Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

I'd like to point something out as gently as possible. This isn't just about this event, but about several I've seen hosted by different people.

One event I attended was canceled after it started because "not enough people showed up", when there were in fact three people there. What the host really meant was "the right people" didn't show up.

Another event never happened as scheduled.

This event you canceled just before its start not because some real life situation came up (which anyone would have understood) but because you found something more fun to do than to actually do the event you started in order to honor your IC deity.

All I'm asking from the community is that if you commit to an event, then hold the event. People do make plans to be at the keyboard and participate. Everyone will understand if real life gets in the way but when you ditch some players to go hang out with the "cool kids" then it bolsters the complaints we've seen recently about the FK game community being cliquish and insular.

The imm run event occurring at the same time drew in a great deal of players from the mud. It did not involve cliques or 'friends' but almost a majority of those online at the time. I am grateful for Taneah's involvement and I am also grateful that they will take the time to run an event at another time. I am sure that they would appreciate your understanding over your scorn. We all lose our cool now and then but a public shaming hurts everyone.

It drew in 14 players out of 32 online which you then carved down to 5 or 6 of your friends, from my understanding. Not the majority of the mud.

My intent is not to publicly shame anyone. This is to point out something that seems like a trend to me. As I mentioned, this has happened to three separate events I have attended, and I rarely attend events.

For some of these events, people rearrange their schedules and make efforts to attend. Look at the comments in the different event threads. People talk about eating dinner at different times or changing their work schedules.

Imm ran event or not, it's simple courtesy to expect people to keep their commitments. If this was only a problem with this guy I would have sent him a private PM or just let it slide altogether.

With events that are cancelled, there is no reason that the folk who would have otherwise attended can't just hang out together anyways. Most of FK is this way: Make your own fun.

On the cancellation aspect: It happens. The players are only human. They plan events in order to pitch in to the community, and sometimes it doesn't work out.

Hope that all makes sense, as I am very very sleepy. Good luck you lot.

Something like this seems kinder discussed out of someone's event thread.

People who organize events are players with lives, obligations and feelings, too. Aishe said it well.

Mele wrote:Something like this seems kinder discussed out of someone's event thread.

People who organize events are players with lives, obligations and feelings, too. Aishe said it well.

Probably so. My apologies for that then. The kinder thing to do would have been to wait a week and then started a general discussion thread about it so that this individual would not be singled out. I did not want to single them out, but since it's a problem with a number of people I felt it better brought out into the open.

But frankly, I'd expect everyone playing this game to be at a level of social maturity to understand that ditching one group of people to whom you'd made a commitment to go hang out with some others who are doing something you perceive as more fun ... is bad.

This is the stuff that countless after-school specials have been based on, m'kay?

I can't believe that there's any defense for this. It ought to be understood that yeah, this wasn't a smooth move, promises for corrective action, and then move on into a better community for it.

That would be the intent of this post. To have a better community. Otherwise I wouldn't have risked condemnation from the cool kids by posting this. I'm unpopular enough as it is.

But screw that. We get new players by repeatedly spamming the mud connector's vote button and launching ourselves into the top ten to get noticed. We KEEP new players by showing that we're a better community than other muds out there.

I once heard a saying.

It said when one person treats you poorly, it's them. But when you've had a day where you think everyone treats you poorly, it's likely you.

Mele wrote:I once heard a saying.

It said when one person treats you poorly, it's them. But when you've had a day where you think everyone treats you poorly, it's likely you.

I don't make any bones about it. My unpopularity IS me.

So what? I say uncomfortable things that I feel need saying. I don't always say them to the right people or in the right spot.

My popularity here is not a concern for me. I have my friends and I associate with them and everyone else can go hang as far as I'm concerned.

But if I see a problem I'm damn sure going to speak up about it and could care less about how popular the statement is.

I don't like if I've hurt this guy's feelings by posting it in his event thread and I apologize again for that. It did need to be addressed because it's a larger problem than just this one time, but probably would have been better served by posting it elsewhere.

And what I've noticed about this mud in particular is that you can't count on the people with the proper level of popularity to address ANY uncomfortable subjects. (Or is that an unpopular thing to say too?)

I love this game, warts and all. But if you expect me to shut up about fixing the warts then you don't know me at all.

Fixing would be doing something constructive with your words here. So far this has just been a flame fest, because you feel personally slighted that the MUD had something else happen at the same time. This is supposed to be a game, and be fun. If you feel you need to be a keyboard warrior in the sense of calling people down for being human, and not revolved around other peoples schedules, then I believe you have lost the essence of playing a game.

Ungtar wrote:But frankly, I'd expect everyone playing this game to be at a level of social maturity to understand that ditching one group of people to whom you'd made a commitment to go hang out with some others who are doing something you perceive as more fun ... is bad.

This is the stuff that countless after-school specials have been based on, m'kay?

Uh Oh. I've been guilty of this in the past. I blame curiosity, and a sense of being able to get away with it.

I suppose the most baffling thing about this thread is that it would usually be considered a courtesy to reschedule an event so as not to force people to choose, and feel left out of one or the other.

People have lives, things get reorganized there is no use crying about it. Do you know how many events I miss due to my rl schedual? I honestly have to say just grow up people won't want you to attend if your going to shame them if something comes up

I'm sorry that you missed out on an event which you were looking forward to attending. You're right, this does happen; it's one of the problems surrounding a game wherein players from literally all over the globe try to coordinate common activities. We have players from Asia, Europe, North America, and South America (regularly, there may be others).

An example: your book club, for example, might be scheduled to meet and then rescheduled if Godzilla began stomping through the city. I can see how you might be disappointed about missing the book club (in this example), but wouldn't you be also curious about Godzilla?

That's sort of what happened last night. While you can see this as unfair that one or several players chose to do something else, you can also think of it as unfair to ask that they miss a unique event for something which can be rescheduled.

After 3 or so years of suffering the flake-ness or honest sanguine nature of people saying they'll come to table top sessions and then not. I've kind of grown what could be described as synical with time management. If I can't make something I usually don't hurt to make it. The godzilla example is apt. There was some potentially world ending stuff, or well, quarter of a continent ending stuff happening during the event from an IC perspective,, Faeruners tend to be overdramatic *flick wrist* honestly.... crybabies,,, My position is that yes, there is a point to marking people out for OOC rudeness and not keeping proper time but I don't feel this was one of the times. By the time the group was whittled down, I was pretty tired.

Honestly, I was surprised the story took place at all on the same time. Not switchin blame but that probably should be considered a no - no in the future if possible so people don't feel their missing out unless making the IC choice is part of the story and outcome.

I will also add that while you think I broke down the group to into my very own special friends that it was decided partially by the imm leading the event and by the group itself. The areas being ventured into we're quite difficult and managing a huge group of varying levels would have made the venture quite impossible. Personally I would have taken everyone but I saw the wisdom to do otherwise.

I take offence at being accused of cliqing I'm actually a very happy and inclusive person that enjoys interacting with others. The nature of my work means I miss quite a lot of events as well as am not around enough to enjoy everyone's rp as much as I like. Though even I complain about things on the forums I try to keep it to a minimum because I know that solutions breed good relations and negatives accomplish nothing.

As for voting, you have the right to lambaste the mud all you want in either poor reviews on tmc if you feel that we've not earned our rank, but i can tell you true, we have for the most part.

As for scheduling events and cancelling. It's happened before, I usually don't mind it because I am a casual player and I assume the same of others. Here is where I say that it's a free game and it's text based. We're not catering to a huge market, I'm mostly thankful that there is a dedicated group of mostly sane people here to play with.

That's all I'm going to say in regards to this. Debate it, pick it apart in quotes as you will, I have said my peace.

If anyone wants to discuss their feelings about the recent rp please pm me if my explanation is not clear.

Yemin wrote:After 3 or so years of suffering the flake-ness or honest sanguine nature of people saying they'll come to table top sessions and then not. I've kind of grown what could be described as synical with time management. If I can't make something I usually don't hurt to make it. The godzilla example is apt. There was some potentially world ending stuff, or well, quarter of a continent ending stuff happening during the event from an IC perspective,, Faeruners tend to be overdramatic *flick wrist* honestly.... crybabies,,, My position is that yes, there is a point to marking people out for OOC rudeness and not keeping proper time but I don't feel this was one of the times. By the time the group was whittled down, I was pretty tired.

Honestly, I was surprised the story took place at all on the same time. Not switchin blame but that probably should be considered a no - no in the future if possible so people don't feel their missing out unless making the IC choice is part of the story and outcome.

Yemin has the right of it. In the face of another event being planned- someone should have had the courtesy to recognize there was other things going on- and rescheduled the event. I don't know the backstory behind the whole thing, but regardless of things- people should be nice to one another- even if they don't agree or like one another. Perhaps it all could have simply been set aside in favor of a little common courtesy?

I'm not offended by anything that was said. My character made an IC decision to cancel the event in order to help out a very diverse group who wanted to keep Godzilla from trampling Faerun. Monday nights tend to have a lot of lot people log on, this is why I scheduled the event at that time. I'm sure the IMM who was running the other RP had this planned for some time, saw the amount of people on and decided it was time. The event will be rescheduled for a time in the near future and everyone is still invited. See you all there!

Thanks!