Lelling

What Tossino said ^^ We'll still be playing together and doing stuff in OC, we're just no longer organising regular events like we used to ^^ Oh and you can always check out our Discord!

If you'd like to listen to this announcement instead of reading, you can find an audio/video version of it here. Hey everyone! This May, OpenCommunity turned 5 years old! Yay, what an achievement! And sure, over a year of that has mostly been hibernation, BUT a 5th anniversary is still a good time to get together, have some fun and reminisce! That's why I'd like to invite everyone to the OpenCommunity 5th Birthday / Retirement Party! So What / When Is It? The party will be a celebration of all the fun times we've had throughout the past 5 years, and we will be inviting commanders from throughout OpenCommunity's history! We're not going to complicate the schedule too much, we just want to get together and have a fun time (but there is a likelihood of doing some Triple Trouble with extra silly rules). The party will be taking place on Saturday, May 23rd, at 18:00 CEST! To join, hop on to the OpenCommunity Teamspeak (at our usual address at ts.theopencommunity.org / OpenCommunity / ts.gw2oc.org) So What's All This About Retirement? So, retirement? What is it, what does it mean for OC, and what does it mean for our charity events? WELL, it's pretty straightforward. When we decided to reset everything and just build something new from scratch, we always did it with the caveat that we'll only do what people want to do, so unless there's a strong interest for OC to do XYZ, we didn't want to push the issue. But as you may have noticed, there wasn't really a lot of interest for any major activities. Basically, most of our most prominent members are just not playing GW2 actively anymore, and those that are still active, were able to find other guilds or communities which are playing more actively. So, what do we do with OC? Well, one option was just to pack it up and close it down, but honestly, that'd be kind of a lame epilogue to the great adventure that OC was, and if we can still do it, I'd love to still continue doing Tyria Pride, so, on the last Community Assembly, and a little chat we had a while later with some members, we decided it was best for OC to go into "retirement". Basically, what this means is that we're just officially transitioning into a more chill state. For a while now, it's been like "OC is currently going through some changes!", and this is just a way to make it official that the changes are going to be done! So What Are Those Changes? What's OC going to be? The way I've imagined it is that OC will be kind of like that place with the bunch of people from the olden days. I'll be shaping up our discord a bit, adding a few chat channels (and possibly a voice channel or two? Let me know if you think that's a good idea!) Basically, here's what a retired OC looks like in my mind: Discord, where people chat, hang out, share their hobbies or pictures of baked breads, and potentially connect with each other to play with New static website which just kind of just shares this info Teamspeak, in which OC people can just make their own private channels at will for any purpose they need Once a year, we get together in GW2 for a little birthday / reminiscing party and do silly stuff in May, and then we also do Tyria Pride in June And, don't forget, we also have the new Teamspeak, GW2League! GW2L is what people thought OC was in the first place - it's a teamspeak where guilds get their own channels, in which they have full admin privileges, can designate mods, access a wide array of permissions, etc. Alright, I think that's it for the announcement! Remember, Saturday, May 23rd, at 18:00 CEST! Be there or be square! Oh, and tell your friends!

Hello everyone! After over a year of working, blowing up Teamspeak server after Teamspeak server, and waiting on Teamspeak Systems GmbH to get off their butts, we've finally set up the GW2League teamspeak! Community Assembly - Saturday, February 29th, 16:00 CET! Before we get started with this announcement, - reminder that this announcement, and some other stuff will be discussed on the Community Assembly, happening on Saturday, February 29th, at 16:00 CET! We'll be discussing and opening up to questions regarding GW2League, as well as talking about OC's future, and taking a look at OC's 2019 budget report! Background When we decided we no longer wanted to directly lead teams of commanders from the top of OC, and instead just let people do what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it, we also started talking about creating a new Teamspeak server, that would operate as something that we believed is what people wanted from OpenCommunity in the first place. Not a top-down organised community with a structured approach to events, but a free-for-all teamspeak where anyone can hang out, request a channel, and just do what they want to do. At this time, Teamspeak had already announced Teamspeak 5, which was set to release in Q4 of 2018 (yikes). We decided to wait on the release of TS5, so that when we built the new Teamspeak, we'd build it knowing what this new generation of Teamspeak was all about. But 2019 came along, and TS5 still wasn't released, and nobody at Teamspeak was giving any information about when the brand new, much hyped TS, would be releasing. But we did find a claim that TS5 would run on TS3 servers, so, as 2019 trucked on, we decided we'd just make the separate Teamspeak without waiting for TS5. The goal was to make an exact replica of our current server, so that when we made the move, people wouldn't have to learn all new channels, get new groups, etc. All the supporter groups from OC would carry over, so people would be recognized for their contributions on both servers. However, that was easier said than done. What followed were a couple months where @Leaky and I would be poring over a single-line file with almost 1 MB of data in it, to try and decode what exactly we needed to clone to make a successful copy. If there was any kind of conflict, the new server would crash and we'd have to start from scratch. After about 10 iterations, we finally managed to build the new TS! So What Is GW2League? So, the idea behind GW2League is to have a TS platform where any guild or group can request a channel, in which they have full admin permissions. They can moderate the channels, rename them, set passwords & permissions, and even prevent other people from seeing inside. They can assign groups such as Moderator, Commander, Muted, Keyboard Disabled, they can ban people from accessing their channels, basically anything that somebody can do if they have a Teamspeak server of their own. The advantage is that they're not alone - if they ever want to make bigger events with other guilds, form alliances, or just hang out with strangers, they're surrounded by others that might be interested in doing so. But, there are no requirements to do so, you can also just completely stick to yourself. The main advantage of GW2League over other communities is that it's completely federated - each guild has its own channels where they have admin powers, meaning that you do what you want in your channel, without interference from outside, and because it doesn't hinge on a single individual or group of individuals to run it as a staff (like OC did), there's no top-down structure, and no orders coming from a staff of people. If you want to work with other guilds, you can do that, if you want to ban all other guilds from being able to enter your channels, you can do that. If you want your channels to be invite-only, you can do that, and if you want everyone to be able to join, you can do that. The Teamspeak just exists, regardless of what people want to do on it. It's there as a neutral platform, which I think is what a lot of people wanted OpenCommunity to be, but it never could have been that. I also wanted to create a Teamspeak which had no connotation to OpenCommunity, because generally, I think a lot of people have personal beef with that name, and creating a separate TS and not calling it something like "OCPublic" or "OCGuilds" or whatever, was the right thing to do. So What's Going to Happen to the OC TS? All public & guild channels from the OpenCommunity TS will be moved to the GW2League teamspeak. We've been telling everyone from the individual guilds to use the address "GW2League" to connect to the OpenCommunity TS for a while now, and that's because on March 1st, that's going to point to the GW2League teamspeak rather than OpenCommunity's, so if you've been using that address, you wont have any interruption of service. You'll have the same groups, see pretty much the same channels, and have the same permissions. The OpenCommunity Teamspeak will be dedicated more towards a small & friendly community, with the occasional big charity event open to everyone, just like in the old days. Plans For the Future There's several things we want to do in the coming months - build a new OC website, build a new GW2League website, and I'd love to create a bot which automates the creation of a new guild channel, so that people wishing to have a new TS channel on GW2League could just click a button on the website and become admins of their own channel! That'd be really nice ? And of course, in the first half of 2020, I also wanna go ahead with two big events for OpenCommunity: OpenCommunity's 5th birthday (probably not held on May 1st, OC's actual birthday, but on an adjactent weekend ? )! I think it'd be great to have a big party celebrating 5 years of OpenCommunity, remembering everything we've done in the last 5 years and all we've achieved! Tyria Pride! In June, I'm hoping to once again organise Tyria Pride! Those are the big events I'm looking forward to, in the meantime, if anyone wants to hang out and play some games, or just shoot the breeze, get in touch

Hey everyone! We've finally done it! Through massive help on @Leaky's side, we managed to successfully create the secondary TS, and it is currently an almost exact replica of our current teamspeak - with everyone's groups and permissions successfully replicated on the second TS (mostly). Let's talk about what's different and what all this means! What we didn't manage to transfer over: Overall, the new Teamspeak looks exactly the same as the OC one. The only things we weren't able to transport over were: some individuals' custom client icons (mostly because I put those up on request for some nice people, and I don't have them all saved as official OC stuff). Since I was not able to find all of them, I decided it was best to just go with none of them. detailed channel permissions. These had to be reassigned manually, and since each guild in GW2League had their own setup, with their own clientlist, this was impossible to do for one person. Channel groups will need to be reassigned. client info of clients that joined in the last few weeks. This is just because the source we were copying from was a copy of the OC TS from a couple weeks ago. No server groups have been assigned since then, but if any of them have assigned channel groups, they'll have to be reassigned. Otherwise, pretty much everything has been transferred over - including everyone's supporter groups! The only work to do now is to change any sentences referencing OC to GW2L, and maybe doing some rearranging. So what does this mean? This means we're ready for the move of public & guild channels to GW2League! I've already put up an announcement for people to use the nickname "GW2League" when connecting to the OC TS - this nickname will be redirected to the GW2League teamspeak in 2 weeks, so for users, not much should change and there should be no interruption of service! I'll be writing a full announcement with more details about the move on the announcements blog on this website about it soon (today or tomorrow at time of writing), and we'll have a Community Assembly on February 29th, but I just wanted to get this info out first!

Oh hey look it's Australia's song! ??

We have the first contestant + song! It's Arilena Ara with Shaj for Albania.

The OpenCommunity 2020 calendars are finished and are now available to those supporting OpenCommunity during the holidays & in January! About the Calendar Containing memories from the last 5 years of OpenCommunity, the calendar is a great way to support OpenCommunity and get something that is both useful and can be kept as a keepsake. Each month is represented by a GW2 screenshot from a memorable event in OpenCommunity's past, from charity fundraisers to community birthdays and weekends! The calendar has days marked and numbered, with white spaces where you can put notes and reminders! How Do I Get It? In order to get the OC calendar, make a donation to OC, and select the goal "OC 2020 Calendar" from the dropdown! The calendar is available to anyone who donates 20€ or more, and I'll be shipping them worldwide! They should arrive within 2 weeks in the EU, and slightly more for other parts of the world. After you've made your donation, I'll process it, then you will find the calendar in your Package Tracker. You can fill in any missing information (such as the mailing address), and add any comments you wish to add. You can also follow the package to receive notifications about when it's packaged and dispatched. The donation will also be added to your other OC supporter reward progress. Specifications The calendars are A4 size, made with coated paper, backed by a sheet of cardboard, bound with a metal spiral with a little wire thingy (technical term) that you can use to hang one on the wall. We've ordered 10 calendars in advance, so the first 10 people will get them pretty fast, and if we receive additional donations by the end of January, we will order a 2nd batch. After that, once they're gone, they're gone! Thank you so much for supporting OC! Happy holidays, everyone! ?

I'm afraid I must've missed that message. Teamspeak doesn't save private messages, so if you restart your computer, or it crashes, or just close your Teamspeak, the message is lost, that's why I specifically said in the post above that submissions should be sent here on the website or on discord. Submissions could be: Put in the comments on this post Sent via direct message on the website Sent via direct message on Discord Uploaded to a file sharing website with the link shared on any of the above platforms

Hey everyone! It's been a while, but we've finally made a breakthrough on the new Teamspeak, which should allow us to have it up by the end of the year! And we've also got some exciting news about the OC calendar! Teamspeak Database Shenanigans We've extracted the database from the OC teamspeak a while back, but we've had no luck transferring it over to the new teamspeak for a seamless transition, until recently! By carefully editing the conflicts out of the file, we successfully copied over the channel structure, and will be moving onto groups and then identities! If nothing breaks on the way, we will be able to avoid manually reassigning all groups and permissions, which would be ideal for everyone, because then we could simply redirect to the new TS without any major issues, only a small reversal of any changes done in the last two weeks or so. With this, we could potentially have the new TS up and running by the end of the year! OpenCommunity's 2020 Calendar! When we announced the 2020 calendar, we said it'd be ready by the start of December. Unfortunately, we received 0 submissions, so we extended the deadline, and even then, we received nothing. For a while, I thought we should just scrap the idea and move on. But after a couple days, I decided to dig through our forums and my own screenshots to try and find 12 worthy screenshots from the last 5 years of OC to put in the collection, and I'm pretty happy with the result! It took a bit longer than originally planned, since I had to source all the pics, and got to work later than intended, but it's here! I've ordered 10 copies, which should be arriving here on Friday or Monday! The donations for the calendar are already open! The calendars are available for donations of 20€ or more, and ship worldwide, so if you're interested in owning the calendar, head on over to the donate page, and when making your donation, make sure to select the goal OC 2020 Calendar! I'll be posting a larger announcement specifically about the calendars, once the physical copies arrive to my place ^^

I just discovered Huntress X Thompson and I'm already in love with her takes. Especially the one on Paradox, and this one about Dwarf Fortress! She's a less known Youtuber so I figured I'd post the video here ?

Well, this is sad ?

? Nice