Great MUDs are about effort and conflict. It is just far too easy for groups and individuals to ferret out people by using statues and totems tuned against a generic group.

What’s the point of having a secret order or group if someone can simply erect a device that can always detect membership of a group?

What might the Crows be up to if statues and totems could not have so easily ferreted them out?

Now as a player we might not want to be on the other side of those of the Crow, Black Market, some Orders, etc., but clearly they add conflict that makes the game more interesting.

Leave the ability to enemy specific individuals and city/organizational enemies.

Yeah, it was kind of sad when the crows all got found out by a totem. Thing is, it's ALREADY hard enough to get rid of annoying newbie spies, but even getting rid of them this way, people could still look on Serenwilde, log off, log on as Crow, do that. (Violation of help seconds or not, it can be done easily.) So it doesn't help much to be able to enemy the secret groups (just enemy all the members you find, there you go), while disrupting the whole "secrecy" thing.

Idea: totems can be tuned for anyone, but against ONLY enemies of an organisation/individual etc.
So, yes to 'enemies of Serenwilde/Magnagora/Daevos/Clan of Pie', but no to 'New Celest/Tae'dae Clan/Auseklis'.

This idea cropped up in the last thread on this subject, and I agree that it is the single best solution.

A clan is a convinience. Look at any it this way. Any 'secret' group IRL that had such an easy communication network, would be found out, members discovered. By having any form of actual organisation, you pump up the risk of being discovered. Totems being tuneable VS groups is representative of this. If you really wish to be secret, you by no means have to have a clan.

I think this is a wonderfull idea And defintily needed. However I think groups also need the ability to turn the totem against anyone NOT in their group. Such as Kill any NON Moondancers in the moondancer guildhall, or any NON magnagorians in the Magnagora city offices.

besides its so easy to become an enemy automatically the way its wonderfully set up.

I can't even step foot inside Serenwilde. I don't mind running from guards, but the fact that if I move off the path, I'm screwed... Well, I think it's overpowered. Just like if I could set the entire glomdoring against serenwilde, it would be nice, but much too overpowered. At least you can destroy statues...

And the anti-organization thing too... not sure about that. I'm not going to whine about the unfairness of it all, because as I stated above, if we could do that to large groups of people, we'd be overpowered too. If I could enemy all of Serenwilde to Glomdoring, they'd never overthrow crow, because we'd all sit inside there, not able to be summoned out, and they wouldn't be able to walk it.

Boring.

Even Celestians can walk into Nil. Sure, they'd be hunted, but by -people-, not auto systems that target everyone. Perhaps there is a way that would let us do a little bit more underhanded rp? Maybe less of this "you walk in, you get hit" stuff.

Sorry, Gol, I just don't buy that. First we’re not just talking about clans. We’re also talking about orders/cities/guilds/etc. We’re not talking about organizations that cannot keep secrets. We are talking about if it is good for a game that is –supposed- to be based on combat to have a system that ferrets out people that even aren’t suspected of anything.

What makes the game more dynamic? People having to figure out what is going on, or a system that points the finger without fail?

As players we would still have all the tools you mentioned and more. They’ll be leaks, people will slip up. People will get angry and release information about hidden groups. But why should anyone be able to identify who’s in a God’s Order without doing any work or expending any thought or real effort?

Even if you believe otherwise, where’s your case as to why it is better for the game as a whole to leave the system the way it is?

Yeah I agree with Trae. I could still be in Raezon's Order if I didn't get hit.

They put statues up to hit Raezon's order?

I'm not really a fan of recoding statues/totems, but I haven't really tried to subvert enemy defenses in game yet.

One point I would make however: attacking any denizen loyal to an organization immediately notifies them about it. So for those who say that people should have some reason to suspect you, or that there should be some effort expended to 'catch' spies, this is another case in which actions have an immediate and tangible effect without any player effort whatsoever.

Joining an enemy organization is a very deliberate action. Clearly, to avoid getting hit by the guards/statues/totems, just leave the clan.

I believe the main issue was orders and cities and such.

Its really restrictive to not being able to have people follow gods that might patron other cities and such.

Well, the same goes for that as for clans. But people can follow gods other than their own city patrons... its the minds of the city leaders that you should be changing if they are being too restrictive, not the coding of protections. At least in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure Gol's point was that if you don't want a totem to make you stick out like an archangel on the earth plane, don't use a clan to facilitate communication. What's wrong with tells and planned gatherings?

Totems hitting public tunned against publicly known organizations is alright. I mean, being able to tutne totems against cities/orders/clans. Though, if you wish to be secretive about your alliances and not be discovered by somehow managing gettting hit by a totem, like someone said simply don't belong to the clan. Also, clans who are supposed to be some sort of secret society or something, should always be Private, and with a Nickname very hard to find out so people can't easily find it with clanhelp. Something like Disciples of Crow instead of being DoC, being Siniter Raven Society. I think it would be harder for people to get discovered thus probably tunning against someone. And for sake of higher privacy. Instead of the clan owner clearly showing that they have an "enemy" clan through their honors, they could place the clan name to be completely irrelevant to what the real purpose of the clan is (i.e. instead of Visaeris showing Disciples of the Crow in his Honors, he could've dubbed it Merry Man of Glomdoring). Would probably make people feel ackward but less supcisious.

Joining an enemy clan is deliberate? What about if someone creates a clan, a city leader doesn't like it, enemies the entire clan after it has been a legitimate, unenemied clan for years?

You can get enemied at any time. None of this "joining an enemy clan is deliberate" stuff.

The thing is, that you can deliberately join an "enemy" clan. Whether a clan was an enemy clan or not before or after you joined... that is another issue. And I do hope that people who tune totems have foundations as to why tunning totems against them. Serenwilde tunning totems against DoC when both were fighting, was okay.

You want your clan to be secret? Then make usre it's not talked about so much, Visaeris made his clan public by just talking about it so much. If I started a secret clan, it would REMAIN secret and as long as I didn't have a stupid name and didn't bring attention to it, noone would go around tuning totems to find it's members, there would be no reason to. Also, very few totems/statues are tuned against orders/clans so you just have to be careful where you step.

Yes, you are quite right that they can be enemied after you have joined... but my point was that it is a very deliberate choice to be a member of a clan. If you don't agree with their values, you can leave at any time. Thus, we can hardly complain when actions of the group reflect on individual members - we have chosen to be identified with the whole.

Yeah, Visaeris shouldn't have made it so public, perhaps. And most people didn't know about my cartel until Furloch called attention to it.