My (possibly temp) Goodbye

It's not anymore. It's gotten really fluffy. And it's no longer got that sandbox feel. You no longer let pc's make there own choices it feels. And before you get defensive. This isn't just MY feeling. There are posts on RPI mud forums across the internet where the older players of this game,a nd newer players, have left disgruntled, because the game has changed.

You can deny this. You can turn your head and ignore it. but the problem wont go away. it will fester, and grow, until the game gets to sick to live, and dies. I don't want to see this.

I have the UTMOST respect for Slither and Johnny. You guys are ABSOLUTELY amazing. You two, and the other staff from a while back need to sit down, look at 2 years ago, look at now and say "What's changed? Why are people saying we've changed? This many people CAN'T be completely wrong"

I will probably check back with the game at a later time (six months, a year? i don't know) and see if things have gotten better. Why? because I believe in you guys. And I know exponential growth like you had for a bit has it's own set of problems. And I have faith that you can fix it.

For me, no.

Quoting:

It's gotten really fluffy. And it's no longer got that sandbox feel. You no longer let pc's make there own choices it feels.

I'm going to have to disagree with this because I don't see it as fluffy (of course it's my first MOO, but still), and as for choices? The game's Full of choices. Characters making their own choices (even if to be sheep for a month or not) is consistently a part of this game. And so are repercussions. Is it going to be this job or that job? Are you going to do the job for this person or not? Should you respond on sic or shouldn't you? And if you do, who catches it and what will now happen because of it?

There are more players consistently now than when I started (Last March). There are more areas (gang / family - mob / corporation / entrepreneur) to get to know and explore now than before. More *choices* that involve RP because of areas as well as rooms as well as more players! :)

That's how I see it at least.

Can you get a little burned out and need a breather? In a sense, you can, but it's because it's dark and sometimes you need to visit the real world and inject some humor, like a comedy, into your life. Or fireworks, or a good cup of tea or coffee with some friends in the real world before diving in again.

RP is there when you go looking for it (and sometimes when not) and when you create it. Plus, leaving @notes for character goals and interests helps not only you but the GM's. They DO read these and pay attention and then plot to destroy you, I mean, work with you on your goals. Sometimes without you even realizing it at least not right away (it can be that smooth).

Game's full of choices. That's my thought on this.

Sure we're all adults and we should all be mature enough to not go after one another when someone has a personal opinion on something. Just because we all don't share the same opinion doesn't mean we should be outright being rude. That goes for people who have problems with the game and those who protect it. I'm not picking sides but it's just my 2 chyen that if anyone does have a problem, they probably aren't going to say anything without fear of being attacked for giving their opinion, not because they believe they're wrong.

My biggest issues with the game, however, have always been how I've perceived the staff of RP admins. Sometimes I think Cerberus really is as big of an asshole as everyone says, but then he's been nothing but nice in the few times that I've dealt with him, yet I keep hearing about all the terrible shit that he's apparently done and the accusations just pile up. I even heard things like Johnny was fucking Sally, Tom, and Harry on the side on his PC alt and giving out favors for naked pictures. I, as someone who recently joined, don't need to hear this kind of thing. And if I'm hearing it, I know there's got to be someone else who's hearing it. It colors my perception of the community negatively and keeps me from wanting to invest in this game by creating awesome roleplay, making objects, donating, etc, and so on and so forth that someone is allowed to help.

I'd also like to see more variety in plots. We only see echoes of what really goes on in behind the scenes, and I've generally been turned off from the finantical psychotic murder, gang wars, and general extremes that apparently makes the most waves. There's like, hundreds of different things I'd like to see happening that I sniff out and hope to find, but I've been sorely disappointed in so far. Where's the plots geared toward the people in X, Y, Z? Doing C, B, D? Obviously I can't be specific, given that it's a forum and all, but I'm down for writing plot ideas. All I do in other games is run stories and plots.

You apparently voice otherwise and that's fine. I'm also glad that you've had an easier time experiencing corporate themed plots. I witnessed the echoes from what you went through and still continue to watch your character. That's great. Fantastic. Also, I'm quite well acquainted with how to set up RP that I want.

i think we might still be in an adjustment period for this big playerbase and it sucks it had to go so bad for a lot of people. i think a lot of the bad feelings i have seen come from a sincere place and i wouldnt try to rebuke them (yes i heard about the ridiculous shit too but besides that). i think like some of you guys mentioned the big hurdles are gonna be figuring out a way to make negative/losing/struggle aspects fun & exciting more often than bummers or grinds that worry players theyre not going to be allowed to have any fun, (but i think a lot of this can be resolved with new gm tools johnny was talking about), and finding a way to resolve the issue that requires gms to break immersion to xhelp/announce "roleplay is happening even if you can't see it" because i know we all hate being told that even though we know it's true. for players, all that matters is what they can see! that's the whole game experience. so they would ideally never have to (for example) feel like the role the GMs picked for them was a more powerful character's or gm alt's dikumud mobile to farm. it's a learning process but we can get there. theres an engineer mentality i'm catching glimpses of where players & staff sit around and talk about how to improve things because we want to make a better game and entertain each other and i think that deserves encouragement.

also ive been seeing / hearing about cerb really pumping the brakes when it comes to on-duty encounters and i think that should be appreciated too!! nobody likes being called an asshole and sometimes it sucks even more if you're making a concentrated effort like that and putting yourself out there just to hear people say the same old mean shit about you. yes this is me going on record as worrying about cerbs feeeelings.

i still have opinions on staff/player interaction where i think we can do better (never think you cant do better), so im not like jackin it 100% yet but hopefully that makes the above seem more sincere.

All Staff on this game.. be the Johnny, Builders, Admin or whatever are strictly volunteers. VOLUNTEERS...

LET ME REPEAT THAT...... VOLUNTEERS!!!..

They are giving up their free time, putting their energy, efforts and creativity into this game so that we can all enjoy a free awesome game.. have fun and relax. They are not getting anything from this other than helping out a game they love enough to support.

Sure you may dislike some of their choices or decisions when it comes to you're character, RP , and you're experience in SD.

You can dislike how blunt or not they are. you may dislike the tone you perceive that they are speaking in..

HOWEVER the very least that you should do is RESPECT that they are sticking themselves out there , VOLUNTEERING to help this game and the community..

Just for one moment just take a second and think about it.. let it really sink in.. Here we have am all volunteer staff, that are putting themselves into the firing line. Having to make difficult decisions, having to create something and put it other there for others to enjoy, having to sacrifice their time and effort into building something and helping people out and for all this what do they get back for you? from the community? from the game??? Really stop and ask that question to yourself...

Thankfully 99% of the community appreciate their efforts but the small vocal minority are leeching this energy, undermining this creativity and generally giving grief to a load of other people that's just trying to make this game fun for everyone.

I've never been a GM in SD.. i don't know any of them personally IRL or oocly. I've disagreed with some of the things that have happened in SD and ive been both told off and educated by GM's and Admin. Im pretty sure that ive been subjected to some negative RP thats been generated by the GMs and ive had in game setbacks that have frustrated me..

HOWEVER i have never taken this personally.. i've always respected and appreciated the effort that the GMs have spent with me and my characters.. When dealing with them on xhelp or other forms of ooc communication i have found each and every interaction respectful (if sometimes a little short and blunt, probably because they were busy..) and always positive for myself personally and for the game in general. You can actually tell that the real people behind the alias's genuinely care about this game, the community and the players that are playing it....

To question if they are abusing this 'burden' they have VOLUNTEERED for, for their own gain somehow ......, To have a go at them for any reason.. To name GMs and baseless accuse them of things... To harass, windup, verbally abuse and then come crying to OOC chat or the boards..

All of these things are simply bang out of order and shows up the person throwing the accusation as a child throwing their toys out of the pram, it shows a complete lack of empathy for the efforts and feelings of people just trying to help create something and it shows a complete lack of understand as to what it takes to be a GM , to be an impartial referee, to create anything and put it other there for others to critic... I know that an incredible amount of effort is taken in recruiting, training and mentoring GMs, so to accuse one of them of abusing their position or other similar disruptive thing is just plain retarded.

By all means you as a member of the community are entitled and encourage to come up with ideas to improve the game (*thats why Johnny has provided us with a whole board for it*).. you are also entitled to be upset when something negative happens to your character.. you are have been gifted a whole raft of means and ways to communicate RESPECTFULLY (@notes, boards, even xhelp in an emergency) with other members of the community and the Staffers (A somewhat unique thing for this game that we are in danger of losing it idiots keep abusing this)... So use these things if you are truly passionate about the game,.. shit volunteer yourself for writing scripts or descriptions.. put youre energy and effort into creating content, RP for SD...

I for one am sick of any and all negativity that is being put out there towards any member of staff via any means.. OOC chat, boards or whatever. Its driving the fun out of the game.. its creating a poisonous environment and i imagine that its going to cause lots of the above mentioned VOLUNTEERS to question is it all worth it....

If you are unable to respect these volunteers and the work they are doing. then LEAVE.. no one is forcing you to stay and play..

Assumptions clad in negativity and ignorance will never be construed as constructive. I don't know why anyone would suggest it could be constructive.

If you want to see the game improve and you think the game is fluffy, go out there and make it less fluffy. That's what someone does when they want the game to improve, they don't check out for six months after throwing around accusations and threaten (yes I mean it when I say threaten) to return.

For the record, the game is not fluffy and like Amika said, players don't like to hear it, but I've got more plots than I can count on one hand being prepped and taken IC and most of you only know about two of them, so how does that make you feel when you tell me there should be more variety in plotting? LOUD ANGRY COMBAT plots are the ones you hear about across city-wide comms because those are the ones that purposefully attracting attention. Plots aren't always meant to be city-wide every single instance one is brought to life, they start with a focus around a player's hard work in RP whether it's consequences or a player that doesn't go to NPC's often and could benefit from some NPC related plotting as an RP experience. We need things to happen to kick off interest plots that have focal points among the player base.

So get out there and RP, and things will start to move around you, it's entirely up to YOU to notice, catch wind of it, and participate in an IC way for your character.

Remember, not every character is going to be suited for a particular role in every plot.

So please don't act like we don't plot enough, it's out there, it's up to you to find it, participate, encourage it, solve it, help it happen, whatever you want to do, all of these options are typically kept open in plot related RP activity. I try not to make things so narrowly focused that deviation from the prime objective isn't allowed, that wouldn't be fitting for an RP enforced environment.

If you don't like plots that has someone murdering people for their RP as a consequence, I recommend not doing obviously things to make yourself a target, no one is forcing you to participate in those, be IC and develop a fear of death and avoid those plots all together. Just please remember, those are the plots that are easiest to see and you're going to have to work harder to uncover what else is really going on around you.

This is the type of stuff that isn't constructive. You point out how you see things have gone wrong but you really have no clue about what happened.

The GMs read notes before RP happens. A player may perceive their relationship with NPCs a lot differently than the GM who puppeted the NPC does.

Honestly, if you see things wrong with the game, report them when they're relevant. It does no one any good to talk about issues from six to eight months ago as if there is anything we could possibly do to address them now. Things change so regularly that a problem last month likely isn't even an issue this month.

I get it, you're dissatisfied with your experience. You're welcome to not play.

Either way, stop complaining about things that I can't address because they've happened months ago.

Mew. Apologies if i wasn't clear enough with my last post. Id like to assume that you afforded me the same respect by reading my post as i did yours (in fact i re read your post a number of times so as to make sure that i understood what you were saying), so ill assume that i was not elegant enough to get my point across. Therefore i will try and break it down again.

To be clear , i am all for players and constructive members of the community having a voice and being able to constructive contribute, in fact i wrote a whole paragraph about this and included a number of ways that we have been gifted the ability to do so.

However the purpose of my post was to point out that all members of this community deserve respect and should be treated accordingly. This in my opinion goes double for those that contribute the most to the game be they Staff or contributing players.

What i was attempting to get across is that in all things you should expect and extend this Respect via all means of communicate we have.

It has been my experience in life in general that people bang on about their rights and getting Respect and yet a lot of the time they forget their responsibilities and that they should offer the same respect that they demand.

We as players have a responsibility to use our voice for the good of the community and the game, so i was attempting to point out what in my opinion is a correct and incorrect way of using this responsibility.

Mew, i find your analogy of the homeless shelter a flawed one… your example of bad mouthing, throwing stuff, 'being a dick' and general negative behavior towards the homeless people as being the very thing that i was complaining about in my post. Im am sure this is a a simple mistake on you're part and not deliberate but you are in fact implying in a 'baseless general accusation on a public forum that the staff here do the same in game to our players.. Which in my opinion/experience and i dare say 99.99999% of the rest of the players would be completely incorrect and the exact opposite of what actually happens.

I also would point out that and this is just my opinion again that its inappropriate and generally disrespectful for people to name drop specific GM's that they bitch about on the boards and other public forums. To be clear i'm not saying that you have to like and agree with all GMs.. what i am saying is that if you have a disagreement with a specific one, the public forums are not the correct place to communicate this. Id respectfully ask what is the purpose of singling out a specific GM and telling the world you disagree with them? Now having said that i appreciate that in your post you are not being directly disrespectful to a named GM..and by deliberately including youre name in my general statement about others that have in the past targeted a specific named GM, i am grouping you with them and thus tarnishing your name. This is the exact behavior i'am rallying against and have thus done it deliberately here to prove a point.

To address your specific Criticism.. If i am correct what you are mainly complaining about is that you have experienced a slightly jarring NPC interaction because you expected one type of response and got another.. Firstly, id respectfully suggest that this isnt really constructive criticism and shouldnt be raised on a board for the following points.

1. its not exactly game breaking, raising it is not going to suggest ways to improve the game, or help provide feedback to the the community or feed into anything its just a gripe. No one ever said that SD is perfect.

2. Id respectfully inquire if you had considered if YOU had done everything in your power to make life easier for the GM puppeting the NPC by your in game interaction. Reviewing your own interactions, did you make it plain and obvious to the GM your intentions? your perception of your characters relationship with the NPC via your characters RP and speech? In Short had you given the GM enough to go on to match your expectations?

3. Is it possible that ICLY events outside of your knowledge had correctly changed the behavior that NPC would give to your character? is it possible that in fact the GM was puppetting completely correctly and in fact you failed in your RP to interact? Whats to stop you icly from calling the NPC on their behavior ? "hey mano i thought we was tight? why you up in my face?" etc etc..

4. and this is a General one.... SD isnt perfect? .. GMS are not perfect .. so yes we have a small overworked staff that have lots of responsibility/tasks and lives of themselves.. can we really expect ALL of them to intimately know all the relationships that every single character in the game has with every other player/NPC and affiliation?... Is it reasonable for us to go with the flow sometimes when we are blessed with the time and energy of one of these volunteers that isnt the "usual" staff and are just mucking in an helping out but might get a slight tone or behavior from a NPC different that the GM that your used to??..

In summary yes we all have a right to be heard.. I would however say that we all have a responsibility to choice the correct medium for using our voice and also question our motives for using that voice?.. if you have a issue with a specific GM interaction.. if you genuinely feel like someone has behaved inappropriately towards you? AND you dont believe or understand that they GMS themselves work very hard at training/policing and managing themselves.. .. IF all that is True and i failed to believe that personally for a second.. THEN id ask if bitching on the public boards the appropriate place to raise these concerns?..... Would not an @note or in an extreme case (that i dont think has ever happened) then a xhelp or even an email not be more appropriate?..Raise it by all means.. then trust in the judgment of the general GM collective and move on.. And if the word comeback that no in fact you are at fault. then maybe you should listen to the 5+ staff members that review that encounter and take a second to think oh wait am i actually in the wrong? was inappropriate? what can i learn from this?

If you have a issue with the game and can improve it then make a suggestion of the Ideas board? raise a real issue and suggest a way to fix it..

If you are bored of the RP that you are regualrly encountering with your character.. maybe thats your RP play.. The GMs shouldnt be expected to feed you new story hooks. you got all the tools in game to get out there and create your own RP, your own storys, be they small isolated ones for just your character or a small number of players or make them so big they involve the whole player base.. its upto you to do this., not the GMs to spoon feed them to you!

Im NOT saying that players should not contribute or raise things or generally should just be passive.. what i am saying is that we have plenty of means of contributing and providing POSITIVE feedback to the game/staff and community.. We are using one right here.. and the Ideas threads are overflowing with brilliant ideas... What these public forums /ooc chat are not for is airing out personal grievances with specific GMs or players or events thats happened icly..

SD is at its best when the whole community both players and staff work together to fixes whatever small issues that remain with this brilliant game, when we come up with new ideas, new RP, new plots together to tell new and exciting stories with cool new toys and grit cyberpunk flare... and its at its worst when a small minority of players fixate on things not being 100% to their liking, wasting time energy and generally sucking the fun out of the game.

This is all just my opinion and 2 chyen. as always feel free to ignore if you want rather than get upset.

It came across as a joke.

This kind of exaggeration is unhelpful.

Sorry, but there is not the amount of hand-holding you seem to think there is. There IS fighting and undermining between corps. No, everyone is not friends.

Just because someone smiles and plays nice doesn't mean that they are friends and not plotting how to get some piece of information needed for their own corporation or own gang or themselves. There's hostile and then there's covertly hostile.

Corpies going into the Mix? Renting out back rooms for clandestine meetings because too much recognition of who they are topside? Or who they are meeting can't easily go topside themselves? This happens (or should be happening) but also, just because someone is wearing nice clothes doesn't mean they are a Topsider. Family / Mob wouldn't be wearing cheap immy clothes. And there are Mixers meeting Corpies topside to exchange information, money, etc. too.

None of that means 'friends'. But there are things like, enemy of my enemy is my friend (doesn't mean they are ace batas), subduing and enemy without fighting, all warfare is based on deception - these things are going on.

Different people RP differently but that doesn't mean people who are being friendly don't have other reasons behind their actions. People are going to try to knock other other people off their ladders but with a smile. Mixers & Corpies alike.

@notes:

Even though I haven't had anyone in particular get with me on my notes, through gameplay and various interactions, I've seen things come up to help me with some of the goals, including an enemy popping up which helped me come up with other solutions to get out a little goal of mine. I admit I didn't catch it at first but then I started seeing it after a little while.

GM's DO read the Notes you write and plot and come up with things for that even if not obvious to you (at least at first). :)

-

I understand that some people may think it's friendly due to a limited amount of interactions they have with various players. But who would you more likely approach or be willing to be approached by? A person who thinks over sic how horrible people are and is known for being hostile and killing people or someone, who may or may not be more dangerous, who can actually have a sit down with you and give you work or be willing to work for you? (No doubt some hostile persons might actually get a sit down of a sort and told they are bad for business by certain Family members, or Family members talking with a Gang Leader who then has a sit down with a lower gang member.)

My 2 cents or chy. (This ended up longer than when I first set out to write this.)