School information:

by **HongSaiYuk** Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:52 am

In this game, schools are QUITE a bit more than just a "new chat channel" and a "name over your head" like other games.

Here, schools can play a significant role in social activities of a player.
Yes, schools do provide you with a new chat channel and a name over your head, but there's so much more that's provided here.

Namely, you'll get a school yard to call your own. A comfy spot to sleep when your spouse throws you out of the house.

The school yard can be upgraded, and it's very expensive to do so. Additional buildings will raise the over all strengh of the school yard. Additional buildings, and upgrades to existing buildings will give you things like school titles, school warehouse, school buffs store, school membership limit increases, offline training options, and much more.

At some point in the future, school grounds will be able to attack one another. That should prove to be fun.
In the future, a school building will operate similar to the qigong temple to allow you to gain xp while offline.
Socially, in this game, there are a lot of benefit.

Friendship, loyalty, people to group with, etc. are all good reasons to be involved in a school. School members tend to be more generous towards one another, either giving items away for free, or drastically reduced prices.

School wars can be fun if you're into that sort of thing. Two schools can declare war on one another, and the school membership of the schools has a free for all pvp session for 30 minutes.
Prestige, as your school climbs in rank through wars, you are rewarded beneficial items for the top 5 schools.
Pride, it can be very ego boosting to be involved with a good school. It could be a very evil school as well, if that sort of thing interests you.

From a game mechanics standpoint there are no cons to being in a school, there are only benefits.
All the cons associated with school membership comes in with social interaction. There can be brual rivalries between schools based on leadership choices and other factors outside the control of the individual player. I'll let you figure these out on your own.

Starting your own school. E plurubus unum (one of many), certainly applies here. Depending on your goals, starting a new school may/may not be in your best interest.

It can be expensive and very time consuming to run a school. The social factor tends to make most school founders frusterated. I'll let those founders speak for themselves. There's a lot of time and effort into keeping members happy, and keeping the "drama" down.
It's also difficult to find "good" members.

From a social standpoint, it can also be detrimental to your own play style to be associated with school that has lots of rivalries or enemies. Alliances break, or are never formed, dimplomacy, and neutrality, and down right aggressiveness all play a factor in the 'success' of a school.

Hong