On Conflicts of Interest

[LoTC's Next Top Model 1628]

4 minutes ago, Xein000 said:

 

A very open CA? Really? The only very open CA is other CA's I think as I've been here on this map.

I've seen mostly Vampire, Musin, Kha, Hou-Zi, Ghost/Specter, Pale knights, Undead (there are different kinds), werevolf (even if still rare if I guess correct), automatons, and Atronach appear, as well as demons, but demi djinn, not really. I've not even heard about them ic and of what I know about them OOC is that mostly staff becomes one. I've been offered to become a vampire but not taken that, a few other common ones too, but nothing rare but that's okay.

demi-djinn have a cultural rule of not revealing what they are. it's very likely you've encountered one, but they take great pains to not reveal what they are.

sorry to open up the curtain.

[Daisy 9738]

39 minutes ago, lemonke said:

I am a hnor player and I may have some issues with some caurost stuff but Unwillingly is not in the wrong here and she had all the rights to share these screenshots. Nor I think Hnor's playerbase is at fault. I am pretty sure this is just llir's poor decision making and no one else should be blamed.

 

This exactly. I hold nothing against Unwillingly or the Caurost community and I did not intend to call her out or anything in this post. She acted maturely and we had a good discussion after the initial crashout of mine, which I did not share in the screenshots as it was somewhat personal. But, they're cool.

 

I do not appreciate some members of the Haelun'or community attacking people on this thread. That's a bad look for us guys. I made a mistake and put myself in a conflict of interest, I need to own that. Sure I did it with the best interests of our community, but I lost sight of the red tag above my head and thought I could just act as NL again in a time of crisis without it being an obvious conflict, and I was wrong.

 

For some of the comments I see about metaplay, I want to be clear that I do not believe what I did was, by any sense of the definition, metaplay, that is:

Quote

It is an intentional subversion of rules and roleplay to serve an OOC motive through malicious act(s).

 

At every point was I was planning to have the decision made in RP, and no point was I acting maliciously. I was in open communication with the other side, and although I certainly didn't act graciously, I did not intent to suggest that the RP must go one way or another. The big thing was that next map land selection hinged on if we get mechanical nation status, so yes, I was stressed about it and wanted clarity prior to the RP. On a server with OOC systems and rules, our RP actions are going to be influenced by their out of character consequences. Acknowledging that and seeking clarity is not metaplay, as we are the ultimate decision makers for our characters, the influence of the rules and systems that govern this server is unavoidable. Where the line gets crossed, and why we have rules for metaplay, is to prevent folks from cutting out the RP entirely, from deciding the fate of RP via out of character, and degrading our shared narrative. It's about intent, not about if OOC consequences are considered when making RP decisions, because that is just a reality of roleplay on any medium.

 

As for some of the comments around the policy change being too strict, we did not intent for it to punish moderators for my actions, and we will be reviewing the wording in the next couple days to clarify, as yes, what we have at the moment is a little too much.

[Xein000 264]

15 minutes ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

sorry to open up the curtain.

 

What curtain?

[Xein000 264]

@LoTC's Next Top ModelI was already aware about this, so you didn't really tell anything new to me.

[LoTC's Next Top Model 1628]

32 minutes ago, Llir said:

At every point was I was planning to have the decision made in RP, and no point was I acting maliciously. I was in open communication with the other side, and although I certainly didn't act graciously, I did not intent to suggest that the RP must go one way or another. The big thing was that next map land selection hinged on if we get mechanical nation status, so yes, I was stressed about it and wanted clarity prior to the RP. On a server with OOC systems and rules, our RP actions are going to be influenced by their out of character consequences. Acknowledging that and seeking clarity is not metaplay, as we are the ultimate decision makers for our characters, the influence of the rules and systems that govern this server is unavoidable. Where the line gets crossed, and why we have rules for metaplay, is to prevent folks from cutting out the RP entirely, from deciding the fate of RP via out of character, and degrading our shared narrative. It's about intent, not about if OOC consequences are considered when making RP decisions, because that is just a reality of roleplay on any medium.

you said you couldn't do rp if you didn't know what the ooc mechanical outcome would be. how is that not metaplay? you're changing your rp stance based on what the end result would be, but your character has no means to know what the end result would be. you wanted the ooc settled before you went ic. that screams blatant metagaming to me. if there are two people asking me for help against each other, and i know oocly only one of them will pay me for it, and i pick them because of that since my rp actions are influenced by out of character consequences, am i not metagaming?

ideally, people should rp what their character would do, not what we want to avoid happening ooc'ly. this is just fluffed up metagaming, and is the sort of thing that leads to a lot of the stale events that happen recently. people are too afraid of ooc drawbacks to do anything cool or villainous, or they only do these villainous things when they know there won't be any ooc drawbacks. it's, franky, CRINGE.

you should be held to a higher standard, not the bare minimum of "i didn't metaplay, i just metagamed", because that just seems like obfuscation of a much deeper issue in the current culture of the server.

Edited May 26, 2025 by LoTC's Next Top Model
i had more to say!

[Adelemphii 1766]

1 hour ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

 

how foolish of me to think haelun'or might have a slight tech team bias.

i wonder what could've possibly given me that idea lmao. how could i possibly imagine haelun'or and tech team might somehow be interconnected...

Just don't group me with this and I'll be happy -a snow elf player

[Daisy 9738]

14 minutes ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

you said you couldn't do rp if you didn't know what the ooc mechanical outcome would be. how is that not metaplay? you're changing your rp stance based on what the end result would be, but your character has no means to know what the end result would be. you wanted the ooc settled before you went ic. that screams blatant metagaming to me. if there are two people asking me for help against each other, and i know oocly only one of them will pay me for it, and i pick them because of that since my rp actions are influenced by out of character consequences, am i not metagaming?

ideally, people should rp what their character would do, not what we want to avoid happening ooc'ly. this is just fluffed up metagaming, and is the sort of thing that leads to a lot of the stale events that happen recently. people are too afraid of ooc drawbacks to do anything cool or villainous, or they only do these villainous things when they know there won't be any ooc drawbacks. it's, franky, CRINGE.

you should be held to a higher standard, not the bare minimum of "i didn't metaplay, i just metagamed", because that just seems like obfuscation of a much deeper issue in the current culture of the server.

 

I think when you have an entire community on the line for your RP actions, it's unavoidable to not consider OOC consequences when making an IC decision, and I don't think I'm alone. I would argue nearly everyone in nation leadership considers these kind of things, from how many weeks it'd take for a war to be won, to if there will be enough mina to may the monks their upkeep. I will note that at no point did what I was pitching even happen, and we decided to just handle things in RP and forget the OOC system. Here were the messages I sent to Unwillingly a few hours of later, after which we had a productive conversation about how we both hate paragraph posting, among other things.

 

Spoiler

 

[hearth_ 1023]

I'm thinking we should void the last 10 years of metaplay, it's only fair really

[Unwillingly 18133]

1 hour ago, LoTC's Next Top Model said:

Oh, and in todays' forecast, we see Unwillingly certainly spreading around screenshots in very good faith, certainly not trying to run a smear campaign. 🤯Followed by a mob of bitter people asking the person who logistically runs the plugins, fixes issues, and puts near full time hours to make sure you get a smooth experience, to step down. I can't roll my eyes enough at you people. Too immersed in the mineman politics to use common sense.

He was not meant to be forced into the position he was put into, Maheral was meant to be a role that strictly taught culture for the high elves and provided insight and wisdom when needed. Unfortunately, to meet outrageous demands and a, quite frankly, ret***ed casus belli because the person in charge was meant to be on hiatus, he had to step in because something had to be done.

I mean to quote sheylo here not you alex sorry I dont know how to fix
literally what are you talking about, are you implying that there's anything in the full conversation that incriminates me? the screenshots were posted in a private chat to people relevant to the politics of our nation and I didn't even know they were being spread en masse until shortly before this post went up

the notion that I'm an evil OOC plotter who just wants to eradicate your playerbase tiring beyond belief. I do not think about you or anyone else in hnor who has, from the start of our conflict, been perpetuating the "they just want clicks, they just want malinor, this is all OOC motivation, the CB is weak and fabricated" narrative nearly as much as the amount of screenshots I've seen in which I (specifically me, not even just caurost) am OOCly villainized would insinuate you and others think about me. do it in RP if you want, I'm sure we'd all prefer that, but OOCly it's incredibly one-sided and I'd literally just prefer being left alone instead of being used as a pawn for your Le Epic "ragebait" on the forums
 

Spoiler

anyways I haven't asked for llir's resignation because I don't realistically know what that implies for the server's longevity from a technical perspective, and I can settle for expanded policies and eliminating the conflict of interest. Iris accurately points out at the beginning of the post that the conversation in our screenshots was an effort to coerce and guilt-trip a certain answer from me, and I don't necessarily believe that it was a harmless attempt to clarify the implications of RP. whether or not it was intentional, there was a clear goal to achieve that would serve a tangible benefit to his playerbase and I think this is something safer to be acknowledged than to beat around the bush about it

llir and I had a reasonable conversation following that screenshot, so while yes I believe the situation has been mishandled and I believe there needs to be accountability, I have no personal vendetta nor is my desire to bully anyone, because believe it or not I'd rather be friends with people than be at odds. I don't expect everyone to agree which is fine, for some people it very much is personal. but there's certainly merit to a conversation surrounding whether or not this is something that will happen again, whether or not this is fair to people who have been affected by this conflict of interest in the past or the players who will verifiably be banned for doing similar things OOCly in the future

for me the issue at its core was the very specific and very discernible power dynamic of tech admin -> player. the admin in question being someone with direct control over the rules and mechanics that could impact either of our playerbases, who then sought to actually exert that control. it's what made any passing encounter OOCly so uncomfortable for us, things felt tense and domineering for the simple fact that this wasn't a player-on-player interaction, it was a player-on-tech-admin interaction, these feelings peaking with the exchange in the original screenshot in which I'm effectively being pressured into a certain answer. but again, the nature of it was something that was acknowledged and apologized for in DMs, I consider us on okay terms and I'm not trying to rub anyone's nose in the shit here

I don't necessarily think the solution here was to make a blanket rule on all mods/story/community/tech members, it feels reactionary and detracts from the accountability that should instead be afforded to these specific scenarios of admin intervention. mods, story, community and tech members do not nearly have the amount of influence over other communities or players to such a degree that anyone would feel the need to tiptoe around in conversations. as others have pointed out, you're removing one of the few meaningful ways for staff to be in touch and attuned with the playerbase and I think we'd much rather see more emphasis on admin intervention and how unfair it is that other people have (and will continue to be) punished to a far greater degree for the same crimes

if the solution isn't to reprimand the admin, maybe the solution is to re-evaluate how the players are reprimanded instead. idk, just my two cents
 

[Daisy 9738]

4 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:

anyways I haven't asked for llir's resignation because I don't realistically know what that implies for the server's longevity from a technical perspective, and I can settle for expanded policies and eliminating the conflict of interest. Iris accurately points out at the beginning of the post that the conversation in our screenshots was an effort to coerce and guilt-trip a certain answer from me, and I don't necessarily believe that it was a harmless attempt to clarify the implications of RP. whether or not it was intentional, there was a clear goal to achieve that would serve a tangible benefit to his playerbase and I think this is something safer to be acknowledged than to beat around the bush about it

 

Fair point, and I don't intent to deny it or beat around the bush. Although the intent was to seek clarification, I absolutely came off, especially with the power dynamic you mention, as I was attempting to coerce and guilt-trip a certain answer, and I am sorry for that. I wanted us to keep nation status, and keep prebuild for next map, there is no denying this, any nation leader would want this. And that is the problem I acknowledge in the post, that a situation with this dynamic, tech-admin to player, should not happen.

 

8 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:

I don't necessarily think the solution here was to make a blanket rule on all mods/story/community/tech members, it feels reactionary and detracts from the accountability that should instead be afforded to these specific scenarios of admin intervention. mods, story, community and tech members do not nearly have the amount of influence over other communities or players to such a degree that anyone would feel the need to tiptoe around in conversations. as others have pointed out, you're removing one of the few meaningful ways for staff to be in touch and attuned with the playerbase and I think we'd much rather see more emphasis on admin intervention and how unfair it is that other people have (and will continue to be) punished to a far greater degree for the same crimes

 

I mentioned this in another reply already, yeah the wording we tossed together last night is a bit too far, and we'll be re-evaluating it in the next few days to find something that more appropriately reflects our intent.

 

Thanks for your reply.

[Zhikarta 4064]

So who wants to play a Dark Elf guys

[Cobbler 809]

3 minutes ago, Zhikarta said:

So who wants to play a Dark Elf guys

oh me me!!

[Tav 4339]

matter of fact **** PCswift

[NightOfTheWind 3226]

10 hours ago, xo31 said:

Um actually anyone can be a demi djinn . It's a very open CA with plenty of users. It's player accessible means 

its not open but its player accessible i know this cuz i was gonna teach u but then i found out ur character was stalking a woman 

 

2 hours ago, Xein000 said:

I've seen mostly Vampire, Musin, Kha, Hou-Zi, Ghost/Specter, Pale knights, Undead (there are different kinds), werevolf (even if still rare if I guess correct), automatons, and Atronach appear, as well as demons, but demi djinn, not really. I've not even heard about them ic and of what I know about them OOC is that mostly staff becomes one. I've been offered to become a vampire but not taken that, a few other common ones too, but nothing rare but that's okay.

surprisingly its not that staff becomes one its that djinn that are taught just end up becoming staff in a really roundabout way its rlly funny but yh we dont want ppl metagaming us so its not really talked about irp and an (preferabbly ooc to help the narrative) and ic secret

[Onnensr 1908]

* stores ur admin powers in my belly * there no conflict of interest baka