I didn't sanc in the middle of getting owned until the worldburning started, then I just said screw it, I have it, may as well use it.

And I'm happy to stop using sanctuaries to cover demesnes, if the Geomancers stop as well. Sitting in a sanctuary yourself to protect it, however, will be dealth with if I know of it ingame.

Weren't pointless. Curiousity. You brought up the subject of the stars - I was just curious as to what they meant.

And, Geb. Wasn't one purpouse behind a large demesne was to allow a druid/mage to sleep in it, go dreamweaver, and dreamwhore people who were in it, without being directly in the line of attack.

One problem with Avechna extending to planes is the problem that used to be in villages.. when people were fighting for villages people began to come up with the idea that we'll just not attack this person so everytime he kills someone he basically locks himself out from PK. Valek used to be locked out of PK all the itme because people would just let the status stick on him for the full period.. that isnt a good idea to extend off plane.

The rioting idea is a good RP twist to destroy village effects. Perhaps you regain some power back you spent to encourage use a bit.

I like idea of Demesnes being changed up a bit to be less passive power.. I hate fact I gotta search through a demesne thats kicking my butt to find the mage and by time I get there, Geos especially, I'm starving to death/passing out/throwin off balance constantly.. I hate that crap, hunger is way to powerful a tool to be used passively and so quickly.

I'd like to see some form of "village" on the elemental planes - or one, somewhere in the middle of them. Not influenceable, but a series of quests (like Faethorn) that allows a city passive power gain. Like, their Elemental Lords taking control of it, basically.

And Avechna extending to planes is stupid, in my opinion. We're not protected by him there, and that's a goooood thing..

Some other people have already touched lightly on this subject, but the primary source of imbalance in Lusternia is actually the source material combined with the lack of perma-death.

While we don't have a good/evil dichotomy going on in name, we do have a de facto good/evil dichotomy.

New Celest/Serenwilde are described so as to attract people who don't relish conflict. Magnagora/Glomdoring are described so as to attract people who do relish conflict.

Now, in a world where there's no perma-death, the normal Machiavellian rules of 'hit 'em so hard they can't get back up' just don't apply, so normally pacificistic people can't lash out to defend themselves in one lethally frenzied flurry and have done with it, no matter how skilled they may be as warriors.

Conflicts are often decided more by how much someone enjoys the smell of blood in the modem than by simple power and intellect. ("What? Waste six bloody hours of my life fighting over some stinking village when I really come here for quiet role-play with my friends? I don't think so...")

That's really why Magnagora jumped out to an early domination of the political landscape and never let go of it. ("Like to brawl? Come join the Magnagora fight club! Please! You're our kind of people, just like it says on the official tourism brochure.")

Real life comes with checks and balances for this sort of thing. People who like to fight still win wars given equal resources, certainly, but they also tend to die young before the war even starts, and they're too preoccupied with squabbling to build up their infrastructures like the peace-loving communities.

To cite an imperfect analogy, consider the American Civil War. Not that the south necessarily liked to brawl more than the north did, but it did start the war with most of the best military minds in the nation firmly in its pocket. What it lacked the a sound industrial infrastructure of the north. The longer the war went on, the more it favored the north.

WWII played out much the same way. The elite military might of the Axis overextended its resources, while the U.S. was gearing up the economic might of half a continent to reinforce the flagging strength of its allies.

Barring the capability to strike a swift, decisive blow early on (which, in Lusternia, we can't), winning conflicts is about who can fight longest. And as well calculated as Lusternia is to keep power mechanically balanced between factions, the people who want to fight longest and the people who can fight longest are generally one and the same.

Sooooo... If you want to add more balance with less stress, my suggestions...

1) Find a way when someone dies in a meaningful conflict (like village influencing) to make them sit out the rest of the conflict. I don't know what would be best. Temporary ban on resurrection? Inflict some new sort of pacifism designed for the ocassion? Wish I could be more helpful, but that's the sort of thing that would help.

2) Increase the opportunity for- and impact of long-term strategic decisions on conflict. Think chess-game instead of battlefield frenzy.

In service of the latter suggestion, perhaps it would help to create a second set of resources to fight over like the villages, only one where you'd make like one set of decisions per RL day and be locked into them, not forced to hover constantly waiting for action. That way the brawlers could still brawl and the quiet, thoughtful people with limited time to participate could contribute, too.

I know that's still pretty vague, but I'm all out of time to reflect right now.

It's a lot more difficult for everyone but Magnagora specifically because of ghost. In other IRE games, angels/demons are able to trace blackwinded/astralforms and tell if they are raiding, there is no such ability here.

I think that most of us are getting away from the point of the thread, and solely focusing on villiages.

I think the thing we have to ask, is what is the source of the fighting? If it is villiages, then fine, we can debate that all day long in an attempt to fix the overall problem? But is that the only problem? Or do you guys find that there is too much conflict outside of that system as well?

Personally, I'd fall into the group that says "Hey, I'd rather sit here and RP with my friends, instead of go and lose 60%". That thought is admittedly ooc, but so are levels.

Here's an idea. When someone dies in an uninfluenced village - they're peaced. Bam. There you go. And have it set so that, when the village is finally influenced, the peace is dropped? I like the idea, anyway.

Once offensive abilities from shrines/demesnes stop working in sanctuary rooms, I think a lot of the problems will stop. Although for the NPCs to randomly unmeld rooms that are on the edge of a demesne would be useful, too.

See, I'm with you. But not everyone is - some people like the bashing aspect, and some people LOVE the PK aspects. So then you have to find a median for EVERYONE to be happy... And you can't. So you have to make people as happy as you can be, and tread lightly.

EDIT: So, really, I think Village influence needs to be looked at, and incentives for off-prime combat, really. Raiding is fine - but give more discretionary powers that could be of use (Instance, an ability for aquamancers only, that floods every room in their village/celestia, destroying any demesne inside NOT an aqua's). And make it so that the rooms aren't just flooded - they're drowning people, too, like the demesne ability. Makes waterwalk/breathe that much more useful to keep up, and not everyone does.

I think a lot of the villiage suggestions are too game-driven, and not real enough. Peacing people/villiages sounds a bit too shifty for me.

Me too, really. But so does sanctuary not stopping demesne abilities, magnagora/celest having chanters and bromide vials, while all the communes can do is stack ego-regen, and sip some bromides.

At least Est is stopping worldburn through sanctuary, eh?

Worldburn should go through -everything-.

Then again, shrines shouldn't nessecarily be used as an influencing tool either.

Shrines just shouldn't be able to be put in villages, or within a four-room distance.

There seem to be two other topics on thsi. *eyeshift* I'll refrain from posting on that subject anymore here.

Back to conflict as a whole!

Heh. Well, honestly, it seems to be: Demesnes, Villages, and off-plane not having any OVERWHELMINGLY good reason for fighting.

Perhaps make it so when an angelic being is given to a demonlord, it stays on Nil. Turn demons/angels that are cosmic-loyal into a commodity - kill them, give them t the enemy, visa-versa. And have them produce passive power.

Make elemental planes have some drawn-out quest for power, where whichever group has more Elemental Lords with sand, and does this variation of a quest, they control this central elemental region, which passively produces power.

The concept of peacing someone during village influence is not very intelligent, mainly because then it becomes a race to see who can kill each other fastest and it's quite possible all the influencers will end up dead.

Good.

It was just a suggestion on someone else's, of finding a way to make death = no influence for a time. I don't know. It's kind of like, "OMG Social Security sarks!" "What do we do?" "I don't know, fix it!" "HOW?!" "I DON'T KNOW, DO IT!" *stupid changes*

Hopefully Est an' the rEst'll come up w/ something.. =\\ Maybe make demesnes randomized, like a better version of contagion?

I think Lusternia is too hostile, and that villagers crying out for help should be on a military/police type of channel.

If the admin fear this would lead to a city/commune ignoring villages, why not have the police channel only exist if you have more than 1 village, maybe 2 villages. If you have only 1 village then you aren't broad enough for a police channel, and people will always know when their single village is being raided.

Besides that, the PvP is unbalanced in certain areas more than it is an overall skill imbalance. Lichdom is fine in most places, but Celest has no chance of killing a necromancer in the inner sea where their power quest is. Serenwilde's demense advantage in ethereal is annoying and wisp on ethereal ensures that there is no fair 1v1 combat there.

Lastly, as I say a lot really, there's too much emphasis on group PvP, which is not what this engine was meant to revolve around. Some kind of spam reduction as well as a weakening of summoning skills would be great I think. Making planar summon cost power was a good start but not thorough enough, I think demense summon and wisp need tweaking, improve mages in some way to compensate.

As far as making it impossible to meld in an uninfluenced village, this makes no sense.

I would suggest instead that there be "patriot" npcs that show up when a village is uninfluenced, and they are neutral mages who walk around breaking demenses. If you influence the patriot then he will not break your type of demense, but they change their minds quickly

EDIT: Killing the patriot detracts from the amount of influence you have over a village, making it take longer for you to gain control.

I think the main problem I noticed lately in Lusternia is the lack of modesty.
If something is halfway justifyable in game then it is done, no matter if it drives people away. It looks like as if some people think that they can win the game....but please realize, we play in a mud, you can't win the game as it never ends.
Only because it might have some strategic value doesn't mean that you have to do it, except of course the strategic goal is to piss off players, which I hope is not the case.
Anyway, I think that a lot of problems would get solved and balance out if you wouldn't do everything to screw your 'enemies'. after all they are just your enemies in game. Keep some modesty and a lot more people will still have fun.

Concerning demesnes I think that it would generally make sense if you could demesne only one area and not spread it over half of the basin, that would solve a lot of problems, especially those stupid huge demesnes that are unbreakable.

And concerning influencing villages...make them completely non-violent. Let the influencers take care of the villages and not the fighters.