Guild and House symbols

Riluo

I feel ashamed for bringing this up like this and I hope it is not going to be taken personally as an attack on our admin, who honestly are beyond fantastic in how they conduct themselves. However recently an issue has made its ugly head known and in doing so made the players not only in my House but also in the general population are very annoyed and concerned that our established rp is able to be ignored so easily.

I will try to be as concise as I can and admit from the get go it could be seen as a bias on my part, but it is not and that is easily shown below.

The issue here is our crest and that it is not being accepted by admin at this point even with all the Houses, Dominion, other guilds and cities knowing our crest as the twin dragons. I will explain how:

Two years ago, Bouchard was granted a new direction by admin, which included changing our symbolism to include new aspects, indeed Niuri even commissioned stuff for us to include this new direction making it recognisable by all players. At the same point Nebre’seir and Bouchard merged as a singular entity combining to form a new united House under a single banner. One that was chosen by another House leader, Grimdale at that point and designed by the entire House together at an rp event, whereby we all sat down and it was brainstormed as a way to create a stronger more powerful house that will stand out from the others. Hence, the twin dragons were formed to show the unity of House Nebre’seir and the capacity for us all to work together despite our varied ideals and personal perceptions. Not long after this the symbol became know, accepted by the crafters guild, the dominion even the Primus at the time who stated, “It was a perfect example of what was his desire to see us united as one powerful entity and gave us purpose.” Not long after (one year I think) this all I decided I liked the dragons so much I would ask the admin for a pet of one, and Ellenia would get the other to use as rp devices for the House and to “rally” our members. It was approved given it was our symbol and we carried on none the wiser.

Recently however, this has been used against us as it would appear that due to my personal use, “not the House here” just my personal use of the pet that mind you was approved is now self-serving and goes against the wishes of the admin even with the pet being approved for this purpose a year after the crest was agreed upon. Other Houses changed theirs and I will not say who in case this goes against them too. They can say if they want who they are. The syssin even changed everything about who they are and nothing was used against them. Other guilds have changed their symbols, ideals, moved their guilds, reworked who they are and it is accepted as fact.

Therefore, the question is this:

1) Should a total of four plus years of rp be ignored or the 2 years since the creation of this symbol be ignored and should organisations be made to use older symbolism from 10 years ago, even when it is not recognised or used by people in the game?

2) Is the House just being silly to stand firm on this given the previous admin/gods involvement and the agreement that it was all above board?

3) Does this mean all guilds can simply lose their identity if players suddenly commission pets or artifacts that resemble their internal history?

I just hope this is not misconstrued as a personal thing and seen as a question of what is acceptable given IG history and the shift in admin over the past four to five years.

PS I love you crazy admin I really do, you guys go above and beyond, but my House is yelling at me for this so I am going to get a community response for them as they are too shy to ask, but still very Pissed off about this.

All I ask is people are civil.

Moirean

It's kinda hard to follow what you're saying - admin forced the house to change their crest, because Riluo had a pet dragon?

Riluo

In a sense yes and sorry I am doing several things so I should have been more clear about this.

The House uses a twin dragon symbol as its crest, on flags etc. I purchased a pet of one of the dragons a year after this symbol was approved IG. However, we are being politely told that we can not use it on our things such as a Fountain we are getting from admin, or in the case of recent ORGREQ ideas they have been reject point blank, due to the fact my own personal pet was taken from this crest. I understand that it may appear that I am pushing my personal rp on things, but the crest was used long before I gained a pet, I merely utilised the things I was shown to advance my characters rp after the fact. Unfortunately this has caused my members to get very angry with me and the admin too as it goes against what we are and their established rp, again not mine I merely jumped on it afterwards.

Gwenith

-House had the Gemini crest (10 years ago)

-When two houses merged they developed a new crest to show their power and unity - The twin dragons and it was wildly accepted by the community as their crest

-A few years later Riluo made a dragon pet as a tip to the hat to the crest and his position in the House

-Now, admin say that the twin dragon crest is more like Riluo's personal crest and won't let it me formally recognised as the House crest

(Is that a good enough paraphrasing?)

Riluo

Perfect

Moirean

It sounds like there's just confusion, then. People haven't realized that your pet reflects the house's symbols, instead of vice versa. That should be easy to clarify?

Your situation sounds akin to someone saying "Carnifex have to change their crest, because Moi's Carni-inspired tavern has a parody reference to it (the hounds are drunk, etc) in some of her designs." That sounds silly and I'm guessing it's not intended.

Kagami

This is lame and defeats the concept of role play.

Oleis

Since we're gonna put it out there like this, I feel like I should provide my verbatim response to the orgrequest:

I've been waiting to get through the Gaes event before I make a firm decision on this, as we continue to work through defining the roles of the Houses, and I do appreciate your further explanation. I think we're just met with a disagreement about the future of Nebre'seir. Now that Abhorash has laid out how he would like each House to operate within the Dominion, it doesn't make sense for Nebre'seir to have two 'opposing' castes anymore. Their renewed focus is on physical dominance -- having another branch for political dominance bleeds into what D'baen is doing. I can now totally see where you're going with this, but it's not something we want to solidify in Nebre'seir. For most of the House's history, the dragon has been a single, two-headed beast. Unifying the house under one purpose solidifies the importance of that imagery. We crack the joke (though it is actually quite true) that the heads aren't in opposition, they're Nebre'seir's left and right fists. Happy to talk with you further if you'd like to discuss.

I can certainly concede some confusion about how long the crest involved one two-headed dragon vs. two dragons. The earliest reference to a second dragon that I can find is March 2013, when a new design was adopted. This confusion informed my response to the FIRST orgrequest, which (now somewhat understandably) prompted the orgrequest answered above.

My issue with your frustration here is that the meat of the problem is still exactly as I've explained above. Your desire was to strengthen and make official the two castes within Nebre'seir, one of which directly conflicts with the brand-new attempt on our part to define identities for each house. What I said was that we didn't want to endorse that decision on your part. Because we're trying to do something else.

No one has told you to change your crest and no one will. All we've done is:
1. address structural goals of yours which we don't support
2. question the long-term viability and good taste of aggressively pushing the imagery of the platinum dragon, given that it clearly resonates with you personally.

Riluo

We are happy to drop the casts and go full warrior mode, in fact many of us prefer it that way. But the issue is the insistence I personally created the crest so I can fore fill my own personal desires and strut. This is a fallacy as the crest was created by past leadership and therefore not my doing, I merely adopted the theme after the fact for purely rp purposes. Indeed it feels very odd that the desires of the house is seen as my doing and therefore I am the sole person here. The house desired it and I just pass on the messages.

Now I do apologise if this causes issues or paints me as a asshole sometimes because I am the total opposite, and I respect you guys

But this is just mean..

2. question the long-term viability and good taste of aggressively pushing the imagery of the platinum dragon, given that it clearly resonates with you personally.

I did not create it again, I just adopted it to my rp later down the track.

Ezalor

Since you guys basically culled Bouchard doesn't a single dragon make more sense now anyway? Just an outsider's view, seems like it's more fitting since the two Houses symbolism is gone and focusing on strength means there isn't the dual factions symbolism either.

Riluo

I am just the leader of the House I am only here to make people happy, advance rp and attract new players. This is what they desire and its already established so we see no reason. However I do not think our opinion matters here. It is a catch twenty two because Gemini is not relevant either as she was created to represent my sires two sides, combat and politics. So in this oddly established logic Gemini should have one head chopped off since we are only about combat now!!

But it still stands that this was created and has stuck for a long time, so why should they change that when it is going to cause more issues.

Anyway I have done what was asked by the House.

Yarel

I think there are actually more, and deeper, issues at play here.

The blending of the two houses has never really been all that complete. It was understood by most, that we would end up neither being Bouchard, nor Nebre'seir. After the ham-handed merger, we were informed that there would be no new identity for the House, and later that we were to be a House of warriors. As someone who enjoys PK, I have no real issue with this, but it has caused enduring strife within the House. Many of you may think Nebre'seir to be a unified house of fighters, but it has rarely been that. We have lost player after player as they found the House's PK focus to be an ill fit for them.

The two-dragon, duel nature thing was a way of reconciling the Admin mandated RP of the House, with the desires of many of its members to have some sort of RP that was friendly to them. Now I can understand that the Admin do not approve of that and do not wish to promote it. But I have to say that I find such a thing to be another ham-fisted move by the Admin that is essentially going to serve to destroy ANY Rp within the House. Simple fact.. Few PKers are really into RP. Just witness our House Channel. We can have 10 members online, and can't get any sort of House activity or conversation going, unless it involves Pk. So, if the Admin are happy preventing our attempts to revive some sort non-PK specific activity, or any House RP, then by all means, force us to drop the idea of Nebre'seir's dual nature. I guess in that case, Infin and I need to step down from city government.

In case anyone was wondering, yes, I am an ardent opponent of the notion of having the Admins dictate that an Organization must wither and die from an RP perspective, simply because those Admins have declared that said organization must be 'physical' or 'combat' oriented.

Just my 2 cents.

Elene

You could use the two-headed dragon to symbolize two routes of a warrior's path: that of a conqueror or that of a commander. A conqueror utilizes brutal methods to carve a path through their enemies while a commander who utilizes tact, charisma and strategy to clear a battlefield of their foes. I think that you can definitely find a way to put a creative spin on the idea of being the "warrior house" represented by a two-headed dragon. Not everyone needs to be a hardcore combatant in Nebre'seir. The soft skills can still be taught!

Moirean

Sup, Carnifex army.

Riluo

I am getting more conflicting sides to this, we are told no we are not forcing your house to change things and yet with the fountain we won in the event we get told if you want a crest on it, you have to use Gemini only, or do without. This ongoing insistence of changing our structure, purpose and role play is just overkill.

Then this in a message from an admin I do not wish to name out of respect because they are just doing their job:

The second dragon, unfortunately, looks exactly like your personal mount. You have indeed been adding it in to Nebre'seir culture for a while, yes, and say it is to show two merged houses/castes. However, you are only a single bloodline now with a single purpose (as was pointed out with a recent ORGREQ).

I did not create the crest. I just stole my pet idea from it, so please why must this be brought up time and again as an excuse for things. In the end we have no say in this matter, we all know this, however we need to be frank about this instead of ignoring the fact we are passively being forced to change who we are yet again. @Yarel said it perfectly when he stated,

The two-dragon, duel nature thing was a way of reconciling the Admin mandated RP of the House, with the desires of many of its members to have some sort of RP that was friendly to them. Now I can understand that the Admin do not approve of that and do not wish to promote it. But I have to say that I find such a thing to be another ham-fisted move by the Admin that is essentially going to serve to destroy ANY Rp within the House.

We are all just over the flavour of the month changes, sorry and I honestly do not mean any disrespect, but it is frustrating to face this every 2-3 years again.

Neoma

I like your opening line Riluo..."Two years ago, Bouchard was granted a new direction by admin", not only by admin but by Nebre'seir itself, accepting Bouchard with many promises. And yes the crest was changed to show the unification of the two Houses. And much appreciated at the time.

But as Ezalor stated so well...Nebre'seir chose to cull the Bouchards and thus either alienated Bouchards or forced people who still carry the Bouchard blood to wear the Nebre'seir name.

So why keep the the new crest? House Nebre'seir certainly did not live up to their promises. I think you should keep your old crest and cull the Bouchard dragon as the name was culled.

I am sorry if this is a sore point for me. But the player behind Neo is sad and will be for a very long time.
No one even tries to make things right in Nebre'seir. You know i would return in a heartbeat if allowed to keep my name as I was promised.

Yarel

@Neoma Your character and Yarel stood on opposite sides of the name thing. I can understand, and agree with your unhappiness over how the merger turned out. It was not what ANY of us expected or wanted. But as both a player and on an IC level, I have (had) a problem with the way things were going. Namely, Bouchard remaining as a separate entity within the House, complete with separate clans, etc. Had the House been recast as, I believe, most thought was to be the case -A new House that was neither Nebre'seir, nor Bouchard, but something of both- then the matter would have been moot. Unless of course, you and others insisted on rejected the new identity in favor of continuing as a split organization. But that was not the case. So we were stuck with what we had. I understand that sometimes when the majority make a decision, it can suck for the one person who wants something else.
Hope I made my point... Sorta forgot what it was. Sorry.

Colette

The pressure to get into PK is there now moreso than ever after being mandated that Nebre'seir is a warrior House. It has never appealed to me because I don't like coding. I feel like limiting the House to this one path will cause the organization to suffer. We will lose the RP aspect if we have to gear ourselves towards only PK, and to bring in the ol' slippery slope, I think the House will become as dry and boring as Imperian if we only focus on this one aspect. As Yarel said, we're already extremely quiet - it works for Col's RP to surround herself with people obsessed with PK, but I can see why people would quit the House - I've considered it on many occasions since the merge.

Anyway, regardless of that, I don't see why the two dragons can't be adopted or why it's necessary to guide the Houses down a narrow path at all. Not letting an organization choose their own ideals/path/crest/etc is stifling the roleplay of said organization. Riluo's pet was only adopted a while after the Houses merged, so I see little correlation between his personal roleplay and that of the House. It's just incredibly limiting for the admin to simply not allow the official crest to be the one the House has used since the merge, or allow it to choose its own ideals/path. I don't know how the mandated structure of the Houses will benefit them, but I suppose only time will tell.

As far as what @Neoma said - I feel ya. Colette was basically born in Bouchard, they were her family. From a roleplay perspective, though, same as OOC, if the Houses were to exist as separate entities under the same roof it wouldn't work. There has also not been a successful blend of the merged Houses, but even after not playing a while and coming back to it Colette doesn't feel misplaced. There are things she holds onto IC that work within the ideals of Bouchard, and there are elements of her past within the structure of Nebre'seir. I think what needs to happen from that standpoint is more of an effort on the part of the House leadership to actually make it function like the two dragons rather than just Gemini (if that makes any sense.) But if that's being smothered out by Dominion mandates, I don't see how that's moving forward at all.

I've played Aetolia and other IRE games for over 10 years now, Aetolia being my main. It has always been shaped by the players and their decisions as an interactive roleplaying experience unlike anything else I've ever been involved with, so I suppose I don't understand the forced merging of the Houses and the admin mandates about how they should be structured.

Sorry for ranting. >___>

Neoma

@ Yarel You stated " Had the House been recast as, I believe, most thought was to be the case -A new House that was neither Nebre'seir, nor Bouchard, but something of both- then the matter would have been moot" That is exactly what so many of Nebre'seir and Bouchard worked for, but admin said NO and that the House would remain named Nebre'seir.

Personally I felt at home even if the House name was Nebre'seir. The Bouchard sparring pit, the tutor, the library... all were combined with the Nebre'seir halls and it was home. But asking me to drop the name was wrong. IC it is also really bastardizing both bloodlines by having people wear the name Nebre'seir when their blood is Bouchard. So the RP there is way off. As much as it saddened me IC and OOC, I had to leave the House and RP Neo as she always is and acts with honor and self respect.

Anyway I thing Riluo's thread has been derailed enough or maybe not.
But after banging my head IG over this it felt good to speak as the player.

Oleis

I am grateful for this thread because it reveals a lot of misrepresentation that's trickled down to the Nebre'seir membership. I'm not trying to imply that it's willful on @Riluo's part. He's a good guy who's full of ideas and I find him very easy to deal with as an administrator. But I'm going to use this thread as a vehicle to say this as many times as possible:

- No one with power wants Nebre'seir to change the crest.
- No one with power wants Nebre'seir to change the crest.
- No one with power wants Nebre'seir to change the crest.
- No one with power wants Nebre'seir to change the crest.

Things we want:
- Nebre'seir to represent strength among the Dominion (which, by god, can be roleplayed! It doesn't just involve mechanically killing people)
- Some sort of closure one way or the other for the Bouchard people eventually, in time, after lots of conscientious event planning and discussion.

That is the beginning and end of what I'm "imposing" on the house. The latter part we haven't even begun discussing. The whole sum of this dramatic back-and-forth started because we rejected something that was an explicit clone of the Harry Potter sorting hat.

You are our players. Without you, this game is empty. More specifically, you are our vampire players. Without you, our Dominion would be (no pun intended) lifeless. I love your energy, cherish your ideas, and want nothing more than to help provide a fun canvas for you to sprinkle your creativity. But there are times, frequently and in varying strengths, where it's important to remember that you are not in absolute control of your game world. This is not, will not, and should not be Second Life. At some point, you DO have to cede some level of executive decision to the people financially and professionally accountable for the success of the game that you enjoy. That doesn't have to be an adversarial relationship. For times that I have contributed to that dynamic, I apologize. For your own part, I only ask that you take a step back and consider whether I am actually ruining your roleplay experience by enforcing what we believe to be the right standards.

Yarel

@Oleis Perhaps there HAS been a massive misunderstanding among those of us in the House. Or perhaps our perception of what you have meant is colored by all the drama that has happened in the House, ic and ooc, since the merger.

Riluo

I feel this has become somewhat misconstrued as the issue I was asked to bring here was brought up after the fountain, not the tattoo thing. We understood that the tattoo idea was a bust after we asked again for it, and honestly I can respect the outcome.

However, it was the fountain idea that changed it for us when we were told no to our crest being in the design. The entire House just found it difficult to comprehend that it could not be included as part of the fountain, but we could have a single dragon Gemini in our design, something not recognised or utilised in that fashion by the House for almost two years. Therefore I am sure if put in this position many other organisations/guild/houses would be on edge and questioning why one thing is fine, but not another?


I am really truly sorry if this has caused issues, as I am a pretty laidback person...I hope! However it has resulted in a lot of grumpy people and confusion over what is allowed and what is not. So I am just going to let the others bring it up from now on as it conveys an image that "misrepresents" who I am as a person, resulting in insults over the last 72 hours from different groups and I am not at all comfortable with being labelled or made to look like a pretentious child for being the messenger boy.

In the end it has been stated the crest is going to stay and it is not going to change, so here is hoping this is resolved along with the fountain debacle as it is a cool gift and I want to see the house enjoy it not fight over it.

Neoma

@oleis you stated in things admin wants "- Some sort of closure one way or the other for the Bouchard people eventually, in time, after lots of conscientious event planning and discussion."

You give me hope!
I do not think that admin should control the RP but i think it needs to be the arbiter at times in order to provide a fair game play to all the player base. If you plan an event and want Neo's help in playing her part, I am more than willing to look at resolving this.

@riluo i think as a player you are a decent guy and do put a lot into the game but you like to play badass IC and that puts Neo at odds with you.