On today's segment of BanaNa Thoughts I will delve into a lesser known quantum of players within Warlight. I dub these folks the "strategic roleplayers". Now before my dear readers jump up and squawk in my face about how you know exactly who i am referring to, let me clarify myself first.

By "strategic roleplayers", I'm not refering to roleplayers who make good decisions in diplomacy games. I speak of warlighters that mainly diplos and are in roleplaying clan who seek to improve their strategic skills. Long have these people stuck to their harmless lotto- ahem I mean diplomacies , but they have also been keeping a watchful eye on the strategic side of warlight. Loud advocates of the superiority and worth of diplomacies on the forums, such as Lawlz and others, have kept these "strategic roleplayers away from strategic games. The understanding of their lack of skill in the particular department is an even stronger driving factor. "Why should i get out of my comfort zone and play a *gasp* auto 1v1 when I could join a world diplomacy or westeros scenario?”

The particular sect of closet “strategic roleplayers” that i speak of are solid and well-regarded players of the warlight roleplay community. They will faithfully play their respective parts as a world leader, medieval lord, or zombie horde without ever expressing their desire to play strategic games to their clan mates. Strategic roleplayers cannot compete with established strategic players, and they are fully aware of this fact, and are loath to join clans that seek to help players become better at strategy. Why? Because they are comfortable in their current setting with people they know, they may be curious about strategic 1v1s but they still like diplo. Why join a strategic clan as a student when you are a respected member within your current clan?

While there is, my dear readers, certainly no clear answer for these closet “strategic roleplayers”, several relatively effective solutions have surfaced over the course of warlight’s glorious history. CORP, originally an rp clan, added a “strategic dojo” under Knyte’s leadership for members within their community that wanted to play and get better at strategic games. In addition to such duel-crossover clans (CORP had credibility for closet “strategic roleplayers” because they actually started out as a pure rp clan) another potential solution may be to create a massive strategic league, just for players in rp clans. The playing field would be more leveled and players would generally be able to play with people that they were more familiar with. Since the “leaders” of rp clan love to convene and hold pointless meetings so much, perhaps this is something viable that they may be able to create. Regular massive strategic tournaments, where clan leaders would invite their members into so that each rp clan was represented, and the winner would be able to bring honor and glory to their community. Initially perhaps roleplayers will brush it off as nonsense, but is there not pride in being able to boost that you were apart of the best strategic clan in the rp community?

Edited 10/28/2015 21:47:28

DO you want to provoke us? I will pass...

BanaNa , you gave a lot of extra information but only the last phrase mentioned was important.

It was a long read, but I didn't regret it. Well, except another person misspelling "knyte" :P

I personally think that's what many of CORP members are (including me). After I've gone out of my noob phase, I was almost exclusively a diplomacy player with little to no interest in strategic games. Why? Because that's the reason I joined. I wanted something similar to WL not to test my skill, but to have fun in irl-like situations represented rather well (though ofc, way to go to perfection) here.

But then, fairly recently, I started to enjoy a bit of strategy. I'm by no means a good player, I'd say I'm decent, mainly because I take my turns in 1-2 minutes (aside from the picks, who take a little longer). I just... don't really care, I guess? Sometimes, playing competitive games just doesn't seem to be worth it for me.

Though I must say I don't exactly get the point of the thread. Is it organizing a tournament for players from RP-based clans?

This was me a while ago.

https://www.warlight.net/Forum/116160-banana-thoughts-2-strategic-league-rp-clans

A second thread expanding on my idea of a strategic league(regular series of tournaments) for the closet strategic roleplayers.

To me I don't think he's provoking us at all. Unless I'm missing something (I tend to, a lot) he's actually crediting CORP for coming up with a solution to bring these folk "out of the closet", if you will.

This was me until just before I quit the Wolves. I think the other issue is that the strategic clans on WL aren't really willing to invest in players that aren't already good. Kind of tied into the whole notion that you can make your clan better just by kicking people out instead of helping them improve as players.

So I ended up in CORP (and got just the right environment to help build Scorpio) after getting rejected from {101st} by Apollo himself because I'd been an RP'er in the past. The main motivation I had for pushing the dojo system (which I won't take credit for- BigMeck, Chancho, and others were instrumental in making Scorpio actually work; I just pitched it and got it past people like Panda who were absolutely opposed to CORP being anything but RP-only) was the desire to create an environment that takes in just about anyone with a shred of motivation and introduces them to strategy in a way that helps them recognize how fun it is and get better at it. That was the entire purpose of CORP Strategic League (the reason I never automated it is because I couldn't figure out how to algorithmically do what I'd been doing with pairings- trying to make them enjoyable learning experiences) and I think it worked kind of well because we did see a lot of growth in players within and outside Scorpio during that short timeframe. But overall, WL clans still seem to be rather broken when it comes to player development and retention.

Edited 10/28/2015 22:25:13

I think knyte's hit on the greatest idea to come out of 101st. There are certain clans that take only elite players, but Lynx may be the only one to have its own "farm system" if you will. Illuminati also looks like a solid training clan (seriously how did that clan become respectable?) but I'm not sure how they feel about being used as a recruiting ground, and I don't think any clans use them as a recruiting ground specifically. Honestly I think more elite clans should get "training clans" to improve promising players and eventually recruit them into the main clan.

^ I don't think elite clans really have an incentive for doing this when they have recruitment options that require less effort by multiple orders of magnitude.

Also, I don't agree with the idea that strategy should be dominated by elite clans with or without farm systems. The only reason the current clan model favors them is because the metagame on WL barely exists.

I completely disagree with this.
The first games I ever played were FFAs, which I kept losing, then I started playing Team Games, which i was good at, until eventually I discovered diplomacy.
Now to begin with I was scared. Diplo at that time was completely dominated by the group who had followed Michael the Great from T4R to Vitrix and then onto The Lost Wolves.
They were people who took roleplay very seriously and did not tolerate anyone who did not understand their world. I was fascinated and after a few games was hooked.

So for me, I was originally a Team/FFA player who only later discovered diplomacy. I only recently began playing 1v1, however I do still usually play Team Games in real-time. Though my fame does come from my reputation as a diplo'er.