AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Let's talk about IG boredom. This is a forum mostly for our long-term players, who have been here at least two years or more and have stuck through with the long-haul of Amia's project. I've been playing for almost a decade now myself, which is scary to think about. Anyway, first of all, do not mistake this for something that is meant to be inflammatory, I'm not that kind of person. However, I will say it is a messy subject, in that, its mostly confessional, and based on the notion that we do get bored playing here, which is open to all kinds of interpretations: it can reflect the playerbase, or it can reflect the team, ot it can reflect you as a player, but, I think it is something that can be talked about constructively to perhaps help illuminate the causation and effects to those who are struggling with this sort of thing like I am, and to those who are trying to prevent stagnation from happening. After all, I very much want Amia to succeed for us all, as does the rest of you, I think. Okay, so the first question is, when do you find yourself bored IG? Is it between RP interactions? Repetition? Are you struggling to find character development? Is the game arc "over"? When do you find yourself going AFK the most? And the next part of it is, how do you deal with boredom? Maybe you make an alt-character? Or maybe you have a good way to keep things fresh? Maybe you enjoy every second of the game. Share how!

I should go first.

I am weak. I get bored a lot. When I get bored, it is usually because there is no story developing that my character can get involved with. No call-and-response for IC actions that would otherwise rely on a response. However, I am extraordinarily patient and try not to complain. And I think it is trivial to stand in an appropriate area waiting for interactions from PCs/NPCs. So as a result of both being quiet, and being discontent, I just zone out or log off. And lately, between conversations with other PCs. What the hell! I'm even bored listening to PCs! But only if our characters have mutually nothing to talk about. I will say that that isn't always the case. My character is actually quite a busybody, not as busy as others, but not as neglected as others either. She is a medium-velocity character, by that I mean, I get a more than average amount of inquiry and curiosity from other players and NPCs. I think that is half because of my IG involvement and willingness to prod the game larva with needles, my duration (as both a player and a character), and half because my character is at least a little interesting. But where this fails me, possibly, (as I don't know for sure) is the Action to Inaction ratio. It's very difficult and even painful to just do nothing IG. It's the worst. I also hate making Alts these days, so I won't bother to keep up with another plot line. I just don't have the time to waste for that. So I am trapped in such a way to just err on the side of caution when I think I will have a boring day by simply not-playing. And that doesn't help the vitality of Amia at all. Because when it comes right down to it, for everyone who does not log in, the server loses its worth. And that's where I feel guilty. But I guess that's how I answer the problem. How do I deal with my boredom? I don't, I freeze! I either stop playing or just go AFK. Sometimes I will take these little off-time jaunts hoping that when I get back in maybe the story will liven up when I return, and for a few days returned, it is very comfortable, but story being my main motivator as a player, when it slumps, I slump, and I deliver terrible RP as a result. So I apologize for that. Anyway, that's how I get bored in game, but as I've presented, I am more interested in hearing about the rest of y'all's experiences with dealing with boredom, as I am certainly not the most dedicated player around. Some of you are here every night! How do you manage?

When I become incurably bored, I either take a break or seriously sit down and look at where my feelings are coming from. Back over 8 months ago before I had to leave the server for work-related reasons, I was starting to get bored and frustrated despite all the interesting plotlines going on at the time (Winya's divine turmoil, quintessence, Arcanum, etc). Upon some careful study I had discovered that my main character at the time, Lithen, was pretty much done. There were things she could do, certainly, and paths I could take her, but ultimately she came to do what brought her to Amia and I felt like I had been playing her simply because she had friends, had stuff to do, and she was my favorite. Given, she wasnt a several-year old character but it was sad to put her on the sidelines. However, she never meant to come to Amia and live out her days (based on the story that got her here in the first place) and I began to feel more at ease playing a new face with fresh goals and a bit of naivety and disconnection. I had forgotten how fun forging those relationships was.

I am by no means suggesting that bored folk just roll new characters to solve their problem, but at least in my case finding the root of the issue opened up new doors for me, despite staying with the Elves on a 2nd character. Is it strange to say I thought the move was in her best interests, considering she doesn't exist? Who knows. It was a hard decision, but I am glad I did not make the harder decision of leaving the game.

Plus I'm just waiting for own of the sever Hero types to snap and go dark side for everyone's amusement.

Good initiative Aiseth. As a developer I always try to keep in the back of my mind, how to make things interesting both for new players, and for the "old" players, because certainly there are some needs that overlap, but not all. So I'm looking forward to seeing what folks identify as their own personal boredom here, so long as it's kept constructive as you say.

One phrase in your post really stood out to me, "No call-and-response..." One of my biggest cures for boredom while playerside, is never to wait for the DMs to give me something to react to. Do things and make them (read: the setting) react to you. This is also what I always tried to do when DMside in that I didn't run many actual events, I just always tried to set an interesting stage, let the players flow where they wanted to, and react to what they did, through the NPCs and setting that make up the game world.

I might post more in-depth later.

For me usually there is no middle ground. Sometimes I cannot stop RPing, because people are jumping me one after another, which is pretty awesome when it happens. On occasions I sit in Tarkuul for 10+ hours per day without anyone passing by, or stopping to RP. I am refusing to make an alt myself, because I do not want to invest into an insignificant character. I will rather be available for someone who wants to grab a chance to RP, or just be THERE, like be present. I am turning into Cory Shadowflame. It is the curse of the skeletors.

@Aiseth
Your toon is not permabanned from Tarkuul. You can always try to get back into it. There are but a few people on Amia as competent as you when it comes to Arcane spellcasting.

Half the time, I think the DMs aren't as omniscient as they should be- or there should be more of them to be manipulating things for players. At the same time, I think the players are to blame; mainly because I don't see too many who try to make things happen on their own. The most active character I had was my first main character- a violent and power-hungry evil character who gave the equally-active Baneites a run for their money. No DM did anything in reaction to what this character did ever, and I did so much with this character.

Mechanics-wise, the repetition is a little painful, but not much can really be done about that, as long as new area could maybe be made with strategy in mind- terrain, creature variety in each spawn, puzzles maybe. The grind can really be dull at times.

I used to be bored alot, but now I just log onto b with my dwarf, and there is usually someone around to rp (aka grumble at), granted once in awhile we do the akward conversations with 10 minutes between every sentence, but ive grown used to that, and have prepared an film accordingly to run on my other screen >.<

Dead wrote:

On occasions I sit in Tarkuul for 10+ hours per day without anyone passing by, or stopping to RP. I am refusing to make an alt myself, because I do not want to invest into an insignificant character. I will rather be available for someone who wants to grab a chance to RP, or just be THERE, like be present. I am turning into Cory Shadowflame. It is the curse of the skeletors.

Yep that explains it from my point of view as well more or less and why I'm always slipping away into long bits of AFKness.

I haven't played much at all in almost 2 years due to boredom. The major cause of this is a lack of open world activity to stumble upon. I can't count how many times I would log into a server that said 45/65 players, walk from Winya to Bendir Dale, to Cordor, then to Wharftown, Uhm, and Kohlingen...all while finding exactly 0 PCs to interact with. I would log in, make my circuit, then log out. After a while, I just stopped logging in.

Amia is very much like the rest of my life in one respect: never boring. But it is a personal policy to avoid boredom in all things, and I have many ways of preventing it long before it happens.

I enjoy my characters the most when they have had time to grow for a while and found a place for themselves. This has resulted in the general avoidance of alt characters. Most of the new character concepts I pursue do not last longer than a week or two. Those that manage to stick around longer, usually become my main. And I tend to put the focus on a single character.

At this point, there are two stages of boredom that tend to become a bit of a devils cycle for me. The first kicks in when there is lacking activity, lacking opportunity for development and repetition of encounters that lack substance. Hence I begin to put in a great deal of initiative and active contribution to get things rolling. This usually alleviates my boredom, and I keep an eye out for those players whose roleplay magnetize and encourage me.

The second phase of my boredom is the burnout phase. As soon as I have hit months of putting in too much effort, with the roleplay niche I am trying to invigorate contributing little to help with it, I hit that wall. The character’s roleplay simply cannot keep me hooked. This is the phase where I at times permakill characters when the opportunity arises. Once I recovered from the burnout phase, it usually starts at the top.

What always helped me the most is having those players around who have that enthusiastic optimism, tend to provide a lot of initiative and creative ideas with their characters by default, and generally are happy to help with keeping things fun and interesting. If there are two others to truly share the work part of it with, the cycle is on pause and I generally have no problems with boredom.

Just one opinion, but I feel a big part of it is that, with old characters, they're settled and don't feel that drive to reach out and interact with new characters. So they miss a lot of the RP that they enjoyed getting to the top of their arc.

Similarly, lot of the old players won't try as hard to interact players they don't know. They click the portrait, don't recognize the player, and tune out instead of turning on. And not all of this is problems with cliques. It's a natural impulse to stay with what you know. But give it a go with some new people and you might find new fun. Maybe not every time, or even most of the time, but it was that way all along until you found the people you normally RP with.

Put your all into it like you did when you were new and coming up, and take a chance. Enough of that and you'll spark lots of new fires of interest.

When I get bored, I log out. That said, I came to realize that so much of my boredom stemmed from what Yoss and Fennewald point out: lack of concerted effort. To be engaged, it takes more from me than I have given Amia or a character in a little while. Partly because Samantha is such an old character and partly because there was a giant plot that took up her entire life and awareness and partly because my real life is more overwhelming than it was when I started here as an angst-ridden sixteen year old teen. I am so incredibly pleased that I have discovered a new character lately that brings me joy and entertainment simply by Being. He is complex and diametric and metaphorical. I can find passionate correlations to my OOC perspective (whereas I created Sam because of how opposite she is from me OOCly) and he can engage all types of people and RP. I think I will play them both for awhile and try this "alt" thing out that I never have before... We will see how it goes.

Admittedly I've been rather bored with Amia for a few weeks. This usually happens to me due to the same reason many of you have already discussed; general inactivity. A lot of my RP is based in factions and groups. When a group is being inactive I begin to severely lose my drive.

I usually combat this by focusing on a character and brainstorming a bunch of creative request ideas and RP quests for myself. I myself play across four main toons. I play each with equal drive and passion, though based on what groups are active when, I usually switch in and out. Because I focus on so much, I usually never stay bored for long. I make a great effort to keep each of their faces present here and there, and characters of high rank I definitiely make sure to keep around. I like to keep factions and groups active if I can help it.

But when there's absolutely nothing going and Amia reaches a blinding stagnation for me, I have one person I can always count on for amazing RP. The best part is that I get this RP not only when I'm bored as all hell, but I get it all the time. You'll probably never find one of us without the other. At the end of the day, I consider myself extremely lucky. I nearly always have opportunities for interaction and development because of the close friends I keep and the enthusiasm I hold for possibilities. But ometimes, things just get boring. I'd suggest thinking of a bunch of cool crap you can request which is what I've been doing lately.

I tend to take breaks from Amia when I realize I'm getting to "serious" about it, or when I realize I'm doing nothing but logging on and walking to places and not really engaging in role play with people. I like to make things happen, but I also like to put other people in a position to make things happen (case in point: Asya) and when I'm struggling to do either of those things I get tired. So I take a break from Amia. Sometimes it's for a few weeks, sometimes it's for a few months. But when I take a break it's usually for my continued enjoyment of the server.

Though sometimes I'll admit I'm to dependent on the DM team for interaction despite my times of trying to move the Living Guard away from that in the past. It turns out when you focus your interactions on independence people take note and go "that group is active, let's put them in my plot" and you get a lot of attention. And that's awesome, but then you start wondering what to do with yourself when it's over.

And lately I'm just bad at interacting with other PCs. My PC has little to no reason to look for most of you, and even less reason to talk to you. Which is admittedly a fault of my own.

Lucius Blackwater wrote:

On occasions I sit in Tarkuul for 10+ hours per day without anyone passing by, or stopping to RP. I am refusing to make an alt myself, because I do not want to invest into an insignificant character. I will rather be available for someone who wants to grab a chance to RP, or just be THERE, like be present.

THAT - is dedication.

Boredom is generally my own fault and playing style I suppose. My main characters are an ill tempered half-orc, a smarmy Cyricist that although fun can be exhausting to play and a massive, silent, intimidating palemaster. RPing daily life doen't work for me either. Boss hunting gets dull for me after a few runs too. I enjoy playing characters that create some form of conflict but there has been very little of that for a while. Have taken a bit of a break but am easing my way back again. I would love to get into some form of player run rivalry between groups.

It takes quite a bit for me to get bored. I keep personal goals in mind or I involve myself into the stories of other players.

I'm ALMOST where Madrik is going to end up. I've really gotten back into my satyr lately, and there is so much to do with the drow. I don't know if it is immersion or what, but in my mind, there is always something to do and someone to meet.

I always wonder where everyone is if not in the hubs, surely out on some quest.. I hope. I have some thoughts on cutting down on idle time and increasing activity in hubs but they're radical.

As for boredom I feel a lot of really great points were brought up, the difference between fresh characters and established characters, now I'm not trying to put a stigma between the two because there's definitely room to wiggle into anything with the proper character. The issue of character/factional progress, and finding the bustle of activity.

But I do think there's a disparity between the ability for a new character to forge and build relations versus a person who has already found their comfort. A new character can create a story wherever they go, with whomever, and there's no reason to not take this active approach as a new character because you're in the formative stage, you're building.

Now as for an established characters there's certainly factors that can't be ignored when their interactions are weighed. Their friendships may warp who they speak with, their established knowledge will also alter how they interact with people and find certain groups more difficult to play with. And there's also the stigma that you may put a bunch of effort into a new character just to see them disappear, and while that's a reasonable sentiment I think that it's just counter-intuitive. Our characters don't know if someone will be gone, and isn't that all the more reason to put as much effort forward as possible? (I guess that depends on your character lol) Cherish the moment.

Now a lot of people bring up that Amia is your's to tinker and if you want something go out and make it happen. I think this is idealistic (hypocrite!!!). You can do a lot, but once you hit a certain threshold you are limited to DM-reliance which is not as reliable as we'd like. But we can work on that, the DMs can be reached out to, and should, we can't expect them to be watching us at all times. (Mass PMs to multiple DMs does the trick for me!) And once you do find the DM who isn't too busy hopefully you can pitch your idea in a compelling enough manner to pull their attention. I think this area could use some fine-tuning. An idea doesn't necessarily need to be compelling, just viable, and if it's not viable I would say it's the DM's job to assist the player in cultivating the idea. Truthfully if we want Amia to flourish it's going to take everyone's effort, and the majority of that effort needs to come from the staff since they have the most power to do so, also they've been charged with the task of making this server better.

Player to player interaction in friendly/confrontational manners could be explored and further expanded as others have mentioned in the form of rivalries. There's no shortage of good/bad guys on the server, but we've all done the song and dance enough times to know that the burden of entertainment is in the evil-doers hands and also the burden of inevitably being ground into a piece of dust and disrespected. This could be alleviated by altering the "win" mentality, and instead looking to enrich a story.

Parting question before I get into radical ideas of activity/player hub:

In your average week on amia (quantify a time if you'd like)
How long do you spend RPing?
Leveling?
Boss hunting?
Searching for the RP?
RPing alone?

I like your question tactic, OTR, but you should make it into a survey topic separate from this. Some factions do that exact thing to try to target faction happiness and I think it could be very effective to do every six months or so as a player base! Start it up I say!

Thank you so much for this topic Aiseth! I have been kicking around the idea of posting something along this line for quite sometime now. I have been playing my character Kildera now for almost four years off an on. Her last two journal posts have been about her personal boredom. I have always RP'ed that for her, boredom is her greatest foe. She has found herself involved in many interesting things along her journey on the isles but almost all of the rp has ended due to the transient nature of the server. For her, each person who comes into her life is a long process and when they leave, the drain of starting anew is irritating. For me, part of the joy of playing her is how difficult it is for her to truly connect with people. She "darlings" and fingerwaves to nearly all who cross her path, but rarely does she make a true connection. It is a vicious circle, I know. But as a player, I am finding it becoming more and more difficult to connect. We have a vast diversity of play styles here so I am always wondering, who wants to RP, who wants to powergame and who wants to just PVP. If you see me on as Kildera, please feel free to interact with her. She is more than willing to offer a superficial smile, and who knows? Perhaps it could lead us both out of our boredom. :wink:

Of course like Kraniumbrud, I too resort to Dwarfdom in cases of emergency.

The Boredom Topic

Who is online