What if there were less guilds? Gaudiguch and Hallifax don't get monks, for instance. Make the other cities/communes miss one archetype so it condenses guild a little. I don't know the guilds well enough to really judge who should be where, but I can try for Magnagora - as much as I love Cacophony, either it or maybe the Geomancers should be wiped out leaving each city/commune with four guilds instead of five. It does make a slight problem if you want to be a Magnagoran mage, for instance, but that problem has already existed with Gaudiguch and Hallifax, so it's not like it's a particularly new thing - those two cities get along just fine without monks.
Too much lore and coding tied up in the existing guilds to straight up delete them for the sake of parity. I'm finding myself kind of okay with the prospect of multi class factions over guilds, since it would kind of relieve me of the responsibility of being the Hallimonk GM (which I've assumed, correctly or incorrectly, is a fait accompli).
But I've also not invested anything in building a guild's lore or material properties in Lusternia. I did do plenty of that in Achaea, and I can say it is NOT fun to have your work steamrolled by the administration (with little warning and no consultation in my case).
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited August 2015
There's far more to it than parity-which actually has little to do with it, including a refocus of the population into a smaller number of more heavily concentrated guilds, and I suspect there would be little complex coding involved since the infrastructure already exists.
I used to oppose the idea, but if classflex is the Next Big Thing, there's really very little reason to not do it. We will de facto have mixed guilds. The only change is realigning the guilds to make more sense lore wise instead of "the 8 SDs and that one BT we don't talk about because that's awkward and we can't really justify it other than mechanics made us do it."
edit: The short of it is that mixed guilds exist now, whether we like it or not, and we can either reorient the guilds to make sense of this ICly, or continue to just awkwardly RP around the mechanics.
Sorry, I was responding to Zeleni's suggestion of just completely eliminating a guild/class from each org that has five now. I'm not entirely opposed to the kind of refocusing you're talking about!
In my wild imaginings factions would be kinda a system in themselves.
They'd start out as something you upgrade a clan into. You'd get support and set various variables, then gather resources and show you're active in some way.
Eventually, with admin approval, the pre-faction could be upgraded into a proper faction, gaining additional benefits and presence within the org (such as a... faction hall)
The ideal situation for me would be one where faction activity is monitored to some degree, factions that don't have enough support would start shutting down and eventually close (revival may be an option). This way concepts that receive a lot of attention would rise and maintain themselves quite easily, while factions that just don't draw enough interest would slowly be closed. A balance would be necessary though, so that small exclusive factions could exist within such a system.
Of course, there are some things that might be considered necessary for an org and these could have safeguards to prevent closure (a "historic" faction effectively) Like a Church of the Light in Celest, or a Moon Coven and Stag Cult in Serenwilde. While say... a faction in Serenwilde dedicated to destroying all marks of "civilisation" on the world is something that may or may not garner support and the growth and decay of such a group would reflect the feelings for such at the time.
That being said in a story based game, there's always the possibility that perhaps a faith militant might be formed in Celest, perhaps even overthrowing the church itself.
Strongly in favor of turning guilds into factions and letting them be at least somewhat player defined. Speaking about Hallifax in particular, that would solve one of the city's biggest fluff problems. The Institute, Sentinels, and Symphonium are all pretty strongly tied to specific castes in their fluff. Not everyone who wants those skills wants to do the RP part of being in that caste. This can lead to some weirdness that we just kind of awkwardly ignore (this is common for caste related things in general) and I'd love to see that problem reduced. Plus, it would mean that Hallifax and Gaudiguch could finally get their monks without having to worry about getting the population to support another guild.
Definitely agree with Celina on guilds being de facto mixed anyway. I have not counted, but I've got a sneaking suspicion there are less active people with sentinel skills in the Sentinels than there are in the rest of Hallifax.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
I'd like the guilds to remain as they are (With additions obviously like monk guilds Halli/Gaudi) because it would be very complicated if we had too many factions, and would just splinter the game too much. Imagine how it is explaining to a novice there are 50 organisations/factions whaever to choose from.
Guilds in orgs works in my opinion, and allows more focus for richer and plentiful lore.
Factions would be less dividing, not more so. Instead of five (or four) suborgs in each nation, you'd only have 2-3.
I also disagree that guilds allow for better lore focus, as they're primarily mechanical subdivisions based on skills received, with lore tacked on afterwards. This is especially true for the monk and bard guilds. The only monk guild I'm aware of with strong, interesting, and deep rp is the Nekotai.. because they had a cadre of players writing it and pushing it, despite administrative setbacks and retcons.
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EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
The only monk guild I'm aware of with strong, interesting, and deep rp is the Nekotai.. because they had a cadre of players writing it and pushing it, despite administrative setbacks and retcons.
Which, if more people did, would be great. Most of the best lore has been player-created.
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
I agree, but the point there was to challenge the idea that "Guild == gud lore". The mechanical structure of the guild often has little to nothing to do with its lore. In fact, some of the mechanical constraints of guilds run against good guild lore!
I'd like the guilds to remain as they are (With additions obviously like monk guilds Halli/Gaudi) because it would be very complicated if we had too many factions, and would just splinter the game too much. Imagine how it is explaining to a novice there are 50 organisations/factions whaever to choose from.
Guilds in orgs works in my opinion, and allows more focus for richer and plentiful lore.
Aside from the ability to have less factions, your note about monks would also be resolved as new skills would just require development time as opposed to having to worry about splitting the population further into even more guilds.
Also the 50 factions to chose from is interesting because currently... well there are 28 guilds currently, 2 more are intended for monks, Estarra has mentioned another archetype a few times now bringing that number up to 36, and if Ackleberry gets released that goes to 42, and if Jojobo comes out as well that's 48...
Forty-eight mechanically required subdivisions of our population. And that's before any possibility of more archetypes.
We may not get more orgs for a long time, if ever, but I'd love to see this mysterious other archetype. I want to see the remaining Monks.(still hoping for gun-fu Hallimonks) And well... we already have covenants which seem to do everything but actually combine two guilds, we have classflexing so we can just have whichever skills we want and play in the guild we prefer, factions just... kinda finish it all off.
And hey, with a faction system, if we actually got to fifty factions, that would only be because each of those factions is an active and viable part of the game because if they aren't, they can just die off.
Oh, I was also reminded today another reason why I wanted a decidated military.
They'd be there to take over the whole "security" role, managing guards and the like as well as utilising nexus powers, ideally meaning that such can be balanced around the expectation that you can always have all of them up and I don't have to hear calls for like "is there any Hartstone security around? we need liveforest"
Ah Jojobo and Ackleberry. I wonder when people will begin to realize that it is never going to happen. Personally I would have preferred if Hallifax and Gaudiguch didnt get released either. The concept of "2 nations lost from the war and fall of the empire" was always such a lovely theme.
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
It took 24 hours for that? It's not even original. Very disappointed!
Why do you assume im always on the forums. I do have other trolling clients you know
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Are you as bad at it there as you are here?
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EveriineWise Old Swordsbird / BrontaurIndianapolis, IN, USA
Good Lord, every thread; can you all knock it off so actual discussion can take place?
Everiine is a man, and is very manly. This MAN before you is so manly you might as well just gender bend right now, cause he's the manliest man that you ever did see. His manly shape has spurned many women and girlyer men to boughs of fainting. He stands before you in a manly manerific typical man-like outfit which is covered in his manly motto: "I am a man!"
Daraius said: You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
Pony power all the way, yo. The more Brontaurs the better.
2
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited August 2015
A conversation has been going on since the 19th. We don't need the forums police sounding the alarm every time people poke at one another for some lols. ENJOY THE LOLS.
Starting the Harlotry and Revelry Faction. Msg Subotai to join my awesome faction.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Starting the Harlotry and Revelry Faction. Msg Subotai to join my awesome faction.
Can we have cross-org factions? Because Stratas would totally be a GlomHarlot
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
Yeah, we're not really going to ban ourselves from any org besides Yawnifax.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
I guess exceptions can be made for Yawnifax, but you'll have to dance on a pole desk to show your harlotry ways.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Comments
Too much lore and coding tied up in the existing guilds to straight up delete them for the sake of parity. I'm finding myself kind of okay with the prospect of multi class factions over guilds, since it would kind of relieve me of the responsibility of being the Hallimonk GM (which I've assumed, correctly or incorrectly, is a fait accompli).
But I've also not invested anything in building a guild's lore or material properties in Lusternia. I did do plenty of that in Achaea, and I can say it is NOT fun to have your work steamrolled by the administration (with little warning and no consultation in my case).
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
Definitely agree with Celina on guilds being de facto mixed anyway. I have not counted, but I've got a sneaking suspicion there are less active people with sentinel skills in the Sentinels than there are in the rest of Hallifax.
The lore is nice, sure. Keep that in books and scrolls and whatnot, then say 'oh suddenly we got rid of guilds for reasons'. Best of both worlds.
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Why do you assume im always on the forums. I do have other trolling clients you know
I guess exceptions can be made for Yawnifax, but you'll have to dance on a pole desk to show your harlotry ways.
Funny enough, near every time they seem to start it, yet no warnings or finger waggling, strange really *Cough nocht cough*