While yes I worked hard to get to my profession....that doesn't necessarily I want to "work hard" for a game.

That's the wonder of Lusternia. You don't have to work hard. You can buy credits, trans all your skills, buy artifacts, buy so many things. And then you can do whatever your heart desires, but when you run up against the multiplayer aspect of Lusternia, you have to expect some discomfort. Additionally, in regards to demigod, I always considered that an in-game perk. Not necessary, but like, an in-game reward for doing something strictly in-game.

An Org going from weak to strong shall forevermore be dubbed the NPH effect.

There is a lot to be said about the state of the game, but I don't think it's possible for anyone with an emotional investment in the game to make the assessments required for it. We're all too close to things to see the big picture, and the problems and solutions are all bigger than any one person saying "Well that sucks, I quit." or "You know what, that's not as bad as I thought."
There are problems on all sides. People who expect to be handed things, people who feel slighted that their efforts are being 'wasted', people feeling hopeless, and people not realizing when to back down. But everyone keeps acting on and thinking with their egos rather than their sense of fairness or equality, because in the end this is a game, and everyone is playing it because they want to have fun, or feel obligated to play to facilitate a sense of accomplishment. The larger problem is that some of us treat the game as something to win, others as something to invest time and effort into, and still others as something to use as a tool to irritate. Those groups will always be at odds with one another because they will always undermine one each-others' efforts.
Those playing to win will step on the toes and undo the work of those carefully structuring things for some overarching goal because it's easier to recognize the victories of these people, and therefore the focus and resources are shifted away from the second group and to the first. Meanwhile, those using the game as a tool to irritate will stymie the efforts of those playing to win. Because of their detached nature, these people will always end up costing resources the first group 'needs' to win. And those with carefully laid out plans will always prove an obstacle to the people whose goal is to irritate, because they know how to ignore minor setbacks and non-threats, and rarely respond to the types of bait the third group uses.

Ultimately it's up to the administrators to decide if there is a problem in one of these groups, or within one, and if that problem is enough of a threat to the game's immersion, cohesion, or balance to step in and correct it themselves, or merely point the playerbase in the proper direction. We players are all too invested to see the problems in our own groups, orgs, and cliques. We can point fingers all day long, but we lack the ability to self police, and have proven that over, and over, and over again.
If they don't think it's a problem, then we should respect that they have a larger picture in mind than any single org's politics, or even the inter-org politics.

I'd like to point out that the admins are human also and have just as much (if not more) emotional attachment to the game. Just different parts, which is where things get weird.

Well, this is interesting.

The only worthwhile thing that I have gathered so far is that the stronger org likes to one up the weaker org every time the latter wins a skirmish, etc. by returning with bigger numbers and retaliating with more ferocity. I agree that this does happen, in fact, I've definitely encouraged it. This sort of thing is what makes the other side end up thinking, "Why bother, every time we win, we just set ourselves up to lose even harder later on". While I'm not sure any quick solution can be found for this issue, at the very least, at least it's on people's minds.

Ultimately, I find any ideas about x org rising up because of individual y to be pointless. While it's cool (and ego-boosting!) that I get a shout out every time this thing comes up, it really is a group effort. I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about at this point, having helped Serenwilde, Glomdoring, and now Gaudiguch slowly rise up and improve their various IC positions. While the individuals are all well and good, even the best leader can't do anything if the group refuses to believe in their own power. But boy, I have to admit it makes me feel good when people are all, 'Surely one or two new people won't help x org rise much higher' but then a few weeks later, we have a lot of domoths, twice as many villages, and even a bubble. Yay teamwork. Leading is really overrated btw.

Now, I'm going to have to rant a little here: I can't win. I join one org, people say 'well, you only joined for the sweet OP skillz (if you die to it, it's clearly OP, it's not that you messed up)' or 'why didn't you join enemy org y?! YOU MUST NOT CARE ABOUT GAME BALANCE. DOUCHE' I joined whatever because I wanted to go there. While I acknowledge that an org has its issues and that my presence would help a lot, ultimately, I join because that's where I feel that I would have the most fun. While it's very noble to say that I care about game balance, in the end, I play Lusternia for myself. Alliances, etc. be damned. I just find accusations of joining the same meta-org insulting. Just because I flipped sides the first time does not give me an obligation to do that the next time around.

Plus frankly, paying fines is a bitch. I'm also willing to flip sides if you all offer me the credits to pay for everything. And CR6. And Champ. And Avatar of enemy god z.

While we're at it, Serenwilde has this pretty bad tendency to mouth off. While I understand that you're frustrated, did you know that most evil super jerk griefers (me included) only feel -more- like curbstomping if you send mocking tells like "Nice try" "Come here sugar" "Stop running away" "Argh you bully you". While it gives an almost orgasmic feeling killing those mockers anyway, I'd just like to highlight that such baiting does nothing to improve your IC situation, which, I've stated repeatedly, can be remedied through a variety of means, notably through diplomacy.

P.P.S. I do in fact get tells every day to that effect, and on average, I almost never start the tell mocking. Just bugs me.

I enjoy Lusternia, even though I've been playing a tae'dae (coughestarraacknowledgetheproblemkthxcough)... but I would blame a lot of these problems on group combat. Group PvP in these MUDs has always been a complete disaster in every way, and Lusternia with its ultra-high fantasy setting is the only game positioned to conceivably do anything about it by enforcing some one on one or small group PvP, but instead it funnels everyone into one side's demesne and cluster f**** their clients and eyeballs and patience.

One side just snowballs until they get nerfed because a single person is powerless to accomplish anything on their own, everything is decided by the group PvP and the group PvP sucks so much that it's no wonder to me that it's hard to get people motivated.

If you aren't as with it with the group PvP skills, it's 1. Lag, 2. Wall of text spam, 3. Dead. After maybe a half hour of waiting. It's like a recipe for defeatism. I would rather get my a** eaten by Malarious in 1v1 PvP five times a day for a month then do one more Lusternia team fight.

Very salient point and well-stated, particularly the last bit.

Being demoralized is more than losing a couple of fights. Serenwilde raised up two TAs who both went to Glomdoring and, ultimately, became two of their most hated enemies. Magnagora and Celest raised up VAs that wasted the power invested in them to go join the other side. These betrayals run deeper than you might think, and they make it far more difficult for an organization to support future candidates.

You only have to demoralize a few key individuals at the top of an organization, and they'll spread it down through the ranks like a cancer. You've done an excellent job of that, intentionally and inadvertently, over the last couple years. We manage to pick ourselves up and achieve something from time to time, but there is almost always more of a penalty than a reward.

Now, you're right when you say that the taunts, insults, etc are not helping the situation, but all sides do this to let off steam. When I'm a jerk, they try to call me out on it. However, as the one being insulted or taunted, you do have the option of just letting them vent a bit and then going about your own business, rather than giving in to the burning need to go stomp them some more.

I haven't had time to play much lately, so I'm honestly not sure what the state of Seren/other orgs situation is, but this was the most interesting post really. Its as much on the winning orgs to not be sore winners (beating the crap out of lesser orgs) and the leaders there to call it a day even after a minor loss as it is for the losers to suck it up and not complain. Unfortunately, this can't really be expected because the winning org wants to have the fun of winning, or maybe just isn't ready to quit fighting, whatever the reason the losing org still has to feel compelled to defend despite being battle weary or wanting to relish their small victory. I'm not really sure what the raiding situation is like nowadays, so the above is a generalization more than anything else.

Also, I've always heavily frowned on people sending tells to the enemies being snide/bitchy/provoking, and I really hope its not people in leadership from Serenwilde doing it. When people do that, its just as viable a response to talk with the more level-headed Serens and say what idiotprovokerA is doing, and just maybe they'll get bitched out themselves. I know I would if I heard of a Serenguard doing it. Raiding and then yelling about how soandso wronged you and you'll only leave if they give themselves up to die is just going to make people roll their eyes and ignore you. Though if its just being used as an excuse to raid, then it doesn't really matter to begin with I guess.

Also, I just want to jump in really quick and say that people are SO amazingly RUDE, cruel, and downright vulgar to people. Whether it be Shuyin, Viynain, Sidd. Some of the things I've heard would turn the hair on my mother's head white. It's so crazy, and these people should be ashamed of themselves for so blatantly verbally harassing people. It really does boggle the mind.

There's going to be a penalty either way. Etherwilde is going to get raided either way. It is not because you are the weakest org, you're not. It is because you are Glomdoring's main enemy, there's perpetual bad blood, and you are located a convenient walking distance from our forest across Faethorn.

Sometimes, yes - we will get so mad that you guys chopped elders, or took out a shrine, or killed daughters, or raided a godrealm*, and say, okay guys, today's raid is because they did this to us, let's get those bastards!!! And while that may get people fired up to come along, the fact of the matter is that the random happenstance of people feeling like they could enjoy some pk on any given Tuesday is equally likely to cause a biggish raid.

Knowing this, there is absolutely no reason for you not to try your damnedest at every opportunity. I know for a fact that there are players in Serenwilde who are hurting your org by spreading their Eeyore-esque defeatist gloom around like so much jam on a piece of dry toast. Some of them have already posted to that effect in this thread. It's annoying to read, because I just know that new people in Serenwilde are hearing these things, in the same way that I heard them when I was new. My response then was, "If you really feel that way, then leave." And they did. And then, when I was trying to talk people up on ct, I was not met with sullen nay-saying, and this was great.

From my point of view, the problem that Serenwilde has is that it has never, ever forgotten that it used to be on top of everything with very little effort involved from the majority of its very large population. (By contrast, Glomdoring has never forgotten that it used to be on the bottom of everything, which accounts for a lot of our grief, tbh.) If instead, Serenwilde were to simply accept the fact that every single day you would have daughters to replace, elders to replace, shrines to fortify, and so on, then it would be a whole lot easier for your to actually celebrate your victories as they should be celebrated - and give yourselves the opportunity to feel good about what you accomplish as an org.

If you want something to be proud of - how about the fact that we are too cowed to even try raiding Estelbar for farmers? Or the fact that we do have a pretty hard time replacing daughters, because your super-zoom moondancer kiddos are really on the ball about gathering fae, and are just too quick to debate. Or the fact that even though we're struggling every game-month for cultural centre, it's impossible for us to raise TBC due to Lendren's vigilance. I hope that doesn't come off as condescending or anything. I'm only trying to say that there are things that Serenwilde does regularly that hinder us and there's no reason this shouldn't be a source of pride. Maybe it is cheesy and stupid to cheer about these little things, but if you come out grinning, what does it matter?



*Someone above mentioned the horribleness of defending a godrealm. This is true on all sides. In almost all instances, gods have not designed their realms with defenders in mind. I hate godrealm raids, because the only practical response is to chock it up to an immediate total loss and get people from the other gods' orders to go empower denizens before the enemies move on to the next realm. This will frustrate the raiders who were looking for a fight, which is generally all the win you can hope for if the invading force has done even a half-assed job setting up before they start hitting. I am aware that this contradicts the 'try your damnedest' directive. If you have a huge force and a god who has had the foresight to put a cult shrine at a break point, by all means, get everyone you can get, and give it a whirl - but do so being honest about the odds stacked against you, and don't take it to heart if you lose, because it's a situation where you're practically supposed to lose.

Edit: OMG, I see Saaga reading this, hi Saaga!

This is one of those things that has gotten worse and worse of late too - definitely more so than a year ago. I feel like the real issue is that it's all relayed over tells, so no one knows who is boiling up more trouble than necessary until it's too late (and that's only in an ideal situation, sometimes the answer just never comes up at all.)

The game has gotten more fun, in a way, since I started treating it more like a game and less like an extension of my soul. It means caring less about losing experience and things like that, but it also means caring less about the damage you do to "the other side." They're going to come after you whether you're being good and honorable or you're going around killing loyal subjects and jumping people while they're hunting. Point all the fingers you want, but everybody is guilty of these actions at one time or another, and some are simply pushed there by others who did it before them.

And, as I said, demoralization is more than just coming in less than first place or losing a couple of fights... maybe Lusternia just needs NPC therapists.

The thing that's always kind of bothered me about Lusternia is it's absolute lack of fair play and sportsmanship.

I'm probably just going to echo a few statements here, but Sidd claiming that Glomdoring got it's stuff together and was suddenly awesome...is a load of bollocks. I was playing in Glomdoring during its bad days, so I am aware of how bad it was. It was bad enough that the admin considered deleting it. They even had Viravain whore herself up and try to seduce people into joining Glomdoring. The people in the ORG then didn't help it in any way, they were as much an eyesore as the people in Serenwilde can be now. In fact, people in Glomdoring thought they were better then everyone else, including the folk in their own org, and would fabricate reasons to see so-and-so kicked, or that person diminished in some way (WHILE THE ADMIN CONSIDERED DELETING THEM). A lot of the reason it improved is that the people harassing it, and having enough charisma to encourage others to do so as well, switched sides. They didn't just bring themselves, they also brought the people that liked fighting with them.

A good deal of today's antagonists in the Trinity side used to be Serenwilders. The very worst of them. Of course this antagonism is what encouraged me to become a combatant, something I've never done before in an IRE game. There is, however, a lot of frustration of being a combatant in a losing org. You deal with the apathy of the org you are trying to protect (for a time, I tried writing inspirational posts celebrating even small victories...then you'd have people like Rika saying that the posts were jokes.) There will be the people who won't even participate in peaced revolts, where the most damage done to you is the loss of your bromides. As mentioned before, small victories tend to get stomped on. If a Domoth gets taken, it's going to get absolved and stolen. If a skirmish or defence is won, then triple numbers arrive to really stomp you to make you think that victory was more painful then just a defeat. It's like killing a snake pissed off a whole herd of komodo dragons, and now there's going to be hell to pay.

You need to deal with people like Alacardael who'll kill any novice out of the portals if they decide to explore Faethorn,and the backlash from that as said novi are wondering what they've done to deserve that. Shuyin's current tactic of lust+empress into monolithed garthing trap of doom is dismaying to see on deathsight, and then there's just weird things I've heard about like Crow-less Blacktalon melding Etherwilde. Etherwilde already is one of the easiest places to raid (Vortex being the only other more easily raided) is something like that really necessary?

If people employed a bit more sense of fair play and bit less dickishness, then things would be a lot better off. There is no challenge in punting a defeated foe in the breast after they've been given a bleeding concussion with nailed baseball bats. I know that Morbo's been trying to do what he can for Hallifax, and I know there's been an infusion of life in Serenwilde from new players and old trying to give a damn. If you really want a challenge, don't nip that enthusiasm in the bud. Let it flourish, and you might find yourself enjoying your victories more then just the rundown curbstomp that combat is today.

I'd be careful when making broad claims of what admin did or did not do, were or were not considering doing. Particularly regarding one of the several incarnations of Viravain and Glomdoring.

Generally speaking, broad, quantifiably false statements render the entirety of your argument suspect. At least, to those who know better.

I didn't claim we were 'suddenly' awesome, I said we worked at it over time, looking for small victories and improving from there, and found overall success eventually. We weren't even suddenly awesome the second Shuyin joined either, we still had to work at it. I do honestly believe that Glomdoring was already improving itself before Shuyin joined. Shuyin and co accelerated the progress immensely by bringing experience we didn't have and so we were helped by that a lot. People switching sides I think overshadowed it, but there were good things going on in Glomdoring prior to that.


Every thing you've said here, has been done to Glomdoring. Have you met Narsrim? Do you know where Shuyin got his lust/empress idea? I'll give you a hint, it starts with 'N' and ends with 'arsrim.' Except he used Munsia to make a geo meld in the Catacombs and even used shrine powers on occasion.

Etherwilde is actually really easy to defend, you guys have done it tons of times and we have lots of practice so we know the best way to deal with it. I mean honestly, you can't access half of it without bypassing avatars.

For every noob killer in Glom you bring up, I can bring up someone in Serenwilde, Barrin (who likes to summon noobs into etherwilde and kill them), Ryylaet had his time of doing it recently.

The last thing is that 'fair play and dickishness' is done by everyone. You accused me of being an asshole on multiple occasions, but you like to swarm into Faethorn in a giant group to kill single people, and then when you get attacked or jumped, you whine sooo much and throw insults that just encourage the behavior more!. The point is, Everyone is guilty to being unfair and a dick and whatnot. It's kind of hard to lay that accusation out, when you participate in it too.

@Iasmos -- that's a good start, it is a game, dying doesn't matter, essence doesn't matter, it's all about having fun. If you approach things from that angle more, and look at hurdles like defending and fighitng and flares as a Challenge that needs conquered, it becomes immensely more fun. That's the entire point I'm trying to get across, it's all in outlook.

I'd like to go ahead and give a rave to Sidd, Nyir, Sadhyra, Janalon, Amani, Dowapaa, Ayisdra, Urazial, Xenthos, Astraea, Silferras, Mikalia, Ishant, Nadjia, Leiliadhe, Marcellus, Ciaran, Alacardael, Druken, and a number of other people who worked their butts off to help turn around Glomdoring's less than stellar environment by being encouraging, bold, and fun.

True, you likely did have to work at it. I haven't had the dubious pleasure of meeting Narsrim, just Munsia. She is...special. A class of her own that's a bit tough to get into. And I didn't make broad, false statements. I was one of the people Viravain propositioned, and while I didn't attend the Glomdoring meeting, everyone knew about it.

The group-gankings in Faethorn I participated in were directed 95% of the time at Alacardael or Celina or Urazial or any other who were known for being pests. And only after they had killed a novice or kicked a guard. Almost every action I took was reciprocatory, as I don't like going on the offence without some kind of reasonable cause. Only Haiden and Kolm were capable of getting me to actually raid. And I have been actively working on my behaviour, since I know that it was somewhat childish and hotheaded. Part of why I left Serenwilde was to cool down, get perspective, and improve my attitude.