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You know how people used to criticize the dur Nayas for being distant and unapproachable? That's kind of how Mulariads are regarded now. Distant, unapproachable, and if you voice dissent, your days are severely numbered.

No idea about these dur Naya people, but Iesid has been incredibly far from 'distant' and 'unapproachable' ever since I started playing. Quite the opposite of that, in fact. Don't believe Rhine has been, either.

Speaking from experience in other IRE games, though, people generally feel that way when their tantrums aren't listened to. Older players shouldn't be bowed to and respected simply because they're an older player. Especially if they haven't had any sort of presence for years. Doubly so if things have changed in that time, and they're incapable of adapting to change.

If you want to leave a faction because you dislike things they did, then leave? You don't have to start berating leaders just because they acted in a way that you personally didn't want them to. Alternatively, contest their position if there's supposedly a lot who don't agree with it as you seem to imply.

I'm not going to name names or point fingers, but Aetolia is really toxic if you're not part of the "important and famous" cliques. If you don't know the right people, you're worthless. And they will not be afraid to let you know that. I have seen it in different ways with different groups since I started playing back in 2006-ish.
I've had characters who have been shunned because they don't fit in with the cliques and enemied to organizations for unicorns reasons that I am pretty sure is because of miscommunication because english is not my first language. I've also seen others be shunned both icly and oocly because of who they are.
And I don't mean this happened way way back. I heard it a couple of weeks ago. I heard someone YESTERDAY being afraid of airing their opinions to the community because they knew people wouldn't listen to them.
So yes, Aetolia is toxic. However, I don't think anything can be done about that. People won't change and can always blame their behaviour, at least icly, on "rp". If there is hard proof of metagaming, that can be reported, but I have a feeling not much will be done because they are "highly respected and loved characters" and we can absolutely not piss them off by putting our foot down and shrubbing them for a few weeks cause all the other "highly respected and loved characters" will be upset about it.

As a small side note, Oonagh, no idea who you used to play, but if you see me around, hit me up for some rp if you want! If I'm not busy, I'm always interested!

...and the fact that emotes once existed that teased and ridiculed other players. All of this left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth when I went up there, because some of those emotes even mocked me as a player. Combined with a few other behaviors and actions, my log ins as a Celani got fewer and fewer, and eventually I stepped down altogether. Now, Tiur has taken actions on a lot of these -- apparently those emotes no longer exist and will never exist again according to folks.

The biggest question I come away with from this whole thread is "what the hell is an emote that mocks a player?".

I'm gonna be frank with you all and re-iterate this point: Aetolia has one of the most toxic playerbases that I have ever seen in any gaming community.

Strong disagree. I think it's pretty dramatic to claim that Aetolia is that bad. It's got its share of unpleasant people but there really aren't that many of them and the behavior isn't anything that I think is particularly noteworthy.

Hi, everyone!

You might have noticed I started playing again over the last few months, but truth be told, I've been playing for a while and I think I have a few things to say on this, but before I continue, I should make one simple admission: I've been playing Aetolia again for a few years now. Who it is doesn't matter, but for illustrative purposes, I will go on to point out that I am not really active in any of our OOC communities. The players I speak to OOCly are ones I've known for years and we rarely talk about what is happening ICly.

Across two different characters over recent times, I can happily say that my exposure to OOC has been kept to a minimum. If people ask me to add them to Discord, I'm always happy to chill out, but I can safely say that as far as my Discord contacts goes, it numbers maybe five Aetolians, most of whom don't know who the others are.

Now this being said, despite having no active participation in any of the larger OOC communities, I don't feel like I have had any negative pushback because of it in-game. Admittedly, this could be because of who my character is in some sense, but I will simply remind you that I have two characters, one of which has none of the history that Kylan does.

What I am saying in all of this is that I see positives in this community. As someone who is largely outside of the community OOCly, I don't feel that my opportunities have been limited because of it - on either character. Do I have my suspicions that some OOC stuff goes on? Absolutely, especially where my other character is concerned. I am honestly not sure how to deal with it other than keep playing my guy and what happens happens.

In regards to the admin, I have full confidence in Keroc, Razmael and Tiur. However, I will note some agreement in regards to volunteers going back to previous characters. In my opinion, you can't really go from being one of the men behind the curtain to the other side. While you are ultimately volunteers, you see a lot of priveleged information. Things that are upcoming and see how things are happening often as a third party. I find it hard to reconcile the idea of a volunteer having that sort of knowledge (NDA or not) and going back to a character that was previously very influential and likely still has influence.

As for the wider community.. what can I say? Have fun, but don't forget that we genuinely get new players. I try my best to interact with new characters across the board and try to introduce them to the communities my characters love. I am still sore that I was unable to convince @Martinaux to remain in Enorian! Since I took up being Ambassador for Enorian again, I've had so much fun interacting with new characters - are they alts? Probably a few are, but I don't care who they are, I can just assume that they are here to have fun.

Finally, @Oonagh I remember your previous on a past thread of mine. That message stuck with me and I am sorry you feel in this position. It sounds like you are letting OOC impact your enjoyment of the game and.. I can't say I blame you for that. I would suggest looking to distance yourself from it - I know, they are your friends. Perhaps set some boundaries. You might be happier for it. There is something to be said for blissful ignorance at times.

I do occasionally lurk the forums, but this certainly caught my attention.

See you all soon.

I've got some things to say about this topic, some of it directed at you @Oonagh, but some of it directed at both the administration and the playerbase at large. I decided to switch from Nisavi account to my Seir account to make this post, because frankly I have a lot of opinions on this subject. I'm trying to approach this subject without coming off as heated, but let's start from square one:

Hi! I'm Justin. I'm the old player behind Seir, and the newer character of Nisavi. I run the Free City of Delve Discord server, which has always had the goal of uniting both tethers in hobbies ASIDE from Aetolia, in order to mend a lot of the gaps and misconceived notions that we can have about one another while playing the game. Speaking of playing the game, I've been playing IRE for about 20-21 years, since I was ten years old. Yep. I've seen a good deal. Where am I going with this, you might ask? I'm starting from the platform from where I can empathize with Oonagh here. Like Oonagh, I've gone through my fair share of both "popular" and "unpopular" characters. In my younger years, I played characters in Imperian and Achaea that were so contentious and volatile that I don't even name who they are to this day because I'd rather let sleeping dogs lie -- and like Oonagh, I know how long the memories of the playerbase can be, and how swiftly preconceived notions can fester within such a small community. Even as Seir, there was a point in time where it felt like everyone was against me, even people who I had never spoken to ever before were saying nasty and terrible things about me as a person when I had never interacted with them either in character or out of character. I was accused of being a stalker, a terrible person, biased, and pretty much every negative association you can think of by people who did not even know who I was. It took a break from the game, as well as a number of private, individual conversations with folks for them to realize that I was not as bad as I was painted to be, but I will not lie if I said that I still don't harbour some small amount of resentment towards the people who treated me like that back then. In any event, on the subject of toxic communities, Aetolia is no exception to this rule, and if I'm frank, probably suffers from the largest and most egregious examples of metagame, elitism, and generally toxic behavior that I've experienced in my entire time of IRE. Some of you may disagree, some of you may say that I don't know what I'm talking about. Let me clarify by stating that this is my subjective opinion. However, I maintain this stance due to multiple instances of "IRC Mafia"-ish behavior in multiple organizations, Discord metagaming, and one of the more recent examples that lead to a long time player leaving the organization that she had been a part of since character creation because the lines between IC and OOC got blurred.

With that said, this brings me to the part of the post where I address you, @Oonagh. Let me first start this post by saying that I think you're a good person. I have nothing against you on an individual level, and I can recall the time where even I've ranted to you about the actions taken by some players. I think you're a stand-up guy when you don't let anger get the better of you, and I know just how funny and jovial you're capable of being. I kept your secret when you accidentally let it slip to me who your previous characters were, and I did not begrudge you in the slightest for keeping it a secret. With all that said, I do know how angry and vindictive you can be at times. One of the earliest interactions I ever had with you was as Seir when I killed an Atabahi loyal for in character reasons and you proceeded to chew me out for it in less than colorful ways as your previous character. Still, I shrugged it off and never held it against you, because frankly I had dealt with it so much at that point from other players that I had become numb. Later on, you came to apologize to me when you realized that I wasn't a terrible person, that I wasn't doing what I was doing to be an ass, and you and I came to be pretty good friends. As your friend, I am going to tell you that I am disappointed in one of the most recent screenshots that I saw of something you had said regarding another player. It was a very metagame statement targeted against a specific player, and the fact that it was said has generated a large cloud of uncertainty, doubt, and ill will between the affected player and a few other unknowing and knowing parties that were involved. The end result of what you said in an OOC medium was a perception of targeted harassment that caused this player to leave an organization that they had never left since their character was 18. It is one of the reasons why I have said multiple times elsewhere that Duiran's defense of Bamathis goes beyond nonsensical and treads very deeply into OOC territory. However, that is a separate topic for discussion for another day. In any event, Oonagh, I want you to know that your apology isn't lost and I hear it. I truly do. I know how it feels to be treated differently because rude, disdainful individuals have infected others with preconceived notions when they don't often even know you as a person or have even taken the time to get to know you. I know how it feels to lash out in a self-destructive spiral that only makes the situation worse because you don't know who to trust and you just want the playerbase to accept you as who you are rather than who you were. I know how it feels to feel isolated and alone in this small community of a game that you love, but others would sooner see you quit than see you happy. I know how all of those feel, but I am still disappointed in you because I know you are a good person. I know that you have a creative mind who has done a lot of good as Oonagh for the Ascendril and establishing some lore for a seldomly ever seen race. I want you to know, though, that I am here for you as your friend. If you, or anyone else reading this, feels like no one will ever give you a chance and listen to you: I will. I have been an able and willing ear for any who feels that they have been mistreated or feels isolated. Make no mistake, I will always be honest with you, but I will be there to support any one of you if you need it.

With that said, I'd like to move on to address the administration. Let me state that I agree with the assessment of Ehtias, Oonagh, and a few others. I do feel the current Pools, of whom I know many that are up there right now, has become a revolving door of individuals who have historically been able to simply ask and be brought back up into their Celani characters. Let me also state though that I have nothing against these players. I know full well that, as players, some of them have said some rather nasty or negative things about me, but I have nothing against them as people. I also do feel that while the Pools share a certain sense of camaraderie after knowing each other for so long (bordering on decades for a few), it has fostered a sense of "cliqueishness" up there. In fact, one of the first questions I was asked when being interviewed to go up there was, "Are you sure you'd be able to fit in because we have a certain kind of atmosphere up here" or something along those lines. The Pools have had a history of elitist behaviour, and I know full well of this by the complaints of some former administrators who were chased off by said toxic behavior and the fact that emotes once existed that teased and ridiculed other players. All of this left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth when I went up there, because some of those emotes even mocked me as a player. Combined with a few other behaviors and actions, my log ins as a Celani got fewer and fewer, and eventually I stepped down altogether. Now, Tiur has taken actions on a lot of these -- apparently those emotes no longer exist and will never exist again according to folks. I also want to make it clear that people like Tiur, Razmael, and Keroc love this game and the people in it. Even if it was just for a brief time, I've seen their passion and excitement for a lot of the stuff that they do, or try to do, and I'm usually the first ones in their defense when they're accused of bias, not listening to the playerbase, or what have you. Their enthusiasm is truly infectious, but I can understand how said enthusiasm can get sorely dampened when people reject the projects that you've put your heart into, or who make unknowing, unthinking complaints... Which then brings me to my last subject to address: the playerbase.

I'm gonna be frank with you all and re-iterate this point: Aetolia has one of the most toxic playerbases that I have ever seen in any gaming community. The sheer amount of petty bullshit, snide comments, mockery, insults, vitriol, metagaming, harassment, and all of that other assorted nonsense is enough to make a sociopath blush. I have watched IRC communities dictate and plan things that should be handled in-game, and coordinate horse shit upon people who made the mistake of not "fitting in". I've watched Discord communities routinely split and lambast one another for being on different tethers, or having different opinions. I've watched players routinely spit at admins with accusations of bias, insults, and what have you because they downgraded a skill for a class, buffed an opposing class, refused to nerf a class, taking too long on issues, taking too long on responding to e-mails in the midst of a pandemic, and so forth. This is a game. A game that is largely fueled by the enthusiasm and good will of volunteers, and a paid staff that don't get paid nearly enough with all the vitriol they routinely get thrown their way. Don't get me wrong, I rant too -- I have ranted about players, I have complained about the administration, I have been in a clique and complained about cliques, I have metagamed in the past, I have been a troll of a PKer, and I have been biased in classread reports. I am a part of this community and I've been as much of a negative element as I've tried to be a positive, but I admit what my shortcomings are and I try to be a better person, mature, and grow from them. The key thing that I want you guys to take away from this is to take a step back, breathe, and catch yourself before you say vicious things about other players, to include the administration, and ignore the petty bullshit and just play the game. If the petty bullshit is overwhelming, take a step back and just go do something else for a bit. I fully understand that this post will absolutely be contentious. I understand that it may very well be removed as well, but I've said what needs to be said on this subject. I hope those of you who actually took the time to read this mammoth wall of text takes something positive away from it.