Phoenix234
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Hey everyone, as many of you will know and some of you be considering yourselves Ive cut back on PW in a huge way with the number of older factions disbanding or slowly fading out I think its a good time to disappear back to the real world Also since im leaving I want to get this PW rant out of my system 
Ive been here a very long time now, going towards 2 years I believe? So ive seen pretty much all of the mods major changes so can openly say this is how I see what happened and attempt to explain why so many conflicts between groups occurred.
Final views on the mod versions:
Ego based rant...
Anyway Ive had a lot of fun on this mod and wish you all the best, Please feel free to modify any of my old systems as you wish although credit would be nice They all work very well if you want a rp oriented server, the guild system with perks also promotes war groups into rp stereotypes which we found useful for solving raiding
I advise all servers to plan for the future, as I can see a chain of events resulting in the mod slowly dying out ! if you dont... get planning!
Also based off my experience as an admin mini events are also a lot of fun, it seems the new servers lack creativity in this area as all ive seen are tournament events over and over
Consider looking into some of my older event threads, My "Lost Spirit" and "Lich and the Witch" events were always popular and a nice break for me and making the process of answering complaints less demotivating.
Nonstop war suits a lot of players, but for older less combat oriented players creating mini events and influencing rp with them is the way to go, and thats a fact... Ive done it so many times and seen the rewards so please please look into it and don't be afraid to use fantasy based ideas, medieval society is based on such beliefs even if unlogical now.
//endleavingrant
Feel free to poke me on steam if you wish a game some time, my ID is Phoenix5921
Ive been here a very long time now, going towards 2 years I believe? So ive seen pretty much all of the mods major changes so can openly say this is how I see what happened and attempt to explain why so many conflicts between groups occurred.
Final views on the mod versions:
Versions <4
In PW 3.4 we had the advantage of been able to log on and instantly have enough coinage to access basic/ lower Mid tier gear freely
This mod version was better for players with less time, players who like to play a large number of roles ( since respawning = new role, without spending 10minutes getting the new class and so on) and since you never lost a huge deal of items death wasn't such a huge issue meaning the community was less aggressive when they got killed. Randoming still occured but servers could run effectively with a low amount of rules.(RCC had 4 rules if I remember.)
It was in 3.4 I got admin level on RCC, and ran daily events which were very popular
Version 4
Current PW is designed to be more action based with a new developer taking over from lazslo.
The new version added a huge number of new features and systems such as boats, class changes,crafting and economy. This changed the original use of the mod from a jump on and roleplay mod to a more time consuming and factional teamwork mod.
This is great for war but not so much individual roleplay as teamwork is required for pretty much every part of the mod.
The economy changes also meant money had a much greater value meaning when killed the consequences are much greater and this resulted in more aggressive players profiting over the more passive as killing was now rewarded meaning war and violent actions increased.
This resulted in the mod becoming more popular with native players but less popular with a huge number of older players.
To counter this servers added 5x the amount of rules they had previously leading to more work for admins and more ways a player can mess up. A number of older players felt the new more specific rules were anti roleplay as many added limits to what a player can and can't do.
Now with the release of mods such as The Deluge which I often see PW players on I predict that soon more and more older players will start leaving, factions like the tidwells will start to die out and all of the persistent groups will start to slowly leave.
For example of the 30 or so mason players 1/3 have moved off mount and blade completly, 15 or so of those players have moved onto other mods like myself and the remaining 5 have pretty much cut hours down sigificantly.
In the end
I enjoyed 3.4 for the free roleplay and v4 for the features although I miss 3.4s community aspect most of all.
In PW 3.4 we had the advantage of been able to log on and instantly have enough coinage to access basic/ lower Mid tier gear freely
This mod version was better for players with less time, players who like to play a large number of roles ( since respawning = new role, without spending 10minutes getting the new class and so on) and since you never lost a huge deal of items death wasn't such a huge issue meaning the community was less aggressive when they got killed. Randoming still occured but servers could run effectively with a low amount of rules.(RCC had 4 rules if I remember.)
It was in 3.4 I got admin level on RCC, and ran daily events which were very popular
Version 4
Current PW is designed to be more action based with a new developer taking over from lazslo.
The new version added a huge number of new features and systems such as boats, class changes,crafting and economy. This changed the original use of the mod from a jump on and roleplay mod to a more time consuming and factional teamwork mod.
This is great for war but not so much individual roleplay as teamwork is required for pretty much every part of the mod.
The economy changes also meant money had a much greater value meaning when killed the consequences are much greater and this resulted in more aggressive players profiting over the more passive as killing was now rewarded meaning war and violent actions increased.
This resulted in the mod becoming more popular with native players but less popular with a huge number of older players.
To counter this servers added 5x the amount of rules they had previously leading to more work for admins and more ways a player can mess up. A number of older players felt the new more specific rules were anti roleplay as many added limits to what a player can and can't do.
Now with the release of mods such as The Deluge which I often see PW players on I predict that soon more and more older players will start leaving, factions like the tidwells will start to die out and all of the persistent groups will start to slowly leave.
For example of the 30 or so mason players 1/3 have moved off mount and blade completly, 15 or so of those players have moved onto other mods like myself and the remaining 5 have pretty much cut hours down sigificantly.
In the end
I enjoyed 3.4 for the free roleplay and v4 for the features although I miss 3.4s community aspect most of all.
Ego based rant...
Although I enjoyed my time on this mod it hasnt been as perfect as I hoped with Servers been so extremely slow to consider any large changes, any large suggestions are mainly supported for a month but never actually given support to be added onto the server especially if one admin dislikes the idea which I found somewhat depressing, even if an idea had community support discussion to implement ideas is usually slow and badly designed I would love for servers to look into improving this in the future
For examples Ive worked on 4 major system changes since I joined.
1.Persistent Guilds,
Although I didnt create the first clan on the mod I spent a large amount of time creating and influencing the creation of persistent roleplay based groups in an attempt to create a more persistent world. Which i must suggest to everyone! especially the none combat based groups, on 3.4 we had a lot of fun with the Bankers guild and the underground Fighters guild more then Ive had with any war faction
(for everyone who didnt know the masons had "agents" inside pretty much every faction ever created in 3.4, some in higher positions such as Tirok and Le Fox of Tidwell who were both masons at the start)
2.Construction
the second was based off buying buildings and land for a persistent group ( 3.4) since we moved versions this can be ignored.
3.Persistent Guilds and Perks
Some of you may remember the testing of my new system on RCC and EU 5months? ago. Although the system was a success with 80% of the players who took part in the mini events it created with 15% who didnt enjoy the events later agreeing it was an improvement the system ended up pretty much ignored by EU after struggling to convince the admin team change is a good thing. so 80% enjoyed it,15% agreed it was a improvement and the last 5% didn't enjoy it but didn't actively avoid the raids ¬_¬
4. Nobles:
Definatly my favourite idea, with the aims of creating a balanced medieval society with long term politics and story.
Although a large group of players enjoyed the system it requires a server to make it official, you can't have half of the players ignoring it and half taking part without clashes.
The system itself works great with sigificant improvements in a number of key ares I wanted to improve on as well as increasing what I class as realistic roleplaying but a number of community members arent a fan of fixed(ish) noblity which I admit I found ironic since 3.4 ->4 rulesets did just that.
For examples Ive worked on 4 major system changes since I joined.
1.Persistent Guilds,
Although I didnt create the first clan on the mod I spent a large amount of time creating and influencing the creation of persistent roleplay based groups in an attempt to create a more persistent world. Which i must suggest to everyone! especially the none combat based groups, on 3.4 we had a lot of fun with the Bankers guild and the underground Fighters guild more then Ive had with any war faction
(for everyone who didnt know the masons had "agents" inside pretty much every faction ever created in 3.4, some in higher positions such as Tirok and Le Fox of Tidwell who were both masons at the start)
2.Construction
the second was based off buying buildings and land for a persistent group ( 3.4) since we moved versions this can be ignored.
3.Persistent Guilds and Perks
Some of you may remember the testing of my new system on RCC and EU 5months? ago. Although the system was a success with 80% of the players who took part in the mini events it created with 15% who didnt enjoy the events later agreeing it was an improvement the system ended up pretty much ignored by EU after struggling to convince the admin team change is a good thing. so 80% enjoyed it,15% agreed it was a improvement and the last 5% didn't enjoy it but didn't actively avoid the raids ¬_¬
4. Nobles:
Definatly my favourite idea, with the aims of creating a balanced medieval society with long term politics and story.
Although a large group of players enjoyed the system it requires a server to make it official, you can't have half of the players ignoring it and half taking part without clashes.
The system itself works great with sigificant improvements in a number of key ares I wanted to improve on as well as increasing what I class as realistic roleplaying but a number of community members arent a fan of fixed(ish) noblity which I admit I found ironic since 3.4 ->4 rulesets did just that.
Anyway Ive had a lot of fun on this mod and wish you all the best, Please feel free to modify any of my old systems as you wish although credit would be nice
They all work very well if you want a rp oriented server, the guild system with perks also promotes war groups into rp stereotypes which we found useful for solving raiding The largest raid test we did had around 30 raiders, 10 town watch 5 serfs and a few random knights, the town guard got slaughtered and 4 out of 5 serfs got captured and sold to an admin, the raiders enjoyed it, the town guard started to recruit heavily and increase taxing of serfs for protection and the serfs used the town as a safe zone which is what this perk was aimed for, teamwork of different groups against a common threat.
I advise all servers to plan for the future, as I can see a chain of events resulting in the mod slowly dying out ! if you dont... get planning!
Also based off my experience as an admin mini events are also a lot of fun, it seems the new servers lack creativity in this area as all ive seen are tournament events over and over
Consider looking into some of my older event threads, My "Lost Spirit" and "Lich and the Witch" events were always popular and a nice break for me and making the process of answering complaints less demotivating.
Nonstop war suits a lot of players, but for older less combat oriented players creating mini events and influencing rp with them is the way to go, and thats a fact... Ive done it so many times and seen the rewards so please please look into it and don't be afraid to use fantasy based ideas, medieval society is based on such beliefs even if unlogical now.
//endleavingrant
Feel free to poke me on steam if you wish a game some time, my ID is Phoenix5921
That was back in Alpha 6. Good times.