Big Althanas Changes: 1st March 2021

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well.

For a good while now, the Althanas staff have been involved in behind-the-scenes discussions on the future direction of Althanas. This includes what we actually want to be as a site, ways to improve site activity, ways to improve member engagement and improve the quality of life on the site as a whole. A lot of good ideas have been shared and discussed, and everyone from the administrators to the moderators have had some sort of input to get to this point.

Today, the administrators got together to discuss these plans in more detail. We've come to a consensus on what we'd like to change and introduce, and now we put these ideas to you for a debate. Feel free to comment in this thread, and put forward your thoughts!

Realm of Greeting and Bazaar

The changes we want to make to the Realm of Greeting, which handle character approvals, is probably the single biggest change in the history of Althanas.

Our proposal is to scrap the current TPL system entirely, and move to a more freeform approval system.

What this means for you, as players:

1) Your profile abilities are checked for anything game-breaking or anything that would invite powergaming, and as long as common sense prevails, you'll be allowed that ability. No more PL's!

2) The levelling system will determine how many abilities you will be allowed, roughly. For example, a level 1 character may be allowed three strong abilities, or four weaker ones. This is very much going to be done on a discretionary basis now rather than cold, hard PL's or limits, allowing you all much more freedom with your characters. Levelling up will also allow you to strengthen your abilities, should you wish to do so.

3) Your level will determine what tier item you are able to buy in the Bazaar. A level 1, for example, might only be able to purchase up to Dehlar quality items. A level 8 might be able to purchase up to Prevailda, and so forth.

4) As well as those abilities you are approved with, you may also purchase new stock abilities from the Bazaar. These are abilities which have a set function and price, and may change week to week. You even may be able to purchase an ability that is very strong, for a sum of GP, that would normally exceed your level's ability cap! Purchased abilities do not count towards any caps.

5) We also intend on bringing back the Auction Houses, where you can bid GP against other members to try and win special items!

6) Finally, if you wish to add further to your abilities beyond what has already been approved, you may train with another player to obtain that ability as a spoil from the thread!

Judging

Judging is the second biggest change on this thread. With both turnaround time, staff commitments and feedback quality in mind, we want to make the following proposed changes:

For non-competitive writing, the following judgment options will now be available to you:

1) "Judgment" - Each thread will be read and the judge will comment on a number of strengths and weaknesses. The thread is then given a star rating between 1 and 10. The higher the star rating, the more rewards your thread will earn! In addition, if you wish a judge to have a specific focus in the thread, or wish for additional feedback, you may request it with this type.

2) "No Judgment" - a popular choice with players not looking for feedback. Your rewards here will be set by the judge after a read through, with no additional commentary.

3) "Workshop" - effectively a Judgment, with the added bonus of members being able to contribute feedback for incentivised rewards, such as GP and badges.

For competitive RP (including the Citadel, events and tournaments):

1) "Full Rubric" - The traditional Althanas rubric will be used to judge competitive threads, which hasn't changed, but the scale of the scoring is going to be different. We are moving to what we call a "schoolastic scale", which means that an average thread scores 70 instead of 50 (in other words, if this was a school assignment, a 70 would be a grade "C"). Each writer is still scored individually according to the rubric, and the judge decides the final winner based on the writing.

Activity

This is more of an administrative item, but we have also began working on our systems to optimise the ways people look for and find Althanas. There's quite a lot of technical and rather boring details, but the upshot is that we're making greater use of the site resources to be able to make sure new players and writers can find us on google, along many other search engines. We're updating our tags and metadata so that we're attracting less Russian bots and more actual people.

This alone, though, is just one (not particularly exciting) part of it.

We want to see more posting on the forum, whether its small stories, the OOC forums or the vignettes. We want people excited on site. To this end, we're intending on making lore easier to access and affect so that you guys can express yourself more. We're also planning on bringing back the awards system, which is an Althanas favourite, and introducing increased referral bonuses for anyone you refer to the site!

Last but not least, we have a fantastic discord community. It's filled with current and old players, and its a really great place to talk, but we'd all really like to see the wonderful activity levels on the server translate to the boards.

That is why we are going to introduce EXP incentives for those of you who post, regardless of where it is on the forum (IC or OOC).

I like everything stated in here except for one thing... The level deciding the ability to purchase higher tier equipment from the bazaar. I understand it in a way, in every normal video game, you have to level up to use better equipment, but in a setting such as Althanas, I don 't know if I can see this working. It takes forever to get to level 5, took me two years of writing threads very often to get there, and if a level 5 can only get a mid tier equipment, then it kinda does the same damage as limiting abilities with the current TPL system. This can very much render the bazaar effectively useless, as most players I have seen tend to save up after multiple threads to buy a high end item, rather than buying multiple low end items. Heck even Shadow's bow, which is his signature thing, (yes it was won through a thread, but that's not the point here) would be unobtainable to anyone under level 10, maybe even higher, because of how rare and powerful it is, and yet when I am in a battle thread, it doesn't give me an insane boost in how much damage I can do, because he still has to be accurate with it.

We rarely see characters get above level 10, with the amount of time and writing it takes to get to that level, most people fall off the site or burn out before they reach that (which I hope changes obviously, but let's be realistic, its not very common). Making weapons that someone would have been able to get by level 5 based off the gp saved up impossible to get until they are a higher level would certainly dissuade people from playing, especially if they wanted it for their character's story, but can't have it because their level.

Other than that, I like where you are taking things. Keep up the good work.

I'm brand new to the site, so i'll defer to more experienced hands on matters like Judging. But, as someone who loves to RP and write, I really like that you have decided to go freeform. Most of the RP sites I have been on have done this and it does help shake those chains off.

Of course, it does have to still be regulated but reading around the site it looks like the judgment side of things looks after that.

I don't know Black Shadow (hi, by the way!), but i'm not as fussed by the shop level restrictions (maybe that's inexperience). It makes sense really that lower level characters can't just go and buy all the good shit early and as a new player it gives me something to aim for! In all honesty, from what ive seen just because an item is a stronger material doesn't mean that its going to break against a higher tier material. If you hit a steel sword against iron, neither will shatter. Of course I realise that wasn't Black Shadow's point, and I get what he says, but i'm still getting to grips with the mechanics so help me out if im way off base (I suppose armor might be the exception?).

I also really like the idea of the ability shop and auction house!

Probably not worth a lot right now but that's my euro's worth of input. This place looks great, and i'm feeling good about being here.

Just a few things Shadow. I think with the shift to scholastic scoring, it'll be FAR more easy to level up than before. You can also still request high end spoils from threads.

Hey all,

I’d like to start off by telling you guys a story, about a young college aged guy who moved to a new city and was trying hard to fit in. Moving away from your hometown and being away from your friends and family can be scary and hard. And let me tell you that finding friends can be intimidating.

I spent weeks alone and searching for a group of friends to call my own, until suddenly I met one of my still best friends named Silence Sei (Calvin) while applying for jobs. He to this day was the greatest buddy I think I ever had and when he mentioned that he played on a role playing website I was Skeptical at first. I thought he must have been a nut, or at least had a screw loose or something. But the more and more he talked about it and encouraged me to log on and look around the more and more I felt like a part of the community and that I was embraced with open arms. Thanks to Althanas and Calvin I felt at home in a new city and away from my safety net. All this is to say that I love this website like I love my best friends and don’t want anything to happen to this very special corner of the internet.

Above I have read through the changes coming on March 1st and have more than a few comments to make but I believe that the current admin staff have every right to do what they see as the right move going forward. To everyone reading this I’m here to say that without change our precious escape is in jeopardy of crumbling. We as a group have always had the mentality that real life comes first and I’m sure everyone one can agree with this, but now isn’t the time for that. It’s time to come together as a group, reach out to everyone, and bring this wonderful community back together. These changes are a great way to breath fresh air back into Althanas.

If I were to alter one thing from the plan moving forward would be to limit the power creep that has always been present here. I love the freedom we will be allowing moving forward but see it as an easily exploitable system with minimal checks and balances. How do we stop players, myself included, from creating stupidly powerful characters period? If I want to play a character with realism I will not write with a player who is so absurdly powerful that there is no competition. I understand that the ability to “win” is based on your writing and being judged but come on. The power levels were allowed to be too high already and this will only exacerbate the issue in my mind. Not only has this been an intimidating thing to deal with in the past these changes will make it easier to be done.

I’d like to see upper limits established somehow for competitions.

I’d like to see a warm and welcoming community like it was in the old days where people thought about you as a friend and kept in touch outside the game, some of us have.

I’d like to see Guilds to make a major comeback, at least in some regard other than fleeting mentions in threads here and there.

But mostly I’d like for everyone to reach out to anyone you can, not only to check in, but inform them of these changes. The last two years have been the worst time of my life as Ive had some close calls. I cannot be the only props on that a curtesy call could change their lives. Whether you like the changes or not (I Do Not) they are coming, and we have to deal with em. But that doesn’t mean others don’t have the right to know and it’s our responsibilities to do it. And if we are making these great changes to the system let’s make changes in ourselves too and only do what’s right from here on out.

To anyone reading this… do your part spread the word. For good or bad we owe it to those who have come before us.