Alliances - What should they be?

[Chewett]

This post summarizes a number of discussions I have had regarding alliances. Some of these views are mine, some are others who I am stating for discussion points.

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Current State of alliances

Currently any alliance, once the final member is removed is lost to the game. At this point an admin could remake it, or it could be decided to stay dead. In the past we have had alliances remade at the request of a king or similar. Or remade after some effort by the players. 

Any alliance member is free to invite anyone else to the alliance. This removes a degree of control from the alliance.

The leader is also chosen as the player who has the most of the loyalty stat. This is primarily gained through farming combat or other not described here methods.

Radical opinions (some of these are not mine by merely parroting)

It is no secret that I, and a number of other MD players disagree with the "loyalty" concept for a leader. Many alliances have a leader who is not someone who would grind loyalty. Social convention then makes people understand they are the leader. For some guilds this is fine as any lost alliance would be automatically remade by an admin (e.g. TK) but for the less "offical" alliances this can cause some problems.

Some people feel that alliances should be created and fall more often than they do currently. Maybe creation by MP6 or similar?

Maybe kill items just dont disband alliances? Maybe after coming back to life they rejoin the alliance? (How would you do hostile takeovers?) Maybe only if you revive within X days?

Maybe you can vote to disband an alliance? Maybe you can take it over with a coup?

Potentially you allow leaders to pick who can invite? Only leaders can invite? Makes hostile takeovers harder as you have to trick the leader?

Some were suggesting that each land would be able to revive a certain set of guilds, if they were lost with some kind of vote.

[Muratus del Mur]

When asking public opinion about how people like to lose their stuff, consider what part of this mechanism is designed to bring tension/challenge and what is actually broken. You are a softer, less cruel ruler and i am/was , so maybe its good to "fix" this...on the other hand, i should remind you that the sort of tension ally system presents due to the loyalty mechanism, is an important factor that puts things in motion.

One way to fix this would be to have a custom paramter/skill to define ally leadership, and keep leadership just for war-only alliances. For example a guild could determine its leader based on a skill that is obtained only from activity that involves that guild. 

In such a case, if you would want to do that, i should add that this mechanism based on a custom skill , should also allow anyone to revive a guild using that skill. 

alliances will remain subject to treason and takeovers, while guilds would be merit and involvement only.

makes sense?

 

ps. i could start implementing this if you agree, i have sort of a plan on how to achieve it... but its your decision

 

[Mallos]

My straightforward opinions here are that only the leader or players designated by the leader should be able to invite players to an alliance, and that alliances should not be able to be disbanded by any action other than an administrator of the game deciding an alliance is no longer needed.

Allowing just any player to invite other players is a recipe for disaster in that you need to strongly trust any new invitee if you are worried about your loyalty values being overwritten by some rogue invitee kicking you and all your members out. This creates, in my opinion, a distasteful attitude in the community as a whole that we are unwelcoming to any new players and that they need to do much to gain your trust, sometimes being impossible. Trust is a valuable thing but it shouldn't be in the way of being accepting to others.

I personally don't understand the need to join an alliance just to be able to kick everyone out and then leave, disbanding an alliance, even if you don't like said alliance. Again, it hurts the community as a whole when some members of a land/alliance lose what they have held in high regards, such as I feel with the Caretakers and the East, and I think this is one of the biggest issues in the game for many years now. Just think of all the Children of the Eclipse members and Tainted Warrior members who had something nice going, a niche group or specialized part of a land as a whole, fractured by outsider actions. I feel this causes many players to leave, moreso than players who have left due to being killed. I can agree alliances can change leadership even by hostile takeover but if those players gaining the alliances for themselves do not want the alliance then what right do they have to let nobody have it?

[No one]

I wonder if the "outside" concept of alliance would bring something to MD.

"Outside" concept being : anyone can pay smth to create an alliance then he and he alone can choose to invite ppl in it and to grant them some permissions inside its alliance. Also, only the leader can choose to disband his alliance and only he can abdicate.

So? Would the loyalty system that we currently have in place with its instability and troubles and opportunities it brings is better then the stability and stagnation of the other system ? At times I do favor our loyalty system but MD does need some stability and certainty.