Citizenship and Neutrality

Iosyne

This discussion was created from comments split from: Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE.

Rashar

I hate how much this place 'encourages' you to join a city.

I also hate how the lifer side really likes to push their RP stance on things, too. I get it, I guess? I get the argument that will inevitably be given, "Stuff doesn't matter to evil people because they don't give a shit." Meh.

I just wish they'd keep it to personal level RP and not game-altering mechanical things.

Ingram

Isn't that the point of the lifers? Zealots. Convert or die. I might be misinterpreting what you're getting at, though.

Rashar

I don't think the almost-official stance of the entire good side of the game has to be that way though, to the point that if you're not you'll actually deal with reasonably legitimate RP (easily dealt with) and mechanical (frustrating) consequences.

I think that has at least something to with the skewed population.

But, I mean, this could also be my desire to play a character that isn't stereotypically good speaking. Ultimately, I guess the option is to play a shady good dude who isn't fitting anywhere or just shift him darker and actually play a complete character. And maybe this is something of an example of how people gradually shift to the dark side, I dunno.

I'm being overly reflective and slightly grumpy, but hey. It's a rage thread. Don't you judge me.

Moirean

I think the lifer outlook has shifted a lot over time. Enorian used to definitely had a decent chunk of people focused on being morally good. The zealot thing was not nearly as prominent and common as it is now. I think a corrupt zealot can be a cool role to see, but, like, it feels like most of the city is playing that role, so it comes across a lot more overbearing because there aren't many people pursuing the other iterations of good and light and etc to balance it out.

Riluo

I tend to agree that more people have joined the game the last year or two who have perhaps played darker characters and thus upon joining the "light side" have brought their more zealous and we will win at any cost mentality. Is it a bad thing? No. But it is something that we are seeing a lot more of recently.

Toz

I'm kinda to the point where I'd like to see city bonuses go away, and guilds turned into sects of sort, not necessarily aligned with a city...I mean, maybe a base few. But there's no reason for there not to be a merchant org neutral, some crazy zealots dedicated only to Enorian, some tree huggers who only want Duiran to exist, insane vampires who hate ALL living (Spines included), some imperialistic Spireans, etc. Break up the God-awful 2v2, and let some gray get sprinkled in the middle for the rest of the game by having orgs NOT bound officially to cities, instead forming treaties/breaking treaties/backstabbing/bickering/etc. for power in cities/the world. Bring politics back, etc. etc. I can dream, at least.

Angwe

I played a good ol' racist. So, there's that.

Rashar

The world is not black and white.

Especially not a fantasy world like this.

Stop making me play black or white.

*Michael Jackson song*

Moirean

This is the same issue the game has had since the point Undeath became a thing, and it's been argued to death. With good/evil or power or economics or whatever being the thing that splits us up into our sides and self interest as orgs there is room for shifting alliances and sides changing over time. However with Undeath, and now Shadow, that can't happen. You can't be indifferent or neutral to Undeath/Shadow like you can be indifferent or neutral to a land grab or an economic scheme or a political machination - neutral to Undeath/Shadow/etc equates to siding with them in our current system.

As long as the game holds on to a binary and fairly simplistic, given the depth of RP we see in the game, imposition of mechanical/innate reasons for sides and outlooks, black and white is what you get. And, I don't know if we can move away from that red vs blue thing, really, since we're locked in with tethers. It would be a really heavy investment of time and energy to remove tethers and balance PK so all classes could work together, so we have this firm and stark division. To be frank, I think the game's core design has set this up from the start - you'd need something like more mirror classes or a much larger dev team to ensure mingling was a feasible and balanced thing. We don't have that, so classes crossing over is discouraged through lore and mechanics and we see unbalanced situations when they do.

On top of that, guilds are much more heavily tied to cities these days, through the hardcoded citizenship process through the intro and the Academies. You can't pull away from a city as a guild, so if, for example, Spines and BL fought, what would that do to Carnifex? Newbs would be coming in to BL via the intro, but nearly every member would be Spirean. Retention would tank. It's against the admin's and game's interest to see that sort of schism in the game.

Do I wish we had a more flexible political environment? I do. Do I think it's feasible? Pretty much nope.

Aarbrok

I have been saying fror a while, I wish the Tethers would go away, I think the organization should create the roleplay not the class, sure there should be some organizations that are ultimately tethered due to their Roleplay: Daru/Templars/Carnifex/Indorani

*Syssin-Though no one should really know where they stand

That being said, the imposed Black and White I believe has been like having a finger shoved into my pie while its cooling... I dont think as a Cabalist I should be considered a Necromancer...I loathe Necromancy as a character and have built my roleplay becoming not overly fond of the Vampires and Undead.

Some are even abhorrent to the Chaos plane and even visiting it

My Reasonable Solution: Keep Tethers, but create a couple truly neutral orgs not part of cities, kind of like the neutral tethered classes, allow that to be a place where people can come from all walks of life and see what happens. I think it may have cool results.

Teani

I agree with @Aarbrok and I've felt this since the tethering was put in. I feel that instead of giving the game more flavor and opportunities, it restricts the game and ties people down more than before. This is especially true with how the game has been divided between Shadow and Spirit. There's no longer four different aspects to the game (one for each city org), there are two.

Yeah, sure, the divide has been there for a very long time and it's proven to be difficult to break from the 2 vs 2 thing. Especially since many fighters seem to gather in one corner, rather than spreading out.

The mentality of people playing has also changed. Instead of working through RP and allowing something like a shady good guy to exist and see what happens, people seem to converge on top of said individual and push them into making a quick choice or they're an outcast. The only person I've seen who has managed to pull off a very slow transition has been @Haven.

It's almost impossible to play a spy these days (I don't mean a troll spy who just goes in for ruining things completely for other orgs). As @Rashar said, there should be a way to play that shady good guy. Blanket enemy status from cities is one of my pet peeves. It holds people back from interaction and possible small conflicts like the following scenarios:

Someone from Duiran stumbles into Bloodloch and is asked 'Hey, what are -you- doing here? You're not one of us!' Visitor springs up some overgrowth in the corridor and moves away. Bloodlochian shouts, 'Oi, hey! It's one of those forest people!' Shakes fist and runs after for further RP. Enemy status is put up and a fine is set. (Standing outside the entrance of Bloodloch will never create a similar opportunity for small RP conflicts)

A Spirean sneaks into Enorian and casually starts asking questions about something. Citizen becomes suspicious, asking, 'Hey, why do -you- want to know anyway? Where are you from?' Spirean gives an evasive answer, prompting the person to call in a questioning mob, who all wave their fists, demanding an answer, causing the Spirean to flee to escape with life still intact. (Sure, you can use tells, but in person RP is usually more flavorful.)

These things would open up for a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to RP. "Do you dare go in and set a fire in Bloodloch? Prove your eagerness to serve the Luminary guild." Just as an example <.< It would also mean that one would only be enemied for the actions one take, not for what organization one is part of.

sorry, end rant.

Ilyon

Toz said:

let some gray get sprinkled in the middle for the rest of the game by having orgs NOT bound officially to cities, instead forming treaties/breaking treaties/backstabbing/bickering/etc. for power in cities/the world. Bring politics back, etc. etc.

I must disagree here. This is one of those things that look cool in theory, but in practice just end up being a massive headache and dramafest, and very much not worth it.

Toz

Ilyon said:

let some gray get sprinkled in the middle for the rest of the game by having orgs NOT bound officially to cities, instead forming treaties/breaking treaties/backstabbing/bickering/etc. for power in cities/the world. Bring politics back, etc. etc.

I must disagree here. This is one of those things that look cool in theory, but in practice just end up being a massive headache and dramafest, and very much not worth it.

Kinda sorta is a drama-fest already - though drama isn't always bad.

Eleanor

I think the reason it's so polarised is that a large proportion of the playerbase, at least theoretically, is a younger audience (or people who act that age, let's face it). There's a certain level of maturity that needs to exist for a grey balance to maintain stability, and honestly we probably don't have it. Consider how fiddly judgement rulings would become with no right/wrong binary to adhere to.

Moirean

I don't think that's a huge factor. The playerbase in Avalon was way more immature and they had a 4-city arrangement. Often it was the light/good cities versus the evil/pirate-old-ashtanish city, but that was by no means a firm and fast arrangement. For a while I pushed the evil city really full of fighters, and the rest of the game banded together against us. Stuff would naturally balance out if one city got powerful or if alignments were made.

I think a big reason this worked is that every city had mirror classes, similar to how Lusternia is built - and you'll notice that in Lusternia, alignments are way more fluid. I think there's a view from the top level that if the classes in each org are similar enough super OP outliers and messy combat balance situations aren't going to be as common. Upon reflection, though, I think that's really more of a perception than a reality - people are always finding haxor combat stuff and those are dealt with on an individual basis. I don't think the game would be as ruined, at the combat level, as is feared/expected, which is why (at least from my observations) the tethers got put in. One thing mirror classes nicely allow, though, is a much easier flow between orgs. With mirror classes, you could hop from the knight guild in one city to the knight guild in the other, and only lose that city's unique tertiary skillset - in Aetolia, you lose everything. It's so expensive to move around and that really makes people get locked in.

Another factor, however, is how hardcoded guilds are into city and side setups. The Carnifex are BL, despite having most of their members in Spinesreach. The Sciomancers are Spirean, despite every single one of their non-newbs being in BL...and player politics can't change this because the Academies and intro are designed in a rigid way to doesn't allow for things to shift (which is kinda a shame, since the website itself claims we can impact the land in ways like this through politics). Maybe that's the only way it can be coded, I dunno. While those connections remain, shifting alliances just can't happen because, as I mentioned a few posts back, it would just destroy the newbie experience (and non-newbie experience, maybe, for some) and player retention.

Multi-city guilds can and do work - in Avalon, for example, I led the Thieves. We had members in every single city. Cities would be at war, but due to politics (we assimilated the other thief guilds), they had to simply warily accept us, even if that assassin in the light city's guildmate was an assassin over in the city of evil. They wanted the skills and the support, and it made for a delightfully tense and fun and exciting level of political play.

From what I've read on other sites, IRE has done studies and apparently new players respond better to the sort of intro process we have now, where stuff is hardcoded in and you're funneled right into an org - and I get that. I don't know if it means that needs to be reflected up onto the play of established players, however, and I think it could even kind of drag down the play experience of older players. Look at the frustration with/from the Syssin lately - they feel forced into this certain role due to tethers, alts sliding in for class, etc.

What if, for example, they were an advanced guild of sorts, removed from the intro, free to take in whoever they want and ally themselves with any/all/none of the cities as they wish. Akanbar, for example, had an amazing twist on this that I helped Aten hammer out - every city had a merchant guild, but once you got really into the thick of things, there was a secret (hardcoded and legit) faction of players that could induct you, and you traded some of your merchant skills for thievery skills...it was an undocumented thief guild, completely off the game's visible radar and hidden within the guild system. Long and short of it - there are ways to reconcile a good early introduction to the game with a more robust, fluid and engaging player-led political system that actually has teeth, versus this stagnant setup we current have. These options would take a lot of work, though.

Lim

^ The ability to handle a grey area depends on the maturity of the player base. That said, it's high risk, high reward. If we could pull it off, it would make the game 10X as fun.

Jensen

I kinda like the light zealous nature you guys have, also the rp relationship between morally good vs zealous seems Nito. Spinesreach has it to a lesser extent between evil and/or undead vs republican freedom vs science at any cost.

Alexina

I honestly never minded the odd Paladin or Ascendril when I was a citizen in Spinesreach. Sometimes, people need to move on to a new city, and I don't think you'd always have to give up your classes to do that.

Nola

I've read the word zealot/zealous I don't know how many times throughout this and it kinda makes me twitch.

The main thing I want to see happen is allowing guilds more individual freedom and standing as their own organization, instead of one of several puzzle pieced to a city. Ive actually been going through this icly now for a while, but the way things are, guild's unique identities are being drowned out and covered up with the face of "their city". I have come to really loathe this. We should not be so bound to another organization. More use for treaties, otherwise, and good diplomacy rpz instead of 'deal with it'.

Rashar

It could be done, but i guess I understand the administration's stance on it and why they feel like it would be bad for the game. My original post was mostly a frustrated rant, plus a very real wish that you could actually play rogue and still feel like part of the game. Mechanically, that is. Anyway, I've been really frustrated lately and last night was kind of a rough spot. Didn't mean to start a thing, here.

Jensen

Come to Spinesreach, our guilds all interact in the city 100% differently from each other, and we don't always agree or get along.

Areka

(Neither do we in Enorian!)

Nola

Wasn't talking about how individual guilds interact together in a city setting, but how capable they are/ by how much they are allowed to be independent orgs, separate of a city instead of comparable to a giant mixing pot titled 'city xyz'

Moirean

I dunno, I think Jensen's kinda right. Spinesreach doesn't really have a "here's our heavyhanded theme" thing, so our guilds really are all off doing their own thing. Carnifex are like yo, we're a kinda evil version of the nights watch and Cabalist are like hey science, or shit gotta write up the Carnifex for accidentally nearly breaking the world again and the Syssin are all skulking about watching you go to the bathroom and the Sciomancers are like wait this isn't Bloodloch I took a wrong turn at NoT, and the city is really where the guilds kinda intersect. It's quite the opposite of the city directing the guilds' identities. The city is kinda the spot they get pulled together from their independent trajectories.

Jensen

I would say >50% to an upwards of 90% of Spirean affiliated guild activities are non city related. There seems to be a really good divide between guild rp stuff and city rp stuff. I can confirm it's that way with the Syssin, and it looks that way for Cabalists, Carnifex, and Sciomancers. Though it seems easier to do when they reside in a city that doesn't have an overwhelming crusade-like purpose.

Setne

Bloodloch has rargh "evil"
Enorian has rargh "good"
Durian has rargh trees
Spines has hroagh booze

Riluo

Setne said:

Bloodloch has rargh "evil"
Enorian has rargh "good"
Durian has rargh trees New government every month
Spines has hroagh booze

Omei

Shots fired!

Rashar

Haha.

Jayce

I'm not sure saying that Duiran has a new government is a bad thing, it allows "new players" to move up and get a taste of politics should they want it. Nothing irritates me more than moving into a city and being bound to CR 1-6 because I'm never going to get into a position if I don't get into "the ring."
Let's face it, most of the cities now have had the same leadership for... ever... I've seen SOME movement in my time around here but it really cuts out the opportunity for new people who may not be the strongest to learn and grow if you can't get "the old" out.

Edit: On the original topic @Rashar brought up, I wholeheartedly agree with "being a rogue and feeling left out of the game" UNLESS you have friends that're willing to stick with you as you move around. Jayce was only part of Bloodloch for the first half of his adult life(which isn't a long time so far) and then moved to Duiran because he felt like that's where he should be. Upon being in Duiran and not feeling like "he fit" he had to move to Enorian, which, I'm saying this obviously on an OOC medium, ISN'T HIM. Jayce is NOT a Luminary, he's not a hard core Enorianite, he's not Undeath should be banished, Light should prevail, but he's gonna try, and he's probably gonna fail. That leaves Spinesreach, where I don't think he belongs either, and it sucks.

Final Edit(I swear): When and if Enorian doesn't work out, I'll be stuck playing a character I genuinely don't enjoy because he's stuck in a city that he shouldn't be in and he can't go back to Bloodloch without ME paying out of pocket, which I refuse to do. Where does that leave me and my character? Miserable and probably not logging in again, or altery, which gets old fast.