Monria | Evolution of a Moon Community

DarkMoonEnigma

Virtualsense Official
Staff member
Moderator
Community & Media Manager
Virtualsense Media Team
VCAT Team Member
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MonriaCommunityEvolution.png

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We have experienced two full years now engaged with development, reconstruction, and building our Monria community environment to what it is today. We think our community is awesome, but the level of quality, support and contribution that our community members bring to our efforts is beyond anything that we ever expected. We are grateful and very pleased that what we do and how we treat our community has had the impact it has, and we find that more people across the universe want to become a part of this evolution.

As such, I thought it only fitting that I write an article about the evolution of our Moon community thus far, and share some information that might be interesting to those not so entrenched in our activities.

I have converted the article into a PDF file that is downloadable.

Right click on the link below and open in a new tab:

Evolution of a Moon Community
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Eugenio Anhithe Wilde

Moon Manager
Staff member
Moderator
Virtualsense Media Team
Perfectly said :)

I'd just like to add a few things with less words!

Monria is a mini planet I guess, we're not a full planet partner, we are Entropians with an opportunity to build and grow something in partnership with Mindark. This brings its challenges as well as opportunities. I don't have level designers and graphical artists working for me so any work I pay for needs to fit into the schedule of work done for the whole of EU. This can be frustrating because it takes time to get things done. On the plus side, as players we can play the game and interact with the community on a level playing field. We also choose not to stay distant from our community but get involved and make decisions, some good and some bad but we don't hide.

I've been a part of a few great societies in EU, Dark Hunters Inc, Planet Express and The Knights of Entropia. The one thing they all had in common was the importance of integrity and decency to fellow players. Players that didn't follow this kind of etiquette were asked to leave. This is how I think of Monria, the chat and the forum are for our community. I want Monria to have that society feel and to be a safe haven for people to enjoy and socialize.

We have new players joining daily, players that we find outside of the marketing efforts of Mindark or any other planets and we get very positive feedback about how welcoming we are as a community. This is our mission and it is because of all the great people we have helping us in this journey that people stick around and call Monria their home. We're all ambassadors for EU and we all benefit from its growth. We have taken a rock with a few mobs and turned it into something special.

DM does all the hard work and she is on the front line which is a huge challenge. We never share personal information or reveal the kinds of things we sometimes have to deal with, but what I can say is there is no way I could do any of this without her. The strength she shows and her ability to put her heart and soul into this community, even when she has to deal with the kind of nasty behavior that I've witnessed, is inspiring.

Ant
 

DarkMoonEnigma

Virtualsense Official
Staff member
Moderator
Community & Media Manager
Virtualsense Media Team
VCAT Team Member
Thank you Ant for sharing your thoughts and observations, it means a lot. There was no way I would say no to joining you on this magnificent journey, and the fact that our community turned out the way it did was a huge bonus.

I know what's in store, and I can't wait for when we can present it to the community over time ... they are worth every effort we are putting forth, and then some. I'm also glad we get to enjoy all of it with them too, makes it more fun. :D

Um ... I included Pusher? :p
 

Zarnia Foxtrot

Well-Known Member
Volunteer Mentor
I appreciate the effort in putting it all into writing DME. Both you and Ant have handled relationships with the in game players a little differently than MA. You have both been transparent and honest. This post may not mesh exactly with the "tough love" part of your note but while MA does put a lot of efforts behind the scenes to work on Entropia, they are not as "people friendly" as you or Ant are in regards to the actual players in game. It is a lot easier to trust and have faith when you have direct communication and correspondence with the other half (s) of a problem or issue.

I don't know other people's experience but I have done the usual "file a ticket with support" to solve a problem. Often, the problem does involve "loot" which has only one response.."MA does not 'discuss' loot in game". Sometimes the same problem requires several tickets before it gets answered. Some tickets never got answered. If they do answer them, the usual response is that they (customer service) don't handle the problem but they will pass it along to the party who does. They always include a disclaimer that the responsible party may not respond to the ticket with another ticket.

Truthfully, they rarely have responded back to me with another ticket about a problem and it is usually several days later when I notice a change..usually for the better but still no communication with whoever did the work and resolved the issue. Understand, MA customer service never has a direct answer to questions. When it comes to problems with loot, they have a Teflon policy where they don't want to be pressured to anything quickly and when they do get to the problem, there are usually more tickets in queue because the lateness of the not having addressed the first one promptly caused more problems to start. The patches would be creating less problems after their implementation if they (MA techs) were able to address problems directly with the players instead of using customer service as a buffer to attempt to control the timing of when a problem becomes "convenient".

I realize that MA has a lot of different responsibilities and that includes ALL of Entropia of which Monria is just a small part. I would ask you or Ant to consider talking to them about changing how they relate to the players in game since you and Ant are more in a position to be heard by MA. Blanket responses like "we don't discuss in game loot" when a player is having problems with getting ahead in the game will cause people to question if they game is worth doing or if MA is hiding something which sabotages their credibility and earning the respect they should have from the in game players. The worst case scenario is that a player leaves the game disgruntled and write a negative blog on MA or Entropia. If there is more direct communication with the MA techs and direct answers instead of Teflon policies to control the timing a problem being resolved, things would change for the better and less negative would be in chat. You are right though..there will always be some negative in the chat about "no loot" or just plain "having a bad day".

I hope this post is not causing you or Ant offense. That is not my intent. I just know after spent some time in this game which I reallly love to do I have noticed patterns of problems that almost have to do with "loot" in some way whether mining or hunting or crafting. Because MA doesn't allow discussion with players besides maybe a post or two on one of the forums, it is difficult for a player to see if MA has their interests in mind in addition the MA's own interests. MA is a business with a business-minded focus...that doesn't necessarily mean they are people focused. Food for thought if MA actually reads this post or if you or Ant decided any part of this post is worth discussing with them.

But lastly, on a personal note, I will make the decided effort to not put down MA on chat as I have done previously. I meant it in levity, not in cruelty.

PZ
 

Eugenio Anhithe Wilde

Moon Manager
Staff member
Moderator
Virtualsense Media Team
Hey @Zarnia Foxtrot I understand your point of view and I'm sure this will get read by Mindark as I know they do browse the forums and keep an eye on what players are saying. I doubt loot will ever be discussed in support tickets as it has always been this way due to the Real Cash Economy aspect, even a small piece of information could give a player an unfair advantage so its usually the approach to never discuss loot or balancing.

I do think there have been some encouraging signs with transparency, like some of the details revealed about loot 2.0 for example and I think it would be great if this continues so we have a better understanding of why certain decisions are made.

I've interacted with a few of the support guys and they are really good people who care a lot about the players and EU in general. We tend to try to help players if we can so there's less support tickets because personally I think part of the problem is that there's just so many support tickets raised and MA is a relatively small company, it must be hard to keep up.

I can't really influence this but I'm sure your opinion will be noticed :)

Ant
 
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