Third Black Wave: Electric Boogaloo

Telendrieth

Synthus said:

Telendrieth said:

[snip] then please kindly go subject yourself to watching "The Room" because you deserve it. [snip]

"Oh hai, Ama-maark!"

I laughed at that, and I hate you a little for it. XD

Cooper

Synthus said:

I mean, considering how things played out last night and what all they brought against Cyrene, I seriously doubt they had a lose condition.

@Synthus

You are very wrong. 

Melodie

PLAN FOR ALL CONTINGENCIES. 

Synthus

Cooper said:

Synthus said:

I mean, considering how things played out last night and what all they brought against Cyrene, I seriously doubt they had a lose condition.

@Synthus

You are very wrong. 

Wouldn't be the first time, and I doubt it would be the last.

That said, what does that "lose" condition even look like? Total Withdrawal? Shattering the divine shrines in Cyrene? Blu dying in a sacrificial death while taking out Ama-Maalier?

With the build up to the demonstration, and how the plot has more or less been screaming "Tsol'Teth = Danger Will Robinson, Danger!" I really doubt the "lose" scenario for the Tsol'Teth wouldn't have still resulted in a deep wound for Cyrene in some way. 

Lenn

The admins are known for claiming to work 24/7 but eventually Sarapis will come and yell at them for playing text games instead of working. You just have to outlast that!

Tesha

My understanding of these things is there is more of a spectrum than a black and white "win" and "lose". That's why it's problematic to view events in that sort of sense. There were probably multiple options for complete and utter failure on behalf of the Tsol'teth, and there were probably multiple options for a 100% defeat for Sapience, too. It's like simplifying a beautiful game of chess down to "well you lost this is the worst thing ever". There's a lot to appreciate about the different moving pieces, how the guards were used as pawns (lol), how the shrines were largely unseen by us until it was too late, etc.

The admin team is incredible about working with what players give in events. I assume part of the reason Gattan'bahar was unaffected by the Staff at first was they didn't have something prepared for that code-wise.

I also assume that for every piece of content we see, there's many other versions of what could have happened, pre-written and ready to be adjusted as needed. It seems like you're vastly oversimplifying and underestimating just how much work the admin have to do to pull off events like this, and it frankly comes across as exceedingly ungrateful. I don't say that with the goal of hurting your feelings, but more with the hope that the admin team feels as appreciated as they are. They're hands-down one of the best parts about Achaea and they're also part of why the game has held my interest for so many years.

Cooper

Tesha, if you're going to assume that a Tsol'teth should die if they hold the staff and there should be something coded for that, then you also need to assume that the Tsol'teth are going to want to stop you from handing it to them, and would simply refuse to accept it or touch it. They are stronger and faster than us, so it's crazy to think that you could hand a Tsol'teth something that they didn't want.

Lenn

Curious if anyone's tried giving them bombs or fireworks.

Tesha

I disagree there, Cooper. Why would I need to assume that? The Tsol'teth probably didn't even think of it as a faint possibility, and it's completely possible to surprise them. From an OOC perspective I think it would be very sad to assume the admin have thought of everything and therefore nothing outside the box would work; from an IC perspective there was nothing to suggest it wouldn't work. Either way, if "They are stronger and faster than us" was reasoning for not being able to hand a Tsol'teth something they didn't want, it would also be reasoning for not being able to kill or even to hit them period. That line of thinking is in the same direction as to why bodily waste functions aren't part of the game; sometimes suspension of disbelief is necessary.

I also didn't think there should be something coded for that; I said I thought that could be part of why there wasn't an immediate effect. Please don't base an argument around twisted words.

Atalkez

Only thing she did wrong was not having a friendly Devo user to force wield

Armali

Jokes on you, Tsol'teth invented steelmind.

Tesha

Honestly I don't think force would work on them, but that sort of thing is fun to brainstorm about!

Shirszae

Personally I think being killed by our guards was an awesome touch to drive the point home. Everyone who knows their lore knows they have the litany. So as long as they didn't use it, itd mean they were holding back, and to me at least that would have been unsatisfying.

I wish the Tsolteh were not so frankly overpowered but I understand why it's necessary. 

Minifie

I do think the RP outside of directly engaging the Tsol’teth has been awesome too, so much discussions, tensions flaring up, insinuations of treason and potential mortal subversion to help the Tsol’teth. Feels a hell of a lot more player-driven when almost all of this is being driven by players, the bad guys just been the force that pushes our plots along.

Asmodron

omg omg omg. We get to play the villains! I love it!

Taryius

Asmodron said:

omg omg omg. We get to play the villains! I love it!

Welcome to the Dark Side. (Pun intended)

Asmodron

During a raid suddenly:

Gattan'bahar raises her arms skyward, a sinister smirk adorning her features.
Total darkness falls upon your location, the might of Gattan'bahar banishing all illumination from
the land.

Gattan'bahar purses her lips, deep in thought.

Nahu'an clears his throat in an attempt to gain everyone's attention.

Me:

Kaedan

Dammit. I'm never logging out again, there are too many twists to this event, I can't keep missing them.

Mroxyl

My last post, I said it was interesting. I didn't say it's fun, because it's not for me. I have zero interest in PvP, which is what a lot of this seems to be turning into. Outside of that, you can play whack a mole endlessly with the tide creatures. Yay?

Losing the city, my house, and everything I've put into it has made it worse. I've played every city and village that has any interest me, and that's why I play in Cyrene. Moving isn't an interest at all.  I'm at the point of wishing I'd not made my monthly payment two days ago, because I'd have cancelled it last night.

Tahquil

Wait until the end of the event. Surely it won't be as long as Shallamese had to wait to get a new home.

Armali

To be fair, if he votes with his wallet, maybe instead of 'surely' it'll be 'definitely'.

Shub

Did I miss something big? I’m at a bachelor party tonight, I’m not the groom. Alcohol and scantly clad women are kind of fun but ... what are the tsol’teth doing omg

Makarios

Armali said:

Jokes on you, Tsol'teth invented steelmind.

I can verify that Gattan'bahar (and several other Tsol'teth) did not have the steelmind defence during the raid. This probably would've worked!

Thaisen

Shub said:

Did I miss something big? I’m at a bachelor party tonight, I’m not the groom. Alcohol and scantly clad women are kind of fun but ... what are the tsol’teth doing omg

Yes

Tesha

The "shoulda forced" thing feels a little bit like a hindsight is 20/20 situation, really; there wasn't any clue or way to know that touching the Staff alone would work out the way it did, only evidence suggesting it would be catastrophic for the Tsol'teth. We still haven't seen exactly what the results of that were yet, though, so I think it's too early to deem it a complete failure!

Skye

Asmodron said:

omg omg omg. We get to play the villains! I love it!

Regardless, we would like you to acknowledge this. I have taken the liberty of signing it for you:

Asmodron

For those that dont like to read something that they wouldnt see in-character, I've put the following in Spoiler tags, but it was too cool not to post:

2019/04/27 03:46:47 - House of Blood has declared relations with your organisation as ALLIED.
2019/04/27 03:47:20 - House of Hate has declared relations with your organisation as ALLIED.
2019/04/27 03:47:31 - House of Dark has declared relations with your organisation as ALLIED.

Kaden

Forget steelmind. I just wished ret worked.

Kiet

Why are some of you so averse to losing?

My last big event participation resulted in me playing a role in summoning Pazuzu and getting yelled at by  (indirectly) Sartan and (directly) his npc's over it and that's about as big of a personal loss you can get in an event (also Krypton stole my one moment of glory!). OOCly, I didn't and still don't give a shit because it was a fun story and ICly brushing mistakes off is a big part of my character's personality so it was incredibly funny in a way, too.

Several of my favorite Houses are gone forever, at least two divine that I really liked and that had orders in Mhaldor are gone forever, lots of smaller player-made orgs and clans I enjoyed are have been gone for ages! None of this is worth throwing a tantrum over, the game changes and evolves and that's actually a positive. Stop clinging to things in a game that's meant to have an evolving story, if Achaea was completely static it'd be most other online games and you've got lots of choices there.

This is, of course, without even taking into account that it's very unlikely Cyrene is gone forever, but people are already acting like it is for some bizarre reason.

Also, if you believe these events are 100% railroaded it's you're demonstrably wrong, lots of previous events have depended on our actions and, like someone said earlier, the issue is more that people screw up repeatedly. A lot of people simply don't even try to influence events and then complain that it didn't go their way. Or, if they try, it's ignoring the logic that's set up for them.

Telendrieth

Kiet said:

Lotsa stuff

I'm explaining my feelings based on what I experienced. The key word in yours was that you played a role, you got burned by choices you made. That sucks, but it's part of a story. 

I logged in to a drydocked ship and started the process of raising her. Then to try and help I whipped out the card I had been using to teleport to meropis... only to find they had removed outer island feature. No ships I could board to get back to the mainland so I said eff it and killed myself to get home faster. Sitting through the new undead version of dying has always grated on my nerves a bit, and when I finally was able to make it back to the mainland the city just teleported me out and I watched people slaughtered. Endless baiting by a mix of news posts, dying NPCs, channels sputtering, etc. At that point there wasn't anything I could really do. I also work 13 hour shifts throughout the weekends. So, as always, as soon as Hashan was revealing their treason I knew I had to go to bed if I wanted any chance of giving proper care to my nearly 30 patients. 

Sure the story is cool, I'm not arguing about most of the storytelling. If it was in a book I'd definitely enjoy it. Experiencing it the way I did and not being able to do anything about it is downright frustrating as all hell. Mind you, I'm not like.. blasting Nic or Mak or anything. Like I just said, the event is neat. I'm just giving a purely subjective outlook on how I've experienced it.

Just as an aside, I have no darn clue if Cyrene will be gone for good or not. But I do find it amusing that people are dumping on people who are like "Nah this is fine, cataclysms happen every few decades", but also feeling like acting that your city is gone for good is "Bizarre". At this point they could literally go nah.. Cyrene's gone, integrate into the other cities for all I know.