(*ahem*)
bullshit

those same modifiers help them to zone
and why shouldnt there be an incentive beyond safety to be neutral?
i like the general idea, just not how u have it set up to HELLA favor pkillers

Your assumption is false. Therefore there's no real point in discussing what follows.

I would like to see a systematic change that would encourage smaller clans. But in my mind, it would have to keep the free for all attitude and free wheeling politics of the current system.

For those that are familiar with the game Diplomacy, it might be interesting to have a clan setup that mimics that in some way. I think that require a fairly drastic change in the game in order to be effective. (Most likely in the addition of some sort of "WIN" condition, which would result in a pwipe.)

Tell me more. Never played Diplomacy. I actually considered developing the clan system around a win-condition that would trigger a pwipe. The original plan was to have this win condition be secret (only the 36's would know) and would signal a pwipe a month after the condition is met. That wont be happening anytime soon, but I would be interested in knowing more about what you are talking about above.

I'm just throwing out an idea I had when reading the post.

Assuming the rank system will change next wipe, what about a 'win' where every single member of a clan is rank 100 (or whatever the maximum rank will be)? Before you assume this will be too easy, think of this: Every single char will have to get to rank 100, which means if you roll a new char and put it in the clan, you have to get it to rank 100 before you win. Also consider that the buffer your char, the more likely you are to be hunted. For an incentive bonus, how about a small chance (if a ranked enemy dies) of stealing one of their rank points? That way to 'win' a clan would have to be very buff, never being pked, for a considerable, uninterrupted amount of time.

Just a thought. Also, if anyone thinks it still will be far too easy for a clan to reach this condition, I'm sure if you think about it you can come up with modifications that will make it harder for them.

and i'm just responding

on the -
kick out suck-ass people in yer clan, so everyone is rank 100 or damn close
that = cheat win

on the +
hell yea, make it so if u are pk clan, and the other guy is pk clan
and u kill him, and he is higher rank than you, u get 1 of his rank points
since we all know that exp from pk cannot come back, it just can't

A win condition of having the whole clan reach rank xxx is a really bad idea, it'd be possible to just have 1 char reach that rank and make the other members selfdelete )
However the idea of gaining rankpoint is more interesting, but should be made so that the killer(s) instead of gaining a full rank, could gain the killed persons rankkills/achieved rank goals in addition to their own.

One method would be to have zones (or just certain items) unlock after certain events have been accomplished. One mud I played did this by hand after a pwipe went in, after the players reached a certain power level he opened up more of the zones. It worked out pretty well.

So by example. All zones flagged high (as opposed to mid-high) are closed at start of wipe, some mid-high zones closed too, unless the Dragonlance theme would be impacted as a result - so may want to leave say, Silvanesti forest but adjust slightly so that only the forest is enterable.

Once certain events occur, zones start opening. Just as an example, if character level > 24 or any cleric learns heal -> Dargaard Keep opens. 1 week later Gargath's keep opens, if someone get's pwk'd by Soth then Ancient Keep opens, otherwise Ancient Keep doesn't open until all "boss" type mobs in Largus have been defeated.

If the zones are rolled out in a certain order, it could give the feel of the earlier part of the war of the lance, then as things progress along all of the dragonarmy camps would move in and it would be a much darker environment.

This would give options of, for example, taking the stretch of road that runs from Solace down to Thorbardin and adjusting the mobs that load there. Have 4 versions of what mobs might be roaming around there, and as events occur the mobload list changes as well. We start off with elven wanderers and dwarven merchants, but at the end of the war of the lance we've got groups of dragonarmy officers and draconians assaulting the gates of pax tharkas and burning down qualinesti forest.

I remember the quest to save Tarsis! That went so poorly that we got stuck with a meteor hitting the city and wiping it out. Well if this were stuff that were included in the code it wouldn't have to be all done by imm's switching into mobs. You could set up an army attack where there are litterally hundreds of dragonarmy warriors marching from neraka to palanthas to seize the town. The results of the event leave a wipelong effect in place. Palanthas wins? City stays nice and shiny and pretty (good), Palanthas falls? City becomes a police state with draconians roaming the streets, dragonarmy barracks and aggressve vs good aligned.

Players wouldn't even HAVE to interact, can just have the mobs load and have a target destination they are trying to reach. mobs on the otherside are doing the same thing or are just defending. Every mob on the dark side that reaches, as an example, lord amothus' private room de-loads and counts a set number of points towards evil victory. Every mob killed on both sides adds minor point values until the value available from that kill is ceiling'd Once all the little grunts have died that can help the cause, they still keep loading and seeking but new mobs join in. We could have drakes and wyverns, kitiara on skye, the whole brightblade family, some badass NPC with a dragonlance, etc more havok.

And best of all, the results of these EVENTS would be told by wandering minstrels or mobs in bar area's. If a player contributed enough during the event their name may even be included in the song/events/etc.

It would add a huge amount of feel to the game, more so than any of the current quest systems do, because the effect is a permanent (for this wipe) change to the game.

Little things could affect it too, someone learns gate and is evil and goes for gating demons out left and right. He keeps balifor cleared of city guards for hours on end with his gated charmies, and he always casts gate in the clerics guild. Balifor shop vendors might stop loading, or deload at night. less and less watchmen would load until finally, the town was dead. at this point the demons would become the guards of the city, a new demon would gate in at the cle guild every 5 mins. But once there were too many demons of the same type or just too many in general, they would begin aggroing on each other until the population level got back into acceptable ranges. (This would be a good time to go in and try to reclaim the city!)

Wouldn't it be grand though? To walk up to say the entrance of crystal quest that nobody has been able to get into all wipe but the doors open for you and your group. Completing the knight task now leave the whole group flagged, the zone will open for any of them that approach the door. Imagine the player discussions "are they going to do like they did last wipe and only do CQ with the same 4 people over and over again to keep a lock on the commodities" The first guy to figure it out could even get a little plaque on a pole at the zone entrance.

These are great ideas, and I think positive and creative contributions should be encouraged.

Paul

[color=blue]That unlocking the zones idea is really, really bad. You have no idea the type of hell there would be if the highest level areas open 2-3 days after a wipe are still only places like Xak or maybe north ergoth or solamnic outpost/encampment. When the Xp charts were much lower a few wipes back, There were peopel titlted/1x within 30 hours of the pwipe. If they drop xp charts next wipe, and dont drop xp gained by the same %, then people are going to hit 1x extremely fast, and they'll want those fresh, fully-loaded zones open asap.

The way clans are working now is fine for the most part. The only big problem is the amount of fodder that joins a larger clan. While it's a good way for them to get eq, and log zones they wouldn't run otherwise, it gets to be excessive at times. BSP is back to what it was before, possibly even larger than it was when wilds quit, and until they attack Dark Age, or vice versa(we all know it's going to happen), matching the manpower of BSP isn't really feasible, unless alot of outlaws didn't quit, but from the way some of them commented after that large battle, it seems many did, or will, but that could jsut be due to them getting bored after winning for so long...

I'm looking forward to the pwipe, mainly to see the scouts get fully added, and nerfed, because they need it badly, as well as the changes to ranks. Hopefully, we will see -alot more ranks to buy... fire/ice shield, blur/barskin/bless affect (might sound dumb, but some people might like it for 1-2 rps), bashmods instead of simply having the insanely pricey nobahs rank..etc.[/color]

the only rank i want added - sustenance

~Rorc

[color=blue]Well, I have a list of rank effect ideas to send Noryl and Aristox sometime in hopes of adding more variation, that wasn't one of them but it is now. :P[/color]

So here's the basic setup for Diplomacy. It's roughly modeled after World War I. In the basic variant there are seven powers (countries, players) England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Turkey, and Russia. Your goal in the game is to control a majority of the supply center provinces.

There are no dice. The action in the game is strictly determined basically by numbers, with defenders winning in the case of a tie. There is no way for one player to dominate the game from the start. In order to succeed you must ally with at least one other player against another. In order to win, you will need to ally with the other player, and at some later time viciously backstab them to catapult yourself to victory.

Deciding when to backstab is an art. If you backstab too early, you won't gain enough and will possibly get bogged down allowing your opponents to regain lost provinces. If you wait too long, your ally will most likely backstab you first.

The alliances in this game are generally very fluid, and when one side looks to be close to winning or have a clear path to winning, most of the time the other players remaining in the game will gang up versus that one to prevent victory.

I think there are some tie conditions because of the way the board is setup.

How would you implement something like this in the mud? I'm not really sure. The key is for it to be based on something that can be won or lost and to make it so that no one side can completely dominate the course of the game from the very beginning. I think it would be okay for one player (clan) to dominate close to the end, requiring cooperation on the part of all the other players to prevent them from winning.

A web page with more information on the game is http//www.diplom.org/

The page doesn't seem to be working at the moment, it just brings up a test page for Apache.

Seems like this page works http//www.diplomacy-archive.com/home.htm

I like Sufs idea, let me add to it. There are a bunch of power Countries so to speak. Bsp/wild/Garbage/Outlaws/Myth/KoS/RGB/DA/etc.. Since there would be a clan system, why not when a clan is formed, would require at least 5 people. The imms give that clan a province to control. Like bsp controling nereka. KoS controling Vingaard. Or have it so the clan has to kill a Npc leader and its army to control the province so to speak. Each clan has its own province. The WIN factor so to speak that would trigger a pwipe is when 1 clan controls all the province for a certain time period. The imms would have to choose how long. To give other clans a chance to recover what they lost. Alliances would be forge. Backstabs would no doubt be a risk like suf said. But i think this idea would be the Best WIN for a clan to trigger a pwipe. To go on what mike said i dont think its a good idea to not kill neutral zoning clans because what happens if they load a item that is limit 1? Your clan who is a pk clan been wanting that limit 1 item for a long time. They cant kill you because you are a little cute peaceful zoner. Im sorry i dont agree with that. Suf idea with alittle more tweaks in it, is no doubt the best overall idea. Now what bonus would be givin to the clan who controls a province or provines? That would have to be up to aristox to balance out. But it gives evyone a goal even the no pks like KoS. They would not have to go out pking clans. Just defend what is theres and take it back by force if need be. Just look at it like this. It would be crazy fun if the city of Vingaard was control by KoS and they got intel that the bsp hordes from nereka where coming to invade. The citys guards would attack any invader who attacks a KoS member. Would be hella fun to see bsp bring 40 people to invade a province only to be sent back to the dark city of nereka where they spawn from! Or how about us garbage controling Gulfport province and allies with Wildlaws only to get backstab for are province! Sufs idea is great but would require some changes but it would keep evyone on there feet and give evyone a chance to have mix allies/enemies. Mud wont be 2 sided anymore. We could finally have multi-clans waring each other without the 2 sides. Give Feedback!

As a cute, peaceful zoner, I

I don't think anyone is seriously proposing making arctic a territorial pk game in so far as having towns be the territories.

More likely there would be some quest for every zone in the game that you could perform to have that zone marked as yours, or something similar. The system would have to be something that adds on top of the regular zoning game without having substantial negative effects.

Adding to Suf's idea, it could be a clan badge worn on a special slot, "badge slot". A badge does two things: it shows what clan you're in, and it gives you certain benefits depending on what zones you control. A badge can be worn by only members of its clan, if someone dies with a badge it stays with him (somehow). Controlling a zone means another clan cannot control that zone at the same time, if another clan wants to wrest control from your clan it can do so (somehow); but otherwise it doesn't penalize non-clanned players in any way. The bonuses would be small like +1 dex for Kendermore, +10 resist_cold for Vry'Kith or Zeeriak, etc.

Or make the bonuses even smaller. Require control over 4 or 5 related zones before a bonus is awarded. The bonuses should be fairly minor and only really have a significant effect if one clan "owns" more than half the zones on the mud.

I think that the control game shouldn't be directly related to pk, but possibly encourage it.

For example, let's assume that the clan game is based upon "control" of zones. To control a zone you would have to complete some sort of zone related quest in that zone. If another group comes in and completes the quest after your group, they then gain control. Make the information on which clan owns which zone public information, and make some sort of news that alerts a clan when some other group attempts to gain control of a zone they currently control.

Now mind you, the quest to gain control of the zone is above and beyond just running the zone. If all you want to do is run the zone for equipment, you're more than free to, without playing into the zone control game.

Maybe to make it a little more interesting, make zone handover a little sticky. Delay changing control of a zone for 12 hours (or some other time frame), and let the defending group try to regain control of the zone in some manner. Or let the zone remain uncontested in control of a group for 4 days after they gain control of it. Only after the 4 days are up can someone come in and wrest control from them.

Part of the key to this, is not allowing alliances between clans to merge per se. Clans can choose to merge, but only by membership moving from one clan to the next. If that happens, the zones controlled by the derelict clan would return to being open to all comers. The goal of each clan should be to win on their own, temporary alliances to prevent another clan from gaining too much zone control would make sense, but a permanent alliance would only make sense as long as both clans had no interest in attempting to "win" the game.

I think the details of the zone control are probably the weakest part of this idea. It might make more sense to make the zones territorial based. So that lets say Clan A owns Balifor. This allows them to make attacks on 3 to 4 zones around Balifor and attempt to control those. But unless they owned a zone near palanthas, they wouldn't be able to attempt to take control of one of the surrounding zones.

I dont know Suf. Taking control of zones seem to be more of a problem to code then if clans where able to take control of palanthas by doing a quest to find a secret item then defeat the big boss of the city. I see no differ really. I dont think when someone controls a province that does not mean if im rented kalaman and myth control it that they would pk anyone in it.. I mean why? There is no threat at least yet. So to say if you where a neutral renting in a city control by a clan and they would pk you evytime is just dumb. Until they get some intel that your a evil i could see that happening. Arctic needs some new flavor. Neutrals would not even be attacked really, because they would not control anything. Other then being attack for eq which would allways happen some way or another. They would not just get mass random all the time 24/7 because people are bored.Giving people a goal like get good eq. Take over enemy land is the way to keep people playing and not quitting.

they wont fix the way lights stack, or how much unbalanced mobs cheat
u really think they'll ever code a huge change like this?
no offense, i like fantasy too ... but come on guys

Shiatan i use to code. This is by far not that hard. The clan system itself would be easy. But its not hard to add a system of provinces. Have flags when a clan is controling a province the guards will protect any member being attacked or guard. If the member does the attacking they would not join for this will stop the abuse of people using guards to pk just anyone they attack. Have it so the big boss of each province has a nice item on it and once it is defeated. Your clan controls the province. Until someone else takes it back. This promote pk and roleplay. Arctic is based on the dragonlance books yet it does no feel like lving in the books. I think this would be 1 step into living in the books!

fine and dandy, but, u want it like the books
quests
zones
roads
gods
QUESTS!
current events
heroes/heroines!
light and dark!
the good and the evil! the neutrals!
not a dragonlance-MUD version of Risk! the bored game, excuse me, BOARD

No need to flame dude. There just ideas. If you got such a problem with it then why dont you think of something instead of siting there on your ass saying shit wont work.

some things that i thought of

more/better/frequent

quests and more quests!
zones and secret areas and stuff!
roads and hidden paths and traffic!
gods! bring back the real gods! when it meant something!
QUESTS!
current events
heroes/heroines! real ones!
light and dark! crazy weather!
the good and the evil! the neutrals! (red white and black! and grey!)

all of which is MUCH preferable TO ME (and i'm sure some others) than
a dragonlance-MUD version of Risk! the board game

is that less flaming?

All good but that still does not help prevent the mud from going 2 sided.

WTF! I said "the good and the evil! the neutrals! (red white and black! and grey!)"

That would be FOUR sided wouldnt it? plus all those that didnt align? That had their own little factions?

I never said it should be CMYK and Outback ...

You confused me too:

Good = White
Red = Neutral
Black = Evil
Grey = the idiots who need to delete themselves because they are too stupid to select an alignment when creating a charachter "Please select your alignment(1-9)"?

~Rorc

have u ever read the books? if you had, you'll know what grey is ///

No, I have never read the books and I don't really feel the need to. Maybe if I get the chance to do some creation or need information from one of the books, then I may read it.

So, what does the books say about Grey?

~Rorc

My memory about what "grey" is might be a litlte off seeing that i havent read the books for a while.. but doesnt it just apply to renegade mages??
Asking for Quests and more Quests is all fine and dandy.. but that only entertains ppl for a little while. What happens after the quests are completed? Ppl go back to pking and zoning.. The clan based system with a "win" sounds like a lot of fun, but controlling provinces or chars must reach XXX rank doesnt appeal to me as i dont play as much as i used to because of work, thus i would disadvantage my clan if they were trying to "win"
Maybe setting up several Quests that are continually in the game, from killing low mobs up to returning a dragon orb to cyan, or something like that, that are always in the game and all the quests must be completed in a set time frame, and the clan trying to "win" must notify a high lvl imm, which would mean that the imms wouldnt be able to be wizinvis all the time.. sorry.., and a sys notice be sent out saying that Clan A was attempting the quests. and if the other clans didnt feel like it wiping to stop Clan A by distrupting the quests

Why not make the mud clan system more quest based? Aristox can give a quest to each clan leader. Let's say that for a clan to win, they would have to complete 10 quests. IMMS could post every time a quest has been completed (this way the rest of the mud could track progress of p-wipes). The first quest should be difficult - made for a high level group. At the completion of the quest, a rank point could be awarded (2 at the 2nd quest, 3 at the third, etc) or a special ability (like continued sustenance or +dam or +hp depending). The quests would increase in difficulty and time to complete.
Positives:
- Quests keep the game focused
- Allows neutrals to continues zoning and they could track progress of wipe
- It could encourage cooperation if 2 clans have the same quest, but different pieces of information
- Could involve tourneys as a quest (i.e. must win a 5 man tourney or something to that effect)
Negatives:
- Might discourage smaller clans
- Puts a premium on ranking fast
- Neutrals lose out on the fun

Just a few ideas to throw out there... blast away.

This is probably not the best idea, but here it is:

Each clan has an area in the game, such as a keep/castle/cave etc.
To enter this area, they must go through an entryway which is guarded by the equivalent of the hardest mob they have defeated with only the clan members involved (ie. you kill glymmer, glymmer guards the entrance or if clan killed another mob on par with it, they can choose which one of them guards it, maybe have 2 soths instead of one glymmer? to give balance to difficulty). that's the entrance

A clan player can only rent in that area, and when they do rent a random couple of pieces of eq are removed from them and placed into a guarded room at the heart of the keep/castle.

In another room, there is a "source" of existence for all chars in that clan. To win the game, the rival clan must enter and destroy that "source". Obviously not to make it simple, the source will probably be in a room like the final Spire room. Also, make it have immunity to elements, limdam, high hp? etc.

In the entire keep there will be random mobs, maybe a sprinkling from 2x massacre/healers, to 2x annhilate/oblit bashers, that patrol the keep and track in on intruders.

When keep is being attacked, the Guardian will shout this to the game, and every logged clan member gets a sys message letting them know their keep is under attack. At which point they could recall, fight back.

The room with the random pieces of eq would be easier to reach than the source room, and the area design would be generated by clan. Possibly the addition of keywords with hints on plaques next to room entrances would also be useful. Obviously this places a whole 'nother degree to spying. Also, the difficulty of such infiltration with such high mobs would probably guarantee the defending clan the opportunity to recall, regroup and come out to fight. As well as finishing a norecall fight, then returning still in time.

Last thing, is that no clan would be able to achieve this until the wipe has progressed for a very very long time, and with the raising of limits on items, and fast decaying of prep, in order for such an attack to go down, the aggressor would have to systematically organize and prepare for this. which would sort of give this action a more dramatic feel (maybe?)

I don't know if this is feasible, or even makes sense, but it just popped up and I thought someone might be interested

Anything that may 'trigger' a pwipe sounds evil indeed, lvl lvl lvl get some gear buff your char start enjoying its buffness WHAM it pwipes, NO THANKYOU! I dont even like the idea of the clan system ...Do you ppl not like Arcticmud?! Why are you all trying to make it a different game alltogether! If you dont like Arcticmud go play another one or make your own.

If anything i think adding the clan system and other stuff will ruins Arctics awsome political circus, And adding a goal whether it be known to the players how to meet such a goal or not would be like adding a plot to Seinfeld! BLASPHEMY, all of it!

All BSD and WILD should come to an agreement that anyone can zone with the other clan, like 2 wipes ago there was an accord for like 2 weeks where people could zone with either clan without being highlighted (this was the weeks that led up to a tournament and both sides realized it was in thier best interest to be able to rank without having to have a full group with preps to zone) It was really quite fun i zoned with everyclan and really got to know some of the clanned people that i didn't already know. I know both clans worry about abuse but honestly both clans are pretty good at knowing who is in the other tells like XXXXX tells you 'your grouping evils atm, you have been warned' are clear indications that each clan knows who is nuetral and who is not. Just waiting to see who involves themselves in pk against you is usually enough. Like someone said earlier killing some enemy clans lowbie is usually pointless in the grand scheme of things. Most mishighlights are the purposeful result of allowing pk horney trashes to join your clan and not having a evenminded person controlling all highlights. Also it is permissable to ask the clan why someone is highlighted before attacking them. If it seems like a bullshit highlight it usually is. It's the same principle with trashes, everyone knows who the trashes are and usually even knows who is playing them. Yet the immortals rarely do anything about it until there is rampant (not blatent we are long past blatent) cheating and trashkilling (or eq transfers while highlighted). I remember being in one clan war where there were something like 50 highlights on the first day I knew about 25% were outright bullshit added by the pk-horneys (in one case an entire other clan was added to the highlights)

Pedro offers you his protection.