So, from what I see, the "Tribunal" has taken the place of Royal/Noble as well as the obvious Justice...correct?
If so, why!? Noble/Royal need to come back because Tribunal simply is too shallow for the RP of the aforementioned, imo. Also, it limits it to three cities, really. Where is the leader of Marak or Tarandue? We need more royalty to impact on the game.
I agree, although I wasn't around for the royals, so I don't know why they were taken away. I think it'd add a nicely deeper RP aspect.
i don't see that Tribunal really restricts you to the major 3 cities. granted, most people stay in those and don't really hit the outer areas. but why not make an ogre trib or a gnome trib and become the representative of those cities.
i could be wrong...haven't really researched Tribunal very much.
Someone needs to get a leader in tribunal who declares councilors elected like old royals and then declares their ownership over every city. 
That would fix the "problem" 
well when I had Raniku, I suggested to Martineius to spread our 'protection' to the other cities.
probably because irl, patrolling Tarandue and Marak would be utterly boring for a caballed player, or any player at all. All you would be able to flag in Tarandue are 6-10 level players killing a couple gnomes to gain a rank, and killing the farmers for milk.
all you would be doing in marak is flagging people for killing the alchemist and maybe the very chance flag for people doing a smash run or royal ogre run. i think this is why.
people have done xymerria royalty and i think the end result is that it bored them, there just isnt enough action in the minor cities to warrant the spread of Trib. all that being said, i do agree with your idea on it's face. and their's no undue trouble in applying for a royalty of those cities. in all honesty though i just dont think the playerbase is large enough to warrant a worthwhile return of ROYAL, even in the 3 major cities. i wish it were not this way, but anyway. yeah it would introduce possibly some gnarly RP, i just dont see the interaction happening.
True to an extent. If the pbase was a bit larger, perhaps it would work better. I still think a King/Queen is needed for each of the big three. Might as well have them and give them the flag. You could join Militia, but not Tribunal (or any other cabal), to become a Royal. Of course, there are no "lineages" or much RP worthy of proper Royalty.
I suppose it would take exceptional RP and the cooperation of IMMs to work right. shrug I still miss it.
probably because irl, patrolling Tarandue and Marak would be utterly boring for a caballed player, or any player at all. All you would be able to flag in Tarandue are 6-10 level players killing a couple gnomes to gain a rank, and killing the farmers for milk.
all you would be doing in marak is flagging people for killing the alchemist and maybe the very chance flag for people doing a smash run or royal ogre run. i think this is why.
people have done xymerria royalty and i think the end result is that it bored them, there just isnt enough action in the minor cities to warrant the spread of Trib. all that being said, i do agree with your idea on it's face. and their's no undue trouble in applying for a royalty of those cities. in all honesty though i just dont think the playerbase is large enough to warrant a worthwhile return of ROYAL, even in the 3 major cities. i wish it were not this way, but anyway. yeah it would introduce possibly some gnarly RP, i just dont see the interaction happening.
edit: as an afterthought if i remeber correctly there were also issues with how ROYAL fit in with JUSTICE. if royal were to return in the 3 major cities it should probably be a senior TRIBUNAL who shows exceptional RP prowess and vision, the IMMS could sort of restring him as ROYAL but i see it hard to justify trying to re-introduce a cabal proper with abilities of their own and such. Miruvhor would be my idea of an ideal return of a royal title since it's still an environmentally corrupt city. Miran would be very hard to do since the moral foundation of that city makes a KNIGHT actually just as likely a candidate for a royal as a TRIBUNAL would be. possible even a better candidate. bottom line: we'd need to see an influx of exceptional RP'ers to see any of this happen, and i dont see that being the case at the moment. no i'm not saying anyone sucks at RP k? but i'm saying there isnt the RP and playerbase pool needed for this return to the old days right now at this moment. the old days had a lot of flavor no?
The old days had a lot more OOC as well. Refer to my post in General Discussion, heh.
yeah i'm well aware raargant, but you you do have to admit some of the best RP came out of miran royalty and even some Sharadnze (sp). miruvhor had a good thing going too at least in my opinion. people would complain about diplomatic immunity but really now, did royalty ever pWnzor? hell no. what it did was give the game some flare. but yeah, OOC out the a$$ in some cases, NOT all.
but whoever said royalty needed to come into being by IMM mediation. Crazy Joe Bob can act like he is Marak royalty, and PK those who try to kill smash or the alchemist whenever he can. people will say omgz who the hell does this guy think he is. but if he is persistent, people could be inspired, and choose to follow him. i mean all cabals started with a player with personality and undying purpose. Crazy Joe Bob could make that happen through will if things play out right. if some DK was kickass enough to snub TRIB rule in miruvhor and gain followers, things may just have a crazy way of turning out.
of course irl it's prob his AIM buddies or whatever. i mean whatever, there is no innocence anymore in MUDs, but there is a legitimate chance of something similar to the above happening in an honest way. but i guess this whole discussion is pointless if even the current established cabals cant even keep their ranks filled. it's like a restaurant without either a full kitchen or waitstaff. it's really the reason i say no more clan quests or PK consideration, but RP first. good RP and a good APP is all that should be required. this MUD is still run on the premise of priveledged knowledge given to those who already know the ropes, but the old days are gone, people are not begging at the door anymore, and just having full cabals would really...REALLY rejuvenate this MUD. who gives a damn if some newb gets to know cabal skills, in fact hell yeah. if he condies or deletes because he gets killed 20 times in 3 days so be it. people should be rewarded just for spending 150 hours pre-cabal, with a cabal membership, if they have integrity, RP and a general sense of committment. filling cabal ranks 1st would do wonders for this MUD. it's physical world and mechanics are and i've always thought so. giving everyone a chance would finish the job needed to bring it back on top. off topic but there you go.
I've heard quite a bit that Valmiran royalty had OOC crawling in it, but I had a Valmiran Royal and never spoke or knew anyone OOC that was a royal. So, if it existed, it wasn't exclusive if I was able to get in without it.
Not to mention in valmiran royal, you couldn't induct your friends because all the citizens voted them in. I loved that. The royals being voted in. It rocked. It meant getting in was based off REAL rp. If people liked your char and your rp, you got in. It was cool.
actually i'm going to backtrack on my stance for opening cabals on RP and APP alone. i still think it should be that way for SAVANT, KNIGHT, HERALD. not entirely that way for NEXUS, SYNDICATE, and WARMASTER. b/c those 3 require players who at least have rudimentary good PK skill. those 3 cabals often rely on brute force 1st to communicate their cabal purpose. but still knock off clan-quests regardless.
people in the past said "oh why should i have to learn to write a good application just to get into a cabal? oh blah blah blah." believe me if people knew all it took was 1-2 hour application now, they would suddenly learn the english language again and write a stupid application instead of taking a trinket to a fiendish donkey 1,329 times, having to rise through 3 different clan ranks and maybe get in. they would write their little app and uphold RP above all else. for NEXUS, SYNDICATE and WARMASTER they would need a little extra, like displaying their PK somewhat. but opening the floodgates to cabals through RP will give new players that starter cabal experience that will only lead to them improving their PK. RP first man. it naturally lets people into the PK world anyway because their going to get PK'ed to death once in a cabal anyway.
of course taking the trinket to the fiendish donkey teaches them things too, 
I think its fine the way it is, especially if theres more than one clan mate on its fun to race, I have never had a problem getting into a cabal I wanted, I had problems with Savant with my first project back but I still got the chance to apply it just wasn't on my time-scale it was on Anitharial(spelling is wrong sorry for that) but if I hadn't lost interest in my character I would have been able to probably gotten in there not for sure its up to the members but any way. Cabals aren't supposed to be for everyone just because you get to 50 doesn't mean you should get in. I would rather have quality over quantity but thats just my 2 cents.
i would agree with quality vs. quantity up front except i'm starting to realize that playing a MUD with any real seriousness such as 150 hours over 2 weeks is a very big deal in any person's life, and if you or i or even that person doesnt think he's cabal material, he may still very well be, and consistent RP and the time spent should give him that chance. so what i'm saying is some of that "quantity" may very well translate into quality in the scheme of things.
that person is either going to stay with this MUD or he isnt. giving him a cabal chance would be a real swinging vote and i've seen people who werent sure of themselves make the best out of it and more. look at some of the people posting frustration messages, it's really only communicating " i'm spending a lot of time out my life playing this game and i'm not getting enough from it." that could be the guy isnt meant to play the MUD, he's a whiner, he's not willing to put enough into the game besides hours of his real life, etc etc. it could also mean that he's too hype to pull courier duty for meanlingless impersonal tasks. i dont know.
Being a royal in 1.0 i've seen the best rp i've ever seen in my whole life, lethereal knows all about that.
I feel the same way.
One of my first couple chars was a royal.
I've played since that char trying for the same level of rp.
Well, first problem as I recall was the lack of any Royals other than the Val Miran standard set of elf healers. Also, being the only truly active city for quite some time (the other cities had one or two to Val Miran's 5 or 6) made the set of aforementioned elf healers PK fodder for all their enemies. The Royal cabals were quite OOC connected as well.
Viri made them go away as cabals and placed the Noble/Royal pseudocabal in its place however he had always discussed coming up with an "Empire" cabal that blended Justice and Royals. Voila...Tribunal. And Tribunal is anything but shallow in its RP as evidenced by quite a few of them, Martineius especially, who took the ball and ran with it and wrote about 10 tomes of Laws that now govern the three cities. Also, nothing is stopping someone from RPing their own deal of "royalty" from other cities. You just aren't under the umbrella of the Tribunal government.
As to making the Council more like old Royals, no thanks. Why ruin them that way?
Other Valmiran Royals, like me, were not big players in the pk aspect of the game. It was only my second pinn, as up until that time I had just kind of sat at the low ranks rping.
However, that wasn't a bad thing. They weren't one on one fighters. I mean, that's a different aspect of rp. Maybe they weren't much of pkers, but remember typing where are almost all of the time seeing Valmiran control? They owned frickin everything because of their supremely dedicated members who logged on a lot of the time.
Who would have expected a King/Queen/Duke/Duchess/Advisor to go head to head with a criminal? No one. That was justice's problem, they were paid good money for it, weren't they? Why should a queen deal with a problem when an organization has been hired to take care of it?
I found the rp very deep and exciting. Isabeau was a master of the art, which helped alot.
I guess I just don't see a king/queen not being in combat every day as some kind of problem that needs to be fixed. They are royal...they had the justice to take care of them, its what they were paid for. King and Queens conquer land and rule their cities, they don't seek out thieves or thugs. They look good and carry on politics, not on the front line of the battle. That's exactly what old Royals were, people just got jealous of their cool diplomacy.
Then, about a week after we conquered the nexus cabal, making us own everything, north, south and west of the city, as well as east straight to mirhuvor and everything north and south of rheydin, our armies were ripped away from us and we lost our cabal. It sucked. To have rpd that much and to log for LITERALLY days on end to conquer land in order to just have everything taken away because we weren't a "real" cabal. That's annoying and unrealistic. Did anyone take away Napoleon's armies because he didn't initiate one on one combat, or Caesar's?
Bah, sorry. I was SO pissed when that happened.
The following was my reply to a player's prayer post that addressed the same issue:
Technically, a character can claim lordship over a particular area in Aabahran. But forcing others to recognize that authority will take a lot of work. Two possible ways of doing so are:
Join Tribunal. Achieve a high rank in Tribunal. Have Tribunal annex the city you want to rule.
Claim to be from the ruling class of a city. Force/persuade others to recognize your authority in the city you want to rule. Form an "alliance" with Tribunal so that you become a member of that cabal. Tribunal annexes the city.
Neither of those two options are easy. There are other methods, but you'll have to think of them yourself. Just remember that annexing/ruling a city will take a lot more than simply walking in and yelling "This city now belongs to me."
You might not even want to include Tribunal. But nobles must be of lawful ethos (possibly neutral, depending on race). Which makes getting other cabals to help you would be very difficult.
Lastly, you could just roleplay that you already control a city. For example, Cylandas and Morgwean were both fighting over Xymerria. Whether or not their notes and speeches actually reflect how much authority they have, however, is unclear.
WC