Hey everyone,
Only about 8 months late, but here's a massive discord update for ya!

1. New bots

• We've added a new moderation bot, Giselle Bot. Nicknamed "Wanda Bot"  in the discord to go along with the FOP theme, the new bot will handle our moderation system. You will receive a detailed "Case log" for every warning and other action you receive moving forward. More on the moderation updates shortly.
  
• We've added a new management bot, Mee6. Nicknamed "Cosmo Bot"  in the discord to go along with the FOP theme, the new bot will handle custom commands, rules embed, and the on-call staff emergency pings. This bot will also manage our new levels system, which i'll go over shortly.
  
• We've added a new Game Deals bot, which will effectively spit out the latest game deals from r/GameDeals. Right now the bot is down temporarily, but i'll have it up by the end of the week hopefully (this isn't my fault, it is not responding to any command I issue).
  
• We've added a new task manager bot, Tickets. With Tickets, you will be able to easier contact the discord staff team to handle various issues - anything from asking a simple question about a game mode or discord, to applying to host an event as an Event Coordinator (more on that). Reporting issues to discord staff, and appealing a punishment from discord staff, will also be handled via the tickets. Expect this to be available sometime tonight.
  
• We've added a new communication bot, Modmail. Nicknamed "ContactAnAdmin" in the discord, this bot will allow you to contact the admin team by DMing the bot. This is a good alternative to filing full-on abuse reports for minor issues, or reporting significant community issues to the admin team. Expect this to be available sometime tonight.
  

• We've updated the server rules to make the rules more concise. Check them out in #da-rules!
  
• We've created a new points-based moderation system. Now, violations of the rules will have a points-based impact. Obtaining too many points over time will result in potential corrective action being taken.
  
• Under the new system, obtaining 18 points (roughly 3 warnings) will result in a 12-hour mute
  
• Obtaining 27 points (roughly 4 warnings) will result in a 3-day ban
  
• Points expire after 90 days, and reduce to a single point that always remains.
  
• The bot will also issue a permanent ban if you historically acquire 54 points at any time, regardless of expiration
  
• Point values for the rules range from 6 to 12, depending on the severity of the offense.
  
• Auttaja will no longer be used for issuing strikes, and auto-moderation has been disabled via Auttaja. Historical strikes won't be automatically transferred from auttaja to Giselle. However, the Discord moderation team reserve the right to take into account your strike history when determining corrective action.
  

• Ah, the on-call staff pings. The most abused of the abused feature in our discord.
  
• Now, the Cosmo Bot will limit the use of these pings to only one ping over a period of time, and will ensure the proper channel is pinged. The commands are as follows:
  
• TTT: !ttt-on-call-staff
  
• PH: !ph-on-call-staff
  
• Murder: !murder-on-call-staff
  
• Discord: !discord-on-call-staff
  
• Forums: !web-on-call-staff
  

• Opt-In roles have moved! You can now find the opt-in roles in the #Channels & Roles section, which is located at the very top of the server channel list.
  
• This uses Discord's built-in channel management system, Onboarding, which will better ensure that we won't need to make a major overhaul in the future
  
• This also makes it MUCH easier for a new user to join the discord.
  
• Now, the vast majority of channels in the discord are opt-in only. I had to make a few channels not opt-in for onboarding minimums, but the majority will have to be opted into.
  
• All users, including staff members, will have to subscribe to their access (e.g. If you are a PH staff member, you'll want to opt into PH in order to see the PH channels0.
  

• Events: Feed channel where upcoming events and tournaments will be advertised. There are roles available for events, and for tournaments, see Channels & Roles
  
• Giveaways: Feed channel where free giveaways will be advertised. There is a role available that will ping you for posts, see Channels & Roles
  
• Game-Deals: The game deals bot. There is a role available that will ping you for posts, see Channels & Roles
  
• Discord-updates: A feed where we will post updates to the discord channel. @"Gaybe" can also post here too I guess
  
• gmod-updates: A feed where server staff can share minor updates, as well as a feed from the official GMod discord server!
  
• Level-tiers: A feed where Cosmo Bot will give the levels updates! More on that below.
  
• Boosters: Channel exclusive to those who use a nitro boost in the discord!
  
• anti-boosters: Channel exclusive to those who do not use a nitro boost in the discord!
  
• Community: Channel to discuss community happenings. Obviously drama will happen here, but we will not hesitate to take necessary action should things spiral out of control.
  
• Media: Channel to discuss TV shows, movies, anime, etc
  
• Wholesome: Channel to discuss happy things/positivity/etc.
  

• Via the Cosmo Bot, we have a "levels" system!
  
• The Levels System effectively gives "XP" proportional to your interaction with the discord. Over time, you'll be able to climb the ranks of the discord plebians - starting as a mere Guest, working your way past H.U.G.E. user and PH Hacker, and all the way up to the top role - Gabe Newell - at level 100.
  
• When you get to Gabe Newell, you will get absolutely praised and definitely not teased in #general.
  

• It was decided some time ago that color roles would not be possible, as the admins believe that using the server colors would be for the best.
  
• Previously, the only roles with color (other than mistakenly a few meme roles) are Member, Master, Regular, Donor, Donor+, Trusted, Tmod, Mod, Admin, and discord staff.
  
• Now, we have added color roles for our nitro boosters! If you are interested in getting a cool custom color, boost our server today!
  

• We are forming an Event Council with community members who are interested in hosting more events in our discord server!
  
• This is an advisory group to help us make events better, and to help advise us on what type of events would be cool to host!
  
• If you are interest, file a ticket to apply for the council!
  

Hi Again!

I swear this is the last announcement for today. Coming next week we will be updating our MapVote System as well as our Donor/Staff Queue System. @Ryan722 @chibill have had the opportunity to include some excellent quality-of-life updates to these addons we have on the server that will make the overall experience with these systems better and will allow us to do more cool things!

Queue System Overhaul

The queue system is getting a much-needed overhaul. When the update happens, players with the current ability to queue songs will be greeted to a new UI to queue songs. In this new UI, you will be able to put your song title and link as before but, you will be able to test the song before sending it to be queues


As you may see there will be 2 new additional tabs that will be accessible. A "Queues" tab and a "Favorites" tab. In the queues tab, you will be able to view who all have queues loaded and ready to go and see if you will have the chance to hear your own queue within the map. Additionally, you will be able to right-click on the different queues and add them to your favorites list. 


Once added to your favorites list, it will save client-side and will be able to add these to the queue whenever you'd like.


MapVote Changes

In my eyes, we have now perfected the map vote for our community. In this new update, we will be adding two new key features. The first feature is the ability to give feedback on the map played and the second feature is the ability to restrict maps based on player count. 

Feedback is invaluable in our community and giving you, the players, the ability to tell us whether or not you like or dislike a map is so helpful when deciding to remove and add maps. Upon a map finishing, when selecting a new map, you will be able to give feedback of how you thought that map was. Simply clicking upvote or downvote will lock-in your feedback.


The second feature is one that myself and Nicol will have access to but, it's the ability to restrict which maps are playable based on player count on the server. This will allow more opportunities for maps that we haven't been able to add before due to player size. We can now add small maps for 0-16 players up to maps that are best for 20-32 players. We must give thanks to Tiefling as she was the one who prompted the suggestion for the server. 


We are excited about these new changes for what fun content we will be able to bring! I will be leaving the thread open for comments, questions or suggestions!

Hello again!

I apologize for the many announcements happening over the last day, i promise i will only be making one more annoucement today so I apologize for the pings. As many reports have come in since the inclusion of the "Great Ape" model as a limited time release, we will be removing it from the server. This is due in part to when the model hold specific weapons it will block key hitboxes. This has created unbalanced gameplay and has been a complaint of many regular players.

Starting today, i will be increasing the price of the model to be resold at full face value of 100,000 regular points. In order to ensure that your models update correctly, please quickly trade the items with another fellow players and have them trade back to update the values properly. We apologize for this inconvenience but, would like to make right on the issue. Players will have until January 21st, 2023 to do this before the removal of the playermodel.

Thank you for consistent feedback and for wanting the best for the community.