Shattered Kingdoms

I have to disagree with you here on a number of things. First, by definition a reversion is a step backwards.

Second, in order for your statement about merging being a correction to be correct, it would mean that the initial splitting of cabals into tribunals was incorrect. I completely disagree with this concept. The fact that currently there are too few players for the number of organizations does not mean that creating tribunals was incorrect. If you look at the concept of a tribunal, it is to act as the government, army, and police of a country while adding/maintaining the flavor of that country. I also believe that having a government run by an organization that hold certain ideals as its’ guiding principles over that of the actual interests of the nation is a faulty approach to country governance. Ultimately, the splitting of cabals and tribunals was the correct thing to do, therefore it can’t be a correction to merge them, rather a step backwards.

Third, it isn’t just a matter of personal preference as you wish to make it. Granted some may or may not like the inception of tribunals but that doesn’t change the fact that their inception was progress (as can be seen in the arguments above and the benefits they offer now). Just as the women suffrage movement was progress, for quite some time many men would have wanted to see a reversion on that issue. That analogy is much more apt because it shows that even if progress is opposed by some, it doesn’t mean changing it would be a “correction” in spite of personal preference (the prohibition analogy is just about personal preference and emotional appeal). Personal perspective, or subjectivism, has no relevance on whether a course of action is correct. Rather why a course is taken, how the course is pursued, and the end result makes something correct or not, one’s feelings have nothing to do with it.

On another note I will commend you on the rest of your post, not because I agree with it but because you put out a thought out suggestion. Although, it breaks down to a merger but there are more details to it. Even as thought out as this suggestion is, it still is a step back wards because tribunals become nothing more then an extension of cabals. This means governance of a country is done by an organization that is lead by a group of ideals and not the interests of the nation at hand. Also, tribunals would only exist in name, effectively they are part of the cabal…the lower members but members none the less. No matter how you try and paint it, this is merging with some added bells and whistles that only propagate the destruction of tribunals.

The steps you take to keep cabals and tribunal separate (CB vs. TB channels, forums, etc.) really only set up an upper and lower class within the cabal. For all practical purposes it still is only a single cabal except the cabal leaders have the ability to elevate some players and keep others down. Not only does the OOC favoritism bother me with this suggestion, but the difficulty a newbie would suffer because of it and the disillusionment that could turn newbies off of the mud entirely because of the favoritism or perceived favoritism (note: even if there isn’t favoritism, the perception of it is just as damaging. Ask any Imm or former Imm).

Lei Kung

I think the point being made is that reversion isn't a negative. Sometimes you have to go back and start over, such as when you take a wrong turn. You can continue down the wrong path or turn around and go the right way.

No, the right turn was making Tribs, the wrong turn was not making them on par with their cabal counterparts.

If any integration should happen, the cabals should be scrapped, turned into classes and give Tribs more power to wage war.

[edit] Also, to not make indies totally suck, I really suggest the list of trade skills for them.

Again with the flowery rhetoric that lacks substance, you still don’t back up your dislike with any solid reasoning. How do you expect to be taken seriously if you can’t even make a solid argument?

This is the closest to an actual argument you have made. Yet it still lacks an logical reasoning behind it. Why don’t invisible groups generate enough character interaction? How much is enough?

I disagree entirely and to show you the difference between your posts and mine I will tell you why. The “invisible groups” also known as cabals have their own agendas; be it destruction of the world or to plant a tree. In order to pursue these agendas the organization must achieve certain things. First, they need to maintain a membership, without that nothing is possible. That requires player interaction whether the organization is secret or not. Just because someone doesn’t know you’re a member, doesn’t mean that there is no interaction for that character. Second, they need to take steps toward their goals, whatever they might be. This again requires interaction with other players. And again, just because no one knows you are a member of XYZ doesn’t have any affect on your ability to interact with other characters. Third, to be effective the organization must acquire influence. This means members will be required to interact with players outside of the cabal. I would actually say this is a benefit over the current system.

Just to be clear, in no way do secret cabals hinder a character’s ability to interact with others. In fact, it adds to the depth of the character by adding ideals to follow, hidden motivation, secret alliances, and a secret to protect while working for something larger then himself.

By saying this you show you have no understanding of the immortal interaction I suggested. All I suggested is that the Immortals watch for collusion, which would be easy to spot. Do you know how much effort it would take an immortal to do this? It would take about five minutes a month if Dulrik has reports generated for it like he already does for other aspects of the game. When I was upstairs I spent five minutes a month going through a report to try and find newbie killers and this would be no different. So throwing the “I don’t want immortal intervention” card only shows ignorance. The immortal intervention would be no different then it is now, just to up hold the rules.

There are so many problems with this statement I don’t even know where to start. First off, this is all your ability to see the future, while you are at it could I have the power ball numbers for next week? Second, it has been put forth that cabals move to the shadows while tribunals would move to the forefront. This being the case one could reasonably presume that yes tribunals will become more PK focused, but cabals will become less PK focused as well. Third, there is nothing that would make RP worse. In fact, since cabals will want to try and use tribunals for their means, they will have a much greater level of RP interaction. And because leaders can’t be dual members, cabals will have to try and persuade tribunals overtly and subtly, again leading to greater, non-direct PK RP.

Seriously, it is about time you stop making statement unless you plan to back them up with well reasoned arguments. Your statements that RP will be harmed I find preposterous and only stated in an attempt to scare people away from dual membership. These tactics are insulting to any reader with the ability sort the [REDACTED] from the buckwheat (a.k.a. an average I.Q. or better). More importantly you are arguing in an unethical manner. At least be a decent enough person to put your reasoning out there for scrutiny and leave the propagandistic tactics alone.

You have never even divulged what your goals are. I have no idea what is important to you other then to oppose dual membership. I don’t know this because you haven’t been forthright about your intentions and/or motivations. This is also seen in the way you have chosen to argue (see above points).

I wouldn’t claim you don’t understand or didn’t read because our goals or opinions differ. I say this because of statements you’ve made about the dual membership suggestions, that if you understood them, you wouldn’t have made. Case in point, you talked about how much more and evil the immortal intervention would be, which in fact would be no greater then it is now. To claim such shows you didn’t understand the point. I might disagree with someone, but I wouldn’t then make statement like you are suggesting to “justify” my points or invalidate theirs (which statements like that can’t invalidate a point). I am rather insulted you would suggest such a thing, but I know anyone that knows me, knows that isn’t in my character. Maybe you should pick a better target for your slander; any here that know me at all won’t believe it.
I've been saying for a long time that tribunals are very similar, damn near subsitutible. But that doesn't make every country similar and because of that one tribunal shouldn't be merged with another. To suggest such is effectively suggesting that one county merge with another country (after all tribunals are the country's governments).

No matter how you look at it, it is merging two or more tribunals to one degree or another. This does blur country boarders and tribunal definitions. No longer is it a Peacekeeper channel, it is a who ever is a Peacekeeper and Talon and Guardian channel. This sounds much more like a global channel, which is a horrible idea. That is something that D has long stood against.

It is also worth while to mention, the low numbers in an organization problem isn’t just about “less people are less fun”, it is about practicality. Organizations that are too small don’t have the ability to impact the mud nor do they have the power to fulfill their rolls. It isn’t just about it being “less fun” for the current members but about how the organization operates in fulfilling its’ roll and the tactical considerations that go along with that. By sharing powers and such the lines between one tribunal and another are blurred, this is an obvious point.

It is simple. One of the major problems is that THERE ARE TOO FEW PLAYERS FOR THE NUMBER OF ORGANIZATIONS. That means there are three possible solutions: A) get more players, B) reduce the number of organization, and C) create a way for players to be in more organizations. All you suggestion here does is create an incentive to join tribunals. If a player is joining a tribunal then, he is not joining a cabal. And because there are no more players or few organizations or ways to count players more then once for organizations, some organization must be hurt by the increased members the tribunal is getting.

Look, there is no point to sharing a cabal channel between a tribunal and a cabal unless they are merged to a certain degree. It doesn’t make sense that secret Hammer conversations would be exposed to another organization, let alone the fact that the two aren’t related meaing there is no reason to share.

Assuming no merger, why should a cabal have any say with what goes on in a tribunal? The Hammer’s motivations are totally different and separate then those of the Peacekeepers. Just because they share an alliance doesn’t change the fact the Hammer are crusaders and the Peacekeepers sole interest is Taslamar. This idea just doesn’t make sense without a merger of some degree. And a merger that gives control to one organization will effectively destroy the other.

Edit: grammar and spelling. And miss read one point so I needed to remove something that was irrelevant.

Lei Kung

I understand that was the point. In fact I go on at length about how in order for that point to be correct, the inception of tribunals must be incorrect. I then argue that tribunals were a good idea. So as I'm sure you read in my post, I did address the idea that merging can't be a correction because the inception of tribunals wasn't a mistake.

Lei Kung

Geeze, LK, just go teach logic at a local junior college and give these poor noobs a rest.

Since this is an RP MUD, we should be maximizing character interaction. You can't start a plot with the Druids if you don't know how to find them.

We had more secret cabals before CRS, and they provided little fun for the gameworld as a whole. You couldn't even tell most existed, save for seeing the occasional cabal power. That's one of the reasons CRS was created, to actually make cabals do something in the wider world.

Now you want to make cabals more secret than they've ever been. You want to allow cabals to attack cities without even revealing so much as a character name. You even want to make it harder for members to find and talk to each other privately, outside of cb. And all this just because you can't bear the thought of cabal secrecy being breached. The horror!

SK needs more plots going on, more visible roleplay to respond to. Super-secret cabals get in the way of this, and thus aren't worth coding. Nor will there be any need for them once we escape this fantasy of multiple hostile cabals in a tribunal.



Considering you can't even define collusion, I doubt it. It's going to be a judgement call that immortals will take grief for. But aside from that, it's penalizing perfectly sensible IC play that creates no OOC harm. That's not consistent with a RP-MUD that says "You won't find someone telling you 'You can't do that.' here." If I didn't find that approach praiseworthy, I wouldn't be spending time here.

But even if you manage to stop whatever collusion is, I think you'll find tribunal leaders quite creative in ferreting out cabals they oppose. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," and no one wants to live in a fallen house.

You claim this is fortune-telling. All right. Other people have said, in this very thread, that tribunal policing is something they'd attempt. Get back to us when you prove they won't be able to.



Yes, you've mentioned you want this. But you haven't shown how this has anything to do with the population problem. If you'd like to argue for this, perhaps you should start another thread and demonstrate:
1. That this essentially social change can be accomplished through code.
2. That this change is an improvement over the current situation.
3. And that the improvement is great enough to be worth coding now.

I've an open mind on these issues, but I'm far from convinced of their correctness.



I honestly don't understand this position. What roles do organizations have that they can't meet given two or three members? If they're happy, why aren't you happy?

For a tribunal, two members is all the officers that can grant pardons, if that's what you're worried about. Nor does it take a large force to make city invaders unhappy, considering how powerful tribunals are on their home ground. I grant that 9 vs 9 PK is out of their league unless they get help. I don't see that as a disaster.

I'm just suggesting we look at ways to increase the fun of being in a small faction. Many small factions strike me as providing more role play opportunities than just a few large ones. Isn't that part of the justification to shun a straight cabal-tribunal merger?

As for your claims that the temporary merger of two allies' cb is the equivalent of merging two countries, I think you're being overly dramatic. But I welcome any discussion of this approach to low population.



This is a select assortment of the verbiage used in place of comprehension or argument. If I think it worthwhile, I'm more than happy to further discuss things I think obvious. Different experiences make for different observations. But I'm getting tired of this kind of abuse. Post in GD if you can't be halfway civil.

I don't think Independants should get anything they would lose if they joined a group. That is just r3etarded. Screw your pathetic ideas of what game balance is. It is -not- that.

I LIKED it when Cabals were secret. I loved how my first character went hunting for the Hammer, but had no idea where to look until Valrin slipped up and said something. Secret cabals don't stop people from rping. Rather, they can sometimes be something "monumental" for a character to search for. By the same token, the current system does not make cabals more likely to rp. There has been a plot that was started with my own cabal, that targetted another cabal. Do we know who to look for? Yes. Has this other cabal jumped at the opportunity? No. Forsooth, what you're saying is speculation that relies on a shaky premise - that there are actually successful plots and coutnerplots going on that are deeper than the level of water in a kiddie pool. It just ain't so, man.

This thread should have ended twenty odd pages ago.