• Uniquisher (Voxel Busters) -

 

About Voxel Busters

How did Voxel Busters start?

Voxel Busters started like any other early Alpha club; I got the Club Card from Avarem - the only way to get one at the time - and he asked for a name. Voxel Busters was the first thing I thought of. I know, creative right? In the beginning, I added anyone that wanted to join. But as Closed Beta approached I, along with my friends who are now my fellow Leaders, realised that if we wanted a fun, friendly, social club, we would need to moderate who was allowed to join. Thus the application system was introduced! That really laid the foundation for what Voxel Busters is today.

What makes your club unique?

Hmm, it’s hard to say what exactly is unique about Voxel Busters, the first thing that comes to mind is our application system that I mentioned previously. It’s really helped us to build a great community with our own jokes; from spaghetti, to rather silly signs around our spawn, and using the heart-o-phones to hide someone’s gold name for fun.

What are you most proud of your club doing?

 Well, recently we completed the new Spawn for our club world, which was a huge collaborative effort between the Leaders, Officers and a few architects. Another new addition to our Club World is the Member Build area, in which there has been no griefing. I’m really proud of our community for respecting other people’s creations and contributing their own.

 

 

Management

What motivates you to run a community?

In short: the community is what motivates me to run the community.

Overtime we’ve been able to build a strong community based around mutual respect for spaghetti and an even deeper love for Trove, but it extends beyond the game. We’ve got a lot of members who’ll come in and chat in TeamSpeak, and try out new games with each other. We create deep bonds by just hanging out and those relationships are what fuel me to continue developing this awesome community as far as I can take it.

What are some of the benefits and challenges of such a large club?

One of the best things about owning Voxel Busters is that there are so many great people to meet and talk to. No day is ever the same, and no day is ever boring. I absolutely love being able to login and just being able to have a chat with the members regardless of what time of day I’m online.

The main challenge of owning Voxel Busters? Trying to keep up with all of those people! I just wish I had the time to be able to talk to everyone individually, and it’s something I try to achieve when I’m online.

Timezones certainly make it more challenging to organize events such as pinata parties, and shadow arena events, and primarily being a social club, we encourage our members to organize such events themselves so that hopefully everyone gets a chance at something.

How do you manage to co-ordinate a club of that size?

Well, thankfully I don’t do it alone. I have 3 other leaders working with me: Comply, Stedms and Brolycia, as well as an expanding list of awesome Officers who help moderate the community, and go through our applications. We have a skype group so we can chat at any time to address any quick concerns, and we make sure we meet up once a week to catch up and discuss how we can improve the club and just check up on each other.

We use our website to help coordinate club events, recruitment, and to help to make sure that our members can generally keep up on what is happening inside of the club.

How are building projects organised in the club world?

Currently, we only have a few architects until clubs receive the better permissions update. Just about the only thing we’ve been organized with building is leveling entire biomes, the members love to jump on board without asking questions and just bust voxels!

How does your club handle recruitment?

If someone wants to join Voxel Busters, all they have to do is head over to our website and submit an application. We look over them, and then invite whoever is approved to the club in-game. We don’t actively go out and recruit people, as the Hub portals bring people to us, and we’ve just recently hit 10,000 which brought such an influx of players that we’ve actually had to temporarily close applications.

What do you think of Troves ability to have members in multiple clubs?

I think having multiple clubs is part of what makes Voxel Busters as active as it is. I love the flexibility that being able to be in multiple clubs provides in Trove. You don’t have to feel tied down to one club which allows you to be in the clubs you want to be in without restricting yourself to only one.

 

Community

How long have you been playing?

I started playing Trove back in the early alpha days, around when it was just the Knight I believe. The community was tiny, but it was awesome! Everybody knew each other in Global, and most people were just generally friendly towards each other and just wanted to enjoy the game. There were a few bad eggs in the basket, but overall it was a friendly environment.

What change to Trove do you think has had the largest impact on your club?

There have been so many changes to Trove since clubs existed but out of all of the updates I’d say that the additions of Zone Restrictions really influenced how our world was structured. It’s a feature often forgotten but definitely without it managing a club would be that much more difficult.

Do you have any words of advice for club leaders?

Just have fun! Trove at the end of the day is just a game where you just want to relax and play with some friends. Some people take a lot of things rather seriously, and I think it’s the wrong way to go about leading a social club, or a club that’s just for fun.

I don’t have much advice for the more serious clubs out there, but I guess “have fun” can apply there as well!

Oh yeah, lock your areas with /zonerestrict and make sure you trust your officers!

What features in-game would make club management and activities easier?

Oh man, where do I begin? Ever since clubs have existed all we’ve ever wanted to see is more club love, and on top of that love, extra love! Features such as restricting biomes to certain members and in-club portals (soon™) are a must for larger clubs which want to prevent the chances of griefing as much as possible.

Other things such as Club Mastery would be great to see, which would also hopefully encourage club members to work towards a club goal in order to gain some perks or rewards.