Hey all - let me first say I'm not out to hate on any character with this post - so if you play a noble, it's not an attack on you. To be honest I haven't been back long enough to really form an opinion on any nobles anyways so...
I feel that there were too many nobles on TI2, and I suspect (and have heard people complain) that there are too many nobles here on TI-Legacy (ie TI3).
My problem with nobles is thus:
1. Nobles are not very upwardly mobile. They start at or near the top, and stay at or near the top.
2. Nobles are "placed above" position that are upwardly mobile, ie positions that are earned through RP. This allows them to dominate day-to-day RP in a way that other characters have a hard time doing.
3. Nobles are more constrained by perceived social conventions.
These three factors combine to make, in my opinion, noble RP pretty stagnant, uninteresting and unchanging. Worse, the nobles' agenda, if they have one, tends to be one of maintaining the status quo. Sure, they fill a useful role as an opponent to the Merchants or a check on the Order, but that role can be handled better by 2 nobles, not 12. What's better in my opinion is to encourage players to take on positions that do have an agenda, which all the other guilds do in some shape or form, and to place characters who've succeeded in advancing those agendas in positions of power.
Worse, too many nobles stratifies the RP base between oldbies and newbies. Only oldbies can really afford (or will really be able to afford) the xp to play nobles, keeping a lot of our best RPers more distant from new players in their RP. I realize nobles do interact with newbies to an extent - but the kind of shenanigans you can get in to with the typical noble do not compare to the kind of shenanigans that you can get into with peers. And aren't crazy shenanigans of some sort what drew us all in in the first place?
I'm not advocating a wholesale slaughter of nobles. What I am advocating is not creating any more nobles until such a time as there are a maximum of ~4 nobles on census, with realistically only 1-2 especially active RPers. Let the Dukes of each Duchy act as an unobtrusive hand for the Imms to intervene into the MUD when its necessary, so that when the player behind the Earl Marshall for example gets sent to Afghanistan, ICly the Dukes just send the Earl Marshall to command the armies on the Farin border, and appoint a new Earl Marshall. Or when the Queen or Grand Inquisitor decides to burn Lithmore to the ground, they stop that. That's it.
In my opinion, characters fall in to two main groups: those who generate conflict, and those who get sucked in by it. Both are equally important and valuable, and enjoyable to play. I feel that most of us though work towards two goals when playing the second type: we want to be sociable, and we want to be important. That's fine - but if you want to be sociable, join the Troubadours. If you want to be important, earn it - become someone important in your guild. If you want to be both, become Poet Laudate. You may have to step over a body or two to get there though...
Thoughts?
The Purpose of Nobility, or Lack Thereof
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Eris
I agree with some of your points, Geras, but I think that it's a little too generalised, to be honest.
I completely disagree that noble RP is stagnant and unchanging, and think that's an unfair assumption. For example, my character began as a courtier, and has, over the past nine OOC months, worked her way up to a Duchess. I've hired retainers, got married, sponsored ventures in the city, has babies, played the political game, and liaised with many of the other guilds to generate MUD-wide RP. Nothing about my RP, I believe, is stagnant, and I spend all of my time on the MUD finding ways to improve it for other people and to give other people more RP.
I also disagree that only 'oldbies' can afford nobility. I came to TI:L as a complete newbie, having never played the game before, and still retain the noble character (who was my first) now. I could name several other players who are in the same position as me.
I believe that positions of high power are beneficial to the game IF the player in question (which is not always the case) does something other than stand around. I do agree with you that we should be advocating "working nobility", and that people should be using their hard-paid benefits. But this sort of mind-set should be advocated by EVERYONE, not just we nobles. This is true of a farmer character as much as a noble. I think that a game comprising mainly of nobility is OK so long as the characters in question make use of their positions to generate conflict, and I believe that "blaming" it on the nobility is really just opting for an easy way out of the situation.
I think we have two major problems.
At current, I don't think our problem with activity has anything to do with the amount of nobility on the game. Rather, I think we have a lot of people "standing around" and not generating roleplay. When I log in, I usually see about eight people standing in different rooms, not interacting with each other- why? You don't have to be high powered, as I said, to be powerful or MUD-changing. Everyone and anyone can run events- and I haven't seen that happening on a MUD-wide basis for a long time. You also don't have to be powerful to make RP opportunities for yourselves and other people. It isn't just our responsibility as nobles.
I also see a lot of very "bare" RP. Emotes that seem a bit throw away and not thought-out. This bores people, in the long run, and doesn't encourage continued roleplay. In reality, nods, smiles, and nothing else is not going to engage your partner towards creative and/or contentious roleplay. It's not only the responsibility of guildleaders (particularly the nobility) to generate roleplay- it's everyone's. I understand that everyone has the right to roleplay as they see fit, but if we're advocating an RPI, then we need to BE one to attract and retain good quality players and up our activity.
To be honest (at this isn't an attack- forgive the medium of text), I'm a little tired of people blaming the large amount of nobility for a "stagnant" RP setting and lack of activity on the MUD. I don't think that's our problem at all. Rather, I think we need to identify and seek to resolve the real issues that are going on here, and everyone needs to take responsibility for them, not just one particular group of people.
I understand that this post might sound a little frustrated and/or aggressive. It's not meant to be- but I think these problems, as a game, have been staring at us in the face for a long time. I think it's time to do something about them in a constructive way, not just blame/poke criticism at a group who are only a small part of the problem.
I completely disagree that noble RP is stagnant and unchanging, and think that's an unfair assumption. For example, my character began as a courtier, and has, over the past nine OOC months, worked her way up to a Duchess. I've hired retainers, got married, sponsored ventures in the city, has babies, played the political game, and liaised with many of the other guilds to generate MUD-wide RP. Nothing about my RP, I believe, is stagnant, and I spend all of my time on the MUD finding ways to improve it for other people and to give other people more RP.
I also disagree that only 'oldbies' can afford nobility. I came to TI:L as a complete newbie, having never played the game before, and still retain the noble character (who was my first) now. I could name several other players who are in the same position as me.
I believe that positions of high power are beneficial to the game IF the player in question (which is not always the case) does something other than stand around. I do agree with you that we should be advocating "working nobility", and that people should be using their hard-paid benefits. But this sort of mind-set should be advocated by EVERYONE, not just we nobles. This is true of a farmer character as much as a noble. I think that a game comprising mainly of nobility is OK so long as the characters in question make use of their positions to generate conflict, and I believe that "blaming" it on the nobility is really just opting for an easy way out of the situation.
I think we have two major problems.
At current, I don't think our problem with activity has anything to do with the amount of nobility on the game. Rather, I think we have a lot of people "standing around" and not generating roleplay. When I log in, I usually see about eight people standing in different rooms, not interacting with each other- why? You don't have to be high powered, as I said, to be powerful or MUD-changing. Everyone and anyone can run events- and I haven't seen that happening on a MUD-wide basis for a long time. You also don't have to be powerful to make RP opportunities for yourselves and other people. It isn't just our responsibility as nobles.
I also see a lot of very "bare" RP. Emotes that seem a bit throw away and not thought-out. This bores people, in the long run, and doesn't encourage continued roleplay. In reality, nods, smiles, and nothing else is not going to engage your partner towards creative and/or contentious roleplay. It's not only the responsibility of guildleaders (particularly the nobility) to generate roleplay- it's everyone's. I understand that everyone has the right to roleplay as they see fit, but if we're advocating an RPI, then we need to BE one to attract and retain good quality players and up our activity.
To be honest (at this isn't an attack- forgive the medium of text), I'm a little tired of people blaming the large amount of nobility for a "stagnant" RP setting and lack of activity on the MUD. I don't think that's our problem at all. Rather, I think we need to identify and seek to resolve the real issues that are going on here, and everyone needs to take responsibility for them, not just one particular group of people.
I understand that this post might sound a little frustrated and/or aggressive. It's not meant to be- but I think these problems, as a game, have been staring at us in the face for a long time. I think it's time to do something about them in a constructive way, not just blame/poke criticism at a group who are only a small part of the problem.
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Tribalware
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:31 pm
I'm sure your rp was as you said it was, not at all stagnant, doesnt change the fact it remained centralised around court, likely no freeman saw it or heard much about it and whilst you may count as an exception the vast majority of new players will not want to invest most of their xp in nobility right away.
Look the problem seems to be that the old players like their nobility classes, its the natural zenith of power in the game, they are also the players who it would be most beneficial to see taking up freeman roles to encourage newer players because they are by and large the most capable rpers. There SHOULD only be a couple of nobles to every ten freemen, that way the power is in the hands of a few rather than the power being spread over many and the lack of power being centralised in a few.
Now also, when interacting with nobles as a freeman, often all that gives them away is their clothing. Whilst i like the fact im not constantly getting whipped and beaten for accidentally violating convention, it does often feel like im just rping with another freeman when i talk, it seems nobles get the best of both world in that sense.
I talk to a lot of new freeman players who are ACTIVE, like mad active, and when i ask them whats going on ic its 'waiting for the merchants guild to give me an order' or just 'not much in particular really', now the impetus for rp at this level should come from from player creativity, but it seems its a lot easier in some ways to generate rp as a noble. Freemen don't constantly have to watch for political backstabs, they arent necessarily always supposed to have a nefarious of power hungry motive that might drive a noble to increase of maintain their level of control. the natural energy of court is one that inspires rp whereas freeman were only ever supposed to live work and die.
It may be frustrating for people to always be blaming nobles for their lack of rp but its also frustrating for nobles to wall themselves off and rp out great plots that we only catch trickles of, when its clear that the freeman classes need a bit of help. We are your people after all, get us working for you.
Id like to see more noble initiated directives, I've never found one reason to show a noble IC respect, none have ever asked anything of me and I've never felt like I needed to perform any duty for one. Hell pick us out and make us fight each other on teams to prove whose house is the awesomest just get us involved a little bit. Theres a real lack of energy within the freeman class at the moment, and it does just feel like a lot of freeman characters are just throwback alts to much preferred noble characters.
Look the problem seems to be that the old players like their nobility classes, its the natural zenith of power in the game, they are also the players who it would be most beneficial to see taking up freeman roles to encourage newer players because they are by and large the most capable rpers. There SHOULD only be a couple of nobles to every ten freemen, that way the power is in the hands of a few rather than the power being spread over many and the lack of power being centralised in a few.
Now also, when interacting with nobles as a freeman, often all that gives them away is their clothing. Whilst i like the fact im not constantly getting whipped and beaten for accidentally violating convention, it does often feel like im just rping with another freeman when i talk, it seems nobles get the best of both world in that sense.
I talk to a lot of new freeman players who are ACTIVE, like mad active, and when i ask them whats going on ic its 'waiting for the merchants guild to give me an order' or just 'not much in particular really', now the impetus for rp at this level should come from from player creativity, but it seems its a lot easier in some ways to generate rp as a noble. Freemen don't constantly have to watch for political backstabs, they arent necessarily always supposed to have a nefarious of power hungry motive that might drive a noble to increase of maintain their level of control. the natural energy of court is one that inspires rp whereas freeman were only ever supposed to live work and die.
It may be frustrating for people to always be blaming nobles for their lack of rp but its also frustrating for nobles to wall themselves off and rp out great plots that we only catch trickles of, when its clear that the freeman classes need a bit of help. We are your people after all, get us working for you.
Id like to see more noble initiated directives, I've never found one reason to show a noble IC respect, none have ever asked anything of me and I've never felt like I needed to perform any duty for one. Hell pick us out and make us fight each other on teams to prove whose house is the awesomest just get us involved a little bit. Theres a real lack of energy within the freeman class at the moment, and it does just feel like a lot of freeman characters are just throwback alts to much preferred noble characters.
Hrm, tribalware, to be perfectly honest, the last time I played a noble who tried to be a complete stickler for freemen showing IC respect (albeit not in a very nice way ICly, due to her snooty personality), it ended up with a lot of OOC unpleasantness and the Law of Charity being ICly passed. I do think that emphasizing caste dynamics makes for potential viable RP between nobility and freemen, but it tends to be dampened somewhat due to players not taking kindly OOCly to certain types of IC friction. Not a criticism - simple human nature.
I have seen nobility defend freemen whom they ICly barely know, against other nobility, and whole groups of nobility rally against another noble because of his or her treatment of a freeman. ICly there should almost never be cause for this, barring extreme circumstances such as the freeman being in an illicit love affair with the noble (which should be extremely rare to begin with, not as common as it is here), but I think we are OOCly in the modern mindset of everyone being more or less 'equal', rather than in the medieval mindset of freemen being, well, beings of much lesser IC importance.
I guess the lack of freeman characters is a vicious cycle - the fewer people have them, the fewer are interested in playing them. I know I stopped playing my main conflict-inspiring freeman when the heavy PK reqs came in (being nerfed now, so hopefully that should inspire some spark of RP, although frankly the current combat system doesn't bode well for assassinations at all).
P.S. Gah, I think my thoughts just went all over the place here. Sorry. :/
I have seen nobility defend freemen whom they ICly barely know, against other nobility, and whole groups of nobility rally against another noble because of his or her treatment of a freeman. ICly there should almost never be cause for this, barring extreme circumstances such as the freeman being in an illicit love affair with the noble (which should be extremely rare to begin with, not as common as it is here), but I think we are OOCly in the modern mindset of everyone being more or less 'equal', rather than in the medieval mindset of freemen being, well, beings of much lesser IC importance.
I guess the lack of freeman characters is a vicious cycle - the fewer people have them, the fewer are interested in playing them. I know I stopped playing my main conflict-inspiring freeman when the heavy PK reqs came in (being nerfed now, so hopefully that should inspire some spark of RP, although frankly the current combat system doesn't bode well for assassinations at all).
P.S. Gah, I think my thoughts just went all over the place here. Sorry. :/
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Tribalware
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:31 pm
No you are correct on that point, and after some though fully retract my statement concerning caste interaction. It has to be one way or the other, either nobles can interact freely with the lower classes or they can't and its much better that they can, even if the realism of rp is compromised a little.
The rest however I stand by, I think all nobles should have responsibilities similar to those of GL's because thats the level of power they wield. Mincing around at the palace is fine, id imagine nobles were very into their mincing, as long as some basic duties are adhered to.
Just met a new player who said "you know it'd be nice to see more nobles than just paloma at church square once in a while" - I agree, but personally dont care to rp with nobles directly at all, what I would like from them are tasks, contracts, calls to arms etc, and these could be posted on ic boards for all i care, id only need to see the noble briefly when collecting any rewards, they wouldnt have to put up with me icly but id still have been getting much more involved in the game on their behalf
The rest however I stand by, I think all nobles should have responsibilities similar to those of GL's because thats the level of power they wield. Mincing around at the palace is fine, id imagine nobles were very into their mincing, as long as some basic duties are adhered to.
Just met a new player who said "you know it'd be nice to see more nobles than just paloma at church square once in a while" - I agree, but personally dont care to rp with nobles directly at all, what I would like from them are tasks, contracts, calls to arms etc, and these could be posted on ic boards for all i care, id only need to see the noble briefly when collecting any rewards, they wouldnt have to put up with me icly but id still have been getting much more involved in the game on their behalf
My Appraisal is certain social groups in this game can RP with others more easily than others.
Groups that mix well:
Nobles and Nobles
Gentry and Gentry
Freeman and Freeman
Known Mages and Known Mages
Unknown Mages and Regular People
Groups that don't mix as well:
Nobles and Gentry
Gentry and Freemen
Groups that generally don't mix:
Nobles and Freeman
Known Mages and Regular People
Unknown Mages and Known Mages
I'm sure there's more than these too, involving guilds/order relationships. As an example, I play a dirty freeman and if I see someone dressed well to do I'm going to keep on walking. For me to walk up to a noble and their retinue (If the nobles are in public they should likely not be unaccompanied) and say, "Hey there, want to go down to the boar and get some drinks, maybe pat a few serving girls on the rump hurp durp?" would probably earn me a mailed fist to the groin.
In order to break the class barrier a driving event has to exist. I want to try and beg from the noble or steal from the noble or scam the noble, all moderate risk activities for me. Otherwise the noble has to come up for some kind of reason to talk to me, "You there, filth, come here. What does the monkey think of the new taxation policies? See Lord Turnkey? No more brains than a bale of straw." or they have to hire me for something via a notice or whatnot.
I would argue that because interactions across class barriers require a /reason/ to occur the RP tends to be of a higher quality. However the quantity is much much less as most people don't create driving events.
With a very restricted player base decreasing the quantity of interactions is probably not a good thing. I would recommend finding ways to increase the player base (always wishful thinking) or decrease RP barriers.
Groups that mix well:
Nobles and Nobles
Gentry and Gentry
Freeman and Freeman
Known Mages and Known Mages
Unknown Mages and Regular People
Groups that don't mix as well:
Nobles and Gentry
Gentry and Freemen
Groups that generally don't mix:
Nobles and Freeman
Known Mages and Regular People
Unknown Mages and Known Mages
I'm sure there's more than these too, involving guilds/order relationships. As an example, I play a dirty freeman and if I see someone dressed well to do I'm going to keep on walking. For me to walk up to a noble and their retinue (If the nobles are in public they should likely not be unaccompanied) and say, "Hey there, want to go down to the boar and get some drinks, maybe pat a few serving girls on the rump hurp durp?" would probably earn me a mailed fist to the groin.
In order to break the class barrier a driving event has to exist. I want to try and beg from the noble or steal from the noble or scam the noble, all moderate risk activities for me. Otherwise the noble has to come up for some kind of reason to talk to me, "You there, filth, come here. What does the monkey think of the new taxation policies? See Lord Turnkey? No more brains than a bale of straw." or they have to hire me for something via a notice or whatnot.
I would argue that because interactions across class barriers require a /reason/ to occur the RP tends to be of a higher quality. However the quantity is much much less as most people don't create driving events.
With a very restricted player base decreasing the quantity of interactions is probably not a good thing. I would recommend finding ways to increase the player base (always wishful thinking) or decrease RP barriers.
I'd just like to comment that, at this time, I don't have a stance on this topic. I see positives and negatives on both sides of the fence, agree with some points and disagree with others.
At this time, here's what I'm thinking (snapshot):
1) Platypus is right about structural interactions and RP barriers - flat out. However, I think that "barriers" are not strong on TI, especially with excuses built into theme like the 'Law of Charity'. In fact, I would go so far as to say that some of those barriers that people are viewing as barriers are actually opportunities to have meaningful interaction - but this being said, if the standard mentality is that we're looking at barriers, then in a self-fulfilling way, we sure as heck are. Not terribly sure what to do about that, however.
2) Noble RP has been quite interesting from afar. Our experiments with different structures of government have not proven if nobility is good or bad, but has proven at least one thing: centralized leadership, with an active, engaged leader, is far more important to the game than probably class. If we take that same idea down to the guild level, then I daresay the best focus for the game would be to get good GLs in place.
3) Generally, players tend to devote most of their time to one character. It tends to be the character that is most accomplished for them, so we're looking at a noble heavy game if we go with the idea that everyone has the right to play a noble or a mage. Noble play is just so darn shiny for people! There's nothing much special to it, but they want it!
4) The game wasn't built for nobility in its original inception. Just something I'm aware of. In its current version, I agree that nobility probably isn't executed extremely well - there's not a lot of systems in place to give them meaningful existence... this said, given point #3 above, I'm not sure we really need anything here, but rather need more push/pull reasons for nobles to interact with other players rather than more for them to do within their own classes.
5) There is no way that I am going to remove existing nobles from the game. It's too disrespectful to players. It was hard enough to close extraneous guilds, which I think was a justified decision that was just dragging on because of the pain of it, but I think that's more like excising a rotten tooth that was threatening to poison the game. Axing the noble characters would be more like murder and unnecessarily chopping off limbs.
Anyway, still percolating on all of the commentary. Thank you for providing it, folks!
At this time, here's what I'm thinking (snapshot):
1) Platypus is right about structural interactions and RP barriers - flat out. However, I think that "barriers" are not strong on TI, especially with excuses built into theme like the 'Law of Charity'. In fact, I would go so far as to say that some of those barriers that people are viewing as barriers are actually opportunities to have meaningful interaction - but this being said, if the standard mentality is that we're looking at barriers, then in a self-fulfilling way, we sure as heck are. Not terribly sure what to do about that, however.
2) Noble RP has been quite interesting from afar. Our experiments with different structures of government have not proven if nobility is good or bad, but has proven at least one thing: centralized leadership, with an active, engaged leader, is far more important to the game than probably class. If we take that same idea down to the guild level, then I daresay the best focus for the game would be to get good GLs in place.
3) Generally, players tend to devote most of their time to one character. It tends to be the character that is most accomplished for them, so we're looking at a noble heavy game if we go with the idea that everyone has the right to play a noble or a mage. Noble play is just so darn shiny for people! There's nothing much special to it, but they want it!
4) The game wasn't built for nobility in its original inception. Just something I'm aware of. In its current version, I agree that nobility probably isn't executed extremely well - there's not a lot of systems in place to give them meaningful existence... this said, given point #3 above, I'm not sure we really need anything here, but rather need more push/pull reasons for nobles to interact with other players rather than more for them to do within their own classes.
5) There is no way that I am going to remove existing nobles from the game. It's too disrespectful to players. It was hard enough to close extraneous guilds, which I think was a justified decision that was just dragging on because of the pain of it, but I think that's more like excising a rotten tooth that was threatening to poison the game. Axing the noble characters would be more like murder and unnecessarily chopping off limbs.
Anyway, still percolating on all of the commentary. Thank you for providing it, folks!
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Tribalware
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:31 pm
right geras, in fact i think if nobles were played poorly it would be a lot easier to deal with any issues here, the problem is that they are played so well by so many that other facets of society seem to take a backseat on the overall rp map.
like i said the fact that nobles are played so well suggests to me that the best rpers concentrate their time on them, whilst it would be unfair to tell such a player that they HAD to play a freeman and mingle with the newbies, encouragement to do so might lead to these quality rpers putting some life into the lower classes.
like i said the fact that nobles are played so well suggests to me that the best rpers concentrate their time on them, whilst it would be unfair to tell such a player that they HAD to play a freeman and mingle with the newbies, encouragement to do so might lead to these quality rpers putting some life into the lower classes.
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Eris
You will find that most players who play noble characters also have freemen alts. Also, there are many fantastic players who don't play noble characters- or have a gentry or freeman as their main.
Honestly, again, I don't think that having too much nobility is the issue here. I think proactivity is. It's the responsibility of everyone to generate RP for the entire pbase, whether freeman or noble. Perhaps more emphasis needs to be made on everyone finding pathways for RP? Having an influx of freemen on the grid is not going to fix the problem.
Honestly, again, I don't think that having too much nobility is the issue here. I think proactivity is. It's the responsibility of everyone to generate RP for the entire pbase, whether freeman or noble. Perhaps more emphasis needs to be made on everyone finding pathways for RP? Having an influx of freemen on the grid is not going to fix the problem.
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