When is the last time you played?
-
@Ashkuri said in When is the last time you played?:
For those who haven’t RP’d in several years, what keeps you checking in/weighing in on the forum? I’m referring here to the forum parts specifically about MUSHing and RP, not the social/ooc parts like RL support, pets, books, dead people, etc.
The assocations I’ve made with people over the years and then harp on myself internally that I don’t keep in touch with those same people as well as I should.
I keep hoping something comes along and grabs my attention like previous games did, but after two years, ever since the end of Arx, nothing has really stuck. Or the things I was playing just wasn’t holding my attention.
And with many people moving to play-by-post(like what Ares does and I say that with no hate), it just can’t keep my attention the way it used to.
So like many people, the ‘spark’ as other say, just isn’t really there. But still, I remember the good and bad through the multiple sites. SWOFA, WORA, MSB, and now here. While I’m not around nearly as much as I have been, there’s still a tether that keeps me occasionally popping in and checking.
Maybe, it’s just out of the vain hope that some ‘new hottness’ will appear and grab everyone’s attention like some games used to. And if for nothing else, the drama threads those games would create here. I never really played The Reach, but man did I love reading about it’s drama.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
-
@Testament said in When is the last time you played?:
Maybe, it’s just out of the vain hope that some ‘new hottness’ will appear and grab everyone’s attention like some games used to. And if for nothing else, the drama threads those games would create here. I never really played The Reach, but man did I love reading about it’s drama.
I don’t think it’s vain. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve gone from a constant stream of cool new hotness stuff to waves, and the time between the waves grows longer. Eventually though, I suspect it will be retro enough that it will make a big comeback.
-
Something could be the coolest, best, most interesting theme in the world, but if someone doesn’t engage with it, they’re going to be disappointed. I’ve had some of the most fun on games with themes that aren’t my favorite at all.
We’ve all seen the “waves” come and go, and honestly it comes down to the fact that a large amount of folks don’t take initiative to engage beyond “oh hey this is new and everyone’s here.” The amount of fun we have on these games is really pretty largely up to us, and it doesn’t require newness or hotness. It requires effort.
Of course if things don’t grab us, there’s no reason to force it, but this take has always been weird to me. Even in the “heyday” of MUSHes, you had to engage. Maybe we had more time or more energy or whatever the case may be (I certainly understand that for my own self), but the way to hook in has always remained the same.
-
I think we wear rose coloured glasses a lot of the time on MU*s that are pretty nostalgic and are waiting for that “spark” again. But I don’t think it’s the games itself? I miss the times where I played with my friends, and there’s just not a lot of places where my friends play anymore, and even if there was a game that was EXACTLY LIKE the game that I played before that I loved … I don’t think I’d stick. I’m not the same person I was even a year ago, and I just don’t have the energy or the time, and the time I do have I want to spend doing other things.
I just don’t think it has to do with the games that are available or the games that I used to play. Like there could be a carbon copy of the games I loved and everything could be the same but I am not the same anymore. If that makes sense.
-
@ham said in When is the last time you played?:
We’ve all seen the “waves” come and go, and honestly it comes down to the fact that a large amount of folks don’t take initiative to engage beyond “oh hey this is new and everyone’s here.” The amount of fun we have on these games is really pretty largely up to us, and it doesn’t require newness or hotness. It requires effort.
I do wonder what everyone is waiting for, really. Like we’ve had in however many years since Arx ended multiple L&L games, fantasy games, supernatural games, steampunk games, WoD games, and they either don’t pop off or it does pop off and then the activity plummets and the game dies. And games die for many reasons but I think a big one is what you said - people don’t take initiative to engage, and everyone just keeps waiting on someone else to Do Something, and when everyone is waiting around, no one does anything, and the staff can’t keep up with constant demands to Do Stuff so they get burned out and yeah.
-
@ham said in When is the last time you played?:
The amount of fun we have on these games is really pretty largely up to us, and it doesn’t require newness or hotness. It requires effort.
I agree with this. My experience is very different from a lot of folks here, I think. I make my own fun, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of people to do it with. I’m choosy about which games I play on, but once I choose a game? I’m usually there until they turn the lights off. (And on several occasions have spun off into sandboxes or sequel games to keep going even after that).
@Testament said in When is the last time you played?:
And with many people moving to play-by-post(like what Ares does and I say that with no hate),
Ares lets people play how they wish to play. Yes there are many MU*ers who prefer async, but you only have to find a couple like-minded folks to get a healthy chunk of trad/live scenes going.
-
@ham said in When is the last time you played?:
The amount of fun we have on these games is really pretty largely up to us, and it doesn’t require newness or hotness. It requires effort.
Totally true. Newness and hotness are optional. They can definitely help some times, but if nobody puts in effort, no fun is had.
-
@bear_necessities said in When is the last time you played?:
everyone just keeps waiting on someone else to Do Something, and when everyone is waiting around, no one does anything, and the staff can’t keep up with constant demands to Do Stuff so they get burned out and yeah.
This is why I really admire both the tabletop GMs and mush GMs that are able to carry a story to completion. Like, goddamn, you guys are so powerful.
I think smaller, punchier games benefit from having a set lifespan. Think of the lifespan of all those Discord RP groups out there. So many unfinished threads…
-
@Yam idk. sometimes I think we just as a community need to stop expecting one person to hold all the story on their shoulders. Maybe a lot more people would build games if they thought that the community would tell stories with them instead of them having to tell stories for everyone? I’ve thought about that a lot. I mean I’d love to run a game and have 10,000 ideas, but I don’t have the dedicated story teller time.
-
@bear_necessities Probably people would play more, too, if they thought that people would tell stories with them instead of having to convince somebody to tell stories for them.
-
Has anyone seen a system that effectively incentivizes players to run things for other players?
I ask because my pals have mused on these kinds of systems but my only perspective is like… I run scenes because I want to run them. Extra XP or perks don’t really factor in for me.
Maybe a better question… have incentives encouraged you to run scenes when you normally wouldn’t?
-
@Yam I thought y’all did a great job of trying to encourage that at City of Glass by making them one possible way to earn points each week… I’m not sure it really encouraged me to run things more than I would have anyway, because I typically try to run stuff semi-regularly.
But, it did encourage me to do it outside the wheelhouse of my comfort zone somewhat. I almost never play characters that aren’t running at least small stuff for friends, sometimes bigger stuff for larger groups, too. That was the first game where I actually put stuff up as events without knowing ahead of time who or how many would be interested.
So, I’m not sure the incentives really caused me as a player to run anything more than what I usually would have run, but it encouraged me to be braver about doing it with a wider net.
