From my limited and mostly out of game view it seems that the pendulum swings have gotten a lot worse lately, and I was thinking that this must be at least partly due to the current cabal setup. I.e. after the removal of Scion the major part of evil chars tend to gravitate towards Empire, because Scarab is probably perceived less "mainstream" evil, "harder" or otherwise less accessible, or something along those lines.

IIRC Scion was removed because you didn't want three evil cabals, but in practice it probably wouldn't be that lopsided because they aren't exactly allies: Scion and Empire being enemies, and I guess Scarab isn't really best buddies with Empire either, although I think Scion and Scarab can be more compatible (I confess I don't really know Scarab dogma).

So it seems that at least a partial fix to the current climate could be to reopen Scion, assuming that there actually are imms around to oversee the cabal. Though I think a couple of related tweaks would also be needed:

1) Downgrade Scion powers somewhat, esp. despoil seemed too good, but also I think you should remove the stealing nightwalkers, or rather give them some other ability instead of steal (which was just unfun/unfair, nine times out of ten having them clear your inventory meant kissing goodbye to those items).

2) Allow Forties more readily access to full cabal powers, now Maran/Acolyte is Imm-granted only, right? So basically let mortal leaders promote squires/scribes (I think it should be like this in any case, having actual powers would make playing a Fortie and being in the cabal much more enjoyable).

Just a thought.

I really don't like getting involved in these discussions so I will say a few things, then weigh out of the conversation.

Re-opening an evil cabal to fix issues with other Evil cabals seems counter intuitive to me.

I know a lot of focus seems to have been put on Empire but at times there are just as may Fortress. Especially in the morning.

I believe the Imms keep getting asked to fix a player problem. A very simple case in point outside the swing. Quite recently 4 hero Fort members refused to retrieve the Orb against 2 Empire. This stale mate stayed for a decent amount of time until they gradually quit.

I have more to say but I will save that for a more opportune time.

gr

NT

Might they have thought there was an assassin or thief around? Or been worried that someone would log on as they arrived?

The former is why I think trib outlander gets ganky or cowardly. Too hard to tell what you will be facing.

"Quite recently 4 hero Fort members refused to retrieve the Orb against 2 Empire. This stale mate stayed for a decent amount of time until they gradually quit."

I have seen the same thing happen with the other way around, and you were one of the imperials on at the time.

I have seen high fort numbers at night before, but every time I do there are no imperials around, yet there is still the average number of players on. I'm sure members of fort have alts, but they're not as blatantly obvious as the imperials.

I have seen people go to take back the orb from empire, and then 2-3 imperials login and attack all in less than 1 minute.

I have more to say but it won't help any, much like your comments.

Thinking that you're entitled to anything from your enemy isn't going to bring you much enjoyment within this game.

Are you ESL? I get the feeling you are, especially when you completely miss the point of a post.

Or, if he's not Russian, he at least knows the language very well and has run a MUD that I believe was mostly populated by Euro's and former Soviet bloc citizens.

So yeah, he probably is ESL.

Are you two not complaining about people not playing the way you want them to? Having alts, not reraiding 4 vs 2, selective logins, whatever.

Are you suggesting we should tolerate selective logins, to the extent that it's ok to log in to ambush retrievers when you knew about the retrieval either from ooc means or because you spotted the build up with an alt?

But simply being a fairweather player isn't a breach of the rules.

Let's dissect Aereglen's post:
(about not retrieving 4 vs 2) "I have seen the same thing happen with the other way around, and you were one of the imperials on at the time."
That is fine.

"I have seen high fort numbers at night before, but every time I do there are no imperials around, yet there is still the average number of players on. I'm sure members of fort have alts, but they're not as blatantly obvious as the imperials."
That is fine.

"I have seen people go to take back the orb from empire, and then 2-3 imperials login and attack all in less than 1 minute."
That is BAD but pointing fingers on the forums won't help. Needs mechanical solution.

I thought I explained myself clearly here http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=59043&mesg_id=59061&page=

If you are still confused after reading that I cannot help you.

In fact I agree with you.

...Kregan was a slightly legendary coward in my time playing Fort the last couple months. Not that there is anything wrong with it, and, in fact, I'll actually give him slight credit in that he never logged out like a chump when he was outnumbered...

...but I definitely remember a time where it was me, Artenel, and maybe Milounthiel (as an Outlander) on, and Nhaesheli and Kregan. Nhaesheli was killed by Artenel and logged out, and then Kregan proceeded to sit in his guild for about 45 RL minutes in Hamsah. And complained that Artenel and I were a perma. :)

Kregan tried to chime in to defend the imperials case. The problem is all he really did was, as murphy liked to call it, fling poo. It does no good, and may actually cause someone on the other side to fling poo back. I gave an example of such, and stated that nothing of what either of us said helped in any way.

I don't think people should comment on the forums anonymously with current character names.

I think the players should deal with all this IC.

I would like to apologize to the immortals and the players for letting some frustrations get the better of me.

This was not the right time, nor the right place, nor the correct method for me to make comment in the way I did. In doing so some of the things I said came off in a way that I did not intend and the nature of what I wanted to say lost.

Apologies KG

IIRC Scion was removed because you didn't want three evil cabals

This is somewhat true, though I don't think it would have actually mattered. Ultimately, I don't believe there were any immortals who wanted to take charge of Scion. That is obviously a problem for keeping the cabal moving.

There are likely a few steps we will take to modify the cabal situation in the relatively near future. I will leave it at that for now.

Assuming we wanted to revamp the whole cabal system I'd break it up into :

Battleragers (disallow good-alignment) - Enemies WarlockMaran & NexusTribunal.
Warlock + Maran (and give them the Inn and allow neutral into both factions - where a neutral maran is a particularly viscous 'ends justify the means' type) - Enemies Battleragers and Outlander.
Nexus/Tribunal (merge) - Enemies - BattleRagers and Outlander.
Outlander (make them enemies of Warlock) - Enemies - WarlockMaran and NexusTribunal.

Reasoning being :

1) Pure good vs evil is kinda boring. Really, the idea of the Empire as an all evil cabal to me is kinda weak from a roleplaying perspective. No institution can be pure evil. It also really limits the types of characters you're going to run into. To me a lot of the roles within the cabals are so specific that they lead to too much cookie-cutter mentality.

2) There are too many cabals. This would eliminate Empire/Scarab/Acolytes/Herald and merge the rest together.

3) Immortals could tweak alliances based on size/opposition - I'm a firm believer alliances should be Imm driven not mortal driven (mortals should want to therefore make the largest alliances possible, there's no motivation to stay small considering how area explores work).

I think ultimately as the playerbase shrinks you need to shrink to a 3-4 cabal system. It just doesn't make sense having cabals that only have 0-2 people online.

i play daytime hours more than evening. there's awesome immortal coverage then between baerinika, strienat, whiysdan, scarab, and it seems verathi, twist, and enlilth are on randomly too. i say that because there's often more imms in a cabal online than players.

all the cabals but fort often have zero people online during the day, especially battle, outlander, and empire after the morning crew logs off. granted, that's changed some with battle leaders and an upswing in level 40 outlanders.

i'd love to see cabals squashed in number myself, fewer options may even curtail the band-wagon effect. i'd also like to see raiding and retrieving changed somewhat. make it easier to take something but it's no longer an all-or-nothing. make cabals have multiple inners, each guarding a token that ties to a power.

it's pretty disheartening to log in a cabal and see no one else for an hour+. at least the imms are kinder about that than 15 years ago and will imm-induct because getting recommendations or finding a leader can be brutal if they play different hours.

just throwing it out there, i'd like to see

scholarlymagic+orderly cabal (arbiter meets masters)
antimagic+deception cabal (battle meets shadow)
knight/honor cabal (battle meets knight meets maran)
outlander+entropy (take away chameleon, more chaos)

>From my limited and mostly out of game view it seems that the
>pendulum swings have gotten a lot worse lately, and I was
>thinking that this must be at least partly due to the current
>cabal setup. I.e. after the removal of Scion the major part of
>evil chars tend to gravitate towards Empire, because Scarab is
>probably perceived less "mainstream" evil, "harder" or
>otherwise less accessible, or something along those lines.

On one hand I think a lot of people assume Scarab will be "harder" than it is.

On the other, I think Scarab's powers simply leave something to be desired and thus the cabal isn't as attractive to some folks. Who knows, maybe some day we'll take a look at that.

>IIRC Scion was removed because you didn't want three evil
>cabals, but in practice it probably wouldn't be that lopsided
>because they aren't exactly allies: Scion and Empire being
>enemies, and I guess Scarab isn't really best buddies with
>Empire either, although I think Scion and Scarab can be more
>compatible (I confess I don't really know Scarab dogma).

While Empire, Scion and Scarab were never and would never be allies, that doesn't mean they're not going to cooperate directly or indirectly in practice, and that was one of the concerns.

>So it seems that at least a partial fix to the current climate
>could be to reopen Scion, assuming that there actually are
>imms around to oversee the cabal. Though I think a couple of
>related tweaks would also be needed:
>
>1) Downgrade Scion powers somewhat, esp. despoil seemed too
>good, but also I think you should remove the stealing
>nightwalkers, or rather give them some other ability instead
>of steal (which was just unfun/unfair, nine times out of ten
>having them clear your inventory meant kissing goodbye to
>those items).

I'm not sold on this.

>2) Allow Forties more readily access to full cabal powers, now
>Maran/Acolyte is Imm-granted only, right? So basically let
>mortal leaders promote squires/scribes (I think it should be
>like this in any case, having actual powers would make playing
>a Fortie and being in the cabal much more enjoyable).

As not a Fort immortal, I wouldn't mind seeing Fortress look a little more appealing from day one. For what it's worth, I've also never made Maran (but I like to think that's because I delete early and often).

>Just a thought.

Thanks!

I will bribe you to re-open scion ;).

Scion was awesome, and I miss it dearly - I may not be the only serial evil player to miss it a lot. Maybe you guys could take a poll?

nt

It was op then and would be even moreso with today's lower playerbase.

I don't get why people think Scarab is harder or tougher than any other cabal. Underneath those nasty lich bones he has, there's a big o'le heart waiting to be touched.

The best way to learn Scarab dogma is to talk to one of them, they'll knock your hair back with the amount of Scaraby stuff they spew out.

Did Scarab steal any of those sweet Scion powers when they turned back into a cabal?