Roleplay Team Lead Report 6/23/03
Hibernian Content Requested in Roleplay Team Lead Report
(Feedback on this report is welcome and wanted! Please post your
thoughts and opinions on:
http://vnboards.ign.com/board.asp?brd=22469 )
Overview
The roleplay community is filled with great ideas and enthusiasm, yet it is
struggling to survive. The frustration of roleplayers watching their servers
slip away from expectations and a sense of helplessness can be felt everywhere.
The community may be down, but it is not out. There has been renewed, yet
cautious, optimism expressed since the announcement of a Roleplay Team Lead.
There is hope for open communication and enforcement of the ToS specific to the
roleplay servers, as well as the development of new ideas and inspirations.
Concerns
* Current enforcement of the ToS specific to the roleplay server. The efforts
made by Mythic can not be seen by the average player, leaving roleplayers
feeling unsupported. Players are hesitant to ask others to respect the ToS for
fear of attack, insult or reprisal. Current policy states that players MUST
contact a person and ask them to refrain from OOC in public channels before
appealing them. This hesitation and intimidation of contacting other players and
telling them what they can and cannot do has lead to an almost surrendering
attitude of the servers.
* Name Policy: A lack of consistency on the naming policy has lead to a lot of
heated debate. I hope to look into sollutions further in my next report, here is
what I have now:
- A clarification of existing name policy, possibly including "Compound names
that Mythic deems inappropriate will be changed.” and “A descriptive name can be
used as long as it does not break the roleplay immersion”.
- If a name is inappropriate, its requested that the player be informed of this
at a reasonable time (i.a. before the character reaches 50).
- In the current system, a name that is clearly bad will be changed relatively
early in the character's history, while names that are borderline are the most
likely to go a long time before being changed.
Suggestions: An automatic name approval at 5 days /played. This report could be
reviewed by the CSR team responsible for name approval. This could help resolve
the effects a name change can have on someone who has built up a long reputation
only to have their identity changed.
* /level command in Hibernia Percival. The recent addition of /level 30 in
Hibernia, Percival, has lead to a significant increase in players ignorant, or
unwilling to follow the roleplay ToS. Restriction of /level 30 command on
roleplay servers to those with a 50 already existing on another roleplay server
may help to relieve this issue.
* The environment is not conducive to roleplay due to real time battles etc.
Solution: Introduction of macro's that will allow for communication without
breaking the emersion of the server. It is recommended that this should be a
player-specific filter.
/inc yells incoming out loud to whichever chat tab you are on.
/oop announces “My power is drained” to whichever chat tab you are on.
/ooe announces “I grow tired”
/lop announces “My power is fading”
/loe “My strength is fading”
/point announces the direction in which you are pointing
Alternatively, allow the user to create a filter list for common phrases.
Similar to the profanity filter, this will change certain words or phrases to
those the user would prefer to hear (on their client). For example, one could
type /filter OOP=”I am out of power” and whenever somebody says OOP, on your
client you’d see whatever you filtered it to. Another example: /filter
“pwned”=”I am mighty!” *grins*
Immersion Issues, things that conflict with the roleplay atmosphere.
* Static Environment: Merchants stand in the street, never moving. Perhaps a
small wandering area to make the town seem less.. zombied? An increase in
wandering characters such as: a rogue cursing and mumbling, Merchants yelling
out their wares on occasion, Guards emoting <adjusts his helm> etc.
* Position of Wedding Assistant in Camelot: He is currently right behind the
alter, which makes the area difficult to use for roleplay events. Moving him to
the side would solve this issue. Maybe a script that has him walk to the alter
when activated? If not, to the side with the old goat.
* Limited variation in character appearance: No thin, fat, old or young
variations.
* “Idle” animations. Somebody who is standing without moving for an extended
length of time should fidget, scratch, shift their weight to the other foot,
adjust their armor or clothing, etc.
* More Emotes! /sit /lay /drink /swoon /respect (for a sign of respect in
battle) /stagger /strut /shiver /vomit (Hey it goes with drink doesn’t it??)
* Make macros more costomizable: (e.g. "/bow /em bends over to check the
steaming teapot" would display "/em Laurindorel bends over to check the steaming
teapot" while the character performed the /bow animation.
Wish List
- Increase buildings in the towns of Hibernia: currently many towns consist of
mushrooms and small lean-tos. The lack of Inns, taverns, or even homes limits
the town atmosphere and roleplay interaction.
-Mythic Run Events and interactive quests and naps. This is the #1 requested
item from the roleplay community. Even occasional NAP characters run by GM's of
Volunteers would help the community greatly. An old woman who tells fortunes, a
historian who researches myths, a barkeep that tells tales and hosts events. The
community is hungry for this form of support, it would encourage roleplay more
immensely.
-Quests that result in the giving of titles specific to each realm, such as
lord, lady, sir, Father (priest), Sister (nun)
-Race (not class) specific emotes and abilities: Lorikeets sit cross legged,
trolls kneel, fibrils crouch, Saracen /pray and automatically face east and
assume the "pray to Mecca" stance.
- Profile shown in small test box when a fellow character is right clicked. This
would allow players to write and edit a small description of themselves for
others to read.
-Roleplay specific newspaper (website): Reports on various quests from all
realms, blurbs on player run roleplay events and storylines.
- Ability to extend the amount an emote is held. For example, the /point macro
has a very short animation. It would be useful to be able to say /3point (or
/point3) which would mean “hold the point animation for 3 seconds”. Enforce a
maximum limit to the amount of time an emote could be persisted (5 seconds seems
sufficient for most uses).
- Is it technically possible to have a /hood command? With the rains in DaoC,
many people have expressed a desire to be able to toggle a hooded cloak’s hood
up or down position rather than carry two different cloaks.
Bugs
-%t works only in macros. Great command! Would love to see it in regular chat
form.
-----signature-----
Solice
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=5385&TabID=41281
The Illuminati? Im sorry.. what Illuminati?
Roleplay Community Board! http://vnboards.ign.com/board.asp?brd=22469
No, I can not help get your name changed back.
All I Really Need To Know, I Learned in DAoC
(Posted by -Smoke- at
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=23579919&replies=2)
*Father Time really does hate me. Because it's ALWAYS [BEEEEEP] DARK.
*Odd phenomenon like Bajoran Worm Holes and Bad Code can cause every major city
and point of interest in my world keep completely opposing day and night cycles.
*Ireland is a pretty [BEEEEEP]'d up place in which the low green shrubbery of
Hawai'i
somehow ended up as the sheltering loins of Middle Eastern Mosques. The Frosted
Lucky Charms guy does live there, along with his entire family, but they're sick
of your
bull[BEEEEEEP] and they're extracting said charms from your person with extreme
predjudice.
*Some Celtic names are lyrical, poetry in brief and beautious to behold. Others
sound
like one is gargling a phlegm wad in the back of their throat.
*No matter how big I am, no matter how strong I may be, horses will always be
able
to kick my ass.
*Elves really weren't "angelic" or "beautiful". In fact, they weren't even
"pretty".
Actually, they weren't quite "fair" either. Elves were mean, curmudgeonly
schoolmarms
and headmasters, they were ugly as sin and they wore clothes that even your
local
Live Action Roleplaying Club wouldn't be caught dead in.
*They didn't like pretty "things", either. They liked rude mud huts, terribly
ventilated
stone prisons and BIG FREAKING MUSHROOMS. Elves didn't like good magic, they
didn't
like good sleeping mats and they didn't like having ANYTHING remotely resembling
"ambiance furniture" anywhere. Ever.
*Anyone holding two swords is secretly expressing their long-repressed desire to
be
dominated by EVERYONE.
*Some people with two swords can make magic lightsabers appear in the air. Like
Drizzt. Oh wait. Drizzt couldn't do that.
*The deadliest phenomenon known to man or beast is a FLIGHT OF STAIRS.
*History has a cruel sense of irony. Did you think that ugly, shoddy
prefabricated
buildings were only recently developed by the Sears Roebuck & Co? APPARENTLY
NOT.
Hoping that hideous neighborhoods consisting of the same fugly houses repeated
in
different patterns were the "new" blight of the Eichler years? GUESS AGAIN.
*ELVES ARE SO L33T THEIR [BEEEEP]ING FORGES DON'T NEED [BEEEEEP]ING FIRES.
*The easiest way to differentiate between the clever and the stupid is to note
who's
carrying a bow into combat with an enemy kingdom. Bonus "negative points" if
you're
carrying two swords instead.
*When we all finally kick out of the Iron Age and nuke ourselves back into the
Stone
Age, SPRAGGON_______'S WILL RULE THE [BEEEEEP]ING WORLD.
*Anyone can float in deep water while wearing full plate armor and carrying
several
heavy bags of gear. In fact... you can't NOT float. Art mirroring life? I THINK
SO.
*It's a good thing the Norse really didn't have trolls.
*Newton's fourth law of motion: NO DISADVANTAGE IN ONE AREA WILL EVER BE
COMPENSATED FOR BY AN ADVANTAGE IN ANOTHER AREA. Anyone who tells you
otherwise needs to be kicked repeatedly in the jimmy before you end up wasting
months of your life being someone who takes several penalties in return for
being able
to... do nothing.
*There really are little blue men from strange fantasy realms. I don't know if
they sing
songs and live an idyllic life of bliss, but it's probably possible because they
sure can
kick the [BEEEEEEEP] out of anyone who gets in the way of their bow.
*The arrow is capable of breaking every known law of both real and meta-physics.
*If I'm handy with wood and some planing tools, I can hold the front door of my
house
against the ENTIRE [BEEEEEP]ING NATIONAL GUARD AND PROBABLY ALL ACTS OF GOD
TOO.
*The only thing more worthless than a keep defended by people holding two swords
is
a keep defended by the home guard.
*Every single competent soldier capable of singlehandedly defending your entire
nation from enemy invasion will be stationed as far back into your homeland as
is
humanly possible. Guarding you against frogs. And any true sense of security.
*The gods mark those who they want to die first with small, swirling glowy
notes.
Confirmation comes from the fact that these people are not allowed to hold
weapons,
wear good armor, carry a shield, parry, utilize bladeturn spells, hide, breathe,
etc.
while doing their jobs. HAHAHAHAAAAAHHHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH IT'S FUNNY
BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!
And finally,
*Saint Patrick didn't keep snakes or invaders or anything else out of Ireland
for so
long. Big Giant Pissed Off Badgers did. And they're coming to a thimble near
you.
"Boycott Hibernia"
(Posted to VN Hibernian message board: http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=50592805&start=50595367)
Hibernia -- Land of the Elves and Fay creatures. Modeled upon
Ancient Ireland, Hibernia is the home of the Celts and Firbolgs who share
affinity with Nature and the Elves and Lurikeens, magical creatures recently
returned from the other side of the Veil.
Ireland -- The land of our origin. The place for which each of us must have some
affinity because we continued to play in Hibernia despite the scarcity of
detail, the monotony of green textures and the complete lack of interest or
sympathy displayed to us by Mythic.
Ireland -- The land has a rich and vibrant history and it might also be known as
the 'Birthplace' of something else that many of you may not be aware.
The Boycott.
boycott: the word's origin
By The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was an Englishman working in Ireland. In the
1870s he was farming at Loughmask in County Mayo and serving as a land agent for
an absentee English landlord, Lord Earne. This was the time of the campaign
organized by the Irish Land League for reform of the system of landholdings. In
September 1880, protesting tenants demanded that Captain Boycott give them a
substantial reduction in their rents. He refused. Charles Stuart Parnell, the
President of the Land League, suggested in a speech that the way to force
Boycott to give way was for everyone in the locality to refuse to have any
dealings with him. Laborers would not work for him, local shops stopped serving
him (food had to be brought in from elsewhere for him and his family), and he
even had great trouble getting his letters delivered. In the end, his crops were
harvested that autumn through the help of fifty volunteers from the north of the
country, who worked under the protection of nine hundred soldiers.
The events aroused so much passion that his name became an instant byword. It
was first used - in our modern sense of collective and organized ostracism - in
the Times of London in November 1880, even while his crops were still being
belatedly harvested; within weeks it was everywhere. It was soon adopted by
newspapers throughout Europe, with versions of his name appearing in French,
German, Dutch and Russian. By the time of the Captain's death in 1897, it had
become a standard part of the English language.
So, in the Spirit of Ireland, and in Support of Hibernia, I suggest, Urge,
Cajole or just plain BEG you to think about joining in and reminding Mythic and
others the Power of a people united against a common enemy.
In our case, the Enemy is ignorance.
Naturalists (And anyone reading this) I beg of you. Let us choose to BOYCOTT
DAoC for just TWO WEEKS.
IN the Northern Hemisphere, the summer is upon us. It’s a time of warm days,
warm nights and many enjoyable outdoor activities.
Let us take advantage of this time, to enjoy our lives across the Veil, visit
out families, chase college cuties in the pubs and bars, and do anything we
desire _BUT_ play DAoC.
I respectfully ask each of you, to /cancel your account. Canceling does not mean
you lose anything, none of your characters will go away, and none of your items
will degrade. But by Canceling you wave a Flag at Mythic and say....
' I have had just about enough! '
So, once you have canceled, and waved the flag, wave it to them daily by failing
to log in to the game.
Each day you are not online, another day [passes on their servers where they see
a character 'age' but no activity. The Herald will be updated. The Icon's by
your names on the Guild Rosters and elsewhere will slowly change colour.
TWO WEEKS.
Its hardly a lifetime and yet its enough time, to display to Mythic that 1.62 is
NOT a Hibernia Love Patch, and that they can not continue to ignore all the
_small_ things we have asked of them.
They obviously have plenty of time to focus on things like the Trials of
Atlantis, which will further change game play and game balance and most
assuredly to the negative. Casual players are being made to understand; they
have no chance to Compete against those who spend too much time from their real
lives in the virtual of DAoC.
They've not addressed or acknowledged the Hibernian Protest. That they spoke
briefly about Hibernian issues and promised this patch for their fixes quieted
the Protesters enough that Mythic knew it could then ignore them and their
entreaties for some balance in game play.
Have you seen a new quest at all in Hibernia? One that was not mirrored in the
other realms?
Of course not. Why? Because Mythic Obviously knows that you will continue paying
despite your dissatisfaction.
And they see no need at all to take you
seriously.
Well enough is enough.
Is two weeks away from the game too much to ask?
Are virtual code creations known as relics too important to you that you'll
continue to neglect a real life to come here?
I realize we all have friends and people we enjoy 'seeing' and conversing with
within the confines of the game but we ALL have Internet connections, and thus
we can continue to talk with these folks.
Yahoo, MSN Messenger, AIM, IRC, VN Boards etc.. we have so many ways to continue
to communicate with each other...
TWO WEEKS It’s a blink of time, even
insignificant if you think about it. But it would be AMPLE time to demonstrate
to Mythic and to the other Realms how serious we wish to be considered.
I'm not crying about the way building are shaped, or how often they are cut and
pasted. I DO have an issue with our discrepancy in the number of quests and
rewards. I do have an issue with the design of our frontier being so poor (Or
rather so conducive to conducting warfare as explained by Sun Tsu, Von Clauswitz,
Rommel and Patton, Caesar and Napoleon) that Hibernia is constantly under siege.
I do have a problem with its classes continuing to receive only negative
attention and especially Naturalists being ignored and now Nerfed despite a long
history of calm and constructive lobbying to Mythic for fixes.
Well the time has come.. We MUST Boycott them.
Its just Two Weeks. Two weeks of time where you cancel and do not log in to your
Hibernians Characters.
Heck, you don’t even have to quit the game, you just /cancel your account, and
leave all your Hibernians inactive while you and your friends re-group and
re-guild in another realm, use /level to make yourselves decent and become a
terror on the battlegrounds.
But the Message will be sent to Mythic.
You can IGNORE us no longer. We are united and we are upset and you MUST do
something to regain our trust and respect.
So please, As of the event of 1.62 going live, Boycott DAoC and Boycott
Hibernia.
Thanks,
Gwalchmei
(Posted to VN Hibernian message board: http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=50592805&start=50595367)
************************************************************
**Note from Aacha: If you don't want to boycott DAoC completely, please do "Empty Hibernia" either way. Take your guild on a field trip to Albion, or Midgard, or the cooperative server. See for yourselves how much Hibernia is lacking in all areas. Try free level 20s and 30s elsewhere. Please, either way, just Empty Hibernia, starting June 1, 2003.
April 12 Protest Shows Support For Hibernian Improvements
On April 12, 2003 there was a formal sit-in protest on the Pendragon server of Dark Age of Camelot to express concerns about the lack of quality and video game balance in the realm of Hibernia.
Above are a couple screen shots of the Hibernian Protest Guild near Mag Mell. It was impossible to get all those gathered in one screen shot, but the point is that we are not alone in our concerns about Hibernia
This protest was to once again voice the concerns that make Hibernia feel, in Mark Jacobs words, like the "poor stepchild" of the game.
This is about getting Mythic to do what they said they would on December 7, 2001.
"Hibernia will get special attention in order to correct what people perceive it being the “poor stepchild” of the game. In particular all aspects of the development team will be turning their attention to that Realm (classes, spells, NPCs, dungeons) to improve it and the player’s perception of the Realm."
- Mark Jacobs, Mythic Entertainment, Dec 7, 2001
The protest began formally at 8pm eastern in the town of Mag Mell, however, turnout was so large that groups split into server-based units and moved to different towns to prevent lag and allow people to log in.
Close to 400 people in support of equality of quality for Hibernians attended, and voiced concerns about the state of the realm of Hibernia. Interestingly enough, the Camelot Herald shows the guild size as around 250ish members, though this list of attendees indicates a much larger group of citizens working towards the goal
Note: Rhunach has cancelled his account and is no longer maintaining this Protest site. Instead I am going to do what I can to keep up, since I am still a concerned Hibernian and intend to stick it out a while longer.
--Aacha Deloak--
The protest that "will accomplish nothing" continues to mark successes.
I will list as many as I can remember here, please let me know
(in the general forum) if I miss any.
1. Parthalonians changed to bring-a-friend correctly. Sure,
this didn't bring back as many monsters as they took out, but
at least we were successful on part of the issue.
2. Admission that we have less quests and a statement that this
disparity would be looked into.
3. Admission that we have less quest reward items and a
statement that Mythic would correct this disparity.
4. Admission that valewalkers perform sub-par in RvR and a
statement of when changes can be expected to improve upon this.
5. Admission that animists perform sub-par in RvR and a
statement of when changes can be expected to improve upon this.
6. Admission that celtic dual (and dual wield) is not
performing as well as it should and a statement of when changes
can be expected to improve upon this.
7. Admission that the race restrictions in Hibernia are too
restrictive and a statement of when we can expect changes to
improve upon this.
8. A statement that a full sweep look at all Hibernian classes
will be made for patch 1.62.
9. An admission that there is a graphical problem with the epic
zone boundary and a statement of when it would be corrected
(never). At least it was an answer, which is more than we'd
ever gotten before.
10. Admission that Tir na Nog is much smaller than the other
two capital cities. Again, this won't be fixed, but it is good
that they stop insinuating that Tir na Nog got as much
attention as Camelot.
Some of these things were not directly asked for by us, but I
cannot help thinking that our movement had a lot to do with
them. The protest will still go on as scheduled on Saturday
night, but the focus will probably be more celebration than
protest if things continue in this fashion.
If they put these items into that list, it will be a full blown
celebration:
1. Bards getting either some defense or some offense.
2. The Hibernian dragon being fixed so that it can be killed
with the population of an average Hibernian realm (needs to be
under 150 people or the average Hibernian realm can't do it, we
simply don't have the people).
3. The Galladoria epic encounters being brought in line with
the difficulty of the other two realms epic SI dungeons.
4. Hibernia's epic armor stats being reworked to be in line
with the other realms epic armors (actually I'd like to see
them rework ALL epic armors to have the exact same mVal
regardless of class/realm).
I think that's it... did I miss anything?
- Ruhnach Deloak -
WE WANT AN EQUAL QUALITY VIDEO GAME