Concern on the new guild outpost system.

[Xorena]

Seconded... well thirded the above and the OP

Furthermore, I think it'll run the risk where a larger-conglomeration of guilds teams up to stiffle progress from other factions, who may not be in a position to team up with as many allies, where the big group cycles who gets to work on their Outposts, and who spends points nullifying others progress, resulting in a situation where a big group decides who gets to progress and who is limited to a GH.

It has happened in the past, where several factions met up to offer various support against the Zhentarim, and I just think a system like the one presented will end up enabling such a huge alliance to target faction and block them from making progress.

I would certainly hope the DMs would be wise enough to not let this happen. When evil is IC and OOC crushed you are rewarded with stagnation.

I am interested in hearing if there's a plan or way to deal with situations like Bob poses. If not you'll have to come up with something.

[JIŘÍ]

Seconded... well thirded the above and the OP

Furthermore, I think it'll run the risk where a larger-conglomeration of guilds teams up to stiffle progress from other factions, who may not be in a position to team up with as many allies, where the big group cycles who gets to work on their Outposts, and who spends points nullifying others progress, resulting in a situation where a big group decides who gets to progress and who is limited to a GH.

It has happened in the past, where several factions met up to offer various support against the Zhentarim, and I just think a system like the one presented will end up enabling such a huge alliance to target faction and block them from making progress.

I would certainly hope the DMs would be wise enough to not let this happen. When evil is IC and OOC crushed you are rewarded with stagnation.

I am interested in hearing if there's a plan or way to deal with situations like Bob poses. If not you'll have to come up with something.

I am pretty certain settlements, and NPC factions will have impact on the activity.

Idea that Doron Amar makes an outpost in the lands ruled ba zhentarim are simple plain.

But it goes the other way too. Also the faction "conflict" (even if without PVP) can easily grow up into strife between cities or drag some powerful NPC group into the stuff.

It offers big options to develop play. Instead of sitting by camp fire in Eastern Farmlands you now will have firm guidelinie what you can do for your faction and how to promote and have the drive to do it.

Without constantly requesting DM assitence or waiting for DM to be around.

[Febriel]

Except all of that "Documentation" can be easily farmed and exploited and be accomplished without actually interacting with anyone outside whatever clique said player happens to be apart of. Posing for screenshots should not be what effects change. Taking five minutes to write something on the forum should not be what effects change. We should push people to actually be inside the game not posting things here for points. Especially when all of it can be enitrely faked. You should be able to use the forums to supplement rp and draw attention to things you are doing yes, so that it can then be observed ingame and confirmed explicitly.

And I fundamentally disagre we should have any kind ooc point system in general when all of it should and could be done through narrative and story sharing.
As it stands now if I want to accomplish anything I have to do months of rp with a huge amount of players that generates rp with a huge amount of players.
With other players having the ability to fight it every single step of the way. To counter me narratively in some way, to outwit me to do any number of things to block it through rp.

With this kind of system i could cut out all of that rp and just score points oocly without involving anyone else at all. Just keep to my own and never have to really engage anyone. Theres no slow build up of social rapport or influence its just do x activity gain y number of points. I dont have to weave my way through stories and rp just do some writeups and post some screenies, rp with my own crew at best. Kaching

*speaks in Morgan Freeman* He's right you know. Particularly that little part about being ingame.

[JIŘÍ]

How can you post screenshots of something what did not happen.


And how can you fake something if you are not in the game actually too?

And if someone spends days over photoshop to post public pics where anyone can easily verify it I'll just say let that person enjoy their time wasted on that.

If you think you can fake doing patrols somewhere claim it on public and having half of playerbase just wrinkle eye brows and think how is possible you never met those guys around and get away i just say go ahead and try. Afterall did not members of the team asked Wolfshear to start faking the events to collect awards to prove it can be so much gamed?

[VDub]

I was wondering if this would be an opportunity for a mercenary group to actually do merc work?

Could a guild hire out a mercenary group to patrol an area acquiring "Guild/RP points" for the guild that hired them?

[Ewe]

Hey got some questions,

1. Will I be able to see my point totals at any time if I ask?

2. Will I be able to see the current point totals for a contested area to know if we need to work harder or is it totally blind until whenever the next "season" starts?

3. The details on point decay and decreasing other faction's points were pretty vague, any more details there?

4. How long do "seasons" last is it once every 3 months?

5. Will maps get actual module updates once every 3 months to add in each outpost or control flags?

6. Is there a list of current outposts to start working on claiming? How is an outpost built? Do we need to make our own maps?

[mastajabba]

Maybe we should see how things actually go down. Instead of howling at the moon at the mere mention of change.

People exploit every aspect of mechanics in this game. There are hundreds of Build posts made to exploit every facet of character building. There are people here that have going from lvl 1 to lvl 30 down to a science and can do it in little over two weeks.

When things don’t change they get stagnant and die. I have been on this game little over 2 years and I seen more guilds rise and fall because at the end the world doesn't react to anything you do. And change comes slower than most guild’s attention span.

Also Great Point for Solomon, this brings great opportunities for Mercenary and Adventurers to get actual “Work” from established groups. Which is severely lacking. Since it’s a cost full of work for free Hero playing a mercenary is impossible.

I will say having a loggers guild, a stone cutters guild, laborers guild and have to manage negotiations and the such will add a lot to this system. Specially building outpost in the wilds your builders will need security.

[Young Werther]

Could a belligerent faction not use this system as leverage to force conflict? I say give it a try.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

I was wondering if this would be an opportunity for a mercenary group to actually do merc work?

Could a guild hire out a mercenary group to patrol an area acquiring "Guild/RP points" for the guild that hired them?

It's an interesting idea, and one that another player came to me with as well. I think for the time being, the original rule insofar as single players can take part in guild activities to contribute will be upheld as the way for mercenary PCs to contribute. But groups of mercenaries, or other guilds taking part in guild activities will be limited. Again, it's a work in progress so I'd like to see if the system works at all before we start making changes.

Seconded... well thirded the above and the OP

Furthermore, I think it'll run the risk where a larger-conglomeration of guilds teams up to stiffle progress from other factions, who may not be in a position to team up with as many allies, where the big group cycles who gets to work on their Outposts, and who spends points nullifying others progress, resulting in a situation where a big group decides who gets to progress and who is limited to a GH.

It has happened in the past, where several factions met up to offer various support against the Zhentarim, and I just think a system like the one presented will end up enabling such a huge alliance to target faction and block them from making progress.

I would certainly hope the DMs would be wise enough to not let this happen. When evil is IC and OOC crushed you are rewarded with stagnation.

I am interested in hearing if there's a plan or way to deal with situations like Bob poses. If not you'll have to come up with something.

The system wasn't designed to be an antagonistic one in the way that you're describing. While I can certainly see certain guilds looking to prevent/increase influence of enemies/allies in an area by opposing/supporting other guilds, I think the best way to prevent a 'ganging up on' is to only allow a single conflict per period for any guild. I'm open to other suggestions however, because I'd like to keep it as IC as possible while still preserving an OOC sense of fairness.

Hey got some questions,

1. Will I be able to see my point totals at any time if I ask?

2. Will I be able to see the current point totals for a contested area to know if we need to work harder or is it totally blind until whenever the next "season" starts?

3. The details on point decay and decreasing other faction's points were pretty vague, any more details there?

4. How long do "seasons" last is it once every 3 months?

5. Will maps get actual module updates once every 3 months to add in each outpost or control flags?

6. Is there a list of current outposts to start working on claiming? How is an outpost built? Do we need to make our own maps?

1. Point totals, yes. They'll be reported to the guild leaders once per period.

2. Up for debate. I can see the value of keeping everyone in the dark, but I understand the wish for transparency. I'll discuss it with staff.

3. What in particular do you want to know?

4. Correct.

5. That's the idea, and why we're trying to keep them small.

6. There are no non-permanent outposts right now. I listed examples of semi-permanent ones in the original post. If you want to build one, you and your guild should start roleplaying accordingly, and see what your efforts garner after a few months. You don't need to make a new map, as they'll be added to the areas that you're looking to have an influence in.

I understand everyone is concerned about this, for a variety of reasons. So are we. We wanted to introduce a new way for people's RP to matter on a more regular basis, in a more transparent fashion. As pointed out to me by other players, there is still DM discretion on how much an activity is worth, and how we go about awarding points. But, this is intentional. The system needs to have both subjective and objective standards in order for it to work. Otherwise, unfortunately, we'll have people trying to game the system to win.

It's an unfortunate truth, but it's one that has been pointed out to me by numerous players. So I ask, please: take it slow. Try it out, and bear with us as we adjust. I hope that if we manage to build a degree of trust between the DM staff and the playerbase, we can increase the level of conflict roleplay without getting anyone's feelings hurt, or frustrated. If we can, it'd be a great way for players to promote RP interests. If we can't, then we'll have to roll it back until such a time that players are able to play well together without OOC drama.

As I said before, I'm entirely open to helpful suggestions, because I want this to succeed for you, the players. But I'd ask that any further doom and gloom be relegated to places other than this thread. Thanks!

[Rhifox]

I'd like to thank everyone for providing their feedback so far. Some of the concerns raised do have some merit, so we can try taking a look at things and see where we can address those issues moving forwards. I'd very much like to make things feel IC, rather than OOC. The goal of this system is to bring the server more towards roleplay, to support players being able to make their mark on the setting, to feel like they can progress, so if there are areas where it's not accomplishing this, we can take a look at it.

We can also consider ways to better support individual players being able to make their mark, rather than just guilds. The idea was raised, but we decided to stick with guilds for the time being. But we do have individual players on our mind and would like to better support them.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

[JustAnotherGuy]

I've been reading the thread for the last few days without comment. But from the moment I read the announcement, I felt something "off" about it. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I didn't like it. And so I didn't respond, because I didn't want to come in here and just say, "I don't like it but I don't know why." Well, now I know why; it hit me this morning.

This, to me, will turn the server into a medieval version of Eve Online.

Sure, a solo player can have fun. But if they want to really have any impact on anything, they'd have to join a corporation (guild). Next thing you know, guilds are keeping track of who made it to what event, helped kill what bosses, and overall are helping the guild out. It becomes a job with scheduled events that MUST be shown up to, "Or we might lose our influence in the area to x".

Obviously, that example is a bit of hyperbole. But ... it's not wholly out of the realm of possibility. To me, this does feel like a step towards being like an MMO. And that's why it felt off to me.

With all that said, I'm not completely opposed to the idea. But it does feel very metagamey/ooc to me and gives me MMO vibes.

[Planehopper]

How any of that is extrapolated from "we are opening ways for players to impact the world more consistently and fairly" is seriously beyond me.

The reason this place bleeds players and staff runs in circles to try to "fix" it is because every damn thing is railed against.

This place sucks the life and enthusiasm out of anyone that does just about anything remotely positive for the server.

Give it a chance, or at least hold the doom and gloom with zero evidence to prove it disastrous.

[Xorena]

This, to me, will turn the server into a medieval version of Eve Online.

Sure, a solo player can have fun. But if they want to really have any impact on anything, they'd have to join a corporation (guild). Next thing you know, guilds are keeping track of who made it to what event, helped kill what bosses, and overall are helping the guild out. It becomes a job with scheduled events that MUST be shown up to, "Or we might lose our influence in the area to x".

I used to run an Everquest guild with DKP (dragon kill points), and I can honestly say that's the furthest from my mind when I think about this system.

Granted I never played EVE, but camping for my cleric epic for 44 hours and no sleep over Thanksgiving is something I'd never do again, nor wish on anyone.

That said, I seriously doubt the powers that be envisioned this hellscape, and wouldn't allow it to become such. I'd like to think nearly everyone here is for story, and not to win at internet points in a 20-year-old game.

[Rain]

I leave for 1 month and BG turns into an MMO with dailies? What happened?

[Dolorof]

I think its cool, after the first few weeks we should be able to better review the implementation.