How to make clans more appealing?

[Kronibas]

Yeah, there are more, at least in my experience.  At the bottom line, how many hunters are needed in a given House really depends on how many crafters there are/how active the crafters are... and also, how active/skilled the hunters are.  It's hard to quantify, so basing the amount of hunters an agent employs based on actual need, well, it's difficult to do that because of OOC clan considerations.

[Quirk]

They have to provide better roleplay than not being in a clan gets me. Meatier stories. More drama.

Now, sure, restrictive schedules in clans with small numbers of players tie roleplay's shoelaces together pretty well. But there's more to it than that.

Conflict:

Agent Kad the Kadian gets into an all-out slanging match with Agent Sal the Salarri. Fuming, he goes home and orders his clannies to make Sal's name mud, to harass his hunters, and to steal his pet bird, roast it and serve it up as a banquet. Pretty juicy conflict, right?

Well, yes... but. Nothing happened here that couldn't happen with loosely affiliated group of friends A vs loosely affiliated group of friends B. Worse, it's entirely possible Kad's superiors will step in to prevent him worsening relations with Salarr. The clan isn't adding anything to the conflict here except giving people a place to meet up.

Conflict born out of personal goals and disagreements can happen anywhere. Indies don't miss out on it at all, as long as they have friends to hang round with.

Clan goals leading to tension with other groups make things much more interesting. I'd like to single out a couple of clans here for attention which I feel succeed at this:

House Kurac:
   Supplying spice gives them a bone of contention with Allanak, and their outpost in the middle of the warring powers leaves them in a delicate position. Add to this Kurac's history of shady dealings, and there's room for plenty of charged situations to develop.

The Guild:
   The Guild looks after the Guild's interests, and sometimes that means pissing off or assassinating someone powerful. They're a conflict gold-mine.

One measure of a good clan is whether it has the motivation to tread on the toes of people who matter. Ideally, this should be done in a very open way. Conflict which goes on solely behind closed doors is worth much less, because it touches and involves fewer people.

Meaning:

In a hypothetical clan consisting of a hunter and a leader, let us suppose some nebulous virtual demand for hides exists. The hunter kills animals and drags the carcasses back to the compound. The leader doesn't actually need the hides, and isn't affected by their lack one way or another. When the hunter dies, the leader replaces her not out of any need, but because the clan is supposed to employ hunters.

The hunter's role here is a meaningless, Sisyphean role. Nothing is achieved; if the hunter brings in two hides or twenty, it doesn't matter. The clan's resources are so vast that the hunter's efforts aren't worth tracking, and the hunter herself is not enriched. A hunter working with a small group whose resources may at times need to be expended for survival or growth may be hunting in exactly the same way, but they have a drive the other lacks: at some point that extra small made today might make the difference between being able to pay a critical bribe or not being able to do so.

It's possible to create plots for a clan and give them meaningful things to do. If the hunter is involved in hunting for some MacGuffin which can cure the terrible sickness of some senior member of the clan, we're back to a fun place - probably more fun than the small group hunter is having, because it's a departure from the ordinary. However, plots take staff attention and run in arcs that come to an end. It's better to have the meaning baked into the structure of the clan's activities.

Harshness, uncertainty and danger:

Things are always at their most fun when the outcome is uncertain. In particular, when your character's very survival is uncertain, it's hard not to find yourself facing down an adrenaline dump. Resources are more precious when you have fewer of them.

This is part of what makes the Byn fun: resources are hard come by, and each contract may be your character's last. You live on the edge, not comfortably. While the clan itself is not endangered, your continued place in it is precarious. And, importantly, your clan is not a name that can be thrown around to protect you.

Indies can get all of this in bucketloads. If eventually they pull through the dangerous times and rest atop a pile of black coins - well, they've taken risks to get there. The challenge is to find ways to push that coin back into creating conflict and meaning and make it drive roleplay for others. Not many clans offer this. There are, I think, too many comfortable places among the clans we have.

[ale six]

They have to provide better roleplay than not being in a clan gets me. Meatier stories. More drama.

I was going to reply with a list of things I've done in clans that I don't think I could have ever done as an independent, but reading some of your posts, it seems like you're dismissing "personal" sort of conflicts that can grow out of clans and only focusing on the larger scale ones. That's a fine opinion, although I think it's worth saying that when a Salarri or a Kadian are in a personal feud, or a Borsail and an Oash, or a Borsail and a Borsail, or two templars, the stakes are much higher than if it's two relatively unknown independents. Loosely affiliated groups of friends A and B don't usually have the resources or social pull to sustain a conflict the way entrenched clans can. Another thing that makes personal conflicts and drama in clans work so well is that, by and large, you can't avoid your enemy. If you're an aide and are competing with another aide for a noble's favor, you're going to be thrust into the conflict again and again, just by nature of doing your job.

But setting personal drama aside, if you want to find plots that can have world-changing effects, I think clans are definitely the route to go. You may not want to join as a hunter or a guard/soldier, but instead try out a more political role like aide, merchant, or a spy. If you can get the power to move and shake things yourself, or get the trust of a leader who can, there's plenty of meaty stories and drama. It still won't be on the "Let's annihilate House Kurac!" level of conflict, because Armageddon just isn't set up that way, and that is what it is. (That's not necessarily a bad thing, either - conflict behind the scenes can be more interesting, engaging, and just as brutal as open war.) But clans have way more resources and staff support to draw on, which undeniably helps get things done.

I've mainly been talking about "political" impact of being clanned versus indie. Where I think we agree more is on the "economic" impact you can make on the game - indies have the advantage here for sure. Like you said, sometimes it seems like some clans employ people like hunters/crafters not because the clan will feel any negative impact if they don't have someone doing the job, but just because the clan is supposed to employ people. For the sake of the game, it's not a bad thing for people to feel like they're making a valuable contribution to a clan in some way. It's certainly easier to feel a lot more valuable if you're the only crafter for a three-man outfit than if you're a cog in the Kadian corporate machine. At the same time, if House Kadius' two PC crafters stop logging in to make silk dresses, that shouldn't shut down all of Kadius' silk operations, either.

So how can we have it both ways, and let clanned PCs (especially at the non-leader level) feel like they're contributing, while at the same time not having the House run the risk of failure overall if PCs aren't available to do the job? I'm not sure if I know a good solution. But one way to feel more valuable would at least be to not feel significantly poorer than people doing your same job independently, so that leads me back to thinking raising salaries for clanned members might be a good start.

[Synthesis]

You can make a lot of money in a clan, if you play your cards right.

I had a noob pickpocket/mercenary in Salarr, and I got the go-ahead to sell knives I crafted as long as the Agent and the House got a cut.  Eventually they let me sell whatever the crafters put together, because there were a ton of subclass crafters without the haggle skill, and the Agent was too busy to go out and sell all the loot they produced while training up their crafting skills...so I got like a quarter of whatever profit I could pull out of just running their garbage to the bazaar (and I got to pickpocket anybody I ran into along the way).  I also had a small side business where I'd use haggle (not in the Salarr shop, obv.) to purchase things cheaper for other PCs, then charge them an extra 10-20% of what I actually paid, so they still got their stuff at a pretty decent discount and I made some 'sid on the deal as well.

But yeah, if you're a warrior/outdoorsman, 'sid can be a tad hard to come by at times...but that's when you get shady and either cut deals on the side with your House crafters or start skimming off the top of your hunting returns.  If you're playing Recruit Goodie McTwoshoes and complaining that you aren't getting a fair shake...Welcome to Armageddon, son.

[FantasyWriter]

Well said.

[Quirk]

But setting personal drama aside, if you want to find plots that can have world-changing effects, I think clans are definitely the route to go. You may not want to join as a hunter or a guard/soldier, but instead try out a more political role like aide, merchant, or a spy. If you can get the power to move and shake things yourself, or get the trust of a leader who can, there's plenty of meaty stories and drama. It still won't be on the "Let's annihilate House Kurac!" level of conflict, because Armageddon just isn't set up that way, and that is what it is. (That's not necessarily a bad thing, either - conflict behind the scenes can be more interesting, engaging, and just as brutal as open war.) But clans have way more resources and staff support to draw on, which undeniably helps get things done.

Ah. I don't want plots that have world-changing effects, in the sense of altering the way the giant organisations of the world work. In fact, this is one of my main gripes - that the game chooses to focus largely on organisations which are too big for PCs to materially affect. I'm almost prepared to write the politics off as a dead loss. My experience of having PCs well-connected to the underworld has been that much of the time, there's pitifully little going on that can be classified as conflict. Many clans are stuck in something not far short of a stalemate, with no real way to advance their position.

Now it may be that the apparent death of player-created clans has stilted long-term goals for indies, and that they are unlikely ever to get enough love to add anything lasting to the game. That may be true. I don't know. But a group of indies still lives outside the stalemate. They have to bribe and flatter and make alliances, and can choose to make enemies where they think they can afford it. They can try to grow to a large size even without support. I don't think such groups the ideal, by any stretch of the imagination - they're too fragile and ephemeral - but we don't have many mid-sized clans which hit the sweet spot where the clan can afford to lose PCs but its survival into the future is not a guaranteed thing.

So how can we have it both ways, and let clanned PCs (especially at the non-leader level) feel like they're contributing, while at the same time not having the House run the risk of failure overall if PCs aren't available to do the job? I'm not sure if I know a good solution. But one way to feel more valuable would at least be to not feel significantly poorer than people doing your same job independently, so that leads me back to thinking raising salaries for clanned members might be a good start.

I don't think the coin's the issue here. Sisyphus is still in Tartarus even if he gets paid. The problem is that the House has been allowed to get to a position where it doesn't need PC input to produce its output. If its output was meaningfully hampered, though not wholly curtailed, without PC input, then PCs would start to matter again.

[Nyr]

Malken, I've looked over your issues and I have some feedback at least, maybe it will help.

Clan schedules blow?

Most clans that have schedules have a reason for them.  Assuming it's a training schedule, it is meant to ensure that the PC does spend at least some time working on their actual coded skills as well as interaction with the rest of the clan doing what the clan does.  If there are people to fight atop an inix with in your clan and that's what the schedule says, the fact that there are 20 interesting people at the bar becomes an IC thing and not an OOC annoyance.  If you wanted to play a barfly, that choice should have been made earlier; you're playing in a clan that requires some training.

Now, that's not to say that these can't be worked on with staff or PC leaders if there's a larger issue.  We went over schedules for the militia in Tuluk a few months back.  Not everyone was happy, but enough were, and it wasn't too much work to make the changes needed.

In my view, there are (or were) a few major issues:

1.  No one wants to be forced to solo "doing whatever the clan schedule says" if no one is around.  Solution:  Come up with an alternative that handles things once this particular situation occurs, preferably something that puts you around other players.
2.  If your day(s) off are set in stone on a certain day of the week, you might miss it.  Solution:  Come up with an alternative to "off on Detal" that allows the player to be more in control of their PC taking time off when it makes more sense for the player.
3.  No real mechanism listed for officers+ to change schedule on a whim.  Should go without saying, right?  Solution:  add that in there.  Officer wants to go do this or that?  Done.  No one bitches because it's different than the schedule; it's something new.

There are other issues that I do not think can be helped that easily.

For instance, excessive or restrictive playtimes.  If you have a lot of time to play but that isn't matched by everyone else in the clan, any schedule is going to become tedium.  If you have very little time to play and everyone else in your clan has comparatively more, you are going to feel as though you are missing out on a regular basis.  Neither of these have an easy solution apart from tailoring the player to a better role.

Pay sucks?

Pay can always be reviewed as a whole.  It may need to be.   However, there has been at least one improvement in that you don't have to wait for a PC leader to log on to pay you.  You remember those fun days, right?

Stuck inside the walls?

If you're a veteran and you play a lot and you want to play outside of the city yet not be part of a clan where they push the ICly "newbie" characters through a recruit phase (one in which they have to protect said newbie PC from the outside world that will eat them up)...then don't play those roles.  Unless we have some system by which you can bypass the recruit process and play as a Trooper/Private/whatever with the appropriate coded skill to represent a few weeks of training, you're going to need to take your lumps. 



The upshot of clan revamps is that one of the goals is to give long-lived PCs something to aspire towards and achieve.

[Malken]

I wouldn't be against raising clan salaries... maybe even drastically... if I thought it would help.  Hell, it might.  But I personally would not join a clan for only coins, even if it was 5000 sid a month.  Some people may, though.  I genuinely don't know.

You remind me of those Foxnews newscasters that say that if we're going to give minimum wage workers a raise up to $14 an hour, why not just give them $25 an hour? Why not a million dollars an hour?! (true Foxnews words, btw)

If you personally wouldn't join a clan even if you were paid 5000 sid a month, doesn't mean that a few might not re-consider it and then join up and then, you, the person who never cared about coins, might now have a few extra players to play with And remember that if workers get a raise in the clan, then the bosses might even get one as well, so they can get more things done with the extra money. More fun for everyone.

Oh - Wrote that before I saw your post, Nyr. Going to read it now.

[Narf]

They have to provide better roleplay than not being in a clan gets me. Meatier stories. More drama.

So how can we have it both ways, and let clanned PCs (especially at the non-leader level) feel like they're contributing, while at the same time not having the House run the risk of failure overall if PCs aren't available to do the job?

That's actually not overly hard. You just need to brainstorm ways for the house's influence to meaningfully and observably wax and wane according to PC actions. Set a hard cap on how far it can go down (NPCs are keeping the influence at a certain minimum level) at which point PCs can contribute meaningfully to the politics of a house, but even if the clan is wholly empty of them it will still maintain its place in the world.

A couple of sample ways to do this:

*Make what's available in the shops tied to how successful a clan's hunters are. The clan Imm goes through what's been successfully brought into the storage area over the last week, tallies it up against a preset chart (0-20 hides, load the bad list, 21-50 loads the medium list, more loads the good list), and then loads a corresponding gear list to each of the house's shops.

*Allow noble houses a special ability similar to the masterwork system we have now whereby they can affect the city their in with some meaningful project that gets loaded, but requires the PC servants to accomplish some tasks or acquire some components. This can be straightforward like making a statue, or slightly less straightforward like changing an echo near a clan-controlled building. Since the system would just include altering existing descriptions or making new items it could be lumped into the mastercraft system we already have.

Both of these examples include a coded way where the entire playerbase can see how effective a clan's PCs are being. Gives them something to brag about (or be humiliated over) which is always good motivation.

[Nyr]

Many clans are stuck in something not far short of a stalemate, with no real way to advance their position.

Just a quick side note on this thing:  clan mobility and clan changes are certainly possible.  It absolutely requires staff.  However, it's not going to be an everyday thing or even an every year thing.  Change occurs sometimes shockingly and dangerously, but due to the amount of work involved in making a significant change, I doubt that you will see clan changes on a massive scale on a regular basis.  Some areas are perhaps easier to change quickly than others, but changing those areas quickly and often reduces the novelty of any change.

[tortall]

I've never played in Kurac, but I know with the other two GMH that we were never forced to stick to the schedule. Even the staff(at the time) said it was more a suggestion. Usually the crafters worked during the day when they had a project. Hunters trained when they felt like it and hunt when they felt like it unless we needed some specific material/training for upcoming mission.

Do that many clans really have a strict schedule that aren't military like AoD, Legion, Borsail.... MAYBE Winrothol?

I know we can't get into specifics, but schedules has never been an issue for me with clans.


But then I'm also one of the ones that LIKES to play in clans and have never played an independent because.... I never saw any value in it.

Many clans are stuck in something not far short of a stalemate, with no real way to advance their position.

I dunno where YOU play, but I've watched clans rise and fall in power within the city based on PC actions. Usually it was the action of a low level PC doing something stupid and making everyone look bad, but.... Seriously. It does happen. A lot. If you're not in that clan, you wouldn't have heard about it. Not a HUGE raise or fall, but you do see a shift.

[Riev]

I think what Quirk is saying, at a base level, is that with Merchant Houses... the only position that is needed is a Merchant, for the things people order.

Why be a Hunter? Very rarely are the orders being made, craftable, and if they are, the Houses have an abundance of resources. At best, they only need their hunters to gather specific things a few times a year.

Why be a Crafter? Sure, you get your skills up, you get to practice in a safe area, you can make a good amount of coin... but you're going to be a Merchant. I've honestly never seen a PC Master Crafter represented in game, and Tek Forbid if a Salarri became Master Crafter and asked for metal crafting or something. If you're a crafter, eventually you're going to be put into the Merchant Role, because thats what people want.

If you're a Merchant, you're kind of the only focal point from the Playerbase side of things. Nobody cares about Steve the Hunter, so long as Sal the Salarri Merchant is getting them what they want. In reality, they should be receiving orders for craftable items, then sending the Hunters out to get the freshest resources, and the crafters should work tirelessly on them.

So really, whats the point of those positions in a clan? I know there ARE points, and they're "IC" but they make little sense, and if a Hunter or Crafter works EXTRA hard... maybe they'll get to be a Sergeant in the Clan, or a Merchant. Where their job becomes filling orders anyway.

[Fujikoma]

I like that, for the more schedule-intensive clans, regular days off, and an optional personal day. May perhaps cause confusion due to the leaders keeping track of "Hnmmm... Who's had more than one personal day in a week?".

[ale six]

I'm almost prepared to write the politics off as a dead loss. My experience of having PCs well-connected to the underworld has been that much of the time, there's pitifully little going on that can be classified as conflict. Many clans are stuck in something not far short of a stalemate, with no real way to advance their position.

Wow. That's disappointing to hear, and it hasn't been my experience at all. Then again, I've been away for a while. But still, just looking at the recent in-game history events tells me politics have been happening somewhere. I don't think the staff holds things like Triumvirate meetings in Tuluk as just little exercises for their own benefit - it's been my experience that usually when decisions get made, PCs are working to influence them behind the scenes. Those kinds of plots only happen in a clan, too. I wish they'd happen more frequently -- what's been up in the Senate in Allanak lately? We used to have a page for that on the old website... but I'm digressing.

Anyway, to briefly address Synthesis' post, I'm all about corruption as a means to get ahead. It's a tagline of the game after all! I guess I just feel that if you join a clan and need to break all the rules and be corrupt just to get back to where you were had you not joined, something's out of whack.

[Quirk]

Wow. That's disappointing to hear, and it hasn't been my experience at all. Then again, I've been away for a while. But still, just looking at the recent in-game history events tells me politics have been happening somewhere. I don't think the staff holds things like Triumvirate meetings in Tuluk as just little exercises for their own benefit - it's been my experience that usually when decisions get made, PCs are working to influence them behind the scenes. Those kinds of plots only happen in a clan, too. I wish they'd happen more frequently -- what's been up in the Senate in Allanak lately? We used to have a page for that on the old website... but I'm digressing.

I should refine my thought a little. Even the underworld is not always all-seeing. Things may still be happening when all seems quiet. But if they're happening, they're happening too quietly to be useful. When the House guards or hunters don't know that their House is having a major spat with another House over some clan goals, and any aide pocketing sid for information on the side keeps schtum - then, for most players, the conflict might as well not be happening at all. If the need to keep on friendly terms publicly means gossip is stifled, the atmosphere grows stale and dull for all but a privileged few.

I've started making my own efforts to be occasionally indiscreet.

I think what Quirk is saying, at a base level, is that with Merchant Houses... the only position that is needed is a Merchant, for the things people order.

So really, whats the point of those positions in a clan? I know there ARE points, and they're "IC" but they make little sense, and if a Hunter or Crafter works EXTRA hard... maybe they'll get to be a Sergeant in the Clan, or a Merchant. Where their job becomes filling orders anyway.

It's like Riev can see into my head. When the rank and file jobs are effectively unnecessary, and have limited or no exposure to the clan goals, which are themselves at best playthings for long-lived sponsored roles, they are a trap. They do provide some company, and they are safe places for the untrained or poor PC to slide into, but they're a rut many seem happy to get out of after a while. Unfortunately, from an IC perspective, these dull safe jobs are meant to be highly desirable.

Just a quick side note on this thing:  clan mobility and clan changes are certainly possible.  It absolutely requires staff.  However, it's not going to be an everyday thing or even an every year thing.  Change occurs sometimes shockingly and dangerously, but due to the amount of work involved in making a significant change, I doubt that you will see clan changes on a massive scale on a regular basis.  Some areas are perhaps easier to change quickly than others, but changing those areas quickly and often reduces the novelty of any change.

With the bigger clans, I think it's fair to say changes probably should be very rare. Mid-sized clans are more at risk - and arguably more interesting. The gypsies and the Red Fangs spring to mind as clans which underwent catastrophic change. But the cities lack these mid-sized clans, and the clans that do hold sway there are clans which are too stable to have conflicts on the level which causes tension among each side's foot soldiers. I think if some of those were virtual and there were some slightly smaller clans that could engage in a bit of a shoving match without descending into a bloodbath, players would be all over them.

The newly bred tension between north and south is great, incidentally.

[tortall]

I think what Quirk is saying, at a base level, is that with Merchant Houses... the only position that is needed is a Merchant, for the things people order.

Uhm, no. This has not been my experience at ALL.

Why be a Hunter? Very rarely are the orders being made, craftable, and if they are, the Houses have an abundance of resources. At best, they only need their hunters to gather specific things a few times a year.

I can tell you from experience that some times craftable goods are harder to get filled orders for than non-craftable. Staff will not load these except in extreme circumstances.

Why be a Crafter? Sure, you get your skills up, you get to practice in a safe area, you can make a good amount of coin... but you're going to be a Merchant. I've honestly never seen a PC Master Crafter represented in game, and Tek Forbid if a Salarri became Master Crafter and asked for metal crafting or something. If you're a crafter, eventually you're going to be put into the Merchant Role, because thats what people want.

Yes, and if you don't have the experience crafting the things necessary for your House, and you reach the rank of Merchant.... You're SOL on what people would call "basic" orders.

If you're a Merchant, you're kind of the only focal point from the Playerbase side of things. Nobody cares about Steve the Hunter, so long as Sal the Salarri Merchant is getting them what they want. In reality, they should be receiving orders for craftable items, then sending the Hunters out to get the freshest resources, and the crafters should work tirelessly on them.

They care about Steve the Hunter when the house can't get the materials they need to craft that object that they want to buy!

So really, whats the point of those positions in a clan? I know there ARE points, and they're "IC" but they make little sense, and if a Hunter or Crafter works EXTRA hard... maybe they'll get to be a Sergeant in the Clan, or a Merchant. Where their job becomes filling orders anyway.

I really think the people that are saying these things haven't played long-term in a Merchant House. Yes, there can be down time. When you run into that, throw a party. Either for the other clannies or for the city or for just your friends. Go out and explore something new. Work out trade agreements with people from far away. Learn something new about plants, even if you can't use that knowledge to codedly make anything useful, it sure if fun to learn!



In the end those that enjoy not having any type of rules will never even really give clans a try. I do think the clans could benefit from a little more pay, but I've never had a problem with having plenty of money, either in a clan or out of.

[Eyeball]

(removed)

[evilcabbage]

when i have a problem with money in a clan i bother my clan leader to give me more money until he gives me more or tells me to fuck off.

regardless of what clan i'm in.

[Riev]

Tortall, I agree with the spirit of your point, but the practice in my experience has something to be desired.

Sometimes staff WILL load something that is craftable, sometimes they won't. Some of the most fun I've had is when someone says "Chosen Lord WhoCares wants a new leather chair, so we need a dozen duskhorn hides and thirty sinew to tie it all together. We also need a dozen split logs for the framework.

Boom. I was needed, my efforts going towards something even if it is "just a chair". But right now, people don't make those orders, and often times orders are "I want that one thing you can't craft but is staff loaded, because I think loaded items are more powerful". Too many Crafters/Merchants/Traders/etc spend their Mastercrafts on something new, and different, rather than taking what gets loaded, and making it into a crafting recipe.

Imagine what would happen if there was a push towards Clan Mastercrafts being only turning old staff-load items into craftable only. Then the only thing staff would need to "load" are ACTUAL custom crafts.

[X-D]

Course, I do have to say, in about oh, the last 4 years or so, I have noticed staff more then willing to work with the players on improving a clan.

[Desertman]

In response to Tortall and Riev. One issue I have seen personally with "Make the crafters make the items in question." is the crafters aren't given a list of what can be made by PC's, and they aren't given the crafting recipes either.

Even though they sit in a workshop all day surrounded by dozens of VNPC's and NPC's that would be able to lean over and tell them, "You use this, this, and this."

They are basically told, "Find out IG." Which means you have to randomly mix junk and hope for the best, even though sometimes the recipes don't even make sense, or you have to hope somebody shows up wearing that item at some point and you can talk them into letting you "analyze" it to get the recipe.

If there are none of those items in the game world, and you can't figure out the recipe by randomly mixing, well, that item just doesn't get made.

I can see a lot of items getting "lost to the void" this way. There aren't any in game to analyze, and the recipes are so random that nobody would ever think to mix those items together, so the final product is never seen again.

If staff won't load those items, well, those items just cease to exist.

[Cendell]

I don't know whether people are overstating this 'People only want fancy loaded items' or not.

Maybe hit your fancy gear with an analyze now and then. I think you'll be surprised how much of the 'popular' things are created by PCs with materials bought in by those useless PCs who have no real role in the world and should be made virtual, apparently

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I've got a lot of thoughts. I'll contribute tonight. Great thread.

[tortall]

In response to Tortall and Riev. One issue I have seen personally with "Make the crafters make the items in question." is the crafters aren't given a list of what can be made by PC's, and they aren't given the crafting recipes either.

Even though they sit in a workshop all day surrounded by dozens of VNPC's and NPC's that would be able to lean over and tell them, "You use this, this, and this."

They are basically told, "Find out IG." Which means you have to randomly mix junk and hope for the best, even though sometimes the recipes don't even make sense, or you have to hope somebody shows up wearing that item at some point and you can talk them into letting you "analyze" it to get the recipe.

If there are none of those items in the game world, and you can't figure out the recipe by randomly mixing, well, that item just doesn't get made.

I can see a lot of items getting "lost to the void" this way. There aren't any in game to analyze, and the recipes are so random that nobody would ever think to mix those items together, so the final product is never seen again.

If staff won't load those items, well, those items just cease to exist.

I've had staff work with me when there was a certain popular set that was craftable, but we had no idea how to get it, even with analyze. It is possible, and fairly easy, IMO. The problem is getting the materials for all the orders. It's harder than it looks.

But again, that would depend on the staffer and them being willing to work with you. I've had staff I got along great with and got things done and made things happen. Then rotation and everything stopped. Just the way things work. Part of life is getting a IMMORTAL(haha, see what I did there?) that favors you.

BLEGH, please don't derail this into staff/clan pets. It's just a matter of one person agreeing with you and one person not thinking it's a good idea. You'll eventually get to that one that thinks it's a good idea.

[Lizzie]

All this about the schedules being a guideline, and recruits being given permission by their boss to make a profit off things they sell...

Pretty sure the GMH clan docs were all completely revised in the last year or so and those types of things are not allowed.

Recruit crafters and hunters: No sales, no profits, no commissions, no pay.  You work for the privilege of being employed by the GMH, having access to free food/water/shelter/locker/tools/free stabling of your mount in the clan stable, and the chance to promote to the next rank.

Recruits are not allowed to leave the city they're in, without a higher ranking person who has permission to lead you out of the city.

There's a bunch more restrictions that are more clearly spelled out than previously.

These revisions only took place over the last year or so, and I know they met up with some opposition from the players who were playing in those clans at the time.

So sure, you can break the rules, but it's important to know that you -are- breaking the rules. They're not just guidelines or suggestions, they are the official clan docs and you're expected to follow them, or accept that your character is breaking them, and accept any consequences that result from breaking the rules.