Game Administration Discussion: The Homeless Ninja Syndrome

[Nyr]

Nyr, I'll respond in a private contact about incident one, which was a few years ago now.

Your account is not 2 years old yet, so yes, let me know what the incident was--please put in a player request on it.  Thanks!

As for limits on PC status, my response is, let the PCs accomplish what the PC accomplishes.  If the PC in game recruits a horde and has PC wielded power to accomplish goals and change the world, shouldn't the staff be excited to help them, rather then feel obligated to remove them for the sake of ease?

We let them accomplish what they accomplish.  We don't prevent PCs from recruiting a horde (in the case of sponsored roles, they do have a cap on direct hirelings, but that's for game balance).  We don't prevent PCs from accumulating social/political power and wielding it.  We don't prevent PCs from accomplishing goals and changing the world.  Experience has taught us that past a certain point, there are diminishing returns in rank.  Higher ranks shouldn't be seen often.  In many cases, they affect so much that they may as well be staff members.  Due to the constraints on the PC and notedly volunteer staff, we do what we can to facilitate the needs of people without having them at those higher ranks.  We're excited to help people accomplish goals, though--just not so excited to be obligated (not feel, be--it's a definite obligation) to do things and react to things at the whim of a PC rather than to assist them.

If someone does enough to threaten a city

This is unrelated.  We won't store someone for being a badass sorcerer/defiler/whatever, or a bender of unspeakable power, or for being a Thrain Ironsword.

rise to the top of their order/house/whatever, its "good on them" not, "better make you an NPC" if you want the game to be truly player driven.

That's a hypothetical you nor I could prove or disprove.  Experience has taught us that your scenario--tried several times--does not work, not for staff, nor for the representation of the gameworld.  We have more to think about than the pleasure of the players that get leadership roles--we have the gameworld and the experience in mind.  We've made the decision--and not lightly--to look at other alternatives so that PCs aren't pigeonholed into roles that limit and restrict their own RP (and so that staff aren't stuck following behind that person with a dustpan and broom, ready to pick up the pieces). 

Go.  Do.  Be.  Discussing the finer points of staff policy and how this prevents you from going, doing, and being...this is cathartic.  However, understand that you (the collective you, those of you that take issue with any staff policy in regards to this or related issues) are pointing out problems you have with the extreme cases that are usually never achieved.

[Aaron Goulet]

Makes perfect sense to me.  Thanks, Nyr, for taking the time to elaborate; you've answered some of my unvoiced questions.

[Marshmellow]

As for limits on PC status, my response is, let the PCs accomplish what the PC accomplishes.  If the PC in game recruits a horde and has PC wielded power to accomplish goals and change the world, shouldn't the staff be excited to help them, rather then feel obligated to remove them for the sake of ease?

The staff prevents people from recruiting a hoard in the first place because having a large percentage of the playerbase all on one side without opposition is unrealistic because the primary opposition for players is other players.  For example, if Kadius has 20 PCs and Salarr has 1, Kurac has 1, and every tribe in the game has 1 each... who owns the wastes?  It's either restrict the character's hiring or provide NPC opposition and that's too much work on the staff's part.  The character has to work for it, not just have a hoard to do his/her bidding.  Anything is possible, still, though.

[Kryos]

Indeed, its good to read these responses.  A lot of what you've said Nyr is quite informative and refreshing. 

[Aaron Goulet]

As for limits on PC status, my response is, let the PCs accomplish what the PC accomplishes.  If the PC in game recruits a horde and has PC wielded power to accomplish goals and change the world, shouldn't the staff be excited to help them, rather then feel obligated to remove them for the sake of ease?

The staff prevents people from recruiting a hoard in the first place because having a large percentage of the playerbase all on one side without opposition is unrealistic because the primary opposition for players is other players.  For example, if Kadius has 20 PCs and Salarr has 1, Kurac has 1, and every tribe in the game has 1 each... who owns the wastes?  It's either restrict the character's hiring or provide NPC opposition and that's too much work on the staff's part.  The character has to work for it, not just have a hoard to do his/her bidding.  Anything is possible, still, though.

I saw this happen on another MUD, and it ruined said MUD for me.

[Scarecrow]

As for limits on PC status, my response is, let the PCs accomplish what the PC accomplishes.  If the PC in game recruits a horde and has PC wielded power to accomplish goals and change the world, shouldn't the staff be excited to help them, rather then feel obligated to remove them for the sake of ease?

The staff prevents people from recruiting a hoard in the first place because having a large percentage of the playerbase all on one side without opposition is unrealistic because the primary opposition for players is other players.  For example, if Kadius has 20 PCs and Salarr has 1, Kurac has 1, and every tribe in the game has 1 each... who owns the wastes?  It's either restrict the character's hiring or provide NPC opposition and that's too much work on the staff's part.  The character has to work for it, not just have a hoard to do his/her bidding.  Anything is possible, still, though.

Some clans will always be bigger than others, such as the T'zai Byn and The Arm of The Dragon, whilst others will remain smaller. However I doubt strongly you would ever have above scenario, because some of those 20 Kadians would be lured to other clans with tempting offers, and after a certain point, Kadius would stop hiring because you only need so many people to get the job done. Numbers of clans ebb and flow, I don't beleive at all everyone will converge into one super-clan and start dominating the game world. Characters are too diverse in personality, skill, ambition and intelligence to all lump together into one gellid mass.
The staff don't prevent people from recruiting a hoard, common sense does. There are lots of Bynners and Militia, because they have tonnes of work that can be spread out over a large body of people. Other Houses and Merchant Houses need less to accomplish their goals, and so only hire what they need.

[Marshmellow]

You'd be surprised, Scarecrow, what an even smaller imbalance can create.  There was a time when of the roughly six clans in one city (at the time), one of them had three times as much as any other, and it was silly how much they were able to accomplish by comparison to everyone else.  These sorts of imbalances do create vacuums in other clans by nature of how people connect to the game, which is essentially piece-meal.  What I mean by that is:  if there are three members of one clan, that they aren't going to see other clannies to be able to do much of anything with nearly as much as people in the clan with ten people.  This means that those people aren't training as much and they aren't able to do RPTs as often because there isn't as much overlap, not to mention that with fewer people that have trained less that they're less likely to survive harder sorts of missions that could be undertaken and thus are less likely to take awesome risks to accomplish awesome goals like the clan with three times the people, even though both houses (other things kept constant) should be able to accomplish much the same things.

[jriley]

You'd be surprised, Scarecrow, what an even smaller imbalance can create.  There was a time when of the roughly six clans in one city (at the time), one of them had three times as much as any other, and it was silly how much they were able to accomplish by comparison to everyone else.  These sorts of imbalances do create vacuums in other clans by nature of how people connect to the game, which is essentially piece-meal.  What I mean by that is:  if there are three members of one clan, that they aren't going to see other clannies to be able to do much of anything with nearly as much as people in the clan with ten people.  This means that those people aren't training as much and they aren't able to do RPTs as often because there isn't as much overlap, not to mention that with fewer people that have trained less that they're less likely to survive harder sorts of missions that could be undertaken and thus are less likely to take awesome risks to accomplish awesome goals like the clan with three times the people, even though both houses (other things kept constant) should be able to accomplish much the same things.

Disagree.

I think some clans will "flood" due to natural events. 

Sometimes one side has a huge advantage.  For example, in historic conflicts between the Turks and Armenians, there was no referee to step in and stop a war merely because the Turks had a bigger, better-equipped army*. 

This is life.  If the Kadians recruit twenty warriors and somebody else only has three, then you'd better join the Kadians as well or hide from them. 

As the ranks of the Kadians swell, they can afford to become more picky about who they choose.  Usually I think they will, installing a soft upper limit to how big a clan can grow.  Anyways, large organizations tend to fracture periodically. 

As someone mentioned above, other clans will need to provide fairly strong incentives for people to join.  But that's life.  You either join the big guys (favoring security) or join the smaller groups (favoring opportunity.)  I would hope that the staff wouldn't step in if they felt that one group were becoming too powerful.  That's sort of what Kyros was complaining about above, and to a strong degree the Nyr has suggested that the staff won't do this, at least not for independent clans.

*Please check my history.  My memory is fairly unreliable.

[Qzzrbl]

You'd be surprised, Scarecrow, what an even smaller imbalance can create.  There was a time when of the roughly six clans in one city (at the time), one of them had three times as much as any other, and it was silly how much they were able to accomplish by comparison to everyone else.  These sorts of imbalances do create vacuums in other clans by nature of how people connect to the game, which is essentially piece-meal.  What I mean by that is:  if there are three members of one clan, that they aren't going to see other clannies to be able to do much of anything with nearly as much as people in the clan with ten people.  This means that those people aren't training as much and they aren't able to do RPTs as often because there isn't as much overlap, not to mention that with fewer people that have trained less that they're less likely to survive harder sorts of missions that could be undertaken and thus are less likely to take awesome risks to accomplish awesome goals like the clan with three times the people, even though both houses (other things kept constant) should be able to accomplish much the same things.

Disagree.

I think some clans will "flood" due to natural events. 

Sometimes one side has a huge advantage.  For example, in historic conflicts between the Turks and Armenians, there was no referee to step in and stop a war merely because the Turks had a bigger, better-equipped army*. 

This is life.  If the Kadians recruit twenty warriors and somebody else only has three, then you'd better join the Kadians as well or hide from them. 

As the ranks of the Kadians swell, they can afford to become more picky about who they choose.  Usually I think they will, installing a soft upper limit to how big a clan can grow.  Anyways, large organizations tend to fracture periodically. 

As someone mentioned above, other clans will need to provide fairly strong incentives for people to join.  But that's life.  You either join the big guys (favoring security) or join the smaller groups (favoring opportunity.)  I would hope that the staff wouldn't step in if they felt that one group were becoming too powerful.  That's sort of what Kyros was complaining about above, and to a strong degree the Nyr has suggested that the staff won't do this, at least not for independent clans.

*Please check my history.  My memory is fairly unreliable.

It's not so much "which clan is bigger" as much as it is "which clan has more PCs".

Let's say we've got two coded clans of mercenaries-- the T'zai Byn, and the Green Assoles.

Historically, and according to the docs, the T'zai Byn is much larger. I can't think of the number the docs say, but just play along with me and let's say the Byn is supposed to have 2000 NPC and VNPC warriors, and the Green Assholes are supposed to be much smaller with about 100 NPC and VNPC warriors.

It wouldn't reflect the docs very well if the Green Assholes have 15 PCs, while the Byn only has 5.

Get what I mean? o:

[Talia]

We have clan caps for good reason, and that won't be changing. Game balance is an important consideration.

[Marshmellow]

Disagree.

I think some clans will "flood" due to natural events. 

Sometimes one side has a huge advantage.  For example, in historic conflicts between the Turks and Armenians, there was no referee to step in and stop a war merely because the Turks had a bigger, better-equipped army*. 

This is life.  If the Kadians recruit twenty warriors and somebody else only has three, then you'd better join the Kadians as well or hide from them. 

As the ranks of the Kadians swell, they can afford to become more picky about who they choose.  Usually I think they will, installing a soft upper limit to how big a clan can grow.  Anyways, large organizations tend to fracture periodically. 

As someone mentioned above, other clans will need to provide fairly strong incentives for people to join.  But that's life.  You either join the big guys (favoring security) or join the smaller groups (favoring opportunity.)  I would hope that the staff wouldn't step in if they felt that one group were becoming too powerful.  That's sort of what Kyros was complaining about above, and to a strong degree the Nyr has suggested that the staff won't do this, at least not for independent clans.

*Please check my history.  My memory is fairly unreliable.

It's not a matter of natural events causing the flooding of people towards a clan or not.  It's what happens when the clan floods.  It's also NOT fitting with the game world for us to determine the VNPC and/or NPC strength of a clan just based on how many PCs are in it.  Also, just because people can be picky doesn't mean they will be picky, especially when they're not paying all their hires' wages out of their own pocket.  People need to be reminded to be picky, and thus we have hire caps.  BE PICKY!  Don't hire people you don't need or that are dumbasses.  Be picky from the beginning!

[Scarecrow]

I beleive the relevent leaders of various Clans are picky, actually, to the extent that is needed for them. Each Clan has different needs to service, a blanket way of recruiting wouldn't work. The Byn have lots of people because they are a good, solid place for new warriors to start out, and because of how they travel so much, are also a good Clan for the new player to see more of the world in a safer manner. Veteran players stay on in the Byn for the various benefits, not least being accrued respect and skill.
The Arm of The Dragon has lots of  people yes, and I would imagine they have a high clan numbers cap. But keep in mind they are restricted to the city, with the occasional patrol in the wilds. They also tend to garner a fair few new players, as being in the Militia is a good way to more safely learn the ropes of Armageddon whilst also gathering general MUD gaming experience.
As for VNPC numbers and NPC numbers belonging to various clans, that's a tougher one if you're comparing those numbers being reflected in PC numbers. I think it may be too abstract to clearly quantify, and probably a little unneeded. Codedly there will always be some elements which don't make "sense" but that's just part of it being a game.
I still beleive though Armageddon has the best clan structure I've seen in a MUD.

[Marshmellow]

I think you have an incorrect assumption of what some clans do.  Would there have been a Copper War if the AoD and the Legion were both actually kept to the city?  People can get involved in things without having half the playerbase in their clan.  Clan caps prevent unrealistic imbalances just based on the number of players doing things.  It's that simple.

[Sam]

That is why the Byn is soo good. They act as a force multiplier.

[Scarecrow]

I think you have an incorrect assumption of what some clans do.  Would there have been a Copper War if the AoD and the Legion were both actually kept to the city?  People can get involved in things without having half the playerbase in their clan.  Clan caps prevent unrealistic imbalances just based on the number of players doing things.  It's that simple.

I unfortunately wasn't around for the Copper War, so I can only comment on what I've seen so far. But don't me wrong, I beleive the clans should have a cap. I'm just saying that the way Armageddon works, I don't think we'd ever be in danger of the killer katamari gellid clan of doom rolling across the world dominating all. Otherwise I agree.

[Marshmellow]

Well, in the past there've been a few instances that weren't quite 'katamari gellid clan of doom' but they were definitely examples of someone getting close to that, at least in proportion to their contemporaries, if you ask me.  This was back before much capping of clans' rosters was done.  Things weren't allowed to get out of hand, but there did seem a bit of imbalance from the point of view of at least a few players that weren't included in the fun for some reason or another.