Feedback Request - City Elves

[Halaster]

What are some ideas you all have to make city elves more interesting and appealing to play?

[Riev]

Something that defines them beyond high agility auto-bad guys.
A clan or tribe that arent just rent-a-thieves.
Something that allows a political bend that doesnt stop at the first templar who needs their 20 agility.

[Patuk]

What are some ideas you all have to make city elves more interesting and appealing to play?

Make them good at or for literally anything that isn't being a perpetual PITA. I've played many elves, but the only upside over a delf is being able to pick criminal classes. Armageddon is primarily an outside game, and anything in-city mostly excludes celves by default too. Give them something, and it'll at least be worth it.

[Tuannon]

Tuluk has the Akai S'Jir or what have you, a loyalist elf tribe who can be given the benefit of the doubt as being law abiding or at least templarate sympathetic.

Allanak has none of that, while no blue robe is going to stick up for an elf in Allanak, I think an 'out of the box' documentation or cultural change would need to be made to reflect that not all city elves born in the commons are criminals (although they are highly prone to being criminals).

Three minutes of thought so far.. Will add as more ideas come.

[FantasyWriter]

Open coded clans, two to three for variety.

Alternately, drastically reduce the city population of elves, eliminate city elf as a separate race and all city elf tribes while opening all classes up to desert elves (maybe requiring a spec app slot).
Require elves to either be indie/tribeless or join a d-elf clan. All playable d-elf tribes have a tent in the bazaar with a quit/save room in the back for while they are in the city, and give them the option of a sponsored fence (role, not class) that lives pretty much full time in the city.

Basically make them much more like darksun elves.

[papertiger]

Open a city elf clan that aren't (at least outwardly) just Templarate simps.

Maybe open the Guild to city elves - make them view the thing as their tribe, but they won't acknowledge anyone unproven. Maybe East side could have a tribe that was fiercely proud - so proud they won't kill outsiders they consider weak. (Okay I just hate pk and want more crime without the abrupt end in story) D: Make them strange and culty. Make them scary if crossed with ambient support so they're respected?

...give them free sewer stamina? I don't know. Some kind of perk maybe.

I know. I probably just came too late for the city elf gangs I want to play characters that are criminals who aren't automagically expected to kill people.

It would be nice if delves looked (or could look) to city elves with some kind of respect some how. Its easy (for me) to see how a city elf could respect a desert elf (even if theyd nope out of that life). City elves are just seen as oppressed from my understanding. Hopefully... actions will have an impact in that regard later. *prayerhands*

If city elves necessarily have to be oppressed because of theme, maybe a shadow org that can support the Arm?

[Kiyetal]

From the very first line of the helpfile on elves:

Elves are the second most populous race on the face of Zalanthas. Some evidence suggests that this was not always the case, but elves have been very numerous for as far back as anyone can remember.

The biggest problem with elves is never in the history of Armageddon has this ever felt like the case, playing an elf feels lonely, you're hindered far more than you're empowered. The "lonefoot" angle has been forced to be played too often, jarring, and should be the exception or the c-elf hardmode option instead of the norm. Appealing tribes would be nice, maybe one that had a foothold in all livable locations would be an interestin angle and open room for some mcb and spygames.

Maybe dial back slightly the expectation of everyone being xenophobic (but still making it an acceptable norm) to encourage more co-mingling and interaction.

Let c-elves join clans or take low-rank jobs that make sense.

Slightly nerfed version of d-elf desert run without getting any movement pt increase.

Maybe even allow some of the ranger-esque guilds to be selectable as a c-elf (would recommend balancing agility bonus to archery first)

Let elves ride skimmers, why not open the avenue for play too.

[Patuk]

The Akai Sjir are a pox on the face of the MUD. People who play city elves do not, in general, do so because they want their whole clan to be extremely deep up the templarate's backside. Less of that, less of that, less of that, I beg of thee.

[Master Color]

Ignore the temptation to just add yet another elf clan (this time with citrus/lime flavor).

Change the paradigm to allow pc elves to engage and integrate with the rest of the game.

They should be able to join clans. City elf running should be changed so that they don't hold up their clan by having to tent themselves every few rooms. They should not be griefed just for showing up to an rpt.

[tiny rainbow]

I played one of the most well-known elves around Luir's for a while (I also tried Akai Sjir to see what the fuss was about and I can absolutely say there is a lot of hidden depths to them that might not be obvious from the outside, and that's how it should be, they are Tuluki after all) and I often had problems with even sponsored roles behaving in ways that were OOCly dubious. One memorable time someone even got up and started scanning and emoting looking around after the *OOC disconnect and reconnect message while hiding*, that was just terrible. Other times I was often contacted to check if I was hiding (before the change) and then later contacted just to see if am online at the time a lot, too. The Way absolutely was used in an OOC way a LOT of the time and this needs to be addressed, absolutely, for elves to even have a chance. Otherwise the best place for an elf is absolutely not in the city at all, the odds are just far too stacked up against them:

We NEED a better rules on what is bad RP, help rules is horribly inadequate at the moment as is help roleplaying:
— There's a lot of situations that can be hard to place and especially not always clear for newer players. The issue there is that situations can then happen that GREATLY impact characters that people put a lot of effort into, while being something that doesn't affect the person that did it much - that disparity I think is what has also caused the dearth of aide players etc. A lot of the times these are unwritten rules that a new player could not have expected to know about:

⚫ Due to how the game mechanics can use keywords for The Way, don't refer to exact keywords when your character is speaking IC: For example when speaking to a Templar that "the rugged, unshorn man" stole from you: Don't say "the guy that looked unshorn" because there are many people in the game world that would fit that description, so it would not realistically work to pick out someone in a crowd or The Way. Instead say something like "The guy had a beard" (and any other details or clothing from their LOOK description).

• Similarly, if someone is wearing clothes that cover part of their body in the description (for example a mask, while their long description says their cheek has a tattoo), do not refer to the things that your character can't see. Armageddon does not have disguise code, you are expected to roleplay realistically what your character would know.



⚫ Don't use Contact to check if someone is online. Characters that are unavailable due to being offline is an OOC mechanic, and IC characters can be still contacted while asleep or working etc, so roleplay around that.

That kinda stuff. Things that help to clarify things for new people especially would be really good. There's way too many unwritten things, or things that the general public have said are bad RP but aren't told to newbies. Until we have that the game isn't really ready for advertising to a wider audience, because so much stuff is unwritten that it's hard to teach lots of people at once



⚫ Don't post things that people can use to identify other peoples' characters or your own character, the reason for this is to keep the sense of mystery and drama with the game's story, and protect players from OOC peer pressure or coercion:
• Don't post publicly about roles you are applying for or character applications - if you have a question, make a request on the website.
• Don't post comments, pictures, or videos that refer or allude to something that is currently happening or recently happened IC, for the obvious reason that it's often easy to narrow down who posted it.

[Lizzie]

Give the East side and West side a solid, lore-created reason to combine forces. A common enemy (the tunnel sludge gangs? Desert elves trying to get in from the shield wall? Smugglers who aren't Rinthis? Etc etc etc).  And create a new ALA out of the mess.

[tiny rainbow]

Yeah I also worked a lot with Allanak elf tribes over a lot of years, and the Templar-Guild link was just too often present and there was nothing really for them to get out of being independent so they didn't bother, and so it was just a case of the elves being repeatedly exterminated over the smallest of reasons - The Guild is probably the biggest problem, I would absolutely support merging east and west in to the Allanak resistance. There doesn't even need to be an external threat, they should be the ones that are against the robes, especially with how little Tuluk tends to do about Allanak in general.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I've always advocated that elves should be hirable by anyone other than most noble houses and the militias. At the lower tiers of even Noble Houses, elves should get let in the back door and get rank-locked.

It would help with the population of elves immensely, and there's nothing saying you can't keep treating elves like shit. One thing that I used to get a little irritated about was that if I treated elves like shit, I had too many (not all) humans telling me to chill. Sure, you might be a snowflake, but ... you, you and ... you? Just remember that 95% of humans dislike elves. Not even because they aren't humans, but because they ... they take your shit. They do. For real. Because they're elves! It's in their blood. They just do it!

But there's a lot of them. Hire them. You're a big-bad House. You can protect yourself from a couple of long-necks. They run fast too. Use those scrawny fucks.

[tiny rainbow]

It would take a lot of intrigue and excitement away if they were just human-lite, really, part of the fun is that they aren't part of the same structures and have their own things going on instead of being "house elves"

[Patuk]

I played one of the most well-known elves around Luir's for a while (I also tried Akai Sjir to see what the fuss was about and I can absolutely say there is a lot of hidden depths to them that might not be obvious from the outside, and that's how it should be, they are Tuluki after all) and I often had problems with even sponsored roles behaving in ways that were OOCly dubious. One memorable time someone even got up and started scanning and emoting looking around after the *OOC disconnect and reconnect message while hiding*, that was just terrible. Other times I was often contacted to check if I was hiding (before the change) and then later contacted just to see if am online at the time a lot, too. The Way absolutely was used in an OOC way a LOT of the time and this needs to be addressed, absolutely, for elves to even have a chance. Otherwise the best place for an elf is absolutely not in the city at all, the odds are just far too stacked up against them:

We NEED a better rules on what is bad RP, help rules is horribly inadequate at the moment as is help roleplaying:
— There's a lot of situations that can be hard to place and especially not always clear for newer players. The issue there is that situations can then happen that GREATLY impact characters that people put a lot of effort into, while being something that doesn't affect the person that did it much - that disparity I think is what has also caused the dearth of aide players etc. A lot of the times these are unwritten rules that a new player could not have expected to know about:

⚫ Due to how the game mechanics can use keywords for The Way, don't refer to exact keywords when your character is speaking IC: For example when speaking to a Templar that "the rugged, unshorn man" stole from you: Don't say "the guy that looked unshorn" because there are many people in the game world that would fit that description, so it would not realistically work to pick out someone in a crowd or The Way. Instead say something like "The guy had a beard" (and any other details or clothing from their LOOK description).

• Similarly, if someone is wearing clothes that cover part of their body in the description (for example a mask, while their long description says their cheek has a tattoo), do not refer to the things that your character can't see. Armageddon does not have disguise code, you are expected to roleplay realistically what your character would know.



⚫ Don't use Contact to check if someone is online. Characters that are unavailable due to being offline is an OOC mechanic, and IC characters can be still contacted while asleep or working etc, so roleplay around that.

That kinda stuff. Things that help to clarify things for new people especially would be really good. There's way too many unwritten things, or things that the general public have said are bad RP but aren't told to newbies. Until we have that the game isn't really ready for advertising to a wider audience, because so much stuff is unwritten that it's hard to teach lots of people at once



⚫ Don't post things that people can use to identify other peoples' characters or your own character, the reason for this is to keep the sense of mystery and drama with the game's story, and protect players from OOC peer pressure or coercion:
• Don't post publicly about roles you are applying for or character applications - if you have a question, make a request on the website.
• Don't post comments, pictures, or videos that refer or allude to something that is currently happening or recently happened IC, for the obvious reason that it's often easy to narrow down who posted it.

This is all fair and well, but for as long as staff viscerally don't want to be arbiters of roleplay it's also dead in the water.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

It would take a lot of intrigue and excitement away if they were just human-lite, really, part of the fun is that they aren't part of the same structures and have their own things going on instead of being "house elves"

I don't completely disagree with that, but then again, in a world where they were the second most populous species, they would realistically have more power than they do right now. They would have their own Noble Houses and high-profile clans and political presence. I've never thought that was very realistic either. But the world we have somehow has managed to exclude elves from all public-facing political power.

I absolutely wish that there was a elven noble House.

[tiny rainbow]

It's sort of funny but I think it's true really that the Sun Runners are that elven noble house, both in their beliefs and how they have links in both cities and Luir's, they have their own unique elven take on things in that they're not tied down and subject to the cities, they have a LOT going on with a lot of depth and rich history to their trade and diplomacy over the years, 90% of it player plots and actions too instead of how the Bashurit were forced on everybody through staff plots for example, one of the best things was to hear stories from other characters because just so much fun stories. I advocated for role calls to be held to encourage people OOCly to see that aspect that isn't really obvious to people who haven't already interacted with them or experienced for themselves, but we kept getting human merchant role calls over and over instead

[mansa]

https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/City%20Elf%20Roleplay


The elven mindset in the documents are:

* Pride.   
-> All elves find riding mounts to be a shameful act. 
-> This extends to boasting about feats and challenges.

What else does this mean?


* Tribal members first, outsiders second.
-> Loyalty to traditions of the tribe, including region territory.
-> Harm done to one member is considered done to all
-> -> But this can work both ways - being removed from the Tribe for causing trouble.
-> Loyalty tests for outsiders to join the tribe.

What else does this mean?


* Culture of Theft
-> Tests of Courage, not crimes
-> Similar to the concept of "Artful Deeds" in Tuluk.

What else does this mean?




The problem with city elves is that there is no tribes to join, so everybody needs to write their own tribe.

And when tribes form, they naturally turn into pvp tribes, since that is one of the core fundamental gameplay loops.  Or they get turned into pickpocket tribes, since the helpfiles focus on 3 things:
mounts, thieving, tribal groups

I once created a city elf artisan with the purpose of creating a city-elf tribe out of Morin's Village, since that area of the game was open but the soul was empty towards city elves - there should have been a tribe there that new players can join, but there was a lack of foresight in world design for elven players. It was supposed to be a group of city elves that focused on wood craft... You know, "wood elves".  They were designed that anyone could join.



Here's my suggestions:
a) There should be a focus on 'non-killing' of elves by other elves.  This should be seen as a terrible crime.  In Warfare between elves, wounding the other's pride should seem a worse punishment than killing.  That should be the focus.  Have the ability to scar another elf or cut their hair, force a tattoo on them, or something similar to that.

b) Every starting zone should have 2 tribal identities you can immediately join.
-> The problem becomes when you start randomly harming/killing people, and the players want to take revenge against you and your tribe, and the "virtual tribe" needs to take action to protect their own.
-> -> You can enforce this by saying if you join these tribes, you will never progress in rank with these tribes - and you will never be a rank that requires a response from the tribe - you're stuck in this tribe as a runner (with a cool ass hangout spot, and other perks of joining the default tribe)

c) Allow the Great Merchant Houses to hire city elves.  (Limit their rank and access)

d) Allow the Noble Houses to hire city elves.   (Limit their rank and access)

e) Allow the Citystate Militias to hire city elves.  (Limit their rank and access)

f) Give city elves another desire along the lines of Pride, much like Tuluk has in terms of "Artiful Deeds" -> extend that to crafting.

[Trevalyan]

First of all, I liked the elves in Tuluk. Maybe the city lost the knife-ears RP by not being against them more, but at least one 0-RP city elf absolutely nailed her role and made it viable for wilderness engagements. Meanwhile, when the Sjir FINALLY got going again, they were great about not being thieves, and people you could work with without being considered a fence for elven thieves. In fact, their commitment to art is exactly the kind of elven pride that Armageddon theoretically wants.

But the upcoming season is going to put that on pause for a LONG while, so who cares? In Allanak, you have to make a decent number of viable elf-related guilds without making them so powerful the templars are motivated to crack down. Ideally, the templars should be able to hire elves for assassinations or scouting if they're desperate. They should not want to be that desperate.

Of course, if you're going to pigeonhole elves into lone PVP roles involving killing or thievery, they'll continue to have a negative reception by the pbase and people won't want the role. In fact, the question should be what does staff think the problem is with the elves?

[CirclelessBard]

If elves really are the second-most populous race in Zalanthas, then it's pretty likely they're also the second-most populous race in the cities. If, despite making up almost half the population of a city, they are consistently sidelined and excluded from public life, unable to seek work in most "reputable" institutions, then at some point they probably would have made their own, in order to stand a chance against the institutions that oppress them.

They would probably create an "elven quarter" as an unofficial enclave in the lower-class neighborhood of the respective cities (Commoners' Quarter/Warrens). There would be old elven tribes with outsized influence over this quarter. There'd be a gang that functions as an unofficial militia within the quarter and is only barely tolerated by the official city militia because they don't really like patrolling the neighborhood unless absolutely necessary, giving the area a separate crimcode, perhaps one that ignores certain minor crimes unless inflicted on elves of some repute. They would have merchants that elves seek out for high-quality goods, favoring them over the Great Merchant Houses in some cases. Not every elf would live in the "elven quarter" as there would still be many elven tribes that would see it as too self-confining, but they would find integration with the rest of society relatively difficult and would probably be relegated to their city's lawless areas, still visiting the elven quarter on occasion for business or meeting contacts, feeling uncomfortable about it all the while.

The alternative to that is that society loosens up and starts to integrate elves into more aspects of the standard institutions, but it would be a dramatic shift that would require either a significant event that puts pressure on those institutions to relax their attitude towards elves, or some level of retconning of the current attitudes.

[Trevalyan]

They would probably create an "elven quarter" as an unofficial enclave in the lower-class neighborhood of the respective cities (Commoners' Quarter/Warrens). There would be old elven tribes with outsized influence over this quarter. There'd be a gang that functions as an unofficial militia within the quarter and is only barely tolerated by the official city militia because they don't really like patrolling the neighborhood unless absolutely necessary, giving the area a separate crimcode, perhaps one that ignores certain minor crimes unless inflicted on elves of some repute. They would have merchants that elves seek out for high-quality goods, favoring them over the Great Merchant Houses in some cases. Not every elf would live in the "elven quarter" as there would still be many elven tribes that would see it as too self-confining, but they would find integration with the rest of society relatively difficult and would probably be relegated to their city's lawless areas, still visiting the elven quarter on occasion for business or meeting contacts, feeling uncomfortable about it all the while.

That does sound like people I know. For their matter, their crafters and artists are so good that HUMANS seek them out on a regular basis.

[Riev]

Give all elves a racial crafting recipe:

craft plank black.dye 2.black.dye into several.obsidian.coins
you require a woodworking for that

and create a currency of wooden obsidian coins that ACT like coins (stacking wise) but no vendor will accept them.

[Lizzie]

If elves really are the second-most populous race in Zalanthas, then it's pretty likely they're also the second-most populous race in the cities. If, despite making up almost half the population of a city, they are consistently sidelined and excluded from public life, unable to seek work in most "reputable" institutions, then at some point they probably would have made their own, in order to stand a chance against the institutions that oppress them.

They would probably create an "elven quarter" as an unofficial enclave in the lower-class neighborhood of the respective cities (Commoners' Quarter/Warrens). There would be old elven tribes with outsized influence over this quarter. There'd be a gang that functions as an unofficial militia within the quarter and is only barely tolerated by the official city militia because they don't really like patrolling the neighborhood unless absolutely necessary, giving the area a separate crimcode, perhaps one that ignores certain minor crimes unless inflicted on elves of some repute. They would have merchants that elves seek out for high-quality goods, favoring them over the Great Merchant Houses in some cases. Not every elf would live in the "elven quarter" as there would still be many elven tribes that would see it as too self-confining, but they would find integration with the rest of society relatively difficult and would probably be relegated to their city's lawless areas, still visiting the elven quarter on occasion for business or meeting contacts, feeling uncomfortable about it all the while.

The alternative to that is that society loosens up and starts to integrate elves into more aspects of the standard institutions, but it would be a dramatic shift that would require either a significant event that puts pressure on those institutions to relax their attitude towards elves, or some level of retconning of the current attitudes.

There already is an elf-designated section of the Commoner's Quarter. It's the size of a desert elf campground, has a pretty interesting history, it has NPCs, and even vendors. It's also underutilized. It'd be great if people used it more, but they don't.  Just like the teahouse (which is only 2 rooms total including the locked back room) is interesting, has an interesting history, have npcs and vendors, and rarely gets any use.

[FantasyWriter]

Don't post things that people can use to identify other peoples' characters or your own character, the reason for this is to keep the sense of mystery and drama with the game's story, and protect players from OOC peer pressure or coercion:

I think the best way to fix this it to return to if someone contacts you, you get their sdesc unless they have an ability that prevents such.

[Nao]

I think elves are mostly fine. Yes, really. Please don't make them into sharp-eared humans.

They do need clans to be attractive for me to play and to do cool things in general.

BUT
I don't think app-in works very well for city-elf clans (or delves, but it's worse for city elves). These clans should be like the guild or the Crimson Wind and recruit ICly exclusively or almost exclusively. Apped-in characters that are fully trusted immediately don't work very well, especially if you may be up to something like elves often are. Some people app in and just start wrecking things. By the time you figure out that this PC who would have been exiled from the tribe years ago, if their existence had been non-virtual and they have behaved like this, really needs to be exiled, they've probably caused a whole lot of damage that makes things un-fun for everyone else that has to pick up the pieces.

The best city-elf play that I've seen was a long-running group that was not a coded tribe. Why?

• Trust is not automatic but needs to be earned. This is RP, provides opportunities for tests, betrayals, and filters out characters who are not a good fit or are likely to cause problems for the group.
• Playtimes need to match up at least partially, and you need to be at least somewhat active to be recruited - no more full clans that seem to be dead when you log on.