Althanas Suggestion Thread

[Max Dirks]

I've always wanted to keep the suggestion thread active.

If you have any suggestions for Althanas, let us know here!

[Kryos]

Bring back the website skins! This default one just does feel right.

[Amari]

I heard 'bring us a pink skin'


YOU GOT IT!

*pink everywhere*



Although, skins are in the works! Don't worry <3

[SirArtemis]

With no judgment being 0 AP and workshop being 2 AP for a 55 and 65 respectively, I feel there's been a level of reducing incentive to write quality work, as it's a free pass to a high score. I'm all about the "game" aspect of Althanas, but it just doesn't add up.

A basic judgment is 3 AP, which gives you a 40/50/60 score. So you're paying 1 more AP and even if you do exceptionally (and most won't) you still will get a smaller reward than paying 2 AP.

Even if you reduce basic judgment to 1 AP, the fact that you have a much higher chance of getting a 40/50 than a 60 makes the no judgment the more practical choice. I would recommend the below changes:

0 AP - No judgment = 55 score
1 AP - Basic Judgment = 50/60/70
2 AP - Workshop = 60 Score
3 AP - Condensed Rubric
4 AP - Full rubric

I think this is more fair by permitting good work to receive a regular 60 score, and for writers to be able to choose between a judge's basic feedback or the community's. I think a 65 score is just too high for workshop because, quite honestly, I think writing a 65 in a condensed/full is genuinely difficult. And as such, the amount of effort that has to go into a thread to break 65 is pretty high for most authors. Few can easily break 70 even with effort. Dropping the workshop score and lining it with basic and making cost more available can re-distribute some of the writing aspects of this forum.

[Flamebird]

I fully one hundred percent agree with SirArtemis.

I honestly feel like Althanas has become less about writing and more about gaining exp, gp, ap, and cool little badges. Which, don't get me wrong, I like those things; but it feels like quality writing and stories have been pushed to the side - it should be the other way around.

I totally understand making the AP system to help lighten the staff's workload. You guys put a tremendous amount of effort into this site and you all rock at it! However, with even workshops, which can be just as helpful as one judge's full judgement, also having a cost... once again, this site feels more like it's about awards than quality writing now.

[Philomel]

I think this is a good suggestion and good points made in this. Thanks Arti.

I agree with the points raised and we will look at them

[Atzar]

I can support the idea of raising the ‘Basic Judgment’ benchmarks to 50/60/70 to make it a relevant choice, but I’d like to see the Workshop score remain at 65. It’s that high for a reason.

The Workshop was designed to accomplish two things. First: it greatly eases the burden on our judges. Nobody joined this forum to be a fucking judge. It’s a tedious, often thankless task, and judging burnout has cost us too many great writers and people over the years.

Second: it lowers the standard of writing for the site. This is a good thing. Flamebird mentioned this site being about loot now. It was always about loot. It was just more subtle in the past. All the best loot – EXP and GP, but also the juiciest IC spoils like rare materials – were locked behind a quality wall. As a result, Althanas always struggled with the perception of elitism. Many people would go out of their way to write with the best writers to piggyback a JC or to grab some loot that would otherwise be beyond their reach; meanwhile, the best writers would form cliques to keep their scores high. The existence of the Workshop – and its high score parameter – has helped to topple that elitism to an extent. Now that everybody has an avenue to a score that is viewed as ‘very good’, it’s no longer a sacrifice to write with somebody who isn’t INDK or Letho.

The Workshop is doing its job as intended right now.

[SirArtemis]

One more suggestion, as this has been on my mind, and is in regards to the bazaar. I know this is being looked at as it's been mentioned in passing but I imagine it's down the pecking order, so I'll just leave my thoughts here.

The bazaar, in my opinion, is underused for genuine power increases beyond roughly fifth level in many cases, and the reason is in part because costs dramatically increase while gold remains difficult to come by. I could net around 300-400 gold for writing a thread between 15-20 posts and scoring a 70. Yet the item I'm going for in my bazaar thread , which is admittedly quite powerful, is pricing in at over 33k gold. That is, quite frankly, unachievable. And as spoils like this are still calculated through bazaar rules before rolling through the rewards of writing a thread, it would still significantly dip into my gold even if I wrote a 70 scoring thread acquiring such an item. The discount just wouldn't be enough, even with me RP'ing the bazaar thread.

What does this cause? People work around the bazaar. As they get higher level, they skip items and just give themselves the inherent abilities/powers to do what otherwise the item itself would have. Why bother with effort and gold and AP if you can just add an ability without justification and just hit a power level in the ROG formula?

I think the ROG shouldn't have items that are unobtainable in the bazaar, but I do think these items should be more expensive. Simultaneously though, i think there should be a diminishing return effect of some kind in the mathematics behind the formula so that an epic item that is enchanted and comprised of multiple high-end materials starts to become cheaper with each additional ingredient. If I'm getting armor with five ancient dragonscales, charging the base increment on each scale is going to blow me out of the water. Charging a reduced value for the bulk ingredients might be more pragmatic.

Now to be clear, the item I'm requesting I still think should be clocking in at a minimum of 10k. After all, this is some legendary stuff here and extraordinarily rare and powerful. It shouldn't cost less than JDD's ship, and should maybe even cost more. 15k-20k is still somewhat reasonable. But the snag here is that even then, earning that kind of gold in character is impractical and forces a tremendous amount of OOC activity. You're talking probably 150 AP on top of say the 5k gold you earn by writing and participating in character. That's well over 30 workshops done thoroughly. No harm done for someone like me, as I do so many, but impractical on a community level.


TLDR
My overall suggestion is two fold. Increase gold rewards for in-character activity and/or reduce the scaling costs of purchasing high-end items so that characters over level 5 and even 10 have an incentive to go for such items rather than just writing abilities into their level ups that do the same job. That, or change how spoils are calculated/paid for when writing a thread where such epic items are earned so that legendary items are more accessible.

[Abomination]

Second: it lowers the standard of writing for the site. This is a good thing. Flamebird mentioned this site being about loot now. It was always about loot. It was just more subtle in the past. All the best loot – EXP and GP, but also the juiciest IC spoils like rare materials – were locked behind a quality wall. As a result, Althanas always struggled with the perception of elitism. Many people would go out of their way to write with the best writers to piggyback a JC or to grab some loot that would otherwise be beyond their reach; meanwhile, the best writers would form cliques to keep their scores high. The existence of the Workshop – and its high score parameter – has helped to topple that elitism to an extent. Now that everybody has an avenue to a score that is viewed as ‘very good’, it’s no longer a sacrifice to write with somebody who isn’t INDK or Letho.

I'd like to offer a counter-perspective on this. For me, it's never been about loot. EXP, GP, items, those are just numbers that go up. I can go to any other game and do that. I've already gotten infinite amounts of all that stuff anyway, and none of it has gotten me anywhere. In a closed quest, or really any non-competitive thread, does it even matter what your level and wealth are? You can pretend to have whatever you want, because it's your story.

The incentive for me is collaborative writing, and the reason this perceived 'elitism' has sprung up, is because there are a diminishing few amount of people that are willing to put the work in to make something interesting, to really go at it from every angle, edit it until it is free from error both grammatical or literary, and this huge amount of time isn't worth sharing with someone who just wants to have a simple role play. The remaining cliques are just people who write with their friends; the so-called 'elitists' are gone.

I feel that the thing that made this place stand out for all these years was promoting excellence. There are hundreds of sites with EXP/whatever, that's not really a reason to stick around. While I'm suffering from a years-long writer's block, I still stand by my initial goal of writing something interesting. Just offering some perspective from those that try to get JC's, in that, they're not symbols of superiority-

They're proof that you made something that is worth reading. Not saying that anything outside isn't worth reading, but as a highly self-critical writer, it tells me that enough people thought it was a good idea to display it as a showcase for the world.

"These people tried to capture your interest, did they succeed?"

[Flamebird]

Abomination put it perfectly. That's how I've always seen the site too. Anywhere else you could just get exp and level up, but on Althanas it's more than that. It is about pushing to be a better writer - and in a fun "let's destroy some Raiaera zombies!" way too!

I do kind of get the elitist thing. I actually felt like the site was full of "grreat writers" then "me" for a while. That actually pushed me though from being the average role-player to being... er... at least a little better. With the AP system and lack of ability to pay for full judgements, my writing has been getting worse again though. Everyone on this site is so friendly and willing to work with you however. After my socially awkward and shy self warmed up to it, I did feel like a part of the site. I don't think elitism is a problem much either. My cousins and I did make up a small cliche at a point though xD

It feels like a lot of the writing aspects of the site has, once again, been pushef aside. While getting a sweet adamantine sword can be awesome, it certainly would be I would be hyped over getting such a weapon, it is not what makes this site unique in my eyes. The writing, and how this site aims to help improve it, makes Althanas more unique and long-term meaningful.