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Addressing Some Criticism

TommyB

Owner
Joined
Dec 30, 2010
Messages
18,920
Location
Texas, USA.
As promised, I will be responding to the majority of what all of you submitted into the satisfaction form. I'll be skipping over some dumb statements because... they're dumb and the user was probably trolling. (and if not then I pray for their mental stability.)

Jokes aside, let's get straight to the point. (also please ignore any typos, I tried to proofread this the best I could but I am extremely tired right now so I may have overlooked a few things.)




Less DMing on William Silver. Although as an owner he is just fine.
Well, it's kind of hard for me to DM on a dead character. I don't really recall DMing in the first place. People like to think that all I did with Ron Holmes and Nicolas Thathers was DM, but that's not the case. For the most part, we always had IC reasons for our actions.

Perhaps assisting a little more in game, responding to users queries.
Yeah, you're right. I could do that.

Nothing really, he is only one man, although I hear Donators aren't getting there levels untill weeks after they buy ;3
Yeah, I'm aware of that. Here's the main issue with why I check donations on a totally random schedule. I barely keep track of what day of the week it is. Why? Because I never leave my house. (yes i know i have no life, ehuuhee)
I basically do the same thing every day. Wake up, turn on my computer, do some stuff, go to bed, rinse and repeat. That being said, days literally fly by for me. I never actually keep track of how long its been since I last checked the donations because days feel like minutes. I've been in the cycle of just sitting on my computer and sleeping for almost two years now, so a day really doesn't feel like a full day. You know when you have one of those long days filled with exams or a busy work shift? Yeah, I don't have those. That's basically why I don't do donations as much as I should.

tl;dr, I do the same thing every day and don't keep track of time. A week could go by without me checking the donations and I wouldn't even realize it. LUCKILY, soon down the road the donations will be automated. Donators won't have to wait for my slow ass to manually give them their benefits.

Admin activity and them not pissing around when they do decide to log on.
I don't see how that's an issue with me personally, but it is something I'm trying to work on.

Getting a better development team.
I've recently hired Boooth to script for the server and he is doing a great job so far. You guys will be seeing an update soon. :p

He needs to work on dealing with players and not be such a hard-ass.
I don't understand what you mean by 'dealing with players.' If you're talking about dealing with problems which players have that only I can solve, then I suppose you're right. I'm sorry if you feel that I'm a hardass, I know I'm not the nicest person out there but for the most part I try to be generally polite. I do sometimes behave a bit recklessly, but that's just part of my personality. I've got my father's temper, you know? :p

- Speaking to Community more, I just see him talking to the same few people over and over again.
The problem with that is generally when I talk to random people on teamspeak, they usually try to con me into things, beg me for stuff or just straight up asslick me. It's very annoying and I'm typically rude to people who do try to asslick me. I'm just such an asshole, aren't I? And yeah, I'm sorry for having friends who I talk to on a regular basis. :(

Well, I don't know how busy he is, but in my opinion as I see it now, he should spend more time on forums and in game, because there are some features that only he can solve, and people wait too much and it kinda sucks. I've been told he disabled the Donator OOC chat
and alright I understand that people spam and say shit on it, but come one, no need to disable it for a whole day.
I know I'm not ingame all that much, but I'm on the forums every day. Almost every time I open up my web browser, I give the forums a quick check. A lot of the problems that only I can solve will hopefully go away when the new UCP comes along. I plan to make things like donator vehicle transfers and changes done automatically through the UCP instead of me having to manually check over them. Because who actually has the time to wait for my slow ass? I'm going to say it right here, /dooc is probably not going to come back and will be permanently togged next script update. I'll give a full reason when the time comes.

He is a good admin when I see him online, but most of the time whenever I attempt to contact him regarding anything I don't get a single response. (Still got PM's unanswered from a LONG time ago from the forums, read but not replied.)
I don't generally read my forum PMs because they literally get spammed to shit and it's hard to keep track of everything. Also, if you try to contact me on Teamspeak and I don't respond, chances are I'm AFK or watching something and have my TS sound turned down. (or playing cs:go with the circle #illuminati)

I feel this might come up a lot, but he needs to be more active on the server owner part of him, and not the Hegebe- Gunfighting in the basement of a diner side.
He's a great server owner and does really well for the server, but everyone has flaws.
He needs to work on dealing with players and discontinue ignoring people when they would like to have a word with him, and when it comes to friends, he needs to work on making everyone equal. (From what I've heard he's got this whole friendship circle favoritism going on.)
Hegebe doesn't exist anymore, and neither do our characters. OR the Fort Carson Diner, it's a crater now. I blew it up. I know I'm not the most active ingame and I've already addressed that. And I really don't think I need to "deal" with the players, I have an administration team that's fully capable of dealing with players, unless it's an issue specifically for me, and I've already addressed that as well. Lastly, this whole friendship circle favoritism you're talking about is one big load of shit. Yes, I do sit in a channel with BigD, Evans, Doddsy, Oxley, Alvar and etc nearly every day. So what? Am I not allowed to have friends? People like to make up lies and say that I give members of THE CIRCLE (god i hate referring to them as the circle) things for free ingame, or favor them when it comes to administrative decisions, but it's all wrong. I never actually get involved with them when it comes to the server, aside from socializing on Teamspeak and having the occasional round of CS:GO. People have pulled the assumption out of their ass that I spawned Evans all of the money he has quickly gained. That's false. In one of the recent inactivity wipes, he bought a businesses from the server which I then bought from him for a high price. He started playing a bunch of blackjack games and pretty much tripled the amount of money he has. I didn't spawn him a single thing. Evans obtaining an LVPD cruiser wasn't my doing either. He bought the cruiser from Simon Hill, which was given to him by Ian Burns. The hotring racer he has was given to him by accident. I confused the vehicle with a bloodring banger. I've yet to change the vehicle to something else, but I will be soon. Moving on...

Listen to his admins/players more
No longer abusing his powers for the hegebe thing
Hegebe is ded.

Engage with the players more often, instead of just the admin teams and HCs of factions.
I've been over this already.

Think twice before you do something and STOP listening to your friends when it comes to making important decisions. I see people playing around with Tommy, it's so easy to make Tommy do something, you just need to know how to.
Tommy made his first mistakes in the first week he got hired, hiring Karner and Lionel, Alec didn't want Karner for a reason and Alec didn't hire Lionel back for a reason as well.
I don't listen to my friends when it comes to making decisions because I'm generally not the person who brings forward suggestions and ideas. Admins post in the admin board about certain things and I give the authorization. And I don't know what you're talking about when you say it's easy to make me do something. Ask any members of DER CERCLE and they'll tell you that I pretty much tell them to fuck off when they ask me for something.

You know what's funny? I talked to Alec about hiring Lionel and the first thing I asked him was why he fired him before. Alec couldn't give me an answer so I figured it must not have been that bad if Alec would forget it so easily. Alec guards his script more than he probably guards his life, after all. When I hired Karner, I didn't have near the scripting knowledge I do now. You have to understand that when I obtained this server, I did not know how to script at all. I still barely know the basics, but I know a hell of a lot more than I did originally. (that's called learning!) That being said, after I had to fire Lionel, I spent many nights scripting with Karner via teamviewer, but we never really got much done because we would end up dicking around. I had known him for a long time beforehand and he has a lot of my trust, so in order to improve efficiency I gave him a copy of the script. Karner left because his real life schedule was too much for him to actively contribute to the server.

Alec and I have very different personalities and we dislike people for very different reasons. Karner and I get along great while him and Alec really don't. Alec not liking somebody doesn't mean that I shouldn't. My name is Tommy, not Alec. Get me?

Not much, perhaps a little less awful RP with his Hegebe brosefs.
Hegebe is dead, and the RP was actually awesome. You obviously never came to the Fort Carson Diner and had free drinks! xD

From what I've seen, have favors certain people,and is willing to bend the rules for them. He doesn't seem to be around when people need him, or will ignore them. It's be nice if perhaps he would talk every fortnight or so, with each faction for half an hour or so, so that people can voice their requests or concerns directly to him.
Bend the rules for certain people? u wot m8? Please show me how I've bent the rules for certain people, because I honestly can't recall doing that. I'm sorry if I don't bend my schedule to fit other people, but for the most part my life doesn't revolve around RC:RP. I've already explained the ignoring bit so I'm not going to explain that again.

I have a head of factions who should be communicating with factions, that ain't my job.

He should release monthly update logs. These are meant to be a monthly recap of past events, script updates, internal proceedings in the admin team, changes to rules, major faction changes and also plans for the future. This helps in keeping players positive for the future.
Holy crap, that's actually a great idea. I may start doing that. Thanks!

I don't eve know what he's doing.
l0l

Choosing better admins
I don't pick the admins, the entire team does.

Don't let his friendships get in the way of RCRP. (eg: putting his friends before everyone else, benefit wise)
I don't.

On mostly everything.
Well that's fucking helpful, isn't it?

Well, most of the developers & testers etc are his close friends. I would like to see more people choosen by how they are sticking out from the others, like let the admin team make a majority vote or such.
I feel the same for voting in new trials, only the one TommyB sees will be deemed acceptable for trials, the other ones will not be considered. (even if they are perfect for the job.)
I'm sorry that I don't want random people who I don't know that well scripting for the server. If you don't like it then I'm sorry, but that's way out of my comfort zone. Soon I will be introducing a tester scheme where people will be able to apply for the position of a tester. More details will come soon.

As I said before, the admin team together picks the trial admins. I suppose in the end it is my decision but for the most part I hire whoever wins the vote. And about who is put on that vote, 2fab explained it a lot better then I could. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=94166&start=15#p1107404

Stop being biased towards The Circle. Don't even deny this factor. Be more active in responding to peoples requests.

Use the Donator money for actual server related things. It is an illegal offense to use Donation money for personal use.

An iPhone doesn't help you run the server better.

Biased towards the circle? ok boss. I've already been over this already so scroll up if you missed it.

Use the donation money for actual server related things? Oh, alright. So I guess renewing the dedicated server each month doesn't count, right? How about paying the host to add a firewall rules to their outer router to prevent DDoS attacks? Does that count as using the money for personal use? If you think that paying for a server with an 8 core CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1GBPS uplink, a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD each month is using the money for personal use, then be my guest.

"An iPhone doesn't help you run the server better."

Wow. You know what's funny about that? I originally started using an iPhone in 2011. A 3GS to be exact. That phone was given to me by my father as a gift and I used it up until the week I went back up to my hometown in Washington State, USA. I had to switch mobile carriers and while I was up in Washington, I got an iPhone 4 for free from my new phone carrier. I still use that phone to this day. Might I add that this server was handed off to me about three days AFTER I got my iPhone 4. To conclude, yes I do have two iPhones. They were both free.
Next time, know what you're talking about before you open your mouth. thx

For start, he could improve Tower Truck Operator system. Because it's not finished. It's like that job was created and never really finished, optimized.
wat?

He used to be a nice and friendly person, since he became the server owner he slowly trialed off to a ignorant person that ignores everyone around him and doesn't care about anyone but his closest RCRP friends.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can assure you that's not the truth. I've basically covered all of this already, so scroll up if you missed it.

I see him on a lot, which is good, definitely doing more than Alec in that sense, with that said, I think he has a lot of learning to do. He definitely has favorites and that's okay, but as a Server Owner, you need to be really unbiased. Alec had that going for him, he let very few people in, KoMaR and Foster are the big ones. He didn't give things to many people and he definitely didn't let the power get to his head. By detaching himself from the community it actually made things a little bit better. I appreciate that TommyB is active in the community though, so it's a tough call. I think TommyB needs to find that sweet spot of participation and non-participation, so he can stay as unbiased as possible and make good neutral decisions about where to bring the server.
I'm well aware that I have a lot of learning to do. Trust me, I did not join this server AT ALL with the idea in my head that I'd one day run it. I've never been in charge of a server the size of RC:RP and it's already been one hell of a learning experience already. I've already addressed the whole being biased thing, but I suppose I could elaborate further. I try to be as unbiased as possible. Apparently if I'm in a teamspeak channel with people on a regular basis, people automatically assume that I'm spawning them whatever they ask for and getting them out of punishments. That's not true, at all. People stated that I always got Ron Holmes/Red Johnston out of punishments when I actually didn't. It just goes to show that I apparently cannot have friends because people will automatically assume I give them everything they want. People assumed that with KoMaR and he never actually got any special privileges either, other than the whole A&k properties thing but I really wouldn't call that a "privilege."

Don't be so strict. House/business wipe for example.
I recently lowered the amount of time you need to be inactive for your properties to get wiped. If you don't want to lose your properties then play the server on a regular basis. It's not rocket science. You don't deserve your properties if you're not going to play on the server and use them.

Being more interactive and accessible, getting out of that little friendship group with Evans and his little shitbag friends and being more respectful towards his playerbase before they leave him.
I'm sorry but I'm not going to let people of this server tell me who I can and can't be friends with.

More updates, more features, less non-rp and fucking about, bring back the heavy rp, instead of this mediocre rp.
Trust me, I want that as much as you do. All in due time, my friend.

The main difference between Alec and Tommy as server owners is the fact Tommy is prominent in the IC player base. He partakes in various illegal activities with his friends whom he allows access to government weapons. This unfair advantage via favoritism causes issues with players and the admin team.
The people who I allowed access to restricted weapons were myself, Ron Holmes and Nicolas Thathers. I like to think that we became the most dangerous criminal group in the entire state of San Andreas which made our access to those weapons kind of fitting. While we did have access to those kinds of weapons, we didn't just pull them out of our asses. I roleplayed breaking into the DNS base with my old employee identification (this was back when they were still Aperture) and stole quite a few weapons from them. We robbed the SASP's armory as well. After we did that, I wrote down an approximation of how many weapons we gathered. I believe it was three spas-12s, seven M7s and two snipers. We rarely died in shootouts so over the long run we managed to keep those weapons. Of course, until I blew up the diner where we stored all of our weapons and we only kept the weapons we had on hand. And then we all died two days later! rip

Nah but seriously, the days of The Holy Light of Hegebe are long gone. Since dodgey and I CK'd, we've been roleplaying with ADMC as simple bikers. No military grade weaponry shit. :p

RC is not your playground anymore. You got 200 people hanging onto you, please do what is best for the server, please!
I never considered Red County my playground. I'm well aware of how many people wish to see the server succeed. All I ask is that you guys give me some time to sort everything out. Patience is a virtue.

Change the donation exchange rate from GBP to USD. TommyB is should be grateful he is getting money at all.
Yeah... the problem with that is pretty simple. If I changed the currency which I accept donations in, I wouldn't have enough money to renew the server each month!

Everything.
Thanks for the help, kind sir!

His forum avatar. It's hard to take the 'Donate to the Server' thread seriously when you have that GIF assaulting your eyes in the background. It frankly seems unprofessional. I can appreciate that the server owner has a right to have a laugh, but for God's sake, make it a picture that is not physically unpleasant to look at. Maybe then I would be convinced to throw some money your way.
I'm sorry that you take a forum avatar so seriously. This is a game after all, my friend.

1) More activity.
2) Help the fucking players more.
3) Stop ignoring everybody's assistances, if your the only fucking person that can help us. (If not give jetty more permissions, etc).
4) Fuck you and your stupid little circle bullshit, your ruining the server.
5) Stop giving Evans everything he wants.
1: Got it, boss.
2: I'm fucking sorry.
3: Jetty actually does have the same permissions ingame as me. He can log into RCON as well.
4: Really? All I do with the circle is hang out in a teamspeak channel and play counter strike with them, so I fail to see how that "stupid little circle bullshit" is ruining the server.
5: I don't, read above plz.

DO NOT RELEASE SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T WORK. THAT IS WHAT THE GOD DAMN TESTERS ARE THERE FOR?! Jesus Christ.
I'm sorry that I released an update done by three different people (myself, MP2, Karner) to give the players a little hope in the server. Half of the shit that Karner scripted was either unfinished or bugged to hell. We tried to test what we could in a small amount of time, but we lacked the amount of people the server gets per day. You can't really extensively test things with a small group of people because that group of 5 people may not use certain commands/features the same way 80 players on the server would. After I released the update, I released five bugfixes within three days, fixing most of the bugs that 1.9.4 brought to the server. I'm sorry if you don't understand I had to pick up where two scripters left off and didn't have the time to go through every little change and make sure it worked perfectly, but it worked out in the end. I highly doubt those few days of bugs harmed you majorly and if they did, I apologize.

Also, I think you should calm down a bit. This is a game, after all.

He should be more professional. Meaning- less cocky, immature attitude, banning people for God-knows-what, while posting videos that show clear non-RP and rule breaking.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't like to be uptight and 100% professional all of the time. You have to remember that I did join this server as a member of the community and as such I like to socialize with others like a member of the community. Also, I'm a very cocky person in general but I'll try to keep it under control. Banning people for god knows what? If you really don't know what I ban people for then there's a public ban list that you could look at. http://redcountyrp.com/bans/allbans.php

I'm also very curious as to what videos I've posted where I'm Non-RPing. If you could link me to those I'd appreciate it!

Properly discuss new trial moderators instead of just hiring people he know/asslick him.
I've already stated that I don't pick the trial admins. The entire team does.

I think TommyB as a developer is doing great.
I will however just be straight forward on this... Spend less time with your 'friends'; they're all asslicking you so they can do pretty much whatever they want. I'm quite sure not a lot of people will go ahead and say this but disband the freaking 'Circle' if you know what I mean.
Thanks for the compliment! I haven't really scripted too much on the server, but I do appreciate the kind words.

I like how people just straight up tell me to not spend time with my friends, that's actually pretty great. My so called friends actually don't get away with anything! I don't actually let them get away with things when I'm ingame. (actually, they never break the rules ingame! :O) Seriously, if all that the members of the circle do is just go around and break the rules, then how come they're never punished? Do you think I'm sitting there 24/7 telling admins not to punish them because they're my friends? I'm not, and if an admin fails to punish somebody JUST because I'm friends with them then it's their fault, not mine. (and please don't say it's my fault for being friends with them because i'll smack a bitch xD)

And explain what you mean by disband the circle. Do you want me to just waltz into their channel and say they can't be friends anymore? Okay bob!

Bringing back the old Tommy :(
I'm still here!

He is roleplaying with his friends, dm'ing and doing things impossible in the real life as he later on is writing some 10 lines story and locking the thread as always. he have to focus more on his duties than fucking around, take this as troll or as serious suggestion, your pick.
So I guess I can't roleplay with my friends either! I've already been over the whole "Hegebe" nonsense, so I hope I cleared that all up for you.




That's basically all I had to comment on. This took me a looooooong time to write up so I hope everyone reads it fully! If you guys have any questions about anything I've said, just leave a response to the topic and I'll get back to you guys ASAP.

I want to be completely honest here, I feel as if I've failed the server as an owner so far. When Alec handed the server off to me, I was ready to charge in full force and bring the server to a new light it had never seen before. Now here we are six months later not much has really changed. Real life issues as well as keeping a stable developer have really brought me down since I took Alec's place, and for a few months I seriously lacked motivation to do basically anything server related other than roleplay. I don't know how many of you know this, but about three and a half years ago I dropped out of high school due to issues with my home life. My dad lost his job and my family had to move out of town and stay with my grandmother, her house was the only place we had to go. My grandmother lived in a very small trailer in the middle of nowhere. The internet speeds was about 50kb/s, so I couldn't even watch YouTube videos, let alone keep a stable connection to the server. I couldn't visit my friends because my mom's car was broken and I was way too far out of town to walk to one of their houses. My grandmother was controlling as shit and wouldn't let me sleep in, her excuse being "it's daytime so you need to be awake" nerver mind the fact that I never had anything to wake up for. I would just hop on my computer, cramped in the corner of my grandmother's office, day in and day out. After a month and a half of living there, I was invited into the admin team by Jazzy and Alec. This really lifted my spirit up as I actually had something to do which made me happy. I finally had the chance to prove to the community that I wasn't just some dumb troll who was incapable of taking anything seriously. After another month, we moved out of my grandmother's house and across the entire country down to Texas. It was pretty crazy to move from a place full of mountains, trees, rivers and lakes to... Texas. A flat desert full of nothing! Since that day I climbed through the ranks of the admin team until I eventually took Alec's place in June, 2013.

Towards the end of September, I was almost kicked out of my house because I have no job, no education diploma or anything like that. I was really down for a couple of months and didn't really have any motivation for anything related to RC:RP. If I was to be kicked out, I wouldn't have anywhere to go. I moved to Texas after I dropped out of school, so I never really got to meet anybody through school down here. All of my real life friends live across the country and it would be incredibly hard to travel up there and live with one of them. All of those issues have cleared over though and I'm motivated to improve the server again. Dodgey and I have come up with some pretty interesting updates for drugs and weapons, so be on the lookout for that! Everything else will be a surprise. ;)

I apologize to anybody who feels that I've ignored them, neglected them or was flat out rude to them in the past. I hope you can understand the kind of pressure and stress I've been under over the last few months. I can assure you that change is coming. All I ask is that you all be patient and wait for everything to start rolling. Can you all do that for me? I hope so. :p
 

Davis

Administrator
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
4,315
Location
Essex
It's a shame that the majority of the issues you have with Tommy is that he has friends, lol.
 

Castorr

Donator
Joined
Jul 16, 2013
Messages
4,055
Location
Portsmouth
So many anonymous keyboard warriors, it hurts. Seriously they need to grow some balls and tell their ACTUAL issues.

Anyway, I like that you actually replied to most people.
 

Saint

Donator
Joined
May 24, 2011
Messages
3,667
Location
Scotland, Edinburgh.
That life story at the bottom was quite touching in some way. Other than that, I see my own comment there, and you responded yey <3
 
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