Hello ACP!
Over the past year or so, we’ve seen nearly a constant decline in the ACP. The only things that have changed have been the leaders and graphics and site business that soldiers don’t necessarily care about. Today I have witnessed what I believe to be the last straw. We maxed twenty at our event and will probably keep that number if we don’t change, and fast. So what about twenty is good? Back in the day (Haha I feel old) in around 2009-2011, the ACP would achieve sizes of 60-70 sometimes at good events. Other armies would get anywhere from 20-40. When you got 20, you might have not been on the top 10 (If it was even around at that time). Come to think, that was the size of a small army. Now it’s the number 2 army? Something is not right. Whatever the case, we at Capncook Research Academy of Penguins (C.R.A.P) have pinpointed a few items that could be contributing to our current state. I’m sure you’d all like to know what these things are, so why don’t I tell you? Well I will, but you have to understand that a few might be offensive and you’ll have to deal with that for the good of the ACP.
–Owners are incompetent (Not all)
–Owners need to communicate more often
–Generals need to be trained
–Soldiers need more of a voice
-Divisions need to be brought back
-*****Tactics need to be more than just lines and basic bombs*****
-Wars need better justification
Now before everyone tries to kill me for insulting them, let me explain these problems and add a few pictures for those who aren’t too fond of words (Note these are not solutions yet)…
I thought this song might make sense here:
I. -Owners are incompetent (Not all)
I honestly don’t know if I should even leave the owners who I have in mind as “incompetent” anonymous. I feel like every time we do this, no one ever knows who they are and who needs to be changed. However, for their safety I will not this last time. However, let me at least explain the point. For as long as I can remember, there have always been weak links in the ACP administrations for just about every leader thus far. This person was nearly unlikable and the soldiers just wanted to fire them. I wish I could give examples, but then the Shaboomboom House of Intelligence and Trouble-making (S.H.I.T) or the Boomer Intelligence Team of Child Happiness (B.I.T.C.H) would be on my case. So let’s not be rude for now. Anyway, the problem has escalated to the point where there is no longer one weak link, but several. This is rather alarming, and I believe the soldiers know exactly who it is. Now maybe I should explain what the said problem pertains to. I think it’s a lot of laziness and a lack of motivation for a number of the current owners. LET’S FIX IT!
This looks more seductive than struggling, but you get the point.
II. -Owners need to communicate more often
This one is a given really. I think there is a huge lack of communication between almost all of the owners. I will use myself as an example here because I’m seriously at fault for this one. Although I go on chat everyday at least once (I make an effort to and it turns out to be an easy thing even though I am fairly busy), I have not talked to Foldez in three days. haven’t seen Fluffyboy3 for more than 15 minutes at a time and haven’t been able to figure out what he’s doing in terms of the ACP. I have not seen Soup and don’t know where he is, although I thought he was moving somewhere maybe? Tori has also been very distant lately and has seem very unmotivated for the ACP which has caused a lack of communication with us. Finally, I have hardly talked to Mchappy who always seems to be away from his keyboard when everyone needs him. Of course, I corrected that last one today by having some tea with him. Oh and who could forget Flipmoo? I haven’t seen him in awhile but he is exempt from this as he lives in Japan.
Not listening to one another is also a big communication issue here.
III. -Generals need to be trained
Oh boy where do I start. Let’s get the mean stuff out of the way first. The ACPTR has proven to be absolutely useless. Students who come out of it are the same as every other ACP soldier. In fact, hardly anyone comes out of it anymore. The ACPTR also cuts into ACP event times sometimes which needs to stop. To prove these claims, I want you to take a good hard look at our Generals and tell me with utmost honesty that all of them, not just one or two, are fit for leading. I truly believe many of them are simply too incompetent to lead. BUT THAT’S ALRIGHT, because no one’s going anywhere right now, including Mchappy who is bound by contract to stay with us for at least five more leadership terms. We should however, try to fix this problem with the Generals, and I will tell you the ultimate way later in the post.
Yea…
IV. -Soldiers need more of a voice
I have been and will hopefully always be a man of the people. This is more of a demand at this point. Soldiers, you need more of a voice! Leaders need to give you the opportunity to get involved in affairs that are important but won’t endanger the ACP as a whole. Just as Boomer20 did so long ago, I wholeheartedly believe that you soldiers are the backbone of this army and that without you, the army would cease to exist. So it’s only fair that you voice your opinions right? This includes things like 3ic elections, senate elections, policy changes, who knows what. All I can say is there will be a better way soldiers can voice their opinions from now on.
FIGHT THE POWER!
V. -Divisions need to be brought back
Alright, let’s get down to business. The ACP once had divisions and they were probably some of the most fun things to be in as a General (Or Division General). I loved my divisions so much. Once I was the leader of Delta (In fact the last leader of Delta Division, alongside Jediseth) and I also led Alpha Division once or twice. MAN! I am just dying of nostalgia thinking about it. Albeit they were not perfect, I feel like we can functionally bring back divisions now. However, I will get into that later in this post along with the rest of the possible solutions.
Everyone’s divided sometimes. 🙂
VI. –*****Tactics need to be more than just lines and basic bombs*****
OH BOY WHERE DO I START? I’m so going to get fired first of all. Anyway, first let’s focus on the leaders. You all… I am sorry to tell you… Aren’t very good at being creative with tactics on Club Penguin during battles. You also have issue knowing when to use tactics. However, I am guilty of this too. Wow this whole paragraph is highly conceited, but it is necessary I suppose. Yea, I’m not a perfect leader, but I’ll be damned if anyone has done any real tactics lately. All we do now is make formations and do simple charges. Might I remind you that tactics recently have been dull and boring. DO BETTER TACTICS, CREATE MORE TACTICS, MAKE THE ROLE PLAYING ASPECT OF THE GAME MORE FUN AND LASTLY, THROW MORE SNOWBALLS!
Irrelevant picture that I thought would be cool!
VII. -Wars need better justification
Guys, we’re not barbarians. Although we fight for fun, I think it’s a bit unfair sometimes to declare war on helpless armies. If the Nachos declared war on the Night Divers or something (Just an example) then who do you think would win? The number one army? Or the number fifteen army? That’s a rhetorical question. Specifically I want to hone in on the recent war between the ACP and the Federation. Mchappy and I have discussed many times that it was unjustified for the ACP to declare war on the Federation. They were a fresh, new army with good intentions. They were led by our late leader, Kingfunks, and they didn’t actually steal troops from us. So next time, let’s just have more justification and evidence before we do anything irrational.
We need this ^ or things will get bloody!
I felt like this song might calm everyone’s nerves down after that offensive first half:
Wow, that was hard to write. This has taken some time and effort, but it’s not over yet. Now I must talk about solutions to these issues because well, I have a few and I don’t want to be a jerk. Although these won’t have pretty pictures or anything, sorry. Just a few solutions and explanations. Also, I’d like to add a poll to the end of this post to see what everyone thinks about the solutions.
1. We really can’t fix incompetent owners at the moment. All we can do for now is get us owners working harder. In the meanwhile, we CAN prevent incompetence from entering our leader ranks. Here’s how, and I mean this not so egotistically so please save those insults for later. I’d like to nominate myself to start a training program for the General ranks where they would learn how to be good leaders. I know if I can get through to them, there will be no more incompetence for a few generations, and hopefully someone can take my place when I am finished.
2. Owners NEED to communicate more often. Guys, we’re not enemies, we’re friends! Or at least we should be. Like Shab once said, we need to work as a team, not as individuals. Which is why I’d like to propose that we owners have a meeting twice a month (Every two weeks) to discuss the state of the ACP and once a month the leader (Whoever they are) will publish a post regarding said state of the ACP.
3. Generals NEED to be trained to lead! Generals, I want you guys to be fit for leading this army by the time you become third in commands. Not only that I’d like you guys to be role models for the members and essentially be SUPER SOLDIERS. Doesn’t that sound badass? I don’t know about you but I’d like to be a super soldier. The way I thought to solve this problem was the exact thing I stated in number one, two paragraphs above this one.
4. Soldiers need more of a voice. This is a necessity. Soldiers need to participate and vote in elections, wars, etc. Everything that involves decisions to be made that won’t harm the ACP. Now I will warn you, there will always be things that only a select few people can vote on because some things would be too chaotic for soldiers to vote on as a body and might divide the army. We don’t want that unless it’s for divisions which are hopefully friendly with each other.
5. As I was saying, divisions should be brought back! 😀 Divisions were so much fun I assure you. There are many ways you can go about doing this. However, since the ACP is relatively small for the time being, I’d like to keep it simple. Two divisions for now. Keep the phonetic code and do just Alpha and Bravo division please. This would mean a new moderator rank titled Division General that only four people would be. These people are above the General rank and have an equal chance of earning third in command as the Generals. If you’re a Division General though, you’re probably the cream of the crop, and there’s just no open third in command spots yet.
6. Tactics, tactics, tactics. Tactics need a whole post dedicated to them because there’s too much to say. We need a tactics revolution. We need more advanced (But yet simple) tactics. We need to grow out of our basic formations and charges because they don’t do much for us on the battlefield. I will say, we do need to work on formations, but not simple ones, only ones that will give us strategic advantage over the enemy in a war. We also need people to create tactics and have U-leads to incorporate them into events regularly. Finally, we will need to do a big thing… THROW MORE SNOWBALLS!
7. Last but not least, we need better justification for war. We can’t pull an America and attack people just because we THINK they MIGHT have big weapons. You need evidence, support, and reason to declare war. That is what makes up justification in this case and that is what you (All leaders of all armies) should think about using before you declare war at all.
Wow! This is a long post, so why not end it. ACP, I hope we have all learned something today. I hope we have learned that if we keep traveling along our current path, the ACP will fall, and it will lead to the destruction of many other armies. So I leave you tonight with a few polls. Should we approve some of these things? I think we should approve all of them and work very hard to keep them going. It will be the new regime, the regime that brings the ACP to the top, and not a single leader will need to change or lose power or any of that useless garbage that is involved. Let’s work together and fix the ACP and the Club Penguin Army community for good!
Poll: (Write Yes or No in the comments)
Should we approve Capn’s plan for…
-Incompetent Owners
-Better Owner Communication
-General Training (And Removal of the ACPTR)
-Giving Soldiers More Opinion
-New Divisions
-Better Tactics
-Better Justification For War
-Capncook, ACP 3ic
P.S. COMMENT WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT SOME OF THE OPINIONS OR FACTS OR IDEAS DISPLAYED IN THIS POST ALONG WITH THE POLL!
Filed under: ACP |
FIRST!
(I apologize to ANYONE whom I may have offended in this post)
aka icey
nice but i didn’t read all of it
i gonna make Dw Intelligence Camp of Kids
-Incompetent Owners
-Better Owner Communication
-General Training (And Removal of the ACPTR)
-Giving Soldiers More Opinion
-New Divisions
-Better Tactics
-Better Justification For War
Yes to all.
Try to limit your swearing on ACP site. Like I’ve said before, I’m open to any and all suggestions.
1: I believe there is no weak owner in ACP. Sure, we all have our own pros and cons, but each of us bring something different to the table and I like that. We are getting better, no doubt. All of us can lead pretty well.
Capncook: This has happened before where no owner was truly weak but all of them had their pros and cons. However, I will deny this for right now and tell you that we have several weak links in our administration and furthermore, they can be taught how to not falter in the future. Of course, I am not exempt from this as I know my weaknesses in terms of leading. I’ll also be honest, just about the rest of the administration is just mediocre at best when it comes to CP leading. We are getting better, and now let’s accelerate that positive attitude by working harder. How could you agree to working harder?
2: I disagree that owners have bad communication. Sure, we could have meetings every two weeks, but right now there are private posts galore going. We are all communicating, bringing up ideas, issues, and topics to the each other. This is our way of communicating due to timezone being an issue sometimes.
Capncook: The owners have horrible communication right now, this is an indisputable fact. As I understand that you may think private posts do us good, they aren’t perfect in the end. Direct conversations are the way to go. I do like private posts though. 😀 And also, no one has brought up issues except for a few people suggesting we unmod some people. That’s not big enough.
3: ACPTR last month did a fabulous job with training their cadets, with (I believe) eight cadets graduating and six of them being ‘A’ students. I remember I suggested during Flipper7706 and Kenneth1000’s leadership to make all generals a contributor on the site. We could do that again? I do think divisions do a phenomenal job with training the generals, but at the same time, when would we ever use them in a successfully manor for war?
Capncook: It’s not enough that these eight people merely graduated. Anyone with a brain could graduate from the ACPTR (No offence). Your idea of the ACPTR is like a “pump-prime” method where the soldiers learn early on and then are all set to lead by the time they are Generals. However, this has been proven time and time again to not work. So why not switch it up to “trickle down”? Generals become the best of the best and in turn will influence soldiers to be like them, making all of the ACP great not just the select few who had the cognizance to join the ACPTR early on. I remember a lo of complaints about having Generals as contributors, but I suppose the more the merrier, right? We should give it a try after we initiate a vote on it maybe.
4: Armies are always trying harder and harder to give the soldiers more of a voice. That is why I am always talking to the lower ranked soldiers at our chat, trying to figure out what they want. I also rely on ‘PositivelyACP’, as I believe the soldiers voice their opinions there in a more formal manor and I take into account what they want done.
Capncook: I like PositivelyACP too, but the majority of ACP don’t even use it or know what it is no matter our efforts. It’s just like the conundrum presented when we had the ACP Forums semi-active. The best way to give soldiers more of a voice is to let them vote on just about everything that doesn’t jeopardize the ACP as a whole.
6: Tactics, like giving the soldiers a voice, isn’t something you just fix; it’s an ongoing process. Our tactics are not as realistic as they use to be six years ago, but I think they are still great. Formations like that ‘V’ yesterday is a tactic in my book. More and more we are throwing snowballs, doing diagonal line bombs, waterfall bombs, rake bombs, etc. We practically do all of these things at every event. Let’s try coming up with some new tactics.
Capncook: Formations ARE tactics somewhat. It depends on the formation really. For example, if we had used the “V” to trap our enemies somewhere, then it’d be considered a tactic. However, just because we formed a cool looking letter on CP, doesn’t mean it is going to help us in war. The only reason we throw snowballs, do diagonal bombs, waterfall bombs, rake bombs, etc at almost every event is because I personally NAG to do them. By the way, I created a few of those so I would know I suppose. (Just more examples of my egotistical side)
7: I agree, wars need to be justified. However, I’ve never said that the Federation war wasn’t justified. It had truth to it: was it the most justified thing in our history? Of course not. However, the soldiers wanted a war, we had multiple pictures of a rising tension between ACP and Federation (flaming/recruiting), so we went for it. We’re a CP army — war is war and we need that to survive.
Capncook: Maybe you’re right with the Feds, mixed opinions all around. But we do need justification. Don’t declare war without it.
Cows.
Wolves
Ducks.
Kangaroos.
Mums
I made that CPW Daily picture of Nachos vs ACP. =O
YES TO ALL!! Am I a good general?
I obviously agree to ’em all, especially the more-tactics one. But as a UK person, I find communicating with owners alright. We have emails too! Anyway, if we want to improve ACP then it would take a lot of hard work – but I suppose it would be worth it.
oh and we should definitely keep ACPTR… come on!
YES TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Glad someone finally wrote something like this, instead of everyone pretending all is well and that 20-25 at events are “fantastic” sizes. Also THANK YOU FOR SUGGESTING DIVISIONS. I <3 divisions.
Yes
-Incompetent Owners
That sort of goes with General Training in my opinion, so Yes
-Better Owner Communication
Yes
-General Training (And Removal of the ACPTR)
Yes, everybody would get trained anyway
-Giving Soldiers More Opinion
YES
-New Divisions
If that went forward, would we still have our main site?
-Better Tactics
Yes, and would a RAPID-FIRE JOKE BOMB (holding down J) be a better tactic?
-Better Justification For War
We had evidence and reason for war with the Feds.
Well, I personally think the joke bomb is a cheap tactic. Boomer once wrote a post about it long ago which really summed up why joke bombing is not a viable tactic in war.
About the evidence, we did have SOME evidence, but it was insufficient at best,
Thanks for your comment though. 🙂
Yes to all.
-Giving Soldiers More Opinion
-New Divisions
-Better Tactics
-Better Justification For War and-Incompetent Owners
-Better Owner Communication
very good post capn!
Nice post! Lol @ the c.r.a.p. thing xD
Thank you Capn @Justification.
You deserve it my friend.
we should do all of these things otherwise we will fall.
I agree with most of the post Capn, except for the ACPTR being useless part. For the past 3 or 4 years, it has proved otherwise, and the fact that it’s not in a golden era right now doesn’t mean it’s useless. As Mch mentioned in his comment above, it even had 8 graduates last month, and I don’t believe the ACP can do without it.
Oh, and about divisions. Yes, it’s a great idea, but not really for now. If we don’t have relatively good sizes (because we already do, but not the size we’re used to and the ACP is known for), we won’t be able to divide our army in 2 or 3 divisions. It just will require a lot of effort from the generals (which as you mentioned, need more dedication), and compromise from soldiers that will find themselves in a 5 people battle and a Division General that may not have the required experience to lead. Now, this is when the paradox comes in, how can they train without leading? But how can they lead a division without having trained?. There must have been something we missed in the past months before this new wave of generals arrived. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all of them are useless soldiers and leaders, they are the future of the army too! Oh, and I also agree with the make the generals contributors on the site idea too.-
If we split the army into two Divisions as Capn has suggested, they’d likely average 10+ soldiers, going by the usual amount of soldiers online for events.
However, in events of major wars, if those even happen anymore, its simple to expect higher turnout because we simply never have such events. If people expect to have more soldiers show up, they have to want to show up and have fun when they do it. As for the Generals, it would take a week or two tops to run a quick introduction and training for leading Divisions to get them all a crash course, and then bring in more training while everyone adjusts to the system. Run some Division vs Division practice battles to let the Generals get a feel for battle with their soldiers and try out tactics and strategy. Its not as if there is an imminent war on the horizon that they have to be rushed into.
ACPTR, though, at this point its more just introducing recruits to what the ACP is and the basics of what to do, and not “Turning recruits into Soldiers” as my famous Motto claims. It would require its own renovation to get back to what it started as.
What Clint said. Now Matre, I want you to understand that although your opinion of the ACPTR is not completely false, you are very biased as you once led the ACPTR and graduated from it. In regards to the ACPTR, I merely suggested we REPLACE it with a much better program.
“Other armies would get anywhere from 20-40. When you got 20, you might have not been on the top 10” If you are referring to the year of 2009, you are mistaken. 2009 was a crap year for armies besides the ACP, Nachos, and IW. 15+ could’ve gotten an army in the Top 10 back then, since it was hard to gain recruits at the time since the army community troops were focused on ACP, Nachos, and IW.
1. We need to train current owners and mods to be better leaders in future. As we know well, no leader governs incessantly and we must be ready at any time for leader’s retirement and have at least 1-2 candidates for his/her successor.
2. ACPTR has to be more connected with ACP site and it should have text widget for cadets with the following events.
3. We should give more power to soldiers. They should have law to have representatives in some kind of ACP Parliament (Mch – my project really can work)
4. We must ask a question: If there were approx. 70m of unique users in Club Penguin history, why 99,99% of them have never heard about ACP? I was online almost daily for a year and i have never seen ACP or any another army’s event
I agree with you completely some owners in ACP are incompetent.