Off-topc from assets discussion Puciek and Vouxumuo

[Starstarfish]

As someone who has had a recent Merchant PC, I'll throw this in for thought:

- Being a Merchant and thus being a crafter type generally means that you have something naturally to entertain yourself with bursts of time when you can't actively find others - hunting for metrics-loaded rare items, gathering supplies, crafting. You have a natural in to discuss things in RP with others that is fairly neutral - taking about your product and hustling a buck. These are things easily researched IRL - you can look up things about cooking or fishing or whatnots and talk about them IC.

The other roles can be more tricky. One because some of them require understanding more theme/lore than others. They also don't give you to the same degree something natively to do when others aren't around unless you've dual-Guilded. Being a priest-side Orderite for example arguably has no skill for you to train up or practice that is native to the Guild. You can do anything that would support that role in another Guild.

That's one of the reasons I'd like to see the jobs that were coded return, even if they are tweaked/limited in some way. Because giving some of these other Guilds something for folks to do during down times might help flesh stuff out. But as stands, playing a Merchant is the most viable way to see that your effort has a tangible result of some kind for folks who like that kind of thing.

- There was a policy introduced through IC of late wherein it was expressed that you weren't able to essentially legally do commerce of any kind on grid without being a member of the Merchants Guild. IE - it left your only alternative as being Southside only. As such, many of these folks might have joined the Guild out need. Some of these positions might be better suited for the University, likely, but at the moment that's RP based and not a coded Guild so Merchants it is.

- I can only see 14 folks on the official Guild list that non-members can see, so I'm guessing that's who is active arguably.

[Voxumo]

As someone who has had a recent Merchant PC, I'll throw this in for thought:

- Being a Merchant and thus being a crafter type generally means that you have something naturally to entertain yourself with bursts of time when you can't actively find others - hunting for metrics-loaded rare items, gathering supplies, crafting. You have a natural in to discuss things in RP with others that is fairly neutral - taking about your product and hustling a buck. These are things easily researched IRL - you can look up things about cooking or fishing or whatnots and talk about them IC.

I suppose that would make sense. The only other guild I could see being like that is the manus, up to a certain point with magery, though physicians also use to be like that when herbalism was under their purview, as you could level up herbalism by making concoctions, which then could be added to the madison's stock.

- There was a policy introduced through IC of late wherein it was expressed that you weren't able to essentially legally do commerce of any kind on grid without being a member of the Merchants Guild. IE - it left your only alternative as being Southside only. As such, many of these folks might have joined the Guild out need. Some of these positions might be better suited for the University, likely, but at the moment that's RP based and not a coded Guild so Merchants it is.

It was my understanding that if you didn't want to join the guild, you could also pay for a "Trade License" so you could sell legally without having to join the guild. Has this changed?

- I can only see 14 folks on the official Guild list that non-members can see, so I'm guessing that's who is active arguably.

14 is still quite a bit when compared to the other guilds, almost twice in general according to census at least.

[Puciek]

Census has a big degree of uncertainty in it and that intentional so it can't be meta gamed around. There for sure are also at least few merchant lists who do not show on public guild list. And Licences under current ic leadership are not a thing, that may or may not change.

[Starstarfish]

physicians also use to be like that when herbalism was under their purview, as you could level up herbalism by making concoctions, which then could be added to the madison's stock.

Well, arguably they have Medicine now that serves that function instead, but yeah.

I think Merchants and playing a crafter is something newer players understand as it's the most stock from game to game. (IE join an org, craft some stuff, talk shop etc) The crafting skills are pretty standard for other systems. Versus Healing (our coded system is different than others and Galen-based humour theory isn't something everyone grasps at least at first), or the IC theme on lore for the law or religion are a bit more obtuse and require getting into the game more.

Also playing a Merchant also arguably involves the least risk of harm/death or potentially antagonistic/unpleasant RP, which maybe there's been a shift in how much people are looking for that sort of thing.

[Famine]

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.

Could be a number of reasons why this is happening that has nothing to do with activity. For example, you can have 100 people online and still no one wanting to fill those roles. That has more to do to the reason why the game systems are not attracting people than specifically activity. Like, what does it mean to be in a guild? What does it mean to lead a guild? Is it fun? Do they have the tools? Is it better off just being solo?

From my perspective, I've never wanted to join a guild here. I am forced to as a thieve because for some really silly reason, it's the only place I can fence stolen goods. I have no other benefits other than finding other like-minded thieves to role-play with in the guild.

On the 3rd part with voting, I mean, all of those sites are pretty dead these days. I still don't know why MUD's are still pushing to vote. I have yet met anyone who uses TMS to decide whether they are picking the game or not. But I guess I could be wrong there. The admin on TMC is constantly MIA and will likely not update the site to be fully automated until he hands it off to someone else, if that even happens.

Regardless, I do agree there are good numbers here. I think my issue is that even if there is a showing of good numbers, the amount actually playing seems low.

[Puciek]

Why guess about the number of people actually playing? Activity has the stats:

In the last seven days:
=============================================================================
There were 115 unique characters online of 822 total in the database.
Of those online, 69 actively role-played with an average of 8 RP hours.
A total of 559 hours of RP were logged.
The Top Ten RP hours ranged from 45 hours to 21 hours.
Minimal (11), Low (19), Average (7), High (15) and Excellent (8)
=============================================================================

Just as mentioned before, a lot of RP happens in private for a myriad of reasons so you simply may not see it, as this is quite a lot of RP hours (it comes to about 3.3 hours of RP per actual RL hour).

As for TMS, I agree with you, it's a waste of time that no one uses anymore (mostly because it was not upgraded since the 1920s). But Reddit apparently is now a good source of players, so maybe we should shift the internal advertising to push people towards Reddit promotion.

[Puciek]

Update:

Worth adding a reply to:

From my perspective, I've never wanted to join a guild here. I am forced to as a thieve because for some really silly reason, it's the only place I can fence stolen goods. I have no other benefits other than finding other like-minded thieves to role-play with in the guild.

That's not true, you can perfectly fine go on your own and try to sell stolen items to players. It, of course, is a lot riskier than using the channels thieves have established, but that is a choice you can make.

[Famine]

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.

Was going to make this a separate post because it may be long.

I think I could count the number of content generating systems TI has on one hand. You got crafting, trading, role-playing, hunting, and even player-versus-player. All of these game systems generate content for the end user. Game systems like Assets are more passive, but the selling of assets still falls into the already existing trading category.

Overall, all of these systems lend to the core system we are mostly here for: role-playing. The issue is, that don't really (or always) push us towards role-play. We can just use them in role-playing because role-playing in general, is very open. You can technically go into any game and role-play. For example, Albion Online just released. I can role-play a bandit, but if no one role-plays with me, it's meaningless.

Creating systems that encourage or even ignite conflict are great. The random RPEvent system ignites RP. It gives a player an RP objective that leads to a reward if they complete that objective within a certain period of time. This forces players to find other players and role-play. Systems like that work well if done right. The rumor system and plot may be another too, but this is more about giving players the tools to feed into the role-play, which is always awesome!

The issue with systems like RPEvent is it relies on players to work. But, if you used it as a reference model for other systems that you can do solo, maybe that's a good start. Unfortunately, that's no different than solo quest lines, character leveling systems and so forth that your staff seems to not want to introduce, which is going to be hard to overcome because you have based so much on player interaction that crumbles when said interaction is inactive.

Thus, I think the answer to the question that most other RP games do is to create more game systems that support more solo gameplay that does not directly involve interacting with other players, even on a RP level.

[Famine]

Update:

Worth adding a reply to:

From my perspective, I've never wanted to join a guild here. I am forced to as a thieve because for some really silly reason, it's the only place I can fence stolen goods. I have no other benefits other than finding other like-minded thieves to role-play with in the guild.

That's not true, you can perfectly fine go on your own and try to sell stolen items to players. It, of course, is a lot riskier than using the channels thieves have established, but that is a choice you can make.

Yeah, I know, but as you said it's risky. I think it's super risky, so I don't do it. A fence or someone with a history of being a fence is less risky and that's why I look at it as being forced because it's really the only viable option without exposing myself as a thief.

[Puciek]

Update:

Worth adding a reply to:

From my perspective, I've never wanted to join a guild here. I am forced to as a thieve because for some really silly reason, it's the only place I can fence stolen goods. I have no other benefits other than finding other like-minded thieves to role-play with in the guild.

That's not true, you can perfectly fine go on your own and try to sell stolen items to players. It, of course, is a lot riskier than using the channels thieves have established, but that is a choice you can make.

Yeah, I know, but as you said it's risky. I think it's super risky, so I don't do it. A fence or someone with a history of being a fence is less risky and that's why I look at it as being forced because it's really the only viable option without exposing myself as a thief.

Then you need other people to work with, that is the point of a multiplayer game. Thieves come with built-up infrastructure, but there is nothing stopping you from finding other players to build up your own, in the end, those are viable choices here and it was done before, from having simply crooked merchants selling stolen goods, too much more elaborate setups. It's not forced upon you though, you simply pick the safer choice.