Quick Questions

[Jaethor]

I have entertained this silly outcry for longer than I would have liked.

Myth One: The rules changed to fit this circumstance.
Explanation: HELP RAIDING states: "They are only permitted to kill other players inside the city if those players have attacked the raiding party first." I fail to see where the grey area is that is appearing in this situation.

Myth Two: The gods are exceedingly biased.
Explanation: Just for the record, you do realize that this was an OOC punishment, OOC interaction and OOCly, I have been the god in charge of helping Golgonath when need be, correct? If I was biased against Golgonath or any character from there, do you really think that I would have volunteered to do such? I punish my Elysian mortals just as much as the Golgonian mortals, when the time warrants it. Elysians have had their items taken away, My disfavour for days and a good verbal smacking just as Golgonians have. The difference is that they know not to cry out like children when it happens. They break rules, they take their medicine and don't do it again.

Myth Three: Jaethor, the Elysian Patron, should not have been the one to intervene ICly.
Explanation: You're somewhat right, that's why Lady Ilessa was the one to intervene for the most part. I expect you also realize that a God punishing a mortal for breaking a rule is OOC punishment, not ICly, therefore I was acting OOCly, as was Lady Ilessa. "Then why did it result in an IC punishment?" one might ask. My OOC punishments are as follows: turning to stone, banning and more banning. As irritating as the situation and after-effect was, I believe that such an extreme punishment was not warranted. That is why I disfavoured him and confiscated his sword for a few days. I am genuinely surprised at the amount of anger over a silly punishment.

Myth Four: Akanbar is a tyranny. Gods should fear the people.
Explanation: A large part of me wants to point out the idiocy on calling a game a tyranny, especially one where your opinion is asked on at least a weekly basis. Admins, Gods, Guides and other people that work on the game receive as much money from this game as you do, that is to say none. I am a god and coder here because Zycandos is a friend of mine and I enjoy helping him. What do you honestly believe you will accomplish to argue with gods on every issue or to make our lives hell? You'll end up with a game full of Gods who hate mortals (which surprisingly isn't the case right now) or a game with no gods, which will result in no new things, people breaking the rules left and right and no diine roleplay.

I am not stating that the people should fear the Gods either. That would result in no player contributions or roleplay from their end. To say that there is a division between players and Gods, that there should be a war between them, is silly. Gods are players, except ones that have been given extra power and extra responsibility, some of which includes enforcing rules.

If you want to have some large revolution, take it elsewhere, blasphemous as that is to say. I am tired of this constant attempted struggle between Gods and Mortals. David broke a clearly outlined rule, got punished for a few days and is fine. Throwing a fit, raging on the forums or other things is not going to fix it. As many have said, if you have a problem with the situation, message Zycandos, email Zycandos or write him a strongly worded letter.

[Demandred]

Hello. I just wanted to add my view, as a player, to this incident/debate. (Note that these are simply my views and nothing else.)

Looking at the current rules that are there, it can be said the David was in the wrong. As Jaethor just pointed out, help raiding states that they are only permitted to kill other players inside the city if those players have attacked the raiding party first."

So the punishing of David through disfavour/taking of sword was not necessarily unjustified. The divine it can be said, were following the current rules very precisely.

It is easy to see Davids point of view as well though, marching guards toward someone with the intent of killing them while not 'attacking the raiding party' is an action of aggressive intent. (As well his stated past experiences clearly had him convinced that what he was doing was not wrong.)
That is because these rules are outdated. I think they were made before marching guards and armies arrived in its present form.

The rules should definitely be updated for the future. If a defender is marching guards toward you with the current rules it seems all you can do is attempt to disguise yourself and leave or just be killed.

If someone is marching guards toward you then making the first move could be seen as self defence, and would probably entail attempting to charge them away from the guards (nothing to stop them charging you right back or whirling back), or if you are a pyromancer trying to fire snake them away from the guards. (I'm no expert I'm sure there's more.)
As for summoning someone away from the guards (as happened in this case), this would not work if the defender just sipped dispersion.
The one issue I could think of was being sure of wether somebody is marching guards toward you or not, the attacker would probably have to know that before they attack by using their awareness or somebody with shadows to help them, so that a defender who isn't marching guards doesn't get summoned and killed on their way to fight alone or something.

So to summarise these few paragraphs:

-Nobody is at fault or to blame. David did what he thought was right and the norm. The gods upheld the current rules on raiding as they stand.

-The rules are outdated. There are no guidelines for attackers or defenders regarding the marching of guards, these are not mentioned in the help raiding file.


Those are my thoughts.

[roeshak]

This thief the Gods have implemented, goodness. Ok, I do -not- idle. Even when I am playing bar and skyrim (which I do at times) Bar is ALWAYS up and running on my computer screen so that I can ALWAYS tell if something is going on. I had the divine affliction of being fat before and suffered through it, but why in the world am I, an /undead/ having to eat more than most non-dead? Even though when anyone else is about in the lands I am almost always bashing with them just as long as they are in the city. Also just saying about the whole raiding things about going into cities, we can't raid often enough to take down city shields, David is right we can really do much when we disguise into the cities and since its 'illegal' for us to use other guards/npcs to pull guards away from other areas, despite now if they are called the whole damn gate would move. Point being the only way we could do much of anything is if we had someone who was part of the council in Elysium to literally lock the gates as a few guards got pulled out but then we are stuck with the 20+ guards at the centre. You make dominating a city impossible even though I feel as though we are more than capable but there isn't enough player base even with all the cities to do such a feat. I love bar, and I don't want to change much of anything but I really want it to be at least 'fair' in the sense that there just isn't enough people to do much of anything war wise. I'm ok with the gods and what they do, I'm glad they are around but I don't want to be punished for something I'm not doing (the food thing I mean) If you don't see me idling and you can't justify me having the affliction then I shouldn't have it in the first place. Throw me to Mordikhan and see if I don't try to escape. That is my rant, sorry.

[Miri]

I have entertained this silly outcry for longer than I would have liked.

Myth One: The rules changed to fit this circumstance.
Explanation: HELP RAIDING states: "They are only permitted to kill other players inside the city if those players have attacked the raiding party first." I fail to see where the grey area is that is appearing in this situation.

Myth Two: The gods are exceedingly biased.
Explanation: Just for the record, you do realize that this was an OOC punishment, OOC interaction and OOCly, I have been the god in charge of helping Golgonath when need be, correct? If I was biased against Golgonath or any character from there, do you really think that I would have volunteered to do such? I punish my Elysian mortals just as much as the Golgonian mortals, when the time warrants it. Elysians have had their items taken away, My disfavour for days and a good verbal smacking just as Golgonians have. The difference is that they know not to cry out like children when it happens. They break rules, they take their medicine and don't do it again.

Myth Three: Jaethor, the Elysian Patron, should not have been the one to intervene ICly.
Explanation: You're somewhat right, that's why Lady Ilessa was the one to intervene for the most part. I expect you also realize that a God punishing a mortal for breaking a rule is OOC punishment, not ICly, therefore I was acting OOCly, as was Lady Ilessa. "Then why did it result in an IC punishment?" one might ask. My OOC punishments are as follows: turning to stone, banning and more banning. As irritating as the situation and after-effect was, I believe that such an extreme punishment was not warranted. That is why I disfavoured him and confiscated his sword for a few days. I am genuinely surprised at the amount of anger over a silly punishment.

Myth Four: Akanbar is a tyranny. Gods should fear the people.
Explanation: A large part of me wants to point out the idiocy on calling a game a tyranny, especially one where your opinion is asked on at least a weekly basis. Admins, Gods, Guides and other people that work on the game receive as much money from this game as you do, that is to say none. I am a god and coder here because Zycandos is a friend of mine and I enjoy helping him. What do you honestly believe you will accomplish to argue with gods on every issue or to make our lives hell? You'll end up with a game full of Gods who hate mortals (which surprisingly isn't the case right now) or a game with no gods, which will result in no new things, people breaking the rules left and right and no diine roleplay.

I am not stating that the people should fear the Gods either. That would result in no player contributions or roleplay from their end. To say that there is a division between players and Gods, that there should be a war between them, is silly. Gods are players, except ones that have been given extra power and extra responsibility, some of which includes enforcing rules.

If you want to have some large revolution, take it elsewhere, blasphemous as that is to say. I am tired of this constant attempted struggle between Gods and Mortals. David broke a clearly outlined rule, got punished for a few days and is fine. Throwing a fit, raging on the forums or other things is not going to fix it. As many have said, if you have a problem with the situation, message Zycandos, email Zycandos or write him a strongly worded letter.

You can view it from whichever angle you want. But if you look at the bigger picture, the current situation in the game speaks volumes for itself. Population is constantly on the decline. The driving force for two-thirds of the game, the war between Elysium and Golgonath, can barely muster a minor skirmish. After seeing others detonate the wrath of the gods in the minefield of rules, most people prefer to just stay holed up in the safety of their city walls.

From your position it may seem like childish crying, but for most of us, it’s expressing our views. Yes, rules are rules, but they should also adjust with the times. It’s true that we do get asked our opinions, but at the same time, we almost as often get berated for them and left discouraged. I apologise if I sound blunt or rude, but I’m only trying to voice my opinion.

[Ilessa]

I find it prudent to address a few points some of you seem to be having trouble with. I will address them in reverse order that they came in the thread.

Population:
Most of you tend to believe the population waxes and wanes in direct relation to what goes on within the game. This is actually rarely the case. Many times, there are outside influences. Many players are college students or otherwise in schooling. When these schools deal with finals and midterms and other such attention-stealing events, populations of many muds decrease dramatically. There are many factors that go into the population of any game and it is not solely driven by ingame activity.

Rules:
Too many of you are under the constant belief that we are overpolicing your lives. That our rules are outdated, and we are biased toward one or another party. As it has been said time and time again, many things are dealt with on a case by case basis. We have many rules that we do not bend on, and there are also areas that are a bit more loose, purely due to the fact that we want to allow for some freedom in how mortals do things. If we sketched out every single situation in black and white, I think many many more of you would be complaining that there is no freedom. Which we certainly do not want. As for outdated rules, we update them as things change and as we see fit. There has so far been no need to review what we currently have, as it continues to apply to every situation we have seen. As a last note, those of you who find yourselves in trouble often, need to perhaps take a look at how you play the game and perhaps not get so close to the line where rules are concerned.

Warfare:
There are many things mortals can do to occupy themselves in terms of conflict. There are several fairly unexplored aspects such as sea warfare and caravan raiding that seem to be largely forgotten by most. Both are quite doable for those persistent enough. You are all also encouraged to plan things outside normal mechanics as Jaethor has always said. Because some ideas get turned down doesn't mean all will. So please keep that in mind. And to briefly address city raiding, it was a joint decision among all of us to make it fairly difficult as such an event can easily get out of hand under the right conditions.

Mortals vs Gods:
This is really so silly I wish I wasn't having to address it here. The idea that we are at war with mortals and that we need to fear the players is frankly absurd. Every single one of you has agreed upon logging in to act like an adult and follow the rules as you play the game. This includes treating the Gods with respect in character and out equally. Players that are respectful and not going out of their way to skirt rules or otherwise make things more difficult for us than they need to be will have a much more enjoyable time as a player. We are not your punching bags. So don't be surprised if when you push us hard enough, we push back once in a while.

Ultimately, this is going to be case of "you can't please everyone" as I am sure a few of you will continue to disagree regardless of the facts and logic pointed out to you. But it is my hope that addressing some of these issues will clarify things for at least some of you and we can return to some modicum of peace on these forums. I have gotten quite fed up with the amount of bickering that goes on here rather needlessly.

As a last note to Dimetrius, we will review those kinds of situations regarding marriage. So don't lose hope quite yet.

[Dimetrius]

I find it prudent to address a few points some of you seem to be having trouble with. I will address them in reverse order that they came in the thread.

Population:
Most of you tend to believe the population waxes and wanes in direct relation to what goes on within the game. This is actually rarely the case. Many times, there are outside influences. Many players are college students or otherwise in schooling. When these schools deal with finals and midterms and other such attention-stealing events, populations of many muds decrease dramatically. There are many factors that go into the population of any game and it is not solely driven by ingame activity.

Rules:
Too many of you are under the constant belief that we are overpolicing your lives. That our rules are outdated, and we are biased toward one or another party. As it has been said time and time again, many things are dealt with on a case by case basis. We have many rules that we do not bend on, and there are also areas that are a bit more loose, purely due to the fact that we want to allow for some freedom in how mortals do things. If we sketched out every single situation in black and white, I think many many more of you would be complaining that there is no freedom. Which we certainly do not want. As for outdated rules, we update them as things change and as we see fit. There has so far been no need to review what we currently have, as it continues to apply to every situation we have seen. As a last note, those of you who find yourselves in trouble often, need to perhaps take a look at how you play the game and perhaps not get so close to the line where rules are concerned.

Warfare:
There are many things mortals can do to occupy themselves in terms of conflict. There are several fairly unexplored aspects such as sea warfare and caravan raiding that seem to be largely forgotten by most. Both are quite doable for those persistent enough. You are all also encouraged to plan things outside normal mechanics as Jaethor has always said. Because some ideas get turned down doesn't mean all will. So please keep that in mind. And to briefly address city raiding, it was a joint decision among all of us to make it fairly difficult as such an event can easily get out of hand under the right conditions.

Mortals vs Gods:
This is really so silly I wish I wasn't having to address it here. The idea that we are at war with mortals and that we need to fear the players is frankly absurd. Every single one of you has agreed upon logging in to act like an adult and follow the rules as you play the game. This includes treating the Gods with respect in character and out equally. Players that are respectful and not going out of their way to skirt rules or otherwise make things more difficult for us than they need to be will have a much more enjoyable time as a player. We are not your punching bags. So don't be surprised if when you push us hard enough, we push back once in a while.

Ultimately, this is going to be case of "you can't please everyone" as I am sure a few of you will continue to disagree regardless of the facts and logic pointed out to you. But it is my hope that addressing some of these issues will clarify things for at least some of you and we can return to some modicum of peace on these forums. I have gotten quite fed up with the amount of bickering that goes on here rather needlessly.

As a last note to Dimetrius, we will review those kinds of situations regarding marriage. So don't lose hope quite yet.

Reading this has left me very, very pleased.

<3

[Pyrok]

Riddle me this:
What's the point to accumulating wealth in Akanbar? I suspect the answers are probably some from this list.

1) To maintain my reams and reams of cures and potion bottles and repairs (if needed).
2) To save up for my house.
3) To save up for my ship.
4) To save up for my marriage.
5) To save up for a full set of kryllian equipment
6) To buy myself a shop

Of those that I just listed, and those are probably not even all the reasons possible, I only see number one as a recurring cost. The rest are just one time purchases. It was said in a discussion I had with someone about Pyrok's perpetual lack of wealth that there's a list of wealth progression: Equipment, Home, Shop, Ship. After that money isn't really necessary, maintaining your scrips, potions and maybe ~500 coins for repairs (if you're not a Templar) and of course food. That's it. Yes i know rent is a recurring cost for some, but I don't see it really making a dent in anyone's pockets, and I suspect some of the older players have bought out their homes and shops outright.
So... why sit on twenty five, sixty, two hundred gold if you can't spend it on anything? Why accumulate wealth if you have nothing to spend it on? I'm not saying wealth is bad, i'm saying income without expenses is just hoarding.

It's why Pyrok's perpetually living 'hand to mouth' or 'hand to bottle'. He gets thrilled with ten gold, while the rest of you go 'Oh, how adorable...'
What point is there to accumulating staggering amounts of coin without some sort of reason?

There are many things mortals can do to occupy themselves in terms of conflict. There are several fairly unexplored aspects such as sea warfare and caravan raiding that seem to be largely forgotten by most.

Sea warfare! You pinch pennies and lick spittles all complain about how it's so expensive, or how it's so cheap for the other side to just fix the damage, so what's the point? Ever heard of a little thing called 'entertainment value'? Destroying someone's harbour shouldn't be a matter of calculating someone's financial loss/gain over it, it should be a calculation of 'How long will this take to do?' and 'Will I get a chuckle out of this for a little bit' with a side column for 'Is it deviating from the regular bashing circuit?'

But what do I know about expenses and income, I'm poor. I don't make money, I don't seem to want to make money. I -do- however want to have some fun for once. Going through the circuit of heretics, brigands, drakes and whomever else your city allows you to slaughter on sight is starting to taste like four day old bread. Hard to chew and really stale.

So, why not do this?

[David]

Build the ship and do it then?

[Dimetrius]

Build the ship and do it then?

Pretty much this.

[Oskar]

Build the ship and do it then?

Third to this vote, about the gold situation. I hoard so in case something crazy happens I will not suffer.

[David]

Being maybe one of the few perhaps the only? To have sailed and attacked a dock, I must say from experience it was painful and crazy expensive. I admit the first attack I lost the boat, but even the few attacks after said failure. It was a bit tiresome and as said the funds far surpassed what one or even a city should dump out for three attacks on a dock. I am not entirely sure what the repair cost of the dock was, but I know I put a few pretty coins into my ship/ballista/arrows and repairs.

I do not think the above conversations was a rebelllion or whatever the case is being made out to be. Again, it is general views on the situations from players who log on each day.

Edit: Sorry for typos and whatnot, I sold my laptop and have resorted to posting on my cell.

[roeshak]

Personally I hoard coin. I've built a house before and lost it, I own probably 10+ horses/panthers/tigers. I am soon to own my own ship yet even with these costs I still maintain around 1000 gold on average. The reason why much like Oskar said is incase something does happen. Also, if you have ever been a Master then you can understand needing a large amount of coin and you can't exactly FORCE citizens to donate it so pull it out of your own pocket. I've put thousands of gold into the city over time and I still manage to save, even as a Legionnaire. Though I will say being a Forsaken it is quite easy for one to do so, you drain, you don't eat. so Food, armour, and potions are basically out the window for us. I personally wouldn't mind getting a full suit of kryllian armour, I can't wear gauntlets but even without them a full suit of mithril armour has a higher rating than blood armour. I understand why people don't 'collect' coin but at the same time, its partially you being lazy. I donate every month, I usually have to buy at least 50-100 arnica every other month and I maintain 100+ of each herb in my scrips as well as 2 of every potion (at least 2). I don't bash outragously but I know what quests give me the most coin for doing them, you can get 10 gold doing Domhan and he also appears before the rest of the dwarves so kill him and make it 20 gold. Brigands average 10 gold for killing them once. Should there be enough people Mordikhan, Syltovia, Crocodile, Hag, clear the mansion that's at least 5 gold right there just searching heretics. or set up a quest alias like everyone else and spam the hell out of it. I'm against this but is also why I don't run basic quests anymore. You give yourself reasons to not be able to have monetary gain and you give yourself reasons why you don't need it. think if the Gods destroyed every cities gates, the commodities and coin it would take to rebuild this would almost deplete a cities reserves and then who has to replenish this? I've watched every city go through hardships and I've been a leader, you can't expect anyone else other than yourself to make these things happen. If I lost all my gold, I would try just as hard as I do now to gain it back. I've been working on my coin reserves for around 6 years IG. Take it as you will but I'm sure the divine can understand this whole rant, you make things happen the playerbase is who chooses what happens and like David said he raided a harbour well its expensive but it got the job done. Much like all warfare is, think about how we raid lets see 18 guards and 12 wardens for the whole tower raid. that is 18 weapons and armours lost when the towers are done. So unless you have a miner/smith within your city that is making them regularly and giving them to the guards it gets expensive. You can live with next to nothing and get by but you'll never get anywhere with it when it comes down to things that will be need or even are needed as the leaders we all strive to become.

[Oskar]

Agreed, it is not hard to make gold at all in Akanbar. And we have plenty of money holes to eat all that gold up. The problem is coming from a real life prospective it's human nature to hate to want to spend a MASSIVE amount of money into anything. So we end up hoarding the gold instead of wasting it on things we see no benefit from.

[Pyrok]

Agreed, it is not hard to make gold at all in Akanbar. And we have plenty of money holes to eat all that gold up. The problem is coming from a real life prospective it's human nature to hate to want to spend a MASSIVE amount of money into anything. So we end up hoarding the gold instead of wasting it on things we see no benefit from.

It's habit for me to not have more than I can spend. I wind up impulse buying.... the phrase 'money burning a hole in my pocket' is apt here. Me not making gobs money is the only means I have of controlling my impulses.

[Malic]

Much like all warfare is, think about how we raid lets see 18 guards and 12 wardens for the whole tower raid. that is 18 weapons and armours lost when the towers are done. So unless you have a miner/smith within your city that is making them regularly and giving them to the guards it gets expensive.

Just to clarify this point. Killing a tower or city guard only results in a small chance that a guard will actually "die" and be replaced by a new guard from the barracks. In my experience this averages about 0-2 guards dying for each complete tower raid. Mage guards never die, and never need replacing from the barracks.