Toxicity; The thing that is killing our community, and other things. #nOm_Rant

[nOmnomnOm]

There are a few problems that I would like to address. These problems are both well known or not much known, but if we continue to sweep it under the rug, nothing will happen for the better.
To the people that will cry to "not speak of these things becasue 'new players' will see this, I'd like to say to you that YOU are probably part of the problem.

Let's start off with the largest topic and the one you were probably wanting to know due to the title: The Toxicity of the Community.
To be more precise: The toxic attitudes of several official faction leaders and their followers.

Ask anyone that is aware and they will most likely tell you (if they are not part of the problem) that when you get to being an offical faction, you will gain access into the INFAMOUS Offical Faction Leaders Chat on Skype. In here lies the den of all stink and fume that pollutes this otherwise great place to hang out in and have fun. In here, you will find bullies and rude individuals that love to pry on the weak. In here, you will find leaders that celebrate when they see people they hate leave the game. (A game that has a small community and really cannot afford to loose more members. Members including those that have proven to be influential to the activity of the server.) In here, you will find leaders that use their power to mock and humiliate other factions rather than help build them up. If you don't agree with this last statement, I point you towards myself and my own faction.

It's influential veterans like these that get away with this becasue they do all their dirty work over Skype, Teamspeak, and Discord. They go as far as to lie, twist facts and truth, or boarder-line troll eachother. For those unoffical faction leaders that want to gain officaldom, I highly suggest you NEVER enter the 'OFL' chat room. It's disappointing because these people in the end make it harder for those others to enjoy the game at a higher standard. You will often hear these people say that Faction Leaders have little control and not much leverage in terms of the server. I would argue that they have a highly influential role and that is to make this place fun, exciting, entertaining, and above all: a pleasant community environment.

You can argue with me about this all you want, but time and time again I have had to witness people leave due to these types of people. They did not even have to actually be offical faction leaders, but the issue still remains that the the leaders who knew about the problem did not do anything about it. Disappointing.

Because here is the thing that you might not realize: The thing that makes this game so addicting is the friendships you build among other players. It's the memories you have that are not of you by yourself, but together doing something cool! Anyone that does something to break this or create a harsh environment for these things to happen will be ruining the game for everyone but themselves and their own friends that are part in the act. Unfortunately, it has gotten now to almost the HIGHEST level of influential people, with even a mod. As seen from the faction leaders chat after another player had left:

"Another [insert] down. Several to go." - Quote from OFL Chat by an unnamed individual.

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Another issue that I have been personally struggling with is creating events.
I am unsure if it is because of the above reason that it is not popular, or if it is about the next concern: A disproportionate advertisement system.

If you are reading this, you are highly likely to know about Spazzy's events. These events are highly popular becasue they are nicely polished and look more official. They have prizes that you cannot get your hands on anywhere else, they have the best advertisement by not only posting a thread on forums but also having it pinned on the home page, on top of every location on the forums, and ON TOP OF THAT there is also a randomly generated message on the server that occurs that informs people of the event.

I'm not going to say that this is simply unfair, but the problem that I see is that people have become used to this sort of advertisement and event prizes to the point that they are not interested in anything else. People do not look over the event thread section like they used to when they want to join something. People would RATHER go to one event becasue it has admin prizes than go to another event, event if it is more to their play style. It is upsetting, frustrating and difficult to compete with this sort of thing.
Additionally, it is really hard to get in contact with Admins influential to this, as they rather tend to ignore people like myself.

Before you tell me that 'no one likes racing', I'd like to point out that I've done other events other than racing with similar effects. It's been harder and harder to make events as people for more and more used to only going to admin-created events that are 'worth' going to. Hell.... even faction leaders push their members to go out and collect Scientific Data and all that. How could I blame them. The other funny thing is that these events are generally for cap-accessible factions which is another set of issues that is off topic from this.

While I am here, let me point out that in this 'Role Play Server', ordinary people have less and less influence from others. The classic example is the dev vs player situation but to be honest, it has not gone down to the worst level. Devs are open, after much debate and work on your own, to perhaps include something. That being said, you will most likely for example NOT hear about smaller factions in offical news or offical story-line development. It sucks that certain factions have more attraction than others in terms of this.

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