Census

[Algernon]

You say people are shipped once a day and that's nasty - we're talking shipped a few times an hour.

Aha.  Okay, some more clarifying: I didn't call it nasty.  Well, it's "in character" nasty, but I don't call it out of bounds.  I suspected after the last post that you were responding to me as if I were whining to have things changed, and I am not.  If we can establish that, it might change the tone of the conversation.

At the time it kinda sucked, but it very much gave me a reason to keep pushing, motivation to keep fighting. I definitely was one of the whiny types when I was younger, after I'd been fighting for hours against icky odds, but whiny back then meant going "explicative, explicative, you explicatives, get some decency/honor/deodorant" and then running back into the fight. Sure, it meant I was annoying, but I backed the rants up with fighting enthusiasm.

Sounds great!  You were playing competitively and doing RP as well!  Here's the thing: the very behavior you describe in this post, some lustful cussing and getting back into the fight, is derided by some players as whining. 

It's not the killings and the ship rides - it's the spirit of the competition. 

The other day, a player twice my size shipped me - but I lasted a little longer this time and I'm on to his tactics.  There is progress.  After I had recovered and retracted DP, he came in and attacked a citymate and me.  He killed my citymate first, and I was trying to fight, and he refused. 

There was nothing "in-character" about that: the player himself, in RL, just wanted a kill.  He was playing his own game.  In character, I could have assailed him and said, "Coward!  Come back here and fight!"  and for that I would have been called a "whiner."  That's the double-standard I am trying to address.  Some of us like to talk about role-play when we are defending our own actions, but we don't want to be held accountable to it.

By the same token, some of us like "competition" as long as we have a playing field that preserves our dominance.  Then a druid decomposes an overpowered aggressor, suddenly introducing actual competition into the situation, and we start blowing our whistles and calling for the referee.

You, Narissa, are the only "enemy" character I have had any kind of RP interaction with other than lopsided jumps and fighting.  Trakea, for his part, has often engaged me while I was enlisting, killing off my townsmen and holding me off pretty easily when I tried to attack him - and he has always been courteous and supportive while maintaining his Thakrian persona.  He even did this when he picked me to be on his team for a flagquest.  To him, I could say, "Meh!  Thakrian blackguard!"  and he takes it as RP, not whining. 

If you go out and fight challenges, you'll notice the number of jumps will greatly decrease - people want to fight, period, and they see targets. If the targets offer challenges, the enemy gets their fighting fix, and you get a better atmosphere to practice combat.

Sounds nice, but my experience was different.  One player, ever, has expressed appreciation and respect for my attempt to fight:  Trakea.  Maybe Salvador, once. 

Any time I have even tried to have a conversation about the balance of RP and combat - not to change anything, just to have an airing of how things work, and what the values really are among the players - the discussion is dismissed as "whining."  All righty then.  Now a number of my contemporaries have left.  Several of them left because they saw themselves, or others, "bullied" not as in-character role play but as uncompetitive mashing.  (One of them is now on New Worlds, which strictly enforces RP.  You can be a badass warrior and kill savagely - but there has to be some RP reason, and repeated killing without character-based motivation is viewed as a violation of the game world.)  It is easy to wave them off as 'soft' and 'whiners' but if there is a measurable shrinking of young Avalonians, well, you might have to consider some of these questions. 

If you want to.

[Crael]

Algernon I enjoy reading your posts which are always eloquent and well argued but the bottom line is that if you want a full on RP game you go play a game where thats enforced like your friends have. Avalon has some RP but it hasnt ever claimed to be that kind of environment.

[Algernon]

I don't feel eloquent, since my actual point has not been understood.  I won't press further. 

[Mirrigold]

I remember the stockrooms, and when they got changed, there was a glorious few weeks, until people realized temples conferred the same benefits. The problem is, with stockrooms, you can try to get in to mess with/rob people. With temples, the gods punish you - and I think that's when the problem got really really bad, with some other things compounding it. We've had a whole generation grow up now, who sat in temples to avoid attacks, all while getting lessons and idling or hiding their way to full skills - without any idea how to use them. It's that state which makes one helpless, and people who feel helpless are the ones most unhappy, most likely to demand change and whatnot. I really do think a large part of our current situation and stagnancy is from this.

Yep, this is probably right. Although Temples offered protection back in my active days, there weren't many Gods around to actively enforce the rules if people did hang around in them, so perhaps that's one aspect that's changed now - more Gods actually in the land?

As for the point of change, I'd still put my finger on the switch from hourly charges to a fixed fee

PS: Give Krill (and India) a hug from me, don't get to see many Avalon guys these days now I'm not in London anymore.

[Crael]

We've had a whole generation grow up now, who sat in temples to avoid attacks, all while getting lessons and idling or hiding their way to full skills - without any idea how to use them. It's that state which makes one helpless, and people who feel helpless are the ones most unhappy, most likely to demand change and whatnot. I really do think a large part of our current situation and stagnancy is from this.

Most of the conformed stockroom and temple sitters were older players\characters. The younger ones doing it is a fairly recent (as in 1 rl year) phenomenon. I thought it came about because the people in question had previously played other times and realised that once off LW they would get jumped and maybe not have the skills they wanted to be able to defend themselves so they were idling whilst reaching that level but that was just my theory.

Whatever I dont think its caused a lack of fighting. I believe thats down to a drop in the number of active players over the last 3 or 4 years of about 50%. The proportion of *active* high skilled Aggressive Fighter Types (AFT to save my fingers) to other is still about the same as it was 4 years ago. I'd say the split after removing LW is about 30% AFTs, 50% confirmed non-fighters, 20% wannabees or occasional triers. These are personality types - you cant teach someone who isnt aggressive to be aggressive.

Of the 30% AFTs the split of that particular cake has nearly always been roughly 50% Thakria and the other 50% divided between the other 3 cities or citiless. As far as I can see thats still the case. The problem is where the 30% might of been 30 actual people a few years ago, giving each city a reasonable chance of having 4 or 5 skilled AFTs, now its more like half that so Thakria has 7 or 8 and the rest of Avalon has 7 or 8. By AFTS I men people who will initiate combat outside a challenge.  That means a lot less team fighting (since Merc and SD dont seem to get along these days) and the AFTs outside Thakria face overwhelming odds if they venture out of a temple at the wrong time.

I know these are generalised figures and you can throw up characters who dont fit this pattern and argue against it but I believe thats whats happened. And look at the 20% of wannabees and occasionals. Now down to 10 real people in my model. Take out some time on DP or DDW and your big AFTs have almost no one to jump. The behaviours of the past were OK because of the numbers of people coming online every month to replace those who gave up on joining the ranks on AFTs, either because of excessive jumping or loss of interest. Now the fighters have got a dilemma. For the first time their numbers are not growing. Some have blamed various factors for Avalon 'going soft' but I think its just numerical. And it gives AFTs a dilemma. As a group, regardless of city or guild, they need to figure out how to maintain the level of aggression and combat they enjoy without discouraging younger players who want to join their ranks.

The alternative is their numbers will not increase, the situation will not change and some of the AFTs will drift away.

[Narissa]

I think it's really hard to make generalizations about player base. Thakria, for example, had....Zwartia and a somewhat active Plaman and that's about it when I moved there, whereas SD had between 10-20 active, aggressive fighters. Things do shift. Historically, Thakria's had an old guard, yes, but they have, of late, been around primarily for the events like Ordination and gem quests. In the day to day rat race, they aren't really making a tip either way.

From my perspective, the current balance in the land means I've gone from being a very very aggressive troublemaker to nearly a pacifist. The only times you see me fighting nowadays is when I'm attacked, in warfare, or if I'm tipsy and Saroman starts killing my novices. I figure, I don't want to stop my other citizens from having the fights, and I'm aware that even if I just jump someone once, that means that's still one more jump from one more person, and they've probably got that multiple times already.

I've noticed, though, how easily it is to slip into comfort in this role. When you don't fight for a bit, you don't feel the itch to. You don't perk up at deathsight and actively scan who as much for a challenging situation. I enjoy other facets of the land and I'm quite content exchanging fighting right now for RPing with newbies, but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, and I'm sure a lot of fighters would feel bored and dull in a situation like that. Perhaps that is partially what we are seeing - trying to be a bit decent, showing restraint (whether that restraint is warranted, or simply whining is another question), and stepping back leads to disinterest in the older, bigger players.

[Crael]

I still think a lot of the percieved 'problems' with Avalon are down to lack of numbers. Im not sure what marketing if any they do for the game. Its a shame because such a lot of complexity and subtlety exists in the fighting (and other areas) that its a fascinating experience for any one wjo likes a game that makes them think.

Im not even sure going free would boost the player base. You really have to look at Avalons strengths and sell it as a kind of ultimate fighting challenge for anyone into text rpgs. Thats a fairly small but quite dedicated bunch of people. Yet somehow it never seems to get mentioned on the MUD sites. It needs a bit of a higher profile maybe.

Youre absolutely right about fighting though Narissa. When I first began I tore all over the place bashing stuff and getting in fights and became sort of inured to dying. Once I was out of a city and guild I stopped fighting and have rarely done it since and its going to be very tough to get back into. Im giving DDW a try next week to see how badly out of touch I am with it. Consider that when I was last fighting regularly you could med without eq, there was no such thing as yarl, and I believe they've messed around with fullparry too (rolls eyes). Its going to be hilarious dying to people just off LW.Not.