Clans, Hiring Caps, and Casual Players

[flurry]

I've been thinking about how accommodating this game is (or isn't) to casual play, especially around clans and employment. By "casual player" I mean someone who generally has less time to commit to playing than the typical player.

The more heavily PC-populated clans sometimes get hiring caps. I'm not going to suggest we shouldn't have those; I believe there are good reasons for them. However, I also believe that hiring caps, as I've seen them implemented, tend to be bad for casual players.

Bigger clans are, in many ways, better for casual players than other clans. Bigger clans also tend to have hiring caps. But leaders need actively-played PCs around. So leaders are put in a position where it's sometimes difficult to hire (or keep) PCs played by a casual players, because that counts against the number of underlings they can have.

I think this may be even more of an issue now that independent play is somewhat more challenging for various IC reasons.

I've personally experienced a few issues around clans and casual players, both on the leader side of the equation and as a would-be underling. I'm interested in hearing if anyone else thinks there is a problem here and how it might be improved.

[Marauder Moe]

I'm not sure I understand.  Are you saying you've had a character kicked out of a clan for not logging in often enough?  Are you saying you've had a character denied entry into a clan because somehow the leader knew you didn't log in very much?

[jriley]

Wow, original post is great.  Couldn't have said it better. 

I think that the most direct solution, is that when a clan gets close to the hiring cap, that the leadership PCs should have the right to petition for a temporary raise on the cap if there are more than one or two part-time players in the clan.  Staff should support these situations. 

[Marauder Moe]

 

Doesn't it already work that way?

I mean, think about it... consider all the newbies who came to Arm, made a character, joined a clan, then stopped playing.  Most clans probably have hundreds of non-dead, non-retired characters in them.

[Qzzrbl]

Doesn't it already work that way?

I mean, think about it... consider all the newbies who came to Arm, made a character, joined a clan, then stopped playing.  Most clans probably have hundreds of non-dead, non-retired characters in them.

Just imagine if they all suddenly decided to log in at the same time. x-X

[spawnloser]

Staff should support these situations.

They do.

[Bogre]

Doesn't it already work that way?

I mean, think about it... consider all the newbies who came to Arm, made a character, joined a clan, then stopped playing.  Most clans probably have hundreds of non-dead, non-retired characters in them.

Just imagine if they all suddenly decided to log in at the same time. x-X

They arena battle til they fall back under the cap.

[Marauder Moe]

Heh.  I've actually seen it happen a few times where multiple characters came back from a significant hiatus within a short time-frame.

It's really rather fun to see characters from different "eras" of a clan interact.  Newer characters get to hear about the good old days, older characters get to find out what happened to all their friends.

[flurry]

Are you saying you've had a character denied entry into a clan because somehow the leader knew you didn't log in very much?

I'd rather not personalize this topic too much, but the answer to this one is an absolute yes. I'm not sure if that's player complaint-worthy, but it happened. That was actually the genesis of my thinking about this issue, but I'm really more interested in the broader point that hiring caps may have the unintended effect of discouraging the hiring of PCs played by casual players.

[jriley]

I'd rather not personalize this topic too much, but the answer to this one is an absolute yes. I'm not sure if that's player complaint-worthy, but it happened. That was actually the genesis of my thinking about this issue, but I'm really more interested in the broader point that hiring caps may have the unintended effect of discouraging the hiring of PCs played by casual players.

Furthermore, I've seen this topic crop up in a clan board a lot recently.  Suffice it to say that it's a topic that's on people's minds.  This doesn't affect me -- I'm currently in a clan and happy.  However there seems to be enough OOG confusion and controversy that I think the staff should step in and ameliorate the situation.  A detente would be nice to have for a while, until people calm down.

My understanding is that the clan caps is that they serve to prevent any one clan from swelling up with one hundred active PC and deteriorating into a hippie love fest.   But maybe they're set too low?  Maybe if they were bumped up two or three notches the clan leaders would quiet down and go back to being clan leaders.

[Nyr]

There's no hard and fast cap applied across the board to all clans.  We just know when there are too many and say "you have too many, please stop hiring people."  In some cases this is given in advance, in other cases it is given after a clan has reached high numbers.

[FantasyWriter]

I ran a clan for the better part of last year, and--thanks to some awesome PCs that were very active and knew how to stay alive--it was almost constantly at the "don't hire anyone without speaking to us" cap.  However, staff were ALWAYS very understanding when it came to me asking: ex, wye, and zee only log in like once a month each, and there are two semi active hopefuls that are wanting to join.  Neither of them are very active.  Can I go ahead and hire them for a probationary period to see how things work out?

I don't think I have -EVER- explained a situation to staff that they understood and were unwilling to work with me on.

Also, from a leader standpoint, YES, I am going to keep an eye on you for at least two weeks before hiring you to see how your playtimes fit within the clan, but I have never turned someone down based solely on their playtimes.  It does figure in, though.

[Drifter]

Having just experieced this, I have two points to make about clan caps:

First of all, a clan should have to be pretty damn full before forcing a recruitment halt. Full to the point where the number of PCs is actively hurting the clan and the environment around it. Even then, I feel that the better alternative, if at all possible, would be to seek to expand: make another unit, promote another guy to sergeant, open up another business branch and so on. In a game where many clans lie almost or entirely dormant the vast majority of the time when it isn't their turn to be the flavor of the month, a full clan is a freaking gift. Especially when it concerns one of the clans that make up the very foundation of the sphere they operate in; I can see how staff might not want twenty active players holed up in the Tan'Muark where they'll have relatively little impact on the game as a whole, but the merchant houses and the cities' respective armies pretty much always benefit from more players, as does the environment around them. Unless these clans are so overcrowded that it seriously compromises the enjoyment of the members or ties up a portion of the playerbase so large that other clans truly starve, I think it would be better to make adjustments to the clan or the clan's staff than to simply cut off new players.

Secondly, it would be a tremendous help if it was made public knowledge when a clan halts their recruitment. I'm sure many of us have certain clans in mind when we create characters; probably not every time, but I would imagine that we all have times when we just really want to play a legionnaire or a Kadius merchant or something. The clan page says "open" for each clan until they're actually shut down, so that's not much of a help, and there's no announcement when recruitment is temporarily halted for whatever reason. It's very discouraging to enter the game with a specific concept in mind only to find that it's flat out barred from happening, and while part of playing an RPI is to be able to adapt and be open to other outcomes than what one had in mind, it would save a lot of disappointment if we actually knew to wait a few months before writing a background centered around the PC's ambition to make armor for Salarr. This just happened to me after seeing an advertisement post from just last month. A simple "recruitment temporarily halted" on the clan page would go a long way.

[Xeran Van Houten]

So far as I know, no clans in arm are equal opportunity employers.

It could very well be that the clan in question has too many PCs. Maybe they need more of X before they can use more Y. Maybe you interviewed poorly and they're just brushing you off.  Some clans fill up quicker than others after they post IC recruitment posts for many reasons, as well.
Chances are you'll never find out why you were turned down, just like you may never know why you got turned down for that video game tester job you applied for last year and never got a call back from.
Sometimes they may tell you to try back in Z amount of time.

If you were that set on being employed by a single clan to the point you can't develope or play your PC without being in that clan, that's pretty much your own fault.

However chances are good that if you bide your time and do what you can for awhile, in an IC month (or however long) someone's bound to die and there'll be an opening.

As far as casual play goes - if you play casually regular, there probably won't be any problem. If you play casually irregularly, you may not want to hold your breath.

[spawnloser]

Drifter, they get a stop put on them when they become unrealistically strong because of too much PC presence.  If there is 1 Salarri, 1 Winrothol, 1 Tenneshi, 1 Bynner, 15 Uaptal... who do you think is getting ANYTHING done?  Who do you think noone wants to piss off?  Someone from the two largest houses in Tuluk, who should be the richest sons o' mothers you'll ever meet?  No, they'll all be scared to say a word around the Uaptal, because they have 4 warriors, 5 rangers, 4 assassins, and 2 crafters while everyone else has... some guy.  Hiring freezes force any one clan from having a 'controlling interest' in the PC population.

[Drifter]

Drifter, they get a stop put on them when they become unrealistically strong because of too much PC presence.  If there is 1 Salarri, 1 Winrothol, 1 Tenneshi, 1 Bynner, 15 Uaptal... who do you think is getting ANYTHING done?  Who do you think noone wants to piss off?  Someone from the two largest houses in Tuluk, who should be the richest sons o' mothers you'll ever meet?  No, they'll all be scared to say a word around the Uaptal, because they have 4 warriors, 5 rangers, 4 assassins, and 2 crafters while everyone else has... some guy.  Hiring freezes force any one clan from having a 'controlling interest' in the PC population.

Which would fall into the category of being damaging to the environment around them, a situation in which it certainly does make sense to halt recruitment for a time (and to do something to cull the bloated clan's numbers). What struck me as odd was the fact that the Arm of the Dragon, having posted last month about a major conscription effort, now bluntly refuses to recruit at all. I'm assuming this is because they simply haven't got room for more players, which is fair enough even though they don't compete with anybody as such, but I would really have liked to know about this before writing a character designed to become a soldier. This is one of those clans I would never have expected to find closed, especially so soon after actively inviting new members, and while I could certainly just seek out another clan or go where the wind takes me, I would prefer to have done that knowing that this would be their route, rather than with a character I intend to be something else. Also, if one clan attracts every player in the sphere while its counterparts attract none, as in your example, one might also look at the lacking clans and try to repair whatever is, well, lacking.

[spawnloser]

Often enough, what is lacking is other players in those clans.  They want to play in the active clan.

[Lizzie]

You should never create a character specifically designed to join a specific clan, even if the day before you created him you see a post in a tavern board saying they're hiring. The only time you should feel comfortable doing that, is if it's for a sponsored role.

Some very important reasons for this:

1. The leader in charge of hiring could die between the time you read the post and the time your character is approved, and you'd end up frustrated because there -is no one- to hire you right now.

2. The leader in charge of hiring might be alive and well and actively recruiting, and simply not -want- to hire -your- character.

3. The leader in charge of hiring doesn't play when you play, and the likelihood of your ever getting hired is minimal at best - not because they're not hiring, and not because they don't want to hire you, but simply because they don't log in when you do and don't know you exist. If you have no one to work -for- there's really no point in working for them, is there?

There are other reasons. But those are a few.

[Synthesis]

Or, you know, you could just store that character that was intended to join a clan that isn't hiring.

[FightClub]

If there is 1 Salarri, 1 Winrothol, 1 Tenneshi, 1 Bynner, 15 Uaptal... who do you think is getting ANYTHING done?

I once played a pc up north in winrothol, one noble, one aide, and myself. I had a blast until they started hiring people for me to train, assholes, and I got a lot more done before then as well.  Prosperity doesn't depend upon numbers, it depends upon the willingness of the involved PC's to get shit done.

[spawnloser]

Fightclub, that's 3 people in Winrothol, not 1.  I was talking about a very different sort of situation.

[mansa]

You should be telling your real life friends about this roleplaying game, in order to get more people playing.

Approach the problem from another angle.