If you read Khelek's letter to Joe Williams on Clan Bored, you might come away with the impression that if everyone had access to affiliations, Clan Lord would be a better game for it, and suddenly every one would be able to role play like never before.

Sorry, Khelek, while I am all for affiliations being made available to the general public at some point, making it available now or later isn't going to change Clan Lord in the least. There's a lot of hyperbole in this letter to Joe. For instance:

Those few people are having a hell of a time playing Clan Lord, being able to role play with their new-found tools and help, and generally having a great time at the fun part of RPGs: Role playing. Unfortunately, its only a select few... Few people have any way to role play... You have the code, I've seen it in action. Its just bottled up and given only to the Red Quill types that all Clan Lord players are so familiar with. Also envious, and sometimes hateful toward as they can role play and enjoy a world that takes us away from the life's troubles, and they must stick to the same old, same old.

None of the groups who currently hold affiliations came about because of the affilations. This is putting the cart before the horse. Nothing is stopping anyone from role-playing, and from forming groups. If you're envious or hateful of someone else having fun, just do what they are doing. Stop sitting on your ass waiting for things to happen and just role play, for crying out loud. Any tip of the hat Delta Tao ever made towards any role-player had to do with their contributitions to the game world. If you think this isn't fair, realize the time these people spend making things fun for those around them, or writing up web sites to add depth to the game, or organizing events like the Volympics or Dun'ilsar eat into potential rank-chasing time. While a large number of people bitch about "favoritism" while they rank-whore and wait for the sky to rain gifts upon them, other people are making an effort to contribute, and they aren't doing it to get a reward. When once in a blue moon, something does happen, like a person getting a funny (but typically useless) item or a special appearance, instead of crying like a spoiled child about how unfair it is that I wasn't the receipient, I think "Well, that's encouraging, maybe if I do something creative, something neat will happen to me."

Really, this whole petition smacks of whining. Delta Tao has a long history of easing in new features like this. It makes tremendous sense that the few extra-clannar groups that were in existence before the affiliations feature was available would be chosen to test it. Remember, before the tattoo shop worked, we had to get a GM (Licenses) to get our /info changed. That was part of the process of working out how player /info was going to be managed, and in the end, it worked out. Delta Tao even solicited player input on how the tattoo shop should work. And they listened.

The difference between an /info message and an affiliation is the affiliation is meaningless to an individual. So, instead of just popping up a GM in town to hand out affiliation medalions, Delta Tao was selective, and gave them out to groups that were already long in existence and well structued. This is the best testing base for the feature. Get over it. Believe it or not, every individual handed a medalion worked for it. You call it "favoritism", but I call it "merit." If you want one, form a group. And don't give me a load of shit about not being able to form a group without an affiliation, because plenty of other people did it already. Just like ranks are earned from doing a certain behavior, those people who got affiliations first earned them. I don't hear people who role-play a lot bitching about how they should get ranks, because they don't have time to rank-whore. The people I hear bitching about this the most aren't upset about it because it hampers their "role-playing" (because generally these people don't role-play), but they are bitching because someone got something they didn't. It's about status, and having toys, let's be honest. Claiming the issue is about role-playing is a huge stretch.

In the end, we both agree that affiliations should be available to all people. Just give it some time. Stop whining about someone having something you don't have, stop threatening Delta Tao, and just play the game. I'm all for keeping Delta Tao honest, and focused, but this adversarial affront to Delta Tao is exactly the worst way to do it.
posted 3:50 PM | link |