Events - Faction Play in Illyriad!

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Faction Play in Illyriad!

Printed From: Illyriad
Category: The World
Forum Name: Events
Forum Description: For Discussion of Illyriad World Events
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=10815
Printed Date: 16 Apr 2022 at 18:52
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Faction Play in Illyriad!

Posted By: Jejune
Subject: Faction Play in Illyriad!
Date Posted: 14 Jul 2020 at 18:58

We are pleased to announce the official launch of “Faction Play” in Illyriad! Just as the game is currently divided among players who play in tournaments, engage in the metagame, or just city build, we’re excited to begin yet another organized way to play Illyriad, which will allow players and alliances to interact with player-controlled, role-playing Factions.

Player-controlled Factions, or “Faction HI” (for “Human Intelligence”) work almost the same way as the devs’ proposed “Faction AI:” player-led Factions determine interactions with players and alliances based on an alliance ranking algorithm that is specific to the biases of the Faction. This is very similar to the ranking scale on all of the game’s own NPC Factions.

Similarly, player-led Factions have an “Alliance Action Scale” that shows players and alliances what kind of behavior they can expect from a Faction based on their alliance rank (you can access this action scale on the https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Alliance/Alliance/2123" rel="nofollow - ELVES Faction profile page ). From there, a whole new universe of role-playing, quests and even battling will now ensue!

The Launch of ORCS

Launched earlier this year, https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Alliance/Alliance/2123" rel="nofollow - ELVES was the first player-led Faction to launch. We’re pleased to announce that https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Alliance/Alliance/2192" rel="nofollow - ORCS is also launching! The launch of ORCS is key to Faction play, since ELVES and ORCS will be in a state of perpetual war with one another. While there will eventually be military operations directly between ELVES and ORCS in the future, the real benefit of having these two warring factions will be the opportunity for players and alliances outside of ELVES and ORCS to join in on the fun of interesting with these Factions in a variety of ways.

ORCS plans on settling in the Pawanallpa region in the Broken Lands, adjacent to ELVES’ burgeoning footprint in the High Hills. Therefore, players and alliances in the BL nearest these regions will have the most opportunities at first to engage with Faction HI. The two Factions are also looking to secure other disputed/binary geographies in Elgea in the near future, thus opening up more regions for activity.

New Faction-based Interactions

Interactions will occur as a result of both ELVES and ORCS engaging with other players and alliances in a variety of ways. This could take the form of Faction players reaching out in-character via IGM. Additionally, you will also see military units named “ELVES Patrol” or “ORCS patrol” showing up very near your cities. Scouting these armies and reaching out to the patrol commander will also begin interactions and engagements.

Factions will then offer players and alliances opportunities to engage rival Factions in order to improve alliance rankings and gain prizes. For example, an ELVES player might ask another player in an alliance to send diplomats at an ORCS city to gain a marginal ranking improvement. Conversely, an ORCS player might exhort a player to try and siege an ELVES city. There will also be trade-based and negotiation-based engagements and quests as well. It’s a great opportunity to unlock some role playing in Illyriad that is often overlooked.

In all of these scenarios, the ELVES and ORCS players being attacked are already consenting to all of this activity. There will be no risk of Faction players being offended, “butthurt” or otherwise non-consenting to this activity. As a result, this exciting level of play will give Illyriad players an opportunity to engage in the full breadth and scope of military play — including sieges — in a “safe space” with no risk of people getting incredibly offended or “triggered” by military action.

NOTE: Each faction has a new player role (“Ohtar” for ELVES, “Snaga” for ORCS) that will protect/exempt them from attacks. All other roles will be opted into attacks and other interactions within Faction play.

How To Get Involved

Do you have an account and want to join the action? We’d love to have you! Both https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Alliance/Alliance/2123" rel="nofollow - ELVES and https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Alliance/Alliance/2192" rel="nofollow - ORCS are recruiting! Please reach out and join.

We are also looking for additional player-led factions to launch. Namely, we hope to have both Dwarf and Human factions, but there can also be mixed-race Factions as well. As part of starting a player-led Faction, we will provide you with a clean copy of the Alliance Ranking Algorithm, which is a sophisticated and fully automated Spreadsheet that uses the Illyriad data feeds to offer real-time alliance rankings.

We hope you will join Faction play! Please give it a try!

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https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/394156" rel="nofollow">

Replies:

Posted By: Jejune
Date Posted: 26 Jul 2020 at 18:23

As Faction Play continues to evolve, players and alliances are asking about how they "opt in" or "opt out" of the fun. In ELVES, we've experimented with several different ways to engage with players and alliances throughout the server, but the only way that really works is the use of "patrols." Patrols are where a small army shows up on the sov or next to a city. (We got the idea from the Tower NPC patrols that roam the game and occasionally attack cities.) This gives the city owner an opportunity to scout the patrol, see who sent it, and IGM to enquire. From there, the Faction writes back and encourages the player to engage in a quest or adventure of some sort.

Now, we are including a disclaimer that reads like this:

[***NOTE -- You are being asked to opt into a https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/faction-play-in-illyriad_topic10815.html" rel="nofollow - Faction Play quest by the ELVES. Should you choose to opt out of this quest, either reply with an opt out message or simply ignore this IGM. The ELVES patrol will depart in less than 1 day.]

This way, if the player doesn't want to engage in Faction Play, they can simply ignore the IGM or write back opting out.

Some players don't appreciate neutral armies landing on their sovereignty. That is an understandable position, but no occupying army on sov poses an immediate threat to a player. Therefore, objections to oocupying armies on sov is as much "role playing" as Faction Play is role-playing. You are essentially pretending that neutral armies on your sov mean something. We like that! We just encourage players to scout first, attack later -- since destroying a faction army has immediate and significant negative ranking effects.

Ultimately, the goal of Faction Play over time is to move into a model that ensures that 100% of those playing within it are "opting in" to the fun. This diagram shows the flow of opt-in engagement for Faction Play:

The arrows represent engagements and interactions. As you can see in this model:

Factions will interact with other Factions (and all players in these factions are 100% opted in / consenting)
Factions will encourage alliances and players to interact with other Factions (and all players and alliance who choose to interact are 100% opted in / consenting)
Factions will NOT encourage players and alliances to interact with other players and alliances (unless consent is already clearly established).

If these consent goals are met, then no one should get sucked into Faction Play who doesn't want to be a part of it. Example: Faction A could ask a player in Alliance A to siege a player in Faction B's city, and in this scenario, everyone involved is 100% consenting to the action. The player getting sieged consents to putting their city at risk of destruction, all Factions and their players are consenting to losing troops in the siege battle, and the players and alliances involved in the action are consenting to losing troops as part of the siege, and are NOT at risk of being retalied on by Faction B.

This is our ultimate goal for Faction Play, but in order to get there, we need more player-led Factions to emerge. There are already some alliances in the game, such as Dlord and YARR!, that would be ideal for converting to Faction Play, since their alliance persona lends itself well to role playing. We are ready to supply any alliance looking to convert to Faction Play with all of the necessary materials and technologies to make it a reality. (Note: there is no reason why Factions cannot continue to participate in tournaments as well.)

We hope others will join! Please IGM me for more details.

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https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/394156" rel="nofollow">

Posted By: Jejune
Date Posted: 06 Sep 2020 at 00:11

Hello, Illyrians! Faction Play is getting ready to launch its first-ever SiegeQuest in early October. SiegeQuest will be a war event similar to a tournament in that everyone involved will be consenting to the use of their troops. There will be no hard feelings or flame wars -- just good, clean, role-playing fun and plenty of real destruction!

Here are the details:

The two main warring factions will be ELVES versus ORCS, with the Dlord Faction likely teaming up with ELVES (due to their rankings with both ELVES and ORCS). We are still hoping to get another alliance to play the role of a friendly faction to ORCS -- more on that soon.
There will an ELVES/Dlords siege on an ORCS city in Elgea, and an ORCS siege on an ELVES city in the Broken Lands. So, there will be two theatres of battle for players to participate in.
The sieges will tentatively land on October 7, 2020.

Players and alliances can get involved by first figuring out where they stand with the different factions, based on the rankings. From there, you can choose to align with the ELVES/Dlords or ORCS and their allies to assist in the sieges / siege defense. To do this, there will need to be provisional NAPs established to ensure peace of camp.

We are trying to get players and alliances who are interested in participating in SiegeQuest to join our Faction Play Slack. If you're looking to get involved in SiegeQuest or Faction Play in general, please join the Slack account here: http://join.slack.com/t/illyriadfactionplay/shared_invite/zt-g4ivobud-kNm_eUncqlQxANVeUrQ~FA" rel="nofollow - https://join.slack.com/t/illyriadfactionplay/shared_invite/zt-g4ivobud-kNm_eUncqlQxANVeUrQ~FA

Any questions, please reach out. Thanks!

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