Feedback/Complaints

[sodder]

FEEDBACK AND COMPLAINTS

If you have any feedback on recent plots or events that have occurred in the game, this is the place for them! If you have suggestions as to how better improve the game or certain aspects of it, please let us know here. This can also include suggesting events if you feel events have grown stale or you're feeling like the game could benefit from something in particular.

All comments have been left unscreened to encourage open communication within the game.

If you have a more private complaint, please feel free to message one of the mods! Thank you for all feedback and criticism.

Comments

[sodder]

Hello!

We are sorry to hear that you have been struggling with your scheduling. We would like to point you to our Game Calendar that is routinely updated for when players can expect events. It always has the upcoming events as well as the most recent months events available for reference. We would also like to point out that for plotting purposes, forward dating is cut off at two weeks so that no one gets too far ahead of everyone else in the game.

As for large setting changes, we gave ample warning in a mod post in September. We also provided warning in the event of September itself in the description box at the top.

We apologize that December's event was not more cohesively lined up with November's event. We definitely could have done a smoother transition, so that was a bit of a hiccup on our end.

As for the dates being a little over the place in Oct-Dec, we generally have our plots take place between the 10th-15th of the month so that new players can jump right on in. We had some rare exceptions lately due to the context of the events and their overarching plots having to stretch over the entire month.

We can mark on the calendar when an event will be more plot-heavy and most plot-heavy things will usually have a wider impact on the game as a whole. At this time, we post our events a few days ahead of when the event actually occurs and allow that space in between for people to make their plans. We also don't want to have new players feeling left behind on new events by having most of the game's playerbase already suited up with plans for events.

Thank you for your feedback!

[astraychild]

I love how you guys went and updated the calendar before coming back to give this condescending reply to try to make him look like an idiot, as though I and others didn't see earlier on January 8th, 2019, that there was absolutely no plot information dates to be had on it. It said December and January last I checked earlier today, and the December portion had 1/??? as a date on it like someone half updated it and then got distracted for a week and a half.

So right off the bat "routinely updated" is a bold faced lie. I recall it taking until almost the event went up in December before the calendar got updated, then, too. None of you have any leg to stand on for saying something in that way when you never updated it until just now.

Now, I get to the part where this is a condescending reply, and this entire mod team is now being called out on it. I don't know who thought that particular phrasing ("we're sorry you are struggling with your scheduling". Really.) is acceptable, but it sure isn't! Then again, this isn't an apology, despite the 'sorry', this isn't even an explanation, this is a complete nonanswer that just makes you all look terrible as a modteam. The phrasing of this reply makes whoever wrote it come across as unapologetically rude, which makes me think only one person wrote it and no one else on the team looked at it, and it wasn't discussed well. Now, if there isn't a lack of communication, and the whole mod team signed off on the way this reads, they have culpability here as well, and since this is a mod journal response, then culpability, and thus nature, of the entire modteam is assumed.

Nowhere, except for right here, has the actual precedent for consistency in the dating of the events been set. Up until now it was just a guessing game of "when will the event information go up and what is it going to be", because it has never been actually uniform, and the calendar is rarely ever even updated. Don't lie and try to tell me it is. It gives me the impression you don't even know what the real details of the event are until you post it. Especially with a lack of a forward plotting post. It really comes across as Deerington being a plot-heavy game run by a mod team flying by the seat of their pants. That's an embarrassing impression to leave.

You can run your game however you want to. I can point out until I am blue in the face that nearly every other game out there does actual plotting posts at the beginning of the month, whether or not apps are totally processed, whether or not the event itself is any time soon, and no one has any trouble getting newbies onto the plot posts or the event itself, which makes your excuse not hold water at all, but if you're not going to change it, you're not going to change it, and you can find better ways of saying that.

Because if nonpologies, turning the blame around, nonpolite and clearly "no, now fuck off" responses with condescending phrasing to a legitimate suggestion and concern are the best we can expect out of all of you as mods, I am concerned about the future of the game.

[sodder]

We apologize if anything in our response came across as rude, dismissive, or condescending. It was never our intent and we will do our best to address everything presented to us here.

First, regarding the calendar, we did not link to it in order to make anyone “look like an idiot.” it was updated as soon as the issue was brought to our attention and we were not aware it had not been update when we linked to it. We apologize for the way it may have come across; Ax and Simcha already addressed this privately and Simcha was given no indication that there was animosity towards a simple mistake. Several of us have been dealing with extenuating circumstances well outside of RP that have caused some issues and this is something we acknowledged and apologized for very recently. We aren't paid employees here, though we are often expected to behave like we are. We are players just like you doing our best to run a game through extenuating circumstances. We spend a significant portion of our own free time running something so that others can have fun with. While we understand that it's frustrating to not have the calendar updated, a simple contact to the calendar mod is all that is needed in order to fix the issue.

As for the scheduling, we are aware of some games that put up plotting posts at the beginning of the month and others that are either similar or exactly the same as ours. We will not be putting up plotting posts that early unless the event itself will also be that early (a thing we have done and warned about during the prior month). While this may not be your preference, we are not interested in changing that at this time. Telling you the reason for our decision or explaining something isn’t an excuse.

The language that you are seeing as condescending wasn't intended that way. We apologize if it came across as such, but as we were addressing one player, we did not want to generalize this as an issue all players were having. We were not intending to insult. Text is a difficult medium to communicate tone. We'll work to improve our phrasing in the future.

We have put a lot of energy into listening to feedback and considering how it will affect the game. We approach all feedback in good faith, but different players want different or even contradictory things and some things don't serve the nature of the game as it has always been intended to run. When we have made mistakes, we have acknowledged them and done our best to fix them in a timely manner. If we haven’t, we apologize and we’ll do our best to keep moving forward always with the intent of fixing mistakes and keeping the game a fair and safe place for all of our players.

In the instance of this thread in particular, there is some context missing, as there was one-on-one communication with a mod prior and after the answer was given. Furthermore, while we appreciate you sharing your frustrations with how we approached the situation, your comment was unnecessarily accusatory and aggressive. Ax approached Simcha to thank her for updating the Calendar and Simcha similarly apologized for having not realized that it had not already been done. Your accusations of us being liars are rude and does nothing to aid the conversation. Until the holiday season, the Calendar was updated by the 1st of each month with extreme consistency - this is not us “lying”, regardless of what your opinion may be. Our lack of consistency during the holiday season has already been apologized for - publically within the OOC community as well as on Plurk. While we understand people’s frustrations, we have continuously done our best to be upfront about the struggles over the holidays that our mod team was having. We took on helpers in order to make sure these inconsistencies do not continue. We never and would never intend to tell anyone to “fuck off” and there are better means of addressing this concern than your chosen phrasing. Anger is understandable, your response to your anger is not.

Please remember in the future that the mod team are only human; we are players, like yourself, who are volunteering to run a game and occasionally real life will interfere with that. We have asked for and appreciate the understanding given to us by our players repeatedly, but we will not tolerate being sworn at and treated with blatant disrespect.

If you would like to discuss further frustrations in a calm and civilized manner, we are more than happy to listen. Thank you.