Author Topic: Sint selling out  (Read 20494 times)

Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #30: December 06, 2011, 04:58:12 AM »
Sint might fight along human this time who knows. I doubt daimons will just let them ally with them after they betrayed them during the end of the last invasion.

Thank plot inconsistencies, the trademark of the invasions, for that!

The current daimons don't act and speak like the ones from before. Odds are, they don't care what you did to the last daimons.
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De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #31: December 06, 2011, 05:22:57 AM »
Perhaps the Diamon leaders come from a super competitive cultural that frankly doesn't care that much about those that have previously failed. Its not like humans disregard what should be learnt knowledge for example how many major offensives in World War 1 were NEVER going to work, something they should have worked out the last 3 times they tried to breach that certain part of the line and failed. All because a being is capable of learning from previous experience, doesn't mean they will.
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Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #32: December 06, 2011, 05:26:44 AM »
Perhaps the Diamon leaders come from a super competitive cultural that frankly doesn't care that much about those that have previously failed. Its not like humans disregard what should be learnt knowledge for example how many major offensives in World War 1 were NEVER going to work, something they should have worked out the last 3 times they tried to breach that certain part of the line and failed. All because a being is capable of learning from previous experience, doesn't mean they will.

Well, daimons always did RP as being a lot more united than we were.

So did the undead. And you'd tend to actually believe those, because of the whole undying loyalty and eternal unlife things. Doesn't matter.

GMs change, and with them the invaders they lead, which inevitably creates fallacies between existing and new lore.

You could always just assume that the old ones lied, and that's why there are discrepancies. I tend to favor just ignoring these things IG because I know the cause to be OOC, and trying to "discover" the reasons for these never actually led to anywhere IC.
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De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #33: December 06, 2011, 05:34:01 AM »
Well, daimons always did RP as being a lot more united than we were.

So did the undead. And you'd tend to actually believe those, because of the whole undying loyalty and eternal unlife things. Doesn't matter.

GMs change, and with them the invaders they lead, which inevitably creates fallacies between existing and new lore.

You could always just assume that the old ones lied, and that's why there are discrepancies. I tend to favor just ignoring these things IG because I know the cause to be OOC, and trying to "discover" the reasons for these never actually led to anywhere IC.

Or assume that the new ones are so arrogant they don't think they could repeat the lasts mistakes. I've never heard from the GM's that they intentionally or otherwise disregard the last invasions activities so I certainly don't KNOW it is because we get different GM's. I've never even heard it confirmed that the GM's change with every invasion.
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Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #34: December 06, 2011, 05:38:36 AM »
Or assume that the new ones are so arrogant they don't think they could repeat the lasts mistakes. I've never heard from the GM's that they intentionally or otherwise disregard the last invasions activities so I certainly don't KNOW it is because we get different GM's. I've never even heard it confirmed that the GM's change with every invasion.

They change more than once per invasion.

That doesn't mean that none of them ever return, though. It just means that this is the third invasion with daimons in it, and if I remember correctly more than 4 GMs played them. I can't quite remember how many, though. I've pretty much always been in contact with the daimons, so any changes were noticeable. Also consider that there were more than 1 on at least some occasions.

Players get bored after a while, after all, why wouldn't GMs? A lot of things can be quite frustrating for them too.
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De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #35: December 06, 2011, 05:41:20 AM »
They change more than once per invasion.

That doesn't mean that none of them ever return, though. It just means that this is the third invasion with daimons in it, and if I remember correctly more than 4 GMs played them. I can't quite remember how many, though. I've pretty much always been in contact with the daimons, so any changes were noticeable. Also consider that there were more than 1 on at least some occasions.

Players get bored after a while, after all, why wouldn't GMs? A lot of things can be quite frustrating for them too.

You mean like people whining about inconsistencies when they are giving up their free time to try and deliver an engaging story line? Yeah I can see how the constant pressure of unfulfilled player expectations might end up being quite frustrating.
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Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #36: December 06, 2011, 05:45:28 AM »
You mean like people whining about inconsistencies when they are giving up their free time to try and deliver an engaging story line? Yeah I can see how the constant pressure of unfulfilled player expectations might end up being quite frustrating.

Well, to be fair, a lot of these inconsistencies could have very easily been avoided. It's not like writing up a GM-only cole's note on invasion lore, as far as the invasions progress, is that complicated a task.

And some of the things that some of the GMs did now and then *were* unfair, and they were told out by Tom for it. Some had abused some of their powers.

Being a volunteer doesn't mean they should be exempt of criticism.
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De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #37: December 06, 2011, 06:04:57 AM »
Well, to be fair, a lot of these inconsistencies could have very easily been avoided. It's not like writing up a GM-only cole's note on invasion lore, as far as the invasions progress, is that complicated a task.

And some of the things that some of the GMs did now and then *were* unfair, and they were told out by Tom for it. Some had abused some of their powers.

Being a volunteer doesn't mean they should be exempt of criticism.

Its not like writing nicely commented and documented code is a complicated task, when done at the start of the project, yet very few open source projects manage it. Its not about the complication it is about the time, you have to get the time from somewhere and the people that have the info to do so also have other BM demands on their time, as well as RL.

Constructive criticism is always a welcome thing.
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Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #38: December 06, 2011, 06:29:31 AM »
Its not like writing nicely commented and documented code is a complicated task, when done at the start of the project, yet very few open source projects manage it. Its not about the complication it is about the time, you have to get the time from somewhere and the people that have the info to do so also have other BM demands on their time, as well as RL.

Constructive criticism is always a welcome thing.

Of course, there's no way to get back the lore of the people that preceded whoever's in place now, but I made such a suggestion long ago, and while I might be wrong, it does not appear it was ever followed. Personally, I think that if it delayed NPC responses a little, it'd still be worth it. Though I was always in favor of there being more than 1 GM per faction to share the duties and responsibilities anyways.
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De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #39: December 06, 2011, 06:59:51 AM »
Of course, there's no way to get back the lore of the people that preceded whoever's in place now, but I made such a suggestion long ago, and while I might be wrong, it does not appear it was ever followed. Personally, I think that if it delayed NPC responses a little, it'd still be worth it. Though I was always in favor of there being more than 1 GM per faction to share the duties and responsibilities anyways.

More GM's mean a greater need for communication between the GM's which is just another time sink. From what I've seen if the GM's were required to keep crib notes, and also to constantly refer to previous crib notes they would miss more interaction then they already do. Without knowing how much time the average GM has to dedicate to these duties, it is impossible to really say if the extra house keeping would be a burden or not, but from my observations with the monsters in the last invasion, I think it could well be.
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Tom

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #40: December 06, 2011, 12:37:46 PM »
Internal consistency has always been more important to me than perfect harmony with previous invasions.

If you see a return character, you can count on him being the same. But if you see different NPC characters then before, you should assume they are different "people" and may well think and act differently. If you need IC reasons, we can sure make some up. Or you can.

We try to not break the storyline with the previous invasions entirely. So if you care about it, for example, there is a reason why all the blighted regions belong the Daimons now, irrespective of who had them when the last invasion ended. The reason can be found out. It may be important, or it may just be background fluff.

What is important is that we don't just make up stuff. Well, occasionally we do, like when the roleplays get into an area we hadn't prepared. But in general, things have reasons and those who interact with the invaders and in general try to find out what's going on fare better than those who grab their sword and go for it. Though sometimes "fare better" only means knowing why you die.

Our invasions also tend to have "themes". I remember the one (the 2nd?) invasion that had a bit of a silly theme and among other things we had an army of 20,000 frogs somewhere in there.
The 4th invasion had a theme of trust and betrayl, and I see that it worked so well that even with everyone yelling "invasion! invasion!", there is still no peace to be seen.


So yes, there are some inconsistencies, but there is also a lot more consistency than you give us credit for.

De-Legro

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #41: December 06, 2011, 12:47:15 PM »
Internal consistency has always been more important to me than perfect harmony with previous invasions.

If you see a return character, you can count on him being the same. But if you see different NPC characters then before, you should assume they are different "people" and may well think and act differently. If you need IC reasons, we can sure make some up. Or you can.

We try to not break the storyline with the previous invasions entirely. So if you care about it, for example, there is a reason why all the blighted regions belong the Daimons now, irrespective of who had them when the last invasion ended. The reason can be found out. It may be important, or it may just be background fluff.

What is important is that we don't just make up stuff. Well, occasionally we do, like when the roleplays get into an area we hadn't prepared. But in general, things have reasons and those who interact with the invaders and in general try to find out what's going on fare better than those who grab their sword and go for it. Though sometimes "fare better" only means knowing why you die.

Our invasions also tend to have "themes". I remember the one (the 2nd?) invasion that had a bit of a silly theme and among other things we had an army of 20,000 frogs somewhere in there.
The 4th invasion had a theme of trust and betrayl, and I see that it worked so well that even with everyone yelling "invasion! invasion!", there is still no peace to be seen.


So yes, there are some inconsistencies, but there is also a lot more consistency than you give us credit for.

Certainly more consistent the the policies of any Modern Political Party. I also question how much of the apparently inconsistencies stem from not having 100% of the information from the invasions. When you only know bits and pieces the human brain will tend to fill in the rest, and it is actually quite difficult to remain objective about those bits. Its supposed to be a survival trait, been some very interesting studies about it recently.
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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #42: December 06, 2011, 04:44:25 PM »
Faith. Hope in the last hours.

No really, I bet it's that.

Lorgan

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #43: December 06, 2011, 11:38:44 PM »
Our invasions also tend to have "themes". I remember the one (the 2nd?) invasion that had a bit of a silly theme and among other things we had an army of 20,000 frogs somewhere in there.

That was the first one. Still my favorite. I also remember vampire armies that supposedly enlarged their army by battles (don't know if that's true since I never fought them). What I liked so much about it is indeed the diversity in invaders and secondly that those invaders were being lead by heroes that could be killed. Nothing more rewarding than killing some bad-ass invader lord. :)

EDIT: The second one was when monster/undead hordes first started appearing across the continents I think, and they were HUGE on BT. :)
« Last Edit: December 06, 2011, 11:40:21 PM by Lorgan »

Chenier

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Re: Sint selling out
« Reply #44: December 07, 2011, 12:06:50 AM »
Internal consistency has always been more important to me than perfect harmony with previous invasions.

If you see a return character, you can count on him being the same. But if you see different NPC characters then before, you should assume they are different "people" and may well think and act differently. If you need IC reasons, we can sure make some up. Or you can.

We try to not break the storyline with the previous invasions entirely. So if you care about it, for example, there is a reason why all the blighted regions belong the Daimons now, irrespective of who had them when the last invasion ended. The reason can be found out. It may be important, or it may just be background fluff.

What is important is that we don't just make up stuff. Well, occasionally we do, like when the roleplays get into an area we hadn't prepared. But in general, things have reasons and those who interact with the invaders and in general try to find out what's going on fare better than those who grab their sword and go for it. Though sometimes "fare better" only means knowing why you die.

Our invasions also tend to have "themes". I remember the one (the 2nd?) invasion that had a bit of a silly theme and among other things we had an army of 20,000 frogs somewhere in there.
The 4th invasion had a theme of trust and betrayl, and I see that it worked so well that even with everyone yelling "invasion! invasion!", there is still no peace to be seen.


So yes, there are some inconsistencies, but there is also a lot more consistency than you give us credit for.

I can sound harsh, so I apologize. I already write too much on these forums, giving detailed explanations of my thoughts at all time would result in the writing of novels. I did not mean to say the invasions had no consistency.

There were a few big chunks that suffered in this regard, though, if I remember correctly. The daimons during the third invasion, I think it was, switched GMs a few times. Each time, it was as if you were speaking to an entirely new faction. That was intra-invasion.

As for inter-invasion, the link between the monsters of the third and the fourth was hard to establish, though one could say the monsters are varied anyways, and that this might be due to some missing knowledge. The link between the undead in the third and fourth invasion, however, seemed quite broken. The fourth invasion undead simply said "they were imposters", and left it at that. Again, maybe it's 'cause I'm missing key chunks of the lore, but undead beings that can summon thousands from the dead to fight again for them being called "imposters" didn't make much sense, as whoever they were, they clearly weren't kidding about having all that power. Melhed had also developed a lot of RP with the 3rd invasion undead, and I've heard them lament about how it had all turned into a blank slate. Summoner clearly had a lot of power over the undead, with his faction of the Necromancer's Servants, but obviously so did the fourth invasion's undead, so this break bothered me a bit.

Mind you, if it didn't reset in any way, then people that are doing their first invasion would be completely lost and would find it dull, so it's not a wholle bad thing either. But at the same time, it's less motivating to get involved, especially as the invasions near their ends, when you know what you do or say it likely won't matter next time anyways.

Overall, though, I think that the number of invasions has had a toll on the quality of their atmosphere. Regardless of what you say, people "have been through worse" and are convinced they just need to lay low for a while as the storm passes by. The third invasion was barely destructive, and the fourth was more or less localized in this regard. The ending of the last invasion also felt like a deus ex machina. Many (not I) are convinced that you wouldn't let BT fall.
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