This cached response that either statues must be made to behave like totems or totems like statues if any change is made is a false dilemma, and a pretty obvious one at that. There are a large number of possible changes that could be made to statues, and a large number of possible changes that could be made to totems and there is absolutely no reason why we should constrain ourselves to only consider that pair of tired and sub-optimal solutions when considering how to revise the functionality of either system. The quality of debate about the topic of statues and totems would be significantly improved if both sides of the issue would spend a bit of time considering why they immediately leap to that response and if there isn't a better solution that could be offered instead of merely filling in the pattern of "proposed change -> " regardless of the details of the proposed change and the validity of the cached response as a reply.

The suggested change, allowing Guild Champions to see and reassign the bond status of statues, is a good suggestion and one that would also be benefical if applied to totems. There's no real reason why organizations should be made to rely upon unelected, unappointed and unsupervised individuals to behave in a non-jerkish fashion when trying to set up statues and totems. It should be up to guild Security, just like guard placement and discretionaries usage is.

I disagree; I feel like statues have a whole lot more going for them in ease of use and maintenance (set-and-forget, and they all work), so if they have their few remaining downsides removed without touching totems' much-more-numerous issues... well, hmph to that, I say!

Totems lose their bond in a maximum of 12 days if someone QQs the Commune or the game entirely; they require nexus power to renew, someone can only have one bonded, and if that one totem is abused the admin tend to just blow it up. So because of these parts of the 'maintenance' issues having someone able to unbond it early wouldn't really add anything, just let me be able to go out and steal other people's totems from them. And kill their nests.

Hooray... :/

Only if statues generate power.

PS: And choke gets deleted.

Totems are power batteries that can be used for defense if you're really lucky. Statues are defense mechanisms. Maybe they should generate power if you're really lucky.

I think statues should crumble when the person leaves the org. As for dormancy, I don't see the need for any changes.

Statues are generally better than totems, in my opinion. Totems provide passive power gain yes, but it is a pittance, really (2k per rl day? How many days to raise a vernal? 1000 days for your first. Lol. 1000 more for your second. Lol. 2000 more for your.. yeah, nevermind) Of course, MUCH better than nothing, and for that, upkeeping them is a serious pain in the ass. For Lusternia, it fits the admin's agenda as one of many pain-in-the-ass grinding aspects.

However painful in the ass it is, though, it's not difficult. As a newbie, I earned favours by sweeping the forest every single time I logged on. (Sweeping = walking through every single forest room in the commune to check if any totem reverted.) It's a great motivator. Do enough sweeps, and not only do you get favours, you also get recognition and praise.

If statues, without their pain-in-the-ass upkeep is frustrating you, then you're doing it horribly wrong.

Although they don't generate any power, they require also very little upkeep. If you're having trouble doing it yourself, GET HELP. Keep projects that track statue bonds. Blacktalon (and I'm sure Hartstone) can do it ON TOP of their normal totem upkeep, so can you. Offer favours for work done. It doesn't cost you credits, nor pride, nor anything, really, to get your (few) newbies involved. If you haven't been tracking, now's a good time to start, and offering favours for it. Once you've pinpointed the problematic statues that need upkeeping in the few rare times they need upkeeping, get down to it when you have the time.

Don't worry, you can leave your statues that need upkeeping there for a bit if you want to. Unlike totems that revert, there's no pressing need to upkeep them so that enemies can't get to them... actually, if an enemy comes in and undoes a problematic statue for you, that'd even be good, huh?

Of course, a mechanical button to list every single bonded statue (and totem) that is available to the melder champion or administrator would be nice. And since Estarra likes mechanical, coded in stuff that reduces the need for admin intervention, you can email, issue, or envoy it, and probably have a good chance of success anyway. Bottom line is, it's really not difficult to do it yourself, but if you're too lazy to hand out favours, it'll probably be approved pretty fast anyway if you request it. Shrug.

What are the comparisons between the time it takes to carve and rune a totem, from tree to finished fully runed product, compared to the time it takes to build the statue, enchant and rune it?

5 RL days of maintenance, observation, and strolling around vs. 10 minutes of AFKing. You also need to do sweeps regularly, as Lerad said; or someone does!

If anyone strolls in and kicks it during those 5 days it resets the timer back to the beginning.

Further, nobody bothers to rune 95% of totems because they do nothing if not bonded and only one can be bonded to a user at a time (unlike statues).

At 3000 power per day, Serenwilde has accrued approximately seven and a half million power from totems since Lusternia's release. I can't remember Glomdoring's precise release date, but even Serenwilde's gains are a massive advantage over the cities. Hardly a pittance.

I'm curious how much power Magnagora has gotten from having their own elemental plane upon which they do not have to worry about discretionaries, etc. That's at least part of the reason for totems generating 'passive' power, there is no equivalent for having readily available respawning essence globs in their own territory (marked as enemy territory to foes, and so on).

Magnagora's gotten much more essence from Earth than other organizations have.

There's the whole discussion to be had on active vs. passive, but don't even try to pretend that it's just magical extra power for which other organizations have no alternate means of their own to accrue.

You also have to remember that in order to get that 7.5 million power, they have had to carve every single totem 200 times by now at (I think) 10% reserves per (I think Seren was around from the start? I wasn't around back then, unfortunately).

Hate to nitpick one part, but even more than Celest and Water...?

I'm fairly certain he means any other organization harvesting from Earth, not each city in respect to their own Elemental.

Water != Earth.

Celest definitely has not gotten more essence from Earth than Magnagora has!

I am actually pretty sure Air and Fire (sometimes 36-38) have more essence than Water and Earth (both at 36 essence flat).

I'm not sure why you are hammering on that 12 day period, it isn't that work intensive.

On the other hand I do not see a need to make maintaining statues easier either. If someone has 30 statues under his or her control that is a problem with your player leadership/organisation.

PS Statues are also used offensively and outside org territory. So making them crumble when someone leaves an org seems unfeasable.

Uh, if you don't think that having to regularly scan for elder trees to make sure that they are totems is not a fun way to spend one's day... well, that would be why I keep hammering on it.

unbounded totems are not the equivelant of enchanted statues. Bonded totems if I remember correctly do not revert.

Er, that's the point I've been making all along? Statues have so many advantages, some of them being exactly that. You can bond many at a time, and whether bonded / unbonded they do not revert.

It'd probably take a lot more coding than what the admins want to deal with, but they could make it so that it can only be attuned for an org if the person enchanting the statue is a member of the place. And then once they lose their citizenship, it triggers them to crumble.