Shattered Kingdoms

Only to you, am I not polite and not helpful.

EDIT: as to this idea, I am not a fan for the same reasons that I am sure Finney isn't.

Chris

Alright simmer down children. There is obviously some sort of attraction between you two, not sure why you are bringing your squabble here. Although we have many disagreements with each other, I'm sure that we can all at least agree that LPs spent for cabal membership is bad. And ezeant should feel bad.

Although I appreciate the time Ezeant spent to write (two) cogent posts, I won't be asking people to spend loyalty tokens to get in. In addition to other arguments already made, it would completely restrict new players from participating. That's not acceptable.

This, to me, is worth discussing.

And I think the solution to this problem need not be introducing more hurdles for characters, but rather rewarding longevity of play.

By that I do not mean character age, but hours played. By rewarding character that stick around longer with benefits, will (probably) do more to entice players to continue with their characters longer. Longer-lived characters should help (somewhat) to address the issue of flip-flopping player loyalties to the various cabals / alignments / etc. through alt generation.

But the key here is to entice player-buy-in to this, rather than to make it harder for players to get access to significant RP communities and purposes in the game.

If you want people to invest in their cabal, don't make it cost them. Make them want to invest themselves. I have had excellent results with cabal and tribunal leadership when I was able to play a leader with reliable play times, because I made an effort to be involved in PvP and RP, and to involve others in PvP and RP, and people responded wonderfully to that even when I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Give people a visible, reliable, and involved leader character and they will follow that.

Alternatively, get Finney to lead your faction. SHOTS FIRED.

Ultimately I think this is the most poignant thing I've read in any of the CRS threads cropping up. "Fixing" cabals comes down to proper selection of leaders. Flagging the first John Doe to show up because either a) he wants to feel special or b) there's just no one else to give the headache to is the wrong way to do it. Leader characters should actually be, you know, leaders. They need to be able to motivate, support, lead, and organize groups of people effectively in the context of SK's trials and tribulations. Does this mean the KD's of the various cabals are shouldered with a bit of extra responsibility when it comes to doing inductions and whatnot? Yeah, sure does. It also ensures that factions aren't driven into the ground by ineffective and poor leaders, as well as giving the non-leaders a real draw to invest themselves in the faction and their characters.

i gotta side with OA on this, If your leaders suck your team will suck. And the way the game is now, if you know how to level up correctly, you can easily go into a cabal or trib in a week test it out and see who the leaders and what you can do and if its not something you like delete and make something else in a few days. Thats why people dont invest. And making it harder to level things up wont help anything at all. That would just encourage more people to make alts and just hop around. There are reasons the main people that play this game do NOT take leadership unless they have to.

Most importantly, a leader should know when to get out of the way of members. They're members, not followers, because leaders don't really lead factions in the game. Leaders are facilitators. Too many people around here seem to think getting leadership is like being given the DM screen. The liberty to induct, tarnish, and sometimes pardon is not license to become a snowflake and regulate the roleplay and PVP behaviors of others.

Actually, if you're a leader, you're setting the pace and tone of a faction (for both RP and PvP), and if the members don't care to follow that pace and tone you should suggest they toe the party line or leave. And if they still don't want to play well with others, you uninduct them.

It is, in many ways, like being given a DM screen. As a DM you're supposed to be a facilitator as well, and in many of the same ways that leaders are for factions.

Your above post just reads like more butt hurt because you don't like the realities of playing SK the way it's meant to be played, and that your snowflaking is more valuable than someone else's, or the game's established moors and processes. But hey, troll on.

I made my post while thinking about all the unconventional things tribunal leaders have attempted to do in the past with their tribunals in the face of member opposition. By your logic, faction leaders gain some sort of storytelling authority, but I don't see that supported by very much of the mechanics.

Take for example a hypothetical hellion leader of the Talons. Are you claiming that that one leader should be able to alter the entire appearance of the faction and ambiance of its kingdom just by warrant of being one of two or more leaders established in a faction?

I will somewhat ignore your flames after observing that you probably are glossing over the fact that a leader still has to play well with the other leader(s) and kindgom directors and not, in fact, do whatever they want. What you seem to be describing is not really leadership as much as it is authorship.