Gladuos

[Forenote: The following is a long-forgotten legend rediscovered from a distant unknown land. It’s a cautionary tale of corruption and tragedy meant for aspiring clerics. OOCly, it’s for a Patron of Tahariae - a higher power which isn’t necessarily a god. This is the first story in a holy-book project by the clerical community.] ~~~X~~~ [White Dragon by sandara] -Sordran, the Blinding Flame of Tahariae, basks in the sun. ~~~X~~~ Deep in the dusty sections of the Cloud Temple library would rest a tome bearing the clerical eye. It seems odd for it to appear here now when it’s never been here before, but you approach it regardless. Opening into its first pages you’d find the story of Sordran, the Blinding Flame of Tahariae. In the beginning times, Dragur created many children we’d come to know as the dragonkin. Among them was a young white-scaled dragaar named Sordran. Much like his sibling dragaar, he’d scour the lands in search of knowledge and curiosities. Unfortunately for him, the blights of Iblees soon fell across the land and corrupted many of his siblings. The day came he’d see his sister twisted and malformed into a dreaded drakaar, never to be herself again. This deeply saddened Sordran, who soon fled to a distant continent. Sordran spent many years isolated in the wilderness of these lands, far away from Aegis. One day he saw a man with a scar across his face wearing billowy travelling robes. Despite his appearance, the man walked with an aura unlike Sordran had ever encountered before. Interested, the dragonkin pursued him. Eventually they came to a small farming village. The robed man went to the most dishevelled hut there. Taking on his humanoid form, Sordran walked in behind him. What came next inspired and awed Sordran for the rest of his life. Invoking the power of Tahariae, the robed figure subsequently healed numerous lepers and wounded in but a day’s time. For the first time in Sordran’s life, corruption could be opposed. Sordran went on to befriend the man while commending him for his noble deeds, coming to know him as Titus. Titus was a devout servant of Tahariae, independent in his pursuit of purity and justice. Sordran became great friends with Titus before ultimately becoming his disciple. Years pass as Sordran was taught under Titus as a disciple of Tahariae, fine-tuning his connection with the Archon of Justice. The day came where Sordran’s immense draconic soul allowed him to surpass his master as a cleric. Little did he know that his lineage would allow such vast magical power as he was only interested in the virtue and purity of being a servant of Tahariae. Instead he found great power, and close friendships. As the exploits of Sordran and Titus spread, new aspirants came to them week after week. One day they began gathering recruits, creating a temple, and establishing an order of their own known as the Vehement Eye. Descendants from everywhere came to them for their wisdom. In their prime, the Vehement Eye was a force to be reckoned with. Threats came to the land one after the other, and every time the servants of Tahariae rose up to oppose them. Sordran appeared in every battle, becoming widely known as the Blinding Flame for his hit-and-run tactic of flying over and breathing a carpet of holy white fire over enemy soldiers. The enemies of Tahariae fled or died every time, disintegrating in the radiance of Justice. ~~~X~~~ [Ceremony of the Flame by merl1ncz] -A ceremony held in honor of the Vehement Eye after a victorious battle. ~~~X~~~ Many celebratory nights followed the victorious battles of the Vehement Eye. The Knights of the order came to respect and love Sordran like a fatherly figure. Titus still led with Sordran, but his humanity was always overshadowed by the greater dragon’s splendor. Time passed and Sordran heard news of Iblees’ campaign on the descendants approaching their land. Even though his soul was protected by Tahariae, Sordran was a corruptible dragonkin. The Blinding Flame feared the oncoming threat of the Betrayer God. Far sooner than expected, the forces of Iblees arrived on Sordran’s shores. The Vehement Eye rushed to prepare a defense before a great battle was shared. The corruptive forces of the undead clashed against the purifying light of the Vehement Eye. Sordran still attended for his duties, but he was cautious. The opposition knew of Sordran’s fear; they could sense it in his bones. Despite Sordran’s apprehension and the sudden appearance of the undead, the attack was easily countered. The Knights celebrated as was their custom after a successful battle, but Sordran couldn’t help but feel sorrow for his cowardice. There could have been fewer casualties if he were bolder. The Blinding Flame did his best to push it out of his mind. The Vehement Eye Knights turned in for the evening after ample celebration. Sordran on the other hand knelt before the altar in his humanoid form, repenting for his sin of cowardice. A scuff from a boot sounded behind Sordran who didn’t turn to look. He knew it was his old master Titus. The man he’s always loved and trusted like a father. A sharp pain followed by a seering, warm sensation ran down Sordran’s back. The dragon’s eyes widened as he turned to see his master wielding a blade. An illusion rippled as Titus’ face showed undeath, rotten and wicked. With a thunderous roar and rapid transformation, the temple crumbled and heaved under the newfound rage of a holy dragaar. A battle ensued between Sordran and his former master with other corrupted Knights. A blight seethed through Sordran’s heart both by heart-ache and the wound left by a tainted dagger. The assassination was unsuccessful. Sordran, broken by injury and grief, performed the final strike to end Titus’ unlife. Wounded physically and emotionally, Sordran lowered his draconic head before the altar. The blight continued to ravage him, threatening to transform him into a drakaar. Yet, Sordran’s soul remained guarded by his Lord. With a grim understanding, Sordran entered a deep and unbreakable prayer. As the last of his body was threatened by corruption, Sordran’s eyes erupted with clerical light. Sordran exploded in all directions with a Blinding White Flame. As the dragonkin’s life finally ended, his intact soul became whisked away to the realm of Purity by the hand of Tahariae. ~~~X~~~ [Concept Art by Morgan Yon] -A divine explosion erupts in the Vehement Eye temple, rocketing the dying dragaar’s soul into the skies above. ~~~X~~~ Let this be a reminder to all clerics, old and new. Purity is a fragile thing which must be protected at all costs. Your friends may betray it, your body might wither and die, but your soul is eternal. Never forget this, servants of the Archon of Justice. Perform your duties well, as Sordran did. Let this be a testament to His glory. As such, you come to the end of the ancient tale. The pages are yellowed and decrepit, but the wisdom therein may very well be immortal. What exactly happened to the Vehement Eye, or to Sordran? It might all be fantasy. Who knows?

Great halfling and v nice. 6/10

Players/Group Requesting: Nivndil, Gladuos, Archipelego, two more undecided participants. Namely our druid characters. What kind of Event are you looking for?: A group of various druids and/or warriors are building a large boat to sail to the distant continent of Vectra, the Scaled Forest. With the mission of exploring the island, the group will try to hunt down and encounter a large despot (tyrannosaurus rex) to reason with it through their druidic power. How the despot reacts and the results of this mission to Vectra are mostly up to the ET running it! There's a specific reason for this that I'll explain in detail privately through discord if desired. Approximately, what time/date you want the Event to take place?: 09/30/18, this coming Sunday. If the date is too soon for an event such as this, we can negotiate rescheduling to a later one. It's just the preferred day. Organizer's Discord: PM me here on the forums and I'll give my discord. Thanks!

There are ways to control the chaos of a large number combat RP such as everyone splitting up in groups of 2 to 1v1. That way when you're fighting all you have to look out for is your combat partner's emote and reply to that. It's a nice way to make things easier if a bit strangely regimented cause not everyone is interacting. It becomes a bunch of 1v1s instead of a 10v10, so to speak. Could attempt considering something like that when the group exceeds 10 people total. Doesn't even have to be a bunch of 1v1s. Could make it just split groups of any number 10 or under that can't interact with one another; it'd be interesting if GMs could find instanced places in the build world to TP groups to temporarily so they don't have to worry about mixing each other up with the other group(s) emotes. Certainly defender default works everywhere else as the best compromise in the server, why does it have to be different with raids I wonder? EDIT: This could be something raids-only so that defenders could choose RP effectively but it's still the same outside of raids, since you'd need a GM for raids every time anyway. Meaning to say still an RP cap of 10 outside of raids since those don't have GM supervision to split groups or TP to instances. Also maybe once a combat is chosen no one can join until all is finished. EDIT 2: I know it's easy to default into saying large number RP combat can never work, and in a sense that's right. So why not make it several smaller groups self contained to RP so that defender default is allowed in raids? If you have 10 raiders and 10 defenders, you'll normally have a 20 person 10v10. A GM takes that and splits both groups into two groups of 10, or 5v5s. TP them to some special place in the build world if necessary so they don't interact or get confused seeing the other group's emotes, and bam. It just might work. Only needs some basic work making the world instances and if you want full supervision, you'd need one GM for each group of 10. It's rather minimal if several GMs are online actually doing their job, or you could just poke your staff chat. @Narthok @The Templar

A Prince's whisper and Nature's whispers play routinely in an addled mind. Soon the imagery follows of war-torn fields and bleeding wilds. The pleading visage of a long lost friend plastered in his sight. A mirror which has cracked. A bitter, horrible emotion of familiarity. "Ah'll watch ya choke an' die on yer every las' breath." the words of a long-fractured man hell-bent on the only thing which keeps him glued together anymore: his duties. Turquoise eyes slit open in the darkness of a still cavern. Regardless, the whispers remain.

Is it completely impossible to raid a settlement with RP instead of PVP though? What if a group of 4 people want to go attack a settlement, and 4 defenders agree they want to do RP? Is it bannable to do a combat RP in that (admittedly rare) scenario? What's the difference between 4 dudes attacking a settlement through the means of "villainy RP" and a raid? I suggest to at least add a clause that, if everyone in the situation agrees, they can go by their own raid rules. EDIT: I see the rule about it being considered a raid if there are more than 4 villains. So 5 villains vs. 4 defenders would be considered an illegal raid although it doesn't exceed the RP limit? So basically raids are if there are 5+ people attacking a settlement?

My question is if half of the people commenting on this thread are adamantly against a number of rules, why are you unwilling to change it? Requesting that literally everyone agrees that it's bad is unreasonable (and a statistical impossibility). Why post a feedback thread only to deny any feedback that doesn't adhere to your personal opinions on the matter? Seems this is more-so posted out of staff obligation rather than a real desire for feedback.

I don't remember claiming you didn't write anything in or about roleplay. I'm saying PVP, in my experience, is highly unenjoyable and an irritating distraction from the roleplay I enjoy. There's no writing involved with PVP*, it's at best a fade to black for conflict. Might as well roll randomly and FTB in an emote to the same effect. I'm not even against conflict and contrary to your assumptions earlier, I don't just do magic training or tavern RP (which I find disrespectfully passive aggressive).

Whatever man. You can say clicking someone while not actually writing anything is roleplay all you want, I just don't think it is. It's the easy solution for concluding conflict rather than the complex (and interesting in my opinion) one. I don't find PVP enjoyable at all, and my laptop+skills are not apt for being able to do so on an equal playing field. I come to LotC for roleplay and creative writing, not PVPing and farming pixels. I haven't been involved with the human playerbase since Anthos so I wouldn't know about your claim.

Nope, you're a problem if you imply it's easier to report individual players repeatedly with a huge workload (which whether you want to admit it or not is going to bog down anything from possibly actually being resolved) as opposed to fixing the problem at its root source. Not fixing it for its side effects.

I dunno maybe because it's an incredibly long process that's a huge pain in the ass to argue why people should be banned when you'd rather just forget about it and move on with your life. It's so commonplace that you'd be spending a LOT of time filling out ban reports and debating on them for every single memey PVP goon that comes to raid weekly. It's better if the rules are just structured to not encourage that.

Can't ban that which is technically rule-compliant but in any sane person's mind is actually a problem.

Nah I don't want there to be big RP fights between more than 10 people, I understand that's not possible. I'm thinking it's better off if combats don't occur outside of warclaims beyond that number because PVP presents more problems (in my experience and to what I want out of LotC) than it solves. To me, combat which results in character development and enjoyment is the roleplay kind. Not mechanical. Warclaims have side-effects in roleplay due to the system allowing tiles to be conquered, and the sheer size involved with them, but it's still just you clicking at each other while the act is happening. No creative writing, or roleplaying there.

Took a moment to gather my thoughts. As much as people try to say otherwise, I will never consider mineman PVP as roleplay. It's simply not, even if you think nothing is considered OOC (for some reason). It might serve as the lazy, quick solution to concluding a conflict, but no actual real RP is happening when you're clicking each other to death. I consider that laughable. Raids in general are so bad these days that I actually prefer to avoid them if I can so I can come back later to partake in the roleplay I actually enjoy instead of indulging people giving piss poor minimal effort emotes in an attempt to meet bar-minimum rule requirements so they can PVP + farm players. Nothing unhealthy about wanting to avoid that. Everything unhealthy about the raiders in that situation. Yeah, as I said. If you're unable to keep someone alive mechanically then you shouldn't be able to TP them back after executing them. That's a double-standard viewpoint to assume PVP is foremost actually roleplay (which I laugh at personally but that's not the point), but also you can choose to TP someone back after they've already RPly died. That might as well be the same as saying you can have a GM void a character's emote of being killed after you've already shoved a sword through their chest. I'd be happy to defend my pixels if I didn't roleplay on a laptop that gets 15-30 FPS without PVP, less while doing so. If I was also good at PVP, but I'm not. Yeah though let's just fight these 30 dudes (that are allowed cause no cap) that have super computers and practice PVP constantly. Basically the RP protection is that it's LOCKED in roleplay and the raiders simply can't picklock it during a raid. Honestly raids are cancer enough without the threat of PVP goons stealing everything important from a settlement, there's no reason to add this other than to benefit PVP goons, whom are already pandered to more than RP groups in the current iteration of rules. RP items should be stolen in RP through clever methods, not clicking people to death until you can mineman a block to take someone's IRL years worth of RP-generated items only for them to sell it on auction for 100k minas the next day. This is my biggest problem with the rewrite, this rule specifically. Though that doesn't make the other problems any less significant. If I were an advocate for PVP I'd be happy with there being no caps, however I'm not. I log into LotC every day because I want to practice my creative writing in an interactive platform to create interesting characters and stories with other players, not to play an MMO where I practice PVP clicking and farming for pixels. The reason I advocate for a cap is so that PVP can't be guaranteed so there's actually a CHANCE a raid might result in some meaningful RP where my character has an interesting interaction instead of someone 2 emoting at me before saying ((PVP, we have 10 people)) followed by the biggest irritated yawn of my life having to point a mouse at someone angrily. However I've spoken a lot about what I hate of this rewrite, I should at least be fair and mention the things I genuinely like about it. Despite my gripe about this earlier (due to how jaded I feel over PVP factions server mentality on LotC and my experiences with raids in the past), I think this is a decent rule. It gives the defenders a chance to rally numbers and match an oncoming attack against their settlement. For people that enjoy PVP this would actually give them something fun to do by having large numbers facing one another. I actually enjoy this one too! Making rules which actually prevent people from making one-day "characters" for the sole OOC purpose of attacking a settlement is a good step in the right direction. I've actually been victim to a raid with 10 people showing up (to of course force PVP) with personas that were all created recently and with names that were nearly identical to one another (i.e. "bandit bob", "bandit mark"). I feel like the wording in this could be done better though, like saying exactly what the intention is. You cannot raid with personas made very recently for the pure sake of raiding a settlement - it has to be a real character with a history, experience, allegiances, etc. Rules 2.3 and 2.5 (Battering rams + removing anti-raid buttons). Unpopular opinion but I actually am in favor of them. Raid cooldowns are enough as for rules to prevent incursions from occurring for specific points of time. I've found that doors/gates and buttons have been used repeatedly to delay raids when the cooldowns are up, which in their own way are using OOC knowledge to avoid roleplay. Though, I understand it completely because I hate raids in their current form and I consider them to be anything BUT genuine roleplay... However, if raids did have rules I agreed with, and existed for the sake of true roleplay, I'd dislike there being no way to get around defenses for attackers. So these rules are good! (just need to work on making raids about roleplay next, not mechanical PVP + item farming) Self-explanatory! People abusing timezones or what have you for the sake of an easy raid is a big problem that not just myself has had problems with. Preventing that from happening is a good way to ensure raids are doing their jobs instead of being abused! Overall I'm not in support of the current raids rewrite here, but if my qualms with it are answered in some shape or form I may change my mind. There are redeemable parts about it, but I feel they're not enough to make up for the problems I see here. If those problems are dealt with, it may be a good change for raids. Thanks.

Are you trying to make raids worse than they already are? It seems that you are because not only have you written it as so, but you're completely dismissive to any opposing opinions. We're listing everything we have wrong with this, and you're only responding to them saying "That's not relevant" at every opportunity. I'd appreciate it if you didn't reward the issues here. I have played minecraft since the day it was in alpha and let me tell you how much I find it ABSOLUTELY BORING. There is nothing entertaining about clicking a square man to death with your mouse repeatedly. The only reason I'm sticking around LotC after all these years is for the sake of story-telling and roleplay. If you insist on further devolving the server away from the aforementioned, there's no reason for me to stick around anymore. Raids being forced PVP 100% of the time is a direct example of exactly how inconsiderate you are for the RPer side of this argument. In my opinion, a raid where people clickyclick each other to death is treating what used to be a platform for story-telling like an MMO where you get to **** around with your buds on voice chat. CRP might be a """cancer""" in large groups indeed, which is exactly why I want the cap to exist so the large numbers don't occur. Sacking chests is one more reason why the detriment to roleplay known as raids would be even worse than it already is. At the moment it's nothing more than an inconvenience to an otherwise enjoyable day. If you allow raiders to also steal roleplay items, you're BASTARDIZING roleplay for the sake of ENCOURAGING people to click one another to death instead of GENUINE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Mechanical resolutions are an excuse to play a game instead of creative write, mechanical resolutions are an excuse to be lazy and never truly interact with one another on a deeper level, mechanical resolutions are an excuse for driving away truly dedicated roleplayers. What's the point of locking your chests if there is zero protection, not even rolls? What are the point of keeping RP items if people can take it away from you without writing more than 2 sentences of roleplay, clicking their mouse on you repeatedly, and breaking a minecraft block? (Assuming you're even there to defend your chests at the time). It's less demanding the staff provide protections and moreso demanding raiders actually use some EFFORT to steal all of our valuables, and actually have to ROLEPLAY to steal LITERALLY EVERYTHING from someone. I can't believe the extreme ignorance of the GM team for allowing this rewrite to even get as bad as it has, or the flippant disregard for real roleplay in favor of an automated MMO click fest which makes me want to vomit even thinking about. I apologize in retrospect for my very aggressive and insulting behavior here, but I'm feeling very very put off by this. I likely haven't even responded properly to everything you've said. I just started typing what came to mind.

I can see this acting as a warning for RPers who heavily dislike raids to just log out and the attackers end up walking into an empty settlement. If they were killed in MC, they were killed in RP please. Completely not a good idea. So you're telling me that PVP is default during raids every single time? What happened to compromising between the RPers and PVPers? Seems much more like you've made this solely about PVP. EXTREME NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. Not even any rolls involved with this? An extremely gross and terrible rule that I will never support, especially if it means losing important RP relevant items I've gathered over IRL years to a bunch of PVP goon idiots that didn't do any RP work to acquire them. If people want to steal RP items from me they better do so in a clever manner through ACTUAL ROLEPLAY in a situation that's not aids/cancer such as a raid. You better remove this. Even worse. The raid cap should exist at a number where PVP isn't guaranteed in my opinion, otherwise people will ALWAYS bring a number necessary to subvert roleplay for the sake of clickyclicking people to death and consuming their precious pixels. I'd make it a max of 4 myself so the defenders can make a matching number without PVP being forced. What does this even mean? You're not allowed to be a villain group in a community or you're illegally raiding and have to be blacklisted? Overall it seems you completely lied about the """compromising""" between RP groups and PVP goons for these rules. It's highly in favor for PVP goons even moreso than current rules and I don't support it whatsoever.

Holy magic now hurts everything equally, and is likely to remain that way in the foreseeable future as rewrites start coming out. Listing it here as a weakness is not necessary as it will be harmful regardless.

Nice job!

Mani require ET to be played for interaction. Players can't casually summon them and RP as them. Reminder to orc shamans that the concept of deific patrons aren't solely their original idea.

As these are primarily meant for event purposes I see no reason summoning them would be much of a problem. I've been waiting for this lore. Very good! +1

Would you say it's fair to have to hold these items MCly everywhere but then 10 people show up out of nowhere, force PVP, invalidate any advantage your items could've provided, and die to them while losing said items? Meanwhile the raiders brought only basic gear with no risk of losing anything important if they lost.

I feel like the rule stating you cannot RP items you don't MCly have in your inventory is rather harsh. Considering some items are non-combative or inconsequential like a cigar or musical instrument. Also with raids on the mind lately I think it's rather unfair to people to carry around a bunch of RP items if they want to use it yet 10 people with cleared inventories (thus no risk) can raid and instantly farm them for pixels (because 10 minimum for forced PVP, thus items become invalidated. Unfair risk for the defenders, zero risk for the raiders). It's rather assinine to lose such important things in mechanics combat which no one really enjoys or takes seriously anyway. I'd rather that rule be replaced with something like "the player must give up RP items if looted on death IRP" or something, but that's just my RP-oriented mindset. I don't like PVP or raids at all as they currently are. EDIT: "Use soulbinds" isn't a valid argument either in my mind as it requires spending IRL money just to not get fucked over by pixel farmers. In the end you're screwed either way. @Lumiin

Okay but can we stop with the video game meme titles guys

Raiding and server rules are tailored in such a way that can be easily abused for harassing people and farming pixels. For the worst people on this server it's very much not a tool for roleplay. PVP default is enforced when 10+ people are in a conflict. Most of the time attackers bring 10 people or close to that number so they can automatically call PVP after very sparse and piss poor RP. Let's not forget many people have to carry around RP items because server rules say if you don't have it in your inventory, you can't use it IRP. Therefore, most people who are on the defending side have many RP items in their inventory at risk while the attacking side would've certainly cleared their inventories of important items ahead of time. It's a tool used to farm pixels off people in that case, in the worst scenario where people are abusing the system. In my personal experience, I've found raids tend to just hinder roleplay by interrupting whatever was happening at the time for minimal effort emotes followed by clicky click mineman experience. One side dies and we go about our day pretending it never happened. It's awful and counter-productive to a healthy roleplay environment.

I actually really enjoyed reading this lore. I had an idea like this a long time ago with a friend of mine, and we wanted to make a special MArt forge which harnessed the power of starlight to create special metals, but that fell through. I wish you luck with this! As much as other magics can replicate these effects, usually even stronger than this, I don't think that really matters. It's an interesting little flavorful lore for harmless boons!