Third Black Wave: Electric Boogaloo

Kresslack

Agreed. These world events are part of what makes Achaea so great and enjoyable to many. An every shifting landscape, often influenced by the players themselves. It's a very unique dynamic, and a very effective way of introducing new content, especially when it comes to new races and classes.

Melodie

Taryius said:

Sylcine, a very beloved and historical denizen, just had her story ended (retroactively ended too!) one day.

      

Sartan

Melodie said:

Taryius said:

Sylcine, a very beloved and historical denizen, just had her story ended (retroactively ended too!) one day.

      

Melodie

      

Asmodron

The sweltering heat of the forge spills out across the land as the rumbling voice of Phaestus booms, "Your children have claimed their freedom, as well as power, allies, and the security of their lineage, and yet Your armies still scour Our lands. You are pushing Your luck, Genesis."

Innumerable voices resonate as one as Tlalaiad, the Genesis dictates, "The fall of Luck has proven His inefficiency. We have no need for such frivolities."

Maeander, Augur of the Sea shouts, "I tire of Your forces trying to exert their influence over My waters. Relinquish, or I'll bring the Sea to Your children. As You have no doubt seen, that is most effective."

The rumble of distant oceans can be heard as the voice of Neraeos, God of the Sea thunders, "I tire of Your forces trying to exert their influence over My waters. Relinquish, or I'll bring the Sea to Your children. As You have no doubt seen, that is most effective."

Thousands of daemons howl and shriek as Sartan, the Malevolent roars above the cacophony, "You would be wise to heed His advice, Godling. Otherwise I will introduce you to a true "tide" and wipe You and yours from the face of this world."

The silken voice of the Dark Father reverberates from everywhere and nowhere, "Ha, Your forces occupy themselves by failing at the games of children. How fitting a flock for such a primitive Master."

The skies of Creation shatter beneath the Storm's incandescent fury as the Skylord intones, "You are trying My patience, abomination. So My count will go to five before I end first your five and then you."

The silken voice of the Dark Father reverberates from everywhere and nowhere, "If You count anywhere near as well as Your followers, We shall be here for days to come."

Innumerable voices resonate as one as Tlalaiad, the Genesis dictates, "Our tide is but a means, and that means has met its end."

Myriad whispers rise as a unified voice intones with utmost clarity, "Atin."

The relentless onslaught of the Tide suddenly halts.

Tsol'teth influence evaporating into naught but a memory, the amaranthine fog recedes into the earth with nary a sound.

Cailin

Thank you very much. I love god shouts, and I wasn't there for that.

Asmodron

Cailin said:

Thank you very much. I love god shouts, and I wasn't there for that.

I know the feeling. I'm often upset when shouts and actions that happen in the game arent copied to the forums for others to enjoy, so I do what I can.

[Deleted User]

Asmodron said:

Cailin said:

Thank you very much. I love god shouts, and I wasn't there for that.

I know the feeling. I'm often upset when shouts and actions that happen in the game arent copied to the forums for others to enjoy, so I do what I can.

"JuSt FiND oUt In GaMe."

     ~ Cooper.

Keorin

Gotta say, I'm fairly disappointed by the literal deus ex machina

Penwize

Keorin said:

Gotta say, I'm fairly disappointed by the literal deus ex machina

Fairly disappointed doesn't even begin to cover it.

Taryius

We need to stop trying to find a decisive end to events, yeesh. The Tide is gone, but that's it.. The Tsol'teth still exist, the Underrealm still exists, their goals haven't changed and neither has their threat.

If anything it just goes to show how hard it is to actually please people. People complain about the Tide existing for so long so the Gods stand up saying they are sick of Tlalaiad pestering the Overland, the Tide gets removed and people complain about it. Anyway.

I enjoyed the Ceremony and the interactions the Gods had with Tlalaiad, very intruiging to reveal the different way each God treated Him, I loved it. I look forward to more with the Tsol'teth, its incredibly interesting to have a grand villainous race pave itself as a faction akin to any other, with all the stubbornness and advantages Good, Evil, Chaos, Nature and so on all have. Forces you to look at the situation entirely different to other big bads.

Asmodron

An unsettling, omnipresent penumbra manifests, the light of the sun dwindling into the sudden, hollow emptiness of an eclipse with the manifestation of Twilight, the Dark Father.

The silken voice of the Dark Father reverberates from everywhere and nowhere, "I take what is now Mine, by accord."

With a hissing sigh, spiralling trails of energy seep up towards the dark sun, the remaining fragments of Yudhishthira's once-grand working claimed at last by the Great Lord of the Dark.

Darkness recedes, the light of the sun shining down upon Achaea once more.

Lenn

Taryius said:

If anything it just goes to show how hard it is to actually please people. People complain about the Tide existing for so long so the Gods stand up saying they are sick of Tlalaiad pestering the Overland, the Tide gets removed and people complain about it. Anyway.

You can't please everyone all the time.

Thaisen

Taryius said:

We need to stop trying to find a decisive end to events, yeesh. The Tide is gone, but that's it.. The Tsol'teth still exist, the Underrealm still exists, their goals haven't changed and neither has their threat.

Yep...looking forward to the fourth black wave...keep 'em coming...

Telendrieth

I'm trying to find a way to write something up that won't end up with Telendrieth being shrubbed. 

It also wouldn't be too terribly hard to please people if a lot of it didn't feel like one sided lip service. 

Caelan

Basically..when they come back, IPBan and shrub Tesha (and now Farrah). 

Also, now the admin can dish on what they thought was going to happen, how close everyone came, etc.. @Makarios and @Nicola. 

Keorin

Personally, it's not that I want some kind of definite end, but I do want to feel like the choices and work done by a vast number of players isn't just swept under the rug.

The tide has been an omnipresent part of the Tsol'teth's threat for what, six weeks now? People have spent a -ton- of their playtime fighting it, driving it back, trying to discover ways we might defeat it. For all of that to be resolved by a few gods telling Tlalaiad that it's time to stop and go home, and he does, it feels like it makes the consistent work that people have been putting in weren't all that relevant at all. -Especially- because it's been IG years of the gods saying that they couldn't really intervene against the Tsol'teth, so just suddenly handwaving a reason why that's no longer a thing just further undermines a big source of narrative conflict.

I don't care if there's not a decisive end. Things don't have to end with the Tsol'teth being destroyed or getting sealed away. The threat of the tide ending isn't the problem, and it being an indefinite end also isn't a problem, it's -how- it was ended that's frustrating. Especially given all the work that players have been putting in to find some solution to it, I think it's a development that really deserved to have some actual player involvement.

Penwize

Taryius said:

We need to stop trying to find a decisive end to events, yeesh. The Tide is gone, but that's it.. The Tsol'teth still exist, the Underrealm still exists, their goals haven't changed and neither has their threat.

If anything it just goes to show how hard it is to actually please people. People complain about the Tide existing for so long so the Gods stand up saying they are sick of Tlalaiad pestering the Overland, the Tide gets removed and people complain about it. Anyway.

I enjoyed the Ceremony and the interactions the Gods had with Tlalaiad, very intruiging to reveal the different way each God treated Him, I loved it. I look forward to more with the Tsol'teth, its incredibly interesting to have a grand villainous race pave itself as a faction akin to any other, with all the stubbornness and advantages Good, Evil, Chaos, Nature and so on all have. Forces you to look at the situation entirely different to other big bads.

I think you misinterpret where the disappointment comes from.

Disappointment comes from proof positive that this was railroaded.  That nothing we (the Coalition) did or could have done would have changed how this event played out.  That the significant resources spent by two cities are now lost, with no real recourse.  The sheer amount of gold this has costed both Ashtan and Cyrene is a non-trivial concern, as are the sheer number of credits put up for Keorin's alternative games.

Time, effort, and resources were spent, and I'm not sure those on the side that just arbitrarily got assigned the loss feel they were spent well, or taken fairly.

Yes, the Tide is gone, but it was removed by an act of deus ex machina, instead of any kind of grand triumph for the Coalition side.  That's something that's been consistently denied this side of the game, and I think that's a glaring problem.

Makarios

Caelan said:

Basically..when they come back, IPBan and shrub Tesha (and now Farrah). 

Also, now the admin can dish on what they thought was going to happen, how close everyone came, etc.. @Makarios and @Nicola. 

Sure, hit us with your questions. May be a bit delayed in responding as we're winding down for the night and have a few things to prep for tomorrow, but we'll answer what we can!

Mroxyl

@Makarios why force so much of this? 

Makarios

Mroxyl said:

@Makarios why force so much of this? 

You're going to need to be more specific.

Asmodron

Ma questions:

- Was it always planned for the Tsol'teth to get the staff, or did Tesha's act inspire the entire championship theme?

- During the second Tsol'teth siege to attack fonts, was it considered that Ashtan or Mhaldor could end up in the same situation Cyrene was...or was Hailqas'an going crazy and them retreating always the plan?

- What would have happened had Hashan or Targossas said no?

- Was there some solution out there that you guys were wondering if a player would stumble upon that would have been a huge impact on the Tsol'teth advancing at all?

Shirszae

Has everything that could be discovered in the two fortresses been discovered? Did we miss anything that could have affected how things went in one way or the other? 

Lenn

Why were Cyrenian monks affected by the litany, but some Ashtani guards had immunity?

[Deleted User]

Lenn said:

Why were Cyrenian monks affected by the litany, but some Ashtani guards had immunity?

The Chaos-specific ones weren't affected by Litany. Them being created by Chaos is basically the reason, and also why we replaced all the non-Chaos ones during that facet of the event.

Telendrieth

I've been kind of struggling because at almost every step of this event, the coalition was or felt wholly ignored. While we were scrambling to interact with denizens, we watched the big bads getting chummy. While we actually lost and grew, and tackled hardships the other side was rewarded with additions to a skillset. After a city was genocided, we caught flack for not wanting to participate in the sham of a games being held. Hell, I honestly was happy with the plan of decimating the Tsol research centers, breeding vats and everything with bombs.. but the games were 100% off limits to tampering. Personally, I've tried to interact more with this event than any other, and aside from the wonderful interactions with my citymates.. I've got nothing, and I most assuredly badgered for hours and sent around fifty letters. So.. I was probably annoying as hell (sorry...iiiish). But towards the end of the event after getting to see the one faction get handed pretty much everything on a platter, I kinda saw some stuff lining up for Cyrene at least. I mean hell.. our population was decimated, we were shunted out of our city for almost three straight weeks, we've been raided non stop, we stepped the foozle up and raided back and detonated a tank (all for the first time EVER), and even wholly noncom types have tried to get in and learn combat. Reading the event post that came with the announcement of sublimation.. honestly killed any hope I had in this event. Even if it wasn't intended, or even accurate.. it feels like this was supposed to be a small event to give Hashan something cool, and it stumbled through with Cyrene (and the coalition) being the ones to pay the price for it.

I try and be fair though, I wanted to wait until the end to see what all was coming of stuff. Since this got effectively deus ex machina'd tonight, I think I've done my duty there. It's just.. a massive portion of the playerbase got to experience this event in a completely different light than others, and it was a particularly rough ride. I'm sorry if reading any of that hurts, because I know what it's like to have players not enjoy something you've spent a lot of time and effort crafting and hoping they would enjoy. I know you guys care about the game as well, so I don't think any of this is intentional or anything along those lines. And not everything was bad, I'm going to do what I can to salvage the devastation of Cyrene and use the hell out of that in forging Telen going forward. 

(But... when Cyrene gets something cool, can I pick which city gets locked out of their home for a month and destroyed plz?)

Synthus

@Makarios I'd like to put forth one of the first questions I had with this event as well as two more. There are many others I have, but I'll have to take time to compose them into something other than rambling gibberish.

1. From a mechanics perspective, what led you guys to decide that cutting off Cyrene from the players was an option on the table? Why was blocking players from accessing one of their central hubs for a period of two weeks considered to be an acceptable consequence of any lose condition for this event?

2. Why Cyrene for the demonstration? I don't understand the strategic value it held for the Tsol'teth.

3. As the event moved on, was there every any outcome that would have resulted in any other Coalition city to suffer the same sort of occupation or devastation that Cyrene was subjected to?

Cailin

Did it make a difference (or will it? Not sure if it's over) which side got the Staff? (Tsol'teth allies or Coalition)

Basically I'm curious about any possible tangents / other routes the story might have went on, if we'd done something differently.

Rhivona

Cailin said:

Did it make a difference (or will it? Not sure if it's over) which side got the Staff? (Tsol'teth allies or Coalition)

Basically I'm curious about any possible tangents / other routes the story might have went on, if we'd done something differently.

It would've impacted the method of tide removal, amongst other things.

Makarios

Asmodron said:

Ma questions:

- Was it always planned for the Tsol'teth to get the staff, or did Tesha's act inspire the entire championship theme?

- During the second Tsol'teth siege to attack fonts, was it considered that Ashtan or Mhaldor could end up in the same situation Cyrene was...or was Hailqas'an going crazy and them retreating always the plan?

- What would have happened had Hashan or Targossas said no?

- Was there some solution out there that you guys were wondering if a player would stumble upon that would have been a huge impact on the Tsol'teth advancing at all?

- We knew it was an option for Tt to host the games, but it was down the "everyone seeks peace with the Tsol'teth" line. Getting the staff was a complete curveball for us and changed things in that regard completely (and made us have to rethink a lot of what happened next in general).

- Ashtan and Mhaldor both avoided their major lose conditions - Mhaldor by keeping their font empty throughout the siege and Ashtan with a preplanned strategy to keep their guardian out of Tsol'teth hands. There were bad outcomes here that didn't happen.

- If Hashan had refused another city would've been asked. Once one city had allied with the Tsol'teth, further rejections would've met with the same situation that befell Cyrene. So in Targossas case, if they'd said no we'd have invaded straight away.

- I'm not sure from which perspective you're asking this one, but I'm going to assume its for people opposing the Tsol'teth. A few things we expected to happen didn't:
* A big Underrealm push.
* A certain unresolved plot thread from the last Black Wave to be chased up that I'm not going to expand on, because we'll likely use it down the line.
* We expected a coalition backed attempt to seize back the staff. A non Hashan or Targossas player winning it had a very different outcome. What Cyrene ended up doing made sense though and huge props to the people responsible for running their version of the games.
* Ashtan actually stumbled on one that made a very significant impact in the raid to try to seize their guardian. I will not expand on what exactly that was, but they know!