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City and Guilds - Goals and Consequences
Oleis
Producer EmeritusAdministrator, Immortal
In the couple days since the Leaders meeting, I've been speaking with many of you and Aetolia's staff to further solidify our design of the City Novicehood system. I have left some details vague in hopes of sparking more interesting ideas from player and volunteer feedback, and that has worked quite spectacularly in some cases. Unfortunately, it has also allowed misinformation to spread and misconceptions to grow, which is not unusual.
Perceived problems:
I'd like to invite your questions and feedback here and in private messages, however you are most comfortable. If you do choose to post here, please keep in mind forum rules and the goal of having a dialogue with the administration. Arguing amongst yourselves is not likely to reap productive results.
Perceived problems:
- Because novices require more effort and support when they're confused than a normal guildmate would, smaller guilds can struggle to help new players acclimate.
- City assimilation and advancement are largely self-motivated, which allows players to fall off the radar or stagnate.
- Cross-city guild membership presents conflicts of interest, stifling potential for antagonistic and diplomatic roleplay.
- Allow new players to benefit from larger city populations when learning the ropes of Aetolia and kickstart city advancement.
- Build lasting relationships between helpful city members and new players, even after they leave novicehood.
- Allow guilds and cities to focus more on their fundamental theme and mission in the game world, promoting compelling roleplay between organizations.
- Guild Novicehood will be removed as a concept. New players in the introduction will select their class, then be sorted into the city appropriate for that class (except Shapeshifter and Wayfarer). At the completion of the city Academy (pending changes to that system based on city/guild leader feedback), they will leave novicehood and automatically join the appropriate guild at GR1.
- After joining the guild, new members will have 72 hours to leave class with no lesson penalty.
- The Ambassador will serve as city Head of Novices, and his or her aides will serve as Novice Aides.
- Each city will gain a tutor for each class it hosts, allowing citizens to apprentice under the multiclass system for the usual fee. Guilds will be able to choose whether or not they sanction as usual.
- Members of a guild may not join cities other than the one hosting the guild. Guild membership is not required to be a citizen, and citizenship is not required to join the guild.
I'd like to invite your questions and feedback here and in private messages, however you are most comfortable. If you do choose to post here, please keep in mind forum rules and the goal of having a dialogue with the administration. Arguing amongst yourselves is not likely to reap productive results.
You say to Slyphe, "You're so freaking smart."
[---]
"^," Slyphe agrees with you.
16
Comments
When you say each guild members must be citizens of their host city, is this also counting for class? I.e. can a non-guilded person holding say the Cabalist class live in Bloodloch?
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
As much as I'm grateful for your ability to see the overall benefit, I understand your personal conflict and I'm sorry for it. By definition, though, a legacy is something that sticks around in your absence, and I think you're absolutely going to see the strains of what you, Moirean, and Xenia (should she leave the guild rather than Spinesreach) created in the guild for years to come.
And number two: is citizenship required to be a member of a guild? If so, no thanks. I'd rather be a rogue again than be forced into joining a city my character doesn't care about. And if that's how it's going to be, you can bet that other guilds will have members who'd rather quit than be forced into an org where they don't fit. Which means more empty guilds, more rogues, and a looot of unhappy people.
The other thing that this would impact is variety and diversity within guilds. Done wrong, with guilds and cities so tightly linked, what you'll end up with is very homogenous guilds with very little variation between individuals. It also makes it extremely easy to encourage hammering down the nail that sticks out.
I feel like it takes away from the meaning of a class if you can be a guildless citizen and just suddenly be trained in all three classes, despite your relationship with them. Isn't there some way to just have this policed by guild leaders? It sounds like conflict anyone can have, as being at odds with the city you represent can still happen if you're also part of the city. Instead of some sort of storyarc, most players will join a city they hate and have 100% no interest in and use their video game ability to CTOFF to focus on their guild. Which is 100% more sad than simply having a handful at odds with their guild's host city.
I understand the potential allure of this change, but I don't think many see the real damage it will cause. I also don't think it needs to be the entire guild. This should be reserved for leadership in an organization. If you're the GM or a Secretary or even the Patron or even Guildranks higher than 1, you should be within the host city or give up the ability to lead. In that scenario, a few non-leaders within a guild who are aggressive or negative about the host city can be removed or dealt with by the loyal leadership.
And as for not expecting all guild members not being happy, I think you underestimate just exactly how many people this is upsetting/pissing off. From what I've been hearing from people is that if these proposed guild/city changes go in? A lot of players will end up not just quitting their guilds, but leaving the game completely, which I think might ultimately hurt the game. You can't have a huge shakeup like this and just expect people to take it.
The problem with the conflict of interest I'm talking about is that it results in a pre-emptive stifling of conflict. Leaders understand the implications on an OOC level and compromise their characters' roleplay to avoid starting issues that might resonate through their many allegiances. It's something that would make good storytelling if we were all forced to be totally true to our characters, but it results in a bland safety zone because we're (understandably) afraid to stir the pot. It's the same reason it was problematic to have cross-tether Orders: when you bring potential enemies together under a friendly umbrella, at least one of them has to abandon their ideals.
Except for tethers, the way Carnifex currently are? You could be from any city and join them as long as you a) put Carnifex first and b) did good work. Over RL years, and left entirely directionless after being released, the Carnifex turned into a meritocracy where your ability to fight/act as a member of the Keep was the only value that truly mattered. The three parts of the Code are purposefully vague - it's a militant group living in the mountains who worship strength and winning at any cost. Even the act of tethering it to a single city is going to require 1/3rd of the code be re-done, let alone any other changes - and it WILL need other changes.
In order for this to 'work', the Carnifex would have to be left alone in this change, and it's not practical or reasonable to expect the admin to do that for us. Likewise, it is going to require a complete overhaul of the guild and it is not practical or reasonable to expect those of us who already DID set up the guild, make it active, make it work, etc. to do so again.
I made the Carnifex my 'thing', I carried it when I was active and picked it back up every time I came back. Now it's just deciding between rogue or retire, because there's no other viable option.
The Illuminai, to my knowledge, are about to deal with a similar issue. The Templar have long been Enorian only (though we JUST opened our ranks to Duiran, doh) , but the Illuminai were sort of the same as the Carnifex: You put the guild first and you're good. There may, in fact, be changes that happen to make it impossible for Duiran to fit in, otherwise we've got to sort of in game assume people just up and leave.
I'm not sure how it will work out. It sounds like the Carnifex are about to take a big hit, and the same may be true for the Illuminai.
But will there be a push to open up guilds to newly displaced people?
It also sounds like it's more for the benefits of Duiran than anyone else, who actually probably would be the one incident of a case of "conflict of interest" since their city leadership is based around the guilds. Which I'll indicate isn't really an ideal thing at all, if you're changing a major mechanic in order to fix a problem there.
The squeaky wheel might get the oil, but dagnabbit, don't completely jam a stick into the spokes of every other cog on the machine just trying to oil the one squeaky wheel.
Edit: As an additional note: I've heard that it was suggested that the Carnifex and the Illuminati were to be divested from cities. I think this would ultimately be a better option if you're going to enforce these changes, because the Carnifex, at least, was BUILT as a guild not tied to a city. They have an outside guildhall. The vision must compromise when it harms the playerbase more than it helps anything else. And weighing the benefits and the disadvantages, going ahead as planned without at -least- divulging the Carnifex and (possibly) the Illuminati from their cities is going to result in our small game losing players. And I guarantee you, a loss of players is bad, but I'm fairly certain a large number of those players are going to be people who have and would normally continue to invest -MONEY- into this game. And this is forcing those players away from the game.
I'm not sure how I'll fit into things, but I think with the change we're also going to see an expansion in what being your typical city devoted person looks like. In this, we're going to see a place carved for rogues who are where they are because they are dedicated to the city, even if they don't necessarily belong to a guild. Thinking on this, it makes me feel excited to explore this new facet to city culture.
I ask because if I find myself kicked out of the Fex because I, just for the sake of argument, spend a couple months in Europe backpacking around.. I'd probably be more than a little upset. I'd feel the same with Spines, though City Ranks are easy to get with effort. GR16 in the Fex was a process.
This has always been the major problem with crossfaction orders and guilds. I know for sure that it was back in the early days of Imperian. It's hard to do a city-v-city conflict when a third of your fighters are in a guild with enemy fighters and another third of them are in orders with enemy fighters and so forth and it definitely can lead to situations where a certain conflict is basically unthinkable. Even if the leader really wants to pick that specific fight they can't do it because they're in a situation where half of their followers will tap out of the fight due to conflicted loyalties.
As far as the Carnifex go, though... the last time I was active in this game I am pretty sure that something like 80%+ of the Carnifex guild were Spirean. I think there were maybe two active Bloodlochian members and one of them was me. If that's still the case it may just be better to give the guild the option of switching its flag to Spiresreach. Maybe do something with the undead Houses to replace the missing guild?
It may be a bit pre-emptive to ask, but now I'm curious.