Urara

OOC: characters mentioned in entry 75 – @Thorten @firespirit44 @Hanrahan @Etow @AdmiralLB @AndrewTech

OOC: characters mentioned in entry 73 – @Thorten @firespirit44 @AndrewTech @Etow @Lyonharted™

NAME: Tanith AGE: 507 GENDER: Female POSITION/S SOUGHT: Oh, dear, um... professor, maybe? That sounds so prestigious... Can I just be called a teacher instead? EXPERIENCE: Um, goodness! I am very old? Does that count for something? Er, I run the museum in Helena and I’ve written a few little books on history. Some people say they’re decent! I like to cook too! I’d say I am a good chef. Maybe a cooking class? I also know a little water evocation. ((TA here)) DISCORD: Don’t want to post it publicly – PM me.

OOC: entry 71 & 72 up! characters mentioned – @Thorten @AndrewTech @Etow @Rayna Star @firespirit44

ANNOUNCING... The Northern Geographical Society Lecture Series To All Lovers of History, Science, + Culture! The Northern Geographical Society is proud to announce our upcoming Lecture Series, where we invite guest experts and historians to provide educational lectures for the populace. These lectures are FREE TO ATTEND and will be held at our lecture hall in the NGS Flagship Museum at Reza! People of all ages, races, and education levels are invited to visit and learn. Our lecture series is designed to be accessible to anyone and everyone, regardless of how much schooling you’ve received. The first installment of our lecture series will be on the subject of... The Early Empire + The Order of the White Rose Lead by Tanith of the Westerlands Meet Our Expert - Tanith is a 500+ year old dark elf who was privileged to witness the founding of the Holy Oren Empire. She has a wealth of memory and personal experience to share. Tanith will be giving a short, educational presentation on early Imperial history. She will be hosting a Question + Answer session following the lecture. Information At A Glance – Who? Tanith of the Westerlands and YOU! What? A lecture + Q&A session on early Imperial history! Where? The NGS Flagship Museum in Reza! Contact Tanith for directions! When? ((Tuesday, August 18th, at 5pm EST)) Why? To help educate the populace and spread knowledge regarding early Imperial history! We hope to see you there!

OOC: entries 69 and 70! characters mentioned: @Thorten @AndrewTech @Rayna Star @firespirit44

Honestly? Absolutely terrible idea. I believe that has the opposite effect. As a player, seeing the community I invested in destroyed would... break my heart and make me not want to roleplay anymore. There’s a lot of things that might affect activity levels in a given place – not all of them dependent on the number of dedicated players that a race has. Is the community centrally located and easy to find from the main road? Does it take a long time to get there from spawn? Is the RP friendly to new players? Or players from other nations? The most hopping places tend to be locations that are relatively easy to find in relation to the Cloud Temple. If you follow the main roads from CT, you’ll eventually run into Helena, Sutica, Haense, etc. They’re all located on a big loop. The first time I logged into Arcas, I immediately and easily found all of those locations just by wandering. It also depends on how friendly and accepting the RP there is toward wanderers. If I just walk into the city, can I hope to find RP right off the bat? Is the RP exclusive or intimidating? I actually think the Halflings would be a great “introductory race” for new players. Halfling RP tends to be friendly, light-hearted, silly, cute, and fun. Putting them close to CT would be great. It would attract new players who might be shy about diving into a big city like Helena or Sutica. When I went to Helena for the first time, there were SO many people and I was terrified of talking to anyone. (Despite being an old hand at RP lmao. Social anxiety’s a *****.) But like... stopping by a nice lil’ halfling village and having some tavern RP with a buncha cutie-pies? Much less intimidating and a great way to ease into LOTC.

Certain types of RP are always going to be niche. The simple fact with most fantasy settings is that the most popular races are almost always elves and humans. Let’s look at World of Warcraft as a case study. If I recall correctly, in Vanilla WoW, the Horde lagged severely behind the Alliance in terms of player count and suffered as a result in PvP matchups. Purely for the reason that the Horde was mostly “monster” races. But then, in Burning Crusade, they added the Blood Elves and Horde activity spiked. People like to play elves and humans. So races outside of the elf-human dynamic – your orcs, your dwarves, your halflings, etc. – are by their very nature going to be more niche and attract less players. That doesn’t mean that they’re bad! Absolutely not. However, it does mean that races other than elves and humans SHOULD NOT be subject to penalties simply because they lack the activity of the elven or human races. Dwarves, orcs, and halflings all have players who are deeply passionate about their culture and their RP. Activity checks seem like they need to be reconsidered.

Oh, pardon. Guess I mis-tagged you. My b