When I started ProjectKorra over 18 months ago, I had no idea that it would grow into what it has become. It started as a small startup doomed to fail and is now one of the fastest growing TLA/LoK communities. More and more servers are beginning to use our products and our community is growing at exponential rates. This is none of my doing though, it is all because of you. By signing on to ProjectKorra, downloading our material, using it, helping us find bugs & improve it, and spreading the message, you are taking ownership in this community and I don’t even know where to begin to express how thankful I am.
I wanted to take the time out with this post to remind everyone that, while ProjectKorra is 18 months old, we are still only getting started. This post will outline some goals that we are setting for the new year, some of them ambitious. I want 2016 to be a ‘new leaf’ for ProjectKorra - where communication between the staff and community is far more productive and clear. This thread will be massive and broken up into several sub-headings addressing our goals.
An Overarching Goal
A lot of this thread will focus on smaller and more specific goals - which is a good thing as it makes an overarching goal seem much more manageable. I did want to take the time to set out an overarching goal for the new year: To change the way people look at Minecraft Multiplayer.
Past years have seen minigames and other alternative playstyles dominate the Minecraft multiplayer scene - I think there’s some room for Bending up there too. Our goal is to create an experience that draws players from all corners of the broader Minecraft community to our products and Bending servers.
The New ProjectKorra Web Rollout
The very first big change in ProjectKorra of the new year should be pretty clear. Hopefully by now you are able to see the new and improved ProjectKorra forum. Gone is the old and outdated website and in with the new and improved (and beautiful) theme.
This theme, through testing, has proved to be far more intuitive and responsive than the themes we have used before. When selecting a theme, I wanted something with a simplistic color scheme that still gave off a bit of a professional (but not boring) vibe. I think this theme fits that to a tee and I look forward to using it in the coming months.
Additionally, you will find a lot of our information has been updated. We are now using a new wiki (can be found at http://projectkorra.com/wiki/). Getting information on this wiki up to date is one of our primary goals. As we continue to develop our project, we hope to hire people who will keep the wiki maintained, but want to stress the fact that this is a community effort. Developers often find themselves too busy doing the actual development to update the wiki and we have created an environment where everyone could edit it. I do ask that you guys do so responsibly - keep it clean and professional. Do not add pages for the sake of adding pages, etc. You may risk a ban from the ProjectKorra forums when you do so.
The Official ProjectKorra Test Server
We are in the very early talks of creating an official ProjectKorra test server to allow players (and server admins) to test out new builds before placing them on their servers. This will allow us to tinker with features and get community feedback before we make them public - as players will be able to play with new dev builds before they are even made into dev builds.
We are not looking to create some mega-server. We expect this server to be arena based and lack many prominent features, instead highlighting the ProjectKorra plugins for testing only. I would expect more information on this in the middle of the first quarter of 2016 - as we will be seeking out help when it comes to creating and managing it.
ProjectKorra (Spirits)
As ProjectKorra (Core) becomes more and more stable, we will be moving our focus toward our other projects a bit. One that we have talked about from time to time but have pushed back is ProjectKorra (Spirits). I am happy to announce that our Concept Design Team has actually taken the first steps in forming a concrete base for the first release of ProjectKorra (Spirits).
We will be expanding our existing staff and placing a newfound focus on our Spirits plugin - as this was one of our earliest advertised ventures that we have done the least amount of work on. Expect firm updates on progress in the early portion of the new year. I will not set a hard date for the first release, but I’d say first quarter 2016 is a “safe” bet.
Because this post is aimed to look at the year as a whole, however, my hope is that by the end of the year ProjectKorra (Spirits) is on par with ProjectKorra (Core). We believe that Spirits has potential to be a huge plugin that could even rival Core with its raw amount of features. With that in mind, we acknowledge that it is starting 18 months behind ProjectKorra (Core)
Revisiting ProjectKorra (RPG)
While we are discussing improving our current products - there has been a fair amount of talks about revising our ProjectKorra (RPG) plugin. The RPG plugin started as a wonderful idea and was never executed quite properly. We hope to revisit the plugin from the ground up in the new year, think about it with fresh minds, and create a plugin that can be useful to everyone.
Expect serious discussions on this topic as we get into the year. It will not be a top priority, but a priority nonetheless.
Development Progress Tracker
2016 will change the way that developers communicate progress on Dev Builds with the community. 2015 had a lot of instances in which it felt like nothing was getting done and development had completely stalled. Usually, this wasn’t the case, rather, it was a lack of communication that made it appear as if development had stalled. Perception unfortunately can become reality and this is an issue we look to remedy in 2016.
We are easing our staff secrecy policy to a reasonable degree in hopes to open up communication between the staff and general community. We will begin using a new Trello board for Dev Builds following the official 1.8.0 release. This board will allow you all to see what we have planned, what we are actively working on, and what has been completed. The Development team has been using this service for a while now and we will begin to make it public very shortly.
ProjectKorra Digital Presence
One major goal in the new year will be to increase the size of the ProjectKorra community exponentially. We are currently falling behind in our digital efforts and look to improve upon them in 2016. In 2016, you can expect us to hire dedicated staff members to handle our various social media sites (including regular YouTube content), the launch of an official ProjectKorra subreddit, Facebook Page, and more. Additionally, we hope to bump up our paid advertising in hopes of finding more people who have never heard of ProjectKorra before. Our goal is to change the way that people think about Minecraft Multiplayer - by introducing many to a new way to play. Minecraft is still growing at exponential rates - it’s about time our community grew with it.
That said, you can expect a post in the coming days (look for January 2nd!) about what we are looking for specifically in new digital hires - we plan to make this a primary focus in the early part of 2016 to lay the groundwork for other things we want to accomplish.
I wanted to take the time out with this post to remind everyone that, while ProjectKorra is 18 months old, we are still only getting started. This post will outline some goals that we are setting for the new year, some of them ambitious. I want 2016 to be a ‘new leaf’ for ProjectKorra - where communication between the staff and community is far more productive and clear. This thread will be massive and broken up into several sub-headings addressing our goals.
An Overarching Goal
A lot of this thread will focus on smaller and more specific goals - which is a good thing as it makes an overarching goal seem much more manageable. I did want to take the time to set out an overarching goal for the new year: To change the way people look at Minecraft Multiplayer.
Past years have seen minigames and other alternative playstyles dominate the Minecraft multiplayer scene - I think there’s some room for Bending up there too. Our goal is to create an experience that draws players from all corners of the broader Minecraft community to our products and Bending servers.
The New ProjectKorra Web Rollout
The very first big change in ProjectKorra of the new year should be pretty clear. Hopefully by now you are able to see the new and improved ProjectKorra forum. Gone is the old and outdated website and in with the new and improved (and beautiful) theme.
This theme, through testing, has proved to be far more intuitive and responsive than the themes we have used before. When selecting a theme, I wanted something with a simplistic color scheme that still gave off a bit of a professional (but not boring) vibe. I think this theme fits that to a tee and I look forward to using it in the coming months.
Additionally, you will find a lot of our information has been updated. We are now using a new wiki (can be found at http://projectkorra.com/wiki/). Getting information on this wiki up to date is one of our primary goals. As we continue to develop our project, we hope to hire people who will keep the wiki maintained, but want to stress the fact that this is a community effort. Developers often find themselves too busy doing the actual development to update the wiki and we have created an environment where everyone could edit it. I do ask that you guys do so responsibly - keep it clean and professional. Do not add pages for the sake of adding pages, etc. You may risk a ban from the ProjectKorra forums when you do so.
The Official ProjectKorra Test Server
We are in the very early talks of creating an official ProjectKorra test server to allow players (and server admins) to test out new builds before placing them on their servers. This will allow us to tinker with features and get community feedback before we make them public - as players will be able to play with new dev builds before they are even made into dev builds.
We are not looking to create some mega-server. We expect this server to be arena based and lack many prominent features, instead highlighting the ProjectKorra plugins for testing only. I would expect more information on this in the middle of the first quarter of 2016 - as we will be seeking out help when it comes to creating and managing it.
ProjectKorra (Spirits)
As ProjectKorra (Core) becomes more and more stable, we will be moving our focus toward our other projects a bit. One that we have talked about from time to time but have pushed back is ProjectKorra (Spirits). I am happy to announce that our Concept Design Team has actually taken the first steps in forming a concrete base for the first release of ProjectKorra (Spirits).
We will be expanding our existing staff and placing a newfound focus on our Spirits plugin - as this was one of our earliest advertised ventures that we have done the least amount of work on. Expect firm updates on progress in the early portion of the new year. I will not set a hard date for the first release, but I’d say first quarter 2016 is a “safe” bet.
Because this post is aimed to look at the year as a whole, however, my hope is that by the end of the year ProjectKorra (Spirits) is on par with ProjectKorra (Core). We believe that Spirits has potential to be a huge plugin that could even rival Core with its raw amount of features. With that in mind, we acknowledge that it is starting 18 months behind ProjectKorra (Core)
Revisiting ProjectKorra (RPG)
While we are discussing improving our current products - there has been a fair amount of talks about revising our ProjectKorra (RPG) plugin. The RPG plugin started as a wonderful idea and was never executed quite properly. We hope to revisit the plugin from the ground up in the new year, think about it with fresh minds, and create a plugin that can be useful to everyone.
Expect serious discussions on this topic as we get into the year. It will not be a top priority, but a priority nonetheless.
Development Progress Tracker
2016 will change the way that developers communicate progress on Dev Builds with the community. 2015 had a lot of instances in which it felt like nothing was getting done and development had completely stalled. Usually, this wasn’t the case, rather, it was a lack of communication that made it appear as if development had stalled. Perception unfortunately can become reality and this is an issue we look to remedy in 2016.
We are easing our staff secrecy policy to a reasonable degree in hopes to open up communication between the staff and general community. We will begin using a new Trello board for Dev Builds following the official 1.8.0 release. This board will allow you all to see what we have planned, what we are actively working on, and what has been completed. The Development team has been using this service for a while now and we will begin to make it public very shortly.
ProjectKorra Digital Presence
One major goal in the new year will be to increase the size of the ProjectKorra community exponentially. We are currently falling behind in our digital efforts and look to improve upon them in 2016. In 2016, you can expect us to hire dedicated staff members to handle our various social media sites (including regular YouTube content), the launch of an official ProjectKorra subreddit, Facebook Page, and more. Additionally, we hope to bump up our paid advertising in hopes of finding more people who have never heard of ProjectKorra before. Our goal is to change the way that people think about Minecraft Multiplayer - by introducing many to a new way to play. Minecraft is still growing at exponential rates - it’s about time our community grew with it.
That said, you can expect a post in the coming days (look for January 2nd!) about what we are looking for specifically in new digital hires - we plan to make this a primary focus in the early part of 2016 to lay the groundwork for other things we want to accomplish.
Super excited for 2016.
