BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Constantine on May 19, 2016, 01:05:38 PM
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After reading a lot of discussions about the dreaded status quo that settles in and chokes all fun I've put a lot of thought into inventing mechanical leverages to prevent this.
But recently it dawned on me that the most effective way to battle the stagnation would in fact be to create a coalition of like-minded players who would try to reshape the political landscape of various continents. There are a lot of people who yearn for action and they just need to coordinate their actions globally to be effective.
Even if this will end up being not feasible, we at least will have some numbers to congregate in the same realm and create some fun for ourselves and the rest of the server. "Losing" is actually not a huge issue if fun is what you ultimately seek.
The only issue I see here is potential for metagame but I am sure being mature players we can avoid that easily.
Can I have your thoughts on this?
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So far I have spent a lot of time trying to keep things more entertaining and agree everyone (at least those in power) should try so, however I am not a big fan of OOC planning all these things unless you really have to. At this point we have not reached the point that Atamara back then reached, which required something like this.
Additionally, ESA (or at least several in the religion) are promoting something similar. The faith (following Vita's path) is focused on warring more and also among faithfull. The bloodflow which balances everything requires enough blood to be spilled. So in that respect Dwilight already has some sort of initiative, IC though but always keeping the OOC concepts in mind of course.
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This is what I've been trying to encourage Religions to be used for, for many months. A community of people discussing and enforcing certain virtues where they have influence. Too many see Religions as either just theological roleplay that very very few are actually interested in or with modern perspectives of tolerance, religion being personal, atheism etc. In my opinion, it should be how players discuss OOC concerns via IC religious language. In BM's early years, rulers were expected, much more than today, to consider their actions in light of OOC fun for their realm and island, not just themselves or their realm. That might be harder to re-establish ruler-wide, so I think religion would be a good vehicle, ideally at 2-4 religions per continent ranging over multiple realms.
Religion is the perfect vehicle for avoiding 'My Guy' syndrome of someone saying their character wouldn't do that because it involves external divine inspiration whether visions, voices, meditations, priestly instruction etc. Stretching across multiple realms and able to lend a cultural influence throughout the continent (there's just one server for all continents) rather than isolated to just your realm. Your realm is your team, but your religion is your moral/spiritual culture. Also, a great way to share continental news that you may not get inside your realm, that you can then share in your realm.
Please, seek out and encourage your religions *to care* about the 'spiritual state' of their respective continent. If they don't, find another religion who does. Maybe even destroy those religions that are either dead or just about preserving their realms' power. Play a priest or religious elder? Try and think in terms of what would be good for the continent and advance those ideas couched in your particular religion's theology.
It doesn't need to be OOC planning so much as recognizing what behaviors contribute to an enjoyable game or not and finding ways of explaining that ICly, as I suggest via religion. Government members not engaging their realm, sharing news, and ignoring other rulers create a less enjoyable game. Therefore, when they are encountered, our characters might perceive them as lacking some virtue, or being morally deformed, or however you wish to phrase it. Because of that, they now wish to either reform these misguided individuals or failing reform, oust the heretics. Or perhaps your neighbour is getting destroyed by overwhelming forces for petty reasons and you need a war. OOCly, we know that that is no good. But ICly, those overwhelming forces are your allies. Maybe your neighbour even eats bread in an uncivilized manner and slurps his wine like a barbarian; or for the reverse, is a soft, pansy woman-man in robes and skirts instead of armour. Maybe, just maybe, you consider, upon merits of IC religious conviction, to drop those alliances and/or move past cultural awkwardness, to defend your neighbour from a gangbang.
I won't say ESA is superbly amazing, but we are a group of players trying to improve the island where we can. I wouldn't say its focused more on warring, though that does get the emphasis right now when there's so much peace. There is a balance to it where war for war's sake is imbalanced/of Maddening (say, opposing gangbang wars, or hastily jumping to destroying realms), but also peace for peace's sake is imbalanced/of Auspicious (say, opposing giant alliance chains). If I were to summarize the teachings in a few words: Balance/Moderation, Dynamic/Variation.
I'd also say Daisha on Beluaterra does good as a similar religious model for sharing information, coordinating, discussing continental concerns. Being on BT, it tends to focus on anti-Netherworld mostly, but thats not to say it couldn't do more in non-Invasion times. ESA could probably engage in more frontier-discussion; I have tried to get such going in the past.
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So far I have spent a lot of time trying to keep things more entertaining and agree everyone (at least those in power) should try so, however I am not a big fan of OOC planning all these things unless you really have to.
Yeah, you're cool. *pat on the back*
But I'm talking not as much about OOC planning as about overall coordination, involvement and information exchange. Including religions, btw.
This is what I've been trying to encourage Religions to be used for, for many months. A community of people discussing and enforcing certain virtues where they have influence. Too many see Religions as either just theological roleplay that very very few are actually interested in or with modern perspectives of tolerance, religion being personal, atheism etc. In my opinion, it should be how players discuss OOC concerns via IC religious language.
Yes, it's all well and good but it is simply a closed club without OOC coordination. Not because you guys are exclusive, mind you, there are simply some objective restrictions like IG communication issues for example.
Here's a good example to illustrate my point. The old kingdom of Fissoa was pretty much bereft of any religious presence. Just like yourself I saw merit in reviving faith's presence in the realm. I started demolishing old Astroist temples across the isles because there were actually no Astroist priests or even laymen in the realm. Immediately I started receiving letters from Astroist priests from all across Dwilight demanding explanations. My answer to each of them was "Please send a priest here to proselytize. We are open for all faiths as long as they are active. All temples will be rebuilt if there are actual followers in the realm."
Needless to say there was no further reaction. Like zero interaction followed.
How does a realm embrace a religion if they have no contact with it IG? We need mechanisms to involve people in stuff and get involved. Maybe we need to start with OOC communication?
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This is one of problems of the game - things get started, but not followed up on.
As a programmer, I always want to throw code at things, but I wonder if some sort of In Game TODO list or other system to prompt people would help. Or just some way of poking people on things more often. I'm sure most of it is just players who don't devote so much time to the game & don't using the bookmarking to follow up.
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Yeah, you're cool. *pat on the back*
But I'm talking not as much about OOC planning as about overall coordination, involvement and information exchange. Including religions, btw. Yes, it's all well and good but it is simply a closed club without OOC coordination. Not because you guys are exclusive, mind you, there are simply some objective restrictions like IG communication issues for example.
Here's a good example to illustrate my point. The old kingdom of Fissoa was pretty much bereft of any religious presence. Just like yourself I saw merit in reviving faith's presence in the realm. I started demolishing old Astroist temples across the isles because there were actually no Astroist priests or even laymen in the realm. Immediately I started receiving letters from Astroist priests from all across Dwilight demanding explanations. My answer to each of them was "Please send a priest here to proselytize. We are open for all faiths as long as they are active. All temples will be rebuilt if there are actual followers in the realm."
Needless to say there was no further reaction. Like zero interaction followed.
How does a realm embrace a religion if they have no contact with it IG? We need mechanisms to involve people in stuff and get involved. Maybe we need to start with OOC communication?
Old Astroist? I'm sorry, but ESA is hardly old.
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Yeah, you're cool. *pat on the back*
But I'm talking not as much about OOC planning as about overall coordination, involvement and information exchange. Including religions, btw.
I don't need a pat on the back, but it was rather to illustrate that I support the concept in general with action, but simply not too much of the OOC ideas surrounding it.
Yes, it's all well and good but it is simply a closed club without OOC coordination. Not because you guys are exclusive, mind you, there are simply some objective restrictions like IG communication issues for example.
Here's a good example to illustrate my point. The old kingdom of Fissoa was pretty much bereft of any religious presence. Just like yourself I saw merit in reviving faith's presence in the realm. I started demolishing old Astroist temples across the isles because there were actually no Astroist priests or even laymen in the realm. Immediately I started receiving letters from Astroist priests from all across Dwilight demanding explanations. My answer to each of them was "Please send a priest here to proselytize. We are open for all faiths as long as they are active. All temples will be rebuilt if there are actual followers in the realm."
Needless to say there was no further reaction. Like zero interaction followed.
How does a realm embrace a religion if they have no contact with it IG? We need mechanisms to involve people in stuff and get involved. Maybe we need to start with OOC communication?
That's a bit of a paradox as well of course. There are not enough priests of any religion to cover all realms simultaneously. That means that for some realms churches are the only way to join the specific religion at the moment there is no priests (Seoras for instance traveled through a lot of realms, mostly in the north, before he got himself elected ruler in HD because apparently there was nobody else really). If you don't have churches, then nobody can become a member of that religion and thus you will remain at the position that you have no followers of said religion in your realm and will thus according to your logic want to destroy the temples.
In my opinion it would be better to request a priest to be send (before you destroy the temples) and at least allow this circle to be broken, but have some patience as well. At this points faiths are thing stretched with priests as it is with the 1 char limit rule. ESA for instance just saw, as far as I know, it's first member from Swordfell join the church. Swordfell also has no temples (used to have one in former Lurian lands, but burned it down which is still a thing) and this noble only joined after a battle in Westfold.
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...there are simply some objective restrictions like IG communication issues for example.
Here's a good example to illustrate my point. The old kingdom of Fissoa was pretty much bereft of any religious presence. Just like yourself I saw merit in reviving faith's presence in the realm. I started demolishing old Astroist temples across the isles because there were actually no Astroist priests or even laymen in the realm. Immediately I started receiving letters from Astroist priests from all across Dwilight demanding explanations. My answer to each of them was "Please send a priest here to proselytize. We are open for all faiths as long as they are active. All temples will be rebuilt if there are actual followers in the realm."
Needless to say there was no further reaction. Like zero interaction followed.
How does a realm embrace a religion if they have no contact with it IG? We need mechanisms to involve people in stuff and get involved.
Self-imposed restrictions. It seems backwards to me to destroy temples/guildhouses with relations to the rest of the continent and isolate yourself in order to revive faith in the realm? How are they supposed to join if you make it more difficult for people to join religions? I do vaguely recall this and as I recall, you were demanding a priest join the realm. Which is another self-imposed restriction which makes it more difficult to expand. And rather than expect perfection from others and then not engage with them, you could try working *with* people to improve, because none of us are ideal, shining stars of players. As I said in a previous post, I do not claim ESA is perfect; just a group of people trying to make improvement. Just like other groups like Daisha or wherever else is doing well. Improvement will not be made by constantly creating new, smaller, isolated entities. To have an effect, it needs to be able to interact with others not isolate themselves away from others.
As a programmer, I always want to throw code at things, but I wonder if some sort of In Game TODO list or other system to prompt people would help. Or just some way of poking people on things more often. I'm sure most of it is just players who don't devote so much time to the game & don't using the bookmarking to follow up.
This might not be so bad, to have some sort of TODO list/reminder-message. Propose it on the proper board for discussion?
Old Astroist? I'm sorry, but ESA is hardly old.
They were SA temples closed. Seoras spoke up to their defense on basis of opposing pagan anti-religious temple closures. Old/New Church, First/Second Church are also used to refer to SA and ESA at times.
There are not enough priests of any religion to cover all realms simultaneously.
For what its worth, each realm that does have a priest, gets an elder position. Some incentive for those who want that.
ESA for instance just saw, as far as I know, it's first member from Swordfell join the church.
Not quite. Actually, Herion Ulthuan, leader of Trinitism on EC, was the first Bishop of Swordfell and builder of the Flying Hongrns temple that was destroyed. And I vaguely recall there *might* have been a member previous to him. There's also been a member or two since Herion. We've usually maintained 0-2 fellish followers throughout ESA's history.
Swordfell also has no temples (used to have one in former Lurian lands, but burned it down which is still a thing)
After Petur of VE closed SA's temple in Qubel Lighthouse, the lord of Flying Hongrns closed ESA's temple thinking ESA had closed SA's temple.
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back to the actual point of the thread, these groups do exist in game but like all firebrand groups it is hard to get them to agree on anything.
everyone is going to have a different idea on what makes the game better and how to make it happen. case in point in this thread: vita thinks some mechanic overhaul to religion will fix things, I don't think it would make any difference at all and view some of his proposed changes as potentially terrible for the game.
you have all kinds of "firebrand" groups in game trying to change the status quo - westfold in dwilight, oligarch and vix/perdan on ec, aren/mt on colonies, to a lesser extent spearhold on bel. everyone is going to have a different view on these groups and tbh it is pretty sad that it is such a short list, but unfortunately the game rewards stagnation and supporting the status quo.
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of course real life does the same thing, so in fact it is quite immersive
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back to the actual point of the thread, these groups do exist in game but like all firebrand groups it is hard to get them to agree on anything. everyone is going to have a different idea on what makes the game better and how to make it happen.
Definitely. Either they are suspicious of those outside their realm for Realm Politics Reason and can't move past it; sometimes creating smaller institutions to do what others are already doing. Or when they do work with others, there's enough different viewpoints and fundamental disagreements that prevent any unity on moving forward. I don't think that makes it impossible to pursue.
case in point in this thread: vita thinks some mechanic overhaul to religion will fix things, I don't think it would make any difference at all and view some of his proposed changes as potentially terrible for the game.
This is much less than I was thinking as discussing mechanics, is by its nature OOC. With IC groups like guilds and religions, its much more about fundamental values and ways of operating. But in terms of religion mechanics, there have been over ten years demonstrating that people will not join religions unless presented to them the same as joining a realm is. I do not see how encouraging communication outside your realm is potentially terrible for the game.
you have all kinds of "firebrand" groups in game trying to change the status quo - westfold in dwilight, oligarch and vix/perdan on ec, aren/mt on colonies, to a lesser extent spearhold on bel. everyone is going to have a different view on these groups and tbh it is pretty sad that it is such a short list
And the point is proven in that even in listing some examples, someone will consider an example as being the status quo themselves.
but unfortunately the game rewards stagnation and supporting the status quo.
So how would you suggest changing it?
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Old Astroist? I'm sorry, but ESA is hardly old.
After playing on Dwi for years I have a very very vague understanding of what ESA is. Which kinda proves my point.
I don't need a pat on the back, but it was rather to illustrate that I support the concept in general with action, but simply not too much of the OOC ideas surrounding it.
Maybe you can elaborate on this? What elements of the idea do you support and how does it work in your opinion?
Self-imposed restrictions. It seems backwards to me to destroy temples/guildhouses with relations to the rest of the continent and isolate yourself in order to revive faith in the realm? How are they supposed to join if you make it more difficult for people to join religions? I do vaguely recall this and as I recall, you were demanding a priest join the realm. Which is another self-imposed restriction which makes it more difficult to expand. And rather than expect perfection from others and then not engage with them, you could try working *with* people to improve, because none of us are ideal, shining stars of players. As I said in a previous post, I do not claim ESA is perfect; just a group of people trying to make improvement. Just like other groups like Daisha or wherever else is doing well. Improvement will not be made by constantly creating new, smaller, isolated entities. To have an effect, it needs to be able to interact with others not isolate themselves away from others.
I actually tried to contact the faithful before but destroying a temple was the only action that managed to yield some real response other than "go read the wiki".
I don't expect "perfection" from others at all. But it is hard "working with people" when they show literally zero interest. It was my hope that when SA starts literally losing ground its priests will either start doing their job or simply give way to a new religion. Which sort of happened when VE surged in Madina. But now its a religious wasteland again.
The paradox here is that cults are supposed to yearn for expansion and actively seek new members but BM's religions that I've had any contact with are simply elitist guilds without much real purpose.
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Maybe you can elaborate on this? What elements of the idea do you support and how does it work in your opinion?
I agree with the fact that something should be done to battle stagnation and I agree with the concept that this is mostly a matter of player mentality in many cases. People are afraid to risk their positions etc and will therefore not risk a war in which they don't have a rediculous good way of winning. In some cases this has gone so far that people will only declare war when they know they'll be dominating (with their allies) and will actually even avoid an 'even' war.
In my opinion this also has much to do with the fact that once war starts, it is typically so brutal and long lasting that a 'winning realm' will not stop untill the losing realm is pretty much destroyed, or weakened to an extreme point. It's for this reason that I was pleased to see the introduction of limited warfare, with clear goals like "we're taking this region because X", or "we're taking revenge and will loot a few regions and leave it at that" giving realms the opportunities to have (shorter) wars without complete destruction constantly hanging over your head. Unfortunately these 'limited' wars have not been the most succesfull, with some turning into complete slaughters anyway despite the original goals and statement. Perdan/Vix vs Eponllyn is a great example of this.
When there are some (preferably in the stronger realms) rulers/realms who can effectively execute such a war and stop without fully destroying their enemies (even when it's in their power) and show that it's possible, it may be possible for others to follow this example and make that a bit more of the norm.
I like the idea of having religion play a role and there are some in Luria Borreal right now that are actually trying to get ESA a bit more active again and create a bit of that 'cult' feeling that you referred to. Many do not care much about religion right now, but if it can be transformed to being usefull in game as well (by having it help decide certain actions etc, more on that later this week I hope) it may change.
What I do not like is to make some grand OOC group to 'decide' on courses of actions to be taken etc. What should be done in my opinion is to try to help put the idea of responsibility of fun in the minds of the rulers again and have them consider the OOC context for 10% in their decision making IC as well.
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In my opinion this also has much to do with the fact that once war starts, it is typically so brutal and long lasting that a 'winning realm' will not stop untill the losing realm is pretty much destroyed, or weakened to an extreme point. It's for this reason that I was pleased to see the introduction of limited warfare, with clear goals like "we're taking this region because X", or "we're taking revenge and will loot a few regions and leave it at that" giving realms the opportunities to have (shorter) wars without complete destruction constantly hanging over your head. Unfortunately these 'limited' wars have not been the most succesfull, with some turning into complete slaughters anyway despite the original goals and statement. Perdan/Vix vs Eponllyn is a great example of this.
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What I do not like is to make some grand OOC group to 'decide' on courses of actions to be taken etc. What should be done in my opinion is to try to help put the idea of responsibility of fun in the minds of the rulers again and have them consider the OOC context for 10% in their decision making IC as well.
I actually agree with both points and they do not clash with my own as I see them.
Taking your own examples, Vix and Perdan managed to stage a fairly fulfilling and fairly lengthy conflict without even trading regions mostly because the two rulers had not just IG agreements but mutual trust and probably OOC coordination as players too.
Perdan/Vix vs. Eponllyn ended in disaster for the latter because contact was very sketchy, there was no trust between players and there was lots of miscommunication. Not mentioning the declaration of hatred which is usually a one-way ticket anyway.
To take risks for your opponent's benefit you need to at least trust him and know he'll do the same if tables are turned. Do you see what I'm talking about now?
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I actually agree with both points and they do not clash with my own as I see them.
Taking your own examples, Vix and Perdan managed to stage a fairly fulfilling and fairly lengthy conflict without even trading regions mostly because the two rulers had not just IG agreements but mutual trust and probably OOC coordination as players too.
Perdan/Vix vs. Eponllyn ended in disaster for the latter because contact was very sketchy, there was no trust between players and there was lots of miscommunication. Not mentioning the declaration of hatred which is usually a one-way ticket anyway.
To take risks for your opponent's benefit you need to at least trust him and know he'll do the same if tables are turned. Do you see what I'm talking about now?
I wonder how much that had to do with just trust thouh. Eponllyn as far as I know wasn't even so keen on the war as they had nothing to gain and it was supposed to be a war to gain passage rights into Sirion and Nivemus for Perdan and Vix respectively. This later turned into a slaugther of Eponllyn even after they had agreed upon the passage rights. This all happened way before Eponllyn ever declared hatred. That pretty much only happened when Eponllyn was back to only Westmoor area and about to be destroyed in their eyes.
I do see what you mean however concerning the matter of trust and agree with you for the most part. But at the same time, I play a very arrogant char in EC for instance and he may well decide to punish someone severely anyway. Like you can't promise never to destroy them on an OOC level, that threat should somehow be there, but it should not be the only option people consider, not by far.
On Dwilight I hope to soon introduce a nice surprise and with Oligarch I also intend to start minor conflicts in the future, should we ever get the opportunity that is. I think however that where some OOC debate is definately healthy, it should not spring into an OOC group deciding and controlling things beforehand. That is the distinction I would like to make here with my rambling.
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I wonder how much that had to do with just trust thouh. Eponllyn as far as I know wasn't even so keen on the war as they had nothing to gain and it was supposed to be a war to gain passage rights into Sirion and Nivemus for Perdan and Vix respectively. This later turned into a slaugther of Eponllyn even after they had agreed upon the passage rights. This all happened way before Eponllyn ever declared hatred. That pretty much only happened when Eponllyn was back to only Westmoor area and about to be destroyed in their eyes.
I do see what you mean however concerning the matter of trust and agree with you for the most part. But at the same time, I play a very arrogant char in EC for instance and he may well decide to punish someone severely anyway. Like you can't promise never to destroy them on an OOC level, that threat should somehow be there, but it should not be the only option people consider, not by far.
On Dwilight I hope to soon introduce a nice surprise and with Oligarch I also intend to start minor conflicts in the future, should we ever get the opportunity that is. I think however that where some OOC debate is definately healthy, it should not spring into an OOC group deciding and controlling things beforehand. That is the distinction I would like to make here with my rambling.
I don't see how OOC planning in and of itself is bad. So long as you aren't trying to leave out other players IC, then it can really only help, as there is only so much you can say IC towards planning something before people stop the thing dead in its tracks before you even start. Also, it seems that you still haven't learned from the various My Guy Syndrome talks.
People too often use a single line of logic for their characters, meaning if someone else does "blank", then said character will always do "blank", making characters unable to be flexible according to what the player wants to do. This isn't a game where playing a character a certain way all the time is the right way to play them.
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The Colonial Senate does a pretty good job at keeping wars from being completely destructive while still being fun. Since low level membership is encouraged for every noble in the Colonies, characters who wouldn't otherwise have the chance to interact can, which can lead to even more conflict.
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I don't see how OOC planning in and of itself is bad. So long as you aren't trying to leave out other players IC, then it can really only help, as there is only so much you can say IC towards planning something before people stop the thing dead in its tracks before you even start. Also, it seems that you still haven't learned from the various My Guy Syndrome talks.
People too often use a single line of logic for their characters, meaning if someone else does "blank", then said character will always do "blank", making characters unable to be flexible according to what the player wants to do. This isn't a game where playing a character a certain way all the time is the right way to play them.
Oh trust me, my chars have gone through enough changes just to keep the game fun, don't get me started on the My Guy Syndrome. This doesn't however take away from everything I've said. I prefer to get things done IC as much as possible, that is how I see it.
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Compared to "years ago", perhaps a shift has taken place where your character has more ingame responsibilities compared to the responsibilities a player holds towards the community. I don't wish to generalize, so I'll talk about myself, but I have the feeling this may apply to the game in a whole;
I used to play my char as an extension of myself (horribly so, because I was in my teenage years back then) where now I play my character as a being on itself. This has caused a shift in how I approach ingame decisions, for example: where ten years ago I would treat them as a player and evaluate them as such (thus taking into account a larger picture) I now treat them almost exclusively through the eyes of my character. I feel that this was necessary: there were more and more RPG-minded players coming into the game thus shifting the focus from playing e.g. Risk to Dungeons&Dragons - less theoretical and calculated planning and more playing with a story attached to it. While that is nice, it has (for me) a side effect that I might get too stubborn in how I build up my character. Unlike real people, who are open to change in character, my ingame characters do not. Perhaps because their timespan is simply much smaller than my own. I dunno, I just don't tend to change my character's behaviour & principles. Perhaps I should.
So recently I decided that, well, I didn't have qualms with OOC arrangements a decade ago. So I approached a few people on IRC (yup, I know, still a giant OOC clan) and talked about Perdan/Vix. I had already decided for my character to ditch old ideas about Perdan and thus I could approach EC with a fresh look (also didn't care whatsoever about the history). It allowed me, for example, to stop going to war against Vix to "reconquer" them. Why not allow a new realm to exist, I thought? More realms equals more realms you can fight. Which we did, but not for reconquest. We came to the conclusion, OOC, that war was crucial to attract a player base to make your realm fun. It simply gives activity (aka message count) a jolt and at the same time it allows your realm to attract nobles from places where there is peace.
I know, it's not nice to construct a war to draw nobles from another realm, potentially squashing anything fun to happen there, but as a ruler you hold some responsibilities. Your first and foremost task - and I too sometimes fail in this - is to guide your realm to what your players want. Not your nobles. At least that is how I changed my thinking, recently. There is more to take into account than ingame arguments. Sometimes it's better to use these ingame arguments to create a story, but I now believe it's preferable to base the outlining of your realm's "existence" on an OOC-vision and then mold the ingame story lines to it.
So this gets me to a conflicting point which I mentioned earlier in this post: my OOC vision. I never wanted to take Perdan City. That's it. I still feel I let myself down by doing so, because in my OOC vision, I wanted Eponllyn to remain a vibrant realm. However we kind-of wrecked them. Why? Because I felt the characters (or players? I know for sure some also made the OOC motive) wanted to reconquer. So take back into account the history of Perdan, which I chose to abandon. Personally, the path we went on is a defeat for me. However, I took into the account not so much the opinion of other characters ingame, but also the opinion of players. Strong arguments were made. For example, and this argument was made ingame and is what I believe a perfect example of an "old playstyle" which I would like to see return: Perdan had 30+ nobles and one city. Our income per capita was ridiculously low, yet we fielded one of the strongest and possibly the most effective army on the continent. The argument is then that, simply, to keep Perdan itself viable with the noble count it had, expansion was simply a necessity. Even now the argument continues that Vix should give up more regions to us as originally agreed too (so technically the current situation). Vix, for crying out loud. Vix and Perdan are twins. Inseperable. We rock together, I have the feeling both ingame and OOC that these two realms click great.
Perhaps that argument is right. I don't know. Is it not fair that we drew in about 20 players, we should at least give them something? Most saw their tax income drop, and drop some more, because people kept joining. You have the chance to make your realm sustainable for your new noble count, perhaps you should just grab it. But then again that goes at the expense of another realm.
I'm straying off my train of thought, but to summarize I like it that I recently decided to take OOC arguments into account more. I still respect people who play their charaters with "pure RP", playing it as itself. But I am more and more going back to a point where I play my characters as little soldiers in my OOC wishes. They still have a story line and their ingame letters will mostly still be perfect in an ingame environment, but I might add in a tad more of a sense of "I'm playing a strategy board game".
tl;dr: took more OOC into account for playing game, still conflicted, exploring long lost boundaries!
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I do take OOC more in mind, but more in guiding my chars themselves. My OOC however has nothing to do with the realm I'm in. Even if Oligarch falls for instance, but it's for a good reason and to create more fun, I'd be alright with that. What concerns me for example is that you say there is a great click between Perdan and Vix and 'betrayel' or anything is pretty much out of the question. I'm growing much more of the opinion that alliances should become more fluent, because I've seen these big long lasting alliances ruining continents time and time again. When you finally do win with your best buddy, what then?
I can say I had more fun in Ibladesh, even when we got destroyed (you of all people should know :p) then in a realm that has best buddies and some other alliances and 'dominates' the island. That is just my OOC vision though and I know there are others who would disagree with my concept of fun, which makes this discussion so difficult.
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so many books