Third Black Wave: Electric Boogaloo

Asmodron

I'd just like to add and remind people that the Tsol'teth are indeed not gone, and we have gained access to two of their fortresses below.

Yes the Black tide has receded for now.

Yes the championship games are over.

Does this mean the end of it? Not as far as I am concerned. The Tide will just return when they need more samples yet again.

The enemy is still there for the Coalition. They are still experimenting, still creating monstrosities and still using the samples they have collected to create 'new' tsol'teth.

You want revenge. You want justice. You want the conclusion you have waited for. I say build up your forces and show them what that means.

Makarios

Oh wow, that was a lot of new posts. I'm not going to quote everyone so here we go:

@Penwize: I would very much consider this the opening salvo of a war rather than the end. I think historically we've been pretty good at giving everyone their time to feel like winners: I can appreciate you and other members of various sub communities/orgs might feel down at the moment, but I believe the technical term is somewhere between vengeance is a dish best served cold and payback is a bitch. I can't give you the specifics I think you're hoping for, but I can say we're not in the habit of handwaving and hoping where the playerbase is concerned.

For people asking about fonts: unfortunately I don't know. The invasions were all mapped out on the saturday, so I have little to know knowledge on how all that played out other than the broad strokes.

@Astarod: we were very pleased with the stance Ashtan took in this event. It is so rare they can claim to be the sort of 'good' guys while doing their thing. We definitely did not want them to fall in line with the Tsol'teth - I'd go so far to say that's actually not something we would have allowed simply because some of their views are so fundamentally opposed.

Keorin

As maybe a last thing, I -really- wish that there had been -any- indication that our overall victory/defeat was going to be tied to who took the staff. Like, going into this, most people I talked to assumed that the event was going to keep going after the games, and that the games were a temporary diversion from the overall war, not the final event that would decide how things ended.

That's not to say that it's a surprise the staff would play some role, but when it hadn't done shit against the Tsol'teth for the last two staff holders, I don't think most of us were assuming that it was -the- way to win the event overall. And so we didn't end up with as much rallying around it - most people saw the games as "do we want to keep the staff away from those awful Targossians" not "do we want to win this event". And that's not to mention that "win the staff" is a pretty frustrating win condition as is, given that it requires having people in a -position- to win (IE, capable at combat, loaded with enough arties to hunt and fight, having done existing prep for the foozle, having a great knowledge of game lore), and also being able to have those people around at the right times, which regularly doesn't happen. Given how few people can make realistic staff bids, and given how much of a prize winning the staff -already- is, I'd never have suspected it would be the sole determiner of how a months-long event ended.

I'm sure some people will think this is nitpickey, but coming from someone playing in Cyrene? It would have made all the difference. Had we had -any- indication that the staff would determine the outcome of things, we probably would have actually been allowed to participate and compete for i, after all, but even our patron was basically just saying "well, you can keep them from running games again", which isn't very compelling when people know that, odds are, that wouldn't happen anyways. Obviously, this has something to do with the tendencies of Cyrenian leadership, too, but it's hard to do a whole lot about that.

I feel like some of the feelings of being railroaded that people have are because, while there -were- win conditions, they weren't actually known to us when it mattered, and so we weren't practically able to have any agency in those situations. And I think that was a consistent issue in this event, from the battle for Cyrene, to the exact steps we would have needed to do things in the underrealm, to the staff battle at the end. Had we had some reason to believe that those events were any more key to things than the dozens of other things we'd tried and got nothing from, I think things would have been different.

Cyr

Makarios said:

@Astarod: we were very pleased with the stance Ashtan took in this event. It is so rare they can claim to be the sort of 'good' guys while doing their thing. We definitely did not want them to fall in line with the Tsol'teth - I'd go so far to say that's actually not something we would have allowed simply because some of their views are so fundamentally opposed.

There was a moment where it really felt like the court was almost hinting at it, before Targossas allied, which makes that comment interesting.

I'd still like an answer on how we should know to bug something when you've previously told people it was working as intended.

I'd also like to know why the gods suddenly were willing to be involved re: the tide, when they weren't previously? what changed? how was it a justified thing if 'They don't involve themselves in mortal affairs usually'? 

Neraeos

The war was over, and Gods don't want tide in their temples for no reason. It was tolerated while there was a legitimate reason for it, which Phaestus spelt out quite clearly.

Makarios

Skye said:

something I mentioned on discord:

It might've been more a matter of managing expectations and oversight. Like... we've been expecting another huge fight with the Tsol'teth because they're the mega badguys, even if you didn't 'beat' them something else might have pushed them back. Instead it just sort of limped to a stop as players burned out and gods are like 'okay, pack it up.'.

The other thing that I get from these events and probably other events is that in the aftermath, you always get statements like 'you could have/should have done this', which is painfully obvious from a GM side, but not to the players who are going in blind and put in a stressful situation

Since the whole y802 is being hosted by the Tsol'teth thing, I'd wondered how the admin were going to wrap this event up. It seemed to have written itself into a narrative cul-de-sac.

I wasn't as invested in the event as some others, I think. So I'm not feeling like super rage or anything. This is just my overall feedback as a whole in as neutral a tone as I can manage:

I don't think that player expectations were well managed in this run. As someone who has worked in customer service for a long time with some of the most demanding and often unreasonable clientele (angry and anxious parents), managing expectations is a very tricky job.

I know it takes a lot of time to get on denizens and tell us to bugger off, but it probably feels more reassuring to have the denizen outright tell players that 'no this idea will not work' rather than being met with radio silence.

The other thing is of course, making players feel reassured of your neutral position as admin. The Tsol'teth shells were interesting... but I think they also impaired both player and admin ability to keep things separate. There's no way you guys weren't having fun, and to players it can look like you're having a bit too much fun. It definitely coloured how players viewed the situation.

For my part, even though I had to deal with all the 'omg you're the golden admin child' backlash, I can say that I went into that event feeling completely unassured that it was going to work. Up until the city flooded and the guards died, I was paranoid that you were going to pull the rug from under me and then tell me 'yah well you should've done X'.

And when everything worked out, I felt bad that I could not find it in myself to trust you guys to give us a fair go, so I'm sorry for that. I wish that I hadn't felt that way, but that sort of feeling doesn't just spring out of nowhere.

Managing expectations is something that actually came up during the event discussions quite a lot. This is definitely an area in which we'll be working on.

Makarios

Cyr said:

Makarios said:

@Astarod: we were very pleased with the stance Ashtan took in this event. It is so rare they can claim to be the sort of 'good' guys while doing their thing. We definitely did not want them to fall in line with the Tsol'teth - I'd go so far to say that's actually not something we would have allowed simply because some of their views are so fundamentally opposed.

There was a moment where it really felt like the court was almost hinting at it, before Targossas allied, which makes that comment interesting.

I'd still like an answer on how we should know to bug something when you've previously told people it was working as intended.

I'd also like to know why the gods suddenly were willing to be involved re: the tide, when they weren't previously? what changed? how was it a justified thing if 'They don't involve themselves in mortal affairs usually'? 

Its the Tsol'teth who would not want to go anywhere near the Court if they could possibly help it.

I'm fairly sure we have a miscommunication about the potential bug in question, but I'll wait to see the log again. If I'm wrong I'll happily admit it, though I'm fairly confident I am not.

Makarios

Ok, that's all from me for now. I must attend to the unfortunate necessity that is sleep.

Pyori

Makarios said:

Ok, that's all from me for now. I must attend to the unfortunate necessity that is sleep.

...Now you really are lying. Everybody knows you don't sleep.

Taryius

If you go back and read the second Chaos Wedding event post, which has a snippet from the perspective of Tlalaiad, you can tell they really don't like the concept of Chaos and Babel.

I definitely think this event has subverted expectations, I might be wrong in this regard but it sure feels like the Tsol'teth are being built up as not just the average *big bad that shows up then summarily gets squished and move on* which should make perfect sense with how the 2nd Wave ended, and the fact they have a motherfrickin God on their side. 

I'd urge anyone feeling down or upset right now to remind themselves that this is only the beginning of the end, and to try and get the concept of "rewards and punishments" out of their heads. The admin aren't looking to punish anyone for participating in their game, nor would I say they are favouring factions, and there is still so much more to come.

Keorin said:

As maybe a last thing, I -really- wish that there had been -any- indication that our overall victory/defeat was going to be tied to who took the staff. 

I'd say this should of been pretty obvious, the staff of Nicator is the most powerful item we know of, and we know it -can- be used against the Tsol'teth. I don't know about other factions but it was definitely made clear and agreed upon that even the chance to get it back was worth the risk.

That said, I loved the Seleucarian Games and I applaud what I can only imagine was oodles of effort on your part @Keorin. It was awesome to see.

Pyori

Taryius said:

should of

          

Keorin

Taryius said:

I'd say this should of been pretty obvious, the staff of Nicator is the most powerful item we know of, and we know it -can- be used against the Tsol'teth. I don't know about other factions but it was definitely made clear and agreed upon that even the chance to get it back was worth the risk.

I disagree. I think it was obvious that it would -help-, but did anyone really assume that it was -the- thing that would determine whether this event ended in a victory or like it did? There were both meta reasons (tying an event to a contest that only a limited number of people can seriously compete in seems like a poor choice for an event that people are so invested in. No event should swing on whether one person can't make a specific login time, for instance, which can easily happen in the games), and plenty of lore reasons not to believe that it was.

After all, while the staff has been -very- potent against Tsol'teth in the hands of a deSangre, it's been...less than effective against them in the hands of adventurers. Tesha was hardly able to wave the staff and defeat the Tsol'teth, same with Jarrod during the second Black Wave. Why should we have assumed that -this- time if we won the staff, it would be the singular key to winning against the Tsol'teth, when it was virtually irrelevant in the past?

I don't think the staff was ever a great thing to use as a win condition, especially with how many of us were stuck fighting tide and leading resistances instead of prepping for the games, but I think that it could have been a much better ending if we'd at least known what we were fighting over. Instead, 2/3 of the coalition outright banned participating in large part because we just didn't know it would have such a big effect.

Call us all dumb if you like, but I'll maintain that it would have been easy to give some clue that this time, the staff would matter more, and that it would have been a way more fun conclusion if everyone knew there was such a big reason to fight over it.

Lenn

I wonder if Tesha ever tried POINT STAFF AT TSOL'TETH. Or perhaps EMOTE POKES $TSOL'TETH WITH @STAFF OVER AND OVER AGAIN WITH ANNOYING EXPECTATION.

Doriel

Lenn said:

I wonder if Tesha ever tried POINT STAFF AT TSOL'TETH. Or perhaps EMOTE POKES $TSOL'TETH WITH @STAFF OVER AND OVER AGAIN WITH ANNOYING EXPECTATION.

The second one is very Tesha.

Asmodron

Keorin said:

I disagree. I think it was obvious that it would -help-

I find this unusual. You state you knew it would help yet a majority of coalition members refused to try and get it? The idea of trying to save Sapience would mean taking all opportunities as they come imo.

Keorin said:

There were both meta reasons (tying an event to a contest that only a limited number of people can seriously compete in seems like a poor choice for an event that people are so invested in. No event should swing on whether one person can't make a specific login time, for instance, which can easily happen in the games), and plenty of lore reasons not to believe that it was.

Using time-frames doesnt seem fair as an excuse here. This time the staff event was even more considerate of timings with things like the XP event (divided into 3) and Sojourn (allowed to compete between several days).

As for lore...there is far far -far- more examples of how the staff could be helpful, than how it could not.

Keorin said:

Tesha was hardly able to wave the staff and defeat the Tsol'teth, same with Jarrod during the second Black Wave. Why should we have assumed that -this- time if we won the staff, it would be the singular key to winning against the Tsol'teth, when it was virtually irrelevant in the past?

Not knowing how to use the staff does not mean it is irrelevant to the fight itself. Tesha attempted a crazy plan...which would have worked if she forced the tsol'teth to wield it. Jarrod if you recall had his staff taken from him later and wielded by Parni. I'm sure you recall the destructive power Parni caused.

To dismiss the staff because those 2 did not know how to unleash its abilities when needed, seems illogical.

Keorin said:

Instead, 2/3 of the coalition outright banned participating in large part because we just didn't know it would have such a big effect.

This was a personal choice and one I am told several members outright pointed the foolishness of doing so. A decision however was made.

Qwindor

@Makarios and @Nicola : I will say that I liked the event and the foreshadowing of things to come. There were however several things that I think were not controlled but I am only going to mention one here. At the end of the events for the championship, in which I was asleep because of me being in Europe, I log in this morning and see over 100 guards dead from Targossas being toxic as none other as they have showed in the past to be and continue to show now when they won the staff again. I am sorry but something like that because you give someone 10+ TF's which makes them damn near impossible to kill and even allowing a level of griefing to that scale to happen when I know in the past that groups have been told not to do that. I don't know what it is about Targossas but it really seems that after a certain point that they are getting preferential treatment in more than one way and have gotten it in the past. I am trying not to be biased in this whole situation but at a certain point it just makes it honestly a point of why do I want to come around and enjoy my playtime when people do things like this. I know I cannot be the only one who thinks this and not the only one upset over the outcome which honestly some of us already knew was going to happen because of past experiences.

Edit: Forgot to add in that we had no font powers available which could have helped prevent the massive amount of damage that was caused which would normally be something that would have had to be dealt with.

Armali

There is so much bound up in the above post that I don't understand. Did you expect the traditional post-Staff raid not to happen? Do you genuinely consider guard bashing toxic? Do you think that the admin rigged the games so that Targossas won the staff?

Rhivona

Adrik said:

Was Blu processed? I think the answer was summarily 'yes' due to some IC interactions. How did he survive, if so?

The answer to your first question can be found in Balan'maal! ( As an aside though, there is a big difference between "processed" and "sampled" in the way the Teth use these terms. )
As to why he survived his little adventure, Blu is unique among all Eidolic Guardians for a few reasons that may or may not be revealed in future events. Keeping him alive was merely a "More data" in the eyes of the Teth.

Asmodron

Rhivona said:

Adrik said:

Was Blu processed? I think the answer was summarily 'yes' due to some IC interactions. How did he survive, if so?

The answer to your first question can be found in Balan'maal! ( As an aside though, there is a big difference between "processed" and "sampled" in the way the Teth use these terms. )
As to why he survived his little adventure, Blu is unique among all Eidolic Guardians for a few reasons that may or may not be revealed in future events. Keeping him alive was merely a "More data" in the eyes of the Teth.

I remember when I stumbled upon that with Kairula. We were both gaping in astonishment.

I really do hope others get to see.

Asmodron

Qwindor said:

I log in this morning and see over 100 guards dead from Targossas being toxic as none other as they have showed in the past to be

Torrent

I have come to accept that Achaea is sometimes the king of anti-climatic endings. Take the Chaos wedding for example, here comes Deucalion pissed all the hell off. I am thinking there is going to be an epic battle with Deucalion vs. the Chaos Lords but nope stopped by three gods before the smackdown could come. So I am not surprised the Tide disappeared way it did.
I do share in some of the disappointment at the flow of this event and the feel of one sided ness of it, I mean on the Coalition side. We had one city occupied, two cities which lost there Guardians and Fonts, and other city excluded completely (Granted I understand on that one) and on the Tsol'teth side, one city getting two new skills and a very sinister scewed Championship games that looks like a ploy. Most players nowadays look at events with a jaundice eye and probably way overthink each scenarios for there own character or organization cause some of the most recent events have lead with negative twist in the story, for example the Elemental War with the Vigil. It turns into this kinda of what is the point of it then, and makes it even less likely your going to be as involved as you were in the next event especially when guidance is missing in some parts or you try to be apart of the event. Granted I completely understand where the admin are coming from, we are not dealing with a huge team of like 100 people to monitor every single thing in game so miscommunications get lost, some don't notice that you are talking to a specfic denizen, or they just get too busy to answer and forget that someone sent a denizen a letter. So not faulting anyone, but more just venting how it is experienced from the other end. The admins do work very hard and some are simply volunteers for it, so I am not going to give too much grief cause its a thankless job sometimes especially when you are trying.

Though the Eleusian-Hashani war has been a lot of fun to kinda take my mind off the event, its been a good back and forth which made me want to focus more on it. Shout out to the other side for making it fun! @Krizal, @Shirszae, among others as well!

Qwindor said:

I log in this morning and see over 100 guards dead from Targossas being toxic as none other as they have showed in the past  

Hehe I believe Mhaldor has more then once done that, been on the receivng of that when Mhaldor went through all of Eleusis guards. It always happens when one group gets a ton of power/people and they want to flaunt it.

Tahquil

... so the staff was the key to coalition.

What indications were we given that the staff would even be handed over at the end of the games to a non-loyal being? The Tsol'teth... selfish, highly intelligent beings handing over somewhat of a weakness to the proven best of the coalition. People who are actively trying to kill them off. Then making people have to be sampled to compete in one event...

I'd suggest orchestrating some situation where they were bound to there word to hand the staff over.

Rhivona

Tahquil said:

... so the staff was the key to coalition.

What indications were we given that the staff would even be handed over at the end of the games to a non-loyal being? The Tsol'teth... selfish, highly intelligent beings handing over somewhat of a weakness to the proven best of the coalition. People who are actively trying to kill them off. Then making people have to be sampled to compete in one event...

I'd suggest orchestrating some situation where they were bound to there word to hand the staff over.

The Teth honour all their bargains, to the letter. So, they were already bound to their word to hand the staff over to the victor of the Games.

Tahquil

Are there IG examples were coalition members would know and assume this? Or is this meta-knowledge only gained via forums?

Penwize

Rhivona said:

The Teth honour all their bargains, to the letter. So, they were already bound to their word to hand the staff over to the victor of the Games.

Is this true? Because there was a thing that Gattan'bahar told me was going to happen, but did not happen.  Did it just get forgotten about or something?

Archaeon

Remember when jhui got the staff? Pepridge farm remembers....

Ictinus

Tahquil said:

Are there IG examples were coalition members would know and assume this? Or is this meta-knowledge only gained via forums?

There are definitely IG examples where anyone who cared to know could know.

Farrah

Qwindor said:

@Makarios and @Nicola : I will say that I liked the event and the foreshadowing of things to come. There were however several things that I think were not controlled but I am only going to mention one here. At the end of the events for the championship, in which I was asleep because of me being in Europe, I log in this morning and see over 100 guards dead from Targossas being toxic as none other as they have showed in the past to be and continue to show now when they won the staff again. I am sorry but something like that because you give someone 10+ TF's which makes them damn near impossible to kill and even allowing a level of griefing to that scale to happen when I know in the past that groups have been told not to do that. I don't know what it is about Targossas but it really seems that after a certain point that they are getting preferential treatment in more than one way and have gotten it in the past. I am trying not to be biased in this whole situation but at a certain point it just makes it honestly a point of why do I want to come around and enjoy my playtime when people do things like this. I know I cannot be the only one who thinks this and not the only one upset over the outcome which honestly some of us already knew was going to happen because of past experiences.

Edit: Forgot to add in that we had no font powers available which could have helped prevent the massive amount of damage that was caused which would normally be something that would have had to be dealt with.

Admin have never discouraged guard bashing. I explicitly remember some suggesting people should guard bash a city until it is bankrupt. I have no intention of doing that! Was just one guard bash. But it's tradition for the heavily truefavoured staffwielder to do that to a city, and we did Mhaldor after Tesha's win so this time we did Ashtan.

Guards can be re-hired though. It's just making an IC stand. Not meant to ruin anyone's life!

(I am pretty sure Astarod, an Ashtani, has been bragging about doing this multiple times to Hashan recently even. It would be a bit hypocritical for Ashtan to be upset)

Cooper

I appreciated you picking a different city this time. We were 100% expecting you to hammer us hard.

Caelan

Wow Mak.  So I didnt mean to open this can. 

I would like to say that I understand people's grievances however I was busy w RL stuff for the entire middle of this event. While I know what everyone put into it, I'm essentially a non-biased third party on it. I just really like the goings-on behind the scenes after these events.

I don't think the Coalition should get special abilities or be made to feel all warm and fuzzy, personally.  They did work their asses off, but the Tsol'teth slipping away leaves a clear sense of ever-present dread on the Coalition members. This makes it so much surreal realism. And it should serve as a reminder the next time TT show up.  

I guess the moral is, sometimes shit doesn't end how you want it to and life isn't fair. Some things don't resolve, and you can never be made whole again.

 I get that this is a game, but if you play for the realism, you just got a double dose.