Isn't that also part of the war machine, RFletch? Propoganda, mind games, perception of the wider world are all common tactics and are pretty effective.
As for mock and criticise, that's the case for a lot of players in this world, not just W1N. At the end of the day it's all bravado and opinion and if some take it more personally than others, well it's to their detriment.
I agree with you entirely wholeheartedly regarding the effectiveness of mind games and propaganda; for example, we have already established that Colser is susceptible to a gentle baiting.
Adversely I find that all W1N players get generalised as being bold, brash and arrogant which isn't the case.
Similarly, I find that W1N tend to generalise every non-W1N member as being a distinctly average player that are permanently scared of W1N turning on them, which also is not the case - morale is high in LRAG, and we are looking forward to testing ourselves against the rank 1 tribe.
I regularly hear the line "it's only a game, W1N take it too seriously". Kind of goes against the fact a considerable amount of ORC players immediately block or react badly to an innocent, playful ingame message purely on the basis it's W1N. Bit precious, really.
Given that W1N have 114,000,000 points more than their closest rivals, I believe it is decidedly obvious that members of W1N take W1 seriously in a sense of time commitment. As you have pointed out though, we cannot attach generalised personalities to every member of a tribe - some enjoy banter back and forth with one's rivals, whereas others do not.
To your point about alliances and NAPs against a common enemy. Yeah, certainly, it's always to be expected but some are more surprising than others and different players will react in different ways.
My respect for ORC isn't particularly high but I respect some of their players. My experience with LRAG is pretty similar but outdated from the last time I enjoyed a lot of success against them in K23.
Either way, Fattaff deserves a lot of credit for re-spawning a solid tribe and doing well in the ORC war. The conjecture as to why they would merge with a tribe they were enjoying success against is clearly outweighed by the fact both councils obviously perceive W1N to be a much larger threat to their existence.
Alas, I have not had the pleasure of dealing much with ORC on my first stint on W1, so my statement may very well be incorrect, but with World 1 being in its end-game stage, I would suspect that ORC consist of relatively experienced players by now, and with this combined with LRAG who have had to rebuild from stratch, I believe this will be something of a challenge.
One thing I do find funny though is the number of players who took about W1N's "fear" and "panic" and baiting on the forums with negligible noble records.
But I guess to my earlier point, talking the talk is all part of the game.
Regarding the 'fear and panic', I personally would not think W1N would fear this turn of events, but considering Codwasnevergood felt the need to make PnP on this information, rather than let W1N prepare behind the scenes and let either LRAG or ORC make the announcement on the publics, it does hint that W1N felt a need to try and disrupt the move, rather than allow us to organise this move and fight to the best of our abilities.
Kilroy
