Charlie4vb

The smell of grain and oak was particularly strong in the air this afternoon. The sun shone through the window of his burrow on Kip-on-the-hill and with it a gentle breeze that made the flowers in the pot dance in the sunlight. On that breeze was a single leaf, plucked from it's mother tree only a few meters away and swayed itself into Kip's open window. The leaf swayed, spun, and danced as if on it's way to a prominade in the wind, but then settled for landing on an old halfing's nose. With one slow, shallow breath Kip whispered the leaf away which then danced itself on the side of the bed. "Papa Kip, how ya feelin' this afternoon?" his granddaughter Deedee asked, "A bit early to be restin' don'tchya' think?" Kip cracked a smile, showing his crows feet and marionette lines as Deedee moved around the bed to the window to water the potted flowers. "Aye, perhaps fer you my dear, but my old bones tell me when it's time to lay." Kip said as he started into a wheezing cough. Trick, Kip's grandson, was standing in the doorway. "Papa, how old are ya anyhow?" Trick said. Deedee shot him a dirty look as she put down the watering can and sat next to Kip nearly knocking the leaf off the bedside, but no one noticed. "Oh... older than I'd care 'ta admit." Kip said with a slight, dry chuckle. "Two-hundred-and-twelve tomorrow, lad." Trick thought about that a moment when Deedee spoke up, "Pappa, can we get ya anythin'? Some of that Brandybuck tea perhaps?" Deedee was tucking in Kip's covers. "Aye'ya, tea would be right as rain, sweet pea." Kip said then looked to Trick, "Hand me that book there." Kip gestured to a lonely, dusty book at the bottom of the bookshelf. Trick turned and picked it up, looking over the book. It was a fairly large book with only the markings 'Dunwood' across it. "Well come on then." Kip said to Trick impatiently. Trick handed Kip the book called 'Dunwood'. "I think ya told me about th' place once Papa." Trick said, "Where'd you get that?" Kip tried to hide a grin. "I 'borrowed' it from Len's private library. Do you remember Len?" Trick nodded as Deedee brought tea for the three of them. There was a comotion outside, the beginnings of a party as the sun set. You could hear the mugs of ale clattering from across the lake and fields or from anywhere in the Vale. Trick started to go but stopped and looked back at Kip. Deedee shot her brother yet another dirty look, but still had a longing to be in the festivities in her eye. "Go ahead" Kip said with a cough, "I'll be 'round when ya get back, loves." They hesitated a moment, then hugged Kip and went out the door. The sun was gone and the moon was returning yet again for the party. Moonlight shone in through the window and the fireplace was still lit from Deedee's Brandybuck tea. Kip slowly opened his boo and began flipping through pages of drawings from old Dunwood. A young Kip, Len, and Gimblo (if there is such a thing as a young Gimblo) stood in a relatively small farm with a large fence all holding hoes and ales smiling. Another drawing was of Gimblo and Kip chasing after an Orc with shovels while the orc fled the farms. Kip laughed at one drawing with Len and Bell putting mud on Gimblo to make him appear like a swamp monster. Kip stopped on one last drawing of the townsfolk and their children all standing on the party deck over Dunwood Lake. The drawing had signatures of everyone from the town beneath it. The ink on Kip's name began to smear when a tear dropped on the page. He closed the book, set it on his nightstand beside the bed and layed his head down one last time with a smile on his face. A gentle breeze came in through the moonlit window and caught the leaf. The leaf began to dance again to a music of it's own whismical tune through Kip's small burrow. It swirrled around a central pillar, over a cozy chair, through Kip's shovel collection and out the window on the other side.

I personally disagree with both 1 and 2. As far as i'm concerned, staff should be concerned with what they're there to do. If it's mod req's do mod req's. If it's Coding, do coding. If it's applications, do applications. Anything after that is GM free time and they can spend it how they will. Anything that disrupts a GM from doing what they're meant to as GM is more of a hindrance to the progression of the server than helpful. I don't see what the big deal is about GM's being in private channels. If they don't want to talk to you, then it might be for good reason. If they're blatantly ignoring you and you know for a fact that they're there, that could be a problem. 3, 4, 5, and 6 should go without saying. If you have to be told to be nice, you're doing it wrong. If you have to tell people to be nice YOU'RE doing it wrong as well. Own up to poor administration and management of the staff. Players shouldn't be told to seek out the staff. It's kind of obvious, if you need something ask for it. The staff can't read your mind. If players want to keep an open mind about the staff that's up to them. If they don't want too, that's also their call. We're all people and players here. Number six, really come on. Again, if this is something that needs to be addressed you're doing something wrong. We're all people, players and staff. If you have to address rules like this, maybe we need to walk single file with a child harness on and have parental supervision at all times because this is all incredibly silly.

If an Admin stopped to talk to everyone on the server, especially a server as expansive as TS, you'd be writing another post in another thread complaining about how the admins do nothing but socialize. If anything, the fact that she doesn't want to socialize works to her advantage. She has more time to help people in her spare time, rather than talk to someone about the weather. Not to say communication with the player base isn't important, but it's more important for GM's who are brought in for PR (public relations) to do that kinda thing. It's proper distribution of work. Lirinya is admin for what she has done for this server. And unless the server punishes people by giving them admin (which isn't a bad idea) I'm assuming she's done something pretty awesome to get there. I do think you're in your right to question the GM's and Admin's position and personal quality. Go for it, keep them on their toes! At least try to ask valued questions backed up with empirical data, not just "You look kinda anti-social or lazy" or as you cleverly put: Also: I think if a GM were to be leader, they'd be a specific GM with limited capabilities. For example, no spawning of items or money, but can access mod reqs and tp. Also is included with GM private discussion. In my experiences and from what i've heard from dear friends who've been GM and leader, it's too much for one person to handle without either full time job commitment or some form of cheating. It takes away from what a GM should be, which is to help moderate the public.

((I see underground farms. I just lost any respect for the town.))

Psh. If she don't want her spot. I'll call dibs.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

I skimmed the replies and I agree with this idea of removing minas. Yeah, the server could use money. I've been on the server from the start. I've done my time as a GM as well and a donator. The minas from donation packs wrecks havoc on the economy. This may be just a game for some people who care more about getting their money worth, I don't blame you. I'm a college student myself and every penny I spend on LOTC is one less I can use for dinner, so yeah it makes sense. But there is something people donating don't seem to remember, they want rewards and whatnot for playing on the server, but without the server to play on there would be no reason to give you the rewards! Donate because you love the server and want to see it successful, not because you're too lazy to work on a minecraft farm for a week and actually earn the rewards you're given. That's what I did! Remember, nothing the donators get is unobtainable by the ordinary population, it's just easier to donate and skip around lore and game mechanics to get it. That's my personal opinion. edit: if it we're up to me, i'd have no in-game rewards. Maybe that's why it's not up to me! I like Resp's idea. Also, someone mentioned about people with diamond armor taking it from VIP's, well that wouldn't be a problem if the VIP's didn't magically get money to supply them in the first place. :P

I'm too cool for lists.

Denied

Denied. Can't Enter Nether.

Screenshot link broken

What do you know about roleplaying? "I know how to roleplay" doesn't really help. It's hard to take peoples word for it in an application.

Denied

Approved

You should not recruit someone who you do not deem worthy to represent the Oren guard. If I employ an architect to work for me, their work is what represent me and my organization as well as the people who will later inhabit the building. You are responsible for the titles you give sir. Keep THAT in mind. Also to note in respect of defending the city, your guard is too small and the city is too big to reasonably protect all of it, that is the real reason for the King having a Keep built. It is intended for the people and to have those not capable to wield a sword, axe, or bow to take shelter in a crisis. It's on a hill and designed to withstand battle. The rest of the city can be rebuilt as long as the people to rebuild it survive. The best place for that would be in the keep. ((Think Battle of Helms Deep)) ((Keep in mind both aspects of RP, both antagonist and protagonist perspectives. The Sewers I designed are intended for use by the thieves and murderers of Oren to inhabit, give them in's and out's and more interesting ways to escape the city (or enter it). If you lock down the entire city, it not only becomes less fun for them, but forces them or any anti-oren player to take more drastic measures to get into the city. Also, when the gate is left locked on both ends and no guard is present to man the gate, how do you expect people to leave and enter. No city should by impenetrable for obvious OOC reasons. Now i'm not saying in times of war, you can shut everything down momentarily assuming war will be declared and walls will eventually get destroyed, sure. Until then however, I say leave things open and practical from an OOC perspective))

Spoilers are what got us in this economy crashing mess to begin with. We stay hush hush

Note to self: Lock posts.

Not if I ban you first! Huzzah!

Just a few likert scale polls on your thoughts of Oren. It's not a democracy and your vote doesn't really matter, but it's still nice to let everyone know without QQing in RP chat.

((The beautiful thing about a total monarchy is that he doesn't have to care if you agree lol. I imagine if you can argue it's realism to an extent it would be okay. The trouble comes when people have large basements or sun roofs with outlandish farms and flowing water. A home isn't supposed to be self sustaining. Thats bad for Oren's economy.))

((No beefs, I mean after all halflings are peaceful. Everyone might as well stay where they are. Just keep in mind they lore for halflings. They dont dig deep (You don't need to go below 61), they don't get industrious and expand the size of alkhazar, they don't wage war or fight at all really for that matter (self-defense excluded). If you really want it protected, work your damn hardest to make it look not good but GREAT. Since you're not experts of war figure out what else you could do to contribute to a nation and do what you can to get the king of Oren to protect you (No this doesn't mean run to another nation. Your a human subrace get the human king to support you.) If he doesn't aid you figure out why and what you could do to fix that. If he thinks your buildings are ugly, changem. If he doesn't need wheat, try something else! If he doesn't like someone in your village, kickem out! lol. He holds the power here, so do what you can. Dunwood for example is a small village that intends no more than 12 inhabitants and offer a lot of wheat among other small goods. So we can promise to stay small, stick to lore, keep a good rep, and offer a lot of goods. If you write lore for your village send it to me and we can work on getting it in the Wiki and make it official. I want you guys to prevail with your villages, but because you damn well earned it, not because you donated a butt load or nagged the king into submission. ))

(( I'm fine with other towns popping up. Dunwood is a small closed-gate community, invitation only. We're a halfling specific town and emphasize that point. Halflings are supposed to be shorter, so we tried to make slightly shorter homes to give that illusion. It wouldn't make sense if we had others living in our tiny homes. Not to mention the whole "everyone can live here!" thing was beaten to death. It's not as though we're just black folks and white folks, we're significantly physically different. I'm not saying the races can't coexist, but it'd be nice to at least have a place where they can call their own. A sanctuary if you will. I do wish these other towns didn't show up so damn close. There is an entire world for a halfling village, you don't need to build next to the first one :/. None the less it's fine with these new villages popping up, especially since we're a closed gate community. It gives others a place to go who cant or don't want to get into Dunwood. Just keep in mind everyone, although halflings are somewhat modeled after Hobbits they are NOT HOBBITS. ))

(( To be quite honest, only Myself and Gimblo were intending to be Rude and Grumpy, didn't know others would follow suit :O. It's fine though, it's not as though we stay hostile, it just takes some time to get to know ya. ))

Ya mean Thistledown was near Dunwood. I believe you were the one ta move so close to us.

OOC: Dunwood isn't necessarily a secret since we can't actively hide it from players, but we do try not to spread the word about it or even tell people about it who ask. Although it's a halfling community, it's a private community first. It was made with two other GM's and I as almost a post-leadership retirement. Then we just decided it'd be fun to add more people and make it a LITTLE village. by little I mean there is only spots for twelve houses. Seeing as how the houses are both large and free and anyone who lives in Dunwood has access to... everything, we don't throw around trust like drugs at a Dylan concert. In regards to us jumping around in Alkhazar after talking to the King, I apologize, it was late and we had a lot going on in respects to fighting with someone over a building. Quite a bit of OOC talking there in /tell, so our attention was elsewhere. If I you ever see me around again chad, try to get in touch with me, it'd be interesting to RP with you and I might even take you to Dunwood. There isn't really a system to getting into Dunwood, just hang around and RP with us, if we like you we'll ask you to stay, if not, we'll tell you to take a hike. The worst is when people don't take a hint :/