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Communication: Oleis, Aetolia, and my hopes for the game
Alexina
the Haunted Soul
I wanted to respond to this post in a separate thread, because he raised an important point (and I did not really want to derail the rage thread any further): communication goes both ways. Before logging onto Achaea for the first time roughly ten years ago, I had mainly played diku-based muds (although both of them had quite a fair amount of original code), and eventually I came to Aetolia because it had the reputation of being the IRE mud with the highest quality roleplaying. I'm going to try to avoid talking about specific features in in this post and try to explain a few of the areas I think Aetolia could be better at.Oleis said:So I obviously can't let 24 rage posts go by without saying something. And I want to be clear that I'm not trying REFUTE anyone here. This certainly isn't a situation where I can say anyone is wrong about their feelings, though there are just a few factual inaccuracies we can touch. More than anything, though, I just want to express my thoughts in the same way you guys are, because I've been there.
I essentially joined the volunteer team in Imperian because I was tapped out. I applied for Celani 7 times, starting the month after I turned 18. They tend to do every 6 month calls, so that tells you just how long it took for me to finally be accepted. Like most IRE players, I took breaks, I sidehopped, I held leadership positions, I shirked leadership positions. And while I never felt (at the time) like Imperian was being dumbed down to accommodate newbies, I did feel like I had lost my magical connection to it. Nothing would ever compare to that first hour where Brandeis sent me a sonic portal and invited me into Kinsarmar. It was just beautiful and mind-boggling, despite being text. I was barely 14.
When I came to Aetolia the very first time, around the discovery of Albedos, there were lots of rough edges, in my opinion. Commands that were awkward for no reason, displays that were just many lines of text. You'll still find a lot of this on Achaea (though Tecton tends to make things EXTRA pretty when he does rework them). But even as an immortal volunteer, the game felt very alive. I could mpos a random mob and get some interaction. Trying to juggle three mobs in a game brand new to me while an airship crashed into a brand new place? My goodness. It was like swimming in an ocean of questions I couldn't answer, with only a couple weirdo floatation devices called Gods to fill me in between questions of their own. Mechanical changes didn't sour that feeling. The pace of development sure didn't get slower. It was glacial! I wrote 10 rooms of Delve while making lunch and we crashed the airship over dinner.
Our playerbases are fading. And I pluralize that not to represent 5 games' worth of people but to emphasize two separate worlds: our mortals and our volunteers. As I read this thread, I mentally starting ticking down the list of people who have grievances with the administration, justified in my mind or not. And naturally, most all of them were represented. But I had to realize that it wasn't necessarily their disgruntlement fueling this feeling. Maybe this feeling is the reason you're so easily disgruntled in the first place. Even in the Pools, we're fading. Tasks aren't getting completed, even the self-assigned ones. And I don't say that to criticize them by any means. They're great people. They've just lost their sparks, by and large, just like all of us. A little burst of motivation can mean a huge feature or area for many of them, and they're forces to be reckoned with. But more often than not, it's a steady blur of work, school, order stuff, sleep. Repeat until it's no longer fun.
Assigning this blame to making things easier for newbies is, just like me, getting the cause and effect backwards. We're not alienating experienced players in our efforts to bring in new ones. We're bringing in new players (or trying) because our existing ones feel alienated. And despite what your nostalgia may tell you, it's not just Aetolia. If anything, we're behind the curve. Achaea, Imperian, Lusternia, and Midkemia all had to give IRE at least three changes a week to make things more newbie-friendly for nearly a year, just like we did.
If you're looking for a thesis in this wall of text, I'm not sure you'll find one. I guess my point is to encourage you to try or take a break. Limbo is good for no one. If you log in just to idle, you're only doing your enjoyment of Aetolia a disservice. What do you get when you idle? OOC influence, lots of complaints, and very little fun. Enjoying this game takes active involvement, and boredom is more often than not going to bring frustration. I'm addressing my immortals, too. We obviously don't want anyone to leave this game. But we are certainly reaching a point where I, personally, need you all to tell us what you want. And many of you (including those in this thread) think you're doing that already, by saying "more events!" But telling an administration "more events!" is kind of like telling your doctor "back pain!" Do you need a massage, a chiropractor, new shoes, pain killers, or all of the above? Even worse is going into the doctor's office and saying "Painkillers!" Yeah, man, you may think that's the specific answer, but we can't always say yes.
I'll be your lumbar support, Aetolia. But communication goes both ways. If we're gonna talk more, you've gotta respond more. If you hear 'no', try to fight the urge to go BUT WHYYYY so we can both say "what can we do instead?" And if that doesn't seem worth it, then maybe it honestly is break time. There's no shame in stepping away in hopes of trying again some day. Been there, done that.
Comments
Overcoming obstacles with other people is one of the most fun and rewarding experiences in games and yet very few challenges in Aetolia require other players to achieve success. There are some honour mobs out there, but they are either tough enough that low health characters get killed in one attack or provide little reward to the group as a whole for killing it. In other muds, players receive more experience for killing a mob in a small group than if they did it alone (in Wheel of Time-mud, you will get reduced experience for hunting ungrouped past level 30). So. Just as a example: What if a set of 20-30 mobs were placed around the world that each were meant to be killed (or defended) in a group effort. When objectives were met, they would have a chance to be rewarded with relic pieces or schematics or whatever that guilds could use to unlock potential, minor bonuses for their members? If I was able to log on and ask people to go do things with me that were mutually beneficial, I'd probably interact a lot more with people than I do than when I'm hunting alone now. This might also help with things like guild cohesion and promoting a sense of belonging to your guild/house/city/order. Currently, there are few things (if any) that members of an organization can do together and actually benefit both as a team and as individuals.
Progression ceiling:
I wanted to touch on something @Daskalos mentioned in the rage thread as well: for some of us, there simply seems to be nothing else to do. Bashing has no tangible reward past a certain level (no health/mana/crits, and haven points just pile up). If I spend two hours logged on, I'll not have made any noticeable progression. If I spend two hundred hours playing Aetolia the next month, I'll not have made any noticeable progression. I might have levelled up, but again, that does nothing at this point. The Sect of Blade provided means for skilled combatants to advance in a quantifiable manner, but those of us not part of it can't really advance further at the moment. I've played a mud where progression in clan-like organizations depended both on time played, on quests completed, and on 'clan points' earned both through killing enemies, roleplaying, and PvE missions. Earning points and getting ranks makes me feel like investing time into the game, but only if progression actually is meaningful. Again, the Sect of Blade is a great example of something I'd participate in if it did not require me to script and code. Another example: Let's say city militia was reworked and advancement was based on how many city enemies you killed. Getting an assist would earn one point, getting a killing blow would earn you three points, and you could hand in the corpse of specific mobs for additional rewards (let's say there was a powerful captain of the guard type of mob in El'Jazira that citizens of Duiran or Enorian could hand in for a point). To advance to rank two, you would need fifteen points. To advance to rank three, you would need fifty points. And so on and so forth. The more time I spend doing things to progress my character, the more I will become invested in the game. These days, spending 75 hours to earn four haven points simply does not have the allure that it used to.
Player versus Environment:
I really miss some of the scripted challenges I encountered in other games: rooms with puzzles that has to be solved, enemies that can only be damaged in specific ways, labyrinths that has to be navigated in specific manners, and so on and so forth. You always found the best equipment at the end of these dungeons. The rewards when completing such quests were always the most tantalizing. Seeing a world-emote upon the completion of such an area was always thrilling. I know of two places like this in Aetolia (Ati and Scidve quests), and they're so obscure and difficult that I've been told that players who completed them in the past had Divine assistance. Spending weeks trying to figure out the right mob responses or find the right syntax to interact with a specific item or interacting with it at the right time of the day or the right day of the month might appeal to a select few people, but I think encounters could be designed to appeal to the masses while still providing a challenge (whether figuring out how to lure the boss away from his guards or which tiles need to be pressed and in which order). I -loved- the archeological digsite and the stormcaller crag areas because they created that mysterious feeling that made me -want- to spend hours and hours digging, hoping to uncover some special treasure that no one else had found. More stuff like this would be amazing (particularly if there -were- special treasures).
Just to make things a bit more clear, I genuinely don't think that Aetolia is a bad game or that the administration or the volunteers are doing a bad job. As was mentioned in the RAGE thread, I feel a bit disillusionised with the game, but many if its features are unique and significantly ahead of anything else I've seen in other games (muds, MMOs, RPGs, etc). I just wanted to try to put words to some of the things I've felt that this game is lacking, and I'm hoping it doesn't come across in an entitled or whiny manner, because that was not the intention at all.
Thank you.
P.S
If anyone else has anything to add to this topic, I'd be really interested in hearing about which aspects of the game you think are lacking and how you think they could be improved. I personally tried to avoid specific features (Dominion, houses, ylem) to focus on the game on a more general level, but that's mostly because I didn't want this post to end up even longer. Feel free to chime in with whatever you feel like.
P.P.S
I couldn't figure out how to make the quote actually really quote Oleis's post from the other thread, so... this is what you get.
The first thing that comes to mind though is a tiny bit more elbow room to run player-run organisations. I don't think practical requirements should be any more difficult than those outlined in the advancement thread, but - a little bit of In-Character interaction seems warranted, even if it's just asking for a meet-and-greet and to tell your Guild a little bit about yourself.
That or move voting and contesting one or two ranks up from GR3. (Putting it where you get GTS makes sense to me?)
Or both! Gives you something to strive for, and a reason to continue to move forward in your organisation. And having some requirement for In-Character interaction would solve some of the 'I feel like I'm playing a chatroom with level progression' syndrome.
To comment on the last post in the Rage thread: I don't think we as administrators should take an enforced stance on blanket enemying. That's just more of the kind of interference that many of you seem to be unhappy with. I know I personally feel like it's more damaging than beneficial to an organization. It's not uncommon for cities to get paranoid in the face of security concerns and cheat themselves out of opportunities.
I think this is another time that the playerbase is going to have to come together and decide. Maybe a summit of all four city leaders (IN-CHARACTER) is in order?
This is one of those things where if a playerbase policed itself we wouldn't be in this situation. I believe the blanket enemying was done after people rolled alts and used them as portal targets for raids. The players participating in the raid knew it was sketchy but did it anyway for the lulz, and when the alt was issued it promptly suicided.
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."
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."
Town Hall Meeting
-----------------
GMT Time: 2014/08/26 00:00:00
Your time: 2014/08/25 19:00:00
Information:
Aetolia's administration will be hosting a Town Hall meeting for you to ask questions and receive direct answers.
It was one of the first things I even mentioned as Vanguard, and it was met with absolute and overwhelming outcries. This perceived 'security threat' (when everyone complains that there is no conflict/good drama/action/whatever in the game anyway) is far more important than the RP opportunities, to the people with any ability to influence that vote.
The argument that not every bad guy is a dangerous bad guy, or even equally 'bad guy' isn't even going to be heard, and it'll be a case of pointing fingers and saying, "But they do it!" until everyone is blue in the face. Maybe when someone finally decides to take the first step and just -stop-, and start enemying people for their actions rather than affiliations. But, who knows? Like I've said a time or two, most raids are conducted by people who are already enemied. I had a hard enough time trying to pass 'Let's not enemy darkie newbies'.
This isn't meant in any way to troll this thread or start up a separate grr. Just.. I know that it's been tried, and until that mindset goes away, it won't be successful. But that would also require certain responsibility and measures taken in some cases by cities/guilds to sort of press an environment where raids aren't just done because somebody is bored.
Edit: As it stands, it is something I am pushing with the Council now, and 3/5 heralds are on board so far.
Again, you bring up the Moirean thing without any context and as a deflection. And if you'll read up a few lines, I said it was 'hard enough', not impossible. When you're arguing over 15 levels being the difference between newbie and not newbie, something is being made more difficult than it should be.
Sorry for the insertion, but I'd like to defend my integrity here at least a little bit. This will be my absolute last statement on the subject, because I'm not going to hijack Oleis' thread.
If a IC discussion was held and members of guilds from both sides meet in a neutral place with a "ooc" agreement to not pk at it, perhaps it would open doors to both sides whilst allowing for a sense of meaningful RP. All it requires is for everyone present to agree to following a set of rules:
1) No killing (Delve is a good spot for this as the guards remove you and Rp-wise it is neutral)
2) Making the summit focus on separate issues one at a time with a specific topic up for debate each meeting.
3)Adult attitudes towards the event, so limiting the summit to one representative from each guild or house.
I honestly do not understand this groupthink that certain parties have in our community. As naysaying does not advance storylines, only open debate and taking the first step makes changes.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
The town hall... good idea, but seeing what comes of it will be far more interesting. We've done these in the past, and promises have been made and forgotten about. In the end, it ends up feeling like a bandaid to 'quiet the masses'. Talk is cheap, actions speak much louder.
I honestly do believe you want to do great things, Oleis, but as you said, you've got a volunteer team who's exhausted - why are they still there then? Is it because nobody wants to train new celani? I've heard in the past concerns about cohesion, but it's a lot easier to remove a bad volunteer than it is to remove a bad player from an organization.
-
In my opinion, part of the issue with the fatigue is that you guys keep retreading the same players time and again. I know of at least 3 players who are on their third trip, or who have had three trips, into the pools. Each time they're energized for a month or two and then the old fatigue sets back in, leaving players in limbo as events and orders flounder.
One of the worst offenses I've seen is when gods get a playerbase excited, then just abandon the plot, or wrap it up hastily because they don't care anymore. I've seen it in multiple orders, cities, even guilds. We've had volunteers share registration info, break their NDA's, and they're welcomed back (admittedly, while retreads have existed under Razmael, most of this was under previous producers).
I've never been one to seriously flaunt the amount of money I've spent on Aetolia, because others have spent money too and $40 for someone might be worth more to them what my $400 was, however, I would say that @Alexina and I both have spent a considerable amount of money on Aetolia, and yet neither of us feel particularly inclined to play anymore. I have my own reasons, which I've alluded to some publicly and the rest you know privately. Alexina has hers. That's a problem. In the real world, losing big accounts costs people jobs. I'm not saying I'm a big account, by any means, nor am I saying you or Razmael should be fired. However, this also isn't a small tech startup, either, that should be accepting the losses of paying customers as simply fatigue or a player throwing a fit. @Rashar has spent more than me over the last 12 months, but that's because there has been literally nothing to spend money on. All I ever wanted to do was contribute in whatever way I can, but time and again, the message sent to me was I can spend all the money I want but my effort and time wasn't worth it.
In the Iron Realms chat a year ago, @Varian and @Sarapis said 'if someone wants to give us money and we're not giving them an outlet, we're doing something wrong'.
You're doing something wrong.
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."
The gist is that Lightside feels restricted to only light classes, while Darkside gets access to all because baddies have no qualms bending rules. Lightside feels restricted whether it's because of the divines' narrow view, or personal choice, or community pressure from other lighters.
I feel that instead of limiting the class choices of the darkside to assuage lightside, this should be something that is allowed to organically play out. In real life, the straight and narrow road is always harder to tread. It is easier to give in to temptation and easy power. We see this a bit in how Enorianites take up syssin class (note: syssin skills are peppered with shadow stuff, but because they receive the official label of being 'neutral', we see convictions being bent). Instead of artificially imposing restrictions, maybe the better way would be to open up options. There is room for a lot of storytelling here that goes wasted and untapped when mechanics are imposed.
By all means, if players impose on themselves uncompromising zealotry, let there be an organisation that does that. But at the same time, perhaps create an outlet and opportunity for those willing to bend their convictions. Whether it is a separate, more liberal lifer organisation, or a neutral organisation that doesn't really have an opinion on life/undeath. It doesn't even have to be a whole new org- even one Divine being that went 'to be honest, I don't care what skills you use as long as you push our agenda', and a mini-community would form around that, making it a viable option. In short, I think the problem was a lack of the option to play a lifer character that has a 'means to an end' mindset.
I think your problem is you, and you're going to get grumble face at me for saying this, look at RP as the things your character does and says. And while that's absolutely true, "RP" is also very much a 'thing'. And if you don't enjoy it for the writing and the emotes and the character progression or what have you.. and you've also bought all of the arties that you need? I wouldn't see the allure either, to be honest. Without actually sitting down to RP with someone, I'd feel very much like this game were a complex, multi-faceted chatroom. Nah.
We've spoken, and I know at least in part why your time has dwindled. I'm not making any assumptions here except that to say that the game has two halves to it, and you are definitely (and admittedly) not particularly interested in one of them.
I really don't think that a way to spend more money is in any way what is necessary to excite the (few) people who are talking about / have quit / might quit / probably will be back. I spent quite a bit of money all at once to acquire most of the artifacts I have now, so that I wouldn't have to nickel and dime it for the next however long I play. It didn't make me bored or want a reason to spend more.. Hell, I've been as excited as ever about this game up until a few days ago.
As for the skills = alignment thing, eh. That's a sort of generic way of looking at it. Just because the skills exist doesn't mean they are used, and it doesn't mean they were used in a way that is really 'evil', although obviously the definition of that word is loose around here. Just like there are people who have done great 'evil' with lifer skills.
Fun fact: Rash hasn't, since leaving Enorian, killed any 'good' mob or player except one for a specific IC reason and with warning. Told Moirean during Carni and Spines introduction that he wouldn't be slaughtering villages / innocents or move against Enorian (and hasn't). Maybe the ritual to pick up Indo was evil? I have to admit, when the first line said, "You've been in the guild for a while.." I kind of stopped reading the rest. Either way, he's just not done much of anything that would even get him looked at sideways by the 'lifers', except for joining orgs, but is still put in exactly the same category as Ezalor or Dexter or (insert unquestionably evil guy here?). I'm just using this as an example, and I don't want to throw anybody else's RP out there.
I can't say that I disagree with the rest of your post, though.
Honestly, the largest reason you didn't see more from me was because anytime I would try to work with the RP'ers, I was ostracized or ignored. I remember a rather insightful RP with @Lin in particular where we discussed the masks we all wore. That was the last time I RP'ed with Lin, and it wasn't for lack of trying, anytime I walked into a room with the 'RP' crowd, they would relocate. I was the plague, so don't say that I only played half the game. I played all facets of the game, from politics to hunting, from PK to RP, and on the last, I would say that RP is -everything- you do. Just because you choose to emote every time you do something does not make you a superior player, nor does it make my roleplay any less RP. It is simply my style.
The fact that I believe mechanics always trump 'rp' rubs many RP-only players the wrong way. If someone is going to act superior, be prepared to back it up mechanically, or face the consequences. @Zsadist figured it out, eventually. ( Hi, Zsa!)
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."
My point was that you've told me before you don't really enjoy sitting down to emote at people for extended periods of time. Obviously, there are exceptions here, and you've done it with me. Not saying you haven't. I was just trying to stress that not enjoying that particular aspect of the game could be a reason why you felt so jaded, at least in part. Who knows? Only you can say, man.
I know one thing, though. You need to quit being defensive and flip a 'U' turn on that frown. Turn it upside down and drop the grr face.
@Daskalos - your comments about log posting are entirely out of line. Many people who RP are already a insecure about the quality of their writing and we should be encouraging sharing and feedback and celebrating the amazing logs our community puts up, not shaming people for doing it. More logs are always a good thing. Not only do they serve as a great way to highlight RPers and orgs, they also serve as great advertisement for the game - Toz, for example, came here from Achaea partially because he read some logs and I know others have as well. /rant
And @Rashar, I hate how automated combat has become. It's part of what makes me so disenfranchised, because I don't want to have to spend the time to code an offense. I liked it much better when it was possible to fight using macros and aliases. I type in the 130wpm range and generally think fast on my feet. My issue with RP is I get bored or distracted waiting for the other person to respond. When you think about it in the time of the game, conversations take half a month sometimes when they could of taken much shorter. That's why I use says a lot of times, and simpler emotes, so that I stay engaged and don't go start playing xbox and forget I was logged in to Aetolia while waiting for a response.
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."
I have roleplayed with you, in my haven...Aren caught Aarbroks hair on fire, I know you are not this PK machine who does not have depth behind your character, does part of me wish that depth would show a bit more publicly...yes.
I remember back when I first started playing hearing Gepideth shouting about undead, his disgust was with the undead...it was well enough known, I was a vampire at the time, I was told it was gross I was disgusting. Then somewhere down the light it shifted, to this Praise the Light thing, and Age of Dawn, instead of just the undead being abominations, and vampires being unnatural and outside of creation....it turned into a crusade to purge everything that didnt see things the way Enorian saw it. I do not know what happened, perhaps I do not know for sure....this is how it looks from the outside, and I am saying this constructively when I think that you should not let this defeat you, there is so much more potential available.
I also want to chime in on the combat thing that people keep bringing up. I don't use an AI for monk. I use a series of 30-45 aliases or some crap and I don't have a limb damage tracker. I have monk combat memorized, if I use an AI it's mah brain. Granted, I do have an AI for templar, which I know needs some tweaks but I hardly use it because I can set up retri/brute retri and just call it a day half the time.
I will say this much, I'm glad to see so many people speak up as of late about issues with the game. Some of us, myself especially, may not have the wording to use to express that. I'm aware I come off as a whiner at times because of knee-jerk reactions and posts when I'm upset. I figured if I went through and pointed out the same things that Toz did that I'd just get told to shut up and stop whining.
I mean, hey. Do that, too. Somebody'll buy it. I could name 4 or 5 things right now that I'd buy out of hand if they were available (cough custom marriage line certificates, cough broadly customizable weapons so I can have a neat spear, cough a shop, cough a wagon I can drive around and be a a traveling vagrant, cough the ability to tap into a city's pylon without being a citizen in order to get benefits). But, I don't think it's going to fix any of the reasons people are jaded recently.
a pink heart-shaped ticket
>.> I think I have one of the very few in the game.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
*flutter Ishin*