[Druby]

I think people would find more fulfillment putting the effort that it'd require to do anything of substance on G6 into organizing roleplay via a tabletop group or other such medium instead. You'd have more creative license to tell the stories you want to tell without having to worry about the constraints of a world you have no control over, nor any interactivity to derive from being there.

While there are perhaps stories and characters I miss from G6 everything around them is gone now. I'd rather focus on trying to do what I can to improve the environment that's still technically alive and sharing the same game space.

I feel like you're oversimplifying the situation by saying those who want G6's experience would be better off doing a tabletop game. In that same vein, I could say that those who prefer Korvara would be better off in another game where player agency and conflict is more properly supported. Obviously and again, this is a simplification, but that's my point.

There are plenty of reasons for someone to not just fill that gap with a tabletop game instead. I mean, some of the most simple ones are the bane of all tabletop games, that being scheduling. DMs can be hard to find, a lot of games end up failing, and not everyone has the motivation to run a game themselves. Majority of people who've been around the tabletop game community has run into at least some of these sorts of problems. Beyond that, a tabletop experience is very different from something like public RP. I certainly like tabletop games, but they're very different experiences.

Speaking specifically as to why G6 appeals to me anyways, I often compare the experience on G6 to RP on MMOs, though I think it does also extend to many, if not the majority, of other public RP spaces that exist online. Many MMOs are relatively static environments, things don't change in a setting for years at a time in-between expansions, and players have little to no real agency on the wider world. The devs of World of Warcraft aren't going to react to a player RPing their own miniature invasion of Stormwind or whatever. Hell, in some cases, changes to the setting are ignored because of how bad certain expansions can be taken sometimes. Private servers exist to encapsulate certain settings because they're the preferred even. But they still garner very large and very popular RP populations. SL2, as it was in G6, operated very similarly to this sort of thing, albeit with lower population due to being a much more niche game with fewer gameplay mechanics and reasons to keep people regularly coming back for things other than RP, but in that vein, SL2 technically has an advantage over larger MMOs, where its developer and moderators all exist to support it as an RP game. Of course, you can say that they haven't exactly done that job to the best of their abilities, with very long multi-year lulls in SL2 where it basically got zero new content, but I think any game would feel stagnant because of that, and that isn't necessarily inherent to G6's format considering plenty of other people enjoy this sort of thing in very large numbers. Again, accounting for personal taste, maybe this environment isn't for everyone, but it's unfair to say that people should just do this other thing when G6 did offer it's own appeal.

As for why I was on G6 instead of an MMO like FFXIV, which I am actively subscribed to, and do RP on, there are a number of reasons. For one, I can very easily idle on SL2 while doing something on the side. I often compare public RP to fishing, where you're seeing who bites to hooks, or just someone hanging around, and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but a part of the fun comes from not really knowing exactly what you're going to run into. But it can be a lot of waiting. It's easy on SL2 to keep it up and running while doing something on the side, like playing a game. I certainly can't run Helldivers or something while FFXIV is up in the background, my computer would explode on me. Beyond that, I actively like SL2's simpler RPG Maker-esque graphics. It opens up a lot of room for imagination while still giving people a visual reference for things. For other people, maybe not everyone wants to pay a subscription to a game just to RP if that's what they're here for.

Comparing why I prefer G6 to Korvara, we had a pretty long discussion about some of the factors in other threads Trex. But, a lot of it boils down to issues that I feel are baked into Korvara by design. Leadership, inconveniences grinding on the game, and so on. I respect the fact that you want to fix things, but I don't see these things as easy fixes when they seem like clear intentions Dev wants to support and are now also further burdened sometimes by issues that happened previously due to poor implementation. Some other examples include things like Korvara's map. It has a bunch of, what I'd consider, wasted space with full maps in-between the major cities/RP hubs that realistically only saw major use during the early days of Korvara when there were nearly like 150 accounts online at once. Nowadays, very few people actively use the wilderness spaces other than to get from place to place, a situation that G6 had kind of "solved" with the overworld map. It provided wilderness, but abridged it, and gave people looking to RP in such spaces the ability to advertise themselves even without an LFG by setting up a camp, an icon anyone passing by could see and poke their heads into.

Another major reason I prefer G6 over Korvara is the lore. Quite frankly, I'm really goddamn nitpicky about lore and settings. It's one of the major things I look for in RP, and having a certain level fleshed out history and setting really helps my immersion. This is not something everyone deals with, but it's something I personally care about. G6 lore wasn't perfect by any means, but I loved its bigger picture lore, with details like Heavens Contention, the Gods, Iahsus, and so on being really cool details to build a setting around. G6 gets electricity basically through tapping into the blood of a dead god that flows through the earth. That's rad as hell. You get into smaller details, and you start running into problems, but I find that much better than what Korvara has. How many times have lore docs been changed or shifted around or edited as leaders come and go? How many times have people complained that the lore feels extremely disconnected from each other? What is the actual history of the "ancient Korvarans" or where did these ruins come from? We have a ton of dragon statues all across Korvara, you're telling me not a single oral story managed to survive and provide some reason or mythical explanation? Hell, how did Kalensians get to Korvara? or Glykin? Again, this is starting to get nitpicky, but basically no culture in the world has evolved without coming up with a religion of some kind, as religions are a way for early civilizations to explain things they don't necessarily understand yet. I'm sure plenty of people have ran into these sorts of issues, and they weren't absent on G6, but they were for generally smaller things and much less often in my opinion.

I'll restate this to end my point. I can understand why people might prefer Korvara over G6. And I hope Korvara does get better, and its problems fixed. But, with things as they are, if given the option, I feel like G6 is just the better experience on the overall, and I'd pick that over Korvara at the drop of a hat.

I think a bit of optimism is warranted here. No, I don't believe we need a group to make a concerted effort. It would be nice, sure, but it's not necessary. 25 active players is enough, and I'm sure we have that. Yes, it will take time. But that's fine.

Addressing this really quick, I don't know if 25 players is something you can expect without hitting Korv pretty hard.. Like I said previously, people are much more likely to just go where the activity is, and while LFGs and stuff are activity in G6, it's still easier to find RP on Korvara without a bigger portion of players over. Again, I want to say that I do think getting G6 going again would be possible, but there's competition for players and I just want to set realistic expectations if the plan is primarily just doing an LFG now and then.

[Trexmaster]

As someone who has organized countless such things... It's just not the same thing. G6 offers not just a roleplaying medium, but also a building system, and most importantly a fun RPG combat / grinding experience on the side. It allows people to easily make a character and interact with random people. It's just not comparable at all. Furthermore, there's already a playerbase of people on G6, we're not starting from scratch.

I also want to add that there's always new players coming to SL2 occasionally, and they are offered a choice between Sigro and Korv. Wouldn't it be nice if they had a choice? That's another source of activity.

And lastly, to all you people who prefer Korvara to G6, who think we should focus on improving Korvara over reviving G6... That's good. But this isn't the thread for that. Go make your own thread about how to fix Korvara.

I also don't think we can "revive" G6 to its full former glory or anything close. All I want is a bit of consistent activity so that people who enjoy G6 can go there.

While I'm certainly not against those who enjoyed G6 returning to it and attempting to make something of it, I believe there should've been a proper divide awhile ago for things like the LFG/World messages on G6/Korvara popping up in its counterpart's feed.

Ultimately the two environments compete for the same players. It's the same game mechanically. It's just a matter of if you prefer the world you live in to be largely focused on interpersonal stories with the setting itself remaining entirely unchanging, or for the world to have a mix of interpersonal and broader scale interactions while the setting has at least the chance to be altered in some way.

Of course, much as I'd like if G6 wasn't even an immediate option on character creation, newer players should be able to make an informed decision. The situation I hope to avoid is a new player finding the game, deciding to choose Sigrogana, then finding nobody without joining the Discord and leaving the game believing it to be abandoned. The current map selection tries to gently impress this upon newer players if they read the end snippet but I don't think it accurately conveys just how stark the difference is. I believe if it actually showed the current number of logged in characters in each region there would be far less potential for confusion and premature abandonment from newer players.

If a new player genuinely wishes to pick Sigrogana then more power to them. If they're aware of the massive player difference, the lack of new content, and the stagnant state of the world that's their choice to make. I just cannot in good faith suggest Sigrogana/G6 to a newer player with how little they'd be offered as it stands compared to Korvara, the clear focus of SL2 for the past three years. 

It's not my intention to disparage the entire movement here, I'm fully in support of older players trying to make something of G6 while it's still floating around. What I'm advocating against is new players joining G6 unless they're vehemently against what Korvara offers in comparison. Assuming they're here for roleplay, it's a fact that they're going to have a much harder time on G6 compared to Korvara. Not that Korvara is perfect. We're trying to work on that. I'd just rather introduce a new player to a work in progress than a graveyard.

I feel like you're oversimplifying the situation by saying those who want G6's experience would be better off doing a tabletop game. In that same vein, I could say that those who prefer Korvara would be better off in another game where player agency and conflict is more properly supported. Obviously and again, this is a simplification, but that's my point.
There are plenty of reasons for someone to not just fill that gap with a tabletop game instead. I mean, some of the most simple ones are the bane of all tabletop games, that being scheduling. DMs can be hard to find, a lot of games end up failing, and not everyone has the motivation to run a game themselves. Majority of people who've been around the tabletop game community has run into at least some of these sorts of problems. Beyond that, a tabletop experience is very different from something like public RP. I certainly like tabletop games, but they're very different experiences.

Speaking specifically as to why G6 appeals to me anyways, I often compare the experience on G6 to RP on MMOs, though I think it does also extend to many, if not the majority, of other public RP spaces that exist online. Many MMOs are relatively static environments, things don't change in a setting for years at a time in-between expansions, and players have little to no real agency on the wider world. The devs of World of Warcraft aren't going to react to a player RPing their own miniature invasion of Stormwind or whatever. Hell, in some cases, changes to the setting are ignored because of how bad certain expansions can be taken sometimes. Private servers exist to encapsulate certain settings because they're the preferred even. But they still garner very large and very popular RP populations. SL2, as it was in G6, operated very similarly to this sort of thing, albeit with lower population due to being a much more niche game with fewer gameplay mechanics and reasons to keep people regularly coming back for things other than RP, but in that vein, SL2 technically has an advantage over larger MMOs, where its developer and moderators all exist to support it as an RP game. Of course, you can say that they haven't exactly done that job to the best of their abilities, with very long multi-year lulls in SL2 where it basically got zero new content, but I think any game would feel stagnant because of that, and that isn't necessarily inherent to G6's format considering plenty of other people enjoy this sort of thing in very large numbers. Again, accounting for personal taste, maybe this environment isn't for everyone, but it's unfair to say that people should just do this other thing when G6 did offer it's own appeal.

As for why I was on G6 instead of an MMO like FFXIV, which I am actively subscribed to, and do RP on, there are a number of reasons. For one, I can very easily idle on SL2 while doing something on the side. I often compare public RP to fishing, where you're seeing who bites to hooks, or just someone hanging around, and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but a part of the fun comes from not really knowing exactly what you're going to run into. But it can be a lot of waiting. It's easy on SL2 to keep it up and running while doing something on the side, like playing a game. I certainly can't run Helldivers or something while FFXIV is up in the background, my computer would explode on me. Beyond that, I actively like SL2's simpler RPG Maker-esque graphics. It opens up a lot of room for imagination while still giving people a visual reference for things. For other people, maybe not everyone wants to pay a subscription to a game just to RP if that's what they're here for.

Comparing why I prefer G6 to Korvara, we had a pretty long discussion about some of the factors in other threads Trex. But, a lot of it boils down to issues that I feel are baked into Korvara by design. Leadership, inconveniences grinding on the game, and so on. I respect the fact that you want to fix things, but I don't see these things as easy fixes when they seem like clear intentions Dev wants to support and are now also further burdened sometimes by issues that happened previously due to poor implementation. Some other examples include things like Korvara's map. It has a bunch of, what I'd consider, wasted space with full maps in-between the major cities/RP hubs that realistically only saw major use during the early days of Korvara when there were nearly like 150 accounts online at once. Nowadays, very few people actively use the wilderness spaces other than to get from place to place, a situation that G6 had kind of "solved" with the overworld map. It provided wilderness, but abridged it, and gave people looking to RP in such spaces the ability to advertise themselves even without an LFG by setting up a camp, an icon anyone passing by could see and poke their heads into.

Another major reason I prefer G6 over Korvara is the lore. Quite frankly, I'm really goddamn nitpicky about lore and settings. It's one of the major things I look for in RP, and having a certain level fleshed out history and setting really helps my immersion. This is not something everyone deals with, but it's something I personally care about. G6 lore wasn't perfect by any means, but I loved its bigger picture lore, with details like Heavens Contention, the Gods, Iahsus, and so on being really cool details to build a setting around. G6 gets electricity basically through tapping into the blood of a dead god that flows through the earth. That's rad as hell. You get into smaller details, and you start running into problems, but I find that much better than what Korvara has. How many times have lore docs been changed or shifted around or edited as leaders come and go? How many times have people complained that the lore feels extremely disconnected from each other? What is the actual history of the "ancient Korvarans" or where did these ruins come from? We have a ton of dragon statues all across Korvara, you're telling me not a single oral story managed to survive and provide some reason or mythical explanation? Hell, how did Kalensians get to Korvara? or Glykin? Again, this is starting to get nitpicky, but basically no culture in the world has evolved without coming up with a religion of some kind, as religions are a way for early civilizations to explain things they don't necessarily understand yet. I'm sure plenty of people have ran into these sorts of issues, and they weren't absent on G6, but they were for generally smaller things and much less often in my opinion.

I'll restate this to end my point. I can understand why people might prefer Korvara over G6. And I hope Korvara does get better, and its problems fixed. But, with things as they are, if given the option, I feel like G6 is just the better experience on the overall, and I'd pick that over Korvara at the drop of a hat.

You're right, my brief analysis was an oversimplification aimed to point out how the effort one has to place into G6 is essentially that of making their own roleplay group. If you want anything of substance at least that is. I should have made the distinction between that and casual RP that one might get from simply logging in and finding the one or two other people about the usual haunts.

Seriously though, I apologize, as it wasn't my intention to belittle the efforts or enjoyment of those who still find something in G6. There are arguments to be made that it serves some function as an RP client and allows for spur of the moment engagement should the stars align. All the more reason to show player counts in each area so people who aren't organizing amongst themselves can see if anyone's actually around in G6 for that kind of RP...

As to the comparison to Korvara though. I don't think you can say the same as easily as you could of G6 when it comes to suggesting an alternative avenue of roleplay. Korvara has the lion's share of players. It is the sad reality but one that cannot be ignored especially if one is attempting to bring new players into the environment. While Korvara isn't doing amazingly at performing what it advertised I like to think we're gradually beginning on the path to making it into something that can at least make the majority happy to be playing it.

Yeah, you could say it's basically how MMO rp goes. Though these MMOs are not designed explicitly to facilitate roleplay. It is not the key selling point. On SL2 it is. I've spoken on it before but I've felt that SL2 tries to be both a roleplaying game and an MMO and doesn't quite do either of those things right. One man can only do so much of course, though when I look at say, most MMOs, you generally feel like you're progressing in some fashion as time goes on. You don't get that in SL2, if anything you're more likely to get worse as your setup is nerfed and have to wait years if ever to return to the prior state you were in as new features come in. In terms of the roleplay, there has been a plethora of quality of life changes though what people desired from the roleplay environment hasn't been delivered on, and if anything the administration has only stifled efforts to do so intentionally or not.

I'll give that at least with G6, you know what you're getting. It is valid to have as something to leave idle in the background for casual roleplay without the need for organization. That's its strong suit. While Korvara can technically do the same it's a matter of preference there.

As to G6 v Korvara: Yeah, we already spoke to death about it and I'm reserving any further yapping for that thread if someone else replies with something to warrant a response to. To the implementation of the map, yeah. It is a whole lot of empty space to trawl through to find someone if you aren't looking in the main nation hubs. LFGs somewhat alleviate this but the fact of the matter is we've got a whole lot of map without many people to fill it and heavy restrictions on easy mobility akin to the Mage's Guild. So people are disincentivized from moving between parts of the map. Remember when Mabinogi's Moon Gates only worked at night? That lasted 18 minutes and was off for the same period of time. Korvara's version of Moon Gates? Lasts for about 20~ minutes and then turns off for about 180 minutes. Most people don't even know they exist. Don't get me started on the Wall Raid's timing either. Korvara tries to do a lot of MMO-esque things that do not respect the player's time at all unlike an actual MMO, and only recently started to address it in some ways like the changes to the drop pool. G6 didn't suffer quite AS much to the drop table, it still sucked, but it had Spatial Cores, Diving , and Treasure Maps on top of Crazy Dungeons to bass boost item generation and had far fewer items than Korvara has now wound up with.

So yeah, on the mechanical and roleplay environment aspects it has some work to do still. As for the lore. We've spoken a little about it already but so the whole world knows, yeah, Korvara leaves a whole lot of plot holes. While I appreciate the efforts undertaken to try and translate the race's lore to Korvara some things like Chimera were clearly a rush job. I don't think even the person who wrote it really believed in themselves when they put down 'mutational biomaterial'. Chimera could interbreed with the race they used to be, because they used to be that race, now it's just handwaved and that's really lame. Yeah, Naga lore was weird but overall we lost a lot moving to Korvara in terms of the depth the lore had. While players could write about their nations the world lore itself was largely kept locked off by Dev, we barely know anything about Korvara or its history compared to say, what we know about how G6 came to exist. It's very clear what happened, perhaps not the exact details, but there is no uncertainty there was a war of the gods that ultimately made the races as we knew them and led to the various magics known to this day.

It makes writing anything about the history of anything in Korvara awkward because we have no idea how anything happened. Nor how most stuff works. The most we get is some offhand comment from an NPC that magic was learned from old scriptures left behind by the progenitor civilization(s) of Korvara that we know nothing about still. Nothing about how it works or any sort of limitations. You've got nothing to go off of. Like you said, all we get is the heavy implications of 'Here be Dragons' and that's where it ends. Dev clearly has some idea of where he's going but is operating on Valve Time. Which isn't great for holding interest. Players were forced to invent the rise of their individual civilizations without any knowledge or context of the world they were put in, thus making it awkward for everyone. We got maybe a paragraph or two on each nation to go off of, leaders did not even get to see the game map before they wrote the lore if they did not opt into the beta testing of Korvara. Kind of important to know what you even have on screen I feel before you go writing what you have.

At the end of the day I'm only really here to ensure that anyone picking one or the other is fully informed, so they can have the best experience possible on SL2. I'm all for those who're fond of it to play on G6.

[Snake]

I'm down to be a villain for it, let's go.