My feelings of the world Post Tuluk...

[Zoan]

The Sun King is always watching, Clearsighted.

Even in that heathen city-state.

[HavokBlue]

Lirathans have been absent for a while, even before Tuluk closed.

[Taven]

Ugh. No. The removal of Northern templars, especially lirathans, is the one thing that makes the North more tolerable these days.

Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably haven't played in Tuluk in...oh...a real life year and a half, at the least? Because that's when Lirathans were last in the game. But hey, if two weeks if it being closed is making it the good old 'these days' for you, where things are 'tolerable,' don't let me burst your bubble.

Also, your Allanaki-lovin', Sun King hatin', torture-expertin' PC might just looooove to rub some good ol' fashioned purple salt crystals in them red bloody wounds, but I like to think we as players avoid such things. Can we keep the hate IC, or at least wait a RL year before tossing out accusations? Because come on, dude. The players of Tuluki templars lost their PC in OOC circumstances beyond their control, and through no fault of their own. I don't care where or what you RP, you have to admit that really sucks. I'm sure it really hurts, too.

[ibusoe]

Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably haven't played in Tuluk in...oh...a real life year and a half, at the least? Because that's when Lirathans were last in the game. But hey, if two weeks if it being closed is making it the good old 'these days' for you, where things are 'tolerable,' don't let me burst your bubble.

Also, your Allanaki-lovin', Sun King hatin', torture-expertin' PC might just looooove to rub some good ol' fashioned purple salt crystals in them red bloody wounds, but I like to think we as players avoid such things. Can we keep the hate IC, or at least wait a RL year before tossing out accusations? Because come on, dude. The players of Tuluki templars lost their PC in OOC circumstances beyond their control, and through no fault of their own. I don't care where or what you RP, you have to admit that really sucks. I'm sure it really hurts, too.

Spoken like a boss. 

Honestly, this whole Tuluk-closing show has been about the most smoothly orchestrated change in my tenure here. 

Were some players adversely affected?  Yes. 

It's cool that not only do the staff seem cognizant of that and sympathetic, but also they're allowing us to criticize the changes they've made and they're allowing that the rollout wasn't completely perfect.

I've already started to notice positive effects from the change.  Some parts of the game are supposed to be empty, they're still mostly empty.

It's the populated places that are becoming more populated, and the outskirts that are supposed to have a smattering of people are now for the first time actually having the smattering of drifters that they're supposed to have,. 

And rules are a bit more clear.  Staff are planning to focus on Allanak, so if you want to be part of the big sexy game plots then Allanak is set up for that.  And if you want to play more of a drifter there are plenty of designated areas for us to congregate where you shall see not so much as a stray Templar.

Imperfect perhaps.  I think timing is good because the big change is coinciding with a surge of new players, and not only that but new players who seem to understand what the game has to offer and the traditions of the game.

If anything, I think the staff should do an outreach to players who were adversely affected by Tuluk's closing just so that the whole thing doesn't look like a deliberate attempt to marginalize their enjoyment of the game.

[BadSkeelz]

Staff did invite northern players to get in communication and work out plans for further enjoyment. Whether continuing their current PC or starting a new one. I heard good things from those I know who got a reply. (I didn't, but then I wasn't a sponsored role and I think I misfiled it anyhow).

[Taven]

Honestly, this whole Tuluk-closing show has been about the most smoothly orchestrated change in my tenure here.  Were some players adversely affected?  Yes.  It's cool that not only do the staff seem cognizant of that and sympathetic, but also they're allowing us to criticize the changes they've made and they're allowing that the rollout wasn't completely perfect.

If anything, I think the staff should do an outreach to players who were adversely affected by Tuluk's closing just so that the whole thing doesn't look like a deliberate attempt to marginalize their enjoyment of the game.

BadSkeelz has good words to say on this. To add to that a little...

When it comes to staff and northern players in terms of the actual change, I think both sides have been mature about it, from everything I've seen. Staff seemed to really want to reiterate that if they didn't contact you, you could contact them. We didn't have any players raging publicly. There was disappointment, though. And when I say "it really sucks and hurts," I think that's true. Because there were a lot of plots in the north that just suddenly...won't happen. There's a lot of characters' story that just...will never be told. So I guess what I'm saying is, that while I do believe staff tried to make it as painless as possible, something like that still has to hurt anyways. So sensitivity from the greater playerbase is good stuff!

Most of you are doing just fine with that.

I've already started to notice positive effects from the change.  Some parts of the game are supposed to be empty, they're still mostly empty.

It's the populated places that are becoming more populated, and the outskirts that are supposed to have a smattering of people are now for the first time actually having the smattering of drifters that they're supposed to have,. 

Imperfect perhaps.  I think timing is good because the big change is coinciding with a surge of new players, and not only that but new players who seem to understand what the game has to offer and the traditions of the game.

The "Who" numbers have been crazy lately in a good way, that's for sure. And do I think that the added numbers could be good for the places where people are going? Yeah, absolutely. More players is going to equate to more fun, generally speaking. It allows for more opportunities. The hardest thing about being a PC with ideas, and goals, and plans is not having minions and allies to do them with. And, of course, there's always the enemy counterweight.

So we'll see how this works. Can I say I'm whole-heartedly embracing the change? Maybe not. Can I say that I am curious to see what happens? Yes, definitely. Can you tell that I not-so-secretly hope that Tuluk opens again eventually? If you can't tell that, you've got your eyes closed and your ears plugged, because these aren't mere hintin' hemotes about that. But in the meanwhile, we'll see how things go.

[Clearsighted]

Ugh. No. The removal of Northern templars, especially lirathans, is the one thing that makes the North more tolerable these days.

Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably haven't played in Tuluk in...oh...a real life year and a half, at the least?

More like 3 years. Anyhow. I'm sure the northern templars will be treated very well by staff and compensated in such ways that we need not feel sorry for them.

But I don't regret that they're gone. Taken from a cultural and thematic baseline, given how the respective roles were written and meant to be realized, Southern templars are vastly more interesting. They're more overtly designed to be 'human': fallible, corruptible, cowardly or courageous, etc. The northern templars were basically written towards an idealized archetype, which might work in a book, a movie or as a NPC, but was rarely exciting to RP around.

I'm always fascinated by southern templars, because there are so many ways to bring them to life (are they a bureaucrat or a warrior? incompetent, pragmatic or naive? Stoic or epicurean?) and some have been amazing in the past. With Jihaens, it was basically seen one, seen em all - the grim, warrior saint.

I won't touch on lirathans since apparently they haven't been a thing for a while.

[HavokBlue]

Jihaens have also not been a thing for a while.

As of last year, the two orders merged. PC templars were neither jihaen nor lirathan.

[MeTekillot]

if tuluk is closed, where we will get kung-fu? will there be a dojo in morin's?

[bcw81]

Ugh. No. The removal of Northern templars, especially lirathans, is the one thing that makes the North more tolerable these days.

Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably haven't played in Tuluk in...oh...a real life year and a half, at the least?

More like 3 years. Anyhow. I'm sure the northern templars will be treated very well by staff and compensated in such ways that we need not feel sorry for them.

But I don't regret that they're gone. Taken from a cultural and thematic baseline, given how the respective roles were written and meant to be realized, Southern templars are vastly more interesting. They're more overtly designed to be 'human': fallible, corruptible, cowardly or courageous, etc. The northern templars were basically written towards an idealized archetype, which might work in a book, a movie or as a NPC, but was rarely exciting to RP around.

I'm always fascinated by southern templars, because there are so many ways to bring them to life (are they a bureaucrat or a warrior? incompetent, pragmatic or naive? Stoic or epicurean?) and some have been amazing in the past. With Jihaens, it was basically seen one, seen em all - the grim, warrior saint.

I won't touch on lirathans since apparently they haven't been a thing for a while.

You do not seem to have a firm knowledge of Tuluk, its people, or its Templarate. It was -very- rare you would find a perfect Tuluki Templar, and the last six were all 'flawed' in their own ways.

One was devoted to their work so much she hardly had a personal life, one was so foppish and vacant you might have recognized him closer to a Fale than a 'warrior saint', one was so bent around power that it caused him to forget everything else, one was a mind addled sociopath, one was a cocky arrogant fool, and one was so focused on vengeance that he hardly saw anything else unless it was through his one tether to the world.

I mean, basically what you're saying Clearsighted could be said 100% about Allanaki Templars too - They're all despotic sorcerer-warriors who always want to throw you in the arena for the slightest crimes. It's not true, and yes, it may be the case from time to time, it's not the case most of the time.

[Clearsighted]

Ugh. No. The removal of Northern templars, especially lirathans, is the one thing that makes the North more tolerable these days.

Hm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably haven't played in Tuluk in...oh...a real life year and a half, at the least?

More like 3 years. Anyhow. I'm sure the northern templars will be treated very well by staff and compensated in such ways that we need not feel sorry for them.

But I don't regret that they're gone. Taken from a cultural and thematic baseline, given how the respective roles were written and meant to be realized, Southern templars are vastly more interesting. They're more overtly designed to be 'human': fallible, corruptible, cowardly or courageous, etc. The northern templars were basically written towards an idealized archetype, which might work in a book, a movie or as a NPC, but was rarely exciting to RP around.

I'm always fascinated by southern templars, because there are so many ways to bring them to life (are they a bureaucrat or a warrior? incompetent, pragmatic or naive? Stoic or epicurean?) and some have been amazing in the past. With Jihaens, it was basically seen one, seen em all - the grim, warrior saint.

I won't touch on lirathans since apparently they haven't been a thing for a while.

You do not seem to have a firm knowledge of Tuluk, its people, or its Templarate. It was -very- rare you would find a perfect Tuluki Templar, and the last six were all 'flawed' in their own ways.

One was devoted to their work so much she hardly had a personal life, one was so foppish and vacant you might have recognized him closer to a Fale than a 'warrior saint', one was so bent around power that it caused him to forget everything else, one was a mind addled sociopath, one was a cocky arrogant fool, and one was so focused on vengeance that he hardly saw anything else unless it was through his one tether to the world.

I mean, basically what you're saying Clearsighted could be said 100% about Allanaki Templars too - They're all despotic sorcerer-warriors who always want to throw you in the arena for the slightest crimes. It's not true, and yes, it may be the case from time to time, it's not the case most of the time.

I thought about including a disclaimer in my post, that it really was aimed at their theme, and wasn't meant as an indictment of the players, or anyone you listed, but I knew someone would get twisted up about it anyways.

Suffice to say, in my opinion, the northern templarate was written within far more narrow parameters than the southern. I think they contributed less to the game world around them, partially because they had less room to maneuver.

If you disagree, fine. It's not worth debating since they're gone anyways, and clearly some are a bit too sensitive about it. I'm glad that people eventually got around to taking them in slightly less predictable directions.

[Fathi]

It's totally possible--and totally okay--to dislike a concept/archetype in the game and be glad that archetype is gone. That doesn't automatically make it an attack on how people were playing their PCs. And it's definitely not "tossing out accusations."

I have no idea why this guy is getting dogpiled on. I hated Lirathans as an archetype, too. I complained about them all the time. It had nothing to do with anybody's portrayal of their characters.

I played with some great ones, even! But yeah, the whole "exceptionally pure white-robed virginal untouched princess" trope grated on me, because I always thought it didn't jive too well in a word without sexism and seemed perilously close to importing real world moralities and gender roles. That doesn't mean I thought they were all playing terribly. The role was just defined as one that I personally did not like.

[BadSkeelz]

There's some poor attitudes on both sides of this thread, is my feeling.

I personally dislike Clearsighted's attitude towards some things (like saying people don't need sympathy because they happened to be playing sponsored roles at the time, which is just kind of dickish), and think he's just wrong to say that every Templar is the same.

That said, I do think Tuluk had some problems on a fundamental level, of which debatable character archetypes were just a symptom. I've said elsewhere how I felt it was too safe and how this might have caused population and conflict to disperse, but also... Tuluk felt too defined to me, too documented. That so much was already written down of how people behave  and act and perform that it was daunting to try and come up with a character that "fit" into Tuluk in to one of the neat little precarved molds. I find it infinitely easier to create characters that could exist in Allanak. This was especially true for me when I started playing three years ago, before Tuluki docs started getting their revamp. And it still took me a good week of work to come up with a pretty basic character concept that I thought could exist in Tuluk, where I'm able to do the same thing in Allanak in an afternoon. Tuluk was just harder to digest, and on some levels just didn't taste as good to me.

[Taven]

More like 3 years. Anyhow. I'm sure the northern templars will be treated very well by staff and compensated in such ways that we need not feel sorry for them.

But I don't regret that they're gone. Taken from a cultural and thematic baseline, given how the respective roles were written and meant to be realized, Southern templars are vastly more interesting. They're more overtly designed to be 'human': fallible, corruptible, cowardly or courageous, etc. The northern templars were basically written towards an idealized archetype, which might work in a book, a movie or as a NPC, but was rarely exciting to RP around.

I'm always fascinated by southern templars, because there are so many ways to bring them to life (are they a bureaucrat or a warrior? incompetent, pragmatic or naive? Stoic or epicurean?) and some have been amazing in the past. With Jihaens, it was basically seen one, seen em all - the grim, warrior saint.

I won't touch on lirathans since apparently they haven't been a thing for a while.

Well, alright, I'll try to tackle this one.


I don't think your problem is actually with Tuluk's templars. I think your problem is actually with Tuluki culture (though feel free to comment on that). But I'm going forward with that assumption. So, let's start by taking a step back and talking about what people don't like about Tuluk.

You'll have to correct me if I'm wrong here. I think people don't like the different cultural feel. In Allanak, Templars are just the top dog. They want it, they take it, and there's less pretense about it. In Tuluki, however, Muk Utep has basically a cult. The publicly presented view is that the Sun King loves and cares about you and His Faithful are there to protect you. All of the nastiness of templars takes a subtler view. It's supposed to be underneath the surface, hinted at, but never directly in your face. This is also combined with how approachable the nobility is. In Allanak, you bow and scrape to your nobles. Not so in Tuluk, where they might sit in the common bar with you. It can make things seem, sometimes, as if Tuluk is not an oppressive regieme at all, but in fact actually something with happy rainbow sparkles, which seems out of place for Armageddon.

Am I about on par there with the thought-process of those who passionately dislike Tuluk? Feel free to clue me in if I'm not.

But let's take a step forward from there. Some of the challenges with the above are still present, however, the north of three years ago and the north of a month ago are very different places.

The north underwent a massive documentation rehaul. As mentioned by others, the templarate was united into a single unified order. Uaptal, the mount-breeding house, was killed off by a joint Winrothol-Tenneshi venture, and its assets were divided between them. Negean was essentially dismantled, getting absorbed into the Faithful. Each House has a slightly different take and focus as a result. The Hlum do not exist at all, and to mention them may well be considered treason. They were wiped out because Allanaki spies infiltrated Tuluk, and the Lirathans (this is prior to unification) didn't like that so much. The Hlum were locked in their estate, which was burned to the ground with them inside it, pounding to get out.

There's been a conscious effort to take some of Tuluk's subtly out of it, to make it "gritter", as it were. The shadow-artist system was re-vamped to include more gritty options and make it easier to use. Tuluk is a place where you can literally hire someone to beat the shit out of someone you don't like (though with restrictions). Assassination, thuggery, and theft are an intrinsic part of the culture. Of course, that's an area of contention too--Does a system that relies on the the impartiality of the Faithful really work? There's actually some pretty heavy discussion threads on that already. In addition to that, however, there's been an effort to bring gritter PCs into Tuluk, fleshing out the Warrens and so on. Friel's, which used to be such a lovely place, got filled up with southern squatters and midden heaps.

Did all that effort succeed in addressing the concerns of those who disliked Tuluk? I'm not the most qualified to make that judgement, but I think the results were positive but mixed. What I can tell you is that last month's Tuluk is the most active and vibrant it's been in years. So something was being done right, even if any lingering challenges remained.

[Taven]

....it was daunting to try and come up with a character that "fit" into Tuluk in to one of the neat little precarved molds. I find it infinitely easier to create characters that could exist in Allanak. This was especially true for me when I started playing three years ago, before Tuluki docs started getting their revamp. And it still took me a good week of work to come up with a pretty basic character concept that I thought could exist in Tuluk, where I'm able to do the same thing in Allanak in an afternoon. Tuluk was just harder to digest, and on some levels just didn't taste as good to me.

Huh. I don't think you're alone in this feeling, because I've talked to people who are pretty heavily intimidated by Tuluk. I guess I've just never been sure why.

What documentation is it that is causing such concern? What is giving the impression that you can't effectively make a Tuluki version of any concept that might work in Allanak?

[Clearsighted]

There's some poor attitudes on both sides of this thread, is my feeling.

I personally dislike Clearsighted's attitude towards some things (like saying people don't need sympathy because they happened to be playing sponsored roles at the time, which is just kind of dickish), and think he's just wrong to say that every Templar is the same.

That wasn't what I said. What I meant was that they're clearly already working closely with staff. They're playing the most important sponsored role in the game. Hence, I'm sure staff treated them right, and will make it up to them. If you think staff just screwed them over, without any kind of communication or understanding, then I guess I would feel worse for them. But that seems unrealistic for a role that has more staff communication than any other.

I didn't say every templar was the same either. Just that theme for both was narrower and more constraining.

If you disagree with me, fine. But I'm not your straw man. Stop trying twist everything into an indictment of the players, when I've repeatedly stressed the theme and cultural expectations of the role as being what I found lacking. I know players will do the best they think they can with any given role, and all no doubt went into it with high hopes and ambitions.

I'm still glad they're gone.

[Clearsighted]

Well, alright, I'll try to tackle this one.

I don't think your problem is actually with Tuluk's templars. I think your problem is actually with Tuluki culture (though feel free to comment on that). But I'm going forward with that assumption. So, let's start by taking a step back and talking about what people don't like about Tuluk.

etc etc etc

I'm hesitant on how to 'tackle' this. For the record, I have problems with numerous strata of Tuluki society. I found it as a whole poorly designed and poorly realized (meritocratic AND caste-based, intrigue/political/assassination AND lirathans). But I don't want to get into it.

Not because I'm certain of being right - I'm not. I haven't played the game in three years, and you've already pointed out how they did away with lirathans. I'm hazy on how much was done away with. If there were still male martial artists and female psionics, etc. But it's besides the point. Tuluk is closed. I think it was the right decision by staff, and that much of Tuluk's social and cultural atmosphere as written, did not turn out in practice, to be fun and engaging. I guess you could ask most anyone that ever apped a Tuluk noble without storing a month later.

But I don't want to debate this. Because my facts are three years out of date, and the matter has already been settled. Nothing more could be done. I just want to say that I respect your opinion on the matter. I personally feel the game is better off. But I think your feeling otherwise is completely valid.

I will assert, however, that my opinions are not born from not understanding Tuluk well enough. Although it is extremely suggestive that people need to be forced to learn Tuluk, and have it explained to them in pages and pages of text, whereas even a newbie can pick up Allanak in five minutes. That might've been part of its problem. It took too much to get. While I did get it, and at the risk of not wasting each other's time over beating a dead horse, I'm satisfied with where things are now, in game.

This is me respectfully disengaging.

[BadSkeelz]

Huh. I don't think you're alone in this feeling, because I've talked to people who are pretty heavily intimidated by Tuluk. I guess I've just never been sure why.

What documentation is it that is causing such concern? What is giving the impression that you can't effectively make a Tuluki version of any concept that might work in Allanak?

Personally I like Talia's hypothesis that Allanak is an easier place for the young frustrated American male tea-party fuck-you psyche to step in to and cut muthafuckas up with bone swords

To more seriously answer the question.... Criminals seemed like a very daunting thing to try and attempt. Not impossibly, but you'd have to come up with a decidedly different flavor of criminal to justify your existence in Tuluk. I liked to think of Shadowartists are Shadow Runners, corporate mercenaries versus the more street-level and visceral thuggery you'd see in Allanak.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time thinking "Man, the Groot Circle sounds awesome, but drums are kind of a stupid instrument for my concept and I wouldn't really want to play it or try to justify it..."

More generally, I found the idea of this super-ordered city that didn't really seem challenged by anything to be rather off-putting. "If everything is so well run and people get along, what's there to actually do?" Tuluk sounded so high-culture and detailed that it didn't seem like something a newb could easily pick up and do well. That it would work better in animations, or in a novel, and that trying to play it yourself ran the risk of mucking it up "the vision" and getting yelled at for it. There are also the player-created preconceptions of how Tuluk works, that it's all happy-go-lucky tea-sipping hippies. Largely false, but still things I had to try and break through mentally so I could engage with the City.

Personally I was also hamstrung by my OOC desire to play a "decent" character, instead of the dour, honorably malevolent asshole I'd been playing in Allanak for a three years previous. Apparently I can't exclusively play "nice" characters and have fun in Armageddon. Thank goodness for Pillars of Eternity and Cruelty points.

When I started in March of 2013, I can remember going south for three reasons:
1) Allanak had a flag graphic on its page and was thus more immediately engaging
2) The history page had more recent and dramatic events listed in Allanak, so I thought there'd be more action
3) Allanak felt more like the prototypical "Dark Sun" brutal city state that I've heard about through the years. Tuluk, as it's own creation, just didn't have the same ability to play on references and hook me.

I don't think I could really point to one thing in Tuluk and say "This is why I didn't want to play in Tuluk." It was a whole range of things that just didn't click with me.

[Taven]

But I don't want to debate this. Because my facts are three years out of date, and the matter has already been settled. Nothing more could be done. I just want to say that I respect your opinion on the matter. I personally feel the game is better off. But I think your feeling otherwise is completely valid.

This is me respectfully disengaging.

Your first post really rubbed me wrong, but I can respect what you're saying in this one. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate and outline your opinion, I do appreciate it.

[HavokBlue]

Not that it matters anymore but I'll point out for the bajillionth time that there was an entire noble house in Tuluk with a relatively long-lived PC at the helm more than willing to support and supply criminal activities both inside and outside the shadow artist system.

[hyzhenhok]

I didn't find playing a criminal in Tuluk any more difficult than Allanak. Thanks to the night-time crimcode system, it was easy to play a burgeoning criminal "outside the system." Most of the problems like you are totally screwed if a PC spots you in the act even once are just as true in Nak. Actually, I found things easier in Tuluk, but I won't go into the nitty gritty code details of why.

I once played a pickpocket where I got steal extremely high before I slipped up and got nabbed by NPC guards, and the templar bought my "I didn't know how to contact you besides letting myself be brought to you" and inked me and released me. (This was before the new shadow artist system was implemented, but I can't imagine how that would really change things. In fact I really thought it would improve things because said pickpocket ended up having not much to do after she was inked and joined that certain noble house.) There was another instance where the same PC had a close call doing non-contracted crime and again the templarate gave her the benefit of the doubt and let her off scott free. From my perspective I have no idea where this idea that Tuluk was hostile environment for crime (more so than Allanak, anyway) came from.

[Molten Heart]

if tuluk is closed, where we will get kung-fu? will there be a dojo in morin's?

dwarves... the ruff circle clan

[bcw81]

I didn't find playing a criminal in Tuluk any more difficult than Allanak. Thanks to the night-time crimcode system, it was easy to play a burgeoning criminal "outside the system." Most of the problems like you are totally screwed if a PC spots you in the act even once are just as true in Nak. Actually, I found things easier in Tuluk, but I won't go into the nitty gritty code details of why.

I once played a pickpocket where I got steal extremely high before I slipped up and got nabbed by NPC guards, and the templar bought my "I didn't know how to contact you besides letting myself be brought to you" and inked me and released me. (This was before the new shadow artist system was implemented, but I can't imagine how that would really change things. In fact I really thought it would improve things because said pickpocket ended up having not much to do after she was inked and joined that certain noble house.) There was another instance where the same PC had a close call doing non-contracted crime and again the templarate gave her the benefit of the doubt and let her off scott free. From my perspective I have no idea where this idea that Tuluk was hostile environment for crime (more so than Allanak, anyway) came from.

Just want to say that at least some Templars were inking people into the Levy for being caught stealing instead of inking them as high profile artists. At least once that came into play.

[Rathustra]

[Taven]

[rearranged and paraphrased, be warned!!]

Tuluk

• Criminals daunting, required different flavor. Corporate mercenary type criminals instead of street-level thuggary
• Concerns over Groot and drums
• Tuluk seems too ordered and not challenged by everything, too well run, people get along too well
• Tuluk sounded too high-cultured and detailed
• Player perceptions of Tuluk as happy-go-lucky tea-sipping hippies

When I started in March of 2013, I can remember going south for three reasons:

1) Allanak had a flag graphic on its page and was thus more immediately engaging
2) The history page had more recent and dramatic events listed in Allanak, so I thought there'd be more action
3) Allanak felt more like the prototypical "Dark Sun" brutal city state that I've heard about through the years. Tuluk, as it's own creation, just didn't have the same ability to play on references and hook me.

I don't think I could really point to one thing in Tuluk and say "This is why I didn't want to play in Tuluk." It was a whole range of things that just didn't click with me.

So the list above for Tuluk were your perceptions, and why it was harder to get you north to begin with. Did you find the actual experience of playing in Tuluk matched up with what you expected? How was it the same/different then how you thought it would be based on the list?