OK, I have a few thoughts on friendliness, on the MUD as a whole,
some developing from my own experience, some from things I've
been told by others.
By friendliness I am referring to helpfulness. Helping of newbies,
of unfortunate victims of DTs, of people needing CRs,
and just generally of your fellow mudder.
It seems that such helpfulness has all but disappeared
from this MUD, and that people will only help their friends
or people they know. So I make a general plea on behalf of
everyone who ever needs help: think of the times you've been
helped. If you haven't, then be better than everyone who ignored
your cries, and help those who need it. It's a sorry state of affairs when
Kai, the most helpful character on the MUD, didn't have a
line of people hoping to help him re-equip. And I don't mean the
people who object to bots on the whole, I mean the people who
use him when they need orbs or tforming, but couldn't be bothered
helping him re-equip when he needed help. Truly pathetic, if you ask me
Moving on to my next point, I wish to reiterate what I've said in
the past about my being a harsh, obnoxious poster. I am such, and
always have been. I always will be, and all I can say is if you
don't like what I have to say, don't read it. Many people have
posted directly to me, instead of privately expressing concerns,
objections to my posts that some would find insulting and downright
demeaning. I do not find them such, so feel free to flame on. Just
understand, I am as I am because of the way i see others. People
complaining constantly, whining, saying why this mud is worse than
it could be or worse than that mud, or has lousy immorts. This last
gets to me the most, when posters target the immorts individually
or as a staff. Maybe they can take it, but dammit, show them a little
respect. They've earned it, they work damn hard for no pay or gratitude
because they want to make this MUD go so you all can enjoy it. You know
housing and skilltrees and such are complex issues for millions of
reasons. So they aren't in when projected, big deal. Cut the staff a
little slack. You've lived without until now, I think you can carry
on. All you who love to complain, I think you should try it sometime,
running something like this. I haven't and don't imagine I could, but you
don't see me complaining. And if you have done this sort of thing, then I
don't see why you'd complain. I'm simply boggled that so many here
behave as if they're so spoiled, always should be getting what they
want when they want it...
And that is why I am how I am.
Mariachi the increasingly unpopular
From: Mo
Friday, January 15, 10:43PM
I don't think I've enlisted the help of Kai in any incarnation
that I can remember, bot or not. The trend today is that even
some of the better OOC buddies don't really are down and eager to
assist their friends. I should note here that I'm only speaking
for myself and the limited amount of stuff I see, btw.
For me, I don't think I was too helpful at any given time to begin
with, simply because I lacked the means to be helpful in the
beginning, and afterwards because I was wrapped up completely in
my affairs. In general, the mud nowadays is a place where it takes
constant attention in order to be doing something -- maintenance of
a character seems to have increased a lot ever since the fight
system change -- in general, the mud was a lot more helpful back when
there wasn't any changes implemented for a long time, when players
were bored out of their minds, when there was nothing you could
really do once you had your little collection of characters levelled
to 50.
With the changes to the fight system, one, there is not many of those
incredibly strong mob-kill chars that once existed, with 600mana/hp
and 100dex/mind. Two, with the change in the xp scale, motivation
for being active after a certain level has diminished greatly, resulting
in players either here for socializing, or levelling their lowbie alts.
Three, with the change of the xp scale, the perceived and (thanks to
the increased damcap) actual maintenance of chars increased, inflating
the cost of ventures such as xp runs and eq runs. Four, healers have
become scarcer for the decrease in their demand, partially because
there are less level 50s around mobkilling. Five, pkill has become
more interesting despite the current lack of action, due to the variety
of characters that are viable -- before, the people you fought only
varied in luck and skill, but their characters were almost cookie-cut.
Six, due to all this change, players have adapted a mood of overall
'laziness' where action no longer fuels adrenaline, but prompts possible
outcomes with calculations on how long it could take to recover from a
mistake -- a sign of the aged, in general.
In order for the old friendliness to return, in my opinion, the mud must
first reach a temporary stability where no drastic changes can be forseen.
Also, the maintenance cost of characters, in terms of gear and otherwise,
should be lowered. Xp of mobs should be increased in order to promote
more availability of healers roaming about for a job, and there should
be merits for druids who simply stick around past 50 -- I personally
find it hard to continue playing ANY character beyond 50 (if they are
not clanned) and a healer does not fall into an exception. There
should be slightly more incentive for older chars to be online --
despite the fact that it may seem as an hindrance or unfairness to
new players, having older players and chars around, in my opinion,
will have benefits that outweigh the costs.
Mo
From: Davien
Friday, January 15, 11:39PM
See message 55 append 3 for my opinion. But I agree with the others
as well.
Davien Holyoake.
From: Bryn
Friday, January 15, 11:44PM
Helping someone re-eq is a fairly major investment of time and
effort. I've never really been too motivated to help someone I'm not frien
friends with. On the other hand, if I can, I'd always help a friend re-eq.
I don't really see anything wrong with this. It's sorta like the real worl
world, you know? Well, Kai I'd probably help just because I've used
him in the past, but some random person who just DT'd? Probably not.
-bounce-
Bryn!
From: Celeste
Saturday, January 16, 12:35AM
Mo and Davien bring up some really good points that I pretty
much agree with but am waaaaaay too lazy to type out.
As for re-equipping. Well, if I am capable, I'll help friends, but I don't
exempt helping total strangers out either. It depends largely on my
boredom factor.
Celeste de Rais
-One of those rapidly vanishing 50s who sit around and rot-
From: Jehovah
Saturday, January 16, 12:36AM
Heres a thought for the day on this topic....
Ever realize that you might end up making a new friend
by helping a stranger? :)
From: Mo
Saturday, January 16, 01:25AM
as antisocial as this sounds, friends are high-maintenance
too ;)
seriously though, experience tells me friends made by helping
them out have a tendency to show up in different forms needing
different aid before they offer help in return.
not that i'm advocating unfriendliness, but i don't think i've
ever asked of friends more than they were willing to give, nor
more than i was willing to do in return -- and in my state of
laziness, i have come to the point of not asking for anything
pretty much. judging from the current state, it is likely that
it will remain so for a while -- and i believe i am not the
only one who thinks thus.
Mo!
From: Mo
Saturday, January 16, 01:31AM
Mmm. also, come to think of it, to blame 'boredom' isn't quite
the right use of the word. By shifting the killing scheme to quantity
rather than quality, it made players busy at all times if they were
online mobkilling, as opposed to before when activity centered on
repops of key mobs. Thus, there are less people online with the
mindset to do something active that aren't doing something already,
reducing the number of available hands for a certain task.
Mo!
From: Adolfus
Saturday, January 16, 06:01AM
I agree with what a lot of mo said in his first append, when
I played Beam I coulda been a big help in requipping, but
with the changes its hard to get interested. And its true
if you help someone your just begging them to ask you to
help them the next time they get in trouble, its very easy
to get way too much demands on your time, directly proportional
to how popular you are.
As for giving imms respect, we should give everyone respect
when we post, not some more than others etc. Now if someone
is particularly boneheaded and mean, we can point this out
to them. Yes the imms work hard on the mud, but its a kind
of don't throw me in that briar patch kinda thing. Theres
all kinds of players that would love to be thrown in that
briar patch. So saying they should be fawned over for doing
their jobs is bull I think. Now if someone is imm bashing
for the sake of imm bashing then thats different, personally
I always try to have a reason for saying what I do. Ive spent
over 10k hours connected to this mud or more over the years,
and while I've never tried to be an immort, Id like to think
ive affected it in some small ways. Of course I would be
denied if I tried to immort, and thats ok, I dont want to
put in that kinda work, but not only are there players dying
to immort, I can also remember when a lot of these players
that are immorts now, were dying to be immorts themselves.
And why do they want to immort so bad? I look at it kinda like
cops, cops become cops because they like power. Why else
put up with all the work and no appreciation, one reason
is players that defend them no matter what, and automatically
agree with everything they say.
Also some of them seem to development attitudes of superiority
and you seem to want us to treat them with deference as if
you agreed with their attitude of superiority.
The imms are doing a good job, this is not a post to bash imms.
Not all imms have this attitude. But I think all people should
be treated with respect. Players and imms alike, as for not
-strike the -as for not-
From: Fright
Saturday, January 16, 07:23AM
Mo and Davien both got the gist of the problem I think. And yes
it is a problem. Compare the non-pkill level 50s on now to before
the xp changes and I know that you are looking at a large
difference in numbers. There really isn't much incentive to play
those level 50s anymore unless you are pkilling with them.
As for Kai, I've never had the need to use him in this incarnation,
so I didn't help him in this incarnation. I suppose I could have
switched characters and helped him, but I was a - so wrapped up in
what I was doing that I didn't want to and b - that's technically
not allowed here (though its not really enforced)
I agree with Daviens post, most people are stuck playing their lower
level alts instead of their high level, because it takes so much more
work at the character to get to 50th.
Solotions to this... well, give some more incentive to level 50s to
play. (even if it's just the non-pkillers) The rewards now for getting mor
than 25 million xp aren't terribly good, because they are very very
long term rewards. Maybe make a lesser prize available every 5 mil
xp or something like that. (a token maybe, or something like that)
I am sure some people think that being level 50 is its own reward,
yadda-yadda, and that rewarding someone for playing is silly. Maybe
in some ways it is, but as Mo I think said, a rotting oldbie does
a lot more to help this mud than 10 levelling newbies do. (paraphrased)
Fright
