Some advice

[Sanvean]

Due to several incidents that cropped up this week, I'm going to suggest some things, which I mean for the benefit of the player population. Think of it as some ins and outs of dealing with staff - or anyone, for that matter.  I worry that people don't realize the effect of their posts - or that they may even think the posts have the opposite effect - so I'd like to make it clear. While its entirety is not aimed at a specific person, parts are drawn from this week, so if a suggestion resonates for you, there may be a good reason for it.

If you fuck up on the game, live with it. You may not think what happened is fair, but there are certain things that make things worse. They include:

a) rather than acting rationally at the time you're confronted with it, you say things like "you suck!" or "you're an ass!" - or log out rather than talk about it. All you're doing there is confirming any bad opinion. It certainly doesn't help sort things out, and whining later about how you were unjustly accused seems a bit much.

b) years after it happened, continuing to bring it up on the board. It's over and done with. Just deal. Certain things may be sore spots for staff members as well, particularly if they had to take out what they thought was cool, game-enhancing code because of player abuse.

c) If you're involved in an investigation of OOC problems, turning around to accuse the other parties of being OOC info spreaders themselves is understandable, but not particularly productive. OOC problems crop up, we have to investigate them, and taking it as a personal attack is stupid.

d) Don't spend a lot of time bitching, whining, bellyaching or doing assorted passive-aggressive "I don't understand how anyone could think this was OOC!" posts.

Some other points:

If you flame on the board, that breaks the rules. Don't spend a lot of time arguing that it wasn't really a flame because you didn't mean to be anonymous, or because you were wearing a purple hat at the time, or that your cat jumped on the keyboard and happened to spell out naughty words with his or her tiny paws. You flamed. Case closed. Don't waste my time beating the dead horse into the ground.

Don't email someone asking them to be blunt and then get your panties in a twist because they were and start whining that they were mean. Asking someone to do so and then putting their reply in your sig for a year so you can continue to bitch about it is a touch on the crazy side.

I have a great deal of respect for the people who are willing to live with their actions. A lot more than, for example, the people who say that you should ignore their actions or words because they're "just that way" or that they were "just venting". In my time on the mud, I've seen people fuck up multiple times and go on to stellar karma. They weren't the ones who spent a great deal of time hashing and re-hashing the arguments or calling staff members names while they vent.

Supposedly we're all adults or semi-adults here. I've met most of the staff, and have spent a number of vacations hanging out with staff members. Surprisngly enough, every single one is a rational adult that is willing to listen to what people have to say, when approached as a rational adult. If you want to communicate with them, do it on this level and you might be surprised at the results. That means:

No "Gee, I can't help what I say, so when I called you a pigfucker, I didn't really mean it" stuff. If you're six years old, I could buy that, maybe.  If you're over the age of 13 or so, then I suggest taking responsibility for your own words and actions.

Being willing to understand that we do have guidelines that we use for the world and that no means, in fact, no, rather than "I say no, but if you talk to the next imm, maybe they'll say yes."

Being willing to understand that there are other players, that you are not the most important person on the mud, and that some roles may involve OOC considerations. For example, nobles are there to drive play. They're not there to inconvenience other players to the point of making them not want to play the game.

Being willing to understand that fairness matters to the staff - and that means fairness to everyone. Not just to you.

One of the most important things I have learned in this life is that manners do, in fact, matter and that often people treat you in the way you treat them. If you start an email with "FH newictqyw4po you KILLED MY CHARACTER AND THIS GAME SUCKS", it doesn't go as far as "Could someone look into the death of my character?" The first just pisses people off, while the second leads to someone looking into the matter.  We get a lot of emails written in the first moment of anger and/or disappointment when a character dies. I know that it's upsetting, particularly for long time characters, but you may want to sleep on your email before sending it.

In closing, there's a small but vocal minority of people who believe that the staff hovers on line waiting for them to log on so we can abuse them. Very little could be farther than the truth. We log on in order to play the game, which we love and enjoy, and to play with other people who love and enjoy it as much as we do. Anything else would be an unproductive waste of time. Yes, there are some people who have persistently acted unpleasantly in a way that means one or more staff members don't want to deal with them. That means we don't want to deal with them, not that we want to kill their character. The way out of that label is not to keep being just as unpleasant, argumentative, and tiresome as you have been.

[growingall]

I am not that sure that all people here is adult or even semi-adult, but, even the adult ones can go nuts over a game session turned bad.

It usually has to do with RL factors, just the same way someone gets into a fistfight over a game of TP.

Then one should start with turning of the computer, and perhaps go take a cold shower .. not to return to the game with those boiling aggressions inside.

I am not a good looser, so I recommend a work out, with running i stairs until you nearly pass out .. and dealing with RL issues of course.

I have perhaps sometime gone straight to a quit room, and quitted when I got REALLY upset, but it is only to avoid saying or doing something I regret later.

:oops:

[Crashloft]

I'm not saying that I am not a mature adult or don't understand this concept, but I'd hope that a few of you players read this and get what I got out of it.  All of the sudden...bing bing *a light bulb appears above your head*  

The management of this game has progressed ten fold over the years.  I'm truely impressed.  Kudos...