Firsanthalas

I'll also comment as a king. There has to be a reason to remain loyal and a deterrent from going rebel. If you can go rebel and then claim the benefits of regular loyal citizens and be immune from excommunication, then what is the point of remaining loyal? By going rebel, you are working against the king. You really cannot expect the king to be nicey nicey to you for that. There has to be consequences. Going rebel should be a serious action, with equally serious consequences. Otherwise, you will have people going rebel for reasons like being bored or trying it out for a laugh. As it is I think that rebels have it far too handy right now. Other than a lack of WPs there seems to be very little else they lose and the king can do very little against them otherwise. I would also say that imo, rebels should not be allowed join other lands, or at the very least suffer a penalty for doing so. Why you might ask? Well simply put, rebels have the ability to bring negative attention on a king and a land. Anyone can go rebel, even if it is purely down to a personal issue with their king/queen. They can do it purely to cause trouble or out of spite. Then the king and land are stuck with that rebel until they decide to leave or apologise. If they were not a rebel, the king could remove them from the land, or if they were in another land, he could approach the king of that land about their behaviour (ok, doesn't work for non-king lands, but in general they are supposed to be neutral). In either of these cases the rebel person would no longer be getting WPs from the king and the king would have options to deal with them. So, if you are planning to go rebel, you should have a plan and you should be getting support for your cause. If you are simply one or two people railing against the king, then maybe you should be leaving the land and not rebelling in the first place? Remember, going rebel is a direct declaration against the king. That means its personal by nature. You are saying you want to remain in the land, but you don't want the king to govern anymore. So, your problem is with the king, not with the land. I would also like to point out that anyone could go rebel, not because the king is doing a bad job, but because they feel that they want the crown for themselves. If you want to stage a coup then there has to be risk. Right now, there seems to be very little. Kings seem to pretty much have to just let you try, they can't remove you once you go rebel. I appreciate its not nice, but going rebel shouldn't be nice. Its ugly and so can the fallout. Bottom line, if you go rebel, you are acting against the king (and to varying extents, the other citizens) and you can't expect the same treatment and liberties as those that are loyal.

At the moment, loyalty only seems to have two uses. First is you need it for some shop items. Secondly for determining alliance/guild leader positions. On a personal level, I've never liked the idea of hostile takeovers purely based on a stat, particularly from outside influence. I just don't think that it makes that much sense really. real loyalty and dedication to an alliance/guild can't really be measured by a stat, neither can the loyalty/support of its members for the leader. The leader having the highest loyalty stat does not actually equate to that meaning they have the support of the rest of the alliance/guild. Personally, I feel that this harms the idea of alliances and guilds as it creates a situation whereby they can be held by someone that just happens to have an awesomely high stat. Furthermore, leaders of alliances and guilds have little control over anyone coming in from outside. One disgruntled or over-ambitious member can invite an outside influence in while the leader is away and they can gain the required loyalty needed in an amazingly short time. Again, this does not equate to the masses of an alliance or guild loyalty or support for the leader. Fast loyalty gain can also be much easier for stat grinders, who can be at odds with the concept of an alliance or guild. For instance, woodcutters and crafters are not alliances based on martial ability or function. I've said before that while some people find alliance take-overs and attempts to ransom them as funny, I personally find it saddening. I really believe it cheapens the idea and reasons for them. One option may be to cap loyalty points for non-alliance members. You only need a small amount of loyalty for purchasing items and I don't think that people should be using non-alliance status as an opportunity to grind the loyalty stat so that they can be invited in for a hostile take-over. That would at least keep loyalty take-overs to in-house affairs, or make it much harder for outside take-overs at the very least. Just a thought on it.

The problem I have with this is that its already been raised months and months back. If there was a time to take retroactive action it was then, not now. I'm sorry, but this feels like dragging up stuff again and again. Yes, perhaps there have been abuses with WPs, but there have also been other WP abuses not mentioned here that were also brought up. I think that there needs to be a proper set of rules and ideas for WPs. Not all aspects of WPs can be governed simply by rules. There will always be an element of people having to show some common sense I fear. That being said, it gets really tiresome seeing stuff being regurgitated repeatedly. I know Mur has said about punishing people retroactively before. I agree that people should be punished if caught, even at a later date. However, I also think that when something is brought up it should be dealt with then, not left and then brought up yet again at a later date. If that is the case, then when does it end? I'm sorry, but this kind of thing serves no purpose other than to piss people off in my opinion. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but if there is a problem, deal with it at the time it comes to light. Don't sweep it under the carpet and drag it back out at some later date. It stops people from moving forwards and getting on with things and to be honest, it starts to smack of punitive action rather than actual justice. Most law systems have rules about trying someone for the same crime twice or crimes that have gone unpunished for lengthy periods. We've already had at least one person remark about judgement being delayed to the point of uselessness. If an issue or a crime arise, deal with it then and deal with it speedily and clearly. Otherwise, you're making it hard for anyone to take any kind of judgement as fair or indeed meaningful. And before anyone makes any comment about life not being fair, justice implies that there is an element of fairness. There is a wrong, so there is a step to correct the wrong in some way. And MD is not real life, its supposed to be a game and games are supposed to have fairness in built. There is another issue here. And that is that some people have done nothing wrong as far as I can see. Take Sage and Kamisha. I love Sage to bits, but that award was plain stupid in my opinion. That being said, Kamisha didn't do anything wrong. He got a WP (that he shouldn't really have be given), but he didn't do anything untoward or criminal. Should Sage be punished for giving it? Again, I don't think so. I don't believe that either of them were best buds or anything and there wasn't some scheme to gift WPs to each other in exchange. It was a dumb WP to give out. I don;t think it was in anyway underhanded or malicious. While some people may feel otherwise, doing something dumb or being dumb is not a crime last time I checked. If it was, we'd all be guilty, because we all have a moment every now and then where we do something totally dumb (If you feel that you don't ever have a blonde moment as some people call it, then you need to either start a religion with you as a saint or messiah figure, or go get yourself checked by a shrink. And if you are still really sure you have never had one, well relax and wait, because it will happen to you at some point in your life and more often when you start getting older ). I'm sorry if this seems like a total rant, but we've been there and got the t-shirt already. Move forwards, not backwards. (edit: spelling error)

I'd like to speak with the leaders of the guilds of Loreroot (Crafters and Woodcutters) please. Please contact me as soon as you can.

[quote]As for Lands, I've spoken to Firsanthalas long ago that the Crafters are neutral and we had requested to be moved to a neutral land (the choice was MDA at that time), and we have his understanding. Though our request has not been carried out(probably forgotten or lost in the emails) -I haven't pressed on as it wasn't urgent- the Crafters are ready to move to a neutral land at anytime. Since the Tribunal is the counter balance to the 4 main lands, I think it would fit us well, in case you want to move the whole Guild there. [/quote] Sorry for off-topicness, but this was raised here. This has not been forgotten. It was discussed with Mur and Crafters can't move to no-mans land. This comes from Mur himself, not me. I informed Kragel of this ages ago. Twice actually, because he seemed to forget so I reminded him again in a conversation a few weeks back. The request was and always has been to go to no-mans land. If the concern is purely neutrality, then you need to look at other guilds that are coming. They may be tied to lands, but will not be involved in wars etc. At least that is my understanding from the two created thus far. Kragel informed me that he was in charge and has been back for a while now. I am starting to wonder now. P.S. Crafters are still Loreroot citizens, so you would actually require my permission to leave as Mur said. I wouldn't obstruct you leaving yourself, but I feel I should point that fact out.

If I may. I get that the signature is probably a veiled attempt at poking fingers at certain people in MD. However, I don't really care to be honest. Yes, the forum is supposed to use English, but some people don't use it 100% and to be honest, I think that in 99.9% of cases nobody would complain at all. What I'd really like to see is the sig translated into English properly. If someone is trying to insult me or anyone else I'd like them to have the decency to do it properly If its not an attempt at a snide insult, well same goes really. If I don't understand it, I can't feel paranoid that its somehow a message for me I think that they should just remove or translate it to English, I don't think its cause for punishment.

[quote]Being an Irish who can't maintain grammar of the posts in his own language, really adds to your credibility by the way.[/quote] Yrth has dyslexia. (sorry to say that publicly Yrth) So thats a pretty poor thing to say. Even if you didn't know, I don't think it takes a genius to work it out with the general amount of mistakes Yrth makes. I also generally consider correcting people's grammar and/or spelling in a forum to be of extra-ordinarily poor taste. People makes mistakes because of age, lack of tuition, non-native speaker, anger or emotional responses, lack of time and conditions like dyslexia. I think its a bit low to start pulling people up on things like that. But that is my personal view, nothing more.

[quote]I mean ok, it's a game, it's nothing personal, you do what you want, but do you really expect me to believe your reasoning? That for example, influencing that your best friend (in game at least, since you two know each other in RL) becomes king of Loreroot, was purely coincidental? [/quote] LOL Yeah, Yrth got 500 votes, everyone else got 1. Seriously, that is ludicrous. As for Lifeline and Yrth not discussing things. I think Yrth's point, is that Lifeline could and should have approached Yrth. He didn't. That is on Lifeline, not Yrth. Lifeline chose to not speak to Yrth about it, despite the fact that they had a good history of collaboration as you said yourself. If it transpires that the Lifeline did approach Yrth and he said no, well thats even worse. But it seems that Yrth knew nothing of it in advance from Lifeline. Edit: To be clear too. I am not simply backing up my buddy. I feel that a line has been crossed here. I've already stated that if this was being done in Loreroot, I'd be bothered. So, its only right and proper that I speak up on an issue that I see as something that affects the kings and lands in general. But, yeah, I am backing Yrth on this and I feel that many others are too. Lifeline has overstepped his bounds and at the very least, he owes Golemnus an apology.

I seem to recall that the kings were elected much later than Raven's departure. I also seem to recall that it was Mur that instigated this, not Yrth. I also seem to recall that I was elected by a majority of people (I also recall a massive majority). So I don't get this constant nonsense about me being somehow placed in position by Yrth or anyone else, or that I am somehow a puppet for Yrth. I am pretty sure that if the general populace of MD felt that was true, they'd have voted against me on the basis that it would give Yrth power over another land. This is getting offtopic, but I feel I can't let that one go unanswered.

Perhaps 'warpath' was a poor choice of word. When i say on the warpath, that does not mean declaring war. It means being very exercised about something and not being content to let it slide. Its an expression used here that doesn't mean you are going to poke people with sharp knives and swords.

OK, without getting into a debate on training grounds etc. People sought entry into a place that is supposed to be private, off-limits infact (for a very good reason). People (including a king, who should know better imo) tried to use this private area for a private club. The king and leaders of the land were not consulted and it seems this was done with a view to keep them in the dark. I think that this is a classic example of people abusing their privileges and taking liberties with things that they have no business with. I am going to point something out. A long time ago people in Loreroot suggested using Pathkeeper for conducting training. This were people of Loreroot. I told them no, as its not simply a location that you can hide away to conduct secret training. Its supposed to have a meaning and a purpose. I actually believe that MD should have more locations that are restricted and that each land should have an area that is private. However, when you see people doing things like this, you can see why there is a reluctance for Mur to allow it. It really bugs me at the way it always seems to be a minority of people that ruin things for everyone else. Its even worse when they are people that should really know better imo. Each land in MD is supposed to be sovereign territory. It really annoys me to see that people think its perfectly acceptable to do something like this. It annoys me even more to think that a king would not merely allow it, but seem to push it along. If I was in Yrth's position I'd most likely be on the warpath about this. It really is incredible. To those that seem to think its fine I simply have this to say. If it was your land that was being treated in this manner, if some supposedly private place in Necrovion, Loreroot or Marind's Bell was being used by people from outside, would you think it was fine?

[attachment=2175:Before.jpg] Taken on the 3rd of November or 12 days ago if you like . [attachment=2176:After.jpg] Today.

Yes and technicaly when you join a land you are pledging to follow the king and therefore not rebel. You should only be rebelling because you feel that the king has done something wrong, gone too far, lost the plot etc etc. If you break a rule that was already in place before you join and then rebel when punished, well thats pretty much a sign that you didn't really agree with things in the first place (and in my opinion at least, a poor excuse for rebelling, especially if it is simply to avoid just punishment). The rebel aspect could make for an interesting development. I've no objection to it in principle, I just worry it will be abused or misused. I also want to point out, that this isn't some kind of survival reaction or feeling of threat. I can be removed from Loreroot at anytime pretty much and that has been the case for some time now. But, I do see how this could be a much cleaner way to go about things, provided it isn't abused.

Excommunication is essentially a 2 week silence spell minimum. Its way worse infact. You can't talk in any scene in MD other than Jail for 2 weeks. So yeah, 4hrs may sound like a long time, but when you put it into context it isn't. Also, I believe Yrth said that the cool down is longer than the duration, which means you can't simply keep silencing someone non-stop. There will at least be some kind of window of opportunity for a rebel to speak. A question I have is what happens with people that basically set out with the aim to be a rebel? By this I mean, people that essentially either don't really have a beef with the king or do before joining a land and are essentially joining to just annoy the king (or for some other reason, like to get tools for instance)? This may seem strange to some, but there are strange people around and its exactly the kind of thing that I suspect a few people would do for a laugh if nothing else. What if a group of people decide to do this to force a king out for no real reasons other than perhaps personal ambition or some sense of fun? What about people using alts? Especially alts of a group of associated people, like a whole land? Maybe there should also be a method to remove rebels at some point. I mean, imagine a situation where someone has become rebel under a circumstance like I mentioned earlier and the citizens feel that they should just be exiled and not regarded as any kind of citizen, loyal, disgruntled, freedom fighter or whatever.

Ok, seeing as this was directly linked to, lets examine it. [quote] Based on recent events, i consider Kings could be "banished" by first taking over the main alliance of their land and then instigating their people to vote against them. The word banished is better than demoted, because kingship should not be considered a job or promotion but an absolute position. The powers of such a ruler should be absolute over the people of his land. Therefor i will implement a citizenship system and players will be marked as beinng part of a land or an other, obeying the rules of that land and accepting the king, or queen, as the one person (except me ) to have decision power over their destiny. The king will be able to change tags of his people, but for now these tags should be first discussed with me and i will check and aprove if they are indeed deserved. I dont want a tag inflation or tags to lose their importance, but i also don't want tags to be forgotten or ignored just because some got them and most didn't, like its now. The king can directly decide regarding things that concern the land, such as land weapon, character belonging to that land, direction the land will go in diplomatic situations with other lands, etc. [/quote] In particular read the first few words of the last line [b]The king can directly decide regarding things that concern the land[/b] You see? There in lies the rub. We don't even get forewarning about changes that concern the land. Yes, changes are needed and yes they sometimes have to come from a higher power than the king. I have no argument with that at all. BUT, it seems that we are just bypassing the kings as of late and neglecting the establish things that were set out when the kingships were announced. I know that things take time, but at the same time there has been a long tradition in MD of half doing something and then moving on to something else and leaving it like that for an eon. Then we end up with moaning on the forum and not just from kings I might add. Yes, the council are not around long and yes they are clearly doing things (and by the way kudos to ye for that. Don't think I'm trying to say ye aren't doing anything, you clearly are and I know there is a lot to do)and perhaps there are things already in the pipeline about issues I've mentioned here. The thing is, I don't know, none of the kings know by the looks of things, because we haven't been told. The issue is that kings have not been given many abilities they should have had, but even more importantly, they are being left out of the loop completely. The kings don't seem to be utilised for the reason they were created. This is not a rant that kings don't have fancy toys boo hoo. This is about the fact that kings are not being utilised at all. Its not all about fancy toys, but a king may need a nudge, a heads up or be able to provide useful feedback. There needs to be rules and guidelines yes. There needs to be ways to remove or speak out about kings that are failing for one reason or another. But it also seems that you don't need to or care to involve kings in this at all. There also seem to be clear uncertainty as to what kings can and can't do or should be doing. I am trying to highlight this, not spark off some kind of moaning and groaning session.

Well I just want to say that I am really unhappy about this. Its just another thing that, in my opinion has been fired out there without any consultation or advance warning for kings. I am not saying that I am against it, but I really think that the kings should have been consulted about it as it directly affects them and they may have had useful opinions on the matter. I also feel that currently kings are pretty hamstrung by bringing this out. When kings were first brought in there were plans for abilities and privilages for kings to help people. They never really happened and I personally feel that has left kings in a poor state of affairs in the minds of many. If a king is not doing their job, or doing it badly or abusing their power, then yes they should be punished and people should be able to rebel. But having kings abused and rebelled against for an inability to do things beyond their control is also unfair. I've already seen at least one thread with certain people bitching (Sorry, but that is what some people are doing) about kings. And experienced it in private and not so private ways too. This may seem like I'm simply crossing my arms and acting out. I'm not. Communication works both ways and I really feel that the people that have been tasked with running MD could communicate a bit more. One of the problems in the past was that Mur was a single person trying to do everything. That meant that he couldn't possibly respond to everyone and as a result some people felt unheard. There is now a team of people and that means more ears to listen, but it also means more mouths for talking. Please consider things like this as an example. There is mention of land rules now. Who makes them? There are also rules that the kings make. If kings have no idea as to what is coming down the line, what happens if they make a rule that directly contradicts or turns out to be illegal under land rules that just suddenly appear later on? You aren't meant to answer that by the way, just consider the implications and the possibility that it could happen. If a person rebels what? About the only thing I can see that they will loose is the king granting them WPs for quests (and thats only if they even bother to run any), big whoop. It just doesn't seem like a big enough deterrent from going rebel or a big enough reason to stay loyal for that matter. In my experience I also find that with any changes that affect Loreroot, I get a barrage of questions and concerns from people. The Woodcutters being a brilliant example. I am sure its the same for the others kings. Given that I find out no sooner than anyone else (and in some case after the fact due to not being up 24 hours a day) it leaves me on the backfoot. I can't answer the questions because I don't know anymore than the people asking them. Personally, it makes me feel rather stupid for the most part. Its only natural that people expect their leaders to know answers to certain questions, especially when you expect the king to know about his own land and its workings. And its only natural to walk away from a king saying 'first I heard of it', 'I don't know' '' Your guess is as good as mine', and think, jeesh, that guy is a total twit. (Note: I could have emailed this to the powers that be. My reasoning for saying this in public is to make people aware that kings are as much in the dark about things like this as anyone else. It may be seen as a method to throw mud in the eyes of those in charge, but that is not my intention. I'm simply stating my opinion and feelings on this openly.) I'll finish my rant by saying clearly that I like the ideas in principle, but I feel that as with most things they have not been handled very well and fired out without proper support or consideration. You're releasing Windows Vista when you should be hanging on and just going to windows 7.

[quote]Firs and Lifeline both use alts to hold alliances[/quote] Incorrect Pip, incorrect. I [u]did[/u] use an alt to hold the Savels for the month waiting period. And I only did that because marvolo didn't want to continue to hold the alliance and someone needed to hold it. Jazira now holds that alliance and I don't have an alt in it, nor any other alliance.

Actually, its 3 alliances and 2 guilds. Although the two guilds seem to be dead at the moment. But, as I already said Chewy, numbers actually count for very little under the current setup and as I also said, they can be a disadvantage.

@dst, I don't even think alts are an issue anymore. It seems that nobody enters the contest judging by the extremely low scores the past few months. Aside from that, I'll give you a list of problems that has already appeared on the forums. 1. Distances to travel are uneven. 2. Access to lands. Some lands have one point of entry, while others have more. 3. The current setup is to be frank dumb. If a land has two very powerful fighters and nobody else, then it will be very hard to score against. Assuming that the rules were that you could only take a torch of your own land, then two people defending a land would in theory be able to hoover up masses of torches heading their way, while in return the land attacking them would only be able to score two points. Also, if a land doesn't opt to pick up torches, then it won't be scored against. Now, I know that is not 100% true, as you could attack another land torch carrier, but you get the idea. I think that one possible way would be to change the scoring. Allow a person to simply walk into an enemy scoring zone and score a point, with no fight needed. However, if you do defeat an enemy torch carrier then you get 3 points or something for each torch you get. 4. Negative scores is a seriously bad idea. If you have a negative score, then there is no incentive to try to get out of it. You can argue that there is, but really, there isn't. Maybe a central point for torches could help? Like each pillar on the GOE gives a torch for each land? Just throwing out an idea.

Should it not be a point of consideration that you are actively discussing how people only enter TC to get to areas they normally can't and how that highlights how messed up TC is? Its not even a competition really, its more of a farce. Simply removing one or more MP levels won't fix it. It will simply stop them from access to areas. Maybe you should analyse the main problem, rather than trying to fix side affects?

Sorry, I am confused by what you mean. Do you mean no MP3 and MP4 alliance players in torch?

I'd like to make another point about religion. Religions last because of followers and faith in something higher. Simply announcing 'I'm great, follow me' does not make a religion. You need people to follow you, they need a reason to follow you and the people that come after them need a reason to continue that following. Maybe it is just me, but I don't see that with the Savels, I never did. There doesn't seem to be a creed in existence as to why Savel should be worshiped, what he did, what he stood for or against. There just seems to be this alliance that is used as a political football. To my mind, I don't see any devotion from Rhaegar to anything other than the possession of the church (At least nothing other than cosmetic or self serving). As soon as he was ousted he turned on Marv for attempting to continue its running. And in the 18 months or so he was there I didn't see any of the aforementioned things in the realm. Now, if Jazira or someone else feels that they can do this and give it some kind of meaning, then fine, but at some point a line has to be drawn. Weak or half forgotten religions vanish and/or replaced with new ones. Sometimes they are kept alive, but ultimately altered or consumed and merged to create a new one.

Before you start that nonsense Rhaegar. You never met Savelfuser until AFTER you started work on the church. So that puts you in EXACTLY the same situation that Jazira now finds herself. And I might add that I believe you met Savelfuser only briefly on one day, maybe two. Savelfuser had well and truly left MD at that time and it is my understanding that he only returned briefly because he was specifically asked to give you the nod so to speak. [quote]NEVER saw Firsanthalas saying "ok, I might overreacted here, I might made a mistake here"[/quote] Yeah, you may want to get your facts right their mister. I quite publicly apologised to people on the forum before. I can admit when I am wrong and I can apologise for it too.

Pip, you are a spanner. You love spouting off. Off you go and do something constructive for a change instead of taking pot shots when it suits you.