_krug_

okay it's actually good you can stop baiting in discord it's gonna get hijacked by slice of life rpers tho just like last time I'm calling it

God I've been inactive uhhhhhhh Yeah, it doesn't work. The most interesting aspect of traditional centaurs in all forms of fantasy they're encountered in is the "drunken party bandits" aspect, but that makes for horrible RP on this sort of medium. So you did scrap it out of necessity, yes, but you're left with...boring horse people who add nothing and accomplish nothing. Well, unless you'd call splitting up playerbases further and giving most of the people who'd play these things alts they'll barely use an accomplishment. Not trying to be rude, but you've written boring horse ERP bait. If you want me to elaborate further on why centaurs can't work on LotC, I'd be happy to.

DSE, you're better than this, please don't compare the enlightenment to a mineman server.

He c h o n k Just a healthy chonker

he chonk though

((Microphones do not exist. Remove this.))

You're 22? And you have a kid? At that age? And you've been mineman roleplaying while having a kid at that age? I pity you.

DragonsRoost. I am not trying to antagonize you or otherwise attack you. I’m giving you advice – like a friend, despite the fact we do not know one another. And like a friend, I’m honest. Your writing skills are poor. I have seen 7th graders write better than this. Know that I am not accusing you of this to just dunk on your writing skills and call you out for the sake of it – that would be redundant. I’m here to help. Below is a rewrite of what you just wrote – I tried to salvage what you’ve written here, with the hope you’ll learn from it. Be aware that I do not know of your original in-universe intentions for the story, so some things may be shifted around when compared to your vision. It’s meant to be an example, after all. Everything burnt to ash in a matter of seconds - floating in the air, the last embers of the lives that once stood there. Remnants of memories, dreams, desires, hopes, ambitions. The figure ones this. He wasn't immune to empathy, despite what he tried to tell himself. His blade dripped crimson blood. These lives, though snuffed, left a mark on it, just as they had on its wielder. He took no pleasure in the atrocity he had committed. Yet as each drop of blood hit the ground, he tried to hide this shame. They deserved it. I has no other choice. It was my duty. It was my duty. Duty. Yes, that was what it was. It would have been an atrocity to leave them alive. To leave but a trace of their existence here was a crime. That is why they burned. What greater a crime than to expose him? To threaten his own duty? Nothing could be left - to trace him back to the silver city would be the end of it. That could not happen. He would be hunted. His family would know. To bring such shame would hurt them. They had no part in this - yet his brethren would turn their eyes to them first. To put those he cared about in danger out of neglect was unnecessary. Not to mention the threat those same brethren would pose to his purpose if they knew. He began to wipe his blade, sitting down and watching what lay before him be consumed by the flames. They roared in response, sweeping upwards into a great bonfire, as if they agreed with him. Nothing could be left. Only ashes would remain. "My job here is done." He muttered quietly. "May their gods look over them..." He paused. Duty. "...and send them to Iblees himself for their deception and betrayal." When writing an evil or otherwise morally unjustifiable character, it is important to humanize them. Give them real concerns, motivations, thoughts, ambitions, etc. It’s why many find evil characters so interesting. It’s why Milton’s Satan is so well regarded. But be careful to not overdo it, lest you end up with unnecessary angst. Symbolism is good. Incorporate it often when trying to convey anything complex – but don’t overdo it, lest you confuse the reader and make the symbolism more complex than what it’s actually trying to portray, because the purpose (usually) is to make the ideas easier to understand. Keep it concise, yet detailed. Personification serves the same purpose, but is even easier to pull off. Learn these techniques and your work will benefit immensely. And of course, you may want to have others proofread your work before submitting it to any audience. Please, for your sake and others, take this advice to heart and apply it. And do make sure to post more here and wherever else you wish for your work to be seen – practice makes perfect!

UH OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the trash is back

we all know you'll be back within a week

Okay, here we go. You’ve got some ideas here that work. You’ve got a lot of ideas here that do not work. At all. They’re dumb, no offense. Positives I like the idea of this cult-like organization that venerates the Void and seeks to spread its influence in the world. That has some great potential – really, it’s actually ******* cool, kudos to you for that concept, it’s fun to work off of and has some real potential for RP. You got some cool fluff pieces – void gardens, the body being altered by the void on a fundamental level (which isn’t new at all, but it’s always been a cool idea, at least aesthetically), it’s, again, cool. Your post is well-written, bravo. If I could give you a sticker for it, I’d give it to you. HOWEVER, I don’t fall under the popular server attitude of “if it looks pretty, it must be good”. I like to look at the core, the meat, the substance. And that’s where the problems come in. Negatives Oh my god. Endgames are bad. We’ll expand on that in the end, but I’m gonna leave that here because it’s quite important. It’s possibly the most important thing I’m going to bring up here, but I’m going to dive into that last. Just keep it in mind. “There may only be ten Guardians at time” – I see where you’re coming from. I really do – you’re trying to restrict it so that it doesn’t grow too widespread as both a power limiting measure and a measure to keep it from becoming so widespread that it’s downright annoying and detrimental to everyone’s experience. It’s completely understandable; however, there’s a big hiccup here. This opens up the very, very, very plausible and very likely event of this creature group being a sort of… Well, Thomas, I don’t mean offense to your or anyone you associate with, but it opens up the possibility of these guys being “Thomas and his OOC mage friends get special powers”. Again, I don’t mean offense, but it just seems like it’s set up and easily made into (by any clique whatsoever that has 10 void mage players present) this “me and my friends get special powers, yippee” kind of thing. It’s a little hard to articulate without sounding more rude. It seems abusable, basically. Any creature group that happens to consist of players that are friends with one another can already restrict access from people outside their circle, I know, but this just seems like actual lore-justified reinforcement of the act of doing so. Again, no offense to you. Just seems abuseable, is all. Now to get to the meat. This is endgame lore. Endgame lore is bad, because LotC is not a vidya RPG, and it’s not a TTRPG, it’s a combined roleplaying experience. The goal is not, and should be, to “achieve endgame” – sure, your character probably wants to do something like that. Everyone seeks to master their trade, their skills – but endgame creature lore has always felt like a step further, because it is a step further. It provides a predominately OUT-OF-CHARACTER goal for a certain type of character. It feels game-y. If it feels game-y in this sort of roleplaying environment, it is not good. This is not WoW, this is not Pathfinder, this is not Elder Scrolls, this is not DnD. This is a combined roleplaying experience with the goal of simulating a fantasy world through combined roleplay elements. It’s theatre, really. And why do I call this an endgame? It’s a buff. Regardless of what flaws they possess, the Iylderi are a buff to powerful void mages who qualify and have the connections to achieve such status. There would be no need for a player limit if they were not a buff. These guys, like Archons, are a form of “leveling up” that isn’t organic – it’s not characters becoming naturally better at their trade as time passes and they actively hone their skills with it out of IC motivation, it is this boring endgame nonsense. Hell, that’s what it boils down to, anyway. It’s boring. Even though it’s a sort of “support class” (if you want to call it that, but it’s so game-y that it makes me nauseous), it’s still “my character is a badass special creature now, and now he has a big glowing weak spot scar, what a great flaw!” Good characters are made good by their flaws. A big glowing physical weak spot (unless it is some form of symbolism for a character’s deep internal flaws, which it is objectively not in this context) and weakness to aurum, and all sorts of other physical flaws are nothing. They’re boring. They’re dull. It’s mechanical – not just from an “RP combat” or “this is how you kill him” perspective (because that’s perfectly fine), but from a character standpoint. The only interesting thing here is the motivation of the group OVERALL (this fascination with, veneration of, and deep connection to the void) with and the genuinely cool ideas like void gardens. Solution You’ve got some good ideas here. You’ve got some dumb ideas here. The dumb ideas ruin the overall proposal. So do you fix the overall proposal? Simple, you just cut out the dumb stuff and home in on the good stuff. The idea of a cult that venerates the void and seeks to spread and strengthen its influence and application amongst existing sorcerers is a neat concept, ripe for really rich roleplaying. You might think that it’s just a guild, at that point, but in order to see the concept fully realized, it requires lore behind it. Behind its members. What if the Iylderi were a society of powerful void mages with a common fascination with, veneration of, and deep connection with the void, BUT they weren’t “Archons 2.0, Support Edition” What if they were twisted in both mind and body in their pursuit of growing closer to the void and expounding its importance within the lives of the Descendants at large? Made into pseudo-void horrors of sorts, with some strengths giving them an edge over existing void-mages, maybe with the already existing focus on support, but a wide range of flaws both physical and mental that ultimately outweigh this and don’t amount to “look, I’m weak to commonly anti-spectral stuff and I have a big glowing weak spot”. Where the lore itself isn’t to provide a creature – it’s to supplement that organization. It fluffs them out. It might not even provide much on the “special creature” side, with only marginal differences from normal descendants outside of the aesthetic attributes. That has potential. Oh, and get rid of the cap if you’re going to do that. Hell, get rid of it in general and just start punishing players who act out of character and start spreading this all around willy-nilly.

((Woah calm down your housemaid slave fetish you've got going there a tad))

An admin's role is to serve the playerbase. This sounds less like "helping the server through bettering the playerbase and making the server more enjoyable" and "spiting the entire playerbase for not enjoying MY lotc". What 501, Telanir, and their decisions were and are consist of appeasement, not genuine care for the playerbase. Take the aforementioned removal of Nexus, for example. Many called for an outright removal of Nexus, yes, but many others also provided constructive criticism and suggestions of modifications or toning down of the system. We can sort these into two generalized groups. Those that wanted Nexus gone completely were usually made of people who play lotc for the mechanical aspects and the factions period. Those that provided alternatives but still agreed Nexus was a mess were usually made up of those that enjoyed the RP aspects of nexus, but did not appreciate the grindy, tedious aspects of it. They were generally those that play lotc for the rp experience and world. Now, despite the fact both of these groups are sizable chunks of the playerbase (with the mechanical driven group actually being larger/more vocal in the community than the rp driven group), we can actually find who to appeal to for the overall benefit of the playerbase and server very easily. LOTC is rp driven at the core. Without the RP drive, the server loses what makes it unique. It would even lose the aspect that keeps the mechanically driven players coming - the factions that are much more developed than standard pvp server fare. So, the better choice would be to appeal to the side that sticks with the core ideas of the server (the RP driven one), even if the mechanically driven one might actually be somewhat larger (this is up for debate, even I don't know for sure when it comes to the server demographics) and definitely more vocal and active within the community. The admin team went with the other option. To put this in perspective, imagine a game dev making a successful title (for this example, a third person shooter). Perhaps a sizable portion of the title's playerbase really likes the platforming elements of the game (bear with me here), which make it unconventional amongst its peers. So, in response, the devs' sequel to the title is a pure platformer. The decision to entirely remove nexus is the equivalent of that. It was appeasement of a more vocal portion of the playerbase rather than actually tapping into the server's core ideas and the needs of the playerbase, or otherwise genuinely caring for the heart of the server (the players), because the admin team (or at least 501, maybe Telanir, maybe others, who knows) doesn't view themselves as fellow hobbyists helping to keep what they enjoy alive and orderly while improving on it and providing for their fellow hobbyists - they view themselves as above. They don't mean to serve, they mean to maintain. That's the flaw. That's what keeps us from improving massively. That's what keeps me and others away. Sorry about the tirade, it's just that I get really riled up about the server and its lost potential whenever I get involved with it in any capacity nowadays. It's just really disappointing that this server can be dragged down by just a few individuals with the wrong mindset. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just needed to get my thoughts out there.

Yes brother Ascend to the rank of the demons, and wipe the lore with no one to stop you I like this plan brother