Refused

Not trying to be sarcastic and working hard to not make it sound that way but I would think "same way you are now ?"

If someone wants to invite Karavan into "their" guild, I have to think they could possibly have that goal or, more likely, they don't give a mektoub dropping either way. As I remember the lore, never fully developed in game to my disappointment, the Trytonists were hominists ... and thumbed their noses at the religions.

I don't have feelings either way ... we have all races represented in guild tho I think only kami and rangers. But if one of our guildmates wanted to switch to another faction, I'd be disappointed if they needed to leave the guild if they didn't want to.

But main point being, it is not mandatory. I don't like Body Piercings ... the idea of "lets make holes in my body and hang shiny metal things never made sense to me. But if anyone else wants to hang, can't think of why I'd have an objection to that.

Fyrosfreddy - Impartialty and tolerance are things that the mechanics did not allow for, and now it's official that they won't (at least not anytime soon) because "neutral" has different meanings to different people. You and I agree, but we are and will always remain outsiders here, so our opinions do not matter.

Kaetami - If you feel the sense of wonder and awe is lost because Silan allows for co-mingling of races and cultures, then I have questions that I really don't think are appropriate to discuss here. Personally, if I started in the old pre-Silan starter islands that had no diversity then I would've assumed racism was considered a virtue on Atys and left early on on general principle.

Gidget - Not sure if you're just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. I'm in favor of mixing civilizations, but... the story that was originally being told was one of separated civilizations slowly coming together despite their cultural biases. That story is lost now.

Having everyone together from the start, and then splitting them up to different mainland, and then not letting guilds intermingle civilizations... is backwards.

Just to reiterate, I'm in favour of allowing 'conflicting' civilization memberships in guilds. Using the story as an excuse to not allow it, shows a painful ignorance (by Forge/WG) of the overarching themes (of working together despite differences) in the story.

Guild of Elias, yes. Except, Tryton doesn't have the resources for resurrecting people (it does require energy...), so homins still have to grudgingly pander to one of the higher powers for that privilege (resurrection is not a right), and try to do their Elias business in secrecy. (You're better of as a secret society if you're being hunted down by the higher powers.)

(Another good lore-founded reason to allow mixing up conflicting factions.)

Then again, Tryton cares only about homins. Extremist hominist, really. Doesn't care about Atys' ecosystem or anything.

It's a story of environmentalists vs industrialists (vs hominists), that now got replaced with goody-two-shoes vs the evil religions and bandits.

Ah. That was not how I originally read "There's no wonder and awe left as you're doing your first cross-continent travel. You've already seen the whole rainbow on the starter island.", so I was actually a little confused which way you were going there. It seemed like you were going both ways.

As far as "That story being lost", I'm not really sure that it's a bad thing to learn history by reading about it rather than reenacting it.

My belief is that the story can be told more powerfully by experiencing it. Especially for new players. ESPECIALLY if we want to capture new players into the game. (And even more if we allow them the freedom to mold the story progression themselves, and join each other's guilds freely. ;) ~ Staying on topic ~)

Even if further down in the story everyone gets together and lives happily ever after in their New Ranger Utopia, the starter islands could still be run by a bunch of old intolerant farts (plot devices), to stir some drama. The "everlasting backstory" can be experienced simultaneously with "dynamic current events". Anachronisms really are possible, since everyone can have their own beliefs. :)

A Ranger Utopia that's taken for granted (Silan) is a boring storytelling situation. (It's a Ryzom theme park.) But a Ranger Utopia after a heavy conflict, that was worked for, (as a high level / endgame zone) is a very powerful symbol.

I feel that that turns the story into a stagnant "Groundhogs Day" scenario as it must remain stuck in the past for new players. Or, if we start out with the "intolerant farts" tutorial, it's "bait and switch" misrepresentation.

Silan isn't meant to be exciting; it's meant to be educational with just enough excitement to keep people interested in hitting Mainland. It's not meant to tell the story, only to introduce you to the story.

But I think the real rift is between those who feel intolerance is a virtue that must be preserved by continuing to enforce segregation and those who feel that the future can and should be something other than a faithful reproduction of the past even if that means (gasp!) change.

Silan is also a bait and switch. :)

I don't think I understand ... in the 6 months I have been gone, have Rangers / neutrals been denied healing spells or respawn points ?

As has been said before ... people have had different experiences on each server. In US, where every Ryzom player had 20 friends playing WoW for each Ryzom player they knew, we were coming from a different starting PoV. In US folks had WoW and 20 other MMOs to choose from. The folks that *chose* Ryzom did so because it was NOT WoW or one of the other PvP is everything MMOs. As such, when PvP happened we lost most of our player base. We recovered that when the player base decided to ignore game mechanics / lore and adopting a player mindset of "letting folks play the game they wanted" and **respecting** their choice**. There was planty of PvP to had and afterwards, folks from oppsing sides were in mixed teams grinding or chasing bosses

Everybody, witha few notable exceptions, got a long ... winning a battle because your side controlled access to boss mats, sups, OP produce was considered an empty victory so everything was openly traded. I never got into the PvP but guild members chose their own way, It was not unusual for the side with overwhelming numbers to say "Any gulds want to make this more fun and fight foi the other side ?" When playing pick up basketball, stickball whatever growing up in Brookly, the next game didn't start until the losing team picked a player from the other side and sent one of their own back. Winning all the time is boring; and if losing all the time, people stay home or do something else..

So this type of behavior that North outlined, we just didn't see because if you came "late to the show", you were likely invited and if ya needed the mats, you could trade or ask for them since it was routine. For the 200 and below, most guilds can't even give away the stuff among their own factions so what's the point in hoarding 500 QL200 mats when someone could benefit from them.

For the 250 OPs I can understand somehwat but are we really in a situation where there's not enough to go around. Looking at our sub numbers that wouldn't appear to be the case. When I see this "boss stealing"activity" occur, the only question that comes to mind is "Why is having a "equipment advantage" so important; wouldn't folks feel better about a victory over an opponent that didn't have an inheterent disadvantage ? So yes, the game mechanics do have a deficiency with respect to what North outlined. But I have to say I am disappoinjted that the player base can't find a way to deal with it honorably among themselves until such time as a fix is im place.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

Making a point that there are valid lore and RP related reasons for there to allow a mismatch between civilizations and factions within a guild (blending in, secret goals, etcetera.)

From a lore POV, the higher powers are both absolutely against anyone colluding with Tryton. If they give respawns and teleports, then either they'll have to be pandering to one of the higher powers and hiding their allegiances, or the higher powers may just be interested in getting resources and charging them more. In the first case, their mismatching fame will not reflect their true goals, but reflects their mask.

There is only the high powers who can resurrect homins. Nobody is denied to respawn ... it's just the high who is resurrecting you (even if you are rangers/neutral or marauder) and you don't have the choice about this fact (but I don't think it's an information that homins knows).

After the Ranger rite I was told that Oflovak's road (where the rite is situated) is the only place where Rangers provide ressurection (there are special rescue ranger teams for that). High Powers have no altairs nor camps in that wild area. All other ressurection services are providided by High Powers only (generally, in all New Lands and in those parts of Old Lands that were (originally) open for homins by High Powers.

However, after respawn points were added to (some) Ranger pathway nodes, I heard the ressurection there is done by ?mysterous ?vortex somewhere ?on pathway ... ???

How can Homins resurrect by themselves ?

It is a bit easy in my opinion, Ranger should not have the technology to resurrect Homins, not even the energy for it.

To mention here, a resurrection implies a death, so no coma.
No healing, it is a destruction of the cells and reconstruction with post-traumatic result in some case.