Dark Borizons II

Well, I'll broach the topic since no one else will.

It's the weekend. A holiday weekend sure, but still a weekend. And at present there are 3 people active. Of the three, one is about to get PK'd due to a lack of escapes, the others are confused. A few people are mingling idle.

There was an event today that I heard was pretty damn good, which is awesome. That involved 4 people and NPCs owning. The PCs didn't do anything, but the NPCs tore it up. Good story though.

I heard a rumor there was some investigation RP throughout the week from the Republic, some banter and char development RP.

My question is this. What happened to the players being the Heroes? Everything I've seen seems to indicate the players are in fact bit characters to the awesome NPCs that are telling the real story, the players are there for fluff.

Now, I may be wrong in this. And I'm sure it's going to be a line about how this is the 'you're all establishing yourself' mentality. Awesome.

Will we be still establishing ourselves when there's 3 players on the game due to lack of real activity and excitement? It seemed to me things were a lot more active before the war.

Active during the opening battles

And now it's just dead. I mean literally dead. I'm waiting at this point for Gulp to log on and post how the game needs to be revamped and for it to get pulled off line.

So if there's somethign I'm missing I can do? Please point it out to me, I'd like to see things succeed. But I'd also like to have fun. Right now things are very heavy on the why am I logging on and extremely skimpy on the fun.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch this character die.

bump

By the way, a war where you fight the same people every day is stale.

We (The PCs) re not the leaders or big heroes at this point we're just the foot soldiers working our way up to being leaders and heroes.

Were you actually in the RP this afternoon?

There were three NPCs. One to keep the two bad guys busy. I played them all... and kept them, more or less, fighting each other... the PCs were the ones wiping the data and whatever else... I wasn't running in more NPCs to foil them. The Sith PCs didn't show up at all, so unfortunately (or fortunately) it was a little one-sided for the Republic getting it all their way.

That happens sometimes.

It was a mission that had some danger and excitement and had success for the Republic.

I'm surprised you say that the PCs didn't do anything... since the NPCs didn't do anything but fight each other... (And that was there, primarily, to create the sense of danger for the PCs.)

Understood, Wing Omega.

We're working our way up. I think Paradox has a good point though - By the time we get there, what will be the point if only a couple of players remain on the grid? Sitting around doing legwork while awesome, staff controlled characters stay as the focus of the show is /so/ DH1 and it did not work so well there. It's somehow going even worse here.

When will staff learn that hauling out awesome NPCs just makes some PCs feel crummy, unimportant, and jealous when it's overdone?

When will staff learn that they have created a game that intentionally limits player involvement?

When will staff learn that their short-staffing woes are caused by their own poorly thought out game design that both limits player fun and maximizes staff workload?

When will we see a storyteller or wizard do /anything/ with the exception of Firehawk? I havent seen one of our storytellers do a single thing in a couple of weeks. Most wizards appear to be doing absolutely nothing except logging in dark. Maybe there is a ton of behind the scenes stuff going on. Dark wizards kill games!

(Edited to reflect I'm sober now.)

Meow.

I don't mind fast-tracking PCs for promotions ... but the PCs have to show leadership. Take initiative and do something! Take initiative and do something! Take initiative and do something! Take initiative and do something!

As to the other issues. Any proposed solutions? Points and cookies will be given for ease of implementation and plans that don't involve chaining storytellers to their computers. Chains are expensive and we are bad about remembering to feed them so the turnover rate is too high.

Get another planet open as soon as possible.

Get vendors for ships open as soon as possible.

Begin support for indy characters to offer an alternative to faction warfare, which is admittedly not for everyone. A simple but effective way to help with this would be to open a streetwise locked black market vendor somewhere with items that normal players cannot get so smuggling and PC item vending can begin. Many of these items already exist in CG.

This one I think is really important. Hire a junior staffer who's entire purpose is running story/judging queues who would have access to higher level staff when they are not able to make a decision on their own. Basically a volunteer queue jockey. We could make this alternate every couple of weeks amongst active players or a permanent position, whatever. Getting queues running smooth is essential to a game with this type of design. This 3 week wait stuff just does not cut it, and I do mean that with sympathy to staff's workload. The only power you really need to give this person is the ability to check others stats vs a difficulty and the ability to view certain queues, and perhaps inclusion on a staff channel to run scenarios by more experienced staffers.

Give real objectives to the faction players rather than vague stuff that just generates silly requests and more work for staff. IE: Take and hold this position. Kill Officer so and so. Map out this area of space and report your findings. I dont know - Stuff that people can do on their own that will keep them busy rather than "All of you send in requests trying to sneak into this place or access this computer then wait weeks to hear back about it, if you hear back at all" or "Go kill these jedi PCs who never log in because they are controlled by swamped staff"

Minimum activity requirements for staff positions, especially storytellers. Dead weight is not going to help us at all - It is far too new of a game to have do-nothing staffers that hang onto positions. A storyteller should be expected to run atleast one thing every two weeks. Probably one a week. I dont think that constitutes chaining them to the computer.

I am willing to do anything within my power to help staff do whatever it takes to get things running smoothly. I think it's obvious that all of us here want this to be a fun, popular game and many of us feel like there is nothing we can do but sit here and watch things get worse.

Something that will help with the ship vendors is to get the designs that are on the grid but not part of the 'ship designs' topic added there so those of us who are interested in designing ships have some idea what you guys on staff are looking for.

PCs want promotions. So give them work that they can do on their own and let them prove that they are willing to put forth the effort to lead and organize and make stuff happen. If you guys would like a list of sample activities to delegate to faction members that can give them fun RP opportunities that do not involve requests or paging staff members, I have assembled some here for my own amusement. Feel free to PM me .

You should be doing these things.

I'll admit, having a single planet sucks.

T has nearly finished one planet. And I have one-room done of another.

But I've been working on code that will allow players to desc for us AND provide them with rewards that isn't straight up XP (which unbalances the game, and rewards people for OOC work.)

Vendors for ships is a good idea. Or some way to get people ships.

Once I get Corellia up, I'm going to focus on getting the Syndicate set up. I think people will enjoy that.

I should be doing what, Firehawk?

Running the queues I cannot control? Descing the planets I do not know about? Coding vendors? Ordering around my nonexistant subordinates? Promoting players that do not answer to me? I'm still hearing that we are going to rely on you and your ridiculously busy schedule to get anything done, and that we'll be subjects of your NPC that you will probably be too busy to play.

The Republic was given a list of missions like the ones you described but we could use more mission ideas that require minimal staff coordination. Coming up with enough "no staff required" missions for the Sith has posed a bit of a problem due to their situation so we really need ideas for them.

Will PM both of you my list shortly RE: missions.

#748 wrote:

If you guys would like a list of sample activities to delegate to faction members that can give them fun RP opportunities that do not involve requests or paging staff members, I have assembled some here for my own amusement. Feel free to PM me.

Saying you should do that.

But you want me to PM you? Just post the ideas. Or just start doing them. Or page L or Voth or James or whoever you want and suggest the ideas... if you don't feel it's IC for you to start doing them.

I remember when I was playing as Mourn's partner in the Rim Rebellion, I had a lot of ideas that I thought we could do, but I'd page Mourn to let him run with them as he was, technically, the boss.

He, in return, always included me. So it worked out well!

But you're just creating more of a problem by saying "I have ideas that require no staff involvement! Page me, Staff, to hear them!"

Unless you were telling others to PM you for the ideas. But I see no reason not to just share as you like.

If you have a really cool idea that YOU personally want to run? Hold it back. But what I'm working on: new planets and new ships, is designed to get players to do what they want.

The queues, I'm not sure about. We have 4 story requests left. And when SR Requests were made, they got handled promptly. The open-ended requests are very difficult. Requests to meet with NPCs are also very difficult. So what am I doing to solve that? Making it so you don't need NPCs. And NPCs are backgrounders.

The players you have personally selected to be made leaders should be responsible for doing this stuff, Firehawk. That is not to say that I am not happy to help. Its just not my job.

I'm going to be a bit harsh here when I say that your attitude of "not my job" is part of the problem.

You are, at least, partially responsible for your own fun. If you sit around and demand fun, don't be surprised when it doesn't come your way.

Anyway. Post up your ideas, really. PMing them just to me or T isn't going to really help out more. The ideas might help out the "leaders" as well.

But the spoilers!

Obviously it's every players job to make sure the game is fun and rewarding and full of RP. What is not my job is paging people staff (Firehawk?)have handpicked to lead and telling them what they should be doing with their leadership positions. I'd be pissed if someone that was not staff did that to me.

I've PMd my ideas to you. I'm not staff. I might not understand things like you all do. It's quite possible my ideas suck big time. If you like them, you can distribute them to your hand picked leaders as you see fit.

Quote :

The queues, I'm not sure about. We have 4 story requests left. And when SR Requests were made, they got handled promptly. The open-ended requests are very difficult. Requests to meet with NPCs are also very difficult. So what am I doing to solve that? Making it so you don't need NPCs. And NPCs are backgrounders.

Well, no offense this is partially the Staff's fault. I mean why didn't you from DH1 look at you player database, and ask "blah" to play "Blah" until some-player manages to get rank enough to replace "Blah"! That way the Staff would have had half the work to do. And most of it would have been run by the players, and some all of us would get more rp, as some of us are getting nothing, and character development would be high. The person in charge of "Blah" would actually be able to see which people would have been really good to put in that position. And would have had control of all the items, like ships, and armories. And made your work less.

You guys have all the power, all the plot, all the NPC's. I feel like a piece of fluff... And game is starting to seriously die...

There is a good point in Kez's post. This game is dying, and some people on staff seem to be implying that the problem is the players and that we are not adapting to your new system as we should be. It's really arrogant considering that a MU is nothing without players. Hopefully you guys realize how bad things really are and are secretly trying to fix it as fast as possible while defending the broken systems to the rest of us that told you this stuff would not work.

As for the queues moving fast? LOL. Sure. On Firehawks story runs they ran fast. has anyone else had a simple, 1 command request take over 3 weeks? I know plenty of people who have.

Lets see,
There are pages and pages of ideas and concerns and discussions about the future of DH2. Players and Staff alike put forth a ton of ideas. What was received when the game opened was what pretty much what staff wanted in the first place. This is not wrong, not at all. There has to be a decision made and the game go forth. But now the players are wanting to do something and by the posts they really can't. They are counting on Staff. Why are they counting on Staff? Because that is the way the game was set up.

Staff has all the IC power. This includs holding all the leadership positions, filling out all the news BBs, playing all the NPCs, providing all the plots and hooks, keeping control of all the "toys", deciding who what and were anything can happen except for the fluff play. It is the role of the players, as defined by staff, to fill in and then step up.

But have players actually been given a chance to step up and fill the leadership roles? If players are not being given the chances to be the heroes in anything that is meaningful who's fault is that? If they have to wait for Staff to be around to "shine" and staff is not being available how can it be the fault of the players? If folks are bored cause there is nothing of substance going on then why not?

Now it seems that the players are being told that they are the one's that are not doing the RP, that they are not stepping up and filling the roles of leadership. But do they really have what is needed to do this? Do they have the specified guidelines that were promised to be able to do it? The toys and the meaningful plots and even the positions to actually do something should be gladly, happily, provided by staff. This is what keeps a game alive and fun. For with out being alive and fun the game dies.

If players are getting bored and not logging on, shouldn't there be a redouble of effort by Staff to stop it and turn it around before it hits critical mass? Seeing how Staff has all the real power and all the real toys and all the roles that can do it, it seems like it to me.

Maybe the idea of Staff doing all this was a bit optimistic and now the game is suffering, that can happen. No fault, just the circumstances of how it worked out. But now, before it is to late, turn it around and get the game going in a direction that is not stagnation. Again.

It appears at this point.. And I mean this as respectfully as possible... That this game is now Firehawk's game and that he does not care to please any player that does not want to do things exactly his way. He'd rather tell them they are wrong or tell them to quit if they dont like it. But activity does not lie.

Okay, I want to help, so i am volunteering to kill Krisella and step up to a staff position, for Story Only. Don't ask me about code as i have no idea.

As to this fact, I have run lots of role-playing games. I set up and ran a Live Action Theater Game, that ran for 2 years. It means i can do this, if people will let me.

I admit, i do not know all of the commands but i am willing to learn.

Here's the idea, and how it goes. Ank Sha, or what ever his name is, should also be promoted to a staff position. And we could take opposite sides and help run, do stories. And be the players Beetches... Or promote Voth, he and i can work together easy...

I would create a permanent character in charge of the republics side, or this faction (players faction) while the Staffers can control the big NPC's and hand out the main objectives. This character we be able to do requests, organize missions, and help people out. This character would also be a Jedi looking for an apprentice, so would be monitoring all characters wanting to go this way. Helping promote the ideals of the characters, and hopefully helping them on the path that they want to go. (as i know some characters eventually want to become Jedi, others couldn't care less.) The other "new" staffer would do the same on the other side... and he/she and i would work together to promote the characters and the game.

When there is 1-5 characters that can take over this "NPC's position" I would then retire the character and let the PC's run the show. Same on the other side. Then i would go back and make a real pc, and position ends. Hopefully by then the game is up and established and can do without me. Or otherwise i stay on but move the NPC further and further away from the limelight, and just be there to run scenes.

Kez wrote:

Ank Sha, or what ever his name is, should also be promoted to a staff position.

He's already a staffer.

More staff is hardly the solution. I also think there is something fundamentally wrong about the perception of staff positions as something you are "promoted" to. I'm not saying it's not accurate, but how you view the position speaks by itself, and volunteering for a promotion might not be the best approach.

Sadly, that is not to say I have a better solution to offer.