the state of things
Oct 9, 2017 23:08:01 GMT -7
Post by clear on Oct 9, 2017 23:08:01 GMT -7
it's my intention that this be my last message to nfrp, both as a community and an organization.
i will only preface these observations by pointing out that if i wanted the worst for the site then i would not be making them, and would not have been sporadically attempting to contribute to the site's longevity and evolution over the past ten years, but rather would have just gone away for good in total silence.
it is these and similar sentiments that have - but, more importantly - would be echoed by those who have left in the past and perhaps will leave in the future.
nfrp has always been more mechanically dense and intensive than many of its site counterparts, and in essence, that's fine (there are denser, of course). however, there are several issues in its evolution and groundwork that are extremely counterproductive.
over the past seven or so years, in particular, the site has had virtually every IC avenue and aspect of it relentlessly systematized. will saves, skill checks, conditions, armor points, et cetera, all compounding each other to create a system bogged down by calculation, whereupon the prospect of actual engagement with the site or others becomes more and more strenuous in every way. and the payout is virtually null - no opportunities that were previously lacking have been created by any of these systems, and if they have, then they have been taken up on extremely rarely.
one can say that it's only that i personally cannot wrap my head around these systems, and that's fine, but it simply isn't true - it's only that the effort required to do so becomes less and less worth it as the arbitrary complexity continuously ascends, with the end result having been enriched barely at all.
this is borne out by the continually shrinking staff team, the individual members of which are in charge of the even more difficult task of near-completely understanding and subsequently regulating the use of these systems. where once a staff position was a coveted thing, it is now a set of incredibly arduous chores that is treated with reluctance, to the point where positions gape wide open despite there being people around to fill them - even people with the knowledge required.
simple things like shop transaction requests are often ignored time after time because they are more effortful than ever. this same trend is evident in GMs, though to a lesser extent (GM positions have been spotty for a long time, as we have all experienced).
tangentially, the shrinking number of staff on hand increasingly shifts the criterion for a good staffer from "kind of person you want to be seen representing your site and working alongside" to "people who can be bothered to do work on it"; the two things are not, patently, always mutually inclusive. in recent times especially, i have witnessed the most appallingly callous behaviour towards new members from staff, and seen sincere people treated like dirt.
the training system, historically faulty in design but mostly benign, has reached a point of malignancy. the power creep is patently obvious when many people are walking around with close to double the point of actual stat growth (S-Class). where most combat sites are acutely aware and cautious of the potential for power creep, nfrp tosses itself headlong into the pitfall, giving out character power simply for having dormant accounts and actually increasing the ease of acquisition as one gains more wealth. "the rich get richer and the poor remain poor."
i'm well aware that temperate measures have recently been instituted to combat these problems, but they accomplish virtually nothing, as for instance: it is clear to myself and others that, as the people in charge of creating new indexes accrue more TP, from which they can draw whenever they like in revamps, the amount of TP required to actually function on a character has increased dramatically. take for example kedoin, which has a library of techniques required just to have a working face.
this isn't to mention the fact that most indexes are just scores of passives that make combat power more and more binary, less and less like the creative battles of old.
side note: the rebuttal is often offered to such points that one ought to have acquired a large amount of TP in order to then create such a character as a kedoin, which is mirrored in the fact that many bloodlimits/clans (as well as other indexes) actually have such restrictions written as law (e.g 'prior 750TP character'). firstly this is undermined by the fact that many disciplines are being revamped to similarly inflated results; secondly, it is an elitist, mostly needless restriction at a time when nfrp's active playerbase is a fraction of what it once was.
indexes and revamps are churned out constantly; extreme effort on the part of staff members for what amounts to passing novelty on the side of the playerbase. it is misdirected energy. despite this effort, these systems are rarely mathematically balanced. i have before posited that it should be someone's job to go over these indexes and do the math on them in order to balance them to some degree. the response is: "jesus, fuck that". i rest my case.
at the same time, the players are plagued by intense restrictions on what they are actually capable of doing in-character. beyond solitary training/crafting/gathering threads and the occasional trophy hunt, very little is possible, and even less is properly encouraged. personally, it's appalling that there is so little energy devoted towards providing new gameplay opportunities to players beyond being able to revamp into the latest reiterated bloodlimit, but it is not surprising.
it's not surprising mostly because 👺 Usiel practices himself and has encouraged (whether he sees it this way or not) an attitude wherein real expansion, real modernization is dismissed out of hand. i have seen him personally crush quality ideas with a few obdurate lines more times than i can count, and i cannot imagine how many times i have missed. in this place, everyone has, and - even more so moving forward (absurdly enough) - will have to function within these ironically narrow confines. meanwhile, he has not for a long time engaged in any meaningful storyline, preferring to accrue the items he invents on his solitary character, akin to a taxidermic basement collection.
people are well-advised to carry out their ideas in muted tones (and often do), hoping that the administrator does not notice and so does not interfere, even when the plans are perfectly benign.
most administrators drive their site's plot. nfrp's thwarts it.
the result of all these things is an environment where the most engaging activity players can participate in is trophy-collecting, character-recreating and participation in the occasional large-scale random encounters that are events, which very rarely reach their own halfway mark, much less a conclusion, and rarer still (read: never) have a lasting narrative.
perhaps this is all fine. perhaps, for those that remain on nfrp, this condition is perfectly acceptable, even desirable. or perhaps nobody has the energy to actually keep nfrp a rp site any longer, and is content to let it become a chat room/character sheet creator hybrid.
the sad part is only that it could be so much more.
i am posting this only to remind those that remain behind in optimism that they're fooling themselves, that there are better opportunities on offer out there; to perhaps, just maybe, encourage some positive change, though i am no longer optimistic.
lata
