This game would be great if everyone played their role and that role only, but who actually does? I would go with the definition given HERE as to what that constitutes, just to avoid any confusion.

The old marketing for the game was built on a phrase we liked to throw at threads like these: "The action is yours. The reaction is not."

This is a topic that has been discussed at length many times in the last decade. It's the MafiaReturns meta. Any game's meta answers the question: how should you play the game? The phrase is common in games like DOTA and League of Legends, but it's just as applicable here. For instance: t's meta to pick an OOC friend as your RH than to pick someone from within your crew. You need to be able to trust them, and OOC friends are generally more reliable. Same goes for auths.

The meta is a combination of two things: game mechanics and player culture. And so when you want to change the meta, you have to change one of those components. What you're describing is a change in player culture. That, we need to play a certain way so it's more fun for people. However, this game has consistently returned to the exact behaviors you're seeing from the top-level guys. Going back to Marietta, you see this kind of behavior exhibited repeatedly over and over for years.

What I mean to say is two things:

1. You will not change the player culture from OOC threads. You will change the player culture as a Godfather Chairman for a prominent city.
2. You have better chances getting changes to game mechanics implemented than accomplishing #1.

Not to say we shouldn't push for change that we want to see, but that you need to wield influence and authority to do so. Presently, you wield no such influence or authority. This reminds me of another phrase we like to throw at threads like these: "Rank up and do something about it."

If this were strictly a roleplaying game then you'd have a point, but as you can see there's an actual game to it these days. Games all have a way to play them the most efficient way, which would in fact be a meta.

You're free to be wrong, I mean, disagree. That's cool. Won't get you any closer to what you're looking for.

Why is it incumbent on the current power group (whoever they may be) to hold themselves to a different standard than any other player? It's perverse. I am not going to speak in reference to any events that have happened recently. I've only just returned from a 2 year hiatus, but having said I've played this game well over a decade and what appears to be the current climate seems pretty consistent with my extensive experience of playing this game.

There is a roughly predictable cycle to this game and it's compounded by two factors: the relatively small userbase and the average longevity of individual accounts and regimes. It's difficult to find where these cycles actually begin, but let's imagine they do begin somewhere:

(I should not that I'm talking about 'hardcore' players here. The ones training big guns or who want to be in the positions of power.)

Step 1: Crew A kills Crew B for solely IC reasons
Step 2: Crew B think the reasons are flimsy, it was a power grab, a travesty. They're aggrieved that so much work put into their accounts was wasted
Step 3: They sign up with new accounts and either want to just distance themselves from Crew A, or actively devote themselves to fucking Crew A up.
Step 4; If they distance themselves, they will in all likelihood come into conflict with Crew A as a result of organic gameplay. If they are gunning for Crew A, Crew A's only logical response is to fuck them up again.

I've been on both sides of this dynamic more times than I can remember - and I mean that literally not metaphorically. I can categorically state that as a 'victim', I never never started a new character that is 'pure' in RP terms, there has always been OOC considerations which prevent a true break from what came before. This is human nature. If I've just sunk 500+ hours of my life into an account that is now null and void, I'm either going to want to avoid the people who did it as much as possible, or to try and get myself some sweet sweet revenge. 

Maybe not everyone has the same thought process as me but I absolutely defy anyone to say, with a straight face, that they can completely separate their old characters from the new. In a creative sense, it is incredibly difficult to conceptualise an entirely new character - to consider their motivations and ambitions and how to achieve them through the group dynamics - without mixing them up with your own motives and feelings.

Returning to my original question, the players in charge in any given period have in all likelihood been on the other side of the fence. They know that the new characters of old players do not represent a truly definitive break with old characters. So why should they pretend that this is the case? Why should they risk their own work put into their accounts to maintain the fiction that the vast majority of players do not continue to play with the same motivations and modus operandi? It's foolish and I think unfair for it to be incumbent on today's flavour of the month to play a different 'meta game' than anybody else.

I think the single biggest thing that drives this is incredible longevity of some of the 'big accounts'. When you take a step back and actually think about the fact that some GFs on this game have had accounts lasting longer than a year, it's actually incredible. It's an incredible length of time. To get to the top of this game doesn't just require passive longevity either. You either need to be investing a considerable amount of time or of money to get to the point of having an account which is capable of influencing game events in a meaningful fashion

I have long, and unsuccessfully, argued that that this time dynamic is far and away the biggest thing limiting the potential of this game. The more time you sink in, the more reluctant you become to have a particularly big appetite for risk and the result is that pvp conflict is marked by huge, devastating conflict as opposed to skirmshes which have the potentially to resolve themselves without involving entire cities and alliances. Then when you circle back around to the IC/OOC dynamics, it is incredibly difficult to be able to just move on from losing an account. 

If you've just spent up to half a year building an gun capable of hitting anyone in the game and spending over $300,000,000 on bodyguards, losing that account is an absolutely staggering blow. If you were planning something, it's infuriating - what if you moved that little bit sooner? If you weren't - even more so - it was a total waste! The stakes are so high that trust is a luxury that's almost unaffordable. It makes sense to repeat the game with a clique of people that you know extremely well. When you examine all this in the context of the size of the userbase, the inevitable conclusion you arrive as it that people are playing the game with the only strategy that is likely to deliver a decent result.

Anecdotally, I remember a good while back (not even sure what year) the Anita rein was ended, not by player action but by the fact the admins needed to move server and couldn't/didn't preserve the game state. For the preceding couple of years, I was part of a pretty huge minority who used to rank up and try and kill Anita's clique. We'd fail, but decimate most of Anita's city, then we'd all dust ourselves off an go again.

Before the new server launched, the admins ran a series of 'cycles'. I may mis-remembering the specifics, but as I recall it the cycles lasted 14 days, there were no time limits on ranks, HQ costs were reduced and everyone just went at it hammer and tongs. The short time frame led to a much more exciting gameplay dynamic, and the fact that there was less 'risked' in terms of effort put into the account made it possible to play with new groups all the time. For the first time in nearly 3 years, I was hanging out and playing in groups with people who I never had before. It was one of my favourite periods on all my time around here.

Of course, I'm not advocating having finite rounds of gameplay and removing any sense of nuance from gameplay strategy, but I do think there has to be a better middle ground than the cold-war esque dynamics followed by periods of cataclysmic conflict that we currently have.

Its not new. It's not even worth debating. It's been the same since I began player over a decade ago. Those at the top change and a new clique kills a new set of people that they dont like and those that were previously hunted either then get a fair crack at playing, or could be unlucky enough to be disliked by the new top dogs too.

Same shit, different day. Only difference these days is the old sayings don't quite fit. It's always been "Rank up and do something about it" - that was fine when ranking to Made Man was the key aspect in making a go at changing the status quo. Now it's spend x hours a day for x months and then hope to do something about it if you managed to spend all that time without being found and manage to kill the top dog finally.

Its far too much effort, which is fine considering those at the top had to put in just as much effort, if not more, to get where they are. A fact which is often ignored. Just because its hard to overthrow them, we shouldn't disregard the fact it wasn't easy for them to get there in the first place.

It has however made the game much less fun, in my view. Life gets boring, even for those currently in charge at the top. I can't see how you can possibly invoke a change that would resolve it though. As someone else said; why should the current people at the top hold themselves to a different standard than those before them?

Personally, I would love a user to go all crazy and simply slaughter every player above the rank of Made Man, before then retiring. Basically invoking a user made reset, and seeing how people would then work it when they can all be killed by all and sundry, meaning actually playing the game properly would be key; forging relationships, alliances, establishing trust (eventually betraying that trust) proving themselves to be a good leader and surving because of it instead of just because they have an insurmountable number of bodyguards.

Alas, its a pipe dream.

I agree on some points  and disagree on most Pete. One change that can be made is set that yellow bus on fire so to speak and level the playing field. How is it a slacker lives and non slackers do not?

To answer the authors thoughts. There is no thrill anymore. It not take long to see the true colors of the latest events.