Townhall meeting this weekend!

[Flourish]

Hey, FishDance, I'm pretty sure that your post falls under "questions people are asking and want answered before the town hall", so I'm gonna do my best to address everything you said. Your post was a really good diagnosis of some of our largest issues, so it really deserves a thorough response. All of this is my interpretation and perspective on things. You'll probably hear a lot of these points over and over again during the actual town hall!

There seems to be a relatively large divide about the direction which the game is trying to head towards, and there has been for a very long time. Coders have always been empowered to work on passion projects, which in my eyes is definitely a good thing, but leads to a lot of disagreements not just within the community, but even among the wizard/coder/admin groups alone. 

I agree, and this is something that we'll need to work on. Like you mentioned in Discord, it's often just like a free for all, which doesn't really work out. We're hoping to address some of these issues with coder guidelines and additional policies. It's definitely a work-in-progress type thing though, so I don't exactly have anything tangible to offer you at this point. 

Often times things will require "the permission of the wizards," but from personal experience all that really means is messaging one coder/wizard that you know and asking them if you can put a thing in the game, and chances are if you've clout with them they'll make it happen for you.

I don't think most gameplay changes require the permission of the wizards, as they generally deal with more internal and community stuff (from my understanding and limited experience). However, you're right that if you have clout with people, you can make things happen. I'm not sure what we can really do about that, besides maybe being more transparent about the circumstances of new features and such? 

The admin team is so decentralized that the decisions of one wizard can have large overbearing impacts on the game, even if not a single other person on the team has heard of the thing being added.

You're right that there are large disconnects. For instance, I don't actually read anyone else's code; only their commit messages. Sometimes, I won't be aware of a new thing until I see it in the changelog or ingame. As I mentioned earlier, hopefully our new coder guidelines can provide us a bit more structure and accountability. And besides code, since you mentioned wizards; there were multiple instances where I wasn't aware that someone was admin'd until they showed up in the admin Discord channels. Though I was an admin and someone who would most likely work closely with these people, I had no opportunity to provide my thoughts or opinions, as only wizards were aware and had voted on them. I think this is a great example of how things have improved, though; now, all admins initially vote on potential admins (and can also recommend people), and then there's a second wizard vote. This still isn't ideal, in my opinion, but it's a lot better!

While it's perfectly alright, and honestly encouraged to work on all parts of this multifaceted game, it genuinely needs an agreed upon direction that is not just decided by the wizard team, or what the coders feel like making today, or what the players want to play, but a mix of all three. This should be something explicit that isn't too limiting, which details what kind of experience a player is supposed to have playing this game, and how they can expect it to evolce going forward.

I agree.

The feuding of many subgroups within goon management has been more vocal than usual in the recent years, and although censoring of these quarrels means that you only get to hear about it if you're in the loop, that doesn't mean that it's good for the game.

I also agree. While you can't share everything, out of respect for people's privacy and such, it's important to be transparent about what's going on. People care, and we should respect and reciprocate their care. While recent events haven't really impacted the game itself, they've seriously affected the surrounding community. Obviously you gotta be judicious, but often, trying to hide or censor things because you're afraid they might be hurtful just leads to things eventually spilling over and hurting everyone anyways.

Maid's post in the News section of the goon discord talks about three things, Cirr leaving, Zamujasa being removed, (both of which are given plenty of time and verbiage, with little to no detail about what actually happened), and then glosses over the fact that 10, TEN of the pillars of the goon community have left. These are not small names either, Haine, Spyguy, fukken Wonk himself?

You're right that it feels like we glossed over the fact that so many people left in our announcement, but I think the circumstances at least partially excuse that. Everyone was super tired, drained, and empty, and no one had the mental energy to detail everything that had happened. Maid did a really admirable thing by offering to write the announcement. He took our input, and that's what he got. I don't expect anyone to have known how all the admins were feeling, since we did keep things as internal as possible for the longest time, and I'm not saying that this totally justifies the lack of addressing those admins and their departures. That being said, I hope our upcoming town hall will provide an opportunity for us to tell you all more about who left and why. Like Bubs mentioned, often it's their business and not necessarily things they want to announce to everyone, but I want us to be able to tell you as much as possible, and share our perspectives. 

I really hate how it comes off like people are replaceable and can just be swept under the rug. People that were integral to the community, people that contributed so much to the server, people that I deeply cared about... It's shitty as fuck. I'm trying to do my best because there are people I still care about here, but that doesn't mean I've gotten over those who left or don't mind. 

Goon needs a lot of things. It needs a mission statement that the wizards/coders/admins/players can use to know what direction the game is going to be built in. It probably needs an administrative structural overhaul that makes it easier for people to be on the same page. What it needs more than any of that is a LOT more transparency about admin drama, updates, and general goings-on, because unless you know where to look, the community only ever hears the fallout of these events, and doesn't have any impact at all on them.

I wholeheartedly agree. 

Without trying to be rude, I don't think goon is going to do most, if any of that, and now with almost all of the old guard gone, old-goon is no longer on life support, and is just genuinely dead. Good luck with new-goon, don't ruin it too much, I loved this game once.

What do you mean by life support? What characterizes old Goon verses new Goon? I love this game as much as you did, and I'd appreciate your perspective. 

I guess, ultimately, however disillusioned I may be with both recent events and systemic issues, I still want to try. I hope my response was informative and/or useful! All of these topics and issues (and more!) will be covered in the town hall, but I just wanted to address you directly here, first, because I really appreciated your thoughts and care.