Server Management Update

[Nutter 14,630]

Hello Garnet Gaming members,

 

Following a bunch of messages in regards to the current situation, and although I prefer to handle things privately, in the effort of being transparent with you all, I figured it'd be best I make a proper thread to address our current situation, following the departure of Proggy, who held a management role within our community and was a long time member of our community. 

 

As of 8/10/2023, Proggy is no longer a part of our community or the overall management team. With that being said, just to clarify he is not banned or prohibited from re-joining our community and there is no bad blood. Proggy made the decision to depart from the community following a discussion about the state of our Rust community, and after 4 years of working together, I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors. He is a fantastic individual who knew how to make those around him feel at ease.

Being that many people had asked me about the reason for having made the decision of cutting the ties with Proggy as a member of our Rust roster, the reason is performance and finances. Our Rust community is a very expensive endeavor, and Proggy got delegated the task of their management as of this year - that was meant to be his sole role within the community - and anything more was done at the discretion of his own due to loving our DarkRP server. For full transparency - our goal in mind was to reboot said Rust servers, bring them up to standard, and allow for the purchase of packages within our store, allowing proggy to receive 100% of the profits they generate. Unfortunately this was met with no success (not solely at a fault of his own, but many external factors) - and after months and months of pushing back deadlines of when we will shut down Rust, this past weekend was a boiling point as our Rust servers hit a bottom low and became a COMPLETE liability. Throughout the recent decline of the Rust Community, I reached out to Proggy to renegotiate his terms (to his favor) on several occasions as I felt they were not fair with how much time he insisted on putting into the server; as well as the fact I was not seeing Rust do well and was trying to find ways to provide him a livable wage, but unfortunately these attempts felt very one-sided on my end, and he would either decline or never following through with re-negotiations. To transparently discuss the loss amount, it is north of $20,000. With that being said, no plan was determined for opening another server within a new game to dive into in order to create supplemental income for Proggy at this time, and it didn't seem like something that was worth exploring at the very last moment for either sides of us due to the turmoil.

 

In regards to Rust, as this was a revolving question as well and understandably so since we have hundreds of members there, i'm trying to determine who would be the most experienced person to be hired for the task of managing our Rust community with identical conditions as a one last try type of deal, before closing off Rust entirely. I have had a DOZEN private applications upon Proggy's departure, but unfortunately, and as cheesy as this may sound, i'm currently re-evaluating alot of responsibilities I do and do not want to hold - because besides holding a high degree of a financial responsibility over another individual, I feel like the type of bond I had with Proggy isn't at all replaceable, and things will not feel the same. There are some external factors to this that have made life immensely stressful, consisting of some topics I hadn't brought up publicly, like me and my partner's miscarriage, my recent hospital visits, and at this point of time, going through a drastic change is anything but welcome - but i'll have to figure it out as the owner of this community.

 

Thank you for reading through and being understanding, I hope many of you will stick around to see the changes the community will be going through as we focus on growing the playerbase and focusing on a more player-centric and community involved attitude. Because for the time being, I'll be dousing myself in server-related tasks to do anything but have to think through this ongoing situation

[Annihilator 65]

Proggy will be missed

 

[computer 52]

Honestly I am excited but also scared to see what happens with the servers after garnet gets through all the fire and smoke happening this week

[Nutter 14,630]

2 hours ago, computer said:

Honestly I am excited but also scared to see what happens with the servers after garnet gets through all the fire and smoke happening this week

Hey buddy, there aren't really any fires and smokes, we just lost a very valuable member, but I guess it had to happen. The servers will get the same updates they have been getting, but specifically the server you play on will be getting the next one.

 

3 hours ago, Annihilator said:

Proggy will be missed

 

Yes he will

[ChrisRid 785]

All due respect, this is a massive loss and I feel Proggy would have done all that he could to have stayed if it were feasible, knowing how direct yet level-headed he is, I’m sure you’ve had those conversations. There simply won’t be a replacement for him. I appreciate the attempt at damage control but I call a spade is a spade, and this is completely tragic. I do understand that it became non-financially feasible, but you simply won’t find anyone who’ll put 12+ hours a day into Garnet without a wage to pay their food & rent, and anything less comes with compromises which in any case aren’t good. Call me whatever you’d like, but in the place of greatness you’ll have to fill with mediocracy, I saw it coming with Cybers constant power trips which Proggy never did, hence why I got out when I could. There’s still some fantastic people here, but please for your own benefit and that of the server, pick these people wisely and try to reach a compromise with Proggy to objectively reach the best solution. I’ve opened my DM’s again if you’d like to talk one-to-one, no worries if not though. 

[Nutter 14,630]

28 minutes ago, ChrisRid said:

All due respect, this is a massive loss and I feel Proggy would have done all that he could to have stayed if it were feasible, knowing how direct yet level-headed he is, I’m sure you’ve had those conversations. There simply won’t be a replacement for him. I appreciate the attempt at damage control but I call a spade is a spade, and this is completely tragic. I do understand that it became non-financially feasible, but you simply won’t find anyone who’ll put 12+ hours a day into Garnet without a wage to pay their food & rent, and anything less comes with compromises which in any case aren’t good. Call me whatever you’d like, but in the place of greatness you’ll have to fill with mediocracy, I saw it coming with Cybers constant power trips which Proggy never did, hence why I got out when I could. There’s still some fantastic people here, but please for your own benefit and that of the server, pick these people wisely and try to reach a compromise with Proggy to objectively reach the best solution. I’ve opened my DM’s again if you’d like to talk one-to-one, no worries if not though. 

All due respect back to you, yes, Proggy is by far one of the most level-headed individuals and i'm super sad with how the situation had gone, to the point where admittedly, i'm doubting if i'll keep Garnet much longer - but i'm trying to piece it together for the time being.

You saying there's no replacement for proggy is just redundant because that is exactly what I mentioned in my above post, and it seems like you just did that to antagonize Cyber. You yourself had departed from our server in a very immature manner months ago where you blocked your own friends and supporters, then moved on with life; all because you had a disagreement with somebody. Finally, mentioning that arbitrary "12+ hours a day into Garnet" is just a bit redundant, I do not expect of anybody to be around for that long a period of time. When it comes to me and Proggy, I tried to move us into a situation where things are more financially viable, but failed to accomplish this. I would have been willing to continue to try, but it didn't seem like Proggy was favoring the idea at that point, and understandably so.

[BoDean 10]

-1

[PraetorDon 475]

There are two sides to every coin.

Shitpost: https://www.fiverr.com/categories/online-marketing/community-management/community-manager

Serious: Hope everything works out. There aren't really any great solutions overall from a whole community perspective at the moment. I don't know Rust, but I've seen like 5ish Rust Managers come and go at this point with varying degrees of success. All I can say is diversify. I know you have no plans to do so, but that's what I recommend.

[StraightWhiteChristianMale 496]

Were all getting old huh

[Nutter 14,630]

25 minutes ago, PraetorDon said:

Serious: Hope everything works out. There aren't really any great solutions overall from a whole community perspective at the moment. I don't know Rust, but I've seen like 5ish Rust Managers come and go at this point with varying degrees of success. All I can say is diversify. I know you have no plans to do so, but that's what I recommend.

I appreciate your advice man, I would love to diversify and that was the attempt with Rust, before moving on to larger projects, but unfortunately, it doesn't always seem to be playing in our favor. I know there's been many mentions of Minecraft and whatnot, but unfortunately, that's not my area of expertise;  neither would I know how to grow in a game without a built-in browser.

[ChrisRid 785]

30 minutes ago, Nutter said:

All due respect back to you, yes, Proggy is by far one of the most level-headed individuals and i'm super sad with how the situation had gone, to the point where admittedly, i'm doubting if i'll keep Garnet much longer - but i'm trying to piece it together for the time being.

You saying there's no replacement for proggy is just redundant because that is exactly what I mentioned in my above post, and it seems like you just did that to antagonize Cyber. You yourself had departed from our server in a very immature manner months ago where you blocked your own friends and supporters, then moved on with life; all because you had a disagreement with somebody. Finally, mentioning that arbitrary "12+ hours a day into Garnet" is just a bit redundant, I do not expect of anybody to be around for that long a period of time. When it comes to me and Proggy, I tried to move us into a situation where things are more financially viable, but failed to accomplish this. I would have been willing to continue to try, but it didn't seem like Proggy was favoring the idea at that point, and understandably so.

Im not sure why you feel I left immaturely, I simply exhausted all avenues of civil discussion and so without any big public “look at me” post, I just went on my merry own way and moved on. It was a shame, hundreds / thousands of hours supporting this server had come to an end, and blocking many people prevented unnecessary drama, but of course I kept in touch with many friends I met here. Naturally the story is all one sided hence my brief mention of the true end, and as much as it may pain people, it’s simply the truth. As far as antagonising goes, refer to my messages in the managers chat for plenty of examples the other way round. I’ve always given an honest account. With that said, I do miss our catch ups Garnet, and you put so much work into this community that I just want to see it go well, and hence my post. It’s not in a nasty way, but genuine feedback. I don’t know how to say this without you and others twisting it into ‘toxicity’ so I’ll just say if Proggy came back and someone else left, I’d come back.

[Criteria 73]

Get on rust bro

 

[Nutter 14,630]

10 minutes ago, ChrisRid said:

Im not sure why you feel I left immaturely, I simply exhausted all avenues of civil discussion and so without any big public “look at me” post, I just went on my merry own way and moved on. It was a shame, hundreds / thousands of hours supporting this server had come to an end, and blocking many people prevented unnecessary drama, but of course I kept in touch with many friends I met here. Naturally the story is all one sided hence my brief mention of the true end, and as much as it may pain people, it’s simply the truth. As far as antagonising goes, refer to my messages in the managers chat for plenty of examples the other way round. I’ve always given an honest account. With that said, I do miss our catch ups Garnet, and you put so much work into this community that I just want to see it go well, and hence my post. It’s not in a nasty way, but genuine feedback. I don’t know how to say this without you and others twisting it into ‘toxicity’ so I’ll just say if Proggy came back and someone else left, I’d come back.

Look man, i'm well aware if Cyber departed and Proggy was to return you'd be back, with that being said, a mistake was made, the second party apologized, and as far as everybody involved, that should've been the end of that situation. Where I think some immaturity showed is in the decision to "block off your genuine community friends to avoid drama" when in reality, the majority of us just enjoyed you as a person and wanted to keep in touch, but that is just water under the bridge, and doesn't in any way have to do with the topic discussion here. I did add you on Discord if you wanted to catch up.

[PraetorDon 475]

48 minutes ago, Nutter said:

I appreciate your advice man, I would love to diversify and that was the attempt with Rust, before moving on to larger projects, but unfortunately, it doesn't always seem to be playing in our favor. I know there's been many mentions of Minecraft and whatnot, but unfortunately, that's not my area of expertise;  neither would I know how to grow in a game without a built-in browser.

If you want a game with a built in browser. Battlebit is an option. I know you weren't interested before. 

Devs are looking for a few hosters who understand C# are willing to customize and build a community using the API in that regard. I'm paraphrasing because the full post is quite long. I don't know how good your C# is, we talked about it, I don't remember. Good thing about C# is the IDE's are so robust for it, the code can basically write itself if you have a general idea what you want.

 

If you want an invite to that Discord (It's official), I can DM you one so you don't have to go searching through announcements for it. They are willing to help with moderation, so that should take some of the work off and work with you on the API/Programming Aspects. Just an idea. Market is not yet saturated.

I'm too far out of the loop for Minecraft, but people would talk about it constantly in the VC's. I don't know what's popular anymore, the younger people likely do. Back in my day we'd get Operator by saying we worked for Planet Minecraft. Likely just web ads/word of mouth. Might be saturated though.

Otherwise, I play Flight Simulators, if I play games at all.

Edited August 12 by PraetorDon

[Pluto_ 681]

Whoever was running rust 2020-2021 was doing a fine job!