Planning Guild War 2

[Omni]

Erm… Well, the different guilds could definitely hire different Mercs, we wouldn't necessarily need to hire the whole team at once. Other than that, I'm not sure.

[Strife]

I honestly can't imagine the mercs playing a major part in the plot at this point. To me, it seems like they're just going to be a group of extra soldiers that the guilds can hire. I also have trouble seeing a motive for them to "win" the guild wars, because without the other guilds, they'll have nobody to work for and therefore will have no way to earn money (which is of course their #1 desire). Unless of course i'm missing something here? ^^;

[Deleted]

For advantages and disadvantages, why don't we do something shockingly simple?

Magic --> Technology
Technology -- Swords and Shields
Swords and Shields --> Ninja goodies
Ninja goodies --> Magic

Something to that affect could work, and that way no one would have any clear advantage, because it works in a calculated system. As well, it wouldn't be one towering over the other, it'd be essentially a type advantage, like in Pokémon. Stat modifiers and all that mathematical stuff I can only take in simple amounts. Magic is doubly affective against technology, while technology is halved against magic. If we really wanted to get crafty, we could break down the forms of each of them (elemental, chrono, ray guns, rocket launchers, scimitars, short swords, kuni, katana, etc), but the idea is SIMPLE, after all, so that might be going a bit overboard....

And, hey, I SO referenced Pokémon before I realised Scar did the same! I'm quite proud of it, too, but I'm a Squirtle fan meself. :)


Strife:

I agree with your strengths/weaknesses list and they're just as I'd make them myself. the thing I see, though, (which makes me agree more with Hunty) is that, as you have it down, Ninjas, Pirates, and Knights are all tactical, whereas Mages and Spacefleet have actual firepower that the others stand no chance against in actual combat. It's essentially nonphysical vs. physical, and when all of them are close-range, those with long-range have the unadulterated advantage. Add in shields, force fields, and the like, and those dependent upon close-range attacks are practically out of the battle. As well, nothing says the Ninjas can't be technological gurus and sneak into Spacefleet and sabotage their equipment (^_^), but the Pirates and Knights are rather time-based, whereas none of the other guilds especially are. For us, the shock of seeing men from space could give us heart attacks. O_O I can't imagine how long that exposition is going to take to get past when we actually start roleplaying. A steel sword holds no strength against the hulls of titanium spaceships. A pistol likely wouldn't dent it, either. See what I'm saying?

KW: Tally-ho, a space dragon! Slay the dragon, slay the dragon!

*swings sword* *sword shatters*

KW: Oh dirt. Flee from the dragon, flee from the dragon!

That's why we'll all need some semblance of alliances for this to work. Essentially, the battle will come down to Magic vs. Technology (it's a good thing we're not innately religious here in the guilds, else that could start a whole 'other war we want to avoid). To this extent, the tactical parties (Ninjas, Pirates, Knights) could alliance with the Mages and Spacefleet accordingly. In fact, factions of these three guilds could probably go either way, thus resulting in the Ninjas, Pirates, and Knights being spread out over the Mages and Spacefleet along the lines of alliances. Mixing Tactical forces with Assault forces will work out well. The war won't be as multi-faceted as we may want it to be, but, really, with Spacefleet here, the simple issue of temporal-restraints is almost too much to even begin to tackle, and I see no other way around it unless half the guilds have major reforms to bring them into the present day, and this is something I highly doubt will happen. (Though I must admit, Wolf with a sword on a sable motorcycle named Sora would be pretty awesome. ^_^)


@hunty
You can probably have nameless faces operating the Weewoo if needed. They're like, called NPCs or something... xD

[Huntress]

micrody said:

@hunty
You can probably have nameless faces operating the Weewoo if needed. They're like, called NPCs or something... xD

That's another thing I thought of earlier today. We need some NPCs all over, don't we? Otherwise we don't really have anyone to kill in battle, 'cos the main player-operated charas don't die easily. It'd be like, everyone goes RAWR and runs into each other and the Battle on the Pelennor Fields ensues and then we get twenty drawn-out pages of one-on-one combat where most of the time is spent on looking for the post of the person you were fighting with xD

Aaanyway. We probably need to rig it a little, yes. It'd work out better if there were two largely equal fronts as opposed to small fractions all fighting each other. It can start out as that, but in terms of a decent war it'll have to come to big alliances eventually. Small groups are easy to shatter - Holy Roman Empire, people - but two large armies have stronger backup, better chances and more versatility - WWII, looking at you.

...this is starting to sound like the tactical meeting of generals xD *stares down at the map*

Thing is, we don't want the three other guilds to become tools in a big mage-vs-spacefleet battle, no? And we don't really want them to split either, as in the mages and spacefleet would remain big entities but pirates, ninja and knights are forced to fight members of their own guilds according to who chose which side. Well, to an extent it'll occur anyway, 'cos both the Pirates and the Ninjas have mage members. Hm. Guess it comes down to personal decisions there. But nonetheless. I don't want half my crew on one side and half the crew on the other. Kills the morale.

*more map-staring*

How'bout this. Pirates and Ninjas are roughly equal. As are the Mages and Spacefleet. So it'd be a two-and-two alliance, with both sides getting a tactical and technological advantage. I don't have a single clue about the Knights, though >> I don't want them to shatter, or remain a separate side of the war 'cos that way they have a snowflake's chance in hell, or join only one side and thus give it a small advantage over the other. Talked myself into a dead end here. Discuss, people, it's pretty early in the morning and my brain prolly missed a lot.

[Kengplant]

I'm going to suggest something even simpler.

Mages and Spacefleet must be on opposing teams. End of story no strengths or weaknesses between them. A 'the way you use it that counts' type thing. Pirates are flexible in their time period. It's just that ours are traditional sea going pirates. Nothing stopping us from expanding our horizons. Like I said, hijack a ship, maybe hit the auto pilot button then locate the turrets. Can't fly the ship? Hire an NPC pilot and his furry first mate who rips peoples arms out of their sockets when he looses. While tabloid town is a spacefleet port, it also accomodates private space-goers. I've always imagined Spacefleet to be not just a military base, but also have civilian colonies.
Which brings us to the knights. A lot of them still have magic. Paired up with either SF or the Mages they can be granted with defenses that will allow them to get up close and personal to do things their way. Teamwork!

Honestly, we didn't have a problem with magic vs non magic in the last guild wars. We're making to much of this.

[Scar]

IMHO, there wasn't a problem because the guilds in the previous war were all of relatively close timeframes, none more advanced than the other by a lot. Spacefleet throws it out the window by a leap of several centuries of technology compared with the rest. And considering how our nukes in this century can pretty much wipe out a Spartan army no matter how awesomely skilled they are I think that's where the issues lie.

...

Spacefleet General: We shall block out the sun with tactical nukes.
Spartan Warlord: THEN WE SHALL FIGHT IN THE SHADE!
spacefleet General: I really don't think you want to do that ...

Sorry, couldn't resist xD

And Wolf I suggested rules earlier but everyone's pretty much in favour of free-range roleplaying so I doubt they'd change their minds now. And Totodile is funnier

[Huntress]

My mental image went more along the lines of...
Spartan general whatsisname: THIS... IS... SPAAAA-
-whomp-
*mushroom cloud rises*
Spacefleet pilot: Oups. Wrong button.

*shouldn't be allowed online in the mornings* >>;

But yeah, another issue is that in this case, each guild is interested in coming out on top. In the last GW... uh, I don't know much about the actual storyline, frankly, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that much about the actual personal interests of each guild. Which this one is. Thus also the personal advantages and disadvantages of each guild play a bigger role.

Hey, how'bout we just limit the Mage and Spacefleet weapons down to the level of the other three guilds and fight that way? =D *smack'd, whack'd and blown up* Kidding, kidding. We'll most likely wing it in the end anyway, and we can rewrite plans as we go, but that question of equality is sortof the biggest question at this point.

And turning it the other way around - elevating the other three guilds up to the Spacefleet technology with flying ships and such - then, well :< I like my 16th century. And I don't want a war with nukes. We're trying to think LotR here, not WWII.

[Amneiger]

micrody said:

amneiger said:

As for entertainment,

...you have a cellmate, right?

Nope; that would make escaping too easy.


Anyhow, random idea: Would it be possible to include characters from the guilds' individual roleplays? If so, could some unscrupulous enemy of Spacefleet's come down and start selling high-tech weaponry? It'd probably be shoddy stuff held together by spit and bailing wire and the prices would be highway robbery, but it would help to close the power level gap.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem very thematic for the other guilds to suddenly acquire new toys in this way, and bringing in NPCs with the sole purpose of countering one of the guilds would probably set a bad precedent.

[PFA]

keng said:

Can't fly the ship? Hire an NPC pilot and his furry first mate who rips peoples arms out of their sockets when he looses.

Or you could hire a mercenary. Some of us are kinda higher on the technology scale.

...And suddenly something occurs to me. Perhaps the guilds who are at more of a technological disadvantage could get help from a mercenary that has the good technology. Buuut then it would kinda be one man against an entire army, so I don't know how well that would work. But I still think the mercenaries should be included in this mess somehow. >_> *wants to RP with her mercenary character* *as well as with her ninja character, PFA, obviously*

...And while we're bringing up the topic of NPCs, we should so bring in SRGNG. But then we can't have him die in the ninja RP, 'cause that comes before GW2 and he's kinda there to be a human shield when something bad comes up... so it'll be SRGNG2. Oh yeah.

...I'm rambling, aren't I? I'll stop now. >_>

[Kengplant]

Admittedly Spacefleet had been planning to hire out as many mercenaries as they could right off the bat >.>
But I guess if we did that it would be bad news for the rest of the guilds.

[Strife]

Spacefleet's technological advancement over the other guilds is indeed a problem if we want to balance things out.

But take a look at how Neopets handles it. The world of Neopia has all sorts of themes, including pirates, knights, ninjas, space stations, and Faerieland. If Neopets plots were made to be realistic, Dr. Sloth would wipe out Neopia every single time because his technology is so much more advanced than what the Neopians could dish out. And yet, during the old Lost Desert plot, Sloth lost against a small army of desert warriors. The idea behind this is that we CAN achieve balance among all of the guilds despite their level of technological advancement. It just takes some creative thinking to determine the limits of Spacefleet's technology.

At this point, I suggest that we forbid the following tactics from being used by Spacefleet:
- Nuclear weapons and large-scale bombings
- Aerial attacks that can't be reached by the other guilds
- Force shields (unless they are equal in strength to the kind of force shields mages use)
- Alloy/armor that is too tough for the other guilds to break through

Another idea I have to limit Spacefleet's strength is the fact that the plot is going to take place in winter (to my understanding). The cold weather could have harmful effects on our technology that would make our weapons weaker than their realistic counterparts.

[Huntress]

I should go read that Lost Desert plot to see just how ol' chickenhead did it, or better put didn't do it. 'Cause you're right, he should have conquered Neopia ages ago xD I smell plotholes. Or general Grundo incompetence.

Anyway. When it comes to mercs, I can see them as wildcards in a sense. Because fact is that we don't know how many people will participate altogether. In this current format, it's kinda crucial. The Pirates and Ninjas have been rather inactive as of late, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we got some two or three pirates and two or three ninjas in this game, and that's me being optimistic. Knights, Mages and Spacefleet are far more active. NPCs and meepit armies and krakens are cool and all, but if they need to be operated by only one person then they lose flexibility. Heavens know I tried to participate in the last GW, but couldn't because due to timezones, most of the action took place when I wasn't around and wading through 8-9 new pages of uberlong posts every morning got tiring. *rattles nails on desk* Which, I daresay, is another issue. I'm not saying that we should set a quota for who gets how many mercs, I'm all for tactics, but I'd also hate to turn into a one-man army. Well, I know I'll be able to get a merc or two - they pay me rent, after all >____> - but this still poses a bit of a question.

And don't take that as me being whiny >> I just like to get all possible questions sorted out before the actual show begins. It's like politics. I'm here, I'm a representative of my guild, and I'm asking questions in the name and interests of my guild. 'Cept that bribes wouldn't shut me up >>

[zarikrahia]

well, Spacefleet has a whole lot of NPCs already (Private Johnson, Umbra Kelleson to name a few) and I'm thinking of NPC-ifying Senali, Aikran and Ytrisan (since cutting down the number of clones I actively control to 5 will aid my head. And controlling a furry meowing mechanic might come in useful if I go away) aince None of those three are remotely good at fighting, are a basketcase, or would spook at first opportunity.

Yes, s!Zari has catclones. 2 of the 5 I'll still be controlling are cubs so they wont be tearing anyones eyes out soon. Well, by the beginning of GWRP2 they might be on their way to...*insane giggles*

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Strife talks about large-scale bombings, but I'd object to even small-scale bombings. If an individual wanted to use a bomb to spice up a little tussle, I've got no problem with that, but all it takes is one bomb to take out the Weewoo, and I'll not be having that much overpowering on my ship.

Or Hunty's ship. Or Stal's ship. >.> But certainly not Hu's ship. Hu's ship is it anyway?

*ahem* Well, I'll agree that you guys can't have uber defense. If the Spacefleet can't have force fields then the Mages can't have them either. If I even hear the words "guided missile", 'tratta will have somebody's pants.

And NPCs play whatever role it feels natural to write them into. I wouldn't make any uber-strict policy on NPCs except that they can't overpower PCs. As many Macs as they like, however.

*smack'd* x_o [/glow]

[Deleted]

keng said:

Can't fly the ship? Hire an NPC pilot and his furry first mate who rips peoples arms out of their sockets when he looses.

Or just gun down the pilot and COMMAND him to cooperate. =D

amneiger said:

micrody said:

...you have a cellmate, right?

Nope; that would make escaping too easy. ;)

Funny. I wasn't considering escaping at all when I said that.

strife said:

take a look at how Neopets handles it. The world of Neopia has all sorts of themes, including pirates, knights, ninjas, space stations

You know, I hadn't though about that at all, but you're right. Neopets does do the impossible. I guess I just think Neopets on Neopets and N'twf at the NTWF, hehe. Unfortunately, I was never around for the Lost Desert plot (no internet. ack, bad memories -_-).

As for the strength of shields and swords (figuratively speaking), why don't we just say all shields and all offensive weapons are of the same relative strength? That way, when it comes down to battle itself, we're all standing on level ground (...or water ...or sky).

ssjelitegirl said:

Knights, Mages and Spacefleet are far more active.

Correction: The Knights are usually more active. We've been rather dead of late as well. -_-