09-26-2011, 08:56 AM
Ahoy CotHmonsturrs,
It’s been a while since I’ve actually wrote that, either out here or in a chat. I think it’s been a while since many have announced their arrival and departures from in-game, yet to those who still dared to do so have been found to be ignored or only greeted by close friends.
CotH is becoming anti-social, and leaned back environment for trolls and silent drama to breed and feed on itself. I’m not going to play nice and pretend the server’s atmosphere is all good, because it’s not. I think many have felt it at least once or twice, or have seen it in the /who list or possibly read about it on the forums. Things that used to be common have been changed, things that used to spread drama as well. (For the better, mind you!)
Change isn’t always a good thing, and while perhaps many have gotten their ways with current changes, I ask you to look realistically at such changes and say how it improved your RP. Has it truly helped?
In my opinion (and else I wouldn’t be writing this post naturally), it has not. After taking a few days from CotH to clear my head and ask myself how close I still was to the server, the answer what I found is that I’m more distanced from the server now then I was as peon. The social bit from the server has completely changed itself to perhaps; three or four people? Many people who I used to RP with have become fed up with CotH and left it, many have left for school as well and others simply lost interest and moved on. To me, those above three are all perfectly understandable reasons. Why have I not simply left CotH one might ask; the answer to that is my RL character and shortcomings which I do not intend to go really deeply into. Simply put: I can’t get past things real easily. I cling onto old things, even if their shine has faded into the past, things of many years ago still.
Now with that said, I’ll just move onto the reasoning as to why I find CotH to be a Troll-haven, rather than RP haven. People are not serious about anything anymore, people do not care to put time into the server they enjoy and love. You might feel differently, yet the results on CotH show. While I do not give much about people their preferences as to RP locations, I will say that the only two places actively visited after the “restart” are Booty Bay or the OOC-Cavern. When I look back before the restart, GMI was a constant drama topic because people found it too easy to hang around. With the recent change to the OOC Cavern, there is on average twelve people to the eight we had before. Yet I’ve seen nobody complain about the OOC Cavern being too easy, that I can’t understand fully.
Regardless, people love the new OOC zone. So do I. But on observing said OOC place closer, one might notice the groups spread around it. People move their avatars to the people they actually know and like, and either chat over party or whisper. You can spot each group real easily; people are alienated from each other. Do not get me wrong, people still chat ‘openly’ but prefer to do so when it’s either a topic they deem themselves masters of knowledge in, or when a hurtful comment can be made. It is rare, nowadays to find an open group accepting of others. It is rare, nowadays to find people being responded to when they ask for RP. It is rare, nowadays to see answers in chat when a question is asked. (Trolling is more frequent)
I find this saddening, greatly. But it’s not the only recent change I felt like mentioning. A lot of tools have been provided to us, custom commands and a lot of things have been made free. Some things admittedly help RP out a great deal (Such as the .lo rp command), and others have hampered it. With the recent addition of the flightpath command, you’d expect people to be more mobile. To RP in zones, now easily accessible that used to be a pain in the rear to get to. Yet I’ve seen not even a handful of people do that. (Observed from the GMT +1 timezone, online times vary between 2 pm to 4 AM)
I ask myself why, and I can only find myself to one answer; People are damn lazy.
(And I am very aware I will get people pissed off by saying that, but that does not scare me off for saying what needs to be said.)
With the restart, people got unmotivated to even lift a finger in the servers direction. The lowering of cash stirred drama up while all skills were given away for free. When that topic had been partially discussed, people looked at professions and asked themselves; “How can I make this even easier on myself?” and quickly demanded the entire profession range to be free. People keep demanding, and demanding but nothing is ever given back to CotH. You have been given so many things and with nearly all OOC aspects covered, you’d assume people would go out and RP more. People have not. People chose to be bored with their maxed out professions skills, rather than RP because people have become anti-social. With so much given to them, people became even further spoiled and now can’t be bothered to show up for events, people can’t be bothered to join and be active in guilds, people can’t be bothered to do a lot of things.
Real life is often given as argument, on how busy people are and don’t want to spend time on anything. Yet a lot of those same people who use said argument, log into CotH and waste their precious time onto OOCC. You’d think that said people would find any strange, any CotHer whatsoever and drag them into RP. And if your time is even too little for that, why log in at all? Take the leftover time you have and get a good rest after such a heavy day for you. Tell me, have you ever liked video games were you got everything from the start? Would you have enjoyed Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, and lord knows what other video game in which you got everything for free at the start?
Maybe you do for a little while, maybe you truly do. But after a week, I can guarantee you it is boring, and that’s what happened to CotH. People have enjoyed their new claimed opportunities, by now take them for granted and everyone who thinks otherwise is deemed to be a moron (People such as me).. And now it’s just boring. People got what they wanted, felt no sense of accomplishment CotH normally had when one achieved something (such as the engineer hog as random example) and now choose to be bored on OOCC rather than going out and RP with random folks.
On top of that boredom (or perhaps underneath in a lot of people) lays a grudge holding attitude. People are too immature to give people their space, and refuse to stop something when the other person requests you (or tells you) to. Chat rules are being ignored, and while reports are send in, the outcome is not noticeable until several weeks (if not months) later. Is it a jab at the system? No, it’s more a comment that I’ve seen –very- little GM policing the chats even when it is needed. Even when a GM is right in the zone, and there’s open talk about drugs, nothing is done. (An example of something I’ve witnessed, with GM being there and active)
But! Back to the grudge thing I mentioned; People hold grudges. Lately, people have become too immature to put differences aside and openly say “You know what? It doesn’t matter at all.” before shaking hands. People seem to enjoy trolling an argument more, to turn it into a heated drama conversation. Seriously guys, what happened to treating each other with respect? Trolling is just another form of disrespect, and holding grudges in a sense is as well. You do not respect the other person enough to lay differences aside, offer your hand and move on. Instead, you rather rant at people so that your two friends also dislike the person whoever crossed your path. Is that mature?
So at this point in writing, I went for a good meal and now find myself a bit pointless. The question “Why do I bother writing this?” came to my mind, which can only be answered with “Because I give a damn about the server.” I’ve made these threads before, and I’ve made attempts at changing it by hosting guilds for the less popular races, I’ve made events big and small. Random and planned, I’ve been a forum helper for a while, and if real life hadn’t taken its toll on me as well I would still be up for the task. Heck, I’ve even donated to the server. The latest RAM upgrade of it could get a label with my name on it. But do I want it? Not really. Do I want anything special? Nope.
All I want is for CotH to look back at its roots and ask itself if things weren’t better back then. Sure it had many bad things, and not everything has to be changed back because a lot of things, really a lot of things have made the RP better. But back then, people had to actually give a damn and work for some things. Currently, that’s mainly gone and while people label CotH more as a “Hardcore RP” server more than ever, the actual contents of said RP feels dead and done for. And in all honesty, so does the community that still roams these forums for a lot of CotHers don’t even look here anymore.
So, with that said I’ll tip my hat and leave this here. If I have offended you somewhere, then feel free to shoot me a PM and we can work it out. If you chose to remain silent, then you’re simply one of those grudge holding people I mentioned earlier.
Psynub.
P.s. Oh and I’m fully aware this post has breached my own guide on several fronts, and that I’ve pointed the finger away from me a good few times, plus that it’s a more dramatic and emotion covered one but.. I feel there’s a point in there somewhere. You just have to put effort in and look for it, for I’m not going to put an TL;DR in. I applaud the folks who read all this, and either replied or shot me a PM. (Though, this looked much bigger in word. Maybe I should start using a smaller font.)
It’s been a while since I’ve actually wrote that, either out here or in a chat. I think it’s been a while since many have announced their arrival and departures from in-game, yet to those who still dared to do so have been found to be ignored or only greeted by close friends.
CotH is becoming anti-social, and leaned back environment for trolls and silent drama to breed and feed on itself. I’m not going to play nice and pretend the server’s atmosphere is all good, because it’s not. I think many have felt it at least once or twice, or have seen it in the /who list or possibly read about it on the forums. Things that used to be common have been changed, things that used to spread drama as well. (For the better, mind you!)
Change isn’t always a good thing, and while perhaps many have gotten their ways with current changes, I ask you to look realistically at such changes and say how it improved your RP. Has it truly helped?
In my opinion (and else I wouldn’t be writing this post naturally), it has not. After taking a few days from CotH to clear my head and ask myself how close I still was to the server, the answer what I found is that I’m more distanced from the server now then I was as peon. The social bit from the server has completely changed itself to perhaps; three or four people? Many people who I used to RP with have become fed up with CotH and left it, many have left for school as well and others simply lost interest and moved on. To me, those above three are all perfectly understandable reasons. Why have I not simply left CotH one might ask; the answer to that is my RL character and shortcomings which I do not intend to go really deeply into. Simply put: I can’t get past things real easily. I cling onto old things, even if their shine has faded into the past, things of many years ago still.
Now with that said, I’ll just move onto the reasoning as to why I find CotH to be a Troll-haven, rather than RP haven. People are not serious about anything anymore, people do not care to put time into the server they enjoy and love. You might feel differently, yet the results on CotH show. While I do not give much about people their preferences as to RP locations, I will say that the only two places actively visited after the “restart” are Booty Bay or the OOC-Cavern. When I look back before the restart, GMI was a constant drama topic because people found it too easy to hang around. With the recent change to the OOC Cavern, there is on average twelve people to the eight we had before. Yet I’ve seen nobody complain about the OOC Cavern being too easy, that I can’t understand fully.
Regardless, people love the new OOC zone. So do I. But on observing said OOC place closer, one might notice the groups spread around it. People move their avatars to the people they actually know and like, and either chat over party or whisper. You can spot each group real easily; people are alienated from each other. Do not get me wrong, people still chat ‘openly’ but prefer to do so when it’s either a topic they deem themselves masters of knowledge in, or when a hurtful comment can be made. It is rare, nowadays to find an open group accepting of others. It is rare, nowadays to find people being responded to when they ask for RP. It is rare, nowadays to see answers in chat when a question is asked. (Trolling is more frequent)
I find this saddening, greatly. But it’s not the only recent change I felt like mentioning. A lot of tools have been provided to us, custom commands and a lot of things have been made free. Some things admittedly help RP out a great deal (Such as the .lo rp command), and others have hampered it. With the recent addition of the flightpath command, you’d expect people to be more mobile. To RP in zones, now easily accessible that used to be a pain in the rear to get to. Yet I’ve seen not even a handful of people do that. (Observed from the GMT +1 timezone, online times vary between 2 pm to 4 AM)
I ask myself why, and I can only find myself to one answer; People are damn lazy.
(And I am very aware I will get people pissed off by saying that, but that does not scare me off for saying what needs to be said.)
With the restart, people got unmotivated to even lift a finger in the servers direction. The lowering of cash stirred drama up while all skills were given away for free. When that topic had been partially discussed, people looked at professions and asked themselves; “How can I make this even easier on myself?” and quickly demanded the entire profession range to be free. People keep demanding, and demanding but nothing is ever given back to CotH. You have been given so many things and with nearly all OOC aspects covered, you’d assume people would go out and RP more. People have not. People chose to be bored with their maxed out professions skills, rather than RP because people have become anti-social. With so much given to them, people became even further spoiled and now can’t be bothered to show up for events, people can’t be bothered to join and be active in guilds, people can’t be bothered to do a lot of things.
Real life is often given as argument, on how busy people are and don’t want to spend time on anything. Yet a lot of those same people who use said argument, log into CotH and waste their precious time onto OOCC. You’d think that said people would find any strange, any CotHer whatsoever and drag them into RP. And if your time is even too little for that, why log in at all? Take the leftover time you have and get a good rest after such a heavy day for you. Tell me, have you ever liked video games were you got everything from the start? Would you have enjoyed Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, and lord knows what other video game in which you got everything for free at the start?
Maybe you do for a little while, maybe you truly do. But after a week, I can guarantee you it is boring, and that’s what happened to CotH. People have enjoyed their new claimed opportunities, by now take them for granted and everyone who thinks otherwise is deemed to be a moron (People such as me).. And now it’s just boring. People got what they wanted, felt no sense of accomplishment CotH normally had when one achieved something (such as the engineer hog as random example) and now choose to be bored on OOCC rather than going out and RP with random folks.
On top of that boredom (or perhaps underneath in a lot of people) lays a grudge holding attitude. People are too immature to give people their space, and refuse to stop something when the other person requests you (or tells you) to. Chat rules are being ignored, and while reports are send in, the outcome is not noticeable until several weeks (if not months) later. Is it a jab at the system? No, it’s more a comment that I’ve seen –very- little GM policing the chats even when it is needed. Even when a GM is right in the zone, and there’s open talk about drugs, nothing is done. (An example of something I’ve witnessed, with GM being there and active)
But! Back to the grudge thing I mentioned; People hold grudges. Lately, people have become too immature to put differences aside and openly say “You know what? It doesn’t matter at all.” before shaking hands. People seem to enjoy trolling an argument more, to turn it into a heated drama conversation. Seriously guys, what happened to treating each other with respect? Trolling is just another form of disrespect, and holding grudges in a sense is as well. You do not respect the other person enough to lay differences aside, offer your hand and move on. Instead, you rather rant at people so that your two friends also dislike the person whoever crossed your path. Is that mature?
So at this point in writing, I went for a good meal and now find myself a bit pointless. The question “Why do I bother writing this?” came to my mind, which can only be answered with “Because I give a damn about the server.” I’ve made these threads before, and I’ve made attempts at changing it by hosting guilds for the less popular races, I’ve made events big and small. Random and planned, I’ve been a forum helper for a while, and if real life hadn’t taken its toll on me as well I would still be up for the task. Heck, I’ve even donated to the server. The latest RAM upgrade of it could get a label with my name on it. But do I want it? Not really. Do I want anything special? Nope.
All I want is for CotH to look back at its roots and ask itself if things weren’t better back then. Sure it had many bad things, and not everything has to be changed back because a lot of things, really a lot of things have made the RP better. But back then, people had to actually give a damn and work for some things. Currently, that’s mainly gone and while people label CotH more as a “Hardcore RP” server more than ever, the actual contents of said RP feels dead and done for. And in all honesty, so does the community that still roams these forums for a lot of CotHers don’t even look here anymore.
So, with that said I’ll tip my hat and leave this here. If I have offended you somewhere, then feel free to shoot me a PM and we can work it out. If you chose to remain silent, then you’re simply one of those grudge holding people I mentioned earlier.
Psynub.
P.s. Oh and I’m fully aware this post has breached my own guide on several fronts, and that I’ve pointed the finger away from me a good few times, plus that it’s a more dramatic and emotion covered one but.. I feel there’s a point in there somewhere. You just have to put effort in and look for it, for I’m not going to put an TL;DR in. I applaud the folks who read all this, and either replied or shot me a PM. (Though, this looked much bigger in word. Maybe I should start using a smaller font.)
![[Image: nIapRMV.png?1]](http://i.imgur.com/nIapRMV.png?1)
![[Image: tumblr_nfm4t0FZcT1rtcd58o1_r1_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/3291026593060f4cddcea972b198a89e/tumblr_nfm4t0FZcT1rtcd58o1_r1_500.gif)
![[Image: djuraz.jpg]](http://imageshack.us/a/img19/7361/djuraz.jpg)
