The Allanak Problem

[Pariah]

My thoughts in bold.

Random thoughts:

Apartments:  Remove them entirely, give GMH compounds apartments instead of barracks, make it so you have to be clanned to get a deep discount on heavily marked up unclanned apartment pricing, keep them as they are but raise the cost some.

Yes, this would give GMH folks something else to do, and keep things proper with the social strata.  As it is now I can be the salt baron of Allanak, make thousands upon thousands of sids and live in the nicest apartments a commoner can buy.  Is that bad? Nah but I don't think it fits with the whole oppression theme.
Workshops:  Turn apartments into workshops that are save rooms, but you can't quit out in them, with worktables and basic storage.  These are not warehouses that are player clan achievement, and thus are easy to break into, expensive in relation to use, and not very big. 

GMH:  Remove hiring caps, but institute population caps, requiring there to be a certain number representing each "civilization center" you're doing business out of.

Yes, this was one of the nice things about old school GMH, you could transfer between Tuluk and Allanak for a change of flavor.
Council:  It's horrible and one of the worst things I ever participated in when it came to getting frustrated due to lack of structure.
I have no idea, but from everything I hear and read about it on this forum, it's a shitshow.

GMH2:  Again.  Have leadership designated to Luirs to focus on Luirs and the Luirs council, garrison, tribals...and one designated to Allanak and all the political mess that goes on there.  For one person solo, it's like juggling knives, it can turn into the worst part time job ever, really fast, and the lack of consistent presence makes it URGENT for Templars and Nobles to abuse someone they don't see often.

Agreed

[downer]

The biggest enabler to being an independent is, IMHO, apartments.  Certainly we have seen what the introduction of apartments has done to dynamic of Luirs. I think if we severely restricted or removed apartments it might make more sense if some roles opened up.  The trend for a number of years has been the opposite, roles closed for various reasons (btw, one reason for closing GMH hunters was precisely loyalty with very low risk of betrayal) and apartments made more plentiful. To a certain extent this has loosened some the shackles that kept people in Allanak/Tuluk and made Luirs/Storm more capable of supporting player populations.

Being in a clan, is almost by default significantly easier than being independent.  Allanak, still has far more apartment options than Luirs.  And the new ones opened in Luirs are tiny, with a myriad of limitations.  Luirs was without access to easy and plentiful water and I imagine the shift was still away from Allanak.  Changes were made to make it more difficult to run away from mobs.  From what I can tell a lot of things seem to have been done to make it more difficult to survive independently.

Allanak has better apartments, and more of them.  How is this conceivably the problem?  The problems are the underlying issues with Allanak.  Impossible to oppose powers, rampant theft with no counter, inactive role calls.   It seems unrealistic to say opening six rooms up to individual player use was such a miraculous change it managed to kill Allanak.  The shift had been happening before this.  People were waiting real life years to get ahold of apartments, and still not playing in Allanak.

[ShaiHulud]

I agree that apartments are not the problem. Was dismayed hearing that they were. I know my usage, my rp and play to even get one...and it is an ending and beginning spot for me, not a hole I sit in.  Give more things for folks to sink their coin into, if worried hunters have to much. But know...everyone's story is different, and does not always fit into the stereotype, suggested.

[Armaddict]

I think that may be kind of the point that's being made, as far as the Luir's apartments.  They're not just apartments, they're bases.  Luir's is not a criminal friendly place, there is no 'criminal hangout' there, and so they also become invariably safer bases, as was mentioned earlier.  The opening of apartments that were just all around better and as available made it...easier to play an indy based out of an apartment in luir's.  You guys are just reinforcing the statement, not refuting it.  Why -wouldn't- you go there, when the option is just all out better?

You don't have to agree with it, that's not what I'm saying.  But I do think that the statement is pretty much saying 'We made Luir's too appealing to indies' or something along those lines, so that there weren't a lot of tradeoffs for being there the way that other places have tradeoffs.  Think of it in terms of buffs and nerfs...sometimes you unintentionally buff something too much, and the solution isn't always going to be to buff everything else to bring it up to its level.  Sometimes it's a 'whoa, tone that down' scenario.

I don't know much about the Garrison/Luir's in its current state.  Does it make sense for them to make living space in the post a house dominant thing?  Is Luir's specifically for indies and tribals to -trade- in, or do they live there just as much?

[ShaiHulud]

Fair enough, but what do characters get when joining a house, noble or merchant? A place to put stuff. Food. Water.
That's very appealing. But the idea that apartments should be only for those that are in ..a clan that supplies that already, more actually, seems to be targeting something unnecessarily.

[Armaddict]

Fair enough, but what do characters get when joining a house, noble or merchant? A place to put stuff. Food. Water.
That's very appealing. But the idea that apartments should be only for those that are in ..a clan that supplies that already, more actually, seems to be targeting something unnecessarily.

That's actually why I'm asking about the nature of the Garrison and modern-day luir's.  Old Luir's didn't really emphasize real 'living space' that much.  But it did have a market.  It had a lot of barracks.  It had a couple select buildings for housing, but they were 'posh' and meant for agents if I recall.  If that's the sort of culture of the place, then it would make sense on an IC level.  People don't live there, they work there or trade there.  The people who work there, they have space.  But most people going through are passing through or on a temporary stay.

I say the above not with certainty, but as a theoretical.  In that theoretical, it would make sense to have housing restricted to merchant houses in Luir's, making it a good place for indies to hunker down and trade, but not establish a base out of it.  Indies would be transitory, known faces by the workers when they come through consistently, but not a 'resident' of Luir's.  And I can totally see that making sense.

Can anyone clarify whether or not Luir's has the culture of an actual living space versus the trade hub and checkpoint that it used to be under Kurac's fist?

[betweenford]

Fair enough, but what do characters get when joining a house, noble or merchant? A place to put stuff. Food. Water.
That's very appealing. But the idea that apartments should be only for those that are in ..a clan that supplies that already, more actually, seems to be targeting something unnecessarily.

That's actually why I'm asking about the nature of the Garrison and modern-day luir's.  Old Luir's didn't really emphasize real 'living space' that much.  But it did have a market.  It had a lot of barracks.  It had a couple select buildings for housing, but they were 'posh' and meant for agents if I recall.  If that's the sort of culture of the place, then it would make sense on an IC level.  People don't live there, they work there or trade there.  The people who work there, they have space.  But most people going through are passing through or on a temporary stay.

I say the above not with certainty, but as a theoretical.  In that theoretical, it would make sense to have housing restricted to merchant houses in Luir's, making it a good place for indies to hunker down and trade, but not establish a base out of it.  Indies would be transitory, known faces by the workers when they come through consistently, but not a 'resident' of Luir's.  And I can totally see that making sense.

Can anyone clarify whether or not Luir's has the culture of an actual living space versus the trade hub and checkpoint that it used to be under Kurac's fist?

There's like several thousand people squatting in the bailey at any given time, I think? Not sure on the exact numbers post-tuluk closure but its alot of people squatting/living in Luirs. Tribals who live in the northlands/tablelands/reddesert/wherever TEND to be pretty transient, though... being proper nomads and all.

[HortaCulture]

Luirs does indeed have a huge immigrant population. I've seen it acknowledged and roleplayed and suggested in animations.

I'd just like to say, removing apartments from other parts of the game will not make nak better. It will make other places, worse. Please do not remove content in the hopes of driving people to the city due to inconvenience and reduced playability, elsewhere.

Personally the reason I gravitate away from nak is because often times things go like.. a) oh I got robbed. b) cool I got robbed twice c) random magicker/breed/elf/human/other faction my PC wouldn't talk to only people encountered. d) KNEEL BEFORE ME BISH e) someone else paranoid spam walking/generally spamwalking/averse to interaction.

Someone said a while back that Luirs was appealing because you are effectively elbow to elbow with movers and shakers. You can get involved in stuff. People WANT to involve you in stuff. That is true as far as I have seen.

On the opposite side of that coin if you DO NOT want to be involved in stuff there are less scenarios that FORCE you to be involved. I think that is equally important.

TLDR: In soviet Allanak, you don't find roleplay, roleplay finds YOU (whether you like it or not) and I think that is a factor in preferences.

[Lizzie]

I don't feel Luir's has an "immigrant" population. It has a "transient" population. They're very different things. An immigrant comes here from somewhere else, and plans to stay. A transient comes here for a short period of time, then moves along to somewhere else or returns to wherever they were last. They might be repeat customers but they don't seek residency.

I actually like the concept of the bailey tents and huts. Sort of in the shape of a clover, with each section of the clover surrounding its own open courtyard, and each courtyard open to each OTHER courtyard.

In this way, groups can hang out outside their apartments, still be in watching distance of their apartments, while they gather together to do their crafting, talk about hunting, do whatever it is they do. It reminds me of a small dormitory in a city college. Three people share a room, and there are only 6-7 rooms total. The front door is kept unlocked during the day, and people can stay in their rooms or hang out together in the living room or kitchen.

A communal environment with semi-privacy for sleeping and storage.

I'd love to see this repeated in the city. Maybe over the Gaj. Instead of easily-unlocked apartments that no one is willing to rent in, I'd like to see a full renovation with front left, front right, rear left, rear right clusters of smaller apartments, and each cluster surrounding a communal space. Perhaps each communal space could be lockable, giving the would-be burglar two points of entry needed to actually get into someone's apartment. And they would risk any of FOUR apartments worth of tenants being in that central courtyard when they break in, because that central courtyard would have a table and chairs, a firepit, maybe a chest for communal property - so it would be inviting for residents to hang out in there.

Anyway that's my thoughts on apartments in general. I think it's the layout of the one in Luir's that made it so attractive, combined with the "independent-friendly" environment of the outpost.

[Pariah]

...

Personally the reason I gravitate away from nak is because often times things go like.. a) oh I got robbed. b) cool I got robbed twice c) random magicker/breed/elf/human/other faction my PC wouldn't talk to only people encountered. d) KNEEL BEFORE ME BISH e) someone else paranoid spam walking/generally spamwalking/averse to interaction.

...

Having just returned from a few years break playing a new character in the Nak area.  I will say a lot of this does appear to be different now.

Raiders still exist but they seem less insta-kill than before.

I haven't experienced the "Kneel bish" thing, though a valid part of roleplay for the templar/nobles, I haven't seen it on my return, more of a "Know your place" vibe than anything and when you follow the proper social etiquette they seem to be less annoying with it.

Spam walking, no roleplay is more my downside at the moment.  Seems Bar RP is a thing of the past for the most part.  I've been on when 40 some folks are on, and rotated all the allanak (proper southside) bars and nobody.

(Note: I'm not a huge proponent of tavern sitting, but it does provide a way to find folks to interact with.)

I have been to Luirs once or twice in this fellow and did find people each and every time, but again, limited amount of folks at the public gathering points.

I think the problem is there is too much risk and not enough reward to interact once you get your established Rythym.  Why bother hobbnobbing with X character at the bar, in the market when there is a chance some elf with min/max stealing is gonna rob you blind?  Or you could be better served to manufacture gear/items in your apartment stronghold as previously stated here in this thread.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think they need to look at ways to get folks to have to interact and remove some of the NPC outlets for coin making and the like.  That way you can't have someone apartment farming up their merchant character with a sack full of goods to run through three different locations selling.  It would allow for more real selling with players and dealers, but that's just my take on it.

[Pew Pew]

I dont think the problem is the apartment themselves but the amount of items you can hold in them. The shantytown might as well be called warehouse town.

[HortaCulture]

To be fair, I think my view of nak was tarnished when I came back as my first experience was an absurdly extended "kneel bish" that lasted like a RL hour over the offense of "not bowing good enough". I basically wasn't needed in the scene except to emote kissing the ground now and then. I have since had a mix of good and bad otherwise. Has been some very funny things in recent times. But it's really lacking something.

Even if we took all the apartments away entirely, it would not bring all the PC's renting said apartments to the city instead. There are levels of nuance to the problem itself, but it seems like the solution is not quite so simple.

I've avoided chiming in on it but okay.. one of my favorite PC's from the before times was a hobo from Luirs. They spent VERY little time, in Luirs. Why?

They were a spy between Nak and Tuluk. As an indie. Got close to a Tuluki noble through indie work. Pressured/tempted into selling information to a Southern templar.. and off we go. Shit I don't even know if she had an apartment anywhere. Randomly maybe.

I got so wrapped into it at one point staff wrote ME a request to be like.."lol okay can you do a report because your indie is appearing in a lot of other reports and we want to know wtf she is doing pls thx".

The competition dynamic was a good dynamic and certainly healthy for Allanak. It needs something external, IMHO. Something very clear and hateable and propaganda worthy. Maybe it's not Tuluk, I dunno. But I know I used to have way more fun in the city when it had a major and active enemy.

[Narf]

I think the problem is there is too much risk and not enough reward to interact once you get your established Rythym.  Why bother hobbnobbing with X character at the bar, in the market when there is a chance some elf with min/max stealing is gonna rob you blind?  Or you could be better served to manufacture gear/items in your apartment stronghold as previously stated here in this thread.

Counterpoint: Coin farming is boring to most people, and the people that don't get bored by it probably aren't the ones that are going to create interesting rp for you. You need a way to lure out interesting players that do interesting things. Fiddling with coin farming and apartments might be warranted for other reasons, but it's not going to do that.

[Pariah]

I think the problem is there is too much risk and not enough reward to interact once you get your established Rythym.  Why bother hobbnobbing with X character at the bar, in the market when there is a chance some elf with min/max stealing is gonna rob you blind?  Or you could be better served to manufacture gear/items in your apartment stronghold as previously stated here in this thread.

Fair point

Counterpoint: Coin farming is boring to most people, and the people that don't get bored by it probably aren't the ones that are going to create interesting rp for you. You need a way to lure out interesting players that do interesting things. Fiddling with coin farming and apartments might be warranted for other reasons, but it's not going to do that.

[betweenford]

Just my two cents on the issue of apartments and Allanaki population: correlation does not equal causation. There's plenty of other driving factors in Allanak at the time the apartments dropped that easily make or break the citystate for alot of people's playability. Whether it's specific templars being gung-ho about killing PCs at the drop of a hat, "kneel bish" scenes that happened more frequently than not, or the ever-invisible elven miscreant with very little counterplay for most types of PCs. Bad experiences that go beyond "unfair" and edge into the territory of being annoying really do drive people away from playing in that area, esp if they feel their death-scenes were lackluster and the population of Allanak was already in decline. Combine many driving factors with the only thing really killing most PCs in Luirs being unlucky PvE and more people will stick around than disappear. Luir's Outpost doesn't have a "zone" where its relatively easy to train all skullduggery skills to master in 1-5 irl days and then harass where people are, it even has an annoyance where its more difficult than anything to try to start a thief there due to cramped amounts of soldier npcs and barely any npcs to steal from without major consequence. Alot of people don't like being inconvenienced by Templars incessantly, "noble rp/plots", or getting constantly having everything you own disappear mysteriously from the 2 days played elven miscreant.

Allanak's population is recovering, slowly. But if someone literally spends rl hours trying to look for interaction in Allanak and finds zero people anywhere, they're just going to play somewhere else. The problem feeds itself. Content removal sucks and consolidation won't fix a thing here. Good players and good leaders, fun players and fun leaders... all of them help moreso than removing someone's saveroom warehouse apartment.

[Fredd]

So we are all in agreeance. One of the best parts of Tuluk, was a near-complete absence of 'Kneel bish'

[triste]

So we are all in agreeance. One of the best parts of Tuluk, was a near-complete absence of 'Kneel bish'

Yes sure +1.

Even the most kneel inducing Lirathan people love to whine about was one tenth as "kneel bish" inducing as the average Allanaki templar.

I think one advantage Tuluk had were citizenship inks. It gave the ruling class a reason to show commoners at least a modicum of respect. Citizens got involved in plots more openly, etc.

Allanak has no such mechanisms, and worse yet antagonistic Red Stormers can blend in easily.

[Armaddict]

I'd just like to say, removing apartments from other parts of the game will not make nak better. It will make other places, worse. Please do not remove content in the hopes of driving people to the city due to inconvenience and reduced playability, elsewhere.

Like I said, sometimes the issue is not just 'make this area more appealing', it can also be 'we made one area too appealing'.  I can't say for certain, but there have been a number of posts that kind of indicate that this might be the case, which makes that idea worth investigating.  People have pretty much said outright that it's low-risk warehousing for their characters, and that if they tried to do it in 'nak that it was risky which wasn't fun.  That's a pretty clear indicator right there.

So we are all in agreeance. One of the best parts of Tuluk, was a near-complete absence of 'Kneel bish'

This is kind of confusing to me though.  This hasn't been absent for most of the period of the game.  What shift happened that made this suddenly intolerable?  When did a noble or templar being an asshole for a scene that says '0 actual impact, just reiterating what you should already know, which is that I am better than you' become a reason to avoid an area entirely?  Have people -forgotten- the social strata so that this scene is hard to swallow and infuriating because they don't want their character to be lesser?  Or is the social status quo itself intolerable...because people don't want their character to be lesser?

Having a 'bigger' character come out and beat the shit out of you for no reason is one thing.  Now your roleplay shifts to having to roleplay being hurt and recovering instead of whatever you were hoping to do.  But I'm not certain I see the issue with scenes that do nothing but reinforce the power structure.

[th3kaiser]

Making other things worse to drive players to Allanak just sounds sad to me. In my head Allanak's big draw was always just that you could go inside and find people. It wasn't apartments or storage or whatever. It was interaction.

Allanak is terrible for hunting. It's far more dangerous outside than the north. The government can be oppressive in the extreme and can execute you at a whim. But you could generally find people to talk to. Now that the bars are empty for whatever reason, people ride elsewhere for that because why wouldn't they? There's nothing wrong with this. Why do we have to try and force people back if they don't want to be there? Just get out of the Allanak-Centric mindset and adapt to how our players are playing. Things'll swing back that way eventually.

(just an opinion)

[Armaddict]

I really am just furthering the point not out of absolute support, but because the replies are conducive to it.

But you could generally find people to talk to. Now that the bars are empty for whatever reason, people ride elsewhere for that because why wouldn't they?

Again, that's only reiterating the point made.  Why wouldn't you?  It's a surefire sign that a change someplace made it more appealing elsewhere to shift the dominant center, and what remains to be viewed is whether or not that is a problem or not.

Making other things worse to drive players to Allanak just sounds sad to me. In my head Allanak's big draw was always just that you could go inside and find people. It wasn't apartments or storage or whatever. It was interaction.

This statement keeps coming up even though it always falls under the same blanket.  Luir's was not the place to -live- in any time prior unless you were closely affiliated with it.  I think that's the whole point of what's being made with the statement that apartments made things 'too good' for indies.  The repeated talks about thievery in Allanak versus safety in Luir's...this is the same thing over and over.  There was a change to Luir's that made it more suitable, more people moved there, more interaction became available, more people moved there, and in effect you have a sort of exodus based off of the prime nature of indy housing there.

So again.  Does that make sense?  Would the 'merchanting' basis of Luir's culture seek to capitalize off of that?  I know that MMH gets impeded a lot by major merchant houses, wouldn't the Garrison just be an extension of that idea?  Why does it not make sense for the housing there to be based off of offloading goods consistently rather than stockpiling it for use later?  Higher rent, less space?  House-only to secure your hunting goods for themselves?

Maybe the answer is just to introduce a criminal element to Luir's, and have the merchant houses do their own sort of sensible oppression but vying against each other...like noble houses.  Then at least the reasoning to go there is not 'escape 'nak', it's 'best location for hunters'.  I feel like what people keep saying is that Luir's is free of undesirable things, which just doesn't seem to make sense in Arm.

[th3kaiser]

It's not that Luirs was made hugely better. It's that Allanak has always sucked from a quality of life sense and when there's nobody around to talk to it's terrible. My actual point which wasn't quoted is, why are we trying to force our players? Let them play where they want without this OOC effort to corral them. They'll be back eventually.

[Pariah]

As a hunter type character I will say, from what I remember it was much less deadly up north when Tuluk was around.

I've been destroyed on 5-10 day played hunters by a random Drov or Spider that gets too close to Allanak.

I've never been killed that easily in Tuluk.

But then there is the themely-ness of it.  Am I going to live in Allanak, but ride across the whole god damn world just for hunting?  Is that proper?

Or am I gonna just deal with the chance of getting insta-slayed in the south?  I struggle with the idea of travelling so far north for nothing more than hunting.

[HortaCulture]

I think the 'kneel bish' thing has always been sort of like okay, It's not about me wanting to be better its about, I know you are, but I am trapped in a scene that was redundant 10 mins ago. I kneeled. I kissed the ground. I did a detailed emote about how hard I'm grovelling. If we're going to do this for more than ten minutes like at least.. order me to do something and dismiss me so I have left the scene with a hook I have to fulfill? At least that was my problem with it. Shrug.

Edit to add: You can generate sustained interaction from a kneel bish scene by giving the peon in question something to do to apologize, for example, and when they go out and do it, hey, what a good little poppet now there are reasons to give them more shit to do. (see: my previously referenced character the spy got started like this) But this, was not what I was experiencing. There was no reason to interact, more reason to avoid. So it is kinda boring.

[Narf]

  I feel like what people keep saying is that Luir's is free of undesirable things, which just doesn't seem to make sense in Arm.

Not that I've any idea how to do it, but I think one thing that could help is focusing on making ICly undesirable things more fun OOCly.

Like would there be a way to make being shaken down by templars more entertaining for players? Is there a way to make theft more entertaining for the victim? I think people might have resigned themselves to treating these as an OOC cost to playing in a harsh and gritty world, when if they were reworked a bit they might actually make Alanak more entertaining to play in from a player perspective (even though the characters would continue to hate it).

That's kind of a tall order though. Individual players can make crime and punishment interesting, but actually making it reliable across players enough that large segments of the player population would seek it out would be tough. I'd almost say though it'd be worth doing a sponsored role call with specific rp stipulations involved in the role call.

"Pickpockets and burglars who ransoms back people's belongings wanted"
"Ineffective and easily tricked templar sought"

Perhaps give some sort of skill bumps to the role calls to get them off the ground.

[Greve]

When did a noble or templar being an asshole for a scene that says '0 actual impact, just reiterating what you should already know, which is that I am better than you' become a reason to avoid an area entirely?

When that experience was no longer backed up by the activity and forward momentum within the sphere that once made it fine to be subjected to the parts of Allanak's lore that say you're a worthless maggot under the heels of templars and nobles. Once that became all there was to the Allanak experience - bereft of the wars, political intrigue and inclusive world events that the game used to enjoy - being a peon in the muck lost its appeal. It was cool to get shit on by templars back when they would go down in history as doers of great things, but when they just fade in and out with no more legacy than shitting on the peons, it falls flat. People will seek to play elsewhre when the only thing they see upon visiting Allanak is sponsored roles bullying random nobodies without anything else going on. And here I'm not talking about festivals and auctions. That's not meant to be what the game revolves around.