Mon Jul 13 11:14:09 2015

At 1 o'clock PM, Day of the Moon, 35th of the Month of the Winter Wolf
on the Theran calendar Gogoth perished, never to return.

Race:	dark-elf
Class:	warrior
Level:	51
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	BATTLE, the BattleRagers, Haters of Magic
Age:	224
Hours:	167

N/T

I was kind of hoping you would still be around for a while longer. It was refreshing to see a berserker out and about amongst the mix again! But alas you blasted through you con like a fat kid with a container of cupcakes. Which most likely is the sign of someone having an absolute blast!

GLWYN

I liked you, although you did seem to have quite a deep-seated hatred of a few of our enemies. I don't know what happened there, but I didn't have quite the same experience with them as you.

I hope that you enjoyed Gogoth, and our interactions. Good luck with your next!

You asked that I post and let you know how I thought you did, so here I am.

I started as a fan of Gogoth, you stuck to it and kept on going and played pretty balls to the wall -- traits I admire. My memory may be failing me on this, but I think I even gave you echoes/small imm exp once for this reason. There were several other times that I was watching you waiting for the right action/words to love on you more but unfortunately nothing stood out. (Doing this means that I liked the char.)

Later it appeared that you started to play almost angry, heavy looting and I started to like you less. I understood what was going on, but I (personally) just don't like those actions. I don't punish it of course, as I believe what goes around tends to come back around. Still, I was happy to see you still trucking at it.

Finally, Someone saw and noted a gank on someone else where three ragers including you (please leave everyone else nameless in this) killed the person (they started it, not you so we can be completely clear). The person who noted it saw that all parties involved had time to flee but none did. You were a berserker, therefor you must keep parity. You were not near enough anywhere to be raiding, so it must be punished. Yet you were a handful of deaths away, so I spared you the fate you were destined for and let you go out properly. Don't expect to make the pillar, but I was satisfied with how it ended and I hope it felt good to go out right.

I hope that was helpful, and that you return to the village someday. Maybe try out defender or scout?

But then I saw a few lowbie and other villagers eat the consequences for your full looting actions in return completely undeserving of it.

If you start that sort of madness, remember more people than you pay the consequences later for it. Not me of course, cause I'm slick as a chili ####. But some people did for sure.

I want to make clear I do not post this except to aid my understanding. I have played a long time and remember this post clearly by Thror and have always followed it.

You are much more active (very much appreciated) these days so if it has changed then please let us know.

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=39721&mesg_id=39745&page=51

In particular Thror said this

"Do not attack a group of BattleRagers. If they are out gaining experience they have a purpose. To attack them while they are grouped is to attack them as a single entity."

If times have changed and this needs to stop, I will. I have just always treated this way. I feel like they are asking for it. Certainty want to do the right thing as I have played forever and if this is now bad rager roleplay please let me know.

Thanks for the feedback, always appreciated.

Polmier

Don't attack groups of ragers ranking. You're not asking for a fair fight, you are hoping you can pick one off while wounded and or distracted and you aren't engaging looking for even grounds. You attack them while ranking, you get the whole force. You attack them while grouped on say, the east road or outside galadon, the other ragers need to respect the engagement and stand by and let him do his thing. I for one as a rager am not going to stand by and watch while you attack my half dead groupmate who is fighting a mob.

Last time I attacked a group of ranking ragers I wasn't trying to pick them off while they were weak. I was looking for a fight in a place that isn't no recall and won't result in whoever dies getting lowbie looted because the fight is on eastern.

I knew they probably weren't hurt (and indeed they were not). In that circumstance I think a gank would have been weak on the part of the ragers. That said, they didn't go for the gank in this case.

I think as a rager you have choices. Some will look for opportunities to gank and others will look for reasons not to gank.

If you are attacking a group of three ragers ranking, you either

A) Are insane as #### and have a deathwish

B) Are trying to get them hurt, away from the village, and unprepared for conflict.

I think the option C where you are looking to get a fair solid fight where one of them is all ready to one on one you is such a small percentage of the happenings that it shouldnt even be considered.


And yes Daurwyn, your attitude when it comes to pk and being honorable is especially the exception and not the rule. Most people want to get a sure, easy frag. Me included most of the time.

But not hurt.

Being caught with your pants down but unhurt should not justify an attempted gank, should it?

Fortunately I've pretty much mastered gank survival so don't really suffer when ragers try it.

If you attack a group of ragers you are basically running the risk of them all attacking you and it is a known risk. You are choosing to engage the 3, they are not choosing to engage you. If they autoass and you eat death blows and die it is your own fault.

It basically seems to me like Verathi is learning how the cabal operates and keeps getting fed information second hand from higher level IMMS and acting harshly on what he hears because he is supposed to be da police of Battle, but really there is a Drillmaster for that and you're just making his life easy and denying him interesting RP dynamics. It is good to have police for the Village, but burning huts on first offenses and not patterns of behavior is meh and detracts from funstick.

Everyone has a different interpretation.

His matters quite a bit at the moment.

What it comes down to is that at times people have gotten away with a lot of questionable behavior in the Village. Between every Battle immortal, our hours still don't encompass the entire day. That doesn't mean that questionable behavior gets a free pass because a Battle Imm isn't on. If someone spots it and notes it, I will come down and question the individual and learn more about the situation. If there is a valid defense to their actions, they can explain it and there is no problem.

As far as acting harshly - punishments are discussed among the group of IMMs upstairs. I don't know that you will believe me, but both of my punishments that have gotten heat recently have either been the lighter options.

Trying to make the game more fun for everyone.

It wasn't made particularly clear by the log of myself talking with Gogoth that was posted, but there were two separate instances where Gogoth took down the assassin in question with others.

The first was the defense that Gogoth argued for - he was out with another villager learning. I accept this defense as perfectly valid.

The second they were grouped together, but held no items of power and were not close enough to any cabal to consider it a raid or defense. I do not accept this defense for this situation.

Overall, the key part of that rule to me is "if they are out gaining experience they have a purpose". I don't see three villagers sitting on eastern grouped as valid for them all to help kill whoever attacks one of them.

One way I help keep my decisions clear - on past ragers I'll often turn autoassist off until I am ranking or in an actual raid situation.

Is this more clear?

Its not like you have your finger on the induct x none button and you are firing it off. You come down if you see something questionable, call them out on it, and ask for an explanation.

If a villager in question does something, but really believes he was in the right (within reason of course), explains it to you, and stands by his actions with conviction...I seriously doubt he has something to worry about. If he is ganging just to gang and knows he can't reasonably stand behind his actions with any pride, well, then he messed up pretty bad and you have good reason to be calling him out in the first place.

It helps (me at least) to hear the thought process.

I am not familiar enough with the specific incident, but was just talking in general.

When I play a rager, I will try to edit this accordingly as perhaps my you attacked our group your issue mentality is a little less than parity. I had used this rule for all situations.

So lets just clear somethings up on Parity and maybe it will help folks.

I think the smackdown of Fess when he attacked the ranking group, while not great, is somewhat acceptable. Enemy jumps on a wounded groupmate and gets mowed down. I would expect to see someone rescue though rather than trying to kill. And if it were a berserker who got attacked he should be pissed off.

The Eastern road incident is not acceptable. I always go with the Mantra that unless you are actively ranking, or cabal raiding, a group of ragers together should be autoassist off. For them not to be, and to actively or passively gang down an adversary is poor battle RP. If there is a berserker in the group he should be held to task, if he was the one attacked and the others autoassisted, he should be taking them to the circle for demeaning his code.

I've said it before, berserkers and leaders are held to a higher standard, but scouts and defenders who consistently gank will also be held to task.

Hey Ysal,

I just want to follow-up. Verathi and I already spoke on this IC, and I communicated what Verathi said IC to another Berserker. The Berserker noted it as a change, and so I want some clarification. Also, I need to correct you on something.

I have the entire Fessara death to 3 logged, and she died on the western crossroads right outside of Galadon west gate - while the 3 of us were en route to raid the Island, after having just successfully raided the Empire. Here is a synopsis:

For time Reference in my logs (times are in game time):

Codex Placed with Destructor at 1pm - we immediately head to Island (discussed via group/cabal channel)
Fessara missses attempt on Gogoth at 3pm on western Xroads outside of galadon (2 ticks after codex downed and given the location of death its clear we are headed to the Island)
Fessara dead at 4pm we guard corpse a bit
Continuing to walk to Island at 5pm, guardian engaged at 9pm

In the past, this scenario would have been considered a wartime, because we were actively raiding Cabals, and in fact were on the way to do some more raiding.

Verathi and I spoke about this IC, and essentially he clarified his view is that wartime is while we are actively raiding a cabal, or in an adjacent area to a cabal with the intent to raid/defend (Ergo, ruins/sea of despair/imperial lands/etc).

I know I myself, would like complete clarification of what is/isn't a "time of war" since there is a case of old policy vs new policy. IC I intend to adhere to what Verathi (My Patron) has told me, however I think that consistency OOC can be extremely beneficial which is my entire reason for posting this here.

If you need to try this hard to figure out if its OK, then its probably not OK.

Helpful clarification from Battle Imms who run the cabal are way more productive than snarky responses in this situation. It might not be much to you when people lose leader or get uninducted based on second hand information but people put a lot of time into characters and these responses are helpful. Ysals and Verathis I mean.

Though unfortunately a bit vague, the premise is pretty spot-on. If you're having to spend time to debate whether your actions are appropriate for your cabal, it's probably a safer bet to stick to what's clearly kosher.

See, thats just it - this definitely HAS BEEN ok in the past per Thror, and other battle IMM's. The only reason there is any question to it is because of the inconsistency in past policy vs what is being laid down now. I personally have spent a lot of hours within the village, and I would not have batted an eye at this at all.

In fact: here are Thror's exact words upon a party "in motion" to assault an enemy cabal.

"The Siege –
There is no parity in the siege. It is an assault on an enemy cabal. It is the defense of your own cabal. It is the coordination and execution of a carefully planned attack. If you are the enemy in the way of BattleRagers “in motion” of a siege, expect to be removed as a barrier of defense or offense."

Fessara struck a group of 3 (well knowing the danger), furthermore that group of 3 had JUST raided her cabal, and was on the way to raid another (war party by past definitions entirely).

"Do not attack a group of BattleRagers. If they are out gaining experience they have a purpose. To attack them while they are grouped is to attack them as a single entity."

Since by definition this "Not being ok" conflicts directly with standards laid down before, I do not think that asking for clarification is outlandish at all, nor do I think you should assume the answer should be obvious - if it were obvious I would not be asking for clarification.

Link to Thror's post:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=39721&mesg_id=39745&page=51

As an addendum, I am kind of put out that Gogoth took a lot of heat over this, when in fact a leader of an enemy cabal had every opportunity to take complete advantage of the fact that we were shortly going to be raiding another cabal for their item. The person in question has means within their disposal to strike an out silently, and dispatch it - yet chose to throw their life away on a failed assassination attempt. To question the legitimacy of the actions of the battle ragers, and not the actions of the imperials seems very biased to me and has bothered me for about a week now. As I knew it, the blood oath was not "my heart, my soul, my life for the Empire...unless there is someone to stalk"

We are all familiar with that Thror post. Unfortunately right now, Thror isn't the one who is calling the shots for Battle, so its kind of a moot point to be quoting Thror's post when both Verathi and Ysal have said that what occurred with Fessara in this instance is wrong.

So Thror hasn't logged in lately so his opinions and multiple years of experience running the cabal are irrelevant? If that is the case let verathi and ysal say it. You keep responding to questions that are being directed to battle Imms and it makes no sense other than you having a superiority complex. You are an awesome empire imm and do great things with it for real, but you aren't the authority here.

I don't get why you guys are harshing on Destuvius so bad for commenting here. It's an open forum. Verathi or whoever the question is directed at can still answer even if Destuvius says his piece. Seems like you guys don't like his response, well luckily he's not the authority. He probably speaks to the authority in immchat though eh?

He's a player too.

Censorship via peer pressure is almost as bad as poofing threads.

See, he is looking for specific clarification from the CABAL GODS because it was exactly that, a raid situation. It wasn't what Ysal heard, it wasn't a ranking party and it wasn't even in the area that he was told. So, him asking for clarification shouldn't be considered a moot point as the second/third hand recount of the events apparently are skewed (curious how that happens).

How about you let the guys calling the shots in their cabal respond instead of jumping in to protect your own interest.

Relevant snippet: 'enemy in the way of BattleRagers “in motion” of a siege'

I do not view you in the motion of a siege until you are actually close enough that you would label the person assaulting your group a defender. I would not label someone attacking a group of villagers on the outskirts of Galadon a defender of Nexus or any other cabal.

Until then, you are just a bunch of guys and gals trying to get somewhere. So I really don't disagree with anything in Thror's post, just interpret it differently on one point.

Honestly, Dest's initial post is a wise one to follow. If you have to think up this complex of a situational report to defend your actions, you might be better to not take those actions in the first place. (Even if they end up being valid later.)

Anyways, I think most of this was made clear by what I told Varaez (that got repeated in a post above). Still, I prefer to make my opinion perfectly clear as that appears to be desired.

I can get on board with what you are saying and it seems clear to me now about what is and isn't acceptable regarding Villagers raiding and parity.

But - What about when the Villagers don't have the head?

I've always been of the opinion that if me and my rager buddy are trying to get the head back from Nexus but they have defenders and we catch one of them away from the Island (or sea) that it is completely OK to gank them down. The idea is that taking back the head takes precedent and you've now removed a defender from the Island, even though that defender was not at the Island.

Do you agree or disagree?

You want to play a battlerager then prepare to die, a lot, to stupid things nobody else would.

One of those things is having buddies around and them not helping you because of the village codes of conduct. I think proximate areas and the cabal itself is just fine for ganking. I think not ganking unless you are at their inner(or facing some other group of mobs with the exception of PC pets) is even better (even when defending).

Keep in mind that the codes for villagers are not exactly situational, notice he referenced a pattern of events as opposed to this one thing you did one time.

Besides the Thror post was made pre-jerry. Jerry has been the single most destructive player of village ever (as in destroying the proud tradition of the cabal). Since the jerry era folks have had to change how they go about defining what is and is not ok.

I also think it is cool that he is actually giving leeway to non berserkers as previous Imms/Leaders would kind of say that and then still hold them all to the same standard anyway.

I was only asking about when Villagers don't have the head for basically 2 reasons. 1: I've seen it allowed in the past. 2: You can argue that the parameters of the "siege" have expanded or changed. I mean if you're In a cabal holding another cabals item you should probably know better not to get caught by that cabal alone and away from your cabal unless you want the fight.

So I'm clear on this. You aren't in favor of headless villagers ganging someone who holds the head away from their cabal area?

This is a situation where I am on the fence and would defer to the wisdom of Ysal.

Gr

When the head is taken it's easy to say 'well all bets of parity are off' and while I agree that parity can be put aside somewhat, it still doesn't excuse wholesale 'cowardice' for example 5 guys rolling over 1 lone defender.

Situational calls should always fall on the side of the least amount necessary. If the situation is as you describe above, two of you catching nexus guy in the weald as you are on your way to the island. I'd be OK with that. You and your buddy catching Nexus guy in Seantryn while you are gathering gear, and you ganking him down, might be a little harder to be OK with, unless you immediately went to regain the head.

I wish it was as easy as If A then B, but its not. I have to agree with Destuvius, that if you have to put some complicated logic together to justify ignoring parity, then its probably not a good call.

In my book, parity should be followed as must as possible as a villager, even if it means at time you eat a death you wouldn't normally have done. Variability enters with Berserkers vs Defender/Scout with the latter having slightly more leeway. Raid/defense situation, but again does not excuse wholesale cowardice. Think Hector vs Achilles, if one guy is raiding for his item, does it warrant 5 guys ganking him down, or should the honor of dealing with him fall on an individual.

This basically boils down to villagers having some pretty sweet powers, where they are usually more than a match on 1v1 situations. Even without the head, villagers are not always at a huge disadvantage except against certain classes, but that is not different than any other 'bad' match up. Consistent and frequent patterns of abusing parity are going to be called out.

I am clear on the subject and will adjust accordingly.

I did not know it was frowned on before, I do now.

I did not know it would cause some much discussion.

End of discussion for me.

Backward thinking anyway. I'm not a rager player, so I could be way off...

Parity is all about measuring yourself against your foes or something right? Seems like instead of the player finding that line in the sand so he can brush up to as much as he wants, the character should be going overkill in the other direction. Even if it's a raid situation, shouldn't a berserker prefer the one on one, to test his mettle?

These discussions just don't make sense to me from a role-play perspective I guess. If berserkers are playing their roles as berserkers, it really shouldn't even come up.

Again this is solely my perspective as an outsider reading these threads. I have little to no experience interacting with the cabal inside or out of it. Nor is a comment directly to you, as I don't know anything about your character.

nt

Why didn't you give your thoughts on Lararani? I always appreciate to hear others' ideas on my chars.

story (I have deleted the log accidentally, so I cannot post it.):
Lara heard a nexun/arial/warrior hitting the giant in hopes of getting the key back. When getting to the village, village ranger had kicked the arial's butt hard and the warrior was running out, giant was not harmed much.
Lara ran to eastern and saw the ranger chasing the warrior. ranger missed the warrior, but Lara guessed where the warrior should be, Felar town. He was resting on the wilderness. Lara got to him, looked and he was about 30-40%.
I thought fast and decided not to kill the arial myself, but to secure him for our ranger. Starting by a failed choke attempt, the warrior ran.
Verathi called Lara and asked why the act of weakness has happened as he thought. Lara said that the plan was not to kill the warrior (If it was, Lara had much better options other than choking, and never had used chokes before, to start a fight to win) but to choke so the ranger can kill him. Verathi seemed satisfied and left Lara alone.

Then, I liked how Verathi acted. I myself thought same.
But now I am a bit ... Was it fine to kill the warrior because it was a raid, even if the warrior was not going to win it in any case? Considering Lara was a defender, it makes more sense to just plainly kill the offender.

Just to clarify: I already prefer what Verathi did, and like the village to be a bit more on parity, even in raid situations which are not really going to happen with just one of the defenders involved.

I generally hold my thoughts back until requested or mentioned. Anytime a rager goes, they are welcome to ask for my thoughts on their death thread. (This was requested in prayers before he sought out his last death.)

It has been long enough I don't remember that situation clearly. Generally, defenders have a little more leeway so when I came down to talk with you it wouldn't have been to hut burn as much as encourage you towards standing on your own as I viewed you as extremely competent.

I enjoyed our interactions and travels.

I figured this was coming after your style of balls to the wall.

Well done on that.

GWLYN.

And dangerous too. I still shudder at the memory of the time you smoked me at the giant. Well done on your character. You certainly lived him fast and hard.

I had a visitor come to me and tell me that you were seeking to end it all through combat. I watched you fight the tribunal a few times, but, I wasn't going to jump in on that for several reasons. Glad I could be your last fight though.