So I leave for a weekend concert series, and I can't be a priest in Cyrene anymore?

Klendathu

Kakotas said:
Honestly I could see Honor becoming a core tenet. Definitely if Runewarden is decided as the main factional class. This would allow some really interesting RP to develop as well...

Sarapis said:

Just to save you guys the time, there is not a chance that we'd take an existing class and make it factional, and it's also pretty unlikely, though not impossible, that we'd introduce new factional classes. Certainly not in the forseeable future in any case.

Klendathu

Did you stop to consider that perhaps one of the reasons it is the most populous city is because it has little or no external conflict? Not everyone wants to LolPK constantly, some people want other things from the game.

If you don't like the game design, rather than making back-handed and snide digs at the people who have worked on it for nearly two decades (mostly without being paid), don't play it.

Kaden

Oh, no! An open-ended game that gives its players the freedom to follow whatever path they want is accounting for multiple playstyles rather than focusing 100% on what I want from it. Why can't we just leave all those others players in the lurch? It's not like they're paying customers, right? Right?

Rangor

Daeir said:

Still boggles my mind that in a game centered around conflict, the most populous city is one that is founded on not having any external conflict whatsoever.

Really backwards from a game design concept, if I'm honest. Then again, Achaea has never exactly been a paragon of good design choices - though that has been getting better lately. Probably because of Makarios.

Well, those who don't mind or actively seek conflict has 4 (maybe 5 soon?) cities to choose from. While those who'd rather not be at conflict with anyone have 1 (maybe 2?) cities to choose from. So I'm not surprised that Cyrene has so many players.

Jovolo

Klendathu said:

Did you stop to consider that perhaps one of the reasons it is the most populous city is because it has little or no external conflict? Not everyone wants to LolPK constantly, some people want other things from the game.

If you don't like the game design, rather than making back-handed and snide digs at the people who have worked on it for nearly two decades (mostly without being paid), don't play it.

He's not really wrong though, that's still evident of a game design fault in that conflict is centered around PK and there are fewer avenues of which to make any meaningful impact outside of that, which drives people not interested in PK (Seemingly the majority) into cities that don't engage in conflict. The dominant PK cities, are typically, the dominant cities, because PK is the quickest and most obvious way of asserting dominance. The only person I can think of that hasn't succumbed to this status quo is Rho, but he had some pretty impressive PK force backing him anyway

Sarapis

Klendathu said:

Did you stop to consider that perhaps one of the reasons it is the most populous city is because it has little or no external conflict? Not everyone wants to LolPK constantly, some people want other things from the game.

Yep, that is exactly why it is so popular, and that's completely fine with us. The idea that everybody should PK or everybody should RP or everybody should play <like X> doesn't hold any water with us, and were we to engage in that sort of overly restrictive and poorly thought-out game design, Achaea would probably not exist as an ongoing entity today. 

Sarapis

Jovolo said:

Klendathu said:

Did you stop to consider that perhaps one of the reasons it is the most populous city is because it has little or no external conflict? Not everyone wants to LolPK constantly, some people want other things from the game.

If you don't like the game design, rather than making back-handed and snide digs at the people who have worked on it for nearly two decades (mostly without being paid), don't play it.

He's not really wrong though, that's still evident of a game design fault in that conflict is centered around PK and there are fewer avenues of which to make any meaningful impact outside of that, which drives people not interested in PK (Seemingly the majority) into cities that don't engage in conflict. The dominant PK cities, are typically, the dominant cities, because PK is the quickest and most obvious way of asserting dominance. The only person I can think of that hasn't succumbed to this status quo is Rho, but he had some pretty impressive PK force backing him anyway.

The dominant PK cities are dominant in PK, but that's a truism and also doesn't really matter to people who don't PK. 

It is probably no surprise that Cyrene is dominant in wealth, which equally makes little to no difference to people who don't care about such things.

Daklore

Since I may or may not have been the one who sparked off the "factionalize" Runewardens... you guys totally took my comment back on page 5 wrong.

Also pointed out is that it'll never happen, but my joking suggestion was to factionalize -totems- not Runewardens. Only the implanting of totems rather than the class :P Sheesh, you guys.

Carry on.

Greys

Daeir said:

Still boggles my mind that in a game centered around conflict, the most populous city is one that is founded on not having any external conflict whatsoever.

Really backwards from a game design concept, if I'm honest. Then again, Achaea has never exactly been a paragon of good design choices - though that has been getting better lately. Probably because of Makarios.

Er.. thats not game design that makes it the most populous but player choices. Besides, after the 6th hour of dealing with raids on a weekday, I would think you could understand the point of view.

Klendathu

Daeir said:

Klendathu said:

Did you stop to consider that perhaps one of the reasons it is the most populous city is because it has little or no external conflict? Not everyone wants to LolPK constantly, some people want other things from the game.

If you don't like the game design, rather than making back-handed and snide digs at the people who have worked on it for nearly two decades (mostly without being paid), don't play it.

Conflict is not solely lolpk, but the fact that you think so speaks volumes.

Instead of opting for the easy route and just taking my interest elsewhere, I have not - and I have tried my utmost to help change things for the better where I can. Pointing out issues in game design is not snidely denigrating the work that all the volunteers over the ages have put in - it is the responsibility and duty of any player who earnestly and sincerely wants the game to thrive, not just survive.

@Greys: The fact that in a game centered around conflict (supposedly), a considerable portion of the players opt to go to a faction especially catered to the absence of this external conflict that drives the game is highly indicative of issues regarding aforementioned conflict - far beyond just dealing with combat oriented stuff. I'm talking about conflict as a general term - the sociopolitical conflict that is meant to drive city relations and competition between the city states is meant to be a big part of this game. If player population is leaning towards areas where this conflict is not a big part of a player's life, then there is evidently issues with how that conflict is being initiated at a design level.

I'm not sitting here and taking shots at people that don't play the game the same way that I do. Thank you for taking the ad hominem forum points approach and jumping straight to personal arguments and blase generalizations, though!

I'm fully aware of the myriad forms of conflict, rest assured. I used LolPK as an extreme and obvious form of external conflict. There are plenty of intra-city conflicts within Ashtan, and I assume within Cyrene, which your character, as a citizen of Targossas, may be unaware. The game isn't designed around just you, it's designed to be balanced for the very vast majority. I forget who it was who said it, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. As for pointing out what you perceive to be bad game design, there are more pleasant ways of doing it than stating that Achaea has never been a paragon of good game design, and that it's only improved due to one individual, which I dispute.

Synbios

Contemplative: Might it not be possible that Neutrality as a concept can, ironically, be a source of conflict? 

Nim

Side note: perhaps Achaea is not actually a game of conflict, but a sandbox with various forms of conflict as well as various other attractions. If the game revolved solely around conflict, there'd be little need for a poetry board.

Kandra

Cyrene thrives on community. Pretty sure that's it. Every so often a 'newbie' shows up trying to stir drama and the city gets bloodthirsty for that person. Surprisingly they are also the least forgiving of newbies, at least out of four cities. (Have no knowledge of Eleusis or Targossas.) But I think it's probably that they are wary of what peace may be disturbed, and if you stick it out and don't start trying to stir up conflict, then it gets better.

Jules

Daklore said:

Since I may or may not have been the one who sparked off the "factionalize" Runewardens... you guys totally took my comment back on page 5 wrong.

Also pointed out is that it'll never happen, but my joking suggestion was to factionalize -totems- not Runewardens. Only the implanting of totems rather than the class :P Sheesh, you guys.

Carry on.

Silas and a couple others sort of took that and said "yeah, it's been joked about, but I'd be all for it" (on the totems in particular, although I do think we failed to actually separate it from Runies like you specified)...  anyway. 

The only reason a lot of people have parked our characters in Cyrene, is because you can easily get in over your head in PK in Achaea, which means getting trapped in an endless loop of trying to bash back the experience we are absolutely going to lose if we do get involved because we're not actually good at it...  Or even if we are kind of good at it but in a small faction, or kind of good but not quite good enough, and so on.  Post dead horse gifs all you want, but that is exactly why I and others like me PK all the time in other games (badly, but have lots of fun), but never, ever in this one.  Also, Cyrene is just a nice place to live and it's pretty and it reliably has a lot of nice people around, but that's beside the point (but it is, and there is good shopping). 

Kaden

Nim said:

Side note: perhaps Achaea is not actually a game of conflict, but a sandbox with various forms of conflict as well as various other attractions. If the game revolved solely around conflict, there'd be little need for a poetry board.

I don't know about using poetry as an example! I mean, have you seen how mercurial artists can be?

Nim

You're talking to someone who responded to Ashtani antagonism with a poem on Public. As a war minister.

But there'd be no need for a poetry board because it would exist solely to highlight conflict.

Instead, we'd have a slamming board, which would work like Public and Poetry fused, but you'd need to earn points (by people "Like"ing your posts or just very slowly over time) to post.

Verrucht

Daeir said:

Still boggles my mind that in a game centered around conflict, the most populous city is one that is founded on not having any external conflict whatsoever.

Really backwards from a game design concept, if I'm honest. Then again, Achaea has never exactly been a paragon of good design choices - though that has been getting better lately. Probably because of Makarios.

I'd just like to take a moment to point out that the vast majority of games that involve two or more people are centered around conflict. You keep saying "game that is centered around conflict" like it's some unique thing for a game to be that way... but really if you look most games have some sort of conflict in them.  Even Scrabble, there's the conflict of placing words in advantageous positions to either build off of them or to block certain letters. Jenga, it's the conflict of seeing how much you can destabilise the tower without knocking it down, trying to force your opponent to do that. Even in Cards Against Humanity, you have the much more playful conflict, but still conflict of trying to either give the best answers possible based on the cards you have or tailoring your answer to the person who is doing the judging for that round. Hell even in Solitaire, it's the conflict of the cards coming up the right way or not as you work to move them all back to the home stacks, even though that's conflict more against RNG.

It's all conflict.

Cooper

Conflict does not mean you have to be fighting against other cities. There is plenty of conflict within each city without going outside of it. The majority of players in the game don't even participate in PK even infrequently. Achaea is an RP game first, PK game second, and conflict does not just mean 'fighting/arguing/debating/etc' with other cities.

Siduri

Skye said:

I wanted a picture of a kitten in a barrel but mostly all I found was kittens in buckets. 

Kandra

That's a kitten ON a barrel.

Makaela

That kitten makes me think of @Santar

Aereidhna

Bronislav said:

Jules said:

And then, Cyrene not only gets attacked regularly, but we also get lectured ad nauseam about how we "have totems, but still can't win"

And then, Cyrene not only gets attacked regularly, but we also get lectured

Cyrene not only gets attacked regularly

Cyrene gets attacked regularly

Have you seen our Army lately? I'll grant you, our stance toward raiding has largely been, "Screw off, go away, we aren't interested". Cyrene, as a city, has zero interest in stomping over to another city and caving their faces in. But the only difference between Cyrene and the Zerg is that we lack the experience and the drive to deliberately screw with other cities - and the former is very easily remedied:

Spawn more overlords.

This 100%. Cyrene has a lot of non-coms (and a few like me who try but suck/need time to learn) but we still kick ass when we're attacked. It would be a mistake to confuse isolationism with weakness.

Ayami

I don't know about that. When we got raided when I played we usually broke even at best, and there's a reason Cyrene was where one of the first level 2 tanks was detonated (unless I'm misremembering that)

Verrucht

Ayami said:

I don't know about that. When we got raided when I played we usually broke even at best, and there's a reason Cyrene was where one of the first level 2 tanks was detonated (unless I'm misremembering that)

Yeah, it's cyclical. We get better at defence, and then people raid less and we get worse at it, etc etc. We've been doing well lately is their point.

Aerek

I don't recall a level 2 getting popped in Cyrene, only in Mhaldor and Targossas, but even if we were the first, anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. When we have a strong raid leader and the numerical advantage to balance out the artefact/experience gap, we usually do well. When we don't have a strong leader or a numerical advantage, we usually don't. Since the Renaissance put all of our combat-interested players under one roof and army membership has started to get standardized, I've felt that Cyrene has become much more effective in repulsing raids on the whole, but it would take a raid leader that hit us often before and after the Renaissance to confirm that.

Of course there are always defenses like this:

2015/04/17 04:07:58 - Agrias > Defenders against the recent string of Mhaldor attacks: Jes, Tysora, Loalaine, Aerek, Halgar, Itkovian, Kenway, Daklore, Glorissa, Haeley, Moonwhisper, Eril, Valkyn, Kesindir, Voc, Flec, Aeryi, Trilliana, Silvarien, Verrucht, Aereidhna, Tynil, Sturm, Prydwyn, Aziik, Agrias, Batuo, Kandra, Aaseth, Bronislav, Roselie, Sturm, Lisbethae, Laren, Glutami, Tarvius, Seelie.

Where all you really need is to not walk into a Retardation trap, and targets will just evaporate as they hit ART.

Live for the Swarm.

Tesha

That looks kinda fun to fight. I wish I could justify a raid.

Jules

Ayami said:

I don't know about that. When we got raided when I played we usually broke even at best, and there's a reason Cyrene was where one of the first level 2 tanks was detonated (unless I'm misremembering that)

Right, we're informally known as a breaking in training ground for newer raiding parties, as I understand it.  When we have a few leaders around who can stay alive and keep us all hitting the same target, our numbers and weirdly high number of artifacts can definitely prevail though.  At the same time, it's important for us to maintain a sense of balance and realism when it comes to this sort of thing, otherwise we'd just get taken advantage of and slaughtered for the hell of it (and all of that glorious text pee, because lots of bashers in Cyrene), frankly.  I think our core leadership is fairly aware of that, too. 

Aereidhna

This is probably off topic and I'm not sure if anyone really cares, but a huge part of why I joined Cyrene was the lack of pressure as far as defending or joining the army and the fact that non-coms aren't looked down upon for evacuating and doing whatever we want while other people fight. Watching the laid back environment and having my character develop a more intense love for the city and desire to try to do something (even if combat is really not my thing) is what led me to join the army, where I now mostly flail around trying to not get killed and to occasionally shoot people with arrows. If I were in a city that required defense, looked down on incompetence or didn't allow people to learn on their own timetable I would never have even tried. I love the environment in Cyrene as far as the army goes because I dont get discouraged even if I suck, I die, or we're outnumbered. And having great role models is inspiring me to want to learn more (after I finish house tasks because the struggle is real with that, lol).

tl;dr thanks Cyrene's army for being spectacular because it's led to really awesome character development for me and I appreciate it majorly.

p.s. Runies for life, but if they ever come up with the factional class where we throw books or money at things as an attack, would totally class change for that.

Ayami

Realistically, no city really forces you to defend (especially as a newbie) or is going to make a big deal out of pvp incompetence/force you to learn quickly. I'm completely useless for city defence in Mhaldor and no one's even commented on it, and Mhaldor's definitely the city people think of when they say 'mandatory defence' and 'forced pvp.' People are too worried about a fantasy version of the militant cities to actually try them out, which is why neutral factions have such huge numbers, I suspect.

Sarapis

Nim said:

Side note: perhaps Achaea is not actually a game of conflict, but a sandbox with various forms of conflict as well as various other attractions. If the game revolved solely around conflict, there'd be little need for a poetry board.

Coming for the Year 700 competition: POETRY SLAMS! Everybody will be randomly assigned a poem form (sestina, haiku, canzone, ode if we're feeling really mean) and will have to extemporize within that form on the spot. While manually curing an Occie's offense.

It'll be right after the coinflipping competition.