Yeah, as I said each order is distinctly unique, with certain aspects that fit your character in different ways. Ignoring org-membership, the differences between picking Raezon or Elostian are still big. And both have a certain draw that goes far beyond just Hallifax/Magnagora. Isune is in Celest, but she could just as well be in Serenwilde or Hallifax. Serenwilde knows to appreciate natural beauty, and Hallifax focus on both art and science, of which Isune would be Elostian's natural counterpart.

Honestly, I'm a bit sad that player-gods didn't work out. If they had, this wouldn't be a problem, because it'd be far easier to find a divine you could fit with. Still, Lendren found out better solutions than I.

The intent of my idea is to mitigate this without eliminating it, which is why it's limited to one and only one secondary affiliation. It might also encourage the formation of alliances between cities with compatible outlooks (and the subsequent pain when those alliances fall apart).

Just FYI, there was actually an event to decide whether Isune would join Glom. If we had won, she'd be a part of Glomdoring's pantheon right now, according to the event details.

Also, Elostian once tried to join Glom's pantheon ICly, there was a whole big bug-a-boo about whether or not we should allow him given the differences in his teachings vs. commune ideology (Glomdoring decided "No"), but it did happen.

Perk for orders:

Custom influence messages for (same org) Order members, i.e. Mayleans get customized empower messages or something.

Or, more of an impact, Order members get a special influencing type, like village influencing, you get more attacks as your rank increases. All mob personalities are neutral to it and it is unaffected by type-specific influencing buffs (scents, beast influence, etc). Either each successful influence generates the essence for you god that offering it would have, but you get no esteem (to stop doubling up), or it generates a pittance in essence and gives full esteem, so it's an increase but not huge.

Event rule 1, Xenthos.

It didn't work that time. Maybe that's the event Estarra is referring to when she says that events don't all screw over Celest.

No, that was event rule 2. And it did screw Celest in the end. How long did that Isune last?

I thought biting Celest in the tush was Event Rule 0, and Reinforcing the Status Quo was Rule 1.

The problem with Order Affinity, aside from the complete lack of any RP sense at all, is that it punishes players for doing something they weren't told, or even hinted to be adhering to.

The argument that "each god picks an organization for a reason" is a flimsy excuse on the face of it, because every -player- does the same thing. Now, admittedly, gods tend to be more stable in their organizational roles, but that doesn't mean they embody, or even agree with every tenant of the organization in question - just as players don't.

As was pointed out earlier, the game isn't suffering from a glut of Fainites in Celest, or Virivainites in Serenwilde. Sure, there's probably a couple - but those couple are likely Super Ultra Secret Ninjas anyways, who weren't 'officially' in the Orders, acting as spies or the like. Which means this had Zero Impact on them.

What this -did- have an impact on is individuals in orders that were cross-compatable (which shouldn't be penalized in the first place), and individuals in orders who just joined the new organizations (which is something that should have been dealt with in an RP fashion, not a mechanical one).

Too many Fainites in Gaudiguch? Have Kalikai make her order start purging them. Either by conversion, voting them out of power and replacing them with...well, -anyone- else, or by all out war (Not recommended, giving the crushing potential Fain has over Kalikai right now). Sure, it'll take a bit of time to deal with it, and you might never get rid of some of the more powerful influences...but you can certainly deal with the vast majority of the problems, and wouldn't it be great if there was some RP in the game that didn't boil down to "You aren't from my city, so you have to be my enemy. It doesn't matter that we share compatable ideaologies, it only matters that your name is red, when I only like orange."

I agree, the vast majority of order members should be in the order affiliated with that divine - but again, this is something that should have been dealt with in game, by the gods, before bad, and illogical mechanics were implemented to fix the problem. The player base is now being punished for the failures of the administration.

And none of this matters, because none of the administration gives a crap. And for all the arguments otherwise, it's demonstrated time and time and time again with asinine changes to the game that were poorly thought out, hugely unpopular because of the lack of thought involved....and kept anyways, because it would be a terrible crime to ever admit having made a mistake.

This is true. I had written a similar long post about this being a fairly meaningless punishment mechanic, and didn't bother posting it for some of the other reasons you mentioned... but this is what it comes down to. Well said.

At the same time, the last time they had Divine being heavy-handed and mandating such things... well, it didn't turn out so well, either. And I know some of the Gods (Fain, in this instance) have professed a desire to not try to force people to do things they don't want to as that would lead to a revolt.

I know there would be at least some resistance to such perceived "heavy handedness," just as there is to this.

Neither choice was likely to garner much in the way of player support, IMO.

The fundamental difference being, that if you join an Order (much like joining a Guild or City/Commune), you are expected to follow the instructions of your leadership wether or not you agree with them. The difference being, in this case, the 'superiors' are the gods themselves. If you don't feel their heavy handed nature was justified, too bad - that's where RP comes in.

There is zero RP for Affinity. There is zero logic for Affinity. It punishes everyone, even people who shouldn't be punished, and it does it in a way where you don't even get to convince yourself that any sort of progress was made from it.

The arguments for what Affinity contributes to the game are all pathetically inadequate against what it takes from the game. And this simply proves my previous point about the administration (Or at least, they administration who makes the final decisions) not caring.

It's a mechanic with questionable purpose, designed as if to deliberately frustrate players. There is little regard for the inactive or multi-organizational orders/Divine given in this mechanic.

The administration has been petitioned for reasoning behind this several times- they refused to answer.
The players have petitioned to reverse this mechanic- they have refused to reverse it.

Honestly, talk about it all you want- it's a bad decision, it has been elaborated on why this is a bad decision, but the Administration isn't going to either own up or bother touching it no matter how much conversation goes on, civil or otherwise.

This is exactly what is happening though, but on the wrong end. The mechanics are now forcing people on an OOC level to do something they don't want to do. If I had to choose, I would rather that people be forced IC than OOC.

Right, since this thread is already descending into an 'affinity is crap' thread, I am closing it. This sort of feedback is not constructive and not contributing to a solution. Hopefully next time someone tries the passions will have cooled enough to hold a civilized discussion.

A pity, I was hoping for some good ideas.