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Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE
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I understand there is a behind the scenes reason for this but a whole portion of this games development has just been forgotten about.
I essentially joined the volunteer team in Imperian because I was tapped out. I applied for Celani 7 times, starting the month after I turned 18. They tend to do every 6 month calls, so that tells you just how long it took for me to finally be accepted. Like most IRE players, I took breaks, I sidehopped, I held leadership positions, I shirked leadership positions. And while I never felt (at the time) like Imperian was being dumbed down to accommodate newbies, I did feel like I had lost my magical connection to it. Nothing would ever compare to that first hour where Brandeis sent me a sonic portal and invited me into Kinsarmar. It was just beautiful and mind-boggling, despite being text. I was barely 14.
When I came to Aetolia the very first time, around the discovery of Albedos, there were lots of rough edges, in my opinion. Commands that were awkward for no reason, displays that were just many lines of text. You'll still find a lot of this on Achaea (though Tecton tends to make things EXTRA pretty when he does rework them). But even as an immortal volunteer, the game felt very alive. I could mpos a random mob and get some interaction. Trying to juggle three mobs in a game brand new to me while an airship crashed into a brand new place? My goodness. It was like swimming in an ocean of questions I couldn't answer, with only a couple weirdo floatation devices called Gods to fill me in between questions of their own. Mechanical changes didn't sour that feeling. The pace of development sure didn't get slower. It was glacial! I wrote 10 rooms of Delve while making lunch and we crashed the airship over dinner.
Our playerbases are fading. And I pluralize that not to represent 5 games' worth of people but to emphasize two separate worlds: our mortals and our volunteers. As I read this thread, I mentally starting ticking down the list of people who have grievances with the administration, justified in my mind or not. And naturally, most all of them were represented. But I had to realize that it wasn't necessarily their disgruntlement fueling this feeling. Maybe this feeling is the reason you're so easily disgruntled in the first place. Even in the Pools, we're fading. Tasks aren't getting completed, even the self-assigned ones. And I don't say that to criticize them by any means. They're great people. They've just lost their sparks, by and large, just like all of us. A little burst of motivation can mean a huge feature or area for many of them, and they're forces to be reckoned with. But more often than not, it's a steady blur of work, school, order stuff, sleep. Repeat until it's no longer fun.
Assigning this blame to making things easier for newbies is, just like me, getting the cause and effect backwards. We're not alienating experienced players in our efforts to bring in new ones. We're bringing in new players (or trying) because our existing ones feel alienated. And despite what your nostalgia may tell you, it's not just Aetolia. If anything, we're behind the curve. Achaea, Imperian, Lusternia, and Midkemia all had to give IRE at least three changes a week to make things more newbie-friendly for nearly a year, just like we did.
If you're looking for a thesis in this wall of text, I'm not sure you'll find one. I guess my point is to encourage you to try or take a break. Limbo is good for no one. If you log in just to idle, you're only doing your enjoyment of Aetolia a disservice. What do you get when you idle? OOC influence, lots of complaints, and very little fun. Enjoying this game takes active involvement, and boredom is more often than not going to bring frustration. I'm addressing my immortals, too. We obviously don't want anyone to leave this game. But we are certainly reaching a point where I, personally, need you all to tell us what you want. And many of you (including those in this thread) think you're doing that already, by saying "more events!" But telling an administration "more events!" is kind of like telling your doctor "back pain!" Do you need a massage, a chiropractor, new shoes, pain killers, or all of the above? Even worse is going into the doctor's office and saying "Painkillers!" Yeah, man, you may think that's the specific answer, but we can't always say yes.
I'll be your lumbar support, Aetolia. But communication goes both ways. If we're gonna talk more, you've gotta respond more. If you hear 'no', try to fight the urge to go BUT WHYYYY so we can both say "what can we do instead?" And if that doesn't seem worth it, then maybe it honestly is break time. There's no shame in stepping away in hopes of trying again some day. Been there, done that.
Like areas could get built off the back of conquest, or new lore could spark innovation for events.
I'm not sure it's the magic bullet. Honestly I'm not even sure how it would be feasibly implemented but there needs to be something making organizations feel stagnant and perhaps with more of a spark from the players, the immortals would have more of a drive.
Having GM'd multiple DnD sessions before, I know how into it you get when you're playing off your party and they're driving you as opposed to dragging them and trying to force things to happen because they're just not getting into it.
My thoughts on events:
The Juxa event I thought was really fantastic. I loved that one, with the players having mechanical control over armies and being able to dictate how they wanted the troops to march, what they wanted to assault. Spinesreach and Bloodloch going after Grufin and clearing out the northern regiment, EnoDuiran going into Hashan. It was lots of fun, the outcome and direction were in our hands, there was some fun political tension watching the troops of other cities and being watched (I remember getting lots of concern from Duiran people when I was marching my troops close to Duiran). I loved that event. It had something for everyone: mechanical aspect so that winning/losing (though I guess technically we couldn't lose that one) was up to the players rather than the admin, a story, writing, RP.
The events that made me not want to participate anymore are the ones where I feel like I am playing against a God. Where any mechanical victories are met with a godmob wiping you out. People want their decisions and victories to matter and to get some immediate satisfaction from it even if it's ultimately inconsequential to the event's desired outcome as a whole. Or the ones where I'm ultimately just a bystander; I walk around following the mob's prompts, basically just along for the ride to watch someone's story. Some people might love that but that's really not for me personally.
I'd imagine the best events to be like D&D; the DM has to be flexible with their story and not simply force what they want to happen, with mechanics and decisions affecting the path of the story. D&D games are not enjoyable when the DM is actively playing against the players.
The stuff about class and guilds I wholeheartedly agree on the admin stance. It's a -game- and if your enjoyment of the game comes from lording class/advancement over someone and negatively impacting their enjoyment of the game then that really just seems like a power trip.
Anyway, all that aside, I know Bloodloch/PKers don't have the greatest forum presence so here's to injecting some positivity into a thread that's only airing out the negatives. What you guys are doing for PK balance and coding are amazing and very much appreciated. I know I'm far from the only one that feels this is the best admin team Aetolia's had.
That said, I'm not the final arbiter and I don't think we can make huge strides backwards in that regard without really disrupting things. So, I think you're correct in saying that we need more opportunities for group and objective fights where the 1v1 element is less relevant, at least for now.
Shoutout to the forums at large: Is CTF something that needs to come back? Could be tether v tether or 4 city royale.
If there is a word I could go without hearing ever again its Tether.
That being said, Bloodloch will win.
Tether may as well be flagged as Unicorns, as I think in all the games we are the only ones with a hard coded SIDE
It's definitely being pushed forward because of competitiveness. Guys like Ezalor above and Feichin dominate, with whatever class they use, and some like Valingar are competitive enough to try match them. I've certainly been inspired by the advice and help I've received from guys like Haven and Dourif to up my own game. The boats are just rising with the tide of player skill and benefiting from dedicated players like Ezalor who understand the mechanics so well.
We have a coin flip....no D4 even
Example bandaid system: Village outposts
- Capture a village through 3 control points.
- Hijack the KOTH script from other IRE games for each control point.
- Village gives a comm/gold/whatever tithe each month while held
- Village visually reflects controlling city with colored banners, icky ground, etc
- Each village has a CD of 6+ months before it can be re-taken to keep stuff fresh and avoid burnout.
This is obviously not an extensive example akin to a war system, and it's somewhat reflective of Lusternia village revolts. I quite loved those, though, so I don't see that as a problem. Just an example of a system that could be slapped together and put in to give us something more to do, conflict-wise, beyond lessers and shouting matches.
Edit: I guess its 3 factions, but its still sides that are locked.
Perhaps when an area is captured, representatives of the City move in, workers, phalangites, vampires, bears...whatever and then lay claim to the area to survey, work, populate.
^ That was for Lleis, even though @Omei said she was a ho.
http://alexanderbrazie.blogspot.com/2012/10/ennui-repetition-and-dissatisfaction.html
The pertinent thing to take away from that link is that ennui happens in gaming. It's not the game's fault or the player's. It's just a natural progression of long-term gameplay. As such, games need to design for that, providing long-term goals and unreachable ceilings. Aetolia hits (removing the level cap) and misses (removing the war system) at that a lot and I think Toz's post is valid in that he highlighted some areas where it feels like things are stagnant.
Another point - often overlooked, I think - raised in that blog piece is that it is fine to let players go...but it should be easy to welcome them back. I think Aetolia has come a long way in that regard, but it's still very punishing to take a break and overwhelming beyond belief when you return. Items decay, PK changes incredibly fast, there's the constant looming threat of things we love for years like our core cities being wiped out with Albedos (I personally hope it never happens and is stuck in dev forever). Being able to slide back into the game after a year or two away is just as important as retaining a new player, if no more so, as the established player has proven they are down with shelling out money. Examples to help include things like bank storage, long-term design permanence, somehow not losing shops (I've lost like 5 from going dormant and it sucks so hard), a re-integration set of help files, starter equipment, better change summaries, etc. Because going away is so punishing, it feels like a lot of us just hang around partially so we don't have to deal with the headache of coming back, which only heightens burnout and negativity.
For example, Enorian likes to go on about how 'Light is not Good'; well, if Light is not Good, then why couldn't an Illumination user jump ship to Spinesreach and start using those abilities against their old allies because they feel Enorian's lost the way? Or how about a Cabalist that wants to use Numerology research to help develop technology for the Light? The current way things are set up feels kind of like you have to shoehorn your character to an extent because certain classes are only active with a certain tether regardless of whatever reasoning (even if it's a legitimately good RP reason) you might have that could make the class fit on the other side.
I know a lot of people bash Ashtan, but since it was destroyed, the Spirit side doesn't really have many options. Case in point, just look at how many people jumped ship from Enorian/Duiran to Spinesreach. On the Spirit side, Enorian is the hardcore, fundamentalist crusader, and Duiran is the nature-preserver, but there's nothing in between. Shadow side? Bloobloch, the city full of undead, vampires, and other token-ish evil things, and Spinesreach, which encompasses nearly everything else. I know people keep saying that the playerbase isn't large enough to support more than the current crop of player-run cities that we've got, but I think we're at the point where it might be interesting to create another one just to see where the balance goes.
Also, when Ashtan was sunk, it was probably one of the more interesting global events simply because it was a player-run city that was destroyed. There was a real loss there, and from a certain standpoint, it should have instilled the possibility that that could happen to ANY organization. Same thing for the creation of the Ascendril, or the establishment of the Carnifex guildhall outside of the cities. It makes things feel like there's more freedom, or that anything can happen.
Another thing that most people will never experience is how much it sucks to be a rogue. Yeah, I know all perks are concentrated in cities and guilds, but if you decide to go without a city or find that you don't like the themes of any of them, you're kind of shafted. You also tend to miss out on events since most are geared more towards guilds, cities, or orders unless it's a global participation event. And even then, org leaders will get the most event attention. In terms of events, I wouldn't mind seeing some that aren't connected to cities or guilds. Like having to escort an exploration team while they research the Court of Consortium, for example. Or maybe making villages have bandit problems. Or experiencing drought or famine, and people need to find ways of helping out.
How are we doing on those right now? We've started baking in AB file changes to our revamps and liaison round CODE, making it much harder (but still possible) to overlook things. I assume you're referring to announce posts primarily. How are they doing? How could we improve?
It would be really helpful to have a 6-month or yearly post from admin just reviewing all that's happened, perhaps separated by IG events, mechanical changes, high-level PK changes, with post/changelog numbers to refer to for further reading.
(Not even in good form I know....but I think everyone wants it.)
Please don't zap me
I think there's quite a bit of merit in having the bad guy be a neutral party. Having a common enemy to work together against bonds a community better than having a competition of two sides. We need to humanise the other side as players more, not less.