Population Spread Issues

Cyndarin

I wanted to open up a discussion about population issues. I think, for the game we are, our sustained population is good. However, we're spread so thin between so many different guilds and organizations, it feels like the mechanical growth of the game is wildly outpacing the player growth. It's really starting to create some issues on the micro level as guilds struggle to maintain any sort of identity or population with just 2 or 3 active players, and leadership (and all that it entails) become a matter of "who do we have that we can stuff into the position" rather than "who can offer the most." In the long run, I think guilds are starting (or have been) suffering as they fall behind in population. It becomes a bigger strain on the isolated few who have to maintain the identity of the guild and keep new members, especially when leaders become dormant and the mechanical duties, much less the RP duties, go unfulfilled

I was wondering if anyone else is feeling the pressure? On a personal level, it is stressing me out. On an IC level, it's just awkward to run a guild that barely exists.

Possible solutions? I don't really know, but I have some rough ideas,

Guild leadership restructuring: condense the positions. Namely, the big three. I would actually like to see the option for guilds to choose how many leaders they have. I think the checks and balances of the three leader system works if you have three active leaders and people to populate the guild. Maybe something that requires the approval of the Patron, and it can be condensed down into 2 or even 1 leadership position. It would allow for a more dynamic diversity of leadership between guilds, but also cater to the needs of the specific guilds. The argument for this is that there are people in positions in small guilds that don't log on anymore. Daedalion, Akyaevin, Veracruz, etc. Honestly I think the Champion seat ends up being the most disposable because they generally have the least to do with actual guild maintenance. You also wind up with people who don't really fit the position, but you having empty spots in your helpfile looks bad so they become seat fillers.

Guild condensing: I know the likelihood of this happening is non-existent, and people will knee jerk NO NO HOUSES RUINED ACHAEA, but it would be possible to adopt an Achaea style house system (reworked to fit us). For instance, Glomdoring could have Ebonguard, Shadwodancers, and Blacktalon. Monks could join EG or SD, allow warriors to join SD or BT based on their tertiary, and bards could go wherever, SDs and BTs would be stuck where they are. The obvious downside is that all the work that has gone into these guilds would go up in smoke, and the RP behind it might be awkward to work out, but it seems like the most obvious fix to the empty guild problem.

Those are the only two I can think of now. Just wondering if anyone else had any ideas or feelings on the subject.

Orti

100% with Celina here. And I get where she comes from. Everything seems so spread out.

Regarding the guild identity, you can absolutely hold on to those ideals even inside the "Guild". Ur'Guard are still a bunch of militarized faction of warriors who happen to be inside the "Nihilists".

However, this new thing is easier for the forests since Warriors are already either Blacktalon or Shadowdancers themselves. Monks are already "guardiany enough" and Bards are Bards. So in Glomdoring/Serenwilde you only need two factions, but it becomes harder for cities

Let's take Celest. You have Aquamancers and Celestines. Paladins only have the tertiary for Celestines so they fit right in. Tathetso are all about Sacrifice and Humility, so they share also Celestines values. Bards could go wherever.

In Celest now you have the majority of the city in the "Celestines" and the rest are just Aquamancers + those Bards that feel wet.


So.... There's a new problem there

Eventru

This was brought up pretty recently, and the general response was that while we're not disinterested in addressing population issues, I'm fairly certain Estarra said we:

A) Will not be removing any guilds.

Will not be making it so that multiple archetypes can exist within a guild.

C) Will not be removing any elected guild positions.

We discussed the concept of 'factions' in the last forum thread (it's on the old forums), which would help lessen the focus on guilds, without stripping them of their nature. The general idea was every org got two 'factions' to start with, and they'd be more like political/ideological groupings than guilds. IE you might have a more new age faction in Celest, and another very imperialistic faction. Both very lighty, but very different approaches to the how things should be resolved, and particularly, how Celest should be involved. In Glomdoring you might have a faction that's rabidly all about the Wyrd and how it's a quasi-sentient presence that underlies the Glomdoring, and a faction that thinks the Glomdoring is the end-all be-all and the Wyrd is just a tool.

Ultimately it seemed like (though I tend to have very rose-tinted glasses about these kinds of things!) people generally liked the idea, however they didn't think it would actually do what it intended (shifting the strenuous focus from guilds to more populated factions), so we more or less let it go, and the topic generally died down.

Qistrel

In Serenwilde it's only the Shofangi that seem to be suffering from empty guild syndrome these days. They seem to get a decent amount of novices, but very few of them stick it through, and I can't blame them. Another result of this is that lore isn't getting passed down. I've made it a point to ask Shofangi I run into if they know about the altar of Old Man Bull, because they usually don't. Druids shouldn't be teaching guild lore to monks, but, what can you do?

Cyndarin

I'd have to agree, making more subgroups while keeping the old subgroups around wouldn't actually do much I don't think. I think it'll just overcomplicate the orgs, when what we need is simplification. Really, the core of the issue is we are looking at a great deal of excess. Too many things and not enough people. I don't see how adding more stuff will fix any problems.

 I think people like guilds, and identifying with guilds....but they also happen to like interacting with other players too.

Eventru

Celina said:

I'd have to agree, making more subgroups while keeping the old subgroups around wouldn't actually do much I don't think. I think it'll just overcomplicate the orgs, when what we need is simplification. Really, the core of the issue is we are looking at a great deal of excess. Too many things and not enough people. I don't see how adding more stuff will fix any problems.

 I think people like guilds, and identifying with guilds....but they also happen to like interacting with other players too.

I don't disagree.

Unfortunately the real problem (in my eyes) is people focus too much on their guild instead of their city. Say we cut every org down to 2 or 3 guilds - it won't change the size of the population of like-minded people to interact with, it would only force them into the same guild. Why not interact with your city/commune mates? That's where the emphasis should be, if you can't find it in your guild (instead of just despairing). It's not as though your city mates are completely alien to your guild's ideologies.

One other thing someone (might've been me, don't really remember) brought up was removing the collegium duties from the guilds and giving them to the Ambassador and his aides, which in general might just be better for the 'not my guild, not my problem' perception that seems to plague some collegiums, while helping focus novices towards cities and not guilds.

Donno.

Astraea

Well, commune/city interaction isn't necessarily lacking so much as - If I'm in a guild, I want to progress through it. And yet that can prove easier said than done. Likewise, people fill strange positions, as Celina said. I have seen adamant non-coms in champion positions. 

The most important aspect of it all though is this: Being in a guild where you are consistently surrounded by at least 3-4 other people is simply more enjoyable than the alternative. I will use an example here. I was in the Shadowdancers for the longest time, I was GM. There was, and still is, absolutely no one around save for the leadership and one other person. With the GA quitting, the SD literally had -no one- to fill the position, because the one non-leader around was disinterested. 

This is kind of bothersome in that it doesn't really make for a guild people want to be a part of. So what's the fix here? Should advancement be modified to accommodate for lack of numbers? But then, what happens when that guild gains enough people to be semi-functional? Is the resolution here simply to wait out more dormant periods? The SD's have been impractically low on members for a very very long time, and I really don't see that changing.

If it's decided that guild positions won't change, and no guilds will go away, what about a radical restructuring of the way guilds are? 

Factions were mentioned - what if advancement was moved to such factions, for that's the major problem here, advancement and interaction. What if these factions were where the advancement occurred, and guild positions were just elected in a way similar to that of cartels? Would this diminish the importance of such positions? Yes, definitely, but the focus would be changed entirely without really dismantling anything. Maybe the leadership of the guilds would become something moderately equivalent to secretaries in the faction, or a mini-council, and the faction was capable of electing an overall leader. 

I'm not sure how good of an idea this is, but to be very honest, something really does have to change in regard to the layout of the playerbase, imo.

Saran

Eventru said:

Celina said:

I'd have to agree, making more subgroups while keeping the old subgroups around wouldn't actually do much I don't think. I think it'll just overcomplicate the orgs, when what we need is simplification. Really, the core of the issue is we are looking at a great deal of excess. Too many things and not enough people. I don't see how adding more stuff will fix any problems.

 I think people like guilds, and identifying with guilds....but they also happen to like interacting with other players too.

I don't disagree.

Unfortunately the real problem (in my eyes) is people focus too much on their guild instead of their city. Say we cut every org down to 2 or 3 guilds - it won't change the size of the population of like-minded people to interact with, it would only force them into the same guild. Why not interact with your city/commune mates? That's where the emphasis should be, if you can't find it in your guild (instead of just despairing). It's not as though your city mates are completely alien to your guild's ideologies.

One other thing someone (might've been me, don't really remember) brought up was removing the collegium duties from the guilds and giving them to the Ambassador and his aides, which in general might just be better for the 'not my guild, not my problem' perception that seems to plague some collegiums, while helping focus novices towards cities and not guilds.

Donno.

I do think that you need to consider it from another angle though.

 

You don't choose your city or commune when you join the game, you choose a guild. When I first came to lusternia I chose Moondancer not because of Serenwilde or anything to do with its history, I chose it beacuse I found the idea of the Wiccan archetype interesting, then I played on an Aquamancer for a bit because I wanted to be a water mage but went back to moonie because I liked being a Moondancer more. Eventually I moved to the HS and then jumped through guilds over time, but I always come back to Hartstone.

Not because I like the skills, not because I necessarily want to be a druid, but because the guild and its rp draws me.

 

I guess the question is, What are guilds meant to be?

Cyndarin

I think there is a lot of unique guild culture that varies from guild to guild, and it seems like it was intended to be that way. So I'm not sure how we can "focus too much on guilds," when a lot of focus is put on guilds in the first place. When you start talking factions, how is a faction going to put the attention on the org? It'll just turn into Democrats vs Republicans, where the actual intent of the parties and the issues become secondary to the rivalry between them. That or they'll fall completely flat and be pointless. 

I think moving the novices out of the guilds is a great idea. However, it does not solve any problems. Guild populations are still very low for some. 

I guess I don't understand why, if guild positions were created for specific purposes, and the guild through no fault of their own can't support the leadership structure and are sticking non coms and dormant folk into dummy positions, why do they even exist? Why is forcing the guilds to damage their own appearance, and forcing them to find uncomfortable workaround the only option?

Orgs have leadership styles, as do families. Why can't the same general idea be applied to guilds? I'm just saying, since I've been GM, we've been stuffing people awkwardly into positions because of population issues. First it was non com Ssaliss as GC and I basically had to tell the guild I would just run the combat portion of the guild on top of my GM role, and ssaliss was just a pretty decoration, Then Arkzrael quits and Astraea is guilt stricken and has to come back because there is no one else. No exaggeration, Ssaliss had opted out of being the fill in again, and that left the novice that just logged out.

Astraea

 As for faction types, I think, at least for Glom, a Crow/Night/Wyrd threeway faction might be very interesting. For each org really, I think two relative opposites and a point of synergy would work out more than simply two opposites. 

Either that, or the players could try to set up their own factions, which, like families, once hitting a certain number of people would become more influential factions. Additionally, you could incorporate families into this by having them be able to ally or support a specific faction. 

Edit: Though, to be honest, and while it may already be something the admin said they would never do, I honestly do think an Achaean-style House system might be the best route for us at this point. 

Saran

Astraea said:

 As for faction types, I think, at least for Glom, a Crow/Night/Wyrd threeway faction might be very interesting. For each org really, I think two relative opposites and a point of synergy would work out more than simply two opposites. 

Either that, or the players could try to set up their own factions, which, like families, once hitting a certain number of people would become more influential factions. Additionally, you could incorporate families into this by having them be able to ally or support a specific faction. 

Edit: Though, to be honest, and while it may already be something the admin said they would never do, I honestly do think an Achaean-style House system might be the best route for us at this point. 

That's kinda what serenwilde had to start off with, and then the SS came along and they took on some of the Hartstone rp and then there was the Shofangi.

Ultimately, I think the "set up your own faction" is the best route. Make it that you have to buy a clan, then you can upgrade that clan (cartels and factions would be mutually exclusive upgrades) into a minor faction, you'd be able to start getting help files and members together, setting variables that the faction will require if it gets approved, so on and so forth, then eventually the minor faction would come to an admin approval stage where it can become a fully fledged faction with all the privileges and restrictions that come with that.

Similar ability exists in Imperian and Aetolia, except that in those you're impacting divine rather than the org.

Lerad

I don't think adding factions is the way to go, unless they end up replacing guilds.

The guild system in Lusternia is fine, there is nothing wrong with its conception or its planning, or its execution. The problem is a lack of players for the amount of guilds we have. Frankly speaking, 4 orgs were nice and good. I was only a newbie back then, so I only have vague memories, but I liked it, which is why I'm still here. If I was a newbie right now, I don't think I'll last more than a month or two.

If you want to maintain the current system, you need to either raise the number of players, or lower the number of guilds. If you want to maintain the current system AND the number of guilds (or add more), you need to raise the number of players, period.

If you can't, then one or the other has to go, or the problem remains. Simple as ABC.

Qistrel

I really like the guild system, though. The house system was what made me shift to Lusternia permanently. I'd rather have the elected positions reduced, or even have the kephera rock up and close down the Shofangi (sorry Naralis) due to us not being able to teach it properly.

But as none of those things will be happening...I don't know what the solution is.

Eritheyl

Lerad said:

I don't think adding factions is the way to go, unless they end up replacing guilds.

The guild system in Lusternia is fine, there is nothing wrong with its conception or its planning, or its execution. The problem is a lack of players for the amount of guilds we have. Frankly speaking, 4 orgs were nice and good. I was only a newbie back then, so I only have vague memories, but I liked it, which is why I'm still here. If I was a newbie right now, I don't think I'll last more than a month or two.

If you want to maintain the current system, you need to either raise the number of players, or lower the number of guilds. If you want to maintain the current system AND the number of guilds (or add more), you need to raise the number of players, period.

If you can't, then one or the other has to go, or the problem remains. Simple as ABC.

Agreeing with this doesn't get across how strongly I agree with this, so...this ^

Ssaliss

I think the ones hit the hardest by the small guild populations are the newbies. Right now, they can become stuck because they can't find anyone to advance them through the ranks, even if they've completed said tasks. This is very discouraging (I've made alts myself that have become stuck in a similar fashion), and that leads to newbies not logging in, which leads to low populations.

With that in mind, how hard would it be (code-wise) to create a more automated advancement method? Right now, most of the requirements seem to revolve around 1) riftables, 2) potions, 3) finding locations and 4) learning skills. Having newbies be able to check these things off on their own would reduce the load on guild leaders and undersecs, and if these tasks are all that exist, it would allow the newbies to advance themselves once they've reached the required requirements. Here's how I envision it:

It would all revolve around the ADVANCEMENT command. Newbies would use it to check on how they're doing, guild leaders/undersecs would use it to check off the more "diffuse" tasks ("Write a letter about why our guild is the best guild there is"), and GA would use it to actually set the mechanical advancement requirements. Example:

GA:
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD RIFT 15 GALINGALE
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD SKILL FIRSTAID
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD LOCATION HERE (would add the location the GA is in to the list the newbies have to find)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD MANUAL Letter to Santa (would add a requirement that leaders/undersecs would have to manually check)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 PREFIX Underling (would make every newbie that completes the GR2 advancement get the prefix "Underling" once they complete the requirements)

Leaders/Undersecs:
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> GR2 CHECK Letter to Santa (would mark the above requirement as done)
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> (would give them a list of the requirements a newbie needs to meet, and would also see if they have met any of them)

Newbies:
ADVANCEMENT (would give them a list looking kinda like "ACHIEVEMENTS" that would tell them what they need to do to get to the next rank and if they've done it yet)
ADVANCEMENT GR3 (would give them a list of what they would need to do to get to GR3)

Now, the big question is: Would guilds even use this? If not, why? Yes, it does remove a lot of the social aspect from it, but personally I think that's preferable to newbies getting stuck. Ideally we wouldn't need it, but the situation isn't exactly ideal right now.

Lavinya

As someone who has abandoned alts before because I got tired of no one ever being around to advance me (sometimes it even came down to how much my timezone sucked in relation to when everyone else was on) I think having something like Ssaliss suggested would go a long way to helping people stick around. Actual interaction is always preferable, I'm sure everyone agrees, but having something automated has to be better than frustrated people who can't progress and become active members themselves.

Saran

Lerad said:

I don't think adding factions is the way to go, unless they end up replacing guilds.

The guild system in Lusternia is fine, there is nothing wrong with its conception or its planning, or its execution. The problem is a lack of players for the amount of guilds we have. Frankly speaking, 4 orgs were nice and good. I was only a newbie back then, so I only have vague memories, but I liked it, which is why I'm still here. If I was a newbie right now, I don't think I'll last more than a month or two.

If you want to maintain the current system, you need to either raise the number of players, or lower the number of guilds. If you want to maintain the current system AND the number of guilds (or add more), you need to raise the number of players, period.

If you can't, then one or the other has to go, or the problem remains. Simple as ABC.

I'll disagree with the planning, I think it's a bit... ambitious lets say.

If five guilds per org is the original intention (possibly six if I remember hints from ask estarra correctly) then we're looking at a planned thirty to forty guilds (if not forty-eight).

Achaea has twenty-five.

Aetolia has twenty (sixteen plus four? vampire houses).

Imperian has twenty-one (they also look like they've been consolidating guilds recently).

Some of those seem to be separate guilds for the same class just split on philosophy which seems more interesting to me(if true), but for us, we're hoping to have more guilds out there than the older games, though I suppose the question is then are they having issues with inactive guilds too?

Everiine

I've more than once proposed a closer working arrangement between the Serenguard and the Shofangi, but mechanics do prevent any sort of meaningful player-initiated mechanical cooperative. On the whole, I really really like the guild system. Guild interactions, not org interactions are what have kept me around for so long. But population issues are an issue with the ebb and flow of players. It's been a long, long time since I've had to sift through applications for a guild under/secretary position. Most of the time I was telling people, "I want to put you in this position because we need more," and that was even when we had 11-12 people logged in at the same time every day.

The Gaudi monks haven't come out yet. Maybe this is the time to experiment with different ways to make guilds skills and archetypes work?

Xenthos

There's all this discussion about removing the focus from guilds, but I have to ask; if we are removing the focus from guilds and moving it elsewhere, why even keep the guild?

There's a pretty clear answer to this (to me at least). Lusternia is built around its guilds. You join the game to play as a specific guild, not some nebulous Wyrd / not-Wyrd faction follower. There's just not as much meat to that.

Further, let's say you join to be a dark and mysterious wiccan. You want to get some delicious RP along these lines, but there are no guild members to show you the ropes. Sure you can RP with commune members but it *is not the same*. Guild RP can be some of the most powerful in the game; it is focused, it gets down into particulars that orgRP just cannot do.

Stepping away from guildRP is thus not the way to go. Re-examining the number of guilds is the best solution, though you say it will not happen. I find that to be unfortunate, because guildRP is pretty consistently the richest in the game.

When you can get it.

Xenthos

As a further example, the Ebonguard are a very Spirit-oriented guild. Xenthos identifies mostly with Crow, so when RPing with Commune members, you get his public persona. For the guild, he will get much more into discussion of the spirits as a whole, and thus the guild's structure, but this just is not something really relevant to, say, a Harbinger. Similarly, Xenthos does not care much about Mahalla, though the sheer depth and richness brought to her by the Harbingers leaves them swooning over her.

I don't feel like that's a bad thing. I just feel that things are so stretched out that such RP is far less available than it could / should be, leaving possible enthusiastic RPers out in the cold.

Svorai

Ssaliss said:

I think the ones hit the hardest by the small guild populations are the newbies. Right now, they can become stuck because they can't find anyone to advance them through the ranks, even if they've completed said tasks. This is very discouraging (I've made alts myself that have become stuck in a similar fashion), and that leads to newbies not logging in, which leads to low populations.

With that in mind, how hard would it be (code-wise) to create a more automated advancement method? Right now, most of the requirements seem to revolve around 1) riftables, 2) potions, 3) finding locations and 4) learning skills. Having newbies be able to check these things off on their own would reduce the load on guild leaders and undersecs, and if these tasks are all that exist, it would allow the newbies to advance themselves once they've reached the required requirements. Here's how I envision it:

It would all revolve around the ADVANCEMENT command. Newbies would use it to check on how they're doing, guild leaders/undersecs would use it to check off the more "diffuse" tasks ("Write a letter about why our guild is the best guild there is"), and GA would use it to actually set the mechanical advancement requirements. Example:

GA:
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD RIFT 15 GALINGALE
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD SKILL FIRSTAID
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD LOCATION HERE (would add the location the GA is in to the list the newbies have to find)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD MANUAL Letter to Santa (would add a requirement that leaders/undersecs would have to manually check)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 PREFIX Underling (would make every newbie that completes the GR2 advancement get the prefix "Underling" once they complete the requirements)

Leaders/Undersecs:
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> GR2 CHECK Letter to Santa (would mark the above requirement as done)
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> (would give them a list of the requirements a newbie needs to meet, and would also see if they have met any of them)

Newbies:
ADVANCEMENT (would give them a list looking kinda like "ACHIEVEMENTS" that would tell them what they need to do to get to the next rank and if they've done it yet)
ADVANCEMENT GR3 (would give them a list of what they would need to do to get to GR3)

Now, the big question is: Would guilds even use this? If not, why? Yes, it does remove a lot of the social aspect from it, but personally I think that's preferable to newbies getting stuck. Ideally we wouldn't need it, but the situation isn't exactly ideal right now.

While I think this is an awesome idea (and along the lines of what I hoped could be possible for the Collegiums -- instead of graduating after six quests, graduate when you've done all the Newbie achievements -- which include the six quests) I'm not overly keen to use it in bumping people up guild ranks. 

Bumping up newbies out of the Collegium, sure, even advancing out of Novicehood (which is what annoys people the most when no other guild members are around -- having to wait 10 hours to learn more than Master?), but probably not GRs.

Lorina

I think the current guild system is wonderful. The RP I have with the Aquamancers is valuable to me and I would hate to see that go away. It is why I have remained one for all these years, but I admit, we have never really suffered from a lack of members. Our biggest concern, as a community, is novice retention. 

We need to genuinely ask ourselves why aren't they staying? Is it the lack of advancement? Are they not getting the proper help they deserve?

I think we really should reassess the roles we assign some of the members. I kind of agree...The ambassador and the aides should move away from city/commune enemyings and look at ways to make novices feel a part of the group. When I used to play other muds, I remember I felt like I never really knew anyone. 

Fionn

Qistrel said:

In Serenwilde it's only the Shofangi that seem to be suffering from empty guild syndrome these days. They seem to get a decent amount of novices, but very few of them stick it through, and I can't blame them. Another result of this is that lore isn't getting passed down. I've made it a point to ask Shofangi I run into if they know about the altar of Old Man Bull, because they usually don't. Druids shouldn't be teaching guild lore to monks, but, what can you do?

Hey, Shofangi hasn't been so bad lately. There's usually 3-4 people online at once now, whereas before 75% of the time I'd log in, it'd be only me.

The Bull Altar is nice, but considering it is pretty much all we have in regard to Bull, it is kind of lame. Especially for the effort involved. It is -not- something a relative newbie can do just for fun, due to the difficulty in influencing the necessary mobs and then being able to go get astral bulls. Bull gets summed up in two to three sentences, and I can tell a newbie that without forcing them to wait until they are ready to do the quest alone. I don't think it does any good to talk it up and set up people for disappointment once they get to the end.

I know Nejii and Sadie both worked hard and roughly got unresponsiveness over what they were going for. No one wants a repeat of what happened to the Nekotai and Scorpion. I think it's unfair to expect the players to start building on something that could easily crumble if the administration already has ideas set in stone.

I can't speak for the whole guild, but I'd totally be down for something like Everiine suggested. Even adding nothing more than a merged channel (I do like the Shofangi guildhall) could do a lot.

Rivius

I feel like we should never remove focus from guilds. Each guild has its own identity that expresses and contributes to an organization's entire RP. While it's true that say Serenguard and Hartstone cohabitate, they both live very different lifestyles and have very different focuses within the same commune. Likewise, I don't think a Serenguard would be able to teach a Shofangi what it means to be a monk of the forest as well as another Shofangi can. Not without blurring the line between their RPs, at least. People want healthy guild populations to share in these subcultures that can be very character and game defining. One of the things I LOVE about Lusternia is that you can approach an org from different perspectives and walks of life. It's just that the current population spread means there might be a lot of lonely guilds out there without the possibility of real growth since novices generally prefer more active guilds.

I'm personally against any real method of auto-advancement, personally. At the very least, it should never replace player-dependent advancement. Things become so much more rich and meaningful when you have someone watching you develop and rise through the ranks and acknowledging you along the way. Making that purely mechanical just kills whatever soul it has in my opinion.

I don't think we could or should cut down any existing guilds, but I agree with Lerad that we need more players. We've been steadily around the same average playerbase for a while and it's sort of time we started growing. How can we find new ways to attract new people? This is something I feel we aren't pursuing hard enough. For example, for years now we've been encouraged to vote on TMS to raise awareness, yet lately people have been saying that the system seems rigged and that we shouldn't bother anymore. How exactly is Lusternia getting exposure? Are there ways we as players can help? 

Saran

Ssaliss said:

I think the ones hit the hardest by the small guild populations are the newbies. Right now, they can become stuck because they can't find anyone to advance them through the ranks, even if they've completed said tasks. This is very discouraging (I've made alts myself that have become stuck in a similar fashion), and that leads to newbies not logging in, which leads to low populations.

With that in mind, how hard would it be (code-wise) to create a more automated advancement method? Right now, most of the requirements seem to revolve around 1) riftables, 2) potions, 3) finding locations and 4) learning skills. Having newbies be able to check these things off on their own would reduce the load on guild leaders and undersecs, and if these tasks are all that exist, it would allow the newbies to advance themselves once they've reached the required requirements. Here's how I envision it:

It would all revolve around the ADVANCEMENT command. Newbies would use it to check on how they're doing, guild leaders/undersecs would use it to check off the more "diffuse" tasks ("Write a letter about why our guild is the best guild there is"), and GA would use it to actually set the mechanical advancement requirements. Example:

GA:
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD RIFT 15 GALINGALE
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD SKILL FIRSTAID
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD LOCATION HERE (would add the location the GA is in to the list the newbies have to find)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 ADD MANUAL Letter to Santa (would add a requirement that leaders/undersecs would have to manually check)
ADVANCEMENT GR2 PREFIX Underling (would make every newbie that completes the GR2 advancement get the prefix "Underling" once they complete the requirements)

Leaders/Undersecs:
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> GR2 CHECK Letter to Santa (would mark the above requirement as done)
ADVANCEMENT <newbie> (would give them a list of the requirements a newbie needs to meet, and would also see if they have met any of them)

Newbies:
ADVANCEMENT (would give them a list looking kinda like "ACHIEVEMENTS" that would tell them what they need to do to get to the next rank and if they've done it yet)
ADVANCEMENT GR3 (would give them a list of what they would need to do to get to GR3)

Now, the big question is: Would guilds even use this? If not, why? Yes, it does remove a lot of the social aspect from it, but personally I think that's preferable to newbies getting stuck. Ideally we wouldn't need it, but the situation isn't exactly ideal right now.

I agree with the issue, but I do not really agree with the implementation. I feel that this would encourage guilds into a very linear and boring advancement structure with shallow requirements. 

This seems to push towards a system which takes out the need for interaction with other players, it could be possible for someone to get to gr3 and run for a leadership position without ever actually meeting another person in their guild. And while people might progress and rise in rank, I do not think this actually addresses the core issue especially as it seems likely to generalise guilds which could potentially work against the aims of the thread because if we're all ultimately the same then it becomes even harder to pass on the lore and rp. 

Ssaliss

Advancement doesn't need to be completely automated; that's why I had manual tasks in the example. It would be easy enough for a guild to just add an advancement requirement to read and do what's in a specific GHELP, which leaders and undersecs then check off to advance them. The intent of the system was more to remove the more mechanical aspects of advancements (i.e. there would no longer be a need for a tester to follow someone around for a geography test), making it possible for advancements to be done by letter if need be. Could it be used to set up a system where a newbie can get to GR3 without speaking to another guild-member? Yes. Can it also be set up to allow for everything current guild advancements do? Easily.

Saran

Rivius said:

I feel like we should never remove focus from guilds. Each guild has its own identity that expresses and contributes to an organization's entire RP. While it's true that say Serenguard and Hartstone cohabitate, they both live very different lifestyles and have very different focuses within the same commune. Likewise, I don't think a Serenguard would be able to teach a Shofangi what it means to be a monk of the forest as well as another Shofangi can. Not without blurring the line between their RPs, at least. People want healthy guild populations to share in these subcultures that can be very character and game defining. One of the things I LOVE about Lusternia is that you can approach an org from different perspectives and walks of life. It's just that the current population spread means there might be a lot of lonely guilds out there without the possibility of real growth since novices generally prefer more active guilds.

I'm personally against any real method of auto-advancement, personally. At the very least, it should never replace player-dependent advancement. Things become so much more rich and meaningful when you have someone watching you develop and rise through the ranks and acknowledging you along the way. Making that purely mechanical just kills whatever soul it has in my opinion.

I don't think we could or should cut down any existing guilds, but I agree with Lerad that we need more players. We've been steadily around the same average playerbase for a while and it's sort of time we started growing. How can we find new ways to attract new people? This is something I feel we aren't pursuing hard enough. For example, for years now we've been encouraged to vote on TMS to raise awareness, yet lately people have been saying that the system seems rigged and that we shouldn't bother anymore. How exactly is Lusternia getting exposure? Are there ways we as players can help? 

Not sure about rigging, but from what I've heard TMS doesn't really do much because the people that are likely to come across us on TMS are likely to already know about us. TMS would be good for a new MUD just starting out, but from experience, when I go to the site I already know the top MUDs and I know which ones I'm actually interested in.

In terms of getting new people, the gaming society in my uni is not interested. There is one other person who plays MUDs and she plays Achaea, everyone else walks past seeing us play and generally has the expression of "I'm already bored", I'll still tell them about what's going on in game but they're just not interested in playing a game like this. I'd be interested in seeing how many truly new players we're getting vs the number of old players are going inactive to see if we're growing or just maintaining the current level.

Saran

Ssaliss said:

Advancement doesn't need to be completely automated; that's why I had manual tasks in the example. It would be easy enough for a guild to just add an advancement requirement to read and do what's in a specific GHELP, which leaders and undersecs then check off to advance them. The intent of the system was more to remove the more mechanical aspects of advancements (i.e. there would no longer be a need for a tester to follow someone around for a geography test), making it possible for advancements to be done by letter if need be. Could it be used to set up a system where a newbie can get to GR3 without speaking to another guild-member? Yes. Can it also be set up to allow for everything current guild advancements do? Easily.

First a question, why do people need to get to gr3 specifically?

Last suggestion I had for guild advancements was a series of variable tasks with a core set of requirements with two different branches of x tasks where you only needed to complete say... half.

This is one suggestion, another is that gr3 is not where novicehood ends but gr1 so you immediately start focusing on things like learning how to fight, or writing books, or whatever else the guild decides they want you to do.

Ssaliss

The reason I said "gr3" is because that's when you can start contesting for positions, and because you specifically mentioned that people could get to GR3 and contest without actually speaking to anyone. The advancement system I proposed doesn't have to end at GR3; it could be used for GR2 only, or extended to encompass all ranks up to GR19. It'd all be in the hands of the guild how exactly it's set up for them.

And please note that I'm not suggesting every guild gets the same tasks. Each guild can customise their specific requirements and whether or not they'd even use this system. Although judging from the rather lacking responses, I'm guessing it'll never make it into the game anyway, heh.

Astraea

I just don't think the current amount of people Lusternia has will really change all that much one way or the other. While I'm all for trying to bring in new blood, I'd also really like for solutions to be found for the people already playing too. As annoying as the thought of houses, or guilds consisting of multiple archetypes is, what's the alternative? Just being content to languish?

Everiine

Fionn said:

The Bull Altar is nice, but considering it is pretty much all we have in regard to Bull, it is kind of lame. Especially for the effort involved. It is -not- something a relative newbie can do just for fun, due to the difficulty in influencing the necessary mobs and then being able to go get astral bulls. Bull gets summed up in two to three sentences, and I can tell a newbie that without forcing them to wait until they are ready to do the quest alone. I don't think it does any good to talk it up and set up people for disappointment once they get to the end.

I know Nejii and Sadie both worked hard and roughly got unresponsiveness over what they were going for. No one wants a repeat of what happened to the Nekotai and Scorpion. I think it's unfair to expect the players to start building on something that could easily crumble if the administration already has ideas set in stone.

Yeah, that sounded like a disaster. But I wouldn't encourage anyone to stop trying to do that (the Serenguard had a similar thing way back, when Gwylifar came up with a guild history, and was unhappy when the official history was revealed). If it tanks, it tanks, but if it doesn't, you can have something really neat. The whole Warrior Spirit thing the Serenguard have permeating their culture was entirely player created (Gwylifar again, mostly). They sat down and said, "What can we add to our guild for RP?" and came up with three Spirits, Jaguar, Eagle, and Serpent (who was changed to Wolverine, but no one remembered why). Over time, little bits and pieces started to end up appearing in places. Phrases and titles I created ended up in the Vengeance game, for example. I know other guilds have done this in the past, though because I have no experience with other guilds, I can't give any details.

So basically my view is, go ahead and make stuff up and have fun with it. Build all you can. If it changes, it changes, but you'll still have fun doing it.