Questions on Community Building

I feel that one of the most challenging parts of being a patron god is trying to combat apathy and disinterest in your community. Once this feeling is present it becomes a systematic problem; everyone gets affected: people in positions, the layperson, the newbie, even the gods. I definitely feel at a loss when people come to me and express their frustrations and I can only do my best to comfort them. It is an exhausting thing, especially when you are possibly the only god around and you desperately want to help.

One of the things I think we all need to realise is that having a god help is not a panacea. We gods have bureaucracy; we have paper work (not on the level of Hallifax, but still!). Thus, adding things or even doing a little thing is somewhat of a difficult, if not lengthy process, despite how simple it may seem to the player-perspective. Coupled with the fact that as an administrator, we have our own projects to do – beyond that of being a patron – we may feel spread thin and unable to really help.

I would like to know how players see their communities in terms of generating interest. I feel that this is the core problem for every organisation. Despite our in-game antagonisms, I feel that each of us want to, or at least hopefully, give positive energy for our communities and make things feel lively and enriched. I want this blog post to be a think-tank of sorts. I want to know how players need to work with each other to generate energy and how players would like gods to work with them to generate energy. It is hard because not only do we have to worry about whether or not the small things add up to anything, but we also have this notion of “shiny degradation” in which what is new will become old, so why bother – thus feeding our apathy.

I apologise if this post is rather awkwardly composed. I am just generally frustrated because I do not know what I am supposed to do, or what you want me to do as your patron, sans these small things (which again, take time to do). I want to say that a lot of this is on your part, but I do not want to heave such a heavy load on you all. So, let us keep this simple: how do you feel your organisation maintains its sense of roleplay? How does your organisation feed this collective identity and deviate from this sense of disenchantment or detachment? Do not make comments on what you feel the ideal community should do. I think that doesn’t ground us in reality; I want to know what your community does, specifically and what your patrons do (if anything – although it should be often!).