Please give other imms the go ahead to take care of the ludacris applicant problem that has been going on at least the last couple of weeks.

It is really a big turn off then battle has twice the members and the same amount of coverage as scion and applicants online outnumber actual members.

The drillmaster is MIA, all the hero imms seem to have deleted or are MIA, Kastellyn is dormant, and Thror is close to dormant.

K thanks.

There isn't a ludacris applicant problem. There is an instant gratification problem.

Villagers are expected to prove they are worthwhile applicants and it takes more than bashing down that one mage that doesn't know how to use his invisibility spell yet.

There are over 20 Villagers in Battle. Each time I log in, I address applicants and make them (here's the catch word of the day) "prove" they are worth joining the Village.

Proving means that these villagers are going to play out their character. If you can't work at being a patient and tried applicant, you won't be a suitable BattleRager.

What's worthwhile is difficult to achieve. It won't be handed to you.

I have an idea for a role that would hopefully lead to following Thror.

I also take very much to heart the words that Puldun once spoke to Homard regarding these things. To paraphrase, "Is easy to catch the eye of a God, hard to catch him's mouth."

I've been around much more lately.

I'll admit - changing jobs and roles has had me out of the loop for a few weeks but I'm still jumping online to keep tabs on things.

>There isn't a ludacris applicant problem. There is an
>instant gratification problem.

I can only speak for the times I play, when you have a ratio of 2.5 applicants per inducted member that fits my definition of an applicant problem and has nothing to do with gratification. This is not scion. But that just highlights the general flaw in the system that has existed forever. There are times when it isn't an issue (lots of active admins) and times when it is an issue (not much admin coverage). Right now we are in a time where there is a lack of admin coverage, please take action to resolve it or make an argument why people who don't share playtime with you deserve less then people who do.


>Villagers are expected to prove they are worthwhile applicants
>and it takes more than bashing down that one mage that doesn't
>know how to use his invisibility spell yet.


This point has nothing to do with quality of applicant it has to do with shortage/availability of people to pass judgement on quality.

>There are over 20 Villagers in Battle. Each time I log in, I
>address applicants and make them (here's the catch word of the
>day) "prove" they are worth joining the Village.

The current number of villagers and their cabal stats on presence/coverage/taking/retrieving suggests that they are not all that active, which kind of counterdicts your point below about the primary criteria for joining the village being that you will be active (purge time?).



>Proving means that these villagers are going to play out their
>character. If you can't work at being a patient and tried
>applicant, you won't be a suitable BattleRager.

This request has absolutly nothing to do with achieving the needs to become a villager and everything to do with the lack of availability of the people who review your case and make a decision.

What is patient enough to get you to take action? Being an app for 20, 30, 40 hours? Seeking admins for 1,2,3 RL weeks? Sending up 20,30,50 prays without responde? Losing 5,8, or 9 con due to cabal restrictions without cabal powers? Have you told other imms that when any of these thresholds have been met its ok for them to step in and do an intervie/induct?



>What's worthwhile is difficult to achieve. It won't be handed
>to you.

Not asking for anything to be handed to me/us except the opportunity to be judged, an opportunity that is tied to administrative coverage and as the only active Battle imm it is your responsability to administrate that administration.

Are people seriously complaining that they've been an APPLICANT (who now actually HAVE truesight) for 20 hours? Or for a week RL? Pretty certain my last character (who ended up Cardinal) spent 2.5 weeks and 36 hours as a pledge.

I've also had characters that take longer. The best advice I ever got regarding this game was just to play a character that I enjoyed playing. In the grand scheme of things, getting inducted into a cabal is a much LESS trying situation than dealing with the reality of the pendulum swings. If this frustrates you, I'm pretty certain there's plenty more that will later on.

As a parting comment...obligatory orc propoganda. Roll an orc! No worries about joining a cabal, no item to defend, and automatic membership into the clan! GSV forever!

Everything else aside, if you're losing that much con as an app, you either don't know how to pick fights intelligently or are just flat out bad. It's not like you don't have guilds/the inn and detect invis like everyone else.

Not all of the issues I listed are things I am personally experiencing. They are general issues that apps experience (long hours, long RL time frames, downsides of cabal restrictions without the powers designed to compensate for them).

The point is that being qualified is meaningless without someone to judge it.

I work in a project management division so on a regular basis I have to explain to people that they have to deal with ####ty situations for long periods of time before we can address their issues. The reason behind this is that we have limited resources and we have to make our decisions for selecting projects based on what will help the most people at any given time, which leaves certain groups out in the cold. I get that with limited resources you need to prioritize.

The issue in CF land, and it occurs for every cabal/religion, is that there are periods where the dedicated administrators are not able to support the needs of all of those dependant on them. There are several other people who could support those needs but they cannot or will not because the people in charge are not allowing them. The barrier to satisfying people is as simple as giving a nod. When the barrier is that simple to overcome it is downright silly to not do it. It is retarded to not create standards to deal with these issues on an ongoing basis. It becomes super retarded when you look at it this way, the people who would be covering are other imms, most imms at this point have been leaders of several cabals. For instance twist would be just fine interviewing battle apps because he has been a battle leader many times. That is but one instance but the imms have been around long enough that it is reasonable to entrust them all with such a low level decision making task such as cabal induction.

As administrators imms should be asking the question, is having direct control of this more important then the enjoyment of the playerbase. When it comes to induction for non scion/herald the choice should be obvious and clear, share responsibility.

Twist OKing Battle apps for example. Twist already runs *TWO* religions, oversees Nexus and in part Empire. Not to mention raising a family, and doing his RL job. Just becaue he CAN play a BattleRager character (and do it well), doesn't mean he should add that to his plate of CF duties. Firstly, by definition it means he would be spending less time watching those two cabals. Empire in particular is one that players OFTEN complain about people breaking the rules of Imperial Law, and it's something that often only can be caught be an Immortal keeping tabs on them as well. Secondly, even if he's just giving a nod and tabs in, then you're diluting the BattleRager experience. You've got someone who's only been rubber-stamped in.

While it's not perfect, I firmly believe that even with these difficulties, you're assuming there's more available than there might be. As another player mentioned...I've often taken the steps to change my playtime to meet up with said inductee. At the very least, have you made the simple attempt of leaving a NOTE for any of these inductee people you say you can't reach? They're the ones in charge, it's not outrageous to expect those who *want something from them* to take the little bit of extra effort to meet them. There's a point with some leaders where you just HAVE to deal with possible excessive expectations (recs if there just AREN'T ragers to deal with), but I've also had no problems with SOMEONE finding me if I plug away at it.

As an aside, I've already been tempted to play a Rager next. I play horrible hours, and am still willing to bet I could get inducted within a reasonable timeframe. I might be convinced to roll one up.

...I don't think things with Battle are as dire as they seem. As someone mentioned somewhere, pendulum swings yadda yadda.

I also don't think Thror (or anyone else on the immstaff) is really to blame for the current state of Battle. As an Imm, you make someone leader and generally let them run with it. If they are a no-show, your cabal weakens for a while. And if they let it go too long, you boot them from leadership and give leadership to someone better.

Battle suffered due to a generally no-show leader for a while. That leader would likely have been removed from leadership in relative short order if he hadn't taken matters into his own hands and deleted (and hey, sometimes we just don't have time to play, so props for stepping up and doing so).

I would imagine Battle will have a new mortal leader quite soon and we'll see a lot of applicants flooding into the village.

gr

>What is patient enough to get you to take action? Being an
>app for 20, 30, 40 hours? Seeking admins for 1,2,3 RL weeks?
>Sending up 20,30,50 prays without responde? Losing 5,8, or 9
>con due to cabal restrictions without cabal powers? Have you
>told other imms that when any of these thresholds have been
>met its ok for them to step in and do an intervie/induct?
>
>


Honestly, I think I would be surprised if an applicant had 15 mage PKs and 40 hours as a app, but was not inducted or at least closely observed. There are certain objective things you can do as an app to bump yourself up the priority list. Lots of mage PKs is a good one. Even 10 would make you stand out. The same thing goes for Fortress. A hefty part of the idea behind Battle is kinda sorta maybe killing mages.

They also need to do something about that whole 'Get approval from 2 other Villagers' thing. I mean really, how is an applicant going to know who is a villager if they're not titled as such? Nevermind for the applicants who aren't on the same time as already inducted villagers in the first place.

Seriously, the whole "hey, what's that obscure fact that you'll only know by reading the stories in the library?" test period really needs to go away. Barbarians need to know their history, sure, but come on. No other cabal comes anywhere close to this requirement and you're asking barbarian warriors to go read in a library.

I've played six Villagers over the past few years and I've never been asked anything obscure during an induction (and I've been inducted by Malakhi, Woldrun, Knacnar, and one of Bork's morts.) Granted, sometimes while searching out a recommendation the Villager interviewing has asked some questions about history, but nothing that wouldn't be common knowledge for a Theran, especially one who is seeking to join the Village.

Is this really that much of an issue. Are some players demanding that applicants know what kind of car Boltthrower drove? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.

Yeah I've been asked to name 5 villagers off the pillar. I've been asked about how the giant came to the village. I've been asked what the tablet stuff. All things that have more to do with making sure you've played lots of villagers before then what you are doing now.

I think that Battle is the best way for a new player to learn the game, and having to prove that you've played a Villager before screws up my whole notion.

>I think that Battle is the best way for a new player to learn
>the game, and having to prove that you've played a Villager
>before screws up my whole notion.
>

But I haven't played a villager in the last little bit either. While I was able to answer the questions since I'm older than dirt, it was still annoying to have to sit and comb 17 odd years of cf related memories for information at times.

I agree that quizing them on some book in a library seems very counter-barbarian.

The whole history thing though I believe is vital to what makes the village different from other cabals. I mean the village cares about its legacy and the pillar is a testament to that (sure other cabals have copied but they just don't have the same feel). The village also is very pride oriented which fits in well with the whole knowing your past type deal.

Personally I always play it off as stories handed down around a campfire as opposed to read te book, most vets know the stories inside and out, or at least the major details (who and why), as a village noob... well yeah you might need to take 5 minutes to read them or ask someone else.

IMO joining Battle isn't about whether you've played long enough to know the history of Battle, nor whether you've gotten vouched and read a bunch of stuff. It's about can you kill mages and fight with courage and pride.

edited to add: I'd say only about 1/3 of my rager interviews have included any sort of history question, FWIW. YMMV. DLAMMF. LOL.

They are no longer Barbarian Warriors. They are Students of War. BattleRagers are expected to understand more than the basic aspects of Warfare. Part of this includes knowing your enemies and in many aspects knowing yourself.

While I don't ask quite the series of historical questions that I used to, I do ask things specific to Honor and Courage (and how they are not one and the same) and expect a basic understanding of Village history/dogma.

If you don't know enough about the group of people you are about to fight shoulder to shoulder with, chances are pretty high that you don't care to be a significant contribution to the BattleRager Village.

FWIW - All those guys on the pillar cared.

Nt

Thats one thing I always dislike about Thror being sole leader of the village. Yean and Kastellyn both had differing views on things you uninduct people for. Now that you're the only one though you're enforcing one specific belief set on what could be much more well rounded and RP'd cabal.

Students of War is about my religion?

BoltThrower, Kastellyn, Intronan and I all decided that the village would be geared more towards the "Art of War."

The concept of three factions of Battle was based on this, as well as the War room.

I have and always will expect Villagers to have a basic understanding of the history of the Village. I'm not the sole inductee for the Battle cabal (that what we have mortal leaders for).

Thus, if someone finds the above too difficult, they have options.

While I don't ask quite the series of historical questions that I used to, I do ask things specific to Honor and Courage (and how they are not one and the same) and expect a basic understanding of Village history/dogma.



This. Specifically Honor and Courage and your views being the only right ones.

I have a pretty broad view of Honor and Courage.

I expect a player talking to me to align with it to some degree.

As I stated, there are other options if a player doesn't feel their up to meeting my expectations.

But this is classic, you can do it my way or go #### yourself. Probably not the best stance to take with a diminished player base. Just saying.

How do you get that out of a post that's three sentences long when one of those sentences is essentially "You have other options besides doing it my way?"

You have people complaining about not seeing the leadership often enough. You have people complaining that the antiquated interview format is unforgiving for less experienced players. And you have the sole administrator of the cabal saying you have other options. Yeah that may have been a three sentence long response, but the thread was a lot longer than that. Just like you are probably going to respond to 2 words in this post as you normally do.

If you get Thror or really any of the imms conducting your interview you don't need to worry about them looking for pigeon holed definitions. As long as you have a definition and its not completly and totally counter to the general principles of the idea you will be fine.

Mortal leaders on the other hand... well some will do it and some won't. If they are being pig headed there is always the imms that can step in and build you a hut.

I don't know about you but for myself and mostly everyone I know OOC getting an ineriew = getting inducted for any cabal except scion. The challenge is in getting the interview, which it should be. But there are times when those challenges have nothing to do with quality and everything to do with availability. After 15 years of CF this issue has not really been addressed well for any cabal except empire (thanks zulg for automation)

Just his particular stance in this case.

gr

I can't speak for the Battle IMMs on this, but I've had at least one villager who went directly to the Commander or Drillmaster and got inducted. These requirements were set by a mortal (Abernyte) and became common practice. They are, however, by no means a requirement that every Commander must follow.

Got inducted without any recommendations that I know of (never asked for any), and without asking the commander for induction. He just plugged away and eventually got called to the village and interviewed by the commander.

But then, I quite enjoyed playing as an app.

Ask around?

Look for the most Dangerous warriors of Thera? (Albeit not many dangerous ones these days!)

I don't know, if I was going to join an exclusive group of bikers, trashing bars and burnin' up the highways - I'd like to at least know the leader of said group.

FWIW - this is not so uncommon to socializing outside of the Internet. Just sayin!