Ryzom

portios wrote: I dont like nor trust either side. I think I will join Karavan because Jena is so hawt. But I dont buy for an instant that she is a God. Why not neutral you say? Standing on the sidelines is not my thing. Fighting is fun and I want to experience all forms of Ryzom PvP.

That's just my point. I don't take Jena as a godess, but I take karavan and their tech as the best choice for Atys.

But, as Katriell say, you can be neutral and PvPr. It's a different experience, I think you have a bit less PvP (Migth not be for al people) and a bit more difficult the game.

But, neutral, kami or karava, the guild (And, then, the Alliance) you chose defines a lot more than faction, I think.

mithur wrote:But, neutral, kami or karava, the guild (And, then, the Alliance) you chose defines a lot more than faction, I think.

Indeed.

The amount of PvP you can participate in is basically up to the guild you join, not the alignment you choose. Kami and Karavan have the faction-vs.-faction PvP tag option, but I don't think that counts for much; the bulk of PvP is outposts.

((OOC: Message is IC, in case it's not obvious from the content. It's a culmination of what I've been able to piece together about this game and some of the original story goals that may have existed in the minds of the original concept artists. Perhaps. These are the thoughts and conclusions I've been led to believe, and it's easier to present them from an IC point of view. Replies need not be IC))

Concerning the Kami and the Karavan, we have little objective material to use to form opinions. Obviously you can't trust a word of what they say about themselves or about each other.

The kind of opinions we can form can really only be based on how they appear to us today, and what the histories have said -- assuming the history hasn't been modified. Even their promises are suspect until proven true. And, as you may have guessed, I have my own opinions, which I'm going to freely share

Jena may or may not be some super-powerful being. However, the technology the Karavan wield is strange, foreign, and awe-inspiring. But in their mannerisms actions, behaviours, and apparent way of life, they want no part of this place. Their curioity about the Goo seems limited to the fact that it's something new they don't understand. Once they do understand it, I feel little doubt that they would use it against whomever they wish, even to the point of destroying a planet they care nothing about and want no part of.

The machinery of the Karavan simply does not belong on Atys. It stands out as an eyesore, interrupting the flow of the landscape. And the eminations from that machinery wreaks havoc with the wildlife. It is not alive. It does not grow. Sap does not flow through it. It must be constantly maintained to avoid deterioration.

Ma-Duk is said to be basically a being a sort of energy, not necessarily a corporeal form. He supposedly created the Kami to serve him and protect the planet. I know that's information deviating a little from the "here and now + history only" aspect, but it's useful information to use to make my point, and I don't recall it ever being in dispute by either side, either.

I believe that Ma-Duk is the manifestation of the spirit of the planet itself. Remember, everything on this planet is alive -- there is no inorganic material apart from what the Karavan bring. The Kami and their mission of protecting Atys first and Homins second seerves only to reinforce this fact. They are, perhaps, not something to be worshiped as such, but more like something we should endeavor to cooperate with and respect.

With the Goo, the Kami are deathly afraid of it because it literally is infecting and killing the planet. They don't need to study it to know it is dangerous and must be eradicated, they can feel its effects in the very core of their existence. The fact that they want homins to help them eradicate it hints at an extra-terrestrial origin for homins, though Goo is no less dangerous to us either.


When we fight the Karavan (and I don't mean the homins who support them), we are fighting foreign entities to this planet. True, homins are said to have originated somewhere else, but they have integrated themselves into the planet and the way it works much like a herd of bodocs. In the wild, there is always someone who can eat you, no matter how big you are. Homins have relatively few predators other than each other, so the Kami need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't ruin the planet.

When we fight the Kami (again, not the homins), we are fighting the planet itself. If we "win", we will destroy the planet that sustains us. Remember, the sap of Atys flows through our veins and is where we get our ability to manipulate the magicks. It is undetermined whether or not homin life as we know it can exist some place other than on Atys.

((OOC: I could never choose Karavan, since they do not fit into the theme of the planet. I only chose Kami because a friend joined a friendly guild that happened to be Kami, and I joined with him. I don't know that I could choose Kami either, though supporting them is better IC if you are concerned about the welfare of the planet))

katriell wrote:.... the bulk of PvP is outposts.

IMHO outposts arent really PvP, they arent about individual skills or abilitys as much as they are about politics and numbers.

from a thread posted long, long ago http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24248&

--As another crazy theory, inspired by some earlier posts in this thread and other snippets of lore ( some now vanished ).
My perspective on this is as a neutral, and that both "powers" are lying to us for their own purposes.

It is an accepted fact that Atys is an engineered world, it has been altered from whatever it was before to its current form.

My theory is that Jena was the head of the project. and that the immaterial Ma-Duk was the AI responsible for carrying out the project.

This has no practical application, but it makes more sense to me than all these claims of divinity and so on.--

The Kami are the working drones for the Ma-Duk AI, and the Karavan are the human technicians and scientists.

xfluffee wrote:When we fight the Kami (again, not the homins), we are fighting the planet itself. If we "win", we will destroy the planet that sustains us. Remember, the sap of Atys flows through our veins and is where we get our ability to manipulate the magicks. It is undetermined whether or not homin life as we know it can exist some place other than on Atys.

You're absolutely right

great83 wrote:IMHO outposts arent really PvP, they arent about individual skills or abilitys as much as they are about politics and numbers.

It's Players vs. Players. Which is the extent of the definition I was running on.

xfluffee wrote: Homins have relatively few predators other than each other, so the Kami need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't ruin the planet.

Remember, the sap of Atys flows through our veins and is where we get our ability to manipulate the magicks. It is undetermined whether or not homin life as we know it can exist some place other than on Atys.

[OOC]It's been a long day so I will leave the rest to others... but I will hit a couple glaring errors in your views.[/OOC]
Homin, you are young and new to the lands made hospitable by our forefathers. The greatest threat to our existance are the kitin. We "may" have recently lost the great Tryton to his efforts to further investigate the kitin lairs deep below our surface layers.

Homins were brought here to Atys long ago, though the lore is old, we as a people are not native to this planet we now call home.

One day when you're not playing yuboball with other young homins... pull up a chair next to Kaetemi or Pero and you will learn much. Mind you, do not bring up politics with either of them...

You have been warned

katriell wrote:Also, neither Kami nor Karavan is inherently good or evil...regardless of the claims each faction tends to concoct against the other.

I'll call you on that.

I seriously doubt Ma-Duk is a bodiless entity of pure energy. Ma-Duk first appeared to homins in 2483 as the Lord of the Kami's so he is not quite made it to 60 years of godhood yet.

Ma-Duk is not a friend of the Homins. In fact he wants to change us or destroy us. His plan is that we either become his Kami slaves or are destroyed. Read his revelations, every one of them is about being subservient, his great reward is you get to become a kami and lose your self in his collective, you get to be a slave to the power that appeared all of 60 years ago, 30 years before the Goo outbreak. Look to the Zoari for the price of obedience, they hand over their children to become altered and brain washed. Their faces hidden so that they may become less of a homin and more of a kami. All in the name of what? Conservation.

The idea that Homins using sticks can destroy the planet is laughable. If you have not noticed the planet is growing out of control. Eventually our cities will be runes, canopied by the roots overhead, another layer amongst how many? Yet somehow we mighty wielders of shell and bone will destroy a planet.

I think the Kami are in fact the old spiritual leaders of the Karavan soldiers. That in their desire to become closer to Jena they created a mental link with the planet, they failed to take in to account the slumbering dragon and have been corrupted by his taint. If the dragon exists, wouldn't they have to be mentally linked to it? If they are one with the planet and the Goo causes insanity, what is it doing to the minds who bathe in it?

I do think the vast majority of the Homins who support the Kami have the best intentions, but they unaware servants of an evil older then roots of Atys. The deceiver catches the dreamer, the ideologue, those who think they can create a world of harmony, he uses them to advance his agenda. That agenda does not include Homins.

Perhaps the Kami can yet be freed from the goo and Ma-Duk and they can become spiritual leaders that work towards advancing Homins, but for now they are a force of evil, either willing or unwilling they work to capture all of our souls.

Pero

After a long day harvesting near the Exowarrios Camp, Mithur has received the nigth near the campfire. While his Melktoubs eat some herbs around, he is eating some pieces of the last gingo who tried "help" him while harvest.

After half year between the Ecowarriors, he has grow accustomed to the big and musculated figure of the Kami representant in the Upper Bog.

The nigth sound all around, all the vibran life of Atys making their simphony. Even the torbak cries are part of it.

But there are something bad. There is a newcomer to the camp, a young kamist. He have gone to the Kami welcomer, and all the words, all the instructions, are about kill or eliminate.

"That's the problem", Mithur thugh to himself, "The kami kill all what they don't understand. They don't try to understand. They are the equilibrium, but it could be well the equilibrium of an Atys with all the hominkind annihilated, maybe the equilibriun of an Atys where the hominkind has been reduced to a few domesticated ones, in some kind of zoo or reserve".

The Karavan are, in a lot of things, no better. But, at least, they watch for the homins, not for the planet. If the planed has to be changed for the good of homins, it will be. "I can't understand... a planet so big, all alive in all the surface, and up to miles under it... how can we, a few homins break that? We are too few, too little for that. All we can try is to survive. All we can try is all this huge and dangerous beauty don't kill us all." he think, while gives another bite to the cold meat.

"Puagh. Well, at least is not Yelk meat this time."