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Xavin, you're missing the point by a country mile, and focusing on whether or not people have Strong Opinions on The Dominion As A Guild is, frankly, an irrelevant point in the conversation. Even if everything were hunky-dory and perfect and peachy, the issue has to do with the dramatic LORE implications of choosing the VAMPIRE SUBRACE, and it being linked to the praenomen class. This is not about whether or not people think vampires wear their skirts too short in game or whatever, it's about a barrier to entry for a PVP-essential class that is hugely disproportionate to any other class in the game.

Furthermore, like, the only reason Praenomen/Vampire is built the way it is is due to how obscenely old the class is. When Aet came out, that's just how they had to make it. Nowadays, there's a lot more latitude and mechanical room for things like subraces that are disconnected from classes, and it's 100% worth exploring whether Praenomen can be made more widely accessible without the baggage of a subrace with, like, 1000's of in-game years and over a decade of real life years of history and lore that is very restrictive.

Silly idea:

Make Praenomen/Vampire be like Shapeshifter. When not 'in it' you're effectively fully masquerading.

Instead of Mutate/REVERT

REVEAL/MASQUERADE to shift in/out. When 'in it' the subrace is activated, etc, but otherwise when you're NOT in it, you're either living or undead.

Cure could still be a thing to clear that 'class slot' effectively and would restrict you from being on Spirit Tether for obvious reasons, but otherwise if you want to run around normally as Carnifex/Scio/etc, you appear as normal you etc. I'm also inclined to say it would take the spot of shapeshifter because werewolf vs. vampire things, but would be kind of unfair to block out a neutral class from shadow tether at the same time, so maybe not.

Just an idea? Dominion could stay or go, this idea wouldn't really restrict the RP involved I don't think.

Thoughts?

I feel like the thread has derailed a bit, so I'm hoping to help bring it back on track.

I guess something to consider is, Praenomen class being gated behind a subrace (Vampire) would essentially be the same as trying to gate something like Luminary behind a subrace. In the case of this argument, Spirit tether need/want someone with Luminary class for their overall group makeup when it comes to PvP. Shadow tether want/need to be able to pick up Praenomen without jeopardizing their RP. You shouldn't have to pick your character's storyline, over mechanics. They should be one and the same.

If you want to be a vampire, and enjoy that facet of RP and what comes with it, then cool! If you don't want to, then also cool! But gating a whole class that group combat is balanced around shouldn't be a thing.

I'd say the same if/when mirrors come out and Spirit have their own gated class. Freedom in RP is important, but you shouldn't have to choose combat viability over RP. Or the reverse.

My character was maybe 3 days old when I ran around Enorian to get my explorer rank up. I was told to leave for being undead and then a couple minutes later attacked, presumably for not leaving promptly enough.

This technically isn't "autoenemy" as my character is not immediately enemied to the city for being undead. However, it essentially functions the same as autoenemy, with the difference being that players will attack and kill me for being undead instead of guards doing it for being an enemy (because of being undead). You can try to argue that semantically or mechanically they are not the same if you'd like, but the basic function of 'if you enter the city you die' still exists.

Anyway this is moderately off topic, and I'd rather talk about Praenomen being made available to more people anyway.

If the point of mirror classes is to make all the classes widely available to everyone that plays the game, then it is pretty clear that making Praenomen more available to everyone on Shadow very much falls in line with this approach towards the game's classes.

People who want to play a vampire can play a vampire. People who want to play the Praenomen class should be able to play the Praenomen class. The two do not need to be linked.

And from a money making point of view (which has already been noted as at least one reason behind why mirror classes are being done), having people buy credits to get a new class will probably make the game more money. It's probably not a good idea to have people feel limited in that choice due to rp/mechanic restrictions, and then not spend that money.

I want to preface this with me not actually being against the idea.

That said, to play devil's advocate, the complaint largely seems to stem from the stigma and reputation of the class and the associated Dominion rather than the actual mechanics of the class. While making Praenomen into a Blood Mage class and divorcing vampirism wouldn't be a far or even terrible stretch of lore, I have to wonder if it's really worth the time and resources?

If being outside the Dominion doesn't really do anything mechanically and the main repercussions are roleplay... does that warrant a class rework? It'd definitely be cool but the mood surrounding the class feels very... "flavor of the month"y to me for a lack of a better term. It wasn't even that long ago when vampires were every where. What's suddenly changed?

Because I don't want to throw away an IRL year of RP about being cured, people being happy that I'm cured, and people being willing to engage with me because I've cured, simply because a huge chunk of my tether's group utility is locked behind a subrace that will automatically CHAOS DUNK all that RP directly into a trashcan.

Oh, and as for the other part of your question: All the PKing vampires quit the Dominion after learning to utterly hate being forced to be in it and deal with it. QUIT DOMINION was added as an option about a week or two after the last major pking vampire (me) quit. Then there was a very brief revival and then it died again. Now the Dominion is a guild.

We never stopped liking or wanting the class. Just, now we're REALLY feeling its absence, since it is the intended counter to Luminary and gods, there are a lot of luminaries now.