Pirates

[R0GUE]

Ahh, well then it does sound like it would be nice to have a revamp. Realistically in a seedy pirate den there would be all sorts of people, not all of them the most nefarious pirates, but some of whom would just be riff raff, some would be looking to profiteer, etc. I get there not wanting to be a "narc" in their midst, but requiring everyone in town to have a tattoo feels a little too "gestapo" for a pirate cove if you ask me.

[Nitro]

Well, when the sencliff update came out it was advertised as a seedy freeport. Unfortunately it came bundled with a pirate tag that drove people away from the rest of the server and created the notion that since Sencliff was the only place for them, there shouldn't be people without the tag there.

[HA GOTEM I DIDNT ROLL]

pirate tattoos need to go away
notoriety is acquired through reputation and playing the game
tattoos are just a tool for people with high spot to benwick light their RP

[Subutai]

pirate tattoos need to go away
notoriety is acquired through reputation and playing the game
tattoos are just a tool for people with high spot to benwick light their RP

Agreed. Get rid of the (Disguised) and (Slave) tags while we're at it, since they're really just arrows telling high spot people who to examine for that RP.

[Emotionaloverload]

If there must be tattoos, it would be nice to have it restricted to pirates that are veteran pirates (I know there is a pirate ranking but I don't know the names so which ever is the last one). Or perhaps veteran pirates can speak to an NPC about getting tattoos and there is some boon that comes with it so that players can pick if they want that or to be hidden from the public.

-S

[WJLIII3]

Beginning characters wouldn't have the notoriety for immediate policing in a new town. What dm allows one player to one shot another on a whim? I recognize its the PW construct but it still left a bad taste.

The RP context here is, essentially, that you have an elaborate set of tattoos visible on your arms that anyone in the know would recognize right away as the mark of a pirate. And pirates and that city are in a constant state of hostility, and the pirates are often sneaky. Now of course, when you said you didn't know how you got there any player should have recognized a bug issue and politely but firmly sent you safely on your way, and you shouldn't have been PK'd, I'm just trying to inform your perspective on why you "have the immediate notoriety" in question.

About the server, as Irongron noted, your respawn point will naturally be different for different servers. Cities and Planes will have you respawn by default at the docks, in one of the two cities on that server depending if a Surface or Underdark character. Surface will have you respawn at Sencliff, if you're a pirate, and a very central location for everyone else. Distant Shores will respawn you at Skal, if you started in Skal, or the location on the other island....I honestly have no idea where that is.

Basically, make sure you know what server you're on at the moment, and don't try to log back into another server, or you'll end up in weird places. It's fairly easy to keep track, everything on the surface of the world is Surface, except the four Cordor zones. Cordor, and the entire Underdark, and almost every plane are on Cities and Planes. Skal and the other distant island are Distant Shores.*

*This list was not strictly exhaustive but it should work for long enough that you'll have gotten the hang of it before that's an issue

[DangerDolphin]

Mandatory bio notes are good for the Champions Belt and other clothing items as it's a choice to wear them and will be clearly visible, but the pirate tattoos / outcast status is terrible as it's immensely awkward to RP and encourages zero effort red vs blue stances.

We're meant to be a roleplay server, but instead of roleplaying to find out about a character people can just examine to find out about them and then skip over that part.

I think both of these bio notes should be dumped and instead players of all settlements given more means to have IC lists / wanted posters of people that they consider to be their enemies.

I already know this approach works because I've had a non-outcast character that was essentially treated like an outcast.

Meanwhile, we've seen new players as in the Q&A forum who were PK'd for being a pirate and daring to walk into Cordor.

[TheDoctor]

Where are these tats located anyways? I mean its one thing for a guy who is wearing clothes that visibly shows his tats but what about someone who is covered up? I mean these are not magical runic tats that glow blue or anything. These are simple ink made tats.

The TLDR I get from all this is that every sencliff pirate has a big fat tat on their FACE that says hey ima pirate arrrrrrr! This then erases any and all RP of placement of said tats. Any bio that has a detailed description of said tat and its location on the skin is tossed out simply because of that red little line at the end of a bio that this person is an xyz pirate.

This is also just one of many many issues that are making this server unfriendly to lowbies as well as making it nigh impossible to actually RP which is what this server is supposed to be about.

So I guess I'm going to change my bio and just erase the paragraph detailing my toons tats and simply write... "Big fat pirate tattoo on face"

[Peppermint]

I'm also not a fan of pirate tattoos, and doubly so if (per Irongron) they're not even meant to be taken at face value. I wish Arelith would dump this recent bioglurge trend. It feels weirdly meta and is rarely even the best solution to the problem.

[Durvayas]

[A valid opinion]

Agreed. Get rid of the (Disguised) and (Slave) tags while we're at it, since they're really just arrows telling high spot people who to examine for that RP.

Yeah lets go ahead and stop beating this dead horse right about now. Its never going to happen, we've had more than a dozen threads about why its never going to happen, the (disguised) and (slave) tags are entirely nescessary, and there isn't enough patience in the world to get it into your head why if you've read the other threads and are still somehow mindlessly advocating this. Give it a rest.

[Subutai]

Bruh, you're quoting something from two weeks ago. Give it a rest.

[Nikko]

I will move this to suggestions perhaps if there is a little feedback and I can solidify my thoughts after thinking them through here:

I've had some interaction and involvement with the pirates very recently and working around/with or against Sencliff through other characters for some time now. There are problems I saw:

1. It is a settlement and settlements need numbers of members and numbers of visitors to keep it thriving. Simply having a camp for a group that practically no one else can easily mechanically visit makes it less appetizing to play there because you don't get enough people through to RP with. Very few players under level 15 or pre-epic even rent boats and go out and explore places, finding someone to summon you to pick up the portal that already has the portal is hard. The other ways to get there are hidden behind a locked door which I think they key for only drops on the Sencliff side if I'm not mistaken, another quick way controlled by an alignment + skill check I believe, or through an out of the way shadow door which requires rogue levels or specific spell to access. This is if someone is brave enough to get past the reputation of the pirates and decide to visit to begin with.

2. The tattoo/pirate reputation system starting at level 1 is too harsh for this settlement. Andunor is massive, heavily trafficked and has a very complete set of writs setup, and RP opportunities are boundless so being a goblin not welcome on the surface is really no big deal. You're a villain and it's a fight when you and all the other monsters come to surface. Maybe, if there were 10-12 pirates on all times, the tattoo system would be fine starting at lvl 1. As it is now, it just leaves anyone starting a new pirate on an empty island with no way of visiting other places to have players to hang out with without being eventually attacked by someone. There are ports and sailors in every settlement, there is literally no reason a level 1 pirate should stand out, even in Brogendenstein nor should a level 25 pirate have to have a bluff of 60+ to hide a tattoo.

Perhaps allowing people to take the tattoo to get perks on the island- free access to boats or storage or free gift of pirate nobility would be fine but are they even necessary at all? Look, I've blown up Sencliff, been captured by Sencliff, PvPed two or three different pirate groups, had lunch in the pirate guildhouse. TeamGood (I know totally not a real thing but somehow still totally is) knows who the pirates are, who the bad pirates are, we know their crews, have lists of them pinned up in our guildhouses, descriptions of them, the names of their boats, what type of slaves they prefer and what spells they can cast. If you're a pirate who deserves a reputation you likely vithing have one. Why the magic tattoos?

So this is dragging on a little longer than I planned try to sum up some ideas (once again not a lot of thought put into this yet just talking it out here):

1. Give Sencliff an obvious visitor's welcome area like other faction setups and a place where visitor's are welcome to visit shops and talk with the pirates, and an obvious- "it's pirate law beyond this gate", you may be pressed into slavery beyond here depending on the current pirate outlook.
2. Make that part easier to get to from the surface and Andunor so people can visit. Boat with warning- hey we're headed to pirate town- from Crow's Nest?? Still keep the dangerous town vibe (maybe a little more to the evil side like Sibiyad).
3. Drop the tattoos or make them give massive perks and taken at higher level. Give people who start on Sencliff a "junior pirate badge" or something to allow them to get the basic greenhorn perks.

Alright, calling this the first draft. Not totally thought out but just something to start from.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Pirate tattoos incentivize bad (or at very best, awkward) roleplay. I don't understand their objective. It *is* very much Benwick Light roleplay (as aforementioned), and here I thought there were good reasons we blew that place up.

Anything that allows to be some kind of mechanical arbiter for decision-making in-game is just never a good thing. Pirate tats seem to be very much that kinda thing.

Blow them up like Benwick.

edit: tbh I sometimes wonder if Sencliff woes are really just an echo of Wharftown woes. It's probably too conspiratorial to say the server really for like ever seems to struggle with any kind of presencing of conflict on the Surface

[Anime Sword Fighter]

I am not a fan of the tattoos for the same reasons as above i.e. being "Benwick-lite", but I have not had much experience either as a Pirate or interacting with Pirates.

I made a Pirate once and immediately encountered another Pirate on the dock. I had thought that, as the warning message when you select Sencliff as the starting location says, the character would automatically have a tattoo and be labeled as Pirate upon examination. The character saw that I did not, in fact, have a tattoo and led me to the tattoo-er upstairs immediately. It was kind of odd.

[Sea Shanties]

I think the tattoos require a high amount of Spot to see on low level pirates and the skill required descends as the pirate gains ranks.

At least that's what I read elsewhere. Maybe you no longer get the tats when you choose Sencliff. I have a recently created Sencliff character and I actually have no idea if they were automatically given tattoos or not!

I also think the tats should be optional myself. Something your character does when ready and ideally when they are being recruited into a pirate crew or something so there is some RP around the ceremony. I appreciate the intent and I know Irongron wants them to be considered something to be wary of not a reason to go straight to PVP but in practice that just isn't how enough people play. Unfortunately. But I'd prefer them as a badge of honor instead of a mandatory branding.

Also, to address Nikko-- this may or may not be well known but any evil-aligned surface character (not outcast or UD) can pay 100gp to get to Sencliff by talking to a smuggler in Cordor or near the Crow's Nest. It is very easy for evil types to come and go (though neutral will have to rent a boat.) This shouldn't be FOIG info as it's posted in the updates and frankly I think people need to know this to keep traffic going there. Any evil surface character should make an occasional stop there part of their routine, there are some great merchants and shops and if you're low level some wonderful grinding spots. Plus you can let loose a little with your evil RP and even make connections with the occasional visitor from Anundor!

I'd also urge Sencliff pirates to be more tolerant of those without tattoos but showing the willingness to be a presence there, that is really the only way Sencliff is going to work.

[Nikko]

Also, to address Nikko-- this may or may not be well known but any evil-aligned surface character (not outcast or UD) can pay 100gp to get to Sencliff by talking to a smuggler in Cordor or near the Crow's Nest. It is very easy for evil types to come and go (though neutral will have to rent a boat.)

Ah, I thought there was a skill check too. Perhaps just opening this up to neutral characters would be enough to get more visitors.

[Sea Shanties]

Yeah maybe! Or charge Neutral 5000 as an indecisiveness tax.

I was going to add to the above, since any evil character can come and go there is actually no reason to start in Sencliff unless you immediately want access as a neutrally aligned pirate. The status quo of pirate tats is more or less fine for people who know the server since they can put off getting the tattoos until they feel they are ready (usually after writs are done and they can handle themselves in unexpected PvP.) The ones being punished by choosing it as a starting area tend to be new players who find themselves in over their head. Maybe it shouldn't even be a starting area right now.

[Marsi]

Pirate tattoos incentivize bad (or at very best, awkward) roleplay. I don't understand their objective. It *is* very much Benwick Light roleplay (as aforementioned), and here I thought there were good reasons we blew that place up.

Anything that allows to be some kind of mechanical arbiter for decision-making in-game is just never a good thing. Pirate tats seem to be very much that kinda thing.

Blow them up like Benwick.

My thoughts exactly. I find the trend of the past year towards deterministic roleplay eerie. I can find myself in disagreement with an update while understanding its purpose, but in this case I plainly don't see the need, or the point. It's not just the tattoos, but also the introduction of NPC-driven factions like the Radiant Heart. Is it to provide a more stable experience for newer, post-EE players? The only thing the uniquely Arelithian tradition of organically rising-and-falling factions lack is continuity, and yet the one thing I've learned in my near-decade of play is that continuity always corrupts.

It's doubly strange to me how the war system was removed based on rhetoric that seemed to urge Arelith shed its factionalized conflict past in favour of more intellectual, individualistic roleplay going forward, and yet this content feels entirely contrary to that. Is the future of Arelith roleplay going to be some streamlined, quasi- Battlefield affair with prefab faction loadouts, each poised for maximum thoughtless conflict with another?