..and the (semi?)monthly newsletters.. I'll say a 4.
C. You SHOULD seek advice, or guidance from your players. - There has been zero polls for who the fuck knows how long, except for Halo MCC if I remember correctly. 0
 
Ok so lets say you're left with 6 points out of 30.  That's a 20 percent.  If we followed this exactly, that would be saying your community is good as dead, or rather more than it already is.  The fact that this kind of population has been plaguing the servers for months, and not a single event has been held, just blows my mind.  How do you build a business? Or a club? Through advertisement.  You know what the best advertisement is for communities? Your players.  If there is never anything going on why should they tell others to join them or even stick around? I'm sure the majority of people won't think twice about stepping away from the servers and going somewhere else, but you get them to invite their friends, all of a sudden they became their go to place to play.  That should be your goal.
 
This is aimed specifically at the higherups. I don't know if anything may be going on in any of your guys' lives and that's why you aren't able to work on the community, and if there is then I hope it improves for you, but quite frankly if you aren't able to or just aren't willing to work on it, why the hell are you even in a position of power?  I get it, motivation is likely at an all time low, it was even when I was DL, and I can only guess it's gotten even worse.  But let me say this, how do you think it looks to the people that still care about the community, and the servers? Seeing the higherups not saying a damn thing about the state of really anything, and acting like everything is fine ( @hongkongatron )?? Here I'll say it for you. The majority of servers are completely dead, and the ones that still have population are only decreasing.  And I don't want to hear the excuse of it being school time, that's bullshit and we all know it is, there are plenty of other community servers out there full all the damn time.  Accepting the fact and doing something about it is a better choice, that is, if you care about the servers you claim to manage.  Literally all it takes is ONE person taking the lead, and having more community interaction, and this community could be popping again, that's literally how communities work.  They are based around communication.  Run polls to figure out the future of the servers, do events with other communities to bring traffic to both, do SOMETHING, at this point literally anything is better than how it's been.  I could be completely wrong, and everything could just be being posted to the discord, and if it is then fine but I HIGHLY doubt it, and if it is why the fuck isn't there posts about whatever it may be on the forums as well?  Forums exist for a reason, it's kind of where, you know, COMMUNITIES get together..  To tell you the truth, the CMs should be the ones focusing on fixing this dumpster fire, and I personally have not seen a single thing out of any of them regarding the community in months, or longer.  The most I've seen is promo demos, which haven't even been posted since October, Lithium and Bleed do CSGO I would assume, Virr I have no idea anymore. So really I just have one question, if it's taken this long to do anything, you guys must be working on something huge right?  Maybe it'd be a good idea to tell your people about it, that is, if there IS anything. I'll wait 🙂
 
I was gonna type more but then I realized all of this will probably just get ignored like everything else so fuck it, that's the motto around here right? I know I said I wasn't gonna care anymore, and after this I really don't give a shit what you decide to do, but it does push me in the wrong direction to see the current situation of literally nothing happening and the community being killed.  I honestly give up with this place, if you want to ban me then please do so, if you want to actually take advice from anyone for once then please do so.  And I don't apologize for being "too harsh" either, I can't believe I even had to make this post in the first place.  I'm out lmao
 
TL;DR - xG is supposed to be a community, figure out what the word community means, and what they are.
 
 

Absolutely not (god I hope people view this in Light mode)

Activity feed shows the whole message sadly.
Is there seriously still no dark theme though?

Absolutely not (god I hope people view this in Light mode)

Absolutely not (god I hope people view this in Light mode)

Currently stuck in Casablanca, if anyone’s nearby send help I don’t speak anything besides English and Latin.

whats up bros @Psycho@Hidingmaster@Shadow@xGShadowSpy@Aubri.@DerpO_o@MeowMix@Kermit@BillyMays @PiNoYPsYcHo@RoxyLalonde@Warriorsfury@Jaybreeze@Chrono@Chrono_Smells@DarkWolf6052@HaaDron @Klure @Aegean @Rabid

No more Shout Box? Or is it under construction?

+1 because I secretly love him.
Forreal though, my input is super moot because I'm inactive af so probably don't count this

+1 because I secretly love him.
Forreal though, my input is super moot because I'm inactive af so probably don't count this

Jolly Ranchers bruhhhhh. Perfect amount of sweet and tarty goodness.
Nothing quite like rotting your teeth out!

jolly ranchers are chief

Jolly Ranchers bruhhhhh. Perfect amount of sweet and tarty goodness.
Nothing quite like rotting your teeth out!

Have you ever heard the Jolly ranchers story