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Comments
It goes well beyond that.
The personal investment that goes into shops, not only in credits, but also in time, is huge. I've seen it time and time again, where Mhaldor seizes shops with little, or no warning. As someone who enjoys the shopkeeping and crafting side of the game, I would -never- put my energy into a shop I didn't know I could at least have a hope of keeping for a long period or re-selling.
As for the Mhaldorian themed wares, I fully support the general rules regarding things for sale within Mhaldor be somehow connected. Having more variety might be a good idea if people are becoming bored with it, but that can also be a personal battle made by Mhaldorians. Wear different things, it might soon become the new norm for Mhaldor.
I enjoy traveling across Sapience and seeing the drastically different styles based on which faction's characters play and where they buy from. Also, having played and watched this specific aspect for years, I can say that styles do change, but having something definitive is a great aspect to have.
Svof
Mudlet Discord join up
Like get Cooper to post more pictures.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
I have been playing Mudlet for the past few months. You guys should totally try it. It's pretty similar to playing zMud but better graphics.
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
But...but....I like my spiked, barb-wired, leather boxers! The leather is pink though so that makes it less conformist.
Basically people that have constantly known their place as a Mhaldorian, and never felt they had to publicly complain, while maintaining a sense of bad-assery. I'm sure there is a lot more that goes on with them, but their public appearance is outstanding. These are the people I hope everyone in Mhaldor aspires to be like.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
Well, I will admit, it's been a long while since I've actively gone clothes browsing. I always figured Mhaldor could do well with so many colors, but people do tend to pick one or two and go crazy with it. I always imagined things like D&D rogue gear would do really well there, lots of places to stash weapons and whatnot, always ready for a battle. Padded and matte leather boots always made much more sense to me than thigh-high, brightly-polished stiletto boots, too.
While not a tailor myself, I wouldn't mind collaborative work to generate some new clothing/styles, if anyone is truly interested.
I think a big problem is the way houses in the city handle requirements.
A lot of Mhaldorian houses seem to think that being more "hardcore" means having more requirements and less flexibility about them. You're going to lose people if it feels like every goal is so far away. And, while I think the general move toward tasks that involve interacting with other Mhaldorian players is a great one, it makes the situation even worse since the population is fairly low. It actively discourages people from being active because they have to wait until certain people show up or wait for certain times to meet their requirements.
It's good to require interaction, but that has to be tempered by the knowledge that such interaction imposes waiting time. Ideally, you want to give people plenty to do while they're waiting so progression isn't just Step 1->wait for mentor->Step 2->wait for mentor->etc. This is made even worse by the fact that mentors are often less active than brand new players who are just reaching that initial stage of obsession.
I think the idea behind this is also that having more requirements gives people more things to do - but what we really ought to be fostering is not a kind of play where you have a long checklist, but a kind where you find things that you genuinely like to do and those are the things you do. Making things a big checklist is also awkward when that checklist ends. I've seen a lot of people over the years suddenly founder when they don't have something they're "supposed to be doing". A lot of the houses have tried to rectify this with forks in requirement paths and ever-increasing heights of structured progression, but the forks tend to come late in the process, the requirements remain a very course metric, and it's not possible to provide endless progression. Also, every bit of further progression you put in becomes another barrier to people stepping up and taking over the administrative and leadership tasks that a lot of perfectly capable people actually do want to do.
With such a smaller population, I've always thought it would make far more sense to have more ad hoc progression. This can largely prevent the requirements from becoming stumbling blocks, would allow tailouring the social requirements to existing population levels, and would allow for tasks better matched to the interests of the players. Adding a level of flexibility like this also helps considerably with preventing burnout in those who deal with progression in any form. I've spent a long time as a novice aide in several guilds/houses and the most enjoyable times are when I deviated from the "script". But I generally feel bad about doing that because I'm just slowing them down.
At the risk of sounding bitter and entitled (which I'm not - at the moment anyway), Tael has been through the novice programs of every house in Mhaldor save the Maldaathi, worked as a novice aide in most of them, and worked as head of novices in a number of guilds/houses. Tael is nearly 300 now and I've been playing the game actively for the better part of a decade, most of that in Mhaldor. Saying "rules are rules" may make sense in the context of Mhaldorian culture, but it's extremely odd to have to do some of the basic requirements again, particularly when they're gated by other people's availability (if they were just things to do on my own, that would be very fast and easy). I really don't need to find a mentor half my age to go on three hunting trips that are each a RL day apart. I definitely know how to do that and I'm not a nervous newbie who's afraid to interact with people and needs that structured social interaction. I'm pretty self-motivated and this stuff gets in the way.
It would be less odd if I didn't constantly have the feeling that I'm not really doing it to fit into Mhaldorian culture so much as I'm violating some sort of OOC worship of rule-following. I'm not intending to point fingers or say that people are doing a bad job, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the attitude of rank progression being an integral part of the experience and that progression being highly structured is, I think, not a good thing.
And this ties into my experience with leadership in Mhaldor too. Everyone I talked to (rightfully) said that the best thing to do if you thought you could help change things in a positive direction was to seek leadership and change them yourself. I spent a ton of time trying to do this, but was stymied over and over by increasingly more ridiculous demands and, more importantly, increasingly ridiculous numbers of hoops to jump through. Difficult hoops are one thing and, to a point, pretty reasonable, but if you have a large number of hoops that depend on other people, things get ugly quickly. Since joining an order was a prerequisite, I tried to do that and I spent RL months on that, crucially not because it was difficult, but because I waited three RL weeks to get approval on a sermon, then waited to schedule it, then waited to hear from my mentor, then waited to deliver it, then waited to hear from my mentor aftward, then waited to hear from my mentor about the next requirement. And this pattern repeated. After several months (months where I had far too much free time to play Achaea), I wasn't halfway through the requirements. I don't blame any of the people involved at all - they were trying their best given the time they have and the way they want to play the game. But that doesn't mean it isn't a problem - it's a structural problem that we would do well to bear in mind.
So I'm not sure that it's true that there aren't enough people willing to take leadership positions. I think it's more the case that there aren't enough such people among the group who manage to get through all of the hoops. And since those hoops take increasingly longer to get through, I'm not surprised that most of the leadership is fairly old.
Edit: And with that "whoosh", I'm away. I told myself I would try not to pay attention to the forums. We'll see how that goes, but I'm not abandoning hope this early. I am curious what others think on this issue though if anyone has thoughts to add.