Reducing the Number of Player Orgs

Saran · May 2019

Kistan said:

Saran said:

But you haven't just deleted their org, you haven't wiped everything out and got people to create something new. You've deleted guild after guild that people were in, you've asked them to invest a month in guild after guild, potentially org after org. You'd have the game in a state of fear for the future of their guild and org for over a year probably losing players just to people deciding to nope out.

Also does nothing to address the reality that there are a variety of factors that could lead to an org under performing which will reflect into its guilds.

Or it could reinvigorate them, sending guilds into overdrive to show why they deserve to survive.

I agree that there are a number of factors why guilds are underperforming. But I don't think anyone has suggested addressing that. We are addressing reducing numbers and poor recruitment and retention. Those guilds that have a variety of factors would have up to 8 months to sort them out!

Would you have to watch out for alt abuse if you were doing it on voting weight?

I said orgs not guilds, one factor that's been a consistent pain point for years is undertuned classes, for example. Stressing out and depressing players isn't going to magically resolve issues like that and is more liable to chase away people who just give up cause they figure the orgs dead anyway. This, in turn, reflects into guilds because people end up leaving cause they're sick of loosing because of it, which then makes guild specific things harder cause they're fighting for a dwindling number of players.

You could likely build up your vote weight if you wanted to, players who've drifted away might get asked to return to also help their former orgs by friends. It's also not a breach of seconds to have two characters active at the same time.

Kistan said:

In truth though, there is no good way of deleting 3 orgs. It is going to rip the heart out of the game. The impact of resettling all those people in a meaningful way and retaining the original RP of the existing orgs is minimal. Such an influx of people who do not initially believe in the ethos of a city/commune is going to create a massive us vs them problem initially.

Will orgs pass laws banning those immigrants from running for leadership positions to protect what they have?

Will those coming to the new orgs overwhelm it?

Will new alliances be forged? or if we keep the 3 cities mentioned , will it be Magnagora and Serenwilde taking on Celest?

How much admin interference will there be (and indeed how much will be tolerated by the player base)

There literally is no good way to do this. There are only less bad.

I think the first choice to be made is:

(i) is it going to be run as a vanity project (which picking the original three orgs would be)
(ii) is it a genuine attempt to resuscitate the game(which picking the original three orgs is not)

The issue really comes up when the people joining the org don't try to integrate in it. This is Lusternia, joining means you've agreed to become part of that community, you've signed up to serve the light/great spirits/collective/whatever and forsaken whatever that requires you to. If it was the merger suggestion it's different, but in the deletion that's signalled the intention for the remaining orgs to retain their identity.

Would argue the vanity labelling.
The original three orgs are a pretty strongly opposed set, they're something that is pretty easy for people to sink their teeth into which can more significantly help retention than providing a less common niche (which is typically the argument for the other orgs). We know they can work pretty well.

Esoneyuna · May 2019

Saran said:

Kistan said:

Saran said:

But you haven't just deleted their org, you haven't wiped everything out and got people to create something new. You've deleted guild after guild that people were in, you've asked them to invest a month in guild after guild, potentially org after org. You'd have the game in a state of fear for the future of their guild and org for over a year probably losing players just to people deciding to nope out.

Also does nothing to address the reality that there are a variety of factors that could lead to an org under performing which will reflect into its guilds.

Or it could reinvigorate them, sending guilds into overdrive to show why they deserve to survive.

I agree that there are a number of factors why guilds are underperforming. But I don't think anyone has suggested addressing that. We are addressing reducing numbers and poor recruitment and retention. Those guilds that have a variety of factors would have up to 8 months to sort them out!

Would you have to watch out for alt abuse if you were doing it on voting weight?

I said orgs not guilds, one factor that's been a consistent pain point for years is undertuned classes, for example. Stressing out and depressing players isn't going to magically resolve issues like that and is more liable to chase away people who just give up cause they figure the orgs dead anyway. This, in turn, reflects into guilds because people end up leaving cause they're sick of loosing because of it, which then makes guild specific things harder cause they're fighting for a dwindling number of players.

You could likely build up your vote weight if you wanted to, players who've drifted away might get asked to return to also help their former orgs by friends. It's also not a breach of seconds to have two characters active at the same time.

Kistan said:

In truth though, there is no good way of deleting 3 orgs. It is going to rip the heart out of the game. The impact of resettling all those people in a meaningful way and retaining the original RP of the existing orgs is minimal. Such an influx of people who do not initially believe in the ethos of a city/commune is going to create a massive us vs them problem initially.

Will orgs pass laws banning those immigrants from running for leadership positions to protect what they have?

Will those coming to the new orgs overwhelm it?

Will new alliances be forged? or if we keep the 3 cities mentioned , will it be Magnagora and Serenwilde taking on Celest?

How much admin interference will there be (and indeed how much will be tolerated by the player base)

There literally is no good way to do this. There are only less bad.

I think the first choice to be made is:

(i) is it going to be run as a vanity project (which picking the original three orgs would be)
(ii) is it a genuine attempt to resuscitate the game(which picking the original three orgs is not)

The issue really comes up when the people joining the org don't try to integrate in it. This is Lusternia, joining means you've agreed to become part of that community, you've signed up to serve the light/great spirits/collective/whatever and forsaken whatever that requires you to. If it was the merger suggestion it's different, but in the deletion that's signalled the intention for the remaining orgs to retain their identity.

Would argue the vanity labelling.
The original three orgs are a pretty strongly opposed set, they're something that is pretty easy for people to sink their teeth into which can more significantly help retention than providing a less common niche (which is typically the argument for the other orgs). We know they can work pretty well.

It isn’t because people have to keep to the RP of an org that this is the same RP mentality the current leaders have in mind. All orgs have gone through motions and Celest and Serenwilde has had their identity change to extremes from snuggleville to kill all that are not us lunatics. It is very likely that if Serenwilde reintegrated Glom players it will turn in a more isolationist organisation with a very aggressive stance on taint and maybe even be more strict on how commune members behave. It is not against the RP of Serenwilde but there will be Seren players that don’t like it. And that very different feel to an org is possible for all of them.

Saran · May 2019

Esoneyuna said:

It isn’t because people have to keep to the RP of an org that this is the same RP mentality the current leaders have in mind. All orgs have gone through motions and Celest and Serenwilde has had their identity change to extremes from snuggleville to kill all that are not us lunatics. It is very likely that if Serenwilde reintegrated Glom players it will turn in a more isolationist organisation with a very aggressive stance on taint and maybe even be more strict on how commune members behave. It is not against the RP of Serenwilde but there will be Seren players that don’t like it. And that very different feel to an org is possible for all of them.

Serenwilde's identity hasn't changed it's just that sometimes the snugglers become a bit much, and often they're alts there to troll.

but for points:

It would be hard to be more isolationist than the mindset that we must keep our allies at arms length and be ready to turn on them at a moments notice if that serves nature.
Taking an aggressive stance on the taint while ignoring the horrors of the light is a typical problem for serenwilde that quickly gets resolved with reminders of why the light is just as bad.
Being more strict on how commune members behave is bordering on lore breaking tbh, "freedom" is something Seren shares with Gaudi, it's why Seren has the leaves rather than laws. We have some rules around what you can do on CT and in public spaces but that's it and it's ultimately because you're going against someone else's rights (i.e you have the right to expect that you can rest at mother without witnessing people going at it)

So... the suggestions seem to be based on either not knowing that Serenwilde is already like that or involve changing the identity of the forest.

Arguably the last point about inhibiting the freedom of commune members also takes away something which might attract former Gaudi's to Seren if they didn't want to deal with being subject to the laws of Celest or Mag.

Pysynne · May 2019

Wrong thread

Esoneyuna · May 2019

Saran said:

Esoneyuna said:

It isn’t because people have to keep to the RP of an org that this is the same RP mentality the current leaders have in mind. All orgs have gone through motions and Celest and Serenwilde has had their identity change to extremes from snuggleville to kill all that are not us lunatics. It is very likely that if Serenwilde reintegrated Glom players it will turn in a more isolationist organisation with a very aggressive stance on taint and maybe even be more strict on how commune members behave. It is not against the RP of Serenwilde but there will be Seren players that don’t like it. And that very different feel to an org is possible for all of them.

Serenwilde's identity hasn't changed it's just that sometimes the snugglers become a bit much, and often they're alts there to troll.

but for points:
It would be hard to be more isolationist than the mindset that we must keep our allies at arms length and be ready to turn on them at a moments notice if that serves nature.
Taking an aggressive stance on the taint while ignoring the horrors of the light is a typical problem for serenwilde that quickly gets resolved with reminders of why the light is just as bad.
Being more strict on how commune members behave is bordering on lore breaking tbh, "freedom" is something Seren shares with Gaudi, it's why Seren has the leaves rather than laws. We have some rules around what you can do on CT and in public spaces but that's it and it's ultimately because you're going against someone else's rights (i.e you have the right to expect that you can rest at mother without witnessing people going at it)
So... the suggestions seem to be based on either not knowing that Serenwilde is already like that or involve changing the identity of the forest.

Arguably the last point about inhibiting the freedom of commune members also takes away something which might attract former Gaudi's to Seren if they didn't want to deal with being subject to the laws of Celest or Mag.

Forbidding marriages with magnagora has been a thing. Not allowing Magnagorans inside has been a thing, Magnagora being enemies had been a thing. People being disfavoured for being silly at the moon hart has been a thing. There was even a crazy timewhere people got disfavoured for not defending

So more is always possible.

Anaklusmos · May 2019

Gonna say it again: whatever is going to happen, have it happen ASAP. This limbo we're trapped in is shitty.

Best bet is to just keep the winning orgs. You keep your happy players happy, and the players you'll lose are probably the ones you won't miss.

Saran · May 2019

Esoneyuna said:

Forbidding marriages with magnagora has been a thing. Not allowing Magnagorans inside has been a thing, Magnagora being enemies had been a thing. People being disfavoured for being silly at the moon hart has been a thing. There was even a crazy timewhere people got disfavoured for not defending

So more is always possible.

I mean, yeah at this point Serenwilde has been enemies with EVERY ORG. We have a bunch of lore reasons why they all terrible, there's times when that's particularly emphasised there's times when it isn't.

Tainted undeath is offensive, Angels are also banned. Marriages are a weird area cause there are some threads that make it bad (it's risking drawing outsiders too close and we've had events showing the bad of getting too close to the taint).
You're also describing times where people weren't actually following the rp of the forest, that's a thing that can happen. Doesn't actually make it fit, like you can take one look at either Moon and Hart and get reasons why Seren should never disfavour people for not defending.

Maligorn · May 2019

This feels like it got buried so I want to give a signal boost to Ejderha's idea for mechanically inbuilt (and mandatory to participate in flares/revolts/etc.) alliances is the safest way to go in terms of not offending people or losing players.

The only downside basically is that there will still be 30 classes (36 really if you include chemwood) that are all very unique and will stil require balancing. Something that may alleviate that is forcing new alliances to choose their 5 skillsets for each archetype and only let them mix and match every 10 IG years or something, according to a vote.

Saran · May 2019

Maligorn said:

This feels like it got buried so I want to give a signal boost to Ejderha's idea for mechanically inbuilt (and mandatory to participate in flares/revolts/etc.) alliances is the safest way to go in terms of not offending people or losing players.

The only downside basically is that there will still be 30 classes (36 really if you include chemwood) that are all very unique and will stil require balancing. Something that may alleviate that is forcing new alliances to choose their 5 skillsets for each archetype and only let them mix and match every 10 IG years or something, according to a vote.

Might have missed it but was how it would be more effective than covenants were for guilds addressed?

The changing skillsets seems a bit pointless tbh, whatever's most popular at the time would be picked first, then everyone would need to invest in that, at which point everyone has it as well as any newbies who've joined in that time, so next time the vote comes up you'd just vote for the same sets because otherwise everyone needs to change.

If you're picking on an alliance level I also wouldn't be surprised if each of the archetypes might end up with the same terts across the board.

Minkahmet · May 2019

Innon said:

I think three orgs is definitely ideal. I would also regret my decision to retire Innon if this becomes reality. I believe this would be a step in the right direction. Yes, it hurts, but sometimes the band-aid needs ripped off. I think it would be fair to offer 100% credit to those people that would want to create a new character within Lusternia from one of the destroyed orgs. (Could limit this rate at 1 per person)

I think this would be a fair thing to do, albeit it may/not ease the pain for the person behind the character they play, but it'd be a good step nonetheless.

Dys · May 2019

Saran said:

Maligorn said:

This feels like it got buried so I want to give a signal boost to Ejderha's idea for mechanically inbuilt (and mandatory to participate in flares/revolts/etc.) alliances is the safest way to go in terms of not offending people or losing players.

The only downside basically is that there will still be 30 classes (36 really if you include chemwood) that are all very unique and will stil require balancing. Something that may alleviate that is forcing new alliances to choose their 5 skillsets for each archetype and only let them mix and match every 10 IG years or something, according to a vote.

Might have missed it but was how it would be more effective than covenants were for guilds addressed?

The changing skillsets seems a bit pointless tbh, whatever's most popular at the time would be picked first, then everyone would need to invest in that, at which point everyone has it as well as any newbies who've joined in that time, so next time the vote comes up you'd just vote for the same sets because otherwise everyone needs to change.

If you're picking on an alliance level I also wouldn't be surprised if each of the archetypes might end up with the same terts across the board.

I read it as going a lot further than covenants, which were just merged guild chat and some ability to cross-promote.

Apologies if I'm misquoting Ejderha but I think his suggestion had much more of a merger, like a village would be won by Glom-Mag alliance, consolidated alliance ministerial posts, one combined voted org leader, combined council? Linked nexuses sharing power maybe, etc.

So reducing down to three sides but without losing class and org identity so much. Sounds neat to me. Probably would need a load of fiddly coding.

Maligorn · May 2019

Dys said:

Saran said:

Maligorn said:

This feels like it got buried so I want to give a signal boost to Ejderha's idea for mechanically inbuilt (and mandatory to participate in flares/revolts/etc.) alliances is the safest way to go in terms of not offending people or losing players.

The only downside basically is that there will still be 30 classes (36 really if you include chemwood) that are all very unique and will stil require balancing. Something that may alleviate that is forcing new alliances to choose their 5 skillsets for each archetype and only let them mix and match every 10 IG years or something, according to a vote.

Might have missed it but was how it would be more effective than covenants were for guilds addressed?

The changing skillsets seems a bit pointless tbh, whatever's most popular at the time would be picked first, then everyone would need to invest in that, at which point everyone has it as well as any newbies who've joined in that time, so next time the vote comes up you'd just vote for the same sets because otherwise everyone needs to change.

If you're picking on an alliance level I also wouldn't be surprised if each of the archetypes might end up with the same terts across the board.

I read it as going a lot further than covenants, which were just merged guild chat and some ability to cross-promote.

Apologies if I'm misquoting Ejderha but I think his suggestion had much more of a merger, like a village would be won by Glom-Mag alliance, consolidated alliance ministerial posts, one combined voted org leader, combined council? Linked nexuses sharing power maybe, etc.

So reducing down to three sides but without losing class and org identity so much. Sounds neat to me. Probably would need a load of fiddly coding.

That's how I read his proposal as well. But Saran makes a good point, we don't want to force people to have to tritrans on a dime. We may just need to pick 5 out of the 10 archetypes permanently.

Synl · May 2019

Mirror skills across the opposite orgs. If you're afraid of those orgs teaming up, just have the affliction caused differ. That will solve most problems at first blush. Ie. Gaudiguch gets exactly the same abilities as Halifax, except sub timewarp for temporaryinsanity. And gem for flesh thing. Now they're easier to balance, and if they team up things won't get any worse since the actual aff is different.

Allixea · May 2019

Alright so I've not read all of this because frankly there is a lot. Personally if there must be 3 orgs I want to suggest nuking both communes. If my knowledge of lore serves me I believe multiple trees spawned from the tree of trees. This would allow the creation of a new commune aligned to neither communes specific ideals.

I see this as a way for both communes to keep their own identity and leave space open for a third identity to form when the two inevitably blend. This also opens the possibility for jojobo skills to become available, for example their civil war ends with the destruction of their commune and they too become refugees within the newly formed commune.

I see this as the only way for both sides to keep their skillsets and form new lasting bonds with people who were once their enemies.

Kistan · May 2019

Or just get rid of both forests completely?

Deletes a bunch of classes as well!

Allixea · May 2019

I didn't mean to remove the skillset or classes. Allow both sets of skills within one commune.

Kistan · May 2019

I know some guys with some bricks left over from the alabaster road...construction has been slow lately

Coraline · May 2019

Kistan said:

Or just get rid of both forests completely?

Deletes a bunch of classes as well!

Go sit in the Bad Idea Corner!

Kistan · May 2019

Coraline said:

Kistan said:

Or just get rid of both forests completely?

Deletes a bunch of classes as well!

Go sit in the Bad Idea Corner!

It would stop you having to move back......

Coraline · May 2019

Kistan said:

Coraline said:

Kistan said:

Or just get rid of both forests completely?

Deletes a bunch of classes as well!

Go sit in the Bad Idea Corner!

It would stop you having to move back......

Or bring back Chocolate Forest... I mean Jojobo

Allixea · May 2019

If creation of a new commune would be too much work (which it might idk how much time the admin would want to dedicate) they could even just have some sort of accident trying to force ackleberry back to reality that removes both communes. Make the people do stuff to bring them back but instead brings the communes back merged into one.

This allows both skillsets to exist in one place, leaves ackleberry skills as something that can be looked into later and still gives a place for jojobo to flee to if a climax to their civil war wipes them out.

Old areas could be reused and rearranged from both communes. While opening up the possibility of adding bits from the other two communes.

Shaddus · May 2019

If an admin keeps deleting my posts for no actual reason or feels like my input or comments aren't helpful or aren't acceptable, please pm me and let me know. Thanks.

Deichtine · May 2019

Just wanted to post this concept here. Said it in another thread but its maybe more relevant here:

=========

Like for example everyones talking about Seren and Glom. Lets say in this example Seren is getting destroyed and deleted because its one of the smaller orgs and Gloms staying becaue its one of the larger active orgs.

So you could just destroy Seren and thats it. Leave all the Seren players in the wind and they have to go through the standard apply to a new org process to get into a new org. This is a bit jarring and its going to cause issues for the player base obviously. There will be Serens who are enemied to so many other orgs they struggle to find a new place. Your going to see these kinds of players fade away or retire into a new org. This isn't theory either, this is something we've seen in other IRE games. Have a look at the stats on Imperian when they deleted Staven.

Or there are other options. In this example Seren is getting deleted due to its issues and Gloms staying but instead of just a straight delete what you can do is have an event that rocks Glomdoring too. The event deletes Serenwilde and heavily damages Glomdoring in some bad way. Maybe it gets locked out of time for a bit as well but comes back. Everyone gets kicked out of Glom and Seren for a moment but then can quickly rejoin in the event process. You've now got two orgs merged with minimal fuss. Now you've merged two orgs into 1, gathered all the players togther and somewhat reset the playing field a bit to allow the newcomers and the older ones time to talk merge and adjust with elections and general activity.

You could go even further with the merger process as well if you wanted to shake things up. For example you could maybe pick which classes survive. Maybe for example Blacktalon don't survive but heart druids do. Moon gets wrecked but Night survives etc.

========

Coraline · May 2019

This is something I was thinking of for a while...

If we have a three org solution, and your race is banned in two of that three orgs, then you'd be locked into the third org.

Saran · May 2019

Deichtine said:

Just wanted to post this concept here. Said it in another thread but its maybe more relevant here:

=========
Like for example everyones talking about Seren and Glom. Lets say in this example Seren is getting destroyed and deleted because its one of the smaller orgs and Gloms staying becaue its one of the larger active orgs.

So you could just destroy Seren and thats it. Leave all the Seren players in the wind and they have to go through the standard apply to a new org process to get into a new org. This is a bit jarring and its going to cause issues for the player base obviously. There will be Serens who are enemied to so many other orgs they struggle to find a new place. Your going to see these kinds of players fade away or retire into a new org. This isn't theory either, this is something we've seen in other IRE games. Have a look at the stats on Imperian when they deleted Staven.

Or there are other options. In this example Seren is getting deleted due to its issues and Gloms staying but instead of just a straight delete what you can do is have an event that rocks Glomdoring too. The event deletes Serenwilde and heavily damages Glomdoring in some bad way. Maybe it gets locked out of time for a bit as well but comes back. Everyone gets kicked out of Glom and Seren for a moment but then can quickly rejoin in the event process. You've now got two orgs merged with minimal fuss. Now you've merged two orgs into 1, gathered all the players togther and somewhat reset the playing field a bit to allow the newcomers and the older ones time to talk merge and adjust with elections and general activity.

You could go even further with the merger process as well if you wanted to shake things up. For example you could maybe pick which classes survive. Maybe for example Blacktalon don't survive but heart druids do. Moon gets wrecked but Night survives etc.
========

This is pretty in line with some other suggestions that have already received push back because of the ultimately unnecessary negativity thrown at Serenwilde that would likely cause departures before then just merging the orgs. The "fuss" is far from "minimal" there and these suggestions seem to be based on a lack of understanding about Serenwilde.

There's has been no actual reason presented as to why you'd do that if you're merging, you could also wipe out the wyrd and then you just have "Nature" as the concept which makes far more sense

Deichtine · May 2019

Yea I agree that a true new org would be better than just merging into an old one but just a concept if a total new org is 100% off the table.

Saran · May 2019

Coraline said:

This is something I was thinking of for a while...

If we have a three org solution, and your race is banned in two of that three orgs, then you'd be locked into the third org.

Depends on the solution.

Deletion (Celest/Seren/Mag) it's only really Viscanti that have something to worry about but race is also a choice with consequences at the end of the day. In that scenario you could give out (maybe conditionally) free race changes for people where it's an issue.

The mergers... it varies, you'd probably just set those up so that it doesn't happen.

Coraline · May 2019

Illithoid, too.

The thought came up when I was thinking which org I might go to if only the original 3 orgs remained, and I think faelings are banned in Mag (are they?)

But I agree that race is a choice with consequences. However, when previously this consequence was that a couple (out of 6 orgs) won't accept you, with a 3 org solution, it will soon be "a couple of orgs out of three orgs won't accept you" which means you have to go to the third.

Makai · May 2019

Faelings are not banned, we have plenty. No races are -banned- in Mag, it is a common misconception though. We have contemptible races, which means they're considered 'lesser' races but aren't banned. An elfen can be a citizen of Magnagora, but they will not progress past the first city rank. Same thing for merians and kephera. Those are based on Fain's rules that are basically as old as the org itself, despite Fain being a thing of the last past.

Saran · May 2019

Coraline said:

Illithoid, too.

The thought came up when I was thinking which org I might go to if only the original 3 orgs remained, and I think faelings are banned in Mag (are they?)

But I agree that race is a choice with consequences. However, when previously this consequence was that a couple (out of 6 orgs) won't accept you, with a 3 org solution, it will soon be "a couple of orgs out of three orgs won't accept you" which means you have to go to the third.

Yeah fair, forgot about them.

I'm not sure if faelings are actually banned, Merian and Elfen are lower than second-class citizens though afaik.

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