Disclaimer: I'm spoiled by Eventrus large realm, but Fain also has a pretty sizable one.
Defending god realms is/can be easier than people make it out to be. With an active cult member and a coordinated group, it's possible to fight back, sometimes the cult member isn't always needed.

Name-calling!



edit:




I agree with this. Pep posts have always been effective. Plus years of librarian experience literally begging people to write stuff taught me something in the same vein.

I resent your generalisation

While I know this post is going to encourage sour apples, I'm going to try to word this as agreeably as possible.

I'm seeing a lot of excuse-making in this thread particularly with these three justifactions:

1) "Narsrim and company used to do the same thing to us."
2) "I can name people on your side who do the same things you complain about."
3) "People send me tells that provoke me to do it more".


Let's tackle these one by one and really assess their validity.

1) First of all, whether or not Narsrim did less than laudable acts to you is sort of irrelevant today. I don't see how it immediately applies that you deserve the right to behave the exact same way toward us, especially considering that we're more or less a new population of people who were not there at the time. It almost feels like you're trying to get back at people who don't even play anymore, and this just doesn't make any sense to me. You might then say that the point was mostly that you know how it feels. I say, if you know how it feels and you know you didn't like it back then, why would you do it to others? I can't say that makes you any different or any better.

2) Sidd mentioned that Ryylaet and Barrin had participated in novice killings. Did you know that when Ryylaet did it, he was shouted off by the commune upon the deathsight being seen? Did you know he was publicly told off and humiliated? Did you know there was an instance where he got disfavoured? (Maybe even two, I can't remember now). Do you know, when you come back to take revenge, we sometimes don't interfere because we agree he deserves it? Did you know that when Barrin summoned that one novice into etherwilde and killed him, he got a serious reprimanding for it as well? I can name a few people in Glomdoring who take a pretty sick pleasure in killing people just because it would be easy to and they wouldn't be able to fight back. There's been numerous instances where Alacardael jumped a novice, and we came to defend them, and you ALL have come in support of him - instigating big faethorn fights that no one wanted in the first place. The difference between us is, while you say you don't support his behaviour, your actions are very contrary when you all orgbix in, knowing what he's done, and then gust him out and proceed with fighting.
You can point all the fingers back that you want, but you really are kidding yourself when you're saying the attacks are in any way proportional. We don't raid Etherglom as frequently as you raid etherwilde. We don't raid your godrealms as frequently as you raid ours. We haven't done "gankings" or "novice killings" to the extent that you have. Yes, we may be guilty of some of it, but to pretend that we do it just as much and that you're only doing it as backlash is ludicrous and no one who's sat on the other side is going to buy it. In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that a lot of the times we do it, it's us trying to do back to you a fraction of what you've done to us. The fact that we haven't even managed that, and that you use it as an excuse to hit back harder is confusing, to say the least. Seems like just grasping for more excuses. You don't need excuses, just do what you're doing and stop trying to incriminate people while you're at it.

3) This is the one that boggles my mind even more. While I don't have much experience with winning and receiving ill-responses from the other side in lusternia, I have had it in other games. I've never found it to be particularly bothersome to the point I just wanted to "grief more". This really is the hollowest excuse I've ever heard, and I'm sorry to say that you really are grasping at straws here. I just cannot conceive of the idea of someone getting the thrill of picking on a weaker player, receiving an angry tell, and suddenly feeling very angry and upset and willing to cause more harm. Sorry, but what? I refuse to believe that being called a coward when you've killed someone, or being told that you're a douche or whatever suddenly becomes a reason to raid harder. This doesn't make sense, sorry! I know for sure these types of comments simply amused me and were usually shrugged off completely. I don't understand how you can claim to be anything other than indifferent to them, especially when you've just gained the "thrill" of having trumped over someone else. It just feels like you're looking for an excuse to hit harder. You're looking for an extra reason to win. You want to do things and then have people be quiet and take it. While I don't agree with sending angry tells to people, I also find it stupid to take advantage of people's frustrated cries as an excuse to raid further. Sorry, you lost me there big time and I don't think this argument is defensible. As, hopefully, mature adults, words shouldn't get to you that much.



As for my own comments on the matter, I have already stated that I agree that there's a lot of fault on our side for not trying as hard as we can, or taking on a defeatist attitude or what not. But I should also say, there have been attitudes in the game that have really disheartened me and made it not so fun. While I understand that we all can't be "buddy buddy", I've really received quite a lot of nastiness since I started playing that I can say I never brought on. I know for sure that I've gotten my own fair share of nasty tells, even though I've been on the losing side of the situation! Despite what Shuyin says, I've seen him gloat about wins when everyone has been quiet, I've seen him say little arrogant things, and when you're trying your best and you're already getting frustrated and you get a "Whoa, you guys are losing, better run!" or "Haha, oh man!" or "Raaaaaaaaaaaaape", you can't help but feel that this person takes some malicious joy in your frustration and this habours ill-feelings. The things I've had to put up with and the pure obnoxious things done and said to me, despite constantly being on the losing side and having my butt handed to me, has always been a pretty crappy experience. I just don't get the point of it.
I remember Krellan started ganking people on a regular basis with choke+perfect fifth and it started to get extremely rampant. You'd leave prime, and boom, choke+perfect fifth ganked. I know I saw people like Lilian get hit by it several times in one night and even kept logs of the deathsights. I remember Wobou and I got frustrated, so we went into etherglom and tried hitting whatever we could, we said no word to anyone. Immediate, Shuyin, Krellan and Narynth came, and they were saying some fairly condescending things despite the fact that the two of us were outnumbered and outclassed from the start anyway. So when I see people talk about ill-retorts on our side, I really can't help but take it with a grain of salt, because I know I've personally said very little to people and received quite a bit of obnoxious, unsolicited things as well. There's this feeling of wanting to win, and even after you win, you want to go further and verbally attack people while if the same be done to you, you want to use it as an excuse to raid further.


I want to say, while we're partly responsible for the "state of lusternia", your own behaviour has not been a terribly big help at all. It really has helped to create a fairly toxic environment for new players and people who just want to enjoy other aspects of the game. I know I've tried to enjoy other things and often have had to drop them to go to a defense. This game stops being multifaceted and becomes an experience of coming in, trying to get things done, and getting disturbed. Granted, you've toned down the raiding a great deal, but it is something we had to deal with quite a lot.
I also still can't forgive Alacardael showing up at mine and Aerys' wedding, nor Kreon being jumped shortly after marrying Kyair. I remember as a new player, trying to get Aerys to not get married out in Hifarae, but instead in a manse since I was worried you people would come and try to ruin it. This was a legitimate worry! She told me "no, not even they would do that. I know they would have respect for such an occasion, as we would for theirs". It was a pretty stark awakening when I saw that this wasn't really true at all, and I sometimes wonder what we did to deserve it.

I know for sure that this post might seem ranty and angry, but know well that despite all these things, there's still a core group of us who keep coming back and trying our hardest to improve things. I'm merely stating what we've had to put up with.

There is also a general lack of restraint or a "ok, we've done enough, let's stop for now." I remember that night when a group of Serenwilders went to chop elders, we had a huge fight in faethorn. For once, we did a great job and managed to really send you guys back to Etherglom. We set and waited and waited until you would come back. After fighting for 2-3 hours, and no signs of you returning, we decided to just leave and, you know, do other things in this game. You guys started raiding godrealms, and some people got annoyed and decided to chop elders instead. While I don't really agree with chopping elders, I sort of see why they did it too. They got frustrated because even after this long fight, you guys just couldn't take it and leave. You had to keep coming back and hitting where you can, and their actions were more of a "sure, we can act out too". Shuyin used the excuse that after we left, you guys came out into faethorn and apparently wanted more fighting? What? Were we supposed to just wait there even longer for you to gather your crew? Did it ever occur to you that we were tired?
I remember there was one week where you guys did it on purpose. You guys went into our nexus world on a ship several times in the same day, then to moonbubble then did some raids in etherwilde. You basically pestered us non-stop.
I remember after you killed our avatars last time, a group of you came back in the middle of the night and kept jumping people in etherwilde and downing shrines.
This is where the complaints come from. Sometimes we want to be able to enjoy other aspects of the game. Sometimes we want to sign on and hunt, or RP, or design or lead rituals and instead we have to bend constantly to your insatiable desire for PK.


The sad thing is, I know this post is going to fly over your heads. I know you still won't GET why people complain sometimes. I know you still won't understand why people react the way they do. I know you'll just think we're a bunch of whiners who can't put up with the situation you've had to put up with a couple years ago.

NO YOU DID!
NO YOU DID!
YOU DID IT FIRST!
NO YOU DID IT FIRST!
NO YOU DID!
NO YOU DID!
NO YOU!
NO YOU!
YOU!
YOU!
YOU!
YOU!

This summary of the last two pages of this thread brought to you by Forumgoers Anonymous.

Seriously? That's not what I've read out of this at all, even from the 'other side'.


EDIT: On the subject of Fair Play, I'm all for trying to hammer out a sort of Geneva Convention: "Don't light each other on fire, that's just childish. Don't infinitely chop totems, it just makes more work for both sides and it's pretty impossible to stop." and so on.

No offense, but please, for those of us who actually have to deal with it, leave this argument to us. I'm trying not to be acerbic here, but it's hard. I know sometimes you think you know what goes on in Serenwilde and this game, but you don't and it becomes irritating to read posts like this when its something that matters to us.

Well now, if you're going to do me the honour of calling me out, I might as well reply huh.

I never said it was bothersome. Frankly, pking regularly kind of makes you need to have a pretty thick skin about everything. My main point there (which I don't think is an excuse) is that while increasingly bigger and bigger retaliations is surely a Bad Thing ™, purposefully going out and encouraging it (through provocation) doesn't help the situation at all.

Since you'd like the frank answer: Good god why would I look for an excuse to hit harder when hitting harder will just get me the same pathetic response I've been getting all the other times? I don't need an excuse if I wanted to camp etherwilde for 10 hours straight, I'd just do it.

Now, on the next point, where did I say that I myself never gloated? I'd like some logs/quotes on that please. Go on, I'll wait until the end when this thread inevitably gets locked. It's actually a pretty big character weakness of mine that I tend to enjoy winning a bit too much and I end up gloating when I get carried away. I'm pretty sure I've even admitted to as much, and I definitely know I've said the same once or twice in places other than private clans, like that sweet facebook group. Pretty sure no one's said or even implied that only one side is responsible for the trash talking. We're all guilty, it's all malevolent feelings, yada yada.

So yes, you're right, it should all be taken with a grain of salt, so I'm not sure what you're getting at when you say that and yet feel like the other side hates you OOC or somesuch.

P.S. I just got ganked while writing this, am I allowed to kill them or will I get frowned upon and be called a jerk for doing that.

Your territory, your business.

In what way are they purposefully provoking it? If you're saying there's people who are deliberately taunting you like "Sure, come face me alone! Come raid us again!" and you go do that, that is clearly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the cases where you guys raid or jump someone and they call you a douchebag or otherwise show that what you did was annoying and you use this as an excuse to raid them harder, or at least, to continue targeting them. I called out your gloating as one of the things that harbour ill-feelings and why you get the tells you do. I had a similar discussion with someone over facebook who also had the point fly over their heads. They said that they kept jumping this person because they would get pissed off and send annoyed tells and things like "Gosh you guys always do these cowardly things!" and apparently this was his prime justification for repeatedly jumping them after that. It really is just bullying to get the rise out of people because I just can't believe that these comments hurt their feelings so much.


Ps. No one said you're a jerk for killing or ganking people. That wasn't the point at all.

While it's not going to help much, let's remember this axiom of ethics:
If you say something's wrong when someone else does it, it's wrong when you do it too, even if you're doing it in retaliation for them doing it first.
That's not going to settle anything, but if you put it on the table at the start of some of these exchanges, it'll save you getting mired in detours before you get to where you can settle anything.

At one point in time, Magnagora was where Glomdoring is now. Estarra handled the problem poorly then, by just hitting them with the nerd-stick so hard that people quit the game. Necromancy still hasn't recovered (worst skill in the game probably) and neither has Magnagora. Having putrefaction kill you through your own sipping will make people play another game for at least a few years.

I am glad that the same thing hasn't happened to Glomdoring. But I also want to reiterate that unless something changes mechanically, one side is always going to snowball while the other goes into a cycle of decline. If it lasts long enough that will also result in people quiting the game. Yet you can't mind-control people into spreading out and balancing the PvP of the game on their own because they spent time and money and so they want to win, nothing wrong with that. They made friends while they were all winning together and they aren't going to start fighting each other for some contrived reason.

So what can change mechanically? When I first made Winnae, Glomdoring had so many VAs that they would all trigger zapping me at the same time the second I stepped onto Nil. I was like level 65 and would die instantly, and then they would all send me tells and messages saying that I sucked and shouldn't even try. That's an extreme example of what trying to learn how to fight in raids is still like today. An advantage in strength needs to be put through a funnel somehow so that the minority can avoid being instantly killed in a giant wall of text. If that tendency were done away with, people who get mad about getting raided could feel like they're doing something about it, even if they still lost. Waiting 20 minutes before you get instantly killed by a wall of text and then trash talked about it just won't get anyone more involved than they were before it happened. If the environment doesn't make it easy for people to feel relevent and even heroic when opposing a stronger force, then the strong will just get stronger while the weak get weaker.

No offense, but please, for those of us who have seen this exact same argument happen again and again and again and again, always identical, leave this argument to us. What I know is what I know. The problem never changes, only those who happen to be on a particular side.

It gets really frustrating when every year (sometimes more than once a year), a thread exactly like this pops up and people scramble to justify themselves. A good definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result--which is exactly what this thread is doing. I'm sorry if you can't see it.

Back up a few points on the acid.

Sorry, I let my frustration get in the way.

But what I am trying to say is that, these threads don't serve a purpose. It's always the same. And it gets really annoying when people attack each other left and right over an argument that doesn't stand on either side. It's so... pointless.

My point here is that your post is really nonconstructive and mischaracterizes any arguments that were actually being made. If you're exasperated, feel free to read another thread. Some of us actually do have to deal with the problems stated here, and so it actually does matter to us. If one person on the other side gets what point I'm trying to make or where I'm coming for, then it was worth my time. I'm not trying to attack you, but I really do think this thread is at least getting us to open up to each other and share our viewpoints and MAYBE there can be a better understanding. Detracting this just throws all of that away.

I think both sides have something to say, and a point to make, so let's not stop us from getting there.

You make it sound like these issues aren't issues I've dealt with over the past few years... I am curious why you think that. I am not around as much as I was, since I work 8:30-whenever I get home at night, but I still have to go up for raid defense and, as a GM, am constantly dealing with the moral issue.

On my phone, so this is a placeholder reply, but rofl Necromancy being the worst skill ever.

I just want to say..

Serenwilde struggles because they have never really recovered from their top warrior-leader types leaving. Period. They've always had numbers and many of them got involved in combat. Lillian was one of the more suicidal and consistent defenders there- along with others. Not leaving anyone out. Iasmos is probably their tankiest warrior but the mantle of leadership was likely forced on him. As he stated here, it wasn't his desire.

So without those sorts of players (in a game with a small population and the same combat leaders from 6 years ago influencing things) I can understand feelings of demoralization. I don't really see this game growing. Nothing changes. A shift in alliances wouldn't even change the feelings of apathy going around. Only something as dramatic as, Malicia and Nydekion going to Magnagora or Shuyin, Sidd and other Glom/Gaudi players leaving the 'winning' side, would stand out. Let's not forget how many fighters poured out of Magnagora into Glomdoring recently.

I've had to sometimes close my mouth and listen to both sides and while I understand Sidd's OP, I also understand the opposite POV. The combination of overpowered skills, a broken envoy system and a winning team that won't/can't split apart would explain some of my own feelings of discontent with Lusternia.

Saved me time having to cut down his post.