Shadows Over Reno

[surreality]

@Apocalycious said in Shadows Over Reno:

I have been tempted to offer to help out temporarily with some of the drudgery like updating news files/room descs/wiki pages/etc, but I really don't want to staff permanently, and I'm not sure how useful or desired a week or two of part-time help would be.

I actually did offer -- since their wereperson is out for a while (or permanently? I can't exactly tell?) and I did it before, so it's fairly easy and I know the explanations of the new systems that seem to work (and the ones that don't), but haven't heard anything back about it. Would not take it on full time though, no. Until permanent person was back to pinch hit? Pfft, saw no reason to not offer, since it's just a couple of weeks per the last post about it.

[Lithium]

It's not that I am impatient, it's just right now I am out of the loop, and every day that goes on without even so much as checking a job for /one note/ that needed to be set, and which was set... I just feel like by the time I am approved, when people who app'd /after/ me are getting approved, there will be no niche for me to place myself into. No way to get involved because the clique's will have already formed and I'll end up being the lone werewolf... and werewolf is /really/ not meant to be played solitary imho.

So every day I end up finding myself having even less and less interest in the game because... what's the point? I'm even going to miss out on the big werewolf plot arc due to this.

So yeah. It's not impatience, it's inertia and apathy building at this point.

[surreality]

@Lithium Have you replied to the job to say, 'hey, I set this note, could I please have an update?'

[Lithium]

@surreality Yes. I replied when I set it on Tuesday morning, then I replied again yesterday after it was 60 hours, and then I put in a +request asking what was happening as polite as I could. Still nothing 24 hours later.

[Warma Sheen]

Those really are the most difficult ones to tolerate though. Big stuff is important and you can understand the need to get it right or check with whoever to make sure there's awareness or consensus. But the small things like that eat away at you. Especially in CG where you can't move forward without it. I've done that before. Where a staffer checks jobs once a day and replies to it, then when you reply back in less that 10 seconds you have to wait another 23:59:50 before you get looked at again.

As someone said earlier, its unnecessary and can really be avoided. Of all the games that have happened done well and done poorly, surely there has to be learning that carries over to avoid these mistakes that have been made over and over again...

[Lithium]

Come to find out, the staffer apparently 'stepped down' without announcing anything at all, and apparently didn't bother to check his @mail before doing so, and then they didn't even remove the 'stepped down' staffer from the job until this morning (Where it now sits with no ownership at all). Over 7 days /after/ I put my app in, 6 days /after/ I was asked to set one note, 6 days after I had set that note.

If this place cannot maintain staffers, I don't see a future here.

[Arkandel]

@Lithium The problem with all this isn't that you are wrong. It's that you are neglecting to mention the fact staff has repeatedly said as much - they are having issues finding people to handle jobs, and are unable to meet the volume of +jobs.

In other words we haven't been promised anything else than what we're given. If you don't like it you can walk away - I don't mean that in a flippant fashion or as a flame but .... what do you expect them to do?

The cards are on the table. Stay or go.

[Misadventure]

I'd say it matters if the littlest task is preventing someone from playing.

[Cobalt]

What Lithium is also neglecting to say is the approval procedure. Unless I'm mistaken she/he is technically approved already, the XP spend and the notes are shit that gets taken care of after the character is +approved.

Granted, the approval process is as fucking backwards. But Lithium could be out an RPing. As far as the code is concerned Lithium is approved.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Cobaltasaurus It depends. There hasn't really been a ton of consistency in how/when a bit gets approved for play. Neither of my Werewolves was approved before having all +notes attached to them. That includes Professional Training, Kuruth Triggers, Touchstones, and any pack stuff like Den or Totem. The xp spends, however, had to wait til post-approval on the second character because they changed how cgen was going to happen in the middle of that character's job. So not only did I have to put the spends into the job, I had to turn around and put them in again in +xp/spend format. Which is, I believe, around the same time Lithium's character went through as well.

[Cobalt]

@Miss-Demeanor There hasn't been a lot of consistency is basically the name of the game. Part of the approval mess is my fault: I was like, "You know players can spend their own XP if we toggle in the code right?"

And then we do it, and turns out that whoever input werewolf in Reno didn't account for most XP spending. So Werewolf code is a mess that doesn't work the way it should in the book.

When I offered to change the system over from the half-mess it is to Thenomain's actual working werewolf code I got absolute silence. Even though it probably would have taken me only a couple of hours. I could have done it over a weekend and the code would be working correctly.

It's part of why I stepped down as Nekomata. That and other stuff hasn't been getting done and I don't want it to default to me.

[Arkandel]

I'm not saying in any way there isn't valid criticism to be had here. On the contrary; Reno seems to have been created by, shall we say, cutting corners very liberally. It's clearly been rushed - when it opened we still didn't know basic things about the game ("which Covenant is the Prince from?"), the wiki was a mess, the grid was missing basic builds... it's like the game was launched trying to do the least work possible. Even today the IC information we have about the setting is, to be generous, quite scarce.

Those are valid things to complain about.

But complaining about +jobs being slow after we've been told they will be slow seems silly. In fact it can prove very counter-productive; I'd rather they take a long time than Wendigo being forced to hire bad people just to make the trains run on time.

[Miss Demeanor]

Ehhhhhhhh.. there's slow and there's needlessly slow. If I'm not mistaken, Lithium made his/her character around the same time I made my alt wolf. My alt wolf has been approved and playing for... a week. Seven days as of today. So the same day my alt got approved, Lithium's only character added the one note fix that was asked of him/her... and then has gotten zero response.

I would say that's gripe-worthy, when the people you went through cgen with are out and RPing for a week while you're still waiting for a +approve because of a note. Jobs were told they would be slow... I've been hearing that since apping my first wolf. None of them have been that slow. I would hazard to say that Lithium's app fell through the cracks and they are now justifiably upset over it.

Edit to avoid double post:

@Cobaltasaurus I would absolutely agree that the game was rushed. I kinda feel bad for Wendigo because it seems like she bent to peer pressure to open the doors before the game was actually ready, and then pressured again to open alts before she could get a handle on the initial apps. So just... compounded mistakes on top of half-finished code on top of RL crazy. Its like Reno is cursed.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in Shadows Over Reno:
.

But complaining about +jobs being slow after we've been told they will be slow seems silly. In fact it can prove very counter-productive; I'd rather they take a long time than Wendigo being forced to hire bad people just to make the trains run on time.

Not on Reno so no dog in this fight but there is a rather huge difference to me between slow and no word in 6 days.
To me slow would be in the 3 to 4 day range, I agree hiring bad staff is not the answer but I don't think someone complaining on a six days with no progress is anyway in the wrong either.

[mietze]

I have extraordinary patience for apps, since for whatever reason I seem to be a kiss of death app (with a few rare exceptions). I never got approved on TR with a turn around time of less than 2 weeks (even though I never had anything "special")--even when I was a staffer, and even when it was in a sphere in which I was on good terms with the sphere staff (so, no favoritism on at least look/respond even, jeez did I get the short end of the stick). On a battlestar game I once waited over a week in chargen, because the app person would tell me one thing wrong with my app and then not respond to anything for at least 24 hours--I would correct the one thing they'd mentioned immediately, and then they'd say "Oh yeah, i forgot about X too". They did this 4 times. Until they couldn't log in, and I got "assistance" from another staffer who then complained about all the things that the original one had told me to set up like that. And then never logged in, and I got handed off to a third!

However, it is NOT bad or wrong to feel angst over that kind of lag in CG. Because you are missing out on meeting folks to form up (honestly, I don't know that I would ever worry about permanently missing out on metaplot on a WoD place, but I understand why it can feel urgent!). It is super hard to see people log in post your submission and get approved in less than half the time while you're still waiting on approval after correction. RL sucks, but it also has an impact to the game, like it or not. It is what it is. It's not unreasonable or mean for someone to be annoyed at slipping through the cracks, and at least (I hope) Lithium is doing whatever she can politely in the +job and pinging and venting about it elsewhere vs. being one of those people screaming and crying and ranting and pouting on pub chan. (It used to piss me off to see those folks get approval beause they threw fits on the game, while I was still waiting to be approved after getting a "if everything looks good, let me know and I will approve you!" response on my job, responding immediately with a "Yes, thank you very much!" and still waiting 72 hours later.

[surreality]

@Miss-Demeanor said in Shadows Over Reno:

Its like Reno is cursed.

^ This.

It is a game with so much potential. It really is. And the people who have genuinely done their damnedest to make it work really have tried their best, going all the way back to the very beginning of Reno1.

I know @Cobaltasaurus had horribad luck during Reno1, @tragedyjones was in the same position at various times, Pinball had an endless series of things exploding all over his RL, Triad absolutely had hell on earth going on RL-side, and I came within $14 of bankruptcy two days before Reno1 was handed off to me, @Cobaltasaurus, and Triad way back when.

And that shit was just round ONE for that MUX.

Wendigo and the current crew seem to be having exactly the same luck, and having been there, I genuinely feel for them.

[mietze]

I don't think it's unrecoverable either. :). If things need to be on snooze mode now for awhile I think that's fine as long as it's disclosed. Still loving from Eldritch onwards I have seen WoD places be upfront about the lulls (even though honesty makes people totally freak the fuck out too!)

But it is super frustrating. A little easier perhaps to deal with when you've got a prior association/trust. But be honest, I think whether they express it, most folks would be just a little irritated.

[Arkandel]

@mietze See, Reno's situation reminds me a bit of Vampire@HM - it was kinda like that. Very little staff intervention but a good cast of characters spread out across at least a couple of Covenants... and once people realized that yes, there was nothing governing their steps or hand-feeding them roleplay but there was also nothing in the way of doing with the sphere as they bloody well liked, they took over. The results were great.

I actually think Reno sits kinda on the edge of such a set of circumstances. It could just be that nothing continues to happen and people drift away... or we might collectively look around and realize some of us are pretty damn good roleplayers. I've had great scenes there in both Vampire and (in a PrP) Werewolf; there's no lack of talent.

But flagship players need to lead. I don't just mean 'ranks' here - fuck ranks. I mean lead, take charge, create roleplay for others and generate interest.

From my end I've got a social/political PrP scheduled for this Thursday on Vampire set at the Elysium. Grab a seat.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Arkandel Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... the situation with Vampire@HM also lead to Elsa taking over both ICly and OOCly... and then doing nothing and not letting go. So while there was an uptick in initial activity, it died out pretty damn quickly... and then killed the sphere completely.

[Apocalycious]

@Arkandel said in Shadows Over Reno:

I actually think Reno sits kinda on the edge of such a set of circumstances. It could just be that nothing continues to happen and people drift away... or we might collectively look around and realize some of us are pretty damn good roleplayers. I've had great scenes there in both Vampire and (in a PrP) Werewolf; there's no lack of talent.

I think we have a good set of people in Vampire that mostly means we need just enough staff guidance to let us do our work, and we can probably make plenty of stuff happen and have a great time. I don't think we even need much. Just someone guiding the framework a little bit will go a long way.