Major Staff Updates.

[Dismayed]

I've held off reposting a reply until I was able to see all the facts and details and see how this shit would unfold.

1. @Ryan I see one issue, and one thing only -- the shadiness about the mbox staking thing. Not sure why you didn't handle it in a much more professional way. But I also understand you're human and not a robot. I can firsthand understand the frustration and weariness you get from dealing with Church. For as long as you have dealt with him, it's mind-blowing your response is absolutely valid. (If the family/wife thing is true then yes, there was a line crossed and you need to take accountability for that and own it, move on.)

2. @Church I find it so shocking how quickly dictator went to victim. It really shows me just how much of a narcissist you are. A week ago, you were judge, jury and executioner. Now you're putting your faith in the same community you have shit over for as long as I have been around, and carried yourself as an unmovable, untouchable force. You are absolutely not fit to be Admin, let alone Staff Manager. Regardless of how this played out, you should be done zero favors.

3. @STAFF TEAM - This was the most unprofessional, childish and shadiest shit I personally have ever seen in my entire life of playing RuneScape. For you to 1. Not include the entire team, go through personal DMs and then just drop this random bombshell without any context and have the community play, "Who done it" is the most 3rd grade shit I've ever seen. Own your shit, speak your peace and move on. Not to mention, Ryan making his resignation 1 sentence at the very end of a rant whereas he should be seen off and thanked for his service to this game, you decide to make it one sentence in the middle of a thread/childish feud about who is more worthy of Staff Manager between you two. Pathetic.

4. Iron Adam said something very insightful last night, this server right now honestly needs neither of you. They need leadership from someone who can TAKE A JOKE, care about the community they serve and understand it at this time. Not an executioner and not a guy who feels like his back is always against the wall or he's at war with those who he's tasked to 'manage'. Unfortunately, it looks like the owners care a lot less about this shit at the time. But you both should be gone, and that's that. I agree, Adam should be looked at to rejoin the staff team, where he should be placed, I don't know. But, how dissatisfied I am with this 10-year-old staff team for going behind the back of someone who's undoubtedly given so much to this server, without getting his side or defending himself is one of the most sickening shit about it all. @Nazuths has been preaching this, and I do agree with it now.

5. @Jayden - If Ryan could have just demoted him with the owners blessing then just do it yourself, don't hold some fucking mutiny behind the scenes and demote him without reasoning and/or without getting his defense and allowing him to defend himself. Whereas I agree with most/all of what you said PERSONALLY about Church, he deserved that and you all failed to see that. Be better.

[Juntow]

4. Iron Adam said something very insightful last night, this server right now honestly needs neither of you. They need leadership from someone who can TAKE A JOKE, care about the community they serve and understand it at this time. Not an executioner and not a guy who feels like his back is always against the wall or he's at war with those who he's tasked to 'manage'. Unfortunately, it looks like the owners care a lot less about this shit at the time. But you both should be gone, and that's that. I agree, Adam should be looked at to rejoin the staff team, where he should be placed, I don't know. But, how dissatisfied I am with this 10-year-old staff team for going behind the back of someone who's undoubtedly given so much to this server, without getting his side or defending himself is one of the most sickening shit about it all. @Nazuths has been preaching this, and I do agree with it now.

cook bro.

[R3v k1ller]

So it looks like this is just the same Staff Manager exit strategy that Hamade, Maurits and Billy made. When times up, just do what you've wanted to do for a while and say "fuck it". Bunch of promotions and a demotion here or there. History rhymes and even repeats.

Here's a crazy idea: let's wait on promoting a new staff manager. Democracy might actually work for a little while, given how small the community has become. Or maybe staff members function as representatives and admins just have more voting power. We shouldn't just fill the role with the next in line (especially when there's only one person, conveniently), we should aim for someone who really caters themselves to the role. You can't be afraid of the community you want to serve, ever.

Whatever the case, this situation feels extremely forced and the optics of demoting Church and skipping town are kind of difficult to ignore. The fact that @Ryan and much of the staff team was extremely unwilling to explain why this happened and hid behind a guise of "privacy," when this was what awaited us, is also kind of hard to ignore.

I agree with all of this. It feels like he was trying to teeter a fine line between respecting Church and doing what the position required, and in that process continued to build resentment and lose respect ultimately deciding that he didn't want to deal with the situation at hand.

I agree with Church being demoted, but I disagree with the way it was handled. With these circumstances it's easy to see how one would be emotional about it.

Man if this isnt how ryan has handled literally everything ive seen. He just half-asses it until hes tired of dealing with it and starts shit talking. I never liked either of them as admins, but ryan has never shown even an ounce of leadership or positive representation for the server imo.

[Ahmed elrahi]

at this point i'm beyond over the drama revolving around this issue and the thread itself, but i'd like to hope we all learn from this one as we so clearly didn't in the past - ryan's resigned, church has been demoted, it is what it is.

time to start looking at actually fixing things going forward, first and foremost the site issues need resolving ASAP, wiki being down, forum registration being down, email recovery service being down are all beyond detrimental to the server health and are issues that need addressing before we even begin to deal with who the next staff manager is going to be, or there won't be much left for anyone to manage at all.

secondly, and equally as important, the input from ownership is lacking in abundance and needs fixing too, whether that comes in the form of mike and rapsey actually (finally) being more vocal and sharing their views, opinions and inputs on certain topics, or them assigning a specific person a specific role dedicated to community engagement and management - both options require their input, but the latter is far less work on their part and would only require them to be in contact with said community manager; as a community-driven server the issue here is they're simply not engaging with their community in the slightest, to rewind to my first point, there's been absolute radio silence on the wiki and site issues from them for over a month now, and as far as updates go i doubt i even need to go into any real detail - all we're asking for is the occasional forum post, the occasional discord teaser screenshot, let us know what's going on and what you're working on/planning on working on, keep us in the chain of information, because in the end as much as we might've all forgotten it, the community is what's keeping this server alive.

third, and finally, development itself is great - between raj, brant, niels, lieven and thoby (come back to us, sweet prince) they've all pumped out more updates in the last few years than i could count in the entire period i've been playing this game, the issue is that when they develop something and it takes 6 months (i'm being incredibly generous there) to be reviewed, bughunted and subsequently released, i can hardly blame them for a lack of motivation or desire to continue working on the server, they NEED the ability to push updates themselves at this point, and if i had to nominate someone for the power and capacity to do so, i'd have it be raj - but by all means work that out for yourselves, any result is a good result at this point; even if it means having someone appointed a role of something along the lines of "head developer" for the sole purpose of pushing updates, or as stated in previous posts on the same topic, make it a group vote, have the developers able to push updates themselves provided they've all had access to, reviewed and vetted the code involved with said update in the same way price changes are pushed.

(hi i'm fe nis, can't get into my fucking forum account so here i am instead - in order to meet my god-given troll quota for the month, please see below:)

unban flaiza and promote him immediately to admin, thank you, goodbye

[Will be ok2]

at this point i'm beyond over the drama revolving around this issue and the thread itself, but i'd like to hope we all learn from this one as we so clearly didn't in the past - ryan's resigned, church has been demoted, it is what it is.

time to start looking at actually fixing things going forward, first and foremost the site issues need resolving ASAP, wiki being down, forum registration being down, email recovery service being down are all beyond detrimental to the server health and are issues that need addressing before we even begin to deal with who the next staff manager is going to be, or there won't be much left for anyone to manage at all.

secondly, and equally as important, the input from ownership is lacking in abundance and needs fixing too, whether that comes in the form of mike and rapsey actually (finally) being more vocal and sharing their views, opinions and inputs on certain topics, or them assigning a specific person a specific role dedicated to community engagement and management - both options require their input, but the latter is far less work on their part and would only require them to be in contact with said community manager; as a community-driven server the issue here is they're simply not engaging with their community in the slightest, to rewind to my first point, there's been absolute radio silence on the wiki and site issues from them for over a month now, and as far as updates go i doubt i even need to go into any real detail - all we're asking for is the occasional forum post, the occasional discord teaser screenshot, let us know what's going on and what you're working on/planning on working on, keep us in the chain of information, because in the end as much as we might've all forgotten it, the community is what's keeping this server alive.

third, and finally, development itself is great - between raj, brant, niels, lieven and thoby (come back to us, sweet prince) they've all pumped out more updates in the last few years than i could count in the entire period i've been playing this game, the issue is that when they develop something and it takes 6 months (i'm being incredibly generous there) to be reviewed, bughunted and subsequently released, i can hardly blame them for a lack of motivation or desire to continue working on the server, they NEED the ability to push updates themselves at this point, and if i had to nominate someone for the power and capacity to do so, i'd have it be raj - but by all means work that out for yourselves, any result is a good result at this point; even if it means having someone appointed a role of something along the lines of "head developer" for the sole purpose of pushing updates, or as stated in previous posts on the same topic, make it a group vote, have the developers able to push updates themselves provided they've all had access to, reviewed and vetted the code involved with said update in the same way price changes are pushed.

(hi i'm fe nis, can't get into my fucking forum account so here i am instead - in order to meet my god-given troll quota for the month, please see below:)

unban flaiza and promote him immediately to admin, thank you, goodbye

Well said. Hopfully this doesn’t get skimmed over by @Mike and @Rapsey

[Lykos]

Flashback to when I reported a game-breaking dupe and requested a reward as a compensation after it was patched and Ryan told me to fuck off.
Wallahi what comes around goes around.

[Iron adam]

Flashback to when I reported a game-breaking dupe and requested a reward as a compensation after it was patched and Ryan told me to fuck off.
Wallahi what comes around goes around.

And then I gave you a white party hat...

[The underdog]

Took me a day to read up on it all

I can point out the wrongs and rights but that doesn't change anything either.

#roddycc will take over from here. We will buy the game if our lowball offer is accepted. We will move it back to Europe. We will release #capes2presets2k18. We will provide a new and diverse staff team. We will unban me.

[James]

@Iron adam it is your time to shine. guide us to the promised land.

[Ruler]

This doesn't look too good. Although it might have ended shitty, thanks for the service to both.

This only shows there is only one true leader, our hope, our angel, all hail Patel