Re: Dies Irae
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@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
Thanks for reading this long-ass bullshit lmao
Who let you out of the code mines?
I get 45 minutes leisure time per day
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@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
Brass tacks, we needed like… maybe another 4-6 months of germination time before releasing.
That’s good to know, actually. I didn’t have a great experience, but in my head it is easier to get over it and keep an open mind knowing “the game” wasn’t designed that way, for me to encounter those things.
It is still Beta, though, so it isn’t the worst thing. And I know that these days a lot of games seem to live in Beta and then just use that as an excuse when things aren’t optimal, but it would help people, staff and players, to remember that DI is in a for reals actual Beta phase and that things are still being changed and adjusted.
I think some people I’ve talked to have made a final judgement on it based on where it is at now and the experience they’ve had (and I am probably in that group too if I don’t actively remind myself otherwise). But if there’s still plenty of work planned before settling on “this is the game we want people to play” and presenting it that way then that is promising.
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
I did want to note, btw: I’m not headstaff there, really.
…who is? That could be a substantial part of the problem.
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Yeah, I must have missed reading that previously, @somasatori. Your title of “Storytelling Coordinator” sure as hell sounds like a headstaffy one.
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@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
I did want to note, btw: I’m not headstaff there, really.
…who is? That could be a substantial part of the problem.
We kinda don’t have them? I mean, there are some folks whose words are probably more listened-to than others, like Scylla, me occasionally, and Charybdis, but we’re ostensibly supposed to be doing things democratically.
Edit to add more context: For instance, when we banned Polk, we deliberated about it. I think this probably is not the best way to go about it, especially if there’s someone who’s doing something imminently bannable. Polk didn’t actually do much on DI which would have been considered harmful to anyone, which is why there was a lot of deliberation on the topic (and for transparency’s sake, I abstained – not because I have a particular love for Polk, but because I haven’t had much interaction with the guy outside of “wow, he sure loves crashing games”). He was banned for being Polk, which didn’t sit well with some folks, and that’s okay. I mean, the democratic process is such that it allows for that kind of thing. People are allowed to disagree and voted as such. The vote to ban him won out in the end.
Super worried when we do have an immediately harmful or threatening player, though. Deliberating over the course of a week and a half when Johnny PKGriefing-SexAssaulter is going around committing his namesake is not grounds for a good MUSHing experience.
@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
Yeah, I must have missed reading that previously, @somasatori. Your title of “Storytelling Coordinator” sure as hell sounds like a headstaffy one.
It does, I agree. So the project was originally started by Scylla back in June, around the time NuMetal got crashed (I guess the first time now? The Polk time). I was asked if I could come on to do the Mage stuff and write metaplot details for the game as a whole. After a time, there was a clear indication that we needed some additional guidance in the back end, or someone to be an arbiter, and a vote was called. Charybdis and myself were elected. This was before Kuma had his life explode and couldn’t do code anymore, which is when I inherited that role too. Then I somehow got looped into being a co-lead for Werewolf and Fera.
though I’m fine with my side of the Fera. I handle Mokole, Rokea, Ratkin, and Ananasi and I like my weird little gross/slimy/fish-scented dudes. Nagah’s in there too, but it requires a group app (3), and we all know how easy it is to get a group of people to get rolling on a game.
Anyway, I didn’t really want to be headstaff, especially not in the administrative sense. Storytelling coordinator, to me, means that I manage the theme elements of the game. To paraphrase Hephaestus’ description of how he’s seen it on other games: the role is to ensure consistency and fairness across different groups, that players have adequate hooks into plots and that there are enough staff to run them (HA!).
I’ve done the administrative headstaff thing on three places now (Metro2 [Saturnine], The Reach [Roanoke], Fallcoast [Toska]), and I 100% get burnt out so fast by having to make all of these quibbling little rule calls. It’s why I was cool with Storytelling Coordinator, as it feels more vibes based: coordinating plot, making sure there’s a cohesive story, making sure equal attention is had by all, all that jazz. Sometimes I wonder if I even like WoD all that much anymore. I certainly don’t play it as a TTRPG; I tend to do more PbtA or other hippie-dippy story games. Sometimes I will break out things like Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun.
That said, I have also been playing WoD games (and all of them, really: Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Changeling, Wraith, Hunter, Demon, KotE, blah, blah, blah, and then all the CofD variants) for something like 29 years now, and remember the rules better than I remember most of my undergraduate classes. So, it’s a path-of-least-resistance thing.
Prior to this, I was writing a Cyberpunk Red game using Evennia as my base. It’s even almost done.
Edit to add: That doesn’t mean I’m leaving! Just that it’s been nearly finished for a while now and I might one day go back and finish it up and release the code with an install.sh installer file for folks to run Cyberpunk games.That’s a lot of words to say: <begrudgingly> “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” If I were the actual headstaffer, as in quasi-benevolent dictator, I’d probably do that San Diego Zoo of Darkness thing I mentioned (stealing @labsunlimited’s term there).
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@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
Storytelling coordinator, to me, means that I manage the theme elements of the game.
Then I’d probably recommend “theme coordinator” then, rather than a title that evokes the storyteller-as-decision-maker role.
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@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:
Storytelling coordinator, to me, means that I manage the theme elements of the game.
Then I’d probably recommend “theme coordinator” then, rather than a title that evokes the storyteller-as-decision-maker role.
Good idea!
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@somasatori Good. Now go back to finding vamp staff so I can actually do things.
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@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
@somasatori Good. Now go back to finding vamp staff so I can actually do things.
I wish we could get those original vamp staffers back.
I also have a vampire character, but I don’t really end up playing on DI very much on account of the coding.Where’s that-- oh yeah
We opened with too much shit going on at once, is what it is. And then we had people jumping into these sort of half-baked spheres that didn’t have all their plot or lore written out, which is very stressful. I’m glad that Scylla’s cool with us doing a temporary shutter of the vamp sphere until we can get things tighter and more consistent.
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@Jynxbox said in Re: Dies Irae:
But there’s a sharp, steep drop off from interacting with Marid to dealing with some other staffers.
It feels like they kinda just forgot what fun was about. It seems like they built this place and then certain staffers never wanted to give up control. You app a PC and immediately they go about trying to turn your PC into their NPC,
I got, legit, no hyperbole, seven different people to make chars. I think one is still technically there and one only left after their second attempt at a char when vampire closed, but nobody actually lasted long enough to be on the grid.
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Another thing I’ve noticed is that some members of staff immediately jump on the defensive when someone makes an often justifiable complaint.
“Well we’re in beta these things happen” is fine and good, but there’re repeated instances of players being unable to actually see each other, much less actually RP together. So when a new person complains about that, and mentions their irritation at the round-a-bout way of fixing it, just say it’s being worked on and then shut up. You’re staff, if you’re whining on the Newbie channel, you’re doing it wrong.
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@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:
Another thing I’ve noticed is that some members of staff immediately jump on the defensive when someone makes an often justifiable complaint.
Yeah, can’t say I’m a fan of that. Especially when it’s defensiveness about code. I often joke that I’m a clinical psychologist who is hobby coding python here, but that’s exactly the case. I know I’m not going to be as good as bitMuse, Theno, Kumakun, Volund, etc. I definitely don’t need any white knighting on behalf.
“Well we’re in beta these things happen” is fine and good, but there’re repeated instances of players being unable to actually see each other, much less actually RP together.
This is such a weird bug. There’s this one and that ooc room one where going if from the ooc room will occasionally keep your account linked to the ooc room while your puppet (in traditional MU terms, your bit) goes on to wherever it is you’re headed.
I’m definitely still working on both of these, but they’re real weird because there’s no discernible pattern as to when they happen. My weekends suck due to childcare stuff, but when I was looking at it on Friday I found a quirk in the character typeclass that stored a previous location attribute (used for commands like +return) using the same name as the location attribute (I just used “self.db.location”). The kicker is I can change this and it’ll just be a bunch of waiting until whatever random assortment of commands occurs that causes the bug to appear.
As for the other one, they have to be linked! Maybe! It’s also possible it’s a reality level thing. In hindsight I should have just created typeclasses for umbra rooms so stepping would just teleport you to another room with a different room type, but instead I made it place a tag on your character that changes what you can and can’t see. Then doubled down and did the same thing with fae stuff. I need to code review that one. I really want to get it to a state where there’s nothing super game-breaking so that it can be released. Then more people can make MUSHes to keep the hobby buoyed a bit.
So when a new person complains about that, and mentions their irritation at the round-a-bout way of fixing it, just say it’s being worked on and then shut up. You’re staff, if you’re whining on the Newbie channel, you’re doing it wrong.
It’s not only the newbie channel though, there’s a lot of immediate defensiveness in the Discord that just doesn’t need to happen, aside from that whole meme about what belongs on what channel. I feel like I say “not everything deserves more than an acknowledgement” more often than I should be, because there are full fledged arguments that occur and it drives me nuts.
It’s fine to just be like “thanks!” or “thanks.” It’s also fine to just say, “Ah, good suggestion! Sounds like it would be interesting.” even if you never plan to consider it. Also, like… In the instance that someone does aggravate you to the point that you get actually angry it’s far easier and less personally disruptive to just step away and ignore them than to keep the cycle going.
Not much to be done about it, though. At this point it feels like staff culture. Maybe a bit too defeatist, but – well.
