Changing character concepts

[lanyara]

I did not want to continue in the Thread "Absence" (since it implies people being inactive and my note more refers to playing characters rather than stop playing them), thus I started this new thread but there was one statement that caught my attention.

@Olrane penned:

I retired him when I decided that the goodies defeated him for good.

My comment here is more meant in general, not aimed at @Olrane, since I think this is a pattern which seems to repeat itself all too often.
Especially somewhat older characters, with a long IC history, are more prone to this "retirement".

But is this the best solution? Or in other words, is the retirement solution better than continuing to play (a character), even if that means adjusting a concept?

[matusalem]

The fact of the matter is that sometimes someone just gets bored playing a character. I personally have two characters, and one of which I can't seem to find much interest in playing. (Mainly due to certain RP choices I've made for it that no longer interest me.) When Matusalem started getting stale and boring to me, I did, however, reinvent him to an extent. I didn't swing the pendulum to the opposite end and turn him evil, but merely reevaluated his sense of "good." This is all well and good, but I can certainly understand why someone can get just plain sick of playing the same character they have been for years. It's only natural.

[rafael]

I've played my character from sixteen and have seen him grown up and change his mind about a good number of things. He's nearing 40 now. If you have longer lived characters I hope you have noticed the difference. I think playing a human has helped me vary things up a little and flesh him out. I only play Rafael and have yet to tire of him, but he is far from the endgame. A number of the goals I set for him during his youth are still unresolved, so he has still plenty to do and there is still room for surprises up ahead.

I think he is defined by the relationships around him, so if there are no people he feels comfortable with or that he can roleplay with things can get boring. But as long as there are characters that he feels for strongly and he can interact with, I think I won't get tired of him. Even though most character-defining moments happened in past years, I still don't know what will happen in future years, so while drastic changes may not happen I still don't know what the future holds for him, and that's a good thing, I think.

I'll give it some more thought later and see if I can better address some of the points you've brought up.

[lanyara]

as long as there are characters that he feels for strongly and he can interact with, I think I won't get tired of him.

Interaction is very important. I was thinking of how it would be to roleplay a powerless character, for example just a merchant and consistently stick to this concept (avoid combat perhaps as well etc..)

One big problem is that certain character concepts depend on other characters a lot more than other concepts. If you'd limit yourself to i.e. avoid combat, you would lose a lot of what is "doable" for this character. If you do not set this restriction you can just go and spend some time fighting something. (And "resozialize" with other characters later.) Or even better, go fight together.

I think @Naga played a similar concept more or less - don't think he was a big fighter. He seems to have finally come into a situation with no easy "pull out" option, at least for him. Perhaps it would have been different if there would have been more "supporting" characters, but I can understand that this is difficult.

Anyway, without combat you'd depend a lot more to socialize or otherwise interact with playercharacters, otherwise some IC actions would be meaningless. Simply because the whole combat side more or less suddenly plays a smaller role.

I think players are a bit too quick at disposing character concepts in general. I am not exempt from this at all.

There were notes about permadeath "legendary" characters here - fine. The characters were famous, and then gone.
But - how many notes were written about continuing to play instead?

I do very well understand that it is a lot easier to abandon characters, especially when you find yourself in situations you don't enjoy at all. From all the situations playing MUDs, the by far worst one was when I once found myself in the middle of IC struggles between different characters within the same guild. All was nicely roleplayed, all sticked IC, so it was no OOC problem in the slightest, even though there was intense IC pressure and conflict between the participating characters.
But my character suddenly was used in that struggle, and I did not see it coming before. It took me completely by surprise OOCly. My character concept was quite "low conflict" in most situations, and all of a sudden I'd have to deal with "backstabbing with words", appeasing different characters. It was not an easy atmosphere.

If I would have known about this beforehand, I could have prepared, but the way it turned out felt a lot as if I just walked on the floor in a dungeon, and suddenly the floor collapsed, sending me into a trap. (This is an extreme depiction - in reality I more just felt as if I don't want to play that character concept anymore, hence I stopped it). As comparison, before and after that I had characters who had absolutely no problem to interact with these other characters, both in the guild and outside.

I guess my point here is that it is better to see if old characters could continue to play, rather than them being discarded and abandoned (because this is the easier route), otherwise you'd might just end up being frustrated about a game.

[Olrane]

There definitely comes a point when the thing to do is to retire a character, and few will do this without having at least tried to change character concepts.

It was very hard for me to quit playing Olrane, but it was an important decision. I had stopped having fun - I could never recover to my full stats despite spending my entire time online actively hiding and fleeing from most player characters. It was a time when the Crusaders and Tanielite clerics were incredibly strong and well staffed - they had somebody online at pretty much any hour of the day. I was just one of the first players to quit in the second mass exodus of baddies during my time (the first was following the destruction of the Shadow Lurkers). Without my full stats, I had no hope of being able to sneak around at anything near a proficient level, and Crusader towers pretty much killed your ability to move around undetected if you were an outlaw.

Yeah, it pretty much sucked to be a baddie who wasn't either a strong Sathonite cleric, an invisible halfling, or someone who could get protection from the Sathonites (this really ended up being what killed the fun for me. The Sathos were the only ones strong enough to protect you, but Olrane never really wanted to ally with them.). I'm not going to go through my entire character history, I'm just trying to briefly explain that there can be a dead end. When you've spent 80ish days playing a character who's been thrown out of a guild, invoked the wrath of the Crusade on not just a professional but also a personal level, and you're just a mediocre assassin, it's hard to get your life straight and start a new path.

Frustration, boredom, and needing to get back to real life have ended many characters. On the other hand, some players/characters have stuck it through heroically; kudos to you, Krelji.

Edit: Another thing I thought I should mention. Olrane left Forostar abruptly, but not without acknowledging his defeat and regrets. I thought that my own frustration should at least be used for one thing: a sometimes thorn in the good team's side was actually permanently defeated. I just couldn't be defeated and keep having fun playing, sorry.

[lanyara]

I think what would be nice to have would be an "OOC spoiler" area in the wiki.

Players could then write up reasons for abandoning their characters, and others could glance at this if they so desire to (should be entirely optional for visitors, i.e. a mouse roll-over box or something - I can well imagine some players not wanting to know such reasons at all, as this may or may not affect in-game decisions of their characters. However, on the other hand such reasonings as the one given here are really great to know at times, because they quite obviously show that certain character concepts are a lot harder to pull through than others.)

I guess the current wiki setup is not easily suited for that - you would probably have to create one account / character manually, and I am not sure that writing up "OOC spoilers" is possible currently. (i.e. the ability to either look at the IC background of a character, or at the OOC spoiler area for it only if you want to)

Anyway, just giving my thoughts on this here in general. One such spoiler I'd personally like to read would be one of @Naga.

The Sathos were the only ones strong enough to protect you, but Olrane never really wanted to ally with them

I don't think that comes too surprising in any heavy race-of-arms race.

Those unable (or unwilling?) to keep up with the stronger ones get left out of it quickly - and they sometimes won't have too many solid IC reasons to do certain things, limiting the choice of viable actions (because you would have to use OOC reasons, or at the very least change IC concepts).

It is "fighting against all odds" and "the system". Pretty difficult scenario.

The reasons given here are really nice to know though, even though it may be OOC spoiler material. :>

I just think that it would be good to know reasons for abandoning character concepts in general (and really not wanting to "resurrect" the concept).

However what you all should not forget is that any MUD will inevitably change as years pass, both due to different players, and due to code changes. And sometimes you get new ideas for salvaging a character you played lateron.

Although I don't like the new faith system too much for a few other reasons, it also readily and quite easily allows to switch deities (and I never had the idea of a cleric worshipping multiple deities before, either). And if it allows one to do so, it would also allow salvage character concepts.

Things do change as time passes.

[isengoo]

@Naga doesn't play the game anymore.

[lanyara]

There needs be a replacement!

[Sairina]

Good luck finding one...

[lanyara]

I have to make an addition to my earlier statement that the new religion system is not so bad - because it allows for characters to change and remain active.

Of course I still think that changing a character "how he used to be", like be the ultimate badass, slayer of 10.000 children, into someone who has repented his sins and becomes a nice person is a good thing.

At least for society it may also be interesting for roleplay reasons, for that character.

But, and here comes a huge but ...

If taken as a whole, if most evil characters become good or - especially - inactive, then I think this is a big problem.

Shouldn't a medieval theme have sufficient room for thieves or other lesser evils other than have more or less established perfect societies in the good areas?

Right now there aren't really any thieves or smaller evils ...

[isengoo]

The game has become extremely polarized because of the Crusade, imo.

[arxthas]

There is definetily a time to retire your character. Especially the case when it's your first and you learned more about geas and RP in general. Re-defining it from there is basically impossible. Re-definitions are kind of OOCish as well, IMHO. To some extent though, I can accept them, if they come somewhat realistically.


About the non-combat character thing.. It's not about that people have not done it. It is that people do not accept it, or completely ignore this kind of RP. I have played a couple of roles through the years including beggars, guards, politicians etc.. but they are completely sidelined. Most of the hours of RP you thought through is ignored/mocked by other players (and even OOC-ly). You'll end up people not believing you, just running you over every chance but most painful of all, you get completely ignored. My advice is to not waste your time with it. Nobody is going to care about your brilliant story, interact with it, notice it or even give it a remote chance if they do. Another aspect is that people who did continue play this style usually take a form of "sacrifice". Instead of rewarding this sacrifice, others usually exploit to run you over at every chance. The simplest pattern of play is to never get into conflict and powerup your character, which is IMHO also the suckiest way of playing. You can never get more RP than what other allow, it takes two to dance.

[ganandorf]

The game has become extremely polarized because of the Crusade, imo.

Maybe you should elaborate, and provide some evidence?

[isengoo]

There is no gray area anymore. You are either evil and hunted for forever or good and sort of forced to hunt the evils with the Crusaders.

Or you are completely neutral and ignored.

[stilgar]

The reason I don't play my first and most loved darkelf character.. and also stopped playing my shaolin.. as poIsengoo pointed it out either you take a side (goodies are overpowered codewise, thus boring.. only the RP restrictions give them challenge.. badies are forced to hide, don't have access to most of the game code >> eg: crafting << and forced to PvP.. mostly boring)
..or try to remain neutral and completely apolitical..

I seriously think this pretty much limits the game.. I remember times, when Asrals, Sathos, Taniels did their religious fuss.. who wanted joined them.. and the rest of the characters could freely pick on either or all of them without ruining their access to game code or fun..

.. while I respect the idea behind the changing concept which kinda forces you to join the struggle between good and evil.. but I seriously think this is just not enough.. this can be the main reason I can't stick to GEAS as much as I did before... I pretty much enjoyed the less limited gameplay.. the "shady areas" and the possibilities any character had.. like you could play an evil character in disguise (without code support) which made the game fun...

GEAS is the most advanced, most beautifully coded MUD I ever played.. yet this forced polarity ruined the game for me.. I think this is a waste, but its me. I'll just check back from time to time to see what's going on.. but for sure won't be able to stick to it longer if it stays like this

[arxthas]

The game has become extremely polarized because of the Crusade, imo.

Maybe you should elaborate, and provide some evidence?

I think it is obvious that it is polarized. You just have to compare to what the game was back in 2003-2005 (?) or so.

I do not think however that is due to the Crusade's power. The reason is the karma/favour/reputation checks. The Crusade power might contribute, but it is not the main reason.

[adanath]

I just don't understand, maybe if I hadn't died to revenants, and undeads, and Sathos with undeads so many times I would.

I think alot of it has to do with karma/rep...maybe not even favour. It was a lot easier for a Sathonys follower not to raise eyebrows when everyone's karma and rep they were teaming with were not getting put into hell. But then right before I came back I had a lot of people telling me how the Crusade was just getting pwned because everyone there was younger, now..It's mostly me and Arxthas and a great new addition we have.

we have to make it better, the code is there.