Shattered Kingdoms

For everyone who's avoiding tribs - why?

Personally for me it's a mix of meta (I'd rather people have to talk to me before attacking) and in-game (not sure cabal RP fits with trib, not sure character makes sense for a trib that's not the guardians).

What's holding up others?

the simple explanation: joining a tribunal further increases the odds that u exclude ur character from being able to join groups that r required nowadays to get the better gear. joining a cabal also eliminates options, but the rewards (5 new abilities) are much more significant than the rewards for joining a tribunal (getting a free pet).

given the relatively small size of the who lists recently and the other methods of exclusion - race, alignment, and in some situations class - it's just not wise to join a tribunal. the payoff doesn't come close to the drawbacks - unlike cabals that give u access to abilities that r often times better than base class abilities.

moving most of the good gear (i.e. armor and jewelry that has greater innate endowments) to the harder zones just isn't very practical when it's impossible most days to a make a group to go to those zones due to exclusionary factors like race, alignment, faction and class.

RP for myself. I would join a tribunal if the RP made sense.

I do miss the times when tribunals came only with benefits and no drawbacks, however. Losing access to tribunal spells, having your trib show on the who list, and getting automatically attacked in enemy capital cities (including Teron wtf?) isn't a "good" trade-off anymore with the ability to be law immune and have a bodyguard in your own territory. It's neutral in my eyes, with a stronger benefit for casters given that they otherwise don't have access to an easy meat shield for PK.

I realize, mechanically, why it makes sense that tribunals shouldn't be more rewarding than punishing, and I appreciate the fact that there's little "reason" to join the law instead of wanting to uphold the law. I guess I'm just waxing nostalgic on the days when joining a tribunal rewarded you as opposed to just punishing you in different ways.

I didn't realize all that, do you mean that tribunal members now get attacked by NPCs in teron?

Certain NPCs, yeah, in addition to being announced at every gate if they're able to be seen by the gate guards.

Sort of makes sense with the new 4-city, good/evil lawful/chaotic paradigm. Teron wouldn't be friendly to law. Is the idea that tribunals are supposed to be defensive only? What if law NPCs could accompany a tribunal member anywhere in the world, but bringing a law NPC into any city (or past outposts) would result in repercussions?

Eh, I feel like that would only serve to make the game more frustrating in terms of gear or time required to visit places. You're already limited to only having 6 extra items of gear for yourself, I feel like allowing guard NPCs to come on PvE trips would only increase the strain (and frustration) in such trips, given how trib NPCs wander off if you aren't in the room with them on a tick and in general how they don't assist most of the time.

I've already made plenty of statements arguing against NPC wars, and while I'm grateful for the nerfing that it got bounty NPCs (although I'd still just like to see them removed), it's my stance against NPC wars that makes me have the above stance. If anything I'd prefer to have some utility added to tribunals in regard to gating/enchanting/buffs like before, but definitely not anything in regard to allowing more places to bring bodyguards.

Being in a tribunal now is like being in a full time job. I play the game to have fun and so much of what made the tribunals fun to be in have been stripped away and now it's nothing more than city npc administration with a permanent pvp flag cut on. If someone wants to war with you, there is nothing you can do to stop it, and just makes it easier to grief you while have a tribunal flag.

Can you expand on what used to make being in a tribunal fun to you?

How is this different from the way tribunals used to be?

I know I wasn't asked, but for my two cents on the matter, tribunals used to be rewarding because A) you got buffs by joining up and B) you got to defend the city against people attacking, especially against the bigtime outlaws that would attack back when the who list was larger.

Now, you A) don't get buffs, you get attacked by Teron and warring kingdoms instead, and B) people don't attack cities anymore unless they're gaming the system. Given how impossible it is to wage war in cities with bounty NPCs, people just... don't attack cities anymore unless they're looking for a cheap gank before recalling out. It doesn't even fit with RP to do it anymore because of how debilitating it is to be outlawed.

Also, the amount of upkeep required for wars, coupled with smaller who lists, means that joining a tribunal at war with any number of groups is just another constant drain on the required coin gathering of its members, and that hits harder with few to zero other active members to help offset that strain.