[ALL] OOC: Council of Truth Announcement: Inactive Clans and Membership

[trousers]

Be constructive. Give fedback. Be active. Keep ARK in the loop, drop them an email about a storyline you and your mates are working on, they might get involved. Most importantly, it's a game so just have fun with it! If it isn't fun, then do something that is.

I'd like to cite the following.

The Events Team has approached the player base before for feedback and we gave it, quite willingly I'd like to add.

1 year and 9 months later nothing has changed and the OAM is still on the brink of being one of the largest exercises in futility in the game.

[Kotts]

Ok, sorrry T-dog. I didn't read that when it came out (Wasn't playing or active), nor did I read it now. I clicked and the ADD kicked in. So let's go about it this way with a hypathetical (since topic is way gone.) You're in charge of the Events team. You have 50, other Event ARKs under you with loads of freetime, and a love for AO, and RP. The Community is alive, and active.

What would you do different with the OAM?

(150 words or less... ADD and all :P)

[trousers]

What I would do in a hypothetical situation is irrelevant.

The underlying topic of this thread is still the same. If the meetings are going to be saved, it will have to come from a player driven initiative, and not from ARK.

[Astera]

What I would do in a hypothetical situation is irrelevant.

The underlying topic of this thread is still the same. If the meetings are going to be saved, it will have to come from a player driven initiative, and not from ARK.

I disagree.

ARK needs to be there to shut down those with the "lets' start a war" or "lets make peace" attitudes.

Any effort to "save" these organizations should be a combined one.

Keep in mind that it's not just ARK. I'm under the impression that most changes or things that go on in the storyline have to be approved by Funcom. This naturally creates a bureaucracy slowdown, and then if players want to change something, we're talking developer work.

Saturday night ARK led a bunch of sentinels and players into Rome. This event could have been huge, but it had to be kept a little quiet. The Legacy clans could have got on a soap box after the effort to start making the story come alive again. When the small counter attack happened, having Silverstone out there shooting at players would have given it a big boost.

Just being able to show up to repel another invasion would do a lot if say, Jacobi and some ARK run Vanguard showed up to help.

Just about a year ago, Aliens invaded Tir and people were mustered around Simon Silverstone himself (the ARK, not the NPC). When it was over, at least half of those players hung around to hear Simon and even followed him to the Rebel. People love these interactions...especially when it involves shooting stuff.

[trousers]

I agree with much of what you're saying, Astera.

ARK is needed to help curb people's overzealous ambitions, there is no doubt about that. I however have steep reservations regarding ARK's ability to actually revive the RP community.

The limitations from ARK may come from Red Tape from FunCom regarding what they can and cannot do. It may also come from a Staffing Shortage, or simply a lack of effort from the members or even a lack of effort from the Events Director. What exactly impedes the Events Team will always be a mystery to the player base, but the fact is their hands will probably always be tied in some way.

In my opinion, the player base has far more power at their disposal to influence the existing community and to help to draw new people in. The tools that give us the power? Freedom of Communication and Availability.

This is how I have always seen it. On Rimor, I use to lead an Organization named "Omni-Trans" and we focused on the RP Elements of a Civilian Department inside of Omni-Tek. If other players wanted exposure to learning how to play a non-military omni-tek employee they had two options.

1) Join an Organization such as Omni-Trans and talk to members of the RP Community both IC and OCC about the duties and responsibility and begin to develop their characters.

or

2) Sign up to go to the OAM where if they're lucky they'll see their Omni-Tek Departmental legacy Leader for 2 hours a month and hope that 1) Their Leader is in attendance and 2) they make time to talk to them.

If a Player chooses option 2 their experience will be greatly hampered.

On the topic of incursions. I think they're great. Shallow, but great. RPvP is the best way to get more people involved, without a doubt. The problem I have with it is that in the end they're too few and far between to be an effective "RP Recruitment" tool, and they often lack a real plot so players get lead into a gank fest and that's where the event ends.

RPvP would be more effective if it included some form of a debriefing afterward, like when you mentioned Silverstone going into a bar to spend time with the players. That will need to happen more often if they expect to see any level of retainment.

[Gimpeline]

Can't say i agree. PVP events are so overused and pretty boring.
"Oh, look! Big bad sacry thing need to be killed." 30 seconds later, someone misstab a guard and get flagged, mister uber1337 moves in and gank everyone and you have chaos. 90% of the ark events I have been to have been that.
Same with the "Lets invade Rome or Athen. We don't have a reason, we just feel like it".
It has nothing to do with rp since it always ends with eveyone against everyone, not matter what side you are on.
I would like to see some new thinking, like the protesters before phasefront, orphans in Newland or the robot picknik.
It is possible to make events that dosen't include "big bad scary thing" and pvp chaos.

[Towerblock]

In my own defense, I have to say that I have spent A LOT of time following up story arcs and CoT meetings, and the like. For the first year or so, I even kept a crazy amount of notes at my computer desk to assist me in keeping my own self in line with what was going on, until I got my own groove going.

Trust me, Trousers and I speak lots on this, and the one thing that I know we both agree on is that an inordinate amount of pro-activity on our end is not going to make events seem much more spruce. We have covered all the bases we can, and I give mad props to Mummu and Trousers for their efforts in the networking we have in place. Without it, we'd still be in the RP version of the Dark Ages. I agree on at least 90% of what Trousers has said in the post above mine.

The positivity I CAN speak about is that the semi-daily LTC's are an absolute blast to be around. Without them, I would have cashed my chips long ago.

On my observation of what RP is on rk1, I guess I feel bad for you guys. I wouldn't last on RK1 at all anymore because its just a different kind of monster altogether. On RK2, Trousers set up the RPnet, which is a network of really helpful tools that let us all talk IC, OOC, and get alerts when certain LTC's actually log in and out. So for us, we have an instant ability to get ourselves at least facing in the same direction. I betcha if RK1 had a similar system in place, you might either see how much is going on that you'd normally not see, or the gaping holes that could be addressed. I think it would be a step in a much more positive direction, imo.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text.. I have tried to think and rethink my words, but they all end up in this format. :/

[Kotts]

What I would do in a hypothetical situation is irrelevant.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was making a dig, because that was not my intention at all. Sorry man. I got the impression that you were not happy with the OAM, so I was curious as to what you didn't like, or what you'd like to see. I figured if you had a year and nine months to chew it over (if not more) you'd have some ideas to put forward or some such, what you'd like to see more of, less of, ect.

As for players being responsible, yes I agree whole heartedly. ARK can only provide a few extra fun things here and there, but by no means should they had over RP stuff on a silver platter to every player 24/7.

on the topic of LTC's and RPnet... that's a pretty cool idea having an alert when one logs in. I don't even know the current LTC roster on RK1 honestly. So I have no clue when one is on. I heard of a few some months ago, but they were all nuetral, and playing a sentinel character, well yeah I had no business with them. *shrug*

[trousers]

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was making a dig, because that was not my intention at all. Sorry man. I got the impression that you were not happy with the OAM, so I was curious as to what you didn't like, or what you'd like to see. I figured if you had a year and nine months to chew it over (if not more) you'd have some ideas to put forward or some such, what you'd like to see more of, less of, ect.

No worries, mate. I simply don't want to get into the nitty gritty of the OAM in a thread about the CoT

on the topic of LTC's and RPnet... that's a pretty cool idea having an alert when one logs in. I don't even know the current LTC roster on RK1 honestly. So I have no clue when one is on. I heard of a few some months ago, but they were all nuetral, and playing a sentinel character, well yeah I had no business with them. *shrug*

From the feedback I have gotten from players it was been an overwhelming success. I keep the list of active LTCs, popular or otherwise, up to date with the list Devdas and Nina provides so that every LTCs it gets identical notification (except for Legacy leaders, they get handed differently).

It has gotten to the point now that when LTCs log on, players will actually go 'hunting' trying to find out where they are just so they can make contact.

There is no doubt from me that the LTC program has been the biggest overall success the Events Team has had in a very long time.

[Astera]

Can't say i agree. PVP events are so overused and pretty boring.
"Oh, look! Big bad sacry thing need to be killed." 30 seconds later, someone misstab a guard and get flagged, mister uber1337 moves in and gank everyone and you have chaos. 90% of the ark events I have been to have been that.
Same with the "Lets invade Rome or Athen. We don't have a reason, we just feel like it".
It has nothing to do with rp since it always ends with eveyone against everyone, not matter what side you are on.
I would like to see some new thinking, like the protesters before phasefront, orphans in Newland or the robot picknik.
It is possible to make events that dosen't include "big bad scary thing" and pvp chaos.

Not to knock the ideas...but how many people that don't roleplay would show up and show continued interest in a protest or a robot picnic?

Something is better than nothing in my opinion. In case none of us noticed, there aren't a huge number of roleplayers coming in to AO. So...logic dictates that we have to pull from the pool of available players if we want to grow. ...and make no mistake, growth is going to have to happen if we want this stuff to survive.

So just because "shooting the big bad thing" isn't part of how you would play it, these can turn out to be huge events with a MIX (strange concept, I know) of people. All that needs to happen afterwards is for LTC's to get on their soapboxes and pull people in. If players do it, they will get griefed.

However, I think we're limiting ourselves to types of events rather than looking at the larger picture of how we get people to care in the first place.

My first hand experience has taught me that LTC interaction seem to gather diverse crowds.

[Gimpeline]

But on the other hand
How many roleplayers is interested in doing the same event week after week?
I agree that it is better than nothing, but when you go to the events you don't see many roleplayers taking part. If they show up at all, it's just to watch.
Yes, we need to grow, but we also need to keep the old ones interested, and we don't do that by running the same event over and over again.

F.eks you could be asked by the ark to help them find mr X and bring him back to them before he turn into the monster, or find out where monster y is and report back, then the killing could start
Or you could have two big badies, where number one is killed while the other is in hiding and needs to be found, or a victim needs medical care while the killing is going on.

This way you could keep everyone involved. Not only the ones that is there for the killing.

On a side note. I think LTC encounters are great and I often seak them up. So do many others. Roleplayers and non-roleplayers alike, so a big pluss for that