Cities

Xaden

Daeir said:

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

I agree with everything you said bar this.

Krypton

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?

Trey

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.

Dominius

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.

Solnir

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.

Keorin

Current Cyrene is basically the logical extension of a conflict system that can only have any sort of consequences if you agree to them. Don't want to deal with a destroyed room? Just walk out of the city. Don't want to lose a war? Never agree to have one, and all anyone can do is start raids that you can walk out of. And everyone knows how safe they are mechanically, so it becomes ingrained in the roleplay.

Heck, Mhaldor tried pushing an interesting roleplay consequence onto Eleusis during their last big conflict, and we all saw how that went. The lengths people will go to keep their text faction from any sort of loss is pretty absurd.

Laedha

Wouldn't you rather have most of the people who will actively resist factional conflict head to one city and stay out of your way? I don't think it hurts the conflict-driven storyline, I think it makes that much easier to manage because you're not fighting against a bunch of people who would really prefer not to get involved. 

RP-wise, there are storylines that involve Sapience against an external enemy, like the Tide. Cyrene allowed a space for nearly all factions to meet in a neutral area. 

I find a lot of RP in Cyrene, but it's not the same kind of RP that a lot of you prefer and find to be superior. You're right that it rarely affects the rest of the world, but it doesn't hurt anybody either, and Cyrene is one of the larger cities so I think we would lose players by trying to force everybody into factional RP that some people don't enjoy. 

Laedha

Daeir said:

It's essentially providing an option for people to opt out of conflict in a game that is pretty much focused entirely on conflict. The true WHO of Achaea is essentially whatever it normally is minus 95% of Cyrene's playerbase. I would go out on a limb and say that it roughly halves it, or at least reduces it by a third.

They're unassailable. And so long as the disparity exists, the people who do enjoy the slice-of-life style interactions that Cyrene is largely renowned for continue to crowd into Cyrene in huge numbers. Other cities and the organizations they house are bereft of the people they need to build their communities because of it. Sure, they could make themselves more attractive, but how can they ever compare to the draw that a predominately 'neutral' citystate has, with all of its history and establishment? 

You're making a big assumption that people would join factions and become active participants the way you want them to if Cyrene didn't exist. I don't think they would. They'd move to Hashan or got to Targossas or Eleusian or Ashtan and give their leaders headaches because they don't want to rally round the flag. 

That's a big reason Eleusis has had so much drama. Lots of old people who hate the new nature gods and hate being pulled into factional conflict and don't really like to fight anyway. Healthier to just get them out of the way and move along. 

Jinos

Maybe it's the lack of caffeine, or it's too early in the morning. But I couldn't help picturing the Purge after reading all of this.

Fellow Cyrenians just swarming out into the world one day stabbing the hell out of whoever is in their path, leaving fire and destruction in their wake. 

And then returning home, picking up the cupcakes and back to suburbia life it is. 'Morning George! How are you? Blood? What blood? Oh. Well ain't that a stitch, guess I didn't wash these as well as I thought. Good to see you though, have a fantastic day!' 

Mathilda

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.

Vallie

@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!

Penwize

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.

Krypton

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.

Vallie

@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.

Telendrieth

One thing I do enjoy about Cyrene is that I've played long enough to see it grow from side-kick of team blue to a fairly neat realization of a neutral city state. We have our moments of awesome, but they are often small and subtle, often times going completely overlooked by other factions. That being said though, Cyrene isn't for everyone, and I don't always like the folks Cyrene attracts. If you don't enjoy slice-of-life roleplay/interactions run for your life, flee, fly like the wind. 

Cyrene was founded IG around the concept of avoiding war and strife that radical theologies often bring to the table. It took some time, but they have held pretty firmly towards that goal, and slowly moved to where they are now. It also gets colored that remaining neutral is an extremely easy thing to do and a way to "opt out" of participating with the game as a whole. I can say 100% that there are many times when our emotions are running high and we want to just say "Eff the hundreds of years we put to this, release the Zerg.", but to preserve the general identity and environment that so many individuals enjoy, we have to temper reactions pretty hard. 

Not saying Cyrene is perfect or doesn't have annoying quirks, but the population size alone really is an indicator that something about the city resonates well with a sizable portion of the player base.  

Krypton

I do not believe Cyrene's policies and ethos (Neutrality, not instigating conflict, etc.) are a problem at all -- as already said, they provide that home for the large playerbase who doesn't prioritise factional conflict RP in Achaea.

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.

Zenii

I love Eleusis. The main drive of Nature allows for me to adapt to almost anything and have a constant built in conflict outside of the Village. I'm not a major combatant, but if I want to raid I am able to choose almost any city because all cities are hurting Nature and need to be destroyed or learn to live in harmony. If I want to do a ritual I can pull from so many different aspects that it gives me a lot of freedom to RP how I want to. I can be serious and focus on the hunt like the wolves or silly and flutter around like the butterflies. We have an entire base that could be RP'd around from so many different aspects that it doesn't put you in a bind. 

Want to be a cook? You could focus on only things found in forests and create a niche
Want to be a tailor? Be inspired by the way the water flows in your skirts or the sparkle in the rocks
Want to be a scholar? Study the way cities interact with nature. Writ propaganda to influence people to join. 
Want to be an artist? Poetry and paintings of Villagers, forests, Tsol'aa, or the interactions and force behind these things. 
Combat your thing? Go fight cities, vivify Mhaldor and return it to Nature

The possibilities are limitless and we have a lot of lore that is fun and can be built upon. We have older characters that provide mentorship in varying forms and an RP that functions without the Divine. (Although, Divine would make life much more fun!!)

Kiet

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.

Caynix

I actually really like Cyrene and I'm not sure if I agree with Daeir's assessment that its existence is bad for interaction. When I was Mhaldorian, there were places like Eleusis where I couldn't even walk into without some dragon threatening to eat me. But I could walk into Cyrene anytime and find people to talk to...not even just Cyrenians, people from other factions also seem more open to interacting when they're on Cyrenian soil.

I think Penwize hit the nail on the head when it comes to the value Cyrene offers. I was enemied to Cyrene for almost 3 IC years, which I totally don't regret because the day I followed my superiors into war to obliterate the city during the 750 world games is still the coolest IC day I've had in Achaea. But I was also really glad to pay the steep fine to be unenemied, because it meant Cyrene's shops and people were accessible again.

In real life, you can get away with having a weak military if you offer something valuable that other nations might lose by invading you. I think Cyrene can get away with it as well because it offers the most valuable resource in a game like Achaea: opportunity for player interaction.

Reyson

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. 

Caynix

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!

Telendrieth

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- 

Shirszae

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.

Vallie

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.

Reyson

For the record, I never said 'help' or anysuch thing from Cyrenians, despite being an enemy. I said 'refuse to engage.' And I don't just mean that they won't come out and fight/compete/etc., I mean exactly what some other people have reported in this thread: Cyrenians tend to skip right to OOC when it comes to people they perceive as 'ruining' their game experience, by and large, and the fact that you can't connect with them in even an adversarial relationship, 9/10 times, makes it a dead population for anyone who doesn't play there. I think that's part of what @Daeir's getting at, though I'm not in his head, so I can't say for sure. 

I've had some pretty great moments with people from every faction (Cyrene included!) as a bad guy. But the number of people willing to roll with it and make something out of nothing in Cyrene, when it comes to interactions with enemies, seems to be incredibly minimal (which is fine, everyone can play the game however they want. I'm just trying to highlight why it is some people might feel Cyrene is so far gone in its isolationism it doesn't feel like it contributes to the game world much). 

Some Mhaldorians are uncool, just like some Targs/Eleusians/Hashani/Ashtani are uncool. Sometimes, it's tough to balance being a bad guy with wanting to engage people, to be sure. I'm always up for making something happen, though, so if some Mhaldorian's been a jerk, let's get 'em reported to Red Square for a little after-church murderating! 

Krypton

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.

Telendrieth

Extra paperwork for them!

Devran

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.

Hataru

Telendrieth said:

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!

Caynix

@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 -.-