Aelu / Rel (Combustionary)

Let them. I simply feel that we need a better 'baseline' system for wars, because the one at the moment is utterly horrid.

It's more an idea for 4.0, but it could be done in a more manual fashion for the fringe, based on the towns and holds in each area. The goal would be to make things smoother in later wars. To prevent a repeat of this mess.

The war of late, in my opinion, has reached the current level for a single reason - It's being forced to stay drawn out. The idea of consensual conquest is rather controversial, but I've started to believe it to be something we need. The war we're in now? Every day, armies from either side march in, and raid the capitals of the opposition. Some days, the capitals may as well have been taken. Yet nothing happens. The war is nothing but a series of raids, and there needs to be some progression. A way to actually win. I've seen arguing from both sides about who has the upper hand, but what does that mean when the game never ends? For there to be a contest, there needs to be a way to win. In short? This war's not going to end until one side has lost, or one side has a legitimate reason to make peace. To the topic of forced-conquest, many of the arguments against it come to the point of the 'loss of rp'. Things like the destruction of a town forcing the residents to leave. And this is a valid point. In a world where death means nothing, war means nothing. An army can go into a battle, lose 4/5ths of it's troops but win, and walk into the next fight with it's numbers fully recovered. They can take a town, raze it, and leave to the next. The smaller group won't ever have a chance to return to their homes. Which brings me to my idea, a compromise of sorts. Degrading Control The problem with forced conquest is not conquest itself - It's what happens after. Many times in the past, a fairly active town has been taken, destroyed, and replaced with a half-built ruin that never sees more activity than an explorer randomly coming across it. With Telanir's 'activity check' system for 4.0, where players bind their soulstones to a region, we can create a way to make sure that taken lands are actually used. A nation can take lands, but simply lose them if they don't use the land. My proposal is this - If a nation takes land outside of their original borders. they must maintain slightly higher activity requirements. If they fail to do this, the region will, after a length of time, return to the nation which originally owned it. Say Region A is on, as an example, Urguan's borders. The region requires 10 players to stay on its soulstone roster in order to maintain build protection. Oren then takes this land in conquest. In order to keep the land, Oren would need to have a number of active players bound to the taken land, or it will return to the hands of Urguan. Since it's at the border, a multiplier like x1.1 can be added, bringing the number to 11. For lands closer to the capital, the number can be modified. My idea is based on the regions between the target and the invading border - If it's the third region from the border, it's a x1.3 multiplier. With an activity minimum, (Maybe 5 hours spent online per week?), people will have to actually rp in the area. This would require that any 'lost rp' be made up - And more. A town of ten that is destroyed will have to be replaced with a town of thirteen, otherwise, after a short period of time the original owners can simply return. The only exclusion I'd have in mind would be capitals, which I don't believe should be eligible for forced conquest. Thought of this on the spur of a moment, so I'm unsure if something similar's been discussed before. If I left anything unclear, feel free to ask. Thoughts?

War itself? Let rp flow. I believe that, extreme cases aside, rp should do as rp does. I dare say that the only way to truly end it is to let one side finish the other. If there are warclaims being blocked, don't let them be blocked. Keeping this war from having a real end is only making things fester and creating ooc tensions. If one side loses some of their land, well, so be it. War should have some staff regulation - Group A shouldn't be able to wipe out Group B because somebody sneezed on a minor noble, but when it comes to a legitimate war, well, we've seen what staff intervention has done to this.

Were it all IC? Maybe. But even then - Killing is too common a punishment already by far. 'Oh, you insulted me. Public execution'. 'I don't like you. Public execution'. This sort of thing won't result in better rp - It will result in people abusing this new power to rack up as many PKs as they can. LoTC is just as much OOCly ran than ICly. I've seen raids where people spare the characters of ooc friends, and I myself can attest that rp (peaceful or non) goes better when the other person is a friend. Especially without VAs, there's no safeguard to prevent people from just using this to harass people OOC. 'Oh, my character's crazy. It's just coincidence that five characters he executed last week had the same player'. Guilds and nations having PK clauses are perfectly fine, since you have to specifically agree to them in order to be bound by it. Unless they have a screen of you agreeing to the clause, they can't force you to PK.

No... not at all. If we had anything resembling a decent community? Maybe. The way things are? Cliques working as hard as they can oocly and icly to PK people they don't like.

That's not a forced PK - It's a chosen risk. Never has anyone been forced to take that risk, and there is no situation in which a person would be forced to take that risk. Since they aren't forced to take that risk, it's no more a 'forced' PK than suicide is - It's entirely up to you whether or not you go that route.

Forced PKs should never happen. No.

Perhaps border towns? Say two nations are fighting, they directly border each other. The closest town to the border, on both sides, is designated as the 'Border Town', and raid rules are lifted from it. If one side gains land, the border is pushed and a new town is vulnerable.

-1 From me. Nation leaders should, of course, have the right to suspend raid rules on themselves, but not others. If you're at war, talk OOCly with the other leader, set something up. Allowing free raiding during war opens up too many loopholes. It's nice in theory... but with our community, it'd be abused. A faction of bandits could claim to be at war with x group, and suddenly be entirely free from any raid restrictions.

No to both. Stealing from chests, as was, created enough ooc drama before VAs were removed. Now, with everyone doing it, things would be even worse. Raids provide ample enough opportunity to take items. Allowing anyone to come and steal will just overdo things, and simply devalue lwc as a donation incentive. As for the second idea... Physical mina is pure tedium. We've had it before... and it didn't turn out well. We'd need to provide a way for mass-storage, and those have been glitchy every time we've used them.

Accepted. Please send a bird to Ac'aelu Corval