Rauhaur2011-12-19 19:16:14
Lilia:
I have an alt in Serenwilde, and when I logged on earlier today, I was very disappointed by a 'conversation' on CT.
This was the perfect opportunity to have some very engaging discussion with the entire commune. Even if no one can agree on one correct answer, the very act of talking about it will stick with people, and maybe they'll be more interested in learning about the ethereal plane. They will generate more questions, which generate more discussion, and so on.
I just feel like the above quote really exemplifies what's 'wrong' with Serenwilde, from an outsider's perspective. You say you have no direction, no one's engaged, but when you're given an opportunity to do something about it, even if it's as small as a chat on CT, you shrug and ignore it. So my answer to your question, Anita, would be to stop treating everything as nothing more than a game mechanic. Play up the RP behind things as much as you can. It's the only thing that truely separates you from any other org.
EDIT: Gah, where did those even come from?!?
I also found it a little disturbing how everyone seemed to be responding to a very different question than what was asked, but misunderstandings happen and this stood out to me because over the passed six weeks I'd never seen such an instance of mass confusion. My advice to the poster would be to play your alt a bit more and get a better feel for the people who you accuse of not caring. As the collected Seren have given me the impression that they are, in general, actually very interested in RP and the state of the organization and its members, I suggest that the basis for your accusations is not sound.
Saran2011-12-19 20:28:14
I'll be honest, I thought she was looking for them until I read the quote >_>
Anita2011-12-19 22:13:54
Just to clarify, Anrisi is actually a he. Not a she. :)
Lilia2011-12-19 22:15:08
As I said, this is coming from an outsider's perspective. I'm not saying that they don't care, more that they seem to have no idea how to help themselves. Tulemrah is constantly frustrated by the attitude a few Serens seem to have when it comes to alliance related things.
Enyalida2011-12-19 22:51:37
Which is extremely confusing, as Hallifax was totally indifferent to defending any of their territories for a very long time.
Unknown2011-12-20 05:14:17
Oh you guys, stop being so snippy. You only have each other, don't wanna break that eh.
Jayden2011-12-20 16:21:08
Wow, am I the only one who absolutely enjoyed their time as Minister of Culture....
Enyalida2011-12-20 16:26:12
I've been minister of Culture before, it wasn't too bad. I also didn't get terribly much done. I like to think I engaged a lot of people in various activities, but there wasn't anything major. Not the best time evar though.
Jayden2011-12-20 16:45:19
Thats the thing though. I never looked at it like we need this huge massive production every rl month to satiate the masses. I always liked the small little things. Quizzes, weevil hunts, design contests.. granted I dont think I ever had zero participation
Rika2011-12-20 21:28:06
MoCA is easy when your org is thriving and people are happy to participate. Really, anyone can do it if things are going well.
It's pretty much impossible to get people to participate if they don't want to, though. No amount of incentives will change that.
It's pretty much impossible to get people to participate if they don't want to, though. No amount of incentives will change that.
Lendren2011-12-21 18:35:27
Tully asked me to chime in on this thread, but I really don't think there's anything much productive I can add. This seems like the kind of thread where if you weren't in the first five posts, it's too late, the thread's already built itself on assumptions that I think missed the point before it began.
I reject the idea that Serenwilde lacks purpose or focus because of the nebulousness of what "nature" means. That's just dwelling on a symptom. Serenwilde's focus is crisper than Glomdoring's, and that was never what was holding Glomdoring back when it was on the bottom, and it's not what holds Serenwilde back now. Serenwilde has a ton of lore to work with, and could build from it in a New York minute. The mere fact of being the only organization that doesn't just think it's right, but actually, by happy coincidence, is, could sustain it indefinitely.
I also reject, vehemently, the idea that the problem with Serenwilde is this super-exaggerated and mostly imaginary fight between "bubbly" and "fierce", or between being "pacifist" and "combatant". That is just the ghost of Achaea and Aetolia haunting us, prejudices that have no basis here and simply don't fit. There is no conflict between being joyful, and being rugged, between being affectionate and being serious. Every single time someone drags Serenwilde down that false alley that weakens it, diffuses what little is left of its focus. That's been true since day one, it was true through the entire time Serenwilde is on top, and it's still true now. In fact, taking every person who thinks the secret to Serenwilde's revitalization is being more angsty and dour and dark, and putting them all in a box, and dropping into the Void, would probably do more to help Serenwilde become stronger and tougher and more purposeful, than would dropping all the fluffy-bunnies and Lunalos. The latter are ridiculous and annoying, but they also have no actual impact on the culture. The former, however, are taken seriously while they undermine their own efforts and intent. I know they're doing it with the best of intentions. But they are simply wrong.
Someone posted a few pages back about the question about the opposums, and Tully also talked about how Serenwilde doesn't seem to know the abstruse bits of lore very well. These point to another issue. It's true that a lot of people don't know the answers because they are too disheartened or exhausted to keep up with every twist in the lore. But it doesn't help that our lore keeps being changed. Not added to: changed. After a while, why even bother to know the answer to a question like, what is Maeve, or what kind of spirit is the Tree of Trees? It'll all turn out to be wrong by next spring anyway. Some event will turn out that all our memories and histories were misleadingly incomplete or manipulated or the meaning of the most basic things like the Great Spirits themselves will be changed. The first ten times that's exciting, but by the thirtieth time, it gets to where you just don't care to keep up with it anymore. Or you only keep up with the few bits that matter to you personally. The exception of course is people who intend to compete in the Knowledge games. But who keeps up with it because they actually care about it, itself? Maybe people who have the luxury.
Add to that the times where the change has no in-game explanation beyond an Announce post written in OOC language. Does anyone actually know why we get opossums? If there was some lore about that, I don't remember hearing about it. The only real answer is "because of a game mechanic". When you get right down to it, is there any single thing you can point to about the lore of the forests that has a straightforward answer that isn't OOC and that hasn't been reinvented at least twice since the game started? Ultimately the design flaw we're facing is the difference between how the lore of cities ties to one another, and how the lore of forests ties to one another. The way the forests share more than the cities is a good idea on paper. Anyone can point to one or another time when it turned out to make a great story. But we've also been fighting against it every year since Lusternia started, and for all that fighting, it still continually undermines the forests in just precisely this way. I think this is a design flaw we're going to have to live with forever. It's far too late to change it. And changing it would just mean another, bigger, more painful reinventing of all our lore, like the ones I just railed about a paragraph above.
Almost everything on this thread focuses on symptoms. There's one cause: fatigue. Being the loser for a fight is exhilirating. Being the loser for a month is a little eh. Being the loser for six months is wearying. Being the loser for a year undermines everything, but also provides chances for people to rise up out of the muck. Being the loser for two years is crippling. Being the loser for three years... there is a point of no return. It's not just feeling beat down, that was what it was after a year. It's the fact that every single thing anyone does, no matter how motivated, how charismatic, how enthusiastic they are, has to face the lack of interest from everyone else. If you're so beat down that you can only dredge up the motivation one time in a hundred, what are the odds that the moment you get it, there will be twenty other people getting it at the same time, when they're also one in a hundred? (Let us not forget even if it does happen, the twenty people will simply motivate forty of the winners the same way,, so the end result is the same as if you didn't even bother.)
I didn't bother to post this because everyone who stubbed their toe once will chime in with the same old tired missing-the-point panaceas about how you just have to want it hard enough and how they all had to climb uphill through the snow to get their first OP skill and how every success they have was earned through nothing but raw talent, determination, and just happening to be superior beings. Either that, or that old "the wheel always turns" pablum, in which by some mechanism no one can actually point to as anything more than a byproduct of Shuyin wanting to try on a new pair of shoes, total reversal is somehow inevitable, for no reason other than it has happened as often as two, perhaps even three, times in history. And thus, the self-perpetuating nature of exhaustion and disillusionment will be brushed aside again so we can focus on the symptoms like how many people are coming to your festival. it's like concluding if your car won't start, the problem is that the lights on the dashboard aren't shining, so spending all your time on gluing battery-powered LEDs to your dashboard.
I reject the idea that Serenwilde lacks purpose or focus because of the nebulousness of what "nature" means. That's just dwelling on a symptom. Serenwilde's focus is crisper than Glomdoring's, and that was never what was holding Glomdoring back when it was on the bottom, and it's not what holds Serenwilde back now. Serenwilde has a ton of lore to work with, and could build from it in a New York minute. The mere fact of being the only organization that doesn't just think it's right, but actually, by happy coincidence, is, could sustain it indefinitely.
I also reject, vehemently, the idea that the problem with Serenwilde is this super-exaggerated and mostly imaginary fight between "bubbly" and "fierce", or between being "pacifist" and "combatant". That is just the ghost of Achaea and Aetolia haunting us, prejudices that have no basis here and simply don't fit. There is no conflict between being joyful, and being rugged, between being affectionate and being serious. Every single time someone drags Serenwilde down that false alley that weakens it, diffuses what little is left of its focus. That's been true since day one, it was true through the entire time Serenwilde is on top, and it's still true now. In fact, taking every person who thinks the secret to Serenwilde's revitalization is being more angsty and dour and dark, and putting them all in a box, and dropping into the Void, would probably do more to help Serenwilde become stronger and tougher and more purposeful, than would dropping all the fluffy-bunnies and Lunalos. The latter are ridiculous and annoying, but they also have no actual impact on the culture. The former, however, are taken seriously while they undermine their own efforts and intent. I know they're doing it with the best of intentions. But they are simply wrong.
Someone posted a few pages back about the question about the opposums, and Tully also talked about how Serenwilde doesn't seem to know the abstruse bits of lore very well. These point to another issue. It's true that a lot of people don't know the answers because they are too disheartened or exhausted to keep up with every twist in the lore. But it doesn't help that our lore keeps being changed. Not added to: changed. After a while, why even bother to know the answer to a question like, what is Maeve, or what kind of spirit is the Tree of Trees? It'll all turn out to be wrong by next spring anyway. Some event will turn out that all our memories and histories were misleadingly incomplete or manipulated or the meaning of the most basic things like the Great Spirits themselves will be changed. The first ten times that's exciting, but by the thirtieth time, it gets to where you just don't care to keep up with it anymore. Or you only keep up with the few bits that matter to you personally. The exception of course is people who intend to compete in the Knowledge games. But who keeps up with it because they actually care about it, itself? Maybe people who have the luxury.
Add to that the times where the change has no in-game explanation beyond an Announce post written in OOC language. Does anyone actually know why we get opossums? If there was some lore about that, I don't remember hearing about it. The only real answer is "because of a game mechanic". When you get right down to it, is there any single thing you can point to about the lore of the forests that has a straightforward answer that isn't OOC and that hasn't been reinvented at least twice since the game started? Ultimately the design flaw we're facing is the difference between how the lore of cities ties to one another, and how the lore of forests ties to one another. The way the forests share more than the cities is a good idea on paper. Anyone can point to one or another time when it turned out to make a great story. But we've also been fighting against it every year since Lusternia started, and for all that fighting, it still continually undermines the forests in just precisely this way. I think this is a design flaw we're going to have to live with forever. It's far too late to change it. And changing it would just mean another, bigger, more painful reinventing of all our lore, like the ones I just railed about a paragraph above.
Almost everything on this thread focuses on symptoms. There's one cause: fatigue. Being the loser for a fight is exhilirating. Being the loser for a month is a little eh. Being the loser for six months is wearying. Being the loser for a year undermines everything, but also provides chances for people to rise up out of the muck. Being the loser for two years is crippling. Being the loser for three years... there is a point of no return. It's not just feeling beat down, that was what it was after a year. It's the fact that every single thing anyone does, no matter how motivated, how charismatic, how enthusiastic they are, has to face the lack of interest from everyone else. If you're so beat down that you can only dredge up the motivation one time in a hundred, what are the odds that the moment you get it, there will be twenty other people getting it at the same time, when they're also one in a hundred? (Let us not forget even if it does happen, the twenty people will simply motivate forty of the winners the same way,, so the end result is the same as if you didn't even bother.)
I didn't bother to post this because everyone who stubbed their toe once will chime in with the same old tired missing-the-point panaceas about how you just have to want it hard enough and how they all had to climb uphill through the snow to get their first OP skill and how every success they have was earned through nothing but raw talent, determination, and just happening to be superior beings. Either that, or that old "the wheel always turns" pablum, in which by some mechanism no one can actually point to as anything more than a byproduct of Shuyin wanting to try on a new pair of shoes, total reversal is somehow inevitable, for no reason other than it has happened as often as two, perhaps even three, times in history. And thus, the self-perpetuating nature of exhaustion and disillusionment will be brushed aside again so we can focus on the symptoms like how many people are coming to your festival. it's like concluding if your car won't start, the problem is that the lights on the dashboard aren't shining, so spending all your time on gluing battery-powered LEDs to your dashboard.
Xenthos2011-12-21 19:00:40
"Fatigue" is an overplayed card these days, at least as far as Serenwilde is concerned; your populace has been trying hard and succeeding rather well over the last few months.
It's a shame to put that down and say that their efforts haven't amounted to anything, because they have.
Your post was quite well done up until you tried to summarize it IMO; fatigue has little to do with the rest of what you were talking about. You should focus on the first part, and less on the last. The discussion your post outlines has potential to get somewhere if it does not get mired down in this boogeyman.
It's a shame to put that down and say that their efforts haven't amounted to anything, because they have.
Your post was quite well done up until you tried to summarize it IMO; fatigue has little to do with the rest of what you were talking about. You should focus on the first part, and less on the last. The discussion your post outlines has potential to get somewhere if it does not get mired down in this boogeyman.
Unknown2011-12-21 19:04:52
You just have to want it hard enough. If Glomdoring could climb uphill out of a Crow that was killed twice in a row, two Construct destructions (back when they were 'required'), dead Drums, dead Wyrdling, dead Avatars, with Narsrim bashing Daughters and having a special artifact point to the Crow nest...not to mention the severe lack of people, plus the regular drama and infighting...Serenwilde can do it, too!
With that said, I honestly hope that Shuyin and Viynain and company didn't come to Glomdoring when they did. Not that we don't appreciate them, but it just feels like they overshadow too often the work others were slaving off to do, too. Sidd, Talan, Ried, Narynth, Xenthos, Ragniliff, etc. come to mind.
P.S. I don't think Hart has died yet!
With that said, I honestly hope that Shuyin and Viynain and company didn't come to Glomdoring when they did. Not that we don't appreciate them, but it just feels like they overshadow too often the work others were slaving off to do, too. Sidd, Talan, Ried, Narynth, Xenthos, Ragniliff, etc. come to mind.
P.S. I don't think Hart has died yet!
Xenthos2011-12-21 19:07:12
He has.
He's been Admin-killed and Crow-killed.
He's been Admin-killed and Crow-killed.
Everiine2011-12-22 04:52:15
And Kalodan killed. Can't forget that.
Eritheyl2011-12-22 05:16:17
Kalodan?
Saran2011-12-22 08:30:20
eritheyl:
Kalodan?
Kalodan!!
Aww, now I has a little sad :(
Siam2011-12-22 10:37:33
Everiine:
NEVAR
See now, we'd understand you moooooooooooore than those other non-pep-post-writing-Serens will ever do. :(
*nudge*
Qistrel2011-12-22 12:00:33
I don't know why people are so hung up on this Tree wanting us to work together thing. Serenwilde doesn't follow Tree. Serenwilde follows spirits who want to slay Crow and the Avatars of Night. Tree is obviously misguided, because White Hart couldn't possibly be wrong. In fact, Tree's probably insane because of all the trees that got wyrded in Glom. Look at how he's manipulating the city people to empower the Ail'an Gloria with magical holly, thus safeguarding the forest, just by offering free commodities to greedy city people. That's a trick almost worthy of Crow himself.
See, this stuff is easy. Especially when you remember we're supposed to be spirit-worshiping wild people, as opposed to people who base all their decisions on facts and logic.
(I need to remember to use the correct punctuation in my news posts though, so I don't have random question marks all over it.)
See, this stuff is easy. Especially when you remember we're supposed to be spirit-worshiping wild people, as opposed to people who base all their decisions on facts and logic.
(I need to remember to use the correct punctuation in my news posts though, so I don't have random question marks all over it.)
Unknown2011-12-22 13:50:27
I don't know why people are so hung up on this Tree wanting us to work together thing. Serenwilde doesn't follow Tree. Serenwilde follows spirits who want to slay Crow and the Avatars of Night. Tree is obviously misguided, because White Hart couldn't possibly be wrong. In fact, Tree's probably insane because of all the trees that got wyrded in Glom. Look at how he's manipulating the city people to empower the Ail'an Gloria with magical holly, thus safeguarding the forest, just by offering free commodities to greedy city people. That's a trick almost worthy of Crow himself.
See, this stuff is easy. Especially when you remember we're supposed to be spirit-worshiping wild people, as opposed to people who base all their decisions on facts and logic.
(I need to remember to use the correct punctuation in my news posts though, so I don't have random question marks all over it.)
Tree was discussed because it's a Spirit that's more or less neutral between Night/Crow and Moon/Hart, like Maeve, or Rock, or Snake, etc. Serenwilde is trying to find a purpose greater than just antagonizing Night and Crow and Glomdoring and the Wyrd, because existence just for the purpose of being the negative component gives Serenwilde very little depth. What happens after Night and Crow are dead? Does Serenwilde just cease to exist? Does it move to bring the fae under its control and subvert Maeve under its influence? How, then, is it any different from Glomdoring?
Dismissing Tree in particular, as you did, would be a bad move especially because Serenwilde is a forest full of trees, and the Moonhart Mother Tree was a seed of the Tree of Trees. The same goes for Maeve, because she's the Queen of the Fae and Fae (which include the lesser and the Great Spirits Moon and Hart) are supposed to be a very big part of Serenwilde identity.
But hey, if that's the way you want to take it, go ahead. Just expect every Glomdoring member to laugh in your face since you're living in a forest of Wyrd-touched trees and using the magic of Wyrden Maeve, and yet oppose the Wyrd. Go you!
