@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
I'm sure there are others who didn't mind, didn't care, or directly benefited that didn't see a problem.
Or disagree with your analysis. Keep that in mind, please. Just because we disagree doesn't mean we don't notice, or are apathetic. Or gain something from it. We just disagree or have different experiences entirely.
@too-old-for-this Not at you or, frankly, anyone in this conversation in particular. But these sorts of topics always end up with some measure of One True Wayism going on.
But, to cap this all off, the mere fact that we have such fundamental disagreements (vis a vis privacy/openness, not to mention acceptable staff behaviour, etc) means we'll never get that one true dreamland.
Which is good. More people doing more things in more ways, rather than just one homogenous "this is the only way to run a game" that many WoD games suffer from - as mentioned in the original post.
What's good practice for one group of people is a violation of some deep-held beliefs for another. Design a game, and culture, based around what you want not "because Arx did it that way."
@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
If someone is harassing you on an alt
I very specifically didn't say the word 'harass'.
@il-volpe said in A healthy game culture:
@Tinuviel Stop it vs stop it completely kinda thing.
Still, I disagree. Transparency isn't something we can actually see in action, we simply have to assume that it is when we're told it is. And even if it is evident for some actions, there could very well be things hidden from us for others.
I'm perfectly fine with staff knowing my alts, but I don't want everyone to know. Sometimes I like to avoid people for a time, and not be hassled or feel compelled to engage with them. For instance.
ETA: This is to say, I don't trust anyone not to be corrupt and/or break rules. I hope they will, but bad actors are going to be bad actors regardless. VPNs are affordable enough that it is conceivable that someone can violate an IP ban relatively easily, so even that level of punishment doesn't actually guarantee anything.
@il-volpe said in A healthy game culture:
Transparency does stop them.
Eh, not really. Players can never actually know what's truly going on, and whether what they're being told is what's happening. Any amount of code can be circumvented, or be designed with staff-only abuse holes.
There's no such thing as transparency. There's trust. And if you don't have trust, don't play there.
We keep talking about Arx being the greatest, and sure it's fine. But it's also a fuck of a lot of work. It works with a small crew right now, and that's great. Players seem generally fine with backlogs and delays and the like. But if you want a widely available game, that's just not going to necessarily be feasible.
All that being said, we can't even agree that playing on a game run by toxic shitbirds is a bad thing and you should stop.
Ultimately, shitty people are going to do shitty things. No amount of transparency or organisational structure or written rules will stop them.
Rules aren't there to stop the bad guys.
@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
There's a reason both of those games sank like the Titanic. People got tired of their shit being invalidated by her whims.
From what I saw, The Reach ended after the story was over. Fallcoast crashed because staff withdrew to do Miami, or something.
So you can absolutely disagree and dislike the thing, but changing rules is nowhere near as corrupt as what we're talking about.
@too-old-for-this In Sonder's tentative defence, at least she changed the rules and let them apply to everyone. Rather than just flaunt them. It got a bit ridiculous, of course, but it didn't really appear to be one rule for her and one for everyone else.
If staff are forbidden from playing the game they help run, then they can become detached. Not seeing what players actually want/need, and making assumptions instead. Akin to billionaires trying to understand the plight of the working class, for instance.
Generally, I don't play when I staff (when the staffing role is player-focused), but keeping lines of communication open is important. It's far easier to do so while also playing. I would submit that the granularity in hierarchy on many WoD games enables this, to an extent. If you're in a position of staffly authority over the vampires, you don't get to play a vampire. But you can play a werewolf or a Changeling.
@kanye-qwest said in Mercenary Entrepreneurship:
no one pays someone to write things that they can't read
You sure? We've got lawyers in this thread, too.
If he says synergy, or any of its declensions, we all have to drink.
@cupcake I am well aware of the complexity of the idea. This is why I think we should err on the side of a cockup rather than conspiracy when it comes to a young person doing it once.
It's entirely possible she, a young person, shared it because she agreed with part of what it said, and then deleted it when she realised the full implication.
Young people do stupid stuff while trying to do good stuff all the time.
ETA: And I'd probably support the argument that corrupt people in positions of authority, or supporters of said corrupt people, are "fake X-religion." It is difficult to have a nuanced argument on Instagram.
@faraday Without any knowledge of the code behind things, is it possible to transmogrify that into a player-side option?
Had an interview to get me out of my career. It's not flashy or glamorous, but it will be far more stable and less draining a job. Here's hoping!
If it's a system I've used in a classroom to reward attendance and participation, it probably shouldn't be used by and for an actual adult.
@derp Though I'm sure that this isn't why you posted it, you did the right thing.
There comes a point where your own needs outweigh those of the people around you, especially when they're adults that refuse to help themselves.
Though I usually think of @Ganymede as an amorphous genderless sexless blob of grey ooze. Even I know better than to mess with a mamma bear with a law degree and free time.
Arise, chicken!
I'm back and playing at Arx again. Come by and say hi, if you're of a mind.