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Yet Another Sect Thread
Khizan
Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
About six months ago, I started a thread about the sect system and how it, quite frankly, sucks. And so, six months later, I'm happy to report that basically nothing has changed with sects, they still have almost all of the problems of Orders, and the system still sucks. Hooray!!
Wait no, that's not good. Crap.
The biggest problem with this system is that you're tossing the dice when you pick an entity to bind to your sect. Primal rolled high and got Svorai, and so they have petting zoos and an entity that changes alongside the Temple they built her and all sorts of crap. Jackals, on the other hand, threw snake eyes and that's why we have 13 temple rooms and no entity to run the event to release it. Nyrohi's awesome and a ton of fun and she's great... when she's around. Sadly, though... she ain't around and there's nothing we can do about that.
We can show up and we can emote things, but... that generates nothing lasting but the logs. It produces nothing that people can interact with or use and it is really sort of empty. It takes huge amounts of dedication and effort from the playerbase to breed interest in something like that because the benefits are so ephemeral; nothing from them lasts. Sure, we can RP feeding you to the jackals in an empty room, but it's so much more satisfying to actually have a jackal pit to interact with. It feels more like you're actually interacting with something and less like you're just faking it. In all my years of IRE games, I've rarely seen a God remain active and engaged in the game for more than, say, a month or so. In all my years of Imperian, I've seen... Svorai and Janus do it. The vast majority come and go, with an emphasis on the "go", and when they go their Order/Sect falls apart.
Your volunteer system sucks and does not work. We have over a decade of this system completely failing to work as evidence of the fact that it does not work. Any attempts you make to 'fix' sects without addressing this core problem will fail utterly because the volunteer system is an utter failure. Now, don't get me wrong. The volunteers themselves are awesome and a great deal of fun and I've loved my interactions with most of them. I have no complaints against any of them. It is the system which is flawed.
The major flaw here seems to be that your volunteers get bored and quit, and that's a perfectly reasonable reaction. What do they really get to do? Interaction with the sect is dependent on the sect being online at the same time AND wanting to interact with them instead of bashing or PvPing or whatever else. So they get sect interaction and what else? Chatting with the Garden? Working on behind the scenes crap? Getting to run ToA events for free? It's not surprising that this system is a failure.
These are some changes that I think might be beneficial:
- Neutral Entity Shells: With Conquest and some other sects/orders, one of the most common complaints is that there's nobody to fight and no real antagonist. Unaligned entity shells could provide these things. I think they'd make it easier because it wouldn't involve necessarily involve PvP and it wouldn't make one Sect lose to another.
- Let volunteers play more than one role: This increases the options the volunteers have in RP and increases the chances that they'll get to do all that RP stuff they join to do. If you log on and your sect isn't around, you have other options.
- Let Sects have multiple Entities: This goes somewhat along with the former. If entities are allowed multiple shells(or even if they are not), I'd rather see Sects gain additional entities, instead of creating a brand new one and dividing sects up even more. If Svorai or Xuli or Vyir wants to take up another role, let them attach to an existing sect somehow. Right now, Jackals have Nyrohi the Undying, a creepy awesome skeleton girl. So let us attach Xulohi the Dead, a creepy awesome ghost, as well, so that we'd have two complementary entities. The volunteers would get a wider pool to interact with, the sects get made more stable, and the players would have more chances at interactions with the gods at the heart of their sects.
The problem with that, in the case of the Jackals, though, is that the entities who are doing their work get rewarded by being allowed to do more work while the no-call-no-show entities are rewarded by being given somebody to do their work for them, somebody who will inevitably be seen as something of a junior partner. There's, sadly, no way around this. I guess you could throw the no-shows out of the Garden, but that's a thing that wouldn't really help anybody, aside from the second entity becoming the only entity and thusly not being stuck in the role of junior partner.
I hesitate to even bring that up, because I don't want to get Nyrohi kicked out of the Garden; asking for that seems like a crappy way to repay somebody who was awesome to us, and I hope that whatever's come up that keeps Nyrohi away will someday be resolved and she'll be back... but asking Svorai or Vyir or Xuli to come in and play second fiddle because Nyrohi's inactive is a pretty crappy way to treat them, too, and they've done less to deserve it. - Give Sect Leaders more abilties: Let Sect Leaders burn belief on regular favours and the like. Let them build things for their temples that go through an approval process. Don't wall everything except emotes away behind the entities.
Fix this, please. This should definitely have a higher priority than what kind of vanity crap you're going to sell us next month.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
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‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I wouldn't want to pay somebody to run the narrative, honestly.
I mean, yes, it's a great idea if you find the perfect candidate who runs events that the playerbase enjoys and who is willing to do the job for what they'd be willing to pay them, but honestly? It sounds like a miserable position full of nothing but internet nerds shitting all over you every time you run an event that doesn't work out just the way they want it to turn out.
You know, that thing that happens with 90%+ of the events run in this game. "You ran this event and we were forced to participate!" "You ran this event and we didn't try to participate and we're mad that you didn't explicitly ask us to participate!" "You ran this event and it impacted my city and I didn't want it to be impacted!" "You ran this event and it didn't impact my city and I wanted it to be impacted!" "Things changed!" "Things didn't change!" "Ugh, a big event like this and no PvP, I'm not playing in a bashing event" "Ugh, a big event like this and it's too much PvP, I'm not even going to bother logging in."
There's an event! Magick loses! Things change, they suffer consquences! The magickers quit. "I was happy with my RP and then you had to ruin things and I don't want to deal with this crap now". There's an event! Magick loses! Status quo remains the same! The Iniars and such quit. "Ugh, why even bother when it doesn't change anything!"
There's no way to win. There's no happy ending for a meaningful event. That's why we don't have any.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
The RP for events is generally shoddy and overlooked.
Here are several examples that I can think of, off-hand.
1. There are volcanoes constantly showering us with shards 24/7. This is attributed to 'seismic activity' and obelisks. This feels lackluster and ill thought-through. It feels like with a handful of other options that could have been used to explain shards that all fit better (ex. moon shards, these already exist and could tie into existing roleplay). This feels lazy to me. It literally appears that someone was like, hey, moon shards could be cool - but you know what would be cooler? VOLCANOES. Let's make a thousand volcanoes that rain magickal volcano shards.
2. Wtf are obelisks. Why are they here? We currently fight over them because they give us things, but there's literally nothing compelling about them or the RP surrounding them whatsoever. Magickal sky islands. Yeah. @Aleutia informs me that these are ancient weapons made by the old Caanites that we forgot about when Caanae fell, which is discoverable through an obscure quest. If these are weapons, what were they for? Who were the Caanites fighting? Why does nothing happen with obelisks if they are weapons? How are they powered by shards that didn't exist before, unless our volcanoes are now magickal sky-candy creating temporary invisible volcanoes that only show up once every 400 IG years?
Did the Saboteurs travel back in time to give the ancient Caanites volcano shards?
3. Possession of mobs in general. There have been a number of events in which mobs were played in vastly different styles, I can understand this to a degree, given that different volunteers likely played them. However, there should be a framework or 'notes' of some kind that describe the personality of said mobs if they are notable within an organization, so that someone can't come along and destroy all their pre-existing roleplay with one poorly-timed rant. This happened to Kitt in Khandava once, who despite solid interactions with players and a defined personality, suddenly became a love-besotted lich-loving idiot in blatant disregard of her history of solidarity and strong will.
4. The Docent program. Is the Docent program now defunct? While I know that some of the roleplay that occurred via the docent program was not large in scale, even small scale interactions are appreciated. Why not let docents have those little interactions again, to take the heat off the entity volunteers who are working on other projects?
4. Newbie friendly events. I think most instantly of the “God War” event that occurred. During this time, we had no less than six solid novices start, become heavily involved with the guild. These poor kids would run over to defend townes and cities with us, were constantly trying to help, and were generally a joy to be around. They also stopped playing after the second full week of getting ganked by roving bands of mobs 24/7 when attempting to path find or travel anywhere. This doesn’t lead to player retention. This makes it harder than it already is to hold onto new players who could both add to Imperian’s story and who stood a good chance of sticking around to buy credits/artifacts in the future.
5. Follow-through on events. If you start an event or storyline with a new mob, please finish it. So many times, we see a project taken up and a character created for interaction with the player-base that is never used again. Promises will be made about what that character will do or what their purpose is, but effectively, that NPC is now dead in the water and nothing will occur with them again 90% of the time. Another example of this would be the Khandavan forest in general. Despite becoming demonic a year and a half ago, it is still a chipper forest valley full of peace and love.
This is the Khandava Archway right now -
At this point, you can view the circle of redwood trees up close, which only increases the sheer wonder of the accomplishments of the natural world. The intricate root system of the two nearest trees emerges from the ground to twist and loop together in the shape of an arch that reaches twice the height of any mortal. This structure has been named the Khandava Archway and stands proudly as one of the only paths of entry into the Khandava Council, the home of those who live in harmony with Nature. The deep red coloration is accented with wild lobelia that climbs the base of the archway along the vibrant green of hearty vines. Ferns that grow in the shape of fans herald to coming and goings of the populous as they wave in the wind. The fragrant scent of peppermint permeates the air from their wild patches that flourish gloriously around the stately Khandava Archway.
I would rewrite the entire council and forest if granted the opportunity. I know that @Aleutia has already offered to. For a council that houses Defilers, was the birthplace of the demonic blight, houses a giant soul-stealing (Prophet-eating) demon tree, and is populated by 'bad druids', it is completely jarring to be surrounded by an environment straight out of a Disney movie.
This also happened with the Tzolkin guildhall. I put in an orgrequest which was taken up by an Entity A. Entity A spent three months working on our guildhall revisions, which both @Aleutia and myself had pre-written. After three months, Entity B took a look at it and said that we could do the event to release it. Entity B then no-showed. Entity B rescheduled, because hey, life happens. Entity B then realized that almost nothing had been done with the orgrequest and most of our guildhall changes were not coded. Guild event postponed a second time to await this being done.
After the three month mark and two reschedules, @Svorai ended up swooping in to to save the day and completed almost the entirety of our guildhall. I wish that there was a way that you could clone her, except that this would probably be more awesome and/or productivity than the game could handle without collapsing in on itself. @Svorai could take three months to work on an orgrequest, but you would know that she was actively working on it the entire time.
I don't mean to paint Imperian in broad strokes and say that everything is bad. It isn't. But I think the point that @Bathan and others have made, is that it could be so much better. It could be something that is both engaging and fun, rather than long stretches of boredom in between combat.
Sects Specifically:
Sects are essentially the same as Orders. There are different mechanics that are more useful and varied than old order rituals, but that is about it.
In old orders, however, I actually preferred when the gods were inactive. When the gods were inactive, I could follow through the predefined RP of the order without having to face the volunteer roulette.
Ex. Nemesis 2.5 tells me that I skim the lake of fire wrong, when Nemesis 2.0 told me it was great, plz pass the suntan lotion and make margaritas.
This is only compounded by the sect system. When your entity goes inactive, they are no longer simply bailing on a preconceived order drummed up by the admin. Now, they are taking your concept with them. A cult concept that you and other players have spent numerous hours brainstorming, structuring, and bashing up both gold and belief for. It takes on a personal edge. It's not simply waiting on Nemesis 4.0 to show up. Now it's waiting for another entity to hopefully become interested in a cult/sect concept that you personally created.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
To be honest, you raise a lot of good points. You should thank Aleutia for stealing her material. I've got to ask you though. Are you really shocked? How long have you played this game? Like many of our promos, the sect system was just window dressing to be upfront and pretty much say "we treat our volunteers NOT WELL and we have a hideous turnover rate. To resolve this we're just going to quit pretending and let you know when your god has flaked out and/or quit, by the way you need to go bash." In essence, you killed the only story lines, regardless of how incoherent, to replace it with the exact same system sans story line. It could have been awesome. It should have been awesome. But it wasn't. Like everything else in Imperian in the last four years there has been absolutely zero follow through.
That being said. You're kind of the head of "We will make you feel like crap until you quit." There's a little bit of self-fulfilling prophecy going on here. You also can't avoid the fact that Imperian does nothing to support or motivate their volunteers to be awesome.
Yes. We need paid writers. I'm not sure if it's Ivory Tower syndrome or what, but your story lines aren't interesting, daring, or even fun. To make it worse, they're all short term. Without some sort of ongoing storyline, Imperian is just a pk-sandbox with some furries piddling in the corner and trying to cover it up. Do something, please. Even if you have to pay them in fake internet money to play other games.
Imperian gets the shaft coding wise. We have 3 paid coders. There's Jeremy, who is not a 'coder' so much as a dude who tries. Then there's Garryn, but he seems to be cross-platform and tasked with doing all sorts of not-imperian voodoo to fuel the IRE business machine. Then there's that Jesse character. I hear he likes x-box. I don't know what happened to Eusto, Vashir or Bayron but they were the bomb, volunteer or not. I'm sure that there are 10 people in this game who are willing to be the plot guru and get paid a pittance. It doesn't have to be 30k/y. It doesn't even have to be 5k/y. You just have to pay them for the effort because it's clearly something that Imperian has sucked at since forever.
^^To soften the blow. Hey, you coded guards! *brofist* Yay! The game is more balanced than it has been ever.^^
If paying for some sort of story line into a role playing game is too 'business plan like' for us, there's three times as many people willing to work for free. Let them. You know who knows Khandava better than you? The Khandavans. They wrote the story for the city and the guild why you were doing...something important. Let them re-describe the forest so that the 'atmosphere' is more fitting. You know their grammar is impeccable. If they're not Khandava, years of describing the same pair of panties and how the cup they butt cheeks has made them fiends of grammar and hopefully syntax. If they can make a pair of granny panties seem hot, then by god, they can give an orc more depth than "HA! HA! HA!"
yeah, I totally just cp'd that :effort: Yeah, my laundry is done.
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
I wasn't dogging on the ents. I think they do a great job with what they're given and are allowde to do.
Sects and Cults were touted as a major RP avenue, thus far, at least in demonic, they have done nothing but stagnate, and it's amazingly disheartening to have nothing done day in and day out in regards to our storylines. We were promised one on one interactions, and storylines. And I, personally, do not feel they have lived up to their promise. I'd rather have old orders back and players do what they would while your inactive god derps around in nothingland than what we have now.
While three months of waiting game on a guildhall that was entirely written by myself and Aleutia before the fact is fairly absurd, I mentioned @Svorai's involvement in resolving this issue, as she was a positive facet of dealing with the administration for the duration of this.
We should see more coming out of the game as a whole, instead of the current quantity vs. quality approach dictated seemingly at random. We should see ideas being finished and stories implemented, rather than leaping from one thing to the next with little rhyme or reason. This is not wholly placed upon entities, as I realize that they are only working within the framework that they have been provided, although I do think (as stated earlier) that there is a certain standard that should be upheld.
The main problem with the sect system is that it in no way addressed the problems of the order system effectively. The only difference was slapping a new coat of paint on it and removing shrines as the proverbial middle-man. When an entity that was tenuously active at best decides not to log in anymore, the cult/sect's roleplay is effectively halted. We still have access to rituals, but we have no means through which to enact a storyline but player emotes. These have no backing.
Since the system was introduced, we have seen 2+ entities outright destroyed. This reduces their cult/sect to an empty structure, with no real power behind the sect leader, and also sets the roleplay of the sect to square one. In contrast to the old orders, this framework is not admin-defined, but player-defined, which serves only to salt the wound.
The responsibility of cult creation should not have been placed in the hands of the player-base without a more firm standard of both entity expectations and general standards. For every Leechwood, there are five remakes of an old order ideal. For every remake that is pushed through and created, you end up with five more cults based on mudsex and baking.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
I'd much rather have current Sects than old Orders; in both cases, players do what they would while their inactive god derps around, but at least the players get to pick the concept now.
The one big problem I see with Sects is that people are picking things like Flame, Jackals, Leechwood. Those aren't bad choices for a sect at all, but they're pretty entity dependent and RP/character driven. Things like War, Wrath, and Justice are much broader concepts and they're easier to carry without a god's help. As awesome as something like Jackals is, it's hard to describe to a new player what you actually do when you don't have a volunteer around to do anything, because it's built on the idea of looting old tombs and scavenging the power of the undead and such. Without a god, you're left going on emoting field trips(Note to self: Make Kanthari plan an emote field trip.).
Justice, on the other hand, is simple and easy and straightforward in comparison; you do not need an entity to move forward with the Justice concept. It helps, yes, but the concept of Justice is inherently one of action. Identify the unjust, hunt them, kill them. When raiders attack your townes, your revenge on them is ~justice!~. When Stavennites summon demons and endanger the world, your raids against them are ~justice!~. Wrath is similar; at its most fundamental, you can boil Wrath down to "get pissed, hurt people". Death can be boiled down to 'kill people'. The 'SevenSix Suns' basically boiled down to "anti-magick zealotry" and thusly down to "burn the heretics".
These Orders were, arguably, the most successful Orders even without the presence of their God, and that is because their beliefs all boil down to some concept of action, some thing that you can do. And because of that, they are much easier to feel involved in. When I raid Anhir, I'm sending souls on to Thanatos, even if he is not active. When I kill the people who raided Anhir, I'm standing up for Justice. It doesn't matter if Vahin hasn't been active for a year, I'm still dispensing Justice. I'm still involved. The Sects are mostly lacking in this concept of action. They're more cerebral, more RP focused, and so they're much harder to feel involved in when you don't have a constant Godly presence.
Amusingly, this is the exact same thing I complained about when new Gods picked crap like Consciousness and Waters, and it's the exact same thing I did when I went ahead with the idea for the Flame cult. So, mea culpa, I guess. My bad.
One thing I'd like to do to address this is slant some of the existing Sects more towards this idea of action. Make the Jackals more about power through sacrifice, 'feeding the jackals'. Some of my first memories of Achaea are of the old Sartanite sacrifices. Makta Ra! Makta Re! Makta Ru! I want to get stuff like that going. Things that are something that the players can do in and of themselves, things that are more than just sitting around emoting, things that make people feel like they're involved.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."