State of the efUnion

[Random_White_Guy]

I'm gonna open this point blank by saying I know things are not easy in EFU. As a player and DM alike I've seen both sides of the server and know both hats worn. This post is not a harsh critique of anyone but may be kicking up a bit of dust. The idea is not in any way to make individuals anger, bait trolls, or otherwise. Just a few things I've come across since I've come back that folks don't seem to be talking about.

With that doozy of a disclaimer aside I am just doing this to start a discussion-

The State of the efUnion is fairly strong. PC numbers are huge from the holidays, factions are trying to make moves, and steps are being taken form all sides to have an enjoyable playing experience.

Our server isn't perfect, and it is never particularly going to be perfect, but I think it's got a few shrubs that need trimming, so to speak.

First: Plots.

The server is always inundated with plots and in many ways that's a good thing. The problem however is it's very easy to make a plot. A plot's an idea that zips out, stirs up interest, and then dimishes. The difficulty with maintaining a plot be it DM or PC alike is player interest, a "Plot Capital" if you will. New plot draws eyes.

Amidst the famine there has been factional conflict and plots, and within those plots, more plots. Amidst those plots there are PC plots, there are PC plots within PC plots atop DM plots.

With all this going on and PCs pursuing their own agendas, it's...crippling as a PC. Like floating on a barrel in a monsoon. Some plots are dead-locked without DM involvement. It's a known fact and an accepted one.  The problem is before we can even squish a plot, a new one sparks up, or an old one is dragged back to the limelight.

The plots drag out a length of time, people get involved in them or people ignore them. Then something flashy happens and everyone is drawn eyes to it before slowly drifting away.

It's like... Plot ADD.

"Evil stirs and H'bala comes forth and soon we shall- FAMINE! OH MAN WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE- phew...raising gold...raising gold...fighting in the docks...fighting monsters...What was that about H'bala again? We should look into tha-...DUKE LOST THE GOLD OH MY GOD FAMINE WE ALL GONNA DIE...Docks conflict? Forget the Docks, if we don't get food we're all gonna die! IF WE DONT STOP HBALA WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE...Oh hey is that a Mist Raider ship?"

I hate to use the sheep metaphor but we can only be shepherded so much in one direction. With so many plots open, and few reaching suitable conclusions we just pinball back and forth in circles. And that's just the DM plots. Yes there's a lot of server tastes to cater to, but with so many "Server-shaking" caliber plots, all of which just keep getting layered it gets...obscene to say the least. Add into that PC plots, Faction plots, and otherwise and it's...mind numbing trying to consider where to even get a first start.

The best part of a Plot after all is when you face the hardship and get to the end of the road, you can go "Oh man that was -fun-" and "Oh god, I'm glad that's over with".

Closure is glorious in a setting like EFU.

Second: Factions.

DM factions are bar none one of the greatest things about EFU. You can get authority, power, and the world opened to your fingertips. The door to enact massive server change and you're given the keys... And then pushed out the door of the moving car, bumping your head on every rock that comes along, screaming and flailing your arms like a lost little kid.

I just want to say..."You'll think of something", "Fix this", and a couple other single line comments thrown in either IC or on the Forums is not something in a DM faction that is heartwarming to hear. In fact it makes skin crawl and blisters on the brain.

There's supposed to be leaders in a group. Guidance. Advice. Wisdom. Support. Allies. Enemies. Plots. Orders.

I know DM time is limited. I know Factioning for a DM is tough. I've been there. The only solution I can think of for the problem is: Promotions.

On the whole PCs like to help each other out, even if it's more of a give and take and I'm the boss do what I say. I think in the entire time I've been a DM and PC on EFU I've seen 3 Zeulisads, 1 Stygian Veteran, and maybe two "Favored Sons".

The reasons PC factions and plots are always "At the center of things", always moving and shaking, always quabbling with one another is simply because They have authority, they make the rules, they may face consequence for their actions but they know they -can- act.

PC factions have leaders. They have lieutenants. They have, on the whole, movers and shakers. DM factions have movers and shakers but it is so much more easy to get hamstrung by a DM.

"I'm gonna make this plot. I did this thing"

"That thing is foolish. You've brought shame upon our faction. You should be embarassed for yourself" - NPC Superior, who approaches you IG.

It makes you want to scream, shout, hollar, punch something and go "THEN TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

"Look into fixing it". -NPC Superior

"..."

Etc.

Throwing a PC into power fixes all that.

Cutting PCs some slack in moving up the ladder does three things

1) It allows authority. PCs for a lot of things are lost. Without idea how the faction leaders think things should go. "If I do this will the bosses rip my head off?" a PC "Leader" is more available usually than flagging down a DM to ask a silly little question, or hash out plot details with. PC leaders can for better or worse marshal the troops in a certain direction and keep things moving so DMs aren't required.

2) It allows diversity. A PC changes with power. And it changes when dealing with -other- PCs of power. Currying favor with a superior to gain prestige, making friends or enemies with the boss to make conflict, or more.

3) It allows instant rallying. People see a DM Faction PC make a call for a fight and they come. If people see a Veteran DM Faction PC who has other DM Faction initiate PCs rallying to them, it will cause more non-faction PCs to either line up with them, or against them.

That makes politics. That makes conflict. That makes fights. That makes progress.

That makes EFU awesome, and Sandbox.

[VanillaPudding]

Yeah that pretty much sums up those two points. I'll reserve most of my comments and discussion for a later time when I'm ...more capable of posting them, but for now I'd like to say the following -

It's quite frustrating as a player to come into this world that is claimed to be a "sandbox" and work from many different angles to build (See: 'How to rock my socks off' post) and create different things only to inevitably be "put back in my place" by NPC superiors.

Plot closure is a major thing and quite honestly there is very little of it on this server. So many things are left open-ended that it becomes confusing and frustrating, especially when they are stacked upon with new plots as RWG mentioned. Just to give some examples of things that are left open and -could- return (for whatever reason), here you go.

- Sharboneth
- Ixpadia
- H'Bala
- Syndri / Nightrisers
- Razul's prohpecy stuff
- Mist raiders?
- Transcendental

All of those were left open-ended or simply make their appearance randomly but fade off again, and that's only the few that I've been involved in personally. I think that pursuing some of these in order to polish them off would certainly make things more...comforting for players and especially for new players trying to figure this place out.

[Bearic]

I think most things are unfinished for realistic reasons and faction conflict. The farms aren't finished because of money conflicts based on factions, the mist raiders are kind of tough to get rid of like orcs, and H'bala is not really a problem until she's released, which would come to conflicts between factions once more.
 
Sharboneth and Ixpadia seem better open-ended to me as well; they each give chance of hybrid or spin off groups, and are much more epic than either of them simply falling in battle or conceding as such.
 
I also think most of the open-ended plots would be either bland closed, or unrealistic; the farm lands project wouldn't be closed once they're rebuilt, H'bala would still be a problem released, and the mist raiders could always come back once even if thought destroyed. Little bits and pieces of such over time make far more sense to me, not rushing to the end 'cause it gives instant gratification. =]

[TheMacPanther]

Ya know, I was just thinking this same thing a few days ago. TBH I think the DM factions could use more or at least some PC "officers" to keep things going around the server, keep people on track with plot lines and maybe inspire other players to strive for positions of political, social or military leadership.

I don't think that being an unmatched hero should be the only grounds for a promotion. What about the guy who does his job well and shows some promise? I know he didn't take on a battalion on his own but perhaps the added responsibility will have him rise to leadership or crash and burn. Either options could be fun.

My half asleep 2 cents.

[Cruzel]

For some reason I feel compelled to chime in.

Stuff mentioned by RwG is two of the biggest frustrating factors of EFU I ever faced.

In DM factions, you either had to be pretty lucky (Right time, right place to do something awesome to make NPCs happy) or just live for an incredibly long time to slowly earn kudo points till they had no choice but to promote you. With the generally high turnover rate most factions see, It generally boiled down to being lucky enough to have a DM who wanted to run stuff related to the faction or a general quest w/ opportunity to be awesome. I've always felt it shouldn't be easy to get promoted, but it couldn't hurt to make it somewhat easier.

With the plot point though, generally a lot of those standstills I saw were player generated. H'Bala plot from what I remember, anyone trying was always thwarted by a certain faction, and no one really took any noteworthy steps to try to take that group down. DM stuff usually got swept aside when they saw awesome player stuff, and awesome player stuff usually got swept aside for minor DM stuff w/ chance of DM loot.  My feelings were that the 'big' plots were usually something thrown in when player plots were in the lows.

 Seems to me like DM's almost prefer player plots and letting them guide how shit goes rather than needing to constantly nudge PCs w/ huge handholding railroaded questplots w/ lots of pc deaths and DM loot only to get sucked into a vacuum w/o player plots again.

Just my thoughts.

[GoblinSapper]

First i'd just like to say i'm glad Cruzel is posting so people will stop accusing me of being the same person.
 
Second, a few nudges when a group is obviously striving for something but doesn't know exactly how to proceed always makes us feel shiny and special. Simply interacting with an NPC makes you feel important, sometimes.

[Garem]

RwG makes a lot of sense. That being said, I believe that there is a greater purpose to what is happening. I believe that things are happening like they are for a reason.

EfU has a wonderful quality-- you never see it coming. You think you do, but you have no idea. Look at the end times of Sanctuary-- "The shadow dragon is defeated by illithids, oh wait, now it's a SLAVE to illithids? Oh SHIT it's going to fight the... the... oh, no... the APPETITE!"

It's awesome. Sometimes, there are simply things at work far beyond the power and capacities of PC characters. That's okay, in moderation. But my previous example and the present situation are a little different in countless ways. Foremost amongst them is the lack of clarity in the story. We knew big things were happening to prepare for a big shakeup in the server's story back then. A little more story behind what's going on now might just be the resolution to the first dilemma.

As for the second point, I hate to blame either side on this. DMs or PCs, which one is slacking?

Both. Players, take more leadership, do cooler stuff! DMs, take a friggen risk, give a PC a chance as a 1st Honors, Favored, or Hyrsicator and see if they blossom. If not, hell, take it away!

[Divine Intervention]

Personally I believe the root of too many plots is the fact there is so many leaders.  I see tons of people setting up factionsand getting one  or two pc's.  A week later the exact same sort of concept might form.  You now have two small groups pushing the same thing.  Essentially my point is that merging small factions with similar agendas creates more RP opportunity, fewer but more worked on plots and clearer conflict.  Not everyone has to be a leader, in fact IMO leader pc's should be fairly uncommon, not everyone is a commanding presence.  Conclusion: Too many chiefs not enough indians.

[12 Hatch]

I disagree pretty strongly with the first section, RWG, but I think a lot of your points in the second section are accurate for certain factions.

In particular, I think you described the Stygian NPC hierarchy very, very well.  It may be a bit overly brutal in terms of having to do a hundred fantastic things to barely outweigh the one thing your superior didn't like (or, if that's not true, it at least seems that way!).

Some factions, however, don't seem that way.  The Sons of Sabuth, for example, are a lot more free and forgiving of even massive, massive mistakes made by their PCs.  

But I definitely agree that the lack of promotions in any faction but the Conclave does hurt a sense of player control.  It does tend to feel like the NPCs are waiting to express stern disapproval (especially in the case of the Stygians).  But maybe that's by design, I'm not sure.

[PlayaCharacter]

Here's what kills me about EfU:A, and it has always been this way, and I'm not sure how to fix it: character turnover.

If you want to truly get a plot going and see it through to conclusion, you have to have a character who 1) wins PvP 2) attracts people's attention 3) has the support of a DM 4) doesn't get killed off by the first monstrous surprise a DM decides to throw at them 5) can assemble a crew of non-suicidal PCs who are in the same time zone 6) keep everyone alive and happy long enough to get to the end of something.

I've been playing here pretty much constantly for what, five, six years now, and I've never done it. Ever. The closest I've ever come was with the Black Parish (and hats off to Garem, Diz-e, and the others because that was the best fun I've had since the UD). Most of the time, though, key characters will die too early. DMs seem to have this idea that if you aren't constantly beating the Grim Reaper's ass at every turn, your PC isn't interesting enough to be worth their time. In order to achieve something permanent and lasting, you have to jump through so many hoops, each one of them carrying a fairly high percentage of permanent death. It is an incredibly difficult needle to thread. I stopped trying a long time ago.

To my way of thinking, a PC should last about 6 months on average. Maybe even a year. Personally, I'm not capable of coming up with a new original character concept every couple of weeks like some people seem to do.

I just wish people would take more time with their PCs. Some of you (and I'm looking straight at you, OP) must have no idea how much of other people's time you waste when you just toss your characters off a cliff, whether metaphorically or literally. It makes it impossible to build anything interesting that doesn't involve the use of overwhelming force, which, by its nature, leaves a mess of destruction in its wake.

[The Old Hack]

As I see it, character turnover is the blessing and curse of EfU -- but it is far more blessing than curse. Having played on a server without permadeath, all I can say is that assured immortality for a character does not exactly promote good RP.

But nonetheless, yes, the turnover can be a problem, too. Mind you, one factor that increases the turnover is frustration factor. It takes a good deal of patience to reach level 8 or 9 and a single unlucky death can spoil days or even weeks of effort in that direction. Moreover, the frustration is increased when it is two or three instances of bad luck hamstringing a character. Having had Solace go from level 9 to 4 in two days taught me just how brutal that can be. I suspect that this kind of frustration causes premature turnover as players lose patience but I am not sure how to deal with it. Possibly there could be some sort of mitigation like reduced XP loss for second and third deaths in a short time but that is more a topic for DMs than players to discuss.

Admittedly more player patience could help here, too. I managed to make my two first mains last for a fairly long time, and so far I have tried to avoid deliberate 'suicide.' When Solace was executed, she had basically painted herself into a corner and it was the logical end for her at the time, I felt. Deirdre tried a very risky gamble -- much like the Duke -- and paid for it when she lost. Ulfrin was killed in PvP action, ironically due to being extremely vulnerable by repeated PvE deaths. So yes, there is a high turnover even if you do stay patient, but it is not all PvP-caused; sometimes your characters just take a dangerous gamble which is in character for them and then pay for it if it fails.

PCs in positions of authority: I can see the advantage of advancing players deemed responsible to such positions and the difficulties in balancing 'earning' the position with the demand for players in such roles. There could be different ways of handling this. One way might be to simply copy NPCs of importance into player accounts of players deemed worthy to be sort of 'semi-DMs' for the server, or possibly retired DMs that still want to play. But again this is a DM issue and all I am doing is giving an example of a possible solution; mine need not be the best or even good.

A problem with turnover: once a character gets close to reaching a position of authority, it also becomes a target. Gunslinger syndrome sets in: newer characters eager to make a name for themselves try for them, and others seeing them as 'rivals' attempt to have them rubbed out. This is only natural and may even be a good thing, but it is something to be aware of.

All in all, I feel some good points and counterpoints have been raised here. It's been fascinating to read this thread.

~tOH.

[Gippy]

Great thread. Keep it coming.

[GoblinSapper]

Ugh, gunslinger syndrome. Everyone see's you rollin, they be hatin. Why you gotta be hatin?

[Craig210]

My key annoyance with efu is the character turnover rate. To me it seems like some players purposely set out to end another pc from the get go as a way to jump into the limelight and become noticed.
I think some players need to take a step back and think about plot progressions and the time and energy players have put into characters before full looting/full deathing. Granted saying goodbye to a long time feud and knowing when your character’s limit has been reached is important. But at the same time, you need to allow feuds to grow, not just from pvp, but other more meaningful goals.

As for faction promotions.

I am playing my first major faction pc, a lot of people have asked me why Red hasn’t been promoted. To me its very simple, at the start Red spent a lot of time face in the dirt, I have been rescued numerous times by Son NPCs.  I look at the one favoured son I did know, Karida. And see a pc who was hunted by gank squads, a pc who was feared hated and respected. I look at what I’ve achieved and would not want to be classed as on the same par as that pc. I don’t feel ive done anything remotely as badass.
A promotion to me is something that shouldn’t be easy, something that shouldn’t be expected. It’s a title that comes with it a huge reputation and not only that a responsibility to not just go out without a bang.
When I look at the pcs I have met that have been promoted in the conclave, I see pc’s that have put enormous amounts of work into things. Ridgeway and Rumpclaw, One of them put a tremendous amount of work into create the tome of the isle.  The other was a dangerous drunk who knew no fear, who held a weapon with high risk high reward.
Devlin and Caius Drayden, do I really need to explain these two?
Bailey Bhon was a pc who knew everything about everyone, I never met her caliphar but one thing about the conclave is you don’t get one part of the duo being any less amazing than the other.

Qadima and Kriel have been kicking ass, Qadima making people more monster than human, Kriel obediently serving and protecting. They travelled the underdark and came back alive.
To me, they all earned promotions. Nothing they did was easy, everything they did came with a risk of death. They are fine examples on how pcs should be, long term, with long term goals. But constantly putting themselves at real risk to enhance the story of their characters.

Yes it may appear the sons and the stygians are without promotions, and it is easy to think that the conclave is the easier path. The truth is, the Sons and the stygians lack direction from the pcs. The sons and the stygians are heavy conflict factions, with a high turn over rate. If you want promoted do something epic and survive.

[TheMacPanther]

Ugh, gunslinger syndrome. Everyone see's you rollin, they be hatin. Why you gotta be hatin?

Cus haters gotta hate.