Recent Issues I've Seen With The Great Merchant Houses

[Kassindra]

The only problem I have seen with clans...recently, is that Almost NONE of you leader types are really pushing the recruiting...A bit of anecdotal evidence on the matter.

Back when our playerbase was about half or less then it is now, say oh, 2002, every single recruiting clan made sure to camp the spawn areas...You would almost literally get jumped on by two or three recruiters the moment you entered the game. Combat clans drooled and almost came to blows trying to recruit half-giants and dwarves, merchant clans were jumping all over the humans and even breeds sometimes. If you started in the rinth you could and were often pressed into the guild.

I remember as a brand new player, I was literally fought over by a few clans and I ended up joining the AoD, second character I was even jumped on by a player run hunting group and other clans again and I was like "Wow, I didn't expect that." in my mind and I thought at the same time it was really cool and exciting but nowadays you have to actually approach people to try to get recruited. Sometimes you can go for DAYS and not meet the person who can do the recruiting even. It's not really being pushed like it used to be just a few years ago when you couldn't even breathe without someone asking you if you worked for anyone or wanted a job.

I'd love to see this happen again, but you can't please everyone and I also don't think it's a money thing most times with people going indy or clanning it up, I think recruiting does need to be pushed more from the leaders. I would love also if GMH did get more than one role in at a time, because to me they're really needed for the two major cities and it couldn't hurt to have both areas filled out with some leadership in those respective merchant houses.

[Kismetic]

In my experience, clan retention is generally low, and naturally, turnover is high.  You do what you can to recruit, and you do the best you can to keep people, but ultimately, people would rather "rage against the machine" and play Johnny Badass on their own terms.  Though, I've noticed a few characters here and there who try hard to get into a clan, and pursue it like it was a worthy goal, and I like seeing that faithfulness to the documentation.

[musashi]

I'm half in one camp, half in the other on this one.

I think it's better for the theme of the world overall if new PC's are approaching clans begging for work than the other way around.
I also realize that in order for that to happen the clan needs to be hopping and look like its going to be a blast to play in.

So my general philosophy when playing a leader is to do a lot of RPT stuff with my underlings (or if I'm super high up, recruit a mid level type and order them to do it), such that they have a big presence in the public eye. If PC's see your clan always having fun, they'll come to you wanting in, and then you can beat them off with a stick.

[Fredd]

I'm half in one camp, half in the other on this one.

I think it's better for the theme of the world overall if new PC's are approaching clans begging for work than the other way around.
I also realize that in order for that to happen the clan needs to be hopping and look like its going to be a blast to play in.

So my general philosophy when playing a leader is to do a lot of RPT stuff with my underlings (or if I'm super high up, recruit a mid level type and order them to do it), such that they have a big presence in the public eye. If PC's see your clan always having fun, they'll come to you wanting in, and then you can beat them off with a stick.

That's how I did it. Actively recruited a core group, and started coming up with things to do. I threw parties, sent them on wild-tregil chases based on hearsay, rubbed elbows with nobles, made frequent trips between cities. Whatever I could think of to make sure everyone was having fun, including me. This brought in a lot of buisness too, which gave my crafters work too. Once I was doing that, people were coming to me and begging for work.

I've done it as high ranking in other clans too, and it works every time, honestly. Change things to work with the docs, and there you go.

[Kismetic]

The problem that I see is that there are about a hundred more interesting, constructive things to be doing in a leadership role than recruiting.  GMH's should recruit themselves.

[Refugee]

I've played a very successful, long-lived independent hunter.  I played a GMH hunter for a short time.  It was excruciating.

It's not about the money.  You need a lot of money if you're independent and very active.  I'd go through a hundred sid in stable fees and water a day, easy, when I was starting out, and it was hard to come up with in the beginning.  Later it wasn't an issue.  But it wasn't ever the motivating factor for playing.

If I make a hunter PC I don't want to spend ten hours a day in a tavern.  I want to get outside and do stuff.  Even if I get killed doing it.   But GMH's need to keep their newhires under control.  They generally don't allow them to go outside alone.  It makes sense of course.  But if there's no active hunting group in the house, you end up sitting around bored crazy.

Playing an independent is -fun-.  I want to do it again.  

How do you make playing a GMH hunter fun?  Seems like it used to be, because a year ago they used to have several hunters each.  Maybe the answer is a sponsored lead hunter, like someone suggested.  In each city.  Who would actively recruit, and also keep the hunters engaged.

I'd play a sponsored role like that.  I'd join a GMH if there was an active hunter there in my play times, too.

[TheBadSeed]

The independent will always be able to profit more, if your goal is purely coins. S/He has no house to pay, no conditions to live under. No worries about who might or might not be jealous/angry with their actions in a house.

If your IC goal is to be the richest badass in the known, you're better off playing an indie. They get better coin for what they do, they get better practice most times.

They also have no protection, no camaraderie except what S/He makes, no leader to defer action upon if they manage to break the law, or piss off another group. The reason people join GMH's, or any clan, is to be a part of something. If your goal is to be the richest indie around, feel welcome to pursue that goal. However, when houses start noticing your prosperity, don't be shocked when someone starts plotting against you, and you have no clan to fall back on.

That being said, I think hunting opportunities in the south, or lack there of, is one of the primary reasons the south has failed to have much of a presence as far as GMH's are concerned. I've seen many, many try and be house hunters in the south, only to die as soon as they actually try doing it.

[Morrolan]

If your IC goal is to be the richest badass in the known for a couple of RL weeks, you're better off playing an indie.

This is more how I see it.

[Malken]

They also have no protection, no camaraderie except what S/He makes, no leader to defer action upon if they manage to break the law, or piss off another group. The reason people join GMH's, or any clan, is to be a part of something. If your goal is to be the richest indie around, feel welcome to pursue that goal. However, when houses start noticing your prosperity, don't be shocked when someone starts plotting against you, and you have no clan to fall back on.

I disagree with that. Part of why I enjoy playing indies so much vs clanned is that I get to pick the people my character surrounds himself with. I get to pick my friends, I get to pick the ones I trust and there's just as much, if not more camaraderie than in clans because you actually enjoy the ones you work with and it's usually also much less drama. Constant clan drama is why I now steer away from them these days.

There's also plenty of protection if you know how to go about it. If you can provide important people with resources, they'll always be trying hard to keep you around. One could almost say that there's probably better protection as an indie because you can grab protection from many sources as opposed to just one. Indie can bribe templars, they can make deals with desert elf tribes, they can provide GMHs with resources when they don't have hunters of their own, etc..

[Fredd]

The problem that I see is that there are about a hundred more interesting, constructive things to be doing in a leadership role than recruiting.  GMH's should recruit themselves.

Except you can't do those hundred things if you have no coin, and no crew to help further your goals.

[Lizzie]

The problem that I see is that there are about a hundred more interesting, constructive things to be doing in a leadership role than recruiting.  GMH's should recruit themselves.

Except you can't do those hundred things if you have no coin, and no crew to help further your goals.

When I played a sponsored leadership GMH role, I fired most of the crew I had inherited. I think I might've hired 3 replacements, in the 1+ years I played that character. I didn't WANT a crew, I wanted to be that gumball machine who gets involved by virtue of the fact that I was there, I was efficient, and I was able to meet the customers' needs. Just by doing that alone - I got tugged into plotlines. I didn't need a crew for that. I did need a couple of trusted underlings, and I had them - throughout almost the entire time I played the PC.

What I did - instead of having hirelings that I had to watch like a hawk because they're all thieves out to steal our house's stuff and can't be trusted alone, ever (that was just part of her personality)...

I hired per-diem people. I'd find Joe Grebber coming in from a day at the obsidian mines, and tell him I'd give him 5 sids more per piece for the next 50 pieces of obsidian he brought in, than the templar would pay him at the shop.

I'd find an independant hunter who was just starting out but showed promise - and offer to buy the tregil skins and any blocky stones he brought in.

I'd find the local would-be cut-throat and tell him I'd give him 50 sids if he could identify WHO was renting the apartment that he robbed yesterday, and another 100 sids if he could let me know if that person complains to a templar about it - and which templar he's complaining to.

I'd sponsor a noob for the Byn - I'd pay the 300 sids fee for them to hire him, on the condition that I get first dibs on him once he completes his recruit year. They never lasted - so it was usually a good bet that spread the sids around, got me quicker access to the Byn when I needed to hire them for a contract job, and even if that noob survived, I'd end up with a hireling who already know the basics of Armageddon syntax AND which end of the sword was the cutting end.

I don't like the feeling that I "should" hire people. I don't like that kind of pressure. Especially since, once you hire a crew, you need them to earn their keep. And if you're too busy hobnobbing with nobles and the last crafter you hired walked out of the city alone and got killed by a silt horror, there's really nothing for your crew to DO other than spar. You certainly don't need any more raw materials - your store-room is bursting with them and there's codedly no more room for another feather.

So I'd rather be in a position where I don't have to worry about a crew, or be responsible for them, or deal with crew-based drama. For that reason, I find independent RP much more satisfying.

[DustMight]

I think the OP has some valid points.
It's difficult to play a leader in a clan when no one (few) seem interested in playing in clans.
Why should one play in a clan when you can make a ton of $$ food/water outside of the clan?
You don't have intsta-enemies as well (granted you also don't have insta-friends).

Life IS better outside of the clan in that sense.

Things that could make clans more desirable would be reducing profit on raw goods (as they have done with gith gear), reducing access to
clean water (or make it more dangerous), players could practice more banditry to encourage grouping of PCs rather than solo hunters and such.
Another thing would be to require crafters to actually have a decent set-up to make goods - tanning vats, looms, gear that is incredibly tough to
carry because they are big and bulky (if not also expensive).  Suddenly clans with permanent installations will be very useful.

In my own case, while I occasionally play in a clan, I do a piss-poor job of it because RL prevents me for hanging out for scheduled RP. Not going to happen.
I bet there are a number of folks in that situation as well.

[Barzalene]

One thing I try to do as a leader is to be understanding about rl obligations. Players should never feel guilty about their play schedule. All I care about is what you do when you're on.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I don't like to play in a clan because if I want to spend 2 IC days talking to, kanking, or otherwise engaging in player-to-player interaction, I have no desire to cut on that and leave to go change my ldesc and throw out masturbatory emotes to an empty of interaction room that is no fun unless my character is feeling particularly introspective.

[Patuk]

That being said, I think hunting opportunities in the south, or lack there of, is one of the primary reasons the south has failed to have much of a presence as far as GMH's are concerned. I've seen many, many try and be house hunters in the south, only to die as soon as they actually try doing it.

It's funny because my northen Kadian lasted all of three days whereas my southen Salarri is my longest lived character to date.

I agree with Allanak's outdoors being harsh though. It very much is part of the setting, but even so the difference is rather pronounced indeed.

I don't like to play in a clan because if I want to spend 2 IC days talking to, kanking, or otherwise engaging in player-to-player interaction, I have no desire to cut on that and leave to go change my ldesc and throw out masturbatory emotes to an empty of interaction room that is no fun unless my character is feeling particularly introspective.

wut

[Bushranger]

I don't know, I really think all of you are wrong.

The amount of coin my PC makes has never been a reason to join or not join a house...of any kind. And I really think that most players, you all included are really the same way.

(edited for brevity, go back and read it if you haven't)

The only problem I have seen with clans...recently, is that Almost NONE of you leader types are really pushing the recruiting...

I've played a very successful, long-lived independent hunter.  I played a GMH hunter for a short time.  It was excruciating.

It's not about the money.  

(edited for brevity, if you haven't go back and read it)

If I make a hunter PC I don't want to spend ten hours a day in a tavern.  I want to get outside and do stuff.  Even if I get killed doing it.  

I think X-D and Refugee are spot on correct here. It's almost never about the money; it's about fun, activity and leadership (both real and perceived).

No one want's to sit around in a tavern for hours because the clan they have joined doesn't have regular activities for them, because they are waiting to be recruited or they waiting to find out who they can go to for recruitment.  I've found that last situation one to be the worst, occasionally I've come across the situation where people don't seem to know who you can go to for recruitment even within their own house! You ask  Hunter B who you should ask for recruitment, you get told talk to Family Member Y who when you contact says Hunt Master X who turns out to be only in the north while you're in the south and then directs you to - you guessed it -  Hunter B.

Leaders need to be out there recruiting, as X-D says, or better yet they should be having the minions they've recruited out there looking for potential recruits for their GMH. This way you get new minions who are on at roughly the same time as your current minions, who hang out in the same places as your current minions and who are the kind of people your current minions want to associate with. These things work together to build a team that wants to stay together and work with each other. How do you keep a group like this together and interested in recruiting more minions? X-D and Refugee again have given you the answers, make sure that your minions have ample opportunity to be doing what they were hired to do! At least two or three times a week so minions can make at least on of them. Now you have a hopping, bopping group becoming something people -want- to join! The moment the fun and activity stops though is when you'll have people breaking off to do their own thing.

Also as people have said - Be the change you want. You want a GMH to be more desirous you don't even need to be a leader to do it. Work as hard as you can to find a leader and beg, grovel or bribe your way in at the bottom rung then start being the best damned employee the GMH has ever had, recruit your own fellow minions by lying about all the fun you're having and getting them to bug your leader while you keep telling the leader how the GMH really needs these people since they are so awesome, and schedule your own events to do what you're supposed to be doing. Your leader will either see what you're doing and start accommodating it which is what you wanted all along -or- they won't you can use that to prove to their superiors that you're the reason the GMH has had a rise in prosperity and you'll get a promotion to a position where you can get what you wanted all along. Win-win!

The only time when this is almost impossible is when you're an off-peak where usually you only see 5-10 people online and the only other people you usually see in your area are a creepy half-breed who makes a living by shoveling dung and a crazy dwarf who is desperately focused on finding a dwarf women for hot lovings. Then yes by all means go nuts making as much 'sid as you can as an independent hunter! As someone who often finds himself in this position I usually don't join a GMH when I am because I'll be solo-sparring and sitting in an empty tavern for hours. If you ever find a reasonable person who starts showing up at that time with you though, befriend them and if you want to GMH then do it together!

[AmandaGreathouse]

I don't like to play in a clan because if I want to spend 2 IC days talking to, kanking, or otherwise engaging in player-to-player interaction, I have no desire to cut on that and leave to go change my ldesc and throw out masturbatory emotes to an empty of interaction room that is no fun unless my character is feeling particularly introspective.

wut

The actual clan schedule. It sucks to not be able to interact with people due to training that's IC to attend during times when there's like 4 other people on and you want someone to interact with. It's fine and good until you're dealing with it personally, then it's just awful.

[KankWhisperer]

People need 2 full days to mudsexxors instead of an IC night.

[Patuk]

I don't like to play in a clan because if I want to spend 2 IC days talking to, kanking, or otherwise engaging in player-to-player interaction, I have no desire to cut on that and leave to go change my ldesc and throw out masturbatory emotes to an empty of interaction room that is no fun unless my character is feeling particularly introspective.

wut

The actual clan schedule. It sucks to not be able to interact with people due to training that's IC to attend during times when there's like 4 other people on and you want someone to interact with. It's fine and good until you're dealing with it personally, then it's just awful.

.. Your time zone is a lot more peak than mine, so you don't have to tell me what this is like. Have you ever considered that there's clans without such stringent schedules? Have you ever considered that maybe, possibly, boredom and skipping schedules are IC phenomena as well, the consequences of which I've dealt with ICly and which can serve as sources of RP and in-organisation conflict as well?

[Barzalene]

I had a soldier who'd ask the other privates to cover for him when he skipped work to hang out. And they enjoyed being included and teasing him after.

[Fragmented]

I'm going to post my opinion, at the risk of being flamed. My opinion is from one of the people that NEVER joins GMH's, and has no desire to.

As I see it: GMH hires on said hunter and says 'We'll pay you nothing (or some very low sum) and in return, you bring back every single thing you hunt and deposit it. If you sell any of it, you're stealing from us. Additionally, we want to sign you on for a five year contract.
But hey, you get free food and water and a place to keep your stuff."

Maybe this has changed, but this is what turned me off from GMH. The RP was substandard and consisted of a couple of players going on hunts together. The lure was getting the 'discount' until I realized that as an independent hunter, I could pay full price and still get it ten
times faster. Yes, people want nice gear that makes them feel as if they've accomplished something. It's a matter of pride, at least for me. The five year contract, in my opinion, is ridiculous, and second only to being lifesworn. We're talking almost a RL year, devoted to this clan, when your likelihood of living that long is slim to none. The food and water? I personally think it's way too easy to gather your own food and water as a hunter (which is what these GMH's are primarily having a hard time recruiting). I struggle often to roleplay a hunter who doesn't believe in waste, and the inability to sell/eat all of what I bring in, even when I take it easy on hunting. Water is relatively easy to get, and if you can't get it naturally you can buy it from 12 different sources with the huge amounts of coin that come in. Flame away if you like, but it's very hard to play a POOR hunter.

So as not to be solely negative, I'd like to offer a suggestion to those who might play GMH leaders in the future (I've only played one GMH leader and wish I'd done this myself back then). Give PC's the best of both worlds. Determine what items (2-3) are needed by the clan. Let us say, for the purpose of this example, it's duskhorn hides, feathers and inix shell. Stipulate that these items MUST be turned in, but otherwise they can sell what they kill. Still offer them the discount on goods. Change what needs to be brought in weekly, or twice a week, or whatever is needed. Pay them nothing, since they'll be generating their own income, but give them bonuses in the form of rare gear that isn't easily purchased outside the clan. Appeal to their since of 'Oh yeah, see me? I have these super elite bracers on - I'm a badass.' Deny it all you want, but that's what drives a lot of people.

I also think GMH's should try harder to control their so called monopolies. You see an independent hunter supplying everyone and their mother with arrows cheaper then yours as a Salarri? Kill him. Or kidnap him, take a finger, and tell him if you ever catch him selling arrows again, you'll take more then just a finger the next time. Anyway, just my two cents.

[Delirium]

^ wisdom.

[Ender]

I agree with X-D in generally people will play where they feel they get the most out of the game.  If a merchant house reaches critical mass and manages to give its employees lots of fun and engrossing things to do and be apart of, you will see this problem vanish.

I played in a GMH only once in the last 13 years and I noticed the clan was all but dead, and the leader was not inspired to either actively recruit or give current clannies interesting tasks and it got me thinking how this could be fixed.  a GMH should inherently have fun to do tasks built in that drive interaction and hopefully conflict so a GMH leader doesn't have to wrack their brains to force plots.

So here's the idea I came up with to enable both interaction, exciting activity, and CONFLICT that will both drive people to join GMH's and make life a little more realistically difficult for independants

POACHING

GMH's band together to petition the cities that in certain areas/certain animals are illegal to hunt if you are not a member of a GMH.  In return GMH's share the responsibility to police the various areas where these animals reside.  GMH's are empowered to search and/or dole out justice to any unaffiliated dune hopper they come across that is suspected of poaching.

Hunters in all the houses will be expected to pull double duty as both soldiers and hunters in this regard, and both houses would begin to build out their military wings to enforce their newfound hunting monopolies.  Wages remain low for hunters, but now the alternative is either join a GMH, be an outlaw, or be marginalized to hunt shitty game in more dangerous far away areas.




Poaching laws are nothing new either, I've seen them try to be implemented in the north before, but they never lasted long as only single nobles without much player backing would try to enforce those laws.  I'd really like to see something like this more institutionalized though because it would have the consequences of making life harder, but not impossible for an indy hunter, would give GMH'ers are more realistic advantage over indy hunters and make those roles more appealing, and it would generate tons of conflict.

[Harmless]

Isn't merchant house popularity cyclical? Haven't a lot of us been around when they WERE popular, and shouldn't it be easy to remember what was different then from now?

If a House starts trying to enforce poaching rules, it's going to be bloody and likely won't look pretty for those poor newb hunters struggling to pull it off against these indies.

Unfortunately for the merchant houses, the player community does not support you. Those vehement anti-merchant house indies are mostly sick of the bullshit they've dealt with in playing in them in the past, and don't find the effort required to fix it themselves worth it enough to bother.

Once a player realizes the RP in a merchant house is unlikely to be enjoyable for them, that's one less possible recruit for them for that (or all) merchant houses for that PC. As bad impressions and crappy times are had by more and more people, then the problem deepens.

The solution part one: shut down some merchant houses to players for some time period, similar to what happened to Nenyuk. I highly recommend closing Kadius for some time. Salarr had a few diehards in it that keep it going, and people generally want Salarr around. But Kadius has had a shitty rap for a long time now and it's time to shelf it for a while.

Solution part two: don't oppress the indies, SUPPORT them. The indies are saying what they want, denying them that is just going to turn them off from the game entirely. I know of several plots and goals of independents right now. I would like to see them succeed, and if they don't, I don't want it to be because an immortal told them, " in this game setting it would be very hard to compete against merchant houses blah blah you can't get what you want no I don't care that 5 active PCs support you."

Just some suggestions.

edited for clarity

[Ender]

If a House starts trying to enforce poaching rules, it's going to be bloody and likely won't look pretty for those poor newb hunters struggling to pull it off against these indies.

Solution part two: don't oppress the indies, SUPPORT them. The indies are saying what they want, denying them that is just going to turn them off from the game entirely. I know of several plots and goals of independents right now. I would like to see them succeed, and if they don't, I don't want it to be because an immortal told them, " in this game setting it would be very hard to compete against merchant houses blah blah you can't get what you want no I don't care that 5 active PCs support you."

Just some suggestions.

It being bloody and messy and tough is generally the idea.  Conflict is actually fun.  Successful indies tend to be more experienced players, which is exactly why I think they could handle a situation in which it is more difficult to be successful as an indie.  Also putting them in an outlaw situation would possibly make being an outlaw a bit more common and maybe help with that problem of the world ganging up so much on the few people who do play outlaws.

My suggestion isn't to make being indy impossible, just to make it HARDER and to make joining a GMH more appealing.