I'm having trouble understanding the recent policy of the Serenwilde to avoid doing anything which leads to hostilities. I obviously have problems with it from an IC perspective (read the Serenwilde news...), but I understand it even less from an OOC perspective. While there may be a lot of people who enjoy pacifism who live in the Serenwilde, that is far from the majority, and it has never been even a remote part of our RP. If we actually follow this policy, all conflict regarding the Serenwilde comes to an end...it might be fun for a few pacifists, but for most of the player-base of Lusternia (which is a conflict-based game after all) will want to move elsewhere. I've already even considered leaving for Glomdoring, because most of the things that interest me about the Serenwilde (from an OOC perspective, anyway) are quickly disappearing. Everyone avoids conflict, the Circle passed this policy which essentially contradicts what we voted in the referendum, and however much we might want to deny it the Wilde really has come to consider Celest their best friend while hating everything from Magnagora (which seems very poor RP).

Would anyone care to explain any OOC (or IC, for that matter) reasons for a policy like this? Or maybe other possible outcomes? I see little hope for it leading to much besides an empty and weak forest of the North.

It basically works like this, from my POV. It causes more problems for us as a commune when one person causes war with another org on his/her own. What it leads to is people from the other organisation griefing uninvolved people on our side out of the game simply because they have a half-arsed excuse for it. As there is nothing we can feasibly do to prevent this (we could obviously just grief all their noncombatants out of the game, but that's hardly a good way of solving it as a problem) we either lose large proportions of our playerbase or restrict things to be like this. Since other organisations can't/won't (I'm not blaming the org leaders, just the people who do it) hold their members in tow we have to restrict things that lead us into this situation. For the combatants it can get frustrating but there's not really any other options available.

EDIT: Your stuff about liking Celest and hating Magnagora is totally confused btw. No idea where you're getting that from.

I also find your use of "most" somewhat questionable given the huge flood of messages I've had over the last few months.

EDITEDIT: Somewhat distracted by Kaervas mucking around in Faethorn for some reason so excuse typos and general lack of making sense in individual sentences.

It is intended, I believe, to relieve stress on players (not characters) by withdrawing as a commune from conflicts.

As much as I might disagree with the implementation, the OOC motivation is admirable.

In the case of Celest, it's because you've been getting owned.

As I say, we could easily go and do that to your uninvolved people if we thought it would help. Being "owned" (we're not, though we have taken a few hits Avatar-wise) doesn't even factor into it. So stop trying to be a smartarse. You know you're not right and it isn't really fooling anyone.

Edit: Oh, and don't give up hope. Times will change and the capitulation will stop. Hopefully Glomdoring players won't take the opportunity to kick Serenwilde players while they're down, and continue Celest's desire for the (light v dark) x 2 world. Give the playerbase a few weeks to recuperate from the extended conflict, and I think Serenwilde will be ready to embrace itself again.

I do wish the admin had stepped in and brokered some kind of deal that recognised neither side was getting anywhere, though. Rather than leaving both sides to play chicken to see who could ignore the dissatisfied playerbase the longest (and Serenwilde obviously lost that competition... or maybe won in an ethical sense ).

That's an interesting thought... but then again, if it weren't handled with utmost precision, we'd probably have end up with yet another bad situation with everyone whining over admin decisions.

It doesn't really totally kill conflict, which seems to be a common misinterpretation (although I suppose if the Circle wanted to, they could make it like that).

I could probably raid Acknor all I want. Make all of them paranoid, rescue furrikin, maybe kill a bunch of orcs now and then. I've done it several times. And Magnagora has never started blaming the serenwilde for it; they just kill me and then it's done. This law changes nothing about that. A month or two down the road, we can probably do the same with Celest. Right now, yes, it does stop any hostilities toward Celest, because they're itching to start beating on us again, it seems. But that won't be forever.

Peace? Treaty? BAH! War, war I tell you! Bring them all down, crumble their walls, darken their stars, kill every everyone of them in the city!

Well, two problems right now if this continues...

1) Celest and Seren vs Mag = Oh Noes!
2) Grief fest!

What?

Plenty of us like Magnagora a LOT more than Celest right now. Peace doesn't mean hugs and love.

It doesn't end all conflict. It just doesn't.

Right now the law doesn't even apply towards Celest since we're still at war. A temporary peace does not an end to war make.

It also helps to point out the stupidity inherent in the conflict. According to Celest, if I try to do the Delport quest, it's an act of war condoned by the commune as a whole. Their public post doesn't make it clear, but judging from past conduct, they'd probably claim the same about me harvesting sargassum.

Well... yes. You're an enemy invading our territory.

I'll give you the Delport thing. But the Inner Sea isn't your territory. As far as I know IC, no one from Celest even knows I killed dolphins and turtles. All I do is harvest. That's not harming you in the least. You'd really go to war over the fact that I was picking herbs? Kick me out, sure, be like that. But counting it as an act of war is ridiculous.

The Inner Sea is our territory to defend as much as Faethorn is yours to defend.

We never thought it an act of war to harvest faeleaf. Like I said, you can police it if you want, put there are limits to how absurd most people are willing to be. If you consider the Sea your territory, by your last post you claim that an enemy harvesting sargassum or kombu is performing an act of war.

We consider the Inner Sea our territory. If you are a city enemy and you enter the sea, you are trespassing on our territory and we will kill you. Yes, trespassing is an act of war - you trespassing in the Inner Sea is no better than Ixion trespassing on the Water Plane, regardless of what you're doing there. If an enemy of Serenwilde went to harvest faeleaf in Faethorn I'm sure you wouldn't just let them harvest peacefully if they told you that was what they were doing.

One person going to a territory and trespassing is an act of war?