Dragons, Progression, and What it means to us! OH MY!

[Harmonic]

I do too, but it's one of those things where it's like... why are we being told "This thing right here is going to be heavily monitored!" when it's not that way for lots of other things that... well, we'd have the same issues with.

Like I said in the beginning, I can understand that if you're in a brood pit or something, but getting hunted by black dragons...? Seems like half of Azeroth would be on the "Hunt" list these days, noone wants to deal with Black Dragons right now.

[Kage]

Well, Krest is on a Black Dragon's hunt list right now. It happens I guess.

[Thoradin]

I think that I may have, unintentionally, been fighting over this for the wrong reason, (My Knight from a few months back). Still, the points have been made. I honestly do not think that we should have to notify a GM every time we want to go drake-hunting. A mature dragon? Okay, I yield on that one. A simple drake should not be much of a concern to anyone but the unlucky bastard trying to kill it.

That being said, I apologize once more if I inadvertently stepped on anyone's toes. I do enjoy a good debate/argument and I get particularly zealous when it comes to my chosen side.

[Geoni]

I think the inconsistency is more about what happens in small non-event RPs or events that aren't largely publicized on the forums. A person can attend a RP where the characters are killing things that they probably wouldn't be able to logically kill by themselves. People can get away with doing that because let's face it: it's not easy at all for everything to be monitored by the team given its size. If overpoweredness occurs, players more often than not just leave the RP or passively play a part in it if they aren't happy about it happening. Rarely is it reported, because it isn't always easy to, especially if somebody doesn't want to anger somebody else or ruin their fun. Although, I'm talking from my own experience here.

What good comes from power-scale being monitored?

Let's say somebody kills a dragon with one or two people in some small-scale RP, and then you attend an event where you see ten people struggling to take down a dragon the same size? Well, this RP is probably being monitored by a GM. This means the chance for overpoweredness is sacrificed for depth, since the dragon would be puppeted and thought about beforehand. That's the boon of having things approved by the team, honestly. And in the end, there's probably less of a chance for somebody to hog the spotlight when compared to that small-scale RP where two people kill a dragon.

[Grakor456]

I honestly do not think that we should have to notify a GM every time we want to go drake-hunting. A mature dragon? Okay, I yield on that one. A simple drake should not be much of a concern to anyone but the unlucky bastard trying to kill it.

I think some people equate dragons and drakes in their head. I kind of do myself: the main difference in a practical sense is the level of maturity, and so a certain degree of knowledge and strength. It's hard to make that distinction.

That said, I think this is at least partially stemming from a view of the GMs trying to stifle fun or creativity. Personally speaking, if someone asked me on Skype "Hey, I want to run a little event where the PCs end up killing a young drake. That cool?" I'd probably have a couple questions to ask, but probably would end up just shrugging and going "Eh, I guess?"

Or, alternatively, stemming from problems related to the speed at which GMs respond to private discussions or ideas. Which is a legitimate concern, though would require its own discussion.

[CappnRob]

This talk about power levels/scales...

Actually, WoW did have something of one, once: Vanilla content. And I mean Vanilla content before it was nerfed with the introduction of TBC.

I'm conjuring up a sizey article on the flow of quests and the scaling of power using Vanilla as a base, I'll post it later.

[Cressy]

I know I'll probably get some flack for saying this, but what ever happened to failure? I know most people want their characters to go off and do all this epic/awesome stuff, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes failure adds much to character development.

I dunno, whenever I hear power levels being brought up (Because let's be honest..It happens every six months to a year) I cringe. Power and doing powerful things are cool and all, but I guess I never thought you needed to go off and mess up dragons or take on a full pirate ship to make RP enjoyable. Even adventure RP enjoyable. We used to go off, fight bears and end up lost in the wilderness. I never had to take on dragons to make my character feel powerful.

/end distraction

[Duraza]

I may be misunderstanding things but it sounds like the deal that's already on the table is a good one. Rather than having a couple of people simply rp to kill a whelp or two every week (which sounds like it could become repetitive even if you were drake killing) you get more people for a bigger rp taking down whatever dragon foe you choose with GM help. In addition, after taking down this beastie your crew of slayers may actually win the hatred of some of the dragons of the flight, leading to continued rp. You guys may get some hero status in town (as Reigen implied) and also get to rp about dragons possibly trying to kill you and stuff like that which actually sounds exciting and a way to draw a bigger crowd for more rp.

The only downside is that you can't just go off on your own and kill a dragon with two people. Instead you need to do at least a little bit of planning beforehand but you can still kill the whelp/drake and get the added bonuses of even more rp that results from your event, rather than a self-contained happening.

Perhaps I'm just looking at the cup as half full and the half empty side has something considered just as valuable, but I don't see it.

[Spiky]

Honestly the talk of power level to me seems a bit hilarious. You know how for events, we basicly give the "goons" 1-3 health, and every player has around 5 - 6? Even if the goons are exactly the same as the player? So, if we made that "Power level scale" events would get infinitely harder, because suddenly, all those goons are exactly like you in terms of health, except their numbers are bigger, plus they have "big'uns" for backup because that's how most events go, and the ones that don't usually end with some big boss in the end anyway, who now has to get bumped up in health even further to seem like a boss. Unless of course you want this power scale to be Player > Anything NPC. Which is just plain boring. Might as well play God of War.

Still some fairly good points coming up in this thread, been a good read thus far.

[Reigen]

Or, alternatively, stemming from problems related to the speed at which GMs respond to private discussions or ideas. Which is a legitimate concern, though would require its own discussion.

A bit off-topic

We've been working on this, as a note. A few days ago I went though and gave a comment on almost every thread I could in the P.D. I only left the ones that I wasn't sure how to respond to yet, or I needed to discuss with Loxie.

I understand that sometimes responses are frustratingly slow and apologize for that.

[Xigo]

I know I'll probably get some flack for saying this, but what ever happened to failure? I know most people want their characters to go off and do all this epic/awesome stuff, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes failure adds much to character development.

I dunno, whenever I hear power levels being brought up (Because let's be honest..It happens every six months to a year) I cringe. Power and doing powerful things are cool and all, but I guess I never thought you needed to go off and mess up dragons or take on a full pirate ship to make RP enjoyable. Even adventure RP enjoyable. We used to go off, fight bears and end up lost in the wilderness. I never had to take on dragons to make my character feel powerful.

/end distraction

But Cressy, my character can't be super cool if he loses. Only losers lose, and my characters are all winners.

[Harmonic]

I'm more than happy if people lose. What bothers me is the "Don't bother, it will kill you" attitude that people give off with things like Dragons. It's a vibe given off from being monitored by it.

It feels like, if you were to go into Orgrimmar and kill off the orcs there, how a Gm would most certainly have someone chase you down? Except instead of doing that with a player faction doing it with a hostile mob faction that's the main instigator to Cata.

And of course I could have fun dealing with any other enemy. That goes without saying. What's being asked here, is that why can't we encourage risk instead of the "Don't bother" attitude? As long as common sense is put into place, it shouldn't be monitored. Until it's an issue that's brought up, or a consistent problem, why are we being told that killing a whelp will incur the wrath of a brood coming down on you?

The reason people are afraid of failure, is because -RIGHT NOW- the vibe given by the GM team in regards to dragon hunting/slaying is "You're going to lose your character." As much as people want to say "so what" we -all- know it's still not as easy as we'd like to think. Or, if it is for you, you'd also know not everyone feels that way, and neither way is the "Right way" of thinking.




To sum this post up? Yes we can lose, yes we can fight other crap. No we don't need power levels, but I think we need to be encouraged to risk and not discouraged by the OOCness of "Being watched!".

[Mathias]

That goes without saying. What's being asked here, is that why can't we encourage risk instead of the "Don't bother" attitude?

We're encouraging you to come forward to us if you want to kill one of those dragon things, not just because drakes/dragons are smarter/tougher than people assume, but because we could create -more- RP for you if you succeed. Why would you want to just kill a dragon and walk away as if nothing happened?

why are we being told that killing a whelp will incur the wrath of a brood coming down on you?

What do you think would happen if someone killed a dragon's baby? They just shrug and continue floating here-and-there in a certain pattern because Blizzard wants them to follow a set path? You're killing their next generation.

The reason people are afraid of failure, is because -RIGHT NOW- the vibe given by the GM team in regards to dragon hunting/slaying is "You're going to lose your character."

If you don't properly prepare. It's been said several times that we're okay with people hunting after a heads up.

[Loxmardin]

While people are on this server, roleplaying in the setting it provides, the staff as the moderators are here to moderate it. Let the environment react, see to that things make sense, help people understand and integrate with the world we've been set to moderate in. It's very, very difficult to do that without some amount of insight in peoples' activities on the server, and we'd be very poor moderators if we stood there shrugging and going "lol, I had no idea".

Hence, for bigger things, we would very much appreciate the heads-up, and we need people to ask permission first. Not so we can turn you down, but more so we can help you make it work and so that we know what's going on. It's part of our job to know, for your sakes. We wouldn't be very helpful if we didn't know (which is the cause of a lot of problems of late; peoples' lack of willingness to let us know). No, we won't be peeking over your shoulders at your every RP. No, we're not going to be watching your every move. But if you could tell us "hey, this is what we planned for this big event", or "hey, we wanted to do this, think it could work?" for things like these, we'd appreciate it. I think people would be surprised at how cooperative we would be, though I'm ready to admit that I have no idea where this view of us watching from every corner and wanting to shut people down stems from. I hate not having an idea of why things are.

[Harmonic]

Not so we can turn you down, but more so we can help you make it work and so that we know what's going on.

I know it's been said again and again, but phrasing it like this is what we need to hear. Honestly, sometimes it feels like on CoTH---and I'm going to be perfectly honest, I know it's not always this way, but when you're told "You need to tell us these things" by a GM, that it's less trying to be helpful and encourage RP and more trying to say "You shouldn't be doing this without being monitored". GRANTED, I know this isn't always the case, but the way it has been handled before with Dragons and Whelps, it comes off more of a slap on the wrist and less of a "Oh, well I wanted to encourage more story!".

I think some people, including myself are used to being railroaded on some concepts, so we get paranoid when questions are being asked about "WHAT ARE YOU DOING AND WHY?!". That's not what people are doing, but it can feel that way---or is perceived that way when it's not the case.

IF you guys are truly fine with it, and want to work with people on it?

Cool beans.

GREY MILITIA, we're gonna join those other dragon hunter guys and try to save Azeroth. Expect glory in death.