Lupus and Lorielan

Kyrra

I personally feel that I've lost being in an Order as a part of Achaea, because the one realm that I could identify with and enjoy being connected to, no longer has a god.

None of the active gods and their realms appeal and I don't want to have to twist my character just to fill the void.

I do understand why a lot of the roles were removed, but on a personal level, it's just removed part of the game for me, and that was a major part of what I enjoyed.

It matters to some and it still sucks.

Edit: It's not exactly flattering for active Gods when you are settling for second best either, which is what many people have done just to be in an order again.

Trevize

Silas said:

Draqoom said:

As far as the rest of the dead Gods go though, it was necessary. There were far too many overlaps of realms and now it's slimmer and feels better and more precise.

I dunno, I miss Matsuhama.

The only god I've ever killed.

Veldrin

Kyrra said:

I personally feel that I've lost being in an Order as a part of Achaea, because the one realm that I could identify with and enjoy being connected to, no longer has a god. None of the active gods and their realms appeal and I don't want to have to twist my character just to fill the void. I do understand why a lot of the roles were removed, but on a personal level, it's just removed part of the game for me, and that was a major part of what I enjoyed. It matters to some and it still sucks. Edit: It's not exactly flattering for active Gods when you are settling for second best either, which is what many people have done just to be in an order again.

Same.

Also as far as I'm concerned there should be an overflow of Gods, doesn't matter if some overlap since they might have a TOTALLY different take on the realm and could be against each other to show who's take on it is the superior one, yadda yadda

Ognog

Kyrra said:

None of the active gods and their realms appeal and I don't want to have to twist my character just to fill the void.

Ognog has a similar quandary. Prior to Bal'met there were three options which appealed, now all three are gone. There are still possibilities, of course, but they really only align with side interests rather than core interests. Those Divine deserve better than Ognog.

Tvistor

Ognognomnomnom.

Ognog

Tvistor said:

Ognognomnomnom.

Grook legs are not on the menu!

Velyse

I can definitely sympathize with those who lost gods and don't feel that the current crop suit them. I believe there's a hole left by the absence of Selene and Kastalia for a more passive, neutral, philosophical sort of Order. I also can't help but feel, at the risk of stirring debate, that most of the current orders are very... Masculine? Selene and Kastalia's orders, from the outside anyway, seemed to have a feminine touch that none of the others really do. Ourania is the last one one which seems to fit that niche of 'philosophical and feminine', but she's far from neutral. Maybe Gaia or Valnurana fit that niche as well. I haven't heard enough about either, honestly!

Silas

Iocun said:

And the "reduction in overlap" thingy isn't quite true either. Many of the former gods were much more distinct when compared to how close Deucalion and Aurora

Shut your heathen mouth about my God, Cyrenian scum. >:P

Vansittart

As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with "overlap" and everything to do with factional focus.  If your God was the kind of God that led to people sitting around, doing a bit of bashing, a few essence contests, a bit of poetry, and team-building trips to the temple then your God is dead.

That's harsh, I know, and I am not really intending to belittle those Gods or those Orders which I'm sure were full of good RP and all that stuff, but it was inert, reactive, essentially de-factionalised RP.  Yes, not being a member of an Order does mean you are not having a "full" Achaean experience, being close to a God is essential for all sorts of things - not least because they are the most effective protagonists for the best storylines, but the consequences of the shake-up push you towards choosing a God with consequences.  A God that demands you take an active role in conflict, and drives your faction forward.

I think that's great.  Because it forces volunteer time, and Divine weight, towards the things where I think they add the most value.  If you want to do inert, reactive, passive things: no-one is stopping you.  That path remains as valid as it ever was.  But it just means that you won't have a God backing you to do that - a God role will not pat you on the back for a good hunt, and make you a custom flower that when you touch it sends a warm feeling of love and contentment through you.  The Gods will be where they always ought to be: driving exciting, conflict-based storylines.

This is an oversimplification, but I think it's broadly true - and I like it.

 

Chryenth

I see you point, and raise you: Scarlatti. 

Iocun

It is quite an oversimplification indeed. Just because you're not following one of the "main factions" doesn't make you "inert" or "passive". There's a lot of drive, interaction, and conflict going on that's not centered around good/evil/chaos/nature, but around smaller, perhaps more obscure matters, which is just as interesting and helps to further a lively, interconnected game world just as much.

I always loved about Achaea that's it's not a black-and-white world with a small number of predefined factions and axes of conflict, but a somewhat realistic, complex environment in which a "faction" can be anything that the playerbase develops into a faction. Monolithic major factions are a good way to drive conflict, no doubt, but an exclusive reliance on them can get boring with time. There's only so many times it really stays interesting to hear a debate between a prophet of good and a prophet of evil reciting their scriptures to me - at one point you simply heard it all.

EDIT: And yeah, as Chryenth pointed out, "de-factionalised" gods still exist. Roles like Scarlatti, Phaestus, Pandora, Aegis, Neraeos, Valnurana all aren't proponents of any major faction either. Neraeos's realm isn't part of any major axis of conflict, but I think most of us would agree that his existence makes this game much deeper and more interesting for many of us. And most people probably couldn't even tell what Phaestus's realm really is, but he still adds a lot to Achaea as a character, and his disappearance would be a real loss.

Vansittart

I hear you, and I agree.  And Neraeos is an excellent example of how an "unaligned" god can create something deeper, and more satisfying in a lot of ways than a more mainstream Good vs Evil conflict.  I also think that the Gods (or Orders or realms) that was more successful at that - Neraeos, Phaestus, Valnurana, escaped the cull.

It's a tendency and a trend I was describing (and cheering) not a rule, and I don't disagree with anything you said.

Talonia

A lot of the arguments you're advancing would hold more weight in an Achaea with more population, Iocun. More Orders just meant more distribution of players across them and fewer net interactions. This is why people advocated for only 2-3 houses in Targossas instead of the 5 in Shallam - there was just too much inactivity in the smaller ones.

Penwize

Vansittart said:

Neraeos is an excellent example of how an "unaligned" god can create something deeper

Hee, it's funny because oceans.

Iocun

Talonia said:

A lot of the arguments you're advancing would hold more weight in an Achaea with more population, Iocun. More Orders just meant more distribution of players across them and fewer net interactions. This is why people advocated for only 2-3 houses in Targossas instead of the 5 in Shallam - there was just too much inactivity in the smaller ones.

Yes, I definitely agree with that aspect of it. I was a member of Kastalia's order and everything about her, both as a character and as an embodiment of a certain ideology (particularly under her last player), was very well done and engaging. But the order was simply too small, meaning a lot of energy was spent in a way that relatively few players could gain benefits from it.

That's why I certainly agree that limiting the overall number of orders made sense, just to create larger, meaningful communities. I just disagree with classifying the orders that "didn't make the cut" as irrelevant or inert.

Finchy

Having a divine role that isn't too pre-defined in the minds of the players is a wonderful freedom that allows you to take any direction you want. That isn't necessarily a better or worse thing, but it does allow someone who wants to take their own direction to do so.

It isn't wise to dismiss the roles of gods who are taking roles that are already strongly defined either. Stepping into a sphere of influence, general personality and vices and virtues of a strongly established role is like being able to suddenly channel Brain Blessed. Or playing Santa at a grotto. There's a natural power in that, a bit like being a dame at a panto. You can become this very different person to yourself very easily, and that detachment can be extremely useful at being a good divine in general.

As has been pointed out "unaligned" gods have this wonderful opportunity to make their own stories. "Aligned" ones have a wonderful opportunity to continue and build upon theirs. We've been lucky to have some fantastic examples of both both in the past and present. I'd say it's truly a matter of personal ability and dedication that makes a role good, not the nature of the role itself.

Which in theory means I think there could be a kickass version of Eris. I think it's probably called Babel, but whatever, you get what I'm smoking. It's also true for players, we have the possibility of either "jumping" into very defined roles and assuming our own character in the same way a man decides he wants to play a Knight, or play an aspostle of Sartan, or whatever people actually do in Hashan or Cyrene. Read books or something I don't know. Alternatively, they really can use this wonderful lack of definition to make their own character. Like boats? Try being a sailor, like thinking really hard? Be a philosophical monk, enjoy horticulture? attack a bunch of pre level 20's and issue that you think Tecton wants to enjoy a tasteful four-course meal at a restaurant of his choice.

So basically, I'm saying Lorielan could come back like Lorielan we know, or a completely different Lorielan, and this wouldn't be bad or good, it would actually depend on the person behind that.

Mathonwy

I'm quite tired and I know in advance this is going to ramble on. Now you do too. Fair warning.

Whether or not all those Gods should or shouldn't've been killed off is certainly a valid question, but it's also rather pointless since it's already happened and I sort of doubt they're going to undo it, at least in the foreseeable future. That being said, just because the God/Gods behind certain roles/ideas/concepts/etc. died off doesn't mean the concepts themselves died off, and the concepts that didn't get a replacement God seem, to me, as though they'd be prime candidates for high clans. The charters actually seem to write themselves (spoiler alert: they don't, but that's a point I'm going to address in a minute).

What the Bal'met changes do mean for us as players, though, is that a bit more work is required from us up-front if we feel those ideas should still be an integral part of Achaea. Instead of sporadically enabling a certain line of roleplay at the expense of having multiple dormant-ish Orders (each with a handful of people and trivially few player-side solutions to handle any of those problems) we have the opportunity to further those facets of roleplay within our own player-created, Divinely-subsidized organizations.

It could be, essentially, an optimized, streamlined version of the big, sprawling mess that was dormant/semi-active Orders. You don't have to worry about shrines going down that you can't put back up; you don't have to worry about essence running low or out because you're out of shrines; you don't have to worry about the only people with induct privileges going dormant. The focus, it seems to me, would be squarely on the roleplay aspects-- leaving you free to investigate, develop, and integrate other avenues of roleplay into your character that may very well lead to you joining another Order and getting that sense of fulfillment back.

In any case, the only other alternative would've been to keep Gods around in what I might term 'event-active' status until someone wanted to take them over (which may have never happened any way; just how long has it been since there was an active Aegis?). Realistically, it seems like that would present more problems than it would solve, the foremost of which is that I can't imagine there's a whole lot of lasting satisfaction to have your God show up, say a few perfunctory platitudes on OT/CT/HT/whatever, shout/do something event-related, and disappear for another three/six months/a year.

Blujixapug

I think it's cool that they killed a bunch of gods off. There had been 10+ years of gods being created and then sitting around like discarded toys, their dormant orders like roach traps filling up with expectant players, disappointment, and baggage.

Lupus is potentially a super-cool role, with the werewolves, the Wild Hunt, everything of tooth and claw in nature. But so much baggage.

Hyraeth

Shrines and essence is part of the reason why my char will prolly never rejoin an order -- too much maintenance. I mean it's great for people who enjoy RPing that stuff, but what excites me about in-game Divine is their participation in events. Not just big ones, but the small impromptu ones. Those things make it special. So I get why they killed them off, it was also kinda exciting to read (apart from being sad about Lupus), but I came back and went "Whoa, stuff is really happening! Stuff is getting real!". So yes. Mixed feelings.

Verrucht

Hyraeth said:

Shrines and essence is part of the reason why my char will prolly never rejoin an order -- too much maintenance. I mean it's great for people who enjoy RPing that stuff, but what excites me about in-game Divine is their participation in events. Not just big ones, but the small impromptu ones. Those things make it special. So I get why they killed them off, it was also kinda exciting to read (apart from being sad about Lupus), but I came back and went "Whoa, stuff is really happening! Stuff is getting real!". So yes. Mixed feelings.

Well, while I can see your point, there are orders out there that don't really have to deal with those things in a maintenance setting. For instance, the Nerai don't really have much shrine conflict and essence isn't important to Neraeos at all. Not only that, but typically you get to participate more in the events if you're actually part of an order, especially the impromptu bits.

Rispok

I hate to say it, but it doesn't have to be Lupus, so long as there's a bashing diety.

Kyrra

I hear the new team good gods are huge on bashing. Especially if you're bashing on chaotic evil darkwalkers ( or something ).

Aerek

Thinking about it, I've never heard of any God saying, "My shrines and essence are important!" It seems like everyone says their god doesn't care about essence or shrines, and yet we hear complaining about maintaining them from every corner of the game, at some point.

Mathonwy

They're only ever really a problem when you have next to none of either, I think.

Delphinus

Rispok said:

I hate to say it, but it doesn't have to be Lupus, so long as there's a bashing diety.

Building an order (an RP organisation) around bashing (a necessary game mechanic) is bland. It demands no culture and requires no interaction.

Hyraeth

@Verrucht: Good to know.

Rispok

Delphinus said:

Rispok said:

I hate to say it, but it doesn't have to be Lupus, so long as there's a bashing diety.

Building an order (an RP organisation) around bashing (a necessary game mechanic) is bland. It demands no culture and requires no interaction.

Then don't join and go away.

Iocun

Delphinus said:

Rispok said:

I hate to say it, but it doesn't have to be Lupus, so long as there's a bashing diety.

Building an order (an RP organisation) around bashing (a necessary game mechanic) is bland. It demands no culture and requires no interaction.

I don't necessarily agree. Building an order on the idea of "just bash lots and offer the stuff" is bland, yes, but the whole idea of "hunting" can be explored deeper and be tackled in a much more colourful way too, if you actually go into the roleplay of what it means to be a "hunter", rather than just focusing on the mechanics of bashing.

I don't think there's any particular IC stance that is necessarily uncultured and non-interactive; some just require more effort and imagination to turn into active, meaningful positions on the stage of Achaea. Even Oneiros could be played out in an exciting fashion. The mainly difficult part is getting interesting players to join such orders, and not just people who see bashing as nothing but "killing stuff for XP", or peace as "don't kill people, be nice, and hold speeches on how violence is bad".

So yeah, the difficulty is that lots of people would join who might then get annoyed when they find out they actually have to emote stuff rather than press F1, but on the other hand, it would also attract people who don't really like the tedium of bashing that much, but still like the RP of a hunter.

Delphinus

Iocun said:

Delphinus said:

Rispok said:

I hate to say it, but it doesn't have to be Lupus, so long as there's a bashing diety.

Building an order (an RP organisation) around bashing (a necessary game mechanic) is bland. It demands no culture and requires no interaction.

I don't necessarily agree. Building an order on the idea of "just bash lots and offer the stuff" is bland, yes, but the whole idea of "hunting" can be explored deeper and be tackled in a much more colourful way too, if you actually go into the roleplay of what it means to be a "hunter", rather than just focusing on the mechanics of bashing.

Then those would be based around something more substantial than "bashing deity." Lupus is/was the Wild God of Beasts: warden of animals, father of the lycanthropes, patron god of huntsmen. That he became the "bashing deity" is an unfortunate side effect of the game's nomenclature.

My point is that if you can pare it down to "God of Bashing" -- if that's the reason people join -- something's wrong. You'd need extra culture to make it compelling, and it should be the culture that people seek, not "who's down with my macros."

Iocun

I guess, yeah. But then, we often tend to use brief and imprecise language on the forums, so whoever said we needed a "bashing deity" might not have meant it quite as mechanically as that.

But then, this is all off topic, since the call wasn't for a bashing deity, but a bashing diety, so it's really much more about nutrition.