Zuma/Daimons

[egamma]

Well it is good to know I am getting somewhere with these complaints, that people recognize the forged letter attack was a mistake.

I never said mistake. As Garret pointed out IC a few weeks back, it was an "unfortunate incident."

[Dante Silverfire]

That line of thinking follows from an assumption that the GM has a greater right to be there than the players. While that's certainly a valid position (Tom's game, Tom's rules), it's not really a good one if your greatest concern is the player experience, and suddenly realizing that the characters and realms you've devoted time and effort to are doomed to have to constantly subordinate what they want to the dictates of dealing with an NPC realm is not bound to be a good experience in anyone's book I would think.

That essentially is my position. The reasoning is quite simple:

The Zuma were there first and known by everyone that they were there since way before Terran was founded.

I'm not saying: "Move elsewhere if you don't want to deal with the Zuma"

I am saying: "If you don't want to deal with the Zuma, don't move right next to them."

If player actions didn't take into account the chance that this unknown NPC realm sitting right next to my realm may at some point in the future not think too nicely about my expansion then that is not the GM's fault.

Dwilight is huge, right next to the Zuma isn't the only place to play your own realm on Dwilight. Dwilight also isn't the only island of Battlemaster, so there are other options. If you want to found a realm why not colonize Darfix? Its an open city right? Oh wait, there is a large power bloc right next door which may not like it? Does it really make a difference that this power bloc is SA instead of the Zuma? The same player choices are involved.

[MaleMaldives]

I never said mistake. As Garret pointed out IC a few weeks back, it was an "unfortunate incident."

Pretty much the same thing.

[MaleMaldives]

That essentially is my position. The reasoning is quite simple:

The Zuma were there first and known by everyone that they were there since way before Terran was founded.

I'm not saying: "Move elsewhere if you don't want to deal with the Zuma"

I am saying: "If you don't want to deal with the Zuma, don't move right next to them."

If player actions didn't take into account the chance that this unknown NPC realm sitting right next to my realm may at some point in the future not think too nicely about my expansion then that is not the GM's fault.

Dwilight is huge, right next to the Zuma isn't the only place to play your own realm on Dwilight. Dwilight also isn't the only island of Battlemaster, so there are other options. If you want to found a realm why not colonize Darfix? Its an open city right? Oh wait, there is a large power bloc right next door which may not like it? Does it really make a difference that this power bloc is SA instead of the Zuma? The same player choices are involved.

Except the Zuma haven't been caring about Terran expansion and we made sure they were fine with it before we did. We learned the hard way about that when we marched to fight monsters due to TMP along their border and they attacked us. And when I started playing in Terran I was curious about the Zuma and I found out they did like nothing. So my year long impression about them was they just sit there and buy food, and you shouldn't go into their lands. That was fine so no need to move. Then there is this sudden and awful change in how they act.

[Geronus]

Rubbish. You only have to look at the amount of claims that SA is a Dev favoured group to know that losing parties always have the option to cry and claim the other side cheats. In fact every war I've been involved in that has either seen a realm destroyed or almost destroyed has resulted in claims and bitterness the same as what is currently targeted at the Zuma GM. Hell sometime just winning a battle results in OOC message storm about how the realm is full of cheats, or how they exploited this bug, or my favourite, you big realm bullies ruin the game. When people see an army with near 100% movement, the first thing most people seem to think it multi cheats.

I saw no end of bitter OOC hatred towards the main group of SA when I was in D'Hara. Really really petty stuff. No SA realm had invaded, we had not been forced to accept SA as a religion, but there was some serious hatred going on there.

Oh yes, rubbish. Except that in one case there's absolutely no justification for such complaints. And in the other, the target of said complaints actually IS 'Dev favored' in the sense that an NPC realm has all kinds of serious advantages over any player realm, advantages similar to what a player realm would only be able to obtain by cheating. Can you see the difference?

Considering how doggedly you insist on dismissing out of hand the arguments of anyone who doesn't agree with you, my guess is no, not really.

[egamma]

Basically, let me explain the Zuma. I may or may not know what I'm talking about, but I'll lay it out anyway.

Dwilight is the New World--North America/South America for those of you who hate history.
The Zuma are the Native Americans--'indians', Aztec, Inca, etc. Except that they aren't susceptible to smallpox.

Ever heard an indian speak in a 60's cartoon or western? "Me no want wampum. Me want horse."
What do the Zuma sound like? "Me no want treaty. Me want plus 5 frying pan of doom."

...anyway, that's all I have. Treat the Zuma like Apache--respect their strength or you'll find your village burned to the ground. Do you think that General Custer complained, "These Indians were here before us and they are so overpowered, so I'm going to attack their camp right here at the Little Bighorn"?

Yeah...think about that.

And...time for bed, I'm not making much sense, and probably getting close to offending someone. And I'm probably starting to sound like Garrett...scary.

[Geronus]

And...time for bed, I'm not making much sense, and probably getting close to offending someone. And I'm probably starting to sound like Garrett...scary.

You know, now that you point it out, that last post actually was a pretty good Artemesia impression 

[MaleMaldives]

Basically, let me explain the Zuma. I may or may not know what I'm talking about, but I'll lay it out anyway.

Dwilight is the New World--North America/South America for those of you who hate history.
The Zuma are the Native Americans--'indians', Aztec, Inca, etc. Except that they aren't susceptible to smallpox.

Ever heard an indian speak in a 60's cartoon or western? "Me no want wampum. Me want horse."
What do the Zuma sound like? "Me no want treaty. Me want plus 5 frying pan of doom."

...anyway, that's all I have. Treat the Zuma like Apache--respect their strength or you'll find your village burned to the ground. Do you think that General Custer complained, "These Indians were here before us and they are so overpowered, so I'm going to attack their camp right here at the Little Bighorn"?

Yeah...think about that.

And...time for bed, I'm not making much sense, and probably getting close to offending someone. And I'm probably starting to sound like Garrett...scary.

Yeah that is generally good except this recent stuff is like a huge break in character for the Zuma from all the past stuff they have been doing. Also, the colonists legit pissed off the Native Americans where as Terran really didn't.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Basically, let me explain the Zuma. I may or may not know what I'm talking about, but I'll lay it out anyway.

Dwilight is the New World--North America/South America for those of you who hate history.
The Zuma are the Native Americans--'indians', Aztec, Inca, etc. Except that they aren't susceptible to smallpox.

Ever heard an indian speak in a 60's cartoon or western? "Me no want wampum. Me want horse."
What do the Zuma sound like? "Me no want treaty. Me want plus 5 frying pan of doom."

...anyway, that's all I have. Treat the Zuma like Apache--respect their strength or you'll find your village burned to the ground. Do you think that General Custer complained, "These Indians were here before us and they are so overpowered, so I'm going to attack their camp right here at the Little Bighorn"?

Yeah...think about that.

And...time for bed, I'm not making much sense, and probably getting close to offending someone. And I'm probably starting to sound like Garrett...scary.

yeah we knew that about the Zuma already, except native Americans lived by the same rules as the europeans except they were several thousand years behind.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Not to mention that the native americans weren't something that was around Europe, which is what we're supposed to be drawing on in an SMA atmosphere...

[De-Legro]

Oh yes, rubbish. Except that in one case there's absolutely no justification for such complaints. And in the other, the target of said complaints actually IS 'Dev favored' in the sense that an NPC realm has all kinds of serious advantages over any player realm, advantages similar to what a player realm would only be able to obtain by cheating. Can you see the difference?

Considering how doggedly you insist on dismissing out of hand the arguments of anyone who doesn't agree with you, my guess is no, not really.

What serious advantages? You guys can't claim not to know what the rules governing the Zuma are and then claim the mechanics give them serious advantages. They have large armies, sure. Everyone seems to think they can be summoned at will. They can't. Nor are they free to maintain, they have their costs and the Zuma GM needs to work constantly to meet them. The Zuma are controlled by a single player. But that is both a weakness and an advantage. When the one GM can't log in, the armies do nothing.

But at the end of the day, the most telling thing for me is that for all the power of the Zuma, for all that they "over react" to insults, the GM is obviously NOT attacking as much as he could or doing damage on the scale he could. If he was Terran would have lost many regions. People talk about 35-100k of armies, if he truly wished to that sort of force would drive the capital rogue in no time.

So the conclusion, he is doing his best to make the Zuma be some sort of threat, a force people don't want to mess with, without actually going to the length of destroying realms.

[MaleMaldives]

What serious advantages? You guys can't claim not to know what the rules governing the Zuma are and then claim the mechanics give them serious advantages. They have large armies, sure. Everyone seems to think they can be summoned at will. They can't. Nor are they free to maintain, they have their costs and the Zuma GM needs to work constantly to meet them. The Zuma are controlled by a single player. But that is both a weakness and an advantage. When the one GM can't log in, the armies do nothing.

But at the end of the day, the most telling thing for me is that for all the power of the Zuma, for all that they "over react" to insults, the GM is obviously NOT attacking as much as he could or doing damage on the scale he could. If he was Terran would have lost many regions. People talk about 35-100k of armies, if he truly wished to that sort of force would drive the capital rogue in no time.

So the conclusion, he is doing his best to make the Zuma be some sort of threat, a force people don't want to mess with, without actually going to the length of destroying realms.

That doesn't really matter much because at lease I am upset over why the attacks happened at all, not the scale in which they were done.

[Dante Silverfire]

Scale really does matter though.

If a single forged letter had the Zuma straight up destroy Terran without waiting, then yes I'd be pissed too.

However, if the Zuma only destroy you if you try and destroy them, and do lesser punishments for lesser things, than that is balanced imo.

You lost a region? So what, monsters and undead do that all the time to the rest of Dwilight (or used to). You're safer from monsters and undead because of the Zuma, so that is an advantage for Terran.

[De-Legro]

That doesn't really matter much because at lease I am upset over why the attacks happened at all, not the scale in which they were done.

The attacks weren't really due to the forgery. That was the catalyst for the situation. The attacks resulted from the way Terran handled the situation. Now to someone like Dante who has experiance with what is and isn't acceptable when addressing the Zuma the mistakes are probably painfully obvious. Either for all their time living next to the Zuma the relevant Terran nobles did not have this experiance, or for RP reasons didn't follow it.

[MaleMaldives]

Scale really does matter though.

If a single forged letter had the Zuma straight up destroy Terran without waiting, then yes I'd be pissed too.

However, if the Zuma only destroy you if you try and destroy them, and do lesser punishments for lesser things, than that is balanced imo.

You lost a region? So what, monsters and undead do that all the time to the rest of Dwilight (or used to). You're safer from monsters and undead because of the Zuma, so that is an advantage for Terran.

Your right. I guess a better way to put it is I am upset enough to complain over those attacks with the reasoning for them, that the scale doesn't matter.