Factional Classes For Hashan And Cyrene

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  • Kyrra said:

    Can you imagine Runie Mizik or Earionduil in Cyrene?

    That's exactly the problem though. Cities that don't have conflict engines or exclusive classes can't draw awesome fighters. If you want to be an apostate with necro for example, you have to join Mhaldor. A Druid with soul Rez etc.
    You don't have to join Cyrene to be an outstanding bard fighter, and in fact you're less likely to join Cyrene to fight because they have far fewer Artie whores so you know you'll die a lot.

    Top tiers follow conflict. Conflict follows rp clashes. So if your ideology is cookies or neutrality, people don't switch to your city as much.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • They're both neutral. But Chaos is neutral too despite being a little dark themes.

    What Hashan could focus around is spiritual neutrality. The spirit realm/world hasn't been delved into very far but I don't believe the spirits side with light evil or chaos but rather themselves.
    I think shamans would be best to factionalise with them. It's an underplayed class anyway. And they're neutral priests. Not sure how necessary runelore is for them to keep but--

    Cyrene would be a fine candidate for neutrality except that they'd have to forbid or accept apostate/forestal/occultist/priest
    outright.

    Also do we know yet how factional restrictions will persist with multiclass?
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    Xith said:
    Can you imagine Runie Mizik or Earionduil in Cyrene?
    That's exactly the problem though. Cities that don't have conflict engines or exclusive classes can't draw awesome fighters. If you want to be an apostate with necro for example, you have to join Mhaldor. A Druid with soul Rez etc. You don't have to join Cyrene to be an outstanding bard fighter, and in fact you're less likely to join Cyrene to fight because they have far fewer Artie whores so you know you'll die a lot. Top tiers follow conflict. Conflict follows rp clashes. So if your ideology is cookies or neutrality, people don't switch to your city as much.
     You make a funny leap of logic from 'Top tiers' to 'people.'

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


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

  • See, all of this seems nearly pointless, since it's been repeated over and over that Hashan and Cyrene aren't getting classes, and new classes aren't even in the long term at this is time.

    Don't get me wrong... I would love to see it happen though.
  • Katzchen said:
    Alchemist could work well for Hashan, especially if the replacement for transmutation was some sort of skill to do with astronomy. Cyrene has never fought, and doesn't seem to want to, and doesn't really need a factional class - there is nothing wrong with a pacifist city, plenty of people love it there. There would be way too much fallout if you tried to make Cyrene the only city with bards or runewardens.

    @Tarkanian Hashan isn't trying to be neutral, they're trying to be 'Night/Darkness'. It's just not well defined, and everyone has their own idea of what that is. Also some of the population -do- want neutral, so they can't even decide on that.
    @katzchen: agreed, my post was written in haste. The whole night/darkness concept is, quite frankly, misleading, in that there's no real delineation of what constitutes night-ly or darkness-y ideologies. the whole thing is so figurative, to say the least.
  • Xith said:
    They're both neutral. But Chaos is neutral too despite being a little dark themes. What Hashan could focus around is spiritual neutrality. The spirit realm/world hasn't been delved into very far but I don't believe the spirits side with light evil or chaos but rather themselves. I think shamans would be best to factionalise with them. It's an underplayed class anyway. And they're neutral priests. Not sure how necessary runelore is for them to keep but-- Cyrene would be a fine candidate for neutrality except that they'd have to forbid or accept apostate/forestal/occultist/priest outright. Also do we know yet how factional restrictions will persist with multiclass?
    I completely agree that Shaman do make sense as a priest class for Hashan, although the problem is still that most Shaman aren't in Hashan. Andraste, Bluef, Howdin, Alaric, Tema, Owynn, Myself ...etc etc are the Shaman I know in-game and none of them are Hashani. Even when my character was a Spiritwalker there were only two Shaman in the house. Tema and Alaric (Alaric having left the house) While on the flip side, there are lots of active Alchemists in Hashan, Vayne, Hellen, Kroac, Aduan when last I checked.

    Yet forcing the majority of those who play the class to join the city when the majority is outside the city just doesn't make sense, especially when Alchemist can fit the role better. Alchemists may right now serve as a class that makes curatives but when trade skills come out the need for an Alchemist looks like it will change completely. Instead of being a support class who makes cures for everyone they can be something completely different and focus on Alchemy and RP with Alchemy instead of just being the group that makes cures for everyone in the city.
  • How is Cyrene neutral? They allow certain factional classes... and then disallow others. They obviously lean towards Good over Evil and Chaos. They would exempt themselves from any factional sway if they were actually neutral, but they still cling to Devotion.

    Also, to have a "factional class", your faction needs to have some control over that class, be it: Through controlling interest such as the Bardic License I saw earlier, or flat out removing a skill such as Vodun/Alchemy from Shamans/Alchemists that work against Hashan or join other cities.

    Hashan and Alchemists seems like a more likely event. It could be done due to severing of the anchor tuning to all other cities, but it also completely works against the entire reason alchemist was implemented. When Transmutation is separated from the class, it would be a fine idea though, but sorry to say you won't be pulling in any interested players unless their new third skill makes the class actually fun to PvP with.

    Tl;dr HashanxAlchemist? Sure. After multiclass.
  • ... I'm going to have to come in and say a no to Alchemists being factionalised. I think a lot of people are looking at Shaman and Alchemists as what they are now and not the lore behind it.

    Alchemist anchors are split over the five cities that chose them and each city has it's own unique anchor. Alchemists draw on that specific alchemical energy to do whatever they need to do with it. If they didn't the energies of Sapience would build up and go out of control and you would have animals turning into various metals again. The spread between different cities helps keep them in check. Factionalising Alchemist would be, from a storyline perspective, a bad thing.

    As for Shamans they've had a solid footing in Hashan from their birth until the Curia decided to split off. However that doesn't negate the fact that they had heavy Hashani ties beforehand.

    (The fuck... did some of my writing suddenly went a size up?)
  • AchimrstAchimrst Nature
    edited February 2014
    Tahquil said:
    ... I'm going to have to come in and say a no to Alchemists being factionalised. I think a lot of people are looking at Shaman and Alchemists as what they are now and not the lore behind it.

    Alchemist anchors are split over the five cities that chose them and each city has it's own unique anchor. Alchemists draw on that specific alchemical energy to do whatever they need to do with it. If they didn't the energies of Sapience would build up and go out of control and you would have animals turning into various metals again. The spread between different cities helps keep them in check. Factionalising Alchemist would be, from a storyline perspective, a bad thing.

    As for Shamans they've had a solid footing in Hashan from their birth until the Curia decided to split off. However that doesn't negate the fact that they had heavy Hashani ties beforehand.

    (The fuck... did some of my writing suddenly went a size up?)
    Alchemists are just as tied to Twilight as Shaman, and they are an active organization in Hashan. The institute of Alchemy is practically a part of the academy of Hashan as well as the large unused observatory that they have there. I'm not suggesting that they force Alchemists to join Hashan, but with the institute they can draw Alchemists to the city through influence alone. Not to mention that Alchemists IC are mostly seen as the people who make minerals so you don't have to rely on herbs and potions.

    Alchemist lore has heavy ties to Hashan through the prime metals which are used in transmutation and Alchemy. The anchors themselves are a part of the ties to the prime metals, from how I see it. If transmutation is taken from Alchemists and made a trade skill a runewarden could get the ability in any city and transmutate curatives for a city and the person doesn't have to devote their character to the city simply because that city needs an alchemist to make curatives. (Not saying that is why Alchemists stay in cities!) They could than have an organization such as what the Occultists or Serpentlords and places like that have.

    Oh the Shamans, if you have ever read the history of Hashan you would know that Shamans have basically gone to war with Hashan as a Hashani house! Prompting something called a City-Guild Charter, (now a city-house charter) which even today causes problems in Hashan. As a house Shaman were banned from participating in the city for a time and even withdrew alliances with other Hashani houses. If you want to see where all the crap starts, it's always been the Spiritwalkers with that city. (Well not always but I hope you get what I mean by that)

  • Hey what if you made like factional races instead
    I'm by no means the first to say it, but would reincarn arachnoi in a heartbeat.
  • Hey what if you made like factional races instead
    Then we'd all be really racist.
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  • Embodying the nature of the faction isn't enough though, or at least it isn't interesting enough on its own. Alchemist, Shaman, Runewarden, and Bard have all been argued to embody their faction's nature in varying degrees in this thread; you could argue that that makes them their factional classes, but they aren't effective ones. Having Paladin as a factional class would be a lot less special if Ashtan had fully enabled Paladins of their own. The classes' effectiveness needs to be tied into their factional city in some way for it to have that "wow" factor.

    I would also agree that Hashan and Cyrene are or can be factions - neutrality doesn't make it non-factional. The only requirement that I consider for factionalization is like-mindedness, which Hashan doesn't have.

    "Protect Creation at all costs"
    "Purge weakness and grow in strength"
    "Protect Nature and the natural way of things"
    "The End is coming"
    "Chivalry and Art" -- I'm ignorant regarding Cyrene, sorry
    "That guy is trying to change things, let's take him down" <- huh, maybe Hashan -is- a faction after all?
     
    image
  • Why are people worrying about existing runies/bards/shamans(/alchemists, I guess)? Just decree that these are now the factional classes of Cyrene and Hashan, have the cities and their Patrons publicly reclaim earth magic, the arts, darkness and the night, and take things from there. As a city leader, I'd gladly give up access to those four classes for the sake of enlivening the game world, and would welcome any changes like this with open arms.

    @Tecton, @Sarapis, make it so.

  • While alchemist could be revamped to make it a pure Hashani thing, I'd be both happy and sad for that. With such a revamp would come a lot more flavour. However, it would also mean that everyone else would lose out.

    I could think of ways that Alchemist could fit in with every city:
    -Mhaldorian chirugeons working to discover the true meaning of pain and suffering through the body
    -Targossian alchemists diligently mapping out the rising locations of the Sun, and working to empower their side with Gold and the very essence of Ethian, which gave rise to Aurora.
    -Perhaps Cyrenian alchemists working to create the -best- metallurgical creations or instruments with the purest tones.
    -Maybe the Ashtani alchemist, doing as they pleased, or in terms of the Babelonian alchemist, studying the very foundation of the Ether to learn how best to disrupt Creation itself.

    The alchemist class was clearly made to be as neutral as possible, to allow every city but Eleusis to take advantage of it. I guess you could say that Twilight is the only one who could claim "Ownership" of it, but even then, it would be more along the lines of forcing them out into the open. He could claim that since he is the reason for their resurgence, he commands it, but I don't think that would be -true-. Simply that Hashan is, thematically, the most likely place for alchemy to flourish right now.

    The big question is, as others have asked before, would this be worth it? I don't think it would be. If another factional class for Hashan and Cyrene were to pop up, I'm thinking they would need to be new ones, though that would take a -long- time to do, and would heavily depend on the state of both Cyrene and Hashan. Alchemist, actually, would be relatively -easy- to consolidate to Hashan, but what about Bards, Shamans, Serpents, or whatever else gets decided?

    I'll talk more on this later, but to summarize, I've not been convinced that restricting already-existing classes to Hashan and Cyrene would be worth it.
  • VayneVayne Rhode Island
    Just because there is potential does not mean it is or will be utilized.
    image
  • Silas said:
    Why are people worrying about existing runies/bards/shamans(/alchemists, I guess)? Just decree that these are now the factional classes of Cyrene and Hashan, have the cities and their Patrons publicly reclaim earth magic, the arts, darkness and the night, and take things from there. As a city leader, I'd gladly give up access to those four classes for the sake of enlivening the game world, and would welcome any changes like this with open arms.

    @Tecton, @Sarapis, make it so.
    Yes, please give Hashan exclusive access to it's one Shaman so the 20 others outside Hashan are forced to join. That will totally fix Hashan.
  • Remake Vodun, agreed.
  • edited February 2014
    Nobody outside of those factions will be forced to join, and nobody outside of those factions, as evidenced by the lacklustre admin stance on Cyrenian Devotionists, will have to change class. It'll only affect things going forward if a change like this is made, strengthening the identities of Hashan and Cyrene as cities and negatively impacting nobody (except perhaps a couple of Ashtani class hoppers).

  • My only problem with how that has happened is that we can continue to receive new devotionists.  That's what I truly can't understand.  It's bad for us, and bad for Targossas.
  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Will make a more general comment about all of this later when I've pondered on it a bit, but...

    @Jules - you haven't been playing lately, or not enough. The Devotion population in Cyrene has severely dwindled, especially since my second excommunication. Most of Melodie's family (a good 60-75% were Devotionists) have changed class and moved on, Melodie's in the process of doing so herself. I can think of maybe three who currently retain a devo class that have any presence at all. The rest are mostly tinies who come and go and never stick around. I'd know, I was always keeping an eye on the population.

    Obviously things -can- wane and wax, so maybe it's not forever, but at present it's definitely less of a presence than it has been in a while. Many of the devos who still retain it are very young or mostly dormant.

    Carry on!
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  • Jules is right. There are still new Cyrenian Devotionists, and I have no idea why. I hope that when Targ gets Houses the Mojushai/Wardens will stop accepting Paladins/Priests, but it still mystifies me why it's been allowed to continue thus far. It makes the whole stance a bit pointless.

  • Mel, I've said before that I'd be perfectly fine with people, especially certain "oldies" retaining their classes.  The example I used before was something to the effect of "we're not going to tell Czanthria she can't be a Paladin anymore, are we"?  
  • Silas said:
    Nobody outside of those factions will be forced to join, and nobody outside of those factions, as evidenced by the lacklustre admin stance on Cyrenian Devotionists, will have to change class. It'll only affect things going forward if a change like this is made, strengthening the identities of Hashan and Cyrene as cities and negatively impacting nobody (except perhaps a couple of Ashtani class hoppers).
    Ok, so all of the Shaman outside of Hashan have to quit Shaman so that the one Shaman in Hashan can do what exactly?
  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Jules said:
    Mel, I've said before that I'd be perfectly fine with people, especially certain "oldies" retaining their classes.  The example I used before was something to the effect of "we're not going to tell Czanthria she can't be a Paladin anymore, are we"?  
    Not saying you weren't, I was saying it's not really as big of a problem as I think you and Silas are making it out to be. It has waned significantly lately, as bad as it was when I first came back two years ago or so and the Lumeni were almost dead, with no real leaders or anyone around to talk about... anything.

    I think they gave the Diaspora as a way to say "sink or swim", and right now, it's starting to sink more than swim. Obviously personally how I would like it to work out is different, but that's just plain facts from watching the population.
    And I love too                                                                          Be still, my indelible friend
    That love soon might end                                                         You are unbreaking
    And be known in its aching                                                      Though quaking
    Shown in this shaking                                                             Though crazy
    Lately of my wasteland, baby                                                 That's just wasteland, baby
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