The Coming Conflict (Factions)

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stratcat
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by stratcat »

The new place looks very cool, with lots of flavor and all those forbidden things being okay there. I keep worrying that maybe it's too much appeal. Players playing sorcerers of some kind or those hoping to maybe one day be afflicted will all probably sway there. Add to that the fact Notshadgard is new and sparkling and thus - exciting. I keep thinking that we might need something to keep Shadgard equally appealing. In CLOK the special thing about it used to be the thaumaturgists and knights (whatever those were called), but we don't have that anymore. What do we have that elevates Shadgard? Maybe it also needs a fresh look to keep the excitement for it going, or at least a promise of one?

It could be, though, that I just worry too much!
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Jaster
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Jaster »

My vote is for keeping with "Notshadgard" as the official name of the new faction.
Acarin
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Acarin »

Jaster wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 11:43 am My vote is for keeping with "Notshadgard" as the official name of the new faction.
My suggestion would be "Stabgard."
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Rias
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Rias »

stratcat wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:49 am The new place looks very cool, with lots of flavor and all those forbidden things being okay there. I keep worrying that maybe it's too much appeal. [...] Add to that the fact Notshadgard is new and sparkling and thus - exciting. I keep thinking that we might need something to keep Shadgard equally appealing. [...] What do we have that elevates Shadgard? Maybe it also needs a fresh look to keep the excitement for it going, or at least a promise of one?
As talked about in the latest Friday voicechat, Shadgard will be getting some more love in the gearwork/gas/steam department. While I do -not- want it to be some kind of tinkertown where these aspects overshadow everything else about the place, I do want to add a few more instances and applications, since right now it's just the Steamworks room mainly there for looks and its associated turning millstone. Some ideas:
- Player-maintained steam pipes and radiator hubs that can be extended into the various rooms in town to provide a room with a heat source, preventing cold environment effects.
- Future player home upgrade options (with monthly service fees) of getting hooked to the steam lines for heating, the gas lines for lighting/cooking, and the water lines for a water source.
- Use the Steamworks to fill canisters to be used for pneumatic pistols and possibly some other utility equipment that could be used in crafting or other utility purposes.
- A steam-powered lift down into new mine areas. And maybe one to be used as a shortcut from the room near the Barrier to the rail span above.
- Add an engineer NPC that wanders about town for additional flavor. (No, they will not be constantly carrying an oversized wrench, nor wearing wacky tinted goggles.)
- An (optional) powered bellows in the smithy that you activate and deactivate, instead of having to pull the chain over and over.
- A steam-powered stone crusher for extraction of ores from mined stone.
- Town tasks to repair pipes, fuel boilers, check pressure gauges and report, things like that.

Keep in mind Shadgard was always a frontier town, and now it's a frontier town in a post-apocalyptic region of the world, so this isn't shiny fancy clock-and-steam technology like you'd find in Khaldea. More of a cobbled-together feel where people are always waiting for the next thing to break down and need repairs. It has more personality that way anyway!

If anyone has additional ideas to this effect, please do share. But again: I strongly do NOT want Shadgard to become some wacky tinkertown where every aspect of life is somehow associated with steam/clockwork technology. It should simply be one facet of life in Shadgard, not the town's primary defining feature. (Its primary feature is that it's a dusty frontier mining town.)
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nobody
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by nobody »

Rias wrote: Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:49 pm If anyone has additional ideas to this effect, please do share. But again: I strongly do NOT want Shadgard to become some wacky tinkertown where every aspect of life is somehow associated with steam/clockwork technology. It should simply be one facet of life in Shadgard, not the town's primary defining feature. (Its primary feature is that it's a dusty frontier mining town.)
I'm still all for rentable apartment(s) above the steamworks and bakery and such. I'm also all for the steamworks periodically exploding. Maybe have it be an increasing chance based on how long its been since a player took the repair pipes/check pressure gauges task.
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Rias
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Rias »

(EDIT: The below was eventually decided against and will not be happening - see later on in this thread.)

I've had some interesting conversations about this faction stuff with various players, former players, former GMs, and GMs from other games. As a result I've come to some conclusions.

- The playerbase is not ready to be forced into splitting up. Our population is still in a large ebb & flow state, and a feeling of community and seeing other player characters in the day-to-day is likely going to be much more beneficial to player retention and establishing a core playerbase than it would be to geographically split people and direct a lot of interactions to violent conflict.
- Two completely exclusive player faction locations will dramatically increase staff work required for implementing new town features, running events, and generally getting work done that can be appreciated by everyone. Placement of new areas would become a significant hassle when it comes to feelings of proximity-related fairness, and sometimes would even require doubling up of similar areas so both factions have equal access to whatever is meant to be in the areas (resources, combat mobs, etc).
- It might be better to spend more effort on events, organizations, community-building, and making the world feel alive for a while, rather than investing in geographically splitting up a tiny playerbase and dramatically increasing staff workload in the process.

I am not abandoning the factions idea. I still think it's a great way to provide a feeling of belonging for both lighter- and darker-aligned characters. I also think there's still a lot of merit in letting players use the factions concept to create their own conflict and events. Here's what I'm thinking: Introduce two new major factions. These factions openly oppose each other and have goals at clear odds with each other to support this. Their beliefs and creeds and general feel and such are much the same as previously discussed in this thread and on voice calls. Players can pledge themselves to one or the other. These factions fight over claiming resource sites and such just like the original idea, and each has their own humble little base camp in different parts of the map where their members can go to get tasks, check up on the state of the conflict, plan attacks on enemy sites, buy unique items based on which sites are controlled by their faction, and so on. Site resources, surrounding area creature spawns, and other stuff like that could also change based on which faction has local influence, which can further motivate people to support their preferred faction (or to pick a faction at all). Faction bases should remain small and isolated, and not be places people try to live in. That said, I do like the idea of at least some aesthetic upgrades as a faction sees more support and success, and downgrades if a faction suffers many defeats or just becomes neglected.

The primary difference from the original plan is that at the end of the day, everyone goes home to the same town. Which can be awkward for sure, but that might also end up presenting additional opportunities. How are people going to behave when forced to be at least somewhat civil with their enemies while within town walls? This leads me to believe the main town should not be particularly for or against either of the two opposing factions. At the same time, it would also be neat to have some influence seen within certain areas of town. Faction A has influence in the east side of town, faction B in the west side. Have some little turf battles. Faction B manages to gain influence over the inn, and now they get a small discount on rent or something for as long as they can hold that influence. That kind of thing is further down the timeline, but I think it could be a lot of fun to have some more domestic and subtle faction conflict within town, and the more open and violent conflict reserved for when out in the field.

And all this leads me to think Shadgard might not be a great fit for this concept, and so maybe I - uh huh, go ahead and start rolling your eyes - go with my oft-flip-flopped original idea of demoting Shadgard to outpost and basing players in Porto D'esilio, placed not too far west down the coast from New Emberlight. Area mob skill ranges can be adjusted easily to have the geographically closer stuff easier and the further stuff tougher. Porto's larger, I already had plans for splitting it into areas of opposing influence at least flavor-wise so it was built with that in mind, and it doesn't have all the pre-established baggage Shadgard does from The Other Game, so it can easily be a more neutral entity when it comes to the faction conflict of its members. About which it says: "Duke it out as much as you want away out there, but while you're in Republic territory, you refrain from killing each other or you suffer the consequences."

I know this is sort of a "have your cake and eat it too" approach with wanting faction conflict while also wanting people to stay in the same primary geographic area/community, but I think it could work. I've seen it work to some degree in other games I've played. And of course, I think I have some ideas to make it work better. I'd love to hear peoples' thoughts. Preferably here in this thread for the whole community to see and consider, and not via private communications directly to me, please. (I'm going to copy and paste that last line to the people who DM me about this!)
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Acarin
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Acarin »

I'm still thinking about this but not entirely opposed to the idea. The biggest concern that I would have is that part of the original concept forced people to choose a faction and felt like it would work because no one could remain neutral... so everyone was impacted and people all make a choice... that does not seem to be the case with this idea. Did you have any thoughts here? I assume that this "faction" influence would be independent of the town government itself so I feel like this type of conflict could be less impactful and make most favor neutrality. If most stay neutral and there is minimal real separation between factions and their resources, then this is demotivating for the purposing of conflict. It seems like it would be very difficult to force a separation between factions if sharing the same location...
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Irylia
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by Irylia »

I think a way around that would be for the factions to have some kind of heavy influence on the world so you can't really sit out and stay neutral of at least having an opinion for your character. I mean, even with the limited infested plot that took place it seemed like most people picked a side even if they didn't act on it. That would be no different than the full factions scenario where someone who wants to be on a side, but avoid conflict, would still have that option available to them. Your character could be morally, alignment, or shared-goals supportive of one over the other as it impacts the world around them without actually taking action, but that choice would still be made. Alternatively, it could become a character creation option and something that established characters choose once implemented. Give a blurb about each faction and say - you have to pick one that your character would align with. Or there could be a quiz to help you determine which side you'd go with. Again, this would then at least force some thought away from neutrality even if players don't act on their decision much.

I don't see there being a problem with two factions sharing a city. Think of it as how we (USA) have a two-party system (though maybe not to the extreme it's been lately). There're things that people fundamentally disagree on between those parties, but people can still put that aside and live in the same town, civilly or not. Because there are laws. And there's basic human decency... at least usually. Or how you can have people with opposing sports teams or classes also living in the same place (Hogwarts Houses anyone?). It's entirely possible for people who support different causes to share a home. Romeo and Juliet, Hatfield and McCoy, Harding and Kerrigan it up. Just make sure to keep the conflict outside town or on the down low or face the consequences. There's plenty of space for there to be tension building without open conflict in the one habitable zone.

As far as Porto goes... I'm kind of opposed. Much as I like Porto, I don't like all the flip flopping around and Shadgard's side of things is already well developed. You'd be physically moving where Porto was supposed to be to make it fit into the current map which I'm not overly keen about. You'd also probably have to shift zones around since you want low-skill areas to be closer and high-skill areas to be further out - or at least update mobs with different skill levels than they currently have and implement new areas to make that work (which I know you said you'd be willing to do). If you put it just down the coast from Emberlight, then I feel like that also makes that town seem unnecessary and too close to "other game" hamlets as opposed to now where it's mostly just a hub people go to for RP or long-distance tasks (or to take the boat which would now, presumably, no longer be needed at all instead of just temporarily disabled). It also adds considerably to the amount of required travel to get anywhere since the west side of the map seems overrun with map obstacles and auto-travel breaks compared to the eastern side.

I also don't really like the idea of zones that people have become familiar with and RP'd around suddenly getting a massive skill spike to accommodate player-city/starting area changes. I get that this is still early in development and we should be used to change happening frequently, but my brain can't really wrap itself around the fact that we have all these established areas that characters are used to hanging out in that suddenly they'll be too "weak" to handle or won't want to even go near due to distance or w/e. And I know you'll probably find some IC justification for the move again, but it just doesn't sit right with me. You'd need to add several new areas to wherever Porto is placed just to make up for those zones being up-skilled and lost to lowbies.

Anyway, just my initial thoughts on it. I approve of the low-grade faction vs full-on faction shift, but I don't want to move to Porto. At least not without more information on that change.
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nobody
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by nobody »

I'm good with the external factions, I'm also good with the move to Porto. I kinda want both factions to be a non-presence in the town of choice though, like, neither of them are liked enough to be out in the open. Maybe both factions should be secretive, with rules about how and who they recruit. Some people will lean in on playing oblivious townies, but I think the most sure fire way to get everyone wanting to be involved in the faction action is make them seeeecret. Who could resist?
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ocayucos
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Re: The Coming Conflict (Factions)

Post by ocayucos »

I think it could work out, I'd like to see more of people in town, and people can get into tavern brawls over this. I would love to go back to Porto, but as long as we keep New Emberlight I think I'm fine wherever we land. I've already accepted the loss of Porto in the past, but my vote is still to go back if we can make it work out.

Make factions claim some passages. If the other faction occupies a pass you have to take the long way around. Be denied an area that isn't necessary but still advantageous to have access to. Make the factions deny anyone not in their group instead of just the enemy. Then people who don't choose can't access locations or resources of either one, and that could convince people to make a choice instead of try to pussyfoot around in the middle without making a choice.

If we make enough things restricted to only someone who has chosen a faction, that should make it so most people will do so to get full access. Faction shops with items that can't be shared, training areas, access to faction islands, town services that only help faction members. Playing without a faction is more like a trial mode for new players, but you join a faction to unlock the full experience.

Make joining a guild require an NPC recommendation, and the factions use that as a recruiting tactic. Join our faction and we'll get you a recommendation to the Stormholdt academy.

The factions have influence over the farming areas, and you can only rent if you're a member. Same for workshops. Now we get the farmers and artisans involved.
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