Rambling: My fading motivation to play

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Skragna
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#21 Post by Skragna » Sat Nov 30, 2013 2:59 am

Sadly, no amount of new content is likely to rekindle my motivation to play. I don't really want to explain on forums for fear of being called whiny or other names, as I've been called by some of the people I've explained to via OOC means. But I seriously doubt Skragna will be around ever again, folks.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#22 Post by Drayn » Sat Nov 30, 2013 10:51 am

Cor blimey, I leave you all for two minutes :P

If this helps the discussion any:

When I got to the point of leaving the game for my big long break, it was mostly out of exhaustion. Everyday I'd have mail from 50 people half wanting one thing, half wanting the opposite. It was mayhem, but it was bloody good fun! Life intervened during my short break, but now I've got the itch that only Geas can Scratch.

First, I really must echo what has already been said: We have some TOP NOTCH bad guys. There have been times I've seen "Phelan enters" and I've damn near had a panic attack. Lucifer has got to be one of the most devious, slippery little eels on the face of Forostar and Delmon makes Hannibal Lecter look like a door to door kitten salesman. You all do an amazing job. You make all the difference between:

"What's the issue today?"
"A skeleton has wandered off the tundra"
"How vexing"

To

"Delmon has teamed up with the Death Priests and they've kidnapped the queen"
"TANIEL PRESERVE US!"

Of course, sometimes it would be nice to have new points to argue over, new ground to gain or give up. Negotiating pacts over the tower of pain and the unicorn valley is lots of fun, but when you've been through just about every variation, you kinda feel like you're going through the motions.

As to the mages being mistrusted:

It's difficult when they're all so terribly nice and competent. Many are long standing characters who were sane and sensible before being mages. It'd be an RP uturn to suddenly treat them differently.

If you want them to be mistrusted, give us a reason. Have a few explode randomly >:) Or a more sensible suggestion would be to have an NPC bad mage go around starting trouble. The only alternative is to wait for a bad guy to work up the mage ranks or have one of the existing mages go bad. Maybe Lich Queen Sirfalas? Any takers? :D Or have the act of using magic cause some uncontrollable backlash:

Bob the mage casts light on himself.
Lightning crackles in the air as the forces of reality are bent to his will.
You are struck by a stray bolt of lightning.
'OW! Cut it out you crazy mage!'

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Delia
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#23 Post by Delia » Sat Nov 30, 2013 11:24 am

It is very, very hard to transform and renew an old character. I have been thinking about it, a lot actually but doing something drastic with D for 'just because' feels like such a waste. Should something interesting happen I am willing to see where it leads her ;)

Oh, and there is an IC policy loosely referred to as "spam-casting in public places prohibited" for a good reason. Should someone have good magical botch effects in mind, do start an idea thread! We could use more :)
"To be is to do" - Sokrates
"To do is to be" - Jean-Paul Sartre
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#24 Post by Eluriel » Sun Dec 01, 2013 4:43 am

Ooh, I had such an idea for a mage gone awry, but the skills are so hard to get up. >_<

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#25 Post by Zehren » Fri Dec 06, 2013 10:09 am

I have been absent for a while now mainly due to IRL - I have not managed to fit Geas into my current schedule wholly yet. But I now have more experience with current schedule, and also, currently holidays. Woop woop.

Despite having been absent mainly for IRL reasons, I too have suffered fading motivation to play. I also know *why* - the last months of playing Geas were very boring. This is in contrast to previous breaks I have had, where Geas had either been very intense - needed breather, or plain-fun-omg-nooo-irl-irl-stahp-what-are-you-doing.

Although it is possible my experience while last playing Geas is not applicable anymore, I doubt it is wholly unapplicable, seeing as this thread is, well, recent.
Let me therefore assess the possible situation. (There *may* be spoilers about my characters below, but I will not name any of them. Indeed, having played around a dozen characters... *cough*)

I am tempted to make general statements, but do not think it will be as worthwhile - let me therefore simply state that most of Geas' observed problems relate to two main aspects: the static/dynamic slider, and the grey slider.

To start with the static/dynamic slider, others have expressed similar problems in this thread, expressing that Geas is stagnant and needs massive efforts of pot-stirring, which are often shot down by other characters. This shows two things ultimately: the interplay between characters is what interests, since characters stirring the pot are very desirable; the coded gameworld as is is not itself interesting (enough).

Going from the assumption Geas is about roleplay (I avoid the term RPG, since it is so wildly misused), it is good that the interplay between characters is what interests - what is bad here is that it is obviously not interesting enough at current, since pot stirrers are longed after. Had the interplay been interesting and nuanced enough to satisfy, no one would proclaim this lack, methinks.
Why then, do pot stirrers lack? This boils down to two major things, methinks:
-coded gameworld
-reception by players

Since coded gameworld shows up here, it is apparent that these problems are intertwined. I will first speak of reception by players. To do this, I can only extrapolate from my own experiences with stirring the pot - my attempts have been many.

Perceived the sathonites as boring and combat-focused, made a character and tried to join the sathonite clergy. Things went well for a while, gained access to Asador, spent time with various priests. New dreadmaster - character ignored by new dreadmaster. Verdict: ignored - attempt did not fit into new dreadmaster's view of sathonites, unwilling to broaden view and/or stir the pot.

Perceived most tshaharks as unexplainably intelligent, made a tshahark to be explainedly more intelligent than others. Tshahark mocked/overlooked. Generated some interesting RP. Reception by other tshaharks - bad. Was a worse RPer at the time, otherwise the character would not have fled out into the amwards after soapy soapy stuff. Oh well. Verdict: unsuccessful - attempt not understood and/or mocked.

Perceived most tshaharks as unexplainably intelligent, made a dumb-as-fuck tshahark which couldn't even speak common. Tshahark encountered someone, was led to a hub, then ignored by everyone. Conversation turned to... nothing? Yes, just babble. Weak character, couldn't possibly go on a... I should have had the character go on a rampage and attack someone, despite obviously going to lose. My bad. Verdict: ignored.

Wanted to have a character with interesting backstory. Attempt shot down because not code-supported. Received nasty words from other players for attempt, verbally (or writingly?) accused of abuse. Verdict: received nasty words, attempt ignored, "not code-supported", accused of abuse. (We will return to not code-supported in talk of the coded gameworld.)

Made a beggar to try to show that the cities do not only have one beggar each. Sat beside Volog for bunches of IRL hours, pestering all passerbys. Volog received much more money. Verdict: metagaming? Ignored? Iunno.

Teamed up with another player, ic and ooc, tried to make the game more interesting with active non-hiding thieves and establishing a semblance of material temporalness and economy. Received nasty words from other players. General unwillingness to consider idea, "I have worked so much for these items". Verdict: ill-received, accusations of IRL sadism.

To summarise this portion, then, these are the results of my attempts at stirring the pot:
ignored
mocked/ignored
ignored
nasty words, abuseaccuse
ignored
nasty words

This is not a very encouraging list, but nonetheless, I have a few stirring things I am currently working on - sadly the major one requires some skills first, so it may take bunches of time ere ready.

I am certain you will all agree this is an interesting set of reactions, though, if we presume everyone desires stirring. "Oh, I wish something could happen...." "What is this, this is not how it is supposed to be, staph!!" :/

Having covered this dull reception, let me move onto the coded gameworld:
the coded gameworld is not very interesting. The loristic gameworld is kinda interesting, but falls short in some ways. Byspel, see http://www.geas.de/?page_id=217. Notise the thousand year gap from this timetable to our playing time. What happened during that millenia? Now, many might think that it is not uncommon for knowledge spanning a millenia to get lost - but this is Geas. There are individuals alive at the current in Geas who *lived during these events*. While these individuals are largely restrained to a couple of races, and one of these was largely inactive following the history mentioned, we should, at least, have a very thorough, very one-sided millenia long history leading up to current playtime.

The loristic gameworld is a wholly different issue than the coded gameworld, though. The coded gameworld is boring by the following main issues:
-staticness
-lack of detail

Lack of detail is the simpler problem, both to do something about and to fix. Let me illustrate lack of detail with a small story.

Aforementioned thiefcharacter once burglared into Queen Gwenlanea's bedroom. The bedroom was full of nifty worthy items, amongst them a golden haircomb. Sadly, none of these items could be taken. NONE ARRRGGGH I WASTED 30 MINS BREAKING INTO THIS ROOM.

While lack of detail is theoretically simple to fix, it is practically hard, requiring immense time. The theory is "just add in everything that might be interesting/worth adding in". The practical side is plagued with time, and the question of what to add in. Most people would likely never care if Queen Gwenlanea's golden haircomb could be stolen or not - at least not until someone shows up, brandishing it.

Lack of detail is also apparent in the items in the game:
-books
-armour
-weapons
-clothing
-herbs
-foods
-drinks
-containers
-potions
-jewelry
-ore, gems
-misc. such as compasses and dice
-body parts

all of these items are in some regards meant to be adventure-related. But while adventure may involve roleplay, roleplay can also be done without adventure.

One may argue that haircombs are not essential for Geas, but one may also argue that they are, as they would *most likely* make the gameworld seem more real and thus facilitate RP. My favourite item is Zehren's robes, thanks to some nifty details making them feel quite real. And while one may RP having a haircomb through emotes, well, it makes it much easier to steal that haircomb if it is a coded object.

Lack of detail is very apparent in locations: Elvandar and Arborea are not loristically tiny huts, but codedly, they are not far off... Bandama is quite the village too, with... one inn, a garden, some alchemist lab and... two houses? Yay.I know that in medieval england, there was at least one village with 150 inhabitants. 2-3 were likely related to the small church there, then perhaps, Iunno, <8 the manorial something, the rest lived in those cool farmhouses... Of which I remember there being fewer than twenty, so minimum 7 average a farmhouse. Of course, Bandama is not an English medieval village, but the comparison is striking. The best portrayed establishment IG is the Underground outpost, methinks. It feels vast, and is not even a whole loristic city, but a mere outpost. Way to go, beardmen, way to go.

Now, let us embark on the most controversial point of all: staticness.
While roleplaying is about taking on a role, and this might be done in a static environment, it is not good for a persistant world, aka, a gameworld in which roleplaying occurs, to remain static.

A peristant world must be dynamic to be interesting, otherwise all possibilities are eventually exhausted. Furthermore, lack of dynamics removes consequences, making all efforts ultimately futile. Yes, you can rescue Virle's books, no, the gremlins will never die off, no, Virle will never keep his book. Yes, you can clear Ulfmoor's hut of nibblers, no, he will be back in the inn in an hour. Yes, you can get rich, no you can't buy jack - economy is wholly bonkers.

Consequence-free is boring. The one recent historical event in Geas I can think of having heard tales of is the Asral church thing being burnt down in Arborea - a dynamic event. A change in the world. Optimally, for a roleplaying experience, the entire world would be dynamic - the easy of dynamicness in P&P is one advantage over coded systems, taking no efforts other than declaring the changes. In fact, most gameworlds are pretty static. Fallout 1 & 2 come to mind as being very dynamic when it comes to population - everyone can be killed off. Permanently. However, no one in those games breed, so no new population is born. Halfway dynamic, in other words. To make Geas wholly dynamic would take an immense effort. If it could be done, though, it would also make the Geas gameworld objectively the best in existence. However, even small steps towards dynamicness is good - building buildings, slaying populations, having populations spring up elsewhere.... See viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2049&hilit=goblin for some discussion.

The last major problem I can spot is the grey slider. That is, things are varying shades of black and white, instead of septachromic or whatever. Geas loristically has potential for sevenfold dilemmas (sevenfold pantheon), but instead it usually ends up with good vs bad (oh, and there are some non-carers here too). I am not going to tell anyone how to roleplay - that is for my roleplaying thread :D - but simply state that this twofold conflict is much less interesting. To make conflict more multifold, I can immediately think up the following static solutions: introduce underground as player-run similarly to Arb and Elv and As. Introduce Narv. as player-run similarly to Arb and Elv and Und and As - a total scummy place. Suddenly, five cities instead of two(+1). Introduce some sort of player-running in Ironhold, too, for the bitches. Sixfold alliances possible! And then there are Elor and Ormian! Eight! Also, make clergies for all the gods. Guilds are not wholly necessary in this endeavour, though it might need to take the guildslot. If someone could chitter with Thor, and gain some Zhakrinite powers and allegiance... Well...

Of course, one may argue against most of this with "not enough players". The question, then, is: Do we lack such things because we do not have enough players, or do we not have enough players because we lack such things?

Anyway, this is all the major components of my last-faded motivation to play. Hopefully it is an interesting enough read.
Drayn wrote:Zehren, the Karmassassin!

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#26 Post by mazarmormuk » Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:23 am

i guess the details of the platform do mind only little when it comes to motivation to play.
the thing that brings us all in here is your last chapter, the dilemmas and the interaction between different groups, believes, races and regions and i think there we lack some interaction and variety indeed.

Though interaction is the very basic of anything happening in the mud.

IMO the variety is blocked by the linear good to evil karma system or the players ability to take that code and not the wide variety of actions as a base of judgement.

Additionally the interaction is only enforced or supported in that old battle good vs. evil (take the tower of pain as example, open it invites to be closed, closed it invites to be opened), while other groups or better issues (honour/dishonour, chaos/order, etc.) miss a way to interact and are more invited to do things on their own in their own little world for their own little profit.

Mages sit in rooms for hours, taniels bless the ground for hours, warclerics spend hours alone on kyir, sathos train their skills at unicorns where noone else is going cause its hard to reach, shaolins...meditate.
At least for warclerics, this is codewise somehow given (without explaining it closer and give away the details)

Things that rise a gods earthly power or are a goal of a guild should force us more into interaction (with and/or against another group) than forcing us into spending time alone.

I noticed it even beeing hard to invite others to that little world of closing the insects portal, even if the characters are not in any political or personal trouble. The team lowers your defence, your karma lets others karma drop, your asral miracles dont work on a tanielite, that one is too young to be taken, things like that.

By all reasons to prevent a taniel cleric from teaming with a sathonite, we should be more able to form effective and mixed teams with a common goal.

Currently a ranger meets a warcleric and the warcleric asks: "hey there, how goes with the darkelves?", the ranger answers: "we manage good, how is it with the insects?", when a taniel cleric enters and asks:"greetings, have you seen any undeads?".

And yes, pot stirrers need definately to make profit instead of ony losing benefits.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#27 Post by ghalt » Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:00 pm

mazarmormuk wrote: Mages sit in rooms for hours, taniels bless the ground for hours, warclerics spend hours alone on kyir, sathos train their skills at unicorns where noone else is going cause its hard to reach, shaolins...meditate.
At least for warclerics, this is codewise somehow given (without explaining it closer and give away the details)

Things that rise a gods earthly power or are a goal of a guild should force us more into interaction (with and/or against another group) than forcing us into spending time alone.
Let me agree heavily with this guy: we should be encouraged to interact (including antagonistic interaction), not encouraged to sit alone in our little corners.

(For instance, this is why I sit in the market square carving wands, going more or less nowhere skillwise, and not in the guild where we have like 20 trainbooks and easy ways to regenerate mana--it's seriously boring up there alone.)

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#28 Post by Delia » Tue Dec 17, 2013 3:24 am

Apart from killing things and chatting away almost every activity screams "alone time, now". Even more so if you do not have much time on your hands as a player. For example, I have logged on three times now just to gather herbs and do little nothing else. Being able to be connected to a globe is really, really, REALLY great.
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#29 Post by Drayn » Tue Dec 17, 2013 9:21 am

I can see the point folks are making, but the solution is to get out there and make RP happen. It doesn't just fall from the sky. All the best RP I've had are about guild differences, trying to word laws that will upset the least amount of people, having a good moan about the shocking state of Arborean law, training new pilgrims, having philosophical discussions with monks, joking with mages about them exploding or destroying the world while simultaneously trying to decide if that's an actual possibility.

If you want social interaction, we need more reasons to socialise. Religious holidays, events, market days, some reason to drop what you're doing and go somewhere. Some rough ideas:

Once a year (once every 58 ooc days), Arborea holds a celebration of their defeat of the insects and their adoption by Asral. Code in a few unique market stalls that pop up for the occasion. Add a few unique items; mementos, special food, exotic weapons. Chuck in some NPC bards that tell harrowing tales of the insect attacks and the bravery of the fighters. Bump up the amount of coins crowds throw down for singers and jugglers for the duration of the celebration, first pint free at the inn!

Sounds pretty simple, but it all presents an opportunity to interact, above and beyond the obvious too. Most folks will likely head down for the obvious celebrations, but how about Taniels busting in with placards protesting? Or sathonites planning to gate crash and punish those celebrating the defeat of their lord?

Or how about some elvish balls?....don't be dirty. We've got a ball room and everything. Have the queen throw a bash for her birthday and or jubilee. That'd get the royalists and liberalists muttering at one another.

When you get enough people in one place, RP land becomes more fertile. With events that only happen every once in a while, it becomes more special. It also gives some sense of time passing, of the seasons actually changing.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#30 Post by mazarmormuk » Tue Dec 17, 2013 4:00 pm

i agree, drayn.

i thought several times of medieval games with a fighting contest in several disciplines, market and show in arborea, but i was unsure if it needed code support at all..though it ld look much more detailled if there was and player organized, there wouldnt be any special weapons and such.

sorry if i just go on adding something to my last comment.

there seems to be, for a lot of players, "working time", which is done alone and about rising skills, ep, fulfilling goals, mining, collecting herbs etc and "free time" for roleplay. emotes arent limited to the elvandarian market place and wouldnt it be great to combine both?

Isnt it possible to make mining work better together, give teams a better chance to go through somewhere, rise skills best in teams and ep in interaction with other groups?

At least for mazar, it isnt that way currently.

some ideas (just a wild shot):
-blessing stays like it is, but changing an already touched ground offers far more earthly power than simple blessing of an untouched ground.
-insects attack randomly on arborea, the asral keep, the shaolins, elvandar and naarved while reducing their number in the swamp reduces the amount of attacks.
-to parry/defence there is a new skill added which makes you parry hits on team members, like noticing your team member is in danger and blocking the blow ment for him.
-each main guild thinks about an own "physical appearance" of their actions in the world, something like undeads for the sathonys, watchtowers for the crusaders, with different, guild specific effects with possibilities for other guilds to benefit, fight or react on it.

all just some wild thoughts out of a warcleric's head, though.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#31 Post by fernao » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:36 am

One thing that comes in for to the equation for folks like me is that skills just drop way too fast once you have reached a certain level in game.
Hell, if I try to roleplay with folks for a bit or chat away some hours, I get tons of skill drops which I personally just hate. So for me that means, after an hour or two of roleplay I can plan a whole week or more of just retraining the skill drops I have suffered, and while those skill drops get remedied, a couple more skills drop. so effectively roleplaying a bit costs me weeks of skill grinding.

Maybe make the skilldrop not only dependant on how long a skill hasn't been used, but also how well you know it. I mean its ridiculously hard to retrain that dropped point in location sense or light armours that turns your nice 100(100) to 99(100).
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#32 Post by Delia » Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:57 am

I know the feeling! Sure we should not concern ourselves over silly numbers too much and roleplay it to the max instead and have fun and all that but it sure bugs me everytime. Even more so, when instead of that 99(100) you discover a 89(99). If this is unclear to someone, a skill can take 10 drops of practical value before actually losing theory points, which at later parts of your characters life is more or less a permanent loss. So it is a drag when it happens unless you planned it. I atleast begin to move franticly when I notice a certain level of skill drop. Last it happened it took some year and a half of real life playing time to recover. But that is Delia, I doubt there are very many characters as locked as she is.

Anyhoo, I do like the fact that you can forget skills! It has been one of the factors that has made playing a single character interesting as learning and forgetting skills has made the haracter a bit more alive.
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#33 Post by golub » Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:34 am

Unfortunately, no amount of analysis is going to change the situation. It comes down to what the admin wants. Unless the particular-wizards/admin apologizes and reverts their previously stated, incompatible views on roleplaying, the situation is not going to change. Either you reward roleplaying or you reward power games. They are the ones who can make it happen, and have actually chosen to respond with silence.

The solution is not that everyone gets strength just to create some action. If everybody is supposed to be very powerful before they can do anything, there will always be available excuses to why "my" character in particular is not willing/able to create a stir/interaction/storyline.

Let us assume the admin were interested in a world with heavy RP. In this case they would create a system where generating interesting things is at heart where they protect active producers and punish passive consumers. And that is just stating a policy, I am not even talking about following up such a claim with code.

You should be rewarded with power for generating action, not rewarded with action for being powerful. It should be easy and natural to drive a storyline, and it should be hard and punished to focus on yourself. And where there is no such help from the system, players should reward other players who choose to walk against the obstacles.

But in the GEAS world it is of course geared exactly the opposite. The strong, passive, leading characters back up their play with power (sathos, asrals, crusaders, mages), are rewarded in-game with things happening around them and also get the praise outside the game. Passive because they do not themselves generate stories for others, strong because they took part in "getting strong first" and rewarded because those are only ones who make it through the keyhole and actually have the ability to generate anything at all.

Pot-stirrers on the other hand are ignored and hated, both in and out of game. Ignored, if they do not directly have power. Hated, if they have power and actually do "bad things". They are swimming upstream in every possible regard, but in fact they are the ones making interesting things happening. Against admin, wizards, players, characters and all of the obstacles.

So you can either go "how are you today? any news?" in the public square or you are left with no other choices than to participate in the strength-competition to have fun. The third option, trying to make a story in this passive, fading mass is more or less a closed door. The admin decides if it should be opened again. It comes down to the mindset of what the game is about: are we here to generate interesting things for eachother, or is it about yourself?

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#34 Post by fernao » Fri Dec 20, 2013 8:48 am

Woah... Quite some hefty complaints there, Golub.

I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. But then, maybe I just misunderstood you. So I'll tell you how I understood your note.
Let us assume the admin were interested in a world with heavy RP. In this case they would create a system where generating interesting things is at heart where they protect active producers and punish passive consumers. And that is just stating a policy, I am not even talking about following up such a claim with code.
Are you really meaning to say that anytime I am not up to 100% rp action I should be punished? And since you state that this is not about code, do you mean that Geas should have wizards policing around keeping an eye on each and every action of every player and like a referee either award that player or punish that player? I doubt such an environment would be fun to many, certainly not me and if Geas would change to such an environment it would definately prompt me to leave the game! And how can the wizard that "supervises" me decide wether or not my series of actions will generate interesting things? Can he see into the future, does he know what I am planning, if its parts of a greater plan I have in mind, something I might not have even myself thought through to the end?
You should be rewarded with power for generating action, not rewarded with action for being powerful. It should be easy and natural to drive a storyline, and it should be hard and punished to focus on yourself
There is lots of action that you can have and do without being powerful. And you can drive stories and storylines from there. But again, you want to punish people if they do something they want to do that has no direct or immideate impact on fellow players? Sorry, but this is sick. When I decide to spend my free time at a GAME, it is _I_ that decides what I do and for what reasons. Wether or not you, as co-player, has any benefit from that should never have to be my main focus. I am not there to entertain you, I am there to entertain myself first and foremost. And if you enjoy yourself while interacting with me or with the storyline I create, thats fine. If you don't, sorry, no my problem.
But in the GEAS world it is of course geared exactly the opposite. The strong, passive, leading characters back up their play with power (sathos, asrals, crusaders, mages), are rewarded in-game with things happening around them and also get the praise outside the game. Passive because they do not themselves generate stories for others, strong because they took part in "getting strong first" and rewarded because those are only ones who make it through the keyhole and actually have the ability to generate anything at all.
Apart from mages and sathos that require "matured" characters, I disagree with your classificationof "strong" there. You can be a "leading" character without being in a guild. With guild you have a securer standing, a place to retreat to, fellow players with similar goals for support and discussion. Guilds also define the "background noise" of how the world works. It gives a well structured base upon which every individual can build. How else would you expect new gamers to be able to integrate and find their place in the world? Without the guilds it would be utter chaos, everyone doing what they think is a great story, without harmory and without a basic set of rules.
Pot-stirrers on the other hand are ignored and hated, both in and out of game. Ignored, if they do not directly have power. Hated, if they have power and actually do "bad things". They are swimming upstream in every possible regard, but in fact they are the ones making interesting things happening. Against admin, wizards, players, characters and all of the obstacles.
Wether or not a player is "hated" depends on how their actions are perceived, especially in view of interaction with other players and storylines. If a pot-stirrer messes up a well planed storyline that has been going on for weeks and months, sure, they get disliked for laying waste to such an amount of work. If they do so now and fine, that requires adjustment to the plans and storylines, keeps them alive, interesting and ever-changing. If a pot-stirrer does so just to thwart a plan or out of spite, without offering anything, then they just mess for the sake of messing with other peoples plans and getting hated for it is well deserved if you ask me.
So you can either go "how are you today? any news?" in the public square or you are left with no other choices than to participate in the strength-competition to have fun. The third option, trying to make a story in this passive, fading mass is more or less a closed door. The admin decides if it should be opened again. It comes down to the mindset of what the game is about: are we here to generate interesting things for eachother, or is it about yourself
There is one big thing you seem to forget. The view on the game from the player perspective is largely and severely limited. A player can only see things , listen to things and participate in actions he witnesses. To oversimplify your view of the mud it would consist of a single chat room, so that everyone gets all the information, everyone entertains everyone else and the participants of that chatroom decide who gets awarded or punished for what they did or did not do. Sorry, but thats not a not, and definately not Geas.
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Delia
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#35 Post by Delia » Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:25 pm

Actually many powerful characters have little actual "power" in game. It is many times the players who give other characters their powers, usually(IMHO)because they know that character can SO kick their character's ass. Or that is how I see it sometimes.

Anyways, perhaps some roleplaying thread could be useful where ideas for conflicts and such general pot-stirriness could be outlined and discussed? I do not think we necessarily have to keep it all within ourselves when it comes to RP and such. Surely we can discuss things that we desire(or do not)or things that could happen? Even to the point of picking things up from the discussions and doing them? I mean, if the point is a story there is little point in keeping all of the things hidden from other players.

Just a thought.
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golub
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#36 Post by golub » Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:26 pm

Fernao, I posted replies in a different thread, because I felt that we strayed too much. It would be nice if an admin could move Fernaos initial post that belongs with mine into there so we can keep a clean conversation in this thread. Thank you!

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luminier
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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#37 Post by luminier » Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:44 pm

Delia wrote:Actually many powerful characters have little actual "power" in game. It is many times the players who give other characters their powers, usually(IMHO)because they know that character can SO kick their character's ass. Or that is how I see it sometimes.
This. Luminier was definitely most powerful when he had organized a 4-way alliance between the Shaolin Rangers Crusaders and Taniels and he was exceptionally close with all of them.

But just being old and being guild leader doesn't mean anything if you don't have any allies, anyone active in the guild or any friends outside the guild. :lol:
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#38 Post by golub » Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:51 am

By power, I mean real power. This includes friends, tactics, skills, stats and whatever else you may count as an asset. And what you sacrifice in order to get that. In pure gaming sense, a crusader may e.g. choose to ignore one of his commentments to get an advantage (to gain an ally who would not otherwise join because of that commandment). It is an exaggerated example, but I mention it just to get the point across. There are of course much mure subtle sacrifices. Ignoring others roleplay is a main one, which happens naturally from a power game mindset. Seeing code as truth and player-generated things (possibly code-wise impossible) as secondary is another type of loss.

Doing those kind of sacrifices is inherently bad for the game. It kills identities of different factions and nuance and shoves everyone into the good vs evil type of power fight (regardless if you are asral, ranger or shaolin) where he who bids higher by keeping a lower identity-standard is the one who wins. Everyone is set to fight in this static, preset conflict and generating some other kind of play (e.g. playing a good asral/mage/crusader stereotype) is just a disadvantagous cost. And with the degeneration of real identities we also lose really interesting conflicts (over this static preset conflict). And without really interesting conflicts, we lose fun.

This kills all the "interesting stuff" that Glorfindel was losing his motivation over. But if Glorfindel meant that there are too few people involved in the generic good vs evil battle, then I do not see the problem. Just create a strong character, get some friends and start killing. All of that is already available to anyone who wants it and it is already fairly dominant.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#39 Post by Liranne » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:34 pm

Having played other rpi's, all with a combat/conflict/PvP built in, I think Geas has a culture issue moreso than a game mechanics issue. There's an addiction to power-gaming and pk here which if that's the core element of the game, so be it. Culture is hard to change without there being a worldwide change.

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Re: Rambling: My fading motivation to play

#40 Post by luminier » Mon Jun 22, 2015 11:04 pm

When I play, it is for hanging out with my friends who I like to play with. If they aren't playing, I stop as well - as is the case now. I also like rping with people who aren't my OOC friends just for fun.

What I don't like is people who seem to be actively trying to just be mean to me or people who are my OOC friends.

I used to PVP a lot, but, PVP hasn't been much fun for me for a while. I would prefer just some light hearted one on one PVP without getting too serious about stuff. Sort of like what Lumi and Ganon would do back in the day. Ganon is also my OOC friend which made it TONS of fun. Ever since, ive been pvping against people who aren't my OOC friends and they just seem to hate me as a player, not sure why. Then Ill talk to them OOC and most of them usually see im not really a bad player, im just against them IC! But some of them even OOC really don't like me, thats just the nature of relationships, can't please everyone.

TL;DR My fading motive to play isn't necessarily that GEAS has any issues, just that some players I like playing with, some I don't. And when I talk to others, that seems to be their consensus as well.

Geas needs new players to have changing perspectives or else things get stale.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

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