Is it time to consolidate?

[Nedinu]

edited to mention : consolidating to having the game be orcs + easterling/hillman camp vs. staff controlled soldiers from the citadel and neighboring orc tribes would actually be fun as hell, if all the human players wanted it. Though it wouldn't be worth it unless at least 3/4 of Utterby players were in favour.

I wonder if it'd be worth it just to open human roles on the orc side even with Utterby staying? Doesn't have to be a whole new area for them, just a small camp within the orc's base. It might drum up some interest for people to start playing the game again just to give it a go and after a while we'd get a good sense if people like it or not.

[Droll]

I haven't seen more than 10 on when I've poked around, recently, no matter the time of day. I've seen as few as 1 on (myself), with an average of between 4-8.

You've been afk a while too. Shortly after that sweet little PVP scrap, numbers were down across the board. Few of the more proactive ones weren't playing and some peeps that made horrible clan leads were left running things. Is what is it. Lately? Been seeing 15-20 on evenings, 10-15 afternoons (13 on right now). Rest of the day? Sure, hardly anyone has been on. But we're all kind of kidding ourselves if we are going to act like 5 AM EST ever had many players online, in any soi.


And as radio said, what we really need is just more vets logging in and doing stuff. There are plenty of solid players who just aren't logging in for various reasons.

[bjg2k1us]

Get to Laketown (GOGOGO), and then offer an Easterling/Dorwinion/whatever sphere that isn't best friends with the Lakemen, but isn't on 'kill or be killed' status, either. Two spheres, yes. Orcs vs. Humans, no.

[Rishte]

Dorwinion are traders. They are merchants, fisherman, seafarers and gypsies. They'd have little reason to beef. Easterlings? Too likely to be played like Mordorians.

You guys are forgetting that we have more than once mentioned a criminal aspect to Laketown's underdocks. Smuggling, cut-throating, purse-stealing, turf-pissing crows that can cause all sorts of chaos. Its not all just Orc vs Manlings.

We're not consolidating. Why diminish what can be made better? To grow. We need room. We are making room. Reread my Newsletter.

[Songweaver]

Isn't Dorwinion an Elf Kingdom?

Easterlings? Too likely to be played like Mordorians.

Huh. Severely disagree. Generally, I think players will play a role based on the documentation provided to them.

And what was wrong with Mordorians, anyways? :p

If Laketown's right around the corner, then this conversation is sort of moot, I suppose.

But, if Laketown is a nebulous amount of time away, perhaps months, perhaps a year ... well, I'd like to see the SOI community survive until it opens.

[Nimrod]

I wonder if it'd be worth it just to open human roles on the orc side even with Utterby staying?

This has been discussed among Elder Staff and this is not happening. There is a possibility that we may reach south to Dol Guldur, where humans MAY be an option. This option likely won't be seriously considered though until we've been in Laketown for a year or more.

[radioactivejesus]

I really do like the idea of a clan of roguish/barbaric humans in the moral grey-zone that is willing to interact with both orcs and humans. It would provide a safe way for ransoms to be done, and give ways for the two sides of the game to actually communicate. Also it would be a pretty exciting role for the people who did it, knowing that there are people in both laketown and the vadok mal likely have reasons to want to kill them.
Bjg's idea is bad however, and will give no real solutions to the consolidation problem. I guess it's good for the players who hate PVP, but for the most part we all just want PVP to be more meaningful, have more emotes and roleplay around it, and be more survivable. Having orcs vs humans with a group that can drift between the 2 spheres would help with all that

[Kayube]

Tough decision here. I play an orc right now but have a neat human idea stabled that I'd really like to play at some point, but I don't really feel like retiring the aforementioned orc at the moment. So if the spheres did consolidate that would solve that problem for me. But, I do like to at least have the option to play an orc even if I wouldn't be making one for my next character. So it's tough. The idea of consolidating to the orc side instead is kind of interesting but... from my experience most people prefer to play good guys.

[Songweaver]

I've always thought that we tend to shy away from greys far too much.

There were good characters in Tur Edendor.

There were evil characters in the Battalions.

There were plenty of "grey" characters in Tolkien, though he tended towards absolutes a little more than the fantasy that followed him. Gollum, Boromir, Faramir, The Steward of Gondor (all of Gondor, generally). Beorn. Saruman (who changed, over time). Turin Turambar, his greatest character!

I don't think consolidation should mean you can't play a good person in an Easterling environment any more than I think that you shouldn't be able to play an evil person living in Utterby.

I'd actually be more prone to playing a good aligned Easterling. Think of the potential!

How boring would it be if we only played good/evil, and there was no room for the two to compromise and live together?

[Rishte]

Dorwinion is not a kingdom of elves.

And yes. Laketown is right around the corner.

[Songweaver]

I'm glad to hear that Laketown's close!

But, the most prominent scholar on Tolkien lore in the world does believe that Dorwinion is the last kingdom of the Elves in the Third Age. :p (not me, see that link I posted)

[bjg2k1us]

The thing is, I love PvP - when it's interesting. I'd just like the options to be more political and nuanced than orc vs man can offer. Batts vs Harads? Interesting, there was possibility for intrigue and ransom, redemption and betrayal. Batts vs Orcs? OH SHIT ITS ORCS BETTER KILL THEM FAST! That's interesting from time to time, but it doesn't make a good foundation for regular sphere vs sphere interaction.

Easterlings COULD be played like Mordorians, but they don't have to be. They're not yet under Sauron's direct command, that we know of, though surely under his influence through his servants to some extent. Dorwinion we know nothing about, beyond the fact that they make some pretty good wine, and are on good enough relations with someone to have their stock end up in the elves' pantry. There's a lot of potential there to actually interact with the Laketown sphere. Orcs are going to be what they've always been: a PK here and there, and better left as NPC antagonists for either or both spheres to deal with from time to time (though not always in the same way?).

In the end, if staff and players are insistent that orcs stay as the competing sphere, it will just mean that any meaningful interactions with outsiders to Laketown will have to be done entirely by the staff, and all the plots and intrigue will be dependent on them. Any interaction between the spheres will simply be a rehash of what we've already seen: PK that has a few emotes at best, and is under investigation for twinkery at the worst. It'll be the stuff that prompted staff to suggest a Mercy command that whisks PCs away magically so they don't die ALL THE TIME. It'll be the stuff people complain about on the forums and/or quit in a huff over, instead of actually enjoying and getting some character growth from.

So my only question is, what do you actually want SOI to be? Because now is the time to figure it out and get it right. IF the answer is 'the same thing but with a much bigger Utterby', then I guess you've got it figured out already. If not, then you may need to look a little deeper.

[Frigga]

We've taken a potentially deviating stance on Dorwinion for purposes of playability and player inclusion even if, yes, that means we might be at odds with how some, even the most prominent Tolkien scholars interpret the scant information about the area. Yes, that's known and excepted. We came up with our Dorwinion culture and interpretation based on the requests and concerns of players.

Also, if people want to see more grey/true neutral sort of characters, why not test some of that out now? We've certainly had some of that and some of the story lines that staff were able to work with those players and characters were amazing.

What's the phrase? Be the change and all that.

[Nimrod]

I'm glad to hear that Laketown's close!

Laketown is at least several months off before we open it for play.

[Songweaver]

I'm sad to hear that Laketown's not close!

[tehkory]

I'm all for the Orcish sphere continuing, given that it's holding some of the best roleplayers in the game, and given that it's had some of the best RPTs/player-culture internally for a long, long time. Probably since the beginning.

Which isn't to say that a lot of people aren't right in saying that it won't do anything good for PvP, and also isn't saying that all that goodness is shared at all. It's not. 'Orcs vs. humans' is essentially closed off to any sustainable intersphere roleplay. Sustainable conflict needs to be low-level generally, over resource nodes, and between people that can live with eachother, in the same general area. Orcs and humans can't achieve that, because they are in a state of constant warfare.

Parallel ALMOST got it right, once or twice, even in a game with semi-automatic 35 caliber armor-piercing rifles. If Staff want that, then they've taken a lot of steps in the right direction, mostly involving guns being 'replaced' with the equivalent of single-shot rifles(because that's what bows are, still).

Players can't achieve it, though, not in SoI-That-Is...and if they DID, it'd be completely anti-Tolkien and Staff'd take away everyone's RPP because it'd involve orcs and humans sometimes working together. You can't 'be the change,' not until there's a world where this sort of thing actually gets.

Songweaver&co. almost did it, almost, and kudos to them(though that clan had many problems we discussed elsewhere, and was as good as it was bad, but was REALLY REALLY good when it was good, and only sorta bad when it was bad). Hillmen vs. orcs vs. Utterby was an interesting dynamic, but orcs remained the same: unable to produce sustainable conflict with Men of Twilight.

SoI-That-Will-Be can have sustained, low-level conflict that explodes into bursts of high-level conflict. Men-of-Twilight can have low-level conflict with Men of Shadow, and Men of Darkness can likewise with Orcs.

So: close orcs. Close Utterby. Close Laketown. Do whatever you like, I don't care, but sustainable conflict isn't on players *until* Staff create a world where it can actually exist. You can't 'be the change,' not in this world you've made, Frigga. Laketown won't fix anything, not if orcs exist. But orcs are an amazing sphere from everything I've heard, so have a place for those players and a plan if you do decide that sustainable conflict's worth designing.

I'm sad to hear that Laketown's not close!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Two weeks?

More to point, what's actually broken that it's even going to fix? Laketown's just a bigger Utterby with more fishing crafts. Utterby's big enough as-is. Laketown's an air castle, for all it'd actually fix. New shiny rooms aren't the 'problem' with SoI, not what the players are actually bothered by. Nobody's sitting around thinking about how 'this game would be so much better, if only this entire CITY was a dock!'

Laketown's what we need...if everything else people brought up gets fixed when it happens.

[Gobbo]

Tehkory hit on a point..what is Laketown suppose to change? All of its clans are still NPC run. I've seen the layout, cool alright.

The only difference is an under-docks area that is 'suppose' to allow for a criminal element to exist. Watch what happens either
1. No pc's take over and staff have to run an npc crime thing for plots (I heard this is a plan)
2. Pc's DO take over the crime part of it but its done pretty shit.
3. Pc's Do take over the crime part of it and the guard gets pissed off one day and massacres the entire under-docks and it never recovers.
5. Pc's take over and do a good job. You get a neat little mafia thing going on.

So far that is ALL laketown offers. Do you know what else it offers? I hear there is a stables. Yay we can finally have mounts..but wait we still have mirkwood and staff have been singing 'mounts can't operate in the woods.'. SO why are you changing your tune.

Laketown is not the savior. Its redecoration and it isn't designed to address the problems of the mud. Changes need to happen over the short term before we ever move to Laketown.

Frigga, 'you be the change' 90% of this is a staff issue. What have you been up to in the last..3 months? I thought you had a focus on crafts, whats up with farming after a year of beta?

Staff are volunteers and I have no problem with that you are not obligated to do anything, but you Frigga just come around from time to time and say something condescending and unhelpful. Do you do anything else?

[Rishte]

The only difference is an under-docks area that is 'suppose' to allow for a criminal element to exist. Watch what happens either
1. No pc's take over and staff have to run an npc crime thing for plots (I heard this is a plan)
2. Pc's DO take over the crime part of it but its done pretty shit.
3. Pc's Do take over the crime part of it and the guard gets pissed off one day and massacres the entire under-docks and it never recovers.
5. Pc's take over and do a good job. You get a neat little mafia thing going on.

There are so many differences between Laketown and Utterby. If all you're thinking of is Underdocks and potentially criminal aspects there, you're in for an amusing awakening when it comes to other surprises. Oh man, its going to be like watching a bunch of kids at Christmas. Going to be an amah-zing day when you guys see all of what we have in store. But I suppose, there will always be the nay-sayers and the haterz-who-hate. I really dig the positive players we have, they keep staff members like me working hard and excited to make the game even more fun.

So far that is ALL laketown offers. Do you know what else it offers? I hear there is a stables. Yay we can finally have mounts..but wait we still have mirkwood and staff have been singing 'mounts can't operate in the woods.'. SO why are you changing your tune.

Laketown is not the savior. Its redecoration and it isn't designed to address the problems of the mud. Changes need to happen over the short term before we ever move to Laketown.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Frigga, 'you be the change' 90% of this is a staff issue. What have you been up to in the last..3 months? I thought you had a focus on crafts, whats up with farming after a year of beta?

First off, Frigga is Elder Staff so her focus is giving me lists to do. Guess whose job is farming crafts? Me. Guess who has put in a MEOWTAIN OF CRAFTS in the past few months? Me. You haven't had a PC with farming in this time-frame so you wouldn't know what's all up in their business of late. You could have been reading Newsletters which document all of the fun stuff I have added to farming, but its cool. I mean, I suppose I could pause doing the ten priority things on my list to put in more farming crafts if that'll appease you but I was thinking Orcs would love the 50+ things going in for them right now. I could pause putting in gambling, thieving, smuggling and outposts to you know, add more farming. But I was under the impression more people wanted THAT stuff than they wanted to milk my goats. But okay. I'll ruminate on it.

Staff are volunteers and I have no problem with that you are not obligated to do anything, but you Frigga just come around from time to time and say something condescending and unhelpful. Do you do anything else?

Be respectful. First and foremost. You have no idea what you speak of considering I work with Frigga more than I do Icarus, and I think I live on his couch right now (figuratively.... right... >.>). Assuming never does anyone a bit of good, now does it. I pester Frigga from sun up to sun down, asking about this craft being possible, this one, should we go here, should we have this check and that check, would cows be more plausible in this town, should this be foraged, should that be grown, does this herb need the shadows of the Murk, does this flower need a field, can I set babies to morph to breadloaves, can I do this, should I do that, should we put this easteregg here. Etc. Etc. Etc. Literally every day I speak with her. Every day we hash out more and more for YOU guys to enjoy. Every day I take out HOURS of my day, my life, my job, my time, to ensure you guys get to enjoy more and more of a real, tangible game with a viable, breathing ecosystem. I can only do so much. Frigga can only do so much. It is moments like this where a player assumes we just sit on our butts and doing nothing that I look at all my hard work and wonder if I would be better off using all the time I devote to make you guys amah-zing stuff is better served going shopping and buying new shoes. Shoes to then use as projectiles.

So in summation. Do not be disrespectful. You don't spit on the waitress before she brings you your meal.

If you want to grease the wheel and get me to work even harder, even quicker be -positive-. Negativity gets you a litter box. A used litter box. That is all.


Post Script. Nimrod is conservative in his estimations. I am a machine.

[bjg2k1us]

Yeah, I'm not sure how 'but we'll have thieves down the road!' or 'be the change by trying to start your own clan that still has to fit in with our mostly unsupported staff clans' addresses the facts that:

- SOI is barely populated enough to support one sphere

- having orcs and humans as player spheres reduces interaction potential to 'kill or be killed'

- the lack of intersphere potential means that staff essentially have to run two separate games, and provide any and all non-PK based interaction separately for both

- the problems caused by the PK-centric sphere design haven't gone anywhere, they're just less visible as less people participate

There are four likely paths forward:

1) Laketown opens, 'grey' sphere opens, orcs close. 'Unfair' to orc players, staff work that's gone into that sphere is 'wasted'.

2) Orcs stay, 'grey' sphere opens, Laketown DOESN'T open. 'Unfair' to Utterby playeres, staff work for that sphere and Laketown is 'wasted'. Game completely deviates from its proposed theme.

3) Laketown opens, orcs stay. Nothing really changes. No problems are solved. Staff still have to run two separate games.

4) Laketown opens, orcs stay, 'grey' sphere opens. Potential for interactions increases. PK problems remain. Staff have to run two-and-a-half separate games and balance three spheres.


Really, the least viable long-term option to me seems to be #3. Each of the others has distinct drawbacks, but could work given the right circumstances.



I'm appreciative of the fact that Laketown is being billed as so much more than 'big Utterby' (I wouldn't have any interest in the game getting there if that wasn't the case), but having orcs as the other sphere is essentially reducing player agency across the lines to 'kill other players', and completely divides staff's energies and efforts into two unrelated and mutually non-beneficial projects. I have felt, and will continue to feel, that this is a serious mistake for SOI... and that it continues to sap at the game's potential, no matter how badly staff want to chalk it up to 'the players just aren't doing what we envisioned for some reason'.

[cfelch]

Ahh, the I'm unappreciated argument.
The usual retort for when staff is criticised.

Apparently the newsletter is not doing a very good job of keeping players up--to-date on staff activity.
Which makes it hard for staff to have ballads written of their glorious deeds.
Maybe throw a link to it somewhere in the login screen?

Honestly though, good things are expected, bad things get criticized.
Such is the unfair way of the world.
Criticizing that without a workable solution is not constructive.

[Rishte]

Growth needs space. Always. To diminish is to go backwards when we want to go forward.

[cfelch]

To make a farming analogy (it seems to fit).

Sometimes burning the field is the best way to make room for the next season's growth.

[Frigga]

I don't really want people to write me glorious ballads, but you know, I wouldn't turn one down.

Staff are volunteers and I have no problem with that you are not obligated to do anything, but you Frigga just come around from time to time and say something condescending and unhelpful. Do you do anything else?

So ... are condescending and unhelpful comments not useful then? Should we all agree not to say them? I make comments attempting to be encouraging, apparently I failed. Lesson learned. Back to my dark hole of uselessness.

[MrT2G]

The Staff could do more, but it only takes one motivated, fair staffer to bring an entire sphere alive. Similarly, it only takes one lazy, biased staffer to kill an idea/clan/sphere.

The players could do a lot more. I see no one trying to spearhead anything. Maybe I just don't see it, but I believe if enough players were trying to accomplish something, I would at least see signs of it.

So instead of trying to blame anyone else, whether you are a staffer or players, try going out there and making something happen yourself. If the players ignore it or staff kills it, then come back and complain.

[cfelch]

I would guess that the 'more' that most people want to do is too world-changing to accomplish without staff holding their hand.
In part because we are still in alpha/beta.
Players aren't really in a position to do more then grind or socialize.