Action Plan

[Inseriousity.]

Hey,

I've been wanting to write this feedback thread for a while but decided to wait it out and see if I could be surprised. When I resigned from AGM, I resigned because I felt the general management team needed to be friends and while I don't think we hated each other's guts (could be wrong), there wasn't any of the banter and camaraderie that a good strong team needs. Habbox is in a slump so it really needed that to help boost it out of it. I recommended Jade because afaik Jade and Matt talked more consistently than the occasional conversations I ever had with him while also having the creativity and determination to improve things. I say all this because the general management team being good friends doesn't necessarily result in a more constructive team and some of the horror stories I've heard suggests that the current team is actually doing more harm than good so after Martin's firing, I decided to make this thread to perhaps turn the spotlight onto the general management team rather than the department managers.

No-one is irreplaceable
This is a principle I've stuck by throughout my time at Habbox. Everyone can be replaced; trialists, staff, management, general management and it's stupid to think that the higher up the ladder you go, the more irreplaceable you are. I've also seen how damaging it can be when someone believes they're irreplaceable. They get arrogant, they feel untouchable as if they can do anything and it doesn't matter or they no longer do the work they did to get to that place of feeling irreplaceable and too valuable to let go and do the bare minimum and allow others to do it.

Matt was going to resign but decided to stay after Jin persuaded him to. I don't have the full details obviously but from what I gathered, Jin didn't really trust anyone else to replace him and y'know what, that's fair enough because it's clearly a big job and you don't just want anyone in the position but from that moment on, they really should've been keeping a lookout for the next GM (even if that person wasn't necessarily staff or in the general management team already) because it feels like Matt is just going through the motions and I remember he turned into the worst troll ever for a few months (thankfully he calmed down). This brings me nicely to what I think is the main cause of the downturn.

Lack of vision + leadership
I couldn't stand Oli. He deliberately kept policies not because they were any good but because I got so wound up about them and clearly he found it amusing to have that control. However, on the rare occasion when we weren't trying to get our scalp, I remember asking him what his vision was and he was able to state it quite clearly (focus on the noobs in brief if you're wondering) and it was also where we agreed with each other. Everything Oli did was focused on that vision and if it didn't fit in with that vision then it was quickly discarded - that's not to say older members were completely ignored because obviously he had to find that balance and most things to attract newbies can appeal to older members as well - which people found harsh but that was leadership and he had the drive to see it through. I do not feel that Matt has any vision or idea what to do next. It has always seemed to me that he is merely biding his time for someone else to come up with the next ideas rather than working on his own. Rule 1 of how not to lead is to wait around for someone else to lead. I'd actually say that Matt is not alone in this and many managers have fell into this trap but it's more noticeable with Matt when he is top dog. To also be fair to Matt, when the chips are down, he can also see things through so he's not entirely incapable but it's not very consistent.

Laziness
This feedback thread isn't about how I was an amazing AGM who was perfect. I'll elaborate further in this point. I believe the lack of leadership has resulted in a lazy atmosphere in general management. There's no drive or passion from the leader then it's quite discouraging. Putting policies into place is tough. It's not as easy as saying here's a new policy. You've got to create a sustainable system or structure and identify potential issues before they occur so when obstacles inevitably arose, it was far easier to leave it and come back to it later than take it head on and there would be no consequence for not doing so because of Matt's lack of leadership. I think it'd be unfair to completely blame Matt for that. I am responsible for my own choices and fell into that trap myself but the point I'm making here is that it is made too easy a trap to fall into. Despite my AGM record not being particularly thrilling, I am very proud of my work in competitions management and we now have an AGM who hosted rare giveaways even though she wasn't a manager and as I recall was filled with ideas and thinking of solutions to problems (even if I didn't always agree with them). It's now been a couple of months and all we've had so far is a rehash of Hx24 besides from the usual seasonal events and I can't help but wonder if a combination of these factors mentioned already have helped this.

I think a lot of attention has been paid to how some department managers manage their departments and while they aren't completely off the hook, if recent stories I've heard are true then it is little wonder that morale is exceedingly low. General management should be supporting managers to help them improve not belittling them into the ground. You should be creating a dialogue where ideas can be discussed and bounced back and forth then support their implementation not simply berating them for not being good enough because yeah that'll improve things clearly.

Action Plan
The solution to all of this then I feel is an action plan. I think there's a fairly vague version already but a more detailed action plan to help establish a vision. By vague, I mean "improve listeners", "get more members" without actually saying how or what you're going to do or put in place to help that. This could be posted publicly then everyone will know where Habbox is heading. I don't really like threads that post a load of problems without any ideas so here are a couple of what I was working on as AGM and think could benefit if they were taken forwards.

1. Tokens/Habbo integration. I posted a thread in forum management ages ago about this then never carried it through: add credits to the tokens system and replace 'rep' in prizes with tokens. I came across the obstacle that everyone had lots of tokens already and figured it'd bankrupt Habbox straight away so see point 'laziness' because if you just weathered that storm then it'd calm down after that and mr-trainor came up with the idea of limiting the amount of times you can get it per month as well. I regret not pushing that one through.

2. Credit Exchange. If anyone is wondering what that little section to the side of my lottery room was all about, the idea was that it'd be the place of credit exchange with no commission. You have a gold bar and want bronze coins, here's 50 bronze coins. Not having to lose out on credits might have made it an appealing attraction to non-members. Again, bankrupting Habbox or just being saddled with all these gold bars because everyone wants bronze coins means that I got stumped by this one. I think a possible solution is below and it might be a worthwhile idea to revisit. I'm still 50/50 on this one.

3. Runescape Achievements. I think the awards system is pointless so adopting a Runescape Achievements system could be a way forward. For those who are unaware, the runescape task system is that you complete tasks (some serious, some not so serious) that have a range of difficulties for different areas of the game. Runescape is largely built so that this is fairly straightforward whereas at Habbox it'd be a lot trickier hence why this never really got off the ground either but I do think it's a good idea as it would be something to aim for and give newer members something to do to get involved with the easy tasks and older members more of a challenge with the harder challenges. It's also a way to show off all of what Habbox has to offer (instead of 'towns/cities', it'd be different departments: forum, habbox, habboxlive, events, hxhd). Obstacles for this are: what would the tasks be, how would you prove youve done the task.

4. Bring back HabboxTV. Admittedly, this isn't a project I was working on at the time but I think it's something worth exploring. I present to you HabboxTube: a youtube for Habbo videos. It's a bit of a niche area so perhaps that's a bit ridiculous although I still believe that a good way to get out of the slump is to offer something unique. I tried to introduce radio plays and that was a complete failure but I still believe in the concept and think it might be the perfect opportunity to bring HabboxTV back. I say this because afaik, Laura is the current content manager and is very keen on the idea herself (unless I've imagined reading this somewhere which would be embarrassing) so it could easily be incorporated into that department. To bring up why I mentioned radio plays, as well as the text on the screen that you can read, there could be voice actors as well. Might give it more depth or make them even more incredibly cheesy than they already are but yes that would be the main output for Habboxtube but there could be competitions or viral videos made. Anything to get Habbox back on the map really.

5. More big events. This one's cheating because I don't really have any ideas at the moment but there was a time when there was something big going on at least every 2 months. Nowadays it seems everyone just waits for the next seasonal event then everyone pitches in but everything drowns each other out. This point is more to the whole of management rather than just general management but general management do need to support that process as well. It's free advertising for your department if you do something outside the norm outside the usual timeframe. Do something big during a seasonal event and while appreciated, it just gets lost with everything else going on. Do something big outside of that and you can get a forum notice all for yourself! You can see for yourself on the "Habbox Competitions" page examples of how I did this when I was in competitions manager (and if you dare say 'well you were comps manager, im just a content manager so that's not what we do', I will bury you alive).

6. Funding. This isn't my own idea, it's FlyingJesus' but it's an idea I support in principle so I've added it here. If we can get funding for the events department to start giving out more consistently good prizes then that'd be great. I know Tom wants a fully funded department but I've done the maths and it sounds almost impossible to do so straight away (If you say an average event has 3 rounds and a 2c prize per round then maximum would be 1008 credits a week. More realistically, I'd say 600-700 when it's at its peak but you've got to account for these things) but it's definitely a goal to work towards. The grabber has been changed from 1 1c one to 3 different grabbers and while I've been critical in this thread, I'd say this is a welcome change so make this grabber a weekly event in the calendar at the very least especially now that there is also an event area for someone to host an event as well (another welcome change) and then use that funding to work with developing a better prize fund for the events department.

7. Habbo rooms. I've said this elsewhere but building more popular Habbo rooms and linking them up to the help desk would be a good idea (including the grabber/lottery room btw). One idea I had was one of those 1 room mazes where at the end you put yourself in for a big credit prize. If they signed up to the forum with a screeny of them in the room saying the message (changes every week/month) then someone logging in and welcoming all the newer members who signed up just for it in an attempt to get them to stay. Either way, linking to the help desk, there's usually someone in there (even if there isn't anyone behind the desk) who could welcome them and show them what Habbox has to offer.

Those are just a few ideas to consider. I am aware that making this thread means I am opening myself up to criticism of my own time as AGM and that's understandable but after hearing about what the general management team are (not) doing, I decided to speak up and hope this can raise an interesting discussion. Oh and I know this is really critical but I can only go from my own perspective and what I've been hearing from others so if someone wishes to make a defence of the general management team to provide a bit of balance then please feel free!

[dbgtz]

The problem I see with your action plan is you've listed what they should do but not how to get there. Everything you've listed needs some sort of investment and the only thing really possible to bring any return is HabboxTV and that's only if it was popular enough.

[Kardan]

The Tokens for Credits idea is really, really needed. It gives people a reason to sign up to the forum.

The credit exchange could work if they had to pay a token fee initially. Once again, they'd have to be limited on how many gold bar exchanges they could have. But if it gets people on the forum, it's a good idea.

The current award system is pathetic, I think pretty much everyone agrees. The only reason it is around is to give the content department one little thing to do every other month. If a new achievements system was put into place, which I think could be a good idea (Having Achievements: 49 in the userbit could be a good idea), we could give one off token payments for each achievement given. Which will get people posting for tokens for credits.

HabboxTube could work, but I think it would be more targeted towards current forum users, as those animation thingies that @wixard; did proved to be pretty successful. To get new users, something would have to go 'viral' and I'm not sure if things can go viral within the Habbo community.

Events need so much improvement. It's been suggested for ages to have a big event where people need to sign up and post to enter, and I think Habbox tried that out for the first time recently with that crypt competition? It would be nice if we could get some stats on how many regular players took part, and how many new members signed up and joined. @Chris;

Whilst better prizes would make Habbox events so much better, we need to make sure that this also converts into more people using Habbox. It would definitely give us more visibility, that's for sure. How would Habbox get the funding anyway?

To be fair, I think the majority of these ideas have been said before, but it would be nice to see if they would work or not.

[Lewis]

All of this would improve Habbox greatly.

It's just the question of how does it get done?

[Inseriousity.]

I am aware of the practical considerations and I even point them out myself as they were what stopped me. My point was however that there is a lack of a risk taking culture in general management and it is far easier to lie back and tinker around the edges when there is no leadership. I think point 6 could address some of the funding issues if maximised to its full potential. The lottery alone when running on all cylinders generates a good profit so adding 3 grabbers of various prices to the mix would improve that even further. Every idea needs determination to see it through to the end and put it in place because it is so easy to drop the ball on these things. How to get there? By pushing it through with blood, sweat and tears!

Those ideas aren't the whole plan, they were just some suggestions to go towards it and the more high-concept ones rather than improving the day to day which could also be added to the wider action plan.

[FlyingJesus]

Wow didn't take some people long to go right for the BUT YOU HAVEN'T SAID HOW TO FIX IT cop-out that we've seen so often. Keep in mind that it's the job of the managers to work out how to implement improvements, and if they can't do it (or reasonably state why it's impossible) then point number 1 should come into effect to solve that issue. Gonna go through point-by-point now but seriously people saying lul bt u didden mek it hapn alredi isn't worth a post

[Explorator]

Tokens to Credits will be a brilliant idea. It would encourage people to post more frequently.

For it to actually work properly, you would have to give out enough credits every so many tokens to not make people think that they are being ripped off, yet not give so many out that habbox would be lose funds.

With the HabboxTV idea, it sounds brilliant, but in reality, it isn't an idea that would really catch popularity.

Overall, I think you have a good few ideas here, and I hope some of these can help habbox for the good.

[myles]

credit exchange was a nice idea. but people do buy them for 49c so tht would be a problem. but you could use the goldbars for hhabbox prizes maybe i dont know

[Explorator]

credit exchange was a nice idea. but people do buy them for 49c so tht would be a problem. but you could use the goldbars for hhabbox prizes maybe i dont know

Ooh, you've got a point there.

People could be buying them for 49c and then trading them in for 50c each. They would be making 1c per time and If they were to be doing this all the time, they would make some money.

Also, would we have enough funds to do big trades and who would we trust with the money?

[Inseriousity.]

Yeah the credit exchange thing is a risky one and it is why I stalled it so many times. I know that people buy them for 49c but I was willing to risk that that was because that was just the way things are so the idea was more about throwing a spanner in the works and seeing if it attracted any attention. If you used the grabber to top up the bronze coins so it was sustainable then it could work and that was the intended plan. I was worried that demand would outstrip supply and that the grabber wouldnt be enough and then ofc the ultimate question that it gets potential new users using the service but how to get them to Habbox itself.