Running A Pack - Not as Easy as it Seems

Packs! *insert #nun# here* We love them, yet at the same time we hate them. You love packs like Blue-Moon and Swift-Night, and maybe even Ambrose, but you hate new packs and n00b packs, correct? If you are a general WH user who is normally referred to as a "large portion of the WH population", this would apply to you.

*cannonballs into blog entry*

Firstly... why do we have so many packs? Well, the requirements are way too low. Level 40 isn't hard for an average player to achieve. I think that the Alpha rank would be a better requirement. That way, we wouldn't have Betas as pack alphas. Think about it; it doesn't make sense. Your on-site rank being lower than your pack rank is kind of odd. The DP requirement is also a bit low. I have to admit, though, lower-leveled members do not find it easy to earn DP. It isn't extremely worthless, really; you simply have nothing to do with it after you get all of the Equipment. It's only worthless because the popular members who affect the community the most say it is. When they say it, other members say it, and it spreads to even more members. If DP was worthless, you'd have 200 million of it. Having 1 million DP and being a Champion is not bad; you simply don't have anything to do with it, so it just adds up.

Alright, now we know why packs are so plentiful. Why are there so few good packs, though? A good pack takes one or two (or even three) good Alphas. If both of your alphas don't know how to play WH and tlk lyk dis, their pack will not have a good reputation and won't make it far. Take a look at our popular WH packs; do you see any grammar mistakes? Are there n00bs as alphas? Good leadership qualities are needed, too. If you can't lead a group of people, you can't lead a pack, because that's pretty much what it is.

Thirdly, you need to be active. If your excuse is, "I have a life," don't own a pack. Most of us are here because we have no lives, and we're around all of the time so that's why we succeed. If you don't have at least three hours a day dedicated to Wolf-Haven, a pack probably isn't the best option. This doesn't necessarily have to be for both alphas, but having an active alpha and an inactive alpha is worse than having just one regular alpha.

So, you know how to play the game, you're an active member, and you meet the requirements. You're ready to run a pack... right? Well, no. You need other things, too. Anybody can type normally and be Level 40; you need extra.

You need to be powerful. If you have a lot of XP, you're going to attract a lot of members. On WH, strong users tend to join strong packs. Take a look at Shimmer; most of our members have over 1 million XP. Our strength attracts more people. You can run a pack very well if you're a Champion, but having more XP will simply attract people.

You need a plan. Why should people join your pack? Are you going to have active forums, contests, giveaways, a roleplay, what? People will leave if they aren't entertained. Make your pack interesting! After you have all of that, you need to manage to run the pack. It takes a lot of time, dedication, and good qualities. If nobody knows who you are, they won't want to join. Make yourself known! If you're a rude person, that won't get members, either.

If you ever plan on running a pack, I wish you the best of luck!

Disrespect on Wolf-Haven

So, I seem to have started a pattern for my blog: post something related to life, then post something related to WH. Hey, this is my blog... so, why not? :3

If you're looking for new music, I highly suggest listening to The Ready Set. This guy is great! I'm currently in a huge obsession of him and have been for about a year. He's great at singing live, which you can see in the following video. Plus, his hair... damn, his hair is sweet. If I were a guy, I'd want to be him.

Today's entry is a bit rushed, because tonight is a huge event for me. So, my apologies if it seems choppy, small, or incomplete. I tried to get my main point cross. As usual, this is my opinion and my opinion only, so please do not take it offensively or as a way to bash anybody.

Alright, enough of my obsessing. Today's topic is disrespect on WH. I'm not going to sugar-coat my words with rainbow sparkles; I'm just going to say it. 30% of the community is made up of disrespectful members. I could name three off of the top of my head, but this is not a blog intended for flaming.

I've been a Moderator for less than two weeks, and I'm already annoyed with the lack of respect that I receive. Stepping into my job a bit, one of the things that I have to do is tell people when they're breaking the rules. Well, I did that one day on the Chatbox. What happened in return? More of the "Lolol, Sea, you're such an ass-kisser. Stop trying to ruin our fun." Firstly, I did not write the rules; I'm here to enforce them. Secondly, when a Moderator tells you to do something... my Lord, just do it! It's not only against the ToS to argue back, the Moderators are usually right. Instead of ignoring the warnings, just listen to the Moderator, whoever it is. If you don't want to comply with the ToS, continue ignoring the multiple warnings that you receive and one of us will punish you. Whether you like it or not, a Moderator actually can tell you what to do, and if you don't listen, you risk getting muted or banned. I'm not trying to sound harsh or snobby or godly, but it's the truth. The current staff we have were chosen to do exactly that.

My favourite example is, "If you were on Wajas and did this, would it be acceptable? If not, don't do it here." Would you say, "Fuck you, admin. Wajas sucks. You can't code and you're a stupid bastard."? I highly doubt it. So, why would you do it on here?! Bashing the site owner on a Chatbox isn't the best way to go. When you get banned for it, don't complain, because you earned your ban. I'm just sick of all of the Karl-bashing and complaining that's been going on lately. Seriously, have some respect for the website. The things that are said are just completely unacceptable. I try to stop them, but I get ganged up on and can't. I'm getting tired of defending Karl time and time again because, quite frankly, I shouldn't have to.

This isn't really a huge problem, but it's persistent with the clique of abusive people that are "leaving" but still linger around. There are really not that many members who refuse to listen to the staff, but I've noticed it a lot. Perhaps it's just me? I know that there are three users in particular who dislike me here, and that's where I've noticed most of my problems coming from. Whether you dislike me or not, it doesn't give you a right to ignore me. Being "popular" doesn't give you a right to bash the website and get away with it. Having followers doesn't give you the right to have a rude opinion.

Speaking of opinions, there is a difference between an opinion and flaming, and some people don't seem to understand what it exactly is.

"Sorry, Karl, but in my opinion, I dislike v1.2 a bit. I dislike _____, ______, and ______. Thank-you."

Opinion.

"Fuck you, Karl, and fuck your website. You suck balls and you can't code for crap. You turned WH into a shitpit and everybody hates it."

Flaming. That example is based on a banned user's "leaving" message.

No, the staff are not ass-kissers. No, people who don't bash the site constantly aren't Karl's minions. No, you are not banned from having an opinion. Yes, you are banned from posting your opinion if its only intentions are to flame others.

And again, if you dislike WH so much, can you just leave instead of bashing everything? You have MSN, so just add your friends. I doubt that Karl wants members who are only here to bash his website.

Quitting: Up, Down, Left, and Right

Before I begin my post, I just wanted to thank everybody who took the time to join the website that I linked to in one of my previous blog entries. I won the contest, but I got about 40 referrals from WH members alone. I couldn't have done it without you, so thank-you all! <3

My first week of moderating has been great! I can't believe that it's been that long already. I received the blue name on May 4th, but I didn't do any actual moderating for the website until it went back up. It's been great working with the staff so far. I believe that the moderating team currently consists of Kovaro, Corina, Jekyll, and myself. I don't recall CheshireAlley receiving his powers yet, though I could be totally wrong; I only say that because he didn't have them on the day that v1.2 was released. That doesn't mean that he was kicked from the staff team, I suppose; Karl said that he wanted to make sure that everybody was into their own accounts before he handed out any powers. One account has already been hacked. Unfortunately, the said hacker wasn't as smart this time around, because they hacked an account of somebody who lived in a different continent, and when the hacker used the account, the account's IP changed. IP banned, hacker gone.

A lot of people have been asking me how my job has been so far. I'm enjoying it very much, actually! I haven't had to mute anybody yet, and I've only banned one person who requested to be banned. It also warms my heart to log on WH everyday and be reminded that Karl trusts me enough to give me the ability to ban anybody and know what choices to make. Not having the power, but knowing that somebody trusts me with the power, is enough to make me happy.

Plus, it's already helped me in the real world. I'm taking a mediation class, and I can apply the concepts in both places. Did I mention that it's made me a happier person in general? This is similar to an event that happened over the past week:

Person: Your make-up is ugly.

Me: *mutters while walking away* Yeah? Well, I'm a WH Moderator, so idgaf what you think about my make-up. :B

Now, let's discuss today's topic. I'll just flat-ou say it: leaving Wolf-Haven is becoming a trend. Not exactly the best trend, either. It's mostly the people who have been here the longest, too, which is a shame.

The main problem that I have with people leaving is the drama that arises. If you're going to leave WH, you don't need to state why and list all of the reasons that you hate it. Just put a small note on your profile that says, "Leaving Wolf-Haven for personal reasons. You can contact me at ______ if you'd like to." You don't need to cause drama. You don't need to create a forum topic about it, either. Just PM your close friends.

Now I have no problems with people leaving, but the reasons given are completely absurd! People are leaving because of v1.2 and because Stormgaze was banned. Seriously, you're going to quit your favourite website because one person got banned and you don't like the way something works? If that's enough to get you to leave, you probably shouldn't have been here in the first place because you don't care about WH.

Some people are leaving because of the new Premium Users feature that will be added later. I really have nothing to say in regards to this... if you're going to leave a website just because other people will get more DP storage (which all of the people who left claim to be useless, anyways) and a little title under your forum posts, why did you bother wasting your time here for the past year? If you're going to quit something because you dislike one little thing about it, you're going to quit everything in life. As I've stated multiple times in the past, as the end of the day, Wolf-Haven becomes a business. Businesses make money. They use money to pay for their resources, and the rest becomes profit. That's how it works in the real world, and that's how it works on WH. You're not actually required to buy a Premium Account, either, so why are you complaining when you could simply keep yourself out of it?

In my opinion, if you're going to leave Wolf-Haven, just do it. If you plan on taking everybody along with you, it's not going to work, and nobody needs the drama that's created due to this. Most of WH really doesn't care, anyways... again, just PM your friends. I doubt that a random forum reader cares to hear that you're leaving WH because you don't like v1.2.

Do you actually UNDERSTAND what Karl puts into Wolf-Haven to make it successful? I doubt that you do. Perhaps this isn't your type of website, but for God's sake, don't bash the website or Karl because you don't like one little thing.

All I can say is if you don't like Wolf-Haven, just go. Then, you'll look back and see that the other 12,000+ users are still there.

v1.2 Dislikes

After using the new website for a while, I’ve grown unfond of a few features that we have now. Keep in mind that this article is of my personal opinion only, is not created to be offensive, and is not intended to bash Karl. I love v1.2; I’m simply pointing out what I could live without. I'm mainly just being picky.

1. The new Profile layout

-I liked the old one better. After using the new profile system for a while, I’ve realized how much I miss the “Online _ hours/days/weeks ago” feature.

-I dislike the lines. They were fine at first, but no that I’ve expanded my profile a tiny bit, I no longer like them. They look too junky because they stretch across the entire page whereas the wolf image and information is in a much smaller area.

-The new color codes. I can no longer put rainbow fades on my profile because the new code is “hex” and not “color”. I am unsure why we needed that change; it’s just more to confuse new members. Perhaps it had something to do with the coding? If we didn’t need it, though, I would have preferred the old color system over the new one. Again, just much easier for the community in general

.

2. Too much Mate information!

-Really, I don’t think that Sheri cares how many PvP losses I have, nor do I care how many she has. Sure, it’s great to know how my mate does on the Map, but that information doesn’t benefit my gameplay. At least is makes the Mate page look like it has more information. xD

3. The Forums

-Just unleashing my OCD side here, but they’re in the wrong order. Roleplay goes before packs, and the Biography section goes before all of the Roleplay categories. “Your Pack” should be under “Packs”.

-”Art Thread” should be “Art Board”.

-The rules haven’t been added yet. This is mostly a bother in the RP sections, because Jekyll and I have been enforcing rules that don’t technically exist. Hopefully Karl will move those over soon.

As you can see, most of my problems deal with my annoying OCD side. All in all, WH v.1.2 is much better than v1.1 was. Keep up the hard work, Karl! Thank-you very much.

My Mother is Such a n00b

bye

Back to Blogging

I finally have something new that I can write about. Whoo! I loved Wolf-Haven and all, but I'll admit that digging around my head for topics isn't the easiest thing to do.

Anyways, I'm writing this on Saturday night, but you will not see it until v1.2 is released. So, if something is wrong because it was changed during the small timeframe, my apologies. We'll simply cut to the chase and discuss why v1.2 is so much cooler.

1. New staff members.
-New m0durayt0rz! They're being hand-picked this time, which I personally find to be better than receiving applications. Perhaps you've heard the story about how my friend owned a website and I was an administrator? Well, we used to hand-pick our staff as well, and it turned out to be good for the site. It doesn't turn into a competition on who can write the longest and best application.
-By the way, I'm one of them. Prepare for your death-by-rainbows. *coughsplutter* Alright, I'm done bragging. I still have that "YAAAAY!" feeling about being picked. At least give me one line of text on my own blog! D:

2. New [Need Help?] buttons.
-For nearly everything on the website, there is a button that, when clicked, opens a new window that gives you additional information on what you're doing. It's all of the information that you need, right at your pawtips!
-I'd send you all on a scavenger hunt to attempt to find the two that I wrote... you wouldn't be able to, though, because nearly every page has one. Seriously, these things are LOADED with information. Even the Bank has a nice description! I feel that this is very beneficial for Wolf-Haven. Newbies will no longer have the need to ask simpler questions, and the purpose of everything is broken down into something for you to read.

3. Arrows ON the Map
-Literally, the arrows to control your wolf are ON the actual Map. I'm ensured that users who rely solely on their mouse will be delighted to hear that they won't have to move their cursor up and down and up and down and up and - you guessed it, back down to the arrows that used to be located at the bottom of the Map.
-While on the subject of the Map, you no longer have to enter a Security Code. Hellz ya.
-The new battle system has been added to PvA, and XP rewards have increased greatly. The new system has been a pain for me, though, as I'm terribly used to my regular pattern of WASD, click, E, WASD, click, E. The "E" key to go back to the Map no longer works, and you cannot kill more than one enemy at the same time (clicking three enemies' names and battling all of them ). However, I like it so much. It gives the game a better roleplaying feel to it, because you're actually controlling what your wolf does, and it allows you to become more involved in the game. No more grinding, but it's actually pretty fun to hunt with. Plus, I feel that the rewards make up for the extra two clicks taken to kill each animal.

4. Forums and Messages have been Wiped
-The forums and messages have been completely cleared. The only thing that I can see becoming a problem is lost topics, such as roleplays and biographies. I roleplayed occasionally, and I had a very long RP with -Isis- that I never got to replying to. Many of my replies neared 600 or so words, so I cannot re-do them. However, this means that every spam topic is gone. And that? Well, that means that Wolf-Haven is much faster. Which leads up to... NO MOAR INTERNAL SERVER ERRORS!!!11one!1!!!11
-The site is fast now. Those forum topics took up a lot of space, so a clean start is awesome. Feels refreshing, eh? While you may have lost a few important topics, at least you don't have to post the same topic five times because the ISEs can't haunt you into double-posting.
-The new message system allows you to see the last 10 messages in a conversation. If your short-term memory is bad like mine and you can't remember what the last person said, you can see their last reply while you're typing.

5. Additional Top 5 Categories
-The Top 5 is no longer solely about XP; we now have a Top 5 for PvA, PvP, XP, and even the top user all-around. You no longer have to be a speed-leveler in able to get onto the Top 5, which I find nice. Leveling never really was my thing...

6. Mate Page Update
-The Mate page is now more organized, and information is more accessible. There's a table to the left that displays all of your mate's stats, and on the right side a table is located with the unique options of transferring DP and leaving your mate. I think that it looks much cleaner, and I like it.
-My favourite part is how your mate's Side View is shown instead of their Equipment View. Since the Side View is much smaller, it doesn't overpower the page. Plus, Sheri's Side View is so sexy... now I can stare it as I stalk her by knowing how many PvA losses she has.
-I dislike how it tells me that Sheri and I have been mates since March 13th, because we have been mates since March 14th - Pi Day! D: It probably has something to do with the server's time. We're still celebrating our anniversary on Pi Day, though. 8D

7. Nicer Shop, Item Storage, etc.
-The Shop looks much nicer. The only thing that I noticed is that I own a piece of Equipment that I am not able to purchase. o.O
-The Inventory page also looks a lot nicer. It looks clean, well-cut, and organized. The old one was somewhat cluttered.

To wrap it up, v1.2 is much nicer in general. Everything has a clean look to it, a few new things have been added, and the site is faster. I'm fairly sure that the entire coding was re-done into something easier for Karl to manage, which is also a plus. It makes Karl's life easier, and it enable him to add new features more easily. I personally think that this is a great improvement for Wolf-Haven. Seriously, it's awesome. Be sure to thank Karl for all of his hard work when you get the chance!

No Blog Entry for Today

Unless you consider this a blog entry, of course...

I won't be doing any entries while Wolf-Haven is down. This is mainly due to my blog not being as easy to find, and I'm quite sure that most people retrieve the link from my Wolf-Haven profile. Since there aren't many people who actually check blogs when the site is down, I've simply decided to not write today. I'll save it for the next day on my schedule that Wolf-Haven is up.

My apologies to all! ^^

Mini-Modding: Not Always Needed

Mini-modding is something that happens quite frequently around the Internet, and you may actually do it yourself without even noticing. Why is it so bad, though? When should a point be made to stop? Do you even know what true mini-modding is? Today, we'll be discussing something that happens frequently on the forums - while it isn't always actually a bad thing, some people don't know when to stop.

Mini-modding, in short, is pretending to be a Moderator. This isn't necessarily posing as a staff member, but simply acting as if you had authority over another member. Mini-modding can be anything from, "This belongs in _____ section." to "OOC: Your roleplay posts aren't meeting the minimum word count for this section." Basically, you're acting as if you have the authority to tell other forum members what they're doing wrong.

Is mini-modding actually a terrible thing, though? Often, regular members end up relieving the Moderators of more work, which can be beneficial if the mini-mod actually has moderating experience. I mini-mod, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Keeping in mind that I have over two years of moderating experience, I can control my temper and I know how to deal with things appropriately. Does this mean that I should attempt to break a huge fight up? No, it doesn't. Should I alert another user when their posts are starting to become spam posts and simply give them a link to the ToS? Yes.

For example, a bad time to mini-mod is making an attempt to break up a fight. Seriously, you'll just cause even more trouble unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing, which you probably don't. Unless you know anything about mediation, simply PM a Moderator about it. When somebody else gets involved in a fight, one person usually takes it offensively and the person who stepped in becomes angered at their reaction. For example:

Person 1: I hate you.
Person 2: I hate you more!
Person 1: I don't really care!
Person 3: Wow, guys, stop fighting.
Person 2: Stay out of it!
Person 3: I was just trying to help.
Person 1: This isn't your fight! Geez.
Person 4: Hey, leave Person 3 alone. They were only trying to help.
Person 2: Oh, now you're going to get involved? Just stay out of it.

And so on...

An appropriate time to mini-mod would be when somebody is spamming in the Chatbox. One or two people should say, "Please stop spamming." or something kind. For future reference, saying anything such as, "GTFO n00b, don't spam." will simply cause an argument. Anyways, if they say, "Oh, sorry," then you're good. If they attempt to fight back, that is when you call a Moderator. Unless you can stay level-headed and calm, just don't bother. Honestly, you may think you can, but in the heat of a fight (or heated debate, even) you're going to say things that you wouldn't say at another time. If they fight back, call a Moderator and have them handle it. If you mini-mod too much, you'll just get yourself in trouble; you'll fight, say mean things, and get muted.

Keep in mind that the Moderators know what they're doing by now. Cheshire and Aeralie were picked a long time ago. I don't actually consider Aeralie active anymore because she has done nothing Moderator-related that can be seen by the public, so let's take CheshireAlley as an example. This guy is great. Coming from a former moderator's point of view (not on Wolf-Haven, but I have 2+ years of experience on me), he really didn't know what he was doing at first, but he's learned. Though I disagree with how he handles one rule - the advertising rule - I think he does his job well. He's active, friendly, and collected. He's been on the team for a while, and he has some experience now with handling things. So, I suppose he's really the only Moderator who wouldn't know exactly what to do in ____ situation, but he does more than 99% of the time. Kovaro and Corina were both Moderators before I joined, so I have nothing to say in regards to them. Kovaro is my favourite, to be honest. I've never seen him handle anything inappropriately, and he's definitely my role-model on here.

Anyways, I'm totally off-topic. Now, we have three Moderators who are experienced and know what they're doing. Recently, I think I've seen some people actually telling them what to do, and I'm talking regular members. I'm not going to name names, but I saw something like this take place:

Red: How do I kill animals?
Blue: Go the the Mep, enter the Security Code, then click their names and navigate around the Map.
Red: Thank-you!
Blue: No problem.
Green: This can be locked now, staff. :)

...Seriously? The staff must be blind if they can't see that a question has been answered. That's not even mini-modding... that's just plain old spam and an attempt to make the Moderators notice you and possibly hire you (which never works, just so you know). If somebody did that on my website, it would make me want to hire them even less. Actually, I may hire them just to get them to be quiet. After all, they wouldn't have to tell the staff to lock the thread.

There are some extreme cases of mini-modding, and some minor cases as well. Mini-modding isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you need to know when mini-modding is appropriate. If you're doing it to become noticed by the staff, the community sees it as well and you look like an absurd bastard. If you do it when it's needed, you'll acquire enemies.

*NOTE: This entry was not written to inspire you to go out and patrol the forums like a Moderator and mini-mod wherever you can. The purpose of this blog entry was to express my feelings on mini-modding and when I think it's appropriate and when it isn't. Keep in mind that we have an excellent staff team that don't really need your help.