Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning

[Thenomain]

@sincerely

Being able to create good ANSI/ASCII art is a talent too few have. Be proud of that, and it's awesome that you're sharing. More! Bravo! Etc.!

[Faceless]

I do want to comment on what appears to be a perception that the 'dinosaurs' will have a distinct advantage, at least from what I've gathered from the very loosely detailed pending system. My only commentary is on the perception that this somehow inhibits new character's involvement in a social aspect of the game.

Dinosaurs will be a thing, always. It's a fact of MUs that track stats, use dice, feature progression from a character standpoint, etc. Does it or can it suck? Sure. No one likes to be the unappreciated low person on the totem pole. Commonly one of the complaints regarding dinos is that they'll reach that high point, then just stop. Maintaining that position, while not making use of it. A World of Darkness game? Yes, it's often a very serious problem. The faction leader that never leaves their phome or whatever. Arx though isn't a World of Darkness game and does feature a bit more automation that your average WoD game.

Prestige has been discussed as a fairly key feature of the theorized social system. Staff has indicated two things(maybe more that I've just forgotten or aren't critical to my comments): first they intend to do a Prestige reset, which will theoretically level the playing field. Or at least set it to a base line, with slight variations based on the stats possessed by a character. Second, which comments on the 'slight variations' of the base: they intend for social stats to play a factor into Prestige(if I'm remembering some reading incorrectly, feel free to correct me).

Social stats figuring into your Prestige, immediately grants a character statted for social play an advantage over a character who is not. Right out the gates. Sure, they aren't the Best of the Best, but they still (likely) possess more baseline ability than someone who hasn't social stats in the slightest. Just like my non-combat character shouldn't expect to wander into a training pit and absolutely destroy, or in some cases even stand a chance, against the veterans of numerous wars, sieges, and skirmishes. Those same combat characters can offset their drawbacks, even if only in a minor way, by dressing appropriately.

Back to the issues of dinosaurs: Arx features something that some folks don't notice(I know I didn't when it first happened to me) and that is that Prestige does begin to deteriorate after reaching a certain point. So if you get to be the biggest, shiniest Prestige-bearer and then decide to just sit back, relax, and think you'll be the Kingliest or Queenliest of All Kings and Queens? Well, that's going to slowly erode away the longer you're not working to offset that deterioration. You want to offset it? You have to do things, probably involving others, generally create/generate RP, and ultimately participate in the game.

No system is ever perfect, but by all accounts it looks like some considerations are being paid to some of the bigger problems that plague MU social systems and the people scrambling to be the prettiest, smartest, and strongest.

[Arkandel]

@saosmash said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I don't want to contradict anyone's lived experience.

Oh, regardless of what character's specializations are or what system a game uses, nothing trumps the player's ability to use what they have and leverage it to gain traction or convert it to actually having fun.

That's why anecdotes by players here must be taken with a grain of salt either way. An OOC well known player who's OOC social, maybe already has OOC connections in the game and who can put a decent pose together will find things to do. Someone who possesses fewer of these qualities will find themselves with less to do. That's a given.

What's important is that the game itself at least tries to correctly translate the sheet's strengths and weaknesses into what's actually happening on the grid. Not all MU* are able or willing to do this - many will simply blame it on the player and call it a day.

[Crawfish]

@saosmash said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@sincerely CAUSE YOUR ART IS GREAT.

ONLY BECAUSE I HAD INFECTIOUS TEACHERS. Seriously I can't share the ASCII art I do like I would my usual art, I tried to show my Mom and she was like 'Ummm why aren't you making silver jewelry wtf'.

My Dad is an old school nerd. He thinks it's neat. But he's the only one so you guys, you guys are the only ones who are going to ever get to see it. So I want to keep making things ya'll like.

Also thank you. ._.

[Thenomain]

@faceless

I've seen several systems work with dinos. The one I see working here is that dinos either have others or are forced to rely upon others, or more likely that the players of dinos are plot-generators or -enablers instead of plot-absorbers, which is most of the complaints I hear about dinos.

I don't see that being an overwhelming issue for Arx, though one that they seem to be paying attention to, which is better than most games.

[Layla]

@sincerely This.

So I might need to find you in character for some of dat...art..

[Alzie]

Not to say that every leader should be an axe wielding barbarian, but not all leaders are built the same. It's entirely possible that someone is in a social situation and their only social skills are the big axe on their back and the thousand yard stare. Are these conducive to diplomacy? Maybe, depending on the culture.

[kitteh]

@faceless said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Back to the issues of dinosaurs: Arx features something that some folks don't notice(I know I didn't when it first happened to me) and that is that Prestige does begin to deteriorate after reaching a certain point. So if you get to be the biggest, shiniest Prestige-bearer and then decide to just sit back, relax, and think you'll be the Kingliest or Queenliest of All Kings and Queens? Well, that's going to slowly erode away the longer you're not working to offset that deterioration. You want to offset it? You have to do things, probably involving others, generally create/generate RP, and ultimately participate in the game.

This is largely what I'd look for, in terms of the future design for this system vs. how its current very Firan-eqsue version. Regardless of whether they do a reset, they need a system that isn't just static accumulation, or you're guaranteed to end up with an unremarkable list of dinos who are millions of points ahead and discourage a new player from even interacting with the system (and I say that as someone who will arguably be much more dino than new player by the time any such system comes around). If it has decay now, well... it doesn't seem significant, considering the top list is filled with several characters that haven't been actively played recently, are dead, etc.

So they need to think about that, and maybe design it so those points are being spent as much as earned.

[Roz]

I will say this re: the Nox'alfar and the Nox treaty. Once we finally got to the point where it was officially happening, it did end up going pretty swiftly. But that was at least half a year, probably more, after our initial contact with the Nox'alfar happened. There were social rolls to even convince the Nox'alfar to come treat with the Compact. When they came the first time, there were some major diplomatic disasters that had the Nox'alfar walking away from the table and taking their potential special weapons with them. It was good social skills that managed to get some of those weapons at all, and they didn't go into the hands of the noble leaders who had been treating with them before. We had a whole war, and then the Nox'alfar started playing games (killing folks in the forest for fun) and there was a whole diplomatic process to bring them back to the negotiating table. And then there was the actual treaty negotiations which were, granted, pretty short. (Because the new treaty largely followed the old one.)

So there's also a perception issue here. But it's a situation in which there were consequences for flubbing the social/diplomatic stuff, and then victories earned by socially-focused PCs. It happened over the course of many months, and different people were involved in different parts of it. But the PCs who did the best in the situation were the socially-focused ones.

As to the systems: I know that prestige decay is definitely going to be a big thing.

[Sunny]

I just stopped doing the things I was doing to 'keep up' with my prestige and it's falling fairly quick. Like, the reason B is where she is is because I was actively working to keep her there. I stopped doing that and she's descending now.

[Seraphim73]

@apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I don't think I need to necessarily restrict people coming into power that lack the ability, so much as having the consequences be consistent and automated if they try to act without help.

"Automated," of course, only works if you have heavy code in your game -- and particularly a heavily-coded social system. Like many others, I have worries about heavily-coded/automated social systems, because while most people are okay with the intricacies of physical combat being abstracted, fewer are okay with the intricacies of social combat being abstracted. Then again, this is an argument that has been going on forever, and will likely continue going on forever.

As @Sunny says (and by @Pyrephox's words, the Arx staff well understands), it's easy enough to impose non-automated social consequences on characters.

@kitteh hits on what the real problem is on many MU*s (and it sounds like on Arx too): the metaplot focuses on a physical combat, which means that social types are making power plays and making things easier for the fighty types, but in the end, it's the fighty types (or hopefully actually the tactical types) who make the difference in the metaplot.

[kitteh]

@roz I realize plenty of stuff happened with the Nox long before I showed up, and I didn't mean to come off as negative toward that plotline (if anything, I mentioned it because I wanted to be fair / didn't want to short change staff on credit for it). Certainly it's the thing I've had some of the most fun with on the game, with my favorite NPC, even coming into it at the tail end.

Taking it as the gold standard of non-stabby offerings, however... well, it's exactly that. It's the high point, and things go downhill (or simply grow more scarce, there were what... 5 of us there for the final Nox thing?) from there. So really, I'd love to see more plots of that kind. For instance, we have a bunch of far off kingdoms menacing us... it would be cool if not all of them were not pure evilocracies and there were major opportunities to treat with them diplomatically over prolonged periods, both inviting and sending emissaries, working on cultural exchanges, building alliances, etc.

Maybe this is precisely what staff has planned, in which case great. But it doesn't hurt to ask

[Apos]

@kitteh said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I think this is the real issue more, and it reflects your overall story structures. What use are negotiators when our enemies are demon generals or demon pirate kings or demon-elves or... you get the picture. Oh, also all the foreign nations are run by evil sorcerer kings/dragons.

I think there's a misconception there that state of play will be permanent and that there will always be an other that's isolated and monolithic, distant, and immune to influence. That belief is contrary to my original planned story arc for the game and so far I don't see anything taking it off that path currently, so diplomacy will likely becoming increasingly relevant as time goes on, and it's not a coincidence that I'm working on it now rather than later.

[Roz]

@kitteh I mean, I wasn't placing it up there as a gold standard, I was going through it because I think you were kind of making a claim that the diplomatic efforts there were over in the blink of an eye when actually it has been an ongoing process from back in Alpha. I was explaining it to object to the inaccuracy that seems to be a part of your concerns, because if people have concerns we should all make sure we're on the same page of accuracy so that the most constructive form of the conversation can happen.

Honestly the impression I'm getting is that you have a limited window of experience and you're kind of making extrapolations based on that. Like, a lot of the baddies out there aren't actually super black and white like you mentioned before. All of these things aren't clear cut with only combat as the option. So maybe folks need to dig sometimes to get at the truth, but there are lots and lots of options here. There are probably also a lot of socially- and diplomatically-weighted actions that have been taken that don't necessarily become public. So like, when I read you're stuff, it feels a bit like you're saying "Diplomacy doesn't have a big place on the game right now because of X and Y reasons" and I'm like "But X and Y aren't actually true/accurate?"

Also you say that it doesn't hurt to ask, but most of the time you're not asking questions about the new proposed stuff, you seem to be kind of making worst case assumptions about a bad way of doing it and say you don't want that. I mean, I'm not on staff, but it does frustrate me a little just to witness.

[Sunny]

@Roz expressed a LOT better what it was I was trying to say. That is what I was trying to say, I know I didn't communicate it great.

[saosmash]

@sunny It's all her practice trying to win at the Info channel.

[fortydeuce]

Checking back in to see what my post wrought! I will say, 5 days in, I'm still having fun and I am involved, so those are good signs (of course, I'm also too proactive on that front). I am playing a social PC, and I haven't had that negatively impact my course so far. I've had scenes with heavy-hitters and fellow newbies alike. Catch me on the game if you want (Derovai, again)!

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Or to get back to the original cause for this tangent in the thread, social characters need to have a strong niche, the same way as physical characters do.

Pyrephox said this as well, but the path isn't putting up a roadblock to prevent socially-inept people rising to power. And that's what I was getting at, obliquely.

And we're not even talking about the social consequences that should be attendant with being a combat monster, generally. No matter how genial Vlad the Impaler might have been in his court, one cannot forget that he was Vlad the Impaler, as reviled as he was feared, as he was beloved in hindsight.

[kitteh]

@roz That seems like the absolutely most intentionally negative reading of everything I've said and basically a pure attempt to drag this into the pit. To me, you sound like you're irrationally upset by people having an ongoing but largely civil, constructive discussion in which some criticisms happen to occur.

I don't think I've posted anything inaccurate per my own experiences. They may be limited, but every newer player is going to have a narrow view. If you dismiss them, you won't keep them as players (and I believe it's even been said the game has a lot of turnover). If things are happening but they're all huge secrets, then maybe something needs to be done about making secrets more accessible.

Anyway, good job dragging this toward the pit.

[Sunny]

@saosmash Clearly. Mutter.

--

If anyone WANTS to get involved with the current metaplot stuff and is running into roadblocks, please please feel free to reach out to me. I might not end up being the one helping directly, but I am more than willing to make connections between people and help figure things out OOCly. Mail / page on game or PM here or w/e. I'm pretty sure this goes for everybody else piping in here.