Underlight Discord Chat: http://discord.underlight.com/
Production Server: Online (Version 3.1.15)
Player Test Realm Server: Offline (Version 3.1.15)

House Mares

Want to talk about non-game related issues? This is the forum for it.
Post Reply
User avatar
Starfall
Dreamer
Posts: 204
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2014 10:18 pm

House Mares

Post by Starfall »

What's it going to take to get rid of them? DoL just got delivered a major slap in the face tonight, followed by our efforts literally blowing up in our face when we tried to fix it. It's hard enough to get people motivated to fix them, harder still when the causes seem so inconsistent, and there's no guidance whatsoever on the solutions that has remained true from GM to GM. Add to that a failure for no apparent reason and no clue to solve it, and it's just demoralizing and confusing for everyone involved.

And if this was player initiated, I'm disappointed the GMs would allow it to succeed in the first place, and doubly so for making the effort to fix it backfire. If players can do it, players should be able to undo it.

And if it wasn't player initiated, then why the setback when we've been doing more than anyone so far? Again, it's just demoralizing. Why would anyone RP to try to fix anything if it's just going to be reversed and worse than ever before? DoL never had horrons because we intervened, but now despite all effort, they're there. What was the point?
_-*
I want to have adventures and take enormous risks and be everything they say we are.
-Dorothy Allison
Tary
Dreamer
Posts: 264
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:09 am

Re: House Mares

Post by Tary »

First a pedantic point: this really belongs on RP Discussion.
Second: these opinions are my own, as a player. I'm not a GM, I don't want to be a GM, I have a general disdain of people and I'd make the worst GM ever and I'm not privy to their in-game plans.

Great.

I get the frustration, I think. From what I understand from your post, DoL did a ceremony which "cleansed" their house of the mares. Then, suddenly, due to some other players or due to some GMs the mares have returned. I get how this could be annoying since you worked at removing the mares from the house. I get that.

That being said I think there's two things:
1) If you perceive this turn of events as a loss for you, the controller, then your initial plan for 'cleansing the house' wasn't done in a way to maximize your fun playing Underlight.
2) Underlight, as a game, is founded and exists only because of conflict.

Let me expand on both of these.
Underlight is a game and games should be fun. That's pretty self-evident, I think. If you find that you're working hard for the game then I think that you need to re-evaluate whatever you're doing as part of the game and make changes so it's fun for you again. I realize that that's a pithy statement but I don't intend for it to be. Underlight isn't a career: it's a pickup basketball game. If you really enjoy taking hook-shots, freaking take hook-shots. It should be fun whether your character wins or loses.

Now here's where I start rambling on part 2.
Let me say this up front: I quite like how Starfall and others are treating the return to the city. They're taking the "let cooler heads prevail, obviously the infighting of old destroyed the city." Great! That's a great belief for your character to hold. But at the end of the day there exist houses in Underlight and the entire goal of the guild system is to create political strife. Starfall might believe that everyone needs to work together, but does HikariX? Or does poppygirl?

Let me expand on that for a moment. I live in a part of the world that's pretty much constantly on the verge of war. There are those that say "we need to fight" and those that say "we need to work together." There are finger-pointers on either side. And then there are the liberals-turned-hawks and hawks-turned-liberals because they saw the horrors of war, or the horrors of terror, or the destruction of X or they found god or... the list goes on.

People are malleable. People are dragged into conflict. I want you, Starfall's controller (and since I don't know your name for the duration of those post you will be referred to as "Gladys," because... nobody's named their kid Gladys since 1947) to suddenly imagine that you lived in a world where there were three religions. These three religions will be "DoL", "HC" and "OoSM."

DoL believes that all of humanity's sicknesses are because we wear blue jeans and that god is punishing us with cancer. That being said, we need the collective knowledge of humanity in order to heal cancer.
HC believes that humanity's sickness is pure chance and that blue jeans are pretty comfortable but they're ok with khakis as well.
OoSM believes that it is only through the wearing of blue jeans that we can rise above cancer.

Now let's imagine that Gladys, a devout DoLite, along with her fellow DoLites perform some ceremony that involves burning a whole pile of Levi's jeans and in so doing, they heal Jon Bon Jovi of a metastatic tumour. Hey! Whoa! That's crazy, DoL has just proven their beliefs are correct! Wouldn't you, Gladys, want to share this information with everyone else so that they, too, could heal their favorite pop and rock icons?

Now let's imagine that 3 weeks later, while performing "Livin' on a Prayer" JBJ dies. Holy crap, right? Do you now have a crisis of faith, Gladys? Do you believe harder?

I guess it's easy for me to think of things this way because I was raised in a very religious setting and live in a region that's literally suffused in it. But you need to have fun with belief. Belief is an immensely powerful and motivating thing. If your character really believes that DoL is right then she should go and take drastic actions to get rid of the mares. Do something with imprison. Have a crisis of faith on the alliance with HC. Look at the Idoaclesians and say, "Hey, you guys had no mares in your city... what were you doing there? Maybe we can learn from you!" There are so many actions a character in Starfall's position can take and can have fun with.

I'm not trying to be preachy; I'm trying to say to make the best of a crappy situation and have a blast with it and I guarantee that something will happen. I know it sounds all very fluffy and Lyra-Dagger-esque but the man was smart when it came to stuff like this: take ownership of the situation. Be willing to lose. But be uncompromising about you, Gladys, having fun while doing it. Like I told Sidious in a PM in IRC: I don't have enough time to do things at a macro level, so every time I play UL it's just going to be balls-out war-mongering and instigation because that's the part of Underlight I find fun.
Sidious
Dreamer
Posts: 85
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 6:26 pm

Re: House Mares

Post by Sidious »

I have some issue with the statement "we're doing the most"

How do you know?
How do you know someone isn't doing more?
How do you know someone isn't doing things to counter you?

Unfortunately for some and fortunately for the rest, this game isn't just played in a bubble. It's not the dol show or the order show. Order did a rp amongst ourselves to cleanse the mares and make a vault, it failed. We said nothing but we'll try again as often as it takes. But me, as a controller said, wait, all we did was huddle inside and rp by ourselves. We risked nothing, we involved no one. So I came up with something that would risk all, and involve more.

I haven't heard of dol's efforts, so are you involving enough of the city to make the whole game more fun?

The mares we're removed from the facades. That wasn't an all internal rp. It was everyone, and included a short conflict that didn't involve Chaks.
That worked.

The team wants to be impressed by our efforts. We have the greatest story tellers in gaming. Make it count. Don't be discouraged by failure. That's part of this game.
Koi-Alastar

Re: House Mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

There was no intent to "punish" DoL or anyone involved, not was it succumbing to another players request to harm DoL. I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to DoL preventing Horrons.

Removing 5 mare spawns is a pretty big deal. It requires effort and yes failure. If DoL has done a lot towards removing them, I'd encourage you to let us know when they happen...if we haven't heard about it because it was small or closed doors, you can't expect us to assume you did something.

In the end, apologies the RP did not go how you wanted or envisioned, but that is part of the effort.
User avatar
Koi-Drama
Founder
Posts: 996
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:25 pm
Location: Underlight: City of Dreams
Contact:

Re: House Mares

Post by Koi-Drama »

Without revealing too much of what occurs behind the scene, I'll just say this - each of the factions are handling this matter superbly. We are seeing many different approaches across the board in regards to the 'mare incursions'. That being written, we have to remember that there is more than one way to success and even more ways to fail.

There is indeed a lot going on behind the scenes. Some of the interests of the faction seemingly align while others do not. It's up to the dreamers to discover what is truly going on and figure out where the problem lies. As the popular adage goes "there is more going on than we know..."

Moreover, please allow me to show my appreciation for the phenomenal efforts going into the game and it's development within through roleplays and story advancement. We are preparing for a lot more to come as a result to current and past actions. Stay tuned.
“I try to bring the audience's own drama, tears and laughter they know about, to them.”
User avatar
Starfall
Dreamer
Posts: 204
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: House Mares

Post by Starfall »

Koi-Alastar wrote:nor was it succumbing to another players request to harm DoL.
Duly noted, and I appreciate the clarification. Doesn't mean anyone's off the hook IC; rumors are nasty business. :)
Koi-Alastar wrote:I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to DoL preventing Horrons. ... if we haven't heard about it because it was small or closed doors, you can't expect us to assume you did something.
I can't speak to the "Us" part of that since someone must have heard about it. A second event was held that succeeded in removing the shamblix in the center hall, which meant there was no mare in there at all for the last two weeks. And out of nowhere a horron appeared while we were having a meeting.
Sidious wrote: The team wants to be impressed by our efforts. We have the greatest story tellers in gaming. Make it count. Don't be discouraged by failure. That's part of this game.
We mostly hashed this out in IRC.
_-*
I want to have adventures and take enormous risks and be everything they say we are.
-Dorothy Allison
Koi-Alastar

Re: House Mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

Unless I missed something on our side, it sounds like the Shamblix went to another spawn after a server restart. This often happens, hence the concerns about citadel spawns being weird a few weeks ago. The server was again restarted after the xp bug, which could have caused the mare to return. These are all ooc explanations and your characters can of course interpret them however you see fit. However, wanted to explain that the Shamblix removal and Horron return were not related to IC/RP events...so we were definitely not replacing a previously vanquished mare in order to punish or express disapproval of RP efforts.

We have only purposefully removed the mares from the facades. Any other changes are the result of how the mare client acts upon restarting, and we cannot directly dictate what spawns they "find" on reboot.
Tamarisk
Ascended Dreamers
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2014 12:47 pm

Re: House Mares

Post by Tamarisk »

I think some of the feelings are coming from the situation where we walked through a cleared room that HAD a shamblix in it and ten minutes later walk out to a Horron and all the other mares in the House had also evolved. Was it a suprise? Most definately. Did we try something new to try and rid the Horron? Yes. Are we discouraged because we are at a loss of what to do because we aren't getting any direction? Maybe. Will we give up? Probably not. Don't get me wrong, yes there needs to be conflict but I just think maybe we could catch our breath before the House blows up. Just a thought.
Noidea
Dreamer
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2014 4:25 pm
Character Name(s): Blue; Neveren (inactive)
Location: Great Britain

Re: House Mares

Post by Noidea »

So what Koi-Drama and Koi-Alastar are saying is, the disappearance of the Shamblix and the appearance of the Horron were actually accidental and had nothing to do with DoL's RP, and what DoL did didn't have any effect in itself?

That simplifies things, then. If I'm understanding this correctly, it boils it down to: Are there or aren't there enough clues appearing in game as to WHY (IC reason, that is) what DoL did didn't have any effect? Koi-Drama seems to be implying that the GMs do indeed have definite ideas about the nature of the mare problem and what will and won't address it, but it looks as if DoL think they're keeping the secret rather too impenetrably.

Maybe someone from DoL could come up with some kind of test or experiment that would determine something about the nature of what's happening with the mares? Then it would make sense for there to be a definite answer to that. If they do, let it involve mad scientists and magic frogs, though, then even if communication breaks down again it'll have been fun!
Last edited by Noidea on Thu Oct 30, 2014 3:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Efforts yield rewards, not words alone.
Sidious
Dreamer
Posts: 85
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 6:26 pm

Re: House Mares

Post by Sidious »

I doubt entirely that horrons showing up where the planes previously had none was due to a nightmare server reboot. Come on now
Dina

Re: House Mares

Post by Dina »

I think the rp is great. Keep up the good work Koi! The Kois gave an Rp tool...time to use it!
Noidea
Dreamer
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2014 4:25 pm
Character Name(s): Blue; Neveren (inactive)
Location: Great Britain

Re: House Mares

Post by Noidea »

P.S. I can sympathise with being frustrated at being apparently unable to get on the same page as the GMs, that is and always has been my problem - nothing personal, Kois, it happened to me at least as badly in SoT with a completely different set of GMs! I've waited for two weeks now just for a reply about whether they're going to support an RP idea I had or not. I'm giving up waiting now (it's not something that whether it succeeds or fails would affect anything larger, just something that can't be done as convincingly without a bit of assistance); I'm going to bodge it and it's going to be messy, but hopefully it will be fun!
Efforts yield rewards, not words alone.
User avatar
Starfall
Dreamer
Posts: 204
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: House Mares

Post by Starfall »

Koi-Alastar wrote:Unless I missed something on our side, it sounds like the Shamblix went to another spawn after a server restart. ...so we were definitely not replacing a previously vanquished mare in order to punish or express disapproval of RP efforts.

We have only purposefully removed the mares from the facades. Any other changes are the result of how the mare client acts upon restarting, and we cannot directly dictate what spawns they "find" on reboot.
Thank you for clarifying.

After the efforts to remove the one in the center hall, though, the house had been entirely shamblix-free for a couple weeks. So in the moment it felt either like an oversight (i.e. the person upgrading all the mares went through and put that one there not knowing the sham had been gone) or a sign of failure/a hostile actor IC (i.e. another house sabotaging efforts). I wouldn't ever use the word "punish".
Tamarisk wrote:Are we discouraged because we are at a loss of what to do because we aren't getting any direction? Maybe.
I want to echo this. A large part of it was that it happened without warning or any indication of why. (Which I will grant makes sense if on your end you didn't think its reappearance needed explaining since you didn't know it was gone.) Likewise with the failure of the attempt to fix it last night. We still don't know what even went wrong, let alone what bar needs to be cleared for fixing it. IC, there's a million ways to spin that. We'll figure something out. We already have plans to try something this weekend and those plans haven't changed. OOC though? Tam's word was perfect: discouraging.

Last night, we had a dozen people and the horron had been collapsed so it seemed like as good a time as any to try. I know it's hard to make consistent calls on the fly like Aaronyes and Siegward have in the last week or so regarding these attempts that they stumble into. Hats off to both of you for stepping up when the tide of player initiative was coming in.

So I don't want to leave this on a bad note. I'd rather chart a way forward.

It's great to encourage players to figure it out IC. And for that there needs to be consistency and clues or else it reduces to players making up the clues on the spot and GMs making up the rules on the spot every time, and soon nothing makes sense. Consistency in why GMs decide one thing is a success and another a failure is necessary for it to be a puzzle to solve, one where trial and error can lead to a solution.

And that way, failure can be good! For instance, the effort to fix the vault in the Unknown. There was failure, but that failure left some real clues for why it went wrong. Those clues led to some concrete steps to take before trying again next time. So even with failure there was still something learned in the attempt that could drive future activity in game rather than be a dead end. I'd like to see more of that.
_-*
I want to have adventures and take enormous risks and be everything they say we are.
-Dorothy Allison
Koi-Alastar

Re: House Mares

Post by Koi-Alastar »

Sidious wrote:I doubt entirely that horrons showing up where the planes previously had none was due to a nightmare server reboot. Come on now
The servers were rebooted in order to upgrade the mares across the board as has been done a few times prior. Sorry that was not clear. A horron was not specifically placed in the Celebration Hall of DoL, however.
Sidas
Developer
Posts: 342
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 2:11 pm
Character Name(s): Dreiko

Re: House Mares

Post by Sidas »

There are biggun mares in new spots in the Order too. Quite evil!
Post Reply