Hiring caps: A Self-Defeating Policy of Roleplay Mercantilism

[Suhuy]

While I'm no fan of the spam which accompanies a crowd of PCs in one room, I've never thought any clan was simply too big. Even with 15 PCs in a single clan, that's a whole heck of a lot of different online times to accommodate. Additionally, most clans have lots and lots of different rooms, some of which get practically no use whatsoever. I'd rather have 15 people in a clan and go find somewhere quieter to RP in when things get busy, than to simply say "this clan can have 8 characters maximum because it will prevent you from the annoyance of spam".

[Suhuy]

I'd also like to just chime in that while in theory you don't need to be coded into the clan to be someone's employee and that maybe all it really adds is color and nothing more, people want it. And when they don't have it, they're a lot less likely to consider teaming up with you.

Bells and whistles are important. And if some feature in the code says "You are now a part of something", even if it offers no coded advantage or additional goodies at all, it's still something that attracts players. Why discourage that!

[Armaddict]

Reducing it to spam is somewhat silly.  Spam was part of it, but what was degraded was the actual activities themselves.

You guys get excited about RPT's, and want there to be more of them.  I want the everyday to be more exciting.  If your house has 10 hunters...it's not that fun being a hunter.  If your house has 10 merchants...it's not that cool being a merchant.  If your house has these daily activities, but they get done regardless of your participation because they're what everyone does...it's less exciting.  Those RPT's with lots of people come around (and yes, there is spam), but those are the exceptions to the fun.  It -is- more fun to have a solid group working together to accomplish goals than to have an amorphous blob always changing and modifying with a couple steadies and creating made up larger events to accomodate the fact that you're larger.  In the military clans I played in, anything more than 5 or 6 going out at time was complete overkill for anything save for RPT-strength encounters.  It removed the 'Zalanthas' from Arm and made it a hack'n slash mud group, minus spellcasters (in most cases).

No, that is not an anti-RPT post.  Yes, it is saying that having a clan be reliant on RPT's for 'fun activities', as tends to happen with larger amounts of players in clans, is just as detrimental as it is beneficial, and so I see no boon in removing the caps.  The quantity of roleplay activities go up, the quality of roleplay opportunities go down, regardless of players involved.  You're just...an unnecessary bit of more-blob.

The bit I will give you is the bit about different timezones...but I also believe I read something about accommodation to that, regarding caps.  I could be mistaken.  Awhile back there was a post about some tool that would allow off-peak players to view what clans other off-peakers were in.  That would be a far more targeted, refined, and efficient fix than 'off-peakers need huge clan numbers'.

Also.  Realize that I am not actually particularly for -or- against clan caps, but every reason I've seen for dropping them, I just happen to disagree with or find the reasoning somewhat flimsy for a theoretical benefit that I think:
  a) brings detriment with it. (as above)
  b) Does not counteract the benefit of having it remain in place, i.e. Clans can get strong, but not -overwhelmingly- strong.  This is -particularly- an interesting dynamic when people are talking about clan vs clan conflict at the same time in other threads.

I'd also like to just chime in that while in theory you don't need to be coded into the clan to be someone's employee and that maybe all it really adds is color and nothing more, people want it. And when they don't have it, they're a lot less likely to consider teaming up with you.

Bells and whistles are important. And if some feature in the code says "You are now a part of something", even if it offers no coded advantage or additional goodies at all, it's still something that attracts players. Why discourage that!

This I agree with.  I'm a little taken aback, to be honest...I'd thought the reason people wanted to be clanned and have access to things and whatnot to be...fairly straightforward, not something puzzling.  Which means I have to describe something I've never really had to describe in my head before aside from 'Sweet, I'm a Wyvern now!'

[bardlyone]

I'd also like to just chime in that while in theory you don't need to be coded into the clan to be someone's employee and that maybe all it really adds is color and nothing more, people want it. And when they don't have it, they're a lot less likely to consider teaming up with you.

Bells and whistles are important. And if some feature in the code says "You are now a part of something", even if it offers no coded advantage or additional goodies at all, it's still something that attracts players. Why discourage that!

This I agree with.  I'm a little taken aback, to be honest...I'd thought the reason people wanted to be clanned and have access to things and whatnot to be...fairly straightforward, not something puzzling.  Which means I have to describe something I've never really had to describe in my head before aside from 'Sweet, I'm a Wyvern now!'

I don't know of anyone who feels differently than this. And I know a lot of people.

[MeTekillot]

"besides it being fun for players, why should we do this?"

[LauraMars]

I was the only noble in my clan for a period of over 7 months, and I was pretty firmly (but nicely!) told I couldn't hire anyone besides my two aides.  So for months my clan had three people in it including myself.  A three person clan was not what I signed up for.  It was hard.  It drove me crazy.  Things felt tiny and static.  I felt like the burden of entertaining my two employees (who I am absolutely not criticizing, they were great) was far heavier than it would have been if there had been more people.  I felt like a failure for not being able to bring new people into the clan, and I was sure that being stuck with just me for so long must have been terribly boring for my aides.  There was no player level clan politics or backstabbing going on, which has always been my #1 favorite part of clans.  There were no new people.  There were no servants of a rival noble to harass, manipulate, or bribe.  There wasn't even the non-excitement of hiring a guy only to never see him again, and when you've come to a point where you're missing that as a leader, you know things are frustrating.  I was frustrated.  I'll even go so far as to say I hated that clan cap.

I'm not against the idea of clan caps at all (6-7 people seems like great fun to me)!  But to just cap it at three people including the leader is not my scene.  And it's a little insulting to say that it's only laziness on my part that I wanted to clan more people.  Having people codedly clanned is useful for everyone.  When you have an "employee" that isn't in the clan, you can say they're working for you, but they can't wear your livery, eat your food, store their shit in a somewhat safe locker, access nice, clan discounted apartments, find you in any space that isn't public, be "attached" to you in anything but name, enjoy any other perks of being clanned (even if it isn't hard coin), and they're much harder to keep track of oocly as well due to their lack of access to a clan gdb and monthly check ins.  It's also much harder for a "fake" employee to betray you, steal from you, or spy on you, which cuts down on potentially interesting conflict within the clan.

There's also a culture aspect; being part of a group of employees who can rub shoulders and get to know each other, (spar together, clean the barracks together, whatever) instead of just being "a ranger who sometimes works for Lady Oash and sleeps in the Gaj" feels a lot more inclusive, and a lot more, well, like being in a clan.  Two direct aides is plenty for an active noble, but having guard roles, "flavor" roles (gardener, explorer, personal tailor, bard) or some other type of role open as well would be aces.  Heck, when we finally got another noble in my clan (three weeks before I had to store of course ) and they started hiring aides, I was delighted.  Suddenly we doubled in size and things felt ever so much more lively and social, despite still being a relatively teeny clan in the grand scheme of things.

I don't regret the role. I accomplished things, there were mad plots, I stayed busy, I loved my two employees dearly and still think I hit the minion jackpot with them.  And to all who can function as leaders of a clan of three, awesome! More power to you.  I definitely, 110% will never play a noble again though, not unless I can be sure of being able to have more than two other people in my clan, even if only two of them are working for me directly.

[Lizzie]

It looks like the rules aren't as strict as people are making it out to be.

You can have other people in your "two aides only" clan, but they can't be aides. As a noble, you can only have two aides that are clanned and ranked with access to the estate, cook, and paymaster NPC.

You can have all the minions you want, but only two of them get that particular privilege. If you want more, just hire more. They won't be able to get in and out of the clan compound unless you or one of your aides are there to let them in and out, they won't be able to order food from the cook, and they'll have to rely on you or your aides to get paid.

I don't see a problem with that.

[Delirium]

I remember being SO confused when someone wanted to hire my character and another character, but acted like they simply couldn't hire both of us.

My literal thought was "why not both?" Now I understand why.

Everything Laura said. And I guess if you can only have two aides, it's time to start hiring gardeners, fashion assistants, armor repairers, cooks....

[wizturbo]

...and they're much harder to keep track of oocly as well due to their lack of access to a clan gdb and monthly check ins.  

I agree with all of LauraMars' post in outlining the problems that come with per person clan caps.  I personally think there's no need to have a per person clan cap, but rather have it be a total clan membership cap for noble houses.  The "number of lockers is your clan cap" concept makes sense ICly, and acts as an easy tracking mechanism.  If there's only one noble, or only one active noble, this would enable them to hire more than just 2 others to interact with in the clan.  If another noble is brought on, that noble can hire on their own people once the inevitable attrition rates of any clan kick in and people leave (should this be a problem for the new noble, they can always accelerate the process.... ).

I think she points out a very important issue though when it comes to GDB access.  Playing as a leader in a clan is hard enough, and having to get messages to non-clan members to coordinate RPT's with them is so exhausting and irritating that I frankly don't think I'll be doing it again unless I feel there will be a big pay off in fun for myself and all involved to do so...  It'll just be a "see if they're online when we go out" sort of deal.  I'm not sure if other leaders feel the same way, but the idea of having employees who cannot access the clan board makes me shy away from even calling them an employee.  For instance, if I'm going on vacation, unless I sync up with this person and let them know through an OOC or Psi OOC, they're not going to have any idea that their "employer" is gone for 10 days...this sucks for all parties involved.  This is one of the reasons I think the Gemmed have it so bad, not only are they excluded from things ICly, they're excluded from things OOCly in the form of not being able to coordinate play times unless they join House Oash.  Super lame, and a reason to create a Gemmed GDB board as has been asked for countless times.

All of this would be easily managed if there were better OOC communication tools to work with, but such tools aren't permitted.  I would love to have a "Groupies of...." GDB forum that PC's could invite their non-clanned minions/allies/enemies into just to coordinate play times..it would save me literally hours of RL time.   Looking to do a cross-clan RPT with 5 indies joining?  Invite them all to join Groupies of Merchant Awesomesauce, and coordinate play times in that forum...save countless hours of frustration....spend those hours mudsexing.  Profit.

[Narf]

To build off of what Laura said I think people drastically underestimate the ability to OOCly coordinate play schedules that a clan board gives. As someone that's had to work at great lengths to coordinate a large number of people with no clan board access... It can be done but it's exhausting. And there's always a few people that forget or worse, remember the wrong time. Or they have a change in their availability and no way to contact you.

Honestly, I'd rather be in a "clan" of three people who sleep in the gutters around the rinth who have a clan board to coordinate their online times than be in a clan with protected estate access and storage and massive prestige and regular pay, but no clan board.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I actually agree with hiring caps, but they should be relatively generous. The number of lockers in your barracks is a perfect barometer.

[wizturbo]

Honestly, I'd rather be in a "clan" of three people who sleep in the gutters around the rinth who have a clan board to coordinate their online times than be in a clan with protected estate access and storage and massive prestige and regular pay, but no clan board.

Agreed 100%.  Not having a GDB forum to coordinate significantly increases the amount of inertia a player has to overcome to plan activities.

The demand for RPT's is ever present, people would love to have them every single day, I think...  but the amount of inertia to plan such things for staff and PC leadership is so high that the only a tiny fraction of that demand can be supplied.

[Narf]

...and they're much harder to keep track of oocly as well due to their lack of access to a clan gdb and monthly check ins.  

All of this would be easily managed if there were better OOC communication tools to work with, but such tools aren't permitted.  I would love to have a "Groupies of...." GDB forum that PC's could invite their non-clanned minions/allies/enemies into just to coordinate play times..it would save me literally hours of RL time.   Looking to do a cross-clan RPT with 5 indies joining?  Invite them all to join Groupies of Merchant Awesomesauce, and coordinate play times in that forum...save countless hours of frustration....spend those hours mudsexing.  Profit.

From personal experience I can say that there are probably dozens of things I haven't done because of inability to communicate playtimes effectively with independent groups, either because they fell through or because the thought of getting in touch with these three people with irregular playtimes just made it too exhausting to contemplate.

[nauta]

...and they're much harder to keep track of oocly as well due to their lack of access to a clan gdb and monthly check ins.  

All of this would be easily managed if there were better OOC communication tools to work with, but such tools aren't permitted.  I would love to have a "Groupies of...." GDB forum that PC's could invite their non-clanned minions/allies/enemies into just to coordinate play times..it would save me literally hours of RL time.   Looking to do a cross-clan RPT with 5 indies joining?  Invite them all to join Groupies of Merchant Awesomesauce, and coordinate play times in that forum...save countless hours of frustration....spend those hours mudsexing.  Profit.

From personal experience I can say that there are probably dozens of things I haven't done because of inability to communicate playtimes effectively with independent groups, either because they fell through or because the thought of getting in touch with these three people with irregular playtimes just made it too exhausting to contemplate.

I'd love a dynamic clan system which would allow you to coordinate for RPTs in groups - it'd also cut down on illegitimate or inconvenient forms of OOC communication.

[Majikal]

...and they're much harder to keep track of oocly as well due to their lack of access to a clan gdb and monthly check ins.  

All of this would be easily managed if there were better OOC communication tools to work with, but such tools aren't permitted.  I would love to have a "Groupies of...." GDB forum that PC's could invite their non-clanned minions/allies/enemies into just to coordinate play times..it would save me literally hours of RL time.   Looking to do a cross-clan RPT with 5 indies joining?  Invite them all to join Groupies of Merchant Awesomesauce, and coordinate play times in that forum...save countless hours of frustration....spend those hours mudsexing.  Profit.

From personal experience I can say that there are probably dozens of things I haven't done because of inability to communicate playtimes effectively with independent groups, either because they fell through or because the thought of getting in touch with these three people with irregular playtimes just made it too exhausting to contemplate.

I'd love a dynamic clan system which would allow you to coordinate for RPTs in groups - it'd also cut down on illegitimate or inconvenient forms of OOC communication.

ooc do you have a gdb or e-mail I can send rpt details too?

the dude says ooc 'send them to awesome_amos@myemailandshit.com, or tall muscular kank on gdb'

ooc Figure out what times work for ur peepz and let me know by tomorrow kthxbai

Bridge complete? GDB handles are a legitimate tool for communicating playtimes and things. Make an alt handle for facilitating stuff like that and use it. *shrug* Making more request spam for something like groupies of clan X. Meh.

[wizturbo]

I'm totally fine with Majikal's solution, but it seems highly frowned upon in my experiences....maybe my perception on that is flawed though?  It's okay to ask for a GDB handle in-game?  If so, I have a lot of people's GDB handles I need to ask for...probably 10+.  Time to create a new tab on my excel spreadsheet with character names & GDB handles.  Weeeeeeee

[BadSkeelz]

I'm a little leery of it, because it feels like you're breaking the IC/OOC barrier... Even if, functionally, it's not a whole lot different than joining a clan forum. Still feels "wrong" on some nonrational level.

I wonder if it would be better to tell your non-clanned Minion "Hey, pay attention to Player Announcement posts by AmazingAmos, as those will affect you." And then you vaguebook in the Player Announcements ("Those in the know will know to be at the place @ 7pm Server Time").

[CodeMaster]

being able to leave messages in the Way for an offline player might help. creating a second or third gdb account seems like a bit of a hassle.

[Beethoven]

I played with someone who figured out kind of a cool, happy medium solution to this problem once. They gave an IC explanation for how my PC might contact theirs while they were offline (think letters between literate PCs, perhaps Waying a third party for non-literates,) and then OOC'd me their GDB handle. When I PMd them, I did it with IC messages, aka "Lady X has left a letter for Lord Templar Y with one of his guards in the temple, asking if it would be acceptable to meet with him at X time." Never any IC details or anything, just meetups, but it was a neat way to handle it, I thought.

[Narf]

I'm totally fine with Majikal's solution, but it seems highly frowned upon in my experiences....maybe my perception on that is flawed though?  It's okay to ask for a GDB handle in-game?  If so, I have a lot of people's GDB handles I need to ask for...probably 10+.  Time to create a new tab on my excel spreadsheet with character names & GDB handles.  Weeeeeeee

I do this all the time. It's still an enormous hassle for a variety of reasons:

1) Most people don't think to hit reply all when they're discussing online times. This means if you're organizing between a few people, you'll be acting as translator for each person.

2) The GDB messenger only allows 4 people to be contacted at a time. If you need to arrange times with more than 4 people you'll have extra messages to type out. Furthermore, now even if you've trained people to use the "reply all" function, it won't really work anymore if you're dealing with 5+ people.

3) Typing in a lot of people's weird handles is kind of annoying. It sounds like a small thing, and it is, but if you have to do it every time it starts to bug you.

[wizturbo]

That's true Narf.  I'm totally fine with the solution for 1 on 1 communications, for RPT planning it's still a nightmare.

[Delirium]

I tend to prefer to keep as much information in-game as possible so that potential spies have a chance at getting that information.

So I'm not a huge fan of using pms on the GDB to coordinate. I wish more people still used clan boards in-game for the same reason.

I wish there was a way to send messages to people offline, in-game. Messenger NPCs that act like game email, or something along those lines.

[Desertman]

I tend to prefer to keep as much information in-game as possible so that potential spies have a chance at getting that information.

So I'm not a huge fan of using pms on the GDB to coordinate. I wish more people still used clan boards in-game for the same reason.

I wish there was a way to send messages to people offline, in-game. Messenger NPCs that act like game email, or something along those lines.

I wish The Way was extremely limited compared to what it is now (outside of psions) and literacy was much more common for just this reason (among many others).