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Getting and Staying Connected on New Games
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I’ll second everything everyone else has said and add that I am attracted to high writing quality. I guess I like when there’s an air of artistry or sophistication about the game? Also unique concepts with compelling execution. I fuck with original themes a lot more than when games are based on other media, which is not to denounce those that are, just my personal taste. I felt Arx had the right balance of concept and execution back in its day, as an example.
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If I decide to join a game, then I’ve already decided that it has themes and features that are likely to be compatible with my tastes, so I won’t offer details on that. The question is what will make me stay, and on that front, it’s 99% down to community.
Incentives:
- Either I know/trust the staff, or they have a trustworthy reputation among people I know.
- I’m at least semi-familiar with the existing community, or they give me positive, welcoming vibes despite that.
- People respect my desire for anonymity/privacy if I express it.
- Other people take initiative to pull me into scenes — or, if I’ve taken initiative myself, they express enthusiasm about continuing from there.
Deterrents:
- People I know are making a very big fuss about me being there. Even when it’s positive, I find this unpleasant. There’s a big difference between being welcoming, and preestablishing expectations. Let me quietly exist, don’t crowd me.
- People I know are all up in my DMs trying to figure out who/where I’m playing.
- People I’ve previously TS’d are acting like me joining this game means we’ll pick up where we left off last time.
- People I don’t know are cliquey, closed-off, give off a judgy vibe.
- When joining a scene (with permission/invitation), I feel unwelcome, or like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
- If I make some minor mistake (misunderstood the lore/culture or something), and people default to uncharitable assumptions instead of offering a gentle correction/explanation, anxiety/shame-spiral means I will leave and never return.
- Staff act like a personality cult; care more about establishing an image of dominance, or lofty apathy, than communicating empathetically.
- Characters fall into very heteronormative gender roles; lots of tiny dainty subby pixie girls, and big strapping angry macho muscle men.
- Interactions between characters seem predominantly sex-driven. Note that this is not a criticism of romantic storylines; there’s a big difference to me between those kinds of long-term arcs, that usually take place within a social context, and just feeling like anywhere I show up is basically Tinder, with people hungry to pair off.
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
Can you elaborate on that some? I’m not sure I track what this means.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Interactions between characters seem predominantly sex-driven. Note that this is not a criticism of romantic storylines; there’s a big difference to me between those kinds of long-term arcs, that usually take place within a social context, and just feeling like anywhere I show up is basically Tinder, with people hungry to pair off.
related: a game culture where people are comfortable paging strangers with explicit TS propositions out of the blue.
if it is not an erotic game, like…just…fucking don’t?
and if you’re staff, come down on that shit. don’t just tell players to block the pages (lookin’ at you, Arx, too many times 🫤), nip that right in the bud.
it is DEEPLY uncomfortable behavior and the fastest way to get me to look for the door these days.
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@imstillhere said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
Can you elaborate on that some? I’m not sure I track what this means.
This is a difficult one to elaborate on beyond saying it’s a “vibe” and you’ll know it when you feel it, but I’ll try.
Games tend to fall into these natural social hierarchies, which and of itself, I don’t have a criticism of. It’s normal to have friends and favourites, and I honestly don’t expect people to pretend they don’t. But typically it’s staff at the very top, “staff clique” one rung below, staff clique’s clique & TS partners slightly lower, and at the very bottom people who’ve already started stepping on toes and are one shady page away from being shown the door.
If the game has a skewed gender ratio, then playing characters whose gender’s in higher demand confers a slight social advantage as well. This is especially true if you write well, but honestly, I’ve seen pretty abysmal personalities given a social pass to be abysmal on account of gender ratios despite that.
Where it becomes a problem for me is when, as a newer player or unknown personality, you start to feel like you’re constantly being tested, other people are waiting for you to fuck up, and are more interested in protecting their pecking order than being inclusive. There’s a constant vibe of mild hostility & jealousy where some established players will act like they’re being charitable for taking you under their wing and because they’ve been here longer, your gratitude should be propping them up and mostly staying out of their way. This isn’t everyone everywhere, but … it’s a thing.
A memorable instance for me involved being invited to join a private yet meaningful scene with people who were fairly well-known/established on a game. It had the potential to be a lot of fun, and I was in fact flattered they’d asked at all. But in all honesty I didn’t think that the person running it was super clear on the details of what exactly we were supposed to be doing, and I made a few missteps in interpreting instructions and/or following the expected conventions of how to roll or use my skills. They could’ve simply clarified and said “no worries” when I apologised, but instead the OOC vibe turned hostile, temperamental and shamey. They were pretty upfront about expressing open frustration with me. I fucked up, but I still think this was unreasonable when it was an honest mistake that I was immediately apologising for and could’ve been easily corrected. It just felt like being put in my place by a scolding teacher who still wanted me in their classroom, but with my head bent.
After the scene, I apologised again, then ghosted.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
Does this include what I call “coworker chatter”? Like, I agree that I, for the most part, don’t want to hear a lot of people spilling every detail of their personal lives. Or like that one person over at other site who tries to garner sympathy by posting/talking about how very sad and terrible their life is. But, I like mild OOC chatter. Hearing someone share a cool trip they went on or they got a new pet or something.
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@catzilla said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
Does this include what I call “coworker chatter”? Like, I agree that I, for the most part, don’t want to hear a lot of people spilling every detail of their personal lives. Or like that one person over at other site who tries to garner sympathy by posting/talking about how very sad and terrible their life is. But, I like mild OOC chatter. Hearing someone share a cool trip they went on or they got a new pet or something.
I am sick right now so this may not make total sense, and this isn’t an attack at either of you, I did see the word ‘excess’ in ‘Excess OOC Chatter’ but it’s something that’s been gnawing at me for a while, so–
Nothing makes a game feel more dead than constant and consistently quiet OOC channels.
I can understand people not wanting to hear about one or two people’s private lives (either too intimately or too consistently) but there’s definitely a line where if people aren’t willing to converse about things other than the game in OOC channels, the surface-level rapport that players need to feel comfortable with each other playing the situations and content of the RP (regardless of what that is) is not going to be created.
The reality is that this is a hobby, and hobbies are meant as social spaces within which we interact with each other. As much as I understand people getting annoyed at those who overshare or constantly do deep dives of their own lives on channel chatter, we should also keep in mind that we seek communal, collective hobbies as a way of socializing, and expecting places where we don’t share out personal lives --despite there being people perfectly willing and able not to-- is counterproductive to keeping the hobby alive.
You can even see it in this forum, which is ostensibly focused on MUs and RP, but which has not a small bulk of its traffic having to do with commiseration and sympathy regarding mental health, our collective love of pets, what celebrities died…
It’s a hobby, and socialization can’t be categorized neatly; it must be allowed to bleed into different topics and tones, or else it turns stale.
In Occam I trust.
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@Coin said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Nothing makes a game feel more dead than constant and consistently quiet OOC channels.
This is the case for me as well, but that is admittedly personal preference rather than a value judgment.
I don’t see this as something that has to be either/or for a game, though. You can create separate OOC channels that people can opt into or not as they desire. Though that does require staff to nudge convos to the right channels (so someone doesn’t feel obliged to stay tuned to the OOC chatter channel for fear of missing Important Stuff).
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@Coin Going to pretty much agree there.
I do like to see OOC channels being active – the equivalent of the game’s watercooler. People stop by, chat a bit but nothing too heavy at all, and then go about their business.
More serious and heavy conversations belong in DMs.
No objection to somebody venting a bit, either, but yes – if it becomes a constant pity fest or spam wall of things that affects no one else on the game, then it’s the wrong place to vent.
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This thread has personally been a huge help. I feel right now I could easily become one of those blipping-through players because I’m so out of practice.
I took my own hiatus from mushing a year or two just because I found myself never having time and would feel super guilty whenever I had to cancel (lots of rl like moving houses, new position responsibilities), and now that I find myself with enough breathing room to feel the itch, I don’t even know where to start!
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@imstillhere said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
Can you elaborate on that some? I’m not sure I track what this means.
This is a difficult one to elaborate on beyond saying it’s a “vibe” and you’ll know it when you feel it, but I’ll try.
Games tend to fall into these natural social hierarchies, which and of itself, I don’t have a criticism of. It’s normal to have friends and favourites, and I honestly don’t expect people to pretend they don’t. But typically it’s staff at the very top, “staff clique” one rung below, staff clique’s clique & TS partners slightly lower, and at the very bottom people who’ve already started stepping on toes and are one shady page away from being shown the door.
If the game has a skewed gender ratio, then playing characters whose gender’s in higher demand confers a slight social advantage as well. This is especially true if you write well, but honestly, I’ve seen pretty abysmal personalities given a social pass to be abysmal on account of gender ratios despite that.
Where it becomes a problem for me is when, as a newer player or unknown personality, you start to feel like you’re constantly being tested, other people are waiting for you to fuck up, and are more interested in protecting their pecking order than being inclusive. There’s a constant vibe of mild hostility & jealousy where some established players will act like they’re being charitable for taking you under their wing and because they’ve been here longer, your gratitude should be propping them up and mostly staying out of their way. This isn’t everyone everywhere, but … it’s a thing.
A memorable instance for me involved being invited to join a private yet meaningful scene with people who were fairly well-known/established on a game. It had the potential to be a lot of fun, and I was in fact flattered they’d asked at all. But in all honesty I didn’t think that the person running it was super clear on the details of what exactly we were supposed to be doing, and I made a few missteps in interpreting instructions and/or following the expected conventions of how to roll or use my skills. They could’ve simply clarified and said “no worries” when I apologised, but instead the OOC vibe turned hostile, temperamental and shamey. They were pretty upfront about expressing open frustration with me. I fucked up, but I still think this was unreasonable when it was an honest mistake that I was immediately apologising for and could’ve been easily corrected. It just felt like being put in my place by a scolding teacher who still wanted me in their classroom, but with my head bent.
After the scene, I apologised again, then ghosted.
I’ve noticed that, for me, this is more difficult when I’m trying to integrate into an older game with a lot of players who’ve been around for a while. Also, whenever I’m transitioning back into MUSHing after a long period of time I feel more apprehensive about asking people I don’t know to RP.
@Faraday said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Coin said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Nothing makes a game feel more dead than constant and consistently quiet OOC channels.
This is the case for me as well, but that is admittedly personal preference rather than a value judgment.
I don’t see this as something that has to be either/or for a game, though. You can create separate OOC channels that people can opt into or not as they desire. Though that does require staff to nudge convos to the right channels (so someone doesn’t feel obliged to stay tuned to the OOC chatter channel for fear of missing Important Stuff).
Also seconding this. I’ve left my bit connected to games where no one’s said a word on an OOC channel in days. That’s the extreme, though. If people are occasionally chatting on OOC channels, it feels like a more lived-in space. If not, it’s sort of like playing Skyrim or Starfield and expecting an MMO. Vast swathes of emptiness and potential.
