Don’t forget we moved!
https://brandmu.day/
Concordia Thread
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@somasatori Enjoy! I hope the knowledge seekers still do well, it’s a really cool org! I love everyone in it, and help you guys do it proud!
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(So, we gonna discuss Levente also being banned?)
Just a few days ago, while discussing this game with another player, I made the prediction that the Knowledge Seekers would be where the game’s ‘big drama’ would happen. Granted, I thought it would take a few months, so the turn around was impressive. We’ve seen that meta plot information ‘sharing’ is often a part of how people are gate-kept on MUs, so it just seemed like the biggest set of red flags ever. Maybe what happened with Percival was unrelated, but since another ‘player org’ founder got the axe too, it feels like this has something to do with it, be it directly or otherwise.
Anyway, just to say it (and I know staff has gotten the same feedback on-game): these player-run orgs are a terrible, terrible, very bad idea. And staff’s hands-off, ‘good for you being so active!’ approach is not how they should be handled.
This is a game that has two major premises: standard fantasy medieval feudalism, and ‘everyone plays first-tier members of their houses, putting the players on an even footing.’ The latter is in contrast to how most L&L games do things, so it’s definitive to the game identity. However, staff has allowed players to declare themselves to be ‘in charge’ of large portions of the world, be it via the OCs or these groups. This ends up running counter to the 2nd idea, especially given that systems (renown, domain) were supposed to determine some of this.
Also, a lot of it plainly makes no IC sense. Many of these are institutions that should already exist (for decades - were everyone’s parents just lazy do-nothings?), should be sponsored by the King, and should have NPC influence to prevent player monopolization. The houses themselves have this (every House is led by an NPC), why shouldn’t other major organizations (the Scholars had more PCs than any house, by far)? Create some NPCs. Formalize the orgs as part of the world history and not clubs invented by fantasy zoomers. Players will still make their own shitty cliques, but don’t endorse the shitty cliques as official parts of the game.
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I do think there is a fair amount of assumptions by players that they’ll get the influence they always wanted but didn’t perceive that they had on this new game by rushing to be first to do all the things. Just the bum rush of staff who didn’t even get a chance to catch their breath with people cluttering up requests and demands for stuff (however well intentioned) kind of showed the mindset.
I don’t blame this on staff, I really blame this on a very strong culture of FOMO and first one to put their name on all the shinies wins with players. Especially on a place that isn’t like another place that some folks may be familar with but is close enough they’re engaging in some of the same behaviors that they think got rewarded on the old one.
I know i’ve been trying to hold back quite a bit and not rushing (or demanding). Do I worry that because I’m not churning out the max requests and constantly pinging staff that i’ll be left behind or nobody will think to include my pc? I mean sometimes yeah, but I know that’s not based in reality. The people trampling people to get to be “first” in line are not going to give me the time of day no matter what, because our play styles and community styles are very different and I’ll never keep up with that mindset. So i’m trying to not get super wrapped up in that shit and just focus on the people I enjoy, meeting new people and hopefully finding some more folks I enjoy, maybe focusing on family stuff, ect.
I really like the strong stance against gatekeeping now (i agree it’d probably have been best to not give players the bragging rights of being ‘the first/the founder’ of orgs that frankly probably should have icly existed beforehand so that even the ooc temptation to gatekeep would have been extinguished, but that plus the prohibition on not joining more than 2 things I think does just fine). You can’t prevent cliques I don’t think, but this staff does seem at least sensitive to not allowing people to dominate channels with injokes and the like (at least that is my partial read on the channel behavior thing–it is often a showing off tool that is unfriendly feeling to those not in the crowd doing it with each other). I assume they’ll be keeping an eye on exclusionary behavior in areas that they don’t want that to be a part of things, and they seem pretty trustworthy thus far about stuff like that.
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@Coin said in Concordia Thread:
The way we respond to these issues must be contextual, or the “protective” actions become increasingly detrimental to the community as a whole.
Naturally. I didn’t say staff should never share details, just that the player wasn’t entitled to details - especially if they would compromise the privacy of players who reported an issue.
“Your conduct on the Public channel the other day was out of line” or “That log you shared was super racist and unacceptable” are very different situations than “I’m banning you for stalking Suzy and here’s what she said you did.”
Because it is nuanced and contextual, I don’t automatically find it suspect if staff doesn’t disclose details.
That said, I disagree that on top of game-runners’ already overwhelming duties we need to add “help misguided people to better themselves”. If they wish to do that, great. I applaud them. But they should not be expected to do so. Some of the most toxic people in this community will cry “I’m just misunderstood / I did nothing wrong” till the cows come home, so telling the difference between a serial predator and someone who doesn’t know better can be super tough. I don’t fault anyone for just drawing the line at “you’re not a good fit for this game.”
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@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:
That said, I disagree that on top of game-runners’ already overwhelming duties we need to add “help misguided people to better themselves”. If they wish to do that, great. I applaud them. But they should not be expected to do so. Some of the most toxic people in this community will cry “I’m just misunderstood / I did nothing wrong” till the cows come home, so telling the difference between a serial predator and someone who doesn’t know better can be super tough. I don’t fault anyone for just drawing the line at “you’re not a good fit for this game.”
Big this. The last time I banned someone, it was probably something that they could have worked on and corrected, but damn if I have the bandwidth for that. I’m sorry, buddy. I just do not. I hope you grow and learn. Elsewhere.
she/they
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:
That said, I disagree that on top of game-runners’ already overwhelming duties we need to add “help misguided people to better themselves”. If they wish to do that, great. I applaud them. But they should not be expected to do so. Some of the most toxic people in this community will cry “I’m just misunderstood / I did nothing wrong” till the cows come home, so telling the difference between a serial predator and someone who doesn’t know better can be super tough. I don’t fault anyone for just drawing the line at “you’re not a good fit for this game.”
Big this. The last time I banned someone, it was probably something that they could have worked on and corrected, but damn if I have the bandwidth for that. I’m sorry, buddy. I just do not. I hope you grow and learn. Elsewhere.
I never said “don’t ban them”, I said the bare minimum should be “tell them what they’re being banned for in case they want to be better”.
Like, again, I’m not saying it’s an obligation. Nothing is, when running a MU. Running the MU is not an obligation. I’m saying it’s best practices, and it’s worth striving towards those.
In Occam I trust.
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This idea that we can’t have players running things because some people in another place were bad actors so we need NPCs running everything is just wild to me. You can have players run things without gatekeeping by having actively involved staff who are keeping an eye on that.
Not everything needs to be run by NPCs to be “fair”. In fact, given how often we complain about bad staffers only playing with their friends, giving their plots to the people they TS, etc., I’m surprised people WANT to have staff run everything.
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@Coin I agree, so far as it is possible, to provide what you can – not just for the player, but also for other players, to help define the game’s culture and clarify it for current players as well.
And so that any players seeing that in someone else know that if they report it, it will be backed up.
she/they
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@bear_necessities it’s kind of wild to me to go to either extreme on this. This type of behavior is super common on games, it’s not just one place at one other time. It is part of the stampede ooc player behavior. And I know I wasn’t even thinking about fairness. Games are /never/ fair. Period. Striving for that is just…madness.
However, I am all for staff taking charge of what kind of environment they want. And I don’t think trying to do things that remove a bit of ooc territoriality is a bad thing if that’s not the kind of thing that staff want to see. I mean, people’s complaints on almost every game I’ve been on, the games they walk from, tend to be because they do feel shut out of activity and welcome because a small group of people (staff or player) grab all the attention and are hostile/stiff-armed towards outsiders.
You can’t prevent cliques. In groups will have in jokes with each other. People who don’t know someone can and will often totally ignore attempts to engage, if they feel like they don’t want to play with anyone other than known quantity. It’s a think I think everyone has to learn to tolerate at least a little if they want to play on a mush, and then just do better in one’s own outreach and welcome. I don’t think you have to do all or nothing. And sometimes you’ve got to try different things and see how they work with the real group you have (which usually IMO isn’t really settled until a couple of months after opening).
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I don’t think players can’t run things, ever.
I do think letting people rush to stake claim over swathes of the game in the first… I want to say 4 or 5 days it was open? Is probably not the move. You can have an NPC structure in the background as a backstop for abuse (as well as basic thematic coherence), even if you let PCs run things day-to-day. It’s not a hard one or the other.
That said, while I don’t invest personal faith in anyone I don’t know personally, by playing on the game I am implicitly putting a degree of trust in staff because their stated goal is providing for everyone: if I don’t trust them, I will quit. Individual (edit: players) are often there to act selfishly, so I have no cause to trust them. And so far, uh, those player leaders are 2 for 5 on ‘lol almost instantly banned.’ That only reinforces my instincts here.
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@Coin I agree, so far as it is possible, to provide what you can – not just for the player, but also for other players, to help define the game’s culture and clarify it for current players as well.
And so that any players seeing that in someone else know that if they report it, it will be backed up.
Yeah this is why I like specific ban notifications to the player base–doesn’t have to say so and so said this, but like ‘X was banned for pressuring multiple players for nudes’ or whatever. So people who maybe didn’t report the behavior from that person know that it’s OKAY to report it and that they should if it happens again.
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@Tez said in Concordia Thread:
@Coin I agree, so far as it is possible, to provide what you can – not just for the player, but also for other players, to help define the game’s culture and clarify it for current players as well.
And so that any players seeing that in someone else know that if they report it, it will be backed up.
I’d add that it also demonstrates that staff will clearly communicate things, if they do so.
Whenever we banned people here, even if it was obvious to everyone, we made an effort to explain why they were banned; not because we necessarily wanted to, but because we needed to retain trust.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@bored It’s a big reason I prefer a flexible, meritocracy approach to most game leadership positions rather than who makes it first. Obviously this can be very challenging in a game based on bloodlines and inheritance. For some reason.
I do like the flat-structure approach that they appeared to be taking in most respects, though: opt-in, no leadership in player orgs, IC house leadership being NPC. But I think the fact that there is a notation of people being ‘Founders’ of various organizations is a problem. Also, houses are foundational to the setting. Someone might not be a part of an org, but everyone has a house and a family. Having a named heir and making such a strong thematic point about that being a big scandal if it ever changes is–
I dunno. It just seems against some of the ideas that they are working on elsewhere. They really do seem to be trying to execute a vision where players are at equal seating, they just aren’t all the way there yet.
I will add one more thing: I think Arx did it wrong when they had a billion player organizations. I hope that staff keeps a closer eye on player organizations. We don’t need 6 charities or 3 courtier organizations or whatever. I think the game has already put stronger limits in place than Arx had with how many people need to be involved to create an org, but by introducing the idea of founding members, it is Very Easy to imagine that down the line people will want to be Founding Members of their Very Own Charity. (Or whatever.)
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Yeah honestly I don’t think any of the player run organizations have accomplished anything other than create themselves. Being a member of an organization, or its “founder” (see: someone who took initiative and asked to do something), has given no one a competitive advantage. People expressed an interest in creating something and staff thought it was neat, so they let it ride. Game has been out what, two weeks? And a lot of the foundation is still being written. Nothing is permanent in an alpha. System’s malleable.
agree, player organization bloat trivializes their purpose.
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I’d say there’s a mile of difference between letting players run things, and letting players invent entire institutions out of whole cloth, because they want to be superfriends and team up across IC societal lines.
I have no idea if that is or was happening on Concordia, but “Let’s work together, friends!” is a MUSH player impulse.
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@bored said in Concordia Thread:
(So, we gonna discuss Levente also being banned?)
I will admit, I did think it odd that Percival was given a forum post of their banning, but Levente was just shuffled onto the Gone list.
Not gonna sit here and jump to conclusions on it, but it was strange, especially maybe it wasn’t even a ban, just really odd timing. For all we know, the player just put in a request and said they were bailing.
big shrug
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@Anhedonia said in Concordia Thread:
People expressed an interest in creating something and staff thought it was neat, so they let it ride.
My only advice would be to take a cue from Arx’s organisations - let no one player be the sole authority, if they’re to be allowed authority in the first place. The last thing you need is an organisation throttled to a halt by one person’s overwhelm or absence.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel said in Concordia Thread:
@Anhedonia said in Concordia Thread:
People expressed an interest in creating something and staff thought it was neat, so they let it ride.
My only advice would be to take a cue from Arx’s organisations - let no one player be the sole authority, if they’re to be allowed authority in the first place. The last thing you need is an organisation throttled to a halt by one person’s overwhelm or absence.
My only advice would be to take a cue from Arx’s organisations -
let no one player be the sole authority, if they’re to be allowed authority in the first place. The last thing you need is an organisation throttled to a halt by one person’s overwhelm or absence.don’t do them -
@Roz Well yes, obviously. But the horse has already bolted, unless they want to hit the undo button.
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@bored Was Levente banned? I only saw the bbpost about Percival and before that the only other person I know that was banned was Katerina’s first player. I had no idea what happened to Levente.
I guess I assumed they quit because the other 2 people that were banned had bbposts made about them.
