Originally Posted by
Yuma
how does a relatively new member of the toribash community gain enough prestige and recognition to compete with the current foundation of old, established, and memified folk that make up staff, the upper echelon of clans, and legends? Top clans that reign above the rest are full of weathered, experienced players going back to even 2007. Staff is pretty much the same for years on.
All the old players who are still around now are only still around because they stuck around. They're the 1% who kept in touch with the forum and kept coming back to the game year after year unlike the 99% of other old inactive accounts who fell off. I felt the same when I started playing back in '09 and '10. There were all these big known names and join dates from '06 and '07. The funny thing is that a lot of those names you wouldn't recognise now. And the '06 of when I joined is now more like '06-'10ers for someone who joined in '16 or '17.
I had that similar feeling and now 8 years later here I am. If the game lasts another 8 years and you stick around for that time you'll be in the same position.
Originally Posted by
Yuma
It seems that there are simply too few freshmeats coming into the community to make any real difference in the way things are. Many of the greatest artists in the community are from way back, with very few newbies even contributing (tbh it is tough to tell who is new and who is an alt/namechanger).
Many renowned players in the areas of art/replays/mods/etc developed their skills over time with practice. No one should expect to be able to just come in and make a huge splash immediately with the exception of maybe someone who is very god at art and can apply those skills to textures from day 1. Even then it'll take some time for word to spread and reputation to build.
Originally Posted by
Yuma
It just feels a bit difficult for a newb like me to step up and pursue higher goals here when there are a magnitude of veterans who can replace you. This makes it easy for people to overlook greenies like me when this is the case. It isn't even a problem of quality; old doesn't mean better. But there are certainly merits that come with age that newcomers will never have (at least not for 6 years or so).
It might seem like that to you but there is a lot of churn in staff with newer players constantly being recruited in. Again from my perspective, if I look through the staff lists now a lot of the names are people I don't recognise. Just pulling names off the list for example, Quack in ES joined in 2013. Joel in ES joined in 2017. In my mind this is easily the 'next generation' or even two or three of staff from when I started to get involved. And the guys who make it up to smod and admin again are the guys that have stuck around.
I think almost anyone can get there but there aren't really any shortcuts. It just takes time and a bit of work.