More tribes, why?

[Anon. CityDweller]

Do we really need more different tribes of humans and desert elves in this game?  It seems to me that it is spreading the player base out too far, and making PC population in the major cities suffer.  Sure, it may give opportunities for roleplay, but it also takes away roleplay from others.

[wizturbo]

I think the tribes are a great, and they do not draw away from city population.  If you haven't noticed, the tribes often set up camps near the major cities, and then move to another city as time goes on.  So they are not a stable population in any one city, but rather a roaming population of more than one city.

[Anonymous]

The tribes aren't a drain on city roleplay since it seems to me a lot of the tribal PCs just go to the cities anyways.

What they do seem to be a drain on is noble and merchant house clans.

[MSM]

Cities are still a pretty common trading spot.

[Cuusardo]

The tribes aren't a drain on city roleplay since it seems to me a lot of the tribal PCs just go to the cities anyways.

What they do seem to be a drain on is noble and merchant house clans.

I would be inclined to agree.  It seems like noble and merchant house clans are hurting for PCs lately.

[wizturbo]

The tribes aren't a drain on city roleplay since it seems to me a lot of the tribal PCs just go to the cities anyways.

What they do seem to be a drain on is noble and merchant house clans.

I would be inclined to agree.  It seems like noble and merchant house clans are hurting for PCs lately.

I'm not sure this is a bad thing.

[Xamminy]

Why, wizturbo?  If the noble and merchant houses have no PCs, what is the reason to have them open for play?  The reason is so they can have PCs driving plotlines..and they can't drive these plotlines without having PCs.  Any merchant/noble can drive plotlines when an IMM is piloting them, but the reason for these clans to be open is so that players, who have said in the past that the like to do this, can come up and run with their own plots.

[wizturbo]

Why, wizturbo?  If the noble and merchant houses have no PCs, what is the reason to have them open for play?  The reason is so they can have PCs driving plotlines..and they can't drive these plotlines without having PCs.  Any merchant/noble can drive plotlines when an IMM is piloting them, but the reason for these clans to be open is so that players, who have said in the past that the like to do this, can come up and run with their own plots.

I just don't believe there is enough player population to support all the merchant houses completely, and still have enough room for all the other great clans out there and not to mention the -vital- need for some independent PC's across the world to fill roles that clanned people simply cannot do for whatever reason.

When I say "supported completely" I mean political, merchantile, and martial roles all filled.  I strongly believe the merchant houses DO need to have the political and mercantile roles filled, by i strongly question whether a large PC military/hunting branch of the merchant houses is necessary for most of the merchant houses.  Kurac being the exception in my mind, at least at this point.

I think that the tribes create an awesome opportunity to interact with the merchant houses, instead of the players joining them.  There can be all types of contracts and agreements between tribes, and because these tribes are moving entities, they could help further plots that span across the north/south divide.

A trade contract between Tribe X and Merchant House Y, could allow for the existence of TWO independent clans, rather then just one clan with a hunter branch thats sole purpose is to gather goods for the House.  By having tribes fill these roles, it gives the tribal players interaction on a more interesting level (in my opinion) by being able to partake in more then just hunting.  They can roleplay the unique culture of their tribe, they can interact in tribal politics (which I suspect will become much more of a 'thing' in the future) and they get a chance to travel the world and interact with people in more than one city.

By merchant houses not having a PC military/hunter branch (but still a strong virtual one), it ALSO opens up opportunities to hire the Byn or Kuraci mercenaries to do some dirty work from time to time, that would normally be done by the merchant clan's PC armed forces.  Adding even more interaction between the clans, which opens up possibilities for conflict, friendships and fun!

Anyhow, thats the longer (but still not complete) version of why I said that population being diverted to the tribes instead of the merchant houses isn't a bad thing.

[ShaLeah]

Quick 2 sid...

I have mixed emotions about all the tribals added lately.  We've had a precedent for a long time, aside from the documented mention of nomadic people who travel the sands, the most (in)famous tribals have been the gypsies and the added tribes in place now seem to be (non-isolated) rip offs of the gypsies in one form or another. There's the occassional gypsy that ventures out into the city for the good (read: spy) of their people but on the whole they are reclusive bastards and seeing one in game has always been special to me.  Not so much anymore.

I'm not keen on accepting tribals into society, I don't feel it's something IC to leave the people you are supposed to be fanatically loyal to to make a life outside the tribe.  I personally won't hire one if I'm working a position in a noble house, in my opinion they'd want nothing but city people who are afraid of their Sorceror King and know the structure of the hierachy. I wouldn't feel right hiring them for a merchant house either but less so.

Maybe I'm too much of an elven mind-frame when it comes to city folk accepting outsiders. I feel it wouldn't be an easy thing to do to come into a strange city with a strange accent and live there well, without prejudice or malice shown towards you.  I like the revolving tents thing, keep those people out of my city, but I honestly don't like the whole making a life within the city thing. Ick.

ShaLeah
-who hasn't yet had her coffee and isn't sure she made any sense at all whatsoever...

[Bestatte]

Meh. I agree with ShaLeah.

I also agree with Wiz.

The whole point of the arguement -for- the tribals is that they can assist merchant houses *without* being "hired" by them. I also agree that anyone who claims to be a tribal, and makes a bee-line to the city immediately after creating the character (or gens there from the Hall of Kings) should have a SERIOUS major mondo reason for doing so, and something like that should be a special app.  Otherwise, it just looks like the only reason you picked "nomad" was so you could have Bendune and speak in tribal-accented sirihish. Who's gonna give a crap if everyone and their brother starts showing up like that? It takes away SO much from the game when it becomes common to see many people living in the city claiming to be tribals.

In addition, they're NOT tribals. They're city-dwellers with a tribal accent. Unless, as I said previously, they have a VERY good reason for moving to the city. "My tribe was killed off by raptors" doesn't count. But - "I'm actually a defiler and the tribe chief caught me doing defiler things and I had to flee for my life" has more punch.

To underail and return to the actual topic: I think tribals add so much to the game - it shows the majority of players (who play in the city) that there's a whole nuther world outside the gate, that other cultures exist. Sure, you can read that for yourself in the room descriptions in the marketplaces, but it doesn't mean all that much until you meet up with some of them.

As far as merchant houses having hunter/guard groups: I can see a Nenyuk PC having *a* PC guard. I can see Kadius have *a* PC guard.

But what exactly is the Kadius hunter group hunting for? Silk-worms? Critters that grow trees out of their asses? Gargoyles they can chip garnets off their noses? Salarr specializes in leatherwork - I can see them needing hides and pelts and shell on a regular enough basis that it would warrant a PC contingency of hunters. Kadius doesn't. They have very few finished goods made from these things. And even Salarr's stuff is made by virtual crafters, not PC crafters. Neither of the merchant house PCs travel enough that they need to hire on guards to keep their wagons safe; they can hire the Byn for that. Or - even get to know the tribals along the trade route and have some of the more trusted tribals escort them from one part of the route to the next, where another set of trusted tribals would pick up the escort and continue to the next, etc. etc. etc.

I would much rather see an enormous tribal contingency than a power-push for merchant house guards/hunters. Kurac being the only exception because of the nature of their house.

[EvilRoeSlade]

I've never thought that merchant houses need a guard/hunter force, but noble houses certaintly do.

[Ktavialt]

Yeah um... my two cents. I think tribals are somewhat a drain
on the already-spread-too-thin playerbase. Sorta the same thing
for halflings, but kinda nice to see something like halfling/mantis/gith
open once in awhile.

[Sanvean]

As originally presented, the idea behind the tablelands nomads camps was to provide a backdrop and RP opportunities for the existing players who had chosen to use a background featuring one of those tribes.  As always, when a new thing is added to the game, a number of players have flocked in that direction since then, but I'm reasonably sure that will even out.  

I do not want to see the tribal camps become mini-cities, and I do not believe there's any intention to take them in that direction.  Mekeda can talk better about the philosophy behind these and what she sees in their future.

[Dresan]

I don't want to get too Ic here but Salarr hunts anything with a tough hide, shell or bones.  Kadius hunts for creatures with finer pelts and uses bones and shells for jewlery. They both need hunters, guards are NCP for the most part.

Also Kadius is be far less restrictive then any other guilds so it is in my humble opinion best for the newbie hunters to learn from.    However, I can only speak for the north here since i have yet to make a character in the south.

However...yes i do believe there are too many clans open and another problem that someone else brought up in a previous thread is that clans don't specialize anymore, they overlap so that is a problem as well.

[Vanth]

Personally, I suspect that human and elven tribes are more likely to take away from the "independent" category, than any of the city categories.

Here is a completely unscientific, random sample of the population.

45 players online.
8 are immortal.
5 are in merchant clans (Kadius, Salarr, Kurac)
5 are in military/mercenary clans (AOD, Sun Legions, T'zai Byn)
4 are in noble clans
5 are in clans like Atrium and Poet's Circle
3 are in elven/human tribes/clans
The other 20 are independent/unclanned.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Wow, Vanth.  I'd always wondered what the breakdown was, thanks for sharing!

Although I can't quite get the numbers to add up.

8 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 5 + 3 + 20 = 50.

Maybe 3 of the imms had PCs and the other 5 didn't.  Anyway, it looks fairly balanced to me.  We just need more players, that's all

[Mekeda]

One thing people might need to consider in regards to the tribal human camps that I just added. A lot of the pc's who are currently playing the tribals have given me feedback that it is ideal for them because they don't have a lot of time to commit, want good roleplay when they can log in, and are taking a break or steering away from leadership positions for a little while.

In the tribal humans, there is no leadership, everyone is fairly much an equal on the pc level.

You can log in as much as you like or only log in once in a while and it's all good. There is no set schedule other than when the camps move around the world so you are free to be an irregular player without really slowing down other pc's like you would in a merchant house or noble house that needs the more active, often around players in them.

When you DO have time to play, you are not forced to spend the first hour explaining to someone why you weren't visible for an IC month or what have you, you can pick right up and go.

I really do not think the human tribals are pulling people away from the merchant houses and noble houses. It is a completely different scenario that really adds a level of playability for those people who cannot, or don't want to, spend a lot of time playing but do enjoy good rp and the intense theme of Armageddon.

Currently, I also have a maximum of 5 players in any tribe (of the humans) at any one time. Of that, only 1 tribe is currently full. One has 1 opening and the other has 4 openings. So out of the entire playerbase, there are perhaps 10 to 11 players with tribal characters.

I really think this is a kneejerk reaction that happens when any clans open up. There is an instinctive reaction to look at who is in your clan and say "We don't have enough pc's so there must be something wrong." Perhaps the something wrong is just that you do not have active recruiters or your views on an acceptable playerbase population differ from the staffs views.

Mekeda

[Savak]

I'm only now, towards the recent part of this thread, figuring out what yall are even talking about.  I used to think *I* rambled on without quite clarifying anything, BUT NOW I SEE THE TRUTH.

At any rate, thought I'd add that I've made a regular habit of checking where people are when I log in every day, and there's an absurdly low proportion in any non-city room when I do.  Comparing that to the absurdly high proportion of non-city rooms built into the game, and the absurdity finds no bounds.

Now, I'm poking a little fun at the fact, but the point remains -- despite populations being naturally concentrated in cities & the "outside" being dangerous, for a desert-based world MY opinion is that there are far too few desert-roamers..period.  Those who travel, travel zippily (maybe with good reason, but it's still boring).  Almost everyone else "lives" in a city.  That leaves the occasional tribal, hunting or mercenary party (with rare noteable exceptions).

Anyway, that's what I think.  BURN THE CITIES.  BAAAAHAHAHAHA.

-Savak

[Delirium]

My hero.

[Bestatte]

You can't have him, Delirium. He's carrying my love child.

Oh - woops, sorry - that's off-topic. To get back ON topic: I think things are fairly evenly balanced, though I agree it would be great to see more "true" tribals roaming around. "True" meaning - not people with the nomad subguild just so they can speak Bendune while working for one of the city-based clans.

[Candi]

The point that players who don't have a Lot of ooc time to dedicate tend to favor the tribal clans lends itself to how balance will still exiist in game.  Having 5 people in a city who play 40 hours a week is not the same thing as having 5 tribals who play 4 hours a week.  You have a lot more potential for RP in the cities.  Lots more.  Based both on pc populace and especially the amount of time they spend playing.   It's not just the number of characters who live there, but the number of players who are active and available at any one given time.  Tribes create a necessary part of the world, it gives Arm flavor and keeps the harsh rugged desert life alive and well.   Plus, it caters to a good sized group in the player base.  Above all else... tribes are gritty.  Zalanthas can't have to much gritty.  Gritty is Gooood.