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A Goodbye
I made one of these before and it didn't stick, so who knows if this one will. I'm not retiring but I do refuse to engage in gameplay with the people involved, so I'm taking both what little time and resources I've committed elsewhere.
For those of you not aware, @Atarah stole every single comm from Enorian that was available to take. I found out OOCly she was doing the spy thing but kept my mouth shut about it, and that's a decision I now deeply, deeply regret.
In the course of playing this game, there have been ups and downs, but org theft during betrayal is something I have always condemned, and the same for other various forms of theft. It may be true to life, but this is a game - where we engage (or try to) in collaborative story telling and conflict with one another.
I disapprove beyond words of both the Syssin guild as a whole, and this player in particular's choice of price extracted for people being willing to allow someone a chance to sidehop/play the game differently, especially when it was so consistently couched as ' I was close to retiring forever until I swapped sides '. I have no interest in engaging with any involved in a storytelling capacity further, because I don't believe them to be capable of carrying themselves with anything remotely close to class.
Take care, thanks for the good times and bad. I'll he back, maybe, if my faith in org leadership and players is ever restored.
-Seth
For those of you not aware, @Atarah stole every single comm from Enorian that was available to take. I found out OOCly she was doing the spy thing but kept my mouth shut about it, and that's a decision I now deeply, deeply regret.
In the course of playing this game, there have been ups and downs, but org theft during betrayal is something I have always condemned, and the same for other various forms of theft. It may be true to life, but this is a game - where we engage (or try to) in collaborative story telling and conflict with one another.
I disapprove beyond words of both the Syssin guild as a whole, and this player in particular's choice of price extracted for people being willing to allow someone a chance to sidehop/play the game differently, especially when it was so consistently couched as ' I was close to retiring forever until I swapped sides '. I have no interest in engaging with any involved in a storytelling capacity further, because I don't believe them to be capable of carrying themselves with anything remotely close to class.
Take care, thanks for the good times and bad. I'll he back, maybe, if my faith in org leadership and players is ever restored.
-Seth
Arbre-Today at 7:27 PM
You're a vindictive lil unicorn
---------------------------Lartus-Today at 7:16 PM
oh wait, toz is famousKarhast-Today at 7:01 PM
You're a singularity of fucking awfulness Toz---------------------------
Didi's voice resonates across the land, "Yay tox."---------------------------Ictinus — 11/01/2021
Block Toz---------------------------lim — Today at 10:38 PM
you disgust me---------------------------(Web): Bryn says, "Toz is why we can't have nice things."
10
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Comments
Well, some pretty swift justice was hashed out by the Divine from an IG perspective, which I think is pretty cool. But I don't think orgtheft as a means to start conflict in the game (if that's what the intention was) is just fun at all.
I'll boil it down instead of being wordy: I cannot make people not be jerks. By letting players have a political system, where your choices matter, I HAVE to leave you with choices to make.
It is not good that one person can cripple an org (and I use this word very lightly, we wouldn't leave an org to just flounder like this) so easily by themselves. We're looking at fixing that. It could be as simple as not letting aides price commodities, or maybe I'll put a sales limit per day. But let's allow the dust to settle, I won't put in anything without giving Enorian a chance to do something like steal it all back, do something IC, or even just be given things back.
I also need to let other timezones work in here. The Syssin may not like the results of their actions, and I encourage everyone to keep things IC and make it known how you feel; let consequences be as IC as the actions. Perhaps Spinesreach will disavow what could cause war. Maybe we'll see a war. But let's see!
Now the Trade Minister might not be able to withdraw 100 wood comms unless they have 3/5th Council approval. That sort of thing.
The systems are lax in order to give players the ability to do their little IG roles without it being overbearing and overtly bureaucratic, but when stuff like this happens, it just proves the maxim of: "this is why we can't have nice things".
Don't get me wrong. I'm the first one to argue that when players don't have effective outlets of being able to have a tangible impact from one org to another via PK mechanics, conflict-driven players will find a way to create their own conflict within pre-existing systems that aren't made for it (which causes its own slew of problems like this).
Additionally, playing the game at the expense of others is never going to end well. There's a clear difference between "a winner and a loser during war or a lesser" and "using IC (and alleged OOC) social engineering in order to rob an org of all of its commodities". Like, I get that people want to do something meaningful, but when has org theft ever ended well for any of the parties involved in the history of IRE? Never. Not once. Grief happens to the perpetrators, they'll generally get ostracized from the playerbase or even booted from their main org. The affected org has cause to go after that player forever and has to recoup their losses. It doesn't generate any sort of conflict that is going to be a positive experience for anyone involved.
The Syssin may argue that social engineering and subterfuge may be their thing as a guild identity and lends credence to them robbing an organization, but it would be like a player saying, 'Well, I kill randomly because my character's identity is that of a ruthless, insane murderer'. The murderer roleplay shtick wouldn't fly with the players or the administration, because you're actively playing to the detriment and expense of others.
Theft is a touchy subject. I personally love it and think it can definitely shake things up, but only when it's done in moderation. It's one thing to take a few thousand gold from someone versus taking everything they have. People not being able to keep themselves in check is why we no longer have theft in other parts of IRE. Just like one of the reasons we no longer have war is because people couldn't keep themselves in check.
As a disclaimer, I'm not upset about this as a player at all, largely because I've been pretty detached from the game for the past couple of years. However, this is exactly the type of thing that would have made my blood boil if I was a committed player. It just seems like history keeps on repeating itself and nothing gets done to fix it and I don't mean JUST orgtheft.
That said, I have a tooooooooooooooooooooooon of ideas (not literally, but figuratively) for Comm Minister stuff... cause you know... I'm all about it right now. It's my thing.
Also, just saying, I have a pending series of murders for someone who effectively orgthefted/slighted Satomi, the way she sees it, IC. It's fun to add the RP effect, but it gets exhausting when they just stop logging on so you can't exact your vengeance. (Random aside).
Also, @Toz, I hope to see you around from time to time. You're awesome. Hearts and such, and always welcome!
I'm not saying that org theft isn't frustrating, I'll grant that. But lighters have just as much ground, and reason, to behave ruthlessly as do darkies.
That's also how I played it when I was an Antiochan Priest during Imperian's hayday.
Let's unpack this.
1: The person who perpetuated this was instated as an aide without my approval or my consent.
2: I didn't know what had happened and got told to cool my jets when I was trying to figure out what happened.
3: I'm the one that gets to shoulder the responsibility of piecing things back together. Yes I know others did some things to try to correct this which I appreciate, but frankly after being the people who appointed someone without even informing me that you did and thereby allowing this to happen I don't trust you anymore to begin with.
It's just as well that I've bought credits on Miki. I've said fuck it and suicided a character over less. As is, if people are going to give me a hard time trying to make this right and prevent it from occurring again, then well, someone else can take this mess, I'll wash my hands of it. My stress went from 1 to 11 just trying to figure out what happened as is.
The people who perpetuated this are vile griefers that I hope get everything that is coming to them. The people who allowed this to happen by sidestepping due process are people that Enorian needs to give a long hard think on whether they trust anymore (but they probably won't.)
Valkyrior System
It has been explained to me, by the people who did this, that their aim was largely to motivate a conflict response from Enorian. I accept, at face value, the claim that much of this was orchestrated IC, without or largely without metagaming. I understand that the theft of so many commodities was considered necessary to create conflict. I fully understand the intended reasoning behind what was done to Enorian.
But ultimately-
I agree with Aishia's response, which I think reflects the general attitude of awe, disgust, and anger that I feel: it shouldn't even be possible to do a fraction of that amount of damage.
Nobody should be able to throw a city into crisis just by being an aide. I'll grant that the IC capability was there, but I believe that the reasoning behind the action and its intended impact were mostly OOC in nature.
And, worse, the impact was mostly OOC, too.
This thread is one example - we've lost Toz, and Benedicto's stated that he can't bring himself to log on. Mykellah is discouraged and stressed because of what happened. While some of us have responded as intended, I think the proportions are roughly split between people who decided to take this as an excuse for conflict, and people who just kind of don't want to play the game right now.
Atarah seemed solid and reliable, and it's an open secret that Enorian as an org is hurting for people. So we trusted her. Maybe we deserved to suffer a bit for trusting her, and if the degree of the theft had been smaller, I think most of Enorian would be willing to accept that as a consequence. "Oops, we trusted a Syssin. That was silly. Let's be a little more careful."
But this is a game. I stress, again, a game. When our OOC good faith - that someone who's orghopping is doing it because they want to try something different - is abused, especially in a way that's this egregious, this seemingly disproportionate? It creates bad feels. I don't want to have to spend every day deciding who is and isn't trustworthy, and I'm not even a city leader.
Enorian, particularly, has a rough time of it; we're the good guys, and being the good guy in a setting like Aetolia means that every time you do something nice and extend a bit of trust, you're sticking your neck out.
So there are a lot of reasons this stung as much as it did: first, the apparent abuse of our in-role obligation to give people second chances; second, the disproportionate degree of the theft; and third, a long, long history - in both player and admin events - of Enorian being punished for either playing the suckers that their role demands, or being punished for being too mean: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Or, put another way - when it came to Atarah, there was literally no good way out. We could have refused to induct her, in which case we're uncompromising zealots; we could have not trusted her, in which case we treat ex-enemies worse than our other citizens; or we decide, eventually, to trust her and get robbed.
While you can dispute the amount of trust we showed, and how quickly we showed it, that feels like a deflection from the fact that no matter how reasonably we dealt with Atarah, we were still going to get robbed. That's the part that sucks about it - knowing that, short of ruining a potentially solid player's game experience, there was nothing that we could have done to stop this from happening.
Reiterating Aishia, because it's a perfect sentiment- it shouldn't even be possible to do a fraction of that amount of damage.
Org theft undermines the trust and sense of basic decency people have towards other players. Yes. We can be dicks to each other. But this is on an individual level, and usually? That's where it stays. When you're put into a position of power, you're put there because the PLAYERS trust you - it's not simply an IC matter. You violate that trust? It shows how little you regard other players.
And in this case? There was OOC manipulation going on too, which makes matters even worse. And because of it, We're losing players because the trust has been broken. Because some people have decided to take advantage of players' desire to make the game more accessible to people, or make it more fun/easier to transition into a new org.
Is that really healthy for the game? Being cautious of everyone on an OOC level because you don't know if they'll screw you over?
I think from an IC standpoint I might be against @Fezzix and Syssin on the whole possibly would join a headhunt if Kalak was invited, though OOCly I would never think that I would come to their defense.
- One does not simply recruit the wife of a dishonest Syssin general and give her the openings to one's resources. Commerce is an important part of any organization. So that is partly on Enorian.
- People react upon orgthefts strongly because that is a clear loss for one side, a victory to the other side. That is natural. But what you should think about right now is not quitting or throwing tantrums but rather thinking how to retaliate.
- There is no moderation in consequences. An action does not have to be palatable for anyone. If the theft was too little then it would be inconsequential.
- @Shachalai If you are a city leader or any leader, you have to think about who is trustworthy and who is not. That is part of the espionage RP. Even if you are a citizen and suspect malevolent intentions, you can open up interesting "We have a spy amongst us" RP with city/guild officials.
- The people who perpetuated this cannot be labelled as griefers, when there is clear motive for a city to deprive another city of resources. It is a malevolent RP act with serious consequences. @Mykellah herself right now indicated the approval was not hers. So perhaps circumventing a minister was not a good idea.
- @Tiur I think sales limit etc. would be acknowledging that playerbase cannot govern itself without admin. Letting dust to settle is a really good advice though. And war trumpets are always fun to thump upon!
Second - limits are a terrible way to address this problem. When I was GM I was constantly frustrated by the limit on the gold I could withdraw to fix the Guildhall and that I had to harass the Admin whenever I needed more, or that I needed to stockpile a lot of gold that wasn't mine until I had the amount on hand needed to build whatever it was I wanted to build.
The way to address this problem is to take away the need for people to move org commodities and org gold into their personal possession in the first place. Someone needs to forge? Minister assigns a certain number of whatever to that forger and it's hard-coded to be on the forge for them to use for that purpose. GM needs to build rooms? The gold just pulls directly from the Guild account with a lognote made. Done. No limits, but the issue of people with sticky fingers solved.
I also think that the gold limit is due to massive amounts of theft by particular parties during the Vamp House Merging thing (among other particular instances that I am likely unaware of).
While I understand the need for a break, I really hope both @Toz and @Benedicto come back, because you're both super awesome, and the game will absolutely be a lesser place for not having you guys in it.
As for my 10c on the precipitating events, I think I'll sleep on things a little before I respond any further ICly or OOCly (it'd been a long day BEFORE I logged on), and honestly, I may not respond OOCly any further at all.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Unfortunately it's not exactly unexpected behavior from this group. Same everything, different day.
This whole post reads like "well you were stupid so you deserved to be robbed" which is a pretty crass thing to say at best.
Valkyrior System
I do not have any OOC stake in this after all. ICly I would be more then happy to help Enorian even, considering my character's standing against Spinesreach. But you will not see me bringing out IC matters to the OOC attention however grave they might be unless I need to give an example specifically for a mechanic or idea.
Now you have a crisis at your hands and it will strengthen the bonds among characters even further and open up different RP avenues on how to handle this situation. Show must go on and people should rather concentrate upon the full half of the glass. But venting and anger will occur, that is natural. Just let us not go around calling the perpetrators as griefers or such unless deliberate metagaming involved.
However, most of the time, things sortof work out. They stick to it for a while, or for a long time, and if they ever switch back, they simply just leave. Very rarely do they mess things up like that.
Iirc, Tralendar destroying entire Enorian armies during war, before leaving for Bloodloch.
There's been people emptying guilds of both gold and credits.
And the end results are always the same.
This is what happens. People who are well liked, steady players with well liked, steady characters leave. Even if it's just temporary, they still leave. Or like Mykellah, who is stuck having to clean up the entire mess and stresses out because there's so much distrust and accusations and things going on. I am so happy I don't have to deal with that. My psyche wouldn't be able to handle it at all.
I honestly don't CARE if this was meant to instigate conflict with Enorian, if it was planned from the beginning when she moved, if it was "just for fun". It is ruining the game for people other than YOU. I stopped playing for a while when the Syssin guild robbed a whole bunch of shops, among them Rilou's shop (I think it was), who had things that came from him spending IC money. Because I left, I lost Sessi's shop. I lost a whole lot of rp, and quite frankly, because of those things, I don't play Sessi anymore. Because Some People Just Can't Control Themselves and ruin things for others.
Ugh, yeah, my 2 cents. It's upsetting and I understand why people leave, but instead of having the good people leave, can't just all those ruining the game leave instead? Would be so much better.
Loads of love to Toz and Bene and anyone else who don't feel like playing due to this.
Edit: Also.. raging a bit at this.
2018/03/06 19:21:31 - XXXX cityfavoured Atarah for: Coming back home! I'm sure you had to sit through a lot of boring tea parties and we appreciate that you like us better.
For my own two cents, I'm at a loss to think how Enorian could respond, if there had been no divine/admin intervention. There is no war system currently, but even if there was, the city would likely be unable to engage. They could raid, but without commodities their own ability to defend their city is questionable. They could set bounties indefinitely, and then what? In the case of the last two options, it does nothing to address the damage that's been done, and will never hurt the guild(and much less so the city) to the same degree.
And as we've seen in the past, raiding/bounties done indefinitely will lead to complaints, no matter how egregious the crimes. So we(the admin) would still have to choose between not getting involved, and let both sides remain angry and unable to adequately respond, or stopping the attacks- essentially ruling against the ones who were targeted in the first place. Neither option is fair, imo, because either way the commodities are still gone.
The response that did happen, this time(the curses), was not without controversy nor complaint either. The nature of theft on this scale is that there's currently no reasonable counter. If the argument is to 'do the same thing to them'- how long would that take? Who in Spinesreach would trust any notable Enorian enough to allow the opportunity? And I think it's unfortunate, because as stressful as this situation was to me and many others, in a general sense I like the idea of theft as an rp option. Even org theft. But there has to be a response that doesn't depend, quite literally, on the whim of the gods.
Since there isn't a way to address it, the effect is far more demoralizing than likely to lead to "good" conflict... which is a problem in need of fixing. In the meantime, bear in mind that this is a small community. Places where orgtheft is common, and expected, and to which this situation has been compared- they have far more players. Hundreds(in the case of Achaea), and thousands, in the case of other online games. Losing one or two or even a dozen people doesn't hurt as much, and tends to be forgotten more quickly as a result. That's not the case here.
I would hope that everyone considers the likely result of a particular action vs what you want to happen. No one benefits from driving away the people you desire conflict with, and giving your org a bad reputation hurts those who may want to join(or leave) it later.
The reality is that the game's population isn't what it used to be. No one is really in a position, nor should they be, to say no to players or deny them from switching sides. Not to mention, there's a historical precedent where if Atarah was being denied by Enorian and she really wanted to go to Enorian, there likely would've been admin intervention to let her in. This is kind of what @Shachalai means in that, no matter what, they probably were going to get robbed.
I know orgs like to think that if they really wanted to, they could restrict people forever for arbitrary reasons. I know some Spireans have claimed as much, but the reality is that there have been cases of players being admin inducted. Being a part of a city is a massive part of the IRE experience and this rings true for Aetolia as well. This is why it's nearly impossible to permanently ban someone from an organization unless they do something like org theft so... Atarah may have inadvertently created a very negative consequence for herself going down the road. This may have also had the inadvertent side effect of all former Syssin being treated like crap too via additional scrutiny if they decide to org hop rather than giving them a clean slate.
Org theft never ends well.
This whole incident took advantage of the PLAYERS. The players whose desire to help and make the game fun and a little more accessible. This took advantage of the the prevalent OOC sentiment of us players trying to be a somewhat decent community to each other.
Remember the Celebration of the Stars back in December? I remember hearing how proud people felt about our community when people rallied together to give Enorian an extension on their cultural exhibit entry, and how hard it was fought for. And it was Spines' leading the campaign on that one, and the first to reach out to the other build teams.
And then there were people like Mazzion and Cariv. If you ended up with a crap ton of tickets and got all the prizes you wanted, it was probably thanks to them because they would let you sit there and farm tickets with them, REGARDLESS of whether you were a Spirit or Shadow player, and then give you a fair share, sometimes more.
And for me personally when the lease shop auctions in Esterport went up and the bidding got so high I was considering letting mine go, Cariv found out about it and gave me gold so I could keep it even though I could afford it on my own. 'Hey, is x auction your shop? Here's the gold so you can win it. I didn't know it was yours, sorry!'
Things like that? Those were moments that made me proud of the community and the things players will do for other players.
What happened here was something a lot of players have looked at with disgust. More so because the decision was made from the beginning to screw over an entire org and its players by taking advantage of the PLAYERS good will.
The reality is this: From an OOC standpoint, the possibility of a betrayal from Atarah was always on our minds, or at least it was on mine. But, as people have said, org theft seemed to be something so ancient and left behind in favor of a better game, that we didn't expect that to be a threat. Even if she betrayed us, we expected something rp'd, the theft of a special Templar item, maybe an attempt to continue that absurd Grand Flame stuff people were on about for a while. We just straight up didn't expect this level of... I don't know, contempt? For our org? because it's what it feels like. We get if you want conflict, but to cripple the whole org to make "conflict" isn't making conflict. Forgive me for saying, it's to stroke your own ego. Especially ESPECIALLY after we attempted to start conflict with Chak's order, only to get DIVINELY slapped down? It's BS, I'm sorry to say.
I've lost people, already, over this. We were already trying to rebuild, it seems like the Templar are in a constant state of trying to rebuild, after someone does something that may not be against the rules, but man alive it sure is shitty. We really do lose people every time someone does something like this, and that may not matter for an org with a huge population like the Syssin or the Illuminai, but the Templar were, and are so more, now, struggling. Are we going to think four or five times before we let someone in now? Yeah, but guess what? That -still- only hurts the org already hurt by the action. At the end of the day, the people who behaved poorly aren't feeling the heat from it at all, and the ones who were targeted are the ones who continue to suffer for it. And that sucks, it sucks a whole lot.
Phoenecia is right. I'm one of the people who really, super likes making this game fun for people. I enjoy sitting with newbies and conversion rp and when a cure pops up, I'm one of the first to answer to call. I like the chance to help people change their game, if that's what they want. And again, Atarah is more than allowed to rp being a spy, especially if she finds that fun. It's the THEFT that sticks with us now. We sit here, we think "man, I wouldn't have had half the headache if I hadn't tried so hard to help her have fucking fun". And what's worse? The only reason the headache ended entirely is because the consequences were too much for pkers to take. The curses stacked up, even though, from what I've been told from the people reaching out to me, to ask me to know that they weren't involved, that they disapprove, that they don't want to see people like me or Benedicto or Toz leave the game, a small group of people didn't want to make it right, and it wasn't until there was straight up admin intervention that the rest of our stuff was returned. Until they could get something out of it. And what's worse? Is if someone from Enorian pulled this sort of thing? We would've given it back in a heartbeat, even if it meant I had to steal it back to give it back. Because I don't want the game ruined for ANYONE, even people who dislike me.
And to the people who reached out to me? Thank you. I was sitting down for a long time last night, trying to figure out how I could give my shit away, how I could justify walking away from a game I'd spent so much money on, who I could get to take over for my positions. But people reached out to me. In character, out of character; people reached out. And it helped, it helped a lot. I won't go anywhere. I'll keep trying to make the game good for people, fun for people. But there are some things I can't change. I can't change that I'm losing players over this, I can't change that, at the end of the day, the only people who really suffer from this paranoia some players like to breed is newbies or people who want a change. I can't change that my opinion of some people is changed for the worse, and changed for good.
I hope, through this, we find two things:
1. I hope we can sit down, as a community, and find a healthy way to breed conflict. Conflict doesn't need to mean crippling a whole org. I thought we were all grown up enough to know that, but clearly we are not. We need to find a way to breed conflict that doesn't run people out of the game. Yeah, the Syssin and the Templar are supposed to hate each other, but there's no reason the players have to be so vile to each other.
2. I hope people can just be decent to each other. That's really it, you know? It's the only way we'll get these players back, is if they see real, honest change in the way people behave. Everyone is here to have fun, and if your way of 'having fun' is to ruin everything for everyone else? Maybe find a new way to find fun in the game.
And thanks again, to everyone who reached out to me. It really did change the outcome, here.
How long was this individual a citizen of Enorian before she was made an Enorian minister? I know it was less than two IC months, it might have even been after 4 real days.
Which citizen of Enorian, before she ever left Spinesreach, was attempting to convert her, the wife of the General? Thus leaving themselves wide open, IC. When you play with the devil you are opening yourself up to consequences. Is Atarah the RL person a bad person? Absolutely not. There was absolutely no excuse, in the heat of the moment or any other time, for the OOC messages she received in the game.
All of this came about in less than two IC years, closer to just one year. Enorian can shift the blame to the Syssin, because they were roleplaying what they are. But they are at fault here too. They took a known enemy of theirs into their arms without any caution at all.
The most concerning thing is the response from the administration. A precedent was set that basically says, "You do anything dark, evil, or subversive; we're just going to curse you down to where you have zero abilities." Four curses left every Syssin, including novices, with a long line of inept abilities. Most having zero clue IC or OOC to what was going on. The Syssin were told that until the commodities were returned, the entire guild would stay cursed for 100 RL days. Instead of allowing this to play out, give one curse, maybe two, allowing the Syssin to still be able to have some combat abilities and leverage, the administrators made the choice and set the tone for what this game is. The admin did not even allow the players any form of RP or in character resolution. No player base creativity allowed, no facilitating the roleplay, just zap.... "You give back the comms or you and your guild are non-effective." Well, you've now made the best RP guild in the game non-effective. I do hope that is what you wanted.
What should be a dark world of vampires, even the spirit side having a twisted form of light, is sadly turned in to a bunch of teddy bear huggers. I realize that the old days cannot be repeated and that balancing good vs evil, is difficult, particularly to keep it fun for all.
2018/03/06 20:29:42 - Ethne has bestowed a divine curse upon the Syssin. It will last for 100 days.
2018/03/06 20:52:50 - Slyphe has bestowed a divine curse upon the Syssin. It will last for 100 days.
2018/03/06 20:56:04 - Damariel has bestowed a divine curse upon the Syssin. It will last for 100
days.
2018/03/06 22:28:48 - Dhar has bestowed a divine disfavor upon the City of Spinesreach. It will last
for 20 days.
The divine set the tone without providing you any opportunity to talk to Spinesreach or negotiate. You were not crippled, there was time to negotiate.