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Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE
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Comments
Remove cloaks and ways to hide yourself from lists. It would improve the RP environment through more possible interaction. If you're online, you're online and you should be possible to find and interact with. Sure, there are a few exceptions like phasing syssin and such, but cloaks and gems and whatnot make it seem like there are more people around than there are and you get more of this feeling of an empty world when people hide away in their own space.
Take away discernment. I'd think combat would be less inclined towards automation if that disappeared.
Make deaths count more. No, I'm not going to ask that you make people drop more XP again, cause that will make people scream in agony over having to go bashing like crazy. I'm sure there are other ways to make death count. For example, after mutating your stats drop to half for a short time. Why not do something similar after PK-death. Let the person returning from a PK-death have to live with lower stats while recovering from the near death of passing through the Halls? Move slower or "wounds reopen" and potentially kill you again. It would be a consequence other than "lol, wait 1-2 minutes and I'll be back to kick ass". Death would actually mean something, so you'd have to actually be more careful. Just one example and probably not the best, but ideas are better than silence.
Scrap tethers and find a better solution to preventing unreasonable skills being used by people on a certain "side". In a grey area there's potential for conflicts that are both small and large. It allows more shady business that can't exist in a world that is all black and white.
Also, why so strict on the guilds connected to a city thing? If two guilds want to switch, why not allow that if they manage to RP it out in a natural fashion? With multiclass, the skill balance can't really matter all that much if you ask me.
Wouldn't removing it just make tracking harder (and more biased towards good coders), rather than impossible?
Say I stab you with xentio and kalmia.
With discernment, if I see you have cured clumsiness, I track asthma being cured.
Without discernment, all that happens is I watch you eat kelp, and track clumsiness being cured. I also have to keep track of the kelp cure tree to know which afflictions get cured first. It's just an extra step in coding.
I suspect automation will always be part and parcel of muds. Unless there is a way to bar people from coding or using clients, there will be an arms race to automate the best AI, with the game being biased in favour of code-literate people.
Instead of working to dismantle automation, I think it might be more worthwhile to create more dimensions of play.
For example, developing the economic dimension. Strangely enough, Aetolia is a world where necessities are abundant and unlimited. As such, there are no losers in the economy. Resources need to be limited and acquired for there to be a balance of power, for winners and losers. It may mean more to juggle, sure (e.g. regulating monopolies and providing alternatives to scarce resources), but the upside is a lot more dynamism to the game.
Think, in real life, wars are not always won on the military front, but financial and political. Here, we've somehow created a world where resources are in abundance, so the only thing that differentiates winners from losers is the ability to code.
Having limited resources gives rise to monopolies and players being asses in withholding such resources. This is true. Though, the solution is to to develop the dimension further, rather than dumb it down (which was what happened). Mobiles like the shady man and Seasone are important - there must be viable (even if inconvenient) alternatives. There must also be ways to wrest that monopoly away from those who have the power. These should be temporary monopolies, rather than entrenched ones. That way, there's something for the winners to protect, and losers to strive towards seizing.
Introducing alternative dimensions to gameplay would make it more fun for non-coders. Right now, the only thing non-coders can really get involved in are bashing and RP. When I take a look at the different people who have expressed their opinions, I see a clear pattern. The PvPers/coders are happy with the way things are. This is in large part because the PvP dimension is live and well. I fall in this category, which is why I play. But for those who aren't all that keen on PvP and coding, there is a sense of disillusionment because of how stifling the RP/politics dimension has become, whether through tether or recent events which have been (perceived as) godmoded and linear.
Aside from the mechanical aspect of being unable to join a city with a conflicting class (which I'm going to handwave away for the moment in light of combat balance), in what ways are tethers holding you back?
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Basically, though, what I am seeing and agree with is that there needs to be a bit more grief. I know, a lot of people hate being griefed, and griefing can be a problem when some people just don't know when to stop. However, it needs to happen, sometimes, to make things hard and interesting.
Below I'd like to exhibit how griefing can actually be a good/interesting thing within the game. It may not be mechanically possible within Aetolia, but, let's pretend it is for the sake of the sake of argument.
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Scenario Example:
Player/Org X decides they are going to clear pick all the herbs that can be found, a boring and tedious task that most people take little notice to for a long time. Then, low and behold only a small faction has all the curatives available because all the shops in town and everywhere else, they've sold out. They maintain this clear picking strategy and the PK scene starts to struggle. This doesn't apply to Undeath because, well, they're undead they EAT body parts, no short supply in that.
What does it lead to:
- Some living folks are going to suddenly choose to go undead because fuck having to deal with that problem. Fine, they get labeled as weak for not having the backbone to stick with the situation and find a solution, while trying to arguably join a faction that RPs tha they are relinquishing their weaknesses for the sake of power. Interesting RP possibilities, interesting player interaction conflict and confrontations to be had there because you have a new set of undead people who have relinquished this idea of a physically weak state, but maybe when push comes to shove and they hit a wall, they simply don't have the power to struggle through it and will forever have this mark on their reputation as not being strong of character.
- living people to bind together (with no regard to factions) to try and solve this very real, player created problem.
Outcome on the game:
-People complain because it's a lot of work and life is going to be real hard for a while. Maybe some people try, lose and say fuck it, I'm not playing for a while or I quit. They'll be back, though, just like with those console games that were a bit too complicated that you rage quit, it'll have that lingering nag in the back of your mind, maybe I should give it another go, what can I do different to come out successful.
- People spend some boring time competing on picking curatives. The market goes unstable because EVERYONE needs them. Maybe, even, mundane tasks like picking even become a place of conflict and people need to hire guards for a time. Who knows how the players will react!
- Suddenly lines are drawn, because maybe merchant-player A really took advantage of this and will for a long time be remembered as that person who was price-gauging and left a bad taste in your mouth.
- Gods step in, but not in this all powerful, fix the problem way. They say, you're messing with our followers, enjoy these disfavors for however long this continues, see how long you all are able to maintain this scheme.
- Eventually the issue is resolved by players, and it took a lot of work, there was struggle and people definitely cried, but at the end of the day, a year or two goes by, and you look back on that and think, man, that was real shitty and I survived by doing (insert the limitless decision tree options).
- People become a tad more wary and start paying attention to what player/org X does. When they are seemingly doing mundane things, the players that remember this think, "better go check in on them, make sure everything is kosher." There's a cloud of intrigue created and this uneasy feeling that if you're not being vigilant to what people are doing around you, you may very well be screwed over later on.
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These sorts of things make for great stories that people will retell and reminisce about, be it bitterly or with some level of elation, but it's something they'd remember if they had to deal with it. It creates an atmosphere that, in my opinion is very interesting, enforces a level of immersion beyond relying completely on ones imagination.
Honestly, that's where I think things are an problem. There just aren't any player created problems because griefing has all but been snuffed out. I know my life will never be hard unless I do something outrageous and create a problem for myself that requires me to have been a complete dick to people. Sure this I can get away with doing this a few times, for the sake of creating a hard living environment to my character, but is it 100% within my character's RP to be a dick all the time, no. Furthermore, if I kept on doing that, I'd get some serious punishment slapped down on me and then everyone would go back to living the easy life.
Now, I'm not advocating for the ability to just waltz in and kill people over and over, stealing everything they own, and what have you, but sometimes grief just needs to happen. It would be more interesting for me if there were struggles like the one painted above. For me this would be eventful and it would have nothing to do with something created by the Admin/Gods or the lore. Personally, I yearn for player-created problems that require players to step up and solve the issue.
TLDR: I guess, what I'm saying is that the only changes I think the admin really need to make is to remove the safe guards off the bowling lanes and allow a little grief into everyone's lives.
When grief happens currently, there isn't an in-character struggle which the administration comes in and ruins. There's a torrent of messages, issues and forum posts (read: OOC communication) about how everything is terrible, we're terrible, and THIS MUST BE STOPPED. Whether it was a history of administrative action or the changing entitlement of the playerbase that caused that knee-jerk OOC reaction is for someone else to debate. All I know is that it's exhausting.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
Even if your character will end up in heaps of trouble for what they've done, there's no mechanical way for you to remain in a guild on one side in secret, fake a huge blow-out with your city and join a city on the other side for some sly reason (spying or wrecking havoc). Just as an example.
It's gotten into the mindset of people and their RP. Things are either GOOD or BAD. You can't have anything in between anymore without being very firmly established and that's difficult for some people, even novices. There have been so many around who have wondered about neutrality and tried that, then disappeared because they had to choose, and it's always angled towards "bad".
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On another note, I believe that some people need to get better at accepting the consequences of their actions and that organizations (and Divine!) should use a larger variety of punishments for unacceptable behavior. Add a way to put people in the stocks, put them in jail, use probation more, make disfavors mean more than just dropped rank (like giving them a line saying they're not in high favor of ), remove a specific privilege, brand them! For Divine: disfavor, hex, curse, mute them, give them a permanent affliction or disease rather than zapping and make it more visible! More often than not ousting or killing seem to be the preferred choices and they are supposed to be extremes, yet they mean so little to people. Death is a "lol 1-2 minute wait" to most and ousting... sure, pissed for a while, then move on.
The idea of 'secretly' being a member of anything died with the rise of OOC communication. There is no such thing as a secret in Aetolia. And unfortunately, OOC information makes its way IC all the time.
I don't think removing tethers will help -anything- short of giving a few rogues the chance to be smug in an opposing city. What needs to shift is the way we perceive life vs. undeath and any other principle conflict in Aetolia.
Like @Ishin said, it's about desirability. Spinesloch and Duirnorian are things because the leaders of those cities find benefit in the others. Severing those ties has significant impact on the cities and their citizens. As it should. But there's nothing stopping Duiran and Spinesreach from teaming up for a while short of player willingness.
In regards to events, outside of the 'well it's the Midnight age so best get some lube and gird my loins' trend with most of them, the biggest issue I've seen is that they historically are created just for their particular orgs - they can impact others, but the other side of the coin gets forgotten (like when Carnifex attacked Dhar's realm and his Order found out way late and was left scratching its heads - something that shouldn't have just been able to simply happen that blindly because it wasn't our event, it was just our god's realm), or when Enorian zapped Procurio dead from across the continent without a word and without even entering the city - it was Enorian's event, not Spinesreach's...it was just Spinesreach that was impacted.
More events lately have been more open ended, and I think part of the issue is that if we don't see -our- ideas being put in (but we don't know if someone else's are being put in), it's easy to assume that it's another rendition of what's become the standard. With how many of us have been playing so long, what we expect is to watch a show, die to overpowered mobs, and admin will turn the next page in the chapter. We stand waiting for cues to see what admin want us to do rather than initiating of our own and trying to contribute to the story (though as we don't know who is running which event, voicing those ideas can be difficult - no one to message mobmessages can get lost in the shuffle, and thinkmotes during chaotic moments get equally as lost).
There I think a streamlined communication avenue would be helpful. Maybe like IDEAS but for specific events? IE:
"eventidea We would like to open up the refugee booths again and get those people out, and so and so would like to begin administering medical care. Could we get a quick medical mob, ala red cross nurses in the world wars?"
In regards to tethering: there is still the problem that the dark side can make use of anything (even someone wielding the devotional light of the Triad of Angels that is against the very thing they're living in, and on top, use it as equally well in the field harming the thing it was created for? I think we could have more wiggle room here but there would have to be consequences, which then people will rage about (IE lumie in Spines can't summon an angel, why would an angel go help Spinesreach?)) but due to the moral stances/culture/roleplay/design of the lifer orgs, that doesn't go both ways. I suppose it COULD in some instances, but that won't happen without significant events opening that up. Life side doesn't have a grayer option and I would love for Enorian to become more flexible (but that won't happen without some admin help either, due to how ingrained and prominent the Dawn is in everything - the desired flexibility simply won't happen while that is the core, because it gives no room for anything else).
Can we try to change that? Sure, Spines can try to attract more PKers. It's a long process and we're improving on it - but even if we do step up and say that we want to fight Bloodloch, we will then be completely screwed by it. People will get kicked out of houses (since all the houses are in BL), people will lose RL money investments like shops (I'm not going to start a war and screw over non-comms like Eleanor), guilds like the Carnifex will be held hostage, etc.
Beyond that, due to how shadow/spirit is viewed, there's no way we can get support from other cities because we'd still be "bad" unless we also boot all our undead/vampires - we can't just fight Bloodloch for territory or economy, which is something I could maybe see happening, but instead we have to fight them for ideology - ideology we don't ascribe to - in order to be "ok" for lifers to side with, even temporarily. This is not just something pushed by the players, either, but also something being pushed very heavy-handedly by divine RP (which is often hard to distinguish from admin mandate).
Basically there is so much back-end mechanics and culture in place that bucking the current side-division is just not worth it or something I see as remotely feasible.
If you want to take your city, guild, house, pack, whatever in a specific direction and you feel hindered by the Divine roleplay, you need to have that conversation with them. Chances are it's not the result of a storyline or ideal set in stone by Razmael and I but in fact a personal preference of that God. Even better, it might be the God trying to vibe off what s/he perceives to be the will of the organization. I know you weren't referring to yourself specifically, @Moirean, but it serves as a good example for any organization.
The Immortal volunteer team is here to support two things: The wishes of Razmael, who is ultimately responsible for the storyline and direction of Aetolia, and the wishes of the playerbase, who are responsible for their individual storylines and contributing to the whole. If there's ever a time where those two don't conflict BUT the volunteer team is not amenable, that's something we can certainly fix. These things we perceive as forced tether alliances are at the top of that list.
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Too much going on to find the post and requote but I think @Areka: I like that idea because it's out-of-character but much more centralized than mobmessages. Something we can look at for the next big event, in addition to much more collaboration and tracking behind-the-scenes for our own purposes.
Edit: To expand on what I mean, I'll place some examples. Personally, I've only ever issued myself over minor things that I couldn't resolve or needed help with. Apart from that, I've never bothered to issue anyone because their actions did not warrant it. However, it seems like this is the first reaction always, from most people.
Example 1: I was fairly new to Aetolia, Moirean was taking time to teach me about using my mapping system within the Carnifex guild. Isto shows up and decides to start attacking her, and thereby me. He basically stacked holobombs and I died easily 5+ times (pre lvl 80) while charging gung-ho refusing to leave this fight because, damnit, my guild was being attacked! The timing on this was late in the evening, I had class the next day, and finally I had to bow out, after taking my last death ride. I wasn't angry, I was excited and I sure as hell wasn't ready to log off but I'd overstayed my bedtime by an hour as it was because of this impromptu fight.
Worried that I had rage quit, my guildmates issued Isto over the invasion. Next day, I come back, hoping to hear a tale of how his ass got kicked clear down the mountain with his tail between his legs. This happened, but instead was overshadowed by tons of messages from Isto trying to OOCly explain the situation, apologize, etc. I didn't really care that I'd died so many times, if I hadn't liked it, I'd have stopped charging in, but I didn't and I had fun. The memory is still a fun one for me!
Now, I'm not criticizing my guildmates who made those issues, because honestly, it's become a culture where issuing over these sorts of things has just become the norm.
Another example: Carnifex have a few people online and everyone is itching to do something carnifexy. Moirean is like alright, guild, I'll step up to the plate and make something happen (cus she's awesome like that). So we go and attack Jaru or some other village, who knows which one. This is met with conflict, again, I assume everything is cool, but no, instead Moirean has received multiple issues almost immediately. So then it's like, alright Carni's pack it up, we did our thing, let's go.
So I guess I see what @Oleis is saying, from an admin standpoint, they don't really care if this is what the players want to do, but then on a business point of view, if the people playing are going to start complaining, then they gotta eventually step in. However, in both cases, complaints were made immediately, before even letting dust settle. It was just the immediate response and to me, that's the problem.
You have the Sciomancers who are all Loch, in Spinesreach.
If Spinesreach and Loch fought, you'd have a lot of instances of people not being able to fight each other because of guild ties etc.
Because of the way classes are tethered, the cities kind of cross-pollinate each other. Spinesreach is full of Necromancers, vampires etc. with nothing like Forestals to provide any kind of contrast.
Even if we were to compete over ylem, you mechanically made it so same tether doesn't give experience due to the other issue with Firebombing and farming team mates. Given ylem is basically monopoly money when you've already put hotels on every street there is no point in them competing over it at all.
One thing that would get them going at each other would be valuable resources to compete over. It could be driven by events with RP opportunities as well as combat. It would need to be something important enough to rock the boat because even though peace is boring it's hard to convince people to break it just for lulz.
You can be an asshole zealot who cares nothing about doing anything but eradicating 'bad' or 'corription' or whatever, and not be a good character.
You can be a good guy who hates undeath and doesn't care about anything else.
You can be a crusty ass vampire slaying avenger who could give a rats ass about what the Cabalists or the Sciomancers are up to, and is even willing to work with them in that regard. ( just examples, don't lynch me )
Point being, I think the complaint with tethers is the locking into good/bad or us/them (and more importantly, what the few popular/influential players dictate those parameters to be) and it eliminates so much potential.
Look at how much grief Haven got? Or even Rashar, over a much shorter period of time. Others are out there, or would if they weren't convinced that it would ruin their char or be no fun.
I've heard sooo many 'good/lifer' players who'll admit that it's so limiting to play good/lifer, but it's the only option and they don't want to play neutral (which the game and players attribute as evil) or outright darkie. The -only- argument I ever hear is that the player base won't support another city. Well, shit. Why would we need another city? Only because we won't allow shades of gray in this game unless it is an official, mechanically backed thing. I.e. a city.
I've said it 1000 times. Remove blanket enemying. Remove blanket association laws. Actually base your reactions and your actions towards a character based on what they show you with their gameplay.
Will it work? I don't know. I'm told it will not. I'm not a believer. But then again, it's been made clear to me that I'm an ass who doesn't care or listen to other points of view. So, it is what it is. It's a bit of a sore subject, obviously.
Edit: I wonder how much of the population shift can be blamed on that versus the commonly stated 'vampires are the draw to Aetolia'
Think of it like this. Let's say Enorian does something crazy. Like, holy SHIT that's some over-the-top zealot crazy shit. Duiran is like. Whoa bro. That's not okay. But, Enorian's just being Enorian, right? Duiran and Spinesreach say nah bro, you're not going to do that, that's not okay. 'Loch is like w/e dude, it's Enorian, what did you expect?
Duiran sides with 'Reach, fights vs Enorian. Conflict resolves somehow. Now what's the relationship between Duiran and Enorian? Probably shit. And it'll probably suck in the long run for both of them, because they're still seen as being on the 'same side' cos tethers literally bind them in place.
In my idea game, each city would have one or two classes that are locked into that city. You could even do like, Loch and Eno have 2 'cause vamps and illumination. Spines has one, Duiran has one. Say...Carni. Duiran could have Shaman. Those classes wouldn't be usable/shareable outside of the city, while the rest were interchangeable. Then we could just deal with imbalances in the rest of the classes being shared via the liaison process.
I said it somewhere else before, but I think in light of those changes, balancing would probably become easier, too. It lessens the 'our side's classes vs their side's classes' perception as well, and I feel like it'd make people more open to the idea that maybe their class needs a little TLC.
I think this would also open up more dynamics between the various cities, at the very least between say, Duiran and Spinesreach, because they're more the two middle ground cities, as it were. I personally don't think there's much room for maneuvering between Spines and Duiran, mostly because of beliefs(ie Spines is very city-ish and all about science and technological expansion), and Duiran is rah rah natchur, and the two by nature(lol) conflict with the other. However, I could see there being certain situations where it would be absolutely feasible that the two would band together for a mutual goal.
Right now, though, it's perceived that we almost just...can't.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
The mechanical use of tethers is one of convenience. Someone mentioned XP at lessers. That's only restricted by tether because allied fighters were gaining loads of experience off of one another. Because there was no xp loss, they were just bum-rushing the opposing team and HOPING to die in order to get lots of sweet expees. So the tether restriction came down. If Spines and Bloodloch broke up, we'd readjust that to match the world dynamic. All it is is a mechanism to prevent gaming the system, not an edict by which you must shape your city dynamics.
It's not just RP, usually. Often the vibe is "This is how IRE wants it" - and I understand that your guy's hands are tied to an extent, but I think IRE as a company are not stupid. If the producers assess something and feel like a change is worth doing, and presented reasons why, it would be dishearteningly sad to hear that the company's higher ups don't even listen to that. So, it comes across a bit as a shield, a catch-phrase that's said to deflect certain things, which is a common management tactic. I know I definitely cite 'oh that's city law' when I just don't want to deal with something. Sure, it might be city law, but I'm the CL. I could set the wheels in motion to change it if I really wanted to. Perhaps this isn't what is going on, but sometimes it feels like stuff is just shot down with "IRE mandate" as the excuse, without considering the points behind what we say.
For example, I have brought up the issue of Carnifex and Sciomancer guild-city populations being entirely skewed multiple times. IRE mandate is given as the reason - ie the company has determined that certain setups and game introductions work best. I have to question, though, if this isn't just another example of the cause/effect being confused that you have cited yourself? I understand that, in this example, newbs being popped directly into a specific city helps get them invested right away - but is it not just as jarring (and perhaps even more so) to then realize your entire guild is off in another city and the city you are put in doesn't really reflect the org's culture and to play with them you need quit your city and join a new one? I can't understand why being able to pick between two cities or being in the city your guild is in is LESS disruptive to the new player experience than having to actively leave an org.
This is just an example, but it feels like somewhere along the road someone observed "Guilds that have strong city ties do well" and has extrapolated it out into what is current policy - and that policy has much bigger ramifications than just the newbie experience, such as leaving players feel robbed of game-shaping agency (which leads us back to the original post citing feelings of powerlessness and stagnancy).
There was a time when improvements to the new player introduction were all the rage. We've been talking about them much less, lately. We'll have to revisit the idea of city selection shortly to see if we might make some headway there. With no offense to Imperian, which I love very much, the way it quasi-randomly handles profession/guild/city assignment in the intro is pretty reductive to its player organizations, to the point of really disincentivizing good guild leadership. Maybe we can all improve together.
I just want you to know that I feel you, I really do. Who am I? At the risk of bending my already cracking, poor little NDA, you might've known me, up until very recently, as Omei. In my return to the Pools, Aetolia was an utter delight and my co-volunteers were often astounded at my working pace and seemingly endless inspiration.
Of course that all went to pieces the moment I got a full-time, third-shift job.
Even in the Pools, I went through the same thing you guys are. A lot of real-life stress and depression do not exactly make for an enjoyable game experience, whether you're assaulting leyline teams or designing quests.
Just remember this: It's a game. We all know it's a game, no matter how immersed we get. No matter how important the game feels in the moment. I'm supposed to say "no, stay here and buy credits", but really, don't hesitate if you feel the need to step back and just rest for a while. Your happiness and well-being should come first.
I also wanted to address some of the concerns about recent RP events, as well. I'm actually fully in agreement that we're going in a direction with them that isn't quite healthy, and perhaps not setting the best precedent. I, too, was a huge fan of organic events as a player. There was nothing more exciting than looking at something, twenty IG years later, and saying, "yeah, that was all me". Sometimes we make a cool new mob and we get super attached to it. Sometimes - this is full transparency, here - we're having a really bad day, we just want to get the event over with, and we go "you know what, screw the players." This isn't okay. I personally am going to be committed to more open-endedness in any player interaction I bring to the table, and I'm gonna call out my fellow volunteers to join me!
I love you guys. That's why I'm still here. I just want you to he happy!
My problem with the game is simple: When I started 11 years ago, like many of the other users and admin team, I was in my teens, 13 or 14 to be exact. I remember Aetolia being a wide open box filled with adventure and terrifying things. There was once a conflict that I started with some of the big names in the game and it resulted in them trying to hunt me down and kill me, and it was terrifying for me as a teenager. I was running from people in a game, scared witless and terrified that my character would die, so where did I run? I ran to Wedric in all his Druidy awesomeness to help me, because we were friends back then. I was immersed.
After some problems that were my bad I went away for a long time and now I'm back and while I still enjoy the game, I don't enjoy some parts of it.
The parts I don't enjoy are: There's no real fear in the game anymore. Anyone can pop-off to a God and what happens, they get killed, they come back, they run their mouth some more about, "Oh, is that all you can do?"
Combat is so exceedingly dependent on being an amazing coder that no one is afraid of each other anymore. I used to get butterflies fighting people like @Ezalor, now I run in there, he creams me and I chuckle. While it's nice that we don't lose exp with Aura anymore, it's also annoying, because that one death, even if you're only losing 1%-7% or whatever, sometimes got your adrenaline going enough to be like, "OH, UNICORNS, UNICORNS, DON'T DIE! DON'T DIE! DON'T DIE!" Now... it's like... LOL.. I died.
Having moved around the game quite a bit as Jayce I've come to see a lot of the sides of the game, a lot of the same people, which isn't a problem, and the loss of some people like @Daskalos. I wholeheartedly enjoyed his post. He has busted butt to keep Enorian united and in the PK game for a long time now and since I'm over here now, I see how stressful it is. I don't like it. I've been in Enorian and leylining for about 5 days now and I'm already almost fed up with getting ganked at -every- lesser and NOW I'm starting to get ganked at Minors.
We're being pushed to fill our research trees but the fact is simple, we either need to group up better, or give up and lose our trees, cause we can't stand up to the prowess of Bloodloch and Spinesreach together. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing fighters over on the Spirit side, but I've noticed they only come if their friends are there or if they -know- they're gonna win.
The other part of the game that has really made me consider not logging in anymore on more than one occasion. OOC Clans and Webs, these aren't an easy fix, they never will be, but I purposely do not add people to my Skype, why? It causes drama if someone does something the other person doesn't like. I can't say I'm an angel, I get upset, and I get mad! It happens! We all do! Where it hurts is when you get mad and your friends OOCly turn their back on you and then In Game start slandering your character for.... what? You throwing a fit OOCly?
Either way, tl;dr. I just wanted to put my words out here.
In the end, I don't know how to fix it or make it better, but I can try.
Final Edit: As a whole, my character feels worthless to the grand scheme of Aetolia. The positive side of this is that it really doesn't matter if he is worthless, because as others have said, there's no win for the game, which opened my eyes to realize something. He may not have gotten that Minister spot he was gunning for, but what does it really matter? Not like it's going to earn him, as @Moirean has said in prior posts, any prestige or respect. So, I'll be around.