Engagement

Noatak

HELP MARRIAGE:
"Adventurers must be within the 30th level of experience or higher, and have at least 75 OOC hours of play (i.e., 3 days, 3 hours in STAT) to become engaged."

Personally, I feel that the time aspect of time here is unneeded. That is an awful lot of playing time, especially if your character loves someone as much as mine does! Perhaps that part could be removed, and maybe the level requirement raised to 50? Marriage and engagement is about RP, and shouldn't really be controlled. I know the idea is to not take it lightly, but I don't think that is a concern if both parties are already agreeing to it..

Thanks

Skye

I want to say no, and yet I don't feel so strongly against it either. It's kinda 'meh'. 

I will say that there are some organisations (mostly Houses specifically) who frown upon or even forbid love relationships at the start because they want new players to focus on immersion of the game (and its mythos and the faction's ideals) rather than getting immersed in relationships and drama.

Having said that, the average experience of True Love in Achaea generally runs its course after about 6 months. Good luck and don't get @Melodie‌ 'd

Aedin

As I see it I vote no on this. I agree with @Skye‌ and believe that newcomers should focus on other areas mentioned above before going into all that.

Plus 75 hours in game flies by quickly..

Herenicus

Also read:

Noatak

Haha okay, was just a thought

Melodie

Skye said:

Good luck and don't get @Melodie‌ 'd

Man, is this going to be a thing now? 

Amarillys

Melodie said:

Skye said:

Good luck and don't get @Melodie‌ 'd

Man, is this going to be a thing now? 

I feel like it should be Aerek'd... I think it should be don't pull a Melodie and don't get Aerek'd...

Jeslyn

It really does go by quickly, as someone whose character has gotten married already after being with her partner for five rl months! Which is a long time in Achaea! just enjoy the game for now, and don't get too caught up in relationship drama. I already know too many people who quit because their partner decides to leave them after a few achaea months of engagement. It truly is giving players time to think before getting engaged.

Aerek

Unfortunately, "Aerekt" is already under copyright, and any attempted appropriation, imitation, or unsanctioned usage will result in a cease-and-desist letter from my attorney. Refusal to comply will result in being Aerekt, or in extreme cases, Melodie'd when you least expect it.

Bronislav

Aerek said:

Unfortunately, "Aerekt" is already under copyright, and any attempted appropriation, imitation, or unsanctioned usage will result in a cease-and-desist letter from my attorney. Refusal to comply will result in being Aerekt, or in extreme cases, Melodie'd when you least expect it.

But Aerek is always Aerekt. Ask all the women he's been with.

It's almost like Achaean knighthood is the new viagra. The new viagra that won't let Bron in.  

Nim

I spent like at least a year roleplaying unmentioned feelings, restrained awkwardness, and other stuff. Then I roleplayed hatred tempered by disappointment and admiration, slowly cooling into an oft violent, yet still often childish form of affection. That probably took another year maybe. I laugh at your petty notions of romance.

Skye

@Bronislav I don't think knighthood has anything to do with it. It's a psychological thing. When a generally inoffensive, passably attractive male gets dumped, he releases a kind of pheromone that sends the women swarming for him.

It's a mixture of compassion, pity and consumer-mentality. Because he's already been test-driven and they know he can commit. And also that other woman was totally cray-cray to let him go. 

Aerek

I'm inoffensive? @Skye‌, that's perhaps the nicest thing someone's ever said to me.

My place or yours?

Skye

Sry, I'm required to wait until Melodie has started dating someone else first. And also you have to have dated someone else first.

Melodie

@Skye my girl, always doing right by me.

As for @Aerek, you're in the doghouse tonight.

Kaden

Careful, Melodie. He might cite all the time he spends with the dog and get custody. :P

Caladbolg

Personally I think engagement should require a higher level and more time.

Can't tell you how many people i've seen 18-19 and engaged only to figure out that they are engaged to someone mudsexin every 18 year old newbie who comes out of the flame.

Arador

Ah, love at first emote. 

Noatak

Ha! We've known eachother longer

Jonathin

The way I see it, the reason the amount of play time required remains so high is because it's been that way for ages now. Yes, it's good for new people to focus on other aspects of the game, but I don't see why it has to be 75 hours. I don't see why people should be shoved away from textmatrimony for so long when it really doesn't take 75 hours of play time to get a good grasp of the game and organizational lores.

Marriage is not like bloodlining and people are free to divorce if they make a mistake. 

I'd be in favour of lowering the time limit by a third or more if not just going with the OP suggestion.

Santar

You're all completely missing the point. This is a simple administrative design policy.

One of the most important things you should do pertaining to new players when designing a game, is to ensure that the new players are unable to make poor long-term, irreversible choices for their character/account/etc.  In this case, the marriage pre-req is 75 hours of play time because the administration wants to ensure that the new character has had an ample amount of playtime to understand how the concept of engagement, marriage, and etc works in Achaea. The 75 hour limit encourages the new player to first learn the game and to be able to make a serious, informed choice. Without that limitation, they could make poor choices without first understanding the depth and scope of the game.


It's similar to how you're allowed to quit your class prior to embracing without losing any lessons. It'd be unfair for the newbie to lose a multitude of lessons for an uninformed choice they made. 

Jonathin

That's all well and fine, but people aren't actually losing anything physical except some gold. I can follow the logic that making poor choices that cost something to fix deters newbies from staying, but that logic doesn't or only partially applies because the cost is absolutely minimal and the only lasting effect is an honours line and a bit of character story. People don't lose experience or lessons for divorcing and it's 10k(?) to get divorced.

I am with the argument a ways above about it keeping newbies from marrying those mudsexing every newbie at the arches.


To be clear: I don't feel strongly either way. I'm just not convinced that the proposed arguments from players are strong enough to settle it outright on either side.

Shirszae

@Jonathin You do get a line numbering the times you've been divorced in your honours, which costs credits and an artefact to hide. 

Bluef

Achaea is like real life in two aspects:

1. When you see a 18-19 year old engaged you mentally think in your most sarcastic voice, "Yeah.,.that'll last."

2. Who you are at 18-19 isn't who you most likely will become and roleplay as consistently at age 30 or for that matter, who you are at 30 isn't who you'll be at 100+.

I'm with @Caladbolg: Raise the limits, don't lower them! Heck, I'd love to see some cities even create intricate marital laws. Who you can marry, when you can marry, and real cultural and economic implications of marriage would be fun and it would make engagement/marriage more realistic. 

Ast

Bluef said:

Achaea is like real life in two aspects:

1. When you see a 18-19 year old engaged you mentally think in your most sarcastic voice, "Yeah.,.that'll last."

2. Who you are at 18-19 isn't who you most likely will become and roleplay as consistently at age 30 or for that matter, who you are at 30 isn't who you'll be at 100+.

I'm with @Caladbolg: Raise the limits, don't lower them! Heck, I'd love to see some cities even create intricate marital laws. Who you can marry, when you can marry, and real cultural and economic implications of marriage would be fun and it would make engagement/marriage more realistic. 

That'd be amazing, and actually make me want to get Ast married, since I don't see much reason to outside of a few other roleplay perks.

Kerria

Doesn't Mhaldor already have marriage quarks?

i can see Cyrene now.. "No you can't marry your uncle, it's in the law." "But everyone in Cyrene is my uncle."

Jonathin

Shirszae said:

@Jonathin You do get a line numbering the times you've been divorced in your honours, which costs credits and an artefact to hide. 

It is 100% purely asthetic though. It does not hinder your gameplay in such a way that misusing or losing lessons would.

Melodie

Mhaldor does not allow its citizens to marry at CR1, and when you do marry, it has to be a citizen or an ally of Mhaldor. I think you might need to have it approved by Sartan, too? I forget exactly.

Shirszae

Jonathin said:

Shirszae said:

@Jonathin You do get a line numbering the times you've been divorced in your honours, which costs credits and an artefact to hide. 

It is 100% purely asthetic though. It does not hinder your gameplay in such a way that misusing or losing lessons would.

But it is a permanent consequence nonetheless. Goes hand in hand with what @Santar said, at least for me.

Herenicus

Real Mhaldorians cohabitate like decent people. 

Prythe

Those who know me know I take marriage very seriously - even though it is "just a game."

I have performed a few weddings over the years, and turned down more requests than that. I let the couple know that it is a relationship that I take seriously, and I need to know that they are in order for me to officiate.

The background for my views is that when I first started playing Achaea, out here in the offline world, in most places, there was no gay/lesbian marriage recognized by governments (religious orgs were ahead of the times on this).

It was so annoying to see "So and so has been divorced 5 times" while people out here :: points world :: were fighting for the right to marry once.

I still take it seriously, marriage, but do not have that same level of, "Darn it y'all, this is real stuff, don't make light of it!"

All *that* said - I do not think the restrictions are appropriate. There will always be young, stupid people, in the game, in the real world. If we set up too many rules for too many things there will no longer be a game,  with individualized role play, there will be a many act play, with everybody deciding which pre-determined role they wish to portray.

Maybe make divorce be a little more difficult - mimic offline there, where the divorce takes time to finalize or a remarriage cannot happen for a certain period of time. Include the caveats and full information in HELP MARRIAGE with reference to HELP DIVORCE. But let's not turn too much into Lockstep, other than where it fits naturally into RP (such as in Mhaldor).

Just my two cents.... 

Deborah
on behalf of Prythe who has been married over ten real life years to Serendipity with whom I still maintain _offline_ contact (and we each obtained "approval" from our offline sig others to retain the status when that situation arose).