Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE

Areka

What do you mean? IE Certimene doesn't work, or can't join off of the isle?

Moirean

Both. In Avalon, guilds could be auto-joined through tutors, or guilds could elect to turn off recruitment. Super inactive guilds automatically went into this mode to prevent newbs from being dropped into empty guilds, but very active guilds could elect to turn it off, so every new member had to go through actual players for induction. I was GM of Thieves, so I'd send them off on a quest to find our fencing spot, or to con someone out of something, or to steal a secret, etc. The end result was a low intake, but high activity, skill and unity among the members.

In IRE, you have little input over who joins your guild unless they are big, established players, and it's considered poor form to boot people just for being derpy, so you just kinda...deal with it. Furthermore, we're now mandated that we can't even deny people indefinitely. I get why that's important for retention... it's just some days.....

Ishin

100% Agree, @Moirean.

Toz

Templars still OP, Carnifex revamp not done. TIME FOR A BRAWL.

T_T

Moirean

Looking forward to the next hour of blackout spam and retribution!

Serrice

Indorani offense is still unstoppable, Syssin can still weave in a passive unfocusable kelp mask. TIME FOR A BRAWL.

T_T

Rashar

I dunno. I sort of feel like depending on the organization, you can probably or should get away with being like, 'No. Get out.'

A city? No, because honestly a city is just too important to gameplay and the options are too limited for us to be able to say, "No, go away.' I always relate it to real life, even though I know that's a mistake sometimes. New York City may not like all of its citizens, but it's not kicking them out if they don't, you know. Break laws and stuff.

A guild? I think a bit more freedom can probably be used there by the leadership. A guild is much more personal - if you're causing problems or you're not fitting, hey. Your character has options, and we're not ruining the game for you by giving you the boot. I'm sorry, but your Ace Ventura character is just not an Indorani. Later.

I think with an Order there is even more room to be restrictive. You are in no way, shape or form required to be in an Order, and there is very little benefit to it other than the RP. If they're not making an attempt to fit, or causing problems? Yeah, I'd say get them gone in a heartbeat, there. That is entirely their choice.

I guess in conclusion, I really feel like a city is the only organization that should be required to have a looser set of requirements. If you're a jackass in your guild/order/clan/club/whatever, you can deal with the consequences.

Areka

I think it is too variable for outright shutting things down like that.

We historically have not always had GMs who are capable of being fair/reasonable with rulings, from the range of only allowing cliques in to sustain their power, to being really intolerant of derps (younger end of the spectrum, not very eloquent, or struggling with English so slow to respond or not responding well, or those who struggle with how RP focused we are and need that time and guidance to really adjust).

We have also had people who abuse the current set up in order to gain the class they want or force an org to suck them up because they technically haven't broken enough laws to call for booting (or even those who have well-deserved an outguilding and still get class handed to them via ISSUE, not that I don't still carry a grump about that or anything really).

If it were to mechanically change, I think that there would need to be some really clear/public/easily and intuitively accessible measures to see why and where (IE "Guilds you can choose: House of Some Variety, Indorani, Bloodborn, Carnifex (through player-induction - HELP CARNIFEX), etc).

Moirean

Lololololol bashing in Tcanna had me out of immunity and good luck trying to refill in arena with the 50 billion plants outcached. Sadface, what a derpy way to die.

Edit: Just gonna have to go and rewrite all my refill stuff to specify specific plant names. Oof.

Moirean

Regarding guild stuff: it was mostly a passing "Oh I miss this" but if it were to be something implemented, I'd say only give the option to guilds with super high activity (and this would be measured beyond just topguilds raw login time) and perhaps case-by-case admin approval, with the option able to be revoked at any time.

Erzsebet

I don't know if it's still the case now, but last I checked/knew, you could turn recruiting off for houses which blocked people joining via the intro/Kelende. No one's done it in a long time though, even if it does still exist 'cause we want our novices, as a general rule.

Riluo

We just filter ours with a few questions and if they are not up to standard we aid them. If that still fails we look at moving them into other Houses. It is a good system for us as it makes sure people are comfortable with the Houses mantra of dominance and novices are involved, helped and given a degree of control.

Haven

Rashar said:

...

A city? No, because honestly a city is just too important to gameplay...

How so?

Moirean

A large portion of the gameplay in a multi-user dungeon focuses around interaction with other users. A city is a very large facilitator of this, and a majority of the game's mechanics and conflict are designed around this focus.

Trager

EDIT: Neeevermind.

Yarel

When you use the artifact, it is permanent. You cannot change the fact that you have removed yourself from your bloodline. People jump from guild to guild, change race, statpack, city, Tether alignment, etc. They do it a LOT. My question is, why should becoming a vampire impose a change upon you that you cannot ever undo? I can't think of a single other thing in the game, where doing it requires that you permanently change your character.

Jensen

To me the artifact was intended to bandaid a poor rp choice we might have made like 10 years ago. Something to correct what didn't/doesn't make any sense or fit your character or playstyle. idk how you'd follow through the rp of not being related to someone, especially if you rp'd it successfully for irl years.

Yarel

Rashar said:

A guild? I think a bit more freedom can probably be used there by the leadership. A guild is much more personal - if you're causing problems or you're not fitting, hey. Your character has options, and we're not ruining the game for you by giving you the boot. I'm sorry, but your Ace Ventura character is just not an Indorani. Later.
-

A few years back, I had a guild secretary log on, see I had joined their guild, and without a word to me, simply boot me from the guild. Upon joining, I had traded in my all my arties and bought ones to boost this class' abilities. So when I got booted, I was suddenly holding a load of useless artifacts that then had to be traded in again. In the end, this person cost me literally, thousands of credits. So I have to disagree with the idea that booting someone from your guild is harmless. It damn sure wasn't harmless to me.

As people who know me can attest, I often struggle with balancing the desire to get rid of someone who makes me a little nuts, with not wanting to ruin someone else's gaming experience. It sucks, but I pretty much always resist the urge to kick them out. I don't mind being AN ass hole, I just don't want to be THAT Ass Hole.

Rashar

I think it's important to note I said if you're causing problems or just blatantly not fitting in, etc. I don't know. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't significant.. just that I don't think it's on the same level as a city in terms of 'we have to let you in because this is a game.'

It's also on the leadership to not be silly about it and do stuff like what happened to you. From what I've been told, stuff like that was much more prevalent years ago when everyone was younger. I wasn't around then, obviously. I don't hear about a lot of it happening today - and at the end of the day, it's on players and maybe even the administration to not support that kind of nonsense.

Xenia

It's an odd system where there really aren't any long lasting consequences for player actions in that if someone wants to eventually switch orgs, they're mandated to.

On the one hand, it forces the players to decide how true to the RP that has developed around their characters is going to be, versus when they said screw it, the admin will back me up because I'm tired of dealing with this bullshit.

At least, this is how I view most people who would revert to getting admin support when actions they've taken cause them to turn to this as opposed to working it out on their own. I appreciate how the management of the game forces people to make those decisions and it speaks more on how serious the character is, imo.

However, it does put the orgs in an odd spot as they can't always exist fully within their RP. Personally, I think that all the orgs should have the ability to deny or oust whoever they want without fear of admin interference-- the players within these orgs are always going to change, part of the thrill of these sorts of games are the way things change over time. Consequences should be real things, and not something that can be suddenly cast aside or resolved in some OOC manner.

Yarel

@Xenia I agree in part. One thing I have always sorta shook my head at was how it seems some people float through the game, and nothing they do ever seems to stick to them.

On the other hand... I have seen too many times where people cannot separate ic and ooc. Honestly, I have to admit where one player is concerned, I am guilty of it. After having experienced about 20 of a certain person's alts, and dealt with the drama and trouble they always cause, I have found myself saying 'Oh shit! Its one of Blahblah's alts! Don't let it in!'.

I know we all like to think and say that the ooc/ic bleed-over is rare, but its not nearly as rare as we wish. That's why, I can't favor players being allowed to completely dictate who gets into a guild or who gets class.

Areka

If guilds were to be given that kind of indiscriminate power without responsibility themselves, class would definitely need to be removed from them. While cities are the 'it's just a game', it's guilds that are the focus with interaction/skill/class/distinct flavour/archetypes that characters are built around and go to. There's just too much history of regimes really abusing power to sustain themselves for a 'whenever they want whatever reason they want' policy to be healthy.

Jensen

I'd disagree, I'd like to see it happen to reduce the number of characters who join through the island and immediately quit the guild. I'm pretty sure it's how people maintain the blanket enemy statuses on the Syssin which annoys me to no end. And while I'm sure many would consider the current Syssin to run one of those regimes, we still let in quite a few people with life/light histories and org hoppers

Damonicus

A rl 12 day cooldown for one skill.

Stathan

Shield spam. That's my rage. Simple enough.

Trager

Running out of arrows. This is my rage.

Moirean

Go see the post I just made in the owned thread. I was very deliberately there spamming my shield for a pretty specific purpose - which worked. You guys let me stand there and tank away while my teammates peppered you with arrows. You let me stand there blocking you in as you were sniped down. You didn't disable my ability to shield and instead tried to brute force retri, so I don't think you can even complain about shield spamming, as a monk/templar should have easily had me flat on my butt and unable to shield in just a few rounds.

Anise

I work at Apple.... Apparently it's to hard send me a medium shirt... I do not wear a large

Gwenith

It's a legitimate rant @Moirean. He didn't name names or say it was unfair. He just expressed his frustrations about the tactic in general. I'm sure if we searched the forums we'ld find a post of yours somewhere complaining about shield spam or hit-n-run tactics or some other survival mechanism that is frustrating. Hell, I wouldn't even know there was a specific incident he's complaining about until you dobbed yourself in. Don't need to get so defensive.

Rashar

I want to know who paid off Trabarg and made him stop saying fellers! Don't you try and oppress us!

Man. Always bringing a feller down.