To be honest Magnagora got worse when Chade was replaced as Emperor, he was quite keen to keep the conflict between us and Serenwilde/Celest at a minimum, there were less raids and there was a better atmosphere generally over the city channel. Lately it feels like the city doesn't have a choice as to whether we fight or not, just like everyone I have days when I just want to relax and maybe bash or whatever. But then someone orders every non-novice to gather at the Megalith for a raid or something like that. I've already been threatened once with outcitizening, three fairly notable people (Silvanus, Tsai and Tharruk) have been kicked out of the city already basically because someone in the ruling council didn't like them.

Events that allow one city to get one over on another, rather than just raids.

Example: Demon Lords attacking Celestia. Celest has something to do, protecting themselves against Magnagora, but with no PK.

More quests involving cities-communes, like raising Crow and White Hart, that don't involve just killing the other party. Like, one side has to do certain things to achieve their goal, the other side has to do certain things to stop them. The one who does it first wins.

On that note, I thought the whole Necromentate/Star of Celest thing was an excellent example of this. Both sides were competing to get their thingamajig stronger than the other thingamajig, but without straight out PK.

And yes, I love conflict, I just hate when it's all the same old group PK over and over and over again.

Exactly.

I'm sure You Guys Up There can think of a ton of ideas like this. And if, when the event starts, someone goes, "Ok guys, let's kill them!", make sure you tell them the event is NOT meant to be about PK.

We've tried, but apparently it's easier to beat the other side when they're all dead.

The Magnagora/Star event was great. It involved both sides doing a harmless quest without PK to get what they want.

But the Crow/Stag quest...not so. For Glom to win, they have to keep Brennan alive, kill deers and baby. Serenwilde has to do the opposite.

I have enumerated several suggestions to Roark concerning this matter. I'm sure he would be happy to share in greater detail. But the gist of it was that the "non-violent outlets" for Power supply need to make more of a difference as compared to villages, Influence periods need to be made far less dependent upon the capacity of individuals to kill, and commodities need to be made available somehow other than through the shops in villages and cities.

I'd like to make a more specific suggestion that I hadn't thought of before.

It has been suggested that Villages should be made safe-zones when they are in their uninfluenced state. In the current system, that would be folly. It would become somewhat silly. But with a few choice changes to the Influence skills, I think it could be made very interesting.

AB INFLUENCE DIVERT
Syntax: DIVERT
DIVERT TO ME
With a simple diversion, you can snap your target's attention away from being
fixated on a certain subject. This will stop a current ego battle in its tracks
and allow a different type to begin. If diverted to yourself, you will take over the ego battle from where it left off.

Now, this change serves two purposes. For one, it will permit people of sufficient skill to "interrupt" the efforts of another person trying to influence a mobile and take up the effort themselves. There are plenty of situations where this could be extremely strategic if done at the right time. Also, this change would introduce a new concept in Influence, the Debate.

AB INFLUENCE DEBATE
Syntax: ENGAGE IN DEBATE
Debate Skills:
DEBATE WITH CONSEQUENCES
DEBATE WITH GENERALIZATIONS
DEBATE WITH STRAWMAN
APPEAL TO FORCE
APPEAL TO PITY
APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

Engaging an opponent of differing ideals in a fierce debate, you will attempt to wear thin their logic to the point where they are unable to regenerate their ego for some time.

This is a relatively radical change in the concept of Influence, and one I quite like. Remember PSYCOMBAT? Think of a PSYCOMBAT that actually mattered. This is Debate in Influence. It would take place between two individuals with the Debate skill in Influence and would pit their Influence abilities against one another. It is something akin to an active game of Rock/Paper/Scissors, but there are clear offensive and defensive branches in the strategy tree. Think of the Debate WITH skills as offensive, and the APPEAL TO skills as defensive. When you regain equilibrium from a previous choice, you would either DEBATE WITH or APPEAL TO . If you Debate, you attempt to harm the ego of your opponent. If you Appeal, you defend against an attempted Debate attack. Each attack has a corresponding defense that blocks it, so one must try to anticipate the actions of their opponent. Consequences is blocked by Pity, Strawman by Force, and Generalizations by Authority. The amount of ego taken away by a succesful attack depends upon the Influence skill level of the attacker and the defender in comparison. Also note that switching one's Appeal only requires Equilibrium, but does not use it up. During Debates, ego healing by means of bromides, regenerative enchantments, and the skills of others is disabled. When someone comes out victorious, the loser is unable to regenerate their ego past 0 for some time (10 or 15 minutes).

To avoid complicating this, I'd put the Debate ability at Inept in Influence.

Comments?

-Very- nice.

That was brilliant.

I would love to see something like that implemented.

The dome quest for both sides isn't harmless. Magnagora will need to go into Celestia and kill a number of supernals and use them to crush the dome over time. Celest will have to do the same with Demonlords. That involes alot of pk and also with the inner sea and sea of despair quest. Magnagora will need to kill turtles and kill dolphins in order for the seawolves to survive. Celest will need to kill seawolves and raise turtles for their side to win. City quests have alot pk behind them but I don't like senseless pk

That's not a bad idea actually Rhysus, it'd add another dimension to Lusternia...I think it's a quite useful suggestion, it'd take a bunch of knowledge and skill, timing and insight as well to become good at it, just like combat.

The easiest and fastest way would be to use common sense. Magnagora killed half of the world. It is enough....and now please don't start to constantly raise Crow, that is getting annoying. You did it once, made your point and everything was fine but repeatedly doing so is just poor.

I agree with Kaervas, when Chade was emporer it was possible to talk with the leadership. I enjoyed that talk a lot but now talking is no longer possible, thanks.

Er...it's as annoying for them to resurrect Crow as it is for us to disrupt said raising. Can't criticise that if we're criticising direct raids too. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean they should stop doing it because "they made their point."

Uhm, they don't have to raise crow but if crow is alive we HAVE to kill it quickly again.

It is bad rp for them to stop after raising the crow once. Mangagora's whole purpose within this world is to spread the taint and consume everything in its path. Why should they stop when they now have the ability to raise the taint crow which deals damage to serenwilde. If you don't want them to raise the crow then do something about it. You don't see Celestians saying get out of celestia please. we go in there and defend it with our lifes. We don't care if we die but we won't surrunder to our enemy

You complain about Magnagora not having a reason to cause massacres, then you want to take away the very reason they do? That first paragraph seems very childish, Niara... I agree with Shiro on the RP part.

Actually, from your argument you DON'T have to. You only have to because of RP, and hey, it's causing conflict to follow said RP. If Magnagora has to loosen up on Celest because the fun of the players is more important than the RP, you can't use a different argument for Crow and the Wilde.

EDIT: For once, Shiro and I agree.

*awards Shiro with hero-points*
My hero!
If you haven't noticed, Serenwilde doesn't want anything really from Magnagora or Celest. Most just want to be left alone...more or less.
Uhm, and this bad rp thing....I better don't comment about that.

Then tell Mangagora that you will no longer show agression and surrunder to them if you want them to leave you alone. Its very simple.

edit: Awww, me and Shiri agree

You try grabbing villages, hinder Magnagorans in their business, break treaties left and right, but you just want to be left alone...if you really want to be left alone, don't get involved in ANYTHING at all then, don't take villages, don't kill people, don't do aligned quests, just weevil and argue on ct, otherwise...deal with the facts that you're not alone in the Basin, and that Serenwilde is not neutral, they actively get involved with both celest and magnagora from the moment they have a village under their control, there's no way you're ever gonna be "left alone" while doing whatever pleases you.