As another canary-in-the-coal-mine moment, I didn't get any messaging from Simu about this year's Simucon or the fundraiser, the latter of which I've given to for the last couple of years. As a repeat donor, I'm part of the easiest group of people to ask about this, and no one did!

I recognize it's odd/funny that I'm annoyed over someone not asking me for $25, but it was something I liked supporting each year since it brought the community together, and I only realized the fundraiser came and went because I saw someone talking about the con on Twitter – which was also the first messaging I saw about it at all!

Looking back, I realize we've gotten monthly email updates pretty sparingly this year, which is another place (other than the forums themselves) where I would have expected to see something about this.

Maybe I missed some in-game messaging about this stuff, who knows.

I'm sure this isn't something GMs themselves are shocked over, and it's something that will be addressed once there is a bigger GM cohort, but I'd also regret not saying that the lack of communication is detrimental toward the way the game wants the community to function as a whole.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

It’s entirely understandable, and I don’t feel the GMs are responsible for this. It’s completely a matter of GMs being spread too thin and some opportunities being missed as a result. The downside of course being that because everyone is spread so thin, the community tends to suffer from situations like these.

It would be great to have another opportunity to donate to the fund despite it being past the date (by three days even, darn!), even as a simucoin buy, because I really do like showing my support for the community and it is really disappointing that because GMs are spread so thin there was no real push on DR’s side to even make the fundraiser known. I also, obviously, enjoyed the gifts and rewards that came as a result of doing so, because they lean more toward fun/creative than combat/skill-focused.

Also just checked to see if I missed it on Twitter, and it wasn’t there either. Once again, it’s no ones fault in particular; I understand it is a bandwidth issue. I’m just annoyed/frustrated/disappointed that I didn’t get to do the thing I like to do every year to show support for the community, and the reason for it being that the community itself is in a bad place because GMs are spread so thin that communication can’t be done like they’d want to.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I’m not surprised there is a discord for it (maybe a reddit thread too), but if that’s the place it was shared (possibly by players and not even simu itself), it’s still an issue.

In the end, Simu (as an org, not any particular GM) didn’t really advertise their event that well, and to me that’s a very unhealthy sign of how well the commmunity is doing.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I mean, if you aren’t choosing to participate in the more modern direction the game and communication is going, is that really on them? There were posts in the con folder, and on the discord which is where a majority of people talk now. An effort was made, but staff size/attention is limited. It happens. In the future I’d suggest looking at the discord. Even if it’s not something you frequent. You can mute the channels you don’t want to see/follow.

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

>>An effort was made, but staff size/attention is limited.

A forum post in the DR forum is a pretty low bar for expected effort. It’s like saying GMs shouldn’t be expected to advertise HE or Guildfest on the forums.

I think the discord is great for sharing general conversions, or last minute things, but this is the convention. It’s not like people decided on Monday to meet up on Friday so everything was done ASAP.

>>One other "side note" on this is - it really is run by GMs and players, and while we use banners that are stored in a storage unit Simu pays for, they aren't covering the costs or doing a lot of sponsoring or anything.

That makes the situation even worse, IMO. It’s the most present/public display of their brand, where players engage with staff directly, and they see zero reason for corporate to care and, once again, put in the most minimum of effort with a monthly email update including that it’s going on? Or a forum post? The best we get is “visit discord at some point”?

Now I’m even more annoyed at things, because I was previously chalking things up to strained GM bandwidth, but now I’m also aware corporate doesn’t even seem to care about things. It’s less even missing out on something and not feeling like Simu cares about the community enough to do the bare minimum, but the idea that they didn’t even consider the value of doing the bare minimum and it’s entirely up to volunteer GMs to manage a brand? It’s one thing to not see much value in doing general advertising outreach to gain a bigger audience, but this means they don’t even see a value in engaging their current customers!

Once again, this isn’t the fault of any GMs. I realize why our GMs lacked the bandwidth to do this. But I’m hoping
Simu, on a corporate level, can appreciate how embarrassing it is to not engage with their player base and share basic information.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I love the DR forums. As "intuitive and easy to navigate" as they are (i.e. sometimes finding a post makes me pull out my hair), this was the place where I learned to DR. That factor alone was the reason why I even applied to be a board moderator. I knew I could learn all the new information here, so I understand the frustration.

We've had conversations about the game spread out to other platforms over time - E-pedia, Twitter, Reddit, and now Discord. As the information receiver, it's a lot to try and follow, but it's important to keep up as the system evolves. It's just as important for our end to share information in as many places as possible.

Simucon was not fully advertised on the DR forum this year, and I too apologize for dropping the ball. We will do better next year and keep this in mind for other situations where we should be sharing info.


Helje
DragonRealms Senior Board Monitor

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Helje
DragonRealms Senior Board Moderator