Mystics

[bassball]

When and why and where did Mystics disapear to?

[theobserver]

In a nutshell they became too aggressive and turned into legion. Because the mud with its current playerbase cannot support that many cabals, Mystics were chopped. If you use the forums search feature, Im sure you can find older threads with more details(and several dozen Bring back the Mystics! threads, so please dont start another one).

[Louis]

many of us who play AR like the idea of a mage only cabal (like warlords are fighter only or at least those who can't use spells). however, mystics didn't have a solid base to form their ideals around. it was all loosely defined and they went to war when they felt like it. all they were really about was peace (except in war, which was weird) and spamming spells to eventually get everything to 100. made for a dull concept, and although many people are willing and eager to do this masochistic act because they want to feel powerful as a mystic (and mystic had some very strong cabal skills too), it didn't really help the mud in the end.

if people want to spam, they can still do it ~ they just won't have a cabal dedicated to spamming.

[Andur]

Yeah, because having a cabal devoted to the art and practice of magic in a world that pretty much revolves around magic is dumb.

::boggle::

[Davairus]

I'm going to repeat some of the arguments we made before why we closed this cabal.

Purpose

As you saw the mystics purpose was basically for a bunch of big-brain mages to sit on a pile of information and keep it to themselves while they spam create food. And this is obviously attractive to the egos of a certain group, hence we always get "we want mystics". But lets face facts - you can't have a mystic cabal smarter than everybody else when there's mapsites up, full id lists, and all that shit. Its a laughing stock. So this means the cabal would need to be reintroduced with a new purpose.

There's been endless talking about what the purpose of mystics should be, and frankly no two people could agree on anything for them. After Malenfaler pretty much turned it into Legion (associating with demons, fells and abyssal characters) we gave it the merciful bullet. Cann't say we didnt try out ideas for mystics before it got closed. We tried all sorts of them.

Playerbase size

At this point there isnt enough players to fill all the cabals. We need to be realistic about our numbers. 3 or 4 more or less full cabals is a lot better than 5 or 6 dead ones.

Complexity

I have been making some extensive changes to cabals. These ideas are composite of things we discussed yonks ago and you'll note that each cabal has (or will have) a few things:

-a pretty clear, direct competitor (e.g. criminals, evils, knights)
-a careful setup that keeps the cabals apart from one another
-its own city
-unique way to mark people for death (e.g. outlaw, bounties, deathmark, contracts)


Additional notes

I've mentioned this to imms, not sure about if I said it here yet, but when I started overhauling cabals, I've generally kept this idea in my mind - a cabal is a group thats great goal to bring stability to the game. Knights does this by destroying everybody who pks too much (evils, the occasional neutral), Justice does this by deterring people with special guard asswhoopings. Legion does this by subjugating everybody underneath their umbrella of protection. Now herein lies the problem for the cabals - the way they go about their goals forces them ALL to conflict with each other.

Each time a new cabal is added, this web of politics gets more complicated, much like a cat's cradle. A triangle of cabals is the easiest design to make. Four cabals, well you can see already how well Warlords is holding up here. . Its basically sinking like its in quicksand, and there's some pretty obvious damn reasons why. (examples, utterly fucked without cabal powers, not allowed to group.. .this is very different from cabal models, and hard to make fit into the system of checks and balances that are supposed to keep cabals from dominating the game too much). Now with some care, and co-operation, I think I can rescue Warlords from ruin, though starting over with just the new ideas looks way more appealing. As for Mystics, I see absolutely nothing I can do with them at this point.

[Dalero]

uh, since I've not really kept up with the news, what exactly happened to the warlords? I thought I was taking them in a good direction with the changes I had started, before I fugged up and couldn't oversee em personally. Guess I should have tried to stay alive longer :/

[Baer]

They don't fight anymore, they just give each other flowers. Occasionally they growl at mages, but otherwise it's all love and lollipops...

I <3 warlords.

[bassball]

I havent even seen a Warlord for awhile

[Mendek]

Yeah, Warlords are definately messed up without cabal skills. I don't even understand Warlord's place now with the deathmatches. I'm not against the idea but I don't see how they're get anywhere near the number of duels they used to. Nobody will want to fight a Warlord now knowing they'll die. That doesn't make Warlord much different than Legion or Knight other than people are pretty much guaranteed a 1 on 1 fight. In another post you said that Warlods are against anyone who subjugates others. Does this mean it's Warlords vs every other cabal? The odds aren't good then.

In past cabal wars I don't remember Warlord ever comming out on top. They usually start out well but fail miserably to gangbangs and lost cabal items. In the last one I remember Warlords weren't even allowed to group against Legion. They'd take us 5 on 1 and we'd go back at them 1 on 1 or 1 on 5.

[Davairus]

No, Warlords is against anyone who *rules* others. (As they're individualists, they believe in a man is -or should be- the ruler of his own destiny). You're right they'll get raped for going against all the other cabals at once. Just like people who try to go against the game rules get raped by imms. Though they will have their moments of triumph sometimes.

Theres only two alternatives to that I can think of:

1) convert warlords to a more liberal/libertarian philosophy (which hardly any of you will buy)
2) turn them into gangbangers for some other cause
3) delete them and build a new cabal from scratch

[bassball]

Hey I really dont even care about mystics or warlords for that matter. Was just corious what happened to mystics

[Zireph]

So davo, any ideas what the new cabal should be? Come on people, lets think up a few good ideas for a cabal that fits into the trinity of cabals we have right now.

A nuetral nuetral group, that takes the side of whichever team ( legion or knight) is losing.

Let Warlords loose and see where it goes? Give a Warmaster complete control and see what happens.

Uhh...All out of ideas I think. But yeah. Come on people! Offer your suggestions!

[marsd]

If Warlords were let loose and be allowed to go on total rampage, they'd win for a day. But the next day, and for their entire existence henceforth, they'd get trashed over and over and over again, until all 61 deaths are reached within 5 days.

Without their item and cabal power, they're in deep shit.

[Zireph]

Im not suggesting we "Let them barrage the shit out of everyone" I am saying find a Leader. A rylek style leader. One with ability, knowledge of where shit is, and one that has been playing AR for way too long. And let him go with it. Let him do what HE wants the cabal to do. Let him send it where HE wants. I think let the imm leader and mortal leader run with Warlords and if they turn it to crap, its time to rebuild anyway right? But what if they took it in the right direction? It would be totaly player based. I think this is a good idea. Mendek you up for the task? Chuckle.