Order Stagnation!

Wicella

Hey all!

Background:

So I'm here to talk about one of the most interesting and loved features of Achaea: Orders. Personally I love everything about the concept of orders, from shrine defense to essence hunting and the Nishnatoba crusades. I love the rp of pre-orders and learning to rise from the bottom to become higher ranking order members

However there's one thing that has kind of stopped that in its track.  Wicella is a member of Lady Artemis' pre-order, where she quickly finished her requirements and was ready for advancement to order status. All she had to do was wait for the denizen to approve her request and give her her final test.  Unfortunately, that denizen is controlled by the player for Artemis that isn't currently around. 

So for years Wicella has been rp'd as fully ready to be in the order, but just doesn't have Lady Artemis' blessing.  She's a member of the leading council of Eleusis, AR5, and many other things, but is stuck in that in between role. This means missing out on knowing when shrines are being attacked, re-raising, starting crusades, and actually tracking her own essence.
_____

*A note: Some divine allow their order heads to induct new members. Artemis didn't do this, but I could also see this being a problem if the order head goes dormant.*

Solutions!

1.) We allow current order members to induct pre-order members after approval.

2.) We allow pre-order members to "petition for admission" by issuing themselves.  The admin then induct them into the order under the guise of the dormant divine, without ever playing/interfering with the player as that divine.

3.) We give orders/pre-orders something to work towards that keeps people interested in being a part of this major aspect of Achaea.  Lady Artemis' order had the example of an effigy that they had to complete by hunting certain denizens and performing rituals.  It could only be done once a month and required a crap ton of denizens, so this kept people happy and busy for months!

What do you guys think? How can we prevent orders from being stagnant and encourage both young and old to be a part of this important part of our lore?

tl;dr: Orders with dormant divine can't induct new members, new players and old alike are frustrated. How to fix.

Shub

When I was new I killed Tane in the Dunn swamp and it enemied me to Artemis and I've always regretted that thoughtless move.

Kiet

Admin have made it very clear they don't step into the affairs of dormant divine orders.

It's up to the players to keep the order interesting enough meanwhile.

Kyrra

I can verify from countless messages and issue me's about it, the admin absolutely refuse to step in and have anything to do with Orders.

Welcome to the long ass wait for your Divine to return.

Aegoth

Don't drive off your divine into quitting, and you wouldn't have this problem maybe. Also, wanting to join an order doesn't entitle you to it. That's why divine generally don't give induction privs, bc players would just induct whomever

Atalkez

Aegoth put it in a more direct way, but I agree with him. Things like arguing with the Divine about Their realm, are going to push them away. Balking when they try to start a movement in a direction, is going to push them away.

The stories I’ve heard of why Eleusis in particular lost two Divine don’t paint Eleusis in a good light. Some introspection needs to happen there, imo.

Wicella

Lol srry thought this was a board for problem solving and creativity, not a board for negativity.  

Aegoth

If you think inactive divine are a problem, and want to solve that problem, you have to look at the source of the problem. In this case, the source is Eleusis being shitty to its divine volunteers and driving them away from the org (and being a general awful org). Solve that, and you might get your divine, and active orders, back. Posting "solutions" that reek of entitlement will solve nothing. If you don't like hearing that, then idk what to tell you.

Aralaya

No amount of problem solving or creativity is going to make Gods become active without a volunteer to play them.

Krypton

Wicella said:
Orders with dormant divine can't induct new members, new players and old alike are frustrated. How to fix.

Switch to an active divine

Ysela

Also, the feeling of being inducted by the actual divine is far better than it would be if players or other admin did it. Especially if it follows from a long  period without a divine.

Find a way to make the lack of a divine interesting. Speculate on why "Artemis' gaze is turned elsewhere" and how to regain Her favour, (build a volcano at north of new thera, what-have-you.  I'm not too familiar with the details on Artemis) without OOCly expecting it to make a difference, but making it IC interesting

I would not mind more tools to make pre-orders of inactive divine more interesting, though

Asmodron

Dont worry, you'll get used to it, trust me ^^

Cede

Volunteers? I thought Achaea divine roles were paid?

Aralaya

The Gods are volunteers.
Ictinus, Nicola, Makarios, Tecton and the like are paid.

Wicella

Aegoth said:

If you think inactive divine are a problem, and want to solve that problem, you have to look at the source of the problem. In this case, the source is Eleusis being shitty to its divine volunteers and driving them away from the org (and being a general awful org). Solve that, and you might get your divine, and active orders, back. Posting "solutions" that reek of entitlement will solve nothing. If you don't like hearing that, then idk what to tell you.

The thing though is that Eleusis is looking at the source of the problem, and if you noticed we don't have a single city leader that is the same as there was when Artemis/Gaia were around. In fact, 90% of the village that was around then is gone.  Taking a look at our CWHO shows mostly newer folks.  If you mentioned to almost any Eleusian that we drove off our divine they would say "Well how did we do that?"  Even I don't know because all anyone will ever say is "oh you treated them like crap". 

Rather than seeing entitlement you should be seeing a younger generation of players who have literally no clue what went wrong, were not part of what went wrong, and are just trying to problem solve everything that went wrong in previous city/house/order leaderships. Barring Torrent (who I believe is Ouranian), no other city leader is even in an order.

So I'm not -expecting- anything.  Would I love to have an intelligent conversation about things that are possible solutions, both on a divine and a player level? Yes, that would be awesome, because in the end my goal is to find a way to retain more players, old and young alike, and ensure they are enjoying playing Achaea and being apart of Eleusis. 

Asmodron

Simply showcasing Eleusis' desire to change and grow, is alone enough. You'll draw the eye of those training to be gods and, even possibly, drawing back the attention of your own that are now dormant. That is relatively what we did with Hashan as we strove to showcase a desire to finally fix our obvious problems, as well as admittedly fix any damage between the relationship that was caused from drama.

Caelan

Kiet said:

Admin have made it very clear they don't step into the affairs of dormant divine orders.

It's up to the players to keep the order interesting enough meanwhile.

We inducted folks into @Aegis while he was gone.   Logged in one day to find a Divine had assumed Aegis for the day, booted everyone we inducted, leaving the Order back down to like 4 people.  That was what pushed me into dormancy more than the "lolgank" attitude of the playerbase.  I was OH and we had strict requirements, good RP, and worked hard to keep the Order flourishing, neutral, and very active. Hoping what you say is the current policy because that shit sucked.  Total nut-punch.

Morthif

This was likely when they made the OH position explicit. Still shitty and I think that’s when @Sxanthax got booted too? I know he was hurt by it. 

Qwindor

Asmodron said:

Simply showcasing Eleusis' desire to change and grow, is alone enough. You'll draw the eye of those training to be gods and, even possibly, drawing back the attention of your own that are now dormant. That is relatively what we did with Hashan as we strove to showcase a desire to finally fix our obvious problems, as well as admittedly fix any damage between the relationship that was caused from drama.

Ha is all I have to say here.

In other news yes being in a dormant order sucks. It sucks even more when a person takes over said order after years of being gone and then you log in one day to the message of being booted and said divine not even responding to questions of why you were booted when you were an active member who did what they could to further the order. But that is what happens sadly and will continue to happen. I wasn't around thanks to bad internet when all this went down with Eleusis so I honestly have very little insight of what happened. I do know that sometimes some volunteers just decide its not worth it and quit. Other times the players themselves just push them away and when that happens they don't have much of a choice. Cheers though as you will eventually get a volunteer to replace them. Eventually.

Mercer

It really is a Catch-22 with Eleusis. All we ever hear is that we cannot solve our problems without a Divine to help facilitate the needed changes, and we can't attract a Divine because Eleusis sucks and needs change.

I haven't seen a God in Eleusis in the time I've been playing Achaea, so I really can't speak to what happened Way Back When. All I can say is that Eleusis represents a very sizeable chunk of the playerbase and has been left essentially adrift for a very long time now. On a game that prides itself for its quality above all others, that is a very unfortunate thing.

Mathilda

The admins aren't forced into a godrole they don't like. They chose want they want.

Looking at the history, a ton of volunteers have tried with Eleusis, and they've all been bitten and driven off for it. The onus is on Eleusis to change.

Eleusis is the face of the Nature faction, which in fact means that it will be  involved in conflicts against the others. Conflict doesn't necessarily mean PK, it also means statements and other movements that condemn non-Nature things (read: cities, all of them). Have your people accept this, and Eleusis will get its volunteers.

Alrena

Mercer said:

It really is a Catch-22 with Eleusis. All we ever hear is that we cannot solve our problems without a Divine to help facilitate the needed changes, and we can't attract a Divine because Eleusis sucks and needs change.

I haven't seen a God in Eleusis in the time I've been playing Achaea, so I really can't speak to what happened Way Back When. All I can say is that Eleusis represents a very sizeable chunk of the playerbase and has been left essentially adrift for a very long time now. On a game that prides itself for its quality above all others, that is a very unfortunate thing.

That's not true. You don't -need- a Divine to have a good org, and Eleusis has always had a strange anti-Divine citizenry. Divine were fine if they handed out gifts and socialised somewhat, but once they tried to steer or even nudge the village? Besides, it wasn't the Divine who really steered the (previous?) direction, that was me, Ellodin and the other Hierophants at the time. The Divine -supported- that direction, but even the Viridian Charter was meant to be interpreted in ways that allow you to choose either peaceful means or violent ones.

Sooner or later, someone will pick up a nature god again, probably. But there's absolutely no reason that Eleusis can't work on making an inclusive forestal faction that caters to both those who prefer peaceful Nature, and those who like the more savage and violent aspects of Nature. I'll admit having an active Divine who makes things happen can really make an org come to life, but you can still do that. It just needs good leaders who make things happen instead, even if it's not on the same scale.

Bronislav

I miss Lord Prospero.
..And Lord Phaestus.
..And Lord Scarlatti.
..I'd probably miss Lord Neraeos, if I knew him.

We may not -need- an active Divine to have a good org, but it sure does help. :frown:

Kiet

People overstate the importance of an active god. The only cities that 'need' an active god are the two theocracies, and even they manage without sometimes. Cyrene does fine as is, and Eleusis could too. Eleusis's problem is more a lack of player direction than divine.

I think in general people expect gods to cater to them and create their fun, but a healthy org has leaders that create fun, and if a god's around, great! they can create a bit more fun, but it's not about to change things so drastically on its own.

Wicella

I will say that after reading the advice in this post, I organized an 'honouring the divine' event in Eleusis, where we built shrines to all the divine that have helped Nature, did a ritual, had informational posters, and people left flamed offerings in rooms for each of the divine.  We had over two dozen people participate in offerings, and more came by to look at the scrolls and learn about them

So well it isn't perfect, it did help morale a little bit I think!

Cailin

I keep getting the feeling that a lot of people who talk about the way Eleusis "is" are really talking about the way Eleusis was. Eleusis lately is, (at least from my perspective, and granted, I'm not a council member) much more unified, much more inspired, much more driven. There's a new generation of Eleusians.
And like Wicella said earlier, we're not the same Eleusians who, reportedly, drove the godmin off.

Melodie

A quick glance at HELP ELEUSIS does seem to have a new generation, but the problem is that often old citizens will "appear out of nowhere" (re: often people playing elsewhere or hear from FB or something) when a new God comes in, or a new direction is being pushed. The challenge just becomes making sure that while their voices are heard, the org sticks to logic, reasoning, and most importantly, fun for all of its citizens.

If you can manage that (with or without a God), then you're doing a lot. It's all about baby steps. Keep going!

Kiet

idk man, I still see a lot of the same exact eleusians from before, and shouts/yells/news posts seem the same. but hey, if it's improving, that's great

Melodie

Baby steps man, baby steps.

It's definitely way different people from when I was there, but maybe only partly different since our last war with Eleusis, in fairness.

Asmodron

Just remember that it isnt just about combat, no matter what the combat crowd says and insults they throw.  An organization is primarily about identity. Simply exemplify (as well as agree on) that and you should be fine. This is about fun in the theme.

There's a reason why the less aggresive orgs have such high playerbase. Make use of it.

Torinn

I can't stress what @Asmodron said enough.  Identity is incredibly important.  We recently, in Targossas and in the Harbingers, strengthened our identity quite a bit through a lot of small things.  People buy in far more than they used to, which makes it far more fun to play, and far more conducive to Divine.  One thing is to, even in mundane-feeling scrolls like "Directions", include that identity in some way.  Even if it's just a sentence like "The Dawnspear, blessed by the Bloodsworn Divine, has many shops.  Contained herein are directions to places of import, that you may experience the Growth you desire."