Feedback on playing and log-ins

[Hestia]

There should also be more nudges if players hide away - so it's not just a staff oversight here, I remember - and appreciating it at the time - getting told at one point we were not seen enough in public, and need to be out there making stories and waves with the new players instead of being invisible - I did notice Hestia's recent role call mentioned wanting nobles to be seen publicly, that seemed cool - you've said the lore, but at the same time, you've said that part of it is OOC fear of being killed, but staff don't seem to approve at all of just killing people for no reason, so I think part of that might be the vision of how the game used to be sticking with people, even if times have moved on a bit for the better (to the point Armaddict keeps saying he wishes people were killing people more without any RP, lol! I think you're probably ok)

I'll comment on this part of your post since you mentioned me

First, I'm flattered that you remembered it. It's been awhile since I posted it.

In my observation, it seems to always boil down to "fear of being killed." I can make things easy for everyone with this spoiler: if you don't store your character, they WILL die, eventually.  Guaranteed. You can't stop it.

Accept that - and run with it. HOW do you want your character to die? Promote that narrative. Make sure that you do whatever you can to ensure your character's eventual death is at the very least interesting. At best, the ultimate explosive RP'ed thrill for both yourself and your character's killer after a long reign.

That's why I nudge my noble players to get out there. They have an aide to hire. Or replace. Or a Kadian to buy from. Or an elf to berate. Or a filthy grey rat to run away from, screaming. It sucks losing a character you love playing. But I believe it sucks even more, losing one that most people will say "oh - yeah I remember that name. Never met them, no idea what they were about".

Even more of a loss are all the other players of characters in the same city, who could have become involved in even simple things like "this noble had his guard yell at me because I didn't remember his middle name!" or "that noble gave me five hundred sids to teach them a dance step right there outside the Dome!"

My nobles right now are all pretty amazing. I'm honored to be their staffer. They get out, they do stuff, they involve other people, they're recognized.  Everyone benefits from it. The players of the nobles, and the players of everyone who interacts with them.

[xonn]

Since the purpose of this thread is to ascertain reasons for player dissatisfaction - I'd like to take a moment to post a brief note, which might be a slight derail.

There have been instances when players have mentioned that they are not quite satisfied with responses from Staff members, to their requests.

Considerations to be taken into account here :
a) Please format your requests in a manner that is easy to copy/paste when Staff need to respond point-wise. Alternatively, you could confer with the Staff member(s) overseeing your PC/Clan as to how they'd like their reports formatted. Same applies to point h) below.
b) Please separate your requests into two parts: the first containing information you wish to convey to Staff and the second containing your queries or "asks" from Staff.
c) Please do not feel "short-changed" if Staff responds to the portion of your request containing information as simply "noted". This just means that Staff has taken cognisance of the information.
d) For your queries or "asks", please try and be as succinct as possible, so that Staff can reply with as much accuracy as possible.
e) Please for the love of God, pick the right clan when sending in your requests. If you are unclanned, take a moment to pick "Unclanned" from the drop-down menu. Believe me, it helps Staff immensely to identify and respond to properly-tagged requests in the shortest turn-around time. If the request is aimed at a certain Staff member or a group - please mention that in the title. (For the attention of Southern Team - for example).
f) You are most welcome to provide as much detail as you wish/need in your reports, but please understand that when Staff responds to certain points with a single-line answer, they may not be in a position to respond to each of your points in an elaborate manner all the time. However, where required, they will endeavour to provide you with as much detail as required and allowed (in view of various other IC and OOC considerations).
g) If a request is time-sensitive or urgent, please mark it so in the title. We'll try and attend to those on priority.
h) Avoid using the bulleting feature - it causes a lot of formatting problems when Staff have to respond point-wise. Instead just use paragraphs or number your points manually. (please see point a) above).
i) Unless absolutely required, short-and-sweet is best.
j) Please include logs - those really help!
k) Last but not the least, if there's something you don't understand in a response from Staff, please feel free to ask for a clarification. Similarly, if Staff asks you for certain clarifications, please do not consider it to be some sort of "interrogation". The idea is to conclude the request satisfactorily, in the shortest possible time, from both sides, without misunderstandings.

Communication between Players and Staff is a vital part of everyone having a pleasant and enjoyable experience on Arm, and holds equal weightage as in-game play! I'm hoping the Arm community can synch up on this so it's a positive experience for all.


Edited to add : These points are not official policy, but my personal suggestions from several years of experience on Arm. So please take them with a pinch of salt.

[Armaddict]

I always hated when things started getting that formalized.  It wasn't always a thing.  I used to have outright conversations through email chains with my staffers, more akin to a discord discussion of today, but with time between.  That's where a giant disconnect started happening for me, was when my staffers started feeling more like a review board or submission panel who is more intent on curbing desires than facilitating.  When it became so contractual-feeling and weird that it was like I was signing a dotted line, and whenever things didn't work out the way we(tm) planned, it was a croc-o-shit, not just the way the cards fell.

I know that's not true, by the way, and it -still- feels that way sometimes.  And I still have that relationship with some staffers but not with others.  But I think it reveals a total catch-22 of the whole 'PLAYERS FOR PLAYERS' movement, which is that there is a driving element of the player base to break the player and staff divide, to come together, to have staff treat them this way or that way, but there is the simultaneous expectation of absolute professionalism and formality and perfection.  It makes it so that staff acting one way can upset the need for things to be on the opposite end of the spectrum (which is different both from player to player and time to time), but acting the other would draw the polar opposite reaction in the same scenario.  There's a lot of 'how dare you' involved in places that always seemed awkward to me.

[HazelHomewrecker]

So, with this thread being locked today, I thought I might actually post something in here again, specifically because of a portion of what Armaddict mentioned.

One thing that I find difficult to get past on occasion is that it feels as if actually trying to achieve anything meaningful or long-lasting in the game isn't.. I don't want to say it's not allowed, but comes across as fairly discouraged despite the public staff voice on the matter. It's easy to say that you're interested in working with players to build up their new clans, or to build up their plots, or ideas, or goals, but more often than not you jump over one hurdle only to get smacked with another, slightly-more insurmountable one. I haven't experienced this a lot, but it's certainly been something I've noticed from time to time. My staffers are lovely, and I appreciate them, and value their efforts, but I believe the restrictions against adding to the game as a PLAYER is exhausting at times.

We all dedicate hours of our days, weeks of our months, and years of our lives to this game, and we all want to see our efforts bear fruit. Of course, you're not always going to win, not every plot will succeed, and not every idea will work out for one reason or another. However, there seems to be a disconnect between how it affects staff and players--as well as their responses to such. I'm guilty of feeling extremely disheartened when things go horrendously awry--in the moment of it happening, and I can imagine there are plenty of other people who experience the same. Yet, the response to that is almost always some variation of: "most ideas fail," which when you think of it, makes you wonder why you should even bother trying if you're going to be told no, or that there's the looming shadow that all of your efforts will probably be for naught/you'll be shafted in some form or another. Not to say that it's the intention of staff to do so, but sometimes that's just how the cookie crumbles.

I personally lack a sense of personal agency within the game--I mean, I can do and accomplish things, but it's at the behest of Staff, none of it feels like I get to decide in the grand scheme of things.

Players lack self-agency.

I imagine, if that were to be somehow adjusted or fixed, a handful of issues can be addressed.

HOWEVER. It is extremely simple to sit back and critique the game--pick out all of its flaws and weaknesses, tug at the weaker links, and I wish I had something more concrete to offer as a suggestion to further my opinion on the matter.

[Halaster]

As stated previously that this thread will be locked today, I am locking it now.  There will likely be more staff communication coming in the future around these topics, so the locking of the thread doesn't indicate it's all "done".