Brainstorming here. I think the key is to make a system where the org reduction / player consolidation process is adding to the game, not taking away from it. To me, that means:
Everyone's world and character storylines are transformed equally. It doesn't feel like some players get to keep their home and others are forced to change or quit playing.
Players fromall of the former 6 orgs have a say in the lore, culture, and mechanics of the new/remaining orgs.
Players gain opportunities to get involved and invested in the development of a new world that has fewer orgs. As opposed to those opportunities getting nixed or frozen along with lost orgs.
Estarra has stated clearly we don't have the resources to merge or make multiple new orgs atm, which would meet the above goals most clearly. Two ideas to accommodate that:
Starting from Zero
apocalyptic scenario renders 5/6 orgs unlivable; 1 org is devastated but still livable
one new mega-org is formed in the remaining org
players & staff collab to rebuild this org and 2 other orgs gradually, for a total of 3 orgs
the 3 guilds of each org are based off 3 distinct sets of goals for what is most important to rebuild and sustain (eg, the power source, combat related buffs and artifacts, the library, cheap comms, etc)
taking RL months: the 3 rebuilt orgs could be the old orgs, with some tough love changes to improve game balance and strengthen guilds
taking many RL months or even years: depending on resources and time frame, the 3 rebuilt orgs could perhaps be new in some ways or in many ways
players from now deactivated orgs can choose which of the 3 remaining orgs to escape to
the 3 remaining orgs now face a serious immigration crisis
old guilds in each remaining org get scrubbed and replaced with 3 new guilds: 1 for those loyal to the "original" org before the wave of newcomers, and 2 formed by factions among the newcomers
in part through competition and collaboration between guilds, players work with staff over RL months or years to change the lore of the 3 remaining orgs to reflect that they have become merged in some ways; perhaps even change the mechanics to reflect that
I really like Ejderha's idea, since it solves the problem statement (some orgs have too few people) with both a minimum of lore/RP deletion and potentially also a minimum of admin burden.
I know that part of the problem statement is also in having to balance fewer classes. One of my ideas that I've floated over and over is class symmetry across all the orgs - giving orgs the same abilities reskinned. This would significantly help to reduce the balancing workload, and has the added benefit of nixing "x org skillset is OP" complaints.
(clan): Falmiis says, "Aramelise, verb, 1. adorn with many flowers."
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
Really enjoy Ejderha's suggestion. If cutting orgs is the direction to go, let's still maintain the identities of the previous Orgs and place them under alliances formed through mechanics. His idea is fantastic that is rewards a finite amount to be divided equally, or if they go it alone, can take all the chips, so to speak. With certain policing it could be a valid long-term solution.
Would the new "Alliance" organization essentially be a city with sub groups inside? @Ejderha Almost like guilds? How would it handle class bloat that many mention now?
As for suggesting nuking Hallifax ideas - go for it. I'd like to think about how Ushaara would react to whatever you come up with!
There's been talk of figuring out how to move Hallifax and crashing it into the sea of Despair. The resulting tsunami takes out all of Magnagora, Glomdoring, and Celest, and I figure Serenwilde turns into a wetlands area. Plot twist: Gaudiguch becomes the last refuge in the Basin.
If it does go, my vote is in favor of crashing it somewhere and taking out at least one other org in the process.
Something already exists resting at the bottom of the SoD... Morgfyre's main physical mass emerges, eats Halli wreckage, finds only Gaudi left, devours it, then gets mad at nothing left, but settles for tentacle-arm wrestling competitions with Kethuru for eternity.
Really enjoy Ejderha's suggestion. If cutting orgs is the direction to go, let's still maintain the identities of the previous Orgs and place them under alliances formed through mechanics. His idea is fantastic that is rewards a finite amount to be divided equally, or if they go it alone, can take all the chips, so to speak. With certain policing it could be a valid long-term solution.
Would the new "Alliance" organization essentially be a city with sub groups inside? @Ejderha Almost like guilds? How would it handle class bloat that many mention now?
Alliance organization would be a set of city/communes, which could change or dissolve/reform by player activity. I would look to invest Alliances with powers that take on some city duties, yes, to build that as the 'primary' community and alleviate the challenge of small orgs that can't fill positions on their own. Exactly how this is tuned could be adjusted.
On the other hand:
I simply don't think class bloat is a real problem. I think asymmetric access to classes and partisanship is the problem. I think if you had good-faith efforts to balance classes, it would change the development landscape substantially. Instead you get conflict, 'compromise,' attacks and entrenchment. You get half-measures because that's what will get voted on and accepted, which never fully address the issue, but sometimes reduce the pain enough that getting votes to fix part 2 is impossible, and on and on.
If you wanted to address the actual problem which is 'the development effort for suggested changes to ameliorate perceived class balance issues is too damn high, and no one is ever satisfied,' and you wanted to address that through the Alliance system, you could introduce mechanics to help:
1. You automatically can classflex to the classes from cities/communes that are in your Alliance. 2. You can spend power as though you were bound to the Nexus of an Allied city/commune.
If you wanted to push harder, I would suggest bringing in the 'RP Team' and wrapping the change in some sort of 'we need to ally against the Soulless more than once per year' story, and at the same time, have the story and divine patrons push orgs in a less extreme direction -not because I want them to all be the same, but it would be better for the game if it were easier to imagine workable (if temporary) alliances between orgs that currently feel like that would be impossible. This doesn't have to subvert identity, just play up the parts that can be described as shared from a creative standpoint.
I hope it isn't controversial to suggest that if people got to play with each other more often, they would get along better as players. I know I experienced this with both Mag players once Mag was neutral/allied with Hallifax, and even on occasion interacting with Glom players when murdering each other wasn't the best way to solve a particular problem.
@Edjerha I like the idea (I already said I was in favour of two big sides) but, and it is a big but, there does not seem to be any incentive to formalise an alliance? There does not seem to be any benefit at all only downsides
Why would anyone want to throw away their gold on an alliance? Alliances are supposed to be mutually beneficial and yet this just seems to be pain for all?
There has to be some reason to make an informal agreement into a formal alliance
@Edjerha I like the idea (I already said I was in favour of two big sides) but, and it is a big but, there does not seem to be any incentive to formalise an alliance? There does not seem to be any benefit at all only downsides
Why would anyone want to throw away their gold on an alliance? Alliances are supposed to be mutually beneficial and yet this just seems to be pain for all?
There has to be some reason to make an informal agreement into a formal alliance
Being able to classflex and use power from allied orgs would be a huge benefit, if that were implemented as he suggested. To a lesser extent, so would being able to delegate some roles to others within the alliance.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
@Edjerha I like the idea (I already said I was in favour of two big sides) but, and it is a big but, there does not seem to be any incentive to formalise an alliance? There does not seem to be any benefit at all only downsides
Why would anyone want to throw away their gold on an alliance? Alliances are supposed to be mutually beneficial and yet this just seems to be pain for all?
There has to be some reason to make an informal agreement into a formal alliance
You're right, there does need to be. I hinted at one in the first post (perhaps 'bonus' resources for the smaller orgs in an Alliance) and more still in my follow up to Lorina (classflex options and whatnot depending on Allied orgs). Incentivizing the behavior should be easy enough, but might require more than that, sure. The idea originally came to me after @Ciaran 's post earlier in the thread about removing enemy and ally lists from people and making it tied to orgs. That would massively incentivize allying, as otherwise your demense, aoe, etc attacks would all hit your allies.
(Note, there are downsides to this idea - there are strategic reasons why you might selectively enemy/ally only some of the 'actual' enemies/allies. From personal experience, using traps to split up groups or scissorflip are two easy examples).
If you wanted to go hardcore, then make it so villages ONLY recognized alliances. Oh man, if your org pisses -everyone- else off, you're in trouble. What if people -had- to cooperate at least abit?
Feel free to suggest more - this is all of your game, after all. I'm not the end-all even on this idea, I just thought I'd throw it out there.
If you wanted to go hardcore, then make it so villages ONLY recognized alliances. Oh man, if your org pisses -everyone- else off, you're in trouble. What if people -had- to cooperate at least abit?
This (or something similar) might be good if only to also penalize concentrating numbers in one org. Ideally, it would be somewhat equivalent to creating "too large" of an alliance as well - incentivize people to create small to moderate alliances, and for the populations of alliances to be evenly spread out.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
Could always incentivize these Alliances by limiting how many villages are willing to bow to an individual org. Even if it was capped at 2 before they disapproved and disallowed you, an informal alliance of 3 orgs would only get 6 of the 14 villages. What this also means is we could potentially see 3 Alliances if we also limit how many villages an Alliance could hold as well. If you limited an Alliance to say, 6 villages, then you either get 2 Alliances and a loner, or possibly 3 Alliances.
Could always incentivize these Alliances by limiting how many villages are willing to bow to an individual org. Even if it was capped at 2 before they disapproved and disallowed you, an informal alliance of 3 orgs would only get 6 of the 14 villages. What this also means is we could potentially see 3 Alliances if we also limit how many villages an Alliance could hold as well. If you limited an Alliance to say, 6 villages, then you either get 2 Alliances and a loner, or possibly 3 Alliances.
This is a pretty cool idea. If I were in charge, I'd probably instead of making it a hard cap, just make it progressively harder to control (and faster to revolt) if the 'magic number' was exceeded.
I can't be bothered to read this entire topic so I will only reply to Estarra's initial post.
I support trimming the orgs, however the proposed way of doing it is the absolute worst way of doing it. By selecting to keep the original orgs you are pretty much insulting every single person that put effort in the newer orgs telling them they matter less than the players in the other orgs.
To facilitate the transfer you will have to force the 'original' orgs to allow players in even if they don't want to which will resort in the bigger closed knit group of the deleted org(s) taking over causing much ooc conflict between them and the original people. That is if you do not lose the entire population of the biggest org in the game to another IRE or non IRE game cause of it.
The best option is to build new orgs around alliances and keeping current cities/communes as a guild level org and delegate guilds to a guildpath level thing.
An alternative option is to just blow up all orgs during timequake release in an interesting and engaging event where we are all forced to join orgs leaking out of one of the other timelines that is not just mirror images of current orgs.
Could always incentivize these Alliances by limiting how many villages are willing to bow to an individual org. Even if it was capped at 2 before they disapproved and disallowed you, an informal alliance of 3 orgs would only get 6 of the 14 villages. What this also means is we could potentially see 3 Alliances if we also limit how many villages an Alliance could hold as well. If you limited an Alliance to say, 6 villages, then you either get 2 Alliances and a loner, or possibly 3 Alliances.
Maybe look at the Timequake thinks as well.
There are five powers. Individual org can get to Level 2, alliance of 2 can get to Level 4, alliance of 3 can get to Level 5?
Could always incentivize these Alliances by limiting how many villages are willing to bow to an individual org. Even if it was capped at 2 before they disapproved and disallowed you, an informal alliance of 3 orgs would only get 6 of the 14 villages. What this also means is we could potentially see 3 Alliances if we also limit how many villages an Alliance could hold as well. If you limited an Alliance to say, 6 villages, then you either get 2 Alliances and a loner, or possibly 3 Alliances.
Maybe look at the Timequake thinks as well.
There are five powers. Individual org can get to Level 2, alliance of 2 can get to Level 4, alliance of 3 can get to Level 5?
The goal should not be to encourage large alliances, but to encourage alliances to be roughly the same size and no larger than necessary to complete the task. So an individual org might have the greatest difficulty getting to level 5, two together have a decent chance of getting all of them, but more than that you start having the same limitations as being a solo org. Maybe.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I can't be bothered to read this entire topic so I will only reply to Estarra's initial post.
Hey, a literal tl;dr! Yes, those concerns have been discussed and we're happy to have you join us. What are your opinions so far on what is being suggested?
So the alliances thing is basically just guild covenants++?
Covenants didn’t really work imo, they were a popular idea because people didn’t want to lose their guild but in the long run didn’t turn things around enough.
I can't be bothered to read this entire topic so I will only reply to Estarra's initial post.
Hey, a literal tl;dr! Yes, those concerns have been discussed and we're happy to have you join us. What are your opinions so far on what is being suggested?
If you mean the dynamic Alliance mechanic, I think we are beyond that being able to work. It might have been the salvation two years ago but the population dropped to much for it now.
I think static Alliances replacing orgs is the way to go with the limited resources available. Both the city and guild mechanics are already in place. They would just have to make a change to nexuses having multiple appearances and removing some org conflict restrictions like in domoths.
All this is inferior to the nuclear blow up all orgs option though. But admins already indicated that option is unlikely.
If psuedo-covenant alliance mechanics would not alleviate the issue, should we just default to the original 3 organizations?
Or do we look at the largest population? It's been touched on here, regardless, you are going to have people moving. If we leave the original people in their orgs, they might not be forthcoming at welcoming wayward travelers. If we are to truly entertain the idea of removing 3 orgs, we have to come up with a solid way of granting access to those displaced to the org of their choosing.
It would be absolutely terrible to have your org deleted, then your first choice org turn you away because of deep rooted RP prejudice.
Since most conversations lead to "deleting three", we really have to get the proverbial ball rolling to give everyone time to acclimate to the new geo-political climate before... say... ascension.
Since most conversations lead to "deleting three", we really have to get the proverbial ball rolling to give everyone time to acclimate to the new geo-political climate before... say... ascension.
I'm going to be a naysayer in this instance and suggest that such a change should not be pressured/promoted in time for stability during x-event. If anything, the turmoil and upheaval is bound to make any such event that much more interesting and memorable. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, that's fine too.
I think the other big What If here is if most of the displaced population just stays displaced. If Gaudi goes poof, then I know I've got a couple options I'd keep in mind at least, but whether they stay appealing would vary on quite a few factors I can't really foresee. I dislike MUD combat engines in general, and the open invitation to opt out by not joining a new org and just focusing on the aspects of the game I enjoy would have a distinctive and strong allure.
It would be absolutely terrible to have your org deleted, then your first choice org turn you away because of deep rooted RP prejudice.
I'm gonna go ahead and say that this won't be problem if you have even a remotely good and healthy attitude. The onus is on you to build a reputation and legacy that will leave people wanting you in their org, not trying to keep you out.
I can't be bothered to read this entire topic so I will only reply to Estarra's initial post.
Hey, a literal tl;dr! Yes, those concerns have been discussed and we're happy to have you join us. What are your opinions so far on what is being suggested?
If you mean the dynamic Alliance mechanic, I think we are beyond that being able to work. It might have been the salvation two years ago but the population dropped to much for it now.
I think static Alliances replacing orgs is the way to go with the limited resources available. Both the city and guild mechanics are already in place. They would just have to make a change to nexuses having multiple appearances and removing some org conflict restrictions like in domoths.
All this is inferior to the nuclear blow up all orgs option though. But admins already indicated that option is unlikely.
Before we write off the idea, take into consideration how many people have said they will stop playing if their org is destroyed. And that the problem with population/division between the playerbase will not be helped if everyone from a current org moves in-mass to a new org. We could easily be left in the same situation if 1. Class balance isn't improved, and 2. The incentive for overwhelming numbers stays the same. So, a lot of work to fix nothing AND drive more people away.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
I think the issues surrounding deleting orgs have been very well covered, including the logistical nightmare of trying to integrate uprooted players into existing power structures/lore and the roleplay harm of allowing certain orgs to "win" by default when their opposite is deleted.
I know that new orgs are out, but there was an earlier idea (I'm sorry I can't find it to credit the source) that was more along the lines of re-skinning. Time is already a mess, so we have another cataclysm but instead of it destroying existing orgs and creating a need to rebuild, time flexes and we get shunted sideways into one of the parallel timelines with a different history and therefore similar, but different orgs.
Potential examples off the top of my head would be:
Hallifax was destroyed. Hallifaxian and Celestian refugees together founded a city where New Celest is, but instead of light/holy, the focus became on purity. Some considered this to be the purity of science and deed unbiased by emotions, others considered it the purity of compassion and artistic expression. Keep New Celest's basic layout, re-skin some areas with more crystal themes, maybe transport some towers from Hallifax, etc.
Glomdoring wasn't tainted. Glomdoring and Serenwilde formed an alliance that withstood the Taint by adapting, bringing in both the "purity of nature" and the "we are the only solution to the Taint" ideals. Night/Moon and Crow/Stag are worshiped together, but there remains some of the underlying darkness of Glomdoring in how certain parts of nature adapted to fight the Taint (this ties into a lot of lore regarding the dark fae as well). Keep parts of both communes active, with easy transport between them, perhaps have the Ravenwood/Moonhart linked so that they tap a single source of power and allow transport between them.
Gaudiguch and Magnagora not as the city of evil/taint, but the city of knowledge and power at any cost. Gaudiguch has always had an undercurrent of hidden mysteries, and they see the Taint as just one avenue. Personal freedom can be woven in as valuing the power to maintain it. Pick which city survives (maybe Magnagora was destroyed by the Stone of Truth being Tainted?), but integrate aesthetics from the other into it.
These are just examples, but the goals would be to:
1) Remove existing power structures that would resist integration of players from other orgs. Either no one retains a position in these new orgs, or a handful of leaders pre-agreed on by players and admin from both orgs are auto-carried forward.
2) Allow the integration of the core aspects of various orgs (TBD by the players, not just what's above) in a way that players don't have to fight out tooth and nail among themselves to work it out mid-transition.
3) Give players the choice for how much their characters are impacted by this change without having to just throw out existing roleplay, including how integrated their character's memories are into this new reality--perhaps they are fully members of this world even living in a different org entirely, perhaps they are muddled and confused, perhaps they remain completely who they were.
4) Hopefully not overburden the admin to the point that there's not sufficient admin support during the transition, including allowing skillsets to be retained/merged/removed based on whatever method is deemed best.
I can't be bothered to read this entire topic so I will only reply to Estarra's initial post.
Hey, a literal tl;dr! Yes, those concerns have been discussed and we're happy to have you join us. What are your opinions so far on what is being suggested?
If you mean the dynamic Alliance mechanic, I think we are beyond that being able to work. It might have been the salvation two years ago but the population dropped to much for it now.
I think static Alliances replacing orgs is the way to go with the limited resources available. Both the city and guild mechanics are already in place. They would just have to make a change to nexuses having multiple appearances and removing some org conflict restrictions like in domoths.
All this is inferior to the nuclear blow up all orgs option though. But admins already indicated that option is unlikely.
Before we write off the idea, take into consideration how many people have said they will stop playing if their org is destroyed. And that the problem with population/division between the playerbase will not be helped if everyone from a current org moves in-mass to a new org. We could easily be left in the same situation if 1. Class balance isn't improved, and 2. The incentive for overwhelming numbers stays the same. So, a lot of work to fix nothing AND drive more people away.
In the static alliances you can quite easily get rid of classes at a slow pace hitting them whenever an overhaul of that class comes about, And even if you do not want to get rid of the multitude of classes they become a lot easier to balance since there won't be unexpected combination of forces happening, they are set in stone. By using the current orgs to form that alliance nobody is really losing their org, their org is just being demoted in what they can do mechanically and becoming more an RP device with added benefits.
You can't fix people not joining some orgs by dynamic alliances either, people don't join those orgs for various reasons and dynamic alliances only makes it that you risk losing people you enjoy interacting with and alliance shifts do lose players no matter what you think. However static alliances (which would just be the new city level org) or 3 new orgs lets us consolidate people and make the orgs not seem so empty, and that last is a big issue for player retention and especially so for novice retention.
Also generally if you make the RP and result compelling enough people can be persuaded to not leave even if their org is destroyed however if you just blow up 3 orgs yeah people will hold a grudge and not trust the administration, assuming they still do at this point. The large advantage of blowing up orgs is that all the ooc org loyalty that is going around is gone. It will not magically make everyone like eachother but it will give a fair chance to everyone chosing their new org and allows us to destroy every single class and replace them by 4-8 new (aka recycled and reskinned) ones.
It would be absolutely terrible to have your org deleted, then your first choice org turn you away because of deep rooted RP prejudice.
I'm gonna go ahead and say that this won't be problem if you have even a remotely good and healthy attitude. The onus is on you to build a reputation and legacy that will leave people wanting you in their org, not trying to keep you out.
Because org leaders have always been the most rational beings that do not hold grudges over innane things and are known to not use protectionism as a reason. People also really enjoy their org being taken over by a foreign entity. History has shown such things always go over well!
PS. I also think Lusternia is beyond the point of no return in population decline, because fixing will lose players, not fixing also loses players and either will increase the empty feeling one gets when entering lusternia and causes new, returning and current players to leave. Unless a miracle happens and we get a big influx of people this game is dying, the question is just how long will it take.
Not what protectionism means, but not the point of this. To claim that it would be any org leader's fault that a given permission is denied will mostly be false. You see, we discussed that there is a spectrum of enemy status. At a 1 you're enemied because you joined a raid but don't actually kill any loyals where at a 10 you're getting yourself removed from the game by being down right deplorable. Depending where you fit into that spectrum, is how likely the org leader is to grant you entry. If you truly are a solid 1-3 you'll more than likely be forgiven and it tossed to the past. But if you're making a constant nuisance of yourself and garner such a reputation that makes interaction undesirable, then why would they want you?
The part we all agree on is that if things don't get fixed, one way or another, we're going down. Personally I like the alternate timeline idea, we can blame @Xenthos for it again! (Kidding)
Not what protectionism means, but not the point of this. To claim that it would be any org leader's fault that a given permission is denied will mostly be false. You see, we discussed that there is a spectrum of enemy status. At a 1 you're enemied because you joined a raid but don't actually kill any loyals where at a 10 you're getting yourself removed from the game by being down right deplorable. Depending where you fit into that spectrum, is how likely the org leader is to grant you entry. If you truly are a solid 1-3 you'll more than likely be forgiven and it tossed to the past. But if you're making a constant nuisance of yourself and garner such a reputation that makes interaction undesirable, then why would they want you?
The part we all agree on is that if things don't get fixed, one way or another, we're going down. Personally I like the alternate timeline idea, we can blame @Xenthos for it again! (Kidding)
This attitude of yours where you can not forgive without them jumping through hoops is exactly why any reduction in orgs where original orgs are kept needs to result in removing every single leadership position and enemy state, opening up all remaining orgs for anyone to join without player input and only allowing elections after 2 weeks. It is also why every single person in the game should get the option to transform their current character to a character nobody else knows but get to keep everything else like credits, goop, artifacts, manses, level, owned clans etc. The work that would go into that would be immense (just modifying all paid for pets and mobiles alone would be hell) but it is also the only fair thing to do in that option, which is why it is a horrible option.
My attitude? I mean, you quoted me but you clearly didn't read it. I said people aren't going to want the people that are absolute jerks and undesirable, and shock, neither would you. Don't try to high road this, there are players you'd stonewall as well because they are just that griefy. Also yes, I wanted to work on that package for players on how they could either reroll with everything or get a free pass somewhere, it's on Page 4 by the way. I'm fine with leaderships being wiped clean as use the method of Gaudi/Halli release where the first positions were kind of just assigned, sure there was elections for the position, but it was an already pre-decided thing by the players. As long as it is not dominated by one or the other, but a fair mix, then I'm fine with it. Because with the mergers, some places will mesh well and others would just be a landslide because of prior history. LIke if Seren and Glom get together, considering their statements, Glom is just going to hostile-takeover because they have the numbers to go really uncontested.
If we want to make any mergers or condense the population into less areas, breaking the cliques up is first and foremost, where loyalty to a specific individual is removed from the equation and things are decided on objective value, but this won't happen. People are that, people, and will continue to follow familiar people and concepts instead of putting forth their own critical thought. There are some of these places where this isn't an issue. I'm sure it applies to more than just Mag, but its what I know so will use it as an example. The city of Mag isn't going to insist that Avurekhos leads whatever merger, nor are we all just going to move to the same place because we're familiar with them, if anything, we get along better with people out of the city and might support them.
My attitude? I mean, you quoted me but you clearly didn't read it. I said people aren't going to want the people that are absolute jerks and undesirable, and shock, neither would you. Don't try to high road this, there are players you'd stonewall as well because they are just that griefy. Also yes, I wanted to work on that package for players on how they could either reroll with everything or get a free pass somewhere, it's on Page 4 by the way. I'm fine with leaderships being wiped clean as use the method of Gaudi/Halli release where the first positions were kind of just assigned, sure there was elections for the position, but it was an already pre-decided thing by the players. As long as it is not dominated by one or the other, but a fair mix, then I'm fine with it. Because with the mergers, some places will mesh well and others would just be a landslide because of prior history. LIke if Seren and Glom get together, considering their statements, Glom is just going to hostile-takeover because they have the numbers to go really uncontested.
If we want to make any mergers or condense the population into less areas, breaking the cliques up is first and foremost, where loyalty to a specific individual is removed from the equation and things are decided on objective value, but this won't happen. People are that, people, and will continue to follow familiar people and concepts instead of putting forth their own critical thought. There are some of these places where this isn't an issue. I'm sure it applies to more than just Mag, but its what I know so will use it as an example. The city of Mag isn't going to insist that Avurekhos leads whatever merger, nor are we all just going to move to the same place because we're familiar with them, if anything, we get along better with people out of the city and might support them.
It is not because you dislike someone others do. For an org reduction I would have let anyone into Gaudiguch if it were a surviving org, yes that includes the people I don’t like. You will also not be able to stop large groups from moving to the same place and you will not be able to stop the culture of the remaining org from being completely changed especially if the host nation had a low pop or weak sense of community.
Nobody here wants to stop everyone for mass migrating together to the same place ,and actually yes we can stop the culture from changing entirely. That is what divine attention does. If the situation becomes any of these ideas and solutions, they will either be 3 orgs with the same skin, mythos, etc and it'll be enforced to remain that way. I fully expect there to be a lot of presence and moderation to keep things moving along, instead of just allowing subjugation to happen. Something else that people just don't consider is that there are a lot of people who don't give a damn about the lore or the people, they're there specifically for the skills. We can tell ourselves that Jimmy really loves the community, but if these skills no longer existed or got made sub-optimal then Jimmy would move to a greener pasture. It has happened throughout the entirety of the game's history and will continue to. Expecting everyone from org x to move to org a together is not a good expectation, because as I mentioned prior there's likely to be a 60/10/30% split. Sure roughly 60% of the population will mass migrate, but that last 40% is either quitting players or people that forge their own path, whether it's going rogue or not following the crowd.
Comments
Estarra has stated clearly we don't have the resources to merge or make multiple new orgs atm, which would meet the above goals most clearly. Two ideas to accommodate that:
Starting from Zero
Mass Displacement
I know that part of the problem statement is also in having to balance fewer classes. One of my ideas that I've floated over and over is class symmetry across all the orgs - giving orgs the same abilities reskinned. This would significantly help to reduce the balancing workload, and has the added benefit of nixing "x org skillset is OP" complaints.
Would the new "Alliance" organization essentially be a city with sub groups inside? @Ejderha Almost like guilds? How would it handle class bloat that many mention now?
On the other hand:
I simply don't think class bloat is a real problem. I think asymmetric access to classes and partisanship is the problem. I think if you had good-faith efforts to balance classes, it would change the development landscape substantially. Instead you get conflict, 'compromise,' attacks and entrenchment. You get half-measures because that's what will get voted on and accepted, which never fully address the issue, but sometimes reduce the pain enough that getting votes to fix part 2 is impossible, and on and on.
If you wanted to address the actual problem which is 'the development effort for suggested changes to ameliorate perceived class balance issues is too damn high, and no one is ever satisfied,' and you wanted to address that through the Alliance system, you could introduce mechanics to help:
1. You automatically can classflex to the classes from cities/communes that are in your Alliance.
2. You can spend power as though you were bound to the Nexus of an Allied city/commune.
If you wanted to push harder, I would suggest bringing in the 'RP Team' and wrapping the change in some sort of 'we need to ally against the Soulless more than once per year' story, and at the same time, have the story and divine patrons push orgs in a less extreme direction -not because I want them to all be the same, but it would be better for the game if it were easier to imagine workable (if temporary) alliances between orgs that currently feel like that would be impossible. This doesn't have to subvert identity, just play up the parts that can be described as shared from a creative standpoint.
I hope it isn't controversial to suggest that if people got to play with each other more often, they would get along better as players. I know I experienced this with both Mag players once Mag was neutral/allied with Hallifax, and even on occasion interacting with Glom players when murdering each other wasn't the best way to solve a particular problem.
(Note, there are downsides to this idea - there are strategic reasons why you might selectively enemy/ally only some of the 'actual' enemies/allies. From personal experience, using traps to split up groups or scissorflip are two easy examples).
If you wanted to go hardcore, then make it so villages ONLY recognized alliances. Oh man, if your org pisses -everyone- else off, you're in trouble. What if people -had- to cooperate at least abit?
Feel free to suggest more - this is all of your game, after all. I'm not the end-all even on this idea, I just thought I'd throw it out there.
I support trimming the orgs, however the proposed way of doing it is the absolute worst way of doing it. By selecting to keep the original orgs you are pretty much insulting every single person that put effort in the newer orgs telling them they matter less than the players in the other orgs.
To facilitate the transfer you will have to force the 'original' orgs to allow players in even if they don't want to which will resort in the bigger closed knit group of the deleted org(s) taking over causing much ooc conflict between them and the original people. That is if you do not lose the entire population of the biggest org in the game to another IRE or non IRE game cause of it.
The best option is to build new orgs around alliances and keeping current cities/communes as a guild level org and delegate guilds to a guildpath level thing.
An alternative option is to just blow up all orgs during timequake release in an interesting and engaging event where we are all forced to join orgs leaking out of one of the other timelines that is not just mirror images of current orgs.
Covenants didn’t really work imo, they were a popular idea because people didn’t want to lose their guild but in the long run didn’t turn things around enough.
I think static Alliances replacing orgs is the way to go with the limited resources available. Both the city and guild mechanics are already in place. They would just have to make a change to nexuses having multiple appearances and removing some org conflict restrictions like in domoths.
All this is inferior to the nuclear blow up all orgs option though. But admins already indicated that option is unlikely.
Or do we look at the largest population? It's been touched on here, regardless, you are going to have people moving. If we leave the original people in their orgs, they might not be forthcoming at welcoming wayward travelers. If we are to truly entertain the idea of removing 3 orgs, we have to come up with a solid way of granting access to those displaced to the org of their choosing.
It would be absolutely terrible to have your org deleted, then your first choice org turn you away because of deep rooted RP prejudice.
Since most conversations lead to "deleting three", we really have to get the proverbial ball rolling to give everyone time to acclimate to the new geo-political climate before... say... ascension.
I think the other big What If here is if most of the displaced population just stays displaced. If Gaudi goes poof, then I know I've got a couple options I'd keep in mind at least, but whether they stay appealing would vary on quite a few factors I can't really foresee. I dislike MUD combat engines in general, and the open invitation to opt out by not joining a new org and just focusing on the aspects of the game I enjoy would have a distinctive and strong allure.
I'm gonna go ahead and say that this won't be problem if you have even a remotely good and healthy attitude. The onus is on you to build a reputation and legacy that will leave people wanting you in their org, not trying to keep you out.
You can't fix people not joining some orgs by dynamic alliances either, people don't join those orgs for various reasons and dynamic alliances only makes it that you risk losing people you enjoy interacting with and alliance shifts do lose players no matter what you think. However static alliances (which would just be the new city level org) or 3 new orgs lets us consolidate people and make the orgs not seem so empty, and that last is a big issue for player retention and especially so for novice retention.
Also generally if you make the RP and result compelling enough people can be persuaded to not leave even if their org is destroyed however if you just blow up 3 orgs yeah people will hold a grudge and not trust the administration, assuming they still do at this point. The large advantage of blowing up orgs is that all the ooc org loyalty that is going around is gone. It will not magically make everyone like eachother but it will give a fair chance to everyone chosing their new org and allows us to destroy every single class and replace them by 4-8 new (aka recycled and reskinned) ones.
Because org leaders have always been the most rational beings that do not hold grudges over innane things and are known to not use protectionism as a reason. People also really enjoy their org being taken over by a foreign entity. History has shown such things always go over well!
PS. I also think Lusternia is beyond the point of no return in population decline, because fixing will lose players, not fixing also loses players and either will increase the empty feeling one gets when entering lusternia and causes new, returning and current players to leave. Unless a miracle happens and we get a big influx of people this game is dying, the question is just how long will it take.
The part we all agree on is that if things don't get fixed, one way or another, we're going down. Personally I like the alternate timeline idea, we can blame @Xenthos for it again! (Kidding)
If we want to make any mergers or condense the population into less areas, breaking the cliques up is first and foremost, where loyalty to a specific individual is removed from the equation and things are decided on objective value, but this won't happen. People are that, people, and will continue to follow familiar people and concepts instead of putting forth their own critical thought. There are some of these places where this isn't an issue. I'm sure it applies to more than just Mag, but its what I know so will use it as an example. The city of Mag isn't going to insist that Avurekhos leads whatever merger, nor are we all just going to move to the same place because we're familiar with them, if anything, we get along better with people out of the city and might support them.