Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing

Ghost

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Who do I trust to Staff? (and before you open your mouth, @Ghost, trusting someone enough to Staff with them is a whole other bag than roleplaying with them)

(With mouth stapled shut)
hhrrrrIIII hrrrrrGreeEEe

faraday

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

This could be done in a number of ways, absolutely. And many of them already exist.
Ares and its MU-in-a-box.
Arx providing its code open-source so people can use it as a structure for their own game (Ithir!).
Theno and his WoD code.

Except that two out of those three things would not exist if folks like @Griatch and I accepted the basic premise that tech doesn't help get new blood and that building better tech is "a waste of time". So I do reject that premise.

Tech is not the only answer, but I wholeheartedly believe it is an important part of the solution.

Auspice

@faraday said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

This could be done in a number of ways, absolutely. And many of them already exist.
Ares and its MU-in-a-box.
Arx providing its code open-source so people can use it as a structure for their own game (Ithir!).
Theno and his WoD code.

Except that two out of those three things would not exist if folks like @Griatch and I accepted the basic premise that tech doesn't help get new blood and that building better tech is "a waste of time". So I do reject that premise.

Tech is not the only answer, but I wholeheartedly believe it is an important part of the solution.

Well, I put the Arx one on @Tehom more than @Griatch. Evennia is still super intimidating (I love it in concept and if I was good with Python I've got like, 3 different ideas for the codebase ... but I am not remotely strong enough a coder to even begin).

Yes, tech is important. Yes, it can help get new blood.
But these solutions are still geared towards 'people already here.' (aka someone brand new who has never heard of MUing is highly unlikely to grab Evennia and build a game)

Like I said: a lot of times tech comes up, it's for 'what bells and whistles can we add to appeal to the Kids Of Today?' ...

IMO, culture and game options are the big deal. Yes, tech HELPS but it is not the answer (which, as @Ghost pointed out, it's often touted to be).

SquirrelTalk

@Auspice I'm not sure what counterpoint you're trying to make. They're saying tech is important, but not the sole answer; and you keep coming down on tech as not being the answer... which is in line with what they said. You're both essentially saying the same thing, but the way you put it makes it sound like you're denigrating technological improvements as essentially pointless. Which I don't think you ARE, but your responses are confusing.

Auspice

@SquirrelTalk said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Auspice I'm not sure what counterpoint you're trying to make. They're saying tech is important, but not the sole answer; and you keep coming down on tech as not being the answer... which is in line with what they said. You're both essentially saying the same thing, but the way you put it makes it sound like you're denigrating technological improvements as essentially pointless. Which I don't think you ARE, but your responses are confusing.

What I'm saying is:
Quite often (Faraday isn't, personally) when 'how do we get new people?' comes up, peoples' answer is: we need more cool toys! Give them button interfaces instead of text!
etc.
While ignoring the social points that @Ghost brought up.

I'm saying:
I agree that tech helps, but not that tech. And even 'make it easier to make games' is not the answer. It's part of it.

Ganymede

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

While ignoring the social points that @Ghost brought up.

I ignore Ghost's points because they are an inevitability for which he has no solution.

Improving the technology on which we play is something which a number of people are engaged in, and it seems to be improving our access to the games we want to play. Improving the technology therefore is a solution within our grasp.

Making people not be assholes is not, and therefore not worth much, if any, consideration.

Auspice

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Making people not be assholes is not, and therefore not worth much, if any, consideration.

But it's not always people being assholes, is it?

Sometimes it's a difference in vision. This loops back into what was being discussed re: 'staff not always communicating clearly what their vision is / players not always respecting it.' How it came into a: Staff needs to be more willing to sit people down and say 'This may not be the place for you.' Because square peg into round hole is frustrating for everyone and absolutely leads to conflict.

Not every social issue on games is because of assholes.

Ghost

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

While ignoring the social points that @Ghost brought up.

I ignore Ghost's points because they are an inevitability for which he has no solution.

Improving the technology on which we play is something which a number of people are engaged in, and it seems to be improving our access to the games we want to play. Improving the technology therefore is a solution within our grasp.

Making people not be assholes is not, and therefore not worth much, if any, consideration.

Well, sure, if people come to these games for the technology and not the interaction with people. However, it's the people who drive the environments more than the actual tech; people have been playing on these games for decades despite using some of the same tech they did 10 years ago.

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I ignore Ghost's points because they are an inevitability for which he has no solution.

au contraire, I have solutions in mind, but step one is in identifying the problem. Step two is agreeing that a solution should be found. Step three is implementation.

There's little point in discussing a solution to a problem that people don't want to tackle, which is why I'm currently in "pointing out the problem" mode and not "HERE'S WHAT WE DO" mode.

SquirrelTalk

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Making people not be assholes is not, and therefore not worth much, if any, consideration.

I don't know if THAT'S true. We can at least recognize the problems and patterns and make some kind of effort to explicitly keep an eye out for/discourage that behavior and enforce rules against it. It may go without saying to some of us - and the people who don't care will continue not to care - but people who haven't thought of everything can still learn from having it spelled out and keep it in mind.

Though I agree it's not neccessarily constructive to hammer on that point, as it can feel discouraging in a thread about improving things, when there are no solutions being presented apart from 'keep this in mind and enforce it if you yourself are not also an asshole'.

Technology is kind of the part we have control over, and while I don't think it's as simple as 'push buttons to go north', just general accessibility for building and playing is important. A visual interface to simplify the complicated stuff, or a way to take a broader look at a grid map. The occasional drop down menu, or tabs with different information in them. Stuff like that. Lord knows a way to visualize an actual visual grid and just plug locations onto it, or click distant locations to go straight there would be lovely, if it doesn't exist already. But I'm not the person who can make all that. Nothing wrong with dreaming, though.

Thenomain

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

This doesn't, however, disagree with his premise that 'tech is not the answer to getting new blood.'

Then I'll say it:

Tech is part of the answer to getting new blood.

Responsible staffing is part of the answer to keeping it.

Along with responsible staffing, here is a short list of things I have observed to keep people playing, not all of which are needed and some may repeat or even counteract each other:

Interested staff, interesting events, support of player creativity, supported setting, supported theme, whatever you—the reader—personally think you'd like to play with other people about.

Pick your mix. Add whatever you'd like.

Prototart

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

There's little point in discussing a solution to a problem that people don't want to tackle, which is why I'm currently in "pointing out the problem" mode and not "HERE'S WHAT WE DO" mode.

how can you even sit there & imply that "let's make a version of mu in a minute that works" isnt a viable solution to "the actual reasons normal people refuse altogether to mu or drive them off after a short time are entirely due to a culture of acceptance of horrible behavior & mediocrity" w a straight face

to not mean girl it like i get the hope is that widely accessible and easily understandable code will help functional ppl start games but history just makes me think all it will do is result in a couple more terrible games

every single horror story game has been run by someone who thought they were equipped for it and doing a good job of it and and that anyone who had a problem was the real problem, and that will literally never change unless people decide to stop putting up with this kind of shit even when it doesn't personally inconvenience them and when you consider that the very worst of the worst of the worst games ever, almost none of them closed bc people left they just closed bc someone quit paying for the server one day i wouldnt be super optimistic

Thenomain

@Prototart said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

how can you even sit there & imply that "let's make a version of mu in a minute that works" isnt a viable solution to "the actual reasons normal people refuse altogether to mu or drive them off after a short time are entirely due to a culture of acceptance of horrible behavior & mediocrity" w a straight face

Because you have to be extremely careful when you try to make a technical solution solve social issues.

What an Insta-Mush does is to reduce your overhead to get started running and/or playing. What it doesn't do by default is make staff better or make players better. Maybe it helps in reducing the emotional investment in the game and therefore staff might be less likely to lash out to players. I'd give you that.

I know that @faraday has tried to design Ares with some things that lead to certain social behavior, either freedom of it or steering it a certain direction. I've certainly made code decisions thinking, "How do people want this code to work and how do I see people abusing it." It's a balancing act, but I don't expect most of my code to solve situations of bad behavior. I try to make staff's job as easy as possible, even in these situations.

At least that's what I see @Ghost saying. If I've misread your point, ignore the above as pertaining to you, tho I'm pretty resolute in my core thesis: Getting code to solve social issues is hard to do.

Ganymede

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

There's little point in discussing a solution to a problem that people don't want to tackle, which is why I'm currently in "pointing out the problem" mode and not "HERE'S WHAT WE DO" mode.

The topic at hand is how to bring new players into the hobby.

If I did not want to discuss it, I simply would not. But I have seen nothing to discuss; all of the problems identified have been identified several times before.

Many solutions have been previously posited, but few have been implemented. I have neither the time nor the inclination to do anything but act at this point. If you want to continue to merely point out the problems, by all means; I have nothing to add or criticize.

Thenomain sums everything up well. These suggestions have been made before.

We should get past "HERE'S WHAT WE DO" mode, and get into "DO" mode.

Ghost

Here's some suggestions. They're maybe not perfect or polished, but I think they're fair in terms of "how can we better address the social BS in the hobby". I don't want to be the annoying guy with opinions who isn't bold enough to throw down some potential solutions.

Make it regular that staff will considered screen-shot logs from chats/discord that amount to bullying/whisper campaigns of other players as actionable items for "warns/bans" on games. Likewise, bullying on the Hog Pit/MSB can be actionable on games: The stance that "if it happens off-game it's not a game problem" isn't exactly accurate. These side-zones are just the arenas where mistreatment of players happens, and it's no different than the concept that a "fight behind the church isn't a fight on school grounds". Just because it's being taken off-site doesn't mean it's not a problem on-game. If people had to be responsible for the shitty things they spread about other players (in the game(s) they play together), then they would reign in their shitty behavior a bit.

I get that staff aren't your parents and in many cases they're just fellow mushers who are dedicating their time, but I believe most of us are keenly aware that the bullying in the hobby that takes place server-side is usually performed by dumb motherfuckers who are creeping. I think we're all very aware that the smart people who bully take that stuff offline to other locations where there's no current standard of them having to answer for their behavior towards other players.

Constructive critique is one thing. Character assassination is another. I've stated many times (and will again!) that I have learned FAR too many personal details of players that I should never have learned due to another player simply telling me out of anger to fuck them over.

Implement a X-strikes rule where page/chat logs of someone being sexually harassed by other players (with 'please stop' dialogue) will result in being escorted off of the game: Due to excessive bullying, harassment, and stalking I know players who have decided it's better to mitigate the problem rather than deal with it staff-wise as to not make it a "staff problem" that could result in mistreatment or avoidance by staff. This may not be the absolute solution, but is a way of handling it.
There IS wrongfun: Take the stance that there are things that the "RP" games don't want crossing lines with. If you don't want the lines blurred between pedophile havens like PenDes bleeding onto your server side? Be vocal about it. Put up notices that this kind of behavior and RP expectation is not desired. Don't "ehhhh" it and let the players thrive until they break a rule because being upfront about them not being welcome could affect login numbers. If you say 'no rape roleplay' and someone complains about rape scenes? BOOT. If you say 'no characters under 18' and players start making characters who 'look' 18 but have 15 year old PBs acting as if they're hush-hush not 18? BOOT. Staff has a responsibility to keep their environment clean and safe for the players who want a clean, safe environment to RP in. Fuck the numbers.
Mission Statements: I know these can be just blabber, but there's something to be said by being up-front about things like "We are a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural group that will work to respect each other for our differences". Sure, it may just be fluff, but if you openly state the ethics of your game and staff, and the ethics your players are expected to follow, you may lose some players who are like "whut? I can't make fun of people behind their backs and be judgy?", but IMO? Good riddance. There may be some influential assholes in the hobby, but maybe if their shit wasn't allowed to take so much root it would be less of an issue. Because ultimately: What corrects large social problems in groups of people is deciding WHO you want to be and WHAT you want things to be like, and then committing to it. Sometimes stating that by agreeing to play you're going to commit to trying to follow those good-friendship type values helps make it happen, and you just might find that if people begin to love those values, the people who fail to agree to those values will be on the outs.

@Prototart said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

how can you even sit there & imply that "let's make a version of mu in a minute that works" isnt a viable solution to "the actual reasons normal people refuse altogether to mu or drive them off after a short time are entirely due to a culture of acceptance of horrible behavior & mediocrity" w a straight face

I went to the Alan Rickman school of sardonic straight-faced line delivery; that's why.

Anyway, the above suggestions may not be absolutely perfect in wording, but they're ideas. Ideas get the ball rolling and get people talking.

Ganymede

@Ghost

These are good suggestions, all of which I intend to use if I can finally get all of my fucking theme and setting files done without being brain-jacked.

Ghost

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Ghost

These are good suggestions, all of which I intend to use if I can finally get all of my fucking theme and setting files done without being brain-jacked.

If you need someone to help word "be good to each other" policies/mission statements, I'm down to help. I'll write 'fuck' less in them for you.

Ganymede

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I'll write 'fuck' less in them for you.

This is a bug, not a feature.

Thenomain

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

If you need someone to help word "be good to each other" policies/mission statements, I'm down to help.

Just ping @Apos to give his top, mm, three to five things people should do or not do. Or one. I have confidence he could get it down into one.

Possibly "Be good to each other."

On Dark Water, it was:

Act like an adult.
Treat others like adults.
Respect others and expect to be respected.

I believe there was something about taking an adult situations out of public places if asked by another player, because this came up way too many times.

99% of the players respected all of this. At least in public. Sometimes they were disrespectful of staff, but since @Cobaltasaurus is nicer than she needs to be, almost nobody got thrown off the game for it.

Cobalt

@Thenomain said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

99% of the players respected all of this. At least in public. Sometimes they were disrespectful of staff, but since @Cobaltasaurus is nicer than she needs to be, almost nobody got thrown off the game for it.

I mean, I did lose my shit on Circe@HM's player once (I can't remember her MSB name), for being kinda shitty to staff. I believe my words were "if you ever treat my staff like that again, you're gone".

But mostly I let @Tributary handle banning b/c she was far more impartial and fair, than I. So we only banned people for being a true bother to the game, or staff. I think... we once asked someone to leave because they were taking up like 98% of my time?

But Darkwater's main rule was:

If it becomes a problem, it will be dealt with when it comes up.

We didn't have extensive policies other than that. Then we eventually added an "expected behavior" or something other soft policy, that included rules on how to behave in public. It was things like "don't huggle-snuggle people on public channel, unless you know they want it. respect people's OOC physical boundaries" and then we had a policy on "no rape RP in public spaces, or pushed onto other players b/c no one wants to deal with it but you" (phrased nicer, mind).

Thenomain

@Cobaltasaurus said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

It was things like "don't huggle-snuggle people on public channel, unless you know they want it. respect people's OOC physical boundaries"

This was the element I forgot, yes. (Half mentioned in "respect others and expect to be respected".) And I was quoting the behavior policy.

"Don't make staff care" is a pretty damn good policy for games with responsible staff. There's no policy that will help a game with irresponsible staff.

I didn't want to mention the "no rape" policy because I didn't want this thread to become a discussion of details. You can usually tell who to toss by their general behavior, even over specific situations.