Yep, it's one of those polls. What should happen with Zalandrus? He's just now resigned as Guildmaster of Cantors, mainly because I don't have the time or (any longer) the inclination to involve myself in the management of a guild.

Zalandrus is a human, level 79, and definitely staying in Celest and staying human. I'm not so much into combat, but I want a guild whose skills complement hunting and influencing fairly decently. Skillwise, I'm trans in all Cantors skills and fairly high up in Resilience, so I can probably forget Resilience and trans one or two of the three new guildskills. We'll see.

I'm also hoping the prospective guild will have lots of people, but not too much of a military dominance; friendliness, and not a lot of pressure to do advancement tasks. Zalandrus used to be an Aquamancer, and he generally liked it (but admittedly, he was a merian with forcefield, which made hunting pretty fun), before he switched over to the Cantors when Bards came out.

If I join the Celestines, it'll probably be with Astrology or Tarot. If Aquamancers, Telekinesis or Telepathy. If Paladins (not a very top choice for me, but hey, who knows), definitely Sacraments. I'm currently a Tarot Bard.

Please try to give me a serious answer, and not just blow this off as a person with too much time on his hands? Lusternia is losing a bit of its luster for me, and I just want to switch to a guild that I can stay long-term in, even as I drop in and out of inactivity.

I have to ask...

Why switch guilds? Are you bored with the skills you've accrued, with the organization, or with the people? Depending on your reasoning for wanting to leave, you may already have taken the steps necessary for change by resigning from a leadership position. What are you looking for, exactly?

You should definitely hit 80.

I'm feeling too stagnant in the Cantors, and honestly, I don't have the time to go about composing songs or poems or all that artistic stuff and actually BE a bard. The skills are fine (I'm sure I would miss them if I switched, just like I'd miss any other skills), the organization is a meh for me (do dislike, though, how Bards aren't really considered an integral part of the game yet, or at least not Celest), and the people are fine (although it'd be nice to see more than 2 people around...)

I can empathize on at least a few of those points. Lusternia seems to have a fairly small playerbase as it is, and the Bard guilds (being new) don't have the following yet that the more established groups enjoy. There are rarely more than three people around in the Spiritsingers at one time, though I have seen as many as six now and again, and particpation in bardic activities (either within the guild, or the commune) is regrettably also very low. Poor Lendren had to go through at least two casting calls and finally cancel the performance of his play completely. I'm not sure if it's just bad timing, or the fact that the new guilds haven't yet solidified their presence, or just a lack of interest in cultural activities, but I can't see Amarysse being any other archetype so I'm sticking it out.

I would say give the Cantors a chance, as they may end up becoming something amazing and you'll regret having walked away. If you're genuinely unhappy there, however, remember that you're supposed to be having fun. Pick whichever group and skillset sounds most engaging to you, and don't worry so much about the technical side of things.

Stick with your guild through thick and thin, make it better, help with the envoys if need be, etc etc. Giving up and moving on to another style of play or setting isn't rewarding as you might think it is. If you take the general consensus of players that moved around alot and players that have stayed in one spot, I think you'll find the ones that stayed in one guild are more happy. Take Daevos for example, his motto is Ur'Guard for life. It's apart of his rp-identity. Become a famous Cantor, and be known for being a Cantor. Sure, things can get stagnant. But you gotta take the good with the bad. Try to improve it.

The bard guilds need their cities and communes to need them, which means there needs to be something only they can do that the nation needs. We were talking in IRC recently how it'd be nice if there was a new element in the CULTURE score calculation that reflected bard guilds doing cultural things. That'd be a start, but only a start, since Culture is a small part of the game and a higher culture score is really not going to get people excited. But it'd be a step in the right direction. It points up how there's really nothing the nations need bards guilds for yet. (Bard guards and nexus powers will be another when they come.)

If bards had been in during the game's beginning, I bet they'd've been far better at village influencing than everyone else, and that would have been taken as just how things are: "we're good at this and you're good at that". But being added later, if someone suggested it should be changed to that, it'd never fly. The trick is to find things where it would work and that you could add now without starting a general uproar. But imagine if bard guilds sucked at combat (hah!) but were way, way better than anyone else at influencing, with techniques no one else had access to. I bet there'd be a lot more people in the bard's guilds, because the nations would treat them as a valued resource.

Damn you Cantors stealing away our Aquamancers /minirant

Agree with what's been said. And if I didn't join the Cantors I'd have joined the Celestines instead Wait around for a bit (1 IG year?), maybe something new and awesomely cool will develop for bards and you'll regret leaving Otherwise, hmm... Celestine with Astrology, or Aqua with dreamweaving (yes I know it sucks for that guild, but we need more spiies!)

When the system was first implemented, the power generated by the library was on equal footing with power generated by all the other villages combined. I am not sure if the system has shifted slightly, but the power going around in the libraries should still be substantial.

But accruing Culture doesn't involve combat, so it's not important.

Culture is still absolutely vital. Sadly, most Magnagorans are illiterate... and we wallow in mediocrity.

Then maybe giving some tie between bardic performance and culture that emphasizes the importance of culture would help both. Win-win situation.

As another example of what I was getting at: imagine if the only thing that moved the colossi to motion was the song of a bard. Okay, so thematically it doesn't make much sense -- not much link between poet musician performer and pilot of giant mecha robot -- but if that could have been worked around, this would make the nations need bards, it would give the bards something only they could do, and I bet it would double population it the bard guilds inside of a year.

I've made my decision, and have followed through with it now...but thanks for the input.

I think that would be an awesome idea, giving the Bards a skill that can allow them to do something to the construct...maybe not activate it, but perhaps protect it? Or better yet, give them a song, something that "vibrates along the same chord as the Nexus world" that greatly protects constructs? Don't know.

And, as to the idea about Bards performing to increase Culture score, it's theoretically good, but I have no idea how you'd make it happen feasibly...Gods can't watch every performance and assign it a score, but there has to be some way to differentiate a 'good' performance from, say, an amazing one (something not just based on length). You could make a rudimentary system, with designated rooms as 'stages' (an idea from another topic on the forum, sorry, forgot originator), places that bards (or anybody else for that matter) could 'activate' and then do stuff. Then, the city/commune is awarded a certain number of culture points based on (here's the iffy part) how long the performance was. You could also throw in nuances about having at least one person from another community to rate it, etc. etc., but the point is that it'd be difficult to have performances directly and objectively impacting cultural score...

Another idea that occurred to me is having a contest like the monthly artisinal/bardic contests (or perhaps more like the Scholarly/Literary library contests), but with performances that Bardic guilds would submit...

Yeah, those were only meant as examples. The point of them, though, is that it'd have to be something that only bards can do for their nations, not just something they can do too.

Bards are spoony. Everyone likes a spoony bard, but not very many people like being a spoony bard. Therein lies the problem. You can apply it to almost any game with Bards as a choosable option and it remains fairly true.



The trick: Making the things a bard can do for a -group- so worthwhile and wanted that anytime a group of combatants/bashers/etc form that they almost loathe leaving without a bard by their side. Even if one has to sacrifice a certain amount of personal strength for solo debuts of slaughtering , it'd be a near worthwhile trade off. It'd increase the amount of people choosing to go do things together rather then alone simply for the sake of having a bard which allows for more friendships to be formed and such. Currently bards don't appear to have anything that is so profound, unique and worthwhile that only they can provide that people feel as if they need them around. And bards as an idea focus around playing the crowd, being accepted and wanted practitioners of their arts to increase morale etc. Currently, they feel as if another archetype/magey type that sings spammy songs.

I really think that's one thing there needs more of in Lusternia: People doing things together, even mundane silly things. And I don't just mean with your small circle of butt buddy friends that are in your OOC clans.

Spoony? WTF does that mean?

Spoony

Okay. Now, what the hell are you on about?

Serge, a bard can do something for the group, Starhymn songs can increase damage to whoever hears, it also increase regeneration of both/mana/willpower/endurance, we can also prevent anyone setting up a shield when on water and we can afflict an entire group with blind + a 2 second stun and being prone to skills like trample. Really, if you think bards are that useless, ask some of the brigade members what I do most of the time during defense and raids.