Sindome: A Review
I have nothing to lose. The community has everything to gain

There is a dramatically reduced TL:DNR version at the bottom. I really recommend taking the time to read the whole thing through before responding though. It is long because it touches on a lot of topics.

Introduction: Who am I? Why am I posting?

I am Chris, more commonly known as TITan/RedRadio on xooc or through my characters: Nion and Leona (sicalias: Evolve. #Corpie4Lyfe). I've been a player on Sindome for approximately 680 days (That's 1 year, 10 months and 3 days) and have always tried to make my contributions to this game positive ones be they via RP, forum or townhall feedback, or the brief stint I spent as a support staffer. The intention of this post is to provide constructive, polite and concise feedback as to the state of the game and what could be done to improve it. It is not a challenge to the six month ban that was placed on me for having shared information with a player OOC. I broke the @rules and so I got punished, my opinion that the punishment is somewhat extreme is irrelevant to the message of this post.

I hope that this post is taken as the helpful feedback it is intended to be rather than simply dismissed as the words of a rule-breaker or worse still, used to prompt a witch hunt for players who I or other players have been or are in contact with. The staff would have to ban a -LOT- of players to eliminate everyone who talks about Sindome via out of moo means including some existing staff members; It would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I also took the time to have this post appraised and approved, prior to posting, by no less than seven players (including me) to ensure it is a reasonably universal view from at least a snapshot of the playerbase. One of them even went so far as to do a whole phase of editing on my behalf, correcting grammar and simplifying sentences to make them more concise (You know who you are. Thank you.).

What's great about Sindome?

That moment when you walk through the gates and aren't sure if the wet patch between your ass cheeks is something you fell in, or something you made.

Sindome is THE most immersive roleplaying environment many have ever been part of. It is a dark, gritty setting rife with naturally unfolding conflict and retro-tech sci-fi ambience galore. There is an enormous variety of things a player can codedly do within the game and the growing community means that roleplay can be found at almost any time of day, regardless of what timezone you are in or sleeping pattern you maintain. Characters are visceral entities with motives that can be learned, understood, manipulated and sometimes even empathised with. It's an addictive emotional rollercoaster. There is no sensation quite like meeting your equal and engaging them in a battle of wits, finance, politics and finally fists; Savage pleasure should you come out on top, and bitter loss should you lose. Add to this that the actual in-game world itself is so enormous that in 1 year, 10 months, and 3 days of near ceaseless RP I have not yet explored half the expansive world in game, and Sindome has the potential to be a timeless game with infinite playability.

All of this is rounded off by volunteer staff who put hours, days, weeks, months and years of their time into expanding and harnessing the potential of the setting, be it by driving plot lines, building code, or simply performing the copious amounts of administrative work that needs to be done just to keep the game economy and the game itself running. I cannot understate my appreciation and admiration of what staff do OOC on a daily basis for the players. All on the staff team have my sincere thanks for all of their hard work.

What issues exist within the game? How could we solve them?

Letters, there aren't enough letters.

1. Lack of Communication

The biggest and most ongoing problem in Sindome is a distinct lack of communication about the game between staff and players. There is no community without communication, but at the moment, the only means available for communication are one way @notes and somewhat intimidating xhelps (I'm sure I am not alone in being slightly shocked when one flashes up on my screen unexpectedly). As a result of this, unenjoyable or even universally detrimental roleplaying can continue for a very long time. This often ends with someone lashing out over xhelp, be they staff or players, but some, like me, communicate their grievances via OOC communication, so that at least it feels like someone is listening and sympathizing. Neither of these last two actions generally results in lasting progress, and can in fact generate even more issues.

I am suggesting a two way review system to expand the means of communication so staff can get regular feedback on what players do and do not enjoy with which to produce more informed, fun plots. Vice-versa staff can inform a player when their ic behaviour is positive or detrimental to the game without an intimidating xhelp. A full example of the proposed system will be left in a separate thread.

2. Dependency on Staff

The following is not at any point intended to be a slur against staff. If anything I consider it impressive and admirable that staff do as much as they do whilst so overburdened.

The game is way too dependant on non-player characters and staff operated systems. Most of the in-game employment system in game requires NPC approval and direct staff intervention to hire, promote, demote and fire players. In addition many high-value items are locked behind NPC 'gatekeepers'; This is before we even start looking at @histories, redecoration requests, NPC relevant plots and the policing of the players that must be done. With Sindome's rapidly growing playerbase, staff are hard-pressed to keep up with the demand for NPC puppets, gridmails and more. This often leads to player RP being disrupted, slowed and sometimes abandoned entirely.

Steps need to be taken towards empowering and enabling the player community to do more themselves, thereby making RP a smoother, more rewarding experience. At present there are player characters in positions from which they can quickly interview and recommend a character for a role only to find they wait weeks for an NPC to approve the hire. Allowing these players to perform the hire themselves would eliminate the wait. In fact, there are other M**s like The Inquisition: Legacy, in which factions are entirely player driven and these M**s run very smoothly.

Simply saying yes to more ideas from player characters, particularly topside, would lead to a lot more RP developing naturally. Every time a player suggests something and an NPC says no an entire avenue of roleplay is shut down before it can even begin; Usually, when a player suggests a plotline to pursue it is an idea that they would enjoy and that has the potential to draw other players in (e.g. "Should we investigate X player for Y reason?" This plot practically runs itself.).

3. Staff Alt Standards of RP

I begrudge to mention this, as ALL staff work hard OOC to make the game a better place to play, and most alts are played with careful restraint. I can vouch for this personally, as I have seen a little from behind the curtains as a support staffer. Nonetheless, having actually spoken to a number of players, I can see I am far from alone in perceiving inequality between the way some gm alts are treated versus how player characters are handled.

There is a common perception that some staff alts are treated favourably by other staff and abuse their ooc status as staff for an ic advantage over player characters. Some things that trigger this perception of inequality are the known alt(s):

• Generally retaining position(s) of wealth, status and power (not a problem in and of itself).

• Abusing their characters' power to bully pcs (Conflict RP is good, but conflict generally implies a two way struggle against characters capable of defending themselves and of recovering from what is done to them.).

• Denying characters RP (E.g. Involuntary extended periods of imprisonment).

• Perming, or facilitating the perming of characters (wherin an alt sets a player character up to pull the trigger on a cloneless character to avoid the technicalities in which staff alts are not supposed to perm). Perming is something players are strongly discouraged from doing, let alone staff for whom it is specifically against the rules that are set for them.

• Ignoring rules. Most obviously 4. d. with some alts remaining connected for days and idling for dozens of hours. There is no reason any character should be seen connected without icly "sleeping " for 7 days or more straight. It grants a ue gathering advantage as well as wasting player attempts to contact them whilst allowing those who idle to glean data from sources like sic even whilst they aren't actively playing or even necessarily awake.

• Negligible visible consequences from NPCs for actions that would have any other character SERIOUSLY punished. E.g. Overt theft of expensive valuables from major corporations.

Whether or not the things listed above actually happen is almost irrelevant to this point. What matters is that these abuses of staff status are perceived to be happening based on what players see. Players naturally extrapolate from the data they can see for themselves, which leads them to wonder what other abuses go on outside their line of sight; This breeds mistrust in the playerbase and no amount of reassurance (like this http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/anything-really/restrictions-on-gms-admin-826/ ) will counteract this divisive mistrust when what players see for themselves suggests otherwise. We all want Sindome to be a co-operative competition, but it is hard to co-operate or communicate with someone you do not trust not to abuse their status.

This is a hard one to treat. I admit that, at present, I am stumped as to how to resolve this one. That being said, a major purpose of this post is to prompt dialogue on how to resolve these issues. Talk amongst yourselves. I cannot be expected to do all the thinking (wink emoticon).

In Conclusion

If I had to pick any ONE message I wanted people, players and staff alike to take home from having read this carefully crafted text, it is that there needs to be communication for there to be community. Opening up the game for even carefully moderated communication about IC events would enable staff to police what is communicated to whom and would have the benefits of enriching the player and/or staff base with knowledge about what is considered -FUN-, themely RP. Sindome is a game after all, it's all about having fun.

Anyways, there we go. I have said my piece and I hope it has been heard as it was intended, which is helpful and constructive feedback with which to improve the game. Again, no witch hunts please. Burning members of the playerbase at the metaphorical stake is a sure-fire way to just create more division within the community. This post is designed to provoke dialogue (and therefore progress) so please make your opinions heard whether you agree, disagree or feel another way entirely. If you do not say something, you will not be heard. If you do not try, you will never succeed.

All the best to EVERYONE! Walk safe Withmore.

TITan, out.

Cue Overly emotional outro music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4

TL;DNR VERSION

• Trying to help improve by offering polite feedback and suggestions relating to commonly perceived player problems.

• NOT trying to challenge my ban.

• Expanded communication might solve like, everything.

• Devolve more powers to the players. Staff are overburdened by the present necessity of NPCs.

• Staff alts need to set the gold standard of RP players are expected to operate at. Failure to do so creates a suspicious atmosphere that divides the playerbase.

* Perming is strongly discouraged

No, it's not. Perm away. Staff Alts are not going to perm you unless the entire staff agrees to it in a vote. That's not likely to happen. It's against our rules, otherwise. However, it is not against the rules for players to perm other players if the RP dictates it. It's against the rules to be a dick when you don't have to be, when the RP doesn't call for it, or on a player who is fresh out of the gates. It is not against the rules or discouraged to perm other players.

* Ignoring the rules, IE 4.D

Where did the idea that this was even -possible- come from? Admin alts are not some special kind of character, and admin that are not Johnny or Slither do not have the ability to change how long someone can idle for. The game boots you off if you have been idle for 24 hours.

We also do not grant UE to idle players. The playing field is level here, people. Admin alts are the same kind of character object as non-admin alts as far as the game engine is concerned.

This is the snippet of code that governs ALL players:

30: elseif (x.last_connect_time < lasttime && x in connected_dudes && idle_seconds(x) < 3600)

31: "is still connected since before the last grant and not more than 1hr idle";

32: grant = 1;

33: endif

It's possible to be connected for 5 days, if at any point during a day you un-idled and RPed. But this statement about admin alts getting some kind of special privileges is utterly false.

• Negligible visible consequences from NPCs for actions that would have any other character SERIOUSLY punished. E.g. Overt theft of expensive valuables from major corporations.

Just because you didn't see it, does not mean it didn't happen. I know of the situation being spoken of here, and the penalty was HUGE for the character involved. Just because they RPed keeping it quiet, and maintained appearances ICly, does not mean it didn't happen. It did. I've touched on this dozens of times over the years, but players cannot assume that just because they don't see something ICly, it hasn't happened ICly. Much, much, much more goes on in the game than even the most well informed person is aware of.

What are we supposed to do? Further cripple admin alt characters by making them reveal their IC punishments? It comes down to trust[\b] people. Either you trust your GMs or you do not. And if you do not, you should find another game because it's going to be really hard enjoying this one without it.

What if every punishment that was enacted on your character had to be public? What if you weren't given the opportunity to hide it, or RP your way out of it, or convince people you had avoided it to make you look more powerful ICly?

In my person RP experience, I have done this many times with Seven. I just don't think it's fair to ask admin to spend much of their waking ours GMing for everyone else, and then when it's their turn to get some good RP in, railroad them, just so the people who play Sindome--without trust for the GMs that work SO hard--are appeased OOCly.

You guys tell me, is that fair? If I spend 25 hours a week working on code and GMing and doing the crappy tasks that no one else wants to do-- is it fair that the few hours a week I grab to RP for myself I am forced to spend it publicly representing all the negative stuff that happened to my character due to his IC choices? Just so a few people are temporarily convinced that the GMs aren't out to get them, or being unfair?

Does anyone here play video games? Okay, stupid question. Does anyone here enjoy 'winning' when they didn't earn it? If there were cheat codes for Sindome, which gave you invincibility and infinite wealth and all the weapons, and wall hax-- would you use them? Seriously, think about it.

Wouldn't using them ruin everything that makes the game great? The struggle? The sense of achievements? That heart pounding rush of adrenaline when you tell a lie in character or pull out your weapon and tell someone to hand over their wallet, or when you narrowly escape the judges, or finally catch the perp you've been after for a week?

It would all be pointless, if the outcome was predetermines. It would be pointless and boring if you knew out of character that you would win.

Many of you are probably nodding your heads in agreement with me. Good. Now ask yourself if you think the GMs, who literally devote their lives to Sindome (in many many ways) would use their power to.... make the game boring for themselves.

The few minutes I eek out to RP for myself every now and then-- the very last thing I want from them, is a predetermines outcome. I know the other GMs are the same because we watch them, we interview them, we train them, and we pick GMs that have the same drive and love for the game that carries us on and has brought the game close to it's 20 year mark.

Any GM who has ever abused their power (it has happened) in the way that is being purported here, has been kicked off the staff faster than a street sam with 'agile' agility. If you do a search of the website for topics like 'OOC bitching' and 'admin alt' and 'complaint' you will see dozens of posts from me over the years about trust, about how players don't see the whole picture, about how we can't even explain to you why you are wrong because we have to follow the same rules you guys do.

And guess what? It's for your own good. You don't want to know what I know. That's the biggest joke of all. It's to protect you guys, that we have this rule. The more you OOCly know, the less you will enjoy playing the game. That is not supposition, it is fact. This is why we don't tell you the simple answers that would clear up big issues you have OOCly. This is why we fight OOC collusion so hard. This is why the penalties are so stiff when you ignore the rules. It ruins the game. Telling others OOC info is ruining the game for them.

If you do it, you should stop. And if you expect the admin to do it, just to clear up complaints you have about the game, you will be disappointed. I wish it didn't have to be like that. It's utterly frustrating for me to not be able to tell you what you need to hear to put certain issues to bed for good, but it's the rules and my telling you would only make the game less fun in the end, for everyone.

So we are back, once again, to trust.

-- S

@Slither

*On perming: I'm pretty sure that @TITan didn't try and say that perming wasn't allowed in the game. But I'm also pretty sure that the majority of the populace agrees that perming people without doing your best to make sure it's an awesome experience kind of makes you a dick, which is what I believe they were trying to convey.

*On idling: You seem to have missed the point here. I think that the majority of players are aware that there is a kick after 24 hours of idling. What TITan pointed out is that some administrators just don't log out of Sindome when they go to sleep, and then get back to their computer upon waking. Which means that they idle for six to eight hours and then get back to RPing, presumably. I personally haven't seen this behavior in anyone but admins, but I can't know everything.

*On Trust: Perhaps instead of repeating "Trust us, man!" when people express distrust, you should instead think about ways to instill trust in the populace?

I do agree with Hailfire that there seems to be a greater reliance on NPCs for non critical stuff than in other MUDs. I'm inclined to think it's a negative thing, because it demands a lot of the staff's voluntary work time and the players could perhaps do a faster job of things like hiring or getting people into gangs etc.

While I do have my own view about GM alts and their perceived imbalance in power vis-a-vis the player character base, the truth is I just don't know the mechanics and the IC to say it's an informed opinion. So I'll shut up on the matter.

I do wish there was a tiny bit more of feedback now and then. It's a design decision and I live with it, though.

Thanks for writing the review, and to Slither for his polite reply/rebuttal.

Game on!

I bend over backwards to push people in the opposite direction. If you think you can't get what you want because an NPC is standing between you and your goal, go find another solution in the form of a PC. So far, this strategy has produced every time, and while I'm not saying there's going to be hard exceptions, I am saying if you're hitting one of those hard exceptions, being patient is going to get you a lot further than posting on here about the ways it could be better. I don't except that news should surprise anyone.

For those of you that don't know the term, bleed refers to ones IC feelings bleeding through to their OOC feelings (or vice versa). Something bad happens to your character so you get mad OOCly. Or you're in a bad mood and your character is magically in a bad mood. It happens to the best of us.

IC paranoia is great. IC groups that use encryptions or gridmail or bars or secret meetings to discuss their paranoia is also great. IC groups or factions that gather ICly to discuss their next moves and their plots and plans, is great. All of that is AMAZING and exactly what we want you guys to be doing. Plotting, planning, betraying, paranoia, concern, anger, joy, success. We want you all to feel that. In character.

Getting together OOCly to complain about the game or to share information or to bitch about admin or to talk about how you 'think' something went down is negative and has a negative impact on the game. It cannot be helped. It is bad. It starts out innocent but it turns into an echo chamber of dissent and the IC paranoia bleeds over it seems, and that causes people to get bitter and feel slighted or wronged or picked on OOCly about completely IC things that happened.

Really, I can't put it better than Mythologique. I shouldn't try. They captured exactly what I am always trying to express, and they did it from the player perspective.

-- S

Did you ever stop to think that maybe they just play the game more than you? That maybe that is the reason they were tapped to become admin in the first place? That running this game requires people that are willing to be on, the majority of their waking lives?

I do not understand the issue here. The same rules are applied to each and every person that plays the game, across the board.

GM alts are not connected to an admin account. I do not know where you got the idea that they were any different than any other player accounts and I think I clarified the situation pretty darn clearly in my first post. If you want to sit online for 23 hours and 59 minutes idle, you can. The same rules apply to everyone. There is zero favoritism here.

'This post was read and approved by 7 players...'

That's fine. You're banned from the game and we are allowing this thread to continue because we do not operate in an echo chamber. If other players have issues, they should raise them with the admin in an email to [email protected] as has always been our policy. As I haven't seen that, nor have I seen other people aside from you and Curt complaining about this, I will not take it as truth. I said vocal minority. And I think that's exactly what it is. I also think that you guys communicate OOCly about the game, against the rules, and reveal information that other players do not have access to. And I think that sucks, and, as I have stated already, ruins the game for you and those players-- as is evidenced by many of the issues you raised in your post. That's the echo chamber.

A group of players OOCly discussing things that are not meant to be OOCly discussed in private. We have the BGBB for a reason. We have OOC chat for a reason, we have [email protected] for a reason. If you can't have the conversation on one of those three mediums then you should not be having it.

Communicaion

We communicate as much as we can. There are a lot of players. We offer OOC-Chat, Game-Help, xhelp, the BGBB, staff e-mail addresses and [email protected]. We routinely post on the BGBB about game issues, changes, and request feedback from the players on a LOT of things.

We hold town hall meetings every six months to give everyone a chance to discuss every issues that they think is important and we do this in a completely transparent manner with the players setting the topics that are to be discussed. We do not have time to answer @notes and therefor we do not. It is not possible to do it unless you guys want to start donating thousands of dollars a month so that we can hire a paid staff. It is not that we don't think it's a good idea, we just recognize it is not viable based on all the other things people have to do. There is nothing stopping any player from creating a 'ways to communicate' thread on the BGBB an opening a discussion on ways we can improve that don't involve adding hundreds of hours of GM work a week.

I think every single person reading this that spends any time reading the BGBB knows that I read it, respond to threads, and take feedback seriously. We ask for it, and we act on it. Does anyone feel like this is not the case? If so, I can go through the BGBB threads from the last week and compile a list of the ones I have specifically asked for feedback on-- some multiple times.

We are constantly evolving and working on ways to make the game better. As an example: we've updated @notes and I have been -very- active in that thread, asking for player comments, feedback and suggestions. And I have taken that feedback and update the code and policies on our end to reflect changes to make notes better for everyone. That was all based on communication between players and staff, done transparently on the BGBB.

I, for one, always felt that way. I feel super conscious of my posts and remarks.

My opinion on staff is that they really contribute a lot and help this game. I appreciate it a lot. However, at the same time, I feel like sometimes, some of them act like they are 'higher'. Maybe I'm not using the correct word. What I mean is, staff all began as normal players, right? Just like me and other players. Maybe they're better at RPing and/or are better at handling responsibility. That's why they can become a good staff member (which is definitely good). But I get the impression that sometimes there's a division between staff and players. That line is very noticeable or tangible and it makes players (non-staff players) feel inferior and intimidated or on an entire different level. This causes feelings such as 'injustice' or 'unfairness'.

Staff all started out as normal players, right? We all get treated equally and should view and/or act like that.

As normal players, we should respect and treat staff members well, just like normal players.

As staff members, they should respect and treat players equally like themselves too.

I'm not saying staff treat players horribly or whatever. I'm just saying that sometimes the word choices or way a statement is said unintentionally makes players feel inferior.

At the same time, players should rather must honor/respect staff members too.

We all have our faults. We're all human.

(Okay, not sure if I people can actually understand what I'm trying to say >.<)

I notice a lot of people attracted to SD have anxieties and low confidence for various reasons from RL but, that shouldn't be translated to how people view admin. The admin aren't some supernatural gods. They are Cerberus and Johnny and Mephisto. Maybe think of them as super players? They don't just play one character, they play a lot of characters. They make mistakes. They have hobbies and passions and kids and are just human.

It's also important to remember that whilst some staff might come off as abrupt or brusque (and that certainly can be jarring the first time you're on the receiving end), it's likely due to being simply pressed for time. A handful of GMs in a game that has sixty active players every night (not even a snapshot of the entire player list) lends itself to being spread thin. There's often not time for complex niceties and, for lack of a better term, handholding.

I felt that way the first time I got an xhelp out, and felt that I'd done something terrible. Then I slapped myself in the face and reviewed the situation for what it was.

I didn't communicate the -contents- of any note but I don't really care to get into the technicalities of the ban. It's not what I came here to do and would amount to petty squabbling. I'm sorry you feel that way.

===@Slither===

Idling

"I do not know where you got the idea that they were any different than any other player accounts"

"Most admin stay logged in so that they can be alerted when players xhelp, or are looking for puppets, or when combat breaks out." <-This confused me.

===@Diani===

You've communicated yourself just fine and you aren't alone in feeling that way. By posting this I have tried to open dialogue on how to overcome the issues that you are talking about now that I have nothing to lose by doing so. Well done for overcoming your anxieties and speaking up this time.

========

Having achieved my objective in communicating some player views to the staff, I do not feel the need to take this thread any further. If I have any regrets in having posted this it is only that the top two points and the ones I considered most important of the three have been overshadowed by squabbling over the third and less important point. A BIG thank you to those who have listened and moved this thread forwards constructively.

Odds are I will move on from this community when I go, but I wanted and still want my last legacy to this community to be a positive one and so raised issues that other players felt unable to raise now I have little to lose by doing so. I'll be proposing a modification/extention/additional noting system that will allow people to more effectively communicate on how and why they feel the way they do about situations that arise IC or OOC relating to Sindome. I hope it will be useful.

My apologies to those who took the contents of the thread as an attack on staff. It is not intended that way at all, as stated in the OP. I knew from the outset when I posted this it would be controversial however hopefully now other players who felt as I did/do.

Walk safe everyone.

TITan out.

Lol. Sorry Diani. I didn't mean to say you had anxieties like that, but yeah. I totally get where you are coming from and this entire thread is an overblown version of something trying to address the issue you have mentioned. Thank you.

What makes you trustworthy? You want to communicate, why don't you let us all know who your fellows are and what you talk about behind your curtain? Or, they could step forward. You want better communication and transparency but all you did is step out to break rules and make the player base uncomfortable. Now there are a group of players that we've all been made aware of that are out there sharing meta information about the game. Talking about characters and their actions. Gaining advantages solely because they are linked up via OOC. What gives you the right and makes you so special?

That's all happening right now. In real time.

Maybe that's what makes so many players stand in solidarity behind SD, the game we play and love. The fact that we don't take it personally, we don't bounce our ideas off of other people taking it personally and get that same feeling bounced back endlessly until it's grown into a bonfire of seething thoughts, we don't sit around reliving every action and reaction and how it could possibly have happened or why it was wrong. We play, enjoy, and log off. Have I been upset at admin? Sure. Have I cried over something in game? Yep. But, I don't let those feelings stay with me until they are all I can think about. It's a game. Bits of text on a screen.

I also think, for the record, that Slither in particular does a fucking amazeballs job communicating with everyone, and don't hold it against Johnny or Cerb if they're impatient. I bet they're probably sleep-deprived and overworked because of their dedication to the game (fuck, I'm sleep-deprived from this game, and I'm not nearly as active.) They have feelings too.

On communication, I do wish there were a way for staff to leave messages for players. Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure there is, it is just seldom used. If I remember correctly, there is a dusty @mail system kicking around somewhere. I think it would be an easier way to communicate with players in certain respects. In the past, staff have prompted conversations with me while I was in the middle of RP, and while I personally don't mind multitasking, some may find it disruptive to get a yellow pop-up right in the middle of a scene. It would also be useful to reply to certain @notes (not all of them, mind you, ain't nobody got time for that.)