I have to apologize if my reply earlier made it sound like I was trying to say people don't pay attention to new people. 90 percent of the people I've met randomly are the kind of people who wouldn't just acknowledge a new person but say hello and try to help them out. I'm not saying people intentionally ignore or write off people who are 'less popular' but I am saying that new people can and sometimes do feel that way. It's understandable. Like with artists who post great artwork somewhere and it gets few views and fewer shares or comments, when someone works up the courage to walk up to a player with 'Walkup Welcomed' in their search info or makes what they consider to be a well thought out post on the forums, it's disappointing to feel like no one thought those things were worthwhile responding to.
It's not giving credit to the fact that people are -busy- or even 'popular' people can be shy. We all afk for a bit or get floods of random talk text in our chats that hide someone's walk up emote before we even have a chance to see them. No one should feel guilty about not roleplaying with anyone. Certainly, no one should be guilting other people into anything (even if they really want Warren's attention). On that specific note, let me say that I had a lot of trouble in that particular position with people feeling as though A. I thought I was better than them and was only interested in talking to my -select- group of friends or B. Really really wanted me to roleplay with them outside the event. Alot of the stress came from having my attention split between so many people with so many grievances and ending up involved in so many poor situations that I couldn't even get my own personal roleplay done. That was a huge factor contributing to why I quit playing Siobhain in the first place.
The same stress applies to FC and Linkshell leaders as well as any other form of leader in the community. You have a group of people to look after and try to pay attention to and if you don't do it, you're being 'neglectful' but if you do then you're not getting time to fulfill your own interests at all and even if you -are- giving as much attention to everyone as they require, someone will likely, inevitably, feel like they're getting less than someone else. That quickly escalates into them complaining to others about either your leadership or your group and it's difficult to prevent. Like people have said, it helps a lot to try and remember that others are people too who have a lot of things going on for them at any given point. That stress they've built up can accidentally overflow into something that comes across as harsh at the wrong time. We're not perfect, but we -can- acknowledge when we've hurt someone and apologize.
So while I still say empathizing with other people, even people we don't personally like, and taking any bad opinions of people with a grain of salt would be really beneficial to everyone just in general, I'm not going to say people don't care about one another. We do. Everyone cares about someone. We just can't care about everyone all the time to the point where we've completely sacrificed all our free time to making sure that everyone is happy. Because then, when someone is still unhappy, it's incredibly painful and disappointing.
Now that there's a thread and more people have gotten some insight about what they may or may not be doing and how it may or may not be affecting others, wouldn't it just be best not to try and alter things like reputation or anything (those seem like symptoms as opposed to the root of the issues) and let things go for a bit? At least someone was bold enough to bring it up and there's actually a lot of good points in here.
It's not giving credit to the fact that people are -busy- or even 'popular' people can be shy. We all afk for a bit or get floods of random talk text in our chats that hide someone's walk up emote before we even have a chance to see them. No one should feel guilty about not roleplaying with anyone. Certainly, no one should be guilting other people into anything (even if they really want Warren's attention). On that specific note, let me say that I had a lot of trouble in that particular position with people feeling as though A. I thought I was better than them and was only interested in talking to my -select- group of friends or B. Really really wanted me to roleplay with them outside the event. Alot of the stress came from having my attention split between so many people with so many grievances and ending up involved in so many poor situations that I couldn't even get my own personal roleplay done. That was a huge factor contributing to why I quit playing Siobhain in the first place.
The same stress applies to FC and Linkshell leaders as well as any other form of leader in the community. You have a group of people to look after and try to pay attention to and if you don't do it, you're being 'neglectful' but if you do then you're not getting time to fulfill your own interests at all and even if you -are- giving as much attention to everyone as they require, someone will likely, inevitably, feel like they're getting less than someone else. That quickly escalates into them complaining to others about either your leadership or your group and it's difficult to prevent. Like people have said, it helps a lot to try and remember that others are people too who have a lot of things going on for them at any given point. That stress they've built up can accidentally overflow into something that comes across as harsh at the wrong time. We're not perfect, but we -can- acknowledge when we've hurt someone and apologize.
So while I still say empathizing with other people, even people we don't personally like, and taking any bad opinions of people with a grain of salt would be really beneficial to everyone just in general, I'm not going to say people don't care about one another. We do. Everyone cares about someone. We just can't care about everyone all the time to the point where we've completely sacrificed all our free time to making sure that everyone is happy. Because then, when someone is still unhappy, it's incredibly painful and disappointing.
Now that there's a thread and more people have gotten some insight about what they may or may not be doing and how it may or may not be affecting others, wouldn't it just be best not to try and alter things like reputation or anything (those seem like symptoms as opposed to the root of the issues) and let things go for a bit? At least someone was bold enough to bring it up and there's actually a lot of good points in here.
