Best Of

I'm not sure whether or not this is the appropriate place for this, but w/e:

There's still nothing happening, like, on a world-view level. There's no storylines out there outside of the ones you make for yourself. That's not a bad thing, creating a story on your own/with friends can be some of the most rewarding times you can have in Aetolia, but that can't be -all- there is out there. These days, it feels like there's a shortage of those people that play Aetolia for the -story-, that play for the roleplay - or they're simply just less invested. This isn't intended to be a blanket statement for every organization, but it seems to me that this leaves openings for those people that define their entire IRL personality around their Aetolian characters. That are -too- invested in the character itself because they're just addicted to the game. They don't know how to lose. I was absolutely one of those people once upon a time, and I think the majority of us know what it looks like.

TL;DR: Less people that play this roleplay game for the roleplay creates a void in which people that sink their entire persona into their Aetolian characters become the majority. This fosters the energy that @Haven mentioned, in which people are all trying to 'win the game', rather than 'play the game'.

I think people who are equating murdering undead with murdering the living are missing the point.

Just @Mephistoles. I'm the one making the argument. I'm not missing the point, I just disagree. This fails to address why or how they are different and just asserts that I don't get it. Whatever there is to get.

Despite how much we all love our moral greyness, the simple fact is that Aetolia doesn't exist in a vacuum. Instead, it is a game played by players who are exposed to cultural tropes all the time, whether that is through other media, or simply through our every day lives. After all, the whole reason we have this thread is because Tiur felt the need to clarify why the motifs that many people saw (and I am saying this not even being one of them!) in Bamathis were not intended to be interpreted that way. As a result, moral greyness is ultimately sidelined because the dominant traits that make up the two sides very much align with the dualities of "good" and "evil" that are so common elsewhere.

Tiur's post is motivated by finances and public image. I assert that viewing Bamathis's genocide against Albedi as different than Enorian's genocide against the undead is irrational. Regardless of whether or not I'm correct in this, it's rational and good business on Tiur's part to manage the optics.

It is absolutely no coincidence that in Spirit we have many motifs that are usually assigned to "good" characters while we see Shadow possessing many motifs that would be used for "bad" char acters. Light vs shadow, chivalry vs For example, light and darkness are dualities. Many of these things are likely holdovers from a bygone era when these lines were even more distinct. Some may be less pronounced than others, but they are still all around in the game.

This is a total misunderstanding of spirit and shadow. If you want to put it in the most black and white terms possible shadow are devil worshipers and spirit is the spanish inquisition. You still want to purge (genocide) the undead. Just say what it is, don't have to sugar coat it. It's okay that spirit side is fine with genocide.

Sure, tropes may be subverted and players are free to interpret what these things actually mean to them and how their characters should act, but that the reason they are tropes in the first place is because they are supposed to invoke a certain idea. They are metaphors, and it is very understandable for players to see them representing what they are most often used to represent.

Speculative and unsupported.

I am not suggesting that players can't want to move away from this duality and play characters who are much more morally grey, but my point here is that there is a very good reason why many players will see it this way. So going back to the original statement, I don't think it's unusual at all for people to think there is a big difference between murdering undead and murdering living people.

Great. That's not really an argument though. It's just an assertion. Undead and living feel, experience pain, think, and exist in almost identical conditions as supported by lore and mechanics. The conclusive argument you seem to come to is:

"They are different so it's okay to commit genocide against them."

Pretty sure that's the argument used for every genocide.

Aetolia is a game that centers itself around conflict because at its heart the game is a collaborative story about the Midnight Age and the characters that inhabit it. The game encourages players to explore different roles and embrace and or branch from the many themes and ideologies that are provided as the foundation of the game. And yet...

There is this constant tension between two types of players around this understanding; those who wish to engage the game from a roleplay/story driven perspective and those that wish to power game their way through similarly to an MMO-style video game. Naturally there are those that fall somewhere in between both ends of the spectrum and in truth neither end of the spectrum is the right/wrong way to play the game. However, what's become alarming to me is that over the years, we've lost sight of the story and as a result appear to be aggressively phasing out one in favor of the other.

To the power gamer and some might even argue casuals, you don't typically control territory or collect quests to spread the influence of your faction’s ideology and enhance the story; you do it to win/complete the minigames and prove your skills. Guild/Tether ideology matter less and organizational culture end up getting built around a personality or friend group/clique - often with as mild and generic a philosophy as possible to keep the most appeal by not rocking the boat. But more importantly the roles of competing ideologies get changed or outright ignored in favor of taking on a mere moderator role amongst the community where "disturbing the peace and quiet" or conflict outside the minigames are considered bad form and punished. As this becomes more prevalent throughout the game, overall conflict diminishes and indirectly regulates conflict to exist almost exclusively in hard-lined mechanisms like Sect, Orrery, and Lessers.

This often fuels misunderstandings or mistrust between players OOCly. Motivations get misconstrued as "griefing" or bad faith actors because people can't fathom or see why else would anyone rock the boat? “Good/Bad" guys don't get to clash because they stand in the way of RP. In fact, they are generally encouraged to ignore each other outside of the minigames or worse issued without any real exploration of resolutions. Antagonists are ultimately ostracized and or punished first as "griefers" instead of being engaged for their role.

In literature, a conflict is a literary device characterized by a struggle between two opposing forces. Conflict provides crucial tension in any story and is used to drive the narrative forward. It is often used to reveal a deeper meaning in a narrative while highlighting characters’ motivations, values, and weaknesses. It feels like a growing portion of the community has either forgotten and or doesn't care about "playing the game" per se but more about "winning the game" despite the fact that it's intentionally impossible to "win" in this type of format.

This isn't a post to say we should or shouldn't do anything in particular as much as it's a PSA that I think more of us should discuss or at the very least be consciously aware of.