Making Domains Unique

[Gossamer]

I'll be honest.

I'm bored shitless of Mizahar. It feels like its all the same to me. I adopt something in RF and fairly soon other ST's copy it. This is happened so much from the Codex's to the OOC threads to the Character Registries to just about everything. I feel like there's only so much I can do to be 'unique' for my city. And the unusual things I've done, like the Perk Point System, got so abused when other cities adopted it, that I took it down game wide.

Now... this isn't an insult to current STs. Please understand this group isn't responsible for this situation, they simply inherited it. Behind the scenes we've been having discussions about how to make our cities unique, but it seemed to me it caused more grief than anything. And the risk, truthfully, in bringing a discussion like this to the forefront is that the whole game will ask for certain things and we will think they are all fantastic ideas, and then boom... everything changes and yet its still uniformly the same behind the scenes.

I don't want to be bored with Mizahar anymore. I've been doing a ton of other things irl that keep me occupied though and truth be told I spent the afternoon watching a manual controlled kiln by turning it off, on, up, down, venting, not venting, for an hour... in the attempt to hold some jewelry in it at a specific fusing temp to get a better fuse. THAT... as boring as it sounds... was far more interesting than logging on here and say doing HD tickets, answering PMs, or breaking up squabbles or deflecting people I think are super negative from influcing the site.

I don't want this to be the way things are with me. But in order to get excited about MIz again, I need to get some new things going. New magics, new races, new areas, new new new. I also need a refresh in my own city and I want it to be something interesting that people talk about and not just a yawnfest. I really tried to get people to be excited by letting them RP a new god this season, but I see very few people adding to a collective story. I really wanted the backstory between the two deities running around to be written by the players so we could have something to be proud of when we released them into the rest of the game. Maybe that was a miscommunication on my part or maybe players just didn't understand. But that obviously didn't work.

So whats next? How do we carry RP to the next level? How do we make experiences from Domain to Domain unique? I can sit down and kick some butt on writing another lost discipline or poking around with a new land mass or something... but I don't think we need new areas when we have so many closed cities now. Thats why I'm not developing a new city atm. And if I was, I'd do something on the map that's just needed developing all these years.

Anyhow.. this is my reach out to you. What do you guys ACTUALLY want to be excited about the game?

[Archailist]

Why not try some more region-wide plots? Making events that have implications that span beyond just one city.. it might make the world feel a little more alive and not so fractured. I mean, things like the rise of Glav Navik and the creation of Leo Varniak, etc. Make actual, individually-tailoured stories - actual stories that shape the rising of a new Voice, a new Grandmaster, a superior Sunberthian gang, the Ruv'na's scathing attack on a God and the ensuing chaos surrounding that god's domain, what-have-you. Those plots can't be stolen by other Storytellers - they're intrinsically bound to that region, after all.

Personally, I think we've got a heck of a lot already, it's just making full use of what's here. My opinion though.

[Gossamer]

Thank you. That's definitely food for thought.

[Ferrin Al'Mandrikan]

If say the Gods had children we can always do threads where the children of the Gods/esses spark a war between their parents enemies? If we everfelt like doing a world wide- domain thread quest lines? Erh, but now that I think of it, a war could possibly start another Valterrian. XD

But I like Arch's ideas! Maybe in Syliras we can have a new "gang " in town. One that perhaps successfully intimidated the order? Once The Order and those allied with it would be able to realize that this new thug group is world wide and followers of Rhysol?

If we were ever doing any collaborative threads that involves with the Gods here are some ideas.

[Nivel]

I would almost rather have something important destroyed than have new stuff be brought in, kill off a few things and burn a few bridges before new things can be introduced.

[Vick]

I guess I will try to throw my two cents into this thread…

So I have to agree about not adding new cities when we have (at this time) 21 closed off from the looks of it. I don’t think adding a new city would help but I could be wrong on that.

As to make it more unique I would love to see city plots impacting other cities somehow. As If you do something in Sunberth even if it is big to you it’s not really going to make waves in any other city. They just feel closed off little sandboxes of wonder.

The Djed storm back in 2012 felt like it gave some sort of connection it seemed as people still talk about it in chat today. Granted most of it are buildings and shops still being closed but I am sure players could rebuild them IC again.

As for any new magic I am a bit iffy on that idea myself. We do have 4 lost magic forms that are now in game but I don’t see much of them going into a wide spread. Granted I would not be sure if I would want Vick to learn a new magic out of fear what it would do to him. Guess it was one of the reasons I always wanted “Magic and I” to be fleshed out to show the dangers of it.

I recall a few plots trying to be made by players and gods but I can’t recall what took place with them. I have to say I enjoy city/Domain quest ideas for people who like to quest and maybe they can have more of an impact down the road as long as it was not a nightmare to figure out.

I am sure I will come up with more thoughts on this topic and after reading this I feel like I did not make a solid point.

[Gossamer]

I'm glad you like some things and dislike other things. City plots impacting other cities would have to be HUGE because cities are so incredibly far apart. I did most of the work for the huge djed storm of 512 and it was a huge pain in the ass to organize. I'm not inclined to organize something like that again. It was a lot of effort for a relatively low impact unless you count the destruction of one city, which was already pre-planned.

I like new things in the game. I tend not to look at it as to how it impacts my pc but how it impacts the game as a whole.

Magic and I isn't my article. I would not presume to add to it.

[Pulren Marsh]

I love the Gods interacting, even if it is terrible for PCs. I think lots of times the PCs get so deep into the personal plots of their own world or the cities around them. They forget about how the Gods can get involved and just move you around like they did in the old Clash of the Titans movie. Mizahar is in its state due to Gods telling mortals too bad and putting them in check. Spring 512 is an iconic memory for the world because of the world rending chaos that occurs when the Gods step in. Ask the refugees in the Denvali quarter of Zeltiva.

[Izuyanai]

Just my thoughts on the subject. I really enjoy my time in this community and I hope our efforts can do something about Miz.

While adding more and more new things might be exciting initially, I think we might end up back where we started after the newness has worn off. Perhaps we should develop one of the old ones or open up some of the more dusty domains.

But what I really think would be interesting is adding agendas. What I mean is the clashing interests of various factions, cities, gods and the like. I know gods all have their ideals, but not a lot has been specified as far as I know. It feels to me that they're off doing things on their own and sometimes drop in on the PC. While no god would blatantly reveal their agendas to anyone, they could confide in some followers or a specific city. A city might not wage war but could get actively involved in trade or be interested in expanding borders, gaining more resources. I think if these things were specified in lore and if there were moderated threads on them, it would provide a lot of motivation and interesting interactions.

Hopefully that made sense. The plot doesn't have to be world wide. It can be contained to a single city and that agenda is unique within it.

[Azira]

Okay so I've given this quite a bit of thought so I think I'll add my thoughts on the matter. Adding new things is all well and good but Izuyanai has a point in that they're a novelty and so can become less interesting as time wears on. This talk of opening old domains perhaps is a little premature. They need to be staffed but perhaps doing some work on active cities might inspire some people to volunteer once they realise what they can do.

The important thing about the domains is that despite having similarities, they all have unique concepts. I understand how frustrating it must be to have so many OOC elements of Riverfall adopted across the game, Gossamer, but they were excellent and more importantly, they're only OOC elements. I think the uniqueness has to come from IC elements. Now obviously I can only provide my thoughts on domains I'm familiar with and those are mainly ones that I've RPed in. So say you compare Wind Reach (I'm aware that it's closed) and Lhavit. They're both in the same region but they have totally different cultures, their population demographics are quite different and they have very different mindsets. Fighting is common in Wind Reach and highly discouraged in Lhavit. They both have animals that they revere and have symbiotic relationships with, but they're still quite different from one another. They've both got very different mind sets, with WR very interested in things that ensure survival or that can be useful to trade for supplies. You've more room to manoeuvre in Lhavit however.

So there are differences, unique aspects that each city has but I don't feel that they're exploited enough. Now don't get me wrong, Bee and Elysium are doing a good job with Lhavit, but I feel that certain things could be dragged to the forefront. I agree with your idea of it being player-driven, Gossamer, and quite honestly, I was half-tempted to make another alt to go to Riverfall because the plot seems terribly exciting altogether. It reminded me that there are in fact godlings in Lhavit who could probably be utilised more as well as a pair of Eth in charge. From what I understand, the city actually had slavery in its recent history and I feel like that should haunt the city more than it does because the past doesn't go away so quickly.

There is trade between some domains so there isn't complete isolation from one another. I feel that some news would travel. Maybe something happens in Syliras and word reaches Sunberth but gets completely twisted. Maybe a gang decide to use the rumour to their advantage in some way, say that Syliran knights are infiltrating and trying to bring order to the city because such and such a thing happened in Syliras. They offer protection for a price. I imagine it would descend in to in-fighting and the Knights would be forgotten but I could see wild rumours starting up, people seeing giant knights who can kill criminals by looking at them. It could lead to an extreme anti-magic sentiment and start something crazy like witch trials. Some people will take advantage of it, others will move underground, some will be wrongfully accused and murdered or tortured. Like the same news might reach Nyka but be received in a totally different way because it's a different culture all together.

It's only an idea but perhaps it might help illustrate my point. I did definitely have a point but how well I've made it, I don't know. This is why I shouldn't write on mobile or get overexcited about things.