Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE

Gwenith

Sounds like someone just didn't like you.

Teani

I rage that areas can just be disconnected without a post mentioning what's happened.

Yarel

@Gwenith‌ Well. If you have folks running about enemying people just because they dislike them, then that is a problem in and of itself, is it not?

Gwenith

Yes it is. You should have taken it to someone who may have been able to do something about the abuse of power.

Areka

That was not a helpful exchange.

Ask around, may just have been inconsistent policies depending on which aide/minister was around. Things happen.

Haven

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone roleplaying not liking an individual and abusing their power like that. However, they ought to understand that playing on that role of being a 'corrupt official' in any capacity does have its consequences. If they have pull and influence to get away with it in their city,more power to them, they just shouldn't be upset or surprised OOC if/when it comes back to bite them in the ass. IC? Oh yeah. It's all part of the fun of roleplay.

We have to constantly remind ourselves that we're "actors/actresses" playing a "role" and that the other person is supposed to be doing the same.

Alexina

Also, in a movie or a book, obnoxious people are interesting/amusing/awesome because all the horribly bad and frustrating and annoying things tend to happen to the protagonist of the story and you'll be done watching in half an hour anyway -- in Aetolia, you have to meet people on a daily basis over an extended period of time and dealing with abuse of power is much less enjoyable. Take your favourite villainous king from your favourite HBO show and picture him leading one of the cities in Aetolia portrayed in the same manner just because he can and you'll see a landslide election victory in record time.

EDIT:
My point here was that the whole acting argument doesn't always hold up in a game. Sometimes, you just need to be a decent person to people. That's not to say that we shouldn't have antagonists in the game, just that it's more interesting when they're using roleplay to portray their corruption/abuse of power and not using mechanics to be a jerk to another player.

Gwenith

@Areka : I think by now it's been established I'm rather blunt when I talk since I neglect to sugar-coat things and hold the belief you can pretty much summarise any arguement in a sentence or two.

What I mean to say, with elaboration was : It sucks that it happened, since those who run our cities really should be role-models for the younger players. The time to bring it up, however, was then when something could have been done about it. The other ruling members of Duiran could have been told was a legitimate reason Yarel was enemied. Still sucks for Yarel, but it can be a precautionary tale for those reading that if you think there's been an abuse of power against you the time to do it is when it happens.

Sorry Yarel, I didn't mean to sound mean or continue referencing you. The only reason I responded to your second post was because you tagged me and asked a question. I didn't mean to draw it out like this.

Yarel

No problem @Gwenith‌. Didn't think you were being mean at all. To be clear, I am not complaining about being enemied. It happened quite a good while back. I really am not so sure that it was not Duiran's policy at the time, but I may be wrong. This was back when Paris was Min of Security, long before Xavin and Aishia went to Duiran.

Where, obviously, I was mistaken was in believing that this was Duiran's current policy. So allow me to correct myself....

Now that Bloodloch has ended its policy of blanket enemying, it will be interesting to see if Enorian does as well... And before anyone tries to tell me they do not do that, ask @Tatiana why she was just enemied to Enorian 2 days ago.

Erzsebet

Enorian seems to be enemying random living folk associated with Spinesreach now. So it seems unlikely.

Areka

Not random - Enorian's policy has been (for some time now) to enemy anyone associated/allied/guilded/citizened with Shadow. For forum RP: I've been MIA with a close family friend's death, and Phendegwen's MIA this holiday weekend. Got at least 3/5 Heralds on board to push a change to policy, so that will be nudged. Horse is beaten, plans in place.

Erzsebet

Shrug. Policy or not, I find it exceedingly lame. That said--my comment wasn't forum RP. Ultimately, while I find it annoying, the city can enemy random alts of mine as much as it wants. I think it's stupid, but I don't care enough to throw IC hissy fits about it.

Aishia

Pretty much only enemy for raiding or griefing in the city. If anyone cares for actual policy. If you're just running in to gank someone once you probably won't even be enemied. But if you're all screwing around and rearranging our collectables SO ENEMIED.

Mariena

Yeah, don't touch the knick knacks man. We get testy. They're placed just SO.

Haven

Alexina said:

Also, in a movie or a book, obnoxious people are interesting/amusing/awesome because all the horribly bad and frustrating and annoying things tend to happen to the protagonist of the story and you'll be done watching in half an hour anyway -- in Aetolia, you have to meet people on a daily basis over an extended period of time and dealing with abuse of power is much less enjoyable. Take your favourite villainous king from your favourite HBO show and picture him leading one of the cities in Aetolia portrayed in the same manner just because he can and you'll see a landslide election victory in record time.

EDIT:
My point here was that the whole acting argument doesn't always hold up in a game. Sometimes, you just need to be a decent person to people. That's not to say that we shouldn't have antagonists in the game, just that it's more interesting when they're using roleplay to portray their corruption/abuse of power and not using mechanics to be a jerk to another player.

Nah, I recognize that. I think the argument still holds water. It comes down to just knowing your audience. What really bogs down the process and blurs the line are the types of players that'd like to have their cake and eat it too or who pick and choose when things apply to them, but typically only if they're in the advantage. That kind of OOC immaturity is what I wish we as a community could get past but alas...

Rashar

I think a big part of the problem is that, while the number of people who would abuse something like that is pretty low, there seems to be this overwhelming attitude where people are really kind of hesitant to truly, legitimately -punish- someone for it, and so it ends up with them doing it once, twice, maybe three or four times with people grumbling, "Man he always does this dumb shit.." but, whose fault is it? Fool me once, etc.

As a rough example, there's been certain individuals throw out CDF's lately for some pretty silly stuff, or even abusing their ability to kick people out of a city. While it might be valid RP to do that based on your character's personal feelings, it's also -completely- valid RP to just crush that sort of behavior immediately. Warnings in the city logs and grumblings over city news boards are, let's be realistic here, kind of worthless.

Who can really judge those situations unless you were there for the RP, so obviously take this with a grain of salt. But I've seen it time and again - heck, I've watched people spam CT with curses and outright taunting and blatant insults, and while city leadership -does- have the ability to stop it (i.e. remove them from the city) everyone is like, 'Eeeh we can't do thaaaat.' Well, no. You can, and you really should.

Just my half dollar, though. You can take it or leave it!

Edit: TYPO.

Zsadist

More of a disappointment than rage, but still rage alike...

That today is an absolutely boring day and Aetolia doesn't seem to provide much for entertainment -.-

Moirean

@Rashar - here's the thing. I can kick someone from the city. But doing that then gives me the burden of the guilt for fucking with their play experience, the black mark on my record of being a despotic city-kicker, and all the damn fallout and drama that ejection would lead to. Even if the person deserved it, I have to deal with that.

I am kinda pissed to her you casting my desire to sidestep that stinking pile of crap like it's some weakness or lameness on my part. How dare I try to give people IC and RP solutions to problems before resorting to mechanics? I sure am a terrible leader.

Rashar

Woah, woah, woah. Easy, man. Read the whole thing before you go yelling at me. I definitely mentioned to take it with a grain of salt because of not knowing the whole RP situation, and noted that it was just a loose example!

Also, I completely understand your justification. I guess I'm trying to say that it's the culture of leadership around here in general, and the fact that anyone -would- give you the hairy eye for doing what you need to do squash that type of stuff, even though it was necessary.

I'd say the burden of guilt for messing with their play experience goes away when they're the ones doing the -exact- same thing to other people, you know? That's like saying, 'Man I'll feel really guilty about executing this mass murderer and messing with his life experience..' Maybe not exactly equivalent, but eh. You know what I mean.

All in all, I just used those things as a short example. I was also trying to avoid all things Syssin related, for obvious reasons.

Edit: Fixed curse word and slight grumpiness.

Teani

And this is why more meaning should be put behind things like CDF and other punishments should be found to make it clear when people are crossing the line (especially since these things don't mess too much with people's game play). Sadly, not everyone in this game takes roleplayed punishments seriously, since it can be shrugged off and ignored.

Disfavors and other such things (guild, city AND Divine) should be used more frequently in general when people do stupid things, if you ask me, and people shouldn't wine about them OOCly if their characters did something to deserve it.

Well, let me at least dream about how it -could- be, for a little while, if things were alright...

Serrice

Deserve is in the eye of the beholder.

Teani

And can also be argued ICly. Still doesn't have to come to OOC whining about being demoted or disfavored. Ousting is a bigger thing. Just wish that the other two had more meaning.

Trager

I didn't bitch about this recent slew of CDF's and oustings, but I sure as fuck wanted to. When something is taken so far out of character, it gets annoying. When blatant metagaming happens in game, I'm going to raise a fit, 9 times out of 10.

Moirean

For the record, I've already messaged @Razmael and @Oleis about options like a temporary city muting, before any of this went down. Pretty much every MMO has that option and it's a good way to nip personal sniping in the bud and let people calm down.

Moirean

I rage at stealth changes that break stuff. Yesterday some change went in that deleted one of the syntaxes for door unlocking so I had to change a ton of settings. Today I login and info here is apparently changed so now area search is broken. Right before a starfall. No changelogs saying WHAT is changed, just shit is changed so nothing works. *fliptable*

Serrice

(yay manual searching)

Roux

Omg is that what happened!? I haven't been able to do area search and it's been messing with my leylining! I thought yet another something broke on -my- end.

Moirean

Shrug, I still got 4th manually searching after spending like at least 1/4 of the starfall trying to figure out what was wrong. My issue is more that simple cosmetic changes like these mess with people's settings and they really should be documented because it's frustrating to try to figure out why stuff isn't working anymore.

Oleis

Thanks for the bug, Moi, but in general to all of you: please also send messages (to me or Razmael) or issue yourselves if something like this happens. We can only changelog and announce changes we're aware of. Keroc made some awesome changes to the way mobiles work, and these cosmetic tweaks got rolled in, probably completely by accident.

It should be fixed now.

Moirean

That you for the quick fix and sorry for my rage. It looked like it was some cosmetic change and I was like whyyyyyyy as meteors rained down around me like the rage tears pouring down my cheeks. My Chemical Romance played. It was Chakrasulian.