Split topic: Caravans and Circles

Eoghan

This discussion was created from comments split from: Quotes.

Calais

(Ring): Shou says, "Are we working with demonic?"
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Only ahkan and wys."
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Everyone else you can kill."

It's like the world as I know it has ceased to exist.

Celestine

Calais said:

(Ring): Shou says, "Are we working with demonic?"
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Only ahkan and wys."
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Everyone else you can kill."

It's like the world as I know it has ceased to exist.

Question. How is this any different than you working with the people outside our circle that you like?

Caelya

I object. Calais doesn't like anyone.

Menoch

Celestine said:

Calais said:

(Ring): Shou says, "Are we working with demonic?"
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Only ahkan and wys."
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Everyone else you can kill."

It's like the world as I know it has ceased to exist.

Question. How is this any different than you working with the people outside our circle that you like?

It's not any different, in fact, it's the same thing.

It's just really hard to pretend to be against OOC metagamery and the clique mentality on the forums and while logged in. Consistency across two windows is pretty hardcore.

Ultrix

Menoch said:

Celestine said:

Calais said:

(Ring): Shou says, "Are we working with demonic?"
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Only ahkan and wys."
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Everyone else you can kill."

It's like the world as I know it has ceased to exist.

Question. How is this any different than you working with the people outside our circle that you like?

It's not any different, in fact, it's the same thing.

It's just really hard to pretend to be against OOC metagamery and the clique mentality on the forums and while logged in. Consistency across two windows is pretty hardcore.

Actually in this instance it is a pretty simple formula:

(1) Are you hitting me (or someone on my team) or the orcs? If you are hitting me and/or someone on my team instead of the orcs, well, I'm going to tell my team to kill you.

(2) If you are hitting the orc guards, are you doing it correctly and not screwing it up for everyone else? If not, then I'm going to tell my team to kill you because you're getting us all killed.

As it is, the horde caravans require coordination both in killing the horde as well as securing the caravans in the extremely narrow window in which they exist. It's not like a shardfall where the shards will stick around for up to 6 hours after the notice.

Delrayne

Unless they are trying to ease us into a game where circles don't matter, I'm with Calais on this one. If the system is broke enough to where it requires cross circle participation to complete, then it needs to be tweaked. Unless, as stated, they are easing us into a circless game.

Eoghan

Easy now, it's still early. There's still a lot of the system you haven't seen.

Calais

Celestine said:

Calais said:

(Ring): Shou says, "Are we working with demonic?"
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Only ahkan and wys."
(Ring): Ultrix says, "Everyone else you can kill."

It's like the world as I know it has ceased to exist.

Question. How is this any different than you working with the people outside our circle that you like?

Well, I do tend to be all-or-nothing in my skirmishes. It's more the kill-some-demonic, ignore-some-demonic that throws me off. Also, @Caelya is entirely right. Traditionally, I hate everyone.

EDIT: Also, I think a large portion of my confusion stems from just the general mayhem involved. Even if part of demonic is cool with being on temporary team-AM-meets-Demonic, I feel like (also traditionally) demonic should not be ok with the kill-other-demonic arrangement. I'm not opposing it, just admitting my bewilderment. As @Ultrix can tell you, I don't mind being temporary bros with some folks from demonic or from magick.

Sub-edit: @Delrayne Oh, you. Circles.

Ahkan

That's some pretty strong talk from people who don't participate in the system much.  Let me drop some knowledge on you uninitiated.

The caravans seem to spawn 1-4 caravans protected by a trader and some beef cake orcs stolen from areas around the world. We're not sure if they go to the same location, but we don't think so. You cannot hit the trader until they are all dead. You may get a message at the beginning of the run or at the end. You don't know. You don't know the end and you don't even know the beginning. You hit the area and run around like a chicken with your head cut off and drop walls to keep them from moving. Usually, this gets you killed.

Now you engage the caravan. If you're not a top tier beefcake you likely die in one round. You can yank bash this (and the caravan can move) or you can prismatic tank. The problem here is when you hit the trader (like a mook) it resets all aggro to the mook. That mook dies and the orcs then dog pile your team. Ultrix, Ozreas and I got tired of mooks (who do not listen) so we bro-forced our way through it.

The world needs 600 quartz to get beacons to unlock the rest of the system you're complaining about before you see it. We noticed early on when we were blindly killing people in the room (like mooks) we went 1/16 on caravans. Those orcs realized that the derp allstars were so busy slap fighting and preaching the same old banal hard lines that they could finish their run, no problem. This is stupid and wasteful. Luckily, more reasonable heads prevailed and we work together to MAXIMIZE our quartz hauls as a group. We could play the system like some bloodthirsty, pk hungry mooks (this is ironical) and get minimal pay outs or we could share the load and everyone wins.

You guys are fine with your sharp sticks and Vahin's ghost. I want to upgrade to plasma casters and light sabers.

*Being in demonic, I'm totally ok toeing the line and allowing someone in my team that is diminishing our research output to die. Don't kid yourself, Khizan would let demonic dunk you if you screwed up aggro 3 times.

Wysrias

I actually kind of like the uneasy alliances that have sprung up out of necessity. Some of the caravans will still turn into chaotic bloodbaths, I'm sure, but when you've got hungry guards to feed and an overwhelming desire to build magickal beacons out of a gemstone that is now more valuable than your life, it all just seems so petty.

Calais

 

Ahkan said:

words

Who are you even talking to? I participate often. I go to shardfalls, I go to caravans when I can. Sometimes I'm busy doing other org-nonsense. Sometimes I'm roleplaying or involved in something else. Sometimes, unfortunately, real life is happening and I can't just stop what I'm doing to go pay half attention because that'll only end badly anyways.

Honestly, If I don't go? It's because you're there and if I use sshot, I have to hear about it for the next three hours. If I use strychnine/qjab, I have to hear about that for the next three hours. If I have one more guy than your side, I have to hear about that for the next three hours. Sry, bro. You just make things unfun.

Wysrias said:

I actually kind of like the uneasy alliances that have sprung up out of necessity. Some of the caravans will still turn into chaotic bloodbaths, I'm sure, but when you've got hungry guards to feed and an overwhelming desire to build magickal beacons out of a gemstone that is now more valuable than your life, it all just seems so petty.

This I agree with - again, mostly the thing that throws me off is I can't imagine, say, teaming up with demonic or magick against some AM without everyone being sad about it for the next three days. Apparently it's just me, though, since everyone else thinks it's totes natural to team up with part of demonic against part of demonic. I originally posted it because of that, but everyone (@Celestine, @Ultrix) seems to think I was sad or something about them teaming up with demonic because everyone knows I totally care about that.

Honestly, a piece of my favorite fun was teaming up with @Raykel and @Zith and wondering vaguely if we were going to turn on each other before everything was done. That guy is shady. Not Zith, though. He's a class act.

Khizan

Ahkan said:

Don't kid yourself, Khizan would let demonic dunk you if you screwed up aggro 3 times.

If you screw it up three times I will very seriously consider dunking you myself; if demonic wants to do it instead, I am totally okay with that.

Ahkan

@khizan

I really need to just make a script to pull the #'s from the horde dudes in the room. Things get hairy for people when the trader -is- an ogre. Targetting by number is hard when Septus is monk spamming into the defender on the trader and Mathiaus is trying to kill Genviere all while Baasche is trying to snipe the trader from phase. It's pretty chaotic and it's fun.

@calais

Caravans are fun for everyone if you're a team player. (love you @Ultrix, @wysrias @celestine) (You're ok too, @khizan).  I'm a huge fan of your use of hyperbole and the complete lack of responsibility on your part. It's as if you don't make an endless stream of passive aggressive remarks. We're both likely wrong. It's everyone else's fault but your own. 

Calais

@Ahkan - Hey, man. If you want to stop the constant use of abusive remarks post shardfall/caravan/any skirmish and constructively tell me what you prefer me to do other than what Khizan, Septus or Ozreas have advised me to do in team combat, I'm all for it. You're pretty much the only thing in the game I don't enjoy. You're an absolute chore to interact with on any level and I would love it if you could stop attacking everything I say or do.

I'm more than willing to make nice with you.

Wysrias

Calais said:

Wysrias said:

I actually kind of like the uneasy alliances that have sprung up out of necessity. Some of the caravans will still turn into chaotic bloodbaths, I'm sure, but when you've got hungry guards to feed and an overwhelming desire to build magickal beacons out of a gemstone that is now more valuable than your life, it all just seems so petty.

This I agree with - again, mostly the thing that throws me off is I can't imagine, say, teaming up with demonic or magick against some AM without everyone being sad about it for the next three days. Apparently it's just me, though, since everyone else thinks it's totes natural to team up with part of demonic against part of demonic. I originally posted it because of that, but everyone (@Celestine, @Ultrix) seems to think I was sad or something about them teaming up with demonic because everyone knows I totally care about that.

Demonic actually has an incredibly weird (and mostly undefined) relationship with itself. Stavenn and Khandava were enemies for much much longer in their modern history than they were allies, and even then, it's an alliance of necessity more than anything else. I'm hoping this will change or at the very least be explored soon, with the changes Stavenn is pushing to make to their role and the reactions that Khandava will need to have.

We have at more than one point discussed/considered warring between ourselves, usually when we can't make a worthy opponent out of magick, but obvious population discrepancies would make any worthwhile RP take a backseat to possibly raiding a council that literally has nobody online a good portion of the time.

Emori

You know, I am kind of sick of the attitude that cross circling is somehow bad RP... it's a line that existed years ago and it seems persists to today. Let me point out the following:

-Being pragmatic is not bad roleplaying
-Being self-centered is not bad roleplaying
-Deciding that you'd rather get the macguffin than kill another group after the same macguffin because "they're there" and risk losing the macguffin is not bad roleplaying

Frankly? When a bigger threat crops up an alliance of convenience makes sense, and not everybody is going to have a bad day about it. My character wouldn't - she's a soldier, in her mind as long as it benefits Kinsarmar and her allies as much as is possible she'd respect that decision more than toeing some dogma that gets everybody killed for nothing. This isn't bad roleplaying, this is just the character.

Being pragmatic means sometimes you surrender an ideal all so that your city/council can be more powerful and get more than they would going it alone. This is not metagaming, this is not being a bad roleplayer, this is just playing a character who is clearly more moderate than your hard-liner. There is no "right" degree of zealousness for your cause that makes you a better RP'r than anybody else, and to suggest otherwise is just crying that not everybody raises the same banner as you and weeps when his perfect black and white image of the world is revealed to have many shades of the (far more entertaining) grey.

The only questions that need to be asked on whether or not somebody is roleplaying correctly is to answer the following:
1) Is their character behaving in a manner consistent with their life history, TO INCLUDE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT that may have happened along the way?
2) Can their character possibly exist within the context of the game's universe?

And even those questions are ultimately overridden by the one all-important question that speaks to the reason why we fritter our hours away on a text-based RPG in the first place:
-Will sticking dogmatically to this ideology my character built make for a more fun game or not?

I don't mean to dump this all on any one person, but all this sparked from a severe distaste for an attitude that I sometimes see crop up, that has cropped up for years, and frankly is toxic to the development of the game. Yes, the administration has done a whole lot to discourage cross-circling, but they did this not (I hope) to enforce a strict RP mindset but because everybody was sick of demonic having shark-lasers at no consequence to them while Antiochans had nothing more than flash-lights and faith (felt like 40k with Antioch being the Imperial Guard and Stavenn being Chaos). That change was needed and welcomed, the attitude that you have to strictly adhere to the party-line or you're a bad RP'r who is going to be taken to task on the forums is not needed and not welcome. Grey is more fun than RL years of black and white.

TL;DR version:
Choosing the option that yields the best results for all parties is not bad roleplaying.

Sagron

Disclaimer: I'm not in the habit of calling other people bad roleplayers, and nothing in the following post should be considered as anything other than respectful disagreement on the merits of an argument.


The only questions that need to be asked on whether or not somebody is roleplaying correctly is to answer the following:
1) Is their character behaving in a manner consistent with their life history, TO INCLUDE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT that may have happened along the way?
2) Can their character possibly exist within the context of the game's universe?


Here's where I think things become slightly problematic for the notion of Cross-Circling. While it's obviously not impossible to envisage a life story for your character that makes them blaze about the other two circles, anyone with a remotely normal upbringing in any of the Imperian major urban centers should be pretty damn radicalized on the subject.

To Stavenn and Kinsarmar, the Anti-Magickers are some cross between Al-Queda and the Spanish Inquisition. A band of fanatics utterly and irretrievably convinced of the supremacy of their way of life, fixated on the notion that you pose a threat to the entire world and single-minded in your destruction. Your greatest heroes are those who stood against Magick/Demonic foes, your streets are filled with preachers and clerics decrying the folly of mankind's dabling with forbidden powers etc etc etc. Could you put aside that conditioning in the face of a single, greater existential threat to all of sentient kind? Maybe. Does it make a ton of sense when it happens over the comparatively trivial (and I'm sorry, 'that orc caravan has a thingy!' is trivial)? Less so.

It's also worth noting that you're struggling uphill against history somewhat in making this argument. Through no fault of your own, a lot of those who have walked the cross-circling path before have been utter muppets who just wanted to play in Stavenn without giving up their easy-mode mage class or cleric super-fortress of talent (tm).    

Again, none of this is to say that you can't get good roleplay out of cross-circling; but it is a difficult thing to do properly and you do start with the burden of proof very much on you.

Ahkan

Right now is a pretty sweet spot for cross circling. "The gods say magick is bad. The gods say this. The gods say that." Well, the gods are dead. You can start to address a lot of things like "What else were they wrong about?" This Ahkan guy and this Wysrias guy are super helpful...

Septus

I sry for bashing the trader

I was just hitting f1 frantically squinting in all directions hoping Mathiaus wouldn't come cath me for killing him. Multitasking is hard.

Wysrias

I think there are a lot of characters that can find reaching across circles to fall within their roleplay, if not contribute to their personal story. Circles and factions aren't important to every character - some are victims (or benefactors?) of circumstance. Personal example, pretty much nothing Wysrias stands for is defined by his circle or relationship with demons, it's just a consequence of his other beliefs.

(Un)surprisingly, I think Ahkan brings up a great point when it comes to roleplay. It's very hard to define yourself in a mindset of magick vs. not when all external conflicts for the better part of a century have neglected that fact. The gods are dead, demons ravaged the world and now the Horde is closing in, also shards and quartz fit in here somewhere I'm sure. It makes it difficult to be truly upset about those zealots fighting the same war as you.

Menoch

I think the real problem here is using some demonic against the rest of demonic. When you are splitting your group in favor of maintaining personal KDR or hoarding the most shinies instead of giving them to the greater good of the city, it isn't cross circle teaming for 20 minutes to achieve a shardfall or caravan victory.

It's what in the real world we call treason, solely for the purpose of maintaining that KDR or having the most shinies.

Why is anyone surprised at this type of behavior from the same people over and over and over, then continue to support and encourage those people? It's like watching Rihanna get back together with Chris Brown.

Wysrias

Menoch said:

I think the real problem here is using some demonic against the rest of demonic. When you are splitting your group in favor of maintaining personal KDR or hoarding the most shinies instead of giving them to the greater good of the city, it isn't cross circle teaming for 20 minutes to achieve a shardfall or caravan victory.

It's what in the real world we call treason, solely for the purpose of maintaining that KDR or having the most shinies.

Why is anyone surprised at this type of behavior from the same people over and over and over, then continue to support and encourage those people? It's like watching Rihanna get back together with Chris Brown.

Where did this actually happen? I saw AM turn on Mathiaus because he spent a portion of the caravan beating on one of their crew. I haven't seen anyone in the circle 'turn' on the rest for the sake of shinies.

I already explained above why the dynamic between Khandava and Stavenn isn't like other circles; Ahkan and Wysrias have no allegiance to Stavenn, though I haven't taken part in any action against them.

Ahkan

In war there are objectives. The objective is to get 200 quartz to upgrade into beacons so that we can get more quartz to power the war machine. For once in our tenure as demonic heathens Wysrias and I tried a little diplomacy and it has paid off really well. Even when we're outnumbered and would be easily crushed, we get a piece of the pie because we're helpful (moreso than other zerg).

This fits in well with remodeling Stavenn's persona. You're not behaving like a military. You're behaving like a street gang. You don't get to cite military regulations when you're not doing your job (dereliction of duty) because you're going native to pursue the bloods and crypts agenda.

I don't know what caravans you've been at, but we've duked it out with all sides. Mostly magick, but every so often, some AM derp goes off the reservation and then the crap hits the fan. Ultrix just sits there behind her barrier like "You are so dumb and I hate you."

Khizan

Ahkan said:

@calais

Caravans are fun for everyone if you're a team player. (love you @Ultrix, @wysrias @celestine) (You're ok too, @khizan). 

  I'll be honest here, the only reason I'm being a team player is because I'm not sure that Ultrix/Celestine/etc would back me up on Operation Murder All The Things.

Eoghan

We've decided to split this discussion out, since some of it is worthwhile. Remain civil, or it will quickly be closed and deleted.

Wysrias

I think there's a few important details buried in this conversation that are worth emphasizing:

People seem to be confusing non-aggression with betrayal. While Ultrix said kill anyone who isn't Ahkan or Wysrias, that didn't mean AM + Ahkan/Wysrias vs. Demonic. The objective here was the caravan, and that's what happened - we turned off the PK goggles for 15 minutes because it meant the difference between splitting the quartz and everyone going home with nothing. We've already proven you can't really PK and plunder caravans if you want guaranteed success on either front.

If Stavenn wants to go all bloodbath on AM/Magick and lose out on the quartz, that is their completely valid and role appropriate choice. If Khandava cares more about the reward than the principles behind it, that is also their valid and appropriate choice. If they were to war against each other over it, it would ALSO be a valid and role appropriate course of action. Nothing about it has to be due to conspiring OOCly to ruin someone's fun, because (hopefully) nobody is here for that sole purpose.

In addition, not everything in this game has to be so blatantly polarized. Honestly, if every new mechanic were simply circle vs. circle vs. circle, it would dramatically lessen the meager roleplay environment, not enhance it. It isn't believable to me that every character would forsake the means to their immediate survival over ideological principles - characters should exist on a pretty big spectrum of grey, with lines being drawn mechanically for the sake of balance. Forcing characters to make tough decisions and forge alliances for the sake of the greater good is a very real motivation for characters, even if it means working against their zealous ideals.

This game isn't big enough and the setting isn't so black and white that we should be actively excluding positive interactions with the other 2/3rds of the game. Echo chambers get dull quickly; you need conflict, even if it's just unease at circumstances, to drive character development.

Mathiaus

It is funny how that worked, cause I was attacking orcs and then was suddenly attacked myself. Everyone stopped but Genivere, so I started attacking her back and bam, chaos. It was fun though :P

Khizan

Sagron said:
To Stavenn and Kinsarmar, the Anti-Magickers are some cross between Al-Queda and the Spanish Inquisition. A band of fanatics utterly and irretrievably convinced of the supremacy of their way of life, fixated on the notion that you pose a threat to the entire world and single-minded in your destruction. Your greatest heroes are those who stood against Magick/Demonic foes, your streets are filled with preachers and clerics decrying the folly of mankind's dabling with forbidden powers etc etc etc. Could you put aside that conditioning in the face of a single, greater existential threat to all of sentient kind? Maybe. Does it make a ton of sense when it happens over the comparatively trivial (and I'm sorry, 'that orc caravan has a thingy!' is trivial)? Less so. 

This would have been true when Imperian opened and we were all a bunch of fresh-faced 18 year olds, setting out into the world from our home cities for the first time. 

Right now, though, that's not true at all. Khizan's fought his way across the world and back for three centuries and he is justifiably jaded by this. He has moved past this idea that AM is the side of righteousness or that Stavenn's evil incarnate or whatever. Yes, Anti-Magick is right in that man cannot be trusted with magick, but that's only because man cannot be trusted at all. Since that's the case, he doesn't bother getting worked up about causes and just drifts to wherever the fighting is good and he definitely values quartz more than the opinion of some stupid God that he's outlived.

Cassius

Now, if only people would play nice with me.

Kryss