Motivation.
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It seems like general consensus - things are stagnant, period.
There's only so much that can be done by single players in a seeming place of exclusivity. I was more than happy to end my main PC's life in order to get the story moving along in a direction, any direction.
It is my personal opinion that some people are too worried about confrontation and the possible level loss associated with it. As I have heard several times - its not about how many levels you get under your belt, its about the story. Right?
Here's hoping for a small colonic cleansing - cheers!
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Here's hoping V5 comes along soon is more like it though wiping both the RH and Legion out would significantly improve things.
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v5 isn't necessary, just the ability to affect the world like v4 has always been.
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@AWESOMEMAN:
v5 isn't necessary, just the ability to affect the world like v4 has always been.
Except v4 has only really give player's the ability to affect the world in a really shallow way which has boiled down too letting people compete over whose banners should fly over the city. There hasn't been a lot of things which have really affected the server in a meaningful way.
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@O'louth:
The war is coming. And soon. (soonish?) But neither side is just sitting there. We both are working to secure support, additional troops, and tactical advantages. We just have not started swinging swords yet.
Which IMO makes it the most sad war ever on CoA.
I greatly disagree.
I had promised myself not to comment on this war, but I see there are really a lot of misunderstandings, so I probably would better explain my point of view.
I never liked when wars were resolved by a single big event. 10 people logged on a side, 10 on the other, and then 30 other people, totally uninvolved, totally uninterested logged simply because of the "big event" stuff. It was frustrating. It was unfair. It made no sense. If this is what you expect to happen, you will be sorely disappointed.
Wars are different. One must gather allies, move his troops, prepare supply lines, saboutage the enemy's, choose the fields of battleS. There is politic involved. There is tactic involved. And this is how this war IS happening. "Is", not "will". Or do you just want a big event so you can log on the scheduled time and "affect" the outcome?
Now, if you don't see anything of this happen, there is a very simple explanation. There are two armies facing each other to the death. And there are PCs commanding these armies. You want to have a say? How? Do you command a third army? Are you gathering forces comparable to those of the Legion or the Red Hart? Hardly.
And if you are not, you are left with saboutaging one side's efforts. And here is where the big mistake is. Where the conundrum is. Because it is very possible to affect the outcome of this war. The options are out there, and they don't usually even require a DM. Also, as it has been told by many in this thread, people have been moving the past weeks. But if you don't know what they are up to, that is your mistake. If you want to saboutage someone's efforts, but cannot even get to know what their efforts are, how can we expect it will work? Has intrigue been forgotten to this extent?
Just a couple of days ago two groups met in a location of importance, one group being the Legion, another being a group of MGuilders, elves and other people (so, as you can see, it is possible to know what is going on and be involved). This encounter led to a chase, then to a fight, to prisoners being taken, and then to the losing group retaliating, taking prisoners itself, and then to a stand-off, an epic duel between two knights, and eventually to prisoners being traded for other prisoners. As you have been told, things are happening. You may simply be looking the wrong way. Also, I do not know what you may expect more than this. A big event? It will not happen. A group eliminating the members of the other? Is that a good way to handle such matter, eliminating the competition so the war stops having any sense and turns into a DM quest against a group of NPCs?
And one last clarification it seems it's needed. Many have approached us speaking of ways to affect the war. Unfortunately, as interesting as these ideas could be, they were usually disconnected from everything else, or simply did have no follow-up. That's not how this war can work. It's just not possible. This is a big thing that involves two big groups, with heavy consequences. It will be as fair as possible. Both groups will have shared event, or maybe it's better to call them competitions. Anything that will happen to affect this war will happen inside strict boundaries that we create. It's just not possible to let everyone go his own way, with his own idea, else we'll have chaos. It would not be possible to balance these ideas, tie them togather, make it fair. Single ideas do miss the big picture.
And finally, stop speaking of V5 like it was a miraculous balsam. No DM has reduced his dedication, to reserve that time for V4. We are taking it very slowly, using what spare time we have to discuss it. It's several, and I repeat several months away. And don't think it can magically change thing.
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They are, but it isn't being shown to the general public.
This in essence is what makes things less fun. There is no general public on CoA. We are suppose to be a group of friends that get together online and have fun. When a tiny fraction actually know what's going on with the plots and the rest are just used for plot fodder, that is when you get everything from cries of favoritism, to people quitting from sheer boredom.
This thread looks like its turning into another one of those, "This is why coa sucks" threads. If I was going to add my two cents to that subject I would say that the only change from v3 to v4 that mattered in my eyes was that "story telling" took a back seat to "the win". The whole idea of giving control of the server to the player base essentially put the inmates in charge of the Asylum. Heck I'll admit that I am a rank amateur at this role playing business. Most of us are. The dms here are freaking incredible and should probably do the major plot stuff with their mad story telling skills. Everyone raves that v3 was awesome. Well in v3 all the players had to worry about was telling a personal story with a character. We did it by inserting that character into the existing story. In v4 the major plots became more driven by the player base . From my perspective this lead to too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the tribe. Everyone wants to be important. Everyone frets over how they are going to change the entire server. Not creating a server wide splash often leads to feelings of failure. It's BS really. I think if we leave behind the idea that we need to "effect the server" and just settle into a character and tell a personal story, everyone will have a lot less stress in their gaming.
CoA doesn't suck. I think some people just have to create some reasonable expectations of what they are going to get out of the game.
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This in essence is what makes things less fun. There is no general public on CoA. We are suppose to be a group of friends that get together online and have fun. When a tiny fraction actually know what's going on with the plots and the rest are just used for plot fodder, that is when you get everything from cries of favoritism, to people quitting from sheer boredom.
This thread looks like its turning into another one of those, "This is why coa sucks" threads. If I was going to add my two cents to that subject I would say that the only change from v3 to v4 that mattered in my eyes was that "story telling" took a back seat to "the win". The whole idea of giving control of the server to the player base essentially put the inmates in charge of the Asylum. Heck I'll admit that I am a rank amateur at this role playing business. Most of us are. The dms here are freaking incredible and should probably do the major plot stuff with their mad story telling skills. Everyone raves that v3 was awesome. Well in v3 all the players had to worry about was telling a personal story with a character. We did it by inserting that character into the existing story. In v4 the major plots became more driven by the player base . From my perspective this lead to too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the tribe. Everyone wants to be important. Everyone frets over how they are going to change the entire server. Not creating a server wide splash often leads to feelings of failure. It's BS really. I think if we leave behind the idea that we need to "effect the server" and just settle into a character and tell a personal story, everyone will have a lot less stress in their gaming.
Echoing this 100%. There is no focus on individual characters anymore, everyone is focused on how to make their side "win" instead of worrying about telling an interesting story. Back in V3 you didn't need to have a super server wide changing goal rather you just had a to tell an interesting story with your character and if it so happened that you were in a faction more power to you. This led to a lot of interesting stories being told because the focus wasn't necessarily helping your faction win over the other or slay the next big demon. Keep in mind if you wanted to have your faction gain more prominence in the city you could work towards that and there were several characters that did, or go out and slay a monster which was threatening the city. V3 felt more like a sandbox in some ways than V4 has because as long as you told an interesting story which got players to want to come along it didn't really matter whether you wanted to kill Lhal or not. I am not saying we shouldn't let people aim high and let them suceeed if they put the effort into but also let people make impacts in smaller ways and reward them for telling an interesting story at the same time. V4 has been too much macro oriented and not enough micro. Ideally people should be able to pursue which they prefer and both can be equally interesting.
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Basically what count said 100%. Honestly, if you don't see things happening or are unable to get involved, it is because you are looking the wrong way. There are things happening, on both sides, and in multiple factions. There is politics being played, alliances being formed, PvP happening, adventuring happening, intrigue happening etc..
There have been MULTIPLE things I personally have tried to get people involved. The problem is, no one responds to those things. Maybe its because people are anti-legion, or because people are scared to go out and do things. If that's the case, thats your own characters fault or your own fault as a player.
For the people who HAVE gotten involved when I've opened an oppurtunity, I'm quite sure the players can speak for themselves and say that it's interesting (I hope it is, if not, feel free to say that too so I can think of better ideas).
The point is - the option to get involved is there, and there are TONS of things going on behind the scenes. If you aren't involved, it's because you're going about it the wrong way. We're talking about two large armies going to war. I wouldn't personally expect me, being in one of these armies, going out and questing by myself or sneaking into the redhart base and killing a single scout to have any effect on the outcome of the war.
Another thing is that character's outside of the conflict don't even have an incentive to get involved because it doesn't really matter who wins because nothing will change enough to affect the majority of people one way or another.
This is strictly not true. I know for a fact the legion has offered multiple people buildings for hideouts, offered the oppurtunity to create their own faction within flynn with legion support, etc. So far, I've not seen or heard a DM say 'no, this won't happen' to these kinds of rewards for participating (one can obviously correct me here if im wrong about that).
The option for people to get involved and GET stuff out of it IS there. People just REFUSE to hop onto it and -ACTUALLY WORK TOWARDS GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF IT-.
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The thing is what does it say if the general public doesn't know about it at large. We may know that there is a war going on OOC but ICly I've heard that there are very few hints of it. People used to talk about stuff which was going on in the world because it felt like it affected them even if their character may not have been directly involved. The general public doesn't have a stake anymore because they don't see a reason to feel strongly towards one way or the other. There is simply not enough incentive in order for people to want to pick a side when they can lose nothing by staying neutral. They don't see that they will gain something either way. Now maybe if the Legion said if I win I will make this group more powerful while I will hunt this group down that would get people to pick a side because they know they have more to lose being neutral.
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This is one of the reason I’ve thought about bringing Ernest Wells back, so the whole server can see what’s going on.
To echo Timeysinc, RP with either side and you’ll see pawns are being moved.
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The war itself sounds like is outside of the city at this point; maybe if both forces decided to make holding Arabel a point of contention that would get people's attention. Like Legion soldiers trying to seize certain quarters while the RH tries to establish its own warfront. Stuff like this would be noticeable and when you bring the war home being neutral generally isn't cheap.
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This is one of the reason I’ve thought about bringing Ernest Wells back, so the whole server can see what’s going on.
To echo Timeysinc, RP with either side and you’ll see pawns are being moved.
Yes, RPing with either side is the bare minimum to even begin to get involved. Let me just give you some examples of what someone might do to really get involved with the Legion. If a character started talking with us, then wanted to really get the inside knowledge and prove his loyalty, if he did something like:
Hunting down a powerful necromantic artifact and bringing it to us.
Setting the mage's guild on fire, or burning a hart outpost.
Bringing us the head of a red hart, or perhaps a live one as a prisoner.
Infilitrating the other faction and bringing us information.
Going out and organizing hunting parties to collect supplies for the war
These are just 5 things that i thought of off the top of my head that my character would respond to and bring you 'into the fold' so to speak.
The problem is, people aren't doing these things. THey expect shit to be handed to them and to be involved with little or no effort whatsoever. They expect that we should just automatically trust their PC. Why? It's a war.
Another thing that I think is a problem and it was mentioned earlier in this thread, is the characters who just seem like nothing phases them. They get caught, tortured, beat up, or threatened (whether by the legion, red harts, mages guild, etc) and within 5 minutes's there's a sending saying 'X faction is trash and pussy'. While I don't speak for other players, I think I echo the thoughts of some in that, if you do something like that, people are going to avoid you. It's lame and stupid and not immersive, and if a group of players is being courteous and offering you a way to follow up in the conflict, and you go out and do that, all it says to us is that next time we should just FD you and not waste our time trying to make things interesting for you.
The ONLY player that I've seen in recent weeks that had any legitimate reason to make a sending along those lines is Bable, after he killed Giovanni, not to mention ALL the other shit he did. He got involved, he started all kinds of stuff, making him our BIGGEST nemesis. I'm honestly pissed he's quitting his character and I'd be pissed if I had to FD his character too, because once apep is gone, pretty much the only character that's actually doing anything really notable against the legion in the war besides talking big on sendings is gone.
EDIT: I thought I'd add some stuff to elaborate what I'm saying here. The legion and the varlet have had multiple conflicts, from pvp to other things. All of our characters ICly have a reason to HATE eachother, and oocly I'm sure our competitive sides sometimes come out. At the same time, only ONE conflict between these two factions has resulted in an FD - and even that conflict ended in a way that could further more conflict between the two factions.
When apep and nuyrr got caught and beat up, they backed off for awhile, showing the fact that, their characters obviously realised 'oh shit'. Lianna is still deathly scared of nuyrr. You can ask the people we play with, anytime we're going out I specifically bring up the point that we need to avoid Varlet territory as much as possible. Sure, both of our factions have a propaganda war between the two, but neither of us are sitting on sendings saying 'oh you're a pussy aint scared even though you just beat me up'. Neither of our factions are just rambunctiously going into the other's territory like it doesn't matter. I know that some of us on both sides have snuck around, but its not this ridiculous 'Oh I'm not scared' action. THAT is what GOOD conflict is. Both sides exceptionally OOC courteous, taking losses by backing off in some way, continually weaving conflict and story. Given the history between the two factions (at least what I know since I've been around), it wouldn't be hard to say we'd be fully justified in just spam FDing eachother at this point. And while both sides have attempted ganks on the other side, successful or not, there's still that aspect of our characters actually showing fear/caution/worry about our enemy.
I think I probably ranted off topic a bit, but since this thread has gone into many aspects above motivation I thought I'd bring it up.
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I think all these ingame sendings are dumb and that the IC rumor thread should be updated more regularly by both players and DMs. Even if its just half truths. Its something.
Oh and senseitravis had an awesome post.
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The problem is, people aren't doing these things. THey expect shit to be handed to them and to be involved with little or no effort whatsoever. They expect that we should just automatically trust their PC. Why? It's a war
Of course they don't because in that time they could be powerquesting to level 10 which is a lot less risky instead of getting involved with a conflict which might actually mean the death of their character. It's sad but its true. People are saying they want more involvement in conflicts but than if you actually do something which affects people they will say its being shoved down their throat. If faction's aren't actually allowed to do things like polarize people to some degree than there is no hope. I am not saying people should absolutely have to take a side but it should be apprenant that there will be consequences that may impact your character whether you get involved or not. It was pretty much the same with the Civil War, you had a few people working for one side while a large majority sat on the fence because they saw no reason to get involved. Their bet played off than and unless things change it will be the same thing now.
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And this still wont change with V5
It was the same in V3, and it is the same in V4. Only difference is V3 had alot more people
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I don't know, it sure felt like events had more impact in V3 than it ever did in V4. Perhaps because of the focus on characters people actually had an opinion on them. The thing is you had people being proactive; they were just not as many because at that time people didn't understand how to get involved and you really couldn't change the server too much.
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Problem is, 'finding artifacts, taking captives and such' all requires a little DM intervention.
Attack a hart? Faction bug.
Kill a necromancer? Random loot.
Take a hart captive? You hope they didn't get a message off and there is a level of ooc courtesy.Makes it hard when the server is sitting at 12 or so and no DM's are on to do any of the stuff you mention.
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@Alonsis2:
Problem is, 'finding artifacts, taking captives and such' all requires a little DM intervention.
Attack a hart? Faction bug.
Kill a necromancer? Random loot.
Take a hart captive? You hope they didn't get a message off and there is a level of ooc courtesy.Makes it hard when the server is sitting at 12 or so and no DM's are on to do any of the stuff you mention.
Two of those (Attempting to infilitrate said faction/organizing hunting parties) require no Dm.
hunting a nercromantic artefact doesn't necessarily require a Dm either. Sure, to actually get it, yes, to hunt it and put effort towards it, no.
The point here is having a character show ACTUAL INTEREST and DO WORK towards getting involved.
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Those damn elitist pigs with their filthy strife-bringing PCs with no discernable reason for existance other than to create someone for the rest of us to hunt down, befriend, or betray should know better.
I daresay, when someone puts enough pressure on themselves to "achieve" something in this game, we become our own worst enemy. Though, naturally, the most lowliest of us DnD nerds aspire to gain the praise and gratitude of our DM overlords, of whom were chosen from among us and ascended somehow iunto the throne of the Unapprochable Scary Men of the Internet but at what price do we, lowly players give to reap such praise and respect? Fun, I say, fun. It's dead. And players killed it.
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And this still wont change with V5
It was the same in V3, and it is the same in V4. Only difference is V3 had alot more people
I kind of agree with this. A new setting, new factions and new quests can only go so far. Once the novelty has worn off it'll be the same as it has been before.
DMs need to let players become the head of a faction, run a district, take over a town, kill a god, raise a god. This stuff needs to happen more, but then the players need to want to do it / have the drive to make it happen and make it interesting
But that doesn't happen either