User:TheMazeEcho/Elder

T8 Debate for Elder, April 28 2018

Q1. For those who have never had the opportunity to interact with you before can you share a little about yourself, what you enjoy about ATITD as well as how long you have been playing?

A1. I am French, but also speak fluent English and German. I have been playing ATITD since mid-T2 non-stop, because after years of playing combat-based games, this is the first (and only) collaborative MMO RPG I found.

Q2. Factions, which Malard introduced in T8 are quite divisive, we have seen players complaining about them and even quitting. What are your thoughts regarding factions?

A2. I was and still am skeptical about that. The way they are currently coded is still not completed and the dev team is still feeling their way around the concept. My initial reaction was that, as I said above, ATITD is a collaborative game (which doesn't exclude competitivenessand a lot of the Tests require cooperation among all the players. Adding this faction concept has basically split the game into 3 shards (playerbase wise) and we knew that shards was a bad idea. I heard that now, some cooperation between factions will be necessary, for recharging Pyramids? Malard said early on that other games had factions, and that was what made them interesting. Well, I'm not playing other games, and reducing the player base (whether by splitting players up in 3 groups or disgusting players from the game) might not have been the best call... Time will tell ;)

Q3. Elder is one of the Leadership Tests, do you want to just past the Test or you are running to help Hyksos faction prosper and grow?

A3. Passing the Test is maybe the least important reason for me to participate in it. The 3 main reasons for me are: 1- I live in Naqada, which is not one of the core regions of the Hyksos, and I would like to have a bigger role in helping the Hyksos members living there keep the faction chats and have access to public/Faction-wide works. I have set up the first public mines (copper, iron and tin) near my camp, with a public/guilded smelting facility, with the help of the other neighbour guilds (Alpha and SCR). Lately, I have improved the smelting facility with Gyration cells. If the previous Elder election hadn't been bugged and I might have been elected, I had intended to get a Faction CP built there, in which to placce the gyration cells, but I had to do it in a normal CP instead. In previous tales, most equipment in my camp was set to public, so neighbours could use it and didn't have to waste resources on duplicating the equipment. 2- As many of you may know, I am a GM (have been since a few months after I started playing in T2). In previous tales, GMs were not allowed to take part in Demi-Pharaon Test, which meant we had no knowledge of how it worked, and couldn't help players with it, answering their questions and finding out if anything was bugged. This Tale, Malard said he was allowing and even encouraging GMs to take part in the Elder Test. I hope this will give me better knowledge of the mechanics of both the Test and the capacities given to Elders. 3- I think the most important role of the Elders is the Diplomacy with the other Factions. I hope to be able to help the Elders in achieving lasting treaties and agreements, so that all regions benefit of what each Faction can offer, instead of wasting a lot of resources in a fruitless war. This is especially important for Hyksos, since we're in the middle of the other 2 Factions, and would have to fight on 2 fronts (even though with the chariot routes, any Faction can go put Tributes into any Region, but you get my meaning.

Q4. One of the Elder's powers is a power to Banish Apostates of Hyksos - people with negative stance/ red bar toward faction. At this time players can get negative stance only by teaching other factions. Would you consider using this power on people that teach other factions and if not, when hypothetically would you consider using Banish?

A4. I was proud of Hyksos as we focused from the start on technologies that would benefit all Egypt, like Guild Hall Construction and Chariot Repair. Hyksos members were glad to share those techs with other Factions, by going out and teaching them. I don't consider teaching other Factions to be a treason, worthy of a banishment penalty, but more as a sharing and spreading of the knowledge. For the moment, the mechanics of being promoted/demoted within a Faction are still a bit foggy (might even not be completely coded), but I don't think I would ever use Bans, unless a Hyksos member specifically requested me to ban them so they could join another Faction. I think Elders should use their Invites instead, and make the Faction more attractive.

Q5. Developers hinted that once factions have 3 Elders we will be able to make a decisions which will apply to whole faction. What is your opinion on:

• a. Cross faction teaching
• b. At which rank Hyksos citizens can build faction buildings like Banners or Chancery.
• c. Rewarding with faction points citizens which are not donating to Tribute Post or Research but helping us by for example organizing Events like Acro, Dig or Vigil.

A5:

• a. See my answer to A4. I'm totally in favor of sharing the knowledge, because the more people know, the better the play and help Egypt as a whole. Remember, the ultimate goal of any Tale is to get the Monuments for all 7 Disciplines up, and for that, we need the whole civilisation to have reached a level high enough.
• b. Banners are a localizing small buff on stats, they should be available to any rank. Chanceries are basically relays for the Faction chats, and should also be available to any rank. I guess they could be tied to a player's Local Leadership skill level, instead, if there really was a reason to limit those buildings to a smaller fraction of the Faction... For the Naqada Chancery, we had to have Elder Augir come all the way from his camp to build it for us, which is a pain in the ass. That's another reason I'd like to be elected, to provide Chancery build service to the northern Hyksos regions.
• c. For the moment, the game only attributes automatic Faction points when you are donating to Research, to Tribute Post and when passing Tests. Maybe more ways can and will be coded in the future, but player-run events, like Acro and Vigil and Digs should also be rewarded, as they do help the community. One could argue that those events aren't restricted to Faction members, but as I said earlier, we need to have ties with the other Factions too.

Q6. Beside Banish and Forgive what other powers, in your opinion, Elder should have?

A6. They already have the Invite power, too ;) To me, this is the most important power, I don't think Elders need more powers.

Q7. You are running for the Elder of the Hyksos Faction, please tell us what is your current faction rank and how you are helping with Hyksos research and weekly Tribute Post competition.

A7. I am currently a Member of the Hyksos, with a personal progress line that's been fully green for a week, but wasn't picked in the latest promotion. I am a member of the Hyksos Research guild, and I'm trying to donate to Research when I can, although I am not as dedicated as Augir and Ruby and some others. I try to put at least 5-6 hours of game each work day, but part of it is to get my primary guild or sister guilds equipment up to speed, so that we can produce enough resources for donation, while keeping some time to do Body Tests, in order to increase my stats. I also try to help with Tributes, mostly in Naqada but also for other regions, as with Wild Lettuce tribute for South Sinai, which we barely won over.

Q8. As Elder you will have powers to banish people, do you share your account with others?

A8. As I said earlier, I am a GM. Because of that, I have never shared my account with any other player. Being an Elder won't change that. Of course, my in-game wife can spouse-log me, but she doesn't have access to GM or Elder powers, then.

Q9. In other tales elected leaders (DP) at the beginning of the tale leave before the game end. This leaves a vacuum at the end game when they are needed the most. What is your commitment to the game and how will you manage to last the entire tale?

A9. As mentioned in my first answer, I've been playing non-stop since mid-T2 (July 2005). That's almost 13 years, with only twice a 2-day break for surgery. Even when I'm on business trip, I log in at least twice a day to do camp chores and answer GM calls. Unless Internet or the servers are unavailable, managing to last the entire tale is no sweat, especially since I survived T3, T6 and T7 long lulls ;)

Q10. What question would you like to be asked, and why?

A10. I would like to be asked about my position on Malard's use of Discord. This feels like a fad, "you have to use Discord, it's so 2018, all games use it..." I think that Discord, while being a great way to share instantaneous chats and coordination, has the big disadvantage of not being persistant, unlike wiki. People may say that position is old-fashioned, that I'm used to wiki and I don't like change, but the truth is that a lot of the players don't or can't use Discord, and are missing out on important information, that previously was given in game (through System, ENN or other logged mics) and which could then be looked up in wiki, regardless of how old the onformation is. I am not convinced Discord keeps the posts over unlimited time, and certainly not T8 info if there's ever a T9 (which I hope for). I am glad Malard took over the game, but still feels he needs to focus more on the game than on other fancy tools that might provide a shinier interface but not the same knowledge-base service as wiki. I know wiki is not as ergonomic, and yes, people have to put data in it before all can benefit from it, but so far it's the best way to store and share that knowledge.

Q11. Closing statement.

A11. Thank you for hosting the debate and allowing me to provide my answers and feelings about Elder Test, Elders role and the game in general. I hope Hyksos people will consider voting for me, but I think any of the candidates would make a great Elder.