Best Of

Most of my experience with guilds has involved headache and boredom. Recently with the Sentinels I got some positive interactions with the guildmembers, though not exactly related to the guild. Even though the interactions have seldom been about the guild, or related to a guild topic/function, they were with mostly guild members and I think that without a mutual membership to setup or clear those first barriers of trust, they wouldn't have happened at all. Hearing the town meeting, I think that guilds going forward do need to be more about that social interaction and less about drilling mechanics and path advancement and requirements for this and that rank or reward. On the point Faerah made about homogeny, I agree. I've just experienced a lot of "You don't fit our mold and we won't give you a chance or try to teach you how to fit," barriers. While I don't expect regular members to give a chance or try to mold new members (of all experiences), guild leadership should be putting aside their bias and doing this to keep the lifeblood of their organization thriving.

Being apart of the guild should be enough. No ranks or paths or tasks aside from whatever the current goal of the guild. Solo busywork is no longer needed in the grand scheme of Aetolian conflicts as it's almost rarely completed by anyone, save the example with Carnifex where their progression takes you through the guildranks (Without ranks, the bestowing of titles, armor, or other items would be about the same thing). Not to say that a guild can't have a mission/task/standing order board or system in place to give busywork or activity, but the rewards should be actual rewards (armor, credits, gold, liquor, awards). Being able to say, 'I'm a Duiran Sentinel,' should open up a whole network of people for me to roleplay at or conduct activities with in the larger Aetolian design (Foci battles, vortex, Albedi god crsis, etc).

Likewise, I think being a guildleader for a long period of time should not be a proud statement. It means in most cases that the guild has stagnated to the point where no one strives for the positions of leadership or just can't. I've witnessed this as leaders being able to get away with the bare minimum of upkeep due to the remaining members content to find roleplay elsewhere or the leaders being unable to foster the activity despite trying their hardest (due to lack of world event or conflict motivating them). There should never be entire real life months in between posts to the newsboards in a guild. I'm not blaming every long-standing GM, because a lot of the time they're the only ones holding a guild up. If I had to blame someone, I'm blaming admin for not stepping in to stimulate activity. But again, I know it isn't easy and admin are people just the same as the GMs and memebrs of the guild.

Back to my experiences, I was kicked out of a guild because they assumed my character was practicing necromancy (despite that being impossible due to tether), which was a good opportunity for roleplay from all parties. However, it ended up being that I was told to 'stop it' within a few days and when I didn't report back a 'I've stopped' message or post, I was just outguilded as the easy and lazy solution. It never even occurred to me to issue about it, because what would they do? Put me back into a guild of people who don't care about me or roleplay or socializing? It was extremely demoralizing. I hear from people they're still doing it to others. If I hadn't gotten lucky with the Sentinels, which probably happened because of all the god activity, I'd of stopped playing.

Edit: to clarify about the necromancy thing, my character's RP involved collecting the dead to 'Repair' her body. Something she had been doing during her time in Bloodloch and the many years into being a light side member. I was outguilded without anyone talking to me first, meaning they had no idea whether I'd stopped or not. Because it didn't matter to them.

I put in the work to get good at different aspects of the game, and I am able to play the character the way I do because of said work. If someone wants to RP as being some mighty paragon of the Light or deadly Shadow Warrior and then gets irritated when they can't PK to back it up, that's their own fault for making the choice.

Don't demand that PK events be tailored to a group of players that it's not meant to entertain. Crafting, politics, etc. are all perfectly valid outlets, but let's be real here. Big events (and PK events as an extension) are the backbone of the game that keep it interesting. PK and hunting events are the cake, politics are the icing that holds the layers together and gives flavor, and crafting is the creative decorating that makes it pop.

Without PK events, we're left with a big mess of icing and those little hard sugar balls that crack your teeth if you bite into them without knowing they're there. Or we're left playing dress up with Barbie dolls and making up plots to our own Aetolian soap operas.

Comparing crafting competitions that hardly ever have any effect on the lore to events like the Orrery that involves Abhorash, the War of Night and other factors, just as Three Widows did with the Atav, influence from Albedi Gods, and interaction with the many villages around the area, is not really an argument against what I posted here. If you think the two are the same thing, there's nothing I can do. You're still calling this a PK event despite the admin's measures to include other people. PK involves a good degree of coding knowledge, time, and plenty other things lots of players don't have and shouldn't be required to have to be involved in the game's lore.

And trying to say that any noncom wanting to just do their part to help their city(just as they can with ylem with mines and, in a lot of cases, minor foci) is trying to RP some mighty paragon that can't back it up is also untrue, and not really matching what actually happens in game. Nobody is stopping the PK from happening, it still happened. It happened a LOT, during the few hours we were there. I spent all of yesterday doing nothing but organizing groups, pking within my group, and calling more people to come and do MORE PK.

Asking that events that largely affect the lore and stories of Aetolia only cater to people who are willing to PK is excluding a large portion of the playerbase. It's fine if YOU feel the game is made up of PK and hunting, and the rest is decorative, but that is just your view, and the game is open to more, and in order for it to grow, they can accomodate more. What this event did was not stopping the PK, the rules in place didn't keep it from happening, it just allowed more people to participate.

Most of the people I play with play this game for the RP aspect, some of them play it for the crafting aspect, those are also valid views and ways to play the game. The point is, though, that these people do not necessarily expect others to do what they do.

I'd like to add that the Three Widows event's perception is only that way on players who were in Spinesreach/Bloodloch during the event. There was an attempt at a truce, it fell apart very quickly and I know, to this day, a bunch of noncom players who wanted to participate but simply couldn't, would walk in and be immediately jumped, caused a lot of frustration and stress. When you add the option to PK all gatherers, you effectively remove the option for noncoms to participate in at least one side. The option to PK people holding globes that were tethered opposite to them would work perfectly to ensure noncoms could still participate, and those wanting to risk disrupting the game and getting in the way would be subject to attacks. Could be as simple as adding an aura if you pick up a globe that isn't the one for your side.

I also agree with it being open only some hours during the day, enough that it covers multiple timezones, and still allows time for people to log off and rest and not feel guilty(something I also hear often from other players). PK is difficult, and requires a number of things to be able to be done with any efficiency. I particularly loved the inclusion of noncoms in this event, and I know for a fact many of the players in the guild and city I am part of feel the same way.

Saying this event is a PK event is ignoring the explicit rules the admin laid out. There's a reason only a certain area of the event is open-pk, and a reason to them explicitly saying globe-holders are not open-pk - so others can participate. Same way there's a reason there have been so many changes to globe-holding and such, so there is no stalemate while a side holds the globes outside a PK zone, and they are still accessible and the game can go on.

Calling this an "easy mode" means disregarding how other people play it - people who craft, who just rp, who play in politics, who just bash. Those players are valuable too, keeping them included is a good way to ensure Aetolia grows. We don't force people to craft, we don't force them to RP or get involved in politics, and these people still get involved in events, the same should be said for people who don't want to PK.

I think the problem with it being "this IS a pk event" and not having a way for noncoms to contribute is that it's not taking into account newbies and stuff. Like, my intro to pk events was being a noncom with something for me to do to help the pkers. I don't think there's any harm in trying to make sure noncoms can contribute in a way that won't get them knocked all the way back down to level one, because we know BOTH SIDES would cheese the shit out of anyone carrying a globe of any kind if that were the case.

And considering most events that include rp usually include a combat part as well, that argument doesn't really hold. Skythrone had both, and we saw there how impossible it was for noncoms to get involved. I don't think there's any harm in letting noncoms introduce themselves in a safer way.

I think it would be good to let anyone holding an opposing sides globe to be open pk, no matter where. It makes it a lot harder to just hoard them all and play keep away, or I mean hey, if you're looking for combat it's a perfect way to get yourself some enemies to fight!