argonian

"St. Daniel of Al'khazar is the only King I serve," nods a wise elder human, named Gary, wisely.

44 minutes ago, Laeonathan said:

ngl I think its probably more the:

 

*join minecraft server

*realizes its not what expected

*leaves

to join the server you have to apply

i mean to be WS you don't, but who tf makes a forum account before logging in as a wandering soul?

Do you really think ~53,376 people did that? I said 80-90% were bots, and I think 10,600 creating a forum account before logging in as a wandering soul, for whatever reason, and then never applying, is a very generous figure.

You have to reach page 1978 to find a user with a single post, when ordered by post count (sadly not by chronological order too).

page 912 to get the first user with 2 posts

and 253 for the first with 10 posts

What's the point of this post? I was just curious how many bot accounts we have - which is probably like 80-90% (figure out of my ass) of the accounts with 0 posts.

But then I got curious too who ever made a single post besides their application (or status update asking how to make one).

And it's also sorta interesting that we have under 253 pages of users who've ever made 10 posts (or maybe that's still a ton, being like 6k users if I've done the maths right - but consider that tons of those are nation/guild accounts, or other alts).

3 hours ago, MeteorDragon said:

One, then why are you still so against banning something that is inherently bad and upsets people oocly?

I think what I'm trying to do is encourage caution over any rule changes with extremely broad consequences on what's RP-able. Like earlier in this thead I was accused of hyperbole and the slippery-slope fallacy for the "gay genderfluid half-orc High Pontiff" line, but that would have to be allowed with this rule change (except maybe the half-orc part, since orcs aren't real, but you can be the one to explain why "miscegenation is bad actually" when someone makes a thread about how that upsets them irl).

Because again, as much as people try to dance back and forth here, the argument is not about allowing gay characters to exist, but about banning discrimination against them, by nations, the Church, etc. - with the reasoning that this is a form of discrimination which exists IRL and is thereby upsetting, and so naturally to be in any way consistent or fair you would have to extend such bans to other forms of discrimination deemed unkosher in the real world. Obvious ones are sexuality, gender identity, disability, medical history, but you could potentially even extend it to religious or philosophical beliefs.

So then the outcome of that is total social and legal equality for all protected classes within RP, whether your group is a nation or a non-nation (wouldn't affect the Church otherwise, defeating the point). But that non-nation part especially could make it very very silly quite fast. If you were RP'ing an antagonist, you'd have to do it like that Onion sketch of "man plots to assassinate President Obama, but not because he's black or anything".

You guys can go do what you want but my thoughts on it based on the above and other things I've already addressed are: (1) it's a very dodgy principle and you'd have to be careful when rule-crafting if this is to go ahead, (2) I find it hypocritical how "it's a medieval setting!" is used as a beating stick against things like cannons or guns but is discarded entirely in discussions like these, and (3) I suspect a large portion of people in favour of this don't actually want to ban IRL discrimination in RP (see: High Elves), but simply have a general distaste for human RP, culture, and lore, and would happenly see non-IRL forms of discrimination like anti-magery be forcibly eliminated too.

1 minute ago, satinkira said:

I'd say it's massively unfair to talk abt SS skins because it implies that it's a recent thing, when in reality that level of shit hasnt happened for years. Canonists were crucifying gay ppl more recently than this, though they of course don't do anything of the sort nowdays

When then?

13 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

Can confirm, High Elf 'purity' has never been about their physical appearance and traits. Their purity is specifically of the blood and mind. The only reason they make note of physical appearances is because it's the easiest way to determine if someone comes from an 'unpure bloodline', aka have non high elf blood in them. There have definitely been more zealous characters who care about their physical traits, but the belief itself is of the blood and mind.

This is literally any racism ever. Aryans weren't the master race because they had blonde hair and blue eyes, but such an appearance was seen to be an indicator of a pure Aryan ancestry.

"High Elves aren't an NS-LARP dude. We just coincidentally assess pure ancestry based on the exact same characteristics and spent years wearing SS skins."

At least you said "blood and mind" and not "blood and soil", although I'm not sure if implying darker skin correlates with a worse mind is any better.

46 minutes ago, satinkira said:

 

high elves aren't allowed to call dark elves the n-word

45 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

 

Where is this coming from? I was part of Haelunor from the mid to end of last map through to the start of this map, and didn't once see any sort of RP regarding dark elves or those sorts of slurs both IRP and in the Discord chats I had access to. If anything, Helves have more of an issue with Wood Elves due to how nature-loving and grubby they perceive them to be. If you have genuine proof/evidence of this taking place, it is worthwhile reporting because I highly doubt it would get brushed off. I'm not going to outright disbelieve you, but I would absolutely take care when throwing accusations like that out.

Their whole schtick is that they're pure because they're blonde and white lol.

46 minutes ago, satinkira said:

and no-one is looking to introduce gay genderfluid half-orc saints into canonism; I understand the point of hyperbole but you're being ridiculous. imo your point about wanting to introduce 21st century standards on human rights/moral norms is also bullshit lmfao; I replied to a status update abt this recently but the really basic points about the sanctity of life, legal rights, religious freedoms, are all trampled into the mud by both elves and humans and its disingenuous to suggest that removing irl-based prejudice is going to lead to a woke-ification of lotc. gritty dark fantasy medieval groups like necros play perfectly satisfactory villains and embrace the medieval and fantastical role without homophobia. 

45 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

Absolutely wild exaggeration of what is being requested.

It's not hyperbole though. I'm not making the argument that "same-sex marriage" = "genderfluid High Pontiff" - but if you read the arguments being made in the thread, it's that people shouldn't have to face discrimination which could occur in the real world against their characters. And you do agree that it's discrimination to say "you can't be a priest because you're transgender", right? Or that it's bigoted to intentionally refer to someone with the wrong pronouns? So then, if the King of Haense has a sex-change, and your character refers to him her as "the King" rather than "the Queen", that is an IRL form of bigotry being roleplayed, and therefore not allowed.

So under these terms it would indeed be necessary to treat people as equals regardless of their gender identity, sexuality, or any other IRL grounds for prejudice in roleplay. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing in-and-of-itself (i.e. so long as it's coherent and not taken to absurd extremes like "rich characters can't bully poor ones"), but which I used to demonstrate the hypocrisy that High Elves can do high-key ethnostate RP but humans come under fire for anything.

As for those other forms of discrimination: legal rights are a bust, after all the whole debate is about the legal right to marriage in roleplay. Sanctity of life? If you mean "killing people is bad", then there's no grounds for discrimination among any of the main races or religions on the server, but if you want to talk about abo- let's not. As for religious freedom, religious discrimination is absolutely something people suffer from and are even murdered for IRL, so even that's a dodgy one - these may be fictional religions but someone who's a pagan IRL could feel persecuted if their pagan character is, and someone who's a Muslim IRL may feel that persecution of Al-Rashidun hits too close to home, Canonism and like any major branch of Christianity, etc.

So this stance of "prejudice which can occur IRL and bring up traumas must just be banned" is a very broad statement. Definitely should be true in cases, but as a general rule it bans almost everything.

46 minutes ago, satinkira said:

as for wanting to remove the canonist church, that isn't my aim and it isn't something I support

on the matter of the vision for the server - it's a generally accepted fact that lotc has no set niche and that it basically depends where you go, which is fine because different communities roleplay differently. canonism and medieval european larp has its place, as druidism has its place, as spooks have their place. 

Wasn't accusing you in particular of that but it was very clear in a number of comments that that wouldn't satisfy them.

45 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

Final take - This is a medieval fantasy server in which we literally publish our own lore and create our own magics. Why can't we create our own culture and version of history? Why must we follow history so accurately that we are forced to have a Canonist religion unaccepting of same-sex marriages etc.? This is literally a fantasy server, be more creative.

I don't think we do. Canonism's theological points are based on its own scripture, which sure were influenced by IRL in that the guys who wrote it exist in the real world, but no one is making arguments from the Bible. As an aside, one of the guys who wrote the Scrolls is gay irl and actually realised they'd purely serendipitously included nothing anti-homosexuality in the Scrolls when MissToni brought the topic into the limelight a few years ago. Big debate about it at the time, with there being nothing in the Scrolls against homosexuality per se, but with them condemning any kind of extra-marital sex, and with an implication that marriage is to "be frutiful and multiply". So at the time Viros spitballed creating a sacrament for same-sex unions, both platonic and romantic (because it can't be a sin in Canonism to merely express romantic love for someone, only whether same-sex marriages could exist was unclear). And I agreed with the proposal.

Didn't happen in the end, but whatever you think of the decision-making process, it was based on what's stated in the Scrolls and the theology surrounding it. And the Church has made a number of doctrinal changes based on such exegesis. 

45 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

In my last comment on a thread regarding this topic, I made the argument that there are other nations you can RP in, and a line has to be drawn on how far you can go w/ homophobia etc. This thread has altered that opinion. I have to agree with the vast majority - if it is affecting and troubling players to that extent, while giving the 'attackers' some strange sense of euphoria to bully or even just troll another player, then remove it. Characters can be uncomfortable with the idea, sure. It'd be the same as a lesbian feeling uncomfortable with a straight male trying to romance her in some form. But genuine prejudice and attacks are unnecessary.

Does this even happen though? Who actually goes around hunting gay characters? The only big scandal I remember is when a prince had a homosexual affair - but like it's a prince and it's an affair, it's gonna be a scandal either way.

Rules against behaviour which would make players uncomfortable, however hard they might be to word, are appropriate. But rules banning IRP prejudice (that is, total legal and social equality for any protected classes irl, since that what it amounts to) will have a lot of implications to deal with which I don't think people are actually confronting themselves with. 

45 minutes ago, Amayonnaise said:

I don't understand how two gay elves can walk into a human city like Haense and no one bats an eye because "it's the elven way to do things", but they can't fathom two humans sharing a similar love.

I mean two gay elves in a human city would be insulted and treated as weirdo heathens with freakish practices. That's a far cry from being treated equally, or with respect.

51 minutes ago, JustMeMorgan said:

 

Honestly I think this should just be the talking point of the meeting Llir is having as nobody could put this any better.

 

Regardless of if LotC is an escapism or not for players, homophobia really is an unnecessary part of roleplay with no real positive. Elf x Human racism is far more productive and entertaining roleplay with productive outcomes (i.e. banished from Haelun'or for not being pure, so you go on a quest to show your purity, or become good enough known as an outsider race to be accepted by those inside), homophobia and other similar prejs don't have any sort of route, it's "ew you're gay get out" or "ew ur gay let's just ******* execute you" neither of which is productive or gives you anything in roleplay, other than exiled from a community.

 

tldr; Dislike elves and make them cut their ears again, whitewash orcs for being against the Horde and make humans do tests of faith that don't involve asking them if they want to 'sodomise a man'.

you're only proving how ridiculous it is. high elves are literally allowed to call dark elves the n-word and LARP as nazis (it's ok though; they accept uncle toms?), but if canonism doesn't have any gay genderfluid half-orc saints, the mods NEED to intervene.

Also humans are also punished by staff for anti-elf racism. i recall huge whining and a few bans over it in savoy and it hasn't really been attempted since.

such a ridiculous double standard. and most of the people commenting LARPing that they just want the canonist church to institute same-sex marriage are lying through their teeth in that they actually want it to cease to exist entirely. you can see it through the backhanded insults (and downright smears) and lamentations that it controls human culture itt.

So let's be honest about the desired outcome here: 21st century irreligiosity, 21st century standards on human rights/moral norms, but no you cannot use 14th century cannons how dare you (unless it's powered by magic)

would love to hear thoughts from someone itt who has a vision for the type of setting they think this server should be that doesn't boil down to "discard all human culture and lore, and rp like my druid friends instead". it's exactly that attitude that allows you guys to give high elves a free pass here and even celebrate it when they goose-step, while any rp bigotry among humans (be it based on a real one, or anti-magic etc) is condemned. there was even a guy on here the other day talking about how humans were oocly horrible people for not accepting darkstalkers lmaooo

11 hours ago, Shiredom said:

People can't read the text that clearly says "Off-Topic"

they could just rename this subforum off-topic like it's called on literally every other forum

o7

8 hours ago, ClassyDryad said:

I think the spam of vassals without any oversight is worse (as someone who tried to do a vassal that fell through.)

While there are 22 20 realms, there are essentially forty or more vassals on the map due to how you can essentially go as far as to stack multiple on a single tile with little oversight.

 

This means the map has 60 or more different cities/towns/yada on the map at any given time. If the server was evenly spread between each and every one of these places every settlement would have 2-3 players rn, rising to 5 during peak numbers.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Not to say there aren't based vassals.

 

imo this is the equivalent of saying "there are x million homes in New York, imagine how dead Times Square would be if they were all home at once"

like sure but they won't be. vassal groups will rp in the capital the way u and ur mates hang out in town. their fief is base of operations and is important not only because they will rp and do events there at times, but if you're a serious group you need a place for all your shit, for your gear and horses and farms, to breed your horses and make your gear, to retreat to if you piss off the wrong guy and they try to kill you, to defend in a wc if the nation gets attacked

does anyone actually care if a random castle is empty a lot of the time? 

26 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

 

I'm genuinely just lost at this point James, and you don't seem to be following what I'm saying either.

 

I'm saying if you want to bring up the 2 Emperors and Telanir's shield to dismiss what I've written on this post as bullshit, then okay, whatever, but I don't understand at all what you want me to say about that because that's your own uncertified belief and I don't see how I can argue with that except schizo back at you.

 

I haven't a clue about where you're getting an idea about someone trying to call you a traitor. I don't know what point you're asking from me because your comments are getting increasingly nonsensical - you started saying my post is disengenous because of who I am (haensa), then throwing in Sinners' War without clarifying how this ties into the debate at all, to then saying you're being called a traitor, to then asking me what I'm trying to say.

It ties in because you're saying third party nations should be killed. I'm out here saying "nah not really" and that you should be careful what you wish for.

21 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

 

Your only mention of the Sinners' War was that you fought in it, so I don't see how your comment about that makes any sense.

 

Again, you're bringing up 2 Emperors as a basis to dismiss what I've written here. If you want to disagree with it, that's fine. I can sit here and tell you how I wouldn't have written to Admins appealing to help because Haense got itself in that mess itself or that it wouldn't be all that terrible if it got deleted in the Sinner's War or today because I think it's getting stale, but based on how you're concluding I'd change my mind in a heartbeat in different circumstances with no evidence there's probably not a whole lot of point in that. There's nothing there we can discuss because you're using an uncertified personal belief so I'm not sure why you're even commenting.

 

If you want to point to any parts of what I'm saying in the post and discuss them, that's fine, and I'd be happy to engage, but you've just come on here to dismiss the entirety of it on the basis of who I am, which isn't really something we can discuss? There's no basis to engage on "sounds good but bet you'd change your mind if your side was affected!!!".

Think I made it clear. I brought up the last time Haense was vulnerable and questioned your commitment to free conquest. I do think it's an unlikely story that you are the one hero of the tale who would have argued for impartiality, but hey, you are a good writer, and biased writing is shitty writing, so perhaps you are right.

I'll take your word for it and just warn other pro-war Haeseni authors who are less worldly that what goes around comes around.

3 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

 

Your only mention of the Sinners' War was that you fought in it, so I don't see how your comment about that makes any sense.

 

Again, you're bringing up 2 Emperors as a basis to dismiss what I've written here. If you want to disagree with it, that's fine. I can sit here and tell you how I wouldn't have written to Admins appealing to help because Haense got itself in that mess itself or that it wouldn't be all that terrible if it got deleted in the Sinner's War or today because I think it's getting stale, but based on how you're concluding I'd change my mind in a heartbeat in different circumstances with no evidence there's probably not a whole lot of point in that.

 

If you want to point to any parts of what I'm saying in the post and discuss them, that's fine, and I'd be happy to engage, but you've just come on here to dismiss the entirety of it on the basis of who I am, which isn't really something we can discuss? There's no basis to engage on "sounds good but bet you'd change your mind if your side was affected!!!".

What point about the War of Two Emperors do you want to make? I was on Haense's side during it. Anyone around at the time can confirm it. This just comes across as you looking for any reason to call me a traitor, but it's weak as **** because I was with Haense in that war from the start unto the end. And not because I liked Haense, as I told Yoppl and Boby at the time, but because I loved Oren. But that was enough for me.

So what is your point?

Just now, Xarkly said:

 

I didn't play in Haense during War of the Two Emperors.

 

You're clearly not commenting because of anything to do with the post. You saw someone from Haense making a post about an issue on the server in 2024 and started commenting about Renatus and Telanir in 2019. You've just brought some random bullshit from 5 years ago onto this post to try say "YEAH WELL IF THIS AFFECTED YOU, YOU WOULDN'T BE SAYING THIS", without any basis which is absolutely ill-will.

 

Dm your rant and get off my thread.

Crazy, because I said the Sinners' War. You were around long, long before that (like most leading Haensers), but you decided to shift it all on Boby and act like you all joined this year. Weird one. No, I don't hate you for being Haensers, or for typing in all-caps, if that's your thing, but I reject the disingenuity of attacking small nations for being indefensible when you demanded the admins preserve your own nation from an imminent conquest. That's called fairness. I should hope you familiarise yourself with such a concept before you deal with the criminal cases of our nation.

10 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

It's 2024 and not 2019 or whenever 2emps actually was, so not sure what relevance that has at all to Realm Bloat today. I don't even get the point of this being a jab at someone; I think the only person who played in that period of Haense who actually still plays today is Pureimp.

Ok dude if you insist that Kevin Boby is the only old Haenser and that everyone since then believes "might makes right", I'll take note of exactly how you respond next time the mercs and pvp hordes of the world switch sides and you're on the receiving end.

Not because I wish you any ill-will, I think you are a cool guy and an astoundingly good writer, but I really hate lies and I think you're being totally disingenuous, and your newfound Darwinistic proclivities would vanish like tears in the rain if they ever affected your friends.

12 minutes ago, Elennanore said:

I've seen quite a few posts in recent months where all of the 'Heartlander' Canonist Nations will be lumped into one imperial state, an Oren essentially, Haense will be its own Kingdom, and Norland is also its own Kingdom. As the NL of Norland, I don't actually mind the idea of being the vassal of another large polity. However, the culture of Norland is so juxta-posed to every other human Nation(not canonist), that it is essentially impossible to exist under another power without there being some oppressive force working against our culture. This eventually results in the state crumbling apart and going inactive. The problem with imperial states is that the subsequent minor states are either integrated forcefully, and thus are already at odds with the greater power and will always work against it, or the minor state has no loyalty in any capacity.

This is something I've thought about with regards to conquest actually. I think a certain level of discrimination from the conquerors is not only tolerable but also contributive to RP (inspires the conquered ppl to cling to their culture, etc.), but that if the conquerors try to totally extinguish the local culture that it's fucked

cuz like obv many conquerors did that irl but this is minecraft and we shouldnt try to kick in each others' sand-castles unnecessarily

as they typically have done before

but rather that we should RP with each other in a way that we can both enjoy our niches

it's a hard thing to balance but i mean we already have eviction rules balanced towards this,

on the one hand you dont want cool cultures obliterated but on the other hand you don't want conquered peoples just moving 2 tiles and pretending they were never conquered, so imo we want a system where being conquered can be an interesting part of a culture's history which they can then break out of or accept, depending on their own outlook. so most canonist humans would prob accept it in the long-term but if elves or allfatherists were conquered they'd probably always try to break out eventually

EDIT:

OK **** this shit every time i edit the comment, stuff i write ends up in the totally wrong paragraph and i dont care anymore to correct it. so say what you will but im done. too exhausting. **** this enjin-ass forum.

4 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

Decentralization is a problem with the map more than anything. Consolidating a bunch of realms into larger realms won't solve it. You have to make the map smaller or move nations closer together.

 

I can't respond to @NotEvilAtAll because he came up with an idea that is actually new and not just a reactionary "noo everything was perfect the last time we complained!". So it's hard to comment on off-the-cuff.

But this is very true. Let's look at most nations on this map. Yes there's the usual Elven glut where we have 2-3 Wood Elf nations where we could have one, but the main source of glut is among humans. Petra, Aaun, Balian and Haense don't want to unite, and Veletz and Stassion (if they count) couldn't merge with anyone even if they wanted to. And then there's that Adunian nation who I love btw but whose name is beyond me.

You can't just merge these nations. It wouldn't work. And yet they can't just conquer each other. Thank God we have decent war rules now finally, but as @TreeSmoothie pointed out, a lost war generally just leads to the losing side setting up shop somewhere else.

Thankfully, we aren't a huge server with hundreds of realm apps a month. Even with this "insane" number now, it's 24 I think? Still well within the realm where apps can be dealt with on a case by case basis. And by that I mean, "hey you guys clearly come from Realm X. Can you explain why you guys need to form a new nation other than that A. you're bored of your vassals, or B. you're too edgy to even try being someone else's vassals for a month b4 whining?"

You'd learn a lot fast from a system like that.

3 hours ago, Cloakedsphere said:

It hasn't. The reality is that all the RP is still surrounding the same big 5 nations for the past 3 months. All the pop-up nations were only built by players and used for an extremely short amount of time (less than a week) and they left to return to the same big 5 nations again. 

Nothing is decentralized. We just have an abundance of dead and pointless nations that provide nothing to the server (quite literally) and its better that they provide nothing. If they actually provided something to the server as a whole, then they'd be contributing to decentralization. But since they're 100% inactive, they aren't decentralizing anything. If activity was being tracked still, I am sure people would be able to see these pop up realms/places are below 0.05% of weekly activity.

This. All the people saying RP is decentralised and that they can't find any have been saying this every map regardless of the system.

And there was never any limit on how many ghost-town vassals were allowed so the concern about empty towns is largely disingenuous.

There should at the very least be stats done about activity in the capitals of the large nations to determine if activity really is very spread out before throwing the baby out with the bath-water, and changing the whole system just because "nation count high".

11 hours ago, satinkira said:

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do note how the defenders can't offer real excuses and can only meme in response

though tbf if we punished players for working oocly to win irply then basically the entire church would be banned 

why dont you guys have a beach episode to resolve the conflict

 

harold winter... 

man of infamy

still remember wandering onto ur land in aegis. tell the grandkids i said hi from my rocking chair