Does unwelcoming == we hit a small speed bump in our long train ride over the cities?

Seriously, we had a relative newbie up there trying his best not to get smushed. Half of us were genuinely shocked we only lost a full level. Ilyarin put out a call to arms, and anyone who could so much as ABJURE WEB AT KIELO was up there at some point or another, or had been explicitly told that they'd be more hinderance than help, in the case of a few outright novices. And this was after having thwarted an attempt at the Hai'Gloh Zemordia, to my knowledge. Hell, I KNOW we had a full meld on Celestia the whole time we were on the avatars, and that it was put up during the attacks on Celestia. I was the one holding it. And I had to RUB PHIAL every time Sidd stuck me with darts of Croatamine because I didn't have any curatives, only had one vial of health, three mana, and a bromides. And I'm not the only one who went in there KNOWING they were ill prepared.

So sorry if we defend Eventru's right to praise us publicly, we fought fang and claw to earn it.

Which part of kiss my ass -> veritably agreed is praising you?

Hey that's kinda how I raid in general.

Sorry Eventru but I have to agree with Chade.

Though I also would have expected a sliver of shame from Eventru, I haven't interacted with him ig but I've always had the impression that working with anything tainted would be the last thing he would do... ever. To see him shout like this... kinda ruins that image, why would someone who despises the tainted be proud of what he has achieved working with them. :shrug:

Actually, the last two shouts could have worked coming from Fain because they would have been a jab at Celest from relying on Mag and letting everyone know that Malarious was helping, putting him in a bad spot with the communes.



Maybe that's how it works, they want to do something that will generate alot of lag so they try to get rid of the player base temporarily? jokes

I was toying with the idea of setting up an alias to do
But decided it would be too much work to then have to tack on deffing up again.

As for the "Agreed == Praise" thing, at that moment, He could have said "Bolly good. Nice play old chap!" And we'd have reacted the same as him saying "Hail to the victors. I lay wine, wealth, and wenches at your feet." Pride, elation, relief, and the satisfaction of a job well done and fought for.

No. I thought it was a bad idea two months ago when "my" side was "winning", and I said so. It's a bad idea still. It will continue to be a bad idea until someone wakes up, gets over the "gee this is so cool," and looks past the shiny paint job on the event to see the rot it's inducing in Lusternia's core, and gets us off this long train ride.

I was never part of that "train ride", ever. You must not know Lendren much at all.

Admittedly, while I didn't like it then, I'm liking it even less now, but not because of any impact on me. About all the event does to me directly is make everyone else unavailable to do anything other than grind at the interminable unfocused war. A month ago, it was impossible to get anyone to be in a play or go on an aetherhunt or come to a guild ritual or participate in a trade, because they were too busy gloating. Today, it's exactly the same, only they're too busy whinging. Net difference in effect on me is zero. I literally couldn't care less which side is "winning". Either way, all the beautiful diversity that used to be Lusternia is now reduced to precisely one activity, and that's an activity that to me is like salt: a little bit of it sprinkled on other things makes a nice meal a lot better, but bowl after bowl of nothing but salt is definitely unappetizing. (But more power to those of you who can't get enough salt.)

But what's far more unwelcoming is that it's pointless to bother to try to help novices or lowbies grow up into being interested in Lusternia because every day I have to tell them some other reason why I have no good answer for them and no way to help them. Even the time I spend teaching new arrivals just gets people to bitch at me for not spending all my time pointlessly dying in some lag-besotted bloodfest that won't actually change anything. And that's just teaching novices. Gods forbid I try to actually explain to them why there's no answer to "where can I make some gold to buy these salves" better than the soul-crushingly slow process that is weeviling (which makes ratting seem like nirvana), or why they can't complete their collegium quests because even our own territory isn't safe for them, let alone the other planes.

Or explain to them why any statement I could make about what we're about is going to be so soaked in provisos that ultimately they lose interest in it. How much interest are they going to have in Lusternia if you can't even motivate them with something about what they're supposed to be doing or why? This is a factor that's really easy to dismiss or ignore (and I look forward to seeing the dismissals and ignorances to come on this thread) but it's going to turn out to be devastating, in hindsight. It's the idea of being about something they can understand, immediately, that gets people enthused. You can only undermine that so much before it has an impact.

Every day, there's some promising newbie or lowbie I will never see again. People who don't spend a lot of time trying to help the young probably think I'm exaggerating. The admins probably think I'm exaggerating even more. I guess we'll just have to see.

I was really impressed with how the cities pulled together. Everyone was out working hard trying to reach our goals. Even lowbies were running interference, playing decoys and acting as meat shields.
I've really enjoyed this whole event. Even getting stomped by the communes way back was kinda cool because of how organized they got and they frankly out smarted us.

I did learn a few things though. Before a majorly huge bloodbath event, double check to make sure you have your robes on. Also, before you blow 10 power to greatpent so you can seduce fae in peace, check the trees for druids.

@ Lendren - Oh, well see, that's how it's been working out on my end, too. Glad we agree!

Lusternia went from an RP diverse game to a PVP GodWars game a long time ago. It is the main reason I am only around enough to stay current and deal with my ability as guildmaster, but beyond that I find myself enjoying not coming to Lusternia far more as each day in the game passes by. I hold out hope that one day someone on high will say "hmm, where did we go wrong?" and fix it... Maybe I should put the crack pipe down.

@Lendren I agree with you on some points and I'm really hoping that at the end of this the Xion Initiative and hai'Gloh disappear or else I think we will be stuck in a city vs commune war for a long time. That or the RP, not just the players but the denizens RP too, will need to really shift to being about Cities vs. Communes for this to not all feel a bit dumb. I don't feel like spending the next 100 IG years hand in hand with Celest while constantly being told about how we should crush them.

You're right Desitrus, it was an off-the-cuff and out-of-line remark born from being awake for thirty-seven hours straight, being over worked (willingly, but still it's stressful) and having watched players stress themselves over this event for months now, was on edge from the time they decided to attack the Night Avatars until some what, two?, hours later they finally got Luna. It was a terribly ooc sigh of relief that was viciously inappropriate and, that one shout, I do greatly regret making. As for the rest of your diatribe, you're welcome to take it up in private with me.

I think this thread IS the crack-pipe. First drama thread we've had in a while.

Sorry, I don't usually do this but really, the martyr thing just isn't flying. It doesn't make it any better, a simple I'm sorry would have been better received.

I do think you are exaggerating with this comment- I may be missing the point entirely, since I tend to do that, but there are plenty of places newbies can go to get gold to buy salves. Newton can amass an easy 20-30k gold, and after that, there's a load of ways for lowbies to make gold- even bashing mobs you can't turn in anywhere gets you lvls to go bash gold mobs and they usually drop enough gold for basic cures. And there's influencing, questing, trade skills, etc.

For the collegium quests, I don't think anyone makes an effort to jump newbies. I have never seen anyone go out of their way to grief Seren prime college either (except Daedalion)- this leaves the planar quest I think. And, likely with the planar quest, you or another higher ranking person should be escorting them, since I doubt many newbies can find their way to Elemental/Cosmic/Astral/Bubbles/etc, much less survive it. And they also have grace.

As for being "forced" to defend/raid, usually saying you're with a newbie should suffice. If not, you could probably just ignore it. You've already said you don't care about that anyways.

I think commune newbies will get waxed on ethereal now, though, am I wrong? Would make the planar quest a bit harder.

I think etherseren, etherglom, and faethorn all count as one plane, meaning they have no need to go into Faethorn at all, which is where most of the fighting is.

Also they have grace of innocence. Can't touch that.

Yeah, until Viynain says, "Your newbie can rot." :shrug:

For the record, Etherwilde, Etherglom, and Faethorn are separate areas worth seperate numbers of points. The only way to complete the quest requires going to at least two of them, plus either both of the elemental planes, or other planes even less likely for them to be able to get to, or be escorted to. When they can't even safely go to the nexus in Etherwilde, talking about going to the elemental planes is a bit silly.

Quibbling about the details is really pointless, though. I only gave a few examples of an overall pattern in which everything they want to do is either discouraging, unwelcoming, or impossible, and in which the motivations to get through those setbacks is eroded or eliminated. Whether you think those examples are true, or whether you think that the others I didn't give would be true, is immaterial. That a lot more of them aren't coming back now than ever before is something that simply is or isn't true. If you aren't someone who either has access to the statistics, or who deals with them face to face every day, you really wouldn't know.

Shaddus thats a comment about you in particular, you should know this by now. It doesn't happen to other people, people just dislike you, you've already acknowledged that earlier in the thread.