G
Gypsy Keja Mimi
Guest
If you can’t beat them, join them. Never was this cliché put to a truer test than Saturday Night.
Imagine the surprise of the members of YAD when checking the base they found all of the sigils on the monoliths in all their multicolored glory. How did they get there? As far as they knew, no one from YAD had taken the sigils for COM, could it be a new COM member did it alone?
As they were trying to figure out this phenomenon, they noticed another. COM base in Magincia was being guarded... BY MINAX!
What??? "Is that a misprint Gypsy?" you have to be wondering.
YAD spent quite a while scratching their heads too. Minax was killing COM members to keep them from getting into their own base. In the meantime, it was noticed that a Faction Commander Election was underway.
For those who don't know, once a faction has control over towns, a Faction Commander must be elected. Because a faction can be made up of many different guilds and non-guilded characters, a leader is important. It is the Faction Commander that appoints all people who do anything in the towns such as setting the faction vendors.
Hours ticked away, and there were some minor skirmishes, but nothing major. Everyone was still scratching their heads. Then someone realized after a while, COM members were being killed to keep them from voting for TorAnn as Faction Commander.
It took a while to figure out that Minax was trying to conqueror COM from the inside. They had stolen their own sigils and put them in to the COM base, and added a member to COM and they were going to vote that person in as leader. Late into the night, blue characters began to arrive and they were seen joining COM. They would then go in and vote for the competing leader against TorAnn. If they were not known by the Minax defenders they were promptly killed as soon as they turned orange, (faction enemies show orange to each other, not blue or red) so that they could not go in and vote.
It was a brilliant strategy. With the sigils owned by COM they could not be stolen by YAD, YAD would have no where to take them and you can not steal your own sigils.
In the mean time, the sigils corrupted, and one by one over a period of several hours, with lots of death on both sides, COM managed to get the sigils out of the base and placed in the towns.
For those who are wondering what happens once a sigil has been held in a base for the 24 hours successfully this is what happens.
(This is called corruption. The sigil is corrupted by the defending faction, this is the goal you are striving for holding them for 24 hours.) A thief from the successful guild steals the sigil from their own base, and has to either take them to the town they belong to and put them on the town monolith, or hand them off to another in the faction to place them on the monolith pillar in the town. Once someone has the sigil on their person, they turn purple.
Bright Purple, so that everyone knows you have the sigil. If they can kill you before you get it back to the city it belongs to it can be looted by anyone and either the defenders succeed in placing it in the town back on the pillar at their base or the attackers get it back to their base and if they hold it for an hour, they retain the sigil. If it isn't in one of those places within an hour of being stolen after corruption, it returns automatically to the last place it was legitimately placed for the required length of time. If it can be placed on the town monolith the town belongs to the corrupting faction for 3 days before it can be stolen again.
Minax put up a terrific and tough defense and offense, and they were extremely hard to beat. There were many many deaths on both sides, but in the end COM held both the towns and the vote.
So COM owned the cities. Victory for them at last, after months of trying and lots of frustration. The battle did not stop there, however. In addition to running around with the kill or be killed still in force heavily, YAD managed to begin the process of making good on their promise to the people of Sonoma.
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First order of business, TorAnn took the present COM members to cities and at each of the eight cities, she added someone as the sheriff. Each member can only hold one office in any faction city at a time. For those who were added on the city stone as sheriffs were now able to place faction guards. A faction guard is a guard that is placed in a city to defend whatever from rival factions. They are most often used to help guard sigils from being stolen by rival factions. They don’t keep them from being stolen, but they definitely make it harder for a rival faction’s thief to get to them. There are 4 different levels of guards able to be placed, and they each cost progressively more silver to be hired. The more expensive they are, of course, the stronger they are and better able to defend. Up to 10 of each level guard can be placed in each city for a total of 40 guards. Of course this is insanely expensive in silver. However, COM went and hired guards near the sigils in victory celebration. They were immediately led away and slaughtered by Minax but that could not dampen the celebration of COM.
The other special player character that can be set in towns by the Faction Commander is the Finance Minister. It is the job of the Finance Minister to set the Faction Vendors, as well as adjust the prices of items for sale. No player can be both a sheriff and a finance minister. The finance minister then can set up faction vendors. They can have up to 10 vendors of each type at a time, plus 1 stable master for the sale of faction horses. A note about faction horses, they can only be ridden by a faction member of the same faction as the one that placed the vendor in a town owned by them.
In celebration, YAD then set up reagent vendors, faction horse breeders, ore vendors, board vendors, and bottle vendors. Vendors can be found at Minoc, Trinsic, Britain, and Skara Brae in Felucca. They may be adding more soon so keep an eye out. Like they promised these are for EVERYONE. It has been years since the people could enjoy faction vendors, and YAD worked hard to get them for everyone. All resources are set to 30% cheaper than normal NPC prices. This works out to only 2 or 3 gold pieces per reagent. YAD would like to invite people to enjoy the bounty while it is available. You never know what tomorrow will bring.
So this concludes my series on Factions. I hope everyone has learned a little about how factions work, what faction vendors are and just how hard they are to get. Keep that in mind and try not to take them for granted if you enjoy the good fortune of their existence. Faction vendors are a great thing, and they are worth all of the hardship to obtain them, no matter what the owning guild decides to do with them. In the end, the ones who bleed for them should have the right to decide what to do with them. Support the faction that best represents your view.
There is so much needed, even if you are not factioned. There is a way for every player to help. If you are able to, please support your local factions.
Yes, it’s great fun, great reward, and a great way to add another facet to your game. I would encourage anyone interested in factions to contact the person who organizes the faction you are interested in. Rogue (non-guilded) faction members are just as valuable as guided faction members, but it is important in factions that everyone is on the same page. By finding out from the person who guides the faction what is most needed that you are able to provide, you help yourself as well as helping the faction. Factions are TEAM sports. There is no 'I' in Team. If you truly wish to help a faction, this is the best thing you can do to ensure you help to achieve victory.
With some creativity and support, factions can be exciting and playable. It isn’t perfect. In fact everyone knows it’s a broken system, but it should not be discounted because of that. This victory would not have been possible had a small group of people looked at the odds stacked against them and then gave up. Thousands of people in UO make it work every day, why not join them?
I look forward to bringing you more faction news on this shard, so that it is not left in the background any longer. I am hoping soon to have an interview with some Minax to get their view on things. I will be bringing that to you if I can manage to catch one of them willing to do it.
Special thanks to those people who snagged me screenshots during the day: Anson, Mo, TorAnn, Obnaidys, and Eldamar. I can not be everywhere at once, and this helped me more than I can say.
There are a lot of pictures in this article, but many more were taken. I was given over 38 great shots. I will work at getting them up so that people can see them who are interested.
Good Fortune!
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Imagine the surprise of the members of YAD when checking the base they found all of the sigils on the monoliths in all their multicolored glory. How did they get there? As far as they knew, no one from YAD had taken the sigils for COM, could it be a new COM member did it alone?
What??? "Is that a misprint Gypsy?" you have to be wondering.
YAD spent quite a while scratching their heads too. Minax was killing COM members to keep them from getting into their own base. In the meantime, it was noticed that a Faction Commander Election was underway.
For those who don't know, once a faction has control over towns, a Faction Commander must be elected. Because a faction can be made up of many different guilds and non-guilded characters, a leader is important. It is the Faction Commander that appoints all people who do anything in the towns such as setting the faction vendors.
Hours ticked away, and there were some minor skirmishes, but nothing major. Everyone was still scratching their heads. Then someone realized after a while, COM members were being killed to keep them from voting for TorAnn as Faction Commander.
It was a brilliant strategy. With the sigils owned by COM they could not be stolen by YAD, YAD would have no where to take them and you can not steal your own sigils.
In the mean time, the sigils corrupted, and one by one over a period of several hours, with lots of death on both sides, COM managed to get the sigils out of the base and placed in the towns.
For those who are wondering what happens once a sigil has been held in a base for the 24 hours successfully this is what happens.
Minax put up a terrific and tough defense and offense, and they were extremely hard to beat. There were many many deaths on both sides, but in the end COM held both the towns and the vote.
So COM owned the cities. Victory for them at last, after months of trying and lots of frustration. The battle did not stop there, however. In addition to running around with the kill or be killed still in force heavily, YAD managed to begin the process of making good on their promise to the people of Sonoma.
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The other special player character that can be set in towns by the Faction Commander is the Finance Minister. It is the job of the Finance Minister to set the Faction Vendors, as well as adjust the prices of items for sale. No player can be both a sheriff and a finance minister. The finance minister then can set up faction vendors. They can have up to 10 vendors of each type at a time, plus 1 stable master for the sale of faction horses. A note about faction horses, they can only be ridden by a faction member of the same faction as the one that placed the vendor in a town owned by them.
So this concludes my series on Factions. I hope everyone has learned a little about how factions work, what faction vendors are and just how hard they are to get. Keep that in mind and try not to take them for granted if you enjoy the good fortune of their existence. Faction vendors are a great thing, and they are worth all of the hardship to obtain them, no matter what the owning guild decides to do with them. In the end, the ones who bleed for them should have the right to decide what to do with them. Support the faction that best represents your view.
There is so much needed, even if you are not factioned. There is a way for every player to help. If you are able to, please support your local factions.
With some creativity and support, factions can be exciting and playable. It isn’t perfect. In fact everyone knows it’s a broken system, but it should not be discounted because of that. This victory would not have been possible had a small group of people looked at the odds stacked against them and then gave up. Thousands of people in UO make it work every day, why not join them?
I look forward to bringing you more faction news on this shard, so that it is not left in the background any longer. I am hoping soon to have an interview with some Minax to get their view on things. I will be bringing that to you if I can manage to catch one of them willing to do it.
There are a lot of pictures in this article, but many more were taken. I was given over 38 great shots. I will work at getting them up so that people can see them who are interested.
Good Fortune!
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