We have a couple of groups of Mudspike members that like to regularly meet up and play stuff. To help with that I’ve enabled a feature called ‘Mudspike Groups’ in this forum. You can see a directory of the current groups here:
The idea of the groups is pretty simple. It is to:
Anyone can join (or leave) a group. Just use the above link and hit ‘Join’.
Being in a group means that you might be interested in what the group does, i.e. play Insurgency on Friday night or fly a mission in DCS.
You can mention a group using the short name plus the @ sign, i.e. hello everyone in @ground-ops and @dcs-mp plus also send personal messages to that group (rather than having a long to: list that might be out of date). This allows announcements to be made to and from the group owners without having to manage a distribution list. So essentially, join a group if you’re interested in the thing - you can leave at any time, it’s just a casual thing.
A group has a ‘flair’ (a badge on the your avatar picture). The group owners can customize their group page, although I’m still trying to figure out what can be done here. It seems like the last group you join seems to decide what icon/title you get, as there’s just space for the one. Not sure, but we’ll figure it out.
So, in summary - ‘groups’ is a way for members to join groups and then follow what interests them. The groups feature essentially helps them communicate and coordinate. We’re going to try it out and see how it works.
If anyone is interested in helping out and being a ‘group owner’ role (you really don’t have to do anything, just be keen on what it’s about) then message @staff and we can set one up. Example groups could be things like
So here @AeroMechanical is kindly demonstrating two things -
The wee fighter jet flair and title on his avatar (the group owners can set these, please no boobs).
That the entire @dcs-mp will see this mention but he could have messaged them direct instead.
@AeroMechanical I just filled in some names/example text and icons for the groups, I’m hoping the group owners (which can change, it’s really up to whoever wants it) will go to town on that and make it better, which does include renaming the group to be whatever they want it to be.
I wasn’t sure to make them game/sim specific or not, i.e. “Does anyone here want a quick DCS mission, please come to teamspeak now” vs groups that might form of people that are really into Spintires MP or IL2-BoX MP etc.
Not sure, but open to ideas (plus some more groups) to try out.
PS I just plummeted people into ‘group owner’ roles regardless of their wishes but basically it’s a ‘if you care you are it’ thing, so happy to alter anything on that side of things as well.
@fearlessfrog Happy for a Mudspike Racing group, not sure I’m going to be able to give much time to running it at the moment as I’m moving abroad in the next couple of months and its going to eat into my admin/internet access. Also, how about a “Space Stuff/Rocket Man” category for Elite, Hellion, Space Engineers etc?
No worries - I’m thinking that a group would need at least two owners (to give it more of a Game of Thrones vibe rather than just a single person having the huge responsibility of choosing the icon alone etc ) so perhaps someone else would like to do it as well and co-chair?
Good idea on the Elite stuff, anyone here interested in helping with an Elite etc space group if they want to do multiplayer stuff? @komemiute@Brix?
Also, if anyone is annoyed by their Avatar icon and/or title changing by joining a group then just ping a PM to @staff and we’ll clear it. I’m trying to expose that setting in people’s own preferences but it’s not there just yet.
