[MUD] Message to the Staff and Players alike

[mdseiran]

I thought long and hard about typing this up. The reason I decided to is that I fully believe every person is entitled to their own opinions, whether they live in a democracy or a dictatorship. This will probably be a bit long so please bear with me.

I have been playing CoM for almost a year sans a few months in the middle where I quit briefly for personal reasons. I know that's not very long compared to others, but I've still seen a fair amount of changes. CoM was also my first mudding experience, and I was a complete newbie who could not rp to save her life when I arrived. To those among you who helped me out then, thank you. I came to a game that grabbed my interest, to people who were friendly and willing to help, from staff to newbie helpers to normal players. In a way, some of that is still there. In others it's not.

I am neither a builder, coder or staff member. At best, I am a newbie helper, but above all, I am a PLAYER. And it's as that that I'm writing this.

I tend to cling to CoM because it is and always will be my first MUD. I've met people there and had more fun than I could describe, some of which is safe on my harddisk in the form of logs. If I leave, I will always miss it. And yes, I am very close to leaving at this moment. I've seen characters I loved to RP with delete, and one has to wonder...why? Because see, we could all delete, but if no one knows why person A left, then how will anything get better? The same problems will still be there, the exact same issues, and then what? Nobody gains anything.

What I am asking for right now is a bit of understanding from the staff. Put yourselves in the player's shoes for a while and see what it looks like from the other side. IC aside, IRL you're no better or worse than the rest of us; we're all human.

Now I think 90% of the players would all love to see CoM become better and stronger. But we can't do that if you don't let us. If you don't listen to our feedback on this or that, if you don't listen to the complaints and try to solve them, then what is different? You keep saying CoM is moving on to a new vision, but really, if neither of the 2 sides stop to listen to the other, and I mean really LISTEN, with open minds, to see what the players think works and what doesn't, then where's the difference? Yes, you are not forced to listen to any of us, hell we're just silly mortals right? But you never know, maybe we'll have insights you missed. Maybe we'll come up with good suggestions. Maybe in the long run, something we suggested makes the game turn out so much better.

Raising the maturity is all good and well, but I keep repeating this. Listen to us when we say something, whether in outrage or praise. We're not staff, yes, but we do play the game. It's like a movie really. Mostly, what defines how good or bad it is is the viewers that go to watch it, and their reviews either bring the movie to the Top Ten or have it sink to the very bottom. Is it any different here?

Now that the beginning is done, I will try to get a bit more specific about certain things. Some of them haven't been brought up before, some have.

1. DARK VS LIGHT
This could be just me, but there seem to be an awful lot of Dark Lords about lately. How many are there now? Six? And how many Light? Half that? There seems to be a certain lack of balance there, and this is a purely IC issue. Am not counting Neutrals here either. It just seems strange that while good is being killed off by the Enigma, evil stands strong and only gets more supporters.

2. CONSENT
Yes, the old topic back again. Sorry, but I have to mention this. Staff has always stressed common courtesy among the players, ever since I've been here anyway. Conset ruled our rp. Don't godmode, don't use forced emotes, don't force rp on people, and harrassment is punished by the staff. It was highly reassuring. Then we find out, shockingly, that while the staff enforces these rules on the players, they themselves do not have to abide by them. I still don't understand why that is. Is it so difficult to send a tell and say, "for the sake of rp, I have to do so-and-so to your character. would you mind?". Most people are good sports.

I went MUD/MUSH hopping for a while. I would connect as a guest and ask very specific questions. The most important of them, for me, was "if I was about to do something to character A that would change his/her IC life forever, would I have to ask their consent OOCly? And does that apply to the staff as well?". The answer did not differ in ANY of the mud/mushes. It was very simple. Staff or not, consent is a MUST. Period. No getting around it, no "well I am a god IC so I can do this without consent". Player courtesy was stressed in all of the different MU*s I visited. And there were a lot of them. Now I suppose the question is, what makes CoM different? Staff or not, consent is a MUST for any scenario.

3. PLAYERS VS STAFF
This is what the atmosphere is like at the moment. Staff wants something, players don't, staff forces it and players delete/cope/curse out loud. It shouldn't have to be like this. As a player, I want CoM to become better. But as a player, I don't appreciate being forced to do it a specific way. And yes I know, some of you will tell me, "if you don't like it just delete". Again, I say this. Lots of people have deleted. Did anyone ask them why? If the whole playerbase deletes today, wouldn't it be obvious that there is something wrong? Why not just ask? We may come up with valid points. Graven mentioned in his post that he welcomes opinions. But then, those opinions should be listened to. We all know that, as staff, you can ignore whatever we say and do what you want. The strength here lies and listening, putting yourself in the other's shoes, and, if you're wrong, ADMITTING IT. It's not that hard to do really, if you give it a try. And the players will appreciate it much more and respect you for it. After all, won't it be easier for everyone if the players worked with the staff instead of against them?

4. FAVOURITISM
A personal pet-peeve of mine. We all have favourite characters/people we like to interact with, and that's perfectly understandable, whether you are staff or not. That isn't a problem in the least. It starts becoming a problem when, as a staff member, you start watching specific players and awarding them for their rp, ignoring all the others. Personal rp is almost /always/ ignored. Yes, interacting publicly is good. But it's been stated several times that teapartying in the Centre should stop. But then, when your rp is away from the centre of Seria, you are, for the most part, ignored. Unless a specific immortal has rp with your character. I'm not saying this because I am bitter over not getting enough rpool. I personally, am here for the people and the rp I have with them, and whether I get rewarded or not means little to me. But it is an issue for others. Personal RP is where you can truly show your rping skills, simply because it's not as rushed as the square.

I know this seems like a lot of awful things, but that is because negativity is wrapping me in a blanket at the moment. I will readily admit that CoM has many good things I have not mentioned here. This is just my attempt at having some of the not so nice things surface, so that maybe, hopefully, CoM will be the better for it.



Link: http://com.adventmud.org/index.php?showtopic=45&st=0&#entry391