So this relates to the post about changing up cabals but I figured I'd seperate it a bit and elaborate on some thoughts floating around in my head.

First up many people have expressed frustration with the current CTF of Carrionfields cabal dynamics. Of course my view is a bit mixed because CF in some ways is like GTA - you get out what you put in. You don't have to play cabals like CTF (you could join Heralds and not deal with CTF at all for example). Each cabal sorta represents a different minigame in a way. Battle is obviously (deathmatch) for example, Tribunal is...umm...#### if I know...which brings me to the next part of my commentary.

What people are actually asking for is more defined rules and goals because all games whether chess, GTA, checkers, monopoly, whatever, at the end of the day are made up of rules, goals, and possibly a reward (the main reward being winning which ties into what a few of the folks in the other post were eluding too).

So anyways if the cabals aren't changing and are well balanced as far as the staff is concerned then it seems like what cabals need is missions/quests (big hard ones) that tie into a larger overall goal. This allows for each mission/quest to have a defined goal and rules and possible reward while allowing time to develop a larger global quest/goal.

I believe with the dedicated community CF has you could create something that takes months to happen and keep the players interests over an extended period of time and instead of looking at each individual players lifetime, you incorporate their lives into the larger plot/goal so even if a character deletes/con dies/ whatever it doesn't disrupt the larger plot it is simply a thread in the overall weave.

For example you had the RP contest with amaranthe that seemed to go over well if not exactly going accoring to plan. Well - what if the staff actually incorporated (contacted) players with RP ideas that could tie into a larger plot - really involve players and use a little imm involvement to 'nudge' things in the right direction via global events and one on one involvement? You could do as amaranthe did and post it on the contest forum OR you could incorporate pre-existing characters roles and let those characters know what you want them to do somehow whether IC or OOC in order to push the bigger plot forward.

So for example...

Lets say the overall big plot is for either the Scions to 'win' and the eternal night to happen OR for the Fort to 'win' and an 'Age of Light' to occur. You can have a series of 'missions' for the Scions/Fort to accomplish while at the same time having some other characters/cabals whose purpose is to prevent the scions/fort from accomplishing those missions. Each mission would be assigned a point value and after all of them are completed the 'winner' gets their favored outcome.

EX:

Protect the Archmage of Light (10 points)

An Imm wearing the skin of an Archmage orders some Fort folks to guard him while he travels from point A to point B, at the same time the Scion archmage orders a group of scions to kill the Light archmage while he makes his way from point A to point B.


Find the Thigamabob of Doom (25 points)

Basic Easter Egg quest, an Imm drops a few clues and whoever finds the thigamabob first win this mission. Have it guarded by something fairly nasty so even if one cabal finds it first another cabal has a chance to come across the first cabal and get it from them.

Etc so on and so forth with a variety of mission types/goals that leads to the big plot.

THEN - you incorporate some of those things some other players were talking about. So if Scions win - perhaps have that stuff that happens when a (pillar?) is placed somewhere happen whenever night happens permanently until the NEXT big plotline happens to end the eternal night...or if Fort wins you can make it so that lightwalkers are granted random blessings or something like that.

Overall point being that the little small missions/quests serve as a means to provide structure/fun while pushing a bigger plot forward while leaving room for that bigger plot to be screwed up due to imms leaving/characters deleting etc. because the big plot is only a far off goal which the players are not necessarily privy too while the points are slowly being added up over time.


I've got more but I'm headed to lunch....more later....

This may be just me, but if you really want your ideas to be looked at I would strongly advise reducing the amount of words in each post. You will get a wider audience who doesn't skip down looking for the TLDR.

Besides having missions/quests and a big plot to keep folks occupied, you can also incorporate other game types/ideas. I admit im harping on it but I do like GTA...heres an idea...one of my favorite things to happen in GTA Online is for someone to bounty me (sounds weird) but its actually really fun ripping and roaring around while a bunnch of folks are doing their best to kill you and very gratifying when you manage to kill some of them.

How about every now and then an Imm 'bounties' a player (preferabbly one with a very good PK ratio) but instead of gold the player who manages the kill within a specified time limit gets a reward of some kind? And if the player/character manages to live through the bounty time limit they get a reward? I'm sure this would be very fun and it may have to be limited to 'natural' enemies (for example an Imm bounties a battlerager and contacts the battlerager and a 'crew' of shapeshifters in his range to fight him and specifies the kill has to happen in a specific place within a specific time limit, etc)

OR

Another mission type I like is the ones where an increasingly hard wave of enemies comes at you in swarms. Not sure how hard that would be but you could conceivably have for example wave after wave of enemies hit the Tribunals for example and if ANY of the Tribunals manage to last until the last wave without dying (meaning strategy could be to all fight or pick a person to protect at all costs) then the entire cabal receives a reward. You could mix the NPC wave up with actual enemy player characters for additional chaos/fun.

I'm sure given enough time there are lots of game types that could be done ad hoc easily besides CTF to enhance things.