The Tier System: (A prestige system idea, work in progress)

[Brutalskars]

Thamkyou guys! I completely forgot of an application! You have kickstarted that part of my brain! I will think of parts of one soon. Just a base draft for us to edit of course.

[Zarquon]

I would easily and more then agree with this system over none whatsoever. To have no system simply breeds discontentment and reeks of indecision, perhaps even stifling the occasional player's character development.

In my humble opinion, the pursuit of knowledge and through knowledge power tends to be very much a goal for many. Realistically speaking, poople would want power; even looking into in real ife scenarios there would be many, many people who wants more money, more power, more of -something-. In life, we aim for promotions, better grades, more friends and an overall sense of achievement, from our peers and from our friends alike. In the World of Warcraft, our characters want more experience points, wants more money, wants more epic gears, and ultimately, more power. I believe that it is a rare character indeed who would not want -something-; a doctor wants more knowledge on the arts of medicine, the leader of a good organisation wants more people and more power to deal with warlocks and the likes, the leader of an evil organisation wants more power perhaps simply for power's sake and even the humblest of priest wants to heal people and alleviate the sufferings of all those around them.

Hence, ultimately in my opinion, the quantification of power is very much part an intricate part of character development, for every actions and every words that a character might do or say reeks inherent of needs and wants. Even someone who wants something as noble as perhaps the protection of his family or loved ones would understand the need for power, for allies and for everything that such would offer. Demitrius goes around looking for people to join his organisation to expand the capabilities of his organisation for the ability to deal with those he considered as threats to Good. BountyHunter's doctor collects blood samples from people he meet for knowledge. Rosencrat's Marianna schemes and plots with evil, gleeful laughter as she sought more arcane abilities, sought more pawns to play in the great game of the world and ultimately increasing her own power. Astus "Nemeth" seeks to further his own arts of Necromancy.

Power is an intricate part of life, it is something that we all yearn for and wants. The sense of achievement almost have a direct correlation with the increase in power. In fact, the mere fact that we as human beings are playing a video game is really for that sense of achievement and power; the whole way games work with their experience point system, their quest completion system, the way we get "rewards" for killing particularly difficult bosses and the way we earn gold pieces as we work our way up through the levels, they are all a direct demonstration for our need for power.

So my question here is simple; why do we keep trying to differentiate power from character development? Perhaps they are one and the same! Tell Tavren that power is not everything and he would probably issue a character warning to you and drain your life-force to incraese his own personal power. By the Light and my hope for rebirth, we seek to inject realism into our roleplays but we are ignoring the fact that realistically speaking, -anyone- would want power. Money, knowledge, social status, reputations and that little pikachu toy we demand from our parents when we are young just to show off to our little brother or our elder brother (Take your pick) and go, "Look, I have this, you don't!" is a very simple representation of this yearning.

Now, allow me to present a very simple example. Your character have been with you in this server for almost three years; he or she had went through hundreds of IC fights, fought in Stromgarde, fought demon hunters in sparring contests, fought against angry archmages in the arena, made dozens of friends and dozens of enemies, maybe led a guild, maybe destroyed a guild, perhaps IC-ly he was involved in epic quests that involved battles on an airship, traveling to the shadow realm, fighting in the Carnage in the Catacombs and he might even have died and resurrected before! He or she could even IC-ly now have his or her own tower, and deal with doomguards or even insult doomguards with a sneer and a smirk. Can you imagine if a peasant with a pitchfork walk up to this character and stab him or her, with his or her, player or character, rolling horribly and, what? Your character got killed by a peasant with a pitchfork! But I am sorry, there is -nothing-, no recognition whatsoever, that your character have done all this thing and should have this level of power, this level of -prestige-, this level of social status. You might rail against the world, but the world can only give you a blank check after all that you had deposited into your "Bank of Roleplaying Experiences", simply because the dice god cursed you that particular day.

The Prestige System is a very realistic and concrete system of rewarding players for their actions. It is a very substantiated and although perhaps sensitive, "unfair" or even rage-inducing system, it is nonetheless a meritocratic system that exists till this day in real lifie for the sake of placing value upon someone or something for what he or she had done. Without it, we would be reduced into a communist system where everyone is the same and that's that. My point here is very simple; we need a prestige system, and a prestige system serves to make this world unfair, it serves to make this world imbalance, because this world -is- unfair, and -is- imbalanced, because in real life, you work hard to get what you want, and normally, what you want and get is something that the next person in line wants but did not work hard enough to get. It is a very realistic interpretation of this working, turning Earth.

Brutal's idea might not be perfect. This world is not perfect. And if we demand perfection in his system that would somehow conform to everybody, then it entirely defeats the very nature of a prestige system; that a prestige system would award people for what they did in the world. We are forgetting the entire purpose of a prestige system; power. We are arguing that it makes the game imbalance, that it makes it unfair, that it gives someone more power then another person. But thats the -point-. The prestige system is -meant- to do that, and it -should- do that. Because ultimately we are in a meritocratic world and that person willing to write a ten thousand words essay on how his character function, work, think and kill should be awarded as compared to the next person who did not bother to write this essay but complain about why his character is not as strong as the first. It is a working, functioning reality; we need to reward those who do it or we would lose players who work hard and help keep this server going.

If we would but realise the need for this meritocratic system of reward, the next thing we would need is to figure out a way to link the appropriate rewards with the appropriate level of commitment. It is as simple as that and I believe that Brutal's idea, while not perfect since nothing can be perfect, is nonetheless a very concrete possibility. It prevents people from becoming too powerful too fast without giving the appropriate amount of commitment and devotion to their character while at the same time provide a linear graphical method of progression. Its like earning experience point, and levels, you go from Tier One to Tier Five. Even assuming that it takes -one- day to proceed each tier, which is a cosmic impossibility, you would still need a grand total of five months. That means that for your character to reach Tier Five, I would think you need almost a year and a half at the very least. If you spend that amount of devotion and character development, writing essays after essays that should be enough to give you a permanent head damage, why, I would gladly accept you as a Tier Five! I mean the sheer amount of commitment you placed in that should have earned -anybody-'s respect.

This server as a whole might not be becoming too rude, but simply too afraid of change and too commited to maintaining the status quo of things; change to many is considered an uneasy and unpleasant decision to make. But yet change we must have. We can change for the better or for the worse, but whatever happens, we would learn. Okay, Brutal's system might fail, fair enough, then change it again! We are humans, we are dynamic, we learn and we adapt; arguing incessantly, insulting people, insulting people who insults people, is not what had allowed us as a race to reach this point of development. The very least we should do, in my humble opinion, is to even if you do not agree with this system, then give constructive criticism. If you have something to say, say it! Even if it isn't in support of this system, then at the very least it would tell people about the "what is wrong" with this system and allow maybe another person to develop another system that takes into consideration said criticism instead of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; insanity!

I like this system. It shows promise. It is also pretty adaptable and is a work in progress. This means that it can improve and probably would not become worse. Even if it fails, it would crate a pyramid of success, eventually leading to what we might hope for as the most successful one, although I suspect that that is an impossibility. This system provides, no, -demands- the need for character development, which I have already pointed out would in my opinion greatly focus on the acquisition of power. This system provides a balanced platform that gives every player an equal oppurtunity in proving themselves worthy of progressing in power. This system also does not confine players. Boundaries stifle creativity. Creativity fuels roleplay. A lich? I say go for it! Why not? Liches might be overpowered but hey, its not like you are going to roflstomp into Stormwind so I think those level 1 commoners are pretty safe. Chances are you are probably to have your own tower and be within it, pulling your strings and taking exquisite joy from creating events, planning events, doing roleplay scenarios as the "evil behind the scene" or the "mastermind". I am quite fine with that, as I think its pretty fun for someone to be doing that, both for that someone and perhaps that poor virgin female who gets captured for his insiduous experiments. We should encourage creativity, encourage the ability for someone to think up of something new and roll with it. The only thing that can go wrong with this server is that we become too afraid to try out new things, we become too used to our status quo and become much too afraid to accept that we are the Conquest of the Horde, we are not Blizzard Entertainment, why on earth do we lock ourselves up in this small cage that Blizzard made for us? Break out of that cage and start doing something different; if you do it wrong, then scrap it and redo! This is the 21st century, the time of change; we have changed far more in the past 200 years then the past 2000 years combined. Why are we applying archaic methods of thoughts to a modern platform of gaming?

Yet this system is not without its flaws. This system demands that the GM police the prestige system, potentially adding more work to those who already give up much of their time for the sake of us, and I honestly do not feel comfortable with making people who have their own lives, their own families and their own work commitment spend even more time on strangers whom they might never ever see in real life or talk to. Nonetheless, I can but beseech their understanding to help us in maintaining the overall health of this system, but I too believe that we as players can police this system. Our prestige posts, for example, are posted openly on the forums, open for anybody to read it. If there are any mistakes, anything at all that suggests that that post might be flawed; say it! This causes player to understand the sheer amount of responsibility they are taking on by even daring to step on the path of the prestige; the responsibility of ensuring that you are absolutely certain that you are right, and you are absolutely certain that the path you step upon is correct. In addition to this, we as players should have a channel of private feedback, supplied with screenshots and Elephant addons, in case people of their prestige class do not conform to the immense responsibilities placed upon their shoulders; I am not suggesting a rigid, punishing system, I am suggesting a passionate and gentle feedback system that allows player to learn where they went wrong and correct it. I think this world would be much better if players can learn to step back from an OOC arguement and ask themselves, "Where is that other person behind that screen coming from? What if I put myself in his shoes and try to look at my actions from his point of view? Perhaps I am wrong?" I think if a person can ask himself, or even start considering the fact that he might not be the Lord Almighty and might be wrong, he would find life much more pleasant.

Summary:
1) Character development and power holds a very intricate connection; in many cases, our characters seek survival, knowledge, wealth or expanding our understanding of the fields of the arcane. Seeking these is seeking power.

2) We want to reward people who works hard and are devoted to their characters. Because if we don't, we end up like Soviet Russia and end up stagnant, unmoving and worse of all, incapable of improving ourselves. Our players would think that what they are doing are not rewarding themselves, our players would think that there is no point in trying. Why spend hours writing such a long essay if it is not going to be even rewarding to me? We are practical people. We have lives. We have commitments. Now, go into the forums and compare the length of an average Prestige Class post compared to letssay, a In-Character post. I am unsure, but I think we know the answer.

3) We want to reward people appropriately. We arn't going to give you Tier Five after a single day of walking around in Stormwind. You are going to have to work for it, and we are going to judge whether you worked hard enough for it. The GMs and the players must police this system to ensure a fair meritocratic system.

4) Boundaries stifles creativity. Creativity fuels roleplay. Boundaries screw up roleplays. Start thinking out of the bloody box and stop locking yourself in a cage, or throwing yourself down a well and see the sky as only that circular portion where the well leaves into the wide, open world. Stop throwing fireballs and start teleporting iron balls into the enemy and exploding that iron ball while laughing maniacally. Necromancer? Bah, start raising demons from the dead and try getting an undead Doomguard minion. Holy shit, why not? This is a private server, for the love of god almighty! Stop trying to kill our creativity; we got out from Retail for that! In Retail, we can't do anything. Here, we can. So why are we stopping ourselves? If there is that character you really want to create that just focus around making love to cast healing spells, then go for it! It might even be fun! And if anybody says that in the World of Warcraft it is implausible if not impossible, then offer them your healing services!

5) We are matured people in a matured server. Act like it and remove the emotions from the equation. Think logically and apply your words and actions with the maturity that you should be portraying. We are not little kids of five years old that brawls on the field over that soccer ball. Share the darned ball, or create an system where we get it on alternate days. Think with your head and not with your heart. Again, -respect- other players. It is the number one rule for a reason, and you can start respecting by simply politely telling the other person what is RIGHT. Then when you are good enough, tell him what is WRONG.

6) This system is not perfect. It is concrete. It is a creation of many days of arguements, thoughts, OOC dramas and debates. The one who made it put much thought about it; the one who made it is brave. He charged head-long into an ocean of darkness and a quagmire of a shitstorm to courageously present to us a proposal for a system. He understands that he would be criticized, that he would be trolled, that he would lose sleep and he would be affected in real life. He is sacrificing that for a server made up of only strangers that he might have at most heard over at vent, and many he might not even have that level of acquaintance with. Respect him, and if you respect him, then help him make this system better.

I thank you all and I apologise if at any point in time I might have insulted anybody whether directly or indirectly, conscious or unconscious, waking or asleep. I also apologise in advance if at any point of that long rambling I might have caused your eyes to hurt, tears to falls, or you to lose sleep thinking about how best to track me down and kill me. I apologise for all that and more, and would simply hope that you consider my words, or ignore my words, as you mind and heart tells you to. I am a very poor person, and this post is the last of my two silver pieces whom I had wanted to buy an intellectual meal with. I have just spent it on you, a stranger who I would probably never meet in my entire life of hopefully more then 30 years (I am not sure, but I just thought thats the time when I might probably be married and lose my life already). So you are now the proud owner of a poor begger's money for his last meal.

You now have a choice. You can use your brain and draw intelligent conclusions and criticism. Or use your heart to show compassion and kindness to draw similarly intelligent conclusions and criticisms. There are no third options. Don't even think about a third option. If you are going to use your brain, then remove all the emotional rage. If you are going to use your heart, then you should show a level of respect and -HUMAN- empathy with Brutal for what he is trying to do for -YOU-, and use your heart to say good things, or say bad things in a good way.

Choose wisely.

Yours sincerely,
Zarquon

[aroes]

Zarquon...your post brought a tear to my eye, well done good sir.

[Rigley]

I would easily and more then agree with this system over none whatsoever. To have no system simply breeds discontentment and reeks of indecision, perhaps even stifling the occasional player's character development.

This is a dangerous track of thought to get on. I'm not sure if it hasn't been made evident, but the GM team hasn't been twiddling their thumbs on this issue the entire time. We're trying to figure out a system.

Boundaries stifles creativity. Creativity fuels roleplay. Boundaries screw up roleplays. Start thinking out of the bloody box and stop locking yourself in a cage, or throwing yourself down a well and see the sky as only that circular portion where the well leaves into the wide, open world. Stop throwing fireballs and start teleporting iron balls into the enemy and exploding that iron ball while laughing maniacally. Necromancer? Bah, start raising demons from the dead and try getting an undead Doomguard minion. Holy shit, why not? This is a private server, for the love of god almighty! Stop trying to kill our creativity; we got out from Retail for that! In Retail, we can't do anything. Here, we can. So why are we stopping ourselves? If there is that character you really want to create that just focus around making love to cast healing spells, then go for it! It might even be fun! And if anybody says that in the World of Warcraft it is implausible if not impossible, then offer them your healing services!

We follow lore here. You knew this joining. There are RP servers which don't, and I'm not sure if you saw Stormwind, but it certainly doesn't adhere to normal lore. Just because this is a private server does not mean there are not rules.

As someone who has done several random RPs with people on chatrooms. Often I found people who used such amazing powers as above. It never was interesting- It was just them wanting to appear an amazing sparklechild while I was a guy with a sword and shield and a backstory. Usually their only motive was to fight, to show off their sparklemoves.

You do not need to create flaming hellportals and summon armies to be a great character. Some of the greatest characters are nothing but random joes with adventures thrown at them.


As to number five, I honestly haven't seen too many people acting rude in this thread. They have voiced their opinions, which is why this is posted in public to begin with, I would wager. If he wanted no public input he would have sent it to the GM team.


As to your sixth point, I point to my response to five, though personally I think you are -greatly- overestimating the effort behind this sort of thing.

I mean. I respect him for putting this out here and all, and going with what you all have suggested- I'm not personally behind the system, and he knows that. I think if he is loosing sleep over this (which may not even get approved, of course), though, he might need to take a break from working on it.

Choose wisely.

I want to remind, once more, that the GM team is not sitting idle either, and that in the end it will be Kretol who decides, not the public.

That may sound wrong to you, but there are GMs for a reason and all. If this system is seen as superior, then it will be chosen.

[muhaha8]

Words.

/manly tear.

Zarquon, you speak the truth.

[Zarquon]

Rigley,

That "choose wisely" was simply a reference to my second-last paragraph where I politely plead for people to consider carefully before they post to respect and be compassionate to the person they might be talking about, refering to, or the person's idea whom they might be discussing on. In addition that, I do believe that I can find a single word in the english dictionary that might even expression the gratitude that I have towards the GM team; for all the time and effort the GMS sacrificed and gave for us, in helping with events and the likes, a plethora of things that I doubt I can finish listing. In the post, I too have expressed this very same gratitude, and I understand that it is an impossibility to even assume that the GMs are "twiddling their thumb".

Kretol holds the final and only say. However, these proposals by players often hold within them both virtues and flaws, the former can be expounded upon, the latter can be solved of. I sincerely believe that in doing this, the players are given a voice, to give their opinions. Kretol has the right to entirely ignore this proposal, deny it, or simply brand it impractical, but at the very least, at the very least, we would already have the chance to point out or say what we want to say. History would not remember that the player base did not have the oppurtunity to voice out their opinions.

Thank you very much for your post that allows me this oppurtunity to notice the errors in my post and to clarify matters, Rigley.

Yours sincerely,
Zarquon

[Aphetoros]

As to number five, I honestly haven't seen too many people acting rude in this thread. They have voiced their opinions, which is why this is posted in public to begin with, I would wager. If he wanted no public input he would have sent it to the GM team.

That doesn't give them the right to be rude, though D:
He wanted public input, but he wanted constructive public input, I believe.

[Brutalskars]

I do not think the point was about breaking lore... I think he was trying to say take advantage of what we have in warcraft, not waste over time over time done things by the only basic tiny things so to speak. As I could of said earlier too Rigley.

But, I put this up for public review and construcive critics to give their say. because I didn't want to twiddle my thumbs and the like. I am working actively for the server in some way, even if you do not support my system whether for an arms race or you have some unusual fear of tiny sparkles, no offense meant though.

I would rather we have progress and feedback than just fighting over who is right Rigley. And from what I have gooten from GMs has not nescessarily been helpful; I have gotten negativity or complete indifference; so please if yoiu respect me and more over a project to -TRY- and improve the server. Please keep that stuff out of my thread where -WE- are working on this thing for -EVERYONE-.

NOW!
Back to work guys, I am doing the Version 1.1 draft as we speak. And thinking about a possible application!

[Rigley]

so please if yoiu respect me and more over a project to -TRY- and improve the server. Please keep that stuff out of my thread where -WE- are working on this thing for -EVERYONE-.

Your talking about respect, and I'm not really feeling any from you.

Objecting to an idea does not mean that you are being rude. Objecting is point out a flaw which will need to be addressed. If we were to ignore flaws and only talk about the issues we ourselves have input for improved on, then there would be quite a few holes in our boat. We just never brought them up because we didn't have anything to fix them with.

I respect your effort. I respect your intentions. I do not like your idea. It is an opinion, and it obviously does not match yours.

Besides, that post I made was not even aimed at anything in your system.

[FlyingSquirrel]

May I suggest something for the application?

It would go like the introduction and Grunt application. As in, lengthy answers needed.

Spoiler:

Why does your character want this Prestige?
<Answer>

Who will train this character (PC or NPC), and why will they train them? Also, where will your Prestige Training take place?
<Answer If PC, then give the GMs a name and they will PM the character to see if they are in. If NPC, then give them a rough sketch of his history and personality (Only a few lines)>

How long have you had this character?
<Answer>

How long have you been planning this Prestige?
<Answer>

What Tier of power is your character currently?
<Answer>

Give us an example of how you plan to write this prestige. (As in, a Prologue for your posts).
<Answer>



You would need something like 3 GM's approval to continue. Content GMs/Kret/Grak only.

[Brutalskars]

Seems we have come to an impass, I asked you to keep the offsubject rambling out of the thread where we are as I said, I would like to keep, -TRYING-, with -OTHERS- to make something for -EVERYONE-

If you do not say an issue just because we dont have an answer right away, does that make us strive to improve this? I would like to keep imrpoving it.
For the last time, I want to keep on subject of how we can make things better, because I am seeing a very 50/50 outlook on this. I would like the community that wishes to assist to assist in any way they can.

I will look that over Danalthar, looks like a good idea. And right now I am going to cut off the unneeded bits off the draft I have going.

[Aphetoros]

so please if yoiu respect me and more over a project to -TRY- and improve the server. Please keep that stuff out of my thread where -WE- are working on this thing for -EVERYONE-.

Your talking about respect, and I'm not really feeling any from you.

Objecting to an idea does not mean that you are being rude. Objecting is point out a flaw which will need to be addressed. If we were to ignore flaws and only talk about the issues we ourselves have input for improved on, then there would be quite a few holes in our boat. We just never brought them up because we didn't have anything to fix them with.

I respect your effort. I respect your intentions. I do not like your idea. It is an opinion, and it obviously does not match yours.

Besides, that post I made was not even aimed at anything in your system.

I don't think he was talking about you directly, but I mean, if we could just all calm down and take a moment to reread our posts... Brutal included, we could get something productive done. And Danalthar, I really like your post there, it would make for a good application, I think. Possibly a few revisions if people see fit.

But might I ask, why are the GMs so discontent with this proposal? I'm having a hard time finding much wrong with it, sure it isn't perfect but it's extremely well-thought and I actually think highly of it. I think if you guys said some of the reasons that you don't like it, then we can come to a better solution and try to fix it in a way that you do like it! :3

[Brutalskars]

Thankyou Astus for being a bit more PC than I, I was getting off topic because I was getting upset with some thing. I will stick to editing this thing.

[Hawk]

But might I ask, why are the GMs so discontent with this proposal? I'm having a hard time finding much wrong with it, sure it isn't perfect but it's extremely well-thought and I actually think highly of it. I think if you guys said some of the reasons that you don't like it, then we can come to a better solution and try to fix it in a way that you do like it! :3

The reason we are not as supportive as one would suspect is because we're already finishing off creating our own system. We're probably about 75% done. Not to say this isn't a bad system. This without a doubt as a lot of thought into it, and if we didn't have anything at all I reckon we'd probably be looking into this one a bit more. But as I've said, we've already gotten damn far ahead in ours and we're not going to be creating even more of a delay with comparing it to someone else's.

[Aphetoros]

Hmmm...

Maybe you guys could post a little sneak peak so we can get some community feedback on it? THat way you can get some feedback to see how others think it'd work out and get some useful insight. I think that would work out well, maybe the systems could work well together even? Depending on what yours is, by the way.