Idea Fishing: Fun

Eleanor

Alright, so this is me making a thing on an impulse, but I think it will be interesting to see people's responses, and it might help out more than just me with the whole let's-enrich-the-Aetolia-experience.

What do you do to make your guild "fun"?

*If you are leader or secretary, you can answer from an administrative point of view
*If you are not, or you'd prefer to answer this way, you can answer from an individual point of view.
*If you don't currently make your guild fun, but you have ideas, post them as well.

Extra points:
What do you, individually, find "fun" anyway? When you sit down to enjoy Aetolia, what activity do you look for? (Expecting some answers PK, some answers RP, specific activities you really enjoy would be helpful for a general survey purpose)

...Damn it I've just done that thing where you use a word too much and it loses all meaning. Anyway, have at!

Toz

Oh man. I thought this was 'Idea Fun: Fishing' and I came to throw all my 'yes' es at this thread. I'd take fishing before Carnifex revamp, so long as it was done like Achaea's, and I'm not even sorry for it.

The biggest thing is activity. You, as a leader, are responsible for setting the feel of the guild, and that's something that WILL NOT get set without activity. I don't mean 'host a quiz' or 'say hi over GT when you log in'. I mean, go do something. The Carnifex do inspections, they call everyone to the Keep to yell at one person publicly, they do x, y, z. If you aren't dragging your guildmates to SOMETHING every few days, and constantly reinforcing that mental image you want to keep? The guild gets more quiet, there's less overall interaction, and it ends with people being disinterested in guild stuff. Atabahi group hunts were a good example - when I played Kog loads back in the day, there'd be hunts going out often, with 'grr wolf hunt' RP going on, that underscored the vicious, violent feel they were supposed to have. And disagreements were settled in the pit, so Kelliara'd pick random fights between two wolves (usually me and Aarbrok) then have the whole guild watch us beat the crap out of each other. Just small stuff like that goes a LONG way towards making people feel they're part of something real and living.

Back to the Carnifex. Inspections, duels, shouts, attacking villages, doing SOMETHING is what's responsible for making the guild as strong as it is. Days when Moirean isn't around to do stuff, there are other people who were impressed from a young (IG) age what the Carnifex are, and they can keep the ball rolling. It's important to make sure you can haul other people in, show them the vision you have, let them play out how their character exists within the confines of the guild. Carnifex also do a special (secret) thing for GR05, that doesn't get posted to forums/whatever - I'm sure people know what it is/have heard about it, but maybe not; the important thing is that it's something that lends itself heavily to the 'feel' of the guild. Make people feel like they're part of something, and they'll throw you back a story.

Slyphe

Toz said:

Oh man. I thought this was 'Idea Fun: Fishing' and I came to throw all my 'yes' es at this thread. I'd take fishing before Carnifex revamp

Aishia

You strike out at a huge freaking shark, slashing it with a mighty war trout, ripping it wide open.

You have scored a CRITICAL hit!

Damage done: 2083, cutting.

Spinning a mighty war trout deftly in your hands, you bring it about for another strike.

You strike out at a huge freaking shark, slashing it with a mighty war trout, ripping it wide open.

Damage done: 432, cutting.

Moirean

Warhounds will never be the same.

Slyphe

I know giving hints at skills hasn't really helped us much in the past, but I can't help but share the work we've come up with thus far. SavageFishing, by the way, is just a placeholder name to be replaced upon implementation - but you get the gist.

You can use the following SavageFishing attacks:

Fishing             Teach a man to fish, etc. etc. etc.

Slap                 Smack your foe silly with your trusty catch

MikeRowe        Narrate your deadliest catches with an irresistible voice

Rot                  A rotting fish is one capable of inflicting numerous ailments

FleshBait          Use the flesh of your slain enemies to make the best of baits

ArteryLine        Who needs a regular fishing line when your enemy's arteries do the job better?

Boomcatch       Stick an explosive in the body of water to catch all the fish you'll ever need

Cooking           Cook your catches over a blazing fire for a sufficient meal

TauntMount      Mount your fish on a plaque with a bit of soul to have it wiggle to life and spew insults

Cannonball       Utilize your beefy form to jump into a body of water, sending the fish to a waiting fisherman

Soulnet             Weave a net from stolen souls

Possess            Exactly like Dishonored - 'nuff said

Moirean

 

hax

Taelin

I can't like this enough. I seriously LOL'ed

I know giving hints at skills hasn't really helped us much in the past, but I can't help but share the work we've come up with thus far. SavageFishing, by the way, is just a placeholder name to be replaced upon implementation - but you get the gist.

You can use the following SavageFishing attacks:

Fishing             Teach a man to fish, etc. etc. etc.

Slap                 Smack your foe silly with your trusty catch

MikeRowe        Narrate your deadliest catches with an irresistible voice

Rot                  A rotting fish is one capable of inflicting numerous ailments

FleshBait          Use the flesh of your slain enemies to make the best of baits

ArteryLine        Who needs a regular fishing line when your enemy's arteries do the job better?

Boomcatch       Stick an explosive in the body of water to catch all the fish you'll ever need

Cooking           Cook your catches over a blazing fire for a sufficient meal

TauntMount      Mount your fish on a plaque with a bit of soul to have it wiggle to life and spew insults

Cannonball       Utilize your beefy form to jump into a body of water, sending the fish to a waiting fisherman

Soulnet             Weave a net from stolen souls

Possess            Exactly like Dishonored - 'nuff said

Moirean

This poor thread. Anyways, on topic...

As a leader, I try to do the following:

• Create opportunities. People want to get engaged and do stuff, preferably with others; that's why we're playing a multiplayer game. I try to create situations where a RP arc will be formed or people will develop long-term goals or whatever, something to create activity that people immediately feel directly involved in. For example, when Anfini was like yo, I did bad, I was like yep and built a prison, and then proceeded to send a line of people in to visit him, basically trying to churn up stories for all of them.
• Customize and personalize. I try to make an effort to remember details about individual members so I can find stuff for them to do that fits into their own interests and enhances their own story. There's something magic about feeling like the star of the story, and so I try to create moments for people where they (hopefully) feel like they are.
• Give rewards. Earning stuff is fun. I try to think up ways to reward people for their efforts, ranging from simple monetary stuff to favors to more creative/we're poor options like the new CHELP RECOGNITION stuff.
• Go with what members want. I have so many ideas that I toss out and not all of them stick. I kinda just skim over the ones that don't get interest or come back to them later and focus on the stuff people seem excited about, to keep momentum and activity high.
• Try to make stuff easy. One thing I've noticed as a player in other orgs is that if stuff is tedious and tiring it absolutely wrecks the fun, so I try to streamline things a lot and make things really open to what people want to do - as long as the overall goals and ideas carry through, the process is something I am happy to negotiate.
• Silence the bitching. This is something I've been working more on lately (probably seen my post in ICS or SHUNT), but us old people - especially the established ones - can really skew perception of the game for others. Mihaley actually wrote an interesting article about that years ago, about how dominant players can basically influence opinion, and ever since reading that I've tried to be more careful about how I come across with my attitude towards people/mechanics/game/admin/etc in general conversation. It's haaaard.
• Deal with the unfun stuff. This one isn't as fun, but at least in the past year for me, I've had to shoulder a lot more unfun things - babysitting/drama resolution, boring work, complaints, bitching, etc - to help make the overall experience more fun for my orgs. Ideally you shouldn't be doing this, since your own fun mat

Eleanor

Actually, I was after less 'how do I make my guild fun guys' and more, this sort of thing:

Someone in your guild comes up to you and says, "Let's do something fun!"

What do?

Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is, not so much the back-end and groundwork to make your guild enjoyable, but the instances and front-end things you do (or have done, or wish you could do) that make people go "Yee! Aetolia!"

Moirean

Ah. Hmm. I'm guessing that question is probably better for general members, to be honest, since I know it's hard to actually gauge if people are enjoying stuff, heh.

Still, I think the same answers apply, pretty much. Personalized stuff that makes people feel like the hero/villain (again, building Anfini that prison seemed to make him happy >_> ) tends to go over well, as do events/activities that kinda throw people together and encourage roleplay, especially if there are specific goals/plans to keep stuff moving along (eg if we have a ball, I tend to plan a few events to happen during the ball, otherwise stuff can get kinda awkward just "milling around").

Some stuff I have seen people have fun with:

- Village attacks/mini raids. Us Carnis randomly gang up and pick fights every now and then and people seem to enjoy that. We're a pretty militant/pk guild, though, so that sort of stuff appeals more to us.

- Storytelling contests. These are something people like these days after year 400 games, and some fun stuff comes out of that.

- Scavenger hunts. I do a version where I tell people to bring me back stuff that represents x guild ideal and then explain it, so I end up with a random pile of corpses or weird items. I like seeing the stuff people come up with.

- Quizzes. Avalon actually let players serve as quizmasters for the automated quiz thing as well as contribute prizes to a pot and that always saw tons of people. It'd be pretty awesome if we could host quizzes as mortals and I know I'd definitely toss in credits and stuff as prizes to a communal pot.

- A few times I've held things like special geography hunts or mystery solving where people have to explore and find clues or follow a trail or riddles or answer more detailed questions about rooms/areas. Those have seen smaller levels of interest but the people who were interested tended to be really into it.

- I've done silly twists on basic stuff, like making the Spirean Carnifex recite the guild oath one line at a time while drunk. Hiccuping meant you had to start over. Passing out meant you disqualified.

Areka

This is one of the things I struggle with. I'm good for bursts of activity and trying to get people involved, but I'm much more of an administrator than a true 'leader'. The things I love in roleplay (especially with a Knight guild) are things others whine about, even if they don't have to deal with it (I've been told I'll get contested if I have inspections, which makes me sad, or that I'm 'edging for trouble' if I try to uphold militaristic RP and actually have a consistency in people saluting -in a Knight guild-). 

Some of the things I've done in the past is take people out on excursions to villages (I've a list of room names with relevant description details) and start teaching things - how to climb a tree, how to sharpen wood and set up an abatatis. One of my favourite sessions was just the mundane "here's how you clean your armour, now you try, awesome have a credit." 

One of the tough parts is we're focused on 'protecting the weak and innocent' and the bashing aspects of 'let's go purge Mor' 'let's go free the Githani' and such is that there's no inkling of a difference left in the game, and it's an uphill battle because people, especially new people, seem to get burnt out really quickly once they realize that it'd coded that way and there isn't anything we can -actually- do other than pretend we've made a difference. 

Veovis

* Create multiple avenues for engagement and activity in the guild to reward multiple types of members for participating in the guild.

* Try to avoid privileging your favorite avenue of engagement over others.

* Appoint leaders who enjoy different activities than you do. 

* Try to be active and visible doing things. Don't just sit there and idle. Interact with your members. If 99% of the guild's low-level members have never seen the GM do anything more than AFK, that's a problem. 

* When I was a house head and later a GM, and then a Head of Novices, I'd try to take newbies out bashing, and introduce them to org roleplay along the way. If they showed interest in roleplay, great, otherwise we had a good time dueling, or bashing, or beetling while keeping emotes on the down low. 

* We would go raid the highways and try to lolPK any mortals we found. We didn't usually win (unless I happened to be able to defup summon Povox).

* We would have roleplayed rituals or roleplay involving investigating interesting Bloodborn lore aspects that the divine had started to reveal through say Geryon or Lucisa but then dropped. 

Irruel

Eleanor said:

Actually, I was after less 'how do I make my guild fun guys' and more, this sort of thing:

Someone in your guild comes up to you and says, "Let's do something fun!"

I rarely know how to answer that question.
I frequently ask it of myself.
All too often my answer is qq --> walkdowntothebeach/readabook/watchtv/turnonxbox

I find Aetolia difficult to stay focused on when my only playing time is off-peak.

Enjoyable things though? Anything involving the building of camaraderie. Guild RP is a tricky one, because not everyone enjoys the same level of roleplay. HOWEVER, everyone, even the most tacky of pkers, creates a vision of their character in their mind. They don't just join the Carnifex for the awesome PK skills (BB/Templar being a more serious example), but also because they're building a cool looking character in their minds.

So go out and kill mobs, talk trash at the enemy city's gates, or group-gank some poor bugger that just wants to kill a few eld in the fracture. Whatever you feel like. Include small amounts of RP and try to keep the conversation to says rather than web.

Ferrik

I'm very much personally interested in this topic. The very subject of this topic is pretty much the crux of Aetolia and bane of every person in leadership during tough times.

When I'm motivated and all in my Ferrik mode, ready to croc it up... all I would really do is, kind of walk around, frequent places and check out shops. (Author's note: Don't go shopping when you forget you're phased. Drama llamas frolicking abound!) Then kind of meander about and run into people. Or if I spy a guild or city novice, or even just any novice... I just trundle on in, see what they're doing. Usually I just clumsyFerrik it up or just wait for 'Dat awkward moment' and throw in the usual 'HELLO!'

I remember one instance a long time ago there was a Paladin Page bashing in Azdun - I was bored and had nothing better to do - so I follow this guy around (I'm so totes invisible amirite?) and started illusioning this whole story of the goblins rebelling on him because they had enough of him killing their kin. What followed was such simple, yet glorious an exchange of emotes and illusions that pretty much unfolded itself. Afterwards I got a message.. I still got it somewhere, ((Not sure who ya are, but that was a very well-written little illusion set there!)).

Despite never seeing the guy ever again and having similar one-off run-ins with people, I like to believe it's sometimes the little things that make the whole. It fills me with glee, especially when thinking them all to be entirely new to Aetolia, to have made a difference, to have made someone's day somehow. Whether or not I will ever see them again. (Which happens too many times dammit )

Point is, 'fun' is subjective. It's a dynamic thing that you cannot quite pinpoint. All it requires however, is a simple motivation, a small, simple idea and then you take it from there. Alternatively, just listen, watch and look what people are already doing... then just awkwardly insert yourself in there. But don't be overbearing, play the damn cliche stick, why not? If it gets the interaction and fun going.

That would be my two five euro cents. (THAT'S RIGHT! THAT'S MORE MONEY HERE. Lowest coin still made is five now! #betterthanyou)

Haven

When I used to do HoN/GM stuff, I'd run mini-events to get to know my guildmates. Like, I'd make up an NPC via illusions or whatever and a problem it has or something, then try to get other guild members to solve the issue or whatever. Or when I was in Severn's Order way back when I'd leave notes and puzzles in people's inventories that were in the congregation with missions for them to carry out to "prove their worth" so to speak.

If you're really tapped for ideas, you can always look up D&D quest lines from their books or whatever and see if you can figure out a way to incorporate it to your organization. I like to think of myself as a DM of sorts whenever I try to run an event as an org leader and for the most part, a lot of players seem to run with it in my experience. If it was something critical or perhaps stretching suspension of belief, I might ask a god or whatever to come help with stuff if I could grab their attention and they were free.

Edit: I also recall @Hadoryu doing something similar with the Paladins back in the day. Like frequent trips to the Vilimo Fields and using the area and its lore to stir activity in his guild and further his agenda (which may have also been under fire at the time iirc).

Angwe

Haven said:

...you can always look up D&D quest lines from their books or whatever and see if you can figure out a way to incorporate it to your organization....

Oh god, I've thought about trying to do this so many times. I've thought about contacting one of the Divine to see if one of Them has a spare, unused dungeon or something around that me and a few guildies can go into looking for something. Say one of us is getting a new artifact, customized. I've always thought it'd be fun to do a 'dungeon run' going in as a guild and 'finding' this artifact.

An idea that also kept running through my head while I was taking my break from Aet last. Contacting @Moirean and having us RP  her or the Carnifex having kidnapped or captured Angwe. Make a fractured news post or something with clues for them to follow towards the place I'm imprisoned. I never got around to it 'cause I thought it might be a bit tacky and/or could go horribly wrong.

PS: If the 'dungeon run' idea is feasible, PLEASE contact me about it! I still have... something... we could have Angwe find. Could be a fun mini-event.