Dueling Houses Discussion.

[G]

Here's a thread that can be for Houses.

Now, the first thing I want to get out of the way, is that Houses are going to pretty much be strictly a player run addition. Which is to say that if you have like, a House Champion, they're not going to get something like an extra fancy in the duels, so to speak.

So, things that are good for Houses..

1. Bragging Rights:
"My house has more Barons than your house" or "We have more wins against members of your house" Things like that.

2. Ladder Matches:
I can't remember how these are done, but can probably easily look it up.

3. House Champion:
You can do this however you'd like. For example, the House Leader can compile individual records for each weekend, and the duelist in their House can be considered the House Champion, or something.

4. Group Environment:
Aside from anyone, House Members can specifically be counted on to help out another member with problems and such. Loyalty.

Anyone else have ideas or suggestions to make Houses more interesting to people?

[Artemus Kurgen]

Oh the possibilities.

1. Inter-House Tournaments. Each house can put forth a pool as the grand prize via character entries or House coffers.

2. Try and get each house to hold All of the challengeable ranks. (Barons and Overlord).

3. Betting Lines on which house has the most duelists make finals in any ranked tournament. (Talon, Squire, WLT, etc). Players/Characters can request them.

4. Next Year's Madness, House Wars would be the new title.

[Jake]

Anyone else have ideas or suggestions to make Houses more interesting to people?

Most of these are ideas I've championed before.

I'll add that there can be internal contests within a house (e.g., who can post the most wins over a weekend/month/cycle), e.g., to earn the title of House Champion. Or maybe it's done tourney style. House members duel against each other to determine the champion. Or maybe house members have to challenge the champion to earn the title. Each house can have their own rules about how to name House Champion.

In addition to intra-house dueling (sort of like what the Questrion Challenge did back in the day), there could also be house rivalries and contests. "Your house/school is inferior to ours! Fight us, so that we can prove it!" Which might take the form of tourneys, or regular dueling (accumulation of points), or maybe just champion vs. champion contests for whatever stakes the house is willing to put forth.

I'll reiterate that I'd love to see the house affiliation added to the standings (again with the proviso that any given dueler can only be listed in association with one house).

Some other basics...there should only be one champion per house. And if we can get the house affiliation on the standings, maybe we could also list who's the House Champion.

[Artemus Kurgen]

Not sure how much of a stretch with the imagination this is, but couldn't Inter-House Tournaments or dueling be akin to our own version of Team Dueling Leagues? The head of each house can coordinate with the others to set up dates and times to hold the house matches and at the end of the tournament the house with the most wins is Inter-House Champion? Say one tournament like that every 3 cycles. Obviously the number of houses would dictate the length, but this is just a fun thought since I KNOW people want TDL to come back, this could sub in the mean time I think.

[Jake]

Not sure how much of a stretch with the imagination this is, but couldn't Inter-House Tournaments or dueling be akin to our own version of Team Dueling Leagues? The head of each house can coordinate with the others to set up dates and times to hold the house matches and at the end of the tournament the house with the most wins is Inter-House Champion? Say one tournament like that every 3 cycles. Obviously the number of houses would dictate the length, but this is just a fun thought since I KNOW people want TDL to come back, this could sub in the mean time I think.

Certainly. An invitational House tourney, after there are a few established houses, would be a great idea. It takes a lot of work (as evidenced by TDL, IFL, TdR), but there are probably people that would step up to help facilitate this sort of thing.

[Neo Eternity]

I would also like Houses to be for all the sports as opposed to just swords.

When Neo joined House deGorol, it was at a point in his career when he was on fire in Magic (excuse the accidental contradictory pun) but did not get Swords at all. At the time, Tormay was the Overlord, or at least just lost the mantle, and he wanted to become better at Magic. So Neo joined so that he could help Tormay with Magic, and Tormay could help him with Swords. They grew from each other's exprience and assistance.

So Houses could have people from all three sports mixed in with each other, and they could hep each other out in cases where duelists want to branch out into other sports, but they don't quite "get" the sport they want to branch into, and there are duelists in that house that can help them. It is also a good way to get moral support. Like for example, a magic duelist in a certain house challenges a Keeper. His housemates may not be very magic-inclined, but he would still have their support and interest.

It would be a good way to bring all three sports closer together.

[Jake]

I would also like Houses to be for all the sports as opposed to just swords.

That would be something that's up to the house to decide.

Some might prefer to include all sports. Some might want to focus on just one.

Since the houses would be player-controlled/run organizations, it would be entirely up to them.

They might even create their own hybrid events.

[Artemus Kurgen]

The dueling houses started in DoS, if I"m not mistaken, so this is what they are most associated with. Like Jake said, the sports that any house competes in is up to the members of that house.

For Invitational House Tournaments, the only issue I can see would be officials. Obviously duelists belonging to either house wouldn't be able to officiate matches because if either won it would look like a match got rigged. I know many wouldn't do that, but it's better to be safe than risk a major problem such as that. Could even have a House Council that operates such things. They hire on officials, coordinate dates and times of availability for events among the houses, so on and so forth.

[G]

Neo Eternity wrote:
I would also like Houses to be for all the sports as opposed to just swords.

Jake wrote:
That would be something that's up to the house to decide.

Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that a House is specific to one sport, if I did. I know I tend to focus mostly on Swords stuff, because well, I'm all about Swords. Even if I'm into Fists a little, I still focus my energies on Swords issues.

Thing is, anything you can apply to Houses with Swords types of events, you can apply to Fists and Magic, as well.

Ladder matches, House Champion(One in each sport), inter-House tournaments, etc. The focus of the House would be determined by the Leader of said House.

So, if Tormay is Leader of House DeGoral, then he can have it focused on Swords and Magic. G, for example, would be focused only on Swords. Whoever is leader of Wrecking Crew(::coughcoughMariacough:: ) could be focused on Swords and Fists, etc.

The limits of a House are only the limits of the imagination. You can do anything.

As to coding House information into standings.. ehh.. I can't do that. I don't have the technical know-how to do it. The most I could probably do is add a note by the name of the duelist similar to what I do with Squire.

[Jake]

As to coding House information into standings.. ehh.. I can't do that. I don't have the technical know-how to do it. The most I could probably do is add a note by the name of the duelist similar to what I do with Squire.

That's more or less what I had in mind, and I/we could probably help with the the technical end of things. Just had to make sure you were willing to support their inclusion.

[Artemus Kurgen]

What about inter-house or in-house matches being included in the news at the top of the standings page? Or would that be something that had to be posted in the (Insertsporthere) thread? Like how Madness had little mentions of duels thrown in like it coming down between Maria, Neo, and Sylus for the Madness Final.

[Rekah Illyriana]

This sounds like A LOT of fun.

As long as there's a sorting hat so each duelist can be placed into the proper house...

But, seriously, I think it would encourage player interaction and storylines.

So, two thumbs up.

[Artemus Kurgen]

Rekah, I read your post and had a horrible thought.

With the character registrations include an optional survey that places the character in a house based on their answers. That's too much work by far, and doens't really feel right for the game as it is now however. But that's what your post made me think of.

[G]

Well, rather than having a "Sorting hat" sort of thing..

Houses generally were by invitation only. They never really had an active "recruiting period" like Guilds used to be. Guilds back in the day pretty much had a whole "Email application and recruitment drives" to try and get as many members.

Houses, on the other hand, it'd be up to the head of the house to decide if someone were to join. If G were to reopen HDT, I don't think that there'd be many members he'd want to allow to enter. Like.. say if Anubis was a "fit" or something. G isn't going to want him on the team.

So yeah, While we as staff members encourage and will do what we can to assist the creation and all of Houses, they're going to be strictly maintained by a player base. Admins won't have control over House rules and regulations. It'll be players who decide who enters what House.

I would also like to try and keep the technical burden on Admin and staff members(callers) to a minimum, as well. Like, I don't think I'd want to have added to standings how One House is doing against another House. Little info blurbs or what have you(like Madness) are okay, though.

And yes Jake, if you got the technical know-how to help work it out, I'm for it. Just gotta keep it in a way that doesn't mess the standings up too much. I'm sure it's some sort of simple XML code or something that can be added to the right file. I simply don't know how that works.

[Jake]

And yes Jake, if you got the technical know-how to help work it out, I'm for it. Just gotta keep it in a way that doesn't mess the standings up too much. I'm sure it's some sort of simple XML code or something that can be added to the right file. I simply don't know how that works.

I'll take a look to verify I can do what I am thinking off tonight/this weekend.