TOPIC: #LetsLearnLua

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Steam / Forum Name:
TheXnator

Steam Profile Link:
steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198064645052/

Time Spent at ZARP:
1 year, 8 months

Age:
14

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I have been in ZARP for about 1 year and 8 months now, originally joining onto the TTT server. I had played on some other servers which were rediculously terrible (one server banning me for throwing a smoke grenade and calling it RDM, one day I might understand that one). After getting bored of most servers, I stumbled across one which claimed to be 24/7 Minecraft, something I had not seen before, and the map seemed kinda cool. After joining this server, which happened to be ZARP, I noticed just how excellent all of the systems were within the server, how everything worked and just how friendly all the people were, including the staff team. One of the main things which drew me in was also the way in which the staff members are chosen and trained, allowing me, despite my age, having an equal chance to other people, and allowing me to become a part of the staff team based on what people saw from me, and not from any subjective viewpoint. When one of the people who I had met on the server (Liam, what a lad), managed to get Moderator on the server, I began to look into that. It had been a desire of mine for a very long time to become a staff member on a server in order to help people, so I decided to apply, and got my first ever staffing position as a Moderator on the ZARP Gaming TTT server. A few weeks later, I got admin, then branched out to SSRP and Deathrun, continuing up to the positions which I ended up holding as Prophunt, Murder and Deathrun Server Owner, Surf Server Developer, SSRP Head Admin, TTT Head Admin, Teamspeak Head Admin and Forum Global Moderator.

Since joining ZARP, I have developed an incredible passion for the community, despite recently being less active, and this has really spurred me on to get to where I am now, and has made me hold a desire to become a Community Manager in order to greatly help out the community far more than I have been able to with my current powers and positions.






In my time in the community, I believe that I have managed to pick up a vast array skills which I am sure would be immensely helpful towards becoming a Community Manager. Before joining the community, there was not a lot that I would have been able to put here, since I was originally quite shy when I first joined, unable to handle a lot of situations which I would be able to handle today. From positions in Lead Teams and owning two servers, previously also owning / developing for Surf and Deathrun, I have developed many skills which would be required for anyone who were to go for the rank of CM, including, but not limited to:

• Kindness
• Calmness
• Patience
• Fairness
• Stubbornness (in appropriate amounts, fighting for what I believe to be the correct outcome)
• Professionalism
• Appropriate levels of maturity (not immature, but able to take and appreciate a joke and be serious when the situation demands it)
• Understanding (of people, situations and processes)

On top of these traits within my personality which I have improved on / developed over the course of my time in ZARP, I have also greatly improved on my ability when it comes to coding, which has been constantly developing (no pun intended) even more since I began work on Prophunt almost a year ago now, especially so since work on Murder, Deathrun and Surf. Before joining the community, I had at least some level of knowledge in Java, HTML, CSS, JS and Python, and since joining the community and having to do development work (and actually creating the servers) for Murder, Prophunt (and before I resigned from them), Deathrun and Surf, I have developed a knowledge of GLua, within which Tyler primarily has pointed out many mistakes which I made over time, and therefore I have managed to greatly improve upon my knowledge, now being able to achieve far more than I could have done in the past, which can be proven through many of the features on Prophunt and Murder, and the content that I added to Deathrun and Surf (just don't think too hard about the dumbass mistakes I made with Deathrun Gangs).

When it comes down to contacting me, I always read messages pretty much as soon as I get them, and give a reply if needed. I can always be easily contacted on Steam, Skype, Snapchat and Whatsapp, and for those who are more trusted, Instagram, and I am usually online on Teamspeak and the Forums when I am home, so can also be contacted / address relevant issues there.

I believe that, as a Community Manager here at ZARP, I would be able to greatly improve on these traits and skills, through implementing them into the community, improving on them as I use them to work on greatly improving the community.






Of course, my overall goal as a Community Manager would be to help the community as a whole to expand and rise above where it is currently, and to provide the greatest possible experience for the users in the community, which I would achieve by implementing many changes / improvements to various aspects of the community.


Updates Policy:

It is clear to me, and evidently to the community as a whole, that updates for most servers are a complete shambles. SSRP has promised multiple updates which have not been delivered upon, and servers such as TTT and Bhop have received no updates at all in a while now. Clearly, something needs to be done to make these updates a little more standardised and to ensure that Server Owners and the Community Team are delivering updates as they should be. This can be done through the implementation of a new policy regarding updates which would apply to all servers.

This policy would dictate that every server must have a minimum of 4 updates or events over the course of the year, most commonly at Easter, Summer, Halloween and Christmas. Of course, there will be no limitation to this, and updates would be able to take place at other times, however to ensure that there is not a lack of updates on servers, regulations such as this need to be put in place, or the servers will not be getting the updates that they need.

On the release of any update, in order to prevent a repeat of the Summer Celebration Week, a date or a condition would have to be put in place for the end of the update / event.

In order to ensure that these updates and events include some good content, I go on to my next point.


Suggestions System / Policy:

There have been constant complaints in the community regarding the situation surrounding suggestions and how they are dealt with by Server Owners and the Community Team. For a while, I have had this idea for how we could improve the way in which suggestions are managed and reviewed, with an appropriate policy to accompany and ensure that all suggestions are dealt with appropriately.

This system will include an in-game UI on each server which will allow users to create and view suggestions that have been made. Within this UI, they will be able to create a suggestion, which can then be seen by all users under a tab for suggestions. Other users will be able to leave comments on these suggestions with their opinions and upvote / downvote the suggestion in order to give clear ideas of the opinions of the community on the suggestion at hand - obviously there would be filters in place to reduce racism, and Server Owners+ would be able to delete suggestions or comments which would break TOU / server rules.

Suggestions must all be reviewed in the relevant meeting for the suggestion (Community Team meeting in the case of SSRP), in which each suggestion would be looked over in short, before deciding whether or not to vote on it. Similarly to the forum meetings, if one person expressed a desire to vote on the suggestion, then a further full discussion would be held and a vote would follow. Following the vote, the suggestion would be marked as either accepted or denied, and a final comment left with the verdict by the relevant Server Owner / CM Team member, stating the result and any reasoning for the result being reached to ensure that feedback is given in both directions on suggestions.

Furthermore from this, there could be a web-based version which would allow users to select a server to make the suggestion for and all of the relevant information to the suggestion, allowing it to then be reviewed following the same process.


Pointshop Content:

It is no secret that the pointshop is largely a shambles in regards to the economy and the pointshop itself. The entire pointshop needs to be removed and recreated in order to overcome the problems at hand. This could be achieved with an idea that I have developed upon for a while, which is the Shards system.

The Shards system would essentially replace the current mechanics of the Pointshop in order to prevent it from being purely based on luck (in the case of drops) and having loads of points (which everyone does) and creating a system based on a combination of luck and skill, which could be easily configured based on changes to the economy if problems should ensue again.

If you want to fully read up on the plans for this Shards system, you can do so here: 1drv.ms/w/s!AlaMIKgZC3d8ge8iBWjUc_piDOn_vQ


Pointshop Servers Organisation:

The management of the Pointshop servers has always been flawed in many ways, which can be linked to faults of multiple people, however also the lack of opportunity to appropriately manage the servers. One of the key things which would attibute to changes in this area would be the communication between Server Owners.

One key way that we could improve upon this communication and organisation would be changes to the way that Pointshop meetings work, which I will get onto, and obviously changes to the ways that we put forward and implement changes to the Pointshop servers.

Most of the Pointshop servers, save for Prophunt and Murder, have nobody to code for them other than the existing Community Team members, however if we were to change the way that we put forwards updates and the way that Pointshop Server Owners perceive one another, we could turn this around entirely. Currently, it is always a rivalry between Server Owners to have the "best" server, and whilst we should always try to make our servers the best they can be, this can lead to arguments or an inability to work together. Within the Pointshop meeting, which I will discuss later on, Server Owners would have to properly discuss the updates that they plan to put onto the server. When discussing plans, they would put forwards ideas for a main update / event to the Pointshop itself and any changes that the community would like to see there, for an update for all the servers, and then discuss the further changes that they feel they would like to implement into their updates specifically for their own server. By doing this, the Server Owners would be working together a lot more, and all of the servers would be getting consistent updates, in accordance with the aforementioned updates policy.


Pointshop Meetings Policy:

Pointshop meetings would, rather than as they are currently (a complete shambles that nobody ever really does), become a consistent part of the meeting schedule. Within the Community Team meeting, a section would be opened up for the Server Owners to join, which would be the Pointshop Meeting.

Within this meeting, a clear structure would be followed in order to ensure that everything of relevance is being discussed:

• Discussion of rankings of each Pointshop server and any possible causes for changes in rankings
• Discussion of new features or changes which have been planned or suggested, including a discussion on whether other Server Owners or Community Team members can help with these plans
• Review of Pointshop suggestions, in accordance with the aforementioned Suggestions System / Policy
• Discussion of upcoming plans for updates
• Chance to bring up anything else that is felt to be of relevance
• Pointshop Meeting Outcome

These meetings would greatly improve upon the communication between Server Owners and the Community Team, and would also greatly improve upon the transparency with the community itself, letting them know that their suggestions are being looked at and that their voices are being heard in order to build on and improve the Pointshop servers.


Ranks Changes:

Though this is only a minor change, I have seen that a change to some of the ranks would be greatly beneficial to the community. It is clear that, back when I got the Server Developer rank on Deathrun before becoming a Server Owner, that a lot of people disliked the decision, and this could be largely due to the fact that no rank for it actually existed, and it may have seemed like a rank was put into place, not even as an official rank, just to give me power over the server, which is an understandable observation.

We have the Staff Rights and Responsibilities policy in order to ensure that it is clear what the rights and responsibilities of each rank were, however especially when I held the rank of Server Developer, it was hugely unclear, even to me, where I would lie on that policy, and what powers I actually had, due to differing answers from different Community Team members.

What I would do to solve this problem would be to ensure that people cannot get a rank that is not outlined on the Staff Rights and Responsibilities policy. A new section would be added to this policy to state that, in order to add new ranks, they would have to be properly voted in by the Community Team, and in doing so, the rank and relevant information about it would have to be added on to the Staff Rights and Responsibilities policy, in order to avoid any further confusion.

As well as this, I would bring about a change that quite a few people have suggested (primarily Annie) which is badges for Server Owners on Teamspeak. Currently, Server Owners and Head Admins have the same badges, however a Head Admin does not have the same rights as a Server Owner in the slightest, and cannot help with as many things, with some issues which do need to go directly to a Server Owner+. Every rank outlined in the Staff Rights and Responsibilities policy should have a relevant badge on Teamspeak, in order to ensure that the right people are always contacted for the right situations, and to improve upon the ability to distinguish between people of differing ranks.


SSRP - Special Weapons & Suits:

It is clear to see that there are a lot of complaints regarding many of the special weapons and suits on the SSRP servers, and these are definitely understandable, given the way in which they impact the server and gameplay so much.

Special weapons and suits need to be rebalanced in order to prevent them from remaining as purely powerful items in the game, which could be solved by adding a variety of debuffs to special weapons and suits.

When unequipping and equipping suits, for a short time, users should receive a small debuff, such as slightly reduced speed, a slight screen shake in order to lessen their ability to aim, and a slightly more opaque overlay for a short time, to make people less likely to immediately equip a suit in combat, equipping them more tactically and using some level of skill rather than pushing a button and immediately becoming OP.


SSRP - Server 2:

Server 2 has been known for a long time as a server that is primarily just used for AFK mining. The focus that this AFK mining has on the economy over things such as basing is also a clear issue, as it removes any interaction with the game in order to gain money and RP properly.

One of the key things to be done to fix this, which has been hugely discussed and worked on for a while, however has not yet happened, and has had very little updates on to the community (though it is understandable if less work has been done on this recently with Patrick being a little more inactive for a short while) would be a change in the Server 2 map to the new Evilmelon map. This map has already been said to focus more around the basing aspect, and trying to create good basing locations for some interesting bases and raids.

Of course, merely changing the server map will not solve all of the problems, as there still lies the issue that many people want to AFK mine to get their money. In order to solve this, something needs to be done in order to make AFK mining less of a viable solution when it comes to gaining money, making sure it only works to some extent and cannot just be used as a constant stream of money. An idea of how to do this would be changes to the actual pickaxes themselves in order to prevent AFK mining from being a potentially infinite supply. If we were to have it so that pickaxes actually had a chance of breaking, I believe this would start to go some way in order to alleviate the issue. As a user mines more and more with a pickaxe, each time the chance of breaking should increase by a value dependant on the type of pickaxe (0.5% for normal ones, 0.3% for VIP, 0.2% for diamond and 0.1% for iridium), and with every stone/gold/ruby mined, it will have the relevant chance to simply break, forcing the user to buy a new one, and preventing them from being able to constantly sit there with the same pickaxe and racking up a huge profit.


SSRP - Economy & Lack of RP:

This one is two issues in one, in regards to the economy not holding a good position to encourage RP and constant gameplay, and the lack of RP and desire to RP itself.

To first address solely the economy, there needs to be more potential money sinks on the server. For example, with updates there should be a small chance to lose out rather than make gains on wheels and slot machines, rather than a guarantee to get something good. Another way to add a bit of a money sink would be the ability to gamble with the server itself. Rather than coinflips between players in which all the money remaind in the economy, just passing between people, if users were also able to coinflip on their own using only cash, then to have a chance of either gaining +50% of their original bet or losing their money, then there would be more chances for people to gamble, and the money that goes into the gambling would not always stay in the economy, alleviating issues further.

To address both issues, the economy and lack of RP both strongly correlate with one another, with less insentive to RP with the state of the economy and having no real gains to anything such as basing or starting a gang other than large AFK bases which are not overly satisfying for all users.

In order to add more of an insentive to RP, we should put some more focus into the gangs on the server, to keep people working on them, raiding people in order to gain gang loot and to add an insentive to work together and interact with other members of the community. A primary way to do this would be through a system such as a Gang PvP system. This would allow gang leaders to challenge one another to a TDM PvP match of their gangs, being able to select members of their gang to participate (both teams must have the same number of players) out of online gang members (gang members would be able to opt out by deselecting an option allowing them to be chosen). The TDM match would not allow the use of external weapons, only gang upgrades which would serve as unlocks for this. Having these weapons working as gang upgrades would provide more insentive to purchase gang upgrades, as they would benefit the gang in their PvP, and it would prevent issues where people with the most suits or special weapons would win, focusing more on the skill of the gang members themselves. At the end of the match (15 minutes), the team with the most score, score being based on the number of kills of the enemy team minus the number of friendly deaths, would be awarded a prize, which could be gang loot or gang cash, also adding onto their score onto a gang leaderboard for PvP wins.


SSRP - Updates:

Another key problem, as has been seen more recently, has been the lack of updates on the SSRP server. The solution to this I have already discussed above, as the updates policy would ensure that updates went onto the servers as required, and the suggestions policy would ensure that community suggestions were reviewed in order to get the best possible quality of content onto the server.


The Murder Server:

Unlike you may see from other candidates, I am not going to go out there and say "I will remove the Murder server" just to appease the community and their negative outlook of the server. I will rather take this opportunity to discuss what I, as Server Owner of Murder, know about the reasonings behind the lower rankings, and the potential that the server does have, along with the possible alternatives for the server, as that is still something to consider.

The server itself is fun for the users who play on it, as long as they have the players, and Murder as a gamemode is incredibly popular within Garry's Mod - the root problem lies in the overall community attitude towards the server and the impact that has on trying to get a steady playerbase to allow the server to manage itself. With any server like Murder, you need to have a few people on at least to make it fun, so very few people are going to see an empty Murder server and think it would be a good idea to join that. This links into the community attitude, as since the server started, community members have spent time hating on the server and refusing to play on it, despite the fact that the majority of those who have played on the server have stated that they enjoyed it, and they would enjoy it more if it had more players on it. Our server is unique amongst Murder servers with all of the custom content we have, so it is not an issue to keep people on the server, the problem is actually getting them there in the first place, which we cannot do without people on the server already. Even the Prophunt server, when it first started, had a relatively poor attitude towards it from the community, but at least then people in the community gave the server a chance, which drew in outside players and allowed the server to get to the point where it can easily manage itself, even with mostly users from outside the community.

By looking at the rankings of other Murder servers, it can be clearly seen that it is in the top 5 - 10 gamemodes in Garry's Mod itself, alongside gamemodes such as Prophunt. There are very few other gamemodes which we don't already have in ZARP that would be enjoyed by the community that are actually higher as a whole than Murder is, and by looking at our Murder server, it can be seen that the playerbase is able to support itself relatively well once we start to get players in, but if that slips up for just a day, then it goes back to the low average of up to 10 players, due to the fact that very few community members feel that they should play on the server, largely due to the preconceptions of the server that have been laid down by the community.

Of course, alternate possibilities do have to be considered, and when it comes down to it, the server itself is not very popular in the community. Whilst I would do my best to continue trying to get the server a steady playerbase, I am still able to consider some alternatives. If the Murder server were to continue going downhill, or were not able to pick up again, and it became clear that we could do nothing to solve this problem (as it stands currently, there are still options that we can try in order to get some more people onto the server), then I would consider replacing the server with one of the following: BaseWars, Jailbreak, MilitaryRP or TTT Server 2, however this would not be my primary option to consider.


TTT Server 2:

A hugely suggested expansion to the community, more so recently, has been the reintroduction of a second TTT server with a larger map pool. As a Community Manager, I would strive to bring in a second TTT server. As someone who was staff on TTT when we had the last server, I know that it does provide a much needed break from the constant repetitive gameplay feel that you often get on the current TTT Server. When we had the server previously, there was less of a demand for it in the community itself, and the server had a lot less content on it, so people were being drawn in to the main server purely for the maps. With the server now, there is a lot more incentive to actually join for the content, so a second TTT server is much more of a viable option than it was in the past, as a clear option to bring in old and new players alike and ensure that people are less likely to get bored of playing the same map constantly.


Another Community Manager:

Sure, we've already had quite a few votes for Community Managers this year, previously gaining Max and Captin, and now this one, but with losing Max, and even just in general, introducing just one new Community Manager to the team would not be the best idea. There are multiple people in the community who would also make some great changes if they got this rank, and so something else I would most definitely do as a Community Manager would be to ensure another vote, either community wide like this one or a Community Team vote, whichever one the community would prefer, in order to bring in another Community Manager, ensuring that the community can be run by a more efficient team, with more ideas and time to be pooled together into the community.





My current ranks in the community are as follows:

>>> Prophunt Server Owner <<<
>>> Murder Server Owner <<<
>>> Teamspeak Head Administrator <<<
>>> Forum Global Moderator <<<


I also previously held the following ranks:

>>> Deathrun Server Owner <<<
>>> Surf Server Developer <<<
>>> SSRP Head Administrator <<<
>>> TTT Head Administrator <<<
>>> Bhop Administrator <<<

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As always, I am open to anything that anyone wants to say regarding this application, and any form of constructive feedback which could help me to improve towards this position, or across the community in general. Thanks for reading my application!


If you would like to support me, it would be hugely appreciated if you could add this into your signature: