ElsyJan 13, 2017Jan 13, 2017 at 12:38 AM
#1
Poll question: What do we do about housing?
HOMESTEAD IS COMING! SO... what do we do?
A few of in you in Discord have probably already seen me say this a few times, but I will reiterate some things I'd like the guild and its members to be wary of as Homestead draws closer to live. If you're familiar with the things I've already said, I urge you to scroll down a bit more and give us input on what you think the guild should do with the soon-to-be available housing.
We will not be having a guild hall.
Why? Well, RP is a communal art. To shove the guild into an interior cell not only shuts out the outside world, filled with other RPers and potential new RPers, but it also shuts out potential new members and in general closes the guild off to any RP opportunities that may come from random people jumping into the RP. It does so much good for the guild when our members and our RP are visible to passersby and RP community members. BSR will take a big blow to its membership and reputation if we close ourselves in a guild hall, so it's not an option.
There is a player limit to the homes, even the largest ones.
Only 24 people can be in the same house at once. Even if we wanted a guild hall, it may not always be functional. Our guild has about 40 active members (our Discord has 50 people in it at the moment, to give you an idea). Of course, there's yet to be a recent time that all of these people have been online and RPing at once. There tend to be anywhere from 3-15 people in casual tavern RP, and 10-20 people at events. At the moment we would fit in a house, but if we have guests joining us, or you'd like to invite your non-guildie friends along, we'd not have a whole lot of wiggle room as far as the player limit to a home. If we continue to grow as we have been, it's possible we'll have even less. So, in the future it's possible the guild wouldn't fit in a guild hall.
We need to remember that we are a guild.
While I totally expect a dip in tavern/event RP the first month or two that Homestead is out, because it's new content and I'm sure everyone will be excited, please remember that we are a guild and we miss you when you exclusively RP in private areas. Of course, BSR will never tell you where to RP and what stories to participate in, but we'd love the opportunity to engage your characters in our stories and for you to hang out with us. Please be wary of becoming a recluse. Additionally, please be mindful of pulling people away from tavern/event RP to RP in private, either as a one-on-one or as an exclusive "club.: It'll get awkward if someone is looking for RP or we're trying to hold a story, but those that would have been there to RP with have been sucked into an RP in a private area. Again, you and your guildmates don't need to be with us all of the time, no one does, just try to check in now and again. We do miss you and notice when you're gone. Personally, it feels weird when the usual folks aren't there. And it sucks when the admin team has worked hard to put on events for members, and people decide to RP elsewhere instead.
Alright but, is the guild going to take advantage of Homestead at all?
Hopefully! There are a couple options we've been kicking around, but we need your help and input. We'd like to know what you think, so that we can better tailor the guild to the RP experience its members are seeking. Below are some of our ideas. Please reply with what you think, or if you have other ideas to add. Additionally, you don't necessarily have to pick one of these ideas. It's possible for a house to function in multiple ways.
A staging area!
RP is like acting for introverts. At least, that's how I think of it. And thus far we've been using the game environment as our stage. It's been working pretty well but as you all know, there are only so many areas accessible to us for our story stages. We do tend to repeat stages/locations because of that. So! Homestead could offer a stage that the guild could tailor to its different stories. We could buy one of the larger homes and set it up differently according to what our guild story necessitates. It would remain locked when not in use during a story to discourage private guild RP. Additionally, we'd have to make sure that not more than 24 people planned on being at the event that night.
An occasional factions event area.
While again, we're wary of shoving all RP into a home, faction/side-stories included, it's possible that a faction could use the home every-so-often for a one-off event, say for a ball, a house to rob, a place where unsuspecting NPCs could become a meal, an interior for a ship. There's quite a few one-time event things that it could be used for that would still be infrequent enough that we'd not have to worry about the concerns voiced above. Of course, any illegal activities that take place there would mean the home would have to ICly be someplace outside of Vulkwasten, otherwise characters are subject to arrest and punishment. But you know, it's a thought.
Don't do anything with Homestead.
This is as legitimate an option as the above. If you'd prefer we leave the home-making to you, we can do that too.
Now the logistics of it...
What would we need to actually get a house for guild use? Well...
We'd need gold from you.
At the moment we have ~900k. That's enough for a large home. But if we want anything larger, it's going to have to come out of all of our pockets. I've donated ~150k at the moment.
We'd need to set up OOC rules for the home, as well as IC rules and how jurisdiction would work there.
We can do this when Homestead has actually hit live, but if you do have any ideas for this at the moment, please let us know.
We'd need your input!
Tell us what you think! It's easier than us trying to guess.
HOMESTEAD IS COMING! SO... what do we do?
A few of in you in Discord have probably already seen me say this a few times, but I will reiterate some things I'd like the guild and its members to be wary of as Homestead draws closer to live. If you're familiar with the things I've already said, I urge you to scroll down a bit more and give us input on what you think the guild should do with the soon-to-be available housing.
We will not be having a guild hall.
Why? Well, RP is a communal art. To shove the guild into an interior cell not only shuts out the outside world, filled with other RPers and potential new RPers, but it also shuts out potential new members and in general closes the guild off to any RP opportunities that may come from random people jumping into the RP. It does so much good for the guild when our members and our RP are visible to passersby and RP community members. BSR will take a big blow to its membership and reputation if we close ourselves in a guild hall, so it's not an option.
- TL;DR: No public area RP = low visibility of guild to outside community = less members/less RP opportunities, so no guild hall.
There is a player limit to the homes, even the largest ones.
Only 24 people can be in the same house at once. Even if we wanted a guild hall, it may not always be functional. Our guild has about 40 active members (our Discord has 50 people in it at the moment, to give you an idea). Of course, there's yet to be a recent time that all of these people have been online and RPing at once. There tend to be anywhere from 3-15 people in casual tavern RP, and 10-20 people at events. At the moment we would fit in a house, but if we have guests joining us, or you'd like to invite your non-guildie friends along, we'd not have a whole lot of wiggle room as far as the player limit to a home. If we continue to grow as we have been, it's possible we'll have even less. So, in the future it's possible the guild wouldn't fit in a guild hall.
- TL;DR: 24 people player cap in even the biggest homes. We might outgrow that, which makes a guild hall not functional.
We need to remember that we are a guild.
While I totally expect a dip in tavern/event RP the first month or two that Homestead is out, because it's new content and I'm sure everyone will be excited, please remember that we are a guild and we miss you when you exclusively RP in private areas. Of course, BSR will never tell you where to RP and what stories to participate in, but we'd love the opportunity to engage your characters in our stories and for you to hang out with us. Please be wary of becoming a recluse. Additionally, please be mindful of pulling people away from tavern/event RP to RP in private, either as a one-on-one or as an exclusive "club.: It'll get awkward if someone is looking for RP or we're trying to hold a story, but those that would have been there to RP with have been sucked into an RP in a private area. Again, you and your guildmates don't need to be with us all of the time, no one does, just try to check in now and again. We do miss you and notice when you're gone. Personally, it feels weird when the usual folks aren't there. And it sucks when the admin team has worked hard to put on events for members, and people decide to RP elsewhere instead.
- TL;DR: We miss you when you RP in private. Try to pop by now and again and hang out with us. Please be mindful of having so many people in your own home that the tavern becomes empty.
Alright but, is the guild going to take advantage of Homestead at all?
Hopefully! There are a couple options we've been kicking around, but we need your help and input. We'd like to know what you think, so that we can better tailor the guild to the RP experience its members are seeking. Below are some of our ideas. Please reply with what you think, or if you have other ideas to add. Additionally, you don't necessarily have to pick one of these ideas. It's possible for a house to function in multiple ways.
A staging area!
RP is like acting for introverts. At least, that's how I think of it. And thus far we've been using the game environment as our stage. It's been working pretty well but as you all know, there are only so many areas accessible to us for our story stages. We do tend to repeat stages/locations because of that. So! Homestead could offer a stage that the guild could tailor to its different stories. We could buy one of the larger homes and set it up differently according to what our guild story necessitates. It would remain locked when not in use during a story to discourage private guild RP. Additionally, we'd have to make sure that not more than 24 people planned on being at the event that night.
An occasional factions event area.
While again, we're wary of shoving all RP into a home, faction/side-stories included, it's possible that a faction could use the home every-so-often for a one-off event, say for a ball, a house to rob, a place where unsuspecting NPCs could become a meal, an interior for a ship. There's quite a few one-time event things that it could be used for that would still be infrequent enough that we'd not have to worry about the concerns voiced above. Of course, any illegal activities that take place there would mean the home would have to ICly be someplace outside of Vulkwasten, otherwise characters are subject to arrest and punishment. But you know, it's a thought.
Don't do anything with Homestead.
This is as legitimate an option as the above. If you'd prefer we leave the home-making to you, we can do that too.
Now the logistics of it...
What would we need to actually get a house for guild use? Well...
We'd need gold from you.
At the moment we have ~900k. That's enough for a large home. But if we want anything larger, it's going to have to come out of all of our pockets. I've donated ~150k at the moment.
We'd need to set up OOC rules for the home, as well as IC rules and how jurisdiction would work there.
We can do this when Homestead has actually hit live, but if you do have any ideas for this at the moment, please let us know.
We'd need your input!
Tell us what you think! It's easier than us trying to guess.
Edited Jan 13, 2017 at 12:39 AM by 0