Arelith

Old characters.

Not in the sense of respectable age characters in play but characters that I have been active on the server for years.

This is a constructive criticism that I am trying to make towards a kind of players on the server, not all characters with years of life fall into this category but I cannot deny that a large number are.

I call these characters "blocks"

And now let me explain

I have been playing arelith for a little over two years now and I have played many characters, and most of them were eliminated when their story ended or simply because I found them boring, and I noticed that there are some characters who were always present, some characters who were around before I arrived and others who have never left in recent years, and is it wrong that they play the same guy or girl for soo long?
Absolutely not! if they are passionate about those characters they are very free to play them I am not criticizing their love for the creations.
What I am criticizing and what they do with such characters.

These blocks are a number of players with venerable experience in the game and an extremely long-lived character who do not create opportunities, stories or events for young players (intended both as new players on the server and as low-level characters) but go around demonstrating the their power, buying quarters and markets around the island by demonstrating their economic power or taking passive political positions in different factions and settlements without actually changing or creating anything.

I don't want to mention names for reasons of respect, and I'm not even asking these players to stop playing, also because many of them are extremely good players.

But please really, open your doors to RP opportunities, don't stay closed with yourself and / or with your little circle of powerhouses, stop evaluating a character compared to the level, you don't need to have level 30 to make nice dialogues, nice stories or nice interactions.

But become active faction leaders, or masters, or mercenary customers, or champions, not hermits

Because by staying closed in your circle of friends you will not only be left alone but you will hinder the possibility of innovation, change and fun on the server.

hoping not to be the only one thinking about all this and to have at least made the players I wanted to criticize reflect.
thank you for reading.

I don't think the rewards for rolling are that stellar. If you're lucky you might can play an ogre. More than likely though you're just getting a -2 ECL on your next character. I've rolled several characters with a million gold and that's all I ever got. Seeing as there's no really good reward races unless you get that 5%, it's no surprise a few players just keep playing the same characters for RL years. Honestly, when it comes to a few really well known legacy characters, I would be fine with the DM's just offering them a guaranteed 5% to roll and take their fifty billion gold and mountains of adamantine with them. Otherwise it makes sense they will never roll those characters and instead grind alts for reward farming.

Discord cliques are another big problem. If the leader of a settlement or the owner of a very desired property rolls, chances are it has already been decided over discord who the next settlement leader will be or who the property will be given "sold" to. This is the case with at least Cordor, Guldorand, and Myon. Haven't been around Brog or Bendir enough to say for sure but I'd wager it is the same. So there is not a lot of opportunity for new players/characters to gain notable property or political power. If a new player/character does by chance happen to get a shop or a nice house, they might as well be putting their head on the chopping block because those aforementioned cliques will be digging for any IC justification to take it from them.

I'm not sure there is any viable solution other than the DM's intervening.

Old characters are... just there. It doesnt mean anything. An old character doesnt equal powerful or rich. The old characters I see around actually have shitty builds and they only RP all day about philosophies and lore. I want them to stay.

This thread isnt about old characters, it's about cliques and it should be locked.

AstralUniverse wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 5:10 pm Old characters are... just there. It doesnt mean anything. An old character doesnt equal powerful or rich. The old characters I see around actually have shitty builds and they only RP all day about philosophies and lore. I want them to stay.

This thread isnt about old characters, it's about cliques and it should be locked.

I'm not sure what "Cliques" should mean, if is another name for Cabal i agreed,

"Clique" is a bunch of friends, really. This is not something that's discouraged by the staff around here last time I checked.

What you are really complaining about, is when a bunch of friends take over a settlement and remain in power for really long time, which is, again, something that is not discouraged by the staff as long as things are kept IC.

AstralUniverse wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 6:13 pm "Clique" is a bunch of friends, really. This is not something that's discouraged by the staff around here last time I checked.

What you are really complaining about, is when a bunch of friends take over a settlement and remain in power for really long time, which is, again, something that is not discouraged by the staff as long as things are kept IC.

Actualy is not something i'm against if Bunch of friends take over a settlement... my problem is when they close the settlement for evryone else

What do you mean by closing a settlement? Surely you dont mean exiling anyone not a part of the clique because that's impossible.

AstralUniverse wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 6:20 pm What do you mean by closing a settlement? Surely you dont mean exiling anyone not a part of the clique because that's impossible.

One, is possible, without saying names someone is doing that rigth now with two settlement (One of the two is official a guildhouse but the difference between the two is realy tin)

two, i mean do not allow people who are not friend of yours to join such organization even if you have all the RP standards and BG for been a part of such guild/ group

gordan wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 7:09 pm One, is possible

Is objectively, mechanically and mathematically, NOT possible to exile more than.. what.. 10 or 12 people.. depending on the size of the settlement (which, the bigger it is, the easier it is to out-vote those cliques anyway).

gordan wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 7:09 pm two, i mean do not allow people who are not friend of yours to join such organization even if you have all the RP standards and BG for been a part of such guild/ group

You can speculate that this is ooc based and that they are laughing on discord while rejecting you.. but... this is 99% of the time just them not liking your character, in character. And I mean that as a general thing for everyone.

discord cliques are another big problem. If the leader of a settlement or the owner of a very desired property rolls, chances are it has already been decided over discord who the next settlement leader will be or who the property will be given "sold" to

Odds are it was all decided IC by the chars around the char that was rolled, which you dont realize because "you" arent yourself involved with such a group. Basically, you're assuming the worse, through poor information, from people you dont play with. And dont always assume what you see on discord as the start and end of decision making: most likely whatever is there is the point of an iceberg of a lot of IC rp.

Say that the transition from X to Y was very smooth. Was it smooth because of a ooc clique or because most chars in the settlement was sure, ICly, that there was no question about it and all had their own IC reasons to support such a change? Id suggest to not naturally assume the former. It probably will get very tiring.

Best way to encourage someone to roll is having the DM team approach them, let them know they had a big impact in the server and offer to have that PC turned NPC and talk about it. Limit it to 1 NPC per player always so it's not overly populated.

But I see how this idea would make a lot of people angry as people always have divergent opinions about characters.

I really like old characters, it's great to see someone passionate about telling a story that isn't so ephemeral, not that longer stories are better, mind you. They can be a great resource for in-game lore and have story-telling and mentorship potential. I do prefer to see them step back from major faction leadership and take on an advisory role, if any. Finding a goal for an older character outside of their faction's goals is difficult but essential.

This sounds like it should be a report. Not a thread.

Just going to lock this.