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A Constructive Arx Thread
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@RightMeow My impression has always just been that it’s just a case by case, subjective staff call. If a player had a roster for a significant amount of time, had notable investment into their story, I saw staff respect requests from the player as far as asking them to be set inactive or killed in story instead of rostered.
If a character is given up without that explicit request, my observation is that sometimes the character would be retired if the amount of knowledge and secrets seemed too difficult to put back into play, or if the character accumulated to much mess and drama to give to someone new. I think that, if there wasn’t a specific wish/request from the previous player, that staff generally tried to just approach it in terms of whether or not a new player would have a bad experience.
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@RightMeow At one point I asked staff if my long-term roster could be set inactive instead of going back on the roster, and that was permitted. At the time I think it was usually allowed unless the character was up to their eyeballs in story and/or would interrupt other people’s play by being off the roster (High Lords, the King, etc.)
That was awhile ago though.
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@RightMeow I’ve put in preemptive requests like, hey, this is why I feel I have ownership of this character, and they should be inactive when I leave.
But I’ve seen them decline to do that with characters they feel have more story to tell.
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I have had a great time playing Arx in the past before and I definitely met and RP’d with a lot of lovely people there. I think the two (slightly related) things that I really struggled with on Arx were:
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There is often a lot of what I will call “tonal whiplash” where there is a terrible civil war, or some other disastrous thing going in in the background, but all the player events going on day to day are like a pet fashion show or a slam poetry contest. I understand why this happens and of course anyone who runs anything on a MUSH these days is an angel, but I sometimes just wish there was a bit more “bite” to some of the day to day RP. Which, I am sure someone will tell me it is there but…(see point 2)
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Lack of (genuine) variety in Roster characters. I remember a period (not recently, but I don’t know if it has changed) where there were like five roster characters who were a variation on “vaguely piratical sailor girl with a brusque attitude but a heart of gold” or “gruff bearded warrior with a large sword, a drinking problem and a dark history he never talks about”.
Which, again, I get isn’t anybody’s fault. It was a bit better when there was an option to make an OC, but I get this also led to its own raft of problems with some kind of egregious stuff sneaking by at times. Or maybe I am just too picky.
I think the staff do a good job and have a massive amount on their plate, but I found these things really had me struggling to get back into it when I have tried. I think if they could get a handle on the rosters at least, that would make the game more appealing to new players again, since the numbers seem to have dwindled a lot.
Just a couple of thoughts!
Pacha
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@Pacha said in A Constructive Arx Thread:
There is often a lot of what I will call “tonal whiplash” where there is a terrible civil war, or some other disastrous thing going in in the background, but all the player events going on day to day are like a pet fashion show or a slam poetry contest. I understand why this happens and of course anyone who runs anything on a MUSH these days is an angel, but I sometimes just wish there was a bit more “bite” to some of the day to day RP. Which, I am sure someone will tell me it is there but…(see point 2)
Are you me? This is exactly what eventually pushed me away from that game.
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I think the tonal whiplash happens because while there are horrible things going on in the game world, they’re a) not accessible to all players and/or b) not being acted on by staff (which is not meant as a diss to staff, they don’t have TIME to act on it). So everyone has to fill in those gaps somehow and it’s…parties.
Party RP ain’t my thing either, so it’s a reason I no longer play there.
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I think part of it as well is that people use RP and the like for destressing from life. Which y’know, Arx is a pretty brutal universe in plenty of spots, but it’s also got a whimsical bent for players who are into that. Sometimes you just wanna hop on and chill in the fantasy world for awhile, without worrying about how it’ll effect the amount of time you’ve invested into a character so far.
I guess that’s pretty much the point everyone was making too, so, yeah.
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I use to love parties. Now, it’s not so much the parties as trying to keep up in a large scene.
RL is full of a lot of strife. We have work. We have family. We have illness. We have politics (for another board). The civil war has been going on for a long time. Which is not a hit at all. It has to have time to get things into place.
People get tired of bad after bad after bad. They just want to have fun. At the end of the day, there isn’t going to be a one-size fits all anything. Which is good too because it would be boring if one size fit everyone, I love the differences of people.
I think it’s just a kindness to have people play what they want when they need and that there are people around to fit that play style of the moment.
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@Pacha Not to dismiss your objections. If you don’t care for it, you don’t care for it.
But historically, when people ARE stuck in terrible wars and such, they do their best to find light, whimsical things to take their minds off of it.
Remember 2020’s weird obsessions, like sourdough starters?
“I can’t believe they’re RPing about sourdough starters in the middle of a pandemic”
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I’m probably the only person to ever notice this, but some time in the past 48 hours, Arx disappeared from the Evennia games list.
It feels weird not seeing Arx there.
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Sooo, Like, Arx is dead, right?
I still bounce on now and then thinking one day it will flourish. Oh well.
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@real_mirage Arx finally fall over under the weight of overloading its storytellers? That’s a shame.
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@Polk Probably! No real updates in months and whereas before you would see 70+ people theres now barely 30 it feels.
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@Polk said in A Constructive Arx Thread:
That’s a shame.
It is though.
Uh, 30 player average isn’t dead by any means, but it’s certainly smaller than it had been. Dunno what’s going on, but if things are winding down there that makes me sad and nostalgic.
Mostly good times, and where probably most of us here met and played for years.
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Honestly 30 players is a sweet spot if they are active and involved. While it may be unfortunate to see Arx slow down, it needed to decrease in size 5 years ago. Hopefully the STs can regain some momentum now that there’s a smaller player base to please.
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I have a lot of good memories from Arx. And a handful of really great ones that I will treasure forever. I met a non-zero number of treasured RL friends there. It is however impossible to savor that nostalgia for more than a minute or two before a mountain of frustrating, disappointing, and sad experiences ruin the after-taste. So I guess news of its death leaves me feeling like pouring one out for my homies who moved on before I did, one for those I moved on from, and one last for the messy, murky spectacle itself; which occasionally approached the sublime.
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@bear_necessities I think the trouble is that there’s 30 on but definitely nowhere near that are active and involved.
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@imstillhere
I mean, to be completely honest, good. I’m with @bear_necessities, that is one crew that has absolutely deserved more quiet for a long time.
I have things I could say about old frustrations and really bad experiences but honestly, the staff all worked really hard to tell as many people as they could amazing stories and I’d rather remember that stuff.
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I’ve really dropped off hard in activity the past few months. It’s mostly just a feeling of… not knowing where to go from here?
Like it occurred to me at one point just how many people I’d met over the course of the game that I had really fond memories playing with, felt like they were really connected to my character’s story, and have since left. There’s so few familiar faces and making new connections is always difficult. It’s sad to think about, but it’s nobody’s fault.
I just lost that sense of logging in and being, like, excited to be around. Since a big stretch of the plot got wrapped up, I also have no idea what to get involved in anymore.
Not a dig at anyone specifically, especially not people who still play and enjoy every day. I think I just got burnt, hit a limit and flared out.
