IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Exit mission for a marauder would be ok, yes if difficult. I myself wouldn't have a problem just doing fame missions the current way to fix myself if I did ever want to go back but my intentions are to stay Marauder.
I would have stuck with Ranger if the implementation would have been better. The missions finding the pathways was great.
I know longer hold any values or ideals from Karavan or Kami so I could never go back to either of them. I have worked fame to max and back down and back up many times, it gave me something to do. I think most left because they got tired of the waiting and not the wanting to go back part being too hard. I can't speak for everyone of course but this is the feeling that I personally saw. It would be great to hear from those players on their thoughts if they still browse these forums.

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Hello,

It seems necessary to remind the community of the basic rules about using Ryzom channels. Everyone must act as a polite and civilized individuals, and be respectful with WinchGate staff. Foul language and xenophobic talk are also prohibited. 

The forum is a place to exchange thoughts and of debate, in a good atmosphere for discussions. Animosity and agressive behavior against Ryzom staff is not something that is tolerated. Marauder players have the chance to have a volunteer who is dedicated and responsible for Marauders, and who spends all of his free time to work for them. He has explained during an OOC meeting, what he and some Ryzom teams are working on together for Marauders, and nearly everything that has been requested on the forums by players, is exactly what he stated was in progress with the team at in his OOC meeting. Such disrespectful comments from a part of the community are just unfair and demotivating for all the staff and are unacceptable.

I have also moderated several xenophobic posts. Such a behaviour is also unacceptable in a Ryzom channel.

I invite some of you to read again the Code of Conduct of Ryzom Services and to respect it. Please consider this as a general warning to the community. For those who continue to disregard these rules, the next time it will be more than a warning.

I did not re-read the Lore before writing this, but this seems to be one of the rather rare times I'm with Daomei regarding the acceptance of the Marauders as a kind of nation. It's not a, say, homogenic whole. It's a collection of Outcasts from various ways of life, and for very different reasons. Their intentions differ a lot (not least in RP), and they are made up from psychotic murderers to charming rogues, from heretics to traitors to pocket thieves. Not nearly all want the "other" Homins dead, especially not those who, in a way, live from them (thieves, mercenaries etc.). It's not impossible to have business with some of them, but if they were a real nation, bound only to the will and command of Melkiar the Black Varinx and his fierce daughter, any business - any interplay apart from PvP - with them would be impossible, and therefore they would be even more cut out of things than they are now. I guess some Marauder players won't care - others would.

I want to address the theory of the "left behind in the Old Lands". There can be little doubt that not all Homins made it in time to the Rainbow bridges. Many others choosed to stay behind (Muang/Marung, for example). Most Marauders weren't even born then - many were born in the New Lands, and/or joined the Marauders long after the Swarming. When the Second Swarming came, the Marauders received the offer to flee with most of Hominkind to a safe place, but again decided to stay (Akilia made it very clear that she and her people won't go). So the idea of the Marauders taking revenge for their neglection during the Swarmings make sense only for a very limited amount of them, but not for the others, who socialised with other Homins before deciding to join an on the whole anti-social organisation.

Tamarea,

Have you examined the retention rate of players that have taken the marauder rite? From my in-game observations it is much lower than that of other factions during the same time period, however maybe there is data that shows otherwise.

With all respect to the volunteers and staff- I am seeing my friends try the marauder faction and then disappear from the game when they see that it is not enjoyable and difficult to reverse that alignment. This is very demotivating and unacceptable to me.

The Marauder players think that their faction needs more content to be viable- Probably to the point that you will need to build them a fully functional capital or nation.

I however am arguing that even with new content the Marauder faction will not thrive because it isolates a group of players from the larger community. The point of Atys, in my humble opinion, is that the different factions do interact, but with marauders there is no room for compromise. Their leaders have declared war on all the other factions, so whether they like it or not, they are the bad guys- and this does not make the game enjoyable for Marauders or the rest of the players. So not being able to compromise and interact nicely with the Marauder faction is an inherent flaw that will not be solved, regardless of how much new marauder content is added.

These are the reasons why I think the playable marauder faction is not a good investment and that action (like phasing it out completely, or indicating that additional marauder content is not a priority, or adding a mission to allow players to more easily un-do the marauder conversion process) needs to be taken:
1) The playable marauder faction does not make the game more enjoyable
2) it would take too much work to satisfy their growing needs/requests
3) players are leaving the game because of it.

Placio, there have been many players forced out of this game due to every Faction. The general population is nice. I was a proud Karavaneer from the beginning of this game until the last day when the server first closed. Some players chose to be very rude and take things too far. Some left. I stayed but joined the Kami until the same thing happened to me in that faction as well. I tried Rangers but again, I am not as good at RP as many here are so I didn't feel like I belong there either. I don't know where I would go if there was no longer a marauder faction and I'm sure others feel the same way too so it does bring enjoyment to some in this game, it is unfortunate that it did not for your friends. I couldn't be truly neutral if I was still at war with the other factions if marauder was taken out so where would I go? This may sound selfish but maybe others feel the same as I do, I don't know. With in game alliances there has to be a place for outcasts/exiles.

Ok, I aknowledge the human factor- some people might feel at home as a marauder. But that's not something that could be taken away from you. After all, the original marauder players could only RP that they were maras. This whole conversation stemmed from the idea that maras are being forced to use kara/kami to get to Almanti- this is a very passive, victim point of view. You need to have active RP, if there is an obstacle, view it as an opportunity.

True, but why remove it if it is already in place? It would surely take a lot of work to move all of our materials and things to another location. Why not make a Ranger be the NPC that ports you into Almati? That would be the least difficult and give the Rangers/Ranger Aspirants something to be proud of owning while not involving religious figures at all. Creating a teleporter to a location is not difficult, this has been done many times on the test server.
I would support an exit strategy for people who wished to rejoin society if that would truly bring people back into game. I would even support an easy way if it really helped. They could put a six month cool down on rejoining marauder and you could have some sort of probation period, a daily mission you must complete in each nation before you gain any fame points that day from other fame gaining missions.
Don't get me wrong, I am for Marauders having there own OCC and things but I don't want my complaints to be mistaken as delicious tears.

Placio you must know that in the past when Marauders have suggested this approach, i.e, the whole discusssion about the bug that lets us enter cities and not be attacked if our fame is not too low.  It was suggested that we could leave it as it is and rp as not being infamous enough to be recognised, or we are wearing helmets etc.  AND we were shot down in flames for this. But bleh. had enough.

We are attacked if you want to rp away inconsistancies and attcked if we ask for inconsistancies to be fixed.  That is where much of the frustration in this thread is coming from and directed towards.

Players from Kara/Kami/Ranger/Neutral stop playing every now and then.

Would you say it's because Kara/Kami/Ranger/Neutral is bad and should be fixed ?
I don't think so.
Your argument is not even relevant.

Yes, fixes need to be made, and anim Gaueko and his team are working on all of that.
This thread is quite pointless.

@ Salazar and Daomei, I still argue that Mara are a nation. We will not be able to agree on this as we have different undertsandings of what this means.  So let's move on.


@Daomei: no culture in human history have ever resembled the Mara.  It is only when filtered though the prism of savagery/civlity that any do so, such is in the examples you give or the Yanomamö, who are an anthropological cliche in this regard.  The violence of the Other, as in these examples is always a negation of the self.  It is filtered and evaluated through the prism of savagery.  The Jesuit Fathers and their religious peers wrote volumes on the 'savagery' of the aboriginal peoples of Americas. They decribed the torture rituals of Algonquians and Iroquoian peoples in great detail.  But never once did they compare this violence to that of Europe, and the brutal morality plays that were public executions at that time, or of the conquistadors who fed new born babies to their dogs.  Savagery/civility are not obective facts or analtyical concepts they are moral weapons of attack. 

I just mention this, it is ironic that that you do not mention nation states as resembling the Mara, as it is the the 'complex' societes in our history that have actaully set out to destroy peoples, from small pox infected blankets, missions schools to camps and gas chambers, and weapons of mass murder, genocide is an invention for the 'civilised'. 

We may not agree that Mara are a nation but they are a people. Like the Fyros, Matis, Tryker, and Zorai they are an imagined community, homins have a sense of belonging to them.  All of them have a shared language, culture, history etc.  They all have a political and social structure.  The Mara differ from the four civs dramtically but this does not negate the fact that the Mara are a vibrant, living culture. It may be one we as players find abhorant, but judged by its own standards it is a coherent whole!  Further, our toons may not see this but it would be hypocrisy as players to lambast the 'savagery' of the Maras and ignore the religious wars of Kara and Kami.  The zealots in either camp are no different from the Mara.  The mara do not want to kill all. That is hyperbole.  The want revenge and to destroy the civs and take over.

The mara are a people.  The are not a mob.  I think both of you do not really know much about tribal peoples or the history of ethnography of them. Your toons can see them as a ravening mob out to kill all hominkind.  A view that mirrors the european curtural myths of the Other that we can trace back to Tacitus and Herodotus, indeed this is good rp.  But this discussion is not about what toons think but what the mara actually are.  We may not agree that they are a nation, but they are a people.  And as cultrual entity that endure over time it is not unreasonable that as members of this culture that mara toons can show solidarity and earn faction points.

Extremely well informed and very well said Lacuna - totally agree with you :))