Shattered Kingdoms

Scratch that, just have the guardians able to turn ethereal like bounty NPCs.

I would definitely support at least an email reminder prior to inactive char deletion or the removal of inactive deletions altogether. As for Cabals/Tribs, I would be all for removing flags for inactivity. Shouldn't be too hard to either notify your leader if you'll be inactive for a while or speak with/RP it out when you become active again.

An email reminder would be nice. It would be another good reason for people to keep their email up to date on their character. I used to have the mud server send certain emails to immortals. However, since moving to the new server, I've been having problems getting the mud to send any email at all and it hasn't been high on my priority list of things to debug.

I believe there is a limit to the number of people allowed in a cabal, but that number is sufficiently big that it's rarely hit. The reason I'd do this is two-fold. First, letting someone just idle in a cabal is a risk to help spread OOC information. They log on, take a quick look at the who list to see if xyz is a member and log off. Admittedly, this occasion is rare, but it will happen from time to time and will be a detriment to your players. I'm sure I'll raise hell for what I just said and people will chew me out for it, but whatever. More importantly, however, from my observation people that aren't active usually don't make an impact in the faction and sometimes feel like they're a bigger drain in the long run. I'm not saying my opinion on the matter is universal, just the way I feel, but, based on Gilgon's sentiments, I'm not the only one. Then again, this thread isn't about this, so let's get it back on track...

sleeper

I don't blame you for feeling this way. You're an experienced leader who has seen his share of BS. I'm pretty sure I agree with you about idling in a cabal. Its not doing the cabal any good, that's for certain. I don't think there is a hard limit on factions, I just don't like it when one faction is double the size of every other faction. If all cabals had 30 members, then a limit of 30 would be unnecessary. I think that I have warned the Harlequins in the past once or twice about being too large.

Speaking from experience, I did not log in 2 characters for 10 weeks, and both were still around. In fact, *gasps*, I still have that grumpy elf to this day.

Real life happens and you know that SK deletes characters after they have been inactive anywhere from 6-12 weeks. It really just depends. How hard is it to take 2 seconds to log in the character, type score, then log out? You have then saved your characters.

The email idea is great, realistically, but then there needs to be a way to change your email address if something happens and you lose the one you registered with.

I'd vote FOR a warning email prior to deletion.

I've suggest NO warning if a cabal member loses membership due to inactivity (although such a feature doesn't currently exist). This would create some more pain about investment / reinstatement etc.

The only reason this creates more pain about investment/reinstatement is because of the ridiculous oath breaker flag that serves no purpose other than to restrict roleplay.

"How hard is it to take 2 seconds to log in the character, type score, then log out?"

If you're travelling Europe or South America for a couple months, it can be a serious pain in the [REDACTED].
If you're in full-time graduate school- especially with a job, it can be a serious pain in the [REDACTED].
I'm sure there's any number of other reasons for other people that can make it a real pain in the [REDACTED].

I know this is more difficult for the full-time players, the highly devoted and valuable players to the game, to recognize, but for us part-time gamers, the people who have very little time to give to the game and who can only enjoy it as an occasional, recreational break, the current system can make it more of an obligation and a chore.

That's why I also qualify the complaint with the recognition that there are some people who don't want to deal with the part-timers at all, who want to play only with people who are around on a very regular basis.


I would have no complaint with cabal membership being stripped from inactive characters, though perhaps moreso with tribunal membership. People who play the kind of hours that I'm referring to really do not belong in cabals. I was around, as an immortal, when this system was implemented. The problem at the time that it was designed to address was specifically to clean up the VAST numbers of *TRULY* inactive characters who were clogging up memory space, who would pull the kind of antics sleeper refers to, and who were keeping probably 3/4 of the game's good equipment at the time stored offline and out of the hands of active players. All these issues have really been solved, the deletion aspect of it is unnecessary.

Inactive for 6 months? Fine, delete 'em. Otherwise, nobody else is hurt by letting the part-timers stick around and spend a year+ slowly trudging up the level ladder.

On this note, the way things are it has become more important for tribunal leaders to be active than cabal leaders.

I'm not suggesting trib leadership hours should be upped or any such, but keep in mind that a trib leader low on activity on peak hours = no pardons, whereas a cabal leader will just keep some people waiting for inductions a bit more.
This is why being greek, I will never run a tribunal leadership position again.

My suggestion is to work and improve on achernar's management of the fist, and make it for all cab/tribs.

High leader: 2 slots. can do everything, can tarnish another high leader. Can NOT uninduct leaders. Cannot be tarnished by leaders. Can promote someone to 'Leader'

Leader: Any # of slots, as many as needed. Can induct. Can uninduct anything under his rank. can tarnish other leader. Cannot remove tarnish from high leader. Cannot change diplomacy. Can banish/pardon.


Thoughts? Ideas?