Naelwyn
Non sum qualis eram
I would like to preface everything with a notice that this is going to be an outright doorstopper of a post. Set aside a decent chunk of time if you wish to peruse the contents.
In the interest of fair play and so forth, the following post is completely unabridged of what I am actually thinking at the moment of writing it. I've really no desire but to speak anything but the stark truth to you. Please be prepared as such.
Part 1 - Magic, and it's future in Hollowworld.
I believe, at this point in time, I can call my attempt at reforming the use of magic on this server to have been a strict failure, for numerous reasons. This might be surprising to people that have seen the system or been learning in it, because it appears to have been met with fairly standard praise, especially from people that were aware of the mess it used to be. [See: People with combat precognition and the ability to freeze time.]
Were it only based on it's technical composition or idealized mechanics I'd say it would be a raving success - unfortunately - the problem with the magic system has come down to strictly out-of-character reasons. I will expound on this topic further down - my opinion on the issues affecting magic is that it is not constrained specifically to this, but I relent:
This system:
1) Causes biased feelings, dislike, and interpersonal complications amongst people due to denial from things they want
2) Requires substantial upkeep in the realm of time from people - causes resentment directed at people when they "Take too long." I'm not going to try and make people prioritize a game over anything they are doing in their actual life, and if the system is too resource-intensive it rapidly becomes untenable.
3) Causes people to pressure teaching-capable individuals OOCly for knowledge or faster progression
4) The way it was set up to prevent metagaming leads to other accusations even when material is publicly available in a confidential section for fact-checking.
5) A system designed to require roleplay to advance in any way sounded amazing on paper and ended up leading to many issues when put into practise.
6) Gross misassumptions about the playerbase.
It has been my unenviable position to bear substantive witness to our server's take on "Tall Poppy Syndrome" for at least a year and a half now - for good or ill, what always happens is that people:
A) Seem to absolutely hate it when someone, anyone, is in a better position than themselves
B) Tend to bandwagon against whatever the dominant power in the world is.
C) They do this not only IC, but OOC.
This is, in my opinion, why I see an ever-decreasing number of people try and pull off any kind of grandiose plan or organization - Whenever someone meets with success and starts to climb up - Tall Poppy Syndrome.
It happened to whichever was the dominant house during the Game of Crowns. (First to Lonmar, then to Arduin.)
It happened to every attempt to arrange a police force for Port Silver.
It happened to the Church of Altera (2x)
It happened to Arcturus as they started gearing up for their Golden Crusade.
Now it appears to be happening to the Engem?
Ultimately it appears to be a pretty darn consistent thing on this server.
That I didn't take this into account with magic bespeaks either to my incompetence, naïveté, or optimism. I'm not sure which to credit.
The upshot of all this is that the system I designed specifically to avoid people getting prosecuted for their abilities (Like, for example, Basil and his ability to explode people's eyeballs) after strictly setting down the rules and guidelines for acquiring and using the abilities and it all appears to have been meaningless.
It is pretty consistent thing that persons with capabilities will experience this effect, and there's no getting around it in this system.
I've always wanted to implement a system of statistics like a tabletop game or an MMO wherein people's stats could be justified to prevent this kind of behaviour, to strictly justify people's stance and separate IC and OOC capability argument - but it's always faced two problems - people that vociferously argue for freeform roleplay for varying reasons, and the fact that trying to implement a server-wide skills system is ultimately going to run into everybody arguing what their skills are.
Unfortunately even codifying something as best I could - giving it a number of people supporting it - has still lead to these kinds of issues.
As such - my strict judgement is this magic system is not appropriate for the server, and so, it is with a fair bit of disappointment that I announce that every aspect of the combined four discipline system of magic, every ability, every part of the system that provides any functional benefit to characters on this server is planned to be phased out entirely, from every active character that possesses it - until what we have left is an absolute, completely magicless blank slate.
I myself neither have any plans or new systems prepared to replace this with, nor do I have any desire to create one, or participate in a notable way in the construction of a new one. It is, in fact, my opinion that - not for setting based reasons, not for fit, but for the attitude the playerbase takes with regards to the roleplay environment, that /any/ system of magic that isn't extremely simple and available to even the most unlearned character with no real benefit for learning further will simply and ultimately fail for out-of-character reasons. The only thing I think people accept is the Enchantment table. Maybe something can be arranged for that, but I will not be the one to do it.
The why for that is very simple. I want to participate in whatever any potential replacement system is, with absolutely no outside knowledge of how or why it works, so that I can, once again, legitimately earn whatever I get and stop being hit with all the varied accusations quite frequently levelled at me. Either I'll get it or I won't, but If I want people to leave me alone about it I guess I have to treat it with the same vehement attitude like I do with MCMMO.
I really shouldn't have to do this, but I suppose it's necessary and It serves as a sufficient segue into Part 2.
Part 2 - Lore:
I think I'll start this one with a funny tidbit - I never really desired the post of Lore Management. I joined the Lore team as a writer - I was working on whatever struck my fancy - I'd do a bit of backmatter or materials - I think the first major change of mine that got approved to be published was the complete and utter reworking of Skraag from a very extreme clichéd evil necromancer god into what he is today - there was a series of riddles that told the astute reader a parable that revealed the dogma of Skraag - the origin of the phrase "Death is unnecessary." Ultimately that 'Questline', and I use the word very loosely because I implemented it with shopkeeper NPCs - it had people carry each book of riddle/sermon plus a rewarded mob skull to the next stop in the riddle chain until one acquired the last book from the former site of the Demon statue in our Underworld Moria. The end result of opening this questline was a number of players constantly running the first two discovered NPCs, discarding the books and acquiring otherwise unobtainable mob heads, and I had to suspend it. Ultimately I think only one person ever solved the entire riddle chain and thanked me for making it - it was part of the start of my friendship with one of you, and you know who you are. I still think, even though I failed in my implementation of this questline completely - that it was worth it alone for the character development and really engaging things I can see Dummyplug do.
Fitz then had to leave for University at the time - Itzzaboy and Legion were given joint responsibility for lore - Itzza had races and I think Legion had history and the corruption and so forth. I then started putting my things with them. I think Ittza then went somewhat idle or.. in any case I cannot remember the exact specifics but it transpired that Legion had full responsibility for the lore, and I think within a week he had had enough of that and, myself being the last active member of the Loreteam at that point I was approached to do it.
As soon as I was "In charge" of the whole kit'n'kaboodle I basically had to stop just writing things for the heck of it and the majority of my time soon became comprised of:
A) Answering people's questions by going to the people that did know the answer and learning from them.
B) Figuring out or having to write the material in order to be able to answer someone's question.
C) Having to tell people "No", this suggestion/action isn't in what I've been told the lore is. [Which later became just "This isn't what the lore is."]
D) Organizing and trying to make self-consistent the large volume of what we had written.
If you want one of those confessions I'd tell you I don't exactly like this job in the slightest - I find it stressful having to tell people no, I absolutely hate seeing people's reactions when I tell them their character doesn't work, but it was my responsibility to keep pumpkin-men and pandas out of the gameworld and I treat responsibilities seriously. Since about two weeks in I'd have been happy giving this job back to Legion and going back to being a writer and not having to make the hard calls but, really - I was the only person left that was willing to carry responsibility and was there to get an understanding of the vision involved in the lore - I kind of had to do this as nobody else could do it and keep things functioning.
It has, however, come to light and my knowledge that what I have been doing all this time might not have been worth it, or at least - perhaps I am more resented for the things I've had to do in the carriage of the responsibility I saw here than liked, or at least respected - for trying to better it.
And what that comes down to is - this is a voluntarily assumed responsibility. I don't do it because I like controlling the lore, nor being in charge of anything. I honestly just did this because well, I became the "Lore guy."
I honestly kind of liked just writing stuff - it was just so much easier when I could write it and someone could just reject it - or in any case I didn't need to worry about writing and running events to try and implement something I thought would make things better.
...I don't /have/ to help out like this. I honestly had more fun working out the configuration stuff for MCMMO than doing.. pretty much anything lore related in recent memory.
So that's what this one comes down to - I'm announcing my intentions to stop being the lore guy. I've been practising my WE and Voxelling skills and spending a good deal of time on the console looking through configs and such so I could do work on the plugins.
(My actual nonlore speciality at this point is modpacks and how they work - I stopped playing/driving FTB for the longest time because it was a deadzone but with people coming on there I can handle all kinds of debugging questions.)
Modding and Plugins to games are tremendous fun and I take lots of heart in doing it. I was hoping to be able to do lore long enough for the API to come out - and then plugin and mod work would be one and the same and I could start doing some really fun things but, y'know. This is ultimately the move I'll be making.
Will I be doing this now? No - there's nobody trained or ready for this yet, and there's tons of stuff someone able to take on this responsibility needs to learn. But yeah, I'll be doing it.
This goes along with my wish to not be involved in the magic system - I'm honestly just sick and tired of being treated as some kind of power monger when I'm only really doing this because I think I have to.
I like RPGs. Grinding is fun. I've literally spent a real month in the deserts of our world punching things because it was fun to imagine my character training like that. I've applied that philosophy everywhere and it was so terribly immersive.
I'd go around practicing, learning things from people.
...you can't really do that when you're the one that has to know everything. Heck, it's why I was invited to lore/promoted through lore in the first place - I was one of few characters to actually explore around and learn the lore.
I guess, in this sense, I'm tired of being the DM and really would like to be a PC again. Whenever I try and play I'm essentially accused of being the DMPC, even when I just want to have fun.
I'd rather just enjoy the game again, which brings me to Part 3.
Part 3: Naelwyn
I've had a lot of fun with this character - but it seems like I go to do, literally, anything that affects the world with him and people have a problem with me.
Honestly it's grown tiresome - intimidating to bring him out of the house - when I go anywhere with him I can't do what I set out to do, even if it's as simple as "Order a meal and have dinner at the crossroads inn."
I've been playing him while deliberately limiting myself - to the point wherein the entirety of the timeframe where thaumaturgy has existed I have used the ability of the school few enough times to be able to count them on my fingers. Limiting myself to the extent that the way I detected that Harateths were illusory was by throwing bags of flour at them. (Heh!)
I took it upon myself to simply try and not use abilities at all and frankly it wasn't that challenging in the slightest. People seem to be wary of Naelwyn as some kind of big scary wizard and, heck, people haven't even noticed the extent of pyrotechnics, tricks, bluffs, and illusions that he uses instead of performing actual magic. There was a period of a month and a bit where I in fact had no magic ability at all and simply bluffed through things. (There was also a 3-month timeframe where he possessed only beginner's illusions and was apparently still intimidating.)
The fact of the matter is, when it comes down to it - holding back tremendously and just existing purely to facilitate other people's roleplay and story - and only stepping in to act in things when it looks like someone innocent is being forced into roleplay they were uncomfortable with or really would rather not have -
It's just not fun not being able to have any initiative or motive.
There's still a scrapped vault filled with enough combat gear and consumables to plausibly challenge every other participant house in the Game of Crowns singlehandedly -
The real story behind my second withdrawal from that was my discussion with Sally where we both agreed "Anyone I would recruit as a Magus should be as politically neutral as possible. I should be as exemplary as that as I can." and so I resigned from the Game of Crowns.
...
And gave the allegiance money I was paid back to Hawklight.
And Lonmar.
...
And Arduin.
...Gods that would have been fun.
I digress. In keeping with my previous two decisions - the retiring of magic, and my no longer wishing to be managing lore - and instead looking for something else to run instead as a staff duty - I suppose if I really and truely wish to be completely free of what people throw at me I need to stop playing my long-term character as well.
So, again - I plan another denouement - it's been an interesting run for him and there's still some roleplay and a character arc left for him to fulfill - but after that he'll be retired as a character for no definite duration - until maybe the environment has changed or I feel he might work again.
I... I really don't want to stop playing this character. I just... I really feel like I'm just not accepted when I'm playing as him. I don't intend even at this point to retire this character in a permanent method. If I felt like I could play him and still be accepted I probably would. If not, I would have him be absent in a way that allows him to return if I ever stopped feeling like this. This.. isn't set in stone but - I still feel I have to do this.
I believe this brings me to point number 4.
Point 4: People and the inability to handle the In-Character / Out-of-Character divide.
This has been a problem... well, basically forever - but it's been growing really out of hand of late and I'm not sure precisely why - I digress.
I'm not the type to be impolitely specific, but I do have to go into a bit of detail so people can see just how broadly this affects things.
I think it is fairest and the best way to conduct this to start with myself. Twice, in my time on this server, I have been brought past the point of maintaining the IC/OOC divide that is truely essential for this kind of thing.
The first point in time was a Tournament, held in the era before the very first Game of Crowns - I myself was a member of Hawklight at the time - the event was proceeding normally before myself and every other participant were suddenly teleported into the centre of the arena and killed by mobs, and then the fellow under favour of the hosts was declared the winner. [People these days really have no idea what 'Staff Abuse' actually means, but again, I digress.] I was, to state it - a tad offput. I complained about how terrible the event was run in house chat. Then I got a PM where I was attacked about having complained in my house chat by the people who ran the event.
The very first thing I decided on at that point was a vicious campaign of IC nastiness directly squarely at their person.
What saved me was actually the thought, "If the staff are like this, it's probably not worth it and I'd rather just bail."
I apologized for it instead, but I'm not sure I really meant anything I said to people threatening me. For my own reasons rather than their threats I decided to withdraw from the Game of Crowns - I didn't like what it did to me. (Nor did I think it was worth participating in when the largest participant was also apparently allowed to write the rules.)
I think I could have done far worse.
The second instance of this was when my growing frustration at a particular individual continuing to commit flagrant, despicable crimes and continue to get away with them for mostly OOC reasons - I was trying to ignore them as best I could and then they kept making things personal.
I had planned to throw literally everything I had at the fellow and dare him to wriggle a way out of it. [Incidentally, the finale step of which would polymorph him into durable metal or stone, ward him against heat, and drop him in the heart of a volcano, where he could remain cogent for the rest of his days.]
Again, however, I allowed my in-character rage at things continuing to be made personal even though I was trying to ignore the fellow to overflow at the time into my personal mindset. I regret that part and apologized for it.
I choose to air my own failings in a specific, detailed manner first so that you all listen to me when I address yours in a much more general fashion.
For instance, this constant internal violence and bickering is getting bloody ridiculous and you all need to stop it.
We could really have something tremendously interesting going if you all could remember it's a damn game and act accordingly.
The biggest annoyance I have had in my management of things so far is how much time I have to spend writing rules and telling people off for things that should be common sense.
I don't think people have any idea how many times I've been asked things that were basically just to put their character at an edge over something - sometimes even as ridiculous as trying to justify having invented electrical theory and tesla coils. [I can call this one out because that fellow is superbanned.]
Seriously folks - calm down, take a step back, stop hurling vitriol at one another.
I don't think it's anybody's responsibility to make up rules and herd you around so you can play through this - it's gotten to the point where I have heard a suggestion to outright ban the use of OOC conversation from roleplay chat entirely and it makes eminent sense.
I have really strived to not only roleplay on this server but keep the entirety of my experiance in-character.
When I wanted to say Naelwyn was better at punching things I simply spent around 4 hours a day for a month, running around, punching things. It's the most immersed I've ever been in-character, and I'm not sure why people are missing this experience.
I'm wondering what kind of experience could be facilitated by removing from the game entirely the Local chat, and the enforcement of literally every single action you do being in-character. I've done it. It's a drastic change that makes the experience... really quite something.
I think for the better part of months my character goal was to "Be able to do everything in-character that I can do out-of-character as a moderator." This got even more difficult when I got promoted to administrator.
I guess if I had a point to make here it's a simple -
Try and get more immersed in-character. Get deeply in-character, and keep the fact that you're working with people out of it.
Focus less on winning and instead try focusing on telling a good story.
Maaaybe try stabbing people less.
Part 5 Interpersonal Conflict and Escalation:
This is another big one that I've noticed - people deliberately provoking others and then everyone and their friends being drawn into some kind of hate fest.
I kinda want to go slappityslap about both the upcoming "Order of Harateth" and "Order of Rahas" until it's understood because it totally looks like that's going to happen.
As above in Part 4 - If people are fighting it stops being "Why is this character doing this" and becomes "Why is X doing this."
I think the effect is worst with people whose account name matches their character name. (Scardrac et. al.)
I'm still not sure how to stop this - I mean, it's people taking things personally - I don't have mind control or something, I'm not going to be able to stop people from forming grudges over things - but I really just don't understand why people are getting so vehement about it.
Is it due to the freeform nature of the roleplay on our server that leads to people arguing about the effects of everything during fighting?
I don't think the solution to that is trying to stat out everything because it's outright impossible to stat everything.
Maybe if people would accept "winning" a fight at some degree less than "Total death or mutilation of all opponents."
I've debated outright turning off the Sisterhood entirely because it seems the only thing it changes it that people try and mutilate others instead of killing them -
Ultimately people are engaged in consistently trying to stop others from playing their character. I guess that's what it boils down to.
I don't think there's much a single post can do to address Points 4 and 5 - but I'd at least like to talk about the fact that I see this in our community and I'm not sure how to resolve it.
I think the first thing to remember is -
Characters are Characters, Players are Players, and the attitudes of a character do not necessarily represent the attitudes of a player. As a fine example, Naelwyn still resists the impulse to pummel Scardrac into something resembling funnel cake, but I myself think he's an okay fellow.
The second thing to remember is:
Characters and Players are people, not AIs, not robots, not NPCs in your grand story, but other people. What you want to happen in your personal story may not precisely correlate what someone else, or even anyone else, wants - and probably the worst thing you can do is try and force your vision of a story onto someone else.
Part 6 - Villains and Evil Characters, Combat, Fighting:
I think I'll start this one by stating a simple fact:
If you're playing a visible, fairly evil character, from the very moment you start the character you need to be prepared for that villain's arc to eventually end. You will eventually be brought to justice for the simple reason that a world wherein a villain 'wins' is simply less interesting to play in as compared to one where you have villains /trying/ to win and eventually losing and being cycled out for new ones.
The general non-conductance to losing, in any way, has been the major reason that I've found it impossible to show any initiative in things not events - because the event characters and event villains follow this precept - I know that if I do a good enough job I can defeat the event villain and nobody is going to launch themselves at my throat. (Theoretically. See Part 3: Naelwyn.)
I have been witness to almost every character arc imaginable and I'd say the most satisfying are the ones that do not rely on another character doing, acting, or performing anything specific - but ones that prepare for things and then just let them roll.
I think people'd know this lesson better if they had DM'ed a tabletop game - your goal isn't to kill the players with the monsters and 'win' - your goal is to challenge them as best you can and make them feel tension - like they could lose - that they come close to losing - but pull through in the end.
If you've never gotten to experience pulling through at the absolute last moment, the last spell slot, the last hit point - surely you've had a moment like that in your life.
Roleplay on hollowworld, however - feels strictly binary - usually whoever wins is whoever argues the most vociferously and one combatant or one combatant group ends up winning by overwhelming numbers or not ever being touched -
The victory is almost inevitably not one of tactical edge and so forth - but simple persistance in insisting one's side - and it's really not satisfying to watch.
I think the best example of everything I speak of in this section is the Jax event as part of the return campaign. I'm sorry if I'm spoiling an experience for anyone, but I feel it was pretty noticeable that the Alteran side of the conflict was given a reprieve at the end. I'd like people to realize that generally speaking your DM isn't trying to utterly crush you, but simply challenge you. [Also see - My first event during the exodus with the Staff demons and their, shall we say - overcalibration. That's not exactly what I wanted to happen, at all.]
Did anyone think the duel at the end of that event was satisfying to watch? I see that probably a lot more than the average player does, because I'm often called in to ask what one person's moves or another would do.
Should I really have to stat out exactly what plate armor does and can do, for example? People are at tremendous bloody fault when using it - from donning it, how often they wear it without collapsing from heat stroke, how awful they must smell (And how that alone should ruin their stealth when using the darn thing) - how it affects flexibility as well as weight - how it requires constant oiling, maintenance, and work to make it function successfully - It was a strong defensive option but people mitigate away every struggle that people using it actually had to go through and in the end that makes it feel overpowered defensively.
Similarly, people offensively seem to have no real idea what different kinds of armor would or could do - I've spent days figuring this kind of stuff out long before I started roleplaying on this server, back when I was a greenie and playing a pretty humdrum ranger named Berathram.
People complain about people being indestructible when attacking a full-plated breastplate with a sword. I dunno, take a narrow, pointy stick and stab them where they see from. Take advantage of the fact that you can choose only one of decent peripheral vision or eye protection. Throw hot things at them and watch them cook inside their armor.
The worst of this I've seen was all of the people hating on the golem Vorar when they tried to kill him by attacking the strongest part of his armor.
He has a giant, glowing eye - and moves like a snail.
You can literally walk away from that fight. Or hit and run. Or get on a horse and fire arrows. Or dig a hole.
But people remain trapped in their paradigms and the standard response for something not going your way on this server is to complain - and then people message me angry about the fact that I'm not caving into their demands after I have explained exactly what other options they could have taken.
Part 7: Rules
My word people hate me dictating rules. I kinda don't like writing them, and wish people could get along on common sense for things.
On the other hand - I personally long for an at least mildly complete coverage for character advancement or even capability rules simply so I could play within them and thus be fine.
It's part of what I've recognized that it's absolutely impossible for me to be the one to develop these things and then get to play in them - Ultimately I remain the DM in people's eyes and regardless of how much I endeavour to stay legitimate within the system it's simply not going to register.
Thus, decisions mentioned well above - once I am out of the system I can then suggest the rules to undertake - they can be accepted, rejected - accepted and later modified - and then I can play entirely within whatever the rules are decided on and then I can finally just do things.
I have already drafted a fairly complete system that people could use to fairly determine the outcome of a literally massive amount of things - there is exactly one thing missing:
"How does my character legitimately acquire more skills?"
"How much skill can my character start with?"
If I knew the answer to this question perhaps I could resolve a lot of the conflicts within the community.
Perhaps the community needs to establish something here that they think is fair.
I guess that's one of the reasons I love MCMMO - it's completely and utterly objective and works the same for everybody (Fixed Unarmed permissions bugs notwithstanding~!).
That's somewhat what I'd like us all to work out - an objective system that works entirely without outside interference.
We could make, find, and/or modify a plugin for this way faster than you might expect if we actually knew what the target was, so I guess that'll be the last task I set for you.
In Closing
In closing of the initial post (I'm prepared with replies, buckles yer butts in) I would like to continue to break the mold of what you expect in a post by asking the following:
If you are going to give this post any rating at all, I ask that you post a comment to the thread. Even if it's a player love - make your comment, then rate. If I have ratings from people but no comment it's a sign to me that they didn't actually read all the way through, and I don't deserve a like if someone hasn't fully read what I'm trying to say, and I will endeavor to remove them. Actually tell me what you think. I am, at this present juncture, much more interested in seeing the truth of what communication can bring rather than dancing around topics. I'm not coming in lightly.
I'll be prepared to respond to such.
Postscript: Legion - this will remain the record wall post for quite a while, I expect. I didn't start out trying for this but it's pretty funny how it ended up.
In the interest of fair play and so forth, the following post is completely unabridged of what I am actually thinking at the moment of writing it. I've really no desire but to speak anything but the stark truth to you. Please be prepared as such.
Part 1 - Magic, and it's future in Hollowworld.
I believe, at this point in time, I can call my attempt at reforming the use of magic on this server to have been a strict failure, for numerous reasons. This might be surprising to people that have seen the system or been learning in it, because it appears to have been met with fairly standard praise, especially from people that were aware of the mess it used to be. [See: People with combat precognition and the ability to freeze time.]
Were it only based on it's technical composition or idealized mechanics I'd say it would be a raving success - unfortunately - the problem with the magic system has come down to strictly out-of-character reasons. I will expound on this topic further down - my opinion on the issues affecting magic is that it is not constrained specifically to this, but I relent:
This system:
1) Causes biased feelings, dislike, and interpersonal complications amongst people due to denial from things they want
2) Requires substantial upkeep in the realm of time from people - causes resentment directed at people when they "Take too long." I'm not going to try and make people prioritize a game over anything they are doing in their actual life, and if the system is too resource-intensive it rapidly becomes untenable.
3) Causes people to pressure teaching-capable individuals OOCly for knowledge or faster progression
4) The way it was set up to prevent metagaming leads to other accusations even when material is publicly available in a confidential section for fact-checking.
5) A system designed to require roleplay to advance in any way sounded amazing on paper and ended up leading to many issues when put into practise.
6) Gross misassumptions about the playerbase.
It has been my unenviable position to bear substantive witness to our server's take on "Tall Poppy Syndrome" for at least a year and a half now - for good or ill, what always happens is that people:
A) Seem to absolutely hate it when someone, anyone, is in a better position than themselves
B) Tend to bandwagon against whatever the dominant power in the world is.
C) They do this not only IC, but OOC.
This is, in my opinion, why I see an ever-decreasing number of people try and pull off any kind of grandiose plan or organization - Whenever someone meets with success and starts to climb up - Tall Poppy Syndrome.
It happened to whichever was the dominant house during the Game of Crowns. (First to Lonmar, then to Arduin.)
It happened to every attempt to arrange a police force for Port Silver.
It happened to the Church of Altera (2x)
It happened to Arcturus as they started gearing up for their Golden Crusade.
Now it appears to be happening to the Engem?
Ultimately it appears to be a pretty darn consistent thing on this server.
That I didn't take this into account with magic bespeaks either to my incompetence, naïveté, or optimism. I'm not sure which to credit.
The upshot of all this is that the system I designed specifically to avoid people getting prosecuted for their abilities (Like, for example, Basil and his ability to explode people's eyeballs) after strictly setting down the rules and guidelines for acquiring and using the abilities and it all appears to have been meaningless.
It is pretty consistent thing that persons with capabilities will experience this effect, and there's no getting around it in this system.
I've always wanted to implement a system of statistics like a tabletop game or an MMO wherein people's stats could be justified to prevent this kind of behaviour, to strictly justify people's stance and separate IC and OOC capability argument - but it's always faced two problems - people that vociferously argue for freeform roleplay for varying reasons, and the fact that trying to implement a server-wide skills system is ultimately going to run into everybody arguing what their skills are.
Unfortunately even codifying something as best I could - giving it a number of people supporting it - has still lead to these kinds of issues.
As such - my strict judgement is this magic system is not appropriate for the server, and so, it is with a fair bit of disappointment that I announce that every aspect of the combined four discipline system of magic, every ability, every part of the system that provides any functional benefit to characters on this server is planned to be phased out entirely, from every active character that possesses it - until what we have left is an absolute, completely magicless blank slate.
I myself neither have any plans or new systems prepared to replace this with, nor do I have any desire to create one, or participate in a notable way in the construction of a new one. It is, in fact, my opinion that - not for setting based reasons, not for fit, but for the attitude the playerbase takes with regards to the roleplay environment, that /any/ system of magic that isn't extremely simple and available to even the most unlearned character with no real benefit for learning further will simply and ultimately fail for out-of-character reasons. The only thing I think people accept is the Enchantment table. Maybe something can be arranged for that, but I will not be the one to do it.
The why for that is very simple. I want to participate in whatever any potential replacement system is, with absolutely no outside knowledge of how or why it works, so that I can, once again, legitimately earn whatever I get and stop being hit with all the varied accusations quite frequently levelled at me. Either I'll get it or I won't, but If I want people to leave me alone about it I guess I have to treat it with the same vehement attitude like I do with MCMMO.
I really shouldn't have to do this, but I suppose it's necessary and It serves as a sufficient segue into Part 2.
Part 2 - Lore:
I think I'll start this one with a funny tidbit - I never really desired the post of Lore Management. I joined the Lore team as a writer - I was working on whatever struck my fancy - I'd do a bit of backmatter or materials - I think the first major change of mine that got approved to be published was the complete and utter reworking of Skraag from a very extreme clichéd evil necromancer god into what he is today - there was a series of riddles that told the astute reader a parable that revealed the dogma of Skraag - the origin of the phrase "Death is unnecessary." Ultimately that 'Questline', and I use the word very loosely because I implemented it with shopkeeper NPCs - it had people carry each book of riddle/sermon plus a rewarded mob skull to the next stop in the riddle chain until one acquired the last book from the former site of the Demon statue in our Underworld Moria. The end result of opening this questline was a number of players constantly running the first two discovered NPCs, discarding the books and acquiring otherwise unobtainable mob heads, and I had to suspend it. Ultimately I think only one person ever solved the entire riddle chain and thanked me for making it - it was part of the start of my friendship with one of you, and you know who you are. I still think, even though I failed in my implementation of this questline completely - that it was worth it alone for the character development and really engaging things I can see Dummyplug do.
Fitz then had to leave for University at the time - Itzzaboy and Legion were given joint responsibility for lore - Itzza had races and I think Legion had history and the corruption and so forth. I then started putting my things with them. I think Ittza then went somewhat idle or.. in any case I cannot remember the exact specifics but it transpired that Legion had full responsibility for the lore, and I think within a week he had had enough of that and, myself being the last active member of the Loreteam at that point I was approached to do it.
As soon as I was "In charge" of the whole kit'n'kaboodle I basically had to stop just writing things for the heck of it and the majority of my time soon became comprised of:
A) Answering people's questions by going to the people that did know the answer and learning from them.
B) Figuring out or having to write the material in order to be able to answer someone's question.
C) Having to tell people "No", this suggestion/action isn't in what I've been told the lore is. [Which later became just "This isn't what the lore is."]
D) Organizing and trying to make self-consistent the large volume of what we had written.
If you want one of those confessions I'd tell you I don't exactly like this job in the slightest - I find it stressful having to tell people no, I absolutely hate seeing people's reactions when I tell them their character doesn't work, but it was my responsibility to keep pumpkin-men and pandas out of the gameworld and I treat responsibilities seriously. Since about two weeks in I'd have been happy giving this job back to Legion and going back to being a writer and not having to make the hard calls but, really - I was the only person left that was willing to carry responsibility and was there to get an understanding of the vision involved in the lore - I kind of had to do this as nobody else could do it and keep things functioning.
It has, however, come to light and my knowledge that what I have been doing all this time might not have been worth it, or at least - perhaps I am more resented for the things I've had to do in the carriage of the responsibility I saw here than liked, or at least respected - for trying to better it.
And what that comes down to is - this is a voluntarily assumed responsibility. I don't do it because I like controlling the lore, nor being in charge of anything. I honestly just did this because well, I became the "Lore guy."
I honestly kind of liked just writing stuff - it was just so much easier when I could write it and someone could just reject it - or in any case I didn't need to worry about writing and running events to try and implement something I thought would make things better.
...I don't /have/ to help out like this. I honestly had more fun working out the configuration stuff for MCMMO than doing.. pretty much anything lore related in recent memory.
So that's what this one comes down to - I'm announcing my intentions to stop being the lore guy. I've been practising my WE and Voxelling skills and spending a good deal of time on the console looking through configs and such so I could do work on the plugins.
(My actual nonlore speciality at this point is modpacks and how they work - I stopped playing/driving FTB for the longest time because it was a deadzone but with people coming on there I can handle all kinds of debugging questions.)
Modding and Plugins to games are tremendous fun and I take lots of heart in doing it. I was hoping to be able to do lore long enough for the API to come out - and then plugin and mod work would be one and the same and I could start doing some really fun things but, y'know. This is ultimately the move I'll be making.
Will I be doing this now? No - there's nobody trained or ready for this yet, and there's tons of stuff someone able to take on this responsibility needs to learn. But yeah, I'll be doing it.
This goes along with my wish to not be involved in the magic system - I'm honestly just sick and tired of being treated as some kind of power monger when I'm only really doing this because I think I have to.
I like RPGs. Grinding is fun. I've literally spent a real month in the deserts of our world punching things because it was fun to imagine my character training like that. I've applied that philosophy everywhere and it was so terribly immersive.
I'd go around practicing, learning things from people.
...you can't really do that when you're the one that has to know everything. Heck, it's why I was invited to lore/promoted through lore in the first place - I was one of few characters to actually explore around and learn the lore.
I guess, in this sense, I'm tired of being the DM and really would like to be a PC again. Whenever I try and play I'm essentially accused of being the DMPC, even when I just want to have fun.
I'd rather just enjoy the game again, which brings me to Part 3.
Part 3: Naelwyn
I've had a lot of fun with this character - but it seems like I go to do, literally, anything that affects the world with him and people have a problem with me.
Honestly it's grown tiresome - intimidating to bring him out of the house - when I go anywhere with him I can't do what I set out to do, even if it's as simple as "Order a meal and have dinner at the crossroads inn."
I've been playing him while deliberately limiting myself - to the point wherein the entirety of the timeframe where thaumaturgy has existed I have used the ability of the school few enough times to be able to count them on my fingers. Limiting myself to the extent that the way I detected that Harateths were illusory was by throwing bags of flour at them. (Heh!)
I took it upon myself to simply try and not use abilities at all and frankly it wasn't that challenging in the slightest. People seem to be wary of Naelwyn as some kind of big scary wizard and, heck, people haven't even noticed the extent of pyrotechnics, tricks, bluffs, and illusions that he uses instead of performing actual magic. There was a period of a month and a bit where I in fact had no magic ability at all and simply bluffed through things. (There was also a 3-month timeframe where he possessed only beginner's illusions and was apparently still intimidating.)
The fact of the matter is, when it comes down to it - holding back tremendously and just existing purely to facilitate other people's roleplay and story - and only stepping in to act in things when it looks like someone innocent is being forced into roleplay they were uncomfortable with or really would rather not have -
It's just not fun not being able to have any initiative or motive.
There's still a scrapped vault filled with enough combat gear and consumables to plausibly challenge every other participant house in the Game of Crowns singlehandedly -
The real story behind my second withdrawal from that was my discussion with Sally where we both agreed "Anyone I would recruit as a Magus should be as politically neutral as possible. I should be as exemplary as that as I can." and so I resigned from the Game of Crowns.
...
And gave the allegiance money I was paid back to Hawklight.
And Lonmar.
...
And Arduin.
...Gods that would have been fun.
I digress. In keeping with my previous two decisions - the retiring of magic, and my no longer wishing to be managing lore - and instead looking for something else to run instead as a staff duty - I suppose if I really and truely wish to be completely free of what people throw at me I need to stop playing my long-term character as well.
So, again - I plan another denouement - it's been an interesting run for him and there's still some roleplay and a character arc left for him to fulfill - but after that he'll be retired as a character for no definite duration - until maybe the environment has changed or I feel he might work again.
I... I really don't want to stop playing this character. I just... I really feel like I'm just not accepted when I'm playing as him. I don't intend even at this point to retire this character in a permanent method. If I felt like I could play him and still be accepted I probably would. If not, I would have him be absent in a way that allows him to return if I ever stopped feeling like this. This.. isn't set in stone but - I still feel I have to do this.
I believe this brings me to point number 4.
Point 4: People and the inability to handle the In-Character / Out-of-Character divide.
This has been a problem... well, basically forever - but it's been growing really out of hand of late and I'm not sure precisely why - I digress.
I'm not the type to be impolitely specific, but I do have to go into a bit of detail so people can see just how broadly this affects things.
I think it is fairest and the best way to conduct this to start with myself. Twice, in my time on this server, I have been brought past the point of maintaining the IC/OOC divide that is truely essential for this kind of thing.
The first point in time was a Tournament, held in the era before the very first Game of Crowns - I myself was a member of Hawklight at the time - the event was proceeding normally before myself and every other participant were suddenly teleported into the centre of the arena and killed by mobs, and then the fellow under favour of the hosts was declared the winner. [People these days really have no idea what 'Staff Abuse' actually means, but again, I digress.] I was, to state it - a tad offput. I complained about how terrible the event was run in house chat. Then I got a PM where I was attacked about having complained in my house chat by the people who ran the event.
The very first thing I decided on at that point was a vicious campaign of IC nastiness directly squarely at their person.
What saved me was actually the thought, "If the staff are like this, it's probably not worth it and I'd rather just bail."
I apologized for it instead, but I'm not sure I really meant anything I said to people threatening me. For my own reasons rather than their threats I decided to withdraw from the Game of Crowns - I didn't like what it did to me. (Nor did I think it was worth participating in when the largest participant was also apparently allowed to write the rules.)
I think I could have done far worse.
The second instance of this was when my growing frustration at a particular individual continuing to commit flagrant, despicable crimes and continue to get away with them for mostly OOC reasons - I was trying to ignore them as best I could and then they kept making things personal.
I had planned to throw literally everything I had at the fellow and dare him to wriggle a way out of it. [Incidentally, the finale step of which would polymorph him into durable metal or stone, ward him against heat, and drop him in the heart of a volcano, where he could remain cogent for the rest of his days.]
Again, however, I allowed my in-character rage at things continuing to be made personal even though I was trying to ignore the fellow to overflow at the time into my personal mindset. I regret that part and apologized for it.
I choose to air my own failings in a specific, detailed manner first so that you all listen to me when I address yours in a much more general fashion.
For instance, this constant internal violence and bickering is getting bloody ridiculous and you all need to stop it.
We could really have something tremendously interesting going if you all could remember it's a damn game and act accordingly.
The biggest annoyance I have had in my management of things so far is how much time I have to spend writing rules and telling people off for things that should be common sense.
I don't think people have any idea how many times I've been asked things that were basically just to put their character at an edge over something - sometimes even as ridiculous as trying to justify having invented electrical theory and tesla coils. [I can call this one out because that fellow is superbanned.]
Seriously folks - calm down, take a step back, stop hurling vitriol at one another.
I don't think it's anybody's responsibility to make up rules and herd you around so you can play through this - it's gotten to the point where I have heard a suggestion to outright ban the use of OOC conversation from roleplay chat entirely and it makes eminent sense.
I have really strived to not only roleplay on this server but keep the entirety of my experiance in-character.
When I wanted to say Naelwyn was better at punching things I simply spent around 4 hours a day for a month, running around, punching things. It's the most immersed I've ever been in-character, and I'm not sure why people are missing this experience.
I'm wondering what kind of experience could be facilitated by removing from the game entirely the Local chat, and the enforcement of literally every single action you do being in-character. I've done it. It's a drastic change that makes the experience... really quite something.
I think for the better part of months my character goal was to "Be able to do everything in-character that I can do out-of-character as a moderator." This got even more difficult when I got promoted to administrator.
I guess if I had a point to make here it's a simple -
Try and get more immersed in-character. Get deeply in-character, and keep the fact that you're working with people out of it.
Focus less on winning and instead try focusing on telling a good story.
Maaaybe try stabbing people less.
Part 5 Interpersonal Conflict and Escalation:
This is another big one that I've noticed - people deliberately provoking others and then everyone and their friends being drawn into some kind of hate fest.
I kinda want to go slappityslap about both the upcoming "Order of Harateth" and "Order of Rahas" until it's understood because it totally looks like that's going to happen.
As above in Part 4 - If people are fighting it stops being "Why is this character doing this" and becomes "Why is X doing this."
I think the effect is worst with people whose account name matches their character name. (Scardrac et. al.)
I'm still not sure how to stop this - I mean, it's people taking things personally - I don't have mind control or something, I'm not going to be able to stop people from forming grudges over things - but I really just don't understand why people are getting so vehement about it.
Is it due to the freeform nature of the roleplay on our server that leads to people arguing about the effects of everything during fighting?
I don't think the solution to that is trying to stat out everything because it's outright impossible to stat everything.
Maybe if people would accept "winning" a fight at some degree less than "Total death or mutilation of all opponents."
I've debated outright turning off the Sisterhood entirely because it seems the only thing it changes it that people try and mutilate others instead of killing them -
Ultimately people are engaged in consistently trying to stop others from playing their character. I guess that's what it boils down to.
I don't think there's much a single post can do to address Points 4 and 5 - but I'd at least like to talk about the fact that I see this in our community and I'm not sure how to resolve it.
I think the first thing to remember is -
Characters are Characters, Players are Players, and the attitudes of a character do not necessarily represent the attitudes of a player. As a fine example, Naelwyn still resists the impulse to pummel Scardrac into something resembling funnel cake, but I myself think he's an okay fellow.
The second thing to remember is:
Characters and Players are people, not AIs, not robots, not NPCs in your grand story, but other people. What you want to happen in your personal story may not precisely correlate what someone else, or even anyone else, wants - and probably the worst thing you can do is try and force your vision of a story onto someone else.
Part 6 - Villains and Evil Characters, Combat, Fighting:
I think I'll start this one by stating a simple fact:
If you're playing a visible, fairly evil character, from the very moment you start the character you need to be prepared for that villain's arc to eventually end. You will eventually be brought to justice for the simple reason that a world wherein a villain 'wins' is simply less interesting to play in as compared to one where you have villains /trying/ to win and eventually losing and being cycled out for new ones.
The general non-conductance to losing, in any way, has been the major reason that I've found it impossible to show any initiative in things not events - because the event characters and event villains follow this precept - I know that if I do a good enough job I can defeat the event villain and nobody is going to launch themselves at my throat. (Theoretically. See Part 3: Naelwyn.)
I have been witness to almost every character arc imaginable and I'd say the most satisfying are the ones that do not rely on another character doing, acting, or performing anything specific - but ones that prepare for things and then just let them roll.
I think people'd know this lesson better if they had DM'ed a tabletop game - your goal isn't to kill the players with the monsters and 'win' - your goal is to challenge them as best you can and make them feel tension - like they could lose - that they come close to losing - but pull through in the end.
If you've never gotten to experience pulling through at the absolute last moment, the last spell slot, the last hit point - surely you've had a moment like that in your life.
Roleplay on hollowworld, however - feels strictly binary - usually whoever wins is whoever argues the most vociferously and one combatant or one combatant group ends up winning by overwhelming numbers or not ever being touched -
The victory is almost inevitably not one of tactical edge and so forth - but simple persistance in insisting one's side - and it's really not satisfying to watch.
I think the best example of everything I speak of in this section is the Jax event as part of the return campaign. I'm sorry if I'm spoiling an experience for anyone, but I feel it was pretty noticeable that the Alteran side of the conflict was given a reprieve at the end. I'd like people to realize that generally speaking your DM isn't trying to utterly crush you, but simply challenge you. [Also see - My first event during the exodus with the Staff demons and their, shall we say - overcalibration. That's not exactly what I wanted to happen, at all.]
Did anyone think the duel at the end of that event was satisfying to watch? I see that probably a lot more than the average player does, because I'm often called in to ask what one person's moves or another would do.
Should I really have to stat out exactly what plate armor does and can do, for example? People are at tremendous bloody fault when using it - from donning it, how often they wear it without collapsing from heat stroke, how awful they must smell (And how that alone should ruin their stealth when using the darn thing) - how it affects flexibility as well as weight - how it requires constant oiling, maintenance, and work to make it function successfully - It was a strong defensive option but people mitigate away every struggle that people using it actually had to go through and in the end that makes it feel overpowered defensively.
Similarly, people offensively seem to have no real idea what different kinds of armor would or could do - I've spent days figuring this kind of stuff out long before I started roleplaying on this server, back when I was a greenie and playing a pretty humdrum ranger named Berathram.
People complain about people being indestructible when attacking a full-plated breastplate with a sword. I dunno, take a narrow, pointy stick and stab them where they see from. Take advantage of the fact that you can choose only one of decent peripheral vision or eye protection. Throw hot things at them and watch them cook inside their armor.
The worst of this I've seen was all of the people hating on the golem Vorar when they tried to kill him by attacking the strongest part of his armor.
He has a giant, glowing eye - and moves like a snail.
You can literally walk away from that fight. Or hit and run. Or get on a horse and fire arrows. Or dig a hole.
But people remain trapped in their paradigms and the standard response for something not going your way on this server is to complain - and then people message me angry about the fact that I'm not caving into their demands after I have explained exactly what other options they could have taken.
Part 7: Rules
My word people hate me dictating rules. I kinda don't like writing them, and wish people could get along on common sense for things.
On the other hand - I personally long for an at least mildly complete coverage for character advancement or even capability rules simply so I could play within them and thus be fine.
It's part of what I've recognized that it's absolutely impossible for me to be the one to develop these things and then get to play in them - Ultimately I remain the DM in people's eyes and regardless of how much I endeavour to stay legitimate within the system it's simply not going to register.
Thus, decisions mentioned well above - once I am out of the system I can then suggest the rules to undertake - they can be accepted, rejected - accepted and later modified - and then I can play entirely within whatever the rules are decided on and then I can finally just do things.
I have already drafted a fairly complete system that people could use to fairly determine the outcome of a literally massive amount of things - there is exactly one thing missing:
"How does my character legitimately acquire more skills?"
"How much skill can my character start with?"
If I knew the answer to this question perhaps I could resolve a lot of the conflicts within the community.
Perhaps the community needs to establish something here that they think is fair.
I guess that's one of the reasons I love MCMMO - it's completely and utterly objective and works the same for everybody (Fixed Unarmed permissions bugs notwithstanding~!).
That's somewhat what I'd like us all to work out - an objective system that works entirely without outside interference.
We could make, find, and/or modify a plugin for this way faster than you might expect if we actually knew what the target was, so I guess that'll be the last task I set for you.
In Closing
In closing of the initial post (I'm prepared with replies, buckles yer butts in) I would like to continue to break the mold of what you expect in a post by asking the following:
If you are going to give this post any rating at all, I ask that you post a comment to the thread. Even if it's a player love - make your comment, then rate. If I have ratings from people but no comment it's a sign to me that they didn't actually read all the way through, and I don't deserve a like if someone hasn't fully read what I'm trying to say, and I will endeavor to remove them. Actually tell me what you think. I am, at this present juncture, much more interested in seeing the truth of what communication can bring rather than dancing around topics. I'm not coming in lightly.
I'll be prepared to respond to such.
Postscript: Legion - this will remain the record wall post for quite a while, I expect. I didn't start out trying for this but it's pretty funny how it ended up.
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