Not enough players on non peak hours.

[Quirk]

Some excellent ideas there, Malifaxis. I should have mentioned earlier that I heartily endorse the rumour board approach - it allows so much more flexibility than a GDB post.

Given that you're talking about a handful of players who log on at those times, and there are a lot of helpers that people go to, and some of us who log on at those times are old hands who don't speak to helpers about our characters, I still think you're being overly optimistic about helpers being able to help in this situation - but it's certainly not going to hurt to ask them.

Quirk

[spawnloser]

This was being discussed in IRC the other day.  I discussed it with someone from Europe...who muds during off-peak hours, just like me.  She said that what I said made her feel unwelcome.  All I said is that if you come from another location, basically, you have to cope.  I didn't say, 'STFU and deal with it, bitch,' but meant that you can either try to alter your schedule so that you go to bed earlier/later so that you can get up earlier/later and work your free time around what is mandatory so that you can play during hours where more people are around or you have to learn to enjoy solo-rp or play a character that is in another IG location.  You have these options, and it is up to you to decide which is best for you.  Don't give out any information in OOC ways to increase the likelihood of you encountering someone, as that IS the spread of IC info through OOC channels, and not right.  When in clan, you are giving this information because there are NPCs and VNPCs that would pass the info along, and it is a way to let people know that a new face is around so that others don't go berko when they see a stranger.  (It has happened, and PC death has resulted over a simple confusion such as this.)  When dealing with the city at large, use the IC board.  If someone isn't around a place that an IC board is, they shouldn't know crap about you or your playing times.  Give a brief, entertaining post that suggests at a playing time maybe...but don't give out blatantly OOC info.

[Tmp]

When dealing with the city at large, use the IC board.  If someone isn't around a place that an IC board is, they shouldn't know crap about you or your playing times.  Give a brief, entertaining post that suggests at a playing time maybe...but don't give out blatantly OOC info.

IC boards good. But I don't see why you have to so anal and obsfucate matters by "suggesting" a playing time through your weird idea of pseudo-fiction. Just state it outright on the bottem of your IC board post-- OOC: This are my main offpeak playing times, etc

Much better than alluding to them using shit like "but during the deep end of the week". Man, what's that even suppose to mean?

[da mitey warrior]

I've always thought that clans were the way to go with this.  Have one or two clans designated as off peak clans.  Maybe one for early morning and one for late night.  They could have off-peak imms watching them and off-peak leader-types running them.   If nothing else, they'd provide a center for interactions and the off-peak population can rise from there.  You never see advertisements for off peak times.

[Sandferret]

I was not going to post on this topic again, but there are two posts that I feel a need to comment.

I am the European spawnloser mentions. The words that made me feel unwelcome were: "This is a game ran by and for Americans."  The highlight is mine. I don't want to single out spawnloser, the same thing has been said by others and he was not even hostile. If it were just one person, I would shrug it off easily, but it is not.

The other post is by da mitey warrior:

Have one or two clans designated as off peak clans.

I really do not like this. I accept that there are roles that are meant to be played when the highest number of people are online at the same time. Those roles are not available to the likes of me who prefer to sleep at night, I understand that.

Of course the suggestion has some merit: people would interact. But ,to me at least, it restricts more than helps. While I can, and do, live with the fact that certain roles are not accessible to me no matter how well I play, I do not want to have only one or two choices available.

I will much rather play alone in the clan, seeing the other people once or twice a week than play with the same people over and over again in the same clan or to play all by myself somewhere in the wilds. I prefer Clanned play, but I also prefer variety. It is the Spice of Life, as you know.

Over the past months I have tried to make people feel welcome, no matter what country they come from. There have been a few times I have referred a Helpee to someone else due to a very late hour (to me), I hope they have not taken offense. I have to at times tell people IC that I must go 'rest', but so does almost everyone, we all have lives to attend.

To those off-peak time people (regardless where you come from) I want to say: There are people about at any time of the day. There are opportunities for you, if you wish to grasp them. I do recommend picking one of the more populated areas, but that is just my opinion. Some people love solitude. Most importantly: Don't give up on the game for this.

[Carnage]

The MUD is made for people who want to play it properly. Not Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, South Americans, or whoever is in the peak time zone range. The fact that many people in this area play it and that becomes the chief online time is just a side effect. I highly doubt that Sanvean and Nessalin are looking down and rubbing their hands together as they brood and constantly repeat, "Good, good. soon only the Americans will play."

While it's unfortunate that you may not be able to log on at peak times, there's not much others can really do about it. Try and recruit more players from your area is the best suggestion I can give.

[spawnloser]

I never said 'by and for Americans' I said it was 'made and ran by Americans' and that things would naturally be biased towards the most convenient times for Americans.  I tried to explain that, SandFerret, but you stopped responding on that conversation.  I was simply trying to say that you have to understand that bias.  Find your own solution for the bias, but understand it none-the-less.  I really am sorry if how I said it suggested something other than the above, but I really am more than happy for everyone the world over to join in so that there would no longer be such a thing as 'peak hours.'

[Carnage]

I never said 'by and for Americans' I said it was 'made and ran by Americans' and that things would naturally be biased towards the most convenient times for Americans.  I tried to explain that, SandFerret, but you stopped responding on that conversation.  I was simply trying to say that you have to understand that bias.  Find your own solution for the bias, but understand it none-the-less.  I really am sorry if how I said it suggested something other than the above, but I really am more than happy for everyone the world over to join in so that there would no longer be such a thing as 'peak hours.'

Maybe you were drunk again?

[Kayse]

I too play mostly off peak hours.  I have tried everything that people have suggested, I've played independants, hoping for more freedom so I can get out and interact, I've played in clans (honestly though, sometimes after 4 hours of rping out a clan schedule by myself, 3 nights in a row, it just gets too much.) I've been around long enough that turning to a helper is not the way for me to go.  I'd like to add some support to Sandferret also.  I too have felt that 'second class citizen' status, I am certain it is not intended that way, but there it is.

What I think most people are missing is this.  People are taking this as off-peak players whining that they aren't having fun, that's incorrect.  I'm still here, a few years on, still loving the game.  What Ronberk originally was saying is that there are players who are discouraged by lack of interaction and therefore not logging on and there are new players logging on at that time and not finding anyone to interact with. (I have recruited three or four who said that they just couldn't find anyone around, and have since given up.)

Perhaps the posting of playing times isn't the best, perhaps grouping into areas or clans wouldn't work (I'd personally hate this.) But dismissing the problem as invalid or as players needing to 'suck it up' or 'go out and find others' isn't constructive.

[Bestatte]

I"ve tried recruiting people who play at peak times, who stopped playing because they didn't have people to RP with. I play during peak times, and often find I have no one to RP with. Sure there might be 50 people playing at the moment, but when you come from a game that has over 1000 people playing at the moment, 50 ain't nuttin. It's not even worth mentioning, especially if the 2 of those 50 you actually run into are either a newbie you don't feel like spending the next 3 hours helping, or a templar who your character wants to avoid.

I'd like to see more people showing up on the "who" list early mornings. It won't really mean anything to me, other than the comfort of knowing that SOMEWHERE, someone else is playing the game. But my chances of running into those other people and having a reason to interact with them are pretty slim.

My point? That the grass isn't always greener, AND that I accept that not a whole lot of people are interested in being awake and playing at 6AM eastern time. If I want to play during that time I need to come up with some interesting things to keep myself entertained. Because for all you people who claim to be around that time and never see anyone - I never see any of you. So, whatever. <shrug>

[Boggis]

There's not much that can be done about it. The majority of mudders are American so thats where the peak numbers always will be. Being a European it means that quite a lot of times there won't be that many players about when I'm playing. Its not so bad though once you get up to about 11pm GMT where there's regularly 40+ on.

If some players are deciding to quit because they play off-peak and there's not a lot to do then I think us non-peak players have to make the effort to create things which keep people interested and coming back. Interaction, little story lines, etc. - all these things will help to retain players in the long run. I would like to see something like a noble or a templar be created for those times - somebody who plays GMT can mix with both off-peak and peak players and could provide a good link between the two player groups. Plots and story lines could travel back and forth between the groups and people might get more drawn into the storylines in general instead of feeling isolated. Sure everybody can create their own little things which is fun as well but I think it'd be nice if a greater number of people could be brought into the peak time storylines in some fashion as opposed to simply reading about them on the rumour boards.

[spawnloser]

Wow, you have no better arguement, Carnage?  I thought you were more creative than that.

[Bhagharva]

No offense to anyone that actually considers this an issue, but my personal feelings on it are that if you need someone else to hold your hand while you play, you might be playing the wrong game.

(that kind of quote is exellent whenever dealing with people who are feeling isolated and maybe unsure if the game is friendly)

We have to balance harshness with hand holding 2sids. I live on the east coast but usually am on when there are few people on. It amazes me when I show up in EST prime time and someone says, "Where have you been?! You never log on!" Off peak players know of what I speak. The trouble I have with this discussion and what prompted me to write was that this is a cry of injustice, that we are not doing enough as arm society to coordinate players on off hours. I say, coordinate yourself. That is where it starts. Almost all off hour players that I watch regularly are pretty good. Ok, we get some boners that think they can get away with crap at 4:30amEST.

Advertise, and make arm an experience for yourself and those around you. This game stands for itself. You the players make it come alive. That will draw players. Not my sweet talk and cooing.

Armageddon is a personal experience for everyone that plays it and loves it. I tend to look at the off hours as the Tuesday-Thursday of the arm week. Not as much traffic, sleepier even. People are caught in the day to day and can't come out to play.

Armageddon                                                         (Newbie)

  The world of Armageddon MUD is known as Zalanthas. It is a harsh desert
planet where only the very fittest survive, and competition over extremely
scarce resources causes constant strife and bloodshed. In Armageddon, a few
things will be apparent:

2. Life is hard. There are no free lunches on Zalanthas. There aren't even
   free drinks of water. It is likely that your character will die, and if
   you are not clever your character will die very fast. Only (and we mean
   only) the very fittest of all live long enough to retire in comfort at
   the end of their careers.

4. Complaints of unfairness will not be given an audience. If you think
   your character's situation was unfair, too bad. Live with it or don't.
   See point 2 above.

[Ronberk]

The trouble I have with this discussion and what prompted me to write was that this is a cry of injustice, that we are not doing enough as arm society to coordinate players on off hours. I say, coordinate yourself. That is where it starts. Almost all off hour players that I watch regularly are pretty good. Ok, we get some boners that think they can get away with crap at 4:30amEST.

I'm sorry if you misintepreted my original post as a cry of injustice against the immortals for not doing enough to help the off-peak players.

As far as I knew, I wrote about a problem that I perceived (which I might or might not be wrong about), which is: Isolation due to the lack of coordination is discouraging the number of people who would play during non-peak hours.

Then I suggested a solution that might or might not be acceptable.

Then I asked for opinions about that solution.

Then I asked that if the solution isn't acceptable, can people come up with more solutions, that we as a community could implement.

You seem fixated with the idea that I am a newbie and I need hand holding, and I am blaming the Imms for my isolation, to the point you need to quote the Newbie helpfiles at me. I do not know where you got this idea from. Telling us that Zalanthas is ICly harsh does nothing to help with the problem.

[Bhagharva]

My proposed solution would be to create a thread on the GDB where off-peak players (or people who want to play at off-peak hours) would post anonymously their playtimes and homecity locations. If they are a member of organizations (or even independants) that provide services that players would need, they would also state that in the post.

I didn't mention your soloution specifically because it was covered and we already do this. It's called the GDB and we have clan boards for this purpose. Others have already made suggestions that you should be vague in your post about playtimes. There is also a forum for players to make RPT's. So in essence, yes. I think the soloution proposed wasn't thought out completely. You lack an actual soloution.

I'm sorry if you misintepreted my original post as a cry of injustice against the immortals for not doing enough to help the off-peak players.

As far as I knew, I wrote about a problem that I perceived (which I might or might not be wrong about), which is: Isolation due to the lack of coordination is discouraging the number of people who would play during non-peak hours.

Look at the quote you took from my post. I specifically said Arm society. I never mentioned immortals not doing enough. As an immortal. I know better. There is plenty being done.

So I suggested advertising more, as others have as well. It is the only real answer to isolation due to low play traffic. This is an alternate soloution that will work.

Nowhere did I state that I viewed you as a newbie that required handholding. I am referring to players that are coming on board and not understanding the reasons why we have low traffic at off-peak hours. I am also stressing that Armageddon is a harsh place that isn't set up so we can all have a cozy rp session, catered to the player and packaged so it doesn't offend. Screw that. If this mud turns into that, I'll lose interest quick.

I can also see that where it is a harsh world, we can do things ooc to encourage newbies. Yet at the same time, we need to explain to them that this isn't Smurfville or Happyfunland.

I am not speaking directly to you in my posts Ronberk I am speaking to everyone reading this. So to get to the root of the problem in this discussion. I was demonstrating to 2sids (who was complaining about my attitude towards this discussion and using that as an example of why players get scared away) that newbies need to learn that this game isn't set up to revolve around OOC tempers and the sensitivity of the people playing, it is about the IC world and what comes with playing in a harsh environment. My2sids took my quotes out of context, and now you have too. Stating that we need to concentrate on the IC harshness IS part of the soloution. If you want more players on off-peak hours. You need to find players that can understand the rules and act according to the rules.

I'm not really convinced that off-peak players are feeling isolated as a group, I am convinced that you are feeling very isolated as an individual Ronberk. I don't think your going to be happy with any soloutions proposed unless someone here says, "Yes, you are absolutely correct and we better get to work soon on coordinating these players on off-peak hours so they won't feel like the red-headed stepchildren of Armageddon."

Try reading the suggestions people are making to you.

What I think most people are missing is this. People are taking this as off-peak players whining that they aren't having fun, that's incorrect. I'm still here, a few years on, still loving the game. What Ronberk originally was saying is that there are players who are discouraged by lack of interaction and therefore not logging on and there are new players logging on at that time and not finding anyone to interact with. (I have recruited three or four who said that they just couldn't find anyone around, and have since given up.)

I am specifically referring to the new players that log on. Veteran players should know what is up by now.  Newbies are a VERY important part of this discussion. Since the veteran player will most likely have an idea of where to find other players when the headcount is low. If the veteran player is getting discouraged perhaps they should consider playing the noble or the templar and rounding up who they can.  

I still view this as a couple off-peak players complaining that there isn't enough plot revolving around them. We have immortals on, we have plots running and we have a place to coordinate playtime. What more do you need besides more players?

[Akaramu]

I'm one of those off-peak players who dont really have a lot of choice when they can get on. I used to, but since my job started, I cant really wake up early or go to bed at 3 AM anymore. Except on weekends.

Sometimes it has bugged me a lot, then again I found ways to still have fun without anyone to directly interact with. If you ask me, it depends a lot on the clan you are in.

Some clans lock you up on the clan grounds with a schedule and a lot of solo RP if no one else shows up, unless you break rules.

Other clans give you a lot more freedom in what you can do when.

My personal fun-o-meter went up quite a bit when I escaped clan type A (cause seriously, no one would ever show up at the odd times I played to relieve me from my solo RP misery) and joined clan type B. I needed some time to accept lack of combat training, though (cause rarely someone would show for sparring) and figure out other things I could do.

I disagree that you need to master solo roleplaying to play Armageddon. I doubt I ever will, I solo RP a bit here and there, but I need to be in the mood for it (and after 9 hours of work I just am not, esp. as I always struggle with language, and proper english is more work for me). Its all about carefully planning your characters so they will not force you into a locked up isolated situation. Of course you cant plan everything, but it is possible to avoid isolation without breaking ICness.

All clans I have been part of also allowed you to coordinate your login times with others by posting them. If you dont like solo RP, you want to join highly populated clans that dont restrict you too much. You can also ICly ask your potential future boss about how much schedule-sticking would be expected of you when you join. If you are allowed to leave the city. If you can show a bit of initiative on your own without having to wait for a superior. Etcetera.

I never had a problem with imm presence, I have very rarely not encountered one on. Good thing about odd hours is, you have that imm almost to yourself, and chances are that he can get to you immediately if you need one  

[Ronberk]

Bhagharva, whatever your original intentions were, you misrepresented them severely in your first posting to this thread. Nobody was talking about newbies, handholding, immortal intervention or turning Zalanthas into carebear-world before you came along with your first posting saying:

No offense to anyone that actually considers this an issue, but my personal feelings on it are that if you need someone else to hold your hand while you play, you might be playing the wrong game. Prime time hours of EST are topping at almost 80 players now, the offhours imms are there and just as responsive as imms during the day. (Sure it may take longer and you -could- have some bad timing, imms aren't sitting and waiting for your beckoning.)

Already you were quite defensive about Immortals not being at beck and call of the players even when no one has said anything about Imm response at the time.

I am also stressing that Armageddon is a harsh place that isn't set up so we can all have a cozy rp session, catered to the player and packaged so it doesn't offend.

I think you're getting a bit mixed up, Zalanthas is ICly a harsh world. Armageddon, which is the Mud, does not have to be OOCly harsh. All I was talking about is coordinating players, not turning it into Happyfunland, where templars hug commoners on the street and kiss their sores because they all belong to some off-peak players club.

As I said before, telling us that Zalanthas is an ICly harsh world pointless, I didn't see anyone crying about how his character couldn't find free lunches.

I am convinced that you are feeling very isolated as an individual Ronberk. I don't think your going to be happy with any soloutions proposed unless someone here says, "Yes, you are absolutely correct and we better get to work soon on coordinating these players on off-peak hours so they won't feel like the red-headed stepchildren of Armageddon."

I'm really sorry you feel this way because I've made only a total of fourth posts (including this one) to this thread.

The initial posting stating my position.

A reply to Petra.

The third where I tried to make my position clearer because I was afraid I was being misintepreted.

And this fourth one, a reply to a post that is clearly slandering me.

Suddenly I'm a stubborn, isolated individual that refuses to listen to other alternatives? I am reading the suggestions, I haven't been thumbing down what everone else has said. I haven't even disagreed with anyone's ideas yet.

[Bhagharva]

I'm not mentioning solo rp because I don't believe that has anything to do with hand holding while playing. you can be in a clan of 20 players and still be a individual that cannot take initiative and spark up interesting rp with whoever you can find to interact with. (Notice I did not say each and every person in game.) I really mean, whoever your PC can find to interact with that your PC feels is worthy of attention.

I stated clearly that the feelings I have are personal. They do not reflect the rest of the staff.  I have also stated that I am not directing any ire at you personally. I also stated that I DO NOT THINK this is about players whining that immortals are not doing enough. So please give up that argument.

Bhagharva, whatever your original intentions were, you misrepresented them severely in your first posting to this thread. Nobody was talking about newbies, handholding, immortal intervention or turning Zalanthas into carebear-world before you came along with your first posting saying:

That is why I brought it up. I interpreted my own thoughts into this discussion. Which is ok from what I am told. I didn't misrepresent anything. I am saying it again, newbies are an important part of this discussion. Handholding is an issue as well. You want a soloution right?


Player initiative and a drive to make a less crowded environment more fun are my suggestions.  I disagree with your soloution and I DO think that the majority of the problem here is not a lack of coordination but a lack of initiative of the players, who consider this an issue. In the time you spent writing these posts you could have been playing and recruiting more to play.