As some of you know, we have a lot of changes and new features coming up shortly to overhaul the experience for new players in our community. As part of this change, I had to do my own research... I've been playing on alts this month in various aspects of the sim. While it's been fun to get to know a few of you, it was very clear to me that we also have a lot of opportunities for improvement in the way we behave and communicate OOC'ly to one another... and most especially, to new players.

The most deep seated issues I see currently lie within businesses and municipal groups where ranks/hierarchy is established. While I understand the need for an autocratic attitude IC'ly, I have noticed this spills over in OOC communication. It's great when established players reach out to new players, but it's absolutely critical that we also maintain a very welcoming, at the very least cordial tone in our writing.

More than once I received IMs similar to "hey, I noticed you're new, make sure you read this blah blah blah..." ... no welcomes, no offer for help; just a terse email that went straight to business and established authority. I was not impressed.

I will be reaching out to each groups' leadership to turn this around from their senior staff and below. Also, I recently announced the change in our security/moderator staff and the way we will be setting up mentors, followed by rolling out a new OOC area and an abuse portal to report malicious/problematic activity.

The reason I wrote this here so openly, rather in the staff or leaders group, is because it really takes ALL of us to create a welcoming environment. We're a community first; RP sim second. We all have an opportunity to improve the way we go about dealing with one another.

Any suggestions as to what we, as individual players, can do to make the sim feel more inclusive of new players? Any ideas on what I should promote or try? Would love to hear your thoughts.