Best Of

Can I just say watching two groups of oldbies/elites/cliques throw the same criticisms at each other is way more entertaining than it should be?

I was pretty ready to finish my popcorn and head out but something hit me the wrong way so I will also scream into the abyss.

To preface, I'd like to say I know Sibatti's player very, very well, and she even tuned me in to what was going on on her end. Interaction with Lin/Anfini is limited, but IC at least has been mostly neutral and a bit contentious. As for Oonagh, I definitely feel sympathetic especially since I am quite literally doing the 'play a new character for lowered assumptions/expectations' thing.

That sympathy went out the window when the decision was made to go after someone for taking their hobby more seriously than their job, especially when there seems to be some negative connotations into working at a gas station. I mean who knows, maybe Linfini gets employee of the month every month? Work hard play hard right? Putting people down for having "shit" jobs is probably not the best thing to do for the next few months anyway.

And honestly, those messages gave me flashbacks to that mediocre Stanford Prison Experiment movie (which I guess is a little on the nose). Yes you can acknowledge your character would act a certain way. But doing so as gleefully as Fezzix et al did, and fully acknowledging how it would punish players they seem to disagree with, is pretty.. gross.

Could my character eat some other player's character's baby? Sure, she's not a fan of the cycle or anything living. Would I probably be saying 'ok this is a little fucked up' as I did it? Yeah I hope so.

I have no idea what dur Nayas has done in the past. But as I sit in my grandparent's home in southern Italy I can tell you that holding onto grudges and vendettas is a good way to get rid of all of the villagers in this little village we call Aetolia (yes I watched the Godfather recently).

Some other notes that I feel might be relevant: I realized around the time Arion allowed Infernals into his order cause they could be 'honorable', that this sort of "neutral" RP generally sucks. It has been pushed various times in different ways and quite frankly, unless we can get rid of tethers and other mechanics to help make the lines in the game more blurred, then these sort of issues will pretty much always occur.

In fact, around 12-15 years ago when I did try to be a little RPer, I became pretty disillusioned when I realized how some people play Aetolia. The vampire goes out on their night hunt, RPing the big, bad, scary vamp. The noble Enorianite goes out and slays the vampire. The vampire.. continues to RP being big and bad without really acknowledging what happened.

They don't shake their first and say "I'll get you next time". They just assume they can continue being big and bad. There's no accepting that they lost (we're playing a video game, who wants to lose?), there's no rueing the day and acknowledging defeat by your nemesis, there's no character development that acknowledges that maybe your big, bad vampire character is a wuss (which to be fair, learning PvP and coding to be big and bad kind of sucks anyway). People don't want to play THE game, they want to play THEIR game. And the fact that our money gets involved makes it much worse.

And my last point, which is mostly in jest, is that I find it nuts that Duiran is willing to take in SevernBamathis. I don't know the RP that happened, the story line that's taking place, or really anything at all. But to assume that Bamathis is totally on your team because he said Dendara is cool once, and assuming the guy who can manipulate reality is totally under Bamathis' control? From an RP perspective, I hope the Duiranites that support Bamathis are playing naive, gullible characters. Cause yikes.

I don't remember any of those, because I wasn't playing. But do you remember the three race riot events held in Enorian in a matter of two or three years, in which there was only ever one bad choice made by a player but the orgs still got hammered for being 'bad'? What about that event where Enorian's prophet started acting wildly out of character, punishing people who dared point out that what she was doing wasn't what the city was about, and ended up having been manipulated by Severn the whole time? I'm sure the list could get longer with even a cursory search of events posts.

If you honestly thing that those situations compare to the consistent bending over that spirit orgs tend to get in events, where they are railroaded and given a LOLARTIFICE'D conclusion, or they are punished for something they had no way of possibly resolving because it's what the admin wanted to happen in the first place, I don't know what to tell you.

Shadow doesn't -get- the moral choices in events because Shadow gets the luxury of not NEEDING morals. Shadow hasn't been hammered into the ground since pre-2004 with 'this is how your orgs are to act and if you don't we'll burn you to the ground'. Three events where Bloodloch and Spinesreach may have had different objectives or sides does not equate to 15+
YEARS of events where Enorian or Duiran or one of their child orgs are given choices A B and C and all of them are designed to blow up in their faces. And it's freakin' insulting that you think this is something that we just 'need to deal with'. The fact of the matter is that the two sides of the game are treated differently when it comes to events. And that this particular storyline has been botched in a way that many, many before it were also botched.

Okay so - as one of the players extremely close to the events being discussed, I wasn't planning on replying to this thread. I'm seeing a lot of things being misconstrued and are Objectively Wrong, though, and feel responsible for making sure a few things are cleared up. There are a LOT of threads that are muddling the conversation so I'm going to attempt to pull them apart for sanity's sake.

1.) The events that actually happened, i.e. what caused Oonagh to create this thread) and the subject of roleplay and its validity.

2.) A conversation on how the Pools are managed (including volunteers), and the commentary on overall storyline handling and game conflict. Since Tiur made a new thread for this while I was writing this post, I'm going to refrain from talking about it here and keep this singularly focused on #1.

Also, I've noticed a few instances of people entering into this thread in bad faith. This is a common tactic - throw enough garbage at a topic and people will eventually give up. Unfortunately, Oonagh's original post was just vague enough to allow anyone to see what they want out of it. Not lambastic you, Oony, it's just how things work. Everyone sees a different shape when looking at a fluffy cloud, no matter how well-intentioned that cloud is.

The other danger sense tingling is that people and events are getting blurred together so that it's hard to definitively say who's talking about what or whom. All the vagueness just makes everyone seem guilty by association, which doesn't help. It feeds into the concept of "the others" and builds up a narrative that's much bigger than it actually is. Ultimately, guys... we are all passionate about Aetolia (obviously), and we really can't afford to ostracize each other. Everyone only loses when this happens.

1.) The events that actually happened.

What happened, happened. I'm only going to speak for myself and my character's actions, and if the involved parties want to chime in, I absolutely invite them to. The fact is (as @Oonagh even pointed out in one of the screenshots), me coming back to a very wild and alarming new reality IS and DID PROVIDE interesting, character-shaping roleplay. To claim that "tantrums were thrown" or that "the old guard only wants it a certain way" is reductionist, patently false, and honestly pretty hurtful? @Iesid, we even mutually acknowledged to each other, not even a week ago, that the tension this was creating wasn't being ruined by either player being a jerk about it. Did you forget about that?

For my character to get back and be surprised that her city is now no longer standing for what she (and they) believed in, and to react the way that she did upon returning, is absolutely valid roleplay and gameplay. For someone to imply that I can't talk that out in-game, or that I have to "get with what happened and stop living in the past" is lazy and frustrating writing.

In the essence of fair play and the game, Sibatti is a living being beyond my ability to play the game. While I might not be able to log in, Sibatti is off in the plane of Dendara defending the realm of nature. Coming back to a changed Duiran is absolutely a role play point for her character, and disagreeing with those changes or throwing a fit is an absolutely natural and valid reaction. Which brings me to this:









I think we need to fully address the screenshots posted above. This shot isn't put into full context and I think seeing the full context of the post shows that it wasn't written "facetiously." Some of these individuals are being legitimately nasty in game and out of game. To say that these are facetious are essentially wrapping it up as a "it was just a joke, bro." Except it wasn't.

The first screenshot is telling. Fezzix and Asiago (Oonagh) are actively attacking a player both in game and out, and this is affecting your role play and actions to this individual. This is despicable. Who a person is behind the screen is largely irrelevant, and bringing that into your role play is equally atrocious. Beyond the fact that these first two sentences illustrate clear metagaming reactions, they are also just nasty, beyond the spirit of the game and of role playing. In my AD&D campaign I play a 9 foot tall male centaur fighter and it's a blast. Commenting on the "behind the screen" personality of someone or their choice of who they play is beyond childish; it's repulsive.

The second screenshot illustrates the point I make above regarding "telling people how to role play." This isn't what role play is about. Remember; my character exists even if I can't play the game. Sibatti has thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Certainly returning and seeing that everything has changed is a character arc. And it's a LEGITIMATE role play point and worry. We're not "****sticks" for maintaining our character's beliefs.

To say that we are being toxic for standing up for what our character believes, and to further set up plans on "ousting" us as players is purely metagaming nonsense, and honestly more than a bit creepy. Why care so passionately about the choices a character is making in a game, to the point of conspiring in an outside forum to make them miserable?

This is absolutely a mirror of the aforementioned complaint being lodged that people are upset that "RP isn't going their way". How is this any different?

It's also lead to incredibly derivative role play where people who "know" my character's background out of game are trying to suggest that I am in game without any significant basis in reality. I can't even count the number of times characters who should know nothing about Sibatti have approached her with knowledge they wouldn't feasibly know.

Scrolling down further, we see some truly disgusting responses in the discord. "Fezzix will happily assert dominance through violence and scary wordplay" I'm not even gonna touch. "Sibatti has never interacted with Fezzix" and "I've never interacted with her as a player either." Now Fezzix sets up a series of ideas for himself and others on what they could do to manipulate and modify the situation in game:



This is the very definition of metagaming. He is suggesting/threatening using out of character knowledge to dictate game play, and is essentially threatening our comfort and style in the game. To the extent that he is commenting on not just affecting the in character world, but affecting the --player-- behind the screen. Hence "make people's play experience miserable."

And there's irony here that a group of individuals who are bashing a real life male player for playing a female character in game are calling those people toxic. The hypocrisy is palpable. I suppose, though, that threatening to "assert dominance" on a person you've never interacted with, and bashing a man for playing a woman in Aetolia aren't toxic at all, and are just "facetious" comments. Haha. Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

With such jokes and hilarity it's no wonder people are frustrated, hurt and angry. That they find solace in other games that don't have this level of metagaming or behavior. And honestly? I won't be surprised to see some form of IC retaliation in response to what I've said here, either. I'm firmly in the camp of "live and let live", but I didn't make the choice of having this behavior foisted onto me. However, I will also absolutely not let flagrant untruths and shoulder-shrugging absolvings of responsibility go unchallenged.

I think Aishia has a very good point. Why is it that time after time, again and again, Duiran and Enorian are presented with 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scenarios as part of events? Why is it that we keep getting events where the options presented to us are 'do this thing that goes against the belief structure of your org, or change your org's belief structure to fit this other option' and then no matter what is done it blows up in our faces? How many times over the past decade has Duiran or Enorian had an event where the players stuck to their guns and did what has been pounded into them since 2008 or earlier only to be punished for it or have the event blow up because an admin wanted it to go a certain way so an npc light the fuse?

There are valid arguments for and against Bamathis. But you can't fault players or characters for being skeptical when they take the past into account. If Bamathis was always intended to be a neutral god that the whole playerbase should be getting behind, merging -just- Severn's order into Bamathis', explicitly listing him as a Shadow god, and making high ranking members of Severn's order, as well as Severn himself, representatives was probably not the best way to do it. And then there is the lack of buy in on Spirit side due to the fact that Spirit's gods are absent at worst or unwilling to publicly state the direction they want their orgs to go in.

If this is the new direction for Aetolia, that's all fine and good, but it needs substantial backing from admin both oocly and icly in the form of active godshells reinforcing the direction it needs to go. Right now? It's a bit of a freaking mess, quite similar to the mess that was Slyphe having mixed tether order members. And there are still people who are mad about how that was resolved.

Edit: I'm just going to add that I don't have a horse in the game re. right or wrong behavior on the part of players. I'm largely trying to stay out of that. I view this whole situation with Bamathis and worship of Albedi gods as the responsibility of the admin team. The players can only work with and react to what they are given.

Edit 2: I also want to say, regarding any accusations of metagaming, please -please- remember that just because you haven't seen the roleplay doesn't mean that it hasn't or isn't happening. I don't think people going out of their way oocly to stomp on other is something that happens nearly as often as we might think.

Really hate this Bamathis stuff. To the point is actually stresses me out. The only reason I haven't kicked up a much larger stink is because I'm tired of us being forced by the course of events to tear our own orgs apart because we're never EVER presented with clear cut decisions while darkside path is always 100% obvious. Just tired.

You're joking. You and @Xavin both.

Remember the Liruma War, when Spirit side had a clear side to back and Shadow players spent several RL days deliberating over whether or not to back the imps or ophidians, and Spirit had a massive head start in claiming territory because of it?

Remember the Three Widow War, when many Bloodloch characters wanted to support the slavers, and Spinesreach spent a long time with an intense moral debate over why they should support the villagers instead? You weren't privy to any of this, but it was a big source of contention. This, once again, gave the Spirit players a head start.

Remember after the War of Night when Abhorash absorbed Ati and became infused with the Shadowbound Taint? The Syssin looked into it, the lore was backed up by Severn, and we took action against the Dominion. It upset a lot of players, and it sparked all kinds of IC and OOC turmoil between orgs that were normally very close. It took years for us to recover, but now we've got the best relationship between orgs that I've seen in my five years playing.

Don't lecture me about how easy Shadow has it or how we never have to make hard decisions. Don't whine at me about how the direction of the lore is tearing your communities apart. Deal with it like we did.

EDIT: I'm not going to touch on being "handed" wins in events. What I'm getting at is that Shadow side has definitely had its own moral hurdles and debates to overcome, and yet we still manage to do well. If you want to win the culture wars IC, take action. Omei just opened up membership to Spinesreach and Bloodloch, but I don't see any outcry over it.

You didn't get punished for any of these choices, best I'm aware. We do. All the time. Shit, man, if we'd be given actual choices where we could in fact decide our own path without god damned prophets screeching in our ears I'd be all for it.