Hashan Thread

Tvistor

Shallam didn't have a way out of that though. I recall a ceasefire was called by Tanris for a while to let them rebuild a bit.

Also pretty sure your city blowing up qualifies as losing, voluntary or not.

Achilles

But we wanted it to blow up.  We had cases of dynamite in the basement they wouldn't give us a match.

Iocun

The stupid thing about shrines is that keeping them up numerously requires people to be fond of bashing.

Akia

The stupid thing about shrines is that if you don't even have any to have to defend and feel impressed with yourself for blowing up ~35 you call it a win.

Achilles

Iocun said:

The stupid thing about shrines is that keeping them up numerously requires people to be fond of bashing.

This is true but it really cuts both ways especially once they changed how much a dragon's body is worth essence wise.  Its actually a lot easier to keep up shrines than to defile.  Takes 50% more essence to defile (plus there is the worldburn, witness, gank factors).  The downside of raising a shrine is the willpower cost, so you need a lot of active members to raise the shrines themselves.

Caladbolg

The Hashan/Shallam war is stupid oocly and here's why.

I'd say Shallam/Refugees have more experience then anyone else in raid defense.
Raiding they're used to working together.

Hashan, seems to have little if any raid defense experience
Not sure if Hashan's ever raided anything before tbh.

On this note playing an alt I enjoyed being around Hashan in the raids it's nice to see people working together to come up with idea's and plans for the raid defense.

Also got to laugh my ass off at some of the comments on party about Shallam/Refugees and how much people don't understand how things are or talk way to big.

To sum it up, Hashan has little to no raid experience and I highly doubt they'll be able to counter raid and put up a decent fight with Shallam's raid defense experience. Unless Ashtan's with them

Iocun

Achilles said:

 (plus there is the worldburn, witness, gank factors)

Worldburn, yes, but I don't see how the gank factor would be on the defenders' side. It's much easier for the defiling side to have a huge group to attack anyone who comes to defend, since they are the ones who get to choose the time it happens, while the other party has to run there to witness, which doesn't leave much time to group up.

Achilles

worldburn plus piety/gravehands/tentacles pretty much kills any defiler (except monks who can apparently tank the damage) who doesn't have universe/earrings/evade to get out of range.  Most defiling parties aren't super huge (less than 5) so you can get a group together quickly or else the shrine is destroyed before you even get there.

Deladan

As a member of Twilight's order I can honestly say that overall we really don't care about shrines. Sometimes I'll go defend if I'm bored shitless but other than that, overall when someone erects one I might go hunting. So in Short to say that you've won a shrine war against Twilight, when you don't have any shrines yourselves, is like saying you won a stupid contest against a retarded kid. Good Job.

Tvistor

Hi Deladan.

Deladan

Hi Tvistor!

Tanris

Shrines are both a great and terrible mechanic. They're good because they give something concrete to fight over away from city limits (Achaea needs more of this). They're terrible because:
- Its easy to hit them with overwhelming force when no one is around (but this is like most potential systems that don't have a random time factor in MMOs).
- Often the shrine can be dropped long before a defensive force is mustered to respond, and if the defilers aren't actually looking for a fight they'll be long gone.
- They're tedious to reraise in large scale conflict, because 50% willpower a shot generally means the order can't retaliate and continue the engagement.
- The age old issue of orders being able to defile while maintaining close to 0 shrines of their own, or only ones inside city limits. Turns a cool mechanic more into an exterm deal (one sided, gg best come raid because you're not defiling us back, etc).
- Pk system requires bashing (kind of like that argument about dragon being a pk reward for bashing). Could be considered a good thing depending on perspective, as gives order members who like to bash a part to play in the system as well.

I like the shrine system overall though. A few tweaks could probably make it more enjoyable for everyone involved, but its definitely in a decentish place. Orders do need to remember it is voluntary to raise shrines. I've had Babel's order stop raising on numerous occasions if the effort just wasn't justifying the conflict/enjoyment we were getting out of it, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you feel you're wasting your time constantly reraising, stop reraising. Shrines are there both as an indication of influence, although not a very good one (Lupus' order probably had more than anyone at one point, but didn't really have world influence) but also as a mechanism to create conflict. If that mechanism is proving not to be enjoyable, there is probably no shortage of ways for you to make a decision to reevaluate your shrine placement strategy IC.

There is something to be said for moderation though. Idk  if I'd have defiled 35 shrines of an order with no combatants left (no, I probably would have, that's a lie), but might be worth patting people on the back and redirecting towards Hashan to keep it from becoming too apathetic for the Twilight people. Not going to stick my nose in and tell you how to fight your text-war though, just a thought.

Deladan

We really don't care about the shrines as a whole, so they're not really doing anything to us. Infact even when Twilight was active even He didn't care about His shrines that much.... So we can let Shallam think they're doing something ( we know they're not) that's just how it is though. If you want go hit somewhere that actually cares about shrines like that....

Darroth

What I really don't like about shrines is when players bait order members with a few corpses, trying to lure them to the shrine to get jumped. Babelites do this all the time, whether it's intentional or not. Either go hunt enough to get the shrine or go away. Shallam was actually guilty of this a few days ago too. 

Tanris

@Deladan: That's a terrible attitude and one I associate with those cities who sit there as souls saying "oh we didn't lose xp so we don't care". Your character should care.

Vansittart

Jacen said:

Silas said:

Vayne said:

You do not think Hashan knows what defeat is? I am sure all those around for the Qashari occupations would testify against that, and *Shallam does have a penchant for defiling that is merely a fact. No need for the hostile tone here in the forums, not sure where that is stemming from; it is only a game, man.

Personally, I actually think the Qashar raids are a perfect example of Hashan refusing to admit/accept defeat. The Qashar smashed Hashan's collective back doors in on a nightly basis, but Hashan absolutely refused to accept that they'd lost.

Of course, this isn't a problem localised to Hashan. The entire game suffers from a refusal to actually lose, because people know that game mechanics won't let them. It's always been a huge problem, though I hope that Bal'met killing previously untouchable Gods might allow people to start to break out of it.

Wait. So what has Ashtan been doing to you all these years?

IIRC, Silas (or possibly someone else in Shallam) wrote a very graceful "We lost" post when there were formal hostilities between Shallam and Ashtan.  I don't think I had ever seen one of those before, and if it was Silas is one of the few redeeming elements of a career largely defined by lust-filled grooming or relentless self-aggrandisement (j/k, baby).  A straight-up admission of a loss that isn't drafted as a reverse apology (I'm sorry if you were offended by my totally justified statement) is really rare, and should be applauded.

I totally agree with Silas that a failure to lose is a real Achaean problem and we should be absolutely encouraging people to roleplay a graceful loss.  It is at least as obnoxious as people not gracefully winning and the two problems feed off each other.

One of the problems with a game like Achaea that necessarily doesn't have perma-death for players and, only rarely, lasting consequence for organisations is that it is very easy to pretend you aren't losing when you are getting your ass handed to you day-in, day-out. 

I would have a lot more respect for a city leader prepared to roleplay out a military defeat rather than one who just giggles and dips into largely endless city coffers to buy more guards.

Vansittart

Tanris said:

@Deladan: That's a terrible attitude and one I associate with those cities who sit there as souls saying "oh we didn't lose xp so we don't care". Your character should care.

To expand on that your character should care but shouldn't necessarily say that he cares.  Saying you don't care on the forums is either stupid or forum RP.  In the interests of being a polite, constructive member of the community I won't lay odds on which.

Triak

Vansittart said:

Jacen said:

Silas said:

Vayne said:

You do not think Hashan knows what defeat is? I am sure all those around for the Qashari occupations would testify against that, and *Shallam does have a penchant for defiling that is merely a fact. No need for the hostile tone here in the forums, not sure where that is stemming from; it is only a game, man.

Personally, I actually think the Qashar raids are a perfect example of Hashan refusing to admit/accept defeat. The Qashar smashed Hashan's collective back doors in on a nightly basis, but Hashan absolutely refused to accept that they'd lost.

Of course, this isn't a problem localised to Hashan. The entire game suffers from a refusal to actually lose, because people know that game mechanics won't let them. It's always been a huge problem, though I hope that Bal'met killing previously untouchable Gods might allow people to start to break out of it.

Wait. So what has Ashtan been doing to you all these years?

IIRC, Silas (or possibly someone else in Shallam) wrote a very graceful "We lost" post when there were formal hostilities between Shallam and Ashtan.  I don't think I had ever seen one of those before, and if it was Silas is one of the few redeeming elements of a career largely defined by lust-filled grooming or relentless self-aggrandisement (j/k, baby).  A straight-up admission of a loss that isn't drafted as a reverse apology (I'm sorry if you were offended by my totally justified statement) is really rare, and should be applauded.

I totally agree with Silas that a failure to lose is a real Achaean problem and we should be absolutely encouraging people to roleplay a graceful loss.  It is at least as obnoxious as people not gracefully winning and the two problems feed off each other.

One of the problems with a game like Achaea that necessarily doesn't have perma-death for players and, only rarely, lasting consequence for organisations is that it is very easy to pretend you aren't losing when you are getting your ass handed to you day-in, day-out. 

I would have a lot more respect for a city leader prepared to roleplay out a military defeat rather than one who just giggles and dips into largely endless city coffers to buy more guards.

Silas did do this with Erhon for the 5 year war.  I think gave us 5 mil too.

Deladan

@tanris it's most of the order that feels like that.... Shrines have never really concerned Twilight's order...

Deladan

order members name retracted -- says, "The shrines outside of the cities and
temple are fairly useless other then to offer."

Deladan

(clan): ordermember says, "Hell, sometimes we keep a shrine up to
just have a reason to hire someone to kill someone."
5864h,3618m,23860e,19270w|cexkdb-||11.1|
(clan): order member says, "Or for the fun, or out of boredom."

Deladan

I could keep going but at this point in time I will assume most people get the general picture that Twilight's order could care less about shrines or shrine war..... For those of you who think we should, we don't. I don't know how to explain this any simpler

Tanris

Idk, if none of your order can bring themselves to care that a hostile force is defiling standing monuments to the divinity they worship (a general afront to everything your god stands for, in other words), not sure what more can be said.

Tanris

Also, going to put on my hypocrit hat here and say god damn, one post, man! Seeing 3 new posts got me all excited.

Chryenth

One post would be simpler.

ETA: Ninja'ed.

Deladan

Part of it is Twilight himself told us not to worry about the shrines too much, He didn't really care about them.

Deladan

@tanris lol'd hard.

Eld

Tanris said:

Also, going to put on my hypocrit hat here and say god damn, one post, man! Seeing 3 new posts got me all excited.

This is clearly just an extension of Deladan's campaign to introduce the carriage return as a punctuation mark.

Kybrae

Darroth said:

What I really don't like about shrines is when players bait order members with a few corpses, trying to lure them to the shrine to get jumped. Babelites do this all the time, whether it's intentional or not. Either go hunt enough to get the shrine or go away. Shallam was actually guilty of this a few days ago too. 

@Darroth I have seen this more times then I can count, a majority of times I died to players is from being jumped around the shrines.

___

As for caring, or not caring about the shrines, I have something to say about this. Originally I was going to stay quiet, but I won't now.

I want you to stop, and think for a moment about the particular Order you are talking about. What do we all know about Darkwalkers, and about Twilight Himself? Darkwalkers like to stay to themselves (most of the time), more often then not most Darkwalkers keep their status as such hidden. There has been exceptions and all, but I'm saying in general. Now, defending, and witnessing a shrine will give away the fact that you are in that Order.This is why Several order members will not defend, and witness shrines. This is why several won't post any response to Silas' statement, and those that do do any of this are the ones who have already became known for their status.

The Great respect you can give a God, or Goddess is to follow their wishes.

If said God or Goddess has standing orders, or states that it is okay to not defend the shrines, then it is okay. 

@Tanris yes, a shrine is a standing monument to a divinity for offering, and worshiping. It is a physical representation of the divinity's realm. Yes, there are times that the Order will defend Their shrines, however... it's about discretion. There are times when it's better to just let the shrine stay down for some time, it's a plain waste of essence to keep re-raising a shrine, when you know that they will drop it just as soon as they realize it's back up. 

There are simply times when there is no reason to re-raise the shrine, when it's just best left down. Like in any shrine war, the shrines will be re-raised at the Dark Order's discretion. To argue about caring about shrines, bringing one's self to care, and all of that is simply pointless, and quite frankly... moot.

Perhaps in some Orders, shrines are a big deal. But, they are not in the Dark Order. End of story.

Except this... why would Orders who do not have shrines up, care if the Dark Order cares or not about their shrines, when they have none of their own? I ask myself this, and now I ask you.

Silas

That's not quite what we're saying. All Orders have reached a point where it doesn't make sense to keep raising shrines when you know you can't maintain them; that's fine. The problem is when people (like Deladan) act like shrines just aren't a big deal.

Achaea is a game based around conflict: shrines are a conflict mechanism. If you continually downplay a mechanism of conflict in a conflict-driven game, something is wrong.