Euphoria - Feedback

[Sunny]

@cyberdemon

Awesome. I'm really happy for you! I am so glad it's working well for you. It's absolutely not the general case though.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/5/1729/htm
https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/113/8/531/5860841
https://www.baltimoresun.com/coronavirus/bs-hs-mental-health-issues-during-pandemic-20200828-aof7ox3mhngkvf6zql36kb43mq-story.html

If anyone is interested in further reading, I have more where those came from. I'm also happy to dig around and find a few that are more laymen friendly if needed, but I figured the horse's mouth would be more effective here.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@cyberdemon said in Euphoria - Feedback:

I would think that such a thing would increase online activity of this sort, not decrease it, since people are no longer permitted to have normal social lives in many jurisdictions.

It did for a while, at least in terms of character creation/apps, at the beginning of the pandemic in March through...I'd say about May or June? But that's tapered off into exhaustion mode for a lot of people in more recent months. That was my experience on a couple games (not Euphoria because...oh gosh, I am part of this pattern and new things are hard), at least, but it feels pretty typical as far as a pattern.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

Most games -- in the MU* hobby and otherwise -- that I am in touch with report the same kind of slump and exhaustion. The same applies in real life -- hell, my neighbour who is usually all but anal retentive about his lawn has more or less let his roof collapse because with all the free time of quarantine, he gets nothing done at all.

It's not a matter of free time but of emotional exhaustion. I suspect that a lot of games and communities are going to need to accept that half or more of the customer base is flying at one quarter impulse until further notice.

[Phalkyn]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Euphoria - Feedback:

It's not a matter of free time but of emotional exhaustion. I suspect that a lot of games and communities are going to need to accept that half or more of the customer base is flying at one quarter impulse until further notice.

Nailed the Trek reference

[Cobalt]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Euphoria - Feedback:

Most games -- in the MU* hobby and otherwise -- that I am in touch with report the same kind of slump and exhaustion. The same applies in real life -- hell, my neighbour who is usually all but anal retentive about his lawn has more or less let his roof collapse because with all the free time of quarantine, he gets nothing done at all.

It's not a matter of free time but of emotional exhaustion. I suspect that a lot of games and communities are going to need to accept that half or more of the customer base is flying at one quarter impulse until further notice.

Yeah, @Sunny really helped me here. Like I said, I can be patient until people have time. The game doesn't cost me much right now. And I have a handful of people who are around and enjoying themselves. So I'm going to enjoy running stuff with them, and if more people come along later? That'll be grand.

I really just needed to recalibrate my expectations.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Cobaltasaurus Yeah. Same for me on the two games I am on. It's a little meh to see them go quiet and people be busy or too depressed/stressed to play. But it's how it is right now. Might help a bit when we clear the initial weeks of September where a lot of things are starting back up after summer. Might not clear until we've cleared November. Either way, as long as folks have a grid to have fun on when they are able, I think our games are doing everything they can.

[Cobalt]

We haven't had a new scene in almost 2-weeks (at least not a finished one), and we're down to around 5-people actively logging in (myself included). I'm not quite yet ready to hang in the towel. So I've been thinking about what to do. And one thought is that I might just write up resolutions to the various plots, get info on what people want to do, and from there we'll go on a hiatus of me actively running plots while I work on code, theme, and various organizational stuff on the website. Then in either November or December we'd open for beta with updated theme and plot, with a slightly slower pace and more reasonable expectations. Otherwise... I might go ahead and throw the towel in and we'll work on something else.

I've set up a google form to your opinions on it, and if you think it'd be worth it to do the above or not.

If you were a player or are one of the folks still logging in, please consider taking a moment to click the link and share your opinion.

https://forms.gle/VUqXhKCFXktGwmfy5

[SixRegrets]

I'm not quite entirely sure what happened to me getting situated on the game, at least. I had a rough start with an unwittingly slow welcome scene that I just kinda petered out on mentally and went full ADHD on procrastinating continuing, and then never quite.. looked in. The premise of the game is super interesting, my mind has just been elsewhere rather than into roleplaying as of late.

I hadn't realized that things had ground to a halt, even.. the window just kinda sat there in BeipMU, occasionally demanding that the window be paid attention to. I have no issue with current plots given that I don't quite know what's going on in that department.

[Auspice]

I've hit a huge RP burnout due to RL stuff. It's kinda sucked and it totally isn't the game: I'm barely logging in anywhere right now.

The idea of resolving plots via +job and having people RP out the results is something @Paradox and I have considered. Because we encountered the very same issue. As soon as we stopped running things, people stopped playing. And I had issues getting people to commit/engage with the plot you handed me. People would say yes I'll be there and then... not show. And I didn't want to run for a single person (though I guess I could've, but it felt meh for me and I didn't feel it'd be fun for them, either).

I'm not sure what the special sauce is to get people to generate their own RP vs only engaging when there's staff-run plots happening. It works on some games and not others. Sci-fi games seem to especially be hit by it these days and I don't know why since it's my favorite genre (and it's why I've been super hesitant to do my own sci-fi theme again).

[Tinuviel]

@Auspice said in Euphoria - Feedback:

I'm not sure what the special sauce is to get people to generate their own RP vs only engaging when there's staff-run plots happening. It works on some games and not others.

Often, and this isn't necessarily relevant for Euphoria, it's because staff-run plots 'count' whereas other RP doesn't. Anything that isn't run by staff is social RP, and that doesn't count towards... whatever it is people keep score of.

[Auspice]

@Tinuviel said in Euphoria - Feedback:

@Auspice said in Euphoria - Feedback:

I'm not sure what the special sauce is to get people to generate their own RP vs only engaging when there's staff-run plots happening. It works on some games and not others.

Often, and this isn't necessarily relevant for Euphoria, it's because staff-run plots 'count' whereas other RP doesn't. Anything that isn't run by staff is social RP, and that doesn't count towards... whatever it is people keep score of.

That is, simply put, dumb. Not your take on it. People who behave this way.

Because many staff pick up stuff from the flow of social rp to run with. Because players are sometimes handed plot by staff that will impact the world / metaplot (I have had this on multiple occasions over the years and it has been advertised as 'this event pertains to metaplot' and people still don't show up').

It's just this....need....to have a Staffer at the helm. Like people need to perform for them. And I think it burns out staffers and hurts games.

But this isn't euphoria feedback and it's me feeling frustrated because I enjoy euphoria. I want to be able to jump back in once I'm over my current burnout but I'm afraid to run prps if no one is gonna care just because I'm not staff.