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Announce #2535 Duiran
Seir
Seein' All the ThingsGetting high off your emotion
Given the most recent announce post and what is currently going on with Duiran, I feel honestly compelled to give an opinion regarding the organization. I don't feel compelled because I think I was somehow instrumental in what made Duiran good before because that isn't in the case. In fact, what made Duiran so successful was Sibatti, Kiyotan, myself, Pilar, Xavin, Lin, Kerryn, Arbre, and the countless names that put time and effort into making Duiran not only just a welcoming community but also a place that broke the typical forestal stereotype that has plagued both the organization and other forestal organizations across IRE.
However, with the most recent announce and from what I've observed and been told by countless people, I can honestly say that despite a desire to come back, I'm honestly both terrified and horrified to do so. I also feel that while Razmael's post did a good job of giving a minimal view of what is going on, I want to elaborate on the specifics of what I've both seen and heard via logs and outside means of communication.
Firstly, Razmael stated that Duiran is by far currently the most toxic organization he has ever seen and I agree with this statement. In the thirteen (almost fourteen) years I have been playing in IRE, I have never seen an organization so utterly toxic and plagued by metagaming. Unfortunately, none of this is new with Duiran. In fact, many of the old names that perpetuated this very atmosphere in the past have done it again. What caused so much ire this time was the pushback from certain individuals who either experienced the "old" Duiran or knew enough of it and saw the warning signs of what was happening yet again.
While Duiran has been in decline for awhile now because these players saw the warning signs of what was to come, certain players decided to stick it out. One prominent example of a player who did a lot for Duiran was Arbre. Arbre helped cultivate a lot of the savage atmosphere in Duiran that made it great, she established a pack of Duirani werewolves that almost outnumbered the Rout in terms of numbers at one point, she served productively and admirably as a Benandanti, and has done many other things that made Duiran thriving for the first time in its history. However, certain players that did not like her on a personal level decided to not only conspire against her via metagaming, they also tried to create "laws" that Duiran does not have and a few quite literally took to the practice of stalking her. They did this in an effort to find anything they could use as ammo to remove her from the Council or harass her enough to make playing there an abysmal experience. Eventually, it worked. Arbre, whose interactions with Toz that caused these certain individuals to rant for days, were in an effort to bring Toz to Duiran. Arbre's character has a long history of interacting with those from Shadow, either providing them with a means to seek the cure or helping bring them to Duiran. As a result of certain players and their actions, we lost both of them and that was but one example of the atmosphere that has been cultivated. Despite Arbre's attempts to also run for ministries and do more within the Council to help improve it, she was shunned, harassed, and eventually chased out of Duiran. Unfortunately, she is not the only one that this behavior has been levied against recently.
I have watched a nasty clique develop in Duiran that has been perpetuated by slander, lies, mudslinging, mudsex, and outright manipulation that borders on the behaviors of a sociopath. I have seen near constant election contestations on the grounds of personal OOC dislike and organized via metagaming. If you were not in the clique of these problematic individuals, they will stalk you or contest you repeatedly until they could remove you. After which, they'd blackball you from obtaining any ministry positions and stalk/harass you enough to make your playing experience in Duiran a nightmare until you eventually left. This has most recently happened with Pilar as well. What's worse? One of the problematic players even tried to defend stalking/harassing within the Benandanti channel, stating that it was perfectly acceptable behavior and that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Firstly, it's never acceptable for you to harass and stalk a player. This is a game and if you believe that is acceptable behavior at all and that you'd rather spend your time harassing someone rather than actually playing the game, there's a problem.
I have seen logs of Sen being stalked/harassed, Kerryn being harassed, Mariena, Elwyn, Pilar, Arbre, and countless others that the current clique views as a threat because of their ties to the successful Duiran. Out of ego and paranoia, they've done all that they can in order to uproot and harass these individuals to get them to leave. More recently, I had to hear a player from Duiran talk to me about how they were literally reduced to tears out of the game because of just how bad the harassment has gotten.
Now, I could go into further detail as to what is going on, but I believe that exposure of these issues on a surface level is sufficient and explaining what has been going on to the rest of the playerbase is important. I believe it is important because it is critical, as a community, that we don't allow stuff like this to happen. That it is utterly reprehensible that some of us can take a game so seriously that we would resort to OOC harassment, metagaming, and abuse.
I feel that Razmael's solution is a step in the right direction, but I have fears that the current clique causing these issues are going to position themselves in each of the guilds and harass the current leaders or those going for the positions until they've managed to put their own Speakers in. Personally, I feel that short of shrubbing/removing the players that started this to begin with (of which they have a history of doing it), Duiran will likely not improve.
In any event, I personally want to apologize to those who played in Duiran before. I'm sorry, as a player, that you got harassed, bullied, and that people conspired to make your playing experience truly awful as a means of perpetuating their own enjoyment. Additionally, I'm sad that all of the work that once went into making Duiran great has been reduced to a point to where it's even worse than how it was before we worked on it as a project. My hope is that, if Duiran improves, that many of you will give it a chance again in the future.
- Seir
However, with the most recent announce and from what I've observed and been told by countless people, I can honestly say that despite a desire to come back, I'm honestly both terrified and horrified to do so. I also feel that while Razmael's post did a good job of giving a minimal view of what is going on, I want to elaborate on the specifics of what I've both seen and heard via logs and outside means of communication.
Firstly, Razmael stated that Duiran is by far currently the most toxic organization he has ever seen and I agree with this statement. In the thirteen (almost fourteen) years I have been playing in IRE, I have never seen an organization so utterly toxic and plagued by metagaming. Unfortunately, none of this is new with Duiran. In fact, many of the old names that perpetuated this very atmosphere in the past have done it again. What caused so much ire this time was the pushback from certain individuals who either experienced the "old" Duiran or knew enough of it and saw the warning signs of what was happening yet again.
While Duiran has been in decline for awhile now because these players saw the warning signs of what was to come, certain players decided to stick it out. One prominent example of a player who did a lot for Duiran was Arbre. Arbre helped cultivate a lot of the savage atmosphere in Duiran that made it great, she established a pack of Duirani werewolves that almost outnumbered the Rout in terms of numbers at one point, she served productively and admirably as a Benandanti, and has done many other things that made Duiran thriving for the first time in its history. However, certain players that did not like her on a personal level decided to not only conspire against her via metagaming, they also tried to create "laws" that Duiran does not have and a few quite literally took to the practice of stalking her. They did this in an effort to find anything they could use as ammo to remove her from the Council or harass her enough to make playing there an abysmal experience. Eventually, it worked. Arbre, whose interactions with Toz that caused these certain individuals to rant for days, were in an effort to bring Toz to Duiran. Arbre's character has a long history of interacting with those from Shadow, either providing them with a means to seek the cure or helping bring them to Duiran. As a result of certain players and their actions, we lost both of them and that was but one example of the atmosphere that has been cultivated. Despite Arbre's attempts to also run for ministries and do more within the Council to help improve it, she was shunned, harassed, and eventually chased out of Duiran. Unfortunately, she is not the only one that this behavior has been levied against recently.
I have watched a nasty clique develop in Duiran that has been perpetuated by slander, lies, mudslinging, mudsex, and outright manipulation that borders on the behaviors of a sociopath. I have seen near constant election contestations on the grounds of personal OOC dislike and organized via metagaming. If you were not in the clique of these problematic individuals, they will stalk you or contest you repeatedly until they could remove you. After which, they'd blackball you from obtaining any ministry positions and stalk/harass you enough to make your playing experience in Duiran a nightmare until you eventually left. This has most recently happened with Pilar as well. What's worse? One of the problematic players even tried to defend stalking/harassing within the Benandanti channel, stating that it was perfectly acceptable behavior and that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Firstly, it's never acceptable for you to harass and stalk a player. This is a game and if you believe that is acceptable behavior at all and that you'd rather spend your time harassing someone rather than actually playing the game, there's a problem.
I have seen logs of Sen being stalked/harassed, Kerryn being harassed, Mariena, Elwyn, Pilar, Arbre, and countless others that the current clique views as a threat because of their ties to the successful Duiran. Out of ego and paranoia, they've done all that they can in order to uproot and harass these individuals to get them to leave. More recently, I had to hear a player from Duiran talk to me about how they were literally reduced to tears out of the game because of just how bad the harassment has gotten.
Now, I could go into further detail as to what is going on, but I believe that exposure of these issues on a surface level is sufficient and explaining what has been going on to the rest of the playerbase is important. I believe it is important because it is critical, as a community, that we don't allow stuff like this to happen. That it is utterly reprehensible that some of us can take a game so seriously that we would resort to OOC harassment, metagaming, and abuse.
I feel that Razmael's solution is a step in the right direction, but I have fears that the current clique causing these issues are going to position themselves in each of the guilds and harass the current leaders or those going for the positions until they've managed to put their own Speakers in. Personally, I feel that short of shrubbing/removing the players that started this to begin with (of which they have a history of doing it), Duiran will likely not improve.
In any event, I personally want to apologize to those who played in Duiran before. I'm sorry, as a player, that you got harassed, bullied, and that people conspired to make your playing experience truly awful as a means of perpetuating their own enjoyment. Additionally, I'm sad that all of the work that once went into making Duiran great has been reduced to a point to where it's even worse than how it was before we worked on it as a project. My hope is that, if Duiran improves, that many of you will give it a chance again in the future.
- Seir
6
Comments
I think this should actually promote further discussion into other cities possibly getting the same sort of leadership styles. I'm not sure how much metagaming happens in other cities, but I think this is the right way to go for ALL cities. As it stands right now, its far too easy to stack a council. I've been playing IRE for 10+ years and I've seen it happen countless time. This is a step to remove that ability of stacking a council. Anyway, +10 to Razmael for catching and attempting to cease the toxic behavior, +10 to Seir for standing up for the little guys and making things a little more known.
Combat:
Opponents - Numbers, while always changing, on average seem to favor the shadow side. This doesn't sound like a benefit, but if you're looking for challengers you likely won't have to search very hard to find all sorts of pvp (be it 1v1, group, raid defense/offense, area protection, guild wars, ect...) The avenues to pursue on in your favor so long as you aren't afraid to lose every now and again. There are always people looking to provoke fights and some that want deeper rp'd nemesis'
Significance - One thing I have a hard time with from an 'evil' group, is finding combat that holds significance to me as a player and as a character. For forrestals, this seems easier (and was easier for me when I was of Duiran.) You are automatically against undeath and have reason to want to purge or convert them, you also have a huuuuge area of wilds to protect (I admit this is also frustrating). But hunting down those that corrupt nature gives you a cause to rally behind and a tangible reason to care. To me this is more attractive than foci combat.
Roleplay:
Diversity - From the lens of a forrestal, you have many avenues to create and shape archtypes. While you can't branch into what defines shadow (corruption/undeath/ect..) you aren't limited to good and neutral types. Be as evil and ruthless as you please, so long as the wilds remain untainted you are free to interact with them as you chose. Burn down a village thats cutting down the forrest? Sure. Become a mystic and become one with the Vintal? Why not. Research and study the biomes of Aetolia, discovering how those ecosystems function? Absolutely! Instill the values of a community and bring councilors together with feasts, festivals, and hunts. Do it! There are loads of avenues to pursue that strictly good or evil tethers don't have the option of RPing.
Significance (again) - You start with a wide swath of world area you are supposed to care about. This also includes things within these areas like the remaining great trees, historic sites, and some cool interactive stuff. You also have Dendara to play in and a multitude of niche ecosystems that your character could find more important than others. It opens up a lot of roles to fulfill and explore.
Unique - Duiran is unique as it is the only non-city. You are councilors and get to rp your community completely different than the other three cities can. Do you want strict laws or loose guidelines? Do you want to be a common collective or a tribe with hierarchy, how religious would you like the community to be?, and how aggressive do you wish to be. Many of these aren't options the other orgs can pursue without a very huge reform.
The Underdog:
When supplies, foci, and gold are stocked high and problems are low you can find youself in a bit of a stagnant position (especially without motivated leadership to run player events). When things are bad it creates many tasks that need to get done, and gives people a real reason to care. You have obvious problems that need fixing and numerous goals to complete to better your community. This issue does require people having a plan, but once implemented it gives councilors something to rally behind and makes people feel like they're making a difference.
As with anything worth having, it does make you a target, but please don't get discouraged by that. We're all here to enjoy the game and very few people actually want to ruin it for others (though it can seem that way)
Edit: The reality is that people in Duiran are taking the game far too seriously and the IC/OOC barriers for some have all but crumbled. There are players in Duiran currently that believe it's acceptable to harass and stalk individuals. Sadly, I've already been given a log of one of the problematic players trying to manipulate the new Speaker system in their favor by inciting people to act against certain figures that they view as threats. As I suspected, the Speaker system may not fix these issues and it may just require intervention to get these bad elements out of Duiran.
I have heard from the Bena who left the Duiran when we arrived, people like Arafel and Irruel, Grimdale, Caspien, Tilanna, Gwendolyn, Gilrath, Saige, and so many more, the stories of their glories, their wars which were so much more primitive than ours were, and were back in the day when (I know some of you will remember this) when gods interfered with war by destroying armies and crazy things like that. These people loved those days and missed them, and chose to move on.
So I get it Seir, you truly feel the time your group was on top of the world in the Duiran, was the glory of the Duiran. I believe every generation of Duiranites feels this pride, as do cities. But it's the memories you and your friends made. It wasn't the first of any war being won, it wasn't the first time the Duiran was on top, it wasn't the first time that people worked together without bickering and plotting and whatever.
I'm sure everyone appreciates your memories of greatness. I know I do, and I appreciate my own, because my generation not only brought the druids and the sentinels into the heartwood, we also brought the bears. We were charged back then with saving the Duiran, because the gods did not want to keep both Ashtan and the Duiran. We worked very hard and we had a lot of fun. Trying to get an organization like the Duiran, to accept a city-like system was hard, because there were people from the previous generation who felt like we were giving in and selling out. We ended up making the council in the trees and we had a unique system, of five bena and we would rotate feral will fairly and evenly from eireachdus to eireachdus.
And so Seir, we all have done the best we could, and we loved our time, we loved our council.
Either way I hope something is done, it's really not fair to the people who are just trying to enjoy the game to be targeted by this group of people.
A certain few of the most recent Duiran leadership have all of the attributes Aetolia does not need. Sadly, they're so disgustingly misguided that they think the most recent political changes are something to celebrate - as if they are not the very problem everyone knows they are. It's aggravating to hear about, to witness. Props to those that stayed. I moved Trager back to Duiran for around a RL week and I knew three days in that, sadly, it was not going to end well if I stayed.
I'm going to be frank with you in that this is not the first time such behavior has been reported either. Duiran (and Ashtan) has a history of this, even in the days of yore that you cited. A history of metagaming, mudsex, isolationism, self-entitlement, harassment, power mongering, paranoia, etc. What's worse to me is that there are people arguing that it's a good thing and even now are still incapable of acknowledging what they've created in Duiran as a result of their petty actions. There are people who think it's okay to stalk and harass other players. There are people who believe it's okay to organize smear campaigns on an OOC level against other players. There are even people right now who think that Razmael has no idea what he's talking about and saying that Duiran is in the best state that it has ever been in. The sheer level of ignorance and bias in that alone is staggering.
It's gotten to a point where the OOC petty bullcrap has affected Duiran on an IC level by pushing away people and causing rifts between Duiran and Enorian due to the behaviors of the problematic players in Duiran. Given that I'm clearly not the only player to acknowledge that there's an issue and that the very administration has acknowledged that this is clearly the worst state that Duiran has ever been in, I can only hope that the players who recognize that they're part of the problem either shape up, step away from the game for an extended period of time, or quit completely. People play the game to have fun, not to have to deal with the toxicity of others.
We aren't interested in taking away your right to discuss, but if you start making personal attacks and insinuations you will see it closed very, very quickly.
It honestly does not matter that you are not mentioning any names, but calling people out on OOC petty bullcrap, metagaming, mudsex, favoritism, etc, etc is only going to alienate the clique of people you are so vehemently opposed. Instead of going on for paragraphs about how everything is horrible and horrific, maybe what should be done is extending a hand and saying 'things have gotten bad, what can we do together to make Duiran great again?' Just dumping bile on people, regardless of how well-deserved it is, will only serve to widen the rift that apparently exists in Duiran. If someone outright told me that they hope I quit Aetolia completely, I would not exactly be receptive to their criticism.
It's not that I disagree with your position. I just think some of your concerns and opinions could have been worded differently, or even withheld altogether. I mean, everyone reading the forums probably already agree that these specific behaviours are detrimental to the game's atmosphere.
The Duiran situaton:
I logged on to Aetolia again (as I occasionally happen to do) and it felt really weird reading an announce post about how hateful attitudes, metagaming, and blatant disrespect has become such an issue in the game that the administration needed to step in and fix things. I don't know. It's something that makes me want to push on a bit further in Fallout 4, or maybe read a book, or do just about anything else that is not Aetolia for a bit. I don't really want to sit and cast judgment from the sidelines so I'm not going to comment any further, but it just sounds like things have gone really bad.
Incidentally, I've been considering starting up a freshly hatched Duiranite adventurer. I still might, depending on how much enthusiasm I can muster for the game.
Additionally, attempts were made at mending the rift by both the players and then, apparently, the administration. Unfortunately, the problematic individuals made promises that they didn't keep and continued to harass individuals. While it's a bit much of me to say that I would want someone to quit, Duiran is bleeding players as a result of their actions and often it takes a pretty stern wake up call to get people to fix their behaviors rather than just politely asking them again to knock it off.
There are other reasons I could cite as to why mending the rift hasn't worked, but it would result in me going into individual instances with player names involved and I'm not going to do that. The point of all of this was to call attention to the playerbase as to the actions of a group of players and the actions that they've taken in harassing and manipulating other players towards their own ends.
Abhorash says, "Ve'kahi has proved that even bastards can earn their place."
Cliques are something that plague a lot of organizations, for sure. As Razmael said in his announce post, these things generally have a way of working themselves out and I've rarely seen tensions flare to the point of where people are getting effectively chased out of the org due to harassment and vitriol. Not to say that Duiran is somehow more important than the other organizations, but to say that it has gotten bad there is an understatement. The IC/OOC barriers with folks in Duiran are all but gone in a lot of cases and as Trager has said, there are people who quickly jump to OOC insults, bullying, and harassment as means of protecting what they feel is an attack on their playing experience.
BRING ON THE SHRUBBINGS.
Let there be an undeniable expression of administrative disapproval, where none can be uncertain as to just whom the administration is displeased at. Then we can all move forwards, properly chastised and humbled.
Edit: Hence while I also said "reinforcing negative forestal stereotypes" as well.
I state that without sarcasm. No one thinks they're at fault in the current situation at hand. Everyone thinks the admin is acting in response to something someone else did, and that this is a great victory for them.
As soon as the novelty of the situation wears off, we're going to get right back at it.
I guarantee it.
That's just the thing. This thread, beyond being a useful point for venting, isn't going to accomplish anything of note. No one involved thinks that it's their fault, and no one is going to be convinced that it is their fault. People already have reasons for blaming other people, and those other people have reasons for blaming right back. Argument, especially angry argument, rarely changes minds - it just entrenches people in their existing preconceptions.
It's easy to conclude that this thread isn't going to be useful. It's also easy to conclude that without more direct action (possibly taking place without being advertised), the problem's just going to keep manifesting itself differently. Mechanics just change the rules. Any set of rules can be metagamed. A solution is outside the scope of the topic and forum rules.
So it wasn't like this guy didn't have friends because he was such a mean jerk. No, he was a city leader. In fact, he was THE city leader. I feel like, if you look at the group of people who wield power in RPGs, more of them than we'd like to think about are like this to some extent. But they are also mostly savvy enough to fly under the radar, which isn't that hard, because a certain amount of dickishness is not only tolerated, but I think kind of expected, even encouraged. And god, if you can flaunt a bit of charm once in awhile, you can get away with almost anything. And I mean, that guy, who finally got banned? He -was- the extreme and he got away with it for over a decade. And plenty of people followed him right up until ye olde final ban. People who wield power but don't have at least a pretty solid streak of these "I can be a real dick, too" traits feel like they're an exception, not the rule. And let's be honest, we usually LIKE these "he can be mean, but he can be so cool, too" people. They are charismatic, they keep people guessing. No one wants to become their "target" for ridicule or belittling, or worse. Everyone wants to get and stay on their good side. People are slightly afraid of them (for good reason). And they can truly be useful in the right context. But they can also make people feel shitty and quit playing.
I have no idea what to do about that and I suspect it goes far, far beyond IRE, and even MUDs. But I do think it's a thing.