Alan

Greetings, As promised, here is the Your View following this thread. Reply with any comments you'd like to made on the changes, as your detailed feedback is very much appreciated. However, before you respond, be sure that you've read this, that way we don't have any avoidable issues. Thanks!

By popular demand and by popular necessity, the thread is being locked. Here are some thoughts I'd like to end on, though. For one, I must say that I am incredibly disappointed. In 12 hours since the posting of this thread, I have seen nothing but 200 posts (might be less for non mods, as all hidden posts are included for me) of inflammatory, hateful, derogatory, spiteful, childish and rude bickering, complaining and fits. When will you guys learn? We are NOT going to listen to you if you are incapable of replying to an announcement maturely and respectfully. I myself SKIPPED at least 100 responses that were not appropriate, and for that very reason they were nothing more to me than useless wastes of space. I lingered on the replies that were actually helpful, the ones that constructively criticized our changes and gave insight into why certain aspects of them weren't needed. I and the staff do care about the fact that our changes can affect you guys for better or for worse, but if you can't tell us that properly then don't be surprised if you're ignored. Second, I'd like to take this time to mention that the aforementioned attitudes were completely misplaced and unnecessary anyways. As I stated in the OP, these changes are TEMPORARY as we are merely TESTING the effects of their implementations. In this trial we are not killing the server, we're not out to get you, and we're certainly not ruining your lives. In fact, the one month period of time itself is not set in stone either, as it is merely an estimate of how long it will take for us to accurately judge the value of the changes. If it takes a week instead, then that is when we will adjust our course, revert back to where we are, or continue as we stand. There is absolutely no reasonable need for alarm, especially since we already have a predetermined idea of where to go next after considering the few players that had it in them to be civil in their feedback. In closing, I'm going to make a final note on attitude which is something that is NOT up for debate. FMs, GMs and even Admins alike have become far too lenient when it comes to upholding forum rules pertaining to proper behavior, but after tonight I believe we can't afford any more room for negligence. What happened tonight in this thread will no longer fly. There will no longer be scoldings or even warns for blatant bad behavior. There will no longer be leniency when a staff member upholding the rules is poked and prodded. There will no longer be room on this server for anyone that acts in a way that directly infringes upon our goal of being a loving and accepting community. You will be banned without a second thought, as you will not deserve to be here. Those who find loopholes or excuses to continue acting in such a way will not be humored, they will face the same punishment. I am not posting this update in its own thread as it is already in the rules, so ignorance of this "change" will earn you nothing. Be on the look out for the Your View that should be arriving tomorrow, as we will most certainly be using that to judge where to go next.

We don't ban, or even warn, players for simply "voicing their opinions". However, there is a huge difference between that and being inflammatory, which WILL get you punished. I don't care what it is you have to say, say it respectfully and maturely or face the consequences.

Also, lose the self entitlement. As amusing as it is to us, it won't gain you anything other than a ban.

I have no idea what you're talking about :)

Hello Atherans, By now, some of you may have noticed some rather important changes to the forums that you may or may not have been expecting. The two I am here to discuss are changes that have been long overdue, as both were discussed months ago and were changes we the staff told the players we'd do (but never did, obviously). The changes I am talking about are the removal of overall reputation on player profiles (though individual posts can still have their own reputation), and the restricting of status updates to just certain staff teams, effectively creating a "Quick News" panel. Before anyone gets upset, I assure you that these are TEMPORARY changes that we are merely testing. Both were ideas raised by and to the staff that were discussed and voted on, and we want to ensure that our predictions aren't poorly established by not testing the changes first. Both will be in effect for one month, after which the changes will be reviewed on the basis of how they affected the server and may or may not be continued. The reasoning for these changes are that we have seen both reputation and statuses act as a negative influence on the forums and thus the community and server as a whole. Many players have posted derogatory, rule breaking and inflammatory threads and replies for the sake of gaining rep, while others have spread drama and toxic comments via the status updates. While both have certainly contributed to beneficial events and actions within LotC, we have been led to believe that the pros do not outweigh the aforementioned cons. We cannot be certain, however, hence why we are taking this time to "experiment". To conclude this announcement, in two to three days time a Your View will be made for any and all comments, questions or concerns regarding these changes to be posted. Do not make feedback threads as they will be ignored. Thank you and happy roleplaying LotC.

Most people put "ado" because ado is correct, lol. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ado-versus-adieu?page=all

Translation time: "GMT -2 through GMT +2" is the one that actually pertains to GMT and those in and around GMT areas "GMT +3 through GMT +7" is Middle Eastish to mid-China "GMT +8 through GMT +12" is Australia to the edge of Russia "GMT -12 through GMT -7" is the edge of Alaska to the edge of the US (obviously Alaska isn't counted as part of the edge in this) "GMT -7 through GMT -3" is the US and Canada

Just in case anyone saw the above replies about shapeshifting and got the idea to join the Order with the specific intent of learning the art, I will inform you all now that your efforts will be in vain. For one, we are very, very experienced when it comes to weeding out seekers looking to join the Order for Druidic magic rather than for the RP itself. Additionally, only the oldest and most dedicated Druids are even considered for the art, which means you will practically need to remain loyal to and hardworking within the Order for years in real life. In fact, even cmack who actually proposed shapeshifting in the first place, wrote the lore for it and got it implemented wasn't allowed to be taught it IC until much later on. Essentially, as great as the art is, the time and effort you'd have to put into getting it is most certainly not worth it, unless of course you focus on the fun, entertaining and creative roleplaying instead!

Definitely cool for personal purposes, but the bad thing about vanilla MC books is they don't have a set number of characters per line like in signs and they instead base themselves on font size. Thus, if one resource pack has small text and another has large, the image will be completely distorted when made for one and viewed on the other. Nonetheless, this will still be fun to mess around with for the most part. Good find :)

oh no

For those of you who have no idea what the purpose of this thread is, please refer to here. Discovered lore will be highlighted and will link to an LotC Wiki page. 1- A Mysterious Tome 2- An Odd Poem 3- A Scrap of Paper 4- Mystic Wanderings 5- A Bloodstained Journal 6- An Ancient Verse 7- A Dusty Tome 8- An Old Journal Entry 9- An Aged Parchment 10- A Curious Article 11- The Diary of a Madman 12- A Ragged Letter 13- A Poem of Myth 14- A Shabby Tome 15- A Tattered Diary 16- A Grizzled Tome 17- An Ominous Poem 18- A Strange Tale 19- A Torn Page 20- A Frayed Tome 21- A Frail Tome 22- A Ruined Book 23- A Rotting Journal 24- A Sinister Note 25- An Ebony Volume 26- A Jade Volume 27- A Burgundy Volume 28- A Byzantium Volume 29- A Violet Volume 30- A Dirty Book