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Recent discussions have flared up on how to deal with the decrease in activity and interest in Roleplay on Massive. We've sat down both with staff for top-down reviews, and then with players for bottoms-up reviews of current policies as well as long term goals. We've established a rough draft of things that are immediately planned and this thread lines a couple of them out:
- Regalia V5 construction is going ahead full speed instead of the slow pace of last weeks, We didn't know that the delays in implementation were actually causing so many people to just "wait until V5 is out" instead of making do with what was available right now. We're going to try to get the public build section done by this week, if not next, so that maybe we'll have V5 (surface level) done in 3 weeks, with Sewers following a week after fully functional.
- The Trustee System is being retired permanently. In theory, Trustee cuts down bureaucracy and allows for more centralized control on special permissions. At the same time, the permissions granted do not provide an equal standard, for example Silven would be granted a lot easier than Mage permissions. As such, the Trustee System is making way for the Permission Applications on a Character by Character basis.
- All limitations on multiple permissions are lifted, for example having more than one Silven or Mage. All Permissions will be treated on a character by character basis, and can be revoked on a character by character basis without making all characters no longer applicable.
- Before making an Application, any player can apply to be granted a perm for a character, or even multiple perms (for example a Silven Mage), and this will be uniquely decided upon by Lore Staff. These applications will be dealt with on a character by character basis instead of evaluating the whole person behind the character. This decision apparatus is also no longer a strict No-Yes voting procedure, but more of a "how is this player going to use this" debate, which should result in a fairer assessment beyond just "yeah we don't know you, so you're being rejected". (It will take some time to set this up)
- Current Magic Trustee Holders will have special Magic Schools custom made for them, which allows us to eliminate a lot of the gamey spell mechanics, and impart an aspect of mystery into magic. This should hopefully avoid everyone and their grandmother knowing what Kaitis means and how to immediately counter it. This also applies to all future Mage characters that are approved with a permission. (it will take a bit of time to convert them all and retire the old Magic)
- A form of non-Permission "Light-density Magic" will be implemented, which is a form of lesser powerful magic than the Trustees are capable of doing, but an aspect of Magic in its own right that allows for "Magic oriented roleplay" to non-Trustees who feel stuck not progressing but really want to do Magic. This means that some light form of Magic is usable even by people who don't have a Permission grant from Lore Staff, as long as they have an approved character application.
- The Anglian Mist Progression is maintaining in the lore, but the urgency is being reduced by allowing plot relevant characters to return very soon. This allows us the freedom to continue the Storywebs, which players have identified as being more plot relevant to them than some far-off event.
- More Storywebs will be developed for non-State loyal situations. Currently there exist only 3 pro-state Storywebs, but in the near future, we'll be looking into Crime, Void-Worship & Estel related Storywebs as well.
- Progressions that do not involve players one way or another are on their way out, purely because it seems most players treat these as a "huh cool, moving on" scenario, and it doesn't translate to effort put into roleplay.
- Current Storywebs will be rewritten soon to all be combined into a big tree to get rid of some of the latent meta gaming the system suffered, and to also accommodate the huge number of sign ups that will eventually be out of luck and excluded from the tree they wanted to be in.
- The Imperial Court is coming back with a minor re-shuffle of Nobility, The full disappearance of the Noble System as a server ran program caused some unintended side effects in terms of roadblocking a lot of players. While we certainly will not return to the days of free-registry for everyone, we are dropping the requirements for Trustees, and creating an easy trial-method for low level nobility that everyone can harmlessly try for a few weeks, or step out of if they feel it isn't for them.
- With the return of the Imperial Court, create more peripheral functions cause more system oriented title ranks and outside events moving ahead for increased variety.
- Staff members are going to try to grow group-communities by encouraging non-Military, non-Ailor, non-Unionist, non-Pro-State groups aside from the ongoing storyline. This doesn't necessarily mean that we're abandoning Ailor supremacy in the Empire, but rather that we're going to create an environment for example Urls, Yanar, Varran, Allar, Kathar, Velheimers, and more, to feel like they have a home where others of "their kind" are present, so they can be perceived as their own community, instead of just being "that Url guard" or "that Yanar Medic" who is a supporting role to a powerful Ailor character. You might for example see Dosier and MonMarty finally starting a legit Throng in Regalia, Jared picking up the Isldars again, Jonificus setting up the Old Gods "Synod" and reviving Velheimer cohesion, and more.
