Embracing the Future

[Xoria]

If you think about the very concept of discovery, it requires a curiosity of the unknown, and a willingness to consider the possibilities, and even the necessity of change.

I encourage you to go to the Approved Faction Request subforum and read through the oldest faction documents there from early 2008. What you will see is a steady progression from 2008 into 2009 in the thoroughness and attention to detail.

2007 and 2008 mark very different eras in this community. Up to 2007 there was a lax attitude towards roleplay even in the roleplay forums, and it wasn't uncommon to see oorp fights break out right in the middle of roleplay threads. During 2008, this community steadily became more committed to roleplay purity both on the server and forums, and this was reflected in interactions, official faction documents, devotion of factions to their vanilla lore, and harsh reactions against "poor" roleplay on the part of players.

I seriously doubt that in 2009 any faction proposals like the Phantoms would have been accepted, but they endured because they had already been in existence for so long. I remember sometime in that period a group of players arriving who wanted to bring the Borg from Star Trek to Sirius. I think you can imagine the reaction they received. The devotion to roleplay purity has upsides and downsides. The upsides are factions that embrace their vanilla lore and bring alive the rich backgrounds and sources of conflict that the original lore provides. The downsides are that "noobs," new players, and outside-the-box ideas are too often confronted with the heat of hostility and the coldness of being ignored, until they leave.

The attitudes, policies, rules, and reactions that served this community with a player cap of 200 may not be the same ones that serve us well with a player cap of 70. If you look at the faction activity of 2015, I think it's clear that when factions collapse as they have in the past few months, we have reached a crisis stage in the ability of Discovery to sustain a growing and thriving environment.

I do not believe Discovery is about to end, but I do believe that to survive and thrive Discovery must embrace the future by embracing change. I believe that 2016 will be another dividing line in Discovery's history, just like 2008 was. In 2008, Discovery became the roleplay environment we now know it as. 2016 is the year when Discovery decides to thrive or slowly fade away.

I will admit that when I was an admin here in 2008-2009, I and my fellow admins too often lost sight of the fact that Discovery's rules, policies, attitudes, and direction exist to serve the players. The players do not exist to serve the rules or policies. To thrive, Discovery, its factions, and its administration must commit to embracing the future, and that means embracing the changes necessary to serve the players we have, rather than the players we used to have.

Now don't misunderstand me. I am conservative by temperament, and I resist change for its own sake. But sometimes thoughtful change is necessary to get rid of what no longer works and figure out what does work. Change merely for its own sake is fickle and unsustainable. Sometimes necessary change is unwelcome, painful, or even embarassing. But change for the sake of improvement is growth, and it is a peril to ignore it. I see the work those on the mod development team are doing to sustain Discovery, and while all of us will never be in perfect agreement about what changes are made, it is critical that we all embrace and commit to an attitude of willingness to change. Yes, we must and will argue about what those changes should be, but in the end we must also be willing to commit to the future instead of being stuck in the past.

I returned to lead the Lane Hackers once again because I believe in the faction's future, and I believe in Discovery's future. As a faction leader, I am committed to evolving the faction to embrace the future. As a mod developer, I am committed to embracing the change necessary to sustain the factions and players who enjoy Discovery so much. And as a player, I am committed to embracing the future of Discovery rather than nostalgia about its past. I am actively developing plans for my faction, plans for the mod, and plans for my roleplaying in Discovery that I hope will provide us with the changes we need in order to arrive in 2017 as strong and vital as we have ever been.

I hope you'll join me.

Embrace Discovery. Embrace the future.

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