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StarMourn newbie experience
Orinks
Member Posts: 4 ✭
Hello everyone,
In the past, I've played Ironrealms games, but I've never been able to stick with them. The reason for this being the post-newbie experience.
For example, the requirements to join a house and, perhaps, join the Druids and get your own grove in Achaea should not be as taxing as it is. I looked at the help for house requirements and cringed inwardly and thought, "Why?" Admittedly, Lusternia makes things a lot easier--I remember joining a guild that had scrolls with directions on quests to do to get started.
While StarMourn does seem amazing--I'm particularly interested in this "main ark" to be played through, I'm also concerned about blind players, of which I am one myself, with spaceflight, combat etc. They say they've got a few things in the works for us, but time will tell whether it's enough, I suppose.
I've also been told to stay away from IRE because of the P2W stuff, but I'm willing to overlook that stuff for a unique and different space game here.
In the past, I've played Ironrealms games, but I've never been able to stick with them. The reason for this being the post-newbie experience.
For example, the requirements to join a house and, perhaps, join the Druids and get your own grove in Achaea should not be as taxing as it is. I looked at the help for house requirements and cringed inwardly and thought, "Why?" Admittedly, Lusternia makes things a lot easier--I remember joining a guild that had scrolls with directions on quests to do to get started.
While StarMourn does seem amazing--I'm particularly interested in this "main ark" to be played through, I'm also concerned about blind players, of which I am one myself, with spaceflight, combat etc. They say they've got a few things in the works for us, but time will tell whether it's enough, I suppose.
I've also been told to stay away from IRE because of the P2W stuff, but I'm willing to overlook that stuff for a unique and different space game here.
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As far as P2W, it's been made clear that there will be no combat/pvp artefacts initially, I think they want to see the balance of classes before they start to introduce them. That said, none of the IRE games are a true P2W. It's more like P2W Faster, as you can purchase credits with in-game currency. Keep in mind the price of these credits is dictated by players.
I'd say just play it for free for a while and see how you like it. Nothing wrong with a minor time investment to try it out, especially if you're an experienced mudder already.
Personally, I'm a fan of the models where you have rp woven into your tasks.
Like, you make getting all the curatives about preparing for some great responsibility you have, you honour the X by going out an killing in their name (to level up), etc.
Along with maybe some easy reading stuff.
Of course, later on, harder rp tasks should come in but that's like... when people are really invested.
I'd gotten through the early steps but then one of the higher rank tasks asked me to spar someone and write about the experience.
So... not knowing anything about arena's I asked someone to spar, they didn't mention anything about Arenas either.
I died, immediately got put on probation with the guild and told I had to meet up with this one specific person within two weeks or be kicked out.
Of course, their timezone placed them on basically the opposite play times as me.
So I'm waiting up stressing out trying to prep for this interrogation to prove I'm allowed to stay (i'd also just bought lessons so I'm looking at losing that investment). Failed that cause tired from staying up all night and no apparent compassion for the fact that I was actually a newbie, so I got kicked.
Following that I was so annoyed with Achaea and the loss of being kicked that I left and have never really gone back, barring a few times to try out new classes.
Lesson learned:
Always work with the expectation that a new character is a new player until given reason to believe otherwise, Always aim to write help files that are from that perspective cause, because an Alt just won't need it but a newbie will.
But also happy that it's also a thing that's gone.
Aetolia, over the years, has had several rounds of 'make it easier to gain class, or we'll just do what Achaea did' For some reason, player orgs tend to make things more difficult over time. I never understood the point, and when I ran a guild it was far simpler.
As soon as I retired from leading - next person started adding things and making it more and more difficult.
But no one has ever explained, convincingly, WHY? To what purpose? Don't these people have anything better to do? Maybe they could try playing the game instead? I've heard things like:
'Oh, if it is too easy then one of the guild enemies will make an alt and spy on us.'
Er, ok? I mean, it's not like we have any secrets? They might learn that we don't like them very much I guess.
'We don't want any riff-raff joining us. By making it difficult they'll give up and go somewhere else.'
Yes, they might. Along with the good people, and the true-newbies as well. If there are people in the guild that we don't want in the guild, we can just give them class then outguild them.
'But then they have our class and they're not in the guild.'
They're also enjoying the game too! Like us! Isn't it great? We're happier, they're happier!
The guild=class model forces a diverse group of people who aren't all wanting to play the same way into one shared space and inhibits the groups that could otherwise form.
You basically have at least two axes:
^
|
Roleplaying <-+-> Mechanics
V
Simple
People's prefered guild style sits somewhere along those two and leaders will naturally push towards their preferred spot on it.
What someone considers good might be on the simple side and thus dull to someone on the complex side.
A relatively common complaint is a lack of roleplay, which often comes from more mechanically focused tasks, so people focus on more rp heavy tasks instead.
One recurring structure fits into Simple/Mechanics intersection which is just a task list that you could have copied and pasted from another guild with minimal cosmetic changes (it's almost a coin flip if they'll even relate to anything actually established in the guild)
If someone starts changing what you did the moment you left, then they probably weren't enjoying it fully and were doing things that would make it more enjoyable/interesting for them. Simply by the logic that when people like an advancement structure and think it works they wouldn't do so.
Divorcing class from guild is a positive move here because you can focus your guilds into different intersections. You can have your Simple/Mechanics people in one place, your Complex/Roleplaying people in another, or any other combination/intensity. Your rp guild doesn't have the pressure to sacrifice what interests its current members to attract more combatants because you need more Monks, similarly guilds don't suffer membership losses because their class is underpowered.
The loss of authority/power that has become a concern for some guilds in Lusternia following their change seems mostly because guilds never had any outside of controlling classes (and that's in a game where the guild master gets an automatic seat on the council).
tl;dr MUDs like any mmo attract a diverse group of players, significantly more so than graphical mmos, one guild structure is unlikely to ever really accommodate everyone.
note: Some people also just want to make their mark, it's not everyone's goal to just keep an existing structure chugging along.
My guild had a series of optional tasks with rewards that some people valued. It also had the advancement 'paths' and whatever that many guilds have, attempting to cater to the different play-styles, like you described. It had all that (though I didn't design them, I just let others do it. They wanted to and I didn't, which mean we were all happier.)
All of it was optional though, recognising that some people (like me - and this touches on your point) would prefer to ignore all that and jump straight into rp and pvp and whatever else they enjoy about the game.
My point: all of that was possible without holding class to ransom. I have never considered myself a good guild leader, nor that particular guild to have been particularly good. All I did was keep it simple to join and let other people do more or less what they wanted with creating advancement stuff - so long as they didn't touch the newbie experience.
Class was controlled through GL commands, so our issue was (still is) more around Contest/Voting rights. I don't think that it's unreasonable to try to ensure people have a little investment in your guilds RP before they can get the ability to potentially lead it and potentially make changes to the guild.
I can see some potential negativity for like... Person A does all this stuff to earn their knighthood/priesthood/etc and then Person B just gets to the same rank and gets the same respect for just being around to defend regularly. That's happened in Lusternia in various incarnations and can diminish the sense of achievement from progressing through advancements
Again it's an issue with the guild=class system.
Classes need to be available to players so it better that admin have the control, if any, there.
Guilds have massive rp potential across the entire spectrum of rp, but when they need to accommodate every single possible player they tend to not be as cool as if they specialised. Doesn't need to exclude combat focused people, cause guilds with a heavy combat focus in their rp can entirely support their playstyle.
But to lack of guilds, I'm kinda expecting that players will build what they want and need. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.