New Capital Rule clafication

[Solfius]

Just wondering what everyone's reaction to the announcement was.

Mine was something like: What?!?

I wasn't aware of a growing problem with that kind of thing.

My concern arrises from the fact I have 3/4 characters all legitmately working/living in Siom, but now it's breaking the Capital Rule to have that, so someone's going to have to go, and it breaks up RP to have to make decisions like that.

Also towns that work together a lot, and have lots of workers may suffer as previously legitmate characters working for the town like they've always done leave as else players would have too many characters working for that government.

Especially in places that force you to work for the organisation in charge.

Those were my intial thoughts on this, and I must admit I was taken by surrise by the announcment.

[Thomas Pickert]

The clarification is really just that, a clarification. The Capital Rule always said that your characters were independent from each other. The Capital Rule as it is formulated needs a little amount of common sense from the players.

A few players lack even that little amount. Some of them have already been banned from the game. With the clarification, we hope to make even those 'special' players understand the Capital Rule.

If you had 3 or more somehow cooperating characters before, then you have already been violating the Capital Rule. If you happen to have 3 or more characters in one organisation in leading positions, then the question automatically arises, where might that organistaion have been, if it wouldn't have been for your three characters to be leaders? Another question would be, if it was necessary to have your characters being leaders, maybe the organisation was not that attractive after all?
And finally, using three of your characters to power up your organisation, might have bullied out other organisations, that have been legitimately built by all different players.

That's what is ruining the game's overall balance.

Players violating the clarified rule might have gotten in trouble with the PD sooner or later anyway. By anouncing the clarification, we just offer the opportunity to get in line again, before the PD has to take actions.

[Meh]

I look forward to seeing more people outside of the towns.

[Solfius]

I have always understood it as banding together without some roleplay reason behind it.

I think it is larger organisations that will suffer most out of this, as they have more people, and as they get more people there will come a point when characters won't join as a result of other chars already being members, whereas before it may have made sense to join from an RP perspective.

Also, as a leader of a large organisation, I don't know the players of the characters I employ, and it could be possible, although I think it unlikely, that too many of my workers are played by the same person, which worries me as my effort and goal could be sabataged by anothers OOC selfishness.


Anyway, the point I think I am heading towards is that 3 characters in a small organisation make a huge difference, but in a large one 3 characters have less impact, unless they are 3 high ranking characters, where they do. And with this new rule there appears to be no room for flexibility, and it will become harder to make large organisations.


Also, it could increase the amount of OOC influence on character decision making, especially when you have characters not working together, but working in the same area.




Ah, this thread is going negative, but I expect you already have considered greatly the positves of this decison, and I'm concerned about the negatives

[rklenseth]

I kinda agree with Solfius. There should be a little room for flexiblity. Siom is huge and controls many territories as well as influence in others. Eventually you won't be able to go to a place that Siom doesn't have control or influence in which will make it hard for players to play their characters. As of now, I have only one character working for Siom (if you haven't guessed yet, it is Commander Richard Lenseth) but if a certain deal goes down I will have 3 characters working for Siom because of that. They will all be different parts of the organization in the Siom Government. Plus I will be having three characters in the same area, Quillanoi. Easle Quathak, Chair of the Council of Supervison, Awaq Hera, diplomatic messenger for President Russell (currenlty not in Quillanoi but will be returning very soon), and Richard Lenseth, Commander of the Siom Sheriff Deputy Force sent to Quillanoi. Now with this current rule I will have to have one leave Quillanoi for good and I will have to have one my character leave an area if that deal goes down with Siom. There should be some flexiblility.

[Solfius]

Also without doubt Siom may experience less workers working for them as characters who would have worked for them cannot due to the number of characters already working there, which I believe is acceptable due to the size of Siom and it's influence, which could mean you have 4 or so characters or no particular importance, maybe one of them somewhat respected or important, all working witout ever meeting.

I think what is beginning to emerge is that this rule should be flexible dependant on size, as the larger a group gets the harder it is to avoid them, and the easier it is to join, but have little impact or the sort that a group of characters can have in a small and compact group.

[XBL]

I have 7 dutch characters. 4 of them live in Sil (or around Sil, gathering resources) and 3 of them in Llanoi.

Those 2 city's are the only dutch city's, so it's impossible for me to take a new dutch character. I know there might will come a new dutch city, but still, that means for dutch-only people, they can only have 9 characters.

Jochem

[Thomas Pickert]

The PD are well aware, that non-english areas suffer from a lack of spawning locations.

[Thomas Pickert]

Also without doubt Siom may experience less workers working for them...

This is a personal thing, not an official statement:
Could you please, please refrain from such prophecies? I know that it might be a valid strategy in a debate to make such statements to persuade your opponent of your point-of-view. But I, personally, consider that bad style. It reminds me of the hilarious statement of that one player (who is still playing), that the introduction of the time limit will drive all players away from Cantr. He went a step further, and even said, that many had already been gone, especially the 'influential' ones.

That's something you can really upset me with.

And please, don't forget, that the PD consists of people who are both reasonable and experienced. If you have a woodchopper in Siom, and someone who was ordered by the stonecutter in Siom to collect stone, and someone else, whose profession is to be farming, then that won't be a problem.

If you, however, have three characters in leading positions, that's a different talk. It is really suspicious, if your character is the head of an organization, and two other characters of yours are the heads of outposts of the same organization. In such a situation, it is questionable, if your organization would have become that influential without your own characters developping it. And that is imbalancing the game and will be addressed and dealt with.

When I played Cantr very actively, I had my share of 15 characters, and many of them spawned in same places. I'm not a 1337 roleplayer like some of our players, which I envy for their skills, but I never ever had problems keeping my characters separate from each other. If I can manage that, it shouldn't be a problem for other players either.

[Solfius]

I didn't write it with any debate style in mind. I don't study or know anything about that, except some random stuff about rehtoric and quoting facts and stuff. That statement resulted form me starting off to say one thing, changing my mind halfway through, then going back and adjusting the first half so it made sense. I did note that it was a tricky statement as although compltey true it did make it sound like something bad was inevitbale to happen to Siom, when it actually said (in simpler words) this definately could happen, not that it would.

The point I was trying to make was that if the situation you outlined, (woodcutter, stone cutter, farmer etc) then it wouldn't be allowed.

Now I dislike exchanging blows of the sort that result in bad feelings and no useful result, but this sounds like a jab at me:

<quote=Thomas Pickert>If you, however, have three characters in leading positions, that's a different talk. It is really suspicious, if your character is the head of an organization, and two other characters of yours are the heads of outposts of the same organization.</quote>

I'm sure you're not trying to do anything like that, but especially the reference about outposts makes it sound personal to me, and I'm sure you can appreciate that it gets to me in the same way as debate technques as above.

[Thomas Pickert]

It was merely an example, but if it applies to you, then you should think about ways to let your characters dissolve. Because that is (and was earlier) a violation of the Capital Rule. It is really very unlikely to have three (or more?) characters in one of your organisations, all taking up leading roles, and all working towards one common goal.

[Solfius]

well no, it doesn't apply, but it sounded like it might have been directed at me as an example.

As it is I don't have 3 chars taking up leading roles, I have 2 and I find that it's too much and want to do somethign about, so I can't see why anyone would want all their chars doing all the work, as that would just be too much work for me.

[Thomas Pickert]

Yes, that's a nice coincidence, that the resulting workload actually sort of prohibits that kind of violation.
But some people have a lot of time (and energy) on their hands and might still do that, in order to become eally influential in the game. And that's where the balance is off then.

[Solfius]

yes, I know. I never had any plans of early influence I have always preferrred to wait until I'm properly ready for such things.

Anyway, could you further clarify what happens with large organisations like Siom with regards to 3 people?

you've given examples of what happens when circumstances dictate 3+ chars need to congregate.

What I'm concerned about is large groups not growing anymore because no one joins as they already have 2 many characters in the group. Characters who would otherwise join won't. (although not all characters would decide to join anyway, but that just goes to compund the problem as a low recruitment rate would fall to even less.)

[Jos Elkink]

Please keep in mind that this new clarification is a rule that will be used with a somewhat flexible attitude. That means, that the PD can decide that you have to break up a group of characters because you are breaking the capital rule, without having the prove this other than showing that you have several characters in one group, while if you can give a good explanation, the PD can decide not to take any action.

The problem is mainly that it is often impossible for the PD to prove you are breaking the rules, while you clearly are. This rule gives the PD a 'tool' to act in such a case. If you can really convince them there is no problem, they can still act flexibly.