I was going to post this in the rant thread, but I felt like this was a more appropriate place. It's actually all about my frustrations as a perceived 'popular' person, so I apologise if this is not a good place for me to piggyback onto the discussion, Faye.
I know folks have established in the other thread that removing the reputation number won't accomplish anything, but for my part - there was actually a stretch of time where I really, really resented having a high number.
A lot of people in the community know who I am, but I'm sure most of you also know it's not because I got to RP with everyone. It's because I painted a ton of portraits in order to help scrape by during a really dark time where it was incredibly difficult making ends meet. I was having trouble paying rent and buying food. I only had an FFXIV subscription because I had my subscription renewal set to 6-month blocks and I was/still am somewhere in the middle of that block. I lost a considerable amount of weight. I was and still am incredibly appreciative to each person who bought artwork and wanted to buy even more artwork, because without all of you, I literally would not have survived the end of 2014.
However, I've noticed people treat me differently now than I was before when I was just another catman-player derping around the forums. I've had people say they're intimidated and scared to speak to me because I'm 'well-known'. I've had people assume I must have my finger in every RP pie on the server or that I must be BFFS with every single "big-name" I have painted. I've had folks try to RP with me purely for my 'status' assuming that if they RPed with me, they'd magically get the keys to the RP castle, and then seem irritated when that didn't happen. As though I was holding out on them somehow. I've had people get resentful when I kept having to push back RPing with them for the first time because of real life slaughtering me in ways I had no control over.
I haven't painted any new artwork in months. I'm kind of scared of doing it again in the future. I had no idea how people who only joined very recently determine I must be popular or where they hear it from as I only regularly get to RP with maybe 5 users of on this website, and some of them do not post actively on here. For a while, I assumed it must have been the big rep number, and so there were many times I almost sent a PM to Freelance to just knock mine down back to zero.
I enjoy meeting new people. In previous MMOs, I made massive server events just so that I could engage with a ton of new folks every single time. I've always been very open to scheduling out RP with people who request it and it's exciting interacting with a brand new character. But lately that excitement is slowly turning into anxiousness. I'm scared of NOT accepting every single request to RP with me for the first time ever and work to squeeze people in often at the expense of my own free time and comfort. I'm afraid people will label me as someone who is a known member of the community that secretly just wants to stay in some exclusionary RP clique.
The reality of it is that I don't actually get that much RP or even much playtime. The people I do get to RP with more regularly are folks that were drawn to me from earlier RPs I managed to do before my life got thrown out of whack, because I like making multi-person story arcs framed in a way that makes it very easy to pull in anyone. However. those take a lot of time to create and it also takes time to draw folks in. Time I no longer have.
My life has been consumed by trying to make a very drastic career change so I won't have to be terrified of starving to death this year. I don't have as much free time as I used to. I get sick very often because of the stress. I tried to expand the number of folks I RP with by creating a massive over-ambitious story arc -- but it hit a wall because of said drastic career change swallowing up all of my time. I know some people on these forums can attest to the fact that there were long periods of time where I only got to log in once or twice a week.
I love this community. It is literally the best RP community I've ever had the pleasure of being in out of many, many MMO RP communities I've been in. I want to keep coming to the RPC, being active participant in it, and hopefully finding RP with people both old and new.
However, it is really exhausting and draining seeing the constant stream of people painting the 'popular' folks as exclusionary assholes who don't want to RP with anyone and keep ignoring everyone. I know I might not even register on the list of folks they might be thinking of. I'm probably just reading too deeply between the lines. But the brushstrokes people are painting with are very broad. Unless every single 'popular' person posts up a veritable novel detailing everything going on in their lives right now like I have in this post -- no one has any idea what each person is actually going through and whether there are significant barriers getting in the way of them welcoming and drawing in new people as much as they would like.
They could be struggling with depression and don't want to RP with new folks until they figure out how to manage it. They could be sick with a physical illness that makes it hard for them to find the energy to RP as much as they would like. They could have limited time in their day and can only really devote time to FFXIV in small chunks. Or they could be working hours and hours and hours trying to scrape the money together to pay rent.
Until you know the situation of every single 'popular' person on the board, perhaps its time folks talked less about the 'popular' people keep ignoring folks and simply talk about how people in a general sense appear to be ignoring folks.
Perhaps its time we figure out a way to work around the popular folks that appear to be ignoring others. Because if I can find RP without RPing with 97% of the users on this forum, and I found that RP before I created my commission thread and was thrust unwittingly into the 'popular' crowd - it is very possible to find RP without them. I did not need popular people to find people to play with when I started - and if a lot of them are like me? They probably didn't have the keys to the RP castle either.
I'm going to be stepping away from the RPC for a while. I'll likely come back during Heavensward. Good luck to you all.
I know folks have established in the other thread that removing the reputation number won't accomplish anything, but for my part - there was actually a stretch of time where I really, really resented having a high number.
A lot of people in the community know who I am, but I'm sure most of you also know it's not because I got to RP with everyone. It's because I painted a ton of portraits in order to help scrape by during a really dark time where it was incredibly difficult making ends meet. I was having trouble paying rent and buying food. I only had an FFXIV subscription because I had my subscription renewal set to 6-month blocks and I was/still am somewhere in the middle of that block. I lost a considerable amount of weight. I was and still am incredibly appreciative to each person who bought artwork and wanted to buy even more artwork, because without all of you, I literally would not have survived the end of 2014.
However, I've noticed people treat me differently now than I was before when I was just another catman-player derping around the forums. I've had people say they're intimidated and scared to speak to me because I'm 'well-known'. I've had people assume I must have my finger in every RP pie on the server or that I must be BFFS with every single "big-name" I have painted. I've had folks try to RP with me purely for my 'status' assuming that if they RPed with me, they'd magically get the keys to the RP castle, and then seem irritated when that didn't happen. As though I was holding out on them somehow. I've had people get resentful when I kept having to push back RPing with them for the first time because of real life slaughtering me in ways I had no control over.
I haven't painted any new artwork in months. I'm kind of scared of doing it again in the future. I had no idea how people who only joined very recently determine I must be popular or where they hear it from as I only regularly get to RP with maybe 5 users of on this website, and some of them do not post actively on here. For a while, I assumed it must have been the big rep number, and so there were many times I almost sent a PM to Freelance to just knock mine down back to zero.
I enjoy meeting new people. In previous MMOs, I made massive server events just so that I could engage with a ton of new folks every single time. I've always been very open to scheduling out RP with people who request it and it's exciting interacting with a brand new character. But lately that excitement is slowly turning into anxiousness. I'm scared of NOT accepting every single request to RP with me for the first time ever and work to squeeze people in often at the expense of my own free time and comfort. I'm afraid people will label me as someone who is a known member of the community that secretly just wants to stay in some exclusionary RP clique.
The reality of it is that I don't actually get that much RP or even much playtime. The people I do get to RP with more regularly are folks that were drawn to me from earlier RPs I managed to do before my life got thrown out of whack, because I like making multi-person story arcs framed in a way that makes it very easy to pull in anyone. However. those take a lot of time to create and it also takes time to draw folks in. Time I no longer have.
My life has been consumed by trying to make a very drastic career change so I won't have to be terrified of starving to death this year. I don't have as much free time as I used to. I get sick very often because of the stress. I tried to expand the number of folks I RP with by creating a massive over-ambitious story arc -- but it hit a wall because of said drastic career change swallowing up all of my time. I know some people on these forums can attest to the fact that there were long periods of time where I only got to log in once or twice a week.
I love this community. It is literally the best RP community I've ever had the pleasure of being in out of many, many MMO RP communities I've been in. I want to keep coming to the RPC, being active participant in it, and hopefully finding RP with people both old and new.
However, it is really exhausting and draining seeing the constant stream of people painting the 'popular' folks as exclusionary assholes who don't want to RP with anyone and keep ignoring everyone. I know I might not even register on the list of folks they might be thinking of. I'm probably just reading too deeply between the lines. But the brushstrokes people are painting with are very broad. Unless every single 'popular' person posts up a veritable novel detailing everything going on in their lives right now like I have in this post -- no one has any idea what each person is actually going through and whether there are significant barriers getting in the way of them welcoming and drawing in new people as much as they would like.
They could be struggling with depression and don't want to RP with new folks until they figure out how to manage it. They could be sick with a physical illness that makes it hard for them to find the energy to RP as much as they would like. They could have limited time in their day and can only really devote time to FFXIV in small chunks. Or they could be working hours and hours and hours trying to scrape the money together to pay rent.
Until you know the situation of every single 'popular' person on the board, perhaps its time folks talked less about the 'popular' people keep ignoring folks and simply talk about how people in a general sense appear to be ignoring folks.
Perhaps its time we figure out a way to work around the popular folks that appear to be ignoring others. Because if I can find RP without RPing with 97% of the users on this forum, and I found that RP before I created my commission thread and was thrust unwittingly into the 'popular' crowd - it is very possible to find RP without them. I did not need popular people to find people to play with when I started - and if a lot of them are like me? They probably didn't have the keys to the RP castle either.
I'm going to be stepping away from the RPC for a while. I'll likely come back during Heavensward. Good luck to you all.