The Bal'met event

Wynedere

Tirac said:

Seriously guys? I ignored the idiots and had fun, just like every other day in Achaea. Epic conclusion to an epic event, only slightly tarnished by the antics of idiots and massive lag during the start. Did not see demigodhood coming for all of us.

Also does this mean the player behind Sarapis is leaving as well? Hopefully not because he and Tecton have really been bringing their A-game lately.

I echo the bolded. Achaea has been -so- much better since Sarapis popped back in. Please, stay? Tecton has also been doing a great job.

Sarapis

Tagg said:

Yup, only thing that sucked about it was the lag and the Gods channel, no complaints otherwise. GG, please don't let this be the last event for 7 years or whatever again

It won't be, but I'd also caution not to expect all-encompassing multi-month events like this very hard. They are extremely taxing on us to pull off. Tecton & Maya, in particular, were working until 4 am+ many times during this event, and many of us lost a lot of sleep over it. It's just a huge investment of time for us, and that time, of course, can't be used to do other things (classleads, bugs, new systems, revisions of systems, etc).

It's a balance is all I'm saying.  >-

Narcos

I don't believe people hated it as much as they just love to complain.

Overall, pretty cool and had fun..

Tagg

Oh I definitely realize you're not about to jump straight into another one, lol. Just hoping this is the beginning of smaller-scale ones more often, on top of occasional larger ones.

Sarapis

Tirac said:

Seriously guys? I ignored the idiots and had fun, just like every other day in Achaea. Epic conclusion to an epic event, only slightly tarnished by the antics of idiots and massive lag during the start. Did not see demigodhood coming for all of us.

Also does this mean the player behind Sarapis is leaving as well? Hopefully not because he and Tecton have really been bringing their A-game lately.

Nope, the player behind Sarapis (me) is unaffected. We removed Sarapis just because having a nigh all-powerful Creator God around is a pain in the ass plot-wise. The question is perpetually, "Why didn't he just fix it with a wave of his hand?"

Athanasius

The part about the Fire in Sarapis' last speech was interesting, would love to see what impact it has on IG ideologies regarding Creation/Chaos. 

The event itself was epic. The lag was awful, especially while hunting shades, where my commands were going in a full 5 minutes after I'd typed them. But eh, I had fun! From where I was standing, it was only a minority indulging in idiocy, easily ignored. 

Synbios

Barring the unfortunate lag, the event was awesome.

Sarapis

Wynedere said:

Tirac said:

Seriously guys? I ignored the idiots and had fun, just like every other day in Achaea. Epic conclusion to an epic event, only slightly tarnished by the antics of idiots and massive lag during the start. Did not see demigodhood coming for all of us.

Also does this mean the player behind Sarapis is leaving as well? Hopefully not because he and Tecton have really been bringing their A-game lately.

I echo the bolded. Achaea has been -so- much better since Sarapis popped back in. Please, stay? Tecton has also been doing a great job.

Well, I don't work full-time on Achaea as I run Iron Realms and mess around with some other stuff, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm effectively acting as Executive Producer to Tecton's Producer role on Achaea. What that boils down to is that while I'll be helping Tecton with high-level direction for the game, when it comes to actually getting tangible things done, Tecton's the guy delegating the actual tasks to others as well as accomplishing quite a bit of them himself. 

So while the impetus for this event may have been mine, and the very broad (very very broad) strokes were ideas from me, that's like 1% of the actual work involved, if that. It's the easy part. Everything after that is a team effort, from figuring out the individual details of the various plot sections to coding what needs coding (quite a lot in this event) to building new areas, altering existing ones, creating NPCs, writing the scripts for the event, writing the events posts, etc etc is all a team effort. Heck, even figuring out major plot elements was a group effort. Can't tell you how many hours just in meetings we spent trying to hammer the details out so that they made sense, so that they accomplished our goals with this event, and so that they were actually something we could pull off.

Team Achaea! 

Synbios

Also, the endgame:

As the gruesome likenesses fall to the Gods, They draw nearer and nearer to the true form of Bal'met.

 Finally, Bal'met stands alone amidst the ring of encroaching deities.

Across the battlefields and plains of Achaea, the voice of Aegis, God of War resounds like thunder, 

"You have managed the one thing that has never happened before, Bal'met. You have at last united all 

of the Gods in a single purpose: Your defeat. Sartan cast you into Nishnatoba, intending it to be a 

prison. Now it will be your grave."

Furiously the Gods hurl fire, lightning, and myriad magics unknown to mortal apprehension. Lighting 

the skies and shaking the planes, They act with one accord to divert Bal'met from His terrible 

purpose.

Beautiful and awesome in Her growing power, Aurora stands alone, unmoving and focused. Once more She 

wields the Sword of Dunamis in Her hands, and hungry fire courses down the blade's length.

With murmured words Deucalion begins to direct the prayers of the faithful into a shining shield, 

standing beside Aurora and protecting Her with His arm extended.

Nodding to Deucalion, Aurora advances, the Sword of Dunamis extended as Her own arm.

Booming with laughter, Bal'met lashes out at the Lightbringer, cracking whips of force that tear at 

Her like seething whips of pure pain.

Aurora continues Her assault, augmented by the unwavering attacks of the Gods that surround Bal'met, 

and Deucalion cries out in pain as He takes His bloodsworn's wounds upon Himself.

Rich motes of lucent clarity suffuse the skies as the Lightbringer evokes, "Aeon has foreseen your 

fall. By Our hands you will be unmade, and His vision will come to pass."

Drawing back the blazing Sword of Dunamis, Aurora lunges forward and buries it in Bal'met, and a 

ghastly chorus of a thousand wailing voices tears across the planes.

Unforming and writhing upon the blade, Bal'met claws out at Aurora with devastating brutality, but 

She stays firm, holding the hilt steady as the Gods strain, overcoming the diminishing god with the 

strength of Their combined powers.

With an ear-splitting cry that shakes the foundations of every plane, causing the seas to swell and 

the skies to weep tears, Bal'met is forced to relinquish His grasp on reality.

Held hostage by the Blade of Dunamis, Bal'met perishes in agony, utterly destroyed by the magnified 

power of the Pantheon.

Blujixapug

Sarapis said:

Zuko said:

RIP LORD SARAPIS OF THE LOGOS You were amazing

Just to be clear, Sarapis isn't dead, but he's gone for a span of time that far exceeds that of the likely survival of the world.

Good night, sweet prince.

Ognog

Bal'met may be gone, but there are still a lot of things yet to be resolved. Many of the adventurers of Sapience are still somewhat disenfranchised at the moment, namely the former citizens of Shallam, the former followers of Kastalia and Lorielan for example.

Kazu

The Xorani plague is still around as well.

Ephram

Is the zombie dragon who is no longer a zombie still alive? And going to make people dragons again? I got spammed out and couldn't tell who lived and who died...

Siena

It's a tad frustrating.

Dracot

Loved the event, and I love the fact that I can sit here forging for the house newbies for a bit even though I'm a Bard.

Wysteria

There will always be questions left unanswered after a war. It is a matter of waiting to see what happens and how we play it out ourselves.

Brilliant, epic work, everyone. To the staff, the players…bar the lag…it was an amazing feat. Kudos to everyone.

Also: Demigod powers. Awesome. Got to play with setting up every possible defence known to man

Dracot

Oh and sorry, the spam of people saying History was kinda my fault, I did History Gods, trying to catch what Phaestus has said, but it still went through to the chat for some reason, and people starting spamming history. My bad

Skye

It was okay for the non-mana users but I leaned on my stormhammer macro trying to get attacks in until I ran out of mana trying to chase balance >_>

But the lag aside, it was amazing :,)

Katzchen

Dracot said:

Oh and sorry, the spam of people saying History was kinda my fault, I did History Gods, trying to catch what Phaestus has said, but it still went through to the chat for some reason, and people starting spamming history. My bad

This is how it probably went.

Gods: Dracot says "History"

ten other people think: hey, history, I wonder if there's anything interesting there. He must have screwed it up, let's try it.

... outcome.

Asmodron

Dracot said:

Oh and sorry, the spam of people saying History was kinda my fault, I did History Gods, trying to catch what Phaestus has said, but it still went through to the chat for some reason, and people starting spamming history. My bad

You deserve to burn for that one -,-

Asmodron

In other news. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED IT!!

Asmo went a bit crazy afterwards with all his powers abusing them left and right (sorry Hashan ).

Other than that, I feel this event still has many unanswered questions for future stories. What happened to Ashaxei's father? What will the refugees do now? With the Pentad and Creator gone, what will become of Achaea? Is this the dawn of a new age in Achaea? Will the Calendar be reset for A.S (After Sarapis)? More and more!.

Also:

You raise your fists above your head.
Concentrating briefly, you cause rippling crimson fire to flow from the heavens
above into a ball of energy between your upraised fists. Scornfully, you throw
your fists forward, sending a beam of crackling energy to incinerate a colossal
Dala'myrr. The final blow proves too much for a colossal Dala'myrr, who expires
pitifully.


^ win. Game over. Achaea life complete.

Katzchen

I never did get to zap anything. Katz is far too responsible to ignore orders and return zaps from enemies, and the Dala'myrr died too quickly to get one off.

Idelisa

Katzchen said:

I never did get to zap anything. Katz is far too responsible to ignore orders and return zaps from enemies, and the Dala'myrr died too quickly to get one off.

Phrasing.

Katzchen

Idelisa said:

Katzchen said:

I never did get to zap anything. Katz is far too responsible to ignore orders and return zaps from enemies, and the Dala'myrr died too quickly to get one off.

Phrasing.

Bit of a stretch there.

Azor

Let the record show, I landed the killing blow on zombie Matsuhama! Seriously though, awesome conclusion. Huge kudos to all involved.

Idelisa

Clearly not in my brain.

Jamethiel

I do have something to say but I'm a little not happy at the moment, so I'll just shut up. For once.

Tanris

Absolutely outstanding ending to the event. Sure it was laggy, but you had over 100 people in one room at points spamming their bashing macro, you can't really expect anything else. I for one was far happier at least having the opportunity to have that pretty character defining opportunity to participate in that way. Being able to say that your character participated in a war on the scale of the war of humanity is something its unlikely any other people will get the opportunity to do, or at least not for rl years (you can't exactly whip up a god-eating entity every month or so).

Sure, people can say they'd have preferred the emotes, but I'm calling bs. If you'd had those two options laid on the table from the start, lag or not the vast majority would have wanted it this way.

Plus, the content was just epic, as Delphinus said. You got to face off with twisted shades of divinities while empowered by Maya, then the conclusion speech by Sarapis was one of the most emotional pieces I think we've seen in a very long time.

On that note, has anyone prayed yet? Assuming Maya's gone,  I was wondering how that'd changed.

Nellaundra

Tanris said:

Absolutely outstanding ending to the event. Sure it was laggy, but you had over 100 people in one room at points spamming their bashing macro, you can't really expect anything else. I for one was far happier at least having the opportunity to have that pretty character defining opportunity to participate in that way. Being able to say that your character participated in a war on the scale of the war of humanity is something its unlikely any other people will get the opportunity to do, or at least not for rl years (you can't exactly whip up a god-eating entity every month or so).

Sure, people can say they'd have preferred the emotes, but I'm calling bs. If you'd had those two options laid on the table from the start, lag or not the vast majority would have wanted it this way.

Plus, the content was just epic, as Delphinus said. You got to face off with twisted shades of divinities while empowered by Maya, then the conclusion speech by Sarapis was one of the most emotional pieces I think we've seen in a very long time.

On that note, has anyone prayed yet? Assuming Maya's gone,  I was wondering how that'd changed.

I got zapped by someone a bit after the whole thing.  Still no difference.

Dracot

Asmodron said:

Dracot said:

Oh and sorry, the spam of people saying History was kinda my fault, I did History Gods, trying to catch what Phaestus has said, but it still went through to the chat for some reason, and people starting spamming history. My bad

You deserve to burn for that one -,-

I'm sorry. I'm sorryyyyyyyyyyy.