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Something I Hadn't Heard Before!
Topic Started: Jun 15 2017, 08:43 PM (1,393 Views)
Mr_Otyugh
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Dungeon Master
Something to take with a grain of salt, not an opinion everyone will share, and not necessarily issue most agree on. I'm reacting properly rather sooner than later, whichever people feel it is, is fine. x)

I heard something today that I hadn't heard before, well from something that couldn't be counted into bias due to on going events, but I digress. What I heard was that SCoD had a reputation of having a "hostile community", it's something I take rather seriously, having worked long and hard in the past to make just the opposite of one and would hope to properly address the issue. Now I'm sure some of the accounts can be dismissed easily as negativity bias too, and some of the recent dramas remain in recent memory, but I don't think it'll hurt anyone to take that extra few minutes to self-moderate themselves like decent beings. Now I was thinking of writing a new post, but instead, I'll copy one of my old posts:

Mr_Otyugh,Feb 28 2017
02:33 PM
I can't help but to notice how we seem to go from one argument to another at a rather fast pace. Now I'm nothing but a huge fan of drama! But sadly I know not everyone can stomach such venue of non-stop intrigue quite as well as I, that and I'm kind of tired of becoming so large number of peoples "fix-it-all" button all the time. So I figured that I'd again make a post trying to urge for unity, this time on the side of how to post and take criticism, because that seems to have been awfully at fault lately.

Posted Image

First of all, lets get one point straight: People aren't obligated to agree or like the changes made. And it is perfectly okay to desire a change. And mistakes are a genuine possibility, although no one is going to be a big fan of hearing such being of their own doing, no you aren't an exception either.

Differing opinions are infact healthy for a community, it'll bring out new perspectives and can improve features in unforeseen manner. However when things become a shouting match, they start to work to everyones disfavor. Something I think everyone need to realise about public discussions is that the general dynamics change. Where arguing to win works in small crowds, arguing to win in public won't achieve the goal, it'll only divide people and get them to talk in their own groups that'll reinforce their opinions. That's not an end goal anyone genuinely wants.

To expand on that thought: In private the more people know you, the better they can put a tone into your words, but when you are dealing with public and large number of people who may or may not be aware of your usual demeanor and thus they will be left to put a tone into your posts with the only thing they have to go by, that is your posts. That's something that doesn't happen with friends, you the meaning of "Go kill yourself :P" changes a lot in meaning if you say it as a friend vs if a stranger just says it to you out of blue. Even if the tone it is said in remains the same. So yes, try to remain mindful of how you present yourself to the strangers.

I tend to be sent a lot of reports of bugs, features or issues and tend to make the case as reasonably as possible when I deem so important. But I can't help but to feel it's becoming unsustainable for me to be a mouth piece for so many, and that's the reason I'm making this post. I do need people to be able to sort out their own issues as well, and that means being reasonable, on both sides of the argument. Here's a few things that are useful:

Elaboration there's few things that can't be solved by just elaborating properly on your meaning and not assuming that everyone knows. Truth is, not everyone are in your friendslist, so they won't be already familiar with the abstract version you might be inclined to give in order to save time. More likely is that you're going to need to still elaborate or be misinterpreted so you won't be saving time anyway.

Try not to jump to conclusions People still do suck at elaboration more often than not, so try not to jump to conclusions, knowing that's the case. People in the opposition probably are not horrid people, even though may not share the same preferences.

Don't trivialize others concerns the moment you do, you've lost their respect. And it's only going to be more difficult to solve the problem without external interpreter/mediator.

Individualize there's definitely a human nature in categorising people. "That guy is with us, that one doesn't agree with us completely so they must be with them", that doesn't help anyone. Try to assume less group-mentality and think for yourself.

Abandon Fruitless Principles if you're doing something for no reason other than principles... lets just say that's probably not helping. If it doesn't affect to you negatively, then you don't need to be aggressively against it. There's nothing wrong with things happening that don't affect you, there are other people also.

Take a deep breath and a pause especially if you find yourself getting frustrated. As much as your senses are telling you to further engage and defend your views, you're probably doing yourself a disfavor by gradually bypassing your inhibitions with adrenaline driven vigor.

The fact remains: we all want the same thing, our methods may differ in how we wish to achieve it, but the end goal is more or less the same. And we will still need to share the same place for it at the end of the day.

It's easy to get negative in the current global climate, news and the comment sections have become increasingly more toxic over the past year, and are feeding a more polarised perspective on things. It's manifesting itself in two ways:

  1. more insensitive manner of talking has been made "acceptable".
  2. people are getting hyper aware of the #1 and react more easily to defend the values that were, and still are of importance.
Unfortunately there are issues with even #2, I've noticed that people are reacting to things more intensively that barely got a brow lifted earlier. I'm not saying that there aren't more aggressive expressions these days, but there are also more aggressive anti-aggression responses. Before commenting on this, I've not named any specific cases, there are valid complaints as well, make no mistake of that.

My general perspective is that we, as a community, need to try to better have patience to inquire meaning. Not assume the worst of people. And suppose that people have a reason for their opinions. Whether or not those opinions are valid, well that's a matter of individual judgement and discussion.

And remember that integrity is still a base standard that we all still can sustain. If not to be nice to each other, at least for the purpose of being effective, by minimising side-tracking into drama. Trust me, you won't be saving words by shaving off the fluff, then you are just going to start a much longer argument of another kind.
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Mr_Otyugh
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Besides the topic itself, I also think that the low player numbers participate in the opposing reactions. I think it's an isolated issue that happens because of several factors. And irrelevant to analyse at the moment, since regardless fact remains: we have low player numbers. Instead I'm going to propose that we take some genuine actions to stimulate the player numbers... and I think to that end, my best idea is that we start new characters to a theme. Because as I mentioned in other thread, I have a number of new low end items meant to help new characters out that can bolster the effect. And I have soon a summer holiday coming up to have time to invest. Something we could also market at a bit larger scale as a thing.

However what I am missing is what would be a mutual idea others might be interested to join in? Personally I had thought of something like two opposing factions, or maybe opposing faction "alliances", so as to also stimulate faction RP from an even playfield. For example: Triad "vs" Doomguard, Xaos & Anarchists. The versus is in quotation marks because it could either be seriously that, or more tentative assumption. We could probably even come up with whatever IC excuse for it to happen to create story.

So how does something like that sound? Feel free to be harsh with critique, it's at an early idea stage. Also feel free to propose your own 'what players can do' things. x)
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Bloodlines
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I don't normally like to post in OOC discussions, but I would like to offer a few things. I find the best way to better the numbers of the server is to actively involve yourself with new characters and seek out new players. Investing a little time in them is always a great idea. It doesn't always work, but when you have your characters willing to seek out and talk to new people, it allows new players some inclusion.

Small Talk: A player commented previously that all the characters of the server are "introverted recluses", which can be the perspective players get when they see all the old PCs of the server staying within their social circle and not expanding out. We're all guilty of characters whispering to each other in the bazaar. I find the best way to fix this is to just engage in small talk with those around the bazaar, get to know the PCs a bit and see where the conversation leads. A simple "How are you doing?" gets conversations started. Sometimes it's hard to do, but it's still worth trying. You never know where it will go!

Show Interest: To piggyback off the last comment, once the conversation is started, show interest in the character. Players put a lot of effort into developing their characters and I enjoy exploring what other players come up with in their backgrounds. Characters that act apathetic towards others all the time can be a major turn-away. I understand everyone has their own kind of character, but I hope everyone can agree that roleplay can't happen if your character isn't willing to actively get involved and get to know others. Explore people's stories a bit, learn about them and what's going on with their characters and I'm sure they'll want to do the same with you.

Passive-Aggressiveness: One of the reasons I don't post OOC much (if at all) is because I don't enjoy seeing some posts that come off as passive-aggressive towards others. People are passionate about their opinions, and that's fine. My best suggestion is to read your post like you are reading it from the perspective of the person you are discussing something with. Things like sarcasm doesn't translate well in text, so I'd suggest avoiding it altogether to avoid potential miscommunication.

That's all for me. Hope to see everyone in game! :thumbs:
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wmw12
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Blood
[ *  *  *  * ]
So to add a little here, the main reason I've stopped playing here isn't low numbers at all. Do I intend to come back? Absolutely, but not right away. My main problem, and I'm not trying to be passive aggressive but it may come across that way, is player characters behaving one way and when conflict RP comes from that, they instantly do not want to play with the person they antagonized. This is a problem, and leads to the "hostile" feeling people get when playing here, at least for me, I won't speak for everyone.

I'm all for a character being an ***, hell I love a bit of conflict, but come on people ride it out. If you don't want conflict, then don't have your character be an ass. And if your character is an ass, deal with the consequences of that. It's just getting old for me, that's all.

Someone attacks someone, Del goes after them as she should, and they instantly stop playing the character, me as the player gets labeled as not liking the player of whatever character did something dumb or wrong, and now "I won't play with them" gets trickled back.

Your character does not effect me outside of the persistent world. So, when the OOC drama of being at odds with characters calms down, I'll show back up. Until then, I don't necessarily disagree with the comments that are being spread, however, I do not participate in the spreading.

I will, however, be happy to help with the solution if there's anything I can do to bring about the change in opinion that's needed, don't hesitate to let me know.

Great post! Great topic! Thanks Mr. O.
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Darkrob
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I'd like to hear from those who think that the Server has a hostile community. You don't have to reply publicly, you can simply send me a PM. Go one further and even make a new account and send it to me anonymously if you want. I can talk with you one on one or I can take specific issues to the team. As I'm all but retired, I can't promise I can fix the issues you might have but it might go a long way in starting to sort things out. I'm pretty easy to get along with and very difficult to insult so communicate it as you need to if it'll help get things off your chest.

If we don't know exactly what's bothering people, we can't fix it. I'm willing to put my retirement on hold if it'll help heal things up :)
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"You may think you have us surrounded, but in reality you have simply put us in a target rich environment."
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Hydra
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Characters that act apathetic towards others all the time can be a major turn-away.


Yep that one is quite important, it's not really pleasing to start to RP, asking a question or two and being shown zero interest in return, it just makes some people feel like you're almost bothering people by engaging them in RP and that's usually where I do not come back. Just ask yourself why your character stands in the bazaar, to meet others or to look cool ?

Also a related cliché I see often: Male characters standing arms crossed with hoods covering their head to look mysterious are not engaging at all.
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edmaster44
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Hey guys, i just want to let you know of a golden rule i had in my old PW in nwn1, back in the hey days, It was Roleplay is Role Play, Never take what happens in character Personally, or let it affect you personally, i agree with wmw12 post here, if your character is going to talk smack or attack that character, do stick around for the consequences and don't take it personally, I sure as heck don't, nor will i ever.
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Darkrob
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One of the main things that often forgotten is mutual respect. You don't have to agree with me and I don't have to agree with you but we do have to respect each others position. Quite often people get in arguments with each other on the forums (and likely Discord although I don't use it so am just assuming). Oft times it degrades to the point where someone has to step in and slap some heads. It's at that point that respect has been tossed aside and hostility rears its ugly head. We need to make concentrated efforts to not let things go that far. Even if you have to find a mediator (and I'm usually lurking around on the forum) to sort things out. Never let it get that far. Respect eachother... it's how we all get along.
Charles Goodman - owner of The Consortium and Chairman of the Syndicate - Indep and Merkhant
Daniela Nokomis- "The Enclave" - Vampiress, The woman in White, Soul Stealer, Merchant
Garen Seph - Fraternity of Order B3

"You may think you have us surrounded, but in reality you have simply put us in a target rich environment."
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rgzrrsdz
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Well for me the #1 issue I been having lately is that there's hardly anyone online when I try to play so I just log back on and go play on Haven and EoD when they're running events. I'm talking 4 players online when there used to be 40 players online at the same time of day. It's just bad and it's part of the reason why most people play on other servers and I would say Haven has the most features of all of the servers I've tried (I've tried all of them, even Realms of Trinity).

I see a lot of the same people on different servers and really I would say that NWN2 in general has a bad problem with toxic players and can't really be blamed on one server in general. Some people have been banned from Baldurs Gate, Sigil, and other servers and just end up going to other servers and taking their problems out there. It's really when you let these people fester for too long they start driving off other players.

My thoughts on Sigil is there's been a lot of bad decisions and disconnect with the staff and players which culminated with the situation it is in now... a mass exodus of people quitting or heading to other servers. To solve these problems would require probably a complete change over top-to-bottom and trying to get old players back.
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Sinlinara
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My experiences have been wholly positive, especially in the last few months. There are arguments, sure, but even on the Discord I think it's been more positive than not.
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Mr_Otyugh
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There were indeed issues in the recent past, but those have been mended. Obviously player population numbers are an issue, but nothing unfixable. As i even mentioned before, it's a sum of many things, so it'd be unfair to lob it on just one arbitrary reason. We're at an early summer which annually changes scheduals, numbers attract numbers, people will log in by player numbers which creates a self-justifying vicious circle, then there is always differences in views, but it's the two first doing the bulk of the job. This is an annual thing, you can go back in forums to see it. Summer is the general low time of SCoD.

Just requires different attitude in the gaming, a bit more organised and open view while fixating in the positives.
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Artifice
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Blood
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:beatdeadhorse:

If this is related to my comments in discord the other day, well I don't think any of the contents of this thread has helped. I wanted to give myself twenty four hours of thought before replying so I did.

The author of the thread's last comment that I saw on the forums appeared (to me, an outside observer) to be a snarky, dismissive response to a long-time player saying that they were leaving the server. I don't have the perspective of their past interactions to go over, but that's not relevant to how the community appears at a glance.

Over the last couple of days I've witnessed homophobic jokes and racist commentary on the server discord, which whilst not officially run is composed of the same people who I assume play this server. I don't know many of you well enough to be able to correlate discord and forum names with characters.

On top of this, the last few times I've posted on the forums I've been met with cynicism, at best, and semi-offensive dismissal of my opinions at worst. The last time I posted on the forums, I tried to point out that insulting people who like the forgotten realms is not constructive. I was asked why I was so insecure.

I don't have any problems with the in character contents of SCOD. I do think there are problematic parts of the community, and looking at the contents of this thread I see implications that people are not making engaging enough characters, or that the fault lies in the interpretation of specific, past arguments that are now resolved. I think that is a mistake.

I think we can do better. I don't think everyone is a problem, but I do think it has made me uncomfortable enough recently that I have consciously chosen not to play and have done something else instead.

Can we do better please? I include myself with that hopeful request, because I'm not always the nicest, most cheerful person.

:whip:
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DaftyXIII
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Mr_Otyugh,Jun 15 2017
10:25 PM
open view while fixating in the positives.

That's what I'm trying too do

also placing my two-cents worth in, I don't feel the environment is hostile, we all say sh*t when we get upset. but do we want to hurt each other IRL or mean all we say in that moment. . . unlikely.

Realizing I'm just as human as the next is what helped me move along and get back to the fun.
“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity." - Jean Dubuffet
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Mr_Otyugh
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And I appreciate you taking time to comment here, Artifice!

I'm sorry to hear if I sound disingenuous to you, based on my perceived forum activity. I can see why you'd think that, and I'll take a moment to better martial my views. I downplay dramatic components to prevent wider spread effects of feel of impending doom, de-escalate so to speak. During already low player numbers, publicly that may make me seem dismissive, but it is also very much the reality. Drama is just as effective as you allow it to be, and during times of suboptimality it is important to focus on the future goals.

In the case of Untaramars departure, I provided an acknowledgement of it. However it has been my longtime policy to do nothing to affect the free will of players to stay or leave. Partly to give a clear public display that I am unmoved, so it's not going to be much of a negotiation technique on me (and yes, some people still occasionally try). So they will get generally a neutral response out of me. On the bright side, this is why most players have their own friends to fill the vacuum of positive feedback. And it's not infrequent that players come back anyway, and I don't think farewells are the big selling point to do that. So I'd much rather focus into the remaining and returning players, and attracting more while not letting leaving players demoralise those that we still have, hence a token response and then move onto the other matters. It's an online server, players keep changing all the time.

As for matters of discord. There's two sides to the matters. There are issues with censorship as well, you can paint any picture you want with it. This is an approach a lot of places have. But preventing people from talking about their beliefs doesn't make those opinions go away. So should people whom harbor such thoughts be banned or penalised? I mean that is an option, and if someone does have too radical opinions they probably will. But where does the tresshold for that exist? That's a bit less simple. Part of me also believes that a lot of the modern issues stems from everyone getting locked into echo chambers of their own beliefs, rather than have a platform to exchange thoughts with people outside of them. Do I agree with some of the views represented in there? Absolutely not, then again I'm a general oppositionist so that doesn't necessarily mean much, but I think it's good for both sides to be able to talk. It can however be rather testing endeavor and I don't blame people at all for disagreeing with the idea.

Forum behavior... well, hence the topic. :lol:
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Artifice
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Blood
[ *  *  *  * ]
Thanks for your reply.

And... Well, I mean... Maybe reread what you have written? If you're consciously aware of all this, how can you not have been aware that people both within and without your community can see it as a hostile, sometimes unwelcoming place?

Edited to add: Also it took me a second to reread this and realise what exactly you were saying. So you've suggested that taking punitive measures towards people who make homophobic, racist or religiously aggravated comments would be censorship?

Well, in the country I live in, such comments would be illegal, whether its said in person or online.

:confused:

What do you expect me to make of reading that sort of content, multiple times over the past few months?
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