Let's Bring Life to the World

[Uyoku]

Hello everyone!

I wanted to take a moment to get the opinions of our players to better serve you in my role as event staff and to really make this game fun for everyone. With that in mind I have a question for all of you.

When playing a MUD or RPG, what is it that really makes that world feel real to you and not just a virtual playground? What would make the lost lands seem more like a real place where people live out their lives?

I'd like to get some opinions and ideas from everyone so that I can really help to breathe life into CLOK and make it seem more realistic and not just a game. I want to provide some small events that will help your characters grow and provide not only some entertainment, but also something to talk about with other players in character.

I cannot promise that any particular scene or situation proposed in this thread will be carried out, but please feel free to share your thoughts as vague or as detailed as you like.

I look forward to continuing to provide you all with some fun and interesting things.

[merin]

just drop in on us from time to time. if we're hanging out in keth or shadgard, bring an npc and hang out with us or sabotage it or something.

It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, but, it's nice to have small things happen out of the ordinary as it is to have big, neat things too.

[sona]

Can be a bit of a tough question to answer, but I find that being able to tap GMs to animate various NPCs (after having NPC mailed them and waited for a response) is helpful. I also enjoy being able to improve upon and better/create things - sometimes that might be working on donations for a people, group of people, NPCs, or organization. Maybe it's working towards beautifying a place in the wilderness.

To me, the above things are examples of ways I like to engage with the world itself, to make it more visceral. Making a connection between places in game, and NPCs, who we sometimes fall into a habit of not thinking of as 'people', is really important. I still really value player interaction and try and involve that where possible as well though.

[preiman]

didn't post my first thought because it's right above me more or less, but yeah, seeing NPCs do things, stop and chat, walk into or out of a shop. argue with eachother, little things goes a long way to making something feel real for me.

[blindndangerous]

Agree with posts 2 and 4. They pretty much hit it right on the head for me.

[Rias]

but I find that being able to tap GMs to animate various NPCs (after having NPC mailed them and waited for a response) is helpful.

I enjoy doing this type of thing (as well as jumping in as an NPC on my own just for fun), but just keep in mind that certain high-profile NPCs are restricted by guruship. If someone asks to talk to a Tse Gaiyan leader like Jacob, I'm not going to be able to handle that, because I'm not the guru, and I don't know how the Tse Gaiyan leader would speak and act, let alone the fact that I'm not going to be privy to the information that the PC is likely going to want to talk to a high-profile guild leader about if I'm not the one running that guild.

I also enjoy being able to improve upon and better/create things - sometimes that might be working on donations for a people, group of people, NPCs, or organization. Maybe it's working towards beautifying a place in the wilderness.

This stuff is super fun to do, and people (myself included) love seeing that they've made an actual difference in the world. One thing we ask people to be tolerant of, however, is that sometimes we don't want to do things, in order to preserve the feel of something. More than a few people have wanted to donate to, or personally fix up, the church in Mistral Lake - but the point of having that run-down church there in the first place was to easily communicate to people "Oh, the Church must not be very big or well-received in these parts". If we let people donate zillions of riln and turn the place into a big beautiful building with fancy stained glass everywhere and tall spires and whatnot, that feeling that was deemed integral to the area is now lost.

Please note that the above isn't meant to be a general discouragement. Areas have been cleaned up, renovated, razed, built, and so on over CLOK's history, and it's been great to see and fun to let players make their mark on the world. There are just sometimes cases where, while we understand peoples' desire to change things, we'd prefer to keep them as they are.

[sona]

re: not wanting to change/alter, I appreciate that for certain areas and the only thing I'd really appreciate is a gentle tap or message, saying "hey, we'd really like to keep this as is. So you won't get much traction on this one, sorry. Please proceed to your next plan, which I've heard is titled, "S-Alpha-Bravo-Romeo-12" Or "Sona's Ancient Beautification and Research Project 12".

[Sneaky]

The lost landis suppose to be full of treturous creatures and people who would slit your throat if if it meant they got a meal that night, but there's not a whole lot of things in game to back this up. There's ebon pass and brittle branch, but those places can be avoided easily enough, so one thing I'd love to see more of are bandits on the road who actually did bandity type stuff. I know infested npc's can block off exits, so maybe have a bandit block off an exit on the road and start harassing people for money, or something else entirely to show that dangers and dangerous people are the norm and not the opposite.

[Kunren]

I'd personally like to see a few random events where npcs hire a random mercenary or two now and again. Maybe that rich snob of a kid has more money than sense and hires a bodyguard to go show off in a dangerous part of town, or something else along those lines. also, I feel like the world in general could be more... Gritty. I will try to explain that better when I have more time.

[Kunren]

Aaand now that I have more time, to talk about what I meant by "Gritty". What I mean to say is, I'd like to see more darker and edgier stuff. Beggars in the street, perhaps because they are old or perhaps crippled, maybe have the extra loveliness of dying when not given food or riln after a long enough time. I'd like pretty much any town to have slums somewhere, the poor, crime infested area with seedy taverns that sell swill dirt cheap (which is what the floor would likely be), and ramshackle huts filled with the poor and desperate. Shadgard has some good parts that I've seen this way, shady back alleys and a seedy tavern or so. I'd love to see Gambling dens, illegal human trading rings, smugglers and drug traffickers.

I'd like to see patrolmen getting beggars out of the way violently, maybe hiring mercenaries to help along in Haiban, rich merchants buying a rare hyra slave for his whims just because he can, public floggings and other punishments for people who have earned them or not (most of which could be npcs though a PC joining in likely wouldn't be seen as unusual if they'd earned it).

I'd love to see as much of this sort of thing as possible, especially if we are looking for realism.

P.S. Welcome Uyoku!

[preiman]

I love that that's what you consider realism, here's what i call realism, considering the setting, yeah some of that is going to be there, but it's not going to be this incredasad world, you have people like the church of light, who would stamp down on a lot of that really quick, fighting forces who will pay and feed anyone capable of holding a sword, and other groups who make it their mission to feed and take care of those who dont. i the lost lands isn't so overpopulated that that kind of horror is realistic, on any real scale, even if the above things weren't true, when the population is small, life tends to matter more.

[Kunren]

I love that that's what you consider realism, here's what i call realism, considering the setting, yeah some of that is going to be there, but it's not going to be this incredasad world, you have people like the church of light, who would stamp down on a lot of that really quick, fighting forces who will pay and feed anyone capable of holding a sword, and other groups who make it their mission to feed and take care of those who dont. i the lost lands isn't so overpopulated that that kind of horror is realistic, on any real scale, even if the above things weren't true, when the population is small, life tends to matter more.

I don't know, I'd think limb loss and disease would be a fair epidemic in many places with a reliance on monks for most extreme wounds, though I'm sure the church would do their best to take the edge off the unfortunate. yay rp opportunities! Fighting forces will certainly pay anyone with a hand to hold a sword, but the lost lands are pure very, very quick death for most. I can easily see someone trying to take their chances with a town and being poor than fighting the monsters of the lands. It's true that people are gonna be fairly tight knit, since they have several common enemies to fight, but I can see this kinda thing happening pretty much anywhere people gather. Some truly evil people might just not care what harm they are causing to the already delicate population of people as long as they can turn a profit.

[blindndangerous]

If I remember right, we did have a some one blocking off the entrance to mistral one day, (which sparked a whole event) if I remember right, he nearly got his face burnt to a crisp by an Elomancer. That was a lot of fun that day.

[devinprater]

I can think of a few things. First of all, have NPC's that you could do stuff for, to get either a little training, a favor, or riln. And no, iPhone, riln is not misspelled, lol. Say that woman with a porter carrying her house of stuff. The porter could stop and ask for a little help. You can "accept", then "join porter" And drop the items where the woman desires them to be. In the wilderness, you could find a lost townsmen that could protect you in battle, chop logs with you, or help you forage, all for either some of the gain, or the way home. I just don't think pc's have to make all the fun themselves, and work on the AI should help a lot. Also townsfolk should, then, have skills that can be raised, like the forager-helper or whatever npc you come across in the wildlands.