Academy Preview

Solaria

Found a small issue:

-As a Shaman, if you go into the guildhall it'll mention that you are now in Dendara and to greet Drehos. However, obviously, you are not in Dendara. However, once you get the cairn quest and go to Dendara, it doesn't re-advise you to greet Drehos. I finally got him to work by walking around and finding out he wanted me to do the 'is this dendara' bit. Also, it does not advise you to go back to Oranis afterwards or how to do go back to him.

Xavin

You'll need to poke a god to be allowed to graduate. Duiran's academy doesn't support ascendril at the moment, and I doubt it ever will since those of us in duiran are supposed to be the exception rather than the rule.

Angwe

Sentaari and Ascenderil could swap places, honestly.

Kerryn

Angwe said:

Sentaari and Ascenderil could swap places, honestly.

Two monk guilds in the same city? I don't foresee that working well. Even if they are vastly different and I also don't see them merging back together.

Macavity

One of the Monk guilds should switch sides, much like the Lycans where we have one for each side.

Atrapoema

There's no point in that anymore, given multiclassing.

Xavin

The funny thing is that the whole reason the daru exist at all is because the sentaari were once on the path to being a much darker guild. That said, I really don't think the Ascendril's ideology works for Duiran at all. Yes, several, if not all, of the guild's ranking members are in Duiran. But that's more due to circumstance than anything and largely due to things I don't really want to get into here.

Moirean

Well, the darkie guilds have a less cut-and-dry distinction. Carnifex, for example, fit just fine in either BL or Spinesreach. While I understand the need for game balance, putting newbies into BL as the default is not a good decision retention-wise, as BL is based around Undeath. Making new players go undead, on top of all the other things they are learning, is just too many new concepts to throw at someone, especially as they have no idea what being undead means, since they don't know the game's context to make that sort of decision (both mechanically and RP-wise).

If new players who aren't vampires are going to be channeled into BL, then newbies should be made undead by default or the undeath mandate needs to change, both of which are obviously problematic.

If you make undeath the default, you solve the issue of them having to learn a bunch of new stuff counter to what they learn in the intro (eg learning about health potions and then suddenly having to stick analeptic), and don't force them to make a big decision like that (it's made for them, and sometimes it's good game design to remove choices from players) and it also streamlines the academy creation, as the BL academy can just explain how undead curing works, instead of trying to account for if players are living or undead. However, it then brings up the problem of new players wanting into the guilds but not wanting to be undead. Carnifex and Indorani don't mandate undeath for their members, but tagging default undeath into the intro for their members not only forces incoming members to also pick undeath, it indirectly twerks the guild RP.

However, BL is based around people being undead, so if you don't put it into the intro, you have players forcing people to take it on at some point - either this point needs to be extended out to far longer than the 3 IG months than it is, or the focus of BL needs to change, because it's really not ideal for retention to have players forcing something like this, especially so early on in the gameplay. In addition to the choice to go undead being a big one, it also feels a bit unprofessional when it's coming from other players - people new to Aetolia and MUDs in general often don't understand how politics and player-based gameplay work in MUDs, so tossing them right into it with other players making them pick undeath or quit city can be pretty overwhelming. It's also kinda a crappy onus to put on the player. I know I personally don't like having to force newbies to consider a choice like that, and often try to postpone mentioning it if they are obviously new to MUDs, and I am sure other players feel a bit awkward with having to foist that choice onto new players.

I know all of this seems like a small detail, but small details can matter, and easing people into things is far better for player retention imho - and our current setup of how you join guilds/cities is currently arranged to be problematic for BL guilds.

My thoughts are that one of the following should be considered:

1.  BL takes fewer of the default guilds. Problem is that this disrupts balance, but they already do have vampires on top of 4 guilds. Even when they eventually lose a guild, that's still 4 "orgs" in a way. This would require a rewrite of the Academy and probably mean adjustments to BL itself, eg guard types, guard responses, guildhall placement, etc

2. Newbies get to pick what city they go into for guilds which can go either way. With this, also make joining BL automatically make the newbie undead. This would require small rewrites of the Academy, but it would give players more freedom of choice - there could even be "suggested" options for new players to help guide them (eg send the truenewb darkies to Spines unless they select that they want to be zombified)

3. BL adjusts its outlook slightly so newbies get at least an IG year or so to pick Undeath. I don't think this is the best option because that choice will still be forced at some point, but at least it's further down the road and newbies aren't as overwhelmed. Issue then arises of putting more work onto players, since 12 days is off the logs (why can't IG logs go back 15 days /siderant), so maybe it could be some sort of coded reminder? Now things are getting complex, see. An alternative option is to maybe tweak BL so Undeath is less of the main focus (because, tbh, it's kinda a boring, one-dimensional "ideology"). I'm not gonna suggest "evil" because that's cliche, but, yeah, evil would be better. BL seems to have stepped away from rarr rarr consume life in recent years, so I think this is something which could be viable, especially if admin helped guide it there.

Also, is the newbie intro itself going to be rewritten? It's really old and I swear rewriting it has been brought up a dozen times by the admin.

Areka

Also updating the Cure and Cure options for just Undeath, especially if auto-undeathing noobs becomes more prevalent. 

Damonicus

According to HELP UNDEATH:


Once the curse of undeath has been accepted, it is permanent. However, 
rumors exist of a rare 'cure' available with the help of a certain     
divine power. For newbies, the path is much easier, however, and they need only trek to Certimene in Delos and ASK CERTIMENE BECOME LIVING.

Macavity

Depending on the Guilds that Novice chooses in the Intro they do come out as Undead already.  Example Teradrim novices if they join right from the Intro they are already turned Undead and placed in Bloodloch as a city, unless they choose not to be in a city.

Sadly they still retain their health and mana vials as that part takes place before they are on the boat which leads them into choosing their Guild/House and then City

Areka

Damon, that's just for noobies. What about post level 30 (easy to obtain, gone in a bashing trip leeching in xaanhal)? Then you have to go through a god or become a vamp for the Cure?

Damonicus

Is that not what this whole thread os about the academy for novices??

Areka

Which auto-undeathing and how easy it is to bypass novicehood just from leeching from a well-intentioned guild elder, is related to? 

Arbre

Just let me cure undeath as well.  I generally don't charge people who obviously can't afford it.

Moirean

The cure isn't the issue so much as putting that kind of decision up in there along with all of the other acclimation you are throwing at new players already. It should either be defaulted to undead - and remove the guilds who don't have undeath integrated heavily into their RP from that list - or postponed for a long enough time for players to get a handle on basic gameplay before they make the choice.

Macavity

@moirean I see your point, however its a catch 22....   If they wait to decide and then decide to go Undead then they need to rework their curing and get use to an entirely new system of curing.  Even if they learned a lot in the first part of their existence within the realms this can be confusing and troublesome for some to adapt to.  Its why in the Teradrim guild we try to change them over asap so they do not have to worry about having to learn both sides of curing, that is if we have someone enter who is living.

Atrapoema

Alternatively, nuke undeath from orbit and leave it to vampires.

Zhukov

I have to agree with Atra, think it was simpler when there was just one curing system for everyone. Use to be hard to find cures as a darkie but since tradeskills opened up that hasn't been a problem. Could have undeath as purely a rp thing that shows up in your description and have no other mechanical changes. Should be easier to cure undeath too, getting embraced and getting the vamp cure just seems cumbersome and problematic.

Macavity

sorry but this is called Aetolia, the Midnight Age, not the Noon Age....  The Undeadth and different style curing system is a niche that our game can and does capitalize in order to bring in new players.  

Personally, I love the Undead curing methodology and will fight to keep it as part of the game.  There are currently methods in which a novice can change back to the living if they so desire it, I will admit that perhaps that level and/or age requirement should be lifted higher to give them the chance to really learn what it is and if it is something they want for their RP.

On the case of the Cure and how it is done, I believe it should be changed to be a quest that can be given by an NPC and once completed it would turn the person from Undead/Vampire to Living, this would have to be more than just a one quest method in which many steps of gathering items for the mob to mix the potion or do the spell that is required for it.  This would help in two factors, one those that wish to turn can do it without bothering those that have the knowledge of the cure, and two this would prevent the living from monopolizing on the cure, and not be able to prevent someone they do not wish to cure to get it.  The last I am not sure if it happens but I can see it being an issue at some point.  

If this NPC was put in place, I would like to see a game wide message being sent out when someone does it, does not need to say their name but something to indicate that someone has done this quest would be interesting and cause more RP to come from it.

Damonicus

Who needs a cure npc, we have Arbre.

Arbre

For RP reasons, I generally don't cure people going to Spinesreach (though people have given me good reason for exceptions in the past).  That being said, I give out my cure book that has step-by-step details including syntax, room names, vnums, and directions to anyone who asks for it.  Because there are plenty of dark-side living, I don't feel like the cure is monopolized on my end.  The only living/undead requirement to make it is to have a trans concoctionist type in a single command at the very end - I ran several cures while a vampire because Phoenecia agreed to brew it for me.

Missari

Aetolia was the "Midnight Age" way before we got jankity ass undead stupidity.

Arbre

For just a moment I thought you meant literal unicorns, because I think that's one of the cheesiest things that has been added to the game.

Toz

I wish Undeath was as easy to deal with as Vampirism. If you go boring ol' Undead and then want to go back, you have to make Severn beat Iosyne with a hammer to do it.

EDIT: AND give your firstborn up, apparently.