[Evermore]

Just to clarify: I am not defending the wrongful use of Newbie where it has really devolved into just commentary, jokes, that sort of stuff, when it’s going on for a good 20+ messages between people. Those are definitely moments I feel a reminder to keep the channel clear again is just. I’ve been a part of that happening a few times, so I bear the guilt of that too. The reminder is acknowledged and respected for what it’s worth, I’ll try and do better on my part. What I was more hoping to open up for discussion is the question of when it should be fair to pull that trigger, so to say. A good example comes to mind that happened just yesterday.

We were having spectated spars during a calendar event, six people in attendance out of the 10-or-so online. During a round of RPFight, which is still a very new thing to several of us there, one PC slammed another PC through a wall and moved the fight into a different room/outside of the event logging. They responded with a ‘wooooow’ on Newbie, and it prompted me to start writing a question what even happened there, but pretty much a second after the first message, that reminder to keep it purely to questions popped up. That killed the initial excitement of this discovery, soured it some, even if we could still then inquire about what happened. Being able to express some excitement like that is healthy, I would argue, while getting told pretty much to can it is detrimental to the general atmosphere. There’s been plenty of other times in recent memory where something weird, surprising, shocking, buggy, or otherwise unexpected event or outcome of some mechanic had people Newbie a response to that, and it has very often lead to people like myself being able to hook in and turn it into an actual Q&A about the specific thing or some associated mechanic the talks brought up. You’d be surprised how enlightening it can be, hearing people just talk about some of the game’s mechanics at times. There’s a lot of little commands or mechanics I discovered just from those moments of slightly (okay.. and sometimes very) derailed Newbie talk. If all of that was happening in a channel I don’t have access to, it’d not have made me come to appreciate the game’s at times bizarre complexity as much.

That, to me, is a good example of why something like the OOC Policy helpfile could specify that ‘detrimental to the enjoyment of others playing the game’. Some of these times, it happens when we were with 5 people on a plot, and there were only 6 people in total online. A light bit of banter, commentary, and such, I think shouldn’t be met with this kind of response to silence it or move it to a donator-only channel. That’s not too strange to believe, I hope? Or at least to help forgive the behaviour some.

[Evermore]

It isn’t, sorry. Appreciate the gesture, though. I’m looking at Nowhere (Fairefield Parking Lot)

[Evermore]

I am all for moderating channels when its uses can no longer be fulfilled. Think of someone trying to ask a genuine question, but this question being drowned by random banter on the channel. That is a moment where you should enforce these rules. However, as per the HELP OOC POLICY helpfile, it states this:

“All OOC aspects of the game: tells, channels, forums, notes etc are granted
on a probationary basis. Any time when someone’s use of those channels seems
detrimental to the enjoyment of others playing the game in any way they
will be removed from the player who is causing that detrimental effect.”

I do not think when people express absolutely shock, surprise, and amusement about a mechanic they were not familiar with is detrimental to anyone’s enjoyment, or is genuinely ever cluttering the channel to the point it can’t be used. And I’d hope moderation understands that point. People expressing their enjoyment of aspects of a plot, also, does not really break these rules, I’d think. They’re keeping positivity up, they’re sharing appreciation, they’re helping boost the entertainment factor. These are the people who still play the game, who still partake in writing story for the game, who keep the conflict narrative alive. I am sorry to have to play that card, but I would argue it is far more detrimental to the enjoyment of the game to see people who do not partake (much) complain about us playing and trying to enjoy the game, than anyone sharing a quick funny remark or some quick ‘wow what the heeeeck’ commentary is being a detriment.

Nobody hops in Newbie and has a long talk about how their day has been, about what the weather is like, about the state of politics in some corner of the world. And nobody is doing that when people are trying to ask their questions. If that happens, I think we are all supportive of reminding them to keep things to questions and their answers for a while. Heck, if we go off by the HELP NEWBIE file, you could reason it suggests OOC communication is fine on it to a degree. The comma after ‘to communicate OOCly with the game’ makes the getting/giving help look like a second purpose of the channel. If it is, indeed, solely there for a quick Q&A, make sure the helpfile actually emphasises that. Give it a specific rule. And let the admins moderate it. People have been going ‘keep it to questions’ when people are, quite literally, talking about the topic of a question.

If not for the at times light-hearted nature of Newbie, I probably would not have stuck around. It’s there where people showed positivity and optimism. Is that not a good thing now, and should being able to express it be locked behind a monetary barrier, or having to exchange Discord identities? Come on.. How often have we even had plots in the last months? How often does this genuinely happen, compared to how often Newbie is desperately needed to answer questions. Most of the times we were providing these play-by-plays during plots, there were literally only us participants and one or two players online if even that.

[Evermore]

Yeah, legitimately… I have been online for almost six hours today, and I have not yet seen my payouts. Seriously hope the game isn’t expecting me to be able to clock this many hours, however many of them AFK, every day.

[Evermore]

Just to note, the only reason I’ve caught up with my loss after the Hunt is because I’ve bargained four times, and converted all Karma I’ve gained into RPXP. Getting back the resources is not that simple, not even just because of the seemingly broken RPXP/contact payouts. Legitimately feels the game is trying to give us an amount of RPXP we can’t gain because of some cap, and thus decides to not hand you a single dime or some pocket change worth of RPXP. That is if they are even still active, for all we know it broke just like it did after day 1.

[Evermore]

Hate it when a game forces you to play a certain way. Making throwaway alts just to circumvent an artificial restriction/throat-slice is not my cup of tea. Not to mention it means putting on a halt any and all society progress your actual character you care about was working on, and their personal storylines, the businesses they were running, etc.

Then imagine the bonuses from the Hunt actually working. As of late, it only seems to mess up the background code more. I’ve never seen contacts fail to provide me with anything, daily RPXP seems completely staggered and derailed and only comes in small bursts after many days of seeing sub-100 or none at all.

And then imagine if this entire Hunt idea would be opt-in, providing some actual narrative reasons and motivations, and some actual coded incentive to engage with it.

I’ll never pursue or enjoy character swap-out if a game makes me. If you want to see healthy character swap-out, you actually need to design a system/game that works with it to begin with. All Haven seems to do is cripple characters that want to stay around, and uses several mechanics to do so. That’s kind of it. So, instead of swap-out, people much rather invest in characters. I don’t think I’m the only one who loathes this idea where we are kind of pushed to play characters for no longer than a few months.

I legitimately wonder if there has been a single character/player that has reached T4 or T5 since the launch of this iteration, of course without using a Lieutenant to do so. This current system seems to much rather promote staying at T2 to be able to actually stick around for as long as possible without mandatory Hunt abductions, and then gaining Karma to stack bonus focus points. (which I wager aren’t removed on a Hunt?)

[Evermore]

Daily RPXP is still continuing to act weird. I’ve finally seen a few actual daily hits of 2-3k. However, it also does not seem to trigger anywhere near my log-in times anymore. Most of the time, I have to stay online in the game for a good 4 to 6 hourly ticks before the game treats me as having been online today, to mete out my Contact bonuses and Daily RPXP. If it feels like it.

Since the date of posting, I have seen 3 daily hits of RPXP, with the other days either giving me none (and on those days, my contacts also just do nothing) or amounts in the same range of 68-72. This is severely messed up. Anyone else experiencing anything similar?

[Evermore]

Lovely reminder to look at/work on my ddescs. And that must be a handy tool, thanks!

[Evermore]

Okay, so.. What is even the point of this gigantic Wild Hunt area? There is NOTHING to do inside it. The game is literally just forcing me to not play for like 3 days or whatever countdown there is before one can escape. And I shouldn’t even be here to begin with, like most of the people it grabbed. I’ve sat here, today, for 6 hours already, and the only other people logging on are Whoinvissed and likely inactive.

Nova. Please. Check the forums or game. This is the worst. This needs fixing fast.. :/

[Evermore]

And I share Lykaia’s sentiment here. Nothing about the Hunt drives roleplay, interaction, engagement. It doesn’t really promote rotating a character in the slightest. Even at 7 months, that is hardly enough to get a character started, to meet people, to make friends and other connections, to establish yourself in a group, and meaningfully progress some story. It’s just there to stick a metal rod between your wheel’s spokes. It takes progress away from you. It punishes you for spending time/investing time in a game about roleplay narratives, whether of conflict or of personal growth/corruption/etc.

I understand what its intent is. But it is clearly not working, or what anyone desires. It actively works to kill the motivation and mood of the players. What do you get in return? An option to reroll your character or start a new one. And a golden acorn, to buff your karma/RPXP gains, when there’s already not a soul around to even gain either resource with. Not exactly what I call a good example of a stick-and-carrot method.

[Evermore]

It’s a mix of potential and the player’s passions I’ve seen. Haven seems to grant players quite a lot of creative freedom, when it comes to item customization, character potential, and there’s so much one can envision as potential storylines and plot arcs. And most of the people I have spoken to that still play seem to be quite passionate about Haven, too, and in my experience that shows there is still something worth sticking around for. People who are invested in their stories, their characters, the overhanging atmosphere of Haven (which also feels quite unique).

I don’t play it too actively. Haven’t had the chance to, really. I have been around at first mostly hoping to see people return after hiatuses once that first Wild Hunt took a lot of the playerbase. But they didn’t seem to come back. Then a few weeks ago, we were seeing an upsurge of players hopping on, too, just before I went on a work vacation. Talking seeing around 10-15 people online during the game’s evening hours, which looked promising. I kind of sit around, work on a few things every now and then, and just keep myself available just in case someone is actually around to roleplay during my hours. I’ll be busy on another monitor, or Haven ends up tucked behind a few tabs or applications.

I came here after trying several other MU*s. Some of the Iron Realms ones. Some MU*s that are solely about combat. Some MU*s with worlds of different genres, such as sci-fi. Haven just kind of clicked as a concept. And I’m still hoping I didn’t arrive at the worst time, and will be here when the ship is sinking. Genuinely.

I’d love to actually be able to try leave a bit of a mark on the town. Even if it’s just having made a few shops, or inspiring a single other person to join me in this society I picked, or having helped play along/write a story people could experience. That’s what I was gearing up for, just before the warnings of yet another Wild Hunt hit me, and that motivation kind of faded. At first, I was just tentatively hovering around, preying that March would not be the month my character gets nabbed and that tiny bit of progress I managed to make gets completely reset and taken from me. It seemed fine. So I was just about ready to invest again, come April, and.. well.. Today happened.

I was today years old when I found out the Wild Hunt is probably bugged, grabbing people who were already grabbed the last hunt, or my own character who isn’t established in the slightest, or likely even old enough to get grabbed. I’m genuinely hoping it is indeed a bug of sorts, that this can get fixed quickly. But I don’t know if I’ve the fortitude to wait for ten weeks just to be able to be a tier 2.

[Evermore]

Great suggestion. The whole idea of making it an opt-in thing. I don’t even care about the size of the grid. That’s fine as is. Even if it were small, we’d still need people to be motivated enough to go out there and roleplay. And from what I’ve gathered on Newbie before, a lot of people kind of just stick around to finish their stories and/or play the ‘my society vs the 63rd’ game.

I would argue what we could use most is an increase to gains. Make the few of us who are trying to stick around actually earn some increased RPXP (and favour, if that’s necessary?). In this current state, it’s actually impossible to even buy a few stats. There’s an arc to be had for us players, of us collaborating to push back the 63rd, but between the Wild Hunt resetting us, the speed and efficiency at which they operate in boroughs, and the difficulty of even becoming remotely viable as a raid/societal/political concept while earning maybe 1k or 2k RPXP a week.. Ouch.

[Evermore]

Hunt just hit. I’m fairly sure it’s going to grab most of us who were still actively around. Had just gotten to a point I was feeling like exploring combat, raids, societies. I think I’m done now. Genuinely feels like the game is intended to die at this point.

[Evermore]

One of those new players here, who sadly joined just before the latest Hunt happened but only became active after it.

This mechanic and its effect on the state of the game/playerbase is very concerning. And with another Hunt possibly right around the corner, which I’ve learned I already qualify for (I’ve only really been active on grid for a month, but made the mistake of making a character months before I did so), it might just kill the few active people around. For one, I might get absolutely shafted by it, at which point I don’t know I can pretend to still be motivated to be a tier 1 for 2.5 months, unable to own the shop(s) I want to make let alone pay for my house or any items.

Should we start posting petitions about this, as suggested in this post? The playercount has been so low, I’m seriously considering leaving the game behind and trying out what few other MU*s around that still pique my curiosity and interest, especially if another Hunt in March will snag the few characters that have been around.

[Author]

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