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  • Daeir said:

    You're not a bad person for playing a Cyrenian character, obviously.

    I agree with everything you said bar this.
         He is a coward who has to bring two friends as backup to jump people hunting.

  • KryptonKrypton shi-Khurena
    So why don't you try making a show of force/threats against it, and try to claim/seize its resources?

    Expand your empire/influence, so to speak?
  • Krypton said:
    So why don't you try making a show of force/threats against it, and try to claim/seize its resources?

    Expand your empire/influence, so to speak?
    Mechanically speaking, it's an exercise in futility. From a narrative standpoint it would be amazing, but there's no real way to achieve the goal.

  • I'm not too huge on Achaean history, but I would love to see some more general interaction with cities, alliances, trading agreements, visiting hours for closed city areas, just some neat things that would up the worldwide interaction between players and not just make everyone stick to their own little group, that's kind of lame.
  • Trey said:
    Krypton said:
    So why don't you try making a show of force/threats against it, and try to claim/seize its resources?

    Expand your empire/influence, so to speak?
    Mechanically speaking, it's an exercise in futility. From a narrative standpoint it would be amazing, but there's no real way to achieve the goal.

    I've had a few in depth talks with people, and every time the end point echoes what Trey said. I would love to make a military movement against Cyrene, but it'll never happen because mechanically, it's impossible to do anything other than temporarily disable free movement through a room.
  • If only the anti-combatants would all move to Cyrene! But no, they have to infest Hashan and Eleusis, too.

    *yes, anti-combatant is a wholly different entity from a non-combatant.
     <3 
  • @Daeir - it sort of sounds like you have a few frustrations here

    1 - there's a large group of people in a city that aren't actively PvPing, and adding people to the PvP pool would be healthy for the game. I agree +20 people would be great, but I doubt they'd pvp anyways, even if they were in another city (like @Laedha said).  They'd probably just leave and not play, so why not retain them?

    2 - 'It's essentially providing an option for people to opt out of conflict in a game that is pretty much focused entirely on conflict' - I know what you're getting at here, but 'pretty much' != 100%. Conflict funds the game and fuels the world events and allows for amazing RP things, but similar to point 1, it adds a bubble where people who still want to play (and spend money on stuff) can enjoy themselves. It's an option that some people take, but we're not going to see big pvpers suddenly decide to go Cyrenian in the current status quo.

    3 - They're sheltered off and get to be non-participatory because you can't do anything to force them to get involved. As you and @Keorin mentioned, most general stuff is just temporary, and you can't really mechanically cause lasting effect that'd inspire a response. That being said, there's nothing stopping Targ or Mhaldor to decide, hey, there's like, a whole city of people who can't stop us, let's go for a land grab/violent conversion. The war between Targ/Mhaldor was player-driven and had awesome RP, and no mechanical effect, and people loved it (overall). There's been 3-way brawls in cities lately just because - why not rumble in Cyrene for (RP) keepsies!
  • Vallie said:
    That being said, there's nothing stopping Targ or Mhaldor to decide, hey, there's like, a whole city of people who can't stop us, let's go for a land grab/violent conversion. The war between Targ/Mhaldor was player-driven and had awesome RP, and no mechanical effect, and people loved it (overall). There's been 3-way brawls in cities lately just because - why not rumble in Cyrene for (RP) keepsies!
    There actually is a pretty big thing stopping them from deciding that.  Doing so cuts them off from interacting with a fair chunk of the player base, since being enemied to Cyrene generally means most Cyrenians won't engage with you in any way.  If you still want to engage these people in day-to-day RP in any way, you have to not engage them in a hostile manner at all.  That may not necessarily be the truth of it, but that's how a lot of non-Cyrenian players feel from what I've seen.

    I realize a lot of Targossians or Mhaldorians wouldn't anyway, but there's still a contingent of them that would like to engage with Cyrenians in one way or another without being completely shut down.  Or yelled at in an OOC manner.
  • edited October 2017
    @Penwize - I agree with you that it's a reason not to - I should have clarified that there's no mechanical or administrative barrier to an org acting however it wants to another org, as long as there's reasonable RP around it. There's definitely IC reprecussions and IC problems and things that might stop someone from wanting to do such a thing.

    My point is more to bring up discussion with @Daeir's about Cyrene being cut off from conflict interaction in a conflict-driven game. There's nothing that actually cuts it off from participating or being drawn into conflicts other than in character reasons like you've mentioned - players have just ended up shaping it this way. As a 'game concept' it's kind of strange, but it's not exactly a concept, it's an evolution of how literally hundreds of people have arranged the world, and that's really cool.

    Krypton said:
    Penwize said:
    Or yelled at in an OOC manner.
    It's unfortunate that Cyrene reacts this way so often, and that this way of "deterring" people from bothering Cyrene is so blatantly OOC.
    Yeah, that part's tricky too. I doubt it's just Cyrene that gets mouthy OOC when fighting happens. People are passionate about stuff they like, and that leads to emotional mistakes that are a lot easier to fall into when you've got a screen in front of you. But again - that's on the players themselves, not the constraints of the game. Usually (emphasis usually) if there's big enough grimdarkconflict RP built up first, it's easier to lean into the grimdarkconflictyness and not take it as personally, but someone will always take it personally.

  • The issue is less Cyrene and more the fact that 3 other cities are actively becoming a copy of Cyrene. A more minor issue is the contingent of people in Cyrene who are just griefing themselves by picking fights as Cyrenians.
  • Re: Cyrene and @Caynix: Cyrene only offers interaction if you don't step on anyone's toes, don't raid, don't try to start any trouble. I can count on one hand the number of Cyrenians I've had constructive, decent IC interactions with, and still have three leftover fingers. That kind of wilful isolationism is pretty bad for the game- not so much the 'we don't want to pvp' thing as the 'we refuse to engage at all unless you're doing exactly what we feel is the right way to play this game' thing. 
  • Heh I definitely understand your point Rey. For me, that's an interesting choice...do I want to help in a raid or do something else to piss off the Cyrenians, and get banned from the city? Or do I want to refrain and keep access to Cyrene? For me, the consequence of PVP against Cyrene feels far more real than any other city, where I might just die a few times and lose some experience. It's like, who cares if I raid Eleusis and can't go in anymore, they wouldn't let me in anyway.

    I admit my perspective may be skewed though. As a new player I hang out a lot with other new players and I feel we're less used to following city traditions and laws as perhaps we should be. I was running around with Cyrenians and Hashanis even when I was enemied to both cities. It could be I'll change my mind about Cyrene when I've played this game for longer, but these are just some thoughts I have now!
  • Krypton said:
    But when an entitled portion of the Cyrene citizenry thinks "We don't bother others" is logically followed by: "We have the right not to be bothered by anyone else"... THAT is when things straight-up become ridiculous/idiotic.
    I agree with you there. I don't think my stance as a citizen of Cyrene should overrule someone else's desires as a citizen of X city. There were only a few instances where I think ooc avenues were/are appropriate, and in general should be used rather sparingly. 

    Daeir said:
    The fact that this dynamic exists is very, very bad. Conflict-oriented games work purely because they force people out of their bubbles and into direct interaction with other players. The larger the non-conflict bubble becomes in Achaea, the less compelling a world it will produce, and the less compelling the world is, less reason will exist for other people to log in and interact with the world, or even bother at all.

    The only 'neutral' city that should exist should be Delos. The game does not have room for two. I'm not even sure it has room for one.
    I don't particularly agree with this notion. One thing I rather love about Achaea is the ability for the players to shape and construct the world to a decent degree. I do believe at least a part of the issue also comes from conflict itself. Many factions have slowly been growing more and more polarized and ending up in their own bubble of the world. While I think this creates some pretty strong and interesting identities, it also leaves you with smaller groups of people to interact with (not saying the team red vs blue was ideal at all).  

    I don't feel Delos has any weight in this because it isn't a player run city, which means it has zero impact on the way the playerbase is dispersed. Also, we're making the assumption that if Cyrene didn't exist those players would go to the more conflict oriented cities. There is a chance that without the roleplay platform they desire, they'd simply leave the game as a whole, seeking out another that does.

    Reyson said:
    Re: Cyrene and @Caynix: Cyrene only offers interaction if you don't step on anyone's toes, don't raid, don't try to start any trouble. I can count on one hand the number of Cyrenians I've had constructive, decent IC interactions with, and still have three leftover fingers. That kind of wilful isolationism is pretty bad for the game- not so much the 'we don't want to pvp' thing as the 'we refuse to engage at all unless you're doing exactly what we feel is the right way to play this game' thing. 
    I mean, if you raid a city don't expect help from them? Though that being said there are quite a few willing to help and do stuff for cities that have active raiders. Though sometimes the responses we get in return are pretty awful. Not too long ago, I was privy to this delightful exchange. Tiamat had marketed asking for someone to do totem work. Now I wholeheartedly admit I forgot he was Ashtani and thought he was still Mhaldorian because "Lichlord". In a few minutes when I was free I noticed he was gone, so I sent a tell to a remaining Mhaldorian to ask "Greetings, was your city ever able to get the totem work you were needing done?". I'm not going to name and shame, but the response I got was "I have no interest in whatever whoreish antics you are offering. Keep your filth in your bathhouse, Cyrenian dog." Now, I'm all for racist/intolerant roleplay, I played a lycaean citizen in Stavenn when I played Imperian. But when folks are actively pressing those attitudes, you're going to push folks away. Doesn't mean I'm going to cease interacting with Mhaldorians at all though. -shrugs- 
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    edited October 2017
    I much disagree with the notion that Cyrene is somehow stealing people from every other faction. I would no be surprised at all if most of those who play in Cyrene would simply not play or be deadweights in other factions because the kind of RP they enjoy is not present there.

    Its far from perfect, and there are numerous things I dislike, but overall Cyrene meets the needs for a big chunk of the playerbase, and while some people might want to see such spread over the other cities, I am almost certain that if this actually happened they would eventually regret it, and the result would be very akin to Eleusis at its worst.

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • edited October 2017
    Daeir said:
    Vallie said:
    stuff
    Well, no, that's not true on basically every count. There's hundreds of years of traditional ideology that deters Cyrene from assuming any sort of aggressive stance whatsoever, from its founding to the centuries that it has remained a thing. It is at its very core, an 'escapism' state for people who aren't inclined to fight others. Any effort to go against that tradition is immediately and violently opposed at a fundamental level - as many people reading this thread can probably attest if they've followed Cyrenian politics in the past two irl years (or since the advent of the Shield at all).
    I'm confused at what you're saying is not true - my point in that post was there's nothing that actually cuts it off from participating or being drawn into conflicts other than in character/RP reasons (as I mentioned, nothing mechanical/administrative). That's not to say these are not good reasons - it's just to say it's not like there's some bubble that grants them immunity from stuff, they just choose not to. I agree that conflict-oriented people make more sense in a conflict-driven game, and it seems like we both agree that Cyrene is as it is because of how players have made it.

    I think the disagreement is that your point is that this is bad design, whereas mine is that this is just an organic result of what people did. I'm unsure how much it was moved that way because of admin nudging, but based off the people, I think it was fairly self-driven. If there are lots of people who want this (based off their pop.) and they make it, then they're just the pool who wouldn't normally survive in a conflict-driven game - so they get a nice playpen to play in. They just wouldn't be here at all if they didn't have it, so it's better off to have it because at least they're here.
  • KryptonKrypton shi-Khurena
    Caynix said:
    I was running around with Cyrenians even when I was enemied
    horrified gasp

    Name and shame, please.

    They will report to our version of Theoren for punishment: a firm spanking, and no dessert for a week.
  • Extra paperwork for them!
  • HataruHataru Midwest USA
    edited October 2017
    Extra paperwork for them!
    Excuse u paperwork is not a punishment.

    Devran said:
    I would normally post this in Raves, but I think this thread works as well.

    I want to take a moment and just rave about Ashtan for a moment. Devran wanted to return to Ashtan. So he said his farewell to Hashan and did HELP ASHTAN. @Khaibit was listed online as a person who could citizen. He asked if they knew the protocol. He was promptly told to CLHELP a certain clan and found all the information he needed - thanks btw @Khaibit ! Devran reached out to Klendathu yesterday morning (my time) with some questions and received an answer within a few hours (I'm sure it would have been instant had he been online, but we're in different timezones. It was an awesome response. Loads of info. Very comprehensive.). He then followed the steps and contacted the required people (Ambassador and all Archons). Within 12 hours @Truax had replied to him that his application had been received and he would be contacted on its progress. I go to bed, go into work. Have a spare moment to check news/messages and such and boom, here I am 24 hours later with an approved application.

    I have been playing IRE games for more than a decade. I've had dozens of citizenship applications and outside the ones where I've been a newbie (newbies always get instantly accepted) or where processing me was fast tracked because I had friends in the city/leadership, I have never -NEVER- had an application proceed so smoothly and quickly before.

    I have always said that things like citizenship process and joining Houses should be the smoothest and flawless procedures in the game. Here's a city that is definitely doing it right.

    Thank you so much guys. @Klendathu @Truax @Khaibit and all others involved.
    Mhaldor actually changed out policy recently under me as Amby to try and allow quick turnarounds like this. If someone hasn't been an enemy or an oathbreaker or isn't super old and well known - there's really no reason they should be put through the ringer! I'm glad its working in other cities cause I have a lot of hope it'll smooth out our process, and has so far for the two applications who have benefited so far!
    (Mhaldor's Next Top Model): Melodie says, "Get rekt scrubbbbb."
    (Mhaldor's Next Top Model): You say, "Scrubbbssss."
    (Mhaldor's Next Top Model): Trey says, "Austere was hangin' out the passenger side of his best friend's ride, apparently."
  • @Krypton Bwahaha I will never tell

    Also from what I've seen for many Cyrenians a firm spanking would not at all be a punishment -.-
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