Reasons why you quit a game...

[Auspice]

@tez said in Reasons why you quit a game...:

Every game I have quit was due to staff acting in a way I found unethical.

This is almost always it.

• Dragonsfire: Quit because Staff declared that if you were logged in, you must be RPing or actively seeking RP. You were not allowed to be logged in to be 'hanging out.' I found that to be a bullshit rule and left.
• Harper's Tale: Kira's rules of 'no descs longer than 100 words' for a while led me to quit for a bit because she had some other crazy going on and I just didn't want to be around for it.
• SerenityMUSH: Inara got jealous of my friendship with Mal, booted me and my crew off my ship (that we'd worked our ass off to obtain) onto an unoccupied planet, took it for her and her friends, and told me 'teehee just make plot!'
• This one isn't Staff, but still stung: WNOHGB: had salvaged the best non-Starfleet ship on the game. My co-owner of the company, while I was on vacation, approved a merger with another company. They, while he was offline, went on the ship, transported us all off onto a station, and stole it. (Ahhh, the good ol' late 90's / early 00's of gaming)

...I have a lot of heartbreak tied to losing spaceships.

[Cupcake]

Fairness is important. If I feel that staff is being unfair to a level that I cannot tolerate, I leave.

Feeling safe is important. If staff kanyeshrugs the fact that I don't feel safe, I leave.

Sometimes things don't work out how I want to in RP. In this case, sometimes I leave, and sometimes I don't. I'm aware that it may be percieved as selfish, but I also accept the consequences of choosing to remove myself and understand that it means staff will likely do as they like with my character for good or ill.

If there's just no RP to be had, or I'm just not situating comfortably, I will probably leave.

[ThugHeaven]

I think “real life got me” is a pretty valid reason. I was playing a game where at the time, I got off work at 10 pm and it really felt like I was playing catch-up or people were winding their own RP down. Since that has changed, I still haven’t been back though.

Other reasons I can think of off the top of my head:

Incompetent/shady staff. I’ll give a couple examples of this one.

One game, I was a new player. I log on and start asking questions about the game and world. The head staffer says “Hey, I know the org that’ll be just right for you!.....and why don’t you LEAD it?” Of course I don’t think that’s a good idea because, I’m new to the game, I’m not very familiar with the system and there’s already people that were trying to get the position he was trying to throw me into.

It went over about as well as I thought it would. Players that were supposed to be my minions didn’t want to rp with me because of perceived favoritism (when I didn’t even know this guy), I struggled with the game’s commands and the same staffer was really whiny on pub. I think I lasted about two weeks.

This next one was a little different. I join a game, good group of players, really good time. My character dies; no biggie, I’ll roll up another one. The staffer asks me to play a role. Sure I’m up for it. The role required some staff support and I’m assured I’ll get it. It was one of those “if you write it and I approve it, I’ll put it in, if not I’ll kick it back to you make some changes.” type of deals. I get back in the game and the role has nothing, I’m going to need heavy support. People want to buy stuff immediately and I take the orders. Send them to staffer and weeks go by, more people order stuff, nothing....I ping him, hey where’s my stuff?

Now an aside here: I’ve staffed before and I know on games like this, it literally takes 30 seconds to load up objects that are already in the DB. Something is wrong here.

Staffer gets back to me. “Oh, sorry....it’s mainly just me handling things. I’m pretty overwhelmed....blah blah, woe is me overwhelmed staffer.” He also whined about other players to me. If you haven’t noticed by now....not really a fan of staffers who complain to players. Especially when I know what they’re saying just...isn’t true and I’m thinking what are they saying about me behind my back? Also when he finally does get around to load up the things that only take 30 secs to load, he doesn’t load up enough of them. So I have to hound him again for the rest.

Other greatest hits from this guy include: bragging on the game’s forum about loading up a custom squirrel fur bikini for a player because that just tickled him so much. Meanwhile, the things I wrote up, things my org needed to run, that were absent from the game were ignored and called “flavor items”. Guess I didn’t write them up sexy enough or funny enough.

Long story short....yeah, I left there without a word too.

[Tat]

@mietze Not gonna lie, super impressed with your ability to type while nursing. The best I ever managed was playing XCOM.

[Thenomain]

A game I was super invested in?

I have never left a game I was that invested in.

I have become less invested because of basically the three reasons mentioned by @Ganymede, but I will find a way to stay on a game if I enjoy my character enough.

I’ve even played a game through three months of being actively campaigned against by several players, behind my back. And I’m glad I did, because I am still telling stories about the experience, and made some very lasting friends from it.

[Caryatid]

Echoing @tez and @tat, when I leave a game for good (in those cases where I am still invested in the characters I'm playing) it has almost always been due to

1. staff malfeasance or behaviours that I find toxic or unethical and
2. being utterly unable to then get away from those people and just do my own thing in a corner with people whose RP I still enjoy, playing characters I still love.

There have been games where I haven't become invested due to any number of other reasons (sterile atmosphere, obnoxious players, setting didn't click for me). But when I love a game and leave it anyway... it always comes down to no longer feeling comfortable condoning the game and/or staff by remaining there. Once it gets to that point, the bridge is burned for me.

[Apos]

Now one important thing for staff. You'll hear through the grapevine about people quitting for wildly hypocritical reasons, absurd reasons, reasons based off of things factually untrue. I never think it's worth it to argue your point of view to anyone that's left for any reason. Never chase people. You can think about their concerns, work to address ones you thought were valid underneath the vitriol or hyperbole, and dismiss the ones that are unreasonable.

I never chase people, though I do try hard to look at it from their perspective, and more often than not it can still be thrown out.

[RnMissionRun]

I've mostly quit games because of staff. There was a time when I would try to put up with if I was still having fun on the game otherwise but these days I bail at the first sign of trouble. I simply do not have the patience to deal with crazy staffers anymore.

[saosmash]

@apos It's wise to let people go without chasing, yes. If it has already reached the point where a player is leaving, let em go. They're done.

The rest of this you may want to rethink because it kinda reads like you are speaking from within an echo chamber, dude.

[ixokai]

I generally quit games for two reasons.

Either A) RL hits me in the face, or B) I'm bored and nothing happens.

Sure, I've seen my share of drama, but its rare that issues are what makes me quit a game.

ETA:

I do remember quitting the Unwanted/Unwelcome/Unsomething, a WOD mush I actually coded for, because I played my one alt with two characters. Turns out, those were alts of one player. I didn't know it.

Staff got super hard on me for alt-conflict/COI issues because I was supposed to be the one responsible for making this situation not happen. Note: nothing actually every happened where I like, took info from one alt to the other, or anything like that.

But I still had no idea they were the same alts. But it was on ME, not THEM, that staff put the alt-conflict burden on.

I was all wtf: fu. Good bye.

[Caryatid]

@apos

[Chet]

I usually quit a game because of a combination of these two factors: a) conflict between factions shuts down, and b) coffee chat roleplay takes over. I personally don't like a game without a competitive feature IC, especially when it compartmentalizes the playerbase into book nook circles. I'm hesitant to say 'cliques', as a clique doesn't really fit the description, and that's more a future roleplaying circle to create a MUSH based around their shared interests, so it's somewhat beneficial.

[loke]

@sunny You can still provide them if you feel like something can be learned from it. Maybe I was a bit heavy handed in my Dos and Don'ts on how I presented them.

[Packrat]

I have quit too many games to remember due to timezones. It is immensely frustrating to be on a huge populated game where people really like your character and work to include you, but actual meaty RP or plots only begin to start at about two in the morning.

That might have worked when I was a student but as an adult I need my sleep schedules and have to be functional for work.

[loke]

@ganymede
Per 1., do you think it would be possible for staff to recover from this in any way?
Not like, over time, but from a specific instance. If you had a major problem with a staff decision, how would you like it to be resolved in terms of an ideal way? (obviously, probably past staffers you're thinking of might not have the soft skills to pull it off, so maybe shoot for the beats in a convo you would have liked to have seen or something)

Would you be open to bringing up your grievance with a decision if you trusted the staff? Or do you get the sense that most staffers are MY WORD IS FINAL anyways? Or do you even want that kind of resolution? I know some people prefer to let dogs lie and just better results the next time around.

[loke]

@cupcake said in Reasons why you quit a game...:

Sometimes things don't work out how I want to in RP. In this case, sometimes I leave, and sometimes I don't. I'm aware that it may be percieved as selfish, but I also accept the consequences of choosing to remove myself and understand that it means staff will likely do as they like with my character for good or ill.

I think this is valid. Maybe all us egalitarian people might cringe at something not working out in an equitable fashion for all, but it's everyone's right to play or not play a game for their own reasons imho.

On the topic of situating...regardless of whether it is staff or other players' responsibility, do you think there is something that could have been done to help with this? Or is this more along the lines of something like I'm not gelling with the theme, etc.

[loke]

@wolfs
I am inclined to agree with you that the solutions to the mismanagement are pretty clear, but that's basing them on my own perceptions, not how they are received.

As a case to kind of sink teeth into, I'll present a common hypothetical. Say Staff has a policy around anonymity of people reporting things. What if there are people who are more vocal to staff in terms of reporting, whether that's because of personality, they feel more comfortable with staff, etc. And what if because of that, they seem to get more favorable outcomes more often (whether they are or not is not the issue here), what is a good way for staff to combat these perceptions?

These types of conundrums often lead to lots of feelings of favoritism, cliques, etc. Often times Staff may not even be aware of such perceptions since someone is venting in private, etc.

Are there general techniques to combatting this that you respond favorably to? Have seen executed well? How?

[loke]

@three-eyed-crow
Totally agree. Sorry if it seemed like I was implying quitting as a bad thing. I guess I'm trying to approach this as, how can I as a staffer or a fellow player, help create an engaging and fun experience for people.

I'm trying to get past the "well it's not the game's fault or the player's fault" reasons so I can get to things that are addressable, or things that people have thought aren't or don't need to be a staffer's responsibility, but change /could/ provide better results for a player. Maybe I should work on framing my thread prompt better.

Lots of great stuff in here. Thank you!

[Ganymede]

@loke said in Reasons why you quit a game...:

Per 1., do you think it would be possible for staff to recover from this in any way?
Not like, over time, but from a specific instance. If you had a major problem with a staff decision, how would you like it to be resolved in terms of an ideal way?

I would want them to change their minds and do things as I'd recommend. I'm not a dullard, and I would lay a wager that I've more practical experience.

If it wasn't clear, I am driven away from games for personal reasons. Purely personal. I don't expect staff to change their minds just because I disagree vehemently with something they did or do, whether it affects me directly or not.

But I don't take umbrage often. I play where I want to play, and have a mythical ability to get along with just about anyone. What I take offense to are things that most people would. So, it's not just me going.

[loke]

@tez
Do you think there was a way for those games to identify and get rid of those staffers more quickly or mitigate the damage they could cause while investigating?

I don't want to dictate or lead your response, but I've often wondered if more effort/focus towards staff principles (and accountability) would help mitigate a lot of this. I'm thinking of an atmosphere where staff that come on basically know they have to adhere to certain tenets and they are taken seriously by all staff brought on board. A cultural alignment.