City/Commune suggestion

Morbo

I am considering leaving Hallifax and joining a City or Commune. Morbo is the only character I've significantly played in Lusternia and it's all been in Hallifax so I wanted to list some of my favorite things about Hallifax and see if anyone had some recommendations for other cities. I have read the histories, but I don't have a great handle on where the RP of the current orgs stand.

Things I like about Hallifax:
The Collective: The idea that everyone is part of the same organization and that it's everyone's job to improve it however possible.
By any means necessary: Popularized by Malcolm X, perfected by Hallifax. I like that the RP of the city doesn't restrict the actions of the players that much and that if you can reasonably justify an action logically, you're allowed to do it.
Pikachu/Zapdos: Zvoltz has been my favorite divine to interact with ever. He's great about popping into situations and interacting with new people and keeping people engaged, as well as being just a great admin. Are there any cities with similarly...not necessarily friendly but active in a positive way divinities?
Feeling like I am contributing: One of the most important things to me as a player is going to be feeling like I am contributing to the overall performance of the organization, so I think this excludes Celest as they are already dominating and I feel like I'd be just another dude there. I don't need to be the most important person, but I need to see my actions having an effect.

Things I dislike:
Crickets: The fact that there is never anybody around
The RP divide: The RP of Hallifax is great, but so few people in the city actually know it, or understand it, that it seems to largely be perverted into the opposite of what it is supposed to be. You get bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, and not bureaucracy for the sake of order and perfection. I'd like to see a city that is largely on the same page in terms of what their RP is.
Inability to have an effect on the global landscape: Self explanatory. This also includes the inability to even participate in things like Domoths and soon to be ascension.
The feeling that I have to do everything: While I want to feel like I am contributing, I don't want to feel like this is a second job. I work 60 hours a week already. Don't need another one on top of it.

So anyone have a suggestion or want to give a shoutout for how awesome their city is?
So, any

Kialkarkea

Did you ever get around to writing a description? :P

Morbo

yes. I am a demigod changeling and looks exactly how you would expect me to look.

Tully

The only thing I can recommend is that you might want to stay--quitting is just going to make things worse and lopsided, and you might be more effective in change with a smaller population.  We don't want 75% of the population to be in Celest, for instance.

What happened to Hallifax?  Back in late 2010 it was really active, I felt there was a lot of new blood in the game and seeing that flux of activity was one key thing that made me stick around.  Did something political happen to change things, or was it just an unlucky mass of people who started the game had to retire for various reasons.  (Likely if they all were in High School or College).

Lothringen

I'm going to plug Magnagora, because I feel like it has a lot of potential. It's in sort of an awkward phase right now, between being effective and being apathetic, but (most) of the foundation is there to start building more toward the former.

There's room to leave your mark and make a difference, but at the same time it's not like you're starting from scratch without help.

Morshoth

Tully said:

The only thing I can recommend is that you might want to stay--quitting is just going to make things worse and lopsided, and you might be more effective in change with a smaller population.  We don't want 75% of the population to be in Celest, for instance.

What happened to Hallifax?  Back in late 2010 it was really active, I felt there was a lot of new blood in the game and seeing that flux of activity was one key thing that made me stick around.  Did something political happen to change things, or was it just an unlucky mass of people who started the game had to retire for various reasons.  (Likely if they all were in High School or College).

Quite a few left for other orgs too -eyes self-

Enyalida

A lot of your pro list applies to Serenwilde. Sub in 'Nature' for 'the Collective' and the others are pretty much on the dot. We don't have any frequently interacting divine, but we do have a fairly active ephemeral who is nice. You'll also feel like you're making a difference on the scene if you work hard, I bet. 

However, most of your cons also apply. Crickets isn't as literal as it may be in Hallifax, but there's a huge inertia problem, and you'll get crickets if you look for volunteers for projects, outside of a small core of people who are up for it. Some people also actively seem to oppose change! You'll run into much of the same RP divide, with stuff all over the place and no one having any idea what anyone else is doing. We're getting a bit stronger as far as effecting the world, and have our good/bad days. The common problem is that during a conflict we'll have on 12 people (which others will happily count and point to as an example of when we're just being wimpy and not attacking with our MASSIVE FORCES) but perhaps 2 will be combatants (With systems), and of them only 1 will have trans guild skills.

Kiradawea

Oi. You're leaving too? Sheesh. At this rate, soon there'll be none but me and Jeanne and Fraesic left.

... y'know. That could actually almost be fun. Impossible, but fun.

Ragniliff

Morbo said:

 I'd like to see a city that is largely on the same page in terms of what their RP is.

I will tell you straight that these don't exist. Maybe there are a few guilds that have managed for reasonable stretches of time. But entire organisations?

Nope. If you ever do get this feeling, it is probably illusory  - as soon as you think you have achieved cohesion, some separate group or sect will surface to beat such silly thoughts out of your consciousness. Yes, this includes Magnagora and Celest.

It's just part of how Lusternia is.

Daraius

Tully said:

What happened to Hallifax?

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'll give my interpretation. Consistently anemic corp of combatants tended to keep us out of village, raiding, and aetherflare scene, and limited our viability in alliances. Some core players - many of the Shevats and heavy RPers whom I would credit with giving Hallifax much of its flavor and appeal - got burned out or went dormant or moved on to greater things. Efforts to codify the caste system were constantly running up against brick walls, and at least one guild had some identity issues.

For me, at least, a combination of exhaustion from the Ministry of Culture, then aimlessness after resigning from it, and the absence of certain characters (mainly the Shevats again!) made it hard for me to stay involved. And each time I try to come back I feel like I don't even know how to be Daraius anymore. Add to that the guilt of knowing I contributed to the problem... It's one depressing cocktail. I still really, really love Hallifax and everyone there.  

Anyhoo, flag me as off-topic.

Cyndarin

**Note: I'm not selling Glomdoring. I'm just commenting on your post.

 

I've always seen Glom and Hallifax's collective mentality mirror one another. Glom just has a heavy dose of zealous faith in the powers that be, where Hallifax comes across as more practical in their approach to the benefits of collectivity. SDs in particular adhere to a very blind faith "chosen of Night" style RP.

Glomdoring's members usually fall into one of two categories. 1) The Wyrd is an actual thing and it largely defines the Glomdoring, and we are servants to spread the Wyrd or 2) the people of Glomdoring united under a singular purpose to spread "perfection." What it boils down to is one "side" believes in a somewhat ambiguous wyrd overmind and our duty is to serve it. The other believes to serve the Glomdoring is to serve the peoples of Glomdoring. The interesting part is that the sides never really dispute one another or clash on their ideals, other than briefly after the Xynthin event (where it was also revealed that the wyrd/overmind theory was the predominant one). I will also say that the alliance with Celest has drawn some lines in the sand as far as Glom goes. People are definitely on differing sides of the issue, some vocal, some not. It's not a huge divide, but it's definitely there (and growing).

 

I will say new Glomdoring (or as I call it, waterglom) isn't big on justified actions. It's become very law heavy recently (which drives me insane and I hate it so so so much) under Svorai/Xenthos. It comes across as very 'city' to me personally to be so law driven and structured, but eh, it's what the people voted for. If you can't justify it with a law, you can't do it.

 

I think you can find a way to meaningfully contribute anywhere, Celest, Hallifax, or otherwise.

 

Our gods are awesome. Nocht and Shikari do great jobs.

Cyndarin

Disclaimer: that is just my opinion/perspective on the current Glom climate. By no means written in blood. Others will view it differently.

Dys

Gaudiguch is on the same page by not being on the same page.

Qistrel

Glom and Hallifax have often struck me as similar with their attitudes to the Wyrd and the Collective. I think you'd like that. Provided you don't mind the zombies and skeletons and tumors, which tend to put me off.

Shuyin

I think we all know how Hallifax ended up as it is right now.

But I digress:

Gaudi works hard, but parties even harder. We're working on our next party as we speak.

Also the laws are loose and they let me do whatever I want so it's good enough for me. Hanging out at the Flame / CT talk gets ridiculous at times, but I don't hang out there anyway.

Neos

Shuyin said:

I don't hang out there anyway.

We all know where you hang out.

Maellio

My two cents as a player is do whatever you feel will be fun, it's only a game no matter how time consumptive it can become.

My two cents as Mael's player is that leaving just feeds into most of your stated problems [beyond the last, which can be solved by delegation but that's always iffy and depends on too many outside factors so probably a given no matter what or where, though doesn't help with no people] and that they could be addressed if you brought them up IC.

And my two cents that are actually relevant to your question, I'd suggest Glomdoring thematically. Celina's touched already on most of the salient comparisons [though the whole justifying things with laws bit is new since I left, but that was what 2yrs ago so it happens], particularly with the Wyrd ideology having the whole 'service to greater cause/by any means necessary' thing down pat before Halli got released.

Meae

Daraius said:

Tully said:

What happened to Hallifax?

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'll give my interpretation. Consistently anemic corp of combatants tended to keep us out of village, raiding, and aetherflare scene, and limited our viability in alliances. Some core players - many of the Shevats and heavy RPers whom I would credit with giving Hallifax much of its flavor and appeal - got burned out or went dormant or moved on to greater things. Efforts to codify the caste system were constantly running up against brick walls, and at least one guild had some identity issues.

For me, at least, a combination of exhaustion from the Ministry of Culture, then aimlessness after resigning from it, and the absence of certain characters (mainly the Shevats again!) made it hard for me to stay involved. And each time I try to come back I feel like I don't even know how to be Daraius anymore. Add to that the guilt of knowing I contributed to the problem... It's one depressing cocktail. I still really, really love Hallifax and everyone there.  

Anyhoo, flag me as off-topic.

I have that problem with Onenmaru now. I started to slip before I retired him. I had a definitive image of him when I started, but it sort of.. fell apart. Now, I just don't bother. I really, really enjoyed my time there, and have tried a few alts there since, but I can't seem to recapture that same energy it had.

Seren is.. appropriately enough, how I remember it. it has some similarities to Hallifax, and I'd say is tentatively on the upswing in global effectiveness. Almost as collectivist as Hallifax, but without the "anything it takes" attitude.

Moi

Serenwilde would be really awesome for you IFF you can pull a Shuyin and whip them from last place up to first place. Otherwise, not so much.

Karlach

I don't think it's fair to put Seren in last place at the moment. It's in a better shape than other places and shows a lot of potential.

The core is an organised group, it's just getting the disorganised apathetic masses to have a little more pride and take responsibility. If everyone in Serenwilde had the attitudes of Hiriako and co, it'd be the powerhouse of the Basin.

Moi

I think it's totally fair. Someone has to be in last place. We know it's not Celest, Glomdoring or Gaudiguch, since those three are on top right now. We also know it's not Hallifax, since they're beating Celest for Culture and have one of the top libraries and stages. We know it's not Magnagora, since they are still fighting Celest/Glomdoring and doing it well. So Serenwilde is in last place by default. You could make a reasonable argument that it's actually Magnagora that is in last place because Serenwilde has a village and Magnagora doesn't, but the difference between 1 villages and 0 villages isn't that big a deal.

Enyalida

Magnagora is fighting off Celest/Glomdoring well?

Also note that we have an aetherbubble!

Lerad

It's a fallacy to claim that an org has to be last place "by default". It's probably unfair to claim some kind of general ranking for orgs, anyway. There is a ridiculous amount of vectors and measurement standards (activity, population, culture, wildnodes, domoths, number of villages, number of combatants, number of credits, amount of gold, amount of commodities, etc) that can be applied to orgs, and none of them in isolation will be accurate in putting them on a ranking, and all of them together will only give you the conclusion that no org is good at everything.

An org can only be measured by the aspects of which you like/dislike, the way Morbo did in his first post. As a result, an org can be "last place" in a subjective, personal ranking of which orgs you'd like to play in. But that's it. Sure there used to be a time when people said Glomdoring was the most downtrodden, beat-down org. I was only a newbie when they started their slow upswing, so I don't have first-hand experience of just how bad things got, but I believe that's the exception rather than the norm. If nothing else, the admin will definitely want to do their very best to make sure ranking any org as a "last place" in that way is normally impossible. And I think they've been relatively successful with the help of the players, all things considered.

Morbo's best bet will simply be to think about what is most important to him now that Hallifax lacks, and to migrate to an org that offers it more, if there is one that does.

Morbo

Thanks for everyone's input. I think I have it narrowed down to Glomdoring and Magnagora. Now it's time to look more in depth into the RP of the city and the opportunities available in them!