[Feedback] The Lore Team

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

I can already feel certain people rolling their eyes as they read the title and clicked on this, but here we go.

Feedback for the Lore Team

Disclaimer:

This post comes at a precarious time because I am currently being considered for a position in the LT, I hope I make the cut, but I wanted to make this post before the decision is made, just in case I get denied and it seems like I wrote this out of spite because of it.

 

This post is public because like usual, I want to gauge the publics opinion. I think the LT can benefit from observing their responses too. Bare in mind I am an FM and will be cracking down on useless, inflammatory and non-constructive posts, whether or not they agree with the OP.

 

I’m writing this as a prominent elven RPer (although I have spent plenty of time w/ the humans). Bare in mind the perspective this is written from as you read the post. Perhaps other playerbases will agree with me, perhaps not.

 

This post is written from my experiences with several renditions of Lore Teams throughout the past year or so. I acknowledge that this current lore team under Benboboy is fairly new and undergoing some policy changes, I'm not directly accusing this new team of all the faults listed below, but providing them with some guidelines they can hopefully follow when moving forward.

 

Lastly, I have a blunt/stark way of giving feedback. So, while I may seem harsh in this post, my intention isn’t to personally insult any members of the Lore Team. I personally have a few people I consider friends in that team and wish to keep it that way. This most is meant to be CONSTRUCTIVE. If you get offended, remember that isn’t my intention.

 

Prelude:

Alright, so earlier today I made a post on the ‘Nine Tomes of Power’ announcement. I made it because I felt the Nine Tomes were perpetrating an unhealthy trend the LT’s been stuck on lately: putting too much emphasis on niche groups and powerful artifacts, while the majority of the playerbase who does not care for (or will ever be exposed to) these things remain ignored and under-represented.

 

Here is the post:

Key Points:

I have organized everything I feel the LT need to change into a few categories which I will elaborate on one by one, they are as follows:

 

1) Less Aenguldaemons/Magic-based lore

The druids, paladins, clerics, mages (and I assume shamans) already have tons of lore at their disposal. Yet it seems whenever there’s a big lore reveal, or major Lore-team project, it always revolves around these groups.

 

Wane your focus away from these magic groups please, because it really seems they get all the attention. You know who’s starved for content? The proletariat masses. By that I mean common players. Your typical non-sparkly dwarf, orc, elf and human. A big change to necromancy (new wraith archetype woo!!!) or a magical book of Xan is not going to mean shite to most people.

 

So, instead of writing more lore for aenguldaemon groups (who make up a minority of the server), write lore for the majority of people. Give them more motivation to engage in things other than “this artifact is VERY powerful you should go find it!” Make lore RELEVANT to their cultures. Make it relevant to their daily RP, relevant to their governments, relevant to more than just their desire for power and special-snowflakism.

 

EXAMPLE:

• Maybe your next piece of lore can be the reveal of some sort of lost tome that details a forgotten chapter of Dwarven history, and reveals a lost piece of dwarven smithing technique (non-magical). That would be a significant and relevant find to a large playerbase, the dwarves.

 

• Or maybe the ghost of an important historical ancient human figure (like Harren?) who was never put to rest. That would certainly pique the interest of almost all the core human players who could choose to either purge it or listen to its ancient knowledge, for example.

 

Just no more aenguldaemons please. They are niche groups who already have plenty going for them, and most of the time are disconnected from the main, majority forming playerbases: elf, dwarf, orc, human.

 

2) Don’t keep things secret that don’t have to be secret (history)

Honestly...why all the secret lore?

 

If it’s lore that serves to potentially make one person or group very powerful, I can get why it isn’t shown to the public. But there is so much lore that is literally nothing but flavour and harmless world-building depth which the LT decides is for some reason too delicate to let into the hands of the unwashed masses.

 

It would be nice to be able to build an IC race’s history off of some actual canon history, but since the LT keeps so much of it hidden from us, any culture builder is forced to essentially fly blind and come up with their own things, hoping to god that it doesn’t conflict with whats canon, and praying that all his work won’t go to waste when the LT do some big reveal event telling the world what really happened.

 

Speaking of events, I can sort of tell that’s why so much history lore is hidden. So that it can be revealed at the right time in a big, bombastic flashy way in a big reveal event (A la the word altar events back in Athera, centering around fiandria). Now, the thing is these events are most often underwhelming and un-impactful. Like I honestly don’t remember a thing from the Fiandria events other than that they were really frustrating.

 

Please, LT, just release all this hidden ancient history (especially Supremacy’s fabled ‘30-page elf history google doc’). You can do it in organic, IC ways that don’t involve big reveal events. Leave tomes and articles around in ruins across the map. Have ghosts from the past manifest and tell their story to the living, etc.

 

Why should you do this? Because all that rich race history is going to waste, and at this point conflicts with a lot of actual player-RP’d histories and cultures because we weren’t allowed to use them when developing our cultures. I’d rather have all this hidden lore benefit our DAY TO DAY RP then sit around for literal years in a secret doc, only to be revealed in a mediocre event which leaves much to be desired.

 

You’ve been building up and teasing big history reveals for years now but we’ve seen little to nothing, and at this point we really are expecting to be dissapointed...just release the history organically so we can integrate it into our playerbase culture, please.

 

3) Where are the spoons? (why is every artifact super significant and hyper-powerful?)

(A big thanks to shimmeringbliss for the inspiration behind this point).

 

While chatting with her, she brought up a good point. Every artifact the LT put out seem to be some sort of super-powerful plot device. (ex: see the orb-thing that caused that giant ash-storm, the gazardial soul reaping scythe, or more recently- these books of power).

 

Super powerful artifacts certainly make for RP opportunities (bar the aforementioned point where they often cater too much to niche aenguldaemon groups), but I feel that they’ve become a bit overdone. And our suspension of disbelief has become a bit broken.

 

Not every artifact has to be super powerful. Some can simply be more subtle, mundane. Provide little tidbits of RP flavour. Hence, “where are the spoons?”. Do ancient civilizations always have to leave nothing behind but that [Super Powerful World-Destroying Orb of Power] they locked up and booby-trapped/left a monster to guard? What did they wear? What furniture did they use? What religious artifacts might they have left behind? What did they EAT with? (I want my ancient spoons!)

 

This also ties into point no. 1 where every time the lore team reveals a big artifact thing it’s always the magnum opus MacGuffin of some aengul or daemon. Let’s have more down-to-earth things please.

 

EXAMPLES:

• Write in/reveal artifacts that may give clues to how ancient elven religion worked. Give the elves the opportunity to make an event out of finding them, incorporate them into their daily RP.

 

• Somewhere in the map, plant a tome that leads people to where the ancient crown of Horen (or some other important ancient human dude) is buried. That’s something the whole human playerbase can get involved in, and the artifact isnt super-powerful, and isn’t an aenguldaemon’s MacGuffin. It’s more CULTURAL, SYMBOLIC, and RELEVANT to a big player group.

 

• SPOONS

 

4) Don’t shy away from changing lore according to what the players have developed

Sorry to put it harshly, guys. But the lore team should be obligated to adapt to the players, not the players be pressured into adapting to the lore team.

 

It should be semi-common knowledge that I have had a somewhat frustrating experience in trying to get the LT to cooperate with the history I’ve developed. Because Seed Lore doesn’t fit canonically with written elven lore. Well, that’s tough luck isn’t it? Because they never let me view the lore in the first place so I was flying blind from the start.

 

The wood elves aren’t the only playerbase who have had to struggle with the LT over lore disputes. Aeldin was a debacle that IMO the LT refused to just make canon for the longest time out of sheer stubbornness, to my knowledge, a huge dwarf lore eventline was planned in Athera then largely cancelled/retconned.

 

The simple fact of the matter is we would like the lore and culture we developed to take front and center as server canon, as opposed to whatever the LT has written up and kept hidden for a year. We apologize if that player-made lore doesn’t fit with what’s canon, but the LT give us little to no opportunity to actually find out what’s canon and even less opportunity to actually work with what they’ve written.

 

I know that some LT will consider this an IC issue taken into OOC, (“you developed your contemporary cultures ICly, therefore it’s your own fault”). That’s not the case. Considering the fact that the actively hid most ancient history lore OOCly from us I don’t consider it our fault for not going out and trying to find out the truth ICly before developing our IC cultures free of LT influence (because we didn’t have a choice).

 

It just isn’t really fair that the LT can keep all this lore hidden from us and choose to reveal it at their own whim at any time, potentially throwing the cultures we spent years developing as a result into whack. Either work with us consistently or not at all please. And adapt to what the players have developed, you keeping OOCly hidden lore and forcing us to diverge from what’s canon because of it isn’t our problem, it’s yours.

 

Conclusion

That’s all I got for now.

 

I implore all LT reading this not to take this as a personal attack, and please not to get defensive about it. I’m simply trying to put into cohesive words what me and I believe many others have been feeling about your team for the longest time.

At the end of the day, it boils down to transparency and communication. Take your focus away from niche groups like druids, paladins and clerics (I’m not saying ignore them entirely, just shift your priority), move them to larger groups like Oren, Urguan, Laureh’lin, etc. Approach the leaders, both political and cultural, and ask how you, the LT, can better work with us.

 

Sit down with the High Profit in Urguan and ask him what the team can do to benefit dwarf culture. Talk to the High Pontiff in Oren about what humans want out of the LT, et cetera. Reach out to more people, larger groups. Be subtler. Not everything has to be big and magical.

 

I hope you take what I said into account.

 

Peace,

Leo

 

[Dragonslayerelf 654]

"Wane your focus away from these magic groups please, because it really seems they get all the attention. You know who’s starved for content? The proletariat masses. By that I mean common players. Your typical non-sparkly dwarf, orc, elf and human. A big change to necromancy (new wraith archetype woo!!!) or a magical book of Xan is not going to mean shite to most people.

 

So, instead of writing more lore for aenguldaemon groups (who make up a minority of the server), write lore for the majority of people. Give them more motivation to engage in things other than “this artifact is VERY powerful you should go find it!” Make lore RELEVANT to their cultures. Make it relevant to their daily RP, relevant to their governments, relevant to more than just their desire for power and special-snowflakism... but since the LT keeps so much of it hidden from us, any culture builder is forced to essentially fly blind and come up with their own things... Write in/reveal artifacts that may give clues to how ancient elven religion worked. Give the elves the opportunity to make an event out of finding them, incorporate them into their daily RP..." ~Leo 2016

I literally couldn't agree more. When I first applied to this server I would've had a great story first time only I sift through the wiki and what do I get? An outdated town name and a little bit of history. When I expect to have to be reading for an hour and know all, I read for 5 minutes and couldn't know less. So little in fact that when I walked into Csomethingorother, I literally didn't know crap and had to ask Art 99.9% of it. Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
And also; where is the common folk lore? Magic is banned and outlawed in most places, so adding on MORE to it just adds MORE want to be special snowflakes but LESS practicality!

And some people are actually interested in having documented history for the races without having to document it themselves, just as we have wiki articles and history sources for those interested.

[TeaLulu 1783]

This would have been relevant feedback for the prior LM team.. Mainly Supremacy/Menarra/Blundermore/etc etc need we go on about LMs who I thought were ****.

Unfortunately, it is not relevant with the current LM team and you need to consider that fact!

 

You accused me of "personally attacking and jumping to conclusions" when I claimed to be blunt/stark.

 

Here you are doing exactly what you accused me of; jumping to conclusions that these books/lore will only be used for "niche" groups and that only "niche" groups will have access to them.

 

Then later in your post you're basically just flat-out attacking the LM team for not accepting your lore, despite the fact you admit you never intended to get it canonized until many people IC started following it, and the fact you admitted roleplaying discovery of relics/writings on the culture already, despite having no LM approval, thusly essentially powergaming; And now you want the LM team to "Formalize" your lore to make it okay you did that. I PMed you about this and you blantantly ignored all of the points I made.

 

Most lore is player written.  Different LMs work on different things.  As you can see on that announcement, the book lore was written by Benbo, James, and Zarsies; not the entire LM team. So, you're insulting the entire LM team and claiming they need to shift their entire focus, when every LM does something different and the entire team doesn't work like projects like this.

 

That is precisely why there are trials for LM team right now, which you are a part of. So that there can be greater variety in lore written and submitted.

 

In fact, you know as well as I that some of the suggestions you have made, are already the focus of the LM trial.

 

So, where is the issue when you KNOW, because YOU ARE IN LM TRIAL CHAT, that the LMs are trying specifically to DIVERSIFY their interests and their team to better serve the player base? 

 

Do you guys want non-magic lore? Aside from the fact the LM team seem to already be looking for more diversified interests in that, the playerbase needs to submit more non-magic lore.

 

Also, dragonslayerelf; The LM team isn't responsible for Wiki upkeep. Thats the Wiki team. The LM team recently helped make Lore easier to access with the new Lore option on the hotbar.

[Wretched 2075]

1. Since I've become lead we've introduced a single piece of global Aengudaemonic lore and it was for you guys, not for the Aengudaemons. I'm in the process of recruiting more human LMs for the reason that they are often excluded, being the human masses.

 

2. Everybody SERIOUSLY overestimates the amount of hidden lore we have. It is pitifully small, it all fits onto one thread. The real chances are if you can't find it, it's not hidden, it doesn't exist. I don't believe we have any hidden historical lore whatsoever.

 

3. If it's mundane it doesn't need lore. Feel free to find spoons and any other manner of cutlery you wish, give it your own backstory if you want, you don't need us to be giving you renamed items of every piece of furniture you find. As for magical items, we already have a mixture of powerful ones, mediocre ones and straightup useless ones. See Razmot, for example.

 

4. This one is just focused on your own lore lol. Barely a point that needs addressing. You are welcome to work with members of the LT, nothing stopping you. However, it might take a little less telling us we're doing everything wrong and a little more coming forward directly to us with your ideas.

 

But seriously give me a chance lol. The truth is I'm aware pretty much every problem with lore anybody could ever bring up, that happens when you've been part of  the LT for so long. It's so easy to say "This is wrong" but it's so infinitely more complex than that, it is not possible to just 'fix' LoTC's problems with a feedback post. I am very gradually reshaping the lore team, I am planning a variety of long term events and findings different ways to include those usually left out of them as my human LM cracker can tell you. My first project as LM lead was to organise the mess that was LoTC's lore and for the most part, it's worked, but there is still more to do. I am expanding the LT's horizons but the nature of the team is that you don't see this until it is in effect, so again I'm just going to have to call for patience.

 

tl;dr I know. Trust me I know. Give me a chance. Feel free to dispute me but I won't be responding further.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

1. Since I've become lead we've introduced a single piece of global Aengudaemonic lore and it was for you guys, not for the Aengudaemons. I'm in the process of recruiting more human LMs for the reason that they are often excluded, being the human masses.

Yeah but I'm talking about the LT from the past year or so, not just after you became the lead. Like I said I'm not out to make you seem incompetent. If you're already doing the things I've suggested in this thread then that's great, really. I genuinely am glad to hear it.

 

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

2. Everybody SERIOUSLY overestimates the amount of hidden lore we have. It is pitifully small, it all fits onto one thread. The real chances are if you can't find it, it's not hidden, it doesn't exist. I don't believe we have any hidden historical lore whatsoever.

Well, I've been told differently. I hope what you've said is true. Connor and several other LTs have repeatedly teased a treasure trove of ancient elf lore to me multiple times though. I don't know who to believe at this point.

 

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

 

3. If it's mundane it doesn't need lore. Feel free to find spoons and any other manner of cutlery you wish, give it your own backstory if you want, you don't need us to be giving you renamed items of every piece of furniture you find. As for magical items, we already have a mixture of powerful ones, mediocre ones and straightup useless ones. See Razmot, for example.

By mundane I just mean non-magical. It can be mundane and also very significant. Like my crown of horen example. Something like that is definately big and would require LT approval to RP out. (I assume we aren't allowed to just go out and say we found something as important as that).

 

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

 

4. This one is just focused on your own lore lol. Barely a point that needs addressing. You are welcome to work with members of the LT, nothing stopping you. However, it might take a little less telling us we're doing everything wrong and a little more coming forward directly to us with your ideas.

I'm writing from a perspective heavily skewed on my experiences yes, but as I mentioned the wood elves aren't the only playerbase historically to have this happen to them. Once again I'm reviewing the LT over the past year or so, not just when you became lead.

 

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

 

But seriously give me a chance lol. The truth is I'm aware pretty much every problem with lore anybody could ever bring up, that happens when you've been part of  the LT for so long. It's so easy to say "This is wrong" but it's so infinitely more complex than that, it is not possible to just 'fix' LoTC's problems with a feedback post. I am very gradually reshaping the lore team, I am planning a variety of long term events and findings different ways to include those usually left out of them as my human LM cracker can tell you. My first project as LM lead was to organise the mess that was LoTC's lore and for the most part, it's worked, but there is still more to do. I am expanding the LT's horizons but the nature of the team is that you don't see this until it is in effect, so again I'm just going to have to call for patience.

If you are seeking to change things for the better than by all means I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I am genuinely happy to hear the LT lead is out to improve his team's image. I didn't mean to seem impatient by the way. The intention of this thread isn't "YOU SUCK. I DEMAND CHANGE NOW". Just several broad points you can look towards while moving forwards.

 

2 minutes ago, Benbo (Wretched) said:

 

tl;dr I know. Trust me I know. Give me a chance. Feel free to dispute me but I won't be responding further.

I'm glad you know, truly. I'm not trying to be your enemy. If we're on the same page, then I look forward to working with you in the future. Whether or not I will be on the LT.

[Birdnerdy 1539]

Another well-written post that addresses a lot of concerns held by a strong majority of players. Good work Leo. 

[Cave_Creature 467]

I don't expect any more from people our age group, but it'd be nice regardless.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

43 minutes ago, TeaLulu said:

This would have been relevant feedback for the prior LM team.. Mainly Supremacy/Menarra/Blundermore/etc etc need we go on about LMs who I thought were ****.

Unfortunately, it is not relevant with the current LM team and you need to consider that fact!

Well, its mainly that LM team I'm critiqueing. My experiences are from the past year or so. I haven't formed an opinion of the current LT yet, I just wrote this post in the hope they won't repeat the mistakes of the past. Like I said to Benbo, if they have plans to improve moving forward then I will be a happy camper!

[KarmaDelta 969]

Can we at least be a little lax with Dwarven and Orc history events?

 

Currently, I am doing an expedition in which we plunge into a Thanium pit. Ziko/Bloodnight brought up the idea of having it relate to some part of Dwarven history, which was about the Deep Dwarves. I didn't mind it, and thought it would be neat.

 

About a week ago I think, Bloodnight said something along the lines of how we couldn't do anything Deep Dwarf related at all, due to them not being here in this plain or whatever and you guys denied the idea. In my mind, I was a little sad since we were also going to connect them with the Deep Roads and I was never truly around for true Dwarven events, other than the train wreck and dismissal of the Grand Hall event we had in Athera.

 

I understand lore wise you may have it as one thing for the Deep Dwarves, but what is stopping us from using them in the future? Who says they themselves havent found ways to travel through portals as we have? After all, in lore I was told they were pretty advanced.

 

I don't want to say shafted, but when it comes to Dwarven and Orcish history, we're literally denied when we want to do something. Either it's the LMs or the ET, though it's been changing recently. I just hope you guys think of us in the future when/if we want to do events relating to things that have already been done but never finished.

[oblivionsbane 714]

Judging from my own experiences including what leo has said in his post it sounds like the Lore Team has a history of poor communication. The example that rings in my head is Athera being so prevalent in Dwarven lore and the complications that ensued and ended with a promised event that never actually happened to my knowledge.

 

Hidden lore is also a big problem not just because of the reasons leo stated explicitly. There is also the fact I've had people claim that secret lore exists that they were leaked and LM's then tell me it doesn't actually exist. I don't know what's real or not, and it's awkward to call people out on something that might actually be lore that I just don't have access to. Leo seems to have experienced this with the lore Supremacy allegedly has. Maybe it exists but maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's lore Supremacy wrote and never had accepted, but he teases that it is accepted which is causing problems with Leo making lore. The lack of solid validity in claims of secret lore is an issue in and of itself that needs to be addressed.

 

I have trust in benbo, though. I can figure the communication issues I mentioned in the first paragraph were coming from the top down, so the prospect of a new, revitalized team leader gives me confidence in the remedying of these problems. Only time will tell.

[Heff 2460]

Deus Vult! Also, funny you mentioned Harren in relation to the humans, I'm doing an event line soon that relates to him and his conflicts with Owyn.

[Ventusyr 233]

I second everything here, but I am glad things are being done to change that. The focus on Aengudaemonic groups needs to go away in favor of wider roleplay opportunities and storylines for the entirety of the server.

[Song Druid 1486]

Not that you didn't make some interesting points, if you're criticizing an old lore team why bother at all?  Lulu definitely brings excellent points up about how this isn't necessary under the current team. It's clear that there are active attempts to make changes to these teams and operations that are underway even as we speak.  Let's give it a chance to succeed before we condemn it.

 

And for the love of god you and lulu need to get some pms going before I make you both hold hands

[Imam Faiz Kharadeen 3167]

i didn't read it all, only because im literally retarded

 

but i approve +1

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

5 minutes ago, Song Druid said:

It's clear that there are active attempts to make changes to these teams and operations that are underway even as we speak.  Let's give it a chance to succeed before we condemn it.

Beggining to sound like a broken record here but I'm not saying the current LT is directly guilty of any of my points made. Like I replied to Tehlulu:

Quote

Well, its mainly [THE OLD] LM team I'm critiqueing. My experiences are from the past year or so. I haven't formed an opinion of the current LT yet, I just wrote this post in the hope they won't repeat the mistakes of the past. Like I said to Benbo, if they have plans to improve moving forward then I will be a happy camper!