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Announce post #3136: Question Thread
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I have two takes on Tiur's answer to story events, re: being unable to do fires, racial tension, etc. etc.
1) It seems short-sighted, letting a few especially contentious examples paint the playerbase as a bunch of softies. Two spring to mind: the race riots in Enorian, while not the most exciting subject, weren't reviled because of the premise, but because they were one of the worst examples of railroading Enorian's attempt to do the right thing, producing a shitty outcome no matter what they did. Then there's Bamathis. I'm not as stridently against him as some of my peers, but I have to concede they have a point. He was several elements that, in isolation, aren't too bad (no one minds Abhorash being a straight-up Hitler Youth posterboy because he's evil in an interesting and unique way), but put all together made for a very unfortunate juxtaposition. These are two extreme examples and i think letting things like this limit your creativity is a mistake.
Normally stories are a great way to explore topics. I just want to avoid hitting something that has too much emotion attached to it to do well. Currently, with the state of the world, a lot of story tools hit too close to home. We've got stuff, though! I'm excited.
Blaaaarg. Last year I was told that the Big Bad is too often a giant Cthulhu we all have to band together to fight! But I get you. There are more facets to Gothic Fantasy I can explore, it just requires reaching for story tools I'm not too sure of how to engage the game with. We all love Hill House, but how to sneak it in....
I realize I skipped Elene's stuff.
So, now I've stopped playing alltogether, cause that person simply took all the fun out of the game for me. And I know she's been doing it to numerous other people. I'm trying hard not to be upset with all the credits that unicorn cost me through all those retirements, but I will never forgive the game being taken away from me. And I have to put some of that blame on the Admins. You all KNOW what is going on. You KNOW who I am talking about and what she's been doing to so many people and you LET her do it. WHY?! I was told to report if she did anything even after I distanced myself and created new characters. When she still harassed my friends, speculating that certain new characters were me and talking unicorn, I told you, @Tiur, and STILL NOTHING HAPPENED!
I miss the game so, so much. I miss the tedious bashing and having fun rping with people. I miss the friends I had, because I don't dare to talk to them anymore. It hurts. It hurts cause I can't play this game anymore. Because you don't stop abuse when proof is shoved in your face.
That is the difficulty with behavior. Experiences are subjective and colored by subjectivity. To use a hyperbole, we laugh and stare and shake our heads at the antics of those dubbed "Karens" in social media, but from their perspective they are fully justified in their response. Again, that is hyperbole and it is commonly accepted that, based on the actions observed by a large number of people, that their responses are incorrect to the situation.
The Administration, I imagine, have to be extra careful how, what, and where they use their "ban hammer" on players, which is why we often see punishments that become more severe over time that eventually lead to a ban. That is the nature of mediation and governance when it comes to two parties that disagree on the behavior of one, even more when one of the two parties feels that the behavior of one should limit their access to a service. Before you can rightly justify to your company, to your boss(es), and sometimes to yourself, that a person is deserving a ban from the services provided by your company, especially for behavior, your case often has to be airtight and agreed upon by more than one party, as is the case with "Karens".
Did the Admin drop the ball? Possibly. Did the person in question do things that deserve punishments leading up to and including a ban? Possibly. But without knowing both sides, the interactions, the behaviors from all parties, the actions of all parties, etcetera, it is difficult for me (as Devil's Advocate) to state that the Admin have a greater responsibility to ensure a ban is done when x player says it is justified. It is terrible anyone has to go through a situation that left you feeling as you did when attempting to enjoy the game @Sessizlik. I hope, in the future, you will find a way to enjoy the game, and the community, again.
Edit: To clarify in case there is any misunderstanding: I do not defend, justify, or condone any behavior that can be classified as harassment or harmful to another player's experience. This post is, instead, an attempt to help provide insight into the position @Tiur or any other admin may be in when faced with a situation or situations that ask for or demand that a player be banned for their behavior toward another.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to actually answer all the questions? I thought that was the purpose of clearing the air before moving on. Leaving contentious questions, when asked politely, unanswered will not improve the situation. People will simply continue to wonder and question the Administration's handling of things even if you pass on the torch of customer service to someone else.
Edited to add:
Why are Minipets considered such a high reward as to compete with 20-30 credits rewards during promotions when they can't be traded in for that much? Not everyone is that interested in them.
Isn't this just minor foci?
Although, I'm kinda hoping the third production skill might be PVP focused. That could be fun. Since this is the question thread, I'll go ahead and ask: what is the third production skill? Please?
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
I've heard the argument that "not everything should be black and white" and I get that, but we have a significant portion of the playerbase that aren't playing by those rules, and just want to be told what to do, apparently - and are willing to do things like remove people/punish people for nuance. It makes for an extremely frustrating experience.
This is going on three months since a message was sent. Why couldn't you or Keroc just have checked the messages on Nalus when you were going through my original question and shot me an answer? I basically feel like I'm being ignored, at this point.
Like why do they rarely ever smite, why do they not mess around with people more and be mischievous? They could easily kidnap, torture, threaten, mess with them in a multitude of ways through being creative with spells or other sort of things. I only ever see, if rarely, a divine will smite a mortal but then they can just simply revive with little consequence. I get it the mortal in question would have to go along with most of these things and it may not be for everyone, but why not? Is there too much potential for abuse? They are gods and goddess afterall and should be able to do whatever they wish, even if for their own amusement at times. They would only have to worry if a band of mortals got together to destroy their shrines which could maybe start a holy war, or if favoured enough their own patron might step in on their behalf. Or maybe not, maybe they find it amusing too. But I'm sure in most cases it would be proven acceptable unless the god/goddess themselves were the ones picking the fight without any reason.
Just curious as to why this is. It is RP afterall.
edit: Also that goes for people whom are in their divine order. Should they if not so desire it be able to ask them to climb to the highest mountain and yell something crazy and then jump off if it gets them favour or grants them a hearing to get a favour, quid pro quo? I mean that example is kind of absurd, but again they are a Divine. The mortal could always refuse and take the long/difficult route too. Or again does that open too much up for abuse?
Of course there are players that are open to this sort of RP where their characters are put into compromising positions. And we do do it in these instances where we know that it'd be well received and enjoyable for both parties. At the end of the day, that's the most important thing - believe me, it'd be incredibly vindictive/satisfying for a Divine to really stick it to someone who is blaspheming or whatnot, but if it's not fun for the player AND the Divine, then it's ultimately a net negative.
That's why it's usually a zap and done - gets the message across that such won't be tolerated, keeps up the immersion that the Divine are several billion power levels above you, but ultimately doesn't create a longstanding negative reaction for/from the player either. When those reactions happen it's actually a very, very bad cascading effect: obviously the players are mad but the volunteer is also flamed, the rest of the Pools is unhappy about their peer being slammed, the admins start getting angry emails, and so on. It breeds a lot of toxicity all around on all sides. I've personally seen this time and time again for what are even the most innocuous punishments levied ICly by Divine. I've also been guilty of bad reactions myself when I was a player - it can be hard to find fun in situations that are negative for your character and not everyone can do it.
It's been alluded to in other threads that player flame is one of the biggest reasons that volunteers become disillusioned and ultimately quit. Personalized punishments are a huge avenue for this kind of flaming to get started. That's why you're much more likely to get the kiddie gloves if the volunteer isn't familiar with you/isn't fully confident that you're open to it; otherwise it's more likely than not that the whole thing is going to blow up in a very bad way.
It's not an allowance thing. Obviously we aren't allowed to outright grief you but there's nothing restricting more raw/compromising situations. It just ends badly on an OOC level more often than not.
Again, disclaimer that this is just my own experience from seeing/being involved in this situation from both the player and Pools sides.
edit: Out of curiousity, how can you even approach someone in the pools and see if they are okay with it and tell them you are okay with it too? I mean are they not allowed to communicate in any sort of OOC way, so how do you even establish that? Considering there is a disconnect between adventurers and above...how is that even possible? How do you go about it? It would be nice to know how I can go about this so I do not step on any toes in the future, or should I just play it super safe and air on the side of caution and just never bother with anything cause it could be taken the wrong way, or anything else for that matter?
On a broader level though, you should never expect Divine attention. It's just not consistent due to the simple fact that the people behind those interactions are human volunteers. Even if you're open to whatever comes, even if it'd promise to be a great situation all around it just...might not happen for various reasons. Maybe work is crazy that day/week/month. Maybe time is really limited and we need to spend what time we do get on Aetolia resolving ongoing threads instead of starting new ones. Maybe there are critical projects going on behind the scenes. Maybe the person just isn't feeling up to something big and is just around for some casual/light stuff. Maybe they're putting RP/godrole on the backburner to work on a coding project. Maybe they've taken a break from Aetolia. It goes on and on for any infinite number of reasons why interactions might not happen.
We're interacting with tons of people with tons of storylines going on all at the same time. Unfortunately sometimes things fall by the wayside and don't come to fruition. This is a hobby for most of the Pools so if the volunteer doesn't feel like picking up whatever is being laid down, please don't take it personally. It might be for any infinite number of reasons, as mentioned above, and is rarely ever about you personally as a player. Of course if you do prove to be abrasive/unpleasant to deal with OOCly then that affects people's willingness to engage but for the most part that's not really the reason why you might get ignored or brushed off.
All in all, remember that there's another person playing for fun behind the god roles. While yes it'd be amazing for us to be able to devote hours nurturing interactions and storylines with everyone, in reality it's just not possible. So go ahead and try to start things, enjoy the interactions when they come, but don't expect something to happen. And try not to get discouraged or bitter when it doesn't happen, again it's usually not for any personal reason against you.
Aetolia, and IRE as a whole, are unique in some regards in that we have a collection of volunteers who fairly quickly go from somewhat 'menial' work (building, designing, small progs, assisting in smaller events), to being responsible for continuing the storylines and role of a God that has more years of backstory than a helping of us have played. It is demanding, in and of itself, knowing who, what, and how you are supposed to play, all while knowing that the 'menial' work is not being backfilled by new volunteers immediately, as can happen with a lot of volunteer organizations.
We are, as a whole, passionate about Aetolia, and I know the Pools are no less. That is why they do what they do, that is why -any- volunteer (apart from fringe examples and community service) do what they do; they love the project which they have chosen to give their time. While in many ways the Pools do exist to help facilitate our stories as players, the world story, and the mechanical bits we, as players, cannot alter due to coded limitations, they are still volunteers at the end of the day.
When I ran some orgs forever ago in Imperian, I feel I got some of the best advice I could when it came to interacting with volunteers from the then-Thanatos, also known as Seki (rest in peace). We were working on a small RP arc around my character but also involving guild and city, and I asked her as we were going over the bits and pieces and she had already created so much, if there was anything I could do to help her out on a player level. She told me (paraphrased), "Be patient, be engaged when given the opportunity, and have fun. I love doing this because I love watching you guys have fun. I have fun when you're having fun." So yeah. I know we won't find EVERY event fun and volunteers can and will miss the mark or confuse us or do/say something with an NPC or story that doesn't fit in the mold for the story before or some event that happened between you and one other player and that NPC exactly 5.7 years ago.
Try to have fun, and if you're not sure if you're having fun or something doesn't make sense, don't be afraid to send an OOC message sometimes that is like, "Hey, I've had experience with this NPC/story/whatever, anything I can do to help with you or the proceedings?" You may get ignored, but that's okay. Volunteers miss messages, get busy, or not really sure if/how they can include us beyond the ways they are. Best thing to remember is we all tend to have fun when we're trying to create fun for other people more than ourselves.
TL;DR: Be nice to each other when we can, be empathetic, and try to remember that you tend to get more when you give than when you take.
Again, personally, I have zapped (or creatively zapped) players, or done some creative (and usually very brief) punishments, after watching very carefully to make sure that they would be well-received. We want you guys to have fun. Something that is funny to us but would upset you all isn't actually funny to us and would never happen to you knowingly.
If you want divine RP - reach out! We may not know you're seeking it! We enjoy a wide variety of interactions that you may literally never know about if you don't simply start. I absolutely won't reach out to players who show no interest in the character I play without a very good reason. Our temples are usually public for a reason, and we absolutely can hear you SAY or EMOTE with our names (as long as we're online/paying attention/available) and consider whether we should be reacting.
If in doubt, please refer to the Forum Rules! If in more doubt, please reach out to a moderator.
Act as you would wish to be treated.
"It costs you nothing to assume that we are acting in good faith."
Vharen said:
Pardon the frankness here, but it feels like communication and transparency is still an issue because of that, and that there is a reluctance to truly resolve problems that need to be resolved in order to move on. Having been in a discussion regarding one of those unanswered questions with you, @Tiur, I am aware that it is a minefield. However, waiting it out is clearly not going to make it go away. Is this how you wish to leave it?