House Renaissance

Kaden

This is true. But it's also better to be told these things exist beforehand. Also, like any requirements are subject to change if a better alternative is found. 

@‌Unad:

It's actually supposed to be a seed and an introduction to the herbs, rather than a "for when you graduate" thing. The idea is equipment, then curing, then arena work until you graduate. I've had some of the newbies wondering how they're going to get those herbs and I remind them that there's no rush especially since you at least want to get a few levels in before you jump into combat. 

We're not really just handing out the herbs left and right either. We want to set up a house shop to sell them at a discount and we do expect them to work on it. I gave that novice leeway, sure, but only after I saw that work was put into it.

Nim

Waiting to get into combat is silly. You do not need herbs or a curing system or even skills to start learning combat.

Kaden

We can't all be hardcore/crazy like Nim. :P

Edit: That's also what I initially wanted during the planning phase but yeah, had to think of the genuine newbies!

Iocun

Nim said:

Waiting to get into combat is silly. You do not need herbs or a curing system or even skills to start learning combat.

All you need are the commands PUNCH and SLEEP.

Sunny

So...now that the renaissance is in swing...when does multi-classing begin @Tecton?

Nim

@Kaden: Who do you think I sparred with! Other newbies! I wasn't sparring my shadow or anything like that!

Lilian

Iocun said:

I don't think "essays" are fundamentally bad in every case. If you have a house that has writing as its main goal, then there should be writing requirements.

I think the primary reason why "essay" requirements have, rightfully, gotten a bad reputation, is that they are on one hand often very unimaginative from the side of the requirement-giver (hrm, we need some requirement about religion too, let's throw in an essay on a god of their choice), and on the other hand require the student to put in lots of time/work outside the actual game. It's not too dissimilar to what coding curing systems used to be like before server-side systems: some people enjoyed it, sure, but it was a significant time investment that was detached from the actual game world and entirely non-interactive.

That's why I think that apart from certain exceptions, requirements should be designed in such a way that they can be completed entirely or almost entirely in-game (and no, having your character sit in an office for two RL hours while writing your essay in Word doesn't count). So it's not really about "writing" or "not writing". It's about trying to keep writing at a level where you can cope with it on-the-fly by typing stuff in-game at live speed.

Sure, expecting a bit of preparation and some notes is perfectly fine, but it shouldn't get to the point where students spend more time working on their requirements while logged out/journaled/afk than in-game.

On a completely different note though: I'm kind of surprised how firmly ingrained the notion of having "requirements", "interviews", "ranks", etc. is in Achaea's houses. Including the new ones. Surely, that's not the only way an organisation can be run. I've never yet seen a house where, say, hierarchy is based entirely on housefavours. Or democratic elections. Or defeating your superiors in combat. Or bribing your superiors. Or where there are no ranks at all, but only equals. Or where people automatically advance in rank every year. There always seem to be ranks, to which you get by passing interviews, for which you have to complete requirements. As if that was some kind of written law for houses. I'm still hoping some of the new houses to come will dare to try some completely new concepts of organising themselves.

Actually once you're HR5 in the Shield, you rank up solely on house favours, and have ways for you to earn those favours. All based around combat of course. Just, like Kaden has sasid, we were told that it still had to be genuinly newbie friendly. So it's just maybe 10 mins of study and maybe an hour worth of collecting enough gold to buy the -small- amount we require, for our early ranks.

Melodie

Sunny said:

So...now that the renaissance is in swing...when does multi-classing begin @Tecton?

They still have four cities (with several Houses) waiting, and tradeskill splitoff will likely happen before multi-classing. Personally, I wouldn't expect multi-classing before next year sometime. Maybe tradeskill splitoff will be our Christmas gift though.

Jules

Shirszae said:

Sunny said:

Nobody tell @Jules about the book requirement for the Outriders...I mean seriously 6 pages?

Unless each page has a minimum requirement of characters, thats quite pretty easy, as you just need to pace whatever you write around 6 pages.

  

I think I found the requirement.  If I did, I should be okay as it's not my path.  I hope.  I'm also not quite sure what you mean Shirszae.  At first it seems like you're saying "use big font" :P  but pretty sure that's not it.

Shirszae

Jules said:

Shirszae said:

Sunny said:

Nobody tell @Jules about the book requirement for the Outriders...I mean seriously 6 pages?

Unless each page has a minimum requirement of characters, thats quite pretty easy, as you just need to pace whatever you write around 6 pages.

  

I think I found the requirement.  If I did, I should be okay as it's not my path.  I hope.  I'm also not quite sure what you mean Shirszae.  At first it seems like you're saying "use big font" :P  but pretty sure that's not it.

Eh, no, thats not it, considering you can't use big fonts when writing in-game. What I mean is that, unless each page, or the whole written thing, needs to meet a specific minimum length, then its a matter of simply pacing yourself, breaking each page at appropriate points and then continuing on in the next page of the journal.

I am just assuming that if there was a required length, @Sunny would have put that instead of a number of a pages. Perhaps I assume wrong. I don't really find it overly long, in any case. Then again, I like writing.

Sarapis

Daeir said:

Essays with no context that are simply given to be busywork are bad.

However, for a House with a theologian approach, they are required to some degree as we need to know that the members of said House adequately understand the tenets and ideologies that they are supposed to be preaching at the world at large. I do that by giving people tasks to write sermons that incorporate elements of their own backstory as a way of showing their understanding of these tenets - which hopefully provides avenues for character development, and something interesting for the people attending the sermon to enjoy as well.

I do think encouraging some form of creative writing for House tasks is not beyond the realm of acceptable practice, though. It just needs to be done properly in context with the world and the people playing the game.

If you have multiple paths in a House such that people who aren't interested in writing essays can just choose a different path within the House, sure. Any blanket requirement to write an essay is bad though. We should probably just make that a formal rule.

Shirszae

@Sarapis On a hand, I can see the argument for it. Yes, it can be tedious, specially if people harp on the quality of it without actually being helpful. On the other, slippery slope. 

Iocun

As much as I dislike essay requirements and as much as I've always fought against them in any org I was part of, the admins stepping in and making formal rules against them would be terrible. The fact that orgs are player run is one of Achaea's biggest assets and I'd happily pay the price of some orgs making bad decisions from time to time in order to keep the feeling of being able to actively shape the world as a player. IMHO, admins should only interfere with internal house things when things start to go truly bad.

Shirszae

Thank you for expressing that better than I could, @Iocun

Jules

The one *good* thing essays have been used for, is to help make advancement standardized, so that advancement isn't all about trying to be bffs with those in power, but I think there are other ways to standardize advancement (which I do think is an incredibly important concept).

Sarapis

Shirszae said:

@Sarapis On a hand, I can see the argument for it. Yes, it can be tedious, specially if people harp on the quality of it without actually being helpful. On the other, slippery slope. 

Slippery slope to what? Having fun? 

Mathonwy

The biggest problem I (and I suspect a lot of other people) have with essays is that, a lot of the time, logging into the game actively hinders your ability to write them, and as such, playing the game can actually not be conducive to advancing in the game. I don't think it'll be a slippery slope because it's not like you're removing the requirement of writing from a text-based game. You're just making sure it's going to be interactive and, thus, engaging when you do so.

That being said, everything that people try to accomplish in house reqs with essays can be done easier and better with discussions, lectures, or sermons. All of those involve other players to some degree. There's really no reason you should ever have to write an essay before you hit HR5, and even after that, unless you're compiling a repository of information on any given subject or trying to develop or advance, say, some sort of new take on Achaean history that requires your reader's undivided attention to make an elaborate point, there isn't even really a need then.

Melodie

I think instead of a hard-coded rule, Patrons could be encouraged to help dissuade House leaders from essays as a requirement all must do (if that's what is chosen, I do believe most Houses are now starting to move away from that, and as each city undergoes their changes, it will become the norm). I think that's a better marriage of both worlds, as a hand-wave of "no essays required ever" from Up Above would be very strange considering Houses are mostly player-run and all of that.

Shirszae

Sarapis said:

Shirszae said:

@Sarapis On a hand, I can see the argument for it. Yes, it can be tedious, specially if people harp on the quality of it without actually being helpful. On the other, slippery slope. 

Slippery slope to what? Having fun? 

I'll just refer you to @Iocun's post.

Sarapis

Iocun said:

As much as I dislike essay requirements and as much as I've always fought against them in any org I was part of, the admins stepping in and making formal rules against them would be terrible. The fact that orgs are player run is one of Achaea's biggest assets and I'd happily pay the price of some orgs making bad decisions from time to time in order to keep the feeling of being able to actively shape the world as a player. IMHO, admins should only interfere with internal house things when things start to go truly bad.

Well, you have clans for 100% player-run organizations. Cities and Houses (and before that Guilds) are admin-created (though player-evolved, if that makes sense) and are there for the good of the game, the players who have characters in it, and future players too, not merely the whims of the organizational leaders.

They don't/have never had the latitude to simply do what they want regardless of whether it's bad for the game. Mandatory essays are bad for the game and the more I think about it, the more I think they simply need banning, whether informally or formally. 

Mathonwy

Wasn't that same argument made when admin removed the ability for a Houseleader to steal all of a House's gold, too? That it curtails what players can do and thus is A Bad Thing? But I don't think the world's imploded or the game's gone under or anything yet.

Jules

I say if the essay problem doesn't clean itself up, maybe admin steps in on this one  I think I'm somewhat encouraged (although I will be less so if I do end up having a 6 page "story" to write), but I really don't think admin stepping in if this just turns out to be too entrenched would be a bad thing.  At all.

Sarapis

Yes, and the same argument people gave when Guild and City leaders at one time tried to keep a hold on their positions by just ejecting anyone who ran against them from the org.

Mathonwy

The slippery slope of slippery slopes, I guess you could say.

Sarapis

I'd also point out that things like the structure of the government in a city or House, as well as even the name of it is something set by admins that we don't really let org leaders change, even though there's absolutely nothing RP-wise that should stop a city from deciding to rename itself to "Lemon Pieville" or whatever. (*cough* I think everybody knows which city would have been at risk of renaming itself to that at one point. *cough*) Houses are prohibited from switching to different cities, Houses are currently, in four cities, limited to particular classes set by admin, etc.

Point being that if you think about it, there are many, many pretty right-in-your-face ways that the players currently running Houses and Cities don't have full control over them.

Sarapis

Mathonwy said:

The slippery slope of slippery slopes, I guess you could say.

I went looking for a graphic that would illustrate a slippery slope sliding down another slippery slope, but I've come up empty, alas.

Mathonwy

Sarapis said:

Mathonwy said:

The slippery slope of slippery slopes, I guess you could say.

I went looking for a graphic that would illustrate a slippery slope sliding down another slippery slope, but I've come up empty, alas.

I know a guy who can get the job done.

Iocun

Sarapis said:

Iocun said:

As much as I dislike essay requirements and as much as I've always fought against them in any org I was part of, the admins stepping in and making formal rules against them would be terrible. The fact that orgs are player run is one of Achaea's biggest assets and I'd happily pay the price of some orgs making bad decisions from time to time in order to keep the feeling of being able to actively shape the world as a player. IMHO, admins should only interfere with internal house things when things start to go truly bad.

Well, you have clans for 100% player-run organizations. Cities and Houses (and before that Guilds) are admin-created (though player-evolved, if that makes sense) and are there for the good of the game, the players who have characters in it, and future players too, not merely the whims of the organizational leaders.

They don't/have never had the latitude to simply do what they want regardless of whether it's bad for the game. Mandatory essays are bad for the game and the more I think about it, the more I think they simply need banning, whether informally or formally. 

I agree that houses are for the good of the game. But I'd claim that it is exactly the freedoms that house leaders have that contribute positively to the game. This is what acts as an incentive for new players to actually involve themselves within their organisations and eventually ascend to leadership positions. This is what has kept so many players invested in their organisations for so long.

Just doing "your daily business" isn't enough to keep most people motivated in staying in a house and contributing to it. The ability to actively shape it very well may though.

I also very much reject the implied notion that house leaders who make decisions that don't completely coincide with the admins' wishes are "just acting on their personal whim" and don't have the good of the game in mind. I'm quite sure that most are indeed interested in creating a fun environment for their members. Do they always manage to please every single member? Hell no. But in the majority of cases the displeasure about those things isn't at an alarming point and is more like "sucks that I have to do that, but ah well". And if it gets too bad, people can always join another house. With the Renaissance and all, this shouldn't be an issue.

I've experienced what it's like when admins/gods start taking too much of an active hand in house affairs. It can easily feel patronising and demotivating and rob the people who keep a house going day-to-day of the desire to contribute.

Mathonwy said:

Wasn't that same argument made when admin removed the ability for a Houseleader to steal all of a House's gold, too? That it curtails what players can do and thus is A Bad Thing? But I don't think the world's imploded or the game's gone under or anything yet.

Nor would the world have imploded if house leaders had continued to steal gold. Money's really quite unimportant in Achaea.

And well, a hardcoded change like this is never as intrusive to a house's internal workings than decreeing what a house may and may not ask its members to do to advance in rank.

I'm just worried that this is yet another step in narrowing the game down more and more in favour of "accessibility". I'm not against these steps in principle, but one should also always keep in mind what one loses with taking these steps and only take them if the gain is significant enough to warrant that loss.

Jovolo

Mathonwy said:

Sarapis said:

Mathonwy said:

The slippery slope of slippery slopes, I guess you could say.

I went looking for a graphic that would illustrate a slippery slope sliding down another slippery slope, but I've come up empty, alas.

I know a guy who can get the job done.

Very well played, sir.

Mathonwy

It's unimportant unless the House ever wants to do something. House upgrades and the neat little toys they have all cost money. Also, a lot of Houses foot the bill for things like sigils for the estate or various events or reimbursements for productive members, all of which are good things.

The tl;dr, I guess, is that Houses having money equates to Houses having options, and it's very important for a House to have options when it come to encouraging involvement/activity.

ETA: a game should be easily accessible but difficult to master (not that you can ever 'master' a game like Achaea, but then again maybe mastery in Achaea takes on different forms). I think that's kinda the reason why Achaea's done okay for itself and isn't one of the other MUDs that has like fifteen people on at most tops.