Guilds and Religions

[blckfire]

I've seen a lot of rumors about this on the forums here and there so, before we open I would like to show our hand and get your feedback on it.

All decisions about this have been made! Nevertheless, according to your feedback we might make some adjustments.

When we started to discuss a way to make changes on religions and how to balance it we had already listened and taken into account everything that was discussed on forums for the past 10 years or so.

With this in mind we also decided to spice things up and make it more interesting not only for religions but also for guilds.

Town control
In the past, only religions were able to conquer and have control of cities or towns, which is kinda of a non-sense. All players no matter what is their role-play should be able to participate and influence the way the world works. This opens up many role-play opportunities, from merchant to rogue towns and havens without those being influenced by religions.

Tome
This has been one of the most discussed topics in and out of the forums. It's very hard to balance tomes that have access to different spells which makes it a huge task to try and do it for such a small development team (me). Although, it makes sense that one religion has access to one spell and the other one to another, since it fits the lore of that religion.

With this in mind we thought about several solutions and came up with one that we think is the best.

Every religion will have access to same pool of rites from which 6 will be standard and 1 will be customized (the part of 1 customized is still to be discussed, since it can bring imbalances).

How are religions going to work?
We will soon introduce the new RP context in which our story will roll on but, putting it simply, in this new beginning there will be no religions. You as players will have to develop the lore for them. The idea is that you start your guilds (religions) where you gather your followers and, after showing strong enough numbers and lore about that religion, you will be rewarded with a tome.

Differences between guilds and religions
The only difference will be the tome that is given to the religion. In any other aspect of the game guilds will have access to the same kind of opportunities a religion has.

Conquering towns
As you can imagine from what I have described the way you can conquer a town will change. Although we still want to keep the siege in place, there will be more than one way of taking over a town. Some might even be RP based.

I think this lays down the new changes to religions and guilds and I hope you guys like the changes and embrace them as the new future of Pangaea. We took a long time to consider every outcome and this debate was the longest one we had (apart from class balancing). With them we want to create more role-play opportunities for everybody and moving a way from a religion centered shard to an open world shard where everybody gets to be what they want not having to be bound to a religion to ensure they can have access to all of the game's content.

[Talerco Pious]

Sounds awesome. When do we get to beta test this? ;D

[James Blackburn]

looks god damn awesome

[Johnny Walac]

Everything looks nice.

Have you thought anything on how the guilds can run a town? Will there be guild/religion guards? Can the owning guild control who the guards attack etc?

[Jon]

Sounds great!

[Thoran]

With them we want to create more role-play opportunities for everybody and moving a way from a religion centered shard to an open world shard where everybody gets to be what they want not having to be bound to a religion to ensure they can have access to all of the game's content.

One of the best things I've ever read on these forums.

[Ivan]

God damn I've been wishing for this for years, the response always was "but pang is supposed to be religion centered shard" BS. Next make sure that even if there is religion they are not overpowered assholes with malleus, veritas, aura's and etc. shit they had. Or atleast make non-religious characters immune for that shit, sure priests can shoot each others but keep it away from rest of us.

[Cele]

A lovely change. Hopefully this will contribute to political rp and intrigue between the ruling factions without what once (as far as I recall) was extremely tedious fighting between the religious factions.

[Demian]

How are religions going to work?
We will soon introduce the new RP context in which our story will roll on but, putting it simply, in this new beginning there will be no religions. You as players will have to develop the lore for them. The idea is that you start your guilds (religions) where you gather your followers and, after showing strong enough numbers and lore about that religion, you will be rewarded with a tome.

Just a few small questions about this..

1. Will we get a temple like before, or do we have to get our own place for the religion hq?
2. Can we create ANY new religion of our choice, or are we restricted to Law/Imp/Tek/Natu?
3. Let's say we recreate Law. Will we have to follow the exact same "philosophy" as the previous Law had, or can we make modifications?

If this stuff is explained with the RP context later, you can just ignore. Thanks.

[KrondorZuula]

Is wrong jail going to be removed now because of the guilds ability to take a town over?