Amazon and Ranger

Aryll

Since there is no more An'sheri, and anyone can get both the Amazon and Ranger professions simultaneously, what's the point of having them as separate professions anymore?

It'd make a lot of sense to just merge them into one profession. The couple differences with skills and weapon proficiencies could be solved by letting you choose between them, like you can with Outrider's spear or trident.

Bathan

I mean, why merge them though? There's no real need to and it just creates more work for people who I'd rather have working on classleads/new features/plot stuff.

Eusto

As per usual, this isn't the official standpoint, because I'm not in any way empowered to make one:

By leaving them separate, we have a little conceptual confusion and the occasional bit of balance/coding frustration. By combining them (and therefore removing one, probably Amazon), we are DESTROYING ROLEPLAY OPPORTUNITIES AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF MANY LONG-STANDING CHARACTERS IN A WAY THAT IS HEARTLESS, SOUL-CRUSHING, AND WILDLY DISAPPOINTING etc etc ad infinitum. 

I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's the most likely (legitimate) complaint.

Bathan

WHY WOULD YOU REMOVE THE AMAZONS????????

AHHHHHHHHHH MY RP

Eusto

Look, man, we already up and killed all the gods. I'm not looking to shake any more worlds right now. People need time to mend.

Bathan

Just wait until I start customizing Ithaqua's siege. I'm going to destroy so much scintillating RP.

Aryll

Bathan said:

I mean, why merge them though? There's no real need to and it just creates more work for people who I'd rather have working on classleads/new features/plot stuff.

Why not merge them? The professions are entirely identical save for a few differences in skills. It can't take that much effort to delete one, add the skills from that one to another, and just let people choose between Amazon and Ranger specializations.

Eusto said:

As per usual, this isn't the official standpoint, because I'm not in any way empowered to make one:

By leaving them separate, we have a little conceptual confusion and the occasional bit of balance/coding frustration. By combining them (and therefore removing one, probably Amazon), we are DESTROYING ROLEPLAY OPPORTUNITIES AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF MANY LONG-STANDING CHARACTERS IN A WAY THAT IS HEARTLESS, SOUL-CRUSHING, AND WILDLY DISAPPOINTING etc etc ad infinitum. 

I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's the most likely (legitimate) complaint.

What's the roleplay difference between Amazon and Ranger besides the gender thing? I don't even see why you'd have to stop roleplaying as an Amazon forever just because the skills were moved over to the Ranger profession.

Is the gender thing even a thing anymore? One of my characters has both the Amazon and Ranger profession, simultaneously, and she's female. AFAIK, both the Wardancers and Sentinels have the ranger and amazon professions side-by-side, and everyone who joins them gets both professions to use. Anything you learn in one gets learned in the other.

So what's the deal?

Eusto

Imperian's devoted Amazons are an incredibly impressive bunch of people in that they took great pains to build their characters around the concept of strong Amazon women. Through the rise and destruction of the Ilaferi and Ansheri guilds, they've been startlingly focused. It may be that they'd be perfectly fine with being called Rangers from a mechanical standpoint, and I'd owe them a bit of an apology for my light-hearted teasing. But I'd rather not engage in any course of action that makes folks like them feel less legitimate in exchange for a fairly negligible semantic and mechanical gain.

Aryll

I'm not saying delete Amazons. I'm saying turn two separate professions that are nearly identical into one profession that has the functions of both. It's a purely mechanical change and there's absolutely no loss to anyone's roleplay here.

Eusto

When you take two separate entities and make them into one, the distinct concepts cease to exist. Ranger is the most popular, so whatever we created, regardless of name, would be "ranger" to the majority of Imperian's playerbase.

Like I said, I'm devil's advocate here, but I wanted to give some insight into how decisions need to take into account the desires of all our players.

Aryll

Take it the same way as guild mergers. I doubt everyone still thinks of the Vindicators as the Lorekeepers, or the Avengers as the Abhaen.

I don't know. Why not put it up to a poll?

Gurn

As mentioned before, it's more work for no benefit and the potential to cause a lot of unhappiness. I don't see why it's an issue, in any case.

Bathan

It's just ultimately not an issue. Things are fine as are, and messing with them could potentially upset people. However, leaving them alone preserves the status quo and we're all happy little Imperianites.

Sarrius

The current Anti-magick resident Amazon cult is where people can waste their time roleplaying Amazons - which, for the record, is a divisive and irritating niche of roleplay. The gender-centric nonsense caused headaches upon inclusion and has only been an irritation since then. I wouldn't be sad to see the professions merged, and I imagine it isn't so much work that it would really take away from any current projects - but it's really beneath our notice.

Aryll

Well, so far, the reasons against are "It takes effort" and "A couple people might not like it."

Delrayne

Some may say that the majority of amazon rp is bleh, and they'd be right to an extent. However, people like @Xylia really impress me with the history of their characters throughout the ilaferi/ansheri lifespan. Delimiting one would cause more harm than good, especially when you want to take a break from the shardfall afk and interact with people. Because the rest are pretty much "grunt, wench!, more alcohol!, get out of my face" type people.

Bathan

Aryll said:

Well, so far, the reasons against are "It takes effort" and "A couple people might not like it."

And the reason for it is 'Aryll wants it'?

Lixan

Why should we steal something that lets some people feel unique, epsecially if it doesn't hurt the game? Merging them won't really add anything amazing to the game, and I agree that the time spent on this merge could be used on something more useful.

Lalitana

Aryll said:

Well, so far, the reasons against are "It takes effort" and "A couple people might not like it."

I had a really long response but I'll just sum it up as:

I had a problem with the way the Ilaferi were basically hamstrung from the start, and a certain level of admiration for the fact that the players who were dedicated to the roleplay just kept on trucking, to the point of re-building an entire guild and trying to make it work. They deserve more consideration than you are giving them.

Ahkan

Eh, having been around for the old school wardens v ilaferi and whatever it is we call the current stalemate, I think I can sum it up in the word 'uninteresting.' For brief spurts, there was some really badass Amazon roleplay. Unfortunately, most of those people quit and Phoen lost her damned mind. The Male v Female role play dies the same tragic death the nature v civilization roleplay died. It took a back seat to game mechanics and in that backseat...things like mookie happened.

Amazons would be 'cool' if this game weren't on the internet. Amazons had to breed somehow, they weren't all openly and heinously (criminally? maliciously?) gay. Javelin's aren't made to go there. I can't tell you how many times there were incidents of surprise trannies using 'bandages' for something they were never, ever meant for (true story).  Then Nepenthe or one of her blight-tastic alts got a hold of the Ilaferi and straight pile drove them through the retarded floor, into the retarded basement and kept on going until she discovered a new land of special and called it "Wymen wyth wyldfyre." After that, the remaining Ilaferi were like refugees in a strange land. The role was dead and the stereotype was locked in. The only blips on the radar were alts abusing the guild to get amazon because it had battlecry.

 If it makes you feel better, the Wardens aren't much better off. They had an equally retarded history, without the sexual deviance. The only thing the Wardens guild has going for it is the skillset.

The sexual strife roleplay got off to a rough start and ended up way off course from what it should have been. The planning and execution just didn't have enough depth to maintain a solid and meaningful roleplay outside of a few days. We're what, years out and there's just no new ground that people can define. A lot of the game is kind of coalescing around super orgs and you have to be careful to build your 'amazon rp' inside that super org and not against it (aka: Don't be Nepenthe.)

Juran

Mechanically, there are very few differences between the professions now. If they'd have merged their guilds, you'd not notice any distinction.

Lixan

To be fair I don't know such details... What I mean is, is it really necessary right now?

Labil

Juran said:
Mechanically, there are very few differences between the professions now. If they'd have merged their guilds, you'd not notice any distinction.

To most people, there wouldn't a difference. To those that make it a part of their RP (call it masturbatory if you will, but that wouldn't be nothing new in Ithaqua anyway), it makes the world.

By the same token, since to most people is irrelevant if they are the same profession or not, why change it?

Ahkan

There's no real justification to merge them. It's a huge stretch based on an ooc mechanics argument. Not worth the trouble, to be honest. Let the kids keep their play house.

Juran

I wasn't arguing to merge them, I was saying that there isn't a reason to merge them. People can have their RP, and do their thing as amazons or wardens without it bothering anyone else.

You can't change genders so there's no real incentive for them to merge them. You're not missing out on anything.

Labil

It might not have been evident, but I was using your post as a base, not answering to it. Apologies for that.

tl,dr of my post = too much effort for zero benefit. (Well, I'm assuming it would be effort to do it)

Sarciossis

I just want to know when Wardens got the ability to battlecry, and I like how I can switch to amazon so I can kick people in the nuts. I have to agree that the sexist RP is pretty dumb, and doesn't go anywhere, even if I think that the wardens still have the best novice-to-guildmember mob advancement ever.

Well, slightly off topic, and just to spite kira: how does everyone feel about women in the wardens? :P We currently have 29 active guildmembers, and I use the term active loosely. Could be useful to let women into the guild on a limited basis?

Labil

You could check the announces for the bcry change, I guess. Some time in the last 3 years

Sarrius

The classlead cycle when Druids, Hunters, and Outriders had their remake announced (but not yet implemented). It was also the classlead cycle where Naharl and I pushed a lot of Warder class buffs, like passive Powersoul, Barkskin in Trailblazing, etc.