The Dajas Pagoda?

[DarkDelights]

Is it still a thing? How much is the entrance fee?

Asking for a friend...

[Philomel]

I have not seen it mentioned for a fair while. Nobody's asked after it. I don't think it runs anymore.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

The Dajas Pagoda was retired on the old version of the site, but I do wonder if, perhaps, the time has come to look at reviving it...It is something that I never got a chance to experience and would have liked to have done.

Boss lady, what do you think?

[DarkDelights]

Who wouldn't want to spend money to have their characters beaten up by master role-players? Take my money and sign me up!

[DarkDelights]

My thoughts on the Dajas Pagoda:

Bring back Scara Brae as a starting zone. Once you leave Scara Brae, or never if you don't start there at all, you can't return until you're level 10 (I just picked an arbitrary number). At level "10," you can return and challenge for a spot on the pagoda, and the challenged member must defend, or be forced out of scara brae. The loser has to go back out into the world and level up at least once before being eligible to return and challenge the pagoda again (paying the fee in full. it should probably be a sizable amount of gold that would reaaally make you think twice about challenging).

The defending master has one month to reply to the challenge, and replies also have a one month time limit. Failure to post in time results in forfeit.

Masters are chosen from a pool of active players above level "10".

Pagoda masters determine the current state of Scara Brae or some other executive power to sculpt a limited form of Althanas, but their mark is immediately removed if they are dethroned.

Idk. Obviously it wont be me designing the mechanics of the thing, but if something like this were to be a feature on althanas, I know it would be incentive for me to up my writing game, take advantage of work shops, and really push out content to reach higher level, rather than make new level ones (that deep sea worm guy wasn't me by the way. I don't know who that was, but I want to see that little fishy evolve into some titanic horror. Wherever you are, please come back and do something)

[Philomel]

The Pagoda was really before my time, so I'm not sure. We've also recently redesigned the starting area, to make it more flexible, so I don't know if that would be necessary. I wouldn't like to see all the hard work that went into that placed to the side.

But we could certainly see if there would be popularity for a version of the Pagoda. Shinsou, I'll have a chat with you about it and see what we could come up with potentially.

[DarkDelights]

I was just spit-balling ideas =] I understand why Stonevale exists and why its an important fixture. I was just trying to spin flavor text on my idea is all!

[Nosdyn]

It was a thing for a really long while.

I agree some incarnation of this thing could be neat and worth exploring at some point.

My only suggestion here would be to take it back to the drawing board and not scrap it.

Think it's long due a huge overhaul anyway.

But yeah DD I was around when it was a thing was basically (In layman's terms) a Citadel for lowbies.

I think a lot of past ideas on the site were over ambitious and became bogged down with too many complex like...stuff it did not need.

But at it's core level the Dajas was a really good idea.

The site needs more like areas were newcomers can congregate and scheme newcomer schemes. A overhauled Dajas 2.0 could work for this.

For the record Scara Brae never left it's still there.

It's up to people to use this feature or not.

[DarkDelights]

Kind of in the same vein as the Pagoda, does Althanas still run tournaments? I remember that being super fun. I suspect there are concerns of turnout, but yeah, I can't seem to find much information on this subject either. Are tournaments still a thing?

::EDIT:: My favorites were always the ladder style tournaments, where characters fought 1 v. 1 and the winner moved on to the next round with the other winners. I always found grand melee styles to be overwhelming and a lot to keep track of for anything more than like, 3 or 4 players max.

[Philomel]

Yes we still run tournaments, but due to several things including an activity decline, we have not had one for a while. Would it be something people would like to see?

With the current climate we are definitely going to have to wait until things are a little steadiee if we did run one.

[Flamebird]

A tourney sounds fun

[Gum do Mugu]

1v1 tournament get shin to judge it he'll be cool with it ^_~ would probably only turn out to be an 8 person bracket?

[DarkDelights]

@Gum, I figured an 8 person bracket was a big enough turn out to get something started too. I'm pretty married to this idea now, and I hope something gets off the ground soon!

[Nosdyn]

I know my thoughts won't matter too much here anyway but I'll add a few of my own suggestions.

Rebuilding a Dajas style option for super lowbies IN Scara Brae would be pretty neat.

More lowbie related options in general would help out a lot.

I personally think the ingredients are already here in the site...Scara Brae, for example...we can overhaul that.

I am just adding the suggestions to put on like at least for consideration on a To-Do list.

Maybe I'm not writing now atm, but I'm a site veteran and I Just want to help where I can.

If you guys ask me, Scara Brae should be really high on the priority list.

I think there should be much more lower level friendly areas on site.

I think there was a time each region had lowbie spots in it.

We going back to some idea like that could work...I think due to our current LACK of activity we should probably not be thinking on Tourney stuff at all.

We're barely dragging along as a community as it already is.

Instead of tourneys...FOCUS on the site features already in place. I've been in leadership positions in other sites/other communities.

What I am trying to do here is mainly offer advice none of it needs to be taken at all...but at least consider it is all I am getting at.

Rebuild the lowbie zones and make that a top priority.

I think that Scara Brae overhaul (Including a potential Dajas Pagoda) will help a lot here.

These are just my thoughts here hopefully some of it gets done, thanks all for your time so far.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

1v1 tournament get shin to judge it he'll be cool with it ^_~ would probably only turn out to be an 8 person bracket?

I'm down with this. It'd be great to see what some of the new talent could do!

Final decision on an official Althanas tournament rests with the admins on this and I think we'd need to have a chat to make sure we're comfortable with activity levels. The Gisela the other year was an absolute shitshow and if we're going to start running tournaments again I definitely do NOT want to see that repeat itself.

I do however have an idea for testing the water and seeing how activity goes.

I occasionally run sort of an unofficial tournament called the Osiris Open.

Threads are judged like Citadel threads, and GP rewards for finising positions come from a mixture of small entry fees (100 Gp per person) and then a huge top up from my personal stash.

Arenas are pre determined, and are dished out on a first come, first served basis. You pick the name of an arena you like, and on tournament start, your arena is revealed to you.

So, how about it? Shall we do an Osiris Open? Then if that works out, we can talk about having an official tournament?

[DarkDelights]

Osiris open? I'm in!

[Max Dirks]

I created the Dajas pagoda. Fun story, it's named after Sajad, the guy who played my dear friend Sorjax on the site. In any event, I think the idea is great (duh), but Althanas strayed away from competitive RP about 6 months of operation, so activity declined. Then we were unable to find people who would be active in all the tiers, so we scrapped it. It remains a canon location to use, but without at least 5-10 active battlers and a stream of new players, it's just not viable to maintain. It would start main v. main, then goto main v. alt, then alt v. alt and would completely lose it's purpose: providing a way for new players to introduce themselves into competitive RP.

[Nosdyn]

Tony I'm old enough to remember Sorjax, he was a good bloke hahah.

But yeah bro you bring up some of my own concerns too...a tournament would imply a super active community like I been talking about.

I think a better/more constructive focus would be working on the active features WE DO heave in place and making them maybe more user friendly? I have pointed out in the past as lot of tourneys and other wise really brilliant ideas became bogged down with too many layers of complexity.

I think...(Just spiballing guys but hear me out a moment or two) a citadel overhaul with a much more simplified citadel league could work here.

Instead of bringing back a lot of over complex tournaments (At least for the time being) use the systems WE HAVE already.

The Citadel could benefit for a really big over haul. Some sort of a season style event for the site to participate in could work here too. (Yes the idea is loosely ripped off Diablo 3 and Path of Exile but its an idea that works I think it can work on our site too)

What I'm mainly getting at is this: overhaul The Citadel is point one. Point two overhaul the regions themselves JUST a bit to allow much more easier player added content. I am someone who respects Ithermoss a lot for adding The Thayne Codex into the site's lore.

It should be EASIER to add player lore/etc onto the site.

I've rped heavily on several other sites. Valucre, Aelyria, and a super competitive DBZ based rping site.

BOTH Valucre and Aelyria had player lore systems in play.

Me and Andy used to both point out: In PERSONAL lore Lorenor (One of my own characters) could have destroyed X lab of BABE's character right?

But it would STILL be up to Andy to acknowledge this and vice versa.

What I am proposing is. this: a HUGE overhaul to the personal lore portion of the game and make it EASIER and even more rewarding for players to write together and integrate their lore in a seamless storyline.

I can recall back in the day Lorenor (Who is openly gay by the way) had a relationship with a really old character on the site named Urei.

Those were some of the fondest stories I ever wrote with anyone.

I'll drop more ideas as I come up with them but that's the basic stuff I got for you guys so far.

[Gum do Mugu]

shin when's sign ups?

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

shin when's sign ups?

As soon as I've finished wiping the arses of the British public, my friend. So, around dinnertime.

[Philomel]

Hello, thanks for all the comments and suggestions here, Nosdyn. We've tried to remake the starting area at least - that was brought in a wee while back.

We could definitely try doing don't more things for lower levels. Could be interesting to have a look at, but we have done some newer things there. I think there are plans to look back into competitive RPG that are being discussed.

The Pagoda was before my time, but I think Dirks has a good point in the activity being a but uneven recently. We do perhaps need to work on lore building.

[Nosdyn]

Ailsa-Thanks for taking a look at my suggestions. That is muchly appreciated.

Lore wise I think a lot of the ideas I was throwing your guys way could really work.

Maybe a Pagoda overhaul could work further down the road I agree with you on that.

What I was mainly getting at too was this...there should be a lot more incentive for people to work TOGETHER.

Combine storylines, commit to lore related things that sort of stuff.

I recall that Althy as a community is really hard for some players to break into, I like to think of myself as someone who embraces newcomers.

I think if we can add many of the elements we'd all like to see it would ADD more competitive aspects to the forum and more activity.

I know me...I felt discouraged for. a while there because I felt like I was the only (Save for maybe two other people) who was literally completing threads for a while there.

I know me, I can crunch out solo after solo but that got stale for me.

What I am getting at is more people to write with would be really phenomenal.

Ailsa you reminded on my youtube and on my own FB wall I can help you guys advertise the site more. I am willing to do everything I can to get the site more needed exposure. I have talked to Carlos (Admini of Valucre) before about potential affiliations but given how badly Benny turned out before I dont think that community is a good fit for us.

Either way once I have some of the youtube stuff sorted out for you guys I am going to help more on that front too. Thank s for reading my suggestions Ailsa that means a lot to me.

[Philomel]

Hey Nosdyn,

Thank you for staying connected to other sites. We now have a little Affiliates Sanctum so that they can directly post a small advertisement of their site, and have their link featured on our homepage. :)

Thank you for your suggestions. They certainly have some merit, some of them, and though I don't think we'll use all, myself and the other admins will discuss this.

[Philomel]

For those asking after Skara Brae as a starting area - we have Stonevale, a town on the island chain. It has recently been redesigned with some new features. If you have any questions though, or suggestions about it, please let us know. But take a look!

[Nosdyn]

Ailsa-you guys been doing really good work.

I'm totally willing on my alts to start up some stuff in lowbie zones. I got a thing in the started spot with my Archanex character.

Find me a partner and we can get that one under way!

But yeah Ailsa, Ill go over the new changes tonight and offer you guys some feedback and suggestions. I think...this is all a good step in the right direction.

I pointed out in recent times more than once the community has to at least BE more active, and accessible.

I know I'm on Discord all the time and I can be reached.

I have my privacy settings fixed so anyone may contact me.

But yeah guys I will go over the changes and offer feedback ASAP. I'm trying to take a larger interest in all this stuff.