Delete/Release ideas are some of the stupidest ideas ever.

Even entertaining the thought for a moment that bards/monks got deleted for a new Org, the only thing you are doing is introducing a new set of unbalanced issues to deal with. Three new guilds with their own skills needing balancing, 12 new guard types, with their own issues, new discretionaries to cry about. New elemental/cosmic/ethereal zones all with months of balancing to look foward to. On top of the 'baby org' syndrome of being raped by people who think you are all idiots and need a good thrashing, or being brown nosed by everyone who wants another ally.


Seriously... all you people who play the delete/release card need to get a better grade of crack.

None of the current options look appealing....

Oooh, ooh, idea. Allow Great Houses to align themselves with a specific guild in the commune, and in doing so, all family members of that guild will get something. Maybe generate additional prestige, or something.


Familyfamilyfamily. And Azoth, scrapping the entire system would make me cry. I love it so much, even in all its flawed glory, and I NEED to get to Great House. Mustmustmust.


Also, I agree with Xenthos, and this is something I've wanted for a long time. Allowing families to merge with other families. Maybe keep it to where four or less is merge-able but anything more is no. That way people who start families but lose interest in building them up can simply link up with a bigger more effective fam. Squeeeeeee.

The family system is wack.
The point of it is to see who can whore the most newbies off the portal (coughtalnaracoughmes'ardcoughdekoven)

Not really. You'll find that many of the people in the Great Houses actually turned out to be some of the more influential people in Lusternia.

Yeah, that's not the reason it's bad at all.

You are arguing with Munsia. Just sayin'

I think you got your cause and effect mixed up there.

Nope

Considering it took both Mes'ard and Talnara 4 RL years to get Great House... I am pretty sure there was limited "whoring newbies off the portal". I won't say there was none at all in some circumstances, but given how fast both familes could have got Great House, compared to how fast they did get Great House means there was very little of it.

In comparison to another Great House out there.

Can we please not have a family argument over city aethers public forums?

Don't make me dig up our Aim logs.

I don't care what people say about Illithoids not being able to influence, they should still be able to have SOME chance in village revolts, even with trans influence (Charismaticaura) I still struggle against upper named denizens. So I think it would be fun if Kephera and Illithoid could be considered a secondary city/commune race, which is how they were positioned and would work well if Hallifax, gaudiguch or Ackleberry were implemented. It could even be something as minor as a -2 adjustment from least relevant skill (or two) to something more useful depending on guild. There are precedents as well, since important illithoids show some variance and aren't all razor-reflexed bastards with low intelligence or charisma. So I would like to vote races as I think it could be improved on..

...but I voted families. I agree with prior comments in almost all regards, except for Gregori's suggestion of double voting weight at a certain mass, as that seems a bit like an invitation for abuse and a self-perpetuating control of an organisation (not that I would be adverse to it myself given Astraea's scheming, which I adore her for). Smaller houses would allow greater involvement, which besides making more people vested in the system, would allow Glom a chance for a bannerhouse at the very least, which I think would be good for the culture of the commune as the org that is effectively 1 year behind the others in family development.

Also, as was stated before, the current honour values are insane, if they reset every year or even decade it would allow a chance for catch-up, as it is, it is free power and influence for Serenwilde (I would raise a similar complaint over Dekoven, Mes'ard or d'Murani being the same position). There is no way to catch up and there is also no bottom for loss of honour. Families can go on a terminal decline. As it is n'Kylbar and several Magnagoran families have no chance in hell of breaking even short of a Talnara-esque resurgence. For the system to have any competitive value it should be re-evaluated regularly, maybe not yearly, but even every 5 or 10 years. Also, as Gregori and others have said, Barrin particularly before this topic, there has to be more ways to gain honour as a banner-house too, it is easy to slip if you don't keep growing.

So summarised!
- Illithoid and Kephera as secondary org races
- Families defined into 3 categories
- Regular assessment of family honour
- Bottom for family honour (and maybe top)
- More ways to gain honour as banner-house/lesser category

I think it has to cycle every 2 years or so, a decade is too long.

P.S I just want to note that it's hilarious that Talnaras are still only 1/3 of the way to getting a council vote or whatever

Does that not make a difference? With that and the huge number of charisma/influence buffs around, plus illdrain, I'd think illithoids would make passable influencers. And even if they're a little subpar, they're damn good at everything else. Can't excel in everything.

Just to point out... I didn't say double vote weight. I said increase vote weight, pretty sure I said increase it by a point too. So if your vote weight was 10 it would be 11.


This allows for periodic resets of family honour without tremendous loss incurred. Where as a council seat is a huge loss to a family.


it also makes more sense if there is more than 1 influential family in an Org. Where as all a council seat does is cause more competition for newbies which we don't want.

Level 3 bonus really has no impact when your base is so low. Illdrain makes no difference when you influence multiple denizens, you still have very low intelligence and getting those buffs to make one reach human charisma isn't really worth it when you can just bash instead, which not everyone wants to do without an additional cost. I am aware my class has charisma bonuses as well, but not every illithoid has access to them.

I'm not saying they need to excell, I'm saying they need to have some chance, they have the weakest charisma, but currently bonuses don't compensate for it.

EDIT: My apologies Gregori, that is quite reasonable and I would agree with it.
EDIT: A few errors too, I'm sorry, its been a long day!

I would like to see adoption changed so that one spouse can initiate the process and the other can veto in the consideration period. It would be ideal for people with less active spouses without making them have to divorce, which I think we can agree is pretty annoying.

Ultimately I would like to see two things.

Family honour/influence be basin wide since anything negative any member of the family does can negatively affect your family honour(i.e Ixchilgal loses us honour by killing someone, but he doesn't gain us honour by holding an elected seat (if he held one)), so by rights if the system is counting them for neg. honour it should be counting them for anything else. Elected seats, influence in their own nations (assuming the vote weight instead of council seat goes in), all of that.

Second, all this family discussion split into it's own thread at this point, because it is obvious there is enough interest in it that it should be looked at closely.

I would also like to point out that aside from the bugs being fixed, the family system is not that bad.

Those of us who love the Family aspect of Lusternia are really not asking for massive sweeping changes. Merely some flavour tweaks, and a better way of handling some things that we have watched be problems.

Edit:: To clarify "bugs being fixed" - I have an almost 1 year old bug that started off as an issue and was changed to a bug, about Dylara marrying Gregori and not being recognised by the family system. It is still sitting there, almost 1 year later. Now, her and gregori are not married anymore and the bug means nothing, but nobody has touched it. Again, not a combat breaking bug, but it shouldn't be sitting there untouched for almost 1 year. The family system may not be important to some people, but for others it is a very important aspect of the game. Heck, even if the code was hard to track down, it should have been dealt with as someone up there manually setting Dylara in the family and the bug commented as "being looked at" or something.

I know of another such bug with Geyra sitting there where she is pending in both Talanra and Mes'ard families, and has been for 3 rl months (since Shuyin left Serenwilde), and is being ignored.