I have a question for those who voted against this proposal.
Why did you vote that way?
If you are not a Faction member: Flutters' proposal will have no effect on your gameplay in any way.
If you are a Faction member: You have consented to take part in a PvP aspect of UO; why should you be given a bolt-hole, (other than a private house), to which you can run?
Please note the absence of terms like "Trammie Carebears" and "Obscene, trash-talking PKs" in this post.
I am genuinely curious as to your reasoning.
Fluffi, I didn't vote because Flutter's poll didn't have the option I wanted. However, as I posted previously, I'd be happy if faction arties just went away and factions stayed in Fel.
I have been participating in factions now for over 2 1/2 years and have four types of characters spread out over several shards (Baja, GL, Sonoma, Napa, Legends, Origin, and Lake Austin):
pally archers (no hiding, no stealth on them);
tamers (two types: tamers with tracking and detecting to find stealthers, and peace tamers from back in the day when "no beneficial acts" meant factioneers couldn't go to Tram to get their swamp dragons and lesser hiryus, they had to get them from a tamer in factions);
mage chars with hiding, stealth, trap removal, tracking, detecting, stealing and lockpicking to act as scouts, thieves, trap removers; and
crafters, mostly for making faction traps and trap removal kits.
I've spent a lot of time building these characters because the guilds I've belonged to love factions, to the extent that they've made it a practice to establish themselves on multiple shards and make characters there, to be able to show up whenever it gets too quiet on another shard. This has been going on for us since well before last year's changes occurred. We were doing factions when it wasn't the COOL thing to do.
Im my opinion, the best part of factions and what has kept me in it since before it was the cool thing to do is the teamwork aspect of it. I look at my characters as being just supporting characters, at best. I know none of them will ever top the factions leader board for kill points. Not in a million years! If I can give an assist and help chase down someone with my archer, or keep someone distracted long enough to let the thieves do their thing, that makes my day. Or if I can stand guard outside the base and warn of approaching enemy forces or pop a stealther out of hiding so someone else can nail him, I'm ecstatic. And if my tamer and archer can keep my tinker supplied with sufficient silver to make trap deeds and trap removal kits for my trap remover, I'm pleased.
I finally broke down last week and bought my first ever faction arty...a pair of gloves for my Lake Austin archer. A guildmate was pretty insistent that I needed to get some better gloves. So I went out and farmed up enough silver to get the gloves and the powder. Used the little bit of extra silver I had to buy 2 potions that I promptly stuffed in the bank box and now can't even remember what the darn things are for.
I'm probably an anomaly and probably too stubborn and hard-headed about the faction arties for my own good, but I just feel like they haven't really helped anything. To me, it seems like they've shifted the emphasis of factions from teamwork to everything that glorifies the individual player: a possible spot on the points list, a pretty war horse, and faction arties. I've seen nothing that makes me think the majority of people who joined factions since last fall care much about intrigue, teamwork, or dedication beyond what it takes to get the towns long enough to put up a horse breeder to buy a war horse. But I've seen plenty of hacking, cheating, and smack talking that very rarely existed before the influx into factions that started with the introduction of faction arties. Prior to that happening, everyone I ever ran into that was in factions, enemy or not, was a crazy fool that was in factions for the fighting and the intrigue. There was a certain amount of respect that you generally had for each other, whether or not someone else's characters were orange. You knew the other person knew what it took to capture towns and what it was like to fall under that "no beneficial acts" rule where ever you went. And if your character was red and in TB or COM, well, you had my respect for being a glutton for punishment....and if you don't understand why, you probably never will.
So......why don't I want factions to spill over into Trammel?
For one thing, I think factions needs to stay in the facet where the contested towns/sigils are located. Spread the factioneers out even more than they are now and I don't see how you will ever get people to focus on fighting for the towns. It'll just be more ME ME ME focus than we have now.
Secondly, I still consider myself a PvP novice. However, I have no interest in PvP outside of factions. It just doesn't appeal to me. PvP inside of factions makes sense to me because there's a somewhat grander purpose behind it (or at least I keep telling myself there is) than PvPing simply to fill up my bankbox and house with power scrolls, stat scrolls, insurance gold, and crap looted from dead bodies. Because I still suck at PvP and because some of my characters are more or less defenseless, I really don't relish the thought of having to look over my shoulder every second of the time I'm playing with them. Most of them reside in Fel know and I try to keep them there as much as I can just to burn it into my brain that yes they can exist in Fel without being PKd all the time. However, I generally don't do banking, BOD runs, shopping from player vendors, or hunting to make enough gold to keep insurance functional or to train pets with them in Fel. I'm just not that good at PvP or interested in having a constant adrenaline rush from challenging the odds all the time.
Does it make me a wimp to feel the way I do, i.e., that my characters just aren't good enough to be PvP-ready every second I'm logged into them? I'm not sure. I just know that I doubt I'll stick with factions if it spreads across all facets and if it continues with the trend of ME ME ME that it's had for the last six-nine months.