Concordia Thread

Coin

For me, I honestly thought I had the skillset and resilience to run a game. That disciplinary issues would be simple to handle, that people would read content and guiding story would be the vast majority of the work. Personally I think some people also approached it expecting like peak Arx, which the game never was going to be.

Unfortunately though, I was quite wrong in both my assessment of that and just how creepy, sexual or downright rude to each other people could be. In an incredibly short space of time we had:

Someone who was sliding into the DMs for every male presenting character wanting to hook up.

Someone who was encouraging them to trade the logs.

Yossarian.

Dealing with that on a daily basis was just exhausting for me, taking away from the fun that I have around roleplaying and world building. There’s also systems and processes that I do wish I got in at the start, positions and structures from the very beginning.

If I ever was to restart, I think there are elements I’d bring across but certainly some things I would do to improve. But ain’t anybody’s first attempt at something like this incredibly successful.

You live, learn and improve.

This post gives the (possible) impression you’re closing Concordia down, just FYI. I don’t know if you are or not, just thought I’d point that out.

Tez

@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:

Some players did some really impressive worldbuilding there, especially with work on their houses and home worlds…

This was a thing that is gonna be a hit for some players and a turn off for others. I can see why people would be down for the chance to feel as though they co-created the world. The feeling of player investment is real and valid! Detailing their lands, their houses, even their own gods and religions: I have no doubt that there are a lot of people who would be thrilled by that.

But it’s not for me.

I prefer a clarity of vision that comes from staff so that players can continually drag it off course and make it really reductive and insist that those guys are pirates, these guys are slutty, and those guys all worship spirits and not gods.

Obviously there are challenges with either approach.

For me, however, it contributed to the empty ChatGPT hollow I felt.

Polk

@Duke-Whisky That’s rough stuff. I know other popular games take a similar toll on people dealing with interpersonal and behavioral issues. Sorry you had to go through that.

Vulgar Boy

@Tez said in Concordia Thread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:

Some players did some really impressive worldbuilding there, especially with work on their houses and home worlds…

This was a thing that is gonna be a hit for some players and a turn off for others. I can see why people would be down for the chance to feel as though they co-created the world. The feeling of player investment is real and valid! Detailing their lands, their houses, even their own gods and religions: I have no doubt that there are a lot of people who would be thrilled by that.

But it’s not for me.

I prefer a clarity of vision that comes from staff so that players can continually drag it off course and make it really reductive and insist that those guys are pirates, these guys are slutty, and those guys all worship spirits and not gods.

Obviously there are challenges with either approach.

For me, however, it contributed to the empty ChatGPT hollow I felt.

I get that, tho it’s going to happen anywhere that you have a theme people care about enough to get involved in. Just look at the unofficial stuff on the lux of Arx, and the way that expanded out wildly with everyone needing to find the one thing their house was famous for. Our county is known worldwide for our tree-fresh maple syrup! Well our march is beloved for our crisp Russian vodka (don’t think about it too hard)! Well, our duchy is known for our rum, even tho historically rum has been reliant on a ready access to sugarcane, which grows in tropical regions, because I saw a documentary about a captain named James S Parrow where it was implied that pirates like rum and we’re pirates! House Grayson? Oh, we make cellphones.

It’s just Concordia offered a way for players to make it official. Well, “official”. It was mostly the same in that no one was really paying any attention to it except for the core audience of other people in the house. At least on Arx you could do an action, which would more-or-less force staff to make a Vox which said “boy, everyone sure loves House … Crampton’s … famous taters?”

On a recent game where I played I kept a personal list of local businesses I’d made up, just so I could reference it if I needed to name a convenience store or florist and there wasn’t one built. But I got that no one could have possibly cared but me. It made me feel like things were a little more alive. And my wretched, dead heart craves things that are alive.

Testament

Having a mental breakdown and losing my job really killed my desire to play on MUs. And not just on Concordia, but everywhere I played. I still haven’t felt a desire to really log in anywhere.

Also, it’s far easier to hide in Baldur’s Gate and Starfield for escapism than writing, so that’s mostly why I vanished.

If all of that hadn’t happened, might’ve been different as I really liked what Concordia had to offer.

Faraday

@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:

I will say that on a non-Ares MU if I decide, hey, I want some random RP, I can go into a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does no big. While on an Ares game I have to start a scene and throw out a first pose and then my failure to draw people in will be a feature of the active scenes page until I finally give up and go weep in a corner. And then if I’m proud of my failure I can make certain it is permanently made a part of the public record.

Or you could go sit in a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does, no big. (Though web-only players would not be able to join.)

Or you could create a scene on the active scenes list and then do scene/stop when you give up, and no one will ever see that scene again. If there are no poses yet, you can even straight-up delete it.

I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.

helvetica

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.

It’s great that you don’t feel that way personally, but it does involve an extra level of leaving oneself exposed and there’s no harm in acknowledging that.

Vulgar Boy

@Faraday said in Concordia Thread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:

I will say that on a non-Ares MU if I decide, hey, I want some random RP, I can go into a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does no big. While on an Ares game I have to start a scene and throw out a first pose and then my failure to draw people in will be a feature of the active scenes page until I finally give up and go weep in a corner. And then if I’m proud of my failure I can make certain it is permanently made a part of the public record.

Or you could go sit in a public room and chill and if someone wants to join they can and if no one does, no big. (Though web-only players would not be able to join.)

Or you could create a scene on the active scenes list and then do scene/stop when you give up, and no one will ever see that scene again. If there are no poses yet, you can even straight-up delete it.

I personally fail to see why having an empty scene on the ‘active scenes’ list is any more or less of a perceived failure than sitting around on the +where list in a room by yourself, but YMMV.

It’s okay if not 100% of people like 100% of a thing you made. Call it a personal failing on my part, I guess.

Faraday

@Vulgar-Boy said in Concordia Thread:

It’s okay if not 100% of people like 100% of a thing you made. Call it a personal failing on my part, I guess.

I don’t actually care if someone likes it or not, but I feel it’s misleading to imply that you can’t just sit on a public grid and wait for RP on an Ares game (you can), or that an attempted-then-aborted scene somehow stays on the active scenes list as a badge of embarrassment indefinitely (it doesn’t).

DrQuinn

@Faraday As someone who has opened my fair share of scenes and thrown out a pose and had it sit unjoined for days it IS very discouraging. Sure in a grid room you can be sad you’re in pub zero and everyone joined pub two, but in that case you just leave the room and that’s that.

Some games don’t seem to allow you to delete scenes so not only do you then close out your lonely scene, the game will remind you it happened as it encourages you to share that disappointment for awhile until it finally deletes.

Faraday

@DrQuinn said in Concordia Thread:

@Faraday As someone who has opened my fair share of scenes and thrown out a pose and had it sit unjoined for days it IS very discouraging. Sure in a grid room you can be sad you’re in pub zero and everyone joined pub two, but in that case you just leave the room and that’s that.

As I said, YMMV. I have felt just as discouraged sitting in public rooms hoping vainly that someone might join. My only point was that nothing stops you from doing that exact same thing (sitting on a public room hoping that someone comes by, with no trace left behind if it fails) on an Ares game.

Some games don’t seem to allow you to delete scenes so not only do you then close out your lonely scene, the game will remind you it happened as it encourages you to share that disappointment for awhile until it finally deletes.

You’ve always been able to delete a scene that had no poses in it. But yes, to be fair, the ability to delete a scene with poses is a relatively new feature.

DrQuinn

@Faraday Both things are definitely discouraging! I guess the difference for me, in Ares, is that I’ve posed and a scene has started so there’s now a record of it and people just don’t like my set or don’t notice or hate me or whatever and don’t join so that’s more discouraging to me than if I sat in a room where I hadn’t posed and all that showed is I was there and if I wanted I could just leave and no one would know it ever happened.

I was definitely very glad when being able to delete scenes that had one pose in it came around because the game would be like HEY REMEMBER THIS!! And I was like please no. Just delete. And it’d keep doing that until it deleted.

There are other things I definitely prefer about Ares but boy does it seem like you’re putting yourself out there more, to me.

Faraday

@DrQuinn said in Concordia Thread:

I guess the difference for me, in Ares, is that I’ve posed and a scene has started so there’s now a record of it and people just don’t like my set or don’t notice or hate me or whatever and don’t join so that’s more discouraging to me than if I sat in a room where I hadn’t posed and all that showed is I was there and if I wanted I could just leave and no one would know it ever happened.

I’m sorry if I’m missing your point, because I’m really not trying to be argumentative. I just genuinely think there’s some kind of misunderstanding here.

In Ares, I can connect via a MU client, wander down to Joe’s Pub, sit in the room hoping that somebody shows up for three hours, and then leave. There is no record of this ever having happened, just like on a non-Ares game.

In Ares, I can also create a scene in Joe’s Pub with a description “hey come play” or whatever. I don’t have to pose in, I can just open the scene and sit there. If it doesn’t work out, I just scene/stop and scene/delete and the scene is gone, once again leaving no record if it ever having happened. (This feature has always been there.)

Now yes, there are other scenarios where you did a scene set, and the game doesn’t auto-delete unshared scenes, so it hangs around on your private unshared scene list forever. It’s still not public, but I can totally see where that would be irritating and potentially discouraging. The new delete features address that, but if it still bothers you, you can just stick to the two scenarios mentioned above.

DrQuinn

@Faraday The scene once I close it, is private. But unlike on a grid where I can sit by my lonesome for hours at a time and when I disconnect it’s gone like it never happened on Ares even if I don’t pose a set (and I’ve never seen this happen, if someone starts a scene generally it seems like they always pose and wait) it will sit there on the active scenes list for days at a time just showing me sitting there until I give up and close it. So instead of a few hours of no one coming to RP with me, it can be some very public days.

I think that’s what’s trying to be expressed here (though I could be wrong and am just speaking for myself).

It’s one of the reasons I will always try to join an open scene if I see it because boy do I know how that person must feel hoping someone else comes in.

Faraday

@DrQuinn said in Concordia Thread:

it will sit there on the active scenes list for days at a time just showing me sitting there until I give up and close it. So instead of a few hours of no one coming to RP with me, it can be some very public days.

Right… until you give up and close it. But you can do that literally any time you want, and then it will disappear from the public scenes list. I mean, sure, if you’re going to leave it up there for days with no one biting I can understand that being discouraging. But that’s the equivalent of sitting idle in the bar for days with no one biting, which would also be discouraging.

(I realize none of this has anything to do with Concordia specifically so a mod is welcome to splinter this off to some thread about putting yourself out there for RP).

helvetica

@Faraday There’s a certain investment represented in creating an open scene and pre-writing/posting an scene set that is distinct from going onto a grid and waiting to see if someone shows up. There’s also a distinction in how pacing works on many ares games, where it’s often the norm to wait longer periods for players in different timezones or with different rl responsibilities.

I agree that there’s just some fundamental misunderstanding here. Oh, well!