Well honestly the solution is relatively clear, the ability for it to be implemented is where the issues occur.
Now I'm going to be blunt and honest with no filter here and look at this from an objective view, so PLEASE don't take this personally staff.
My post in my resignation basically summed up all of the problems and the solution is below, I call it the
8 Steps To Success
featuring: A bunch of text most people probably won't care about
1. Move a person with ample time into a leadership position, whether it be Bambo, Internet, Blackdog - it doesn't matter, someone who can drive a strategic vision (and ideally has one to drive lol). Faustie is too busy, Enzyme is too busy, Overlewd doesn't seem to be interested in leading anything, Temar.. Is Temar. Yes Blackdog is biased (#FUMUKUBIAS lololol, for real tho), yes Internet is bad at communication and can seem "power hungry", but they both seem to have the required free time and have generally done a lot and understand the inner workings, most importantly I think they realize the potential LL has. If we want to go anywhere we need to get a leader, period, full stop. Tbh Bambo seems like an good choice for me too; if he doesn't become too busy in the near future of course.
2. This would allow HR to move from an everything position into what it's supposed to be - dealing with admins and the community, not trying to deal with stupid conflict everywhere internally. Would probably help a few things.
3. Then, allow HR, Jono, and Developers to discuss and create a vision that will be constantly pushed by the leader. The vision will then trickle down into all departments and in turn into the community. The issue right now is that we barely got the internal areas of LL talking, but even if we can get 100% communication - wtf are they gonna talk about if there's no goal or vision.
4. Get the community on board with the vision, we have a pretty smart community actually - and if the staff team told them wtf was happening they'd probably understand and try to help out where they can. The issue is that no one actually tells anyone anything so the entire community has become a meme with no direction (resulting from no leadership)
5. At this point we'd theoretically have a community and staff team on board with a vision shared by the higher-ups in the staff team and led by a single person who can incrementally lead the entire staff towards this goal. If staff are still inactive at this point, say bye bye, sorry you're busy with real life we love and respect that but move on. Then we need to look to our community, which hopefully will be less of a meme-troll pit because there's actually something long-term to look forward to. We then grab the best fit and most enthusiastic people from our community and replace them with the old burnt out staff members.
6. Now we have a leader with a vision, so that even if things get unstable LL can thrive.
PAUSE
So let me tell ya'll something I realized when thinking about all this shit a while back. Point 6 is the most vital of all, why, you may ask? Well look at FL. Why tf is FL still a thing? Many of us ask this - The reason is because of Soulripper. I know it sounds ridiculous because he was mostly crap at leading, but the reason FL survived through thick and thing is because he
DID lead, whether or not he was leading in the right direction is highly debatable (lel). Basically having a leader is vital (I also did a few hours of research into virtual teams and the importance of a leader, shit is confirmed important af)
K, now to point 7.
7. At this point LL would have a direction, an enthusiastic team, and a feasible trajectory to reach and achieve goals that fulfill the direction. Whether that be expanding to new games, increasing player count through youtube and advertising by x number of players, etc, etc. We'd have a vision, a direction, goals, and aspirations that can be worked towards through smart planning and goal setting. The community could even get involved with these goals, there's no reason to keep these sorts of things confidential from the community - they can help and want to be a part of something greater.
A large issue right now is that everything is super secret confidential for no freakin' reason. Like "Oh the players might be dissapointed if we announce something then don't do it" ok well here's a grand idea, keep the players updated with the progress. If they realize that something happened and the project can't be completed, no one is going to complain. They're going to say "Oh well that makes sense, sucks but makes sense". The issue is when the staff announces something, then keep the community in the complete dark, and the say "oh it didn't work out" if ya'll actually kept the whole process transparent I don't think people are going to grab pitchforks if something goes wrong, as long as the process makes sense. As a whole the community is underestimated and written off as a liability most of the time imo, they're a tool and a resource and want to be a part of this process.
8. GG, we won. We got a leader, a vision, a strategy, a community on board, with enthusiastic staff. Now we take over.
NOW, yes, I understand this is an extremely ambitious goal. I understand there's a 90% chance this won't happen. I understand if it does happen it will be a difficult process. But to be frank with everyone, this is really the only way I see LL
really reaching it's potential. We can probably continue on as is and make some progress, but the potential is never going to be realized doing what we're doing. However, like I said - what we're doing now may be the best route, everyone is busy and might not have time to invest. It just depends on what the staff/community want Limelight to be.
k let's hear what ya'll have to say.