No Man's Land

[Sacosphilz]

Well, let me get this straight:

- You don't want to be tied to good or evil; not Marind Bell, Loreroot, Necrovion or Golemus; not war, peace or knowledge. You don't want to be tied down to any agenda. You just want to explore, play around, fan flames, etc. for the heck of it, but with no specific objective. You'll be a force of freewill.

- You want to form an alliance to reflect this outlook.

It's kinda contradictory, I think. I'm not saying it's impossible, but IMO it would be hard to justify creating an alliance for this and maintaining it. For starters:

1. I'm sure that a lot of players share your sense of neutrality, but even then they still don't have everything in common. They have different ideals and different goals. How do you bind them together? What do you do when some of them feel like doing opposite things?

2. Members of an alliance are supposed to share a common goal. It's not a hard rule but it's a norm, and it's what motivates people to form alliances in the first place. How do you justify your alliance not having any goal in particular?

3. If, for example, this alliance successfully forms and the policy (from what I can imply) is to let the members act around with their own free will, with occasional cooperations, how would that be different from not having this alliance at all?

Let me stress that I'm not disagreeing with your move, I'm just challenging your idea.

[Udgard]

Well, personally, I think NML doesn't need to be the land of people who are not tied to anything at all. Instead, it should be a land for people whose ideals are not yet accomodated with any of the present forces. Thus, it could actually accommodate any ideals, as long as the background and #of people are sufficient.

From what I know about phrog, his alliance would probably be those who like to try out new things (that's the impression I get from his fire-starting habit, seeing what happens to things he burn =b ). Sol's alliance already has a clear purpose : restoring balance. I don't know the purpose of MR's army, but At least they have a strong background...

Thus, IMHO, a NML's alliance doesn't necessarily have to contain those without any purpose at all, but with purpose not catered by the current existing alliances, like shown by the above examples.

CMIIW..

[Glaistig]

Does no one consider that No Man's Land is no man's land?! It's neutral, sure, but it's also not some place for some silly group of humans to pronounce, "This is our land!" You should go stake out a claim in the underground area of Marind Bell. MB people don't go down there anyway.

I think phrog does have an objective: to use his members to spread rumors, sometimes false but sometimes true. He's just a bit fancy in his language and doesn't like stating things so bluntly. He wants to laud their lack of ties to any official stand or bond with the other lands. I still don't really see how that sort of alliance needs a land. I mean, Guardians of the Root is dedicated to defending Loreroot, the Golemus-alliance whose name I don't bother memorizing represents the views of Golemus Golemicarum, etc. Why be bound to a land at all if you don't have any special obligation to one? Same with Udgard's alliance idea.

No Man's Land is no man's land! Understand?! The only other name it has is newbie-land, and that's not really because newbies covet or possess it but because they tend to populate those areas.

[Calyx of Isis]

Personally, I hope there is always some land unclaimed by any alliance. I see all these wanting a piece of that which is not yet claimed and I groan at the though of yet more AP barriers to travel and the like. There should always be neutral lands where players of no alliance and all alliances should be able to meet on equal footing on terms of AP and all else.

As Happy as I am that the dojo has become rooted at Marble Dale Park, I would greatly love to have a second school (dojo) at the Plains of Tranquility, precisely because there are no homeland influences there. I hope people will leave that place free. Even if there is no dojo there, maybe it will become a place where sages teach their followers, and others pull up a soap box, stand on it, and start exhorting the crowds.

[phrog]

My thought for the No Man's Land alliance would be one that receives less land bonus and suffers less penalty on other lands. I would even argue that there should be no penalty for others moving through No Man's Land.

[Glaistig]

... I still don't see why you need No Man's Land for this alliance in which you won't have an obligation to the land. Why not have no penalty or bonuses, just be an alliance with no land?

And phrog! No Man's Land! Read the name! No Man's Land!~ Do you not understand it even though I've repeated it so many times? Are you just ignoring it? If you really must claim some land because you have some sort of silly conception that an alliance must have a land, then I think the underground area below Marind Bell would fit your alliance better.

[Sacosphilz]

Perhaps adding to your point, Glai, but underground Marind Bell is also No Man's Land.

[Azrael Dark]

I think some people are getting a little to hung up on the literal meaning of No Man's Land. I interpret it as No Man's Land because it can't be definitively held by any of the four major Land or the inhabitants/tribes are not officially recognized or big enough to really claim to be a separate country.

That being said, I think there can be No Man's Land Alliances, they just can't "claim" land in No Man's Land and there would have to be many of these small "neutral" alliances so that one alliance does not dominate the area because, well, look at the name of the place again.

[Calyx of Isis]

That being said, I think there can be No Man's Land Alliances, they just can't "claim" land in No Man's Land and there would have to be many of these small "neutral" alliances so that one alliance does not dominate the area because, well, look at the name of the place again.

My thoughts exactly. Thank for putting it so succinctly.

[Isaki]

Hello all,

I understand that I am very new at this and that there is a lot about this game's philosophy that I have not yet mastered or even imagined, but the idea of more alliances seems to me more like politics, i.e. an effort to console the players who are not yet members of any active alliances.

The neutral zones on the map have a purpose, and the way I see it they reflect perfectly the [b]solitary [/b]course one takes towards [i]self-mastery[/i], [i]self-knowledge [/i]and, eventually, [i]evolution [/i]before one truly determines who they are and where they wish to belong. They simply symbolise what happens within one's soul before they reach the point of maturation, at which they are finally ready to make decisions and 'pick sides' (metaphorically speaking). Giving these lands to alliances is like refusing to accept the existence of this solitary journey which, I believe, is a core element/notion of the game.

Furthermore, there are numerous people among us who may wish to remain [b]permanent [/b]solitary wanderers and it is only fair that the game administration retains some sort of representation structure for these people; and there must be some [b][i]terra [/i][/b](the 'land' in Latin for those who have not taken Latin courses in school) in which they can return without been seen as outsiders. Therefore, I propose that we keep these neutral zones intact, thus preserving a world which really has some space for everyone.

On a less romantic note, what would happen with the game mechanics if neutral soil became the territory of an alliance? I remember reading somewhere that the members of alliances gain regeneration points (?) when they are in their alliance's territory, but lose regeneration points (?) when they leave it. Wouldn't be a lot harder for alliances' members to traverse the map fighting if they constantly lose regeneration points (?) passing through 'possessed' territory?