... Funner's a word now. Just so you know.
Anyways, I know there's a gazillion of these threads but I wanted to focus it a bit on something more positive. I wanted to brainstorm ideas that would simultaneously make independents less able to access unrealistic amounts of wealth, and make them more fun to play.
All ideas on this particular thread should aim for both goals at once. If you want to come up with ideas that just aim for one or the other, make your own thread.
Anyways, some ideas that other people have mentioned that I really liked:
Tickets for Nenyuk accounts: This would allow people to more easily take independent's wealth away from them, forcing independents to take precautions.
Restrict access to wealth by templars (or provide options for what they can do with wealth that exceed their existing means): This encourages shakedowns, and mostly works like the above except that the independents are less able to retaliate, but also less likely to die as a side effect of the shakedown.
Both of these options have their problems (wealth creep, and causing players to speed walk away when they see PC templars coming), but I think they're at least trying to solve the problem of excessive wealth possessed by indies while simultaneously giving them more interaction.
I'm all for the ticket idea, but I don't see the logic behind exempting clanned PC's from the same system. They'd already be better off for having a (basically) inaccessible place to keep their tickets.
There's also the fact that thieves will become amazingly wealthy, and likely even more fiercely hunted down as well, making the whole "Chase that elf! You know, the only one in the city!" scenario that already happens too much probably more commonplace.
A: No coins.
B: An "elite" currency (small bits of metal)? Discuss.
Force all independents to join the Byn, take away off-days.
1. A modest tax on Unaffiliated peoples' bank accounts, beyond the first 1000 deposited.
This would allow new out-of-chargen characters to save some coins, because yeah it's really easy to get rich, but not right out of the box. You still need to buy a few things, water, a mount, bags, etc. etc. and you'd have nothing left over for awhile. So let them save 1000 sids without any penalty at all. After that, a flat 5% deposit fee for all deposits by anyone who isn't affiliated with a clan.
combined with
2. A new implementation on shop code (I've mentioned this in the past):
ALL characters can sell two of anything, to any shop, during any single-week period. No one can sell more than two of anything, to any shop, within the single-week period. So no more loading up the shop with "5 of each," thus preventing everyone else from selling anything, and making them stuck with their goods and no sids. This helps prevent the reboot-rushers from getting rich while the off-peakers stare at the NPC, frustrated, or worse - be doomed to salt/sift/claydig/cottonpick forever.
3. Another implementation in the shop code: encourage people to buy/sell things in their own city, and not somewhere else, without actually preventing them from buying/selling somewhere else. Nakkis pay more in Tuluk, and get less. Tulukis pay more in Allanak, and get less. Both of them get less and pay more than natives in Red Storm. Everyone except for elven and human tribes that are based out of the tablelands pay more and get less in Blackwing. Call it a global tourist tax on goods purchased and sold.
(removed)
Anyone who isn't politically influential, a merchant with direct GMH or other similar involvement, etc, has no business whatsoever owning more than 10,000 coins. Some people just abuse the "broken economy" and it's kind of irritating. It's especially irritating when these rich indies lord it over everyone else, when they didn't do anything truly special to get it, just did a lot of the tricks that most of us know, but a lot more often.
Therefore, I am fully in support of a strict tax for balances over 5,000. To start. I think, from there, things like forced involvement, at least financially, in clan/city politics would be a good next step, i.e., if you have more than 10,000 coins and you're NOT investing it in your favorite city-state... well, clearly then you're a rebellious sort! etc.
Templars already do this a little, but they are not empowered to do it. By not being empowered to -fairly- taxate, they either taxate unfairly or not at all. This can be remedied by a system that puts limits on what templars can do, but also empowers them to do something like take a portion off whatever is in someone's bank account once a year, with some physical limitation (i.e., needing both parties to be present in the bank at the time, which is easy enough to do with a Half-giant guard facilitating things.)
One time, with a PC I had a few years ago, I had a templar arrest me. Later, I was coerced by the templar to drain some of my bank account and give it to him. I was scared shitless, but I complied -- except that I withdrew a pretty random number of coins to give him, and claimed it was all I had. Of course, my PC was lying about this, but the templar had no coded means, whatsoever, to check what was in my bank account. I would rather they have some ability to just raid my account a little -- it'd feel less like I was getting away with cheating a templar and more like I was being screwed by the man, which is how it should feel in my opinion.
I am not sure I like the idea of just having nenyuk shave coins off the top, because it's too stiff and coded and gamey. I like the idea of taxation plenty if it means more plots, so I think allowing templars to happily raid accounts is a better implementation of the same idea.
I actually don't get this topic title. Independents are richer, isolated, and die quicker. Sometime they're more fun, because they have the freedom to go out and kill scrabs/supply themselves with the things they need. And sometimes they're less fun because you don't always get in on a wealth of roleplaying opportunities like rough circle/RPT's and more people for interaction.
Somehwat off topic, and just a though, but they both have problems that could possibly be alleviated by just having more players concentrated in an area. More player density means more Sergeants around to do fun stuff with, more independents around that you can organize with, more opportunities in general for roleplay with eachother, and make coins from those opportunities and die less because they wouldn't get bored and feel the need to do somethign stupid. /pipedream
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 25, 2014, 01:13:53 AM
I actually don't get this topic title. Independents are richer, isolated, and die quicker. Sometime they're more fun, because they have the freedom to go out and kill scrabs/supply themselves with the things they need. And sometimes they're less fun because you don't always get in on a wealth of roleplaying opportunities like rough circle/RPT's and more people for interaction.
Somehwat off topic, and just a though, but they both have problems that could possibly be alleviated by just having more players concentrated in an area. More player density means more Sergeants around to do fun stuff with, more independents around that you can organize with, more opportunities in general for roleplay with eachother, and make coins from those opportunities and die less because they wouldn't get bored and feel the need to do somethign stupid. /pipedream
The purpose of the thread is to brainstorm ideas that will make independents more fun to play /and/ limit their wealth.
It's a brainstorming thread.
There should be ideas here, and they should be pitched in such a way that they accomplish both goals. If they are not meant to accomplish both goals they need to go in a different thread (one that is in my opinion, doomed to degenerate into another hate-cycle thread)
Quote from: Harmless on January 25, 2014, 01:09:37 AM
Anyone who isn't politically influential, a merchant with direct GMH or other similar involvement, etc, has no business whatsoever owning more than 10,000 coins.
I completely disagree. Consider the bounty hunter that kills someone for a large bounty. They can make a huge fortune in a single day. You may or may not be in a clan playing a bounty hunter. Consider a fearsome raider, an Allanaki city elf merchant, a talented burglar, an Allanaki bard, characters that live in Red Storm, or a whore. They could all have reasonable ways to make a lot of money and never be in a clan. Trust me people. The way to encourage people to play in clans is to make clans better and not to think up ways to screw over independent characters.
In the end, you really can't stop characters from making money because it's capitalism. If you do something (spy, raid, steal, hunt, trade, whore, con, guard, assassinate, entertain) to make money, eventually people that play a lot and survive for a long time are going to accumulate wealth. I think a lot of players see wealthy independent characters and make the mistake that they made all this money by spam crafting and hunting scrabs for two months. I've played Arm for 20 years and played in many of the clans in the game. I've also played a lot of independents. It's much easier to make a lot of coins in a clan then out of one. Just don't think you're going to make a lot of coins by joining a clan alone. Eventually, you have to quit sparring, tavern sitting, and mud sexing and do something within your clan that makes money.
It's fine and good to have more than 10,000 coins, but you need to keep it a secret; you're hinting at that, by citing things like bounty hunters, bards, etc... all types who can earn tremendous sums doing clandestine activities. The problem is that their ability to hide their wealth is perfect, by depositing it in the bank.
I'm cool with secret bounty hunters and assassins and the like having ridiculous sums to their name. I just wish that it wasn't as simple to hide that fortune as ">deposit 10000".
To amend my statement:
Anyone who isn't politically influential, a merchant with direct GMH or other similar involvement, etc, has no business whatsoever owning more than 10,000 coins conveniently, such as in a bank.
There, I fixed my point, williamson. Counterpoints? Also, remember -- this is a brainstorming thread!
Four tiers of economy pricing:
- Price A if you're clanned that store - cannot haggle
- Price B if you're clanned a TEMPLAR, SOLDIER or a NOBLE HOUSE. - can haggle, better chances
- Price C if you're clanned any other GMH within the city - can haggle, normal haggle according to character haggling
- Price D if you're unaffiliated - haggle penalty, slight disadvantage
Make the areas with the greater ease of hunting a greater danger of hunting alone.
Unaffiliated commoners would lose say 15% of their sid deposited in order for it to be kept safe. All others would be charged no fee.
Why does Nenyuk care one iota if you're initiate hunter/militia recruit/Byn runner Amos/Talia? This bank tax only on the unaffiliated thing seems entirely artificial and silly to me, and as I said in that other thread (but I'm never one to shy away from harping on about things!), hurts the independents who are playing legitimately far worse than it hurts the ones everyone feels are a problem.
That said, I think a bank tax in general would add a lot of intrigue to the game, by forcing people to find other, less failsafe ways of keeping their 'sid. I just see no reason why it should be limited to independents alone. Maybe make it so that the highborn and clan accounts are exempt, but beyond that, it is a bad idea in my opinion.
I like the changes proposed in the RAT thread that suggest making Nenyuk behave in any way like an actual bank (however remote the similarities). Right now the bank is an ooc convenience for player wealth organization with no social, political, or economic repercussions - an escaped mul visiting the Luirs branch is treated exactly the same as the richest Kadian merchant in Tuluk. Mount stables, with their ability to keep mounts in stasis forever for a flat fee of 20 coins worldwide, behave more realistically than the Bank of Nenyuk.
Balance caps, taxes, physical proof of wealth or identity, levels of account privilege...these are all great starts. I hope someday we'll see some of them implemented. Changing the way money works at the source might do a lot to make the economy feel more robust and realistic, and make endgame wealth a bit more challenging to manage for independent players.
Right now the Bank of Nenyuk in no way differs from a bank on any hack and slash mud, and given that Armageddon is the best RPI out there, I think that's a shame.
Are indies with 10,000+ coins really as common as people in this thread make them out to be?
I guess I'm just awful at the economy.
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I agree with the "artificial" feel.
Also, what exactly is unrealistic amount of wealth? When you consider that a mug of ale can be 30 coins then 3k really is not much at all...So, What, 5k, 10k, 100k? And what exactly makes it unrealistic?
Also, is this really an issue...I mean come on, so Amos the indy has nice armor and 100k in the bank...So what? First off, odds are Amos will be dead in another couple weeks and a week later nobody will even remember who he was, the game world keeps on turning. And I don't see it as an issue. 1 in 100 indies make it any real amount of time with real money, and maybe 1 in 1000 have that AND some influence.
As to the ticket idea...explain to me exactly why Nenyuk would want to lose the main source of income? They would not, as it stands, when a PC (and supposedly npc/vnpc) Dies, all money reverts to Nenyuk. If they had tickets then that money would never revert to them but to whoever got the tickets. They would never submit to that big a cut in the bottom line.
Oh, as to the haggle...Eh, most PCs do not have or use it anyway.
As to the "No business whatsoever" Get real, all the GMH's and other things started from nothing....if no indy had reason to have 10+ in the bank then no merchant houses, not even the bank would exist.
Really, the only 2 ideas I could get behind...you want it harder for the indies?
#1 KILL THEM! Abuse them, rob them...murder corruption betrayal...be the change.
#2 More desert/wilderness baddies, both PC and NPC, hidden, running, grouped, poison...Fireants and gith death squads back in game.
Lastly
QuoteThere should be ideas here, and they should be pitched in such a way that they accomplish both goals. If they are not meant to accomplish both goals they need to go in a different thread (one that is in my opinion, doomed to degenerate into another hate-cycle thread)
If you really think you get a thread where everybody has to agree with you, your idea etc...then you are sadly mistakin as to how the GDB works...and rather lame thinking as well. Because trying to have such a thing makes it look like we all agree with the idea that there is even a need for this thread/ideas.
Oh and Havok...No, they are not common.
I can say one thing for sure, wealthy PCs are overrepresented on the GDB.
Quote from: X-D on January 25, 2014, 03:26:33 AMAs to the ticket idea...explain to me exactly why Nenyuk would want to lose the main source of income? They would not, as it stands, when a PC (and supposedly npc/vnpc) Dies, all money reverts to Nenyuk. If they had tickets then that money would never revert to them but to whoever got the tickets. They would never submit to that big a cut in the bottom line.
Please don't make the assumption that because other players cannot codedly retrieve coins from the bank when you die that the coin of dead pcs is Nenyuk's main source of income. There is no vault somewhere with the obsidian coins of ten thousand dead newbies piled high to the ceiling like Scrooge McDuck's tower. The dead pc coin thing makes NO IC sense, which is just fine - because as I said in an earlier post, Nenyuk currently makes about as much sense ICly as the bank in any hack and slash mud. Sometimes an ooc convenience is just an ooc convenience. Sometimes the code is just the code. And that's
perfectly okay to accept and understand.
Discussions about how to make Nenyuk at all realistic are great, but realism is the key word here. There's nothing realistic about Nenyuki bankers instantly knowing with Force powers when some half elf with 300 sid in his account snuffs it, or Nenyuk taking every last thin coin of that Oash noble who ODed on spice at a Fale orgy.
Well, yeah there is, because the Way exists.
I think being an indie should be a tooth-and-nail miserable experience unless you've got 5-6 dudes in your crew and you're pretty heavily into your indie career.
Quote
Please don't make the assumption that because other players cannot codedly retrieve coins from the bank when you die that the coin of dead pcs is Nenyuk's main source of income. There is no vault somewhere with the obsidian coins of ten thousand dead newbies piled high to the ceiling like Scrooge McDuck's tower. The dead pc coin thing makes NO IC sense, which is just fine - because as I said in an earlier post, Nenyuk currently makes about as much sense ICly as the bank in any hack and slash mud. Sometimes an ooc convenience is just an ooc convenience. Sometimes the code is just the code. And that's perfectly okay to accept and understand.
Discussions about how to make Nenyuk at all realistic are great, but realism is the key word here. There's nothing realistic about Nenyuki bankers instantly knowing with Force powers when some half elf with 300 sid in his account snuffs it, or Nenyuk taking every last thin coin of that Oash noble who ODed on spice at a Fale orgy.
Well, I should not have said main, because it is not the main source of income. But it is respectable.
As to it not making sense...Huh...how is that now? Lets see, Malik the grebber breed deposits 300 coin...Malik Never reclaims the coins...Nenyuk need not know he is dead or care...Why, because there are thousands of Maliks, eventually the amount of unclaimed coin is more then the amount of coin that can be claimed, this allows nenyuk to use that coin because they can still cover any possible withdrawal...Hell, banking today IRL works on less.
As to Nenyuk not making sense to you in an IC sense...Maybe you should read the docs or ask staff...Nenyuk is a working house...it makes perfect IC and monetary sense...if you know everything they do.
Or maybe Get one of the players who might still be around from when it was open for play that played a nenyuk PC to explain it to you.
Though, on the Oash noble comment...They would only get his Private savings...remember, all houses/clans etc have accounts as well...So, unless Oash itself goes defunct...Nenyuk never gets to keep that fund.
So now you have all the money in the world...now what?
Yawn, independents.
Exactly.
Personally. I dont think the goal is to make the gameplay of indies somehow different. The goal is to make joining a clan more interesting and rewarding then remaining indies. Which in a sense, might involve harming indies. Want to avoid the harm? Go join a house. Simple. So it's not that independents are extremely rich. It is that independents tend to be significantly richer then house members. Which is fine. They worked hard for their coin. But that does not make the clan membership more fun and rewarding, but it should be.
As far as it being artificial for indies needing to pay fees for Nenyuk services, while hired employees do not. That is actually pretty simple. Hired employees 'do' need to pay the fee, except the house they belong to negotiated a corporate payment and is paying those fees as a house whole. Much like trading licenses. An Indie needs a license from templars to trade stuff. A house member does not, because the house 'itself' pays the tax of its employees. Though in my opinion, this feature will hardly make joining the house any more enticing, so meh.
The idea to entice joining the houses is, amongst other things, to allow the house members be more economically and influentially powerful then independents. That is not always so. Plenty of people are making it better. Preferential treatment, choosing the unconnected for beat downs and shake downs, it's wonderful. Though possibly not enough.
Granted. Eventually there comes an unconnected grebber who knows the gameworld enough, twinked enough, and played enough to become capable of procuring items one can 'not' get easily as a house member. Very rare gemstones, very rare materials, etc. Those people rack up influence 'quick', simply because they're one of the few sources of 'whatever', and 10 other house members will not be able to do, what this 1 guy can. Change the grebber into burglar, or assassin, or spy, or traveling merchant, the meaning stays the same. But ... those people also die. Most of what they do is dangerous, and in the end they are "supposed" to be expendable.
As long as people keep in mind the social hierarchy (and many do), it wont be so horrible. Though every time I hear something like, I prefer not to deal with nobles, they ask for a lot, but cant afford me. I die a little on the inside.
You want to make playing an indie hunter hard? In one fell swoop, the solution is water.
Literally everyone (mundane) that goes outside of the walls needs water. Everyone. No matter how many cool fruits you find, eventually, the water will have to find its way down your throat. So, make sure clans have better access to free water, and that they can continue to buy water at current cost. Now, raise the price of purchasable water for an unclanned person ten-fold. Paying 700 coins to refill your skin as opposed to 70 coins will put a dent in your life real fast.
To offset this deadly price hike, add many more watering holes in the wilderness, most with small capacities. Surround them with obstacles and adversity. A pool in a dark cave, where a tiny, sickly githen tribe has taken residence. A large pole in a valley known to be patrolled by mantis. A wet wall in a nook often populated by a scrab. Enough water to fill three kegs, in a four or five room cavern where 10 spiders have made a small den. A three room stream, dry two out of three months, and patronized by carru herds and stalking tembo in the wet month. Intelligent NPCs should all carry occupation-specific amounts of water, to be taken by force or guile. Most animals should offer up either urine or water-bearing glands under the right skinner's hand.
This change to the number of watering spots does a couple of things. First, it's realistic. It is an inane concept that our world exists with as few water sources as it currently has. This enhances realism in that aspect. It also allows a skilled independent hunter to navigate the barriers and obtain water for free. In turn, it also allows other indies to team up and defeat the same obstacles.
Finally, raise the rate at which one gets thirsty. Someone should need to consume the equivalent of a half-skin of water an IC day in the city. This puts pressure on the independent city-bound merchant, now, you see. Raising that rate to meet that criteria for the city-bound character conversely raises the rate for the wilderness focused character, and now he needs to knock a couple of skins back on his jaunt between Allanak and Luirs.
So you see, simply adjusting for water usage and price can nearly completely do away with rich independent characters, and for those it does not do way with, they absolutely deserve to be rich. Such a change also brings to the forefront life and death in a world where we are told that people will kill for a drink of water.
I know - this is an excessively drastic change, and perhaps the numerical change to price and thirst-rates is a tad high, but I think the basic premise makes sense. If you are an independent, you really should struggle to live day to day.
Quote from: FreeRangeVestric on January 25, 2014, 02:45:27 AM
Why does Nenyuk care one iota if you're initiate hunter/militia recruit/Byn runner Amos/Talia? This bank tax only on the unaffiliated thing seems entirely artificial and silly to me, and as I said in that other thread (but I'm never one to shy away from harping on about things!), hurts the independents who are playing legitimately far worse than it hurts the ones everyone feels are a problem.
That said, I think a bank tax in general would add a lot of intrigue to the game, by forcing people to find other, less failsafe ways of keeping their 'sid. I just see no reason why it should be limited to independents alone. Maybe make it so that the highborn and clan accounts are exempt, but beyond that, it is a bad idea in my opinion.
This entire topic has nothing to do with how to fix the economy. That's a different topic. This is about independents, speciifically. What you're suggesting, won't change anything, with regards to "independents should not be capable of acquiring the vast stores of wealth that several of them have acquired, and do aquire (therefore, they CAN acquire them - if they couldn't, they wouldn't) - but should still be fun to play."
Quote from: Lizzie on January 24, 2014, 11:37:04 PM
3. Another implementation in the shop code: encourage people to buy/sell things in their own city, and not somewhere else, without actually preventing them from buying/selling somewhere else. Nakkis pay more in Tuluk, and get less. Tulukis pay more in Allanak, and get less. Both of them get less and pay more than natives in Red Storm. Everyone except for elven and human tribes that are based out of the tablelands pay more and get less in Blackwing. Call it a global tourist tax on goods purchased and sold.
I think, if anything, players should be encouraged to trade in other cities. Read the merchant helpfile... their description and skillset are geared toward travel/caravaning. I don't even understand why they don't get direction sense considering the mini-merchant extended subguild, Master Trader, gets only merchant skills + direction sense.
I'm not saying players shouldn't be able to eek by in their own city states, but large profits should be obtained primarily through caravaning. Caravaning, ideally, should be more than a single dude riding alone through the desert, to be sure. Quite honestly, trading between the states for indie has been made extremely difficult already by current IC circumstances. Indies trading between the city states who are not tribals are taking huge risks, especially if they're personally entering the other city state, so the reward should be proportionately high.
I would go so far as to say obsidian should now be worth MORE in Tuluk, and wooden item should double in value in Allanak. Why? There should be (and there actual is for many characters) an IC scarcity of resources due to heightened tensions and the decrease in trade between the city state.
7DV: That's going to severely penalize anyone who's playing during times when there aren't any active clan leaders logged in. Off-off-peak players might be WANTING to join a clan, but just plain are not able, because the hiring people don't play during that time. And, how much fun can off-peak players have, if their options are:
Be inducted by a staff member into a clan that has no active leader during their own play times, just so they can have water - but have absolutely no one to play WITH, no one to report TO, no one to give them instructions or tasks
or
Die of thirst before being able to afford all the gear and training required to venture out to all those dangerous watering holes.
How much player retention do you think we'd have, if those were the two primary sources of water, and neither were readily available to the player's character?
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 08:26:09 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on January 24, 2014, 11:37:04 PM
3. Another implementation in the shop code: encourage people to buy/sell things in their own city, and not somewhere else, without actually preventing them from buying/selling somewhere else. Nakkis pay more in Tuluk, and get less. Tulukis pay more in Allanak, and get less. Both of them get less and pay more than natives in Red Storm. Everyone except for elven and human tribes that are based out of the tablelands pay more and get less in Blackwing. Call it a global tourist tax on goods purchased and sold.
I think, if anything, players should be encouraged to trade in other cities. Read the merchant helpfile... their description and skillset are geared toward travel/caravaning. I don't even understand why they don't get direction sense considering the mini-merchant extended subguild, Master Trader, gets only merchant skills + direction sense.
I'm not saying players shouldn't be able to eek by in their own city states, but large profits should be obtained primarily through caravaning. Caravaning, ideally, should be more than a single dude riding alone through the desert, to be sure. Quite honestly, trading between the states for indie has been made extremely difficult already by current IC circumstances. Indies trading between the city states who are not tribals are taking huge risks, especially if they're personally entering the other city state, so the reward should be proportionately high.
I would go so far as to say obsidian should now be worth MORE in Tuluk, and wooden item should double in value in Allanak. Why? There should be (and there actual is for many characters) an IC scarcity of resources due to heightened tensions and the decrease in trade between the city state.
So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?
Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.
Quote from: Qzzrbl on January 25, 2014, 08:45:50 AM
Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.
Agreed. This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for independent characters.
Quote from: Bushranger on January 25, 2014, 08:49:39 AM
Quote from: Qzzrbl on January 25, 2014, 08:45:50 AM
Well.... A little work on NPC merchants that buy <totally easy-to-obtain "things" of limited use to all but a few> for high prices and then sell them at ridiculous markups where even that "all but a few" can't or won't bother buying them from NPC merchants would be a start.
Agreed. This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for independent characters.
Correct that to:
This even more than salting is a major fund of coins for those very rare few independent characters who manage to show up at those particular shops at exactly the right time: when the NPC has both room for the items in question, and the sids to pay for them.
This is a RARE occurrence, even in those shops that auto-delete an item or two from its inventory every so often.
It still encourages and rewards the "OH MY GAWD THE SERVER RESTARTED/CRASHED HIT THE MERCHANTS NOW!" behaviour, and just doesn't make sense to begin with.
The less of that, the better, in my humble opinion.
The best overall coded change for the game to accomplish the goal of the thread would be to do something with the bank. I think whether you introduce caps or taxes to banks, indies will still have wealth, it will just be less liquid (they will purchase items to store in an apartment/warehouse and sell later, as opposed to having a bunch of coins lying around). This is slightly better since at least some of these items will be bought from PCs...
The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."
The third best thing is more travel difficulty, and not necessarily between cities either. The Tuluki public quarter change was good because it made it harder for non-citizens to go there and get the most out of their trip. But the biggest chunk of this difficulty will be made by players and RP.
However, I think that the best solutions to the issue are through uncoded and RPed means. It's past time for a strict definition of what an independent commoner is and how one fits into the ranks of society as one. I personally think that:
- Independents should be told by GMH merchants that if they want to buy something from their esteemed houses, they can go to the store and buy a bone longsword, just without all those sapphires they wanted embedded in the hilt. Because it's quite likely that by the time the order has come in, that indie will be mixed around in bits of dried gortok poop and the House's time has been wasted. Oh, but you, Private Amos who works for Chosen Lady Talia? Sure, I'll check the warehouse for some pink knickerbockers (In other words, no special orders for indies.)
- Nobles and templars shouldn't be selling influence for coin. Houses and the templarate have a lot of coin, and influence is priceless. After all, the more people with backing from House Whatever or Lord Templar Stickinbuttor Tor, the less valuable that backing actually is. Indies should serve nobles and templars in some way through employment, patronage, or just some association on the side that would be Allanak's closest equivalent to patronage.
- It should easier than it already is to get a clanned job, and there should be more jobs for clans to offer. This will mostly involve leader PCs and staff working together to define potentially new positions and expand the hiring cap for their clans if necessary, but usually it won't be.
- Independent citizens of the city they're in should have it rough, and independent non-citizens should have it even rougher. I think the playerbase is generally pretty good with the xenophobia RP but it doesn't hurt to mention it.
I think that jacking up the price on certain apartments would be a good way to decrease some of the indies' available wealth. It never made sense to me that, in Allanak, you can get a 3 room apartment for the price you can get it for. You have these three rooms for how much, are you kidding me? 3 rooms is probably big enough for three whole hardworking commoner families. I won't even get into the apartments with MORE rooms.
Putting access to "private" rooms in clanned commoner compounds outside of the manor houses (rooms that can be cheaply rented from House Smith) would be another one.
Everybody loves apartments.
Quote from: Lizzie on January 25, 2014, 08:32:12 AM
So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?
I would say that, while it IS easy for independent characters to accrue a large amount of coins, it is also a lot easier for them to die. Usually in more than one way, independent characters are taking risks - from beast npcs, criminals, templars, jealous merchants... lots of risks clanned characters don't have to mess with - at a higher rate. The greater the risks an independent takes, the more wealth they can gain, but their chance of dying also increases. Since death is permanent, that is a huge risk. Clanned merchant characters /typically, on a day-to-day basis/ don't incur a fraction of the risk independent merchants incur.
And that sort of risk from other players is tangible in some places in the game world. I know of a character who was shaken down by The Man within the last six months after just using a second tier crafting skill in public, heh. That may or may not be a singular event, but it was indicative of, uhh, fairly close scrutiny.
What can an independent do with all of those coins? Unless they're actively including other players, not much. What, rent? Expensive gear that makes them an even larger target for predators? Predators being basically almost everyone else. Ultimately, independents who aren't driving plotlines won't be able to really use all those coins for much. If they're using coins accrued through taking varying degrees of risk to generate plotlines, well, that doesn't sound too bad to me.
Maybe I am just not seeing it where I am playing, but it doesn't seem like independents are thriving or even anything more than transient PCs in certain parts of the world.
Playing a trader, the merchant class specifically here, can be a tedious, boring, and excluding thing to do. Most HRPTs are combat oriented in large part. A large portion of fun stuff in general is combat oriented. So, it can really suck to play a merchant sometimes, and to me, it is really hard to do effectively. The moral of the story is that independent traders, at least pure merchant ones, are already hamstrung in a lot of ways, so mostly, their ability to generate great wealth is offset by a huge array of risks, like getting insta-ganked by a five day pickpocket, heh. It's a different story for subclass merchants, but their ability to make coins is limited due to a lack of haggle or a shitty haggle skill as well as mostly subpar crafting abilities. Also... haggle is a really frustrating thing to fuck with. It is incredibly tedious. Realistically, a trader would not have to sit there and individually negotiate the price for every single copper buttplug if they're buying 20 copper buttplugs at once. I don't point that out to be critical of the way merchants are coded but to point out the tedium that is often required to acquire wealth.
From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem, which I guess should come as no surprise due to the abundance of resources in those areas. In the recent history of that area, the only really developed independent trader I saw kinda, uhhh, disappeared, which to me underscores the risk of choosing to remain an independent trader, and it turn at least somewhat justifies the "reward." IC controls seemed effective, but my perceptive is admittedly limited.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 10:20:00 AM
From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem
I play a good number of southern based independents and I don't even remember the last independent I played in Tuluk. So this makes a little more sense to me, although I've only broken the 3000 sids limit once and I almost broke 5000 in order to assist a friend for a special thing. I have to say--- it was hard work, and it was fucking boring. I really don't envy especially wealthy independents, especially if they're raking in twice as much.
There's definitely a few objects you can spamsell in the south in a manner that is downright ridiculous with decent haggling. Often, though, if you're based out of Allanak, trying to avoid those clans that are always hanging off your ass for you to join, don't have scavenge_food, aren't exploiting a trading niche, and want to eat something besides the same seven sid object that comes from the slaughterhouse, there's little you can do but salt or do crime. And shovel shit but I think you need scan for that on most days.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 25, 2014, 09:42:19 AM
The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."
A salting limit exists which gets hit when enough salters are salting that day and turn enough salt in, just not an individual limit. I don't get the limit personally--- you'd have to be using your whole independent group of six people, all of which are using sorcery and dark magicks, in order to hit that limit for the day together, and to make that limit reasonable in an OOC sense, although I suppose its reasonable in an IC sense: sort of like saying, "House Jal has enough salt and doesn't care about your welfare, get lost dirtbag."
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 10:20:00 AM
Quote from: Lizzie on January 25, 2014, 08:32:12 AM
So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?
I would say that, while it IS easy for independent characters to accrue a large amount of coins, it is also a lot easier for them to die. Usually in more than one way, independent characters are taking risks - from beast npcs, criminals, templars, jealous merchants... lots of risks clanned characters don't have to mess with - at a higher rate. The greater the risks an independent takes, the more wealth they can gain, but their chance of dying also increases. Since death is permanent, that is a huge risk. Clanned merchant characters /typically, on a day-to-day basis/ don't incur a fraction of the risk independent merchants incur.
And that sort of risk from other players is tangible in some places in the game world. I know of a character who was shaken down by The Man within the last six months after just using a second tier crafting skill in public, heh. That may or may not be a singular event, but it was indicative of, uhh, fairly close scrutiny.
What can an independent do with all of those coins? Unless they're actively including other players, not much. What, rent? Expensive gear that makes them an even larger target for predators? Predators being basically almost everyone else. Ultimately, independents who aren't driving plotlines won't be able to really use all those coins for much. If they're using coins accrued through taking varying degrees of risk to generate plotlines, well, that doesn't sound too bad to me.
Maybe I am just not seeing it where I am playing, but it doesn't seem like independents are thriving or even anything more than transient PCs in certain parts of the world.
Playing a trader, the merchant class specifically here, can be a tedious, boring, and excluding thing to do. Most HRPTs are combat oriented in large part. A large portion of fun stuff in general is combat oriented. So, it can really suck to play a merchant sometimes, and to me, it is really hard to do effectively. The moral of the story is that independent traders, at least pure merchant ones, are already hamstrung in a lot of ways, so mostly, their ability to generate great wealth is offset by a huge array of risks, like getting insta-ganked by a five day pickpocket, heh. It's a different story for subclass merchants, but their ability to make coins is limited due to a lack of haggle or a shitty haggle skill as well as mostly subpar crafting abilities. Also... haggle is a really frustrating thing to fuck with. It is incredibly tedious. Realistically, a trader would not have to sit there and individually negotiate the price for every single copper buttplug if they're buying 20 copper buttplugs at once.
From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem, which I guess should come as no surprise due to the abundance of resources in those areas. In the recent history of that area, the only really developed independent trader I saw kinda, uhhh, disappeared, which to me underscores the risk of choosing to remain an independent trader, and it turn at least somewhat justifies the "reward." IC controls seemed effective, but my perceptive is admittedly limited.
I'm in complete agreement with Kronibas. Consider the independenti Tuluk hunter. To make 1000 coins, she goes out over a RL week and hunts, kills, and skins 8 duskhorn and gathers herbs and rocks. While out hunting she's attacked by a bahamet, she luckily escapes. Back in Tuluk, she sells some of the skins to an NPC merchant and the rest to a Kadian. She sells the horns to an independent merchant and the herbs to a Dasari aide. At the end of the week, she uses her 1000 coins to buy a fancy sword from the local Salarri merchant. The Salarri merchant walks into his compound, picks up a sword crafted by a clanmate, and sells it to the hunter. Now the Salarri merchant has 1000 coins. The Salarri has to give some of the profits back to House Salarr and only gets to keep say 300? Now the Salarri gets on the GDB and complains that she only make 300 coins and the indy makes 1000. However, the Salarri doesn't have to face 8 duskhorn, survive a bahamet, and chase down the Kadian and Dasari aide. The Salarri just walks into her protected compound, picks up a sword, and sells it. No risk, easy money. What can the Salarri do? Maybe next week, she charges 1500 for the same sword? Maybe she decides to take every fifth sword and keep all the profits for herself, skimming some of the profits. Now she's taking more risk, will her clan find out? Will she be caught? Will she need to share some of the illegal profits with her boss? Unless you're a sponsored role, there's nothing wrong with bending the rules. Just be sure to include what you're doing in your character report and expect the world to react appropriately if you get caught. With more risk comes more reward.
I wouldn't be against cutting back the price-per-bit on salt, as opposed to setting a hard limit.
Especially those bits of salt you don't sell to House Jal.
It has much less to do with "boohoo these indies are making more!" and more to do with, "...The fuck? That dude's making more than nobles."
You can say they're taking a huge risk, but there are a plethora of ways to mitigate said risk to almost nil-- especially after you've played for a while and know what you're doing.
1000 sids a week? xD my sides
I still think jobs like salting and picking cotton should just pay out in food/water, or tokens to buy such things with, rather than the obscene amount of money they give you now.
Quote from: i love toilets on January 25, 2014, 10:48:32 AM
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 10:20:00 AM
From what I've read, this seems to be a more Tuluk/Luir's centric problem
I play a good number of southern based independents and I don't even remember the last independent I played in Tuluk. So this makes a little more sense to me, although I've only broken the 3000 sids limit once and I almost broke 5000 in order to assist a friend for a special thing. I have to say--- it was hard work, and it was fucking boring. I really don't envy especially wealthy independents, especially if they're raking in twice as much.
There's definitely a few objects you can spamsell in the south in a manner that is downright ridiculous with decent haggling. Often, though, if you're based out of Allanak, trying to avoid those clans that are always hanging off your ass for you to join, don't have scavenge_food, aren't exploiting a trading niche, and want to eat something besides the same seven sid object that comes from the slaughterhouse, there's little you can do but salt or do crime. And shovel shit but I think you need scan for that on most days.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 25, 2014, 09:42:19 AM
The next best thing is to change coded jobs and make player-based limits on them. When a player hits their limit... "I already have enough salt, come back next week."
A salting limit exists which gets hit when enough salters are salting that day and turn enough salt in, just not an individual limit. I don't get the limit personally--- you'd have to be using your whole independent group of six people, all of which are using sorcery and dark magicks, in order to hit that limit for the day together, and to make that limit reasonable in an OOC sense, although I suppose its reasonable in an IC sense: sort of like saying, "House Jal has enough salt and doesn't care about your welfare, get lost dirtbag."
Er, yeah, that's what I meant. The salt that they get from players would be limited, not a per-player limit. Basically because of what you said with regards to it being exploitable otherwise. Though I see how what I said could be interpreted the other way... oops.
The problem I see with that is that the people who have crap tons of obsidian tend to already be the people who play all the time, and would tend to be the people maxing out House Jal salt limits. So I think it would only end up making already poor independents poorer. Which is fine and all, but it wouldn't really affect the independents with ten thousand coins problem (or what is viewed as the problem, as I understand it).
Quote from: Lizzie on January 25, 2014, 08:32:12 AM
So, without turning this thread into "Broken economy, v.982" - what suggestion do YOU have, to make it harder for independents to be filthy stinking rich, without making it less fun to be independents?
Remove intrinsic value from most of the game. Instead of shops valuing their wares based on some notion of absolute value, have them buy and sell based largely on their rent. So that means a maximum buy price and a maximum sale price.
With items having no absolute reference for value, all uses of coin between players becomes a matter of bidding. This may suppress a lot of coin sales as prices inflate, but it also firmly sets coin as a worthless thing.,
It might've been said already, but taxation will only make people grind harder. E.g. if you know there's a 5% tax on everything you deposit...you just gotta forage for 5% more rocks.
I've broken the 30,000 'sid mark a few times, and they're all really old PCs, so I guess I can explain how things went for these guys:
1. First time was a city-elf pickpocket way back in the day, who was a special-app coded with some of the more useful Whiran spells (don't bother getting your hopes up people...this was over 10 years ago and there's no way the current admins are going to let this kind of stuff fly). He also had absolutely incredible agility and exceptional wisdom. He also started out clanned in one of the 'rinth elf gangs. He was fucking beast at stealing shit, and I basically made that 30k by stealing mount tickets and selling the mounts at the butcher (about 150 tickets, +/- stealing miscellaneous valuable knick-knacks). I could basically never show my face Southside, and after I stole 5 bricks of spice out of a Kuraci's pack and stole Samos' keyring and magick sword, I wasn't even safe in the 'rinth. Nothing major ever evolved from this except a major plot to kill me, heh.
2. Second time was a city-elf merchant/armorcrafter in Allanak. I spent a lot of time hardcore wheeling and dealing, managed to get the PC leader of the Guild ganked for screwing with me, spent a lot of time doing favors for the templars, managed to get accepted into the Jaxa Pah, but most importantly, I had another indie PC ranger who was bringing me -massive- amounts of raw materials from around Tuluk. Basically none of the above would've been possible if I hadn't had that one guy (and his crew) bringing me truckloads of loot from up north. This was all built on a lot of hard crafting work and constant negotiating with other PCs. At any given time I was bankrolling 3-5 'rinth elves in the clan and several noob grebbers around Allanak. No major plots evolved from it, but the Jaxa Pah was riding really high off my crafting loot for a long while afterward. This guy technically wasn't indie at the end, although he started out as such.
3. Third time was a dwarf ranger/armorcrafter in Tuluk. I teamed up with a merchant/armorcrafter after a while, and we were bringing in sick amounts of loot. Eventually he got disappeared and I got strongly encouraged to join the Sun King's Legions. Strongly encouraged.
So basically, every time I've managed to accumulate a ton of wealth, I've either had everyone out to kill me, had to pay everyone not to kill me, or give up the loot life in order not to be killed. Seems like things are working the way they should, from where I've been sitting.
Try playing a dedicated salter after you get forage up some.
It gets kinda silly.
I've got it! Have the cities make a law saying only people working for one of the clans is allowed to do sex. Then, anytime people are doing the sex, bust into the room and execute them both. That will make people more interested in clanning up.
Quote from: morrigan on January 25, 2014, 12:54:27 PM
I've got it! Have the cities make a law saying only people working for one of the clans is allowed to do sex. Then, anytime people are doing the sex, bust into the room and execute them both. That will make people more interested in clanning up.
We all know that people are simply uninterested in playing a role unless sex with other players is allowed *coughTulukiChosenscoughgrinsandducks*
(removed)
Quote from: valeria on January 25, 2014, 10:15:41 AM
I think that jacking up the price on certain apartments would be a good way to decrease some of the indies' available wealth. It never made sense to me that, in Allanak, you can get a 3 room apartment for the price you can get it for. You have these three rooms for how much, are you kidding me? 3 rooms is probably big enough for three whole hardworking commoner families. I won't even get into the apartments with MORE rooms.
Putting access to "private" rooms in clanned commoner compounds outside of the manor houses (rooms that can be cheaply rented from House Smith) would be another one.
Everybody loves apartments.
I really like the idea of this. Maybe small building's right outside gmh estates and noble compounds (not estates, but where the dorms are now) with a few small but private rooms where -valued- employees can have a single or in some cases double room. So, that at least you could tie a handkerchief to the doorknob when you want to be alone with a guest. There should probably be a reasonable rental fee. But I think it should also be a privilege that minions can earn.
Quote from: Eyeball on January 25, 2014, 12:57:59 PM
Make grebbing/hunting miserable and what's left for an indie? None of you are answering that. Nor the fact that, for those indies who don't want to grind, being able to quickly profit from salt or whatever means they have more time to actually interact with others.
I don't think anybody has problems with people salting..only with make 1k sid/ig day doing so.
Maybe the problem could be fixed with the time-honored tradition of only cheap goods being easily found and having to travel to truly dangerous locations in order to find the good stuff.
Again, having the easy jobs pay in food/water would solve a lot. I really don't get why it'd be such an immense problem.
I'm with you on that Patuk. Supposedly, food and water are supposed to be scarce in the world and hard for the poor folk to come by. Lines of people should file out every morning and shovel poo, greb stones, gather salt, sweep the streets, etc and then file back at night and turn in their results in exchange for a skin of water and loaf of bread.
Alternatively, people who only play for an hour a day should stop feeling like they are entitled to make as much money as someone who puts in eight hours.
Quote from: Barzalene on January 25, 2014, 01:06:33 PM
employee housing beyond footlockers.
I really like the idea of private clan sponsored rooms... good ones with good locks and guards and stuff. I think it would definitely increase clan patronage. Getting an apartment in a certain city state right now is basically a lost cause.
What if the salting people and other "coded" jobs would pay in a token that could only be used to purchase basic items from them?
From what I understand, these jobs are only meant to help you with basic needs to begin with, not make 25 sids x 100 a RL hour.
Like the salting peeps could give you a token for a certain amount of salt foraged and you could trade those tokens for things like basic food, a skin of water, a few torches, some tools, etc.. Sorta like in the mining communities of the 19th century where monopolies would pay their workers in currencies that could only be redeemed in their sponsored shops (still the case in some Canadian mining industries, I believe)
Also, the building outside the southern Kadian estate was made as employee housing initially, but it turned out to be a logistical nightmare... this was before the apartment code, so it would be a LOT better now.
What about putting a generous timer on the forage craft? X number of successes, and you're done for the day? Atonement did something similar to help promote a starvation environment, and it seemed to work.
Quote from: levinj on January 25, 2014, 01:29:24 PM
What about putting a generous timer on the forage craft? X number of successes, and you're done for the day? Atonement did something similar to help promote a starvation environment, and it seemed to work.
Timers of any sort are universally hated around here and FORBIDDEN.
Quote from: Malken on January 25, 2014, 01:30:12 PM
Quote from: levinj on January 25, 2014, 01:29:24 PM
What about putting a generous timer on the forage craft? X number of successes, and you're done for the day? Atonement did something similar to help promote a starvation environment, and it seemed to work.
Timers of any sort are universally hated around here and FORBIDDEN.
Timers?! Timers?! We don't need no stinking...yeah.
I will go back and read other two pages later, replying to Dar now.
While I do not have a problem with people wanting other people to be in clans, Those people need to remember, not all people are them, not all clans fit all people/pcs etc. In fact, making it hard for indies pretty much means, assuming it is hard enough, no more elves or breeds. And really, why not work to just make the clans more enticing? Far as that goes, I have never had a problem being in a clan that did not have enough players, in fact, most the time I would say too many.
Heh, fair dues.
Personally, I got no beetle in this race. Though I love the idea of giving privileged clan members a place to stay. Corporal Amos of the City Militia can't find an apartment, but it's cool, because he has his little one-room whack-shack to fall back on and save him the monthly sids.
Quote from: Patuk on January 25, 2014, 01:14:07 PM
Again, having the easy jobs pay in food/water would solve a lot. I really don't get why it'd be such an immense problem.
I actually like this idea so much, I think it should be more broadly applied. Paying in food and water needs to be more of a thing.
Alright..so we set up these compounds..we can call them camps. Then, we take everyone who has no -real- job or affiliations, and put them in these camps. Then, we put them to work on building infrastructure and maintaining the Highlord's city and in return they get a place to sleep, three meals a day and water. Problem solved. We could put a sign above the entrance to the camp that no one but nobles can read. It would need a catchy slogan on it...something like...work will make you free...or something along those lines.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 01:20:07 PM
Quote from: Barzalene on January 25, 2014, 01:06:33 PM
employee housing beyond footlockers.
I really like the idea of private clan sponsored rooms... good ones with good locks and guards and stuff. I think it would definitely increase clan patronage. Getting an apartment in a certain city state right now is basically a lost cause.
This would be great for House employees. It wouldn't have to be much, room for a rug and a net, maybe. And just for lifesworn or the equivalent of course. People with longevity or higher responsibility could be given better rooms. It would help make up for the disparities in income that seems to be bothering people so much.
Quote from: Malken on January 25, 2014, 01:24:52 PM
What if the salting people and other "coded" jobs would pay in a token that could only be used to purchase basic items from them?
From what I understand, these jobs are only meant to help you with basic needs to begin with, not make 25 sids x 100 a RL hour.
Like the salting peeps could give you a token for a certain amount of salt foraged and you could trade those tokens for things like basic food, a skin of water, a few torches, some tools, etc.. Sorta like in the mining communities of the 19th century where monopolies would pay their workers in currencies that could only be redeemed in their sponsored shops (still the case in some Canadian mining industries, I believe)
I like this, but I'm an evil bastard.
Quote from: Refugee on January 25, 2014, 01:58:54 PM
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 01:20:07 PM
Quote from: Barzalene on January 25, 2014, 01:06:33 PM
employee housing beyond footlockers.
I really like the idea of private clan sponsored rooms... good ones with good locks and guards and stuff. I think it would definitely increase clan patronage. Getting an apartment in a certain city state right now is basically a lost cause.
This would be great for House employees. It wouldn't have to be much, room for a rug and a net, maybe. And just for lifesworn or the equivalent of course. People with longevity or higher responsibility could be given better rooms. It would help make up for the disparities in income that seems to be bothering people so much.
I think this idea has enough merit to rate a thread of its own.
Really, housing seems like a good way to amend any perceived problems. Right now, housing seems all kinds of fucked up.
Nearly every apartment in Allanak stays full constantly. But guess what? The magicker quarter apartments, as of a week or two ago, were COMPLETELY EMPTY.
Moreover, not only are they empty, but non-gemmers are forbidden from renting them. Uhhh, I kinda tried.
So... the only apartments that discriminate against certain people in all of Allanak... actually discriminate in favor of magickers. Isn't that a smidge counter intuitive?
That's because most 'gikers are wealthy as fuck, Kronibas, and they are often the ones with the three-room apartments.
Honestly, I don't even know why they're allowed to rent apartments elsewhere than in 'giker town.
Each individual House having its own employee thing outside an estate would be neat, but also an apartment building for all of them would be good, too, for simplicity in building's sake.
Then again, it's really easy to come up with ideas for other people to build and code.
Housing projects like this could be pursued ICly. I mean, imagine how grateful minions would be if a GMH or noble character managed to get something like that built for them.
Quote from: Malken on January 25, 2014, 02:27:22 PM
Honestly, I don't even know why they're allowed to rent apartments elsewhere than in 'giker town.
If you ask me, they shouldn't be. I might feel differently if they didn't have their own totally unused ones and if, unlike 3 years or so ago, there were actually somewhat frequent vacancies with apartments.
I don't know, all the gemmer temples were burned not long ago, so right in the middle of the people who burned them might not want to be where magickers should want to live.
Quote from: Malken on January 25, 2014, 02:27:22 PM
That's because most 'gikers are wealthy as fuck, Kronibas, and they are often the ones with the three-room apartments.
Honestly, I don't even know why they're allowed to rent apartments elsewhere than in 'giker town.
Yeah. In my opinion it's ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed...they have a gem quarter, access to temples (which is like a private area of safety without even needing to join a clan), and apartments of their own. Not having access to the apartment buildings in the main part of the city makes perfect sense. Life should be shittier for a gemmed mage in Allanak, not better.
If Gicks can't rent an apt outside their quarter, Nobles shouldn't have apartments outside their quarter either. Through their aides or on the lease.
Lol.
We have nearly unanimous agreement on some issues that can be pursued ICly. I say people should start going for it in game. I bet staff will consider it, or at least discuss the potential developments over requests.
Quote from: morrigan on January 25, 2014, 01:16:44 PM
Alternatively, people who only play for an hour a day should stop feeling like they are entitled to make as much money as someone who puts in eight hours.
I don't think anyone feels like this, and I think if you play this game as a full-time job you're likely going to be getting a heck of a lot more out of it pretty much regardless of role. :-\
Quote from: ShaLeah on January 25, 2014, 03:15:21 PM
If Gicks can't rent an apt outside their quarter, Nobles shouldn't have apartments outside their quarter either. Through their aides or on the lease.
Lol.
Er...what?
You're comparing gemmed mages, one of the most reviled and shunned castes in the city, to nobles - the most revered and wealthy caste in the city - and saying they should have the same privileges as far as renting apartments goes?
Sorry, but I'm really confused.
How do those two things even compare? If you want to propose an argument that nobles shouldn't be allowed to rent apartments, then build a case for your theory (maybe in another thread, as nobles are about as far from independent as it is possible to be)...but don't say they shouldn't be allowed to rent apartments because mages shouldn't be allowed to rent apartments. That doesn't make any sense at all.
Lol.
It's true that one merchant playing a lot more than another merchant has the capacity to earn more coins, but that doesn't necessarily mean they do. The former could have 20 days and less than 500 coins while the latter could be 10 days with 5000 coins. It depends on the character - and the player.
Quote from: ShaLeah on January 25, 2014, 03:15:21 PM
If Gicks can't rent an apt outside their quarter, Nobles shouldn't have apartments outside their quarter either. Through their aides or on the lease.
Last I knew, nobles aren't allowed to be on leases. So I don't think this is actually a problem.
Laura, but before ShaLeah even wrote that, I myself wondered... Well, what about GMH family member and nobles? They have their own freaking bases, is it fair that they can take up apartments, too?
IC social role considerations aside, sponsored role type characters typically use places like that for their minions. At least, when I played a GMH family member, the only reason I rented apartments was for the use of minions. That seems a lot better than a loner magicker taking up the space.
Still, let's say you have 4 Allanaki nobles, 2 templars, 2 GMH bosses, and maybe an industrious Byn sergeant all renting apartments to have on reserve for their henchmen or nefarious plans. 8 PCs? Well, that's over half of the desirable real estate in Allanak, hypothetically. It adds up.
I don't care one way or another about the issue - but denying something to a social group that ICly has ALL the rights and money in the world JUST BECAUSE mages are (hypothetically) now denied the same thing makes no logical sense.
It's an illogical place to start an argument from.
Start from the ground up instead. Say nobles shouldn't be allowed to be on leases because they already have compounds, guards, and their own private, locking rooms. It doesn't make much sense ICly (seriously, what piddly slumlord would deny a noble ANYTHING?), but we can make the argument that because there are far fewer apartments in the city than there are players, and new apartments don't seem to be a priority for staff right now, that for the sake of OOC fairness nobles shouldn't be allowed to rent an apartment.
On the other hand, are there really that many nobles and GMH family members renting apartments? Is this really a problem? There's like three nobles in Allanak right now, and I don't think they are allowed to be on leases anyway. As for aides and the like not being able to have apartments if their boss pays for it - come on now. Let's be reasonable. If lowly aides and merchants are on the rent blacklist, who the fuck won't be?
Nobles shouldn't be denied anything that a commoner can get.
I read all this and I think about my sponsored roles. It makes me feel bad that in I've played roles for almost ten IG years and have far less wealth than some indies make in a year. I do feel bad about that. What I don't feel bad about is that usually my sponsored roles are far too busy doing their job to ever get rich. My pcs are rarely bored and I hope, though who ever really knows, that the people who play around them aren't bored either. And then I feel a little better about that rich thing. It would be nice though if I could do as I do and see more sid from doing it, but there you are. Maybe if I win the lottery I'll stay home and Arm all day and not have to choose.
I like the GMH/Noble House housing idea.
I like the idea about payment for some coded jobs being in food/water.
I like the idea about magickers (gemmed) not being allowed to rent apartments that are not in their Quarter.
Bleh, there is at least 3 very good IC reasons for a gemmer to not rent the apartments currently there...and even if they could not rent anywhere else they would still go mostly unrented.
Nah, Laura, there aren't that many. And if there are, well, they aren't active.
I wasn't trying to say ban nobles and GMH people from apartments, to be sure, heh. Though, it is good to know nobles can't take out their own leases, but even that sounds like a really big OOC consideration, and if hell froze over and I played a noble, I'd probably resent that rule a hair.
Maybe the issue is not that independents are too rich and more that clanned characters are just poorer by comparison. What would happen if we, say, tripled clan salaries/stipends across the board? Would that go a ways toward making things feel like more equal? I think it would. Indies might still have a slight monetary advantage, but as several people have said, they also play at much higher risks. It may make being in a clan feel worth it, because you wouldn't be taking such a huge cut in terms of income potential and could probably afford a nice apartment with some coin left to spare at higher ranks in a clan. That's more how it should be, I think.
Quote from: Jherlen on January 25, 2014, 06:24:40 PM
Maybe the issue is not that independents are too rich and more that clanned characters are just poorer by comparison. What would happen if we, say, tripled clan salaries/stipends across the board? Would that go a ways toward making things feel like more equal? I think it would. Indies might still have a slight monetary advantage, but as several people have said, they also play at much higher risks. It may make being in a clan feel worth it, because you wouldn't be taking such a huge cut in terms of income potential and could probably afford a nice apartment with some coin left to spare at higher ranks in a clan. That's more how it should be, I think.
I think that's a good idea.
Quote from: williamson on January 25, 2014, 06:55:38 PM
Quote from: Jherlen on January 25, 2014, 06:24:40 PM
Maybe the issue is not that independents are too rich and more that clanned characters are just poorer by comparison. What would happen if we, say, tripled clan salaries/stipends across the board? Would that go a ways toward making things feel like more equal? I think it would. Indies might still have a slight monetary advantage, but as several people have said, they also play at much higher risks. It may make being in a clan feel worth it, because you wouldn't be taking such a huge cut in terms of income potential and could probably afford a nice apartment with some coin left to spare at higher ranks in a clan. That's more how it should be, I think.
I think that's a good idea.
And that's how inflation raises.
Quote from: LauraMars on January 25, 2014, 02:53:34 PM
Quote from: Malken on January 25, 2014, 02:27:22 PM
That's because most 'gikers are wealthy as fuck, Kronibas, and they are often the ones with the three-room apartments.
Honestly, I don't even know why they're allowed to rent apartments elsewhere than in 'giker town.
Yeah. In my opinion it's ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed...they have a gem quarter, access to temples (which is like a private area of safety without even needing to join a clan), and apartments of their own. Not having access to the apartment buildings in the main part of the city makes perfect sense. Life should be shittier for a gemmed mage in Allanak, not better.
To me, this isn't so different than just demanding the entrance to their quarter be walled up and be done with it. Theyr'e not supposed to even be in the Gaj anymore (militia toss them out), they're not supposed to be in the apartments (here), they're not supposed to do much at even HRPTs, why are they even in the game?
Just maybe, if there's only one apartment being rented in their quarter, it's because there are so few gemmed around these days.
And it's not surprising that gemmed, with certain advantages concerning sustaining themselves, can make coin too.
Also, nobles servants with their own apartments in nobleland? Nobles not renting regular apartments? This would just segregate the player base even more.
Gemmed should be restricted. Becuase ICly that makes a lot of sense. If you don't like your ultra-powerful and incredily deadly/useful magic-slinger to have some ic limitations, maybe roll a rogue.
The apartments in the gemmed quarter are perfectly usable if a bit *too* rundown.
It's stupid for gemmed to have apartments outside the quarter unless for a very specific IC exception/reason of which I can only think of a few.
All that said, apartments are one of the reasons I suspect interaction can be so hard for the average city-dweller to find...it's sort of a catch-22 situation.
I like the idea of paying in food/water. Not sure about coded mechanics on that.
Quote from: Delirium on January 25, 2014, 08:03:09 PM
The apartments in the gemmed quarter are perfectly usable if a bit *too* rundown.
It's stupid for gemmed to have apartments outside the quarter unless for a very specific IC exception/reason of which I can only think of a few.
All that said, apartments are one of the reasons I suspect interaction can be so hard for the average city-dweller to find...it's sort of a catch-22 situation.
I like the idea of paying in food/water. Not sure about coded mechanics on that.
idk either, but there's cleaning fluid, so
some precedent is there at least.
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 25, 2014, 07:55:12 PM
Gemmed should be restricted. Becuase ICly that makes a lot of sense. If you don't like your ultra-powerful and incredily deadly/useful magic-slinger to have some ic limitations, maybe roll a rogue.
I think there may be one or two IC limitations to being a rogue. Like everyone and their mums wanting to kill you.
Sorry, I'll stop derailing!
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on January 25, 2014, 07:55:12 PM
Gemmed should be restricted. Becuase ICly that makes a lot of sense. If you don't like your ultra-powerful and incredily deadly/useful magic-slinger to have some ic limitations, maybe roll a rogue.
Useful but more-or-less unused. Powerful but overratedly so, vulnerable, and pounced on if they actually use their powers. Most importantly, isolated as hell and it just keeps getting worse.
Yes, my last gemmed was four characters ago and I don't intend to play any more. But I pity them and think their position in the game has been marginalized to the verge of pointlessness.
Anyhow, paying in food and water (or a form of scrip) isn't a bad idea.
Wow. I'm reading this conversation, and frankly, it seems insane.
Is the economy a bit iffy? Yes, certainly, it could do with some tweaking.
Do we want people pushed toward clans? Do we want people to play in the GMHs? Have we actually thought about the consequences here?
The design of the GMHs is heavily conflict-negative and roleplay-negative. They're monopolies with largely non-overlapping strengths which are too big for PC screwups to matter, and big enough to handwave away survival concerns for the PCs in them. Clan schedules are just the cherry on top of the roleplay-denying cake.
A decade back, I posted this:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,7919.0.html (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,7919.0.html)
Now things have changed somewhat since - and, in some ways, clearly for the better. Tuluki noble RP seems pretty well designed to encourage conflict. The request/character report system has a lot more player-imm communication flowing than in the old days. That said, it's not altogether rosy. Sanvean's first response to my post started by pointing out that at least PCs outside the too-big-to-fail clans were creating new clans and doing things; that seems to have gone now, and that may be a critical problem in giving independents an end-game. Maybe warehouses balance things out a bit on the other side, I don't know. However, I still feel that independent groups have much more latitude for interesting RP - they have a wider range of allowable goals, and, critically, they get to make and break alliances on behalf of that group. I happen to think it would be better to have some the many virtual groups of Byn size or smaller made non-virtual - groups running bazaar stalls or shops, other small mercenary companies, elven tribes, etc - because it would be plausible to have them fail, to have PC input into their alliances shifting and changing, to have clan goals that the newest hire can be explicitly made aware of. But failing that, an independent group is vastly richer in roleplay opportunities, because even getting premises forms a substantial goal, and much smaller threats pose a severe survival risk. Such groups live within the same social strata that elves and half-breeds live in, and have richnesses of interaction open with these that great Houses cannot have.
I don't believe people are playing independents just for the sid, in other words. I believe people play independents because doing so provides meatier roleplay in a shorter time period, and because it preserves some measure of the danger and dirt which gets lost when everyone's swaggering about in silk. I'm all for making the game economy less abusable and making water a more precious resource, but not if it drives people into the arms of the organisations which provide free food and drink in exchange for becoming part of a bored elite - an elite that takes next to no effort to join, unless you're an elf or half-breed.
This thread has made me anxious in some ways to show people in my clan it's worth being there.
Quirk's post bears reading, and rereading, and then reading some more, because it's very true. And even if it's not that way by design on some theoretical level, I don't think anyone can argue that players' perceptions of what is fun do, unsurprisingly, determine what is actually fun. If I play an independent, I don't do it so I can have a wealthy PC, I do so because in my experience, there's much more opportunity there to do and see cool stuff.
What is funny is, I play mostly clanned, but sometimes my concept means indy...does that have anything to do with money...no, not usually.
Although...of my two richest PCs (And I mean 100k+ coins) BOTH were clanned...and commoners.
Many players...I daresay most, make as much coin as the role requires. Maybe this role means my PC needs to be wealthy, maybe that one requires he keeps 300 in the bank and 100 on him...if that is the case, that is what I will do...and I think most do as well.
Still, if I make a PC that is not to be clanned...nothing you can do will make it otherwise. Simply have to wait till I make a PC that is supposed to be clanned.
Well yeah, player preference is always going to be a large part of what players actually experience in the game.
That's why I don't agree with coded changes to the game, even though there might be a use for them, as the better alternative is to establish for ourselves, from an OOC perspective, what should be expected as an independent and what should be expected as a clanned player, and how much deviation from that is appropriate. If the game is supposed to have socially powerful or obscenely rich independents then there is no need for this conversation.
Personally I think that if PCs see independence as a more appealing option than clanned roleplay from an IC perspective that's where it begins to become a problem. Because clans are supposed to be better, and supposed to be the ideal that PCs strive toward. The fact that a prominent indie can look at a juicy position with a noble house or GMH, shrug and say "I can live a much better life remaining independent because of more money/freedom/etc" is a problem only when said indie actually does that, only because it is so jarring (clans are supposed to be the best after all). Fortunately this doesn't happen a lot.
So I think a good indie player has enough self-control not to go over those IC boundaries in ridiculous ways, and like X-D said, make as much money as they require without going into ridiculously unusable amounts.
So ultimately, we have to see what exactly is wrong with independents and their place and then do something to fix that. "Having too much money" isn't a problem in itself, because money doesn't really mean anything until it's spent. 100k in the bank is literally doing nothing except making Nenyuki mouths water and hands rubbing together as they wait for you to die. We should be focusing more on limiting ways for indies to spend money in ways that go above their social rank (which is essentially the social rank right above slaves... so we're talking food, water, basic housing and equipment) and less on limiting the money itself, because limiting money just leads to doing more activities to make up for the loss. That would also have the consequence of making indie play harsher and hopefully more fun.
"Indies generally not finding clans appealing" is a problem, but then clans should be made more appealing, rather than indies being forced to join clans, indies can be "encouraged" to join clans as a method of increasing their social status to do more interesting, clan-only plots or get items and opportunities only afforded to clan members.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 25, 2014, 09:24:11 PM
Personally I think that if PCs see independence as a more appealing option than clanned roleplay from an IC perspective that's where it begins to become a problem. Because clans are supposed to be better, and supposed to be the ideal that PCs strive toward. The fact that a prominent indie can look at a juicy position with a noble house or GMH, shrug and say "I can live a much better life remaining independent because of more money/freedom/etc" is a problem only when said indie actually does that, only because it is so jarring (clans are supposed to be the best after all). Fortunately this doesn't happen a lot.
This is I think something that leads to somewhat difficult situations, though, as many clans are inherently dull in the manner I spoke of above - in particular, to revisit my old topic, they fall short when it comes to clan goals or meaningful PC influence on their relationships. Players have to make dirty, low-class PCs to prevent offers coming from GMHs and noble houses, and then when an over-eager recruiter attempts to offer a job anyway, the ensuing IC situation is one that should never exist, and hence is very awkward.
These clans should in theory be exclusive, offering jobs to only the lucky: in practice, it takes effort to maintain a lower-class lifestyle.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 25, 2014, 09:24:11 PM
So ultimately, we have to see what exactly is wrong with independents and their place and then do something to fix that. "Having too much money" isn't a problem in itself, because money doesn't really mean anything until it's spent. 100k in the bank is literally doing nothing except making Nenyuki mouths water and hands rubbing together as they wait for you to die. We should be focusing more on limiting ways for indies to spend money in ways that go above their social rank (which is essentially the social rank right above slaves... so we're talking food, water, basic housing and equipment) and less on limiting the money itself, because limiting money just leads to doing more activities to make up for the loss. That would also have the consequence of making indie play harsher and hopefully more fun.
I disagree. Finding more ways for indies to spend money that encourage them to band together would, IMHO, be much to the benefit of the game. Groups of indies can generate conflict like nobody's business, internal and external.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 25, 2014, 09:24:11 PM
"Indies generally not finding clans appealing" is a problem, but then clans should be made more appealing, rather than indies being forced to join clans, indies can be "encouraged" to join clans as a method of increasing their social status to do more interesting, clan-only plots or get items and opportunities only afforded to clan members.
The problem lies so deep in the roots of the GMHs at this stage - though I partially exclude Kurac, positioned as it is to conflict with the city-states - that little can be done short of destroying them. Since this seems to be unthinkable, the next best thing is to starve them into a background role. Giving them more resources will not and cannot solve the structural problem of making cushy unimportant jobs in a monopoly interesting. Creating plots can disguise it for a while, here and there, but the same effort would go as far or further when applied to a smaller, more fragile, more conflict-ridden group.
Starving GMHs into a background role would be great, if everyone didn't want things that aren't available in the shops. Presently, most of the gear people *want* to buy - and can *afford* to buy - combined - are available only via special order. Some of them are exclusive to specific clans, some are exclusive to "Merchant's choice" - meaning, the merchant can only sell a limited supply of item X within a Y period of time, and he gets to pick who the lucky customers will be (if any).
It's already hard enough to find employees, if you're a GMH leader. The turn-around is ridiculous, especially in Tuluk, for sponsored leader PCs. No one wants to play one, and because they come and go so quickly or there are such long lapses between the last-stored and the new-genned, everyone ELSE gets whiny and pissy, and the newest one to show up bears the burden of his failed predecessor.
That's how it is currently. And you're suggesting we make it even MORE difficult for players to enjoy playing sponsored GMH roles, by basically telling them to not even bother trying to hire anyone because their only job now is to be a vendor, and all his potential hirelings are having fun getting rich and spending sids..as independents.
All these rich fun-enjoying independents are spending their sids on what, exactly? What are they spending sids ON, when there aren't any GMH merchants to buy from, because the players have all given up trying to play one because it's too easy to burn out when you can't find anyone willing to be an employee.
Quote from: Lizzie on January 25, 2014, 11:01:10 PM
Starving GMHs into a background role would be great, if everyone didn't want things that aren't available in the shops. Presently, most of the gear people *want* to buy - and can *afford* to buy - combined - are available only via special order. Some of them are exclusive to specific clans, some are exclusive to "Merchant's choice" - meaning, the merchant can only sell a limited supply of item X within a Y period of time, and he gets to pick who the lucky customers will be (if any).
It's already hard enough to find employees, if you're a GMH leader. The turn-around is ridiculous, especially in Tuluk, for sponsored leader PCs. No one wants to play one, and because they come and go so quickly or there are such long lapses between the last-stored and the new-genned, everyone ELSE gets whiny and pissy, and the newest one to show up bears the burden of his failed predecessor.
That's how it is currently. And you're suggesting we make it even MORE difficult for players to enjoy playing sponsored GMH roles, by basically telling them to not even bother trying to hire anyone because their only job now is to be a vendor, and all his potential hirelings are having fun getting rich and spending sids..as independents.
All these rich fun-enjoying independents are spending their sids on what, exactly? What are they spending sids ON, when there aren't any GMH merchants to buy from, because the players have all given up trying to play one because it's too easy to burn out when you can't find anyone willing to be an employee.
How did we get here? Why are people clamouring to spend sid on specific stuff that isn't in the shops?
Isn't the problem here the result of previous measures to try and make life more desirable for the clanned merchant? In the beginning getting players hooked on speciality items only available from that clan means the merchant has new exciting goods to sell, advantages the independent doesn't. But as time wears on, those items become known and the subject of regular demands. It's the guaranteed or near-guaranteed availability of these items which becomes the weight attached to the sponsored player's foot - when it stops being "can you get me a cool sword?" and becomes "yeah, I want this specific sword" and the merchant knows a special order's needed.
Worse, this leads to an even wider disconnect between the actions of the employees of the House and the House's output. Yes, when Salarr is a massive clan guaranteed to get you every type of weapon under the sun it's hard to deal with a lack of actual PCs hunting and crafting without special order - but when getting things by special order becomes the default, actual hunters and crafters become pointless. It's a profoundly dysfunctional model at every level, and I do not believe the fix is to try to push more players to get involved with it. If we must have Salarr and Kadius, why not have them deal primarily with the contracts that are supposed to make the majority of their profits? Uniforms, bought in bulk; perhaps an occasional nicety for a noble.
And rich indies blowing all their sid on special ordered cool gear is, for me, part of the problem. Cool gear has minimal RP benefit outside occasionally getting to play MacGuffin unless there's some interesting process that leads to its creation - like an expedition to a dangerous place to get unusual materials. On the other hand, bribes, rent, survival expenses and pay for hirelings all make excellent story hooks. Boss couldn't pay what was promised? Meaty conflict right there. The rich indie should be being encouraged to start a group that will spark conflicts and intrigues; instead, we have the opposite, where the Merchant Houses squat applying pressure to any group perceived to be doing the same business as their monopoly and encouraging players to blow their sid on cool gear instead.
Quote from: Lizzie on January 25, 2014, 11:01:10 PM
That's how it is currently. And you're suggesting we make it even MORE difficult for players to enjoy playing sponsored GMH roles, by basically telling them to not even bother trying to hire anyone because their only job now is to be a vendor, and all his potential hirelings are having fun getting rich and spending sids..as independents.
The inverse of this would be why must several players be slaved to a PC GMH authority so they can feel like they matter?
I honestly do believe that most of these merchants could benefit from having a regular job. As it stands, selling seems to be something more of a side-thing in between babysitting clannies.
and cue hate cycle? :(
Quote from: Quirk on January 26, 2014, 01:03:20 AM
How did we get here? Why are people clamouring to spend sid on specific stuff that isn't in the shops?
This is the cynical, jaded me talking. There's a bunch of different "Lizzies" but this one is always itching to answer questions like yours. Please don't think I feel this way about all aspects of the game. I feel this about only some aspects of it.
We got here because the constant push for new players over the years, has pushed many of the new players over from "RP-encouraged" or "RP-enforced" games where the whole point of gaming is to get more stuff. More levels, more loot, more fancy items, more skills, bigger stats.
Many of these new players have found outside means to learn about where to get the best of this that and the other thing, and which items will give them the most/best/highest stat/score/skill bump.
Many of these new players, have since become "not so new" players, and are now teaching the newest batch of new players their methods.
So now we have a game filled with people who I believe truly do want to play an RPI, in the spirit in which it was created - but most of them still play as if it were a non-RPI because the Cleganes of the world have gone elsewhere.
It's the mindset of the players that has caused the game to be what it is. The ONLY true, real, honest-to-goodness way to "fix" it is to shut down and re-create the game from scratch.
Or, we can accept that this IS how it is...and make bandaid adjustments to give players who sincerely don't know any better, a nudge in the "right" direction. More staff oversight, instead of more player restrictions. We aren't even enforcing the restrictions we have, with regards to roleplay. Higher-ups are urged to -not- PK people who are clearly more interested in gaining their fat loot than they are participating in scenes, even if those people are gaining more and more and more, and wearing better stuff than nobles wear just to show off how much "more" they have.
Now, you can go in game and have people who still can't type a cohesive sentence, telling your character, almost word for word from the help files, how to metagame your skills. ICly - it makes zero sense at all. But they don't care about what makes sense ICly. They care only that they're trying to "help" you learn how to get a skill bump and branch.
It's become a game of "he with the most stuff wins." And I put the responsibility to change it squarely on the players. Including myself, and I've already been adjusting my approach to the problem as I perceive it.
We need to re-teach most of the new players from this past year's batch, and the ones from the year before, how to stop using "I need more loot" as their primary goal. Kill more kryl to get more shells to sell to the shops to make more loot to have a nicer apartment so we have more room to store more shells, while Sue Crafter spam-crafts her way to master so she can make master-crafted kryl-shell stuff and get more sids and get a noble to say how awesome she is so that no one can touch her without risking pissing off the noble, which allows her to master craft something else next month, which makes her more sids, which gets her hunters more fancy kryl-resistant armor, which lets them get more kryl, etc. etc.
The above - is what I perceive the problem to be. I could be totally off, without any semblance of understanding of what the actual problem is, or even if there is a problem at all. But that is my perception of it. In order to "fix" that problem, you need to agree that it IS the problem. And then, you have to change the mindset of the players so they stop doing that. Good luck. I can only fix my own behavior, I can't fix anyone else's. "Be the change" doesn't work when you're trying to set an example to people who have completely different goals. Your example won't help them achieve their goals, and therefore, they don't give a shit that you're setting it.
/end rant
I kinda see your frustration. I think it is important to remember that one aspect of Arm that makes it awesome is that a ton of work has been put into the code over the years, and, well, that a lot of players find that part of the game more entertaining than others.
On a MUSH, coded skill is often nonexistent; they're telnet talkers with roleplay. There is little to no sophistication of code.
With my admittedly limited perspective, I don't see many players giving the finger to the gameworld by focusing exclusively on code. If anything, at least where I play, the code facilitates roleplay, plots, influence, etc, and the best players know how to integrate coded goals and more intangible goals.
Also, re: the Cleganes are gone. Josh is a badass roleplayer. I ripped off one of his emotes I saw nearly a decade ago just yesterday. But part of what made him so great to a lot of us was that he was older, he was one of the best writers in the game, and he had been playing Arm for a Long Time, even when people like me were just getting going. By the time I started playing, he had already fucked over the gypsies and earned a permanent blackmark from the staff, yet he still served as a good role model through his characters, plots, and general roleplay.
*shrug* I think there are some good leaders in this game. Characters don't need well-written, literary emotes to be solid leaders. I mean, look at LoD. Did he emote? Yeah. Were they good emotes? Yeah, I still use one emote regularly that he always did, just because it always stuck with me. But they weren't Clegane emotes, and 95% of the playerbase's won't and never will be. People stand out for all sorts of reasons.
Roleplay vs. code... What you may not know is that LoD relied heavily on the mercantile system/code in general and was labeled as a huge effing twink by some people. And that's bullshit because he used the code to facilitate and reinforce roleplay; those people were just either jealous or had a limited perspective. If someone like him can catch shit for using the code to facilitate interaction/plot/whatever, anyone can. Usually, the people casting judgment have a flawed or limited perspective.
Random note: I don't think nobles should feel very threatened by PCs with overt displays of wealth. Do you think Bill Gates is jealous of a million dollar bling bling necklace owned by Lil Wayne? No... he probably thinks he's a dumbass for spending his money unwisely, and if not, he'll think of another reason to think Wayne's a moron.
Armorcrafting for the Sand Lord in Storm is broken. My human of above average intelligence with advanced armorcrafting usually broke even or lost ten to thirty sids a day, which for a pc counting sids can be devastating. Maybe it was never meant to be a self-sustaining job, but it honestly looked like it should.
Around that same time, a spice grebber frequently kept ruining the idea of a struggling spice grebber for me with always telling me things like, "I only made two small today damn it," and they were not in any way giving me the impression that they were any worse off than the tailors. They were probably advanced or master forage, I do not know. Yes, people should totally be able to afford skimmers, but I think it should take a damn long time, and being a struggling but proud unskilled Storm worker is like 50% of the hardship for me in that town.
Quote from: long live miley cyrus on January 26, 2014, 10:41:12 AM
Armorcrafting for the Sand Lord in Storm is broken. My human of above average intelligence with advanced armorcrafting usually broke even or lost ten to thirty sids a day, which for a pc counting sids can be devastating. Maybe it was never meant to be a self-sustaining job, but it honestly looked like it should.
Around that same time, a spice grebber frequently kept ruining the idea of a struggling spice grebber for me with always telling me things like, "I only made two small today damn it," and they were not in any way giving me the impression that they were any worse off than the tailors. They were probably advanced or master forage, I do not know. Yes, people should totally be able to afford skimmers, but I think it should take a damn long time, and being a struggling but proud unskilled Storm worker is like 50% of the hardship for me in that town.
Haggle would have made the Sand Lord stuff more lucrative. Materials bought in shops often are very limiting in terms of profit compared to gathering raw materials outside. Risk vs. reward kinda thing, here.
The thing about leaving Storm for any reason is that it can be exceptionally dangerous without certain a certain guild/subguilds. And even for those types, there are beetles, scrab, lurkers... other things that drift in from the Sea.
Red Storm is arguably filled with the most dangerous people, like Roadhouse on crack acid and steroids, and this is only matched by how dangerous the outlying environs are. If people do a job like that for very long without dying, they just might not be a dumbass.
Yeah, always remember that lone grebbers and hunters are insane. They actually go outside!
Going outside in a place that is named after the abysmal weather next to a giant sea of quicksand-like silt... that's beyond insane.
But hey, insanity pays well until you drown, get your head bitten off by a van-sized beetle, or whisked away by an evil abomination.
You know, reading this bitching about indies making 1k + a day... Makes me feel like you're bitching about some of my characters. Have they gotten to this point? Yes, but it took work, and maybe a little bit of poking and proding at the code to figure out. Is it easy to make 1k+ salting? No, because first you have to brave the harsh sands (where anything, ANYTHING can happen, whether you believe it or not I have seen some scary crap), and slowly work your forage up there. You likely DO NOT want to be salting every stinking IG day, because you should be keeping your ears open for who needs what, and it's dangerous, the whole time my PC is out there my pulse is freaking pounding, l n l e l w l s (even though you're already watching one of these directions), keeping my eyes peeled for Meks, hordes of scrab, the occassional gith, raptor packs, strange breezes, oh shit the sky is falling time to get in!
And by the time you can make 1k sid in a day salting, do you really want to? You've invested some time developing your character, greasing the right palms, making friends and secret alliances, these things take work, you've also got customers for the fruits of your grebbing from other places, because that time you spent -not- making money actually turns into -making- money after a while, by providing much needed goods and services to those who would either be forced to go out themselves or SOL. The more time you spend doing the same thing, in near to the same place, the more chance someone will notice. Trust me, raiders are scary, rogue gickers are scary, you've got things you've got going on that matter to your PC more than stuffing Nenyuck with coin. And where does all that coin go? Bribes, GMHs for goods, feeding and watering the less fortunate, rent, bailing a friend out of a desperate situation (if even possible), drinks to curry favor and generally be thought of as alright. This money YOU DO NOT KEEP, it goes to entertaining and providing for those clans YOU DID NOT JOIN, and WHY? Because it's something to do, it's a realistic objective for a PC who's found a way to wheel and deal their way into coins. This PC knows they're not going to live forever, they're surrounded by death, misfortune, jealousy, enemies around every corner, and no one to bail their butt out when Senor Prissypants decides, OOC, that so and so is doing too good to live, UNLESS they take steps to make sure they're covered.
So no, you don't want to salt every stinking day of the week and stuff Nenyuk full of coins, because it's scary dangerous, even off-peak, and the whole time, you're spending your money on other people (partly OOC because you know they can't make the money to buy drinks, etc., but a convenient IC excuse exists) because you're just that kind of person. Hammering independents for their coin is not going to make GMHs and such any more fun, but take coin out of their pocket, prevent the Byn from having independent contracts, lower the amount of goods available to independent merchants and houses which may need something they can't seem to aquire for whatever reason, and reduce the materials available at a reasonable price to clanned players who make money on the side to pay their rent and buy drinks and special treats through crafting and such.
This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree, this is what I have seen in my limited experience, and if there are rich indies running around, I haven't seen many of them last all -that- long before they ran afoul of something, but I don't generally play in Tuluk and Luir's needs more business and interaction anyway because for the people stuck there every day all day it can get BORING. Make clans more fun by increasing pay to where they can reasonably entertain themselves in their free hours, cut them more slack on schedules, maybe let them perform certain activities under certain strict conditions that will allow them to patch the holes in their income, because RPing a slave with three hours a night of freedom and maybe a couple days off an IG week (which is a RL day, for cripe's sake!) in order to RP with clan outsiders, make contacts, mudsex, etc., is freaking lame and totally no fun after a while. Saying "Those indies risking their butts out there all by themselves to bring things in and sling coin around to us that don't have as much" because you're jealous is not productive. If salting 1k a day is all that safe and you think you'd like that better compared to getting your delicious meals and water and a roof over your head, places to keep your things, and potential instant friends, all without having to really work for it aside from find some recruiter's mind, then by all means, quit your job and hit the salts.
So yeah, most of my PCs end up in clans, being an indie is hard work, and even with the coin, few truly appreciate what your PC does, and then they get swallowed by some huge monster in one bite. Maybe there are indie players lining Nenyuk with coins, wearing silks and trying to pass themselves off as nobility, but I never see them, and I doubt they'd last long if they appeared in public like that. But as I said, there's a certain city I don't play in.
/rant
I think a person can be a good fighter and have decent knowledge of the gameworld and have lived for a while, while still being one of those people Lizzie was talking about, who, when I talk about how hard it is for spice grebbers, says something like, "What? I'm disappointed if I don't make four hundred sids a week spice grebbing." Not the exact words, but close to it.
With regards to those people, I think its more of a perception problem for a few than a coded problem for everybody, and that regardless of what happens to moneymaking in the game, if these people don't drop the rpg Swimming-In-Money mentality, they'll find ways to exploit the system.
Nobles should be absolutely swimming in money, though. There should be a thing where they can drop by Nenyuk's, and withdraw anywhere from 1 to 1000 a RL day without having to do anything. That way, a pc noble, who is not all-powerful and still beneath upper nobles or whatever they're called, can regularly eat foreign food at the most expensive tavern while taking a somewhat morbid interest in paying for mercenaries to kill a random criminal hiding in Luir's/Storm. All the while complaining that their 3,000 sid shoes hurt their feet during the occasional walk to Nenyuk's. And so walking to the bank once a RL day doesn't become a weird thing, this money can accrue over time.
EDIT: I'm not complaining about spice grebbers making a lot and getting used to it; I just think it runs counter to the echoes you see in the tavern, and the local culture that's reinforced by the occasional room description and npc mdesc.
I'm broadly on the same page, Lizzie, but personally, I think people carrying the D&D/rogue-like attitude of "need more loot! need better loot!" into the game only become a real problem when the game starts bending to satisfy this urge in ways that hurt storytelling.
I strongly feel that the whole point of an RPI is the stories that are created. Stories need hooks. Greed is a pretty good hook. But something needs done with that hook: Greedy Amos wants a weapon better than anyone else's so Amos spam-forages in a remote location to earn five thousand sids to special order the top of the line sword from Salarr is, frankly, a terrible story. There are lots of ways to make it a better story. Greedy Amos goes to Crafter Malik, and Malik tells him that the best sword he knows of was made of bahamet shell and Amos will have to bring him some. Greedy Amos has to deal with an elf who's reputed to be a great swordsmith. Greedy Amos cashes in a favour to have a sword stolen from someone important. Greedy Amos rolls into town rich with the proceeds of some unsavoury endeavour, and a cut-throat competition for Amos' money begins between Crafters Malik and Talia.
When PCs are playing mobile vending machines which can magic up the best gear without running any risk or getting anyone else involved, we're seeing a terrible waste of greed as a story hook. When the mobile vending machines are then trying to jump in to stop some of the stories that could use that hook coming to life, we've got to an odd, bad place. I don't think it's an altogether new place, but it might be manifesting in some worse ways than previously.
I don't think the game needs torn down and started over, although Arm 2.0 had many good ideas and a better understanding of some of these issues. Within the setting, there are better stories to tell. The bazaar of Allanak is surely full of them: stories featuring feuds and struggles for survival and the fractured tribal enmities of the elves. The dullest part of the game lies in the static relationships of the richest Houses. Allowing those to retreat into the same VNPC space Nenyuk occupies and letting smaller organisations tell more daring stories on a smaller scale would make a huge difference. It wouldn't take a great deal to start such a process: perhaps some eminent Salarri or Kadian, listening to the protests of younger members of the House, decides that dealing with the many incessant requests of those of low social class is a waste of time when most coin in the House's pocket comes from the large deals cut with Great Houses and city-states, and decrees that the House will no longer deal with such people. A space would open up for PC competition, and smaller organisations would jostle to supply the grebbers and hunters in much the same way as a trip round the bazaar would suggest is already happening.
I think there is an interesting distinction to be made. I don't think the targets of this conversation are the people who are playing independents because they have an indie concept or because they don't enjoy clans. I think the "issue" are the people who say they are playing indies for the wealth opportunities.
Maybe that is obvious and goes without saying, but there have been a few posts that made me think it might be worth clarifying.
Eh, every time I've played in a GMH or a noble house, there have always been tons of plots and stories going on. Sure, the GMH special-app PC spends a lot of time sitting around vending items, but that's because a) it's one of his IC jobs, b) he gets money for it, c) making people happy with their items makes them happy to do things for you, d) it's too dangerous to actually go out and do the things you've ordered your minions to do, and e) he's spending a bunch of time in the bar anyway because 90% of the command & control job can be handled via the Way. This idea that GMHs must be stagnant because the family member always seems to be idling around the bar is, from my experience, completely wrong.
As far as the "vending machine" aspect is concerned, the fact that GMHs can request items out of storage is largely a matter of convenience for everyone, because a) not every GMH special-app is a crafter, b) even if they were a crafter, there's no guarantee they'd have the appropriate skill, and have it trained well enough to craft the item in question, and c) a good majority of GMH items aren't linked to a crafting recipe in the first place (and nobody wants to go through such a massive database and fix something that quite frankly doesn't need to be fixed).
Quote from: Barzalene on January 26, 2014, 01:11:33 PM
I think there is an interesting distinction to be made. I don't think the targets of this conversation are the people who are playing independents because they have an indie concept or because they don't enjoy clans. I think the "issue" are the people who say they are playing indies for the wealth opportunities.
Maybe that is obvious and goes without saying, but there have been a few posts that made me think it might be worth clarifying.
Is possible, but some of the "solutions" will seriously harm legitimate business, in the interests of hurting a few players who aren't playing the game correctly.
As far as Lizzie's rant goes, it is not a new phenomenon at all. A lot of the older players long ago were just as item/promotion/skillpower centric as are new players now. And there was a significant lot of them that were experienced enough to know the code extremely well and use it to their advantage. It's a symptom of playing a coded RPI. Hell, when I started, loot and gathering shit was one of the biggest things I loved about the game. We're not suddenly getting a horde of newbies that are somehow any different from the ones we got in previous years.
What makes Arm great though is that you can actively play a character who runs around in a loin cloth with a bone club and still have fun.
Personally, I don't think it's the killer gear that makes people play independents. House and GMH guys always have the badass stuff (I mean, sure, you can bring up the certain POS looking items that actually has badass stats but whatever), and the independents are running around in whatever they can manage to afford from the NPC shops. Personally, I think the House armors are some of the neatest-looking stuff in the game. (Tor Scorpions look hawt, ya'll).
One thing that could be interesting would be to de-link the Nenyuk accounts. So no depositing 5000 coins in Allanak and withdrawing them in Luirs, you have them all separate. Have your ass drag them around. I'm less sure putting taxes or whatever on the accounts would help much.
I've also said this time and time again: Nobody remembers your indie get rich quick chars that last 2 months. People remember Sergeants and Byn Lieutenants and people that make the game shine.
And yes, I think a bigger issue than the money is that independents have all the opportunities to go play hide and seek with mekillots that they want. Clanned chars are a lot more restricted, and you might feel a lot more attached to not letting them die. Independent characters might link to a bigger 'throwaway character' mindset, where the player is just having fun without the responsibility.
Quote from: Bogre on January 26, 2014, 01:38:06 PM
And yes, I think a bigger issue than the money is that independents have all the opportunities to go play hide and seek with mekillots that they want. Clanned chars are a lot more restricted, and you might feel a lot more attached to not letting them die. Independent characters might link to a bigger 'throwaway character' mindset, where the player is just having fun without the responsibility.
In fairness, playing devil's advocate, truth is that clans are only as restricted as the current leader is. I know of leaders who let their people have freedom, fuck the past. Balls to the wall.
Quote from: ShaLeah on January 26, 2014, 03:26:45 PM
Quote from: Bogre on January 26, 2014, 01:38:06 PM
And yes, I think a bigger issue than the money is that independents have all the opportunities to go play hide and seek with mekillots that they want. Clanned chars are a lot more restricted, and you might feel a lot more attached to not letting them die. Independent characters might link to a bigger 'throwaway character' mindset, where the player is just having fun without the responsibility.
In fairness, playing devil's advocate, truth is that clans are only as restricted as the current leader is. I know of leaders who let their people have freedom, fuck the past. Balls to the wall.
Not entirely true. My leader PC was told to enforce what I think of as the biggest 'restriction' that people complain about clans having straight from the staff, when even the most loose deviation from the 'don't leave the gates without a higher-up' rule was being discussed.
That said, I don't really have a problem with that sort of restriction, since they have mostly been enforced for realistic reasons in my experience.
The whole point of what begun in Armageddon Random Thoughts was not how to kill every ways for an indie to make money but how to make Houses in general MORE attractive for a larger part of the playerbase.
This has turned into a ridiculous back and forth that leads absolutely nowhere and, in many cases, is simply eye-rolling worthy.
I dunno. I never bothered to check whether or not the people under my sponsored role kept to the schedule/stayed within the gates or not, and staff never really seemed to mind in that case. On the other hand, I died rather quickly, so maybe there wasn't the time.
Quote from: Patuk on January 26, 2014, 03:53:13 PM
I dunno. I never bothered to check whether or not the people under my sponsored role kept to the schedule/stayed within the gates or not, and staff never really seemed to mind in that case. On the other hand, I died rather quickly, so maybe there wasn't the time.
I need to know what sponsored role you've played because I find it highly hard to believe that Staff would not care if you started allowing all of your clannies to go outside the gates if they were not supposed to and could do what the hell they wanted.
What kind of leader were you anyway if you "never bothered to check" what they were doing in the first place?
Remember that in any of the roles you play, you are not King Borsail or Prince Salarr, you are just a low almost-nobody kind of guy who was lucky enough that the 20 smart brothers he had in front of him in the succession lineage are all dead and the family has no choice now but to give you a chance.
You don't make the rules, you need to enforce what your higher ups have decided what would be better for the people under you. Not giving a flying fuck about what your clannies are doing is just as worse as telling them not to do anything and telling them to spar all day long. It's not because you think you can tell them that they are free as a bird to go forth and prosper that Staff won't animate Senior Salarr and tell you to knock it off and start acting like a leader.
Quote from: Malken on January 26, 2014, 03:58:39 PM
Quote from: Patuk on January 26, 2014, 03:53:13 PM
I dunno. I never bothered to check whether or not the people under my sponsored role kept to the schedule/stayed within the gates or not, and staff never really seemed to mind in that case. On the other hand, I died rather quickly, so maybe there wasn't the time.
I need to know what sponsored role you've played because I find it highly hard to believe that Staff would not care if you started allowing all of your clannies to go outside the gates if they were not supposed to and could do what the hell they wanted.
What kind of leader were you anyway if you "never bothered to check" what they were doing in the first place?
Remember that in any of the roles you play, you are not King Borsail or Prince Salarr, you are just a low almost-nobody kind of guy who was lucky enough that the 20 smart brothers he had in front of him in the succession lineage are all dead and the family has no choice now but to give you a chance.
You don't make the rules, you need to enforce what your higher ups have decided what would be better for the people under you. Not giving a flying fuck about what your clannies are doing is just as worse as telling them not to do anything and telling them to spar all day long. It's not because you think you can tell them that they are free as a bird to go forth and prosper that Staff won't animate Senior Salarr and tell you to knock it off and start acting like a leader.
Please don't tell me what I was doing on a character you may not have known at all, let alone in building arguments off of it. It won't have you convince anyone.
But then this is the gdb, so I guess convincing people is out of the question.
You come into this thread and write a tiny two line sentences, half of which is you telling us that your PC didn't care/bothered to check if your clannies left the gates or stuck to schedules and you're telling me I'm making shit up? Wow.
The only reason I'm replying to you is because I certainly don't want future leaders to think that what you did with your leader sponsored role (which I'm taking from your own words) is something they should do if they want to attract more players in their clans.
Someone posted that they had staff chase them when they dropped some of the more restrictive rules in their clan. I reiterated by saying that I did not experience such strictness myself.
If you feel the need to add to my story from there in assuming my thoughts and other actions, fine, but don't expect me to like it or agree.
Let's try to stay on topic and keep our disagreements polite before the thread gets locked.
(http://i.imgur.com/WJUiY.gif)
I think some of you are letting certain real world attitudes leak into the game. There's nothing wrong with a character always wanting more than they have. It's "human" nature to want more, more more. Condemning people for being "greedy" because they don't force themselves to conform to what -your- idea of an RPI mud is all about is pretty much the same as saying it's not fair because so and so isn't playing the way you want them to. If people striving to increase their wealth breaks the entire game, then it's the game that needs adjustment, not people's attitudes and desires.
Quote from: morrigan on January 26, 2014, 04:50:46 PM
I think some of you are letting certain real world attitudes leak into the game. There's nothing wrong with a character always wanting more than they have. It's "human" nature to want more, more more. Condemning people for being "greedy" because they don't force themselves to conform to what -your- idea of an RPI mud is all about is pretty much the same as saying it's not fair because so and so isn't playing the way you want them to. If people striving to increase their wealth breaks the entire game, then it's the game that needs adjustment, not people's attitudes and desires.
Players are consistently expected to adhere to documentation and playing standards. Your argument is flawed because it essentially suggests that if players don't follow these standards then it's not the player's fault, but the game's fault. No one should blaming indie
players for doing what they do, because there simply aren't any standards beyond "harsh world" and "low position in social structure". We have literally nothing else besides that to go on - which leaves players to interpret very broadly what their indie can and should be doing.
The best thing would be to figure out what players actually should be expected to do (or not do) as independents. We should be striving, as players, to make players and the game better. That means players and staff having a discussion about things like this.
But ultimately Malken is right about how the RAT discussion was about clans being better, and how this thread is about indies being worse. We should start a new thread to discuss the clan problem, since that is probably more easily fixable than any perceived problems with indies.
I'm just getting annoyed with thread like these because it's always the same thing, over and over again..
Player A: I think we should find a solution to the problem regarding indies being able to make 1000 sids a day. This is why I think it's wrong and this is how they do it: Explains.
Player B: No, you're wrong, maybe they can do 1000 sids a day but the next day I guarantee you they will die from X Y Z's. And it's only a few players who do it.
Player A: I think it's too easy to make money with spicing and maybe we could lower the monetary reward given for jobs like salting, spicing and foraging.
Player B: No, you're wrong. If you want to spice, you need to face deadly storms, an army of 'gikers and many 'meks, you might be able to get away with it for a few days, but I guarantee you it's super dangerous. (while the rest of the smart people who just keep quiet and mostly just read the GDB snickers at that.)
It just gets very frustrating that no discussions ever get anywhere because there's always someone coming back with some extreme example as to why what the previous person wrote about is totally wrong and how they are totally wrong.
Quote from: Cutthroat on January 26, 2014, 04:59:20 PM
Quote from: morrigan on January 26, 2014, 04:50:46 PM
I think some of you are letting certain real world attitudes leak into the game. There's nothing wrong with a character always wanting more than they have. It's "human" nature to want more, more more. Condemning people for being "greedy" because they don't force themselves to conform to what -your- idea of an RPI mud is all about is pretty much the same as saying it's not fair because so and so isn't playing the way you want them to. If people striving to increase their wealth breaks the entire game, then it's the game that needs adjustment, not people's attitudes and desires.
Players are consistently expected to adhere to documentation and playing standards. Your argument is flawed because it essentially suggests that if players don't follow these standards then it's not the player's fault, but the game's fault. No one should blaming indie players for doing what they do, because there simply aren't any standards beyond "harsh world" and "low position in social structure". We have literally nothing else besides that to go on - which leaves players to interpret very broadly what their indie can and should be doing.
The best thing would be to figure out what players actually should be expected to do (or not do) as independents. We should be striving, as players, to make players and the game better. That means players and staff having a discussion about things like this.
But ultimately Malken is right about how the RAT discussion was about clans being better, and how this thread is about indies being worse. We should start a new thread to discuss the clan problem, since that is probably more easily fixable than any perceived problems with indies.
Except my argument isn't flawed because you supported it in your second sentence. There's no game documentation that says "Commoners do not ever try to make money. They are perfectly happy with owning nothing and scrounging for food." If the best thing we can do is figure out what players actually should be expected to do, then that means the same thing as the problem being with the game, even if the problem is a lack of documentation and set in stone guidelines. Your response made it sound like I was saying we shouldn't be discussing it, which wasn't my intent. My intent was to point out that there's nothing wrong with greed..in fact Zalanthas is supposed to be rife with it.
I don't know how to fix clans so they are as much fun as being independent, but I know that some of them do a better job of it than others. I don't think it's the fault of the PC leaders, but rather the rules that are set up for the clan, which might be feasible for larger numbers but become onerous with only a couple of players.
The thing is to make clans so they are fun to a wider range of player. There must be a significant portion of the pbase that doesn't find it very satisfying, because this conversation keeps coming up. But it's likely we don't all find the same things dissatisfying.
For me, it's not about the coin so much as it is about the restrictions and mostly the forced isolation. That's me; it's reasonable to accept that there are players who care about getting rich and collecting things. I don't think it's constructive to criticize what people find enjoyable. If you want more players, you're going to have to find a way to attract people who like different things. If you instead just take away what these other players like to do, they will wander away to another game.
I think giving clanned people a bit more coin would probably help. I don't think it's going to create inflation because, after all, it's not a real economy. It's coded. Besides, so what if a guy can afford a beer every week in the bar? I like the idea of clanned people being able to have little private rooms. These are all RP niche things that spread the appeal. Little things which improve the situation of the players who decide to play in clans, and support the game that way, will feed themselves: attracting more people to the clan, then the play gets more enjoyable, then you get more people, and so on.
I dunno if I'm doing it right or wrong but when I play independents I stay dirt-poor. I do everything I can to scrape together money...and then throw it at higher powers than myself just to bribe them into letting me stay alive in their territory.
Is independents being rich the fault of the player, or the establishment? Maybe you Templars, crime bosses et al need to be supremely more ruthless.
An example, one I am familiar with personally:
Byn Runner:
You don't get paid (unless someone loves you, which usually, they can't, because the pay for contracts is only enough to split between the important people like troopers, sarges and the Byn cut, which is completely understandable)
Your mounts cost 20 sid to get out to go on contracts and have an awesome time (sometimes the Sarge or someone else will pay, but it's coming out of their pocket and you start to feel like a burden for risking your PCs life to repel invading Martians)
Some rinthi jerk scraped the stables before your day off, and you have no craft skills
You spend most of your time training, rough circling, scraping dung, chopping tubers, maintaining equipment, which is great for developing in-clan bonds and character development, but terrible for getting to know those outside
There are quite possibly people who are plotting your untimely demise from the bunk next to yours
Just forget ever getting equipment, unless you loot gith or get lucky and the sarge lets you loot another dead runner
Archery or throw? Nope.
Don't get too into that mudsex, it's time to get back to base for ruf circle with all the lonely dwarfs, someone -will- be shattering your barrier soon, especially if you're a vicious beast of a warrior
BUT
When stuff goes down, it's a blast, even if you're just cannon fodder
The sense that your PC is part of something larger than themselves, that you're actually doing something as part of a team
The training is a real step up, and even if you accept a promotion or two you can leave for another job at any time (barring desertion)
If you don't know about concepts like poisons or desert survival you can really learn these skills
300 sid really is not a lot of coin when you can go out and get it, should you find yourself in a bind
Despite all the mucking about and being just another dumb Runner, it's actually quite, quite fun when there's people around
HERE, for me at least, the pros outweigh the cons. But not every character I make is Byn material, some really aren't good for diddly, truth be told. I've had a blast playing through numerous characters in this clan, some who have not survived past two weeks. Would totally do it again, just, exploring new things without being led into a kill-crazy horde off hellbeasts can also be kind of rewarding, in the sense that maybe my next character who has to run from said horde has a chance in Drov of KNOWING WHERE THE KRATH HE IS. Sure there's drawbacks, but come on, a chance at being a grizzled, dirty merc, you know you want to try it, again, and again (or at least, I do, some kind of sick masochism, I guess).
I have since been trying other clans, but one has a terrible and lonely location, and just is not fun if you're not playing when everyone else is. I've just managed to kick my Byn withdrawls, but every now and then the urge strikes, and I have to stop myself.
God, the Byn is awesome.
Its the most restrictive clan in the game, but it manages to have as many players who've logged in at least ten days ago as the rest of the clans combined.
Let's try to pick that apart and see what aspects of it are so damn attractive which can be transplanted to the other types of clans.
Fujikoma already did some good work on that.
I suspect that the rough and tumble, fighty aspect of the Byn is what draws people to it. As pointed out above, one of the problems with the restrictions on clan members' behavior is the schedule, which can become very tedious when there are only one or two active players in said clan. Maybe if we had fewer clans so that more people would be in the same clan, it would help people maintain interest in the clanned role. I don't know if that would work out though, and personally I'm generally against closing off more and more options for players. It's a tough question. I don't even have good suggestions, just observations about my thoughts on the subject.
Quote from: long live miley cyrus on January 26, 2014, 06:16:23 PM
God, the Byn is awesome.
Its the most restrictive clan in the game, but it manages to have as many players who've logged in at least ten days ago as the rest of the clans combined.
Let's try to pick that apart and see what aspects of it are so damn attractive which can be transplanted to the other types of clans.
Fujikoma already did some good work on that.
Thanks! But I must insist, the Byn model works for the Byn, for GMHs, the Kurraci Fist, I've never played in a noble house, but I imagine they're different too. The appeal of the Byn is not just the image, the inclusiveness to other races (only outdone in this sense by Kurac), the opportunities for conflict, the sheer grit of it all is amazingly fun, and there's usually something going on, because the Byn gets mad contracts.
Everything else is different, different image, different focuses, different goals, different recources, and different restrictions, the mold cannot be fit to other clans. The only improvements I would suggest for the Byn is a mounted combat field with a stable and an archery/thrown range, but I imagine this hasn't been done for whatever reason. The main thing with the other clans is the pay doesn't stack up against the indies (i can only speak for indies in Allanak), but the indies, if they're doing it right, aren't ALWAYS guzzling down sids from the salts (and if they are a big, fat arrow/monster whatever is going to find them eventually) and a fair portion of those sids are going to keep their assess covered, and to aquire items which make their difficult lives more manageable, like comfortable desert wear, tents, water, food, an apartment (if you can find one). I think someone already called me an idiot in another thread for my perception of the hazards indies face, well, they were pretty damned hazerdous to me (NPCs certainly not so much as PCs, JEEBUS! the angry PCs I've encountered have been CRAZY), I don't know what game they're playing. But generally if you move around intelligently and stay unpredictable, don't overdo it, an keep your wits about you, you can avoid some of them, but not always. Sooner or later something really nasty is going to catch you... And maybe you get a mixture of lucky and the rewards of not just spam-foraging by paying attention to your surroundings and get away.
If you're a hunter, and not a grebber or salter, suppose that's different. I haven't been on too many indie hunts, so I really can't say. But Salters were pointed out as a broken method of earning coin, but after a while of salting your butt off, more coin from one days worth of salting is a just reward for experience, means the less time you need to spend busting your hump to make ends meet and pay off everybody you need to, and more time you can spend enjoying the company of other PCs and pursuing various really interesting plotlines (yes, they are out there, not easy to find), and when those run out, shoot, join a clan. The more sids on hand, the more are available to tip those poor Runners that survived to the destination so maybe they can have a few drinks and/or affford the next contract's stables fees, or even save up for that mace they've had their eye on for a while, or buy a humble gift for someone special to them. I don't know, just a thought.
In the other thread, someone was reccomending to bring the pay of GMHs and others more in line with that of salters at the top of their game, minus food, water, shelter, etc, and throwing in more percs like private rooms (so you're not kanking in the stable behind the dungpile terrified of being noticed), permission to leave the gates and such if you know what you're doing. These sound very reasonable to me, however, I've rambled too long about why being able to make this kind of money quickly with a significant investment of time is important in a thread that's for the opposite purpose. So I should stop.
Man, the Byn...
You never know what the heck you're going to get into. That's great! Always something happening soon.
There's almost always someone to play with.
They get a lot of staff attention. It's often brutal, but great fun.
I'll tell you why the Byn is so popular, there's always something to do, something EXCITING and things that are often never the same as the week before and this!
They get a lot of staff attention.
They get a lot of staff attention.
They get a lot of staff attention.
I think people like to play in the Byn because they know there's likely easy interaction with lots of people. Sort of circular. More players/player density would make other clans enjoyable for a lot of the same reasons that Fujikoma just listed.
I've played in lots of different clans over the years, and while I'd accept X-D's list of changes in a heart-beat, I think people only tend to have problems with schedules and pay when there's nobody to interact with. Because when those clans are booming with good roleplayers, I've always had a great time, regardless of if my character could buy ale in on his days off or have the best gear.
A good leader who keeps their underlings busy and entertained will bring all the boys and girls to the yard.
Zoan was correct just above... If you think an independent PC is getting too rich/influential report them to the nearest templar/noble/GMH/criminal organization. These people are generally more than willing to relieve an unprotected purse of its burden. You may even get a reward or protection of your own out of the deal, especially if done on a regular basis.
There are lots of ways to fix this "problem" OOCly, there is just as man, if not more ways to handle it in the game.
All you people who are griping about how rich independents rob the game of interactions, get out there and interact to get the problem you see solved; stop expecting others to do things for you out here when you can do them in there. ;)
Staff attention is awesome, but I've had some boom times in clans I've been in with not much special staff stuff going on.
The Byn is great because there's lots of people, you get to go on adventures, and you become badass if you can survive a year IC with them. It's also a great way to learn the geography and animals of Zalanthas without being a solo explorer who gets their brainz eaten right away.
But remember...when you join the Byn, you know that is what you are getting, hell, that is the reason to join.
Other clans who have many of the rules of the byn and the byn schedule, but not the byn lifestyle...well, they just pale.
Besides, one other great thing about the byn...and I think it figures into the thoughts of most people that play there...I can quit ANY time.
Hey sarge, I am done...Alright, give me your clan gear...here ya go...Sarge has dumped you...later. And if you have been a trooper for a while, often they even give back the three hundred you paid.
Five years later if you want, you can rejoin, often as a trooper again and at no fee..
All those reasons and more make the Byn my fav clan.
Quote from: X-D on January 26, 2014, 09:24:48 PM
But remember...when you join the Byn, you know that is what you are getting, hell, that is the reason to join.
Other clans who have many of the rules of the byn and the byn schedule, but not the byn lifestyle...well, they just pale.
Besides, one other great thing about the byn...and I think it figures into the thoughts of most people that play there...I can quit ANY time.
Hey sarge, I am done...Alright, give me your clan gear...here ya go...Sarge has dumped you...later. And if you have been a trooper for a while, often they even give back the three hundred you paid.
Five years later if you want, you can rejoin, often as a trooper again and at no fee..
All those reasons and more make the Byn my fav clan.
This, very much.
But I must admit I greatly enjoyed the Kuracci Fist. The thing that sucked about it was OMG NO ONE IS EVER HERE I'M GOING CRAZY! And when they are "Get to training, Recruit!"
Which is why I think it would be great if we could flood Luir's with tentdwelling grebbers and hunters with loyalty to niether city state, with humble storage lockers for their things. SO KURAC WOULD HAVE PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH BESIDES THE RARE TRAVELLER. For me to run a kickass indie? Well, that's a small part of it, but mostly I feel Luir's is a great place and could be enjoyed much more fully with a slightly larger player population. Spice, desert elves, breeds not getting crapped on at every opportunity, awesome desert gear available for those fortunate and/or clever enough to amass the coins without travel to distant lands (but good luck getting that sweet Salarri stuff in a timely manner). Suddenly, there's people here, the lonely Fist member who's stuck tavern-sitting has someone to talk to, the Kuracci Merchant can sit around and chat when orders aren't flooding in and they aren't stationed somewhere.
Massive tent orgies, sacks filled with gemstones, pelts, easy critters, carrus standing on piles of loot, infuriated, murderous desert elves finally given flocks of insolent invader scum to set their sites on, loot piles in holes, raptors and gith feasting on the bones of those too brave to know better, BODIES EVERYWHERE.
Sorry, got a little carried away there.
Why is the Byn successful?
Other players, partially, in my opinion. Enough of them so that someone in the clan is almost always around. Other players = fun. You guys can play in Tuluk with your 5 people clans, but I don't think that's very fun, diversity aside. Again, chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
How do you get players to stop doing shit like crafting constantly? Put them in a clan where there are actually other players to interact with on an inner-clan level, and they may put down their chisels to go do fun stuff.
RE: staff attention. Staff attention is fun because it gives something for a clan as a whole to rap back and react to, providing an impetus for roleplay and FUN. Characters can and do provide similar impetuses, though, and to me, staff interaction is a great supplement for a clan... but if that's why players choose the clan, they're missing out on a whole lot.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 27, 2014, 01:49:13 AM
How do you get players to stop doing shit like crafting constantly? Put them in a clan where there are actually other players to interact with on an inner-clan level, and they may put down their chisels to go do fun stuff.
You keep saying that, like in all of your posts related to this topic, but the point of these threads is to find WAYS to get players into said clans.. Saying that players will come if there's awesome leaders in it is all good, and we agree, but that's just wishful thinking that suddenly there's going to be a whole bunch of clans being lead by great leaders.
The same with you saying that players will want to play in clans that there's already a whole bunch of players in it. Well, we agree with that also, but we need to get players INTO these clans to begin with, and, again, that's the whole point of these threads, to find ways to get players into the clan.
Aside from lack of time due to RL life, what makes you think that the great leaders of the past are not willing to play leaders currently? I think that's what we're trying to pinpoint, in a way.. I don't think the problem is the leaders.. There's some great leaders right now as in the past, yet we're having this discussion and the clans need lifeblood, so we need to find ways to get more people in.
I smell what you're stepping in and agree with a lot of it, but I dunno if there are any hard and fast answers or solutions.
Play time has a whole lot to do with it. Having multiple leaders is a good way of striking against this, but the staff preemptively combats this by calling for multiple leadership roles. Uhhh, maybe call for 3 leadership roles instead of 2? Heh...
For me, I dunno... a solution might be trying to find ways to make playing in smaller clans more fun. If there were more avenues for interaction besides sitting in a bar, this might be easier, but I'm not sure. So, what might an example of this look like? The Citizen's Call in Tuluk seemed like a REALLY good stab at this. What if there was a place where people from different clans and, to a reasonable degree, different backgrounds could get together and train, maybe even in a clan vs. clan fashion, on a regular or semi regular basis? Figuring out a way to pull this off without total cheese-dickiness is the hard part, IMO.
If you look at the Byn, it's really attractive because combat characters and even not-totally-combat characters can get together and always have a spot to congregate at set times, unlike a noble or GMH, where a player might login and, even if there are other PCs, they might be out doing their own thing for the entirety that the player in question is logged in for.
If you can find a way to foster interaction without lumping everyone into a big wad, it would help with this. That's not really a small order. Being in a big wad really makes it easy to do fun stuff, a lot of it. It is a fast track to make a clan very, very fun (successful). Having said that, it would be neat if this fun could be had without one clan totally dominating others in terms of sheer numbers. One way to do this is to make it not a chore for clans to interact with each other on a regular basis... outside of bars, that is.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 27, 2014, 02:15:29 AM
For me, I dunno... a solution might be trying to find ways to make playing in smaller clans more fun. If there were more avenues for interaction besides sitting in a bar, this might be easier, but I'm not sure. So, what might an example of this look like? The Citizen's Call in Tuluk seemed like a REALLY good stab at this. What if there was a place where people from different clans and, to a reasonable degree, different backgrounds could get together and train, maybe even in a clan vs. clan fashion, on a regular or semi regular basis? Figuring out a way to pull this off without total cheese-dickiness is the hard part, IMO.
If you look at the Byn, it's really attractive because combat characters and even not-totally-combat characters can get together and always have a spot to congregate at set times, unlike a noble or GMH, where a player might login and, even if there are other PCs, they might be out doing their own thing for the entirety that the player in question is logged in for.
I think the Byn is as popular as it is in part because the Byn represents most of what the "average" mud player is looking for in an online game. You get a lot of combat, you get a whole bunch of friends and people to gang up on others with and you get to on "adventures" often enough that you know that when you log in you could witness something totally cool. Do you get the same feeling by logging daily in a clan like Kadius or Tennshi? (Just randomly picking names, here..) I don't know..
You also mention a place where people of all clans and races could hang out together and train, well, there was the arena that was almost exactly like that, but it was shut down by Staff a few months ago. (Not sure if there's an IC reason or not for it..) and you also mention the Citizen's Call, but unfortunately that was never a popular thing with the Tuluki playerbase (Not really sure why either.. I think it's because people had no idea what it involved.. No one wanted to be that lone indie guy being trained to go against the Allanak army) - But yeah, the guy who brought the Citizen's Call idea is a saint in my book. Stuck with his role forever, tries to make things happen, etc.. Not his fault he rest of the players he's stuck with are not going along.
Now I don't want to put blame on Staff (I really am not!) but sometime it feels like they are trying really hard to split the playerbase into smaller portions.. (without going too much into details, like what's happening these days in Tuluk - mind you, it could totally be player-driven only, as well, I have no idea..) or like I said, closing down the arena where people would often gather, train together and where inter-clan interactions were often found (for better or worse)
So what do the players want! That's the question indeed..
Sorry I'm typing and replying fast, this topic interests me a lot because I'm a mostly indie type of player and I really want to be convinced to play in clans, because I know that's where the "real" Armageddon fun can be, yet it just doesn't mesh with my type of playing. (I don't really enjoy being that poor slob with no money who constantly is told to spar and that wearing a House cloak should be reward enough), I want to be in a clan where people will be extremely jealous that I managed to get myself in, and I want people lining up for weeks, if not months, just to have a chance to be in as well. Right now, when I look at other clanned characters, there's absolutely nothing that my indie character would be jealous of, in fact, he often feels a little sad for these people who are just giving up their life in exchange of "food, water and a place to sleep".
It's a lot of stuff to think about.
This is a little random and doesn't do much justice to your response, but I wonder if Tuluk would have as many problems with getting people in clans if it were... in the center of a desert... maybe even a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous desert.
In a way, Tuluk is an independent character's, especially an independent crafter character's, wet dream. Outside of the fact that resources are abundant, Tuluki shops are not only more abundant, but by and large, they have way more obsidian than Allanaki shops and, for the most part, even pay way more for things that are sold there. I'm not saying this stuff should be nerfed as much as I am pointing out that it probably heavily contributes to the lack of players in clans.
To the rage of northern players, nobles have done stuff like making free access to stuff like the forest and grasslands possible with only a license or fee... it was ugly. So were those fucking tokens for individual sales, christ.
Heh, what if the north had a large group like the Byn whose job it was to be resource cops, and they patrolled the surrounding areas looking for poachers, illegal loggers, etc? It could even be a "coalition force" of multiple groups, maybe, which would foster interaction while discouraging adding a level of complexity and challenge to the game for independents.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 27, 2014, 03:02:32 AM
It's a lot of stuff to think about.
This is a little random and doesn't do much justice to your response, but I wonder if Tuluk would have as many problems with getting people in clans if it were... in the center of a desert... maybe even a harsh, inhospitable, dangerous desert.
In a way, Tuluk is an independent character's, especially an independent crafter character's, wet dream. Outside of the fact that resources are abundant, Tuluki shops are not only more abundant, but by and large, they have way more obsidian than Allanaki shops and, for the most part, even pay way more for things that are sold there. I'm not saying this stuff should be nerfed as much as I am pointing out that it probably heavily contributes to the lack of players in clans.
To the rage of northern players, nobles have done stuff like making free access to stuff like the forest and grasslands possible with only a license or fee... it was ugly. So were those fucking tokens for individual sales, christ.
Heh, what if the north had a large group like the Byn whose job it was to be resource cops, and they patrolled the surrounding areas looking for poachers, illegal loggers, etc? It could even be a "coalition force" of multiple groups, maybe, which would foster interaction while discouraging adding a level of complexity and challenge to the game for independents.
It sounds like you've answered your own question. Players in the north, want free access with no restrictions and no fucking tokens for individual sales. They want to play independents who have easy access to more coins, and they want less roleplay and more skill-grinding and NPC vendors. If they didn't want it, they would have put up with the licenses, attended those RP "meetups" at the Citizen's Call and the Arena, and made some attempt to get the shops to carry fewer coins (typo burly this vendor seems to have unlimited funds and just paid JoeGrebber the Independent over 400 sids for a bunch of stinky gith armor, can someone take a look at the NPC?)
That's what players in Tuluk WANT. They are experiencing exactly what they want. The ones who are there, who don't want that, are outnumbered by the ones who do want it. The ones who don't want it, should just store and roll up Allanak characters, where clans have people in them who seem to be involved in stuff. There are fewer active clans, to my knowledge, but the ones that exist are more active. The only problem with that, is the clans that hire hunters, are going to be disappointed because there's just not much hunting to do in the south.
So basically, you have the "coded stuff" players want in the north and the "RPed stuff" players want in the south.
How about a nice game of nuclear war? It'd require heavy staff intervention - it would ALSO require players who create characters who don't die after a week of training or going out to do stupid things, and pissing off their clan members such that they get fired or executed.
Therein lies the problem. Players want individual things. There exists no collective. And because there exists no collective, there can't be a collective opinion. Since there is no collective opinion, there can't exist a collective solution. It brings us right back to where we started.
The only way to make changes to this - is to change the mindset of the players. And as I said in a previous post - good luck with that.
Yeah... you say that's what the players there want... but maybe there aren't more players there because that's the way it is.
I definitely see what you're saying about a general consensus wanting it this way or that way, but consensus is not static in a game like Armageddon where players are constantly shifting between the city states.
Quite frankly, the last time I played in Tuluk, I typed: "idea: re-open the Byn in Tuluk." Why? Because all these people from different groups were going to apartments to spar since there weren't enough people in clans to do it with.
I'm sure some people would say opening the Byn or some equivalent thereof in Tuluk would not be a good idea, if but for the simple fact it would reduce the number of characters in clans already struggling for members. In this instance, I believe that type of OOC engineering backfires. Ultimately, here are some reasons why I think it would be a good idea:
* the number of independent hunters decreases dramatically because they are unable to leave the gates
* players stick around longer because, by and large, they live longer as a result of not going out and dying all the time
* it increases the employee pool for clans because it draws players who otherwise would not play in Tuluk, and it increases the quality of the employee pool as well. Don't think a mercenary group like the Byn would draw more players to the North? Uhhh, look at the numbers the Byn has... really, they could stand to be dispersed between the two states, and this is coming from the same guy who says big groups are the best groups. Sometimes the Byn alone touts a quarter of the playerbase, even when there are 50 people online.
* right now, outside of House Kurac, there is no (to my knowledge) group in the North who is as openly accepting of most races, so it would help people who want to play social undesirables. Not every character should be cut out to be GMH, legion, or noble house material. Some of us, some of the time, want to play seedy, dirty, smelly, "normal" Zalanthan people... not well-to-do, well-dressed, and politic-oriented characters. People should not be forced to play in Allanak because they want grit. Most of Zalanthas should be grit. It should be the rule, not the exception, but clanned avenues for this type of character are almost nonexistent in Tuluk.
* with a larger military populace, there might be more conflict between the states. There does not seem the potential for conflict between the city states when everyone is playing some indie character who could give a shit less about the war, resulting in things like the Citizen's Call apparently being unpopular. Attract players who thrive on that sort of playing with a mercenary company, not necessarily the T'zai Byn exactly, and I think we would see more of this.
I'm just dropping in to say that the arena got closed because independents kept using it as a totally safe and risk-free haven to spar like crazy.
I guess this describes the thread nicely.
Kronibas, I can unfortunately kill your opening back the byn in the north suggestion rather rapidly; it won't happen due to IC reasons and due to the fact that northern Byn has always been unpopular in the north, it's just very "anti" northern players mindset, but, yeah, mostly for some powerful IC reasons.
Staff remove/close nice thing because people who don't understand skill gains are abusing it to basically hell and back? Sounds backwards. How about dropping them a few echoes as hints, followed by a message "Hey bucko, you do know you only learn X every Y per Z, why don't you go smoke some tho and relax?", and if that doesn't work, how about AN ACCIDENTAL DECAPITATION WITH A SPARRING SWORD/AXE, whoops! How'd that happen?! "Nooooo! Amosa, I loved you, I'll never be the same, again..." so Derp rides out in a funk and gets bahametted, and word gets around that overdoing any one thing is bad.
So I've never seen the problem. At least in the Byn, though, there was always someone to nudge me in the right direction. Some of it can sound like downright superstition to someone who comes from a "non-RP enforced hack-and-slash PvP kill-em-all omg loot faster! Kill, kill kill!", like me, yes, believe it or not, I've NEVER gotten into RP before and never thought I would, but you guys changed me for the better in that regard, so thanks. But yes, coming from this mindset the player will think "Why would they do that? But more, WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT AND NOT SAY IT IN THE OPEN?!", it's all somewhat alien.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the problem, do you just mean like, sparring 24/7 no RP no tavern sitting no OMG you broke my head I better come back in a week or two when I feel better? Just find a couple sadistic admins to watch and engineer "accidents" for those who engage in such behavior openly disrespectful of the game world. I know I've suffered a few "accidents", why not share the love?
I would agree, Fuji, but there is a sort of consensus that in Tuluk, even SPARRING is looked at as barbaric, and needless, and why wouldn't you choose to go play an ivory flute poorly, with bad meter and rhyme in the Circle? Sure everyone needs fighters, but do we really need to SEE you bleeding and bruised? Our sensibilities are too high for that. (sarcasm)
Byn in the North would never work, for similar reasons. Shoveling shit? Being the "scum" of society? Byn hires jailed murderers, and thieves, and the worst of the worst. In Tuluk, if you're really that bad.... they just cut the rot from the fruit. Byn, as its designed, does not and will not work in Tuluk.
Unfortunately, I agree with Kronibas in that many indies love Tuluk because of the way it IS. Resources abound, food is cheaper, water is cheap as dirt (all things considered, when you can make so much coin). But its still not ABOUT coin. If your clan is low, its because of the Patron/Partisan system in Tuluk. Its a great idea in practice, but essentially what it breeds is a group of independent PCs, all who work for a different Patron, but otherwise supply nothing to the RP of said clans. On the other side of things, why would you be a Lifesworn Employee when you can get 90% of the benefits by just being a partisan?
And, even that being said, OTHER than being an indie partisan... what options are there for someone that DOESN'T want to make a Lifesworn Tenneshi? What if you want to do a job, contracted, for a few years, but use it as background for something else? Byn is good because you can say "4 years of Byn Training". Salarr can say "I was a Contracted Hunter for <x> years". Most other clans DEMAND a Life Oath, and if you don't take it well weren't you just wasting their time? And now you can't get another job because you're "a flake".
Just my thoughts.
Quote from: Riev on January 27, 2014, 02:18:27 PM
And, even that being said, OTHER than being an indie partisan... what options are there for someone that DOESN'T want to make a Lifesworn Tenneshi? What if you want to do a job, contracted, for a few years, but use it as background for something else? Byn is good because you can say "4 years of Byn Training". Salarr can say "I was a Contracted Hunter for <x> years". Most other clans DEMAND a Life Oath, and if you don't take it well weren't you just wasting their time? And now you can't get another job because you're "a flake".
Just my thoughts.
The "flake" part is SO true, and I think it's a huge part as to why I'm wary of joining a clan even WHEN they offer me a one-year probation where they can either kick me out or I can leave without any problems. Problem is, I think I suffer from PTSD because once, when I accepted such an offer, the noble felt like after a week of play in his clan I was trusted enough for him to pour down all of his secrets and plots down my nobody's throat, and when I wanted to leave because I didn't like the schedule-heavy day-to-day activity of the clan, I was told by said noble, "Well, you know all of my secrets, I can't really just let you leave now, can I? *slay*", the other PTSD I suffer from is when I played in Tenneshi (long, long ago, so it's not related to any recent Chosen), I was also given a year long probation, but when I realized that it wasn't for me, the Chosen was all offended by my decision to leave and promised me that I would never find work in Tuluk again, I was targeted a fluke, someone who couldn't handle responsabilities and pretty much a pariah of the city.
Now, I understand that these simply be bad luck on my part, but as I said, it left me with a real bad taste in my mouth.. I understand now that with threads like these, such an example probably only happens rarely and I should try and get over it.
Quote from: Dar on January 25, 2014, 07:15:09 AMThough every time I hear something like, I prefer not to deal with nobles, they ask for a lot, but cant afford me. I die a little on the inside.
I'd be killing a motherfucker real fast if he ever said that in front of me <_<
But yes. To reiterate some points: Indies can make ludicrous amounts of coin, clannies don't APPEAR to get great influence... but if you're just fucking a recruit bumfuck or cadet or trooper or what the fuck ever, you're not GOING to have enough influence to really compete with an indie. When you hit Corporal/Second Hunter/Corporal/Next rank where influence starts to matter, that's when you actually REALLY start to see that people notice you, because you actually do wear some cool shit at that point and you ARE better than most indies. Most indies will fucking die off before you make that point, rich as they may ever get, or they'll fuck with the wrong guy and that guy will have influence and get that indie guy nicked in a heartbeat. Bam. Now you're top dog again.
Quote from: evilcabbage on January 27, 2014, 03:12:58 PM
Quote from: Dar on January 25, 2014, 07:15:09 AMThough every time I hear something like, I prefer not to deal with nobles, they ask for a lot, but cant afford me. I die a little on the inside.
I'd be killing a motherfucker real fast if he ever said that in front of me <_<
But yes. To reiterate some points: Indies can make ludicrous amounts of coin, clannies don't APPEAR to get great influence... but if you're just fucking a recruit bumfuck or cadet or trooper or what the fuck ever, you're not GOING to have enough influence to really compete with an indie. When you hit Corporal/Second Hunter/Corporal/Next rank where influence starts to matter, that's when you actually REALLY start to see that people notice you, because you actually do wear some cool shit at that point and you ARE better than most indies. Most indies will fucking die off before you make that point, rich as they may ever get, or they'll fuck with the wrong guy and that guy will have influence and get that indie guy nicked in a heartbeat. Bam. Now you're top dog again.
Much as I am loathe to agree with a cabbage... I must do so here.
While I have seen some badass, seemingly long-lived indies (a certain trading group comes to mind, and if they were part of a group, they weren't really indies), once they're gone the market for everything kind of suffers. Most things you can find that some developed indie merchant would previously take off your hands, as you're squeeking to get by, grebbing your poor little heart out for stones you're going to sell for much less than you would get from the vendor (vendor's full, gaiz, WHAT DO WE DO!?!? AGHGHHGHG!), you're still making it, and slowly saving your coin, until the indie merchants are no longer around, then you go to a house and they turn their nose up and say "Thanks, but the House provides for all my material needs" and you're stuck with a heavy sack of rocks and a sinking feeling as you realize your niche is gone, you must go out on the salts, sacrifice your harsh life immersion, and become gloriously rich in order to get by, and then get bitched about on the gdb.
Yes for merchant house stalls buying large amounts of materials at discount prices. I will fill your warehouse so full you will be like "OMG WTF WHO DONE THIS MESS?!", and still maintain my integrity as a humble rock peddler.
Just gonna poke my head in this thread briefly and that's it.
I've only ever noted issues with PCs that gather coin as independents with no seeming interest in using it to further any plotting, roleplay, or whatever. It seems to the observer that the goal is just to amass coin. That's it.
However, this occurs very infrequently. It is something we keep an eye on from time to time, but at best, it is a minor annoyance. That's why I made a sideline suggestion about possibly taxing indie bank accounts when they hit a certain level.
Quote from: Kronibas on January 25, 2014, 03:43:30 PM
Laura, but before ShaLeah even wrote that, I myself wondered... Well, what about GMH family member and nobles? They have their own freaking bases, is it fair that they can take up apartments, too?
IC social role considerations aside, sponsored role type characters typically use places like that for their minions. At least, when I played a GMH family member, the only reason I rented apartments was for the use of minions. That seems a lot better than a loner magicker taking up the space.
Still, let's say you have 4 Allanaki nobles, 2 templars, 2 GMH bosses, and maybe an industrious Byn sergeant all renting apartments to have on reserve for their henchmen or nefarious plans. 8 PCs? Well, that's over half of the desirable real estate in Allanak, hypothetically. It adds up.
Actually, nowadays, we tend towards telling nobles and templars that they get their own estates or housing and they are not to use up any other housing. If they need a space for their lackeys, their lackeys need to go out and get that, not them. Besides, if this thread is about making things poorer/better/funner for independents, wouldn't the lack of a place to put your stuff be "poorer?"
Apartments as a whole are something that are on the table to be reviewed, and not in a piecemeal method. Hopefully it can be seen to this year.
Quote from: KankWhisperer on January 25, 2014, 08:46:10 PM
This thread has made me anxious in some ways to show people in my clan it's worth being there.
Yep, this is a good takeaway from this for some clans, I hope!
Quote from: Harmless on January 26, 2014, 04:57:59 AM
and cue hate cycle? :(
Yeah, sorta seems that way...
Quote from: Lizzie on January 26, 2014, 08:51:25 AMHigher-ups are urged to -not- PK people who are clearly more interested in gaining their fat loot than they are participating in scenes, even if those people are gaining more and more and more, and wearing better stuff than nobles wear just to show off how much "more" they have.
I have a feeling that this urging is not happening.
Quote from: long live miley cyrus on January 26, 2014, 10:41:12 AM
Around that same time, a spice grebber frequently kept ruining the idea of a struggling spice grebber for me with always telling me things like, "I only made two small today damn it," and they were not in any way giving me the impression that they were any worse off than the tailors. They were probably advanced or master forage, I do not know. Yes, people should totally be able to afford skimmers, but I think it should take a damn long time, and being a struggling but proud unskilled Storm worker is like 50% of the hardship for me in that town.
At best the bulk spice buying code was a patch on a problem. Really, all automated jobs need to be given a cap on what the player can expect to get in X period of time so that no one can "get rich quick" by exploiting archaic code on automated jobs. Nathvaan and I have talked it over a bit recently, hopefully it can be reviewed sometime soon.
Quote from: Fujikoma on January 27, 2014, 01:38:13 PM
Staff remove/close nice thing because people who don't understand skill gains are abusing it to basically hell and back? Sounds backwards. How about dropping them a few echoes as hints, followed by a message "Hey bucko, you do know you only learn X every Y per Z, why don't you go smoke some tho and relax?", and if that doesn't work, how about AN ACCIDENTAL DECAPITATION WITH A SPARRING SWORD/AXE, whoops! How'd that happen?! "Nooooo! Amosa, I loved you, I'll never be the same, again..." so Derp rides out in a funk and gets bahametted, and word gets around that overdoing any one thing is bad.
It was never the intention for there to be a place for people to spar each other in public with no consequences. The idea was for it to be used for training for Arena events. Since it was being used for generic sparring rather than for Arena events, it was closed off.
I get the biggest rush out of playing an independent because every day I have to keep my eye on the prize. Survival. Some clans can deliver on that daily and some just can't.
I do think some tweaks on the economy are in order where some items are ridiculously priced only because they have a value not everyone knows about. You wouldn't know its value so you wouldn't expect so many coins for it. In the end however, what I really want to know is how the independent grocer manages to sell from his own building without being picked apart on the GDB?
I actually really like the GMH material buyer idea. That's really, really good.
Quote from: The7DeadlyVenomz on January 30, 2014, 09:09:56 PM
I actually really like the GMH material buyer idea. That's really, really good.
Also love it.
to make indie gameplay better - my suggestions:
1- my first suggestion is prepare your character in advance. If you make a warrior/acrobat his skills will revolve around fighting. That is all he can do. Your skill set doesn't allow you to be anything other than a fighter. ... or does it? Already you've chosen a combat role. But you don't have to use any of those skills. You could say... perform tricks for money, contorting your body in ways people can't believe. You could be a hooker. A famous musician! A poet. A spice dealer. An explorer. The maker forbid, a hunter. You could even become a trader, you go out and buy things from one place then leave to sell them in another for more money! - you can especially do this after raiding.
The point is. If you create a character and you're not having fun. Maybe you hired the wrong actor for the role you imagined.
In my experience, the occasional PCs thrown into a long term situation or goal that they are codedly suited for can be an interesting challenge and lead to some pretty cool.... work arounds. ;)
Not that I like playing conartists or anything...
The short, bearded man looks around suspiciously before going back to his card trick.
Quote from: MeTekillot on January 25, 2014, 03:50:24 AM
I think being an indie should be a tooth-and-nail miserable experience unless you've got 5-6 dudes in your crew and you're pretty heavily into your indie career.
Only if hard work and uncertain safety is miserable. From an OOV perspective, the player might be
looking for a more adventurous experience despite the risk to life and limb. It ready
is more dangerous. But joining the Byn to be stuck inside the walls, while safer! might be just a bit too boring for some.
Having said that, I enjoy the challenge of a tough economy. Having to work at staying alive builds investment in the characters' life. But don't consider it punishment for people who prefer less intense social contact. Loners are a part of the society, too. Definitively add to the challenge without trying to make it punishment for playing solo.
Some things that might help:
- Expiring a room for grebbing at a random quantity. It can regenerate its capacity like bushes do. This would force grebbers to move around, thus increasing their likelihood of encountering mobs.
- Taxes are always natural weeds in the gardens of wealth. If somebody is making money, somebody else is going to tax it.
- Territorial disputes for crafters. Salaar might hire thieves or assassins or bully boys like any other noble or merchant House. Selling your weapons on my turf...?
Some folk are just partial to routine work and they will make money simply by being steady producers. As somebody said, so what? Let them spend a fortune to open a bazaar tent or run a wagon and build up a more complex trade system to keep them traveling and busy. Wealth can add interest if there are outlets for it (like sticky fingers, wagon route raiders or local crafters hooking up with traveling merchants)...
Quote from: Darrell on February 18, 2014, 09:21:44 PM
- Expiring a room for grebbing at a random quantity. It can regenerate its capacity like bushes do. This would force grebbers to move around, thus increasing their likelihood of encountering mobs.
I think that might work.