Please excuse my terrible technical language here but.

ON Earthplane there is a cave that you do "enter cave" to get to.

On Astral the areas rotatate and disconnect from eachother.

I think the best sollution would be to make a similar exit bewteen faethorn and and Glomd/Seren. Have a place where you Enter tree, to get to the middle ground, and have Glom and Seren be different continents so you can't just flow in and out of them.

Honestly, if anyone is pushing for the communes to come to some sort of political agreement, then the only obstacle to that agreement is serenwilde.

I don't know how many times an organization has to extend the proposal of peace and get attacked for it before it just doesn't become worth it.

I'm curious which person with a position in power is asking Magnagora for anything.

It's meant to be the commune parallel to the elemental planes. Of course, communes can also get essence from the elemental planes as well as killing demons and angels. They also have the shadow quest in Glomdoring and the pixie quest in Serenwilde. Actually, looking at your question again, I'm not sure what your asking. "The only power quest you'll ever see"? Who knows. That's too absolute to answer.

In the interest of concision -- yes, that post was the edited-down version! -- I didn't elaborate some things that would answered some of your questions already.



From a nominally game-theory standpoint, competitive games can be broken into a spectrum of three possibilities. Let me explain using the game Risk, but imagine if the number of armies you gained per territory you controlled was something we could change. If you made it so each territory gained you a lot of armies, once someone had the lead, they would gain so much that they would just keep increasing the lead, and it'd be very, very hard to turn the game around. If on the other hand you got little or no armies for each territory you gained, the farther you went towards the win, the more vulnerable you would be, and the game would tend to have dramatic reversals of fortune. Somewhere in between is a sweet spot where the gain for each increase is almost exactly equal to the extra burden that that increase brings.

It seems to me that Lusternia is more like the former case. If you have a small lead, you have an advantage in making it a bigger lead. And if you have a bigger lead, you gain more benefits from it than you gain burdens from it. So leads tend to progress and do not tend to reverse. I'm obviously only theorizing here; I'm no game theory expert and even an expert would tell you there's way too many variables. But it seems very likely that Lusternia's power balance is likely to stay where it is or only shift slightly back and forth, barring some change. There hasn't been a time since open beta began that Magnagora wasn't unquestionably the dominant power in the game, which seems to corroborate that. And I don't see that changing without some change being introduced to the world.

Maybe that's fine. But then maybe it might be interesting from a story point of view, or just from a "customer satisfaction" point of view, if it became possible for things to even out a little. It's a delicate balance. People in Celest don't want to be bottom dog forever; and each time someone there thinks "this sucks, we'll *never* get out of being bottom dog, I should go join Magnagora" (or "I should quit Lusternia") telling them not to is hard without some way to say "but it might change". At the same time, Magnagora worked damned hard and in some cases paid good money to get where they are, and it'd be unfair to take that away from them, particularly by adding some new thing that feels like you reaching your divine hand in and tampering.

But we've all known since day one that someday, four more nations would probably appear, and that they might shift the balance. We've had our chance to prepare somewhat. If one of them appeared and that shifted the balance, the griping would be marginally less. The discouraged might feel encouraged while the top dogs wouldn't feel so stolen from. It's an opportunity to consider... that is, if you think it might be good to shake things up again and give the bottom dogs another chance to change things. Maybe you don't.

When I saw Viravain's particular insanity, I thought maybe, just maybe, Glomdoring would have some chance to do that. But it's clear enough that we're not going to get that. Glomdoring has every reason to work with Magnagora, and Magnagora has every reason to work with Glomdoring. Magnagora's ascendency is now more assured than it was before.



I would have no problem whatever with Glomdoring being a foil for Serenwilde, if someone could convince Magnagora to find some purpose other than "killxor all serentards". We've got enough rapiers and epees sticking out of us already to not need more foils at the moment, thank you very much. Do you see some force in place that is going to get Magnagora off our case once Glomdoring has itself up and running? Because down here in the trenches, we don't. We tried, some of us. We tried to find some excuse that didn't strain RP beyond our ability to stand it, to let Glomdoring get its feet under it without forcing them to ally with Magnagora. But that was sabotaged from within and without. Now instead of making Glomdoring a foil for Serenwilde, they've just become a way to make Magnagora's crushing death machine a little bit bigger and a little bit more firmly pointed at Serenwilde, while draining off a lot of people from Serenwilde who might have helped at least hold hands while we were being crushed, if not to fight back.



I admit my words were unnecessarily rhetorical there. The retreat I referred to simply alludes to the fact that all those policies Viravain placed seem to have withered on the vine and are currently being, pretty much, entirely ignored. I don't know if that's because she backed off, or because the marshall and citizens decided to ignore it. But there's no question that whatever was intended and whatever was done, none of that, not one bit, is actually taking place. And really... I admire, really I do, the efforts Viravain has made (and the guff she's taken for it) to steer Glomdoring in the non-obvious direction, and I have spoken my admiration before on the forums for it. But that very non-obviousness alludes to the problem. Glomdoring's patron pushes it in an opposite direction from its structure, its history, its quests, its skillsets, everything about it. That's interesting, but in the end, I think no one expected that was tenable. Eventually, Night and Crow, and Faethorn, and taint, and Rowena and Brennan, would ensure Glomdoring would both end up anti-Serenwilde (as you said) and pro-Magnagora. Hell, if nothing else did, Magnagora's persecution complex about alchemy would ensure that, even if they hadn't gotten themselves locked into a "killxor the serentards" brain-stutter.



That is precisely what I hoped to see, and worked hard to achieve, even back when Gwylifar was puttering about in what was then the Summer Court. If I could see a path that'd get us to there, I'd be on it like rain on a roof. If you think we're actually there, or even heading there, or even in a place where you can get there from here, then that's the problem. That's not what's happening and nothing we can see from in the trenches is going to get us there. Maybe you've got stuff planned, and I am not going to second-guess that. I trust you enough to see it through. But at the same time, every day when I ask myself, should I log in?, the answer depends on if I'm going to have some fun, far more than whether you have planned something to happen two months from now.



Never let it be said that I think I can do your job better than you can! I am happy to admit I don't have better ideas, even as reluctant as I am to complain about something without being able to offer something. I don't mind the struggle if it's contained -- what I mind is that the other 90% of Lusternia beckons to me and it's feeling awfully neglected. Perhaps all you need is something similar to what you did with the seawolves/turtles. As Gwylifar has no interest in that struggle, I've learned very little about it in character, so I don't know how well that applies. So let me ruminate in the dark a little and hope something comes of it.

Queen Maeve is sick of all the noise, all the blood, and all the interlopers. So she declares one day that things are going to change. "I have decided that I will grant my blessing to Mother Night or Mother Moon for a longer time, so I can better come to understand the ramifications, before I open myself to reconsider my decision." (Does Maeve speak in the royal "we"?) "For seven times seven times seven days shall I follow one path, contemplating in peace. My knights will defend the peace; any within my lands who disturb the peace by attacking any of my citizens will be called our enemy, and my knights will grant them no mercy. During this time, you may make such agreements with my citizens as they see fit, luring them with honeycakes to this side or that, provided none are harmed, and by this action, your Trees of Power may be made stronger. But no champions will arise from this act.

"When my contemplations are concluded, I will so decree that I am prepared to consider again the question. I will forget all enemies of my realm, so that all may prosecute their pursuits of my favor afresh. Then may you serve the wishes of your avatars without the interference of my knights, and raise your champions. Mother Night will wish my citizens taken to her through the portal of death, which will raise the dark champions; while Mother Moon will wish them taken by sweet charms, whcih will raise the silver ladies. For seven times seven days will I allow this trial, during which I will judge the merit of effort in both sides. At the end of seven times seven days will the champions clash, as they have before, and then begins another time of peace, another turn of the wheel, for me to contemplate the results of the struggle."

Okay, I couldn't resist doing that in a sort of in-character way, and as I have yet to learn much of anything about the sceptre part of the quest, I didn't account for that, but that's my idea for how the time could be broken up into raiding-time and quiet-time without eliminating the power quest, but without the power quest being a war.

My two cents on the Ethereal subject.

Remove the ability for Aquamancers and Geomancers to meld in Faethorn. This reduces the ability to help that Magnagora and Celest can provide and is quite reasonable in the fact that Ethereal, at least in Faethorn, should be able to resist the magics of Mages, just as Earth and Water resist similar magics.

the egg

Hell yes!

Odd, I thought that was already done a long time ago.

I fully agree about the demensing - when you're trying to protect something, you should have a home-field advantage. This would give us (Serenwilde AND Glomdoring) that, and require little alteration to the game.

I think that just as Glomdoring is supposed to be a foil for Serenwilde (and Hallifax a foil for Gaudiguch) Magnagora is suposed to be a foil for New Celest. However, as you have said, Celest is on the bottom of the pile, and has been there for a long, long time. Magnagora, at the top, is very unsuited to conflict with them (because magnagora will always win). So, Magnagora turns to the other Powerful nation, Serenwilde, for conflict.

If Celest gained power (get Haja to start making people learn how to fight), then Magnagora would be more seprate from this conflict.

I think so, at least.

good ideas!! go gregori!!

I love the idea, but I think the duration of the battle should be more along the lines of 'three times three times three' rather than seven times seven - one day of constant non-stop fighting is violent enough

Someone explain that?

THe only problem is we HAVE to kill the fae.

The only reason I don't throw a fit over Celest helping us it the fact that we need their help if we're going to beat Mag + Glom, depending on whose fighters are around at the time.

Mages not being able to meld Ethereal would go a long way towards helping, I think.

And splitting them into seperate areas and having a non-standard exit just makes the exits more of a chokepoint. You wouldn't be able to attack over the border, but you also couldn't look out to see who's there, and I can see it being a lot easier to siege the opposing forest. Here, we can get out with flying, through the trees, etc. With a choke point that narrow, you could make it so no one without Serpent could get in or out.

You people realize that this is.. a game?

So how many hours do you have logged on?

Holy canoly man..if you can't say something in two or three short paragraphs, don't at all!

Ok, can mortals have orders? Because I want to follow you. :worship: (But Lisaera is still wonderful too!)

That is exactly what I think we need, and Sylphas is absolutely correct when he says these archways will not reduce the conflict, only make it easier to siege.

I agree with almost everything else Gwylifar has said about Glomdorings position in the political balance, particularly about Viravain trying to push them in a direction that is counter to every ounce of their history, environment and approach.