Opening All the Desert Elf Tribes Question

[Bebop]

I'm having trouble responding to this because I've enjoyed seeing some of the old desert elf tribes reopening, however I'm not sure what they're really adding to the game right now.  They used to sort of act as an antagonist out in the sands but that spot is currently being occupied by the faction occupying the mul outpost and the Bashurit to some degree.

I'm conflicted to answer because I also think having a bunch of human tribes open are kind of a waste, and I've generally never been overly impressed with human tribal groups that detracted from those gathered in the cities.

I don't know.  Right now I'm going to respond that it's been a negative, but I think it's unfair to put it all on the elves.  We've now got so many other desert factions that I would argue are more of a problem than the elves.

[moonlit]

Yeah I think this is a distraction from the real issue, it might be a good idea to soft close the human and Bashurit tribes to get people back in the cities.

It all seems too much like watered down "city lite" stuff with the hand being held so much, and magic overflowing out the ears making everything too eaaaasy. And with little chance of being caught anymore with literal waterslide forts to hide in now.

Mount feeding should also be removed and the desert much slower to travel through and more dangerous, especially if it's just one person on a loud animal that should realistically be attracting packs of gith like vultures (and actual vultures too). The Byn don't really have much to do anymore apart from wagons.

[Kialae]

I guess the question is, if we close down some, which do we leave open? Everyone's got their favorites so nobody will ever be happy.

[Pariah]

Most likely unpopular opinion, but I'm not saying it to upset anyone just maybe bring to light something.

Everyone wants to have the illusion of choice, there are people who will leave if something drastic is done like closing a city or tribe.

While I'm assuming most people do enjoy the RP aspects of this game, there is just as many if not more who just enjoy the game itself, the killing of coded wildlife, the crafting and economy game, the exploration and all that that has little to do with others innately.

Sure we all share this world and will bump into each other, but if I'm honest sometimes on my ranger types I just wanna go and kill something, or to be nosey and see what's up in x sector of the world.

Now for the sake of the theme and the other players, I tend to socialize when I can, emote and role play when I happen across people be it outdoors or in, I find reasons to engage with them even if it's just to complain about elves or if I'm feeling ballsy the templarate or whatever control over me I don't like at that moment of time.

So using my own whims of play, and what I enjoy I think that the vast number of people like that they can go do X tribe, or Y city or any mix of the two that suits their enjoyment, which is after all human nature, we are wired to do what's fun or interesting for us.

But if you look at this as just a factual problem, just a logistical one and leave emotion or biases against whatever out of it and look at it just logically.

With the number of after players we have on average the game is too diluted.  I think the idea is, more choice, more possible players due to all the choices, but that just isn't working out that way.

We have players who don't want to interact with folks or deal with city challenges, just fucking off in a tribe somewhere, or playing single player Armageddon.

And we have folks who want interaction but certain flavors of it, fighting tooth and nail to get you to roll a character in their sphere of play. But having a hard time because they can't recruit oocly and icly you just can't ask certain questions or discuss certain things without breaking immersion.

So it's like throwing darts to figure out what you MIGHT like to do and that eventually leads, potentially to storage or suicide or just not logging on as much.

Again these are just my feelings, I could be way off, but I think we need to make two changes, I think we need to allow some light recruitment through the boards in a sponsored role LIGHT manner. So that if I'm Amos Salarr on my new merchant and I want people to know that I'm the type of leader that allows this or that and has these loose plans, I can get folks who's player interests are aligned.  In a perfect world that all happens icly, but what more than not happens is someone joins  X clan and hates it due to either different leadership style or whatnot and quits it or stores or doesn't play as much due to it.

And we need to have tribes and new shit open with batch requirements.  What I mean is if I create a new tribe or humans, and it's approved, before we go and just allow one person to join it, hate it and not play due to loneliness or whatever, we should recruit a minimum amount of people, say three of similar playtimes before we go and dilute the game more for the potential that people will like clan a b or c.  If nobody can keep the clan afloat with players interested in actively playing, close it till you get another three folks who wanna have a go.  Don't just approve human tribal Amos and hope that sometime soon another homeboy will join and he will have someone to play with.

So in summary, close down the dead weight tribes and clans or hell even cities.  But as I said I know this is gonna be unpopular so here we go!

[Bebop]

Stuff.

I don't think it's really fair to compare a city-state to a tribe.  A tribe might have a small village with a few squares to occupy and 1-4 active pcs at any given time.  While a city is vast and is set up in the game to host dozens of PCs with versatile backgrounds and objectives.

It's also like we're creating a self fulfilling problem.  We know that cities aren't being occupied and now.  We've reopened Tuluk.  But then we've just added another human tribe, we have the Bashurit that just came into being and then we have the mul outpost now being occupied by PCs.  We have all of the GMH allied under their rule in Luir's instead of GMH conflicting with each other and based in the cities.  On and on, basically things are incredibly thinned out and city-states aren't being treated like the monoliths they are.

Then it's like, well we don't want to close these factions and upset people.  But like... why do we keep opening more and more and more factions to dilute the player base interaction and vicinity?  I would think it's relatively simple to take how many people we have playing regularly and divy it up and estimate how roughly how that would be spread out.

I also think this is why conflict often ends up feeling petty and shallow lately.  Because the player base is so diluted that people are just too spread out and may not even know one another exist.  Players are being rewarded for being an island unto themselves and punished for playing amongst each other.

Again it's playability vs realism.  What do these tribes really add to the game?  How different are many of them from one another really?  I could write up a super cool tribe and plop it in the middle of the game but if its a relative island unto itself that isn't actively engaging others what does it bring? 

We know the city-states are thematic and cornerstones that are unique to one another.  So many of these tribes and their behaviors are relatively indistinguishable.  You've seen one delf or human tribal and you've kind of seen them all.  Their xenophobic against those that aren't their people and have a few rituals IG.  Many of them tarzan talk their way around the game on the outskirts of civilization poking at a plot here or there.

A lot of the character guilds need fixing.  A lot of the civilizations are broken.  Tuluk needs a lot of work on both it's social and coded infrastructure.  And we just keep seeing more tribal/outlier factions opening at random that didn't even exist before.

[Lutagar]

Then it's like, well we don't want to close these factions and upset people. 

While opening new clans is questionable, this is the right approach. Using the stick to get people to play in certain locations/clans demonstrably does not work.

You could close Luirs and every tribe in the game and nothing would change because people would play as wilderness indy's instead. You can nerf wilderness indies more but people will just stop playing or twink ten times as hard to get around the additional hoops they'd need to jump through.

Rather than closing factions cities need to be made more fun, more attractive to play in.

[Mellifera]

Personally, my biggest negative feeling regarding the delf tribes being opened stems from the most recent closure of the Arabet and Seik. It doesn't seem totally fair to open up one human tribe and then proceed to close two others... while having six (I think it's six) delf tribes open, plus the Thryzn. The new tribe is cool, I love completely new clans being introduced, especially when their creation has been heavily influenced by players, and it was even better to hear that they'd be human specifically, because the number of human and elf tribes already felt unbalanced. Instead, though, the total number of human tribes has ended up halved. One human tribe to six elf tribes, or seven non-human tribes, is kind of extreme.

My understanding is currently that they were only temporarily soft closed because of too few staff, and hopefully we'll see them reopened again at some point in the near future, but it exists as the current situation. I understand there was probably more to it, and I can definitely understand the reluctance to close any of the more recently opened (and far more active) delf tribes to make up for the shortage in staffing, and to instead pick the more immediately reasonable option to close the largely inactive Arabet and Seik, but I still feel like there should probably be an attempt to balance human and elf tribal populations in the future.

That aside, I feel like the opening of the delf tribes is a tricky situation in general. Personally, I'll almost always advocate for more player choice. The delf tribes that were opened have some really interesting lore, and I think it's great that players have more stuff available that they clearly do want to play. At the same time, I think it has definitely made the already low city population even lower. Caps might be an easy way to solve that, but I don't know if forcing people to play temporary characters as they wait for their desired slots is a great idea.

I think the best solution there would be making the cities more appealing, and that's clearly the aim right now, so I hope that's successful. Specifically, I think it would be even more useful to determine what exactly makes people pick tribes and wilderness characters over city characters. Is it the freedom? The lack of templars and nobles? The close bonds, family, and cooperation towards common goals? The coded wilderness stuff like grinding, hunting, and killing? Do people just really like elf butts? I'm not sure myself, but if these things could be introduced to the cities and their city specific clans, maybe they'd want to play there more.

[Pariah]

Stuff.

I don't think it's really fair to compare a city-state to a tribe.  A tribe might have a small village with a few squares to occupy and 1-4 active pcs at any given time.  While a city is vast and is set up in the game to host dozens of PCs with versatile backgrounds and objectives.

It's also like we're creating a self fulfilling problem.  We know that cities aren't being occupied and now.  We've reopened Tuluk.  But then we've just added another human tribe, we have the Bashurit that just came into being and then we have the mul outpost now being occupied by PCs.  We have all of the GMH allied under their rule in Luir's instead of GMH conflicting with each other and based in the cities.  On and on, basically things are incredibly thinned out and city-states aren't being treated like the monoliths they are.

Then it's like, well we don't want to close these factions and upset people.  But like... why do we keep opening more and more and more factions to dilute the player base interaction and vicinity?  I would think it's relatively simple to take how many people we have playing regularly and divy it up and estimate how roughly how that would be spread out.

I also think this is why conflict often ends up feeling petty and shallow lately.  Because the player base is so diluted that people are just too spread out and may not even know one another exist.  Players are being rewarded for being an island unto themselves and punished for playing amongst each other.

Again it's playability vs realism.  What do these tribes really add to the game?  How different are many of them from one another really?  I could write up a super cool tribe and plop it in the middle of the game but if its a relative island unto itself that isn't actively engaging others what does it bring? 

We know the city-states are thematic and cornerstones that are unique to one another.  So many of these tribes and their behaviors are relatively indistinguishable.  You've seen one delf or human tribal and you've kind of seen them all.  Their xenophobic against those that aren't their people and have a few rituals IG.  Many of them tarzan talk their way around the game on the outskirts of civilization poking at a plot here or there.

A lot of the character guilds need fixing.  A lot of the civilizations are broken.  Tuluk needs a lot of work on both it's social and coded infrastructure.  And we just keep seeing more tribal/outlier factions opening at random that didn't even exist before.

The only thing I disagree with in this really is the tribe being 1-4 people.  If there isn't at least 2 or more, you're not a tribe, you're just some dude sitting in a tent somewhere.

[HazelHomewrecker]

I really enjoy seeing so many people use the existence of this new human tribe as a basis for their gripes against the current state of the game. Additionally, I'm glad I'm not a part of staff because it means I can actually respond to this the way I want to.

No one was complaining about the Ara'Seik taking players away from the cities, and they were two tribal options for human, yet somehow with their removal (i still don't agree with the option to close them) the Vru'Rihali are taking more players from areas of the game than two whole tribes put together? Let's be honest with each other, this tribe might be popular for a month or two at best, then people will grow out of it and move on, because that's what ALWAYS happens when new ANYTHING comes out. It's popular for a short period, then dies off when people want to go back to their regularly-scheduled-programming of hack-and-slash hunting, aide mudsexing, and elf fuckery, and honestly I can't blame any of the staff for being so reluctant to push new content.

I, as a player, expected a better response to the release (some people have been so supportive and amazing), but the rest of you are the most ungrateful and jaded because you can't allow other people to have fun if it doesn't strictly fall in line with how you have fun. I can only imagine how this goes staff-side.

But, I'll clarify a few of Bebop's concerns:

1:) New tribes/factions being isolated, self-serving islands. This is not the case for the Vru'Rihali, and actually I used the Bashurit's in-game presence on the wider scales of the cities and general overall player interaction to deduce how I wanted to construct them. I placed them as close as possible to the southern city hub and provided documentation to ENCOURAGE them to enter the cities and engage with people, be it for trade, or whatever other thing catches their mind. Sure, there might be the stipulation that all city-people suck and you shouldn't trust them (with exceptions ofc, things happen), but that's the societal norm for outside communities.

2:) What do the Vru'Rihali provide to the game? I can personally think of a few things, but I think this is better answered by people once they've actually ARRIVED in-game and they've had a chance to establish themselves and become a part of plots.

3:) Xenophobia. I've used terms like 'amourous' and 'friendly' a few times in their helpfiles and documentation, but I guess that didn't get the point across.

4:) Cultural uniqueness. This is difficult for me to personally gauge because obviously I have the skewed perspective of having written 99% of all of the Vru'Rihali documentation, so obviously I'm biased toward it. I'd rather someone else who has read their docs (since the clan doc requests are being accepted now) answer this. I know there are a couple of similarities between themselves and the Sun Runners that people like to joke about--like vibrant clothing and a tendency toward trading, but staff and I worked to try and make them the LEAST Sun Runner-y why still retaining the larger portion of the information I'd previously put together.

In Conclusion: I don't know why this is being so hammered down against, other than the fact that it's new and isn't integrated into the city-playability options that have been being brought up recently. In other words, it's not what some of you wanted, and you're really vocal about how unnecessary it is.

If anyone else has any questions or concerns that aren't doc-restricted concerning this human tribe, I'd be more than glad to answer.

[Pariah]

Lots of stuff...

I don't think it's you or your tribe particularly.  I think you're the newest thing, the shiny object that people can point to.

I think it's great that you went through all the collaboration and creative juices to make this a thing, so I can't dog you for it at all.

As I said before, I just think that there is too much dilution of the playerbase in general with all the options, X number of d-elve tribes, Y number of human tribes, Luirs, Tuluk, Allanak, Red Storm.

Deeper issue if you eliminate the gripe of dilution, there is no reason to congregate in cities at bars, then if you decide you want to at night, you have three or four spots to goto in Allanak alone.  So it becomes a chore of walking across the damn city.  Add in if you're a bynner or a merchant house employee, you are SO FAR from the Gaj.

But anyways back to the main topic.  I don't think anyone is trying to knock down your accomplishments or addition to the game, but it IS a dilution of the main cities.  I haven't seen the full documentation or anything, but if your tribe works similar to the Two Moons where they are known to be seen running around Allanak a lot, that would be a net positive.  Because if they are there to interact with, I honestly don't give a shit what their IG address is.

[tiny rainbow]

I placed them as close as possible to the southern city hub and provided documentation to ENCOURAGE them to enter the cities and engage with people, be it for trade, or whatever other thing catches their mind.

'friendly' a few times in their helpfiles and documentation

That was exactly the problem with the Arabet though, they'd get roped into acting like field aides because...

...Like the Two Moons found, you CAN'T be "Part of the system, but outside the system". There are obligations that come if you want to be able to walk around and live. Congrats, you're a citizen in all but name, now why did you play tribal again?

Same thing happened with the Tan Muark. That's exactly what went wrong, their name was dirt, no one took them seriously as tribals because of it - and we're just repeating the same patterns over and over.

[Malken]

I feel like the GDB is the same users typing the same stuff over and over again but in different threads. More than 50% of the players say that it's all good, keep on keeping but a vocal minority keep repeating the same opinion over and over again, making it sound like a majority of the playerbase isn't happy with how decisions are currently made. I was part of that problem for a long time and I can see how it would be a bummer for staff and players who try new ideas for the game.

Back on topic, is it only the al seik who are soft closed or the arabeti as well? I'm excited to try the new human tribe 😀

[HazelHomewrecker]

I placed them as close as possible to the southern city hub and provided documentation to ENCOURAGE them to enter the cities and engage with people, be it for trade, or whatever other thing catches their mind.

'friendly' a few times in their helpfiles and documentation

That was exactly the problem with the Arabet though, they'd get roped into acting like field aides because...

...Like the Two Moons found, you CAN'T be "Part of the system, but outside the system". There are obligations that come if you want to be able to walk around and live. Congrats, you're a citizen in all but name, now why did you play tribal again?

Same thing happened with the Tan Muark. That's exactly what went wrong, their name was dirt, no one took them seriously as tribals because of it - and we're just repeating the same patterns over and over.

I don't really understand why clanned tribals become field aides, but I've seen it happen before too. I think this boils down to a player issue, not a tribe issue, in the sense that this player wanted to try something new but enjoys the field-aide duties so that's what they want to RP. I would say.. at that point just play an indie tribal and do that, because what sort of desert human with a powerful family and pride would want to lower themselves to being the unpaid intern of a fat silk in a gross city?

Seems anti-doc to do that, to me.

[HazelHomewrecker]

Back on topic, is it only the al seik who are soft closed or the arabeti as well? I'm excited to try the new human tribe 😀

Shabago said in the discord that they're "soft-closed," meaning no more new PC's but the current characters aren't being stored or anything. He mentioned that they will be on rotation with the Rihali, so if one goes the other comes back out, and I hope this can be managed in like a 3 month cycle (so every 3 months one closes for new PC's, and the other one opens back up).

[whengravityfails]

Those of you who are claiming that having all the delf tribes open and a new human tribe available are what is causing the playerbase to be too thinly spread or whatever seem to keep missing a rather important point that's been brought up time and time again.

A large amount of people who are in the tribes or Storm or Luir's are there because they want to be there. They don't want to play in the cities. Closing off options will not bring them to the cities, it will just make annoyed players with less choice in tribes. Until the cities themselves are made more appealing, people who have chosen to turn away from them will not return. There have been multiple threads now that consistently point to reasons why people do not play in them and how to rectify it and/or make it more appealing for people to do so.

Closing off choices as a stick instead of using a carrot will just result in a drop in numbers which is certainly far worse than folks playing outside of cities, because then they're nowhere at all.

[Kavrick]

Those of you who are claiming that having all the delf tribes open and a new human tribe available are what is causing the playerbase to be too thinly spread or whatever seem to keep missing a rather important point that's been brought up time and time again.

A large amount of people who are in the tribes or Storm or Luir's are there because they want to be there. They don't want to play in the cities. Closing off options will not bring them to the cities, it will just make annoyed players with less choice in tribes. Until the cities themselves are made more appealing, people who have chosen to turn away from them will not return. There have been multiple threads now that consistently point to reasons why people do not play in them and how to rectify it and/or make it more appealing for people to do so.

Closing off choices as a stick instead of using a carrot will just result in a drop in numbers which is certainly far worse than folks playing outside of cities, because then they're nowhere at all.

I personally don't really want to push people towards city play, it's more for me that I feel that having say... 3 tribes with ten people in each tribe being better than having 15 tribes with two people in each tribe. I think variety is good but also you do get to the point where variety is kinda having dimishing returns when you have so many tribes that aren't awfully distinct from eachother. Like there are some tribes that I would consider 'iconic' that have a good feel to them and actually do feel like meeting a different culture when you bump into them (sun runners, ATV, dune stalkers) But personally I feel like, even if it sounds bad, having it so you kinda just have one of each 'archtype' of tribe is best. Both gives some variety but also consolidate players, you need to find a balance, which is why I'm against just having all tribes open. I think the excuse some people have said of "if people can't play what they want, they just wont play" is a little extreme, and honestly if they want to open all tribes, I want to see stuff like GMH hunter limits removed so I can actually play a hunter without being forced to have the awful experience of being an indie hunter.

[Shabago]

Where to go suggest what should close:

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58997.0.html

[Delusion]

The tribal identity feels so scant nowadays that tribeless desert elves may as well be an option. I can't really identify which tribe an elf is from unless they explicitly name it or are a Sun Runner or SLK. Maybe that's working as intended but I kind of doubt it.

[najdorf]

More options are always better. Limitations are always bad. If someone is choosing an isolated desert role, it is because they will and do not want to play in a city role at the time. Trying to force everyone into Allanak by shutting down alternatives is a bad solution with good intentions, but will never work out.

[Bebop]

The tribal identity feels so scant nowadays that tribeless desert elves may as well be an option. I can't really identify which tribe an elf is from unless they explicitly name it or are a Sun Runner or SLK. Maybe that's working as intended but I kind of doubt it.

100% this.  Most tribals I meet are facsimiles and I'm not understanding what they bring to the game other than a wealth of resources for players that want to basically solo rp out in the wild with the backing of a tribe.  If this is supposed to be an RP game every tribe should be uniquely knit into the social infrastructure of the game.  Cities are integral to the lore of the game and also are hubs that can foster interaction, a myriad of player experiences and factions.

I haven't experienced a memorable character or dynamic with any tribal in a really long time.  And if staff were to start PVE events for the tribes it then takes away from the cities which are already suffering from lack of maintenance, interaction and infrastructure building.  I don't want to see tribes disappear all together but their purpose in the game needs to be incredibly intentional and not just a place to go ISO and spam up magick and combat.

[kahuna]

I can remember the days when no tribes were really coded, maybe 1 or 2 and you could write in a tribe in your background or choose a virtual one that already had docs in the help files. D-elves have come a long way since then but there was a lot more freedom during those wild west days where people just ran with whatever.