L Admin
Earlier today, this message was pushed out to the MFO role holders on the main SWRP Discord. As July ends, Staff will begin revving it's engines once more for new changes as we continue to march forward towards our tenth birthday as a community.
Yeah, the title's another bait title. Ain't nobody ending drama.
But I've shown how we're reducing the hell out of toxic behaviors around the site. So now, we're going to cover a bit of the first part of this year, as I did in this announcement to the MFO's. This past "invasion season", as members of Chaos have come to affectionately call it, had some of the funnest and exciting moments in modern Chaos history as we saw an intergalactic war break out IC. I had fun watching, playing my doctor character briefly, and so did a lot of you. But behind the scenes, I saw some of the absolute worst attitudes ever, and it bred some of the absolute worst toxicity I've seen in a long while in this community. It’s embarrassing. We should absolutely feel embarrassed by it. This is, in large part, due to a failure of leadership on my part, Staff's part, and the MFO's part. I have spent this time rectifying these issues, and we have seen the massive windfall of toxicity happen across the forum as it began to die down and our very large ship began to steady itself.
We won't be repeating that, again. I've made my position abundantly clear to you, member, to the community, to the Major Faction Owners, to Staff - the more it occurs, the more I'll escalate Staff. "They can't ban us all" is something I've heard until it's literally become a meme synonymous with me banning them all. It just doesn't have a place here. It's all "self-inserts", a new roleplaying term I've come to embrace, which is defined as a role-player/writers who places themselves in the position of the Character - blending the lines between OOC and IC. It's what causes you to be a sore loser, when an Invasion doesn't go your way. It's what makes things personal. We have to remove this self-insert mentality from the community. And if we can do one better, we need to remove the fear members and Major Faction Owners alike have from moderating their voices and behavior, for fear of losing activity and posters within their Factions. That's the systemic issue that ultimately breeds toxicity that forces Staff involvement. It can, and must, be stopped before it gets to us because Staff’s way of dealing with it, my way, is very final. It doesn’t have to be. Talk to your friends, DM them, remind them it's just a game when things get heated. Remind them they are not self-inserts. Remind them they are not their characters. And experienced members, leaders... this one's important: teach people how to lose with grace. Watching veteran Faction leaders, members with years of experience at Chaos, lose their absolute minds for losing an invasion is so goddamn cringe and you are teaching new members that your behavior is acceptable and normal here. It's not, don't do it, take your L's with grace and show respect.
Alright. We've had more than enough speeches about that topic, and I'm not planning on making any more. So what's coming next?
1. The Oblivion event is ending. I know, my own involvement has been lackluster in our event thread, I'll blame summertime madness. However, I'd like to thank all writers involved, and a special tip of the hat goes to the Omni Drones that showed up in force.
The Manifold
specifically has done a fantastic job in carrying our weight, and I'll be speaking with you about giving your character "Omni's Blessing" and seeing if we can do anything fun with that mechanic.
2. There are some rule changes planned, but nothing gigantic like we've seen with the Annihilation and Populate changes. This wave will be more of a push for maintenance around our rules, judging what's working/what's not, and making some QOL improvements like explaining exactly what "Faction Activity Checks" are, and how Staff judges them.
3. I'm going to leave it to the community on whether or not we want to keep the Oblivion map. I... am not sure I see much fault in keeping it, but I also can see how distracting it can be from the Galaxy Map, as I do not like having much overhead in terms of mechanics or rules and the map is pretty large in that regard. No member on the SWRP Staff Team has been able to sway this opinion, so for this I'm going to turn to the next best thing - you, Chaos. I think last time we voted as a community was to wipe the map, so it should be fun to see where we landed. While it's a nice map, if I do say so myself, I am not exactly beholden to it one way or another, so we'll organically let that major decision fly. Regardless if we keep it or not, a majority of the rules and mechanics - especially those regarding Omni - will be removed.
4. We do have a second Flashpoint planned for October. However, we'll keep an eye on the organic scene, as I will always personally prefer organic roleplay in the community over scripted events as they do not require nearly as much manpower on behalf of the SWRP Staff Team.
More importantly, I hope our summers are going well. I hope we're all safe. And I hope you're enjoying your time and stay at SWRP: Chaos. Have a good weekend.
Yeah, the title's another bait title. Ain't nobody ending drama.
But I've shown how we're reducing the hell out of toxic behaviors around the site. So now, we're going to cover a bit of the first part of this year, as I did in this announcement to the MFO's. This past "invasion season", as members of Chaos have come to affectionately call it, had some of the funnest and exciting moments in modern Chaos history as we saw an intergalactic war break out IC. I had fun watching, playing my doctor character briefly, and so did a lot of you. But behind the scenes, I saw some of the absolute worst attitudes ever, and it bred some of the absolute worst toxicity I've seen in a long while in this community. It’s embarrassing. We should absolutely feel embarrassed by it. This is, in large part, due to a failure of leadership on my part, Staff's part, and the MFO's part. I have spent this time rectifying these issues, and we have seen the massive windfall of toxicity happen across the forum as it began to die down and our very large ship began to steady itself.
We won't be repeating that, again. I've made my position abundantly clear to you, member, to the community, to the Major Faction Owners, to Staff - the more it occurs, the more I'll escalate Staff. "They can't ban us all" is something I've heard until it's literally become a meme synonymous with me banning them all. It just doesn't have a place here. It's all "self-inserts", a new roleplaying term I've come to embrace, which is defined as a role-player/writers who places themselves in the position of the Character - blending the lines between OOC and IC. It's what causes you to be a sore loser, when an Invasion doesn't go your way. It's what makes things personal. We have to remove this self-insert mentality from the community. And if we can do one better, we need to remove the fear members and Major Faction Owners alike have from moderating their voices and behavior, for fear of losing activity and posters within their Factions. That's the systemic issue that ultimately breeds toxicity that forces Staff involvement. It can, and must, be stopped before it gets to us because Staff’s way of dealing with it, my way, is very final. It doesn’t have to be. Talk to your friends, DM them, remind them it's just a game when things get heated. Remind them they are not self-inserts. Remind them they are not their characters. And experienced members, leaders... this one's important: teach people how to lose with grace. Watching veteran Faction leaders, members with years of experience at Chaos, lose their absolute minds for losing an invasion is so goddamn cringe and you are teaching new members that your behavior is acceptable and normal here. It's not, don't do it, take your L's with grace and show respect.
Alright. We've had more than enough speeches about that topic, and I'm not planning on making any more. So what's coming next?
1. The Oblivion event is ending. I know, my own involvement has been lackluster in our event thread, I'll blame summertime madness. However, I'd like to thank all writers involved, and a special tip of the hat goes to the Omni Drones that showed up in force.
The Manifold
specifically has done a fantastic job in carrying our weight, and I'll be speaking with you about giving your character "Omni's Blessing" and seeing if we can do anything fun with that mechanic.2. There are some rule changes planned, but nothing gigantic like we've seen with the Annihilation and Populate changes. This wave will be more of a push for maintenance around our rules, judging what's working/what's not, and making some QOL improvements like explaining exactly what "Faction Activity Checks" are, and how Staff judges them.
3. I'm going to leave it to the community on whether or not we want to keep the Oblivion map. I... am not sure I see much fault in keeping it, but I also can see how distracting it can be from the Galaxy Map, as I do not like having much overhead in terms of mechanics or rules and the map is pretty large in that regard. No member on the SWRP Staff Team has been able to sway this opinion, so for this I'm going to turn to the next best thing - you, Chaos. I think last time we voted as a community was to wipe the map, so it should be fun to see where we landed. While it's a nice map, if I do say so myself, I am not exactly beholden to it one way or another, so we'll organically let that major decision fly. Regardless if we keep it or not, a majority of the rules and mechanics - especially those regarding Omni - will be removed.
4. We do have a second Flashpoint planned for October. However, we'll keep an eye on the organic scene, as I will always personally prefer organic roleplay in the community over scripted events as they do not require nearly as much manpower on behalf of the SWRP Staff Team.
More importantly, I hope our summers are going well. I hope we're all safe. And I hope you're enjoying your time and stay at SWRP: Chaos. Have a good weekend.
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