Jazzy
8va ~ Going the octave higher
Staff member
Administrator
Amplify Staff
Site Supporter
Founding Member
Message to the Community, '22
Hi everyone!
Four years ago, a group of talented and experienced community members set out to create MKCentral. Some of those who embarked on the shared vision are still around, even maintaining a leading role, myself included. Over the years we’ve seen plenty of players, community leaders, and creative talent come and go. While MKC was founded on principles that we believed would rectify issues with past sites, including MKBoards, we’ve continued to refine and adapt to changing times.
Four years later, this site has done well. However, we don’t want it to simply become another one of the many hubs that have fallen out of favor with the community over the years.
WITH THIS, on behalf of the MKCentral team I’m proud to announce that we’re going to be rebuilding the MKC website from the ground up over the coming years, to establish MKC as the central hub for all Mario Kart games, playstyles, and audiences.
A New MKCentral
We're going to be establishing a team to develop the new site and see it to fruition. Personally, I will be taking a very hands-off approach and give the team near-full autonomy in steering MKC's trajectory moving forward, including development, ideas, recruiting talent, and so on. I may still contribute here and there, but I primarily intend on providing moral support at this point.@Vike will be the new development lead, and will ultimately be seeking out the following development crew, in rough terms:
- Core Developers - 3 people
- Developers - 10 people
- UI/UX Designers - 3 people
Among the main goals with the new site will be:
- We need MKC to work optimally for all MK games, and to show less favoritism towards MK8D. We should allow any MK community to make MKC their home, and we can't do that if the site is built upon principles biased towards one game.
- We need to broaden our scope beyond just competitive play. This ultimately means making MKC a place for all players, including time trialers, content creators, and so on.
- We need the site to support languages other than English. It is very hard today for people who don't speak English to use our site.
- We should have built in support for keeping track of match results, rather than relying on people to post table results as an image into a forum thread.
The current MKC will remain online indefinitely. I intend to archive the current MKC site once the new site is launched, because I think it would be a shame to lose it. For now, it will continue running, but it won’t be developed much further.
A few more things!
MKLeaderboards will get DLC tracks at some point, but it needs some work. @Vike has indicated he will help me with this, because there are some issues with the site that make it not as simple as I’d like, mainly due to performance issues. I also plan on adding some additional requested features, such as more countries for top 10s, etc. That said, this would probably be the last update to MKL, aside from adding the remaining DLC tracks as they come. This site will also remain online indefinitely.
As for myself, I’ll be taking a step back. I’ve worked hard for this community for seven years now and have personally developed four sites, MKCentral being the most ambitious. I had a vision, and I still want my dream to be a reality. I will be providing feedback and maintain ties, but I won’t personally be as hard working on the nitty gritty. As stated above, a new team will be working on the site, and I may provide feedback here and there as we go. I may contribute to code if I feel like it, but it won’t be my main role any longer. I'll still be around but I want to see myself as a veteran community member with privileges, but more here to hang out than maintain a job. I'm going to be handing on my responsibilities to others, while keeping ties with the community and the privileges to help out if I choose to.
There’s a few reasons for this. When I joined the community at this time in 2015 after having lurked for about a year, I immediately set out to develop sites and shape the game’s future. That said, most of my time was spent playing the game (mostly Time Trials), and learning and integrating with the people I met, existing sites, and history. I consider this my “discovery era” and my best memories here are from that time.
Around 2018 I stopped playing MK much at all, and took on a firm leading role. That’s not bad, but admittedly not as fun. My “leadership era” is something I am very proud of, but considering everything I’ve been through over the last few years, I do need to finally take a good step back from having so many responsibilities.
I’m personally focused on self-improvement, and life goals outside of MK. I’m starting a new, big job Wednesday, and I’m also focused on healthy living, real life and outdoor interactions, continued education, and offline activities/other hobbies in a quest for a balanced lifestyle, especially recognizing the negative impact on myself from being online and connected to excess.
My tagline in the community has always been “Going the octave higher”—even long before I started the 8va team. And seeing as I know I can reach higher than I can by limiting myself to MK, I will set out to do so. I’ll still be around, of course, and I’ll still input here and there, but I’ll maintain a different role than before. I look forward to this new project, and I’m sure you all will too. I’d actually like to be a bit more personable and chat with friends more than I have, even in calls and all that. That’s why I love the community we share most and I want to embrace that.
This thread will stay open for feedback. We're looking forward to any posts here and discussions on Discord as well.
Thanks MKC!
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