Hi Everybody,

I need to preface this changelog post with a few major things, and I
need to ask each and every one of you to read over this wall of text
carefully.

This update includes major changes to code spanning across the entirety
of Lusternia. Guilds have been tied to everything in the game
intrinsically since 2004, both as a design choice and, as time went on,
a convenience. This is honestly one of the widest-reaching changesets
we've ever dropped, dwarfed only by the affliction overhaul thus far. As
such, there are likely going to be some problems because we are only
human and, due to the nature of this, we've really only had one set of
very busy eyes testing things. If you file a BUG related to the faction
changes, please MESSAGE IANIR with the bug number (not a copy of the
bug).

Our class system has, out of necessity, changed massively throughout
this event. Classes have been divorced from guilds both mechanically and
ideologically, and it's the mechanical that might cause a few issues off
the bat. You all have been given the equivalent of a free classflex.
Please, at your earliest convenience, type CLASSES and do CLASS SELECT
<class> to ensure you do not have future issues with things like
skillflexing, class-specific quests, and potentially other nefarious
issues that will infuriate you.

We are creating the Ministry of Security and Ministry of Education in
each organisation, and removing Ambassador. It is urgent that each city
apply themselves a working minister of education who is available to do
the job of managing the collegium as changes come out. As a note, the
collegium is being divorced from the now non-existent guild novicehood,
so you are encouraged to keep that in mind.

Finally the new guilds are not being loaded initially. Your cities and
communes will be deciding how to handle the release of their new guilds.
If your guilds do not show up immediately, give it time. Each org has
been given a week to get theirs up and running.

Elections are going to be disabled for guilds for about a week, at which
point the ability to contest a vacant position will be lowered to rank
1. This is to give you all time to get to know your guildmates and
discuss things, including direction and identity beyond the basics.

Guild assets will be handled as we are able. It takes a while, and only
Estarra and Ianir are able to manage certain aspects of it. If your
coffers seem low, just let it go. It'll get done as soon as possible.

If you are interested in requesting your old guild's newsposts/ghelps,
please talk to your org's patron. They will assign a single
representative to receive the data so it may be archived/distributed as
is deemed necesary by said representative. Books are going to be handled
by each org's patrons, but all are instructed to assist with books at
their discretion as we do not want to lose years of colleted
information.

It has been a pleasure working with all of you on this change, and I am
excited to see what all of you manage to do with this. We've all been
attached to a guild at one point, and it is hard to see them go, but
this is a time for growth, to direct a large portion of Lusternia as a
whole.

And now onto our normal changelog,
Ianir the Anomaly

---

o You are now able to see as far as you can speak on CWHO and GWHO. The
exception is manses, which are remaining hidden unless you are in said
manse due to AFK rules.

o Creation of the Ministry of Security. This is designed as an org
ministry to replace the guild positions of Champion and Security. All
relevant powers, including guard handling for all guard types, is
available to this ministry.

o Removal of the Ambassador ministry. We have felt this ministry has a
clouded purpose, being relegated to a newbie helper (and a subpar one at
that) with a name that sounds like they should be assisting in inter-org
affairs (and given the diplomacy summary privilege to do so).

o Creation of the Ministry of Education. This ministry is to replace the
Guild Administrator and Collegium Professor for all intents and purposes
relating to the collegium.

o COLLEGE SKILLS, COLLEGE SCORE, COLLEGE RIFT, and COLLEGE INV have been
given to the Minister and Aides of Education.

o The Ministry of Security, including all aides, now controls the
DIPLOMACY SUMMARY command.

o The RESCUE command has not been transferred from Champion. We rarely
see this used for anything beyond abuse and joking around. This will
remain an artifact power, but is not being transferred to the Ministry
of Security.

o Guildranks have been condensed (by default), and we are starting with
10 of them. A guild may purchase more via their org's patrons for 20000
+ 10000 * (number of paths).

o Guild paths have been added. These are cosmetic (though can be used in
guild quests, which will in essence lock the path to its current form)
and will show up in SCORE, HONOURS, and GWHO. Each path has their own
titles for each guild rank. Each guild can have up to 5, though is most
likely starting with 1 or 2. These can be purchased for 100000 + 10000 *
(number of guild ranks).

o Guild rank names can now easily be changed by patrons. The price has
been lowered to 10000 per rank.

o Guildfavours have been removed. Instead, we now have the GUILD PROMOTE
and GUILD DEMOTE commands which now work by entire rank steps instead of
using an invisible scaling point system.

o Guild honours are now going to be handled via in-game interactions
with objects or mobs rather than through a GM command. This can be done
via a monolith, your guild tutor, a weird new mob, a ledger book, or
however else you can dream of. This can be requested via your guild
patron.

o Secretary, Undersecretary, Security, Protector, and Archivist have
been removed.

o Guild positions have been created. These are customisable replacements
for Secretary/Security/Undersecretary/Protector that can be named.

o Guild privileges have been massively overhauled. A number of them can
be imbued (or not imbued) with a minimum rank within the guild rather
than being at set ranks. All privileges (except a few select
guildleader-only ones) may be imbued into positions.

o We have moved to a single guild leader position rather than a
triumvirate. This leader will hold the council seat as well as control
of the guild. They are recommended to delegate as much as possible to
avoid discontent and folks feeling they have no voice. Remember, this is
a game and there are other people behind the screen - powertripping
isn't fun for anybody but you.

o We will be issuing honours for the last guild leaders of their time
and the first of the new regimes after all elections resolve.

o Class and Race selection have been added to the intro.

o We have added a GUILD REQUEST system to assist in requesting changes
for your guild. This is considered OOC, same as messaging a patron, and
will record all comments. This includes a payment system for gold and
commodities so we don't have that awkward situation where you send a
message to the patron saying "The gold and commodities are in my pack"
and the gold gets mixed in with your personal gold and you forget how
much was meant for the patron so you don't want to take anything from it
but you really need to buy curatives so you log out for a bit and go do
other things only to have the commodities fall from your pakc when you
log out and the patron messages you asking where the commodities are and
you log in and are really confused and some random newbie is a few
thousand marble richer but the city commodity shop only buys it from
them for one gold per so your entire massive guild project just got
delayed for 3000 gold and you need to go spend another 60k to go fix it.

o The request system will be coming to cities soon. I actually forgot to
code it into their commands. Whoops!

o Classflexing costs and times have been lowered. Classflexing may be
done every 48 hours. This is halved if the class belongs to the same org
as you. It is also halved (stacking) if you have a Doctoral Tam. (24h if
one, 12h if both). The lesson cost is also the same at 200 lessons,
however flexing to a class within your org only has a cost of 100
lessons.

Penned by My hand on the 11th of Dioni, in the year 472 CE.