MU Peeves Thread
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@Jumpscare There are two big barriers for me. This is speaking to Silent Heaven specifically.
1 - Client dependency. I play a lot from my iPad with a keyboard attached. Between the sucky options for mobile clients and the inability to keep firmly connected via the web, I’m pretty well locked out.
2 - “Join our Discord!” This is a big turnoff for me. I don’t want to have to join a Discord for a game; it makes me uncomfortable. While I’m not sure that joining Discord is mandatory on this game, it IS one of three prominent buttons on the home page, so it comes across that way. Keep it on the MUSH, thanks.
The syntax and stuff isn’t a deal-breaker, as long as it’s documented. I am admittedly a very independent player and do not like asking for help with commands. I am much more likely to just logout than to page a staffer if I can’t figure out a command - which always left a bad taste in my mouth on the Big Evennia Game That Shut Down That Shall Not Be Named, so that’s probably created a general bias in my head against the platform.
I’m also not into coded crafting, playing with coded NPCs, etc. That feels like video game stuff, not RP stuff to me. So the fact that there’s commands for things like “Food,” “Gaming” and “Gardening” suggests this won’t be up my alley.
All that to say… it’s mostly a vibe thing. Evennia does a lot of things very well, from what I can gather, but it doesn’t support casual, web-based RP very effectively.
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That’s perfectly understandable! And thanks for expounding, it really helps me to understand where Silent Heaven stands in the MU ecosystem, haha.
Here are some responses to your points. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to convince you to play. I’m just providing clarifications.
1- I understand the frustration with mobile closing the connection the instant you tab out. I’ve recently learned about split screen being a feature for Android phones to help with web connections. It’s still not ideal, but maybe someone reading this doesn’t know about split screen and could benefit from it. (Tap the button that lets you switch apps, then tap the icon at the top, and choose “Split Screen.”)
2- The Discord server is absolutely not necessary. It’s just for OOC chatter. I’ve seen a number of issues for when public OOC is on the same medium as IC, involving people blurring the lines between the two. And for a game like Silent Heaven that could carry higher bleed than usual, I felt it prudent to separate the two. Everything else, such as event scheduling and notifications about OOC updates, are available in-game.
3- I worked hard on making an intro sequence that sets the tone while teaching the most necessary commands, so there are no worries there, haha. The first 30 minutes of any new player’s experience are the most important minutes, because those are when they’re most likely to bail if they can’t figure something out.
4- I fully understand that the “crunchiness” of the game mechanics is a dealbreaker. I did my best to make it support RP, not supplant it. For example, the automated NPC responses are to help when PCs or Storytellers aren’t available, with teaching commands, providing basic setting information, and suggesting safe places to explore. While it helps with some of the cognitive offload of initiating new players into a setting, as well as standardizing rules around certain aspects of the game, it is ultimately gamier, and I accept that that reduces freedom.
Thank you again for responding!
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@Yam said in MU Peeves Thread:
There’s also the whole concept of reputation in our very tiny community. If you have a reputation of being someone difficult to deal with
That is so.
Nevertheless, no.
I do not believe that every time, (or almost every time, or even a majority of the time) a player finds staff chronically unresponsive it’s because the staffer is justifiably annoyed with the player, or the player has a bad reputation.
It’s pretty demoralising and anxiety-provoking to tell people that unresponsive staff probably dislike them personally for probably good reasons. And it doesn’t go well with being compassionate, patient, and willing to extend trust to staff.
Seems pretty off when paired with concern over game-runners feeling discouraged because somebody admits that players can often get a pretty good idea of how active they are and where.
What @xCroaker said just exactly except I suck at video games and don’t play them.
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@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
I do not believe that every time, (or almost every time, or even a majority of the time) a player finds staff chronically unresponsive it’s because the staffer is justifiably annoyed with the player, or the player has a bad reputation.
I think our hobby is getting small enough that it’s getting more and more common.
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@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
I do not believe that every time, (or almost every time, or even a majority of the time) a player finds staff chronically unresponsive it’s because the staffer is justifiably annoyed with the player, or the player has a bad reputation.
I think our hobby is getting small enough that it’s getting more and more common.
Then people in authority need to grow up and communicate, or fuck off.
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@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:
Then people in authority need to grow up and communicate, or fuck off.
Let me fix that for you:
Then people
in authorityneed to grow up and communicate, or fuck off.I’ve seen plenty of examples of people who have developed a bad reputation in our hobby that have been told they have a bad reputation, with receipts, and they just dismiss any argument in that regard. Sure, there are plenty of staffers who are non-confrontational, so they just ignore the people that have a bad rep, which is a problem in its own right, but largely it feels, to me at least, that the people with the bad reputation are just as guilty of bad communication skills as the staff.
I guess after watching other staffers on other games attempt to communicate and get shut down, staff on the games these people are currently on give up on attempting to talk it out. Communication is a two way street, and what it seems like we have is problem staffers who aren’t willing to talk it out, and problem players who aren’t willing to accept constructive feedback.
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@MisterBoring In general? I absolutely agree.
@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
Sure, there are plenty of staffers who are non-confrontational, so they just ignore the people that have a bad rep, which is a problem in its own right
But this is the point we’re talking about.
If staff have a problem with me or concerns about my reputation, and their reaction is to do nothing rather than pass me on to someone else or get rid of me entirely, just… ignore me? That’s 100% a them issue. If staff don’t want me there, they need to say so. There’s nothing to “talk out”; there’s a message that needs to be communicated that isn’t. It’s that simple.
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All of this hinges on whether the person actually is guilty of poor behaviour or not.
Without that crucial context, all this reads as a bunch of people vagueposting past each other and probably not even imagining the same people as they do so.
乁( ⁰͡ Ĺ̯ ⁰͡ ) ㄏ
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@Juniper said in MU Peeves Thread:
Without that crucial context, all this reads as a bunch of people vagueposting past each other and probably not even imagining the same people as they do so.
I don’t think we’re actually talking about specific cases. Just the general “Staff that ignore problem players is bad” + “Players that refuse to believe they’re an issue when they really are is bad” concepts.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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@MisterBoring Don’t forget the age-old “staff being held to a higher standard of conduct” argument, too. We’ll do all the classics while we’re here; we’re about due.
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@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.
fr fr
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@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.
The conversation started about a specific incident, sure. But we do veer into talking about vague generalities pretty quick around here. Informed by years of actual situations, sure, but that’s literally the same as every other conversation.
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@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.
All patterns are made up of specific incidents, but we can still talk about patterns.
"This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
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@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
@hellfrog said in MU Peeves Thread:
@MisterBoring it’s always about specific incidents. People just don’t own up to them because they don’t want the scrutiny - for a variety of reasons, I’m sure.
All patterns are made up of specific incidents, but we can still talk about patterns.
I’m just a pile of patterns and anticipatory statistics in a waistcoat pretending to be a human.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Gashlycrumb we sure could
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MUSH Staffing in current year
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Real question: What is staff overworked with in most games?
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@xCroaker From my personal experience both as a staffer and as a player witnessing things:
- Answering questions that are already covered in the game’s documentation. I have been on plenty of games that have excellent documentation both on their wiki and in the game, yet people will still constantly ask questions that have already been answered elsewhere.
- The subgroup of players that exist across all MUs that I refer to as “The Job Mill”. These players will generate more jobs than the entire rest of a game’s players combined, in some extreme cases multiple jobs a day. They are few, and usually just very invested in the game they are playing, but holy cow can some of them clog up a job queue. The frustrating thing is they’re almost always not malicious about this. It’s just what they do to show love to a game. And holy crap is it frustrating. Even more so when large amounts of these jobs require scenes and NPC support. (And now that I think about it, this could almost be it’s own topic.)
- Continuing to work on build / code stuff. A lot of games start allowing players onto them well before their grid & coded elements are actually ready to go, and this will generate a lot of extra work where staff is trying to finish their baseline game and people are breaking things already.
- Dealing with OOC drama. (This one probably feels like the worst even though it’s mathematically not.) Having people get into an OOC argument, or finding out that a player is a sex pest, or is exploiting the game code to their advantage, is rough on staff. It’s 100% guaranteed to require some level of confrontation about it, and that shit is draining.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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@Pavel I wanna hear more about your waistcoat though
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@xCroaker I really was just posting the meme to be a little silly, but I can do my best to give you an earnest answer. Though I doubt it will really be a satisfying one, and it’s really just one person’s perspective. I can’t speak for every staffer on every game.
I think “overworked” is kind of not the right word to describe it. Fatigue is probably the closest I can find. Everything MisterBoring said is true, but I personally find that a lot of players think that the fatigue happens due to administrative tasks. Things like build jobs, xp requests, character apps, etc. But for me, I think the fatigue mostly comes from what I’d call a “creative tax.” When you tell stories for folks, you put your love and energy into it. But you are not drawing from an endless well. Creativity comes in bursts and windfalls, and there are droughts. The ask is that you basically draw from an endless well, though.
I’d also say that point #4 of MisterBoring’s message is very true. OOC drama is probably mathematically rare, but these interactions feel the most weighted because they’re the most stressful. And to continue the metaphor, it draws from the same well as creativity, but uses much more of the water.
