Activity and Finding it

[framalam 837]

i do find it a bit telling that a lot of the people commenting and complaining are simultaneously people who, to some degree or another, have directly contributed to the culture issue. it is not hard to find roleplay, so long as you accept its consequences and do not associate those consequences with the players who carried them out oocly.

 

kaiser is unequivocally right in that you have to be the change you want to see. there ARE likeminded individuals, you just have to roleplay to find them. also, the critique of spook groups oocly organising raids is stupid. you have, on the spook side, a dwindling number of CA and MA players and so I am INCREDIBLY grateful to iris for what she is doing. when dio was still around, he randomly raided as you wanted. as a result, he led his group into places that had horrible crp principles, and led ~10 of his friends to, in their eyes, waste their time with roleplayers who did not want to fairly roleplay consequences.

 

i think antag roleplay is something that is sorely lacking, but at the same time i hardly ever find it rewarding to lay in wait for an ambush on the road. yes, there are exceptions, when the fights are VERY VERY good, and entertaining, but what is the point as a spook player of killing a slice of lifer? they do not get any entertainment from it, and think you hate them oocly, and, unless you genuinely enjoy killing peoples characters, the ultimate enjoyment u get is a soul frag, or a body, or their blood, etc.

 

summarising the yap above antag roleplay is mostly saved by this ooc organising. this is not the ONLY way we organise fights, but being on cordial terms OOCly wjth the people you fight and kill and die to is incredibly valuable. otherwise, if u just constantly randomly raid, with no consequences because your CA can regenerate infinitely and your PK item is locked in a cheet 6000 blcoks away behind walls and gates and iron doors, you are seen as a pest who cannot be effectively gotten rid of. obviously this will generate ooc disgruntlement

[indiana105 5126]

2 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

Wow, what an interesting thing to say. It sure sucks that the maps are 100 times too big, that there's a continental expanse of hastily WorldPainted terrain between every small settlement, that there's no list of places to go or markers on the map. It sucks that there are like 12 separate 'hubs' and you can only soulstone to one of them every 10 minutes. But no, surely the real problem has to be TOO MANY REALMS!!! You can't have too many people creating things on a roleplay server! You need CENTRALIZED ROLEPLAY, even if it makes 90% of the map entirely redundant. We just have to put in some ACTIVITY CHECKS to trim the fat and TILE UPKEEP to make sure no one ever builds anything again.

 

In all seriousness, the drop in quality and quantity you guys perceive is due to abysmal design choices. Previous LotC maps were designed to funnel players into areas of interaction. You would spawn in and have only one or two choices where to go, guaranteeing you found roleplay. Think the Anthos crossroads, the Athera tavern strip, even the Arcas ring road. But we gave up on having functional, intentionally designed maps so we could have years and years of this slop: 

 

 

It fundamentally doesn't matter how many nations there are. It doesn't even matter how big the map is as long as the playable area (where spawn is, where the capitals are) is reasonably compact. But because everything on this server has to be warped around the Nation Leader and his delusional urge to conquer more Tiles, every reasonably active place is repelled to the four corners of the map, condemned to die a slow, withering death.

 

 

 

"theme park design philosophy"

 

works for fortnite because i dont have to spend 2 ******* years on the map

 

[SethWolf 2340]

please keep your gates open okay i know the threat of being inconvenienced by the three man squad of skeletons keeps you up at night but i swear youll get way more visitors if you just keep your gates open.

 

 

[Frank_Dog 808]

9 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

Wow, what an interesting thing to say. It sure sucks that the maps are 100 times too big, that there's a continental expanse of hastily WorldPainted terrain between every small settlement, that there's no list of places to go or markers on the map. It sucks that there are like 12 separate 'hubs' and you can only soulstone to one of them every 10 minutes. But no, surely the real problem has to be TOO MANY REALMS!!! You can't have too many people creating things on a roleplay server! You need CENTRALIZED ROLEPLAY, even if it makes 90% of the map entirely redundant. We just have to put in some ACTIVITY CHECKS to trim the fat and TILE UPKEEP to make sure no one ever builds anything again.

 

In all seriousness, the drop in quality and quantity you guys perceive is due to abysmal design choices. Previous LotC maps were designed to funnel players into areas of interaction. You would spawn in and have only one or two choices where to go, guaranteeing you found roleplay. Think the Anthos crossroads, the Athera tavern strip, even the Arcas ring road. But we gave up on having functional, intentionally designed maps so we could have years and years of this slop: 

 

 

It fundamentally doesn't matter how many nations there are. It doesn't even matter how big the map is as long as the playable area (where spawn is, where the capitals are) is reasonably compact. But because everything on this server has to be warped around the Nation Leader and his delusional urge to conquer more Tiles, every reasonably active place is repelled to the four corners of the map, condemned to die a slow, withering death.

Last part feels so real. The image is even more powerful if it was updated. I've always thought this map layout put population hubs so far from each other, which hard for me to blame nls they know if they don't get some distance a nation will come up with some weird roleplay excuse to get their ooc group to kill a nation. It doesn't help that sometimes it feels like half of this map is a barren tundra, so everyone filled up the other lands prior. 

1 hour ago, SethWolf said:

please keep your gates open okay i know the threat of being inconvenienced by the three man squad of skeletons keeps you up at night but i swear youll get way more visitors if you just keep your gates open.

 

 

I spent like three hours trying to get a guard to open the gates of Numendil yesterday. That's with one of the most populated nations, imagine the struggle with the lesser. I guess as a city resident I do remember wanting those gates closed. Last map in Karosgrad I remember waking up to see every house on one street would be robbed overnight, and ofc you aren't typically allowed to turn a city house into its own unique fortress. It does really hinder the roleplay. Some nations may do it even because groups of alts from other nations like to form little bandit clans and go attack their other characters enemies as well, so if you leave the gate open log on a local off time you just get immediately attacked on occasion. This all depends on the nation of course. 

[Laeonathan 5889]

One thing to keep in mind: Around these times in the year and map its normal to be lower. Been  like that the past 6 years.

[argonian 14254]

On 11/23/2024 at 7:48 PM, indiana105 said:

i'm right just wait for the next war in like 3 months

just 2 (two) more weeks (14 days)! and then LOTC will finally have conflict!

 

the cancellation of the Heartlander civil war was honestly the final nail in the coffin of meaningful conflict on this corpse of a server.

 

20 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

Wow, what an interesting thing to say. It sure sucks that the maps are 100 times too big, that there's a continental expanse of hastily WorldPainted terrain between every small settlement, that there's no list of places to go or markers on the map. It sucks that there are like 12 separate 'hubs' and you can only soulstone to one of them every 10 minutes. But no, surely the real problem has to be TOO MANY REALMS!!! You can't have too many people creating things on a roleplay server! You need CENTRALIZED ROLEPLAY, even if it makes 90% of the map entirely redundant. We just have to put in some ACTIVITY CHECKS to trim the fat and TILE UPKEEP to make sure no one ever builds anything again/

 

 

100% agree with this. wtf is this design philosophy of creating gigantic maps, primarily for the purpose of showing off cool terrain features which are (1) totally impossible to appreciate with the actual server render-distance and (2) generally hugely impractical for travel or building (bar pastes which just delete the old terrain)? i think it's getting even worse as the server gets more nation-brained too, as now providing clear paths and areas around which traffic might congregate would inherently mean that whatever nation managed to ****** (edit: sn4tch is a valid verb) that spot would benefit. since (understandably) no one wants other nations to leech activity in this way, we end up with everyone having an equally SHITTY spot instead. or at least that's the aim - in reality some spots are shittier than others, but no natural hubs exist regardless.

 

btw ive noticed lately that all your pics are bugged for me. i think cuz they're from discord. do they display for you? can anyone else chime in?

 

  

On 11/23/2024 at 6:26 PM, Nectorist said:

At the same time, nations started adopting the Novellen Oren model they claimed to hate, exerting more OOC control over their vassals and who they allowed to play and gain power. Back in the day, land was given to people and groups who showed any kind of initiative and ambition. There was a greater effort made to integrate, or at least not force out, groups and nations you had conquered because they had something to add. Nowadays, any group that is not entirely loyal to the NL is seen as a threat that must be removed because they could rebel. The way you build up trust and advance through most nations now isn't by doing stuff in RP- it's through sitting in vc with people and playing whatever video game is popular. This isn't anything all that new, but it's definitely more pronounced now.

Land was shared to people with initiative and ambition because building up the nation's overall manpower was very important and was worth the risk of those people rebelling against you in the future. Since then, however, war and realm rules have made external conflict mostly pointless while internal conflict can destroy your nation within 2 WCs, so it's generally better to not have vassals than to have any chance they might rebel. And if you have to have vassals, you keep them weak as shit.

 

Now, this isn't what caused it - the roots of anti-vassal stuff go back further. Novellen Oren, for example, didn't face any risk of internal war either since Telanir effectively banned that too, but it was a good chance to shit on troublesome vassals who in previous eras would have had to have been tolerated. It was an era of intense centralisation where evicting your vassals meant they died out - and where they couldn't just all rally for the next 5 Coalition Wars to destroy you as they traditionally did. Then, after wars were finally brought back, internal wars were made OP while external wars remained mostly meaningless, and that system has made sure that vassals never return in a big way and never will.

 

 

[wowj 9747]

Admins are terrible. Lore losing its culture day by day. Community Team. Tech-Team doesnt do anything.  Players are shit and metagame everything and stack everything they can to get the slightest edge in combat (im the joker btw)

[MysticalWeasel 910]

On 11/23/2024 at 9:54 PM, framalam said:

i think antag roleplay is something that is sorely lacking, but at the same time i hardly ever find it rewarding to lay in wait for an ambush on the road. yes, there are exceptions, when the fights are VERY VERY good, and entertaining, but what is the point as a spook player of killing a slice of lifer?

Preach, very rarely do I find someone that doesn't act like they are impervious and without fault. Making the idea of giving people boons or engagin in conversation impossible for a spook to feel like that can try that RP. I have had people who let themselves fall to corruption (shout out to the Nephilim I corrupted). Yet those are so far and few between compared to the people who instantly attempt to 1 hit kill in every emote. Don't like to construct a narrative, or a templar that spam /tell asking if I can be made into a trophy. I enjoy being evil, I enjoy spook RP. Yet I feel that it makes it impossible to have normal interactions or try small bouts of corruption since people have a million postings and know how to ID every spook FA/MA/CA. And just justify that as a way to get around meta gaming. Or somehow have iron wills and never feel pain nor temptation. 

 

On 11/24/2024 at 5:29 AM, SethWolf said:

please keep your gates open okay i know the threat of being inconvenienced by the three man squad of skeletons keeps you up at night but i swear youll get way more visitors if you just keep your gates open.

 

 

This too is a mega issue. If you lock yourself inside the entire time, how are you to expect to feel the impact of the larger world. Actual Attack on Titan mentality. You know there is a big world out there, yet remain safe inside the walls. I can understand if after an attack or a report of an attack shut gates for a bit. Yet it is perma, always down. Resulting in a stagnant issue of forcing spooks to get high enough numbers to raid these places. Rather then letting small interactions and small CRP scuffles that gives everyone some enjoyment. 

[monkeypoacher 8055]

On 11/24/2024 at 3:30 PM, argonian said:

btw ive noticed lately that all your pics are bugged for me. i think cuz they're from discord. do they display for you? can anyone else chime in?

 

 

 

yh the link is dead. they've probably started shuffling urls around to keep people from using them as a free image host. rip

 

On 11/24/2024 at 9:45 AM, Laeonathan said:

One thing to keep in mind: Around these times in the year and map its normal to be lower. Been  like that the past 6 years.

 

this is true, and in response to the totally predictable fall slump every year staff take apocalyptic austerity measures to try and kill off 'inactive' groups to 'centralize rp'