Requiem for Kingsmouth closing

BallisticOrange · Sep 3, 2015, 3:19 PM

Today Shavalyoth announced that RfK will be closing. It remains open for soft RP and any staff side activities will cease. Code is going down to the hunt, roll, and bare bones systems.

It's a sad day but the game goes out at its height rather than losing what made it so unique.

Much of that comes down to Shavalyoth herself. The grand vision she has, and her storytelling skills, pale next to her personal interest in all members of the game.

It's been a wild ride.

Tempest · Sep 3, 2015, 3:26 PM

Interesting. If this is legit, I wonder what led to it?

RfK had 50+ active, unique log-ins a night like 2 months ago.

Drama over Prince, or what?

Edit : Huh. Legit, I guess. Wiki announcement.

Nukem · Sep 3, 2015, 3:35 PM

Huge numbers of changes were made to procedures. Then Shav stepped back, but didn't trust anyone else to run the game. So she would sign on every 4 days and tell everyone they were screwing things up. She half assed providing information to her staffers, which led to constant bailing of staff.

No happy staff = no game.

Add to that, the Prince was idle. So IC was in flux, OOC was in flux = dead game.

Shears · Sep 3, 2015, 3:37 PM

Are there literally any other good vampire games

Tempest · Sep 3, 2015, 3:39 PM

@Shears said:

Are there literally any other good vampire games

If by 'good' you mean has political shit, titles, feeding code, territory systems, and PvP...(The only things I can think of that RfK has and the other current GMC vamp games don't.)

No, because it's been proven time and again that stuff inevitably blows up.

BallisticOrange · Sep 3, 2015, 3:41 PM

It is legit. The bboard post stated that it was a difference in staff philosophies. To quote:

"It is no longer feasible to keep Kingsmouth open. We've been struggling for a while - as you know - and trying to fix everything while keeping the machine running.

"I've made a variety of compromises from what I'm comfortable with in order to entice volunteers onto staff. Tonight I reached a breaking point: a compromise I simply will not and cannot make, which unfortunately means that we won't have the manpower to run the game on a day to day basis.

"We are not going to switch the game off at the server-side so that anyone who wishes to has the opportunity to RP out their goodbyes and exchange contact information."

Soft RP remains open. Staff won't process jobs or do XP spends. It's at least a 6 month window. They are planning on something new and totally different. Shavalyoth is, at least.

Shears · Sep 3, 2015, 3:44 PM

@Tempest said:

@Shears said:

Are there literally any other good vampire games

If by 'good' you mean has political shit, titles, feeding code, territory systems, and PvP...(The only things I can think of that RfK has and the other current GMC vamp games don't.)

No, because it's been proven time and again that stuff inevitably blows up.

I'd be happy with anything that was single sphere and had good staff. The other stuff was fun, but it wasn't necessary for me.

Tempest · Sep 3, 2015, 3:50 PM

I don't think there is anywhere that is single sphere, I'm afraid. In fact, the only places that use GMC and Blood&Smoke, are Reno and Eldritch, I believe.

Reno is Vamp+Woof and has a /very/ different game style than what I imagine RfK people are used to. It is pretty non-competitve and sandboxy.

Eldritch is Vamp+Woof+Demon, and also has a sphere cap, so you can't go there and play a vampire even if you wanted.

Arkandel · Sep 3, 2015, 3:50 PM

@Tempest said:

Eldritch is Vamp+Woof+Demon, and also has a sphere cap, so you can't go there and play a vampire even if you wanted.

Right now they can.

Tempest · Sep 3, 2015, 3:52 PM

@Arkandel said:

@Tempest said:

Eldritch is Vamp+Woof+Demon, and also has a sphere cap, so you can't go there and play a vampire even if you wanted.

Right now they can.

Ah, well then, good timing.

Groth · Sep 3, 2015, 3:58 PM

@Nukem said:

Huge numbers of changes were made to procedures. Then Shav stepped back, but didn't trust anyone else to run the game. So she would sign on every 4 days and tell everyone they were screwing things up. She half assed providing information to her staffers, which led to constant bailing of staff.

No happy staff = no game.

Add to that, the Prince was idle. So IC was in flux, OOC was in flux = dead game.

Requiem for Kingsmouth has always been a game very tightly tied to Shavalyoths personal philosophies of how a game should be run, it was originally created as a sort of protest to the previous vampire games in which she had been a player. Part of that was to always put player characters ahead of NPC's or staff characters (Her preference was always that staff should have no characters at all). This has always made it hart to find staffers as most of those that like the game really want to play the game.

Requiem for Kingsmouth has also always been a game that has required a very large amount of staff work in order to keep itself running. Many of the changes made in the past 6 months were made in attempts to lower the workload neccesary to keep the game running however recently Shavalyoths RL situation changed and she was no longer capable of spending the vast amount of hours per week on the game she previously had. Other members of staff offered to step up however it became evident that they didn't fully agree with her philosophies and she would rather have RfK remembered as what she wanted it to be rather then watch into something else under other management.

There is discussion on creating a new MU* that won't require quite as much staff hours and those interested can email npc.kingsmouth@gmail.com and will be notified when there's more details.

tragedyjones · Sep 3, 2015, 4:02 PM

Actually Eldritch is opening vamp up on Friday to new apps. Wolf, too.

Alzie · Sep 3, 2015, 4:09 PM

@Nukem said:

Huge numbers of changes were made to procedures. Then Shav stepped back, but didn't trust anyone else to run the game. So she would sign on every 4 days and tell everyone they were screwing things up. She half assed providing information to her staffers, which led to constant bailing of staff.

Constant bailing is a pretty blatant lie. There was no half assed information provided. Staff had any information they wanted.

As to the new project, if you're interested, you can sign up for the mailing list at the website: kingsmouth.vertinext.com (look at the bottom)

ThatGuyThere · Sep 3, 2015, 4:51 PM

While I have vociferously disagreed with a couple of policies onthese boards, and I no longer play there. I am genuinely sorry to hear of this closing. Kingsmouth was one of the better games I have been on and despite my general distaste for vampire I enjoyed my time there a lot.
And Shavalyoth always struck me as a person who honestly cared about others which is a quality is short supply in the world in general, especially in our hobbies corner of it. I wish her hte best in what she does from here on out nad iwould likely play any game she had a hand in runnign that was not vampire based despite my disagreement on some policy things.
A game closing is never a good thing, but I am glad the option remains for people to get closure to their stories.

lordbelh · Sep 3, 2015, 5:30 PM

@Tempest said:

@Shears said:

Are there literally any other good vampire games

If by 'good' you mean has political shit, titles, feeding code, territory systems, and PvP...(The only things I can think of that RfK has and the other current GMC vamp games don't.)

No, because it's been proven time and again that stuff inevitably blows up.

Yet that wasn't what blew the game up. Frankly the political shit, feeding code, territory system and PVP are the reasons that RfK was so ballz amazing when it was running well. What RfK proved to me was that if you have the proper systems in place, where the PVP is not all about RAWRFACE, then its pretty damn awesome. Without territory systems, political shit, feeding restrictions, etc, PVP always becomes a matter of pure brute force. RfK didnt suffer that, and that was great. Time and time again those who attempted brute force found that rather than put them on the top of the food chain, that playstyle actually cost them more than it was worth. Which isnt to say rawrface didnt happen, just that it wasn't instant win, instant make you the top dawg.

Tempest · Sep 3, 2015, 5:35 PM

And yet..here we are, with RfK closing with the primary reason apparently being that the Head Staffer was no longer able to dedicate an inordinate amount of her time to dealing with the massive mountain of work caused by those systems.

Not saying the game is bad or anything, just that all those functions produce an unsustainable game. Be it because drama will win out, or because staff will burn out incredibly fast or eventually not be able to dedicate 10+ hours every day to staffing.

3543thrh67 · Sep 3, 2015, 5:38 PM

It makes me think rather well of the head staffer, surprisingly. She chose to close down a game some people obviously love because she didn't want to let her visions and what people seem to be enjoying go to pot. It does make the game go off on a good note over, say (as the only ones that was busy and active, that I know) The Reach and Firan's going down. (Not that TR is fully down or anything). Good for head staff for caring enough to keep his or her vision for the current Kingsmouth what she wanted it to be and what people seemed to enjoy.

mietze · Sep 3, 2015, 5:40 PM

The Prince was not idle.

My understanding is that there were some questionable things happening staffside with not the time to get a handle on them. Whether this was a communication issue or an ethical one I don't know. And there's always more than one side of the story.

But idle Prince? No.

mietze · Sep 3, 2015, 5:45 PM

That being said, I will miss the game immensely as well as the people on it. I think it'll be hard for me to play on another vampire game, and I forgot how much I love single sphere. I'm game for suggestions as to where others are going though.

Ganymede · Sep 3, 2015, 6:06 PM

Definitely not an idle Prince. He attended a meeting I ran yesternight, actually.

I concur with everything lordbelh said. The RfK experiment proved that you can run a vampire sphere that doesn't explode due to "IN YO FACE" force. In fact, it proved that operating an effective off-screen influence system is the key to doing so.

Far be it for me to propose that on another game, though, right? Because who the fuck listens to me, unless it's several years down the road?