Unofficial subguild discussion thread

[Synthesis]

Personally, I would prefer that our playerbase be made up of people who are willing to read between the lines and think for themselves rather than have it all handed to them. I think that's part of the reason why our playerbase is made up of so many talented roleplayers. I believe it would -contribute- to a decline in the quality of our playerbase.

Yes, clearly by making the game more antisocial you contribute to a better player base.

Hey, you need some sociopaths if you're going to run a game with the tagline:  murder, corruption, betrayal.

[janeshephard]

I've seen you bring up that "tag line" more than once. Where did you see it? I'm guessing a player made poster?

[Armaddict]

Staff made, actually.

[Thunkkin]

Frequent staff motto.  For instance, see the closing line of this post:  http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38480.msg524497.html#msg524497

I don't think keeping the starting skills of mundane guilds and subguilds secret adds anything to the game other than frustration for new players and those who don't keep lists of their skills.

[Lizzie]

Frequent staff motto.  For instance, see the closing line of this post:  http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38480.msg524497.html#msg524497

I don't think keeping the starting skills of mundane guilds and subguilds secret adds anything to the game other than frustration for new players and those who don't keep lists of their skills.

<insert THIS meme here>

[Armaddict]

Please let me know all magick spells and their recipes as well, please.  And all psionic skills.  And the locations of all the places I think my character should go.  And please maximize my stats.  And please make this game easy, and get rid of the idea of people preying on each other, because that frustrates me.  Please tell me all the secret things Houses do, because that influences what job my character should get.  Please let me know all of the dangerous things different creatures can do, because that influences how I hunt.  Please tell me all the branching trees, because what skills get branched influences what I want to play.  Please make this game not hard, because it's irritating.  Please make water sources well known so that I don't die from thirst, ever.  Please change this stat, because I said in my background that he was strong, and he's not.  Please swap out this skill for me, I don't want that one, I want this one to make my character more effective.  Please reverse the documentation of the templarate, because they're way too mean and inhospitable.  Please make poison more easily curable.  Please release -exact- bonuses for each stat so that I know exactly what stats I want.  Please make helpfiles tell how filling this food is versus this food so that I don't waste money on things less filling.  Please be more clear in the effects of choosing each race, I need to know if my dwarf warrior or half-elf warrior has more damage potential.  Please increase maximum skill levels for each class to be more equal in everything.  Please give me more crafting skills, and make it so I can buy the materials for everything in shops and readily know what is needed for everything.  Please make it so that new skills are higher so I start off more easily survivable.  Please make players stop being mean to me, it scares me away, and more importantly, scares away newbies (cop out because I actually just don't like it but I've been around awhile.)  Please....please...make this....make this...tell me...tell me...


Please.  Make this game easy.  Please make it so I don't have to play it at all to know everything about it.  Please change the entire mood of the game, and dismantle a recipe that has made the more hardcore role-playing game of all time.  All of that makes it just so damn -hard-.

[janeshephard]

Please let me know all magick spells and their recipes as well, please...

Nobody asked for this, and this post was not necessary. If this was an attempt to contribute to this thread I think you can do better. Nyr offered to clarify some help files and people sent in requests. That's all that happened.

[jhunter]

Personally, I would prefer that our playerbase be made up of people who are willing to read between the lines and think for themselves rather than have it all handed to them. I think that's part of the reason why our playerbase is made up of so many talented roleplayers. I believe it would -contribute- to a decline in the quality of our playerbase.

Yes, clearly by making the game more antisocial you contribute to a better player base.

I don't see what having more information about the skills/coded workings of the game has to do with how social it is.

[jhunter]

Frequent staff motto.  For instance, see the closing line of this post:  http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38480.msg524497.html#msg524497

I don't think keeping the starting skills of mundane guilds and subguilds secret adds anything to the game other than frustration for new players and those who don't keep lists of their skills.

<insert THIS meme here>

People have actually had to do this??!! When you all keep stressing the point of "new" players, you are forgetting that all of us were once new players and went through the learning curve as well. Some of us, looking back, still don't believe it was too difficult. But anyway, like I said, I can see how maybe a few minor tweaks are in order. I just don't think we should contribute to people being mentally lazy just to have more "numbers" in the playerbase. There is a point that we would be giving away too much, too easily.

[Qzzrbl]

Personally, I would prefer that our playerbase be made up of people who are willing to read between the lines and think for themselves rather than have it all handed to them. I think that's part of the reason why our playerbase is made up of so many talented roleplayers. I believe it would -contribute- to a decline in the quality of our playerbase.

Yes, clearly by making the game more antisocial you contribute to a better player base.

I don't see what having more information about the skills/coded workings of the game has to do with how social it is.

I honestly don't care about the change either way.... It doesn't affect me a single bit.

Don't worry about the quality of the playerbase-- us vets'll keep those newbs in line, amirite?

[Armaddict]

I just don't think we should contribute to people being mentally lazy just to have more "numbers" in the playerbase.

I don't even see how that would add more to the playerbase.  It really just leads to more people joining up and immediately trying to figure out how to make the most badass character without having to go through the stages of 'getting' the point of the game.  Which has nothing to do with minmaxing, it has to do with playing a character in an environment.

More information on subguilds doesn't make the game more newbie friendly.  They will be preyed on just as easily, not due to being targeted, but due to not having that grasp of just how inhospitable the game itself is.  While giving the clear-cut skill list doesn't ruin the game, it -does- start an expectation among new players who haven't slipped into comfort yet for -more- straightforward information.

[Lizzie]

Frequent staff motto.  For instance, see the closing line of this post:  http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38480.msg524497.html#msg524497

I don't think keeping the starting skills of mundane guilds and subguilds secret adds anything to the game other than frustration for new players and those who don't keep lists of their skills.

<insert THIS meme here>

People have actually had to do this??!! When you all keep stressing the point of "new" players, you are forgetting that all of us were once new players and went through the learning curve as well. Some of us, looking back, still don't believe it was too difficult. But anyway, like I said, I can see how maybe a few minor tweaks are in order. I just don't think we should contribute to people being mentally lazy just to have more "numbers" in the playerbase. There is a point that we would be giving away too much, too easily.

It was enough of a problem then, that the staff has changed their policy and stated this week, that people are no longer allowed to ask for a subguild change. If it wasn't a problem, previously, then the staff wouldn've have had to change their policy. Now, however, part of the problem (the part where people didn't merely typo, but actually didn't realize that what they selected didn't have the skills they were led to believe they came with), is no longer -allowed- to be addressed. Previously, it was. This policy change forbids it.

[Jingo]

Seriously.

What's the problem with this?

[Qzzrbl]

Seriously.

What's the problem with this?

Some people are clearly concerned with players down the road asking for more and more information, like later on someone saying, "Well hey, you listed all the skills for subguilds, why not for main guilds too?" and so on.

Though I'm pretty sure the Staff will be quick to draw the line if it gets too bad.

[Armaddict]

Though I'm pretty sure the Staff will be quick to draw the line if it gets too bad.

Pretty sure that's what's already been done and people are arguing with it.

[Qzzrbl]

Though I'm pretty sure the Staff will be quick to draw the line if it gets too bad.

Pretty sure that's what's already been done and people are arguing with it.

Well.... Y'know, what skills come with subguilds, we can all agree that having that clearly listed is pretty harmless, right?

Even so, judging from Staff's responses, I really don't think they'll be throwing lists of subguild skills up on the helpfiles anytime soon.

[Armaddict]

Fairly harmless, yes.  But that's just because I think they're pretty well listed out right now.  There's one or two that are vague in the sense of which particular skill is had, but in reading the title of the subguild and it's purpose as an augmentation of the character, you can guess what their purpose is, which still makes the subguild completely functional, particularly when reinforced with that 'vague' explanation.

What I'm more worried about is this expectation of complete clarity, which actually kind of undermines the game mood altogether.  Did I want more information when I was new to the game?  Hell yes.  Am I glad I never got it now that I've played so long?  Hell yes.  Because things still aren't crystal clear, and I still don't understand them completely, and the game continues to draw on me as similar to life:  I never actually 'win' the game.  It just goes on.

Asking for more information, more clarity, and more catering to you just because things didn't end up exactly how you planned actually, in the long run, can screw you out of the some of the more beautiful parts of this game.  I swear it.

[Nyr]

Thanks to the folks that contributed.  We'll look over the suggestions in the coming week and implement changes as necessary; we'll let you know once they're done.

Stuff submitted so far:

thug subguild helpfile suggestion -- skill not mentioned
forage helpfile suggestion -- which guilds/sg's can forage for food
acrobat helpfile suggestion -- adept with hands and feet in combat (clarification)
nomad helpfile suggestion -- skill not mentioned
rebel helpfile suggestion -- skill mentioned, not clarified

And yeah, we've drawn the line in the same spot (a couple of times) since January of this year.  I don't think anyone's going to step up to the plate and argue this from staff-side when it's been done already.  If anyone would like to save some time, you can quote yourself (or others) from that thread.

[Lizzie]

Nyr, what people are trying to say - not even trying. Successfully stating..

is that in January, you didn't have a policy forbidding people from switching subguilds if they didn't understand what came with them, when they picked them, and only discovered this after showing up i nthe game.

in January, you ALLOWED people to submit a request for a subuild change. In fact..
up until last week, you ALLOWED - and I mean you specifically since you're one of the staffers who posted - people to submit subguild change requests.

Now, we're not allowed to do that. We're not allowed to correct a mistake, that we were allowed to correct in January.

You have further restricted new players' ability to comprehend what they are doing, by not allowing them the opportunity to make a change, that up until this past week, they were allowed to make, after discovering that they screwed up.

Veterans don't need much hand-holding, because veterans already know what comes with this or that subguild. Being vague with regards to subguilds doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't make roleplaying easier, it doesn't make the world come more alive, it doesn't thrust me deeper into immersion. All it does, is frustrated new players who don't know what more seasoned players not only know, but were allowed to correct, prior to this past week.

[Nyr]

Just so we're clear, you can submit a request if you feel a helpfile for a guild or subguild doesn't give the information it should about starting skills.

This is pretty much how I feel about this, as well:

A sentence such as, "Ranger skills involve hunting persons or animals, exceptional powers of observation, a strong aptitude for archery, and some moderate skill with weapons." conveys the factual information wrapped in language that keeps it role-oriented.

Replacing the sentence with, "Rangers skills involve rope-jumping, juggling, hobbit guarding, and broken_sword_fighting." strips it down to the factual information only and, for me, detracts from the efforts we make elsewhere in the game to maintain an atmosphere of role-playing and not skill-mongering.

If anything gets added, it'll probably get added as displayed in the first example, not as displayed in the second example.

[Majikal]

Veterans don't need much hand-holding, because veterans already know what comes with this or that subguild. Being vague with regards to subguilds doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't make roleplaying easier, it doesn't make the world come more alive, it doesn't thrust me deeper into immersion. All it does, is frustrated new players who don't know what more seasoned players not only know, but were allowed to correct, prior to this past week.

Well put.

[Synthesis]

I dunno, I've had a few memorable, "Oh shiiii--I didn't know they could do that" moments.

The argument is pretty much the relative value of those newbie "oh shiii--" moments vs. the frustration of playing the "decode the secret message in the helpfile" skill-guessing game.

I don't really care one way or the other.

[Lizzie]

I dunno, I've had a few memorable, "Oh shiiii--I didn't know they could do that" moments.

The argument is pretty much the relative value of those newbie "oh shiii--" moments vs. the frustration of playing the "decode the secret message in the helpfile" skill-guessing game.

I don't really care one way or the other.

I had one of those moments, a couple of times. Both times, when I found out, I was royally pissed off. Because, if I had known about these things for two other, of my 15 characters, I would've picked those subguilds instead of the "pick one because none of them really fit what I want to do with this PC anyway" subguilds.

[roughneck]

I go through characters like extras on star trek.  Discovering different subguild lists is one of the perks.

I know you're all pretty jealous.

[Rotten]

I don't know about the rest of you, but this blew my mind.

It's a tangent to this project, but while we have someone modifying the help files, could we get a mention that those two commands work under the same skill?