Before I came to CoTH, near the end of 2008, I was a GM to a private server headed off by one of the best RPers I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. The experience I had during my time there were some of the most memorable experiences I've had since I first got sucked into roleplaying. The whole thing was vivid, enjoyable and innovative. I had never experienced anything quite like it. In some ways, it was not unlike CoTH.
Unfortunately, the server died during the summer of 2008 (Zason can correct me if that's wrong). The cause? Needless public division.
OOC drama wasn't necessarily what it was, though that definitely played a part. But, often times the actual division came in the form of something more direct: public GM criticism.
Since the server was a much smaller, more private, population there were fewer rules. Players got an insta-80 level, endless amounts of gear, and could practically teleport anywhere on the world map. We had everything at our disposal. And yet, there were certain things that were restricted, such as adding game objects or making custom weapons. The fact that these things were restricted didn't go down well, and soon there formed two camps -
1.) A group of roleplayers that felt that the GMs were inept and that there should either be a change in leadership or that the commands should be made available to all players.
2.) A group of roleplayers that felt that the GMs were doing fine as it was and the established order should remain.
As it were, these things poisoned the creative opportunities that roleplaying provides. It became more political than other things - and eventually the server died out.
In all honesty, the GMs were inept. I was inept! In that sense the roleplayers were justified in their accusations. But they expressed their frustrations at the price of the potential of a great deal of fun that could've taken place because they made their deeply-felt emotions public, and drew public lines of division. Instead of confronting the GMs, including the server admin, in private they decided to die on a hill that ultimately brought the server to an end.
The GMs were all able to deal with the criticism that took place. But somewhere along the lines personal feelings became hurt and RPers did not associate with one another based on "political affiliation" over what they had originally been there to do! To have fun!
Two things to take out of this story:
1 - Don't be too ridiculous of the GMs for what you ask for. They do have a stressful role as it is in trying to appeal to the majority of us in making this server vibrant and exciting( as if that isn't hard enough ), but lo and behold they also have lives to balance!
( And yes. I know this sounds like a broken record ).
2 - If you have a polarizing issue that you feel is worth taking to the GMs or to the server I recommend making it a private matter with the GMs before you bring it up into public discussion. If other people are feeling the same as you are, tell them to send private messages to the GMs as well! ( This is me speaking, obviously not the GMs ).
I don't say this to scare or to hurt feelings, but to warn of a correlation I see taking place. Please don't get me wrong in this, disagreement and concern is fine in the right context. But we are here to roleplay!
I understand that some of you may view this as a public criticism in wake of recent events, and it is, and I should take some of my own advice. But I'm posting this in the hopes of preventing from further division from taking place, not to point out them out!
At the end of the day, we've all come together for one legitimate purpose in my eyes. That is, to roleplay.
After all - we're all brothers and sisters here, right? Now lets go nerd it up!
'O happy race of men
If Love who rules the sky
Could rule your hearts as well!' ~ Boethius
It's often shocking how "having fun" just doesn't seem to be the priority for some people.
Quality RP, lore, items, events, profiles, bug-fixing, custom stuff, etc. - Those all go right under "having fun" and are not valuable in themselves. And what goes first in that category of "having fun"? Actually trying to have fun, not trying to be provided fun by shiny visuals.
You should not start moaning on and on about how anything in those categories is or isn't being handled if:
1. You can still have your fun without it - And you're here to have fun by roleplaying, last I heard you can do that straigt outta' Northsire with starting gear - All else is a bonus. You don't need your sword to be called "Singe's Blade of Uber Burn You lol" or to get your profile approved NOW -- because your guy just isn't your guy without the Tier 6 gear.
2. The drama of discussing it creates so much un-fun and ruins other people's fun that.
So yea, take it to private, and do so with the respect due when talking to people that provide you the tools to have fun (as is basically impossible to find anywhere else online in terms of WOW roleplaying), and they do this in their own free time for no reason other than wanting to make it fun for you. Even if you believe in a cause or community and want to back it up, you won't put up with being moaned at in public about it.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, Hinbane. We, as a community, should not allow venom to spread and corrupt the thing we came to love--meaning roleplay. I would have said more, but right now I'm at school, and I'm working on an assignment ^^;
JackofBlades Wrote:I agree....wait brothers and sisters?
Yay your all forced to love me!
Aww! Shoot! *loves JackofBlade* I can't.. re..resssiiiist.
On a more serious note, I have no experience with other roleplay servers but I agree that "having fun" should be the top priority. The bugs I've come across so far haven't been fun breaking for me in any way, same for the lore items, profiles, and etc. I find running a forum for a other game stressful enough, and don't even want to imagine how it must be to run a private server with at least.. 4 times as much people as on my forum. You do your best to set it all up, you don't even charge us for playing on it.. I mean, what can be any greater then this? So.. I agree, and think we should give the GMs cookies every now and then. /nod
On a side note.. I really need better argumentative skills about these things, so sorry if my post is.. lacking.
Quote:Perhaps one day, at a new sight,
We will search again for that light.
Hold it close, between our arms,
Listen again, to the priestess her charms.
It's actually a horrid irony really.
Human nature just doesn't allow you to live in peace.
Try as you might, there's always going to be that one who will point the finger and start bitching about a non-existent problem.
Yeah, GM's have it hard.
Yeah, they try their best.
But what stops me or anyone else going on about revolution and rise against oppression? Seriously, if everyone just wanted to have fun, this thread wouldn't even be here.
People will complain about the slightest, and most silly thing, be it lore, items, packages and gods know what.
I'm not saying I support it, quite the opposite, it's in my own personal interest, just like in anyone else, for this to stop dead-center and for everyone to consider CotH the happy place everyone dreams of.
But let's face it people, there's a human typing those emotes, and there's a human mind behind each and every single syllable you read or pronounce out loud.
Happy place has it's limits.
And the sad fact is, the martyr's of it all are the GM team themselves, who can so easily write off the sod completely, stick around and try to reason with him/her and try to solve it out, keeping to the 'let's just try and have fun' motto.
Come on people; They monitor the site through iPhone, at school and work wishing you the best and most enjoyable time here...
Have some sympathy.
defeatist - someone who is resigned to defeat without offering positive suggestions
Stating and explaining why negative human behaviour of any type does exist is never an argument relevant to the question of how to try to correct that behaviour (unless directly relevant to a solution being sought). Deciding that people are asses because of human nature fails as it doesn't help find a solution. Even if you were right, i'd rather look for a solvable cause of the problem.
This thread may make a few people get it better. It might make one or two guys that didn't get it get it.
And that's a lot.
Aruen Wrote:Human nature just doesn't allow you to live in peace.
Happy place has it's limits.
If that was a given of human nature that mankind should just stop trying to deal with, we'd still be in the dark ages, and it seemed a lot more credible back then.
defeatist - someone who is resigned to defeat without offering positive suggestions
Stating and explaining why negative human behaviour of any type does exist is never an argument relevant to the question of how to try to correct that behaviour (unless directly relevant to a solution being sought). Deciding that people are asses because of human nature fails as it doesn't help find a solution. Even if you were right, i'd rather look for a solvable cause of the problem.
Harsh ,davemwow I suppose he just wanted to say that GM's have a thankless job with people taking their cooperation and help for granted and try to help even after being dissed by whiners and sinners like me.
btw I agree full on with the nostalgic OP :mrgreen:
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
I'm sorry if that sounded harsh, I really didn't mean it to.
It may have sounded like that because I'm a recovering negativist (I'm only half-joking about this).
Point is - IMO - we should avoid negative or passive-towards-the-negative attitudes, because that just adds up to less satisfaction at the end of the day (maybe more comfort - "That's just how things are, it's fine that I don't bother with it because it's a given.").
Pssst. Guys. I hate to be a spoiling dickass, but I have to say this....
This isn't the first time we've had this dance. This isn't the first time the GM's have gotten screeched at for being cold, uncaring, soul-less evil neo-nazi cyborg vampire tyrant dictators from the nightmare dimension X. This isn't the first time half the community jumped to their defense while the other half quietly bickered in the shadows. This isn't the first time all of the points on both sides have been raised and reiterated adnaseum.
We've had this happen on the server. This whole stupid lil jig. I think I've seen it twice before, and it always flows with the natural cycle of death x rebirth. People who don't like the system leave, people who do stay, and the whole issue melts away until the next next crop of doods decide to raise the issue again.
The best solution is to ignore it. Open an umbrella and wait for the storm to pass. It always does. Ignore what people say about X GM or X player base and keep your thoughts on the inside. It's a fuckin' game people, having so much emotional investment into how the volunteer force monitors it is just unhealthy.
If you're feeling stressed out or agitated or upset about the way the server works or what people say or what they think....go outside. Get a job. Kiss a girl, or a boy, or both (Hey, I don't judge). Go get an education. Sniff some flowers. Pet a puppy. Live!
But, regardless of what side you're on, be ya a GM sympathizer or a deranged insurgent trying to ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWA, just don't let the issue work you up. What many people seem to forget is that the GM's are big boys and big girls. They've dealt with this issue in the past and they can take care of themselves. The mouthing off of a few kids on the internet ain't gonna rattle 'em.
All I can say, is that I just agree with Krent. He probably put my feelings out there better then I could, and that's not something to be proud of x)
Anyway, yeah. Stop bickering..we're all here for the same reason, which is to RP. Like Hinbane put it, we should all try to work out our problems instead of just.."Crai crai I hate him he's elitist" or "Raeg raeg I hate him he can't spell." It's childish =/
I'm going to point people to Krent's post, since he put it pretty well. But really, speaking as a GM? I feel that the "defend the GMs" posts aren't really necessary, and can in fact be just as harmful overall as any post that criticizes us. We don't need defending, and more importantly we *want* people to speak up if they disagree with something. They'll be less inclined to do so if a gang of defenders rises up every time a criticism is voiced.
Have you hugged an orc today?
- I am not tech support. Please do not contact me regarding technical issues. -
Grakor456 Wrote:I'm going to point people to Krent's post, since he put it pretty well. But really, speaking as a GM? I feel that the "defend the GMs" posts aren't really necessary, and can in fact be just as harmful overall as any post that criticizes us. We don't need defending, and more importantly we *want* people to speak up if they disagree with something. They'll be less inclined to do so if a gang of defenders rises up every time a criticism is voiced.
Know that this wasn't intended to be a "defend the GMs" post as much as it was an attempt to point out a particular pattern that I saw ruin a potential for a bunch o' fun.
But - I'll keep to myself. I wanted to put this out here in the hopes that it may have prevented something.
'O happy race of men
If Love who rules the sky
Could rule your hearts as well!' ~ Boethius
The problem seems to be that if anyone posts a suggestion to the GMs, players choose sides and either oppose or approve of the suggestion before any GM gets to it. Maybe there should be a forum section where people can post their suggestions but only read the threads that they posted themselves, or something similar? I think it would help, since most of the posts with suggestions to the GMs, are for the GMs.
![[Image: Boys.jpg]](http://i929.photobucket.com/albums/ad135/davemwow/Boys.jpg)
