Is it time to consolidate?

[Tykanis]

To be honest, I did notice a very steady decline of players after PvP seemed to be the most important thing for a period of time, while the crafting was lacking. Then I noticed a decline once more when the priorities seemed to flip flop of the pbase and then we had more crafters than PvP. Each time sending away a few players at a time, and I myself stopped playing much at all when it seemed that no one really RPs anymore. I try to at least put out maybe eight to ten line emotes as I talk, to interact with people, but sadly get met with either powerwalking, a brief one liner and then exit, or just a say every single time. I mean, What is the point in playing an RPI when you aren't even going to bother emoting for anything other than Mudsex. So, Perhaps two separate factions is only the outside of the problem, heck I don't even think it's an issue at all.

[Real]

People RP a ton, save for a select few. I haven't had that experience at all.

Just to say though - I'm pretty flowery myself with the emotes but eight to ten lines is what I would call overkill in general interactions, although there are undoubtedly times when large, sweeping descriptions fit the scene. That may be a part of the response you're getting. It's not all times of day when I have the mental willpower to go toe-to-toe with someone who wants to stay put and slowmote a novel between us, and I know that there are quite a few others who feel this way.

Which is not to say that I have anything against the style, I do think that there are some wondrous RPers who are great at bringing immersion with their writing. Don't take this as slander against the art of the slowmote, it's just an observation of my own habits/that of some of my friends on this game.

It also comes up when I see someone who I'd really like to RP with but I'm tired/having a bad day or something - I want to put in as much effort as they are and have interesting interactions, but I'm not up to it at the moment and don't want to give them the 40% act.

[MrT2G]

To totally derail this thread; I personally prefer shorter emotes/says to increase the sped of posting and keep people engaged.

[EltanimRas]

Mods can split it, right?

Three to four lines is usually my sweet spot. Reassures people I'm not afk, gives their PCs a chance to interrupt mine, etc., while still letting me get past the basic nod and smile.

Also saves some extra typing time for think/feel. Oh, my long-lost telepaths, how I miss you all. </3

[Tykanis]

Ah see I don't really have that issue of slowmoting as I can generally pop out a solid six to eight, eight to ten much quicker than the occasionally two to four that I get. Though that is perhaps because I am young and have been typing for a majority of my teen life. Long fingers kinda help too.

[Gobbo]

Hopping on the derail train! I absolutely can't stand slow emotes, it becomes clear that some people are simply alt-tabbed half the time and have divided their attention between the mud and other things.

If it takes you more than 3-5 minutes to reply consistently. You are way too slow and need to shorten up your emotes and pay attention.

Some players can take ten minutes between responses and are not always making large emotes to explain the time it takes.

[Tykanis]

I hate it when that happens, and it usually ends with me doing something else with RPing just so I can wait a half hour for another response (yes this has happened before). It's like why bother getting into the interaction if you are going to play CSGO or PoE w/e at the same time.

[Knight26]

I was interested in playing but every time I log in there are at most, 3 people online. It might be my timezone but it's frustrating not being able to find anyone. As much as I used to love solo-rp.. lol.

Ah well! I'll wait until the pbase grows significantly.

[Grommit]

If you're talking about the Dark Side, they have regularly scheduled RPTs, I believe on Monday nights. Someone could probably post that info for you. They tend to only come around for those in large numbers, for whatever reason, but when they do, they're well attended.

[EltanimRas]

Ah see I don't really have that issue of slowmoting as I can generally pop out a solid six to eight, eight to ten much quicker than the occasionally two to four that I get.

You know, I think the only six- to eight-line emoter I ever played with was pof Meeriya.

She used to play semi-afk from work, too, iirc, but it worked, because she'd pick a low-traffic room, and one-on-one rp is always less timing-sensitive than a group scene. Plus her emotes were description-heavy, not action-heavy, so you didn't feel like you were getting steam-rolled by six different things your PC needed to react to when your turn came around again.

[likui]

Ah, a familiar name, Meeriya!

You described RP with her to a "T". To me, the experience always felt like we were a couple of Gandalfs kicking back, smoking Westmansweed, observing in silence the intricate puffs of smoke created without exchanging a word...if that makes any sense.

My emotes usually are 2-3 lines maximum. However, I'm not too picky about others' emotes and I'll sometimes lengthen my replies accordingly (with relevant details rather than just "filler", of course) in reaction to more detailed emotes. My only pet peeve is when multiple people hit me simultaneously with long emotes in a crowded room, forcing me to scroll up multiple times in the middle of a reply.

[Letters]

I for one won't be returning to play for as long as PC-centric armed conflict between two neighbouring settlements remains a core focus of the game. I long ago got worn out with that sort of thing and just want to have characters fighting NPCs.

[cfelch]

The scrolling issue could be mitigated to some extent by dropping the 80 character line length limit (in most scenarios) and allowing people's client's to handle word wrapping entire sentences and even paragraphs at a time.

Not to mention it looks cleaner.

[Nimrod]

I for one won't be returning to play for as long as PC-centric armed conflict between two neighbouring settlements remains a core focus of the game. I long ago got worn out with that sort of thing and just want to have characters fighting NPCs.

Keep an eye out for when we complete the warcraft stuff, Letters. Though this won't completely remove pvp, it will significantly bump up player vs. npc and also allow you to skip away from pc enemy factions much more easily by entering your nearby strongholds.

[likui]

Re: consolidation, I'm against it. The arrangement of two strikingly different spheres in PVP opposition (even if the encounters are infrequent) is one of SoI's most distinguishing aspects; it was what attracted me to this MUD when I first joined in the era of Osgi-vs-MM. While I have seen some amazingly RPed admin-generated NPCs, when it comes to conflict, a single or even two or three admins working together cannot generate the complex dynamics that a dozen or more PCs bring to the game, each player contributing in his own unique way, so that when the two spheres finally collide the results feel organic and unpredictable.

It's like participating in a war reenactment with live actors vs viewing automated mannequins singing "It's a Small World Afterall" from the comfort of a slowly moving plastic boat.

[tehkory]

Re: consolidation, I'm against it. The arrangement of two strikingly different spheres in PVP opposition (even if the encounters are infrequent) is one of SoI's most distinguishing aspects; it was what attracted me to this MUD when I first joined in the era of Osgi-vs-MM. While I have seen some amazingly RPed admin-generated NPCs, when it comes to conflict, a single or even two or three admins working together cannot generate the complex dynamics that a dozen or more PCs bring to the game, each player contributing in his own unique way, so that when the two spheres finally collide the results feel organic and unpredictable.

It's like participating in a war reenactment with live actors vs viewing automated mannequins singing "It's a Small World Afterall" from the comfort of a slowly moving plastic boat.

See, my general experience is completely opposite. PvP has remained generally predictable, with low-level PvP and PvE basically coming down to the same thing, and high-level PvP/the best-of-the-best coming out as an above-average RPT. But the best RPTs have contained revelations and roleplay that blew any sphere-based PvP out of the water.

Ekkja gets special mention here as the exception in all the time I've played RPI MUDs, and only as a thing I heard of, not experienced...but Songweaver's always been good at pulling off betrayals, and in particular using players to do so.

[likui]

Now that I think of it, there were some NPC-enemy-RPTs I found immersive and satisfying as you described, recently and back in the time of SoI v 1.0. For example, I immensely enjoyed last year's Vadok RPT when they fought their nemesis clan. The NPC enemies were exquisitely role played and the echoes were outstanding. HUGE kudos to the admins who managed it. The Vadok leaders and the other players were awesome as well in terms of ROE and realism in RP.

However, I recall another RPT around the same time on the human side where two gung-ho players sneaked into the enemy space ahead of the main Utterby force and engaged them before the main group was able to advance and perform the usual pre-combat ROE and RPI spiel. Immediately afterwards, a substantial amount of grief was vented on the forums, a lot of it aimed at the two players. However, I don't place that much blame on them (maybe they were inexperienced, maybe a miscommunication occurred, etc.) as much as I do on the inevitable unwieldiness of player-to-player and admin-to-player communication when engaging NPC enemy groups (who notoriously attack automatically at the blink of an eye). Had this been a PC enemy led by experienced PC who thoroughly trained/disciplined his soldiers in ROE, the premature engagement and "robbing the main Utterby contingent of the combat lolz" could have been avoided.

In fact, when I reflect on all the combat RPTs I participated in over the last ten years, the ones I felt were most satisfying were ones in which I played an orc or Mordorian human. And that's coming from someone without any particular bias in favor of orcs, someone who never quite caught on to the whole orc-speech slang, whose orcs tend to talk like Lennie from Of Mice and Men, to be honest. The only explanation I can come up with for my perception is that the orc side, having a smaller pbase, tends to be more tightly knit, disciplined, and better communicators in combat overall.

So, consolidation, IF most of the orc-players remained to play humans, would at best 1) increase the size of the combat RPT groups and 2) force them to fight against uncontrollable spam-attack NPCs. Situations like last year's "We Wuz Robbed by Hillmen" RPT would become even more frequent. And that's at the risk of pushing away a lot of orc-side players who I found are some of the most amazing RPers I've interacted with in any MUD.

[Songweaver]

For what it's worth, in the invade Vadok Mal RPT that you mention, I don't really hold player of Haearn accountable (I was Galwen, the Guardsman that snuck in with him). Haearn attacked a lone goblin, and we let him run off to warn the other orcs. Haearn's thought was that they'd rally a group to go take out the "two invaders", and Haearn would draw them back to the human group for a proper group fight.

The orcs just never really took the bait, so besides a brief skirmish with a stray goblin or two, nothing ever happened.

And though the staff's been clear that we won't be consolidating, I'd say that if we did, I'd personally be more in favor of keeping the orcs, blowing up Utterby, and moving the human players to an Easterling camp just outside of Vadok Mal that was co-operative (perhaps grudgingly so) with the orcs.

Generally, I agree with Kory, though. NPCs only auto-aggro when they are built incorrectly. PvE plots yield a much higher potential for good quality RPTs when they are designed well admin-side. The inherent competitive nature of PvP (coupled with the fact that this engine wasn't really designed for PvP, but was rather designed for improved mob AI and PvE) makes PvP less satisfying than PvE for me, in terms of roleplay.

And that's coming from someone who loves PvP!

[likui]

Your idea of blowing up Utterby and moving the humans to Vadok-adjacent Easterling camp is a consolidation I actually would agree with. It sounds a bit like Baakath/TE+G 2.0.

Supply me with the dynamite and I'll handle the details!