Wars? Why Do We Promote Them?

[Stag 3234]

War is good for RP. Peace is good for RP. It is known.

 

However, assholes are not good for RP, especially in power. The only difference between war and peace is that certain kinds of assholes reveal themselves full-force in war. There are also other assholes that only achieve rectal prominence when there is widespread peace.

 

War, handled by assholes, is not fun. War, handled by people who are not assholes, is fun.

Peace, handled by assholes, is not fun. Peace, handled by people who are not assholes, is fun.

 

If we ever were to stick with only war or only peace, we would only see one kind of the assholes and the other would be invisible to us. Only through dynamically switching between war and peace can we make both kinds of assholes reveal themselves and give us sufficient cause to extract them. In this way, both kinds of assholes are kept in check as war and peace expand and contract.

 

 

Refer to my post.

 

 

I assume this post, correct?

 

I agree to an extent. Assholes in piece often don't hold as much weight and that may just be because most cultural turning points, whether good or bad, happen as a consequence of war. I do agree that both are needed but it feels to me that the community gives more weight to war and if that is how it is then I believe it is worth exploring how we can better shape the war experience even if it is as simple as changing our mindset of what we want from a war from an OOC perspective.

[Lago 2572]

War's all well and good apart from

Three things make war destructive:
1: Vague rules and GM subjectivity. Most disputes from one side believing they can do something and the other side not. I know GMs love the ability to situationally judge and sometimes to 'bend' the server rules's definitions in order to do what they believe is right. In general disputes this usually works fine, but in large scale competitive situations this leads to OOC storms like nothing else. In competitive situations the rules must be enforced to the letter, with no subjective alterations. At all. You cannot have one rule for one side or one player and different rules for another and you certainly can't be publically seen to do so. If you want to change something you'll have to change the rulebook.

2: The uncontrollable rampant impulse to cheat in broad daylight far too many members of our playerbase possess. Even when the rules are clear they break them. All too frequently you have two sides agree no one day alts and then actively recruit them. The most blatant, clear rules are broken by players who seem medically incapable of comprehending the concept of fair play, as if they have an uncontrollable impulse to cheat in the full knowledge that they'll be caught. That rant aside, the actual reason is that the outcome of the battle is unchanged even if they're punished and they usually get away with it anyway. We need a way to brutally punish battle cheaters and the side they're fighting for.

3: Conquest. Go to war to achieve something. The Alliance/Oren war was the Alliance trying to dethrone Heinrik Carrion. If they won, they'd do so, if Oren won, they'd demand reparations or something. Problem is, we get wars that go "Our side takes your capital or Our side destroys your capital or Your whole race becomes a "vassal" of our nation."
The effect is that you get a town you won't use and you utterly destroy the RP the people who lived there. What have you achieved? Nothing. You've achieved negative.
When you win, enforce your demands, but don't take people's capitals and land in the heart of their nation. You don't need them, all you're doing is tossing a sledgehammer at their RP. When you win, do what you set out to do IC but don't add insult to injury.
 

4. I'm of the opinion that if you try to win a war by actively trying to get the opposing side's best fighters banned the only person who should be banned is you. Likewise, some of the responses to propaganda and war threads can get pretty passive aggressive.

 

Basically, the rules need to be clear, the staff need to enforce the written rules only, people need to tone down what they do if they win so they don't do tons of damage OOC, we need to evict cheaters with a giant spiked broom and players need to stop bitching at and making snide remarks at each other.

[Aetosion 2062]

So I was wondering what others thought about wars and the promotion of them.

 

I have, over the last month, seen most of the server RP revolve around wars. Groups try to not have PvP conflict and those who want PvP conflict don't seem to respect that. To me wars are the main problem we have on the server and it isn't because we lack the capacity to run the server during battles or have cool plugins to make battles fancy. I believe they are the main problem because of the consequences of them:

 

-Ban reports

-Fuels players to misbehave. A catalyst.

-Unintentional death of bystanders

-Massive group trolling

-Land claim/dismantling of nation or culture

-Bitterness/sore losers and winners

-Possible nation growth. Wealthy, victorious nations grow while others decrease.

 

 

 

 

-Activity

-Military roleplay

-The convalescing of a nation or culture in opposition of a common enemy

-An outlet for those who enjoy combat, instead of mindless raiding

-A catalyst for change in roleplay

-A threat to create diplomatic negotiation

-A legitimate mechanic of a world in which individuals have different goals and views, which if removed would create an unrealistic and boring world without challenge nor conflict, integral parts of life

 

 

Role-play is Role-play, if a war breaks out between nations, it happens. We cannot restrict RP any more based off of the notion that it protects some random person's RP hub.

 

My RP hub could just as easily be a small dirt house in the middle of nowhere. It'd be taking it away if someone removed it because it was an eyesore. If a nation gets pissed off at another enough that it wants to risk total annihilation in a war, so be it. They're free to do so. People have freedom of action on this server, which is something truly fantastic, and what do you want to do? Take it away.

 

All this does is protect people unwilling to RP anything but what they want. I have been forced into many situations I haven't wanted to be in, but I RP'd it out. You have no right to deprive someone of role-play or use OOC means to stop role-play. We are not Uthrandir.

 

I find this to be an incredibly well-worded response.

[Evilbanana5757 154]

 

Could just... you know... have wars on Mount and Blade.

 

GENIUS.

[monkeypoacher 8055]

I'm sorry. All what does? I am not asking to limit anything or even demanding change. Not asking or trying to deprive anyone. I just wanted to know peoples opinions (note I said opinions. This is not an idea thread.) on what war does for the server then added in my own. This is a feedback thread in the feedback section of the forum for a reason so stop with the accusations. I could just as easily say "You have no right to force people to RP with you, take away their freedom to RP what they want, and deprive them of RP so you can use clicky-clicky to have your own fun." I don't think that is true necessarily but you are talking very one-sided and that is the problem.

Wars cannot be a one-sided thing where one group is having fun at the expense of the other. There needs to be a way to let both parties have fun. There needs to be compromise.

The thing is, I CAN force people to RP with me outside of torture and FTB. One must stay IC at all times, and one cannot meta-game, meaning that leaving RP to the exclusion of sensitive roleplaying topics is a bannable offense. I am within my rights at any time to force anyone to RP with me unless they have a GM or above's permission to avoid it. This is a dynamic RP server and the wanton ignoring of other players' RP is far more destructive than the blurring of lines or messy conduct of a PvP war.

As for the other half of your argument, it's meaningless. This may as well have been an idea topic and I tl;dr'd on the original post halfway through seeing exaggerated and biased accounts of how harmful war RP is for the server. Consider my post without it being a counter-argument to an idea post because I couldn't really tell at the time and I am too lazy to edit it or rephrase at this time of day.

[Aedan The Bard 350]

You were never part of that. You were literally thrown out during everything because you were constantly causing problems. You were not even allowed in Adunia during the war (Most of it, you were allowed back on another characters towards the end) Also Adunia didnt have 50 people during the war lol. Adunia sure didnt say no to the war. In fact, they believed that they were going to win it easily, but lost to flay warfare and the experience of the enemy.

 

 

adunians never had 50 people impossible. not even major races have 50 people. also if adunians were wiped out from one war they are weak. survival of the fittest.........  unless ur an elf they just spring back

 

You're wrong, mate. Adunia consisted of 50 players that were active on their Adunian characters aprox. 80% of the week. War brought stress, brought discomfort, and eventually - one by one - they left, including myself. You can't RP rebuilding a nation because there's always people trying to attack you, even if in RP you don't have a military. Most wars consist of people getting armor and weapons from who-knows-where and preparing to fight without any ranks nor RP whatsoever. It's bullcrap, sincerely.

[Stag 3234]

War's all well and good apart from

3: Conquest. Go to war to achieve something. The Alliance/Oren war was the Alliance trying to dethrone Heinrik Carrion. If they won, they'd do so, if Oren won, they'd demand reparations or something. Problem is, we get wars that go "Our side takes your capital or Our side destroys your capital or Your whole race becomes a "vassal" of our nation."

The effect is that you get a town you won't use and you utterly destroy the RP the people who lived there. What have you achieved? Nothing. You've achieved negative.

When you win, enforce your demands, but don't take people's capitals and land in the heart of their nation. You don't need them, all you're doing is tossing a sledgehammer at their RP. When you win, do what you set out to do IC but don't add insult to injury.

 

 

[Tadmonster 54]

The way I see it, wars are a problem, because a nation stays a nation if they lose. Theoretically, a full war could result in one nation taking an entire different nation as their own and forcing culture upon them, or at least making one nation under a king. This would lead to rebellions, which is a different story.

 

Long story short, if nations could 100% conquer other nations, there would be less wars, as there is more to lose, so people would think carefully.

[Agith 224]

M&B based warfare? Oh god I'd wreck even harder. 

 

Lol, I used to be a heavy clanner for warband. 

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

You're wrong, mate. Adunia consisted of 50 players that were active on their Adunian characters aprox. 80% of the week. War brought stress, brought discomfort, and eventually - one by one - they left, including myself. You can't RP rebuilding a nation because there's always people trying to attack you, even if in RP you don't have a military. Most wars consist of people getting armor and weapons from who-knows-where and preparing to fight without any ranks nor RP whatsoever. It's bullcrap, sincerely.

You shouldve used that huge playerbase of yours to train and equip a proper army. And if you couldn't then you deserved toost the war as the enemy was better prepared.

[Stag 3234]

You shouldve used that huge playerbase of yours to train and equip a proper army. And if you couldn't then you deserved toost the war as the enemy was better prepared.

 

Are you are saying that a nation that is happy being active and peaceful should instead spend all their efforts and time in military RP?

[Lago 2572]

The way I see it, wars are a problem, because a nation stays a nation if they lose. Theoretically, a full war could result in one nation taking an entire different nation as their own and forcing culture upon them, or at least making one nation under a king. This would lead to rebellions, which is a different story.

 

Long story short, if nations could 100% conquer other nations, there would be less wars, as there is more to lose, so people would think carefully.

 

Technically you can do that. And what happens there is you end up with one nation or one giant nation and lots of resentful other racial nations. Holy Oren Empire anyone? Lots of fun for the people in it, but the other nations, especially the ones who were frequently invaded just because, grew so resentful that it got nasty.

[mmat 7460]

If you don't like it when a far bigger nation attacks your nation. How about surrendering or meeting their demands, or even coming to some kind of diplomatic compromise instead of fighting back? Don't complain about the war not being fun for you when there are plenty of choices, just choices that might harm your e-pride.

[Supremacy 3361]

Sometimes nations make absurd demands. Remember Oren and Malinor back in 2.5? They wanted 10,000 iron bars. That only works if the other group isn't intent on the war OOC.

[Sporadic 2844]

Wars attract a large target audience, namely the part of our players that is the mechanically and PvP inclined. When properly handled, war can boost activity for all parties involved, even those that do not fancy PvP / have plenty of RP even without a war, assuming they can appreciate the opportunity.

 

We should embrace this part of the playerbase and furthermore see how we can keep them logged into LotC between skirmishes, not try to freeze them out by taking the main attractor away. However I am not denying that it is also costing us players by creating a less-than-enjoyable experience leading to ragequits and ban reports. Ideally, we make changes to the war system that address both of these issues.