DotaRank Inactivity issue and solutions!

[marcvs]

Hello fellow dotarankers!

As you might have noticed, the daily game count lately has dropped to miserable amount. In last 10 days we had around 20 games, and last 3-4 days we had barely a game per day.



The reason are numerous, probably from Dota2 claiming most active members, together with general trend of dying of mid skill dota on all platforms, with RGC not being an exception. The last, but not the least, the whole staff became rather inactive, and we must take the blame as well.

Howewer, we should not allow wc3 DotARank perish so easily, we all had too much nice time here to let that happen.

So i propose few changes, mostly in vouching and administrating area, since i think we need more active members and active staff. The rules should remain the same, i think we can all agree on that.

SUGGESTIONS

Vouching system

The general idea is making vouching new players faster, thus increasing players pool and, hopefully, games count.

How to get trial vouch:

1.IVR on forums (without secret line thingie), OR by whispering/asking someone from staff to vouch you. Rules are same, one month trial period, no previous Dr.Com bans, staff vouches users on own discretion (i.e. staff can check few previous games to check players attitude, but it is not always necessary.)

2.FVR (friend vouch) This feature would be revamped, now you would be able to vouch ANYONE on your responsibility , even previously unvouched/perma-banned players. Off course, penalties would be bigger if triallee failed(not to be taken lightly), and penalties and trial time would be set individually. Vouch would be forum-only, and staff would discuss upon it.

How to get perma vouch:

Same as current, so vouch request, secret line, game checks etc.

Crew

I was thinking of promoting most of willing TC-s to voucher status, which would be used MOSTLY as TC status , so NO banning and NO unvouching. This "semi staff" would only vouch new users (IVR as mentioned above), which would be recruited from pub/friends/wherever.
"Real" staff, with forum obligations and ban/unvouch rights would be admins only. Any abuse would be gravely sanctioned. Also, we would recruit 3-5 new (real) staff members. And we would need more pub advertising too.

Any suggestion and criticism is welcomed.

[my_name_is_8D]

Brah gaming is born when dr.com has fallen.

[Ihkke]

Gr.Community changed his name to BRAH Gaming the day MFW_ was banned from Dr.Community.
Him and Sirinakis simply vouched everyone that signed in Dr.community and from public to create more
games, which at first seemed great.. but that channel has nothing to offer in the long run.

Now that MFW_ ban is over, there is no reason for us to split the active people between more channels,
but rather make one really active channel instead.. and why not Dr.Community and Dr.Inhouse??

We want more people to have a Dota Rank vouch, so suggest and give your opinions about what marcvs said.

[marcvs]

Please restrain yourselves of posting immature crap. If you don't want to make civilized and constructive arguments, move along.

All spamming and useless posts will be deleted.

[WrathOfWah]

I agree about vouching.
Active players at dr.com should get voucher rank and try to bring new active players to dr.com. That way, player count will be increased, same as game count.

Admins ("real" ones) are inactive too. They should try praticipating dr.com with nothing more than signing and playing at least 2 games per day.

Finally some advertising would be from great importance. First way is by promoting it to other players we play,besides dr.com. Thats the way I heard for dr.com,playing eu pub game. Other ways are are by some short message about dr.com and link for vouch.

Other thing is rewards. When there was a gold member reward there were up to 3 games at weekend. But still, in my oppionion biggest mistake is giving dota 2 keys to dr.com players. "Good" players maybe moved to dota 2. Still there are one that stayed loyal to war3 dota.

Still,careful not to vouch everybody who asks for vouch, or dr.rank may turn into something it never was: a place full of leavers,flamers,game ruiners.

[tWkN]

Ye DR needs some love and ACTIVE ADMINS mostly. The currents admins dont even say a word in the channel nowadays. Maybe Have different branches, DotaRank and DotaRank2 (dota 2).

I've proposed a bit of a reboot, unvouching those who have close to 0 games and dont even talk in the channel. They arent part of the community and i think msot of them just wanted vouch for the sake of their profiles. These guys, when u hl them for game, they reply sharply "GTFO, stop hl". This way we would have a realistic sense of who's actually part of the community and then work on that. We want to get similar-minded people in the channel, not every random guy just to increase games count.

Maybe guys like WrathofWah who's active and mannered can help out by being a Voucher.

[nF.Hellspawn]

I suppose it's time for my long-overdue response to this situation. Pardon if this post is focused a bit more on my personal look on DR and it's state right now instead of suggestions, hopefully someone else can gather info from what I say and turn it into viable solutions.

Firstly, it'd be fair to explain my lack of interest for DR lately ( apart from the fact that I play DoTA2 a lot, and do university stuff ). Trying to avoid the forever repeating "Things just are not as good as they used to be" bullshit, I'd still say that RGC in general has been going in a direction I don't want to see it in for a very long time now, even before I was appointed for DR staff. There are several key issues that just drag the platform away from a level of professionality I expected. This is not making RGC bad by default, it's just different to how I want it. RGC fosters 2 attitudes that competely take from DR being a viable channel on the client. First is the "pub" mentality, all channels cannot avoid being treated as a public channel since that takes up most of the client's playerbase it forces people into thinking it's the only type of playstyle on the client. That attracts only unmannered people to RGC publics, which is our pool of people to accept for DR. Secondly, the channel creation and moderator/admin promotion system. The way things are set up, everyone and their mother can make their own channel without any real purpose or without any plan to guarantee success. People just do it for shiny letters and the feeling of greatness. That also counts for simple promotions to TC, moderator, or even just vouching.

This leads to a position where quality is not maintained, or even asked for. Games are amassed, people play games whereever they click on first, there's simply nothing differentiating the communities between channels, and nothing frrom the administration making a difference. Quality and professionality as such will remove from popularity in such a place, and DR, simply put, gets punished for being a well-ran channel. In a situation where every Jow Blow creates his own channel and vouches everyone, makes them TC and HLs them until they sign out of sheer frustration, DR has very few ways of getting those players back. If a player is banned from DR, he simply creates a channel and plays there, or joins another channel which is exactly the same.

DR is a part of RGC, but no longer an official part of it, as such it's just one of those random and pointless channels for all the people on RGC. The name of the channel has lost all it's "power". RGC is going in a completely opposite direction to DR, and we have no means of stopping it. Nor the intention. Also, it's too late for DotA1 to switch to another platform (such as IRC).

Keep in mind also that RGC already has a very small pool of users since it cateurs to a very strict demographic, people with different opinions or playstyle are just not represented and driven away. On top of that, DotA1's league/inhouse community is getting smaller by the day in huge numbers due to the DotA2 beta, DotA1's DR doesn't really have much more people to "grab".

The community spirit that I would want from a place like DR simply isn't there, people will just grab a game wherever they want to. We are strong here, to an extent, as DR has always had a huge number of players that will associate themselves with DR and be a true part of the community. (DR players meeting in Dotalicious, DotA2, whereever, recognizing themselves as DR-ers). This makes me, and should make us all very proud. Very few channels or even platforms achieve this, perhaps EAL to an extent... but yeah. Not gonna go there. Also, people are not "less mannered" nowadays, perhaps it IS true that a more unmannered audience is attracted to RGC, but most of the problems of the current situation come from the environment that the players are in, the overall situation on RGC that I explained so far, and not just everyone being assholes, that's absolutely untrue.

Now, the part about finding viable people to administrate and manage the community. This is an issue that causes great problems. Going back to what I said about RGC attracting an unmannered audience and then fostering such an attitude, this means that most people are simply not up to the task. The people that want to help the community are simply not ready to do such a "job", the people that are viable are not interested, the people who are good managers/administrators are unmannered or innapropriate. My idea of DR is, once again, that of a well organized, professional channel with admins who are dedicated to their job and do it for the community, not to feel good about themselves, or to see shiny letters. I've always wanted the role in the staff as DR has, for a long time, been my favourite place to play DotA, with tons of people that I loved. I wanted to give back to the community by doing something that I believed I was good at, with previous community management experience and simply being able to not get upset about the silliest of things. I can brag about me being fit for the job all I want, but I'm still just nobody, and a nobody that doesn't know much about the job from a professional standpoint, I didn't go to a school for this. However, people like havo, or Wendek/Ragnesis before and more were just very capable of doing a professional, solid preformance as a community manager while being interested only in the good of the community, not their self-esteem. Most of the people who want to be admins on RGC have just misplaced love for the role.

DotA2. Speaking of professional community managers, that's exactly what I wanted to see in DotA2. We/I have always had plans for DR in DotA2, but ran properly and professionaly. Valve's current plan is officially supported community channels, such as leagues/inhouses directly integrated into the client, easy to access and be part of as well as the people who run the channels being close to working for Valve ( yes, payed ). If there's one thing we can say about Valve, it's that they take the community members who further work on their own game very, very seriously. Since nothing of the sorts is yet implemented into the very basic DotA2 beta that we have now, we are not making any plans yet, I've only had a short chat with a guy from Valve.

Now, to conclude I'd really not want this thread or post to be another of the "DR is going down the drain" which we've seen time and time and time again. This situation is a bit different as DotA1 is coming to a close. Do we really want to keep on fighting for our spot on RGC ? I would personally rather RGC's DR ended in the way it started, well organized and led, a mannered community that cared about community members and not just spam-clicking that sign button to get quickly into a game, quickly play it, forget it and move on. If however, we want to make our stand and get people to keep playing, with the current mentality on RGC, the only viable option is to behave like all other channels, take tricks out of EAL's book and so on. Do people really want that? If you truly do... I'm still here for everyone.

(DR in general will still be in DotA2 as the situation currently stands, calm down, it's not gone for good with what I'm saying.)

[[Druid]]

Nice post, Hellspawn.
I pretty much feel the same way. Of all the leagues and communities I've been part of Dr.IH was by far the nicest place to play DotA, yet for various reasons the channel never really managed to grow.
Both putting and end to the moderation in pubs and the (incredibly bad) point system were changes I criticized before and when they were being made. As Hellspawn said this, along with the ridiculous channel system, made RGC a pub platform where a community like DR simply had a difficult stand. Dota 2 now just put a nail in its coffin.

I'm currently playing Dota 2 with my old clan mates and real life friends. They don't really want to go back to DotA 1, much less to a place where you have to wait for hours for a game to begin so I doubt you'll see much of me on RGC.
As for Dota 2 DR, I can't wait. I'm sick of pubs, sick of -ap, sick of 4-5 carries per team, I miss -cm, I miss player picks, having an organized game, wards, a crow before min 20 and also a bunch of you guys.

Until then I wish you the best of luck,

regards,

Papa D.

[shooker]

All good words for u all that have a Beta key, unfortunately it is a closed beta and not everyone of has has the opportunity to try the new game. U basically are tellin us that a game that has not yet been released is killing dota rank and Dota and i feel this is not good from an admin.
Furthermore i recall playing counter strike 1.6 and when Counter strike source came up (Valve Game) still a huge amount of players play the old cs and there are a lot of communities in that environment.And this can well be the same for Dota. U are just stating that when this dota2 will be released all of us will switch to it,and in my humble opinion this is not true. DR can still be the place for a nice community i hope it will not die.

Kind regards

shooker

[YahooMe]

DR is not at it's end yet. I'm sure we will find a way to solve some issues and make the community to what it was again.





















Not that I know how it was, I joined DR like 3 months ago.

[nF.Hellspawn]

I don't think the transition from DotA to DotA2 will be like the transition from CS to CS:Source or SC to SC2, especially since it seems the game will be free to play. There is no real reason for people to keep playing DotA when DotA2 is out. (lower settings for DotA2 will equal WC3 requirements).

As for the argument that people have ditched DotA1 too quickly, it's unfortunately true. Most leagues or communities completely disbanded cause people are pretty much just waiting for their key ( people overestimate how many keys there are ), or simply waiting for the release or perhaps open beta.

[Sirian]

Wanted to say hello today, but none there

[WrathOfWah]

I agree with shooker in comparing CS and CS:Source with Dota1 and Dota2, and in way that some players(although being able to play Dota2) wont switch to Dota2. I am one of those. I like WC3 dota and I would really like WC3 dota to stay as part of DR.

WC3 dota should not be forgotten and put in shadow by the releasing of Dota2. In favor of that, we should do our best AS A COMMUNITY to keep it alive and playable at DR.

Hope for the best.

[my_name_is_8D]

Imo there is no reason not to switch dota 2 (except for ppl with low pc's). Indeed, its the mudafuckin same game but in mudafuckin better. We just need everyone to be able to play! DA.

[WrathOfWah]

Imo there is no reason not to switch dota 2 (except for ppl with low pc's). Indeed, its the mudafuckin same game but in mudafuckin better. We just need everyone to be able to play! DA.

Brah, there is a reason that players will not like dota2 nevermind the new engine and graphic. Some gamers just like this wc3 dota. Good example of graphic not being relevant to represent the game is Stronhold Crusader. Game has really bad graphic,since its old, and has fcking 100x more "soul" than Stronhold Legend(like dota1 and dota2) or any RTS game that have similar gameplay or scenario.

So once again, dont push players to play dota2 like it is an obligation. Let people choose what fits them the most when they enjoy gaming.

[my_name_is_8D]

i still think there is no reason. XD
give me one good difference or reason cause i dont see any.

[WrathOfWah]

i still think there is no reason. XD
give me one good difference or reason cause i dont see any.

Except graphic and whole new enigine(that are still two good reasons "not to like" dota2), gameplay(lasthitting for example) can be one of reasons to dislike it. Again, if something has good graphic,engine or gameplay, it doesnt mean it fulfilled the expectations of a true WC3 dota successor.

Are this reasons okay to dislike it?

[shooker]

My dear wrath i totally agree with you

Dont let a closed Beta spoil our community and the fantastic game that Dota is

[Antidepresiv]

Nice post there Hellspawn, but i don't think its fair, or even the right way to even try to pin your failure to keep up with things, to the RGC or RGC Administration. If as you said a grandma, with a league, managed to beat you, and make you not put in the work for your community, how can that be our fault?

Moreover, university + dota 2, is a great commitment, for the community itself. The ammount of players that we are getting, is not something you can chose, because you can't predict what kind of a person someone is, when he registers and starts to play, that is a rather general problem. We get people on RGC, you pick the best with the vouch requests, thats how it worked before, while DR was still managed, and everyone was happy.

Srry Hellspawn, but blaming RGC because DR is going down the drain, is not fair, nor will it ever be. RGC was here for you, and will always be here for you. Never asked anything in return, nor did we ever interfere in your administration. When you plan to move a comm on DotA 2, you don't try to blame other people, or the entire community, you start from yourself, then move on other people. As for DotA DR, I am open for any suggestions, regarding prizes or anything we can do, to help the comm get back on it's feet, and reclaim it's glory. Cheers, best of luck in D2.

[marcvs]

I will leave this thread open few days more if someone has different ideas or another opinion, but i will try to give here my final perspective and decisions. (decisions are always subject to change ofc )

1. DotARank is a part of RGC and RGC is a part of DotARank and as long i am its admin it will be that way. We can start new branches in other game, but it's origin will stay on RGC as WC3 dota. And we must not allow it to die out.

2. So about changes. I am planing on promoting to vouchers Twinkie, shooker, and WrathofWah. There will probably be some more promotions, if you are interested please PM me here, requirements will mostly be activity and sanity.
Vouching will be changed in the way i described above, i will edit forums accordingly by the end of the week.
Rules, and whole DotARank look-and-feel will remain the same. We are only easing entry.

Anyways, ty you all for opinions, we will see how this thing is going.