Slavery in AoC

ArchivedUser

So this is an actual serious question because it matters for both Roleplay and for understanding the game better. BUT is slavery a thing in the world of Verra and I mean the Roman concept of slavery such as anyone and everyone can be a slave. I am curious about this because most games either shy away from it or do not make light of it in their lore such as Elder Scrolls with their downplay of the Dunmer and Argonian history.

And the reason to ask this. Is how do each of the races view the concept of lordship, slavery, and other hiearchy type issues. I know you are holding out on lore but it is an interesting topic that should be discussed some as slavery has been in human culture since man was able to settle down and farm.

Not a racist. Just looking for lore for clarification.

@GMSteven

ArchivedUser

Don't expect to get answers on trivial pieces of lore until closer to release. There's a lot more that needs to be addressed before we can start nitpicking. 

ArchivedUser

Elder said:

Don't expect to get answers on trivial pieces of lore until closer to release. There's a lot more that needs to be addressed before we can start nitpicking. 

More giving ideas.

ArchivedUser

AnduinKayvaan said:

Elder said:

Don't expect to get answers on trivial pieces of lore until closer to release. There's a lot more that needs to be addressed before we can start nitpicking. 

More giving ideas.

Not sure what that was supposed to mean, three word sentences don't make the most sense. 

ArchivedUser

Giving ideas to the Devs.

ArchivedUser

As @Elder states, I don't think we know enough to be able to answer this accurately. It may well be something played out amongst the NPCs but I find it difficult to see how it could work with players. I'm all for people having the opportunity to roleplay as they want to, but personally, I'd rather shave my beard than be a slave to an Elf.

ArchivedUser

AnduinKayvaan said:

Giving ideas to the Devs.

Then why did you say this. 

Just looking for lore for clarification.

ArchivedUser

Lore-wise, no idea. Slavery is quite common among Medieval themed games and for good reason, a free un-paid workforce equals more money for the business/person that uses them. But Gameplay-wise this wont happen, people are against being imprisoned during war, this is along the same vein of "forced mechanics".

ArchivedUser

Lore-wise it might be a good idea but if everyone and anyone could become a slave, that would include players. Capturing other players during a siege would be under the concept of slavery but it wouldn't last long enough to cause huge dissatisfaction among players and would only strengthen immersion.

ArchivedUser

AutumnLeaf said:

Lore-wise it might be a good idea but if everyone and anyone could become a slave, that would include players. Capturing other players during a siege would be under the concept of slavery but it wouldn't last long enough to cause huge dissatisfaction among players and would only strengthen immersion.

The only problem with that is it wouldn't be fun, at least not fun enough to justify the work it would take to design and develope the required systems. 

ArchivedUser

Elder said:

AutumnLeaf said:

Lore-wise it might be a good idea but if everyone and anyone could become a slave, that would include players. Capturing other players during a siege would be under the concept of slavery but it wouldn't last long enough to cause huge dissatisfaction among players and would only strengthen immersion.

The only problem with that is it wouldn't be fun, at least not fun enough to justify the work it would take to design and develope the required systems. 

I agree it wouldn't be fun at all to be captured however this would be the consquences of the actions taken by the players (1 person charging in against numerous enemies). Of course once the siege is finished the players would be released or their nodes would need to pay a ransom for them (though this is going a bit too far).

ArchivedUser

Well, we can have minions and thralls.
I think we have to pay them wages, though.

I doubt that slaves are going to be a thing for us to have to contemplate.

ArchivedUser

Dygz said:

Well, we can have minions and thralls.
I think we have to pay them wages, though.

I doubt that slaves are going to be a thing for us to have to contemplate.

No, this would null the summoner class which relies on summoning companions/minions, if we could pay for things like that then summoners would have a lot less usage.

ArchivedUser

When a node hit a city and there is a new king/queen we are all slaves to build there new  palace 😧😞

ArchivedUser

On a serious note. Why have slave when we can build things are self we are part of a strong  community. We have luern from are past/history it got us no where we come back stronger and loyal we all work as a team everyone is part of the community we are all friends. We don't have time for slaves we are to busy hunting food for the family and friends planing wars and getting drunk on ale. 

ArchivedUser

Sw684 said:

On a serious note. Why have slave when we can build things are self we are part of a strong  community. We have luern from are past/history it got us no where we come back stronger and loyal we all work as a team everyone is part of the community we are all friends. We don't have time for slaves we are to busy hunting food for the family and friends planing wars and getting drunk on ale. 

Rather than that, there are no friends between enemies I guess, there was a few comments back there talking about enslaving enemies after/during sieges and so on. What's more during these types of times with kings and nobles slaves were not something uncommon.

ArchivedUser

Well of course there is slavery! If you live in a node thats totally unfair to you (taxes) and players are preventing you to flee it with PKing = welcome to slavery!

If your node is weaker than others and other guilds/notes are threatening you with war if you dont build the buildings that they want and dont make the prices that they want or dont pay them a tribute = welcome to slavery again!

ArchivedUser

as long as one can fight for their freedom and no one is created a slave i think it could work.

ArchivedUser

This could also tie into trade caravans as well e.g. moving thralls from one settlement to another, if you raid it and are successful then they could grant bonuses to activities done on your freehold for a time.

ArchivedUser

Well the developers have mentioned in previous Q&A sessions that you can hire workers for your mill or shops, so this would make things interesting to insert the ability to have npc slaves. The main source for these npc's being the wars that are waged over the nodes and depending on the government type if they find it acceptable to capture them and sell them on the market (economic node anyone?).

You can then open up options where a religious node would have quests to fight other nodes or leave it to player agency to decide if it should be allowed on a server or not.

ArchivedUser

I don't know possibly if it is set up to enrich lore or personnel player ... for example if we "get caught" or need to pay a debt or maybe your a bounty that got collected then we could be forced to fight in an arena against as set number of NPCs/PVP for freedom. May be fun.

ArchivedUser

Dont like this idea too much since forcing people to do pvp which they might be bad at could be a problem, but fighting npc's might acutally be fun

ArchivedUser

To be honest capturing players is silly and should be avoided (not sure why people would even bring this up it is ridiculous) as this mmorpg is trying to not be a niche, but be main stream. But allowing guilds that siege capitals enslaving all the npc citizens would be interesting as I feel the rp aspects people enjoy woulds create guilds who would pvp to change the system on certain servers.

In Eve Online they actually have a npc faction called the Amarr that enslaved another called the Minmatar lore wise. Long story short there are guilds that actually risen where they are the races of those factions that fight each other in the lawless space just because of ideological differences (one supporting enslavement the other freedom for said people)

ArchivedUser

Lore wise I think epyrean elves and ren'kai orcs are most likely to be in favor of slavery while nikua dwarves would be probably most opposed to it. Gameplay wise as others said it could work only with npcs but even that would probably have to be limited.

ArchivedUser

idk, I honestly think it would be a dumb decision to make, considering that people will hate being forced to do anything.

ArchivedUser

Irobot said:

idk, I honestly think it would be a dumb decision to make, considering that people will hate being forced to do anything.

Indeed. Lets say you run your own business like a farm or tavern or something, or you just tamed the most rare mount or gathered something that will sell for a good price... All of a sudden a group of 20 players appear, enslaving you, taking all your stuff, and you have to fight for one hour in an arena (may it be PVE), you can not care about your business/go to the raid with the group that waited for you before you were enslaved or defend your node thats under siege because you are now in the arena against your will -.- Sounds really... bad!

ArchivedUser

Amaze said:

Irobot said:

idk, I honestly think it would be a dumb decision to make, considering that people will hate being forced to do anything.

Indeed. Lets say you run your own business like a farm or tavern or something, or you just tamed the most rare mount or gathered something that will sell for a good price... All of a sudden a group of 20 players appear, enslaving you, taking all your stuff, and you have to fight for one hour in an arena (may it be PVE), you can not care about your business/go to the raid with the group that waited for you before you were enslaved or defend your node thats under siege because you are now in the arena against your will -.- Sounds really... bad!

This is a really bad example tbh, players just randomly kidnapping you would probably go against whatever laws each of the 'civilized' races have in place. Slavery would have to be in effect after sieges for example, though I'm not much of a fan of a system like that anyway.

ArchivedUser

AutumnLeaf said:

Amaze said:

Irobot said:

idk, I honestly think it would be a dumb decision to make, considering that people will hate being forced to do anything.

Indeed. Lets say you run your own business like a farm or tavern or something, or you just tamed the most rare mount or gathered something that will sell for a good price... All of a sudden a group of 20 players appear, enslaving you, taking all your stuff, and you have to fight for one hour in an arena (may it be PVE), you can not care about your business/go to the raid with the group that waited for you before you were enslaved or defend your node thats under siege because you are now in the arena against your will -.- Sounds really... bad!

This is a really bad example tbh, players just randomly kidnapping you would probably go against whatever laws each of the 'civilized' races have in place. Slavery would have to be in effect after sieges for example, though I'm not much of a fan of a system like that anyway.

Coming to your shop to rob you xD Id totally do that.

ArchivedUser

komarek789 said:

Lore wise I think epyrean elves and ren'kai orcs are most likely to be in favor of slavery while nikua dwarves would be probably most opposed to it. Gameplay wise as others said it could work only with npcs but even that would probably have to be limited.

Well thta is all going to depend if they actually have any npc cities or allow you to visit the old worlds of the factions.

I honestly don't see the orc races wanting to participate in any form of slavery. If anything I see both human factions being the ones to perpetrate the systems of enslavement. The Kaelar as they basically sound no different then the ancient Egyptians or Romans with the empire coming before the individual. Another thought that crosses my head is the slave revolt of Oriath act V in Path of Exil.

Vaelune is what I think of the caravan that picked up the general in the movie Gladiator. Another one is the Arab empire in ancient times and even the British slave trade. 

ArchivedUser

Tomoyuki said:

komarek789 said:

Lore wise I think epyrean elves and ren'kai orcs are most likely to be in favor of slavery while nikua dwarves would be probably most opposed to it. Gameplay wise as others said it could work only with npcs but even that would probably have to be limited.

Well thta is all going to depend if they actually have any npc cities or allow you to visit the old worlds of the factions.

I honestly don't see the orc races wanting to participate in any form of slavery. If anything I see both human factions being the ones to perpetrate the systems of enslavement. The Kaelar as they basically sound no different then the ancient Egyptians or Romans with the empire coming before the individual. Another thought that crosses my head is the slave revolt of Oriath act V in Path of Exil.

Vaelune is what I think of the caravan that picked up the general in the movie Gladiator. Another one is the Arab empire in ancient times and even the British slave trade. 

I don't think that we will be allowed to visit old worlds, if they had enough power to simply travel through those gates whenever they want then they would only send a scarce amount of people through the gates to cultivate land and clear monsters (obviously players so this could reach thousands or more) 

Another thing is that it's near impossible for IS to create those extra worlds, I mean the effort that would go into it is insane.

ArchivedUser

I am not to sure on slaves but could be interesting if done in a correct manor.
Going back to the previous world might be good for an expansion a loooong time down the line though or having the gates open and the people there coming into to try and take over this place where we have settled?