Aenor
09-01-2013, 07:44 PM
For a generation, the War of the Races has raged across the lands of Norrath. Trapped between Neriak to the north and the ogre and troll hordes to the south, Freeport has been abandoned to the forces of evil. The city of Qeynos has become a bastion of light and the servants of Bertoxxulous driven from its borders... for now.
Although the races of Norrath have gathered in various coalitions in the past, with no end of the war in sight most have now retreated to their home cities. Servants of Mithaniel and Erollisi Marr have retreated in exile to Qeynos to plot a crusade to break the siege of their sacred temples. Even the elves, once so unified, have begun to distrust one another. When King Tearis Thex ordered the exile of half elves of impure blood to distant Surefall Glade, the Wood Elves rebelled against their imperial overlord in Felwithe, creating a separate state based in Kelethin.
With elves distrustful of elves and humans and half elves living in exile, what is to stop the hordes of darkness from overwhelming all of Norrath? When the heroes of Norrath cannot trust anyone outside their own city walls, it seems that Norrath's darkest hour has arrived.
* * *
This is an introduction to the City-State ruleset that was conceived by participants at a fan site founded in 1999, EQRP.com. The nerdiest of the nerds, roleplayers such as myself collectively agreed that roleplay cannot exist without PvP. We worked, before the site shut down, to cooperatively formulate an RP ruleset that we intended to propose to SOE/Verant. Since the site closed before the ruleset was completed or proposed, I offer a modified version of it now for the consideration of the Project 1999 staff.
The essence of the City-State ruleset is that each starting city represents a separate team. Freeport has been overrun by the forces of evil, while Qeynos has driven the evil influence from its borders. Thus, all humans of evil alignment start in Freeport while all humans of good alignment start in Qeynos. Agnostic humans must make a choice of starting city upon character creation and be bound to that team. Thus, a human bard could choose an evil deity and start in Freeport, choose a good deity and start in Qeynos, or choose agnostic and pick from either starting city.
Surefall Glade has become the city of the half elves. If a player creates a human druid or ranger, it will spawn in Qeynos and that player will have to venture into the hostile environs of Surefall, Rivervale or Kelethin to seek training or buy spells. The same is true of half elf warriors or paladins. There are no trainers for these classes in Surefall Glade so they will have to venture into hostile territory to receive training.
Kelethin and Felwithe are separate City-States and wood elves and high elves have the option to attack one another on sight. The 14 resulting teams are divided into three factions by alignment (good, neutral and evil) as shown below. Players aligned to the good faction are prohibited from grouping, guilding or casting beneficial spells on players aligned to the evil faction and vice versa.
Players aligned to the neutral faction have the option to group or guild with either the good or evil faction, but not both simultaneously. As soon as a neutral faction player forms a guild and invites a single member of the good or evil faction, or joins a guild that includes a member of the good or evil faction, the entire guild assumes the same restrictions as the faction they have thus aligned themselves with.
To solve the problem of immortal healing, any player who casts a beneficial spell on a member of another faction will become attack-able by members of their own team. This flagging will remain in place until the player zones.
On Sullon Zek, the outcome was decided the day the server launched. The evil team had massive regions of Norrath available where it could level in relative safety while good and neutral team members often started in the same city and had to endure PvP from the moment of creation. The good and neutral teams combined never had more than the barest fraction of the population of the evil team, and the hard coding prevented those teams from pooling their limited numbers to fight cooperatively against the evil team.
The same thing will happen on Teams99 if the server is limited to a small number of teams or if the teams are hard coded. The only permanent hard coding should be that which prevents good characters such as elves from acting cooperatively with evil characters such as trolls. In the lore of Norrath, this should never happen. The purpose of teams should be to give players a relative degree of security in their starting city ONLY. They should have the protection of the guards and be immune to attack by their teammates unless they aid an opposing faction and open themselves to attack by their own team.
Such a server would organically load-balance itself since players, given soft-coded teams with a dynamic flagging system in place to eliminate immortal/out-of-range healing, will naturally gravitate toward their favorite race/class combinations. Instead of choosing one of three hard coded teams based on which will give the player the most PvE advantage, most players will just play what they like.
Evil faction starting cities
1. Freeport
Deities: Bertoxxulous, Bristlebane, Innoruk, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic (may choose at character selection between Freeport and Qeynos)
2. Grobb
Deities: Cazic-Thule, Innoruuk, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
3. Oggok
Deities: Cazic Thule, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
4. Neriak
Deities: Innoruuk, Rallos Zek, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
5. Paineel
Deities: Cazic-Thule
Good faction starting cities
1. Rivervale
Deities: Bristlebane, Brell Serilis, Karana, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
2. Qeynos
Deities: Bristlebane, Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic (may choose at character selection between Freeport and Qeynos)
3. Felwithe
Deities: Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Solusek Ro, Tunare, Agnostic
4. Kelethin
Deities: Bristlebane, Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
5. Kaladim
Deities: Brell Serilis, Bristlebane, Agnostic
Neutral faction starting cities
1. Surefall Glade
Deities: Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Bristlebane, Quellious, Prexus, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
2. Halas
Deities: Tribunal, Bristlebane, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
3. Erudin
Deities: Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
4. Ak'Anon
Deities: Bertoxxulous, Bristlebane, Brell Serilis, Rallos Zek, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
Please let me know if anything is inaccurate.
Although the races of Norrath have gathered in various coalitions in the past, with no end of the war in sight most have now retreated to their home cities. Servants of Mithaniel and Erollisi Marr have retreated in exile to Qeynos to plot a crusade to break the siege of their sacred temples. Even the elves, once so unified, have begun to distrust one another. When King Tearis Thex ordered the exile of half elves of impure blood to distant Surefall Glade, the Wood Elves rebelled against their imperial overlord in Felwithe, creating a separate state based in Kelethin.
With elves distrustful of elves and humans and half elves living in exile, what is to stop the hordes of darkness from overwhelming all of Norrath? When the heroes of Norrath cannot trust anyone outside their own city walls, it seems that Norrath's darkest hour has arrived.
* * *
This is an introduction to the City-State ruleset that was conceived by participants at a fan site founded in 1999, EQRP.com. The nerdiest of the nerds, roleplayers such as myself collectively agreed that roleplay cannot exist without PvP. We worked, before the site shut down, to cooperatively formulate an RP ruleset that we intended to propose to SOE/Verant. Since the site closed before the ruleset was completed or proposed, I offer a modified version of it now for the consideration of the Project 1999 staff.
The essence of the City-State ruleset is that each starting city represents a separate team. Freeport has been overrun by the forces of evil, while Qeynos has driven the evil influence from its borders. Thus, all humans of evil alignment start in Freeport while all humans of good alignment start in Qeynos. Agnostic humans must make a choice of starting city upon character creation and be bound to that team. Thus, a human bard could choose an evil deity and start in Freeport, choose a good deity and start in Qeynos, or choose agnostic and pick from either starting city.
Surefall Glade has become the city of the half elves. If a player creates a human druid or ranger, it will spawn in Qeynos and that player will have to venture into the hostile environs of Surefall, Rivervale or Kelethin to seek training or buy spells. The same is true of half elf warriors or paladins. There are no trainers for these classes in Surefall Glade so they will have to venture into hostile territory to receive training.
Kelethin and Felwithe are separate City-States and wood elves and high elves have the option to attack one another on sight. The 14 resulting teams are divided into three factions by alignment (good, neutral and evil) as shown below. Players aligned to the good faction are prohibited from grouping, guilding or casting beneficial spells on players aligned to the evil faction and vice versa.
Players aligned to the neutral faction have the option to group or guild with either the good or evil faction, but not both simultaneously. As soon as a neutral faction player forms a guild and invites a single member of the good or evil faction, or joins a guild that includes a member of the good or evil faction, the entire guild assumes the same restrictions as the faction they have thus aligned themselves with.
To solve the problem of immortal healing, any player who casts a beneficial spell on a member of another faction will become attack-able by members of their own team. This flagging will remain in place until the player zones.
On Sullon Zek, the outcome was decided the day the server launched. The evil team had massive regions of Norrath available where it could level in relative safety while good and neutral team members often started in the same city and had to endure PvP from the moment of creation. The good and neutral teams combined never had more than the barest fraction of the population of the evil team, and the hard coding prevented those teams from pooling their limited numbers to fight cooperatively against the evil team.
The same thing will happen on Teams99 if the server is limited to a small number of teams or if the teams are hard coded. The only permanent hard coding should be that which prevents good characters such as elves from acting cooperatively with evil characters such as trolls. In the lore of Norrath, this should never happen. The purpose of teams should be to give players a relative degree of security in their starting city ONLY. They should have the protection of the guards and be immune to attack by their teammates unless they aid an opposing faction and open themselves to attack by their own team.
Such a server would organically load-balance itself since players, given soft-coded teams with a dynamic flagging system in place to eliminate immortal/out-of-range healing, will naturally gravitate toward their favorite race/class combinations. Instead of choosing one of three hard coded teams based on which will give the player the most PvE advantage, most players will just play what they like.
Evil faction starting cities
1. Freeport
Deities: Bertoxxulous, Bristlebane, Innoruk, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic (may choose at character selection between Freeport and Qeynos)
2. Grobb
Deities: Cazic-Thule, Innoruuk, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
3. Oggok
Deities: Cazic Thule, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
4. Neriak
Deities: Innoruuk, Rallos Zek, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
5. Paineel
Deities: Cazic-Thule
Good faction starting cities
1. Rivervale
Deities: Bristlebane, Brell Serilis, Karana, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
2. Qeynos
Deities: Bristlebane, Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic (may choose at character selection between Freeport and Qeynos)
3. Felwithe
Deities: Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Solusek Ro, Tunare, Agnostic
4. Kelethin
Deities: Bristlebane, Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
5. Kaladim
Deities: Brell Serilis, Bristlebane, Agnostic
Neutral faction starting cities
1. Surefall Glade
Deities: Karana, Erollisi Marr, Mithaniel Marr, Rodcet Nife, Bristlebane, Quellious, Prexus, Solusek Ro, Brell Serilis, Tribunal, Tunare, Veeshan, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
2. Halas
Deities: Tribunal, Bristlebane, Rallos Zek, Agnostic
3. Erudin
Deities: Prexus, Quellious, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
4. Ak'Anon
Deities: Bertoxxulous, Bristlebane, Brell Serilis, Rallos Zek, Solusek Ro, Agnostic
Please let me know if anything is inaccurate.