Tlalaiad's creation is definitely a rather sinister one, but several gods in history had unusual or dark ascensions (see Indrani). The fact of the matter is that he is still a God now and has not shown himself as hostile to the pantheon's agreement.
Slith indeed killed Thoth and that seemed the main focus of the Pantheon at the time, and even then they were split if he should be punished or not.
To be clear: I burned out on this event once we set up plans to go assault Bain'Maal directly, but those who tried to infiltrate were instantly-killed and ejected. Having to suss out our win conditions is fine, but for this event having every-single-one of our attempts to uncover -anything- to push a win con was met with direct and forced resistance, to the point where it was seemed like an obvious failure-state. Not having a font, not having the -chance- to have feasibly saved our font, having many people actively push hard for directions only to get ejected so many times that we basically went "the fuck is next then?" All on top of having cities either be lucked out of a lucky hat, or specifically chosen, to be given actual guided direction has sucked any fun from this event. I'm fairly lucky that my standard play time still lets me do my leadership jobs, and I can play other stuff, because while my motivation was immense at the start of the event, even through massive city-allied raids, and still basically ending up with "whoopsie you didn't think what we were thinking, sucks 2 b u!" results has actively burned me of bothering. Am fortunate that I do have other things to play, but right now the people who are holding out still in Cyrene, Mhaldor, Ashtan and Eleusis I envy, for I sure as fuck can't do it anymore. I'm off again, Psychonauts just finished installing :blobcatemojiofyourchoice:
I don't think anyone is saying that we expected, or OOCly wanted, to tear apart Balan'ukia, or permakill all Tsol'teth or anything like that. What we wanted was -a- win, some kind of meaningful result from our actions after IRL months of literally constant effort fighting tide.
Hashan/Targossas both allied up, got to stop dealing with the tide early on, Hashan walks away with a new class, Targossas sounds like it's still getting some sort of reward, and has walked away from all this with both the staff and the effigy. Both cities got to fight with the Tsol'teth instead of against them, interact with them in fun and casual ways, and got to help with meaningful and successful strikes against big enemies (Mhaldor and Hashan).
The rest of us were saddled with roles we didn't choose, we were constantly stuck fighting tide, we struggled to get any sort of response or feel that we had allies. A lot of parts of this event just weren't fun, and seem to have been designed not to be - in no world is the constant spread of tide, which has pretty massive rp implications, actually fun to have to deal with; it was a months' long chore.
What we wanted was -any- win. Something where we could feel like all the work we put in had -any- result. Quite seriously, had we been allowed to find a way to actually push back the tide in a way that was temporarily lasting, or if we could've done -anything- to create any sort of setback for the Tsol'teth, that would have been enough. Instead, we did nothing but lose for basically the whole event, and then it ended. I think if we'd gotten -half- of what Targossas and Hashan ended up getting to do (damage fonts, get a class, win the staff, neat and fun interactions, an end to worries about the tide, whatever reward the Tsol'teth give Targ), we'd feel pretty alright with things.
You knew you were choosing not to compete for the staff though, and you had the same chance of winning effigy as us. I'm really confused as to how us winning those means you should get something. Those are competitions that happen at regular intervals, and we competed and won them as people always do. It had nothing to do with the Tsol'teth other than that some people chose not to go for staff because of them, but the fact you were choosing not to go for staff was well known by you. You're acting like because we allied we were just handed these things.
Targossas doesn't have a "reward" from the Tsol'teth the way Hashan does. We just had them take their tide off our allies and pwn Ashtan with us.
Your "win" was taking back Cyrene, though. Prior to the games, after everything but the Tide had already ended, everyone was actively arguing about who had won and everyone thought they had. How did that change just because we competed in a competition held every 50 years and won the staff, and the Tide was withdrawn as an end to the war rather than direct efforts? The "war" was already done before that and everybody thought they won after the last battles.
I think the only thing kinda iffy about this is that, Tlalaiad was basically created from stolen god essence, not just any god but one who was deliberately murdered for the sake of it. And yet (to my memory) the Pantheon did nothing to punish the dangerous presumption and terrible precedent of a mortal race (and yes they are mortal no matter how OP they are) conspiring to assassinate a God. Slith pulled the trigger, but the Tsol'teth put the gun in his hand.
That said, there's a lot of precedence of Gods coming into being after absorbing (or reconstituting) another God's power whether by accident (Neroes) or on purpose (Sartan). As it is, by all accounts, the pantheon seems to treat Tlalaiad like the weird kid. Y'know the one who smells funny cause his mom can't afford to buy Tide (snickersnicker).
Yeah, I pestered Han'Tolneth till he talked to me early on in the event, and the strong and clear implication was that Tlalaiad was an accepted part of the Garden, even with the freedom to invite his mortal followers to visit him there (I had been pressing about why Terrin'tuuran was seen in the Garden). I got a short lecture from Han-Tolneth about not calling Gods 'strange' just because I don't like their intentions.
Han-Tolneth is kind of stuck-up.
________________________ The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
The Gods have something between "rules by which they are bound" and "mutually assured destruction" within the Garden that forces them to be very careful. The purview of this covers both attacks on other Divine (like Sartan did to Valnurana which resulted in the alliance to mountain Him) or directly influencing the affairs of Mortals (Gods can't come down and kill all the followers of another God).
The Teth raids weren't any issue in the eyes of the Gods, but the Tide was another matter because it was attacking the entire continentn. If Sartan's followers managed to unleash daemons over the land that rampaged everywhere, it would likely be tolerated at first but if it just continued to happen over years, and temples were being attacked and Sapience was starting to become overrun by daemons, don't you think the other gods would step in and be like "Hey Sartan, your daemons are attacking my holy temple, you best stop or I'm gonna fight back!"?
Honestly, this sounds a bad, I know, but I’m just glad the fragments and tide are gone. While I had wished there’d be something more meaningful than what happened, at least we’re done babysitting fragments and Petra.
Honestly an idea for future events would be for the big evils to actually be denizens or something so that the lack of combat prowess doesn’t hurt the storytelling. This sounds salty but I’m kind of serious, it would be fun if the big bad didn’t get more and more powerful assets that start to just make any people trying to fight it feel like grains of sand.
All I have to say to some of you are, Let it go.
Targossians and Hashani, you got a new class and the staff of nicator. You both worked for it. You had fun. I’m not taking that away from you, however, let go of the nitpicking and asserting what you think we ought to have done. It’s arrogant, and abrasive at times- especially when you consider your audience is a bunch of let down, burned out people.
Coalition, I get it sucked. I’m happy this part is over. Let’s move on. There’s nothing to gain from telling the administration that this event phase sucked for us 50 more times- they know. Let’s focus on the next steps for us and see where it takes us. Go drink kawhe, hunt a little, try to do some normal stuff- it really helps!
Admin, please look over the salt and toxicity that is splattered throughout forums for meaningful points of criticism and try to fix them in the next phase of this event please.
I’d like to throw a small shoutout to sisters-in-arms @Keorin. You’re an awesome individual who put yourself out there and did something that was pretty damn cool. I know how you feel and you’re not crazy, a lot of us understand. Consider what you accomplished, and how many people see you as a leader simply because you had the courage and willpower to try- well done.
The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
How long did Shallam/Targossas go without a city? Going without a font for a bit seems tame.
This is whataboutism and really doesn't add anything to the conversation.
But since pointing that out won't do anything but make people to dig in further, a city not having a font but being able to be raided with impunity is much worse than the New Hope situation. New Hope couldn't be tanked or guardraided, and if you really wanted to, you could sit in that magic little room and just ignore everything conflict-related.
Conflict is good; conflict with asymmetrical and divergent win conditions is at least interesting. Conflict that is symmetrical but for a mechanically uneven playing field is neither of those things.
Take my complaint with a bit of salt, as it's more tongue-in-cheek than actual griping.
But every time I see people going "Hashan got a new class" in this thread, all I can think of in response is... but it's alchemist!
I remember they day when the Court of Shadows was known for shadows.
sigh
The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
For my part, I have absolutely no complaint about not getting a "win" out of the event. You're not gonna win them all, and the fun should be in the journey. My complaint is that I didn't know what the journey to be had was and I feel like I missed out on what would have been a really compelling story. If everyone had been on the same page going into the games, I think it would have hands-down been the most exciting and interesting games we've ever had, and it feels really bad to have missed out on that because so many of us were flying blind. I understand the desire to not railroad players, but it's possible to make the choices clear without forcing which option to choose, and I feel like that wasn't done for many of us.
Please understand that I think things ended up pretty successfully, and general consensus is that it's at least interesting, which usually ends up meaning memorable down the road. That being said, I think the big takeaway here is the need to provide meaningful options on a player level, not a character level, with events like this. When players feel like their major in-character option is to abstain from having fun and not engaging in what is a game, I would say we have created a less than helpful incentive structure.
What I mean by that is if you're going to have an event with in-character repercussions tied to something exciting or unusual on an OOC level, like a promo or world event, you need to make not participating and adhering to your character as valid and interesting choice as participating would be for those for whom it would make sense to do so. That ended up being pretty okay because of the alternate Games and because of the Garden's laudable attempts at providing justification to people in the event that they needed it, but it seems like that may not have been universal and there's some lingering unrest over that generally. That's fine, we all live and learn.
But to illustrate my point here: someone in the Garden posted earlier about how their favorite event was Death's Heart and that's what got them hooked. Imagine if what ended up being the anti-Twilight faction in that event was sort of an unsanctioned and 90% player driven but didn't actually slow or halt or change the event in any way. Would it have been nearly as interesting if it had gone down like that? Probably not.
So maybe the winning strategy for all parties here would be for the admin to have run with the alternate games in some capacity. Yeah it's even more time invested and time seems like the rare commodity these days upstairs, but it may have gone a ways toward making the people who are upset feel like their efforts were acknowledged and that they had more of a hand in shaping how the story we all mutually share unfolds.
Honestly, this sounds a bad, I know, but I’m just glad the fragments and tide are gone. While I had wished there’d be something more meaningful than what happened, at least we’re done babysitting fragments and Petra.
Honestly an idea for future events would be for the big evils to actually be denizens or something so that the lack of combat prowess doesn’t hurt the storytelling. This sounds salty but I’m kind of serious, it would be fun if the big bad didn’t get more and more powerful assets that start to just make any people trying to fight it feel like grains of sand.
All I have to say to some of you are, Let it go.
Targossians and Hashani, you got a new class and the staff of nicator. You both worked for it. You had fun. I’m not taking that away from you, however, let go of the nitpicking and asserting what you think we ought to have done. It’s arrogant, and abrasive at times- especially when you consider your audience is a bunch of let down, burned out people.
Coalition, I get it sucked. I’m happy this part is over. Let’s move on. There’s nothing to gain from telling the administration that this event phase sucked for us 50 more times- they know. Let’s focus on the next steps for us and see where it takes us. Go drink kawhe, hunt a little, try to do some normal stuff- it really helps!
Admin, please look over the salt and toxicity that is splattered throughout forums for meaningful points of criticism and try to fix them in the next phase of this event please.
I’d like to throw a small shoutout to sisters-in-arms @Keorin. You’re an awesome individual who put yourself out there and did something that was pretty damn cool. I know how you feel and you’re not crazy, a lot of us understand. Consider what you accomplished, and how many people see you as a leader simply because you had the courage and willpower to try- well done.
Well. Considering Targossas didn't get a new class...
I don't even know why people keep saying that. We have it, for a short time, same as everyone else, until we get excommd from it bcz it's born from Hashan's Wellspring.
People should just stop being salty about the admins using player shells. It's fun and interesting and different. Some people just seem to be mad that they could not be lol stomped like usual.
Just wait until next time when they might be on your side.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
Gods are scared of the tsol'teth and have very little regard for what happens to the cities and houses they patron is what i got from this event. Like cyrene gets wrecked and its patrons does... Nothing?
The world is invaded by tide and the gods sit by silently and wait for what?
[snip] Yet, no God stood up for Cyrene, and Tlalaiad existing doesn't seem like a reason not to, see: Bal'met (even if Bal'met didn't last the same amount of time, as far as I can understand canonically, there is little to no difference between the two).
What precisely made this different that allowed what happened to Cyrene to happen? More precisely I guess, why did none of their Patrons step in this time?
So, I wanna touch on this just a smidge, but please take what I'm gonna say with a grain of salt. I was very much obscure rank-and-file / one-of-the-faceless-many when this whole event started, so I doubt I even saw 0.01% of the interactions between Divine and faction leaders that -didn't- happen on resistance clan channels. I can only speak directly from my perspective of the experience as well as the observations I have made and obtained from players around me during that time. Disclaimer out of the way.
TL;DR Version: it seems like there was a little reactionary stuff that happened after the fall, a very small measure of QoL stuff(a couple chests to store supplies), but most everything else fell on players to shoulder. There may have been some really in-depth man-behind-the-curtain stuff, but if there was, I didn't even catch a whiff of it. It does not seem like there was anything majorly proactive (eg Divine intervention) done regarding Cyrene.
Longer explanation:
During the occupation, we were allowed to take refuge within the Temple of Phaestus and the Temple of Neraeos and have access to a few resources for logistical purposes, but as far as I'm aware, that was it in terms of assisting with the displaced.
Across the course of the occupation, I personally heard Neraeos speak on the Clan channel twice. There may have been more occasions, but they essentially boiled down to "hang in there, you guys are The Last City(tm)" and "We're working on something, but nothing solid yet." The latter may have been in reference to @Skye's actions or something else entirely, I don't have an answer to that.
I wasn't too active before the start of this event, I came in maybe about a couple days before the Tide started showing up again, but from what I understand from others and what I can find on my own, there doesn't seem to be much that was done to prepare the Coalition or Cyrene against the demonstration and subsequent occupation, at least, nothing actively. I know there are historical records of the Litany being used during the first Black Wave, but did the litany happen during the second Black Wave at all? All I know is that apparently Ami-whatever paralyzed everyone playing for 30 seconds.
Anyway, regarding stuff falling on player shoulder's, I remember one of @Keorin's speeches being something that picked me up off the metaphorical floor, and one of @Kaden's rituals to attempt to empower the over-soul of Cyrene being a rather effective shove to get the momentum started to taking back the city. Those and several other player-driven events were far more effective, in my opinion, to galvanizing Cyrenean players than anything that was provided by the Divine.
As a slight tangental point, I can also say that there is a not-too-small portion of the resistance that fought and took back Cyrene that IC'ly feels like they alone won back their city, and while I might not share that exact sentiment considering Hycanthus' involvement, I do feel like 98-99% of the work was placed squarely upon the players shoulders with next to nil Divine influence. I also feel like when the in-game history is written about these events, the retaking of Cyrene won't be a triumph attributed to a Divine's guidance, but rather to the sheer tenacity of the Resistance. There is also very much a bitter IC sentiment present of "We lost countless lives while the Gods just watched..." in a number of Cyreneans. Take from that what you will.
Honestly, this sounds a bad, I know, but I’m just glad the fragments and tide are gone. While I had wished there’d be something more meaningful than what happened, at least we’re done babysitting fragments and Petra.
Honestly an idea for future events would be for the big evils to actually be denizens or something so that the lack of combat prowess doesn’t hurt the storytelling. This sounds salty but I’m kind of serious, it would be fun if the big bad didn’t get more and more powerful assets that start to just make any people trying to fight it feel like grains of sand.
All I have to say to some of you are, Let it go.
Targossians and Hashani, you got a new class and the staff of nicator. You both worked for it. You had fun. I’m not taking that away from you, however, let go of the nitpicking and asserting what you think we ought to have done. It’s arrogant, and abrasive at times- especially when you consider your audience is a bunch of let down, burned out people.
Coalition, I get it sucked. I’m happy this part is over. Let’s move on. There’s nothing to gain from telling the administration that this event phase sucked for us 50 more times- they know. Let’s focus on the next steps for us and see where it takes us. Go drink kawhe, hunt a little, try to do some normal stuff- it really helps!
Admin, please look over the salt and toxicity that is splattered throughout forums for meaningful points of criticism and try to fix them in the next phase of this event please.
I’d like to throw a small shoutout to sisters-in-arms @Keorin. You’re an awesome individual who put yourself out there and did something that was pretty damn cool. I know how you feel and you’re not crazy, a lot of us understand. Consider what you accomplished, and how many people see you as a leader simply because you had the courage and willpower to try- well done.
Well. Considering Targossas didn't get a new class...
I don't even know why people keep saying that. We have it, for a short time, same as everyone else, until we get excommd from it bcz it's born from Hashan's Wellspring.
you got a new class and the staff of Nicator
It was inferred that you'd realize that Hashan got the class and Targossas got the Staff of Nicator, but I suppose I'll point it out. If you've been confused about this, I hope this brings some light into some of what must make no sense to you!
The Divine voice of Twilight echoes in your head, "See that it is. I espy a tithe of potential in your mortal soul, Astarod Blackstone. Let us hope that it flourishes and does not falter as so many do."
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
@Synthus For what it's worth, I only
hinted to Keorin that something was up like, an hour before shit went
down and I didn't even tell her the whole thing. So where that's concerned, the leadership was as much in the dark as you were.
Even the negotiation for the flooding was conducted with only two people present and with as little fanfare as we could manage. And, for what it's also worth, this was done as representatives of the Order, so you did sort of get the Divine help you needed albeit covertly because that's exactly what Orders are for: a mortal arm guided by Divine power.
The rest of it, I'd say find out IG, but honestly Skye will take this (and several other things) to her grave. :P
I feel like a lot of people in this thread are having a very hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that different sides in this event had very different play experiences for the last several weeks.
Like, for those of you who had fun, that's great. Seriously. A lot of people have had fun with this event, and it's cool to see, and I'm glad it was an enjoyable experience for you and your faction. I would hope that everyone who plays this game wants people in other cities to have fun with their roles in events like this, and we should all be glad that this was an enjoyable experience for so many.
But a lot of us have not had so much fun. I don't think anyone in Cyrene would describe the bulk of this event as having been all that fun, and I'm not sure that the coalition as a whole is about to put this on their favorite events list. That shouldn't take away from the fun that other factions have had, and I don't really understand the urge, mostly from Hashani/Targossian players, to try to convince us that actually, our role was great, and we should have enjoyed it, and if we didn't, it was entirely our faults.
No offense here, but I don't think you're exactly in a great position here to judge what the experience of the event was for those of us on the other side, and I would hope that, if nothing else, the sheer number of us who have come away with feelings like this should make clear that those experiences are probably valid. It would be pretty rediculous, for instance, for me to start trying to tell Targossas or Hashan that everything that happened to them was awful and they should have hated it, and I feel like that's kind of what's being said in reverse right now.
I think that all a lot of us are wanting right now is to be able to say that "hey, this event kinda wasn't great for a lot of us", without being told that no, actually we're wrong, and we should have had just as much fun as you. Our lack of enjoyment should not be seen as coming at the expense of your enjoyment, just like your enjoyment doesn't invalidate that a lot of us just plain had completely different experiences over the last few weeks, mechanically and narratively.
All I'm trying to say is, as rare as it can be on these boards, I think it might be good to try a bit of sympathy here. At least, I'd like to think that everyone here wants other players and other factions to have fun. That many of us didn't should not be a matter of argument - there were many experiences of this event, after all, and one doesn't detract from the other. We're a small community playing a cooperative storytelling game; I like to think we should try to be happy for when other people have fun, but also, appreciate when others did not, because we all have times when we don't have fun and wish they were better.
@Synthus For what it's worth, I only
hinted to Keorin that something was up like, an hour before shit went
down and I didn't even tell her the whole thing. So where that's concerned, the leadership was as much in the dark as you were.
Even the negotiation for the flooding was conducted with only two people present and with as little fanfare as we could manage. And, for what it's also worth, this was done as representatives of the Order, so you did sort of get the Divine help you needed albeit covertly because that's exactly what Orders are for: a mortal arm guided by Divine power.
The rest of it, I'd say find out IG, but honestly Skye will take this (and several other things) to her grave. :P
That's what I figured, which is why I didn't outright say "There was absolutely no Divine interaction at all" more that any divine interaction was a lot of man-behind-the-curtain stuff or reactionary/after-the-fact. That, and when it boiled down to it, it still fell to players, in this case you, to see the plan through, which does strengthen the point you made as well about Orders being the mortal arm guided by Divine power.
Which, if I may rave for a moment, you did a great job with keeping things under wrap. Even for a few IRL days after the retaking I was still asking, "Okay, what the actual flipping foozle did Skye do that everyone's raving about?" Hell, IC'ly, Synthus still has no idea what happened to cause the flooding, just that it happened.
For those who haven't played long, or maybe just don't know - when people say they got "divine interaction", that doesn't always mean they talked to Neraeos or another IG god. It could also mean that someone who is an admin or volunteer or god or whoever, animated a denizen to talk to you. Sometimes it is related to their order, sometimes it might be a random denizen you're trying to talk to. But the majority of "divine interaction" is through denizens and not the god characters themselves.
I feel like a lot of people in this thread are having a very hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that different sides in this event had very different play experiences for the last several weeks.
Like, for those of you who had fun, that's great. Seriously. A lot of people have had fun with this event, and it's cool to see, and I'm glad it was an enjoyable experience for you and your faction. I would hope that everyone who plays this game wants people in other cities to have fun with their roles in events like this, and we should all be glad that this was an enjoyable experience for so many.
But a lot of us have not had so much fun. I don't think anyone in Cyrene would describe the bulk of this event as having been all that fun, and I'm not sure that the coalition as a whole is about to put this on their favorite events list. That shouldn't take away from the fun that other factions have had, and I don't really understand the urge, mostly from Hashani/Targossian players, to try to convince us that actually, our role was great, and we should have enjoyed it, and if we didn't, it was entirely our faults.
No offense here, but I don't think you're exactly in a great position here to judge what the experience of the event was for those of us on the other side, and I would hope that, if nothing else, the sheer number of us who have come away with feelings like this should make clear that those experiences are probably valid. It would be pretty rediculous, for instance, for me to start trying to tell Targossas or Hashan that everything that happened to them was awful and they should have hated it, and I feel like that's kind of what's being said in reverse right now.
I think that all a lot of us are wanting right now is to be able to say that "hey, this event kinda wasn't great for a lot of us", without being told that no, actually we're wrong, and we should have had just as much fun as you. Our lack of enjoyment should not be seen as coming at the expense of your enjoyment, just like your enjoyment doesn't invalidate that a lot of us just plain had completely different experiences over the last few weeks, mechanically and narratively.
All I'm trying to say is, as rare as it can be on these boards, I think it might be good to try a bit of sympathy here. At least, I'd like to think that everyone here wants other players and other factions to have fun. That many of us didn't should not be a matter of argument - there were many experiences of this event, after all, and one doesn't detract from the other. We're a small community playing a cooperative storytelling game; I like to think we should try to be happy for when other people have fun, but also, appreciate when others did not, because we all have times when we don't have fun and wish they were better.
We must just be talking past each other then, because I've only been trying to be encouraging and supportive this entire time. I personally think when someone is really down telling them "yeah, everything really sucks, you really failed, you are a major loser" is a bit rude and unhelpful and just encourages them to stay sad, whereas telling them they did a great job and they are winners if they choose to look at it that way is positive and encouraging. I wish people treated me that way rather than the shit spewing I get sometimes.
I haven't seen a single Targossian say "we had a lot of fun and you should have too."
But since it's not working and apparently makes me an awful person, I will stop trying to convince you you didn't fail and don't need to be so bummed...
I feel like a lot of people in this thread are having a very hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that different sides in this event had very different play experiences for the last several weeks.
Like, for those of you who had fun, that's great. Seriously. A lot of people have had fun with this event, and it's cool to see, and I'm glad it was an enjoyable experience for you and your faction. I would hope that everyone who plays this game wants people in other cities to have fun with their roles in events like this, and we should all be glad that this was an enjoyable experience for so many.
But a lot of us have not had so much fun. I don't think anyone in Cyrene would describe the bulk of this event as having been all that fun, and I'm not sure that the coalition as a whole is about to put this on their favorite events list. That shouldn't take away from the fun that other factions have had, and I don't really understand the urge, mostly from Hashani/Targossian players, to try to convince us that actually, our role was great, and we should have enjoyed it, and if we didn't, it was entirely our faults.
No offense here, but I don't think you're exactly in a great position here to judge what the experience of the event was for those of us on the other side, and I would hope that, if nothing else, the sheer number of us who have come away with feelings like this should make clear that those experiences are probably valid. It would be pretty rediculous, for instance, for me to start trying to tell Targossas or Hashan that everything that happened to them was awful and they should have hated it, and I feel like that's kind of what's being said in reverse right now.
I think that all a lot of us are wanting right now is to be able to say that "hey, this event kinda wasn't great for a lot of us", without being told that no, actually we're wrong, and we should have had just as much fun as you. Our lack of enjoyment should not be seen as coming at the expense of your enjoyment, just like your enjoyment doesn't invalidate that a lot of us just plain had completely different experiences over the last few weeks, mechanically and narratively.
All I'm trying to say is, as rare as it can be on these boards, I think it might be good to try a bit of sympathy here. At least, I'd like to think that everyone here wants other players and other factions to have fun. That many of us didn't should not be a matter of argument - there were many experiences of this event, after all, and one doesn't detract from the other. We're a small community playing a cooperative storytelling game; I like to think we should try to be happy for when other people have fun, but also, appreciate when others did not, because we all have times when we don't have fun and wish they were better.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of this, other than that I have seen multiple people be sympathetic. It should also be pointed out that everyone has likely been on the 'winning' and 'losing' side of events in the past, big and small, so saying people not in Cyrene/the Coalition have no valid position to talk from is inaccurate. In fact, if you want empathy, saying that at all defeats your objective by alienating people.
If everyone had been on the same page going into the games, I think it would have hands-down been the most exciting and interesting games we've ever had, and it feels really bad to have missed out on that because so many of us were flying blind. I understand the desire to not railroad players, but it's possible to make the choices clear without forcing which option to choose, and I feel like that wasn't done for many of us.
I don't think it's as easy as you're trying to make it out to be, to be honest. With regard to the games, the Coalition had two choices (that were obvious to everybody): compete for the Staff of Nicator or don't.
The consequences of making each decision were less clear, which I think is what you're really suggesting is the problem, but I don't think you can make the consequences clear without affecting the decision process (often to the point that there's clearly only one remaining option). If a sufficiently powerful being, such as a God, had turned up and said to the Coalition "Yeah, you really need the Staff of Nicator if you want to fight the Tsol'teth." that would have been the end of any discussions about whether or not you compete for it.
If everyone had been on the same page going into the games, I think it would have hands-down been the most exciting and interesting games we've ever had, and it feels really bad to have missed out on that because so many of us were flying blind. I understand the desire to not railroad players, but it's possible to make the choices clear without forcing which option to choose, and I feel like that wasn't done for many of us.
I don't think it's as easy as you're trying to make it out to be, to be honest. With regard to the games, the Coalition had two choices (that were obvious to everybody): compete for the Staff of Nicator or don't.
The consequences of making each decision were less clear, which I think is what you're really suggesting is the problem, but I don't think you can make the consequences clear without affecting the decision process (often to the point that there's clearly only one remaining option). If a sufficiently powerful being, such as a God, had turned up and said to the Coalition "Yeah, you really need the Staff of Nicator if you want to fight the Tsol'teth." that would have been the end of any discussions about whether or not you compete for it.
But that can be done by competing in the games, by attacking the Tsolteth to take the staff back, by sabotaging the games to prevent it being awarded. It also leaves individuals free to decide that they aren't willing to submit even knowing what's at stake. In my view, one of the keys to a good experience is making sure that everyone is making choices that are aligned with the actual goal. If people are instead left to make orthogonal choices that are unrelated to the event, they're gonna be let down when their futility is ultimately revealed.
If it truly is the case that competing for the staff was the sole viable option, that shouldn't even be presented as a decision point. Let the player choices be between viable options, not between one real choice and some distractions.
I've been reading these for the last couple of days, and I find it interesting that admin says the reason Cyrene was picked is that we're the most resilient. To me, that reads as they feel Cyrene is the city they can do the worst to, and continue to attempt to make this a very negative experience, without the players leaving en masse. They didn't pick a city they felt would embrace it and seek to find all the opportunities it presented. They feel we'd just put up with the abuse. Then, more than a few here are upset that anyone speaks up and says it was not enjoyable from our side of the screen.
I believe in cooperative roleplay and storytelling. If you're going to put one side through the negative, bring something up for them to enjoy, that is on line with the things that community has shown they like. When has Cyrene shown that the players welcome conflict and seek every opportunity to get more of it? What in this has there been for many of us to like?
To me, the sad part is, this could have been much better. The only parts of the last six weeks or so that I would describe as fun have been the games that Keorin was putting on. She's done an incredible job. I wish admin had.
* From an ooc perspective, the Cyrene playerbase have historically been very resilient, and we knew this was going to be a tough one. This was a factor in discussion.
Maybe the big mistake was this, judging by the complaints on the forums.
I thought Ashtan would've been a better choice, personally. Ashtani would've wanted BLOOD.
Comments
Han-Tolneth is kind of stuck-up.
The soul of Ashmond says, "Always with the sniping."
(Clan): Ictinus says, "Stop it Jiraishin, you're making me like you."
The Teth raids weren't any issue in the eyes of the Gods, but the Tide was another matter because it was attacking the entire continentn. If Sartan's followers managed to unleash daemons over the land that rampaged everywhere, it would likely be tolerated at first but if it just continued to happen over years, and temples were being attacked and Sapience was starting to become overrun by daemons, don't you think the other gods would step in and be like "Hey Sartan, your daemons are attacking my holy temple, you best stop or I'm gonna fight back!"?
Honestly an idea for future events would be for the big evils to actually be denizens or something so that the lack of combat prowess doesn’t hurt the storytelling. This sounds salty but I’m kind of serious, it would be fun if the big bad didn’t get more and more powerful assets that start to just make any people trying to fight it feel like grains of sand.
All I have to say to some of you are, Let it go.
Targossians and Hashani, you got a new class and the staff of nicator. You both worked for it. You had fun. I’m not taking that away from you, however, let go of the nitpicking and asserting what you think we ought to have done. It’s arrogant, and abrasive at times- especially when you consider your audience is a bunch of let down, burned out people.
Coalition, I get it sucked. I’m happy this part is over. Let’s move on. There’s nothing to gain from telling the administration that this event phase sucked for us 50 more times- they know. Let’s focus on the next steps for us and see where it takes us. Go drink kawhe, hunt a little, try to do some normal stuff- it really helps!
Admin, please look over the salt and toxicity that is splattered throughout forums for meaningful points of criticism and try to fix them in the next phase of this event please.
I’d like to throw a small shoutout to sisters-in-arms @Keorin. You’re an awesome individual who put yourself out there and did something that was pretty damn cool. I know how you feel and you’re not crazy, a lot of us understand. Consider what you accomplished, and how many people see you as a leader simply because you had the courage and willpower to try- well done.
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
This is whataboutism and really doesn't add anything to the conversation.
But since pointing that out won't do anything but make people to dig in further, a city not having a font but being able to be raided with impunity is much worse than the New Hope situation. New Hope couldn't be tanked or guardraided, and if you really wanted to, you could sit in that magic little room and just ignore everything conflict-related.
Conflict is good; conflict with asymmetrical and divergent win conditions is at least interesting. Conflict that is symmetrical but for a mechanically uneven playing field is neither of those things.
But every time I see people going "Hashan got a new class" in this thread, all I can think of in response is... but it's alchemist!
sigh
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
What I mean by that is if you're going to have an event with in-character repercussions tied to something exciting or unusual on an OOC level, like a promo or world event, you need to make not participating and adhering to your character as valid and interesting choice as participating would be for those for whom it would make sense to do so. That ended up being pretty okay because of the alternate Games and because of the Garden's laudable attempts at providing justification to people in the event that they needed it, but it seems like that may not have been universal and there's some lingering unrest over that generally. That's fine, we all live and learn.
But to illustrate my point here: someone in the Garden posted earlier about how their favorite event was Death's Heart and that's what got them hooked. Imagine if what ended up being the anti-Twilight faction in that event was sort of an unsanctioned and 90% player driven but didn't actually slow or halt or change the event in any way. Would it have been nearly as interesting if it had gone down like that? Probably not.
So maybe the winning strategy for all parties here would be for the admin to have run with the alternate games in some capacity. Yeah it's even more time invested and time seems like the rare commodity these days upstairs, but it may have gone a ways toward making the people who are upset feel like their efforts were acknowledged and that they had more of a hand in shaping how the story we all mutually share unfolds.
Well. Considering Targossas didn't get a new class...
I don't even know why people keep saying that. We have it, for a short time, same as everyone else, until we get excommd from it bcz it's born from Hashan's Wellspring.
Just wait until next time when they might be on your side.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
TL;DR Version: it seems like there was a little reactionary stuff that happened after the fall, a very small measure of QoL stuff(a couple chests to store supplies), but most everything else fell on players to shoulder. There may have been some really in-depth man-behind-the-curtain stuff, but if there was, I didn't even catch a whiff of it. It does not seem like there was anything majorly proactive (eg Divine intervention) done regarding Cyrene.
Longer explanation:
Across the course of the occupation, I personally heard Neraeos speak on the Clan channel twice. There may have been more occasions, but they essentially boiled down to "hang in there, you guys are The Last City(tm)" and "We're working on something, but nothing solid yet." The latter may have been in reference to @Skye's actions or something else entirely, I don't have an answer to that.
I wasn't too active before the start of this event, I came in maybe about a couple days before the Tide started showing up again, but from what I understand from others and what I can find on my own, there doesn't seem to be much that was done to prepare the Coalition or Cyrene against the demonstration and subsequent occupation, at least, nothing actively. I know there are historical records of the Litany being used during the first Black Wave, but did the litany happen during the second Black Wave at all? All I know is that apparently Ami-whatever paralyzed everyone playing for 30 seconds.
Anyway, regarding stuff falling on player shoulder's, I remember one of @Keorin's speeches being something that picked me up off the metaphorical floor, and one of @Kaden's rituals to attempt to empower the over-soul of Cyrene being a rather effective shove to get the momentum started to taking back the city. Those and several other player-driven events were far more effective, in my opinion, to galvanizing Cyrenean players than anything that was provided by the Divine.
As a slight tangental point, I can also say that there is a not-too-small portion of the resistance that fought and took back Cyrene that IC'ly feels like they alone won back their city, and while I might not share that exact sentiment considering Hycanthus' involvement, I do feel like 98-99% of the work was placed squarely upon the players shoulders with next to nil Divine influence. I also feel like when the in-game history is written about these events, the retaking of Cyrene won't be a triumph attributed to a Divine's guidance, but rather to the sheer tenacity of the Resistance. There is also very much a bitter IC sentiment present of "We lost countless lives while the Gods just watched..." in a number of Cyreneans. Take from that what you will.
It was inferred that you'd realize that Hashan got the class and Targossas got the Staff of Nicator, but I suppose I'll point it out. If you've been confused about this, I hope this brings some light into some of what must make no sense to you!
Aegis, God of War says, "You are dismissed from My demense, Astarod. Go forth and fight well. Bleed fiercely, and climb the purpose you have sought to chase for."
Which, if I may rave for a moment, you did a great job with keeping things under wrap. Even for a few IRL days after the retaking I was still asking, "Okay, what the actual flipping foozle did Skye do that everyone's raving about?" Hell, IC'ly, Synthus still has no idea what happened to cause the flooding, just that it happened.
The consequences of making each decision were less clear, which I think is what you're really suggesting is the problem, but I don't think you can make the consequences clear without affecting the decision process (often to the point that there's clearly only one remaining option). If a sufficiently powerful being, such as a God, had turned up and said to the Coalition "Yeah, you really need the Staff of Nicator if you want to fight the Tsol'teth." that would have been the end of any discussions about whether or not you compete for it.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
If it truly is the case that competing for the staff was the sole viable option, that shouldn't even be presented as a decision point. Let the player choices be between viable options, not between one real choice and some distractions.
I believe in cooperative roleplay and storytelling. If you're going to put one side through the negative, bring something up for them to enjoy, that is on line with the things that community has shown they like. When has Cyrene shown that the players welcome conflict and seek every opportunity to get more of it? What in this has there been for many of us to like?
To me, the sad part is, this could have been much better. The only parts of the last six weeks or so that I would describe as fun have been the games that Keorin was putting on. She's done an incredible job. I wish admin had.
ETA: which is why my stance on that is very firmly that while it's a temporary inconvenience, it makes for some super compelling RP.