Make Gladiators Great Again!

[ShaiHulud]

Hi fellow players and fabulous staff.
This is just a thread to hopefully discuss, promote, and perhaps re-envision, gladiators.
I would perceive the, hopeful responses, as some indication of interest by the player base. Or not.
Let's talk about the pros and cons and what ideas that might make this viable again.

[ShaiHulud]

To add, I have once played a gladiator. I had great goals and ideas for his personality and role as slave gladiator. Inspired by those playing reigning and such at the time. My attempt failed terribly. An elf who was confused and attacked the wrong person. Then slaughtered. I felt like a fool. It was still fun and tried to make the best out of the ooc mistake. Please add any failed attempts you may have had and ideas to make this part of the game again.

MGGA

[Narf]

Step 1) Let everyone that wants one have a secondary gladiator PC, place them all in a quit-safe pen together.
Step 2) Have periodic gladiator events, either impromptu or otherwise.

Then instead of fighting beasts or what have you, PCs that are bored can log into their Gladiator PC and participate directly in the event/execution anytime there's an event. The templar rings the bell, and maybe an announcement goes out on discord for PCs that don't live in Alanak and whoever wants to can log into their gladiator PCs and get a chance to participate directly.

[ShaiHulud]

Much of said I think was going on, except coded response or alerts to glad players. That would be nice. Hey! Some shit going on in Arena! Get your ass there for the 30 mins to come if able!. Ic "You have been called to the arena, perhaps to die in a fight, or help facilitate another's death." Get pc's involved with death of others, instead of just mobs sent to kill. I think there could always be someone on, to fill the executioner role online, if not, soon.
*shrugs unsurely*
Also, give some small hope of reward to the victor?

[mansa]

Can this be accomplished without staff involvement?

If not, what is the work that need to be completed by staff?

[Veselka]

I never enjoyed Gladiators as being the center of the 'world plot' which is the space they seemed to take up when active. I'd prefer them to be a side flair sort of cool thing that happens now and again. But for a while, it seemed like that's all that was happening.

[Narf]

Can this be accomplished without staff involvement?

If not, what is the work that need to be completed by staff?

The gladiator PCs should actually reduce staff effort in the long run by allowing PCs to run gladiator events entirely on their own. THe only additional effort would be a few extra character approvals every now and again.

[ShaiHulud]

Can this be accomplished without staff involvement?

If not, what is the work that need to be completed by staff?

Good question, and I don't know. But, I feel that something can conceivably work with existing code. This is a great avenue of the game, tried and not yet realized.

[ShaiHulud]

I never enjoyed Gladiators as being the center of the 'world plot' which is the space they seemed to take up when active. I'd prefer them to be a side flair sort of cool thing that happens now and again. But for a while, it seemed like that's all that was happening.

Center of world plot? I don't understand. In one city, with isolated characters. Slaves, Gladiators. How are they a 'world plot'?

[mansa]

Can this be accomplished without staff involvement?

If not, what is the work that need to be completed by staff?

Good question, and I don't know. But, I feel that something can conceivably work with existing code. This is a great avenue of the game, tried and not yet realized.

Think about these questions from both a gladiator and someone in the crowd's point of view:

How does someone learn about this event?
How does someone decide to be involved in the event?
How does the event start?
How does someone engage in the event?
How does someone disengage in the event?
How does the event stop?
...and...
Who is in charge of unforeseen problems and troubleshooting?

[Jarvis]

I never enjoyed Gladiators as being the center of the 'world plot' which is the space they seemed to take up when active. I'd prefer them to be a side flair sort of cool thing that happens now and again. But for a while, it seemed like that's all that was happening.

Center of world plot? I don't understand. In one city, with isolated characters. Slaves, Gladiators. How are they a 'world plot'?

I think what they mean is that the fights would usually be the main event, instead of a supplement to some other cool shit happening in the arena.

[ShaiHulud]

How does someone learn about this event?

The affected character is well figured to what is happening..he is in the arena!

How does someone decide to be involved in the event?

If they are arena characters, they get an ooc message alerting their gladiator character of  an event.

How does the event start?

That is tough, and I don't know. Some coding or, waiting for imm action.

How does someone disengage in the event?
How does the event stop?
...and...
Who is in charge of unforeseen problems and troubleshooting?

Death is how you disengage
It stops when you die.
Does someone need to be in charge? Folks die all the time without staff involvement.
Just posturizing..

[Veselka]

I never enjoyed Gladiators as being the center of the 'world plot' which is the space they seemed to take up when active. I'd prefer them to be a side flair sort of cool thing that happens now and again. But for a while, it seemed like that's all that was happening.

Center of world plot? I don't understand. In one city, with isolated characters. Slaves, Gladiators. How are they a 'world plot'?

I think what they mean is that the fights would usually be the main event, instead of a supplement to some other cool shit happening in the arena.

Not in the Arena. In the World. At the time when Gladiator events were happening every 2 weeks, when Reigning Gladiators were roaming around all the time, it seemed to always be the center of The World Plot Drama. It was like, simultaneous with Sorcerer Magick Cuddle Puddles. If it wasn't one, it was the other.

That, and combat is not terribly exciting to watch when you aren't a participant. All of the RP stuff in the Arena was great. The actual combat spam...Eh. Not so much.

I was honestly happy when Gladiators closed. If Tuluk was closed due to player consolidation efforts and staff consolidation efforts, yeah...I'd rather not see Staff devoting inordinate amounts of time to Arena Matches. I'd rather that effort be put towards political plots, war plots (remember those?) and in general, conflict plots. GMH vs GMH, GMH vs Templar, North vs South, North vs Middle vs South.

[ShaiHulud]

Not in the Arena. In the World. At the time when Gladiator events were happening every 2 weeks, when Reigning Gladiators were roaming around all the time, it seemed to always be the center of The World Plot Drama. It was like, simultaneous with Sorcerer Magick Cuddle Puddles. If it wasn't one, it was the other.

That, and combat is not terribly exciting to watch when you aren't a participant. All of the RP stuff in the Arena was great. The actual combat spam...Eh. Not so much.

I was honestly happy when Gladiators closed. If Tuluk was closed due to player consolidation efforts and staff consolidation efforts, yeah...I'd rather not see Staff devoting inordinate amounts of time to Arena Matches. I'd rather that effort be put towards political plots, war plots (remember those?) and in general, conflict plots. GMH vs GMH, GMH vs Templar, North vs South, North vs Middle vs South.



Interesting perspective , though not mine. Though I appreciate it.
Keep rolling..

[mansa]

From the point of view of a player with a Gladiator character:

How does someone learn about this event?
A scheduled event would be posted on the In-Character Boards at the various taverns AND a post would be created on the GDB.  This would remind players to log in at a specific time for the event.

How does someone decide to be involved in the event?
The player would have enough time (roughly an hour) to participate on the event date

How does the event start?
The gladiator character would log into the area, and be told by The Organizer when their turn is.

How does someone engage in the event?
The gladiator character would move to the arena space, and engage in combat

How does someone disengage in the event?
The gladiator character would kill or be killed

How does the event stop?
The Organizer would call the event to be stopped

...and...
Who is in charge of unforeseen problems and troubleshooting?
If the gladiator character cannot make it to the arena space, they would need to ask staff to help out.
If the gladiator character cannot engage in combat or are missing weapons, they would need to ask staff or The Organizer for help.
If the gladiator character dies too quickly, and there is no other combat choices to be entertained, The Organizer would need to provide alternatiives.


Roughly, this requires someone to be The Organizer of the event, which would mean they have some sort of in-game authority to open/close/start things.   Someone needs to decide to do something, and then start doing it.  The Organizer role has some responsibility and work to be done.




I would like to point out something from the Player Announcements board:

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56152.0.html - Sept 10th
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56183.0.html - Sept 26th
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56238.0.html - Oct 8th
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56265.0.html - Oct 16th
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56332.0.html - Nov 16th

Narf has been a fantastic example of how to organize player-run events.

[triste]

My only contribution to this thread will be posting an idea from CodeMaster a few months ago:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,56084.msg1052639.html#msg1052639

Namely:

- Make the dungeon OOC-interesting by creating choice: make it larger, add secrets, add a coded option to fight in the Arena for your freedom, add a way to escape (escaped criminals create content); add "banishment" code that would give templars and militia a less lethal stick

Whatever you do here, let the REAL criminals get involved, not just the part time ones ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

Our tagline is Murder, Corruption & Betrayal.

I laughed finding CodeMaster's post again because I've posted five times promoting it already. This is on topic, so I just had to promote it again.

[lairos]

I thought I would add my 2 cents here as someone who was highly involved in the way in which the Gladiators returned several years ago. I had pushed for this a great deal IC and there was a lot of excitement around it from both staff and the players. I will tell you the amount of time and effort that went into hosting an event every other week was a very big undertaking especially when you try to make it new and exciting for people to even show up and watch. Templars and others were also supposed to be involved and host events, but these things never came to fruition and was left in the hands of just a couple of us. We had clans involved by purchasing (which had a really rocky start), organizations getting involved in betting, others getting in around sales/custom items for gladiators. All of this was really great, but while we all have good intentions, things end up becoming very hard to maintain as things take time and as such, they end up falling to the wayside. It was a lot of fun for a lot of people for awhile, but the newness faded and it started to become more work than fun to keep it going and more and more involvement required from staff. Alternatives to the arena were also tried, but nothing ever seemed to stick which made it even harder for Reigning Gladiators. The penned gladiators were great, but also still takes setup from staff for each one and each time someone died (which was often) they would have to make a new one.

What worked well:
1. The setup of penned gladiators went well and each one played a really cool part that added a lot of flavor.
2. Having a Doyen PC help run the clan (much like a Sergeant) and manage the day to day aspects.
3. Those brave and solid players who played the thankless Reigning Gladiators, these roles were not easy and had a great number of restrictions.
4. Staff were freaking amazing with their help in keeping these going as long as players wanted to be involved.

What did not work well:
1. Always requiring a Borsail PC or Templar to open up the Arena to even allow these to occur.
2. Keeping people invested as their gladiator died or stored.
3. People in positions who could purchase for their House not having access to enough coin to purchase and have one.
4. Not having a better way to involve spectators despite trying several methods
5. Eventually not enough interest from players putting a burden on staff to create or bring in NPC's to keep things going.
6. Not enough for the Reigning Gladiators to do outside of arena events.

I saw a comment about these being the center of a world plot, but they were not in any way apart of that outside of possibly making announcements or having things occur during or around them likely since more people played during those times. I have likely missed stuff here that is important, but needless to say this was no small undertaking and it would require a lot of interest to likely start again. That being said, I do think it is a really cool aspect if there is interest and there are other ways in which it can be made different and more enjoyable in retrospect.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think keeping Borsail involved is pretty important. Primarily because Borsail PCs, noble or otherwise, could use stuff to do. I mean, just being the person that runs that event could spawn a opening in Borsail ranks, if the Noble wasn't wanting to do it.

I do think automating the rest of it, aside from character creation, would be smart. I wouldn't require backgrounds for gladiator characters, nor overly involved descriptions, since most people wouldn't see them from anywhere but the stands.

And finally, there's actually a pretty clever thing being run right now somewhere that almost fulfills the idea behind the Arena Games, minus the slaves. The PC behind it has been good at keeping things rolling. I don't know if running Arena Games regularly would interfere with that, but I wouldn't like it if it did.

I would certainly like the system for gladiators to be easier to manage, and I think I'd like it to hinge on whatever active Templar or Borsail PC wants to run it, so that it can be picked up or shunted off whenever, like digging poop.

[Riev]

buy #12 gladiator.trainer

Pops in an aggressive NPC into the arena, with the given sdesc and pre-arranged status.

Even if there are no PCs interested in Arena play, what if we could somehow populate pre-generated (or even semi-random) Arena fights. Borsail PC bored? Ring the bell, buy half a dozen "elven thieves" and pit them against a Pit Gladiator.

Let people attend for a show.