NotEvilAtAll

Very fun event held in Bramblebury today! I made a video about it.

Filibert Applefoot sighs "Anothah one"

The Ballot: ((MC Name: jumperhand3 )) Name: Filibert Applefoot Vote for Elder: Burt Hassenfort (xx) Onelia Peregrin (x) Kerraline Goodbarrel () Cyris Collingwood ()

Filibert Applefoot signs the constitution without having read a single word of it! "Long live t'a halflings! Glory ter t'a wee!"

[!] A note is pinned to the Bramblebury Noticeboard! Birdin' Trip! ~The previous Birding Walk!~ T'a village has thawed from the Great winter, and now the birds we be able to listen to 'ave changed! While the fee-bees we know and love still sing, no doubt a handful of new birds have moved in to feast upon bugs and old seeds uncovered by the snowmelt! Thus, we ought to do another walk through the village, listening to and documentin' all of the birds we can! We are to meet in the tavern once more, upon The Grand Harvest of Shire Reckoning 606. There we are to have a quick drink, eat some snacks, and then head out to explore the village and all of its many feathered critters! May we find a lot to please our ears and eyes! -Filibert Applefoot, local halfling bird enthusiast ((4:15 PM EST, Sunday the 7th of February, 2021))

"Ooo! Ooo! Oi'ma win t'is one easy!" says FIlibert Applefoot, overconfident in his halfling combat abilities.

"Vereh cool" says Filibert Applefoot, local lonely halfling.

The server can get to ~270 on weekends with big events getting pinged for on discord. That being said, a large portion of the server mainly logs online when said discord pings for events happen. I talked to some folks in Haelun'or around a week ago and they said the city mainly logged online with discord pings and nothing else, and from my own experience in Bramblebury with the halflings the same is true for them. LOTC is active when you ping a discord and not very active when you don't.

IGN: jumperhand3 Discord: NotEvilAtAll#2321 Skin(s): Forrest Ranger Bid: 60 minas

"Bigguns an' halflin's can marry? Oi feel as though t'is will open up ah big ol' can o' worms...." says Filibert Applefoot, local halfling resident.

Oh, so mechanically breaking blocks causes you to lose energy? That sounds like a horrific bug and I'm pretty sure that's not intentional. Maybe talk to nick about it.

I don't remember this being the case. Was it changed recently? I'll check on this later.

A lot of these are lofty goals that Telanir would have to actually log online to even begin progress towards, not to mention involvement from the entire rest of the staff and probably most of the rank and file players too. I'll have to agree with Burnsider on this one in that we need a bit more pragmatic take on how to make the server less terrible. Like how Henry David Thoreau argues for at once a better government rather than at once no government, we ought to argue for at once better takes on server systems, past or present, rather than demanding everything be perfect instantly. @argonian@Cloakedsphere@monkeypoacher@Gaius Marius Obviously, all of us agree that freebuild in some form or another is good and a solution to many of the server's woes such as retention and staleness. However, I think there is room for discussion as to what form said freebuild ought to take and how the staff ought to go about regulating it, for without this discussion the server would be doomed to forevermore oscillate between freebuild and non-freebuild systems as old grunts try to bring the server back towards Aegis and fresher blood complains about roleplay decentralization upon the new freebuild maps. To start this discussion, what is the best way to deal with issues of raiders setting up camp right next to nations/freebuild settlements within areas of freebuild? Is it a non-issue that ought to be resolved by players and not staff, or should there be some form of regulation by staff to avoid sai situation? I personally feel as though there could be some regulation here, but I'm hesitant to return to the old freebuild rules of the 50-block rule as I feel as though that system was not very dynamic and lended itself to OOC bickering. And, to drag the discussion back to the original intent of the thread, what can be done currently to improve player retention, even without freebuild and the world being locked off behind nation owned tiles and OOC nation leader politics? Would another eventline like that of the Athera event be a good idea, or should the ST focus on smaller flavor events? Is Vortex a problem or a part of the solution?

This, but don't have a bunch of protected CT land like in Arcas because that just made stuff further away for no good reason. And we did have a non-central CT in Axios. It was on an island and had boat warps to the 3 main isles.

I have too much respect for Burnsider so I usually snip anything he says I did wrong. Stupid habit of mine. I didn't save it anywhere so I think it's lost forever. I'll try to rewrite it here, but add a ton as well 'cause why not. My point is that Atlas was a decent map because its freebuild system made the political climate of the server in near constant flux. For example, the Dwarves had several start up holds such as Holm and the Confederation of Hammers that'd later take over the Dwarven race from Kaz'Ulrah, Wood Elves split apart in freebuild when the Dominion fell into decline, Orcs went into freebuild after they got destroyed instead of being refugees until they'd get a charter (which is how it'd normally go down without freebuild), all sorts of wars and human politics were involved in freebuild, etc. Freebuild meant that wars could be brutal and absolute without being too harsh because you could never be denied a homeland while suitable freebuild land existed on the map. Even though the Empire of Man conquered a lot of territory, it never felt quite like the Oren snowball of Vailor or Axios because freebuild levelled the playing field enough that it didn't matter as much. On top of wars, settlements could grow dynamically, such as Belvitz that'd later see Holm settled next to it, thus creating the server's strongest RP hub all in freebuild. There were mild issues of decentralization, sure. There were a lot more settlements than on Arcas, which did spread out RP to an extent. However, nations were still fairly strong, and while many freebuild builds did exist, many of them were just event areas/beautification projects (there was this lovely grove area in the savannah biome that I think the druids made, for example) or small towns and villages that didn't subvert your expectations when they turned out to be empty when you visited them. I feel as though the argument of freebuild decentralizing roleplay is a bit overstated. The argument goes that freebuild spreads out roleplay across the map because there are more places for people to be, which is true, but since most freebuild builds aren't active 24/7, they spread out roleplay far less than having a bunch of populous nation capitals or strong RP hubs rather than just a handful of larger ones. You cannot argue that freebuild creates a bajillion dead settlements AND decentralizes the map at the same time, because if freebuild isn't active, then it's not taking away roleplay from any hubs since there's hardly anybody there, and if it's taking roleplay away from the hubs, then clearly freebuild must be somewhat active in order to do that. It all boils down to expectations. When you enter a big city, you typically expect people to be there. When you enter a small village, you probably don't expect to see a bunch of people, and you won't be disappointed of its empty. As long as every settlement is true to its actual activity, with places having lots of activity feeling as though they ought to be full of people and places with little activity feeling as though they ought to be quiet and emptier, there is no harm and no foul in any one settlement's existence, and no place can disappoint you. It is nice to have areas with fewer people because some people don't like big cities swarming with people, and they ought to be allowed to have what they want instead of getting crammed into a big nation capital so that folks who like cities swarming with people have more content. If people always ending up at dead settlements and never finding where anybody is becomes an issue (as was sometimes the case in Atlas), that's moreso an issue of labelling than an issue of the map being decentralized. There ARE people roleplaying on the server, even on freebuild maps; a simple /list or look at the server tab can tell you that. The roads just need to be labelled well enough so that everybody knows where people are going to be found. I suggest that for future freebuild, we let players build all of the roads and do their own labels and signposts on said roads, so that roads leading to settlements that no longer exist or no longer have as large a playerbase can get rerouted to other locations, and active settlements wishing to advertise their existence to visitors can construct big ol' cobbled roads roads and signposts directing everybody in the area towards them. A downside of Atlas was that despite many freebuild areas being very dynamic, the main roads were totally stagnant and never moved to accommodate for the shifting playerbases on the server. Letting players have control of the main roads instead of just whatever side roads they wish to make in freebuild areas should help fix that old issue and make finding others more intuitive. I think back in Aegis players were allowed to make big ol' roads in freebuild, so it's not like this has never been done before. Also, more road control means more roadside taverns, which is probably the best road RP we're ever gonna get, so that's a big plus. One other problem with Atlas was the issue of how freebuild was managed upon it. The 50-block rule meant that freebuilds had a bubble around them that no other freebuilds could penetrate if they weren't desired to, and this policy was enforced by staff. Sadly, this is probably one of those rules that made freebuild harder to regulate than it should have been. This policy tacked on added staff involvement that made freebuild tougher on staff. Freebuild doesn't need this extra protection, and having freebuilds be at least 50 blocks away from each other makes it harder for settlements to develop organically without coordination between dedicated players, which would usually involved some OOC communication that'd make it less dynamic. Maybe without the 50-block rule, the bandits, wizards, grape-growers, and folks living in the castle of Old Dunshire Forest could've been a sister settlement to Belvitz rather than an uncoordinated mob of semi-active people in the woods, who knows. As far as raiding and villainy goes, while not having a 50-block rule means that bandits can set up shop right next to you, I don't feel as though this is too terrible. As long as freebuilds and nations have the power to destroy freebuilds in warclaims or through some other method, situations like these would resolve themselves quickly. Maybe instead of having any unwanted freebuilds within 50 blocks of another building get OOCly destroyed by staff, building within a certain radius of a location gives them a CB against you, or maybe if you're too close to an already existing settlement you don't get raid cooldowns when they attack you, or they get a longer cooldown when you attack them. I'm open to suggestions here, but I don't think the 50-block rule was the right answer. Also, this right here. Old Atlas post by @monkeypoacher that I think is relevant: the logical exact opposite of the protected ring around CT we saw in Arcas: having the ring around CT be a zone designed to dynamically grow the new nation roster of the map through freebuild and conflict. Lemme tell the tale of Old Dunshire Forest: The year is 2017, in December, right as Atlas has launched. Halflings have a prebuild inside of the Sutican city, surrounded by the quartz walls. Dalek348, an old Undead player of Aegis who started playing a halfling since Asulon, was not happy with the situation. He thought halflings ought to live outside of walls, and he made his own village on the crossroads between Haelun'or and the lands further to the south (Where FloralHedgehog (who was dkink14 at the time), a halfling druid, built a burrow). He surrounded this village with a large quantity of trees so it wouldn't look out of place next to the other freebuilds in the area. This village was called Dunshire, a call-back to the first ever halfling village on the server: Dunwood. Eventually, the halflings got CT land, and name of Dunshire is given to the CT village, with the old village at the crossroads being renamed to Old Dunshire. The forests around Old Dunshire were called Old Dunshire Forest. Old Dunshire was turned into a ruins covered in vines. Eventually, Old Dunshire was completely overrun with vegetation, and all of the burrows too sunken into the earth to be discernable as burrows anymore. Dalek348 started to build wooden ents in Old Dunshire Forest instead from logs and leaves, turning the location into an Ent sanctuary. As Belvitz grew, so did Old Dunshire Forest next to it. More people moved into the forest, such as a wizard living in a wizard tower, some folks living in a small keep right off the mountains of Holm (with which Old Dunshire Forest had a border), a small vineyard, bandits in a bandit camp, a few lone houses, bahbou123456's halfling village of Buckland, and more! Belvitz kept on growing, and ran into issues getting all the land they wanted for future build projects, since they were right up against the road region and a river. They warclaimed Old Dunshire Forest and Dalek348's ents in order to get land. This ended the days of Old Dunshire Forest being independent from Belvitz, although many builds in the forest continued to exist even after the area got warclaimed. The ents were all destroyed, and a large area of land cleared for future building. On the current world download of Atlas, nothing has been built there by Belvitz. I don't know if they just delayed doing the building until after the world download was taken or if they just never used the land alltogether, but regardless, it's an interesting story to tell, and a story that could not have happened without freebuild. The wizard tower of Old Dunshire. Very strange things in here indeed! One of the ents of Old Dunshire Forest! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X03_LWRmK-rn9q8J-y0y23YNOq5Qgoj7c0BgQtLO4hU/edit An old Global Assembly document submitted by Dunshire (not Old Dunshire) to protect the lands of Old Dunshire Forest. here you can see Old Dunshire Forest, from the old GA document. It was right between Holm and Belvitz. This screenshot shows Buckland (bahbou's halfling village that later went inactive as the halflings there moved to Dunshire, seen in the upper parts of the forest farther from Belvitz), Old Dunshire village (pre-ruination, as the party tent still stands in this screenshot, located around the lake), and a few other builds such as houses and whatnot. Most of the trees here were planted from saplings, making the forest a forest planted by players rather than the World Team. Later on from the date this screenshot was taken, more buildings would be added to the forest as well as more trees to extend the forest's borders.

uhhh I guess the Slice of Life Hour events I held back in Brandybrook were alright, as were the Birding events of Bramblebury. As for Story Team stuff, I think if we had something original like the Athera eventline again, that'd be pretty epic. Try to do something wildly different from what's been done before and see if it sticks.

-snip, not relevant-

Server lost a lot of its dynamicism with the implementation of Activity Checks in Arcas. More has changed on the server due to the flow of players getting areas axed or added onto nation status than has changed with the many grandiose player wars of Arcas. Of course, we also haven't had any wars in a very long time regardless, so that doesn't help. Even with wars, it's not what it used to be. I miss Atlas. It's a story told by NLs and staff. Might as well have the rest of us be NPCs that do grinding loops and sit in taverns.

don't worry I'll still write crud for Blazengard if @Clockyyyyyyyyy wants me to.