Publish 8

The following is a list of changes deployed as Publish 8 (also known as the Factions System Publish) on December 5, 2000.

Factions System

Introduction

The Faction System is a broad game system designed to promote organized player conflict within the society of Britannia. The fundamental goal of the conflict is to provide a foundation for player conflict based upon meaningful and contextual combat and conflict-related interactions. The system is designed to encourage the inclusion of a wide array of player types through the use of game mechanics that appeal to a broad set of play-styles.

The Factions

There are four factions:

• Minax
• Council of Mages
• True Britannians
• The Shadowlords

Each faction will have their own stronghold and ranking system.

All factions are aggressive towards each other.

Strongholds of Factions

Each Faction will have its own stronghold, a place where their Faction stone resides and where the members of that faction are to take a sigil if they obtain one. The stronghold is the base of operations for each Faction. At this time, the Faction strongholds are located at the following locations:

• Minax Faction - The stone fortress just south of the Papua armorer's shop and shipping shop (The Revenge Shop and Pier 39), outside of town.
• Council of Mages Faction - The Magincia Parliament Building in the southeast corner of Magincia.
• Shadowlord Faction - Located in the unused crypts in the Yew forest, a fair distance in a direct line northeast from the east Yew Healer's Shop named "Deep Forest Healing". This is not the Yew Graveyard, but instead the haunted crypts far to the northeast of the city within the woods.
• True Britannians Faction - Located within Castle Britannia's throne room, in the town of Britain.

Joining a Faction

Players who join factions will be able to participate in the combat, politics, and trade within the Faction system. Players can join Factions by the following methods:

Non-guilded players:

• Non-guilded players that wish to join a Faction will need to find the Faction Stone for that particular Faction. The faction stones are located within the stronghold for that particular faction.
• The player can double click the Faction Stone, and select the "join" option that will appear, as long as the following conditions are met:
  • The player must not be in any faction with any other character on the same account The player's account cannot be a "young" account (have young account status)

Guilded players:

• Guilded players may join a Faction if the following conditions are met:
  • Only the Guildmaster of a guild can use the "join" option on a Faction stone for that guild, none of the other members will be able to join the Faction alone unless they quit their respective guild.
  • The guild to join must be of the "standard" type. Chaos and Order guilds cannot join a Faction.
  • When the Guildmaster for a guild joins the Faction, all players are added to the Faction whether online or offline.
  • When the guildmaster attempts to join a Faction, each member of that guild is checked. If a particular member of the guild has another character elsewhere on that same account and same shard in a Faction, then that member will be removed from the guild attempting to join. This is to allow the guild to go ahead and join the Faction without overlapping the system of one character per account per shard within a Faction. The ejected guildmember can quit the Faction his or her other character is in and re-join the guild they were ejected from if desired. If a player has two or more characters within the same guild from the same account, and that guild then joins a faction, then one of their characters will be joined to the faction and remain in the guild. The other character or characters will be removed from the guild. If the guildmaster of the guild falls under this condition, then their guildmaster character will remain in the guild, while their other characters within that same guild, and on the same account, will be removed from the guild.
  • If a guildmember has "young" status, then they will be ejected from the guild upon the guild's joining of the Faction system.

The Faction system itself has a load-balancing factor, for all members within the Faction (guilded or non-guilded). This load balancing is used if any Faction contains over 200 members. If any Faction contains 200 or more members, then the load balance system will perform a check every time someone tries to join any Faction. The system checks to see if the if the largest faction is as large or larger then three times the size of the smallest Faction. If the largest Faction is in fact three times as large as the smallest Faction, then the player attempting to join will need to choose another Faction to join. So for example, if the Shadowlords Faction had 200 members and the other three Factions each had 1 member, then players trying to join the Shadowlords would be informed that they must join one of the other Factions. To continue this example, if the Shadowlords had 200 members and the other Factions had between 68 and 200 members each, then players could join any of the factions. This range can go up above 200 members, but the largest Faction must remain no larger then 3 times the size of the smallest Faction. If a large guild attempts to join a Faction, and that join would put that Faction out of the range (no larger then three times the size of the smallest Faction), then that guild would not be able to join that Faction. However they may try to join another Faction.

Non Participants

Characters who are not in a faction will not be able to perform beneficial acts (such as healing, curing, etc.) on non-criminal or murderer characters in a faction if the target has received lawful damage from another player. The status of being lawfully damaged by someone (on someone that is attacked) is cleared when they reach full health. For example, if Player A was in the Shadowlord faction and was attacked by player B in the Council of Mages faction, this is considered lawful damage and player A would have the "lawfully damaged by" status. Players outside of a faction will still be able to attack a character in a faction, but can receive a murder count if they do so (unless other systems allow for this attack, such as guild wars).

Quitting a Faction

The act of quitting a faction has several restrictions. The most noteworthy is that the process takes at least seven days to complete. This seven-day restriction is designed to prevent "faction hopping" and help develop some reasonable sense of permanence within the factions. The specific rules for quitting a faction are described below:

• Individual players are able to resign from a Faction by resigning at the Faction stone. The player will remain in the Faction for seven (7) days. After seven days, the player will be removed upon the next login.
• Players within a guild and part of a Faction cannot individually resign from a Faction unless they are the Guildmaster. The alternative for guilded players is to resign from the Guild itself, then undergo the standard individual Faction resignation process above (which will complete after seven days).
• A Guildmaster may resign his or her entire guild from the Faction system. Upon doing this, all players in the guild will then remain within the Faction for seven more days. After seven days, these guildmembers will be removed from the Faction upon their next login.
• During this seven day resignation process, players resigning from the Faction will still be eligible to attacks from opposing Faction members. A player within the seven day resignation process cannot use a Faction stone to check Faction information or to participate in Faction votes.

Scoring, Points, Combat

Combat-Related Interactions

Players in the faction system are able to freely aggress enemy faction members. However, faction mates are treated as "innocents" unless other circumstances override that status. As the faction system is designed to operate in conjunction with the other existing player-interaction rule sets that currently exist in Ultima Online, the Faction system will account for the integration of different player-interaction conditions. The conditions for Faction combat interaction are as follows:

• Players cannot be in a party with opposing Faction members
• The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely attacked.
• The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is in an enemy guild (guild war) can be freely attacked
• There are no faction wars on the Trammel facet, however all guild wars still apply.

The precedence order for lawful aggression is by reputation, then by guild, then by faction. Lawful aggression is any aggression that will not flag the attacker as a criminal. Aggressive party actions are not listed because they themselves never allow free lawful aggression between players.

Faction Scoring and Rank

• Faction players are able to gain "kill points" by defeating their faction enemies in battle. In addition, these kill points are used to determine a player's rank in the faction. There are two terms that players need to understand with the Faction point system. The two terms are "kill points" and "deficit".
• "Kill points" are earned when opposing Faction members successfully kill someone in an opposing Faction. The amount of kill points taken from the victim is 10% of the total kill points on the victim. The examples below illustrate the results from a battle, where the name "Winner" was victorious in the battle and "victim" was killed by "winner".
• For example, assume the victim had 100 kill points and the winner of the fight had zero kill points. 10% of this goes to the victor, from the victim. Therefore the victim moves to 90 kill points and the winner of the fight now has 10 kill points. A minimum of 1 kill point is awarded each time a faction player dies, if the victim's kill point total is 19 or lower.
• For non-whole number totals resulting from percentages, the end results are rounded downward if the result is not a whole number.
  • Example 1: Winner: 85 kill points, Victim: 18 kill points. Result from death of the victim, Winner gets 1 kill point from the victim, moving the winner to 86 kill points. The victim's kill points reduce to 17.
  • Example 2: Winner has 50 kill points, victim has 21. Result from the death of the victim, winner gets 10% of the victim's kill points, rounded down to the nearest whole number. 10% of 21, or 2 kill points. The victim then has 19 kill points, and the winner of the fight has 52 kill points.
• When a Faction player reaches zero kill points and is then killed again, they move into a range called "deficit", where they do not have kill points at that time. Instead they have deficit points.
• "Deficit" is the total on a faction player that reflects whether they are below zero kill points or not. The most deficit points any faction member can have are 6. When a Faction member is at 6 deficit points, killing them will not increase their deficit and will result in no kill point gain for the winner. Each time a Faction member dies and they are within deficit, the winner that killed them will get 1 kill point for the kill unless the victim is at 6 deficit.
  • Example 1: A Faction member with 60 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 2. The winner of the battle will get 1 kill point, moving them to 61 kill points. The victim increases their deficit moving to a total 3 deficit.
  • Example 2: A faction member with a deficit of 3 kills a Faction member with 80 kill points. The victim (with 80 kill points) will lose 10% of their kill points to the winner, or 8 kill points. The winner of the battle moves from a deficit of 3 to having 5 kill points. 3 of the 8 kill points they won were used to get them out of deficit. The remaining 5 kill points the winner earns are added to the kill point total (since this player no longer is within deficit). Now they have zero deficit and 5 kill points. The winner can now be killed 5 times before reaching zero kill points again.
  • Example 3: A Faction member with 10 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 6. No points are exchanged in this example, since the victim is already at 6 deficit (which is the deficit cap). The victim will not gain any more deficit points, and the winner will not gain any kill points. Had the victim been at 5 deficit, the winner would have gained 1 kill point and the victim would have then been moved to 6 deficit.
• The following rules also apply to Faction system killing:
  • Points are not given to players who kill friendly faction members.
  • Player score atrophies at a rate of 10% per day (with a minimum of 1 point) at approximately 10am local shard time. This atrophy ONLY affects characters with at least 10 kill points. This will occur whether the character is logged in or not.
  • It is impossible for the kill deficit value to exceed 6 points.
  • It is impossible to have non-zero values for both kill points and kill deficit.
• Players' killpoints will atrophy in the morning time local to the shard. The atrophy amount is listed below.
  • Atrophy works on a 10 day cycle:
    • Day 1: Players with 90 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 2: Players with 80 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 3: Players with 70 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 4: Players with 60 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 5: Players with 50 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 4: Players with 40 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 3: Players with 30 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 2: Players with 20 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
    • Day 1: Players with 10 killpoints or more lose 1 killpoint
• Point transfer: Once a day players can transfer a set amount of kill points. The requirements are that both parties are members of the same faction, and that the one who is giving the points must have at least 10 kill points. Once transferred, player A (giver) loses 5 points and player B (receiver) gets 4 points (1 point is lost in the trade).
• Titles: Once per day, all faction player scores are recalculated in order to assign faction rank. Titles vary within each faction as described below.

Rank	Score	Minax	Council of Mages	Lord British	Shadowlords
1	Below 20%	Defiler	Mystic	Defender	Servant
2	20% - 39%	Defiler	Mystic	Defender	Servant
3	40% - 49%	Defiler	Mystic	Defender	Servant
4	50% - 59%	Executioner	Diviner	Sentinel	Keeper of Lies
5	60% - 69%	Executioner	Diviner	Sentinel	Keeper of Lies
6	70% - 79%	Executioner	Diviner	Sentinel	Keeper of Lies
7	80% - 89%	Warlord	Luminary	Crusader	Bringer of Sorrow
8	90% - 94%	Warlord	Luminary	Crusader	Bringer of Sorrow
9	95% - 99%	Dread Knight	Archon of Principle	Knight of Virtue	Agent of Evil
10	99.1% - 100%	Avenger of Mondain	Inquisitor of the Council	Knight of the Codex	Purveyor of Darkness

Death at the hands of a Faction Enemy

In order to add more permanence to the results of faction battles, and add meaning to death in combat without inflicting further economic damage upon the deceased, faction players are subject to a temporary skill loss penalty of 33% when slain by a faction opponent. As described in the time-based operations chart, this penalty lasts 20 minutes. This penalty is also applied if a faction character commits "suicide".

Note: This penalty is not applied when a faction player is killed by a non-faction player, faction mate, or non-enemy faction monster.

Looting Interactions

As a result of the combat-oriented nature of the faction system, many cases will arise in which players have the opportunity to loot the corpses of the fallen. As these rules must also be integrated with the currently existing player interaction rules, the rule set described below defines the complete listing of possible looting interactions.

Looting Rules:

• Players will not be able to loot each other through the faction system at all while in Trammel. The only possible looting of faction members within Trammel will occur through other systems such as guild war status, not because of Faction status itself.
• Players cannot be in a party together while in opposing factions.
• The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a fellow faction member cannot ordinarily be freely looted, a fellow faction member who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely looted.
• The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status. Example: A faction member in an opposing guild can be freely looted as per the standard guild war looting rules.
• In order to remain consistent with other consensual pvp systems (such as guildwar) and in order to prevent "blue looting" exploits, players are unable to freely loot fallen faction opponents.

Faction Credits

Factions and faction players can receive "currency" in the form of silver ("silver"-looking coins) that are useable for various faction-specific needs and luxuries. Silver can be earned by both players and factions themselves through a variety of means, and may be spent in a variety of different ways (described below). The lists below demonstrate the sources of silver income and targets of possible expenditure.

Credit Income
Faction Player Income:

• Slain faction enemies: 40 silver pieces for every 1 kill point received (note: slain enemies who have a kill deficit greater then 0 award NO credits).
• Slain monsters with faction affiliation:
  • Minax: Ogre Lords - 30 silver
  • Council of Mages: Wisps - 20 silver
  • True Britannians: Silver Serpents - 30 silver
  • Shadowlords: Daemons (not summoned daemons) - 30 silver

Player Tithes are 0 - 100% of all faction player silver income. This is set by Faction Commander in increments of 10%, with no more then one change every 24 hours of real time. Points taken from this tithe are placed into a Faction Treasury stored at the factionstone. The currency can thereafter only be distributed by the faction commander to the individual town treasuries under the faction's control. Once the faction credits are allocated to a particular faction controlled town, the finance minister and Sheriff for that town can use these credits for various expenditures, such as Faction vendors or guards. A successful town capture earns the Faction 10,000 credits.

Players may move and transfer silver in the same way that they manipulate standard coinage. The faction commander may disburse silver to a particular city by using the faction stone, selecting "commander menu", then selecting "transfer credits". The commander will be given a listing of cities under the faction's control, and after selecting a city, may enter an amount of credits to transfer.

Silver Use
Silver can be used by Faction craftspeople and/or to obtain the following items (crafting the listed items requires the crafting player to have the requisite credits). Faction craftable items can only be crafted in a town being controlled by that faction.

Faction Scrolls: These are Faction Imbued scrolls of heal, greater heal, harm, fireball, and lightning. These scrolls may be used by a pplayer of at least 90 inscribing skill upon a faction-crafted gnarled staff, in order to charge the staff with a number of charges of that spell. The number of charges is equal to 40 divided by the circle of that spell (rounded down). Example: A lightning scroll would provide the staff with 10 charges of lightning, a fireball scroll would provide 13 charges of fireball, and so forth. Staffs (staves) cannot be recharged. A new staff must be created in order to accept a new enchantment.

Faction craftable items addition
In order to craft a faction item other then a floor trap, the player doing the crafting must be in a town under the control of that faction. They must also be in the appropriate shop that normally makes or sells those types of items.

• Faction Players
  • Craftable Items
    • Armor (metal types): 1,000 silver
    • Armor (leather types): 750 silver
    • Weapons (melee): 1,000 silver
    • Weapons (archery types): 1,000 silver
    • Clothes: 200 silver
    • Scrolls: 500 silver
  • Items Purchased (from faction npc vendor)
    • Horse: 500 credits (must be rank 2 or higher to ride)
• Factions
  • Town Improvements
    • Level 1 Guard: 5,000 silver
    • Level 2 Guard: 6,000 silver
    • Level 3 Guard: 7,000 silver
    • Level 4 Guard: 8,000 silver
    • Reagent Vendor: 5,000 silver
    • Ore Vendor: 3,000 silver
    • Wood Vendor: 3,000 silver
    • Horse Breeder: 5,000 silver
  • Craftable Items
    • Floor Traps (tinker crafted): 1,000 silver
  • Other

Faction Warhorses
A "Horse breeder" Sells war horses for that particular faction that purchased it. War horses have the following properties:

• War horses are hued with their faction's color.
• War horses cannot be ridden by players in opposing factions.
• War horses have a high strength, dexterity, and natural higher fighting ability.

Faction Craftable Items

As described above, players who craft items and are in the faction system may use silver to imbue an item upon creation with "faction" properties.

• After crafting an item, a faction player with available silver will receive a window asking if they wish to imbue the item with factional properties.
• A faction item is named as such (ie: a faction plate helm).
• Faction items are "temporarily enchanted" for a period of 21 days (3 weeks) from the time they were crafted. During this three week period (real 3 weeks, not in-game time), the items will not be stealable and will remain with the player using these items upon death and resurrection. After 3 weeks, the enchantment effect wears off and the item will become a regular crafted item with no special faction properties.
• Faction items gain a hue appropriate to the faction of the maker. The crafting player will be asked whether to hue the item with the faction's primary or secondary color.

Faction	Primary Color	Secondary Color
Minax	Blood Red	Black
Council of Mages	Blue	Blue-white
Lord British	Purple	Gold
Shadowlords	Black	Green

• Faction items can be worn only by players in the faction, and only if they have sufficient rank to equip the item (See the chart above in regards to the rank system).
  • Rank 1: 4 items
  • Rank 2: 4 items
  • Rank 3: 4 items
  • Rank 4: 5 items
  • Rank 5: 5 items
  • Rank 6: 5 items
  • Rank 7: 6 items
  • Rank 8: 6 items
  • Rank 9: 7 items
  • Rank 10: 8 items
  • Commander: 9 items

Faction Floor Traps

Floor traps are created by players in the faction system with the tinkering skill.

There are 4 types of floor traps available to Factions:

• Spike Trap-1000 silver, 50 ingots, 1 spring. Can be placed in a town the placer's faction controls.
• Saw Trap-100 silver, 50 ingots, 1 gear. Can be placed in a town the placer's faction controls.
• Gas Trap-1000 silver, 10 ingots, 1 deadly poison potion. Can be placed in a faction stronghold.
• Explosion Trap-1000 silver, 10 ingots, 1 greater explosion potion. Can be placed in any faction town.

Properties:

• The tinker must have at least 90 skill to attempt to create a floor trap.
• A faction may have a maximum of 15 traps placed at any given time (total).
• Traps can only be placed in cities and/or faction strongholds.
• Traps will only affect opposing faction members.
• Traps can only be removed by opposing faction members through the use of the remove trap skill.
• Traps placed by one's own faction can only be removed by the faction commander. The Faction Commander is able to remove their own Faction's traps without any skillcheck.

Faction Credit Interface

• Silver is represented as silver coins.
• When a player earns silver, they are placed in the player's pack.
• When a faction earns silver, the amount is "credited" to the faction's factionstone.

Silver gain from enemy kills
When a faction member kills someone from an opposing faction, they are eligible for up to 40 killpoints based on the following rules:

• The killer must not already be in the slain player's "silver given" list
• Players decay from the "silver given" list in a first-in, first-out order
• The decay time is 3 hours from the time the player was entered into the "silver given" list.

The silver given list can only contain 5 players. If a playter already has 5 players in their silver given list, then no silver will be given.

Faction-Allied Monsters

In order to provide more interaction with the Faction system and the surrounding environments within Britannia, a variety of monsters in the Felucca lands will gain factional properties. These factional properties will cause the monsters to be non-aggressive towards players of the same faction, and have a faction credit value to players of opposing factions.

• Faction monsters only spawn on the Felucca facet. Daemons, wisps, ogre lords and silver serpents will spawn as normal on both facets. They will appear normal and function as they have before to those players not in Factions. However on the Felucca facet, the monsters associated with Factions will appear and behave somewhat different only to Faction members. Faction associated monsters will highlight orange (using the cursor) to opposing Faction members and be aggressive. They will highlight blue and be non-aggressive to members within their associated Faction. Example: Ogre Lords will highlight orange and be aggressive to the Shadowlords faction, while appearing as blue and be non-aggressive to the Minax Faction.
• Aggression toward a friendly monster will cause the monster to attack the aggressor.
• Enemy Faction-allied monsters provide silver to their killer.

The Monsters

• Minax: Ogre Lords
• Council of Mages: Wisps
• True Britannian: Silver Serpents
• Shadowlords: Daemons

Faction Friendly Kills

As described in the combat interactions section, friendly faction members are treated as innocent in every way (barring other circumstances). As a result, killing an innocent friendly faction member is treated as a murder under the reputation system.

Faction Controlled Towns

There are 8 cities that can fall under the control of a faction. Each of these cities has a townstone placed within the city limits. These townstones have a variety of uses (described later in this section) for the faction that controls the city. In addition, there are eight town pedestals upon which the "town sigil" (described later, used for capturing a city) for that particular city rests. The towns that contain the townstones, town pedestals, and the respective town sigil are listed below:

• Britain (located south of the mage shop on the east side of Britain)
• Skara Brae (located north of the provisioner's shop)
• Magincia (located southwest of the tavern)
• Delucia (located west of the south entrance)
• Minoc (located south of the tavern)
• Moonglow (located east of the provisioner's shop)
• Trinsic (located east of the meeting hall)
• Yew (located west of the healer)

Town Conquest

One of the most important sources of context within the faction conflict lies within the ability of factions to conquer cities. There are eight cities that can be conquered and subjected to the control of a faction. The conquest of a city serves as the foundation for many of the other features of the faction system and can be done as described below:

• Each of the above towns has a town pedestal
• Each town has an associated town sigil (created on town pedestal).
• A faction member with a stealing skill of at least 80 may steal the town sigil. The sigil must be transported to a stronghold tile within one hour (otherwise it returns to it's home pedestal location).
• The sigil may be corrupted at a Faction stronghold by placing it on that Faction's stronghold tile. The sigil must remain on that stronghold tile for at least 24 hours. There is a grace period of 15 minutes during which if the sigil is moved from the tile, it may be restored to the stronghold tile without restarting its corruption time.
• After being corrupted, the sigil must be returned to its town pedestal in orde to capture the town. The faction has one hour to return the sigil to a town, or it returns to it's last stronghold tile location (still corrupted). The sigil will remain on the last stronghold tile or town pedestal until the steal/move process is performed on it again, at which time the player or players moving the sigil have the required times to achieve their objectives or the sigil will return automatically to the stronghold tile or pedestal where it was last located.
• A faction controlled town falls under the control of the faction for a minimum period of three days.
• After a town becomes subject to re-conquest, other factions may steal the sigil and attempt to corrupt it.

If a sigil is corrupted and stolen from the stronghold by an opposing faction they can take it to their base to restart the corruption process. If they fail to deliver it within one hour it will teleport back to the stronghold from which it was stolen. A sigil's home location is always defined as the last stronghold or town tile it was placed on.

Town Sigil

Each of the eight towns that can be captured by a faction is represented by a "Town Sigil". The town sigil can be stolen by a faction player using the stealing skill. This sigil can then be returned to the faction's stronghold in order to be corrupted. After a successful corruption period of 24 hours, the sigil will become "corrupt" by Faction holding it. The Faction can then return the corrupted sigil to it's respective town and place it onto the town pedestal. At the point of return, the town falls under the control of the faction which corrupted the sigil. If the corrupted sigil is not returned to the town pedestal within one hour, it will return to the last stronghold tile that it was placed upon.

The town sigil operates under the conditions listed below:

Conditions:

• A player must have at least 80 stealing skill to "steal" a sigil from its town pedestal or a stronghold tile.
• The stealing player must be in a faction.
• A sigil is "dropped" or "given" by double clicking the sigil, then targeting. A sigil cannot be "moved" by the normal means of dragging an item.
• A player with a town sigil is hued purple, as well as all equipped items on that player.
• A player with a town sigil cannot:
  • Teleport
  • Gate
  • Recall
  • Cast Polymorph
  • Cast Incognito
  • Use a disguise kit
  • Use moonstone
  • Place sigil in a container on the ground
  • "Give" the sigil to an enemy faction player
  • "Give" the sigil to someone not in their own faction
• If a player with a town sigil logs out or their character for any reason leaves Ultima Online, the sigil returns to its home location.

Players under the effects of a disguise kit, polymorph spell, or incognito spell cannot steal the Sigil until those effects wear off.

Taking Control of a Town

Once a Faction has successfully placed a corrupted sigil onto the town pedestal, then that Faction will control that town for a specified but variable amount of time (described further below). Faction members can operate within special designations, through an internal election process within their Faction.

Factions Office

Faction players are eligible for public office within their faction. The three eligible offices are: the office of Faction Commander, Town Sheriff, and Town Finance Minister. As implied, a Town Sheriff and Town Finance Minister can exist for each town under a faction's control. While the office of Faction Commander is attained through an election process (described below), the offices of Town Sheriff and Finance Minister are attained through appointment from the Faction Commander. There is only one Faction Commander per Faction, and only one Town Sheriff and one Finance Minister per Faction occupied town.

Faction Commander
Faction Commanders are elected to their position by the members of the Faction itself. Only Faction members with a rank of 6 through 10 or who is currently Faction commander is elegible to be elected a Faction Commander (please refer to the section "Faction Scoring and Points" for more information about ranks).

The information below describes voting for Faction Commander:

• Campaigning takes place once per week, starting 6 days after the Faction system begins on the shard, and lasts for 24 hours.
• During campaigning, up to 10 players with a rank of 6 through 10 are able to run for public office if they so choose. The first 10 eligible Faction members that choose to participate in running for the Faction Commander position are allowed to do so. Any subsequent Faction members are denied candidacy during that election cycle, even if they are eligible.
• After 24 hours of campaigning, the voting process begins. Faction members have 24 hours to vote for a candidate. Faction members that wish to vote must use the faction stone, select the "vote" option, and select their candidate choice.
• Players can only vote once and cannot change their vote after submission.
• The player with the largest vote total after the 24 hour voting process is over becomes the new Faction Commander.

Faction Commander abilities:

• The Faction Commander is able to appoint or remove the sheriff and finance minister for each town that a faction controls. The commander accesses these functions by using the appropriate townstone within the controlled town.
• The Faction Commander determines the degree of faction "tithes". The tithing rate can be set anywhere from 0 to 100% in increments of 10%. The commander accesses this function by using the Faction stone. The purpose of this tithing is described in the section titled "Faction Scoring and Points".
• The Faction Commander determines the disbursement of the faction's treasury to cities under the control of the faction. The disbursement of these credits is further described in the section titled "Faction Scoring and Points".
• With a limit of once every hour, a Faction Commander may send two speech messages to all online players within a faction, by speaking the words "message faction".
• Once every hour the commander may send a global message to all online faction members in his faction. This is done by saying "message faction" - a prompt will appear asking them what they want to send as a message. The commander types in the text and hits enter - it is sent to all online faction mates.

Faction Sheriff
Each town under the control of a faction may have one sheriff appointed to it. The conditions of Sheriff appointment and function are:

• The faction Commander may access the townstone of a captured city in order to hire the sheriff (described above).
• The commander may not select him/herself to be a Sheriff.
• The commander must select a player from within the same faction to be a Sheriff.
• The town sheriff is able to perform their official duties by speaking out loud "I am sheriff".

The Sheriff abilities are as follows:

• Sheriffs may hire "Faction Guards". The Sheriff may control the amount of Faction Guards in operation, their cost, the maximum allowed, and how they function. Note that a faction guard does not have the same strengths and abilities as a regular town guard. They are able to be overcome by players, and their strengths will be comparable to some of the monsters that roam the lands.
  • Each faction may purchase 4 different guard types.
    • 2 generic types (Henchman, Mercenary)
    • 2 specific types (described below)
  • A maximum of 10 of each guard type may be in service at a time in one city.
• The chart below shows the different types of Faction guards and their cost in credits (also known as "silver"). Credits are described earlier in the section "Faction scoring and points".

Minax	Council of Mages	True Britannians	Shadowlords	Cost
Henchman	Henchman	Henchman	Henchman	5,000 credits
Mercenary	Mercenary	Mercenary	Mercenary	6,000 credits
Berserker	Sorcerer	Knight	Death Knight	7,000 credits
Dragoon	Wizard	Paladin	Necromancer	8,000 credits

• A Faction Sheriff may also view the finances in the town treasury. This allows for them to plan for the distribution and expenditure of the credits available. The Faction Sheriff and Faction finance Minister both are able to allocate this town treasury for the various Faction activities.

Faction Finance Minster
Each town under the control of a faction may have one finance minister appointed to it. The Faction finance Minister is appointed by the Faction Commander. The Finance Minister appointment process works as follows:

• The Faction Commander may access the townstone of a captured city in order to hire the finance minister.
• The commander may not select him/herself to be a Finance Minister.
• The Commander must select a player from within the same faction to be a Finance Minister.
• The Finance Minister is able to access the town finance options by speaking out loud "I wish to access the city treasury".

The Finance Minister's functions and abilities are as follows:

• The Finance Minister may view the city treasury, purchase faction shopkeepers, or set the town's taxation rate. The taxation rate can be set from 1/3 normal price to 3x normal price in increments of thirds.
• In a town that has a taxation rate other then 0 (normal price), the NPC vendor prices will reflect the increased or decreased prices.
  • A faction may only change shop prices once every 12 hours of real time.
  • If a city is taken by a faction, that 12 hour wait will reset itself.
• In addition to setting the taxation rate of the NPC vendors, the Finance Minister is able to purchase additional NPC vendors for the town. These vendors include Horse Breeders (who sell "war horses"), reagent vendors, ore vendors, and lumber vendors.

NPC Shopkeepers

The following NPC Shopkeepers are available for purchase for use in the Faction controlled town:

Shopkeeper Type	Cost	Maximum Available
Reagent Vendor	5000 credits	10
Ore Vendor	3000 credits	10
Wood Vendor	3000 credits	10
Stablemaster	5000 credits	1

Faction Floor Traps

Floor traps can be created by Faction members with the proper tinkering skill amount. There will be four different types of floor traps. The types of floor traps are the Spike Trap, the Saw Trap, the Gas Trap, and the Explosion Trap.

The trap's creation and function are as follows:

• The Faction member that wished to create the trap must have at least 90 skill points in tinkering before they can create the trap.
• A Faction may have a maximum of 15 traps placed at any given time.
• Traps can only be placed in Faction-controllable cities or within Faction strongholds.
• Traps will only affect opposing Faction members, not members within the same faction as the trap creator. The traps cannot be set to selectively ignore any other faction.
• Traps will be visible for one full minute if someone in a faction uses the "detect hidden" skill on the trap. This will reveal the trap for one full minute globally, so that anyone within range can see the trap during that minute. This allows for faction members using a trap they own to have the opportunity to show their fellow faction mates the location of the trap.
• All Faction members that are in the general vicinity a trap created by the other factions will get a display alerting them to a trap in the area. The Faction members opposed to the trap's creator can then attempt to reveal the trap that may be in the area by using their detect hidden skill.
• Traps can only be removed by opposing Faction members through the use of the "remove trap" skill. If the trap is not removed via this skill, it will reset itself infinitely until removed.

Faction System Murder Reprieve

The faction murder reprieve will be a one-time reduction in the various types of murder counts that a murderer may have accumulated. This reprieve will be given only when a murderer who has not previously received a faction-related reprieve first joins a faction. The reprieve will carry the consequence of regaining all of your prior murder counts should the character become labeled as a murderer once again (i.e.: they get 5 or more short-term counts). This reprieve will only be offered for one month after it is published, after which the reprieve code will be disabled.

To get the reprieve, the murder must join the faction (as described in the faction system document) through the faction stone. Note this means murderers will not be able to join the Council of Mages or True Britannians factions unless they are part of a guild whose guild leader is able to get to the faction stone and join the faction.

Murderers who have more than five short-term or long-term murder counts who receive a reprieve will be set to four short-term and long-term murder counts and automatically become "blue". Murderers whose "ping-pong" counter is 4 or greater will have that counter set to four. The system will retain the previous short-term, long-term, and ping-pong for these characters and should a reprieved murderer become a murderer again, all of these counts will be set to their original numbers.

Stablemaster Changes

The number of pets a character can place on a stable master will be based upon an average of three (3) skills: Taming, Veterinary, and Animal Lore.

• If the total of these 3 skills (Taming plus Veterinary plus Animal Lore) is between 160 and 199.9, then 3 pets may be stabled.
• If the skill total is between 200 and 239.9, then 4 pets may be stabled.
• If the total of these three skills is at or above 240, then 5 pets may be stabled.
• Pets cannot be stabled with items in their backpacks.

Note that the total amount of pets that may be stabled is effective for the entire shard. Thus for example, if you choose to stable 5 pets in Britain, you may not stable pets anywhere else on that shard with that character.

Item "Smashing" & Monster Movement

• Monsters may no longer be ‘trapped’ by barricading them behind various objects in the game world. They will now attempt to maneuver around the objects and in some cases may smash the objects barring their movement.
• Items that are locked down, secure, or strongboxes may not be smashed. Containers, if smashed, will spill their contents onto the ground.

See Also

• Publishes