How is Olden doing?

Basically, the title. But there's more to it.

I'm basically looking for a wide, sweeping status report. How are we doing? How is the roleplay? How are you finding Olden at the moment? What do you think of the Administration's handling / administration style? Are there any changes or problems you'd like to bring up?

Note, this is a thread for straight -opinions-. As such, speak honestly. If you disagree with someone's opinion, refute it with evidence or logic, and do so -civilly-. Any snide comments or flaming will be dealt with quite harshly. Take this thread seriously. I want opinions, but I don't want a fight to break out. Rule Number 1--Be cool to others.

Have at yee.

I believe Olden is doing good. We had 19/20 players on some day ago. The roleplay is...
Since there is no "goal" there isn't much to do. A lot of the roleplay are either circlejerks, "private group roleplay" or bar roleplay. The preparation of war should add some roleplay though. It'd keep everyone busy and should arouse conflicts.

I find Olden to be fun at sometimes but it can also be quite slow. Casual talking that brings almost no real character development are quite dull. Adding IC mini-events could be fun and they could be handled by either admins or some event coordinator. That would add some passive roleplay. I think the admins are doing a good job though at handling minges but conflicts... Could be better.

The changes I'd like to bring up is IC mini-events that have no REAL impact but could provide some passive roleplay. Also someone to solve OOC conflicts about IC instead of arguing for ten minutes about something pointless.

I'd say we're very stable and holding together. The roleplay's passive, and personally I'm fine with that - I believe that passive roleplay is the way for players to develop their own little intertwining subplots and issues that others can get pulled into, effectively and eventually forming little IC mini-events in themselves- and in that, there's your development. And sure RP can be slow at times, but you don't go into cynical mode and do nothing about it- you gotta create your own RP through passiving.

Agreed that there should be lots of mini-events, like Graley said, handled by either admins or co-ordinators. And it would indeed, create more passive RP and talk around town- Opportunities to create those little mini-events.

I don't think the admins talk to the players enough, and ask what they want- and truthfully it'd be much better if there were more moderators instead of admins, since most of administrating is in fact moderating the server anyway.

I'd like to throw out an idea. The server seems to have developed more into a chat room than an RP server. There should be at least a thirty second delay for now on or longer. OOC is meant for a serious question or for someone to inform everyone of what might be happening. I don't exclude myself from in the past abusing OOC though it'd be best to add a permanent delay to restrict unnecessary chatter that could be done in SF.

Commander Cuddly Muffin wrote:

I'd like to throw out an idea. The server seems to have developed more into a chat room than an RP server. There should be at least a thirty second delay for now on or longer. OOC is meant for a serious question or for someone to inform everyone of what might be happening. I don't exclude myself from in the past abusing OOC though it'd be best to add a permanent delay to restrict unnecessary chatter that could be done in SF.

OOC is for out of character chat. A simple request for less OOC that can be enforced is fine enough.

This is a bit much.

permanent ooc delay?
no.

that would just make people abuse /ad.

the problem isn't the ooc channel, it's the admins not enforcing "Back In Character" at all.

Commander Cuddly Muffin wrote:

I'd like to throw out an idea.

No.

Quote :

There should be at least a thirty second delay for now on or longer.

Again, no.

Quote :

it'd be best to add a permanent delay to restrict

This is not TnB.

To begin with, the server is stable as hell. It just won't crash. Thing is though, that every four days or so it's up, everything seems to degrade to jitteriness. This can be easily fixed by changing map or restarting the server. That's something I'd like admins to address more frequently.

The roleplay itself is all good, although slow. As mentioned before, most of the RP happens either in the bar or somewhere in private, not that it's always a bad thing. There is one itty bitty problem with the RP that I want to address though. Most of the RP happens around the most powerful persons in Aeria - younger characters don't have that much to do but to sit in the bar because most of the time if there's something going on, it tends to be out of their league. I fall into this category and more often than not I notice myself to be inferior to a lot of events and quests that pop up because they demand rather strong characters. Inexperienced ones can't really go there and hope that they'll be alright if they can't even tickle their adversary.

Moving onto a related matter, the quests. Whenever there is a quest that would be suitable for more inexperienced characters, tagged around "Normal" difficulty or below, the whoever is playing the "dungeon master" tends to make the quests a wee bit too difficult and exhausting. Due to that, even if there was a quest that seemed easy enough, I tend to not want to partake in it unless I'm absolutely sure that I wouldn't just be a burden to the rest of the group because the quest turned out to be far harder than what promised and my character simply isn't strong enough to handle it all. So yes, less sadistic DM's kthx. Players and their characters get exhausted if you keep pushing them without a decent break. That might or might not be such a problem with the top-tier quests because the veteran characters are most likely very well prepared. Don't make a child do an adult's job.

Now, what would be the best way to really advance your characters? Quests, most likely. Varied quests. But if there are none, you're forced to mostly passive by yourself, or a few others if you're lucky, for a few months while "grinding" your character to be more experienced and tough before you can join in the fun with the vets. That's not very fun for a new guy.
I'd love to see a few more quests every now and then, preferably not insanely hard where these weaker characters would take priority over the clearly far too seasoned ones and have a chance to shine for a moment. The last quest I saw was The Hidden Weapons Cache and that was ages ago, and it was rather though and exhausting. Why not give people something simpler-ish to do a bit more frequently? I mean, we're preparing for a war, aren't we? Why don't we have some reasonable quests liked to it?

Oh, and the amount of OOC is staggering at times. I suppose that's my two cents.

Mackalian wrote:

permanent ooc delay?
no.

that would just make people abuse /ad.

the problem isn't the ooc channel, it's the admins not enforcing "Back In Character" at all.

First off admins shouldn't even have to say BIC because everyone should learn that OOC is for important matters. It isn't for someone to go ''Hey looks at me I wants attention because Imma say sometin stupid and derail all rps.'' If you guys are too mad about losing 30 seconds of not being able to say something irrelevant in OOC then the server should at least add a bar to mute OOC. It'd help for those who are actually RPing on the server to concentrate on their RP and block out the "Hey guise it said Pat joined, I bets $52 he'll be ins in one hour."

Also I've never seen someone use /ad appropriately so it might as well be removed so people can't even abuse it.

I think it's funny to be the only one kicked for /ad abuse after other people do it

Quote :

First off admins shouldn't even have to say BIC because everyone should learn that OOC is for important matters.

i've been against OOC delay in general for as long as i can remember.
and it's not only about the ooc channel being blocked. it's about admins in general needing more respect. especially in olden.
enforcing BIC is a good way to gain this respect.

now i'm not blaming the admins 100 % for this. the players need to learn how to respect the admins too. but there's still a factor of the admins earning this respect. it takes two to tango.

sorry, reager. but it seems you're the only one who's bothered by OOC. and everyone else is against it.

sure, when there's a massive discussions about pee-pees and vagee-gees it's annoying as fuck. but that's when the admins should enforce.

you need to not be so autismal about it all, and learn to live with it sometimes. blows you have to take.

For ooc, as a player I feel some people just need to get it through their thick skulls that BIC means they should get back in character.

As an admin, in general issues, I feel that the players don't come to us often enough with suggestions. The only time I've been asked for help lately is by someone who wants to get a character or an app approved.

As a result, when people don't have any ideas to submit to the admin team as a whole, we do our own thing, then are fairly peeved when people who don't make an effort to contribute or even roleplay normally without my efforts, call it 'circlejerking' or 'too much'.

Otherwise, aside from the occasional dumb character, drama queen, people's habit of still calling it Olden, and the occasional narrow-minded douche who mistakes the entire plot for a Lord of the Rings rip-off, Aeria has grown a lot better over the years.

Inb4 someone automatically assumes, with guilty conscience, I'm speaking about them.

I'd say not to worry on those lack of direction issues, soon there'll be plenty to do.

Also, I know I'm probably shooting myself and this thread in the foot but...

I honestly think there's way too little respect in the community with a lot of members being constant, blatant assholes to one another. I won't elaborate in any detail, just saying what I think.

Quote :

mistakes the entire plot for a Lord of the Rings rip-off,

So we're not taking the ring to mount Doom?

I'm not joking about people thinking it's a LOTR ripoff. Since he/she didn't expand on it, probably because they knew it was an astoundingly idiotic opinion, I don't really have any more details on it.

I think things are okay, if a bit dull. As an admin, I'll see to introducing more quests and stuff to do, that the younger characters can handle. The problem with quests these days is that a majority of characters are strong and well-established, and it only takes one really powerful character in a group to ruin an event by owning everything and taking away the fun of a challenge. Thus, events are usually more difficult.

Rutabega wrote:

I honestly think there's way too little respect in the community with a lot of members being constant, blatant assholes to one another. I won't elaborate in any detail, just saying what I think.

This is a growing problem.

I don't have much to say other than the timeline has gone static and that it seems there isn't alot of involvement with the Gods in any timeline.

also, an Occitanian attack event would be cool

I'm just suggesting that there be a tab added to the chat bar. Basically like in TnB where you have an IC, OOC, Private Messaging tab. It'd just be neat to have an IC tab to block out the irrelevant OOC discussion.

Also for the delay I could continue going on with very good reasons to add it but it seems you want to prevent it at your best so never mind.

Blitz wrote:

I don't have much to say other than the timeline has gone static and that it seems there isn't alot of involvement with the Gods in any timeline.

also, an Occitanian attack event would be cool

Mind you there was just a large Shar related plot not too long ago.

Commander Cuddly Muffin wrote:

I'm just suggesting that there be a tab added to the chat bar. Basically like in TnB where you have an IC, OOC, Private Messaging tab. It'd just be neat to have an IC tab to block out the irrelevant OOC discussion.

this seems like a reasonable compromise. if you want to block out OOC, then go ahead. hit the IC tab.

Well, let me start with my "PrivateRP Spectrum". I would have to say it's part speculation, part past experience. I think it could serve as a basis for discussion well enough.

The PrivateRP spectrum.

End I: The excessive end. People PRP with the same people all the time. Isolation occurs. Many may not find much for RP, and it gets boring for those. Separation of people OOC may occur as well.

The middle: People have their RPs with some, but have their RPs with the others. People take the initiative to come up with RPs to involve other people, while still keeping it controlled. Quests and events should fall under here. They have control over the combat while still giving the contestants their shots at whatever.

End II: The free end. PrivateRP is outlawed. Public events are the only happening thing. The events become massive clusterfucks and pissing contests. People get bored because they can't develop characters with specific others without it being considered private. Admin reliance skyrockets. RP becomes boring because admins may end up exhausting their creative ability.


Let me touch on age. It seems there are A LOT of really young characters. To me, I think it's a problem. It's rather Mary Sue-ish.

We need more entertaining things, to keep peoples enthusiasm about coming on heightened.

A really annoying thing, though, is that alot of rp seems to happen only in the tavern. I'm not saying people have to go jump around on the roofs, but goddamn, stop being hermits and go outside. I'm suprised not all Olden characters are fat bimbos, seeing as when on, I see, at most, maybe five people outside, most of which will probably just go to the tavern because they are too lazy to just go walk up to anyone else outside and say hi. I mean, yeah, events and shit get people outside, but most of the time when people are on it's hiding in their home with one other person, or in the tavern.

Sorry if I'm repeating anything someone else said, too out of it to read much.

Blitz wrote:

I don't have much to say other than the timeline has gone static and that it seems there isn't alot of involvement with the Gods in any timeline.

also, an Occitanian attack event would be cool

I haven't seen you in-server lately, otherwise you would've found out through Thorn that the guards are preparing defenses against the Occitanians.

I re-propose the fighting system.

LawnJesus wrote:

Blitz wrote:

I don't have much to say other than the timeline has gone static and that it seems there isn't alot of involvement with the Gods in any timeline.

also, an Occitanian attack event would be cool

I haven't seen you in-server lately, otherwise you would've found out through Thorn that the guards are preparing defenses against the Occitanians.

Yeah I agree with Lawn. The only time I've seen you on the server, you yourself were hiding away in the bar. You don't have much right to judge people if they're inside, because they usually just want to roleplay with a couple of people, or are just looking to the bar for human interaction. We owe a great deal to Kruggly for playing Jens and making the tavern a more active business.

Also, Lawn, End 2 of your private rp speculation hits dangerously close to home, as in, I think it's more or less the situation now. Lots of the big events become clusterfucks that are mistaken for circlejerks. It's a thing to work on, I agree.

And you cannot fathom how many battle-kiddies polluted the roleplay in the earlier days.