Josh3738

Hey all. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve heard from me directly for which I owe you an apology and an explanation. Around June/July, I was promoted to a full-time managerial role for my real job which comes with long, odd hours and a learning curve that would make your head spin. I won’t get into nitty gritty details, but I planned for and warned my team directly at the time that I would have less availability for a while and to talk with a manager if something pressing came up. Suffice it to say, I took much more time settling into that role than I anticipated, and many things were delegated to my management in the interim. While I can assure you that, despite there being no announcements from me, progress has continued on a number of fronts, I regret the lack of a guiding hand in pushing some of these things in the right direction and over the finish line. My absence has been a point of stagnation for the team, allowing for old-head doomer mindsets and unsupported progress in the face of dealing with high level bans and paperwork instead with the hours I did have. How any team thinks, what they do, and what they want to push is ultimately reflected onto the server as a whole for better or worse, and the last couple months have certainly proven that. Having settled in more or less… I’ve been purposefully quiet on the public front and even to mods for the last few weeks while I had full or private meetings with other admins, looked through mod and forum discussions, and considered what needed to be done to drive things back in the right direction. To paraphrase some of @Telanir's usual lines, the purpose of an admin is to plan for the next 10 years. To provide a vision both for the team and the server beyond it with the ultimate goal of improving player interactions and, in the case of moderation, lessening the need for the team to even step in. What needs to change? How do we get from here to there? Team Restructuring It’s got to start with the team itself, both in structure and in the mentality that structure supports. The positions of the team as well as the duties that come with each are being reshuffled: Manager I had previously attempted a prior admin’s style of approach when it came to my managers being more facilitators of team functions rather than actual managers. This really hasn’t worked and led to a number of issues. They’ll now be taking up a more direct role in coordinating the day to day operations of the team with regard to reports and appeals, project progress, and team management. Advocate Somewhat taking on the good parts of the old manager duties, these folks are the experienced trainers. Moderator Boots on the ground. These folks help to improve the experience of the players by assisting with server functions, resolving conflicts, and leading by example in being good role models for the community. Trials Our brave new folks. The members of the community who want to change things for the better and help those around them. A New Roster How we work together as a team going forward and what mentalities and goals we want to promote depend on who we have. Who are the people that want to work for the community? Who are the people that want to push the server in a better direction? Do I want an old guard maintaining what we have or do I want a wave of fresh faces and ideas to drive things forward again? Just keeping the lights on doesn’t cut it, and changing that begins with the current team. Effective immediately, all management has been demoted or removed from the team. Several other mods have also been removed, trials passed, and a number of applicants are being contacted tonight to bring them onto the team. @trinn and @frankdh will be the first of a new wave of management, and we’re going to be looking to bring on a lot more trials than those being accepted now. Addressing War Everyone’s favorite. There’s a version of the new rules that’s passed an admin vote already. It needs to get cleaned up a bit and have another review of costs as it’s more expensive than we’d like, but then we should be good to go. Tech team is making sure the war server is ready as well. All of this is ultimately getting pushed through to facilitate the current conflicts, but at the end of the day it’s still just a patch to an old system. War as a whole and how we conduct it has been in dire need of a total rework for years at this point both technically and administratively, so exploring options with that in mind will be the next step as opposed to future patches to the standing system. What’s Next There really is a lot to get done, and there’s more being set in motion than just these few things. If the tone and topics previously discussed didn’t give it away, a lot of this is going to be policy, internal operations, etc. work, so I won’t bore you with long explanations of notion rewrites and team culture. Overall, the next couple of months are going to be focused on reorganizing and rebuilding the team, its resources, and how it will continue to interact with the community long term. It’s unrealistic to think things will instantly be better or that there won’t be growing pains as we go through this process, but my hope is that by the end we’ll have a sturdier, more productive, more effective team than has been.

TL;DR fix the map when it gets ugly, keep travel lanes open and the immersion datapacks working, and make sure we don't forget everything we just learned from this map dev (worldpainting, biome coloring, etc.).

Mod-Tech project led by one of the main organizers of the physical build for the current map being brought in to maintain it and cache things for next time. What he does extra is up to Squak. And as far as expected duties, these things are either mods (landscars), implementation (datapacks), or just don't happen due to confusion on who between the two handled what (road blocking, pillar moving, etc).

Map Team @Daisyand I are pleased to announce the creation of the Map Team, a specialized co-op formed through collaboration between the Moderation and Tech Implementation teams. Much like the Mod-ST co-op work, this is another step in trying to simply or cover gaps between the things our teams oversee, and it's our hope that we can continue to bring improvements through closer work with our counterparts on Tech moving forward. (A big shout out to @Cheezboi9, @Crunchiest_Leaf, and @Adelemphii who have already put in a ton of work fielding our requests and recommendations for things like Surge cost reductions and mine adjustments). Purpose A couple of main ideas went into this, but the co-op was ultimately established to provide more focused oversight of the world’s landscape and infrastructure. Its purpose is to maintain key features that often fell by the wayside—such as roads, soulstone pillars, and significant builds—while ensuring the map remains clean, immersive, and functional over time. Just as importantly, the team serves as a line of continuity for the knowledge, assets, and lessons from this map’s development so future maps can be built with greater efficiency and quality. Responsibilities Their duties include: Restoring or ruinizing neglected world scars to maintain a clean and immersive environment. Constructing new DLC areas in coordination with story requests and the admin team. Relocating and maintaining roads and soulstone pillars to improve accessibility and prevent folks from blocking main roads. Performing continual map beautification, enhancing terrain, structures, and natural scenery. Serving as janitors of biome and weather datapacks, ensuring environmental consistency and immersion. Collecting, organizing, and maintaining assets for future map development. Responding to moderation and implementation team requests for map-related tasks as needed. Structure & Oversight The Map Team operates under a designated Lead, @Fimlin, who reports directly to both the Tech and Moderation Admins. The group itself consists of a selection of moderators and implementation team folks with an eye on looping in others.

Ser Alwyn Glennmaer sat on the floor of his solar with his back against the wall. The destroyed remnants of the furniture lay scattered about the room, a testament to his reaction to the news of his King's death. And it was in this state that a brave servant saw fought to deliver word of his many-greats-granddaughter's death to the already grieving lord. He had lived a long, long life by now, and God had seen fit to bestow upon him dozens and dozens of grandchildren, all of them unique and beloved by the old man. Yet it had been Josefina in particular he had spoken most with in these final days, who brought silliness and fun when it was best needed, who had sent him letters more often than he could reply, and who had been the kindest, most thoughtful person he'd come to know. Even now, one of the many scattered papers that lay across the ground had been addressed to her as he had begun to anticipate his own end and had wished to say goodbye. "I was supposed to go first, lass." His lips trembled as hot tears rolled freely down the cheeks of the old man, disappearing into his beard.

It had been over a century and a half since Ser Alwyn had arrived in Acre, a sellsword by all accounts and only made a knight of the hedge on the whim of another he'd saved days prior. A call had been put out for able bodied men which he had planned to answer, and it was there that he met Ser Uther. He might have thought the young knight a barbarian warlord save for his faith, but his word was true and his deeds even more so as time would show. A sense of duty and honor that seemed to light the way in a world of dark deeds had become a guide to a younger Alwyn who would spend his life trying to live up to the paragon the Adunic warlord would grow to become. From the golden fields of that forsaken town to the dire days of the Barrowlands, he would follow his new lord and swear an oath of fealty through unceasing rains and watchful nights. Torn from those new lands, he followed again to the shores of Aevos and knelt again to swear oaths atop the mountains they had claimed, promising forevermore to watch over the lands of the Númenaranyë and the renewed peoples of Adunia. All this and more came flooding back as every memory of his dear friend played through his mind, a century and a half of sorrows and joys, adversities and the days they'd overcome them. And so the halls of Formindon echoed with the crashing of furniture and the hoarse, anguished cries of the eldest Glennmaer. Behind the doors of his solar, Ser Alwyn grasped the leg of a chair in one hand, or at least what remained of the chair, and the crumpled letter in his other as he sent a kick into his already overturned desk with a yell. The papers that had fallen at its upheaval scattered further as he cleared his way to the center of the room to send another boot into a chair before the fireplace, splintering it in the process as another cry escaped his lips. The servants were wise enough to leave the old lord alone, and it would be a long time before the room would fall silent once again. As the sounds of destruction at the hands of the grieving knight died, he knelt in the midst of the carnage. Exhausted and broken, he simply grasped the letter between his hands. "My Captain... My King..."

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly. If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or another moderator.

War Pause Info Upcoming War Pause As previously mentioned in the last mod update, war will be paused as we look to shift our focus to development and preparation for the next map across all teams. This pause will come into effect on June 21st and carry into the beginning of 10.0, ending a month or two after the transition. So if a warclaim is posted prior to 5pm on Sunday for some reason, it’ll be the last one we run this map. What is a war pause? All this means is that we’ll not be facilitating warclaims for the purpose of locking in groups for prebuilds and diverting mod team attention to updating rules and systems for 10.0. Player organized skirmishes, raids, etc. may still be conducted as normal. What does this mean for RP? This isn’t a pause to conflict RP. Conflicts, even wars, may still arise between groups during the pause, and RP should be conducted accordingly save for the ability to go take land from someone else. The rise of the antag and this war pause are also intentionally firing off around the same time, so if you’re looking for an RP reason as to why you can’t warclaim another group during the period, nation resources being shifted to address the antag more so than your neighbors is it.

We discussed including sexism at length in drafting up this rule. The way I've tended to put it is that, of these big 4, the first 3 are fairly easily definable. You'll know it when you see it kind of thinking. The 4th, sexism, has some more nuance to it, and we wanted to take some more time to think on it and refine this with its inclusion when we're done.

Homophobia, Transphobia, and Racism in Roleplay My Thoughts I’ve been the moderation admin for a little over a year now, and I can say with certainty that it doesn’t get easier with time. My job and the job of my team is to deal with the people problems of the server. Whether that be folks having disagreements, people stealing all your stuff, or fly hacking mass no-rp-killers, moderation’s job is to step in when folks don’t follow our rules. What do we do though when the rules are technically followed and we still come away feeling wrong? I don’t mean the passing anger of a lost CRP or frustration with the rules themselves. No, I’m talking about the kind of interaction where you’re questioning whether you still want to be here. Whether the interactions between characters are just that or whether there’s some degree of OOC influence to what’s occurred. An edgy joke taken too far or the characterization of the real beliefs of hateful individuals. Homophobia, Transphobia, and Racism. I joined the server more than a decade ago. These kinds of interactions are nothing new and we action the most blatant cases these days, but that doesn’t speak to the real issue at hand. Should it even be allowed, if we have to review situations like this? If the end result is people wondering whether hate was RP or not? On the one hand, sure there’s an argument to be made that light representations of these topics should be permitted given all the historical parallels and the threat of moderation or admin intervention should they go too far. On the other hand, I haven’t seen a single example of it in my 12 ½ years here that I thought was tasteful, thoughtfully presented, or contributed meaningfully to RP. This is a block game platform we’re using to try and roleplay and have fun together. If your idea of having fun is playing a homophobic racist, you have no place here. The Admin Perspective The admins have gone back and forth on this particular topic for years before me, and many of you will remember discussions, threads, VCs with me, and roundtables with @Llir; this is not a new topic. Whether you sit on one side of the argument or the other, it ultimately boils down to the conduct we want to promote for our community. These are realities that members of our community face on a daily basis, and we shouldn’t allow their representations in a place where folks come to have fun and escape. There are other avenues in a fantasy world to allow the same kind of storylines and parallels to play out - discrimination against fantasy races, magic users, etc - that don't just mirror OOC bigotry. At the end of the day, we lose nothing by prohibiting roleplay of the same conduct that we would permanently ban someone for OOCly. New Rule In reflection of our thoughts above, we’ll be implementing a new rule under the Prohibited Roleplay section of Roleplay Rules. Prohibited Roleplay 3. Homophobic, transphobic, and racist roleplay are prohibited. Racist roleplay in this context refers to mirrors of IRL racism. Discrimination against in-game races, CAs, magic users, etc. is still permitted. Happy Pride Month, — Josh and the Administration

Announcements Addressing Staff Permissions Abuse It’s been brought to the attention of administration by way of a number of diverse reports that several members of staff from three teams have been party to abusing their permissions for their own benefit and that of their non-staff friends. The investigation is ongoing and ranges from simple mechanical things like duping, pulling items from banned players’ inventories, and searching chests prior to petty theft/heists to more duplicitous activities like leaking, spying on roleplay, and using privileged permissions to spy on people’s OOC happenings, reporting on them to friends. It’s been a long time since we’ve had real abuse like this to be honest. We’re generally forgiving in terms of spawning in minor items, or mina (ex. Paper for birds or bread) or using LC for small things, but I want to make clear the scale of the abuse and the intent. It’s evident through reports, testimonies, and omni logs that this was invariably malicious and extensive. The bulk of the investigation was handled on my end, with most of the reports and evidence either gathered or forwarded by @Aeus, who also took care of much of the documentation. @Spoopy_Duck assisted with a few smaller issues, as well as one of the major ones I mentioned earlier. After reviewing everything, I consulted with @Halt, and following a few more discussions, we all agreed it was best to escalate the matter to the admin team for a diversity of opinion, given just how absurd some of it had become. At least for the largest incidents. Items get duped from time to time, accidents happen, and people make mistakes. No team is perfect, but what happened is really inexcusable and seemingly more expansive by the day. As a consequence, we’ll be reinstituting regular audits to actively monitor for problems like this, and I highly encourage players to reach out if they suspect any issues. That goes for any staff member. As it stands, the administration has met, discussed, and unanimously voted to issue several staff blacklists, and a number of bans have gone out. More evidence has been given since then, and we’re continuing to investigate the extent of the situation. War Pause (Not Yet) As with the usual end of map program, war will be paused prior to the transition to the next map and extend through the beginning of 10.0 to allow for unhindered preparation for players and staff. The actual date of the pause is somewhat fluid at the moment, depending on in-game story progress and stages of 10.0 development, but it’s likely to start in the next month or so. Mod Team is Recruiting Applications to join the team are still open! With our sights set on 10.0 and having a larger, capable team in place for the transition, we’ll be looking to fill out the ranks a bit more before we move on. If you’re active and interested in helping out, read about applying for staff or put in an application directly. State of the Team Current Team As of right now, managers and mods (and singular advocate) are: Projects Active Rule Clarifications & Reformatting (Final Stages): A review of the current rules looking to see where things could be confusing or otherwise require an amendment. Forum Rule Changes: A review of forum rules and proposals for admin consideration given discussions. Naval Warfare (Early Stages): System for naval effects, battles, and movement of armies. Warzones & War Changes (Early Stages): Offering an optional addition to wars to have sides set up pvp zones to fight outside of warclaims and raids. Also the exploration of adding new things to war such as gear, new siege equipment, etc. Precedents Inventories/items of banned players may not be transferred to others or otherwise redistributed. Afterword As always, the rules of the server stand as both reference and guideline for how we should proceed, but they’re also flexible and should adapt with the times so we might provide the fairest, safest experience we can. Things can be changed, and it’s your help and feedback that lets us know how we can change things for the better. A big factor in how we adapt and introduce rules and systems is player feedback, so join the Moderation Discord if you want to give input on our active projects and anything else you’d like to see changed. Your Mod Admin, Josh

Hey all, We’ve become aware over the last week of a situation that is blatant metaplay, and we are taking action against it. Recently, a player close to Celia’nor leadership both IC and OOC posted an offer for their surrender on another one of their characters, leading to Celia’nor ultimately dissolving, handing over control of the nation to said character. Based off what was posted on the forums, the contents of the minimal in-game roleplay that occurred, and other information we have received, we cannot let this situation slide, and will be doing the following: The player at the center of this metaplay is being banned. The forum posts ‘THE LAST FADING STAR’ and ‘A STARS DISSOLUTION’, and any roleplay / forum posts directly resulting from them are voided. As a consequence of the above, Iryne Ibarellan (XoxoMinnieXoxo) is now the leader of Celia’nor again, as if the dissolution did not occur. Celia’nor is now considered in the war again, and may seek peace, surrender, or fight accordingly with appropriate roleplay. A three day raid cooldown has been put on their entire realm. The Helious rebellion is now once again active, as it was before the dissolution, and may schedule a warclaim for this or next weekend. Although any roleplay directly referencing the dissolution is void, roleplay indirectly resulting from it, such as characters going to other nations, or roleplay that occurred as a consequence of that is still valid. If you are unsure what if a situation is voided, please contact moderation and mod discretion will be used. Regards, Josh & the Administration

We've kinda been drifting towards the 1 year dev time for maps for a while now, and this hasn't been much different. That said, the announcement is that most of it is done already. We've been looking at making changes for sure. Details will be explained later on once everything's organized.