the /vp/ plays rentry eulogy/retrospective/analysis of why I left/plans for the future/yapping

or: Musk yaps about a dead general for at least Ϫ paragraphs, some details might be outdated but no one cares and I'm just leaving this here for historical/informational purpose

Left pretty much as-is right before I moved it off the rentry (5/1/2025), originally written in september 2024 iirc

(Wall of text warning, but if you give a fuck about these types of games then you're probably not deterred by them anyways)

And then after like a month and a half of filler threads, all hell broke loose with Rejuvenation v13.5. I think there's some kind of phobia for what happened but whatever it is, it clearly doesn't count as a phobia anymore because the problem described in the phobia was actually real and something to be justifiably worried about.

In hindsight, I guess the true /vp/ plays format (single person playing 1 game, with a bunch of lurkers following his playthrough and choosing what mons to use; pretty much the same as conventional "/board/ plays X" threads) died as the multiplayer reborn LP happened. The 'Set Sail' incident was pretty much me deciding that shit isn't salvageable and that it's time to run. Said decision was also influenced by /vp/ becoming an increasingly shitty board in general; maintaining 100+ filters for shit I don't care about, fetish threads, and glorified ecchi threads was annoying especially with site updates and occasionally having to clear my cache because some /vp/edophile uploaded something illegal.

Another reason why I decided to just quit doing LP threads on /vp/ was because they were going way too fast for me to keep up with, both when partaking in them as a player and maintaining the archive; it's very easy to get caught behind if you're not no-lifing the game (especially if people are trying to speedrun). Just doing something as summarizing what happens in the thread in a single sentence subtitle becomes easier said than done.

And that's just with a single game being played, with one major story route. The nu-/vp/ plays threads don't even attempt to all focus on playing the same game or trying to keep pace at all, and it's pretty much impossible to organize them with any consistency when you no longer have threads dedicated to individual games or playthroughs, resulting in threads becoming a jumbled mess of people with different active days/hours playing different games at different paces going down differing story routes under different self imposed restrictions and posting habits, it eventually becomes impossible to archive anything in a way that can be followed or at least vaguely understood. Some /vp/ shitposters compared the single tripfag LPs to glorified twitch streams, but now a more appropriate comparison for that argument would be clicking a bunch of random streamers and watching them in multiple windows, all with the audio on.

Of course, shitposters on /vp/ are just part and parcel of using a barely moderated board. Any raids that happened against my threads were easily turned into stalemates with the secret weapon of just waiting things out and making another thread, and dealing with schizos was still pretty damn manageable (due to relatively low numbers and them not trying to actively take over the threads); but with the original format being pretty much gone, and thus the opportunity for an actually entertaining LP, I had little reason to persevere through all that shit and I started looking for a perfect opportunity to get the fuck out of dodge; and that's when the world's shittiest bait was posted; in the form of someone berating me for getting filtered by an "easy" fight (even though it really isn't due to the very skewed field and dualtype restrictions giving me zero options besides trying to abuse RNG and AI in a game with AI input reading), at which point I decided I'd have an excuse to get out of the multi-LP as my only other options were cheating openly (and getting berated for it) or getting permafiltered (and continue to get berated). Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Another reason I decided to GTFO was because regardless of whether I continued playing in the thread, I'd get spoiled constantly by people speedrunning shit, despite me explictly saying not to speedrun the game.

If you want some advice from me, just know that you're never too young to say "I'm too old for this shit".

Some anon in that thread mentioned how /vp/ plays started with Rejuvenation and ended with Rejuvenation (paraphrased), and he was right. (edit as of 8/2/24: apparently that same thing was mentioned in the rejuvenation v13 ground monotype's starting thread made by an anon on my behalf, 11 months before it'd be said again) I guess I could have avoided the death of /vp/ plays if I handled things differently (like maybe re-railing things back to the old format when something playable for a full LP came out) but there's not much point bitching about what could have been if there's no opportunity to change it. Especially since it's 10 months after that happened (as of September 2024). Maybe in an alternate timeline (where everything isn't fucked), v13.5 could have actually rejuvenated /vp/ plays (fire essay writing skills, I know) and ushered in a new golden age.

If I were to list any lasting positive things that directly came out of this whole journey, I guess it helped stave off boredom during summer/fall/winter 2022, and I made a few friends from /vp/ that are in active contact with me. I also got a pretty in depth refresher of what to do and what not to do when it comes to game design/writing, and I actually have the plans, ambition, knowledge, and resources to finally start that project to mod Rejuvenation into an actually good game, ever since the initial ideas posted in the 2022 golden days. Only thing stopping that from happening is waiting another 48248 years for a patreon money launderer to hurry up and release v14 so there's finally everything needed to start salvaging Rejuv; but trust me, it'll be well worth the wait.

Yeah, that game still lives rent free in my head; kinda hard not to after a several month long playthrough of it with a pretty large peanut gallery and writefags expanding on whatever ideas pop up during the thread. Fortunately, like 9 months of thinking about ways to turn it from what would otherwise be trash into a genuinely good game has pretty much drowned out most of the existential dread caused by the doomed path the game is officially taking; and to be honest I feel a lot of the negative feelings I associate with that update had to do with the then-recent Set Sail incident. Some of the shit was still vomit inducingly bad due to being a crime against game design, writing, and proper development practices, but at least the last time that mess made me physically ill was a few months ago, which is a step up from being miserable for most of november. Just gotta hope it's not totally fucked up next update.

With that eulogy/retrospective/rant fueled by hindsight bias/wall of text out of the way, if you still give a shit about the original spirit of /vp/ plays, or are intrigued by anything I hinted at working on, or if you just want get in touch with me to chat or ask questions (and I will answer them), or if you want to let me know that someone actually read that wall of text then feel free to join the following server which I'm linking again for good measure: https://discord.gg/ZtVmVWNPu (join and you get immunity from losing The Game for 1 month)

Just don't spam or do other annoying shit; while I'm not expecting everyone to bury the hatchet just because I asked nicely, I'd still appreciate it if you at least show some respectability.

Sure, this huge wall of text isn't going to convince everyone one way or the other; those who supported me either are already in contact with me or just stopped interacting with /vp/ altogether (can't blame them), and I'm pretty sure this isn't going to change the minds of anyone who was (or still is) rabidly against me, before or after the incident. This whole section is mostly for the curious, or for those who don't have a strong opinion on the matter (either due to not caring, being too new to remember the incident firsthand, or getting over it), those who support me but feel like I mishandled the situation (no shit even I feel I made mistakes) and those who weren't necessarily with me during the incident but can still be reasoned with, or for people who fall into the first group (people who agree with me) that just want a detailed explanation of what went down from my side of the story. But regardless of where you consider yourself on the spectrum, it'd be worthwhile to at least stop by and hang out or get some questions answered.

Also if it wasn't obvious I'm not gonna even attempt to try and start doing LPs on /vp/ again because even if I somehow could get active threads going that aren't FUBAR on arrival, the stare of /vp/ is fucking godawful and no diplomacy or promises of a truce or just pretending to be a totally unrelated person is going to make me want to touch that gate to hell (edit: at least for 2+ months); and all the other vidya boards are either a bit too too slow for a LP of something (vm, vrpg, vst), way too fast (v, vg), or just not about the types of games I tend to play (vmg, vr). Trying to do anything on altchans is out of the question, because with altchans your options are either dead sites, altchans with 2 digit posts per hour across all boards, or soyjak.party/4chan. The only vaguely feasible non-imageboard platforms I can think of for the style of real-time, viewer interaction-based screenshot playthroughs old /vp/ plays was known for would be Discord (if you use a community server's forum feature and invite enough people to have a meaningful audience) and traditional forums, if I can find any with decent enough activity and tolerance for shenanigans.. Of course the former would require me to pull a fully populated peanut gallery out of my ass, and the latter would be a hassle with how conventional forms seem to be a dying form of communication.

TL;DR: There were a lot of varied issues that caused the whole incident, some preventable, some ignorable/mitigable, and some that could have just been avoided if I thought things through, or at least was more willing to use the power I had as the tripfag running the general before it was too late. Also if /vp/ was less shit I probably would have stayed for longer but lmao good luck convincing me to stay on this board long-term

Set Sail, ؜ Musk there was an image of a sandshrew here but apparently pic8.co is kill