Low activity players in GEAS?

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sadrownia
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Low activity players in GEAS?

#1 Post by sadrownia » Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:42 pm

What is your opinion about the following incident:

Yesterday, I logged on to the game and found myself
expelled from the guild with the following Mail from Lucifer:

"Since you didn't have time to wait and have this done in a normal manner
you forced me to ask our guild wizard to expel you while you are offline.

Leave your guild equipment in the guild and leave. For now you retain
your access to Asador.

Lucifer, HIS Dreadmaster"


Do you think it should be possible that players with low and high activity play
GEAS together in a fun way, or is GEAS only for high activity players?


I am a player with very low activity... In average 1 hour a week, compared
to others who play perhaps more than 20 hours a week.

In total I have little time, but When my son wakes up at night,
I don't have any time at all to wait and must log out immediately.
In this incident, there had been no talk of any expulsion before I logged out.

I think the reason, that I was expelled is, that Sadrownia was killed by Tanriel.
In Lucifers eyes this was perhaps the proof that Sadrownia is too weak to be useful.

IC all can be explain perfectly well: Sadrownia is too weak to kill Taniels
and Crusaders, although that was given to her as a task.
(expect an expulsion by wizard, is hard to explain IC).

OOCly this incident will make me leave the game completely, because I believe that the real reason for my expulsion was inactivity and thus uselessness of Sadrownia in the PvP battles. (which the guild is winning most of anyways). I dont enjoy playing this kind of almost pure strategy game. It feels like playing in a Counter Strike Clan, in which each team member must perform well.

I was hoping that it would be possible to play a different role of evil. For the game it could even be an advantage to have characters that are not always seen. It makes the world and the playerbase feel larger, perhaps.

Also, it could be good for the game to have evil characters that are not super strong and can even be killed by the good heros sometimes, expecially since in the current situtation we have enough super strong evil characters.

In addition, I want to mention that a similar incident happend before to Sadrownia:
After a long time of inactivity, I logged on and found myself expelled fromt the thieves. Up to this day, I have no explanation about the reason. But I also suspect inactivity to be at least part of the reason.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#2 Post by fernao » Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:43 am

First off, Geas is for all that enjoy it, at least in my opinion. Regardless of the amount of time they can spare.

If you join a guild, certain behaviour can be expected though. Especially if that behaviour is explained to you before you join the guild and you are repeatedly reminded afterwards in case you don't show that behaviour.

The Satho's are plagued with lots and lots of second chars. Most of them tend to log in once a week or month, read the guild board and are gone again. Most often even without announcing their presence. If you don't happen to meet them while they read the guild board, you won't see them in OOC years. Those kind of guild members we can do without and if their known chars are active and they abuse their satho char just to keep informed about the satho guild activities by reading the board, safely scout satho hunting grounds for undeads and revenants, they will be expelled because that has nothing to do with fair play and I consider that major cheating.

Mind you. I don't give a damn if someone has other chars. If you want to take a rest from playing your satho, feel free to do so. But to continiously play an enemy of a satho and then to log in your satho to read the satho guild board and play your satho enemy a minute after logging out your satho is nothing I will tolerate. Play one side, or the other. When you switch, switch them at least for a while, a couple of hours at least, and do not just scout the location of undeads, revenants or read the guild board, before you log in your crusader or taniel to hunt down the lonely undeads or avoid revenants you just scouted with your satho!

As for your, Sadrownias expulsion, please don't twist facts.
You were warned that you would be expelled in January if certain conditions weren't met. They weren't met. Due to you inactivity, we gave you a quest that you had half a year to finish or be expelled. You didn't finish that quest. In fact after asking for initial pointers, you didn't ask for either suggestions on how to finish it, didn't ask your guild mates for help, nothing, nada.

When you joined the Sathos you mentioned you had little time, and it was ok, else you wouldn't have been accepted in the first place. You were given to understand however that certain tasks would be expected of you and certain behaviour. You failed in these. Not once, not twice, repeatedly. You were told that is wasn't ok, but did you change your behaviour? No.

So.... should I wait a couple of months before you had the time to graciously grant your guildmaster an audience? I don't think so. You were at the lowest rank of the guild, meaning expulsion wouldn't carry any further guild penalty for you.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#3 Post by Zehren » Sat Aug 17, 2013 2:24 am

OOC expulsion, whether justified or not, strikes me as simply extremely boring.
fernao wrote:If you join a guild, certain behaviour can be expected though. Especially if that behaviour is explained to you before you join the guild and you are repeatedly reminded afterwards in case you don't show that behaviour.

The Satho's are plagued with lots and lots of second chars. Most of them tend to log in once a week or month, read the guild board and are gone again. Most often even without announcing their presence. If you don't happen to meet them while they read the guild board, you won't see them in OOC years. Those kind of guild members we can do without and if their known chars are active and they abuse their satho char just to keep informed about the satho guild activities by reading the board, safely scout satho hunting grounds for undeads and revenants, they will be expelled because that has nothing to do with fair play and I consider that major cheating.

Mind you. I don't give a damn if someone has other chars. If you want to take a rest from playing your satho, feel free to do so. But to continiously play an enemy of a satho and then to log in your satho to read the satho guild board and play your satho enemy a minute after logging out your satho is nothing I will tolerate. Play one side, or the other. When you switch, switch them at least for a while, a couple of hours at least, and do not just scout the location of undeads, revenants or read the guild board, before you log in your crusader or taniel to hunt down the lonely undeads or avoid revenants you just scouted with your satho!
I would also like to add that this ("scouting") is not bad form - it is against the rules.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#4 Post by luminier » Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:44 am

Personally I can see why fernao thought it was okay to meet OOC abuse with and OOC answer. If I was in the same position as fernao I would be very aggravated and would want this person who is very clearly abusing their guild memberships out of the guild.

I agree with Zehren that still it should probably have been handled IC. Having said that, fernao makes it pretty clear that he almost never saw her in the half year grace period that he gave her... how are you suppose to handle that in an IC situation?


A little off topic, but "scouting" or reading secret boards with other characters is highly against the rules and these offenders should be reported so they can be punished. It should also be made clear in the rules (if it isn't already) that this is cheating. I used to do this too with my alts, just because I wanted to read boards to see what was going on. I had no idea it was against the rules at the time.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#5 Post by sadrownia » Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:17 pm

As to the first OOC reason of playing a second character to spy at the guild board:
I never thought that I was suspected of this. Otherwise, I could have told you
that this is not true:
I do not play a second character.
With the little time available to me, I will also not start playing another character.

As to the IC task that was given to Sadrownia, to sacrifice Taniels or Crusaders:
It was clear (to me) in the beginning, that I will probably fail, and told this to
Lucifer.
While IC it might seem correct to give such a task, it is almost impossible to succeed
in such a task with only 1 hour of playing time per week (I dont even know
who is Taniel or Crusader, for most characters).
ICly sacrificing the Elvandar patrol should even be considered as success, but these are
probably not "worthy" sacrifices (no PC), although it was not easy for Sadrownia to win this
fight against the patrol.

I had the feeling it is all about PvP battles. But participating in PvP battles was
not enough. Sadrownia barely escaped from Luminier and was killed by Tanriel,
showing that she was willing to die in the attempt to fullfill the task.
But it is all about WINNING the PvP battles.

THerefore, I still believe that in Lucifers eyes this was the proof that Sadrownia
is too weak to be useful. Inactivity and thus uselessness of Sadrownia in winning the PvP battles.

In addition: I dont enjoy playing his kind of pure strategy game. It feels like following
some OOC goal, and each team member must perform well.

Why didnt Lucifer allow me to play a different role of evil? For the game it
could even be an advantage to have characters that are not always seen, because they are always
online. It makes the world and the playerbase feel larger, perhaps.

Also, it could be good for the game to have evil characters that are not super strong and can even be
killed by the good heros sometimes, expecially since in the current situtation we have
enough super strong evil characters.
I do not mind loosing a fight or getting killed, for me this game is/was not about winning.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#6 Post by fernao » Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:39 pm

Seems some of my arguments got mixed up, possbily due to my fault. So let me clear this up a bit.

The first part of my reply did _not_ concern the expulsion of Sadrownia. It was meant as a general reply to her question about active and inactive characters being able/allowed to play Geas.

To clarify this point again. I personally think that the amount of time a person can spend on a single character should not decide wether or not that character is playable in Geas in general. Certain guilds may put up certain restrictions, and if those can be met with very little amount of playing time, all is well.

As to the expulsion of Sadrownia from the Clerics of Sathonys. She was NOT expelled due to lack of activity nor due to spying or cheating. She had been given a task IC for which she had gotten half a year (ooc) time to finish, the large amount of time alotted to fulfill this task was given BECAUSE we knew she had little time to spare.

She did not fulfill the task, hence the ic punishment upon NOT fulfilling the task, namely the expulsion from the guild, was executed.

@Luminier: Maybe you misunderstood me, but I met Sadrownia repeatedly over the half year her task was running, albeit her appearances grew fewer and fewer and her online time shorter and shorter until she rarely ever announced her presence anymore.

@all:
So... with her being who off, me being who on, she not announcing her presence over the guildline, how should I establish personal contact? When the guild guards announce her while I am awake and she doesn't answer and/or is already gone again by the time I reach the guild, what am I to do?

@Sadrownia:
Doesn't the fact that you do NOT know who is an enemy of your chosen guild and that you are charged to hunt down tell something about the effort you put into the task? And what did you do? Did you try to find out who is a Taniel priest or a crusader? No... you went to Arborea, preached and tried your thieving skills there. Sorry to say so, but Crusaders and Sathos are PK guilds, and although PK is not everything, you should at least know how to handle such a situation. And THAT was what the task was all about. To see how you handle such a situation on your own. Meeting Luminier on a one on one, I run as well, so where should be the problem there? You had but show that you can manage to find out who is our enemy and make an attempt. It was about to show that you can do stuff on your own and not just sulk around and basically ask everything from who is who, and where someone is. It was about the fact that you should show us that you were able to gather such information on your own. You didn't even try, and thats the sad part. I would have prefered to tell you all that in person, but with you becomming less and less visible and then logging off without at least a hint of OOC urgency just made me "pass sentence" over you right there and then.
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Aslak
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#7 Post by Aslak » Sat Aug 17, 2013 8:51 pm

Hello,

won't say anything about the reasons and such for a throwout, don't know even a bit what is considered a good reason here and what not, even less within the Sathos.
But the task given was certainly not easy to fullfill. When I look at the amount of crusaders and Taniel clerics who set foot outside their fortress/city in the last half year, it was not very easy to catch them anywhere. But I do think the patrol of Elvandar also has a Taniel priest in it, so at least IC the task should have been fullfilled.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#8 Post by Aturshus » Sat Aug 17, 2013 8:59 pm

Considering that there are maybe 3-4 active Cleric/Crusader characters in the game lately at all, and not many for that half a year, this task seems a bit silly. I personally don't think this is justified. Guess that's all.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#9 Post by ghalt » Sat Aug 17, 2013 10:48 pm

For whatever it's worth, I did enjoy the character and her not-so-veiled threats.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#10 Post by sadrownia » Sun Aug 18, 2013 9:05 am

Thanks a lot for your support! I appreciate it, and will one more time answer
to Lucifers post, because personally I hope that he or the wizard, who expelled me
can reverse their decision.

Lucifer wrote:
@Luminier: Maybe you misunderstood me, but I met Sadrownia repeatedly over the half year her task was running, albeit her appearances grew fewer and fewer and her online time shorter and shorter until she rarely ever announced her presence anymore.

@all:
So... with her being who off, me being who on, she not announcing her presence over the guildline, how should I establish personal contact? When the guild guards announce her while I am awake and she doesn't answer and/or is already gone again by the time I reach the guild, what am I to do?
Yes, I was not really active in the last half year, that is true. But I always announced my presence, which were few.
Except when I knew in advance, that my time was limited to perhaps less than 10 minutes.

My limited online time is the reason that it is impossible for me to become a great PK-player. Not only, because my
skills are not so good (IC and OOC skills), but also because I do not have so much free time. When I start playing,
I already know, that perhaps I must leave the computer suddenly soon. Because I have a son, who might wake up, especially
in the last half year.
Because I already know that, I do not want to become involved in a long roleplaying session or PK-situation.

Actually, I agree that the task, to find out if I can handle PK situations is fine. But the consequence is too harsh.
why not offer a promotion, when the task is successful? But expulsion by a wizard, while I am off-line is too harsh
in my opinion.
OOCly and ICly, Sadrownia is no threat at all to the guild. She is not even present a lot, why expell her? She is
a darkelf, her character is now ruined.

If the requirement to play GEAS and join a guild is massive online presence, then the expulsion is justified, otherwise not.

Lucifer wrote:
You didn't even try, and thats the sad part.
Within the limited time available to me, I tried. I set up traps, searched for guild enemies in the hunting areas,
and so on. But I almost never found someone. I did not ask Lucifer questions, because Lucifer told Sadrownia to solve the task by herself.
As I wrote before: I killed the Elvandar patrol, sacrificed a Shaolin PC, escaped from Luminier, and
was killed by Tanriel. Not really successful attempts, but enough for Lucifer to see that I can handle a PK situation
and that
I am willing to participate in PK. I enjoy PK, even on the loosing side.

At the moment, I still feel, that I was expelled for loosing in PK and low activity.

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#11 Post by fernao » Sun Aug 18, 2013 9:11 am

Your character is ruined because you are a darkelf and no cleric of sathonys anymore??

Did you become a darkelf before or after you joined the guild? You changed before, and without a promise to be accepted after you did, so I guess that answers the question who is responsible for your decission of being a darkelf.

As I stated, your online time had nothing to do with your expulsion. If you feel differently, sorry, I cannot help you there.

And to offer a promotion for something we consider basic knowledge? Sorry, but thats a joke.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#12 Post by glorfindel » Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:15 am

Hello.

I have the feeling the explicit reasons for the expel is not something that belongs into this forum. It is just asking for people to throw in their opinions whereas the only thing that actually matters here is sadrownia and fernao and if there are problems, the player Arch.. The rest, I don't see why this needs to be public at all.

One thing I do want to mention though, I personally do think play a satho cleric requires a LOT more effort then playing any goodie and I also think that players who join them need to be aware of that and should not be surprised if the toll is quite high. I've played a satho myself for a while, I know very well.

As for darkelf and being ruined. It is _very_ clear that there's no way back from darkelf and that you would be permanently marked for worshiping evil deities. Thus, if you go darkelf and you get kicked out of your guild, in a sense, tough luck. But there is more then one option for a darkelf, if you take a closer look. And even a guildless darkelf might still go a long way (see delmon for example).

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#13 Post by fernao » Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:41 am

Additionally, the thread was started with the question wether low activity players have a place in GEAS or not. And I think that question has been universally answered with a yes.

As for the rest, I have my standpoint, Sadrownia has hers. And I doubt any amount of public discussion would change either.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#14 Post by louis » Mon Aug 19, 2013 10:06 am

Hi all,
please allow me some sentences. Firstly, let me assure you that I feel with you, poSadrownia, being thrown out of a guild is always a dreadful experience - and I agree, inactivity or other ooc reasons should not serve as justification thatfor. And - let me add that - it also wasn't, if I recall all right. I personally think, the day Sadrownia received (and accepted) that task it was pretty clear that she would have to make up her mind, considering alternatives to the Sathos-Guild ...

Considering the offline expel by a wizard, please understand that it always is a decision of the players, not the wizards, who is kicked whatfrom. So, the wizard technically expelling Sadrownia did nothing more but fulfilling the players wish, and the wizard cannot change his mind or offer you a pardon or so, because the wizard never was involved in that issue. The decision has been made by the players in charge due to IC reasons, and this decision has to be respected by the wizards.

Finally I also want to say that I always enjoyed your RP, and that I personally think that an expel from the Clergy of Sathonys must not mean the end of the world (darn, these guys eat people!) - I personally would appreciate if you would decide to continue playing GEAS, maybe consider to play a Satho follower (not a cleric) - you would have less duties, less miracles too, but maybe a lot more more options to RP.

Ah and yes, I agree with poGlorfindel :mrgreen:

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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#15 Post by Zehren » Tue Aug 20, 2013 4:48 am

I am very curious as to how to give an IC task to kill PCs, since there is no IC division between PCs and NPCs. :?
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#16 Post by fernao » Tue Aug 20, 2013 4:58 am

Zehren wrote:I am very curious as to how to give an IC task to kill PCs, since there is no IC division between PCs and NPCs. :?
Thats not the topic of this thread.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#17 Post by Zehren » Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:00 am

fernao wrote:
Zehren wrote:I am very curious as to how to give an IC task to kill PCs, since there is no IC division between PCs and NPCs. :?
Thats not the topic of this thread.
My comment not being the topic of this thread is not the topic of this thread.

Either way, my question deals with how to handle boundaries between IC and OOC. The question of low activity also deals with how to handle boundaries between IC and OOC.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#18 Post by fernao » Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:40 am

It can be done and was done. The specifics are of no concern for a public board.
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#19 Post by Delia » Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:28 am

Joining pvp-heavy guilds should not be taken lightly(not saying that was the case here)and I have often reflected on my own style of playing as it can easily take an hour just to leave Elvandar for me these days and two hours being the average maximum session time...

When my character was the Speaker I came across a huge amount of low-activity shaos(alts, newbies testing the game, oldies coming to check things out, casual gamers with little time on their hands, etc...)but I personally did not see much reason to expel anyone unless they really, and I mean really, messed up. Having a white or a below green belt monk in general did not really hurt the guild, if that one was not showing proper signs, RP-wise as it was still training and testing period for the novice. Promotions to near black belt did not just happen.

Then again, religious guilds have a lot tougher standards, I think, and the boneys are notoriously rough as I have learned them(just an observation).
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Re: Low activity players in GEAS?

#20 Post by isengoo » Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:16 pm

The idea of a guild being PK focused only is pretty dumb. There are other ways of being evil and serving a god than just hunting other players. This narrow minded thought results in poor RP.

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