You've described the systems as they are and yes that's an issue. This is why, per the underlined part in the quote of my post, I said you need to rework the mechanisms you're talking about.
The strongest org should be incentivised to stand alone, for quick example, rework the village system so that if you're strong enough you don't want to share because ultimately, you don't need to. If you just had Rockholm and Southgard revolting together for example, you want A (the strongest org) to want both enough that they would risk splitting their party at which point B and C can fight a portion of their forces in each village.
Maybe within the context of Lusternia two orgs do group up for a while, but you'd want the systems in place to reward players for shifting those when they're strong enough to not need an ally, rather than just grouping together forever.
I'd also point out that isn't all of your "gap" basically a description of the current state of the game with an even number of orgs? It's not an inherent issue to the 3 but instead an issue with the reward mechanisms in place that enable behaviour that is negative for the game and so would still happen with an even number of orgs we know this because it has been happening.
You already want 2 villages instead of 1 village. The reason you settle on Rockholm and give Southgard to your ally is because it lets you both win some instead of risking winning none. Game theory. You'd have to introduce a system where holding both Rockholm and Southguard somehow convinces people to betray their OOC friends.
Yea. Ok.
Yea, I mostly did it for illustrative purposes to show why shifting alliances won't work in Lusternia except with admin interference. And again, if that is the case, then people need to be much more supportive of it than they have in the past. Because us, as players, telling the admins to check and balance our player politics now is not fair if we're going to have a forum thread vilifying the volunteers in six months.
Yep, though arguably if shuffles happen often enough people should start making friends across all orgs.
The last bit is the reason why you'd want a system imo, one that positively reinforces the behaviours that you want. Because then it's not Elfenehoala rocking up and telling Jojobo to kick Acklebery to the kerb, it's Jojobo wanting to because that's what gives them the greatest benefit. Again, it's a really difficult thing and would take a lot of designing but personally I've been feeling that a system like that, one that encourages shuffling to healthy alliances for the game, is something the game has been needing for a while and something that would be positive even if you did go with an even number of orgs.
Because yeah, it's easy for alliances to monopolise conflict objectives and it doesn't really seem like there's much of an incentive for the strong to fight each other rather than working together. (unless they're opposed cities)
@Saran Lusternia's community wouldn't allow for a 1v1v1. There is no way that if (this an example only, it would apply to any org setup) Glom attacked Mag that Seren wouldn't go in to defend if needed. Given that they know that would tip the scale.
In earnest. No one believe a 3 org setup would work in Lusternia knowing the current dynamics. If this is not going to be looked at from a social perspective it will never work. Because you aren't just working with logistics. You are working with people.
You seem to misunderstand me, my expectation is that it would be 1v2. The ideal set up would be the "strongest" on their own while the other two orgs group up to compete against them.
Your example is where 3 works, the strongest org is attacking the weaker ones and they're grouping together this is not a bad thing. It is a bad thing, when you have 3, Glom attacks Mag and Seren goes in to help Glom.
And to be blunt, a hefty aspect of game design is the devs manipulating the players to engage in the behaviour they want for the game.
Small issue with that concept is that the alliances are roleplay based, not strength based.
Just speaking on release date roleplay not as it is now but:
Early day Serenwilde and Celest never would have dreamed of allying with mag no matter what. It was totally against their roleplay. Celest and Seren were close enough roleplay wise that they would generally be friends and always be against Magnagora. If Celest had of had the draw to get the biggest number of players in it during release we'd have seen Celest/Seren allied and dominating mag to the point of mag never winning anything.
I get your concept in that in a fluid situation where the three orgs have no roleplay reason to hate or like each other more than the next then I could see more shifting of alliances but that isn't how lusternia is set up, roleplay is a big big factor behind any of the old alliances.
If you want a fluid 1v1v1 your going to have to rework the orgs backgrounds and roleplay to make them more neutal.
EDIT:
Quick point is that the original seren and celest vs mag worked yes. But it only worked because mag had a population equal to Seren and Celest combined. That's not something you can be sure will happen if you get a fixed 2v1 situation going.
So... to be clear, after going through Seren lore at least...
Serenwilde has a pretty significant stack of reasons already to hate absolutely everyone. One of the common threads about why they even ally with any other orgs is mostly utilitarian, we can't protect what we need to if we don't work with people we hate. When the switch between mag and celest happened it was brought up again that Celest is as bad as Mag as far as Serenwilde is concerned (if not worse because sometimes we forget just how bad the light is)
Your better example would actually be Celest, if you went down to three orgs you need to actually make sure that all three are willing to work together when needed.
Organisations aren't being deleted because admin don't like the lore. So how would Glomdoring implementing their lore and retaining character histories and storylines be a negative. Especially if it is the majority of an organisation? Also I don't believe there is anything shrub-able in the majority voting in new leadership. As far as I am aware. Glomdoring 2.0 I am kinda for it! I have missed Seren for a long time. Best of both worlds! (Org deletion/merging is still the worst idea I have seen on these forums, and I there are some seriously bad ones). But for me. If my people are there I am there. And I'm sure Seren will suddenly have synergy and succumb will be nerfed in 0.4 seconds. I'm ready to go! Got some aliases from way back when. Let's do it!
I would be great with Glom having a place or faction within Serenwilde, but Glom skillsets frozen. Mechanically, the forest would be Serenwilde, but add a guild or give a guild to the darker teachings of Glom post event. Leave Glom frozen in case it can be reopen. Not a true merger because mechanically Serenwilde, but Glom philosophy in a guild. The opposite could work as long as Serenewilde skillset is used.
If the Glom skillsets isn't unbalanced then the switch shouldn't matter.
Once again, please be respectful and productive in your conversations on this thread. I will either start deleting posts or close the thread if this devolves into bitterness and snark.
As I said before, 3 orgs did not exist in Lusternia long enough (4-5 months tops?) to really base any sort of conclusions. For those 4-5 months, the first few months were really players getting their feet on the ground because we had just opened, and the last month revolved around a lot of roleplay regarding the opening of Glomdoring. I have a feeling some people just keep thinking it was a lot longer time period before Glom opened than had actually passed (you can just look at event posts). Personally I don't think that's enough time to extrapolate any sort of conclusion.
As I understand it, Glomdoring wasn't really an active part of conflict when it was first released for some time, and it essentially had to sit out on its own for an extended period. During that time, it was just the original three with the occasional Glom hiccup, politics wise. Perhaps this might be skewing perceptions of the game's past?
That is sort of correct. Glom was the red headed step child for a long time. Celest and Seren were allied strongly. Mag stood on its own and didn't help glomdoring and also refused help from glomdoing. Glom wasn't even allowed to help mag for a good long time. Mag refused any aid.
It was sort of interesting before the introduction of astroglide the only way up to astral was via city nexuses so during wild nodes Celest and Seren went up through the pool of stars. Mag shut down their nexus and refused glom entry to Astral. So glom was locked out of wildnodes and it was seren/celest vs mag.
I have a question. What happens if you delete Glomdoring (note: I do not expect this to happen, because deleting one of the more populous orgs is just a bad idea, but for the sake of conversation)?
Some will quit. The bulk of the rest will probably move en masse to Serenwilde.
There will likely be an immediate election; after all, if we wanted to play in Serenwilde as it currently exists, we would be there already.
The Sacred Leaves would likely be burned up shortly thereafter in favour of rules that the new majority find more appealing.
More would likely happen past that, but I really can't see the current Serenwilde playerbase enjoying / sticking around when their org is taken out from under their feet and overhauled despite their wishes.
I don't think that's a particularly appealing outcome from anyone's standpoint, either, above and beyond the "population" issue. Players are going to want to make the organization something they enjoy playing in in order to have enjoyment playing the game (this has been true of every org in Lusternia's history). Glomdoring players and Serenwilde players have differing ideas of what is an enjoyable playing experience, and I am rather skeptical that it will merge well.
Glomdoring isn't the only organization in existence and the same group that would usurp the political structure, in your own scenario, should stop trying to pretend like it is.
It's NOT a question of "What happens if you delete Glomdoring", it's a question of "What happens if something does not change very soon with how this game feels to everyone that still plays it." I'm super tired of these threads always bringing up the same side-long well spoken shade that is thrown like the state of things is not very clear to everyone. Some choose not to accept it, that's a personal choice. It's not a secret and it isn't hard to notice.
I'm tired of the same arguments being brought up and derailed because it becomes uncomfortable to talk about by a select group of people, then retaliated to by opposing people, and the only thing that's accomplished from that transaction is more divide and more stress for the administration to figure out how the players will keep playing the thing they work hard on.
If you want to keep Glomdoring? Fine. Be solo. Force Glomdoring to be alone. Force Celest and Serenwilde to ally, or merge, or simply do away with Serenwilde if we want to keep the Light/Taint aspect of that element. Force Magnagora to be alone. Freeze Hallifax and Gaudiguch. You cannot go outside of those boundaries, you are required to acclimate to a 1v1v1 scenario or go neutral.
Then? All skills in those organizations need to be balanced to where competition is healthy again because regardless of what anyone keeps telling themselves? It's not right now.
That's my two cents and likely the only time I'm going to say anything about this.
We all need to stop acting like arguments, finely worded derails and throwing shade is going to fix the problems that the game faces.
I would be great with Glom having a place or faction within Serenwilde, but Glom skillsets frozen. Mechanically, the forest would be Serenwilde, but add a guild or give a guild to the darker teachings of Glom post event. Leave Glom frozen in case it can be reopen. Not a true merger because mechanically Serenwilde, but Glom philosophy in a guild. The opposite could work as long as Serenewilde skillset is used.
If the Glom skillsets isn't unbalanced then the switch shouldn't matter.
The skillsets are really the smallest part of this entire conversation it seems. We could literally make Glom and Seren have identical skills right now if skillsets are the issues. But the admin have said its not just about the skills they are looking at reducing the orgs to force players to congregate in larger numbers.
If deletion is the only option then just nix out the smallest orgs. That'd cause the least disruption.
Deletion of two or three orgs sounds like the worst/least popular option though.
The majority of an org isn't going to go, "Yeah, we're fine with just one guild reflecting our gameplay desires." The org itself (and all the guilds therein) are going to change. There is certainly nothing shrubbable about that; if the players in the org want to define their own rules they have every right to do so.
One thing that comes up a lot about other orgs as well is guild definition, and Serenwilde has complained about that a lot too. One of the few orgs that does not seem to do that is Glomdoring; I think our guilds are doing all right, in fact. We spent a good chunk of time building them up ourselves. Sure, I may not be quite as invested in them as the old guilds, but each does pretty well with its own identity imo and it would be a shame to wipe that in favour of self-described "problematic" guild structures.
I have a question. What happens if you delete Glomdoring (note: I do not expect this to happen, because deleting one of the more populous orgs is just a bad idea, but for the sake of conversation)?
Some will quit. The bulk of the rest will probably move en masse to Serenwilde.
There will likely be an immediate election; after all, if we wanted to play in Serenwilde as it currently exists, we would be there already.
The Sacred Leaves would likely be burned up shortly thereafter in favour of rules that the new majority find more appealing.
More would likely happen past that, but I really can't see the current Serenwilde playerbase enjoying / sticking around when their org is taken out from under their feet and overhauled despite their wishes.
I don't think that's a particularly appealing outcome from anyone's standpoint, either, above and beyond the "population" issue. Players are going to want to make the organization something they enjoy playing in in order to have enjoyment playing the game (this has been true of every org in Lusternia's history). Glomdoring players and Serenwilde players have differing ideas of what is an enjoyable playing experience, and I am rather skeptical that it will merge well.
Glomdoring isn't the only organization in existence and the same group that would usurp the political structure, in your own scenario, should stop pretending like it is.
It's NOT a question of "What happens if you delete Glomdoring", it's a question of "What happens if something does not change very soon with how this game feels to everyone that still plays it." I'm super tired of these threads always bringing up the same side-long well spoken shade that is thrown like the state of things is not very clear to everyone. Some choose not to accept it, that's a personal choice. It's not a secret and it isn't hard to notice.
I'm tired of the same arguments being brought up and derailed because it becomes uncomfortable to talk about by a select group of people, then retaliated to by opposing people, and the only thing that's accomplished from that transaction is more divide and more stress for the administration to figure out how the players will keep playing the thing they work hard on.
If you want to keep Glomdoring? Fine. Be solo. Force Glomdoring to be alone. Force Celest and Serenwilde to ally, or merge, or simply do away with Serenwilde if we want to keep the Light/Taint aspect of that element. Force Magnagora to be alone. Freeze Hallifax and Gaudiguch. You cannot go outside of those boundaries, you are required to acclimate to a 1v1v1 scenario or go neutral.
Then? All skills in those organizations need to be balanced to where competition is healthy again because regardless of what anyone keeps telling themselves? It's not right now.
That's my two cents and likely the only time I'm going to say anything about this.
We all need to stop acting like arguments, finely worded derails and throwing shade is going to fix the problems that the game faces.
I think Xenthos's point applies to any organisation. Pick any and rename it. So like pick one other org thats got a large population, what happens when it gets deleted? Do their people just get forced into a new org and then now that org is dominated by ex-gaudi/hallis/whatever. Whats stopping these players who now out number the old guard from bringing their old cities roleplay into the new place?
EDIT: EG for example lets say Gaudi has the biggest population my a mile and they get deleted. You now have a big population of freedom loving roleplay folk.(Simplification but roll with it) Who get shunted into lets say Celest. Now Celest is dominated by freedom loving roleplayers. So that will change Celests make up, outlook and how the city is run.
I'm just going to put my two cents out there, I believe there should be four orgs if we're talking about knocking any of them down, it should probably be Hallifax and Gaudiguch. I believe the population started to shift more when they were re-introduced to the game. As much as I love Hallifax's lore and classes, I think as of now, it is the least populated of any of the orgs in the game at any given point. That being said, if one is considering keeping with the orginal three, Seren, Celest and Mag and adding that which came in later, Glom, then one needs to consider the aspect of balancing the classes so that too becomes less of a one-sided aspect.
As the game sits currently, Glom sits as the top dog in pvp, whereas really anyone who is allied with them picks at their scraps like vultures, that's not to dog any of their allies or those who stick with Glom by no means, but it means that people get turned off from one-sided combat when things aren't balanced in classes, which in turn lead to people quitting the game as a whole.
As to resources for coding and the like, this game, like any other IRE game, has those who really want to make the game as a whole better, so increase your builders/celeni or whatever their called, and let us, who play the game work on the issues we the players have.
I disagree. I think that if anything, it should be the largest org/orgs that are deleted. That way, there is a real chance of the other orgs taking on aspects of the RP that appealed to the players of those orgs and the influx of players to the once-small orgs making a real difference. If the smaller orgs are deleted, the players will be forced to either acclimatise entirely to something which does not suit their characters or to reroll or quit.
Now, I know that no-one wants their org to be deleted. That does not mean that people do not believe that it is necessary to do something on this scale and should not be used as a reason to maintain the current situation.
*edit* I got majorly Ninja'd. The disagreement was with Deichtine's post at 6:02PM
One of the few orgs that does not seem to do that is Glomdoring; I think our guilds are doing all right, in fact. We spent a good chunk of time building them up ourselves. Sure, I may not be quite as invested in them as the old guilds, but each does pretty well with its own identity imo and it would be a shame to wipe that in favour of self-described "problematic" guild structures.
We get that you're invested in not seeing Glom deleted. No one wants to volunteer their own org for deletion. But at the end of the day, this thread isn't about Glom and how it's so much better than other orgs and uniquely deserves to be kept. The playerbase consists of people outside Glomdoring too, and the same arguments you're making on behalf of Glom could be made on behalf of any of the orgs people have put time and effort into.
Ultimately, the current issue is twofold. The first is that there are too few people, mechanically, spread across each org. The other is that there are fewer people in some orgs than others, and coupled with skill imbalances causes a snowball effect that is leading people on the "losing" side to burn out and quit. If we are to do org deletion at all (which I still hope we do an org merger instead), spreading the people around a bit would then not be the worst idea.
(clan): Falmiis says, "Aramelise, verb, 1. adorn with many flowers."
We get that you're invested in not seeing Glom deleted. No one wants to volunteer their own org for deletion. But at the end of the day, this thread isn't about Glom and how it's so much better than other orgs and uniquely deserves to be kept. The playerbase consists of people outside Glomdoring too, and the same arguments you're making on behalf of Glom could be made on behalf of any of the orgs people have put time and effort into.
Ultimately, the current issue is twofold. The first is that there are too few people, mechanically, spread across each org. The other is that there are fewer people in some orgs than others. If we are to do org deletion at all (which I still hope we do an org merger instead), spreading the people around a bit would then not be the worst idea.
I really think people need to stop looking at it as just one org. The points can apply to every org with a big population. And all the orgs are up for the potential chopping block remember. We could see it reduced down to just Glom, Gaudi and Celest for all we know.
I'm not sure why we're so focused on 3 orgs left when Estarra said that 4 orgs is an option. And then, if we are set on three orgs, why it shouldn't be the three most populous orgs (Mag, Glom, and whatever is left) to disrupt the least number of people actually still playing this game?
Personally, if the reach is game balance, I think it should be something like Hallifax, Glom, and one other org. Those two orgs seem to have the most consistent skills/in-org synergy, so bring a third org up to that standard and call it a day.
If the reach is player retention, it should just be the orgs that average the most number of people online.
Ignoring the fact that people who have put years of work of their own in to their characters and their organisation is going to dramatically hurt the playerbase is what will dramatically decrease population.
If people wanted fair fights they'd join the wargames. They'd stay and fight the raids they started. They'd stop spitting in the faces of people who could potentially move to help balance. But that doesn't happen. And so the status quo is as it is.
You can not ask people who are being faulted for simply choosing to play in an organisation to ignore the fact that people are talking so cruelly about themselves and their people and move over. Sure, there are some discrepancies between how well Glomdoring's envoys have managed to build synergy and other organisations. No one is denying the effort and time put into Glomdoring's skillsets. Their envoys did really well. I suffered through Mag's nerfs and lack of envoys. They needed a lot of attention. I can't speak to other orgs but I guess much of the same there as Mag. But instead of focusing on creating your own synergy people ahve decided to just focus on destroying Glomdoring.
If you are on the beach and you see someone has built a really cool sandcastle you don't be a dick and go stomp it down. You either try and build one yourself or take a picture and appreciate it. Why is it so wrong to ask for people to stop trying to destroy something that works and put their effort in to building what they have up to be what they need/want? You guys asct like we are asking you to do something impossible.
Also, players like Tarken, Deichtine, and whoever else you think is on a pedestal. They would be just as good in any other org. They are amazing combatants it comes naturally to them. I am really average. I can hold my own sparring them. Even before I was in Glom. This bizarre backwards idolisation is what is hurting people. All it does is stall your own progress.
I meant specifically IG because we have players who aren't being heard. It doesn't have to be the same setup as a referendum, even just a short survey with user experience friendly options. I am not sure having input from people who do not play is helpful. It would be like asking a parent's perspective on a child's schooling experience. Wtf would they know? They don't live it/play it. There is no validity to it from where I stand. But the people who do actually play, they matter.
Edit: I just think it is more important to have user information from people who use the product. You wouldn't ask a Mac user to give feedback on the latest Windows products...non-players don't know the current dynamics, the game play, alliances or how they got there. While their history is appreciated in some regards. In this, it would likely do more damage.
Unless something like that exists, you're ultimately asking the admin to spend dev time creating a tool in-game to replicate functionality freely available elsewhere. Like, you could just send out a link to a google form and ask people fill in the email address from their lusternia account rather than spending that dev time.
Once you're there, you're ultimately going to need to send out an email to the subscribers list because you want to make sure that your reach is as wide as possible, even if you're focusing on active players for some reason. (I.e you don't want to miss someone who's just taking a break for uni or the like)
At this point, it is far easier to just grab everyone and you accept that you're just going to grab everyone.
So then, you work in the demographics because then you can start getting insights into what's going on.
An obvious point as which less active players matter... if you posed the deletion vs merger option as a question on the survey you would be able to see how the active players feel about it and the responses from inactive players. This can give an indicator as to whether the change being proposed might have a positive impact and potentially bring players back to the game, it might not be significant enough to matter but it's also entirely possible that there could be an overwhelming number of people who indicate they would be excited by one of the changes. (One that seems plausible is actually deletion with full value transfers to a new character, people who fell out because they're done with characters might be excited by that opportunity to start off again at full value)
The same data set can also be focused down to just what active players think which is obviously something you'd be looking at, but ultimately there's not that much of a difference to include a wider grouping.
As someone who has worked with data sets to help cultivate industry topping customer satisfaction scores my experience shows that your opinion is incorrect. In reality, this is a case where you would want to poll everyone, polling exclusively the current playerbase is actually the thing that would do the most damage because realistically the majority of the player base is going to be happy with how things are and won't want to change it.
Just a quick thought from my personal perspective.
If we have to reduce the orgs four makes way more sense to me than three. A 2v2 org battle just sounds more enjoyable to me than a 2v1 situation.
If we have to get rid of orgs. Flat out deleting a org and expecting its players to just go somewhere else sounds horrible. Even with free transfers, rerolls etc, just deleting an org and leaving other orgs totally intact just sounds terrible.
Creating new orgs either totally fresh or from a merger of the old elements of the older orgs sounds more enjoyable to me. If we really need to reduce org numbers.
I don't entirely think we need to reduce org numbers though. If you look at the other IRE games like Imperian they deleted an org as a trial and it really didn't work out well. Half the players in that org just quit playing they didn't want to go anywhere else.
Even if we delete one of the smaller orgs losing half that orgs population is a massive blow to the games population.
Before I start deleting posts, let's remember that this discussion is meant to be respectful and constructive. We have all heard the well-trod debates regarding Glomdoring so I request that it not continue here.
Regarding Discord, there is never anything "important" discussed there. Admin may or may not voluntarily chat there in an unofficial capacity. The only thing I have said regarding this subject on Discord was to point people to this thread. If you don't like Discord, don't go there. You won't miss anything important. An admin may chat there in an off-duty capacity, but I don't think it's anything more than that. We would prefer that players use the forums, especially on subjects such as ... reducing the number of player orgs!
So to direct us back on track, the ideas regarding reworking all the skillsets in a major manner is an interesting idea (and, believe me, I understand the appeal), but I really don't think it's something that could be practically done. The same is true of creating new orgs--the massive undertaking involved just isn't something that can be done in any conceivably reasonable time--I should know as I've been a part of creating 6 of them! I think the ideas presented about an event that causes all orgs to go dormant is intriguing so it's mulling over in my mind.
If anyone has ideas for places for us to market Lusternia, I'm all ears! I did inquire about Critical Role some time ago and they're sponsorship programs run into 5 digits. Any marketing done would probably be out of my pocket which means the budget would be extremely limited.
@Ishra & @Gurashi would most certainly have ideas to suggest different ways.
Off the top of my mind I can think of one to help:
There's a really large community of popular webcomics out there that generate revenue for their websites based off ads. I think it's a pay per click ? I'm really - not - familiar with the business model.
I do recall about 8-10 years ago around the start of the game, Lusternia had a bunch of ads running on websites like:
Maybe it wasn't intentional that a Lusternia Ad appeared there. But it's the reason I was originally drawn to Lusternia in the first place. I didnt even know Lusternia existed at the time. Reaching out to the gaming communities wether artists or D&D like was proposed earlier with ads might be able to attract a young & healthier population?
While it crosses my mind. If we move forward to the removal of excess orgs. Why not make a rebranding out of it?
Lusternia Reborn or Shatterering of Lusternia !
You could then attract people in a so called - remake - of the game. While already having a functioning game ''Lusternia'' and simply changing it in a way that resets it to the original three.
I disagree. I think that if anything, it should be the largest org/orgs that are deleted. That way, there is a real chance of the other orgs taking on aspects of the RP that appealed to the players of those orgs and the influx of players to the once-small orgs making a real difference. If the smaller orgs are deleted, the players will be forced to either acclimatise entirely to something which does not suit their characters or to reroll or quit.
Now, I know that no-one wants their org to be deleted. That does not mean that people do not believe that it is necessary to do something on this scale and should not be used as a reason to maintain the current situation.
*edit* I got majorly Ninja'd. The disagreement was with Deichtine's post at 6:02PM
This is kind of the thing Xenthos is saying is a bad.
Ok, Mag is deleted. Lots of Mags move to another org - let's not pretend they're going to disperse equally amongst all other orgs, instead of just migrating with their friends. Ok, so let's say they move to Serenwilde. Now, you have a large number of like-minded people coming into a smaller org. Ie. a large number of voters. Do you think they are not going to elect their own number to leadership and start warping Seren identity to fit what they want it to be?
'Oh, but the admins will stop it.'
Yea, that's a possibility. But you're going to end up with a lot of bad feelings either way. Not only about the losing your org, but also because the admins took player agency away. I dunno, people keep saying 'oh the admins will fix it', I just have a hard time seeing that going over well when it actually happens. But who knows, I could be wrong. Can't tell the future.
I can appreciate that in a generic setting. But having an understanding of why the majority of people quit...deleting orgs isn't going to change anything for them. In fact it might deter them from returning. And when people returned after guilds were removed so many people faded away because they just couldn't get into it. Most players, if you read forums especially, leave because they don't like the social dynamics. That is only going to be exacerbated if orgs are removed. It would be great to see a number of players I miss return.
also from a UX perspective people are less inclined to leave a program to go to another and click something. They want it easily accessible. At the end of the day if they give 2 figs they will actually speak to the playerbase in its entirety rather than just winging it and hoping people stay on. So many people had no idea what was going on with guilds. And I was embarrassed on behalf of admin to find out that Glom's guildhalls took over a year to be installed. Is that the kind of result we can expect with org deletion too?
Organisations aren't being deleted because admin don't like the lore. So how would Glomdoring implementing their lore and retaining character histories and storylines be a negative. Especially if it is the majority of an organisation? Also I don't believe there is anything shrub-able in the majority voting in new leadership. As far as I am aware. Glomdoring 2.0 I am kinda for it! I have missed Seren for a long time. Best of both worlds! (Org deletion/merging is still the worst idea I have seen on these forums, and I there are some seriously bad ones). But for me. If my people are there I am there. And I'm sure Seren will suddenly have synergy and succumb will be nerfed in 0.4 seconds. I'm ready to go! Got some aliases from way back when. Let's do it!
Pretty sure you hit the wrong quote button here.
So your first issue here is that you referred to "Glomdoring implementing their lore" but former Glom members wouldn't be a part of Glom any more, in this scenario you would be a part of Serenwilde. Serenwilde has its own identity, there is a long list of lore that informs that identity and interestingly the White Hart does oppose Crow on False Memory given the importance placed on remembering our history.
ICly, as part of the process of joining Serenwilde (as you wouldn't just be forced in) you would be swearing fealty to the forest. There would likely be some pressure from the admin to welcome as many as possible, but I mean... announcing that you would intentionally destroy the identity of another org seems like you're giving justification for players not allowing you into the orgs you'd aim to join because you would be harming the viability of the game moving forward at that point.
The majority of an org isn't going to go, "Yeah, we're fine with just one guild reflecting our gameplay desires." The org itself (and all the guilds therein) are going to change. There is certainly nothing shrubbable about that; if the players in the org want to define their own rules they have every right to do so.
One thing that comes up a lot about other orgs as well is guild definition, and Serenwilde has complained about that a lot too. One of the few orgs that does not seem to do that is Glomdoring; I think our guilds are doing all right, in fact. We spent a good chunk of time building them up ourselves. Sure, I may not be quite as invested in them as the old guilds, but each does pretty well with its own identity imo and it would be a shame to wipe that in favour of self-described "problematic" guild structures.
You're ultimately talking in nebulous terms about what that change might be, the reality is that people have actually tried to make too significant changes to their guilds previously, I've even had a conversation with an admin when someone was trying to do something pretty big and it sums up as them going "Yeah, that's never going to happen".
I mean, as a direct example Serenwilde created the whole winter court concept, the majority of the commune was behind the idea, for some players their identities were based on the concept because it was literally the only serenwilde they'd even known and at one point it was made clear by the admin that it wasn't really an option. And that's a change that's based on an extrapolation of actual lore within the forest.
So again, especially in the situation that you're suggesting it would happen in, I find it highly doubtful that making seren "Glom 2.0" is going to fly without the admin stepping in.
@Synl I am not talking about admin interference unless something really big happens (like tainting the pool of stars big). If orgs are deleted, there is going to be a cataclysm, let the world burn for a while and see what rises from the ashes. It's like a merger, but without all of the additional coding that would require.
Xenthos is saying this is bad, I am saying it is another way to go about it.
The majority of an org isn't going to go, "Yeah, we're fine with just one guild reflecting our gameplay desires." The org itself (and all the guilds therein) are going to change. There is certainly nothing shrubbable about that; if the players in the org want to define their own rules they have every right to do so.
One thing that comes up a lot about other orgs as well is guild definition, and Serenwilde has complained about that a lot too. One of the few orgs that does not seem to do that is Glomdoring; I think our guilds are doing all right, in fact. We spent a good chunk of time building them up ourselves. Sure, I may not be quite as invested in them as the old guilds, but each does pretty well with its own identity imo and it would be a shame to wipe that in favour of self-described "problematic" guild structures.
You're ultimately talking in nebulous terms about what that change might be, the reality is that people have actually tried to make too significant changes to their guilds previously, I've even had a conversation with an admin when someone was trying to do something pretty big and it sums up as them going "Yeah, that's never going to happen".
I mean, as a direct example Serenwilde created the whole winter court concept, the majority of the commune was behind the idea, for some players their identities were based on the concept because it was literally the only serenwilde they'd even known and at one point it was made clear by the admin that it wasn't really an option. And that's a change that's based on an extrapolation of actual lore within the forest.
So again, especially in the situation that you're suggesting it would happen in, I find it highly doubtful that making seren "Glom 2.0" is going to fly without the admin stepping in.
I'm not really 100% certain on everything that has spoken but i'll just slip in one extremely tiny detail you might have overlooked Saran.
Wether or not the in game lore swaps to become a new Org. Something that's been said they - dont - want to make...
--- Tight communities & people do not vanish ---
Glomdoring isn't beautiful for the Ravenwoods, though Ravenwoods ARE lovely. It's beautiful for it's community, it's hard work and for everyone that pitches in to help each other out. Not everyone is like this but it is a - HUGE - part of Glomdoring's Identity. Anyone that's ever made a novice in Glom can attest to it. Unless you poped in outside regular hours or pushed us away. Sadly we dont have people awake 24/7.
You can delete Glomdoring, but you won't delete the people that -made- Glomdoring. Those people would go somewhere and they will do something. Expecting that everyone that joins your org will suddenly be all chummy, chummy is a bit silly. I'm not saying there won't be an attempt to play nice, but people are - people - they aren't robots. They can't just shut off their emotions, their histories or their feelings to each other. Props if you can. This is the biggest hurdle here.
So the community of Glomdoring, if Glomdoring is deleted, will most certainly end up sticking togheter. We back each other up, we stand for each other. That new org will end up being transformed by this. No it might not grow Ravenwoods. But it won't be the serenwilde you once knew, if Serenwilde is the one chosen. You can't expect to integrate a large group of tight knit people togheter and suddenly expect everything will stay the same.
Celest is absorbed by Magnagora? It won't be the same city it is now. Gaudi absorbed by Hallifax? Do you really imagine Gaudi players will go quietly ?
I'm not trying to raise trouble here, but this IS the truth of it. Players will try, but short of re-rolling ''every'' character that transfers in. They know each other, they have histories and that's not just forgotten overnight. Nor is the way they have been treated by others.
Too long to read? --------------
You might have a Moonhart Mother instead of Master Ravenwood, but it won't be the same Moonhart Mother.
This is true for every org that will integrate a large close knit community.
Just a quick thought from my personal perspective.
If we have to reduce the orgs four makes way more sense to me than three. A 2v2 org battle just sounds more enjoyable to me than a 2v1 situation.
If we have to get rid of orgs. Flat out deleting a org and expecting its players to just go somewhere else sounds horrible. Even with free transfers, rerolls etc, just deleting an org and leaving other orgs totally intact just sounds terrible.
Creating new orgs either totally fresh or from a merger of the old elements of the older orgs sounds more enjoyable to me. If we really need to reduce org numbers.
I don't entirely think we need to reduce org numbers though. If you look at the other IRE games like Imperian they deleted an org as a trial and it really didn't work out well. Half the players in that org just quit playing they didn't want to go anywhere else.
Even if we delete one of the smaller orgs losing half that orgs population is a massive blow to the games population.
Let's be honest, the years of experience with 2v2 then 3v3 indicate a liability for things to be static, if you're just reducing numbers without changing other things as far as conflict goes right now would end up with Seren and Mag vs Celest and Glom and how much does that really change things?
tbh, reduction has been a growing necessity for a while now. If it's left to fester like guilds were, then things will only get worse until, like guilds, it's eventually actually done. And hopefully, a merger situation would save people that would otherwise leave through just the excitement of creating a whole new org.
There's also some pretty epic ways that you could kick it off, like you could have a massive event where we fail at ascension, you could even give players the option to kill off their characters and have them immortalised somehow in exchange for that 100% transfer to a new character thing. Pump it up and you could get older players coming back and tempt them with a fresh start.
Just a quick thought from my personal perspective.
If we have to reduce the orgs four makes way more sense to me than three. A 2v2 org battle just sounds more enjoyable to me than a 2v1 situation.
If we have to get rid of orgs. Flat out deleting a org and expecting its players to just go somewhere else sounds horrible. Even with free transfers, rerolls etc, just deleting an org and leaving other orgs totally intact just sounds terrible.
Creating new orgs either totally fresh or from a merger of the old elements of the older orgs sounds more enjoyable to me. If we really need to reduce org numbers.
I don't entirely think we need to reduce org numbers though. If you look at the other IRE games like Imperian they deleted an org as a trial and it really didn't work out well. Half the players in that org just quit playing they didn't want to go anywhere else.
Even if we delete one of the smaller orgs losing half that orgs population is a massive blow to the games population.
Let's be honest, the years of experience with 2v2 then 3v3 indicate a liability for things to be static, if you're just reducing numbers without changing other things as far as conflict goes right now would end up with Seren and Mag vs Celest and Glom and how much does that really change things?
It doesnt really change things. Reducing the number of orgs wont change the power balance, politics or the dynamics of the basin.
Not in any major way other than the new alliances with have different names.
EDIT: Reducing the orgs. The point of reducing the orgs is to push more people into a closer grouping. Same as the reducing the guilds. There wont be any practical difference in terms of combat, fights etc from reducing the orgs. That stuff is all independant and not directly related to the number of orgs.
The majority of an org isn't going to go, "Yeah, we're fine with just one guild reflecting our gameplay desires." The org itself (and all the guilds therein) are going to change. There is certainly nothing shrubbable about that; if the players in the org want to define their own rules they have every right to do so.
One thing that comes up a lot about other orgs as well is guild definition, and Serenwilde has complained about that a lot too. One of the few orgs that does not seem to do that is Glomdoring; I think our guilds are doing all right, in fact. We spent a good chunk of time building them up ourselves. Sure, I may not be quite as invested in them as the old guilds, but each does pretty well with its own identity imo and it would be a shame to wipe that in favour of self-described "problematic" guild structures.
You're ultimately talking in nebulous terms about what that change might be, the reality is that people have actually tried to make too significant changes to their guilds previously, I've even had a conversation with an admin when someone was trying to do something pretty big and it sums up as them going "Yeah, that's never going to happen".
I mean, as a direct example Serenwilde created the whole winter court concept, the majority of the commune was behind the idea, for some players their identities were based on the concept because it was literally the only serenwilde they'd even known and at one point it was made clear by the admin that it wasn't really an option. And that's a change that's based on an extrapolation of actual lore within the forest.
So again, especially in the situation that you're suggesting it would happen in, I find it highly doubtful that making seren "Glom 2.0" is going to fly without the admin stepping in.
I'm not really 100% certain on everything that has spoken but i'll just slip in one extremely tiny detail you might have overlooked Saran.
Wether or not the in game lore swaps to become a new Org. Something that's been said they - dont - want to make...
--- Tight communities & people do not vanish ---
Glomdoring isn't beautiful for the Ravenwoods, though Ravenwoods ARE lovely. It's beautiful for it's community, it's hard work and for everyone that pitches in to help each other out. Not everyone is like this but it is a - HUGE - part of Glomdoring's Identity. Anyone that's ever made a novice in Glom can attest to it. Unless you poped in outside regular hours or pushed us away. Sadly we dont have people awake 24/7.
You can delete Glomdoring, but you won't delete the people that -made- Glomdoring. Those people would go somewhere and they will do something. Expecting that everyone that joins your org will suddenly be all chummy, chummy is a bit silly. I'm not saying there won't be an attempt to play nice, but people are - people - they aren't robots. They can't just shut off their emotions, their histories or their feelings to each other. Props if you can. This is the biggest hurdle here.
So the community of Glomdoring, if Glomdoring is deleted, will most certainly end up sticking togheter. We back each other up, we stand for each other. That new org will end up being transformed by this. No it might not grow Ravenwoods. But it won't be the serenwilde you once knew, if Serenwilde is the one chosen. You can't expect to integrate a large group of tight knit people togheter and suddenly expect everything will stay the same.
Celest is absorbed by Magnagora? It won't be the same city it is now. Gaudi absorbed by Hallifax? Do you really imagine Gaudi players will go quietly ?
I'm not trying to raise trouble here, but this IS the truth of it. Players will try, but short of re-rolling ''every'' character that transfers in. They know each other, they have histories and that's not just forgotten overnight. Nor is the way they have been treated by others.
Too long to read? --------------
You might have a Moonhart Mother instead of Master Ravenwood, but it won't be the same Moonhart Mother.
This is true for every org that will integrate a large close knit community.
So...
The point other people appear to be talking about (though they're leaving it vague so it feels more threatening to people) is an intentional destruction and replacement of the identity of whatever org they end up in.
Bunch of new players coming in to serenwilde and explore aspects of the forest that haven't been super focused on yet? Cool, yeah the forest is going to change but that's a different change from the threatened Glom 2.0 extreme makeover.
All of the orgs have changed over the years, they've grown, learned new things, players have come and gone. It happens.
You're also deeply wrong about something, as long as Serenwilde is an org the Moonhart Mother will always be the Moonhart Mother.
Just as the Great Spirits of Serenwilde will always be the White Hart and Mother Moon, as their avatars and aspects will remain. We will have the sacred dead rather than the dark spirits, we will have the nature spirits loyal to the wilde not the abominations glom has collected, the sowers will be following the prophecies of the last seed as they walk the wheel of the seasons.
If the admin were going to support any change to that just because people moved to Serenwilde after losing their org, then deleting orgs is pointless and mergers should be done instead. Mergers would provide a space to grow a community from the combination of the two, choosing deletion instead would signal an expectation that the people joining the surviving orgs would become part of those orgs, not nuke the identity of their new org to try to recreate their old one.
See, this is why I think just axing three orgs and having the surivors move elsewhere is a bad idea. You have the oldbies fighting for the new identity, you have the newbies trying to usurp that identity, you have everyone from Glom having to work of years of prejudice and enemy status to join Seren/Mag... it just ends up being godawful.
If you're going to make the change, commit to it.
Make it so NuSeren -doesn't- have the Moonhart Mother Tree. The Mother and Master get destroyed, the Great Spirits flee, and the forestals have to come together to grow a NEW tree, blessed by new spirits. Great, now NuSeren is patroned by Serpent and Rock or something, and you have the Mighty Snakestone tree for a new commune to band around. So what if the Rockdancers are just reskinned or slightly altered Moondancers? Sure, it'll still be godawful, but at least everyone starts on the same footing, and not with some seriously second-class citizens trying to throw a coup.
And what about "reopening" orgs later on? I think that's a stupidly optimistic dream, but lets say we cut down to Seren/Celest/Mag, and all the Gloms disperse or retire and reroll, and a few years go by and everything is settled but the game is doing well, so they decide to reopen Glom. So... all of the old Gloms now have to decide to forsake their new home to return? Can they retire their new character to unretire the old Glom who would still be living there and supporting it presumably? How much would the population have to grow again before we could consider bringing back Halli/Gaudi?
If the orgs are merged, fine, you can't go back to your old one. No one can. But then, years down the road, you -can- start a new city, or a new commune, or a new idea all together. A commune that doesn't eschew city trappings and has massive buildings and public transport and aqueducts among the massive treehouses and living plants that serve as elevators! Whatever.
Holy crap, I come back to 2+ pages of just things I'd rather skip over, but painfully read through. Let me summarize what I read:
1) "My feelings" 2) All your base are belong to us
Now that I've summarized hours of debate, do you people honestly think you'll be allowed to just overtake a different org and setup shop like it was your old home? Do people actually buy into that? Also, please don't use the Mag players as an equivocation of this, we're not you. Even if Mag gets bombed and we collectively pick a new place (Won't happen, we're not a hive mind), we're not just going to set fire to their sails and anarchy. Even if all the stars aligned and we completely act against how we normally conduct ourselves, I fully expect admin pressure to be there and deny that.
Side note, only keeping the popular orgs is a stupid idea and based entirely on the premise of "Well they've gotta be doing something right." which is possibly valid. If taken completely out of context and with no knowledge of the game or users, you would nod your head and agree that they are indeed doing something right. But any veteran player knows so very well that the success is based in something else entirely. Let me give an example: Bookie asks if you want to take a bet on the match and you bid on the team with the best odds, only to find out when the odds are that way because the other team only has half the players on the field. Sound like it doesn't relate to the game? Well then, since we're not allowed to use the word 'fact' without admin confirmation, my 'anecdote' states that one team is much larger than the other, and my 'anecdote' also states that the smaller team is growing weary of the shenanigans.
But please, they're just anecdotes and can't possibly be taken as facts, game is dying swiftly and the only way this works is if we delete problems and reset somewhere. I'm also on board with the most populated orgs being removed, as it does give the larger variation of where people move. All of Glomdoring isn't going to migrate to one place, people are going to split off, same thing for Mag. Oh yea, to reiterate, LOL and the thought of replacing the identity of a surviving org.
Comments
The last bit is the reason why you'd want a system imo, one that positively reinforces the behaviours that you want. Because then it's not Elfenehoala rocking up and telling Jojobo to kick Acklebery to the kerb, it's Jojobo wanting to because that's what gives them the greatest benefit.
Again, it's a really difficult thing and would take a lot of designing but personally I've been feeling that a system like that, one that encourages shuffling to healthy alliances for the game, is something the game has been needing for a while and something that would be positive even if you did go with an even number of orgs.
Because yeah, it's easy for alliances to monopolise conflict objectives and it doesn't really seem like there's much of an incentive for the strong to fight each other rather than working together. (unless they're opposed cities)
If the Glom skillsets isn't unbalanced then the switch shouldn't matter.
Glomdoring isn't the only organization in existence and the same group that would usurp the political structure, in your own scenario, should stop trying to pretend like it is.
It's NOT a question of "What happens if you delete Glomdoring", it's a question of "What happens if something does not change very soon with how this game feels to everyone that still plays it." I'm super tired of these threads always bringing up the same side-long well spoken shade that is thrown like the state of things is not very clear to everyone. Some choose not to accept it, that's a personal choice. It's not a secret and it isn't hard to notice.
I'm tired of the same arguments being brought up and derailed because it becomes uncomfortable to talk about by a select group of people, then retaliated to by opposing people, and the only thing that's accomplished from that transaction is more divide and more stress for the administration to figure out how the players will keep playing the thing they work hard on.
If you want to keep Glomdoring? Fine. Be solo. Force Glomdoring to be alone. Force Celest and Serenwilde to ally, or merge, or simply do away with Serenwilde if we want to keep the Light/Taint aspect of that element. Force Magnagora to be alone. Freeze Hallifax and Gaudiguch. You cannot go outside of those boundaries, you are required to acclimate to a 1v1v1 scenario or go neutral.
Then? All skills in those organizations need to be balanced to where competition is healthy again because regardless of what anyone keeps telling themselves? It's not right now.
That's my two cents and likely the only time I'm going to say anything about this.
We all need to stop acting like arguments, finely worded derails and throwing shade is going to fix the problems that the game faces.
As the game sits currently, Glom sits as the top dog in pvp, whereas really anyone who is allied with them picks at their scraps like vultures, that's not to dog any of their allies or those who stick with Glom by no means, but it means that people get turned off from one-sided combat when things aren't balanced in classes, which in turn lead to people quitting the game as a whole.
As to resources for coding and the like, this game, like any other IRE game, has those who really want to make the game as a whole better, so increase your builders/celeni or whatever their called, and let us, who play the game work on the issues we the players have.
As I said, just my two cents.
I think that if anything, it should be the largest org/orgs that are deleted. That way, there is a real chance of the other orgs taking on aspects of the RP that appealed to the players of those orgs and the influx of players to the once-small orgs making a real difference. If the smaller orgs are deleted, the players will be forced to either acclimatise entirely to something which does not suit their characters or to reroll or quit.
Now, I know that no-one wants their org to be deleted. That does not mean that people do not believe that it is necessary to do something on this scale and should not be used as a reason to maintain the current situation.
*edit* I got majorly Ninja'd. The disagreement was with Deichtine's post at 6:02PM
Ultimately, the current issue is twofold. The first is that there are too few people, mechanically, spread across each org. The other is that there are fewer people in some orgs than others, and coupled with skill imbalances causes a snowball effect that is leading people on the "losing" side to burn out and quit. If we are to do org deletion at all (which I still hope we do an org merger instead), spreading the people around a bit would then not be the worst idea.
Personally, if the reach is game balance, I think it should be something like Hallifax, Glom, and one other org. Those two orgs seem to have the most consistent skills/in-org synergy, so bring a third org up to that standard and call it a day.
If the reach is player retention, it should just be the orgs that average the most number of people online.
If people wanted fair fights they'd join the wargames. They'd stay and fight the raids they started. They'd stop spitting in the faces of people who could potentially move to help balance. But that doesn't happen. And so the status quo is as it is.
You can not ask people who are being faulted for simply choosing to play in an organisation to ignore the fact that people are talking so cruelly about themselves and their people and move over. Sure, there are some discrepancies between how well Glomdoring's envoys have managed to build synergy and other organisations. No one is denying the effort and time put into Glomdoring's skillsets. Their envoys did really well. I suffered through Mag's nerfs and lack of envoys. They needed a lot of attention. I can't speak to other orgs but I guess much of the same there as Mag. But instead of focusing on creating your own synergy people ahve decided to just focus on destroying Glomdoring.
If you are on the beach and you see someone has built a really cool sandcastle you don't be a dick and go stomp it down. You either try and build one yourself or take a picture and appreciate it. Why is it so wrong to ask for people to stop trying to destroy something that works and put their effort in to building what they have up to be what they need/want? You guys asct like we are asking you to do something impossible.
Also, players like Tarken, Deichtine, and whoever else you think is on a pedestal. They would be just as good in any other org. They are amazing combatants it comes naturally to them. I am really average. I can hold my own sparring them. Even before I was in Glom. This bizarre backwards idolisation is what is hurting people. All it does is stall your own progress.
Unless something like that exists, you're ultimately asking the admin to spend dev time creating a tool in-game to replicate functionality freely available elsewhere. Like, you could just send out a link to a google form and ask people fill in the email address from their lusternia account rather than spending that dev time.
Once you're there, you're ultimately going to need to send out an email to the subscribers list because you want to make sure that your reach is as wide as possible, even if you're focusing on active players for some reason. (I.e you don't want to miss someone who's just taking a break for uni or the like)
At this point, it is far easier to just grab everyone and you accept that you're just going to grab everyone.
So then, you work in the demographics because then you can start getting insights into what's going on.
An obvious point as which less active players matter... if you posed the deletion vs merger option as a question on the survey you would be able to see how the active players feel about it and the responses from inactive players. This can give an indicator as to whether the change being proposed might have a positive impact and potentially bring players back to the game, it might not be significant enough to matter but it's also entirely possible that there could be an overwhelming number of people who indicate they would be excited by one of the changes. (One that seems plausible is actually deletion with full value transfers to a new character, people who fell out because they're done with characters might be excited by that opportunity to start off again at full value)
The same data set can also be focused down to just what active players think which is obviously something you'd be looking at, but ultimately there's not that much of a difference to include a wider grouping.
As someone who has worked with data sets to help cultivate industry topping customer satisfaction scores my experience shows that your opinion is incorrect. In reality, this is a case where you would want to poll everyone, polling exclusively the current playerbase is actually the thing that would do the most damage because realistically the majority of the player base is going to be happy with how things are and won't want to change it.
@Ishra & @Gurashi would most certainly have ideas to suggest different ways.
Off the top of my mind I can think of one to help:
There's a really large community of popular webcomics out there that generate revenue for their websites based off ads. I think it's a pay per click ? I'm really - not - familiar with the business model.
I do recall about 8-10 years ago around the start of the game, Lusternia had a bunch of ads running on websites like:
- Ctrl+alt+del-online.com
- Leasticoulddo.com
- Somethingpositive.com
Maybe it wasn't intentional that a Lusternia Ad appeared there. But it's the reason I was originally drawn to Lusternia in the first place. I didnt even know Lusternia existed at the time.
Reaching out to the gaming communities wether artists or D&D like was proposed earlier with ads might be able to attract a young & healthier population?
While it crosses my mind. If we move forward to the removal of excess orgs. Why not make a rebranding out of it?
Lusternia Reborn or Shatterering of Lusternia !
You could then attract people in a so called - remake - of the game.
While already having a functioning game ''Lusternia'' and simply changing it in a way that resets it to the original three.
The New & Unknown always attracts people.
Ok, Mag is deleted. Lots of Mags move to another org - let's not pretend they're going to disperse equally amongst all other orgs, instead of just migrating with their friends. Ok, so let's say they move to Serenwilde. Now, you have a large number of like-minded people coming into a smaller org. Ie. a large number of voters. Do you think they are not going to elect their own number to leadership and start warping Seren identity to fit what they want it to be?
'Oh, but the admins will stop it.'
Yea, that's a possibility. But you're going to end up with a lot of bad feelings either way. Not only about the losing your org, but also because the admins took player agency away. I dunno, people keep saying 'oh the admins will fix it', I just have a hard time seeing that going over well when it actually happens. But who knows, I could be wrong. Can't tell the future.
also from a UX perspective people are less inclined to leave a program to go to another and click something. They want it easily accessible. At the end of the day if they give 2 figs they will actually speak to the playerbase in its entirety rather than just winging it and hoping people stay on. So many people had no idea what was going on with guilds. And I was embarrassed on behalf of admin to find out that Glom's guildhalls took over a year to be installed. Is that the kind of result we can expect with org deletion too?
So your first issue here is that you referred to "Glomdoring implementing their lore" but former Glom members wouldn't be a part of Glom any more, in this scenario you would be a part of Serenwilde. Serenwilde has its own identity, there is a long list of lore that informs that identity and interestingly the White Hart does oppose Crow on False Memory given the importance placed on remembering our history.
ICly, as part of the process of joining Serenwilde (as you wouldn't just be forced in) you would be swearing fealty to the forest. There would likely be some pressure from the admin to welcome as many as possible, but I mean... announcing that you would intentionally destroy the identity of another org seems like you're giving justification for players not allowing you into the orgs you'd aim to join because you would be harming the viability of the game moving forward at that point.
The very first alliance in the game was Mag/Serenwilde, when Nikua was Marshal.
I mean, as a direct example Serenwilde created the whole winter court concept, the majority of the commune was behind the idea, for some players their identities were based on the concept because it was literally the only serenwilde they'd even known and at one point it was made clear by the admin that it wasn't really an option. And that's a change that's based on an extrapolation of actual lore within the forest.
So again, especially in the situation that you're suggesting it would happen in, I find it highly doubtful that making seren "Glom 2.0" is going to fly without the admin stepping in.
I am not talking about admin interference unless something really big happens (like tainting the pool of stars big). If orgs are deleted, there is going to be a cataclysm, let the world burn for a while and see what rises from the ashes.
It's like a merger, but without all of the additional coding that would require.
Xenthos is saying this is bad, I am saying it is another way to go about it.
Wether or not the in game lore swaps to become a new Org. Something that's been said they - dont - want to make...
--- Tight communities & people do not vanish ---
Glomdoring isn't beautiful for the Ravenwoods, though Ravenwoods ARE lovely. It's beautiful for it's community, it's hard work and for everyone that pitches in to help each other out. Not everyone is like this but it is a - HUGE - part of Glomdoring's Identity. Anyone that's ever made a novice in Glom can attest to it. Unless you poped in outside regular hours or pushed us away. Sadly we dont have people awake 24/7.
You can delete Glomdoring, but you won't delete the people that -made- Glomdoring. Those people would go somewhere and they will do something. Expecting that everyone that joins your org will suddenly be all chummy, chummy is a bit silly. I'm not saying there won't be an attempt to play nice, but people are - people - they aren't robots. They can't just shut off their emotions, their histories or their feelings to each other. Props if you can. This is the biggest hurdle here.
So the community of Glomdoring, if Glomdoring is deleted, will most certainly end up sticking togheter. We back each other up, we stand for each other. That new org will end up being transformed by this. No it might not grow Ravenwoods. But it won't be the serenwilde you once knew, if Serenwilde is the one chosen. You can't expect to integrate a large group of tight knit people togheter and suddenly expect everything will stay the same.
Celest is absorbed by Magnagora? It won't be the same city it is now.
Gaudi absorbed by Hallifax? Do you really imagine Gaudi players will go quietly ?
I'm not trying to raise trouble here, but this IS the truth of it. Players will try, but short of re-rolling ''every'' character that transfers in. They know each other, they have histories and that's not just forgotten overnight. Nor is the way they have been treated by others.
Too long to read?
--------------
You might have a Moonhart Mother instead of Master Ravenwood, but it won't be the same Moonhart Mother.
This is true for every org that will integrate a large close knit community.
tbh, reduction has been a growing necessity for a while now. If it's left to fester like guilds were, then things will only get worse until, like guilds, it's eventually actually done. And hopefully, a merger situation would save people that would otherwise leave through just the excitement of creating a whole new org.
There's also some pretty epic ways that you could kick it off, like you could have a massive event where we fail at ascension, you could even give players the option to kill off their characters and have them immortalised somehow in exchange for that 100% transfer to a new character thing. Pump it up and you could get older players coming back and tempt them with a fresh start.
The point other people appear to be talking about (though they're leaving it vague so it feels more threatening to people) is an intentional destruction and replacement of the identity of whatever org they end up in.
Bunch of new players coming in to serenwilde and explore aspects of the forest that haven't been super focused on yet? Cool, yeah the forest is going to change but that's a different change from the threatened Glom 2.0 extreme makeover.
All of the orgs have changed over the years, they've grown, learned new things, players have come and gone. It happens.
You're also deeply wrong about something, as long as Serenwilde is an org the Moonhart Mother will always be the Moonhart Mother.
Just as the Great Spirits of Serenwilde will always be the White Hart and Mother Moon, as their avatars and aspects will remain. We will have the sacred dead rather than the dark spirits, we will have the nature spirits loyal to the wilde not the abominations glom has collected, the sowers will be following the prophecies of the last seed as they walk the wheel of the seasons.
If the admin were going to support any change to that just because people moved to Serenwilde after losing their org, then deleting orgs is pointless and mergers should be done instead. Mergers would provide a space to grow a community from the combination of the two, choosing deletion instead would signal an expectation that the people joining the surviving orgs would become part of those orgs, not nuke the identity of their new org to try to recreate their old one.
1) "My feelings"
2) All your base are belong to us
Now that I've summarized hours of debate, do you people honestly think you'll be allowed to just overtake a different org and setup shop like it was your old home? Do people actually buy into that? Also, please don't use the Mag players as an equivocation of this, we're not you. Even if Mag gets bombed and we collectively pick a new place (Won't happen, we're not a hive mind), we're not just going to set fire to their sails and anarchy. Even if all the stars aligned and we completely act against how we normally conduct ourselves, I fully expect admin pressure to be there and deny that.
Side note, only keeping the popular orgs is a stupid idea and based entirely on the premise of "Well they've gotta be doing something right." which is possibly valid. If taken completely out of context and with no knowledge of the game or users, you would nod your head and agree that they are indeed doing something right. But any veteran player knows so very well that the success is based in something else entirely. Let me give an example: Bookie asks if you want to take a bet on the match and you bid on the team with the best odds, only to find out when the odds are that way because the other team only has half the players on the field. Sound like it doesn't relate to the game? Well then, since we're not allowed to use the word 'fact' without admin confirmation, my 'anecdote' states that one team is much larger than the other, and my 'anecdote' also states that the smaller team is growing weary of the shenanigans.
But please, they're just anecdotes and can't possibly be taken as facts, game is dying swiftly and the only way this works is if we delete problems and reset somewhere. I'm also on board with the most populated orgs being removed, as it does give the larger variation of where people move. All of Glomdoring isn't going to migrate to one place, people are going to split off, same thing for Mag. Oh yea, to reiterate, LOL and the thought of replacing the identity of a surviving org.