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@Shachalai Read above quote perhaps it is pretty "Love or Leave" themed with direct insults. That mentality exists in minds of several people when they used to tell "This is not how Aetolia is!" trying to shove their way of playing down others' throats.
I am writing everything in good faith though that does not mean I have to embellish my words and sweeten the truth for people to swallow it easily. People are apparently having a hard time to grasp the reality that they are having difficulties in differentiating IC circumstances from OOC circumstances. So yeah, someone has to tell the truth and be treated as the spawn of devil or something.
Otherwise, the whole thread would turn into an echo chamber. Aetolia is already a gigantic echo chamber full of lesser echo chambers.
I had meant to edit this into my last post, but instead will post it here. The requirement for putting skills to adept wouldn't have been needed if the Goddess of Corruption would've shown support putting the Syssin back to Adept standards. Instead we were more or less told that our forms of her tenants were not appreciated and that IC shell is forever tainted to Trikal. That too was a very clear message to me as a player OOCly that what happened was simply not in the rules but was not to be tolerated in Aetolia. Fair enough, just put no theft of any kind in the rules if that's what they're going to effectively be anyway.
That's just my observations for @Tiur as far as producer and such goes, and of course in hindsight, it's always clearer, so I like to use it ya know. I don't disagree with the judgement of not wanting this kind of theft and such to happen, but the IC actions of the gods spoke a lot about the OOC desires of the admin.
I will attempt to salvage this by asking you where, precisely, you break with Toz's excellent post. Where does Toz's explanation of why this was unfair, gross, and unacceptable fall flat? Where is Toz's reasoning flawed?
I'd like you to answer those questions, first and foremost, before we proceed to assuming that people need to be insulted and belittled in order for a point to be made.
Re: Ethne, divine advisory is an old and practically meaningless mechanic, and lore-wise and per past and present RP, Ethne is closely and definitively associated with Enorian. Her participation isn't at all odd.
That said it was quite disheartening to have the God of Corruption and ' Fear, Despair, Malice, Avarice and Might' basically say that causing despair and malice through our own avarice and might was wrong and she didn't support it. It was quite clear the Admin wanted us to give shit back and sit the fuck down.
Use Admin shells to make admin decisions, but please have IC gods behave in IC manners that would make sense? Unless I completely don't understand Chak at all and or what those words mean, some of them are kind of big.
I'm done responding to you. You're a charlatan.
A lot of people are not satisfied with the way this played out for various reasons, we've presented plenty of thoughts as to how it could have been improved. Now we're working on a deeper dive into certain aspects of the crisis.
@Trikal, for example, brings up a great point that may need more IC RP to suss out clarification from our respective Divines.
I always felt that, more often than not, our Divine had a tendency to sort of leave us to face the consequences of our actions without any intervention before giving you that hands on hip "Now what did you learn?" sort of look.
At least, on the Shadow side. If there is no clear benefit for them, they tended to not really take a side beyond vague approval or denouncing.
(edit:) Also, I thought of another way the admins could have thrown comms at Eno (again, hindsight, 20/20). Delve... because Delve is like the Deus Ex Machina of Aetolia, as far as I am aware... of course that'd make them a bit more distrustful of Shadow... or perhaps they'd appreciate us indebting Enorian to them. Options for future considerations of things!
I am never going to be happy with people going out of their way to make players suffer. It is callous and toxic behaviour that should be removed from the community. No other course of action is going to make me happy, because it means I will forever have to distrust my fellow players and their intentions. As @toz said, the well has been poisoned. I am not going to trust a single soul who comes to me looking for Trade aide status.
Or after this thread, like half of you period, frankly. There's a distressing and sociopathic lack of basic empathy on display here.
Valkyrior System
The fact is that the Admin did what they're supposed to do, which is recognise the anger and distress of players over something that they (the players) felt was both harmful and unfair, and try to act in a considered way to try and find a solution to a difficult situation involving high emotions in accordance with the rules.
I think a great deal of the anger has come from the fact that we (myself included) have come to expect a higher standard of behaviour than the other IRE games, which is understandable considering we have the best (bias bias bias), which I think has put us in a position where we forget that some of these things are "allowed" and are possibly, simply because they're not something that happens every other Tuesday.
I won't bother commenting one way or the other on the already discussed "lack of conflict/reprisal" etc argument, because it's been pretty well discussed, and I think that maybe one good thing out of all of this (searching for a silver lining) is that there have been several good ideas floated from both sides of the game about how to ensure that Orgs aren't put in such a vulnerable position in terms of resources, and things that might be included in future conflict systems. Cold comfort, though.
For those people on the Spirit side who've been left feeling angry, depressed, or any one (or more) of the other emotions that you guys must be feeling, I'm sorry. It sucks that you've been made to be feeling any of those things about something we're all supposed to enjoy.
For those of us on the Shadow side, lets not be the sort of people who try to invalidate someone's feelings on something, or belittle them for feeling it. Have a bit of empathy. Yes, we might have done something differently if it'd been us. No, maybe we wouldn't have. Either way, chances we'd be feeling the same mix of stuff across our players that they are. Feeling like your Org has been gutted can be pretty devestating, trust me on that one, particularly if there is the sense that there is nothing you can do about it.
If this had happened to Spinesreach or the Archivists, I'm honestly not even sure how I'd feel, let alone react in the moment.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think there is a place for both meaningful IC conflict, and the restraint/respect that's due your rival/competition in our relatively small playerbase.
I dunno, it's midnight, I've had a bunch of long days at work, I've got at least two more ahead of me and I might have had a bit too much to drink, so maybe I'm not making sense or expressing myself real clearly. What I'm trying say is that my heart goes out to the people on both sides of this who are feeling hurt.
Going to bed now.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
But I wonder that you speak of empathy and trust...have you ever thought if there is some kind of callous behaviour among the players that might not be due to the sociopathic lack of basic empathy in individuals?
There is a saying in Turkish which can be roughly translated to "Fire burns where it falls" meaning that the pain is suffered most by the one who is inflicted.
When I was dealing with both OOC and IC shitstorm in this game I have seen that there was a severe lack of empathy, rampant metagaming and utter ignorance within the playerbase.
So this time fire fell upon Enorian, next time it may fall elsewhere. You cannot purge this kind of toxicity. You can simply mask it or sweep it under the rug.
But in the end you do not have to distrust players. For example, a player whom you hate to the bone, ICly could be your steadfast ally and friend while the reverse can be true. You should distrust the character, take your decision purely based on IC indicators. Then everything will fall into the place.
The main issue here is that people allowed their OOC sensibilities get in the way of seeing IC "red flags" so they got burned. I feel empathy for them, betrayal of that kind hurts but that does not prevent me from putting forth criticism on handling of this event at all. The handling was poor, reactions were emotional and everything went haywire.
The lesson is: Cut the wheat from chaff. Where the chaff is OOC and wheat is IC.
Which is always how spy RP and the like goes. It is not practical or reasonable to catch unless they go out of their way to make it so.
You, as an uninformed/uninvolved third party are here posting in grandiose words and using broad, sweeping emotional appeals while impressing upon us how greatly important your opinion is while refusing to actually provide meat - your reasoning is circular (this should have been RP'd ICly because conflict is good, conflict is good because it generates RP) without dealing with the prerequisite issue of the manner and severity of the theft.
You do not belong to any org. You were, in fact, run off from all orgs you were a part of because people found you intolerable and unwilling to play along with others in any capacity, and so you insisting that others do that here is laughable.
You also, in your short time as GM, utterly flaunted good taste in any number of ways. This is not directly relevant to the topic, but it is relevant to your credentials as any sort of authority on playstyle. You, who would not play a loss, who would ignore others and only self-flagellate IC, are not a model of conflict that is interesting or sustainable, and you have not provided any argument against a) the manner in which the injury was inflicted being awful, objectively, b) a compelling reason why Eno should have any interest in playing along with those involved (as, again, RP loss is opt in and they proved they are not engaging in good faith), and c) that there was bad RP on the part of the gods who involved themselves.
Commodities were stolen using a mechanic. The reply to force negotiation was done using a mechanic. The ease with which so much damage was done was wildly disproportionate to the effect it had and the magnitude. The gods IC reaction leveled the wildly unfair negotiating field and forced the people who did it to come to the table where before there was zero incentive - or way to provide an incentive.
Until you find it within yourself to provide material, substantial argument as to why anything I said was incorrect- until you can explain, using any example of a red flag, how this could have been 'detected' or 'defended against' without someone with good intentions and an honest interest in conversion not being badly hurt on an OOC level and possibly losing the game a player? I see no reason for anyone to engage further with your points, such that they are.
- Ex Spirean Senator
- Official of Syssin
- Wife of the Syssin General who is literally one of the most dishonest characters in the game if you have any inkling on character of @Fezzix
- Hasty aideship to the commercial heart of the city
Above some of the larger red flags, I am sure you all missed smaller red flags in the behavioural patterns of the character. So do not trust every doe-eyed lass coming your way, yes?
2. My Credentials:
Source derogation: Attacking the source of a message in order to discredit the message itself.
That is a very low thing to do in any discussion. But let me tell you about my credentials as well.
- In MKO I have led two bankrupt Orders with next to no members under serious difficult situations. They ended up being the most active and influential Orders in the end. So I have very good basis in creating player enjoyment and engagement while dealing with tough situations. One of those Orders was literally under heavy PK and RP prosecution by a city which was full of PKers. I along few remaining loyals swallowed the bitter pills and through perseverance the end product was that the Order was spread throughout the three cities with a very active following. Also played a GM for awhile, so I am not entirely oblivious to IRE organizations or their leadership. I was in robbed blind twice in that game by a group of enemies. But they got their IC retaliation. So yeah, there are lots of things to do before going to Admin but I shall not educate you on that.
- I played a city manager in Lithmeria and in cooperation with players we laid out the foundations of the city laws and I must say if the game still hosted, people over there would disagree with your notion that I am intolerable and unwilling to play along.
- I will hold my tongue on Sciomancers because whatever I say are no longer relevant. As you see though, they are still led by same people and they are still an irrelevant guild picking their pieces. Am I unwilling to play along? Or they are? After all, they did not only lose me.
3. Uninformed Party
-And in what capacity you can say that I am uninformed or uninvolved? As long as we play a game, we are all involved in the game. It does not matter whether I am a Syssin or Enorianite. I am a player, playing the game. And I find your further source derogation attempts very annoying and childish.
4. Gods Problem
-Gods in any capacity affecting the perception of whole organizations and not letting people to resolve the issues themselves creates precedents. So that means whenever there is a serious player-driven event with consequences people will complain to them and get their desired OOC-based result. That is the very counter of RPing. Sorry but you are such a crybaby @Toz . Bargaining chip and coming to table means, the situations should be unfair and Enorian should feel like coming to the table.
Sorry but, among these posts victims of this story are really make me question whether I should feel any shred of sympathy towards them or not.
1) 90% of the comms we're returned without the Syssin's say so. In fact the moves to return them were going before any hexes were laid.
2) Just because of who someone was does not mean you can exclude them from the game world. Again, you aren't touching on the main thrust - it was unstoppable and inevitable. 'Hasty aideship' or not, eventually she was going to be able to do it because she could sit there for days, months, years, decades at no cost.
Good try though.
To everyone else. I have kept silent, because not really much can be said that hasn't already. I just am getting sick to death of people being even more of a tool than usual. I try not to mix ooc and ic together, but I hope that we can have some sort of meaningful roleplay, because I respect a high number of you on an ooc standpoint. Lets get some juicy rp in and maybe a fight or two.
Keep strong you guys
Does this reflect the quality of the game’s player base or only your individual quality as a player?
I happen to agree with most of what @kalak has said and from my perspective a lot of you are being rather hypocritical in your calls for empathy while being extremely rude to a player who has kept his language civil in the thread.
Explain why you agree and how Toz is wrong.
This is limited to this thread for now.
Spy RP is bad - I disagree with this almost entirely. If it is true it is bad news for the syssin. I think spy RP can be rewarding and challenging.
The scale of the theft should not have been possible - Agreed. At least not without a more robust system of retaliation of something consequential that could be done in return. I approve of @Tiur’s alterations.
Here is where we really disagree I think. Some players think they have a responsibility to play the game in such a way that they do not knowingly cause hurt feelings OOCly even if what they did was entirely IC.
I, and I suspect @kalak, do not hold this view. I think it is up to other people to moderate their own emotions and if someone is upset IRL by something that my character does that is neither my responsibility nor my problem. The talk about community standards is this discussion. Do we as players have a responsibility to play in such a way as to actively avoid hurting feelings IRL. My perspective is “no”. And if people disagree I think that is okay.
What I want from Aetolia and I have not been getting is a dark fantasy. Something that had weight to it. A world where things matter. Where death isn’t brushed off, where stuff can genuinely turn south, where the best laid plans can genuinely come to ruin. A world that has consequences.
Aetolia, in its current form, is a world where characters ICly murder their way to endgame, become nearly invincible, immortal, unaging, and then form social cliques and refuse to accept loss.
EDIT: @Mihaketi Do you actually find something in here abusive or is abuse a "super dislike" button for you? I cannot tell.