Empire Discussion Thread
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Cortex Prime Evennia fantasy game?!
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@somasatori lmfao i had a similar reaction!!
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Forked discussion: https://brandmu.day/topic/614/empire
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Even though I’m pretty certain that L&L (and to a certain extent, roster) games aren’t my bag, there’s a certain part of me that wants to give this a try, mostly because I’d be getting in at the ground floor.
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I’m impressed at the roster selections for characters, and it looks like several of the Houses have some meaty problems set up for them right off the bat, including at least one House who has to deal with being the royal family in a region where the King is insane.
Not all families have THAT level of excitement going on, so it feels like you can pick your level of conflict at least initially. The setting is interesting and each region has a different take on what nobility is and what the obligations of nobles are, providing a lot of opportunity to explore differences of ideology. The staff member I’ve interacted with has been pleasant and responsive.
Downsides: the coding is still a bit of a work in progress, and it wouldn’t surprise me if early play involves bughunting and debugging. Doesn’t bother me too much, but if that’s something that will cause you anxiety, I’d definitely say give it a little time to shake the bugs out.
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Do you know how much if any AI was used in the game? Rosters, theme, code, etc? I noticed there wasn’t an AI policy at all.
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@Tez Spoken on game:
[Public] Ada: See someone was asking about AI use, to which the answer is it was used for a list of names, about six images, and as a programming aid. No writing at all.
Albrecht has entered the game. -
EDIT: See below.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous I mean, why ask the question “what about this game is different from Arx” when Arx is no longer around? Even if it is a 100% complete rip-off of Arx, the comparison doesn’t matter anymore because Arx isn’t a thing and hasn’t been a thing for a few years now.
And Arx was, for all intents and purposes, an extremely successful game for several years so people found stuff to RP about clearly lol
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@Ominous said in Empire Discussion Thread:
What about this game is different from Arx? It looks veeery similar based on the limited info on the website. It is PvE focused (which I really don’t understand for L&L, as the whole theme hinges on politicking and intrigue which you can’t do without competition against each other (well, I guess you could if, instead of outsiders filling the role, other factions/noble houses that are only filled with NPCs are the “bad guys”)), has an empire consisting of loosely affiliated kingdoms that are only held together out of the enlightened self-interest of “united, we stand; divided, we fall,” and has said kingdoms that seem superficially dissimilar without any apparent major cultural differences to serve as tension points.
this isn’t even an accurate description of Arx tho???
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@bear_necessities said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@Ominous I mean, why ask the question “what about this game is different from Arx” when Arx is no longer around? Even if it is a 100% complete rip-off of Arx, the comparison doesn’t matter anymore because Arx isn’t a thing and hasn’t been a thing for a few years now.
And Arx was, for all intents and purposes, an extremely successful game for several years so people found stuff to RP about clearly lol
Because I didn’t like Arx. It was basically the only game in town, so if you wanted L&L, you played there. I want to know if this is essentially more of the same, so I can avoid getting my hopes up and getting back into MUing for something I will not enjoy in the long run.
@Roz said in Empire Discussion Thread:
this isn’t even an accurate description of Arx tho???
That was my experience, and I am the one asking.
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I’m not trying to be testy here, but it is a bit of a logical fallacy to say “X doesn’t exist anymore, therefore comparisons between X and Y cannot be made, even if Y is a direct copy of X.” I never played on Arx and to my knowledge most of my friends didn’t play there, so no skin in the game with that specific comparison or what “how is it different from Arx” is intended to mean. Just noting that something can absolutely compare to something from the past.
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@somasatori You know, that’s fair. The tone of the question wasn’t great though, and that’s what I think I’m responding to.
I find the setting and conflict of empire a bit nebulous and hard to grasp myself but I don’t need to be shitty about a new game and a widely played older game to say so. My friends seem to be grabbing it fine!
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@Tez said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@somasatori You know, that’s fair. The tone of the question wasn’t great though, and that’s what I think I’m responding to.
That’s fair as well! For me, the comparison statement was a bit of a kneejerk on account of people using it disingenuously about certain real life things that I won’t mention.
On my part, I’m particularly interested in House Heshbeh, but there is a kind of proper noun overuse here. I think I probably just need to read the lore files more thoroughly, tbf. Especially since I always complain about people not reading the lore files on games. Be the change and all.
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@Ominous I recommend you log on and ask if you have questions about the game, since the creator can’t register for an account here and I myself am not staff.
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Let’s try this again without any comparisons to currently existing or previous games, so hopefully it moves in a more constructive direction.
I want politicking and intrigue in my L&L, and I want it at the forefront rather than something hiding in the background that you have to search out to engage with. I am looking for Dune, not Bridgerton.
The website has limited information, which is to be expected for a game still in the works. With that limited information, I get the feeling that the game will be very heavily focused on PvE. Furthermore, while there are different cultures, I do not get the feeling those cultures are hugely dissimilar to each other other than some religious differences, differences in the noble to commoner ratio, and differences in succession norms. It feels more like differences between France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Republics in Italy, and maybe the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s (societal and cultural differences not technology), rather than say England, India, China, Polynesia, and Meso-America at that same time. So the cultural tension points don’t seem strong enough to support a great deal of RP about them. As there is a focus on PvE over PvP, economic and territorial tension points seem to be off-limits. Religious tension points also seem as though they will be muted, as it’s a bit hard to have a Crusade/Jihad/Schism/insert your preferred term for religious war here when PvP is strongly discouraged.
Thus, I am not sure what much of the RP is going to be about, as there doesn’t seem like there will be much competition or conflict amongst the factions. Not even token victories, like getting the seat next to the head of the table at Imperial Dinners or who gets to marry the heir or who has the Lord of the Hunt position for the Empress seem to be emphasized. I am concerned that this will just be pretty princ(ess)es primping and preening for parties, parades, and promenades without any crunchy politics and intrigue underlying it or flowing from it
What am I missing or what hasn’t been said that points to politicking and intrigue being a part of this game?
