Tips for upcoming sims (cause I know they keep coming).

[Tantus]

I was not a combat mod, there was one in charge. This first raid was just a non sense, totally irrealistic. The first approach of Ar to Laura, was a delegation with the ubar's daughters, it was even before Ar's build was achevied.
And I'm not defending Ar, why do you think I left this sim (before it reached one month old, btw...?).

Fact is that a raid, as described in the books, is made by a bunch of tarnsmen (not hundreds), who come capture women and leave as soon as the city react in sending its own tarnsmen. It's not a bunch of men, whatever their number, NPC or not, from one city, which enter the most powerful city of Gor by the gates and leave by the gates as well. For this scenario, it takes a war and the city is occupied, definitely (but who, in SL Gor, would want to play a scenario where a city, defeated, is occupied? None)

That first incident wasn't exactly a raid, some Arians landed in Laura Outpost, starting making demands and threats. Then proceeded to circle around and bump individuals with Run Mode activated in the implication swords were about to be drawn. A fight inevitably broke out and so began the war.

I'm also going to add that Laura responded by assaulting Ar in accordance with Ar's raiding rules. Any issues you have with realism should have been taken up with Ar whilst you were a moderator. It makes absolutely no sense to return and say Laura were raiding unrealistically, when they were following Ar's guidelines. I've no idea what you're expecting from a raid, it sounds to be beyond SL's limitations.

I don't think I'm expecting too much, Tantus, when I regret that so many men in SL, refuse to accept, sometimes, to lose, forget it's a game and that no big damage will be made to their ego. Good RP can follow from a defeat.
Btw, I was not a player in this Ar from 2012. At this time, I played in the Oasis of the Red Scimitar, after, in Tales of Port Kar / Malignance until the sim closed (I was not an admin there, but I do remember there was seldom interactions with other sims, the RP evolved around a situation of rivalries and conflicts between the principal commanders and their household).

Apparently this will go into an infinite loop with no agreement, and that's fine. We've roleplayed in different venues with our own outlook on how entertaining RP should be.

I recall visiting the sims like Malignance and Red Scimitar and how quickly they lost traffic. I've been involved in quiet sims myself with nothing you can do to keep it populated, it's part of why I toured roleplaying sims to see what worked for them and especially the "Roleplay Heavy" sims. What I often found on these sims was zero-activity, people stood isolated in their homes with nothing going on. And it really doesn't matter how good your roleplayers are if they aren't roleplaying.

I think for the couple of months I visited Red Scimitar, there was only the bot 'OasisOfTheRedScimitar' and a couple of AFK avatars on sim. This is often the story of RP Heavy sims which start strong for the opening week then nosedives into a suspended state of limbo.

So how do you, in your post-sim assessment, account for the rapid shift from activity to obscurity?
This isn't a dig at your sims, it happens to practically everyone, even I've been there.

[Sasi]

I think Oor summarized well the differences you can notice between a RP environment such as GoT, and Gor.

Also, I don't think I can't say that Laura raided unrealistically (and when the accident you mentioned happened, I was not yet a mod, told you, the sim was barely open). But it's definitely the big problem of SL Gor. Almost no body wants to respect the historical context and play realistically. So, any small town feels allowed to attack the most powerful city of Gor, in entering by the gates, leaving by the gates and claiming victory. I told you how a raid upon Ar was described in the books, it's quite different. But at the end, what can one with expectations of realism should complain, huh, in a RP environment where even the local male scribes wander in the street when a bow or/and a sword, where in fact, any male character whatever their caste, are played like a warrior, whatever their caste, fearing nothing, even ready to tell an assassin to go fuck himself. We're far from the book where free men and women will not even dare to look at a slave girl obviously owned by a member of a black caste, where a tavern owner welcome his patrons in calling them "Masters", where men will cultivate a high slave for she influences her master in their behalf....

That si SL Gor. Nobody is weak, everyone even the slaves girls and outlaw claim honor, there is a warrior soul in almost any man. Not to mention the cute lovey dovey RP family....

Regarding the traffic of ORS (I was an admin), we started slowly but we reached 20/25K. The owners closed the sim when they joined the Malignance project (which hit 40K). ORS traffic, I recall, turned at this moment, around 12/10K. Which was rather a decent traffic for a sim with standards regarding the kind of RP the owners wanted or didn't want. ORS was not a sim where you could experience this bullshit RP imposed by some chief scribe requiring everyone register their slaves at the library after a slave exam, or random slave going to serve in the tavern which doesn't own her, etc etc......

But yes, whatever the sim, the traffic tends to drop after a few months, anyway. As for the traffic of these "elitist" sims as you call them, I previously explained it (my first post on this thread, I guess?)

[Lacey]

I'm not going to circle around the slave-kennel debate, it's non-issue, but highlights the way a modern generation perceive roleplaying.

There was a time people asked, "what can I do for a sim."
Now people are all about, "what can a sim do for me."

Most raids are just a non sense.. I remember when a small town like Laura took over Ar (I don't remember what version of it) in a raid... How realistic was it?

The actual war involved Hochburg, Laura and Northern mercenaries against Ar, there was no occupation of the city. The conflict lasted around 3 months with some seven skirmishes fought, each side took victories and losses. Factoring in for the additional sims who funded the war effort, there was a heavy emphasis on trades, treaties and diplomacy and less so on the raiding.

If the Arians(whom likely related this event to you) felt like they'd been taken over, it's a testament to the pressure put upon them, diplomatically and politically with their internal factions turned against one another.

Now whilst you may want to take a dig at the event, which 'political' roleplays have you ever managed involving multiple other sims. And now I'm interested, which 'political' roleplay have you done where you weren't an admin on the sim, roleplaying with your close friends.

In the books, a raid upon Ar is made of a few tarnsmen, they take time to capture some women, then, flee as soon as Arian Tarnsmen start chasing them. Simple like that. But in SL Gor, a raid organized in the purpose of capturing women is just not a valid reason.

Are you intentionally contradicting yourself here or expressing how little you understand of SL Gorean raids.

It's a good training if your sim focus more on raids and tournaments, and not too much on political intrigues, conflicts, long term storylines.... Because when you have the new warriors spar and spar, when do they find time to just, RP?

The two are not mutually exclusive, every sim should have a variety for keeping their men engaged. And I say men, because women can roleplay, roleplay, roleplay with no break in between. I liken it to the situation where some women can talk endlessly and men generally don't. It translates into how frequently you can emote too.

I remember when groups of women would be in Group Chat, complaining about 'boys playing with their toys', and how a 'real man' would be sitting with his companion. With that attitude it's really no mystery why these women are single in RL and looking for meaningful companionship online.

And you're making a similar statement in pressing a divide between raiding and roleplaying. But I can tell you the experience is most potent when both are combined. Men who raid do find the time to roleplay too and their roleplaying is better because of it.


However - for the sake of argument - let's look at your division of "political intrigues, conflicts, long term storylines" minus the "training and raiding'.

I've seen instances on these sims where men are roleplaying:

| Sloshes falarian wine around his gilded cup and with a sweep of his imperious hand, positions the Fourth Legion at the foothills of Venna. A further well executed sweep directs the Fifth Legion towards Rarn. His hand doth put the lives of legions on the balance. Men shall perish, few will return, but cities shall be conquered.|

Give it a few more days of this intriguing roleplay and then the penny drops. It's all a big fucking farce. There's no conflict but a map table, your greatest enemy is the little pair of dice rolling around it. There's no actual substance to this war but endless emoting of how great and important you all are. There's no enemy to challenge you, no danger coming back to you, nothing intriguing beyond an hour of seeing what this scene was about and it's certainly not longterm.

None of these sims are populated beyond the first month. I think you had a sim, Sasi, where you probably pressed your attitude that men shouldn't raid, spar or do what interests them. Fuck no. They should be sitting down with women entertaining your needs alone. And that's how you ended up with the only sim in the history of SL Gor overpopulated by bisexual thralls. I don't recall its name but you should have called it Tharna.

Yes, some sims have standards, they ask you to prove you can type 5 lines to figure an action properly emoted. And so what? Is it a crime, in role play, for a sim, to fix some standards and build a community where people's RP style will match well? Able to fight? The Gorean sims with high standards tend to favor text combats, so, your metered combat skills seldom matter...

Those elitist GE sims back in the day went beyond setting standards, being a good paragraph-roleplayer wasn't enough to join them. Imagine a time where groups only accepted the top 5% of players who can 'fight' and make violent-emoting look like an artform. Then you're understanding how elitist some sims became.

I'm not sure how one is helping a sim by "role playing" what even you admit is something even the "male players" don't want to do. There is no reason to circle around it, even you say it is something that becomes tedious. So, in what way is it even remotely "selfish" to point out that no one really wants to do it? The slaver characters don't want to. The physician ones do not want to. Neither do the slaver characters. The fact that you think in two hours that the slave character would be out of the slave house if they just went through all the stuff is laughable. Most of those places require weeks and weeks of the torture before they are finally able to get to something that resembles role play. Then imagine doing all of that and having to start all over again when that sim closes at the end of its three month mark or because you actually find someone that you like to role play with? You mention bored men who get tired of slaves running up on them but I never really see that many of them crying foul over some combat (unless they lost then they are usually two years old again). So, why not have the capping game like there was in the books? As far as the poor souls who have not figured out SLGor RP and how to handle things when they are moved to a lifestyle sim, they still will not know when they put on a dress and some veils or even a muscled mesh body. We are not helping them by not kick starting them now. Imagine SL Gor RP where the basics of role play include what is and is not a part of role play. Internet safety? Nope, let us skip all of that and "RP" teaching about animals and how the slave house gets all the slaves who come into a city "new" while guarding the people who have dressed their avatars as slave characters from the creepy guy who might "rape" her.

Do we really want something exciting or do we just want to recreate 1990s webpage Gor complete with asking people for permission to IM them? Sometimes I think that is where we are in our Gorean community, people not wanting to admit that there was a split between lifestyler Gor and role play Gor. I will never understand why people will piss and moan about the same ole same ole while defending the "old way." Nothing different besides paga fetching is going to happen if we cannot realize that our "solutions" are actually hindering us.

[Tantus]

But it's definitely the big problem of SL Gor. Almost no body wants to respect the historical context and play realistically. So, any small town feels allowed to attack the most powerful city of Gor, in entering by the gates, leaving by the gates and claiming victory. I told you how a raid upon Ar was described in the books, it's quite different. But at the end, what can one with expectations of realism should complain, huh, in a RP environment where even the local male scribes wander in the street when a bow or/and a sword, where in fact, any male character whatever their caste, are played like a warrior, whatever their caste, fearing nothing, even ready to tell an assassin to go fuck himself.

I've already explained to you it wasn't how this raid unfolded and there was no claim of victory over Ar. You have a very flexible view of reality, even once corrected you'll continue to promote the false version of events.

If the Ar sim had provided a landscape from which to besiege the city, you would have a point. However, the city's walls reached the sim's borders. Any point you're making on realism is another reason you shouldn't be roleplaying in SL Gor, at all. Ordinarily I wouldn't encourage any discussion where someone has a hard time grasping the facts and moving forwards.

If a person of any caste has a reason for being armed, then why not?
Character development is important in roleplay, they will learn new traits as they go along. Maybe you prefer the cookie-cutter MMORPG style classes, where players are limited but I like meeting individuals with some uniqueness to them. My only requirement for men being armed is, they should know how to use those weapons too.

Not cowering in the face of the enemy, defending your Home Stone from any odds, preferring death over subjugation is a very Gorean scenario. Laura stood up to the larger enemy and eventually achieved a peace, these are the tales book stories are written on. Not the nonsense you're proposing of every city submitting their sovereignty because 'Oh no, it's Ar!'. Like no one would ever go to war with Ar? you do recall it was the first city conquered in the books by a largely mercenary force.

Regarding the traffic of ORS (I was an admin), we started slowly but we reached 20/25K. The owners closed the sim when they joined the Malignance project (which hit 40K). ORS traffic, I recall, turned at this moment, around 12/10K. Which was rather a decent traffic for a sim with standards regarding the kind of RP the owners wanted or didn't want. ORS was not a sim where you could experience this bullshit RP imposed by some chief scribe requiring everyone register their slaves at the library after a slave exam, or random slave going to serve in the tavern which doesn't own her, etc etc......

But yes, whatever the sim, the traffic tends to drop after a few months, anyway. As for the traffic of these "elitist" sims as you call them, I previously explained it (my first post on this thread, I guess?)

On a previous post you called yourself an owner of Elitist sims, so I'm going by that definition. And I believe your explanation for fallen traffic was, people are fickle, they very quickly leave when admins stop serving their needs. So I like how in one post you can say your sims were filled with advanced roleplayers and in the next post you can dismiss them as freeloaders.

ORS was basically empty for the months I dropped in to see their roleplay. Malignance wasn't a place you could meet people either as everyone was sitting in their homes doing their faction roleplay, it obviously didn't go far.


So. I keep saying people should stop complaining and start offering solutions.

Here's the trouble with 'Advanced/Elite/Heavy Roleplaying sims', whatever you like to call them. They don't understand that political roleplay is the most, ball-crushingly boring scene out there. In the absence of any danger you roll these dice, play with units on the war table, and the grand consequence is... you made some imaginary gains today. And you'll make imaginary losses tomorrow. Very. Exciting.

In between dice rolls you're locked into this Reality TV show of a house filled with women whom all want your attention. Not a single one of them is posting anything of substance, she's a very deep character and wants you to hear her backstory, she's an awkward character and needs you to acknowledge her exquisite list of flaws, she has a new gacha gown that requires the family's admiration, she is throwing a strop since no one is giving her attention. This, basically, is how women roleplay within these important political dynasties, and when men read those paragraphs on Day 1, ...Day 2, he's stretching to Daaaay 3. By Day 4 he's stopped logging into SL, because wouldn't you know, RL just got real busy.

Phase 2, of any Para-Heavy sim is when the men are gone and suddenly these houses are occupied by women alone. I can guarantee you every sim reaches Phase 2, before the end. And this is how your sims with marvellous backstories and engaging political drama, end up so quickly quiet.


So. I keep saying people should stop complaining and start offering solutions.

Capua was the sim with a solution, it featured political RP between Roman houses. But importantly, gladiatorial combat to keep men interested. This was a sim which catered to both genders, and it thrived. Stadium events with 100 avatars on sim(Yes, the cap was set to 100), and about 40 of those players fighting in the weekly tournaments isn't something you'll see again. Participating in those tournaments(and winning them.) isn't something I'll do again. I think the sim eventually closed over issues with the political RP, however, the gladiatorial angle was an absolute win for Capua. Catering to the RP needs of men will take your sim further than locking them up in tight rooms with online wives.

The other reason Political sims fail to hold their population is, everyone is too isolated. Sitting in their family homes, routinely writing with the same people swiftly loses its appeal. Sims that managed to succeed for longer were those with activity happening on their streets and common areas, where anyone could find RP at any time of day.

[Tantus]

I'm not sure how one is helping a sim by "role playing" what even you admit is something even the "male players" don't want to do. There is no reason to circle around it, even you say it is something that becomes tedious. So, in what way is it even remotely "selfish" to point out that no one really wants to do it? The slaver characters don't want to. The physician ones do not want to. Neither do the slaver characters. The fact that you think in two hours that the slave character would be out of the slave house if they just went through all the stuff is laughable. Most of those places require weeks and weeks of the torture before they are finally able to get to something that resembles role play. Then imagine doing all of that and having to start all over again when that sim closes at the end of its three month mark or because you actually find someone that you like to role play with? You mention bored men who get tired of slaves running up on them but I never really see that many of them crying foul over some combat (unless they lost then they are usually two years old again). So, why not have the capping game like there was in the books? As far as the poor souls who have not figured out SLGor RP and how to handle things when they are moved to a lifestyle sim, they still will not know when they put on a dress and some veils or even a muscled mesh body. We are not helping them by not kick starting them now. Imagine SL Gor RP where the basics of role play include what is and is not a part of role play. Internet safety? Nope, let us skip all of that and "RP" teaching about animals and how the slave house gets all the slaves who come into a city "new" while guarding the people who have dressed their avatars as slave characters from the creepy guy who might "rape" her.

Do we really want something exciting or do we just want to recreate 1990s webpage Gor complete with asking people for permission to IM them? Sometimes I think that is where we are in our Gorean community, people not wanting to admit that there was a split between lifestyler Gor and role play Gor. I will never understand why people will piss and moan about the same ole same ole while defending the "old way." Nothing different besides paga fetching is going to happen if we cannot realize that our "solutions" are actually hindering us.

I'm not understanding your issue here, no one is forcing you to sit in a Lifestyle kennel for weeks, no one. You need to make a decision on what's important for you, actively roleplaying on a Lifestyle sim or not being in roleplay at all. When I faced it, I chose not to roleplay.

But I don't post on forums complaining about everything happening on Lifestyle sims, because it's what their players want, it's what works for them. They invest their time, their money, their lives into building their vision for Gor, so let them be.

If you had ever managed a sim with 40-60 players online all day, you'd understand the challenges they face and why they process mass intakes of slaves as they do. I asked if you have better solutions, but you don't, all you have are complaints on how Lifestyle people run their sims.

It's not worth getting upset over. There are greater issues facing the world than these silly activities in an online game, put your mind away from them and onto things that really matter.

[Lacey]

I'm not sure how one is helping a sim by "role playing" what even you admit is something even the "male players" don't want to do. There is no reason to circle around it, even you say it is something that becomes tedious. So, in what way is it even remotely "selfish" to point out that no one really wants to do it? The slaver characters don't want to. The physician ones do not want to. Neither do the slaver characters. The fact that you think in two hours that the slave character would be out of the slave house if they just went through all the stuff is laughable. Most of those places require weeks and weeks of the torture before they are finally able to get to something that resembles role play. Then imagine doing all of that and having to start all over again when that sim closes at the end of its three month mark or because you actually find someone that you like to role play with? You mention bored men who get tired of slaves running up on them but I never really see that many of them crying foul over some combat (unless they lost then they are usually two years old again). So, why not have the capping game like there was in the books? As far as the poor souls who have not figured out SLGor RP and how to handle things when they are moved to a lifestyle sim, they still will not know when they put on a dress and some veils or even a muscled mesh body. We are not helping them by not kick starting them now. Imagine SL Gor RP where the basics of role play include what is and is not a part of role play. Internet safety? Nope, let us skip all of that and "RP" teaching about animals and how the slave house gets all the slaves who come into a city "new" while guarding the people who have dressed their avatars as slave characters from the creepy guy who might "rape" her.

Do we really want something exciting or do we just want to recreate 1990s webpage Gor complete with asking people for permission to IM them? Sometimes I think that is where we are in our Gorean community, people not wanting to admit that there was a split between lifestyler Gor and role play Gor. I will never understand why people will piss and moan about the same ole same ole while defending the "old way." Nothing different besides paga fetching is going to happen if we cannot realize that our "solutions" are actually hindering us.

I'm not understanding your issue here, no one is forcing you to sit in a Lifestyle kennel for weeks, no one. You need to make a decision on what's important for you, actively roleplaying on a Lifestyle sim or not being in roleplay at all. When I faced it, I chose not to roleplay.

But I don't post on forums complaining about everything happening on Lifestyle sims, because it's what their players want, it's what works for them. They invest their time, their money, their lives into building their vision for Gor, so let them be.

If you had ever managed a sim with 40-60 players online all day, you'd understand the challenges they face and why they process mass intakes of slaves as they do. I asked if you have better solutions, but you don't, all you have are complaints on how Lifestyle people run their sims.

It's not worth getting upset over. There are greater issues facing the world than these silly activities in an online game, put your mind away from them and onto things that really matter.

I'm not sure where I sound "upset." I am just discussing the same topic you are, an online game. You mad? I already told you how such things have played before just fine. I am beginning to believe you are missing the point to just argue. Besides, the only time I mentioned lifestyle sims was when you asked me how i would be protected from one as a slave character.
.

[Tantus]

The reason that Sci-Fi, GoT and other sims have better "story" roleplay than Gor sims despite being standalone is specifically *because* they have a cohesive backdrop and history into which players can weave their stories and hook their character motivations. The only thing that allows Gorean sims to interact is their complete lack of backstory, history, politics, and so on (else they would all be in different "eras" too). That is literally the difference between Gor and GoT. GoT sims universally try to set up the history and surrounding "world" such that they're conducive to story and politics, and Gor sims tend to set things up to attract smut writers and people into D/s. And they get what they gear for.

In either case, most people seem to be in RP for personal relationship type stories. In either genre, that's boring for people who are into wider stories. But in Gor, at least you have kink? In GoT, at least there's some politics baked in as compulsory?

idk. Haven't been in SL in a while and don't intend to go back, I don't think one is objectively worse than the other. Personal preference dictates what will float your boat.

Is the old Gor vs GoT argument evolving into a Gor vs Grid?

I'm going to say everything you've suggested sounds good on paper, until we scan through 10 years of SL RP, ventures which opened with detailed lore, backstories, applications, intense organisation. And...

It's a recipe for disaster. I'm only surprised that 10 years later sims are still following the same formula to failure. Why?

People are being mislead by this system of roleplaying jargon.
- Passed your etiquette checklist? (ICA=ICC, IC/OOC, powergaming, metagaming, godmodding etc etc))
- Have a fleshed out character with weaknesses and a past?
- Joined a sim with actual lore?
- Leased an apartment to support the sim?

GREAT! You're good to roleplay!

And this is where everything grinds to a halt on Day 1. They have met the requirements and now they're stood in their virtual apartment wondering what to do. Day 2, Day 3, Day 4... traffic tappers away since no one is engaging these players in actual RP.

People leave a sim feeling they were at fault since everyone around them seemed to be enjoying good roleplay. So they learn to join an IC family and move around sims with their group of Discord friends. But friends soon stop roleplaying together and just stand around together being OOC. These people were mislead and now they drift from sim to sim doing nothing.


I've always felt a character should enter the sim as a blank slate, no past, no friends, no network. Everything he wants from this sim, it begins today and he's going to build it all up one RP at a time.

This is what I would tell someone new to RP:

- Good roleplay is hard work. Achieving anything IC is a second job and unless you're prepared to commit, don't even begin.

- Presence. Take up jobs in public places, make yourself available and people will come to you.

- Explore - Don't be the tenth person today hitting on the sim owner and group-leaders for RP. Meet new people from across the sim, including those who no one else approaches.

- Ambition - Have a list of objectives to complete week by week. The network you've been building will help you reach your goals when it's time to call in those favours.

- Fuck RP Partners - Not in the ERP sense. In SL RP you can have a longterm, storyline partner. OR you can roleplay something of substance. Make your choice and don't ever bring a deadweight into your RP, very, very few people make for productive RP partners.

This isn't some random, politically accepted viewpoint of the moment. People should be taught roleplaying is hard work, and you shouldn't sit indoors with a perfect profile of approved etiquettes reading NCs of lore and back stories. Fuck. All. That. Get out there, meet people, do crazy things and forget your bullshit backstories too, build a new one.

Roleplaying is expanding your mind into new territories, featuring new people, with new questions of how far your character could go. What would you do when lives are at stake?

[Tantus]

I'm not sure where I sound "upset." I am just discussing the same topic you are, an online game. You mad? I already told you how such things have played before just fine. I am beginning to believe you are missing the point to just argue. Besides, the only time I mentioned lifestyle sims was when you asked me how i would be protected from one as a slave character.
.

No one is arguing with you, Lacey. Just don't roleplay on sims you disagree with and none of it will matter. It's a decision we've all been through, I left Gor in 2009, after a year of trying to recover Gorean RP from the BTB movement. It's when I was actively meeting with sim owners, arranging cross-sim storylines and all the rest of it.

But I figured Gor had become what the people wanted and I was the odd one out. Today you can open a sim and promise people an 'Old Gor' experience and you'll have absolutely zero traffic, since everyone is content in their Lifestyle sims.

Since 2010 I think I've roleplayed in Gor about 3 times, by joining and supporting a sim, for around 3 months at a time. That's how often a sim comes along which I felt comfortable about roleplaying in, and happened to have the time to commit.

[Sasi]

I've already explained to you it wasn't how this raid unfolded and there was no claim of victory over Ar. You have a very flexible view of reality, even once corrected you'll continue to promote the false version of events.

If the Ar sim had provided a landscape from which to besiege the city, you would have a point. However, the city's walls reached the sim's borders. Any point you're making on realism is another reason you shouldn't be roleplaying in SL Gor, at all. Ordinarily I wouldn't encourage any discussion where someone has a hard time grasping the facts and moving forwards.

And I have already explained to you that this first raid happened this way. And yes, they claimed having defeated Ar. Which made sense, because technically, they have won the raid, beat Ar. And I'm not putting the blame on Laura. I still consider that Ar totally failed at giving an authentic setting to the sim.

If a person of any caste has a reason for being armed, then why not?
Character development is important in roleplay, they will learn new traits as they go along. Maybe you prefer the cookie-cutter MMORPG style classes, where players are limited but I like meeting individuals with some uniqueness to them. My only requirement for men being armed is, they should know how to use those weapons too.

I prefer characters played with good sense and realism. When so many men who play a low caste character, or a physician, a scribe, play it as if they had warrior skills, you are just totally messing with the Gorean lore. SL Gor is full of people who think they're unique. They believe they are creative because they built up a character which is so unique that it became a snowflake. And there, you have mambas in your city who are scribes or slavers...
You speak of character development? There is no development when you make your character totally extra-ordinary since day 1.
It's to ordinary characters that the extraordinary tends to happen.


Not cowering in the face of the enemy, defending your Home Stone from any odds, preferring death over subjugation is a very Gorean scenario. Laura stood up to the larger enemy and eventually achieved a peace, these are the tales book stories are written on. Not the nonsense you're proposing of every city submitting their sovereignty because 'Oh no, it's Ar!'. Like no one would ever go to war with Ar? you do recall it was the first city conquered in the books by a largely mercenary force.
[/quote]

In the books, the forces of Cos and Tyros, 2 powerful states, took over Ar. And yes, in book 1, a powerful mercenary army -helped by the treason of the White Caste-.
Oh, and yes, because it's Ar. Most powerful city of Gor.

On a previous post you called yourself an owner of Elitist sims, so I'm going by that definition. And I believe your explanation for fallen traffic was, people are fickle, they very quickly leave when admins stop serving their needs. So I like how in one post you can say your sims were filled with advanced roleplayers and in the next post you can dismiss them as freeloaders.

ORS was basically empty for the months I dropped in to see their roleplay. Malignance wasn't a place you could meet people either as everyone was sitting in their homes doing their faction roleplay, it obviously didn't go far.

"Elitist" is your own term, not mine. The sim to which I refer, that I co-owned or administrated, were not elitist sims. They were basic RP sims, with strict OOC / IC separation, everyone OOC equal, respect of the RP etiquette, solid lore, people with RP skills making them able to post more that one line.
ORS, as I told you, hit 20/25 K traffic. And Malignance, where I was a mere player, had a lot of people in the streets, traffic over 40K. This sim lasted 5 or 6 months, I guess.
Both sims had fractions, houses and intrigues based on power fight, conflicts, rivalries.
And yes, these people are fickle, keeping them interested for more 6 months is almost impossible. Once they achevied a storyline, their interest fade, they seek something new. It doesn't deny the fact they are still advanced RPers. Not those who are just happy for years with their dovey lovey family RP and consider their sim as their home, the local ubar as a kind of God and and call family the player base of their sim (which I find just ridiculous).
And actually, I prefer a sim where, for a few months, I will get some intensive RP, than one which will last for months with the same boring Gorean lifestyle, where the most thrilling sim event will be the companionship ceremony of the local blacksmith and the female high scribe and some raids.

Here's the trouble with 'Advanced/Elite/Heavy Roleplaying sims', whatever you like to call them. They don't understand that political roleplay is the most, ball-crushingly boring scene out there. In the absence of any danger you roll these dice, play with units on the war table, and the grand consequence is... you made some imaginary gains today. And you'll make imaginary losses tomorrow. Very. Exciting.

In between dice rolls you're locked into this Reality TV show of a house filled with women whom all want your attention. Not a single one of them is posting anything of substance, she's a very deep character and wants you to hear her backstory, she's an awkward character and needs you to acknowledge her exquisite list of flaws, she has a new gacha gown that requires the family's admiration, she is throwing a strop since no one is giving her attention. This, basically, is how women roleplay within these important political dynasties, and when men read those paragraphs on Day 1, ...Day 2, he's stretching to Daaaay 3. By Day 4 he's stopped logging into SL, because wouldn't you know, RL just got real busy.

Phase 2, of any Para-Heavy sim is when the men are gone and suddenly these houses are occupied by women alone. I can guarantee you every sim reaches Phase 2, before the end. And this is how your sims with marvellous backstories and engaging political drama, end up so quickly quiet.

Clearly, you have not even a clue about what is political RP. It's a conflicting lore that make people intrigue and plot for gaining power, there is corruption, character (even those in position of authority) who betray, who lack honor... The only moments where you roll the dices is for the purpose of determing the outcome of some basic action, usually something simple as being wounded because your opponent had attempted to stab you. Little things like that.... The only time when I rolled the dices, I remember, was to determine if my character got pregnant, then, the baby gender (in ORS, there was a inheritance conflict after the pasha had been murdered).

The table about which you spoke, in one of the Ar sims, was just a map of the whole war that Ar conducted to gain more territories, more vassals. The OOC rules of this table made the moves hazardous but they gave a background in which we played (the legatus were in charge for their own legions). Some move could lead to a problem of supplying the armies, or the city itself. Other people played these things, merchants could speculate on cereals and other goods. But this table was not a political RP in itself.

And sorry, in the political RP, there is danger. Your character can totally be killed or enslaved. You seriously think that danger only comes from metered combats?

So. I keep saying people should stop complaining and start offering solutions.

Tell me, were you not the high scribe, in Tarnwald, who sent this BS notice requiring people get a slave exam for their slaves and register them to the library with the slave papers and exam (notecarded)? This lame idiocy of non BTB RP / Old Gor crap is one of your solutions to give people something exciting to RP, Tantus?
A group of people left the day after they saw this notice.

Capua was the sim with a solution, it featured political RP between Roman houses. But importantly, gladiatorial combat to keep men interested. This was a sim which catered to both genders, and it thrived. Stadium events with 100 avatars on sim(Yes, the cap was set to 100), and about 40 of those players fighting in the weekly tournaments isn't something you'll see again. Participating in those tournaments(and winning them.) isn't something I'll do again. I think the sim eventually closed over issues with the political RP, however, the gladiatorial angle was an absolute win for Capua. Catering to the RP needs of men will take your sim further than locking them up in tight rooms with online wives.

So, in order to keep men interested, you have only to set metered combats? I find this statement a little bit demeaning for men...
But I agree with the fact that tournaments are something people enjoy. We had a fighting slave one (100% IC, no OOC reward) almost every Sunday in Kaelus. Some men of the sim even used an alt to play a fighting slave and fight in the arena. Our traffic during the week turned around 35K. The Sundays, with the tournament, it reached 45K.
In Capua, many gladiators were GE fighters who showed up for the combats and never RPed with other people, though. And if my memory is good, the political RP didn't cause the sim to close. After months, people lose interest and moved on. Capua closed when the traffic dropped to 15K after a few months. So, it looks like even these combats are not the magical solution to make a sim last.

The other reason Political sims fail to hold their population is, everyone is too isolated. Sitting in their family homes, routinely writing with the same people swiftly loses its appeal. Sims that managed to succeed for longer were those with activity happening on their streets and common areas, where anyone could find RP at any time of day.

It's hard to be in a public area and organize a scheme... I seldom RP in the streets myself. But I get people to come see me in my house or I visit them for my own schemes in their house. And RP in the streets is usually deeply boringly mundane...

A new GoT sim will open soon... Lot of political RP, conflicts. Not a lot of raids and metered combats to come, I fear, for you, Tantus

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... 0d66a_0_71

But yes, typically my kind of sim.

[Sasi]

If you had ever managed a sim with 40-60 players online all day, you'd understand the challenges they face and why they process mass intakes of slaves as they do. I asked if you have better solutions, but you don't, all you have are complaints on how Lifestyle people run their sims.

It's not worth getting upset over. There are greater issues facing the world than these silly activities in an online game, put your mind away from them and onto things that really matter.

There is a simple solution: Give the slave players who don't have a RP partner for the role of their owner, a state slave tunic, tell them to play a state slave, without never controlling their RP (no slaver to annoy them with stupid rules, classes, non BTB intake process, chores...). Tell them to go seek their role-play, to interact freely with people, as they want, when they want. And if they find an owner for their character, the sale can just be emoted the way the 2 players choose to do it.

And allow as well the NPC owners for the slave players not interested in playing a state slave, a NPC they can keep for as long as they want.

This way, you will keep the most creative slave players, those who don't need to be babysitted. Others can stay in the old Gor crap sims where they will be treated like noob, given non sense boring and mundane RP, with ridiculous OOC rules to protect them from predators, because of course, in these sims, a slave player is not a mature adult.