Shattered Kingdoms

I’m up way too late and I don’t want to say too much until after Cannibal makes his “comprehensive” post. But I do want to point out three things. Cannibal is right about how city CRS would work. Remember that if any member of a warring tribunal wants to enter the city they must lay siege to it. This will give the “innocents” time to run and hide. Second, attacks will be less likely to be quick in quick out killing all PCs in sight because many of the attackers would now have to besiege the city. This means that attacks might be more frequent but would be done in ways that newbies and “innocents” are less likely to be caught in the cross fire. Not to mention, attacks have a chance of not even breaching the gates. Third, this also helps struture city battles into the larger scale epic battles. Basically, you get all the benefits without the draw backs.

Lei Kung

Coming from the player of Aeolla, all I can say is "lol".

It occurs to me that, starting from the original, exceptionally simple concept of allowing membership in both a cabal and a tribunal, we've moved to wanting to redesign the entire damn concept of both.

Now, I recognise that I harbour a little bit of change-resistance inside my conservative soul, but even so, I think the whole drift of this thread has gone from adapting an existing game to redesigning a whole damn new one.

So I find myself crossing from my initial stance of liking the original dual membership concept to a diametrically opposite position of being completely opposed to the most recent suggestions.

For all its flaws, and I count CRS as its greatest, I actually love the game I presently play. I don't want a new one.

(editted to correct opposition to opposite because the typo was bugging me. And I used damn twice, which is excessive, but I left it there for the hell of it)

I'm not so disappointed to be sitting in exactly the same boat as Tat. Some of these proposals would take the game further from being one I would want to play, rather than closer. And this is coming from one of the die-hard fans of this idea (take a look who posted the first response to this thread).

I know the feeling, Tat.

A lot of me wishes the whole game could go back to what I remember it eight years ago. When I first started playing again (after 5 years of not playing), I cringed at a lot of the new changes, sometimes because they were a nuisance, other times because it was simply not what I remembered. But as I've kept playing and reading, I've realized, the game needs to evolve, develop, and change, if only for the sole reason that we need people to keep playing it. Chem's leaving helped me realize this - he was a player I greatly respected and felt was one of those "essential" people to the MUD's development in a lot of ways.

Yeah, these changes are pretty drastic. They're talking about removing a cabal/creating a whole new class, entirely reworking the focus of both cabals and tribunals, changing the purpose and drive behind every city's existence. To me, that sounds like a much bigger game, one with a LOT more potential for dynamic, involved RP and intense PK. Maybe I'm over-estimating the possibilities, here, I really don't know. What I DO know, is that the current CRS doesn't work, that I really want the secrecy of cabals back, that the game really could use another class, that tribunals aren't being used to their potential right now, and that in the end, the game needs change.

Now I don’t believe that there will be a shortage of quality leaders because leadership has its own rewards, they will have greater ability to influence the mud, and have greater power through their members. -BUT- if this concern shows to be true or the Imms believe the lack of direct tactical power is a cause for concern there is another solution. Leaders could receive a buff of some kind, off the top of my head, it could be something like the ability to earn level 51. Ultimately, the problems with leaders being allowed dual membership are far to great to allow, but there can be some form of compensation if it's needed.

Lei Kung

There is a point to this. Right now, the game is designed so that cabals are PK-heavy and tribunals are primarily social groups. There is merit in reversing that. CRS makes more sense when groups are not secret. Cabals are arguably more fun for RP socializers than tribunals. Even though I don't like dual-membership, I was in favor of the early phases.

But I'll agree the ancillary changes are getting too weird. I grant that a siege requirement removes some of my concerns about the new CRS, but it creates new ones:

* All cities must become no-transport for a siege requirement to have teeth.
* No more small PK groups in cities, because they can't get through the gates. Some of us enjoy PK at that level.
* What seperates a peaceful visit from a battle visit? Can no one from a warring tribunal ever enter a city in peace?

and of course we still have:

* This requires balance to be fair. City guards can no longer reflect the city so much, but must be created equal. Unguarded exits (like air exits) will have to vanish, while one-gate cities may need more. And that's just to start - consider the ease of getting to law offices in different cities.

This is taking the originally good switch idea and turning it into a monstrosity.

First point, cities don’t need to be made no-transport. You just need a bit of creative thinking. Off the top of my head I would suggest that cities become no-transport only to members of tribunal that nation is at war with.

Second point, small PK will still exist. All that changes is members of a tribunal would have difficulty using a small PK group to enter a city of a nation they are at war with. This doesn’t stop players from attacking in cities that they aren’t at war with, in the wilderness, or any other number of situations where it happens.

Third point, this is absolutely true. In fact if two nations are at war I don’t see one nations looking the other way as enemy soldiers enter their capital. Because there will be a cost to war, never ending war status shouldn’t be that great a concern. So while two nations are engaged in war, members of one tribunal can’t enter the other’s city.

Last point, yes some degree of balance is needed. But I don’t agree that some extreme everything must be equal is what must be required. There is no reason why things can’t be balanced and yet very different and therefore no reasons guards and cities themselves can’t reflect the identity of their nation.

Lei Kung

The addition of CRS was a fairly simple change. And look how drastically it's altered the play of many components of the game. Look at the tweaking and debugging and playerbase adjustment that was needed to get it to where it is now.

The recall changes, dead simple. Look at the impact.

Now compare either or both of these to the scope of what where proposing here? We're talking about a whole new game. If that's what you want, why not go and create a new Mud. I rather like this one.

Okay, sorry. That was unnecessarily emotive. But I truly believe this whole concept has been totally derailed by the evolution of this thread.

Lei, I think that what we have is a difference in philosophy. I'm also interested in improving SK's tactical depth, but not at the expense of immersive role-play.

From my perspective, ICly silly rules like anti-collusion are inherently bad. Another example is this new idea: Cities somehow know to block transport only of warring tribunal members. I'm willing to stomach a few OOC rules if the end result gives us a better roleplay experience. However, I think you've long passed that point.

Likewise, reducing the uniqueness of cities or preventing small group city attacks is not helping RP any. As a former tribunal leader, I've seen a solo attack so well roleplayed that I OOCly offered a pardon as a reward. The game would be a poorer place without such.

I'll try to keep quiet henceforth so you can explain your ideas, since Dulrik wants to see them. But I really hope we don't go down this path.