Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

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Llama
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Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Llama »

Bunch of questions regarding the faction policies and plans.

1. Are we allowed/expected to petition faction leaders for things?
(Ex: "Could we have a bigger workshop/cheaper prices/building of a hairdresser")

2. Are interfaction relationships completely in the hands of the GMs, or are they logical and can be toyed with?
(Ex: "Guild X from Caddy fights with Guild Y from Galmair and so the Queen of Caddy decides to rattle the sabre? Or will two Gms decide it'll be fun to have a war and a war occurs)

3. Will Faction Leader decisions be completely detached from player opinions? or would the Faction leader ask for council from guild leaders? people with high standing?

4. Will it be possible to modify or build buildings according to the Faction's needs ?

5. Will it be possible to modify or build buildings according to player's needs?

6. How much are the faction leaders allowed to modify the economy? Could a Faction leader 'gear up for war' and purchase a lot of weapons? Could the faction need to build something and require lots of stone?

7. Are the tithes and donations lost? Or are they stored for Factional use? (As in, could the faction leader decide to build X, or buy X and need Y money to do so?)

8. Is there a plans for a feudal system of some sort?

(Can't think of any more right now - will add later?)
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Estralis Seborian »

1. Are we allowed/expected to petition faction leaders for things?

Yes, of course! An audience took place today in Cadomyr. Keep in mind that the faction leaders are also roleplayed characters, so they might refuse petitions.

2. Are interfaction relationships completely in the hands of the GMs, or are they logical and can be toyed with?

I do not quite understand... Us GMs are present ingame as faction leaders and we will spark events. Of course, you, the players, determine what happens ingame, we "just" throw in keywords once in a while. If your character does not act in compliance with the factions' ways, he might get expelled. But as usual, us GMs do listen and encourage you to play like your role demands.

3. Will Faction Leader decisions be completely detached from player opinions? or would the Faction leader ask for council from guild leaders? people with high standing?

That is an ingame matter! This depends on the faction leader. But what you will not see: Democracy.

4. Will it be possible to modify or build buildings according to the Faction's needs ?

Later, yes, but for now, we do not build new stuff. Also, there won't be "player buildings" anymore, we're thinking about a renting system for guild houses and similar things. But nothing is implemented yet.

5. Will it be possible to modify or build buildings according to player's needs?

No.

6. How much are the faction leaders allowed to modify the economy? Could a Faction leader 'gear up for war' and purchase a lot of weapons? Could the faction need to build something and require lots of stone?

Yes, totally and to full extend.

7. Are the tithes and donations lost? Or are they stored for Factional use? (As in, could the faction leader decide to build X, or buy X and need Y money to do so?)

They are stored, stay tuned... something nice is coming up :-)

8. Is there a plans for a feudal system of some sort?

Ingame matters stay ingame matters. You can earn a rank in each faction. This rank will have its effect.
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Llama »

Thank you for your time Esty. I'm very curious to see what's in store ;)
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

Will faction leaders always stay in a GM controlled position?
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Lillian »

rakust dorenstkzul wrote:Will faction leaders always stay in a GM controlled position?
Probably.
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Estralis Seborian
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Maybe we get rid of the GMs one day... But not of the faction leaders.
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forty
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by forty »

Is a player able to become a faction leader with a proper support from fellow players, or will the NPCs always dominate the majority?
Realistically, how high up the political ladder can a player climb, if they do everything machiavellianly correct?
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Lillian »

forty wrote:Is a player able to become a faction leader with a proper support from fellow players, or will the NPCs always dominate the majority?
It's not planned up to now to make that possible.
forty wrote:Realistically, how high up the political ladder can a player climb, if they do everything machiavellianly correct?
Depends on the faction and the GM behnd the faction leader. There is no general answer to it.
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Djironnyma »

Keep in mind nat nearly any NPC of a town reffer to the faction leader. So if the leader would change any year that would mean a giant effort to change any npc (and books etc...). The nice point about the faction leaders is, that even if one of the GMs behind get inactive you can choose a new one without have to change the content.

Anyway its up to you how many influence you have to your town leader. If your char have a high rank, enough support of other high rank chars, the right arguments and roleplay, i m sure you can reach nearly anything.
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Perry »

Don is inactive now, why did no one change him? :D
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Djironnyma »

the don isnt inactive, last quest was two days away, there are 3 more quests planned. Please keep in mind that illarion is a game for occasional players and further more that all our GMs have also a rl with work, social contacts and other hobbys as illarion. It will never be the way, that you have your faction leader any evening ig for your personal request.
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Leon Demelii
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Leon Demelii »

Djironnyma wrote:the don isnt inactive, last quest was two days away, there are 3 more quests planned. Please keep in mind that illarion is a game for occasional players and further more that all our GMs have also a rl with work, social contacts and other hobbys as illarion. It will never be the way, that you have your faction leader any evening ig for your personal request.
This is well said.

GM's don't just sit at a computer desk and wait for you... They have other things going on in RL. Just as you and me...they all have things going on. Illarion is a hobby, not a job. Just ask anyone that works on the game itself.
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Perry
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Perry »

Was no ranting, only asked... since I personally never seen the Don online, while the queen and the archmage are almost always to be found.

Cheers :D
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by forty »

Website says that Illarion is "persistant world" game. I think game like Shadowbane or Wurm. Persistant: players can build, modify map, destroy. Things players do stay and leave trace, shape the world. Person A builds a house, goes inactive, house decays. Person B adventures, finds the ruin, continues rebuilding Person A's house. Etc. Consequences.

Illarion so far seems a static world. Events human-GM driven. Buildings - not allowed. Shift of power not planned. Content heavy reliant on static figures.

So is it persistant world in the same fashion? If not, how? Do players matter in long run?

Thank you for explanation!
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Jupiter »

forty wrote:Do players matter in long run?
No but your char :P
You don't influence the world by killing thousand of monsters, build a house no one cares for which will be gone sometime anway. You influence by creating relationships. By forming groups of intereset, by persuading the town leaders.
"The Great Grain War was started by Henry Hackeschmidt, who convinced the Archmage that Galmarians kept stealing Runewick's grain." is shaping the world. Not: "Yeah, Henry Something, that guy built a house. Now it's gone." :D
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Oxi »

Agreed shaping the world should have very little to do with 'I am rich, now I have a big house'... that would get slightly monotonous. Oppressed groups have an annoying habit of getting uppity though and no leader in theory is invincible so it will be interesting to see how that works out. Some good points seem to have been raised and itwould be interesting to hear more views.

I have to say I have some reservations about GM-only led factions as a permanent solution and would far prefer a GM-player supported approach in the future. Just to make it clear this is certainly not a GM bash - they have a hell of a lot to get their heads around at the moment. An observation for the future though... Someone who makes a good GM may not make a good PO of a leading character and vice a versa but both are needed to make the game a success. It would be detrimental to the game if opportunities to use a wider range of active players were missed simply by relying on looking backwards. Obviously nobody wants to be rewriting the story so to disrupt the existing hierarchies would be counterproductive. I see no reason why long term leadership cannot eventually come from a perceived lower level of command with the existing leading characters retained as figureheads (oh look I'm a Royal loving Brit :lol:). Of course this may be what they have planned with the recruitment of player characters to different posts so there has to be an element of wait and see :P
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Re: Bunch of Questions Regarding Factions

Post by Firefly »

RE: Oxi - Our current Faction leader GMs are just that: Faction leaders. We were chosen for our work on the story team and more behind the scenes (since players don't see everything :P ), and not because we proved to be good technical GMs. We are not the GMs you go to when you are having a problem OOC, or need stat changes, or are having game problems (though we can direct you to those who do these things and can help out when they are short-handed). Our main focus is factions. We run the factions, and that is all. That is the main thing we Faction GMs need to get our heads around: running our factions.

There is room to grow and change in the world of Illarion, for the factions as well as for the characters, but we have decided that the factions will be GM run for the foreseeable future with no plans to change that. We may raise players to more prominent positions, but never to the point where they will run the faction.

There are days and weeks when we may not see a player in game, and the same goes for faction leaders.

RE: Anyone Who Thinks That The Faction Leaders Are Not Active - Some days we just aren't active at all, and other days we are overly-active. The game runs 24 hours a day, and your Faction GMs all live in different time zones, so when we log in as our designated Faction leader, we may not be playing while you are awake. Please also remember that no one "works" for Illarion. This is something we all do in our spare time, and we all have jobs or go to university, so Illarion is something of a hobby. Like anything else that forces obligation on a person, if you feel you have no choice but to log in when you don't "feel like it", then the game loses its shine. We want our players AND our GMs to stay interested, and so we are all allowed to log in and out whenever it urge hits us. :D

I think a lot of problems arose in the past 10+ years where players assumed that GMs were simply GMs all of the time, and that they had nothing better to do than to play the game 24 hours a day. This forced the GMs to log in even when they shouldn't, and to play even when they weren't in the mood for it, because players expected it of them. The demand for them to be 100% active was tiring and was the cause of a lot of them quitting the game, I think, so please remember that none of us is a full time GM, only full time humans with some spare time to play a game.
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