Closure vs unsupported

[Dresan]

This action resulted in the shutdown of several businesses and the construction of barricades around Red Sun Commons, restricting access to key parts of the city.

I hope i am wrong but this is beginning to feel like a closures versus just leaving areas 'unsupported' by staff. With the focus being on the south, tuluk needs to be the new redstorm (pre-crimsonwind era) with the amenities to allow people to live there.

Playing in the same areas after a death, with the same people that might have killed you is a tough ask. I have mentioned before the game also need allow players to piss an important person or screw up a crime and start fresh somewhere else.

It makes places where people can have truely fresh starts more important. Sadly it doesn't sound like its going to be redstorm with crimson wind seemingly evolving to something that does not fully adhere to their bandit/mind your own business roots. Luirs was never able to truely be neutral either after tuluk closed.

Intergration and consolidation are needed, but its a balancing act that is not the same as turning the entire map into just one simple small viable area with the same handful high karma people people always on the top. Repetition is the death of permadeath games and without viable alternatives for characters, people may begin to tune out after only couple of deaths.

[Riev]

I read this as being exactly what it was like during the time Tuluk was "partially open". Only citizens allowed behind barricades, leaving the Commons as a sort of "wild west" of politeness.

Since you can't start in Tuluk, I am GUESSING that any Tuluki Citizen PCs will be citizens in exile and not allowed to play behind the barricades.


While I totally understand the "I played Allanak the last 3 PCs and I want to play something different" .... Tuluk won't be the option. Yet.

[Dresan]

Since you can't start in Tuluk, I am GUESSING that any Tuluki Citizen PCs will be citizens in exile and not allowed to play behind the barricades.


While I totally understand the "I played Allanak the last 3 PCs and I want to play something different" .... Tuluk won't be the option. Yet.

The post says you aren't allowed to make PCs of tuluk or morins origins. Luirs is the best background you can have before starting in allanak or redstorm and making your way back.

Again, hope i am wrong but it just sounds like fully cutting off coded room access to tuluk's areas and amenities in an attempt to make the area unappealing to players.

More cenyr locations are not really the unsupported by staff areas I was looking foward to, and I dont think it will have the effect staff is hoping for either, probably the opposite.

[Halaster]

It will be slightly different than when Tuluk was closed before.  You will be able to enter the city, but only a handful of rooms are open with minimal shops and a heavy military presence.  There will be no quit rooms in the city.

Basically, if you want to visit and buy a souvenir go for it, but you won't be able to live there and it won't support you hanging around.

It won't be like a 'new Red Storm' because Red Storm will have staff support, Tuluk won't.

[Usiku]

The options available for 'habitable areas of play' if you need a change of scenery/surrounding players, will be Allanak, Labyrinth, Red Storm or 'Southern' Wilderness (which is totally viable, as it always has been, sometimes you just want to live in a cave, that's fine). Other options may open up later, but those won't be Tuluk/Morins/Northern places etc.

Tuluk cannot be fully open and accessible but unsupported, that simply isn't viable. There is just too much potential world/NPC response that could be required for any number of PC actions.

[flurry]

The options available for 'habitable areas of play' if you need a change of scenery/surrounding players, will be Allanak, Labyrinth, Red Storm or 'Southern' Wilderness (which is totally viable, as it always has been, sometimes you just want to live in a cave, that's fine). Other options may open up later, but those won't be Tuluk/Morins/Northern places etc.

Could you clarify what you mean here by habitable? Is there a distinction between what's habitable and what's accessible? Since the last update mentioned the Grey Forest, for example, it suggests that's an area which can be accessed eventually, if not initially, in the upcoming season.

[Usiku]

The availability of quit rooms, save rooms, resources such as food and water and the attitudes of the local wildlife are things that make an area more or less habitable. It's not technically binary, rather you will find shades of grey, with things feeling more habitable the further south you go. The introduction of the camping skill will make less habitable areas more habitable on a temporary basis for expeditionary/RPT means etc.

[Dresan]

Rinth lacks certain amenities to make the place livable. I dont just mean apartments either, but rather the things that make this place interesting also gives it a number of issues outside of being in a rinth clan.  There are a number of posts on this over the years, its interesting place to visit not live in.  If you screw up anywhere in allanak this isn't a sanctuary either where you can start anew. You are probably better off on rooftops or living in tuluk and just walking out of the gate and using wilderness quit.

Redstorm was historically the least staff supported area in the game, it is what made the place unique. It becoming more staff supported is potentially a problem for the place since it creates a big risk of the entire south feeling like one big area with the same small group of people on ruling on top rather than  unique areas with some interdepenancies.

[Athapaxis]

Kind of feels like we need to all try this out and see how it goes before worrying too much about the down sides.  The game ran for a long time with a focus on the "status quo" and there were issues that made it hard on staff and hard for people to stick around.  There will certainly be some down sides to the new normal, but it seems like we all need to try it out and see how those things actually play out.

[Dresan]

Kind of feels like we need to all try this out and see how it goes before worrying too much about the down sides.  The game ran for a long time with a focus on the "status quo" and there were issues that made it hard on staff and hard for people to stick around.  There will certainly be some down sides to the new normal, but it seems like we all need to try it out and see how those things actually play out.

Wait and see is what the few who are still around posting are already doing. It doesn't curtail the need for constructive criticism and feedback. While I don't expect the staff to change posted decisions, the approach people will take within those set decisions is likely still completely up in the air leaving room for some addition considerations that could potentially help avoid issues faced in the past.

Much of the stuff we've seen is not completely new to people who have been here for decades. For example, Tuluk didn't disappear, you could still play northern people after the city closed, yet the effects of it being removed still affected how both players and staff behaved in the IC world to its detriment. Now its gone farther into removing this element from the game, and I don't really expect the community(both staff and players) to behave differently than before. Redstorm, Rinth, Southside Allanak should be fundamentally opposing areas until certain staff and players decide its not and begin working in tandem to making these areas feel fairly unified despite documentation stating it should be otherwise. This poses a lot of challenges for anyone that has ever found themselves making a powerful enemy, but perhaps that's okay since I guess we can still go live in a cave.

We seem to be moving away from area vs area, to clan vs clan. This is also something we've also seen before, the  issue with this in the past has been that it eventually lead to either a massacre or more commonly stagnation between the clans. You can't really go targeting sponsored roles without 'IC consequences' so it leads to basically everyone else who happens to be playing an easy target being butchered. For example, you can't really kill the sponsored noble, but what about the aide they just hired, you can't kill the staff boosted sergeant but what about that unclanned PC they seem to be having fun flirting with, you can't really kill X,Y,Z but lets send powergaming mul assassin to kill the newbie crafter they are living with, the crafter isn't contributing to staff run plots after all. Again, all done with staff approval and encouragement.     

To clarify, this isn't a player issue or a staff issue or even potentially a setting issue, this is just a community reality.  There is a risk with the approach so far and it is best to call it out early. Again, not suggesting a course correction in the  decisions made so far but rather offering some food for thought for potential pitfalls as the season moves along. I don't believe the game has the population to keep disregarding the time and effort of people who are not on the friend's list.

[dumbstruck]

I don't believe the game has the population to keep disregarding the time and effort of people who are not on the friend's list.

This though. Some of us are old (Lizzie), some of us are dying (me), and some people just generally have found other stuff to do. Being the oppressed minority might make for an interesting story but how many times do you have to tell it before you can tell something else, and why is your story the one disregarded? All too many times it's come down to sponsored roles being considered much more sacrosanct like their players' time means more. It doesn't. Everyone's time is the same. Stuff like that is why sponsored roles have a hard time finding underlings but there's never a shortage of people playing hunters in the wilderness. Their time isn't treated as disposable and worthless there.

[Lizzie]

I don't believe the game has the population to keep disregarding the time and effort of people who are not on the friend's list.

This though. Some of us are old (Lizzie), some of us are dying (me), and some people just generally have found other stuff to do. Being the oppressed minority might make for an interesting story but how many times do you have to tell it before you can tell something else, and why is your story the one disregarded? All too many times it's come down to sponsored roles being considered much more sacrosanct like their players' time means more. It doesn't. Everyone's time is the same. Stuff like that is why sponsored roles have a hard time finding underlings but there's never a shortage of people playing hunters in the wilderness. Their time isn't treated as disposable and worthless there.

No idea how I got tugged into this conversation. I haven't even read the other posts. I just saw my name being mentioned.

So just to address dumbstruck and the quoted snippet they're responding to:

I'm 63 years old. I didn't START playing this game until I was 40. I didn't start mudding until I was 30.  I'm also retired, and have an active life outside the game, outside the computer. Always have, probably always will.

I play usually 2 hours a day during the week, maybe 4 on each weekend day. When I was staffing, I was logged in longer than that, usually doing some aspect or another of my job as a storyteller/builder.

Most of the people on my list on Discord are players who have pinged me asking me for help over the past few years. For the better part of last year, I had DMs locked and turned my status to "invisible" because I didn't want to talk to any of you in private.  Because I'm no longer on staff, I also no longer have access to the DMs of any current staff member.  I'm not a staff favorite, I was never a staff favorite, I've had 20+ years of playing with MAYBE 5 sponsored roles during the entire time. I've never played a templar, or a sorcerer, and played my first and only noble shortly before the game was shut down.

I don't care nearly as much about skill gains, as I do about skill acquisition.  In other words - it doesn't matter to me that my [whatever] skill only lasts 20 minutes because I don't have it at full power. I'm more excited knowing that I can [whatever] at all. Be that making mastercraft jewelry versus being able to make ANY jewelry, flying for 4 RL hours versus flying at all, being able to kill a mekillot in one swing versus being able to survive a couple of poisonous snakes...

My age has nothing to do with it. My approach to gaming and my perspective of the gameplay and theme has everything to do with it.  I don't play to win the code. I play to win the scene.

[Lizzie]

n/t
hit the wrong button

[dumbstruck]

I'm talking about people who are here for a good time but not necessarily a long time. Whether it's because of age, infirmity, or generally finding other things to do, and how those things can impact numbers as well. Perhaps it was wrong to have brought you into the discussion. Personally I stopped playing in cities because my characters were treated as inherently more disposable than someone who 'got picked'. When my time is, perhaps /more/ valuable, in the sense that I have a lot less of it and I have to decide how to spend it. I do apologize if you felt targeted in a way that was anything other than neutral. It was most certainly not the intent.

[Kavrick]

You can't really go targeting sponsored roles without 'IC consequences' so it leads to basically everyone else who happens to be playing an easy target being butchered. For example, you can't really kill the sponsored noble, but what about the aide they just hired, you can't kill the staff boosted sergeant but what about that unclanned PC they seem to be having fun flirting with, you can't really kill X,Y,Z but lets send powergaming mul assassin to kill the newbie crafter they are living with, the crafter isn't contributing to staff run plots after all. Again, all done with staff approval and encouragement. 

This is actually more a problem with Armageddon's piss-poor standards for pking. You can roll up a bandit or a murderer and just kill people with next to no roleplay. I've seen it happen, I've talked to staff in requests about it, you're not expected to roleplay or provide any content for the people you're killing, and it's the only roleplay game I've ever played with such low standards, even out of roleplay games that don't have permadeath.

[Lizzie]

I'm talking about people who are here for a good time but not necessarily a long time. Whether it's because of age, infirmity, or generally finding other things to do, and how those things can impact numbers as well. Perhaps it was wrong to have brought you into the discussion. Personally I stopped playing in cities because my characters were treated as inherently more disposable than someone who 'got picked'. When my time is, perhaps /more/ valuable, in the sense that I have a lot less of it and I have to decide how to spend it. I do apologize if you felt targeted in a way that was anything other than neutral. It was most certainly not the intent.

I just didn't understand (and still don't understand) what age has to do with it. Especially when you're old enough to be retired and by definition - have more time available to play - not less. My time has -no- value at all. I don't get paid to exist, I do as I please, when I please, as long as I can afford to do it. My age doesn't limit me at all, in any way, shape, or form.  You singled me out as an example of "age" but "age" just really doesn't apply to the context of this thread or even to your own response.

[Roon]

You can't really go targeting sponsored roles without 'IC consequences' so it leads to basically everyone else who happens to be playing an easy target being butchered. For example, you can't really kill the sponsored noble, but what about the aide they just hired, you can't kill the staff boosted sergeant but what about that unclanned PC they seem to be having fun flirting with, you can't really kill X,Y,Z but lets send powergaming mul assassin to kill the newbie crafter they are living with, the crafter isn't contributing to staff run plots after all. Again, all done with staff approval and encouragement.

This is actually more a problem with Armageddon's piss-poor standards for pking. You can roll up a bandit or a murderer and just kill people with next to no roleplay. I've seen it happen, I've talked to staff in requests about it, you're not expected to roleplay or provide any content for the people you're killing, and it's the only roleplay game I've ever played with such low standards, even out of roleplay games that don't have permadeath.

I think the principle that leads to this situation is: this is a game that facilitates frequent unplanned PvP (whether or not there actually is frequent unplanned PvP, the game is set up to accommodate it) and it would be a nightmare to enforce any standards that can't be hardcoded. If a set of "rules of engagement" was implemented, the winner is usually the guy who ignores them, so those rules would get broken all the time and staff would have to investigate PvP encounters constantly. With no rules, at least you don't lose your character just because you weren't cheating.

On the other hand, I've found that staff rarely even acknowledge that it's shitty roleplay to just walk into a room and murderhobo a total stranger for no real reason. I've sent player complaints about that a number of times, and by and large, the staff response has been something along the lines of "there's nothing wrong with that, you have no grounds for complaint, and the player who did it is in the clear." With these new karma standards and the request for better roleplay that was implicit in the announcement, I would hope that being a total asshole towards other players can become something that staff care more about and take into account when judging players, even without an actual rule against flagrant murderhoboing.

[Kavrick]

On the other hand, I've found that staff rarely even acknowledge that it's shitty roleplay to just walk into a room and murderhobo a total stranger for no real reason. I've sent player complaints about that a number of times, and by and large, the staff response has been something along the lines of "there's nothing wrong with that, you have no grounds for complaint, and the player who did it is in the clear." With these new karma standards and the request for better roleplay that was implicit in the announcement, I would hope that being a total asshole towards other players can become something that staff care more about and take into account when judging players, even without an actual rule against flagrant murderhoboing.

I agree with this pretty wholesale, it's even worse when the murder-hobo is clearly playing a high-karma role like a gick too. Like, high karma is supposed to represent the quality of the roleplay and how responsible the player acts, but it's fine for them to just murder hobo without rp?
A big problem I have with arm pvp is that the game simply isn't made for good pvp. Combat is rocket-tag, and if someone wants to min-max and grind out a murder-hobo, it's fairly easy to do so, especially when you look at elves and stealth.

I agree that it'd be hard to put in a hard-coded 'no murder-hobo' rule, but if you murder-hobo, it should 100% be taken into account when your karma is reviewed. Should we really be giving mul/drovian access to players who are just going to use it for the pure purpose of killing other players? And to be clear, when I say 'murder-hobo', I don't mean an antagonist that has the potential to kill other players, I mean people who are looking for a reason to kill other players. I view it in same way as I view killing my players when I'm Game-Mastering in a tabletop RPG- I'm never looking for a reason to kill my players, but killing them is certainly on the table if they provoke it or are stupid, I feel as if antags should approach the topic of PKing in the same way.

[Riev]

So long as we have players and staff of the belief that you "should kill your enemies because otherwise they will come back to bother you", this is going to be an issue.

On topic, however, is that Tuluk as a city can't be "unsupported" and still let players have full access. It is a massive sprawling city with political and templarate issues that the players cannot access while it is "unsupported".

The city isn't CLOSED as in no access, but due to the lack of support it will be receiving there is a massive amount of restricted access.

Does it suck? Sure it does.
Does it suck that the sorceror role changes every time a player sorc gets popular? Sure it does.
Does it suck that a player can OOCly assume someone is a mindworm and make shit up, killing off a maximum karma role + special app so they could "win"? Sure it does.
Does it suck that an elf only really needs to hit you for 1 damage to poison your long-lived character and end your story? Sure it does.

Just saying. Sometimes stuff sucks.

[Dresan]

I want to believe troll Pk characters are rare and should be easily dealt with by staff. I want to believe but perhaps this is misplaced faith given some of the posts. As for bandits, I consider them semi-intelligent hostile NPC mobs, they target new players, but if you travel in groups or get back to crim-supported zone they usually leave you alone.

The thing that a clan vs clan setting supports the most and what is harder to detect is when a person has a shitty reason to go after someone, and I truly mean horrible almost non-reasons to seek PK. In the past there have been any number of bored people willing to go after an easy mark when an opportunity rises. Someone contracting you to kill someone is pretty good reason to pk in the eyes of this game. There could be RP leading to the kill as well but ultimately the entire reason is very likely flimsy at best. There other thing of course, as has been mentioned, is that 'IC consequences' only applies to sponsored roles or people staff like so its always the same types of people getting murdered in this game. And again back to my original point, it may be harder to escape if you get targeted by a bored sponsored role or high karma class murderhobo. I hope your class supports strong stealth(something people keep wanting to nerf) or I guess you can always live in a cave. 

Your milage may vary if you are in a clan, assuming of course that you are not considered fodder or just find clans dreadfully boring but that's probably another thread. Also just hoping with Tuluk/Morins practically or literally closed, more effort can be made to keep the areas remaining somewhat more autonomous, its a tough ask with factional warfare I think though, we'll just have to see. 

[Riev]

While it is still off topic, I just wanted to mention:

Killing a player character is totally fine and a viable way to resolve conflict.
Killing a player character because they "were rude to you in the Gaj" is a viable way to resolve the conflict, but is a shitty way to treat the shared story.
Contracting out a death of someone you don't like is a viable way to resolve the conflict and is still a shitty way to treat the shared story.


The issue of murder hobo has always been one of the following:

• two handed bludgeoning dwarves that cost 0 karma and have enough endurance to tank the soldiers after they kill you at the Gaj
• Killing someone in the 'rinth because "they were clearly a PC and the 'rinth is a murder zone"
• pretending to engage in relationship roleplay so you can apartment-kill someone you don't like

Still not against PK. Just FOR alternative ways to engage in conflict. Break a finger. Hire a breed to piss on them. Hire an elf to steal their favorite spice pipe. Hire a 'rinthi burglar to steal their latest Hunter's Haul in their apartment.

Murder hobo doesn't really happen so much, in my opinion. Player Character murder just happens too much as the first and only solution (Dare I say... the final solution)

[Kavrick]

Murder hobo doesn't really happen so much, in my opinion. Player Character murder just happens too much as the first and only solution (Dare I say... the final solution)

I also don't think murder hobos are common, as I mentioned before, in my year of playing I encountered around 5-6. I do think players that's backstories are just 'I'm a psychopath and want to kill people' should probably be rejected though. Otherwise I do agree that murder is a viable answer to resolve a conflict, but I also do think other things should be tried first.

A big thing in the other roleplay communities that I play inside is basically just 'proper escalation', and it's PvP RP 101 to be honest. It's a lot better roleplay to go from for example, throwing insults > shoving and pushing > throwing fists > a weapon gets drawn, that sort of thing. Actually roleplay out tensions rising rather than just doing 'draw mace;kill elf'. No only is resorting to murder straight away an incredibly boring thing, especially for the victim, but doing the opposite and creating rivalries and tension add a lot to the game's atmospheres and dynamics imo.

[Patuk]

Just saying. Sometimes stuff sucks.

What is that meant to contribute exactly?

[Lizzie]

While it is still off topic, I just wanted to mention:

Killing a player character is totally fine and a viable way to resolve conflict.
Killing a player character because they "were rude to you in the Gaj" is a viable way to resolve the conflict, but is a shitty way to treat the shared story.
Contracting out a death of someone you don't like is a viable way to resolve the conflict and is still a shitty way to treat the shared story.
...
Player Character murder just happens too much as the first and only solution (Dare I say... the final solution)

Killing a PC because they were rude to you in the Gaj is a shitty way to treat the shared story. UNLESS you are playing a noble or templar, and gave them warnings to stop, and they were "victim-hobos" who thrive on submitting player complaints to whine about how they were killed for no good reason. That happens, almost as often as PCs get killed in the Gaj for being rude.

Contracting out the death of someone is not only a viable way to kill a PC, it also ADDs to the shared story by bringing someone else into it, and turning a single PC-single PC "shared story" into an actual plotline. ESPECIALLY when the target of the contract is the antagonist - someone who's been pilfering, burglarizing, and then taunting the person hiring the contractor, because that person isn't a crafter-type, who is physically incapable of standing up for themselves.

Does it suck to be the target of a kill? Yup. Should SOME people maybe consider that, next time they antagonize other people? Yup.

[Kavrick]

Killing a PC because they were rude to you in the Gaj is a shitty way to treat the shared story. UNLESS you are playing a noble or templar, and gave them warnings to stop, and they were "victim-hobos" who thrive on submitting player complaints to whine about how they were killed for no good reason. That happens, almost as often as PCs get killed in the Gaj for being rude.

I can agree with this, it basically just comes down to 'fuck around and find out', but I also think templars/nobles can do something more interesting than merely 'killing' with their power. I have also personally contracted someone to kill someone else, but this was 100% just a last-resort sort of scenario.