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I do not usually chime in on these things, for one I don't like to sugar coat things and two I don't want to hurt feelings.. but I keep reading these and feel I need to say something.

So here it goes..

@Vyxsis and I have usually always gotten along IC, and I was not present for this event. I only know what I have read and been told by others.

@Vyxsis you are upset over the outcome of the Indorani, as a former Guild Leader I understand and would be as well if this were the Carnifex, BUT you were told not to do something and did it anyway. I mean what did you expect? A slap on the wrist? We all know that @Vyxsis likes to start conflict, and that is a good thing that I think Aetolia needs more of, but there is a right time and a right place to start conflict. Not during an event that is trying to bring all sides of the game together to fight a bigger evil. After reading everything I have read it seems you keep wanting to play the victim card and that is not fair. You as the -leader- of the Indorani had a choice to listen to the Divine or ignore them and do what you did. Sometimes as a -leader- you have to make tough choices and ignore the majority to do what is right and needed of you at the time. Then explain to the others why you needed to stop. That is what should have been done. As for wanting to know what you did wrong.. that is plain and simple if you ask me. The Divine said no and you said yes.

@Leana, @Tiur has mentioned this in the past that when events happen there are many different routes they write for them because he likes to let the players of the games have more control over events. This is something that I really like about how @Tiur handles events in the game. If the Indorani were supposed to be involved in this event more than just banning with Bloodloch to fight the greater evil it would have been told to @Vyxsis. As a former leader of not only the Carnifex, but also D'baen and Bloodloch I have been approached by admin about the events and the general aspects of the event.

If you ask me, it seems more like the Indorani wanted to make the event more about themselves than making this a world-wide event for everyone to enjoy.

This is just my point of view, take it or leave it.

fine, fine, i'll accept that's off topic because it doesn't actually explain anything.

there are a couple issues i wanted to highlight with the logged discussion. i requested a meeting via ISSUE because there'd been no communication whatsoever since our deletion, and i said in my ISSUE that i thought it would be good to have some portion of the guild in attendance because it's not just for me. raz calls me up. he was blunt, as promised, but it seems like there's not really been any attempt to or intention of understanding where a whole group of players were coming from. i was trying to explain our reasoning and why this group of players - not just me, and not all people who agree with everything i say and do - is feeling really hurt by the way it's going down. i was met with resistance and ultimately told to get my head out of my ass.

yeah, i'm willful. i can be abrasive. when i'm pissed off, i can yell with the best of them. however, i'm also a customer, and i was seeking some glimmer of hope on behalf of a group of customers. we don't all need to dance around things, but telling someone to get their head out of their ass is more than blunt. in light of razmael's refusal to then explain why i was told to get my head out of my ass - you know, so maybe i could actually comply - it simply became harsh and aggressive. i know full well that i'm guilty of it at times, but it's not an appropriate way to communicate. it's really a pretty bad move from a consumer-based business. furthermore, telling me to stop making the conversation about myself when he was the one who actually made me the subject of conversation with this utterance is a clear form of gaslighting. it's pretty clumsy, too, since you can see from the conversation log that the only references i made to myself prior to that point were painstaking attempts to establish that i wasn't only talking about myself, i didn't do something on my own, etc.

now, he referenced Tiur trying to "get through" to me, so let me explain. after the initial instance of this event, Tiur contacted me to informally make me aware of some sort of concern about the way i was interacting in events. i was told that i was frustrating and distracting to event runners. something about making group scenes all about myself? i'll admit that i still don't really understand - i tried to get clarification, but the only concrete examples i was given appeared to be things multiple people were doing. that is to say, i wasn't a total aberration, and therefore it didn't seem right to say that i was simply chugging along in my own direction regardless of the wider group. we kinda came to a stalemate, at which point i briefly logged off very upset and confused. the conversation moved to messages - a medium i (apparently wrongly) thought was at least semi-private, particularly when messaging the producer - but the lack of response coupled with learning from a celani that the general attitude toward me in the pools is that i'm "difficult" and discovering that said celani was then also watching my command history in order to surveil my messages once again made me a bit upset. i'll admit here that i had a strong, inappropriate reaction to an NPC action around this time. vague, non-concrete accusations mixed with having private messages intercepted by someone other than the intended recipient had me a bit paranoid, and i handled it very badly by lashing out at the NPC and whoever was behind it via tells. this is the one concrete personal screw-up i've been able to think of relating to this event, and it happened after Tiur initially contacted me, so it couldn't have been what he was talking about. it's also, to the best of my remembrance, the one and only time i've gone after an npc like that. but i digress - my conversation with Tiur moved to email on the 3rd. he emailed me first, not answering all my various questions and concerns, and i replied with more requests for clarification, pointing out what i viewed as inaccuracies. i didn't get another response until the 7th, and in the intervening time, i'd objected to being written out of the official account of the initial event because, in light of the ongoing conversation, it felt like a strange, unexplained punishment. Tiur's reply on the forums, by the way, doesn't actually answer my question about it - he simply floated three possible reasons, not all of which are mutually compatible. when i did finally get a response, it was a two-line response after Severn manhandled Vyxsis basically saying "well, you had it coming." Vyxsis asked for clarification, even specifically saying it was for her own benefit, because i genuinely wasn't sure i understood what Severn and Damariel wanted. i'd asked several different questions regarding the Chaos Lords (all mostly after the bulk of the crowd was gone) thinking that maybe they could be helpful. the answers, while one could potentially infer that the Gods didn't want the Chaos Lords to know about the seal, were not direct. even the above post does it at the very beginning:



pardon me for saying so, but "the Court would bring their wrath down upon Sapience should they find out about the seal of Chaos" isn't an answer to the question "Was Jos a threat to Chaos?" that's a fact. before that point, however, as Vyxsis was asking a different question, Severn told her something like "I know your mind, mortal" and prohibited her from doing the thing he knew she was thinking. i didn't even know what i was thinking at that point - i was asking questions to try and figure out how we might be helpful, which i thought would be clear since i had gone out of my way to not speak too much and be nothing but cooperative the entire time. there was clearly an assumption made about what i was thinking of doing (which was only at the point of "maybe the Indorani connection to the Court can be helpful somehow") that informed the Gods' responses. that then asking for clarification was seen by admin - and it was seen this way by admin, since Tiur confirmed it in his two-line dismissal - as "a God not getting listened to, or being treated like a God" speaks volumes to me.

none of this even gets to why the indorani - yes, the indorani, not just me - did what we felt boxed into a corner to do. i've explained that to a lot of people, and i'm tired of doing it. my point is that throughout this event, my personal experience has been like this:

Aet: "You're doing it wrong."
Me: "Doing what wrong? How do you want it done?"
Aet: "Ugh, you're just not getting it!"
Me: "... um, ok, how's this?"
Aet: "Sorry, we had to delete your guild."
Me: "??????"
Aet: "Get your head out of your ass."

regardless of whether i made all the right choices, regardless of whether the indorani collectively made all the right choices, there's been an absolutely mind-boggling lack of transparency, empathy, and plain-ol' communication. the administration have been callous to the players of the indorani guild, and to me personally, and it seems to be informing the way people (completely ICly! i don't mean to say people are playing their characters wrong since they only know what they've been given!) are reacting super, suuuper harshly to even newer indorani. that's why i posted this log here - because people are being hurt, and admin clearly don't give a fuck if someone raising (pretty valid, imo) concerns is just told to get her head out of her ass.

but hey, we're dumb for wanting a shiny! as we said on the twitter like 5 years ago: oh, for sure man

So...it's been a couple of days since all of this went down now, which is enough time for fallout from all this to start occurring or settling into place...

I just wanted to leave a message here for Indorani players: Please don't quit the game over this.

I'm not sure how any/some/most of you are feeling, but having lost more than one Org I know that it can be a gutting experience. Regardless of whether you're a person who's invested time and energy into getting a Guild to a good place, or thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere and Guild experience and the people in it, people get attached to their Guild and losing it can be hard.

If you're thinking about calling it quits with Aetolia after this, remember that things like this are amazing character catalysts. Losing your guild doesn't have to be the end of your character's journey. Instead of thinking of this as an end remember that these can be awesome opportunities for character growth! Think about things from your characters perspective and where all this will lead them. I can't speak for any other character apart from my own, but clearly different characters will have different opinions and feelings on what's taken place. Some may support what happened, and be angry with the Gods. Others may feel betrayed by those they feel lead them to this point, or have become fed up and disgusted with that sort of lifestyle.

These different feelings all have different opportunities for the future! Someone who disagrees with the decisions and actions might become determined to prove themselves to the rest of the world. Someone disgusted might leave to join Enorian, having seen the dark side up close. And some even might begin practicing Indorani rituals in private, or with a select group of friends.

And these are only a few possible ideas. I can tell you that the loss of her guilds, the Atabahi (I know I go on about this a lot, sorry!) in particular, shaped Kelliara in a completely different direction than what I expected. I sincerely doubt she'd be anything like what she is without that loss. You just have to be open to exploring new and unexpected things.

There's been a lot of fallout from this, and there's probably going to be more still. Just remember, losing a guild can be a fantastic prompt to explore new character directions, and interact with groups of players and characters you might not have otherwise come into contact with.

Just 10c on the subject from someone who's been there a few times.