When Staff No Longer Cares

[Sunny]

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

@kanye-qwest Eh, if you're the only staffer that can actually do anything? Take a week off, then next week spend time catching up on all the stuff you didn't do, some jobs sit idle for that week, some jobs take a while to process for reasons, more jobs come in and you have to do those, you burn out hard again and take another week...

Not being available isn't the problem, it's being unavailable while also having the entire thing pinned to you, exclusively, being around.

For a WEEK? No. No, that is NOT a problem.

[Tinuviel]

@sunny Did... did you read what I actually wrote?

[Sunny]

@tinuviel

Yes.

If a game relies on a single person for everything (there are a number of small games where this is the case), that single person taking a single week off is not a problem. I don't agree with the premise that a game is failing if everything relies on one person, either. If you're referring specifically to sphere-based WoD games with hundreds of players, sure.

ETA: It can wait. There is no such thing as an actual roleplay emergency. The problem is in the expectation that everything needs to happen NOW NOW NOW.

We have at least one person in this very thread that talks about how they are the only staffer on their games, traditionally. There are ALWAYS going to be things that only she can handle on her games, and those things WILL have to wait, and that is NOT a problem.

[Tinuviel]

@sunny The time taken is irrelevant. If tens of people are relying on you to always be around for every single meaningful thing (which most games don't do, regardless of size) then that is a failure of design.

@sunny said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

There are ALWAYS going to be things that only she can handle on her games, and those things WILL have to wait, and that is NOT a problem.

Yes. And she has also said that not every single thing relies on her. That is not a problem. If nobody could run anything meaningful without her, if no tasks could be done without her supervision, if nothing was capable of moving forward at all without her, that would be a problem. And that is literally what I'm talking about.

[Sunny]

@tinuviel

Oh, I see.

I thought you were having the same conversation everyone else was. Sorry, carry on.

[Tinuviel]

@sunny I started this segment of the conversation.

[Apos]

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

@apos said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

Saying 'this game will have a one year run' probably means it is effectively dead by month five, since no one will want to join a game that's half over.

True, but again that's not what I said. Every story has an ending, so too should every game. Go out with a bang than with a whimper. Games will die, regardless of staff's wishes, though 'people not joining' isn't at all the same as a game being dead.

That is true but it is an unbelievably bad idea to explicitly state this. An overwhelming majority of players in the hobby are invested in the illusion of permanence. It is a core component of why they play these games, and why they choose this RP format compared to others that do not have any sort of environmental permanence. Undermining that will absolutely gut a game's playability. Yes, every game will end. Telling them when it will end ensures it will taper off well before that, unless every player involved was invested in the premise from the start, which will also make it very niche.

It is functionally the same as saying to players, "Don't worry, nothing you do matters at all in game. Have fun!" Someone can do that and if they find success with it, more power to them, but I do not think it is a good idea. This only works if something is being presented afterwards, like reboots and new stories that someone can look forward to, and even then it has tough issues. I must recommend against ever explicitly stating an end to a game, if someone intends for it to be a healthy environment well before that.

[faraday]

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

And that is literally what I'm talking about.

Yeah I think it was just a misunderstanding.

What I (and I think others) read: "Having a game that can't run without you if you decide you don't want to do it any more is doing it wrong."

What I think you were actually saying is more like: "Having all everyday decisions on a game funneling through a single person to the point where nobody can do anything meaningful without that person is a terrible idea." Which I agree with.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday In my defense, what I actually said was:

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

If a game relies entirely on you to function

Which has indeed happened, on a few occasions, though it's not the general way of things and thus is likely to have caused confusion to those that haven't experienced it frequently enough. Though it does seem to be the case with the game the OP was talking about, as without the headstaff husband-and-wife duo the game apparently can't function.

[faraday]

@tinuviel Technically what I was responding to was:

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

If a game can't survive without you, you're doing it wrong.

I think we just had different views about what "survive without you" meant. It's all good.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@apos
I don't personally think the idea of games as permanent and unending is positive for a lot of stories. I feel like the average game has a shelf life of about two or three years best case and staff at least should be realistic about that and structure accordingly. I would welcome staff being upfront but idk if what I want out of a game is what other players want (I hate a solid 50% of my fellow players on a given day so).

[Tinuviel]

@faraday Most likely. In my view survival is the barest ability to do anything. Survival versus actually living, for a vague example.

@three-eyed-crow said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

I don't personally think the idea of games as permanent and unending is positive for a lot of stories.

To a point, I agree. I'd also say that the idea of characters being permanent has also lead to some pretty poor situations. Not like 'characters can never die' or anything, but the fact that many places have so-called dinosaurs bopping around two or three years after creation. We should, generally, probably be more open to the idea of shelving a character and starting something new.

[Thenomain]

@tinuviel said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

@thenomain said in When Staff No Longer Cares:

Make a game that takes the parts that you like and create your own original thing.

I'd also add that one should build their game with the idea that 1) It will eventually end, and 2) You might not be the one to guide it there.

First I'll be nice: I approached this thread to answer "What do I do when the thing I love is abandoned?" How you build a game is up to you.

Now for the blunt:

No. Build the game you want to play. It doesn't matter what that is, but if you don't build what you'd enjoy than there is a non-trivial chance that it will fail. And by fail, I mean "you will not enjoy it" (unless your marker of success is to make money).

It may fail anyway. Who cares? You're there to build a hobby on your own terms. Hell, this space-cowboy game being alleged in the first post, maybe the people running about it don't care about it anymore. I feel bad for the people who are still enjoying it, but it's not their call.

To reiterate Rule #0: RL Comes First. This is true for staff as much as players. This is true about the kind of game built too. I doubt that Multiverse Crisis MUSH had a planned ending and it's still going because this is what they want.

--

So build what you want. Enjoy what you do. If you can't, or don't, the world has a hundred million other things worth your time and energy.

[Sunny]

@thenomain

Best advice I've read in a while.

/signed

[morewinepls]

Reading through all the responses. Thanks for the thoughts. It seems like the best solution is honestly just to ask for the game, or to just keep playing and start to "just do" what we want to do with the overall theme and metaplot. We would ask them for permission first for these things, or try to work with them on their preferences for these things... if they were around.

Because while some are reminding that a week is not a problem, people need to be patient, RL comes first, and so on... the problem is that we are not just talking about someone being offline for a week. We're talking about unannounced 3-4 week absences, where no character applications are processed(!), no stat upgrades are done, and no plot inquiries are answered, because only the missing staff are truly authorized to perform these duties.

Not even character apps are done. Would anyone want to wait three weeks for an app reply? This is doubly frustrating because the game is currently quite active and therefore still gets frequent interest and guests, who then find themselves trapped in approval limbo when they app. We lose new players to this.

I have been around this game on and off since its inception, and have a great deal of affection for it, which is why I am reluctant to name it (the current activity and RP are good despite these issues). But it has always gone through wanes and waxes, and it is frustrating to see it going into another ebb in spite of active players due to the absenteeism of critical staff. So I suppose part of this is just a vent as well.

I would like to be respectful of what these staff want for their game, but it gets difficult when you are essentially down to playing in a static corner because true changes need to run through staff who are not around. It may simply be time to work through it by taking de facto control over more of the metaplot... or to consider creating a new game and transplanting all our RP. Both of these options feel as if they might invite drama, but unless they will pass the game to more active staff they seem like the only options.