Making a 30 day commitment

[Nutter 15,194]

We are now in September 16th of 2019, Monday. My schedule for this week includes 14 hours of classes, lets say realistically 20 hours of studying that could be split up to 3 hours a day. I will  be calling off work (or atleast keeping hours to a minimum) and pass up on volunteer/shadowing hours this week in favor of dedicating my time to Garnet as I would have in the past when my schedule was less busy. My ONLY commitments for this month will hopefully be restricted work hours to afford groceries, my girlfriend, and school.

What am I doing this for? I want to see if me being absolutely receptive and integrated with the community will actually make the difference some of you have been itching for, in order to make Garnet a better community that is a welcoming place to myself, and more enjoyable to newer players and veterans alike as some have noted. As pointed out nicely/and harshly by the likes of @Duel and @Pencil, there is a gap in communication due to my absence and I've been relying too much on the forums/middle men to find issues with the server, so I will be taking complete responsibility for that. I will try my best to be more receptive and communicative with the community for the next little while, and see how things go. All I ask for is that you guys try to be on your best behavior, and if you passionate about a topic or feature you want implemented/changed, please do not be overbearing, and try to communicate it in a more passive and welcoming manner. I will begin cracking down on forum toxicity (not just towards myself) but towards other users who are voicing their honest opinions, if it is done in a welcoming manner.

If I find myself unable to commit to this 30 day challenge, I will ultimately be shutting down the community, however, I think that we have gone through too much for me to drop this community, especially considering all the thousands of hours and sleepless nights that have passed by making friends/coding/crying about DDoS attacks/marathoning through hammer maps.

Hopefully good changes are to come!

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID, I'm removing the effect of negative reputation from reacts, and keeping the reactions on the forums more positive and less toxic.

[Vibe 1,088]

Papa garnet is back bois be on your best behavior 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Vibe

[Harris 112]

I love the community but the toxicity has driven a lot of people away or ruined a lot of the fun or interactions for people so if by chance we could get rid of some if not most of the toxicity then we probably might have a lot more of a nicer outlook from new people to the server and older players of the likes I’ve known many to leave because of how toxic things can get and it’s sad to see. But I’m glad to see you coming back and trying to help the community, hopefully I’ll be on soon.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Harris

[Entity 357]

50 minutes ago, Harris said:

I love the community but the toxicity has driven a lot of people away or ruined a lot of the fun or interactions for people so if by chance we could get rid of some of not most of the toxicity then we probably might have a lot more of a nicer outlook from new people to the server and older players of the likes I’ve known many to leave because of how toxic things can get and it’s sad to see. But I’m glad to see you coming back and trying to help the community, hopefully I’ll be on soon.

He's completely right, toxicity is a big key factor in the decline of population in any server and I believe we should do something about it.
 

[Realms 35]

Through my almost 7 years playing Garry’s mod and three of them basically playing militaryRP, be it on your server or another. I have seen servers/ communities fall apart over miscommunications between staff.

On this server I have seen it’s ups n downs. Amazingly I have not seen an owner admit his mistakes so good on you. From what you have stated above I believe you will be able to do this but please don’t fuck up cus we all love this server to pieces and wouldn’t like it to disappear anytime soon.  

- A nice but somewhat toxic player :)) 

[Harris 112]

I’ve only been playing gmod for two years and garnet MRP was the first server I ever joined and the only server I’ve ever mained itd be kinda heart breaking to see this server disappear.

[hex_ 236]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Whatever decisions you make regarding the communities' future, I'm sure people will understand.

if not, fuck 'em

[Dan Gardner 346]

You're in a very important part of your life and we all understand the pressure that you go through. I'm glad you've been able to dedicate as much time to this community as you have, thanks for all you do.

[KRISS 4]

Good luck! You are doing great for the workload you have got on you. Don't lose your head, although that sounds really hard, it's easy to suffocate in your commitments. 

 

Wish you the best, sir!

[Shrugger0 35]

On 9/15/2019 at 10:41 PM, Garnet said:

As pointed out nicely/and harshly by the likes of @Duel and @Pencil,

I read their posts but still didn't understand why they called you out like that. Seems like the situation went a little like:

>Server owner returns after an(as I understand it) prolonged absence with our favorite mapper boy

>Garnetgaming users screeching autistically 

 

Why?  Most of the points you made were true and It confused me to see Duel, one of the players on this server I hold true respect for being right most of the time, arguing a point that really doesn't make sense. 

I'm currently also doing a grad degree so I can somewhat understand what you were getting at in the post(can't imagine doing something as rigorous as an MD and running a server).  Glad to hear you're trying to be more in tune with the server and challenging yourself to work harder for it. However, Stress snowballs really quickly(personal experience), especially when you gotta juggle stuff so try to not burn yourself out. Cause you make Garnetgaming what it is.

Went ahead and considered the following list(based off the posts you made in the referred to thread and some stuff that I kinda remember that may or may not be wrong) of what you had to sacrifice for this server, that is for the most part free to play:

The opportunity cost of you spending hours of your life learning skills that is not likely to benefit outside of Gmod or translate into IRL stuff(skills like Hammer, Lua, Server stuff, etc.)

The opportunity cost of you maintaining his donation portal 

The cost of running your server(server host, website, TS, advertising?, etc)

The opportunity cost of you building a staff team up and maintaining team

Opportunity cost and Cost of designing new features per user(who may have not even put a single dollar into GG) suggestion(coding, new maps, etc.)

and this is just the stuff I came up in like 5 minutes.

 

Regardless of the kids, trust at least someone attempts to understand the depth of your labor. Anyways, welcome back Garnet its been awhile .

PS: if you do ever decide to shut down the community, I would be willing the purchase the community(forums, server, maps, dev stuff from over the years) if you're interesting on at least recouping some of your costs from over the years.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Shrugger0

[GreasyDan 75]

Niyce

[Vizii 566]

The last thing i want to see is this server disappear, with that being said even of you are not active for the next 30 days there are still people here who can help out massively to avoid the server shutdown. if there is anyways we can help you out with curving your option on the community shutdown please let us know! goodluck to you with your challenge my guy! hope everything goes positively and we can keep out home :,)

[Taffy 12]

damn. Ima be on “LOA” for half of those 30 days.R.I.P : me

Edited September 18, 2019 by Taffy

[Krimzin 535]

k

Edited September 22, 2019 by Krimzin

[Vizii 566]

yikes my guy hes making an effort is that not enough for you?