Crux time for squad?

[delta7]

I am becoming very concerned over the state of the squad. 

First and crucial is finances to run our servers.  There just isn't the contribution to support these. It is unfair to expect Reger to pay these and then hope to recoup this over the year, he should be paid up front. We need people to commit either by annual or monthly subscription.  If we can spend £50 to £70 on a DC's aircraft surely we can pay for server. but the box nights are now on public servers so only used for events like p-38 campaign so don't know if it's fair to ask box users for same contribution.

Secondly, squad numbers. I believe that we have around 10 active DC's users and 5 Box users, and I don't know how long Box will survive as interesting for remaining users as it is not squad coops but just meeting up on public servers.

We have had these discussions before and have muddled through but I think it's crucial that we address these, numbers are not going to increase, people aren't joining in enough numbers to replace those that are dropping out, so we urgently need a get our finances under control and have a serious discussion and decision on the way forward for us to survive.

[Crash]

Also the forum is very quiet lately and we need more input from members on what they want to get out of the Dogz. To be honest I cant recommend our squad any more but if we were able to work out what we want to be and then turn up on squad nights then things would change.

[DD_Fenrir]

10 hours ago, Crash said:

Also the forum is very quiet lately and we need more input from members on what they want to get out of the Dogz. To be honest I cant recommend our squad any more but if we were able to work out what we want to be and then turn up on squad nights then things would change.

I agree Crash.

There are several points to address though:

1) Membership numbers. There's a lot of lamenting the poor attendance of the Dogz, but little I have seen in any active, meaningful recruitment efforts by anyone lately to redress the very natural wastage that occurs in any online community.

It's always someone else's job...

 

2) Attendees.

If you can't find the numbers for GBS then it's time to ask why? 

Ask it of the guys we do have and for us all to be honest; is it the game itself?; do some feel that the missions become repetetitive, unimaginitive or not quick enough on the turnaround?; have you just got burned out from combat flight simming in general?; or has real life thrown you curveballs that have prevented you attending? That way we can see if there are any particular trends and then work out ways to address them.

 

3) We have twice as many turn up for DCS nights as for GBS. 

Is this chance? Considering the numbers who 5 years ago said that DCS was too in depth for the Dogz (and 5 years ago I would have agreed), well something clearly has changed. 

 

4) Finances and servers

There is an effort in hand to streamline our server usage and thus reduce costs; this will help, but regular reminders to make small donations will I suspect be required going forward to mitigate the end of year "Oh Sh*t!!!!" situation that we found ourselves in this past month.

[Crash]

Fen, I have stopped recruiting as I dont feel comfortable saying "fly with us its great" and then just 3 or 4  show up on GBS night. I used to encourage people to join in even a year ago. The thing about GBS is people know that its end of life, DCS on the other hand say lots of stuff coming in the next few years so that make people feel positive about DCS and negative about GBS. Do any of the Quorum members still fly GBS except for the fortnightly campaign? As for missions being repetitive yes they are as we can only shoot stuff down and bomb stuff. At least with DCS we could do carrier and inflight refuelling. Also would DCS players turn up on the old GBS nights? I think that the last point is important.

I know that you find DCS a far more fulfilling sim but what about the others who have turned to DCS (I nearly said the Dark Side)

[delta7]

I think that " its always someone else's job" because of apathy,  people have thought that we have been ok therefore nothing needed to be done, and  a lack of oversight from the whole squad. I am as guilty as anyone as I had thought that the quorum members would deal with squad issues and inform the wider group of any problems but with folk dropping out perhaps that isnt the case.

Perhaps we need volunteers for specific  areas, IMHO the minimum would be :

a treasurer to ensure we were financially stable

recruitment officer

hosting/server admin. 

Im not saying the person in the post should have sole responsibility but act as an overseer and contact for issues

[Friar]

We have always thought of the Dogz as self managing. The "Quorum" was not formed to act as "Mummy". It was just in case we needed to make a ruling on something.

Everyone can see the donations thread without asking to do so, so at any time can see how things are going. Notifications of donations go into the Propaganda room for which there are no restrictions. I am as guilty as the rest of us for leaving it till the end of the year before we get the "oh sh*t" moment ref the finances. I just did not bother to check or to ask.

Everyone can look to the forum and see that it is quiet or see that there are very few posts in the Welcome thread. Anyone, of their own volition seeing its quiet could have decided to go out into the virtual world to do something about it. That is why I reached out to the 352nd to organize something, and not because I was tagged as being responsible for any particular role. I did it because I WANTED to do something.

GBS has died to a certain extent, and I am not taking responsibility or blowing my own trumpet, but due to me finding DCS a lot more exciting now and also stuff going on in Real Life V1.0 has meant that I lost the drive to spend hours and hours building missions in GBS, also planning special events for the Dogz to do. I also got "burned out" with hosting duties on a Tuesday and Sunday, as I think FT did originally which I why I stepped up without being asked and offered to take over otherwise GBS might have started to peter our sooner.

I offered to run mission building training sessions for others to learn, just as I had to, nothing really happened. I offered to help others to host co-ops, again not much happened. Sid stepped up and did for a while until his Real Live v1.0 took over, again as far as I am aware no one else who played offered to take over hosting to keep the Thursday mornings going, apologies if that was not the case.

I put out many appeals for ideas to build scenarios but never really got anything back. "What ever you do Friar is fine by us" helped me not one bit.

GBS is dying because key individuals who did the majority of the heavy lifting got tired and no one else came forward.

EDIT: I am speaking for GBS in the UK time slots, I think it still gets played within the Dogz North American members when the players require it?

 

[Crash]

I have tried to host a couple of times but there was/is an issue whether it was windows or the router I dont know. anyway we were down to maybe 3 or 4 on a Thursday morning and I really cant see the point in coops with numbers that low. Yes we could have used the dog fight map which was how Thursdays started but people preferred coop and we used to get people waiting for the mission to be called but sometimes it is hard to be fair when someone is on a killing spree and a couple of others are hanging around.

 

ps I used to host most of the 1946 nights in the dim and distant past.

[Crash]

Still a bit disillusioned about numbers and i dont feel that 3 or 4 people are enough to do coops. I still want to do DCS but offline isnt as good and although I might be able to do 1 night a month on Thursdays that isnt a satisfactory solution. Does the vote to keep the nights as they were mean that DCS on a Sunday or Tuesday are out because people cant make it?

[DD_Fenrir]

1 hour ago, Crash said:

 Does the vote to keep the nights as they were mean that DCS on a Sunday or Tuesday are out because people cant make it?

Not from me; I'd happily exchange the DCS Monday night sesh for a Tuesday or Sunday, and given that 2/3rds of our attendees seem to be looking at DCS more than GBS these days, I thought that would be the way it swung.

Personally if I were running the Dogz I'd make that call and bedone with it.

However, I'm not, the Dogz is a democracy and the Dogz have voted...

I'd love to share the DCS skies with you Crash mate, but I'm at a loss at what else to suggest.

[Friar]

This may sound hard and really do not want to upset anyone but some of the votes to keep the GBS nights as it is were from people who are not flying very often, if at all.

That is not to say one DangerDogz vote carries more weight than another but with such an important decision to make I feel it should be taken into consideration.

It is no secret from me that I think we should move DCS to Tuesday and Thursday and keep GBS for Sundays.

 

[Crash]

To be honest Col, I cant see why no change was an option. DCS flyers who dont want to do GBS on Tuesdays or Sundays would get an extra DCS night, I dont know why they would vote for no change. I dont think it was a choice of dropping either Monday or Thursday. Still a bit miffed.

[Friar]

What are you "miffed" at Crash, the thought of losing a GBS night for DCS?

I thought we were looking at getting better attendance for either sim from the DD's

If we are looking at potentially more people wanting to play DCS then should we not think about accommodating them?

[delta7]

Some who voted may be planning to return to box in the future so I don't think that their vote is worth less than others.   I think that people probably voted to keep the same nights as they didn't want box diminished further and have no interest in dcs

 However there was only one vote swing on a low turnout so I think there is room to compromise. 

If the regular box flyers were willing to move Tuesday to Wednesday and retain Sunday then DC's could have the Tuesday slot.

The regular Tuesday flyers are professor, crash, mosquito, petrol and myself . If there is an agreement from the rest of this group to move then I would be happy to host Wednesday nights.

Once happy with hosting I'm going back to the official box forums to try to get others to join us but need to get this issue sorted first

[Crash]

16 hours ago, Friar said:

What are you "miffed" at Crash, the thought of losing a GBS night for DCS?

No Colin quite the opposite. I need an excuse to really start with DCS and I hoped that one of the nights would be swapped. Would the DCSers fly on Sunday or Tuesday? Has anyone asked? What about a trial period to see if numbers improve.

[Friar]

I was hoping that we could move DCS to Tuesday from Monday to perhaps help players like you Crash who can not do any other nights, but the yin to your yang is there may be others that can not do other nights for GBS.

 

[Crash]

There are so few of us who fly GBS anyway. I cant do Wednesdays for either sim but lets keep Mondays for those who want to do DCS. I read Fens we need to talk thread again and it seems that nothing has changed, I also looked at threads from 15 years ago and we had a lot of Canadians and Americans flying with us then JP,Artie,Pooka,BadAim,Tonar, Steaks and many others. The time zones havent changed.

[Friar]

Mondays DCS tends to be just myself, Fruitbat and Fen more often then not. Thursdays is the most popular night.

[Crash]

Has nobody else got any thoughts? Please chip in.

[Mosquito]

In my opinion, DCS can swap from Monday to Tuesday or Sunday, i dont care. Wednesdays are ok for me so far.

What about :

GBS: Sunday + Wednesday / DCS: Tuesday and Thursday

 

I also will try to learn how to create and host missions on GBS, so that delta is not the only one.

 

 

 

[Friar]

Hey @Mosquito, thanks for stepping up.

Lets arrange a session so I can give you the same tools I have given Delta, that way you can do it between you.

Let me know which evenings would be good for you and matching times etc.

How are you getting on with the Mission Generator? 

 

 

[Friar]

Ok, so we now know Crash would like to fly DCS on a Tuesday, Delta already flies DCS with us so assume he would be ok with a Tuesday for DCS, Mossie has said he does not mind, of the regular fliers who does that leave to speak up?

[fruitbat]

I voted to move DCS to Tuesday anyway.

I'm also of the belief that people who are actually flying, their vote should have more importance than those who aren't, as it doesn't affect them one way or the other.