Admin Decision re Haelun'or

[HogoBojo 3968]

Howdy friends,

 

A week ago we announced our Mission Statement to the community – which we have committed to follow as Staff. Already, we are seeing this resolution tested. The recent crisis in Haelun’or is a novel, controversial issue and I think we need to walk through our thoughts here. We based our reasoning on our Mission Statement, Community Guidelines, and the Roleplay Standards. So as Staff, we must hear and consider all sides and facts and work towards a compromise that is true to our established Mission Rating.

 

Ultimately, we’re treading a fine balance, a) how far can we permit fully unconstrained interactions, while b) considering our duty to protect roleplay communities from being driven off the server.

 

Here’s what we know.

 

Starting Mid-January, Haelun’or started seeing significant downturns in their activity numbers compared to previous statistics, with significant portions of the established leadership stepping aside. In large part, this timeline coincided with the war being waged by Fenn on the nation. During this period, a new player group emerged within Haelun’or, which consisted of players from within the pre-existing Haelun’orian community as well as many new faces. This group was driven for a time by KiiwiFruiit, but ultimately desired to have Twi’s character (Ivarielle) become leader of Haelun’or. For the sake of this post, we’ll be referring to this group as “The Ivarielle Group”. Since then, both this new group and the rest of the established Haelun’or playerbase have roleplayed within the nation and each in their own ways have worked tirelessly to spark roleplay. From events to casual roleplay to a wide variety of forum posts, each group wished to generate roleplay, an important part of our Mission.

 

However, this roleplay hit a boiling point when a week and a half ago, Twi’s character was appointed leader of Haelun’or by KiiwiFruiit’s character shortly after they themselves became leader during the downturn. This decision faced significant opposition by a large portion of the established Haelun’or playerbase, with much of the coordination being done by Gavin (Tiocfadh_Ar_La). Many of the players that had become less active returned, and rallied with Gavin to oppose this transition. We will refer to this opposition  as “The Republic Group”. As we saw substantial opposition to this change of power, PRO status was not transferred but instead suspended until a mutual resolution occurred, which has worked multiple times in the past six months during periods of internal conflict within nations. However, such a resolution never occurred, and instead we saw hostility and conflict in the city skyrocket, with degrees of spitefulness and toxicity between the two sides reaching a level where following our Roleplay Standards was becoming near-impossible. As an intervention, we put into effect a cooldown on conflict and villainy within the capital to allow for roleplay to progress. Since then, there has been significant roleplay between the two sides, with nearly fifty topics being posted in the Haelun’or subforum on this matter, though there is still no mutual resolution in sight.

 

On one side, the Ivarielle group has established a constitution to cement Twi’s character as leader, and paved a way for a new government to drive change in the city. On the other side, the Republic group has appointed Gavin’s character Maheral (cultural/religious leader) with the backing of Haelun’or’s established tradition and previous constitution, and held an election in which Puffables’s character ran unopposed to be the Sohaer (leader of the nation), as well as posting an updated constitution. Neither side recognizes each-other’s legitimacy, and have their own Discord servers and claims they should be given PRO of the nation.

 

How we reached a decision.

 

We will never know what people’s true intentions are – we’ve heard accusations of OOC schemes, self-interest, and spiteful actions on both sides. However, we operate under the assumption that all of us are on this platform to have fun and create an environment where there is enjoyable roleplay. Speculation on what we do not know is just that, speculation. It has no basis for decision-making; we have to look at our rules, guidelines, and standards.

 

Following the system outlined in the rules, PRO is established as follows:

 

“Primary region owners (PROs) of nation tiles, capitals, independent settlements, or lairs must be the active roleplay leader of the nation, settlement, or lair.”

 

Both sides have a claim to leadership backed by legitimate roleplay. An analysis of both the recent activity data (since March 23rd) shows a fair majority of the roleplayers in the city are part of or support the Republic group. These numbers skew even further towards that group when we look at historical data (3 months prior to March 23rd), showing a clear majority. However, the portion that are part of or support the Ivarielle group is not insignificant by any means, and we can not simply dismiss them and stifle roleplay all together. We want to allow both communities to continue to grow and thrive, though it is clear that they can not do this within the same city walls.

 

The resolution.

 

As we reflect on this information—we also must judge it in the context of the Mission Statement. Effective now, the resolution consists of three points;

 

-          Puffables will be recognized as Nation Leader of Haelun’or.

-          Haelun’or will receive a one month raid, villainy, and war cooldown.

-          The current conflict cooldown will stay in effect until mid next week.

 

We are aware this will quickly put an end to the opposition in the city, and likely lead to much of the Ivarielle group withdrawing from Haelun’or. We do not wish for them to be without a place to roleplay, so we have offered;

 

-          A settlement and build paste, free of charge.

 

We are working with Twi to finalize a location and will continue diligently on this—minimizing their loss of roleplay opportunities is paramount to continued growth.

 

Is the roleplay void?

 

No. None of the roleplay is void. However, OOC intervention requires in-character explanation:

 

With a small militia and guerilla tactics, the Republic group managed to take control of the docks, preventing the Ivarielle group from resupplying. With supply lines cut off the logistics of keeping control of the island became unmanageable; they chose to withdraw rather than cause additional bloodshed.

 

How this plays out from here is up to Haelun’or leadership, though they now hold the benefits of PRO and may act accordingly.

 

We realize that this is not the ideal outcome and we hate to get involved so directly here rather than letting roleplay just happen. We truthfully did not see the crisis coming to a natural, mutual resolution and had to take action to protect roleplay communities. We hope that both communities will be able to continue to grow and foster dynamic roleplay experiences.

 

This situation is exactly the kind that the new war rules and mission statement are designed to prevent. We are discussing where our systems failed here, and will be looking to be more proactive to prevent situations from reaching such a strenuous point in the future, so that we can ensure this first intervention is also the last.

 

Thank you for your time and understanding,

Hogo & the Administration

 

[Llir 5713]

This thread has been unlocked to allow for feedback on our systems, the resolution made by Administration, and the handling of the situation over the past week and a half.

 

Please keep discussion on topic, avoid meme-responses, and remain both civil and respectful. Comments that attack members of our server's community will not be tolerated. Please see my response to these types of comments here.

 

Apologies this was locked at the start - we had already spoken with leadership on both sides in-depth and did not foresee this decision getting as much attention and feedback from the wider community as it has. We had imaged this post to be here for information, though as many people seem interested in discussing this issue I am happy to hear feedback.

 

We don't want a situation like this to happen again, so any ideas the community can provide around these rules and systems is very much appreciated. I really love to see ideas and discussions such as @argonian's thread, and hope to continue having productive chats on these issues.

 

Cheers.

[Treshure 5579]

The transparency is always refreshing. 

I think that direct intervention can only be justified once. It would be far more preferable and less disruptive to smooth out a system that Iviarelle's group could have fallen back on. You might recall me arguing about this earlier with Narthok's rebellion and their subsequent lack of anywhere to go. 

 

I think this is just a learning moment for designing around behavior. Our systems have to reflect how roleplay naturally plays out, including the recurring scenario of rebels having a cause without a home. There are of course more issues at hand, but I believe they can be addressed in the same manner.

[Crevel 4727]

I will link my post (which is now locked) pertaining to this thread that was started before this thread was unlocked:

 

I highly recommend you read the official thread here, maybe take a look at my thread, and then post in the comments of this thread if you have anything to add.

[DrakeHaze. 2481]

@LlirWhy can old inactive players have such pull on your in-game communities without your active in-game players having priority? Why are your in-game nations run through Discord? When will the Whitelist be wiped so we can all see who comes around only for conflict and remove sleeper alts?

Feel like you are playing much too loose with players that only have an interest in the community when what they left is being threatened.

Moving forward, will the Administration work to better the user experience of your active playerbase?

[Monkee 7356]

It's just weird to me that admins are fighting for a nation that chose not to fight for itself

 

The storming of the Citadel? No resistance

 

The field battle? Forfeited after stalling

 

The siege? Forfeited after stalling (and admins increasing our war costs from 2k to 25k halfway through the war)

 

The actual sack? Resistance by one dude who wanted to PK, and all of the pk's (the focal point of the war) were later overturned by admins for no apparent reason

 

The legitimate PRO transfer from Kiwi to Twi after Kiwi was elected? Halted without any rules-based justification

 

The brief period of conflict after itdontmatta seized PRO? Nothing but combat-logging and begging admins to ban conflict in Haelun'or (which they did, lol)

 

And now, extended cooldowns for war and raids on Haelun'or - as if they haven't spent the last month on cooldown for both

 

We haven't been fighting Haelun'or, we've pretty much just been fighting the administration - and then you complain about ooc lol

 

Their big defense was bringing some long-gone players to spam forum proclamations. Now that this is over, most of those players will leave again, and Haelun'orian activity will probably flatline within the next few weeks. You're right when you say this was an un-rp solution, but I fail to see how it was within players' best interest either

[- Pastry 931]

Massive W

 

A little disappointing to see how much vitriol this seems to have sparked with a lot of people (see: the people more willing to spend effort malding in here than actually contributing to RP in Hnor lmao), but you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette.

[rukio 8910]

My biggest disappointment in you during this ordeal today is that you guys made the decision and then immediately handed it over. You allowed them to immediately change locks, remove people from the tile, etc. Moderators had to TP Twi's folk back in so they could take their stuff, had to have mods help them remove furniture from their homes, etc. You handled this very poorly in that sense. Other evictions require what, 3-7 days notice? This one should have as well. 

 

In trying to please both player bases to retain as many people as you can on the server you will end up killing both. Haelun'or will be a ghost town again within a couple of months and the tent group will likely burn out as well because they were also part of the culture within the silver city's build. Significant RP is ignored to get this ruling to pass. Ivarielle's group had significant backing from the world, the Republicans did not. Republicans lost their war, along with everything else Buff said in his post. The only point of doing this is because Administration cares more for their data and statistics on player retention than the actual experience of the server itself. That's part of why it takes a mass tantrum with people threatening to leave before things are done usually. 

 

Admins made it impossible for there to be a resolution when they prohibited conflict. All anyone could do was throw beets at people and say petty things. Of course nothing was resolved when that's all you can do. Perhaps the Anthos rose tinted glasses aren't as rose tinted after all. White Rose martial law in Salvus would never have flown today, you'd have treated it like Haelun'or was during this, but that was genuinely immersive fun roleplay.

 

Let roleplay develop organically stop heavy handing it through conflict locks and OOC rulings on who gets to own what tile when things don't go someone's way.

[Punished_Pup 1353]

2 minutes ago, - Pastry said:

Massive W

 

A little disappointing to see how much vitriol this seems to have sparked with a lot of people (see: the people more willing to spend effort malding in here than actually contributing to RP in Hnor lmao), but you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette.

I think that is ignoring the fact players have a lot of pent up frustration with how current and past admins for the past three years (and longer) have straight up let every single community down with their decisions. I tried RPing with the old Hnorian's and they actively ignored me or did nothing in regards to the complaints I levied IRPly, and the only time they did was to 'dunk' on me. Even people who don't care about the Elf Sphere of LotC just see this as a massive loss, this was a movement going on for IRL months and we were frankly just ignored up until Hnor got backed into a corner and they miraculously manage to survive when they did actively nothing to prepare for coming conflict and outright said in Discord they were not even going to log in, so they could avoid dying. Players get sick and tired of anyone getting OOC protection when they frankly fucked up. The 'vitriol' is just merely a symptom of a problem that stems from the community environment and how staff have decided to deal with most situations. Though we did actually contribute to RP, we had 30 or so players on yesterday when old Hnor only mustered 11 and attempted to disrupt what we were doing in the tavern but we just pushed past until they basically retreated and instantly logged out when they knew admins wouldn't be paying attention, I should also mention this whole RP movement has been going on for months IRL so it wasn't like it came out of no where. Most people are gonna want to mald because frankly with all that transpired IRPly we should have won, Hnor had no standing force, had failed to secure allies and had failed to sway any from Ivarielle's side to support them. Feels pointless to RP on a server where there seems to be no consequences to sides that should have lost.

[CorweenieTheJedi 889]

5 minutes ago, Monkee said:

It's just weird to me that admins are fighting for a nation that chose not to fight for itself

 

The storming of the Citadel? No resistance

 

The field battle? Forfeited after stalling

 

The siege? Forfeited after stalling (and admins increasing our war costs from 2k to 25k)

 

The actual sack? Resistance by one dude who wanted to PK, and all of the pk's (the focal point of the war) were later overturned by admins for no apparent reason

 

The legitimate PRO transfer from Kiwi to Twi after Kiwi was elected? Halted without any rules-based justification

 

The brief period of conflict after itdontmatta seized PRO? Nothing but combat-logging and begging admins to ban conflict in Haelun'or (which they did, lol)

 

And now, extended cooldowns for war and raids on Haelun'or - as if they haven't spent the last month on cooldown for both

 

We haven't been fighting Haelun'or, we've pretty much just been fighting the administration - and then you complain about ooc lol

 

Their big defense was bringing some long-gone players to spam forum proclamations. Now that this is over, most of those players will leave again, and Haelun'orian activity will probably flatline within the next few weeks. You're right when you say this was an un-rp solution, but I fail to see how it was within players' best interest either

 

Everything he said is spot on.

 

In my short ~3 years on this server, I can honestly say this is one of, if not the single biggest **** ups the administration has managed to pull off that I have seen.

 

Everything about this has been mishandled in every way, with the punishment being placed on players while the administration gets away scot free without facing any sort of reprimand or accountability for their actions - with their loyal fanboys crafting fairy tales to protect their pocket admin. To make matters just that much more aggravating, they openly act like children and respond with some rhetoric about how they are only acting that way so that players don't complain about professionalism.

 

Not even gonna start with the absolute debacle of a War between the staff team Oren and Urguan.

 

The administration has failed, and it's time to accept that.

 

[Your Favorite Impure 734]

Yikes is all I can say.

Having an RP reason due to it being "better than voiding the RP" doesn't make it a good choice in the slightest. I don't think I've ever seen a group on LotC get more preferential treatment from the admins in my 10 years on this server. 

[Punished_Pup 1353]

1 minute ago, CorweenieTheJedi said:

Everything about this has been mishandled in every way, with the punishment being placed on players while the administration gets away scot free without facing any sort of reprimand or accountability for their actions -

What mainly annoys me about this is I know the defense in these kind of cases, not strictly towards admins but staff in general, will often be something along the lines of we are simply just volunteers and try our best to do better, yet the SAME mistakes and massive ones in terms of player safety repeated, year after year. I don't understand how that is meant to be a defense, because I don't understand what being a volunteer has to do with lacking any professionalism in how the staff/admins handle their conduct, decisions, abuse, and **** ups. We have to keep in mind that we have about 250+ players that log in everyday, and ultimately staff with their decisions determine if they have a safe and enjoyable time on the server, and from my interactions with the admins, I just feel like this is nothing more than a ******* game to them, just to stuff up as some CV fodder, sounds impressive to have an active community of 250 people, not so much if you were to look into and see how utterly dysfunctional everything is. All one can do is hope the server gets better but no one is gonna be holding their breath with how things have been going. Least Lego Star Wars is out in a couple days.

[TwistChunky 235]

21 minutes ago, rukio said:

r

21 minutes ago, rukio said:

Significant RP is ignored to get this ruling to pass. Ivarielle's group had significant backing from the world, the Republicans did not. Republicans lost their war, along with everything else Buff said in his post.

Very well said, Rukio. I also found it really weird that admins decided to overturn the decision of us handing over NL and PRO to Twi without proper reasoning. We put in months of RP, meeting up with Ivarielle, making plans for the changes that needed to be made, Twi being willing to donate a FAIR amount to the Haelun'or treasury, the buildup of a group based around the coming together of people who wanted change, only to have all of our hard work completely stomped on.

Within two days of Kiwi getting NL, we had nonaggression pacts, we had approval of the entirety of the server, and we had, excuse my language, worked our asses off. With the change of leadership, there will be a ton of setbacks, and plans that we had for Haelun'or are now going to be set on fire and tossed away. We got accused relentlessly of oocly trying to 'destroy Haelun'or' and 'ruin the culture', despite us only doing this for the good of the community. We wanted to revive it, add new meaning to Haelun'or and create a community where everyone felt welcome. 

 

While my position wasn't nearly as big as Kiwi's or Twi's, I had been working as the head of the military and I didn't even get the courtesy of clearing out my things before they straight up removed me from all the locks. A certain group of people claim we were trying to destroy Haelun'or, despite me spending endless hours dedicated to the Sillumir, even putting in 2+ days weekly for the majority of my time as military head. I had a certain portion of the community I was completely dedicated to, that I wanted to improve and that I tried so hard to make better for those participating.

 

While I can't argue with the admin team, (not like they would really listen anyways, let's all be honest), I am genuinely upset that I was quickly ostracized from a community I had poured endless hours into. I am also upset with how admin handled this, how they put off conflict, how they turned over PRO and NL without a proper reason, and how they dealt with this whole thing. I actually reported a case of metagaming related to this case to itdontmatta, and I was ghosted for over 5 days. He was all too nonchalant about the situation, and it only added to the worsening of everything. 

 

That being said, I am grateful to admin for giving us the opportunity to prove that we can actually build a community where we all feel safe, validated, and welcome. I can't wait to show you all what we have to bring to the table in the upcoming weeks. 

Edited April 4, 2022 by TwistChunky

[xepphir 347]

I cannot express my disappointment, i have a lot to say but @Monkee said it 100 times better than I could.

 

I kept my mouth shut and I didn't complain publicly about this shitshow until now because I thought administration had a tiny bit of COMMON SENSE and  I didn't want to appear as petty, but lately every hope i had has been ruined.

I'm sorry to be rude but I cannot express it with any other words:

not only Administration has proven to be incompetent with handling such situations and disputes but it has proven to not consider the playerbase, safety, welfare and integrity at all!

 

I would like to say a lot more but it's better that i stop here, since the others above said a lot of the things i wanted to say.

I am so tired i can't even be mad anymore, I'm just greatly disappointed.

If you really care about the playerbase, CHANGE! And show us that you do!

 

This said, I hope you are having a good day :) this is nothing personal.

 

[overlord2305 202]

Administration, for all I care in its entirety, should step down over this debacle. At each and every turn we were met with last minute changes of demands from the administration team.

 

Be it the increase in war costs, the constant delaying of warclaims when we were finally allowed to make one, the changing of warclaim goals after the fact, the taking away of PRO when we legitimately obtained such through rp or the banning of conflict within Haelun'or when we were succesfully driving out the few people that were still squatting in a city that is rightfully ours.

 

Your handling of this entire situation has been unbecoming of someone of your position, but also extremely disrespectful towards the people that spent the last few months attempting to save a nation that they (in some cases) have been part of for years.