I don't get it. Serenwilde has the most overpowered archetype in the game, right? And that guild is packed with members. And the commune outnumbers both cities citizen-wise..

What is it?

Previous IRE experience especially of the combat variety. The Moondancers description portrays them as spiritualists. Thats not going to attract many warrior types. Also practically one half of the Seren hates the other. That may or may not be true for Magangora as well but they don't allow division to go unpunished.

Also I still believe the leadership design is a poor one for representing a Commune/Collective that believes it can maintain the principles of 'Freedom'. All political entities share the shame archetype for rule. A central figure supported by a bureaucratic council. That may work great for Monarchies or other autocracies but not for anyone that wants to represent a true socialist society.

I'm not sure the Sreenwilde is supposed to be socialist. (Estarra can correct me if I'm wrong...) It's supposed to be what the players set it out to be. And I can say something about the real world with fighting about how things ought to be since it sounds like maybe the Serenwilde has ideologues trying to shape society. I've found that political groups (and I've been studied many from every extreme end of the political spectrum) that focus on how their own society ought to be tend to factionalize and split over ideology. On the other hand, those that focus on the enemy tend to be more united. This could help explain why the idealist Leon Trotsky fell to Stalin, who united his nation by making scapegoat enemies. Or why the statism of John Adams (2nd president) has been more successful in gaining power in the US over the course of two centuries than the domestic idealism of Thomas Jefferson (3rd president) and Thomas Paine by presidents that unite the nation with fear of enemies (fear of European expansion in the New World under John Adams, fear of state sessession, 19th century fear of the native Indians, etc.).

In-game examples of this would be, from the old days of Achaea, Mistral, Shakti, and Dresden, all of whom united their cities largely by focusing the city on the enemy moreso than on trying to build a utopian society internally. I do recall some player once tried to run for office on utopic policies (something like turning things into an anarchic commune with no hierarchies). He failed and in the process caused infighting and dissent rather than unity.

Not making a value judgement but if we're not supposed to be a socialist society why are we labeled a Commune/Collective?

Perhaps it also comes down to what people, in a general sense (since there are always exceptions to any rule) like to do.

Magnagora, whilst being heavy handed when necessary, offers people the freedom to do what they want to do. People tend to try and throw Magnagora into the Mhaldor scope, but I'd actually think of Magnagora as more akin to Ashtan, if nothing else. Ashtan was basically "We don't really care what you do, so long as you do what you're told to when something needs to be done". And the system worked. Magnagora has the unquestioned leaders, but it's also got people who listen to them. You need both components for a working political structure.

Another thing I noticed about Magnagora is that there is no socially dividing line between the leaders and the followers. You see the less reknowned citizens trading jokes with the likes of Chade, Valek and Daevos. Valek told Zhaine when he first joined Magnagora "We're a family here, except we're a family of giant kids". Stupid as it may sound, that's probably one of the factors attributing to Magnagora's success. Unity through common interests and the fact they enjoy being able to do whatever they wanna do, but still have enough faith in those leading them that they will respect the decisions made by those leaders, even if it conflicts with what they wanna do. IE Lotta Magnagorans wanted to kill the Serenwilders in Dairuchi, but the leaders said no, so they didn't. Bang. Just like that. No debating, no arguing. A few complaints, but only a few, and it didn't get dragged on. The leaders said, "This is what we're going to do, and why we're going to do it". Voila, everyone satisfied.

Feels like I just babbled on a bunch of crap there, but ah well, it's my five cents.

In short. Unity. Leaders that lead, and people willing to listen and follow.

As this is my very first IRE, I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

Yeah, you're probably right. This whole commune thing we have going on makes everyone thing their opinion is as valuable as everyone else's.

Leader: Let's do this.
Person #1: But this, that and the other mean we shouldn't.
Leader: Nah, come on.
Person #2: Stop being a dictator!
Person #3: Stop being a dictator!
Person #4: Stop being a dictator!
Person #5: Stop being a dictator!
Leader: -gives up-

I think this is not really a problem with the commune but more with these leaders. Of course, in a city like Magnagora, it is easier to tell others what to do as the setup is more militaristic. There most people expect from their leaders to act like generals. Most people in the commune though expect their leaders act differently though and this requires a different approach from the leaders. Nikua's bluntness for example would fit perfectly into Magnagora, please spare me cries of disagreement here, but he has obviously problems with his type of leading in Serenwilde. I think a gentler approach is necessary.
But of course you will never make everyone happy.

Actually, I wanted a reference to a forest organization that wasn't a city and felt commune was the appropriate 'fit' to this ideal because of the rural community connotations. It's not meant to have a socialist or "communist" political tag per se.

Anyway, this is a fantasy game and the concept of a 'commune' doesn't necessarily have to be forced to fit into any Webster dictionary definitation. As the game evolves, certain words like 'nihilism' will begin to take on their own in-game meanings.

So there's really nothing you're 'supposed to be'. Certainly use Lusternia's environment, history and definitions as starting points in shaping your social structures, but consider them as tools rather than anything 'written in stone'. One of the most enriching and rewarding aspects of virtual worlds is the dynamics of the evolution of socities.

From reading the histories the impression I always got about the Serenwilde was a brutal, gritty, militaristic society only recently coming out of isolation. I've always tried to roleplay that the attitudes of "Freedom", "Free Speech" and other such happy-crappy nonsense is all outside ideas flowing in.

The attitudes of Auseklis also lead me to believe that it was meant to be a harsh and tightly-controlled place.

Though I believe there were the happy dancy faeling types, but that kind of attitude was spare-time only thing.

As Gwynn always says, "The elders would roll over in their graves if they saw what we let go on in the commune...such challenges would've been dealt with by a slit throat and body dumping in their day, quick and ruthless, less trouble to the commune, less risk to the Moonhart."

I don't know but I'm starting not to like it. Magnagora just became too strong too quickly and I think you'll find it getting very faction like very soon.

What Serenwilde needs is more strong leaders. The leader of Hartstone - his name escapes me right now - seems to have done this somewhat well. You need someone who won't care if they get called names by the others as long as they get the job done.

Every leader stepping up is probably going to get shot down again real fast, no matter his methods. Maybe Serenwilde needs a different kind of system, with just a ruling council, no Marshall. It's easier to blame everything going wrong on a single person than on a council of several people, like say, 7 people...that get elected by the commune every -10- ic years, if a decision needs to be made, have those 7 people vote -immediately- (not with some system taking days to complete), and the result is what will happen, no matter what the populace thinks. If the matter to vote on is important, wait till all council members voted, if not, just have the present ones decide.

I agree completely. A government by Oligarchy would do wonders for Serenwilde.

Magnagora is a family.

I'll admit here and now I was an Ashtan citizen in Achaea before many of you started playing IRE games, so yes some of my ideology and the ideology I bring to Magnagora does come from that, I'm not a perfect RPer and I do bring in outside sources for my ideas and how I run Mag.

I'm big on letting people do as they want too, but then as Chade I'm an very friendly, easy going city leader. But if something has to be done, such as ordering no attacks on the Serenwilde during influence season then I'll do it.

Yes it caused many mutterings, but Magnagora works because when I say something people listen (Still haven't figured out why ) but it does mean that Mag works as a city, yes as Daganev said, there probably will be a break out of factions soon enough, it's inevitable, but I'll RP it, and have fun with it, if I get kicked out of office I'm really not too bothered, I had a fun time, and I will continue to have a fun time.

Mag is currently a semi-dictatorship which works, we let people do what they want unless we need them, if we need them they do what we say. I'll happily as Chade sit at the Megalith for hours on end joking with our latest newbie or Celest convert because I enjoy it, I'm not some puritanical leader, out for the sole distruction of Celest, it's a game and I'm here to have fun. If we lose, we lose, it's that simple and I'll do my best to make sure we win.

As to why Magnagora is so "strong" it's because at the moment it works, the system we have in place works, and hopefully it'll continue to work.

Infighting is one of the major problems with Celest and Serenwilde, if they didn't have that, we wouldn't be so "strong" and it'd be a much more level playing field, we just organise better at the moment, as the influencing demonstrates, we see a situation we react, we tend to come out on top because we already have a decent, workable structure laid down for what is going to happen.

Ramble over.

Chade

Chade's explanation is nigh-on perfect.

Serenwilde and Celest are having numerous conflicts within themselves. In Magnagora, when a Leader makes a command, people do it without arguing, or questioning too much, and things generally turn out to our advantage. It's not a dictatorship, as such: it's more like a few people who are good at leading raids/fighting take charge during times of conflict, and the rest of the time we just do our own thing.

It's just that Magnagora has been incredibly lucky, that is all. This was bound to happen. Of the three community, one was bound to be succesfull. Now , to say that magnagora is successfull because of this or that..and to try to generalize .. i think it's stretching it a bit too far.

If Magnagora had been through a state of constant failure,a grim ambiance and losing every battle without the leadership of skilled ex-beta-testers...-shrug-

Anyway, i do agree, that subconsciously or not, magnagorans tend to re-create a New Ashtan, for the best and for the worst.

Actually, Magnagora is what Mhaldor -should- have been, not Ashtan, if anything will look like Ashtan, it'll be Gaudiguch, and of course there are reasons Mag is so strong now, has nothing to do with luck, first of all, they have a set of hardcore pk'ers from other realms, and secondly, the general magnagoran will do what his leader says, instead of starting a discussion on ct about the morals of what the leader said. Seriously, luck doesn't exist in Lusternia except at the roulette. If a city reaches something, it's cause of the effort put into it, not luck.

If only more people shared your view

-chuckle-

Thorgal, you're exactly defending my point. And the more you'll tell me that magnagora's well being is due to the leadership skill of certain magnagorans, the further i will assume that magnagora has been lucky.

There are so much players and the ressources in players are not infinite. Telling me that Magnagora, Celest and Serenwilde went to the market and picked the players they wanted to have, would be an aberration.

Indeed, it was the players who choose their city, not the verse, basing their choices on hearsays, help files and godknowwhatelse.
Magnagora had more than one favourable initial condition to begin with. I was there all along, and frankly it could have been worse.

If Visaeris and some others would have been serenwilders, magnagora would still be trying to figure out which button to push, that serenwilde would probably own five or six villages... and so and so.. you know the story.Once you own half the basin, and the other half is your enemy, you're rather busy and focused. there comes the explanation to the seemingly supranatural acceptance of the leadership by the populace.