I'm done

Cubey

I'm done with this game.

I'm done with the fact my faction is dead. The faction I've spent months of efforts to maintain and keep active, months that felt like extremely unfun work (instead of what they should have been, fun - because it's a video game and games are supposed to be fun, right?), and now it's so dead that I can't even delegate any leader duties to others, because literally all who is left are people who are already in leadership positions, those who aren't interested, and newbies. Starmourn is not a big game right now and none of the factions are particularly big, but neither Song nor SH are as dead as CA is, and I can't shake the feeling I'm responsible for that somehow.

I'm done with the PvP community, and being constantly told to git gud because I can't win a 2v4 fight or because I have an opinion that goes against the grain, such as deciding not to use mudlet (which I find ugly and unappealing). I'm done with PvP itself being high stakes and how it's apparently a controversial opinion not to want to lose hard earned ingame resources in a one-sided conflict for minimal gain. When I tried to instill a sense of not being a griefer in the community, I experienced intense pushback time and time again, both from people who think it's in-character so it's okay to do, and those who think it's just a game so you shouldn't worry so much about what happens in it. Nevermind that the ingame losses suffered still require time to recoup, sometimes hours of time wasted that are no less real just because you spend them in a game.

I'm done with my efforts at RP falling flat, having found myself challenged to write interesting emotes and things to say and feeling extremely inadequate for it.

I came to Starmourn with a goal in mind, to be a great and memorable player, but in the end the only memorable thing I achieved is the number of OOC arguments I've caused. Everything else was an uphill battle that ended in failure and I no longer have the motivation to deal with that. Dropping the game and nothing of value is lost.

Valincora

Merry Christmas, Cubey!

Flipilaria

It's not an airport. You don't have to announce your departure.

Cubey

Flipilaria said:

It's not an airport. You don't have to announce your departure.

I want to avoid a situation where everyone wonders where I went and what happened to me. Also judging by replies/reactions to this thread, me leaving should make at least some people happy.

Flipilaria

Cubey said:

Flipilaria said:

It's not an airport. You don't have to announce your departure.

I want to avoid a situation where everyone wonders where I went and what happened to me. Also judging by replies/reactions to this thread, me leaving should make at least some people happy.

I'm not happy you're leaving. I'm happy your toxic behavior is. Most of the time in your forum posts and discord chats, you're complaining about something. And most of those times, the substance of the grievance you're airing is legitimate. CA is suffering from a lack of membership and storytelling, yes. PVP is hard, yes. All of these things are fair points.

You air them by attacking everyone around you, especially those that disagree with you, instead of actually suggesting things that could be done and working with those around you to achieve them. I've seen multiple people dread engaging with you on these topics because of the way you approach both the topics and those who respond.

You have made it clear, though your posts and chats, that you do not want to be part of this community. Rather, you want this community to cater to you.

And it's that part that I'm pleased is leaving.

Cubey

Yeah, your post history on this forum is full of shitposting and relentlessly mocking other people, and I'm the toxic one, sure.

This game's community has normalized bad behavior as long as people who exhibit it are nominally pretending to be all buddy-buddy with each other - you can be a griefer or a troll, you can make the game unfun for other players, and you can have terrible RL opinions, all of that is allowed as long as you're willing to have each others' back and creating a front of solidarity against others who rock the boat too much and call folks out on their bad behavior. In other words, it's a circlejerk, and I refuse to be part of it.

Flipilaria

Cubey said:

Yeah, your post history on this forum is full of shitposting and relentlessly mocking other people, and I'm the toxic one, sure.

This game's community has normalized bad behavior as long as people who exhibit it are nominally pretending to be all buddy-buddy with each other - you can be a griefer or a troll, you can make the game unfun for other players, and you can have terrible RL opinions, all of that is allowed as long as you're willing to have each others' back and creating a front of solidarity against others who rock the boat too much and call folks out on their bad behavior. In other words, it's a circlejerk, and I refuse to be part of it.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Cubey

Thanks for proving my point.

Woodro

Who is griefing? I hate that you feel this way. There is snark remarks and generally people donot always agree on everything but, as far as griefing IC that is really low here. OOC wise I have always found help and great conversation. What is your actual problem here?

n1nj4

I am sad to see you go. You have been a great help to me in growing my character thus far. Though our numbers are low currently this is, in my experience, apart of playing any MUD. You get what you put into these games, maybe stepping away for awhile instead of just straight quitting is an option for you? My character is just getting into the PVP aspect of the game and will be more help in the future if you decide to stay. Whatever you decide, thanks for the fun and guidance your character gave mine.

Soza

Cubey said:

Yeah, your post history on this forum is full of shitposting and relentlessly mocking other people, and I'm the toxic one, sure.

This game's community has normalized bad behavior as long as people who exhibit it are nominally pretending to be all buddy-buddy with each other - you can be a griefer or a troll, you can make the game unfun for other players, and you can have terrible RL opinions, all of that is allowed as long as you're willing to have each others' back and creating a front of solidarity against others who rock the boat too much and call folks out on their bad behavior. In other words, it's a circlejerk, and I refuse to be part of it.

I honestly feel bad that you feel this way, and that it was all sparked from a differing of opinions in an out of character chat, then you got upset from dying in a fair 1v1 in an open pk area. I have never felt out of place in starmourn, I haven't ever tried to make the game unfun for you.
I do have a few points to make though.
1.) If you die in an open world pk zone, there are multiple ways to avoid this in the future
-Dont go into open world pk zones
-if you just want your inr back and its being held by someone, and you dont want to fight for it, either ask in an out of character way or stop being lazy and kill 10 mobs to get that 3% back
2.) If you feel detached from the community ie the feeling noone likes you, or that people tend to speak down to you.
-Try making friends, Don't be so stuck up about things. Generally people are nice.
-While things like dying, or having a differing opinion might make you mad. Dont go cry things are unfair Its generally offputting to other players, the world is a vast world that doesnt revolve around you. We are all just players in this world.
3.) Complaining in a forum post is also generally offputting to new players who are looking into the game for the first time. Having such a post will likely push potential new players away, These players that you say CA is so desperately lacking. Most of your complaints originate with you. I wouldnt want new players to be given the impression that you seem to have developed about this game as it is completely wrong.

Lindhrive

I’m very sorry to hear that you’re going, and saddened that the game is making you feel this way. You’re certainly going to be missed in CA. 

Cubey

Soza said:

I honestly feel bad that you feel this way, and that it was all sparked from a differing of opinions in an out of character chat, then you got upset from dying in a fair 1v1 in an open pk area. I have never felt out of place in starmourn, I haven't ever tried to make the game unfun for you.

It wasn't a difference of opinion. You and Nykara mocked me for my preference in game clients and my preferred game speed, and that's not even the first time I was treated like this. Before I left discord, either of you were really quick to @ at me whenever you achieved anything of note in pvp just to taunt me.

As for your advice, first of all: at level 75, 3% exp isn't 10 mobs. It's good 15-20 minutes mobbing, per death. Imagine you're playing WoW or FFXIV and are told that for each pvp death you suffer you need to run a dungeon just to recoup the losses. That penalty would quickly add up, and I simply don't have that much time to spend on an unfun grindy activity (pve mobbing) for no reason other than to recoup exp losses. To remedy this waste of time, I suggested we shouldn't lose INRs if we die in open pk or allied areas: but as usual, the idea was met with a lot of hostility.

But the important thing: even if I didn't want to visit open pk areas, if I didn't want to participate in open world pvp, I still have to. Remember the part where CA is super inactive? Crystal caches aren't exempt from that. Most of the time, if a cache is up, I have to try go get it regardless if I feel like it or not - because if I won't, no one else from CA will. I tried taking it easy for a while and we dropped critically low on crystal reserves already. The faction literally can't afford it anymore.

Woodro said:

Who is griefing? I hate that you feel this way. There is snark remarks and generally people donot always agree on everything but, as far as griefing IC that is really low here. OOC wise I have always found help and great conversation. What is your actual problem here?

As far I know there's no substantial griefing going on right now, but there was a lot of griefing in the past, usually done by players who are well respected and considered staples of the community (and beucase they're well respected, then that griefing is no big deal and you shouldn't rock the boat by pointing it out). This includes, but is not limited, to:

- Using an open pvp area to actively hunt down other players' ships and then take their ship supplies, worth tens of thousands of ingame marks

- Killing other players repeatedly on flimsiest PK excuses, often boiling down to "I just don't like them so I'll hunt them down"

- Similarly, hiring bounty hunters to kill other players repeatedly on flimsiest PK excuses

- Deciding arbitrarily that a player who was around the same zone as you were in when you died was a thief (because your junk disappeared in the meantime) and hunting them down without proof, on hunch alone

And before I get accused of faction favoritism, every faction harbors players guilty of those. In particular CA had the most glaring example of the last point from my list. Yet each time I called people out this kind of behavior (not always on forums, sometimes ingame), I experienced intense pushback and other negative reactions.

It's not a big revelation when I say that people just don't like being told what they're doing is wrong. If you keep telling people that, you get a rep as a nag and a buzzkill who is dampening folks' fun, even when that fun comes at other players' expense. So in order to be well liked, you have to go with the flow and not rock the boat too much. You ask what's my problem: my problem is the level of conformity this community demands, and if you fail to conform by voicing your displeasure of something, in particular behavior of other players - then it means you, in Flip's words, "want the community to cater to you". Griefing, or rather the playerbase's indifference to griefing and hostility towards those who tried calling it out, is just a symptom of that.

There's a reason why for most of my time with the game I tried to conceal who my ingame character is. But that cat's out of the bag for months now, and I thought I'd be able to somehow deal with this game and its community despite that. As it turns out, I can't.

Nykara

It wasn't a difference of opinion. You and Nykara mocked me for my preference in game clients and my preferred game speed,

Excuse you, do not come on here and make baseless accusations. If you felt mocked, I'm sorry, but that's not what was happening from any objective perspective. I had no ill will toward you in regards to how you play the class nor how you play the game. You stated that I would only use combo; I stated I had no desire to play the game that way. You stated there would be 6+ keystrokes per attack; I explained I was only planning to do it in two. You stated there was no way to macro everything; I explained that I was doing it on no more than 5 buttons through the use of modern scripting. I wasn't mocking you for not doing those things, just explaining to you that I wasn't doing it your way. If you ever want to be mocked by me, let me know; but don't claim I'm mocking you when I'm not. 

eta: https://ada-young.com/pastebin/aGt2Scy_
flame me if I'm wrong

Cubey

The whole exchange had a mocking tone of me not knowing what I'm talking about because I'm a shitty pvper who refuses to do things efficiently. In particular:

(Cesspool): Nykara says, "This is 2019."
(Cesspool): Nykara says, "I use mudlet."

In other words, if you don't use mudlet, you are behind the times and stuck in the past, like a grandpa still using a rotary phone.

(Cesspool): Nykara says, "Well, okay. In my 15 years of
MUDding I've never used numpad walking it's so awkward and
awful."
(Cesspool): You say, "Woah toxic."

The "toxic" comment was Soza but it was clearly mocking me, considering the usual contexts where that word gets thrown around.

(Cesspool): You say, "People who play starcraft with only
mouse have more apm than that."

Again Soza, but this is again implying that if I'm not happy with faster APM then I am on the same level as "people who play starcraft with only mouse" (as in, bad players).

BTW Soza, you're still counting APM wrong. APM isn't measured by ingame actions, but by the amount of action the player has to perform. This is why systems that require you to do a lot of clicking to perform a single attack (such as old ninjutsu in FFXIV) are criticized, because you need a lot of APM just to do one action.

Nykara

Again, I'm sorry if you felt mocked, but let me make sure to add some context here: 

(Cesspool): Ren says, "There's only so many buttons on a 
keyboard so you can't physically macro everything."
(Cesspool): Nykara says, "This is 2019."
(Cesspool): Nykara says, "I use mudlet."

I was responding to your statement that one cannot macro everything; any client with any kind of scripting ability means that you can make dynamic macros, specifically in this case five buttons that act differently based on the stance that I am in.

(Cesspool): Nykara says, "Well, okay. In my 15 years of MUDding I've never used numpad walking it's so awkward and awful."
(Cesspool): You(Soza) say, "Woah toxic."
(Cesspool): You say, "I walk with numpad."

He was, really, truly, and actually talking about me "griefing" him, because he uses the numpad to walk. It wasn't about you. And in fact, this whole conversation was about you making it out like I'm going to be having too much to do, which... ? How is that an insult to you? I can handle my own business. 

Soza

Cubey said:

-snip-

If it makes you feel any better, none of those comments that you are stating were directed at you. I don't know why you seem to think I have a grudge against you. In all of the cases you have mentioned I was replying to nykara. I am sorry if you felt that they were hateful comments directed your way. I had no intention of giving you that feeling.

Flipilaria

I read the log. Nobody in that said anything that was a personal attack against you at all. Also, nobody says you have to do caches. You choose to engage with parts of the game you don't like.

The fact that you're still engaging with this thread means one of two things. Either you're hoping the community and game will change for you (see my point above) or you're doing it for attention.

Either way this thread is bad and you should feel bad about posting it.

Cubey

Nykara:

It's not an insult to me. You seemed concerned about how certain data is hard to grab from GMCP so I tried to use my knowledge (I main fury as we're both aware, so I should have expertise in this area) to assure you that it won't be necessary. Things escalated from that because I felt my expertise was being doubted/questioned (and then that I was being mocked).

Flipilaria:
I am engaging with the thread because there is still discussion to be made and points to address, especially whenever there is something I'd like to make more clear.

Now the cache part: I'm a faction leader. A faction leader needs to make their faction stronger - how would you feel about a leader who sits on their ass and does nothing for their org all day? The moment you become leader, an unwritten social contract springs into action that expects you to dedicate time and effort to somehow better the organisation, give out your own for the sake of other players.

Caches are the only way I can do that. I'm not good at it, but there is nothing else I am able to do. So if I don't run caches then I fail the contract and show how useless a player I am. Moreover, barely anyone runs caches in CA to begin with. So as I said, I have to do it, otherwise the stocks will run out and the faction's cosmpiercer powers will effectively stop to function.

You said I bring up legit points but then blame others instead. I don't recall the last time I blamed others for CA being inactive or PvP being challenging (or rather, my lack of achievement in the PvP area) - but I don't have any suggestions or ideas here either. Allow me to turn the tables: what would you suggest? What do you think would make CA less inactive? If you have to take something of value from this thread, may it be at least that.

Soza

not in any way being rude here, you stated that mudlet looks ugly and unappealing for you, how so? when it is very very open to how you customize it. Mine currently looks like this which I think looks pretty good.

ps. ignore how broke I am

Cubey

Nexus looks much better - compare the HP bars, the frames around windows, etc. Rounded and yet solid, much more aesthetically pleasing than the modern flat design. Moreover it doesn't require me to spend hours to customize it to look good. It already looks good out of the box. On the other hand, out of the box mudlet looks like crap, barely better than a telnet window.

Having 50k marks is not a problem, especially if you're spending them on credits. Hell, for many players that's a lot of money. The really puzzling thing is how your keyboard apparently has an F13 on it.

Flipilaria

Cubey said:

You said I bring up legit points but then blame others instead. I don't recall the last time I blamed others for CA being inactive or PvP being challenging (or rather, my lack of achievement in the PvP area) - but I don't have any suggestions or ideas here either. Allow me to turn the tables: what would you suggest? What do you think would make CA less inactive? If you have to take something of value from this thread, may it be at least t

Sorry for the weird formatting in this post. Forums are being very odd for me right now.


The first thing you do is stop going on the forums to bitch. That's just basic image/PR. I've had CA players flat-out tell me they're not sure they want to stay in CA because of your forum posts, and I've had newbies tell me they're not sure if CA was the right choice because "Cubey says it's bad."

Next step is to increase interest in CA. This can be best done by leveraging what you have. CA may not have many players, but the players that are there are very good at what they do. Leverage Ata's Project Kithflower. Leverage Clover's GCEPS. Or come up with your own thing, like Nykara did with Sorrow. Start making posts about it. Maybe throw in some related junk items via Mildly Interesting Things. Ask the Admin for help. I wrote a guide on how to do that. Unfortunately for you, the admin is probably already not thrilled with you because you spent the majority of the last CA-centric event flaming it, so you're on bad footing to start. Our admin team is very forgiving though. If you come to them with a cool idea and a polite attitude, they will probably be happy to assist.

Alternatively, go full-player on it like Song on the Verge did or like Orrin did for his Winterflame festival. The goal of all this is to make CA look interesting to players. Interesting engagement = Player attraction and retention. This will be a slow burn at first, and may feel frustrating at times with the lack of instant gratification. But it will pay off.

From there, you'll start attracting alts and the occasional org-switcher. Be prepared to receive them. Have a city advancement program in place that focuses heavily on CA's RP flavor. Maybe incentivize coming up with cool CA corporations with both city rank increase and with monetary rewards, particularly if those corporations are adding to the environment. Reward that which adds, always.

The steam of players, alts, and newbies will eventually translate to PVPers. Be prepared to receive this with a rewards program that supports PVPers too.

This is all work. It's rewarding work, and you're adding to the culture of a wonderful game, but it's going to be hard.

But hey, you asked. If you have any other questions, ask. But I'm not going to do the work for you.

Soza

Cubey said:

-snip-

f13 is just a clicky button, but the rest are functional and clicky. I should remove the tag f13 from it though also aesthetically, anything you can do in nexus, you can do in mudlet.

Cubey

Flipilaria said:

This is all work. It's rewarding work, and you're adding to the culture of a wonderful game, but it's going to be hard.

But hey, you asked. If you have any other questions, ask. But I'm not going to do the work for you.

One thing CA has for it is already existing programs that incentivize factional advancement, economic and pvp activity. I should know, I helped set some of them up back when I was still able to do so.

The rest of your suggestions though, that's not happening or at the very least it's not happening through me. It's roleplaying and events, two things I was always shit at, even in my best Starmourn days. So, even if I try doing any of that, it will suck anyway. I'll stick to what I'm good at, which - well, which should be PvP because that's what I came to the game for, except we know how that one story goes.

Thanks for input anyway.

Flipilaria

Cubey said:

Flipilaria said:

This is all work. It's rewarding work, and you're adding to the culture of a wonderful game, but it's going to be hard.

But hey, you asked. If you have any other questions, ask. But I'm not going to do the work for you.

One thing CA has for it is already existing programs that incentivize factional advancement, economic and pvp activity. I should know, I helped set some of them up back when I was still able to do so.

The rest of your suggestions though, that's not happening or at the very least it's not happening through me. It's roleplaying and events, two things I was always shit at, even in my best Starmourn days. So, even if I try doing any of that, it will suck anyway. I'll stick to what I'm good at, which - well, which should be PvP because that's what I came to the game for, except we know how that one ended up.

Thanks for input anyway.

If you want to get good at PVP, listen to those who are good at PVP. They will happily help you if you can avoid accusing them of launching personal attacks against you.

Woodro

Nykara is the most informed PvPer you can ask for! They are always available for questions and generally have the answer and exact number for what you need. Nykara puts up with a lot of bull crap but will give you the options to you straight. Lean on that and fix that relationship. 

Now to client preference. Soza sent you a picture of his GUI that is what he likes. It can be changed to w/e you want it to look like. That being said I think Nexus is a great client! Out of the box it can’t be beat but, give even a beginner coder a snippet of time and you get a more customized and tailored to you play style client. Either way they are both function at all stages of the game, 

Caches are meant for group combat! They are a rough place to be and I die a lot in them. Enough that it cuts down on my down time and keeps me busy! Cause unless you are min maxed then there is more grind to do. There are quests also that you can do. We have events constantly  going on. Do those! 

If you think you were ok’d and you feel it was wrong by the HELP PK then issue it! No need to tell everyone quietly make your issue and move on. I assure you though any OPEN pk area is not a reason for a issue. That includes space and ground. 

Now for the last part . Your so called lack of RP skills. Most players do not really care if you can beat the best most story driven RPer. It’s the little interactions that they like. It is the hellos and how are you’d. The random things said over FT and the general idea of keeping interactions interesting. I suck at RPing but here I am second time being a SH Marshal and fighting a war against the flood of Song. All in all your fun is up to you! Maybe you had a bad day? Maybe just need a break? There are a lot of things that could be the issue. You ever want RP find me in-game! I will try my best to make it happen for you. Phis’tor has a lot of lore and is the leading Krona dynasty! 

I hate that you think quitting is your only option. I hate that this post is even been made on the forums cause a point has to be made! We are a new MUD looking for players. Driving them away is not what we wanna do so I have already reported this post for how it devolved into accusations that have been proven false with facts. 

Give it another shot! Pace yourself and come see me if you ever are curious about the famous Krona leg! I hope and I mean really really hope that I see you in the game again.

Flipilaria

Going to vaguely echo what Woodro says. Nobody I've talked to (including myself) wants you to leave the game.

A bunch of us want you to address your behavior on the forums. But nobody's flat-out like "Eyy, fuck Cubey." Not seriously, anyway.

This is a very accepting, welcoming, and even loving community if you let it be.

Sairys

Woodro said:

I hate that you think quitting is your only option. I hate that this post is even been made on the forums cause a point has to be made! We are a new MUD looking for players. Driving them away is not what we wanna do so I have already reported this post for how it devolved into accusations that have been proven false with facts. 

tbh, as an outsider who pokes their head in from time to time, it's pretty easy to read some of the replies/reacts on this as passive-aggressive/aggressive. Which is backed up by, as suggested, looking at certain comment histories and the "complaining about complaining" (which is a silly behaviour that only breeds negativity where there could have been little to none.)

rench

Soza....Your work on mudlet is very, very impressive! I am so new to all of this..would you mind telling me where to start to build a platform like yours.  I love mudlet, but I've not a clue as to really do anything with it other than a few triggers and aliases.  I've looked at the Geyser? pages of the mudlet manual.  Is that where I need to study to do this?   Where specifically did you go to build your client like you did?  Help this lost spacer, would ya? 

I can donate credits to your cause if need be.

Soza

rench said:

Soza....Your work on mudlet is very, very impressive! I am so new to all of this..would you mind telling me where to start to build a platform like yours.  I love mudlet, but I've not a clue as to really do anything with it other than a few triggers and aliases.  I've looked at the Geyser? pages of the mudlet manual.  Is that where I need to study to do this?   Where specifically did you go to build your client like you did?  Help this lost spacer, would ya? 

I can donate credits to your cause if need be.

I started on it about a year ago, I had little to no scripting knowledge myself but I did what anyone would do. I started with a layout and went on. https://forums.starmourn.com/discussion/483/otsutsuki-interface-gui/p1, Kaguya was at the time offering what is shown there in his post I do believe that he no longer plays or offers it though. So in this case i would suggest using something like https://forums.starmourn.com/discussion/792/iron-realms-open-source-mudlet-gui as a base and building on it yourself its very flexible. Biggest thing is just to pick a place to start and start working on it. It gets easier as you go, and if you aren't in the CESSPOOL clan, or the MUDLET clan they are open OOC clans that you can talk about whatever in, including some coding know-how. Starting looking at the Geyser pages is what you need as it will help you make all the labels and containers you need if you want them as well as teach you how to push information into them. once you have the information you want in your containers its just about giving it the right look. I used this image for my background.

rench

Thanks for the quick response, Soza.  Naturally, I got into trouble right away.  I downloaded MudletUI-master.zip and tried to install it via the package manager twice.  The window just 'blinks' at me when I open the downloaded zip after clicking install in the manager.  I searched around scripts, triggers, alias, etc.  dont see it anywhere.  any suggestions?