So you're gonna fill the news page with pointless spam? :P

change the join form then? :P

So... what exactly is the problem of somebody changing Orders due to interest in a platform tied to an Order? I mean, if you really want to get hot and heavy into JA and then want to be an obelisk to reflect that... why not? :P Let the minions choose where they want to go. Chill :P

As for the "I dont have this game" it almost always means go Krath. The Krath Order doesnt want you dead beats, so bugger off! Just kidding, do whatever floats your boat :P

A problem that wouldn't even exist if every House just went Orderless anyway. :P

What is with all this "all Houses should be Order-less" crap? I have been debating over this rubbish since six pm last frikkin' night! I enjoy a nice, intelligent debate. Show me some intelligence, and I'll continue when I wake up. In the mean time, its dawn. Good night.

Xanos, if a House is Order-less, then someone changing from Obelisk to Sith could stay in that House. Doesn't change the fact that people will still do it. They'll just take the second step of requesting a transfer to the House where all the other Sith are.

The kind of Orderless you are thinking of is where Order is abolished entirely. Where it doesn't matter what Order you are, you can do anything you like. But it doesn't mean that everything is the same. Writing is so far removed from playing games that some kind of distinction does tend to make things just a little bit more focused, more organised, and more helpful for those of us who do write, but I wouldn't expect a gamer to see a point like that. All the big wigs I've heard debating this issue certainly haven't, and this non-representation of Krath is seriously not cheering me up.

I am here to write, plain and simple. Thanks for the option of playing a game platform that struggles to hold my interest for more than an hour. If I want to play a game platform, I'll look for someone to play it with. But my focus is on writing. I'm a writer, I write. Kinda why I'm all Krath and purple-robey. Playing games is not what brought me here, and it is not what will keep me here. There are many Krath who feel this way about their writing.

Mixing gamers and writers is not a step forward. It splits the House management between focuses, when there is no need to. I am yet to here a reason why Clans having a writer-only House and a gamer-only House are such an ungodly abomination, because I see a lot of organisation and best of all, focus. Arcona must be heaven to be in if you people can't see that.

Your Order should be a statement of what your focus is, plain and simple. Having an entire House with the same focus is undoubtedly one of the best things in this club. What kind of benefit can you reap by diluting this focus, and more importantly, whats the difference from what we can do now?

I'm heading for bed. As far as I'm concerned, this debate has run its course.

About time, Shai. I'm sick of all the new guys who join my house as Sith because its a "Star Wars" name, but when they find out they don't fly they switch orders which is pointless nowadays. I run every kind of competition now because we HAVE to. Maybe we should add a big "Your order is for RP purposes only" to the join page :P

PS: He shouldn't have to chill. Seeing 100 emails a week over something so stupid as this would be annoying as hell.

You know what, people do have a choice as to which order they wish to be in now. If you want to be all hot and heavy with JA and be an obelisk to reflect that, fine, but whats to stop them from switching to something else when they get bored with the game. We need stability in the orders, people who constantly switch because they feel they don't meet the criteria for that order is 1. annoying and 2. now pointless. Orders are strictly for RP use now. As Shad said, I got really tired of having my inbox flooded with transfer requests every week. I know Goat was getting tired of it, since he brought the problem to light several weeks ago. I'll chill when I feel the need to, thank you. The changes to the DSC will reflect this, just be patient and wait for rebirth to come into the light. And yes Mark, I will post as you said pointless spam until I feel the message has been understood by everyone.

The point is that in an ideal situation that yes, extra management is a good thing. But, where is this management meant to come from? And what use is it when the Houses they manage are non existant?

The Sith Order is heading for its grave. That is a fact I'm afraid, and as much as I may be its Leader I won't let my pride get in the way of actually facing reality. We just need to realise for a second that what we are doing by asking the Sith to get any larger- rather than keep shrinking- is to find new members who are looking to join an internet club to play games as old as a Genesis or Super Nintendo (yes, that is how old TIE actually is).

The fact is, its not going to happen.

Likewise, lets take some of the Sith Houses we have left, all grand total of two of them. What happens when their leaders resign? Who will fill their shoes? An Acolyte? Maybe we'll be lucky and find a Guardian? Thats good... somebody with no leadership or club experience. Perhaps Tridens has life left in it, but take Ludo Kressh- or better yet, take those Houses that have been forced to close. Who is to take over as Quaestor once the leaders retire? Well, look at Ziost, they ended up having to have an Acolyte as Quaestor.

I rest my case on that one. An Acolyte as Quaestor demonstrates that we have failed... we should be doing better than that.

Houses exist as structural benefits. Ideally the more you break people down into smaller units the easier it is to manage, yes. I've always encouraged Master Student relationships as the best form of activity does arise from one to one interaction.

But, we all accept that we can't physically have all members split down into units of two, that would be like having five hundred Clans. Likewise, its getting to a stage where we physically cannot support so many Houses. After all, a House without a leader is a pointless existance. You may as well close a House than appoint a poor leader, for a poor leader generates inactivity, worse even than no leader does.

So, whats the solution? Well, kill off the Sith Order. Good answer. It would solve the problem. But, what else does that achieve? Well it pisses off a large majority of the club, the Grand Master included, much of the Dark Council included, myself included, many Consuls and Quaestors included, numerous members new and old included, various members not even Sith included, insults the work done by those such as Trevarus in writing the history of the Dark Brotherhood, disregards our traditions and history and more or less condemns the Brotherhood to death.

So perhaps, not such a good solution. At least, to those who believe it would be better than going Orderless, I'd strongly advise analysing your own solution just as much as you do my own. Make no mistake to the level I analyse every single word I say and every idea I propose. Theres reasons why I choose the action that I take.

Now, Orderless solves a number of issues. Is it flawless? No. But trying to pretend it is is idiotic. Standing behind that argument is equally idiotic, for it is like saying our current system is flawless, when it is a literal impossibility for any system to be flawless. That fact is, Orderless is not ideal, but our current system is also far from ideal. It is about the principle of the lesser evil, you may not like Orderless, but I assure you if we were switching from another system to the current one you'd dislike this one equally as much.

The fact is, with Orderless Houses you limit the need for Quaestors. You take away the strain placed on Orders. You begin to worry about your Clan being "active". As it is, we worry too much about our Obelisk being inactive, or our Sith, or other equally futile issues. The Sith are inactive, yes, there is no point trying to deny that. So why do we waste our time? Why do Consuls have to waste time searching for new Sith leaders, leaders that are never going to materialise?

I honestly don't know. That is why I do not see the point in the continued existance ofa flawed concept. Orderless means Orders become irrelivant, and that Consuls and other leaders can start worrying about their unit being active, and not be drawn into as complicated situations as having to deal with three Orders... but just the one.

So why not just get rid of Orders entirely? Well, refer to what I said about getting rid of the Sith Order, only multiply that one through by three, to get an idea of the affects that one would have.

Furthermore, baring in mind that we have no Order Platforms- dispute that as you may, that is a fact as the Grand Master has dictated- why do we force people to separate themselves by House? The idea that "writers/gamers stick together" really is an out of date one these days. Well, it is and it isn't. Yes WRITERS may stick together, but KRATH need not. Who said writers have to be Krath? You could have a Brigade of Obelisk writers... nothing stops that happening currently. Sure, there are none, but its been six months... you have to give things time, there isn't going to be a magical change in six months.

So, why do we persist with causing complications to activity and leadership? Sith Houses are inactive. But some people want to be Sith. So why do we force those people to go into inactive Houses? Inactivity breeds inactivity, stick one active Sith in a House of inactive members and that member is likely to go inactive. Thats not constructive. So why do we not allow those people to join other Houses?

What I really fail to understand though is where the problem is with Orderless Houses. I have asked that question time and time again, and I can quite honestly say nobody has yet answered it. I'm not even saying that nobody has given me a good answer, I literally mean nobody has even tried to answer it.

I'd like to find a good mutual solution, but considering nobody answers that question I can find no alternative. I hear dislike, but I hear no genuine justification for its flaws. I understand that writers would like to stick together... and so they would. Nothing stops that. Nothing at all.

The current system however does stop it. For if a writer wants to be Sith, that writer is forced to be alone in their own empty House. Orderless Houses however would permit that kind of freedom.

Now what is the counter argument to that last statament? That theres a reason for them being alone, and that they should go Krath, not be a Sith as Sith is a gaming Order? Sure, thats one argument... but I fail to see its relivane when there is no such thing as Order Platforms anymore.

All Orders can do anything. Order is irrelivant. So why do we persist with forcing an unnecessary number of Houses on Clans?

The fact is simple. We currently are trying to merge two systems and it isn't working. Clans with a Multi-Order House and a Krath House are not really one thing or the other. They're not Orderless, nor are they Order aligned. They have one Orderless and one Order aligned House. That is both confusing and pointless. As is it not working, as there are no Krath in those Multi-Order Housese, implying they are not even doing their job.

I really don't see how mixing gamers and writers really does any harm. Houses are a structural thing, they make life easier on the Consuls, thats it. Do they make things easier on the Quaestor? No. The House brings the Quaestor, not vice versa. Once a House is too big, you make another one. You don't see only Krath in #krath, or only Sith in #sith, so why do we do the same in Houses? The most successful competitions these days are Multi-Order anyway, just look at the recent Sith War, and consider how much of a complete waste of time it would have been had I restricted it to Sith only. Take that into consideration, then consider why we force Sith, Obelisk and Krath to be split into three Houses. Three Houses that require three Quaestors. Three Quaestors that most of the time are impossible to field.

Heh, its amusing how I can write so much and miss something out, but one of Shai's other points raised another issue I thought I'd mention.

People switching Orders is a further problem, for it makes life hell for Quaestors. Houses need stability to function. That is a fact that has been demonstrate to any Consul or Quaestor that has had to deal with mass transfers into and out of their Clan or House.

And what good does people switching Houses achieve? Especially if its a Quaestor? It means you have to find new leaders, you have to reorganise Battleteams, it means the friendships formed are broken.

Why, why and why? Stability would make life far better.

And if we're going to argue that things like these friendships can extend beyond Order and House... then how at the same time can an Orderless situation hurt people? After all, if friendships exist beyond the binds of Orders, then what good does splitting people up by Order achieve, beyond needing too many leader figures, and making it harder to manage these units?

Take my position as the most extreme example. There are no Order Platforms. My duty is to the Sith. How can I serve people who jump from Order to Order day after day?

Simple. I can't.

That same applies to Quaestors, if to a lesser degree, but the principle is the same.

My comment was rather acidic, wasn't it? After a dozen hours of debating and no sleep I suppose anyone would lose their patience. I hope I haven't offended anybody, and apologise if I have.

Xanos, you are starting to sound like this Goat guy on the message boards Halc was talking about. I read a thread he was involved in (Sobelisk, or something to that effect). It was mostly about the issues you're discussing now, again without any major Krath viewpoints. Pity the thread is largely closed now. And off topic too, but yeah, can't have everything lol.

I think I'll continue this over email. I enjoy a good debate, and though you've missed one real obvious thing that I can see, I suppose it is different seeing the world from a DC seat.

Err, oops :P

If you're interested in continuing the debate, let me know. I just realised I was about to spam your email with it before asking permission - oops :P

First off...that is Goat. Unless you were being sarcastic, in which case I didn't notice.

Second, I'd appreciate any changes to the DSC go through the Oracle's office so that I can check for errors - which I know there will be. I have, as yet, not seen an article posted without serious errors.

Goat=Xanos? Oh yeah. Its got his ID line in the message boards lol. No sarcasm, just plain old-fashioned dumbness on my part :) I was pointed at the MB thread, told the big post was by Goat, and yeah... I did read all the posts, just not the bits to the side or underneath. So, why does everyone call him Goat? Actually, um... nevermind. Off-topic.

As far as DSC changes are concerned... I'm not really sure that discussion over this issue has gone that far yet. There was talk on this MB thread about discussing the issue with Jac, but Xanos would be the one to ask about where that stands.

As I see it, the Orders are basically unbalanced from a fundamental stand point. But yeah, if Xanos is interested, I'll elaborate over email or MB or whatever. Until then, I have a box to live in. It is strangely comfortable, and comes with writing on the walls. No tacos or vodka or strange and isolated genius girl, but here's hoping.

If there are no order platforms, why bother having orders? If you arn't going to preserve the boundaries which seperate a Krath from an Obelisk, then you might as well tear them down, and make it all one order.