Unabridged

[Gaby]

@gaby Again, read the lore. The training system exists so players can't meta/powergame their way into powers, and:


You're word-for-word describing the limitations of the system Nael wrote. Evokers are limited by available energy and can't break the First Law, Cogitants are limited by their ability to focus among other things, Mystics have a whole slew of things to keep in mind including sympathetic ability which lets them act on others' bodies as they would their own, and Thaumaturges could be compared to modern day PhD mathematicians.

I'm not discussing magic any further with you until you read the lore that months were spent creating.

I humbly apologize

 

[Gaby]

at the risk of sounding like an utter tool...

I am an utter tool

 

[dUMMY]

I personally am quite happy with the current magic system. Just because some people don't like the fact that they don't have magic is not a good reason to remove magic.

By this reasoning alone we are scrapping a perfectly good system just to get another system that is closer to the old one with phoenixs and chronomancers.

World of Warcraft changed a lot about how easy it was to earn things at the end of the Burning Crusade. Why? Because little punks complained that it was too hard. The result? A crappy game with a homogenized player base. There is no mystery or wonder left. It was perfectly fine until they made everything easily obtained.

Magic should be special! There are fewer and fewer special things in HW. I've made the same argument about enabling PvP and item drops on death in the Sorrows to keep items rare, at least a little rare. Tons of people don't even know that you don't lose ANYTHING from death in the Sorrows.

Ambition should only be fulfilled through effort. I don't give a damn about how many kids whine about having to try or whine that I have achieved a lot from my hard work where they have achieved little in their 2 months of play time.

 

[Sankera]

First of I'd like to say that I really wish that I could write so much in a comment, but my inspiration is gone for now to write a masive sheet ot text.

Part 1 - Magic, and it's future in Hollowworld.
I find it quit sad that magic will be removed, on the other hand I've actully never seen the magic or it's system. Well I saw what Nealwyn did at the Harateth event, but the is the only time. I understand that it's quit hard for people to keep OOC knowlegde about magic away from IC, so I call it quit amazing that you've made it so good that nobody did that (as far as I know)

Part 2 - Lore:
I find it quit sad that you leave the Lore-team but it's your own personal choise and I'm not going to try to change it. Also thay questline sounds very fun and I think I would have loved to play it, but yea I'm new and that was far before my time. Also the idea of making plugins and mods is sounds quit and intersting, I'm really intrested what you are going to make/learn so please keep us (the comunity) updated on what you are making because I guess I'm not the only one intrested.

Part 3: Naelwyn
Because I'm quit new (as said before) my char has only seen Neal at event's and once at crossroads, and as you said he couldn't have a normal meal without people thinking he was going to do something epic. I wished I knew Neal IC because he sounds quit nice but yea since you are retering him I can't (untill you decide to bring him back, maybe you can buy a new mc account and play with that account so people won't know it's you, or is that against the rules?)

Point 4: People and the inability to handle the In-Character / Out-of-Character divide.
It's quit sad that (some/most) people do this but nobody can change the way someone is IRL (well this server made me more happy and more artsy) rerail. I also think that I sometime's did it and I feel quit bad about it after reading this thread (well I did before but more now). I also accept my loses in fight's and other stuff, but this might be because my character isn't really a good fighter. Also the part about the "superbanned" person whas quit typical, I always accept things the way they are and don't try to justife them by making up silly excuses. It's called "Common sense" people, what part is it that people don't understand?

Part 5 Interpersonal Conflict and Escalation:
Well in this part I might have seen a little bit of myself, as some people might know my char Sankera (yes I know my forum name, but it's an allias I use for eveything and because I was not planing to make an alt) doesn't like Gregor/Askeladd/Lucius or whatever he's called, but I try to keep this away from OOC, we might have our teasing moment's with him yelling "PRAISE THE SUN" and me yelling back "PRAISE THE MOON" but yea that is OOC teasing, nothing more nothing less. Also as you said that other people aren't "AIs, not robots, not NPCs in your grand story" I totaly agree and I accept all things that happen to my character. an example: My char is engaged to Visenya, but it hapend that he might have fallen for Alaon, they have kissed and well we said they did it, of course we didn't RP it because it's against the rules. but back to the point, I wanted to San to be there for Vis a 100% but it turned out otherwise and I accepted it.

Part 6 - Villains and Evil Characters, Combat, Fighting:
Till so far I've not really seen any evil just people who like to fight but I wouldn't call them evil. as you said that people need to study their armour etc. (come on common sense again) I've also decided to do more alone RP and RP training to have a more realistic feel, first I thought it would be boring but yea I got the feeling I'll like it.

Part 7: Rules
First of I'd like to help you with idea's for a better skill/fighting system as the one we got now is far from perfect (no offence). the /roll system is fun but unrealistic an example: If my char, weak and not good at fighting would fight against someone as Askeladd, good at fighting, and I would win from him only by rolling 1 higher then him that would be very unrealistic.
Also on all other rules, I really like them because they are needed and I know from myself that I could never write them. so good job.

Conclusion:
this amazing thread will change the way that I and hopefuly many other will RP, I really like it (so in the end I wrote an entire sheet of text, wow you gave me insiration to write Neal thnx)

 

[Naelwyn]

I personally am quite happy with the current magic system. Just because some people don't like the fact that they don't have magic is not a good reason to remove magic.

By this reasoning alone we are scrapping a perfectly good system just to get another system that is closer to the old one with phoenixs and chronomancers.

World of Warcraft changed a lot about how easy it was to earn things at the end of the Burning Crusade. Why? Because little punks complained that it was too hard. The result? A crappy game with a homogenized player base. There is no mystery or wonder left. It was perfectly fine until they made everything easily obtained.

Magic should be special! There are fewer and fewer special things in HW. I've made the same argument about enabling PvP and item drops on death in the Sorrows to keep items rare, at least a little rare. Tons of people don't even know that you don't lose ANYTHING from death in the Sorrows.

Ambition should only be fulfilled through effort. I don't give a damn about how many kids whine about having to try or whine that I have achieved a lot from my hard work where they have achieved little in their 2 months of play time.

It's not only this, but it's the principal reason.

At least 2 and up to 4 of the existing Magus members that are managing things are going to be hit with extensive real-life time commitments that will sharply limit how much teaching goes on - when I combine that with the fact that I think the system is ultimately broken and just causes these problems is how I came to the decision.

A big part of this is that it's causing people to be persecuted for putting in the effort.

If, say, to unlock a magical ability you had to successfully complete a dungeon, well - that one is so objective that anyone giving people fuss over it - I cannot imagine it. (Not to say this doesn't have it's own issues of people guiding others through the dungeon or a constant demand on the dungeon makers to make new ones, etc.)

It's not like I don't agree fully with your logic, though.

A very large basis for my tenure in lore has been "If I don't do this worse things will happen" - which can only sustain you for so long.


Rest assured that I can still advise on things and by no means do I think having access to magic should be easy - it should be the hardest feat to accomplish in our game.

One of the reasons I feel I can step back at this point is that you guys are used to quality work, and will probably be able to self-moderate certain kinds of lore right on your own - if someone came out with a magic system that involved time manipulation I honestly don't think I'd have to say anything and other people'd take care of it fine.


On other topics of magic - I'd like people to generally keep it civil.

This is, however, the unabridged thread, so I'm going to follow this post up with a second.

 

[Michcat]

I personally am quite happy with the current magic system. Just because some people don't like the fact that they don't have magic is not a good reason to remove magic.

By this reasoning alone we are scrapping a perfectly good system just to get another system that is closer to the old one with phoenixs and chronomancers.

World of Warcraft changed a lot about how easy it was to earn things at the end of the Burning Crusade. Why? Because little punks complained that it was too hard. The result? A crappy game with a homogenized player base. There is no mystery or wonder left. It was perfectly fine until they made everything easily obtained.

Magic should be special! There are fewer and fewer special things in HW. I've made the same argument about enabling PvP and item drops on death in the Sorrows to keep items rare, at least a little rare. Tons of people don't even know that you don't lose ANYTHING from death in the Sorrows.

Ambition should only be fulfilled through effort. I don't give a damn about how many kids whine about having to try or whine that I have achieved a lot from my hard work where they have achieved little in their 2 months of play time.

I agree with you. This was my mindset until people began being persecuted due to this, OOC feelings on IC actions stemming from the presence of magic. When someone starts getting damaged is when it isn't worth keeping.
Ultimately I inferred Naelwyns decision on magic is due to how magic is not appropriate for the playerbase as a whole, based on what has happened.

 

[Naelwyn]

[DISCLAIMER]I'm going to put more and more into this post as I remember things, and find documents I have saved on older hard drives. I'm mainly going to rant about magic, because this is something that has been a part of this server since I joined in late 2011. I'm going to use terms that have not been used on this server in a very long time, and I hope that they offend no one, but rather help me bring my point across. [/DISCLAIMER]

Magic's History
According to myself, semi- TL;DR'd

Back when I joined the server, November 1, 2011, there was a significantly different set of players than there are now, as many of you know. The first day I logged on the server, I knew nothing about roleplay, so I tried to find people that could help me understand what to do. Using the old port system, from what was formerly Port Silver, now known as Daggerfall, any player could go between the Port and a city for free. At the end of one of the docks, instead of a ship, there was a strange building, covered in vines, and quite strange. It teleported you to the former school of magic, Yoshi's Island. In this town was a character, known as Bellon, the archmage of the school of magic, who I believe ran the magic system at the time. Magic was extremely free form, basically anyone could learn it, as long as they agreed to help the town and do duties. Magic was taught by some the high level mages, much like I presume it was planned to be used now.

After the first exodus, in early summer 2012 (for the 1.2 jungle update i think), Yoshi's Island moved, as with most towns, to the new world. They didn't keep the buildings and such, but instead headed into the mountains. Magic died down, due to the inhabitants keeping to themselves. Kinda all of a sudden, near the end of the summer, two very popular admins suddenly left the server, taking many of the players and characters that were part of the town with them. Magic seemed dead, because soon after they left, the admins and mods, rightfully, started to crack down on the kinds of characters you could make, restricting the amount of races, and a lot of the crazy abilities that some characters had. Magic was gone for my first anniversary as a member of this community, and had been a pretty impactful part of my roleplaying career here.

I'm pretty sure magic popped back in very early in 2013, but don't quote me on that.

Then I was gone, for the end of 2013, so I do not know what happened, but when I did return, I had found out that a new magic system was going to be put into place, and that Nael was writing it. Great idea! I would have loved it, I hope, as long as we saw the whole thing. I read what lore was out there, and saw some of the spells. But then I started seeing this being used in roleplay, and some of the spells being used were... powerful, to say the least. None of the spells being used had any lore backing that was publicly visible, and after trying to figure out where I could find out some more info about the spells and curses being used on me. Since there was no info, I decided just to wait it out, and if I saw a situation where magic could be used, I backed out of it, trying to avoid getting angry over it again.

Here we are today. We again have no magic lore. I love the idea of magic in our world, and I think it would be very fun to have magic for roleplay use, as long as it is balanced and fair to all involved.

Use of Magic Over Time

Over the years that I have been here, magic has been used for two major things in roleplay, healing and combat. With the addition of potions (1.0) the healing magic very slowly died out, as more players utilized potions for healing, because they had quicker effects, and didn't require another person to use their magic on you. (will add more later, need to go to work)

I've given you a fair bit of time to finish this but at this point I'm going to just respond to it.

This is my Unabridged thread, which means I pull no punches and try and just tell my truth on topics.

The old magic system concatenated all control and doling out of abilities to one singular 'archmage' individual, who required all prospective mages to work with them. The archmage used their abilities and gamemode to add gear to themselves with beyond-player enchantable enchantments and could go PvP with their magic in the sorrows.

Players could learn magic as complicated as polymorphing themselves or others from acquiring a single book with less than 100 written characters and no prior experience.

Within my first lesson in this old magic system I had successfully called down a thunderbolt from the sky. People with magic use that were not staff could not accomplish much, but staff mages felt free in applying /thor and flinging thunderbolts around everywhere, even in PvP/PvE situations with no limitations on rapidity of use or potency of effect.

The archmage could literally pull any effect they wanted out of their hat - including precognition and stopping time, and there was no oversight with any of the mages and their interactions with the rest of the world.

The island was claimed with worldedit and things were built with staff commands.

...People remember this as a good thing?

A huge part of the system made to replace that is that it was broken into four pieces, each which had the ability to countermand the others and enforce cross-consistent balancing.

Have any idea how long it took to ICly and OOCly clean up all the magical artifacts left behind by that place that according to the lore of the day - allowed them to outright instantly slay demons, fight corruption and grief, become immortal, etc?

I think one of the things that bothered me most was Infernohawk outright deciding to create three more bloody swords of deific power with no backstory or justification and then awarding himself the first.

[I so do reiterate that people these days really have no idea what Staff abuse is.]

(Remember, this is the Unabridged thread - ask me a question and I'll honestly tell you what I think in response.)

 

[apollo6000]

In character I've not much of a choice but to persecute magic users. Out of character I love magic and I wish I could use it me self.

 

[Somnastra]

So I begin writing this with 30 minutes left on my laptop battery. This might be interesting. I think I'll go point by point, in the order 2 - 7, then 1.

2: Lore. I think you did a wonderful job making things consistent, and I thank you. Since this is the unabridged (and original!) thread, I have no qualms about simply asking that you try and provide every resource at your disposal (everything that was written down, basically) to whoever replaces you. It sounds like Legion will be unwilling, so it'll be interesting to see who gets the reins. (Personally I think it would best be distributed again, so no one gets all the hate~)

3: Naelwyn. Man, my feels. I really liked RPing with your character, although I didn't get to as much with Kelta as I'd've liked. Ultimately your decision. I can't tell you how close I've come to shelving Som on several occasions. So I understand.

4: IC/OOC. Yeah. A lot of folks get emotionally invested in their characters, and getting sad for/mad at characters is just fine. I even think it is fine and normal for players to get caught up in RP, and even have OOC opinions on characters. There can be some fine lines, though, as sometimes opinions can form on the way people RP, or the type of RP they go for (I am guilty of this myself), but really, ultimately, it's up to the player what they like. I start getting a bit ticked when people try to drag others into RP of a type they don't want to be in. My solution is usually just to stop RPing with the person, sometimes with no explanation, but that's not always an option. It can get to be a bit of a mess when you start looking at this sorts of stuff, but I think we can all benefit from remembering that it's a game. This means that not only should you try to have fun, but you should try to make it fun for other people.

5: Conflict. ............................Yeah.

6: Villains. Yes. Yes yes yes. YES. I think the biggest problem I have with some of the character people play is that they are creating villains who they intend to play indefinitely. This bugs me. Immensely. That being said, I would LOVE to see more player-driven (i.e. CREATED) events centering around the ultimate vanquishing of their own villains. THIS WOULD BE SO COOL, GUYS.

7: Rules. Right there with you. However, I spent some time in the unenviable position of safety harpy before. People hated me. "Wear goggles when doing that. Go get long pants. Close-toed shoes. No, you can't come in here wearing that. Why are you operating that machine without a buddy?" This... made me realize that someone's gotta do it. And it's often better for everyone if someone does.

I am considering waiting on responding about the magic, as my opinion is... complicated.

 

[Somnastra]

Magic.... Naelwyn, understand that I say this with respect and I'm trying to be as candid as you clearly were in your post. I've thought a lot about this over the past few days, and it has come to a head in my own mind in such a way that I am having trouble sleeping at the moment. So here is what I've decided I have to say.

I have read your reasoning, and I gotta say that, quite frankly, I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The system of magic that you and the other three Magi (Maguses? Words. Weird. Want fix.) have come up with was fantastic. Were there problems? Yes. But it is absolutely unreasonable to expect a system to be perfect without a shakedown period. And the only magic discipline that got that was Cogitation. Would I have liked them to be a bit more cohesive with each other? Yes. Would it have been nice for the learning to go a bit more quickly? Well, yeah, but this was the first generation of apprentices. There is a clear learning curve for everyone involved. You didn't even have a full adept in any discipline before calling it quits, and I don't think that is fair to the Magi who put in all the work or the players. And I really don't think it's fair to the people who were apprentices or wanted to be apprentices under this system. Their character arcs were (or will be) basically all cut short in one way or another. HELL, the character arcs of each Magus are being cut short.

Let me put it in the language I know that we both speak: when a team (yes, team) develops some sort of product, be it a satellite or robot or piece of software, it goes through design phases. First there is the proposal (essentially), where things are put down on paper and mathematically analyzed and just... basically thought about. Then bits and pieces start getting fleshed out and some even start getting tested. This is the preliminary design, and in my opinion the magic system was not much past this. Once you start rigorously testing every piece, you throw some bits out and replace them with better working ideas. This would probably be all the disciplines having active apprentices who are using the magic and running into logistical issues and holes and such. Eventually you have something that works. Even at this stage, not everything's perfect, but having a perfect satellite is going to cost exorbitant amounts of money, when a satellite that is "just fine" will do. Sure, sometimes (often, actually) projects get shelved before they really take off, but this is usually a result of incompatibility with mission, budget, or vision. But I really do not think that's the case here. I've run out of interest in this metaphor. Moving on.

If you don't want to be a Magus anymore, that's one thing. Perhaps the transition could be to three disciplines instead of zero. Or two. Any number of things could have been done. But I think that saying it is inappropriate for the server is simply not true, however much you might feel that it is. Let's brainstorm ways to fix those problems you listed instead of throwing in the towel. At least, that's my opinion.

Or don't. I mean, I have absolutely no control over your decision, but I want you to know that it frustrates me. Not as a player, not as an apparently failed Mysticism apprentice, but as staff. Because as Baron has gleefully pointed out to everyone who has started to offer alternatives, the simplest (yeah, simplest. Despite what you said~), easiest solutions to the magic problem have been done already. Magic fits Altera. It always has. We just need to be careful not to let it get out of hand like what's been done before. And apparently this system is to be lumped with them. When honestly, if I were to make a magic system from scratch for a roleplaying server like Altera, it would be more like the system you came up with than dissimilar. And now we're basically cut off from that, it seems, because it has been given a big "F" from Naelwyn. When I don't think it should have been.

Perhaps I have more faith in people than I should, particularly given recent events. Perhaps I didn't see what you saw (but I feel like I saw an awful lot). Or perhaps I've experienced the Tall Poppy Syndrome so much in real life that it no longer phases me when I encounter it in a virtual environment- yeah, it's a thing in the real world, folks. You know that smart person you hate because they're such an insufferable know-it-all? That's the Tall Poppy. The star quarterback or forward who all the unpopular kids despise and all the popular kids take special pleasure in talking about behind their backs- Tall Poppy. It's a fact of life, and I don't particularly feel any need to shelter people from that. It happens, it's a thing. Yeah, it might be nice to shield those you love from it, but you really can't. Ultimately. Maybe I'm just a jaded old person, but yeah. As staff all we can do is make sure things don't explode and that things are fair. We're not trying to control experience or even ooc sentiments. ....And in one breath, you say you heard tons of positive things, and in the other, you said you were tired of ooc hate- Eh, I'm too tired to really do much with that, I'm going to wrap this up.

So if you're taking magic out, I would like to discuss with you the particular physics of the world that you concocted to allow for the magic that is there. Because eventually... I think it should be put back in. And it should be consistent with the lore already in place.

If you can't be convinced to change your mind about this...

*braces for impact*

 

[Gaby]

...

:O

 

[Baron]

Hey, I take offence at the idea that you think I do things gleefully!

I do them sadistically.

 

[Somnastra]

Hey, I take offence at the idea that you think I do things gleefully!

I do them sadistically.

Hehe, my mistake~

 

[cherbert]

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.

The above being the case and it also being the case that you stated that all of what you said is your opinion and taking into consideration the fact I have just read Somnastra's contribution to the debate I think its unfair for you alone to declare the magic system to be a failure and declare that it should be removed. Unless you change your mind based on some of the responses in this thread then I feel someone else should be allowed to see it through, make any changes and try make it work.

 

[Naelwyn]

Do I really want to:

A) Remove the Magic System
B) Not write Lore
C) Not play Naelwyn

No, not really.

The responses to this thread have been overwhelmingly positive. The point remains I've just borne witness to a campaign to attack someone that in all honesty seems to stem directly from the magic system I wrote.

I get people responding to me with things like this:

I'll start this off by saying I'm thankful to everyone that worked hard to make the campaign a reality, that said, my review is going to be the almost polar opposite of Kaza's.

I found the event, the three hours I stuck around for, to be extremely repetitive, and boring, within those three hours there was limited development in rp, and this is something that I feel needs to be looked at, as huge event timeframes can't become the norm, especially when plenty of people have other things to do besides spend 5 hours at one event.

Furthermore, I very much felt like someone watching a play, particularly between Michcat and Naelwyn, wherein my actions were preordained, and it felt especially drone like to be told exactly what to chant, where to stand, how to act.

The event itself could have been much more player involved, perhaps we have to solve puzzles, fight mobs, explore a dungeon to complete it, instead of observe a summoning which we truly know nothing of how it was completed. I felt that the 'plan' we spoke of in Hound Ru, an event which came down to staff dominated roleplay yet again, really was just left in the dust as Michcat and Naelwyn conducted us to move along in specific ways. Not everyone has to be the hero that slays a God, but you can certainly be the person who fends off the monsters attacking them. The vast majority of people ended up standing around while a few people actually acted.

On the weapons themselves, rather than explain them in the roleplay channel, their powers were explained in the weapons channel, which for me, was extremely immersion breaking, again I felt I was extremely limited in how I was supposed to act.

Harateth himself in my opinion was a very 2d character, he appeared a generic villian and I just didn't feel like his true character, even corrupted was properly encapsulated. In the end he just seemed like a characture of a demon.

Therefore, I believe the structure of events, particualarly the amount of player involvement, and player driven conflict/actions need to be looked at, and changed to better represent a player driven roleplay server, rather than one that right now feels utterly controlled by a very specific part of the staff team.

When all I really wanted to do was play my character.

D'you know how hurtful it is to read that kind of thing when you literally felt the campaign would fail unless you showed up to try and help give people hints IC?

Or when my character walked up to Albareth and told him exactly what he needed to do to help a corrupted person, and then had him completely ignore said advice in favour of torture and then hear Polo complain afterwards about how it was pointless and it failed? Take things IC! You deliberately ignored advice of a character that had been through the process at least three times and then complained OOCly - you have no excuse.

The magic system I wrote I consider some of my best work on the server, of course I don't want to get rid of it.

But I've got to hear some positive feedback from some people not engaged in learning in the system before I can justify it. I need to know nobody is going to be attacked as a result of this system I set up to improve the game before I can allow it to continue being run or else I'm just going to be fragmenting the community further.

Tis why I have made this thread - the way I see it now the system has failed utterly, I cannot continue to manage lore, I cannot continue to play my character - and my intentions are to do something about these things.

Am I doing them right away? No! You can feel free to try and convince me otherwise. I just want to know what people actually think about it, so I can make my decision with a wider basis than simply "All the people who have problems with this and have nothing against telling me."

Hence,

Unabridged.

 

[kaza125]

Ok, I'm going to address the villain section of your discussion Nael, mainly because I'm writing this on a Kindle, on a holiday and that I agree with most of what you have said.

So, here is my experience with the villain imagery on the server and how I see it.
Currently I'm playing as Magnar who is a "bandit" that will participate in the upcoming North event. Now the reason why I used "" is that when I play as the bandit, he is typically seen as a villain because he is bandit. For me I remove the image of Heroes and Villains, because the character, whether he be a H or V is much more realistic. When I play him, he doesn't steal because he's "evil", he's not, he's steals because he is very poor and doesn't have the wealth that others have to sustain a normal life, therefore I see my character as someone who had an unfortunate past and has to live in the circumstances his past and the world has created for him.

So basically what I'm saying is that if we want to achieve this high end roleplaying we need to see it from a realistic point of you, that way people who play as "villains" won't feel ostracized as know that they can achieve their aims. This also needs to be adopted from the point of view of the villains as for me honestly to create a great character you shouldn't be total evil, because it just looks like that every bad guy in movies we see. So in opinion everyone should take into account realism and understand "bad people" can win.

 

[cherbert]

The responses to this thread have been overwhelmingly positive. The point remains I've just borne witness to a campaign to attack someone that in all honesty seems to stem directly from the magic system I wrote.

Well this is the crux of the issue and the problems stem much farther back than your magic system. Despite the length of your post I thought it was lacking the fundamental issues that caused your frustration and only now have you seen fit to hint at the real issue.

Lets not skirt around them and pretend the problems are elsewhere nor sweep things under the carpet (which is what I predicted would happen).

Can we please tackle the real issues rather than allowing the Lore and Magic Systems to take the blame for what seems essentially to be personality conflicts and hate campaigns toward both you and @Michcat personally and in many cases the entire staff and management team as a whole from within this community.

These are the real issues we need to thrash out and confront here once and for all - these are the real issues that caused your magic system to fail.

This is the opportunity we have now so that grudges and criticisms don't fester among select groups of players intent on spoiling the game for the majority who love what you do. The biggest issues being the resentment toward staff members and the inability of many of us to play a character on this server without having accusations of abuse thrown at us.

 

[Ced]

The lore itself was great, and should be handed to others if you feel you don't want to manage the system that governs it anymore.
New lore managers can make new systems, or choose to continue with ones similar to yours, and they're smart enough to be held accountable for their actions. Should they choose to continue with your system and it 'fragments' the server more, then it's on their heads, not yours.

 

[Naelwyn]

If I'd rewrite my first post based on the feedback I've been getting I think I'd have the first three points stated more along the lines of,

"I feel like this stuff just isn't working out right now, and barring changes happening I'll eventually be stepping out / recommending a new system / no longer playing my character."

If it helps, the positive feedback has certainly shifted my attitude away from the generally overwhelmingly negative response I tend to get.

I guess at this point I want to focus on that, really, and how it relates to my midrange posts - evidently I think it needs to be addressed. The experience between people seems to be almost uniform towards this kind of trend and I think it's time to stop.

I want to express my honest opinion here -

A big complaint is "Staff do too much" - My response, my real response, is not, "I'm sorry I'll try to play in the campaigns less."

No!

My actual response is "Why the hell do you think they got promoted to staff in the first place?" It's because we do things and are active on the server that's a big part of why we were selected to be staff -

Time and time again here my friends get promoted into staff positions (Almost like qualities that make me like people are also qualities worthy of staffliness) and then slowly but surely stop roleplaying... then lose interest and stop logging on. That's a big load.

I honestly want to just say "This is how things are, deal with it" - but a big thing of what I've tried to do is take people's thoughts into account.

And after good suggestion from Cherbert outside of here - I want to modify that between extremes.

Again, this being the Unabridged thread - let me try a bit of a Hybrid approach.

"I'm just going to do this, but tell me about your problems anyways."

I damn well want to keep Naelwyn, so let's start with him, shall we -

Tell me your honest problems with this character and I will either address them as best I can, or accept the criticism and move on.

 

[Cubey]

Poor Naelwyn