Well, yes, but actually no.
What is up my dudes. This is your friendly lunatic and extremely cynical Minister 'DGES' back at it again with heading the "Ministry" of Cards. This place is literally dying and I have indicated it as such by making some... interesting changes to the seal. And yes, it WILL eventually die unless something is done.
During my last term, the stress of trying to get anything done in this ministry (after r3n left) - combined with the cancer known as college work - got so high that I literally dipped from managing the ministry midway. As I'm currently undergoing the disease known as Organic Chemistry, this brain cancer still holds true, and I certainly don't believe that I have the proper abilities to raise this ministry back from its semi-mummified state.
But even if I can't do crap, I will still try.
If there's anything that you can sort-of believe in me, it's that I don't go down without fighting. Therefore, I've pledged myself to make an honest attempt to get this place back on its feet (to some degree). This may include getting its activities back to semi-active states or whatever, but honestly, I think you all need to know that this isn't even the issue that has caused the Ministry to sink so low....
The issue is that we (1) are currently unable to access any of TNP's stockpiled cards, and that (2) those stockpiled cards will eventually be depleted anyway.
1) For the former problem, we literally can't gift any of TNL's cards to deserving players. This essentially makes us unable to function to begin with. I'll admit that this issue was largely mitigated when McM directly logged in to TNL in order to send out cards, but that's annoying. Players don't stay active forever and this certainly applies to even our most dedicated contributors to TNP. Therefore, I will be actively pursuing ways for TNP to utilize automated actions in order to access TNL's deck - and this includes pestering @r3naissanc3r to get their card gifting service underway (r3n, you can't get rid of me!).
2) For the latter issue, well, it's good to say that this Ministry - even if we can somehow get access to TNL's deck - WILL eventually die within 1-2 years anyway. This is because TNL automatically sends 3 cards to players who don't even want them - on a daily basis. That's a complete waste (especially considering when we could've otherwise used the cards for more meaningful activities; take this for example) and eventually TNP's stockpile will eventually become nothing. Some (including @r3naissanc3r himself) may claim that it encourages people to participate in endorsing TNP's government, but no; the cards are sent to those who (either) are inactive, not interested in cards, or are generally dissatisfied with the lottery-winning chances (they're really low, to say the least) to the point where they don't have a true incentive to actually endorse TNP's officials.
[And honestly, it's not like the lottery dispatch has been updated to include any of the recent winners, so we've literally been sending legendaries to people who don't even know why they received them. Even more reason to replace the lottery with something better!]
The above is really the only thing I 100% have planned. I'm going to continuously annoy r3n to get this Ministry back to a semi-functioning state, while I (in the meantime) find ways to engage TNP with card-related activities so we won't let the fire that's currently consuming us (once again, look at the seal!) char us into oblivion. Cards requires the water of rejuvenation and I certainly don't think I can fully resolve its current mess, but I'm going to try.
And as for who will be helping me this term... well, let's just say that this is also a stupid issue we've been facing.
For the entire time since the Ministry's (as well as the Guild that solely existed before the Ministry's founding) existence, we've had this annoying problem where the #cards-leadership channel in the Executive server was the channel that had practically all the chat-related activity within the Ministry. This led me to accurately summarize that our regular staffers have been largely kept in the dark regarding... everything, really, so for this term, I've decided that EVERYONE shall be my deputy! In other words, our regular staffers shall be the only ones that I'm going to consult with this term. The #cards-leadership channel will be put into temporary disuse (save for extremely sensitive issues that have rarely come up, if ever) and full activity shall be reserved only for the #cards and #cards-staff channels (as it should've been). It's time for more transparency and I'm going to force this to be a thing.
With all this being said, I'm going to strive towards getting this place into a state where users could state (to some degree) that Cards truly is a ministry (and not just some formal gesture as a way of clapping us on the back for past accomplishments). We've got potential to be our own separate organization and I have more faith in that than anyone. It's only a matter of actually addressing the annoying technical issues and getting off our butts in order for this goal to succeed. I want you to throw crap at me, spam my DMs, ping me like I've never been pinged before, and whatever annoying shenanigans you can think of in order to get me to finish the work I'm going to set out on. Trust me, I need it, and if I (along with those who I'll be working with) can somehow untie the bandages that have caused this ministry to turn into the mummified state it's known for today, then infinite power to us.
To hell with Season 3; we'll just resurrect TNP's card community by our own two hands!
- DGES, your
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