Towne Hall Meeting

Selthis

I couldn't make it. Anyone have a log?

Luthyr

Same.  I'd like to see it as well.

Selthis

I figure 24 hours is plenty of time to wait to see if anyone actually logged this or not and post a reminder asking about the log.

Svorai

I thought about logging it, but not till after it was done. Sorry for that. I will try to make points of what happened, but I'm sure I'll miss things:

- Questions about the Sci-fi mud

 - This is a HUGE if, we were mainly gauging to see the interest in this. Nothing more has really gone past this. It is something that Matt and Jeremy have tossed around for a bit, and are mostly curious if the world would even accept it, before putting in the time and effort. If this does go through, we MAY (quite possibly) keep the name Tears of Polaris, but it will only be in name, the lore and concept behind the game will be wiped. More information on this will be posted if this is something they choose to do.

- Questions on having an Entity and a player were asked, as people want to be both:

 - This will never happen, this will bring around things that will cause a lot of issues. One being that you will favour your character more than others. This allows for leaking of information on large scale events. There are plenty of reasons as to why this will not happen. 

---+ Docent program - This is closed because it is a lot of effort on both the player and Entity running it. We have had some interest in it, and I'm considering doing a test reopen to see how it goes, however, most people do not enjoy the pay out, and we cannot really just throw thousands of credits at you. I will consider this if I get enough e-mails or messages with interest. But I expect to get a good amount of applications if I choose to reopen it.

- With this, if you're interested in applying for Entity, I just had a call out, and I'm willing to talk to you if you're interested. Please e-mail Elokia@Imperian.com

- There were a -lot- of questions that were asked about balancing classes, skills, and the likes.

 - These were not really answered, as it is hard to answer questions like this in this kind of setting. @Garryn is really good about doing classleads twice a year (at least). He just finished a big classlead session, with revamping of Knights, he is finishing the client, which you can see at  http://newclient.imperian.com - Also take a look at announce post #3018 for more information on the client.

There is a possibility that they will be back up soon.

- There were questions asked about a 'neutral' organization.

 - We will not be making one officially. As much as it would be nice, when you think of 'balancing' the game, it will be very stacked against the player base for an official organization to have all three circle classes tied into one. This is not something we are considering. If you want to RP a clan, or something where you are like minded individuals that do not care which circle you come from, that is totally fine. We will not, at this time, be supporting it mechanically, that goes for sects as well. Sorry. 

- More mechanics to support RP

 - I'll say this in the nicest way possible. This is near impossible. I can add in quests, I can add in just about anything, but it will not drive 'rp' like players want to. Even large-scale events do not drive as much RP as we or you would like. Let me tell you why: Every player is different, every player has their own RP, every organization is different, every organization has its own rp, every org and player's rp fluctuates. So it is difficult to try to support RP mechanically in a game played by humans. You can send messages to Entities, you can e-mail Entities, you can even put in orgrequests for RP. One thing I have on my to-do list, and will try to get it out quickly since it is a hot topic, is a "How to submit orgrequests or RP requests." If you have questions on this you can ask me. Here are a few points that were mentioned in the meeting that are 'good' and 'bad.'

    1.) We will not have a mob rally behind an org leader, or 'ideal' of the new leader. Why? Because that mob will always be there, that player may not be. If the people of Stavenn were not in agreement with Theo (Huge example, I hear they love him over there), and he had us use Niccolo to "support" his wayward ideas, then the people rallied against him and kicked him out, then tried to kick out Niccolo, that's not good. Or what if they just ignore everything Niccolo said and pretended that RP didn't happen, well then it makes it pointless to even do it in the first place. So this is why we don't really allow org leaders to mob possess the mobiles of their city/guild. There are plenty of you who would not be silly in this way, but there is the possibility of it, so we do what we can to avoid it. Message an Entity. We'll try to find someone to help you if it is doable. 

- Questions on if we are going to bring in the 'war-system'

 - For those that are unaware of what the war-system is, this is basically where they were going to allow you to overcome townes or demolish them. Currently we have no plans to put this into the game. It is something that is brought up often, but we are not going to be putting it in any time soon.

- Questions about the lore of the game:

 - Questions were brought up on if we're going to expand the Legion lore, or the game lore in general.

  - I have plans for all of this. I am going to be expanding lore on -all- races (old and new), I'm revamping areas, adding new (some of them minor) areas, and I have plans for 'over-arching stories'. Unfortunately, as much as I would like this all done today, it's going to take me some time, but that is my main focus, which is why you haven't seen me around on Svorai much, and why I will be spending most of my time on Elokia.  The only details I'll reveal right now is, I do want to expand Legion's lore, it's on the top of my list. And we currently have 3 areas in the works for 'racial' areas. Some of these areas have multiple races, making my goal of releasing more lore for -each- race by the end of the year hopeful, but I am not promising it.

-  Questions were asked about a circle-wide channel to replace rings

 - We have ideas about making rings more manageable, we just haven't made an official decision. The idea of a circle-wide channel is possible, however, it's not the way we are leaning. We may considering doing things such as - you are dropped out of a ring upon logging off, or there is a limited number of people allowed in rings. 

  - A secondary question about this was can people issue for what is said in rings. Short answer - yes. If you're offended and attempted to stop the conversation and they refuse, you may issue. Rings are not as optional anymore as we originally envisioned them, so they are becoming a part of your every day lives. The last thing we want is for people to be offending newbies, old players, and all those in between due to their lack of maturity. We are also considering adding things to rings that will help 'purge' them, but this is all stuff we have and will continue to debate till we come up with a decent decision. 

- Questions on the ToA (This is more from the ToA thread, not the meeting)

  - I am working tirelessly on two events, one being the ToA, which will be completely different from years of the past. So this is a lot of new work, and I will admit, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. However, I am doing what I can to get it released quickly. I would love to have it before the end of April, but there is a possibility it will be in May. I know that some are a bit upset with the time, since people try to schedule around it. I will try to announce a week or so in advance so you can plan around it. I am hoping to do a CTF either during or before, and I'll post a date in game when I pick one.

These are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I'm going to look into my notes and talk to Eoghan (There was a point I had to run afk so I know I missed something). I will try to answer more as I go. If you have questions that you wanted to ask at the Town Hall Meeting, but were unable to attend, or ask. You may ask here and I will do my best to answer said question.

Keep this thread decent, please. I do hate having to use my moderator privs. 

Iniar

Svorai said:

I thought about logging it, but not till after it was done. Sorry for that. I will try to make points of what happened, but I'm sure I'll miss things:

---+ Docent program - This is closed because it is a lot of effort on both the player and Entity running it. We have had some interest in it, and I'm considering doing a test reopen to see how it goes, however, most people do not enjoy the pay out, and we cannot really just throw thousands of credits at you. I will consider this if I get enough e-mails or messages with interest. But I expect to get a good amount of applications if I choose to reopen it.

Just curious, what -is- the usual pay out?

- More mechanics to support RP

 - I'll say this in the nicest way possible. This is near impossible. I can add in quests, I can add in just about anything, but it will not drive 'rp' like players want to. Even large-scale events do not drive as much RP as we or you would like. 

I agree. I had some discussions with an unnamed entity about the feasibility of introducing a reward-for-good-play program as Imperator. There was a lot of interest around it from other Stavennites, but the heart of the matter is that good RP takes time to write, and not everyone (almost no one) will commit the necessary time.

Let me tell you why: Every player is different, every player has their own RP, every organization is different, every organization has its own rp, every org and player's rp fluctuates. So it is difficult to try to support RP mechanically in a game played by humans. You can send messages to Entities, you can e-mail Entities, you can even put in orgrequests for RP. One thing I have on my to-do list, and will try to get it out quickly since it is a hot topic, is a "How to submit orgrequests or RP requests." If you have questions on this you can ask me. Here are a few points that were mentioned in the meeting that are 'good' and 'bad.'

Will clans be allowed to submit RP requests, and if so, to whom?

    1.) We will not have a mob rally behind an org leader, or 'ideal' of the new leader. Why? Because that mob will always be there, that player may not be. If the people of Stavenn were not in agreement with Theo (Huge example, I hear they love him over there), and he had us use Niccolo to "support" his wayward ideas, then the people rallied against him and kicked him out, then tried to kick out Niccolo, that's not good. Or what if they just ignore everything Niccolo said and pretended that RP didn't happen, well then it makes it pointless to even do it in the first place. So this is why we don't really allow org leaders to mob possess the mobiles of their city/guild. There are plenty of you who would not be silly in this way, but there is the possibility of it, so we do what we can to avoid it. Message an Entity. We'll try to find someone to help you if it is doable. 

I guess one of the things I would say here is that the biggest issue with the 'roleplay' environment is stagnation. While I accept that the majority of heavy RP should be driven by player interest and commitment, I think there is scope for a schedule of small things to refresh maybe three-to-five monthly. Small tweaks to existing pieces (NPCs, and children NPCs in particular), would change the landscape by imbuing a sense of change/non-immutability. I think there is potential here for value: players currently interact with a static system ('world') that is changed primarily by 'addition': new areas, new NPCs, new quests. This is a high workload because each new area needs to be cohesive, and checked for irregularities. On the other hand, small, systematic alterations to pre-existing pieces on a fitted schedule could see some reinvigoration to areas that have already had a lot of effort put into them. For example; death of a quest-giver, and their progeny taking on their role - no need for an RP event, just a little 'say'-trigger that explains this new NPC (and their relation to the old agent), and the addition of a tombstone. The underlying motivations could remain the same or be inherited. Another example, having children NPC turn into teenage/adult versions of themselves. I think this could be potentially worthwhile: like the addition of new ambience messages (I love those), this could help alleviate the sense of immutability.

-  Questions were asked about a circle-wide channel to replace rings

 - We have ideas about making rings more manageable, we just haven't made an official decision. The idea of a circle-wide channel is possible, however, it's not the way we are leaning. We may considering doing things such as - you are dropped out of a ring upon logging off, or there is a limited number of people allowed in rings. 

  - A secondary question about this was can people issue for what is said in rings. Short answer - yes. If you're offended and attempted to stop the conversation and they refuse, you may issue. Rings are not as optional anymore as we originally envisioned them, so they are becoming a part of your every day lives. The last thing we want is for people to be offending newbies, old players, and all those in between due to their lack of maturity. We are also considering adding things to rings that will help 'purge' them, but this is all stuff we have and will continue to debate till we come up with a decent decision. 

I think if people can issue for things said on ring, then there would probably be no need for a circle-wide comms channel. We should be able to self-police with the acknowledgement that rings are not as optional anymore. Thanks.

- Questions on the ToA (This is more from the ToA thread, not the meeting)

  - I am working tirelessly on two events, one being the ToA, which will be completely different from years of the past. So this is a lot of new work, and I will admit, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. However, I am doing what I can to get it released quickly. I would love to have it before the end of April, but there is a possibility it will be in May. I know that some are a bit upset with the time, since people try to schedule around it. I will try to announce a week or so in advance so you can plan around it. I am hoping to do a CTF either during or before, and I'll post a date in game when I pick one.

Good luck.

Svorai

Docent payout: (Had to do some digging to find it)

 - Base of 3 credit per hour

 - Small, Medium, or Large bonus per separate interaction (5, 10, or 15 credits)

 - 10 credits per log if cleaned up - 5 credits per log not cleaned.

 - Multiple docent bonus - Every 1 docent beyond 1 goes up 1. So 2 docents make 4cr/hr. 3 docents make 5cr/hr

Example :

  X sends in a report outlining the fact that they had docented for a total of 3 hours. In those 3 hours they had 3 separate interactions. They note that Y was involved for all 3 hours and sends in 2 cleaned-up logs.

4 credits per hour (12)

1 medium, 2 small bonuses (20)

2 logs(cleaned) (20)

Total: 52 credits

Clan RP requests:

 - If it is a valid RP request, you can send a message to an Entity. HELP ENTITIES for who is around.

Mini-Rp events:

 - I have said time and time again I am more than ok with mini-events. However, I unfortunately do not have the time to do a ton of them by myself. Other Entities are allowed to. This goes into how much time people have or wish to put in. We are more than open to tweaking mobs, or doing small events, and there has already been quite a few this year. We even, last year, had someone send in a request for a pregnant mobile to have her child, and then that child has even grown up since then. These are things we are welcomed to. If you have ideas of them you can send them into an Entity, and perhaps we can get the ball rolling. I know @Celosyi has made a thread, and I have as well in the past, about people requesting RP, we get no response.

Yasu

Is it weird that I'd docent for free just to rp?