Discuss the possibility of Group Rings here.

I am not sure it really adds to OOCness any more than me and my buddy going bashing and just talking OOC anyways (should we do so which we don't). Players here are pretty good about keeping IC channels IC and quick to jump all over anyone who brings OOC to an IC forum.

I'd like something like it. For the most part, I can't stand bashing alone, and incentive for others to hunt together is nice.

One idea could be that group rings simply share experience across the board without needing to control who gets the kill. Meanwhile members in covens could get a slight weighted damage bonus to their Moon/Night skills, and members in mindlinks to their Psionics or something.

Also, is there currently any bonus for being in the same hive? Like, at all, not just in the bashing sense.

For inferiority ... how about no cross-planar talking, even if you have the planar skills? Mindlinks, at least, have a notation as not being limited by planar distance.

If someone got separated from the group, you might need a way to tell if they have been (ie ring members might go "Esano (offplane)"), but beyond that I think using normal channels (e.g. tell or a clan) to pick them back up might help separate rings from everything else.

I think they should also be able to be infiltrated.

I was wondering if something like this was being thought of. Simply being able to declare that you are bashing together and therefor XP should be shared between you would be nice, even if it came with zero extra functionality.

I think Aetolia has something similar (webs?) that comes with a communication channel and shared exp when within the same area. Though, I think the XP should only be shared between group members within the same actual room.

I can absolutely get behind this concept, if it's what I think it is. For those of us who have never heard of a group ring, is it just a group of bashers who share experience and have a temporary channel like shipt or team? If that's all it is I think implementing it would be nice but there would have to be a bit more, since we basically already have that.

Bashing alone is, and always has been, extremely boring. If we did have group rings, maybe we could incorporate bards into them in a unique way, since many of their songs already affect group bashers.

edit: I want to be able to take a colossi up to astral and SMASH GOATS with it, perhaps each of my fellow bashers could control a part of it, and, once fused together, we could stomp around and destroy linked things while sparks fly everywhere

Bashers sharing XP...like, outside the room, but area-only? Otherwise it's just like FOLLOW. How do these work precisely on Imperian?

Just read the envoys thread, I see what they are now I think.

Ah, webs! I started here with a few other people from Aet and that was one of the big things we missed when we were hunting together, especially with the effect of wind on says. Webs are very useful for temporary groups for raids/combat/bashing, not just for xp but also for communication.

Making them more than just a temporary channel, with skill buffs to encourage group hunting, would be interesting to consider, but you'd have to make the boosts balanced quite carefully, because there would PK uses of the groupings.

Well obviously this would be exclusively for bashing and balanced around that, you wouldn't be able to use any bash-related benefits as pk-related benefits.

Thing with rings is, people can just follow one demigod and go afk and gain really nice experience really quickly. Rings split the experience gained by 50% for the first two people... and everyone else. So 10 people bashing, each person still gains 50% of the experience.

Just coming off WAR, now I'm having thoughts of abilities that benefit these things...

Did you see how that little scam ended on Imperian? Several lvl 100's shot back down to level 50.

If you know what's good for you, you wouldn't do it.

You don't have to afk for it to be broken if used that way.

Why not scale the experience then? That's how it works in Warcraft. Higher Levels do more work, get higher shares of XP. Or scale it by damage taken.

Also, I hear something similar happened here with nothing so dramatic as a level drain as punishment.

Experience does work like that.

There is a problem with "private" channels, however. There are many OOC clans, for example. Put together a little group with your friends as you're bashing along, and you suddenly have your own private clan. While many of us would enforce sanity in these situations, there would be a definite weakening of the IC/OOC barrier from others as they're much more directly given the option of doing both at the exact same time (discuss your hunting situation with only the people you're bashing with, and then refer to going AFK for dinner, all without any extra work). I think it's a valid concern.