Why Preach?

This is from the mouth of Kaggen. If you do not like us land claimers join SHARK, wait, they have already been destroyed, join Unbowed and try do something about it. All your whining here will not change the fact that land claimers are here to stay and you will be hard pressed to rid the game of them. There are 2 distinct regions in this game and if you so fear us land claimers best you move your cities back to elgea where you can play your way.

Ptolemy wrote: What is clear is there is no purpose arguing with you in forums, You seem to prefer having time to think. So I wish to take this to PC as I have not the patience, or skill to type long forum posts. But I would do fairly well in more of an improve situation.

I do, indeed, prefer to think about these things a lot.  That is my personality.  Unfortunately, the arguments I make are complex and that necessitates a varied and long set of posts to cover the aspects of the question that are apropos.

You've done a good job in your contributions and I appreciate them.

AJ

ajqtrz, what is your view on people claiming silversteel mines with occupying armies?

Brandmeister,

In answer to who granted the said alliances the right to make the claim of sovereignty? you quote the developers, who offer the selling points for the game as: "Customize and Specialize Your Cities, Vast Interactive World, Deep Military Strategies, Player Driven Marketplace.'"

So it has "deep military strategies,"  a "vast interactive world," and "player driven market place."  And you can "customize and specialize your cities."  But what it doesn't say is "you must customize and specialize your cities, you must explore the vast interactive world, or use the deep military strategies.  I don't do quests.  Does that mean I'm not playing the game right?

I listened to the founder of the game and he presents the game as a sandbox where players decide the "content" (his word).  Players decide.  If players are in charge of anything which has not been programmed, then they are the ones to grant the right to use or not anything that has not been programmed.

When you quote the developers I see no, "and we grant the right to grab a section of BL for our alliances personal sovereign dominion" anywhere.  What I see is a map, turned loose for the players to settle anywhere they wish...implying every square is given to every player for claiming.  But the game mechanics only recognize the ownership of the square upon which you sit and the sov you've actually claimed -- which, btw, is why the call it sov.  The game actually does the opposite of what you are claiming...it lays out HOW you are to claim sov.  The LC' want to invent  or use a way not programmed in the game but which the players can allow if they so desire.  I say we don't want to sanction this method as it's not good for the game. 

Nice use of quotes BtW. it's good to see evidence offered in support of a point, even if it's not actually evidence of the point attempting to be made.

I have no problem with you trying to undo the 'leave the newb's alone rule" or the 'ten square rule," both of which, in my opinion have enhanced the game greatly.  But it's certainly true that you can't claim that any sort of consensus has been achieved regarding the use of intimidation by threats of coercion.  Other than those two player "rules" the devs never programmed for the creation of sovereign nations except with the actual mechanics of sovereignty.  The name should be clue enough to how the devs envisioned sovereignty claims, and it wasn't by alliances grabbing chunks of BL and intimidating by threats of coercion.

"There is also no precedent that an aggrieved minority must accept terms dictated by people on the forums, in GC, or anywhere else, when they have full recourse to other methods within the scope of the game. "

You are partially right in this, but you forget that it's not the minority who are aggrieved.  Nobody took anything from them, they took it from the majority.  More to the point, perhaps, is that there are only a few ways we can go.  One side can show it is right and and the other change, one side cn do nothing and let the intimidation by threats of coercion stand, or we fight over it until one side gives in.

The first is my preferred method and what this whole debate is about.  I keep contending that the other side is not being logical and not actually laying out their logic in a clear and step by step manner that proves intimidation by threats of coercion is necessary and/or more beneficial to us all, but so far I'm only getting shotgun responses that force me to repeat myself ad nauseam or be accused of not answering some point.


You claim that when I say no reasons for allowing intimidation by threats of coercion have been given you respond with,

"Blatantly incorrect. Several very sensible rationales have been offered by those players. You personally have attempted to shout down their valid reasons with ever louder claims of "bullying" and "coercion", but you have no authority here. Other threads have dealt extensively with their logic, and I personally found several points to be extremely logical, and far more logical than your highly abstract and wildly hysterical gyrations."

Where?  Do point out to me their "valid reasons" since the validity of those reasons is probably something to which I've responded numerous times.  Daying a reason is valid is not the same as proving it.  The only way to prove logic is to use proper tools to do so...which not once has been done by the opposition.  Come now, do put your logic to the test and into a form that actually and formally proves it.  Syllogisms are what I use, but you could use symbolic or whatever recognized system you wish.  I'll listen and if you are correct, admit it.

"The argument that swayed me, personally, to the logic of land claims was the examples of close range combat during the last war. With accounts and alliances mixed across the map, many players on both sides of the war found themselves ambushed by well prepared enemy players launching short range attacks after carefully planned war declarations. eCrow has run mock siege exercises, and the advantage of proximity and preparation cannot be understated. Enemies launching distant attacks into a dense cluster will face a ferocious defense. In contrast, an ambush from short range will lead immediately to the loss of troops and quite likely the cities as well. I got knocked into the dirt by Dark Blight in Elijal, purely by superior numbers and proximity, and that was with the benefit of knowing about the exercise in advance. I watched the siege notices flash past during the last war, and it was obvious that isolated players had been caught completely off guard and were surrounded by sudden enemies. Many of the players who founded the land claim alliances were survivors of those battles, or players whose accounts had been thoroughly devastated by such attacks. It seems completely reasonable to me that a military oriented alliance would create a secure buffer zone so that they could never again by ambushed completely by surprise, or face the harassment of constant short range attacks. At the time those claims were established, the Broken Lands were still very much a frontier, and they were not displacing any current residents of those regions.
I believe that establishing such a zone is a common sense reaction to an actual form of attack that happened repeatedly in the last big war to rock the sandbox. Historical fact, not hypothetical, not disputable. I watched it from the sidelines two dozen different times. There is nothing about your cherished 10 square rule that prevents an adversary from settling a battle city only 10.5 squares from your doorstep. The metagame obviously allows the imposition of a much bigger security zone, and in the absence of viable alternatives, establishing a completely clear zone is one way of creating better security for your alliance.

If that inconveniences you in some hypothetical and very small way, I would suggest that it is probably 1000x that inconvenience to have your armies and cities smashed to bits in an ambush. I haven't heard anyone step forward with a more palatable idea than land claims, that manages to address the very real zone security problems that are fully grounded in actual historical fact."

There is nothing in this description to which I disagree. 

But of course the perspective is from that of the alliances exercising the land claims.  Let's turn it around and ask about those who don't have a land claim and then look at the alternative measures that could be used to accomplish the same thing.  (btw this is the first time anybody has laid out the advantages in such a nice manner, thanks.  But of course my question was not about  advantages to the land claiming allianaces, a point I agreed with from the very first).

So we need a method by which clustering can happen and a buffer zone can be created to "protect' the cluster of the land claiming alliance.  Here's my method of accomplishing that without intimidation by threats of coercion.

Step 1, define our area.  A Declaration of Homeland will do nicely.
Step 2, Settle your area..5 squares between cities means 20 cities by 20 cities and you have 400 cities covering a LOT of area.  7 squares would pretty much give nobody any real room to settle so you do the math and you will see that with 40 players you can accomplish it and with 80 (the player and his or her alt (SIN has 42 members btw) you only have to gro to 5 cities each...which is pretty average already. 
Step 3, the buffer zone, part 1.  If you make your DoH a bit larger than the area you wish to settle, you have a buffer that most players will respect.  And if you don't settle the zone it will be pretty sparsely settled because it will be recognized via the DoH. 
Step 4 the buffer zone, part 2  The cities along the edge of your domain put sov on any choice spot in our buffer zone.  This gives you a pretext for war and forces your enemies to think twice about settling because to do so they would either have to get you to release your game designated sov, or settle in a less desirable place.  And anybody else you could just release the sov if you felt they were okay.
Step 5, sov claims.  Since distant sov claims can be expensive, an alliance tax could be used to pay the person holding the claim.  This has been done before and I don't see any reason it can't be done now.  Besides, it's probably cheaper than all the wars and delays in growing your cities incurred in trying to intimidate by threats of coercion.

Notice that this does everything without overt intimidation by threats of coercion and gives you what you wish...the clustering, the buffer and the safety.  What you have seemed to miss in all this is that it's not the land claim, it's the claim that you have the right to intimidate by threats of coercion.  Since such intimidation is not needed, is harmful to the atmosphere of the game, and actually slows your own growth and lessens your security, why use it?

Do you really think implying somebody is a "bully" doesn't sound bad?  When "aggressive game play" was used to replace "bullying" it was done as a euphemism so that the moral implications of "bullying' would be left behind.  And for that reason I've refrained for the most part from the use of the term "bullying' and instead used the dictionary description of the actions.  But of course, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a  web footed water foul it's probably not a duck but a web footed water foul, right?

You claim that people have refuted my contentions with actual things that happened in the debate and give the following example as proof:

"For example, I refuted your statements that land claims were new, with evidence about Slaves to Armok and Dwarven Lords, only to have those actual facts get completely ignored in your vitriolic narrative.

It's  good example and if you go back to when you first said it you will find that I  agreed that land claims are nothing new.  I, in fact, didn't ignore it at all and since that point have never, to my knowledge, said land claims were a new thing.  What I did say, and continue to say, is that the overt intimidation by threats of coercion present in the current round of land claims are new to the scene.   I may be wrong, but everything I read of the history of Illy says that while there were and are land claims, the last time such tactics were widespread were by the "Mal Moshans" (TMM) who made a claim on Mal Mosha.  The writer of the history says of it:

"The Mal Motshans went about defending their claim on the land of Mal Motsha in completely the wrong way, as history appears to show us. They started sending threats to all inside Mal Motsha, saying that they had one extremely simple choice: Join, or die. A surprisingly small number of people took him up on his offer; it appears that most contacted were either stubborn or inactive. The unfortunate thing for TMM however (although maybe unfortunate is the wrong word- foolish may be closer to the mark) was that their ambitions led them to the path of US, who were still grieving over the loss of their leader, and possibly even more foolishly that of Toothless?. They gave the same threat they had been giving to others- and began their path to destruction."

and then goes on to say,

"You see, the people of Illyriad were outraged by the audacity of such a man that would attempt to menace an innocent alliance, an alliance of new players, and an alliance that was vulnerable after the death of its leader. The first alliance to answer the plea for aid was Dark Blight, US' long time ally, declaring war minutes after US did. Then Middle Earth United, then Harmless, then Goonies,

then Dlords, WOTP (now Curse), Peace, AEsir and finally Fremen empire (at the time Colonist Empires). TMM lasted barely two weeks before collapsing, the members fleeing the ruins of their alliance. They received no mercy however, although interestingly they asked for none. Soon, there was no trace of the Mal Motshans on the map"

So it was not, even then, the actual claiming to which the Illyites objected. but the methods of intimidation by threats of coercion.  This is the tradition of Illy back in late 2010 and 2011. The writer concludes the section with this observation:

"TMM was something of a turning point for Illyriad. The players had a choice: they could sit by, and let the bloodbath happen, setting a precedant, or they could take a stand and fight TMM. It's my opinion that it is that, combined with the devastating penalties for siege in the game, that has paved the way for the Illyriad we know today- where wars are strange events, where the attack of a new player is an event for wonder and amazement. TMM was a turning point for Illyriad, where the game could have followed the path of Travian, Tribal Wars, Grepolis and many more, and become 'just one of those games' where to have even a hope of surviving you had to be there in the beginning. Or it could've done what it did, and become a game where newbies are defended, fed and encouraged. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?"

Thus, as far back as I can find, there have been players who wish to use intimidation by threats of coercion and players, like myself, who will fight the best they can, to keep this place free.

I have given you your due.  You have done a great job of laying out, from the land claimers perspective, why land claims are a good thing.  And from that perspective I can agree.  And I have laid out for you how the land claimers can have everything they desire without the intimidation by threats of coercion.  Your perspective is, and has been up to this point, one sided.  Mine, dispite what you might think, was only at the very beginning against land claims.  Very early on, and you can see it in my development, I saw that it wasn't the claim it was the method of enforcement that was the problem.  As a result I've repeatedly offered the olive branch of a Declaration of Homeland, which some have taken, in order to avoid wars.  I've argued from a wide base of reasons, including morality, practicality, science, logic and even appeals to real world ethical standards, that their is a middle ground and that for the good of all the land claimers should take it.

In the end we have been talking past each other, I think.  You about land claims, myself about intimidation by threats of coercion.  You about what land claimers need, me about what I think all players need.  I keep challenging you to answer the question of why intimidation by threats of coercion are needed, and you keep answering why land claims are needed. 

Now that we've, hopefully, moved past that problem, do try to tell me why we can't drop the intimidation by threats of coercion and still have the land claimers accomplish their goals.

AJ

Brandmeister wrote: Are you really equating a willingness to deploy thieves in Illyriad, a video game, as morally equivalent to theft in real life? Or even as some watered down version of theft that points towards some kind of social disorder in the individual? To suggest that "violence" enacted in a game (and I'm highly dubious that Illy qualifies as violent) somehow implies an individual's real life attitudes towards altercations... Nuts.

If you read carefully I'm using the name "thief" as a stand in term that may be taken as an insult to demonstrate that not all "name calling" is improper but that if the name clearly fits, it fits.  No comparison was made between actual off line thieves and imaginary online ones.

Second, I am not concerned with the types of violence present in things like Call of Duty, but in the stress imposed upon players unnecessarily and without their desire.  That kind of stress may be harmful or not, but isn't nearly like that in a violent attack upon the players body.  My point is though, the human body responds to aggression on line in much the same manner as off line.  The same chemicals and autoimmune responses your body experiences off line when faced with unpleasant social experiences, occur when you are online, although in most cases to a lesser degree.

My argument is that even if the degree is less, if it's avoidable why put someone who does not wish to play that type of game through that type of experience?  It's not necessary and it may be more harmful than good.

As for the effects of long term presence in a game like Illyriad where people can be unnecessarily accosted with things they don't like....intimidation by threats of coercion is just the beginning, there is ample evidence that there is at least a short term alteration to the persons social responses out of the game.  Even common sense will tell you that if you've been on line in an intense and difficult war you might not sleep as well at night.  Maybe you will, but some do not.  My point is, overall, that it is more fun for more people if we allow all persons to choose their level of stress rather than insisting they play the under intimidation by threats of coercion. 

AJ


AJ