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Let's consider the facts of the mechanical side of things for it, shall we?
There exists artifacts and relics that A) Hide you from bell tattoo entirely, thusly mitigating ANY CHANCE of being caught whilst standing in the room phased. Zealot and Luminary can no longer EVOKE ILLUMINATION the room and get a warning Phased people are there. (That is two checks rendered moot, let's proceed).
So with Bell Tattoo and Illumination nixed from checks and balances, that leaves Devotion Truth (which is a shot in the dark, let's be honest unless you have bracer and just KNOW). Telepathy can no longer use Sapience to watch things of anyone suspected of being a spy. (thanks to abuse in using it to capture parry lines. Another check rendered moot, RP situations be damned).
There could also be a Ascendril/Sciomancer skill - Would need verification on that from one of those sorts. I ain't no mage.
SCENT? Good luck. With the sheer amount of, again, artifacts and relics to entirely negate SCENT (or any area checks!) even without Phasing, you'll be hard pressed to catch someone. Same goes for the sheer amount of skills that hide movement. I don't know many folks who want to keep Alertness up all day every day.
Then we get into more of the same with A) Artifacts/Relics exists to see through doors. Skills/Arti/Relics exist to listen to adjacent rooms. Combine this with the above things, and you have yourself a spy who, mechanically, has very very little chance of being discovered.
Will you catch a Syssin or a Spy mechanically? Probably not if they've played longer than a month and aren't completely new to the game.
Now let's talk about the RP part of 'Spy RP'
Going to quote here: These things are absolutely, positively, correct. While, yes, SOME people are just plain bad at playing the 'spy' card, fact is... a lot of people are pretty good at it (As clearly this whole debacle would point out).
Also take for example: Person.. S we'll say S for Spy.. Person S joins City A. They have no real interaction with City A outside of lessers and maybe a raid here or there. City A doesn't exactly have people that commonly interact with Person S.
So, Person S decides to 'change for the good' and moves to City A. City A greets them and welcomes them on good spirits and high hopes for this persons future. Person S, having again no real ties or knowing City A has no real information, is free and clear to 'talk' how they want. Because no one will know the difference.
Person S then just bides their time, waiting for the 'opportune' time to hit their mark.
During this waiting time, no one is going to logically or necessary suspect Person S of malicious intent. Because there was none to go off of.
(As this scenario is obviously what played out)
Now, of course one can argue "Well then that's City A's problem for not interacting with them!"
Which is a fair argument, and I'll give you that much. However... City A is tending to their own well beings, interacting with their citizenry, and what other interactions the citizenry may do.
Does the citizenry interact with Person S? Maybe. Would they feel obligated to report EVERY SINGLE suspicion to City A that they ever had through hypothetical interactions? Absolutely not. - Why? You cry wolf enough at a city leader and it's not correct, they stop listening to your cries.
Now let's step back here, let's rewrite the scenario on IF City A and Person S have had interaction or grievances in the past.
/record scratch noise here/
Person S decides to 'change for the good' and moves to City A. City A knows of Person S's previous interactions and problems, but still welcomes them with good spirits and high hopes for that Person.
Though, with knowing more of Person S, City A sets out a... proverbial neighborhood watch on Person S. Obviously Person S is going to figure out they're being watched. Person S then has two options at this point: Follow the 'rules' of the city and avert any misgivings and distrust OR ignore the watch and proceed about how they normally would be (As none would suspect the wiser)
With either of this options, Person S can still easily and readily bide time. But... what does Time give them in spades? Information. What does time give City A of Person S? Correct, information.
Though the information Person S gives City A will, of course, be likely false and incorrect. City A has options of, now: Entirely disbelief everything Person S has said and done whilst being a citizen OR continue to have good faith and trust in what they say?
Either way, Person S wins unless Person S ENTIRELY and ROYALLY screws their own pooch by essentially just shouting "HEY LOOK I'M A SPY!" and walking away.
I wanted to chime in here, as there as been a bit of questioning towards the IC attitudes of our Shadow Gods. It feels unfortunate I need to provide this, however the magnitude of this whole thing makes it understandable.
Just because it was not as vocally seen, since our Shadow Gods tend to work more directly with their followers and surrounds, one being about subtlety and the other having direct influence over specific emotions; both Chakrasul and Severn interacted with Spireans and their Orders. Chakrasul blessed her people and was interacting with Fezzix at the time the whole hoard was getting handed back to Enorian to decide how widespread this malicious action that inflicted despair was. Similarly, Severn showed his support and went as far as to say how they could have done this better for the City to stay in control of their bargaining chip for manipulation.
As it has been stated before, it all moved very fast and some of us are on entirely different timezones (Australian here). Tiur covered our thought process as admin, however I can say with conviction that the Shadow Gods didn't just make a "no-show" or RP a lack of support in an action that, on an IC level, reflects so well with them.
It's pretty gnarly.
That said? I fully expected something would go wrong. Either you'd be punished, or, as it happened, we couldn't get everything back, what have you. All I know is I didn't reach out to the Gods, and it sounds like nobody did.
1. A large amount of work did not go into this and Spy RP is terrible - I think simply from a time investment we can fairly say that a large amount of work went into this. Spy RP is not terrible in my view. Spy RP is difficult and realistic spy RP is extremely difficult. I hold a similar view to @Kalak, and that signs of betrayal can often be spotted even if they are not intended to be there. Nothing wrong with Spy RP and work clearly went into this. This was a pretty amazing long con.
2. This was unfair - An undiscovered spy always has advantage. Period. Think of it in DnD terms. The hidden rogue has advantage. You get that juicy sneak attack. The strike that they don't see coming. When you're fighting against a spy you're working at a disadvantage. So it's unfair, but why does that matter? The game doesn't have to be fair in all aspects. A fight between a level 80 dual virtuoso character vs an omni-trans Idreth is unfair. But unfairness is not inherently bad in this context. This is not a real world scenario and ethics of real life do not directly translate. Even if this is true (and I disagree with that) it is an issue of mechanics and not behavior.
3. The amount stolen was unreasonable - Agreed. This is a mechanical issue and was fixed by @Tiur.
4. Aetolians are unwilling to lose/feelings were hurt - Agree with the first part. We have a coddled player base that feels entitled to victory. Loss is anathema to them. They would rather take their toys and go home. We have some serious problems with the behavior of a significant amount of our player base, or at least the most visible portion. SEE: This thread and the previous thread.
5. This act represents scorn for other players/matter of time - I feel Toz just asserted this without backing it up. Why is this scornful? Because it may have negative IC consequences for un-involved parties? Matter of time also seems to be a specious claim. This could have gone a lot of ways and nothing predestined that things would go as they did. I feel it's fair to reject this part outright.
6. An admin imposed path to redemption - The admin can say you're doing redemption but you don't have to follow an easy path. You can be pretty brutal. Admin said redemption, but they did not say redemption is easy or pretty. SEE: Religious penance over recorded history.
7. Without OOC trust there cannot be IC loss - I reject this entirely. Why should I have to have an OOC relationship with anyone for this? I don't have to know you or anything about who you are as a person to RP with you in a satisfying way. That's the POINT. We as people are not the CHARACTERS that we portray.
To conclude, see the bolded portions for what I think are the most important points.
EDIT: A little more conclusion.
What I agree with - (3 & 4) The scale of the theft was not good and should not have been possible, Aetolians are bad at accepting loss or dissenting opions, people's feelings were hurt.
What I disagree with - (1-2 & 5-7) Everything else.
Yellow text on white screen. You're /begging/ for a war.
With experience penalties at least, you're still able to fight, and you can undo the damage later. People are always going to bash anyways, and honestly if it wasn't so bad back in the day then I don't see why it would be so bad now, especially with how quickly you can recoup what was lost
http://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/2495/ongoing-population-conflict-concept#latest
I think there's still some merit to it in a general sense, but it'd need some actual rewards and detriments that players would find meaningful both OOC and IC
I honestly don't think it's just about engagement systems, it's about how people playing this game don't take others into consideration with their actions. Sure, unfairness can be a part of a game! I don't think that anyone is arguing against that. But such massive disregard and a screw-all-consequences-for-the-other-side perspective actually affects the players who are at the receiving end.
We simply don't have the size of community that Achaea does and we never will. Players who stick with our game eventually become influential people for the next generation of Aetolians. Same with Achaea but they have much more people to spare if some people choose to leave. We simply don't, once again. When influential and powerful people leave due to things like this, activity stalls, newbies are left wondering and essentially the game loses conflict and life.
I would also like to say that this also really puts into perspectives the EXPECTATIONS that players have for each other. I would like to think that people would be more considerate of their fellow gamer. There's a reason why many people stick with Aetolia despite it's small population and that's due to the strength and relatively considerate, frankly NON-DOUCHEY nature of our community as opposed to Achaea where things are a bit more rough around the edges (not knocking them but it does come with the large population). This whole event has made many reconsider the niceties we afford each other. While sure they aren't warranted from time to time, don't you think some moderation in your actions is needed?
That's pretty much everything on my mind.
What I mean by that is the whole having to collect coins through minigame events to buy passage out of the underworld.
I miss Dis
Valkyrior System
Anyways as @Antehe says back to business:
This is not anything original, might be even old. But something resembling a war system could be added:
1. Sieges
Initiated challenges with certain objectives (capture the flag, special PvE mobs and point gathering, holding/protecting a relic) in areas which will signify the dominance of a side. Now, these should not be Tether vs Tether battles but City vs City battles to spice things up. Currently there is no mechanic to pit "natural" allies against each other. Also sieges are declared and cannot be started immediately, so both sides have enough time to gather people and/or hire some muscle.
Initiate costs can be covered with a mix of gold and PvE corpses/quests filling a resource called "Siege Effort" That will undoubtedly stimulate those who would like to support their city but does not wish to or cannot PvP.
Winner of the siege will get an advantage while the losers may get a disadvantage or get nothing. It is a design decision to make that a zero-sum game or not.
2. Village Capture
Three control points upon certain villages where people can stand upon them to gather points for their cities. While it is basic, that gives people to get around and stand outside to show their dominance. Basically PvP on-demand. The reward for holding those places could vary from small commodity tithes over time to other advantages for the dominating forces. There is absolutely no cooldown to this.
3. Shadow War
Some places could have dynamic quests and quests to change some specifics for a siege. For example, doing something before a siege or committing some resources to a certain NPC you get reinforcements for the attacker side while the defender side can get traps/room effects etc.
Shadow War especially could be a fit term for this kind of thing I think. Spy characters (or perhaps Spymaster can be an official Minister) can commit their resources to get operatives of varying levels (NPCs) with different outcomes for sieges or village capture or city advantages. Though maintaining a large network of assets can be taxing or not depending on your espionage style.
Fallguy: This is the guy who takes the blame or distracts when someone attempts to uncover your plot. So the player or higher level operatives are not revealed. Cheaper expendable assets to protect your more expensive assets.
Snitch: The operative who has a chance to report whether a certain quest/resources committed to a future siege or not.
Hound: These mid-level operatives can find who is the perpetrator of a certain act. They can be misled depending on the fallguys.
Softener: Installing local criminals or agents to soften your advance when the battle arrives. These operatives will provide additional point gain for village captures and certain sieges.
Assassin: Moderately expensive asset which can be sprung upon a player when the time and place are right. Due to their secretive nature, it is harder to uncover them and they benefit massively from the Fallguy.
Official: Does tithe of a City arrive in lesser quantities? Perhaps a promised reinforcement did not arrive during a siege? Maybe a friend in higher places gave you a nudge.
Enforcer: More visible then official so less Fallguy protection but more ill-tempered. Powerful PvE mob which can engage an enemy spy player while they come to their turf to soften the place. They can occasionally have a gang associated but maintaining such an asset does not come cheap.
Main aim of Shadow War is to give mechanical presence to the Espionage so people can actually affect other cities in subtler ways while not crippling them to the ground. Asset types can vary further with more thought into actual implementation. After all this is just a concept study.
Lastly, I think for the most part, many players connect their ooc feelings to their ic players as if...like a parent who's living their dreams through their child(probably a bad comparison, but its the first thing that came to mind) and I think that however you are feeling oocly, should not reflect or be lived through your ic character if that makes sense to anyone, as it makes sense to me, your ic character cannot be the real you, despite being the puppetmaster pulling the strings to your character.
I realize these things take a lot of coding and planning from admins, but.. I'm not saying it has to be anything large, you know? And it doesn't have to be something that happens all the time, but every once in a while, toss in a small event that could involve anyone in the player base. It could be anything from helping someone to deliver a priced item or artifact from Kornar to Spinesreach, or to gather herbs to make a cure for that entire village that got ill.
There are so many options for smaller events and if one of the admins who is more inclined towards RP, or perhaps even put a new Celani in charge of it, then it could be a good thing for the game, I think. People seem to love when there's big events going on, and even if it's not something world changing event that goes on for months, like the Kerrithrim, it could still be some fun bits here and there.
Also, I am sure people would be able to submit loads and loads of ideas for little events, so all that needs to be done is a little bit of coding and some npc possession.
Fine, yeah, I know it's not that easy, but I would love this!
Valkyrior System
On top of that, if you chose to break them down, it would consume them so you either have to choose donating to your Divine or operating for commodities. If everyone had the possibility to gain commodities for personal use or for crafting use, it would take less focus off what cities have (of course it'll always be easier to buy from the city).
I realize that this idea is only barely related to the problems at hand, but it's something I've always thought could be neat and we're talking about Commodities.
Cities control territory on a per-area basis.
Areas bordering a city's dominion can be contested, which initiates a conflict that lasts anywhere from one to three days- probably not much more than that, in order to keep things moving in a reasonable amount of time. A city can fight multiple conflicts, but it can only initiate one conflict at once; and of course, you can't initiate conflict out of an area that's already being contested by someone else.
Once a conflict has been initiated, here's how it would work.
1) PK. Similar to lessers, there would be periods of open conflict in the area, occurring around the clock to give everyone a fair chance to participate. These probably wouldn't exceed an hour in length, and might focus on other objectives - i.e. protecting or reinforcing NPC armies - in addition to trying to score points by killing the other folks as much as possible. Armies move during this time, and are capable of engaging with other armies. You might have open conflict one per IG day, or once per every couple. Once a period of open conflict ends, the player and army casualties are averaged out to decide who gained overall ground. The average of all of these periods of conflict is then summed to decide who won overall, with a certain decisive degree of victory necessary for a territory to change hands.
2) War logistics. Cities would be able to invest commodities and armies into the effort to claim an area, which would be the primary responsibility of the War Minister and their aides. Armies wouldn't be able to engage each other or move during downtimes, but they could be given instructions to follow once they're able to move- those instructions might not be able to be amended once the period of open conflict begins, meaning that you have to plan and counterplan for what the enemy's doing, or what they might decide to do. Armies might need to be moved area-by-area, at a rate of one area per IG day or so. They'd have upkeep, and that upkeep is cheaper the closer they are to home. This means that when and where you place your armies is really important, and enemies could predict an attack by how another org is moving its armies around. Armies would come in a few different types, with a sort of rock/paper/scissors style setup.
3) Quests. These are probably daily quests, and might focus on things you could do to give armies small boosts. Conversely, you could also sabotage the enemy's armies. These quests wouldn't open people to PK, so that noncombatants and people with shaky connections can still participate during downtime without having to worry. These quests, of course, are shut off once the period of open conflict begins. They might also involve daily quests in your city, which could also have an impact on how effective a city's deployed armies are.
4) Spies. Not like the spy RP that we've been arguing about incessantly, but maybe a Papers Please-style minigame (again, thinking back to the Juxa Steelhew event) in which NPC immigrants want to come into your city; and this is mixed in with spies that other cities have sent. These spies could gather information - say, the last X news posts, the city's logs, troop movements, etc etc - or they could steal a small amount of commodities, or perform espionage (that city questers would work to undo.) The flipside is that the people sending the spies have to ensure that the details of the spy's dossier are consistent and convincing enough to fool the enemy. If you let in good immigrants, that's a commodity boost, which incentivizes playing the game well and adds in a hardcoded espionage aspect.
Some underdeveloped stuff from our set of ideas includes differences between villages/towns/NPC cities and just regular areas. The quests and objectives would probably differ some, depending, but I haven't thought about that a ton yet.
The idea is that there would be something for everyone to do (the pkers! the lowbies! the people who like grinding! the people who like doing management stuff I guess oh my gosh what is wrong with you!) in order to assist the war effort. The other main idea is that it would be a system of give and take - you can focus on the kind of pking, logistics, quests, resource gathering, etc. that is going to help your city gain ground, or you can focus on different aspects of those same categories but use it to try to mess up what rival cities are trying to do.
Here is the example I was talking to Shachalai about:
Say there is a contested territory. This territory gets popped full of Shadow soldiers and Spirit soldiers. A city like Enorian has a couple options on what they can do.
A - Try to kill Shadow soldiers who, once killed, will repop like regular bashing mobs, but there will be fewer of them each time they are all killed
B - Do quests to try to increase the number of Spirit-aligned soldiers that spawn
C - PK and try to defend the Spirit-aligned soldiers that are in the area
D - Allocate resources to support Spirit-aligned soldiers in the area and give them buffs, but not so many resources that you run out or can't defend other territories. I'm not actually sure this one is a good idea, but maybe the resources are all sorts of things like commodities, ylem, gold, and even curatives
E - Try to do a combination of all of these things, and get the right mix of each compared to what Bloodloch is doing so that you secure the territory
At the same time, Bloodloch would be trying to do all of these same things, but for the Shadow side. And maybe there are tasks that only members of certain guilds can do? Heck if I know.
I would also add that while soldiers are in an area, a way to utilise gold would be they are conscripted a daily cost much as our city guards are to work that area, this is great....I would participate in that, since all I do in conflict is transfix cause it doesnt really hurt people and Oonagh is a big chunky boy who isnt super quick.
An example of how a dossier might look:
NAME: (randomly generated; include some player surnames, this was funny last time; this part is trivial to fake by design) ORIGIN: (some area under the city's control; again, not too hard to fake this, but you might adjust according to the comms certain areas produce to make them a bit more/less eager to accept the spy) REASON FOR IMMIGRATION: (a predefined list; a city needs to set at least five, and could have a few more. One can be deleted or added per IG week) EXIT STAMP: (a short-desc style line of an area's exit stamp; each area under a city's control has one, and it can be changed once per IG season by the controlling city) ENTRY STAMP: (a short-desc style line of the city's entry stamp; can be changed once per IG season)This means there's a built-in way for the dossiers to slowly change, and for old information on what's in the dossiers to become outdated. Player spying - probably by trying to get a glimpse at a city's immigration booth - would be necessary to figure out what a reasonable dossier might look like, and in order to make attempts to infiltrate a city.
Ambassadors would be able to decide whether immigration is disabled or enabled. Disabling it removes the ability to generate some comms, but enabling it means you're opening yourself up to outside espionage.