All Networks Community Manager

[Blom]

Community engagement has been a massive topic on the forums, discord and in all external servers I have been a part of. Ever since the removal of the Community Manager, there have been several decisions made with a lot of backlash, barely any feedback that has been taken into consideration and just a general lack of interaction with the community. I think the return of the Community Games is massive, but on informal level I think the interaction is relatively alright, definitely when you compare it to the formal side of things.

Missing a community manager is a massive issue. Because obviously, I get that there is a set amount of working hours in a week. I get that with 7 managers and just 40 staff members it is impossible to achieve everything that you might have in your mind. I get that money is an issue that is a massive barrier for progress on the server. I do however think that a community manager is critical in the system that CubeCraft and Ziax is currently running. Right now, there is no way to get through to the core of CubeCraft, unless it costs them huge amounts of players (think about the 5v5 BlockWars removal).

I therefore want to suggest a voluntary position in the staff team, just like moderator is, to fill in the Community Manager spot. They can look at feedback, interact on the forums, make sure there is clear communication between HQ and the players etc. All of these things right now are barely to not at all present on the server. I can at least say that I personally do not feel like I am taken seriously as a member who has been on the server for over 8 years with a ton of knowledge and a lot of experience. I think I bring good feedback to the table every once in a while, definitely when you look at my amount of agrees on the forums, but if none of it is even looked at (even if it is impossible to implement), how can we ever know which direction CubeCraft is taking? Or how can we ever help to make sure it is the right one?

HQ always has more insight than we will ever have. They know what they are doing. It would be nice if we could also know what they are doing. Even if it is a minuscule improvement, I think when it comes to Community Engagement everything is worth it.

 

[Hoshi]

I too have suggested this as well as changes along the lines of this, both on here and internally, but it has never been taken seriously or considered. The only major change that got through was the Feedback Team led by myself, which was quickly abandoned due to it requiring too much admin which they cannot afford at the moment - resources wise as well as a lack of available administrators to handle the job. Which is fair, because they can't just hire a new admin with resources they don't have to oversee projects like these.

However, it also showed that whether anything or nothing is done to help the problems the network currently has, the community will always end up complaining or creating major backlash. This applies to game updates, the way feedback and suggestions are handled and much more.

I doubt we will see a change like this anytime soon, but I do recommend the team to consider it later down the road. Voluntary work in such positions isn't a crime and it doesn't need an insane amount of admin if they can find someone they can truly trust. Now, the latter is obviously an incredibly difficult thing to do, as many people out there who present themselves like great people have ulterior motives, but they need to build that trust somehow.

The same problem, I find in the way helper recruitment is handled at the moment. Members who try their best and put in their absolute effort are given extremely long and many even permanent timeouts on their first application(s). It looks ridiculous from a community member's standpoint and is incredibly demotivating. It's not a government job internship... The Helper trial is supposed to be a testing period of the member in question.

There seems to be a general lack of consideration for community members and their ideas. I don't mean to be rude obviously, because I know for a fact that every manager here does a great job which I've also seen firsthand. It's just that from a regular community member's pov, it feels like good suggestions that require more work than simply adding a new subforum tag or Discord role are never going to be implemented as they're busier with working on and/or implementing their own concepts. Some areas of the network drastically need a change to allow for more community engagement, but those areas are never given the chance to flourish.

All in all, I completely agree with the suggestion.

 

[Nightmare]

I am not sure if it would change anything at this point in time, i think the reasoning would be the same as with the feedback team. The resources for implementing suggestions are limited at the moment and even if you hired 100 volunteer community managers, you'd still need a dev to implement basically anything. The issue is not that suggestions are not read, they are, the issue is the large scale of the network and all the responsibilities our developers have. For that reason, map (game) design related suggestions are more likely to be accepted, as they can be done by the QA team, for example.

 

[Hoshi]

The resources for implementing suggestions are limited at the moment and even if you hired 100 volunteer community managers, you'd still need a dev to implement basically anything.

Unfortunately that is indeed a problem, but there is more to this than just the feedback handling. Having someone (voluntarily) helping out with hosting the official events and coming up with ideas on how to improve engagement would also take a load, albeit smaller than the rest of their work, off their shoulders. It’s stuff like this that focuses on community engagement that also matters. Just wanted to add that, do appreciate your response.

 

[Eli]

Note: This is NOT an official position in any way, these are just my personal thoughts on the matter.

I am glad this gets brought up every once in a while because it is difficult for me to understand why a gaming-oriented business would NOT want to have someone who works exclusively on maintaining community engagement, it feels counterintuitive by definition.

Especially considering how one part of our network (the Java network) relies heavily on monthly subscriptions, the business model should in theory work toward maintaining customers happy and listened to so that they do not cancel their subscriptions. Same goes for the Beta Games subscription, and the fact that a lot of CubeCraft Bedrock revenue comes from repeat customers who buy bundles and ranks as soon as they come out. CubeCraft THRIVES on customer loyalty.

Now, of course, I am not saying that this is not already the case and that feedback is not listened to. As a staff member that gets some insight on what happens behind the scenes I can vouch that feedback is important and does have an effect on decisions made about CubeCraft's future. But from the POV of a community member, these processes are not apparent at all.

The copy and paste reason as to why a Community Manager should not exist in our current status always has to do with "Not having enough development resources to implement suggestions". Which to me, has always sounded inherently wrong. Mainly because it assumes suggestions can only ever be implemented retroactively (AFTER something already exists / has been updated), instead of proactively (PRIOR to releasing an update / new game).

This mindset translates into complicated management-to-community dynamics that cause issues and player disatisfaction. Suggestions COULD be implemented, if updates were worked on collaboratively with the community.

But instead, the current system relies on the good judgement of our (admittedly very talented) developers and admins who take all creative decisions in a closed system, they develop updates in their entirety and release them after some thorough testing. But when the update is released into the public, the creative process is already over, there is little to no reception to meaningful suggestions since the update is already thought to be "finalized" and the only acceptable feedback would come in the shape of bugs/quick fixes.

This in turn sometimes leads to community dissatisfaction, which is communicated via multiple feedback channels that lead nowhere because the development team has already moved on to their next project. This dissatisfaction remains unsolved until many months / years pass and said game has its turn to be updated again. It's a very rigid development system that causes unnecessary tension, there are ways to solve this.

The focus groups were an interesting approach to solve this issue but those admittedly required A LOT of maintenance especially because the community members involved were massively active and motivated. But, gauging public opinion on certain features / ideas is not that complicated, and can be implemented at a massive scale with the use of our forums and Discord. This is something a paid or voluntary Community Manager could easily do.

As Moderators we already try our best to keep community engagement going, with our presence on the forums, Discord, and in-game. As well as our monthly Community Games. But I definitely think we require someone additional to spearhead initiatives that are vital to keep CubeCraft going.

 

[Xavi | Goofy]

I agree with what has been said before but I fail to see how this would work. (Im currently in my exam period so I dont really have much to add except that I agree)

Beside replying to suggestions and creating focus groups for potential updates what would you be interested in seeing the community manager do though specifically? These are of course topics that should be focused on more as players feedback is important but beside these I cant immediately think of any. (It is late though and I am tired from making math exercises all day)

Both were already explored and later stopped afaik, though I think focus groups should be possible as the benefit would outshine the cost/extra work of a paid admin (kuh kuh Cam) (would just delay an update by a TON)