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Author Topic: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse  (Read 19768 times)

LawfulJoe

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #75 on: August 17, 2008, 12:20:54 AM »
The disappearance of people does have impacts on the community:

 :arrow: With the removal of Illianna of the Red Vardo the 'discussion' on a guild being established fell apart.

 :arrow: With the removal of Danielle the players behind a group set out to take over the Red Vardo fell apart. Further they could have been instrumental in discussions on a guild.

 :arrow: With the removal of Father Celurion died the Morninglord faction floundered for months OOC'ly. It has only recently begun to flourish again.

 :arrow: With the removal of Callous the vampires hunting the outskirts have diminished.

 :arrow: With the removal of Tagdar, nice statue by the way, the dwarven rebellion has floundered.

 :arrow: With the removal of Lila the Morninglordians gained entry into the undead factions old base for a massive battle of PC forces among many other impacts.

 :arrow: With the removal of the vampire Tatyana fewer evil PC's are uniting to fight together as a force. Most of the server was actively involved in hunting the one PC.

 :arrow: Drudoc, Samira, and Dribo has significantly decreased activity of "The Blood God" cultists.

I respectfully disagree the quiet removal of a player has no significance.


Do not forget the 4 hour torturing (real time) or Trish, her assassination, then left for dead. She hid out for a month or so (real time) only to come out of hiding to confess to the guards, be tortured a little more and then again... Disappear without a trace. Many knew Trish on the Server and bought stuff from her. Some had personal relationships with her (IC) and her situations sent people into a freny. I know I personally will never trust the Vardo after that (IC) and have taken a severe beating (IC) from one of the people she had relations with. The death of one PC can effect the stories of other PCs. When the whole thing went down with Denalie, Trish and the "New" Vardo, the feeling was tense and it seemed that the "Old" Vardo was about to have a reckoning. (I did not know this was an OOC vendetta, so all of my impression stem from IC experiences) The Vardo headquarters got raided, seemed like some wrists got slapped and life went on.

Next time I encountered the "New" Vardo, it was as if it never happened. I am not sure as to what happened behind the scenes, but I know this was very disappointing IC to not have closure to the story. Like reading an intense story full of intrigue and deception, only to find out the final chapter was torn out. Then Denallie "Disappeared" and that was that. No more talk of it, Trish is gone, and as far as I know for good, so the story ends in a massive "?"

I move on to other stories which has be greatly entertaining, thank you to Dragon Mystique and Nefensis as well as the many other PCs that have come in from time to time (you know who you are and thank you :) ), but it is an unfortunate effect of offing quietly a PC involved in a pretty major plotline that those of us involved as well, never know what happened.

Oh well...

As a side note, I had no idea so many PCs had been Permed... YIKES!!

failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #76 on: August 17, 2008, 12:44:16 AM »
Quote
As a side note, I had no idea so many PCs had been Permed... YIKES!!

Dribo had met all of those people, so that's just the last 8-9 months, and I doubt it's all of them from that span, even if you include Trish, who I thought was simply retired as opposed to dead.

DM Shadowspawn

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #77 on: August 17, 2008, 01:18:46 AM »
As a side note, I had no idea so many PCs had been Permed... YIKES!!

Far from complete list. This was a subset of whom I could think of off the top of my head. ;)

failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #78 on: August 17, 2008, 01:21:58 AM »
There were two druids, handris and Yetshua (dribo saw Yetshua's), plus peasant90's guard (Kaspar Brausch?), and Claire that I thought of after, plus Neithu who somebody else mentioned.  I'm really not sure looking at Shadowspawn's list plus mine where Rex gets the idea there's no permadeath here.

Kung Fu Orc

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #79 on: August 17, 2008, 01:59:38 AM »
Quote
Vardo's count in that time is two: Denalie and Illeanna, oh and Regno. So your previous statement, as DMs, and Vardo players have said previously, does not stand.

At the risk of revealing information I learned as a DM, I cannot elaborate- but I can say that it was NOT the Vardo that killed Denalie. She was killed, but it was by another faction inteirly, and no Vardo PC arranged for it to happen.

The Vardo aren't untouchable, and they NEVER WERE. You just don't know everything thats going on. Why don't you know everything thats going on? Your PC's. "But not knowing whats going on upsets us!" Yes. Thats the point of the gothic theme. Your not supposed to understand everything that happens.

Want me to throw out some examples? Several Vardo pc's lost their souls and were extorted to do jobs for a certian group. At one point, Julia was geased by Strahd to never be able to betray him and forced to do his bidding. The difference is when something bad happens to the Vardo they close up and keep it within the family, as opposed to telling everyone about it.

Fact of the matter is, the Vardo do what they do because they do it in a smart enough way to get away with it. When certain tactics stopped working, there was a backlash and they had to change strategies. Everyone HATED the Vardo for a good few weeks- ironically, not because of any true IC activities, because Denalie was never actually activly threatened by the family except perhaps by someone like Illeanna going off the handle. It was all derived from pure OOC bias from players who had tendencies (I wouldn't be so dramatic as to say someone had a thought out vendetta) that caused them to be antagonistic to the RVT faction group.

And that practice also countinues to this day- I know players with whom EVERY character they play makes it their mission to frustrate the faction and attack it. If this was IC I would have no problem with it, but people are just frustrated OOCly. I am becoming very frustrated with having to be constantly suspicious of everyone metagaming or meta-factioning (I invented a new term!)

The Vallaki Guard are the ones who permakill most players. For the most part the Vardo are simply a mechanism for another factions dynamics- they are used by all the other factions to do what they themselves cannot, so they tend to be the 'hand' of events. They are a MECHANISM for death, not the cause in the majority of situations.

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #80 on: August 17, 2008, 02:04:01 AM »
At the risk of revealing IC information, it was the Vardo that had Denalie killed, now can we please stop this ugly practice? Thank you.

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Kung Fu Orc

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #81 on: August 17, 2008, 02:08:20 AM »
No, they didn't. NPC's, decisions made above the actual faction players heads. If you wanted to split hairs the Vardo had her killed, it would be more correct to say that DM's put the ball into motion. In the end the choice to actually do it lay in the hands of the PC who killed her. And I have no idea what ugly practice you refer to.

Daciana Varzaru- "If fate is a principle beyond Human comprehension which capriciously torments man, then it is karma that man confront fate with sorcery."

Kaspar

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #82 on: August 17, 2008, 02:08:55 AM »
Can we please stop giving away IC information/secrets, whether you'd think they were true or not? It's starting to get irritating.  :P

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #83 on: August 17, 2008, 02:12:27 AM »
Fine. But my point was the inteir situation was caused by OOC, and now it's perminantly altered the server.

Daciana Varzaru- "If fate is a principle beyond Human comprehension which capriciously torments man, then it is karma that man confront fate with sorcery."

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #84 on: August 17, 2008, 02:20:33 AM »
There's no point in this argument, everyone can die, no one is immune. That's where it should have ended. The current Vardo acts ic, i cant speak for the ones that passed on but i daresay they did the best they could.

Ugly practice  = giving you ic info on this forum to justify anything. Nobody needs to justify anything, if there's a problem with a faction, their faction dm can handle it throught the proper channels.

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DM Shadowspawn

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #85 on: August 17, 2008, 02:21:22 AM »
I don't know a whole lot about half of the people on that list, but most of what I see are not exactly quiet removals.  Like Failed Bard said, Dribo's was public; the destruction of Tatyana as well, if the entire server was hunting her, I wouldn't consider quiet; Tagdar... well, has a statue, so his death isn't a mystery; and the rest were either quiet, or before my time.


My point, and also I believe the consensus of the original topic, is that death should have a large impact on the world, not constantly be teased.  I take that consensus and conclude that death should be something that impacts a majority of the server; by causing a death and having nearly every player on the server "not be privy" to that event makes the death, in my opinion, somewhat of a waste.

In the end most permadeaths are the result of two character in PvP with one beating the other, or sometimes its a group effort against the one. Not everyone is given a public execution such as is given by the guards.  

Also note. Those cool political assassinations you spoke of in another post can and do occur and in truth are the primary reason for any perma death. Someone or some group has upset someone else or other group enough that they are going to spend a significant portion of their RP towards the removal of the other character from the game. IC reasons, IC actions, IC results.

failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #86 on: August 17, 2008, 02:26:36 AM »
  In the case of the Denalie situation, the character felt threatened, all the people around her understood this, and when she disappeared, it was assumed, based on in character knowledge, that the only group that would benefit from her disappearance was responsible for it.  Saying that is in any way based on OOC bias is just wrong.  It's based on assumptions based on the tendencies people had seen, again, in character, of the vardo at that time.  The fact the vardo had kidnapped and tortured the merchant before Denalie that competed against them, again, learned about in character by most people, only strengthened the belief they were behind it.

  OOCly, I know who authorized her death, and who did it.  ICly, there are probably two or three NPCs and one PC who know the truth.

Iconoclast

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #87 on: August 17, 2008, 02:27:29 AM »
 The whole BIG caps and ALL that.  I also know that being in the faction that is under some scrutiny isn't easy.    


Lets be cool.  When the topic turned to the Red Vardo, I was a bit concerned since I didn't want things to get ugly.  But for the most part, folks have been decent to one another.  

The details around Denalie though, I would rather see no discussion of too much, because the impact is still in play.  Was just a day ago when the memmorial service was held for her.  It isn't as if it is actient past, unless if someone has a short attention span.  

We'll have those Red Vardos attending Church every Fifth Day.   :mrgreen:


Edit:  Jeesh, fast postings here, might indicate tempers flairing....or not.   :|

failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #88 on: August 17, 2008, 02:30:47 AM »
Quote
Edit:  Jeesh, fast postings here, might indicate tempers flairing....or not.

It's been pretty civil for a thread that's this potentially inflaming.  I think part of the number of posts is due to people not really being able to dungeon, and more people in game following the forums at the same time they're on, as opposed to after they're done playing.

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #89 on: August 17, 2008, 02:33:21 AM »
 In the case of the Denalie situation, the character felt threatened, all the people around her understood this, and when she disappeared, it was assumed, based on in character knowledge, that the only group that would benefit from her disappearance was responsible for it.  Saying that is in any way based on OOC bias is just wrong.  It's based on assumptions based on the tendencies people had seen, again, in character, of the vardo at that time.  The fact the vardo had kidnapped and tortured the merchant before Denalie that competed against them, again, learned about in character by most people, only strengthened the belief they were behind it.

  OOCly, I know who authorized her death, and who did it.  ICly, there are probably two or three NPCs and one PC who know the truth.


Very good point.  That is one thing so tragic about the Red Vardo story, is that their past hangs over them.  Even if the Red Vardo had no part in Denalie's murder/disappearance, due to their history, and the whole crafting guild agenda, the Red Vardo would suffer the blame of it one way or another.  Denalie had made many friends in various places and so her story involvment with the Red Vardo ended up impacting all those people, and the friends of those people.

Only so many people can go missing in a village the size of Vallaki before all fingers point in the same direction, regardless of the facts.

Quite a fun story to take part in.  
« Last Edit: August 17, 2008, 02:35:22 AM by Iconoclast »

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #90 on: August 17, 2008, 02:36:36 AM »
I don't really know if I can express how i feel in a public forum.

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #91 on: August 17, 2008, 02:57:59 AM »
*starts crying*

nobody remembers Rage... he was klilled by the vardo too...

*quietly weeping*
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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #92 on: August 17, 2008, 03:00:35 AM »
Quote
Edit:  Jeesh, fast postings here, might indicate tempers flairing....or not.

It's been pretty civil for a thread that's this potentially inflaming.  I think part of the number of posts is due to people not really being able to dungeon, and more people in game following the forums at the same time they're on, as opposed to after they're done playing.

I have to agree, and as long as it remains civil it stays open. Guys, please do not make me lock this thread or you will not be allowed to express your concerns.


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failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #93 on: August 17, 2008, 03:03:23 AM »
*starts crying*

nobody remembers Rage... he was klilled by the vardo too...

*quietly weeping*

  That's because he's not perma'd.  Undead isn't dead, and we were only listing the dead.

k_moustakas

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #94 on: August 17, 2008, 03:07:16 AM »
yeah but he only became undead because he was permakilled!
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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #95 on: August 17, 2008, 03:08:58 AM »
  Well I've been reading.. and reading.

  Point of fact main reason I left the Vardo was simple.  I felt the issues of a few months past were more than IC related or even enjoyable for some of those involved.  The growing tensions and pressures on the Vardo seemed to be more and more OOC related, grudges seemed evident despite methods used IC to repair/mend or push on from.  Not saying either side in particular is to exactly to blame as it's a failing on each side for not communicating clearly or allowing personal issues to cloud IG judgement.  Though as time progressed and these elements continued as well turned up with fresh faces with posturing towards a faction(s)/group(s) it did become apparent it wasn't an IC or IG issue ... and to me it blurred the line of enjoyment of being Vardo.

  I removed myself from association even though I had a partial hand in one of the events that led up to the growing discontent/issues.  I felt I had stepped into the middle of something that was already over my head and less than IC ... the backlashes from it I've done my best to steer around ... more so because I felt the situation wasn't true to the gaming environment or enjoyable for myself and felt to be punished ICly for something that carried a heavy scent of OOC issues I have no desire to be part of.

  Yes there are consequences characters should be liable to deal with.. but I really felt that the consequences tied to that atmosphere were more OOC than IC and not worth jeopardizing my own enjoyment/stories.  Factions for me was fun for a moment, a bit of prestige.. that really turned sour on my tongue.  I miss the entire Danielle leadership ... and the disappearance really didn't make sense to me IC.. though I knew the reasons OOCly.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2008, 03:21:54 AM by archonzero »

failed.bard

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #96 on: August 17, 2008, 03:16:32 AM »
yeah but he only became undead because he was permakilled!

He became undead /instead/ of being permakilled.  I remember you posting at the time saying how it worked out made perfect sense for the character, based on the story up to that point.  Whether or not the character is suited for dungeoning or not is really irrelevent, as monster templates are primarily intended as roleplay enhancers.

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #97 on: August 17, 2008, 04:43:56 AM »
Silly Okaris Rage who escpaed randomly from Imojina who was going to suck his blood and MAYBE offer him also a kiss... and to do what then? :)
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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #98 on: August 17, 2008, 06:48:47 AM »
Anyway more seriously. I have not a char in any faction, so I don't know how really things work in them. I want only to suggest a thing, which I already suggested long ago: limiting the chance of ONE player having MORE chars in different factions. I mean, even the most honest of people, even unwillingly, would be led to use a bit of metaplay, because he has more knowledge of what their chars have not only about setting but also about the different factions dynamics and movements and plans. In this way a single player would have almost the same knowledge of DMs as far as the relationship among characters and factions are concerned (especially if they are antagonistic ones). I don't find it totally fair. And basically I think that no one is ever fully honest. Anyway this is what -I- think. Ready to listen what others think about it.

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« Last Edit: August 17, 2008, 06:52:52 AM by +Ciaran+ »
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Helaman

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Re: Concerns - Feedback on the current factions & possible abuse
« Reply #99 on: August 17, 2008, 08:36:17 AM »
I managed to juggle Eberhardt and Yoshinaka (2 seperate factions) relatively easily... mind you these factions werent often in conflict - rebels and guards or guards and vardo or ML and Undead would be a tough combo.

And Otake, Wulfgang Eberhardt, Aesin, Humiko, Bonereaver, Anthrania + whatever concept I am playing with...