Laurel wrote:
11. Guilds are no longer ran by players, but there are hard-coded indicators when punishment/expell is introduced.
Feel free to discuss above and add your own.
The points which deal with item balance and player growing sound interesting.
Regarding the item Nr. 11, however, I do have certain points I would like to bring up. Forgive for long texts, the hour is a bit late and I may be somewhat rambling. I also realize that some of what I say may have been discussed to death earlier, but, then again, these are sort of eternal questions in a MUD, and maybe I will manage to add something after all.
As far as I have noticed during the years, people most frequently imply they play Genesis for the following reasons:
- as a game to be "beaten", aka power playing -- getting to be the wealthiest/meanest/most powerful/most advanced character;
Which supposedly lets you beat the most difficult/advanced challenges the game can provide. This is how most single player and MMORPGs are made
- as an environment to roleplay in some fascinating fantasy setting, to live a role of a participant in the Rangers, Knights of Solamnia, Dragonarmy member or Morgul mage, we all know the possibilities;
- to socialize. This is an underlying reason that is usually omitted, however, it only stands to reason that if you play a MULTIPLAYER game you are likely to be interested to play with other people, possibly against other people (playerfighting is a form of socializing, too). Otherwise there are scores of single player options of a vast number of games.
Now, obviously, most people would play for all three and maybe some other reasons in some degree. There is a difference in attitude toward certain game things, however, depending on which things are a priority.
For a pure power player, more likely, all content is there to be explored, chosen and used depending on his pleasure and solely how he likes it. Especially, if he feels that by investing his time and intelligence, he has "earned" the right to some advanced level of content.
For a roleplayer, the environment of the game and the role he chooses to play will influence HOW he uses the content and how HE would like to fit the environment, building on what exists in the game context.
For both a pure socializer and a roleplayer, socializiation will be an extremely pleasureable and important part. You can no more roleplay in front of a mirror as you can pick a chair out of it.
Now, in Genesis there exist this weird thing: player run guilds. I will comment on the problems of those a bit later, however, first, consider how really unique this thing is.
-- The Good Thing--
Player run guilds are an extremely useful tool for people wishing to roleplay to a significant extent.
There can be no code to automate human decisions. There can be some fairly simple triggers -- alignment, killing of right/wrong persons that the game can track and mete out automatic promotion or punishment. But anything more complex than that -- anything, in fact, that promotes RP -- anything that promotes and ensures the feeling of really LIVING in character -- can only be done by players. And enforced by players.
As you can't roleplay in front of a mirror (unless you are hopelessly past any definition of normal), so you can't really feel you are living a character of, oh, say, ranger, if a third of the other rangers run around and help orc and goblin (players), and just ignore you and anybody else who would like, just as you do, to play in terms of the role the guild promotes.
These player run guilds might be by now almost THE one unique aspect of Genesis. They go together with hiding numbers of the game, having thematic domains and, in general, affinity with roleplaying almost to the extent of a live RPG.
The Genesis guilds provide both the socialization in general, and backbone for roleplay by being player run. Player run guilds are such an unique thing that I have dearly wished for in MMORPGs I have played. Obviously, in a game you pay for, there usually can be no question of gaining or losing access to some abilities by a decision of another player, except in some limited way -- however, even in WoW they came up with a bit of real guild-provided bonuses that you can only have as long as you are in guild. Guilds themselves, however, as you know, in WoW are almost nothing, but generic organizational tools.
-- The Anecdotal Evidence (or rather, direct experience) --
I started in Genesis back in 1993 or so, I think, when you could join Calians, Monks (I think even Knights, but not sure) almost without player involvement. Guild councils were just starting (I think when I joined Calia didn't have a guild council yet, and it appeared while I played, but not sure. Wasn't paying much attention back then). I was mostly exploring and having fun (Re Albi casino, or wishing well, anyone?) and growing. There were some wars with Vampires, then some years later the Army of Angmar appeared. I wasn't much interested in roleplaying, and, tbh, Calian RP environment (krougs and stuff) seemed to be rather laughable.
Then I left the game, when I returned some 7-9ish years later, there was practically nobody around whom I knew earlier. I started to re-explore the donut, and quite accidentally happened to find Shadow Union pretty soon. The following couple years were the most intense roleplaying I have ever participated in, and I found out how extremely satisfying it was, when surrounded by others enjoying it. Sybarus and SU were able to provide suspension of disbelief on such a scale that I haven't experienced ever, either by reading a book or watching a movie. I literally felt myself BE in the game world much of the time.
Now, this experience was possible because of the quality of the domain theme and how it was presented, and because of the quality of roleplaying of the players I met. It was clear to me by then that nobody can ensure any decent level of roleplaying by code. It can only be reviewed by and acted upon by other players.
This moved me quite a bit towards roleplaying as being a major priority for playing. A roleplayer, in my understanding, gets pleasure by participating and by being able to feel he is living the part in the game world as realistically as it is meaningful within the game.
-- The Ugly ---
The major causes of resentment towards player-run guilds seem to be 4:
1) cronyism
2) standards for joining too high
3) inactivity of guild leaders
4) lack of RP standards set by guild leaders
Now, there is little that can be substantially
proved about (1). It is hard to prove in real life, much more so in game, where players, and especially their characters, are anonymous to a larger extent. In terms of game, as inclining towards roleplaying, I am not that concerned with whether vampires accepted only their buddies, but rather with how well they played being a vampire (no, I never was one either).
Cronyism (in the sense of keeping others out), by the way, only makes sense for a power player. If you are inclined to roleplay, you like and want to have people to roleplay with. If you are inclined towards powerplay first and foremost, you might be more interested in gaining some uber abilities that nobody esle has and which let you keep your number one position.
That said, from my personal experience being a SU, I remember hearing most hilarious rumours floating around about us, most of which I knew not to be true. As one who had no RL or ingame friends at all at that time, I was able to join the Union in a couple of weeks time, which kinda made me shrug when I heard about cronyism in SU or in other "hard to join" guilds. As I said earlier, I do not doubt examples of giving a leg up to a friend exist -- just that as long as the guild is not compromising its roleplay because of that and not denying others to join, from a RP perspective it is rather irrelevant.
But actually, as we saw the playerbase deteriorate and I raised through ranks, it became quite clear, that from the guild perspective we have real trouble with NOT ENOUGH members, and I still have my suspicions that most of the "elitist" guilds were (and possibly are) squirming somehow to keep their standards while somehow managing to scavenge the players who measure up, rather than deliberately keeping everyone out.
Which brings me to (2) -- standards of joining too high. Now, I haven't had experience with other RP-oriented guilds, but as far as I understand, SU was one of the picky ones. As I joined it, I saw, however, that this seemed to be due to the design of the guild as envisioned by its creator. Consider. For a guild that is supposed to roleplay a union of elitist, cultured, graceful warriors in a setting of domain, whose inhabitants are supposed to think they are superior to all the outside world... how would one should think about accepting somebody whose rp is based on bad, halting English, lack of RP/frequent OOC or who is known as a powerplayer indifferent to roleplay? How would he represent the guild? What would the rest of the roleplayers -- both guild and outside -- feel? The RP created was intense, but it naturally lead to having little number of people who were interested in participating in it on the level set.
To me it seems fine that there are guilds which are envisioned by their creator as RP-oriented. Such guilds have much more player involvement -- including many decisions delegated to players -- in order to have the potential for good RP.
There are a number of other guilds, which are not RP heavy -- if you wish to roleplay, you can; if not -- you needn't bother, because their setting is such that RP guildmembers are not affected by whether you do or not. For such guilds, it stands to reason there are no guild councils and no acceptance criteria.
Now, this all might be fine and dandy (although I bet there are grounds for disagreement), but, of course, things change. People move on, guild members leave, the council may become inactive. That is a valid concern and in my opinion there should be some way to remedy it. I don't know whether people should be able to join freely and take over reins, whenever guild management has been inactive for a significant period of time?
Regarding the last point, lack of RP standards, ... it is strange that while it says the opposite to (2), it is sometimes said by the same people [who complain of too high standards].
On that note, I can only say that while in my, as a RP-oriented player, perspective there should be some following of adequate RP standards in RP-oriented guilds, there is nothing to say WHAT that RP should be. I recently read a (probably old) topic here about the shocking fact that Knights are lead by a Black Rose Grandmaster.
... Well, from proper RP perspective, I believe it is wonderful. If that Black Rose knight is roleplaying a corrupt knight who has risen to power and subverted Knighthood, that provides much place to roleplay! Conflict, strife, tension, fantastic. If, however, it is just some boring powerplaying with no interest in RP-basing his actions and interacting RP-wise with others, then it is indeed a pity.
---
At any rate... thanks to all who read this far.
I don't know how many other players feel in a similar way, however, I hope that quite enough are there so that essential parts of roleplaying (such as player-run guilds) remain and that Genesis remains to a large extent a multi-user
role-playing game.
Peace.
