Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited December 2015
No it's not a cultural thing. It's strictly a unique state identify Texans have. Texans have this unusual deep seated sense of state pride. Some states take pride in themselves, but Texas takes it to the extreme. As in, it's entirely normal for young people in Texas to tattoo Texas on themselves because TEXAS. My roommate, a fellow Texan, has an apron that is the Texas state flag. My friend in Maryland has a cutting board in the shape of Texas. If you eat breakfast at a hotel in Texas, it's pretty common for them to make texas shaped waffles. We have entire stores in not tourist centric cities that sell Texas related stuff to Texans. Want a Texas shaped clock? Drop me anywhere in Texas and I can probably find you one in 12 hours.
Texas is the only state in the US (that I'm aware of) that has seperate US History and state specific history classes.
Popular opinion in Texas is that Texas has special rights among the states, in that it can secede from the Union whenever it wants and it can support itself as a country. One is just factually inaccurate, the other is a questionable economic plan. A great many Texans also believe Texas has the unique privelage of being the only state that can fly its flag at the same level as the United States flag (this is not true either).
I think we should leave the Queenslanders out of this Saran. :P
I always feel as though any Guardian/Wiccan guild has the best RP but that is what I have been for 2 years and just don't know any different. And losing that is what I guess scares me the most, because that is how I identify Ena, as a guardian. I guess the factions will open up the way for her to RP that more with other combatants rather than just, yeah let's pew pew and see how many times I die from just sneezing. And I can still keep the best most awesome skillz evar! (tarot obvs)
I've been in most guilds at one point or another. You can't possibly say that ur'Guard lore is better than the bard guilds and therefore all bard guilds should just be deleted while warriors stick around. That's just silly. The history of the Voices is awesome, and there's stuff in there that goes back to the Elder Wars. Spiritsingers have links to an extinct race. The entire Shallumarine Cathedral was built to secretly house the Voice of Crys. As has been said, the Flock of Miracles quest is one of the best in the entire game.
I've been in most guilds at one point or another. You can't possibly say that ur'Guard lore is better than the bard guilds and therefore all bard guilds should just be deleted while warriors stick around. That's just silly. The history of the Voices is awesome, and there's stuff in there that goes back to the Elder Wars. Spiritsingers have links to an extinct race. The entire Shallumarine Cathedral was built to secretly house the Voice of Crys. As has been said, the Flock of Miracles quest is one of the best in the entire game.
I can absolutely say that the ur'Guard has more lore than all 6 bard and all four monk guilds combined, though.
I've been in most guilds at one point or another. You can't possibly say that ur'Guard lore is better than the bard guilds and therefore all bard guilds should just be deleted while warriors stick around. That's just silly. The history of the Voices is awesome, and there's stuff in there that goes back to the Elder Wars. Spiritsingers have links to an extinct race. The entire Shallumarine Cathedral was built to secretly house the Voice of Crys. As has been said, the Flock of Miracles quest is one of the best in the entire game.
I can absolutely say that the ur'Guard has more lore than all 6 bard and all four monk guilds combined, though.
So you have a character in all ten of those guilds that has played long enough and advanced far enough to get all the lore, right? Right?
When one of those guilds you are talking about are the Nekotai, and another is the Harbingers (I do not know about the other bards, so I do not presume to speak for them), it leaves you looking pretty silly when you say things like this.
If the lore of the guild is really so strong and compelling, so critical to the identity of the org as a whole, that will probably be borne out in the transition to coalitions anyhow. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Mag coalition very heavily influenced by ur'guard lore, even if it isn't a carbon copy (which it shouldn't be).
@Nilofer, I don't think your proposal - specifically dividing up inter-coalition roles and RP styles along class lines - is really sustainable. It assumes there will be enough players of each class to fill those roles, and that they'll want to fill those roles based on their class choice.
But back on topic, no, I haven't been in those guilds, because they don't have any identity or lore that jumps out at me and screams "YES!"
@Daraius, it's not so much that the ur'Guard need to be a carbon copy as Mag will absolutely still be having a military, and it will, from appearances, include all the classes, unless I'm misunderstanding this 'merger.' The point is, though, that a Mag military will be *called* the ur'Guard, because that is the name of the military.
Since I have no idea what you are talking about, all I can say is: Yes. Sillier than getting Ascendant removed. Seems like a really weird /divert to me.
@Xenthos Xynthin. That is the entirety of all needed argument.
Not really. Xynthin was a God who broke things. I am not him. While that is indeed a very rich vein of lore, it has nothing to do with guilds / societies. Unless you are suggesting that Magnagora needs a Cult of Xynthin?
@Xenthos Xynthin. That is the entirety of all needed argument.
Not really. Xynthin was a God who broke things. I am not him. While that is indeed a very rich vein of lore, it has nothing to do with guilds / societies. Unless you are suggesting that Magnagora needs a Cult of Xynthin?
We have an ascendant who stayed and kept his name and justified the work put into him, we're fine with just having Akyaevin, perhaps a cult of him.
Strangely, very few TAs have stayed where they were raised. I am one of those few. Are you now disparaging Sidd, Sojiro, Xiel, etc. etc.? Your point still makes no sense, especially given in this context.
But I guess you really feel the need to /divert from your assertion that because you know nothing about the lore of 10 guilds, that those ten guilds essentially have no lore. Understandable.
What you are missing is that essentially all guilds have a ton of lore by now. There is NO guild in this game that has more than ten others combined. Just because you are not interested in it does not mean it does not exist.
The ur'Guard: Founded by Urlach in the days before any of the modern orgs existed. Live in Shallach, Cankermore, Magnagora. Are tied quite heavily to the Inner Sea, Undervault, and Catacombs by way of the Horn of Urlach, the Throne of Urlach, and the catacombs being created BY Urlach, respectively. Responsible for putting down rebellions across the Old Empire, namely that whole part where buried beneath Shallach are the chemical weapons they used to pacify Gaudiguch.
SS, Shofangi, Harbs, Nekotai, Cantors, Tahtetso, Cacophony, Ninjakari, Minstrels, Symphonium: Have no mention as guilds before late into the common era. Have vague mentions of some disembodied voices, occasionally have little quests for appearances.
I've been in just about every guild in the game, sans anything Hallifaxian. Bards and monks have lore, never have I said they don't. They just don't have as much as the ur'Guard, or any other warrior/mage/guardian/wiccan/druid. This is a question of identity, and while sure, bards and monks might occasionally have some scrap of an idea between not having been given one and ideas getting shot down hard, they don't have claim to being a full-fledged, independent, autonomous entity in their own right, as the ur'Guard or others can. Case in point, a warrior/mage/guardian/druid/wiccan guild can incorporate bards and monks, *and* their bits of lore, into themselves. The reverse is not true.
The Nekotai have an entire area based on their originating lore, you know (or perhaps you don't, which is more to my point). They absolutely have their own identity, and have fully fledged it out.
There is a huge hole I see in your argument: you seem to think that the ONLY lore that matters is what was in the history. The "modern era" now covers a large amount of time in and of itself, and has a ton of lore baked in for everyone.
You also appear to be making a logical fallacy of saying "ur'Guard are inherently tied to anything Urlach related," which is untrue. Shallach made that very clear when it came into the game: the residents there viewed the modern ur'Guard as a completely separate entity from the original ur'Guard and eschewed any form of a relationship. I have heard rumours that there was some RP to work on that, but that does not magically make everything mentioning Urlach intrinsically related to the ur'Guard, as per the guidelines laid down by game admin (characters are, of course, welcome to believe whatever they want and make these connections, and can absolutely have it as part of the guild RP, but this discussion is OOC).
I will say that I believe the ur'Guard have more lore than most of the guilds you have mentioned (in some cases, much more), but trying to say that there is more than all 10 put together while including things that on an OOC level have nothing to do with the guild at all is nonsensical to me. Nearly every guild has something to give it a core identity. If you go into the process stating at the outset that you deserve to keep your identity exactly as it is, then everyone else will too. I will further state that I cannot see Magnagora existing without a very militaristic society. It may or may not be named the ur'Guard. That is something that should be arrived at through discussion, though. "It must be the ur'Guard and if it is not we will burn it to the ground" just gets everyone thinking along the lines of saving their own guild identity.
I guess what I am getting at is that you should approach it from the positives end (without being fixated on the name, focus on the feel and focus). Ditch the grandstanding and the threats.
Older does not equal better. Yes, the Shofangi and Ninjakari have lore issues, and the Ur'Guard is in a much better state than those two specifically. But claiming guilds like the Nekotai have less lore than the Ur'Guard...you are just wrong. Have you ever looked at their guildhall? I am pretty sure that at this point the Nekotai actually have meatier lore than the Hartstone does.
The point is, you can't just say 'delete bards and monks'. They have as much claim to the new coalitions as every other guild. I was trying to make suggestions of how to take bits of lore from all five Magnagoran guilds and forge them into something new that people will be attracted to. Every guild must be partly dismantled for this. Engine of Transformation anyone?
If there's going to be a military-style coalition in Mag, it has to be more than just Ur'Guard. Yes, it can take a lot of cues from the Ur'Guard, but it should be something new and better, not 'letting other classes come and join your guild'. A coalition that believes in the strength of the undead? A coalition that exalts Urlach? Sure, that is pretty cool. But it should have threads woven into it from the other guilds. Stuff like the Cacophany's undead-strengthening music as undeath-worship, pulling in threads from the Nihilists who rediscovered undeath via the taint and demon-lords, and so on.
SS, Shofangi, Harbs, Nekotai, Cantors, Tahtetso, Cacophony, Ninjakari, Minstrels, Symphonium: Have no mention as guilds before late into the common era. Have vague mentions of some disembodied voices, occasionally have little quests for appearances.
Well, I know the italicised part is completely untrue for the Symphonium, I can't really speak to the other guilds as I've never dedicated a lot of time to learning their lore. I could insert a long ramble here about the Symphonium lore that has and is currently being developped, the Symphonium's role as the sole artistic by default guild in a city whose identity is based around science and art, or how its lore ties into multiple questing areas around the basin despite the fact that we don't even have a Voice quest yet, but most of this is stuff I'd rather leave in game and it's way off topic.
Suffice to say that, because of the niche that the Symphonium occupies, it would be incredibly difficult for any of the Institute, the Aeromancers or the Sentinels to absorb the Symphonium and still largely retain their original purpose and goals, without losing a lot of the Symphonium's unique lore.
You just cannot generalise to this extent. There are some general patterns, yes, but every guild has had lore developped to make it serve a purpose within its nation. Some guilds align themselves better than others to a slight broadening of their scope that could very easily work as a coalition. With regards to the Symphonium, I think creating a Society of Higher Emotion with a focus on arts and people who facilitate creation and expression and encourage higher emotions in other ways is a very Hallifaxian expansion and would, as expressed by others be a very nice way to have the Arts-focused people together without making them all be musicians.
You clearly think that the Ur'Guard's role with its connections to undeath, history, and magnagoran military has a scope that is worth preserving. That's fine, and from the little I know about Magnagora, reasonably accurate. You don't have to make that argument by discarding guilds you know nothing about in cities you have never played in
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Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
Going to reiterate Qistrel here and say "older" is not "better." It should also be pointed out the modern Ur'Guard are not the same Ur'Guard cited throughout history. You largely just share a name, but the Ur'Guard is not the military arm of Mag anymore. How do we know this? Because you have the Midnight Legion that is comprised of a lot of not Ur'Guard.
I feel I should point people to a post a made a few pages ago on here: I said there are two options, to drop bards/monk and relax classflex, which I base on lore and identity, or to make a new set of things from all four/five guilds each, which has a lot of potential. My point earlier before the not-TA derailed me was that even if it's a melding thing where all the lores add up into a new coalition/whatever, there's still going to be one that is the ur'Guard, or at the *very* least, the other name for the ur'Guard, the Army of Darkness. As a guild, yes, we can go away, but as a culture and a heritage, just by virtue of being the name of the Magnagoran military, we're staying.
You say some things that sound reasonable and then follow it up by 'It doesn't matter what you try to do, I will take one of these things and just make it the Ur'Guard'.
And like I and others said earlier, if you start making threats like that, what stops everyone other guild doing exactly the same thing?
Then we can just rename ourselves Lusternia: Age of Guild Wars.
Would just love to first point out the hilarity in the discussion devolving into the lols of Xenthos' identity issues and needing his name stripped back to mortal.
That aside, you are saying "the other guilds are just as good in lore as Ur'guard". Fine. Bring to me 1 example from the vernal ages where these 6 magical bard guilds were a big part of the lore. No, you wont find it, because they didnt exist...
No, im not saying "old is better', im saying "they have a legacy that is spread out over the lore, far more than all the current guilds". Ur'guard, historically, is the only guild that transcended from an organization and into the guild (technically Illuminati could be debated that it did so as well, but again, a lot is secreted away there). Thus, this is why we are saying that a coalition could easily be made Ur'guard, not because it was "best guild, numba one", but because it has the historical support to make its own coalition, and could easily evolve into Mag's military group.
The other warrior guilds, lack this strong support. Ebonguard and serenguard may as well not exist at this point. Templars were only later introduced as "protectors of the illuminati secrets" and sentinels later "protectors and watchers of anomalies in time", and then Paladins only appeared during Celestine empire (that means modern times). If you want to turn them into each org's military group, then fine, but they'll lack heavy support and reasoning as to why. "They were our warrior guild" wont be enough, and is exactly why we are saying Ur'guard are -more than that-
You derailed yourself, and you are still doing it; I am still a TA, after all.
The name of the Magnagoran military is the Midnight Legion, is it not? That said, they have consistently said that they plan to cut as little of the lore and culture as possible. Nobody has said that was going away. The only thing all of us are responding to you about are your grandstanding and sweeping declarations. Well, and your derail offtopic, I suppose, but at least I kept trying to steer it back for you!
There's no reason why one of Mag's Coalitions would be a military branch that could be heavily influenced by the Ur'Guard and it's history/lore. I don't think a single person here disagrees with any of you about that point. It's 100% completely reasonable.
What they disagree with is that the guild will just become a coalition with no changes. It'd be silly for a military branch not to accept all classes if they could for the exact reasons you spelled out or to grow and change with the new system.
TL:Dr unbunch your panties, no one is saying Ur'Guard doesn't have a rich history within Lusternia. They'll just need to adapt into the new coalition format like every other guild.
If you think that you understand nothing about the history of the Serenwilde.
Lets be honest here, Arcanis doesn't understand half of what he thinks he does.
You're giving him credit for half?
To counter a point he himself brought up: The Paladins are the same Paladins that were founded in the Celestine Empire, but their founding is so far back in history it's not even funny. Like, they founded the Paladins before Magnagora was a city, sometime after the Celestines were brought into existence. Which, they were created by a group of priests who had split off from the Aquamancers, after the former discovered both the elemental planes and the cosmic planes. And they came from, unless I'm much mistaken, Lakedancers who had taken the harmony with water to an even higher level, but since Ackleberry is likely to never exist again at this point, Lakedancers are as near to a non-entity as they can get.
If memory serves, though, all four druid and wiccan guilds were founded at around the same point in the (extremely) distant past, when members of Serenwyhdhaollenradnerbar learned how to communicate with the fae and healed them, and in exchange were taught how to call upon the fae, and how to work with the forests. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure both Ellindel and Glinshara were Serenguard before that, though the guard may have been founded after. Based on pure age alone, and given that mortal life in Glomdoring was wiped out during the Taint wars, the oldest guilds that were open from their inception to the modern era continually are all in Serenwilde. Followed by Jojobo, which isn't a player org, and then an argument can be made for the cities.
For those following along from home: Serenguard were a warrior guild while Magnagora was nothing but mugwumps and orclach playing in the swamp.
Don't preach historical superiority where none exists.
Comments
Popular opinion in Texas is that Texas has special rights among the states, in that it can secede from the Union whenever it wants and it can support itself as a country. One is just factually inaccurate, the other is a questionable economic plan. A great many Texans also believe Texas has the unique privelage of being the only state that can fly its flag at the same level as the United States flag (this is not true either).
When one of those guilds you are talking about are the Nekotai, and another is the Harbingers (I do not know about the other bards, so I do not presume to speak for them), it leaves you looking pretty silly when you say things like this.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
But back on topic, no, I haven't been in those guilds, because they don't have any identity or lore that jumps out at me and screams "YES!"
@Daraius, it's not so much that the ur'Guard need to be a carbon copy as Mag will absolutely still be having a military, and it will, from appearances, include all the classes, unless I'm misunderstanding this 'merger.' The point is, though, that a Mag military will be *called* the ur'Guard, because that is the name of the military.
But I guess you really feel the need to /divert from your assertion that because you know nothing about the lore of 10 guilds, that those ten guilds essentially have no lore. Understandable.
What you are missing is that essentially all guilds have a ton of lore by now. There is NO guild in this game that has more than ten others combined. Just because you are not interested in it does not mean it does not exist.
SS, Shofangi, Harbs, Nekotai, Cantors, Tahtetso, Cacophony, Ninjakari, Minstrels, Symphonium: Have no mention as guilds before late into the common era. Have vague mentions of some disembodied voices, occasionally have little quests for appearances.
I've been in just about every guild in the game, sans anything Hallifaxian. Bards and monks have lore, never have I said they don't. They just don't have as much as the ur'Guard, or any other warrior/mage/guardian/wiccan/druid. This is a question of identity, and while sure, bards and monks might occasionally have some scrap of an idea between not having been given one and ideas getting shot down hard, they don't have claim to being a full-fledged, independent, autonomous entity in their own right, as the ur'Guard or others can. Case in point, a warrior/mage/guardian/druid/wiccan guild can incorporate bards and monks, *and* their bits of lore, into themselves. The reverse is not true.
There is a huge hole I see in your argument: you seem to think that the ONLY lore that matters is what was in the history. The "modern era" now covers a large amount of time in and of itself, and has a ton of lore baked in for everyone.
You also appear to be making a logical fallacy of saying "ur'Guard are inherently tied to anything Urlach related," which is untrue. Shallach made that very clear when it came into the game: the residents there viewed the modern ur'Guard as a completely separate entity from the original ur'Guard and eschewed any form of a relationship. I have heard rumours that there was some RP to work on that, but that does not magically make everything mentioning Urlach intrinsically related to the ur'Guard, as per the guidelines laid down by game admin (characters are, of course, welcome to believe whatever they want and make these connections, and can absolutely have it as part of the guild RP, but this discussion is OOC).
I will say that I believe the ur'Guard have more lore than most of the guilds you have mentioned (in some cases, much more), but trying to say that there is more than all 10 put together while including things that on an OOC level have nothing to do with the guild at all is nonsensical to me. Nearly every guild has something to give it a core identity. If you go into the process stating at the outset that you deserve to keep your identity exactly as it is, then everyone else will too. I will further state that I cannot see Magnagora existing without a very militaristic society. It may or may not be named the ur'Guard. That is something that should be arrived at through discussion, though. "It must be the ur'Guard and if it is not we will burn it to the ground" just gets everyone thinking along the lines of saving their own guild identity.
I guess what I am getting at is that you should approach it from the positives end (without being fixated on the name, focus on the feel and focus). Ditch the grandstanding and the threats.
The point is, you can't just say 'delete bards and monks'. They have as much claim to the new coalitions as every other guild. I was trying to make suggestions of how to take bits of lore from all five Magnagoran guilds and forge them into something new that people will be attracted to. Every guild must be partly dismantled for this. Engine of Transformation anyone?
If there's going to be a military-style coalition in Mag, it has to be more than just Ur'Guard. Yes, it can take a lot of cues from the Ur'Guard, but it should be something new and better, not 'letting other classes come and join your guild'. A coalition that believes in the strength of the undead? A coalition that exalts Urlach? Sure, that is pretty cool. But it should have threads woven into it from the other guilds. Stuff like the Cacophany's undead-strengthening music as undeath-worship, pulling in threads from the Nihilists who rediscovered undeath via the taint and demon-lords, and so on.
And like I and others said earlier, if you start making threats like that, what stops everyone other guild doing exactly the same thing?
Then we can just rename ourselves Lusternia: Age of Guild Wars.
That aside, you are saying "the other guilds are just as good in lore as Ur'guard". Fine. Bring to me 1 example from the vernal ages where these 6 magical bard guilds were a big part of the lore. No, you wont find it, because they didnt exist...
No, im not saying "old is better', im saying "they have a legacy that is spread out over the lore, far more than all the current guilds". Ur'guard, historically, is the only guild that transcended from an organization and into the guild (technically Illuminati could be debated that it did so as well, but again, a lot is secreted away there). Thus, this is why we are saying that a coalition could easily be made Ur'guard, not because it was "best guild, numba one", but because it has the historical support to make its own coalition, and could easily evolve into Mag's military group.
The other warrior guilds, lack this strong support. Ebonguard and serenguard may as well not exist at this point. Templars were only later introduced as "protectors of the illuminati secrets" and sentinels later "protectors and watchers of anomalies in time", and then Paladins only appeared during Celestine empire (that means modern times). If you want to turn them into each org's military group, then fine, but they'll lack heavy support and reasoning as to why. "They were our warrior guild" wont be enough, and is exactly why we are saying Ur'guard are -more than that-
*drops the mic*
The name of the Magnagoran military is the Midnight Legion, is it not? That said, they have consistently said that they plan to cut as little of the lore and culture as possible. Nobody has said that was going away. The only thing all of us are responding to you about are your grandstanding and sweeping declarations. Well, and your derail offtopic, I suppose, but at least I kept trying to steer it back for you!
Lets be honest here, Arcanis doesn't understand half of what he thinks he does.
To counter a point he himself brought up: The Paladins are the same Paladins that were founded in the Celestine Empire, but their founding is so far back in history it's not even funny. Like, they founded the Paladins before Magnagora was a city, sometime after the Celestines were brought into existence. Which, they were created by a group of priests who had split off from the Aquamancers, after the former discovered both the elemental planes and the cosmic planes. And they came from, unless I'm much mistaken, Lakedancers who had taken the harmony with water to an even higher level, but since Ackleberry is likely to never exist again at this point, Lakedancers are as near to a non-entity as they can get.
If memory serves, though, all four druid and wiccan guilds were founded at around the same point in the (extremely) distant past, when members of Serenwyhdhaollenradnerbar learned how to communicate with the fae and healed them, and in exchange were taught how to call upon the fae, and how to work with the forests. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure both Ellindel and Glinshara were Serenguard before that, though the guard may have been founded after. Based on pure age alone, and given that mortal life in Glomdoring was wiped out during the Taint wars, the oldest guilds that were open from their inception to the modern era continually are all in Serenwilde. Followed by Jojobo, which isn't a player org, and then an argument can be made for the cities.
For those following along from home: Serenguard were a warrior guild while Magnagora was nothing but mugwumps and orclach playing in the swamp.
Don't preach historical superiority where none exists.