Forest Conflict

Nizaris

Katzchen said:

A year is too long. A better 'band-aid' would have been a month. It'd be more fun for us having to use less restraint, as well as better for the forestals, knowing the rooms will grow back within a reasonable amount of time - no forestal is going to let a room stay exterminated for a whole year. As a side effect, it would actually strengthen the Mhaldorian idea that harming the forests causes them to grow back stronger, which is cool.

Agreed with the bolded.

Arditi

In the same vein, make forest enemying only last a year.

I will crush Oakstone through the power of bureaucracy and paperwork.

Sarapis

Jacen said:

@Hayte be hatin'. 

HA! Finally got to do one of those "substitute forum name for real word" things all the cool people around here do. B-)

On topic, Awan's right. Its not even a bandaid, its a totally ineffectual attempt at a solution. Its like saying X city can raid and destroy as many rooms as they want in your city, but don't worry about it, they'll repair themselves after a year. If the admin expect this solution to even be a bandaid at all, nature leaders would have to pull crazy shit out of their asses to tie it in IGly.

Go back and read this thread. What I heard, repeatedly, was that the reason you feel your roleplay requires you to make exterminate your #1 concern in life is because exterminate permanently harms nature.

 Now it does less than a naturally-caused forest-fire does. A year is the blink of an eye to nature, rp-wise. 

This isn't a solution, incidentally. It's an easy step in the right direction. If you think it's actually better that exterminate permanently hurt nature, and that this change is actually bad, I'd love to hear why.

Kyrra

I'd have thought this to be a good solution, especially for out of the way areas that get extermed just to be griefy.

Out of curiosity, while rooms will naturally rejuvenate after a year, will plantlife also return? If so, that should remove a lot of strain from people.

Sarapis

Kyrra said:

I'd have thought this to be a good solution, especially for out of the way areas that get extermed just to be griefy. Out of curiosity, while rooms will naturally rejuvenate after a year, will plantlife also return? If so, that should remove a lot of strain from people.

Currently, no, though that's a potential option.

Jacen

I feel like @Katzchen hit it on the head, mostly. Expanding on her post, I think that the Mhaldorian's with slightly griefier/lolpk tendencies (I'm not hating, every faction has these sorts of people) will take it as admission to show less restraint, while Eleusians won't feel any pressure lifted at all. While sure, a year is short in Nature's time, its a pretty long time from an OOC perspective, and as a player, you don't want to walk around seeing glaring failure after glaring failure. 

Just get Gaia to give them an RP reason to let the rooms sit to back up the announce post, just a short lecture or something.

Sarapis

Yeah, 12.5 rl days is long from an OOC perspective, but that's a separate problem from the roleplaying issue. This just changed what exterminate fundamentally does rp-wise and how long its practical effect lasts if uninterfered with.

Wysteria

Forestals won't leave a major forest area exterminated. Many are functioning groves with people who don't have PRESERVATION yet and again, rooms are useless in that state in a few ways — no plants, can't flow, can't return and I think grove won't take in any sunlight either, which will sever the thing even faster than the default 15 days of no sealing.

It's a minor fix, but really only handy for areas we can be bothered to have to travel all the way for (Annwyn, Prin, Shala-Khulia, Ulangi……)

Vansittart

Wysteria said:

Forestals won't leave a major forest area exterminated. Many are functioning groves with people who don't have PRESERVATION yet and again, rooms are useless in that state in a few ways — no plants, can't flow, can't return and I think grove won't take in any sunlight either, which will sever the thing even faster than the default 15 days of no sealing.

It's a minor fix, but really only handy for areas we can be bothered to have to travel all the way for (Annwyn, Prin, Shala-Khulia, Ulangi……)

Still lurking, and chipping in annoyingly when an interesting topic comes up.

You see, this kind of attitude really gets my goat.  There is a point at which you have to look in the mirror and say "Well gee, the problem, it turns out: is me".  There's an interesting analogy in some ways to the whole "Good bashing sucks, we can't bash innocents" hoop-la.  A series of things were put in place to ameliorate this, with some support from some sections of the Church (maysherestinpeace), but ultimately the good players didn't *want* to sacrifice a perceived "RP necessity" for a more enjoyable game.  They really were happier living with extremely limited restrictions rather than gaving up - not their RP - but their ossified perception of what their own RP demanded from them.

Is it really so impossible to say "Through Nature's blessing, the roots of the Forest have grown strong, and even the surpassing blight of death's hands will be regrown stronger than befrore", and then instead of running around following every extermination just doing some kind of hand-holding ritual at the Oak where you all recite a phrase which gives strength to the whatever on a monthly/yearly basis - you could even favour for participating. 

You absolutely could RP this in a way that does not surrender one jot of your character's devotion to Nature, but that significantly enhances the player's enjoyment.  It really isn't that hard.  If it sucks, if you hate it: stop doing it.  Especially if you are given a golden opportunity to do so with a coding change.  Ultimately how you interpret your RP should bend to the enjoyment of players - including yourself.  If you are sitting there lashing yourself with a whip you wove from your own hairshirt, you won't get much sympathy.

Which is not to say that forest conflict doesn't need work, and that this should be a temporary step to a mor e satisfying axis but eesh, come on.  Recognise in yourself the reflexive tendency to defend the status quo simply because it is the status quo.  It's so, so prevalent in Achaea and it does a lot of damage.

Skye

Katzchen said:

It'd be more fun for us having to use less restraint,

You guys have restraint? >_>

Well, okay, some of you do.

I think Wysteria hit the nail on the head though. No forestal will leave a patch of ground exterminated for longer than even an hour. I don't even bother or encourage replanting anymore, but some people will just obsessively go around replanting the patch.

Plus, the idea that this means some bugger can sail all the way out to Tuar or Prin or somewhere and exterminate and we don't have to do anything is kind of skewed because forestals will still have to sail out there to tally the rooms and see who did it. And naturally if you're going to sail all the way to check the degree of damage, you may as well rejuve everything anyway.

If you really cared about us, you'd make exterms like room destruction logs and have it recorded on oakstone logs for easy tallying. Then we can issue mass exterminators for spamming our logs >_>. 

Awan

Sarapis said:

Go back and read this thread. What I heard, repeatedly, was that the reason you feel your roleplay requires you to make exterminate your #1 concern in life is because exterminate permanently harms nature.

 Now it does less than a naturally-caused forest-fire does. A year is the blink of an eye to nature, rp-wise. 

This isn't a solution, incidentally. It's an easy step in the right direction. If you think it's actually better that exterminate permanently hurt nature, and that this change is actually bad, I'd love to hear why.

The problem is that extermination harms Nature Itself, in a way that it would be nonsensical to think you could harm Evil Itself.  The permanence is relevant as one proof that extermination harms Nature Itself and not merely some plants, but it was a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. The sensible conclusion for people to draw at this point is that extermination now harms Nature non-permanently rather than permanently, not that it doesn't harm Nature.

(Forest fires, on the contrary, don't genuinely harm Nature and are understood as radically different from extermination--at least on Anachaine doctrine, but I've also never heard an argument to the contrary. Forest fires are natural; forest fires harm some trees and that's not the same as harming Nature Itself, even if we still don't like it very much.)

At any rate, it's just not going to work for some hierophants and other forestal leaders to say, "Okay, extermination isn't permanent anymore, Nature can heal itself, so exterminations no longer really harm Nature, so don't worry about them so much." There's an existing understanding of what extermination does and you can't turn back the clock in the game and pretend the last 10 years didn't happen. This feeble change is not sufficient reason for people to decide that extermination is now something completely and radically different from what it was before, an inconsequential thing rather than an attack on Nature Itself. That would be an unreasonable and irresponsible conclusion to draw, and no one would be motivated to draw it in-character unless they'd been reading the forums.

So if forestal leaders tried to convince people to treat extermination in a completely different way on this flimsy basis, a significant number of people, including many of our most valuable people, would just flat-out revolt; at best the community would be split in two and turn into a horrific mess that would make Shallam's worst era look pleasant and harmonious, and on any coherent IC story, the ones who refused and revolted would be the ones being non-hypocritical, courageous, and faithful to some semblance of forestal values.

Just having Gaia come out and make a pronouncement to try to patch this over also wouldn't work. If she came out and said to stop worrying so much about exterminations, some people would go along with it, but a significant number would reasonably conclude that she'd been possessed, like Demeter once was, or something of the sort. The only other way I could imagine to re-invent extermination without a proper and meaningful in-game event would be for Gaia to retcon it and assert that forestals were wrong all along and exterminations were never doing any genuine harm to Nature and we just mistakenly thought they were, and were making a big fuss over nothing. But that would be a horrifically crappy and disrespectful thing to do to all the people who have invested a lot into roleplaying as forestals.

I tried to suggest a way that you could have what you clearly want, and which I think could also work out okay for forestals if done well. Replace extermination with a mechanically similar skill which has a much milder story about what it actually does, which doesn't involve harming Nature itself, with different descriptions when it happens, and have that happen in a meaningful way in the game world, not a tweak to the code and an Announce post. That seems relatively straightforward, and seems like it would give you everything you want, because it could work just the same, while enabling forestals to start fresh in a new roleplay direction, and without tearing the faction into shreds.

The only reason I could imagine for not wanting to go with some proper, substantial redirection of that sort would be if you actually did want to keep extermination as extermination, as an attack on Nature Itself which does harm to Nature Itself, because you think that's hardcore and cool. But if that's what you want, then you can't blame forestals for interpreting it as such and responding accordingly. If it's possible for individuals to directly harm Nature Itself, while it remains impossible (as it must be) to directly harm Good, Evil, or Chaos Itself, forestals will remain in a problematic and badly disadvantaged position roleplay-wise and Mhaldor will always have an unfair form of leverage over them which no supposed equivalent given to forestals could rectify.

Drauka

Choosing to back Nature, that includes living things, is just going to have the troubles that come with it. It's just the "nature" of siding with Nature. It's much different than backing a code of conduct or way of viewing the world. 

Just deal with it or not back it. Nature isn't just some concept, it's backing things that are real. There really isn't a way to fix it.

It's about as nuts as complaining that people are scrubbing their stink off in water if you back Water and want to keep it clean. No duh, it's going to get dirty.

"Balance" isn't removing the ability to harm plants and nature. Balance is learning to deal with backing Nature and just the reality of it being something you can feel and touch, and not just some code of conduct or way of viewing the world.

In my opinion, having the ability to harm Nature somewhat validates it as a real thing and not just some vague concept. Complaining that people can hurt Nature is really really silly. Of course you can harm nature.

Balance is to give Nature people the ability to fight back via Nature itself, not restrict those that can harm it. Plants and life can be harmed, deal with it. Crying about it is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone complain about.

Even in real life, you have people that are Christians and you can't really harm their faith and belief in a god (that no one has ever seen or met), but you can piss off the hippie tree huggers by cutting down trees and polluting water.

It's comparing apples and oranges and it will never be the same. You can't touch Evil, Good, or Chaos. You sure as heck can touch a tree or grass.

You just need to deal with it and like @Sarapis and others have said, all changes for Nature and such aren't complete.

Delphinus

@Vansittart: You just replied to a completely mechanics-based argument with "Is it so hard to change your RP?"

The thing is, it isn't just a matter of RP. This is such a disgustingly complex topic, involving not just the murky bugaboos of player morale, RP expectations, restraint, and written role design, but more solid beasts like skill usage, XP loss, essence gain/cost, and curative supply for a given side. There is absolutely zero way to balance the system (short of scrapping it altogether), simply because it ties into so many different and otherwise unrelated things.

Froh

Sarapis said:

Go back and read this thread. What I heard, repeatedly, was that the reason you feel your roleplay requires you to make exterminate your #1 concern in life is because exterminate permanently harms nature.

 Now it does less than a naturally-caused forest-fire does. A year is the blink of an eye to nature, rp-wise. 

This isn't a solution, incidentally. It's an easy step in the right direction. If you think it's actually better that exterminate permanently hurt nature, and that this change is actually bad, I'd love to hear why.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed a high level of responsiveness lately on things which you can make a reasonable and fast change to (contents of letters, this, ...).  Thanks for that.

On the specific topic, to me an in-game year seems like a logical interval for an area to heal itself even if it feels long, but then pending further changes extermination is supposed to be a serious act so best not to nerf it too hard as the first step.

Exterminations will still be a serious act to forestals, but hopefully people will grow to see a difference between "I may speed nature's healing along when it's practical to do so" and "We dun been griefed and really have no choice but to load up an cleanup expedition to some-remote-place."  A little bit of perceived free choice goes a long way.

For exterminations in progress, we can see from the forum responses that there will be differences of opinion on the new game-mechanic distinction between "injuring nature in a particular location" and "killing nature in a particular location".  This is an area in which the divine and org leaders may be able to influence things.

 

 

Sarapis

Awan said:

(Forest fires, on the contrary, don't genuinely harm Nature and are understood as radically different from extermination--at least on Anachaine doctrine, but I've also never heard an argument to the contrary. Forest fires are natural; forest fires harm some trees and that's not the same as harming Nature Itself, even if we still don't like it very much.)

At any rate, it's just not going to work for some hierophants and other forestal leaders to say, "Okay, extermination isn't permanent anymore, Nature can heal itself, so exterminations no longer really harm Nature, so don't worry about them so much." There's an existing understanding of what extermination does and you can't turn back the clock in the game and pretend the last 10 years didn't happen. This feeble change is not sufficient reason for people to decide that extermination is now something completely and radically different from what it was before, an inconsequential thing rather than an attack on Nature Itself. That would be an unreasonable and irresponsible conclusion to draw, and no one would be motivated to draw it in-character unless they'd been reading the forums.

So if forestal leaders tried to convince people to treat extermination in a completely different way on this flimsy basis, a significant number of people, including many of our most valuable people, would just flat-out revolt; at best the community would be split in two and turn into a horrific mess that would make Shallam's worst era look pleasant and harmonious, and on any coherent IC story, the ones who refused and revolted would be the ones being non-hypocritical, courageous, and faithful to some semblance of forestal values.

Just having Gaia come out and make a pronouncement to try to patch this over also wouldn't work. If she came out and said to stop worrying so much about exterminations, some people would go along with it, but a significant number would reasonably conclude that she'd been possessed, like Demeter once was, or something of the sort. The only other way I could imagine to re-invent extermination without a proper and meaningful in-game event would be for Gaia to retcon it and assert that forestals were wrong all along and exterminations were never doing any genuine harm to Nature and we just mistakenly thought they were, and were making a big fuss over nothing. But that would be a horrifically crappy and disrespectful thing to do to all the people who have invested a lot into roleplaying as forestals.

I tried to suggest a way that you could have what you clearly want, and which I think could also work out okay for forestals if done well. Replace extermination with a mechanically similar skill which has a much milder story about what it actually does, which doesn't involve harming Nature itself, with different descriptions when it happens, and have that happen in a meaningful way in the game world, not a tweak to the code and an Announce post. That seems relatively straightforward, and seems like it would give you everything you want, because it could work just the same, while enabling forestals to start fresh in a new roleplay direction, and without tearing the faction into shreds.

The only reason I could imagine for not wanting to go with some proper, substantial redirection of that sort would be if you actually did want to keep extermination as extermination, as an attack on Nature Itself which does harm to Nature Itself, because you think that's hardcore and cool. But if that's what you want, then you can't blame forestals for interpreting it as such and responding accordingly. If it's possible for individuals to directly harm Nature Itself, while it remains impossible (as it must be) to directly harm Good, Evil, or Chaos Itself, forestals will remain in a problematic and badly disadvantaged position roleplay-wise and Mhaldor will always have an unfair form of leverage over them which no supposed equivalent given to forestals could rectify.

The problem is that extermination harms Nature Itself, in a way that it would be nonsensical to think you could harm Evil Itself.  The permanence is relevant as one proof that extermination harms Nature Itself and not merely some plants, but it was a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. The sensible conclusion for people to draw at this point is that extermination now harms Nature non-permanently rather than permanently, not that it doesn't harm Nature.

At any rate, it's just not going to work for some hierophants and other forestal leaders to say, "Okay, extermination isn't permanent anymore, Nature can heal itself, so exterminations no longer really harm Nature, so don't worry about them so much." There's an existing understanding of what extermination does and you can't turn back the clock in the game and pretend the last 10 years didn't happen. This feeble change is not sufficient reason for people to decide that extermination is now something completely and radically different from what it was before, an inconsequential thing rather than an attack on Nature Itself. That would be an unreasonable and irresponsible conclusion to draw, and no one would be motivated to draw it in-character unless they'd been reading the forums.

Well, that's your choice. I'm just pointing out that objectively, it does arguably less damage than a forest fire irl does, and that Nature is quite capable of taking care of itself. Killing plants is to Nature what killing evil people is to Evil....except that Gods actually do lose essence when their Order members die, but Gaia loses nothing when someone exterminates. You guys do (access to a Grove, plants to harvest, etc) but that's again not Nature we're talking about any more. A forest fire exterminates plants just as effectively as the exterminate ability does.

 An in-game year may be a long time to you, but now we're not talking about Nature any more - we're talking about you. And that's fine, I mean, Nature doesn't play Achaea or buy credits (*shakefist Gaia*).

So if forestal leaders tried to convince people to treat extermination in a completely different way on this flimsy basis

You're welcome to your opinion, but I think it's very reasonable for those of you that wish to to take the stance that there's a big difference between Nature being fundamentally unable to overcome extermination, forever, and Nature taking a single year to do it. 

I've seen murderers repent and become devoutly religious. I've seen devoutly religious people completely abandon their faith in their god, and not through any change at all to reality - simply a testament to how real people regularly evolve their views throughout their lives. If you want to be fundamentalist, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that's well-and-good and you'd certainly find real people behaving like that as well, but that's your/their choice. If you wanted to change your views for whatever reason(s), that's both fine and completely believable. People do it all the time for reasons that actually aren't even based on reality, unlike this one, which is based in objective reality.

Anyway, as I've said, at least once already, we're not done here, though if you think this change is a step in the wrong direction (no, mhaldor, that's not an invitation to lobby for making exterminate double-ultra-permanently), certainly explain please.

Aerek

Now that extermination fixes itself, there's no reason it can't be optional. Treat them like border raids. Sure, RP says you should try, but if you're outmatched and you've already fought off 19 exterminations, today, then don't worry about it. "Nature will persevere" etc. Sometimes Mhaldor border raids us, and sometimes we feel catty enough to come out and play. Sometimes we don't, and ignore them. Sometimes they smudge our totem, and we say "okay" and fix it later. With our "safe haven" RP, our citizens getting attacked in the tunnel and our propetry getting smudged is the same "attack on our RP" as exterminations are for you, but we say "This would be suicidal and not fun", and move on with our lives.

@Skye I know what you're talking about. Some Cyrenians obsessively go around and empower all the Cyrenian totems, and to both of those things I say, "So?" If someone WANTS to go defend, or WANTS to repair all damage done by exterms, ever, then that's fine, let them. But it has stopped being a necessity, a responsibility for everyone, even with "defend Nature" RP in mind. Roleplay is a source of inspiration, it's not a checklist of "must dos". There is never only 1 correct way to RP something. The Sentinels might say that all exterms should be stopped and all damage should be repaired, but the Druids could say that Nature doesn't need our help to regrow, and they'd both be right. It's players that make the status quos and requirements and obligations, and it's players that can say "Hey, we don't need to worry about these as much any more. Help if you can and want to, but it's not necessary."

If you explained to a newbie that "Mhaldor attacks nature sometimes. We defend it when we can, and we repair the damage if it's nearby, but we don't really need to. Nature can look after itself" that would make 100% sense to that newbie. It's only the old guard Forestals that are claiming the way it is is the way it must be, and only some total reboot/rebuild of the system can fix it. Just step out of your little RP box and change as the world changes.

(I will say that plants regenerating might be good. Removing the rejuvenation tedium doesn't do much good if there's still the replanting tedium.)

Awan

Sarapis said:

Well, that's your choice. I'm just pointing out that objectively, it does arguably less damage than a forest fire irl does, and that Nature is quite capable of taking care of itself. Killing plants is to Nature what killing evil people is to Evil....except that Gods actually do lose essence when their Order members die, but Gaia loses nothing when someone exterminates. You guys do (access to a Grove, plants to harvest, etc) but that's again not Nature we're talking about any more. A forest fire exterminates plants just as effectively as the exterminate ability does.

You're describing something, which you call "extermination," which does not correspond to the phenomenon "extermination" which exists in the game world. A forest fire kills plants just as effectively as the exterminate ability does, yes. But exterminate does more than kill plants. That exterminate does more than just kill some plants is as hard and well-established and incontrovertible a fact in the game world as anything. For me to insist in-character that all exterminate does is kill some plants would be like insisting that I didn't just die after someone killed me and my name showed up on deathsight, or insisting that I didn't harvest anything when I just harvested something and have the herbs in my inventory now.

Sarapis said:

You're welcome to your opinion, but I think it's very reasonable for those of you that wish to to take the stance that there's a big difference between Nature being fundamentally unable to overcome extermination, forever, and Nature taking a single year to do it.

Sure, I'll grant you, that I, having read this thread, could decide, for OOC reasons, that Awan's response to this discovery is to decide that extermination no longer genuinely harms Nature, and I'm not going to feel obligated to prevent it from happening anymore if it would inconvenience me. It's distasteful to me to alter Awan's roleplay in a way which is not consistent with her character, but it is an option for me as an individual. And other individual people, reading this thread, could decide to do likewise. It might be possible for us to get a majority of the leaders of the forestal faction to agree to do so, OOCly, and then to get this declared as official city and Oakstone policy.

The problem is that we can't pause the game, call an OOC convention of all the people who play forestals, and get us to all come to an OOC agreement about how we're going to do this from now on, and then go back to playing the game in a new way. And so the actual convincing, the actual changing of the ideology, would have to take place IC, because only a very small percentage of forestals read the forums. And if it's taking place IC, then it's taking place against the backdrop of what extermination means right now (whether that's what we'd like it to mean or not, that's what it means right now), what the forestal ideology is which every single person has been taught and repeated since novicehood, and so on.

Because of that, people who weren't in on the OOC scheming would see what we're doing as an abdication of our responsibilities and values. They'd understand us either as unfortunately deluded, or as people who have ceased to be faithful forestals, ceased to put Nature first, but who have made up an implausible excuse, which no one could reasonably believe, for why it's okay not to defend Nature against exterminations anymore. If I know Eleusians, and I do, and I love them, the leaders who pushed for this would just start getting overthrown left and right. Because Eleusians roleplay, dammit. But the end result would vicious in-fighting which would utterly destroy the unity of the faction.

If the choice is between tearing the faction to shreds in a way no one will enjoy, and the administration putting some effort into this so we can start fresh with something that has a genuinely different significance, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the latter. Seriously, why the resistance to the idea of doing away with extermination in an event and starting afresh with something with a different name and description and story behind it, which makes it explicitly clear that it does not genuinely harm Nature?

Aerek

Sarapis' point is that nothing in the last 2/3 of your post is his fault, his problem, or under his control.

Awan said:

If the choice is between tearing the faction to shreds in a way no one will enjoy, and the administration putting some effort into this so we can start fresh with something that has a genuinely different significance, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the latter. Seriously, why the resistance to the idea of doing away with extermination in an event and starting afresh with something with a different name and description and story behind it, which makes it explicitly clear that it does not genuinely harm Nature?

The Admin are putting in the effort. They're changing the mechanics. Now it's Eleusis' turn to put in some effort to solve its own problems instead of asking to be catered to.

Tekk

Sarapis said:

Anyway, as I've said, at least once already, we're not done here

This is pretty much the only reason why I haven't said 'f-ck it, I'll go play Midkemia.' 

Also, suggestion: message gaia Hey, go post that they don't have to respond to exterms anymore! 

Rangor

If I had to defend against 10 people exterminating, and didn't think I had a chance at killing them (of course I could kill them. Thornspray OP). Then I'd just sit back, worldburn and rejuvenate whenever the enemies were gone.

Forums seems to think it's a bad thing that the players want to fight for their ideals, participate and try to stop attacks against whatever it is they are sworn to. I say it's a great thing that Eleusians keep trying to defend against the odds. Would be kinda boring to be Mhaldorian if we played it any other way. (Oh, mhaldor attacking. let's ignore them. We can just rejuvenate later anyways.)

The only problem here is that Eleusis is mostly on the loosing side, and are lured into a defensive battle where we, as the only faction, can loose XP while defending. 

Yes, we're supposed to try to defend Nature. Anything else would be rather dumb/boring/pickyouradjective. The attack defense mechanic is there to be used, to create conflict, to get both aggressors and defenders involved in combat.

Please change the game mechanics so that defending Nature doesn't suck. There is a reason city defenders no longer loose XP.

Sarapis

Awan said:

Sarapis said:

Well, that's your choice. I'm just pointing out that objectively, it does arguably less damage than a forest fire irl does, and that Nature is quite capable of taking care of itself. Killing plants is to Nature what killing evil people is to Evil....except that Gods actually do lose essence when their Order members die, but Gaia loses nothing when someone exterminates. You guys do (access to a Grove, plants to harvest, etc) but that's again not Nature we're talking about any more. A forest fire exterminates plants just as effectively as the exterminate ability does.

You're describing something, which you call "extermination," which does not correspond to the phenomenon "extermination" which exists in the game world. A forest fire kills plants just as effectively as the exterminate ability does, yes. But exterminate does more than kill plants. That exterminate does more than just kill some plants is as hard and well-established and incontrovertible a fact in the game world as anything. \

Erm, no, that is not a hard, or incontrovertible fact at all. Hard and incontrovertible facts in Achaea are things like, "Gods exist. Stun stops you from doing most things. Exterminate kills plants in a room and stops regrowth until the exterminate state is reversed. Druids get the skill of Metamorphosis." What does exterminate do other than kill plants and give essence to the exterminator that's a hard, incontrovertible fact and not someone's opinion?

Hawek

Ya'll don't rarely even come out to "defend" the forest like ya'll claim even when it's a single person exterminating rooms... Hell this morning I got on to my 14th room before ya'll even made an attempt to defend...

Awan

Tekk said:

Also, suggestion: message gaia Hey, go post that they don't have to respond to exterms anymore! 

Seriously please don't do that. :-/ At this particular historical stage, it wouldn't go well. Besides, forestals deserve to have their roleplay treated with more respect than to have a god show up saying "Yeah, ignore everything you've always believed from now on" because the administration couldn't be bothered to do the thing properly in a way that could feel meaningful.

Aerek said:

Sarapis' point is that nothing in the last 2/3 of your post is his fault, his problem, or under his control.

The Admin are putting in the effort. They're changing the mechanics. Now it's Eleusis' turn to put in some effort to solve its own problems instead of asking to be catered to.

My post explains precisely why it is literally not possible for me, or for me plus any group of people I might rally to my side, to fix this without a very high probability of causing massive rebellion, bitter in-fighting, and tearing the faction into shreds in the process. And that's not worth the cost.

By contrast, if the administration put a bit of work into the thing and did it properly, it would make everyone much happier, enable our roleplay to be more satisfying and coherent, and would have no chance of ripping the community into shreds. After all the crap they've put up with, forestals are owed that much effort on our behalf when it's this important.

Tekk

Awan said:

Tekk said:

Also, suggestion: message gaia Hey, go post that they don't have to respond to exterms anymore! 

Seriously please don't do that. :-/ At this particular historical stage, it wouldn't go well. Besides, forestals deserve to have their roleplay treated with more respect than to have a god show up saying "Yeah, ignore everything you've always believed from now on" because the administration couldn't be bothered to do the thing properly in a way that could feel meaningful.

Nah, don't take it so serious. There have been a lot of things that have changed in history just due to bad mechanic designs. Landmarks? 

Drauka

What can't Nature "RP" evolve or change? It really does come down to leadership, in my opinion.

While I am no expert on Mhaldor history, I do know that it is the leadership of Mhaldor that really drives home the point of learning combat and being present at raids (offensive or defensive), and really testing its citizens. Me as a person I don't always want to go lose some XP and stop what I'm doing to get killed real quick when I become a target. 

Why can't this sort of thing exist in all cities? It can.

I'd like to see forestals rise up and say "damn it, we've had enough! we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore" and start a revolution within. If the same old stuff and "RP" isn't working, then change it, do something about it. Admin and Gods don't have to hold your hand and tell you what to do.

There is being peaceful and loving and all that jazz, and then there is standing up for your beliefs and what you feel is right or just.

Is there really a negative there? Will all forest life break down and forestals lose their powers for fighting for what they believe in. Being comfy with no conflict is boring, and that's why it's not hugely popular. Become a part of the world with everyone else and take action. You don't need an active god to do that, right?

Am I missing something?

Awan

Sarapis said:

 What does exterminate do other than kill plants and give essence to the exterminator that's a hard, incontrovertible fact and not someone's opinion?

If all you've done is kill plants, you can solve that by planting new plants, or waiting for them to grow back naturally, and rejuvenate would never have been needed to fix it. Therefore, it has always been an incontrovertible fact that exterminate does more than just kill some plants. Furthermore, natural forest fires kill plants, both in the common-sense sense that that's what fires do, and in the game-mechanic sense that it kills the harvestable herbs and we have to replant them. But forest fires do not leave the special message in the room that extermination leaves. So it is an incontrovertible fact that extermination does something more significant than merely burn up a bunch of plants the way a forest fire does.

Extermination is now technically non-permanent, but it still takes a year to rejuvenate, and if all you did was kill some plants, it would most certainly not take a year before new plants started growing in the spot. This clearly demonstrates that what has happened is more than just killing some plants, because that's not what happens when you kill some plants.

If you want it to be the case that all it does is kill plants, make a new skill which is defined as doing nothing but killing some plants.

Shirszae

Everytime I read one of @Sarapis or @Awan 's posts, I feel like you two are purposely not seeing eye to eye. On one side, the current fix to extermination is laughable at best, and will remain so until other fixes are added to it. On the other side, I feel like the forestals could make something up. RP their discovery that extermination is not doing as much damage as it has in the past. Maybe that can pave the way for when extermination is finally fully fixed completely.

If that time ever comes.

Froh

Awan said:

Sarapis said:

 What does exterminate do other than kill plants and give essence to the exterminator that's a hard, incontrovertible fact and not someone's opinion?

Extermination is now technically non-permanent, but it still takes a year to rejuvenate, and if all you did was kill some plants, it would most certainly not take a year before new plants started growing in the spot. This clearly demonstrates that what has happened is more than just killing some plants, because that's not what happens when you kill some plants.

If you want it to be the case that all it does is kill plants, make a new skill which is defined as doing nothing but killing some plants.

Why do we need some crazy level of immortal intervention to accept the evidence in front of our eyes that either Nature is more resilient than she used to be or the folks with Exterminate less powerful?

Either way, go forth and let your flock know about this wonderful sign or something.

Penwize

Well, IC, we actually have no way of knowing.  It hasn't been a year and no room has been left for more than a year exterminated.  Nothing IC has indicated exterminations are weaker, or that Nature is stronger.  Honestly, nobody in the community would let something stand exterminated for a year to begin with, but as it is the change has not even been in for that long.  You could make up some random thing, but it wouldn't really be verifiable, so I can sort of see the reasoning behind the hardline RP not changing at all with this.  Something has to actually indicate to people that it happens and exists now, even just a short word from Gaia that she has strengthened the forests would be enough to curb that.

Overall though, this is just two great forces refusing to budge here.  Sarapis is kind of ignoring the stories behind extermination we've been told throughout the whole game, and the Forestal community is holding out for a change that can actually rouse their deeply entrenched position into motion.  I really like that steps are being taken to improve it, and I really hope this is only the first step.  It is a baby step, but that needs to happen if we plan to move things in a positive direction.  Similarly, I really hope this isn't an indicator of the forestal community's overall approach to these changes.  The next time something happens, I hope to actually see some kind of a reaction to it.

Katzchen

You guys could start something like the black mass. A ritual held yearly to strengthen the forests, and help them regrow? And then claim the change was thanks to your rituals. :P