crenel
Youngster
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,279
- Points
- 36
As of this coming Saturday, the 14th of July 2012, I will cease to be an Administrator with Pokemon World Online and will take on a new role instead.
For approximately 23 months I have been an Administrator for this project, and during that time a slew of problems have come up that have crippled my ability to make positive contributions to the game on a consistent basis. In fact, over the past 12 months the biggest contributions I’ve made have been by and large unseen by the outside world -- it can essentially be argued that the only tangible contribution I’ve supplied was the winter festival in December.
Obviously, that isn’t a very active work rate, and obviously, that isn’t reflective of someone who has invested a lot of time into the project. Unfortunately both of those are accurate and factual evaluations of my outward and tangible contributions to the project over the past year. There are reasons that I haven’t been around or working, but if we’re all honest with each other: most of you don’t care and don’t want to read a list of what are basically excuses. Therefore, I’ll keep the explanation short just to sate anyone that might have a mild interest. If you don’t care, then simply skip the next paragraph.
Without going into too much detail: Bank of America attempted to screw my parents over by breaching contracts regarding ownership of their home. As they were in court, they had to store up all payments that would have been made and push them aside until the trial ended, at which point they’d honor all back payments. I had been working roughly 50 hours per week in order to help save up the necessary cash in the event that they lost the court case (they won). Additionally, my grandfather died in April and I ended up in the hospital with severe allergic reactions in May.
My time, thus, was limited, and I was only able to pick up a lighter load. One of the things that I’ve been working on sporadically since March has been a reboot of the Journalist team. The Journalist team holds a place close to my heart, as when I first joined the project in 2008 I was assigned to lead the team. Unfortunately the format I had chosen was that of an admittedly over-ambitious newsletter, and as a result I don’t believe a single issue was ever actually released under my leadership. Since then, all other incarnations of the team have failed primarily due to the fact that my original structure was heavily recycled by each subsequent leader. In fact, the name Passenger Pidgey has been there since I first came up with it in 2008.
Recognizing the multiple past failings of the newsletter or magazine formats in the past, I’ve decided to move in a different direction. A large part of why the newsletter/magazine formats failed is because of the amount of sheer content required in order to fill the pages. The work load, combined with the problem of coordinating a moderately sized team within a short, stressful time frame pretty much slammed the lid on the coffin of each team to attempt it. It didn’t help that by the time the Passenger Pidgey was released, the material was often several weeks out of date or no longer of popular interest.
When you combine all of the negative factors together -- the stressful deadlines, the demanding content quota, the necessity to remain topical and current over the span of a month -- it isn’t difficult to understand that the Journalist team has been fighting a losing battle since the very start. The final nail before the dirt? The Journalist team was -- by necessity -- the hardest working team on the staff, yet had very little to show for it and had very little recognition or respect. When a working environment creates that sort of near-non-existent morale by design, then that is a design that has failed to hit its mark.
I recognize that I haven’t been as active or as much of a contributing factor as I should have been as an Administrator. However, I also am still very interested in doing whatever I can to help this project evolve, adapt, advance and carve its way into the future. It’s because of this that I have decided to willingly step away from the Administrator position. I recognize that in order for the game to continue to advance, the fat needs to be trimmed, and in my current position (due primarily to my year of mostly inactivity) I’m nothing more than fat.
I’m no stranger to accusations regarding my pride or ego, or regarding my constant lust for “power and glory” -- I can assure you that those are nothing more than accusations. I am, first and foremost, dedicated to the greater good of this project, and second dedicated to bringing as good of a product as I possibly can to this community and to those who play games everywhere. My decision to step down is purely business-related; after all, if I would fire someone else with the sort of contributions that I’ve made, why would I provide myself any privilege or quarter?
Due to the fact that I have in fact been working on reviving the Journalist team, and due to the fact that I’m no longer an Administrator, I’ve been granted permission from the staff to completely take over the Journalist team. This means that starting on the 14th I will be wearing a different name tag, my name will be a different color, and I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone with any sort of account-related or administrative problems. I will also have a smaller say in the game’s direction. I’m making a point of emphasizing these last two points as I’m hoping for as smooth of a transition as reasonably possible.
Regarding the Passenger Pidgey: it’s getting a complete and total overhaul. Rather than utilizing outdated formats such as digital newsletters and magazines, we’ll be moving to a contemporary blog format. I understand that this will probably turn some of you off of the product prematurely -- please give the new Passenger Pidgey a chance before dismissing it.
I expect the blog to launch in approximately 3-4 weeks, depending on several factors (which I can’t discuss yet). I’ll be releasing more information in about a week, including more on the format and how you can potentially contribute. For now, all you need to be aware of is the fact that I’m no longer an Administrator and instead am focusing my entire attention on rebooting the Journalist team and Passenger Pidgey.
Regarding the projects I’ve been working on to this point: I’m assuming that the only one you guys are going to care about is the skill set updates. In short: we’ve been working on an alternative solution for a long time, but we feel that it isn’t something that can be solved by making minor changes to some moves. In particular, ThuGie rightfully pointed out that updating move sets isn’t something that I should have been responsible for in the first place -- it was something that I began working on only because it had been neglected for so long. We’ll release more information regarding the status of this project in the coming weeks.
Thank you for all of your support over the years, both for myself and for the entire Pokemon World Online project. We’ll continue to do our best to deliver the best product that we possibly can and to continue to improve, adapt and advance as a staff and as individuals.
For approximately 23 months I have been an Administrator for this project, and during that time a slew of problems have come up that have crippled my ability to make positive contributions to the game on a consistent basis. In fact, over the past 12 months the biggest contributions I’ve made have been by and large unseen by the outside world -- it can essentially be argued that the only tangible contribution I’ve supplied was the winter festival in December.
Obviously, that isn’t a very active work rate, and obviously, that isn’t reflective of someone who has invested a lot of time into the project. Unfortunately both of those are accurate and factual evaluations of my outward and tangible contributions to the project over the past year. There are reasons that I haven’t been around or working, but if we’re all honest with each other: most of you don’t care and don’t want to read a list of what are basically excuses. Therefore, I’ll keep the explanation short just to sate anyone that might have a mild interest. If you don’t care, then simply skip the next paragraph.
Without going into too much detail: Bank of America attempted to screw my parents over by breaching contracts regarding ownership of their home. As they were in court, they had to store up all payments that would have been made and push them aside until the trial ended, at which point they’d honor all back payments. I had been working roughly 50 hours per week in order to help save up the necessary cash in the event that they lost the court case (they won). Additionally, my grandfather died in April and I ended up in the hospital with severe allergic reactions in May.
My time, thus, was limited, and I was only able to pick up a lighter load. One of the things that I’ve been working on sporadically since March has been a reboot of the Journalist team. The Journalist team holds a place close to my heart, as when I first joined the project in 2008 I was assigned to lead the team. Unfortunately the format I had chosen was that of an admittedly over-ambitious newsletter, and as a result I don’t believe a single issue was ever actually released under my leadership. Since then, all other incarnations of the team have failed primarily due to the fact that my original structure was heavily recycled by each subsequent leader. In fact, the name Passenger Pidgey has been there since I first came up with it in 2008.
Recognizing the multiple past failings of the newsletter or magazine formats in the past, I’ve decided to move in a different direction. A large part of why the newsletter/magazine formats failed is because of the amount of sheer content required in order to fill the pages. The work load, combined with the problem of coordinating a moderately sized team within a short, stressful time frame pretty much slammed the lid on the coffin of each team to attempt it. It didn’t help that by the time the Passenger Pidgey was released, the material was often several weeks out of date or no longer of popular interest.
When you combine all of the negative factors together -- the stressful deadlines, the demanding content quota, the necessity to remain topical and current over the span of a month -- it isn’t difficult to understand that the Journalist team has been fighting a losing battle since the very start. The final nail before the dirt? The Journalist team was -- by necessity -- the hardest working team on the staff, yet had very little to show for it and had very little recognition or respect. When a working environment creates that sort of near-non-existent morale by design, then that is a design that has failed to hit its mark.
I recognize that I haven’t been as active or as much of a contributing factor as I should have been as an Administrator. However, I also am still very interested in doing whatever I can to help this project evolve, adapt, advance and carve its way into the future. It’s because of this that I have decided to willingly step away from the Administrator position. I recognize that in order for the game to continue to advance, the fat needs to be trimmed, and in my current position (due primarily to my year of mostly inactivity) I’m nothing more than fat.
I’m no stranger to accusations regarding my pride or ego, or regarding my constant lust for “power and glory” -- I can assure you that those are nothing more than accusations. I am, first and foremost, dedicated to the greater good of this project, and second dedicated to bringing as good of a product as I possibly can to this community and to those who play games everywhere. My decision to step down is purely business-related; after all, if I would fire someone else with the sort of contributions that I’ve made, why would I provide myself any privilege or quarter?
Due to the fact that I have in fact been working on reviving the Journalist team, and due to the fact that I’m no longer an Administrator, I’ve been granted permission from the staff to completely take over the Journalist team. This means that starting on the 14th I will be wearing a different name tag, my name will be a different color, and I will no longer be capable of assisting anyone with any sort of account-related or administrative problems. I will also have a smaller say in the game’s direction. I’m making a point of emphasizing these last two points as I’m hoping for as smooth of a transition as reasonably possible.
Regarding the Passenger Pidgey: it’s getting a complete and total overhaul. Rather than utilizing outdated formats such as digital newsletters and magazines, we’ll be moving to a contemporary blog format. I understand that this will probably turn some of you off of the product prematurely -- please give the new Passenger Pidgey a chance before dismissing it.
I expect the blog to launch in approximately 3-4 weeks, depending on several factors (which I can’t discuss yet). I’ll be releasing more information in about a week, including more on the format and how you can potentially contribute. For now, all you need to be aware of is the fact that I’m no longer an Administrator and instead am focusing my entire attention on rebooting the Journalist team and Passenger Pidgey.
Regarding the projects I’ve been working on to this point: I’m assuming that the only one you guys are going to care about is the skill set updates. In short: we’ve been working on an alternative solution for a long time, but we feel that it isn’t something that can be solved by making minor changes to some moves. In particular, ThuGie rightfully pointed out that updating move sets isn’t something that I should have been responsible for in the first place -- it was something that I began working on only because it had been neglected for so long. We’ll release more information regarding the status of this project in the coming weeks.
Thank you for all of your support over the years, both for myself and for the entire Pokemon World Online project. We’ll continue to do our best to deliver the best product that we possibly can and to continue to improve, adapt and advance as a staff and as individuals.
