Transparency, you asked for it and we deliver. But first...!
We need to have a little chat.
I’m going to start off by saying that the staff team apologizes that some of you still feel a bit left in the shadows as to what is going on and where things are going. Our intentions have never been to leave any of you confused or feeling neglected, unheard, and hopeless. We truly value the individuals who not only make up our community but are the life blood of the FH experience itself. If it wasn’t for your continued invested interest and feedback we staff would have no inspiration to keep us striving and brainstorming new ideas to improve your experience. So thank you for your patience and continued support and belief in us, it means a lot <3
Ever since the very mixed reception of the 2016 Community game patch, we have observed and listened to the discontent from the community about the lack of enough transparency between staff to community. Since, we have introduced various methods of increasing and improving the communication all with different levels of success. One of those methods was through revitalizing the Polls board in 2017 by creating anonymous community voting polls, both of which can be found and still voted upon here:
As many of you may or may not know last year’s Winter MOTS ushered in a whole new additional reward and responsibility to being a MOTS. Each new wave of MOTS now has the privilege to join the staff along in our staff board & discord to work, discuss, and present feedback and ideas to and from the community. Our hope was to create more avenues of communication and transparency between staff & community alike through the MOTS. While the new policy has been an overall success it is not without flaws and understandably some things have still gone under the radar of the community’s knowledge. For this reason I’ve decided to create this thread to better list out a summary of what has gone on so that you guys are all on the same page! I apologize in advance if I’ve left anything out as there’s quite a bit to list so bare with me! <3 Keep in mind the things mentioned here you are all welcomed to approach your elected MOTS about to find out more or suggest more!
Concerns/Questions:1.) Issue regarding staff activity
(This was met with mixed opinions but was also acknowledged and has been and will always be a WIP)
2.) Rules & Guidelines Reconstruction
(This was thoroughly discussed and is almost complete apart from translations. It will soon be released to the community)
3.) Staff Warning/Kick/Ban Guideline
(This was thoroughly discussed and was incorporated in a simplified state into the soon to be released rule rewrite.)
4.) Rule Translations
(The revised Game rules are in the process of being translated. The Forum rules will gain translations at a later date after they’ve been looked over for possible revision.)
5.) Forum/Site Redesign Update
(Its in plans and ideas have already been discussed but is not the current priority. This is an exclusively Raz only thing and can only be done once he has & sets the time to devote to it.)
6.) Will old maps be returning?
(While the staff was very split on this Raz decided that old maps will not be returning but rather some of their familiar features would be reworked into the current and future new maps.)
7.) Will any of the other “No Mod October” maps be being included into the game?
(While the staff was very split on this, sadly Raz decided that these maps will not be being used.)
8.) Will general chat be returning?
(Raz decided that the general chat will not be returning still. It may take some other form in the future like an advertisement chat only but it will not work the same way general chat did.)
Ideas: 1.) Suggestion to bring back the Favorite Character Contest
(This was done)
2.) Suggestion for a map oriented contest. (This was discussed upon and met with interest but not yet decided upon how or when to facilitate it yet.)
3.) A contest calendar for the staff to follow.
(This was discussed upon but currently not agreed to in its entirety for reasons of efficiency and convenience with regard to the current working style and system.)
4.) A staff language panel that will show what language staff speak in the staff page.
(This was agreed upon but needs to wait for implementation as there is still plans for a forum update/overhaul)
5.) An International Board
(While there is a general consensus to the benefit of being more inclusive to non English speakers there are unresolved concerns that still remain that outweigh the benefit of an entire board, thus this idea has been put on hold until further notice. Ex. If it’s one board only where non English threads are permitted it will become a very disorganized miscellaneous collection of topics that don’t fit in neatly to the rest of the forum board organization layout. There is also a heavy dependence on having individual’s who speak various languages available to moderate the board, etc...)
6.) Community submissions thread for login screens
(The idea has been agreed upon and will be facilitated in the very near future. A note was taken that login screens are only available for change upon Raz’s availability to change them as the process to do so is exclusive to Raz.)
Miscellaneous (Here are just some of the things that have been brought up but either haven’t been as heavily discussed and or prioritized yet)- More Contests & Return of Contests. Example Comic Contest, Screenshot Contest, DA contest, Short Story Contests, etc
- An extended Hall of Fame for other Contests
- Additional forum features like the ability to like posts, tag, awards etc
The Future of FH Transparency?There has also been suggestions made for future ideas for additional methods of increasing transparency such as:- More polls and more utilization of the poll board
- Possible patch work live-streams
- Staff community podcasts
- Increased social media presence
(Keep in mind if there's nothing going on or nothing new then there's nothing to be transparent about)
Lastly I’d like to note that while many wonderful ideas and feedback have come forth through this process it isn’t without its ups and downs. As with any staff team there has been disagreements. It’s not easy to make everyone happy or meet up to their expectations and partly for this reason we’ve seen staff come and go. A bitter sweet part of working on a large team with people of varying experience, backgrounds, and personalities is that not everyone will see eye to eye, and that’s alright. In the end no matter how different the vision or approach every staff member current and past has put their all into this process and has played an integral part in our continued growth and learning along the way. We promise to continue to do our best. It wouldn’t be worth it without all your contributions so thank you all!
