I felt like updating the community on our current plans going ahead. I will address several aspects of EGC as a whole.
My activity:Recently I haven't been on as much as I was, however simply being here for less than 3/4 of the day would of achieved that due to the intense amount of hours I've been working on improving the community as a whole in the last 3 Months. The recent decline is due to a job I've attained for an accounting firm, this is only a Three week contract and I have no desire to work for such a large corporation, let alone an Accounting one. Therefor I plan on leaving after the Three weeks and refusing the renewal I expect them to offer. So in essence, don't worry, I shall be back in full swing soon. Which will give me enough time to work on the following.
ECNR:We've been at 1.4b for a lot longer than I expected. You have a mixture of me being unexpectedly hired and Mr Watako to blame. Also the more positive reason for the delay is the fact a lot more work has gone into it than it expected, don't get me wrong it's nothing huge, but it's plenty for an update which isn't a full version upgrade. It's filled with bug fixes. Also some new features that I believe some people will like.
I'm hoping there will be no 1.4d, this is dependent on whether severe bugs occur and how well the ECNR store does between the release of 'c' and the possible 'd' version.
If a 1.4d is not neccesary, then we are free to move forward to the what I expected to be quite large 1.5. I plan on making 1.5 the largest update ECNR has seen to date. With a melody of new, large features and hopefully tying up all the loose ends of bugs we've had. With massive optimizations to top it off. I also want to give it a "New feel", maybe change some things around, more an appearance make over than anything else. Don't misunderstand that, I don't mean it will be more of an appearance change than new features, I just mean I'm hoping to give 1.5 it all, considering it's half way through the series and should be the largest update until 2.0. Mr Wataki will hopefully be adding his "Watako Affect" AKA, some pretty epic, advanced addition(s) which he has become known for. Hopefully we won't need a 1.5b but if bugs occur, we've no choice. Once 1.5 and the potential 1.5b is released that frees me up to work on further projects for a while such as...
FGRPG:I can assume many of you have become inpatient regarding the release of FGRPG, as have I. This is not Mr Watako's fault as I always have him running around doing things for ECNR which I haven't got time to.
Plans for FGRPG have changed quite a number of times recently, but it appears that we're now going with the original idea, a light role play Cops & Robbers server based in San Fierro. Of course this will not have even close to the features that ECNR will at the beginning, but we will be borrowing some from it. As of speaking, it's pretty much a basic script with minimal features. This should be changing soon. FGRPG's 1.0 version will be fairly basic. At this point we just want to get it released to give you guys something brand new. This by no means suggests we just want to put it out if it isn't up to standard and does not mean we will not be working heavily on adding to it's features.
I will be more heavily involved in FGRPG than we had originally thought, WatakiWatako will still be managing for the main part, but we will run it together more than once believed. This is more so that the community(s) don't have tension between them. "Byrner is better at running things!" "No, Wataki is!". Myself and Mr Watako have no desire to outdo eachother and we work very well together as a team, as you've all seen. So we will work on FGRPG together in a similar fashion to how we do ECNR.
The expected timeline for the first release of FGRPG is expected to be around a month after the release of 1.5. Don't quote me on this, but I'm hoping to have ECNR's 1.5 and FGRPG's 1.0 released by May. This is me just thinking now, but how amazing would it be if we could get it released on EGC's One Year anniversary that is coming up? Would be so fitting. I digress....Yeah, don't give up hope on FGRPG, I know we've let you believe it's a dead idea for a long time now, but we left the forum table available for a reason...it's still very much in our plans.
EGCM:Mr Watako is the one giving the review here:
The player count isn't exactly stable. Fair enough, we've had upwards of 7 players at times but even then, we've got 32 slots to fill. Furthermore, should we reach the maximum capacity, we are able to expand. As of current, the server seems to sit empty most of the time with the exception of the weekends when we generally have a few players.
Since the
servers listing was published, we have had a steady supply of new players, even when the server's empty. The problem is, they don't stick around. Why? Simple, an empty server is not attractive. This is
multiplayer Minecraft, after all!
So. Let's make EGCM a successful Tekkit server.
I've recently made some significant improvements, to highlight some:
?Thanks to Lockette and the newly installed protection plugin, griefing is virtually impossible.
?The anti-cheat and administration tools have been vastly improved.
?World Anchors have been removed.
?Disabled the Tank Carts to prevent a nasty duplication glitch.
?Adjusted the Dynamic Map settings to reclaim some resources, you won't notice the difference.
World Anchor RemovalUnfortunately, the world anchors were having a massive impact upon the CPU usage of EGCM. Since they effectively simulate a player standing in the position at which the world anchor is placed, therefore keeping the surrounding chunk in the memory, we were practically seeing the CPU usage I'd expect with at least 40 players online while in all actuality, the server was empty. This isn't exactly helped by the fact that world anchors are almost always placed near complicated machinery and redstone circuits. The worst of which being timers!
Just to emphasise this, since disabling the world anchors, the server's tick rate has improved dramatically. You will notice that redstone timers actually tick every second, mobs move more fluently, lava actually flows and so on. It feels more like single player now.
Anyhow. Since they're now disabled, we are likely to notice a performance increase on ECNR, as well as EGCM.
That's all the doom and gloom out of the way. Looking to the future, you guys basically need to play more. All the server needs is a shove in the right direction, welcome the new players warmly and we'll soon be a major player in the Minecraft/Tekkit hosting world.
Happy crafting!
Radio: Many of you have been dying for us to incorporate an EGC Radio to our arsenal, I do plan on doing so at some point, you'll all be happy to hear. The sole reason we haven't got one as we speak, is the low number of players that I believe would use it. I think we need a slightly larger community and more open interest in the radio. Put it this way, protest for it, you will get it!
When we do eventually get the station, I plan on having a large input in it, more than likely Chito will be running it, but he will have me in his ear quite often. We will host interviews, talk shows, open mic sessions, music broadcasts, skit shows, the works. Even educational broadcasts, myself and Hiredgun have been discussing doing one of them for months.
Our financial situation:The ECNR has been absolutely booming the last few months, so many players looking for such large features, I've almost found it hard to keep up with the demand, haha!
Your contributions to EGC's future are greatly appreciated, especially during this personal financial slum I'm in, it really couldn't of come at a better time...I lose my job and everyone starts using the store! Without you, I'm not too sure we would of made it through the last few months.
It's almost at a point where we could afford to upgrade to a new and better Virtual Private Server. However the great risk in this is if the store starts doing poorly, I have no way of keeping up with the massive bills we currently have, let alone increasing them.
The current VPS is actually quite good, it just limits us from expanding too much, I'm afraid of what CPU & RAM usage we'll be at once FGRPG and the radio is online. We can thank EGCM for eating up most of our resources!
Future EGC Games:To be honest, currently I have no games in mind to incorporate into EGC in the foreseeable future. If you've read the rest of this post, you know how many things we currently plan on doing, so I haven't exactly had time to think of other games to bring on board, let alone work on them. This does not mean I don't plan on expanding in the future, I'm simply letting you know our plans for the next Six months or so, which are pretty amazing even without the addition of a new game. We have a board on the EGC forum to suggest games for a reason, feel free to discuss anything you'd like to see us Sponsor.
The Community:Last but certainly not least. I have an extreme attachment to this community, more so than I ever had with my previous community. Don't get me wrong, before my last places masses were brainwashed, I did love it there. Some of them thought they'd be better without me...we all know the condition they are in now. This lovely community on the other hand, for once I'm lost for words. You lovely people have never doubted me for a second, have been there to talk to me anytime you'd notice I'm not myself. I have become friends with so many people here it's unreal. Even people that were members of my former community that I never got a chance to speak to, I've become quite close with them. Places might insult EGC, they may say whatever they like about EGC. Even Stevie Wonder can see that it's pure and utter jealousy. They are simply unable to comprehend the family atmosphere we have here. We don't argue, we don't bully, we don't insult. This is not out of fear of being banned, it's not out of anything other than we see how immature and pointless it is. We all get along, we all enjoy eachothers company. That is what a community is supposed to be. It's not me that built the community we have today, it was all of you. You people came here and showed me just how a community is supposed to work. I had given up hope, I thought the people will decency within them no longer existed. I am so happy to say I was wrong about that. I look forward to coming here every day, to code, to play, to talk to you fine people. I thank you people for choosing EGC as your home and I will do everything I can to ensure you want it to remain that way. Thank every single one of you.
That is the Enigmatic Gaming Community state of affairs as of 05/03/2013. Now we all know where we stand.
