I was just trying to be positive...

I appreciate the effort!

I don't mind about the bandits one way or the other. I never liked them anyway. Personally, I think IRE is starting to go way overboard with these promotions. Instead of marketing the games based on how good they are (and let's face it, Lusternia has a lot going for it), they seem to be trying to flood the players with lots of pretty stuff that quite frankly breaks immersion too much even for me. "Ooo sparklie" only lasts for so long.

For this in particular, it really helps to know exactly what you're getting. There's no way in hell I'd buy a cubix, for example, without knowing exactly what exits were in it. I can do it by borrowing one, but for a lot of them having it and knowing you like having it and using it go long way to making the hundreds of dollars they cost worth it. I'd never have bothered with a Mask before this, now it's on my "get when I have the money" list.

I would have thought they'd want more exposure to these temporary artifacts rather than less.

All the OOC clan chatter last week was about how much they wanted to be able to keep the things that dropped and how they'd start saving up. I think it's a brilliant advertising ploy, personally.

Well, sure, last week! This week, not so much.

I want to seriously angst on the forums, but there hasn't been a Rants thread in a long time. FML.

I averaged (added X guilds' scores together and divided the results by X, to clarify) the current TOPGUILD scores by archetype and constructed a little chart for myself. Thought I'd share:

CODE

Archetype       Novice Score     Member Score     Vote Rating
-------------------------------------------------------------
Guardians            9               77.25            3.75
Mages                10.75           61.5             2.25
Wiccans              4               56.5             3
Warriors             3.5             47.67            1.67
Bards                3.25            31.5             2
Monks                5.5             30.75            0.75
Druids               1.5             25               1
-------------------------------------------------------------

Obviously, Guardians are inflated due to the fancy new guilds. In normal times, I suspect they'd fall either between Mages and Wiccans, or between Wiccans and Warriors.

I theorize that Bards and Monks are noticeably less popular because they're comparatively new, and also because Bards and Monks have somewhat less "cool factor" than mages, witches, and warriors (for example).

I theorize that Druids are the least popular of all because the archetype is underpowered and considered broken. It's not a new archetype, and Druids are pretty cool, so I doubt either of those can be the reason.

Also seeking ideas from Illuminati players concerning the as-of-yet-unmade Manipulation path I've been working on (because evidently Chalcedony got nice advice last time)! I promise I won't squeal your alts out to anyone.

^ This.

Congratulations to Chixsanga!

Actually, I think Druids have a smaller number because having only two orgs that can have druids, the fact that one of those orgs is in a big slump is more noticeable, and druids aren't a particularly high-demand archetype anyway - you only need one melder. There haven't really been any changes to druids since the days when there were five or six Glom druids around at once.

Having slow internet all day? Annoying.

Losing your internet for ~12 hours at the end of the day? Very annoying.

Losing your internet for ~12 hours during an important meeting that's already been postponed once? FML.

I don't necessarily agree with your first point. There are also only two Wiccan guilds, yet Wiccans are more than halfway up the chart, above two archetypes with four guilds apiece and even one that has six guilds to its name. (I suspect Wiccans would also outrank Guardians normally, just not right now). I'm sure archetypes represented by only two guilds will have a different dynamic than those with four (or six); I just don't think it's necessarily going to mean that their ranking in TOPGUILDS will be arbitrarily lower.

Actually, I don't agree with your second point, either (assuming you're talking about Serenwilde being in a slump). Serenwilde is a large org with big numbers in MOST of its guilds, and therefore the fact that the Hartstone has low numbers says more about the guild itself than the org as a whole. Regarding Wiccans, the other two-guild archetype, Moondancers are actually more active than Shadowdancers.

Your third point seems perfectly valid, though, and stands on its own in a sense. However, I still tend to believe the near-universal sentiment among commune dwellers that Druids are underpowered. Everyone agrees on that, the same way everyone agrees that Merians are broken (not to the same extent, but still).

Really?

You don't think it has anything at all to do with the fact that Druids are nigh-useless outside of forest (unlike psionicists), and inside are pretty much one-trick sap ponies?

That's why Glom doesn't have six Druids around at once any more, really. They all get bored with the class and leave it.

Pretty quickly, at that.

Nice chart, but given that T0PGUILDS has a tendency to fluctuate wildly every RL day when I look at it, I wonder what the chart would look like a few days from now.

Really? It stayed pretty much the same for one or two RL days when I was checking it earlier this week (well, last week, I suppose).

Even so, you're absolutely right: TOPGUILDS fluctuates significantly. That chart is by no means definitive, and I never intended it to be.

Once the Guardian guilds settle back down, though, I could record the TOPGUILDS chart every other day for, say, two RL months. An aggregate of thirty charts sampled over time would be a lot more accurate.

I probably won't, though. That's a lot of work for little or no substantial gain.

Its not like its just druids. Pyromancers have no combatants what so ever at the moment, and nobody wants to join them now either (to the point that we can't even get an active envoy, so they're doomed to the state other parties left them in. Keep up the good work, special reports!)

The other mage guilds aren't exactly bubbling over with activity either- though Geos are noticeable because of who is there, and aeos have a fair number when I'm on my alt there.

As has been said many a time by people more in tune with druids than I, if they lose sap, it would be easier to have sympathy for them.

...that and the Crow set has yet-another-mana kill.

I'm having to fight the urge to log on during work to try to get something from a stupid bandit before 7pm gets here and the weave changes.

I'm reminded of when that one RidiculouslyObviousAlt Novice Templar had a fight with Alexandera at the nexus about various things, including the state of the Pyromancers' combat path.

And I thought to myself, "I would care a whole lot more about this if anyone in the guild was an actual combatant and not someone trying to learn the basics of Mage combat/combat in general."

But yeah, we're waiting on an envoy appointment. Been told to stop asking about it.