Old vs New Players
Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:06 am
Hi all, thought I'd make a post seeing as others had done so, along the same lines.
I started playing a week or so ago after seeing this on a MUD board, and within a day was picked up by a pretty friendly group of new-ish players who were playing Crusaders. Within the first two days, I was subjected to a torrent of IC abuse at the hands of older players who didn't like said players (see the prior Xog issue) and tried to assert IC dominance over them despite a difference in guild membership, and pretty much ostracised from the majority of the 'good' side as a result. My first 'real' encounter was in the Elvandar marketplace with numerous older players telling me to shut up and making threats. I found it incredibly hard to interact with a good number of older players, as they constantly waved around IC powers as threats instead of helping newer players or making attempts at meaningful roleplay. We attempted to avoid these people and make attempts to bridge the IC gap, however every attempt at such was met with IC hostility. This culminated in one of the newer players and I getting tired of the constant powerplays and left the Crusader guild in a big show. At a point during this, there was constant attempts from the older players to abuse metaknowledge mechanics to ruin IC karma/faith. The players responsible for all this then started enforcing what is essentially mandatory playtimes before being able to take part in what is essentially the 'group activities' of GEAS, hugely restricting newer players from interacting in a meaningful manner. I left the Discord shortly before this, due to numerous passive-aggressive comments from older players.
After this, I decided to switch characters to a newer one, to see if I could just fly under the radar for a while until they stopped applying the 'new, don't be nice to this person' tag. On the recommendation of an older player who was more inclined to interact with new players in a helpful manner, I went and made an NPC application to the Rangers, as I didn't know who the guild leader was and they were never online. Before the timer elapsed, it was vetoed with no attempt to contact nor explanation why.
After this, I've decided to stop playing. The existing atmosphere isn't conductive to new players joining, and the clear majority of older players are set against any sort of change and will do everything in their power to gatekeep and force newer players out. I hope this kind of conduct is noted by wizards and an effort is made in future to be more inclusive.
Thanks to Ram for the little interaction we had, and to Delmon for being the only other who seemed to make an effort to be nice to newer players, despite their evil-aligned status.
I started playing a week or so ago after seeing this on a MUD board, and within a day was picked up by a pretty friendly group of new-ish players who were playing Crusaders. Within the first two days, I was subjected to a torrent of IC abuse at the hands of older players who didn't like said players (see the prior Xog issue) and tried to assert IC dominance over them despite a difference in guild membership, and pretty much ostracised from the majority of the 'good' side as a result. My first 'real' encounter was in the Elvandar marketplace with numerous older players telling me to shut up and making threats. I found it incredibly hard to interact with a good number of older players, as they constantly waved around IC powers as threats instead of helping newer players or making attempts at meaningful roleplay. We attempted to avoid these people and make attempts to bridge the IC gap, however every attempt at such was met with IC hostility. This culminated in one of the newer players and I getting tired of the constant powerplays and left the Crusader guild in a big show. At a point during this, there was constant attempts from the older players to abuse metaknowledge mechanics to ruin IC karma/faith. The players responsible for all this then started enforcing what is essentially mandatory playtimes before being able to take part in what is essentially the 'group activities' of GEAS, hugely restricting newer players from interacting in a meaningful manner. I left the Discord shortly before this, due to numerous passive-aggressive comments from older players.
After this, I decided to switch characters to a newer one, to see if I could just fly under the radar for a while until they stopped applying the 'new, don't be nice to this person' tag. On the recommendation of an older player who was more inclined to interact with new players in a helpful manner, I went and made an NPC application to the Rangers, as I didn't know who the guild leader was and they were never online. Before the timer elapsed, it was vetoed with no attempt to contact nor explanation why.
After this, I've decided to stop playing. The existing atmosphere isn't conductive to new players joining, and the clear majority of older players are set against any sort of change and will do everything in their power to gatekeep and force newer players out. I hope this kind of conduct is noted by wizards and an effort is made in future to be more inclusive.
Thanks to Ram for the little interaction we had, and to Delmon for being the only other who seemed to make an effort to be nice to newer players, despite their evil-aligned status.