The Mountain Wars (all of the mining villages) went up in the middle of the day, and then Estelbar/Acknor went up late in the evening (using my local time, obviously).

I'm not sure how I feel about all this yet... I've only been semi-active lately, somewhat reluctantly, but nothing else to do and new stuff going on plus the new credit-binding system has got my interest.

I was around very briefly for Acknor/Estelbar and I was disappointed. Not so much because of the new changes themselves, but sort of that and how it combines with just.. the player dynamics. Celest had no real leadership present, and people didn't know wether to go for one or the other. That surprised me, actually, as when I was King, the idea, and the very fact that we took Acknor once caused a huge mess in the city which just added to the stress that caused me to sorta quit. The RP reasons that certain orgs favour certain villages leads to a lot of BS, and I think if anything needs changes, it might be in some other direction... like the possibility that a village will be more cooperative of the mindset or customs/traditions of a certain place depending on what the players do. Of course, the experiments with ending slavery in Acknor once also caused a ridiculous amount of turmoil.. leading me to really hate certain players.. but maybe if it were possible for controlling orgs to be able to influence a village's habits somehow.. so that there's no more or less desirable place for anyone depending on how they treat people there... I dunno.. maybe I'm just rambling..

The only thing that bothers me about the changes, and maybe I just don't fully understand the implications of all the new stuff yet... is that it might eventually lead to a horrible snowball effect where certain villages develop more feeling to the people in charge and will consistently be easier to influence. While I'm all for shorter influencing, and less influencing in general.. (Village influence struggles as they've been remind me partly of why I just don't want to play anymore) I don't really want to see quick sessions that reward the dominant team at the cost of anyone else having a "fair" chance.

I realize the whole issue is tricky, and lots and lots of tweaks in this and other areas have been tried out. It's all still a work in progress... but I dunno.. the whole stress-factor of the game seems to come from things you "have" to do... quests and other conditions that force conflict and competition, where the winners get rewarded and the losers punished. Nobody can really just chill and prosper slowly and quietly. It seems like the amount of forced conflict in Lusternia really sets it apart, and maybe that attracts some people, but maybe it turns off others, and the balance of it all is just... difficult to maintain... I liked how Pk was a long time ago, but a lot of the changes that have taken place over time to rules and skills.. meh.. I could do without.. I don't know how to say it.. it seems like with almost everything there's a Catch 22.. and just implementing new skills and things, it's not totally enough to make me truly hype about really spending my time/money on the game like I used to... There's basic balance issues that never got resolved, or resolved very poorly in my opinion.

I understand that it's all a huge task, from an administrative and coding point of view.. that you'll never be able to make all people happy at once.. that a few hardcore players may occasionally have far too much say in what is what.. that the dynamics of everything and everyone involved are a large task to deal with... and all-in-all I think the staff does thier best, and I'm glad that people are always working on making things better...
But I'm still concerned.. still not fully convinced that this is somewhere I want to be all the time again.. not blaming anyone, just saying.. maybe a lot of things, especially influence.. still need a lot of looking into.

Small note..........thanks for reminding me why I dislike reading your posts, Galv. You write too damn much.

Well, Daevos, you're one of the only people that creeps me out, as both a player and character, so I guess we're even.

I was only around for the Acknor/Estelbar revolt, and truly what made that interesting was that it was an inner struggle as well as a revolt. Most of our top influencers were wiped out, literally their players were tired from all the previous revolts that day, so while we had to fight to keep the village, we had to fight our own fatigue to get the job done. I don't know how it will be in the future, but at least I liked that revolt.

Erm, our influencers were fine in Estelbar. I didn't find it any more or less interesting than a normal revolt in Estelbar, except that there were a couple less Magnagorans for the first twenty minutes.

I seem to recall a few scattered messages about how people were tired of debating since they had already done so recently, and Aerenna for sure was ready to implode. That's just how I saw it.

Debaters are always tired of it, because few people like debating, and Aerenna is always ready to implode

I must say though that debating certainly is improved with the recent changes Now to make Divert cost 50% maxego....

Too true...

This looks like an intereresting change, hopefully I'll be able to catch a village influencing when I hop on sometimes soon.

Ya definitely long revolts are always tiring on me. I enjoy debating now that it's been fixed to not favor the defender however diverting, running from a debate, and having the terrain remain still is annoying to me...

In Estelbar I sat at Trundle for a long time and debated out almost everyone in the room just so they would quit diverting, after I finally had her all to myself others started flowing in just to divert and quickly flowed away as I tried to debate them... grr it was so frustrating because there was really nothing I could do about it

In my defence, all I did was climb into the trees instead of flowing...

You should trigger someone diverting to auto mindburst

If it's not peaced they would have thrown down sanctuary

EDIT: Ohh forgot about crusade! neat idea <3

Of course it annoys you - it isn't a 100% Athana-will-win situation. Debating is a relatively simple system, and the feasibility of anyone debating a level 99 faeling with highmagic buffs, throne, beauty, etc. is slim to none. So yes, instead of wasting my time in a situation predestined to lose because it just isn't possible to beat you debating given the simplicity and thus easy manipulation of the system, I opted to move-in/divert/move-out.

I really don't see how that's any more frustrating than the fact that you can not leave the room, influence, debate, and divert at the same f-ing time

Random note - Can flowing be considered an offensive action in peaced villages for my sanity...

No.

Yes.

Nature Flow is a non-violent skill. You can dream all you want, I sincerely doubt it will be changed in villages because then everyone could whine or complain that Laetitia, climb into trees, etc. should be too.

Furthermore, the idea is just misplaced. Why would a peace ritual make flowing as a spirit through the forest aggressive? Sorry, ain't gonna happen.

Why does Moonbeam work indoors?

Magic.

You can explain anything using the word "magic"!