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Comments
*not bitter*
Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Khepary, in the year 427 MA.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
In all seriousness, I both like and hate the idea of a neutral organization. I like the idea of having that place.... the problem is the moment that vampire/necromancer/carnifex/insert "evil" class here joined then the spirit tethered orgs will just make it another taboo place.
Anyway. The main problem with homogenization of the two sides (which is what is requested here) is that there are three options how to do it, neither of them compelling. Basically you're dealing with the problem of fitting thematically opposed classes into the same city - vampires/luminaries, templars/indorani, shamans/teradrim, etc.
You could either make the classes bland enough to make them fit to both sides, or make the sides bland enough that having vampires fight along luminaries ceases being a problem, neither of which seems a good idea, as it essentially turns the game into a hack'n'slash. Or, you could create reskinned copies of all the classes on both sides. This option, while attractive on surface, would require decoupling guilds from classes, as the game cannot support twice as many guilds, and then finding some new identity for guilds. Which would probably take years, and once you do all that, the novelty will wear off after a few months anyway, leaving us where we are now.
Finally, I must say that I'm surprised that spirit-side players are showing support for removing tethers, as the main reason why tethers exist is to ensure that the spirit side remains competitive.
EDIT: As the last thought before my brain shuts down and makes me sleep, there's no lifer Spinesreach (shade of gray). I get it's impossible to have everything (or we'd have a city of city, to argue against Duiran), but maybe some...small thing that's not quite a city to balance out lifer side's alignment chart. Or find a way to lessen the edge against vamps, because right now we have, on the good/evil slider scale,
[Bloodloch---Spinesreach--|----------------Enorian]
Duiran
On the dark side, you have Bloodloch - the 'evil' city full of undead, and Spinesreach - the shady city that has a huge range of people within the good and evil scale. On the light side, you have Enorian - which subscribes to the whole Light is Not Good trope and would be willing to destroy entire towns to get rid of the undead, and then you have Duiran - the forestal org that mainly cares about the wilds and the Rhythm while everything else is secondary.
Because Enorian and Duiran have very different paradigms, it becomes really hard to find a place to fit in on the light side. Especially if you don't want to play an extremist or a wildling, and are looking for a place where Light and Good aren't mutually exclusive. Spinesreach works really well because it has a nice range, but there's no light side version of Spinesreach - no org that goes 'Whoa, hey, Enorian's kind of extreme. We want to save the world, just not like that'. Which is kind of depressing because when Light side players don't gel with Enorian or Duiran, they have nowhere to go. And when your options are a city full of extremists and a forestal org of wildlings, Spinesreach starts looking really attractive, but still sucks for you if you have a bunch of Spirit-tethered classes that you actually like using.
We don't really need a neutral city, as nice as the concept is. Toz's little diagram summed it up best. Bloodloch's at one end of the scale, and Enorian's at the other, with Spinesreach falling in the gray area on the Dark side. Duiran also falls into the gray area for the Light side, but it's theme is so specific that it doesn't really count.
Bloodloch keeps their stance of not accept the living (living-related) things.
Enorian would not accept the undead (undead-related) things in a similar way.
Duiran keeps to the nature and Rhythm.
While Spinesreach has its rumblers, half of which are Undead and half of which would prefer if those people took their things and moved off to Bloodloch's caves where they belong!
Wherein the file itself says Currently, the cities of Bloodloch and Spinesreach are considered to beassociated with the Shadow realm, while Enorian and Duiran areassociated with the Spirit realm. Imposing that it is this -or- this.
City organizations are also considered tethered, and an individual may not join a city if he or she has classes which are tethered to the opposing realm. - With the previous statement saying -this-
-Then somewhat contradicting with this- It is possible to hold classes that are not aligned with your current tether. These classes will be inactive and unable to be switched to, though it is still possible for you to become apprenticed into an inactive class. Your tether will only ever change when joining a city.
EDIT: That being said, I know its deeper than just this or that and mechanically far further a goal to appease everyone, I am just naming some examples directly on how tether has been perceived by the sides potentially... (Personally, I think if you want to be neutral you can, just be prepared to debate/argue and potentially lose IC contacts who do not wish to understand your stance.
Tethers are still all or nothing - you cannot be in a spirit-tethered city and use shadow-tethered classes. The addition of being able to render those classes inactive was done purely from an OOC standpoint, to allow players fluidity in org choices without sacrificing their entire previous lesson investment.
(Not that I really plan on wanting other classes)
If there -is- an issue in Enorian, I'd say it's in the lack of initiative for their role. What I mean by this is, and I understand that Enorian is supposed to be the underdog in the Midnight Age, there isn't really an outlet for them to do anything meaningful beyond take abuse. While they do receive a bone from time to time (I'd say rarely) in an event, I think it's important that and would really like to see Enorian receive something unique that they can completely own and use as a prop to reinforce and be that role of "Beacon of Hope/Light" or whatever. The players could kind of do that before on their own with the war system when/if they won but with it's removal, they don't really have an outlet anymore that touches the world in some way to demonstrate their role's strength so to speak.
@Areka's fortified dock/seaport could be a good example if it was made to be like a series of quests or rituals that the players in the city could undertake to bring in refugees from slaver's bay or whatever. Or if there was a mechanic added to the Temple district for their players to undertake. Perhaps something ritual like. The connection to the game world doesn't have to be huge, could even be minimal but it ought to be something that Enorian can unquestionably own for the players to do themselves.
I dunno if that made sense but there ya have it. That's my morning ramble of the day!
I guess kinda like Ciem, where one city or the other would initiate on said village, the two entities would fight over it, and whoever won staked their claim.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
@Rashar It's hard to see sarcasm in text when you can't hear inflection in voice.