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If people played in their roles Enorian would be always at war with Bloodloch. This is something that just doesn't work so far as I've seen. So instead we have the play nice and give each other some kind of respect. There's not a lot of players in this dying gamestyle of MUDs so respecting each other a little goes a long way.
From everything I've experienced in the past though, an order declaring all-out war on a guild is a one way ticket to issues upon issues. I don't see why the other way around isn't considered in the same light.
Aloli, in the in character meeting we had, Benedicto stated, in character, that Chakrasul and Bamathis were both obvious options, but that we chose to go with Iosyne because of political reasons, as he also stated in this thread. To me it screamed corny to go with the 'easier' option politically, or otherwise. I would have doubled down and picked the hardest one, but I'm also not in the Templar leadership, so I kept my opinions to myself and just did what option I was given. I'm also not saying it was a 'mistake' or that it was 'bad' just that it to me, as a player, and my character, felt a little weak sauce. But that's also just my opinions and how I generally look at things in game and out.
This is what I saw go on internally in the situation, and what I personally think, what I personally felt, and sorta the RP that's always been fostered within the Iosyne Order in my experience.
It came out of nowhere and blind-sided us really. It took the city linked shrines being attacked for any of us to realize what the heck was going on. And as a consequence of us being targetted. The RP of the Iosai is at stake here. We could reach out and ask for help if we wanted to go to war against the Templar, but then again, the Iosai RP has always been insulated in regards to combat. We are a Combat oriented Order, there's room for RP (Axius is proof of this actually), but we don't seek outside help. This is true even when the Order has an average online member status of 4 people. It's why it shocked us that we were A. attacked because of the aforementioned level of 'respect' given, and B. it blind-sided us. Now we are setting in motion gears that I won't discuss in public fashion, but is probably pretty obvious just looking at the situation how we'll respond, with 5 people online on average, and at -least- 4 of them combat ready (mostly. Axius can fight, but is by no means a combatant. Take that as you will) We had to figure out a way to strike back without including outsiders because of the aforementioned RP, and so we had to do something that... personally? My moral compass called a really -really- unicorns move in response, but also was really the only way to respond as far as the Order was concerned. A guild attacked us, we cannot attack the guild, but we -can- attack the Patron of the guild and declare holy war, forcing the guild to be disallowed to assist because it's Ordermembers versus Ordermembers (no congregants allowed to drop/raise/reinforce shrines in response to the war either, only defend at best). And as far as our info goes, there's only one known combatant in the Patron order of the Templar..
Which brings us back to the topic of this thread, and my feelings on the matter.
On one hand, you've got a guild that's decided to include a weird optional requirement that has dubious value in its existence to target shrines of the enemy tether for.. some random reason that seems to be at most to incite conflict (which I'm -okay- with. Don't take my tone as chastising this part), and the decision to pick the Order that, while thematically correct, was facing a current underswing in membership as many of our personal heavy-hitters are either no longer logging in for various reasons, or log in very infrequently to handle business, but never really.. -play- the game anymore for longer than 10-15 minutes at a go (because people do have lives outside of the game, we can't fault 'em for it). So we've got a group of.. 6-ish Templar deciding to go around knocking over shrines of an Order who's pre-established RP is to be a pack of wild rabid warhounds sent out to cause pain and malice across the continent in a way that, if one asks the reasons -why-, you'd hear similar reasons to the Warlord's stuff. Instead of targetting.. well... The Warlord's Order is shadow-exclusive still, last I checked. Ya ain't hurting Duiranites by razing Warlord shrines, and you'll have anywhere from 6-8 Bamathian combatants fielding against you in fair combat. And I could reference Chakrasul's Order as being fairly strong too, albeit its presence not being a full straight up combat guild. It -did- win against Bamathian Order after all.
Respectfully, ya picked a weird target in my eyes, and the consequences are that the RP of the target and the whole thing is going to result in an inverse of the piling situation that's just... not going to be fun for most of us, I think. At least, not for me. I'll stick to the RP I've learned is part of the Order's culture, but I'm not gonna enjoy the path that was picked in response because it was the most logical choice.
Sorry if this sounds incoherent as crap, I admit, it's 5 am, and I've been awake since noon yesterday. I'm just... rambling off my feelings and thoughts for now.
In respect of the requirement to defile shrines, I'm fairly certain it is a Carnifex requirement in some capacity although maybe @Mjoll might be able to clarify?
Ultimately, whilst the situation is probably annoying for the Iosian members, nothing was taken that can't be put back in a couple of hours. If the end result has been that it's galvanised you as an organisation, given you new purpose and created RP for you all to plan your retaliation - isn't that somewhat of a good thing? I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows, but ultimately what is it you've lost and what is it you've gained?
The reasoning outlined above was the exact reasoning/logic given by Bamathis when he ordered his guys to take down Slyphian shrines (obviously revealed and discussed IG). Bene was irked IG as @Phoenecia suggested in her earlier post, but he still went out and did his job and everything was dealt with IG. The same when the Carni targeted his shrines.
Axius rightly points out that Iosyne is a PK orientated Order and yet they've not touched on (that I've seen) the most obvious form of punishment and retaliation available to them. Every single Knight, PKer or not, is carrying an open-PK aura for their next 24 hours of playtime. They all knew what they were getting into and accepted it as a consequence of what happens. This also plays hugely into their Order RP. They can only respond reactively and wait to be attacked. For individuals such as myself and one or two others, that's not too big a deal (although when you have the threat of imminent Mazzification lingering over you it always provides a certain amount of anxiety) - but for the noncoms, it will be literally terrifying. I'm not saying that to garner any sympathy, they knew exactly what they were getting in for, but in terms of the cost vs reward, I would argue it's very much in the favor of the offended Order. The loss of shrines is a bit of willpower/endurance use and time. The defilers have to face a very real loss of experience on each death and if they want to try and avoid that, a very real crimp on what they're able to do with their playtime.
This is just as applicable for the requirement (now that we've cleared the backlog) for the new Knights who may wish to pursue it going forward. The argument is that there is no retaliation available on the table but the reality is that the perpetrator paints a huge target on their backs. For what will probably be a good two or three days of playing they'll have to constantly look over their shoulder and be ready to fight.
I'm assuming the mechanic exists as it does for this reason. Otherwise shrines would not be able to be defiled outside of a Holy War. Perhaps this is a good time to get clarification on the matter from @Tiur / @Razmael.
The Carnifex have not targetted an order while I've been playing? I'm not sure when Bene is talking about.
I remember this because I distinctly recall Phoe going off on Cayn about it IC, and I had been enemying people to the order for defiling.
I'm more sad that they felt forced to - or that some leader lost their cool and forced the rest of the order to. It's clear that, of the six people Benedicto listed, only one is an actually competent/full-time PKer - and he surely wasn't the one that declared the holy war.
That one person is the only one interested in going around to gank the offending Templar for retaliation purposes. However: the non-coms will stay in their houses, havens, and cities until aura drops. The amount of satisfaction one might get from killing them is pretty minimal anyways, since their role in this was 'warm body'. I'd say that, if they do get ganked, you probably won't be selling them up the river with a chat about consequences. You'll go help them and you might bring some help. Suddenly we're back to square one: a team combat situation at a size/scale that's frankly boring and a level of strength that undeniably outclasses the Order.
I'm not going to crucify @Benedicto for doing what he did. At least he did something with global effect, something that started potential roleplay - that's something several people complaining at him in this thread cannot claim for themselves. They're using a conversation completely irrelevant to their character to vent their frustrations at him for other purposes. Using this chance for personal attacks is pretty low. That just obfuscates the conversation at hand: how the community should carry themselves when combat gets out of hand.
This entire thread seems born from the above paragraph. Phoenecia's post is primary example - not very productive and mostly just looking to take a swipe at a community member for petty reasons. Bulrok's post, when his character has no relation to Iosyne, is another one - indignant over the behavior of another player. It's like deja vu all over again when it comes to this stuff. This is a matter of opinion, as distaste implies taste, which is subjective. I have a lot to say on this, but what I will provide now is that willfully throwing the word toxic around doesn't make you a community specialist or anything. 'Some people are sore losers' would have been a far more accurate way to say this. If you think tether tribalism is something only admin can address, you are painfully mistaken. We are all in control of our actions. We aren't children. This statement reeks of giving up - or worse yet, absolving oneself of responsibility to be part of the solution because there's "nothing you can do". This is not a very good mindset for a city council member's player to have. Please do better. You can be both at once. The Sapience vs Albedos conflict is an existential one crucial to the narrative. Shadow vs Spirit is an existential/moral conflict crucial to driving PvP-related activity and the narrative. They are not mutually exclusive. They only feel that way because nobody's character is stupid enough to break the mold and get their city lynched by the other three. We all have one another at gunpoint about Albedi gods due to the Accords and that is a problem that would need to be solved IC. By players. Since, you know, we run the organizations.
Estella started trying to defile (I don't even know if she got a single shrine, based on how quickly the opposing order reacted) and got dunked on pretty hard for it. After some failed attempts, she started idling in the Carnifex guildhall and some players, including people not at all affiliated with the order whose shrines were being dropped, raided to kill her. She was, as is natural, defended by members of her guild and city. They were killed. The raid continued with some back and forth, and when we discovered the wormhole being used to infiltrate, we started canceling it. While we were doing so, the raiders were sucking people into Esterport and killing them without cause (they had no defile aura and were in their own guildhall after an attempted raid).
Estella continued to try (and fail) to defile after that series of events. If any Carnifex joined her, it was because of the raid on the guildhall and complete disregard for the rules they were shown during those raids.
I fully admit there may be more I didn't personally witness, but the chain of events that led to more people defiling seems pretty clear from my end.
The only systems that provide guard rails need some revisions.
I would argue that the fact that this conversation has been more or less productive and cordial is also evidence to this point. Although things could always be better.
I've always been pleasantly surprised by Aetolia's community. All the games have their good people and their bad people, but Aetolia as a whole will run bad actors off on their ownAnd by that, I mean that Aetolians will get together and have cogent discussions about behavior without the need for me to step in. For instance: I regularly find commands that do not have protection on them against FORCE abilities. Sometimes this could be a big deal. It never is. I often look up usage and find that no one has even tried, and if they did, it's bugged and people are warned off behavior by other players. Aetolians tend to understand that this is a game, and some things aren't fun for anyone. I fix the command, but I love that it's rarely a problem.
(Illuminai): Saltz says, "Moxie is just doing the Moxie thing to do, often misinterpreted."
(Tells): Sir Iames Gallant, the Executioner tells you, "The one Illuminai beyond prayer, I swear."
Valingar: "How could a daughter of me, the most noble man in the south, be so heartless?"
(Tells): Haven Locke, Illuminai Khimaira tells you, "Be that as it may, I've also seen the strength in you. You can take care of yourself."
----
With the possible exception of those who feel ICly obligated to participate but don't genuinely enjoy it OOCly, everyone involved was having a good time with this. Estella was asked repeated by us other carnis OOCly if she was being griefed, she insisted that she was not, but that she was having a blast at being chased off with zero success. The guild hall was invaded and only those of us who attacked/defended were targeted. Estella was the only one being attacked until we came to fend off the invasion of our guildhall.
And it was pretty hilarious, because I was somehow the "most competent carnifex combatant online" for awhile. Needless to say, the invaders got a good head-start on laying that wormhole groundwork
Being at the invasion from start to finish, it was a good time, handled well by the invaders. Naturally, there was salt on the darkie end, people misrepresented how it went down, etc. because people aren't infallible and they were the ones being attacked, but the invaders were not being unfair.
Estella went back to having a grand time trying to outrun Bene and co after, and I'm sure some other carnis went along with her to help in retaliation for the invasion.
------------
10:10, would happily be invaded again!
None of this is meant to construe the feelings of the administration, only my personal clarification of what occurred during that time.
I'm glad you posted, @Iesid, because there's clearly some misunderstandings here about what healthy conflict is, this situation in general, and I think if we talk this out it would benefit the community. I'm willing to engage you on it.
Look, I got love for Bene (you know I do, Bene
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Holy War is a terrible system, so I'm sad to see that Iosyne's Order took this route. No offense if the Creator of the system is still present on the staff, but it is fairly antiquated as far as conflict mechanisms go. It favors time and shrine density more than anything else whatsoever and it is a tedious thing to pack or unpack. Putting up shrines, etc is just a boring endeavor overall.
No conflict mechanism is going to be perfect. Literally none. It still obviously has the function of engaging the world at large to stir roleplay and passion about organizations on life support or as you put, ‘to global effect.’ It’s so impactful these kinds of debates happen on the forums, which we rarely use. So, you know, the function of that conflict obviously speaks for itself. So instead of thinking of it as just being “mean to Benedicto” why can’t we see the greater systemic ramifications within Aetolia at large? That seems to be the discontent here. The guild leader of the Templar guild, who shapes experiences for other players and helps shape conflict on a global scale in the game, a.) has a history of picking easy targets to beef up his reputation, b.) is not working through conflict when called out and instead blocking people while perpetuating the same problematic behaviors he’s been called out for which means behavior never gets fixed, and c.) still uses that entitlement he expects from shadow side to shape further political and conflict situations in further engagements. And we don’t have a way to work things out IC or OOC amongst ourselves without it becoming a niceness pressure cooker. Now we’re using this thread to do that.
Here’s how we carry ourselves: we use this thread to admit the reality of the situation, what we can do in the future to have healthy conflict, and what we can do to perpetuate healthy conflict. I agree with @Haven. If we have to define healthy conflict we can do that. But we stop the back biting and bitchiness on both sides, because frankly, it’s tiring, and we move on.
(Spinesreach): Xiuhcoatl says, "Oh man, grab the children-corn. This is gonna be good."
I have (at least) twice had force abilities used against me in pretty negative ways. Ways that drastically diminished my enjoyment of the game, and in one case mechanically blocked me for participating in a big event for a day or so. An event that I was arguably the main leader for Shadow.
The incident was cut and dry. I was forced to kick/attack an NPC, this got me enemied to an NPC group I was supposed to be allied with/helping, and that stopped me from participating/leading in the event for about a day, until the admin were forced to intervene so I could be mechanically unenemied from the NPC group. The person who forced the command had no defense. Literally just an "oops, my bad bro, my system made me do it". Which, why you would have "force kick x" in your system is questionable at best, and using it as a defense is pretty laughable.
I issued, as this happened immediately after some arguably bad behavior had occurred. In fact, I believe my issue specifically stated I'd probably let it slide if the main offender hadn't just done some prior rule breaking in regards to the event. I'll let one thing slide, but not repeated offenses.
Despite the fact that the offender pleaded guilty and said "I'll take any punishment because I know what I did is really bad", I was basically told it was no big deal. That my enjoyment and overall ability to play the game didn't matter. The player who forced the action was given a slap on the wrist. I argued that a slap on the wrist for misuse of force was a bad precedent to set, especially since the misuse of force seems to come up every so often, and as I mentioned above, was not the first time I had the force ability be used against me in a way that diminished my ability to play the game.
So to see the producer say that the misuse of FORCE abilities is "never" a big deal is pretty disheartening. I suppose it confirms what I had already thought/known. That as a player, either because of my history or because of the tether I play on (probably both), my ability to play or enjoy the game is not as important as others.
In the end, I suppose this wraps back around to the main concern of this thread. It's not that conflict creation is bad, it's the response to conflict creation is bad. Bulrok's concern is that, when he or his tether create conflict, the reaction is extremely negative. That he or his tether is mean or a bully for creating the conflict they create. That they should feel bad for their actions and what they do to enjoy the game.
But when something equivalent occurs for the other tether, it's brushed off as totally fine and people are overreacting and that maybe everyone 'should take a step back' and here's some anecdotal evidence that what our side does is ok but yours isn't. This point actually ties into a previous time I was forced to kick an NPC that I reference above, which also included forum salt much like this. I'll go into detail if necessary, but I'm still playing coy about who my last character was and I'm waiting to see how long it takes before it's given away.
And thanks, @Tiur, for setting the record straight.