Tuluk is closing - turns out nyr lannister does not shit gol

While I agree with you think on this.

In the past all efforts by the staff have been in a context where the player base is more broken up than it will now be. This can be seen as a move to consolidate. If we see opportunity instead of error, misjudgment and condemnation then we have more power to form this turn of events into a victory for our purposes. The player base will be more localized, this gives us POWER. Maybe not enough to effect massive change but if we have a vibrant throng of active, driven and dynamic PCs then we have, at least, more of a chance then we ever have in the past of making things work out in a direction we would chose. This will require us to stick together, we must actively meta-game the changes they implement to bring about situations where the things we look for in Arm manifest in our ecosystem. 

Another thing to think about is that, if things come to it, with all the staff's eggs in one basket (more or less), we as players have more power to strong arm the staff into making decisions which benefit us. We are essentially the cogs that spin to make the game work, live and thrive. Previously we were separated and all saying different shit. If, on these boards, we can form some way of creating conversation which makes actual conclusions and then actions to be taken we might actually be able to generate some sway in the run of events which will play out in the now reduced sandbox. The pond just got smaller, if we can coalesce into an *actual fish* then we can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond than was possible before.

All that is required is that we ALL GET ON SIDE. We need to stop seeing this is anything negative, we need to see this as an OPPORTUNITY, a call to action lest we allow Arm to sink further towards the sinkhole of abandonment.

Thoughts people?


One suggestion I have is that each modification, development and action the staff takes could be discussed here, openly and without condemnation. We need to start seeing the things staff do as done, in the past and now that things are the way they are lets get TALKING about how to utilize the new situation, exploit the areas that can be exploited to OUR ends and make things playable and enjoyable for all.

Um. What?

QFT

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In the futhr-past past, Kurac had more players in it than the present-day nightly average of nak and Tuluk combned. It took very little staff work to manage because it was staffd by a string of very hands-off people. they let their ambitious pc leaders create their own actvity. Whch creatd activity for subordinats. Which created actvty for anyone any of them interactd with. Whch created activity for the AoD because Kurac was a semi-crimnal organization they could shake down, investgate, work with, or employ. which created activity for a metric fuckton of indy huntrs, gatherers, thieves, assassns, and spies.

This naturally enraged the rest of the staff, many of whom were runnng their clans into the ground at the time. kurac was also a natural competitor to the Muark, which i believe is part of why Naephet tried to destroy the clan with one of the stupidest rpts until Nyr startd writing them. After that failed miserably (Kuracs activity boosted as a result of havng even higher stakes for ic behavior), the staff eventually had to cap clan membershp in order to spread out the playrbase.

i bring this up because that staff had far less contempt for the players than the group of bureaucratic assclowns you think will give any mor than zero fucks what the players want just because they happen to be in one less city.


no. Defnitely not. Part of the reason i brought up kurac's heyday was to point out something i fnd obvious but which most of the staff have been blnd to pretty much as long as i've known the game.

If players can make activity by playing together, they will. If everyones playng in one place by choice it's because thats where they can get the most done as their character. for most that means playing the character they had in mind when they wrote down the concept and actually doing things that they can convince themselves matter. for some that means advancement. for some that means socialisng. It really all comes down to having driven/ambitious pcs to motivate them to get into whats going on.

if everyone is scattered across the game and half of thm are playing indies it's because youve made the cities undesirabl to play in and your policies suck. Absolutely no one enjoys seeng an opportunity and not being able to seize it when icly it is what your character would do because oocly you have to send in a request to act and wait 3 weeks for a no. Youre in a role that should be bold and driven and you're forcd to play someone who waits IC months to act because you need written approval every time you want to b your charactr.

Or maybe some players are avoidng clans and certan cities because they just dont like the kinds of people playing f-mes, tavern sitters, and sponsored roles - the people who hav accepted inactivty as a lifestyle. Forcing them into a city whose culture/playerbase they dislike is going to make them go indy, rebel, or quit the game.


The problm is on the staffs side. And so our perspective, vision, and actions dont matter.

if everyone wanted to play togethr, they would already be doing so. Closng tuluk is just going to get RSV closed when people resist being herded into one place. then Luirs. Then, probably, some of the d-elves.

These are all fair points and I believe that you are correct. Having said that my point that seeing things as an opportunity gives us more power than otherwise remains. Problems are not solved by focusing on problems, problems are solved by looking at solutions, just my two cents.

I remember the post and I remember agreeing with mostly everything you had to say

And don't worry, I'm fully braced, I've read pretty much every thread and post that's gone up on these boards since their appearance and so have quite a good second hand information resource and gauge on the state of things. At least, as good as it's going to get without getting stuck in myself. I've not really interacted with staff and the systems they have in place, I've kept mostly to the outskirts of life in Arm. This, of course, means I have to accept any information you post as true and I am happy to do that. However it also means that I have a fresh take on the direction to take that information and, with the conversation you guys are able to provide, I think we could have a real chance in this new Arm to generate real time intrigue and plot progression. This is, after all, a total rework of the state of the game, shit will be different than before and in that period of change we have a window to carve out something before everything locks into place and becomes the way things are.

We should be focusing on what *we* can do to fix things, not the staff. Staff gun do what staff gun do If you truly believe that there is *absolutely nothing* we as players can do to create a playable space and bring about a game which is engaging, fun and alive then we have already lost.

(That's not to say, btw, that we should no longer speak of what the staff could/should do, simply that we should *also* talk about *we* can do about it as it's more likely to be able to get traction and start generating some momentum) if you're trying to break down a wall you have to gain momentum elsewhere and then direct it it the wall, you can't start pushing against the wall itself.

We should start out by saying what we would *want* to happen, given the chance. And I don't mean actions from the staff, I mean the end result of all actions taken by everyone, what's the ideal? What's the ecosystem we'd like to see. I know very little about Nak and the way it works and so I don't even really know the kind of questions to ask to prompt conversation but here goes;

How should Nak proper and the Rinth interplay, how should the Byn and the houses interplay, how should the (soon to be revealed) power-structures and the common folk interplay, interaction with other playable locations?

And I realise we can't actually plan out how these things will be at the end of the day, they have to emerge organically from the system which is why I say we have to meta-game the system the staff put in place to bring about the growth of interaction and engagement that *we* want to see.

i think ur reinterpretation of the kurac situation as 'abuse' shows why ull have a fundamental disagreement w/some of us heresee what ur saying but dont think it should be player responsibility or perogative to make chars for the sake of balancing out pc distribution. onus isnt on any of the players to create opposites or opponents to balance out shit unless that concept is something theyd do on their own in spite of the pc showing in an area

pcs should never feel some ooc responsibility to 'curtail advancement' of another location or group for the sake of pc game balance