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Class dispensing again
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That said, I do agree with the general idea of making the combat-necessary skills available generally and having guild-specific perks that allow the "neutral" guilds to maintain their RP. Sounds great to me.
From a PKer's point of view class is very important. We spend thousands of credits just to get the skills and specific artifacts for a specific class because we want to use that class. Being completely denied kills desire and interest in the game. It's like if you needed access to some RP ability but you could only get it from a group of players who only gave it out if you beat them all in a PK tournament. Obviously less extreme of an example than that since there's a valid RP behind keeping the skills close to the chest and not really vice versa, but just framing it so you can understand why some people are so put off by it and how they feel.
To you it might be "just another class" but to a PKer class is the most important thing in the game. Consider it like you only being able to use premotes then and not any custom emotes. Sure you can still RP and do fine but you're unable to do what you actually want to do.
I originally dismissed denying class as just people being unicorns for the sake of being unicorns. I can see now that there's RP and whatnot behind it, and while for me PK and mechanics will always >> RP I can understand for some people this isn't the case. You guys should try to consider seeing it from the other side of the coin too.
Agree with Elie there. Not the game for them anyway, if that's their attitude. If I hate games with guns, I'm not going to choose to go play Borderlands. If I'm not interested in RP but want PK, I'd go play WoW, not an RP MUD.
ETA: To clarify really quick, these are generic yous/yours not personal ones.
My take is that running an organisation puts a greater onus on you to make the gameplay experience fun for everyone, whether it is taking care of your org member needs, or engaging with the opposing side for responsible interaction. You come closer to being a facilitator of the game like the gods are, except you facilitate it from the point of view of a certain organisation.
That means a greater duty to the game and its players at large.
Basically, my response to PK and nothing else is @Erzsebet's sentiment.
I'm pretty sure there's three other MUDs by IRE with equatable combat systems. Doesn't Ach have three Syssin-esque guilds for all sides? Just want to PK, there you go, and you won't find all this RP nonsense gunking up the works. Aet's always been a highlight because of the RP quality.
@Toz
And I'm pretty damn confident Faerah's doing that. The people IN the Syssin, playing the guild and giving it a sincere go are enjoying it and having fun. I know she's breaking her back to keep things moving forward, improving, so on. The guild has come miles ahead from where it was at say... beginning of this year or so.
There are times this overlaps with engaging outside organizations, but in general, one's job is to make sure the players in -your- neck of the woods are having fun. Which is why some orgs try for treaties with guilds that have clauses re: class sharing.
Nonono, don't do that and try to change my point. That's not what I was claiming. I was commenting on people who ONLY PK, as indicated by how I preceded my post with "Basically, my response to PK and nothing else". PK should be giving consideration, catering, it IS apart of the game but as an extension and brother of RP. I'm saying the idea of housing down here, and solely focusing on PK, is dumb considering the nature of Aetolia and what it's been focused around, lauded for. If you don't RP and expect things with RP attributes on them to just be handed to you, effectively on an OOC standpoint from anyone else who's IC, then tough shit.
I'm not saying that people who prefer to -mostly- PK should gtfo, PK certainly has its place, as do those who choose to do it--but you yourself are an excellent example of the way it -should- be done.
You RP. You have a definable character who is reasonably fleshed out and has motives and reasons for doing everything that he does. Your PK is an extension of your RP, you don't just play because lolz let's murder people.
It's the latter mentality I'm suggesting should be completely disregarded as a player-type we need to cater to.
Are they that broken in pvp? Isn't that a bad thing?
Are the venoms that useful and Sentinels that terrible a class?
What's so valuable about a class, beyond that no one wants to give it out to apprentices.
Someone had pointed out at one point that using topguilds to judge interest in a class is reason enough to investigate the need to adjust their combat potential (Bloodborn being the goat in that example). Is that the case here? Shouldn't the goal of the divine be making the 'available' classes more interesting to keep and develop?
To add randomly, I've wanted to be a shapeshifter since forever. I hated the leadership of the bears (for whatever reason, as I can't remember who they even were now), and had obvious problems with the wolves no matter where my character took me. Now I have something completely unique to that frame of time, and I'm loving the hell out of this experience.
We have offered possible solutions in the past but it doesn't look like any takes for whatever reason. So the only advice I can think to give is just grit your teeth and bear it and focus on something else more fun in the mean time. Hopefully we'll see change but considering the history and stances we have now? I wouldn't hold my breath on this matter.
I think this is the closest this issue is going to get to a compromise, besides Moirean's suggestions which just have an icky feeling to me as I don't like the idea of it being that easy. Though, I think Moirean's suggestion will -have- to happen if something else isn't done or, as suggested, we'll start losing players. When it comes down to it, this is a business and multi-classing creates money which in a perfect world means more cool stuff for the players.
Note: I personally would like to find a good way to RP Mordocai into multi-classing as Syssin because I think they are awesome and I don't want to start another alt. So I may be biased.
1. Syssin vote on each applicant who wants class and they're usually unanimously denied.
2. We're not changing that.
3. Admin doesn't seem to want to change how class is handed out.
4. Is it fair to others? Maybe, maybe not but like I said in 1 it's what we vote for.
5. This thread is going no where.
Message #17059 Sent By: Oleis Received On: 1/03/2014/17:24
"If it makes you feel better, just checking your artifact list threatens to crash my mudlet."
Check the last page more specifically.
Here's the Carnifex, from GHELP POLICIES: I totally never even charge that silly gold amount. Half the time we give people a weapon, too, cuz we're derpy I guess. XD
Thusfar there's a 99% rate of people never asking again when presented with that arrangement.
If anyone thinks that all that matters is the enjoyment of them and theirs over literally everyone else in the game I dunno what to tell you. It is apparent that "yours" can be so narrowly defined that even your allies don't count because it feels good to be so exclusive you make Skull and Bones look positively open.
Though congratulations, the 'entitled classbabbies" argument/circlejerk are a perfect catalyst for me to reconsider my interest and continue to stay away from this game.
I wish Kelende and Certimene didn't require you to be completely classless before they'll induct you into a guild. That'd serve as a sufficient alternative I think to what we have now. It'd certainly return the status quo to what it was before the advent of multiclass.
I completely forgot about that thread/response.
@Oleis said: 'These current rules have weak points for the same reason that new rules will have weak points: some players are jerks. If your preferred solution to that problem is to remove player interaction from the necessary parts of playing Aetolia, then so be it.'
So just as an expression of my personal preference, couched in the same language used by Oleis: If people won't stop being jerks. I would like them to be told not to be jerks. It has worked for telling people to stop being so stringent with GR3, it should work just as well with telling people to stop being so stringent with multiclass. Then, if they won't stop being jerks, yes, as much as I would hate it, my vote is to remove player interaction from this part of Aetolia.
1. For quite awhile now, Aetolia has been on a trajectory leading it away from SRSBSNS requirements and time investment. On the whole, this seems to be a positive change, except when it leads to bad RP.
2a. Aetolia's RP/PK culture is schizophrenic. There's a small cohort that does both really well, and then there are a bunch of us who are really only interested in one side or the other. As it stands, if changes are introduced to improve one side of the game, inevitably the other side is going to get thrown out of balance, and the current discussion is a manifestation of that. If the game swung to cater to the RPers, they would be responsible for handing out class. If toward the PKers, multiclassing wins the day, and some people will feel their RP has been trashed because of the divergence from tradition.
2b. People place varying levels of importance on RP, and we can see this played out in some of the other IRE games (see also: Achaea). Aetolia is considered a RP-enforced game. Much of the RP quality far exceeds that of most of the other RPIs I've tried, and lots of us who are just interested in a good story flock here for exactly that reason. The PK culture throws a wrench in some of that, because there are people who ain't give a damn about our stories, and that's their right, as grating as that may feel to the rest of us.
3. It ain't free: IRE requires financial support. It's the responsibility of the administration to provide the playerbase with what it wants, and a lot of the game's big sinks enhance PK. This is just an educated guess on my part, but in my experience, I'd be willing to bet that a majority of Aetolia's revenue comes from people spending money on credits and artifacts that advance their PK ability.
4. Some people are jerks, but to be honest with you, I don't think that's the primary problem here. This game polices itself pretty well, on the whole.
---
I think the only way to cope with all of this is to figure out how to find balance in the game. As others have pointed out, the guild system in its current incarnation ain't gonna cut it. My recommendation would be either to implement special abilities and RP opportunities available exclusively to guild membership (although the cynic in me isn't convinced this won't create more problems down the road), or to untie (some?) classes from guilds and revamp guild structure so they function as collectives of individuals with like-minded ideologies and different spheres of influence in the game. I'm not sure how the latter would look -- the problem isn't simple, and the solution won't be either.
"The smell of dusty fur, sweet smoke, waiting and patience, a thing that time cannot kill. The moth that candles won't burn."
Message #17059 Sent By: Oleis Received On: 1/03/2014/17:24
"If it makes you feel better, just checking your artifact list threatens to crash my mudlet."
Win - Win for everyone.
Except those who want to hog their classes, but I dont really care what they think, because if admin wanted you to not give out class, they'd make the neutral classes tethered.