What happened to the server?

[Lewwings]

but I'd say things are on the up; slowly but surely.

i need some of that copium you're huffing

I agree here, that statement is definiately delusional.

When was the last time you joined the server or any of our events? We just went from no activity to ~2-3 events per week. We're already full-steam planning out entire october. If that progress is too slow for your standards, then you're just an ingrate, and I don't care if you joined the server in 3600 B.C. and became an admin when Roman empire fell. If you're a forums keyboard warrior in 2022 without playing or joining events, then you have no right to talk down to people like that who are actually trying to make a change. Take a week and make your own event, try to make your own community movement to repopulate the server, make your own advertising systems for the server. Only then you'll have a right to call others delusional and claim that no progress has been made.

why do you have to rely on events to attract players to the server

In fairness it makes sense for an Event Coordinator to be focused on hosting (mini-)events as a means of attracting and retaining players, along with admins on rule enforcement, developers on content, etc.

I'd also like to dispel the notion that thinking circumstances are improving "slowly but surely" is in any way "delusional".

This is also going to be focused on the events team as it's not my place to spout off about the administration or development teams.

Over the last month, the events team has reorganised itself internally and with a new plan and a refined approach to things, a sizeable number of events and minievents have been pumped out successfully for the playerbase to enjoy. We do this because we want to give Fearless players the best experience possible, and that currently includes running roleplays to bring some life back to the server as the natural ebb and flow of things has not quite returned yet.

I agree with jfd13 in that the marketing of Fearless needs more focus. Anything to consolidate what reach we currently have (forums, discord, steam, etc) and to also reach out and attract new folks - but also to retain them. I would love nothing more than for the server to be back in full swing with a full server daily at the very least, but that's not the reality of the current situation. However things aren't hopeless either, it's just that the sort of changes that are needed are not going to come into place overnight, they are something that needs committing to over a long period of time, and thankfully the team is full of committed and caring people, we're not making things up as we're going along here, we are following a realistic plan and are already seeing some positive results as a result of it, so as corporate as it sounds: give it time.

Also shoutout to Fultz for calling out a big problem that events pose, if you're talking about what I think you're talking about - that being they either detract from players joining the main server or that they remove interest from playing on the main server if a specific, server-wide event is being held - then this is something that has been considered internally, and what can be done to mitigate those problems is something we're working on too.

And don't forget, if you want proper change as opposed to just calling out authority figures, be the kind of change you want to see and pitch in yourself. Individuals working together for a shared purpose can do some really good things, even on Gmod.