L'Eglise Aristotelicienne Romaine The Roman and Aristotelic Church

[Plotnik]

The short question: does anyone care?

I recently had this exchange with the admins.

[Apocas]

We are in the process of gathering and analysing information about the monasteries. So the church is interested in understanding and possibly implementing an IG monastery within the anglophone lands. It has been something we have periodic spoken with the admins about for the last four years. However there are a number of reasons why it has not been implemented.

As you have personally experienced, the admins place no priority on an anglophone monastery. The reason for this (besides the admins having too many open developments) is due to the under population of the other two monasteries. One has to remember that a monastery is basically an additional town; a town that no one is born into, and doesn't allow for ownership of any property. With the fact that most anglophone towns are currently under populated makes it unlikely that the admins are willing to create, in effect, another underpopulated town. At the moment the church is planning to wait until after definitive plans for consolidation have been made before making another request. This gives us the ability to have the monastery in a populated area. It would be very bad for the monastery to be placed on a node in an area that would not have any remaining coded towns.

In addition to concerns about population, there is the issue of coding. Like much else in the church particularly, and the game in general, it is poorly and incompletely coded. Though oddly enough the parts that are coded are quite complicated and time and labour intensive. It basically requires a daily active population of about 25 to 30 monks engaged in a multiple stage productions and be logged in periodically throughout the day. As such keeping and maintaining productive population will be a challenge. Though the church will still try to have it coded here if possibly. Even an incomplete state could be an interesting experience.

In the past we had gotten about 15 or so persons interested in the idea of actually living and working in a monastery. That was a little below the mark (LJS at the time stated that the admins would consider coding it with just 20 players committed). So what is needed is committed players to living the life of the monk. Also there needs to be support from the surrounding communities. As it is right now, there are very few counties in any of the anglophone lands that would accept a monastery to be placed inside of their counties. Having friendly and supportive neighbours is also important in the long-term health of the monastery.

Ideally with more condensed populations and strong player support, we can convince the admins to commit to making an anglophone monastery.
_________________
Former Bishop of Clifton
Former Roman Cardinal-Elector and Prélate Plénipotentiary
Former Cardinal Chamberlain of England, Scotland, and Ireland

[Plotnik]

Your Excellency, I thank you sincerely and deeply for the reply.

It has come to my attention that the monastery in Nuremberg has three residents. That in a well-populated area of the Holy Roman Empire. I do not know about the French monastery.

I cannot speak from a position of authority - as I have no authority - but believe that Sussex would welcome a monastery with open arms. We already have the Archbishopric, and the seat of the Primacy is located herewithin. My first thought is a node between Hastings and Dover, or Hastings and Lewes. Both of those nodes come pre-equipped with a port (natural port - level 1), to aid with shipping ale about the world.

Should I bring this to Sussex for discussion? Even knowing that it will not be coded soon, would it be advisable to start the discussion about neighbors?

Today, only an RP monastery to be worthwhile. Making the RP (forum only?) Monastery might show Levan we are serious, show him we have an active religious population. Life in a small, humble, close-knit community toiling for one purpose and praising Jah with every post they write. That would be a new and exciting venture for me, compared to the rest of MegaForum I and II.

The worse part of this whole ordeal for me, is knowing that LJS promised we might have one with twenty willing souls. But Choup said "no". Making me wonder if LJS is reneging on his earlier statement, or whether Choup is not even asking him. Of course, her attitude continues to try my patience, but that is neither here nor there.

Dead for now? Or should there be effort (however small) to press ahead even yet?

[Apocas]

The German numbers are lower than I expected (I received information that it was ten as of 2 weeks); however it is not too surprising. The French numbers are about the same. I do not believe Tastevin has had more than 10 active monks at the same time in the last 2 years. As you did observe, even with relatively high population nearby, population within the actual monastery is challenging.

Previously a location within Cornwall had been planned as a possible location. However with LJS mentioning a couple times now that he is considering depopulating the area combined with the general less favourable disposition of the Cornwall government at this time, does raise the possibility of favouring another area. The possibility of a port does add certain value to a Sussex location. Though one of the reasons Cornwall was somewhat preferred was its proximity to Ireland and St. George's Channel (hence shipping to Scotland); having proximity to the Continent might might provide enough profit to offset any additional cost for having to ship the further distance.

On if to open discussion with Sussex temporal authorities at this time is question. I would advise you discuss it with our primate, SE Faheud, and our apostolic ambassador for Sussex, Sister Ophelia. The two of them should be able to give advice on if now is an opportune time to open discussions.

On the possibility of gathering together interested person, you should speak with Sister Avia, the interim head of the ODE. She may have as many as a half dozen persons that have an interest in an IG monastery life. Also the ODE have been practising the RP life of a monastery for the last two years. At this the time, we are still planing on having the IG monastery be administered by the ODE, so getting its support would give a solid base for a Sussex location.

On the issue of if LJS and Choup have not discussed the subject, or if it is a change of direction by the admins as a whole is debatable. Though I would say both are likely. At the time that LJS said he would consider the anglophone monastery was when populations where much higher then they are now (iirc avg town pop was in the mid 300s); with the dramatic decline in populations in the last couple years most likely would make them be less likely to commit time to this project. Also as mentioned by Levan and Jdw in the recent KAP interview, the dev team has grown apprehensive about introducing aspects of the game that have a high level of challenge that would increase player complaints.

At this point I would not consider this to be completely dead issue. However at this stage we need to focus on doing everything possible that can be done without admin involvement (which is much like most activities in RK). Doing everything possible on the player side of the project will make less work for them and make it easier to persuade them to do the remaining part that is needed to be done by them. Even if it is not yet possible to have project completely done, we should try to make progress and be ready for when it will be possible to be done.
_________________
Former Bishop of Clifton
Former Roman Cardinal-Elector and Prélate Plénipotentiary
Former Cardinal Chamberlain of England, Scotland, and Ireland