What's new
By:
Filters
Roleplay UK

Join the UK's biggest roleplay community on FiveM and experience endless new roleplay opportunities!

ALUK June Newsletter: Admins wear Black Robes and More!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Wilco

Wilco

The King
Legendary Donator
7_altislife2.png
 ​
June 2015​
Wilco Newsletter​

Its Friday!

Nearly time for the weekend and some Altis Life!

You haven't heard from me for a while and sometimes that can be a good thing but its time for one of Wilco's behind the scenes threads

If this is enjoyed then i will once again make it a monthly feature, In this thread/newsletter I will give you some insight to whats going on at Altis Life UK behind the scenes this month and beyond.

ALUK Development 

Ciaran will confirm I chucked my toys out of the pram the other night, I do not like it when the updates are slow just like any other player and I felt we have fallen off the rails a little so a little passion for ALUK came out!

This can be blamed a little bit on the issues ARMA chucked at us, However that brought up the development of back end systems and server code we shall never discuss and speak about.

Its time to get back to full speed as we are quickly approaching our 1 year 6 months anniversary!

Ciaran is back strapped into his chair and hard at work, In the meantime i am looking at ways to improve the forums / community and more importantly progressing with map updates & detail.

I have just set a target for an update release this weekend, No pressure.......

Website Development

The forum software we hold a licence for Invision Power Board have just released there 4.0 version which brings a vast number of changes and exciting mods that the IPB community are already working on and releasing.

We are currently awaiting some bugs to be ironed out before we move across but its looking likely to be this month or early July, I will post an update nearer the time as there will a few hours or more downtime.

With IP4 we will also be introducing a new look to the website & community moving to a new skin and customizing it to how we want it to look.

We will however keep the current theme we call Altis Life UK Black as an option.

Community Growth

Visits from google are still strong along with direct traffic, We are now hitting around 3.5/4k unique sessions per day bringing our website hits to just under 1 million per month! You busy busy people!

o3Hnw3u.png


ALUK Staff & Friend's Meetup!

June is a very exciting month for the admin team as we are finally meeting in real life and for the absence of other admin team members who cannot make it we will have brought in some local substituted guests to replace them!

Next weekend sees Mr. Cardoso land in the UK where we will be meeting with TinyBigJacko / The Shadow / Unlucky George / Reverend* / FriendFireGuy* / Vladic Ka*

* Still awaiting permission from there better half's & confirmation

We will then rush to a unknown location somewhere in the United Kingdom countryside under the cover of night wearing our black admin robes where we will discuss things and all shout "for the greater good!"

For me personally when i started Altis Life UK i was hopefully i would find great people to share the experience with and find new gaming friends but it blows my mind to turn this into face to face relationships.

I will make sure I get pictures and share them here after next weekend.

Community Meetup

The polls have now been closed and unfortunately due to changes in community representatives and time running out for major events or organisation its looking like our activities meetup is looking unlikely to be arranged at this stage.

Therefore we will put off our activity style meetup until 2016, However i will release plans and gauge thoughts and feedback about a community meetup/pissup in Birmingham or London for this July/August.

If anyone wants to get involved and help arrange this with the community then please get in contact via email@altislife.co.uk

Rust & KOTH

You may have noticed we now have a modded Rust server, The server unlike vanilla servers is not time consuming however isn't full easy mode (we think we nearly have the right balance)

The server is minimal on resources and sits upon one of our other servers, Its something besides Altis we enjoy and its here to stay for the long term, When we was the number 1 DayZ standalone server in the world i stupidly pulled the plug and we have been missing an extra something ever since, Hopefully Rust is providing it for you!

KOTH, It may have been replaced on the server bar but it is still around, It hasn't been actively lately and we haven't had any KOTH Friday's

We will take a vote shortly in the gaming discussion forums about what to do with the server (config wise) and we will set a date for the next KOTH Friday.

Donations

We now only have 29 Legacy donators left (people who donated for the VIP shop before the donation policy change in May) 10 of those expiring before the end of July.

I have noticed the donations have massively dropped as people's legacy VIP status expires (Only 21 views to the donation page this month)

I would like to get some feedback from the community on this one

  • Why have you stopped donating ?
  • Did you donate for perks only ?
  • Would you donate if we offered something else or if it was cheaper ?
  • Any ideas on a donation system you may have.
Let me be honest the future of Altis Life UK will always be stable (Server 1 / Website) and that's the case either if its coming out of the community's pocket or my own.

However if things get to the point a few months they are no longer not sustainable we will then need to look at closing servers for example: Server 2 / Migration of other servers

Please have your say in the replies below so we can move to make changes if needed or look at other avenues, Obviously there are some restrictions so we do not make it unfair for current donators / lifetime donators.

In the meantime as 3 members have already noticed we have a monthly donation subscription option this came after a year of people asking for this option! Check out the donation page for the link.

In-Game Admins

Its time to expand our staff team, I am not going to give a number of how many people we will be looking for as with all admin meetings we go with as many strong candidates as we want!

We are looking for people who can be on across different times of the day!

If you feel you can remain 100% Impartial and take a step back and make a calm decision when spectating on the server then this is for you!

The In-Game admin role requires someone who can give around 4-6 hours per day most days of the week constantly spectating and responding to player admin requests in-game and use our live admin website to issue a ban/kick as per our community rules.

This is a completely voluntary role, your payback is the satisfaction of helping the community and being able to make a difference on the biggest and Best Roleplay community in the UK & Europe.

Requirements

  • Has been a member for 6 months
  • Loyal to Altis Life UK and a love for the server & community
  • Can remain Impartial
  • Is a strong character and can make sensible on the spot decision

Please PM me your applications. Deadline is the 19th of June 2015 , Please state what times of the day you are most active along with a CV style background about you / your journey on ALUK and any information you want to include.

For now that is all, I look forward to your replies and hope you have a very enjoyable and sunny weekend.

wilco.png


Wilco
Founder - Legend - Rust Cave God
 
Last edited by a moderator:
wilco.png


Wilco
Founder - Legend - Rust Cave God
I laughed :p I like this idea and i think we should have it often.. Thanks everyone for sticking around and enjoying this big family we have here!



 
Great to see what goes on behind the scenes, would definitely like to see these newsletters more often! Keep up the good work guys!

 
The newsletter idea is quite nice, gives everyone an idea of what is happening, rather than the few glimpses the community get from the few people "in the know"

Thoughts on donating:

The benefits at the moment are quite arbitrary, I personally think that the benefits should be removed (For the monthly donators) and there is an option added for a custom donation amount. 

I am unsure what the accuracy of the 500 pound monthly goal is, but I feel it should be set at what the true level of funding required to maintain the community (Cost of the servers, how ever much you require, other costs and so on[These details could perhaps be reflected on the donation page, I personally would feel more comfortable donating know exactly where the money is going]).  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Donation tips.
Less than £10 monthly, offering different perks for price ranges, £10 might be a lot for some people but i bet they'd donate a few quid without even thinking about it.

Maybe put the donators into a 'raffle' of sorts where they could win a Steam game (maybe Rust) :) .

Try and partner with companies/sponsors that'd fit our target market, those that make peripherals or PG tips for example and they could be raffled or something.

Donators whitelisted onto a server that allows them to play co-op missions. Not sure where that lies with Bohemias rules though.

 

 
Donation Feedback:

  • Why have you stopped donating ?
  • Did you donate for perks only ?
  • Would you donate if we offered something else or if it was cheaper ?
  • Any ideas on a donation system you may have.
1- I mostly stopped donating due to the expense for now however i'm soon to donate £160.

2- I didn't donate for the perks only however, like a lot of people it certainly made me more willing to pay the £10 a month as it improved my gameplay experience a ton. Cheap weapons and vehicles meant I could spend less time money making and more time roleplaying and having fun.

3- I think that if you offered extra skins it would help people to donate however I feel there is already quite a lot to offer. I would also be more likely to donate monthly if it was cheaper but I don't feel that £10 a month is expensive.

 
"Ciaran is back strapped into his chair and hard at work"

I feel that some laws are being broken here... Oh well, keep it up with the updates! :)

 
Also, regarding the donations:

From what I know Bohemia still allow community contributions as long as it's not unique content, for example like ye were doing with price reductions. I would like to refer to Asylum in this case:

Screenshot URL

As you can see they offer textures and price reductions to donators at a level that isn't Pay 2 Win, even the simplicity of having everything in a simple area even at no price reduction could really help donators, like the former VIP club which could access weapons / vehicles all on an island right where they could spawn. I'm not 100% on Bohemia's EULA, but I mean unless Asylum have gotten some clearance from Bohemia directly to do what they're doing it should be fine.

Anyway, keep us posted on any changes that ye are making, I'd love to see what ye can come up with :)


 

Simon. said:
The newsletter idea is quite nice, gives everyone an idea of what is happening, rather than the few glimpses the community get from the few people "in the know"

Thoughts on donating:

The benefits at the moment are quite arbitrary, I personally think that the benefits should be removed (For the monthly donators) and there is an option added for a custom donation amount. 

I am unsure what the accuracy of the 500 pound monthly goal is, but I feel it should be set at what the true level of funding required to maintain the community (Cost of the servers, how ever much you require, other costs and so on[These details could perhaps be reflected on the donation page, I personally would feel more comfortable donating know exactly where the money is going]).  
 
Click to expand...

My response to this:

You also have to consider that Wilco buts his (quite literally) life into Altis Life UK, as far as I know he works full time so that money is essentially paying him to eat, drink and have a roof over his head, all whilst providing a great server for us, and if you think about that after an amount of money going into the servers, domains and licenses every month there wouldn't be much left after that.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Great read! Feels good knowing what's going on behind the scenes =)

As for donating, the only reason I don't donate very often is because everytime I do, it messes with my forum tags. I loose police tags and mentor tags and I somehow gain the NHS ones. If that could be avoided I'd happily donate!

 
I know this may be a stupid question but whats stopping us registering in order to allow us to do this?

 
tomm said:
I know this may be a stupid question but whats stopping us registering in order to allow us to do this?
Click to expand...
You have to register to take any donations basically, it doesn't allow you to violate the Server Monetization Rules anyway. 

 
Donation Feedback:

Why have you stopped donating ?
Did you donate for perks only ?
Would you donate if we offered something else or if it was cheaper ?
Any ideas on a donation system you may have.

I only donated once and that was a one off.

The perks are a massive bonus, so yes, that was one thing that really persuaded me, but it was also to help here.

Cheaper? No. £10 is good. Maybe if you lower the price of the recurring payment, e.g £10 first month and £7 after?

Donation System  - No I'm afraid. However, I see that the monitization thing is in trial period till 2016, which will be an issue.

Is there no sort of 'Poll' or petition or something we can do to stop this? Surely Bi Know of the ridiculous costs of running a community?

 
Why have you stopped donating ? Money is tight due to RL stuff, will donate anything i can tho ;)

Did you donate for perks only ?

Nah, it was a nice side feature.

Would you donate if we offered something else or if it was cheaper ?

As said before, money is tight :p

Any ideas on a donation system you may have.

My tip would be to make donating less needed, perhaps give them the option to have their own TS room when donating and not just as a seperate donation?

Edit: @Wilco

4 pages long admin application will be send when I have ran my final spelling checks and I will PM it to you :) Would love to become an admin ;)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top