Discussion: Healing discovery

[Ash]

The community is what keeps the mod alive. People will always leave, but when it happens at an accelerated rate it suggests that there is a catalyst at play.

A week ago I posed the question to you all "What do you feel Is disincentivising you to play discovery freelancer?". The aim was to clearly identify what issues are of most concern to community members and clear some of the fog that has come with our desensitisation to negative feedback.

The responses in that thread were from a concerned community, seemingly exhausted by frustration and very much at the end of a rope. I'd like to thank those who contributed to that thread, it has certainly brought some much needed clarity.

Here is a selection of the matters which were most frequently voted for as points of concern. To keep a focused approach, we'll be capping what qualifies as a 'serious concern' to matters that received 36 votes or more:

• Storyline management (48)
  
• Staff conduct {covers options 12(41), 13(39) & 14(36)}
  
  
• Low player count (46)
  
  
• General hostility from other community members (43)
  
• Poor sportsmanship (38)
  
• Elitism (44)
  
• Polarisation of PvP skill amongst players (36)
  

Now we have identified what is of most concern. It's time we discuss how we as a community (that includes staff) choose to deal with each of these problems.

Lets take a look at each of them in turn.

There seems to be an overwhelming opinion of unprofessionalism, incompetency and bias of staff. Whether these facts are true are not up for debate here. However this is clearly the opinion of many. To me the recourse is clear: if these allegations are true then the staff need step up to the responsibility of running the server more efficiently, or pave the way for others to take the reigns. If they aren't true, then staff have realise the damaging effect their reputation is having upon us all, and that current methods of shaking this reputation are not working.

Low player count is discovery's cancer. It is arguably the most difficult mountain to climb in the list above and many believe it is an inevitability. However there are ways that we as a community can reach out and draw in new players. But, (while this is just my own opinion) doing this prior to improving the disposition of the community will be pointless. As a counterargument, an inundation of new players could in fact dilute many of the negative aspects of the community. But how can we expect any of them to want to stay? Consistent activity will only be established by players who feel comfortable here. This is a major point for discussion.

The remaining points all point toward toxicity. Many of these final points go hand in hand as they're all caused by each other. Reeves quite aptly said:

We're horrible to one another

This is a fact. When did we lose our sense of commonality? Here we are, all playing this game that's older than the PlayStation 2 and we're swinging at each other over what?

You may not give the slightest damn about the other guy's feelings but you sure as hell care about keeping this community together. Am I the only one seeing the paradox?

It's a small town, word gets around. It's not as simple as yelling at the guy and finding a quiet corner anymore. We have to learn to play nice and stop treating each other like dog crap over the slightest things like...

...what gets implemented

...management decisions

...events

Deep down we're all just angry at ourselves for investing so much time and effort into something that has amounted to nothing. The fact that another person has been the instrument of that eventuality is not that person's fault unless it's against the rules of play (which only got 11 votes, so you must be content with them). On the other hand, if the system distills angst in players by demanding extraordinary investment of time to get anywhere then perhaps it's time to revise the system.

All that to say, this is where we are, in the hole.

What would you do, as a community member, to dig us out?

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[pillow]

not to be a debbie downer but its quite literally impossible to dig this community out of this grave for the simple reason that everyones a gigantic -bad word-

99% of this community sits in their own cute little circlejerk and make it their lifes purpose to take a massive dump (cant have 2 bad words in the same post sry) on whoever ISNT in their circlejerk

lost cause friendo but you get an A+ for effort

edit: whoever edited the GOSH DARN FRIKKIN C-WORD OH MY GOD out of my fucking post can suck on a fat one but im not specifying which fat one because then youll get offended and we cant have that no sir

IT WASNT EVEN DIRECTED AT ANYONE KYS YOURSELF

[Banned player t202085]

not to be a debbie downer but its quite literally impossible to dig this community out of this grave for the simple reason that everyones a gigantic -bad word-

99% of this community sits in their own cute little circlejerk and make it their lifes purpose to take a massive dump (cant have 2 bad words in the same post sry) on whoever ISNT in their circlejerk

lost cause friendo but you get an A+ for effort

This is painfully true, there are problems across the board like you uncovered ash but there is also a deep clique culture and if you aren't in the right ones you simply wont get on, this is true not just for RP and gameplay but also staff request stuff.

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202085
Time left: (Permanent)

[Lucas]

Still don't understand "elitism".
In terms of PvP? Everyone can practice, there's many people willing to teach other people.. it's just a lazy excuse for people to not log.

There's nothing you can save here, but as Pillow said A+ for effort

[Sombs]

It's too late for extreme changes. Any bigger change would piss off too many people. People feel entitled to the influence they have right now, regarding any aspect of game and community.

Before anything else can be done, the game needs more attention and more new people. Emphasis on new. New people, free from grudges against the majority of not-my-faction. People who don't just sit on the forum 24/7 and watch the playerlist until something "worthy to log for" is online. Right now, people don't log until something happens. But nobody is willing to create something worth logging for. I am not talking about events by players or admins, or game masters since the devs couped the only controlling instance. People with motivation, with awe for what Discovery gives.

What can be done about that? There are some things everyone can do. We can't expect egocentric a-holes to suddenly become nice people, but even an egocentric a-hole can spread the word on imgur, facebook, twitter, instagram, you name it. People like to browse through stuff like imgur, and it will definitely catch more attention than that shabby moddb page or those pictures we have on the main page of the server. People don't look at that. People look at the forum and browse through current pages. People love to look at things like this and this and this.

Without new people, the view on the current staff, specifically the devs, won't change, because in this community, people rarely change their opinions, and rarely people deserve a second opinion. New people don't give a damn about what this person did or what reputation that faction has. New people just want to enjoy the game and explore and play with possible new friends.

However, this also means people need to be helpful and nice to newcomers instead of flying cruisers and destroyers in Penny to hunt miners and other very obvious newcomers. This also means to be more respectful to those people who do things for the first few times. If you don't want to bring up the time to teach and tutor them, then at least don't be an a-hole to them. You know enough other people to waste your aggressions on.

This also means the devs should stop removing content left and right for the sake of what they consider streamlining or "system design wisdom". And maybe we could put an end to these backdoor developments. I guess more than half of the active players are currently sitting in at least one dev chat on Discord and argue militantly about things that could be argued over openly on the forum and even put into the game. I see 1iCs constantly crying about a lack of organic roleplay and a lack of solid basis for results that suddenly happen. Why is all the effort happening where people don't see it? Why do you put so much effort into things hidden on various intransparent rooms while the forum dies more and more? The forum is literally the most important place. Everyone checks it out. Everyone sees that during certain times only a handful of people are online, ingame and on the forum.

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[Ash]

Still don't understand "elitism".
In terms of PvP? Everyone can practice, there's many people willing to teach other people.. it's just a lazy excuse for people to not log.

There's nothing you can save here, but as Pillow said A+ for effort

You're mostly right. It refers to players who profess in RP, PvP or some other quality banding together to the detriment of other players.

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[Banned player t202085]

people need to be helpful and nice to newcomers

I think that would make a huge difference, it wouldn't solve the issues i see with disco but like Sombra said it would help the community

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=202085
Time left: (Permanent)

[Altejago]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the exact attitude that harbors the poor attitudes. It entirely enables the negative vibe and the opinions people displaying above are absolving any responsibility.

We're not a community, in the true sense of the word. We're a group of differing ideals with no tolerance or compassion to one another. The day people give a fuck, is the day things start getting better.

There is no desire to do their part to make the place better, just quick to tell everyone what is wrong. This needs to change.

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[Emperor Tekagi]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the exact attitude that harbors the poor attitudes. It entirely enables the negative vibe and the opinions people displaying above are absolving any responsibility.

We're not a community, in the true sense of the word. We're a group of differing ideals with no tolerance or compassion to one another. The day people give a *****, is the day things start getting better.

There is no desire to do their part to make the place better, just quick to tell everyone what is wrong. This needs to change.

Just this. There's no real community. Without any new players and a radical change of mind, there will never be. I advise you, take a few days or weeks off Disco and try see it with different eyes then. The eyes of an outsider. Trust me, the picture you get is not welcoming at all. Rather it drives people, new and returning alike, off right away again. Most newbies stay how long? A few weeks at best.

[TheShooter36]

I introduced many people, included my cousin when we first started over together - those times where a small Mammoth(was that the name of the liberty transport you could get for 10m or so?) named TheShooter36 literally, alongside my cousin followed me like a bot with yet another Mammoth - however none of them lasted more than a month sadly.

To them, disco is either a harsh as hell grindfest to reach the point you have a miner, a 5k and constantly get shit by random guy in a capital ship, or when they see the forums, it is near-LoL levels of toxicity from their PoV. Freelancer, being a niche game and discovery catering to an even narrower type of players. People are like "okay it looks cool for its age, scenery is pretty, battles looks great." when I have them watch an event vid etc. But when they come in, they face the darker aspects of Discovery.

If anything, it boils down to exactly the unhelpfulness of our playerbase in general. We all see those newbros casually mining, trading and when we pass eachother(just like EvE), we simply do not welcome them and try to give some advice (Unlike EvE, where most players teach you something little), make them used into the RP setting. (yes, most of the new players totally ignore the 24/7 RP part for some reason, I am talking about those ones that did not get enlightened by Forum)

New players wont care about our internal circlejerks or "staff bias" and if we manage to help them, they can surely stay and be "one of us"

TLDR; Dont be asshats to those helium miners with clearly ooRP names in a rogue/OC capship and they will have a bigger chance to stay.

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