[Deleted and reposted - missed something while editing.]
I avoided initially posting largely because every thread previously addressing this subject turned into, largely, Necromancers and non-Necromancers yelling at each other about how they're Doing It Wrong. I have mained a Necromancer since the guild came out, and I very quickly decided that, in order to do that, I would need to script in a corner and avoid all possible tells until my character could hold his own.

The reasoning behind that is simple -- while it meant I sat out of quite a bit of fun, it also meant that, periodically, I could take that character and join a non-Necromancer event, briefly, as long as I didn't have lasting interactions that were memorable or aroused suspicion. At the end of the day, this game is driven by its events, and "out" Necromancers don't really get access to the vast majority of events if they don't want to derail things, because there aren't that many Necro events. Without events, the game devolves into Progress Quest.

Lore doesn't need to be ret-conned. The current Lore actually establishes an acknowledged gradient between Perverse and Philosopher Necromancers, even by non-Necromancers. Look at Marstan on Elanthipedia, as mentioned before -- a Necromancer that, while not declared a Philosopher, opposed unethical Necromancy, including by Sorrow. As long as there is a common enemy of the moment to compare Philosophers to, they're not so terrible. And there are quite a few established GMNPC Necromancers that are much worse than anything the Philosophers have done, and they're still alive. Velmix. Sidhlot and the Bone Elves. The Adan'f. The Dragon Priests. Maelshyve. The River Elf in Lang. Lasarhhtha. The Islander. Anyone that ever studied under Lyras. That doesn't even begin to address the possibility of Non-Necromancer bigger evils, or the fact that there are so many higher priorities at times (stopping evasions, shopping for dresses) than an out Necromancer walking past Magen Road. We've had some pretty big bads from pretty much every guild but Trader at this point.

Redemption, similarly, is an avenue Necro Events could allow, offering more of a visible gradient. Initially, when coming up with my character concept, I envisioned a Redeemed Necromancer in the vein of Solomon Kane. While I've long stepped past that, it would be a status that is very visible, and evident.

And Rutilor? That also wouldn't be a ret-con. Heck, he's the god of kindness and even-handedness. A "Kill them all and let the gods sort them out" approach really doesn't sound like it should jive well with him, especially when innocents are being killed by the Hounds. Rutilor certainly wouldn't be cool with Necromancers, but he sounds like he'd be pretty okay with something akin to due process. So, after a bit of a stern talking to, the Hounds may very well have to choose between chilling out or hopping over to Aldauth worship - literally the god of sorting them out.

Bottom line, we do need Events support. We do need to be able to form and join less discriminating Orders. We do need Mentors. The Necronights have been amazing, but that should only be a start. Not because the hard-moders in us want hand-holding, but because those are the most consistent ways to have access to player events. And we do need some vein of a reason for every event not to turn its focus into Necro Whack-a-mole every time we show up to participate in an existing event. Not all of us show up to existing events with intent to derail them. Maybe that can be greeted with something that's less "I'm going to kill you now" and more "I'm going to kill the heck out of you after this existing event is over, because right now Velmix is actively trying to eat the Baron's face." Sure it's a hokey OOC consideration, but hey -- it means you get two events instead of one -- the event you intended to have, and the event where you kill the heck out of us.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh

>Because as I understand the lore right now, burninating Necromancers early and often is just plain the safest and most correct course of action. If we want Necromancers to be able to participate in more events, sowing seeds of doubt here is absolutely essential. Give my character room to doubt. Give me a legitimate reason that my character isn’t either a gullible chump or blithely unconcerned with the state of the world if I have him stand and talk with a Necromancer.

FWIW, there's a Lore reason that I'm pretty sure would be a somewhat compelling not to outright kill Philosophers, but it's probably considered an in-game secret and I don't want to suffer the Wrath of Annwyl. The Forsaken get a really creepy-bad thing that happens to us when we die that the Philosophers would be very Not Cool with, and my guess is it probably eventually will have ramifications that are not Good Things for everything else in existence. I'd love to see the ramifications of that play out in events visible to non-Necromancers.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh

I agree with Saragos's suggestions and would also add the following:

Develop disguises so that they are easier to spot. It would go a long way if there were notes in game to indicate to us that someone is in disguise.

Someone already mentioned the "Also here: Necrobob whose face is obscured" idea I believe. I'm also suggesting the following:

1) An OOC note that can be toggled by the disguised to appear when the person speaks or interacts. For example:

Necrobob says, "Hi."
You cannot determine the identity of this person due to the items he is wearing. You think he might be a male Human or Rakash.

You might need to adjust a bit so it doesn't spam too often.

2) Ideally I'd love to see a more in-depth disguise system, since after a while us anti-necro people are going to ask who that masked person is and maybe demand an unmasking. I could see self-shifting or even "wearing the faces of the dead", a la Game of Thrones. This would allow necromancers a real, IC way to attend all events, as long as they're willing to go as a new face. For example:

Necrobob says, "Hi."
Necrobob appears to be a Human woman with grey-tinged red hair.

Naturally there's the difficulty that even with a big flashing red sign that says "you don't know this person is a necromancer!" someone is going to go OOC and ruin it. Still it may be worth a try.


- Navesi

>Because as I understand the lore right now, burninating Necromancers early and often is just plain the safest and most correct course of action.

Did I miss something crucial where the temple got a new weapon against the profane aegis? Last I knew burning necromancers was at best uneducated magical thinking.

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Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.

Since this thread my very well determine the future shape of my favorite guild I figured I would weigh in. When looking at necromancer game play I tend to take a pragmatic approach, I know there are a million and one different reasons that everyone should hate the necromancers lore wise but IMO game lore is always fluid so I will try to focus on mechanics.

Divine Outrage - I get that necromancers are potentially bad for the plane of abiding, arguably more so than a moon mage corrupting the plane of probability. However I can find no redeeming aspect to divine outrage. Limiting the usage of player abilities to avoid death by beings that hate us yet refuse to do anything more than annoy me in real life is silly. Great I've been smote again time to stand back up and collect my equipment and continue on like nothing happened.

Accuse/Locked Open - These two mechanics have driven me to avoid events and populated areas. I understand that necromancers are currently not tolerated by society however this in no way furthers RP or player interaction. At the end of the day there is nothing that anyone can actually do to deter me from being a necromancer except harass me when I'm trying to go about my business. Instead of allowing players to roleplay these interactions we are locked into a complex system of SO combined with DO that is more likely to make me log off and wait a day or two than further the narrative of my character or dragonrealms.

Risen - Necromancers are supposed to raise things from the dead but being a recent addition to dragonrealms (3 yrs) having one of these with me might as well paint a big target on my face. I am in no way able to prevent a large majority of the player base from instantly killing me if they so choose. Combined with the HUNT ability others can see these from a long way off so I have never bothered to make one.

The current necromancer mechanics tend to enforce player isolation, this is bad for dragonrealms in a number of ways the first is financially. Because I can be killed/outed by others for using my abilities I steer away from paid events, especially the combat related ones, even if I would like to attend. Second I avoid participating in evasion and story events because a character using no skills during combat is a dead giveaway that they are a necromancer. Personally I would prefer advancement of the necromancer story arc to game fixes because I've already learned to live in the current ecosystem but I think there are a number of things that could be done to improve everyday life.

TLDR - The current mechanics incentivize isolation which hurts the game as a whole.

Regarding the Inquisition...

As somebody who plays an Inquisitor, I think I can speak for all of us when I say that it's our goal to provide fun opportunities for roleplaying stories with Necromancers. We want to provide conflict with characters in a way that is satisfying to players. If anything, I want to emphasize this: Our characters hate Necromancers, but we don't hate Necromancer players. We realize that if we want to have Necromancers to play with, we need to treat their players well. Sometimes this means not going for the kill, even if it would make perfect IC sense. Sometimes it means taking a fall now and then. Could we be doing a better job? Considering everything that's been said in this thread, yes. On our end, we are currently working on more robust guidelines for initiates. We will also be working on more events going forward. I want to do my part to dispel the notion that players of Inquisitors and all other Anti-Necro characters are just waiting for the moment a Necro is outted so we can leap on them and dig through their chest cavity with a rusty blade. Speaking for myself, unless a Necro is currently dropping orbs or otherwise making a scene in public, I will NOT just go straight to advance < attack, especially against lower-leveled characters. Any players of Necro characters regardless of level of PVP-interest (even none at all!) who have plots they would like to play out with the Inquisition or with Whiteburn should not be afraid to reach out to me.

I think your dedication to the inquisition from an RP perspective is great but you probably aren't the main concern for most players. I would love to play out PVP plots with some members of the Inquisition but once my name becomes known by appearing in public I'm subject to the whims of anyone who wants to abuse the current game mechanics. I'm sure not all Anti-Necro characters are rabid murders but would you risk the possible consequences for a one time event?

I think using an npc reaction during a paid quest event is not a great baseline for global interactions that happen on a daily basis.

>>I think using an npc reaction during a paid quest event is not a great baseline for global interactions that happen on a daily basis.

>>The global interactions (or lack thereof) that happen on a daily basis are not a satisfying baseline for most necro players.

I think the point was that being a paid quest, the NPCs are not going to set up to refuse help from anyone who paid to go.


Mazrian

>>I think using an npc reaction during a paid quest event is not a great baseline for global interactions that happen on a daily basis.

Why? The Prydaens who live past the barrier are there on a daily basis, and that's the response they give. So, if people at the heart of Lyras-ravaged Necromancer-terror-town are capable of going "you're not the worst thing I got bigger fish to fry," why can't other players in an area that has been less affected by Necromancy in general?

What if Lyras 2.0 came to town and the Immortals stopped by to say, "You know what, we're cool with those Philosophers. They're not the real issue: the people making pacts with demonic extra-planar creatures like Maelshyve are and those Philosophers are more useful idiots in our brigade to defeat them." Would that be global interaction on a daily basis enough to change things?

Mind you, I don't expect that happening, but I'm also amused by the "but we HAVE to act this way because REASONS within LORE" as if this isn't an imaginary roleplaying game where deus ex stuff happens all the time in order to resolve situations that have no easy out.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

> Why? The Prydaens who live past the barrier are there on a daily basis, and that's the response they give. So, if people at the heart of Lyras-ravaged Necromancer-terror-town are capable of going "you're not the worst thing I got bigger fish to fry," why can't other players in an area that has been less affected by Necromancy in general?

FWIW, I agree with your conclusions from a story perspective; however, this example may be a case of SIMU finance over necro lore.

As someone earlier in the thread wrote, I'm not looking at a retcon so much as "the narrative grows and things change."

I mean, like I said earlier, I didn't initially intend the Hounds to be so hot and heavy five years later, that was a result of myself not putting into place plot that would cause that narrative to grow and things to change.

The question should not be "can we change the narrative?" Of course we can. It's how to do so in a graceful way, to serve the twin masters of making the game more enjoyable and to get the Necrostory back on the rails.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>> I really don't think trying to retcon this supposedly hardmode, not for the faint of heart, serious players only, evil guild into something watered down and palatable to goofy order events is the answer.

This a lot. How many times has Armifer posted too bad..it was meant to be hard.. maybe this guild isnt for you..It was written this way. If you are finding events hard to attend, roll up a trader. Something f2p to get your socializing fix. You play a necro... a dirty gross filthy necro. Um.. BADGUY.


>> I do not highly value the opinion of people who do not main or substantially identify with the Necromancer guild.

Losing the opinion of a majority of the players as many can't stomach what it takes to play a Necro seems to be shooting yourself in the foot. People have characters they have spent years building up based on how Necro's are viewed. You made this guild. This is yours and now you are discussing watering it down cause suddenly it's too hard to attend a charade party?? If your intent is to make an entire guild viewed differently, you sir made it the way it is. Not only was it built up for years to be a super bad guy guild..but the years its been a guild it has been hard mode DR. I don't know, this feels like one or two people can't go to an auction or a tea party so suddenly we are all gonna hug it out. And Im sorry you don't highly value my opinion, but my characters do not hate nor do they shun or otherwise give a frog about Necros. It's just a person in my characters mind. A guild I used to look at and go wow..those guys.. they mean to play DR. Now.. It's like those guys... they cry a lot.

>>This is yours and now you are discussing watering it down cause suddenly it's too hard to attend a charade party??

Not to speak for Armifer, but he probably wants to hear how Necromancers feel explicitly because people who don't play them seem to believe the complaints are "it's too hard to attend a charade party" when it's really "where is the plot going and if it is going nowhere how do we participate in something because things feel a bit empty."

I also think it's worth acknowledging that Armifer's idea of what counts as "hard mode" has changed over the years, based on personal reflection, a different analysis of what counts as hard gameplay, and so on. So going "this guild was supposed to be hard!" isn't entirely accurate, either, because the guild can still be hard under the new mindset of what counts as hard. After all, some might find the guild easy right now, because the hard part generally amounts to "don't interact with other players". In other words, the issue isn't that the guild is hard, it's that the guild isn't engaging.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>after btb

Not necessarily. Especially if i didnt follow in lyras' footsteps. It is a narrow and closed mind that takes people and only judges them off titles. They are elders for a reason and you helped them. Now if you started raising the dead and attacking them... by all means you seal your doom... but otherwise they would probably nod and let you pass on the road of life.

>>marstan

only people that marstan murdered were disrespectful pvp morons that were fighting on top of graves. They were far from innocent.

>>the immortals

Again. The immortals are just further along the path. With better PR. Or maybe are just demons. No one wants to really consider that though.. I would think most scholars even in elanthia would have made comparions by now. Unless they too are being killed by the clerics.

>>The issue is that it's rooted in avoidance of other players, which is boring, not hard.

>>I'd actually much prefer the plot advance in a way that presents me with some genuine challenges ICly rather than the current situation where you can make it from zero to Necrolord with few to no problems provided you are willing to treat DR like a single player game.

Replying just to co-sign and make sure this was seen.

Playing a Necro is stupid-easy, even when I was doing it Prime. The magical trick is to just never go into town and engage anyone who wants to PvP. It's not hard, it's easy. It's also boring as hell. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to ignoring the game even more while not breaking AFK policy, because you're essentially not allowed to interact with non-necromancers without expecting an inevitable conflict and it turns out that's not a good way to remain engaged with the game.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

herp der derp. played a wm long time ago. watched the simu broadcast where they announced a new necro guild and PO aleydan??? sang a song.

rerolled said wm into a commoner, grind commoner stuff a while, leave for some years. (unbeknownst to me necro guild dev dropped and resumed)

hear guild being released, come back, commoner grind a bit more, join when released and then bad news. ooc lists, and meta necrohate coinciding lyras war. peace out again. to play a commoner char that has interactions with other players and then become a necro? social necro play stinks. it is hardcore for sure, without any of the pre-envisioned perks for being hardcore.(other than self healing, which is totally not worth it)

the spooky awakening and extra perceptual attunement to something lurking draws parallels to experiences some folks may or may not understand. but the fluff and atmospherics aside, thats where the parallels end. ah sweet fiction. mechanically it's tough for necros, and I had many more positive interactions as a commoner than any stint as a necromancer. the novelty of other folks finding your necro status wears off a month or two in. vampires are still cooler because they can share the gift :P

-Munch-

Each time we have a festival, I'm astonished by the number of people who tried the guild to a certain degree, got to probably circle 30 or 40, and went back to their main. They still log them on to see if we have any awesome shops that they don't get access to -- but they are unwilling/disinterested to play their Necromancer with any seriousness. Incidentally, for the people doing this, the shops primarily either have things that're primarily useful to Necromancers or serve as an alt venue to obtain regular items that're on sale.

I think it's telling that there are so many players who have tried playing a Necromancer and changed their mind. I don't think it has to do with difficulty -- it's honestly not hard once you're familiar enough with the mechanics that you can hide. And my character has only been bothered once since the guild's release while hunting by an invisible arrange-counter in Theren with literally no reason to have been in that hunting ground.

My guess is that they found that it is intensely boring and lonely to keep your head down and not attend events, and at the same time likely frustrating and infuriating to consistently attend as a Necromancer and have to fight all the time, whether it's when you're attending a festival and all you want is a nice pair of pants or when you're just trying to show up to an Order event.

At the moment, the only options to participate in events consistently are either to keep your head down and never circle past the point where you're effectively outed, or to own the fact that you will be treated like you're attacking a town literally every time someone sees you. The latter is actually exceeding disruptive not only to our gameplay, but disruptive and disrespectful to the people who run the event. After all, interrupting a Siegery tournament with "Hi I'm a Necro pls to be killing" is kind of a jerk thing, and the current RP environment for out Necromancers is precisely that, even when you're not actively doing any badguy-ing.

Any expansion of the lore that allows for even a momentary tolerance of Necromancers at events who aren't all zombie'd up would be wonderful. Any expansion of events to make it clear that there is a bigger bad than a PC Necro at a moment is a wonderful thing -- and would give Necromancers a chance to show that even though they're romancing necks, they're fighting a common enemy.

Rolling an RP alt and only show up when you want to be treated like a bad guy is a potential answer, but it shouldn't have to be the answer, and it's a bad answer. Expecting that to be the GM answer is expecting bad design -- it would be asking roughly 4% of characters to stay out of RP/events entirely unless they are ready to fight.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh

>the original pretext of the guild as I understood it was to give up the social aspects for increased character power to be a quasi "once in a while bad guy gmnpc" type figure.

It's not even increased power, really. Our spells are subject to the same checks and balances that every other buff/debilitation/TM spell are. We're pretty much a Warrior Mage with different priorities for utility extras, less versatility in TM choices, and a combat pet.

> what happened between the time development was dropped and when it resumed is not clear.

My guess from Armifer's comments is that there was a gross misunderstanding about the quantity of Dev/Events work to keep the guild on track. It didn't help that staff then appears to have been repurposed to two magic system revisions and other projects after the guild's release, meaning that the Dev/event support that was planned and expected stopped being available, as other projects were more pressing -- an understandable position, given that Necromancers are only 4% of the pop, but ultimately leaving Necromancers in the lurch in a profound and unfortunate way.

I've thought about Events even more, and it doesn't seem to be best practices to have to give 4% of characters their own events consistently to keep that community active, because that excludes 96% of players from active (and limited) work done by Events staff. If there's simply not the available Dev/events staff to pursue the onus of the guild in addition to main events, one solution might just be having Events staff make a Necro angle for every main event, and give us access to non-discriminating Orders and Mentors so that we can have a bit more onus behind player-run Necrovents.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh

<<> And my character has only been bothered once since the guild's release while hunting by an invisible arrange-counter in Theren with literally no reason to have been in that hunting ground.

Amusing aside: My Moon Mage was mistaken for a necromancer on his very first day hunting rats by another player who was a necromancy user, by counting my arranges... well after arrange counting was no longer a thing. They outed themselves to me by casting a necromancy spell and saying the equivalent of, "See I'm one too."

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