Dragon Talk: Where Is The Stuff

[Conflee]

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Hello! This is going to be a bit rambly, going over my thoughts on the whole Dragon arc, and the many issues I feel exist at the moment, mainly the fact that nobody cares about a religious take over that's barely a take over. I'm not meaning this to sound like an arse but I'll go into things a bit more:

The beginning of this Arc was awesome. It was slightly undermined by the Skyrim Parody in my eyes, but overall it was still pretty fun, with the foreshadowing being better than it has in a while- being that it actually existed, and the dragon systematically taking out any points of resistance, destroying Fort Loyalty and then the Mercenary Keep, was fun and kept people on their toes. The guards fighting one another was also epic, made things seem dire. Friends fighting friends, brothers fighting brothers. However... its just. There has been nothing of interest in a month. Sure the Arken pop in and do things sometimes, but players really don't seem to give a crap. At all.

Part of the issue I think is how light the Dragon Song's effects are. Oh boy, you follow the dragon whoppie doppie. At the moment, due to the lack or any pros or cons to being under the Song verses not under the song, there is a huge disconnect between the Aloria presented in progressions verses the Aloria that exists in game. The real effect of the day to day are nonexistent. Its just been incredibly anticlimactic and dull.


Solutions? :

Make Dragon Songed individuals actually a threat to normalcy. Make the Religious side of Regalia give a crap, force them to act like they care and do something, anything public. Change it from "they keep their religious beliefs but thing dragons are cool too bro" to straight up forced worship. Being able to say "Im a unionist but the Dragon is the Spirit" should be the highest heresy, but nobody gives a crap.

To pull the point out of that I got in a ramble there: Make Dragon Worship an enforced aspect of being under the Song. That way characters are actively opposing Unionism and the State. And if players continue to not do anything about it, Dragon Worship wins. Force people to have to recognize, because they didn't care enough about progressions, things are stuck like this. Dont just hand wave it away because every time that happens players feel like they dont have to do anything they can just sit back and observe, and take a passive uninterested role.


Basically just make the groups fight, have the dragon blow up Black Tower. Enforce that whole bit about any guards reclaiming Black Tower would be met by Dragon Worshipers destroying them, since that went out the window basically instantly.

Everything is just way to casual and nonchalante to be taken as a serious threat I think.


Kind of... rambly. But, eh. Open discussion so yay.

 

[Conflee]

As a side note I have never been able to find out about or hear anything about any of these mini progression missions before they are posted as a Progression. It seems to be exclusively including characters in the Noble Scene, be they noble or work with or for nobles, etc. Might be nice to have something happen similarly thats geared towards bringing commoners and less 'relevant' RPers into things. Because at the moment its just a lot of random people I vaguely know doing stuff I vaguely think is cool. (The newest one was actually freaking awesome so no hate on it at all, I love the idea of having these mini missions again, but its really restricted feeling when you hear nothing about joining even being a thing offered to anyone)

 

[_Grimmy_]

Let me just point out that

A) This is how you take over an empire, the core mistake the deathlings made is create a bunch of violent outsiders in an ultranationalist city.

B) Dragon worship isn't heretical under current unionism.

C) The dragon and arkens can pop you out of existence by sighing.

 

[Moribundity]

Let me just point out that

A) This is how you take over an empire, the core mistake the deathlings made is create a bunch of violent outsiders in an ultranationalist city.

B) Dragon worship isn't heretical under current unionism.

C) The dragon and arkens can pop you out of existence by sighing.

Click to shrink...

Dragon worship comes under sort of a grey zone, especially since feathered dragons are symbolised in House Kade. You're allowed to worship dragons so long as you acknowledge they once served the imperial spirit. However, it is considered heresy is one considers dragons to be equal or above that of the imperial spirit.

As for point A, I agree, it's far more subtle and it's a far more effective way to take over an entire empire.

 

[Conflee]

Let me just point out that

A) This is how you take over an empire, the core mistake the deathlings made is create a bunch of violent outsiders in an ultranationalist city.

B) Dragon worship isn't heretical under current unionism.

C) The dragon and arkens can pop you out of existence by sighing.

Click to shrink...

Dragon worship comes under sort of a grey zone, especially since feathered dragons are symbolised in House Kade. You're allowed to worship dragons so long as you acknowledge they once served the imperial spirit. However, it is considered heresy is one considers dragons to be equal or above that of the imperial spirit.

As for point A, I agree, it's far more subtle and it's a far more effective way to take over an entire empire.

Click to shrink...

I understand that its a smarter approach in-universe but these end of the year events are mainly meant to serve the purpose of providing a nice chunk of... Im having a hard time wording this. They are meant to be a cool thing to do at the end of every year, and they are mainly meant to enthrall newish players. At least, thats whats been said in the past whenever I have brought up that I think the events are a bit repetitive-

Specifically this quote:

As for the repetitiveness: The average meantime for player loyalty is 3 months. Trying to come up with something new to bring up fresh planning to the table is really hard, which is why we often opt for the same action with a different thematic twist. The "Anahera Occupation" was not planned. That was Shayin just deciding to do something. The "Montagaarde Occupation" is not an Occupation at all, no matter how much people want to see it as such. Because the average player loyalty is 3 months, repetitiveness is not considered a problem. That is a problem however for players who stay here for years, who are outside of the norm. We try to appease them by changing the theme up, but when it concerns player input to progressions, they inevitably always end up with "DESTROY REGALIA" which is just not a progressive thought or rewarding for the countless hours put into actually creating both the universe and the city.

Click to shrink...

If the point of these end of the year Progressions are to appeal to the new players, then in my mind this series of Progressions has largely failed thus far (baring the amazing Fort Loyalty stuff, was cool), given the thing I said above about only players working for nobles or who are nobles / gov officials are really engaged. To everyone else the event might as well just be "There are some Arken you might be able to kill have fun plotting." and even then actually killing one is difficult since few people care enough to join any resistance groups.


So the point im getting at with all this is that even if In-Universe it makes more sense for the dragon to try a passive take over like this, OOCly its leading to the event being dull and uninteresting for new players and old players who arent in the right groups to know about the 'Missions' events. So the changes I suggested, making those under the Song active Dragon Worshipers by force rather than them just adapting the dragon into their own religion, and starting fights between the Songed and Normal people, would help I think.


Also I understand some of this has come about because of the laws making Dragon Songed basically protected, which while it happened ICly also essentially just put another barrier between players and the ability to do stuff. But that came about because of IC things so I wont harp on it much.

 

[_Grimmy_]

I understand that its a smarter approach in-universe but these end of the year events are mainly meant to serve the purpose of providing a nice chunk of... Im having a hard time wording this. They are meant to be a cool thing to do at the end of every year, and they are mainly meant to enthrall newish players. At least, thats whats been said in the past whenever I have brought up that I think the events are a bit repetitive-

Specifically this quote:


If the point of these end of the year Progressions are to appeal to the new players, then in my mind this series of Progressions has largely failed thus far (baring the amazing Fort Loyalty stuff, was cool), given the thing I said above about only players working for nobles or who are nobles / gov officials are really engaged. To everyone else the event might as well just be "There are some Arken you might be able to kill have fun plotting." and even then actually killing one is difficult since few people care enough to join any resistance groups.


So the point im getting at with all this is that even if In-Universe it makes more sense for the dragon to try a passive take over like this, OOCly its leading to the event being dull and uninteresting for new players and old players who arent in the right groups to know about the 'Missions' events. So the changes I suggested, making those under the Song active Dragon Worshipers by force rather than them just adapting the dragon into their own religion, and starting fights between the Songed and Normal people, would help I think.


Also I understand some of this has come about because of the laws making Dragon Songed basically protected, which while it happened ICly also essentially just put another barrier between players and the ability to do stuff. But that came about because of IC things so I wont harp on it much.

Click to shrink...

It's also like chapter 1 of act 1 sooo... Give it some time, the first event was just the little ''Then the fire nation attacked''

Also there's kind of the implication if we don't do anything dragons will be back in full force.

 

[InDogsWeTrust]

It's also like chapter 1 of act 1 sooo...

Click to shrink...

It's been that way for... months. I get it, progressions kinda happen when they happen and you're supposed to create your own roleplay in the meantime but that's hard. It's awesome and really satisfying when it happens, but it's hard to make happen.

I just kinda wish the dragon thing would heat up or blow over. We've had plenty of time for this whole... "atmosphere of paranoia" thing. Which never really happened because the government was super low key about the worshippers. I dunno.

Obviously, I'm not staff. I don't know what staff have planned or are planning. It's just my opinion that the dragon arc has been limited in opportunities for contribution and participation for me.

Not counting the incredible work of @Jouster and co., lel

UPDATES/EDITS:

Make the dragons do something. Please.

Help idiot noob players like me find a niche for participation. I've yet to come across any Arken outside an assembly where they were invisible whispers. So. Yeahhhh.

 

[Conflee]

Well, Post-Siege I have a lot more complaints. As a note I just woke up and ran into the siege as quick as I could and thus at the moment im tired and salty af. I figured the raw reaction was better for this though so here we go.

"There goes the only interesting thing happening well sh*t"

Thats all. XD

 

[CainsTedTalk]

Well, Post-Siege I have a lot more complaints. As a note I just woke up and ran into the siege as quick as I could and thus at the moment im tired and salty af. I figured the raw reaction was better for this though so here we go.

"There goes the only interesting thing happening well sh*t"

Thats all. XD

Click to shrink...

They didn't get everyone, there's still agents running around and two Arken remaining.

 

[Conflee]

They didn't get everyone, there's still agents running around and two Arken remaining.

Click to shrink...

True. Though the only real conflict generation was the guard v guard stuff, which flared up, was immediately doused by laws protecting dragon possessed being passed, and then finally the dragon songed guards do something dramatic and kidnap the guard whatever, only to literally immediately be snuffed out and reverted.

Very dull conclusion to the only active piece of the arc that was interactable in-game. Even if a few got out thats, well a few. Nothing. Drops in the ocean.

 

[CainsTedTalk]

True. Though the only real conflict generation was the guard v guard stuff, which flared up, was immediately doused by laws protecting dragon possessed being passed, and then finally the dragon songed guards do something dramatic and kidnap the guard whatever, only to literally immediately be snuffed out and reverted.

Very dull conclusion to the only active piece of the arc that was interactable in-game. Even if a few got out thats, well a few. Nothing. Drops in the ocean.

Click to shrink...

It being dull was mostly attributed to us, I don't mean to speak to everyone who was involved but we could have done better in scheming and planning from the cultist side.

 

[Conflee]

It being dull was mostly attributed to us, I don't mean to speak to everyone who was involved but we could have done better in scheming and planning from the cultist side.

Click to shrink...

I didn't mean it like that, I just felt like it kind of wrapped up really suddenly. There was build up, with the chaos and dragon, then a fight to get the Wodenstaff and Jared back and then suddenly woooosh good guy dragon just casually comes in and ends it all.

You guys did alright from what I saw, though I missed a lot.

 

[CainsTedTalk]

I meant in general.

 

[EndersGameboy]

I really am down with this, Conflee.

Ka-chow.