MU Peeves Thread

When you have to take a mental health break from a game because your life is in a bad enough place you don’t know if you have the fortitude to deal with the game’s atmosphere and then you’re in the shower the next morning asking yourself, Isn’t the fact that you need fortitude to deal with the game kind of a red flag?

Arkandel

@GF It’s something many of us forget at times. At the very least a game needs to be an overall plus in our lives, bringing with it more positives than negatives.

That applies to MU*, video games, forums… anything.

Pavel

@Arkandel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@GF It’s something many of us forget at times. At the very least a game needs to be an overall plus in our lives, bringing with it more positives than negatives.

That applies to MU*, video games, forums… anything.

Agreed. And even if it is usually an overall plus, sometimes it just isn’t, and it’s perfectly okay to say to yourself “I had fun doing this, but now I am not having as much fun” and leave. Even if you’re responsible for something, or your participation is key in a future event, or whatever.

Your mental health and wellbeing come before your commitment to any entertainment pursuit.

Arkandel

@Pavel Also agreed.

One of the biggest issues in our hobby (and probably all gaming-related communities) is the sunk cost fallacy. “I’ve spent so much time in this, I can’t stop now!”

And it hits both ways.

Players stay in MU* they’re getting mistreated (or at least have little fun in).

But also players burning out overstay their welcome and become toxic or unpleasant to be around because they don’t want to quit well after they should have.

SpaceKhomeini

@Arkandel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Pavel Also agreed.

One of the biggest issues in our hobby (and probably all gaming-related communities) is the sunk cost fallacy. “I’ve spent so much time in this, I can’t stop now!”

And it hits both ways.

Players stay in MU* they’re getting mistreated (or at least have little fun in).

But also players burning out overstay their welcome and become toxic or unpleasant to be around because they don’t want to quit well after they should have.

Feeling this so hard about a few different hobby-things right now. This should be every MotD.

Polk

@Arkandel That’s really true of life in general.

The comfort of a routine keeps us sucked in, even when we feel we’d be better off stopping a thing.

I stayed with MtG Arena and Hearthstone longer than I should have, because it felt… empty… losing that habit. A hole in my day.

A MUSH ending, or leaving a MUSH, I find has the same effect. It’s tough to quit a thing you’ve made a part of your life.

But being able to quit a MUSH that you’re not enjoying, or worse is actively stressing you, is a great thing.

Arkandel

@Polk You see it online all the time. People playing WoW for years and they are just so miserable, complaining about Blizzard, their fellow players, the gameplay, hating every second of it.

Like, dude. You don’t have to keep paying a subscription. Just… stop doing this to yourself.

But also, other people who might still be having fun don’t need to be told they are wrong.

Jumpscare

For the past week, I’ve taken a break from developing Silent Heaven, but there’s someone who keeps nagging me day after day to hurry up and stop slacking: myself.

Wish I could get me to lay off me.

tsar

@Jumpscare said in MU Peeves Thread:

For the past week, I’ve taken a break from developing Silent Heaven, but there’s someone who keeps nagging me day after day to hurry up and stop slacking: myself.

Wish I could get me to lay off me.

When you figure out how, let me know

Testament

I can recall back to a particular time in my own staffing when some players were upset that too much was happening. I do blame myself for that because I had created and set up the game to be a lot slower paced by intention, so that players didn’t feel like they were constantly missing out. There were about three particular conversations that I remember regarding this. It was valid points, because I realize that as the game picked up slight steam and drew in new players, I felt obligated to plan more.

So I believe it’s important to state at the beginning what your expectations are going to be. How the content of the game will portrayed, thereby putting the responsibility on the players on whether or not they want to put their own time into it. At the end of the day, it’s their choice.

Regarding Seven Nations, I admit that I tend to be the primary storyteller, with a specific metaplot or story in mind that I want to tell, while at the same time not wishing to hide that metaplot beyond any kind of potential hoop-jumping, either IC or OOC. Which I’m fine with, but the story doesn’t move unless people are there to be apart of it. The biggest hurdle over anything I’ve had to try and mitigate was not having enough people, but trying to make sure that everyone who could be there, is there. So I know there can be this strange disconnect at times when either the game moves fast and then suddenly slows down. And as much as I don’t want to have a Discord for the game, it has helped keep communication open for people, I can’t deny that. Though personally, I think Discord really only works for smaller games rather than larger ones. Still, if I had a choice to not have it, I wouldn’t.

I think this might just be apart of the slow evolution of things. As the playerbase gets older, there’s less time to devote to it. I can remember being on older games and there always something happening somewhere. Now, the trend seems to be heavily leaning towards planning certain things at specific times, and even that tends to be done in an asynchronous manner, which I know that by itself has a varied amount of opinions on whether or not that’s actually good or bad.

@bear_necessities said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Herja said in MU Peeves Thread:

I think also normalizing playing multiple games for players that need more activity than one game staff can fulfill would help as well.

I wish there were actually enough games for people to be playing multiple ones

This is a fantastic point. I’ve always noticed a certain level of, well, I suppose tribalism when it comes to the idea that you play one and only one game, lest you not be seen as ‘loyal’. I’ve never quite understood that way of thinking. I can understand not having the bandwidth for more than one game, much how some folks only want to have one character no alts, which is a perfectly valid reasoning.

Roz

@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:

This is a fantastic point. I’ve always noticed a certain level of, well, I suppose tribalism when it comes to the idea that you play one and only one game, lest you not be seen as ‘loyal’.

I honestly can’t recall ever hearing that sentiment in all my years of MU*ing. People playing multiple games has always been treated as the norm in my experience.

Pavel

@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:

This is a fantastic point. I’ve always noticed a certain level of, well, I suppose tribalism when it comes to the idea that you play one and only one game, lest you not be seen as ‘loyal’.

I honestly can’t recall ever hearing that sentiment in all my years of MU*ing. People playing multiple games has always been treated as the norm in my experience.

I’ve only seen remotely similar with the idea of playing one at a time. By which I mean if you’re logged in to Parx and having a scene, you don’t also be logged in to Smiran and Tallcoast, and you certainly don’t have multiple scenes going.

ETA: But I’ve also only really inhabited a very small festering of a space in the community, so my experience isn’t universal etc, etc, etc.

Don’t forget we moved!

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MU Peeves Thread