"Seasons" In A MUD

[creeper386]

The idea being like "for the next year we're focusing on Allanak", and actually un-link Luir's, the Pah, Red Desert, Canyons of Waste.  So basically the game world would be Allanak, RSV, villages, Salt Flats.   Everyone plays in those areas.  Then a year or so later, focus somewhere else.

The date on the quote I'm sure is wrong, but it requires some timestamp that I don't know what it is.

Anyways, I think Seasons wouldn't necessarily involve closing anything, in some ways, I'm sure some of the story lines staff push are going to be kind of season-esque. Just not really officially. What I'd imagine, is it'd just be focusing on shoring up shortcomings of areas, building out new interesting things, such as items, rooms, clans, NPCs, new scripting what have you. It's about focusing on some part of the game, and building interest and seeing change.

Maybe it coincides with some story archs that are happening. Maybe the focus isn't even as big as a city, maybe it's some two clans, and there is some conflict. Maybe it's just opening up a clan, and seeing what happens with it, similar to how it sounds like the thryzen and some other tribes and stuff happen.

I think the benefit would be to try and move people around, build interest in new areas, build out new things and flesh out the world. Like Desert Sim was a great boon to the game. Integrating that sort of stuff, one, more even in the desert, but also in the cities. Lets see a little more things to interact with, things that change and add conflict. Even just little things that might make the world seem more alive. Like the NPC scripts that happen and have people head from the bars, out to work and then back later. It's great.

And maybe, sometimes you would close some things down that aren't active, or at least wind it down and say, dont' take more players in and let things work out however. Not as a really permanent  thing but as a resource management. There is only so many staff and they can't focus on everything all the time, so it's hard to have a big push in one area, if there isn't more staff focus on that area.

[BadSkeelz]

There's enough players and staffers that I (And I'm sure others) do our best to avoid due to personal preferences that the thought of being trapped in a relatively small part of the world with them is... unappealing. It's good to have escape valves.

[Doublepalli]

Not sure I like it. When a long lived pc of mine dies, I have to play a polar opposite, something drastically different to get me away from the people I played with, the plots involved in, so that I can properly detach from my prior PC

[FantasyWriter]

I wouldn't mind it, so long as the whole world stayed open.

"Hey, for the next three to six months we are going to be running a plot around Tuluk/Nak/Silt Sea/Pah."

This lets people know something is happening and where about. It also lets people from other areas know they might need to start turning their eye toward a certain area once rumor start hitting IG.

They character I played when first coming back was in response to a certain "Team Evil" role call, and knowing something was going on in that area, I made a PC in that area.  It led to what was probably the best experience I had in Arm to date. Because folks KNEW something was going on in AreaX, a bunch of people made new PCs in AreaX and it turned out to be a great time for all or at least most involved.

[Dresan]

The idea of seasons seems like a bad idea. It would lead to more butt hurt as the area you prefer to play in is closed and your character now lingers alone, needs to relocate, or worse is stored.

Some smaller things like tribes and clans can open and close depending on population or interest. But areas and locations tuluk/allanak should definately not. And from what I've seen the game does open/close clans and tribes over time naturally already.

[Veselka]

I think there should be a goal of 3 HRPTs a year. Each team is tasked with coming up with a rough outline (beginning/middle/endings) that is adaptable to player decisions and input. That's 4 months to begin, journey, and end with a climax. Each team (North, South, Indies/GMH) can spear head a story on rotation, so it isn't 3 back to back in Allanak.

This would also make that team the "lead" (Say, North is lead on this rotation) but ALL staff can and will assist with assets, animations, and plot.

I think part of the issue now is the dividing lines, territorialism and such. North Team handles only the North, period. I think if Staff operated more as a complete body behind world spanning plots, it would be far easier to delegate tasks and lead to less burnout.

[Bogre]

I actually really like the idea of 'seasons', but not maybe to the point something like Legends of the Jedi, where it's all reset. Armageddon gains a lot from the persistent world aspect, and part of the fun is a bunch of disparate characters and clans dealing with similar threats/conflicts from different perspectives.

Something like rolling closures of clans, potentially when the current characters die or store. If there's no active Jal, or whatever - close it up and re-open when there's a player/s and staff interesting in curving another arc out. Same with d-elf clans. Nothing has to be open all the time. And not everything has to be closed just because there's 0 players in the moment.

But putting a focus on X or Y depending on game events could be neat.

[creeper386]

My whole point is NOT closing big parts of the world ... But say, if a current clan is empty, not letting new people join to allow staff to focus on other aspects of the game, that seems fine. As a temporary thing.

[FantasyWriter]

My whole point is NOT closing big parts of the world ... But say, if a current clan is empty, not letting new people join to allow staff to focus on other aspects of the game, that seems fine. As a temporary thing.

Doesn't this sort of happen already? Aside from all the d-elf tribes being reopened for the first time that I remember.
THey only let a small number of noble houses be open at one time. When a noble (say a Fale) dies/stores, generally the apps are open for a small number of houses, not ONLY Fale to keep it open. We sorta -need- all three GMH's open for playability. We sorta -need- at least one templar in each city.  I don't think anyone has complained about tribes getting closed one at a time when there are no current players in them.

[Barsook]

When you think in those terms, those are in a way seasons, just controlled by the players not the staff. Maybe it would be better to keep all of the tribes open and only soft close the ones that only have one to players in them, if one of them dominates.

[creeper386]

Doesn't this sort of happen already? Aside from all the d-elf tribes being reopened for the first time that I remember.

But currently there isn't really any focus, to the game as a whole. Certain staff have focuses, with the economy updates and this and that, but mostly those are pretty spread out and the changes from those aren't as noticeable.

Versus, say there is a focus on the Commoner's Quarters in Allanak for a season. New items, new areas, new and updated scripting and NPCs that further help bring it alive. Maybe open up an elf tribe there and give insight into the roof tops more.

Perhaps as this is rolling out there could be roll calls. Similar to how noble and templar roll calls go out, where it's not just a character in a roll, but the character has goals associated with this new season, and maybe the player comes out on top and gets to make changes, in a similar vain to the player clans.

With the Commoner's Quarters example, maybe the roll call comes out for some Elven leadership. When you get accepted you learned there was either a splitting of the tribe, or maybe a clash of two tribes, but the goals of the two opposing groups are the goals of the PCs. Along with this story arc there could be focus of bringing the commoner's quarters to life more. Different scripting, maybe there is some compounds switching around, or a couple clans with compounds in the commoner quarters get opened for play.

At the end of the day, it'd be about bringing some life and new things into parts of the game.

To a degree this happens already, it's just on a smaller scale.