Thanks to everyone who gave input. I'd like to point out that this discussion was prompted by some anecdotal conversations regarding levels of conflict. I was mostly looking for some small alterations to help the system we have be more player friendly. I was not looking for major revisions to skills or designing new quests or areas. Believe it or not, we are in the middle of at least three major coding projects and several building projects, and we simply cannot at this point put everything on hold to address this matter. Nevertheless, I've gone read through the majority of what you've said and come up with the following possible changes that are reasonably doable at this time.

POSSIBLE DEMESNE CHANGES
1. Standing in sanctuary negates demesne abilities just like if you were graced.
2. Demesnes gradually decay and die out if creator isn't within the realm.
3. Shrink the max size of a demesne by half.
4. Demesne effects limited to be within the same area as where the caster stands. This means that they have to worry about area-wide counter attacks, like local area summonings or local area long-range attacks. Also they can't sit outside the borders of the area where the demesne effects are going down.

POSSIBLE CHANGES FOR VILLAGES IN PLAY
1. Prevent any shrine power being activated, including worldburn in a village that is in play.
2. Have conglutination for everyone who dies in a village in play, same as if you died in your city/commune.
3. Make a 'balance' on laetitia so multiple laetitia castings are not stacked--only one counts.
4. Change the formula for calculating winning a village's sphere of influence to adjust based on the length of battle (simply to prevent drawn out battles).

POSSIBLE MISCELANEOUS CHANGES
1. Boost the strength of city/commune guards.
2. Change cries for help so only security/protectors hear it or make it configurable option available to players over level 30.
3. Make nexus investible powers able to be locked for the duration of control of the village. Add anti-burrowing and anti-ghost investible power (was the only suggestion I remember for a new one.)
4. Make serpent disappear upon physical movement.
5. Flow/willowisp only work in tainted forests if you specialize in Crow/Night (which prevents it from working in normal forests).

I like all of them. The only problem I'd honestly have is the cries for help - perhaps also add in people cr4 and above?

Awesome.

For the cries for help, I would suggest making a Ministry of Defense, and have Cr 3+, anyone in a position of power within the orgs, and the aides to the Minister of Defense hear it.

There isn't a Ministry of Defense. That's what guild security is for.

Sounds awesome.

The main reason I suggested something like Ministry of Defense, is that way those people in the city who aren't really high ranked can still hear the cries if they want, but it doesn't flood the Security/Protector spots with half the guild enrolled in them. It is easier to keep track of one big ministry for the city than having a two page help guildname.

Just to clarify, say I had Magnagora and the Blasted Lands demesned and set up effects if I was standing in Magnagora the effects would only work in the city and not the Blasted Lands and vice versa if I was in the Blasted Lands?

Sounds good.

Actually, we just had another good idea from one of the gods. What about just having it a configurable option, so players can turn it on/off at their discretion?

But why would you want it off in the first place? You'd have to be totally apathetic or just a novice, and even as a novice, you'd want to hear it to prepare for your later years.

What if you took something similiar to the city-army code from Achaea?

NO!

Hm. I wouldn't like that idea. Since soldiers are open PK to the soldiers of a warring nation, the thing that'll most likely happen is Magnagora will declare war on everywhere and kill everyone just for fun.

I kind of just meant the enrollment bit, and having them hear it. But whatev. I was innactive by then, so I don't know much about it. Obviously it was horrible. XD

Toggleable aether seems fine, too.

If you make it possible for players to turn it on/off then people with it off would be considered jerks I think, and governments would require people to keep it on, as opposed to if only fighter types can hear it

But it'd be nasty for Narsrim to raid when there's no security on. The few people that are on wouldn't know.

I would love that. There are a lot of people who aren't one of the big "names" who still want to be able to hear that stuff, and others who are "names" who don't. Furthermore, I would also suggest adding in a L30-50 level limit before this channel becomes available to you. There is not much use hearing the channels if you don't have the might to survive a sneeze by the raiders.

Aww, can we have a navy atleast?

I like those ideas. I'd prefer it if everyone were able to hear cries for help though.

All very good ideas that I think would work well. If part 4 means that demesne summon is only local area, that can also help to fix the other problem of demesne summoning an enemy into your city/areas from outside can't happen as well.



1 is good and essential I think after the silliness last time... 2 is possibly a good idea, but that would somewhat reduce ALL possibilities of influencing combat to zero really. I'm not sure if that is essential enough a step to take. It depends how much combat you want in the villages... if very little at all, then this point is good. If you want a bit, then allow the deaths as they are now, or perhaps reduce the exp loss to nearly zero so that killing someone will take them out of the village for a while as they pray but not have to worry about exp. Perhaps...

Laetitia balance? I don't like the sounds of that idea, but I think it's a good one. Too many chanters can make things a little too easy at times. Still, I think that's perhaps a bit overkill. As it is, Laetitia has a really fast balance more than you really need. Slowing its balance might also work. I would like to see something implemented that stopped MULTIPLE Laetitia chanters rather than slowing down the effect of a single chanter. Have the laetitia-balance idea you suggested work much faster for the original chanter, but have other chanters wait much longer to be able to chant... perhaps... these are just ideas.



Boosting guards... well... the strength of guards is less of an issue perhaps, it's more the tankiness of people. Some uber tanks can take the damage no problem. Guards should become more powerful faster over time I think, have a visible (to the defending city) way of seeing how powerful the guards actually are... that would be a fun idea to have guards you invest time into as well as money.

I don't see why you'd need to change cries so only protectors and security can hear it, but it's still a change I'd like to see, even if it just gives protectors/security more things to do. I can picture them just saying "Southgard attacked" on the city aether anyway though...

More nexus powers will be a good idea. Anti burrowing defences are a good thing... various things to hinder people leaving. Basically the problem is the current defences stop groups of people better than it stops individuals. Single people can jump in and out quickly... and it seems like a waste of power to use so much on a distortion to catch an enemy that might just ghost/serpent out through the doors anyway.