A few things before I leave

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Dark Soul
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:41 pm

A few things before I leave

Post by Dark Soul »

So I've decided that I'm going to be leaving Eternal Noire, but I wanted to not be that person who just leaves without providing any feedback for possible improvement in the future. As such, I'll start with EN's About/mission statement:
ABOUT ETERNAL NOIRE:
Eternal Noire is a non-profit hobby and online gaming website currently running Onyx Path’s Chronicles of Darkness. Our game was founded in 2017 when a group of online Chronicles of Darkness players realized how unbalanced and cliquish many online role-playing communities had become. The goal of Eternal Noire is to bring the interactive and dynamic stories to life for all our players, reward players who take initiative and are upstanding members of the community, and foster an environment of higher quality gaming with true transparency.

Eternal Noire 2.0 Chronicle is expanding on the original vision of the game, and encouraging a game by gamers, for gamers, to break down barriers and focus on a Player v. Environment, Plot-Driven cooperative storytelling game style.
Dynamic stories: Speaking of the Beast venue in particular - I haven't seen any. They've been slow and non-existent. Zero excitement, when a Beast ST does show up (one drop-in in several months) it's uninspired 'setup' with no actual action, dram a or conflict. I have read about but only really met one Beast NPC. It feels like the venue exists only on paper. I get real life happens, but when it happens for months on end and ST's can't make time at all it's time to fire and find new staff.

Setting: It looks good on paper but in practice not so much. Limiting venues to specific boroughs was a bad idea. I know people can do stuff in other parts but it still hurts cohesion and limits opportunities. The focus on Hunter and Changeling feels stifling; it sucked watching other venues have stuff to do and actual scenes while Beast got nothing. Make ST's learn and incorporate everyone. If a venue's ST's are busy, step in and cover for them. But don't leave eager players hanging for so long they stop caring.

Cliquishness: It still thrives here. You won't want to hear this but the focus on LGBT everything is crushing. I usually only play cisgendered and largely heterosexual characters for personal reasons; those are often excluded from deeper rp by virtue of all the lesbian female transwomen, of which there are so many it actually breaks suspension of disbelief over its knee and sets it on fire. It's no fun always sitting in the lobby because everyone is hiding in locked rooms. It felt so inclusive it was actually exclusive. Add to that the venue limits and you can't even invite friends you enjoy playing with to join you in a venue. I felt isolated and excluded. Which brings me to...

Actual Game play: I hate the xp cap with a passion. It's too low; I have at this point spent a full month with no plot, no way to use my existing abilities, no real roleplay, very little npc interaction and have only seen my ST's maybe three times very briefly. Even sheet work is always late, in one case taking just shy of three weeks to even be looked at and a month and a half to get a question about a plot answered. Let me make this clear: I tried to do offscreen stuff and it stalled because the st's forgot about it and actually ignored me for months. The actual mechanics of bluebooking are murky; experienced online players already get it but several friends of mine gave up because it wasn't really transparent, and the sanctioning process is glacially slow, plus the one-month wait time if you desanction combined with inability to ST for a venue you play in and Conflict of Interest rules makes a situation where you can be stuck unable to play or run anything for months on end if you have a venue preference. I wanted to run for Beast but it's also my favorite game and there is literally nowhere else to play it. Your rules regarding these things are solutions for problems that don't exist. Don't lock people with a passion for a game out of that game.

To end, I want to say for all the doom and gloom I think the staff and players here are good people who are trying. Perhaps it would be good to note your heavy LGBT focus on the main page somewhere. It does matter and not everyone who cares is a bigot. Maybe actually level some punishments on ST's who don't do their jobs. Give Beasts an in to other venues. Raise the cap a LOT or eliminate it. Do something to make downtime not miserable (two thread actions a week is not enough; why does my character who can literally go weeks with no sleep and has dozens of loyal minions to do work for him have only two things he can do a week? It's silly). Rethink the rules with an eye toward the actual effects they have on players. Give people reasons to ST and GueST for each other to pick up the slack and make it easy and convenient to do so.


Positives: The site is beautiful and well-designed aesthetically.

Summary: Cliquish, hostile toward differing lifestyles and opinions, slow, dull/nonexistent plots, deadbeat ST's, painful xp cap and thread action limits, entire venue dead.
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Surtur
Posts: 234
Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:32 pm

Re: A few things before I leave

Post by Surtur »

I'm going to address this point by point. But to start with, this is quite a bit of laundry aired publicly, without the sheets being honestly cleaned before being hung out to dry for the neighbors to see.

In the future, https://eternalnoire.com/about/submit-feedback/ is probably a better way to do this without having your fellow players and staff feeling like you're throwing them into unset asphalt while the steam roller is about to finalize it.

The Beast Team: I can speak to this one most directly as someone on the Beast staff; It is unfortunate that you do not feel as though the stories that are being run are dynamic. It has been slow, admittedly, due to the fact that our staff has had some very difficult things happening in their real lives. I won't speak for Metztli's actual situation. However, I am a new father of twins, they are my first ever children. This not only dictates that a vast majority of my attention is off chat, but I have had to deal with the complications of finding a new home with infants, in the middle of a global pandemic and the Eviction Moratorium. That doesn’t begin to include all of the other things going on that are lateral to my being a parent that doesn’t need to be made public. You could say I’m drowning in a sea of feces. I have been behind on keeping up on my work, though I have been touching base with Metztli frequently as I’m able. As things are starting to settle down, I look forward to being more active as an ST.

Setting: The only reason that any venue is in any Borough, was for a stronghold; to divide up the setting work among the staff we had. No Venue is limited to the borough their stronghold is in. They are presented for people that would prefer not to have Crossover, have that as a choice, rather than it being forced on them. Rather than having any one person write the entirety of the setting. Again, I apologize that Beast suffered, but you are calling out games that ALSO have staff struggling with real life. The grass is always greener on the other side? Baldur has been running as much as he can like a boss, in Hunter, but Gehrman and Ellisif both were slammed by real life in recent months, for Hunter. In Changeling, Hecate did masterfully holding down the fort in Changeling, while Athena also had life trying to eat her whole. These games are not getting a “focus” so much as they have been able to run their 3 scenes a month per ST Requirement. All the venues should be getting at least 3 scenes a month (or more) as a policy for our STs. This info is in the Player guide.

Cliquishness & LGBT+: Having a welcoming setting to the LGTBQmmunity is oppressive? Considering the Site Owner was recently charged on the CoD Discord Server that EN is not “Friendly Enough” to the Qmmunity this concern is frankly, confusing. EN is welcoming to all members of the LGBTQmmunity players, the same way we are welcoming to all players. A significant portion of the staff identify as being in this community, so you may see more inclusive NPCs and Rooms than some places. This was true in EN 1.0 as well. The games as written have always had some inclusive language, going back as far as the problematic era of the White Wolf days. Having the LGBTQmmunity exist on our chat is not something we will ever apologize for, though I’ve seen no events or scenes focused on it, other than some Beat reward bonuses for PRIDE (the month we opened.) Identity doesn’t have anything to do with people going into locked rooms. There are times you can’t go public for many reasons. We have given motivations to play publicly with the New Friend Beats, but beyond that, we’re not going to tell people how to play their PCs in any capacity, as long as it falls within our ToS/CoC rules. I haven’t honestly noticed it being too overwhelming, other than that players actually feel comfortable playing in skins they may or may not be able to wear in the real world. As a rule, I don’t tell people what to do with their hobby time. If they want to play in locked rooms with their friends, that’s as much their choice as attending the big scenes.

TL;DR: “We at EN will never act as gatekeepers, the LGBTQmmunity will always be welcome here. As are all players until they violate our inclusive policy, and thus break the number 1 rule of ”Don’t be a Jerk”.

Actual GamePlay: The Experience Cap is in place, not to punish people like you who gain beats swiftly and have the time to dedicate to playing on the site every day. We do appreciate all of those like yourself who hang out in the lobby and try to drum up play while keeping the site busy. But rather, it is to ensure that people who *do not* have the ability to play every day can still remain viable in a game where some players hit cap within a week of it raising. Before you call me out on not liking Experience, you ask literally any other staff member who is the beat thirstiest staff, and they’ll point you at me. | The Sanctioning process takes between 48 hours to a week because teams can and should confer between themselves, to ensure that players have a cohesiveness to add to the game. Again, I apologize for real-life slowing this down in Beast. -- Desanctioning to move to another venue takes a month as a method to ensure that players are making a choice they won’t lament and do again a month later. | Bluebooking /= Thread Actions. Bluebooking is writing a story of your own, can get you beats, and potentially give you plot hooks for your ST to use for your future stuff, for example, writing up you establishing a group of friends in a cosplay community that could become justification for Hobbyist clique later, or who the ST’s could also have come to you with problems. Thread Actions are designed to integrate with the already present plot. | There are too many sites that allow for Staffers to run for their own venues which causes the problem of perceived favoritism. I believe we pointed out to you the GueST option which *would* allow for a player to run for their favored venue, they just have to shoot the plots to the staff of said venue for a quick approval. https://eternalnoire.com/newplayerguide/stvgt/

*Side Note* About your personal character - Does your character have Good Time Management or Patient, there are caveats that bump up your actions to a third per week. But also? The staff has this limit so that they can manage the numbers. You may only be doing 2 thread actions a week. If everyone in Beast does that, that’s 30 thread actions for the team.

Positives: We appreciate your compliments on the site aesthetic.

Summary: I apologize that you feel that we are hostile to your lifestyles/opinions, EN strives to be a welcoming environment and focused on our community. I cannot continue apologizing for the Staff having terrible occurrences in their lives, it happens and this is a volunteer-ran game where we all do our best to give our free time to the players as much as we are able. Nor do I feel the need to apologize for them having a limit on actions weekly so that our volunteer staff does not burn themselves out, nor that they begin to feel this as an unpaid internship/job. The experience limits are there for balance between active players and those who have more demanding real lives. The people aren’t specifically forming exclusionary cliques, the games all have small group mechanics via Broods, Cells, Cabals, Coteries, Cohorts. You yourself are in a Brood, so I know you know how that works, sometimes you need to do the small group stuff too.

In short; Sorry you didn’t enjoy your time here. We realize we are not going to be a good fit for every player, and we take all feedback into consideration. Thank you for playing and maybe we’ll see you again.
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Hecate
Posts: 657
Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2021 7:32 pm

Re: A few things before I leave

Post by Hecate »

If you or anyone has comments or any additional feed back about this topic please submit it though the feedback channel on our website here https://eternalnoire.com/about/submit-feedback/

This topic is going to be locked form here on out to prevent any dog piling on anyone.

Happy Roleplaying

- The Admin Team
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