HRPT - What We Learned

[Forty Winks]

What problems were encountered that we can fix?
How can they be fixed, in your opinion?
What things went wrong and could be done better?
What things went well and should be repeated?
Any other comments, suggestions, idead, etc. about this topic?

For things that could be done better:
I somehow found it unrealistic at times that an entire army camp could move from one location to another within a few hours time of day. It would be alot more interesting, both strategically and realistically, if an army camp required a certain length of time before it could move its locations, and during that time be vulnerable to attacks. Nighttime movement would be even more susceptible to attacks.

As for supply routes, I would like players to have a better control over this than making it automated, in exchange for a longer down-time between each run. That way, those players that may be on at off-peak times, as well as those players idling around while they wait for the next large battle, have an important purpose rather than relying mostly upon the NPCs (which means staff). Making supply runs more vital to a war camp would make the smaller scrimages between PCs a larger aspect of the war, with those smaller wins being able to determine the advantages (in number of NPCs/units, for example) each side has for the larger battles. Also, if you had put NPCs or an automated scipt for the runs, in cases where there were emergencies, the NPCs would not have made reliable and intelligent choices without the aid of the staff.

That brings me to another point, though mentioned earlier. Although the PC leaders for this HRPT were good, for such things as the supply run, and other tasks that a war camp might do, a more spread out leaderbase would have been nice. Also, though in such RPTs, the death rate of PCs might be high, for those who were able to survive the few battles, as well as set themselves apart from the others, could be promoted to take up positions that normally would not be used in "normal" times. If that means making positions up, at least until the war ends, I think that would still help with the leadership part. It would also give non-leaders reasons to participate in the war, besides being apart of the event.

Another thing, at least for the south. For the magickers involved, giving them goals and missions seperate from the rest of the army could have been more beneficial to players involved, both due to IG and OOC reasons. Although it is believeable that the allanaki army would take on as much help as needed, when the number of PC magickers gathered against mundanes builds up, the realistic atmosphere of the army vs. army got distorted. I don't know if that was intended for the allanaki army to rely upon magickers to make such an impact in the balance between armies, but if the PC ratio of magickers and the NPC ratio were to be similar, then the number of PC mages vs. PC mundanes (non-leaders, effectively) could have been less. Not only would it better keep the mystery of magickers for the mundanes involved, it would also give magickers a role and image different than simply the spam-killers they've gotten the reputation for. If the regular PCs at the warcamp start thinking they've gotten accustomed to magickers to the point of not reacting to the spells at all, I think the involvement of magick has gotten alittle too far.

Also, for those back home, I would think the criminal underworld would have sprouted up and done actions that normally would not have been able to be pulled through, but there weren't alot of that to make it believeable that the majority of the standing soldiers were gone. Understably, there might not have been the means, resources, or playerbase to accomplish such things, but in the future, having more far-reaching plots back at the city-states, besides the war front, could help alleviate the boredom for those not participating. After all, it is a Hrpt.  :wink:

Aside from all that, the time and effort done by both the staff and players in this was tremendous, and I would look forward to the next such event, if simply because of the feel and environment created due to the location emotes.  :lol:

[Forty Winks]

Heh, despite the number of suggestions, I actually liked  the HRPT, so don't get me wrong. This is just for improvements.

While rereading my post, another thought came to mind. As an army first leaves its city-state, I would think there would be alot of heavily-armed, well-trained soldiers. With the war continuing on, with both sides taking heavy casualties, the ratio of well-trained soldiers would decrease, with the number of conscripts becoming larger. It would be nice to have this coded similarly, and this based upon the successes of the supply runs that players could control. The more supply runs that are done, the lesser in quality and experience the units would become. So, for the beginning of the war, taking out these supply runs would greatly reduce the attack capacity of the army later down the line. Only makes things more intense and intereseting, I think.  :wink:

[Gimfalisette]

I will chime in on "there needs to be a transportation solution." Getting recruits to the front lines was much harder than it needed to be, and transporting anyone else who had a legitimate reason to be there was almost impossible. The connection between the city and the camp, logistically speaking, felt really tenuous and non-strategic. I don't have a suggestion for a good solution, but I think there should be something that doesn't 100% rely on PC availability and timing.

[Vynestra]

:arrow:  What problems were encountered that we can fix? How can they be fixed in your opinon.

I dont know if there is code for having NPC practice in combat but that would be a nice feature so that those warrior types can have something to do when someone is not around to train with them.

Also, the camps have needs to fill that are as mundane as when you live in the city: boots to be mended, armor to repair, swords to shar..re-chip. I think more infrastructure for crafting and such would be helpful. Maybe a crafting tent?

/sarcastic humor on

Lastly, one of my characters signed up to be 'ho-ed out and never once was she 'ho-ed'! I made a perfectly fine f-me character and she didnt do anything except get stuck out on the field of battle looking clue-less and scared. What is up with that? There needs to be more whoring and "sudden acts of passion" in the game. Are the Allanaki Nobles, Templars, Warriors, all gay? Is that too much IC information?

Oops!

/sarcastic humor off

:arrow:  What things went well and should be repeated?

I loved the entire concept of the HRPT. I am sad that it has come to an end really. I think more of these should be done (as well as the shorter HRPTs) because it adds to the game and I am sure this will spin off RP for players for months as well as reinforce the hatred between Tuluk and Allanak.

:arrow: Any other comments, suggestions, ideas, etc. about this topic?

More NPCs that can attack and give the feeling of a sustained war. Maybe even Allanak and Tuluki units that continue to patrol outside of their cities (NPCs) that can give the feeling of the sustained conflict.

[Forty Winks]

I will chime in on "there needs to be a transportation solution." Getting recruits to the front lines was much harder than it needed to be, and transporting anyone else who had a legitimate reason to be there was almost impossible. The connection between the city and the camp, logistically speaking, felt really tenuous and non-strategic. I don't have a suggestion for a good solution, but I think there should be something that doesn't 100% rely on PC availability and timing.

With more PC leaders spread out, this shouldn't be that big of a problem that we would need NPCs to do the work for us.

[slipshod]

The camps had the feeling of real camps, but I think they would have been better off being more spread out. Rather than one room inside, maybe two or three. At times, the screen spam could be a bit overwhelming

This would be my top suggestion.  At least for the Allanak camp, I would have loved to see it set up more like one of the tribal camps, with a few rooms, or even two rooms - one with a central campfire/table and the corral, and then a second room deeper into the camp with command tents.  Maybe a couple of big open-air canopy tents, and an NPC cook rationing out bread and water would have been cool also.  Spreading it out would have made the in-camp experience a bit more realistic.

I think it's important to note that even with the PC to PC ratio of mages and mundanes, overall we were looking at maybe 12 mages to 2,000 soldiers.  Realistically, then, the mage presence in the Allanak camp was far from overwhelming.   And the supply question was handled virtually for the army.  I know this isn't sensitive to the PCs involved, but in a purely IC sense, the army and its supplies were important.  The unaffiliated conscripts truly were expendable, and it made sense that they would have to scrounge and struggle a bit more to be supplied if they weren't part of a larger organization.  

I do have a problem with the idea of automated wagons to bring people to the front lines.  I know there were a lot of players who wanted to get involved and didn't have a way to make it out there, but I think security would have been fairly tight - and I liked that people had to be "screened" by a PC leader before they could get into a camp.  I would have had a problem with anyone being able to hop on a wagon and come into the camp without being approved by PC leadership on some level.  Security.

Even having more PC leaders on at off-peak times might not have led to more war-action... just larger patrols in the empty wastes.  For any major action, there still needed to be an immortal on.. or two.  One for your side and one for the enemy so they'd realistically respond.  I do think that having small automated NPC patrols wandering around would give PCs targets that didn't require Imm coordinating.

Overall, I thought it went well.  My main suggestion is expanding the size of the camps a bit... spread them out between a couple rooms or more, or spread them out to have some more open tarps and tents so things could be a little more organized instead of having one room for everyone and everything.

[Gimfalisette]

I do have a problem with the idea of automated wagons to bring people to the front lines.  I know there were a lot of players who wanted to get involved and didn't have a way to make it out there, but I think security would have been fairly tight - and I liked that people had to be "screened" by a PC leader before they could get into a camp.  I would have had a problem with anyone being able to hop on a wagon and come into the camp without being approved by PC leadership on some level.  Security.

Realistically speaking, though, there should be more than one PC in the whole city who can hook recruits or others up to the front lines. When that PC wasn't around, the response to recruits was reduced to "uh, yeah, you need to find that person...or you can just try going there and I'll let them know you're coming, as dangerous as that is..."

I don't know if the situation was this way in my city because there weren't PCs who wanted to do the transportation job, or if there weren't enough PC leaders, or what. It just feels really wrong to me that, although we can rely on NPCs and VNPCs for battle stuff, we can't use them for other critical military applications?

While I didn't keep a list and then keep track of all the PCs that I tried to hook up to the front lines through this very tenuous method, I strongly suspect that there were significant numbers of PCs who just dropped out of sight and out of the HRPT because they couldn't get to the camp. I also know for a fact that there were good numbers of PCs who had to get there on their own, in spite of the security risks. This is just dumb.

PCs should not have to wait for that one transportation contact to be online, or for a unit of soldiers to come back to the city for resupply, in order to get hooked up with the army.

Also, it puts the northern city at a disadvantage against the southern when newbie magicker characters are able to get to their camp quickly and easily under their own power (which I observed happening) and yet newbie mundane characters are not.

[ale six]

Here's another comment from a city person who never actually got herself out to the camps...

All in all I enjoyed the HRPT, and though I did notice a slowdown in city events, I definitely don't think that alone should discourage the staff from running a similar event again.

So here are a few suggestions/ideas I had on what we could improve on:

:arrow: A transportation solution would be nice, but another possible idea is to make the camps themselves a login point. During HRPT-ish events only, allow players the option of writing their background as a recruit-level PC of either side when they app a new character. They can then log into the game and pick the war as a login point, and appear as a person who is already a part of the army, and equipped maybe with a basic recruit patch, a sword, a helmet, etc. They'd get less newbie money to compensate, and would still need to report to a PC leader to get orders, but this way you could play yourself as a new recruit and a recent arrival to the front, without having to start in the city, get recruited, and then get to the battle yourself. Essentially you get into the action faster.

:arrow: For a longer, drawn out war as this one ended up being, it might be a good idea if the entire PC militia/templar force of both sides was not all out at the front at once. For major battles/missions, they could certainly ride out, but keeping at least one templar back in either city to deal with stuff on the home front would be nice too. These templars could rotate, obviously, so one person doesn't get left out of all the fun, but this way city PCs would still have somebody of authority to approach with problems. I saw an increase in PC criminal activity in the absence of the law enforcement -- which is great -- but sometimes it felt like the criminal PCs were being braver than usual because they knew no PC templars were around to arrest them, which is not so great. It keeps realism a bit better if you don't have to rely entirely on NPCs and the limitations of the crime code.

:arrow: Sort of related to the above, have some auxilliary events taking place on the home front, too. Some politics could be invented related to the war for nobles to dig their claws into, or there could be staff-run plots about more lawbreaking going on since a whole army is no longer around. Maybe in Allanak, rinthi gangs are started to press south side, or there is an increase in spice smuggling. And (guess what), Tuluk has unliscensed crime too, which might start playing a bigger role with the attentions of the Faithful turned elsewhere. Or maybe with less Faithful in Tuluk to stamp things out, there are more 'treasonous' rumors and whispering than usual, more mage sightings, etc. Stuff like this, again, also encourages templar/militia PCs to not be JUST at the front, since there may be issues in the city to address too. The downside is the war might drag out a little longer if they're constantly shuffling around, but as long as there's still action going on, this may not be a down side.

Essentially, create a few war-related sub plots that could occur to keep PCs that may not be in the war themselves busy. The more plot hooks and things that the war can dish out, the better it will be and the more memorable it will be for all players.

:arrow: Advertise the HRPT. On other MUD forums I see the other games making promotional posts saying "We're having this and this event, log in and check us out!" I don't know if Arm did that, but we should be. I think a time like this would be one of our best times to attract and hook new players.

:arrow: Not that the way this one was concluded was bad, but I think in the future, having a more decisive conclusion would be nicer than both sides returning home claiming "we won!" Having one side being clearly defeated - and forcing them to admit defeat - just sounds a little more fun to me. I'm afraid that both cities are going to go on as usual... yay we won the war, boy those 'nakkis/Tulukis are pathetic, etc, like they already have been.

But all in all, this was a great event, and I'm sad I never got a chance to get into the thick of it.

[Yokunama]

:arrow: Advertise the HRPT. On other MUD forums I see the other games making promotional posts saying "We're having this and this event, log in and check us out!" I don't know if Arm did that, but we should be. I think a time like this would be one of our best times to attract and hook new players.

Great idea.

:arrow: Not that the way this one was concluded was bad, but I think in the future, having a more decisive conclusion would be nicer than both sides returning home claiming "we won!" Having one side being clearly defeated - and forcing them to admit defeat - just sounds a little more fun to me. I'm afraid that both cities are going to go on as usual... yay we won the war, boy those 'nakkis/Tulukis are pathetic, etc, like they already have been.

Yea, it made me feel a bit sad, having seen both sides claiming victory.

[Kanks For Truth]

Having one side being clearly defeated - and forcing them to admit defeat - just sounds a little more fun to me. I'm afraid that both cities are going to go on as usual... yay we won the war, boy those 'nakkis/Tulukis are pathetic, etc, like they already have been.

Yea, it made me feel a bit sad, having seen both sides claiming victory.

Perhaps Halaster could be enticed to provide a little more information in his final update like add relative sizes of the armies compared to when they first set out.   And other non-subjective information like that (number of dead templars? leaders?).

[Malken]

I really tried to get involved in the HRPT as a city-based character in the first week or so.. Then when I noticed how many characters were just hanging around trying to get there and never managing to, or dying trying to get there on their own, my character and I just really stopped caring..

I saw some city-based characters really trying to push the war issue, but you could see they were doing it mostly with the "My city is better than yours." mentality, not really because we knew what was happening.. Most discussions were based on what we would read from the in-game and GDB rumors.

The ending pretty much made me roll my eyes, too..

Now like Hymmen said, I hope I won't get thrashed for speaking negatively about it, but considering I never managed to make it there and I never really saw anything major related to the war in the villages and city I've visited, I can't really say anything positive about it

[Intrepid]

I can't comment on much, given that I wasn't there, so I'll limit myself to two points:

:arrow:  This is the most realistic war I've seen yet because it was drawn out.  I know a lot of players didn't like that, and I can understand why, but I think most conflicts between the city-states should be exactly like this.  In fact, the Red Desert has been the site of two previous major battles, if I'm recalling correctly, in pregame history.

:arrow:  Given what I know about the objective on Allanak's side, to say that there was a clear victory on both sides is not very realistic.  Napoleon tried that with Egypt and later Russia, but he never did succeed in convincing the people; ie, too many witnesses that knew the truth came back with him to France.  I realize that there are layers of truth in every society, but this last news blurb just seems too icly airtight.

[Delirium]

Yea, it made me feel a bit sad, having seen both sides claiming

I hope you don't assume that it's just because "the Imms said so" - definite IC reasons backing victory claims on both sides.

[Armaddict]

This is the most realistic war I've seen yet because it was drawn out. I know a lot of players didn't like that, and I can understand why, but I think most conflicts between the city-states should be exactly like this. In fact, the Red Desert has been the site of two previous major battles, if I'm recalling correctly, in pregame history.

Seconded.  For once, a battle that could potentially have vast impacts doesn't take place over the course of two or three days, IC'ly.  I was a -huge- fan of this HRPT style, except for a couple things.

:arrow: I think -units- should actually be avoided as much as possible in the future.  Make those just stay at the camp, and be nothing but a representation to the players of how strong their army is.  So...after a battle, numbers are adjusted...the next day, people log in and take a look at their camp to see how badly they got hurt.

Instead, make things a lot more spread out and 'skirmish-like'.  I know that for clans, templars pretty much have to lead the npc's...but I'd like it a lot more if there were pretty consistent clashes of just mundanes, and not in huge numbers either.  No schedules 'skirmishes', just random meetings between groups of 5-8 people and individual npc's.

:arrow: Please...put a limit on the number of npc's a leader can take out with them.  It's kind of redundant to have players when they bring out 8-10 npcs to order all to attack.  Even with that unit code, the only shift you'll likely see is more single npc's being brought so that they can still beat the snot out of important pc's as quickly as possible.  Large amounts of npc's should require large amounts of leaders who report to their 'main leader'.  So huge battles with lots of npc's requires a basic RPT within the HRPT.

:arrow: As much as I like the idea of total control being given to players, there's a problem with people being too afraid of losing their character and being supremely inactive when it comes to objectives.  Combat situations need to become a common thing so that the idea of going into combat doesn't scare people off...and certain 'side goals' should be made to give objectives to accomplish in the event that an epic battle is not yet plausible.

  :arrow: Uhm...not to sound greedy...but in this particular HRPT, there was very little IC incentive beyond loyalty for -any- non-militia, non-noble character.  I'd go so far as to say that the OOC desire to take part was blatantly visible.  Next time there is conscription, hiring, and so on and so forth...I'd -really- like to see some rewards go to those mundanes participating.



That being said...this is the first step towards player-driven TACTICS determining who wins.  That's a huge deal, a lot bigger than some people realize, I think.  Lyksae and Tor, Enjoy.

Overall, I very...very...-very- much favor this sort of war to the old ones.  Just need to find a way to cut down on the 'stand outside and watch' time and the 'patrol even when we know no one will be around at this hour' time.

[Gimfalisette]

Thought of another comment...

Playing a city-bound character who was probably as involved as possible with the war, I'm still relieved that the HRPT is now over. It was fun, a lot of stuff happened, and I think it lasted just about the perfect amount of time. Any longer and the lack of resolution and lack of players in the city would have really started to get to me OOCly.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Lastly, one of my characters signed up to be 'ho-ed out and never once was she 'ho-ed'! I made a perfectly fine f-me character and she didnt do anything except get stuck out on the field of battle looking clue-less and scared. What is up with that? There needs to be more whoring and "sudden acts of passion" in the game. Are the Allanaki Nobles, Templars, Warriors, all gay? Is that too much IC information?

Oops!

I'm sure this was due to a complete lack of privacy inside and outside of the camp more than anything else. Where was a warrior supposed to get together with your character? Going out into the sands was forbidden, and, more to the point, stupid. Who wants to be caught by a raptor with his sandcloth trousers down?

Even the command tents were open to view inside.

Also, with no coin flowing in the camp, even if a tent had been set aside for this economic activity, your character would soon have been in possession of all the coins in the camp and business would get really slow anyhow.  :lol:

[Armaddict]

Uhm.  I had a character who did stuff in the camp, but yeah, it was faded.  And if you were hired to be 'ho-d out'...couldn't it have been...virtually done as well?

I know it may not be as time consuming, but yeah...in a war, I don't think romantic/sexual scenes are the most diligent use of time.

[Lizzie]

I don't know if this is helpful or not. But as someone who plays a character who couldn't ICly be involved in the war, and wasn't involved in the war, and was in the city the entire time, I'm just as confused after it as I was when it started. OOCly, my observation is that it was nothing more than a skirmish, but with lots of people instead of a few small groups. I don't see any "result." I don't see any changes. I don't see any side's city as being any different now, than it was before it started. Based on the Halaster posts, it sounds like a bunch of people got into a fight, and then the fight ended, and everyone went back home. As a person who wasn't participating directly in the war, and had no direct communication with anyone who was directly involved, anyone with any "inside info" ICly, that's all it looked like to me. And to my character. A whole lotta nothing, with a bunch of dead people to show for it.

If there was some "meat" to this plotline, if there was an actual plotline, neither I nor my character has heard anything about it. And yes, my character has asked. And been told by the people she's asked, that they're as much in the dark about the whole thing as she is. If they're lying, that's great. But it leaves me wondering what, exactly, happened in the last RL month in this game, and why. The same thing that troubled me in the beginning in another related threat, still troubles me now. And if the other characters are telling the truth (which I admit might not be the case), then there are other people who experienced the same thing.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Some scripted objects might have been able to provide some meaningful activity during the lulls between moments of action.

For example, at one point, people began collecting rocks to contribute toward the construction of a wall. The problem was that there was no bin to put them in, and they created an unmanageable clutter in the room, so they were removed.

If a scripted 'wall' object were in placed, rocks could be contributed to the pair of dwarven stonesmiths mentioned as part of the object. They'd be removed upon being donated, and the wall object would keep a tally of how much weight in stone had been accumulated. As the weight accumulated, the ldesc and desc would change to show the completeness of the wall.

This could apply toward building a watchtower as well, that when finished would give a view of further rooms.

Another example is digging a well. PCs could pitch in by picking up one of the handful of pickaxes around and setting to. As they labor, the well gets deeper and maybe even water is reached eventually. (Attempts not recommended for purely sandy environments).

A sparring pen would have been useful in the camp. Conscripts would have to train separately from the militia though.

[Kennath]

I don't know if this is helpful or not. But as someone who plays a character who couldn't ICly be involved in the war, and wasn't involved in the war, and was in the city the entire time, I'm just as confused after it as I was when it started. OOCly, my observation is that it was nothing more than a skirmish, but with lots of people instead of a few small groups. I don't see any "result." I don't see any changes. I don't see any side's city as being any different now, than it was before it started. Based on the Halaster posts, it sounds like a bunch of people got into a fight, and then the fight ended, and everyone went back home. As a person who wasn't participating directly in the war, and had no direct communication with anyone who was directly involved, anyone with any "inside info" ICly, that's all it looked like to me. And to my character. A whole lotta nothing, with a bunch of dead people to show for it.

If there was some "meat" to this plotline, if there was an actual plotline, neither I nor my character has heard anything about it. And yes, my character has asked. And been told by the people she's asked, that they're as much in the dark about the whole thing as she is. If they're lying, that's great. But it leaves me wondering what, exactly, happened in the last RL month in this game, and why. The same thing that troubled me in the beginning in another related threat, still troubles me now. And if the other characters are telling the truth (which I admit might not be the case), then there are other people who experienced the same thing.

Oh my... THE PLOT WAS THE BEST PART!

Find out ic.

[flaran]

If you really think about the Staff Announcements posts by Halaster you can dig up something, I think.  I wasn't involved in it in any way at all and I still have an idea of what happened and how both sides could come out in a good state of mind.  Just look at differences in the behavior of the two armies, et cetera.

[Random Kank]

First of all, to whoever may be wondering - there was a reason for this HRPT, though it might not be commonly known.
You all know the magick words - find out IC.

I've had a fairly small involvement in this HRPT, and I felt my character was involved in the HRPT to a far lesser degree than it should have.
I was also disappointed by how various things that were brought to one of the camps weren't used at all and seemed to be completely unimportant to the events.

As a concept, I think the HRPT was excellent; however, in future HRPTs of this nature I'd be very delighted if there was a ratio of two RPTs per RL day.  It can be foraging trips, clearing gith presence from the wagon lines, racing against the opposite army to a small oasis, having a small fire destroy supplies or tents, and so on.

[Medena]

I think that both sides claiming victory is pretty realistic given the nature of the two city states. Both would claim victory and rigourously suppress all information to the contrary, each in their own unique way of dealing with dissent of any sort.  Nothing less than an occupation would alter this.

From what I know of the war (I was citybound throughout) it seems to have been done fairly realistic all around.  Even the ever-decreasing communication and flow of information from the front to the city I was in was probably quite realistic because of a lot of IC factors. However it was this last thing which more than anything else, for me, made it un-fun to be in the city throughout it all.

For the first week or so, I thought it was going to be great to be in the city and get to play out the city scenarios which flowed from the war.  And despite the rapidly dwindling numbers of PC's, it was actually fun at first.  There did seem to be lots of RP opportunities arising.  But as time went on, and we heard less and less, there was less and less to do.

And it's not a whine folks. Which is how many of these sorts of comments during the war were treated. My PC was one who probably ought to have been hearing at least some information. And didn't. And I did try to generate some RP in the city too and couldn't seem to get anything going.  All in all, it was pretty frustrating.


Edited to add something constructive:  Next time it'd be great if you could throw the city folk a bone or two.

[Vynestra]

Lastly, one of my characters signed up to be 'ho-ed out and never once was she 'ho-ed'! I made a perfectly fine f-me character and she didnt do anything except get stuck out on the field of battle looking clue-less and scared. What is up with that? There needs to be more whoring and "sudden acts of passion" in the game.

I'm sure this was due to a complete lack of privacy inside and outside of the camp more than anything else. Where was a warrior supposed to get together with your character? Going out into the sands was forbidden, and, more to the point, stupid. Who wants to be caught by a raptor with his sandcloth trousers down?

Yeah, I had thought about that once I got to the camp. I think it would have been good to have a "special" tent for certain activity. However, if you saw the movie Alexander, you saw Val Kilmer's character "doing it" with that male captive in front of everyone with little discretion, so it might be realistic to do it out in the open especially if someone is trying to show how dominant or strong they are.

Also, with no coin flowing in the camp, even if a tent had been set aside for this economic activity, your character would soon have been in possession of all the coins in the camp and business would get really slow anyhow.  :lol:

Yeah, I as a player was like "This might be fun to RP as a character concept" when one of my characters saw the posting on the IC board about them taking whores to the front. When something happened and made a need for having a new character came about I thought I would go for the opportunity. I wasnt even thinking of the coin aspect to it when I went into the roll. Heck, even when the character told people in the camp what she was there for the reaction was like "Well, do you have any combat skill?". Inside I was chuckling and thinking "They must not like to RP certain things". That is alright with me but it was almost like certain -things- were avoided at all costs.

This is just an observation but people are much more willing to RP killing someone either with combat code or otherwise than do certain activity. Add me to the camp that says make love not war

[Halaster]

I don't see any "result." I don't see any changes. I don't see any side's city as being any different now, than it was before it started.

Patience, little one.  The HRPT is less than 24 hours over, some things take time!  It's way way way too premature to say there are no results  (besides, you may not SEE them yet).

Based on the Halaster posts, it sounds like a bunch of people got into a fight, and then the fight ended, and everyone went back home.

A good summation of events.  So what's wrong with that?  Such things happen sometimes.  One thing we've tried to avoid is to make the game a fairy tale, because Zalanthas isn't a fairy tale.  By that I mean, having things go just the way everyone likes it, or having things to clear-cut and black-and-white.  Instead, we try to make things realistic.  Sometimes, a soldier simply doesn't really know "why" they're going to war or know what's going on behind the scenes.  Or sometimes, the public is lied to.  Or sometimes, there is no real clear-cut winner (or both sides claim victory).  Having every plot be a mold from a classic fairy tale, or a typical D&D dungeon-crawl or conflict->rewards scenario just isn't the way it always works, IMO.  Not to say those things don't have their place - they do, and they're enjoyable.  But again, we try to make the game realistic and grey.  Sometimes things make sense because of that, sometimes they don't make sense.  Reminds me a lot of RL, in that way, heh.