Has anyone ever tried to resurrect a dead game with a group of dedicated players?

Ominous

As nice as "if you build it, they will come" would be. Without a plot and things to do, I suspect the place would be rather boring with people TSing for a year or so then slowly dwindling away. We already have a few MUs that fill that particular niche.

Packrat

It really depends on if there is enough residual staff life for one or more of said players to get on staff themselves, once that happens? It coukd work.

It actually did happen on Fading Suns MUSH and the place was pretty active for over a year before burning out and dying again.

Meg

Sometimes, also, staff think that their tools are more accessible and usable than they actually are. That is why having staff will always be important, and a well-organized staff with their fingers on the pulse of their game, so to speak.

No offense, but what I remember from what little I was on your game, @Nein, there was very little organization which made tools unusable.

il-volpe

Yes.

That is 'Game of Bones.' It was dead when it was given to me, was resurrected, and had a pretty decent run -- sizable-enough connect numbers and scenes going on 24-7 for around two years. Lately it's quiet enough that people would probably call it dead, though a core group of dedicated players are still having fun with it.

Apos

Whether someone is a player or staff doesn't really matter all that much, just whether someone is there to create story for other people. A player on a pure sandbox running stories nonstop for 20-30 other people is probably way way more important to the game's vibrancy than a staffer grinding through jobs, and a storyteller on a non-sandbox tying people together and making the stories overlap is gonna be more meaningful for a game's success than a half dozen players chatting in an ooc room or whatever. I honestly don't think the setting matters all that much aside from that initial interest.

Ominous

So we could grab an empty server and start running D&D or Runquest adventures? I had never considered that possibility. Why pay for Roll20?

Lithium

@Ominous Roll20 is free. Don't have to pay a thing unless you want to.

Ominous

@Lithium I think I spent some money there a few years ago, and that translated to requiring a fee in my mind.

Nein

@Meg And what game was that? I weren't aware you were on a MUCK in 2004.

Meg

@Nein Your transformers game in 2014/2015, I think? If that wasn't your game, I apologize for confusing you for someone else. I don't even recall the title of it. I was only on because I wanted to play with friends who were super in to transformers, and the game was really disorganized and undocumented. I didn't manage to stay long, because transformers is not my jam on top of the rest.

Nein

@Meg The 'if you build it' open play game was run in 2004. I did have a TF game, the reason it was disorganized when you got there was because one of the people on the game I was brainstorming with decided to invite a bunch of people on the game before I could even so much as build a room or turn off login screen create. Said person then had their sister open a wiki "on my behalf" without telling me, and before I knew it I had a bunch of people who were looking at me expectantly for RP while I simultaneously had to build, code, write news files, chargen and try to run plots all by myself, which is kind of like trying to finish putting the chassis on a car while while it's going 55mph down a highway.

Yeah, that's going to mean things aren't as transparent or open. They weren't even there to BE transparent.

surreality

@Nein Everything you describe having happened here, I have seen it happen, too, and oh sweet mother of pearl, buckets of sympathy. Nothing ever got me to throw up my hands with a, "Fuck this, fuck that, fuck everything, I'm out!" faster than this breed of insanely entitled madness.