Empire Discussion Thread
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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?
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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I have a quick suggestion for the Empire devs:
Right away in the very first section of the introduction to your world information, make a lexicon of your terms.
I still am not entirely certain what a Greytide is, despite looking through the introduction to the Empire, the explanation on magic, etc. I know there are three of them, that the empire was formed as a reaction to the third, and that according to the “ideas behind the game” document “The Greytides were somewhere between the Blights and Chaos, and an early iteration looked more like the scale of Tolkien’s War of Wrath.” That still doesn’t entirely tell me what happened. Chaos in Warhammer could be a surge of cultist humans and champions of chaos, or it could be demons. The War of Wrath had orcs. Is the Greytide all human-based, or are there other species of humanoid creature involved? I don’t need to necessarily know why or how they occurred, as I assume that’s part of learning the story, but having the basics in a central section would be great.
I’m assuming demons because of the Grey Below (referenced in the Magic document), but did my ancestors fight demons or just demon-obsessed barbarian tribes?
Some of the locations are kind of like this as well, like the Scorchlands. It’s where the Cinderkin come from, and they’re clearly distinct from the Red Waste, and it sounds like they’re very close to Wend, but I’m not exactly sure what they’re supposed to be in general.
It’s very interesting information and clearly a lot of love went into the world building. I mentioned above about the too many proper nouns. Generally people are going to look at the bare minimum they need to play their characters, so their house information, the intro to the empire, and maybe the document on magic and one of the religion documents. There are some mentions within these that don’t quite make sense if you don’t cross reference into other things and I might not necessarily know where to look (good on you for having a search feature). Being able to quickly reference a layperson’s guide to basic information on things is extremely useful, especially if someone referenced something in RP.
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@somasatori I totally agree with this. Each character in the roster could have a set of links to the important world lore that drives their character to help people find what they need to know.
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@Ominous said in Empire Discussion Thread:
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
This is what Lords and Ladies games are, though, for the most part. And boy howdy do the pretty princ(ess)es get upset when you don’t swoon at their feet and pay them the most fulsome compliments for their daring and delight.
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@MisterBoring said in Empire Discussion Thread:
@somasatori I totally agree with this. Each character in the roster could have a set of links to the important world lore that drives their character to help people find what they need to know.
Looks like this has been done! It’s pretty helpful - there’s a nice in-web-site glossary now that lets you get immediate information on what certain things are.
