What would entice you to play more in the cities?

[mansa]

Minor Ideas:

I think the scheduled activities in some clans could use a bigger buffer for transit and socializing.

Example:
dawn            - travel and prep for training.
early morning   - official training start time.
late morning    - training.
high sun        - other clan activity.
early afternoon - other clan activity.
late afternoon  - socializing start, clan activity ends immediately.
dusk            - socializing.
late at night   - socializing.
before dawn     - socializing.

Currently, "be at training at the dawn and leave at dusk" leaves very little time to travel and meet other players.

**

I think there is a gap of knowing who the other players are in the city, and this can be solved by posting a 'whose who' on the IC Boards in terms of clan leadership.  This can also be done on the GDB or outside the game.

**

I think "small tasks/jobs inside the city" could use another look.  Collect rats, buy/sell jobs, steal specific items off npcs, etc.

(On that note, I think a lot of NPCs have had their weapons stolen from their belts/ coins in their inventory, and then the zone saved with them without weapons / coins, so thieves can't find people to steal from because their targets are already bare)

**

High-Level things:

The game is focused on getting players to leave the safe city, travel outside into the wilderness to collect items, and bring back to the city.  That's the primary gameplay loop.

When you are outside the city, you can focus on using and gaining skills that are in your skill list, and doing activities that are 'dangerous' and also 'entertaining'.

One of the things I would suggest to read/watch is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzLbE-93nc

Or if you can't watch the video, to read this article:
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-it-doesnt-apply-to-everything--gamedev-4173


I think we need a balanced approach to the activities we create, for all types of players.  I think if we lean to heavily on the combat code and focus on combat magicks, we will remove the socializer players who do not like combat, which will eventually remove some of the achiever players who want to show off to the socializer players who have left because the killer players have forced them to leave.  And then you'll have the explorers and killers remaining, which means that we need to constantly build new areas and new mobs to have the players kill, because that's what the playerbase has shifted into, rather than the achiever/socializer players who remain in the cities.



**

Big Idea:

Magick characters are currently NOT ALLOWED in the cities.  To intice players to play in the cities, you need to ALLOW MAGICK to be active, open, promoted, and not "AFRAID" and change the world to allow MAGICK to be friendly.   If there isn't any characters in the cities, it's because they are MAGICKERS and the game currently tells them CITIES = DEATH.

[Hauwke]

Minor Ideas:

I think the scheduled activities in some clans could use a bigger buffer for transit and socializing.

Example:
dawn            - travel and prep for training.
early morning   - official training start time.
late morning    - training.
high sun        - other clan activity.
early afternoon - other clan activity.
late afternoon  - socializing start, clan activity ends immediately.
dusk            - socializing.
late at night   - socializing.
before dawn     - socializing.

Currently, "be at training at the dawn and leave at dusk" leaves very little time to travel and meet other players.

**

I think there is a gap of knowing who the other players are in the city, and this can be solved by posting a 'whose who' on the IC Boards in terms of clan leadership.  This can also be done on the GDB or outside the game.

**

I think "small tasks/jobs inside the city" could use another look.  Collect rats, buy/sell jobs, steal specific items off npcs, etc.

(On that note, I think a lot of NPCs have had their weapons stolen from their belts/ coins in their inventory, and then the zone saved with them without weapons / coins, so thieves can't find people to steal from because their targets are already bare)

**

High-Level things:

The game is focused on getting players to leave the safe city, travel outside into the wilderness to collect items, and bring back to the city.  That's the primary gameplay loop.

When you are outside the city, you can focus on using and gaining skills that are in your skill list, and doing activities that are 'dangerous' and also 'entertaining'.

One of the things I would suggest to read/watch is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzLbE-93nc

Or if you can't watch the video, to read this article:
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-it-doesnt-apply-to-everything--gamedev-4173


I think we need a balanced approach to the activities we create, for all types of players.  I think if we lean to heavily on the combat code and focus on combat magicks, we will remove the socializer players who do not like combat, which will eventually remove some of the achiever players who want to show off to the socializer players who have left because the killer players have forced them to leave.  And then you'll have the explorers and killers remaining, which means that we need to constantly build new areas and new mobs to have the players kill, because that's what the playerbase has shifted into, rather than the achiever/socializer players who remain in the cities.



**

Big Idea:

Magick characters are currently NOT ALLOWED in the cities.  To intice players to play in the cities, you need to ALLOW MAGICK to be active, open, promoted, and not "AFRAID" and change the world to allow MAGICK to be friendly.   If there isn't any characters in the cities, it's because they are MAGICKERS and the game currently tells them CITIES = DEATH.

I would love to point out, dawn is in fact used for that, sparring doesn't begin at dawn, it begins at early morning. Everyone just gets all over excited and starts at dawn, then gets mad and frustrated when Runner ActuallyGajRP's hits the sparring hall at early morning after breakfast.

[mansa]

There needs to be a unique resource found in each of the two cities that cannot be found in the wilderness.
There needs to be a reason for having "outside" clans trek into the cities to sell / trade / gather that "unique" items.  Not a reason for city players to request the "outside" clans to enter - but a directive for each "outside" clan to have a mandatory reason to travel into the two cities and get it.


If the "outside" clans have no incentive to interact with city playing characters INSIDE their cities, then the gameworld is telling them they don't need to interact in that zone.  That is a game design decision.

[Veselka]

-The Xenophobia in Tuluk is cool as flavor, but stifling at best and strangling at worst when it comes to interaction, even antagonistic interaction. Ideally there would be checkpoints at crucial points in the city (Say, leading to the Heart, just as Allanak has gates/walls for the entire Templar Quarter). High Market, another place for checkpoints. Otherwise I would say let the RP dictate -- You could perhaps consider code similar to the "Militia Gear" where NPCs report non-citizen sales to available Templars (kinda like criminals/jailer code), to act on or not. Let Outsiders try and infiltrate at the very least, or exist in Tuluk and be ostracized. Right now I see most people who aren't Tuluki just avoid Tuluk, and probably for good reason.

-Accessibility of Plots. One of the highlights of Tuluk pre-closure was how I could roll a day 0 nobody and walk into the Sanctuary and probably find a job, or two, or plots to get involved with. It felt very RP centered (who you are, what's your story) rather than skill based (how good are you at hunting). That zeitgeist has changed it seems, but it would take Leadership PCs (within their power) taking more chances on Day 0 Nobodies. One might argue that this is more of a waste of time -- they might just die in a few hours. I don't mean 'invest materially'. I mean make them an offer. See if they follow through. Create the opportunity, open the door, and see if these PCs walk through it. The 'Buy In' to plots requiring you to be journeyman/advanced in most skills is a big part of the problem in cities. This is not Tuluk specific, but I do think it always made sense in Tuluk that Nobles were looking for partisans -- They simply had to play a part that fit into their mold. They didn't need to be Uber Talented from the get go.

-As DesertT pointed out, the longer a PC is alive, the more chances they have of running afoul of the Templarate. The same can't be said of Wilderness PCs -- Desert Elves, Tribes, etc. Much more of a meritocracy, way less corruptable in the city-politics sense. The risk of being 'Templar'd' in some respect just seems to increase the longer you stay alive in a city, if you aren't a Noble or Templar yourself (and even then). I'm not sure what this equation is. Or why it exists, even anecdotally, but I think it's something to consider when asking the question 'Why do people not play more in cities' or perhaps 'Why do people not play exclusively in cities?'

-If you want people to play more in cities, there needs to be less attention paid to the following:
   -Tribes
   -Magick
   -New Races that are Tribal and a new Tribe
   -Re-Opening Desert Elf Tribes
   -Focus on the Wilderness

I think much like with parenting, the Playerbase is following Staff's lead. If Staff is working on shiny new things in the Wilderness, they are going to want to try them out (Thryzn). If Staff is working on shiny new things in the City, they will try it out (Tuluk, for example). In order to maintain people's interest, there needs to be a reason to invest their time in the City.

There should be More Stories told in Cities. More Plots on a world scale happening in Cities, not outside of them. Otherwise, people will just follow Staff's lead (More Stories being told in the Wilderness) and make Wilderness adjacent PCs.

Ideas for City Plots:

-Veiled Alliance. A great foil from Dark Sun that can be re-named and re-purposed. Something akin to this operating in both City States creates new dynamics that aren't just 'Tuluk v Allanak' ad nauseum. These terrorist cells might equally despise Sorcerer Kings the world over, working against both City State's best interest. It also provides a different avenue for PCs to pursue that isn't bow and scrape inside of cities. It's a way for PCs to provide antagonism, and plot driving stories, without needing to do all of the heavy lifting themselves.

-Invasion! Nothing unifies the playerbase more than invasions, such as the Gith Wars, where Allanak was over-run with Gith for a couple RL weeks. It was intense, it's fun, it's hard, it's something that exclusively happened inside of Allanak. Same could be said of the Bat Invasion in pre-Closure Tuluk. It was a uniquely Tuluki problem -- You had to be in Tuluk to experience it.

-PvE threats that aren't automatically repelled by City Walls. See above -- Most of the time 'Raider Problems' just don't affect people that never leave Allanak. Most of the world spanning plots are nullified by Sorcerer Kings and their servants. So if you are behind walls, you don't need to interact with it. That should change. I would even posit it could change by some event (earthquake) destroying the city walls. You'd still have crime code on the streets, you'd still have soldiers patrolling. If you're worried about big NPCs coming in and destroying things...Well, you could make a buffer of 'NO_NPC' rooms around the cities. But otherwise maybe that would create plots/problems of their own? IT would also bring the Outside WOrld into the cities, which is currently 100% avoidable.

[najdorf]

Big Idea:
Magick characters are currently NOT ALLOWED in the cities.  To intice players to play in the cities, you need to ALLOW MAGICK to be active, open, promoted, and not "AFRAID" and change the world to allow MAGICK to be friendly.   If there isn't any characters in the cities, it's because they are MAGICKERS and the game currently tells them CITIES = DEATH.

Let a Magneto like NPC defiler take over the known killing all mundanes, and everyone is magicker.

[Veselka]

It'd be hilarious to have a sort of Red Wizard (Forgotten Realms) city state where they are Highly Xenophobic, rarely leave, are all magickers, and practice necromancy and all sorts of wild things, and enslave mundanes for their experiments.

In fact that would be an awesome non-playable PvE threat.

[racurtne]

PVE in the city vs NPC criminals and NPC threats that come around regularly enough to threaten the cities but minor enough to not need more than a PC unit or two to stop.

IE look at DesertT's suggestions. The wilderness is dynamic. The cities are stagnant.

There needs to be something for city-bound combat roles to do outside of RPTs. Even getting coins to buy goods to practice crafting skills can be nearly impossible in some cases. You can't go out without the fear of IC consequences.

If your pc leaders aren't on or don't have time when you do you are SOL.

You need a day to day attraction to attract a PC population big enough to have more dynamic pc on pc interaction to open up.

[racurtne]

There are 3 "role" types. Criminal Wilderness and City. Within those you have a scale of combat to crafting.

The problem is that all dynamic, interesting Pve content is for wilderness types. There is very little focus on City and Criminal dynamic content. These roles NEED other PCs or there is next to nothing for them to do. They need a hunter to bring raw materials. They need an officer to take them on patrol. They need a pc target from which to steal after the first two npcs are looted.

Meanwhile the wilderness role can go out and hunt/pick/forage to supply themselves or others with or without others. They have a dynamic spawning system and actively moving wildlife to interact with. They have forage tables galore. They have challenges to overcome.

Yes, PC interaction is the best but you need something to fill the downtime and something to participate in together outside of sparring or bar roleplay. You need "quests" in the vein that wilderness PCs can make up for themselves.  Wilderness PC knows he needs herbs for making cures. He goes and gathers and may bring others into what could be a routine action or could turn into a fight for survival.

A criminal can do this to a lesser degree but risk/reward there is incredibly high much of the time.

[FantasyWriter]

What if city clans got a discount at the Gaj? I've often found that when I was playing gmh/byn/AoD, I couldn't afford even a single drink. I think all tavern should have a 10 coin or less drink. I think these are way out of relationship with the rest of the economy. A cheap brew should not cost more than a cheap shirt.

[lairos]

Suggestions -

1. Provide incentives - Lessen the time, requirements and need to wait on another player for creating a trading company. There is little incentive in playing an aide because it's generally the most dangerous position in the game as it's a primary target. Add back Mdesc hiding masks for criminals to enhance more ability to hide, but gated behind certain clans that make it cheap enough they can be junked or maybe they break on being removed, but not allowed to be handed out.
2. Remove clan blockers - Remove the life oath for AOD/Legion and replace with 1-to-5-year contract terms but incentivize loyalty/reupping.
3. Encourage plots - Sponsored leaders in noble/templar roles should have the support and strong encouragement to push and create plots to involve others. While I am not currently playing, while I was, there was almost 0 conflict between the cities which was one of the best benefits.
4. Remove minor event blockers - Not everything has to be major. Most events are blocked by a need for staff or a sponsored role. I would love to see a place where "Minor" arena matches could be planned and created by more common individuals.
5. Give clans purpose - Relook at what the scope of clans and redefine them for playability. IE: The Byn who in recent times had essentially seemed to become nothing more than a GMH escorts, barring a few minor moments.

[lostinspace]

People often complain about the skill grind, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. What if sustained time in the city makes your PC better at learning skills. Skill gains earned inside the city have a chance to be doubled based on the percentage of time your character spends inside/outside the city.

It can be RP'd as specialization. No need to find a safe place to sleep, or hunt and cook your own food. You can devote that time to virtually practicing what your PC cares about because the infrastructure of the city provides options you just don't find out in the wilderness.

I think you'd find a large resurgence of characters at least starting out in the city if that were the case. And some might leave, but hopefully others would make RP connections or choices that keep them around.

[Dar]

I like a lot of those ideas.


Cities need to be a source of something that's unavailable in the wilderness.  Be that material, or tools that easily expire, or rooms that offer a sizeable bonus to crafting.

cities need a number of mini games that people can do during the lulls of logins.

If cities are attractive enough, then risk of being templared would become acceptable. 

If it was somehow possible for Noble House competition between each other be dynamic. So individual character efforts had visible effect on the city state, people would feel more involved.


Granted.  Main reason why people congregated in cities is because it's safer and more comfortable there.  But comfort is an eatherial concept and cities are definitely not safer.

[Lutagar]

Big Idea:
Magick characters are currently NOT ALLOWED in the cities.  To intice players to play in the cities, you need to ALLOW MAGICK to be active, open, promoted, and not "AFRAID" and change the world to allow MAGICK to be friendly.   If there isn't any characters in the cities, it's because they are MAGICKERS and the game currently tells them CITIES = DEATH.

Let a Magneto like NPC defiler take over the known killing all mundanes, and everyone is magicker.

I think this is actually an excellent example as to why "the stick" doesn't work. People will just keep playing what's fun to them no matter what. This is a game, after all.

[LindseyBalboa]

I wrote in another topic, will do again. Overall system should not punish non cities but reward cities, it always works best like that.

I like this point. What benefit is there to playing in a city? Thematically it's safety and access to food and water, but that doesn't really hold up with PCs like it does vNPCs.

I like a suggestion later brought up, as well, that skills increase more in the city. That reflects a lack of distraction from having to haul water and fight off raptors off screen. It's also an actual benefit that if done well could be the difference between someone waiting around for RP that grows, or wandering to find it and missing everyone else moving around.

I don't know if that's the right idea, or something more like Halaster's "off screen xp gain" should apply to city bound chars, but it's in the right direction.

[LindseyBalboa]

Big Idea:
Magick characters are currently NOT ALLOWED in the cities.  To intice players to play in the cities, you need to ALLOW MAGICK to be active, open, promoted, and not "AFRAID" and change the world to allow MAGICK to be friendly.   If there isn't any characters in the cities, it's because they are MAGICKERS and the game currently tells them CITIES = DEATH.

Let a Magneto like NPC defiler take over the known killing all mundanes, and everyone is magicker.

I think this is actually an excellent example as to why "the stick" doesn't work. People will just keep playing what's fun to them no matter what. This is a game, after all.

Eh. If there's a benefit to playing in the city, I think without karma timers this is a non-issue. There's just not any reason to be a hidden magicker inside a city.

[Patuk]

What DesertT posted on the previous page echoes with me a lot.

I got back into the game in early 2021 - almost two years ago now. I've had four characters die to PK since then, and all four involved the templarate. Every single one.

None of these characters were habitual thorns in their side. None of them got beaten upside the head or told 'pay me a large to forget about this' or were even inclined against the templarate in the first place: they were just dudes doing their thing. Nevertheless, all four of them got killed because of the hair trigger temper that seems to come with blue robes, and these four templars were even four different people.

I did get sick of this, eventually. Enough that I went to chill and play elsewhere - RSV, Morin's, and Tuluk when it reopened. Suddenly things were much more chill. I can just play the game and do cool stuff and not die because some rando who's been around for the past two years decided this lowlife fuck must die for just existing. Earlier this year I could genuinely tell my (non-southern) area of the game fill up with people even as the Discord swelled with people noting templars had been really harsh as of late.

So. Yeah. Kill me arbitrarily, easily, gladly, with no escalation, and I'm just gonna head to where that doesn't happen. Northern templars have yet to behave like that, Luir's and RSV don't have the issue, tribes don't either, and people have gone off to play where they don't have to die boring deaths.

Not a big mystery to me.

[Case]

I've always really enjoyed playing in cities. The vast majority of my PCs do. When I have played in the past, cities had more people.

I do wonder if the increase in wilderness skills through the pretty strong wilderness classes has allowed people more solo flexibility to avoid cities altogether. Historically, it was a lot harder to be so wilderness capable unless you were a ranger. Now you can be warrior/pseudo rangers/gick people.

Things I would suggest or throw out as ideas:
* Emphasise the differences between city and wilderness play further. What is exclusively found in cities and impossible to get in the wilderness, and vice versa? Not everything has to be available to everybody always - in many ways, it's easier to survive outside of cities than in them. That's a problem.

* Ease the reins on magick fear and paranoia in the cities. Integrate magick a bit more, instead of suppress it. Magick doesn't have to be in our faces or be the key to all plots and goals, but people clearly want to do or be cool magick stuff. Maybe tolerate certain elements a bit more, let them work for certain clans and GMHs.

* Make safe living spaces less accessible outside of cities, and more accessible inside cities. Let people have little homes - generate them virtually even, if they're citizens in decent standing.

* Citywide Way options?

* Increase city gameplay options - can we have turfs and places for PCs to contest and take over, using automated systems? Can we have more flexibility in building things, or player clans and shops? Randgen sewer dives? We're roleplayers, we want to change stuff, achieve stuff. The cities aren't very dynamic, and we may need some coded support to unstick them a bit.

* Rewards or benefits to being loyal citizens / access to cool rewards / promotion pathways, even as non noble or templars. Let people be cooler or have something to work for.

* In terms of subtler gameplay drivers, I've always felt a global coin is harmful - I've suggested it on discord before, but have city based currencies, and forex systems that tax swapping between them. It sure might be easy to make tons of Blackwing Bucks or Red Storm Rands, but they don't convert cheaply into Tuluki Talers and Nakki Sids. To me, cities represent wealth, industry and political power. Drive it home.

[BadSkeelz]

lol at these suggestions to "make magick more integrated to the cities." As if recent events haven't proved that if you let Magick PCs have any social freedom in the game world they won't band together into Dumbledore's Army. They're powerful PC options, people will pick them and browbeat anyone else in a region. If you want them involved in the cities, nerf their combat utility at least.

DesertT and Patuk have made great points. One of the main drawbacks of playing around a city has been playing around Templar players. They should be closed to PC play and left up to staff, or Staff need to do a much better job coaching the players they've selected.


eta: I really like the idea of there just being more stuff to DO in the cities, as well. I've enjoyed the small jobs and crafting grinds currently available, but there really isn't all that much to do PVE wise that doesn't devolve in to pickpocketing the same tattoo artist or clubbing the same set of NPCs along a road over and over.

[Brisket]

No PC Templars is an idea, but a better one is - Templars aren't in charge of common crimes, they're part of the AoD/War Ministry only.  If you lose non-staff Templars, you lose a lot of the plotting and interaction between the city states/luirs/etc.

Having them app into no ministry and have to earn their way into one makes them overeager go getters too often.  Have one trade and one war slot in Allanak  and similar in Tuluk in terms of focus and you solve 85% of the problems with Templars imo.

[lostinspace]

As if recent events haven't proved that if you let Magick PCs have any social freedom in the game world they won't band together into Dumbledore's Army. They're powerful PC options, people will pick them and browbeat anyone else in a region. If you want them involved in the cities, nerf their combat utility at least.

I'm not sure nerfing them for choosing to live in the city will really inspire them to chose the gemmed life over Dumbledore's Army.

[Krath]

2. Remove clan blockers - Remove the life oath for AOD/Legion and replace with 1-to-5-year contract terms but incentivize loyalty/reupping.
3. Encourage plots - Sponsored leaders in noble/templar roles should have the support and strong encouragement to push and create plots to involve others. While I am not currently playing, while I was, there was almost 0 conflict between the cities which was one of the best benefits.
5. Give clans purpose - Relook at what the scope of clans and redefine them for playability. IE: The Byn who in recent times had essentially seemed to become nothing more than a GMH escorts, barring a few minor moments.

1. Life Oaths to anything, barring a sponsored role, are ridiculous. I know for a fact lots of players will avoid clans with such requirements intentionally.

2. I like this idea, and would take it a step further and request that staff have an existing plot line they need pushed for every sponsored role request. To me, this is vital, and I liken it to an open position at a company. Unless there is work that needs to be done, you do not open a position. I think the same should apply here.

3. For the life of me, I do not understand why a "Mercenary" clan cannot be hired to do anything. Assassinations, Hunting/Skinning, Escorting, private guarding. If the intent is that they only do escorts, which is 90% of the contracts they receive, it should be the T'zai Byn Escort company.

4. Magickers do not go into cities because of Cities equal Death in Tuluk, and in Nak, you are a collared slave, and if not you die. In truth, You are actually worse than a slave as templars can kill you any where. So there are two issue I have with playing a magicker in nak:
     A. Because a PC Slave with the potential to be killed at any moment, or die on the spot.
     B. If you become a slave, you instantly have a bright beacon on your neck, that can not be hidden, that says Kill me.


     

[Vwest]

The game in general needs to respect player time more.

In the wilderness and as an independent, you have far more agency. You can do what you want, when you want, where you want, without having to tolerate the people and experiences that turn your RP fun time into chore time, or snore time, or I-want-to-log-off-fuck-this time. You aren't on someone elses schedule, you don't have some jackass with half-giant NPCs on tap following you around, doing their level best to ruin your experience.

What's even more important is that in general, the conflict you find will be with other players who had to invest the same time and effort as you to earn the power they have, so they have as much to lose as you do. My own experiences, dated as they may be, are that people who are out and about in the world are a lot less likely to start unnecessary trouble, because they're not exactly eager to roll up a new character, either.

By comparison, Allanak and Tuluk tended to be populated with some of the most petulant and abusive social roles, bored nobles with nothing better to do that cause trouble for commoners and soldiers and Templars chomping at the bit for an excuse to use all that unearned power they've been handed. Being a new character in a city usually resulted in people with far more power punching down at the earliest opportunity.

As far as clans go? You're earning a few hundred coins, free food and water and you get a cot in a dorm until you've spent a few RL years in the clan. In return, you're subject to obnoxious rules that don't respect your time, the revolving door of sponsor roles where the next one might be the one who decides to take a shit on your because you pissed off their last character and you're completely at the mercy of someone else to decide who you're primarily going to be RPing with.

Maybe things have changed, but from browsing the forum, it sounds like being in the city and being in a city based clan is still a completely garbage deal.

Subject yourself to all the limitations, risks, irritations and disappointments of a city or... go hang out with chill mul friends in Red Storm and go on cool adventures.

Replace "mul" and "cool adventures" with literally whatever it is that makes the game fun for you, because there is at least one other person out there who is down to hang out and do that fun thing with you, without the overwhelming negatives that come with being in a city. And you get to do it all on your own terms, on your own time, with no pressure to accommodate any or everyone else. What's the down side? No bank? You don't ever need more than a few hundred coins, so who cares?

If you want more people crowding into the city and for these thematically 'coveted' jobs to actually be something players want to do, they need to come with a lot more benefits. I don't mean a free pass to punch down socially, because nothing turns people off being in a tavern faster. I mean a much more impressive pay scale, better lodgings or access to apartments with locks that aren't total garbage so people can play house without finding their sofa nailed to the ceiling, easier access to the finer things that normally aren't available to independents, mercenaries and other people. If they want a hot tub? Fuck it, let them buy it. It's in the database, they're members of a reputable organization and they have cash, so let them spend, spend spend. Nobles already have everything built into their estates. Who else is going to buy it? Let the clanned 'elite' enjoy some pretension.

Ease down on strangling gemmed out of society entirely, so people actually want to hang out for some Temple commune stuff. You don't have to make it cool for people to bang witches, just let them get regular work and interaction without non-witch players being afraid of losing their karma or getting one of those negative account notes staff love so much. It's obvious people are really into magick and related play. You can get them back into the city if you just throw them a bone. Let every house hire a 'house mage' or something. Make it a super coveted, limited spot, so you can have semi-socialite mages like way back in the day. They can defend their position and others can attempt to oust them to take it.

If people want to play mutants, let them get hired into merchant houses if they're talented enough. They don't need a fair shake, but it'd be at least interesting to see Lady Jugsworth forced to buy her jewelry from some guy with feathers instead of hair. Let them hire half-elves. They used to. Even Fale has half-elves. Let them get in on the clan action, too. It's an easy, easy, easy way to let people play the characters they want and have legitimate reason to interact with different tiers of society, from elf all the way up to nobles, without it always being 100% negative, combative, slavish or potentially deadly.

Ease down on the city elf suppression and ease up on the city elf docs, so they aren't absolutely shoehorned into being disposable pick pockets. We let dwarves have a huge leeway on what they consider to be a focus, let elves have as much leeway on what it means to steal. Let them get the lowest jobs with merchant houses. Make it okay for them to run their little business without being there exclusively for bored AoD to completely clean out and destroy as soon as possible.

Create an anti-establishment clan in Allanak so Templars and AoD have legitimacy, rather than just being lazy executioners and bullies. Dark Sun was thick with fun 'resist the evil empire' type themes and Armageddon has almost none. Tyranny without a foil is boring and stifling. They need something real to sink their teeth into and obviously, enemy cities haven't historically been very good bread and butter for them. Each city needs a very real internal threat that can't be erased with hands of wind into the arena.

Ease up on the limitations on reading and writing, if only so we can leave notes for our neighbors and do fun plot related bullshit. Let commoners have their own crude script. It'd be fun if everyone could create a journal that outlasts their pc. Be a historian, collect dead peoples writen works. Not like most nobles ever really bothered to do fun things with read/write, at least not something more than five or six people could enjoy. Hell, make it a two karma sub, so it isn't incredibly wide spread, just accessible.

None of this even requires code adjustment, since even the clan code already exists. Maybe the read/write sub would.

Give players an opportunity to play what they want, in settings they want.

It isn't like people don't like the city themes, it's that even years ago they were getting so stifling and punishing that being a breezy tribal was a hundred percent more rewarding. It you want to see more people in major cities, all you have to do is not make it a shitty, stifling, limiting experience. See above. See all the feedback in this thread and others. Don't get hung up on how sacred you think the docs are, because they're nothing special and hanging onto them instead of your players is a ridiculous notion.

Bring back coffee. Bring back explosives and traps. Make both exclusively available in cities, available to citizens of their respective city state only. Make lots of stuff limited by citizenship, so wilderness types don't hold all the trade cards. Force the outliers to come to the city for sweet coffee drinks, or explosives for "mining" purposes. Tuluk loves tea, coffee makes sense. Allanak has a huge mining operation, explosives make sense. Kind of.

There are lots of things that can easily be adjusted with a simple decision at the top and an hour or two revising some docs to make the game so much more appealing, especially to people who have limited play time. My overall take from this thread and other, similar threads, is that players feel their time and investment isn't being respected. The easiest way to appease the majority is to stop curtailing them from doing the things they want to do, since they'll just do it anyway... just in some far flung corner, rather than in the historic social hubs of the game.

[Malken]

The game in general needs to respect player time more.

In the wilderness and as an independent, you have far more agency. You can do what you want, when you want, where you want, without having to tolerate the people and experiences that turn your RP fun time into chore time, or snore time, or I-want-to-log-off-fuck-this time. You aren't on someone elses schedule, you don't have some jackass with half-giant NPCs on tap following you around, doing their level best to ruin your experience.

There's also always something to do, 100% of the time, which is a big plus for me. You can hunt, get crafting material, find bodies, explore, discover stuff, map the world, etc.

If cities had more jobs to do (like an automated quest-giver of sort) then it would probably keep people in the city. You would have something to do that is meaningful if there aren't anyone of interest in the taverns.

[Bebop]

Ideas on Making Cities More Playable:

1) Gathering Spots

   a) Make spots accessible

   b) Make those spots a relatively safe space to hang out - meaning guards and soldiers stationed there inside and outside at night

   c) Incentivize players to need to go to these places, maybe health, stamina, focus, and stun can recover faster resting in the dorms here.

   d) Tuluk has a tavern that's all the way across the map, many people don't know exists, and who's NPC constantly runs out of inventory.  Allanak has two major watering holes, one of which is "improper" for highborn to stop in, making it less likely for interaction to occur.

2) Shrink Cities and Make the Layouts Make More Sense

   a) Banks nearer to taverns and market places

   b) No taverns hidden across the map with little meaning to enter

Swap those for ...

3) Create more "Flavor" spots

   a) Little areas to go talk, gardens to walk, special "spots"

   b) Rooftops with beautiful sunsets, etc... Tuluk has seen a myriad of those with it's rebuild, which I generally really like

   c) Little jobs and things, pet markets - floof

4) Make Renting an Apartment Worth While

   a) Make clan apartments and servants quarters where people can come and go with less risk more common and a perk of being in a clan.  A few clans I've played in have these options but they're rarely used.

   b) Make non-clan apartments more than death traps.  Make them more easy to exit in case of an emergency.  Make them harder to steal from.  Give people the option to buy really nice well guarded apartments.

5) Let People Have a Come Up

   a) Give unaffiliated commoners more room to grow

   b) Let them buy slaves if they have 50,000 coins

   c) Give them the option to make minor and even major merchant houses that can rival the current GMH instead of relegating them forever to the small time

   d) Don't just keep character run companies going on in perpetuity even when no one is around

6) Kill the Dull Idle of City-Life

   a) Make more than a few basic crafting goods available to crafters that don't have 24/7 access to a gatherer PC

   b) Flesh out shops for shopping, tighten up shops that are perpetually closed or empty

   c) Allow in game characters more social mobility instead of always role calling.  Do IC role calls, leader for the Atrium, bards, shop keeps, Sergeants of companies.  Allow people to vie for more than aide roles and hunter #20.

7) The Democratic Rise Up of 2022-2023 in an Authoritarian Land

When I first started playing Arm fifteen sum odd years ago or (whatever it was) the cities were teeming with players.  Now we've entered a catch 22 where people don't play because there's few people in the city, and there are few people in the city because people don't play there.

There's now clans in-game, some of which were started by PCs which is awesome, but that support is all outside of the city.  We now have fully populated "democratic" factions of PCs that want to escape freedom and tyranny.

When I first started playing you had your people in Allanak and Tuluk.  They were vying for power in their respective cities and they were vying for power between the two cities.  There were a few outliers that lived in between.  You had elves running about, you had Kurac mostly based in Luir's and you had Salarr and Kadius in both Tuluk and Allanak equally, always riding the razor edge of keeping them both appeased.

During the time of the Luir's Counsel the GMH began to almost be like minor nobility.  Now the GMH all owned an outpost and voted like a republic on dealings that had to with the Outpost and had their own military force AKA the Garrison. 

We're now working backwards from that mindset.  Tuluk is somewhat newly opened.  It doesn't have a major GMH presence.  Although lore wise and macro wise there's a big incentive to enter a market that was inaccessible there's no real IG incentive on the micro level.

So you've got a lot of factions working around and outside of the law.  This has caused a shift from allying between the two city-states with a few outliers cropping out to making the outliers the majority and the city-states the minority vying for the favoritism and allegiance of the GMH and myriad of factions in the Vrun and Gol.

From a playability standpoint, it used to be that playing in the city and allying with the big bad there gave you some level of security, financial wealth, power and status by proxy.  That is now gone.  You can get killed in a tavern in one backstab and the NPCs won't blink an eye.  And with the city-states being rivaled by the myriad of factions (New Menos just fell as we all saw here on the GDB) we've now gone against the lore of the game, which is that the city-states were these untouchable monoliths of power in the game.

So generally the game is shifting socially away from viewing the cities as these living breathing forces to be reckoned with, and we're seeing that reflected in the sparse numbers.  Not only that, that kind of role play is going to come more naturally to many and allow them to feel they're genuinely playing the hero.  Most of us don't approve of slavery and corruption out of character, and a lot of us are facing the repercussions of it.  So it makes sense people will gravitate towards wanting to "fight the power."

Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily.  But as support continues to focus on those outside of the city, it doesn't surprise me that players aren't being incentivized to play in cities.  Personally, I'm unsure how thematic it is for PCs and factions successfully enacting messages of freedom and individualism in a feudal, collective society is.  It's not to say it can't be and I can definitely see it being a fringe movement but's currently a huge part of the game.

That's also a big simple answer of why people are slipping from the cities.  Before there was a tension where if you didn't fit in in the city, your options were (as they should be thematically) limited.  You had to play the game and mind yours ps and qs with the templarate.  When there are multiple powerful factions in game allowing you to circumvent that, why live in the city permanently?

8 ) Let People in the Cities Feel Like They're Part Of

I will say staff has been doing better about updating the IG and OOC boards but often times the ones getting involved in plots are the ones that can go marching out of the city.  That ones pretty self explanatory.

[Bogre]

Problems:

So the thing that drove -me- from the cities, majorly, was very much like DesertT's comment, it was really the actions of other players. I played a mundane in the war times in 2021, and it was one of the best experiences ever. I loved the participants doing stuff together, banding with our groups. There was still a lot of that emptiness with the playerbase, I think (not hitting 40-50) that detracted from that but it was really sweet. Then that PC got dumped and clan killed by another PC after they attacked, NPC swarm. Stopped playing for about eight months.

The character immediately preceding that walked into Luirs, had been in-absentia-crimmed by a PC with no warning, dead to NPCs.

Next character rolled into the rinth, and as a 4 hour old character got rolled up on and killed by a 3K mul PC.

Every PC I've played by myself out in a tribe, in Storm, or out in a desert cave, has been a blast. Surrounded by raiders and badasses who guess what - never ever blitz killed my characters off. You can find camaraderie, roleplay your character the way you want; as as long as you don't meaningfully fuck with someone else's sandbox you probably are not going to get ganked, because a lot of those players out there are seemingly in the same vein. Yet in the city? You get your sandbox kicked over. That -really- sucks. So the options are basically roll into a city as a role app, and then you have zilch all minions cause everyone's tired of getting crapped on.

Problems part two - agency and goals in the city:

I feel like a big issue with the cities is that players are so stymied when approaching things they want to do or achieve. They're limited in the clans they can join, the things they can do, the places they can go. Noble Houses, GMHs, etc are so less capable of creating a cadre and advancing their plans and plotlines because they can't have -people-. Let the Borsail Wyverns scowl across the Retreat at the Jal Scabs, let Tor plan an assassination against the gemmed Whiran scout that the upstart Salarri is using. Have political maneuvering over Byn contracts, patronage of trading companies, tribal relations, whatever, and have some sort of meaningful goal and progress. People get super into conflict, especially when its low burn and when people feel like they have an even chance. A close fight, betrayals, murder - that gets people's adrenaline pumping. People come back for more of the kick when they feel like something big and major has happened, even if they're on the rough end of the stick, if they had some sort of agency in that outcome. What players hate is getting griefed, or tossed in a cell and PK'd because a templar thought it expedient, etc.

Probably the most important thing there is that agency and investment comes from purpose and fellowship - characters and players need to have a sense of allegiance to other PCs. Comrades in arms, drinking buddies, people wearing the same House colors, a squad who would -die- for their sergeant, templar, or noblelady. Otherwise, they're going to go make friends outside at Storm's End tavern. Let those Houses and clans roll deep.   

A noble, instead of some rando non-interactive person who just gets sids and buys clothes, should have a posse. They should be simply pointing fingers and having a crew of people who freaking love being logged in together jump to. Characters should be clamoring to join the clan and join the action. I think way more of a guiding force should come from the nobles rather than have templars be the sole 'MAIN PCS' of either city. Right now, nobles are kind of an afterthought. Around for flavor, but pretty impotent. The more that goes on noble / GMH / trading company wise, relieves a TON of crap the PC templar has to deal with in terms of making fun / starting RP / policing everyone. They should be doing templar things.

Solutions?

1. I've already mentioned one in allowing Houses more freedom in hiring. Like - why are we scared of this ? Let people be -aligned-, otherwise we're going to keep seeing a ton of unaligned, high karma mages and muls zip around. Because there's not a lot of other cool options. But I really, really bet that people would flock to being a Tenneshi mundane farm manager, with responsibilities and player minions. They'd flock to being a part of a Tor elite squadron that was intent on establishing outside bases for their house glory. Make the Houses far less static - Allow all these different things players do to matter. House Terash was created by a PC, there are roads named after PCs - that's what people are trying to build. Let Jal start reigning supreme, carving out a bigger mansion. If Kasix hasn't done shit? Let them fade to a closed VNPC estate and have one of the many, many historical ones or a new PC one step up.

2. CLOSE THE BANKS - Seriously - banks are like some old DIKU crap. Even this tax thing is pretty ludicrous when PCs can print money. There's very little scarcity, so have it actually be jeopardize able. If you want stuff safe, keep it in a compound, bury it in some secret location, or pay an actual PC-run Nenyuk house or company to keep it. Or even just restrict banks to Nobles, Templars, GMH and player-run MMHs/orgs. Tribals, outland magicians, rinthis and commoners don't need a bank account. Who the heck would even remember an elf showing up on their doorstep for their account?  Make the only ones able to withdraw across the world GMHs. Or remove them entirely. If people worry about stuff getting twink-broke into, just establish that any mega-crime has to be far in advance planned and run by staff, just like a PVP murder.

3. Definitely agree about more stuff to do in the cities activity and game loop wise, plot-wise, RP wise, as people have noted. Relaxing the restrictions is also pretty good so people don't have to sit in compounds. But don't make everything mage-friendly. Magickers should have downsides. The fix isn't just to make everyone play subguild mages in the city. Make mundane city roles more enticing because you aren't sitting a cave spamcasting and waiting for the randos outside to show up. Right now it's super prevalent because again, you get the best of both worlds: doing what you want, roleplaying how you want, and there's a ton of people out there driving those plots. Shift players into the city and people will gravitate away from playing gicks and muls because they want to be involved with stuff.