OF WAR AND PEACE
11-08-2014, 02:35 PM
Though I appreciate your thorough and obviously well-thought out suggestions, I would like to respond to all of this. Please note this is all my own opinion, and no other staff have contributed to any of what I'm going to say at all.
What I feel like you might be forgetting is that a large portion of Alacritis feels very differently than you. Many (I'd venture to say over 50%) of the site is driven by the possibility if they are active, contributing members that post often that they might be able to someday have a pack of their own. You can claim that 200 posts is a low requirement and needs to be raised, but thus far, at nearly 2 years of being a site only 42 people have made it there so far (11 of these people are inactive currently). Of our entire site, that is a very low number of people and all of these people have worked quite hard to get where they are. By giving a relatively large amount of packs able to be claimed, we allow people to both fight for them (if they want to) or work their way there via. posting and paying gems. Your suggestion would only make the extremely strong fighters happy, and while a few people on site want to see that number flourish, the reality is that we have many people who love Ala but don't want to fight much (if at all) and that is okay too, even if isn't the ideal you personally want to strive for.
Regarding the number of packs, the very reason we implemented them was because an overwhelming majority of the site wanted to see more. I will agree perhaps the number could be lowered, but I think this will also work itself out with general pack activity requirements (and it has taken a few months to reach a high amount of packs, and now we're realizing perhaps it should be dropped by a few packs).
I will agree that pack challenges are something that could be raised in price and we might discuss this in the future.
We've talked thoroughly about actively allowing disbandment of packs (by physically removing them) as well, but we run into a bigger problem here. Quite honestly, this seems just a way for people who know how to fight to purposefully get rid of packs simply because they don't like our current pack numbers. Almost every time this has been brought up, it is by a member who dislikes the current number of packs. And while I know members can always work to improve their fighting, this creates an entirely new problem -- people running around fighting for packs just to disband them, for no reason other than wanting fewer packs on the site.
I think what we do need to do is find a solution for people who already have high post counts from coming back and challenging/claiming for packs, when they are not regularly active. If you want to make packs feel more prestigious, make it so people can't come back and make a new pack every time they feel like it after not being around on the site for months. They don't have to "work hard" to get a pack, only win a fight, and this can be really disheartening for people who post daily and don't disappear from the site for months at a time. This is not a personal attack, but a very real issue that many people have been messaging me about.
An even] bigger issue, that you did not address (and badly needs to be addressed) is the behavior we have of members claiming packs, or creating new packs only to give them up a week later, or hand them to another character. While you say you miss when packs used to be a bit more prestigious, flipping them from one character to another and purposefully leaving them up for claim only further perpetuates this issue. I'd argue this is a much bigger issue than the number of packs, and far more of an issue than the gems/posts needed to claim or challenge for a pack..
You say "there used to be a sense of pride and achievement of gaining an alpha position because your hard work put you above the rest" -- I think half the issue that this is no longer the case is that people, as I said above, keep claiming/winning packs only to let them die out a week later, and do nothing with them. Most of the complaints I've heard from members coming back and not liking how many packs we have, or not liking how packs feel "easy" these days are the same members who don't keep packs they win or are given around for much longer than a few weeks at a time, at best. I think that sense of accomplishment is shattered when someone, who has earned a pack and is keeping it active, suddenly realizes someone is challenging for their pack... and they have just returned from not posting more than a few times in a month! That is really upsetting for people too and does eliminate the sense of pride people feel in having a pack.
I do like the idea of giving sieges and claiming packs having direct IC consequences and making these things affect the site more, but we have other issues we need to address first. Staff has also discussed making consequences for members who claim packs only to drop them or fall inactive so that regular members don't suffer when fairly inactive members return to try to claim or create a pack.
The siege rules you outlined are great and we are going to implement many of the suggestions we spoke about months ago (they are sitting in the staff board waiting, right now).
I would also like to be frank with everyone and tell you all this:
Alacritis is currently in the process of moving hosts, as east-of-paradise will be shutting down in the near future. Currently we will not be allowing sieges until the move is complete and large rule changes or suggestions are going to be put aside until the site is safely transferred to a new host. While I appreciate the suggestions, I also think you should have brought them to staff first, as it is not the time. We have a lot of changes we want to see happen to the site, but to be very honest now is not the time while we are going through so many other changes behind the scene.
If anyone has any questions or concerns about this, please message me.
And to Star, none of this was meant to be disrespectful so please message me to if you'd like to talk further!
What I feel like you might be forgetting is that a large portion of Alacritis feels very differently than you. Many (I'd venture to say over 50%) of the site is driven by the possibility if they are active, contributing members that post often that they might be able to someday have a pack of their own. You can claim that 200 posts is a low requirement and needs to be raised, but thus far, at nearly 2 years of being a site only 42 people have made it there so far (11 of these people are inactive currently). Of our entire site, that is a very low number of people and all of these people have worked quite hard to get where they are. By giving a relatively large amount of packs able to be claimed, we allow people to both fight for them (if they want to) or work their way there via. posting and paying gems. Your suggestion would only make the extremely strong fighters happy, and while a few people on site want to see that number flourish, the reality is that we have many people who love Ala but don't want to fight much (if at all) and that is okay too, even if isn't the ideal you personally want to strive for.
Regarding the number of packs, the very reason we implemented them was because an overwhelming majority of the site wanted to see more. I will agree perhaps the number could be lowered, but I think this will also work itself out with general pack activity requirements (and it has taken a few months to reach a high amount of packs, and now we're realizing perhaps it should be dropped by a few packs).
I will agree that pack challenges are something that could be raised in price and we might discuss this in the future.
We've talked thoroughly about actively allowing disbandment of packs (by physically removing them) as well, but we run into a bigger problem here. Quite honestly, this seems just a way for people who know how to fight to purposefully get rid of packs simply because they don't like our current pack numbers. Almost every time this has been brought up, it is by a member who dislikes the current number of packs. And while I know members can always work to improve their fighting, this creates an entirely new problem -- people running around fighting for packs just to disband them, for no reason other than wanting fewer packs on the site.
I think what we do need to do is find a solution for people who already have high post counts from coming back and challenging/claiming for packs, when they are not regularly active. If you want to make packs feel more prestigious, make it so people can't come back and make a new pack every time they feel like it after not being around on the site for months. They don't have to "work hard" to get a pack, only win a fight, and this can be really disheartening for people who post daily and don't disappear from the site for months at a time. This is not a personal attack, but a very real issue that many people have been messaging me about.
An even] bigger issue, that you did not address (and badly needs to be addressed) is the behavior we have of members claiming packs, or creating new packs only to give them up a week later, or hand them to another character. While you say you miss when packs used to be a bit more prestigious, flipping them from one character to another and purposefully leaving them up for claim only further perpetuates this issue. I'd argue this is a much bigger issue than the number of packs, and far more of an issue than the gems/posts needed to claim or challenge for a pack..
You say "there used to be a sense of pride and achievement of gaining an alpha position because your hard work put you above the rest" -- I think half the issue that this is no longer the case is that people, as I said above, keep claiming/winning packs only to let them die out a week later, and do nothing with them. Most of the complaints I've heard from members coming back and not liking how many packs we have, or not liking how packs feel "easy" these days are the same members who don't keep packs they win or are given around for much longer than a few weeks at a time, at best. I think that sense of accomplishment is shattered when someone, who has earned a pack and is keeping it active, suddenly realizes someone is challenging for their pack... and they have just returned from not posting more than a few times in a month! That is really upsetting for people too and does eliminate the sense of pride people feel in having a pack.
I do like the idea of giving sieges and claiming packs having direct IC consequences and making these things affect the site more, but we have other issues we need to address first. Staff has also discussed making consequences for members who claim packs only to drop them or fall inactive so that regular members don't suffer when fairly inactive members return to try to claim or create a pack.
The siege rules you outlined are great and we are going to implement many of the suggestions we spoke about months ago (they are sitting in the staff board waiting, right now).
I would also like to be frank with everyone and tell you all this:
Alacritis is currently in the process of moving hosts, as east-of-paradise will be shutting down in the near future. Currently we will not be allowing sieges until the move is complete and large rule changes or suggestions are going to be put aside until the site is safely transferred to a new host. While I appreciate the suggestions, I also think you should have brought them to staff first, as it is not the time. We have a lot of changes we want to see happen to the site, but to be very honest now is not the time while we are going through so many other changes behind the scene.
If anyone has any questions or concerns about this, please message me.
And to Star, none of this was meant to be disrespectful so please message me to if you'd like to talk further!