What about a combination of the two first ideas.

When the avatars or city/commune shield fall, the city/commune starts paying the org that defeated the avatar/shield payment money. While this money is being paid, the avatars are immpossible to kill. When the defeated city/commune wishes, they may stop payment, and the avatars will become vulnerable again.

this way, instead of the city/commune actively surrendering, they will automatically surrender, and it's just a question of if and when they want to actively stop payment.

((Another crazy idea here, but perhaps when a city is defeated, and they start payment, everyone who ever became enemied to that org because of killing guards or angels, or avatars or whatever, lose enemy status as part of the terms of the "payment" option. This way it's a sort of forced "reset button" on the conflict of sorts.))

Oddly enough, the more players restrain themselves, the higher the probability they will simply grow bored and stop playing. And by restrain I mean those who really enjoy conflict not participating as much as they would like in order to try and keep things "enjoyable".

I'd like to emphasize Romero's point from earlier.

There is no such thing as "forced RP." Now, obviously this has limits, but Administration, from my perspective, are responsible for keeping the game enjoyable. I believe this is a reasonable assumption. Possibly reducing the impact of the high end conflict quests reflects this, but this seems to address the issue in a round about way. More specifically, it addresses the result of the Lusternia's current state, as opposed to the problem.

Would it be "forced RP" for Lisaera to say "That's enough buddy, buddy with the city-folk. You guys are forgetting where you come from," or would it be underlining something that already exists but is not enforced?

You might try to have the gods encourage player restraint. It's not gonna come up on its own, but rather than gutting your mechanisms you could simply determine where enough is enough and try to stop it there.

But when is, say, Fain, going to step in and say enough is enough?

If you want to make dropping all the DLs harder (pretty much required for dropping the Necromentate), while still allowing people something to achieve (by dropping one or two), how about making the survivors stronger when each one is killed?

The first might only take 10 people to start scaling back (which is how it currently is, I think), the next 15, the next 20, the next 25, the last 30. Keep in mind that you'd need more than that number of people to actually kill them.

Alternatively, make the other DLs temporarily immune to attack (20min, maybe?) to give the defenders time to group up before you can just cycle through them all (for reference, the time between when Ashtorath was killed and Gorgulu was killed was 25 minutes).

Or ... keep the current immunity, but give an extra-long immunity (or buff?) for around the time they were killed (3-6hr before and after?) to avoid repeated killings while there's no-one around.

I believe I mentioned something like this in another thread. How Gods have complete control over the actions of their Order members and yet some Gods just look the other way, ignore it, or worse yet encourage it, then what do we have? Estarra coming and making threads about removing the very things that these Gods could have just said in one way or another "enough is enough".

Gods are Admins first and Gods second. They can choose to handle things in an IC manner and there is no reason certain Gods can't do it. Despite coming to the Forums and saying they basically condone any action their members take that furthers their goals.

Hey Look! Condoning any action leads to discussion about removing aspects of the game because of a lack of player restraint and nobody slapping them on the wrist when it is needed!

This is a good post. Celest has the same issue with Eventru, in that he constantly encourages raids on Magnagora (most particularly raids on the DLs, letting us know how ripe the Megalith is for the taking) but it's the players with no restraint? Not that I mind Eventru's enthusiasm, but whatever. I also refuse to believe that Magnagora has been getting reamed as terribly as it's been made to appear on forums, but then again, it -is- the forums.

Interesting point:

If players A, B, and C keep playing how they like to play, which is griefing and making the game miserable for everyone else, then Players D-Z are chased away.

If players A, B, and C are told "hey, you know, this really is a problem", get all huffy and leave, Players D-Z stay.

Seems like an acceptable loss to me if the griefers decide to take their toys and go home. Yes, the numbers can't be proven, but neither can yours. Telling the griefers to calm down a little may make them get all pissy and leave, but then again, it may not. The same applies to the reverse.

The suggestions aren't to stop raiding, it is to refine it. If being told you no longer have the ability to kill everything in sight every night for no other reason than "You want to" is enough to make you quit, see ya. The game is not about you, it's not about me, it's about all of us.

Yes, please.

I don't think you can separate "god" from "admin" as they are both important parts of person behind the name's duty. Nor do I think any player is in any position to judge the actions of an Administrator as right or wrong, beyond obvious misuses of power or the like.

It's easy to say "The gods should police players," but it's really not that simple. You can't blame this situation on a god enforcing their RP. Admin who have IC roles are also examples of RP for the rest of the player population and that is just as important to an RP heavy MUD as their OOC duties.

The problem is that players A, B, and C are more likely to spend a lot of money to support their habits... though D-Z are likely to pay small amounts (and some of them will pay large), you can pretty much count on A-C shelling out the bucks for their habit.

Then there's nothing that can be done. Trying to balance out a game while not thinking of game balance is pointless. If money is all that matters, let's stop discussing this and just let them go at it. If game balance is indeed important, then it must be accepted that the bullies will stop paying because "they no longer have their way". Everyone else who isn't having their way isn't going to threaten the Admin with it.

On the contrary. Admin are always admin. God is just a perk for being an admin.

I can quite easily judge the actions of an Admin when that/those admin(s) comes to the forums and say flat out 'I allow them to do whatever they want" then the following week the Head Admin comes to the forums and says "Because players are doing whatever they want, we need to step in and do something". This is not just a player problem this is an admin problem and maybe Estarra needs to audit the "gods" as much as be concerned about the mechanics affecting players.

I can come up with 10 different ways that any god in Lusternia could maintain their RP and still tell their Order members "it's time to chill a bit". Starting with accepting responsibility and ending with not saying every week "Go forth and slay the heathens I expect everything to fall dead at my feet"

preeech

That would be true if this were not a MUD with enforced RP, but it is so the God duties can't be dismissed.

I'm not sure what instance you are referring to, but I assume it was before my time. At any rate, I don't think Estarra is saying "because players are doing whatever they want, we have to step in."

Are you referring to eventru and the go forth and slay the heathens bit? I must admit that such an obvious promotion of raiding from a god might be a bit much in this particular instance, but as I am not terribly familiar with Eventru's RP and history, I can't state that as anything more than a questionable opinion.

More than that, A-C are usually leaders, figureheads, and organizers. A-C might be loathed in Magnagora but the whole reason that Celest's D-Z has something to do. Trading one active, involved person for ten casual, uninspiring characters is a horrible idea.

I stand corrected.

Still, I don't think the blame rests on the Gods for not altering their RP.

Your quote of Estarra can really go either way.

Estarra has always said that she prefers systems that are objective and mechanical, rather than having things which require a certain meta-game attitude to enforce it. Be it from players or from admin. Players and divine need to be able to play the game, not think about playing the game.