Your View: On Course—Off Course?

[Hermit_Jack 513]

Personally, the stupid "memes" that keep happening is just tiring. The recent MRP thing where the response was basically "it was just a joke bro," that somehow passed a commit, came off in very bad taste. Made it feel like it was a jab to make fun of the RPers.

 

Overall, small things are adding up and it just makes it feel like no one is taking things seriously.

[Nooblius 5794]

Ye i's a lil' smokey mr tel-tel

I think the question I'm most interested in is priorities of Moderation- not necessarily rebuking any specific moderators but just that I think the server culture has become very welcoming and open to things that actively make the server worse such as Toxicity and Major OOC Grudges, etc. I think it's a bit bizarre and I think a disservice to both the people who report and the people who get reported that rules on player conduct guidelines are very messily and vaguely enforced, and are a lower priority than people who talk lip to moderation getting banned.

 

I don't really mean "what-aboutism" as a defense against any of the instances I am going to mention, but people instantly copped bans/action against for putting barrels beneath rugs, for karen'ing a mod verdict- all the while you see reports of flagrant consistent rule abuse go ignored. I can sympathize with the desire to not want to eagerly ban players- but I think we need to just hold people to some level of accountability for everyone's sake to keep the community fun. This repeated method of just trying to get players to sort it out on their own has repeatedly made the server more toxic, a higher temperature and yeah; smokey. 

 

What would I suggest we do about it? Take player conduct guidelines more seriously and enforce it- that doesn't mean ban waving people but it means just telling them no and giving a warning as opposed to trying to sort it out like you're a mutual friend. 

[Kholibrii 978]

Everyone's talking about how corruption and pvpers are hurting the server when the true enemy is all the people running around on their characters with vitiligo, heterochromia, and white stripes in their hair because they think a character without a unique appearance can't be unique.

 

On a serious note, @Orlanth's comment is probably the most honest response yet. The vast majority of people are going to give commentary based on what they feel provides the best outcome for THEIR stories and not the overall story of LOTC. It takes a low of maturity to separate yourself from your character and look at what decisions are best for the server as a whole vs. what is best for you, and honestly, most of the players aren't mature enough to do that. In saying this, I also realize that everything I'm about to say should also be taken with a grain of salt.

 

While I understand people's issues with PvP, Conflict, Raids, etc, I personally think it's something the server has to have to create interesting servers. There are always going to be people yelling from the rooftops about how horrible [INSERT PVP GROUP OF THE WEEK] is because they view these groups as a threat to the Roleplay they wish to create, which is honestly fair, we are all on this server for personal enjoyment, but those PvPers or Conflict-Centered players are also on LOTC for personal enjoyment. 

 

I try to avoid getting bandited or kidnapped as much as the next person because I simply don't have the time to spend in a conflict situation like that, but I can tell you that almost every time I've been bandited or kidnapped it has ended up being an enjoyable experience because I go into it with an open mind. If you are entering these encounters with a win/lose mindset then you aren't going to get anything out of them, then you aren't going to enjoy it but if you look for ways to make it fun I can almost guarantee you it will be fun because the other side of the conflict also wants to have fun.

 

Last December I was kidnapped after only having returned to the server for like 2 days and it was honestly one of the most enjoyable moments I've had on LOTC. Having recently returned I didn't feel some inappropriate connection to my character and was really just there for a good time. I emoted my [Elderly] character's joints popping and her doing stuff like offering the kidnappers pieces of chicken from her pockets, it was honestly so funny and I ended up getting my freedom bought by a group of players who wanted a picnic in return which was also very entertaining. I'm not saying this just to run my mouth, I'm saying this to show that if you don't have a stick up your butt, then CONFLICT IS FUN.

 I could talk about moderation corruption and all that jazz too, but @WestCarolinaand some others here sum that up pretty well so I'm not going to waste my time on that.

[xMuted 2461]

I think the global "Group of nations work together" eventlines were super awesome, such as The Dark Harbour eventline on Almaris.

 

Those were tons of fun and brought completely different rp playerbases together to tackle one enemy, without it having to be the end of map.

 

And I have noticed an understandable lack of impromptu st events lately, due to what I surmise to be the intense burnout from the end of map Mori stuff.

 

Overall I still thoroughly enjoy your server Telanir! 

[GreenWitchLys 72]

I'm going to preface this with stating that I am in no way, shape, or form saying this with any disrespectful intent. 

 

Somewhere in this thread I noticed an admin pointing out that the majority of those who disapprove of the moderation team are banned. I am one of those players. Despite the fact that I was banned I still plan on being apart of this community and will be posting an appeal within the week.

 

Regarding my ban, I was in my community when I noticed there was a raid. My character got dragged into it. Before I was dragged into the raid I let my doggo Nala outside to use the bathroom. Just before my characters inventory was searched, my roommate who was outside with my dog notified me that she attempted to jump the fence and was now injured and bleeding profusely. Obviously, I logged off and attended to my injured fur baby. While actively dealing with my bleeding dog I was dmed on discord by a moderator. I will say my attitude towards them was not the best as the situation I was dealing with was very stressful and scary considering the amount of blood that was coming from her leg/arm. They asked me why I had logged off and I stated "irl stuff" and nothing more for obvious reasons. The mod then asked if I was going to log back on and I said no. They then notified me I would get an infraction for this. 

 

Mind you, this happened after there was a situation between the vale and the rogue dwarf clans that can't stop harassing people. The situation was, they used a raid ladder to get into the settlement without raiding it. Where was their infraction? I brought this up along with the continuous slander of the Vale in ooc chat and in other chats just for it to be brushed off. Mods have talked down on the community I have been apart of profusely with other communities taking notice. One even compared the community to North Korea of all places. 

 

There is a very obvious reason why there is such a high disapproval percentage of the mod team and its the lack of respect and maturity. Though I will say the way I handled the discussion between me and said mod wasn't very mature of myself either and I have since apologized for my actions. 

 

Another thing that bothers me is that this is supposed to be a roleplay server. Not a rendition of the game RUST. Before I was banned, everytime I logged on to roleplay there were players harassing and raiding us. Posting our community on the forums as slaves and encouraging slave roleplay. Where are their infractions? 

 

A lot needs to change and everyone is human. I hope everyone has a good night. 

[MailC3p 1159]

5 minutes ago, GreenWitchLys said:

Posting our community on the forums as slaves and encouraging slave roleplay. Where are their infractions? 

slave rp is not oocly banned, but every nation has outlawed it because of the weird shit that happens oocly because of it. 
 

same thing happened in Oren early Almaris, no one got any infractions iirc

[warlord of filth 7714]

im back on ET so the quality of everything will go up (for my friends) 

[GreenWitchLys 72]

1 minute ago, MailC3p said:

slave rp is not oocly banned, but every nation has outlawed it because of the weird shit that happens oocly because of it. 
 

same thing happened in Oren early Almaris, no one got any infractions iirc

 

Still an odd and disturbing thing to roleplay out from an ooc point of view. 

[MailC3p 1159]

2 minutes ago, GreenWitchLys said:

 

Still an odd and disturbing thing to roleplay out from an ooc point of view. 

Well, depends. If it’s race related slavery (especially if you’re like… taking a dark elf as a slave because they’re a dark elf) then that’s weird I agree, but if you’re just taking a slave because they’re a prisoner of war, then i’m fine with it

[Wizry 358]

1 hour ago, Onnensr said:

I think the vicious divide between pvp and crp will continue on until defined roll-style combat gets passed that feeds both the competitive drive and honors rp sufficiently. Thronecraft, for being a horrible experience for everyone involved, did have that going for it 

Yeah I'm going to flatly disagree with this.

Thronecraft was a horrible experience combat-included. But the system of conflict is less the issue for this server - instead the issue that lies with the server lies in how it is handling conflicts within the server itself.

 

Nevertheless,

I discussed this a bit ago with Carol in how Banditry is flawed as a system in the server.

Bandits are created out of a crisis in the homefront - whether that be food, war, or other instability factors. There are no current steps a national leader or government, in the current system, can take to stop banditry through pure roleplay. No military force; no mandate of smaller food prices (a la Diocletian); or increase in trade wealth dissaudes Banditry - because they simply do not care about instability factors.

 

Secondly, bandits are becoming an international force to raid cities. Normally, bandits are meant to be localized and small groups that raid - well - trade routes and roads to grab their own wealth. Frankly speaking, city raids shouldn't be occuring, because that is completely nonsensical to what the goal of a bandit is - to gain profit. The largest profits are held on the roads, where traders tend to be the least defended.

 

As a result, I suggest three implementations.

 

1. Some kind of system where national responses could prevent bandits from raiding their regions.
2. Capping raids to be only of a small number of people and limited to roads - as per what a bandit's goal is meant to be.
3. Removing raids on cities altogether by bandit groups.

 

 

[ScreamingDingo 16990]

1 hour ago, AnonymousAlexa said:

I think the biggest problem the server faces currently is pvp unionism. Back in the day, pvpers would play within actual nations, but now, almost all the pvpers on the server are a part of a single group that uses their mechanical skill to control server politics that they have no actual stakes in--all for the sake of clicks. 

 

This has created a rather toxic server environment that has made fun conflict impossible. From bad faith actors to moderators and a certain admin that enable such behaviors, my experience on the server has drastically diminished in recent months.

 

 

Holy shit did I actually prevent something

 

 

[Charles The Bald 1806]

[Cracker 4556]

What is the end-goal of moderation by making these universally detested forms of banditry and raiding more common?

 

Server had three or four man raids every three days as the standard for almost a decade and even with those stringent regulations, banditry was still a complicated issue. 

 

Liberalizing those policies and giving people all these tools to harass others has made the server actively less fun to play and encourages everyone to look inward and only roleplay with their own. It doesn't feel like we have proper nation wars anymore because fighters effectively don't need a national allegiance either, so the argument that there wouldn't be conflict without this raiding free-for-all feels moot to me.

 

Conflict is an essential part of the server's storyline, but both sides of a conflict need to have an active interest in building on the roleplay and storyline for it to work. This is not something we reward at all, and instead it seems we just reward people for treating LotC like a medieval GTA lobby.

 

Roleplaying games are all about cooperation, improvisation, and storytelling. The way these policies are in-place seem to empower everything but that.

 

I've been telling @itdontmattafor months now but there doesn't seem to be an active mission statement on what the moderation team's goals are anymore, or what they want conflict or, more importantly, player conduct to look like on the server. Giving people more tools to harass and manipulate the communities that actually generate the activity on the server is extremely counter-intuitive to server health and growth.  What's the logic here?

[Onnensr 578]

4 minutes ago, Wizry said:

Yeah I'm going to flatly disagree with this.

Thronecraft was a horrible experience combat-included. But the system of conflict is less the issue for this server - instead the issue that lies with the server lies in how it is handling conflicts within the server itself.

 

Nevertheless,

I discussed this a bit ago with Carol in how Banditry is flawed as a system in the server.

Bandits are created out of a crisis in the homefront - whether that be food, war, or other instability factors. There are no current steps a national leader or government, in the current system, can take to stop banditry through pure roleplay. No military force; no mandate of smaller food prices (a la Diocletian); or increase in trade wealth dissaudes Banditry - because they simply do not care about instability factors.

 

Secondly, bandits are becoming an international force to raid cities. Normally, bandits are meant to be localized and small groups that raid - well - trade routes and roads to grab their own wealth. Frankly speaking, city raids shouldn't be occuring, because that is completely nonsensical to what the goal of a bandit is - to gain profit. The largest profits are held on the roads, where traders tend to be the least defended.

 

As a result, I suggest three implementations.

 

1. Some kind of system where national responses could prevent bandits from raiding their regions.
2. Capping raids to be only of a small number of people and limited to roads - as per what a bandit's goal is meant to be.
3. Removing raids on cities altogether by bandit groups.

 

 

more pvp bureaucracy wont solve the issue, and really it's time we eliminate pvp all together. anticipated issues of time commitment in combat don't exist when you can take a minute to emote, roll through a tc-esque system, repeat. definitely more time consuming than pvp, but it actually honors your character and roleplay, especially with growth derived stats, and still remains faster and easier to reach a common consensus on than crp. you can't argue or modshop against numbers

[Islamadon 4429]

14 minutes ago, Hot_Dip said:

Being involved in conflict = Being harassed? lmaoo 

Realistically, repeated and incessant raiding is utilized as a way to stifle RP and exhaust the other side OOCly. People have lives outside of LOTC (if they're healthy) and having to drop everything you were doing because some other players want to GET THAT EPIC DUB leaves a salty taste for most casual RPers. I am not accusing you of doing this - I have no idea who you are - but I think coughing up this tendency to just being "conflict" is shortsighted given the nature of most raids. There is rarely a story or purpose in a raid beyond demoralizing your target; it's just a legal means to RDM. I personally would rather see city conflicts reserved for warclaims and leave banditry/raiding for the outskirts of cities and roads.