*** This was our annual April Fools prank ***
All,
Lately, the distribution of players across the sides has been off. DS frequently has as many as LS and when you throw SS in the mix, it's become clear that LS can't muster the people to fight two sides. As the same time, sometimes SS complain about not having enough people to smob, it being quiet and so on. Yet when SS do have enough numbers, there's usually not enough on LS to fight them. Negativity flies, people end up complaining and no one's having fun.
Last weekend, Staff finally approved an idea to turn Seanchan into a set of human clans. They will cease being a race and will instead become humans, with all the benefits of having access to LS chats so the social aspect of this game will increase for them. This also means they will be able to join human smob groups. Essentially, the race war between LS and SS will become another sameside war, just like Illian-Tear-Mayene.
Firstly, this means that we will revert all Seanchan cities and mobs to human ones. Meanwhile, we will make imms available to manually switch all Seanchan characters to a human homeland. In this, we will be prioritizing those characters which are currently clanned. I will be installing a mob that you can let know which human homeland you wish to choose and I will make the appropriate change when I can get to it. There will be no coding changes involved. Although it would be easier, just giving Seanchan access to LS who and chats and vice versa, it is not likely that such a coding change would happen soon, so we'll be doing it the hard way.
Once the basics have been covered, we will need to change such mobs like kaf and chokevines so they respond appropriately and pk balance will be restored. The same goes for Seanchan mounts and any ships which currently only take Seanchan. Scalp turn in mobol will have to be adjusted - we do aim to have that remain automated.
One advantage to this new system will be that female channelers can be damane and form a "roleplay bond" with a person roleplaying a sul'dam. There are a few more details to iron out, but this is for the future anyway, once the merge has been completed. Since damane are so greatly desired by Seanchan players though, I didn't want to sit on this new development.
Like the south-eastern clans currently, the whole racewar will essentially be converted into a series of clan wars. While a Red Eagle may never choose to go smobbing with an Imperial Army clanned due to the roleplay background and warrants involved, a Borderlander or Legion person might not care about the person's affiliation. We expect that this will also lead to a greater balance in north pk, because people will actually be able to group and communicate efficiently.
"Seanchan" will no longer be distinguished by homeland/race, but by clan. So a person with the Arafel homeland can become a sworn and join a Seanchan clan, at which point he will be affiliated with the Seanchan. This pretty much mirrors how things currently go with other clan wars. At the same time, if you really want to roleplay a Seanchan, you can do so from any homeland. Just like half the Tower is from Illian and roleplaying having a background from anywhere they choose.
During the change, basic functionality will temporarily be affected. To make sure people don't die to mobs which suddenly aggro them, I will connect the Seanchan rents to the Circle, so people will not end up in a city which aggros them. I will put various no-mobs in Falme, Tanchico, Elmora and on Jafar to create safe havens. These will also be flagged peace, so LS can't take advantage of the situation.
As was said before, this change will take some time. Hopefully, once it's been completed, the game will be better off for it. Please stay tuned for an exact time and date when we will begin making the actual changes. We're looking at a weekend when we have multiple imms available. Once we've settled on a date, we will post on forums and on Facebook so everyone knows what is going on.
You can help make this work. The transfer will be time consuming and likely some things won't run smoothly right off the bat. Please be patient as we iron out the kinks. Meanwhile, if you're in a LS or SS justice clan, you might want to update your clan's warranting rules.
~WoTmud Staff