The Brotherhood of Common Goods - TI:L's Black Sheep

[galaxgal]

Hi guys,

This is pof Tenebrae, formerly pof Percille, the one you may have known as Poet Laudate and Chancellor of the Exchequer from years ago.

In just three weeks I am resigning.

I'm not going to make some long post about my experiences over the past two weeks or a grandiose speech like other players who have tried to play what the community calls 'antagonist' roles. Those who follow my posts know that I am much more focused on the material facts of the game. I stick to facts and professional language.

As you all know, I wrote many posts trying to describe our issues from this play perspective, with the aim to make our guild more appealing to roleplay with and inside. My focus has never been on making the Guild more 'powerful' so that it can hurt or kill other players, but to give it the basic RP and engagement tools every other Guild has.

The BCG is, technically speaking, in a really difficult state for me to recommend any player seeking out to join.

The Support command with respects to our GL title is sitting in the bug queue and despite multiple asks I was unable to get a concise response as to what behavior I should expect so that I and other players facing issues can post logs.

The Fence command doesn't do anything to make the Guild money because no one visits the Fence shop.
We actually can't control the location or character of the Fence shop at all, so there's no way we can change it to make it more appealing to Northsiders other than shuffling its location to somewhere far away from Crossroads. I tried to reach out about this but was told we can't even suggest new locations.

We don't actually control the drug market any more. Every player has herbalism and so won't interact with us when we try to make drug deals, sell poison, etc.
Other players tried to push back on this saying we aren't trying "hard enough" to find the crime RP, but I actively sought it out for nearly a month now and players just weren't interested.

Players report that Steal is a really unappealing skill and there hasn't been any transparency as to if or when it will ever change.
It has been reported multiple times that poisonmaking isn't desired, forgery isn't desired, etc.

For everything but the last two lines I've tried to raise awareness and engage both Staff and the playerbase about these issues.
But so far based on past interactions and the pattern of requests on the forum that changing the state of this isn't a high priority.

Just count at how many craft QoL's are implemented over the past 3 months compared to posts our players have tried to do about thief tools, poisonmaking, hide, sneak, etc.

Over these past weeks I tried and exhausted many options internally and externally to try and make our Guild a more enjoyable experience.
It was only until this morning that I reached a 'break point' with all the energy and effort it's taken that I chose to make this post.

Don't join or seek the Brotherhood of Common Goods. Our guild has a large number of code and function problems that will make it an unenjoyable experience, and even to Guild leadership there is no communication or transparency indicating that these issues are a priority.

Thanks to the playerbase for an awesome four years with this game.

[Temi]

As I was trying to schedule to discuss with Tenebrae previously, staff are hearing the pain of the Brotherhood, and we would like to try to improve it. We understand that there are code issues, but unfortunately, they are more overhauls than easy tweaks, and so we won't be able to do them in short order, but they are on our priority list. Eos would like to add a bit more about that, but there are also cultural issues that we would like to help to improve. Southside is nice for the Brotherhood because they have control over it, but in order to keep it safe for them, we've also built it up as pretty inaccessible for the well-to-do, which reduces opportunities to bilk them for all their wealth. So, some of the staff had the idea to create a sort of 'grey zone' or 'sin district' that would be welcoming to the upper crust, as long they were spending money, but not a place that the Reeves have thematic domain over to just shut it down whenever anything criminal happens. We wanted to vet the idea with the Tenebrae to see how it would go over with them, but as that doesn't look like it will be possible, here it is. It could include stuff like the pawn shop and the gambling hall, and allow for an area of fun Brotherhood roleplay that currently doesn't really have a place - the shady upper class and the taking advantage of vice, rather than just the gritty Southside. Does that sound like it would be something that would be well received by folks?

[Eos]

Here the code-side perspective.

We are working with a code base that is the accruement of 25+ Years of several coders leaving and coming in. We've made the decision to refactor the code base before making any large, system wide changes.

If you see us prioritizing QoL changes over game play changes, it's because those QoL changes happened to be easy to do and didn't require large rewrites of the code.

It's definitely not lack of interest in the BCG and covert skills that has been keeping us from implementing the changes that would help covert type characters. We're aware of how important covert types are to keep conflict alive. Our first two assignments given to us were Dual Guilding and the rework of some of the covert skills. We had to postpone them because as coders new to the code we found it to be in a state where we couldn't long term work on it without burning out.

We need more time to implement the big changes. This is frustrating for covert type characters. In lieu of that, we've been trying to come up with systems that require minimal code changes, as, for example, Temis post details, or the return of demon summoning, which is supposed to be partly automated but for now is fully manual.

Please also keep in mind that all of us are volunteers with jobs, classes and other responsibilities.

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I don't want to take the spotlight away from Temi's suggestion of a grey zone area for the BCG accessible for the upper crust of society, but also not possible for Reeves to Snuff out illegal happenings. I hope this thread will serve to discuss that, since we wanted to hear out the player base.

[Lei]

It’s a bummer that you’re tapping out, @Galaxygal. It was exciting seeing you dive into the guild with such gusto. I don’t know if you’re aware of how many folks behind the scenes are rooting for BCG. Sometimes that IC and OOC involvement does have to simmer though, for longer than a few OOC weeks.

Temi, I dig the gray zone idea.

[Geras]

Sorry to hear that Galax and look forward to your next char. You're a great player and you stepping down is a real loss to the Brotherhood. I appreciate where you're coming from.

[Rey]

I love the idea of the gray zone. I would definitely be down for that and it would make it much easier to play characters that are more on the gray side of things and have those interactions.

[galaxgal]

It’s a bummer that you’re tapping out, @Galaxygal. It was exciting seeing you dive into the guild with such gusto. I don’t know if you’re aware of how many folks behind the scenes are rooting for BCG. Sometimes that IC and OOC involvement does have to simmer though, for longer than a few OOC weeks.

I'm pretty used to plotlines being a slow-burn affair, but unfortunately, the game's Support system doesn't acknowledge that - we have gone coming up to two full cycles now where the Support command still wasn't working right and we still didn't have any guidance on what to do about this problem.

Anyone here who's led a Guild can tell you how difficult not having that functionality is; I couldn't even reply to several letters and even OOC posts asking for help or making requests of our Guild. Because we by policy aren't allowed to discuss those commands the guild side of RP has pretty much been locked down to only doing internal RP with very few members on different timezones for the past two weeks.

I work in software as well, and with that background in mind I've always tried to prioritize requesting the smallest items or scale of changes first. However, these requests often received as much pushback as some of the more ambitious changes discussed here on the forums.

Behind the scenes, that same gusto for supporting the Guild was restricted by a tight IRL time schedule, and I made multiple attempts to reach out to staff via Request for transparency that wasn't given. I sympathize with Staff's volunteer schedule for the same reason that I myself am on a limited schedule. My tool for working around this limitation is the OOC boards, where I requested additional details multiple times but did not receive e.g. any of the information now being discussed in this thread until my departure announcement was made public.

Let me be clear that my thanks goes out to the awesome players who were supporting us behind the scenes. There were those of you who I received letters from and even the ones that weren't ICly 'friendly' had unspoken amounts of warmth and enthusiasm, and seeing that enthusiasm again kept me going for the past near-month.

I hope that one day the playerbase's enthusiasm for the Guild is able to transform it into something awesome in the future, but for me, it was a long, uphill road where the culmination of everything burnt me out very quickly.

[galaxgal]

Sorry to hear that Galax and look forward to your next char. You're a great player and you stepping down is a real loss to the Brotherhood. I appreciate where you're coming from.

Given that it was conveyed to me that feedback of this type is considered harmful and offensive, I greatly doubt that there will be a next character.
Players are free to reach out to me at galaxgal#6174. Remember, there's no 'y' in there - it's a common misconception!

Even if my account remains open tomorrow, it was made pretty clear to me that future interactions would be viewed through a lens of hostility, and I have no interest in navigating that.

Thanks for the fun times, Geras.

For the same reason above I'm going to be stepping away from the forums and probably go back to some of the other spaces I was in during my 'explorative' interim break.

[Temi]

Please know that you are still welcome and not viewed with hostility, though we will respect the decision to leave if you feel that is what is best for you. The request was simply that if you decide to stay, to please not use pessimistic comments like being skeptical we will give you any support when communicating with us. I don't think it's best to hash out and air dirty laundry on the forums though, so I'm going to step out of comments on that interaction.

[Geras]

You aren't accepting friend requests on Discord!