The IMMs dream of 4d: I want to know

[Tocharaeh]

Okay, this is a very serious quest I am posing to the 4D staff.

What is YOUR vision of 4d?
here's another:
HOW will your vision impact the playerbase?
one more:
How you do propose we ATTRACT other players?

These are very important and crucial questions and I'll tell you why. I don't see people staying here for very long. We have to compete with newer better graphics based mmporgs out there, and newsflash, they're growing fast. Not only that but aside from probably the most unique and amazing quest system out there (most everyone else uses AUTUOQUEST, and eq is easy to find if you're powerful to kill the baddies), but we also have probably the most descriptive mud out there. Really, people don't go out of their way to go as in depth as we do.

However, that's all we got. I'm sorry but that's not enough to DRAW anyone in for very long save the select few who don't mind not having any in depth class system. The select few who don't mind walking around by themselves, because let's face it we are NOT the most friendly mud out there, and we're made up of either recall junkies, and/or loners.

How to you ;propose to fix this? Our PK system sucks. The use of heals is rediculous. And our class/skill/spell system isn't something to be proud about. It really isn't.

this isn't a 4D bashing session because you nall know I love it very much. it takes love to say all of this. I can log on "bigger" muds and always see a player base average of 60-94 players a day. Granted we don't NEED that many, but I for one would love so see 20-40. It's dead, it's quiet (too quiet), and there is no substance there for RP events, and clan wars. What do you propose do to about this?

Building is not an issue. We know it comes down to coding being the issue, but we need to do something that puts us in our own special niche that DRAWS players. We should throw ourselves up on wiki like many of the muds have, get added to the Z(C)MUD, GMUD (and whatever other clients) mud LISTS, and start advertising. Poeple need to find us. Mud Connector isn't going to cut it.

Our class system need to be cleaned up. It's messy, and nothing to be proud of. We need DIFFINITIVE classes, and TRUE professions (class based) that give every player a unique job in the world. We need SUPPLY and DEMAND. We need these things. believe it or not its THESE things that DRAW players.

What I'm asking from IMMs and other players in input, and ideas. What I don't want to hear is "Well just because others muds are doing it doesn't mean we should", and other such excuses (not answeres/responses, they are excuses). I want to hear true answers and ideas.

I love 4D, I always have and always will. I am willing to do anything for this mud given I have enough time. I am here for YOU.

Tocharaeh

[Molly]

Hmm, where to begin...?
You had three questions, so let me start with those.

What's your vision for 4D?
- A place where you can relax from the Real World, while both having fun and facing some challenges.
- A fully fledged world to explore, with lots of different choices of what to do.
- A place where each player can choose their own path;  to explore in peace or go PK, to Roleplay or just chat, to go questing or just hack'n'slash
- A place where player privacy is respected by the imms, and where players respect both the staff and other players
- A place where the players can solve their own issues, and don't expect the imms to help or meddle every time there is a problem

HOW will your vision impact the playerbase?
Frankly, I don't understand the question.
Our player base has always been rather small, possibly because we never targetted the mainstream.
Even at best we very rarely got above 30 at peak. Nowadays we are lucky to reach 15.

Does this worry me? Of course it does. There are times when I ask myself whether it's worth the effort to keep this big place going for so few players. The paradoxical thing is that the staff is a lot more stable than the players. There is at least a small core of staff that is active and present and working on the mud, whereas the players tend to come and go, and sometimes disappear for months at the time.
You have been almost totally inactive yourself for at least a year. Now you come back and wonder where the other players went. My question back is - where were YOU?

I think the dwindling playerbase is something that we share with most Text Muds, although it's most noticeable, and becomes most of a problem for the Muds that were small from th beginning..
The graphic Muds have taken most of the total pbase , and the large commercials take an increasing part of what remains, partly because they have the money to do some heavy advertising.

Sadly enough I think another reason is that a majority of today's players actually like the pay-for-perks system, which I myself find detrimental to any skill game.
We are not a commercial game, so that path is closed to us in any case. Even if we wanted to, the Circle licence forbids it.
Consequently there are no funds for advertising, and even paying for the server each month is a bit of a strain, since that money goes out of our own pocket.

You say:
'We should throw ourselves up on wiki like many of the muds have, get added to the Z(C)MUD, GMUD (and whatever other clients) mud LISTS, and start advertising.'

Do you know how much advertising costs? If not, go in on TMC and TMS and have a look at their prices. Do you have that kind of money? I don't.
Still, I've said that I'll pay for a banner on one of the big Mud sites for a couple of months, and I think the artist that made the graphics on our website is working on the banner. But I honestly don't believe it will have much impact. For advertising to really give effect, it needs to be kept up over a long time period, like the commercial Muds do.
And do you even have a clue about how much it would cost to get a special listing on ZMud or the other clients? They auction the spots out every year, and all the big commercials compete for them. we just don't have that kind of money.

As for Wikipedia, they don't even accept entries for singular Text Muds, unless you can prove to them that the mud is 'notable'. You probably missed the very long and heated discussion thread on TMS, which ensued after Threshold got their entry removed by the Wikipedia editors. If you want to have a look, here's the link.
http://www.topmudsites.com/forums/tavern-blue-hand/5287-defense-all-muds-our-genres-noteworthiness-being-questioned.html
Threshold is a much larger, older and more well known Mud than 4D. How long do you think they'd let OUR entry stay?

I think the Admin already have done all the obvious external things that can be done, except for paid advertising.

4D is listed on all possible lists, and there are 5 different links on our websites where you can vote for us every day, to get higher on the rankings.
Being high on a list does play at least some roll, because most people don't bother to scroll down more than one page at the most. But very few of our players ever bother to click those links, and we don't want to harrass them to do it, like some Muds do. So that's one thing you could do right now - vote once a day on all links. When is the last time you did that yourself?

There ARE some other things that can be done to draw attention to a Mud, for instance taking part in discussions on Mudrelated websites, writing articles, mentioning the Mud's name, and writing player reviews.  How many of our players do that? When is the last time you did it yourself?

How you do propose we ATTRACT other players?
I think the question is put wrongly.
You should instead ask yourself what YOU and other players can do to attract other players - or maybe rather to KEEP them or at least make them stay longer.

You say that 'we are NOT the most friendly mud out there'.
My question back to you is; Is that the fault of the imms or the player culture?
How friendly are the players in general? How friendly are you yourself?
Is PK and Clan wars the best way to attract new players? Or is it perhaps the best way to lose some of the ones we already got?

As for the code and design issues you mention, you need to be a lot more specific if you want to be constructive.
Statements like Our PK system sucks. The use of heals is rediculous. And our class/skill/spell system isn't something to be proud about.' are not worth much, unless you have solid and well thought through suggestions of what should be done instead.

Frankly - I am disappointed in you.
Complaining of the efforts  - or lack of efforts - of others is easy. Doing something constructive is much harder.

So, where are your own concrete, constructive and realistic suggestions about how to improve the playerbase?

[Tocharaeh]

First I'll gladly answer your question about where I was for the last year: I was busy taking 21 credit hours per term for the last year so as to graduate early rather than in four years. Such an amount of baggae is like having a full time job on top of a second job. Little time, little sleep, and a lot of work. That's exactly where I have been.

Second: I think the brunt of my original post was missed due to sensativity. There is a point I am trying to make here. And I have fully acknowledged that our mud is THE place for exploration, and question. We're top-notch. There should be no dissapointment here whatsoever. What I have been trying to get at for years now, along with other older players like myself who knows what really KEEPS people, is this: We need a cleaner system.

We need a class system that actually creates MUD diversity.
We need a better PK system that isn't 3 hits and you're dead based upon what eq someone has. PK should be skill based, not eq based. DMG is way too high. PK should be fun, and slightly draw out. Not 5 seconds. The gladiators were perfect for the most part because battles actually LASTED, and PK was actually fun again.
Our magic system needs re-tweaking. It's boring, and lame. You have alignment based spells that should NOT exist. No spell should be alignment based, ever.
The Alignment system is not the greatest either. Why should my actions decides how I morally feel? If I kill an ewok, I'm evil...but if I kill a Storm Trooper, I'm suddenly the good guy? Alignment should be something you just choose from the start of things. Its very simple: nuetral: good/true/evil, Good: lawful/neutral/chaotic, Evil: lawful/neutral/chaotic. This forces people to choose what they want to start out as, and maybe along the road if they decide they want to RP good guys or bad guys, and change their alignment, seek out a RPL and hold some sessions, get have the alignment changes.

I have countlessly offered a cleaner, and in depth class system that is based upon reclasses, with the ability to advance to GM OF given class field Example: Warrior > Battlerager > War Monger, Mage > Enchanter >  Mystic.
And as anyone versed in this kind of system knows after you completed Warrior and move on to something greater, you get anywhere from two to four choices. Each class has something unique to bring to the field, and people have their own niche.
I have also offered suggestions for our current system to be midofied so as to create unique GMS based upon what choices they make. For example: Bobby has mastered Thief and Ranger, buy going T2 in both classes he has met the reqs for a GM quest to become a Shadowstepper, once the quest is comeplete he starts working his way up to the T4 GM class, and is happy-honkie-dory.
The system above is a perfectly viable system. Both of them are in fact. One would require overhaul, and I'm CONFIDENT that there would be players willing to help out in order to build the first system.

There has been way to much gimping in the past with heals. They're not worth spit, and are heavy as all hell. I understand that some people were hoarding certain items and so on, but instead of giving them no real reason to hoard anything by just making all heals standard and not lame, nobody would hoard. Instead they were gimped, and we complained. We were told "well group more then, get a healer". We did, and then grouping was gimped.

Grouping is a vital part of 4D. When we could group, we were happy, and closer. Aside from quests where we could not group, we were happy doing runs in dinos or what have you. This is the only place that I have ever seen Staff actually complain, and GIMP grouping. EVER. This is not how it's supposed to work!

People wonder why the majority of players hang out at recall: We hang out because it's not lonely. We like company. By gimping the grouping feature, we found another way. This of course doesn't speak for those who like being alone, but I myself am a social creature, and like to talk. God forbid we ever talk on gossip, because if you do people call it spam instead of turning it off. This is the ONLY mud where I have experienced this kind of behavior.

I am not attacking you, and there should be no reason for dissapointment. I am doing my job as a player to ask the hard questions.
You are wrong in assuming it's OUR job as the player base to attract and keep players. That's not how it works. People stay based upon the first impression of the mud, the players come second. Show them something more than just reading and questing. People want diversity, and feel like what they are accomplishing within the game they can be proud of. Quests aren't enough. Gypsy and Mage are just about the only guys out there that have any kind og prospect for money/tokens. And I don't know if you've noticed at all, but NEITHER funds flow anymore. Nobody pays for anything. MOney is not needed, and tokens are so three years ago. We hoard them to invest in houses, and pets. Not equipment, or equipment mods. there is no supply and demand.

the strong and weak elements idea was a good one, but not complete. Spells being impacted by elements, makes sense. But what about element based weaponry? What about element-based MOBS? Oh look, it's a frost giant, I need a fiery dagger to fight him! It's an idea that is incomplete, but it's a good one. We need more expansion and clarification.

What I'm saying here is the draw players we need more than just neato-unique questing systems,and a couple friendly faces. These newer players need more. You want to compete with graphics muds and such, I'm telling you how. We ALREADY have an edge, and you don't even realize it. We are just missing a vital piece to this puzzle.

I am happy to sit down with anyone and write a system, hammer it out, and and hand it over at any time. We could do all of the work in creating the ideas behind the skills/spells/abilities. All we would need is a coder willing to work with us. I can speak japanese, not code. But I can also write and create.

I don't know much about advertising, clearly. If we can't do it in particular ways, well let's work with keeping all the new ones that do pop on. It's going to take more than some hello's, and quests. People want grouping and diversity. Provide us with our special niche, and I garauntee the pbase will pick up quickly.

-Tocharaeh
  No Spin Zone

[Molly]

Thanks for that response, Toch. 
Now that's what I call a constructive post, (in contrast to the first one, which at least to me came out as just whining).

So, some of the things you address are being worked on, and I agree it is taking too much time. What can I say? You're not the only one having a real life that gets in the way, coders do too. And some of the things you are asking for are huge changes, which will not only affect the balance, but the zones and quests as well. A large old Mud like 4D is a bit like a 'White elephant', and since the code has been a bit of a pachtwork from the start, we have to be careful not to break something that wasn't intended. This all means that changes aren't as easy as they may look from the outside.

Let's start with grouping. To me that's the most important feature in the Mud, and I am all for it being promoted as much as possible. To me grouping is not just about killing mobs easier, it's the most important social feature in the mud, since it's a lot more fun doing things together than alone.

I believe the reason why it was gimped in the past was that there was too much powerlevelling. It became a habit to get some friends to powerlevel new alts, so that people would gain 10+ remorts in one day, which obviously never was the intention with the system. A lot of people used to complain about it back then, and I guess the coders listened to the players, and tried to do something about it.

However, the feeling among the majority has obviously changed, and again the coders are listening. Mordecai has been working on revamping the grouping system for quite some time, and I hope there will be some result to show for it soon. I'm no coder myself, and the mathematics are above my head too, but to me the most important thing would be that you should be able to group with anyone in the Mud, regardless of level or tier, and all parties in a group shoulld gain from it, as compared to fighting alone. If that means some powerlevelling, I guess we'll have to live with that, and even the ones that complained the loudest in the past seem to now agree that something more like the old system would be better than what we have now.

Next; heals.
I don't agree with you there. I think heals already play a much too large role in fighting, and the outcome of a fight should not be determined by who quaffs heals fastest. Skills should play a much larger role, and if grouping gets fixed, healing from the spellcasters would play a greater role too. Perhaps the main problem is with PvP. I think fighting mobs is pretty balanced by now, but maybe the damage you do should be lowered when fighting other players, for the fights to last longer. This is just speculation from my side, and maybe it's not even possible to code, but it might be worth looking into.

Equipment traditionally plays a big role in 4D, and you need to be a good questor to get most of the top equipment. Perhaps equipment has become too important, but I can imagine the storm of protests that would ensue if we started to gimp that. So the road to go would be to make skills and spells mean more in a fight, and that alone is one huge task. Perhaps we could set up a reference group of players and coders, working on this, and testing continually with the Gladiators. That is - if we can find enough people who are willing to actually engage in something that needs a lot of work - not just talk.

Align is a rather small issue in my opinion, and also one where I don't agree with you. Sure, it's not very logical in a strict sense of view, but how many thing in a mud are logical? Align is used in different ways to add diversity to several of the Quests and zones, and I think it should be kept as it is. It's just something that the players need to take into consideration when acting, so in my opinion it's part of the player skill you acquire with experience.

Class: Again I agree with you, at least partly. I'd like to see a more diversified system, where all top players don't have the same skills and spells. (In fact personally I prefer the stock Diku system, where each  class has its defined strength and weaknesses, but I am probably pretty alone in that). Again, this is a huge change, it needs lots of time, consideration and work, and it's not certain that the change will be a popular one. Most players nowadays seem to prefer classless systems, where they can pick and choose between the skills/spells - and that in turn naturally leads to everyone picking the most powerful combination.
Class only affects my area of interest peripherally, (it's used in some Quests to send players on different paths dependent on Class). So again, it's something that should be worked out between the players and the Coders, and you'd need a reference group for it, because it is by no means certain that your views in this represents the majority opinion.

In conclusion:
Hopefully, the biggest issue - grouping - will be resolved soon.
My suggestion is to start two new threads, one for the PvP system (Skills/spells versus equipment) and another for Class. See if you can reach some sort of consensus about it, because with the amount of work involved, it's important that we all pull in the right direction.

[Xeriuth]

Although you'd be asking the imms I'll be answering anyways, cause, I do what I want! *chuckle*
.. It's long, happy reading .. '-'

Wonderful I love constructive posts. It's been some time since one! Progress! I'll give my input once again on my views of how to fix such problems.

Grouping: This surely is a problem although it has many ways to be reworked and it's already been changed to divide the exp rewarded equally among any whom of which do damage to the mob. So if you are mounted, and the mount hits, they get exp, if you have a poison weapon, the weapon gets experience, and of course if you have another player in your group that does damage, they receive it as well. Almost needless to say the exp from the mount and weapon is just simply wasted experience.

A quick temporary fix to make grouping more worthwhile and desireable is to give grouping a minor boost in the exp rewarded and keep it divided equally among only the players, nothing else.

This shouldn't hurt anything because if we'd be planning a class overhaul down the road,
everyone is going to lose their remorts anyways so what do we have to lose? If anything we have much to gain, more players having fun and them progressing through the levels much quicker and feeling more accomplished.

Heals: Heals are a problem yes but something that with the current pve and pvp(pk) system is needed. Priests heal for quite a lot on other players, upwards of 2k a heal, it is more than sufficient. 3x heal pots are also more than sufficient but are in turn much more rare than others. I do agree that with the amount of health we can achieve that the 3x cure critic potions are a litte gimped as well as the spell cure critic. Cure light is supposed to be the minor heal, and it surely is, healing around 20health, and curecritic 100 on self, 200-300 on others.  I'd imagine that is a quick fix in just changing a few numbers within that portion of the code. I could be wrong, but that is just what I imagine.
Other than that, there really isn't anything that should be done about healing at this point in time because most of it will have to be changed with a new skill/spell/class system.

Alignment: Alignment is kind of pointless, but yes it is relevant as Molly mentioned to a point. I can think of a few such zones that have implemented a few alignment checks for you to perform certain tasks of which you otherwise might now have been allowed to without a certain alignment. But that is very limited, it is a very uncommon to come across this and the limited uses could be changed in a few ways. Such as using Toch's idea of having you choose your alignment during creation, just use that flag then in the quests, if you are evil the mobs respond one way and if good another way. The rewards can be the same or different, or there couldnt be any different responses due to alignment, it'd simply be up to the builder.
All in all I'd like to see Toch's idea implemented which this could then tie into clans...

Clans: Although not mentioned to this point I still feel clans play just as much a viable role in mud growth as grouping. Molly already suggested this back in August while I was in Basic training, so to revisit much of what was said there I'll continue on..

I agree there are too many inactive leaders, or leaders that simply no longer want to be leader. As you said people that log on once a month should not lead clans and that I agree with as well. And with that said we do indeed have too many clans for our current player base. I have a few proposals to clear up this issue which can be very entertaining at the same time beneficial for the time being, but I'll go into that in just a bit.

Let us look at the clans and the clan leaders of such clans at this current time.
We have VIKINGS, DARK-JEDIS, SICILIANS, TABLE ROUND, CHAOS, DRAGONS, SAINTS,
VAMPIRE, WAMPHYRE, SEEKERS and MORDONOSSE
Vikings: Hesara - active
Dark-Jedi: Fiachra - active;  Asmoday- logs in, but not very active
Sicilians: Jason- at least logs in semi-frequently; Tocharaeh- active enough
Table Round: Garion- inactive since September 26th, 2008, priorly inactive since March 24th, 2008.
Chaos: Kitolani- active; Virisin- not very active
Dragons: Loran- active; Alayna- inactive
Saints: Riley- active
Vampire: Natalya- not very active
Wamphyre: test clan, irrelevant
Seekers: Activeness is what we hope for!
Mordonosses: Robert: not very active

So in conclusion the inactive clans in respect to their clan leader are Table Round, Vampire, and Mordonosse.
A way to fix inactiveness of clans was laid out very much so in Molly's former post in the General Discussions section of the forums. And all of which could work. Such as:
-Removing all inactive clan leaders manually, but as two of the rather inactive leaders have in fact at least logged in the last month that'd be a bit unfair at this given moment for them.
-Make a retired rank above the clanleader rank where responsibilities of leader position are lost, but the title remains as (Clanname Leader) on who or (Clanname Veteran) or (Clanname Ancient), you get the picture. ;-)
-Maybe have an automatic system that removes clanleaders to the retired rank after a such allocated amount of time has passed. And in turn automatically promotes someone anew.

As Molly said much of this could be too complicated so another solution is to wait for the 'quick' solution and demote such individuals, make note that they were in fact leader. And once the rank is implemented, repromote them to the appropriate rank. That is as temporary a solution as it gets. A simple reminder that there is already, is the 4d clan office where it lists retired leaders. The names will always be there, and until the rank is added that can be sufficient, if that's not good enough for those of such that are considered retired then maybe they should play more to have a say in the matter.

Aside from all of that I have a solution that can also clear up some of the excess clans. I'll start by saying that first off to my knowledge once upon a time there was a clan called Qualinesti, and the Dark-Jedi took them over in some RP fashion sense and the Qualinesti hall became part of the Dark-Jedi. A clan wiped off the map. Later down the road while we did have a decent playerbase the Qualinesti revolted and once again became a clan again of which we now call Mordonosse.
This type of ordeal required little to no effort on the coders part to accomplish. The RP event and everything was made and fashioned by the players and builders. The coders simply had to add a new clan or remove a clan from the system (I'm sure it's possible to even simply comment it out of the code in whatever sections that clan is present).

With that said we could just start eliminating clans as seen fit, as long as a general concensus is ok with that or why not just do it, who is there to complain afterall? Is it going to affect old players to leave? Probably not all who stay, stay for a reason and if we stick around this long there's no much to do to harm that. Also it wouldn't hurt people in staying if anything depending on how the clans come and go add some spice to the mud and might be an attraction. So what I ask is, why not?
Why not, just start doing things about the problems instead of just talking about them. Perhaps let us say that Dark-Jedi is still irritated that the Qualinesti got away so they unleash an assault on the Mordonosse and crush them and enslave them once again. All member of Mordonosse currently can then go to whatever clan of their choosing, and the current clanhall can just be shut off or become connected to the DJ hall, the choice can be up to the current leader I'd imagine. But this scenario can eliminate Mordonosse from the picture. To make it happen just need to have Robert the acting leader agree on this happening.
Let us say Chaos in all its chaoticness spreads the chaos it so chaotically spreads and causes all the vamires to become chaotic and in turn part of chaos, the RP sense of the being vampires remains but they just become part of chaos, and merge the two clans. In time when the playerbase picks up Vampires can split, but at this point it can only benefit to merge the two. I feel they go together the best.
Another scenario could be let us say Table Round gets a new leader and this new leader leads a quest to fight for the right of being a dragon master, afterall knights are in stories are portrayed as dragon slayers, and the dragons clan are known to be dragon masters. Which one wins, the master or the slayers, maybe time will tell?

These cases are something that Tocharaeh would be grand at helping with, as he is very good at writing, as Molly is also.  There are many possibilities but this is just what I can think of off the top of my head. Like the even is known in history from times to come as the ultimate clan wars, and are written in the libraries of necromunda and the Town hall of olde yorke. Heck why not just make it really easy and have the imms do this.....
Soooo, you know all you puny mortals, we are imms afterall and we do what we want, so we are taking this, this, and this clan and putting them up for auction, Why, do you ask? Well becasuse we can, and we feel this might in fact clear up much of the inflation in the economy, so have fun bidding! May the mud never be the same again! *cackle*

Classes:  Classes are indeed out of wack and my personal favorite that I'd like to see happen that I feel would be most beneficial in growth would in fact be a classless system. Incorporate a huge array of spells and skills so players can decide to be a powerhouse of spells, or a power house of melee, or a powerhouse of healing, or a utility powerhouse, or maybe even a jack of all trades. I gauruntee not everyone will choose the same line up of skills/spells if there is a large large selection, and a limited amount to pick.  Most systems with this do not have a remort system and a remort system could be there simply for getting a choice, perhaps more hp per level, an extra skill point to spend on a skill, etc. So everytime one remorts they can choose something new, and their skill/spell choices are removed and must be rediscovered. There are many possibilities for this and I agree it would be wise to start another thread specificially for class. Likewise for skills/spells to perhaps just have everyone think up cool names for spells/skills and descriptions etc, And taht way we can pick and choose down the road.

A classless system will also eliminate class restrictions on equipment which will be nice. However race restrictions should still remain, as to they can make sense to as the reasons they are the way they are.

Equipment: I feel a bit on all sides of the equipment side of things and as to how important it should be. I think at this point in time it is pointless to even make any determination until we would see how a new class system would work. And in turn the stats system might need tweaked as well. It will all require a lot of playertesting, so maybe suggest when we do find a coder up to the challenge, have player tester applications for the testing port to try out new stuff?

That is all for now, I've rattled off everything that was in my thoughts at this point in time, and I know i've rambled a lot, but bear with me, we are trying to makes some progress and I tried to be as constructive as I could. So what do you think?

[Kvetch]

Pesonally, I think we have too many clans for too few people.  So, maybe Xeri's idea of folding some clans into others would work,  though I'd hate to pull Vampires away only because Natalya's mostly afk.  Faeryl seem to be doing quite a bit with the rp aspect
of Vampires right now.  But if we had to go with inactivity of the CL than I'd agree. 

I'd also like to see more of clans.  One of the reasons I hesitated joining a clan as Cati way back when, was because I thought there was going to be some clan vs clan or some such action and me being a complete anti-pk person, it just wouldn't fit in with the way I am.  But, clans need to be more than just a group of people that can chat to each other via another channel.  So, perhaps clans should be for the pkers while the rest of us get to have the rp groups and get to be loners.  It would make sense for Table Round and Chaos to be at each others throats (no matter that Xeri says they're too distracted by their quest for the grail) because good should always be trying to thwart evil and vice versa.  As for the neutral clans?  I don't know.  I've just been disappointed by clans since I joined one (sorry).  It felt like there should be more to it, but there never was that I saw.

Alignment:  I do like the idea of choosing your alignment because YOU should know what alignment your character should be.  For others, they can choose neutral.  This could also go into some skills and perhaps into who you have to find as a trainer.  Would Yoda teach an evil person how to wield a lightsabre?  Methinks not, but if you could track down Darth Vader he may have other ideas.  Of course this would also make certain spells unavailable to you (evil eye if you're good/neutral, absolve if you're evil/neutral) which makes sense though it may also make those same spells useless.  Why do you need evil eye if you're already evil?

My 2 cents and change.

Kvetch

[Xeriuth]

First off the holy grail deal was just a joke, thought I'd throw that out there. I dont' know about making clans for pk only, then there would really be too many clans for the amount of people.
If anything it'll bring up the argument of what more do clans need to make them more important? I still suggest being able to buy stuff for clans to make them more different from each other, rather than all having the same set standard. Such as potions, limit of rp eq, stats = 10 points divided amongst 3 items, etc.  Would help fight inflation and get some clans booming in the desirability sense, perhaps. What more to add... well since clans are connected have maybe capture the flag or something of that nature? I don't know actual clan modifications could go into another thread perhaps, we shall see.