Oh... that's not part of the game's fundamental architecture; what I meant was that complaining about the very way the god/admin relationship is set up seems to be futile. I very much think it is possible for the admin to limit their zaps... although, last time someone tried to use more creative and interesting punishment, he was chastised for it even though the player was enjoying the roleplay attention.

Considering how utterly stupid mortals can be at certain times, yes I know that certain people even log on drunk sometimes, any god would be very foolish to give this proposed overreaching zap protection, even worse to give some sort of disfavor projection. Yes Terentia and Morg I think are feuding right now, or were the last time I checked, but they're still cousins, bound by certain conventions as Elders, but we are as pawns to them, or ants to be watched over at BEST. If you have 2 million ants to watch over, do you care if it rains and 500 of them die, with hundreds being laid anew each day, and their lifespan being less then a year?

Do any of you actually GO outside and watch ants in the summer time? Watch a long line of them travel over a few blocks of the sidewalk for hours on end. Carrying miniscule bits of grass seed to some nearby nest. Whichever god made the analogy was spot-on. I also think with all of these demigods floating around some people are forgetting the gap between mortals and the Elders. "Oh look bob that ant is talking smack to the ants around it because it's a quarter of a milimeter bigger, isn't that so funny?"

Honestly, how hard is it to show the smallest amount of grudging respect for a being that can or even has shown His or Her awesome might to you in the past. Don't give me that "oh but I wouldn't..." either, even the most arrogant, ignorant, immature, and brash character would eventually get it into their head: “Hey maybe I should temper myself a tiny bit when insulting this Being, as They’ve smote me down fifty times in the last year, and I’ve been constantly seated deep in Their ill will.”

Where favours and disfavours effect skills, they seem to do it by %. Thus. Terentia disfavours Aiakon - he loses 10% of planar. He has 90% planar. Fain favours Aiakon, he gains 10% of the 90%, giving him 99% - but he's still lost conglut. In other words, to combat the skill loss - which is the one area of disfavours I object to (the rest is fine as far as I'm concerned), you need two favours against the one - so according to my observations, it doesn't quite work as you're suggesting.

Again - agreed. I want to see a protection idea for zaps, really. And because I think it could look really cool with a set of prettily written plane msgs.



Agreed.



Eh? If you splatter personal attacks across the forums, yes. If you go for OOC abuse in game, Yes. But RPing your character's disdain? (N.B - I don't mean retarded shouts - that's not RPing at all. It's being retarded) That's something the roleplaying god should and -must- accept. Any God who takes that personally and can't deal with it.. should have a good think about why they're doing what they're doing.



Again, you're making the assumption that I wish to nerf the Divine's perogative to spank retarded shouts. Please do -not- put me in the 'extrememly disrespectful and blatantly rude behaviour' camp. I do not play Aiakon in order to be gratuitously rude, and I do not have any over-arching OOC agenda like you imply in your second sentence.

Furthermore, your argument seems to be based on the premise that I am attempting to nerf Divine powers entirely, and that under my suggestions the Divine will not be able to take action where appropriate to preserve their roles. This is not the case.

I do disagree with this actually. I understand that it can be difficult to RP a certain style of player when the punishments for doing so are so severe. At the same time though, the punishments SHOULD be severe. It's very difficult to tell the difference between a player who is really RPing something and a player that is just being a jerk. And really, why should a player be able to RP disrespect towards a being so much more powerful than them and not be crippled by it? RPing something like that should have consequences and I applaud those who are willing to accept those consequences and stay true to their character. Lessening the consequences just cheapens the RP.

I would actually be in favor of the opposite. More painful punishments! Or at least more effective or creative. Muted and tossed onto some drifting aetherbubble until they begged for forgiveness anyone?

If a player truly wishes some meaningful interaction with a divine of a less painful manner than that player could always contact the god player oocly, explain what they are trying to accomplish, what their character is, etc. The god player could then explain what the limits are for their character's interaction with the mortal and they could work something out. This sort of RP is a very delicate sort that should not just be something any newbie picks up and runs with.

On a side note, it's quite possible the punishments are this harsh for a reason. As much fun as I'm sure it is for a god to have to regularly deal with the terribly creative RP of "haha I called that god a name!!!" possibly they get tired of it and their intent IS to crush this sort of RP. I don't really see a problem with that. Our admin players sanity is worth more than the opportunity to RP being disdainful of gods.

Presumably you'd still care about your senior order members?

We'll just have to agree to disagree.



This I like. Creative punishments = excellent. In your scenario, it also creates the prospect of Divine interaction before mortal eyes. Aiakon irritates Terentia, Terentia throws him in a bubble and mutes him. Fain, approving of his servant's actions.. and the devotion shown by the servant who is willing to suffer in such a way for him, rescues in a daring raid of exciting colourful emotes.

Great!

And by the same token, disfavour which cripples you... not great.



Actually, not a bad idea. But it runs in the face of spontaneous RP.



Under my definition, that -isn't- RP. In fact, I've been referring to it as 'retarded behaviour'. I don't want a flowering of that sort of thing: if you're interacting with a God as a mortal, you have to be constantly conscious, as a player, of the monumental difference between you. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you have no right to be publicly opposing a god unless you are the representative of a different God, and you're acting for him as a proxy.

Yes... let's punish players by making the game less fun for them. Let's curtail roleplay options. Let's make the gods look like capricious dolts... brilliant idea right there.

You're assuming Gods are accessible OOCly in Lusternia. They're not.

Really, high-visibility, high-activity gods are a liability to the game's environment unless they're very ICly limited in the ways they can directly interfere with mortal life. It creates a massive imbalance when everything the players can hope to accomplish can be totally nullified and ignored by stupidly powerful IC entities which can and do meddle.

I have to say, again, the I dislike the whole cousin crap. Jeez. It makes it seem that Estarra's law agaisnt no Elders fighting was a joke.

A god does not NEED you acting as their proxy. Their interactions with one another and their disputes with one another have nothing to do with mortals. It is akin to me to two chess masters engaging in a complex and stressful match and their supporters deciding to heckle their opponent or constantly poke them with small little needles. Why in the world would they support or reward that sort of thing? It would just be flat out embarassing honestly. "Please excuse my pets, I haven't housebroken them yet."

Your mortals are there to provide essence and the occasional amusing conversation. They're not there to fight your battles for you and you're not there to fight their battles for them. If they're going to engage in silly behavior towards another god well, it's tragic that mortals are so bloody stupid but what are you going to do? Helping them just makes you look bad back home because you're supporting clearly stupid mortals and then next time someone else's mortal does something to really piss you off, you have to deal with their god possibly protecting them and who wants that? Best to just draw the line and be done with it.

Yes, they are accessible OOCly. In fact several have suggested you e-mail them using their Lusternia e-mails if you have ideas for some sort of RP involving them.

The gods are a control. I have not seen anyone hindered in what RP they could do because of the gods beyond the RP of being disrespectful to gods and even that is not hindered, merely of a very high consequence. But I'm sure you've seen this often...especially since you don't even play anymore....

I actually hold that the god punishments are rather fair and deserved. Below are comments on a couple common punishments.

Muting: Continued foolish remarks, those with histories of such, or one grossly wrong remark can land you in this bin. Don't like being muted? Fix yourself. Sometimes the muting can endure a bit too long, however.

Zapwarning: A simple reminder to watch your hind parts and respect the gods. No damage done on your character.

Zapping: Sure getting zapped leaves you hurt experience wise and it takes a long time to recover, but that ensures that whatever you do to get zapped is actually worth the effort.

Disfavours: In all my time with IRE, I've only ever been disfavoured once. Sure it's not fun and "cripples" your character. Having no trans skills, no conglut, and the like isn't pleasant but it's not supposed to be. During the DF I was still very active, as opposed to saying "forget this, qq." Suffer the disfavour and learn from it, I believe.

These are my opinions, and some rationale behind punishments which as I metioned, are quite fair.

There is no substantive argument in this post; it's just subjective opinion. As a result, I'm not entirely sure what to say? We'll just have to agree to disagree?

Alternately, I can waste my lunch break addressing each point one by one.

"A god does not NEED you acting as their proxy." - I'll let the dictionary argue this for me, and then let you ponder why any god would be interested in wasting essence for avatar-dom under your the Catarin theory of ordermember usefulness.

Avatar:
1. Hindu Mythology. the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.
2. an embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life.

Proxy:
1. the agency, function, or power of a person authorized to act as the deputy or substitute for another.
2. the person so authorized; substitute; agent.


"Their interactions with one another and their disputes with one another have nothing to do with mortals. " - ICly, I can see and accept that point. OOCly, I have to wonder... what on earth is the point of them, then? What's the point of having orders at all? Estarra could just write little histories about what the Gods get up to without having any God players at all. This hands off approach will lead to a situation in which being in an order is -terrifically- bland. Consequentially, I can't accept it OOCly. How astonishingly dull to play a worshipper whose only function is to make witty conversation and offer essence.

"It is akin to me to two chess masters engaging in a complex and stressful match and their supporters deciding to heckle their opponent or constantly poke them with small little needles. Why in the world would they support or reward that sort of thing?" - Well, if it allowed them to win, they might. The Gods don't share an honourable, Terentian RP.. I hope that one or two of them might be dirty enough to approve of using any means possible to gain an advantage. This particular argument seems even more subjective than the last - it's not simply your point of view against mine, you're expanding your views of Terentia to encompass all Gods, no matter their RP.



Your views may work as far as Catarin & Terentia are concerned, but over in Magnagora.. Fain has repeatedly, over the decades made it clear that he has established himself in Magnagora because he regards Magnagora as the most powerful tool with which to do his work. We Magnagorans seem to have a rather more interesting spiritual function than you paint Celestians as having. In any event, as mentioned above, I can't accept this point of view because it will have such extraordinarily dull RP consequences. This thread is about making things more interesting, not taking the status quo and making it even more bland.

Whereas... pursuing a slightly more risqué RP, I have been disfavoured more times than I can count. I've even enjoyed two simultaneous truedisfavours at one stage.

Now this is the opportunity to flame me to a crisp... but I'd argue that in the majority of these cases, what I've been doing has not been overtly retarded.. but has rather been an appropriate exercise of roleplay. In this context, a punishment which stops you being of any use for a week.. and stops you doing anything which you might find fun.. seems excessive.

Learn what from it? Learn to make your character bland and quiet? Learn that if you want to take part in the RP antagonism between your god and another that you shouldn't? There's no learning to be done...



On the basis of your personal experiences with IRE, I accept your comments. However, taking your personal experiences and assuming that they are the same as everyone else's is no basis for an argument, especially when there are plenty of contrary views elsewhere on this thread. In other words, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not re-writing the various arguments against your observations - these have already been made. Perhaps you might read the thread at your leisure and discover them.

What an indescribably boring game you play, if this is your opinion.

MODERATOR: No personal attacks!

I think Aiakon has made some very reasonable observations and offered some interesting solutions. Why wouldn't this at least be considered?

I am unsure how my arguments are any more subjective than yours as you are utilizing your experiences with Fain to paint how all interaction with all divine should be in the future in order to further your idea of what makes for good rp.

You also seem to be missing the point that my entire post was directed specifically at the interaction between gods and mortal's involvement in that. Of course mortals do their gods bidding in various other ways for mortal type affairs. Your only argument that seems to actually address the god vs. god point directly is that not all gods are honorable and so would not mind having their mortals heckle the other god if it gave them some sort of advantage and I agree completely. But again, this sort of thing seems something that the players who are closest to that god might work out with them oocly and possibly with the other god's player as well.

Yes, it does hinder spontaneous RP but if this is part of who your character is, they're not going to spontaneously decide to start being disrespectful are they? There would have to be quite a buildup in that character's background to override the normal common sense instincts that prevent this sort of behavior. Any "spontaneous" manifestation of it would tend to be more along the lines of the "retarded behavior" that needs to be stamped out.

I will ignore the fact that you are being blantantly insulting and simply respond I suppose.

The statements were a general blanket observation of a high level view of what gods may consider their mortals to be useful for in terms of their struggles with other gods. Quite obviously, Catarin does not think this and considers her relationship with her goddess to be far more meaningful and complex.

His observations are reasonable. However, he stated he did not think there were any players that would disagree with this so it seems logical that if a player does disagree with this that they would state so and why lest his statement be taken as fact.

I accept that.



Again.. doesn't this sound rather dull? Bar the last sentence.. again - that's an option.



You're missing the point about spontaneity.

- Aiakon's roleplay is (in as far as possible) consistent.
- What is going on around him is not.
- Aiakon's behaviour is dependant on me applying his roleplay constants to the variables of circumstance.

Hence, Aiakon's behaviour changes - and spontaneity is important.

It does sound rather dull, I agree. But some types of RP demand this sort of thing. As I said in my first post in the thread, it's hard to tell the difference between someone who is being a jerk and someone who is genuinely roleplaying something useful.

If you change the rules across the board then it opens things for the people who are just being jerks to flourish more. To stop them from flourishing, the admin would have to take a heavier handed role in dealing with "IC" infractions since the IC god could not do so and chances are good some legitimate RPers would still be caught up in the net. I suppose I just do not see how this change could be made without causing a corresponding swell in the numbers of disrespectful people calling gods names and such.

It just seems more reasonable that the handful of players that really want to incorporate this as an important part of their character would work it out OOCly as several other players who want to RP something more controversial tend to do to avoid misunderstandings.

They "fixed" this in Aetolia so both would be 10% of the base, and thus cancel out properly, rather than 10% of the adjusted. No reason that couldn't be done here too; it's a question of whether that's wanted.

Upon thinking about this for a bit, I'm actually confounded as to why you would be insulted. By no means do I think you or your character are morons, but I do think it's very interesting that you have this kind of OOC view of god/mortal relations. I don't. I don't even a little, but perhaps this is something worth examining.

Have the god (or gods) you have followed in your IRE career made you or your character feel unimportant and insignificant? I would say in my experience, I have always been made to feel the very opposite, empowered by the relationship between my character and her chosen divinity.

This being said, I have never played a character who was disrespectful to any divinity without being given rp-induced and justified reasons, usually at my own chosen divine's request or goading. I think what is sad about the current issues with the Admin/God role is that by all sticking together as Admins (which they should), the fun of being pitted against one another as rp Gods is diminished to nothing, which makes Orders nothing more than another aether that we share with all the same people.