The month of January 2013

Grasa

Shall be interesting, the life of a rogue. So much for undying commitment to the ideals of a House, brought low because of capitalization of OOC knowledge. Such as it goes...

Nola

No.

That was at the merging of Sentaari and Daru comment, for those of you shaking your heads.

Not the whole update post.

Akaryuterra

Carniborn would be comprised of midgets and bearded women.

Haven

Macavity said:

the issue here, and a valid concern, is that the Guilds wont have to worry about something like this as they will still have access to the Isle, where Houses will not.  This could very well force a House to go under because as older characters tend to either create younger alts or just stop playing for whatever reason we still need the Novices that come in to help promote them up within the Houses so to keep the same standing.  This is a revolving door much like the Guilds.  

Except -rogue- Houses can still acquire novices. It's only been made slightly more difficult for them. They can even create fun/interesting role-play with other Houses of the Imperium in an effort to do so if they wanted. I don't believe this change would force a rogue House to go under unless the rogue House was already well on its way out. Some options off the top of my head: 

• Treaty. (Hey, I'll lend you my awesome PKers to any cause you want if you occasionally discretely direct a fresh nightstalker my way. | I'll pay you X gold for a voice in the Imperium for some nightstalkers. You know I'm good for it! | I won't expose your sympathy to the Paladins if you let my House rep blah blah blah | etc)
  
• Agent / Spy (Plant a House rep in the Imperium for the sole purpose of discrete recruiting / learning what the Imperium is up to at all times / etc.)

Some more practical methods of attaining novices could be:

• Advertisements. (The market channel, public or city posts [Maybe guild too if you got some pull with the Bloodborns. Dunno how that entirely works truthfully], etc)
  
• Reputation / Influence. (Dominate the city, be vocal about your House attributes, throw out player generated events, etc.)
• Word of Mouth.
• Recruiting from the other Houses. (Sounds like a great way for conflict and to generally promote/make your House stronger. Survival of the fittest baby!)

Erzsebet said:

"Then people realized the Imperium meant absolutely nothing" <-- then why are we basing an entirely new in-favour-of mechanic for the Imperium? The Imperium hasn't been relevant in in-game centuries. When it was a clan, the only House still formally a part of it when it was destroyed was D'baen, Bahir'an and on-and-off, mostly off with Nebre'seir. The only reason they stayed part of it later, was because that gave them voice in if there were to be new Houses made. That's literally the only reason Voltaire stayed. And I know Bouchard and Lunare had a similar mindset, at the time we were all forced into it. Why push un-earned relevance on an organization that has not only been destroyed once for its complete pointlessness, but also one that has done -nothing- in the time since then?

I'm fine with being a rogue house having consequences, but having that consequence be something that essentially undoes the ENTIRE REASON to not be a clan is complete and utter nonsense. The ONLY real differences between a House and a clan, are the ability to gain rank via housefavours, the ability to gain novices via the intro/kelende, showing up on (and worrying about) one's place on tophouses/majorminor status and using HT instead of CLT to talk to people.

Maybe the Admin are planning on introducing a point to the Imperium? Maybe high ranking members of the Imperium will get an uber artifact/perks like the Sect of Blades thing. Maybe they're going to do something with Emperor Abrash or however his name is spelt. In truth, the House/Imperium system has needed an overall for a long time and I'm glad that it's finally getting attention. I would look at this whole thing as an opportunity rather than a curse.

Eleanor

Akaryuterra said:

Carniborn would be comprised of midgets and bearded women.

So what'll have changed?

Kylan

I think merging would be a great way to go about this, if we looked at introducing new mechanics along the way.

How I'd see this working is that classes that share a core would be able to merge together and newbies would get a "Basic" class. When newbies advance, they get a choice of how to specialize.

So for an example:

Daru/Luminaries merge into a new guild when a newbie advances, they can choose a method to specialize. More along the lines of the traditional Luminary or a newDaru. As the Zealot class is one of the classes still up for revamp (Eventually) you could make them a weapon-based monk archetype using different weaponry to the "Luminary" archetype. It's a lot of work, but I think it's also beneficial as it merges a (currently) underperforming guild with a moderately strong guild.

You could also do something with the Lycanthropes so rather than the traditional guild structure, they have a pack-based structure which would be the means for newbies becoming a Lycanthrope.

I'm not sure how it'd work elsewhere, though. Bloodborn are merged into the houses/Imperium and it's a specialization of vampire like above?

I guess I'm kind of hoping that it's a bit more than pushing the delete button on the guilds in question.

Mastema

@Haven I think you are right that there is more than one way to gain novices. It is just a matter of thinking outside the box so to speak.

Kiyotan

Can we also dissolve Ezrax along with the two guilds?

Aldric

@Razmael would you mind providing any insight as to how you're deciding which guilds to nuke? Two in February means we'll have two more yet afterwards to get to your ideal count. I believe we've all got more faith in you guys than to assume you'd, as Kylan said, "just push the delete button," but there's clearly numerous ways this could end up playing out.

Ezalor

First lemme preface everything by saying: GO VOTE. We're only 19th or something right now! Aetolia has been moving in totally awesome directions, give them some love for it.

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I really do want the Imperium to become relevant again ICly and OOCly. And I've posted before somewhere that 4 Houses is probably the ideal number. And my House is the top Imperial House on TOPHOUSES so the Imperium gaining more relevance and lower activity Houses dissolving is awesome for me.

BUT I'll put aside my own gains and look at this objectively.

The Imperium was a great idea when Abhorash ran everything. Our vampires all had to fear his rule, rogue Houses were shat on all day, official Houses had to be run by his direct progeny only (hence the whole re-Embracing Kauller thing). The vampires were a consolidated empire ruled by one person so they were in a sense united and together.

Fast forward to now...not so much. There are Houses pledged to Spinesreach, Houses pledged to Bloodloch, and Houses pledged to wherever Ve'kahi did theirs. Abhorash has been gone forever, the only waking Prince/Emperor in recent (and by recent I guess I mean the last 6 years or so) times was Zoharim and he was kicked from everywhere when he did come back, some Houses hate each other, a lot of people have it in their character to abhor the Imperium. There are a lot of conflicting interests going on and vampires have become, rather than a unified empire, just a simple subrace really. Just as Atavians and Mhuns and Xorani have no ties together the same thing is happening with vampires.

Do I wish that all Consanguine would become an empire again? Hell yeah! I loved that part of vampire RP. When everyone had to respect Abhorash and all his progeny, when they were a united force. But that's far, FAR from the reality nowadays; over several years we've drifted to where we are now. And now to try to force that back abruptly, you'd need some really drastic measures. Giving the Imperium a monopoly in novices and such would work but how fair is it? Just yesterday Lunare withdrew from the Imperium because all the other Houses in it were fed up with what they were doing and imposed sanctions on them. Does this now give us the right to slowly (very slowly, considering they have the score of like every other House combined) kill them off? After all the violations that we cited were, in the end, still player-made and there were no mechanics in place to stop what they were doing. Not to mention Ve'kahi which has been anti-Imperium for forever.

To have the Imperium become what it was meant to be you'd have to have the admin step in with Abhorash and introduce a set of laws; allowing us to do it and change it ourselves raises the concern of clique type abuses. You'd have to have Abhorash/the Divine Advisory actually pay attention to the Imperium and enforce mechanics, solve injustices, make changes, etc. That makes it so it's a true third party running things and there are no biases involved. And then you'd have to find a way to make it so that everyone wants to join and abide by the Imperium. There are extremely blunt ways to do it such as giving the Imperium the power to dissolve Houses (lol), there are subtler ways such as the proposed method of giving the Imperium a novice monopoly. But even then that's pretty blunt.

It took many years for the Houses to reach the situation they are in now and I don't think an immediate solution is the right way to go about it. I think the best way to make the Imperium relevant again is slowly and subtly. Introduce totally cool new RP opportunities: stuff like Abhorash comes back, denounces non-Imperium Houses (but doesn't do anything about it), calls monthly meetings with Imperium members to do cool Consanguine stuff. Introduce new Emperors/Empresses. Imperial Houses get some RP artifacts or something; customized Enthrallment/Embrace messages, stuff like that. Non-Imperium members lose the right to wear their Blood rank, etc etc. Stuff that will make people go "Wow the Imperium sure is a jolly fun place! Maybe we should join them to get some of these sweet perks but if we like our own RP better we don't have to!" rather than "OH HOLY CRAP WE'RE GONNA DIE IF WE DON'T JOIN." Basically giving nice non-game-changing perks to Imperium members without taking anything away from those who want to abstain.

For the dissolving of Houses I'm not a huge fan of the proposed method. Every House has its upswings and downswings; D'baen was in the shitter for years and is just now finally looking up. Nebre'seir was near the top until just a month or two ago and then they plummeted down. These things ebb and flow and I don't think it's fair to punish the Houses who are unlucky enough to be having their bad times right now. Plus this way currently looks it would leave two Imperial Houses and two non-Imperial Houses, pretty much killing off any chance of making the Imperium relevant. You could have Abhorash force Houses to merge and come up with entirely new names but ehhh...that kills a lot of history and then there's still the issue of leadership structure etc. I can't really think of how the dissolving of Houses could be handled fairly but maybe someone else has a neat idea. 

Damonicus

Maybe it would be a bit more work, but how about allowing Hansel and Gretel access to speak over different gnt's that way, they novices at least know someone is listening and can answer. Sure they cannot promote, but let's face it most of us know half if not majority of every class one way or another and those that are guides can give some other useful information for guilds as long as they do not say, yeah hurry up and gquit cause this guild bites.

Nola

Hansel and Gretel are basic world info Guides, you'd need them to specialize and know each of the guild's different newbie beginning scrolls, and they're not actual members of the guild to begin with, which could just confuse new novices in a guild. If the newbies get stuck, the Newbie Channel is still available for them, thats the point of the Newbie channel.

Overall, its the guild's responsibility to take care of their own novices. 

Menelaus

You guys are all missing the point though, no matter what they code in, or what houses get dissolved or stay, nothing is going to change whatsoever. You fail to grasp the concept that MUDing in general has been on a steady decline for years. The new players the Admins want DO NOT exist. And people being lazy and malicious in most of the Imperium houses is NOT going to change.. you can't change how people act or think. Almost everyone I know IRL that got me into mudding has quit, and it will only get worse as they years go on. Why do you think all the legendary Vampires dont play no more? This just seems like a desperate act with no real forethought, imho.

Menelaus

Haven said:

I have to disagree with you. It's my understanding that Houses that are not aligned with the Imperium are considered 'rogue' Houses. A change like this will further establish that role and I think it's a role Houses like yours should embrace more fully rather than reject. An example of one of the many options you could take:

Make it your role-play to be better than the Imperium Houses, grow an ego (as a House image) based on your standing compared to the other Imperium Houses, stealconvert their novices, pull people into your realm of influence, etc.

Yeah well it just so happens the Non-Imperium Houses are the only NON useless houses where players have fun too... instead of being slaves to racist lazy idiots.

Menelaus

Haven said:

Macavity said:

the issue here, and a valid concern, is that the Guilds wont have to worry about something like this as they will still have access to the Isle, where Houses will not.  This could very well force a House to go under because as older characters tend to either create younger alts or just stop playing for whatever reason we still need the Novices that come in to help promote them up within the Houses so to keep the same standing.  This is a revolving door much like the Guilds.  

Except -rogue- Houses can still acquire novices. It's only been made slightly more difficult for them. They can even create fun/interesting role-play with other Houses of the Imperium in an effort to do so if they wanted. I don't believe this change would force a rogue House to go under unless the rogue House was already well on its way out. Some options off the top of my head: 

• Treaty. (Hey, I'll lend you my awesome PKers to any cause you want if you occasionally discretely direct a fresh nightstalker my way. | I'll pay you X gold for a voice in the Imperium for some nightstalkers. You know I'm good for it! | I won't expose your sympathy to the Paladins if you let my House rep blah blah blah | etc)
  
• Agent / Spy (Plant a House rep in the Imperium for the sole purpose of discrete recruiting / learning what the Imperium is up to at all times / etc.)

Some more practical methods of attaining novices could be:

• Advertisements. (The market channel, public or city posts [Maybe guild too if you got some pull with the Bloodborns. Dunno how that entirely works truthfully], etc)
  
• Reputation / Influence. (Dominate the city, be vocal about your House attributes, throw out player generated events, etc.)
• Word of Mouth.
• Recruiting from the other Houses. (Sounds like a great way for conflict and to generally promote/make your House stronger. Survival of the fittest baby!)

Erzsebet said:

"Then people realized the Imperium meant absolutely nothing" <-- then why are we basing an entirely new in-favour-of mechanic for the Imperium? The Imperium hasn't been relevant in in-game centuries. When it was a clan, the only House still formally a part of it when it was destroyed was D'baen, Bahir'an and on-and-off, mostly off with Nebre'seir. The only reason they stayed part of it later, was because that gave them voice in if there were to be new Houses made. That's literally the only reason Voltaire stayed. And I know Bouchard and Lunare had a similar mindset, at the time we were all forced into it. Why push un-earned relevance on an organization that has not only been destroyed once for its complete pointlessness, but also one that has done -nothing- in the time since then?

I'm fine with being a rogue house having consequences, but having that consequence be something that essentially undoes the ENTIRE REASON to not be a clan is complete and utter nonsense. The ONLY real differences between a House and a clan, are the ability to gain rank via housefavours, the ability to gain novices via the intro/kelende, showing up on (and worrying about) one's place on tophouses/majorminor status and using HT instead of CLT to talk to people.

Maybe the Admin are planning on introducing a point to the Imperium? Maybe high ranking members of the Imperium will get an uber artifact/perks like the Sect of Blades thing. Maybe they're going to do something with Emperor Abrash or however his name is spelt. In truth, the House/Imperium system has needed an overall for a long time and I'm glad that it's finally getting attention. I would look at this whole thing as an opportunity rather than a curse.

- In the long run, it will not matter too much, I don't think... People will join a useless house, see people don't help novices or even talk, and then when they do, they put new people down.. quit... and manually join another House. But it is still wrong to empower such a bad and useless thing as the Imperium... If you are going to allow House Merging, House dissolving, GUILD Dissolving ... Why not the Imperium? It is beyond useless... you could make a NEW System... just delete the Imperium, it is garbage.

Menelaus

Ezalor said:

First lemme preface everything by saying: GO VOTE.-
- I am on Aetolia literally 24/7 with the mudbot voter module to make voting as easy as typing vote... and I have triggers to auto vote based on the Vote config.

Menelaus

Also Racism and bullying should NOT be rewarded over progress and actual hard working active people. It is silly you are all arguing for such shit, when Lunare and Ve'kahi make the other Houses look like garbage because the other Houses do nothing and then whine like petulant children over ANY and EVERY thing without ever doing any thing worth while them selves.

Orisae

For the love of god, Menelaus, you're bleeding all over the forum.

I'm glad for all the hard work put into the game lately and I'm legit excited to see something that's been so stagnant for so long having some life breathed into it. Be interesting to see all the conflict that'll be stirred up as Consanguine get a kicking point for something solid. Some of the stuff is clearly out of comfort zones but I think that'll be good to keep things seeming fresh.

Menelaus

Orisae said:

For the love of god, Menelaus, you're bleeding all over the forum.

I'm glad for all the hard work put into the game lately and I'm legit excited to see something that's been so stagnant for so long having some life breathed into it. Be interesting to see all the conflict that'll be stirred up as Consanguine get a kicking point for something solid. Some of the stuff is clearly out of comfort zones but I think that'll be good to keep things seeming fresh.

I can't disagree with you dear, but as for being wounded, I am not being emo, but at the same time I am just standing up for my beliefs, and trying to bring some justice about, as most people underestimate how bad some of these issues are, especially with the decline of MUDDING... no one will even acknowledge that, when it is a fact... You can't gain newbies when they do not even exist in large numbers, no matter -what- you do. I think alienating the player-base Aetolia already has is Silly, just to gain a handful of novices.

Orisae

Don't invalidate me with a dear, thank you.

I think your extreme amount of posting is less a sharing of your opinion than vomiting it out on people's shoes. Also, more likely to get you ignored by the administration and other players. Please don't get the thread closed.

The way I see this, It's like having a spoonful of peanut butter. You don't have enough for two slices of bread but if you only use ONE slice of bread, you can have a small, full sandwich rather than one that's barely got anything on it. You may never get any more peanut butter then that, yes, but that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy the sandwich. It's called downsizing and it's actually a pretty good step if you don't want to chase people away because there's no one to listen to them.

Xavin

Orisae has a good point. Assuming new players do not exist (which is something I don't believe, personally) is it better to let several orgs stagnate knowing full well that we do not have the player-base for them to be healthy, or is it better to facilitate merging or elimination of orgs in a meaningful manner?

Personally, I am glad that they are thinking of eliminating guilds and houses in one way or another. People have been saying for years now that there are too many houses. And there are, to be quite blunt, far more houses than there should be. I would even go so far as to agree that there are likely too many guilds. I can think of more than a few that could be merged or eliminated in a meaningful way and in such a manner that the classes would still be available and I am certain that the admin are planning on doing this in a way that will not completely screw over players.

Eleanor

Pro Tip: You can do multiple quotes in one post.

Calipso

Menelaus said:

Haven said:

I have to disagree with you. It's my understanding that Houses that are not aligned with the Imperium are considered 'rogue' Houses. A change like this will further establish that role and I think it's a role Houses like yours should embrace more fully rather than reject. An example of one of the many options you could take:

Make it your role-play to be better than the Imperium Houses, grow an ego (as a House image) based on your standing compared to the other Imperium Houses, stealconvert their novices, pull people into your realm of influence, etc.

Yeah well it just so happens the Non-Imperium Houses are the only NON useless houses where players have fun too... instead of being slaves to racist lazy idiots.

I sense much rage in this one.

Damonicus

@Nola: You are right, it is the guilds responsibility to make sure, but a helpful hand should always be welcome esp for those guilds that have more people on afk than they do talking.

As for houses. Just log the history and get rid of all of them. Glorified clans with no real benefit. Start over fresh.  Make 4 new houses, 4 new Emps.  A house is just a last name. Scrolls can be written, rp can be made. Let it go already. The game is going to change over time, remember the past but quit living in it.

Ezalor

Racist lazy idiots because the Imperium didn't agree with what Lunare was doing? There's practically a decade of RP that UNDEAD Houses are supposed to be for the Undead. OOCly I really couldn't care less either way but the Consanguine have always been about being above the living, considering themselves superior beings to them, etc.

You don't agree with what the other Houses were doing, cool beans. You really want to get into mudslinging? How about the fact that Lunare blatantly metagamed their way into Teradrim power then bat guana all over every bit of history and RP that guild has by allowing living Lunare members into it. In case you didn't know the Teradrim were the first guild ever to pronounce themselves Undead only and they are considered the children of Ivoln who is, you know, the Patron Divine of everything Undead and all.

How about 4 different members of Lunare leading Spinesreach in the span of half a month? Passing the position around just to get themselves the Fame line.

How about swearing and insulting up and down the Imperium channel because we didn't want to just hand Viceroy over to them? Refusing to cooperate at all when we didn't do it.

How about bat guaning all over Divine decreed things too; remember that whole bit about Kallah and Akimoto being "forever bound" together and how "in testament to the realm of the Goddess Niuri, they have found true purpose in their unity?" Oh look, apparently forever means a month and a new spouse already.

Don't try to pretend they are the victims here. There are very good reasons that everyone else is sick and tired of their bat guana. And frankly the attitude that it's everyone else's fault and that we should just shut up and hand everything they want to them is extremely old now.

You know what I've been met with any time I've tried to do something or hold a discussion? Rampant swearing, insults, a refusal to cooperate at all unless they got their way. It's gotten to the point that I completely avoid Niuri's Congregation/Order despite it being the one I most wanted to join because it's just another Lunare stomping ground and every experience I've had in dealing with them has been thoroughly unpleasant. I feel this way and I don't even share any orgs with them.

Yet at the end of the day I've kept everything IC. But now I have to have this crap seep OOC too? Racist lazy idiots? Useless Houses? Really? Here's a tip: look past your own nose and realize that there are more people than just the ones on your side playing the game. Yeah maybe Lunare has gotten huge to the point that they can throw their weight around and dictate whatever they want in Spinesreach but that's not how it's going to be in other orgs. To insult and name call ICly AND OOCly because of not getting your own way is just utterly childish.

No matter how much that House infuriates me ICly I've kept it off OOC channels. I assume the players are all nice enough people who are just loud about conflicting viewpoints IC.

And oh look here, what a pleasant PM I just got:

----------------------------

From Menelaus:

Are you on crack? The other houses are fed up with them? Sanctions? You have no right to sanction some one better than you because your jealous of success and can't do it your self. Maybe if you pull your head out of your ass you would see new players don't want to be slaves and racistly forced into RP they didn't choose. You need to move on and get with the current day.

----------------------------

How about you grow up and realize your way isn't the only way. I wasn't even close to the one who started taking action against Lunare so I'm far from the only one fed up with how they act. But we're just lazy racist idiots with our heads up our butts cause we don't agree right? As I said I kept everything IC but if you want to come insult me for not agreeing with your views OOCly well screw you too buddy.

Daskalos

Menelaus said:

the decline of MUDDING... no one will even acknowledge that, when it is a fact...

Can you show me one report, survey, statistic, or otherwise that backs up your statement here, or are you simply spreading unsupported data. MkO launched just 3 years ago and is the second largest MUD in the IRE community. The problem with Aetolia is that the new player retention is low, and that's because of the very thing that Razmael is trying to address: no one helps the novices. We're too busy with our RP, too busy killing each other, working on our systems, to help a kid out. I'm guilty over it, everyone is.

Nuke all the houses if it'll help, I don't care about your elitist views on Consanguine. 'Undead Houses have existed for 10 years' isn't true. The undead as a subrace are a more recent thing, specifically when the Teradrim rolled out. Before that, yes, they were Vampire only because that was the only Undead. Undead watered down the Vampire hierarchy and snobbishness, not Houses taking in Living.

Please link your source for your MUD decline comment, because I'd be interested in reading it.

Xavin

Heck, undead houses are only called that because when houses were created vampires were the only real undead. Sure, there were the baser undead that vampires could create but undead as they currently exist weren't even an idea.

Kiyotan

Valid though your points may be (or not), we will remain civil. Clear?

Calipso

I actually think reshaping how the Undead/Vampiric Houses function as an organization with relation to the Imperian is a good move. I believe in Razmael's idea and think this could make for a very exciting and more efficient system.


Edit: Oh and concerning the Guilds. Please dont merge Indorani and Cabalists . I would be so sad to lose it.

Arbre

You said "racist lazy idiots".  Assuming you mean IC races (and I'm assuming you mean Yeleni here), that's actually kind of awesome.  Standing up against the endgame race that completely stands against the ideas of vampirism is good.  I want an organization that's racist against Grooks or something.  That's a subject that's barely been touched upon ICly.