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Events

One of the hallmarks of MUDs is the ability to run large scale events and having player bases take different courses of action in response. In this, it is a sandbox with a lot of potential. 

Starmourn, since launch, has been remarkably devoid of events. We have had the gang wars in SH and thats about it. 

We likely need many such events that involve collaboration and competition between the different factions. This will also likely provide avenues for combat and gradually establish lore. Give rise to heroes and villains. 

I understand the need to develop game mechanics and consumable items but I feel that the game is in a stable place to organize and host some events which truly test the boundaries of universe wide events. 


Comments

  • Please contact your local storyteller today, especially if you have any ideas. That's why they're there.

    Unless you're Celestine. RIP.

    Also, don't uh... don't discount the large scale events we have had. Tranquility Deepness was really cool, as was the Ry'nari thing in Song. Vega got kidnapped! 
  • Nykara's right. There were multiple events: each new area opening came with one and there were also smaller faction-related things. Just because you weren't there doesn't mean they didn't happen.
  • Over the weekend, Steve got roped into someone's storyteller event, and then was himself at the center of another storyteller event. So, I second Nykara's comment: contact your local storyteller today (and Please Hold, CA members).

    While not large scale, a number of players are involved and affected by these small-scale events. I believe more large-scale events will come once the staff has gotten through work on several key things on the road map.
  • edited September 2019
    Cubey said:
    Nykara's right. There were multiple events: each new area opening came with one and there were also smaller faction-related things. Just because you weren't there doesn't mean they didn't happen.
    That kind of is the point. That large scale events should be long enough for people to join in and make an impact over a period of time. Each of the release events were fleeting. Also, there was no faction specific conflict around any one of them. 

    I come from Imperian and over the years there have been many events that have shaped the experience there. Be it Year of Nightmares or Saving your city from extinction. 

    Granted Starmourn is less than a year old but that is the kind of event I’m talking about. 
  • The Staff agrees that we need more events in game and we're working on bringing some to SM now that things are doing well in the mechanics department. I know @Eukelade and Her Storytellers are hard at work right now on some very interesting things.

    And, as it has been mentioned before, for smaller scale (and not only) RP events, please reach out to your Storytellers.
  • inb4 assassination of the nusriza queen >:)
    Mereas Eyrlock
    "They're excited, but poor."
    - Ilyos (August 2019)
  • edited September 2019
    Idk. Over the past few weeks my character helped ignite a revolution, examined tasteful hats, and forced a war criminal to sell noodles.

    In my experience the staff is very keen on responding to, and running with, player driven RP. Sure, more world events would be cool. But if you're not getting any RP at all, maybe you're just not RPing enough. Most or all of the above was player-initiated and picked up by the STs.
  • @Kirin I've written a guide which may be helpful to you while the Storytellers cook up some world events.

    https://forums.starmourn.com/discussion/1044/notice-me-senpai-a-guide-to-getting-storyteller-admin-rp#latest

    As an aside, I am very nervous about any world events that "force" interfactional confrontation. I am very okay with it unfolding naturally, but I think events that have a "Which Player Faction Will Win??" vibe end up causing people to engage with the event in a manner more akin to a sportsball match than an RP session.
  • @Flipilaria If you are not getting any RP at all, maybe you are not just RP'ing enough is an unnecessarily elitist response especially when there are people who have been soldiering on without the getting the attention in the sense you get for a very long time.

    Storytellers are voluntary people and they can be considered like any other players being here to have fun. Naturally their attention will be uneven across the people. And it will be uneven across the factions even.

    For example, currently we cannot even break open the cage of an Eckin for ages in CA. No amount of RP revolving around that saying "We are investigating this and will find culprits this way and that way" will magically resolve this event in a meaningful and memorable way. Of course we can ask admin to remove the NPC and then prematurely end the storyline as usual. This pretty much happened to a few other storylines in CA where they were initiated players (i.e takeover of RedemeerCorps and Dark Triad Quantifiables trying to butt in), some storytelling happened but everything comes to a halt abrubtly when we are left alone. So that is where people such as me contact higher ups to prematurely conclude them and move on. 

    Admins give us a shoulder yes and I am grateful for that. So my criticism is not towards admins but the wrong thought that lack of Admin attention is because of players not RPing enough. It is cool you are having a blast enough to write a guide. But at least look from different angles as well instead of climbing a high pedestal and holding players responsible. Admin attention is not a mechanical thing like PvP or ingame economy where we can put down numbers and disprove each other. 
  • edited September 2019
    @Zhulkarn my tone aside (which I'll admit, was snarkier than I perhaps intended), I stand by my point. Even without a CA storyteller, cross-factional RP is relatively easy to get into. I've done plenty of Song RP since returning to Scatter, and I did plenty of Scatter RP when I was in Song. I'm looking forward to cross-factional CA RP once CA's storyteller finishes training.

    Not having a ST for CA sucks. I agree. But I also know CA folk who are absolutely getting admin interaction right now. It's very doable.

    I'm also loathe to endorse the idea that it's not actually RP until NPCs are involved, or that giant world events are the only way to have that involvement.

    Tldr, I stand by my premise but apologize for the snark.
  • I just want to apologise to CA folks. I do exist and I'm still around regularly, I have been struggling to find the right way to move ahead with things, and that's why we were looking for a new Storyteller for you guys! Don't give up hope.
  • Tallulah said:
    I just want to apologise to CA folks. I do exist and I'm still around regularly, I have been struggling to find the right way to move ahead with things, and that's why we were looking for a new Storyteller for you guys! Don't give up hope.
    No worries on that department, I did not mean to give those examples to blame! It can be extremely daunting to pick up the things of others and trying to wrap up in a decent way. Since every people possess a different style.

    I simply wanted to point out that there is no correlation between doing enough RP and Admin attention to @Flipilaria
  • edited September 2019
    @Kirin I've written a guide which may be helpful to you while the Storytellers cook up some world events.

    https://forums.starmourn.com/discussion/1044/notice-me-senpai-a-guide-to-getting-storyteller-admin-rp#latest

    As an aside, I am very nervous about any world events that "force" interfactional confrontation. I am very okay with it unfolding naturally, but I think events that have a "Which Player Faction Will Win??" vibe end up causing people to engage with the event in a manner more akin to a sportsball match than an RP session.
    Very kind of you to put together a guide. I’m not sure if your idea is to belittle me or a genuine attitude to help.

    I think you are mistaken in thinking that lack of events means lack of RP opportunities. There are plenty of those around both player driven and storyteller driven. 

    Your definition of an event and mine are different. While you are satisfied with interacting with people and sharing small stories. I want broader world scale events. Events that mean strife and shared victories and losses. Common enemies and friends. Things that people talk about for ages. We are entitled to our differences. And while you choose to be snarky about it, I say I am entitled to my opinion. The idea is to create common stories that every one can talk about across generations.

    I also believe that the faction system exists to create conflict. there is little point in having a faction system if everyone could simply live in an eternal state of peace. In Starmourn unfortunately things are kind of like that. and in such cases, it becomes both player and admin responsibility to create arcs that lead to more conflict and more interactions.




  • edited September 2019
    My intent is to help. I, again, apologize for my snark - I was running on about 4 hours of sleep when I wrote my original post.

    As for events and what the faction system represents, you and I disagree entirely. Most of my mudding experience has been in heavily conflict-driven IREs. I spent probably 5-6 years as an Eleusian in Achaea, another 3-4 years in various orgs in Lusternia, and I played Midkemia (arguably a mud that was entirely driven by conflict) from day one to close.

    This conflict RP worked because, in all of the above, each org represented a specific spot on a morality chart. They were manufactured that way. Starmourn is less so. Scatterhome loosely stands for freedom and anarchy, Song is heavily militaristic, and Celestine is late-stage capitalism. That's a basic fact. But none of these aspects necessitate or even imply a hard "we should go to war" response.


    This, compared to Achaea (as an example) where a conflict between Shallam (The late city of light) and Mhaldor (the city of evil) made a lot of sense. Forcing conflict between the Starmourn factions is a bit like saying "Okay, lets put the USA, France, and Russia all to war because why not?" It's possible (especially in today's geopolitical politics) that a war could unfold between these countries, but if we placed them in a fantasy game and send them to war just because, it wouldn't make much sense, and justifying it because "these countries are kinda different from each other" is a flimsy excuse at best.

    As I've stated above, roleplay that naturally leads to conflict is fine. But I strongly object to the Storytelling Team railroading the factions into conflict, especially coming from MKO, where railroaded conflict was a driving force behind the inter-org out-of-game hostility, which in turn was a driving force behind MKO's shutting down.

    Big world events are cool though. Let's see an invasion or something. We have lots of bad guys for it. I don't think events need to be limited to world-shattering blockbuster events, but I'm happy to have them.


  • This, compared to Achaea (as an example) where a conflict between Shallam (The late city of light) and Mhaldor (the city of evil) made a lot of sense. Forcing conflict between the Starmourn factions is a bit like saying "Okay, lets put the USA, France, and Russia all to war because why not?" It's possible (especially in today's geopolitical politics) that a war could unfold between these countries, but if we placed them in a fantasy game and send them to war just because, it wouldn't make much sense, and justifying it because "these countries are kinda different from each other" is a flimsy excuse at best.
    About that... The Song Dominion and CA have very tumultuous recent history. Song only assassinated the Angel very shortly before the game opened. 
  • edited September 2019
    Nykara said:
    About that... The Song Dominion and CA have very tumultuous recent history. Song only assassinated the Angel very shortly before the game opened. 
    It's "very shortly" only if you look at things from the usual IRE perspective of a hundred years being nothing. It's like saying WW2 is recent history IRL - possibly true from a historian's perspective, but most people definitely don't perceive it like that.
  • edited September 2019
    Cubey said:
    Nykara said:
    About that... The Song Dominion and CA have very tumultuous recent history. Song only assassinated the Angel very shortly before the game opened. 
    It's "very shortly" only if you look at things from the usual IRE perspective of a hundred years being nothing. It's like saying WW2 is recent history IRL - possibly true from a historian's perspective, but most people definitely don't perceive it like that.
    Yes, but we are in a game with people who keep themselves alive for a few centuries at a time. Some Decheerans' lifespans include the decimation of Planet Song, so...

    eta: natural lifespans, not counting artificial rejuv extensions.
  • This conflict RP worked because, in all of the above, each org represented a specific spot on a morality chart. They were manufactured that way. Starmourn is less so. 
    ...
    ...
    This, compared to Achaea (as an example) where a conflict between Shallam (The late city of light) and Mhaldor (the city of evil) made a lot of sense. Forcing conflict between the Starmourn factions is a bit like saying "Okay, lets put the USA, France, and Russia all to war because why not?" 
    I think that means there is even more opportunity for large scale faction conflict/war. It means that each time it occurs during the lifespan of the game, it can be for entirely different reasons. Reasons that define the event beyond yet another "oh look, the evil guys want to destroy the world, again" or "oh look, the zealots want to purge the world of evil, again".

    Yes, dynamic is better. I'm not suggesting a heavily scripted event intro, translatable to "You hate each other, go fight, we'll check back in next week and announce a winner".

    But certainly, a dev/event team can introduce events that they know will devolve into war if they want to. A bit of imagination behind an interesting story/event, and player reaction is usually (albeit not always) predictable. And even then, the unpredicted outcomes often make for an even better, more interesting event.
  • Nykara said:
    Cubey said:
    Nykara said:
    About that... The Song Dominion and CA have very tumultuous recent history. Song only assassinated the Angel very shortly before the game opened. 
    It's "very shortly" only if you look at things from the usual IRE perspective of a hundred years being nothing. It's like saying WW2 is recent history IRL - possibly true from a historian's perspective, but most people definitely don't perceive it like that.
    Yes, but we are in a game with people who keep themselves alive for a few centuries at a time. Some Decheerans' lifespans include the decimation of Planet Song, so...

    eta: natural lifespans, not counting artificial rejuv extensions.
    Yeah, looking at dates on the wiki, it's closer to the 60's being recent history and pretty comfortably within the natural lifetimes of the older to middle generations of most races at a glance.
    Avatar by berserkerelf!
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