Alan

Greetings Atherans! Before I get into detail on the substance of this post, let me first begin with a look into the recent past. In the very, very early stages of the 4.0 project before development of the map itself even began, various staff members were brainstorming ideas on what to do in order to make 4.0, which would later be named Athera, the best possible map we've had yet; things to make it as memorable and enjoyable as possible. While there were numerous unique and creative ideas, most if not all of them were about the map itself or plugins; all necessary and good things, but nothing new and exciting. However, soon an idea came along that was more up our alley, and it was thought up after something was realized. We realized that we didn't want Athera to just be a "map", but rather a world where players would be immersed fully anywhere and everywhere, a world where everything had background and meaning. It is for this reason that the idea for World Lore came into play, a way for players to feel connected to the world they roleplayed in, a way for them to feel like every location they visited had a backstory that would be further continued by their actions in the world of Athera. Now, after months of hard work, I am delighted to announce that this massive undertaking by the Lore Team has finally come to a conclusion! Numerous ruins were built prior to release for players to explore, locations have been riddled with secrets to find, and a very involved series of events has been prepared for you, the players, to participate in and enjoy! A certain “Traveler’s Guide to Athera” has also been released by Lagomorphia which gives a brief background of the various regions of the map, which you can read here. More importantly, however, a large collection of tomes, poems, journals and other writings have been scattered around the map for players to discover! Where are we? Why are these ruins here and what is their purpose? Was anyone here before us? These questions, along with many others you might have about the world, are all answered in these works, and delving into them might just tell you so much more about the world than you ever thought you’d know. Not only this, but a few of these also hint at upcoming main events! However, if this too doesn't interest you, perhaps you might be swayed by the fact that a number of the books clue at possible treasures, hidden locations, and potential mini events throughout the map, and maybe you will be the lucky first to find them! As of this moment, there are upwards of 30 IG books of various lengths, types and purposes scattered around Athera for you to find, so do not dally! Go out and find them! Also, we will be regularly checking on the book locations to see if they have been discovered yet. In order to prevent the lore from being held by one person, we will be releasing the lore for a discovered book 5 days after it is taken from the chest, and all discovered lore will be accessible here. P.S. Since the books were only just now added in, it's possible that you've already visited some of the locations where they have been placed. Thus, it is encouraged that you relocate some of the ruins you have found and see if there are any secrets to be found within!

First and a contribution to 2,000,000! Also, who's Firespirit?

Both of you accounted for (Goldrim and lockeed). However, it is telling me Lockeed that your xlockeed account can't be found. Do you have another account that you use instead or have you just not logged into Athera yet?

Sup everyone, As some of you might have noticed, there is a detailed Hall of Heroes at spawn filled with "uncut blocks of stone". As some of you might remember from the updated donor perks, Aether VIPs now get a larger than life statue of themselves in the hall, and it will look pretty dang sweet. They will look like this: The point of this thread is to get the attention of the Aether VIPs in an organized fashion. If you are an Aether VIP and would like to have your statue made, simply respond to this thread so that we know you're still active, and be sure to include times that you are available so that we can create a statue that you will end up liking. I can't guarantee that we'll get to you immediately given Athera only JUST released and we have a lot on our plates, but we should get to you as soon as possible! Thanks :) P.S. We know who the Aether VIPs are, don't try and trick us cause it won't work and you'll just look silly! ^^

((As a druid, what the heck did I just read?))

w0t.

Popping my head in this thread before I head to bed (it's 3:00 am my time, after all). I'm saying this now and I'm not saying it again, there are now over 130 replies to this thread spanning over 14 pages (counting hidden posts which non-staff can't see) and I am not in the mood to waste my time reading through it all when I wake up since the majority of it is trolling, needless bickering and off topic remarks or jabs. If this idea is to be considered in the slightest, then you all WILL get back on topic, cut the crap with the memes (regardless of how funny or seemingly necessary), and stop with the idiotic remarks aimed at specific RP groups. This isn't preschool, but if everyone wants to act like it is, then perhaps its time to treat everyone like children. When I wake up and return to this thread, I will personally look for anyone that posts anything that violates my conditions following this reply and I will hide their posts and warn or ban them, depending on the situation. I don't care what it is you feel you need to get off your chest, I'm sure getting banned is not worth a single reiterated statement that in the end will not hurt anyone but yourself. Start thinking with your heads instead of your hormones before posting, then maybe for once we'll see an intelligent and mature debate on the LotC forums.

TNT I appreciate your concerns, but please do not make assumptions. The only times I do not accept contact requests on Skype are when I have no idea who the request is coming from and when I do not actually see the request in the first place, but I do not ignore them. I also respond to just about every PM that I see on the forums and I do so as quickly as I can, something that a fair amount of players can attest to (though in this case my messenger has had issues lately and apparently I've gotten PMs that have not shown up in my inbox). Even so, don't fall into the trap of believing that you and the overall playerbase are one and the same, thinking that because I unfortunately was not able to get back to you that I also ignore everyone else, which is simply not the case. If you'd still like to talk however, simply PM me and I'll get back to you as soon as I am able.

Not all flagged responses were flagged because they were trolly. For instance, I can think off the top of my head one incident where a player accidentally double posted their results, and the second entry was flagged.

Hey everyone, As many of you know, 30326 departed from the GM Team not too long ago, hence why you are hearing the results of the most recent survey from me and not him. Even though that is the case, I will also state now that everything is said and done that the survey was nonetheless created by me this time around, as there were a few things I wanted to know aside from the usual collection of information. Rather than the sole purpose being to gain feedback and hear suggestions and propositions, this survey aimed to test knowledge and consistency against the actual answers players put; that is to say, the survey judged whether or not their opinions were founded on logical happenings or merely on foundationless and potentially contradictory cases. A lot of those that responded to the survey fell into this trap, though admittedly a lot fewer than I had expected. However, before I get into that, let’s begin with the usual display of graphs and general information. Now onto the free responses. Most of the questions will not be publicized not only because they were meant solely for Staff to use as feedback (AKA there’s nothing worth showing), but more importantly because responses were so varied it would be impossible to logically or efficiently display them. With that being said, there were a few trick questions that I’d like to take this time to share. “Do you consider actions which rely on mechanics or plugins (using a fishing rod instead of emoting fishing, for example) roleplaying? Why or why not?” “Do you consider PvP fighting roleplaying? Why or Why not?” First, I shall apologize for the names in the second section of the survey which asked questions about “PvP” and “RP” combat. In any other survey I would have used the terms “mechanical” and “emote” fighting, but in this case I admittedly used their improper names on purpose; I did it to hide the fact that I asked the same question a couple times (*points to the above two questions*). Notice the above bolded questions. One asks if mechanics are roleplay, and one asks if PvP (AKA mechanical fighting) is roleplay. Before I get into it, note this: “Roleplay” by its very definition is really nothing more than just doing something in the shoes of a character, so even if little to no thought is put behind an action that is occurring, so long as the character is doing it and not the actual player, it is roleplay. For instance, it’s roleplaying for my Druid character to turn a log into 4 blocks of wood, because even though it might not make realistic sense for such a thing to happen, my Druid is the one performing the action and not myself IRL (because I’m sitting at a computer screen and not actually making wood). This is why I asked as our first question “What is roleplaying”, because people seem to have warped the definition of roleplaying to the extent that it is no longer “being someone/something else”, but rather it’s only literally expressing the fact that you’re being someone/something else. For the record, most people answered the question right only to answer the above bolded questions based on a different definition. Consistency, folks. Consistency. Back to those questions though, surprisingly a lot of people answered them differently. The most apparent example was one person that said to the prior question “Yes, because people can see what you’re doing rather than having to explain it”, yet they then said no to the latter bolded question because “It’s just mechanics”. The reason I am pointing this out is not to give lean to one side of the argument regarding the two styles of roleplaying and combat, but rather because I’d like to share the fact that a large amount of players that respond to controversial topics do so in an unfounded or contradictory manner. Players jump onto arguments others are making without stopping to consider their own unique opinions, or to consider why one thing is what it is and why something else isn’t. Not everyone does this, there are an abundance of players that know what they want and have grounds to push for it, and trust me we know who they are. Even so, if anything, use this little experiment as an incentive to take a step back when arguments are presented before you. Don’t just jump on one side of the train, but consider first what it is you think and come up with your own argument, because I can guarantee you that we are more willing to listen if a point is backed up by 100 unique arguments instead of 5 popular (and potentially foundationless) ones. I apologize if this got a little preachy, but at least my point has been made. I’d like to thank everyone who took part in the survey, including Staff (who didn’t know my purpose behind it) and players alike. I can’t promise that there will be a survey next month, and if there will be one I can’t say at all what its content will be, but be on the lookout nonetheless. For now, I bid you farewell, and happy roleplaying (whether through emotes or mechanics ^^)! - Rittsy and 30326

30326 handed me spreadsheet ownership of the survey when he departed from the GM Team, so I am in charge of posting the results now. With that being said, I only just returned from a temporary stay on campus an hour ago, so I won't be posting those results until tomorrow most likely.

As the head of the Lore Team I can assure you that Lore Masters aren't overworked or even remotely close to being so. Lore Team isn't like Application Team or GM Team where each individual member is doing work day in and day out completing repeating short term tasks; rather, it's more laid back where the team as a whole is given a "project" that they have to complete by a given deadline, except with the rate at which LMs work it's usually done long beforehand. For this reason, the most common role of an LM is acting as a knowledgeable figure in lore, answering questions and helping players develop their own writings and roleplay. Given that we also have Lore Masters such as Blundermore, SupremacyOps and Mithradites (all three having been on or affiliated with the previous Magic Team), we already have the experience and knowledge necessary to "rule over" magic and its various subtypes, which is why we unofficially do. With that being said, I do not foresee the team having the need to moderate magic any time soon, as it is highly unlikely that the Staff will agree to locking all magic subtypes.

Taken from here. War claim or not, you can't force conquest upon another protected nation or state, such as Kal'Arkon, without consent. This is very clearly stated in the above rules, and there's no room for interpretation; this is how it is. I personally do not have a single care to give to either side in this conflict, but to be honest I am ashamed of and disappointed in everyone involved. However, this very instance shows how the Dwarves aren't the only ones doing "wrong" as claimed by the other respective side. Despite all of the claims that the Dwarves are "cowards" that hide being OOC barriers, here we have this here rule-breaking war claim forcing them into such a position. Stop expecting compliance when the only thing one side is getting is garbage and drama as seen here. Also, just to tone down all of the flared up egos around, Humans aren't in any position to be conquesting Kal'Arkon anyways. It's not just because the terms stated in this war claim are incredibly one-sided and silly for the most part, but conquest of the capital is pretty much among the final stages of any war and neither side is by any means winning or even remotely close to it. Humans, you're not winning, stop thinking you are. Same goes for you, Dwarves. If anything, both of you are losing, since the entire server is now forced to deal with the disgusting drama resulting OOCly from a never ending series of useless raids day in and day out that no one cares for anymore INCLUDING those partaking in them. Looking at the majority of responses to this very thread, even a daft child could figure out what a plague this "war" has been on the server. I apologize for the rant, but this has seriously gone too far. To even call the conflict between the Humans and Dwarves a war at this point would be a disgrace to our server and community, as it is nothing more than constant rule-breaking and bickering that has no end in sight. We the Staff experienced the community's backlash when we intervened and attempted to end this "roleplay", a term that I use beyond lightly, and although we won't be attempting such a thing again, we WILL start banning en masse if both sides can't stop acting like spoiled children and continue to worsen this issue. People will moan, people will complain, but at this point I refuse to care anymore. I'd say that's not a threat, but it is. Try me. PS- I'm clearly in a bad mood, so I would not recommend doing anything "unwise" regarding this issue or you may find yourself in a sour spot. The claim is denied and will remain that way, no ifs ands or buts.

Breathing space? That's an oxymoron, you can't breath in space. Here, just take this monkey test-fitted oxygen mask and tank and get to work or you're fired.

Contrary to what others will tell you, it is indeed possible to build a good looking tree in survival mode. I built all of my "Druid" trees back in Aegis 100% by hand, and I even earned the title of Tree Lord for being able to do so; it just takes practice. Nowadays even with the assistance of VoxelSniper and WorldEdit I only use them for the purpose of speeding up the process, but the resulting trees aren't much better now than they were then. Obviously not everyone can do this, but I suggest giving it a try before resorting to asking someone else for help or even creative (which we wouldn't give out for a personal build).

The question that led to the creation of this thread has been more than answered, and as of now replies have descended into needless back and forth flaming and bickering on par with kindergartners arguing over who gets the red crayon. This thread is being locked, and anyone wishing to continue this conversation can do so in PMs.

It's not a theory, that's what it is mainly. Confirmed that with Techs months ago. Missing doesn't mean "Oh god where did they go?" like it's hide and go seek, it just means they're not modreqs we actually completed and that they're removed from the total count.

Yet another modreq evaluation, this one provided by 30326. Frottimer - 564 (20.6%) Rhia - 413 (15.1%) Zarsies -296 (10.8%) Chris - 285 (10.4%) Sky -256 (9.3%) Geo - 154 (5.6%) Cruz - 146 (5.3%) Gemmylou - 134 (4.9%) 30326 - 119 (4.6%) KoTo - 96 (3.5%) GavLan - 88 (3.2%) Cappy - 49 (1.7%) Gaberiel101x - 35 (1.2%) Nppeck - 30 (1.1%) Chi - 29 (1.0%) Kai - 29 (1.0%) TheCleaningCrew - 4 (0.1%) Total Modreqs - 2763 Total GM Modreqs - 2727 Missing Modreqs -36 Note: The percentages above are based on the GM Modreqs, not the total. Additionally, the "Missing Modreqs" is the number of modreqs that were missing from the modreqs counted and the RTS total.