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On a more serious note, cutting oneself off from interacting with, what amounts to roughly half of the playerbase means, to me at least, you're potentially limiting yourself to having half of the fun and the game will only ever achieve half of it's potential for you.
That's not to say that every interaction should be butt-slaps and good times. Just...leave yourself open to the possibilities.
Some tips or tricks for this might be helpful for others, though maybe that kind of advice would be good to centralize in its own thread, since it comes up often in newbie questions as well!
First off, roving player-ran death cults would be awesome. Srsly, make one, then just forum post 'looking for sacrificial lambs', mention you won't use everyone who volunteers and some people will be more RP torture and fun and others will likely just be ganked. Let people volunteer and sweat it out, wondering if and when the reaper comes for them. I bet you'd get a few people, and when they talk about how awesome of a time it was or post the logs, I bet you'd get more and more people. Give it a shot. Hell, have it be from the spirit side so it's even more messed up. Watch it all unfold. It may not last a full year RL, but I bet you'd get a few months of fun from it and really ratchet up the suspense in the game.
Second, I love playing with the other side. I started out in the Reach, then went Duiran and Enorian. Getting to play with the other side is amazing. Even if it's just sitting down and talking or getting tours of places or meeting someone on a river and looking at each other's pets. What's more fun is when your side notices and either asks you to use them or comes to 'rescue' you. It's led to some of my best times when those have happened.
Third,
An example of what I mean would be like when I gave darkie Haven a sudden urge to try to corrupt someone. I had no idea who @Phoenecia was at the time beyond that she was a Paladin and saw her questing in Attica on the who list. If I recall correctly, one of their first interactions was of Haven asking about the history of Attica's denizens and what they represented. She ended up checking up on what Haven was doing in Attica and found him murdering people. I recall her being horrified that Haven was killing people based off a twist of her own words. Pretty sure @Benedicto eventually came to help her defend the area from me and my shenanigans.
Another example: My shapeshifter wanted a book or treasure or something from a Vampire castle. He ended up enlisting one of @Lin's characters to help him get into Ve'Kahi's castle in the Morgun? I think we ended up using one of @Erzsebet's childer or something like that to get access.
Another example: Lighter Haven felt even @Ezalor was worthy of redemption. Shouted some stuff to get his attention, ended up in Iosyne's temple of doom.
Another time - Haven wanted @Emelle in Enorian but didn't think he had the pull to take her from Duiran considering his poor standing with the forestals. So he recruited @Rashar to try and do it.
Most of this stuff I did on the fly and just went with the flow of where ever the other players were willing to take it with me. Ultimately, you want a simple vision or task people can follow along on and still be able to make their own. That's where I've had the most success.
It was more to point out that unexpected things happen when people participate, and that's awesome.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Obviously, there are a finite number of players, and an even smaller number of superstars out there, and we could poach each other ad infinitum, but to what end? It feels like nothing would ever be lasting, if that were the case. Investing in someone's future within an org carries such a high risk vs reward. If you're going to eventually lose that person due to fickleness, or boredom, or the grass-is-greener effect, it becomes tough to put forward the effort.
I'm saying this as someone who's both lost people and poached people (mostly the latter). But attracting the best people to your org out of sheer force of personality, and collecting them like Pokemon, isn't a healthy state for the overall game, I feel.
I would like to see more lasting consequences. I think people are too desperate to "win" the manpower game and subsequently, forgiveness comes super easy.
I don't really know how to change it, though.
So, we're left with poaching people, it's our only way of 'winning' against our enemies. Doing so gives us a sense of moving forward and not remaining stagnant. I feel side hopping is more a 'I'm bored.' than anything else.
Personally, I think the best time in Aetolia, was when the Dreikathian armies invaded. There was a real sense of fear and being forced to work with our enemy was incredibly fun. Were we going to be enslaved? Was our home going to be destroyed? Was a dragon going to eat us? Sure, we worked with our enemies, but there was still a lot of side-eyeing and mistrust between all orgs. We were in no way suddenly BFF's.
I know during that event there was rumors we could be forced to move to Delve due to the Dreikathian's antics. I sorta wish that had happened. Everyone being forced to live in a foreign city, where we were not wanted, and having to live side by side by our sworn enemies.
I'm of a similar mindset to Phoe where I think that the tone hasn't really changed much for the game and that Aetolia is what you decide to make it. Maybe community mindset has changed but not so much the tone of the game. That said, I also believe a lot more could be introduced or in some cases, like War, fixed and reintroduced to great benefit to the game.
The majority of players have long since said that they crave meaning and I believe meaning stems from mechanical backing to a large degree. It would be refreshing if a new meaningful conflict system were introduced that could not be solved solely if at all by violence. There's a lot of untapped potential between treaties, politics, environments, territory, war and all that it encompasses etc. that the game does not recognize at all in any meaningful way.
Some of my favorite RP scenes were ones I've had with @Xenia when she lead the Fex. Tense, semi-political conversations between leaders and MAN would I love some of those. I don't remember who, but someone once said they used to have really tense dinners to dicuss political matters and my GOD would I love that. It sounds like fun and also hilarious.
I confess that my interest in Aetolia is waning a lot lately, and I'm experiencing burnout just as I became guildmaster. I see players seldom interacting with one another, but isolating themselves into pockets. Conflict has been reduced to a single, repetitive, and I use this term loosely: "pointless" back and forth. Conflict, if it is to succeed, requires the players to have a tangible, noticeable impact on the world around them. War, for all its flaws, did that. Lessers do not. The Orrery does, to a small degree, but it's repetitive and happens too often, thus watering down its significance.
As for how things are now, I really can't say. I've been so bored with the game since before the whole Bloom-deal, I have barely logged in. I find that, on all of my chars, things are at a standstill. I can't even find enough energy to make an alt. I look at the list of guilds in the game and I can't find a single one that seems exciting. Spinesreach can be fun at times, but there's still a problem with cliques everywhere. It's difficult getting into the already set groups of rp and if you manage to get into group A, you are basically stuck there and can't rp with people in group B.
Perhaps this is just me having this problem, perhaps noone else sees it... I am still hoping to find the joy of the game again, cause I love Aetolia and I at least love some of the people in this game.
Now there are tools provided by the developers but also you can create your own devices which allows you to be at several places for many different reasons. Though, content and conflict creation has its own risks because the established people can take it wrong, try to stifle it or even take action against your style. But I find that as the beauty of the action-reaction dynamic rather then something displeasant. Of course, if "You spoke to other side, now you are out!" kind of thing were to happen to me, I would consider a fitting punishment for that kind of act and further my RP towards that way. In my opinion, since no one has any right to PKx1000 people, no one has right to kick people at their whim with minimal reasons. The show must go on, regardless.
And personally speaking, I do not know which side of the Spinesreach you are exposed to but I do agree the place can appear silent at times. But if you decide to stick around once again, watch out for a scarred bald mage!
But, as a player who frequently has spells away from the game and returns to find the personnel completely changed, it can be surprising who you end up getting involved with.
I'm extremely lucky that @Rasani and @Dzekk have been very encouraging of Bene's cross-tether RP and have placed him in a role as a representative of the Templar that requires interaction with people from every area of the game. Personally it is something that I am a huge advocate of.
Anyway, my point being, that despite previous bad experiences, there are also a lot of positive things occurring in the game. If all else fails, you can always come and let Bene embarrass you by acting like a fool in the middle of Enorian all over again!