Hello Pig Army!
It’s been on my list for a while now to write you all a newsletter. A State of the Platoon.
As I sit here after midnight recovering from downing much Jameson in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day while toasting and remembering Wipsy and Donk, I figured now was the best time to write it. 😉 I’m not gonna lie to you, besides the Jameson, the day was pretty crappy. Sorry for my French, I do not mean to offend anyone. But a little shite won’t kill ya … just don’t put it in your eye. Like at all. Seriously. Anyway, I say that because all I really wanna be doing right now, is gaming, our chosen hobby here at Pork Chop Platoon to relieve real life stress and have fun doing it but I’d like to take a moment out of my precious little game-time, now that I’m reflecting, to let you know about some encounters I’ve had in the last few weeks.
It’s no secret that we haven’t had community custom game nights for a long time, at least reliably. Last time we really had good numbers to run those types of nights in any single game was probably when we were only spread out across 3 to 4 games. As it is now, we are spread out across a figurative star chart of games and devices. This is great in the fact that there are so many choices and great games for the many different personalities we have intertwined into this family we’ve built over the last 18 years, but it does dilute our ability to stay together. We have pockets of Pigs in various games, relatively unconnected.
I’ve spent the last few weeks reconnecting with pigs I haven’t played with in a long time, either through oddball games here and there or through voice chat. I’ve heard many great stories about new jobs, family additions, pigs helping pigs within different games, etc. Which is great to hear, but for as many positive things I heard, I also heard just as many negative things. There’s a picture I’ve included above of one section of Pork Chop memorabilia in my gaming man cave. The poster is from our sixth anniversary. Not only does it tie the room together, but it reminds me of our values when we were young. This is a six-year snapshot of where we came from and where we were at that moment. Camaraderie, teamwork, honor, respect, family, support, laughter, community, PCP4Life; these things stick out for me.
I know we’ve kind of been on autopilot since we haven’t been gathering in large community night game lobbies for a while now, which have always been our glue. This is due to low participation numbers, and that goes back to being spread out across so many games; player count per game is just low to start. I think 6-year-old Major Meat’s head would be spinning if he saw where gaming currently stands. ‘A PlayStation player can play in the same match as an Xbox player?!’ Come on, that’s just one example of something that would have been a hacking miracle back then, don’t even tell him about how many AAA titles are released in a year or how long we have to wait for updates to make them work correctly. Ha!
I don’t think that at this point there will ever be that one game that connects us all. It just feels almost impossible at this time. Without that one big game to gather within multiple custom game lobbies weekly, chatting it up like the good old days, we are missing something, and Pigs are being left behind.
I guess I was naïve in thinking that we would all just carry the PCP standard, these values from the poster, that we had built up over the years with us into whatever game we were playing, and whoever we were playing with. Honestly, I was disappointed in some of the things that I had heard. Remember, anyone playing with the PCP clan tag in any game is a face and voice of PCP and should be upholding PCP values that we have cultivated over these many years. We should always be respectful and on our best behavior while in the mindset of “always be recruiting”. The main methods of recruiting from back in the day are completely gone at this point. We should always be on the lookout for cool people that we can bring into the fold who have been wanting an adult gaming community and family like ours, even if they don’t know it.
Recruiting one by one within game lobbies is slow, but still a solid method of gaining members and will help build up player counts per game, which will hopefully lead to more scheduled game nights.
The Forums, a past requirement for membership, our home on the internet, and our main point of gathering, no matter which games were in your rotation, started to dwindle down many years ago. Technology needs change, moving forward, and back in 2016, we recognized members were looking for a chat app just for members with quicker communication channels, and that’s when we decided to open up our Discord server as the next evolution of our online ‘home’, which we’ve been running concurrently with our forums up until this summer. This summer, when we went to a multiplatform membership for cross-play, we decided to do away with the forums as a requirement. Currently, the membership path is strictly through joining Discord. It’s very easy and opens up the gates a little bit to make it less of a hassle to get started with PCP.
This also means we are split on our communication methods as well as what games we may be playing. So, since I believe a lot of these negative incidents I’ve heard about would be alleviated if we were all just coalesced, like back in the day, within a central hub to avoid miscommunications, but also to be able to find Pigs to game with much easier, which is why we are all here(!) ;
It will now be a requirement to join our PCP Discord Server to maintain your membership.
We all need to recommit to the Pork Chop Platoon. Recommit to our values, and recommit to each other. Whether you’re a 10+ year vet or joined shortly before the forums went quiet, everyone should be in our Discord. Even the 10-year Vet will remember that Forum activity and attendance at Clan Nights used to be a requirement to maintain membership. This was to help connect everyone and find Pigs to squad up with during the week. PCP is only as strong as what our members put into it. Becoming active in our Discord with discussions and LFG posts benefits all, but also helps get you seen and into games with other Pigs.
Any and all PCP communications should flow through our official member Discord. Whether you’re organizing your PCP squad for the night, a future game night, a tourney, posting game news, or just checking up on fellow Pigs’ day to shoot the breeze, all of that should be happening in our Discord and NOWHERE else.
Knowing that all of our active brothers and sisters are congregated in one location will make it easier to contact everyone, avoid issues, and build up our pockets of Pigs across our “star chart” map of games by recruiting and onboarding new blood with one Discord link collectively, like the large extended family that is PCP.
Like all families, there will be conflicts and maybe more so here with so many people from different regions and personality types that may not mesh well, even while leaving ‘everything’ at the door. From here on out, whatever the issue or problem any Pig may have had with any other Pig/s is done. No one should be policing themselves. Families forgive and stay together. Clean slate from this point forward.
This newsletter is going out to everyone who has an email within the PCP forums. If you know anyone who might not have gotten this newsletter due to old email addresses, please forward it on.
Everyone has until FISTO, May 5th, to join our Discord, which only takes a matter of minutes to complete.
Invite link – https://discord.gg/TQhwV6fCQk
Any member who is unwilling or not planning to join our Discord server will forfeit their membership. Family also requires tough love, and to endure, we need everyone on board.
Thank you for taking the time to read all this. I’m definitely ready for bed now and possibly some Tylonel. PCP is a volunteer-based organization. Anyone who wants to host a game night, run a tourney, build something new, send us a message, get involved, we could always use the help.
The world’s too frickin’ messed up right now to let online BS affect our ability to have fun in our chosen hobby. PCP membership has always transcended those kinds of ‘real-world issues’, leaving them at the door when the headset goes on, so we can tune out the day’s tribulations, relax, and laugh in each other’s company.
PS – LAN is going back to the Pitt! July 23-26. Sign up today in the LAN channel within Discord!
Pcp4Life,
Phlips
Community Manager
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