There are some things I want everyone to know and understand. We have not been transparent about the state of Innectis over the last 2 years or so. This post is hopefully going to shed some light into that and to help people better understand the conditions that currently exist. With this post I would like to repair the damage that has been done due to my lack of effort and the lack of others.
For the last couple of years or so, we have been getting increasingly less donations from the community and had to rely more on ourselves to get by, mostly being by myself and OrangeBlueZ. We have kept the server going mostly this way but some of you have graciously donated during that time. We thank you for that.
Another issue during this time which lead up to this year was the decreasing popularity of the server. Less and less people would show up each day and there were many periods where there wouldn't even be 1 person on the server. In fact that's pretty much the case now. Not only that but the forum has been mostly dead for a long time now. The donations from the community just aren't sufficient anymore. Something or multiple things need to change.
SGT has told me on numerous occasions that something needs to change, but little was done about it. Ever since Hret left and gave Innectis to me I have not been putting in the effort that I need to put in and so we have been running the same way all this time. We have many ideas for the server that haven't been incorporated into Innectis yet so that is not the problem. Server projects have been in limbo for a long time and have not been addressed.
There are a number of things that could be a big issue. It might be that we have produced the same kinds of content for a long time, and the members we have just simply got bored of it. Another issue may be that we have not tried very successfully to advertise for years, probably a big problem. It could be that I was not as attentive to Innectis as I should be. It seemed like my loyalty had changed. I really just got distracted from Innectis many many times, so it was not my loyalty shifting. I always had a passion for Innectis ever since I joined it way back when it was OtakuCraft.
Within the last couple of months SGT decided to try again to get me to realize things weren't changing and we were still going downhill. Things were not changing and stuff needed to get done. From our exchanges, this was the last straw for him and so he left. He did not want to stay in a community that wasn't going anywhere. He told me many times how he wanted to leave because of the current conditions. StarScythe did the same thing a short time afterward. He also did not want to stay in a community that wasn't going to improve. That set in motion the events that transpired recently.
Now that you have a little idea as to the situation, let me tell you some stuff about me which I think is a big reason why we haven't been doing very well. This isn't new by any means. I have had a lot of focus/attention issues when it comes to doing things. Getting distracted is a big problem for me. The game Team Fortress 2 has been a big part of my life alongside Innectis which has served as a big distraction as well. Honestly, I'll pin the issue on the attention problems at this point and not Team Fortress 2. The same things I've noticed with Innectis happened with Team Fortress 2 as well. I had the same attention/focus issues there. It's been going on for such a long time and I have become very frustrated with myself anytime I'm not doing well.
I've been in an endless cycle of not staying very present in anything that I was doing. Staying focused has been quite an issue for me. However, I could get in the mindset and perform something brilliantly but that doesn't happen as consistently as it should and it is a bad thing to let that stuff linger. I get so frustrated when I don't perform as good as I know I can and that can happen a lot.
Over the last month or so people have been criticizing me over a hiatus I've been taking for about 2 months now. Some people will say it's been longer than that, but that is around the time that I decided that I would stop focusing on the two biggest passions that I have at this moment in time: Innectis and Team Fortress 2 and just focus on other things.
They were trying to convince me that I had to return and make things better. They just couldn't understand me and what I was trying to do, so they kept going after me, time and time again. This process culminated in me feeling largely alone. People had lost respect for me and the faith that I could bring the community back to what it should be isn't really there. Finally, I hit rock bottom. It was one of the worst times in my life because for the handful of people who supported me, others did not understand at all. There was something there that could not be seen by others. It's hard when you're not really understood by others.
I was reminded of all the failures I had made in life, whether it was from real jobs that I was fired from or times in my life that I had disappointed people. That kind of thing has been pretty common for me and I've even had and still have issues with self-doubt. A part of me says I can't while another part of me says I can. However, I know in my heart that I can be a hard worker and get things done that I need to get done. This is the mindset that I am striving for.
I not only took my priorities off Innectis but also from Team Fortress 2. I would still do some stuff with Innectis and play Team Fortress 2 but for the most part they were no longer my priority for the time being. Remember, these are currently my 2 biggest passions . It's hard to understand unless you've been in the same circumstance yourself. If you haven't, then you won't see the same things that I've seen for a long time. It was all so obvious to me.
I felt that if I stopped focusing on the things I was struggling with that I would come back better than ever because I wouldn't be in the same atmosphere with the same struggles. I would instead be focusing on something else for a change. And that's exactly what I was going to do, despite calls to do otherwise. It worked out well and let me tell you all about it.
When I took the break to focus on another program that I went back to, I had a bigger drive than I had while working on Innectis. I had a goal-oriented mindset and knew what I wanted to do. Maybe that means Innectis just isn't significant as this program was. I don't think that's the case at all. I simply wanted out, a break, to free my mind. It has worked!
Taking a break has cleared my head, allowed me to see things differently and has helped me regain the desire to want to succeed. i needed time to myself to persue other things. I felt this was the only way to really reguvinate and recuperate. Most of all, I wanted to fix the issues that have been persistent in my life for all of my 30 years.
Solving those issues will make me a much stronger individual, ready for anything life throws at me. If I'm never in the present then how am I going to succeed? I need to start setting more goals for myself instead of just take life as it comes. That isn't going to help me very much.
Through it all, this has been the most controversial/complicated problem I have ever faced on the Internet. I reached a point where people would not believe the things I was doing were for my own good. They could only see so much but to me the picture was so clear. Yes I was hurting people in the process but honestly I care about myself more than I do anything else. One should put their own problems before anything else, it will save their sanity. That's certainly what I wanted to do.
I care enough to fix what is wrong and to come back stronger than ever. I want to fix the problems not just from Innectis, but everywhere else. If I can become the productive owner that you all believe I should be, then I am going to take things further than they've ever gone before. I believe in my heart that I am truly capable of that and it isn't going to take disbelief from anyone else to change what I think.
As of this writing the break has ended, the update to the program I was working on was released, and I am coming back to you now with an even bigger desire to get things done right, and so let's make this right. There are some things I'd like to talk about going forward that are really going to help me out. They will give me more of an opportunity to focus on what I need to while giving most other responsibilities to other people.
Up until this point we haven't had any means of centrality to the administration. It was pretty much an every person for themselves kind of a thing. That typically happened whenever I spoke up. If I wasn't around to tell people what to do then they would stop working on things. I had too many things that I oversaw and it would be better if there was a form of central command so that I didn't have to decide everything.
I would like a layer of administration where I don't have to manage everything. That can be taken care of by other people. The less of a workload I give myself the better it will be for me. I'm still going to be head of IDP, deciding updates, what goes in each, etc.. However, I don't want to manage every single thing. I will still be the main authority and have a significant influence but I would like to delegate some of the responsibility to other people. I'm not doing this because I think I'm incapable. I think I'm more than capable but I'd like to have less work to manage.
I will have more information for you guys in the future on exactly what the kinds of changes are going to be. I think they will be for the best though. This community needs to be vastly improved and I think we may be able to achieve that. Just bear with us and we will get back to you with some more information on this situation.
Also stay tuned for the next IDP update. We still need to get on Minecraft 1.10.2! There are a number of things already done in IDP that don't have to do with the new Minecraft update so you can look forward to that.
Let's make this year and the following years the best ever!
