I'm vaguely insulted that you think I haven't been doing this anyway, has there ever been anything introduced to the Serenwilde or changed that I haven't roleplayed out with the commune? Very few festivals or anything like that in the commune don't have my help and involvement also. I used to regularly just start up these sorts of things, and even less noticeably perhaps I started up philosophical discussions on Serenwilde's ct (I am of the mind this is possibly the best roleplay you can ever do, as it requires you to think logically and analytically in a world that doesn't conform to the same principles as yours).

The reasons I fairly rarely do these things anymore are these:

A) Stupid players whining about how they take time away from them bashing.
B) Less and less people actually turning up and generally giving a crap.
C) Becoming too busy doing other things - all of which are eventually for the benefit of players, they might not be as glamorous as big events but they need doing.

It may be nice for you all to blame the admins, but speaking personally it has always been the players that got in the way of RP, especially if I tried to hand the reins to them, not us.

I think from here on I'm going to decide to do this: If it's not an idea that adds something and not just take away, or something fun, I'm not posting it. I read through complaints done by myself and others on this thread and others and keep thinking "I have no how what should be done.. I can't even tell what the real problem IS".


Thus my idea actualy syncs well with Murphy's: offer a 'win' situation to the war, a way for it to end SUCCESSFULLY on one side. You CAN'T permanently keep a war going forever because sooner or later one side will best the other side. At the moment Mag is beating Celest and hard, which is hurting Celest's players. Assuming that they can't find a way to recover:

Keeping the war left as it is will mean Mag keeps assaulting Celest over and over. Mag will get bored and Celest will be stuck in 'being beat' mode. Mag realy can't let Celest go because then Celest will just grow back and attack Mag all over again, then Mag, still being stronger will smash Celest down yet again. The alternative ending? Celest grows during the peace then starts beating Mag down, which makes Mag look like idiots.

Constantly tweaking the game to force the war to be balanced effectivly destroys the war. Why kill the unkillable? Why fight a war that you cannot win? Who can handle the constant, constant repeditive fighting that does nothing in the end?

Thus the solution is a success to the war: a true success. You don't need to destroy Celest completely, but there needs to be a point where everyone can sit back and say "It's over.. Magnagora has won". No, Celest will NOT like that. Some people may even leave, but the majority, after a moment, will say "It's over, it's finaly over!" Mag will cheer and have parties all year long. Celest will sigh and go "Well, at least the fighting has stopped", Glom and Seren will go "Blasted cities" and move on.

In fact, everyone will move on. We will just need something to move on to. Maybe Celest will have it's Star destroyed, but the destruction forms a shield that protects them. The shield can be Linked for power but the shield takes a LARGE amount of power to operate and cannot use villages or most of the other 'conflict' quests. Maybe Mag gains occupation of Celest and starts to taint it (thus people have the choice of accepting the taint or making one last struggle to free themselves). Maybe Celest just dies and a small community forms of the survivers.

But if Celest can't break ahead in the war then the war MUST end: the game, the RP, and our sanities, ask for it. Let the chapter end and let's start a new chapter. That's what stories are all about.

The problem is, some players will only see ultimate destruction as the goal. You can't have IRE destory the actual city--that's a lot of work. It throws off the balance of the archetypes. People should have the choice to start out being "classic good".

Also, we have to look at the churn effect. People don't play these games forever.

Note that Magnagora does NOT have to be ultimate domination. I saw them akin to a decadent Roman Empire with evil gods and demons. They may not always want war. It's too bad some don't see that interpretation.

There can be many shades of grey within the framework IRE setup for this realm. It's up to you to interpret it.

It doesn't have to be ultimate desruction: Celest doesn't have to die, or become crippled. However, we can't just make the sides peaceful and call it a day. That requires an overnight complete change to their RP, and yes, it's BOTH of them. BOTH cities have no reason to want the other to even exist and both have almost every reason in the book to want the other hit by a FF7 style Meteor. Even if they calmed down and started a treaty, the second one side attempts to enhance their beliefs the other will NOT like it and will either have to stop it or not stop it and wish they could. Eventualy one side won't stand it and the war starts again.

No one needs to die to a Meteor. No one needs to be converted, but the war must have an end point. It can be a point that we aren't even close to achieving, but there must be SOME point. End it with the birth of a Vernal God. End it with one side blowing up. End it with one side declaring "you may do what you want, we won't stop you". End it WITH the Meteor. End it with Estarra comming down and saying "THE WINNAR IS YOU!!!", but end it with SOMETHING.

Then we can start the next chaper, saying "After the taint wars, the world began to pick up the pieces...."

This is not saying the war is bad, but it will have alot more meaning and sense when we see it's final chapter.

I think there is a 5th option that isn't covered in this (though it could be argued that option 3 covers it). This gets into the game theory mechanics of it. In conflict quests right now, there is a winner that gains something and a loser that loses something. It's this latter part that causes bad experiences. This mathematical balance can be shifted. For example, there could be a conflict quest where whomever does the best gains, and everyone else loses nothing other than bragging rights, or maybe just loses a little bit. There could be a conflict quest where the best faction gets something and second best gets something less and any other participants get nothing. Etc., etc. This relieves the psychological burden of "If I don't participate in tihs treadmill quest then I hurt my city".

The worst part of losing all five supernals and being killed as I see it is not that the Star of Celest will be under attack, or that power supply from the pool might be limited, or that Magnagora might obtain more power by sucking it from the Pool of Stars, I mean look at the pool, it's at over 500 000 power, you won't even NOTICE the drain. I also can't imagine the celestines being overly upset by having to live without their imprinted abilities for a little while.

Tme main problem is seeing the cornerstone of your faith, the very simbol of your city be brutally slaughtered, disrespected, corrupted and pissed upon. The scrambling to reinstate them, as boring as it is, is not the end of the world. Having the entire realm laugh at you and taunt you for your inability to protect the things that your city treasures above everything else and seeing them slaughtered again as soon as you manage to raise the first one again, yes, I can definately understand why that causes people to pull the plug on their computer.

I do think Roark might actually be onto something here.

No, no. You're um.. getting ahead of yourself here. I'm not saying you're not doing anything. Heaven forbid I say anything like that since you've taken on ALL THREE Serenwilde guilds and still have the role of patron to do. I'm saying you shouldn't have to do the above so often (To literally spur up roleplay where players should be doing that on their own. It isn't right for you to have to stop your other duties for this constantly only to be stopped by whiners, as you said). People should do these things themselves, but you're right by mose of the fault lying in the playerbase and the fact that they'd rather play Lusternia like a console game.

I didn't mean to offend. Rather than that, I'm saying the players should have enough drive to do these things themselves (Like Gwylifar/Elryn/others). I guess I should be disappointed in the players who don't give a damn to exercise their right to roleplay (Which is why I said in another thread that I don't know a viable solution to this. While some people out there might jump for joy to have some denizen suddenly talk to them that shouldn't be the only reason to roleplay), and I just don't know the solution anymore.

If you'ld read what I'd written, you'ld see two things. First, yes Mags suck. But it's not their fault. I said that the ideal situation is Mag backs off. But, for the record, I don't think you will. Either because you're all such AVID role-players (Ahem) or because you're too thick headed/sadistic. I can't say I'd quit in that situation - actually, I would. But I find conflict to be rather remedial.

I blame the Kalodan because his public posts most likely drove everyone insane and plucked their eyes out. So, let's get rid of him and the situation will fix by itself!

Yep.

Thanks for all the responses! I didn't mean this poll to sound like a knee-jerk reaction, but in my darker hours I sometimes take to heart when I come across some posts on these forums that seem to accuse me of creating a world with deep design flaws insofar that conflict is driving players away. So, I finally wondered, maybe they're right. Maybe the majority of players really don't like the conflict and it is driving people away. Thus, I started this poll to give me, if nothing else, a reality check.

Anyway, since almost 90% of those who answered this poll want the conflict quests to stay, I am feeling somewhat vindicated (and relieved) that perhaps we have stayed on the right track after all. With over half wanting some adjustments to the conflicts we have (which is what we've been doing all along), please feel free to make specific suggestions to how you'd like to see the conflict quests change.

While I'd prefer to focus our coding talents on new skills, RP systems, games, and other goodies we have in the works, I'm more than willing to put them on hold to address issues of balance on conflict quests. Just keep in mind when submitting ideas, that small adjustments can be implemented easier than sweeping changes as quests can be more complex than you may realize--thus, the greater the change, the more time it will take away from our other projects (if that's a concern to you). For example, adding 5 quests to Nil and Celestia (depending on what they are) could conceivably put us a month off-track, while changing the Supernals and Demon Lords to be invincible for a year after their resurrection would take only a day.

I agree. And I cringe inside to think that the admin will have to spend time changing things internally to tone down the violence against Celest.

Everything is fine as it is. The villages, (except for permanent distortion. It's almost pointless to raid villages if you don't have ghost) our avatars, the supernals, demon lords, etc. It's the restraint and self control of the players (on all sides) that is the issue.

Restraint? Self-control? What the hell are these?

That was the point.

Now, for the constructive bit, I, personally, like to fight other people.
I know this isn't for everyone, and that everyone has an issue with someone's issues.
As such, I'm content to sit this one out, and wait for the dust to settle, and give it a few months before making any sort of comment, other than, so far so _____.

In that case, I definately vote for leaving things as is... at least until Druids get some treats.

Actually I am one of the few people who doesn't see the conflict so much bad as it is always easier to identify with the "bad guy" than an idealistic org. So many people get drawn to Magnagora for many reasons, and no matter what they say you can gaurantee that a good portion of that reason is because they see this military empire that goes out and squashes everyone. Who wouldn't want to be part of that?

Really it is more a numbers game than anything. If Celest had the same fighter spectrum as Magnagora this would not even be coming up. Maybe Celest needs to find ways to entice people to join them and develop their skills.

Yeah, they just need a player base. That's it. A healthy amount of numbers and fighters.

Have to agree with Gregori that the player base is the main problem, however I've seen many people leave Celest cause it's constantly under attack and Celest didn't have a victory in a long time.

Not many like being on the losing side (I personally think it's fun RP).

As for the supernal situation I think a sort of 'last ditch' attack should be included when it is raised again (the invinceble factor). For example should Magnagora manage to kill Raziela and Celest rises her again give her 10k damage a hit for one lusternian month so that those that try to play in Celest get a chance to recover. It can be removed after Celest has a sufficient playerbase.

Also make planar travel a thing to automaticly drop grace, I hate people running trough demesnes while graced so the enemy can't summon/demesne hit them. After all, all planes except Prime are supposed to be free PK, you are supposed to be deffed up BEFORE leaving prime.

I disagree with giving the Supernals more strength, and Magnagora's reward for killing all five was stupid. For the people who want Magnagora back off, Have Celest promise not to do anything to threaten Magnagora, and stay out of the village influencing game for a number of years. I hope none of the conflicts taken out, and I hope the supernals don't become invincble.

Don't know if Rhysus would do that.

Just as a random thought, I've noticed one of Magnagora's strengths tends to be not minding experience loss so much as other areas tend to. Because of that attitude, they're able to fearlessly test out various things in ways the rest of us are more reluctant to do. It's been demonstrated that Lich isn't responsible for that, or at least not solely responsible. Maybe experience loss isn't minded because it's easy/easier for them to regain? Was it the thread about novices where someone said that if a Magnagoran novice hadn't reached level 60 before graduation, they hadn't been trying?

If that is part of the difference, maybe it would help if other areas had things to give comparable-good experience?

Looking at the situation, I think the biggest thing that is needed are some City vs Commune conflict quests. All of the major conflict quests in place are Light vs Taint, helping polorize the conflict that way. I'd love to see the game politics shifted to be Magnagora and Celest vs Serenwilde and Glomdoring. Magnagora is the strongest right now - Celest is the weakest. The communes are in the middle. Doesn't this seem more balancing?

The things preventing such from happening are: the current RP of the organizations involved does support it (example: the severe animosity between the Moondancers and the Shadowdancers due to the Shadowdancers overt enslavement of the Fae), and the mechanics doesn't support it (example: the lack of City vs Commune conflict quests).

Yes, the Glomdoring vs Serenwidle conflict quest is currently disabled - but the lore is still there, and the quest is still there (it just doesn't do anything). The only thing close to a city vs commune quest is the Gorgog quest, which hurts both cities, but doesn't help us (as far as I understand it), but it makes no RP sense for us to summon the Gorgogs, then being kinda abomination-ish, and certainly looking to me like a crime against nature.


I love this game. Please do not take things away from it Add things! Things that let us be more dynamic! Allow the balance of power and the lines of alliance shift and change, without admin-instigated plot needed to catalyze them.