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Idea to help increase interaction
I've been playing lusternia off and on for about 12 years. I don't really get far but I do enjoy the environment of the game before life pulls me away, so I am sad to see it in the current state it is. Through reading the forums I've seen ideas to remove orgs entirely to get people to start interacting but I wanted to give my idea to see if it has any value.
Alliances between the cities and communes usually split the basin in half already, so why not create a system to hard code an alliance in the game. These grand alliances can then compete for resources on behalf of the cities and communes in the grand alliance. At the time of this post it's split between Gaudiguch, Glomdoring, and Celest; and Magnagora, Hallifax, and Serenwilde. A grand alliance can then compete for the same resources a city would usually and then split between the cities depending on effort on that orgs part it would then get all orgs involved in some way for village revolts wilde nodes etc. The orgs in turn get to each keep their cultural differences, a new channel can be added so newbies from one org can be assisted by teachers from another in the absence of one from the newbies own org. The grand alliances will also not be static but be limited to only 3 orgs so it is possible for a city to vote to leave an alliance and attempt to go on their own as is usual now, or try to join the other. the cap is to prevent one side from gaining too much power over the other. The general direction of the alliance itself would then be voted on by the orgs that are in it with the figurehead of the alliance being the one with the highest cultural score. This gives weaker orgs a chance to help lead even if it is not the strongest.
The idea is to let each organization keep what is special about them without losing anything, in return, it gives cultural scores a little more impact to help improve rp, and it allows everyone to work together a little stronger as they push there grand alliance up. It also allows for more politics to be involved when it comes to moving from one alliance to another.
It's obviously not a perfect idea and I don't know how feasible this idea is but I figured I'd give my two cents and hope it might spark somebodies imagination enough to come up with a better solution.
Thanks for reading through my ranting!
Alliances between the cities and communes usually split the basin in half already, so why not create a system to hard code an alliance in the game. These grand alliances can then compete for resources on behalf of the cities and communes in the grand alliance. At the time of this post it's split between Gaudiguch, Glomdoring, and Celest; and Magnagora, Hallifax, and Serenwilde. A grand alliance can then compete for the same resources a city would usually and then split between the cities depending on effort on that orgs part it would then get all orgs involved in some way for village revolts wilde nodes etc. The orgs in turn get to each keep their cultural differences, a new channel can be added so newbies from one org can be assisted by teachers from another in the absence of one from the newbies own org. The grand alliances will also not be static but be limited to only 3 orgs so it is possible for a city to vote to leave an alliance and attempt to go on their own as is usual now, or try to join the other. the cap is to prevent one side from gaining too much power over the other. The general direction of the alliance itself would then be voted on by the orgs that are in it with the figurehead of the alliance being the one with the highest cultural score. This gives weaker orgs a chance to help lead even if it is not the strongest.
The idea is to let each organization keep what is special about them without losing anything, in return, it gives cultural scores a little more impact to help improve rp, and it allows everyone to work together a little stronger as they push there grand alliance up. It also allows for more politics to be involved when it comes to moving from one alliance to another.
It's obviously not a perfect idea and I don't know how feasible this idea is but I figured I'd give my two cents and hope it might spark somebodies imagination enough to come up with a better solution.
Thanks for reading through my ranting!
7
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
We sort of do that anyway but in a more informal way. Using an alliance clan to help each other and newbies out etc.
Having a built in automatic alliance channel and an alliance newbie channel sounds pretty good.
The more players across multiple orgs work together, the more a player population split across the fairly large # of 6 orgs (and 18 guilds!) will spend time in the same rooms. This adds a lot to gameplay.
Players will be able to choose the org lore and skillsets that they truly want, without feeling lonely if that org is going through a less populous phase.
If there's a 3 org limit, the 6 orgs would just divide into 3v3 and it's unclear if they would have a motive to get out of that and switch alliances. Splitting off would lead to a 1v2v3 situation instead of a 2v4 situation until and unless the other side kicks out one of their orgs, a mechanic that punishes whoever decides to leave first.
Better to have a 4 or 5 org limit, but to have some kind of periodic cost (eg, paying power or gold, or experiencing more frequent village revolts) that increases as the size of the alliance increases. This could help lone orgs and alliances of 2 orgs stay competitive.
Also what does a max of 4 actually look like? In the ideal even split of population that's two thirds of the game against the other third with the system mechanically encouraging it. That's before you even consider stuff like the four forcing an org pairing which is entirely unfun for the two that are stuck together.
2v2v2, in theory, offers more dynamic combat because you don't have two sides facing off but instead have to be aware of your two enemy groups and capitalise on the openings you can find or create.
I'd prefer the added strategy & dynamism that a 4 org max would entail, rather than a lower org max. It's also a good opportunity to help balance the economy with gold sinks and more motivation for conflict, rather than a stable model with a multiple of 6, such as 3v3 or 2v2v2.
How is that different from 2v2v2? When 4 orgs pair off together, the last 2 are stuck with each other.
In 2v2v2, if Seren is unhappy with say Celest and Halli us unhappy with Mag, then Seren can just go to Halli and group up leaving Mag and Celest to sort themselves out with Gaudi and Glom.
There's no need to go and have talks with a third member of the alliance and negotiate around their preferences, in the above example Halli could also look for allies in Celest or Glom.
As far as how it's different, in 2v2v2 the last two could also chose to not ally and give us 2v2v1v1. It's also, in theory, easier to break up a 2 than a 4.
Your idea encourages a certain dynamic in org v org conflict and provides a potential incentive for the strongest orgs to mechanically ally so they can dominate the various objectives. (Because, at the end of the day, if the strongest can capture enough objectives to offset the sharing why should they work with weaker orgs?)
This would, in theory, hurt retention on the weaker side of the 3v3 because a decent amount of people would either transfer to the stronger side or get fed up with losing and quit. Which seems liable to hurt retention on the stronger side as well should PVP become stale and easy.
Limiting it down to two means, in theory, even if the two strongest orgs grouped up, the other four are still in the other two alliances and fighting them everywhere.
I don't really think we do though. Similar IRE games that had a three way split tended to cycle between 2 main sides with the third side being pretty anaemic.
It fluxes and some orgs go up and down but we do almost always seem to have at least 2 orgs being pretty dead population wise.
The alliance thing could have been a neat system to have years ago but now seems like it could be more like a band-aid (like covenants were) before we do an org overhaul which may or may not be too late.
Nipping down to 3 if we're averaging 2 orgs dead would, in theory, consolidate people. There'd be a loss sure but just depends if it can be managed.
Except that I wouldn't change skills, I mentioned it in this thread but effectively I'd do a big merge, pairing off the orgs creating something new based on the intersections of their rp.
The Dynara-themed org might lay claim to Water, Air, Celestia, and Continuum, in turn having the linked classes. This way you save dev time right now and encourage people towards certain new orgs.
If you just deleted half the orgs and left the remainder then you would have a massive fallout because the refugees from the cut orgs would need to force themselves into existing structures and many would probably just leave.
Where cutting all and forging new orgs means that everyone starts relatively fresh in the new orgs.
Plus new orgs offer expansion, like a Nature themed org letting us get Ackle and Jojo skills or merged cities letting us have cross-elemental mages and the like.
One of the things that I'd want from a merge is that you have strong echoes of the original two orgs present, for the story to focus on them coming together into something stronger than they were individually. I also wouldn't nuke the physical spaces that are already present but just make them the property of the relevant new orgs.
Also support is tricky with stuff like this because the engaged players will likely be generally happy with the status quo even if that's slowly killing the game because otherwise they would have left.
Again, it's like the guild overhaul, you had a minority pointing out the issue, then they left which made new people feel the lessened population who then complained, then left, and so on until the issue was eventually resolved, but not until after we'd lost generations of players.
The main reason I put them together this way is just cause I keep coming back to a Dynara, Magnora, and Nature trio. In that I guess I just feel fire fits a bit more neatly on the Magnora style with earth cause you go with the transformative, destructive, dangerous, and raw power links you can work with in mythological fire.