Best Of

I actually enjoy the tethers and I've actually really disliked things that have tried to break them up, and disagree vehemently that they are bad for the game. I honestly think there's actually a huge cultural difference between the two tethers but I won't get into that here because I want to focus on my experience in the Spirit tether.

We have a very small community and the tethers already make up only half of this very small community. If we look at individual cities, most of the time not a single city has a population that I would say is healthy for it. Activity breeds activity in games and when a city is essentially lifeless it's going to have a very hard time trying to attract new people into joining the city. I've seen this across many games, and within IRE especially. It's just extremely hard to get an organisation to pick itself up on its own. The Spirit tether solves part of this problem by ensuring that even if our own individual city is a bit dead, we still have another city to rely on. When something as simple as a newer player needing guidance, we just have more people to rely on to be able to help them.

Now, if we look into PK, I really, really like group combat. Most of the multiplayer games I play are team-based because I not only want to compete, but I also want to feel like I have people I can back up, or who can back me up, when things happen. I don't think this is an unpopular opinion either - if we look across what the biggest multiplayer games around, almost all of them are team-based rather than individual. That's not to say I don't enjoy the odd 1v1 fight here and there, but I just don't get the same rush as when we get a good team fight going. There is also the class diversity aspect. There are some classes that provide a huge advantage in groups and without them you are really just crippling yourself. Splitting the population even more just makes this issue even greater.

When I joined this game Spirit was very much divided, and it had been for a large part of my time here. Enorian and Duiran barely saw eye to eye on many issues, and this extended beyond IC actions. However, over time, this has shifted a lot. We worked for these changes. We had to endure some very frustrating moments, to the point where I personally thought about just giving up. Fortunately, I didn't because for the most part we've overcome that and now I have a large network of people who I would consider very good friends - people who I know can help them out when they need, and hopefully know that I can help out when they need. We still have our cliques and some of us still very much dislike each other. IC, Enorian and Duiran still hold very distinct identities and we still do not agree on many things, but maybe because we are motivated OOC to ensure that this community succeeds, when we need to we find more common ground.

At this point I think I would go as far as say I think without the combined Spirit community of Enorian and Duiran - without those close bonds that we have worked so hard for - I really don't see myself playing this game. The best, and worst, but also most importantly unique, part of this game really is its community.

Not a huge fan of the idea for a few reasons, but I'm mostly going to go into the one:

We'd have to really mess with certain class's lore.

As an example, Wardens use simulacra of ancestral forestal energy. We currently have a lot of Enorian Wardens - you're telling me that we'd have to RP being OK with people using our ancestors' memories in conflicts with Sentinels? Because the alternative of gatekeeping the entire mirror class is just as lame, if not moreso.

Building on that, mirrors are built along the tether divide. Barring oneiromancers, separating classes like that would necessitate that the two cities still remain close to at least an extent unless we want to go back to the days of not having access to certain classes unless you join their city. Changing from Tethers to a my city > everyone else's city system would necessitate a discussion of how to adapt the system going forward at the very least. If we dilute them, classes lose some flavor. If they become gatekept instead to keep the class's lore in check, that, honestly, might be even worse. But neither are great options.

At the same time, I do see why tethers can be frustrating when it comes to conflict. The fact is, though, even characters in Duiran I've met who aren't as big fans of Enorian as a whole (often Eaku, yes, hello) recognize that Undeath and Shadow are significantly worse blights on the world than a city which also hates both of those things. I know we're not using the current event as an example, but touching on it, the stated goal of Ivoln's followers going into this is "we want to find out how to force people into undeath". Frankly, it's more surprising to me from an outsider's perspective that Spinesreach would make fighting against this treason. Maybe that's a point in favor of tether balance consideration being bad for RP consideration, honestly?

Disclaimer: This thread is NOT intended to be used to purely discuss the ongoing event. I will mention the ongoing event below in connection with several other events, but this is simply to make a point as to it being a continued symptom of a perceived problem, not to start a conflict over current events. If you don't have anything constructive and are intending to sling mud or hostility over current events, please don't derail the thread. Thank you!


As the title says, lets talk about tethers. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, trying to pinpoint my single greatest frustration with Aetolia, and I think tethers about sums it up. I'm going to try and explain why and how I believe this stunts game story as well as game mechanics, and offer a few examples of each.

Lets start with roleplay and the game story. One of the things I find the least compelling is that for every event, essentially, there is a "good" or an "evil" option, by necessity. With the game being split 50/50 the way it is, there's only a tiny amount of wiggle room for nuance here. Even if the organizations in question may slightly disagree, it forces that split regardless because of how the game is set up. Tethers, for all intents and purposes, basically subsume organizational identity, in my eyes. When it's 50% of the game against 50% of the game, there's not really an option or a desire to explore differences in org view and org direction, you need to sign along the dotted line to either fight for "good" or fight for "evil." If you don't support one or the other not only are you stepping outside the established norm that tethers have created, you're weakening whichever tether you're a part of, and breaking these long established ties and expectations.

I think this further weakens the narrative we're trying to tell, and makes the world overall less interesting. I'll try to pick on everyone equally here. I've gone out and asked Enorian and Duiran folks both why they help eachother, pointing out that Enorian is, for all claims of defending life and innocents and such, a blight upon the natural land. Shouldn't this be abhorrent to Duiran, being a fundamental violation of what they hold dear, regardless of what Enorian believes? Shouldn't Enorian, by contrast, be somewhat iffy about the more savage tendencies of the natural cycle and how it impacts innocents every day?

I've done something similar with Bloodloch and Spinesreach. This is another good example of two factions that IMO should NOT be friends. Bloodloch is the type of government Spinesreach essentially exists in opposition to. In any normal circumstance, I'd say Spinesreach is exactly the type of city Bloodloch would be eager to subjugate for their stance on freedom. That's what the empire wants, after all.

In each and every case regardless of the org, the answer is relatively similar. It boils down to this: we have to make do because the other side is aligned. That's really boring! I can't speak for everybody, but to me that is supremely not entertaining. It's essentially sweeping all these very neat, potentially interesting stories, all of these rp motivations and disagreements that could be explored, under the rug because well, the game's split. You're expected to fight the other half so why would you push these org differences when the tether difference is so prevalent? There's no guarantee the other side will, and it leaves everyone in this stalemate where lots of roleplay potential goes unexplored and the story ends up being very linear. I often hear again and again that this is the "RP game," but how can it really be that when org identity is so diluted to account for the necessity of splitting exactly half and half? How can it be when RP reasons are routinely shunted aside because it HAS to be two sides and not separate factions?


Alright, now lets break into the pk discussion. I expect this is where things may get somewhat hostile, so I'm going to try and be fair here and hope this can be a constructive conversation.

I think the half vs half aspect of the game really kills the pk scene. Now, I know not all fights are purely about numbers. It's about attitudes, it's about coordination, it's about a whole host of factors. But by splitting the game in half, it essentially limits diversity in such a way that it ends up being eminently clear which side has the weight of numbers at any given time. Instead of it being say, four warring factions each with a variable number, it's two lump sums. I've heard in the past shadow was the larger, and would stomp all over spirit. I can say currently spirit is the larger, often reaching anywhere from 15 to 20 people against shadow groups of 10 or less.


This isn't intending to point fingers or shame anyone for how they play. If I had that many people, I'd bring them all to an objective too! I think we all would, if push came to shove. But that's not really healthy for the game environment, IMO. The game is always going to be heavy on one side or the other, and that's a lot harder to compensate for when there's only two factions, period. The two faction system essentially seems to rely on people self regulating and moving to the other side if one side is too heavy, but I don't think it's fair, or realistic, to have people try to self-regulate in that way. Folks want to play with their friends or don't want to play with x or y, it's a game, that makes sense. But when all the weight congregates, it's a lot more telling in a two sided conflict than it would be in say, a four-sided conflict. I enjoy winning as much as the next person, and as stated above I would definitely bring all my people, but that doesn't mean that's fun or engaging in the current climate.


Certain pk mechanics also go so far as to enhance this issue I think. Numbers are the big tell in the current conflict and other such open world events, but there are also mechanics that force the issue and punish based on tether rather than on the org level. I'm talking about things like Twins, where you literally can't compete unless you have enough people from both orgs in your tether, or hunting grounds, where one person can enter from each org, but it essentially becomes a 2v2 scenario based on the tether divide. Whichever tether is larger can essentially ensure control over the hunting grounds items using this mechanic, because it's based on tether, not org.

It's also worth noting here that there's really no way to seek out or define the size of pk battles. Before someone says battlefields, yes these do exist, but I think it's clear they're intended for very specific scenarios. They're not here to be a complete substitute for open world pk. But you really can't start open world pk without it devolving into tether-based pk. Foci? Tether oriented. Shrines? All gods are tethered, and regardless of defile aura changes, defending the shrines of a god that is on your tether in the moment is still fair game. It's never just order vs order, defiling becomes tether pk as well. Story conflict? Tether vs tether. Raids, such as during the last war when Bloodloch raided Enorian/Duiran, or when spirit raided Bloodloch, it became a tether wide conflict in all instances. Even just a month or so ago when Sheryni raided Enorian with just the two of us, half the group that showed up was Duiran people. Spinesreach shows up to defend Bloodloch, and Bloodloch shows up to defend Spinesreach in this same vein. You can't ever tailor your group and say you know, we only have a few, Enorian only has a few, lets go fight Enorian, or lets go fight Spinesreach, because you're getting the whole tether no matter what.


I'd also like to say that on a broader scale, I think tethers just instill this sort of tribal atmosphere to the game that isn't healthy whatsoever. There is such a pervasive mentality of "them or us" based on the fact that the game is just split straight down the middle. It creates so much hostility and vitriol, and it's not diluted at all because there's only two sides. Us or them. I think this can be seen a lot in how quick people are to think the worst of the other side, and to assume that any and all pk is unjust without really investigating or considering. Further, it just makes the game a less pleasant experience for everyone playing it.

In short, I think tethers are one of the biggest issues Aetolia has, with story potential and with pk balance both being limited by the half and half split. It would be a much more interesting game on all sides if the story and the fights all had more sides. Do you agree? Disagree? Discuss!