Quote from DementedKirby »Interesting... I will probably just maintain my primers here just because they have some history and have been here for a while. There's lots of discussions and I believe that they'll still be useful if I'm still able to edit and maintain them. That being said, the staff here at MTGSalvation have made the experience and forums an amazing place and their dedication deserves way more merit and credit than can be given. I hope that, once MTGNexus is up and running, an announcement can be made and thus be able to create an account there (and hopefully no one takes my username). It won't be easy juggling between being active in two different sites, but I will probably only be attentive here to my primers. If the exodus towards MTGNexus is a certain thing, then I will join that immigration.
If the people who make up the relevant parts of the community to you are moving, then going over there could be reasonable. If not, then, at least personally, the community is way more important than the staff. In my case, at this point in time, I'm almost exclusively focused on the Mafia side of things, with the occasional foray into EDH. The EDH section is losing a number of serious people to this schism, so I'm probably just forgoing the game altogether for the time being; I haven't played Magic since August of last year anyways, if I recall correctly. Both communities will probably change, but it's a question of convenience of staying here or loyalty to people who are moving, the primary group of which and force behind which is staff. Both sites are at an unstable state. This site needs a staff that is actively focused on it and appreciates the community, Nexus will need people who like the old staff of Salvation enough to want to be there, and doesn't have the funding or people to be as stable as Salvation potentially can be at this time.
That said, as a user, you probably won't even notice most of it. The staff are just people, just the same as users. Their authority is an artificial concept. So make sure that whatever you choose, it's based on your feelings about the community, not just following either the staff to Nexus or just staying here for the site structure itself, as either way, you'll likely end up disappointed if that's the reasoning for your choice.
(Well, without add-ons.)
Ehh, unmodded Xenforo isn't THAT bad. Curse is hot garbage.
Don't worry about that too much.
I have decent footholds in half a dozen communities and feelers in a half dozen more. I have options for hosting for years to come should I be playing for that long. My interest in hosting on MU is academic at best, and in general while the experience of playing there has been just fine, it's not exciting.
I play social multiplayer games in significant part for the social element. I find that while MU has their own form of that, it is not one that I have found to draw me to the community. That's not to say that anyone was rude, or unwelcoming. But there was a degree of detachment for me that I did not experience elsewhere to the same degree even with MafiaScum (Similarly factory-like) or Mafia451 (Similarly hospital-waiting-room-like and memey). I fully expect that I will play another game on MU at some point, but I wouldn't ever be likely to want to make it a home.
I don't think that anyone should feel like there's a need for arguments or ultimatums, but I suspect that I'm not the only person who doesn't find MU to be the most enjoyable experience in the long term. The spirit of the site doesn't have to be a deal breaker for anyone, but it is for me.
I could attempt to handle connections with MafiaScum, but fundamentally, they are more insular than MU and MC to begin with, they just make it work. As for a joint merge and move, I can't say for certain, but I doubt it, unfortunately. The communities have similarities in playerbase and some ability for crossover, but MC's primary thrust hasn't been long-phase games. In addition, MU has a reputation, and I find that a lot of smaller community members, while they might be okay with playing there once or twice, are not interested in a long-term move.
Okay, so full disclosure, recruitment and sustaining the site both have a sorta complicated situation.
That said, with more heads active in the game, I'm hopeful that recruitment can go up significantly. And I am still actively going out and checking out new communities, it's just less of a feeling of obligation and more of a personal interest. I've found the most effective way to get people has been directly messaging people in a 'door-to-door" sort of effort. That said, continued posting of game advertisements across communities and regular events does have a significant effect.
The concern I would have is that MC's staff has essentially gutted itself, but the infusion of new people can cover a part of that, and there are definitely people who without the pandemic and with some new blood could regain some of their energy, myself included.
I am still on-site as the technical guru (and queue manager/reviewer). I have a few User's Guides written for Players and am working on additional ones for hosts and moderators (the mod one is very easy, the host one takes some work). I've also spent roughly a grand on the site in the past two years, about 3 times as much as everyone else put together. If I have reason to believe that the community is running well and that other people are contributing to the overall figure, I will be more than willing to spend further. Either way, I'll be able to spend time on the technical side for quite a while.
So as for long-term survival, I don't know exactly what the plans of the current pair of community leaders are, but I know that the connections exist to other communities, and I know that we've managed to stay relatively steady over the past two years despite a relative decline in activity from a portion of regulars that has plagued MtGS as well.
I should check out GiantITP at some point. Smashboards doesn't really have a queue system, but they have a good group of people. They're usually only managing micros, but could theoretically do better. That said, at that point, the community is just better off coming to MC since the friendly connections to Smashboards are already there.
Well, the crossover would be 1 for 1; I literally just counted people from the MtGS stats who had played a game on MC since the start of 2020.
For sure, though on the flip side, essentially the more featured the vote counter, the more townsided games will automatically be. I realized at some point the diminishing returns of trying for more than a versatile votecounter that can check any selection of posts.
MC 2019 Stats: 92 players across 18 games. Average player played 2.7283 games. Average game size was 14 players.
MtGS 2019 Stats: 49 players across 14 games. Average player played 3.1667 games. Average game size was 11 players.
MC 2020 Stats: 85 players across 24 games (7 of which made up a 20-player micro league). Average player played 2.5618 games. Average game size was 10 players (splitting up the league), or 13 players (not splitting up the league).
MtGS 2020 Stats: 44 players across 10 games (2 of which were the same). Average player played 2.5682 games. Average game size was 12 (counting the duplicate game), or 11 (ignoring the duplicate game)
Over a third (19) of the MtGS 2020 players have also had some play on MC.
MC's been pretty steady at 1-2 games going at once, with about 20 active players. But most games have a lot of outside people through direct recruitment. There was decline during the pandemic; some of the regulars were less active, but we did still manage a decent level of activity overall.
Sort-of. In a sense. It's not quite the same, and I have offers and requests for games there still quite often. We can also likely do some recruiting that was harder to do before if we have long phase games.
I blame Rhand.