It's really difficult to field an important topic like this and be fair to everyone's feelings, so if a statement seems pointed, I assure you it's not.
Personally, TSW is the most well crafted, best written, most compelling and immersive game I've ever played, and has hands-down the best RP community ever. The problem is, it's small. It's so very, very small.
There's the same few safe zones, quest hubs, and secret rooms, and the rest of the world is covered in a thick coating of always-aggro-no-matter-what-level mobs, who keep good RP circumscribed to those zones. So part one has to do with "been there, done that." We've valiantly tried to think up new locations to spice things up, but there just aren't that many - the game world isn't that big.
Another thing is character burn-out. TBH, I feel like there is difinitely such a thing as "max level RP" - when a character has achieved their goals and resolved their conflicts, and reaches a state of contentment, that character then becomes merely an accessory to other storylines. Ammie's not quite there, still have a few loose ends, but it's coming on fast, and there's a definite feeling of deceleration there, and I don't think I'm alone in it.
Third is that I think there are pieces of psychological residue that may go unnoticed.
I know there's been a lot of big blows recently with people quitting, leaving, resigning and shifting, and while that's part of the game, it sits in the back of the mind and pokes (at me, I know) and gives the background flavor that things aren't quite right anymore, even if our higher brains acknowledge them for what they are - isolated, if coincidental, occurances.
Another one is the fact that whereas the old RP set got boring because it was "go to RFG show, type /dance_samba, wait two hours in glorified public chat room" every night, (and had to change, agreed,) the new RP set is quite literally work. Our people have jobs and must do those jobs, and in the absence of a grand uniting fun adventure storyline, that ends up being a strange thing to do after a 12 to 15 hour day of work (speaking personally).
We had a big, long, talk about RP two months ago on the forums (State of the Cabal thread), and we made some progress, I feel, but with mixed voices and opinions about what we should be doing and where we should be going.
Focusing a group is a difficult task in the best of times, and especially so when the group has two focuses. I know that my whole argument in that thread fell apart entirely when Tess reminded us this:
Right. It says right on the tin that we're medium RP and are interested in character development as well as in game progression. Going heavy RP goes just as much against the mission statement as does the nightly dungeon slogs. The trick is finding the proper balance.
I had to re-orient my mind around the cabal. At the time, I had thought that all of Aegir was uniformly dedicated to heavy-RP / character immersion, and that the other stuff was just a bored dalliance. When I realized that that perspective was not only untrue, but had never BEEN true, I think things changed a little for me.
Now, granted, after that we did try hard. There was a bunch of effort to pay attention to both sides, but then people started quitting OOC (Franc, Noel) and IC (Carl, Jean) and others vanished into the Steam sale.
Then along comes free-to-play Rift, with its amazing sprawl of RP-able areas, new (to me) content and worlds to explore, and the most amazing "create-your-own-perfect-RP-dimension" engine I've ever seen, with a from-the-start dedicated heavy RP guild, where that kind of focus won't step on anyone's toes or ask them to play in a way they don't want to.
As most of you know, I work -ridiculous- hours, and what little time I get to put towards a game, I generally gravitate towards the place where I know the RP is going down.
I haven't seen any storylines popping up on the Aegir forums, which I do check multiple times each day from my phone, and I haven't received any OOC forum PMs or even IC twitter PMs in a while. You can BET I'll be there for the parties and the wedding, of course! As well as the Monday Arcane meeting and anything else that pops up that requires an Ammie.
In conclusion, I don't think Aegir's dying, I think it's resting. It's core has been shaken, and it's figuring itself out right now. This would be the perfect time to release Tokyo.
I love you guys. You really have provided some much needed companionship in a time where I'm working 60+ hour weeks and am otherwise very much alone, and it means the world.
. I don't really mind it that much though, it happens and just hope it's a temporary thing. Well even if it's a permanent thing we can't really do much about it. I have made a script so I can shout at Agartha sometimes and perhaps recruit a few new members perhaps. Do I have to ask for permission to do such thing first though? I'll post the script later so someone can check it first.
Weighs the same as a duck.
