Character
Rules
Events
Map
RP Points
Proplimits
Statistics
Steam Group
Members
Hall of Fame
Team
Bans
Blacklists
Warnings
Changelog
Content
09-07-2020, 04:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 01:08 AM by Fearless Community. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: Fixed Encoding
)
Greetings Fearless,
Over the last few weeks things have seemingly moved very quickly in terms of threads being made, developments within the team structure and more. It has been noted by many of you that I have been noticeably quiet and I would like to use this thread as an opportunity to be transparent in what has been going on both internally and externally in the community.
Document Leak
In terms of the document leak, I have no idea or interest in who leaked it and it has actually made things a little easier for me. At the time the document was written, Conn and I were trying to get the community moving, we had gone through some gmodstore addons together with some help from Tomo and the admin team and I was waiting to Liaise with Conn throughout the dev team to help integrate them into the gamemode, discussing the length each update would take and the price points I should be paying to see each one get done. I stick by everything I said in my reply, for those of you who read the reply there were around 12 points made on the thread and I had denied about 2 of them, most noticeably financial transparency and the need for budgeting, etc.
You can see my reasoning in the leak, but if you do not want to check the Pastebin here is my original google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11D3y...sp=sharing
And here is Conn and Joe Joe’s original document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yG3s...sp=sharing
To sum it up, I felt that it wasn't something that was required for FLs success and in terms of reserves etc, I felt I knew how to manage expenses and didn’t need an automatic system which detaches the owner from the team, I’d rather be able to converse with the development team on a personal basis regarding updates than have next to no communication due to such a system. The other ideas in the document were points I had brought up to Conn and vice versa before it was even created, such as outsourcing developers, development payment etc. Truth be told from how I see things, there is no bad blood between Conn and I - Of course he didn’t get everything he wanted in the document but we agreed on a lot of things and perhaps it took too long to get the necessary things done before he left. Another thing that was not in the document which I did also end up saying no to was having Joe Joe as SA, it was something Conn was quite keen on pursuing and I did see the positives as I thought his guidelines and drive were excellent, however I believed that at the moment it wasn’t what FL needed as not everybody would have been happy with the promotion (That and he was working on his new community with Forgee and so additional tension wasn’t a good idea and I didn’t want to break anything up) and we needed more time to consider him (hence why I offered Joe admin) - This was also mounted on top of the fact that Tomo wasn’t onboard with the idea either and I had learnt from when I first got Owner that throwing a bunch of SAs together was not healthy for the team, as it was no secret we had some disagreements between Conn and Fultz, both of whom brought brilliant ideas but were not able to execute them due to internal disagreements. Joe Joe explained to me that he only wanted to return if he were to get a managerial role, hence why nothing came out of that.
In terms of Development payment, it was something that I had explained to Soul that I wanted to pursue if I were to become owner, now originally I had planned to give Developers a percentage cut however after shortly gathering a huge dev team there were big plans to work on an entirely new gamemode, and instead of doing any sort of system I’d just save, save, save and pay big for when the project was done - however, as you saw from the forums there were creative differences and not everybody was on board with the same ideas and so the idea of a new gamemode started flip flopping. Conn messaged me regarding a percentage system and recommended about 20-40, again - after speaking to Avgar I had decided to settle at 25%, and as you can tell on my document and from what I had said to Conn at the time, the percentage would certainly increase once stuff starting to get done (25% at that time would have been about $200 also). What I had recently learnt is that this was actually never disclosed to the Development team and so they assumed they were getting nothing which is 100% my mistake, I had assumed Conn had informed the Development team. After the document was made, I had agreed to up the percentage to 30% which is now sitting at, however despite the percentage system I am more than happy to pay outside that margin given the workload etc. It will of course, as previously suggested increase too once we start to get the ball rolling and since Conn has resigned I have already agreed to pay and have paid for future updates which you will hopefully be seeing in the next couple of weeks or months. Despite losing some extremely talented developers, we still have a strong foundation and some brilliant team members working amid the current climate.
Materials
Now about Forgee’s post on the forums last night. As you could tell a post went round with Lesanka seemingly speaking out against me - this was a joke between myself and her and was intended to seem fake. In retrospect, this post did more harm than good and I apologise for riling anyone up - however from this event it led to a storm of future comments on the thread, most noticeably from the ex-administrator Forgee.
Now, a couple of months ago I had informed Forgee that we were going to work on some new materials that had been requested, Forgee had already spoken to me about wanting to work on some previously so I let him know that if he wanted to make some I’d put them on the server for him. At first we were shooting suggestions around for what could be done and then we both got to work, I spent 2 days helping him bug testing the materials, making them compatible with the gamemode, as well as sending him the necessary images required for the skinning job.
A couple days after we had finished creating the materials, he asked for advice on how to use vtfedit (which is the software I used to make the materials compatible with the gamemode). I told him that I’d only teach him once as I had taught many people before him (and it was an extremely easy software to use) - I proceeded to teach him and left it at that. The following day he said he did not understand, and I jokingly said that I would teach him if he invited me to his discord server. This was intended as a joke which I believed he would be able to take considering we had been friends for 2 years and I had met him in real life (hence the infamous yellow teeth meme). He did not take it well and blocked me and stopped playing FL. Later, I sent him the materials for him to use in the game despite him blocking me through a mutual friend.
I did not intend to make him feel upset and believed he could handle the joke as his humour I believed to be on a similar level.
Vehicle Update
In terms of the Rylund situation, he had posted a suggestion he wanted to make on the forums and I contacted the Dev SA at the time, Conn - on what a suitable price point would be, I had also contacted Avgar who was a previous Dev SA as we have been friends since 2016 and just wanted to be prepared for the offer. I had offered Snow £120 ($160) and Snow did not like the price point and requested $300. Because this was an investment, I wanted to investigate exactly what it was we would be getting and overall, I just wanted to understand the project more. My main query was why it was going to be sold on the GModstore for $15 but for Fearless to get it for $300. After asking him some questions to help bolster my understanding of how long the project would take I offered him his asking price of $300, however at this point himself and the partner he was going to work on the project with had lost interest. Rylund is a fantastic Developer and I’m sure he would have done a fantastic job; however, I stick by my intrigue when learning about the project as anyone would want more information on a project before investing. In retrospect, I can understand the frustration that it may have inflicted - however my intentions were always to understand the information behind what made the update such a big task to get onto the FL gamemode and moving forward I’ll make sure to liaise more between the development management to make sure this does not happen again.
Absence
I understand a lot of you have been wanting to hear from me in a meaningful way. I do not want Fearless to die, but I also will not be stepping down from Owner. There has been a myth that I have been inactive from many members of the community and even some members of the team. The truth is, I’ve been here since I was 14 (2013) and it’s my responsibility now, I have such a high level of respect for FL and for Soul and every single developer that has been able to create this gamemode, every admin that's kept the servers clean and every member that has been here with us whether you like me or not. I have honestly avoided the discussion forums for a long time which has led to a lot of false narratives to be told, I know I’m not perfect and could improve a lot and some of you have some great criticisms and I appreciate everyone that reached out - however, a LOT of it has been senseless hate and you should be able to understand that it’s not helpful to look at. My dms have always been open and I’ve spoken to many of you recently over dms and I much prefer that format to be able to have a civil and personal conversation with community members which really equals a less toxic environment and a more understanding place. Of course I’m going to have to address Minecraft (yes I was inactive for those 2 weeks, I apologise for taking that break, however my activity has been genuine you just haven’t seen the discussions going on behind the scenes and that’s not your fault for assuming otherwise because you don’t know any less). I am not letting FL die and I am not a massive fan of words because they can very easily be thrown about and amount to nothing. But I promise you updates are coming, and FL will be a better place moving forward and I will make sure of that. I had led a FL meeting with the staff team yesterday and we are all in the know about what is going on and we are excited for the ideas shared and what is to come.
Development
With that being said, we now have several development plans coming up. Darrell has kindly offered to fix our advanced dupe page which has remained a buggy mess for a long time. After the data loss Darrell and Ed were very quick to jump on many aspects of the forums and ACP and have really made things really nice and look really clean so I can’t wait for you guys to be able to use that coming up!
Of course, many of you are interested on physical server updates and that is now what our immediate focus is on, I feel like we have had a lot of distractions recently with team drama and are we or aren't we getting a new gamemode which has led to delays and a lack of focus on updates. Thanks to Conn and the admin team we have settled on several gmodstore addons (we aren't losing faith on creating our own custom material, however the gmodstore material has recently had a great boom in quality and we won’t be copying the content 1 on 1, we will of course be taking a lot of time to make it work and fit into the FL gamemode). I will not reveal what we have bought but there are some exciting things on the way for you guys to enjoy, which many of you have been anticipating for a long time.
Announcements
Now for actual changes that need to be announced. Someone who has been silently keeping FL afloat from the background and who was equally as vital in the data loss situation during the original crossover is stepping up as Supervising Administrator. Edned will be joining Tomo in the supervising administrator role. He will be overseeing the development side of things and we have already had some great and exciting discussions about where we both mutually see FL going moving forward. Tomo and I have known Ed for many years so we’re happy to have him in this position as well as his excellent amount of knowledge for the role.
In terms of the rest of the team, the team is small and so we want to trial some changes to our current system to kick start a new era of team members. With this, instead of having to wait 2 months for trial the cool down is now 1 month. We will also be able to suggest team members internally like we used to be able to (unlike popular belief, I do not handpick team members, it is democratic vote for admins+). Trial admin Stage 2 have been given more access now too and we’ll be testing access to prepare our trials for what is to come in the full role, as well as making it easier for us to see how they would fit in the official role itself.
We also have some new rules which were suggested by the community and staff team:
8.4 In the event of an Officer noticing a weapon in your vehicle, they are allowed to act in accordance with the law. - This was done due to weapons displaying in vehicles, as it was not clear whether or not Officers could arrest or pursue them due to it being a glitch.
1.7 You cannot be discriminatory out of character in any form; doing so will result in a harsh punishment. You can do this in character with an intricate roleplay reason, however it will require consent from all members of the RP or Admin permission. - This was done as the sheer amount of toxicity towards marginalised groups was getting out of hand and could be extremely triggering. This was done as a result from a community suggestion with admin internal discussion.
Now onto courthouse changes!
Admins will now be required to get an additional response from a member who has posted a UBR before they decide to approve or decline it.
Admins will also now be required to comment on the AAs before it is concluded. An SA may conclude an AA prior to this if the outcome of the case is obvious.
There are some more announcements to follow in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!
-Divey
Over the last few weeks things have seemingly moved very quickly in terms of threads being made, developments within the team structure and more. It has been noted by many of you that I have been noticeably quiet and I would like to use this thread as an opportunity to be transparent in what has been going on both internally and externally in the community.
Document Leak
In terms of the document leak, I have no idea or interest in who leaked it and it has actually made things a little easier for me. At the time the document was written, Conn and I were trying to get the community moving, we had gone through some gmodstore addons together with some help from Tomo and the admin team and I was waiting to Liaise with Conn throughout the dev team to help integrate them into the gamemode, discussing the length each update would take and the price points I should be paying to see each one get done. I stick by everything I said in my reply, for those of you who read the reply there were around 12 points made on the thread and I had denied about 2 of them, most noticeably financial transparency and the need for budgeting, etc.
You can see my reasoning in the leak, but if you do not want to check the Pastebin here is my original google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11D3y...sp=sharing
And here is Conn and Joe Joe’s original document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yG3s...sp=sharing
To sum it up, I felt that it wasn't something that was required for FLs success and in terms of reserves etc, I felt I knew how to manage expenses and didn’t need an automatic system which detaches the owner from the team, I’d rather be able to converse with the development team on a personal basis regarding updates than have next to no communication due to such a system. The other ideas in the document were points I had brought up to Conn and vice versa before it was even created, such as outsourcing developers, development payment etc. Truth be told from how I see things, there is no bad blood between Conn and I - Of course he didn’t get everything he wanted in the document but we agreed on a lot of things and perhaps it took too long to get the necessary things done before he left. Another thing that was not in the document which I did also end up saying no to was having Joe Joe as SA, it was something Conn was quite keen on pursuing and I did see the positives as I thought his guidelines and drive were excellent, however I believed that at the moment it wasn’t what FL needed as not everybody would have been happy with the promotion (That and he was working on his new community with Forgee and so additional tension wasn’t a good idea and I didn’t want to break anything up) and we needed more time to consider him (hence why I offered Joe admin) - This was also mounted on top of the fact that Tomo wasn’t onboard with the idea either and I had learnt from when I first got Owner that throwing a bunch of SAs together was not healthy for the team, as it was no secret we had some disagreements between Conn and Fultz, both of whom brought brilliant ideas but were not able to execute them due to internal disagreements. Joe Joe explained to me that he only wanted to return if he were to get a managerial role, hence why nothing came out of that.
In terms of Development payment, it was something that I had explained to Soul that I wanted to pursue if I were to become owner, now originally I had planned to give Developers a percentage cut however after shortly gathering a huge dev team there were big plans to work on an entirely new gamemode, and instead of doing any sort of system I’d just save, save, save and pay big for when the project was done - however, as you saw from the forums there were creative differences and not everybody was on board with the same ideas and so the idea of a new gamemode started flip flopping. Conn messaged me regarding a percentage system and recommended about 20-40, again - after speaking to Avgar I had decided to settle at 25%, and as you can tell on my document and from what I had said to Conn at the time, the percentage would certainly increase once stuff starting to get done (25% at that time would have been about $200 also). What I had recently learnt is that this was actually never disclosed to the Development team and so they assumed they were getting nothing which is 100% my mistake, I had assumed Conn had informed the Development team. After the document was made, I had agreed to up the percentage to 30% which is now sitting at, however despite the percentage system I am more than happy to pay outside that margin given the workload etc. It will of course, as previously suggested increase too once we start to get the ball rolling and since Conn has resigned I have already agreed to pay and have paid for future updates which you will hopefully be seeing in the next couple of weeks or months. Despite losing some extremely talented developers, we still have a strong foundation and some brilliant team members working amid the current climate.
Materials
Now about Forgee’s post on the forums last night. As you could tell a post went round with Lesanka seemingly speaking out against me - this was a joke between myself and her and was intended to seem fake. In retrospect, this post did more harm than good and I apologise for riling anyone up - however from this event it led to a storm of future comments on the thread, most noticeably from the ex-administrator Forgee.
Now, a couple of months ago I had informed Forgee that we were going to work on some new materials that had been requested, Forgee had already spoken to me about wanting to work on some previously so I let him know that if he wanted to make some I’d put them on the server for him. At first we were shooting suggestions around for what could be done and then we both got to work, I spent 2 days helping him bug testing the materials, making them compatible with the gamemode, as well as sending him the necessary images required for the skinning job.
A couple days after we had finished creating the materials, he asked for advice on how to use vtfedit (which is the software I used to make the materials compatible with the gamemode). I told him that I’d only teach him once as I had taught many people before him (and it was an extremely easy software to use) - I proceeded to teach him and left it at that. The following day he said he did not understand, and I jokingly said that I would teach him if he invited me to his discord server. This was intended as a joke which I believed he would be able to take considering we had been friends for 2 years and I had met him in real life (hence the infamous yellow teeth meme). He did not take it well and blocked me and stopped playing FL. Later, I sent him the materials for him to use in the game despite him blocking me through a mutual friend.
I did not intend to make him feel upset and believed he could handle the joke as his humour I believed to be on a similar level.
Vehicle Update
In terms of the Rylund situation, he had posted a suggestion he wanted to make on the forums and I contacted the Dev SA at the time, Conn - on what a suitable price point would be, I had also contacted Avgar who was a previous Dev SA as we have been friends since 2016 and just wanted to be prepared for the offer. I had offered Snow £120 ($160) and Snow did not like the price point and requested $300. Because this was an investment, I wanted to investigate exactly what it was we would be getting and overall, I just wanted to understand the project more. My main query was why it was going to be sold on the GModstore for $15 but for Fearless to get it for $300. After asking him some questions to help bolster my understanding of how long the project would take I offered him his asking price of $300, however at this point himself and the partner he was going to work on the project with had lost interest. Rylund is a fantastic Developer and I’m sure he would have done a fantastic job; however, I stick by my intrigue when learning about the project as anyone would want more information on a project before investing. In retrospect, I can understand the frustration that it may have inflicted - however my intentions were always to understand the information behind what made the update such a big task to get onto the FL gamemode and moving forward I’ll make sure to liaise more between the development management to make sure this does not happen again.
Absence
I understand a lot of you have been wanting to hear from me in a meaningful way. I do not want Fearless to die, but I also will not be stepping down from Owner. There has been a myth that I have been inactive from many members of the community and even some members of the team. The truth is, I’ve been here since I was 14 (2013) and it’s my responsibility now, I have such a high level of respect for FL and for Soul and every single developer that has been able to create this gamemode, every admin that's kept the servers clean and every member that has been here with us whether you like me or not. I have honestly avoided the discussion forums for a long time which has led to a lot of false narratives to be told, I know I’m not perfect and could improve a lot and some of you have some great criticisms and I appreciate everyone that reached out - however, a LOT of it has been senseless hate and you should be able to understand that it’s not helpful to look at. My dms have always been open and I’ve spoken to many of you recently over dms and I much prefer that format to be able to have a civil and personal conversation with community members which really equals a less toxic environment and a more understanding place. Of course I’m going to have to address Minecraft (yes I was inactive for those 2 weeks, I apologise for taking that break, however my activity has been genuine you just haven’t seen the discussions going on behind the scenes and that’s not your fault for assuming otherwise because you don’t know any less). I am not letting FL die and I am not a massive fan of words because they can very easily be thrown about and amount to nothing. But I promise you updates are coming, and FL will be a better place moving forward and I will make sure of that. I had led a FL meeting with the staff team yesterday and we are all in the know about what is going on and we are excited for the ideas shared and what is to come.
Development
With that being said, we now have several development plans coming up. Darrell has kindly offered to fix our advanced dupe page which has remained a buggy mess for a long time. After the data loss Darrell and Ed were very quick to jump on many aspects of the forums and ACP and have really made things really nice and look really clean so I can’t wait for you guys to be able to use that coming up!
Of course, many of you are interested on physical server updates and that is now what our immediate focus is on, I feel like we have had a lot of distractions recently with team drama and are we or aren't we getting a new gamemode which has led to delays and a lack of focus on updates. Thanks to Conn and the admin team we have settled on several gmodstore addons (we aren't losing faith on creating our own custom material, however the gmodstore material has recently had a great boom in quality and we won’t be copying the content 1 on 1, we will of course be taking a lot of time to make it work and fit into the FL gamemode). I will not reveal what we have bought but there are some exciting things on the way for you guys to enjoy, which many of you have been anticipating for a long time.
Announcements
Now for actual changes that need to be announced. Someone who has been silently keeping FL afloat from the background and who was equally as vital in the data loss situation during the original crossover is stepping up as Supervising Administrator. Edned will be joining Tomo in the supervising administrator role. He will be overseeing the development side of things and we have already had some great and exciting discussions about where we both mutually see FL going moving forward. Tomo and I have known Ed for many years so we’re happy to have him in this position as well as his excellent amount of knowledge for the role.
In terms of the rest of the team, the team is small and so we want to trial some changes to our current system to kick start a new era of team members. With this, instead of having to wait 2 months for trial the cool down is now 1 month. We will also be able to suggest team members internally like we used to be able to (unlike popular belief, I do not handpick team members, it is democratic vote for admins+). Trial admin Stage 2 have been given more access now too and we’ll be testing access to prepare our trials for what is to come in the full role, as well as making it easier for us to see how they would fit in the official role itself.
We also have some new rules which were suggested by the community and staff team:
8.4 In the event of an Officer noticing a weapon in your vehicle, they are allowed to act in accordance with the law. - This was done due to weapons displaying in vehicles, as it was not clear whether or not Officers could arrest or pursue them due to it being a glitch.
1.7 You cannot be discriminatory out of character in any form; doing so will result in a harsh punishment. You can do this in character with an intricate roleplay reason, however it will require consent from all members of the RP or Admin permission. - This was done as the sheer amount of toxicity towards marginalised groups was getting out of hand and could be extremely triggering. This was done as a result from a community suggestion with admin internal discussion.
Now onto courthouse changes!
Admins will now be required to get an additional response from a member who has posted a UBR before they decide to approve or decline it.
Admins will also now be required to comment on the AAs before it is concluded. An SA may conclude an AA prior to this if the outcome of the case is obvious.
There are some more announcements to follow in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!
-Divey
![[Image: f2kzlKW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/f2kzlKW.png)
![[Image: qrw50vfb_o.gif]](https://wsrv.nl/?url=images2.imgbox.com/ce/8c/qrw50vfb_o.gif&w=1920&h=1080&fit=inside&n=-1&we)
