Weekly Update Trends (2014 - 2019) Part 1: Player Numbers

I don't know if I believe that staff play the game a lot. If they did, how could they be satisfied with its current state? It's a question I've been meaning to ask in general: how does staff not want more out of the game? Aside from the dinosaurs and power-addicts that make up some portion of the wizlist, there's also creative and ambitious people on staff. For all his faults, Shalooonsh is an example of that, and surely at least a few others.

There's a couple of theories/observations that come up now and then:

1) Red tape and bureaucracy keeps storytellers from doing anything.

2) Staff ideology shifted toward player-run plots instead of grand story.

I'm prepared to believe that both of those things have happened, but can it really be true that they continue to keep the game at a standstill year after year? That nothing has changed? Maybe Qwerty can be useful and constructive for a change and tell us more about how things actually operate behind the scenes. Are storytellers' hands tied to such an extent that all anyone has been able to do for years is send more gith after the Byn and Kurac? Has staff officially decided to put an end to the story of Zalanthas in favor of waiting for players to do things themselves? The fact that there actually is a running gith "plot" tells me it isn't some kind of rule they have to abide by, at least. As tired and glacial as the gith storyline is, it certainly can't be called a player endeavor.

Is it staff's opinion that this is enough to sustain the game? That it's a worthy substitute for the memorable, world-changing events of the past, which people still talk about fondly? Even one as pessimistic as I struggle to believe that staff genuinely thinks it's up to par. They can't all be so jaded and uninspired that noone thinks the game deserves more.

if he was staff would that be like the crimson winds leader

I thought Nyr's "psionicist" only had a few psionic abilities from their contact with silt giants from an IC plot, unsure though, I may have misread something. Also I've read that several people had fun with the Hasan plot, unsure though, maybe I just haven't heard from people who had a bad experience with the whole Hasan thing, aside from saying the way Hasan went out was weak as fuck contrived bullshit. I don't like the Crimson Wind for personal reasons that I try to keep from coming out ICly, much like I have a mild distaste for the Dust Runners but I've still interacted with them without that coming out.

I first bumped into the Dust Runners before they were an official clan, the original leader was pretty freaking awesome and got people active and participating, it changed over time, and I guess it was inevitable, but the reason I didn't like the end result was I liked what it had been previously, and I regretted not taking part in it. Or maybe it was an official clan and it just wasn't public knowlege it was official yet. One of my PCs had a good friend who was a Dust Runner leader later, we ended up murdering a dude together because he thought he'd just, attack the elf, when there's two elves present, and caught a facefull of heramide, dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes, and the Dust Runner was just like, "Yeah, I'm too lazy, you do it." so I waltzed over and stuck a knife in his paralyzed ass. Good times.

The Crimson Wind would have been fine if that level of support was afforded to the playerbase as a whole. I think they were a net positive for the game. The issue arises when generations of players try to do something similar and are stonewalled, only to witness one group receive support. They were hardly the first raiding band that tried to get a hideout or coded clanning. It's just that when ten others tried and were told no, the one that gets a pass will come off as pampered favorites who were dealt a winning hand for free.

CW had a warehouse? Anybody can get one of those all you have to do is apply for a player clan and do something like stay alive for 1 in game year or something. The issue is only staying alive long enough. Amon'ma was alive for 2-3 real life years which would be 2-3 in game decades more than enough time to get a warehouse

This statement is incorrect. Melanogaster joined the staff team while playing Amon'ma, and the staff rules were adjusted at the time to allow new members of staff to not have to store their current mortal character before joining staff.

Letting Amon'ma/his player succeed isn't a bad thing at all out of context, but in the larger context of various raider groups working overtime to achieve what he eventually did, only failing because of a lack of staff aid for crucial yet reasonable requests, it's a bit of a sore point that one of the few characters to succeed at it was a staff avatar granted a special exception from storing their mortal character before joining staff just so that it would look like the player-created clan system actually worked. It's that kind of cynical decision-making that's at the heart of critique on staff behavior and favoritism: that an opportunity granted to a staff avatar that ended up being "fun" was denied to potentially dozens of players that otherwise had equal "rights" to the same assistance.

And I think in the context of players leaving the game at a rate of about 5% a year on average, we should ask why those 10-15 players a year are walking away from the game and staff should investigate how long they tried to make something fun out of their experience for both themselves and for others, only to be denied.