I got the flak actually because Celina ran away. I was told that it was my fault for rushing in when he had it under control. It's a falsehood, though, since she runs whether it's one person or twenty that challenge her, and I wasn't the second or even third person to join him in Faethorn in attacking her. He's got something against me because I'm an ascendant and he wanted to be an ascendant, too, so I'm chalking it up to that instead.

I understand playing an alt to escape the pressures of an organization, but for some of us it just doesn't work. I even tried an alt in Glomdoring for a few days, just to see if things really were better on the inside. It was... an interesting experience, but I did not find it fun at all.

I'd tell him to stuff it, personally.

Listen, I am in no way insulting those that defend. I am merely pointing out that in this environment, there is very little somebody can do, if anything at all, to genuinely block you from just walking away. In the end, if you aren't having fun, you may leave - and anybody who has something to say about it can shove it. I've never not had fun during raids or raid defense, but that's probably because I know how to pick my fights or when to actually put forth effort - and I am a bottomless pit of PK thirst.

They can insult you or give you crap for it, but in the end, unless they genuinely seek to oust you for not doing something you don't find fun.. well, if those people think less of you for not throwing yourself over and over at a superior force, why do you care about their opinion in the first place? Your friends will understand. Those that do not, do not matter and obviously have a lesson to learn.

Of course, I did tell him to adjust his attitude, as Serenwilde is not Magnagora, but we're not exactly endearing ourselves to one another.


I hear far too often from the aggressors' side that the defenders should just quit if they're not having fun. How about the defenders tell the aggressors to quit because their fun isn't our fun? We have feelings. You have feelings. Let's learn to respect each other more and not do it for the lulz. Raiding with a purpose, or the occasional raid to draw others into a fun fight, is something I can understand and enjoy. Kick-and-run raids or stomping around several times a day is just ridiculous sometimes.

What a thread!

If you don't like raiding because your allies keep ditching you, your city has no warriors and get beat down every raid, then the solution is not to QQ or whine about it on the forums about excessive failures that you are having.

The solution is to get better allies, make political pacts for defence, train warriors, be better... it's an opportunity to do things instead of sitting around all day long, alting the elections and gossiping. Complaining about the general mechanics of the game when you're currently the lowest in the chain because of your own lack of effort and success is plain silly.

I actually have to disagree with the whole stance that you can just 'walk away' from it, actually. I'm just going to use myself as an example; I personally am not much of a combatant, I do not usually join in on the raids (unless something has just happened and we are trying to send A Message) and often leave when it's clearly overkill.

For myself, I do feel an obligation to show up when there's something going on (whether it be Glomdoring, EthGlom, or Faethorn these days). Perhaps not necessarily in terms of throwing myself at the raiders over and over, but in terms of supporting the people who I do spend most of my time with. Keep in mind that when you're raided and losing, tempers flare, frustration builds, and people do not always tend to act... rationally. Little mini drama bombs go off at random intervals and it makes a 'bad' situation worse, and I kind of feel like I am obligated to be there and try to convince people not to run off like chickens, just to get butchered and ratchet up the frustration-end more.

Beyond that, if you want to stick to your RP guns, you have to defend. You can pretend to be AFK or QQ, but that's (to me) not a really great option; I don't feel like you should address in-game issues by QQing, because you're just leaving others to pick up the pieces in your stead. While you may say that you don't have to deal with it, it's not really any more fair to push it on someone else's shoulders either.

The RP angle is easier to push aside, definitely; for me, the biggest one is in terms of the actual people involved. I do feel as if saying "But you are not FORCED" to defend is silly, because forces do exist. They may have differing strengths depending on the person and their reasons, but first and foremost this is meant to be a social game and where you have a social game you do have pressures to behave in certain ways.

Ok. Tried this, on both sides.

As the aggressor, the more sensitive defenders will get pissed off. Happens with Seren, happens with Glom, happens with Hallifax, happens with Gaudiguch. (Actually Hallifax never protested when we raided them ... they liked it, but I digress).

As the defender (you know who I'm referencing) you get laughed at and mocked in various OOC manners. I've been literally told to just 'transverse down to Prime and let us bash out your org NPCs and we'll be on our way'. "Don't you think this is a bit overkill?" will rarely register on attackers. It depends on the attackers. It always depends on the attackers. And there's tons of precedent that this will never work.

Really, I've seen a few raids where Malicia is deliberately holding herself back from joining because she feels the attacking force is going too far. That girl loves her PK.

You may have missed it in everything else, Vadi, but part of this is about diplomacy. We have worked on pacts in the recent past, and we're working on them still now, but it only takes one rogue element a single minute to unravel days' worth of negotiation.

Well, I'm not trying to suggest that one ignore RP entirely. More importantly, I think someone should just realize when they've lost, especially when they can do nothing to remedy that fact, and just accept it.

Just like anyone else, when I hear that Ladies are under attack, I immediately jump up to Etherwilde to get to work. But when I see my force of 5 against a force of 9... even nexus and shrine powers aren't going to be able to tip that in my favour. We might try once or twice, to see what their strategy is and if we can beat it. But if we get stomped, we get stomped. Unless allies come (and if they do come it heralds the inevitable and irrelevant 'haha you called for help' cries, as if the #v# is an even matchup through sheer #'s alone) you've lost the defense and there's no reason to just hurl yourself at them repeatedly. All that's left to do is repair the potential morale damage, which people can largely be in control of.

Maybe if they're silly enough to split up and kill ladies you can pick them off, sure. Generally, though, that doesn't happen.

Edit: Hell, sometimes calling for help just makes it worse, as the opposition now has free license to call in their more-numerous, better-equipped help too.

Repairing morale damage if you've QQed or went AFK is pretty difficult...

Note that when I talk about an "obligation to defend" I am not talking about throwing ourselves at the OpFor repeatedly, dying over and over. I'm talking about the need to show up, assess the situation, and determine what to do (as a group), which seems somewhat like what you are referring to as well. It's an interruption of what you were doing because the other guys wanted to have some fun. Especially where kick-and-runs are concerned, it is draining and frustrating.

As a note, it was mentioned earlier that Lusternia really needs some other outlets for this kind of thing that can be fulfilled as desired by any and all sides. This is something many of us have been asking for for years. It's still needed.

Haiden and anyone who will follow him. I seriously considered saying the cease-fire Celest has, no idea if Seren imposed something similar, but then just decided to only target the people actually raiding us.

That's the beauty of the game. It's realistic. If you don't think you can deal with it, perhaps let someone else take the position. Enforce strict punishments so you don't have a rogue element screwing over all your work... etc.

Life is simple where you live, isn't it?

Thank you, Neos, for your application of common sense! That's refreshing.

I will seek to punish the rogue elements, of course, but it must be done through the proper channels and by a committee, lest it be reversed because of implied personal bias.

That's completely fine if you feel obligated to do so - that is your MO, so to speak. So long as you enjoy it, or you find some part of it fun. If you don't, you are obligated yourself to, basically, force yourself to do something unfun - in which case complaining about it (not you specifically, I mean broadly) is almost hypocritical in nature. If you hadn't obligated yourself to stick around, you wouldn't have anything to cry about. If it is in your personality to stick around and help with even the most disastrous of raids, you should also make it a habit to not complain when you reap what you've sown by doing so.


I don't feel like a raid is an 'in game issue'. It's almost like a glove to the cheek, in terms of org to org. They're on your property challenging you to a brawl - if you don't want to be a part of that, that isn't really an issue. Now, if you mean by issue just something going on that could be bad news, I understand THAT. I am not saying that the automatic response to raids should be to QQ - I am saying that the response to something not being fun should really be to re-evaluate why you are online right now. I'm also going to go ahead and say what I said before: if you can't deal with raiding, let the people who will/want to/can do so and then go back to your own business. That isn't 'putting it on their shoulders' - it is just realizing that there are others who are willing to do that work and you don't HAVE to.



Those pressures are just more cement on top of an, honestly, non-existent obligation that people impose and ingrain in to newbies and fellow players. Perhaps I am just an incredibly detached individual, or my characters are - because during Urazial's kick and run antics on Fire, even as a Champion, my response was 'don't bother, he will run the moment you get to him'. There were no real raids until later when Hallifax and co got a little gutsy. I realize that mobs just repop. Killing them does virtually nothing. I almost feel as if, by sacrificing your own amusement to defend mobs that will inevitably repop in half an hour, you are taking roleplay too far.

You're assuming (or implying) that anyone should be willing to pick up the pieces and repair things. I know you've played on the downside and are now more on the upside, but you still seem to not understand the morale of organizations in general.

I'm more implying that you have very little to lose by exercising an application of logic in that you ask yourself "Why am I bothering?" If one of the reasons isn't 'because it is fun'.. and you are playing a game (something specifically designed for entertainment).. then something is wrong and you should stop bothering. I am well aware (by past experience in other orgs in other Iron Realms) what it feels like to be in a city where I am the only person willing to/capable of picking up the pieces/repair things. I understand the morale and the loss of it quite well, after years of conflict being directed at one of my cities because they had a notorious history of having no fighters because people would not touch the city with a ten foot pole (mostly due to a theocracy pretty much devouring any chance it had of being interesting..) - and perceiving yourself as 'being on the losing side' is a serious blow to morale.

However, if it becomes so utterly brutal on your personal morale and your personal interest in the game.. you need to take a step back and ask yourself why you log in. Player retention is, ultimately, a job for the Administration and maybe the people who deal with novices. If it is consistently a chore to play in any org - Serenwilde, Gaudiguch, whichever we're discussing at any rate - and they do not take note and fix it.. well, they will ultimately feel the loss of it or see the paradigm shift when it comes to citizenship and they will need to fix it. In the mean time, you need to just.. well.. not defend. By not defending, you are slicing out quite a large deal of stress.

Before we go any further, I would like to note that saying that raiders should have some sort of decorum or code is an ultimately futile point. By requesting that, you are requesting that those in question.. well.. stop having fun. You are ultimately asking them to not have fun so you can have fun. There is a certain stalemate in this cycle of 'not fun have' (what an awful term) - a stalemate that can, honestly, be broken by providing some kind of other outlet besides raids that mostly boil down to 'kill sludgeworms until they come up and try to kill us, die, and then try again, die, and then don't come back up and we leave'. :/

I've noticed that those who involve themselves most closely with the morale of an organization end up being some of the most bitter. This applies just as much to supposed 'leaders' as it does anyone involved in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. And perhaps Guild Administrators.

What can one do, though? Who picks up the pieces and repairs things? Should they have to do so? In an ideal world you wouldn't have any org forever stuck on 'the bottom', as it were, but ideas are transient things.

Orgs that find themselves on the bottom by circumstance often find themselves, later, on the bottom because they are on the bottom. Nobody wants to join the losing team (except once and now they are the winning team!).

There are so many issues with this, it's just not funny. People quitting when it's not fun makes it less fun for everyone still playing. Consider other games and why this same thing does not apply there, and you might begin to see why it's such a big deal here.

Well, it definitely is detrimental to the overall health of the game if one has to repeatedly try and salvage their own personal enjoyment. Try explaining that to the winning team, though. Where do we get?