Political Split

Zvoltz

This discussion was created from comments split from: Tweets V: Tweet and Tower.

Karlach

Thought of the day (Because I can't sleep regular hours it seems.) Is there any likely political split in this game other than 3-3? Perhaps 2-2-2 or 4-2, heck even 5-1. Technically before now we've had 3-2-1 and 3-1-1-1, as well as a brief period of 2-2-1-1 after the last political shift, but not to my knowledge a consistency where one side has over 50% of org representation.

Also (speaking ICly here as I'm pretty sure the OOC reasons are either A: Obvious to everyone and/or B: Going to just cause arguments and sniping posts) what reasons do you think exist for the current alliance setups to remain as they do? I've been trying to work out ICly why the South are all still together, for example, when the reasons and objectives for forming have been very much completed.

This isn't to say I or Mork don't enjoy working with Gaudi and Mag, not at all, but there's certainly a lack of common focus these days. The common enemies we had are either dead, gone or mostly irrelevant* these days in terms of Lusternia. I can't help but wonder what the scenario is in the North, what keeps you guys together, especially considering after EA split the North was the first to form proper treaties and alliances and the South somewhat went "Eh, works for us."

The game under the last alliance setup settled into a stagnation that was entirely too long, part of me fears while the shuffle originally brought change (and change is good and makes the world go round, hail Morgfyre! etc.) and brought a couple of unstable periods, it looks set to potentially stagnate into a very one-sided affair. But currently I can't see anything that would change the political landscape and shuffle up the 3v3 scenario, except possibly an even more boring 4-2;


*If you think I'm referring to you and take offence to being considered irrelevant, play more

Munsia

I honestly am quite use to the shifts and try to push against others. Munsia has been fighting the existence of Glom ever since it came about. I've been enemied since day 1 of the release of the commune and no matter where I've gone I've never had an alliance with Glom until after I came back from roguishness. I mean Mag has been allied with everyone, at some point everyone has allied with another and I wouldn't mind another subtle shift since Mag is beginning to boost it's liveliness. Though I feel the way things are going, Glom is going to be riding Gaudi's coat tails for a long bit due to the player connection and shifts. 

Vivet

Morkarion said:

... what reasons do you think exist for the current alliance setups to remain as they do?

I think it's just very comfortable for some people, particularly in the North, while the South then remains and maintains itself in a reactionary fashion. Celest and Seren both have anti-excoro as strong motivating forces, and while Hallifax is "neutral", it's not true neutral - we have divisions that can go either way, and the "taint okay" side isn't really vocal compared to the "taint bad" side.

We came really close to breaking, and I think that event frustrated a few people into going more dormant than not, but even they were more interested in trying to mend what we already had than move on to start something new... and since I mostly stayed back and kept my hands off of it (I have lots of strong ulterior motives to push something else that made the idea of taking charge uncomfortable, nevermind that I wasn't a part of the actual situation), it just kind of fell by the wayside.

The biggest problem is that Hallifax is so small, and that Gaudiguch is so big. I know there's one or two people in Hallifax who might want to just be neutral with everyone, but I'd rather not write off the org from conflict completely (that seems like a sure death to me), so we have to accept that whoever might choose to accept us will have to accept that they won't be fans with Gaudi at the same time.

As such, chancing change feels pretty risky compared to the status quo. So, yeah. Even if it's far from ideal... comfortable to most people.

Daraius

Calling the Halliguch alliance now.

Turnus

@Morkarion rather than quoting the whole post (and this might could even be its own topic maybe), I doubt Serenwilde has much desire to break alliances as I know there was much bitterness at the time (especially after it dragged out as long as it did) about the whole 3v1v1v1 situation that came of it, and I doubt there's much desire to repeat that.

Everiine

I would love to break the alliance. Ev has been a public voice for indepedence since forever.

Lerad

Mechanically not viable. Having more than two-sides (ie. black and white) is just too much work for sorting out conflicts mechanically. So while everyone can talk all they want about doing a 2v2v2 or a 2v1v1v1v1 or a 1v1v1v1v1v1, it just won't work out. And if one side decides to split up, all they are doing is shooting themselves in the foot. There was a fairly brief period when Glomdoring managed a 1vEveryoneelse, but it took the concerted effort of a handful of fairly capable people to keep things glued together. Nowadays, the people who have the expertise are no longer so active and are spread around the orgs too thin, for any one org to be truly independent.

Akyaevin

Sounds like the sort of thing that should be moved to its own thread.

Everiine

3v3 will always be the norm since, if it ever became 2v2v2, at least one org would realize, "Hey, I move and make it 3v2v1, we'll be better off!" That's why, when the last alliances broke, orgs immediately (much to my sadness) began forming a new 3v3 alliance situation. It's the lowest common denominator.

Turnus

Eh, maybe I'm remembering wrong but I seem to recall the last alliance split lasted a few months and was not just some quick shift.

Sheia

Vivet said:

I think it's just very comfortable for some people, particularly in the North, while the South then remains and maintains itself in a reactionary fashion. 

This is it.

If you want to change it, you'll probably have to fly off the rails. Which can be done. But will almost certainly cost a personal sacrifice that most aren't willing to make. Most of us will wait till the slow shift of life changes things for us. Because I know a few well tossed wrenches could probably burn it all down.

Munsia

You know, I'm quite handy at this, but I'm way too comfortable right now myself to care about splitting things up.

Shuyin

Why would you want to change it, there will always be a loser. And no one likes losing.

Enyalida

One of the big reasons for larger groups on an OOC level is that having a higher number of orgs to pool your fighting force from gives you a cushion against a fluctuating playerbase. In a every-org-for-themselves scenario, you can hit a rough spot and suddenly lose any chance of winning. If you have at least one ally, there is a chance that their tuesdays aren't as empty as yours, and they can help you out. Lerad is correct, between the larger number of orgs and nature of the combat (especially raiding) mechanics, it's not mechanically viable for any org to go it alone. Sure, on good days in the right scenario, some orgs could 'stand on their own feet' or whatever, but not every day is a good day, not every scenario is right and the minute that happens, the xyz coalition of other orgs will spring up to attack them in concert. 

Arcanis

I think a major problem with the alliance setups is that the playerbase has always viewed it from an OOC perspective of "equal footing and best numbers".

In the past, several alliances simply made no sense in an IC view, and were just an RP killer. I still remember when Celest and Glom were joined at the hip in all endeavors and would have their sunday picnics together. Yes, someone can debate "They had common goals" and "lesser of two evils", but frankly if I was attempting to play-up the role of a zealous light-sworn org, I would rather choose to die off in a smaller alliance or even alone, rather than ally myself with that which I seek to rid the world of.

The playerbase needs to change its current mindset of why we make alliances and why we even should. Frankly combat and war in lusternia has constantly been taken in an OOC perspective, when alittle bit of role-focused choices would probably make the experience alot more richer.

Enyalida

Sucks, but it also kills RP to be unable to participate in the conflict mechanics of the game, and to therefore lose a butt-ton of players. No amount of 'mindset changes' or 'attutude adjustments' or 'bootstrap pulling' will fix that problem: If being in a org means that you don't get to play most of the game, most people will tend to not be in that org.

Lerad

I'd like to disagree with Arcanis here. Lusternia's city ideals are nowhere near as black and white as to discount alliances between Celest and Magnagora etc. When the admin changed the shortname of the cities for newbies, everyone was up with their pitchforks hollering to change the names to grayer shades. There's no room for an argument to claim that Celest should, if they are "playing true to their RP", never ally with the likes of Glom or Mag.

The OOC motivations for maintaining 3v3, however, is definitely true. And there is no reason to change that. This is perfectly fine. Why should cities (and thus players) need to compromise their chance at winning in a competitive event just to "stay true to their RP"? This is a game, an RP enforced game, an RP rich game, but a game at its core. Players are here to play the game, and win at it. The rules are simple, square off and fight. Politics wise, a 3v3 is the most efficient for competitive gameplay, and that's how it will remain, and how it should remain.

Everiine

You can't win a game with no endgame...

Xenthos

Everiine said:

You can't win a game with no endgame...

Oh?

Raeri

I thought if you manage to get your class nerfed specifically because of you, it counts as achieving one of Lusternia's win conditions.

Neos

Raeri said:

I thought if you manage to get your class nerfed specifically because of you, it counts as achieving one of Lusternia's win conditions.

I thought it was getting anything nerfed.

Tridemon

Neos said:

Raeri said:

I thought if you manage to get your class nerfed specifically because of you, it counts as achieving one of Lusternia's win conditions.

I thought it was getting anything nerfed.

Well, I managed to get the ambient curio messages nerfed. Turns out that their timer is based on when they get into your inventory, and can thus be synced up by picking up a lot at a time. Like, by putting them in a present and opening the present.

Munsia

What if you get multiple things nerfed, and one of them impacts the game at large?

Shuyin

Been there done that

Munsia

Stun is still my pride and joy.