Xarkly

Bishop Villorik narrowed his eyes pensively as he crossed the flyer in the square.

It was only yesterday that he had heard the first inkling of rumours of Darkspawn, and he had barely begun his investigation.

I must hurry, the Warpriest resolved with tight eyes, before the truth is lost to Shadow or fervour. His mail creaked as he trudged off; he could not afford to have events outpace the Light's truth.

Is there fire, he wondered, or merely smoke?

21 minutes ago, TheCaptain said:

I personally feel the Corcitura feat is a very good introduction to the darker avenues of the server, I would of course love to see it buffed but then it doesn't serve its purpose. Because it is weak, it allows it to be spread to multiple people who never before had access to this type of roleplay. As a feat, it serves its role well, it is an introduction into what is a spook and how you act as one. It is not a method to min-max your build, it is flavor added to an existing character. 

 

While I could ramble on about how siliti did leave a vaccuum, as a corc player I have noticed people are less inclinded to become a corc due to the lack of siliti, they do not have an end goal and as such, see no reason to become a corc. This speaks to how the two were written, the synergy between them. Players want to be an antagonistic vampire but buffing the corcitura feat, is not the way to go. Corcitura is meant to be weak and its what I love about it, it is impossible to abuse which means I can give it to new players and test how they react, it creates roleplay much better than many of the MA's out there and it opens up so many additional avenues of roleplay. From a mechanical perspective, it is a very well-crafted feat that I have personally enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) even after three years.

Similar to my reply earlier, I don't think it's accurate at all to describe Corcs as flavour. Between the feeding requirement and the threat of hunters, it fundamentally affects the way you play the character. It's not an accent or a character culture. 

Similarly, an attitude of baby's first dark creature just undermines the character really. Instead of saying "great, now you've had a taste of it go do some other dark creature" it makes a lot more sense to invest in older vampires (with the 3 month cure limit being a natural junction for people to hop off the wagon and take it more seriously) being a flexible option. A system whereby you're encouraged to shelf or sideline your dark character in pursuit of other dark RP seems pretty silly -- while you could seek out some of those opportunities as the Corc character, that also seems like a pointless to hurdle to jump through when you're already a literal vampire.

End of the day I think the ST just need to decide what niche they envision for Corc, since everyone is in relative agreement that they're in a bit of a weird area without the intended Siliti progression. Do they stay a pest, or fulfill a more traditional Vampire niche? Given the flexibility of the curse timer, it seems quite possible to achieve both.

6 minutes ago, femurlord said:

I think personally, as the FA stands, it's fine. And shouldn't gain any combat benefit due to their lesser nature and non-intensive procedure of creation, they should be flavor.

 

Their purpose in lore was to be a welcoming sign for aspiring spook players, similar to what ghouls are now. Making them flying acrobats and microscopic eyed super soldiers in combat will have everyone trying to minmax with the feat on their unkillable, hot topic OC. (Nearly every character is eligible to get the FA.)

 

They do not need to CRP to take the mantle greater vampires left, just do big blood magic rituals.

I don't think it's really accurate to describe a CA that requires feeding as flavour (no pun intended), especially since the vampire niche is probably the most classical fantasy ones (and therefore among the most appealing).

I likewise don't really agree that it should be treated as "baby's first CA" since that again just unjustifiably cheapens the experience. Especially when you note that their role as a basic CA is now largely overlapped by Ghouls, it just further highlights the vacuum left by Siliti and uncertain role of Corc as pests.

Doing big blood magic rituals is, I feel, also a little tone-deaf to the nature of Corc RP. Unlike many other CAs, Corcs are generally not an interconnected magic community by default (especially without Siliti), which is frankly a very nice change of pace from the cliqueness that's often characterised other lore groups in the past. The flexibility of Corc as a way for players to acquire it with (relative) ease and then also be CURED of it if they decide they don't like it is definitely a great model, but we need to think about what comes after neglecting a cure (the answer is vampires who can be more threatening, imo).

I think any reliance on other MA/CA groups to fulfil a function should be widely avoided. 

13 minutes ago, rukio said:

The part about feeding I'd agree with if there weren't so many people who admit OOC and IRP that they just willingly let corcs feed on them. It isn't hard to stay fed as a corc, I've watched multiple corcs mald OOC when caught through RP, witnessed some just flat out log off if I show up to purge them. 

 

We live in a world of "oh you want to test ME? That must be metagaming".

 

Corc being unpurgable made more sense to me when Siliti existed and there was something higher they could become. It already requires OOC consent for them to be purged and has terrible side effects. I'd even be down for there to be a harder to do cure needed after the 3 month period but I think something SHOULD exist, especially for people who don't want that narrative for their character anymore. 

 

Despite all the annoyances I've experienced from people not PKing when they've been hunted down and killed for things they did (esp. when it led to someone else being pk'd) I am very anti enforced PK clause. Let people enjoy their characters.

Yes, a lot of this does come from the vacuum created by the loss of siliti. Rather than a more advanced cure and the 3 month marker, I would much rather see Corc grow stronger, though. I still feel as if a cure at that stage largely undermines the CA and further removes any weight and threat it provides. It feels more like doubling down on the pest aesthetic which I think is the more boring route to take.

I'm kind of with the school of thought that a CA shouldn't be easy to cure and that it's a core component of your character that should not be trivialised. That Corc can be cured for 3 months is very suitable for the narrative of them being cursed, but after that point it feels like a very conscious decision to keep your character cursed and I think the cure remaining accessible just kind of cheapens that, when instead we should encourage people who make the conscious choice to forego the cure and KEEP their character cursed lean more into the vampire aesthetic.

With that in mind, I think the natural solution is just an upgrade for the CA after 3 months.

36 minutes ago, satinkira said:

 

feels very abusable in CRP. a nice flavour idea but unsure if going so far as to point out weak spots in armour without proper red lines is a sensible idea - perhaps make it flavour only? it'd be great lore if it was

Tbf I don't really understand the point of the weak spot inclusion nor the criticism of it.

Anyone can aim for the weak spots in someone's armour (i.e) joints, so I hardly see how that's at all abusable, nor how it's a product of any kind of heightened sense. Seems redundantly underpowered rather than OP.

19 minutes ago, rukio said:

I would agree if it was harder to be turned into a corc. 

How come that's contingent on it though?

Being able to turn people with ease is one of the few current vindicators for Corc being a threat to RP communities in that they work more like an infectious disease. 

I think it's somewhat self-regulating since Corcs are very actively hunted both passively (i.e. aurum tests in cities) and actively (i.e. anti Darkspawn factions). So, if you comply with the terms of the CA and feed regularly, it's a fairly impressive feat to survive over 3 months so I think passing that milestone and becoming incurable is a good junction to upgrade from pest to threat.

Granted, the above is assuming Corc PK if killed if they are caught and refuse a cure, but people not PKing is always an occupational hazard.

Unless we did a Corc PK clause .....

It's an interesting contrast for me in that a CA shouldn't NEED powers or progression to make a good character -- like Unwillingly points out, it's a curse/infection and pretty easy to get cured.

The contrast comes in that while Corcs aren't personally impeded by a lack of power, they can't readily fill the role of a threatening CA to the community at large because they don't have any tools to be a threat with.

When you break it down, Vampires are really more of a pest than ... Well, Vampires in the more traditional narrative sense. 

I agree it would work a lot better for Corcs beyond 3 months of infection to get some kind of enhancement so they can better fill antagonistic roles. 

For context, I play a Corc and he's really fun. However, I can never really be a threat to other players with him - I can only ever be somewhat vampiric via socially engineering in RP get a character in a disadvantageous situation, which is obviously very hard to do in the current climate where everyone is on high alert for Darkspawn.

So, it's moreso a question for ST -- do they want this CA to fulfill a more traditional Vampire niche, or remain as a pest?

If they do want to make it more threatening, though, I think a few more comprehensive changes than the ones here ought to be proposed. I just don't really think what's set out in the OP actually does a whole lot to realize a threat.

6 hours ago, rukio said:

I would rather just see the cap on 12 weeks before they're unpurgable be removed. 

I would be pretty opposed to this though, narratively this makes it pretty hard to justify your character being a Corc at all. It really renders the point of the CA null if the curse can be undone with a widespread cure.

LETTER TO THE HOLY SEE:

THE KUSORAEV REPENTANCE

TO HIS HOLINESS

HIGH PONTIFF SIXTUS VI

Dated this 10th day of Haren's Folly of 1962

Your Holiness,

Holy Light preserve you and prevail.

Since our last meeting in the Holy See shortly prior to the final battle between the Grand Covenant and the Duchy of Adria upon Euler’s Steppe, I have returned to the highlands to assume my post as Bishop of Westerwald by your holy writ. You had duly charged me with raising new clerics from the Haeseni populace, and restoring the radiance of the Light.

In the chaos of war, the Shadow easily manifests unnoticed in the hearts of man. It was therefore of only mild surprise that I returned to find the Royal Court of Hanseti-Ruska marked by sin, for the Grand Prince of Kusoraev - Ivan var Aleksandr Bihar - had sired a bastard during his campaign in the Heartlands against the Anathema, thereby desecrating the sanctity of his marriage to the lady Nataliya Leopoldina. That a Voidal Horror laid siege to the city of Valdev days later is a clear testament to the Light’s displeasure.

I called upon the Grand Prince to seek repentance - so that his sin might be forgiven by the Skies, and he might reign true as a shepherd of men - and he and his lady wife thus sought me out in the abode of my lord brother at Vidaus. It was here he proclaimed his intent to be forgiven before the Light, and I decreed that he must face me in battle. Should he triumph, the Light would surely have willed it so by way of forgiveness; elsewise, the Light would surely bid his fall.

Bathed in the warmthless mountain light, we clashed under the vigil of the Skies.

It was a match closely-fought; I was struck upon the shoulder, and now sport a deep scar upon my cheek. Yet I landed successive blows on the Prince until I struck his blade from his hand. Injured, he yielded before me, and I thought to strike his left-eye as penance for his son, but I was given pause when his lady wife intervened on his behalf, and forced my own blade from my grasp.

Verily, the Princess Nataliya’s faith and honour is injured most egregiously by her husband’s sin, and so her intervention spelled clear that the Prince duly felt the weight of his sins. As proclaimed in the Scroll of Gospel, the Light of the Seventh Sky is merciful -- in that moment, as the Prince lay wounded and defeated and his lady wife intervened to save him from further harm, I felt the measure of his intent to be forgiven.

It is my view that the Princess Nataliya acted as agent for the Light’s mercy, and bid me do no further harm. I readily believe that the Grand Prince understands the weight of his sins, and while its scar will mark he and the Royal Court forevermore, I submit my satisfaction to your Holiness that the Holy Light has duly punished the Grand Prince with his loss in battle. Hereafter, may he walk the road of virtue.

Working his Eminence of Jorenus, we shall see that the Royal Court and all of Jorenus walk in the Light, and abhor the Shadow.

LIGHT PRESERVE AND PREVAIL

Villorik

Bishop Westerwald

The Bishop of Westerwald drew his blade that evening, and prayed for the solace of he who was lost.

For the same reason I dislike CRP lock, I'm reluctant to nerf anti-CA testing.

That reason is strategy.

As a CA (I play a Corictura myself), there should be some natural aversion to large cities whose culture is stepped in religious dogma. This just naturally computes, so - as part of the CA experience, which should fundamentally shape your RP - trying to infiltrate these locations should be fairly daunting, given the consequences.

That said, I do think there's an issue in the en masse testing, and the fact the tests are so generic. I'd much rather see each CA have their own specific weaknesses and vulnerabilities rather than a one-size-fits-all, which is definitely where a part of this issue comes from. I'd also love to see more disinformation about CA races -- vampires being weak to garlic is an example of what I mean. It's a cute cultural flair that reflects the religious paranoia of these zealous human cities, but it's probably a long-shot in this age of easy information access.

Whenever I'm playing a Corcitura, my character makes the conscious decision to stay away from these problem cities because of how quick they are on the trigger to test potential Darkspawn. Irrespective of the mass-testing issue, I think this RP approach makes perfect sense. For my character, there's very little that could be worth visiting these cities for because of the threat they pose to him. Instead, touring smaller settlements and roads is a much more sensible source of blood, and much more fitting for a character. This isn't to say that CA should avoid these cities completely, only that the religious culture and the danger of discovery should form part of the CA experience and the character's development. I think it would be cool to see infiltrations of these cities as more of a 'long-con', such as setting up some kind of faction within the city as a cover for themselves, rather than a travelling stranger showing up, for whom it may sometimes make sense to be regarded with suspicion.

Either way, that's my experience with CAs -- while I won't claim to speak for the majority, I've definitely found the approach enjoyable. I do wish CA-testing was varied, rather than nerfed.

The warpriest Villorik meditated upon the news.

He knelt before a crude stone icon of Saint Daniel the Reader, erected on the roadside just outside Minitz's newly-consecrated chapel. In accordance with the old Jorenic customs of Edel, his Ruskan sabre lay bared on his lap, and the dawning sun cast deep, burnished light across the Reinmaren pastures. He had stopped in the town overnight on his return to Haense from the Holy See, and he had risen this morning to pray at sunrise.

But the news of the Grand Prince's infidelity, overheard in the tavern just last night, intruded on his prayer. As the wind gusted, stirring the amber fields of wheat all around him, his hard stare was fixed on the rising sun.

Where the Holy Light did not enlighten, it must burn.

((Exceptionally well-written post.))

THE REVELATION ON EULER’S STEPPE

Bishop Villorik’s vision swam as he half-collapsed against a tree.

The clamour of battle sounded far behind the warpriest, but he could not tell if his hearing failed in his disoriented state, or whether he truly was far from the epicentre. The leather of his gloves creaked as he gripped the bark for support, and sucked in quick breaths through his teeth. He could only dimly feel the stinging pain in his right thigh where an Adrian axe had bit deep, but a glance down at the blood seeping darkly through his greaves told him the wound was grave.

Grave, the warpriest thought as he grit his teeth, if not mortal.

For a moment, he simply stared at the wound as the blood oozed and dripped down his leg. Is this … how I die? The thought did not instil fear in him as much as it did confusion. This can’t be my purpose. God … is this truly all you need me for? Even with his mind still rocking from when he had been struck, he knew that thought was childish; did he truly expect that the Holy Light would have some special purpose, some divine mission, for him to accomplish during his time on the mortal world?

He knew it was foolish, but bitterness still welled in him at the thought that his journey was to end here and now, on the fringe of one of the many battlefields between the Covenant and Veletz. In that foolish, bitter moment, he lay his sweat-slicked head against the trunk and squeezed his eyes shut on warm tears.

He did not know how long he wallowed, but eventually he realised that the sound of battle seemed to have drifted further north, and he became gradually aware of his other wounds, from the dull pain in his shoulder from when he had fallen from his horse, to the scrapes on his left forearm from when the splinters of his lance had ricocheted after skewering an Adrian rider.

But his senses did not fade, and his consciousness did not leave him yet.

Keep moving until you can’t, he urged himself as scrubbed the tears from his eyes. Though no living soul was there to witness his self-pity, that did not mean he was alone. The Skies still watch. Gripping his broken lance - the splintered top of which was still caked in the blood of the Adrian rider he had struck - he began to limp through the trees again. If he could just get out of the forest … if he could just staunch the bleeding …

His vision continued to swirl as he limped through the trees. Several times, he thought he heard boots stomping through the foliage - or even a charging horse - but when he whirled around, his blade brandished, he saw no one. On he limped, hissing through his teeth as each movement sent pain jolting through his body. Despite that pain, the spot where the axe cleaved his leg felt numb -- that was what truly worried him.

Finally, the trees thinned, and the morning - was it still morning? - sunlight lit the slopes of Euler’s Steppe beyond. Although there were no canopies of leaves to blot out that sun, the view before Villorik felt … darker. The autumn sun lit the field of fallen horses and slain riders from where the Covenant and Adria had first clashed, before the battle had pushed deep into the woods, and the grass was dappled with a glistening crimson glaze.

For a moment, Villorik could only watch.

He had fought many battles in this war already, from Breakwater to Westmark, where men had died screaming beneath collapsing towers and the hooves of thousands of horses, and so the carnage before Villorik now paled in comparison to the war’s maiden clashes. Yet, as he watched a burgundy standard stream from the end of a lance jutting from the earth, he knew it was not the bodies before him right now that made his skin crawl.

It was the repetition.

Breakwater. Brasca. Westmark. Hippo’s Gorge. Stassion. Drusco. Over the din of battle - distant in the trees, now - he could hear a few wounded groans, coughs, and even hoarse pleas from where some of the fallen lay.  … and now Euler’s Steppe. Villorik swallowed the lump in his throat, and forced himself to forward once more through the red-stained field. He had to keep going; he had to staunch the bleeding in his leg.

The repetition - this cycle - went beyond the war between the Covenant and Adria, Villorik knew. Before he had been ordained, he had studied more than the Holy Scrolls; he knew the Tapestry of Man, and the last one-hundred and fifty years of weaves. The Covenant war was not a new war, but a new name. The Covenant was but the child of the Eastern Almaris Treaty, just as that had been the child of the Tripartite Accord, fought between a new generation of the same foe, time and time again.

Villorik came to an abrupt pause as he felt something grasp his uninjured leg. Slowly, the Bishop lowered his gaze, and found a mailed gripping his ankle. It was no surprise that Villorik had not seen the woman to whom the hand belonged to before now; she was pinned to the ground by a horse that had been skewered by a lance, and the horse’s blood was drenched the woman beneath it so thoroughly that she almost blended into the battlefield. The horse’s caparison, the woman’s tabard -- it was all so red that Villorik could not make out for which army she had fought.

“C … can …” came a wheeze from beneath the woman’s helm, so quiet that Villorik could barely hear her only word.

At first, Villorik gave no answer. He looked down at her, and the patches of pale skin that had not been drenched in her horse’s blood, before he slid his gaze to the horse itself, and the lance buried in it. Based on the depth of the lance’s strike, and the angle of the woman lying beneath it, it was clear that the lance had impaled her midsection, too.

The sun glimmered on the edge of Villorik’s sabre as he raised it. Through her misty eyes, the woman’s expression shifted to a brief reprieve of gratitude. “Light, revere this woman,” he began. His own voice was shaky, and meek. “Revere this woman, whose body is now broken, and whose thread on the Tapestry is dutifully woven.” She closed her eyes, and Villorik thrust his blade down. “ … and cradle her closely in the Skies.”

As her corpse fell lifeless and what little blood she had left pooled with her horse’s, Villorik just watched her. “What purpose did this one fill, Holy Light?” he asked her body. “Mortally wounded, in the first strike of the battle. Left to bleed and die beneath her mount, so soaked in blood that no one could tell for which side she even fought.” The fear that Villorik had not felt earlier surged in him now.

The Light gave him no answer as Villorik shakily set off across the battlefield once more. His entire right leg was slick with the blood seeping from his axe-wound, and his vision felt edged with the sickly cold sensation of blood-loss. His lance-turned-walking-stick creaked as he continued.

“KRESA!” echoed a panicked peel across the field, and Villorik squinted to make out a man, his helmet shed, limp between fallen horses and riders. He roughly turned them over by the shoulders until he could see their faces, at which point he unceremoniously dropped them as he moved to the next corpse. “KRESA! WHERE ARE YOU?! CAN YOU HEAR ME!? KRESA!”

For him, Villorik only muttered another prayer.

Two minutes or two hours, Villorik could not say how much longer he limped through the field of sunlit corpses. He could not say how many dead or dying soldiers he passed, nor how many useless prayers he muttered. The only thing he did know was that his chances of limping all the way back to the Covenant war camp were slim. And so, he finally lowered himself down beside a horse peppered with arrows, and whose rider was nowhere to be seen. Clumsily, he set his sabre to sawing off a length of its Adrian caparison, and then cut away the bloodsoaked fabric of his own greaves until the wound on his thigh was laid bare.

The sight of the bloody gorge in his flesh almost made his vision swim again, but he forced his shaking hands on. He poured what water remained in his canteen on the wound, and then bound the torn caparison around it as tightly as he could. When it was down, he simply leaned back and rested his head on the horse’s torso, between the shafts of arrows jutting from its body.

All he could do now was wait for the battle to end.

End? No, he corrected himself as he stared up in the cloud-streaked sky. Simply lull, until the next battle. Until the next war. Until the cycle repeats.

The battle being fought on Euler’s Steppe was small compared to the clashes at Hippo’s Gorge or Brasca, which themselves were mere blips in the eternal war.

“The Cycle,” he whispered to himself as he watched a bird glide overhead. “The Cycle.”

From the Sinners’ War, to the Successors’ War, to this fight - throughout it all, humanity had refused to change. After each victory and defeat, the rulers of mankind returned to their scattered holds, squabbling over divisions and ruling over petty realms that required the aid of half a dozen other armies to quell any threat.

It will come again. The women trapped under the horse; the man searching for ‘Kresa’; all the dead on the field around him. Villorik had seen that scene tenfold at each of the other battles, but it was knowing that it had happened through those wars time and time again that threatened to make him sick-up.

It will come again. The war and the warriors - reincarnated … so long as man does not change.

He did not realise he had gripped his fist around the hilt of his sabre until he heard his gloves creak. So long as man does not change … Blinking away his fatigue, he looked at the sun flash against the sabre’s length, except for where the woman’s blood coated the tip.

He was not sure where his sudden energy had come from as he pressed the blade into the mud, and used it to climb to his feet again. He regarded the battlefield not with pity anymore, but with rage.

If man will not change, then they need to be made to change.

He ignored the white-hot pain in his bound wound as he began to limp across the battlefield again.

As the sun shone on the field of death, Villorik thought that perhaps the Light might yet have a purpose for him.

The Cycle will be broken.

It was a different mantra Villorik hummed among the Covenant ranks - an old one of Dwarven origin.

"This changes nothing."

"Upon the walls of Breakwater to Drusco, Adria stood. They cannot hide behind the ruins now."

At that moment, the Holy Light never felt clearer to Villorik.

"The will of God achieved, not through prayer and preaching, but smoke and fire," Friar Villorik mused to himself as he meditated upon the role of priests in battle.

*smiles, knowing usurpation of barclay titles is close at hand

nottingham

8 minutes ago, Narthok said:

I agree with what is said here. I also don't think there should be any rule changes.
 

 

I think that change needs to come from the playerside rather than rule changes. The only thing that should be done more by staff is actually checking the signatures because right now people spam them.

 

 

First time I've laughed out loud reading the forums in a long time. I hope you don't get punished for this. The forums are so much more fun when people can actually say what they think.

 

I think the 'nations should only be inheirited' line is a bit silly tbh. I have personally made multiple nations. Whenever Norland has died I have had to revive it essentially from scratch. Morsgrad was something I had to build entirely from scratch after the previous Norlanders burnt the entire nation down in their 50th iteration of the same idiot diplomatic policy. It is from Morsgrad that the modern Rurics trace the origins of the 'Kingdom of Norland' title. 

Arichsdorf and other settlements are the same. 

I do not think the problem here is being able to make settlements. It is more that nations are too spineless to actually annex random sleeper nations. Half the reason we can't do this is because essentially every nation is semi permanently guaranteed by the major super powers. This is a solveable problem without any rule changes.

Haense is easily strong enough to vassalize essentially every polity and make a new Empire. Haense could wipe out or vassalize any of these piastdoms they wanted to without even a war. Send a single diplomat or post demands on the forums. All of these tearpers will fold immediately.

Specifically re nations not being proactive, I agree, and this is something boomers have been signing about for a while. I guess the point I'm moreso coming from is that I doubt anyone willing to break that mould is forthcoming -- from mina costs to resources to ooc headaches, its easy to see how a lot of NLs wouldn't bother.

In a game of chicken between staff and players over who should fix the problem, I just think it makes a lot more sense for staff to take a better stance on realm creation now rather than waiting on a change of player culture that may not come for a long time if ever.

5 minutes ago, Hearth said:

 

Dúnwen numero uno!!!!!11!!1
 

Patriotism aside, I agree that there are a lot of realms and that can drastically spread out roleplay to the point of it being hard to find- though instead of some grand nation purge or whichever brute force method may resolve this- I instead believe that centralization can be achieved by just- allowing players to know which realms are active by making the command public. They'll flock to the realms that actually have players and in turn those without will have little capability to pay their upkeep if they don't have a consistent and loyal playerbase. (Which should absolutely be increased because if the barefooted hill dwelling Communists can gather enough capital to support a realm the size that Dunfarthing is then it must be too cheap.) 

 

Public activity is a wild idea. I think I remember this was a thing back on Axios, and I think it would actually work better than activity checks. I think we'd see a return of nations trying to dunk on each other because one of them has more people at X time, but there's no flawless solution either. Not a bad idea at all.

7 minutes ago, Borin said:

If these places vassalised under a nation and still wanted to pursue being neutral, isolationist (which is in itself an issue w them being in a nation, most-all would be p miffed if you didnt pull your weight if there was a conflict or smthn) there'd still really be the same effect. They sit in some place away from a capital city in a box, same affect as if they were sat in some nation-shaped box rather than a vassal-shaped one. Perhaps theyre slightly more accessible but it doesnt= the whole '50 ppl sat in 1 place rping' that u  deemed preferable to the current situation thats been put down to too many 'realms'

 

(I use realms and nations interchangably idc)

 On phone now so I'll be a bit more to the point -

Like Evil mentioned, this isn't wrong necessarily but I do think it ties back into what Nect is saying about isolationism. I theory a NL can let a vassal sit off on its own forever, but I dont think that would play out exactly like that and that being part of a wider entity would require more interaction than an isolationist realm.

8 minutes ago, Twodiks said:

I can agree with a lot of the sentiment on the thread, but I'm going to be honest. I think I prefer a more Laissez-faire system regarding realms than being extremely restrictive about it. I get that its probably bad for the server for the player base to be rather spread out but I don't see forcing anyone to be under anyone due to a lack of choice is the solution to it. I'd prefer just more strict enforcement for failing nations. I think while many projects will fail, there will be some who stand out and become a unique place on the server. I don't really care if this is done through activity checks or some other sort of means. Either way I think there's no point in limiting player agency in terms of creating nations, when there's nothing forcing nation leaders to be accepting of groups.

I think you kinda simplify the process of just folding into another nation of similar niche as well. Honestly back in the old system, I saw way too many cases of extremely clashing ideas for groups in certain nations that only happened because it was the only nation they could find who gave them land. I accidentally deleted this portion of my comment so I'll also just try to make it short. I think its easy to say people would be more than willing to give land if people just brought an active group and roleplayed in a manor in the city for a while, but I think the nation leader would be a bit hesitant if say they found out they person leading the group was someone who rebelled before or just had a bad history with them before. If we're supposed to limit people's choice in creating nations when say others serve a similar niche, I think it's unfair for them to have to settle in another nation when they can't find a place in the existing nation

Yeah, this is all pretty fair to say.

Enforcement would have done a lot to make activity checks actually useful when they were more of a thing in the past. One of the main reasons that system was discredited is because they were frequently just not acted on by Admins (there were obviously a couple of other issues with activity checks, mainly NLs getting hyper-focused on trying to keep players in their nation and discouraging travelling outside of it to get their number bigger, but that's moreso an issue with NLs and not the actual system). Staff have traditionally struggled with this enforcement aspect no matter what the regulation system is.

When it comes to nations being forced to accept groups, the idea in theory is that nations will be inclined to take in groups to boost their own strength, and those that wouldn't would be at a disadvantage. Obviously this is in theory and in practice there is the limitation of certain relationships between playerbases -- i.e., certain nations would never want to give land to certain groups because of past altercations, and other nations who might be more inclined could be discouraged by those other nations. This is sort of an occupational hazard with anything on LotC, but it's definitely a particular issue here especially when there's a central power/alliance on the server. I'm not sure what the best approach to dealing with this aspect of it would be, to be honest.

Just now, argonian said:

What point about the War of Two Emperors do you want to make? I was on Haense's side during it. Anyone arouns at the time can confirm it. This just comes across as you looking for any reason to call me a traitor, but it's weak as **** because I was with Haense in that war from the start unto the end. And not because I liked Haense, as I told Yoppl and Boby at the time, but because I loved Oren. But that was enough for me.

 

So what is your point?

I'm genuinely just lost at this point James, and you don't seem to be following what I'm saying either.

I'm saying if you want to bring up the 2 Emperors and Telanir's shield to dismiss what I've written on this post as bullshit, then okay, whatever, but I don't understand at all what you want me to say about that because that's your own uncertified belief and I don't see how I can argue with that except schizo back at you.

I haven't a clue about where you're getting an idea about someone trying to call you a traitor. I don't know what point you're asking from me because your comments are getting increasingly nonsensical - you started saying my post is disengenous because of who I am (haensa), then throwing in Sinners' War without clarifying how this ties into the debate at all, to then saying you're being called a traitor, to then asking me what I'm trying to say.

3 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

Why consider Realm Bloat to be any different from existing realms purchasing tiles to settle vassals upon? Both generate new settlements and roleplay hubs through increasing the amount of settled tiles on the map, and only Realm Applications even give staff the option to decline it.

 

If you view the server as a dot density map with all of the political boundaries removed, then the processes of Realm Applications & buying new tiles are identical. Many new Realm Applications are from communities that were first CREATED as VASSALS, and thus the process of vassalization as a means to spread out and increase the quantity of roleplay hubs and communities on the server cannot be discounted!

We get too obsessed with our fun little realm toys that we don't realize that merging all of the human realms into a giga oren won't centralize anything unless all their cities get nuked with it too.

This is a pretty interesting point actually, but I don't agree that vassals and independent Realms are entirely the same.

I'd say that they definitely can be the same, but the benefit (overall) is that vassals usually require a level of interaction with the nation as a whole that we don't really get from a lot of the newer Realms, some of which specifically outline isolation neutrality as their niche. You're right in saying that the process is the same (and I think this feeds a bit back into what Spurf was saying about how the economy/resource system encourages less condensed placements and more wayward expansions) but I think the way it plays out in terms of vassal interaction is different.

7 minutes ago, argonian said:

Crazy, because I said the Sinners' War. You were around long, long before that (like most leading Haensers), but you decided to shift it all on Boby and act like you all joined this year. Weird one. No, I don't hate you for being Haensers, or for typing in all-caps, if that's your thing, but I reject the disingenuity of attacking small nations for being indefensible when you demanded the admins preserve your own nation from an imminent conquest. That's called fairness. I should hope you familiarise yourself with such a concept before you deal with the criminal cases of our nation.

Your only mention of the Sinners' War was that you fought in it, so I don't see how your comment about that makes any sense.

Again, you're bringing up 2 Emperors as a basis to dismiss what I've written here. If you want to disagree with it, that's fine. I can sit here and tell you how I wouldn't have written to Admins appealing to help because Haense got itself in that mess itself or that it wouldn't be all that terrible if it got deleted in the Sinner's War or today because I think it's getting stale, but based on how you're concluding I'd change my mind in a heartbeat in different circumstances with no evidence there's probably not a whole lot of point in that. There's nothing there we can discuss because you're using an uncertified personal belief so I'm not sure why you're even commenting.

If you want to point to any parts of what I'm saying in the post and discuss them, that's fine, and I'd be happy to engage, but you've just come on here to dismiss the entirety of it on the basis of who I am, which isn't really something we can discuss? There's no basis to engage on "sounds good but bet you'd change your mind if your side was affected!!!".