CLOK BBS

...and all the men and women merely players.

I want to start by saying that CLOK is really impressive on a lot of levels. It's very gratifying to play certain guilds and the overall mechanics are a lot of fun. The crafting is pretty slick from what I've seen and there's a lot of great energy from most of the players.

That being said, I do have some beefs, and I've been trying to think of how to get the point across, and this is the best way I've been able to figure it:

If CLOK is a stage, we, the players, are the actors. Guilds are the roles we take and the costumes we wear, and abilities are the props we use.

I feel like Wyrvardn are given a rusty old trash can lid and told to pretend it's a shield, while Draedn Wyr are given live steel. Wyrvardn are then told to go and pretend they're bold and courageous, but the audience and the other actors are snickering behind their hands, and the Wyrvardn knows they look like a complete idiot.

Then you have the monk, who was told that they were going to be the star of the show, but only if the rehearsed REALLY REALLY hard. Little do they know, they're actually just the understudy, and there's no guarantee they're going to get to play their part at all. And what's even worse is that the play being performed is "West Side Story" but they were given the script to "The Tempest".

But at least they got a script. Warden of the Grove didn't even get that. He's going around asking to read other people's script, but he can't find his part anywhere.

And then there's poor Snowpine Lodge, crying in the corner, because he got cut from the cast. They did tell him he could pull the curtain at the end of the show, though.

When I have spoken about "rewarding RP guilds" I didn't mean directly rewarding them for RP. I'm talking about giving them the props to suit their role on stage. Could you imagine poor Hamlet without his skull, talking to his empty hand?

What I mean are things like this:

Monk (and maybe Snowpine) ability: Fasting - For the next bell, the character suffers no negative effects from hunger. Energy replenishes at 75% of normal rate until the character eats.

And why do you hate Wyrvardn so much? One ability and it's not even class specific? And worse, the Templars have access to 2 other abilities that use Protector's Vow as a pre-requisite, and Wyrvardn don't get access to those? Give them the props they need!

Designating some guilds as "RP guilds" is, in my opinion, a bad idea. All guilds should be RP guilds, or no guilds should be RP guilds. During a chat session today, someone pointed out that they choose their weapons for mechanical reasons, not RP ones. The thing is, people do the same thing with guilds and will continue to do so as long some guilds are so handicapped by mechanics that they cannot perform the role for which they've been cast.

Finally, and I know this one is going to get the most hate, but it is a hill I will die on: Stop gatekeeping. Just stop it. It's ugly. Everyone deserves ready access to every guild, and they deserve the consequences if they fail to live up to the expectations of that guild, ICly.

Finally, before you go assuming I hate RP, go ask around about me in game, and see what people think of my RP ability Ask about my rhyming mummer, or my hillbilly farmer who wants to join the Wardens of the Grove. Ask about my Elemancer who was one half of a pair of twins.

Or better yet, try to RP with me, before you judge me. Maybe you'll see that what I'm saying I do because I love RP, not hate it.

I will say this, in regard to closed guilds:

If you want to keep them, make it into a positive experience. Allow people to apply for initiation code-wise, and then have the code tell players of that guild that such and such player is interested, and encourage those players to guide the aspirant into join. Make applicant Templars be squires, and applicant monks be acolytes. Applicant Rooks could be research assistants. There's lots of ways to do this that aren't completely restrictive.

My script said there was a bomb on that bus. But they left the part out where Keanu says, "I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on tense experiences never work."

Now I have purple tongue (and there's a dead kid).