Accepting Conflict

[Aengoth 2883]

I'm **** at writing as I always ramble so take this incoherent mess for what its worth. Edit: Heres some music since its a long ass post Edit2: ******* spoiler took all of it for some odd reason

 

 

 

Accepting Conflict and Losing is an important part of developing and maintaining interesting characters. Characters that do not experience conflict tend to become very one dimensional and detached from the reality of the server and some of its most important driving forces [wars/antags/spooks/monsters/etc]. We cannot realistically expect to script [often fabricated/melodramatic (ex - orc killed my dad) conflict that seems disingenuous except by a rare few] every interaction and its outcome become a character that is genuinely interesting and fun to interact with. This is not meant to detract from the importance of peaceful / slice of life roleplay since those roleplay scenarios are often what sets the foundation for the personality/beliefs of a character. Instead these factors are together important in created a well rounded character. You can't build a community solely on one type of roleplay and expect it to be self sufficient. We've seen this from both sides be it "PvP goons" or "Tavern RPers".

 

A good example of "PvP goons" lacking self sufficiency is the decline/stagnation of the Orcs. This isn't meant to be a knock at the Orcish players but rather the systems they were built upon that were unsustainable such as how Orcs use to PvP for who got the title of Rex. This resulted in the Orcs struggling to maintain consistent and effective leadership and when fully embracing such a system the nation would descend into chaos due to the lack of a proper structure. Even now it appears that Orcs struggle to maintain enough activity to justify a Nation status due to the foundation they were built upon limiting their ability to grow at the same rate as their counterparts [compare the number of Orcish nations/cultures to have existed and been reasonably strong to the other 3 descendants].

 

A direct opposite of this is readily available by looking at a number of elven nations the quintessential "Tavern RPers" throughout the lifespan of the server. Instead I think a better example though would be Halflings who have similarly struggled like the Orcs even though they're fundamentally different. We've seen the Halflings go through many periods of brief activity to stagnancy. Even in 2.0/3.0 it was joked that Halflings were a Retirement nation for old players to go and chill out in. It is difficult to pull in new players and maintain current players in a population where little conflict happens. Hell, one of the times Halflings were at their peaks was when they accepted Conflict and they nearly eradicated a human subrace [either Raevs or Adunians, I can't remember its been awhile] due to a border dispute. Doesn't matter how many fairs you plan if nothing really changes asides from a leader abdicating every now and then. Again this isn't meant to diminish those who play Halflings but rather show how the limitations they work within really inhibit their ability to grow/maintain at times.

 

Finally banditry is alive again which is a great change from what was a relatively conflict free previous map. Conflict is good for building well rounded characters, so many characters are painfully sheltered and exist in bubbles that do not interact with one another unless a conquest warclaim is created. Having a character that is sheltered isn't necessarily a bad thing and should be encouraged when the character is young, but an elf who has lived 400 years blissfully unaware/uninvolved in the various tragedies [ex - inferni conquest] is similar to interacting with a 30 year old who never had a difficult job or relationship. By having small scale conflict that is actually meaningfully detrimental hopefully we can now move away from the plague that is immediate Conquest & Pillaging escalation. My reasoning for praising Banditry but condemning Conquest & Pillage is simple. OOCly the first is but a nuisance that can be reasonably averted through cooperation with your peers in the community. OOCly the second is often quite stressful that usually results in entire playerbases leaving the server which has been the main viable strategy of conflict used by various nations throughout the previous 5-6 years. We've existed in this weird vacuum where it is not acceptable to be robbed by another player but it is perfectly normal for entire playerbases to be pushed to the point of leaving the server. How convoluted have the rules become where preforming an RP coup is absurd but gerrymandering members of the staff team to hunt after specific playerbases for any rule break for the purpose of permanently evicting them is/was the norm.

 

From a roleplay perspective now nations/settlements/lairs will now have to once again actually consider how to best protect their citizenry and there will be a level of inherent merit (bigger sword / bigger walls diplomacy) to them existing. Now if you do have an open gate policy but do not protect your citizens they have a proper complaint to bring to their leaders which is that they require some form of security. Nations that are incapable/unwilling to find a solution to their security problems will naturally bleed membership as those players shift to other Nations/Settlements. The solution isn't to complain OOCly about the problem until it goes away but instead to interact with other communities [employing foreign guards or bargaining with your aggressors] or improve upon your own society/infrastructure [have a militia or atleast a few gate attendants who will keep hostiles out, you could even go so far as to organize node collections in small groups to make yourself a more difficult target] so that your playergroup as a whole is more self sufficient [not in terms of economy but in terms of activity and security].

 

Often it feels as if the community lacks a proper balance of the two and a portion of the community will go so far as to frame the other side as immoral and dangerous to the health of the server. I think we have all at one point or another been at fault of this regardless of what side we tend towards. Hopefully people will be able to accept that sometimes they're going to be on the losing side without becoming hateful/spiteful OOCly and in the same vein hopefully we see those who win are willing to show some more compassion and avoid exploiting the rules to an extent that discourages others from ever interacting with them. Ideally this will result in dynamic nations and characters that will become less isolated as a whole.

 

 

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't report low effort Banditry as I think even those amongst Bandit factions would accept that there should be a standard. But that standard goes both ways as often those who are being attacked can be quite OOCly spiteful or not bother to put in the same effort they expect of those robbing them.

[GoodGuyMatt 7060]

Highly agree. To be honest the entire server starts to gain activity in general when large-scale conflict happens, like last map's Sutica-Oren conflict... literally had some old players come back just because of it. Additionally, you can see it even in human nations, specificaly Haense, where a lot of characters who participated in the War of the Two Emperors shined and are still remembered to this day. I feel like big-scale conflict also brings people and their characters together more, as it kind of does in real life too I guess, but at least here we don't have all of the bad consequences from real conflicts. Really hope we have some exciting war this map ngl.

Nice post 👍 I feel like some people need to read this.

[Unwillingly 11113]

how dare you infringe upon my god given right to tea party roleplay

[argonian 12836]

20 hours ago, Aengoth said:

By having small scale conflict that is actually meaningfully detrimental hopefully we can now move away from the plague that is immediate Conquest & Pillaging escalation. My reasoning for praising Banditry but condemning Conquest & Pillage is simple. OOCly the first is but a nuisance that can be reasonably averted through cooperation with your peers in the community. OOCly the second is often quite stressful that usually results in entire playerbases leaving the server which has been the main viable strategy of conflict used by various nations throughout the previous 5-6 years. We've existed in this weird vacuum where it is not acceptable to be robbed by another player but it is perfectly normal for entire playerbases to be pushed to the point of leaving the server.

Strongly disagree. I have no problems with banditry, but honestly it's akin to tavern RP in that 99% of it is just completely irrelevant and will never lead to anything of note for either party. War, on the other hand, massively moves the story along and affects everyone and their characters. And that's what the server's about in my opinion, co-operative story-telling. The idea that you could have your own impact, however big or small, on this dynamic ever-changing world and be a part of its history.

 

And like I mean, yeah, you can play your part in a tea time conversation or by slitting some random peasant's throat in the middle of nowhere, that has some small impact on the world too, but the big changes are always affected by the actors in the theatre of war. War has always been the main thing that shook things up and ended periods of staleness and stagnancy. No matter how much people keep spamming tourneys and feasts every two minutes, it'll never be a replacement for the true kind of drama that only real conflict with actual stakes can cause.

 

Sure, people always got pissed and some people would always leave after they lost a war. But the vast majority of the time the people that left over wars returned a couple weeks later after cooling off. If they all left for good every time, there would be literally no humans left after all the civil wars and **** we've had. And sometimes a playerbase being smashed is even a good thing IMO. Those players, when they return, are forced to join new groups and interact with people they might've been in completely opposing or unrelated playerbases to before the war. That kind of thing is better than people being in the same immortal cliques for 6 years straight.