Breaking up Ironhart then expecting Equinox to do the same was a strategically terrible move. A for effort, though. I will say that from where I stand, ex-Ironhart are trying their best to change things once more, and this time, both Celest and Glomdoring are playing ball.
While we're at it, there's nothing wrong with alliances remaining because of the benefits, both mechanically and morale-wise. It's boring, but that's not the fault of alliances. A lot of the posters here seem to blame the alliance for every little thing.
I won't go into the lack of conflict, since that's well-trodden ground. Suffice to say, a lot of it really boils down to normal raiding being too punishing, big gigantic smob raiding being too hard, conflict systems being skewed, and player attitude.
Btw, Ironhart wasn't exactly getting curbstomped into the ground, they were doing quite well for themselves for a serious amount of time. It's like the year when Esano won, Fillin was unleashing, and Hallifax's balestone army didn't happen or something. IMO, it only really went downhill pretty much exactly at the moment Hallifax declared neutrality. So I would hazard to say that 2 years of constant curbstomp might be a bit exaggerated there.
I am terribly disappointed at the lack of agrees and likes for Shu's post.
Viravain, Lady of the Thorns shouts, "And You would seize Me? Fool! I am the Glomdoring! I am the Wyrd, and beneath the cloak of Night, the shadows of the Silent stir!"
#bringShikariback
-2
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Nobody is trying to nerf combat into non-existence, and the fact that you and others can't seem to get past this accusation is why this discussion is not going anywhere.
I think we know perfectly well that any successful conflict system will have winners and losers. I think for the past two years we definitely have kept up a fairly admirable effort with what we had. If you want to pretend that things have been the way they are for two years is because an entire half of the game has a terrible attitude to losing, then you probably fall into the category of player I made reference to earlier. I don't think anyone minds losing, but when most of what you face is crushing defeats and deliberate demoralization for two years, you eventually getexhausted. There's just no enjoyment to getting swept left and right for such a long period of time. I think you've lost sight of that after 'winning' for so long and look back on the days that were supposedly worse than now as if they were nothing.
Yes, it's true that organizations can get better with hard work and determination but if the other side has that much more winning power despite all those efforts, the only thing that's going to cause a change is a shift of the status quo. That's what ironhart tried to do. They tried to force a sort of musical chairs to see if maybe we could get things to be even, or for the love of god, perhaps different. If you wanted to save conflict so much, you could have taken up on that over the past few months and done something. Instead you staunchly kept to your alliance and kept beating on the people you already know you can beat into the ground instead of breaking up as we did and trying to change things around.
You also say that people have made an OOC decision to stop defending. I'm not sure how true that is of other orgs, but I can tell you, that despite how tiring it is, whenever you kicked a lady or a group of people came to raid, we kept coming back to try to stop you and even chased you into faethorn at times. If that wasn't the case, it was either because the people online at the time were the kind inexperienced in what to do, or they simply were not paying attention. I think at this point, you're just mischaracterizing people and that's unfair.
There's a lot of bad info or really skewed opinions in this post. There are definitely been people (unfortunatley centered in Seren) the past year or so that have cried, screamed, and kicked to have any sort of interesting combat or raiding completely annihilated to the point that no one would want to do it. That's just an unfortunate fact, and also where the bitterseren title originated. A lot of people were claiming that Seren just had it worse than any org ever in the history of lusternia and used what we shall call the "Choke Effect" the complain long enough and loud enough that mechanics were changed in their favor. Repeatedly. Did Glom complain for massive mechanical changes when they were getting destroyed and raided every day? What about Mag when Celenwilde used them as toilet paper? Maybe a few small ones, but not nearly to the same extent. It's unfortunate it's your org, and I'm not saying you were specifically one of these people, but that is the reality of current conflict. A lot of blame can be placed on the near incessant whiners and people who did everything in their power to make things seem worse than they actually were, and also on the shoulders of the admin that caved to it. You can literally link specific events or series of events to major conflict changes. Enemy territory death loss, powered up super mobs, insanity on enemy planes, shrine changes...what do these all have in common? Giant conflict related changes that happened when Seren wasn't winning. Let's get real.
People mind losing. People really, really mind losing. I'll admit it, I mind losing, it's totally normal. You can mind it and not be a completley poor sport about it though. Unfortunately, as bad as you want to make the "past two years" out to be, things have simply been worse for others and they have recovered (sometimes begrudgingly) without blaming the other side of the game. You have leaders with terrible attitudes, and it's been a trend for a while. It's funny because we joke about the "bitter seren" but in all seriousness, we can watch it and track attitude shifts on certain people that seem to get sucked into it. I, personally, have experienced far worse than Seren has ever gotten when I was a Mag, so my pity for "the past two year" and "morale exhuastion" is fairly limited.
Shuyin is correct, Mag has been successful in the past two years. Tremendously so. It hasn't been until recently that their attitude has shifted to a lot of negativity on the facebook group. Hallifax has never really been sour grapes. Morbo was angtsy as all get out, but he did manage to come across as positive to Hallifax. So no, it's not an entire half of the game. At least not consistently so. Only one org has managed to be consistent there.
People have openly stated to ignore raids on an ooc level. Repeatedly. I don't know why this is even up for debate. It's clearly, on no uncertain terms, been stated. By notable people. If that means I'm mischaracterizing people...er...I guess I can live with it. Not really meant as an insult, just taking people for their word.
I've been the Messiah of the Nekotai for a very long time (Somewhere
over 100 in game years), and a member of the Glomdoring for even
longer, and before that I had older (though less venerable alts). I
really don't want to go into the state of things, or whats going to
happen whatsoever, but as far as Ironhart/Equinox goes, I will tell you
that since it's foundation, Me as a player, and Tau as a character has
been vehemently against trusting or considering Celest an ally. You can
pretty much ask anyone on the Shadow Court, and I think it will be said
that I take every opportunity I can to privately bad mouth Celest, and
try to influence a change in politics. It's been accused of me that I do
this for no other reason than I want to shake things up, or some other similar, completely OOC reason.
So when I read things about how Equinox is comfortable, how its not going to break up, how things are not going to change, how this is the only possible configuration, I become disappointed, frustrated, angry, and a little bit hurt, because I've been trying, behind the scenes albeit, to break these two organisations up for a very long time. Its not a valid assumption than players are complacent, and are going to stay in these relationships forever. Some people take their characters and their perceptions very seriously. thats not to say that people who think the above don't, or are somehow bad in any way, but what I mean to say is that Tau, at least, holds grudges. I have a long list of them, and they've coloured my opinion beyond, oh its strategic, blah blah, and I would be willing to bet there are others out there.
I also, frankly, think its the player base's fault for the lack of staying power, more than many other factors. Games can oscillate in popularity, but I have impressions of people, and without naming names, I can safely say the the animosity, the bitterness, the venom, and the apathy out of a great number of people have driven off new players, and have made "oldbies" throw up their hands in frustration and leave.
Sometimes I begin to wonder if I just see things in my own, unique, snowflake special way, because I'm always told I'm wrong, but there it is. I promised I'd keep it real, and those are my rambling opinions.
As far as what can be done, while a lot of the things in this thread I think are helpful, I don't think many of them address retention, and attraction in terms of new players. I think the event thats ongoing has gone a long way to developing a small cadre of novices who will likely stick around, but more needs to be done. And I do think that new players is the key to it all. I recall, now two days ago, lamenting that there are just too many positions to be filled, and things to be done, and just not enough players to fill them and do them all.
I don't know whats going on behind the scenes, or around the neighbourhood, but I feel like we're resting on our laurels, and topmudsites to keep things going. Suddenly I saw that Lusternia had dropped to Eighteen. Eighteen, the lowest I've EVER seen Lusternia on that chart. And don't get me wrong, I saw the other IRE games that have dipped on that chart as well. But what's going on? Eventru, please correct my perception here.
I don't really think TopMudSites draws many people in anymore. It's a niche site for a niche market and it's always been the same old guys on top. Other IRE games have mostly dropped as well. I think IRE needs to figure out where to spend promotion resources, and they've been more focused now--the whole "write articles to get SEO magic" has been thankfully dropped.
I have a few comments on the conversation but I need to spend some time writing them up. To tired--still boggled by tonights event...
Tau, a lot of the things you say about your actual feelings being different from the way people claim your "side" feels are very similar to how I feel when people start talking about Hallifax this, Ironhart that, saying why all the decisions ever made are wrong forever and how we should have done better. Everyone generalizes everything. It makes it easier to feel like other people are wrong, and they are right. It's just how people's brains work, and I know it's very frustrating to be on the receiving end of it, so I try my best not to let myself fall into that same trap. I'm sorry if I've ever said anything that implies I think Glom+Celest is a big bully hivemind that is stuck forever patting each other on the back. I don't feel that way (ok sometimes when I'm really annoyed maybe I do but I know that makes zero sense when I stop myself and relax), and I really can sympathize with your frustration.
In my years of being on the Board of Directors, I have experienced being the "odd man out" more often than not. The most recent example is this neutrality. I voted against it. I pretty openly and passionately opposed it, even. Ask anyone who was there! But it happened, and I was on the Board, and now I'm CL, which means that the perception is forever going to be that I had a hand in it, or that it went how I wanted it, and I assure you that once Hallifax eventually stops being neutral I'm going to be informed of my supposed motivations for doing so after the fact by people who weren't there. It's never about the situation or the individuals involved or what they were thinking or feeling or hoping, it's about some mysterious "Hallifax" entity that apparently is doing all this stuff for all these wrong reasons? Mrh.
Sorry for rambling. I know it's a little off-topic, but I guess I just wanted to give my perspective and say I totally get how you feel. It can be rough.
TMS doesn't really bring in new people - it has a tendency to recycle the same pool of players from various MUDs. Nice, but people go to vote and close it. Likewise, not to accuse anyone of any foul intentions or misdoings, but ever since Aardwolf bought it they've always magically stayed ahead of everyone else. At some point, you can't really blame anyone for giving up trying to compete when Aardwolf gains hundreds of votes in a matter of seconds, the moment Achaea passes them.
So when I read things about how Equinox is comfortable, how its not going to break up, how things are not going to change, how this is the only possible configuration, I become disappointed, frustrated, angry, and a little bit hurt, because I've been trying, behind the scenes albeit, to break these two organisations up for a very long time. Its not a valid assumption than players are complacent, and are going to stay in these relationships forever. Some people take their characters and their perceptions very seriously. thats not to say that people who think the above don't, or are somehow bad in any way, but what I mean to say is that Tau, at least, holds grudges. I have a long list of them, and they've coloured my opinion beyond, oh its strategic, blah blah, and I would be willing to bet there are others out there.
Equinox currently gets scuffles over stuff like "Ousted Guy from Org A goes to Org B; Org A fighters want to murder him but Org B says no." and "Org C is accusing Org B of hogging all the Domoths/ Villages/ Aetherbubbles and wants a bigger share."
It would require more than the current grumbling at eachother to actually break apart. Something like "Glomdoring enters into secret negotiations with Magnagora and gets caught." or "Celest tries to convince Gaudiguch to let Hallifax join Equinox." or something like that. Something big.
So since TMS isn't really something we seem to have much faith in anymore, what measures are we taking to advertise lusternia and bring in new players?
@Tau and @Phoebus - I feel the same way about your frustrations as GMs of the org and your opinions (which should be pretty high up there, considering your guild voted you in to speak for them) not really counting for much. It's part of the reason why I made this thread, though the idea certainly wasn't intended to be 'the' fix for what is, essentially, our problem to solve as players. But... I think GMs should get the opportunity to speak on behalf of their guild, and for politicking to happen more and be more important in the game.
Anyway, back to the "Lusternia's Direction" stuff... I think it would be great for there to be a focus on improving the emoting/roleplay aspects of the game. The best thing since sliced bread right now is the EMSHOW business -- thank you so so so so much for this.
Other things that could be improved are... to make emote targetting be the same for players as well as pets. Pet sentience is a little lacking in what it could be (though I appreciate that you do not want to make pets into true mobs). When Estarra gave me my pet and I was playing with the different emote commands (discovering that some things couldn't be done), She mentioned that this was something that would be looked into. +1 to this.
Being able to target people and even objects in say brackets would be wonderful. For example: say to Estarra (Casting an uncertain glance at ^Iosai) I'm sure this is easy to code.
Lusternia is a roleplaying game -- it would be great to have the ability to roleplay to our best potential!
Sidenote: Coming from the worst RPer in existence. /wrists
Oh, I totally forgot, on a lighter note, More Loboshigaru. More Loboshigaru NPCs, hell, can we have an area? I feel like every race has an area, except loboshigarus. Oh, they're Tosha monks, woohoo, because that totally speaks about loboshigaru RP. More more more!
Oh, I totally forgot, on a lighter note, More Loboshigaru. More Loboshigaru NPCs, hell, can we have an area? I feel like every race has an area, except loboshigarus. Oh, they're Tosha monks, woohoo, because that totally speaks about loboshigaru RP. More more more!
Actually, Tosha speaks pretty deeply to the base of who loboshigaru are. As I recall, their whole purpose is to use meditation to overcome their innate, violent tendencies!
I feel like Tosha is less about Loboshigaru, and more about Tosha Monks. I get what you're saying, but what about all of us Loboshigaru who are not a part of Tosha, or any of that business. How do we overcome innate violent tendencies? Where did we get those? That sure isn't mentioned in HELP LOBOSHIGARU. There were Loboshigaru who banded together with many other races to help the Last Elder, Meridian, when Some Soulless God, Kethuru maybe, tricked him. What happened ot those tribes of Loboshigaru? Where did they go?
I guess I feel like I'm in Kiradawea's position (Although I am far too attached to Tau and the players of Glomdoring and the Basin at large to give up my character for a shot at Ephemeral). But I feel like there's just so little information out there, as compared to Keph/Illithoid, or Orclach, Or Trill, Or Furrikin and tae'dae. In fact, of all the races who have the potential for some the best and most meaningful Close-knit RP, I would say it ranks Illithoid and Kephera, and then Loboshigaru ( especially in the terms of blatant and open racism towards other races). I think it speaks volumes that there are a handful of designated "Packs" out there even, Llaewell, and Somnius come to mind. Sure, its not the most popular race, I'm just asking for a little love
Is it just preferable that I write this out for myself and try to publish it? B ecause I've been considering a history of it for quite some time. I (obviously?) don't know how this whole authoring thing works.
I feel like Tosha is less about Loboshigaru, and more about Tosha Monks. I get what you're saying, but what about all of us Loboshigaru who are not a part of Tosha, or any of that business. How do we overcome innate violent tendencies? Where did we get those? That sure isn't mentioned in HELP LOBOSHIGARU. There were Loboshigaru who banded together with many other races to help the Last Elder, Meridian, when Some Soulless God, Kethuru maybe, tricked him. What happened ot those tribes of Loboshigaru? Where did they go?
I guess I feel like I'm in Kiradawea's position (Although I am far too attached to Tau and the players of Glomdoring and the Basin at large to give up my character for a shot at Ephemeral). But I feel like there's just so little information out there, as compared to Keph/Illithoid, or Orclach, Or Trill, Or Furrikin and tae'dae. In fact, of all the races who have the potential for some the best and most meaningful Close-knit RP, I would say it ranks Illithoid and Kephera, and then Loboshigaru ( especially in the terms of blatant and open racism towards other races). I think it speaks volumes that there are a handful of designated "Packs" out there even, Llaewell, and Somnius come to mind. Sure, its not the most popular race, I'm just asking for a little love
Is it just preferable that I write this out for myself and try to publish it? B ecause I've been considering a history of it for quite some time. I (obviously?) don't know how this whole authoring thing works.
There's the Lusternia Historical Society (L.H.S.) which occasionally publishes certified canon books. To date only one has been done (Catarin's Paladin history) but there's always the potential for more.
That said, it's not easy, involves a fair amount of back-and-forth with the admin, and instances of "No, we don't like that, think of something else". Like I said, not easy, but it is doable, if you're willing to put in the work (and said admin will try to give suggestions ideas etc to help it along).
That's something you should talk to your patron about (personal/guild/city), who will have to communicate with Estarra and it will be stressful and a lot of work but doable. Could be on a guild or, in your case, some kind of generalized history on loboshigaru (or a strong piece on their tendencies, nature, etc), particularly traits that are unique and stand out, but make sense. Example that comes to mind is some notes on aslaran I once came upon about them having a pictographic written language, because it was easier to communicate with (as much of the race has spent time enslaved by Crazen, and in the camps education wasn't a thing). Things like that are what would really make-or-break your chances of getting pushed along the path.
(I feel like there's something somewhere about loboshigaru packs being broken up by the Empire because of their tendency to feed on one another's blood lust and get really frenzied. Don't know where I read that though... Want to say Taint Wars or something? Don't know.)
There's also some mutated mugwump (skarra) and lobos (garuls) in dio which is sort of creepy.
But I too would love more lobo RP. The whole 'repressing your violent tendencies thing' seems very shallow to me and not what loboshigaru's 'entire purpose' should be about. I really hope that's not all these guys are meditating about heh, because I'd be very disappointed. I personally found the whole story with Loboshi and Volkh to be pretty touching and always felt her statue in tosha was a good representation of how seriously lobos take her loyalty and virtuousness and aspire to be more pure like that. Or at least, that's how I personally look to play it out.
I wish there was so much more to learn about her too. It feels like information on her and Volkh is so scarce beyond what we have in the histories.
Add into culture a line for charitable giving. The org that donates the most money to a specific npc, in a peaced room, gets a boost in culture and a mention in a politics post. Or something like that, basically a competitive org based gold sink.
Allow some sort of expensive player driven, with appropriate approvals, statue/tower/room or something like that to be added to cities or perhaps even a new zone just for things like that. Older players would throw down gobs of money to have a way to put their mark on the game.
While Lusternia does a great many things right, there are a few key things I believe could stand improvement. This post (and indeed this thread) is looking specifically at those things that could use improvement, so yes, it will sound negative. My focus here is on trying to unearth the negative portions of the game, so that they may be improved on, after all!
I'm on board with Rivius/Rami/Raahl and co. in that I think that the direction of Lusternia would be vastly improved if orgs could generate and participate in meaningful combat. Once you connect hard work on the part of players with actual improvement in situation, the game becomes suddenly drastically more fun. Many, if not all, of the conflict mechanics currently in the game have close to no effect on orgs, beyond brownie or pity points. They lower or raise power, gold, or commodities by varying amounts, never measuring up to the massive stockpiles and reserves of any org.
Power, for instance. Looking at the current stockpiles (~3mil) and running the average numbers for usage, if Serenwilde were suddenly completely blocked from generating any new power, atall, it would take 2.4 real life years or so for the power to dry up. You can do all you want in combat to try and damage our power reserves, but in the context of the 2.4 real life year buffer of power we have stored up, it'll be insignificant. In the same vein, we can labor all we want to gather in all the fae and pixies every hour, but compared to our stockpile, any addition is miniscule.
Look at gold, or commodities, and you get the same picture. For commodities and the rate they are used, the numbers are harder to pin down (due to no shoplogs for comm shops), but I'd be willing to bet that for the majority of the commodities (such as some of the food comms which are practically never used), the average shelf life of our stores would run double that of the power stockpiles. 2-5 years before they run out. In the context of 60k+ commodities, what is ~100-2 of various commodities a day? And for what, anyways? Couches and robes and random other goods? If it's between hours of bashing to recover loss and losing out on something we have no need of, I pick the latter, personally.
Combat is stale because it does nothing, accomplishes nothing. You can harass your enemy all you want, but you won't have enough people caring enough to risk the massive penalties to possibly drop an Smob, because they've realized that doing so doesn't do anything anyways. Outside of that, many raids literally have no ramifications, even miniscule ones. Kicking elemental lords/aspects that come back in an hour and only contribute to power generation (see above about why that doesn't matter). Killing Ladies/Daughters, which function as (somewhat gimpy) guards for the Smobs that guard themselves (see above for why killing them doesn't matter anyways). Killing Demons/Angels for the tiny power loss (ditto). Killing Vortex/Continuum mobs... for kicks, I guess?
This combat is fun for a while, but then rapidly gets old, as there isn't any motivation as a player to participate. Sure, as a character you will at least want to show up and defend your homeland/territories, but it gets increasingly harder to keep to that character trait if you know (as a player) that defense or not, you aren't possibly getting harmed.
Of all the direction issues, this one around meaningful combat is core to the majority of the problems you'll find with Lusternia, I think. It's a big sore flaw in the middle of a bunch of great other things, that's driving apathy forward. Why care, when your caring doesn't matter in any run (short or long)? This problem runs through a lot of other comments earlier in the thread, such as the one about how "...ultimatly the actions of characters no longer -change- anything."
I agree that more of a focus on the game instead of minigames that have no impact on the game would be preferrable, as fun (and well designed/thought out) those minigames may be.
That there is no conflict at all on prime that isn't hit-and-run, or other unfun ganking interactions, is entirely the fault of Avechna. The 'Free-PK' situation created on the upper planes as a result is also the least fun way of handling things as well, in my opinion. Combined with the lack of meaningful conflict, it erodes/eliminates the RP environment, as you are totally licensed to kill anyone on sight away from prime without any sort of reprisal built in. Then you just flee to the 100% safe zone that is the entire Prime Plane. That's an issue. I do think that a simplification/re-evaluation of the Avechna system would be well spent time, and much appreciated by the playerbase. Grace was already removed, that trend could stand to continue.
EDIT: It would also be great for leaders to have more of a mechanically.. leading role. The ability to punish/restrict members of their organization when appropriate for instance. See above notes about various orgs not 'enforcing' things. Enforcing how?
Power blocks: Link astral, go aether bashing, have powerplex, have a low power class, problem solved.
Disfavors: Who cares?
Disapproving News/Logs Posts: Who cares?
Death: Who cares?
Un-citizen-ing: Bit extreme to force someone to become nonviable or chunk out RL $$$ to change class.
EDIT: It would also be great for leaders to have more of a mechanically.. leading role. The ability to punish/restrict members of their organization when appropriate for instance. See above notes about various orgs not 'enforcing' things. Enforcing how?
Power blocks: Link astral, go aether bashing, have powerplex, have a low power class, problem solved.
Disfavors: Who cares?
Disapproving News/Logs Posts: Who cares?
Death: Who cares?
Un-citizen-ing: Bit extreme to force someone to become nonviable or chunk out RL $$$ to change class.
On this point, I'm inclined to agree. It would be great to have more flexibility as far as punishments were concerned, because the disparity between disfavour and ousting is pretty extreme. No one really wants to oust someone if silencing them on CT/GT etc is what really needs to be done. A disfavour doesn't do very much except limit the person's ability to use village influence attacks, which hurts the org, really. Oh, to be able to curse a nuisance newbie with a blowdart gun with peace! To silence people on aethers until they learn that what they said was not tolerated. Could have the potential to be misused, though.
Not sure if this is a huge deal with regard to Lusternia's direction, but something to think about, anyway!
That'd be interesting, but you would want to tweak it so that someone who has never been explicitly blocked can still use nexus-specific abilities.
Many, if not all, orgs are set to auto power block novices when they join the org, but those novices are still able to draw dross power. They should be able to use it even if not unblocked yet.
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I think leaders who are unwilling to give people the boot for blatantly violating the rules and ignoring their leadership are giant pushovers.
I think leaders who are players putting other players potentially hundreds of dollars into the hole for violating a game 'rule' (not actually any rule of the game, just a player written 'law') due to boredom are giant jerks. Viable intermediary steps between 'pointless slap on the wrist' and 'pay money or suffer' would be appreciated. And no, fear of being kicked out and having to pay extra RL money should not be something we throw around to keep people 'in line'. That just leads to a nasty atmosphere that most people won't want to play in at all.
I think if it would be very helpful to the admin if you also suggested solutions if you are bringing up perceived problems. For example, @Enyalida mentioned that there is a lack of mechanical ways for leaders to punish org members but when I read that, nothing springs to mind as something to fix that. It might help if you also share potential solutions to some of these problems, like many of you have been doing for gold sinks and other issues you've brought up.
Probation, with options. Including as many or as few as desired.
-Option to silence on (org-related)aethers, all or select. This would include org-deeded ones.
-Option to deafen to (org-related) aethers.
-Option to deny news board writing.
-Option to restrict entry to sensitive locations, like guildhalls.
-Option to peace combative members.
-Option to jail super-combative members. I know that at least one other MUD I've played has this. It has limits, naturally. After X time you automatically pop out and you get a certain immunity period (and spamming will raise red flags on high, of course.) That way, if you apply one of the above options, and they still are going around (say) slapping people or raging about something, you can banish them to a cool-down room, away from (say, again) novices or other impressionable youths.
-Options to remove org privs, like induct/'exduct', guild(dis)favor, or xHELP editing.
-Options to set automatic timeouts, like amnesty, or to restrict removal to guild/org leaders.
-Options to pre-set escalating punishment. You can say to someone 'if one of my aides catches you doing xyz, I've authorized them to increase your probation'. Essentially, you just hand an appointed deputy or group a button that they can use as needed.
EDIT: That way, you have a member who is repeatedly edging on treaty/agreement violation, or is starting one man raids on an ally. You don't want to kick them, instead you hit them with a tailored probation:
-Disfavor (slap on the wrist), stating in the logs why you're not pleased and the reason for the probation.
-Power block
-Combat clan silenced/deafened.
-If engaged in more illicit behavior, short peace to follow.
Whereas someone who was just stirring up discontent could get:
-Disfavor
-Guildhall block
-Public channels (CTELL, CLTELL, GTELL) silenced, but not deafened.
I think if it would be very helpful to the admin if you also suggested solutions if you are bringing up perceived problems. For example, @Enyalida mentioned that there is a lack of mechanical ways for leaders to punish org members but when I read that, nothing springs to mind as something to fix that. It might help if you also share potential solutions to some of these problems, like many of you have been doing for gold sinks and other issues you've brought up.
Indeed! That was my thought as well.
More specifically, I'd be interested in suggestions on how to make existing conflict mechanics (raiding cosmic planes, ethereal planes, etc) more "effecting" and appealing without being over-burdensome. I don't know how many people remember, but once upon a time conflict quests were very high-effect (doing the Marilynth quest removed all the spectres from Spectre Isle until it was undone, Ladantine removed sands until he was killed, gorgogs did both plus drained 1000 power per city per tic), and players really got disheartened. The risks you've noted as more-or-less non-existent (nexus power, for example) are exceedingly demoralizing if they were destroyed.
Power, commodities, and gold are heavily entrenched and stockpiled at this point. Any change that would put these in jeopardy would be entirely disproportionate, without restructuring entire systems. Though more complication isn't desirable, changing those things would work a lot better with a different resource, like in the 'dharma' suggestion.
Raiding (org territory) should be:
-Impossible to do constantly. I like achieving this with a hard-coded cooldown. You cannot raid again until xyz quest has reset and you can use xyz gizmo to disable the enemy's defenses. More intense objectives can't be tried as often, easier ones can be done easily.
-Not punitiveto attempt, when it is done. No 10 hours of bashing to make up for raiding. In fact, punishments for failed raids should fall mostly on the raiding org's shoulders, not the individual. It is an act of war, after all!
-Not pointless, when it is done. No raid should be a kick-raid, with no point. Some stage between doing nothing and massacring the most sacred entities of X org would work, some secondary objective. See below, about impact, as well. Changing Aspect/Elem.Lord mechanics could make them fill this slot.
-Without infinite objectives. In other words, there should not be a raid without an ending point. Raids should have a point at which you definitively fail and are encouraged to vacate if you haven't completed some objective. This way, you never have an intrenched group just camping a plane for no reason for ages on end. A random, probably thematically inaccurate example:
You used the magic spoor of Hart to get into Glomdoring to kill the four crow aspects (made beefier). The spoor weakens them into range of decent combat. You try without much opposition for 30 minutes (random time there), and for whatever reason failed to kill any of them. Rowena finishes her spell, which nullifies the effects of the spoor, causing the difficulty of the aspects to jump drastically (and they start chasing). Too bad, so sad, you were waiting around too long, should have gotten down to business faster, go away. Combined with the first point, you'll have to wait until... tomorrow at some point to try again.
Of course, time, minor objectives, and discouragement could be shifted around to find balance, and indeed be different from raid-type to raid-type, and org to org. Additionally, achieving a minor objective could extend your overall time. In this example, killing one would give you more time, though not too much more.
-Impacting. This doesn't need to be drastic loss of resources to the losing side, but the above parts would make such a penalty greatly mitigated. It wouldn't be a constant attack scenario, and you would be able to stop even a determined enemy. Now, if an enemy group is large enough in proportion to your group, you can kill them as many times as you want. If they are determined and organized, they are going to wear down your Smob no matter what. They just keep coming back and back and back! If the raid has a point at which it mechanically fails, no amount of essence stockpiling will let them just keep coming. You actually have an objective (As a defender), that isn't just 'throw ourselves at them until they go away'.
This sort of system could be extended over the existing raid mechanics (Killing random mobs, Killing ElemLords/Aspects, Killing Avatars/Smobs) as well as extending to a secondary resource or new raid mechanics.
Comments
I am terribly disappointed at the lack of agrees and likes for Shu's post.
There's a lot of bad info or really skewed opinions in this post. There are definitely been people (unfortunatley centered in Seren) the past year or so that have cried, screamed, and kicked to have any sort of interesting combat or raiding completely annihilated to the point that no one would want to do it. That's just an unfortunate fact, and also where the bitterseren title originated. A lot of people were claiming that Seren just had it worse than any org ever in the history of lusternia and used what we shall call the "Choke Effect" the complain long enough and loud enough that mechanics were changed in their favor. Repeatedly. Did Glom complain for massive mechanical changes when they were getting destroyed and raided every day? What about Mag when Celenwilde used them as toilet paper? Maybe a few small ones, but not nearly to the same extent. It's unfortunate it's your org, and I'm not saying you were specifically one of these people, but that is the reality of current conflict. A lot of blame can be placed on the near incessant whiners and people who did everything in their power to make things seem worse than they actually were, and also on the shoulders of the admin that caved to it. You can literally link specific events or series of events to major conflict changes. Enemy territory death loss, powered up super mobs, insanity on enemy planes, shrine changes...what do these all have in common? Giant conflict related changes that happened when Seren wasn't winning. Let's get real.
People mind losing. People really, really mind losing. I'll admit it, I mind losing, it's totally normal. You can mind it and not be a completley poor sport about it though. Unfortunately, as bad as you want to make the "past two years" out to be, things have simply been worse for others and they have recovered (sometimes begrudgingly) without blaming the other side of the game. You have leaders with terrible attitudes, and it's been a trend for a while. It's funny because we joke about the "bitter seren" but in all seriousness, we can watch it and track attitude shifts on certain people that seem to get sucked into it. I, personally, have experienced far worse than Seren has ever gotten when I was a Mag, so my pity for "the past two year" and "morale exhuastion" is fairly limited.
Shuyin is correct, Mag has been successful in the past two years. Tremendously so. It hasn't been until recently that their attitude has shifted to a lot of negativity on the facebook group. Hallifax has never really been sour grapes. Morbo was angtsy as all get out, but he did manage to come across as positive to Hallifax. So no, it's not an entire half of the game. At least not consistently so. Only one org has managed to be consistent there.
People have openly stated to ignore raids on an ooc level. Repeatedly. I don't know why this is even up for debate. It's clearly, on no uncertain terms, been stated. By notable people. If that means I'm mischaracterizing people...er...I guess I can live with it. Not really meant as an insult, just taking people for their word.
As they say, attitude is everything.
I've been the Messiah of the Nekotai for a very long time (Somewhere over 100 in game years), and a member of the Glomdoring for even longer, and before that I had older (though less venerable alts). I really don't want to go into the state of things, or whats going to happen whatsoever, but as far as Ironhart/Equinox goes, I will tell you that since it's foundation, Me as a player, and Tau as a character has been vehemently against trusting or considering Celest an ally. You can pretty much ask anyone on the Shadow Court, and I think it will be said that I take every opportunity I can to privately bad mouth Celest, and try to influence a change in politics. It's been accused of me that I do this for no other reason than I want to shake things up, or some other similar, completely OOC reason.
So when I read things about how Equinox is comfortable, how its not going to break up, how things are not going to change, how this is the only possible configuration, I become disappointed, frustrated, angry, and a little bit hurt, because I've been trying, behind the scenes albeit, to break these two organisations up for a very long time. Its not a valid assumption than players are complacent, and are going to stay in these relationships forever. Some people take their characters and their perceptions very seriously. thats not to say that people who think the above don't, or are somehow bad in any way, but what I mean to say is that Tau, at least, holds grudges. I have a long list of them, and they've coloured my opinion beyond, oh its strategic, blah blah, and I would be willing to bet there are others out there.
I also, frankly, think its the player base's fault for the lack of staying power, more than many other factors. Games can oscillate in popularity, but I have impressions of people, and without naming names, I can safely say the the animosity, the bitterness, the venom, and the apathy out of a great number of people have driven off new players, and have made "oldbies" throw up their hands in frustration and leave.
Sometimes I begin to wonder if I just see things in my own, unique, snowflake special way, because I'm always told I'm wrong, but there it is. I promised I'd keep it real, and those are my rambling opinions.
As far as what can be done, while a lot of the things in this thread I think are helpful, I don't think many of them address retention, and attraction in terms of new players. I think the event thats ongoing has gone a long way to developing a small cadre of novices who will likely stick around, but more needs to be done. And I do think that new players is the key to it all. I recall, now two days ago, lamenting that there are just too many positions to be filled, and things to be done, and just not enough players to fill them and do them all.
I don't know whats going on behind the scenes, or around the neighbourhood, but I feel like we're resting on our laurels, and topmudsites to keep things going. Suddenly I saw that Lusternia had dropped to Eighteen. Eighteen, the lowest I've EVER seen Lusternia on that chart. And don't get me wrong, I saw the other IRE games that have dipped on that chart as well. But what's going on? Eventru, please correct my perception here.
inb4 disagree flood
Equinox currently gets scuffles over stuff like "Ousted Guy from Org A goes to Org B; Org A fighters want to murder him but Org B says no." and "Org C is accusing Org B of hogging all the Domoths/ Villages/ Aetherbubbles and wants a bigger share."
It would require more than the current grumbling at eachother to actually break apart. Something like "Glomdoring enters into secret negotiations with Magnagora and gets caught." or "Celest tries to convince Gaudiguch to let Hallifax join Equinox." or something like that. Something big.
I guess I feel like I'm in Kiradawea's position (Although I am far too attached to Tau and the players of Glomdoring and the Basin at large to give up my character for a shot at Ephemeral). But I feel like there's just so little information out there, as compared to Keph/Illithoid, or Orclach, Or Trill, Or Furrikin and tae'dae. In fact, of all the races who have the potential for some the best and most meaningful Close-knit RP, I would say it ranks Illithoid and Kephera, and then Loboshigaru ( especially in the terms of blatant and open racism towards other races). I think it speaks volumes that there are a handful of designated "Packs" out there even, Llaewell, and Somnius come to mind. Sure, its not the most popular race, I'm just asking for a little love
Is it just preferable that I write this out for myself and try to publish it? B ecause I've been considering a history of it for quite some time. I (obviously?) don't know how this whole authoring thing works.
That said, it's not easy, involves a fair amount of back-and-forth with the admin, and instances of "No, we don't like that, think of something else". Like I said, not easy, but it is doable, if you're willing to put in the work (and said admin will try to give suggestions ideas etc to help it along).
That's something you should talk to your patron about (personal/guild/city), who will have to communicate with Estarra and it will be stressful and a lot of work but doable. Could be on a guild or, in your case, some kind of generalized history on loboshigaru (or a strong piece on their tendencies, nature, etc), particularly traits that are unique and stand out, but make sense. Example that comes to mind is some notes on aslaran I once came upon about them having a pictographic written language, because it was easier to communicate with (as much of the race has spent time enslaved by Crazen, and in the camps education wasn't a thing). Things like that are what would really make-or-break your chances of getting pushed along the path.
(I feel like there's something somewhere about loboshigaru packs being broken up by the Empire because of their tendency to feed on one another's blood lust and get really frenzied. Don't know where I read that though... Want to say Taint Wars or something? Don't know.)
Mugwump and Orclach are in a similar boat. Their only examples are undead and pretty obviously non-representative.
For a gold sink ideas,
Add into culture a line for charitable giving. The org that donates the most money to a specific npc, in a peaced room, gets a boost in culture and a mention in a politics post. Or something like that, basically a competitive org based gold sink.
Allow some sort of expensive player driven, with appropriate approvals, statue/tower/room or something like that to be added to cities or perhaps even a new zone just for things like that. Older players would throw down gobs of money to have a way to put their mark on the game.
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I agree that more of a focus on the game instead of minigames that have no impact on the game would be preferrable, as fun (and well designed/thought out) those minigames may be.
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That there is no conflict at all on prime that isn't hit-and-run, or other unfun ganking interactions, is entirely the fault of Avechna. The 'Free-PK' situation created on the upper planes as a result is also the least fun way of handling things as well, in my opinion. Combined with the lack of meaningful conflict, it erodes/eliminates the RP environment, as you are totally licensed to kill anyone on sight away from prime without any sort of reprisal built in. Then you just flee to the 100% safe zone that is the entire Prime Plane. That's an issue. I do think that a simplification/re-evaluation of the Avechna system would be well spent time, and much appreciated by the playerbase. Grace was already removed, that trend could stand to continue.
Many, if not all, orgs are set to auto power block novices when they join the org, but those novices are still able to draw dross power. They should be able to use it even if not unblocked yet.
More specifically, I'd be interested in suggestions on how to make existing conflict mechanics (raiding cosmic planes, ethereal planes, etc) more "effecting" and appealing without being over-burdensome. I don't know how many people remember, but once upon a time conflict quests were very high-effect (doing the Marilynth quest removed all the spectres from Spectre Isle until it was undone, Ladantine removed sands until he was killed, gorgogs did both plus drained 1000 power per city per tic), and players really got disheartened. The risks you've noted as more-or-less non-existent (nexus power, for example) are exceedingly demoralizing if they were destroyed.
I'm not sure where the careful balance there is.