Y e e t e r s M c S q u e e t e r s

In light of recent changes, including the clear or nearing disbandments of several guilds due to several members' recent dismissals, an idea I have toyed with for the longest seems to be appropriate to pour into the public now.

To briefly explain, I simply do not think FTRP creates an environment for effective worldbuilding. It might just be me, but personally, I think a lot of ambitious guilds with exciting guild goals became stagnant because the site did not create conditions in which they could alter the world around them without it being so ridiculously limited and pointless that it may as well be considered to not have happened at all.

Of course, a lot of what happens in between guilds stays strictly in between guilds, and while this is fine and there aren't any issues with this, many guildmasters in the past and even now refrain from leaving comfort zones where the normality of their guild is, for lack of a better term, "threatened" at the cost of plotting with others for the sake of creating interesting, worldbuilding plot at greater scales than personal plots between Billy and Bob.

What I'm suggesting isn't to force guilds to interact with one another at greater levels, but to create a system where it encourages and rewards guilds and the members that participate in these incentives. I also want to provide dark guilds opportunities to be dark and to do "dark" things without waiting every six months for a site event that may or may not cater to their antagonism. It was an idea that was in the making but has been stagnant since the leaving of many members, but I seek to continue it.

The first and earliest system that was discussed was a "Dominance System" similar to the seasonal job turn-ins that have paused for the longest. With this supposed system, any and all jobs are given a point value which will contribute to a guild's dominance of the area the job specifies. Alternatively, not all jobs can be used for this system but specific ones created just for it. Guilds and members (should they be guildless) who contribute to these jobs will reap discussable benefits that guilds that do nothing for or towards this system will not gain, or will at least desire. I think this'll provide an opportunity for interesting worldbuilding that I think this site needs. What the rewards and particulars of this system are is currently inexplicable, but simply put out there for an interest check.

Apparently something like this did exist in the past but it ended badly because legal and dark mages would enter each others threads making it more difficult for things like jobs to go smoothly, but your idea may not have that in mind as you said this is just a rough draft.

I also don't think the term 'threatened' is what I would use when describing guild masters or their guilds when they aren't interested in a certain kind of plot or are happy with how their own guild is. I will however admit your idea does have its merits allowing point building for taking part in certain things and allowing dark guilds to be how they where suppose to be. The down side of this however is that guilds that are happy with the current way of things will get pionlised so to speak for not taking part and so it will make them have to if they hope to get things to better their guild. Which is something that I don't really like.

Personally I wouldn't take part in this though wouldn't stop the members of Onyx Moon from doing so if they so wished. I dislike pvp and competition because someone always gets butt hurt and I'm here just to have fun, then again how would you balance it for people who decide not to use stats in their magic vs people who do use stats?

This isn't a bad idea but I was one of the ones who helped work on a system to help dark guilds and legal guilds go more head to head with each other with benefits given to them for doing so and that did not go too well because members abused it and used it to pretty much bother others who were just doing a thread/job.

It is much better and easier to just talk to those you want to plot with and plan some plot with them than for people to have to be suddenly thrown into a situation they didn't want but as Tama said before me, you might not plan for this to be a thing.

Also, throwing rewards at people for doing things isn't the greatest thing to do either. It makes members want to do things less for the fun of doing it and for the fact that they want to reap some sort of benefit from doing things which makes members interacting on the site more of a 'business transaction' than a fun experience it is meant to be. I have helped make something similar to this idea before and the site was really better off without it.

Last thing I want to say is, guilds do have the power to impact the site. Look at OM with their own country and lore that we are still building up and thinking more things for periodically. Most guilds that have their own countries have the ability to impact the site lore that way also. ST has had their guildhall floating in the sky for as long as I knew it was a thing on site(I joined it when I first joined years ago and it was that way). I think it is more that a guild has to find what they can do and not feel held down by what seems like is limiting. If a guild wants to make an impact through the overall site lore though I think it could be possible with working with the higher ups on site and making a site event to do so. We have had an event in the past be that way and cause a huge plot point so I don't think it will be too hard to have that happen again and would be happy to help plan such a thing if I am needed/wanted.

Yuiisai wrote:Apparently something like this did exist in the past but it ended badly because legal and dark mages would enter each others threads making it more difficult for things like jobs to go smoothly, but your idea may not have that in mind as you said this is just a rough draft.

I also don't think the term 'threatened' is what I would use when describing guild masters or their guilds when they aren't interested in a certain kind of plot or are happy with how their own guild is. I will however admit your idea does have its merits allowing point building for taking part in certain things and allowing dark guilds to be how they where suppose to be. The down side of this however is that guilds that are happy with the current way of things will get pionlised so to speak for not taking part and so it will make them have to if they hope to get things to better their guild. Which is something that I don't really like.

Personally I wouldn't take part in this though wouldn't stop the members of Onyx Moon from doing so if they so wished. I dislike pvp and competition because someone always gets butt hurt and I'm here just to have fun, then again how would you balance it for people who decide not to use stats in their magic vs people who do use stats?

I'd like to point out that there's no suggested penalization for guilds that do not participate, but they will certainly not benefit from the things rewarded to guilds that do. Additionally, there has also been no suggestion of PVP. Like I said, none of this is forced and the only suggested way to gain dominance in this system is through jobs in which you choose whom to go with. Because there is no alleged PVP involvement with this system, how applicable stats are treated in these brawls shouldn't be relevant. If PVP occurs, it's strictly personal or for personal plot.

Cirven wrote:This isn't a bad idea but I was one of the ones who helped work on a system to help dark guilds and legal guilds go more head to head with each other with benefits given to them for doing so and that did not go too well because members abused it and used it to pretty much bother others who were just doing a thread/job.

It is much better and easier to just talk to those you want to plot with and plan some plot with them than for people to have to be suddenly thrown into a situation they didn't want but as Tama said before me, you might not plan for this to be a thing.

Also, throwing rewards at people for doing things isn't the greatest thing to do either. It makes members want to do things less for the fun of doing it and for the fact that they want to reap some sort of benefit from doing things which makes members interacting on the site more of a 'business transaction' than a fun experience it is meant to be. I have helped make something similar to this idea before and the site was really better off without it.

Last thing I want to say is, guilds do have the power to impact the site. Look at OM with their own country and lore that we are still building up and thinking more things for periodically. Most guilds that have their own countries have the ability to impact the site lore that way also. ST has had their guildhall floating in the sky for as long as I knew it was a thing on site(I joined it when I first joined years ago and it was that way). I think it is more that a guild has to find what they can do and not feel held down by what seems like is limiting. If a guild wants to make an impact through the overall site lore though I think it could be possible with working with the higher ups on site and making a site event to do so. We have had an event in the past be that way and cause a huge plot point so I don't think it will be too hard to have that happen again and would be happy to help plan such a thing if I am needed/wanted.

What you are referring to are the invasion of jobs and threads, and yes, that was awful. But this is in no way, shape, or form similar to that disaster. This system is completely voluntary and there is no penalization if you choose not to participate.

That being said, rewarding people for doing things is what people do routinely on FTRP. You are rewarded for going on jobs, doing jobs with guild mates and team members (guild and team bonuses), doing dungeons for dungeons currency to spend on unique rewards, etc. Even just roleplaying rewards you with jewels. Because this system's rewards are so similar to just about everything else's, it isn't the system's responsibility to make it fun for you and shouldn't be interpreted differently as a job with unique rewards. How fun it is is up to the roleplayers, just like how it is with jobs.

Following this, a lot of what guilds do does not contribute to the site's lore, since frankly we do not have one and do not keep a record of it. You might be developing lore for yourself and your guild, but it simply isn't as simple as saying something happened to the world everyone shares and counting it as site lore. In other words, whether OM's country stays or disappears wouldn't make the slightest difference to the site's world, we could honestly pretend it never even was a thing. But that's what I'm hoping to change. Thanks for your offer!

Yup, rather avoid anything that gives us something like the invasion rules again mess it brought. It had good intentions but it was something that the members could not use properly which sucked because it really did allow dark guild members to be dark guild members but like I said it is just easier to plot with someone on how you could go about that now.

I have always been iffy on rewarding people so much even though the site rewards you for doing things. I feel like it makes the site into a chore more than a fun place at times like when you want to rank up or something and sucks the fun out of posting for people(problem with my muse I have been having) which is maybe a thing only a select few have here now but other than that I feel this is something you can easily do in a sort of plot you have with others and make a job supporting it to give everyone something from it. Simple solution with the current rules we have and nothing new is needed to be made for the staff to figure out which at this point they have a lot on their plate but if anything making a custom job works for now while giving the staff time to get to it if it is a possible thing.

With site lore, we can't go off of the site not having lore for a reason as what lore we come up with ourselves means nothing in the eyes of what lore the site has. Yes, there is not overarching site lore for everyone to follow but that is because we make that lore ourselves and has been the intention of the meme of a joke that we had in the past with the link for the site's lore leading to a page saying we had none lol. Once the site has a written up lore it will be different but as of right now the lore each guild has made is what the site would have to see as lore, otherwise we wouldn't have a site at all and people interacting with all these stories each of us come up with for ourselves and each other. On the note of the site having a lore though, it would be cool if we had some sort of history written up for the site that involved the guilds more but with everything that has happened over the years it will be very hard to keep up with. I only know a handful of people who know everything that happened in the past on site and even then the bigger things only affected a handful of characters like when BP was destroyed by SS but it would be very interesting if at least had a timeline with major plot points labeled out or something.

Cirven wrote:Yup, rather avoid anything that gives us something like the invasion rules again mess it brought. It had good intentions but it was something that the members could not use properly which sucked because it really did allow dark guild members to be dark guild members but like I said it is just easier to plot with someone on how you could go about that now.

I have always been iffy on rewarding people so much even though the site rewards you for doing things. I feel like it makes the site into a chore more than a fun place at times like when you want to rank up or something and sucks the fun out of posting for people(problem with my muse I have been having) which is maybe a thing only a select few have here now but other than that I feel this is something you can easily do in a sort of plot you have with others and make a job supporting it to give everyone something from it. Simple solution with the current rules we have and nothing new is needed to be made for the staff to figure out which at this point they have a lot on their plate but if anything making a custom job works for now while giving the staff time to get to it if it is a possible thing.

With site lore, we can't go off of the site not having lore for a reason as what lore we come up with ourselves means nothing in the eyes of what lore the site has. Yes, there is not overarching site lore for everyone to follow but that is because we make that lore ourselves and has been the intention of the meme of a joke that we had in the past with the link for the site's lore leading to a page saying we had none lol. Once the site has a written up lore it will be different but as of right now the lore each guild has made is what the site would have to see as lore, otherwise we wouldn't have a site at all and people interacting with all these stories each of us come up with for ourselves and each other. On the note of the site having a lore though, it would be cool if we had some sort of history written up for the site that involved the guilds more but with everything that has happened over the years it will be very hard to keep up with. I only know a handful of people who know everything that happened in the past on site and even then the bigger things only affected a handful of characters like when BP was destroyed by SS but it would be very interesting if at least had a timeline with major plot points labeled out or something.

Actually, this has been mentioned in the past before, not creating a site narrative but simply recording it. This is more to what I was suggesting than saying there should be a site narrative, but overall there is nothing in place in which we could be narratives based on what the members do because everything is a personal and private plot (which is fine!).

But I also wanna point out that one person's fun isn't the same as everyone else's. A lot people do like competition and do want guilds to be more interactive, and if anything, it's the actual guild plots that feel more like business transactions than these suggested systems. But I also strongly believe that accepting the mindset of "Don't do this for rewards! Do it for fun!" is so forced that it's ironically ruining some fun for people who do want something more competitive on-site, because that's their version of fun, and frankly there's no reason they shouldn't be rewarded for it just like, say, for example, you're rewarded for plotting because roleplaying gives you jewels.

Should people who prefer this system go on mighty crusades to dominate Fiore, they can and they should and will be very much rewarded with this. It, in theory, shouldn't affect other guilds besides give them some spice for future plotting. The only thing that you'd be missing out on are those saucy rewards tbh, and if you want them, participate!

Like you said, this is similar to what the Guild Scoreboard was, which was removed last year where we were told a replacement would be coming in. That never happened, and as for my opinion I wouldn't mind something like that coming back. It didn't feel forced and simply just rewarded guilds that had members doing their own normal thing.

As for the dominance system itself, I mean, you could add it for the rewards and such. I do not think it will create effective world building though. I myself would ignore such a thing if I had a normal job in the supposed dominated area. Unless that area gets locked out or something because it is being dominated, where only the dominate system jobs are available to do. Not sure how that all will work since at the moment it's just an interest check and I mainly give full opinions when all the details are there to read.

More so, I have seen many guild to guild interactions in my time of being on site. BF vs LS from summer of 2017, NM vs BR, one guild visiting another's territory, Guild Scale jobs, etc etc. They all have the same exact common issue: they die well before completion. So they're there, they just never go anywhere really. Members lose interest for whatever reason, and considering Guild Scales do offer rewards it isn't because of lack of reward. And as far as minor interaction goes, such as a dark mage character being in the same thread as a legal one, that can already happen now for that interaction, but it doesn't too often. People aren't interacting with the opposite spectrum because they don't want to. Same applies to the guilds.

All in all, I am for something that will spice up the world for those that want to participate in something like that. Work on it, put up the details, and get some more opinions and suggestions. I don't think it'll have the effect you want, but no harm in trying.