Imms, how about raising the standard for empire wanabe's? It seems like everyone and their whole family is in empire. Its gotten much harder to be in any other cabal. Its even gotten harder to become a trib. Who would have thought? Empire is now what Scion was before changes to inductions and more strict RP requirements. Not allowing in every moron who wants to join. Its tougher to get into any other cabal besides Empire. Also the powers they get are totally unbalanced with how easy it is to get in.

>Imms, how about raising the standard for empire wanabe's? It
>seems like everyone and their whole family is in empire.

I thought that was the point of Empire. To bring all of Thera under it's control... guess they are doing their job.

As to some things said below...

If you have ever been inside the palace, and read the questions writen within, then you have the answers to your question for why they do the things they do.

Not to mention that everytime someone kills someone it seems to be bad RP. Not everyone has to explain their role to you before or after they kill you. Just suck it up and move on!

"Do not merely practice Art, but penetrate to the very heart of it. For only Art and Science elevate man to the Godhead." Ludwig Van Beethoven

i havent been killed by imperials. Im not saying that because some imperials ganked me. Its just obvious from an outside point of view.

Im not asking why they do the thinks they do, im saying that the RP of 75% of the cabal is sub-mediocre at best, the sub hero members anyway.

I'll admit the RP of a lot of players could be better (myself included) but not everyone can be expected to be an elite player. I guess it's all part of learning the ropes, which makes you wonder how long some people have been learning. Other times people just don't care. They come to kill, and then they leave. Some come to do it all, join every cabal, get every tattoo, etc. You'd think these people would keep things on the up and up, but what can ya do? Others of course are just here to have fun and aren't that interested in being the best they can be. It's just all part of game. You can't exactly force people be elite (just appreicate when people do), which is why I like the Empire cabal... as Zulginlour said (I think) "Easy in, easy out". Yeah any idiot and their grandmother can get in, but it also won't take very much for them to both be kicked out and hunted for the rest of their life. Which, if you ask me, is a very good reason not to be just any idiot that got in.

"Do not merely practice Art, but penetrate to the very heart of it. For only Art and Science elevate man to the Godhead." Ludwig Van Beethoven

The RP bar for Empire is pretty low. Imperials constantly attacking people unprovoked in towns, idiot imperials turning on groupmates over simple greed, erratic and in some cases non existant RP all kind of run counter to the "goal" of the Empire, and yet the cabal is rife with them.

One example is a group I recently had. I was with two Imperials, one blade, one oath. They were blatantly discussing OOC things in the group, and just generally being utter non roleplaying ####s. I don't just mean a little OOC either, I'm talking about discussing whatever sports thing was on at the time kind of BS. Between that and them talking about wanting to gank some guy in town, and first checking for a higher up Imperial to see if they were at risk of immediate smackdown, I was pretty disgusted all around.

For the record, this was about a week ago, and both are still imperials, and both been promoted.

I don't just mean a little OOC either, I'm talking about discussing whatever sports thing was on at the time kind of BS.

I checked, and I don't see a pray along these lines from you over the last week or two. Did you bother to report it?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I prayed about something similar 6 months ago, and was basically told "If it bothers you don't group with them. Stop wasting my time". Thats paraphrasing a conversation that went on for about 5 minutes, but thats the gist. That time the people in my group were exchanging AIM screen names. Since then the only things I've reported were people who were actually cheating. I've given up on reporting all of the little OOC annoyances.

To answer the questions I know will be following, no I didn't give the imm in question any attitude. Yes I simply reported the facts as they were and left it alone.

s

1) Vlad, you aren't shy about praying about rules violations. This isn't a bad thing, but it's weird that you had a non-borderline situation (talking about sports, etc.) and didn't pray at all about it.
2) At any given time, the number of players vastly exceeds the number of people who can snoop them.
3) Snooping more then 2 people at once gives me brain damage.
4) Because of #2 and #3, there's always going to be a number of people on line who are not being directly observed. This is fine, because most players follow all the rules most of the time.
5) Because of #4, if someone is clearly not following a rule, you generally want to pray about it, or else we often won't see it, and the behavior in question will continue.
6) If you pray about non-infractions (e.g. very obscure name issues, someone grouped with someone else for the second time, etc.), then yes, the Immortal who answers your pray has other things to worry about and will not pay much attention to it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>1) Vlad, you aren't shy about praying about rules violations.
> This isn't a bad thing, but it's weird that you had a
>non-borderline situation (talking about sports, etc.) and
>didn't pray at all about it.

I haven't prayed about what I consider "annoyance" violations, since that last time I was basically told 'if you don't like it, don't group with them'. I still pray about things like multiing or bug abuse, but when it comes to people in a group talking OOC, I gave up on reporting it.

>2) At any given time, the number of players vastly exceeds the
>number of people who can snoop them.

Very true.

>3) Snooping more then 2 people at once gives me brain damage.

Been there. I feel your pain.

>4) Because of #2 and #3, there's always going to be a number
>of people on line who are not being directly observed. This
>is fine, because most players follow all the rules most of the
>time.

100% agreement here.

>5) Because of #4, if someone is clearly not following a rule,
>you generally want to pray about it, or else we often won't
>see it, and the behavior in question will continue.


>6) If you pray about non-infractions (e.g. very obscure name
>issues, someone grouped with someone else for the second time,
>etc.), then yes, the Immortal who answers your pray has other
>things to worry about and will not pay much attention to it.
>

I don't even bother with reporting bad names anymore. Now I just wait for them to delete and mock them on the forums. Man, there's a BUNCH of people coming up for some of the old "What the hell were you thinking naming yourself THAT?!" treatment soon. *rub rub*

Basically after the way the imm chewed me out, if it doesn't actually have some effect on my char or some elses directly (IE bug exploitation, cheating, passing gear etc etc) I just mark that player down in my "Big book O' Morons", stop grouping with them, and rejoice when they die.



>valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Imms, how about raising the standard for empire wanabe's?

Actually the cabal numbers have been pretty stable for the last few months. Oddly enough, so have the numbers for Fortress. To say that the recent shift in power is anything other than the pendulum is probably wrogn.

>Its gotten much harder to be in any other cabal.

Why?

>Its even gotten harder to become a trib. Who would have thought?

Me. Since now Tribunal has immortal direction and interaction.

>Empire is now
>what Scion was before changes to inductions and more strict RP
>requirements.

Which is part of the design of the cabal, easy in, easy out.

>Not allowing in every moron who wants to join.

If you're a moron...you probably won't be in very long.

>Its tougher to get into any other cabal besides Empire.

This is true.

>Also
>the powers they get are totally unbalanced with how easy it is
>to get in.

Not sure what you're smoking, but can I have some? When you "get in" you get that totally unbalanced and overpowerd ability of "donate". Spooky.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>Its gotten much harder to be in any other cabal.

Why?

>Its tougher to get into any other cabal besides Empire.

This is true.

You answered your own question there. Well, it has gotten tougher to join Trib, Scion and Sylvan over the last few months. Maran is hard to get in, villager you have to wait around forever and get raped by invisible people...etc. I think you see my point.

Im not smoking anything

>>Its gotten much harder to be in any other cabal.
>
>Why?
>
>>Its tougher to get into any other cabal besides Empire.
>
>This is true.
>
>You answered your own question there. Well, it has gotten
>tougher to join Trib, Scion and Sylvan over the last few
>months. Maran is hard to get in, villager you have to wait
>around forever and get raped by invisible people...etc. I
>think you see my point.
>
>Im not smoking anything

Much harder to be in any other cabal does not equal much harder to get into any other cabal. Yes you are smoking something, and so far your argument holds water like a sieve.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I mean its gotten harder to join other cabals, for all cabals the RP requirements have gone up. Thats what i meant.

Out of curiosity, what powers are unbalanced?

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

so I lied.

You know that there are many of us out here that would have wet dreams at the chance of having evoke.

"Death awaits ya all, wit nasteh big pointeh teeth!"

n/t

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

What i mean is that they have very good powers compared to how easy it is to get in. I didnt say the powers are unbalanced with the rest of the game.

Its like it was with the village, all you had to do to get deathblow, thirst and resist was to say you hate magic and some crappy role about mages killing your family blah blah.

Either tone their cabal powers down or raise the RP and money bar. Right now its pretty damn sorry.

Its really not that difficult to understand even tho some imms might play dumb on this, being sarcastic or stubborn, smackin me down for not 'understanding' some "intricate" concept. Whatever.

Well, okay. What powers are unbalanced given how difficult it is to get inducted?

I thought the shadow powers were pretty weak given how infrequently imperial spies worked.

Blades...hmm. *shrug* Not like they have deathblow.

Divine...don't remember. Super-sanc doesn't really scare me, though it would make them harder to kill.

So is it the black sect powers?

As an aside - the scariest thing about Empire is "cb" and the fact that they group up together moreso than random non-caballed evils. If I spot an imperial and tangle with him but have to teleport, I have to worry about being flown to, gated to, etc. Rather than just having to worry about being flown to by a "normal" shifter, I have to worry about being flown to by a sanc'd invoker-shielded shifter. You get the idea.

As an aside - the scariest thing about Empire is "cb" and the fact that they group up together moreso than random non-caballed evils. If I spot an imperial and tangle with him but have to teleport

The flip side of that coin is that Imperials are publically titled, so you know when one is coming. Also, Imperials (and Scions for that matter) are much less likely to come and rescue someone who is losing and calls for help. If you knock out a Fortress member, for example, it's a pretty good bet every available Fortress member is going to try to help them.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com