@ThatOneDude said:
The experience of my friends is theirs but I know they slipped away which as you say doesn't matter in the long run but they never got HOOKED in. I was lucky and got in on a great scene Eerie ran early on that made me excited. Maybe I'm just the kind of person that see's that half-full glass.
I'm one of @ThatOneDude's friends in question.
I got into WoD MUSHes on the nWoD 1.0 system. I had some fun with that in a very small playerbase (12 people max, I think?) which never had a ton of metaplot but had plenty of PvP action, then had some fun on The Reach in small scale monster-of-the-week scenes, but never really got into the same depth of character I had in the previous setting.
I am trying Fallcoast, and I have tried Eldritch and Kingsmouth. I've also tried City of Hope, but I had a hard time getting into it just because of unfamiliarity with the system.
About Eldritch:
I've had a lot of trouble finding an initial hook into RP. Social RP is not the sort of thing I log on to a MUSH to find. I like intrigue and action, which presumably many of you play WoD to find as well. There may be intrigue in social RP, but for me, social RP is a means to an end, as in you finally make a friend who's willing to cut you in on the crazy happenings around the local setting. It's very difficult for me to sit through those types of scenes, but since I tried Eldritch it's just about the only type of scene I've been involved in.
Getting into intrigue-and-action filled RP has been very difficult for me. I personally dislike scenes with over four people in them. My understanding is Eldritch staff attempts to limit attendance to staff-run scenes, too. Every time I've seen a new staff event pop up, it's gotten a flood of signups right off and/or have been oriented toward m/m+, so I haven't really bothered trying to try to make one.
I completely appreciate Eldritch trying to keep it small. Small groups have been the most fun for me and I think 3-4 people a scene is where you can maximize emotes:fun. That said, Eldritch's playerbase has quickly pushed past a manageable ratio for staff, and difficulty of getting in on a staff scene or hearing that the metaplot is moving forward is another obstacle in getting properly hooked into the game.
I haven't really gone out of my way to RP a lot with the playerbase due to lack of interest in social RP, so part of it's on me. As @ThatOneDude says, I just never got hooked into the game initially.
I've also tried Kingsmouth and felt the following (though this was awhile ago, so it could really be outdated):
Kingsmouth's staff seems great. The system seems great. They seem interested in their playerbase's fun and everything. But there's a definite time investment in order to progress that... I guess these days I'm less willing to make, and if you want to get into their downtime territory system, you need a lot of minimums that are very difficult to meet straight out of chargen. That can be frustrating. For me it was and I stopped logging in.
As for Fallcoast:
It's too early to say.
