While I'll accept that (and that it's not necessarily a good reason not to want any given kind of moral ambiguity), I also want to note that it's not as though some kind of "evil"ness to Serenwilde is a problem. It's just that most of us would rather it not come from the stuff we're supposed to be supporting. The Fae giving us was and has been one of the most obnoxious things about this game's history.

I wouldn't mind Serenwilde being selfish and not having helped Ackleberry survive because it was too self-interested - a similar thing is evident in the history with the Wilde refusing to help the innocent Celestians after Ladantine pulled a fast one on them.
I would mind the Fae saying we're evil and slavers and traitors to nature and all that BS.

Does that seem fair to you?

Anyway, sleep for me.

I don't understand how would any changes to the Wyrd now, change "usurps Serenwilde's place as "the only forest to survive the taint wars largely unscathed" "


You still avoided the taintwars, you still were never tainted. Serenwilde is still the most pure thing that Dynara ever created.

Glomdoring is now the only place to have defeated the Taint, in some way, but it still went through a process of once being impure.

(missed this post earlier)

As nice as that sounds in principle, most people wouldn't find what leadership roles here actually entail to be entertaining in the slightest, and the Divine pushing people into them would be a good recipe for having people quit or go dormant, perpetuating the cycle.

It would be productive for orgs (if a bit more stressful for people in positions) if there were this kind of culture, but there isn't, and artificially creating it would be a bad move if it isn't done far more gently and over a long period of time.

And I don't think people can be arsed with that, so it's not going to happen.

Glomdoring's had two IC Divine, three if you get picky about it and count Vira twice. As for any players mucking that up, there are three sides to every story and it sounds you're firmly grounded in one, Amarysse. If jumping through hoops and dealing with a Divine with seemingly split personalities and will give you six different answers to one question in a given day puts blame on the players involved... *shrug*. A Divine's rp shouldn't interfere with player rp or with running an org imo.

I don't think there is any other influence that can bring that culture.

The internal org leaders certainly won't want to bring about that type of culture, only a divine Patron can.

I guess fine, don't have it be an order thing, have it be part of the responsibilities of Being a Divine Patron. (i.e. A Divine Patron should work to keeping the Leadership Active or having them replaced)

You don't want "most" people to have fun doing that, you only need 3 people in each guild, who are active to have a mild amount of fun doing it, and then they can retire when they don't enjoy it, and someone else can take their place.

When I started Lusternia, I had no interest in being in politics, infact I wanted a change and purposefuly made my charachter not be possible to be into politics (no reading or writing)

But then I was drawn into it, and then I had the goal of "Being GM for 100 years" because I thought it would be a nice tough goal, and would mean something important. But then, every leader in ever org seems to have a minimum term of 50 years, and thats if they do a bad job That type of culture needs to change, especially in Glomdoring which is suffering from inactivity. (People like Shayle or Xenthos who stay active and effective for those 100 years wouldn't be needlessly replaced by this culture)

I don't think this is necessarily true. The purpose of the divine is to guide the playerbase - when they see the player rp going in a negative direction, it is their whole job (from an OOC perspective) to interfere.

I won't pretend to know anything about what actually happened with the divine in Glom, but as a general rule I disagree with the last sentence.

No. It doesn't. I don't expect fairness from this game anymore though. It is a conflict based game so somewhere someone is going to end up on the bottom of the un-fair pile. Not saying that itself is right or fair. I decided when I came back to follow Elryn's example. I don't jump into the pile anymore. I stay a step back, breathe deep, and move on to something that is fun.

At the risk of this becoming a rant, the people I've spoken with over the past few months have provided quite a few examples of this particular group's bad behaviour. I'm sure there's a degree of personal bias on either side, of course, but the evidence I've seen in support of my argument is much more compelling than that against it. Having had many discussions with certain of Glomdoring's players about the lengths to which these people will go to maintain power, I can honestly say I'm not surprised any god the commune's had has gotten frustrated or had a difficult time playing out their role properly. I think I'm a fairly reasonable person, so if you can (privately, no need to muck up this thread) provide evidence to the contrary, by all means, send me a PM. I'd be more than happy to hear you out.

Bear in mind, too, that while I'd generally agree that a god's RP should not interfere with the administration or activity of an organization, when said god is repeatedly noted to be that organization, it puts rather a different face on things.

Most Admins do not get payed to do the work we do. Nor is it easy stepping into the shoes of a character someone else has held before. We do all we can, like the players, to make the Lusternia a consistent and enjoyable place. But once again, most of the Admin and Gods are here on a voluntary basis, spending large portions of the day building and managing things for this world, in addition to RP roles as well as Patroning. We are only human, and we -are- human. It is no fun for us either when the work one has done is discounted, or impossible demands are made upon us.

In the end, my point is, sometimes, Gods need a little love too. And it goes a long way towards players and Gods working well together.

Is this thread already about dissing the divine?

No, no, please GOD no.

One more comment while I'm fired up, then I'll stop:

Glomdoring needs (and has always needed) more than just, oh, that's slightly unusual. It needs something that people can be passionate about - and you just can't be passionate about ambiguity. It's great for scholarly treatises and obscure RP, but you can't throw a character behind something that no-one really quite defines, and subsequently can't really be that important. It's my belief that a large portion of long-term players look for somewhere they can develop a strong identity - someone with goals they can really get excited about. While, yes, the rogue-ish type does fine with a more esoteric and individually crafted background, cities and guilds provide that supporting structure and united drive that allows most new characters to slowly grow into what they want, while providing the grit to develop by throwing them into one side of a conflict. That's partially why its important now more than ever that the concept of Glomdoring be looked at, not just the mechanics or minor policies.

Way back when, I started by arguing strongly against a tainted Glomdoring being released, and I've been asked why I changed my mind since then. The truth is, I really haven't. The recovered Gloriana (taint-free after much labour and cost) I once wanted would have been a terribly dark and in many senses evil place, much more so than 'Glomdoring' is now. Having been under the torturous blight of taint for so long, nothing could truly escape unscathed, and the two Spirits would at best be described as insane. The forest itself, having endured what nothing mortal could bear, would have returned with an unfathomable malignancy directed at everything that has not suffered as it has - a palpable hostility that would vibrate through every leaf and in every strangling vine. Those who have been able to survive have taken on this brooding resentment and hatred for both that which caused the terrible state they were in, and also for those who cannot possibly understand it. The unscarred fae that have returned to the shadowed eaves of Gloriana would have done so with great caution, for the forest has little patience with any frivolous silliness - in contrast to the excessive and ignorant reverence shown by Serenwilde, the Gloriana people accept the fae for what they are and work alongside them as equals.

I still wish that place were possible. I still wish that Faethorn had meaning, that the fae and faelings hadn't been completely rewritten to their detriment, but it's just too late now. It would have worked once, but unfortunately, the majority decided otherwise. An untainted commune was a risky proposition at the time (or so it seemed), it's all but impossible to pull off as anything other than a faux Serenwilde now. While I wish some would admit the mistakes and acknowledge what we need to do differently, the only thing now that can be done is move forward. That's why I want Glomdoring to embrace the corruptive side of things.

You just can't fix the lack of unifying concept by watering down what is there even more. That's the approach that (I believe, I may be wrong) has been advocated by some parts of the leadership all the way through, and it has done more harm than good (particularly Serenwilde and Faethorn). There was the word taint in descriptions, it was removed. There was a different relationship with the fae, it was revoked. And so on. For heaven's sake, at some point we need to stop advocating the same thing. Us, as players, because we seem to have had the greatest role in shaping Glomdoring throughout its history.

There's no Taint there now, and I daresay the commune is in as good a position as it is ever going to be in terms of hiding its corruption. That is, short of actually removing it and making it into what Serenwilde was once intended to be. That's what's really being advocated here. Do we want a twisted forest, or an alternative government to Serenwilde in much the same environment? If the former, and you really are serious about removing taint, you have to realize the number of other alterations to be made is MASSIVE in order to encourage the players to actually embrace an unmoderated "I'm more evil than just being unpretty" mindset. I honestly don't think it is possible to accomplish now that there is so much inertia and established precedent by the Glomdoring-that-is. It's just going to be impossible to pull off a dark Gloriana with where the playerbase is at right now.

That's why I think the solution is to find that unifying, passionate concept by embracing the uniqueness of Glomdoring, rather than trying to push it aside in hopes that some of the Serenwilde intake can be siphoned off without the pesky 'twisted' part. Why not a culture that is more than willing to change their environment to survive, to use every force available free of moral qualm (including undeath, ugh, yet another uniqueness being campaigned for removal), and to accept that Glomdoring is the Glomdoring of the histories. Yes, corruption is the major part of the forest - it can be called whatever you like, but what it does isn't up for debate. Magnagora doesn't need to call their guides 'heavenly beings that might look like demons but possibly aren't', they do just fine appealing to people using what makes them unique. They argue that the Taint could be a good thing without having to campaign to have the word 'Taint' changed to something less defining like 'Change'.

Glomdoring has always been my favourite part of the Lusternian story, absolutely and without question the most beautiful and engaging piece of history and what makes the whole Taint idea -real- and -affective-. It's why I tried to involve myself in the original RP that surrounded its release, and why I continue to rant and rave and complain and berate and annoy everyone about it. Because I adore it, and I hate to see what it has become, and what it has done to the other things I loved about Lusternia. I'm frustrated, frustrated beyond words that no matter what I say or what happens, the same issues seem to arise again and again, and the same approach is taken by the majority.

Not only that, but it appears so much more entrenched because the same people who often only see one side and have advocated one side all the way along are again the only ones included in debate and feedback.




(And oops, this was going to be a short comment, it really was. )

Edit: And apologies for not being readable, I really do get rather heated about this topic. All my grammar and sentence structure goes out the window. I tried to edit slightly, oops.

No, I was just suggesting that it might help growth and activity, if the Patrons of orgnaizations, worked against leaders who stay in power when they are stagnant and inactive.

I'm sure it's a monumental task playing a god and I haven't meant to say it's not, but when doing what's asked of me as a player by a Divine gets me killed, communedisfavoured and alienates me from a chunk of Glom's population... yeah. I did get soured on the experience. I played ball according to what was asked of me to the best of my abilities and got the shaft because of it. Oh, I agree those that play the Divine are human, all too human, and by the same token so are these horrible people in Glom with their alleged maintaining power. Perhaps everyone could use some love

What do you think about Faelings, Avaer?


(Yes, I just like reading your long, drawn out posts, they usually are pretty scholarly and entertaining to read. <.<)

Avaer, I am not sure what part of Glomdoring being a Giant weed (read Kudzu plant) garden , says to you "Faux Serenwilde"

I find it generally amusing (and not in a petty sarcastic way) how the two of us have ended up on the opposite sides of this. Though I think you are much more of an idealist than I am.



Undeath is not unique. Magnagora is built upon it. Undeath and taint. I would like it removed precisely because it is not unique. Taint Forest (or corruptiveness as you label it) would not have worked. If it had passionately embraced the corruption the beat down it received would have been very much worse. Any one who wants to play the taint is going to go to Magnagora. All it would have done is siphon a few players from Magnagora instead of Serenwilde. What I see here is a proposed Magnagora in the Woods. Not insult intended but that is what it looks like. All this does is shift from a faux Serenwilde to a faux Glomdoring.

Glomdoring has the concept of change. It is called the Wyrd. I don't understand why we have to think of it as corrupt. The Wyrd is a mutagen it mutates nature into wyrd, light into wyrd, taint into wyrd. Not into pretty nature taint. I am passionate about the Wyrd. Dark Gloriana needs to die and Taint Forest needs to die. I'm all for Glomdoring being unique and I think with the Wyrd we are. We just need a few more cosmetic changes to expunge bits that are more appropriate to other factions.

I found this very compelling, actually. It reminded me of what drew me to Glomdoring to begin with.

Sliced bread was a pretty good guildmaster.

Any way. Even though I knew it would come up I don't think Dark Gloriana or Taint Forest are going to alter any perceived problems with Glomdoring's ability to attract and keep new players. Let the collegium have a go first.