Fyrren's Deadlock

Fyrren

I've been playing Fyrren for about nine or ten years now, have been very active and very inactive during the time and have made a lot of bad decisions on the character and a lot of good ones. Over the past 6 or so years, I pushed Fyrren to be a religious zealot devoted to his three orgs, Ivoln's Order, the Teradrim, and Bloodloch. The thing that appeals to me most in Aetolia are these three particular organizations because of their flavor and potential for roleplay (I play Aetolia for the roleplay).

I've had many amazing times with many different players over the years within these organizations, and while I have many alts in each city, I always end up back on Fyrren and unable to really sink my teeth into any other role in the game.

Over the past so many months, I started playing the game a lot more actively than I had for over a year or two thanks to @Zenobia and her leadership in the Teradrim, bringing activity into a guild that had been notorious for being one of the most inactive of organizations. At least that's how I perceive it. There are a lot of now contributing members to the guild but I digress.

I am a pretty patient player when it comes to things that need to be fixed in the game and I have been looking at the bright side and trying to make the best out of all the changes that have happened while I was away and all of the major changes that have happened since I returned, i.e. @Abhorash declaring that Bloodloch needs to work harder on being a functioning city, the curing revamp, logging in to a class revamp, etc.

These changes have not really phased me much aside from some minor inconvenience and the fact that I have to ignore a lot of the other players' rage against change. I like that there are changes happening to the game. While a lot of them seem to piss people off in the short term, in the long term and with refining, these changes will make the game more balanced out the way I see it.

But this brings me to the point of my post. If anyone has interacted with Fyrren, they know I play him strictly as an Ivoln follower, a Teradrim, and an Undead citizen of 'the city of undeath'. My deadlock is that I am in a guild that, as of the moment, has no real function in the game aside from providing Teradrim class upon joining. There are roleplay functions to the guild but they don't do anything at the moment.

My other deadlock is that Fyrren is an eternal devotee to the God of Earth, Ivoln. Ivoln, in my opinion, is the coolest God I've ever seen in any MUD and most games I've ever played. Only real life mythology, Tolkien's Valar and Maiar, and Howard's various mythos (CROM!!!!) top him as far as flavor and history goes. Ivoln is a God that makes a lot of sense to me. He is the Patron of the Undead, Lord of Pure Earth, one of the oldest of the original Gods of Sapience. Unfortunately, he, alongside many other Gods and Goddesses of Aetolia, is not very active.

Keep in mind that I do not blame whoever plays him or the admins for this. I understand that it takes a lot of work to accomplish what they are doing right now and I appreciate every bit of effort they put into the game to try and make it better for the players. How the players perceive these changes is up to them.

But back to my point, Fyrren's entire roleplay is based on a city that has been taken over by its founder, which has rustled a lot of jimmies but does not really seem to accomplish anything aside from creating civil unrest but I am just on the outside of it and it is a fairly recent development. Fyrren is part of a guild that has no real function at the moment. And Fyrren follows a God who reveals Himself very very seldom....

All of this has built up frustration and impatience inside of me and keeps my better senses from wanting to invest more time, effort, and money into the game. Again, I do not blame anyone but myself for this since it was my choice to make a character who is devoted to that particular God and this particular guild in this particular city. I just think that this God and this Guild have not really been given much to work with in Aetolia and now that there is a larger player base in this guild, it feels extremely frustrating and I feel like I am waiting for something that will never happen. I have a LOT of ideas to progress Fyrren but the necessary catalysts are lacking.

I hope this post doesn't seem like a lot of rambling, I tried to articulate my points as best I could. And again, I don't blame anyone for any of this but myself. I just needed to vent and hope to hear some feedback from other players and maybe get a point of view that might help me deal with this frustration.

Hail Aetolia!

Tedrunai

For various reasons I wouldn't recommend basing your characters around a Divine. Or at least don't expect much personal interaction if you do choose to.

Follow a God if you like Their flavour/tenets/other players in there, not with the expectation that you'll actually see Them. Again for various reasons, IC and OOC, if you go in expecting attention you'll be left disappointed.

Kalak

The functionality of guilds and orders is dictated by the motivated people inside of them. You do not have to keep yourself from furthering a cause because there is no direction provided by an NPC or a God-min. Establish conflicts, set up long-term agendas or even hidden agendas and if you do not like something nothing prevents you from providing a new interpretation to the organization.

Of course above sentences may seem like rainbows and unicorns dancing under happy sky of Valhalla, but I speak from my past experience regarding a few other MUDs, IRE and not-so-IRE. When something lies in ruin, you could simply push for a new direction and stick to that direction until conflicts appear and that is when you enjoy the game by overcoming the obstacles provided. Even the boring status quo can be damned at that point depending on your followers and relative political/military strength.

My initial reaction with Aetolia currently suggests that pro-active approach to creating content by players lacks massively. Perhaps as I spend more and more time, I will be able to see and come up with a more accurate assessment on the situation. Regardless, what I am trying to say is that revitalizing organizations highly depends on their members' way of playing the game.

Sibatti

Hey @Fyrren thanks for writing about your struggles. I hope I can help a bit, having been in your shoes somewhat before.

The first thing I want to touch upon is the inactive God thing. There was a period when Omei did not have an active player (back in like 2010). I had this exact scenario happen where I made my character all about the Nightmare, but there was no actual Goddess. At the time, I cared very deeply about the God's tenets and believed that they were what my character needed for growth so I stuck with it.

In this situation, my character took the tenets and ingrained them into everything she did. She preached, in her own way, of the Nightmare's tenets and carried out what she believed to be Omei's wishes (while never speaking for Her, of course). This was a very enjoyable RP arc that I dragged quite a few people into (willingly of course). There was no God directing anything, I just went on with making my own events within reasonable reach of the God's tenets.

I guess what I'm getting at here is to remember the saying "It is better to ask for forgiveness, than to ask for permission." You can apply this to Aetolia in a myriad of ways.

If you don't feel that the Teradrim have a purpose, give them a purpose - within reason. Who's to say your roleplay functions are meaningless? The only thing preventing that is buy-in from other players. Once you have that, your freedom is nearly limitless. How do you get that buy-in? It's tough, but doable. You have to be convincing, and compelling, but it can be done.

Maybe you decide that Bloodloch needs more religious zeal, and begin to hold religious ceremonies teaching the ways of Ivoln and condemning the ways of other Gods. You petition the leadership of the city to pressure citizens into regular attendance, or maybe you set a recruitment quota of followers that must be met within X years. Do any of these things actually DO anything? Not really. There's no prize for gaining more congregants. There's no way to force players into participating. But you could certainly shape the culture of the city a bit by creating this pressure.

Disclaimer: I know very little about the culture of Bloodloch, Ivoln, and the Teradrim, so the above example won't be great. But again, it just comes down to buy-in. You can create the illusion that your demands have more impact, and if you're convincing enough, people will start to believe you.

Fyrren

@Sibatti I really appreciate your constructive criticism on this subject and it has definitely helped me see things in a different light. You have helped restore my drive for playing Aetolia and I thank you very much for that