IDEAS FOR RYZOM

A word on the rangers:
*note that I am not big on RP but will try and fit my ideas in with it*

The ranger's number 1 aim is to fight off the invading kitins and protect homins.

Fame rises exponentially. Anyone who has tried to reach 100 fame in a civilisation or religion will have definitely realised this. The exponential rise is so big that you can say someone with 100 fyros fame holds more cause to fight off kitins than someone with 50 fame in all civilisations. My question is why should someone with 100 fame be held back from this when they have more desire to go fight kitins than neutrals?

Also why should religion come into this? Your internal belief system should have no influence on your cause to fight kitins and protect homins. You see kami and karavan fight together twice a week to kill marauder bosses such as Aen. So why should kitins be any different?

The rangers are an up and coming organisation and as such there is no lore I can find on them yet. A blank page to fill in however you please. As a new organisation they have so much potential so why limit them before they have even begun? There is so much potential when it comes to fighting kitins:

1) Speed runs in the KL to see how many kitins you can kill in a certain time limit with a leaderboard etc etc.
2) New kitin bosses in the KL with the same difficulty as Aen or Sergio.
3) More frequent kitin nest invasion events etc etc.

The kitin lair and almati woods could become a vibrant hub of activity. Why limit this to what is currently about 20% of the player base??

Virg,

This realm will have a water downed version of what an ideal Ranger should be, because the masses will whine if it done any other way.

I what I find incredible is that a player will loose a title they once held if there fame changes. Once a ranger always a ranger. You don't forget what you have done or learned in the past.

Rollocks
Once "The Corrupted" always "The Corrupted"

Virg: 

My take on this is governed by the fact that "fame" is not a measure of your commitment to a nation or faction, but rather a measure of how that nation or faction regards you.  That is why, if you are a Fyros Patriot, your fame with the Matis cannot be higher than zero.  You could regard Matis Nobles as fine examples of hominity (unlikely, I realize), but while you might have Noble friends, the general populace will still sneer at you because you are a Patriot.  For each nation there is a similar situation, as there is with Factions.

However, the Rangers are supposed to be able to deal with *all* nations and factions.  Their job is not to fight the Kitin alone, but to coordinate the efforts of all races and factions in fighting them. A Ranger negotiating between Fyros and Matis, or Kami and Karavan, must be a trusted intermediary simply on the basis of his/her fame with them.  ((In roleplay, of course, any given Ranger (such as myself) would have to prove that trust by her/his actions. There is the "game mechanic fame" and then there is "reputation fame."))

I happen to be a worshipper of Jena, but not to the extent that my personal beliefs interfere with my ability to deal with those who worship Ma-Duk. I have worked instead to advance my fame with both factions so that I can be seen as trustworthy by all parties.  I am willing (and Wilk Potskin backed me in this opinion) to cooperate even with Marauders if their goals and ours temporarily are in alignment.

As for Lore - there is plenty but it is not yet written down as Lore except implicitly.  The Rangers helped arrange the meeting of the leaders of the four nations in the Deep Roots and are active in retrieving refugees to get them to Silan. The Rangers run the refugee camp in Silan with an even hand, despite the racist and religious "slant" of the trainers (the rants of Sterga Hamla are a typical example).  In the second swarming they worked with the Trytonists to gather material for the rainbow gates and were there to administer the camp in the old lands until that catastrophe played out.

Strangely enough, I agree with Rollocks that the "game mechanic Ranger" will be a watered down compromise, simply because most people who seem to be going for Ranger don't realize how hard a path the original Rangers have trod.  That doesn't mean that the "role playing Ranger" has to be.

-- B

I must be wrong if someone agrees with me.

I completely understand where you are coming from bittty and I expected a reply like this.

From a non role-play point of view my issue with the rangers being neutral is that it will be a lot of effort to implement the new rangers as an organization. I know that many of my friends would not leave their respective guilds and religions to become rangers. Take a look at the marauder camp; It's unfinished, has holes everywhere, you can run through just about every structural piece there and it lacks rites, missions, a respawn point and the list goes on.

I believe the more people that join the rangers then the more effort and time the devs should be able to put into making the rangers. As such neutrals only make a small portion of the playerbase and I understand that the rangers will be a great thing for them, but I think it should be open to all homins (not just as patrollers but full rangers). The rangers and the marauders together as organizations could encompass the entire playerbase but if the rangers leave people with civilization and religion alignments out then I don't think many would renounce to join. If this happens I can just picture the rangers camp in my head already, and it looks an awful lot like the current rangers camp with just two amendments; a person to declare yourself a ranger and a barman copied from FH.

(Looking at it with a slight role-play view) 0 matis fame is neutral and as such still enough to communicate with the matis people. Also within every organization there are always people who have strengths and weaknesses, and as such their roles are chosen to suit their strengths. For example a ranger who had 100 fyros fame and 75 zorai fame would take a higher role concerning organization of the fyros and zorai homins, and take a slightly more mindless smashing kitin role on matis and tryker lands.

If you look at rangers dipicted in some popular fiction or sci-fi, they tend to be a diverse group, taken from various races and creeds, dedicated to a common goal. I'm particularly thinking of the Rangers in Babylon 5; while they started out as purely Minbari, they soon began to accept other races. A similar example are the Night Watch books where they have an Inquiisition that is made up from both sides (Light and Dark) and it doesnt matter which side you were on before, now you serve a higher cause.

It shouldn't matter who you were before you joined the Rangers, it's what you do once you DO that matters.
Fame, race, religion should not be limiting factor; I agree with Bittty that it should be about how you ACT as a Ranger, not who/what you were in the past. Having said that, the Rangers have been let down very recently by the actions of some who claim to support them.

I also think it SHOULD be hard to become a Ranger but not because of anything other than being able to pass their tests. The 'training' should be hard and follow multiple steps, similar to the Revealers mission but on a bigger, tougher scale.

If the Rangers are done right, they would be fun* both for the casual gamer and the roleplayer but so far I'm not seeing anything that suggest they will be anything other than half-baked. I don't want it to be easy, wouldnt be Ryzom if it was but I also dont want limits placed on membership.


* I'm talking Ryzom style 'fun' here with various stages of cookie eating and slapping involved ;o)

Was hoping Wilk could shed some light on this?

I hope the rangers will be an organization for all where kitin smashing isn't just theorized and talked about, but where it can actually be carried out. It is great knowing a thousand different ways to kill a kitin, but you also need someone to wield the weapon.

I see experiments going on to help collapse kitin tunnels and prevent attacks. Is prevention really the best the rangers can come up with? I see more helpful actions carried out by everyday homins doing nest invasions, killing kizokoo in the kitin lair and various other activities.

Don't just give the rangers over to the roleplayers. Lets actually do something productive to fight the kitin threat and stop faffing about with termites.

I want to add a few words about how I see the Rangers.

I fully agree to Bittty. Being a Ranger should and must be hard.

Our values comprise of all of the best of all homins of Atys.
We feel compelled to the values of honor, justice. truth, and discipline, no less than the Fyros.
In addition, we hold dear freedom and equality no less than the Trykers.
And we are striving for excellence and perfection no less than the Matis.
Also, we highly value compassion, intuition and knowledge like the Zorai.
And, lest we forget, we highly value boldness and enquiring mind no less than the clans of the Marauders.

Our philosophy is that we do not demand anything from anybody than from ourselves, and what we demand from ourselves is to learn and to improve. We are not looking for privileges, advantages, or rewards. Our goal is to do what is our duty, to serve all homins of Atys, and our all home, the living planet.

We do not strive to be better than other homins. We do not even care. We are striving to be better than ourselves, every day, every hour, analyzing our flaws, faults, mistakes, and failures, learning new things, improving our knowledge, our skills. We do not care being the best, even if we are, it will not touch or satisfy us, we still can improve. If we are the best, our duty is to become better still.

That should be the main principle of being a ranger, no matter what level of skill or knowledge. In a way, we are more elitist than every other homin. But we are not for self-aggrandizing. Our path is open to every homin. But nobody should expect it to be easy.