Power Group Discussion

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

As part of the ongoing process of improving the site, one of the areas being earmarked for a refurbishment is the fabled Power Group feature.

For those of you who aren't sure, Power Groups on Althanas are the same as clans and guilds (forum here (http://www.althanas.com/world/forumdisplay.php?19-Power-Groups)). You create a faction with like-minded members and work as a team in whatever way you see fit, either battling other power groups or questing together. Some power groups are evil, some are good and some are mixed.

Over the years I feel the PG function has been both underused and somewhat neglected, and I would like to at least make an effort to see if we can breathe some life into the old dog.

What I would like you, as our glorious member base, to do is to tell me what you like about the PG system and what you would improve. If you have any suggestions that may help to increase the experience, we'd like to hear them too. These posts will help to build a foundation for an "overhaul proposal" that I'll put to the administration team, so if you see something you like from another user please "second" it.

Please note that I'd like to keep the topic as positive as possible and criticism to a constructive and helpful level.

[Mutant_Lorenor]

As someone who has seen many Power Groups come and go...I think part of the initial problem with the system is user interest.

Being that you can't -make- someone rp or post or whatever a lot of potentially really good Power Groups have died down from their initial net worth.

I think it's not necessarily anything that we can do incentive wise to get people to participate or not. As it stands, my own character(s) (With the exception of Lorenor) are guild-less. Elthas lead a guild for a short while, but Lorenor remains affiliated to the now dead Ixian Knights. As it stands, I have honestly thought about reviving the Ixians but I am not certain how Tony and some of the other veteran members of the site would feel about that. Anyhow, here are my personal thoughts on Power Groups and a few other matters regarding Althanas.

I strongly believe, and have -always- felt, that part of the problem is lack of sincere interest.

There seems to be in my (Opinion) and keep in mind that I don't think -everybody- is guilty of this. But rather, I have largely found myself doing this somewhat of late too. I post fairly infrequently considering how much I used to post. I think there's a disconnect between what the powers that be on the site WANT versus what WE GOT. Half the site doesn't post.

Let's be real about this.

Half the bloody site doesn't post.

I make it a point to post a few times a week and keep up with the threads I am currently in. I know me personally, I work a lot on site and I try to keep up with my posting. The lack of posting in general has also affected if Power Groups become successful or not. So here's how I feel. Put Power Groups on hold for a little bit, give them a break and wait for the site to get much more active core base. I don't even consider myself super active, but like, I DO post. I'm trying to pick up my own personal activity level too but even then...(And this is coming from the heart) I wouldn't want to burden a potentially hyper successful Power Group's...well...success because I personally take long posting or whatever.

And therein is the disconnect.

In the attempt to remain fair to anybody, you can't make people post. However, you can provide more and more (Which you guys of the Moderator/Staff team have been doing) dynamic events that effect lore and what not. As a veteran member I often find myself explaining to newer members site lore and stuff, and trying to fill in the gaps where there are matters I personally know very little about.

Keep in mind I do try to give people correct information, but this is also something that needs to be addressed. When it comes to Power Groups, the site's wiki, and our own user base, the site needs quite a bit of improvement. From the outside looking in, I can see how the site is very intimidating with it's vast lore and admittedly frustrating lack of it in some cases.

I personally blame the original two site "crashes/restarts" for parts of this problem.

I have long since felt that site restarts (We all had to restart from level 0 at the time like twice that I recall) are NOT necessary.

But I digress. Back to the issue of Power Groups, I think that people have to produce sincerely interesting concepts and ideas. There needs to be LESS (That's right I said it) LESS restrictions on Power Groups basic concepts and what not. The Grand Guild idea that Kyle (Taskmeinster) once proposed was a really good idea that just needed a lot more development. There should be an underlying -reason- for Adventurers/Heroes/Villains/whatever to team up and form a group.

Think of it like this.

If you're a Hero on some world what would be the LEGITIMATE IC benefit for you to team up with some other person or groups of persons? For example, there should be a reason. Like part of my BIG problems with the site (And this is my own opinion, again) is when major Villain mechanics are introduced. This all has to do with the larger interest of the player base, but I think that there needs to be more incentive for players (Most of us lowbies) who are lower level to stop said Villains.

What I want to see, is more organized site events that -require- Power Group involvement.

For example, Xem'Zund (Keep in mind I always thought the character was cool) was a cop out bad guy. I know some of this is harsh and may seem like attacking or whatever, but that's really not my intention. I just am trying to formulate a legit discussion and debate about these matters. The reason I called Xem'Zund a cop-out was because that specific event (Letho, and several others of the site's high-level players) participated. There was VERY LITTLE involvement with lowbies in the events that revolved around the destruction of Xem'Zund.

Now again, I realize that this is all having to do with the issue of interest, and user participation.

My main point is if you guys are going to seriously pursue more Power Group overhauls, then here's a few suggestions.

1-Integrate Site events into the Power Group Lore.

2-Integrate Boss/Special Enemy mechanics that Power Groups have to rise up to and team up/potentially stop one another to defeat or even team up with. (The Boss enemies for example)

3-Ease up on complicated Power Group jargon.

4-Ease up on restrictive rules/regulations that limit what Power Groups can and cannot do.

5-Allow people to have FUN again.

I feel that complex systems on site prevent players from having TRUE fun. So that's really my suggestions/rant/whatever on this matter. I know this post might offend some people but I don't really care this is something I have felt strongly about for a long time. For me the Ixian Knight's IC event that lead to their destruction was forced and contrived. But yeah again, I digress. I hope you guys can (At least some of yall fellow vet's) understand what I'm saying here. We don't need MORE rules and complication on site, we need easier to understand rules, more set in stone stuff, and easier to digest lore.

With that I think I'm gonna close up around here.

Stay cool gang,
~Pav

[Storm Veritas]

As a complimentary thought here, I think everyone agrees that the posting rate is unacceptable. Moreover, posting is contagious, so you would expect that more people posting could trigger some really great residual effects for the site as a whole. We'd all love to see 100 new posts every time we log in.

One real barrier that seems to have formed is a barrier to fame/credit for players. Consider: The AP system dramatically reduced the number of judgments. Real Judgments have not yielded a promotable JC thread in AGES. Tournaments have been run and finished with NO FANFARE. There is no way a new member would know there is any current, active PG stuff going on.

All of these bullets lead to the wasted opportunity in promoting the work of our members. We have a landing page that reads like a newspaper with the last news flash being "Man Lands On Moon". How would a new member not think our site is abandoned seeing that ghost-town situation?

[Max Dirks]

The shutdowns were caused when the former administrator didn't pay the bills. They weren't designed shut downs.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Hey Tony yeah I gathered that much I was merely stating my own opinion on it.

Was just merely stating that we all had to restart. Either way dood thanks for setting the record straight on that!

~Pav

[FennWenn]

As someone new to here, more or less a fresh pair of eyes, there are sort of things I’ve noticed with your power groups; forgive me if I don't entirely understand how things work around here yet.

It's hard to tell what their goals are at a glance. The descriptions for some of them could use a little tweaking. In some of the other places I’ve been, groups were pretty obviously themed and had easy-to-see motives; this one was a thieves’ guild, this was a group of Knights who protected this town, this is a group of evil dudes trying to summon the demon prince, etc.

When I look at these groups, motives are harder to discern, and that makes it harder to both play out conflicts and recruit people. They don't seem to have any clear drive to speak of. A lack of posting in general contributes to this problem, I think.

I hope this helps. <3

[Mordelain]

I have been a part of this community since July 2009. I have witnessed great resurgences from apparent deaths repeatedly. When I left the site some six months ago, I did not intend to come back. Things had come to a natural conclusion: there was not enough to keep me here. I popped back in out of sheer curiosity a few weeks ago, and saw that, from the ashes, things were starting to grow.

This moment, right here, right now, is where the few people who make up Althanas can send it in one of two directions. Up. Down. Our choice. Nobody else’s.

There have been several such junctures over the years. The removal of the judgement system. The changes to the rubric. The major, constant turnover of staff. Whatever the cause of each particular crisis point, Althanas has remained. What is the problem now? I do not think that it is Power Groups. I do not think that it is staff. I do not think that is down to any one thing. Sometimes, just sometimes, this happens.

We do need to increase traffic on the site. Chain posts are not going to sustain us for long. We need OOC to springboard into IC, and that means brainstorming, writing workshops, and reflections and feedback posts on ongoing and past writing. We have always prided ourselves on being ‘of a better quality’, at least more so than most. Let us focus on that. Let us make it shine. My three suggestions (to use, leave, or warp), are:

1. Focus on judging vs. freeform. We have talked about it repeatedly but I think it needs approaching again. The introduction of AP has been, from my perspective, a heavily negative one. Either roll back to before then, then look at editing it from the ground up, or address wherever or not the current experience gaining system is where we want to keep the site.

2. Remove power groups. Temporarily. Disband all current groups, delete the archives, and introduce them in a smaller scale. Think of them more like Raid groups on Neverwinter/WoW. Five to ten people, which get stronger for being a team. No big grand headquarters (for relatively little reward), and a tier of bonuses dependant on contributions to the Wiki, to the post count, and to the development of interesting, fun, and welcoming stories.

3. Writing challenges, vignettes, and small-scale tournaments. I mean small. Week long, if that. A month at most, including judgement/feedback/round time. Not earth shattering titles or end of the world confrontations – just wrestling matches. Underground fight clubs. Sporting events. Change the nature of competitive roleplay on Althanas, as this is the best place to bring in quick fire, sudden, increases in activity.

4. I know, I said three, but…reduce the experience for solo threads. Just by 10% or so.

[Rayleigh]

On the matter of power groups, I want to echo what Mord said. I would support a complete, 100% overhaul of the way that we run things. If players want to keep their history for their character, fine. But we would do away with headquarters, and ask allPGs to reapply. We should hide/delete all old PGs. Honestly, there are so many dormant ones that the system seems really watered down. Hell, I have a PG that has been approved. I keep forgetting about it.

As for rewards, I would be in support of having PGs earn various rewards through writing-based activities. Win a vignette? You and the members of you PG get some small reward in the next PG thread. Clan battles will actually mean something again, because there could be a real reward at stake (rather than just a fancy sub-forum that you could buy with your GP anyway). These should be small groups, with real purposes, that they accomplish through writing. Or, if your PG hosts an event, you can earn something, which would benefit the entire site. Right now, PGs feel like just groups of people who chat in Skype, but don't have enough purpose on the site. That's fine - the Tarot, and the community of people within it are why I stuck around on Althanas. But if we want it to be more than that, we have to tighten down. Smaller groups, tougher application process, different rewards. Rewards could be anything, I suppose. Larger avatars for a period, exp/gp/ap boosts, etc. PGs should be a group you fight to be a part of. That you actively work to stay in. That you brag about belonging to. Not just a group of people you occasionally write with.

In summary, currently, PGs are confusing. They seem like an afterthought - you have to do some digging to find them. They're not advertised in our character profiles, or below our avatars, so they aren't something you wear like a badge (if they were, I think there would be more interest). For the actual PGs themselves, there is little idea of what is or isn't active. There are too many of them. They have little direction. The rewards feel like hand-outs - they could be so much better. You should really only be allowed to be a part of one (like most true guilds). I also think we should call them guilds. I like it better.

Also want to note that I don't hate PGs. Again, Tarot is why I've stuck around so long. The community is so, so important. But we can do better.

I also love the idea behind shorter, fast-paced writing activities. I was hoping to do quite a few of those in the spirit of NaNo next month. The trick will be getting people to actually participate. We've had month-long vignettes go without a single post, even though making a last-ditch effort would have netted you huge rewards. That indicates to me that it is a lack of motivation more than anything else. But if we do make a sort of pact to work harder, each of us, I think we can bring more life into that side of the site. I'm going to make an effort myself.

[Itinerant]

Just gonna second Mordelain and Ray, there's no better way for me to state points nor do I have any new ones.

[Cards of Fate]

I think as it stands there's a lot to be said about the current state of affairs. A lot of the issues that have occurred to the system were largely in part put in place by people with their hands in the pot to begin with. When HQ's rolled out, three of the four HQ spots were held by Pg's all ran by the guy who ran the show. A lot of stuff went down, and soon the Tarot became the only one with an HQ, and because no-one was really trying to get them, we got away with murder. Id propose the following changes, and see how things go from there.

Hq's and Pg's are a thing of the past. Instead we opt to give a new name to player run teams, something like guilds, squads, orders, etc. Upon establishing your merry band of theives (Which will have a new process altogether) you will establish a base. Bases are like HQ's, but watered down. Simply put, a Base is the IC location your team calls home. When establishing a base, you must state what country/reigon/area/town it is in, and you must state if it is a public/secluded/hidden base. At the start the base does nothing but provide as a plot point, somewhere to call home and somewhere to be attacked by a rival clan/team/band of thugs.

So far it sounds pretty similar, but here is where we start to diverge from the norm a bit. To submit a team for approval, you mast have three threads Icly done. One of which is your leader establishing the base, and two are recruitment threads that pull in your other members Icly. Teams must have at lest three members, and in order to be in an application they must have participated in the initial three threads. In order for someone to be added to the roster and begin receiving benefits (which we'll get to next) They must have one IC thread done with the team.

Now we're going to talk about Bases and clan wars. Unlike HQ's the bases aren't static when it comes to their rewards, but they have significantly watered down rewards from the word go. To start, a base gives you nothing. Then, for every thread completed by your team in the region/country/town/area your base is set, you will gain Base points (probably determined by some equation involving score or amount of posts, flat BP for no judgements). This new form of currency will allow your leader to select from a myriad of perks and rewards. Examples would be increased EXP or GP in said region, bazaar discounts, and ultimately that shiny subforum reward. However, not all bases earn BP at the same rate. If your base is public, you gain double BP for your efforts, however any schmuck can declare a clan war on you for no reason at all. If your base is secluded, you earn average BP, and when someone wants to declare a clan war on you they must complete two recon threads to locate your base before doing so. If your base is Hidden, you sequester yourself away from clan wars at the cost of halving the amount of BP you earn for your efforts. This way, anyone can take part in this system without having their arm twisted into a Clan war.

What do clan wars do however? Well, this is where things can get kinda tricky. Without the threat of losing an HQ, what is the point of a clan war? Well, we could do a number of things. Clan wars could be used to steal money out of team vaults, items from team storage, they could be used as a way to lower enemy BP while gaining large amounts of BP as well. They shouldn't be the main point of the Clan/Team/Squad/Goons feature, it should be a feature withing the feature to tailor to specific needs. By having hidden bases we allow people to opt out of this feature as well (and obviously hidden bases shouldn't be allowed to declare clan war without losing their hidden status).

Lastly I want to touch on the ability for teams to influence canon. In a lot of the stuff I've seen in the canon submission system, it talks about having a multitude of players. I suggest that the new team system have a "Influence" value over the reigon they are in. The large the value, the more sway their actions hold over the canon. A group with low influence can say they wrote out a coup and overthrew the local government, but a group with high influence could actually do something along those lines and have it regarded as canon. This way it allows anyone who wants to change the world to simply group up and take it on.

In terms of size, I'm biased. The Tarot is massive, and in it's prime it would need 22 members to fill all of its major spots. That being said, I do thing we need to limit the size of these groups. I'm thinking something like 10-15 people tops, or 10-15 people who can earn rewards. You can have a higher member base, but force leaders to choose.

Lastly, as a point of fairness, no PG's are grandfathered in. Even the Tarot will have to jump through the hoops to build their base back up.

That's my 2 bucks, any suggestions?

[Zack Blaze]

For me the Ixian Knight's IC event that lead to their destruction was forced and contrived.

Excuse me? Could I have a link to that please?

Also, I feel as though Fred's comment, while most likely not malicious, kind of felt like an attack.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

I will offer a full opinion shortly but i'd like to give you my abbreviated version.

Guilds / Clans should be:

1. Simple to run.

2. Fun to be a part of.

3. Free from millions of complex rules and rewards that require an advanced degree in management accounting to understand.

What is and isn't complex is open to interpretation, obviously, and that will need work. But (and with all the love in the world and with due respect to him for thinking it through, because he has) I just read Cards's suggestion above and by the time it got to Base Points I was already thinking "sorry, this is far too convoluted and people aren't going to care enough". Nothing against Cards at all because there are some interesting concepts there but I think that we can sometimes be guilty of not fully understanding the wants and needs of the member base.

I think the answer is we have to come up with something that appeals to the majority. I might be in a minority here but I believe the framework for clans should be fairly simple and easy to regulate, the rewards should be straightforward and appropriate and from there I think we'll see growth and activity.

However, I am a mere drop in the Althanian ocean and my opinion is exactly that.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

Sei you were in the event that I speak of. The one where what's his face blew up the castle. I don't have a link for it it should be in the wiki forum someplace. And that's just my opinion if you have a problem with it take it up with me off site.

[Zack Blaze]

Night of Debauchery wasn't what destroyed the Knights though, O.o;

[Ioder]

I've dissolved and deleted my failed PG.

[hoytti]

I honestly think that a guild should

Have no more than a dozen people
Be easish to manage
Have it's own base
Have specific goals for the future
Be cannon
Be fun


I will now go through each of the points above and explain

1. A guild should have no more than a dozen people

A small group of people is easier to manage than a large one.
It makes it easier for new guilds to form since they don't have huge guilds to compete with.


2. A guild should be easish to manage.

Note how I said easish instead of easy. There is a good reason for that. Managing a group of people is ALWAYS hard to do. So the guild should be made as easy as possible.

3. Have it's own base.

Gives a place to meet IC
Can represent a guilds power
Shows what is a guilds focus



The second one is quite interesting. We could easily make it so that every guild starts out with a basic base that they have to actually build up. Whether they build it into a fortress or into a little town is up to the guild but it should reflect their standing on Althanas. A guild who focuses on gaining wealth might build a market place where a warmongering guild bight building a giant place of defense. But it should all cost special coins and a full judgment thread to get the upgrades required for the base.

4. Guild should have specific goals for the future

Goals are some of the most important parts of s guild. Without them there is no reason for the guild to exist. While goals may change over time, they should always be known by everyone in said guild.

5. Guilds should be cannon

Makes people feel like their actions actually has purpose

6. Guilds should be fun

I believe that I shouldn't have to remind you that this sight is meant for having fun and learning how to write. So that means that everyone should be having fun with the guilds as well.

[Cards of Fate]

I really like point number three Hoytti. Thats what I was going for with my plan of action.

[Itinerant]

Hoytti, if you're going to ask for full judgements to progress, then there are additional systems (AP) that need overhauling. It's currently prohibitively expensive for somebody to get one full judgment, much less several. (Note that, if we had 2 workshop threads per monyh, you can get, at most, 5 AP. But most people won't get 2 AP per rubric in their workshop contributions.) Thusly, a PG could only build their base at an abysmally slow rate unless they actively dedicated their entire population to building and collecting.

Othereise, all your points seem pretty great.

[hoytti]

Ah but that's just it, a base should be difficult to upgrade since each upgrade is pretty much a new building which can give you a new ability.

For example, a forge can be made which gives your guild members a discount on metal weapons and armor. Plus, it can generate gold/guild coins for the guild.

Another example would be building a wall around the guild. The wall makes it harder for opposing guilds to invade your base in a guild war. It could also attract NPCs as the wall can protect them. This means that they will automatically start building shops thus reducing the guild coins/gold needed for said shops as well as reducing lowering the full judgment to workshop.

Every ability is based around the buildings you build.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

We do have a consensus that HQ's should be binned in their current format. I feel i'm going to have to weigh in here with a couple of technical points though.

Firstly, we have the issue of administration of this system if it were to be introduced. I'm going to put my neck on the block by saying this but these things all need manpower and resources to setup and run and i'm yet to be convinced that our current staffing level can support such a thing at the moment. Someone is going to have to convince me that putting Cards's and Hoytti's suggestion into practice will:

A) Be practical and easy to manage
B) Keep people interested in PG's

Currently I am opposed to it as it is on the basis we are completely overcomplicating things, in my opinion, and people will get bored. This is not for want of trying; if it works then great. But convince me (and, more importantly, Lye). Yes we need rewards and, yes, we need incentives but this is turning into Clash of Clans.

Secondly, I feel I have to defend the AP system here even though we are going wildly off topic. There are plentiful ways to earn AP for a full judgment. Two basic posts in workshops and a vignette could get you a full rubric and a condensed. There seems to be a culture of blaming the AP system for all our problems but I want to stamp this out right now: it has not stopped people from getting the feedback they want nor lowered the quality of writing. It is all down to individual motivation to write, end of. I find myself puzzled by this constant bickering about it and in order to keep the topic "on topic" I must insist we stay on track and focus on the PG element of the thread, please.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Trigger alert: I have opinions.

- We absolutely cannot have full judgments being a requirement for PG advancement in any way, shape, or form. We do not have the activity levels to support something like that. For each full judgment someone gets to get, that's one less opportunity for a guildmate to earn AP off a workshop in order to fund their own group-furthering full judgment. That kind of system would cannibalize itself incredibly quick, and nobody would get any sort of advancement--especially if workshops themselves cost AP to get.

- On that note, maybe we should shelve the whole PG system for the time being. We do not currently have the user base to support multiple active PGs (let alone the single PG we have at this point), no matter what sort of incentives you tack onto them. Our biggest focus should be recruitment and retention. That's not to say you should forbid the forming of groups for people to join; we just have bigger problems to tackle at the moment before we can figure out how to implement a system of rewards and incentives.

- When activity increases to a point where it's feasible to implement a PG system again, it would be wise to keep it as simple as possible. Maybe keep the max roster of a group to a reasonable minimum--perhaps six or seven, definitely no more than eight. But encourage people to make their own PGs based on their goals and the stories they'd like to tell, rather than jam twenty people into a group with very vague and nebulous goals beyond having the most bloated roster on the site because it looks cool.

[Lye]

Alright, so I've come to the decision I'm going to can the PG section and its contents. At the moment, we don't have the support or functioning system to continue with it. That said, I want Fred to move all his active threads in the Tarot to Raieara (Red Forest if you like).

For the sake of argument and character continuity, your character can still be a part of an organization as a plot device (which they should still be regardless). Official power groups will be done away with and the forum will be removed and archived.

When we start getting a new influx of members, I will introduce a new group system that will start off small with no "bases" or "HQs" as we currently know them. They'll be strictly story locations instead of means for reward. This will let the new groups be their intended focus which is several players supporting a shared cause.

If we continue to grow and the groups are seeing use, I like the idea of a BP system and have an idea to minimize staff load. That way, players control their group growth, the perks in which they use, and gives incentives to conflict.

For the time being, PGs are dead and will be archived. Please move your threads.

If you want to continue your war, do so as an informal tourney and plot device. I'll award 1,000k GP to the winning side to be divided among participants as incentive.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Well, that sorts that out.

As you were folks. :)