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Main Battles: Rules Moving Forward
On Monday, we announced the basic plot of the next timeline, called Star Wars: Dawn of the Republic. We are thrilled with the unanimously positive response so far! I think I speak for everyone when I say that the new timeline has a lot of exciting potential, and as we move into the epic conclusion of Star Wars Legacies, I can't wait to see what Dawn of the Republic brings next.
This process is going to last around a month or so, and we're going to bring you regular updates not just on what the story of the timeline is, but what the rules of the site will look like too. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the site rules are incredibly out of date. After all, for years now, we've had a disclaimer in the rules thread saying that they're out of date. We've just never really set out to update them. It's time for that to change. With the timeline offering a fresh restart, we're going to update those rules to reflect how the site has changed over the years, and we're committed to letting you know about all of the important changes before the new timeline starts. That way, you're not suddenly confronted with a whole new way of doing things without any time to adjust.
Previously, we covered the new rules regarding Character Limits and Faction membership, an announcement that was again met with overwhelmingly positive feedback, which is always great for us to hear - it means we're headed in the right direction in terms of the way the next timeline is structured, and it's really important to us that you all enjoy the setting and rules of the story that you'll all be a part of.
This next announcement is probably going to be less of a surprise to many, because I'm sure a lot of you already suspected that this was something we were going to implement. However, I want to take a minute to explain these rules more fully, and in general take some time to explain why we feel this is for the best as we move forward into Dawn of the Republic.
First, a little bit of history!
In the ten years of TheStarWarsRP.com's story, battle have undergone a significant evolution. Some of our long term members will attest to the fact that once upon a time, battles were fast paced, high action scenarios that involved raw combat and prioritized tactical skill and writing quality above all else. For many newer members, evidence of this has been lacking until recently - battles have become heavily bogged down in Out of Character (OOC) bickering, with many battles having up to and in excess of ten OOC posts for every In Character, or IC posts. You'll often see members reference the Battle of Fondor as an example of this - while it's not the most recent example, or even the worst, it's a good testimony to just how far the combat culture has shifted on the site. This absolutely needs to change.
We've made good headway in this regard - the Battle of Manaan introduced a ruleset specific to those series of battles that afterwards became known as the Manaan Rules. These rules have been incredibly effective in streamlining these battle threads and refocusing combat around writing skill. I don't know about the other admins, but for me personally this was actually something of a rude awakening, in that it proved that we could do battles so much better than we have been.
What are 'Manaan Rules'?
The Manaan Rules, as they currently stand, are quite simple, and that simplicity is part of the key to their success. Every battle has two time limits imposed upon them, one for the overall length of the battle, and another for the duration allowed between posts before the thread moves on. The current Manaan Rules state that when a members posts their turn, the next member has a limit of 48 hours in which to make their own post. If this deadline passes and the member has not posted, then they forfeit their turn to post, their combat round is effectively considered a 'pass' where their character does nothing in that turn, and the next member in the posting order is invited to post.
Before the Manaan Rules, this limit was a week and was only loosely enforced, with some rounds taking near two weeks before a member posted. As I'm sure you can appreciate, this kind of excessive duration not only slows the battle down to a crawl, but effectively confines the characters to limbo as this battle goes on.
The second time limit imposed is an overall maximum duration for a battle. Before Manaan, battle threads were able to continue for literally months on end with no clear resolution. I don't need to tell you how ridiculous this is, because it's every bit as ludicrous as it sounds. The Manaan Rules imposed a maximum duration of a battle to be two weeks.
These two rules combined have created a highly effective system that many members have endorsed and thoroughly enjoyed. For this reason, we are going to make the Manaan Rules the official battle rules of Dawn of the Republic. However, we are making some slight alterations.
Manaan Rules 2.0: The Details (or 'the tl;dr stuff'):
Moving forward into Dawn of the Republic, we will be implementing slightly altered versions of the Manaan Rules as the standard ruleset all battles are expected to use. These rules are as follows:
1) All battles are to have a pre-determined absolute deadline date - that is, a date at which the battle will conclude regardless of posting activity or content of the thread. If a thread meets this deadline before the battle is concluded, then the battle is to be reported to the staff via the 'report post' feature. The admin will then rule on the outcome of the battle.
The standard deadline of a battle thread (or the deadline to be used if not otherwise stated) will be two weeks. However, if both Faction Leaders involved in the thread (or, in a circumstance where a Faction Leader does not apply, Independant Faction Leader and/or thread participants) can come to an agreement prior to the start of the thread, this overall deadline can be negotiated. However, the absolute maximum length any battle is allowed to take is three weeks.
2) All members are expected to post in battles quickly and efficiently. For this reason, if a participant is due to post (ie it is their 'turn' to post) and fails to do so within 48 hours, their turn will be considered a 'pass' where their character does nothing for the duration of the round. The next member due to post will then have 48 hours to post from the time that the previous member's round duration expired. This 48 hour period can be negotiated as above, however, the absolute maximum time allowed between posts will be 72 hours.
But What About Space Battles?
Another problem we've discovered in terms of Main Battles is the idea of space battles in general. Fondor is an excellent example of the kinds of issues that are deeply ingrained in space battles, in that so often tactical and strategic deployment, clever maneuvers and smart thinking are often secondary to OOC arguments over technology - and while this is one of the more recent examples, it's important to note that this has been a significant issue for literally years.
When we introduced the Technology board, the last thing we envisioned was a means by which players would use technology to give themselves massive advantages in lieu of writing skills and tactical awareness. Space Battles are especially vulnerable to these types of OOC bickering because so much of what happens is reliant on technology submissions. Not only does this fly in the face of the freeform RP advocated on TheStarWarsRP.com, but it almost encourages OOC arguments, and also favors those with an avid passion for intricate and oftentimes convoluted technology submissions. That's not to say that we want to discourage members who are passionate about such things, but we also don't want to advocate the way technology is used to win fights in lieu of clever writing, either. As a result, the way we will be handling technology will be a major part of the think tank process that we will be announcing shortly - more on that soon, but for now, let's focus on space battles.
To make a long story short, we want to move away from technological advantages trumping writing skill - we want space battles to be fairer and more inviting to all members, and we want to bring the focus back to writing in general. As a result, moving forward we will be considering space battles based on tactical and strategic maneuvers, rather than intricate technology submissions. Ships will still be needed to be submitted to the Technology board or pulled from faction Technology lists, but rather than assessing the combat capabilities of one fleet vs another based on their write-ups, instead battles will focus on strategic and tactical maneuvers and the advantages and disadvantages that stem from each action. OOC discussions of 'x tech is better than y tech for reasons' will not be considered, and all ships of equivalent classes and sizes will be rated as more or less equal to one another. You will have to out-think, and outmaneuver your opponent, instead of relying on the quality of any specific write-ups.
We will go into more detail about technology in general at a later date once the Think Tank is assembled and sink their teeth into it, but this emphasis of writing taking priority over the specifics of technology submissions is something that we are going to be introducing to tech in general, and so I felt that you should be aware of this before we go any further.
Anyway, as always, feel free to ask questions or comment below. Please note, however, that we will most likely not answer any specific question relating to technology rules at this point in time, as we are planning on developing the specifics as a part of the Think Tank. Thanks!
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