Which guilds should be disbanded? Which guilds shouldn't be? Why?
10 votes per user - but you don't have to use them all. I don't think you can vote for a guild twice, but if you can - please don't.
Removed Noble, Order, and Knights because there wasn't enough room in the poll (can only have 10 options, apparently), so if you think these ought to be removed, please post below in text explaining that and why. Thanks!
Vote is open for 7 days, and you can revote if someone's rhetoric sways you.
Disbanding Guilds
I'd like to hear arguments on why disbanding any guild is going to fix any problems in the mud (specifically, which problems and how they will help?). I sincerely doubt that any members of the disbanded guilds are going to automatically shift their characters into others for random reasons.
It is my belief that the players are spread too thinly across the entire game atmosphere. The current list of active players cannot sustain the GL and Player requirements to keep each of these guilds feasibly going. There is no reason that someone cannot RP any of these concepts without a guild. For instance, mercenaries, could all be contracted as bodyguards to the existing guilds or to the noble houses. Troubadors, physicians and scholars likewise.
The idea would be to have these characters play in a different ball field rather than the solitary idea of within their own guild. If they are contracted by the noble houses, there is the RP at court and the acquisition of the retainer. If they go elsewhere, they can RP that as well. It will also prevent the active players from feeling forced to fill a GL spot that they may not want to.
Personally, I feel that if all of these defunct guilds voted to be disbanded were shifted to noble employment, it would involve the freeman/gentry PC more actively in the affairs of the court, giving them a new avenue for RP.
Everytime I have logged on as an alt, I only see a wherelist of XBlocks. This is not conducive to keeping players signing in every day. New players do not want to spend their first week waiting in public places for people to walk through. They will not idle all day long if they have not developed a loyalty to the game yet. They need to see that there actually is RP happening -somewhere- in the game, rather than a huge cyber world of empty rooms.
[/tirade]
The idea would be to have these characters play in a different ball field rather than the solitary idea of within their own guild. If they are contracted by the noble houses, there is the RP at court and the acquisition of the retainer. If they go elsewhere, they can RP that as well. It will also prevent the active players from feeling forced to fill a GL spot that they may not want to.
Personally, I feel that if all of these defunct guilds voted to be disbanded were shifted to noble employment, it would involve the freeman/gentry PC more actively in the affairs of the court, giving them a new avenue for RP.
Everytime I have logged on as an alt, I only see a wherelist of XBlocks. This is not conducive to keeping players signing in every day. New players do not want to spend their first week waiting in public places for people to walk through. They will not idle all day long if they have not developed a loyalty to the game yet. They need to see that there actually is RP happening -somewhere- in the game, rather than a huge cyber world of empty rooms.
[/tirade]
Hmm.
Disbanding guilds is an icky topic. Here's my thoughts for anyone who cares. :)
-) Guilds enrich the game by reminding people of character concepts and supporting character concepts.
-) Guilds as a concept might enrich the game by supporting concepts, but they equally limit the game by over-emphasizing particular concepts, and possibly over-cookie-cuttering them.
-) However, would the game survive without guilds? Afterall, roles without guilds become somewhat ambiguous. So...
-) Yes, people can RP concepts that aren't in guilds, but they definitely get less attention.
-) I think that "guilds" shouldn't exist as OOC structures - I'd rather see roles to provide game texture, and guilds be strongly IC - but I can understand that the game started with guilds and it makes sense that it's grown with guilds, etc, and that the OOC portion of them is partly what makes them strong in-game.
-) I'd rather that abolishing guilds be a paradigm shift rather than a change in theme.
-) I'll openly admit I'm biased for the bards because it's my favorite type of character, and I had a hand in who the bards are today with my characters in the past. It'd hurt to axe them just because people feel they're superfluous.
-) I don't think that guilds superfluous to the central theme (mage vs church) are superfluous to the game at all. However, I can see that too many of them might dilute the pbase when the pbase is small.
-) So far, in my eyes, the voting probably generally coincides with the activities of various guilds. For example, no one is saying get rid of the Reeves - because a lot of them are active. The Masque has always felt to me a bit like a 'what the hell is it' kinda guild, but people love it and the players in it in particular are active and interested in keeping it around. It's not on the table for axing because of that.
Love to hear some thoughts around this all.
Disbanding guilds is an icky topic. Here's my thoughts for anyone who cares. :)
-) Guilds enrich the game by reminding people of character concepts and supporting character concepts.
-) Guilds as a concept might enrich the game by supporting concepts, but they equally limit the game by over-emphasizing particular concepts, and possibly over-cookie-cuttering them.
-) However, would the game survive without guilds? Afterall, roles without guilds become somewhat ambiguous. So...
-) Yes, people can RP concepts that aren't in guilds, but they definitely get less attention.
-) I think that "guilds" shouldn't exist as OOC structures - I'd rather see roles to provide game texture, and guilds be strongly IC - but I can understand that the game started with guilds and it makes sense that it's grown with guilds, etc, and that the OOC portion of them is partly what makes them strong in-game.
-) I'd rather that abolishing guilds be a paradigm shift rather than a change in theme.
-) I'll openly admit I'm biased for the bards because it's my favorite type of character, and I had a hand in who the bards are today with my characters in the past. It'd hurt to axe them just because people feel they're superfluous.
-) I don't think that guilds superfluous to the central theme (mage vs church) are superfluous to the game at all. However, I can see that too many of them might dilute the pbase when the pbase is small.
-) So far, in my eyes, the voting probably generally coincides with the activities of various guilds. For example, no one is saying get rid of the Reeves - because a lot of them are active. The Masque has always felt to me a bit like a 'what the hell is it' kinda guild, but people love it and the players in it in particular are active and interested in keeping it around. It's not on the table for axing because of that.
Love to hear some thoughts around this all.
I still don't see how disbanding the guilds will help, even with the limited player base. If you are a strong character with a strong background, you aren't necessarily going to go "Oh, I'm not a scholar anymore... guess I"ll go be a Reeve instead!". You might, or you might just languish non-guilded (which is my suspicion). No, guilds are not required, of course, but then what was accomplished by such? How did that action and disbanding help the game?
There's no reason why being contracted and employed by nobles can only happen to non-guilded players. I've had nobles contact me about hiring Court Bards, and when there were appropriate players, set them up with such. Disbanding isn't going to automatically make those players available, nor do I feel it will help encourage non-guilded bards to appear.
This can apply to other guilds too, easily. Do you want a personal seamstress? Ask the merchants if they can contract you one to take your orders and arrange to have them take priority over any other orders they have. Needing a bodyguard sounds perfect for the mercenaries. Personal physician, ask the docs who they have licensed (you want a licensed and approved doctor, right?) that would want to earn more money and be focused away from the hospital, except for emergencies.
I think the presence of a guild and a guild leader can only HELP to get such characters/players by having a presence and reminding/informing new players that such opportunities exist... but again it comes down to a smaller pbase at the moment. If someone can actually explain why disbanding any of the guilds will help with the situation, I'm all ears. But I have yet to see such. So far it seems that the only thing it will do is cut down on the number of guilds, which in my mind will cause those occupations to die off in obscurity rather than encourage anything.
There's no reason why being contracted and employed by nobles can only happen to non-guilded players. I've had nobles contact me about hiring Court Bards, and when there were appropriate players, set them up with such. Disbanding isn't going to automatically make those players available, nor do I feel it will help encourage non-guilded bards to appear.
This can apply to other guilds too, easily. Do you want a personal seamstress? Ask the merchants if they can contract you one to take your orders and arrange to have them take priority over any other orders they have. Needing a bodyguard sounds perfect for the mercenaries. Personal physician, ask the docs who they have licensed (you want a licensed and approved doctor, right?) that would want to earn more money and be focused away from the hospital, except for emergencies.
I think the presence of a guild and a guild leader can only HELP to get such characters/players by having a presence and reminding/informing new players that such opportunities exist... but again it comes down to a smaller pbase at the moment. If someone can actually explain why disbanding any of the guilds will help with the situation, I'm all ears. But I have yet to see such. So far it seems that the only thing it will do is cut down on the number of guilds, which in my mind will cause those occupations to die off in obscurity rather than encourage anything.
The problem of spreading things too thin could be seen more in that we don't have enough guildleaders for these guilds, and because the structure exists, people aren't comfortable doing it on their own without a guildleader, where they might be if such a structure weren't in place.
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Tribalware
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:31 pm
Ok so this post has been dead for a while now, but having been playing this game pretty actively over the last couple of months it seems to still be highly relevant. My experience has been that it is actually very hard to facilitate worthwhile rp with some guilds, having sat around and come up with a nice idea for an rp plot that seems feasible and fun, the leader of say the mercenaries shows up as inactive.
Now the fact that the mercenaries show up as a guild within the game suggests to me that they should be able to be contacted and dealt with, however it's no one in particulars fault that this is not the case. There simply arent enough players to have the guild functioning as they should be.
One minor suggestion to start could be collapsing the mercenaries not into the knights but perhaps the thieves guild. It seems like the knights having knowledge of a mercenary branch that takes unsavoury jobs for coin might be more compromising than the tenebrae dealing with this information. But most importantly if anyone did then want to contract a job that required brute force an active player would be there to receive and deal with the rp in some way.
I personally have no idea what the masque are or if what they do effects anything at all in game, but i also get the feeling that if they were active thats exactly what theyd want me to think. Most of the guilds seem necessary in some way, but id make compromises to be able to deal with them on a more active basis.
Now the fact that the mercenaries show up as a guild within the game suggests to me that they should be able to be contacted and dealt with, however it's no one in particulars fault that this is not the case. There simply arent enough players to have the guild functioning as they should be.
One minor suggestion to start could be collapsing the mercenaries not into the knights but perhaps the thieves guild. It seems like the knights having knowledge of a mercenary branch that takes unsavoury jobs for coin might be more compromising than the tenebrae dealing with this information. But most importantly if anyone did then want to contract a job that required brute force an active player would be there to receive and deal with the rp in some way.
I personally have no idea what the masque are or if what they do effects anything at all in game, but i also get the feeling that if they were active thats exactly what theyd want me to think. Most of the guilds seem necessary in some way, but id make compromises to be able to deal with them on a more active basis.
I agree, and I'm thinking that we might want to collapse the guilds to be no more than some function of the active pbase to ensure that the core guilds are taken care of first, then the non-core can be re-opened as interest and pbase support.
The problem is that it's rather eclectic who is playing what. For example, the Masque GL loves his guild and wants to keep it going, even though the pbase is not large enough to, in theory, support it. Other core guilds seem to have low membership or activity, but I'd hate to scare off the non-core guild players by removing their guilds just because we don't have enough activity to spread around.
Any comments from anyone? Otherwise, I'm likely to start strategically "closing" some guilds with the idea of restarting them as coded entities (but leaving them as non-coded) when the support and activity flares up a bit.
This being said, which guilds are Core? Can someone offer an attempt at a prioritized list? If not, I'll have a think and see if I can come up with one.
The problem is that it's rather eclectic who is playing what. For example, the Masque GL loves his guild and wants to keep it going, even though the pbase is not large enough to, in theory, support it. Other core guilds seem to have low membership or activity, but I'd hate to scare off the non-core guild players by removing their guilds just because we don't have enough activity to spread around.
Any comments from anyone? Otherwise, I'm likely to start strategically "closing" some guilds with the idea of restarting them as coded entities (but leaving them as non-coded) when the support and activity flares up a bit.
This being said, which guilds are Core? Can someone offer an attempt at a prioritized list? If not, I'll have a think and see if I can come up with one.
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Orfeo
Core Guilds: (In no particular order)
Order
Reeves
Nobles
Merchants
(Physicians) Borderline
Order
Reeves
Nobles
Merchants
(Physicians) Borderline
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