Tribal Talk

[bcw81]

I don't think it should be enforced that people playing indy human tribals should need to create firm, hardline docs for themselves - though with that said, I do think it definitely helps a whole lot. I created my own docs when I played my indy shaman tribal, and tried to stick with them pretty damn close the whole way. Not only was it easier to play the character and make decisions based on what he and his tribe would think, but it was also made the experience all the more fun because I was playing a tribe -I- made.

[BadSkeelz]

Indie human tribals do not have coded benefits, yup. (Unless you consider "sexy accent" a benefit, which some players do, heh.) That's not the point. It's to keep tribals acting like tribals. If you are an Allanaki citizen that acts against the grain, you have peers/leaders/criminals to smack you back into line or staff to do it for them with the virtual world. If you are an indie tribal you can act any way you please and justify it very flimsily.

Which is okay, if you want indie tribals to act like a bunch of wandering dirty Casanovas. But I don't think it lends much to the game.

What does "keep tribals acting like tribals" mean? We have 2 or 3 Human tribe clans open right now, and they all act slightly different. (Though this might be a poorer example now since the Gypsies are no longer a thing, but I'd have little trouble telling a Gypsy apart from an Arabeti). Are some of these clans doing it wrong?

And what if we think ALL the current open tribe clans sound disinteresting or downright unappealing, but don't want to spend a week detailing how our tribal buries his poop in the desert?

If you are an Allanaki citizen that acts against the grain, you have peers/leaders/criminals to smack you back into line or staff to do it for them with the virtual world. If you are an indie tribal you can act any way you please and justify it very flimsily.

If an indie tribal is acting out inside of a settlement, it's up to that settlement's population to keep them in line. Tribals being given a pass is a fault on the pass-givers as much as the tribal. Just like any game minority group (Gemmed, Elves, Gemmed Elves) being given a pass is a failure of both sides.

This is about human tribals, not elven tribals. Take your dead horse elsewhere.

Dead horses, the only acceptable elven mount.

[Molten Heart]

If the problem is enforcing roleplay, I think that's best done directly when needed. If there's a problem, let staff handle it.

[Is Friday]

Tribal humans are a rare, insular group in the game world. They should be represented well, just like magickers or other karma options (such as delves).

If a tribal human goes to the city and acts inappropriately for the city, it is the city's rules they they abide by, not their tribe's. An indie tribal can act any which way they please with no regard to a tribe given no moderation. Much like a "smart/clever" half-giant that is not checked by staff appropriately, because that is a karma role that should be moderated because of its place in the game world. (Nevermind that it can be considered powerful.)

[Patuk]

Something I think could work for the Arabet at least is for PC's to be allowed a 'family' subforum. What you could do is allow people to post what family inside the arabet their characters are from, and let them describe added mannerisms/traits/customs/whatevers to who they are accordingly. I think tribal RP would be a lot more fun for many people if they had an easier time playing actual characters rather than caricatures.

[Is Friday]

Something I think could work for the Arabet at least is for PC's to be allowed a 'family' subforum. What you could do is allow people to post what family inside the arabet their characters are from, and let them describe added mannerisms/traits/customs/whatevers to who they are accordingly. I think tribal RP would be a lot more fun for many people if they had an easier time playing actual characters rather than caricatures.

This exists and happens.

When you roll into tribal humans (coded clans) you know your cousin(s) backgrounds as much as the other player would like, because you grew up with them in the community.

[Patuk]

That's still more limited than I was suggesting. If you make a subforum made specifically for family docs, people can app into the tribe and have more background info. If someone is feeling creative, writes up a storm about a family of arabetti fencers, and dies two weeks in, some other person can carry on their legacy if they ask staff for docs two months later and see their post.

[BadSkeelz]

Tribal humans are a rare, insular group in the game world. They should be represented well, just like magickers or other karma options (such as delves).

Says you. I don't see anything in the docs to suggest that Human Tribals (regardless of tribe) should be rare. Uncommon in the cities, sure, but not rare. Certainly not as rare as desert elves (which, if you watch the echoes, seem a lot more common Virtually than PC interaction would suggest), let alone magickers. There are certainly a lot more tribes than the six listed on the Human Tribes page.

[slvrmoontiger]

Would have been nice if staff would have put some love into Arabeti/Seik before opening ATV. Not sure the point of ATV, but that's just my saying. I think most people don't/won't play a Seik or Arabeti for the simple reason there really is no community. You have to leave camp to find someone to talk to. So unless you like solo RP and RP with NPCs/VNPCs and learning everything all on your own you really pass on the tribal human. It's just sad because the tribal human play is a lot of fun (as long as you're somewhere other than the camps).

For the record: Seik/Arabet were given a huge amount of documentation, camp, NPC, lore, everything attention 2ish years ago. Seik/Arabeti docs used to be about 2 paragraphs long. Now it's more like 4-6k words.

I would love to comment on this but it might get to IC'ly. Suffice to say, yes there was a revival for the Arabeti/Seik documentation (most of the really good lore documentation is Seik with just "customs" there for Arabeti. What I meant is I'm not even sure when the last time there was a Role Call for the Seik/Arabeti. However, a Role Call is done for the ATV and they are brought from closed to players to an open status. When that gets done suddenly there are half a dozen new ATV's. I'm just saying that maybe something could have done to inspire people to play the tribal humans before looking towards a closed for play tribe. It's sad I think the tribal humans could be a lot of fun, but without a community it can be quite boring until you leave the camps.

[Is Friday]

Tribal humans are a rare, insular group in the game world. They should be represented well, just like magickers or other karma options (such as delves).

Says you. I don't see anything in the docs to suggest that Human Tribals (regardless of tribe) should be rare. Uncommon in the cities, sure, but not rare. Certainly not as rare as desert elves (which, if you watch the echoes, seem a lot more common Virtually than PC interaction would suggest), let alone magickers. There are certainly a lot more tribes than the six listed on the Human Tribes page.

You can play in one clan (although it is two different "cousin" tribes). Their population is low in the game world. The other tribal human clans were closed. I'm not sure what else I have to say to convince you.

[Patuk]

Given that agriculture is wtfhard in Zalanthas, anyone not inside a city, farming village, or working for Kurac, will be some kind of hunter-gatherer/nomad, no matter their race. Individual tribes aren't necessarily (or even probably) large, but they will span a ridiculously large area over the world.

[BadSkeelz]

The open or closed status of a clan has nothing to do with its place in the game world. The Blackwings are still out there, the gith are still out there, Tuluk is still out there (too soon?). I don't have any evidence that the "large" Jul Taven (at some 600 members) has been obliterated, so I assume it's still out there.

The one Human tribal clan that happens to be open just also happens to be fairly insular and small. To use them as the benchmark for every other human tribal clan is not a good idea, in my opinion.

[valeria]

I'm not sure what you can play as a player accurately represents the relative populations of the game world.  For instance, you're going to be unable to play in Tuluk soon but I assume there's still going to be at least a couple people living in the city.  Also I'm pretty sure elves are underrepresented, dwarves are overrepresented, etc.  So I'm not sure I really understand what you're arguing Friday.

[Is Friday]

I think this is sort of a derail from the point of "tribals should be limited to play like tribals, not tribal-accented multi-pass hunters".

Perhaps it is fine to have the nomad subguild available to people who want to roleplay not being from a "tribe" and instead be a traveling merchant that interacts with tribals often. But the common trope here is that "I'm from a tribe where all of my people died so I'm an orphan therefore no docs, thanks for the accent guys".

[slvrmoontiger]

There's a whole tribal market in the soon to be unplayable Tuluk. If they were so rare then how would they get a spot of land to sell there things inside a major city-state?

[BadSkeelz]

I think this is sort of a derail from the point of "tribals should be limited to play like tribals, not tribal-accented multi-pass hunters".

My disagreement with this line of thinking is that it's essentially "tribals should be limiited to play like the Arabeti and Al'Seik since those are the only human tribes that are open at this point." It's an overly narrow approach to the game world that's more damaging than a hundred multi-pass hunters.

[Molten Heart]

Seems like the heart of the matter here is accents, and not human tribals.

[Is Friday]

There's a whole tribal market in the soon to be unplayable Tuluk. If they were so rare then how would they get a spot of land to sell there things inside a major city-state?

Tuluk has a background and history of tribals represented in their documentation. Tribals that belong in Tuluk are not the same tribals we're talking about.

[slvrmoontiger]

The open or closed status of a clan has nothing to do with its place in the game world. The Blackwings are still out there, the gith are still out there, Tuluk is still out there (too soon?). I don't have any evidence that the "large" Jul Taven (at some 600 members) has been obliterated, so I assume it's still out there.

The one Human tribal clan that happens to be open just also happens to be fairly insular and small. To use them as the benchmark for every other human tribal clan is not a good idea, in my opinion.

1) There are 2 tribal human clans that are open Arabet and Al 'Seik. They are TWO different clans. That's first of all.
2) I have never seen anything in the documentation that states how LARGE or SMALL they are. If you've seen that, please point me to that documentation, because I would love to read it.

[Is Friday]

The open or closed status of a clan has nothing to do with its place in the game world. The Blackwings are still out there, the gith are still out there, Tuluk is still out there (too soon?). I don't have any evidence that the "large" Jul Taven (at some 600 members) has been obliterated, so I assume it's still out there.

The one Human tribal clan that happens to be open just also happens to be fairly insular and small. To use them as the benchmark for every other human tribal clan is not a good idea, in my opinion.

1) There are 2 tribal human clans that are open Arabet and Al 'Seik. They are TWO different clans. That's first of all.
2) I have never seen anything in the documentation that states how LARGE or SMALL they are. If you've seen that, please point me to that documentation, because I would love to read it.

I've been told via request how large the Seik/Arabet are but I'm not sure if that's okay to post here because it seemed like "privileged" info that you'd only know if you were regularly with the tents. Needless to say, anybody in that area should probably be able to make an inquiry via request tool.

[Patuk]

Seik are tiny, Arabet are biggish, yaaaay

[BadSkeelz]

The Arabeti and Al'Seik also share each others tents/are considered "sister tribes." That's somewhere in the public docs. From a management perspective they're treated as a single clan, I think.

Still just one example of many that happesn to be open and not necessarily a fair indicator of Human tribals should interact and be a part of the rest of the game world.

[slvrmoontiger]

Okay, let's get back onto the accent.

Anyone given time and effort can pick up a tribal accent, just as you can a northern or southern one. I'm not even sure anymore who is really a tribal or who just picked up the accent and that's how my characters usually play. So please don't generalize that just people a PC can and does speak with a tribal accent that they are tribal. It goes along the lines of saying "Oh that person is hiding so he/she must be an assassin. Both are really bad RP because it's not the case. The second analogy actually comes from a Staff member that told me I was RPing badly because I claimed someone "might be" a rogue type because I caught them hiding. Since that whole thing I've learned to take things as they are and to not assume things. Perhaps this is where this thread should go.

[Is Friday]

The Arabeti and Al'Seik also share each others tents/are considered "sister tribes." That's somewhere in the public docs. From a management perspective they're treated as a single clan, I think.

Still just one example of many that happesn to be open and not necessarily a fair indicator of Human tribals should interact and be a part of the rest of the game world.

Then the suggestion is that tribal roleplay should be restricted in more ways, in order to provide a richer experience for those engaging in it.

slvrmoontiger:
No, that's not what this thread is about.

[slvrmoontiger]

The Arabeti and Al'Seik also share each others tents/are considered "sister tribes." That's somewhere in the public docs. From a management perspective they're treated as a single clan, I think.

Still just one example of many that happesn to be open and not necessarily a fair indicator of Human tribals should interact and be a part of the rest of the game world.

From a cultural and historical standpoint they are completely different. So if you're talking management that's one thing. If you are talking about tribes that's another. Please specify which you are speaking about so it's not so confusing. Also, per documentation they are listed as 2 different tribes. They may cohabitate, they may be sister tribes, however they are different.