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An open letter to the Administration
To the creators and administrators of Achaea:
I've been playing this game, in one character or another, for about ten years now. I've spent an awful lot of time and a fair chunk of money on it. I've had periods of disenchantment, periods of ennui. I've also had periods where my characters have seemed more real, more vital, more connected than any relationship on the outside. The experience overall has been transformative. I've learned a huge amount about myself through the lense of this game.
I don't want this to sound like I'm just complaining, an old player grousing about the old days. To be honest, the current batch of players is almost as active as they've ever been. The game is as fun as it's ever been, for me at least.
However there is a problem. A few months back, my city, Cyrene (the one I always seem to wind up in, with all my previous characters, and which I finally learned to stop avoiding with my latest), was very excited to learn that Prospero had returned to realms. He was, after all, an old city patron and would replace the hole left behind when Phaestus left us about a year previous.
In what seemed like no time at all, however, he was gone again, leaving the city essentially patron-less and a newly repopulated Order bereft.
This is not a localized problem.
Only three gods can be said, with any certainty, to be active, near as I can tell. There are twice that number of cities, and the political and religious ideologies of the three that are active tend towards the extreme, meaning that they are not always appropriate for houses and cities outside their narrow scope.
I don't know what internal problems have caused this. I'm just asking that you address it. Each city really needs at least one god to act as patron.
Thank you.
I've been playing this game, in one character or another, for about ten years now. I've spent an awful lot of time and a fair chunk of money on it. I've had periods of disenchantment, periods of ennui. I've also had periods where my characters have seemed more real, more vital, more connected than any relationship on the outside. The experience overall has been transformative. I've learned a huge amount about myself through the lense of this game.
I don't want this to sound like I'm just complaining, an old player grousing about the old days. To be honest, the current batch of players is almost as active as they've ever been. The game is as fun as it's ever been, for me at least.
However there is a problem. A few months back, my city, Cyrene (the one I always seem to wind up in, with all my previous characters, and which I finally learned to stop avoiding with my latest), was very excited to learn that Prospero had returned to realms. He was, after all, an old city patron and would replace the hole left behind when Phaestus left us about a year previous.
In what seemed like no time at all, however, he was gone again, leaving the city essentially patron-less and a newly repopulated Order bereft.
This is not a localized problem.
Only three gods can be said, with any certainty, to be active, near as I can tell. There are twice that number of cities, and the political and religious ideologies of the three that are active tend towards the extreme, meaning that they are not always appropriate for houses and cities outside their narrow scope.
I don't know what internal problems have caused this. I'm just asking that you address it. Each city really needs at least one god to act as patron.
Thank you.
5
Comments
On top of that they can't force anyone into godhood, Celani's become gods when they are trained and want to and the god they become is their choice.
It's not an easy fix that the admin can just role out and even with the limited number of gods there are always events running around and the world is ultimately in the control of the players.
So yeah, lack of an active Patron can be stifling in many, many ways.
It's a really fucking hard role (to be a Celani, or any of the god characters). There's a reason for the high turnover. But unless you're asking for a loss of quality, then there's really no way for the admins to magically fill the roles to keep everyone pleased.
All the more reason to show Divine characters love while they're here, because nobody does that shit forever. Enjoy them while you have them, if you do, and keep on hoping if you don't. But writing forum posts ain't gonna do anything to solve the problem.
The first issue - recruitment. You read the HELP file on Celani and the whole thing is skewed towards discouragement. For adventurer players the whole thing reads as a one way ticket out of the game. It says you lose all the time and money you've invested into your character and can never get it back (even though Nicola's response to question 5 in the recent Celani and Godhood Q&A thread contradicts the HELP file on this). It reads like a lot of difficult unpaid work without much fun. The whole idea of giving up all OOC contact with other players on the forums and otherwise may be good for roleplay reasons, but it's a huge reason not to take on a God role.
The second issue - trainee burnout. The bar has been raised very high, and demands are made on time (12hrs/wk) which are difficult to maintain. It doesn't take much for real life to get in the way and prevent that from happening.
The third issue - divine burnout. It occurs to me that a lot of the Gods will leave voluntarily as soon as they are unable to keep up the hours per week expected of them, and they don't seem to come back even when they become able to spend time once more. As an adventurer player, I'd much rather have a God disappear for a few months then return, or even drop by for just an hour a week rather than become completely vacant. Another reason Gods might leave is that playing the God role isn't fun any more. Players who take up a divine role are still doing it to have fun. Take the fun out of it, and of course they leave. The Gods should be encouraged to get out and interact with the general populace. It's a huge buzz for everyone when the Gods make an appearance.
For what feels like the past several years, only some 3-5 gods have ever been active at one time, in a game that averages some hundred plus players at one time. Not only is that tiny, it's a much smaller percentage then some other games manage to keep. Godroles just aren't very appealing in their current state, it would seem, especially given how short most gods seem to stick about these days.
Some of that can't be controlled, but I'm sure some things could be changed, as well. Right now, taking up a godrole seems like a hard, thankless task. In general, you'll find yourself roleplaying the god and their denizens, taking a significant leadership role in 2+ orgs (house and city, at the very least), creating roleplay events and building things for all those orgs, and doing whatever other admin duties are required, while being divided from the community and the kinds of play that many of us find the most fun. I'm not surprised that so many people don't find that appealing, or don't want to do it for years.
Something has to give. The vibrancy of cities is often very largely dependent on whether or not they have an active god, even in neutral cities, where active patrons create events, offer immersive interactions, and help bump up the level of roleplay. It's clear by now we're not just in a god dry spell, and so without something changing, I think we'll all just have to accept every city having to go godless for years at a time on a not-uncommon interval, and I don't think that's good for the health of the game.
* Removing or reducing the requirement for OOC isolation from the player base would make becoming a God more attractive.
* The HELP file should be updated to make clear that you can return to your adventurer character should you choose to do so.
* Lowering the bar with respect to time commitment for Celani / Demigod / God would make the roles more maintainable.
* Remove whatever pressures exist (explicit or imagined) on Celani / Demigods / Gods to dedicate many hours every week or else leave. Make players who have previously filled God roles welcome to return to the Garden should their circumstances change so that they have the time.
* Make the God roles more relaxed and less stressful. Let them have fun with it.
God roles are very tightly controlled, because they're basically characters that have been ongoing for years and years. That means you can't just 'have fun with it,' because older players expect their Gods to be the Gods they knew. Which means a big time investment diving into a God role.
Loosening the restriction around Gods interacting with players is a terrible idea. Favoritism (and the spectre of it) has been an issue in IRE games before, and making things more relaxed will at least spark the worry of that, if not actually cause it to happen again.
People not attending to a God role is just as bad as not having it filled, so not requiring a time commitment is a bad idea.
Most of the people who leave Godhood, I think, are not people that necessarily want to come back (certainly not right away). Returning to your mortals is fine, but it shouldn't be shortly after being a God- the waiting period is, I believe, a couple months? That doesn't seem unreasonable, given the amount of information Gods have access to.
It is possible that one might be able to remove some of the burden from admin by opening up player-based contributions like mortal builders and docents, or switching crafting approvals to a player-based anonymous approval queue (#unsubtleagenda), but all those will still ultimately require divine oversight, even if it's less micro-managing and more overall management.
Player: "This is not working. Handle it."
System: "How would you like us to go about it?"
Player: "I DONT CARE JUST FIX IT."
I can't imagine how difficult it must be to get through all of the steps.
All of the studying, all of the practicing, and all the behind-the-scenes things that none of us get to see that have to be done.
What would entice you to dedicate a huge part of yourself, a huge part of your life to playing a God?
These people are volunteers, right? There are other types of volunteer roles that are not God roles, right?
What if we, as a community, set up some sort of Patreon type service to see a somewhat steady cash flow for these people who get in and stay in for a certain amount of time dictated by the Admins? The Admins could control this Patreon, that way a greedy person who flakes out won't just be sitting in on the donations.
We're all very creative, and I'm sure we could make it work somehow. It could easily be done through various services like Twitch. One day a week the Gods could get together on a Skype call, stream it, and chat with us. That might put people on the spot, but it might also be really fun and lead to other interesting developments in the games that players are interested and talking about.
This was just a hopeful, well-intended thought. I am probably not seeing the whole picture, but I wanted to try and give a solution if I could.
It won't stop. Will it?
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
The crux of the god issue is that it's a volunteer position with the workload and expectations of a part-time or even full-time job. There's a conundrum in that Achaean godhood has become more and more professional over the years, (Celani vs Ascension, stricter rules and protocol, enforced separation from characters and friends) and the workload has increased, (issues, crafting designs, complex RP events, minipets, promo items) but it remains strictly a volunteer position. On top of this is the crushing weight of expectation from the playerbase and their collective tendency to judge quickly and forgive never. While I am certain that the Administration tries to be as flexible as they can with their volunteers, it's still a pretty massive burden to take on as a hobby.
I know a few folks that have started down that road and simply found it to be too much time, too much work, or not enjoyable enough to continue. Unfortunately, Achaea's current model relies on finding these one-in-a-million individuals who have the time, motivation, and deep love of the game to do all this for free, and unfortunately it doesn't surprise me if the situation has become unsustainable. Speaking as someone who enjoys the GM role, (house leader for years, table-top DM, etc) what I've heard and seen of Achaean godhood is just too much pressure and commitment for me to balance with my real-world obligations, which is why I've never seriously considered it in 12 years of playing.
The most obvious solution to this that god roles should be paid staff as opposed to volunteers so that folks could commit to it as a profession instead of an insanely stressful hobby, but I would hope if that was a possibility it would have already been done before now. I do recall the paid "RP Producer" positions in the past, but I'm not sure it's the big RP events that we crave so much as the little things--the everyday presence of a committed god role in our lives--so perhaps that endeavor was a bit off the mark.
If that's not an option, I can't really think of another solution other than drastically reducing the workload placed upon them, which would mean the elimination of things that we as players enjoy. The fact of the matter is that jobs with high turnover have high turnover for a reason, and so you can't expect improvement without addressing those causes.
Though that's just speculation. Who knows? More gods could mean more bugs (cause more new stuff)! And more issues (cause more divine-inspired conflict)! And who wants all that stuff? (Hint: me)
@Devran "Have you tried turning it off and then back on again? Yes, OFF. Then back ON. "
Possible solutions so as not to be part of the problem?
- Maybe make the Gods visible more? When I was a newbie, I remember seeing 4 or 5 Gods visible VERY frequently. Sure there's only 3 or 4 right now, but having them visible - even if you couldn't talk to them - would make it at least appear there are more. It's a Band-Aid, but it also helps spur interest in the orders and whatnot. Once orders reach a certain level of involvement, they can be more self-sustaining, and current Gods can aid the smaller orders with requests. They could make it so only the OHs could talk to them? Pushes more responsibility onto OHs to handle things and delegate as needed, which sucks for OH sometimes, but gives them more interaction with members, etc.
- I understand the "once they've touched code, they can't be mortals". But these are people you've placed your trust in to essentially control the outcome of the game. I feel like if they are responsible enough to handle configuring events, repairing bugs, and making you more money, etc they should be allowed to be mortals again. Clearly they are responsible enough.
- If not mortals, let them play their avatars more? Might quench the desire to PLAY as a mental break / drive conflict for their actual goals and give them the best of both worlds?
Solution would be paid compensation.
[ SnB PvP Guide | Link ]
Ok, I'm going to cover a few points. I'm going to note in advance though that great gods are very, very rare. Achaea's very fortunate right now to have the volunteers we do: they put in massive amounts of work and are extremely good at what they do.
1. If we could pay every god we would, 100%. Noone is more invested in having lots of active gods than us. Unfortunately that just isn't viable and unless something monumental changes (people coming to their senses and forsaking games with pictures) it won't be.
2. The number of gods who can't return to their mortals because they've seen code is extremely small. In the last 5 years that number is five (including Tecton and I). There's a big difference between our mob behaviour system and the inner workings of Achaea. Four of those five people have been paid employees. Basically, this just isn't a factor for 99% of people. I'll also note you don't get to this point by accident. There is a very clear point of no return that we require people to specifically acknowledge before crossing. There is usually a time we require people to wait before going back to their mortals after leaving the garden, just to avoid situations where events might be resolving and such. That's the extent most people will ever encounter.
3. Being a god is hard. We're not going to pretend its not, because people need to know what they're getting into or they will not stick at it. It is extremely demanding and the people who do it do it because they love Achaea. The people who become gods are the ones that know its hard work and do it anyway. We updated the progression for the latest class of celani, but its never going to be easy.
4. The Garden works because its a team. If a candidate doesn't work well with the team, that's a dealbreaker. This is the biggest consideration and is the only 100% inflexible aspect of the process. This is also the rarest problem we have: most new Celani fit in just fine.
We are working on trying new things in regards to this problem, but its not a trivial issue that is easily fixed. I can safely say though that our team (paid and volunteers both!) does everything we can to get celani through the program.
When are you going to realize, in the scope of the whole Multiverse, that you are fairly insignificant to the Supremely Powerful, and best get used to not being the center of Their attention??