I know I'm not a major contributor, and I know I've been away for a while, but I, for reasons that are probably insane, used MSB as a litmus test. It's how I knew what games were active.
Coming back after a long hiatus, I can't seem to find a tentpost type game. Where are people playing? What games are active? I'd love to jump back in, but I can't seem to find an active game 
its....not it's...i'm the worst =x and I don't know how to edit things...and I'm sure i'm in the wrong forum....i'm awful.
Dots to the right?
bleh, this was not constructive!!! I just wanted to know if there were games that were active and devoid of "drama". I'm a super casual, and so I never really hear about things ,and so every time I try to come back, all the games are different.
So i guess I want to know if I'm just hopeless, or if there are other places where new games are announced, or if maybe there aren't as many games with the populations as there once were.
Or, you know, I guess I wished I could have phrased my question better, and wished I could have rephrased my title...
There is plenty of talk about Arx, all of the time no matter which part of the forum you're in. So I presume that's still active, either that or all Arx players are sharing in some kind of Multi User Shared Hallucination...
He/Him
@Tinuviel You both posted at the same time, but I wouldn't exactly consider Arx (or any sufficiently busy game, really) to be 'drama free'.
I'm not really sure what a 'tentpost game' is. Perhaps you meant sandbox instead?
@SixRegrets No game is drama free, least of all if it's talked about here.
The Advertisements section is a good place to look? Personally I play on two games which I find to be quite drama free, but of course everyone's experiences differ.
A tent pole game is one that is really popular.
If there’s a recent dip in activity, it is likely due to the stress of having kids going through school right now, or being in the service industry, or being an essential worker, or watching the world fall apart around you, or feeling demoralized, or —
Arx is the tent pole game I can think of right now - it's an original theme medievalish fantasy. NOLA, Obsidian Reverie, and Fallcoast exist for WoD/CoD, as far as I know. There are a handful of small town games, a couple supernatural with original themes (Gray Harbor and Spirit Lake, if the latter is still active), and a couple that aren't. There's at least one historical fantasy - The Savage Skies, which is 30s pulp adventure with a tiny bit of added magic, sort of like Indiana Jones with more airships. There's Euphoria for an original SF theme, even.
As well as a historical non-fantasy, Trelawney Cove. 
Plenty games out there. Plenty quiet on most these days because of the trauma conga that is 2020. I'm not personally seeing this as the end of the world -- I'd rather play with 4-5 dedicated people anytime over 200 randoms who are largely there to play MU* Tindr.
There is also Age of Alliances for Star Wars and I think a Saga star wars game too?
There are a few smaller games running around too
If you're looking for "tent pole" with dozens of characters (maybe no players) logged in you're probably looking at Arx, Age of Alliances or Fallcoast on the MUSH side of things. MUDs are a different story
The Network is also gearing up for a new season and has been pretty (fun and) active. If you're a fan of cyberpunk, stop in before things get rolling next month.
You can browse AresMUSH games here: https://arescentral.aresmush.com/games
The stars give an indication of activity, and you can click on a game to see a more detailed breakdown of activity across different days/times. (Obviously activity alone isn't the sole or best measure of a game, but the OP specifically asked for active games.)
@Ganymede said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:
If there’s a recent dip in activity, it is likely due to the stress ...
This. RP is down everywhere - even on other platforms, like Storium. I don't think that's a sign for this hobby in specific.
@RDC said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:
There have been no drama free games. Not since the very inception of this hobby. Not at its height.
There are only games who deal with drama (mostly) well and games that don't.
Also this. Some games are drama tornados, but there's no drama-free game anywhere. Because humans.
Fallcoast (nWoD) and City of Hope (oWoD) are the current tentpole games that I'm aware of. For text-based mmo, Arx -- highly active, lots of people. Lots of awesome smaller games out there too, which people are linking to.
Be aware that the culture in general in the last few years has shifted dramatically on most games away from competitiveness and towards collaboration, and there are a lot of behaviors that people used to get away with that folks will now HANDLE if you report them to staff!
I will add to this that tentpole games can be but are often difficult to be casual in, if the definition of casual is that fade in and out of engagement and RP as interest/life/schedules allow.
It's totally possible to have casual in a large population setting but it often means being okay with being distant of plot and having people to RP with who are chill about your dropping in and out, as time goes on.
I struggled a lot with Arx at the time because at least then it was pretty difficult to keep up with stuff with my then work travel schedule and found that I couldn't be casual, much to my disappointment.
@GangOfDolls This. When we opened Trelawney Cove to the public earlier this month, that became policy -- at this time, the game needs to be casual friendly. Players have so much crap on their hands with 2020 being what 2020 is -- they need to be able to come and go at the pace that suits them, without feeling that they've been left in the dust.
@L-B-Heuschkel said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:
at this time, the game needs to be casual friendly.
This isn't a 2020 issue at all. People have had trouble getting into games long before this year because they are not casual friendly. It's not going to go away once 2020 stops sucking. Like, being casual friendly is something most games should strive for?
Anyway, we have had this discussion like 300000000 times. The hobby isn't dying. The tentpole games are out there. Ares has several active games.
@bear_necessities said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:
Anyway, we have had this discussion like 300000000 times. The hobby isn't dying. The tentpole games are out there. Ares has several active games.
Like clockwork. It's September, of course we're having this conversation again. It literally happens every single September on this board and all previous mush tabloids.
ETA: Next one is scheduled for late November-early December, when the holidays hit, and after that, it will happen again over Spring Break, and then once more in June. Then we'll have it again next September. Almost like it's predictable based on some esoteric, strange, mystical and unknowable (school) schedule, the death of this hobby.
As well as a historical non-fantasy, Trelawney Cove.
Plenty games out there. Plenty quiet on most these days because of the trauma conga that is 2020. I'm not personally seeing this as the end of the world -- I'd rather play with 4-5 dedicated people anytime over 200 randoms who are largely there to play MU* Tindr.
