Character Rewrites With New Edition???

Fearless Leader said:
Celebolwa said:
I am in favor of a rewrite and here are my reasons why:.

YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN THE NEW RULES YET.

If they are hardly changing, why do you need a rewrite?

I would appreciate it if people wouldn't bitch until they actually have something to bitch about.


Well, I am- ahem "bitching"- as I have been waiting for a fix for my pc characters class for YEARS. Unable to spirit forge due to the rarity of the scroll,(due to a feeling it is "too video-gamey") I am stuck with the character and the skills I have until there is a rewrite. the skills I have taken have grown less and less like they started out.

I think the rest of my post explains why I am in favor of the rewrite. As far as "hardly changing", though I have not seen all of the "passed proposals" (and yes I know they could be overturned at the symposium) I have heard of some. Any change is still a change and I would have built my character completely differently had the rules been the way they are going to be. The wand change that has been posted numerous time now does make for a completely different way of building a caster. And finally seems to have fixed the Celestial caster class. However because I hav ea character 20+ levels in I cant use the same rules that a 1st level character can use. (I will not go into why I am not about to make another (5th) character of the same class as another. See my previous post for all of that...

As for "bitching", I am not upset with the rules (as you have stated I have not seen them yet) I am bitching about something that has not changed and does not seem to be changing. The way I, as a customer, am treated when I asking for things like this rewrite. This is not a silly gripe, or someone flaming the board with a post that spouts obsenities, or irrational arguments. I hardly think my previous post is unwarranted bitching.

All new characters will have access to these new rules and I will not. I am not asking for anything except what everyone will have access to, yet I am told I am bitching. Again I will state I have played this game for 8+ years sunk thousands into it and I feel that I shouldn't be mocked, or treated poorly because I want something that everyone will have access to.
 
I think that in most cases you can change classes without messing up your character concept. If someone has exactly the skills they want for their concept they don't need a rewrite but if they don't have the skills that ebst fit their concept for whatever reason then a forge (or rewrite or wheatever) gets them closer to what they envisioned.
chriso said:
I agree. Changes to characters should be based on who and what the character is and has been. Even if the changes are really nifty, I see no in-game reason (hey, it's a Role-playing game, right?) for a Fighter to suddenly become a Scholar, or an Artisan to suddenly be swinging Slays. I think staying within character concepts would be highly appropriate, while still allowing for minor alterations where necessary. (Note that last word.:)

ChrisO
 
Celebolwa, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to offer some friendly perspective. You're basis of argument is that you are a customer, who's been shopping at Alliance-Mart for years and years, buying stuff, and now you are mad because they're coming out with a new line and you want to be able to exchange across the board. Now let's say you bought a whole house worth of furniture at Target over the past eight years, and you find out this week that they are coming out with a whole new style of housewears that looks sweet. Would you really walk into the store and go up to the manager and say "Hey! If you'd shown me this model five years ago I TOTALLY would have decorated my house differently! I demand you let me exchange all of my house worth of furniture for exactly the same items but in a different style." What reaction would you expect from him?

Okay, it's not a direct correlation, I acknowledge that. What I think you, and many other people, do, is look at this game in the wrong way. When you come to a game, you're not paying for new skills and build, or phat lewt, you're paying for the opportunity to participate in a game that lasts for X number of hours during the course of the day/weekend, and as a member you are entitled to keep playing the same person who happens to progress as the game goes along (assuming you don't die). If you were paying for X amount of build/XP per event forever, then when people's 20th level character perm'd, they'd come in the next game with a different 20th level character, but they don't. That's just not the nature of the game. The nature of Alliance is ongoing enjoyment with like minded individuals that allows you to explore as many different aspects of the game as you want, just not all as the same build sink. That's why we're allowed (even encouraged) to play many different characters.

I think if you change the way you look at the game, and what you take away from it, you'll get a whole lot more enjoyment out of it down the road.
 
Maxondaerth said:
Celebolwa, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to offer some friendly perspective. You're basis of argument is that you are a customer, who's been shopping at Alliance-Mart for years and years, buying stuff, and now you are mad because they're coming out with a new line and you want to be able to exchange across the board. Now let's say you bought a whole house worth of furniture at Target over the past eight years, and you find out this week that they are coming out with a whole new style of housewears that looks sweet. Would you really walk into the store and go up to the manager and say "Hey! If you'd shown me this model five years ago I TOTALLY would have decorated my house differently! I demand you let me exchange all of my house worth of furniture for exactly the same items but in a different style." What reaction would you expect from him?

Okay, it's not a direct correlation, I acknowledge that. What I think you, and many other people, do, is look at this game in the wrong way. When you come to a game, you're not paying for new skills and build, or phat lewt, you're paying for the opportunity to participate in a game that lasts for X number of hours during the course of the day/weekend, and as a member you are entitled to keep playing the same person who happens to progress as the game goes along (assuming you don't die). If you were paying for X amount of build/XP per event forever, then when people's 20th level character perm'd, they'd come in the next game with a different 20th level character, but they don't. That's just not the nature of the game. The nature of Alliance is ongoing enjoyment with like minded individuals that allows you to explore as many different aspects of the game as you want, just not all as the same build sink. That's why we're allowed (even encouraged) to play many different characters.

I think if you change the way you look at the game, and what you take away from it, you'll get a whole lot more enjoyment out of it down the road.

But many, many (most) people do look at the game that way, and I draw your attention to the cellphone industry, where most plans allow you a free or nominal fee upgrade every set period of time because the technology outpaces itself so quickly, and they know that allowing people to upgrade for new gadgets when they buy their phones and minutes and text messages buys loyalty in return. The day I feel the alliance is not meeting my needs as a member, I will stop playing. If a lot of people feel as Ray does, that the celestial half of the scholar class is lacking, and are not enjoying the game because (lets face it) they aren't feeling heroic enough, they may well quit too.

To reiterate: cellphone plan, not furniture store.
 
As I said, your opinion is your own and is no more or less valid than my own, but I highly doubt that MOST players share your view of what the game end result is all about. Admittedly, I only have my own experience to draw upon, but in that experience far far more people look upon the game the way I described than the way you have put forth. I think if they didn't, you'd be correct and a lot more people would have left the game for systems like Amtgard or Int'l, where the game is far more about power levelling your character and min/maxing skill potentials with chances along the way to change on whim instead of experiencing variances in the game through different characters.
 
I question your conflation there, Maxondaerth. Just because one does not like to have a character they invested time, money, and effort in playing sidelined does not necessarily indicate that they are out for min/maxing and powergaming. I find that assumption rather insulting, personally.
 
Maxondaerth said:
Celebolwa, you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to offer some friendly perspective. You're basis of argument is that you are a customer, who's been shopping at Alliance-Mart for years and years, buying stuff, and now you are mad because they're coming out with a new line and you want to be able to exchange across the board. Now let's say you bought a whole house worth of furniture at Target over the past eight years, and you find out this week that they are coming out with a whole new style of housewears that looks sweet. Would you really walk into the store and go up to the manager and say "Hey! If you'd shown me this model five years ago I TOTALLY would have decorated my house differently! I demand you let me exchange all of my house worth of furniture for exactly the same items but in a different style." What reaction would you expect from him?

My perspective its more like its a Recall and not a new version. Kind of like windows XP, look another up date because there were some bugs (some ha more like a hell of a bunch of them).

Maxondaerth said:
Okay, it's not a direct correlation, I acknowledge that. What I think you, and many other people, do, is look at this game in the wrong way. When you come to a game, you're not paying for new skills and build, or phat lewt, you're paying for the opportunity to participate in a game that lasts for X number of hours during the course of the day/weekend, and as a member you are entitled to keep playing the same person who happens to progress as the game goes along (assuming you don't die). If you were paying for X amount of build/XP per event forever, then when people's 20th level character perm'd, they'd come in the next game with a different 20th level character, but they don't. That's just not the nature of the game. The nature of Alliance is ongoing enjoyment with like minded individuals that allows you to explore as many different aspects of the game as you want, just not all as the same build sink. That's why we're allowed (even encouraged) to play many different characters.

I think if you change the way you look at the game, and what you take away from it, you'll get a whole lot more enjoyment out of it down the road.

Some people are paying for new skills and build and/or "phat lewt". While some are paying for roleplaying and others are paying to hang out with there friends. That the great thing about Alliance, it caters to a lot of different people with different needs.

I feel if you don't want to get a free forge, then be that person and choose not to take it, but don't say that other people shouldn't get it either. I don't want to take formals but I'm not stopping you from doing it. Heck I wanted to get back my 2 (thats right Two) build for smithing because I only purchased it to refit my AA (at the time it was required, but changed back and forth about two times). Its not to "stream line" my character, it was the point that the only reason I took it was to refit me and my teams AA.
 
I look at the Alliance more as a service industry rather then producing a product. As such I would not compare an updated rulebook to a new set of furniture. Instead, I would compare it to a few other things.

Example 1: MMOs
In an MMO if the mechanics of the game change in such a way that a player's class is no longer acting the way it used to then a respec of the character is allowed. If the changes done to the MMO are not significant, i.e. player characters are still basically what they were before a patch, then respecs are not freely given.

Example 2: Long-term manufactured products such as automobiles and aircraft
If a change in engineering to either an automobile or aircraft is not very significant and does not impact either performance or safety, i.e. redesigning the dashboard of a car so that it is easier to manufacture it, then the company will just incorporate the change for all new models. If a change is significant, i.e. a bumper redesign is made that will improve the dampening of a crash and the old bumper design was not sufficiently dampening crashes, a recall or service bulletin is sent to all owners giving them the opportunity to have their product revised.

If my class is being significantly revised to such an extent that my character is severely impacted, or a fix to something broken has been issued, I would appreciate the ability to revise my character. If incoming changes do not affect my class or character in any signicant way, but merely revise some of the mechanics of the system, then I do not expect an opportunity to revise my character.
 
Oh right, now I remember why I hate trying to make reasonable arguments via text and long distance. I did not intend to flagrantly say "you're all cheese eating monkey-gamers" and don't really think that I did, unless you were hoping to take it that way. So, I'm sorry you took it that way, but not that I said what I said because what I said is not what you think I said. I think. Anyway, once more to attempt reasonable discourse.

Here's my flat out opinion about the topic, and I'm not gonna put it directly against anyone else's opinion so you can either skip it, read it for what it is (an aired opinion offered to try and let you know where I"m coming from), or attack it directly instead of counter-attacking non-intended attacks:

We all choose the characters we play. NONE of them turn out exactly as we envisioned them unless you made them intentionally one dimensional skill-wise (ie pure healer or prof monster), usually due to either changes in our outlook on the character through roleplay, changes in our understanding of the rule sets and what they'd ulimately let our characters do, or changes in our expectations of our character goals and whatnot. There is already a ritual in play in the game that allows for this to happen. Yes, it's rare, as it should be. If you are one of those people who's characters have gone through alot IG and for IG reasons see a need to change your skill sets, either a little or completely, you should be able to work with a plot team somewhere and make it happen. In Game, where it belongs. If you have been trying for years and haven't been able to do it, then that should be something to take up with your plot team and ownership, it does not mean there should be a game-wide shift to accomodate it. Yes, I have had one of my characters Spirit Forge before. It was for reasons of character development through plot and character interaction, which is exactly why it should happen. IMO OOG player yearnings should not. Those should be done by making a different character with those different skills you want to play with. That's my vision for the game, and I've gotten several IMs in the last 24 hours from players and staffers alike telling me they feel the same way.

Now, everyone wants to talk about the business side of Alliance and how it's a customer service issue. Well, the problem with getting service as a customer is if you voice a complaint one person at a time it takes a long time for the noise to build up and get noticed. I'd say to those persons who feel very strongly about an issue like this is, get a petition going at the next couple of big events and get people to sign saying "If you don't let us all Forge at the rules change, we WILL stop playing your game". If you want free market treatment in this game society, then use a free market tactic to get what you want. If a company is facing a large enough drop off in customers, they will change. It happens all the time. If one or two people rail against that company all the time, they just look at all the seemingly happy customers who continue to do business with them and figure everything is all right, even if a lot of those people are silently on your side of it.

Sniping back and forth and undermining each others opinions solves nothing, and makes us all seem like that is in fact all we're doing. It'll accomplish nothing. I hope that anyone who has such deep rooted problems with this game will either take my advice and get that silent majority (if it exists) to make the change, or I hope that you are able to find a game that is more suited to your playing style, because I really do hate to see people not enjoy their time at Alliance, especially when I am.
 
In order for that to work you need to have the text accompanied by a picture, preferrably a cat.
 
roflbot-Cs5K.jpg
 
Nice.

Any others?
 
...and as with any good argument, I think the following silly comments show that Maxondaerth has pretty much summed up this discussion very well. The only thing that remains to be seen is if people get together a petition. Heck it could even be done through the internet and that way reach a more national crowd. I'm not really concerned personally but in general although I don't like the potential cheesiness of spirit forge I wish there was some way, perhaps even slow way, to change around your skills over time so that you could easily do things like for example save 2 build by loosing blacksmith or or whatever. One reason I wish you could slowly lose skills is that in real life, peoples interests and focus change. For example if you took violin lessons for 5 years and then didn't play for 15 years after that you would have effectively "lost" some of those skills.

Anyways, I'm really glad this last page or so has taken a civil turn. :)
 
Maxondaerth said:
Oh right, now I remember why I hate trying to make reasonable arguments via text and long distance. I did not intend to flagrantly say "you're all cheese eating monkey-gamers" and don't really think that I did, unless you were hoping to take it that way. So, I'm sorry you took it that way, but not that I said what I said because what I said is not what you think I said. I think. Anyway, once more to attempt reasonable discourse.

Here's my flat out opinion about the topic, and I'm not gonna put it directly against anyone else's opinion so you can either skip it, read it for what it is (an aired opinion offered to try and let you know where I"m coming from), or attack it directly instead of counter-attacking non-intended attacks:

We all choose the characters we play. NONE of them turn out exactly as we envisioned them unless you made them intentionally one dimensional skill-wise (ie pure healer or prof monster), usually due to either changes in our outlook on the character through roleplay, changes in our understanding of the rule sets and what they'd ulimately let our characters do, or changes in our expectations of our character goals and whatnot. There is already a ritual in play in the game that allows for this to happen. Yes, it's rare, as it should be. If you are one of those people who's characters have gone through alot IG and for IG reasons see a need to change your skill sets, either a little or completely, you should be able to work with a plot team somewhere and make it happen. In Game, where it belongs.

The problem I have with this is simply that the rules changes that are making the character's skills play much differently (in the case of a major change) are not an IG event, and are given only a vague handwaving to allow us to discuss them as such, generally not questioned in order to keep the wizard behind the curtain, as it were. They are not an IG issue to need resolution, but rather a change in the OOG rules covering how our characters work on paper, and as such I believe an OOG response is much more appropriate than an IG one.

Maxondaerth said:
Now, everyone wants to talk about the business side of Alliance and how it's a customer service issue. Well, the problem with getting service as a customer is if you voice a complaint one person at a time it takes a long time for the noise to build up and get noticed. I'd say to those persons who feel very strongly about an issue like this is, get a petition going at the next couple of big events and get people to sign saying "If you don't let us all Forge at the rules change, we WILL stop playing your game". If you want free market treatment in this game society, then use a free market tactic to get what you want. If a company is facing a large enough drop off in customers, they will change. It happens all the time. If one or two people rail against that company all the time, they just look at all the seemingly happy customers who continue to do business with them and figure everything is all right, even if a lot of those people are silently on your side of it.

I think a part of why it comes off so much as bitter individuals is that some of the players who do not play with those in positions of power within the Alliance feel that their opinions are of zero concern to those in power. This is not particularly helped by situations like those surrounding the rules updates that spurred this very discussion, wherein players asking about changes are basically told to bring any concerns to their owners, while at the same time any public discussion that might make players aware of concerns they might have is shouted down with 'wait until the new rules come out'.
 
Maxondaerth said:
Oh right, now I remember why I hate trying to make reasonable arguments via text and long distance. I did not intend to flagrantly say "you're all cheese eating monkey-gamers" and don't really think that I did, unless you were hoping to take it that way. So, I'm sorry you took it that way, but not that I said what I said because what I said is not what you think I said. I think. Anyway, once more to attempt reasonable discourse.

Yeah, the internet can be a poor forum for sharing opinions.

We all choose the characters we play. NONE of them turn out exactly as we envisioned them unless you made them intentionally one dimensional skill-wise (ie pure healer or prof monster), usually due to either changes in our outlook on the character through roleplay, changes in our understanding of the rule sets and what they'd ulimately let our characters do, or changes in our expectations of our character goals and whatnot. There is already a ritual in play in the game that allows for this to happen. Yes, it's rare, as it should be. If you are one of those people who's characters have gone through alot IG and for IG reasons see a need to change your skill sets, either a little or completely, you should be able to work with a plot team somewhere and make it happen. In Game, where it belongs. If you have been trying for years and haven't been able to do it, then that should be something to take up with your plot team and ownership, it does not mean there should be a game-wide shift to accomodate it. Yes, I have had one of my characters Spirit Forge before. It was for reasons of character development through plot and character interaction, which is exactly why it should happen. IMO OOG player yearnings should not. Those should be done by making a different character with those different skills you want to play with. That's my vision for the game, and I've gotten several IMs in the last 24 hours from players and staffers alike telling me they feel the same way.

Here is my issue, and it is a vicious one. Classes are OOG. Right? Am I wrong here, or is it true that nobody in the real world refers to themselves as a "fighter" to indicate that they are not a rogue or caster? Aren't we discouraged from using the terms "fighter" and "rogue" in game? Classes are a mechanic of the game necessary to help distinguish characters and provide some variation to characters, but they are also restrictive: if you think you want to play a templar, get to 14th level and realize really you just want to be a fighter with some spell shield scrolls, you have no recourse but to TRY and get a spirit forge (nigh impossible, especially if you don't have a team to back you up on it) or make a new character. It is my opinion, and I hold it very strongly: the mechanics of the game, save those designed for safety, should take a backseat to people realizing the role play situation they are looking.

To sum up: Classes are an OOG mechanic, and shouldn't be as important as people being able to play the character they want.


Now, everyone wants to talk about the business side of Alliance and how it's a customer service issue. Well, the problem with getting service as a customer is if you voice a complaint one person at a time it takes a long time for the noise to build up and get noticed. I'd say to those persons who feel very strongly about an issue like this is, get a petition going at the next couple of big events and get people to sign saying "If you don't let us all Forge at the rules change, we WILL stop playing your game". If you want free market treatment in this game society, then use a free market tactic to get what you want. If a company is facing a large enough drop off in customers, they will change. It happens all the time. If one or two people rail against that company all the time, they just look at all the seemingly happy customers who continue to do business with them and figure everything is all right, even if a lot of those people are silently on your side of it.

Sniping back and forth and undermining each others opinions solves nothing, and makes us all seem like that is in fact all we're doing. It'll accomplish nothing. I hope that anyone who has such deep rooted problems with this game will either take my advice and get that silent majority (if it exists) to make the change, or I hope that you are able to find a game that is more suited to your playing style, because I really do hate to see people not enjoy their time at Alliance, especially when I am.

It's not that I don't enjoy Alliance, I DO. My issue is that I hate PCing, because it feels restrictive. Given that I am a plot writer and full time NPC for Deadlands, this isn't an immediate issue, but I would like to be able to enjoy a full half of the game that I currently do not because I thought I wanted to be a scholar, but really really REALLY want to be an adept. I have no options. I don't play my PC enough anymore to merit a Forge because I don't like playing the character because of his class. This is infuriating. I like the role play and history and relationships of my character, all of them very much. But because I cannot stomach playing the character during combat, which I also want to enjoy, I just NPC instead. This annoys the people who want me to play my PC because of the role play that is getting sidelined because I don't like the mechanics of the character as I first envisioned him.

I've played many scholars and adepts now in combat, built specifically like my character or how he would be as an adept. I like adept better. Straight up. Yes, my fault for not doing the research first. I want to keep everything about my character except his class, and I can't do that right now. There is NO option for me to rebuild my character to better suit the vision that I always. I know a lot of older players dislike forges, but the fact is I think not having them available diminishes my ability to enjoy the game, and I don't apologize for that. If there is a reason that in the past there was a problem, I'd be happy to hear about it, but as things are, I don't see any reason I should have to sacrifice my role play and character concept because I didn't base it of a class, but a back story.
 
Petition? Again as I have stated before, if you are against a mass spirit forge then... don't take it. Chose to be the same exact way you are now, more power to you *clap clap* and let those that want to, change. Makes both parties happy.
 
Or why not do a special kind of spirit forge? What I mean by this is if you're scholar, you can forge to either a templar or adept. If you're a fighter, you can go templar or scout. For rogues, you can go adept or scout. Anyone can forge into an artisan and I guess it would mean an artisan can forge into other classes. Just a thought
 
Did anyone say fluid class...? ;) I didn't say that!
 
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