Story Railroading.

[Egon Bigmemes]

but we want to make a good start to remove the stigma that is story.

By continuing to do more of the same? Disregarding your players for your grand design that most aren't willing participants of? By, even when confronted with truthful information and someone who was willing to just talk about in private, saying it's a lie only for it to be proven right?

People complain that official factions are only doing the bare minimum to make it through, and then everyone outright admits that players, in particular official factions that want to be a driving force in some way, have zero agency. We're not playing our roles, we're along for the ride and reacting as spectators. Why do you think no one really wants to play anymore, and only does the bare minimum? [LN] gave up the ghost because of it, and more are following their course along with them, and before them.

[Vitoniz30]

Markam, don't get me wrong, but nothing will work until story devs come and ask players personally what do they expect to do being a faction

---

[RedEclipse]

In fact devs don't even try to listen to the players since DWG archiving. Hence its was supposed that official factions shouldn't be involved at all in story flow.

[Its Raisu]

I think my absence (while mostly due to RL issues, there are certainly other factors relevant here) speaks a little bit for itself, as does the reappearance as this got shared on the IN discord.

I'll continue to keep my distance and see where things go if I should even bother getting back to doing anything as either a player or a coder.

[Markam]

All of your points are valid and correct. The last patch content was not communicated properly and shows exactly why the current method is broken.

My point about wanting to make a good start is with a new system that we are going to implement. The gripes (valid ones) by Saronsen (and more generally liblawfuls) and Darktails (insurgency) show two examples of how communication can go wrong. Nobody would talk to Saronsen because he bites peoples heads off and nobody would talk to Darktails because she wasn't on the radar due to inactivity.

Hoping that the new system we are trying to implement removes the unfairness that is Story to player interaction (you only know if you are close to those who know, or are a Dev).

---

Markam is evil

[ONIKS]

The fact that players are powerless against potential story dev abuse and can't do anything with the amount of damage that story devs can make is just depressing at this point, what's the point of roleplaying if your roleplay is being considered only when it's about sucking XA- off, and if you don't suck XA- off, you'll get removed from the game? I think the cracks started to visibly appear during that Gaia event when it was pretty clear that Reeves doesn't care. He has his position - he gonna utilize it.

All this talk about "we gonna implement this and we gonna implement that" doesn't carry anything closely related to credibility, you haven't done shit for years and months to introduce players to the actual story development. Auxesia roleplaying settling the planet? Ignored and blocked for years. Can't remember any more examples that I can use, but my points stand. Story development, at this point, is just a hindrance for factions and a nuisance for HCs of said factions. They are the same players, as everyone are, why it is expected that their 'roleplay' is much better than average Disco players 'roleplay', thus, it's them who should make the story? As the result, we get people with an absolutely disproportionate amount of ego compared to their ability to write stuff who are in charge of things who aggressively are trying to enforce their view of the game and its story on others. This is just stupid.

Markam, stop daydreaming about how things will be good and players will like your awesome and cool and fresh ideas - no one will. Instead, start doing shit and stop hesitating with kicking people who do bad decisions or don't do anything at all. People will respect you more if you stop being a spineless wimp, and start contributing to the health of the server and community.

---

On hiatus for unspecified amount of time

[Creutzfeuer]

I have always been baffled by how little impact the roleplayers roleplaying on the roleplay server have on the story that they are roleplaying in. [...]
Yes, [..] listening to player feedback in regards to dev stories will likely lead to a drop in quality of the story beats that are provided, [...].

Agree to the first one, laughed heartily on the second one. XD
The "stories" provided can only benefit from player feedback, at least from those people in this community who have a baseline understanding of how to construct a consistent storyline.
Also could increase the speed of story development and therefore story progression.
I don't want to imply any complicity of you in this, but: These kinds of statements are water on the mills of the individuals who want to keep the drying-out playerbase as far away as possible from their ivory towers.

We're not playing our roles, we're along for the ride and reacting as spectators. Why do you think no one really wants to play anymore, and only does the bare minimum?

I have to agree to this sentiment. Started to be a Pen & Paper GM precisely because of my experiences of being railroaded by other GMs.
And it wasn't all too pleasant sitting around while your presence was "used" as a welcome flavour, but disregarded concerning the actual development of the story.
I was talking with some people about the new patch and most were having the same opinion as me: It's...odd...to put it mildly (and not only the story-things).

[Major.]

All of your points are valid and correct. The last patch content was not communicated properly and shows exactly why the current method is broken.

My point about wanting to make a good start is with a new system that we are going to implement. The gripes (valid ones) by Saronsen (and more generally liblawfuls) and Darktails (insurgency) show two examples of how communication can go wrong. Nobody would talk to Saronsen because he bites peoples heads off and nobody would talk to Darktails because she wasn't on the radar due to inactivity.

Hoping that the new system we are trying to implement removes the unfairness that is Story to player interaction (you only know if you are close to those who know, or are a Dev).

Admitting that you made mistakes is a good start, but let‘s hope it‘s not a empty promis again.

---

[James Greed]

It really is a catch 22. When players take control, it ends up with scheming and discovery """"working"""" group type ordeals. When story tries to take control, it too ends up with misses. Don't quite see solutions, but a whole lot of blaming.

Snip.

You should really act on that unspecified hiatus, if all you do here is scream obscenities at people.

---

Greedback

[AuruemSaber]

(See: Peace Talks)

AKA see two people in IN| on their other factions circlejerking with the leader of IN|.

A very cool and good example of "effort" being put into the future, clearly enough to warrant every future change being directed at preserving this beautiful alliance.