Right.

I guess I've strayed somewhat from the original idea of it being tilted in one city's favour. I'm not inclined to change things because one city dominates provided that domination is not due to some game imbalance (like if necromancy had the DARKCHANT ZAP spell and the best spell sacraments had was STARCHANT STINKYFART). One of many things I percieve based on the complaints that have arisen is that there are certain types of players that lack an outlet for their goals, and maybe most of those sorts player gravitate to certain cities.

If Magnagora dominates both because their players are more cohesive and better at organizing a campaign, well that's not intrinsic to game mechanics and that's just tough for the other cities until they build cohesion and start making alliances, etc. Perhaps what you would see, though, is players that do not want to get involved in PK would be more willing to be involved in influencing if in some cases it did not involve PK, and thus you may see more players working for their respective cities and not being demoralized at being forced into things they do not come to Lusternia to do. This is a broader goal and one which regardless of anything else a game should strive for: broader appeal, giving a broader amount of players an outlet to pursue that which they wish to pursue. And that is why I don't want to institute something that works for one player while possibly ruining something that currently works for another player, and hence why I'd like to preserve the violent PK for those who like to flourish it but contain it so that those who do not can more easily find outlets of enjoyment. (And similarly contain the passivity for those who prefer that since imposing peace on everyone is IMO on par with imposing totally unrestricted PK on everyone.)

I don't see this as being a tenable solution. Maybe it just doesn't appeal to me given its relatively arbitrary functionality, but I don't have a strong enough solution to posit at the moment either.

....I wanna STARCHANT STINKYFART.....

Erm, to be productive. It makes sense. Ackleberry is peaceful, loving, caring. Argueing and telling them "My city's the best!" MAKES sense. Maybe put in pre-dispositions for certain villages towards cities? Delport, Paavik for Celest, Stewartsville, Acknor, Angkrag for Magnagora, Estelbar and Shanthmark for Serenwilde... The two mining villages would be anti-Magnagora..

Shrug. Just thought. Glom's pretty up the creek there, but, yanno. Should be. I mean, a lot of those make SENSE, given the village's history. Heck, make Stewarts just nuetral, really, since they don't seem to have the disposition for anything - or easier for Glom. Give 'em a bone.

I'm still reading through page 3, so I don't know if this was addressed or not, but demesnes are extremely important to mages (aquamancers at least) as an aquamancer has improved influence ability in a Demesne. i can only assume that Druids and Geomancers posess this ability as well.

The problem it seems with village influencing (I wasn't there, but got to see a bit of what was happening before I went to work this morning) is that the demesnes spider about the village, and sanctuaries are used to hold the ends.

Limiting the number of rooms in a demesne is a good idea, but 10-20 seems perhaps a bit too much if you want to limit offensive abilities for demesnes. Limit it to just one room, the center, the first melded room. That way a mage can't use his demesne in a manner to 'run' several locations at once. this locks mages into a single location if monolith sigils are around, they won't be able to travel throughout the village to hop from denizen to denizen.

And msot aquamancer mages would be sitting in a sanctuaried room (most likely), so their offensive demesne abilities would be useless. And aside from the influence ability in aquamancy, no other skills would be useful aside from perhaps aquacast watch if they don't have thirdeye and a shrouded person enters the room.

Another problem with the setup Roark is suggesting is that it wouldn't change a thing for the violent villages or the neutral ones in times of violence. I don't think it's a good solution or frankly a solution at all.

You can't speak for most aquamancers in that regard. Most of the prominent aquamancers I have seen during influence time are moving around engaging enemies in their demesne, not sitting in a sanctuaried room.

I do agree that sanctuary should not be available to a room that has a demesne in it. It is not right that a mage/druid can have his or her demesne protected by simply having a few allies sanctuary weak(breakable) points in the demesne.

I maintain, forcetaint/forest/flood should be doable in a sanctuary, but not meld.

I'd like to see a few changes discussed and I will list them:

1. Demesnes be looked at in terms of influencing

2. Lich be weighed up in terms of how thoughtless it can make raiding by a Magnagoran. The rest of us think twice about it but they seem to be able to throw themselves into any conflict and not really care.

3. Add more areas for low to mid level experience gain. I'm talking from 15-55, I think. The worst time I've ever had in this game was weevling non stop after I was kicked from Newton until I was strong enough, as an Elfen, to kill other things. Even then I probably should have kept doing it for a few more levels, it was really risky at times to fight Rockeaters with 1500ish health.

4. A quest or a Karmic Blessing that gives you protection off-prime would be fab. It would mean you could not attack another player off prime and they could not attack you. Hmm, actually now that I think of it, this could be a huge problem considering the battle for Faethorn.

That will do for now.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet in all these posts, but a Major reason Glomdoring does not raid or even defend half the time is because we have no skill to help resurrect our fallen fighters. Celest, Serenwilde, and Magnagora all have these abilities to assist them are are used quite often which makes raiding far easiesr and less dangerous for them (except Geomancers).

Celest can do it too?

Celest has ressurection of the body, or if the spirit can get to Celest, someone can sacrifice themselves for conglutination-experience loss and rez the spirit.

I'd detest to find myself in a world were suddenly everyone is peaced, or hey someone seemd to suddenly become immune to danger... just as if that person weren't even here. It's too urealistic. Conflict, and being dragged into said conflict is something that just happens and should continue happening. I mean, if suddenly the place you live in a revolution outbreaks, no god sends a shield to protect you. You can flee the country or whatever, but you are not immune to whatever happens around you. Sure, Lusternia is a game, but it is supposed to emulate a fantasy world, yet magical peacing is far beyond fantasy for me... I'd say, if there were less severe conflicts that kept every side busy doing their own things, you would see a reduction in constant wars between sides (which seems to be the major issue).

Edit: An alternative to this peacing villages thing could be the following... Let's say Estalbar is peaceful and all, so at influencing times, those who focus on delivering carnage in that village suddenly find themselves with an IMMENSE difficulty to influence the village but still capable of doing so, also the villagers of this village could revolt faster. Also, let's say for example Shanthmark, a village of proud aslaran mystic warriors. Said village would be a normal village, both tolerant of violence/influencing methods, so the process remains the same as now. Or something like that, anything but apeacing villages. Edit: So lets say that a village like Ankrag suddenly revolts, to gain this village's loyalty you can only obtain it through battle thanks to the village being all warlike. In here how well you debate would be meaningless.

Oh ok. Well I guess it goes Magnagora-Serenwilde-Celest-Glomdoring, then.

I didn't know resurgem took no power, I would be happy for it to take 1 power from 5 coven members. I think that would be more fair.

Glomdoring should get the ability to call down the shadow of their fallen commune mate. The shadow then gets X amount of time to get back to its body for a resurgem-like exp loss..

I have to agree with most of what has already been said about conflict being a little too high for my liking.

In terms of villages - I'd love them to be either peaced or conglutinatable for all organizations, just so that its not only the people who don't care about losing days' worth of work who are willing to join in.

In terms of demesnes - This is actually one concept that I would like to see completely revisited, as at the moment they are both too powerful tactically, and too meaningless immersion-wise. Really, no-one cares any more that there is forest/taint/flood in the middle of nowhere EXCEPT as it relates to combat and how vulnerable/powerful you are. The fact a single mage or druid can cover half the basin with afflictions and damage is rather dangerous, I feel.

(I would actually like to go back to previous incarnations of the 'druid grove' idea and allow druids/mages to semi-permanently bond to a single location, but then at high levels of skill be able to move it around when they are fighting (ie, go and meld a single location in a village as your 'demesne' as well as any adjacent rooms, but no more). Make the forcetaint/flood/forest/infest a much more significant action somehow, and divide demesne abilities into those castable in relevant environment, and those castable only in your demesne.

Not very original or appropriate perhaps, but I'd like to see more role significance and less combat significance given to poor demesning.)

In terms of general conflict - I would like a more withdrawn approach to a number of the org vs org quests, both to lessen the appeal of constant raiding/counterquesting and to make it easier to maintain the morale of a quantitatively or qualitatively weaker organization. More emphasis could be placed on quests and obstacles (hopefully not mindless repetitive things) to improve your own position from within, rather than focusing on weakening others. Yes, violence and sabotage should definitely still play a role, but I don't think it needs to be as exclusive as it is now.

I hope this is mostly coherent... three hours of sleep tends to make me speak gibblish.

I strongly disagree, Elryn. I am very much against the idea of reverting to, for all intents and purpouses, permanent, single-room forests. It doesn't fit at all to a Mage, really. Maybe, MAYBE a druid, but druids communed with nature, not a single place in nature, which could be moved with a lot of difficulty...

Maybe, MAYBE if you dropped the rooms to like, 11 rooms, one of them being kind of a permanent spot, and the other 10 being "portable" rooms, that you could forcetaint/forest/flood then meld, and would respond to attack commands made solely from said semi-perm spot...

Still, it's cruddy, and ruins the idea of demesnes totally. Maybe give a high magic and a low-magic ability which dispells a demesne? Costs 1 power, works like force-, except it doesn't leave a meldable terrain, just reverts it to it's natural form?

EDIT: Disagreeing with the demesne bit. I totally agree - too much combat, and as someone else (quidgy?) said, it's really uneven, as far as ressurections go.

I like the concept of how demesnes are in Lusternia. Just make the demesne smaller in size, disappear when villages have revolted, and when people are demesning during times of influencing finding themselves with their demesne disappearing thanks to the doing of some smart villagers like someone suggested. By the way, the grove idea Elryn suggested is a bit too overused, imo.

It's exactly what demesnes are, they're just larger and more powerful.

But seriously, how significant are they? An entire village can be covered in soaring trees and bushes and plants and dangerous wild animals one day, then the next the entire place is reduced to tainted wasteland where the very air is corrupt and barren of life, then the next its completely flooded by a layer of ocean water that renders the ground unusuable... I just think they should mean something.

I don't deny I HATE demesne-wars, I personally find it one of the most frustrating and awful aspects of mage battle. Sneak into this side of taint demesne, forest forest forest, uh oh, they're tainting out my demesne back over there, run back fight, forest forest forest, oh now they're flooding that section away. Maybe theres a better way than what I suggested, but there are a -lot- of complaints about demesne's the way they are now.

Don't let Demesnes extend between Areas?