It is an absolute democracy, which has been historically suicidal
Gestalt minds like that cannot come close to a single human in terms of effectiveness.
If the lack of cohesion is the problem, why not take advantage of the fact that we have so few suggestions right now due to people playing the new dwarf fortress release? We only have three action votes. If the three of you can come up with something you want to do without the interference of the masses, now's the time.
We pretty much had our chance to work with awesomicus and totally blew that when we couldn't come up with a quest.
The indecisiveness obviously hurt your case, but it wasn't the lack of a quest so much as the "winning vote" being to give him the exact same quest that you tried giving him in the previous episode, and that he obviously didn't want:
: "Well, not quite yet. First you have to gather up all your friends so you can fight him together."
: "What do you mean gather up my friends?"
: "Well, you know. Twilight's on here way now, right? And you said Pinkie has her own place by the lake. I know you said Applejack isn't here, but what you need to do is gather up all your friends who are, and-"
Awesomicus facepalms.
: "Celestia help me, Twi. If this was all just a dumb excuse to-"
: "Awesomicus?"
: "Twilight! Please tell me this game isn't just some dumb excuse to make us work together for a friendship report!"
He was obviously not receptive to the idea. And yet despite his reaction the biggest number of votes for the following episode was to repeat back the same exact quest to him and hope he'd suddenly be enthusiastic about it for some reason. I sometimes get the impression that a couple of our players just aren't paying very much attention. It's been a recurring problem since the beginning that an npc will leave the scene, but a couple people keep trying to talk to them after they've left. It happened with Vivec, it happened just recently with Clover, and similar things have happened throughout. So if we have a couple players who don't even notice when people leave the scene completely I suppose it's no surprise that they wouldn't notice that the thing they were proposing for Awesomicus had been proposed in the previous chapter and he wasn't interested. But it is kind of unfortunate. As above, we have reduced participation right now. I suggest you take advantage of it.
I'd understand if you said that we COULD be at their level by now
Sure you could have. Without being so specific that it becomes spoily, remember that your earliest indications of Clover/Awsomicus didn't even happen until episode 26. You had a pretty big head start. Also remember that
Word of God has been given that this game was intended to reach a successful conclusion after about 20 episode over two months. In retrospect, I obviously underestimated. But since neither of those two even showed up until after a timeframe that I expected the game would be over by...I think it's reasonable to suggest that regardless of what their roles actually are, maybe they're not so plot-critical that you really need to worry about competing with them in terms of physical brawling ability.
Yes, they're stronger than you are. But why does that concern you?
I think largely though we have no idea what the hell to do.
Well, that's a more difficult problem. I think that a lot of our players lack some of the background required to make sense of a lot of what's going on. I was pleasantly surprised when you guys understood the symbolsim at work with with the apple, but there have been a lot of things you've missed. I've been going to great effort to avoid falling prey to the
Law of Conservation of Detail, and consequently I think it's sometimes difficult to recognize what's "important" and what isn't. And yet, from my point of view, sometimes it's downright comical the things you guys don't notice. For example, remember that huge debate over which pony Awesomicus was associated with? And then he promptly showed up in an episode titled "
Dashing through the ash, in a
one-horse open sleigh?" Ok, maybe not definitive, but from my point of view I've been showering you guys in clues left and right, and it sometimes amazes me the things that nobody notices.
LordBucket is practically hitting us over the head with something, but because it's over our heads we can't see what it is for sure.
Exactly. But at the same time, I acknowledge that I have the benefit of knowing what's going on, and since Conservation of Detail is not in play here, it isn't always easy to distinguish the clues from the background noise if you don't already recognize them. In many games, only important things are brought into focus. Here, I think it's safe to say that everywhere you look, you find interesting things. Random "unimportant" background npcs have unique personalities and detailed life stories. For example, I didn't choose Draren to be a companion for you. You guys did. And then found that he had a rich family background and history, relatives with personalities, skills and emotional relationships.
Sort of like
a fractal.
Wherever you look, there is always more detail available no matter how closely you examine it. As such, I think many of you are having difficulty answering the question of "what's important?" You're used to definite, pre-defined goals with definite, pre-defined solutions that are hinted at by definite pre-defined clues.
But that's not the way this game works. This world is more open than that. And maybe it's not up to me to answer on your behalf the question of "what's important?"
I have never played morrowind
Morrowind is a game with a definite beginning and a definite ending. It's a game with a story, and quests and villains. Yes, these things do exist in Morrowind.
But it's
also a game where you can completely ignore all those things and do whatever the hell you want to do. The "official" story and the "main questline" is not at all what people love about Morrowind. The elder scrolls series is
notorious for having an open world, and it's entirely common for people to play these games for weeks or months without ever engaging the "official" questlines. Personally, the first time I played Morrowind I think I made it to level 40 before I even did the very first "go talk to that guy" step of the main quest. In a game you can beat at level 15 or 20. Or, if you're in a hurry, here's a guy who beat Morrowind start to finish in
under ten minutes.
Point being, these games have always been largely self-directed. If you're looking for answers from npcs, well...yes, there
is a "what's going on" in this game. And if you want, you can pursue it. But it would be completely contrary to the
spirit of the elder scrolls series for me to be pushing you guys towards the "official hosted on bay12 Marooned in Morrowind main quest line." That's not, and never has been what Morrowind is about.
What you do
want to do?