Celani Q+A

Tekk

Sartan said:

@Ruth Part of a demigod's preparation for a godrole is studying the realm and associated materials for that God. There are some records that I won't go too deeply into, but suffice it to say, the Gods themselves are updating things as we go along to do our best to ensure a consistent experience across volunteers.

This has been one of my biggest gripes, but I have noticed that the last few 'new gods' I've seen have been much better than the past. Glad to see the process is working. 

Valaria

Nim said:

Deucalion said:

5. Neraeos was Kramer. Tecton is Jerry. Lorielan is Elaine. Mortals that come to the gate to the Garden are all Newmann.

evade north

o-oh T_T

I tried to peek... nope, I end up at the cave somewhere in Ithmia.

Kakotas

Aepas said:

Just a question on this front.
For players who want to make a kind of change in the IC world and continue playing as people in the realms. For instance, the Alien races (Xoran/Horky/Raja/grook) have some of the most pitiful lore ever made, even with grand overarching things surrounding them. For those of us that would enjoy making things about these races, how do we go about doing that? Sure there are several culture clans for each race, but many are quite terrible and none of them have ever been regarded as Ic truths. Just made up nonsense that we can pretend to be true if we want.

While that is only one example of player created lore, I simply have to wonder about how we can go about changing things or creating lore of our own measure without being a celani or god to do so.

Aepas that's something I did with @Faur and @Phaestus with the dwarven clan. It honestly does work best establishing miniscule cannon lore and working with a patron of sorts. If you can get a group of that race running in the same direction it becomes a whole lot easier for a patron to step in and just say lets do this and make magic happen. I just happened to be the oldest active dwarf in the clan at the time when they sent out a call looking for dwarven stuff and boom we already had a system established and a fairly halfway decent lore of the nations and a few heroes and boom done.

Xith

Question #6: Is Pandora basically the Defense Against the Dark Arts position?

Jonathin

How often do you encounter people who are terrified of rping with an admin?

I ask because I think it's a geat feeling when, after a good amount of effort, that person comes out of his shell and am curious if, as admin, you get to help people be less afraid of such interaction.

Marax

@Deucalion  No one ever pays me in gum  

Sartan

@Jonathin I'm going to answer personally here and not for the Garden™.  There are (obviously) volunteers with denizen interaction, but it is a hope that players remember that talking to a guard is not talking to a God. Sometimes the question of respect level comes up (can I disagree? can I say no? can I argue?) the answer is usually yes. You can likely even do these things with a God (so long as you're willing to accept the consequence of arguing with a God). Naturally, the response is going to vary. Arguing with Sartan is a non-starter. Arguing with a God's token denizen voice might garner varied results depending on the social status of the denizen.

It can surely be intimidating having a denizen talk at you, but from my end, I'm always looking for players to come out of their shells and interact with denizens. The only way this really happens is with frequent denizen interaction. Most denizens in the game are just 'regular folks' without special privilege, hardly any special titles, or any special relationship to a divine. Feel free to speak to most denizens the way you speak to any other player. Indeed, feel free to poke them. If there's a 'larger' conversation you're looking to have with a denizen, the Delos messenger is a great way to make contact--and anyone can use it.

I'm confident in saying that for the whole Garden, more denizen interaction = a good thing.

Edit: Now this is getting really long. It occurs to me that you might be asking about player-god interaction. This is a little more limited in scope than player-denizen interaction and largely depends on the personality of the godrole. We do want players to interact with us, but the outlets are different. Gods tend to be more free with their orders, perhaps also more free with orgs they patron, than with say, an unaffiliated player. There's generally a respect level that should be maintained with Gods, but that doesn't mean always deferring or agreeing. And in answer to the main question: yes, we're generally all very enthusiastic about helping players enjoy RPing and making those interactions meaningful and fun.

Jonathin

I'm sorry if I phrased my question/edit poorly, I'm trying to post from my phone at work between machine cycles. Now I'm on break and have more than 30 seconds to type.

What I meant is: given your duties as a god, do you find much time to interact with players?

You answered the second part of my question already, but it was: how often do you find that people basically prostrate themselves to beggars that start talking because they know. a god is behind it?

And on a personal note, do you find it rewarding when someone finally comes out of his/her shell?

Sartan

@Jonathin We're always looking for opportunities. Like the call says, we have a strong roleplaying focus, and it's among the highest priorities for god duties.   Yep, it's definitely rewarding!

Sartan

@Daeir  I'll be honest though, part of the hesitation on our part is the need to keep OOC and godrole separate so that the 'magic' isn't ruined. If players start to see us too differently from our godroles, our concern is our in-game street cred tanking. It's not a lack of wanting to respond to folks on the forum, but rather a desire to maintain the integrity of the godrole that keeps us largely silent. 

Valaria

Sartan said:

@Daeir  I'll be honest though, part of the hesitation on our part is the need to keep OOC and godrole separate so that the 'magic' isn't ruined. If players start to see us too differently from our godroles, our concern is our in-game street cred tanking. It's not a lack of wanting to respond to folks on the forum, but rather a desire to maintain the integrity of the godrole that keeps us largely silent. 

Ah, that explains a lot why Gaia doesn't reply to my message in-game. heh. "hey, You!" (okay, I didn't say that in a message. )

Arditi

To be fair, @Sartan , you're doing a lousy job of being the forums Sartan.

Not one admonition against traitors?

Deucalion

Sartan said:

@Daeir  I'll be honest though, part of the hesitation on our part is the need to keep OOC and godrole separate so that the 'magic' isn't ruined. If players start to see us too differently from our godroles, our concern is our in-game street cred tanking. It's not a lack of wanting to respond to folks on the forum, but rather a desire to maintain the integrity of the godrole that keeps us largely silent. 

Also, in the past, there was  a policy that only staff members (producer, asst producer, head coder, etc) were to post on the forums. Some of us that were around at that time refrain from posting out of habit, as well.

I can also confirm @sartan's assertion that familiarity can lead to difficult situations. Without going into details, being active on the forums can sometimes  make people overly friendly in game and cause RP issues.

Suladan

What about the thrill of battle? Is that gone or is there like a Celani fight club?

Artemis

Suladan said:

What about the thrill of battle? Is that gone or is there like a Celani fight club?

It has been replaced with Celani Hunger Games. All of us are past winners. 

Aedin

Artemis said:

Suladan said:

What about the thrill of battle? Is that gone or is there like a Celani fight club?

It has been replaced with Celani Hunger Games. All of us are past winners. 

I see so which district (city) have the most winners then lol

Moco

Hunger games ftw..

I was curious, would one answer the questions in the application form point by point or just write an applications text in which the questions are answered? point by point seems a bit dull.

When not being sure about a particular God, one gets many opportunities as a Celani to learn about more about the different Divine and engage in some basic denizen-player contact to build a further feeling for certain Gods?

Tecton

Moco said:

Hunger games ftw..

I was curious, would one answer the questions in the application form point by point or just write an applications text in which the questions are answered? point by point seems a bit dull.

When not being sure about a particular God, one gets many opportunities as a Celani to learn about more about the different Divine and engage in some basic denizen-player contact to build a further feeling for certain Gods?

1) Points is preferred, yes!

2) Indeed, as you're training, you'll have access to a slew of information to help make your decision.

Specifically in regards to engaging in denizen-player contact: Due to the potential ramifications of allowing someone not familiar with the role jumping in as say, and order denizen, we don't have the opportunity for that as part of the syllabus.

Tahquil

Must you reply with the intent of taking on a God role?

Tahquil

*Apply, not reply. Already fail.

Kakotas

@Aepas If you ever wanna talk about how we did it just let us know I'd love to help get other races on racial clans going well.

Tekk

More of an observation; I find it really interesting that most of the questions posted were about the selection of godhood. I think the largest take aways are: you're not going to get selected to be a god that you dislike, you will get the opportunities to learn about other gods and  the player base(s) associated with them, and there's some serious dedication to get to that point. 

Artemis

Tekk said:

More of an observation; I find it really interesting that most of the questions posted were about the selection of godhood. I think the largest take aways are: you're not going to get selected to be a god that you dislike, you will get the opportunities to learn about other gods and  the player base(s) associated with them, and there's some serious dedication to get to that point. 

All of those observations are true! I would like to make one clarification, though: each person gets to choose which role THEY want (out of available ones, of course). There is no "we need this role filled, so you must do it". The godrole is the reward for all the hard work you do (and will continue to do - remember, we are all working as a team to make Achaea awesome for all players). It takes a lot of dedication, yes. The reward though, is so worth it! 

Twilight

@Tahquil - Not necessarily, though that's usually the end-game reward of putting in so much work.

Also, to expand on an earlier point of adjusting the realm or ethos of a God, it is mostly always done as a way to improve the overall experience and role. For example, there were many aspects of Twilight's ideology that were completely copied, word-for-word, from various real life religious texts into a confusing mix of nonsense. That was changed to make it more "Achaean", as well as to make it more enjoyable for the players. If it makes sense, and offers improvement, there's usually a clear pass to go ahead and do so.

Ruth

If you happen to show remarkable proficiency during your time as a Celani, will your training period as a Celani be shortened or will it still take the same period of time? Is it case by case basis?

Lorielan

@Ruth How long a celani takes is totally up to them, there is a syllabus of sorts to complete.

Taraza

Just wanted to say best of luck to those who do decide to apply for Celani this round. If you get it, that's fantastic. If not, no worries, just keep at it. 

Sarapis

Aepas said:

Just a question on this front.
For players who want to make a kind of change in the IC world and continue playing as people in the realms. For instance, the Alien races (Xoran/Horky/Raja/grook) have some of the most pitiful lore ever made, even with grand overarching things surrounding them. For those of us that would enjoy making things about these races, how do we go about doing that? Sure there are several culture clans for each race, but many are quite terrible and none of them have ever been regarded as Ic truths. Just made up nonsense that we can pretend to be true if we want.

While that is only one example of player created lore, I simply have to wonder about how we can go about changing things or creating lore of our own measure without being a celani or god to do so.

This is fairly difficult to do because typically we (or at least I) already have a sense of what their history is and aren't going to allow anything that isn't consistent with that. Not sure why you throw the Xoran in there though! Their history was explained in gruesome detail during the Bal'met saga.

Sarapis

Someone asked what kinds of things might cause us to disqualify you for the Garden. Constant troublemaking is an automatic no, as is a demonstarted inability to control your emotions or a willingness to throw tantrums or get ragey. Trolls are out too, of course, as they are toxic to any environment. A generally negative attitude is another no-no, as is an OOCly my way-or-the-highway approach (though that attitude might be entirely appropriate ICly.) As a Celani, you are often wrong about many things and unless you are capable of and willing to approach learning how to work in our environment with a humble, positive attitude you won't succeed so there's little point in us spending our time training you.

On the flip side, an ideal candidate that would be pretty much a no-brainer for us is someone who demonstrates consistent maturity, is well-spoken, can write with perfect grammar and spelling, has a history of contributing positively to other people's entertainment in-game, has led an in-game organization with positive results, maintains a consistently positive attitude towards Achaea, its players, and its volunteers and staff, is intelligent, is a team player, and has been fairly active lately (lately being measured, minimally, in many months). Naturally, very few accepted candidates are perfect on all of these fronts, though a glaring deficiency in any of them would tend (as a guideline, not a hard rule) to disqualify someone.

Being able to code is a bonus but few of our gods ever touch or even see the actual game code and the vast majority of Celani have little to no prior experience with code of any kind.

Right now for instance, only four of us (all paid staff) do so. The coding that is done is largely of the light scripting variety, though the in-game scripting for mobs can be pushed fairly far by determined and resourceful gods. We have one god, for instance, doesn't touch the code per se, but is excellent at scripting mobs - pretty much all of the recent mote complicated 'boss' encounters are done by said god, for instance. Generally, individual mob stuff is done via our in-game (well, really a combo of scripting in our web-based online creation system and in-game tools) while systemic things (everything from Combat to politics to ships to skills, etc) are code-driven.