What kind of community structure do you prefer?

Benedicto

This is really just going to be my opinion on the matter. I'm not saying do or die with my vote, but I'm always hesitant to click on the vaguer options for fear that it could be seen as not caring/do what you want.

When I joined the game, the city was a place of secondary enjoyment for me. It was a backdrop to the community and interaction that I experienced within the Sentaari at the time. Certainly, it was those people around me and the RP of the Sentaari that got me to stay.

I also really agree with Haven's summary that it feels like we have had to become more and more dependent on admin content/involvement because very little is left to player control. This adds a burden to the administrative pool as a whole because everything has to be done by them, whilst increasing frustration from org leaders/members who then have to wait on the admin in question to wade through their workload to then implement/discuss whatever the request is.

As has been voiced a couple of times, if you remove the guilds, you remove the opportunity for more niche RP and greater sense of individual identity. I've always felt that guilds have been massively underutilized/overlooked in RP/events. I understand that this might have been done in order to avoid a sense of favoritism or bias on the part of the admin (not that that sentiment doesn't exist in a much broader format). However, there has always been huge potential in furthering the lore and development of a guilds story through RP.

Instead everything is done on a much grander scale - realm wide/realm threatening events. To the point where, during the Chaos Lord events, many players were RPing the "Here we go again" stance, myself included. After a while, they just lose all meaning because how many times can you stare oblivion in the face without getting a little bit cynical about it?

Guild level involvement/events can be extremely minor on the crisis scale, but no less meaningful because of it. It also allows the smaller folks to step up and be a voice/feel involved or like they contributed, rather than the likes of the 'big names' always being leaders and everyone else falls into the 'collect stuff for this next disaster' category.

To summarize this waffle, because I've just blurted my thoughts into here, I feel that if you lose the smaller bases and niches for people, you will cause them to be lost within a larger structure that does nothing to really encourage or foster a sense of community or identity.

Zaila

To answer the initial question of "What do you like/dislike about the current guild/city structure":

I like that guilds are roleplay/community niches. Cities are larger orgnaizations and it can be hard to come into your own within them, especially if you are a newer/shier player. Cities and guilds tend to have a very different social structure as well. Cities / CTs are for more formal, professional, polite and political discourse whereas guilds are treated more like a friends/family relationship. Many guilds impress upon their members that "This guild is your top priority" and I feel like those guilds are the ones that keep members/activity the best as well.

The change that was made to tie guild membership to only one city has very negatively impacted the player experience. It has meant that, should my character not fit into any of the RP of any guilds in city A, I have to choose between having no guild, being in a guild he/she doesn't really mesh with, or completely uproot my character to move him/her to a new city - effectively wiping out all standing that my character had. And same issue if I like my guild but my city and I just aren't meshing. I've had to do this multiple times on several different characters and it's a huge pain every time.

I dislike having guild/class inexorably tied together. With multiclass, this is no longer necessary. Quite a few guilds have their lore/practices based around the skills of their primary class - but often that feels odd silly because the players in the guild often rarely use that class and they're in that guild for the RP niche/community it provides.

As such, if the basic "how to X with Y class" information for new players that is largely housed within GHELP files were disseminated into CHELP or that tether's applicable combat clan and instead of automatically shuffling newbies who choose a certain class into that class's guild when they graduate novicehood, give them the opportunity to choose their own guild upon graduation based on where their RP interests lie. They'll have the opportunity to see what guilds are populace and which are ghost towns and choose accordingly without getting dismayed by an unexpected void of interaction.

With this, you don't need to remove any guilds because there is no concern with a guild being low population and driving away novices. As Aishia pointed out, any time we remove guilds from the game, we lose people. It's a better option to reduce funneling new players into dead guilds without them knowing it than remove those opportunities for players.

Is this the "houses" system being mentioned before? I honestly have no idea as I have never played Achaea.

I am open to something new, but I voted this way because I don't think the provided suggestions are actually related to the problem that's being discussed.

Reducing the opportunities for player involvement by removing ministry positions seems like a bad idea. You're talking about removing opportunities for players to get involved in their city organizations reducing city positions from 16 to 5? That's hugely demotivating. If we want to make cities MORE important to the player experience, reducing the opportunities for involvement sounds like the opposite of what should be done.

Rasani

I think a simple solution would be going back to allowing cross-city guild membership. I remember that hit the Templar pretty hard, when that rule went into effect, and I'm certain other guilds suffered the same fate.

The biggest issue I see is, honestly, trying to keep people who have busted ass in their guild from feeling like it was all for nothing. We have positions and structures that can take ages to reach, only for it to suddenly be a name in a clan or an honorific title. I don't care so much about that, but I DO worry about how this would be swung via RP, which I think could make or break the decision admin make. In order for it to work, the reasoning in rp has to not spit in the face of everything that guild stands for, and right now I'm not sure I can see a way for that to happen organically.

Rhyot

Xenia said:

Oonagh said:

Honestly just releasing the reigns a bit would be really great, since I started playing it has been a consistent battle of having fences built that block access/conflict/player governing.

So much of this.

Here is a picture to illustrate what I mean:

Fuck your sandbox. And stop kicking my sandcastles!!

Haven

Imvra said:

...While they interrelate, they are separate problems...

I completely disagree. If you break the game down into its simplest form, it becomes readily apparent how that missing cog is directly causing all the other issues. It's one giant domino effect. We have literal years of evidence to support that... But it sounds like the team has already made a decision and isn't going to switch gears. Which is disappointing to say the least. And frustrating because we're making the same mistakes year after year.

Xenia said:

...
If that's the case, shove the guilds even more under the umbrella of the cities, take away their lore and class specific roles and create three new ones for each city, open to any class, and focus them towards realms of interest. This alone would alleviate the stagnation felt within guilds that are set up with abstract, lore specific roles, that require heavy reliance on admin to continually develop. ...

I agree with most of what you said until about here because that's essentially what the admin are proposing: consolidation of the player base. They're hoping for two things by pooling players into a central org (cities). The first being that player engagement would increase due to competition for power and the second being that they'd be able to better divide their time and attention without having to worry about every little niche which in turn feeds player engagement. That's my understanding of what's been said thus far.

The problem with this is that it doesn't solve the main issue in the long term and instead messes with a dynamic that's a minor issue at best and will likely frustrate and disenfranchise the older player base. Sure, in the short-term players compete for power while they settle into their new dynamics and sure, the admin might be able to better tend the smaller pool of orgs but eventually a status quo will develop. Without player agency being restored we're essentially back where we started with nothing having changed beyond the ever dwindling player base. We could have faith that maybe they develop something in the time that it takes for the status quo to settle but considering the roll out of mages and other content... As a long time player I don't have much faith.

Whereas with player agency (it doesn't have to be war but it's the easiest and sensible trope), the players tend to themselves and generate content that generates more content ad infinitum. It's self-sustainable. Police where necessary while combat gets fixed for PvP and PvE. When it's easily accessible and utilized by most if not all, the game essentially takes care of itself at that point. The admin can then be resigned to focusing on surprises and bonus content and other promotions as applicable.

Rasani

Haven said:

Imvra said:

...While they interrelate, they are separate problems...

I completely disagree. If you break the game down into its simplest form, it becomes readily apparent how that missing cog is directly causing all the other issues. It's one giant domino effect. We have literal years of evidence to support that... But it sounds like the team has already made a decision and isn't going to switch gears. Which is disappointing to say the least. And frustrating because we're making the same mistakes year after year.

Xenia said:

...
If that's the case, shove the guilds even more under the umbrella of the cities, take away their lore and class specific roles and create three new ones for each city, open to any class, and focus them towards realms of interest. This alone would alleviate the stagnation felt within guilds that are set up with abstract, lore specific roles, that require heavy reliance on admin to continually develop. ...

I agree with most of what you said until about here because that's essentially what the admin are proposing: consolidation of the player base. They're hoping for two things by pooling players into a central org (cities). The first being that player engagement would increase due to competition for power and the second being that they'd be able to better divide their time and attention without having to worry about every little niche which in turn feeds player engagement. That's my understanding of what's been said thus far.

The problem with this is that it doesn't solve the main issue in the long term and instead messes with a dynamic that's a minor issue at best and will likely frustrate and disenfranchise the older player base. Sure, in the short-term players compete for power while they settle into their new dynamics and sure, the admin might be able to better tend the smaller pool of orgs but eventually a status quo will develop. Without player agency being restored we're essentially back where we started with nothing having changed beyond the ever dwindling player base. We could have faith that maybe they develop something in the time that it takes for the status quo to settle but considering the roll out of mages and other content... As a long time player I don't have much faith.

Whereas with player agency (it doesn't have to be war but it's the easiest and sensible trope), the players tend to themselves and generate content that generates more content ad infinitum. It's self-sustainable. Police where necessary while combat gets fixed for PvP and PvE. When it's easily accessible and utilized by most if not all, the game essentially takes care of itself at that point. The admin can then be resigned to focusing on surprises and bonus content and other promotions as applicable.

While I agree player-run conflict is important, I think we've sort of proven we can't be trusted with a war system as it existed. You've got some folks on all sides that will use personal beefs to start raids, we had the ability to set stuff on fire taken from us, and when we last had a war system, people abused the shit out of it. I don't blame admin for taking their time to find a solution that isn't exploitable and, while I think it could be resolved by simply punishing people who DO abuse the system (like they do when folks find ways to get more gold than they should) I know why they don't want to: it's bad for business.

Moreover, to imply that we can't create conflict without a system is kind of silly. A while back, the Templar had a huge conflict with Chakrasul's order. No admin prompted that, just a few passive aggressive actions. People just need to be more creative about it.

I get what's being said, it's less about conflict storywise and people want more ways to beat each other up, and I get it. It's not what I come here for, but it's something plenty of my friends play the game for, so it's frustrating when there isn't more structured modes of combat. And, it would be good for noncoms, it would be GREAT to have a proper system that actually takes into consideration that some folks don't play to repel a raid for 4 hours, but I think it speaks poorly of us as a playerbase to imply that we CAN'T create conflict without a war or raid system.

Oonagh

Rasani said:

Haven said:

Imvra said:

...While they interrelate, they are separate problems...

I completely disagree. If you break the game down into its simplest form, it becomes readily apparent how that missing cog is directly causing all the other issues. It's one giant domino effect. We have literal years of evidence to support that... But it sounds like the team has already made a decision and isn't going to switch gears. Which is disappointing to say the least. And frustrating because we're making the same mistakes year after year.

Xenia said:

...
If that's the case, shove the guilds even more under the umbrella of the cities, take away their lore and class specific roles and create three new ones for each city, open to any class, and focus them towards realms of interest. This alone would alleviate the stagnation felt within guilds that are set up with abstract, lore specific roles, that require heavy reliance on admin to continually develop. ...

I agree with most of what you said until about here because that's essentially what the admin are proposing: consolidation of the player base. They're hoping for two things by pooling players into a central org (cities). The first being that player engagement would increase due to competition for power and the second being that they'd be able to better divide their time and attention without having to worry about every little niche which in turn feeds player engagement. That's my understanding of what's been said thus far.

The problem with this is that it doesn't solve the main issue in the long term and instead messes with a dynamic that's a minor issue at best and will likely frustrate and disenfranchise the older player base. Sure, in the short-term players compete for power while they settle into their new dynamics and sure, the admin might be able to better tend the smaller pool of orgs but eventually a status quo will develop. Without player agency being restored we're essentially back where we started with nothing having changed beyond the ever dwindling player base. We could have faith that maybe they develop something in the time that it takes for the status quo to settle but considering the roll out of mages and other content... As a long time player I don't have much faith.

Whereas with player agency (it doesn't have to be war but it's the easiest and sensible trope), the players tend to themselves and generate content that generates more content ad infinitum. It's self-sustainable. Police where necessary while combat gets fixed for PvP and PvE. When it's easily accessible and utilized by most if not all, the game essentially takes care of itself at that point. The admin can then be resigned to focusing on surprises and bonus content and other promotions as applicable.

While I agree player-run conflict is important, I think we've sort of proven we can't be trusted with a war system as it existed. You've got some folks on all sides that will use personal beefs to start raids, we had the ability to set stuff on fire taken from us, and when we last had a war system, people abused the unicorns out of it. I don't blame admin for taking their time to find a solution that isn't exploitable and, while I think it could be resolved by simply punishing people who DO abuse the system (like they do when folks find ways to get more gold than they should) I know why they don't want to: it's bad for business.

Moreover, to imply that we can't create conflict without a system is kind of silly. A while back, the Templar had a huge conflict with Chakrasul's order. No admin prompted that, just a few passive aggressive actions. People just need to be more creative about it.

I get what's being said, it's less about conflict storywise and people want more ways to beat each other up, and I get it. It's not what I come here for, but it's something plenty of my friends play the game for, so it's frustrating when there isn't more structured modes of combat. And, it would be good for noncoms, it would be GREAT to have a proper system that actually takes into consideration that some folks don't play to repel a raid for 4 hours, but I think it speaks poorly of us as a playerbase to imply that we CAN'T create conflict without a war or raid system.

We've proven that an administrative event-ran conflict system doesnt work.
If we have coded objectives/rules/outcomes - It would work, but we have had years of our conflict being governed by events centered around (Race/Religion/Roleplay)
Not an actual conflict system

Benedicto

I've just had a thought on how better to communicate my original thought. This may be because I've just got back from watching Avengers: Endgame.

The reason that Marvel did such a good job with those films is because they took the time to focus on the smaller details and the individual character arcs. These smaller details made the larger collusions so much more worthwhile and meaningful. Whilst DC lacked the same level of success because they didn't put in the groundwork and just smashed everyone together in the hopes that everyone's initial excitement would carry them through and ended up with a mediocre product as a result.

Xenia

In regards to a conflict system and such, it often sounds like the decisions against one are based on fear of losing one side of the game because competition and defeat is too hard for the players to handle. The instead to all this is a continual string of changes and redesigns to the aspects unrelated to the conflict system, i.e guilds, which results in the game becoming less of something the players control and more reliant on the admin.

To be clear, that's not a fun game.

Courene

I have played in all IRE games except Starmourn for about 16 years. I am all for consolidating guilds into houses so that all classes can join a house based on an RP/Lore/Ideal. I did notice that when they did this in Achaea, if you were in a house and didn't have a high enough house rank to enter the househall and get to the house tutor, and you learned beyond the rank a city tutor could teach you, you were at the mercy of others that had your class and could teach you and had the time to teach, which in my personal experience could be a huge setback and created frustration when that class has low numbers. Which could cause issues for novices, finding people to teach or help them. In Lusternia, it's a bit of a mess honestly. I haven't had much experience in there but the player base seems rather low and even those in leadership seem to be lacking, so progression and or help with a class can be a bit hard to come by. I know that here we have tutors that don't have limits so I think because of that, it will work better here. In Imperian, a lot of guilds are dying. I personally believe it had to do with the God's dying in that game, people lost the will to play after that, their Rp was so linked to their God that it was hard for some to continue playing or adjust. I trust the Admins here could learn what worked and what didn't work in the house revamp from Achaea and Lusternia and make the entire house system work even better for us. I suggest we keep it to two major cities per aether, and create houses accepting any class on that side, two houses per city with ideals that give them that niche feeling, like those, want to focus more on combat, or hunting, or some other stuff that will unite that small group to one ideal but still have it tied in to the city as a whole. Also I like the idea of being able to have a class but having the option of joining a House, but not required, that your loyalty was to the city and that the house helped you develop and understand your class in the niche you wish to focus on, aka combat or hunting or religion and helped you connect with like-minded people who could support you and help, and create meaningful RP. The two houses working together not in competition but in cooperation, using their different ideals to make the city even better. I may have went on a tangent but that's just my thoughts on the entire matter with the experiences I have had in IRE games.

Mjoll

The Carnifex is having a bit of a renaissance after the city/guild tether locking absolutely gutted it of players. It's taken a lot of work by several of us putting in a lot of time and effort (for reference my 5 week play average is 80 hours a week, and I don't idle bot - if I'm logged in, I am at most 5 minutes away letting my dogs out). We're growing in spite of the dozens of tells and DMs and messages I get asking if we accept Spirean members (to which I am forced to reply "No, the Gods do not allow it" and that makes me feel so dirty and sad), in spite of the people quitting because they don't want to be in BL, in spite of mass retirements from people who don't see a fun way through whatever they're getting into, and in spite of the jealousy felt on shadow side that the vampire org isn't restricted in the same way (They can join either city, be in a guild, house AND keep the Dominion)

The city/guild tether was and continues to be, the single most damaging thing to player enjoyment. Guilds are fantastic little story machines that, in my opinion, are underutilized, and (it feels like) about to get tossed to the wayside in favor of shoving a bunch of people, whose play styles may or may not mesh, together.

Benedicto

Mjoll said:

The Carnifex is having a bit of a renaissance after the city/guild tether locking absolutely gutted it of players. It's taken a lot of work by several of us putting in a lot of time and effort (for reference my 5 week play average is 80 hours a week, and I don't idle bot - if I'm logged in, I am at most 5 minutes away letting my dogs out). We're growing in spite of the dozens of tells and DMs and messages I get asking if we accept Spirean members (to which I am forced to reply "No, the Gods do not allow it" and that makes me feel so dirty and sad), in spite of the people quitting because they don't want to be in BL, in spite of mass retirements from people who don't see a fun way through whatever they're getting into, and in spite of the jealousy felt on shadow side that the vampire org isn't restricted in the same way (They can join either city, be in a guild, house AND keep the Dominion)

The city/guild tether was and continues to be, the single most damaging thing to player enjoyment. Guilds are fantastic little story machines that, in my opinion, are underutilized, and (it feels like) about to get tossed to the wayside in favor of shoving a bunch of people, whose play styles may or may not mesh, together.

SO MUCH AGREE. AGREE TIMES INFINITY.

Phoenecia

So. Having thought a little more, guilds don't have to go poof, but they do need tweaking.

Removing needing to have the class associated with the guild is a big one. 

I have multiple classes, but if I went to a guild that had a class I didn't have, I'd be forced to pick up that class in order to join the guild. No class slots or not mastered in the last class you picked up? Too bad. You have to drop one or master the last class. Neither are really appealing options and have pretty heavy costs.

Guilds also need to feel like you're actually doing stuff to further it's goals or reinforce their themes as opposed to just being a place to hang out with like-minded people. This can be done with something as simple as tasks or missions tailored to the themes of the guild, and palpable rewards for the guild and its members. 

The best example of this I can think of are the patrol missions the Templars have. Every so often, they can mechanically patrol an area. Sometimes there's nothing. Sometimes there's bandits to dispatch. Completing this task gets automatically noted in the guild logs. This? It seems like nothing, but it reinforces guild RP, and makes you feel like you're doing something.

Each guild ought to have something like this tailored to them. Shamans could do Dendara patrols and deal with abberrations or corruption. Sentinels can have missions to cull out of control animal populations, deal with poachers, or aid fellow hunters. Archivists? They could occasionally discover random artifacts and research them, and have them spew out a randomly generated blurb on what the artifact is. Syssin? NPC assassinations or shakedowns, or retrieving hidden documents. 

That already makes you feel like you're contributing to the overall story of not only the guild, but also potentially the city as well.

Oonagh

Phoenecia said:

So. Having thought a little more, guilds don't have to go poof, but they do need tweaking.

Removing needing to have the class associated with the guild is a big one. 

I have multiple classes, but if I went to a guild that had a class I didn't have, I'd be forced to pick up that class in order to join the guild. No class slots or not mastered in the last class you picked up? Too bad. You have to drop one or master the last class. Neither are really appealing options and have pretty heavy costs.

Guilds also need to feel like you're actually doing stuff to further it's goals or reinforce their themes as opposed to just being a place to hang out with like-minded people. This can be done with something as simple as tasks or missions tailored to the themes of the guild, and palpable rewards for the guild and its members. 

The best example of this I can think of are the patrol missions the Templars have. Every so often, they can mechanically patrol an area. Sometimes there's nothing. Sometimes there's bandits to dispatch. Completing this task gets automatically noted in the guild logs. This? It seems like nothing, but it reinforces guild RP, and makes you feel like you're doing something.

Each guild ought to have something like this tailored to them. Shamans could do Dendara patrols and deal with abberrations or corruption. Sentinels can have missions to cull out of control animal populations, deal with poachers, or aid fellow hunters. Archivists? They could occasionally discover random artifacts and research them, and have them spew out a randomly generated blurb on what the artifact is. Syssin? NPC assassinations or shakedowns, or retrieving hidden documents. 

That already makes you feel like you're contributing to the overall story of not only the guild, but also potentially the city as well.

I would also like to expand on this if the response is going to be anything along the grounds of the OrgReq system has been implemented for these sorts of things.
I have had an approved OrgReq to literally open up my guildhall by making an open exit to the City for 2 years.

Its not an effective system.

While I understand it is based on the availability from Volunteers, you see certain Orgs get a bunch of stuff done, and others sit waiting.
So those who don't get the volunteer/administrative attention have to just wait until someone cares enough to help their guild progress on a plan or player driven goal.

Aloli

I voted this way, to keep the guild structure as it is, for a specific reason even though I very much wish to see changes to the way guilds interact with cities.

One of the more critical things Imvra's conversation shows is the large gap between what the RP admins envision and what the players have done to their organizations (without Patron supervision or support). I think the Patrons involvement can help close this gap and keep the orgs going in the right direction, so we don't end up where we are now.

The Sentaari are probably the most obvious example of this because while the core message has always been there (mind/body/spirit) the delivery of it has morphed so over the years and we were definitely on our way to becoming some strange zen monk variation that was entirely removed from the game and its conflicts. It left me a little lost when I became GM and had to sit with the admins to get some direction, and I just added personal touches.

We lost a lot of people due to cliques and unreasonable witch hunts, and I think this is where you can create new solutions.

All the cities have had the guilds come in three supportive positions which fit well together, that being something like the brains and brawns of an operation that their city stands for. If you can better identify those three (as Aishia said earlier), it would help bring both guild and city together behind one cause.

To help some of the confusion and upheaval in Duiran and bring some stability, I sat down with the other two GMs and proposed a 'cross-guild' training system in city and it seemed to foster some respect and understanding in each guild for the other two but also when done it would involve the city in guild affairs because then a citizen who underwent the training of all three and learned all three guilds, the guilds and city would honor them - it would be a city celebration of their unity and readiness to stand behind it and its cause or mission.

So, my unpopular opinion on this will be that if you've created a good mesh between all three guilds and a unified mission for the city where the guilds are good weapons in its belt, citizens should be locked to the city and its guild to inspire greater immersion.

Haven

Rasani said:

I get what's being said, it's less about conflict storywise and people want more ways to beat each other up, and I get it. It's not what I come here for, but it's something plenty of my friends play the game for, so it's frustrating when there isn't more structured modes of combat. And, it would be good for noncoms, it would be GREAT to have a proper system that actually takes into consideration that some folks don't play to repel a raid for 4 hours, but I think it speaks poorly of us as a playerbase to imply that we CAN'T create conflict without a war or raid system.

If that's your take away then you clearly don't get what I'm saying.

Phoenecia said:

So. Having thought a little more, guilds don't have to go poof, but they do need tweaking.

Removing needing to have the class associated with the guild is a big one. 

I have multiple classes, but if I went to a guild that had a class I didn't have, I'd be forced to pick up that class in order to join the guild. No class slots or not mastered in the last class you picked up? Too bad. You have to drop one or master the last class. Neither are really appealing options and have pretty heavy costs.

Guilds also need to feel like you're actually doing stuff to further it's goals or reinforce their themes as opposed to just being a place to hang out with like-minded people. This can be done with something as simple as tasks or missions tailored to the themes of the guild, and palpable rewards for the guild and its members. 

The best example of this I can think of are the patrol missions the Templars have. Every so often, they can mechanically patrol an area. Sometimes there's nothing. Sometimes there's bandits to dispatch. Completing this task gets automatically noted in the guild logs. This? It seems like nothing, but it reinforces guild RP, and makes you feel like you're doing something.

Each guild ought to have something like this tailored to them. Shamans could do Dendara patrols and deal with abberrations or corruption. Sentinels can have missions to cull out of control animal populations, deal with poachers, or aid fellow hunters. Archivists? They could occasionally discover random artifacts and research them, and have them spew out a randomly generated blurb on what the artifact is. Syssin? NPC assassinations or shakedowns, or retrieving hidden documents. 

That already makes you feel like you're contributing to the overall story of not only the guild, but also potentially the city as well.

@Rasani See? Player agency. Not necessarily war. War is just an easy and reliable option to apply on a mass scale. Substitute what @Phoenecia said for guild with city or tether and the same principle applies.

Aloli

Mjoll said:

The Carnifex is having a bit of a renaissance after the city/guild tether locking absolutely gutted it of players. It's taken a lot of work by several of us putting in a lot of time and effort (for reference my 5 week play average is 80 hours a week, and I don't idle bot - if I'm logged in, I am at most 5 minutes away letting my dogs out). We're growing in spite of the dozens of tells and DMs and messages I get asking if we accept Spirean members (to which I am forced to reply "No, the Gods do not allow it" and that makes me feel so dirty and sad), in spite of the people quitting because they don't want to be in BL, in spite of mass retirements from people who don't see a fun way through whatever they're getting into, and in spite of the jealousy felt on shadow side that the vampire org isn't restricted in the same way (They can join either city, be in a guild, house AND keep the Dominion)

The city/guild tether was and continues to be, the single most damaging thing to player enjoyment. Guilds are fantastic little story machines that, in my opinion, are underutilized, and (it feels like) about to get tossed to the wayside in favor of shoving a bunch of people, whose play styles may or may not mesh, together.

I can't agree more!!

It has taken me SO much time to fix the Sentaari from the ground up and that's just the foundation work...second and third phases aren't even there yet! And getting them back out there with a firm voice in the world that's actually making a presence again and involved the world is the second phase (and that's besides fighting and supporting Duiran/Dendara) like opening the monastery to host lectures, involving Santi and Asura in random RP, protecting their brothers and sisters in the Grand Library ...so much potential.


To be deleted?

Tiur

Regardless of the org style outcome, we are wanting to put in something like the Templar patrols in for every guild. You have solid agreement from the Pools that little quests and idle things like that are a definite boon.

I definitely disagree with the idea that conflict systems are some silver bullet. They have high value, no doubt, that's why we were willing to test a new one, and have some plans for using it... but they just create some new problems. I want to address org membership, attention, and identity before that.

Teani

I agree with a lot of things that have already been mentioned, but for the sake of ensuring that a few of those things are further high-lighted, here goes:

- city/guild tethering was incredibly damaging. I can understand the wish to put more focus on unity within each city, but it has caused issues, especially for players with some background (loyalty aspects, and history with certain aspects of various organizations).

- I like that there are guilds, because it allows for niches. However, it is important that said guilds are provided with a solid foundation to stand on, based on lore, for example a mission that is theirs, and not necessarily tied to a specific class. As Phoenecia mentioned, small quests tied to the guild would be great. It has been suggested before, and would be a great addition.

- Concerning city-centric focus: If each guild within each city has their own purpose it becomes easier for cities to set up some form of cooperative tasks, where representatives from all guilds help out to improve the whole, which would be the city. That still leaves things city-centric, but you maintain the niches.
* If you cannot find three specific niches for a city, then cut the number down to two. We have multiclass, so I don't think it harms the game if there is an imbalance in the number of organizations residing within a specific city. It is mostly a matter of number of people. If the city itself has a solid foundation, and the guilds have a good connection to it, the numbers will even out anyway.


---
On a separate note, but connected to the topic of making changes in general: please make sure you communicate (before if possible, but definitely after) and follow up changes to ensure people are on board and back on track after the upset. Redesigns and changes to organizations are matters that put added stress on players in positions of responsibility.

Now, you might say it comes with the territory, but that is not quite fair. As Mjoll mentioned, building up a guild (or any organization, really) takes -a lot- of energy and time. If someone comes in with a change that takes all that effort and throws it out the window, it will not just burn a little. Some changes might be necessary, but then it is important to communicate the "why" in a proper way, help build up lore to support the changes, and double/triple check so that it doesn't have a ripple effect that upsets other organizations.

It would also be good to set up a protocol for a few check-ins after to help stabilize matters. Again, I understand the need for secrecy when it comes to surprising events, but still, communication is pretty much key in order to not cause huge backlashes, like emptying a whole guild of people, making people feel like they have wasted all their time and effort over an extended period of time, or causing players to retire.

Phoenecia

To add onto the whole guild missions thing that seems to be popular, if you want to make guilds still be relevant to cities and feel like they're contributing to the city, you can also tie said guild missions to the city where completing them also conveys some sort of boon to the city. For example, if the Templars conduct x number of patrols, it might grant some kind of minor reward to Enorian or activate a new set of area emotes (Ex. 'You overhear a group of passersby talking about the bandit raid the Templars recently thwarted, gushing about their favorite knights).

Little things like that kind of enhance the world and kind of make it feel like you're making a difference. You want people to care about being members of guilds/cities? Make them care by making them feel like they're doing something. NPCs love/fear them, or make it look like you're getting some kind of fame.

Rijetta

Rasani said:

Moreover, to imply that we can't create conflict without a system is kind of silly. A while back, the Templar had a huge conflict with Chakrasul's order. No admin prompted that, just a few passive aggressive actions. People just need to be more creative about it.

I have to strongly disagree here. While I have yet to gather my thoughts, vote, and post, I distinctly remember this conflict: it fizzled out because there was no way to resolve the conflict between the Order and the Templar without hurt feelings and issuable PK - and members of both turned to Chakrasul to try and get a quick-hack system of conflict made. I very, very, very specifically remember that. If there was a conflict resolution system usable between orgs, it could have simply been used, rather than, again, turning to rely on admin intervention to get anything done.

That's not to say you weren't or shouldn't have been satisfied with the conflict as it was - but I would have liked to see some heads fly and some numbers on a scoreboard, a little bit of gloating by the winning side, and maybe even a public post about a piece of history that players created all by themselves. The War of Bladefire and Corruption or something.

Oonagh

Honestly the system that was put in place for us as players to use is not working because it cant be effectively managed on the back end per the workload that is needed to uphold it.

So remove the system. Remove the locks.
Let the players govern their organizations and have their patrons step in when needed.
Not everytime someone has a disagreement.

Allocate a couple volunteers per each City to handle the workload and requests.

Stop beginning projects that do not have a well drawn out resolution.
(I still have thirty Mhun orphans in my guildhall, I guess im a father?)

Finish a plot before starting another... I dont know how many of those are going on.
And gods above please no more race wars... no one likes that filler content.

Iazamat

Oonagh said:

So remove the system. Remove the locks.
Let the players govern their organizations and have their patrons step in when needed.
Not everytime someone has a disagreement.

Stop beginning projects that do not have a well drawn out resolution.
(I still have thirty Mhun orphans in my guildhall, I guess im a father?)

Finish a plot before starting another... I dont know how many of those are going on.
And gods above please no more race wars... no one likes that filler content.

I wish I could give a hundred more agrees to this post, but in particular these points.

Xenia

If any change was made, I'd also much prefer a revision on the guild/city one and then see whatever backlog of things was still there to be completed rather than getting some other rework and jarring change to how everything works, especially if this rework is now going to extend to city government.

Imvra

Thank you all for your invaluable input! I know this is a hot-button issue and there are a lot of things in in the past to learn from. I'm going to take some time and really work out a reply for all of this, but I wanted first to express my appreciation. The top-down and bottom-up views can be wildly different, and trying to find a middle point between them is an exhausting but necessary endeavor. We want to do right by you, and right by the game moving forward. We want you to have your niche and agency, and we want organizations to be healthy and still fit within their role in the larger story that is Aetolia with the quality it deserves, rather than the perpetual cycle of bandaids to compensate when we are stretched too thin.

Tenshyo

Mjoll said:

The Carnifex is having a bit of a renaissance after the city/guild tether locking absolutely gutted it of players. It's taken a lot of work by several of us putting in a lot of time and effort (for reference my 5 week play average is 80 hours a week, and I don't idle bot - if I'm logged in, I am at most 5 minutes away letting my dogs out). We're growing in spite of the dozens of tells and DMs and messages I get asking if we accept Spirean members (to which I am forced to reply "No, the Gods do not allow it" and that makes me feel so dirty and sad), in spite of the people quitting because they don't want to be in BL, in spite of mass retirements from people who don't see a fun way through whatever they're getting into, and in spite of the jealousy felt on shadow side that the vampire org isn't restricted in the same way (They can join either city, be in a guild, house AND keep the Dominion)

The city/guild tether was and continues to be, the single most damaging thing to player enjoyment. Guilds are fantastic little story machines that, in my opinion, are underutilized, and (it feels like) about to get tossed to the wayside in favor of shoving a bunch of people, whose play styles may or may not mesh, together.

Absolutely. The hard handed "Nope, can't be opposite city of your guild because reasons" did a massive blow to the game. Carnifex, being prime example, taking the biggest hit. The Templar took a large hit, and the Illuminai have had people leave, not because they wanted to leave the guild, but they wanted their character in Duiran, so they had to make a choice they didn't and shouldn't have to make.

As per my vote: I'm entirely for keeping the guilds the way they are. As many folks have said prior to this, deleting/removing any more guilds (Let's face it, two guild hard deletes within a year and a half looks terrible no matter how you spin it. Difference being ONE had RP, the other was just "lol delete this"). While, sure, there are improvements to be made, and things that could be done better, I think guilds as a whole are doing fine. Some certainly could use a hand getting moving in the right direction, as several guilds seemingly have been started, given an entire too vague "Do this one thing, and yeah that's it" of a cardinal direction.

I saw a decent amount of people talking about how not a lot seems to be getting done, or at least waiting too long for any relevant point to continue - as far as guilds go. Perhaps it's a lack of time, or things being forgotten and over looked. -- Like with what Oonagh said, and somewhat echoing, I've had an ORGREQ sitting, approved and waiting further advanced for 6 months. Not even mentioning the Mhun the Illuminai have.

Which, as again many have said before, gets disheartening and the wind gets taken out of our sails.

Or when 6 guilds and 2 cities come COMPLETELY together to change something in their mutual RP: I'm talking directly about Birkhaen, where apparently now twice Spirit has come together to liberate it, and been given a hard no. Why? Juries still out on that, last I knew -- And there again, our sails get cut. No where to go.

Just my two sovereigns.

Rasani

Rijetta said:

Rasani said:

Moreover, to imply that we can't create conflict without a system is kind of silly. A while back, the Templar had a huge conflict with Chakrasul's order. No admin prompted that, just a few passive aggressive actions. People just need to be more creative about it.

I have to strongly disagree here. While I have yet to gather my thoughts, vote, and post, I distinctly remember this conflict: it fizzled out because there was no way to resolve the conflict between the Order and the Templar without hurt feelings and issuable PK - and members of both turned to Chakrasul to try and get a quick-hack system of conflict made. I very, very, very specifically remember that. If there was a conflict resolution system usable between orgs, it could have simply been used, rather than, again, turning to rely on admin intervention to get anything done.

That's not to say you weren't or shouldn't have been satisfied with the conflict as it was - but I would have liked to see some heads fly and some numbers on a scoreboard, a little bit of gloating by the winning side, and maybe even a public post about a piece of history that players created all by themselves. The War of Bladefire and Corruption or something.

From my understanding of the end of that event, I contribute it more to poor timing than much else. If we're thinking of the SAME conflict, there have been a couple, Templar had picked a fight while the Order was attempting to do a festival or something, which lead to some of the issues you're recalling. It was, by no means, a perfect conflict, but it absolutely was a conflict and was player driven. I think we can HAVE these things that you're talking about, it just requires planning.

But I get it, there's no real 'winner' to these conflicts, because nobody wants to agree to be the side that's defeated and, since there's no mechanic to decide one, it just spans on until it fizzles out.

Lexen

I want to get ideas down before reading through everyone else's opinions first, so forgive me if I rehash something that's already been said.

I'm not going to try to speculate on what the root cause of issues are, but I do want to throw out a few things that I feel would improve our orgs, and a few things that, in my opinion, will detract from them further.

1. The city-guild locked issue.
This has become the single most frustrating thing to have to deal with as an org leader. Locking players into a specific city because the guild they want to RP in is there forced any organic change because of unrest within the citizenry to start becoming non-existent. Even now, we're seeing players that are willing to step up and help within an org, and then something goes wrong in the other one and they're just gone.

When the split came, I left my guild because I wanted to stay with my city-- it didn't matter that I had JUST been appointed to leadership in another organization, and that I was one of the stronger leaders around at peak times. I'm willing to put in the work, and I tend to end up in leadership roles no matter where I go-- so what benefit did the game get by forcing me to abandon a guild that really needed the extra love to go to a city that I was already active in? I got to slog through all the base reqs for another guild and rebuild trust for half a year where I could have been helping a different guild with their issues.

The lock also effectively takes away any leverage that average citizens have within their organizations. If Benedicto does something that ticks Lexen off, and I start putting political pressure on him in the city to the point where he's going to get booted or leave, I'm effectively able to use all of the perks of being in a city against him, because he's very unlikely to leave his elected position in the Templar. Now, if I had to worry about my hard workers and active players ditching me and going to Duiran instead, I'm going to be a lot more careful about how I'm treating individuals. Even when the guilds were not locked into cities, there were still a lot of alignment going on. I don't remember seeing a significant number of players with one guild belonging to the city they weren't housed in. Sure, there were some, but a lot of the guilds still focused on the core ideas linked to their city as well, and that helped to keep them mostly in line. My problem is when there is no choice at all, and that's what we've got right now.

Remove that city/guild lock and let people start to smooth those lines again. It's going to promote movement of fresh people in city and guild leadership as players feel involved and engaged with the org they have chosen instead of been forced to join, and also strengthens the tether as far as relations between the two cities. If the Sentaari have citizens of both Duiran and Enorian, they're going to be more likely to at least tangentially know what's going on with their guildmates, and I think we'll see a lot more interactions than what we have now.

2. Too many ministries
There was probably a point in time when we needed ten ministries to run everything. We don't now. This is also not something that I would want to see just copied and pasted for each city, however. For example: Combining War and Security for Enorian might work really well, while that doesn't fit at all for Duiran. I'm betting that a short conversation with city leaders would produce 2-3 ministries that could be rolled together or eliminated. If we wanted to get REALLY crazy, I'd love to have the customizable ability (similar to giving privs in the guild works now) to individual ministries as a city leader. That way, as the city changes and our needs evolve, I can, for example, give the allocation/consign ability to my chancellor (eliminating the need for a Treasurer/steward) . Simply add in a caveat that a position cannot have certain permissions if the other one is present (able to allocate/consign/withdraw would be bad) But being able to reimagine how the government is being run on a city by city (and leadership style) basis could solve some of the issues with too many positions doing no work while some positions have it all.

3. Administration Interaction
This one is hard, because I understand that our admin is mostly volunteers, and doing the back end work is often thankless, grueling, and an instant target for complaints. I want to start out by saying THANK YOU to everyone that puts hard work into making Aetolia better. That said, there is an incredible disconnect between org leadership and the administration. I sincerely hope that this has not been the experience of other city or guild leaders, but I have the sinking suspicion it's not. Reaching out and ASKING for guidance on the direction that the pools wanted me to be driving my orgs has gotten me absolutely nowhere; I'm doing my best educated guess based on what I have managed to get third or fourth hand from others that probably talk to people in the pools on discord. I can't imagine it's any fun for anyone, but if you want an org to be healthy, the leader has to feel like what they do is going to make a difference, and that what they do isn't going to get stomped into the dirt out of the blue. Our orgs are dying because of this disconnect. Players aren't going to work on new, exciting ideas if they feel like they are going to 1. be told no, that's not the direction we're going with your org (although we haven't shared what that direction is) or 2. have something sit in 'we'll get to that' que of death for six months.

I can't suggest things that are realistic and impactful if there isn't regular communication between the Admin team and org leaders. I'm not talking we need you to check in with us every day and hold our hands, but I -am- saying that there should be comfortable dialog going on. I shouldn't feel like I'm being a massive drain on your day just for asking a question, and admin should be ASKING org leaders on a semi-regular basis about what's going on in their org. One hour a month would be a reasonable start, in my opinion. Imagine how much LESS work the admin will have to do if they start empowering those of us with an interest in helping to actually act instead of sitting on our hands and hoping?

4. Number of Ranks/Rewards
We used to have 20 ranks in a guild. Cutting that back was one of the best decisions out there... but cutting down to 5 probably wasn't. While 20 made it feel like you never got anywhere in the guild, having 5 makes it feel like there's no point in remaining involved in your guild. Where we used to have systems in place where you would become a fully ranked member right around GR5, then have 15 more ranks that you could try to earn, if that was your thing, we've skewed in the other direction to earning 'titles' instead, but it's really just not the same. Guildfavors are archaic right now. I don't know of a single guild that uses them for anything but indication of your rank-- at which point why don't we just have a promote function instead of burning three favors to do the same thing? The titles are neat, but don't hold the same impact as a reward that guildfavors did, and I haven't seen any guild institute titles in a way that enriched (or even replaced) advancement for non secretaries. Does anyone use that system for anything other than noting who's in a specific leadership position?

I'd suggest adding in a bit more room here. Bump guildranks back up to maybe 10? I know in the Templar at the very least, it would provide a lot of flexibility to develop activities and goals for players that have already earned their Knighthood, but want to delve deeper into Templar RP. I'm sure they're not the only guild that could benefit from this.

Along those lines, I'm exceptionally keen on ideas of how else to reward people for doing things. Guildranks have been locked into progression with how few we have. City ranks (at least in Eno) are also semi-locked with point systems as a way to advance. Credits don't seem to be motivating ANYONE anymore. What can I offer to enrich the experience for players and encourage interaction/participation?

... I'm gonna stop there for now, and go back and read what everyone else had to say before I keep going.

Oonagh

Lexen said:

4. Number of Ranks/Rewards
We used to have 20 ranks in a guild. Cutting that back was one of the best decisions out there... but cutting down to 5 probably wasn't. While 20 made it feel like you never got anywhere in the guild, having 5 makes it feel like there's no point in remaining involved in your guild. Where we used to have systems in place where you would become a fully ranked member right around GR5, then have 15 more ranks that you could try to earn, if that was your thing, we've skewed in the other direction to earning 'titles' instead, but it's really just not the same. Guildfavors are archaic right now. I don't know of a single guild that uses them for anything but indication of your rank-- at which point why don't we just have a promote function instead of burning three favors to do the same thing? The titles are neat, but don't hold the same impact as a reward that guildfavors did, and I haven't seen any guild institute titles in a way that enriched (or even replaced) advancement for non secretaries. Does anyone use that system for anything other than noting who's in a specific leadership position?

I'd suggest adding in a bit more room here. Bump guildranks back up to maybe 10? I know in the Templar at the very least, it would provide a lot of flexibility to develop activities and goals for players that have already earned their Knighthood, but want to delve deeper into Templar RP. I'm sure they're not the only guild that could benefit from this.

Along those lines, I'm exceptionally keen on ideas of how else to reward people for doing things. Guildranks have been locked into progression with how few we have. City ranks (at least in Eno) are also semi-locked with point systems as a way to advance. Credits don't seem to be motivating ANYONE anymore. What can I offer to enrich the experience for players and encourage interaction/participation?

Okay, so I would like to add this part a bit to my previous stuff too, I do feel like 5 ranks is kinda small....I would be happy with 10, something that has some kind of merit behind it, I also use the ranks to afford rewards to my guild members, give them some credits and build up towards. Affording permissions for other things and involvement would be nice, and I think that it could be utilised to design ways to form interaction between guild members.

Mjoll

Lexen said:

... Does anyone use that system for anything other than noting who's in a specific leadership position?

The Carnifex does ^_^ We have some little RP paths in the guild that get you a position with a title, pays out a little gold and/or credits, I've made a position for people who point out typos in scrolls "Administrative Assistant" and ask them to fix it to get them involved. Crafters, producers, fighters, religious figures, WE'VE GOT IT ALL, BABY!.

Positions are one of my FAVORITE things to come out of the new guild systems and I would VERY much like to keep them ^_^