Reasons why you quit a game...
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? But you did equate "professional" with "paid".
@ixokai said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
I don't see why I should expect less of staff of a game then I expect of professionals in a paid gig.
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@kanye-qwest said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
? But you did equate "professional" with "paid".
@ixokai said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
I don't see why I should expect less of staff of a game then I expect of professionals in a paid gig.
"in a paid gig" was the key statement. On one side, "paid gig". On the other side, "staff of a game". In the middle, "professional", which I expect of both.
ETA: I admit the wording was clumsy on my part.
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- Staff being shady.
- Small group (usually being staff, sometimes with a few non-staff sprinkled in, but not always) running the asylum and being insular/circle-jerky.
- The story being told taking twists that make my bit unplayable, or unpalatable to play .
- A player going out of their way to ruin RP/take jabs at me/other people (who are there or not). Because there is just nothing you can really do to stop it, and it ruins funtimes.
- When a couple of people integral to your character go away, and you lose that drive.
This is just as they came to me, not in any real order. Though 1 is totally number one.
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Re: professionalism, it depends on what someone means by it, IMO.
To some, this means civility.
To a smaller some, this means the customer service mentality of 'the customer is always right' + 'I am free to be abusive to a customer service representative and they have to sit there smiling through it'.
I'm down with casual (read: not super formal/detached/distant) conversation in which everyone recognizes that everyone in said conversation is a person worthy of respect and the benefit of the doubt regardless of their position or role on the game. I am not down with the 'free to be abusive to' interpretation, but that also goes in all directions, as that's not acceptable from player -> staffer, staffer -> player, staffer -> staffer, or player -> player, so far as I'm concerned.
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#1 reason I quit a game: Staff don't do their job.
Staff need to be as impartial as possible, follow and enforce the rules equally, and make sure everyone is held accountable.
I don't care about presentation, just do your job. If you're an asshole staff, I do not care, as long as you are fair and do the three above.
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@surreality said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
Re: professionalism, it depends on what someone means by it, IMO.
To some, this means civility.
To a smaller some, this means the customer service mentality of 'the customer is always right' + 'I am free to be abusive to a customer service representative and they have to sit there smiling through it'.
I'm down with casual (read: not super formal/detached/distant) conversation in which everyone recognizes that everyone in said conversation is a person worthy of respect and the benefit of the doubt regardless of their position or role on the game. I am not down with the 'free to be abusive to' interpretation, but that also goes in all directions, as that's not acceptable from player -> staffer, staffer -> player, staffer -> staffer, or player -> player, so far as I'm concerned.
To me, professionalism is:
- Civility
- Timely response to issues
- Ethical behavior
- An awareness of our own limitations (like, COI)
- Treating the commitment as a serious thing.
I don't buy into the whole 'the customer is always right, you have to take abuse everywhere' part of it that some retail type professionals have to deal with.
Staff are people and deserve to be treated respectfully, same as any player, and anyone being abusive towards them should be booted from the game, same as anyone being abusive towards someone else.
BUT. Staff should not feel free to snark, to bitch, to belittle, to answer jobs of their own or their close rp partners, to just ignore jobs until they turn red and then send off an idle comment that just resets the timing of a real response, should not take an attitude of speaking down to players, ... and so on.
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Professional behavior and professional committment are two separate things.
When I am staffing, you should absolutely expect me to not be unethical, to handle things in a timely manner, etc. That's behaving professionally.
When I am staffing, I am not going to feel bad for taking a 2 week vacation (it was glorious), for not logging on 5 days a week, or for not spending all night every night doing jobs and making stories for other people. Some nights I log in and play. Some nights I don't log in at all. Some days I do a bunch of jobs, some days I don't do any. When you start looking at my efficiency and a quota and I have to start making project plans for stories and I have to do X amount of work I don't like before I am allowed to do Y amount of work I DO like, then we have a disconnect.
That is also a reason I quit games. Don't make the game feel like my job.
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For the several, several games that I have tried out, the lack of anything going on led to me wandering away.
- No one was ever IC. Several games had everyone hanging out in the OOC Nexus. I haven't seen but one exception to this rule (not that it solves the issue).
- I have tried multiple character concepts, thinking that I just wasn't being interesting enough to draw RP. This contributed to the heartache cycle, which for me is the high of character conceptualization... only to step out days later onto the grid and see tumbleweeds blowing by.
- I have been as engaging as possible, as polite and friendly as possible, and while people were friendly back... just seemed that no one was able or willing to RP.
- Any break-in RP getting into anything thematic or group-oriented was seemingly riddled with non-starters. It's hard to RP a character who is in a predictably scary situation and realistically not trusting people in their surroundings.
- Finally, for me a large part of the fun of any character is the realism of them. If they are in a world of murder, monsters and mayhem, then they aren't going to be the trusting, wide-eyed innocent soul that just strikes up conversations with anyone, and certainly not going to trust someone just met for dinner or whatever. Most players don't seem to want to waste time with this 'slice of life' crap, and just immediately jump to telling you all about their Clan, their Pack, their Whatever.
Being a daytime player, I understand that it is hard to find people who are free enough to RP during the day (and believe me, I am comfortable enough with slow posing play, because hey, we all have to make that fat lewt). It just seemed like everyone was chatting during the day, which didn't leave much opportunity. This isn't a complaint, just an acknowledgement of the situation.
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@goldfish I have a personality that is more vocal, but I am shy when it comes to instigating RP and such. I am sadly one of those people who probably make a lot of shy people feel alienated because of that. It's not intentional; it's just how my own shyness manifests. Unfortunately, it causes a lot of perception problems that I have to combat with some of my shyer friends.
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@ixokai I agree. I think professionalism is a level of commitment by an individual. Another 'professional' attitude is, "I'm going to do a good job no matter what other people around me are doing." Some might say that's just a form of integrity. I would say yes! It is! Work ethic, a commitment to strive to be better (because I think we all backslide so this is necessary to fight that), and to just be fair.
However, I think it's okay to not be overly timely on jobs (especially in a small game with less staff) as long as you set this expectation with the players and prioritize things that help unblock players RPing (apps for one). I think prioritizing your own jobs or your own interests is not one of my values. (this is not to say that I believe people shouldn't work on what they are excited or motivated by)
Some staffers hold two conflicting beliefs, "This is my game,"/I get to do what I want when I want, and "I'm in it for the players." I think if you're in it for the players, you find a balance between taking care of yourself and serving your player base without sacrificing on fairness.
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@lithium Yep. I think this is the biggest thing. If you're going to have anything, have this imho.
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Some of the reasons I quit a game:
I get to where I feel like my character's story has been told and I don't feel inspired to make a new character.
I have some kind of interpersonal issues with someone and I can't be assed into sticking around and dealing with the drama.
Staff somehow proves to be untrustworthy to the point where sticking around would prod at my conscience.
I get bored with the theme.
There's nothing to be done about points one or four, and even point number two really isn't something bad. I just prefer to spend my time where I don't have to deal with that kind of crap. Point three, however... well, we've been talking about staff ethics and similar topics in other threads so I won't beat that into the ground here.
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@darinelle Um, don't you know it is now your job to rp with me every day? Chop chop. This is your life now.
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@saosmash said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
@darinelle Um, don't you know it is now your job to rp with me every day? Chop chop. This is your life now.
If you weren't sick all the time I might! <cough cough> "Oh, I should probably close the scene heeeeere." <cough cough>
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@darinelle I'm sitting here in court right now with a personal box of kleenex.
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@loke said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
Some staffers hold two conflicting beliefs, "This is my game,"/I get to do what I want when I want, and "I'm in it for the players." I think if you're in it for the players, you find a balance between taking care of yourself and serving your player base without sacrificing on fairness.
The two beliefs are not mutually exclusive, however; they should be integrated.
"This is my game. I get to do what I want when I want, and what I want is a game that other players can enjoy."
The first part is an acknowledgment of responsibility: it's your game, so you're responsible for what happens on it.
The second part is a statement of fact: you can do what you want, so you should act ethically or else you'll be viewed as a petty tyrant, no matter your policies.
The last part is the mission statement: it's only a game if there are other players involved that are enjoying it.
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You're right. I clearly was focusing on the narrow interpretation. I like your breakdown/re-integration.
Thank you! -
@apu
When you say you get disinterested with theme is it like a total, man I'm just not into HP or WOD anymore, or is it something like I got bored with the theme because we were harping on the same stuff over and over (theme is worn out for whatever reason).I can think of situations myself where if the theme was more malleable (not like AU malleable, but extensible), and I had a chance to engage with that, I might be more interested in staying around.
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@rook said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
This contributed to the heartache cycle, which for me is the high of character conceptualization... only to step out days later onto the grid and see tumbleweeds blowing by.
Yeah. This is hard. You're drumming along, thinking you've got something that will hook into what is or isn't going on...then it's like throwing a line in and never getting a nibble when fishing. It blows because of all the investment. I don't think I've ever seen a game that is hurting for activity change their entry requirements (I'd be interested if others have).
Like, if people are having troubles RPing, then ease up on some CG requirements so there's a low front end investment. Then if things don't work out (because they are likely outside of your control if the activity is just low), not as rough lashback for the player.
