Off-topc from assets discussion Puciek and Vouxumuo

[Voxumo]

I will say this as a new player here.

A couple of months ago, there was no leader of the Brotherhood. I tried to join and got told to hold until one was established or something. I didn't leave for that as much as work got crazy for me and didn't have time, but it was a downer I couldn't join right away.

From my perspective, as a criminal player, the RP here is extremely slow. Most of my RP revolves around bars as it's the only real location people seem to go to outside of the Crossroads or Church Square. Right now, as I type, there is really only 2 people in The Queen Inn, which I don't go to for RP reasons while the rest are off elsewhere or hiding in private. Yet there is like 16 people on WHO.

It's pretty much like this most of my casual playtime. Lots and lots of sitting around waiting. Extremely boring, but I do it mostly because when I do get into a good RP session, it does feel worth the wait. Yet, this downtime is exactly why I can't get my MUD friends to play here. Who really has time to sit around for so long just to RP in a bar?

When I tried to do a non-criminal character and focus on crafting/selling on the streets, I got smacked down in-RP to stop. Thus, I gave up that idea mainly because I don't want to follow the same linear path of the Merchants or whatever just to enjoy myself. Now it's back to sitting and waiting for hours on in for what looks to be 10 to 20 character AFK on the MUD to come alive.

While I'm not a new player, I do completely sympathize with you. It's becoming harder to play a concept that doesn't fit into the confines of what everyone else is playing. Those who play outside the lines seem to constantly get ostracized or shut down as you've described. You aren't the first person I've seen to complain about this type of situation.

And I did mention in the original topic how scenes often come down to sitting and waiting for others to take the bait. That's not to say the rp you get out of it isn't worth it, but that wait really shouldn't be there when you have so many people on who.

Also as for the poll comment, I'm not sure if that would actually be against the rules, as I'd see that as trying to bypass the fact staff can only create polls on the forums.

[Klapman]

This might have been off topic within the original thread, but I don't see this as being unrelated to the game, so I'd suggest this get retitled and put into General Discussion. There's too many good points raised in here for it to go into a completely off-topic section of the forum.

[Puciek]

Yes, these many Guilds might be doing well given the current standards, but compared to past versions of the guilds, they are but husks.

You want to know why I stay in this game despite hating it most of the time? Because I already invested too much time in it just to forsake it. I care too deeply for this game on a personal level to just leave. And that's a mighty huge presumption to make Puciek, that I dislike alot of the existing population. What I dislike is people who prance about like they are so much better than everyone else, that just because they are doing well in the game that everyone else must be doing well. That their example is the example everyone else should live by. Those are people I have a problem with. And I typically stay to spite them.

This. So much this.

I've been playing TI in various incarnations off-and-on since the first. The game is deteriorating quickly. Its population is dwindling while other RP MU*s are maintaining population fairly well. I haven't made a new character after the last one died because there's simply nothing to do. Most of my last character was spent going weeks between logins simply due to boredom and unresponsive staff. I kept coming back because I'm invested here, and it's a fairly unique game. But unique code doesn't save a game from... the various issues TI has these days. I have some very strong opinions as to what those issues are, but I don't feel like it's appropriate to go over them here. That would likely be derailing a derail thread.

Which Are ones actually maintaining population? Burning post is actually dead, with no one ever online, and that is the closest there is to TI, and it wasn't always dead - it just is dead now. I also don't know where you get unresponsive staff from.

@Voxumo interesting argument which can be as easily reversed - why do you assume that just because you are not doing well it means everyone is? Pop to OOC meetings, or check up on logs, hear how people are enjoying the RP. Is there anything to substantiate your claim that overal population, not just few people, are not doing well?

You want to know why I stay in this game despite hating it most of the time? Because I already invested too much time in it just to forsake it. I care too deeply for this game on a personal level to just leave. And that's a mighty huge presumption to make Puciek, that I dislike alot of the existing population. What I dislike is people who prance about like they are so much better than everyone else, that just because they are doing well in the game that everyone else must be doing well. That their example is the example everyone else should live by. Those are people I have a problem with. And I typically stay to spite them.

I will say this as a new player here.

A couple of months ago, there was no leader of the Brotherhood. I tried to join and got told to hold until one was established or something. I didn't leave for that as much as work got crazy for me and didn't have time, but it was a downer I couldn't join right away.

From my perspective, as a criminal player, the RP here is extremely slow. Most of my RP revolves around bars as it's the only real location people seem to go to outside of the Crossroads or Church Square. Right now, as I type, there is really only 2 people in The Queen Inn, which I don't go to for RP reasons while the rest are off elsewhere or hiding in private. Yet there is like 16 people on WHO.

It's pretty much like this most of my casual playtime. Lots and lots of sitting around waiting. Extremely boring, but I do it mostly because when I do get into a good RP session, it does feel worth the wait. Yet, this downtime is exactly why I can't get my MUD friends to play here. Who really has time to sit around for so long just to RP in a bar?

When I tried to do a non-criminal character and focus on crafting/selling on the streets, I got smacked down in-RP to stop. Thus, I gave up that idea mainly because I don't want to follow the same linear path of the Merchants or whatever just to enjoy myself. Now it's back to sitting and waiting for hours on in for what looks to be 10 to 20 character AFK on the MUD to come alive.

If there was no leader in brotherhood, should have asked staff/on visnet because all you had to do is purchase established, and then you would be auto-joined into the ranks. Since that is a permanent decision there is a protection so cyans won't join lightly, as this is not a guild you can leave easily.

RE: afk pop, they are not AFK, at least for most them aren't, but they are dealing with personal stuff. You can imagine that friends don't sit and discuss everything in taverns all day long, but meet at houses, go hunting and do other things. If you don't have IC friends to rp privately, you can make them - just go and sit in the Boar, see who pops in, talk to them, make friends and then suddenly you have a rp partner in your time zone. I fear you may have fallen into a common pitfall where your character became its job, while there is a lot more to everyone, as even the worst of villains have personal relations to maintain and day to day worries to work through.

Heck, you could get your friends in to come and play, using the personal connection and run together as ic friends from the past - why not! Couple people can wreck a lot of havoc and drum a lot of rp, also for other people. Start doing something interesting, people will come.

This might have been off topic within the original thread, but I don't see this as being unrelated to the game, so I'd suggest this get retitled and put into General Discussion. There's too many good points raised in here for it to go into a completely off-topic section of the forum.

In all honesty voux said he is done talking it, and I was happy to drop it too, so just wanted it moved as it had no place to stay in that subject and was supposed to be done with. Oh well.

[Famine]

If there was no leader in brotherhood, should have asked staff/on visnet because all you had to do is purchase established, and then you would be auto-joined into the ranks. Since that is a permanent decision there is a protection so cyans won't join lightly, as this is not a guild you can leave easily.

I'm new and did not know that.

RE: afk pop, they are not AFK, at least for most them aren't, but they are dealing with personal stuff. You can imagine that friends don't sit and discuss everything in taverns all day long, but meet at houses, go hunting and do other things. If you don't have IC friends to rp privately, you can make them - just go and sit in the Boar, see who pops in, talk to them, make friends and then suddenly you have a rp partner in your time zone. I fear you may have fallen into a common pitfall where your character became its job, while there is a lot more to everyone, as even the worst of villains have personal relations to maintain and day to day worries to work through.

I really can't though. I'm RPing criminal and stay mostly southside. I also don't joyfully make friends with my characters due to their aggressive behavior. I tend to stay around from just being another person on a bar stool talking about life and drama to make that social connection. Pretty boring RP IMHO.

I was aiming to have most of my scenes out in the streets and the open world in scenes like what you mention, people out hunting and so forth. The issue is, not many people are actually out in the open streets with the exception of common areas like Church Square and Crossroads, which is north side.

The fact of the matter is, regardless if they are AFK or not, the activity level of people out in the city has always been bad here. Most of my scenes are in a tavern like The Blind Horse because people generally migrate to one hot location and stay there until they log. I personally am failing to see how anyone could play a criminal here unless it's a prearranged plot or IC event where both sides know what's up and or you're a thief and can passively steal from houses or pickpocket people on the move.

At the end of the day, it's a game and a online multiplayer one at that. The world is made and it should be utilized. It may not be the people, but the game systems failing to get people out more. I view systems like crafting and being a shop owner as systems designed to give time sinks and get people out (i.e.: gathering, crafting, hunting). Just not really seeing a lot of that all the time and maybe that's just because people have already moved past that phase in their veteran status.

[Puciek]

I can assure you that people are out and in the streets, just that they have whererp off. Walk enough of them, or start doing something to draw people in (messenger to all due to some vandalism, or robbed npc can do it) and you will get them in. Of course, as a result, you will also likely get someone who will smack you over the head and toss you into ahalin, but that is part of playing an aggressive PC. They especially walk the areas to forage/gather and hunt, I run into people there a lot. Seriously. You may also run into some mages there and get into trouble, but that's another fun out of it.

As for not being to make friends, well, I can't help with that. If your RP choice is to play a loner then you really can't blame anyone else for it. This is the old adage of "silent type in corner of the tavern" who complains about not getting any RP. The answer was and will be: stop being a silent guy in a corner. You don't need to pour your heart out to random people, but you need to meet new people somehow, something to talk with them about, and not only when you mug them.

[Voxumo]

@Voxumo interesting argument which can be as easily reversed - why do you assume that just because you are not doing well it means everyone is? Pop to OOC meetings, or check up on logs, hear how people are enjoying the RP. Is there anything to substantiate your claim that overal population, not just few people, are not doing well?

No Puciek, that isn't an argument that can be easily reversed, for the main fact it wasn't an argument in the first place, but a defense to a unfounded claim you made against me. First off you clearly don't understand who you are speaking about, as I attend ooc chats regularly. Also I've never claimed that just because I'm not doing well that everyone else must not be doing well.

I'm quite vocal when I am not doing well, or that I feel the game isn't doing well. And guess what I post about it when certain topics that pertain to my lack of enjoyment come up. Yes typically I am the Minority in this regard, but on the rare occasions others pop out of the woodwork to speak up, such as we've seen with this and the other topic. And if those people pop up, how many others harbor similar feelings, but are too... pressured not to speak up? We see it all the time with polls, typically far more people will vote than ever actually speak up. This lends credence to the notion that there are more people in a "Camp" than there actually appears.

[Leech]

Please forgive me for thinking I have any information that's helpful about this argument. I lurk here sometimes when I'm bored at work and feel like the amount of time, sweat, and tears that I've put into this game entitle me to some small opinion about it.

As for not being to make friends, well, I can't help with that. If your RP choice is to play a loner then you really can't blame anyone else for it. This is the old adage of "silent type in corner of the tavern" who complains about not getting any RP. The answer was and will be: stop being a silent guy in a corner. You don't need to pour your heart out to random people, but you need to meet new people somehow, something to talk with them about, and not only when you mug them.

I feel it's very easy to place the blame back on the person struggling with this line of thought. Famine could be (and is, if I'm remembering correctly from OtherMU*) a good roleplayer and fully aware of the limitations that playing anything but a social butterfly might hold. This does not mean that they can't still have trouble getting into RP, or that there can't be systems in place that help them to find RP.

I haven't played in a couple years, but when I did the normal flow of RP was either find somebody in a Tavern or already in a Public Space roleplaying and roleplay with them, or do some type of event or some "cry-for-help" that gets the people to you (and this wasn't just for criminal PCs either). The latter can often come off as annoying, or self-deprecating, and people often don't want to do it. I can't imagine that flow has changed much, because TI hasn't changed much. For players like Famine, this can be extremely discouraging, and it's even more discouraging when people tell you it's your fault.

Which Are ones actually maintaining population? Burning post is actually dead, with no one ever online, and that is the closest there is to TI, and it wasn't always dead - it just is dead now. I also don't know where you get unresponsive staff from.

If I read Rabek's original post right, they were saying RP MU*s, which does not translate to The Inquisition themed MUDs. Their statement is true, TI: Legacy has historically had a much smaller population than other roleplaying-enforced MUDs currently in the market. Whether that holds back a player's enjoyment is entirely up to the individual. My best scene was with a single other person. More players definitely gives you more roleplayers to choose from though, which is nice.

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Expecting a member of the knights to have mastered a weapon and preferably defense is not asking alot. Don't go placing blame on the policies. I played EM and it was EM before me that instated those policies, though I actually reduced them a bit as the policies then were quite rough, as they required an actual time investment, as even if you had mastered combat, you still had to wait six ooc months to become a full-fledged knight.

Puciek wrote:
And quite honestly people don't join knights because it's the opposite of newbie friendly. No one goes around trying to recruit knights, the help files and boards are from 2013 and there is little show that people are willing to change that. So an actual new player in Knights is likely going to have a bad time. If you want an influx of players, you have to go out and get them, not build it and wait till they come. And a big part of the 2013 mentality is the need for master level skills to be allowed to do anything useful in knights, which is just another relict of the past.

Speaking as somebody who helped to create those requirements however-god-awful-long ago: the lore and organization for every guild is lacking, in various ways, most of them unique to that guild. The Inquisition is a themeset that, so far, has been very reliant on players building their own lore. It's a little sandboxy in that way. The restrictions in the Knights, and formerly in the Brotherhood, were the attempts of various players to try to give new players goals that had weight and were relevant in an effort to make sure that guild ranks were not handed out like candy to satiate players OOCly, but were rather real concrete things that your character would be working for and RPing about for a couple weeks - and throughout that time they would be learning the theme of the guild and their responsibilities. There is, of course, a balance that allows you to make an entertaining challenge, and to provide enjoyable adversity. That was the idea originally, and I don't know how well that's working anymore because I don't play.

You also need to take into consideration the fact that a good majority of the guild helpfiles are NOT written by staff. Most of the organization and helpfiles in guilds are structured by PCs. I know you want an enjoyable, perfect game - but God damn. Cut people some slack.

[Puciek]

Expecting a member of the knights to have mastered a weapon and preferably defense is not asking alot. Don't go placing blame on the policies. I played EM and it was EM before me that instated those policies, though I actually reduced them a bit as the policies then were quite rough, as they required an actual time investment, as even if you had mastered combat, you still had to wait six ooc months to become a full-fledged knight.

Puciek wrote:
And quite honestly people don't join knights because it's the opposite of newbie friendly. No one goes around trying to recruit knights, the help files and boards are from 2013 and there is little show that people are willing to change that. So an actual new player in Knights is likely going to have a bad time. If you want an influx of players, you have to go out and get them, not build it and wait till they come. And a big part of the 2013 mentality is the need for master level skills to be allowed to do anything useful in knights, which is just another relict of the past.

Speaking as somebody who helped to create those requirements however-god-awful-long ago: the lore and organization for every guild is lacking, in various ways, most of them unique to that guild. The Inquisition is a themeset that, so far, has been very reliant on players building their own lore. It's a little sandboxy in that way. The restrictions in the Knights, and formerly in the Brotherhood, were the attempts of various players to try to give new players goals that had weight and were relevant in an effort to make sure that guild ranks were not handed out like candy to satiate players OOCly, but were rather real concrete things that your character would be working for and RPing about for a couple weeks - and throughout that time they would be learning the theme of the guild and their responsibilities. There is, of course, a balance that allows you to make an entertaining challenge, and to provide enjoyable adversity. That was the idea originally, and I don't know how well that's working anymore because I don't play.

You also need to take into consideration the fact that a good majority of the guild helpfiles are NOT written by staff. Most of the organization and helpfiles in guilds are structured by PCs. I know you want an enjoyable, perfect game - but God damn. Cut people some slack.

As a matter of disclosure, I did put a solid effort to try to get things swinging in knights, including started work on getting IC boards and help files updated and making training yard and other open parts of the keep as a place where rp happens. That was rejected, and eventually for IC and OOC reasons gave up. I am not someone who does nothing complaining about the state of knights, but what I have stated is the reality of how they are now, no sugar coating or defaming intended or included.

And I do remember the old knights, and when it worked - the key part of it was that pages and squires were all ICly put to work, were given tasks, goals etc, something to work towards, as you've said yourself. There was that comradery, not only in combat but day to day rp. That simply doesn't take place anymore, and the theme is thrown around as an easy explanation.

[Kinaed]

As per a player request, I agree this is not "off topic" for TI and belongs on the general board for discussion.

I am interested to know what other RPIs have going on in the 'day to day' that drag people into RP. As it is, having played a few, I didn't find them much different to TI in terms of starting off with few friends, no RP, and having to find/make relationships before the game became fun.

Statistically speaking, TI is doing well in terms of activity though I cannot gauge player overall happiness. That said, someone asked me to poll for it, and I declined. I'd rather have people make statements about specific things that make them happy or sad instead of get an ambigous message that everyone hates the game (which staff will take personally even if we ought not) or that everything is good, so all these complaints are only a few mal contents.

The reality is that we can be a good game and still have our warts. The idea is to become better over time, which I think we've generally done.

[Voxumo]

Admitting there's a problem isn't admitting failure.


Here are some key points I'd like to raise.

1) Why despite apparently having good activity levels, and number of players, can we not fill guild roles? Why aren't people interested in taking the riskier roles, such as Knights/Order, Reeves, Brotherhood?

2) Why while other guilds suffer is the Merchant's Guild seemingly thriving with 20+ characters according to census, almost a 4th of the total character population and likely more than a 4th of the total active player population?

3) Why aren't people voting for TI: Legacy? We used to be among the top 10's and 20's on sites such as TMC and TMS, yet we haven't approached those numbers in quite sometime. I feel this is an issue as this seems to be the main way we bring in new players.


While these barely scrape the surface of the issues I have or the problems I see in the game, I feel they would be a good starting point.

While I can't really speak for 1, or 3, since I tend to play the riskier roles and I do vote daily as it's become somewhat of a habit, I do feel comfortable speaking my mind about concern 2.


Now I admittedly have not paid much attention to census in recent times, so seeing the 20 player count for the merchants was quite the surprise. I do not know how long that has been like that, though I can imagine that number might have jumped with the introduction of assets. Silver is needed for many things on this game, even the mages need it for magecrafting, combat characters need it for lessons. Merchants are generally the only reliable way to make silver nowadays. There may be other ways, but none hold quite the potential as being a merchant.

Though even with that the question becomes what are the merchants doing that the other guilds aren't to retain characters? I mean it's certainly not a stable leadership, as Grand Magnate and Magnate have fluctuated alot. I've never played a merchant, as I can't string well to save my life, so I have no idea what their policies are. But I think it would be valuable if members of the merchants could take a second and think "What keeps me playing a merchant?" and then take the time to comment here. Maybe what the merchants are doing right can be applied to other guilds?

Though I may also be wrong, and the merchant numbers have been like that for quite sometime. If that is the case just disregard what I said in the first paragraph.

I know this is me raising issues yet not providing responses, but I can't pretend to know why 1 and 2 are issues for some. I mean I could hypothesize all day, but that would do little to help.