Shattered Kingdoms

I should have made a poll along with the first one. Given that the ship has sailed with initial release on the first thread I'm making this one.

Perhaps an option should be considered, but if such is implemented, there should be a choice to go in uninvested, and go through the current process/state. Gailehn never would have been Gailehn if I had to choose a religion going in. He was a clean slate, and I was able to develop the character from relative scratch. Influenced by the clergy he met, and the experiences he had in the first two years of game play. Characters such as Jaena made the journey into learning oneself a pursuit. The multiple role-plays of 'figure out who you are, and not what you want to be' were life shaping. Many clergy in several faiths got to interact with an acolyte. The discoveries made culminated into faith, religion, motivations and character, nevemind friendships. Most religions also have a degree of hierarchy and rules to be followed as well. An auto-vest would bypass this, initially.

I would agree for some, especially for newer characters to the game - the lack of player base/2 active HF in each religion can make the task of getting in and along a bit daunting. For reasons of practicality, an option to join a religion at creation is appealing. It would have been a different experience, but if it helps retain new players, it's worth consideration.

So long as their is a wert option for people who wish to RP with different faiths to pick theirs. You have to remember people are going to be new returning to the game they might wish to join the most active/least active faith depending on their mindset. I also recall a special snowflake of a paladin wanting to be not a paladin religion, that was interesting.

I'll quote myself from the other thread:

ran across someone recently that created as a priest, asked me in character if i knew who to contact about joining the religion they had picked - so i gave them the name of the hp to look for. they tried for a few days to get in contact with the hp/hf of that religion and then prayed in character at temples when that didn't work.

then they rerolled to a mage after a week of not getting invested. pretty sure if that was a new player they would just write sk off. don't understand why investment should ever take this long. if there r not enough players or staff around to invest people, adding the option at creation seems like a good fix to me.

I agree it should be looked into and fixed. The whole investment via RP thing is from way back when SK would rack up 40+ players on peak times, and every religion would have a HF, 2nd HF and a couple more waiting to become HF. Things are just not like that anymore, the playerbase has shrunk and there are even religions that are entirely vacant..

I voted yes, but I don't understand why any immortal couldn't just grant flags to whoever has been praying. I would guess there is some policy preventing that, but I can't think of any reason for it. Do immortals fear that an NPC invest would take too much time to RP? I would argue a ninja invest with just a social from an NPC or an echo would be preferable to waiting weeks without any response at all.

I recently got invested into a religion by Sadal. They were great about the forum interaction, and setting something up, but it did take some time. Is it policy for the IMM in charge of a faith to handle the process, or can any IMM invest a cleric into any religion?

Despite the process, I would have reservations about hard coding what class/race/alignment can join a faith.

As a general rule, any admin can/will help handle clergy (priest/ paladin/ hellion) who are seeking. These investments can range from long RPs to quick invests, generally depending on time available at the time.

Non-clergy seekers typically have a longer run of it, and I will typically only invest the non-clergy seekers of the faiths that I personally oversee, and then usually only if there is no HP or it becomes apparent there is no time overlap between seeker & HP.

Also as a general rule, we are more quickly notified of a seeker who takes the time to pray using the PRAY command (preferably at a temple of the religion being sought). We will typically be notified more quickly by those prayers than if the seeker simply puts it in his/her title-- though using the title method is the best way to notify HP PCs.