It seems like this place kind of suffers from a lack of experience. I haven’t dealt with all the staff, but it seems like some are just having their growing pains with being a staffer and making decisions. Marid clearly knows what they are doing both mechanically and thematically. If that was the experience everyone was getting when dealing with staff, the place would be hopping. But since Marid seems to be deep into messing with the code, the players are left with… everyone else. 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, talking to you about your character like they know it better than you, telling you who your character is and what it needs. Its more than just condescending and talking down to you (which is bad enough, I know) but in my case, I was specifically told what abilities and secondary abilities (???) I needed to take, some of which didn’t have anything to do with my concept, they just wanted to see it. And oh, yeah, this character is a vanilla mortal. Not some high powered supernatural combat twink that needs to be reigned in for fear of breaking the sphere or the game. Just a regular vanilla mortal.
And all that might be worth the grief if something happened with your character once your in play, but like most place, you’re just kind of abandoned to the grid… except with a character that doesn’t feel like yours that you’re no longer excited to play. And only after the fact do you find out the staffer admits that they aren’t the best with (game) mechanics. FFS… So why are you badgering me about what abilities I should be taking if you aren’t even sure what abilities apply to what actions?
That said, this is just my experience. So YMMV.
When you go into the game you can feel the lack of engagement. If you’re on for any substantial amount of time you can see all the names of characters that come through then just stop showing up.
I do want to say that I don’t think that any of the above is done with maliciousness. I don’t think they are bad people, just not very experienced with staffing and very out of touch with the player experience they are providing. I know they side loaded a staff coordinator who has been helpful, but it looks like most of the horses (maybe just some) have already gotten out of the barn.
P.S. To DI: The fact that you’ve got Tijuana relegated to one grid square with no builds is… not… great. I don’t want to assume the reason, but it would appear to me that either your cultural or political biases are showing - or you’re just not that familiar with San Diego. Maybe a mix of all of them. But just on the population numbers alone, you should be able to tell that you’re ignoring a huge resource and influence. Tijuana is the most populace city in the area. It is bigger than the largest three (or four) cities in San Diego county combined. Excluding LA, there’s not another city bigger than it for 1500 miles. Just saying. From a gameplay/thematic standpoint, that’s a huge missed opportunity. Culturally, a bit cringe.