Recently I've been wondering about how easy it is for someone to be forgiven by a denizen organisation and the ability this has to influence ic arguments, which has given me a dislike of parley in respect to certain organisations

If a guild enemies a person for the reason that they are an enemy of (insert guild related aspect/avatar/lord/half-formed) or because of the crimes committed against them, this enemy status can be argued should the person pay a certain amount of gold. As such there seems to be the guilds/people who don't agree that this is enough and do not want to relent are loosing their ability to have these enemies recognised as factual reasons

i.e Suchnsuch is an enemy of Celestia, They are enemied to the Celestians for this reason, Suchnsuch gets the money to get unenemied to Celestia. Now when Suchnsuches actions against the Supernals are brought up as the reason for their enemy status or even that they are an enemy of the supernals, it is possible for the response to simply be "Well Elohora forgave them so why don't you" and I can't really think of it being appropriate for a Celestian to speak out against the supernals judgement icly.

so as for the idea, I would love to see some more rp or work brought into the process of earning forgiveness to these organisations. A few ideas such as making it more of a quest, something that actually involves some work, A far fetched thought was that parley trigger a flag on the player that would be added as payment should the person regain their enemy status. But something as simple as a small series of standard questions could do and hopefully get past this mental image of the White Hart being a corrupt official who can be bought for the right ammount of money.

Thoughts? I don't suggest every last organisation do it however enemy status or lack thereof wth Celestia, Nil, Moonspirit, Nightspirit, Crowspirit, Hartspirit, the tide and earth lords could have an effect on decisions if there were to be made in a completely ic manner

In brief, are you saying if a mobile org is associated with a guild, they refuse to parley with enemies of the guild?

All things considered I think that's a pretty decent change.

The problem I see with that is that most guilds won't unenemy someone who is enemied to those aligned NPC orgs. So if someone's enemied to both the NPC org and the guild, where do they start to get unenemied?

Once it is changed, they will know to approach the associated guild first. And the guild leaders will have to adjust their policies accordingly.

I think it is an excellent solution because it means most guilds will now have a meaning associated with their enemy lists, and the parley system can't be gamed as much. There is potential for some guilds to keep enemies longer than other people would like (I pity anyone who gets enemied to Glomdoring's guilds), but that's the same potential that is already present with villages and org enemying.

Can't see the need for pity for anyone enemied to Glomdoring guilds. Most enemied are done so for quite legitimate reasons. I can't say for in all cases. And the fact that a sizeable portion of those unenemied can't seem to mind their p's and q's and get right back to enemy status to the guild after a brief to moderate time just makes the process that much vexing. I personally feel that the majority of people deserve a second chance. In some cases, a third one is given. On the other hand, if the subject keeps repeating the behaviour that neccessitates the enemy staus, well... so be it. We have unemied people I never thought would happen and others I thought deserved a second chance were denied. That's life in any org, though. You win some and lose some. I have no hopes of -ever- geting unenemied to any Seren guild. And really, I could care less. Nejii himself once told me I was Serenwilde's greatest enemy in Glomdoring. Can't really say losing that title appeals to me!

Actually, I'm enemied to 3 Glomdoring guilds, and only 1 is for a legitimate reason! (killing Aspects of Crow and getting away when Xavius tried to pwn me for it) The other two were for, amusingly, defending Etherwilde from a Gloom raider, and the most recent one was actually for defending a Seren who got jumped at the aetherplex. Pretty crazy, eh?



You misinterpreted me just a little there...it wasn't so much "our greatest enemy" as "the enemy that annoys us most". Just to clear that up.

Well not really, unless you normally translate greatest enemy into enemy that annoys us the most on a whim. But as for curiously inane guild enemying, that clearly does happen. Just look at the Hartstone and their blanketing all Serenwilde enemies with Harstone enemy status. Mind you, that does seem like a sound policy, but then again it sort of dispells any credibility of the guild and replaces it as gold grubbing.

This isn't the only problem with NPC enemy statuses. For instance, we just had a rather biased Divine possess the White Hart and go "Suchandsuch never got the killing blow on my Aspects, so he isn't my enemy. Why are you griping so much about him? I don't mind him attacking them at all, since he didn't kill them himself, someone else did."

Still, the argument "Suchandsuch should be unenemied since he gave the spirits gold and they forgave him" is really lame and OOC. Especially when said person makes a post saying "Ha, I killed them and they deserved it!" right afterwards. I don't get why such things aren't RPed, and game mechanics are used entirely, ignoring the fact that NPCs should have opinions on the matter too. (and these opinions shouldn't just be echoes of whatever admin decides to possess them, they should be in character, not some lame-ass version of the impersonate skill like certain divines like to do. It's just skill abuse when mobpossess is used like that =\\)

I -really- don't like the idea of players getting to influence things like an unenemying to Celestia or the Earth Lords, and I'll list my reasons below:

1) Hardcoding links between organisations and NPCs will define indistinctions on which roleplay rests. For example, do the Ur'Guard get control over the unenemying of people to Shallach? Does Magnagora get control over the unenemying of people to the Presidio? etc. There are plenty of NPC organisations which are 'claimed' in some way or form by the playerbase. For the divine to explicitly set us up so that we can in effect, control what and who can be unenemied is for the divine to implicitly state the truth of whether or not said NPCs are in fact under Magnagora's protection, or not. And that's going to ruin some of the fun of it, because just as Glomdoring maintains it is wyrded while the rest of us believe it is tainted, the indistinct nature of the setup is what leads to the conflict and RP over it.

2) Players are asses. We are, as a breed, incalcitrant and slow to forgive. Meanwhile, Lusternia is a game which you cannot play as a rogue, and in which sides are very clearly polarised. No matter who I am, if I join Celest and get into the spirit of things, I will end up enemied to Magnagora, Nil, Shallach, the Earth Lords, and consequentially, the guilds as well. If something goes wrong - maybe I really screw up - and I'm chucked out, my options are drastically limited... but at least I have the ability to go and get the Earth Lords and Celestia to forgive me, and then say to Mag - they've forgiven me, why can't you? Otherwise, my options could get continually narrowed until I just can't play any more. What I'm taking too long to say is that in a highly polarised game like this, forgiveness -has- to be easy.

3) It is ridiculous to implement a structure to enforce RP. The person you refer to, who makes a post saying "Ha, I killed them and they deserved it!" right afterwards" deserves to lose rolepoints and be roundly spanked for being an arse... but that's all. Rewriting the system to accomodate bad roleplayers is clearly overkill.

4) As with all things in Lusternia, if you don't like it, roleplay round it.. rather than calling for the administration to come hold your hand. When Narsrim wanted to join the Geomancers, we assembled the guild, made him take part in a humiliating ad hoc ritual, and then asked Klaymech whether he could be forgiven. It wasn't enough for the Geomancers that Narsrim appeared to have been granted a reprieve by the Earth Lords - after all, we weren't just going to take his word for it.. we needed to hear it for ourselves. The same argument can be used in Saran's instance. The Celestian would be unenemy-er, can simply say.. I don't believe you, and I won't until I hear it from Elohora's mouth. Thus, we have RP in spades.

5) Unenemying is already quite a painful thing to do. It's usually >100k gold, and the vast majority of us don't have that sort of money to waste on a whim. Given its high cost, I feel that the frequency of people who have themselves unenemied, only to be arses about it, -must- be relatively low. Added to this, it's really easy to make a silly mistake when you're new to the game. I became an enemy to Faethorn aged 16, on Aiakon, because I didn't realise I shouldn't hunt there. The same thing happened in Estelbar... and both times, I remember being quite unreasonably hunted down.. and appalled when I realised that the enemy status was essentially permanent.

I have more points, probably.. so I'll edit them in as and when I think of them.

Err, it's far more OOC to claim that even though a mob says something, "the divine possessed him" to say it and thus it doesn't count as their IC view than to...actually take that as their IC view. The spirits define the guilds, not the other way around.

Also, what's -more- lame is when people try to say that someone is (say) a Supernal enemy and shouldn't be unenemied to the Celestines, and then later when it turns out that they're not enemied to the Supernals after all they change their story and say the Supernals' opinion doesn't matter.

Because of the inherent limits of mobs, it makes far more sense to let the Supernals and Celestines both decide their own enemies, normally related, occasionally not (I can't imagine Moon wanting to enemy Tully for inadvertantly insulting besoms) than to cry "bias" (rather hypocritically) and try to get the guilds the ability to control their spiritual patrons.

EDIT: ninja'd by Aiakon despite the fact that his post was longer than mine...he probably started earlier

EDIT: For Aiakon's benefit: that post about "they deserved it" doesn't actually exist in reality, it's basically a construct born of a need to demonise anyone getting in the way of having the point at hand nailed in.

It's hard to roleplay around things when an admin decides he wants to make it true enough to possess mobs into saying it.

Perhaps a more valid concern Shorlen inadvertently uncovered is: why do mobiles enemy you for killing them, but not for attacking them? Is this supposed to be to give people who accidentally attack things while influencing them some leeway (I've done that twice recently, critted once too, thank god the buggers survived)? Is there another point to it?

Aiakon's points are some of the things I'm concerned about too for the most part. However, players being asses extends to gods who possess mobs to further their own interests too. And no, no one is saying that's what's happening in character.

I think there are just as many problems with the way it is now as there would be if it was changed. Its just a tradeoff. Ultimately I'm in favour of the change.

And for the record, noone has yet told Shorlen what Charu... err, White Hart said about him yet, or else he would have made a public post welcoming people to go to the Serenwilde and kill the Aspects, since apparently deer exist to be hunted and the Aspects are just like any other deer, according to Char.... err, the White Hart.

Not that the mobile org refuse based on the guild enemy status, just that these orgs have more work put into loosing enemy status with them than just paying a generally set amount of money. I guess in a nut shell I want it to be harder and somehow seen as repenting for the actions against the org. This would at least give the guilds associated with these orgs some rp that the player has sought forgiveness and to the player that losing enemy status to them isn't just a formality but something that needs to be earned.

oocly it's annoying annoying to see "You just need x gold to get unenemied to Celestia, if you get a Celestine with (some skill) to do it for you it will be less", it just sends thoughts like (with overacted hand motions) "These are holy beings, Saran has helped slay not only them but the angelic creatures than wander their land and all they need to forgive him for all that killing is about a manse rooms worth of gold if not less" racing through my brain.

It's also really disturbing when you see people arguing that the white hart and mother moon have forgiven them for their actions against them so you should to, though the problem does still exist that someone could effectively be there attacking members of these mobile orgs for days on end but as long as they don't get the last hit in they are not considered enemies, would a warning flag then enemying for attacking work around this? So if you accidently attack something you just get a warning flag that would time out after a while, if you attack something in that org again before the flag disappears you gain enemy status.

Random thought, but would it ever be possible for players to find out if someone is enemied to a mobile org by saying something like "Do you consider (name) to be an enemy of (orgname)?" to it's leader. Though it's not really important with statues and totems.

EDIT: To Aiakons point four, Don't celest have that series of Statues that are tuned so they would detect an enemy of Celestia? Also I believe an IC god actually announced that... someone, had been forgiven by Moon and Hart. My problem is with the ease that such forgiveness is granted. I also don't agree with some of the points in 2, it sounds like you think that I want it to be impossible to be unenemied to them. I feel that for example, bringing x(otherwise known as aheluvalot) amount of fae to Mother Moon (wouldn't work, just a random thing I threw in there) and then having a small ceremony with albion where the player offers some token proving they've done the quest and then are asked if they truly desire the forgiveness of the Moon, the player agrees and swears not to harm those of moonspirit.
Player attacks the ladies or avatars again, if the previous unenemying were to set a flag, unenemying is made slightly more difficult this time, perhaps with varying payments based on the org. though again that's probably me off on a tangent

Since Dylara hasnt gotten around to posting about this (I wont get much time to enjoy myself once Im in office apparently, and the test server didnt last long) I suggest the conversation at hand about this ends now. Especially with the White Hart conflict.

edit: My meaning is the jumping on a certain Divine and talking about information that has yet to be released fully.

It actually happened more then just that once. I spent about two hours last night getting bitched out by White Hart. So yeah.

I was unaware that you have a transcript of a mobile log, dictating who possessed White Hart. I'm curious, because I'm wondering how you know when it is Charune, or Estarra, or myself, who do it.


Further more, you're bordering close on a personal attack. Consider this your warning.