Ned Lud

The server and forum host can freely do everything covered under the terms of service, which includes spying on perverts and removing access from anyone that's a threat or an *******. This has nothing to do with the laws and liberties of a nation, it's about terms defined and enforced by those hosting a service which is provided to users as a privilege. If you don't honor your agreement to the established terms, the service is removed. You have no right to access another man's work that is freely offered for entertainment purposes.

This is great.

You put the two largest races towards the end of the circuit, with smaller races towards the top, so that the majority of player-flow from spawn continuously crosses paths with other nations, maximizing potential player interaction.

There is plenty of battlefield space and land to conquer outwardly for the war-mongers and conquistadors, and if it gets out of hand we can overhaul terrain without disrupting major role-playing hubs and damaging nation capitol infrastructure too badly.

Perhaps sprinkle some resource nodes out in the surrounding wilderness for the war-mongers to fight over and even the more peaceful players to covet. Useful mines, fertile land, magical nodes, nature shrines, sacred forests, healing pools, horse-spawning territory, animal and monster hunting grounds, sacred burial grounds, etc. Players can fight over the right to police those areas as they see fit or be conquered by those that want it for themselves. Nothing game-breaking, but useful things that give a name and a cause to the battles. Some can even be player-driven later on, but a few initial things would be nice to drum up beforehand.

Conquest gets us into trouble at times, but I just don't see a perfect solution to it. I feel like the way to deal with it is to treat it like that overly-energetic bastard child that you just have to set outside, letting him run around for a bit until he tires out and comes back inside for a nap.

Anyhow, looks good. Thanks for the all hard work to you and anyone else that might be involved in the process.

I like the spirit of this idea as a means to minimize drama, although if I were a group leader, I'd want to know if I was recruiting a member that had a history of problematic behavior. I'd also want to know if a member of staff had offenses that had been swept under the rug. I'm all about being up front and public about ****-ups, and we've had a long and lengthy history of Admins and GMs mishandling the hell out of ban reports and appeals and the consequences thereof, so I feel that publicly displaying all of these things serves as a solid means of checks and balances for us as players to keep our staff members in check on their decisions. It's also a solid way for our staff to maintain the trust of the community they serve.

Primarily for this reason, a healthy distrust of the staff in general based on previous offenses, I am against privatizing ban reports and appeals. If I were a staff member I would feel the same way. It's mutually beneficial to everyone here that we just be open and honest about everything.

This isn't intended to bash the staff, I like quite a few of you guys, but it's a valid point that has to be raised. I'm sure many of us can remember, in vivid detail, instances where the details of various staff members' and players' offenses were obscured and we didn't offer transparency and the **** storm that followed. Let's not go back down that road.

I think everyone should choose to roll characters that they can be content with role-playing within reason and within the current game mechanics that are made available to every player from the start, rather than writing lore, investing time, gathering approvals and empowering their monstrosities with god-like powers and then expecting to receive custom-made plug-ins or some sort of advantage that the majority of the player-base doesn't have and that many of us have been waiting for years to get just a scrap of and will likely never see.

No, none of you deserve anything special. Role-play, work around it and figure it out with what you've got like the rest of us. And if you can't be content with what you've got, don't role-play it. If our staff is going to focus on things for the server, let it be things that benefit the majority of the player-base, not a handful of cliques and snowflakes.

We all just need to enjoy what we've got. Getting unfairly clicked to death 90% of the time is just part of being a villain. If that's fun for the monster hunters, so be it. If role-playing the combat is fun for them, welcome that as well. Don't get hung up on realisms and technicalities, just roll with the punches and hope that at least someone, somewhere was enjoying themselves while it lasted.

Also, be sure to add that enforcing unwritten rules is against the rules.

I haven't built much yet but it seems like everyone is picking at it and we have a rough plan. Size limit, cozy communal feel and expanding only as needed are great ideas. I say we just sorta pick at it at an enjoyable pace. It's only temp so we can experiment.

Some good changes. I think we're finally moving in the right direction. shiftnative will also continue to do good things, regardless of what his rank is, glad to see him back all official-like.

This would require plug-in support and I'm not even sure if it would be doable, but perhaps if you're caught committing a crime, imprisoned, tortured, beaten and/or executed, etc. you are then released into the wilderness or resurrected at the Cloud Temple, but for a certain length of time, perhaps it could be 24 hours, perhaps only a few hours, an assortment of the following takes place:

- Your health is reduced.

- Your strength is reduced.

- Your speed is reduced.

- You are poisoned.

- You are blinded.

- You are starved.

- You can't jump.

- You can't swim.

These ailments could be limited and selected by the communities. Durations could increase based on the frequency of offenses. The role-play reasoning for all of this would be that if you survived imprisonment and were released, you're so badly beaten and mistreated that you have to stagger around for a few days to recover. If you were executed, perhaps the Cloud Temple monks withhold certain healing luxuries from criminals, applying basic resurrection and then forcing you to rough it.

Rough idea, not necessarily doable, but a plug-in option would certainly deter players from bullshitting around, especially if they had to either limp around like Reek for a while or log off and wait it out. You would think twice before returning to attempt petty crimes and random murders, but you could still role-play until the effects wore off, much better then sitting in a jail cell.

Many players seek minor and major VAs simply to allow themselves the gradually development. Just because we're seeing thousands of VAs approved doesn't mean we have thousands of full-fledged villains running around. I've had VAs approved on many characters and barely scratched the surface of the evils I was approved for. I simply obtained them so that if and when the time came for my character to do a little sin or two, I'd be ready and wouldn't have to awkwardly abstain from the role-play due to a lack of paperwork.

If players are having trouble with repeated offenses from a heckler, they ought to get together as a group perhaps with a member of staff or two and mediate a discussion with the player and pretty much be like, "Hey, motherskaher, we're not enjoying it, relax."

People chilling the hell out and talking to one another and expressing their dislikes trumps broken systems and ban reports any day. If the player persists, find a GM willing to do his/her job and the problem is solved.

It's not about banhammers, it's about respect. If multiple players tell me they have a problem with my in-game actions and I can't mellow out a little and be like, "Yeah man, sorry, no prob." Then I am the one being toxic and something has to be done.

There are too many ways to abuse the system and throw one's weight around as a non-villain. Guards, knights and noblemen have always been notorious for this. "I can't outright kill him, that would be villainous, but I can provoke him into anger and then defend myself when he attacks me, then have two of my buddies that I summoned on Team Speak cuff him, drag him into a cellar, beat the crap out of him and fight over his gear explosion as he bleeds out in a corner. We're just upholding the law is all. We're the good guys."

Players are going to do what they will and there's always a loop-hole to do it.

Remove lock-picking until a lock-picking plug-in is developed and implemented. Thieves can hold off on that aspect of their trade for the sake of allowing free, instant, open-ended role-play development for the entire community.

As for players killing others for their own self-interest, this already happens on a monstrous scale. Most of our wars are waged over such folly. The majority of the offenders are usually approved villains and there are various loopholes that non-villains can use to justify a clean kill in self-defense.

These two problems are solved. Remove Villain Applications.

Keep in mind that this layout doesn't mean we build 19+ burrows immediately. We build what we need for now and terraform some nice, dormant dirt mounds that we can expand into as needed. I just wanted to plot them out now so that we can figure out where to begin building the things we need now without having to move them later or ending up with a wonky-jawed setup. I also think it would be best to have a single, centralized farm blob with everything in it. Just not sure how to fit it in, as we've got a row of burrows that sorta cut our region in half across the middle, as well as the two ponds and the rivers.

Anyhow, let's think it over and keep throwing down ideas. Right now I'm just going to be gathering supplies and naturalizing the area for future construction. After a week or so if we've refined the layout and everyone's fine with the collection of ideas we can figure out how to begin building and maybe just take a count of who needs a burrow, etc. and just build to order as we go, expanding outward from the current burrows.

Thanks for the input, keep it coming.

I'm actually beginning to like the ease of access to materials now that I've been at it a bit more. It's a bit of a throwback to how things were in Aegis. Just don't ask how a Halfling farmer and burglar manages mining mastery as a side hobby.

Is it realistic? Not at all. But it's fun and it allows players that aren't able to meta-game and super-coordinate mercantilism get what they need so they can get back to role-playing what they want to role-play.

Sheriff typo fixed. Fumble for Sheriff... :P

MushyNinja, appreciate the help. Gonna gather supplies for now and sorta wait to make sure everyone gets their say in on what to do.

Dr_Dovahkin, what do you mean no one wants the new Vale? What are some alternatives that everyone wants? Personally, we might just move in somewhere with an active player-base until the new map comes and then rebuild for 4.0. I'm a little burned out of all of this nation-building myself, after surviving three map changes and about half a dozen home destructions. It looked like the majority that was left was trying for another Vale, but if not maybe we mix it up and do something else for a bit.

We've got a lot of work to do on the new settlement and it seems like we're down to a Sheriff, zero active Elders and only about 13 active players, so I'm keeping this out-of-character and just getting down to business. I'm a long-time server member, returning Halfling and former Lenfarthing build team member and I'm here to lend a hand as best I can, but I want to make sure our remaining members have a say in the rebuilding of our community.

For the time being, I've had some dirt mounds thrown down and made a rough layout of a settlement plan that we might be able to work with. I want everyone's input before we begin building burrows, because they take a while to build and are a pain to move. If this is not what the majority of us want, we scrap the idea, level the mounds and think of something else.

Yellow circles are either existing burrows or potential burrow sites. Green circles are areas that can be used as communal farmland for crops and/or livestock. The solid red lines indicates our current region and the dotted red line is a section that we may be able to absorb as part of our region. Anything else we need, such as shops, workshops, etc. can be worked in later. I've got 19 burrow sites on this layout. We current have 13 players that responded to the head count, this leaves an additional 6 burrow sites for us to expand into as our community takes on new members.

Potential Settlement Layout:

I need everyone's feedback on this concept before we start trying to build burrows, etc. I'm not trying to hijack the build project on my first week back, but we're not going to make any headway unless someone starts throwing down some solid ideas so that we can yay them or nay them and get to work. For the time being, until we figure out a plan, we're going to need a lot of logs, wood, gravel, clay, wool and dye, also some iron for tools.

Everyone's help or input is appreciated. The sooner we rebuild ourselves a home, the sooner we can get back to role-playing and attracting and retaining new members. Gather supplies, naturalize the burrow sites, get them read for construction and let's all take part in the discussion on what we want to see going forward here. Feel free to doodle and offer alternative design ideas.

The Sheriff (uracow) is still our highest ranking active member until we get some new Elders and can weigh in on this at any time, so contact him, myself or any of the regulars if you've got any issues. Right now he's the one policing the current burrows. I've simply offered to lend a hand building and I'm not sure if we have any other approved builders that are active right now or have the time for this project.

Thanks. Lots of new faces, so if I haven't met you yet, I look forward to it. Just trying to grind this out and it's going to be pretty rough without voxel or creative mode and pretty much a skeleton crew.

Just to clarify, I want the Villain Application removed, but I believe that every player ought to be able to perform villainous role-play whenever they feel like it without requiring approval from the staff. Our current and age-old problems with villainy just prove that the Villain Application System no longer serves it's purpose and that improving villainous role-play lies in the hands of the community. Same goes for the Magic Application System.

I don't feel that villainy requires a whole lot of talent either. You don't have to have killed a man with your bare hands to role-play a good killer, it certainly helps get the mood right, but it's not entirely necessary. Those who seek to be good role-players and villains just need a wisdom and an understanding of how to treat other human beings when playing a game as a member of a community. Be a good communicator, learn how to listen and get along with others and you're likely going to be a good villain and a good role-player that others want to be around. Those who don't learn how to do this end up being shot out of the air-lock soon enough.

Remove Villain Applications altogether simply because they no longer serve their purpose nor benefit the server. We removed Magic Applications and the server didn't fall into ruin as foretold by the prophets. These are wasted efforts.

As for the amount of villainy, players are going to do what's fun for them. If villainy is fun for players, they ought to do it. If villainy's not fun for you, endure the occasional villainous encounter for the sake of others' enjoyment, do something else, let villains know you're not interested or find another server. Several villains shouldn't have to have their entertainment revoked or crimped simply because one player wants to do something else.
 

If villains are pushing the envelope repeatedly, simply tell them it's not really fun for you and it's cramping your style and ask them to lay off a bit. If they persist to the point of harassment, they're not really being a cooperative member of the community and you can just tell them to sod off at that point and get staff involved, taking it to revocations and ban reports if necessary. Just don't take on this pacifist, uncooperative attitude during every encounter or it's essentially you that's become the problem.

Players have to give and take for this server to work. The reason players dread these villains so much is because the majority of them have it in their mind that they're entitled to win every encounter.

It's faster and easier for me to obtain ores myself than to obtain the minas to buy them. I'll be mining my own ores when I need them. I'm sure I'm not the only player with this mentality, so therein lies the problem with this abundance and ease of access supposedly helping some form of economy.

This current system is a clusterfuck. The volunteers that worked on the last system should be discouraged from doing so in the future as a direct result of how this server flip flops on everything. Our economy is shot, always has been and always will be. Time spent in the mines is time not spent on the surface, interacting with other players, which are more scarce than diamonds these days. Let's just let resource gathering be a swiftly-done notional thing so that we can get on with role-play and stop worrying about item-acquisition and retention.

(Yeah, add me and I'll try to get with someone in-game shortly. Trotter/Bango Blackfoot is likely still going to be alive as my main, returned from some long pilgrimage.)

This new rule has pretty much always been in place in the form of, "If we feel the need to ban you, we'll just ban you." It just has a little more wording and clarity to it this time around. I wouldn't lose sleep over it, as it's already been an unwritten law since the server began. Sometimes players just need a banhammer to the plonker and there's not going to be any reading of miranda rights, court-appointed attorney or phone-call and no one's going to give a **** because this server is ultimately a priviledge.

A cloaked figure limps in from the hills, guiding a fat and sickly-looking pig strapped with a weathered backpack and a set of thieves' tools. He hunkers down amongst the roots of a tree and lights up a smoke, carving his name into the bark with a small whittling knife.

Trotter

(Account Name: Ned_Lud, Character Name: Trotter/Bango Blackfoot. I'm still pretty busy in real life but may be returning on a small-scale, although I'm sure I've got a lot to catch up on. I've been on various build teams and threw down about half a dozen burrows for Lenfarthing if anyone needs help building now or going into the new map.)

I suppose compromise was the best we could hope for and this is a solid improvement. That's saying a lot coming from the system's arch-nemesis, but I will still be working on immolating the lot of you in between moments of cooperation.

Commence the laser beams.

I can't speak for the others, but I don't see a problem with orcs assuming common knowledge of these spirits. After all, what good is a list of spirits if it just sits on a forum not being used? Several of these spirits were once common knowledge, so it can be assumed their stories were spread around the bonfire. I wouldn't publish a list of them in-game or claim to know them all by heart, but if you have a few you'd like to implement into your role-play, I say go for it.