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Why I Staff on Corbacraft

A quick preface: This was originally meant for a message in #donator-zone on our discord server. I hit the character limit so I moved to my iPhone's Notes app, and typed this up while on a walk. I have since reworded a couple of sentences and corrected some grammar rules.

I was talking in #︱help-me today, and it has got me thinking about why I am here and why I do what I do. This’ll be a personal ramble, not any sort of “speaking as staff” thing. 

Emily joined this server a while before I did. she was young, so she didn’t speak in chat at all. I helped her with a thing once or twice, but not enough to connect with the community. Flash forward a year, maybe more. She’s playing on Corbacraft again. At that time, I didn't even know what the server’s name was or what they stood for. All I knew is I thought it would be cool to log in and walking from spawn, try to naturally find my sister’s base. (it wasn’t very hard, it was just straight ahead from the pvp arena in spawn in 2020 Orion.)

Anyway, the welcoming vibe and fun chat caused me to change my username to something less stupid, and to actually get back into minecraft. i mentioned to emily i thought it would be funny to try to apply for staff, because i used to engage in an activity known as “staff hunting”. I'd just apply and work where I was taken. Usually those servers would die out due to being run by 12 year olds. 

anyway

I hadn't played in some time at this point. So every now and then I'd just log on, and mine. I had no goal, or reason to mine. I didn't sell what I mined, I'd just throw away stuff I didn't care about and put the rest in my chests. While mining, I'd watch chat. I'd see the community interact with each other. I figured out who were friends etc. Occasionally I'd speak up and try to be funny in chat, which I have since been told is how I found the people I now consider my best friends. 

These friends, some gone and some still with us, “adopted” me. They saw I had no “group”, and they thought I was funny, so they included me in their friend group. This means the world to me, and I'm still so grateful for their friendship. 

At this point, I had been been playing for a couple of weeks or more and I heard back about my staff application. They accepted me! Newest helper in training. At this time, the staff team was split between our two servers, Orion and Alyx. The staff manager at the time, LadyOfTheRose, asked me where I wanted to staff. She strongly suggested I pick Alyx, and I saw it seemed a little neglected, so I picked Alyx. It was at this time where my reasons for being here started to take shape, and begin to grow into what they are today. 

Alyx was a more vanilla diamond economy survival vibe, so less players played there. They preferred all the frills and fancy stuff on Orion. So at this point I was torn between two servers. Do I spend my time staffing on Alyx, or hanging out with friends on Orion? For some time, I tried to balance this. But it came to a point where I'd frequently have to interrupt silly time to go resolve an issue on Alyx. So eventually I just became a mostly Alyx player. 

You may be wondering why I'd choose to spend my time on a neglected server where no one played when I could have totally been playing on the well staffed, popular one. Well the answer is right there. “well staffed”. Orion had no need of me. Alyx was basically just one moderator, beep. I and a few others became helpers on Alyx to lessen the load on her. It was at this time that my priorities shifted from “fun” to “service”. 

I am here primarily because I see this position as a form of service. I enjoy solving issues between players. I enjoy rolling back griefs and punishing rule breakers. I enjoy answering questions. I enjoy talking with players. and I love doing all of this because I love the community. 

I may not be an active Minecraft player anymore, but I am passionate about the community, and as long as I am here I will be taking a position of service and doing what I can to give back to this community that blessed me with the friends I hold dear now. 

Thank you for reading :)