A Goodbye

Rasani

Dude, in the two minutes between me finding out about it, I'd already HAD people from Spinesreach inform me they weren't going to give shit back. They'd already decided.

Rurthina

Just as you were reeling, so was Spinesreach. They were not a part of it. But none of the people who you spoke with were the Chair, who is very good at keeping the peace amongst a very diverse lot within the city. And honestly, if the player base and the admin want teddy bears, this isn't the place for me or my kind. Most of the hard core combatives have left, now it seems there is no place for a very dark style of RP. None of the Syssin are bad people IRL. None of us would have kept all your precious city crippling comms.

Illikaal

Nahuaque said:

Satomi said:

@Illidan The problem is that Shadow has always been enabled to be ruthless. It's part of the whole "Well, you murder people for food as Vampires" thing.

I think this is the wrong way to look at the lifer/light side. You have every bit of chance to be ruthless as anyone else. Some of history's worst villains took the mindset of the ends justifying the means. A sin for the greater good. Just think of all the people who forced exorcisms on others, all the people who were stoned for adultery, all the atrocities committed in the name of some faith or creed or greater good.

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.

I understand this. I suppose the point that I was trying to make, admittedly not in the best fashion, is that it's just happened to one side of the game so much that they just don't wish it on anyone. As many times as it's happened, I still wouldn't wish it on anyone's org.

But anyhoo, Shachalai and Rasani have basically said anything and everything I would have, but the TLDR is this. Whether Enorian knew or didn't know, suspected or didn't suspect Atarah of deception, you would be setting a dangerous precedent for side hoppers. There have been PLENTY of people who side hop like crazy, but they're trustworthy as players to not do something like this that just causes mass frustration. Enorian had every in game reason to not invite her into the city, being the secretary of the syssin, and the wife of the Guildmaster. On top of that, she wasn't even hunted by the Syssin when she left (which is apparently a rule of theirs) which raised even more suspicions. However, players can't just deny someone entrance to a city unless they have -really- good reasons, thanks to the Calipso arc of Aetolia. So to the people saying "You should have seen it coming", just think about if you ever wanted to side hop and a city told you no because you're an ex insert opposite faction here, despite you having the best intentions.

Benedicto

Why anybody is bothering to debate anything here is beyond me. The admin will either come up with a solution or not. In terms of the back and forth of who said what and when, nobody is going to agree. There's no point wasting time on it. Syssin will argue one thing, we'll argue another. Everyone who is friends with either party will agree with that persons side of things.

We've always prided ourselves on being a community that policed itself. That held itself to higher standards. That, regardless of what side of the fence you were on, the bulk of players cared more about enjoyment of the game for everyone and not for the few.

My faith in that has been sorely shaken. I'd like to echo @Rasani's sentiment about the people that reached out, players and admin alike. It's nice to know that I've made a largely positive impact on peoples playing experience.

I'm struggling to find the light in any of this at the moment. I feel that I've been punished for being a nice person. Whether it was intentional or not, my actions IG were affected because of my nature to want to help people and improve their playing experience. A slight difference in the way that things were said would have made a huge difference. "I'm not happy and I might go into torpor" carries with it a significant OOC message - "I'm not enjoying the game and I'm thinking about quitting." This changed how I dealt with the situation as I don't want to see players leave and or unhappy with their experience. If it had been "I'm not happy with my org and want a change." That would have been a strictly IG statement and I would have responded purely in an IG manner.

Perhaps it's a lesson to be learned that I shouldn't care about anyone else's playing experience. Who cares right? It's about my own enjoyment after all. However, that's not who I am as a person. I feel that all the effort I put in to try and help someone who I felt was suffering was not only wasted, but based on a lie. More than anything, that's what's hurt me in this situation. In 10+ years of playing, I've never been so upset by something that's happened in this game. I don't feel that I should punish myself for being a caring person.

Phoenecia

Rurthina said:

The perpetrator of this crime was a leader in a guild since she was a teenager, a guild whose first line of their help file says they are bestowed with the gift of guile and deception. She was a leader in that guild for over 10 years. She was a Senator of Spinesreach for over 14 years. 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.

I'm sorry, but prominent leader or great player or what, screwing over an entire org in the manner it was done, and even outright LYING and MANIPULATING the PLAYERS, not the characters, the PLAYERS is a disgusting behavior, and using the crutch of trying to play it off as RP is a poor excuse. 

We're a small community. A lot of us know each other. Talk to each other. And for the most part? People try not to screw each other over completely. There's a reason why org theft is not done, and why it's considered the ultimate worst thing you can do here. A majority of players view it as vile and despicable, and a violation of the unspoken trust we put in each other as players. A majority of players know this. To knowingly do it anyway? To plan it to the extent it was done, and the extensive manipulation that was done OOC to the PLAYERS. It shows a rather flagrant disregard for fellow players, and all this has made the game all the more hostile and toxic on a PLAYER level.

Notice how I'm emphasizing the players here. It was player attitudes that were preyed on. Manipulated. Betrayed. All this has done is make everyone suspicious of everyone, and the people who end up suffering for it are newbies and older players who want a change of scenery.

There's this principle I hear brought up often in regards to the game: just because it makes sense for you to do from an IC standpoint, doesn't mean you should if it means running people off or making them miserable. To a point. 

The cities can be dicks to each other because they're at odds IC, which is fine. To a point. There are lines people don't cross because frankly, RP doesn't excuse you from being a massive tool.

The admin response seems to reinforce that. And the response to things that I've seen to things happen lately seem to reinforce that too.

Illikaal

Benedicto said:

Why anybody is bothering to debate anything here is beyond me. The admin will either come up with a solution or not. In terms of the back and forth of who said what and when, nobody is going to agree. There's no point wasting time on it. Syssin will argue one thing, we'll argue another. Everyone who is friends with either party will agree with that persons side of things.

We've always prided ourselves on being a community that policed itself. That held itself to higher standards. That, regardless of what side of the fence you were on, the bulk of players cared more about enjoyment of the game for everyone and not for the few.

My faith in that has been sorely shaken. I'd like to echo @Rasani's sentiment about the people that reached out, players and admin alike. It's nice to know that I've made a largely positive impact on peoples playing experience.

I'm struggling to find the light in any of this at the moment. I feel that I've been punished for being a nice person. Whether it was intentional or not, my actions IG were affected because of my nature to want to help people and improve their playing experience. A slight difference in the way that things were said would have made a huge difference. "I'm not happy and I might go into torpor" carries with it a significant OOC message - "I'm not enjoying the game and I'm thinking about quitting." This changed how I dealt with the situation as I don't want to see players leave and or unhappy with their experience. If it had been "I'm not happy with my org and want a change." That would have been a strictly IG statement and I would have responded purely in an IG manner.

Perhaps it's a lesson to be learned that I shouldn't care about anyone else's playing experience. Who cares right? It's about my own enjoyment after all. However, that's not who I am as a person. I feel that all the effort I put in to try and help someone who I felt was suffering was not only wasted, but based on a lie. More than anything, that's what's hurt me in this situation. In 10+ years of playing, I've never been so upset by something that's happened in this game. I don't feel that I should punish myself for being a caring person.

I wish I had a sad button for you. But I feel this so much man.

Toz

Rurthina said:

Just as you were reeling, so was Spinesreach. They were not a part of it. But none of the people who you spoke with were the Chair, who is very good at keeping the peace amongst a very diverse lot within the city. And honestly, if the player base and the admin want teddy bears, this isn't the place for me or my kind. Most of the hard core combatives have left, now it seems there is no place for a very dark style of RP. None of the Syssin are bad people IRL. None of us would have kept all your precious city crippling comms.

Not a soul should believe you. I'm trying to keep mostly quiet here about it because I did intend for other people to take over and talk, but this is patently false and, in fact, I've seen logs of certain Syssin leaders reasoning it's ok because comms would get fixed or the admin would toss something to Eno or they could rebuild. There was no intention of giving the comms back without extracting a further price, which is like taking a victory lap after running a race against nobody else.

The people involved are absolutely tainted by this on an OOC level, because this level of malice went beyond the game world, which is a very important pairing of words. People engaged with Atarah because they wanted her to be able to continue to have fun. The risk of Something Bad is a part of playing in Enorian. That's part of being the good guy. This level of malice, though, is above and beyond. This crossed over from gameplay to pure OOC spite, or sociopathic levels of behavior. There was absolutely no concern for other people presented and the flagrant scrabbling to justify this and pretend to be the victimized parties somehow is embarrassing.

@Fezzix argued in a functional world that there are risks and trust gets you burned. In a functional world, robbing a theocracy of their commodities means you get perma hexed to Oblivion by their gods and have inept skills until such a time as penance is paid. And yet you have the brazen audacity to chide an organization for being upset on an OOC level for being crippled by a commodity theft then turn around and screech about how getting cursed was 'cheapening' the game world and 'think of our newbies'? That's beyond two-faced. Your actions have consequences too, which is somehow shocking to you despite you being fine with other people suffering over something trivial.

Also, she was not a minister, but an aide and it was done while the current minister was in the hospital IRL to help out because, shockingly, an org trying to rebuild is short players.

Also also, you need other players present to have meaningful conflict and kneecapping a group WILLING TO PLAY A LOSS (which you all sure aren't given the whining on Raiders any time something goes south, ragequitting your guild because someone didn't join your web fast enough, etc.) Is a really, really good way to remove conflict even further. I can't imagine why anyone would want to interact with any of you in an IC capacity ever again because there's nothing to gain but apparently everything you own to lose. If you want conflict, foster it with respect for other people and their time and investment, and make an attempt to make it fun for them too. If you think others lose poorly, then have some dignity when you lose instead of turning to play victim mid post about how awful it is that they wouldn't just let you win and lying about how you were totally going to give it back, guys, when your internal (IC and OOC) discussions indicate the opposite and it was up to NONSYSSIN Spirean to steal it back, and the other 10% was only (grudgingly) returned because you couldn't handle the consequences of YOUR actions.
Edit: deleted a well deserved verbal beatdown to let the above stand on its own, so such a twisted representation of reality isn't the only version presented.

Mykellah

In the hospital dealing with my condition being so deteriorated, doing an already thanklesd task (Mikis been doing trade for like half a year now without even so much as someone saying "hey, nice job") and then dealing with waking up to this.  yeah, Im not buyimg tge fun RP angle, and frankly, RP isnt carte blanche to be douchecanoes anyways.  And people wonder why Mikis bitter sometimes.  Fixing stuff like this where half the people I interact with are pissy at her for removing privs.  Shes basically an island right now.  The one time she really shouldnt be.

I dont care what the desired end result was here, because its made the game from, well, a game, into a thankless, stressful job that everyone is pissy at me about trying to do properly.

Meh, Im going to need a break too, at this rate.

Rhyot

So speaking as someone truly neutral to this situation, and as someone who has played Imperian where this happened a fair bit. I'm a little overwhelmed by the overt anger towards something that (in my opinion) was completely acceptable roleplay. 

Back in Imperian, when someone stole mass commodities and then bounced, we would declare war on the city until we either got back our comms or a significant gold price was paid. We would sit in the city and just own it for days, killing anyone who stepped foot into that city. While we were owning said city, our non comms would run caravans every day to every end of the game to help replenish stocks... even to villages owned by enemy cities. 

That's the inherent problem with Aetolia. There is no other decisive way to obtain commodities other than waiting a casual replenishment of stock from the city and the outlying villages. Additionally, a player will not gain any profit from selling comms to the city after purchasing them from villages. 

Villages will sell ice for 300 gold apiece, but a city will buy it at 250. You take a loss as a character and become disgruntled. So you won't want to help much, but the option is there to still help. This brings up an inherent problem with how commodities are garnered and should probably be looked at to get fixed. I have ideas that I would be glad to share with admins and the Pools team to help augment this.


As far as the roleplay goes, it was (in my opinion) a good roleplay. Yes, orgtheft sucks. Ill agree, but it spurs activity and people going on murderous envious rampages. While I do understand that you want to give people chances, you have to protect yourself too. I cannot see, under any circumstance, why Enorian would let Rhyot into their city at all. And even if they did, he would definitely get treated as a third rate citizen. Sometimes you have to play dirty to protect yourself. Its what we do in Bloodloch for that precise reason. We question your loyalty right out of the gate and restrict what you can/can't do as far as organization power goes. 

Additionally, I think the quick stomping by admins was a little unnecessary. There were plenty of avenues to get this resolved IC-ly before jumping the gun into mass curses of inoperability. If someone did it to BL, I would do my damnedest to buy out the comms from villages and even try to purchase comms from Spinesreach and maybe even the opposite lifer side city that robbed BL. It's what alliances are for. There were ways to resolve this.. diplomatically and violently. Both are acceptable and didn't need overly aggressive actions from the admins just yet.

Overall, this could have been handled much better than it was and could have been an amazing point in history and alliance testing. It's a set back for sure for Enorian, but it's not impossible to fix. Just my 10c. 

EDIT: Keep in mind I'm not condoning the actions of org theft, but I'm also not arguing against it either. Also, I'm sorry that some people are adversely severely negatively affected by this and hope things do get better for you. And under no circumstances should people be bitter and upset. At the end of the day, it is just a game. Hope my comments didn't offend or upset anyone and if they do, you have my apologies. Perception is key, I'm not trying to condone/misappropriate anything. Hope everyone has a good rest of the day. 

@Mykellah I sincerely hope you get better soon and that this doesn't impede your recovery. Best wishes.

Xenia

Rurthina said:

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. he admin did not even allow the players any form of RP or in character resolution.

Actually that's not true, players within the game, within Spinesreach, responded, RP'd, kept it IC and revoked the decision of three players. You can argue that the divine disfavors were the reason it ended, but actually, it was always going to be a moot point, whether they disfavored you guys or not. And that was purely IC, player driven action.

Well, you've now made the best RP guild in the game non-effective. I do hope that is what you wanted.

Let's unpack this. Three syssin players decided to execute a plot against Enorian. They presented a vastly different plan to their organization which eventually morphed into: 'We are going to steal all their most valuable commodities, and tell nobody else of the new plan.' The RP of that guild is not destroyed, because what happened was not guild RP. It was personal RP between three people who then labeled it as the actions for the Syssin. If any Rp for the syssin is ruined at all, that's on the actions of those three players. Three players who were naive to not consider the brand new essence system that just came out nor had a chance to be used, which was really dumb and short sighted. Again, that's the fault of those three players, not the admin.

Xavin

I'm sort of a fly on the wall here since I don't really play but I'm getting the idea that people are less angered by the IC actions and more by the level of OOC manipulation and/or malice required to empty a city of all/most of their usable commodities after making the claim to at least one or two people that you were going to either retire or quit playing if you didn't switch sides.

Other people have argued that they would have gotten robbed eventually no matter what. The person responsible was set on doing it so it would only have been a matter of time.

As for the admin jumping in and tossing around curses....well, it's not the first time that the admin have had to intervene in the wake of people doing things that are ill-advised. They stepped in when Bloodloch declared war on Spinesreach to get extra troops during one of the last wars before the system was disabled. They stepped in when Bloodloch tried to get their trade min to pull all the comms out of the stores so that enorian/duiran wouldn't get anything at the end of a war. They intervened when someone abused the old multiclass rule to their advantage. The list goes on.

Kalak

@Seir People can be accepted to the cities but that does not mean they shall be rewarded with the key to the city resources itself. There are so many red flags in this induction, one would think about keeping the person to the more safe venues. Furthermore, while cities do not have to kick you out or refuse to accept you, they can really make your time in the city a hell blocking all of your paths in every turn. I know from personal experience with Spinesreach.

@Rurthina Wait a moment. 100 RL days of curse is just plain unprofessional move from the admin side. 4-5 days of curse could be acceptable but forcing an organization to take an action or remain ineffective for that long is really unacceptable. So you have a very solid point over there.

Besides, Severn, the Manipulator is their patron and manipulation, along deception runs through the veins of Syssin. So why not Shadow gods do not favor Spinesreach in counter? Severn has reason. Chakrasul can reward the corruptive motive in this action. So I am sorry but these curses are the very definition of being hasty at the face of a crisis. Overreacting by admin. That is a very OOC reaction to be honest. Gods may hex perpetrators for crippling their pet theocracy but that is unfair to cripple that long.

Benedicto said:

Why anybody is bothering to debate anything here is beyond me. The admin will either come up with a solution or not. In terms of the back and forth of who said what and when, nobody is going to agree. There's no point wasting time on it. Syssin will argue one thing, we'll argue another. Everyone who is friends with either party will agree with that persons side of things.

There is a certain problem when OOC feelings are involved while interacting with other people in the game. I find it quite healthy to let myself confined in the rules of character and keeping the personal feelings aside. Though we did not RP too much, from what I gather is that you are quite an alright dude who likes to RP and enrich the gameworld. Shit happens, but I would implore you not to get discouraged with this and see that as a reason to make things far better, with newer approaches. Right now Enorian has so many RP opportunities this story can still have a positive ending in the long run. Damn the commodities, truly they can be replaced in due time, now is your chance to ride through the crisis in your shining armor, making future strategical play in diplomacy and military...the possibilities are there. Crisis also means opportunity.

As the friend of no party, I can see there are too much overreacting going over from all sides including Divine side. It is time to take a breath and let the matter to rest. If we cannot accept that once in a while world-shattering crises may occur or people can play fairly manipulative characters then we may as well scratch away all the manipulative Divine.

We should all chill out and then look for the future.

Toz

I'm consistently impressed you manage to show up on the wrong side of every argument you touch.

They robbed a theocracy, and are arguing actions have consequences. The 100 RL day hex is entirely IC and matching with the style of play they chose to pursue- replacing those stolen comms ICly would take longer than 100 days in time alone, let alone gold.

Your version of conflict, and theirs, and Imperians apparently, is not compatible with a MUD. Which is probably why Imperian is dying out at the rate that it is, with leadership retiring regularly.

There was an appalling lack of restraint and trying to warp themselves into the victims is a new low - a record topped in under 24 hours.

Edit: I'd also point out not a single one of you has raised an org from bad to good. The Syssin were huge on the back of Faerah when Fezzix took over, Spinesreach was strong from Moirean and Luna and others - out from under the shadow of Bloodloch for the first time in history - and the Sciomancer went from bad to somehow worse and still haven't picked up the pieces. This attitude of 'get gud' when none of you have ever had to is another rich, offensive layer to this whole ordeal that is player created and OOCly driven, where the goal is to ''punish" a side for wanting to keep people playing.

Mykellah

Comparing Imperian to Aetolia here is apples to oranges.  The economy is entirely different and orgthefts rarely happened in Imperian.  The commodity generation centered around npc townes withcomplex mechanics forhow much was produced.  If you had commodities lifted (which happened oncein my entire play tgere) it was much easier to recover from and basically the entire rest of the game turned on the perpetrator.  Yhats a far cry from all the people in here tellinv us to "deal with it."  How, exactly?  The war system doesnt exist anymore.  Raiding is being just as griefy and probably not stressing the actual perpetrator.  Theres no way like in Imperian to whack a storage attendant and steal the stuff back.

We have no recourse thats proportional to the crime.  The people who did this know that and did it anyways.  Its a cowardly form of griefing and I dont care how uncomfortable it makes defenders when I say that.

Kalak

Toz said:

I'm consistently impressed you manage to show up on the wrong side of every argument you touch.

They robbed a theocracy, and are arguing actions have consequences. The 100 RL day hex is entirely IC and matching with the style of play they chose to pursue- replacing those stolen comms ICly would take longer than 100 days in time alone, let alone gold.

Your version of conflict, and theirs, and Imperians apparently, is not compatible with a MUD. Which is probably why Imperian is dying out at the rate that it is, with leadership retiring regularly.

There was an appalling lack of restraint and trying to warp themselves into the victims is a new low - a record topped in under 24 hours.

Dude anyone who thinks 100 RL days disfavor is okay must be a bit mixing OOC and IC stuff in the game. It is unreasonable. It is childish. It shows the lack of restraint on Divine/Admin side and they handle player created crises very poorly.

I heard the commodities was returned, I suppose?

Let me tell you missed opportunities:

- A chance for Duiran to show its steadfast alliance to Enorian in times of hardship.
- For Enorian citizens to bond with each other while rebuilding their resources.
- Diplomatical play among entities and further intrigue stemming from a player-created crisis.

The possibilities in this situation and its positive outcomes are so mind-boggling...and the thrown tantrums around simply makes me lose faith.

If I was a Syssin, I would rather ride it out through the whole ordeal and be proud that for once we made impact upon the gameworld. ICly I have every reason to beat the shit out of Spireans, but OOCly I can see the desire for kiddie gloves is overwhelming in the victim side of an event so cannot stop myself feeling sympathy for the admin oppression upon the whole Syssin guild. Severn would be proud nonetheless.

Rasani

In fact, Kalak, Duiran -did- show support, and Enorian -did- pull together. The only reason we got stuff back is because someone on the inside saw how shitty this was and wanted to fix it.

This isn't just 'so build up your comms'. We're a city almost constantly beng raided, so the sigils would be gone. Makes that a lot easier. Without steel, nobody can afford to make weapons, we can't fight anymore. You're so -bent- on 'oh well it was hand holding' that you aren't seeing that, by trying to make conflict, they nearly made it impossible for us to engage in the conflict they wanted to create. And you know what? if admin had just bailed us out, they would've bitched about that too.

Toz

>Kiddie gloves are bad, you should suffer for your actions
>Divine impacted by such a betrayal striking out with proportionally timed disfavor (about as long as it would take to repair the damage done) is too long

Pick one.

The aggressor gets all the benefit and the first strike. They played off people OOC desire to help and encourage the playerbase, spy 'rp' is undetectable and risk free - she could have stayed in Eno for 10 rl years biding her time at 0 cost. There was no 'win' condition for the defenders, the Syssin are now outright lying in an attempt to make themselves look like the victim here, and a vast majority of the playerbase on both sides seem pretty disgusted.

If I break your legs in half with my car and drive away, I go to jail, regardless of all the fun opportunity you get to have physical therapy and rebuild yourself.

The side aggressing has the obligation to limit their victory. That's called sportsmanship and it is a global phenomenon. You don't run up the score in a game you are already winning, you don't flaunt your lead while you hold it, and you don't launch an unavoidable campaign playing against OOC feelings (because people invest significantly in their characters and wanting them to have fun is normal), steal everything you can in a display of wild, careless abuse of systems and trust, refuse to give it back then weep bitterly when your betters do it for you about how it's not fair you were unstoppably targeted OOC.

A 100 day hex was a taste of their own medicine and it seems to me they sure don't like it much, nobody was chomping at the bit to do anything other than 'holy shit mercy'- where was the Syssin's drawing from allied? Where was BL and their gods called on to help counteract? C'mon guys work through it and build with this wonderful RP you got handed - at least you got to opt into it.

Kalak

Rasani said:

In fact, Kalak, Duiran -did- show support, and Enorian -did- pull together. The only reason we got stuff back is because someone on the inside saw how shitty this was and wanted to fix it.

This isn't just 'so build up your comms'. We're a city almost constantly beng raided, so the sigils would be gone. Makes that a lot easier. Without steel, nobody can afford to make weapons, we can't fight anymore. You're so -bent- on 'oh well it was hand holding' that you aren't seeing that, by trying to make conflict, they nearly made it impossible for us to engage in the conflict they wanted to create. And you know what? if admin had just bailed us out, they would've bitched about that too.

Many such things can be found, through donations, through player effort and yes, there is clear handholding in this case. I have never seen such a silly thing as disfavoring an entire guild for 100 RL days. Rendering them ineffective because they played their role.

I am sorry but from now on, in good light I cannot take any Divine who spreads words of Corruption and Manipulation and Dominance seriously lorewise when they do not reward their followers for acts of such. This act was a dominating one, manipulating one and it was corrupt through and through.

So if we are serious about our RP, then we should put OOC aside and deal with it ICly.

Trikal

Toz said:

They robbed a theocracy, and are arguing actions have consequences. The 100 RL day hex is entirely IC and matching with the style of play they chose to pursue- replacing those stolen comms ICly would take longer than 100 days in time alone, let alone gold.

I haven't said anything as of yet, but I cannot agree more with this, even as they were rolling in I was saying I approved in the Syssin's OOC clan and that it was a pure IC action and made perfect sense for it to happen. I didn't ever expect that the comms would not be returned, and even less so by the time the second curse came through, much less the third and then disfavor.

The few issues I have with the entire thing is that there were immediate and quite sad OOC reactions to this, ie. Bennedicto and Toz announcing their retirements. I do not wish to see either of you go. Bene you've been giving me such high hopes for actual Templar opponents and I've been doing my damnedest to not hinder you overly much as you raged war on Chak. Toz I will love you 5ever and you're my boy blue. Don't believe that the allowance of such a thing would've been allowed, have more faith in people.

Nothing from stealing everything was allowed to play out, which is also a very valid and reasonable thing especially since that also was done ICly. I expect Spinesreach at the very least to have political fallout from this entire situation. The other thing is that it's been show that even IC players don't particularly approve of theft on this level, and I doubt any such thing would be attempted again.

Is it a dick move to steal everything someone has? Yes, absolutely. Does that make it invalid play? Not really, not when you consider what stealing the comms actually does to an org on a short term time scale, which is to say effectively nothing. If you completely blocked the entirety of commodities from a city for a few days they lose what? I honestly can't think of anything that is really changed. Guards are gold only, not comms anymore so it's not like you can't defend yourself. Perhaps you cannot afford to have flamed monos throughout the city if they were all mushroomed? Otherwise it's just you can't get bulk orders for crafting. To think that the players would actually have allowed something like keeping it all forever and ever is kind of sad because I just don't see that being the case. ICly is Trik like yeah awesome fuck them when it happens? Of course, his enemies were destroyed by the gifts of his Patron God Severn, through manipulation and deceit. OOCly am I going to really go yeah fuck eno forever, not really, and I think same goes for most everyone else. I saw the theft as stealing a bargaining chip of something so large it simply couldn't be ignored, nothing really more than that.

Mostly what I'm trying to say is, @Benedicto @Toz ... Don't leave me.

Eliadon

And here I thought I was a sociopath.

Shachalai

Rurthina said:

The perpetrator of this crime was a leader in a guild since she was a teenager, a guild whose first line of their help file says they are bestowed with the gift of guile and deception. She was a leader in that guild for over 10 years. She was a Senator of Spinesreach for over 14 years.

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.

Shachalai said:

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.

Also - even if Atarah is not a bad person OOC, she did a thing which had a severe and disproportionately OOC impact, far in excess of any supposed offense on our part. It disproportionately impacted people who had nothing to do with the decisions to trust her and give her power.

Again, this is a game. We want games to be fun. We don't want to model the Cold War - we want to assume that people are playing the game to have fun, and we don't want to bar solid, well-meaning players off because they might hurt us.

Rurthina said:

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.

I'm going to give you the same bad advice you're trying to give us-

Find a different response next time. If you didn't want to be stuck with no resources at a severe disadvantage, maybe you should have taken the time to consider a different course of action.

Do you want me to be sympathetic? The people who lead your guild orchestrated this, planned this, and seized disproportionately on the trust that the good guys are supposed to extend. My city was going to have to go into full panic mode and every single crafter was going to be impacted by this. Now you're mad because something similar has happened to you?

Maybe you should think about why what happened to us is something you're defending, but why this is somehow a bridge too far.

Facilitating roleplay? That's a joke. Atarah stole commodities and abused an investiture of IC and OOC trust. There was no RP there, because there was little to no chance for us to detect her. At no point was legitimate RP facilitated at any point during this. Quite the contrary, a lot of us feel used, disappointed, and like a lot of our effort amounted to absolutely nothing.

And Enorian has RP too, by the way. The Syssin aren't the only guild in the game who can put together an aesthetic. We can RP too, and that's what we thought we were doing until we were cheated out of our resources. Don't boast about your RP when the most prominent recent example of it is org theft and metagaming - that's not a thing you get to boast about.

In light of the sheer level of contempt that org theft represents, I am (perhaps unjustifiably) totally cool with the admin response. You wanted to make us ineffective; why shouldn't you be ineffective? You wanted to punish people who had nothing to do with the decisions; why shouldn't people who had nothing to do with it get punished?

If you want a better response, you should figure out better things to do than robbing orgs for the lulz.

/bad advice

Kalak

@Shachalai Admin response just proved that Enorian is nothing without Divine intervention. Also it clearly says that admin will heavily control the game and leave no room for player-orchestrated crisis. Enorian or Syssin did not lose this event. Admin did. In a game where nothing changes without the strict control of powers that be...it is doomed to upset more then the victims of this conflict.

Now, I would expect more sportmanship from the victims in how to deal with this crisis instead of praising admin intervention.

Shachalai

Kalak said:

@Shachalai Admin response just proved that Enorian is nothing without Divine intervention. Also it clearly says that admin will heavily control the game and leave no room for player-orchestrated crisis. Enorian or Syssin did not lose this event. Admin did. In a game where nothing changes without the strict control of powers that be...it is doomed to upset more then the victims of this conflict.

Now, I would expect more sportmanship from the victims in how to deal with this crisis instead of praising admin intervention.

ok.

Kalak

This isn't helpful. - Antehe

Phoenecia

I think what's been lost sight of here, and it was mentioned before, that there are no mechanics currently in place that would offer an adequate level of retaliation IC for a crime of the magnitude of the theft on a player level.

Raids? Only costs gold, and guards can be replaced quickly and easily unless you're doing large scale raids all day, every day. Which isn't fun for players.

PK the people involved who supported the whole thing? Death has few penalties, and repeated PK indefinitely is utterly demoralizing and not in the spirit of the game either.

So what's left? 

You steal all of Eno's comms. You refuse to give them back. They're crippled. 'Okay, well, if that's the kind of game you're going to play... x4 god curse for 100 days'

Screw over an org, get screwed over in turn. Seemed like a proportionate punishment. You claim all this was orchestrated IC? Well, therest your IC response.

On an OOC level, a LOT of people have pointed out the things said and done beyond what was said and done in-game, and it's pretty apparent that a lot of manipulation was being done outside the game (preying on players' natural desire to want to help other players and help make a better playing experience for people who might otherwise quit) in order to garner sympathy and trust.

And because of the actions and sentiments of a handful? That trust is gone. That desire to help or want to help might go down the drain too. And honestly, for a game like this, with a community as small as ours, how is that kind of attitude of stabbing fellow players like that and taking advantage okay? How is that helpful to the community other than pretty much telling everyone that YOU, THE PLAYER, are willing to lie, take advantage of other's good graces, and hurl them under the bus so you can get ahead. All you're doing is removing any desire for anyone on BOTH sides to interact with you or your org. Because how can you, the player, not the character, be trusted ever again? You can't. And this isn't the kind of reputation that's going to go away.

Nahuaque

@Phoenecia manipulation of a character almost inherently involves manipulating a player. I don’t personally think there is anything bad or wrong with that.

I happen to agree with most of what @Kalak has been saying. The admin/divine are the real let down here. How is it appropriate to hex an entire guild so hard that for 100 RL days an Omni-trans character has to sit at adept in all skills?  How was this IC for those gods?

@Tiur I have to wonder if there is anything you are going to do to prevent abuse in this way in the future. I think this definitely calls for retraining or corrective action of the admin volunteers involved.

Aishia

If you think the 100 day thing was designed to endure for 100 days and not simply to prompt some sort of action, or that these kinds of things happen without full administrative approval then I don't know what to tell you.

Shachalai

Nahuaque said:

@Phoenecia manipulation of a character almost inherently involves manipulating a player. I don’t personally think there is anything bad or wrong with that.

I happen to agree with most of what @Kalak has been saying. The admin/divine are the real let down here. How is it appropriate to hex an entire guild so hard that for 100 RL days an Omni-trans character has to sit at adept in all skills?  How was this IC for those gods?

@Tiur I have to wonder if there is anything you are going to do to prevent abuse in this way in the future. I think this definitely calls for retraining or corrective action of the admin volunteers involved.

We are telling you, as people who have been manipulated on both IC and OOC levels, that there is something wrong with that, that it was a dramatic abuse of both our trust and our IG role.

I'd really like people who weren't personally impacted by this to stop telling me how I should feel about it.

Kalak

Aishia said:

If you think the 100 day thing was designed to endure for 100 days and not simply to prompt some sort of action, or that these kinds of things happen without full administrative approval then I don't know what to tell you.

But that act itself colors the judgement of players ICly and looks very unprofessional for both Divine and Management. It is like a nuclear strike, if I must make a comparison. Not the end effect of an elaborate plan executed through sheer manipulation and effort. When people are forced to act on the gunpoint (or should I say on the hexpoint for being lore appropriate?) then something dies at the very core of a MUD game.

Nahuaque

@Shachalai you telling me that does not make it so.  I am not telling you how to feel. Just that IC deception inherently involves OOC deception to prevent meta gaming and that it is not inherently wrong. Your feeling don’t determine whether something is ethical/unethical.

EDIT: agree 100% with @Kalak’s statement above.