Arelith

TBH, I feel like there's too much special snowflake even despite the system implemented to police it. I also strongly believe that unique and special characters add very little to the mix and only threaten the immersion and overall worldbuilding, all while being a frequent source of OOC contention.

I very much understand and even agree with the concerns of favouritsm, and people missing out due to time zones and such.

That said, I also think that we need to reward good rp, to encourage good rp. Otherwise the only way of encouraging/upholding good rp is punishing bad rp.

Let's use it in briefly economic terms.

Two systems

System 1) Everyone is paid the same wage, reguardless of what (if anything) they do.
System 2) Everyone is paid a base wage, but some get more if they do certain tasks, or put in extra work.

I tend to prefer the second system. Where everyone gets something good, but those who work a bit harder/better get things a little faster. That encourages a better 'society' I think, because it awards good behavior. Note that everyone still gets a base amount. Everyone still has access to the same things - but just some get it a bit faster.

On the contrary, penalizing RPR for poor RP is actually a pretty poor punishment if you want them to improve. If someone has been reduced to 0, then what incentive to they have to improve? They already feel like they have the eye of sauron on them from the DM's making going back up even harder, and can't go anywhere further down so why even bother trying to put in the effort? Of course not everyone responds this way, but it's a common reaction to disincentives.

The opposite can also be said for incentives as rewards. Those who for whatever reason don't perform well enough, or aren't noticed for their efforts look over and see someone else getting rewarded while they don't, despite doing their hardest. It breeds resentment in these sorts of people, and antipathy. If their best isn't good enough, then why should they bother putting in the effort in the first place after all?

I'm not saying RPR is a blanket bad system, but it is flawed as a reward/punishment. Less flawed the less it impacts, when races were locked behind 30RPR there was a lot more resentment about not getting that 30, there were practically monthly topics about RPR on the old forum.

Nitro wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:43 pm On the contrary, penalizing RPR for poor RP is actually a pretty poor punishment if you want them to improve. If someone has been reduced to 0, then what incentive to they have to improve? They already feel like they have the eye of sauron on them from the DM's making going back up even harder, and can't go anywhere further down so why even bother trying to put in the effort? Of course not everyone responds this way, but it's a common reaction to disincentives.

The opposite can also be said for incentives as rewards. Those who for whatever reason don't perform well enough, or aren't noticed for their efforts look over and see someone else getting rewarded while they don't, despite doing their hardest. It breeds resentment in these sorts of people, and antipathy. If their best isn't good enough, then why should they bother putting in the effort in the first place after all?

I'm not saying RPR is a blanket bad system, but it is flawed as a reward/punishment. Less flawed the less it impacts, when races were locked behind 30RPR there was a lot more resentment about not getting that 30, there were practically monthly topics about RPR on the old forum.

You must understand though that it's not just 'lowering rpr' it's also level drops, bans, MoDs, ect.
But I think the same is true if you go 'I bend my characters so hard so others have fun, but get absolutly no recognition for it, why bother?'

And I agree, I'm not neccesarly against hard-gating certain things behind RPR, but I think making it a little easier for higher rprs to get some things isn't a bad idea (e.g. the changes to the Good Underdarker Award.)

And as you say, and I agree, RPR is a terrible system, but I do believe it's the best we have.

This is just my opinion and my opinions are not usually popular even when based in truth and steeped with supporting evidence, because I am honest, blunt, and very abrasive in the way I express things. If you are overly sensitive to controversial statements on the internet and might easily find yourself triggered, this is your warning to just ignore the rest of my post.

Arelith is becoming an action PVP server with very polarized and insular groups of players because that is what settlement mechanics, the economy, the RPR and epic sacrifice/rewards system, and everything else rewards. You need a big group of mechanically savvy players with power builds that are loyal to the group above all else and vote for what benefits the group no matter what in order to win or to prosper. If you make a new character and try to accomplish things through creating fun RP and doing what makes sense IC for your character without the backing of a huge group you might have fun for a while until one of those aforementioned groups takes notice and comes in to take over the sandbox and kick out the bad outsider who doesn't deserve to play there because X reasons.

RP is like a plant in a garden. You can try to water it, nourish it, give it plenty of sunlight, etc. so that it will grow. If you're lucky other players around you might do the same with other plants and eventually you end up with a nice garden full of nice plants. The problem is there's so many thorns (established groups of old players) already deeply rooted everywhere, it is hard to cultivate any new grass roots RP without being choked out by these thorns. They are hogging the nutrients from the soil (quarters, shops, settlements, castles, guild halls, etc.) and also blocking the sunlight (DM attention) and pricking any would-be gardener who tries to do anything about them. (PVP gank squads, sudden evictions, pariah/exile, bullying, toxicity, slander, etc.)

So you can be a gardener and get constantly pricked by thorns which you can never remove. Or you can get a flamethrower (PVP) and torch the whole garden while laughing evilly. As someone sitting at RPR 20 who is not part of any of these big thorny groups, knowing I will probably never have the ambition or the opportunity to earn RPR 30, I'm going to lean towards just picking up the flamethrower. I've seen enough of my plants wither and die and I'm tired of my hands bleeding. As a player there's not much I can do except voice my discontent and then worry about my own enjoyment. I've tried making a difference but as one player with no big groups backing me there's not much I can do. No one listens to me OOC and anything I do IC will be quickly trampled on by someone who does have people listening to them OOC who also has vastly greater resources IC than I will.

So what could the DM's and the developers do?

Well, I've been shouting this a while now. More wilderness quarters. More guild halls. More places where a random new player could set up shop, make friends, start their own group and grow RP organically, that can't simply be taken away by some bigger already established group on a whim the moment they enter into conflict with the wrong veteran player or staff member. We need more fertile ground and less thorns. Settlement mechanics are a thorn. Settlements are thorny ground that you can't plant anything on without a big group of players backing you and even then it can be a struggle if not impossible. Castles would be great but they are tied to settlements. Most of the guild halls are tied to settlements. If all the ground is covered in thorns nothing new and fresh is going to grow there.

Give us more places like Skaljard, where there are shops and quarters and merchants but no IC player run government with the power to exclude people. More guild houses and castles that AREN'T tied to settlements. More wagons, caves, fortresses, camps, stuff like that. The settlement mechanics are 90% of the problem and 90% of server resources are tied to settlements. Scrap or totally rework settlement mechanics or add stuff outside settlements for players to use. And of course keep cracking down on quarter loggers and crack down more on metagaming. Maybe start looking at some of these OOC groups and the people who keep getting suddenly elected to settlement leader positions on characters who never lived in or visited those settlements before.

I love Arelith, I love cultivating RPing here and love making RP fun for others. But after nearly 4000 hours on Arelith and seeing the same events repeat themselves year after year and seeing friend after friend quit because of the same people and same reasons I'm feeling pretty discouraged about putting more time and energy into that. Making power builds and killbashing people in PVP ends up being more rewarding than trying to make fun RP, and that is sad.

Well, since we're writing opinions. I disagree with most of what you just said, I think that's you becoming jaded and burnt out, seeing only the negative and exaggerating problems that actually aren't that big.

More neutral quarters would be nice though, the ones we have are very sought after, even in the most remote locations.

Nitro wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:13 pm Well, since we're writing opinions. I disagree with most of what you just said, I think that's you becoming jaded and burnt out, seeing only the negative and exaggerating problems that actually aren't that big.

There's definitely some truth to that. Things certainly aren't that bleak for everyone. But there are things that could be improved. Like I said, it's just my opinion, and I'm not a popular guy.

I don't entirely disagree with what was said there. I don't think there's so much intentional favoritism on part of the DMs/dev team/etc, but much more that certain aspects of Arelith have really calcified power around these ooc structures. That calcified power in turn then makes it easier for those players to ICly be influential, noticed and contribute in ways that are very positive, further solidifying their power, and it's a vicious cycle.

This is part of the reason I love New Guldorand, it is for the most part a way to start on (mostly) equal footing with such a large community that those calcified power structures are dilluted a bit. Guld has created a lot of niches for RP that simply did not exist before as a result of being a large melting pot. It's everything I wanted out of Andunor when I made my first UD character.

I think there is a tendency for players to hold onto leadership power through old characters - whether out of comfort, not wanting to lose touch with other players in their IC network, or whatever. The trouble with that is, sometimes it feels a bit stale. Especially when you meet those same characters on your second, third or fourth character in a year, say. These characters are often in a position to direct stories and direction with significantly more ease than fresher characters. I do hope New Guldorand, with it's unusual leadership system, can eradicate that a bit.
One of the quotes of 30/40 rpr criteria on the wiki defines them as 'movers and shakers', which is hard to be when a player goes through characters faster (which is important to keep the world fresh).

Also, actually achieving 30/40 rpr is possibly more difficult than suggested by the wiki, as I know a multitude of players who create immersive, story-sharing PCs that are stuck at 20 rpr.

To a few lines from the wiki:

"30: Has an awesome character, is willing to pass the limelight around, makes interesting and immersive rp, but isn't necessarily great at world building, or making grand storylines."

"30: Encourages others to RP well by RPing well themselves, tries to make their RP fun for more than just themselves and has an interesting character"

" Does not abuse mechanics, does not illustrate a 'must win' attitude, good sportsmanship, loses gracefully, takes victory kindly, and writes an interesting character that requires little to no DM supervision or assistance."

Ah, yea.. when I first asked about RPR, the description I got was basically something like..

RPR 10: "You're an unknown factor, but that shouldn't last long."

RPR 20: "You're a 'verified roleplayer', which is what the overwhelming majority end up at."

RPR 30: "You're a basically a community event manager, creating events for dozens of people, and you're essentially a household name."

RPR 40: "You could probably be a DM, such is your level of contribution and involvement in not just the RP community IC but the OOC organization and administration of Arelith."

The above is probably not 100% accurate, but it seems to fairly fit what I've observed.

The GrumpyCat wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:50 pm I very much understand and even agree with the concerns of favouritsm, and people missing out due to time zones and such.

That said, I also think that we need to reward good rp, to encourage good rp. Otherwise the only way of encouraging/upholding good rp is punishing bad rp.

Let's use it in briefly economic terms.

Two systems

System 1) Everyone is paid the same wage, reguardless of what (if anything) they do.
System 2) Everyone is paid a base wage, but some get more if they do certain tasks, or put in extra work.

I tend to prefer the second system. Where everyone gets something good, but those who work a bit harder/better get things a little faster. That encourages a better 'society' I think, because it awards good behavior. Note that everyone still gets a base amount. Everyone still has access to the same things - but just some get it a bit faster.

I mean we got neither system currently. As many people, for over 10 years RL, still have no 5% or rpr 30 equivalent (changing some things to application has helped this but also puts burden on DMs); so I am excited to see what system you have in mind.

Anything representing the past RPR 30 gate, the literal requirements and subjective requirements of such, is by no means a good standard/gate to prevent someone from playing a stupid ogre over a stupid hobgoblin (the former being a more fitting option for said rp).

If everyone gets automatic progression towards an award, but subjective observations of good RP stilll leads to it faster; I think that is a great compromise. However if "everyone will get it on the merit that everyone's RP is observed, some just faster than others"; I think we have enough anecdotal evidence to say otherwise. Its not even on "bad time zones". I could make bets (and win) to log on during prime times with no DM present on the server at all just to unstuck my character and have to resort to Discord just to get assistance (even though we are discouraged to do such).

The Impregnable Derp wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:19 pm

Nitro wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:13 pm Well, since we're writing opinions. I disagree with most of what you just said, I think that's you becoming jaded and burnt out, seeing only the negative and exaggerating problems that actually aren't that big.

There's definitely some truth to that. Things certainly aren't that bleak for everyone. But there are things that could be improved. Like I said, it's just my opinion, and I'm not a popular guy.

Just as a fyi, I believe the entirty of the Docks district in new guld is not covered by settlment mechanics.

The GrumpyCat wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:46 pm Just as a fyi, I believe the entirty of the Docks district in new guld is not covered by settlment mechanics.

If true that is very good news. How many quarters and ships are there in that district though?

Edit: I scoped the place out, of course everything is already taken.