The Importance of Good Communication

[Jirato]

Hey J. I was looking at the bbs.clokmud.com address (the one I was referencing in my post) and it looks like the language is the same. I checked bbs.contrarium.net and I saw the different language there. I honestly don't know enough about website creation/ownership to know the difference between these two, but I assume they're two different web entities? I was referring to the language on the bbs.clokmud.com address, not the contrarium.net one.

I really appreciate your responding.

You may have to clear your cache, try ctrl+F5.

[vidor]

I'm seeing:
Looking for the CLOK BBS?
There's a lot more to Contrarium than just CLOK. if you're looking for the site previously at this address (the CLOK BBS), please go to http://clok.contrarium.net/bbs.

Other Contrarium.net BBS links

COGG - http://cogg.contrarium.net/bbs

Maybe I need to update cookies. Given that this is the communication thread and not the vidor-needs-tech-help thread, I'll go digging on my end. I just appreciate your checking into my original request. Happy Saturday nights, friends!

[Zeldryn]

Just had the urge to pop in and say something.

So I'm not playing here actively anymore-- I don't plan on playing here actively anymore in the immediate future as a result of a few things. I figured in case anyone was curious, they could find out why here. I'll be concise and try not to be rambly or rude.

As a preface-- this has nothing to do with Sideri or Loona. I appreciate how hard they tried, and how great they are. Love them. They really tried to make the best of a losing situation. But there's only so much one can do.


1) The admin/coding staff seem to no longer care about the game's existence

2. A complete lack of substantive, bug related, or quality of life updates or fixes, and a seeming unwillingness to acknowledge such. The only updates i've even seen on this game that seemed beneficial happen to have been lifted directly from the other game. (Travelling, bathing morale bonus)

3. Pretty much everything that is consistently promised/mentioned to be on the to do never comes to be. Leatherworking's still broken, carpentry's still broken, cooking's still broken, the two new guilds that were teased were never mentioned again, pretty much everything that was mentioned in that tseemingly productive OOC chat we all had never ended up happening, etc.

4) Events, spare merchants, turned into, "Let's overwhelm the players and kill them so completely that they don't know what to do." In every single event that I participated in, intended or not. Whether this was something as simple as a tarueka infested event which suddenly happened to include 20+ high level stealth ranged mobs, a drop of 30 random canim in ebon pass, or the hundreds of constructs thrown back to back at players in Keth. (And that says nothing about the ending boss which, again, no one was able to do anything about.) It seems like the staff's reaction to having stronger PCs around was to intentionally try to kill all of us to get us out of the way.

5) Guilds exist only so far as to give players abilities. Nobody cares about their guild's related RP. This has always been a problem to some extent, but never so much a problem as it's been in the last year. Elemancers don't do anything elemancy related aside from cast magic, sorcerers don't act like sorcerers, harbingers don't act like harbingers, thieves have no encouragement to be thieves, etc. etc. Gods forbid someone tries to RP their way into a guild lately. can't even imagine.

6) Conversations in OOC chat rarely have anything to do with the game, game topics, or anything related to the game. Usually just contain people screwing with each other in asterisks or complaining about their lives.

7. Really, people do so little RP around here whenever i'm aware and present that it may as well be a hack and slash game, most times. And that RP rarely has had any tangible consequences for anyone that didn't irritate the staff to some degree. (I'm looking at you, church of Light)

8) Really, let's not even talk about the Church of light. That whole situation was handled so poorly it alienated every single church related character that was left, spare 2.

9) Usually when people offer up criticism or comments like this, they're met with dismissal, scorn, or they're just outright ignored

10) Really, player feedback overall is just outright ignored by everyone on staff who has any say-so at all about the direction of the game or intentions behind design decision.

11. The staff got so spooked by players killing their guards (out of boredom for nothing else to do or no ability to make any impact, might I add) that they tripled down and put about 45 of them in every town-related location on the map to make it mind-numbingly impossible to consider the towns anything but safe zones were players are completely immune to consequence. This is a lazy attempt at solving the problem of player motivation.

12. A lot of other things I'm probably not mentioning because I just can't think of them at the moment.

Either way-- to those still having fun here, that's awesome, i hope you continue to do so. To those of you who feel similar to me? Sorry.

To the staff who's been here over the years? I love you for what you are, what you've been, and the friends you've been. Those of you whom I love know very much that I love them, and those who I dislike know very much that I dislike them. No hard feelings. I just hope the best for everyone involved. Might be back more actively someday, might not. But so far as things stand? I'd rather spend my time gaming elsewhere where it's acctually substantive and entertaining as opposed to.. Work.

Nothing personal, aside from maybe astonishment that J/N give so little a [crap] about their own game which they claim to have so much concern for. Either hand it off to someone who actually wants it, or let it die, folks.


Really, just look at my first post in this thread. It explains it all. I need say no more than that.

Ciao.

[Jirato]

Don't lump Noctere in with me, that's not fair to him.

I'm the bottleneck here, Noctere has nothing to do with it.

[artus]

I'm just popping here to say I love you all. Tried logging in this morning and for some reason it didn't let me and there's no maintanence or anything going on. Does the mud crash? I don't know. But for some reason, the last two posts shook me to the core.

I love Clok, really I do. It's been 7 years on here and I still love it no less despite of all the drama chain all the way from the end of last year. I get it anyone come and go, but there are still loyal players to the mud out here, me being one. Hell, I can't even take outright negative criticism or hear someone say they dislike clok, reasons given or not.
If there's a mud I never want to see dying, it's Clok. It's always been a home to me through all these dark years. It cheers me up, gives me inspiration and anything I can possibly think of. Just seeing Artus grow and change through each sequence of rp is a fun in itself, even when it's not related to gm events at all.

[Zeldryn]

Don't lump Noctere in with me, that's not fair to him.

I'm the bottleneck here, Noctere has nothing to do with it.

I want to restate that things I'm saying here aren't a result of your personality or character. You're great to talk to, you're great to bounce ideas with, you're a great person with every interaction I've had with you, spare human moments that we all have.

I say the things I do out of frustration because clok was (is) a place that I care a lot about, and I know a lot of other people feel the same way. I'm not ragging to rag or anything. I'm honestly just kind of sad I don't have an interest in hanging around anymore, that's all. I just feel like a place that has so many great things going for it should be loved.

*shrug* Take that as you will. Thanks for everything, regardless. I'll be back more actively at some point, i'm sure, as said.

[Noctere]

One of the things I have learned growing up is the power my words have on others, whether well spoken or not, whether muttered or direct. And many times I say one thing with one intent and people interpret it another. I have often found it is so easy to offend others when I had nothing but good intentions which is why I find it so important to try to place myself in the listeners point of view before I say it. It is much like a tossing a ball. One person aims the ball at the catcher, tosses and hopes the other is able to catch it. It often depends on the circumstances and skill of both parties on how this exchange will go. Maybe they will both be experts and the ball will go back n forth or maybe one has the sun in their eyes and is unable to see the ball. This analogy can go on and on.

With that in mind, Zeldryn, you just tossed the ball and smacked Jirato square in the face. Congratulations, the results of your actions are a complete shutdown of the server and the end of a legacy that has provided free entertainment for hundreds of people for many many years. I do not sense any malicious intent from your posts, merely an airing of concerns about the current state of the MUD. However, I do not think you stopped to realize the effect this would have on some of us. Jirato pays for this MUD out of his own pocket and continued to do so despite his own hardships.

CLOK was a labor of love with thousands of hours of work done by dozens of people. Some people were coders, some were roleplayers, some were builders and there were many other roles in-between. Often times we wore different hats and did all of the above. We did not do this for money but as a hobby, just for fun. I can remember the first time I logged onto CLOK and was amazed by how the game worked. I can remember my first roleplay event as an Evil Sorcerer, the very first evil character in the game. I can remember when Rias asked me to be a GM many years ago at a friends party. And many more memorable experiences after.

Perhaps development had slowed, perhaps we stopped putting in 20, 30 hours of work on the game every week because life and other matters took precedence. But the world, the lore, events, still continued and those thousands of hours of code and worldbuilding are still there for you to enjoy, at any time, on any day. Yes, it was much slower than before but we figured it is not our jobs as GMs to put on a fools costume and prance about every time someone complains they are bored, or they want such and such done, "CHOP CHOP!". CLOK was a living, breathing world where characters were encouraged to make their own events or their own kind of magic. Granted event staff might pop in once in a while to help but this was a gift, not the norm.

Also all GMs and players alike have different styles of doing things. We cannot control how enthralling our OOC chat might be between players nor can event staff make every event perfectly catered to your specific whims. Everyone is different and what might seem fun to one, may not be to another. Instead of you thinking, "Oh thank you Mrs GM for taking the time to run that event." You see us as thinking this like some sort of villain,

"Let's overwhelm the players and kill them so completely that they don't know what to do."

In real life, I have been going back to school so I can better support myself and Jirato has been swamped with work and life in general and all you do is complain that you are not getting more free work from us... Zeldryn, You totally missed the ball here.

[Avedri]

Jirato pays for this MUD out of his own pocket and continued to do so despite his own hardships.

Jirato has been gaslighting this community about the cost of upkeep for years. And in most cases the playerbase has vastly overcompensated through donations/Patreon.

[Maina]

Zeldryn is hardly the only person feeling the way he feels. It is, likewise, not fair to blame him for Jirato's actions. That someone can't offer valid, real criticisms without a reaction like this just proves the point.

"Look what you made me do" is not a great look for the person saying it.

Jirato chose to shut down the game rather than take action on valid concerns. That's his choice. Zeldryn didn't make it for him.

Jirato chose to shut down the game rather than just ignore some valid concerns. That's his choice. Zeldryn didn't make it for him.

I've made some of Zeldryn's criticisms in the past, on these forums and elsewhere, and I wasn't half so nice and eloquent in my wording as he, though neither was I trying to be mean about it.

If critique on the internet affects someone to this degree - and there is nothing wrong with being affected! We're all human and words can be stressful! - then Zeldryn is right. It should be passed on or shut down. It isn't good for the players and it isn't good for the staff if both are this frustrated and hurt by the frustrations of the other party to this degree.