Raising Server Numbers
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@people said in Raising Server Numbers:
@SpiffyHas you put a lot of words in my mouth. I don't care that you don't care about Arelith. They have a system that works well. That's why we should consider doing what they do. Because they have forty players and we three. That's why Spiffy.
I don't play on Arelith for a reason, their entire system is based around the player mentality of that particular server. The same can be said about EFU.
Arelith has that "Everyone is a special snowflake, also did you just assume my Gender!??!?!" vibe that I avoid like the plague, EFU has that "It's okay to be an inconsiderate ass to anyone because they're also assholes too and that makes it alright" approach at handling things. They're both different spectrums and coa sits somewhere in between where people don't get coddled, there's no "congratulations timmy, you're the last winner" going on, and there's no "If you ain't first you're last" either.
I don't like basing player mentality changing policies off either servers because I don't like either server.
Most excuses as to why apps are bad don't even apply, if you're not good at apps there are so many players and dm's that are more than willing to help you with it if you just ask.
If you don't like writing apps, I've straight up written apps FOR players from the ground up for them. And I know dm's have done that for players as well.
And someone thinks the reason apps are requested is to punish players, well... that person's dead wrong.
Some perks have expectations to them and responsibilities, an app lets the dm team see and discuss whether or not the player grasps what those expectations and responsibilities are.
If a player who absolutely loathes pvp and flips out whenever their pc gets the short end of a stick in a conflict and just can't roll with the punches, apps for a Drow Infernalist, and their goal is to murder and torture pc's... DM's are going to ask that player some questions... obviouslyl
I liked the idea of appless week for entering factions, but subraces aren't common and should probably require an app.
Now, should some more common subraces be easier to get approved? Sure! Tieflings and Genasi should be a lot more common in a city than Githyanki and drow.
But that's already the case with the app system, it's already much easier to get a Tiefling or Genasi app approved than rarer races, and for the most part as long as you have an idea that makes sense for the behavior/background of the race you want, even if your plot is lame it'll probably still be approved (dm's just want to know that you're not going to try making a LG Tiefling without a damn good reason)!Something I would agree on is the app process being expedited, right now with the way its set up you need to wait for votes from dm's that aren't active in game and will probably never see your character in action anyway. Maybe having a category of perks that can be apped for that require fewer yes votes to be put in confirmation would be in order. But for the most part I agree with the app system and think it aught to stay.
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First things first - get more DMs
It's not easy sure, but it needs to happen. A server is boring with no DMs.
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@solarfall said in Raising Server Numbers:
First things first - get more DMs
It's not easy sure, but it needs to happen. A server is boring with no DMs.
Hey dude, you know we wanna.
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@Zool you know where to find me!
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@solarfall said in Raising Server Numbers:
@Zool you know where to find me!
If it's at a nearby pub, I'm in :)
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@Zool I like the way you think.
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@Zool said in Raising Server Numbers:
@solarfall said in Raising Server Numbers:
@Zool you know where to find me!
If it's at a nearby pub, I'm in :)
Don't fall for it. He'll make you walk for miles to a pub in the middle of nowhere :P
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Here's the two things that sucks with apps.
#1: You need to wait.
#2: Someone has to agree with you on if your goals make sense or not, like, if it's worth it to allow you to play X because of Y.
Personally, I don't even make myself a background or even a build idea when I first make a character. I just make like.. a character, on the spot, with a general idea of the personality, like: "I'll make a dwarven wizard who's so ugly his momma didn't love him and who's so greedy he can't make friends." or: "I'll make a warrior who plays the lute and wants to be a musician, but has no bard/magic levels."
I'm not the type to play weird subraces, but perhaps sometimes I'd feel like trying out an earth genasi, and then see if I get the 'feeling' out of the character. That's what makes me stick on a character or not, the feeling I get out of playing it.
With apps, you might work your ass on a concept, backstory, goals and shit, and then realise that "Meh, actually, I don't enjoy it as much as I thought."
Also I noticed something else.
Permadeaths. I've noticed that everytime a group of players get wiped, we lose one or two, for a month or two.
Sure, it makes the events more fun because of the risk, and I think that what makes this server or EFU different from others is that risk, but.. I guess we have to live with the fact that people will quit once they lose a character.
I am a slow RPer, as in, it takes time for me to build up things. And honestly, with my current main whom I've played since June (That's just 3 months, right?), I've seen SO MANY of her 'circle of friends' go, that I have a hard time to figure out what I can do. Should it always be "short and nice", or can it be "long and prosper"?
Once a character accomplished their goals, should they really retire, or can't they just.. have new goals, once theirs has been accomplished? It's not really a question seeking an awnser, just feed for thoughts.
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@Amarant said in Raising Server Numbers:
Permadeaths. I've noticed that everytime a group of players get wiped, we lose one or two, for a month or two.
It stands to mention that the people who take breaks after a permadeath are the same people who take a break after straight up retiring their characters legitimately. Some people just take breaks between concepts...
Just about any permadeath event will have a disclaimer about its risks, players go into it knowing those risks. And we have pvp rules about permadeath conflicts stating that there needs to be a buildup.
This means that if you don't like pvp and avoid it, and you don't want to get involved in a conflict that leads to perma.... you probably won't get perma'd in pvp. If you did, then someone broke those pvp rules probably...In short, the people who get permad either instigated the thing that got them permad, to then freak out about the result.
Or they knew it was perma and are okay with it, they just happen to be the types of players who take breaks between concepts (which is fine and inevitable).DM's can/have approved apps that have "I'll just wing it" in them at times, as long as you have a direction you'll wing it in written down. I've seen some apps before that had a very vague and broad goal and no specific detailed plan leading up to it, but because they'd already proven that this style works for them and that they can make things interesting. The interesting goal was good enough to get it passed.
Spiffy only spends 5 minutes on his apps for example... Some players just overthink what an app needs to be like methinks. -
Spiffy App:
George Havenstorm is an old town thug tired of being dirt poor, sick, and spat upon by people who think they are better than him cause he was born on the streets to a whore instead of a mansion with a midwife. He picked up a club (a broken chair leg) and went into the spire with the thoughts of being an adventurer.
Name: George Havenstorm
Class: Fighter
Deity: Tempus
Race: Human
Alignment: True Neutral (borderline chaotic)I am applying to play an Old Town Thug with a special weapon: Mamma's Favorite Chair (leg) with the following stats:
+6 intimidate
+1d6 bludgeon damageGoals:
Get into constant fistfights/brawls with his chair leg. Believing the chair he broke so long ago was the best chair he ever had, and that everyone should agree. Pummel them until they agree it's the best chair leg.Establish a territory in Old Town, say it belongs to the chairbreakers. Recruit players and make them use chair legs to prove they are members of my gangs. People who refuse to use clubs to smash people on the head are spies and shall be beaten until they experience chair enlightenment.
Once establishing himself as a legitimate gang, he'll claim the Citizen has sponsored his crew in order to bring down Lhal, getting another player to plagiarize former citizen announcements and mimic the handwriting to prove he is indeed one of them. Once he has garnered local old town support, he'll lead a riot in the Downtown District and cause as much property damage as possible, get thrown into the Pit.
once in the pit, he will become some sort of Pit Prophet and post a bunch of shit down there and hopefully a dm will pay attention to me and together a prison riot occurs and I escape with an npc army
I pull a Raaz'haadi and hide my army in the sewers as I challenge Lhal to a duel, ordering my army to save my life should it look like i am about to lose.
cause massive pvp npc event
die
Thus, that is how a spiffy app looks.
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See, I can tell he pulled that shit out of his ass in less than 4 mins but I'd probably approve it because I know he'll die before the third paragraph of his goals, before that happens some real shit between other people that got dragged into it would have started and things would get moving in the server :P
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Lower the death penalty. Less frustration means less rage quitting. kham logic.
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@Khamal said in Raising Server Numbers:
Lower the death penalty. Less frustration means less rage quitting. kham logic.
As long as you're okay with more xp penalties to balance the death penalty lowering.
Mechanical balance is kind-of a necessary thing Kham.Also the death penalty gets people to legitimately fear death, we still have people not roleplaying fear of death properly even with the penalty so imagine how bad it'd be if death penalties were a joke.
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I can do that too. Then I'd need to wait a few days to a week before playing it and testing if it's actually 'fun' to play a character like that, because you rarely know before you do it.
After a week, the hype can shrink for a few people.
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I do agree that an app like that doesn't require the entire dm team to vote on it. Maybe 2-3 dms to sign off on it.
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Maybe changing the app policy for "lightweight apps" so that only 2 yes votes are needed before the app gets put into confirmation would be an idea. And if someone votes no during confirmation period then it moves onto a "heavyweight app" and needs to go through the same process as the bigger perks.
Would be an idea to expedite small perks like... apping for a chair leg.
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@Chips a certain DM has literally written most of my apps for me.
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@Fearmoho12 said in Raising Server Numbers:
@Zool said in Raising Server Numbers:
@solarfall said in Raising Server Numbers:
@Zool you know where to find me!
If it's at a nearby pub, I'm in :)
Don't fall for it. He'll make you walk for miles to a pub in the middle of nowhere :P
Haha! You'll never let me of for that will you? I did then give you a lift back though.... :)
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IMO, and I have said it many times, The continued gaps between what you can accomplish as a Euro player vs an American player, will continue to drive our European player base away. I have tried for 8 months now to "plot against American time zones players" or advance American based plot lines (Read Spiffy plots), and I am slowly reaching the conclusion that I might as well go chase Wind mills and call them dragons.
Two or three European Plot and storytelling DMs would do a LOT to return the very large, latent player base we have around GTM afternoons and Evenings.
If the DM team has trouble finding said potential DMs, then at least focus on how to spread the fun across player bases. DMless plotlines, burying a secret, persistant chest with a bit of treasure, and throw some monsters around it, and then post a note on the forum stating Myron lost his marbles, and go find them, would allow me, Cake, Hinx, and the rest to grab some people and go look for something.
But on a server where advancement is restricted to needing DMs, Team Europe could conjure the most awesome plot to kill off King Azoun V, we could plot, we could involve every single player and character who logged in, but without a dm presence, it would amount to chasing wind mills.
And it is not an attack on our DM team, I know Spiffy would give his left arm to be able to DM 24/7, and would be there if he could, just as Puffy would do all she could.
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@O-louth
Having a dm would DEFINITELY help, I'm not saying that you're wrong or anything, I think there's truth to your statement.But I do play in European timezones as well as american timezones, I've got a very flexible schedule... I have never seen you in game more than once every 1 or 2 weeks, so I never really got to interact with Bleucroft despite going out of my way to try and meet her IG.
Even if the people who typically play in american timezones play in euro timezones, it amounts to nothing if those euro players just don't log in to interact with them, the same is true for american players in an american timezone.
If I were the dm the same would apply, I could easily accommodate European timezones but it wouldn't do much good if the people making the complaints never logged in for it.
But the root of the issue isn't solved with just DMs (though it'd help). There needs to be content to push that can be done with or without a dm.
Between forum warrioring, and the npc system Sithspawn put in (Was it called the provider or something?) where you can give players stuff without being on as a dm you can definitely give players outside your timezone support.
Which means the issue is there aren't enough European players for Europeans to play with... Or plots they can push without bumping into American timezone players.
It's a case of having flexible metaplots or just faction plots that don't hinge on one or two people in specific being around, combined with dm's having the tools to help you out even when they aren't online (those tools do exist and have been implemented)