A Gypsy Investigates Factions (4 Part Series)

**Queen Mum** · 24th January 2006, 08:01 PM

Long ago in a far off memory, the gracious and lovely Gypsy Keja Mimi of Sonoma dove
into the depths of factions and she brought back her tales of adventures for us to enjoy ...

*Thank you Gypsy Keja Mimi for permission to repeat the series, we hope you return home soon!
Love and bright blessings always to you our dear sweet friend.

Original posted on stratics Sonoma forum ...
Part One : A Gypsy Investigates Factions
Part Two : A Gypsy In Disguise Joins Factions
Part Three : A Historic Faction Battle
Part Four : Factions - If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

**Queen Mum** · 24th January 2006, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Part One : A Gypsy Investigates Factions 01/28/04 04:52 AM

"Where are the faction vendors?" I heard someone at the bank say as I made my way through the crowd around West Britain Bank.

Faction vendors? I knew what they meant, but it had been a long time since I had seen them. I slowed down a bit to see if I could overhear if anyone answered the questioner, and it wasn’t long before someone did, but it wasn't the answer I think they were expecting.

The person who answered seemed angry about the question, and through the shouts of people selling things and buying things I caught very little, but it definitely peaked my curiosity. Where were the faction vendors?

As a reporter it’s my job to find out the answer to such things. So I began a little investigative work. I knew they had something to do with factions, but I had no idea how factions actually works.

For those who do not know what a faction vendor is, because they are new or never travel to the towns in Felucca, groups of faction vendors can often be found in certain Felucca towns. They generally sell boards, bottles, ore for ingots or reagents. At certain times in the shards history these vendors have been plentiful and the resources they sold very cheap. But these vendors did not exist long and disappeared. Every once in a while someone comes upon one of them tucked in a corner somewhere with the resources for sale, but often the prices are now inflated, or they are put where it is impossible to access them.

If you already know this information, skip this paragraph, this is just a short "Factions 101 Primer" for all of those who do not know this. Eight cities in Felucca have tall pillars in them. You might have seen them before and wondered what they were. They are the stands on which a sigil rests. Each sigil is a different color and look like Modain's Defeat Coin. There are four separate factions: True Britanians, whose base is Lord British's castle (if you have ever wondered why you can't go in there in Felucca, that is why); Minax, whose base is along the east face of the mountain where Shame is located; Shadowlords, whose base is found in the Yew Crypts; and Council of Mages, whose base is found in the Parliament building in Magincia. You can not enter a base unless you are one of these factions, so if you are exploring along and hit an invisible wall somewhere, this is most likely why. At each base are eight pillars which hold the sigils after they are stolen. Once placed on these pillars, they must be held inside that base for 24 hours without anyone else stealing them. If a sigil can be held inside of any faction base for 24 hours, the faction who owns it owns the town it belongs to for 3 days. It is a bit more involved, but basically, one of the advantages to "owning" a town, is that that faction can then place faction vendors. The prices of these vendors’ resources are then controlled by the faction. Some factions are generous and make their vendors available to the shard if they so choose to use them with very good discounted prices. Other factions choose to hide the vendors and/or keep the prices high, only setting them low enough for their faction at certain times to buy in bulk. It is all a choice of the individual faction and guilds on what they decide to do with their cities.

When I began researching factions, I didn’t know half of that information. I only knew that I was as curious as to where the faction vendors were as the person I had overheard.

As I began asking around to find some information, surprisingly I was contacted by the Guildmistress of YAD, TorAnn, who offered to tell me a bit about factions. We spent some time talking, and then I went to do an interview with her and some of her guildmates.

This interview was done a couple weeks ago, but I had to hold the information I obtained then because a change of strategy was in the works. At the time of the interview I first did with TorAnn, along with her co-leaders Lao T'syn and Daemon DeMort, their guild YAD was part of the faction Shadowlords. Due to some technical game mechanics they had decided to move their faction to True Britanians. As I was holding this article waiting for them to make the move, they found out that True Britanians could not hold any more members, so their only option was to move to Council of Mages. This involved another wait, and again I held the information, they wanted the change of faction to be a surprise to Minax, who is the faction that currently holds all of the towns, and who has held all of the towns for as long as most people can remember.

This is just some highlights of my interview with TorAnn and the others from YAD:

Gypsy Keja Mimi: So, tell me a little bit about who you are and what you are trying to do.

TorAnn: ummm.........
Devorious: Kill Minax
Lao T'syn: Trying to get Sonoma some cheap regs - with a real community effort, BUT all we get is demands for vendors and low turn out to defenses. *sobs*

Gypsy Keja Mimi: I think most people don’t even know what a defense is. I am hoping to change that for you.

TorAnn: We are trying to give Sonoma back to Sonoma and (get it) out of the hands of Minax. Vendors for all...The fact that Minax hides the faction vendors is what started YAD. We want to give the vendors back to Sonoma and let everyone enjoy the lowered prices. It shouldn't be just for the "special" people. And we have been in this for several months, now it is the vendors and a more personal thing.

As I spoke to the members of YAD, I found out many things. Due to the fact that it is a war, and they have to keep things hidden from other factions, I can't tell everything for obvious reasons, but they were candid and honest with me and allowed me a look into what they do and how they do it. I thank YAD for their trust in me.

The interview I had left me intrigued. The more I knew about factions, the more interested I became. Here was a group that obviously needed help in a big way. They could not have a tougher opponent

TorAnn: Minax... has GREAT group tactics and on top of that...has the best gear
Lao T'syn: The enemy has ALL the best gear all the scrolls, all the stats, best PCs AND they are good, so...a lot to overcome
TorAnn: Our opposition couldn't be any bigger, but with numbers and hard work it can be done. They have held Sonoma captive for about 2 years if not more. It's time to end that.
Lao T'syn: We need #s (more people). Nothing but (that) will beat them. Even if they go to different factions, start their own guild, do their own thing
TorAnn: I would LOVE to see all factions active and play them the way they were meant to be played
Lao T'syn: The so called Rpers could have a hay day RPing factions. Think about it, they can control a town.
TorAnn: Town fighting, not gate fighting.

The more I found out the more I wondered... how hard is it to do? I really wanted to give people who didn't know about factions a true look into what factions is all about. In order to do that I made up my mind, I was going to have to join factions in order to fully research my story.

Now anyone who knows me know, I have been in Sosaria for about 4 years. I existed before there was a Trammel, and I wasn't very good at the start, and when Trammel was born I definitely quickly embraced the new ruleset. I have never been afraid of Felucca. I traveled there if the occasion warranted it, but I did not go out of my way to go there. I would visit friends there, report there after becoming a reporter, do champ spawns, mine, chop wood, shop, but not every day or even every week. And yes I have been killed and looted there, and that part didn’t bother me, I have had worse happen in Trammel. My hesitation was not because of death. My hesitation was "could I, a PvM player who has little to no interest in PvP do any good in factions?"

In the end, I decided... In order to do this article justice, I was going to have to find out. I spoke to TorAnn and made arrangements. I thank her again for trusting me and agreeing to do this experiment. This little gypsy 'Trammie' was going to join factions.

To be continued....

**Queen Mum** · 24th January 2006, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Part Two : A Gypsy In Disguise Joins Factions
1/28/04 06:03 AM

When I got home I took a look in the mirror. I was going to join factions in order to spend some time learning what it was all about, but somehow, I didn’t think I would be much use in factions as a gypsy.

I took some time and found a disguise for myself, darkened my hair, changed the way I dressed, I went out and got myself some different skills... magery. The faction needed mages, and I am the first to admit I am no kind of mage, but I figured the Fortunes would provide if I worked the skill. Off I went to work on the skills I decided to pursue in my disguise. Hours and hours of sailing later, I figured I was ready to join the faction and see what it was all about. My skills were still not as high as I would need them to be eventually, but I figured they were high enough to get me started. Most skills were around 80 at the time I felt ready to join.

I called TorAnn who met me at Skara Brae in Trammel. Along with me was Obnaidys Ner'le, another new member to YAD.

I didn’t know what joining factions would be like. Over the years I have heard people speak about joining and quitting factions as if there is a scary secret ritual... how do you join a faction? That was my next question, and I was about to have my answer.

When the red gate opened I found myself in the city of Magincia, which is the home to the Council of Mages. We walked down the sandstone path until we came to a stone set in the grass beside the path. It was a dark blue stone looking somewhat like a tombstone. Upon double clicking it, a menu came up with a short history about the Council of Mages. After reading it quickly, all I had to do was use the joining option, and I was now a COM Faction Member. That was easy. A note here about factions, only one character per account per shard can be factioned, so make sure you get the character you want in factions, or you will have to a wait while taking them out and putting in another one. Joining is instantaneous, leaving takes a week.

TorAnn then took us to the YAD house, and one after another Obnaidys and I joined YAD. I was now a member of a COM guild as well. (A note here, you do not need to be a member of a faction guild in order to be in a faction. But it helps some having guildmates as well as factionmates, for obvious reasons. To become a member of YAD, you must know someone in the guild, you must be recommended by them, and you must fulfill the requirements of membership as set by YAD. For information about this or any of the faction guilds, contact one of the members of the individual guild you are interested in.)

So I was now a member. I was afraid and excited all at the same time. What to do next? Back to training... Have to get those skills up so I can do something other than stand around...

The members of YAD were very nice to me, and I spent two nights on a rooftop of a house dying. Daemon DeMort and Lao T'syn were very patient and they killed me many times as they attempted to teach me. I died over and over again. I died, they rezed me, I looted, I healed, I died...

Over and over again. I set macros to help with spell casting and healing. I promptly forgot where they were and I died. I moved some macros. I concentrated on healing. I died. I tried again. I died. I moved some more macros. And then somewhere in their drills I was concentrating on healing myself, and Lao ran out of mana and I nearly fell off my horse dead from shock! I lived!!! I had kept myself from dying!!

"Did you see that?" Lao said to Daemon, "She had the nerve to live..."
"Yeah," Daemon said. Then they both promptly killed me.

I was so excited. I knew Lao had not been easy on me, and I had actually survived. I still had a long way to go, and I worked harder. Soon I could survive a little longer, even against two of them, and I could even sneak in a well placed if weak e-bolt or something once in a while. I was no where near able to kill them, but I was learning. And I died a ton. But they were helping me learn and I appreciated the lessons very much.

My next concern was armor. I spent hours on my blacksmith/tailor working on making suits of GM armor with as high resist as I possibly could get. Add a shield with spell channeling and some faster cast/ faster cast recovery jewelry, and I was getting there on what I needed. A few notes about armor in factions. Lower Reagent Cost Suits and Luck suits have no place in factions except under special circumstances. What you need is resists and lots of them. The better your suit, the more chance you have of surviving. The members were very helpful at different tactics to put together suits.

Another thing you really need... you die A LOT! There are pieces of equipment you are not going to want to lose. You really do need insurance on those pieces, and subsequently, you will have to have enough gold in the bank to cover it when you die 800 gazillion times. During training you can obviously turn off the insurance if you trust your guildmates, but do not forget to reinsure those valuable irreplaceable pieces before you leave training. Factions are not cheap. I am a gypsy and it doesn’t pay well, so I did spend some time out farming gold to pad my bank account.

Factions is like anything else in the game, you will eventually want to get better, and some of that costs money, money or time for scrolls, money or time to collect artifacts, etc.; but there is nothing stopping anyone from joining like I did, with decent skills and some decent armor, you work up a little at a time to better skills and equipment. They need every person they can get, if you have the courage there is a place for you. People were very helpful and they did not make me feel weak and stupid. So unless you find the wrong people to play factions with, you should be fine. If you do find the wrong ones, you should just find a new group.

I got a look at the Council of Mages Faction base, as well as the other faction bases. One night Daemon DeMort took us on a tour and showed us the bases, and their different layouts. It was a great tour. He is a great source of information, and he never acts like I ask stupid questions, and I have a whole book full for him most days. A lot of the information I have in this series of articles is due to his patience as well as that of TorAnn and Lao. They have spent hours talking to me and answering all of the questions I have. That is not to discount the other members who have all helped me and been extremely kind.

So now I had a little skill, some decent armor, gold in my bank, I was working every chance I got to add a few more points to my skills, or to spar with another member to try to get faster at casting. I could barely wait for the next thing I would learn.

Well only a few days after I joined the faction was the first defense. I was about to learn what happens for real during a Faction Defense. The Defense is what its all about. I was really nervous. The next part of this series will show what I saw on the day of The Defense.

To be continued...

**Queen Mum** · 24th January 2006, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Part Three : A Historic Faction Battle
01/28/04 11:17 AM
The night before my first big faction defense I went to bed very late. I was trying to get in that last bit of training, that last bit of practice in case the next day brought me no time to do it.

It was a surprise the next morning when I woke, after only about 5 hours of sleep, and I immediately rushed off to find out what was going on.

I found TorAnn alone. She had been up longer than I, and all of the sigils had already been stolen. I had missed witnessing that part even though I tried to sleep fast, but I recalled to the COM base, and there they all were lined up on the monoliths.

It was very early, and she expected to lose them any minute, as Minax normally are there to attack first thing in the morning, but so far all had been quiet.

So began a long wait. One by one members arrived and made preparations for the battle they knew would take place. People readied supplies for the battle: regs, necro regs, bottles, potions, bandages... anything the defenders could possibly use. People staked out their positions for the battle. Everyone checked armor and weapons.

Early in the morning it was realized that there was no available faction tinker to tinker a faction trap. For those who don't know, each faction is allowed to have up to 14 faction traps at a time. These can be either poison or explosion traps, unless you own the city they are placed in, and then you can also use a blade or spike trap. Faction traps do not harm anyone not in factions, or anyone who is in the faction that places the trap. Anyone of a different faction who walks over a trap, however, gets hurt. The person who actually sets the trap gets a small amount of silver, and if the trap actually kills a rival faction member, you get a little more silver. Once the faction tinker makes the trap, it is a deed, and anyone in the faction can then place it and collect the silver if it is triggered. Rival factions can remove the traps once they are found if they have a faction trap remover and an appropriately skilled character to remove them. Faction traps are expensive, however, because each trap costs 1000 silver to make.

To give people an idea of how long it takes to make 1000 silver, here is an idea. There are ways to make silver, such as faction traps and killing a rival faction member, but most factions make silver when needed from killing one of the patron creatures of a rival faction. The four patron creatures of factions are wisps, silver serpents, ogre lords, and daemons.

Council of Mages patron creature is the wisp, so COM does not kill them for silver, they can hunt any of the other three. Each creature killed that is the patron of a rival faction gives the one who lands the death blow 24 silver. That is right... 24. So it takes the death of 42 rival faction patron creatures to make one trap or 420 creatures to make 10 traps. That is a lot of hunting. But its fun. Gives you something to do.

Silver is used for many other things, so PvM is definitely a big part of factions still. I could do this part, and I spent a bit of time hunting silver.

The morning of the defense, it was discovered that there was no available faction tinker to make traps. Daemon DeMort came to the rescue. He spent 5 hours solid working tinkering to make his tinker high enough to craft faction traps. The traps ended up being a great part of the defense, and I know the other members of YAD were very grateful to him for all of his long hours of boring work.

Time continued to tick... Noon came and went and there was no sign of Minax. Members spent a bit of time sparring, talking about tactics. More members came. Some left and said they would be back. And still the wait continued.

Traps were set, more and more COM arrived, and still no sign of Minax. I was told this is often the case, nothing for hours upon end, and then suddenly Minax appears, kills everyone in 2 minutes, steals back the sigils and its game over for another day. Twelve hours past, and still no sign of a Minax.

Some members were there for the whole day, some part, but they were all important, and you can never tell when the attack will come. I would like to take a minute to list members of COM that I saw during the defense. Herb (a brand new COM ally joined that day), TorAnn, Odd, Lady Myrtle the Green, Obnaidys Ner'le, Didan, Manaman, Vontar, Silvermane, Tsythema Ner'le, Daemon DeMort, Moses Chance, Olga Jerwinkle, Taylor Bree, Aragorn Loreland, reggie, Katz Onyx II. So many came in and out that day it was hard to keep track, so if I missed you I am sorry.

Someone announced 9 and a half hours to go, then 8 hours to go. We had snacks, played games, told jokes and generally tried to keep each other awake for hour after hour. The sigils had been held for 16 hours, and still no sign of Minax. Not long after the 8 hour mark was announced, the first Minax showed up.

A Minax suddenly appeared on the screen, and messages flew through the air. Everyone who had been near to dozing from boredom was suddenly wide awake. I know my heart was pounding. This was it.

Spells were thrown and it wasn’t but a few seconds before it was announced she was dead. From the messages I got it was more than an impression that that had never happened before. Usually this Minax swept through and killed everyone quickly, sometimes alone. So far the defense was working.

Then there was another lull. No Minax appeared but we all knew they would. Someone said they were probably waiting out the dead member’s stat loss. Another note about factions is, if you die to a rival faction member, you take a temporary 20 minute loss of approximately 30% of your skills. It hurts for sure and makes you easier to kill. But you are in a group, and with a little caution you can easily get back into the battle.

Suddenly the Minax appeared and the real battle began. This was all out war. For 2 hours the air was filled with spells, arrows, messages and the sounds of the dying. Lots of COM members died, but for the first time even more Minax members met their death. On and on the battle raged, and though people died and supplies ran short at times, the defense was holding. Two hours later the COM defense was amazed, they still held the sigils and no Minax had yet gotten through.

Then something no one could have foreseen happened. A GM appeared and demanded the defense break up due to an unknown technicality. It was abrupt and it caused the loss of the battle right there. There was no way to regroup since half the defenders were made to recall away. That is as much as I will say about it in this article.

To say the defenders were disappointed and angry is an understatement. They had held the sigils for the first time for over 18 hours. Against all of the seemingly impossible odds, they had finally been winning, and when victory was in sight, it was snatched away in an instant.

But I saw one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed in this game. As hurt as they were, as angry as they were, they merely resolved to beat Minax another way. They did not publicize their defeat, they quietly petitioned their case to the people who have power over those things, and left it in their hands. Not one member, as horrible as the defeat was threatened to quit or leave or stop trying with all of what they have to defeat the enemy.

It is days later, and the members of COM still have that will power. Not 5 hours after that defeat there were already members out training, out getting silver, out looking for more gear. They are helping each other grow stronger, helping to train, helping to teach, and trying to come up with new tactics. And all this they do for the people of Sonoma. So that all of the people of Sonoma can enjoy the faction vendors.

As frustrating as this was, as heartbreaking for some of them, not one of them has given up. The odds seem impossible to beat. But they want the victory very much. I am honored that I could be a part of this battle, that I could share it with the people of Sonoma. The spirit of the Paladin is alive in some people, and this is proof. To give everything you have for someone else against an enemy you can not beat and refusing to give up no matter how battered and bruised you get. It is a wonderful and special thing to see.

I wish that I could end this series of faction articles with a huge victory article. I could then go on to tell you how faction vendors are set up and even where they are so you can get some cheap resources yourself if you wish. But that part of my series will have to wait.

However, I have seen enough to know that I want to be there the day victory is won.

My skills are still not that great, my equipment is still not that great and I know that I will die 800 gabillion more times. But the victory is something I now want to see first hand.

Everyone says factions are broken. Yes, it is. Everyone says PvP is broken and very out of balance. Yes, it is too. It’s frustrating. But it has been a great experience for this 'Trammie' to see one group of people so willing to fight for something they know is right, and to not give up when most others would. This is not just PvP; it is PvP with a purpose. If they don’t fight there is no one else who will, and they refuse to give up no matter how bad it gets, and last Saturday had to be the all time worst moment in this shards faction history.

But I have seen that factions is like a giant game of 'Capture the Flag' only with much more reward. It is broken, and the sides are definitely not even. But if there is a way to win against overwhelming odds, this group is going to find it.

And when they do I will finish my series.
Good Fortune All.

**Queen Mum** · 24th January 2006, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Part Four : Factions - If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them
02/02/04 11:45 AM

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.

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!

24th January 2006, 08:01 PM	#1
Queen Mum Lead Administrator Join Date: Mar 2005 Shard: Sonoma Posts: 3,096 Gold: 24,147 My Mood: Blog Entries: 21 Thanks: 154 Thanked 342 Times in 136 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 2	A Gypsy Investigates Factions (4 Part Series) Long ago in a far off memory, the gracious and lovely Gypsy Keja Mimi of Sonoma dove into the depths of factions and she brought back her tales of adventures for us to enjoy ... Thank you Gypsy Keja Mimi for permission to repeat the series, we hope you return home soon! Love and bright blessings always to you our dear sweet friend.* Original posted on stratics Sonoma forum ... Part One : A Gypsy Investigates Factions Part Two : A Gypsy In Disguise Joins Factions Part Three : A Historic Faction Battle Part Four : Factions - If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them Last edited by Queen Mum; 24th January 2006 at 08:29 PM..

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