Post by desertman on Dec 7, 2016 10:52:12 GMT -5
Desertman’s Recommendations for Game Direction
There are a few things I want to touch on and a few game-altering recommendations I want to make here. I know a lot of the playerbase reads these forums regularly. I know a handful of staffers actually spend as much time here as they do on their own forums. I’ve recommended several things over the years that have slowly made their way into the game. Changes to the banking system, changes to the MMH player-clan system, etc…etc…My hope in presenting this is not that all of these changes will be implemented right away. But instead that I will have presented some thoughts and ideas that over time will find their way into reality bits and pieces at a time. That seems to be the way of idea implementation with this game, and so, that is the avenue you have to take. I’m going to point out a few issues this game has and then I’m going to present a few ideas I have to fix these issues and hopefully make the game “better”.
I’ve spent almost two decades playing this game. I’ve built player ran initiatives on an IC level that staff have had to step in to destroy because the playerbase was enjoying them too much. That’s not my opinion. That is their opinion and I was told by them directly that’s exactly why I was being disbanded and destroyed when it happened. As such, I like to think I know on some level what the standard player enjoys and what the standard player doesn’t enjoy. I like to think I have a small amount of insight on some level as to what makes this game fun for the players, and what ruins this game for the players.
I do not have the ability to implement major changes myself for the enjoyment of the playerbase, so, this is the next best thing.
Here are a few major problems I feel this game has:
1) Staff interfering with player vs player conflicts to the detriment of one player or the other results in cries of unfairness. This results in cries of biasness. This then results in some people leaving the game, understandably.
2) Staff interfering with players directly using animated God-Level/Staff-Level NPCs that are untouchable sources of opposition. Red Robe Templars, Senior House Family, High Ranking Military Officials, Super-Statted NPC Fighters, etc…etc. Basically NPCs who are so high up the food chain it is unrealistic they would take any interest in commoner PCs to begin with, and they are only ever animated to “knock down” PCs. This means they are untouchable by PCs to the point it is on par with just playing against staff, and that’s how players see it. When players get “knocked down” by one of these NPCs, no matter what staff thinks is IC or isn’t IC, players do not see the game world reacting to them. They see staff coming in to screw them over with a staff-level NPC untouchable God avatar. This results in players feeling they are in a player vs staff environment (which they kind of are) and they have no interest in playing and leave the game, understandably.
3) See #2. When players feel they are in a player vs staff environment in the game, this leeches over into the OOC mindset of the community as well. If you feel you are playing a player vs staff game in the game, then you also kind of feel like the community its self is player vs staff. When staff does not take a third party backseat to the IC happenings of the gameworld and instead take a first person interest and initiative to direct and determine outcomes, it creates a player vs staff mentality both inside and outside of the game. Basically, if you are constantly being destroyed or knocked down by God-level NPCs animated by your Dungeon Master, eventually, you kind of feel like the game is about you vs the Dungeon Master. Then, the entire table becomes the players vs the Dungeon Master. That is an issue. It is bad for the community, and it is bad for the game. This results in players getting disgruntled, feeling powerless, and in players leaving the game, understandably.
As you can see, I feel that one major issue this game has, and one thing I feel that is killing this game is the fact staff can and do directly interfere with the game world. However, I feel the biggest issue we have is that staff have their hands in player vs player plots. I know I personally have had Red Robed Templars, T’zai Byn Lieutenants, Guild Heads, Senior Merchant House Family, and Senior Noble House Family animated AGAINST my commoners. Nothing my commoners were ever doing was capable of disrupting any of their organizations in a meaningful way. My commoners were and always would be flies on the backs of their mekillots, if that, and when they died everything they built or were directing would die with them. The only thing my commoners could do was possibly defeat the current players in those Houses on an IC level. Even then, the Houses would just recruit more players. However, staff felt the need to interfere with me time and time again to ensure their players won on an IC level. They interfered repeatedly with staff-level God-avatars to ensure the outcome of player vs player conflicts. Why? I have no idea. But, they do this regularly. They do it to people all of the time, and it is never a positive thing for the game or for the community.
It is worth noting as well that staff do not like staffing in a community where they feel like it is them vs the players. However, we have created a system in this game where the game is accepted as a player vs staff game. It is commonplace for staff to do things that create this environment. They probably do not even realize they are doing it since it has been this way for so long. My point is, this change should also be good for the staff. My recommendations below will not only create a more player-friendly game, but also a more staff-friendly game. The staff will be able to take more of a backseat to the IC happenings between players. They will not feel obligated or enticed to interfere with player plotlines, and can instead oversee the game from an unbiased third party DM position. (The way they should.)
My Recommendations:
1) We will close direct player access to the Merchant Houses, the Noble Houses, The Dust Runners, and The Guild with the following exceptions: The Kuraci Fist in the capacity of soldiers/the militia for Luir’s, Noble roles directly, and Merchant/Trader roles directly. (In reality this has already happened for Salarr and Kadius since those Hunter roles are already closed. This is really just an extension of what staff has already decided to do.)
2) We will leave open player access to The T’zai Byn, The AOD, and The Kuraci Fist. The T’zai Byn because they already function in a very fluid player-ran way, most of the time, and the AOD and Kuraci Fist because they are PC-ran law enforcement entities. They should be chasing down PC criminals in the game world on a player vs player level. (STAFF WILL NOT INTERFERE TO ENSURE THEY WIN.)
The two above recommendations create a system where the NPC shops for all of these Houses remain open. The Houses and entities here still exist like they always have, just in a more peripheral way and run in the background mainly to provide stability to the game world. The economy continues to function. The Nobles continue to hand out quests and plots the way they should (and coin). The Merchants in the Merchant Houses continue to provide goods and access to items you can’t normally get through their NPC shops. The soldiers continue to soldier and chase down criminals in a player vs player way. But, that is where it ends. Staff no longer has ANY REASON to animate Red Robed Templars to come and knock you down. They longer have ANY REASON to animate Senior Merchant House Family to come and destroy you. These Houses and entities are represented by a small handful of special application players who understand it is their job to play as players and not extensions of the House its self to wield the entire House’s power. Staff will no longer animate the entire House’s power in favor of one or two of their players. There is no longer an “Independents vs Major Houses” aspect to the game and there never should be again, because that translates into “Players vs Staff”, since staff control those Major Houses. That has to go away. It has to be a thing of the past.
3) All conflicts going forward will be player vs player or player-created group vs player-created group. We have a great player-created clan system in the game right now, but, it has unfortunately been gimped down to a shadow of what it could be. First, we need to put a limit on how high you can go. You should stop this process at Trade Company. In fact the name of the system shouldn’t be the MMH System, it should be The Trade Company system. If you get to Trade Company “level” you have a compound, a few NPCs, a shop or two, and private quarters for your players. That is plenty. That is exactly what you need in order to run a successful and fun truly player-ran and awesome group. Player-created groups would be capped at 12 – 15 players recruited into them at any one time. This keeps them small enough that other opposing groups could be formed to defeat them, or band together to overthrow them. However, it keeps them strong enough that they can truly “rule” for a while if they are smart and reap the benefits of their hard work. And if they do, they should be allowed to. Eventually someone will rise up to defeat them or they will simply die off, because that’s what happens, even if it takes a while. We should ALSO remove the stipulations that these player-created groups are required to select a “niche” good or service that they deal in. This should go away. When I did this I was not required to select a niche good or service. This allowed me to have conflicts and alliances with multiple groups, entities, and other players across a wide spectrum. The current system of forcing you to find a niche limits you to conflicting or allying with only ONE group or entity, and that’s it. This is a major loss to the system and a major limit on what could be a huge ability to conflict or ally with tons of people and include tons of other people in your fun. I recommended repeatedly that this should not go in and I was ignored even though I’m the only player who has truly seen this system through to any meaningful level. Players can still CHOOSE to work in only a single niche if they want, but they should not be required to by staff. It is such a huge limiting factor and who you can interact with and what sorts of politics and economic duels you can be part of. Lastly, since this is being capped at Trade Company, we should remove the stipulation that only humans can rise above Shopkeeper. A Trade Company is literally a tiny group in the game world who might have a ratty compound and who has maybe a dozen or so employees. That’s it. Why we can’t let dwarves, elves, and halfbreeds rise up to that level is beyond me. We SHOULD let these undesirables rise up to this comparatively meager level of success. It will create jealousy and racial tension in the playerbase and add an entirely different level of conflict to the game world. Why we decided to deny ourselves that opportunity and that awesome aspect of the game is beyond me. This should be changed.
As you can see my final goal is really to create a system where all conflict is in reality smaller-scale. It's almost like warring villages or outposts, but instead, players and player-created groups. All conflict would be ran on a truly player vs player level, or player-created group vs player-created group level. This keeps the game fresh. All of the great Houses are stagnant and boring concepts at this point. They also are God-level powers that staff animated far too often to destroy players and determine player-conflict outcomes for no reason. This creates tension in the community and forces players to leave the game. This has been a problem for over a decade and it is still a problem today.
Staff would not be allowed to interfere in player vs player conflicts. They would be truly and fully determined by the players. Staff could still run major RPTs, major wars, small storylines and plot arcs. They would even have MORE TIME to do those things since they aren’t spending all of their time piddling around with the greater Houses and organizations.
All of the crime groups, trade groups, and even offshoot mercenary groups would be player created and player ran. They would come and go. They would be interesting and new regularly based on what ideas the current leader/leaders had. People would join the groups they enjoyed and those groups would either ally with each other or go to war with each other. You could hire the T’zai Byn (players, not NPCs) to take your side in battles with each other. You could hire player-ran groups to join you or assassinate for you.
Right now so many players are involved with major Houses that nobody can or will do shit to each other in terms of small battles, economic wars, or anything along those lines. Why? Because staff will step in to animate those Houses to destroy you or just determine the outcome based on what they want to happen using God-level NPCs. If all players were required to basically be part of smaller player-ran groups staff wouldn’t feel obligated or even tempted to step in. They would have the freedom to in turn give players the freedom to determine outcomes for themselves.
Players would enjoy this more. They would not have any reason to resent staff or feel staff was being biased or unfair to them by giving one group more or less support.
The rules would be black and white. You build your own empire. You rule it how you choose. You are responsible for defending yourself, creating your alliances, and battling your own enemies.
That would then be the game. It would no longer be about pandering to staff-ran entities and superpowers in a hope that they take your side and determine the outcomes for you. It would all be on you as the player, and that’s the way it should be.
4) Lastly, staff would NOT BE ALLOWED to animate any NPC beyond a commoner-level NPC going forward outside of a RPT/HRPT event where the conflict was mainly NPC vs NPC or major group vs major group. No more animating Red Robes to destroy players or their groups. No more animating Borsail muls to crush Borsail’s pc competition. No more animating God-level Guild Assassins to destroy other shady groups. The reality is the players can DO NOTHING in this game to harm the major groups. Nothing. They can’t overthrow a House. They can’t damage Salarr’s trade in weapons and armor. They can’t hurt The Guild. Those entities will ALWAYS EXIST. Now, they don’t even have player representation in the game world. Staff has ZERO REASON to ever animate those super powers to go out and harm players. The only NPCs staff can animate to oppose players are commoner level NPCs, monsters, and things on par with this level of opposition. If staff wants to animate a half-giant soldier to respond to your shady character’s antics. By all means, go ahead. If staff wants to send a few street thugs after me because I’ve been doing naughty things that require a world response, that’s absolutely fine. But, it should not EVER happen again that staff animates any entity or power associated with an untouchable God-level entity or power to fight players. That IS NOT an appropriate response. That is a STAFF VS PLAYER response, and it has to stop. It creates a festering environment of resentment and bias in this community and it loses players. It doesn't lose "new players" either. It loses veteran players. The only players doing things to get these sort of staff vs player responses are veteran players. These responses LOSE VETERAN PLAYERS. If you lose all of your veteran players, you don't have a game anymore.
That’s my idea. Players no longer have involvement on an IC level with the major powers. The major powers no longer have any reason to be animated to destroy or otherwise harm players or player initiatives. Staff no longer gets resented for playing God-level staff avatars to destroy/favor/or otherwise take a bias in the game world to determine player conflict outcomes. Most importantly, all conflicts are truly now player vs player conflicts decided by the players for the players.
This is a better game, and a better community.
(This is not meant to be a bashing thread against staff. I have a lot of friends on staff, past and current. I assure you, staff does not enjoy staffing a game or playing in a game where they feel like the players resent them or dislike them. They want to be the Dungeon Master everyone loves playing under. That's why they take on this role, in most cases. The sad part is we have a system in place that CREATES a staff vs player environment and community. That needs to change, and that's what this is about. That "staff vs the players" community is the only thing that can kill this game, and we are doing nothing right now but fostering that toxic outcome.)
